I think I got the hang of Civ3

AznWarlord

Monarch
Joined
Mar 29, 2007
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397
Location
Virginia
Ive been playing Civ3 for over a year now. I am at Regent level, and I think I have finally grasped the basics of the game.

Most of my previous games were played either on Tiny and Small maps or Pangaea, avoiding Naval and Bombard Units (besides Airplanes). I rarely made it to Flight anyways, before winning (Conquest Victory is so easy on Pan.) or being crushed by massive AI armies. But a couple days ago, I started a game on a Standard Continent (I think 70% water, I'm not sure).

I tried using everything I avoided before, Cats, Galleys, even Diplomacy (just kidding, although I did do pretty well in Diplomatic meetings. For the first part of the game that is.). I was China, and I actually became the leader in science and military, hell I became the leader in everything (maybe it was just starting location - tons of lux and in the middle of grassland with a bit of bonus, no rivers but near the coast. A downside was, no Iron. Crushing Korea early in the game, I now had a considerably large empire. With a ton of Gold and Techs, persuading the AI's (England and Germany) to kill each other was simple. They weakened each other and I cleaned up the mess. I struck terror on their last city, took everything they had, and destroyed them afterwards. I took control of my whole continent. Now the new continent was a little different. I took over some French cities while they were fighting Japan, but many of them switched back to French control, except for one coastal city. I was still a noob at using ships, but I got the hang of it. Eventually, Japan took over French (I got the last city though) and we were the two remaining civs. I was developing Infantry while my last rival was stuck with Pikes so I set up a massive invading force, knowing that Japan had the Standing Army of Doom. I had loads of Infantry, Artillery (which I found really useful), and used up Cavalry and a bunch of Galleons, including a Cav army. I was preparing to attack, as soon as I got Tanks and the key to victory - flight. Thats when Privateers started wrecking havoc on my Galleons, killing my beloved Army. I went straight for the largest cities, capturing them with heavy losses. Just as I suspected, the insanely large Japanese army overwhelmed my troops. every unit - From Archers and Spears to Cavalry and Riflemen were all over my men. Finally I got peace, back down to that one coastal city I took from France. By now I had flight and had transported a dozen tanks overseas waiting for the final war with Japan. I based all the bombers I had in that one city and I hit the future age - not very common for me. I started bombing the hell out of the closest city and moved in my tanks. Repeat. Only this time, I went straight through the continent cutting off the vital resources - one side had oil, the other had rubber. Pretty much useless. I was assaulted by hordes of infantry and cavs, but Mech Infantry really helped. I didn't lose a single unit and I destroyed the Standing Army - a pretty good deal. I had 2 Armies, one Mech and one Tank. And Japan was weak. So I started experimenting. I left Japan to do whatever useless attacks they had - cutting off Saltpeter wasn't gonna do anything. With bombers killing their troops and Galleons (bombing ships sure is fun - try it) I wanted to try out all the new gadgets I never used before, including the Tactical Nuke. I was one city from a Conquest so whatever right? No, a cultural conversion destroyed my tank army so I had to use my Mech Army to capture as many cities as possible to win, I had to leave some cities defenseless. Finally I did win, and after 9 long hours (this was spread over 3 days) I won, with the map looking like the included attachment.

So how is this a strategy/tip rather than me just bragging about a game I did well on? Well, the moral is, if you think Bombarding things is cumbersome, or if you hate naval combat and only stick to playing Pangaea, you should start changing. This game of civ was easily the best I have ever played and feel like I've finally mastered the basics of the game.

Also, if you're trying to cripple an Empire on another continent, cut it in half. You'll leave them with crappy units that won't do anything to you. Except Spearmen. Because we all know that :spear: (it sort of happened, an Ancient Cav killed my tank.)

And the tactical nuke almost lost me the continent. If I didn't risk leave my new cities undefended, I probably would've been overwhelmed and forced to wait out the game to win.

I know it's a lot of words, the preview got me a bit dizzy. So thanks for reading. I hope my tips lead to a fun Civ3 experience for people who are just like how I used to be :confused: (does that make sense?)
 
My current game is going very well too, I accidently built up a big army and it needed to be used, even though im going for cultural victory
 
An interesting read this, AznWarlord.

Different maps definitely play very differently. I've got more a tendency to play continent maps, sometimes Archipelago. Archipelago maps can put you for interesting quests in the game. You rarely are sorted with resources on those maps, so you end up going treasure hunting a lot; grabbing iron from this island, invading that one for horses, then discovering that for coal you would have to go on another inter island adventure... that kind of stuff. I can recommend playing a real sea map to anyone who hasn't tried it yet, because it is different.

Pangaea maps - I rarely play them I have to admit - are probably a bit more straight forward in gameplay. Everything you need is nearby, and if your going for conquest, it's logistically a lot easier, I suppose.

But artillery, ah, I think it's really essential to know about that stuff. AznWarlord, I see you're writing that you took those Japanese cities with heavy losses? Now, I think that could mean that you didn't use enough artillery there to redline those pikes before you called on your cavalries.
If the Japanese had kept up with you in tech you would even have faced musketmen, or a bit later riflemen. If those type of defenders are fortified in city size towns, then cavalries can't clear the job on their own anymore, is my experience. I really want artillery! And those ones that come after cannons are really awesome! A range of two tiles means they don't slow down your horse units so much, and they are really powerful.
In my games, in that period, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it's my artillery units that do all the dirty work; the cavalries are just there to do the final capture, and hopefully get a promotion. I want to get leaders from them! Armies are so powerful in this game. Especially elite horse units I'm quite precious with; I basically only use them on redlined units, because I want to stand the minimum risk of losing them. But any horse unit I don't like losing, so I like to have a nice stack of artillery to do all the redlining. Then I'm not talking about the early game. I'm not talking catapults and trebuchets that much, more cannons and artillery.

If you're the biggest force in the game, and ahead in tech, then it should really never happen that you're taking heavy losses.
What also shouldn't happen is losing lots of cities. Losing the occasional city to a culture flip is Ok, I would say. But if you lose a lot of cities that way, you're probably using the wrong strategy.
You say you went for the core cities first. That doesn't have to be bad. If you're managing to take out the whole core in a limited number of turns, including the capital, then my experience is that you've basically broken the bone of that civ, and those cities won't massively flip back. But if you're struggling to capture the core, and progress is slow, then the flip chance is bigger. The flip chance is bigger the closer you are to the enemies capital, and is also bigger the more culture your enemy has.

If you're not sure how strong an enemy is, it might be a good strategy, instead of penetrating your enemy, try to draw them towards you first as much as you can, away from their core. And if the flow of attacking units from your enemy towards you has dried up, only then penetrate and take there towns. It goes quicker that way, with your enemy less able to take the towns back. And less chance of flipping back, as you've sorted the job quicker.

This were just a few thoughts I had when I read your piece. Oh yeah, another thought I had; looking at that powergraph, it seems like you had this game in your pocket from the start! Is moving up to Monarch maybe on the cards?
 
I may have made a mistake, I actually didn't play a standard I played small.

Oh yeah, Optional, thanks for the tips. I believe I took heavy losses/had trouble holding cities for one reason. I lacked defenders in my forces. I brought Cavs without Rifles so I was left defending cities with Cavs. Those were the most troublesome times with the game (I was nearing Infantry/Tanks and the AI reached Cavs at the time, Japan wasn't as far behind as England and Germany were.). I'm pretty sure the best thing to do on my next attack is to build a force of attackers and defenders. Attackers to do the fighting and defenders to take hits for the stack and hold the cities after.

On another note, of the bombarders, the Artillery is my favorite as well. With 2 range and the ability to take out 2 Health bars, it is definitely the best deal. And hell yes for Bombers, with a bombard strength of 12, it is so unnecessarily powerful. Even Jet Fighters only have 3.
 
i hate it when a city converts to the enemy when i have a bunch of units on it... one of the most frustrating things in the game...
 
When you aren't worried about AI attitude, like in AW or you only have one opponent, raze and replace. Voila, no flips. When you want to keep a city, don't put valuable troops in there. Put strong defensive units and obsolete units in, so when it flips you don't lose your best units. As you raise levels, flipping gets even worse, so now is the time to figure out dealing with it
 
More like, "Quell the Discontenters"

And the worse part is, they probably flip because "of all the Opression you've given us" or "Hell no we won't go"

It was the AI who drafted and used the forced labor and they take it all out on me. And then they flip BACK! Hell, I never draft and I barely get the whip. Hehe, barely.
 
I'm pretty sure you can't draft from cities that have resistors.

There are three requirements to draft:

1) The city must be size 7 (you can change this in the editor I think)

2) The drafted citizen must be of your nationality, so you can't take out enemy citizens with the draft.

3) Finally, I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that the city must not be in either resistance or civil disorder.
 
Because I keep playing at Warlord, I have a bad habit of overproducing units. I know it is keeping me from moving up a level -> well that and the fact that I am not a strategic player at any game... ((sigh))

I am determined to play one Regent game, even if I die 30 turns in:eek:

:lol: :lol: :lol:
 
What took you guys so long? I played Civ for a year and a half and I'm on emperor.

Some of us enjoy the game but lack the talent to be good at it.:mischief:
 
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