Modern War Era Strategies?

[WhiteRabbit]

I'm looking for some general strategy advice about how I can achieve my desired style of game play.

I was a longtime Civ2 player from way back and due to an illness, I have a bit of time on my hands right now so I've taken up Civ3 (I have Vanilla with 1.29f patch installed). I've already played a dozen games or so and have won each type of victory condition at Regent level difficulty with various map sizes, so I'm generally familiar with most of the basic skills needed to play the game in various different ways. I've also read through most of the strategy and advice threads at this forum as well.

Now my principal goal involves the fact that I really like the modern war era - it is a long time passion of mine, so I really like launching major military operations in the modern era in the game (carriers, subs, battleships, aircraft, tanks, etc.). Given that this is a game for entertainment, this is the type of game that entertains me most.

On old Civ2, I used to race for Republic then Democracy (peacemongering & maximum economic growth) then go Fundie for world conquest, then switch back to Democracy for the final phase of peace, spaceship-building and maximum population growth. I would often leave one or two opponents alive, with one city each on some little island somewhere (ringed by my navy) while I grew my populations into a couple hundred million or so. That's what I used to do with Civ2. I'd like to do something similar with Civ3 (if possible).

Now I know that it is generally easier to conquer my opponents with Ancient Era UU's, or knights or cavalry, but that's not my goal here. Alternatively, I could just go republican and win space-race victories even without conquering half the planet in the process. But I have a real passion for WW2 era weapons and warfare, so that's the eye-candy I want to play with in the game for large-scale warfare. But I still want to be a builder and do the space-race thing.

So I'm looking for suggestions about what type (or combination) of governments players would recommend, and/or other strategic advice for this approach to the game?

tl;dr version: I want maximum opportunities for modern warfare AND a space race type victory AND a high score.

Any suggestions?

 

[ahman]

There should be a separate high score list for each scenario (like "modern era start"). If you play from the start and chase high score, game will be over before any MA warfare.

 

[Brainiac18]

It's nice to play towards Conquest victory (don't remember if it's in vanilla)!
First of all, I would advice you to play on World Maps (Earth), there a lot of good ones, some are very accurate, you can find them if you'll search forum (I tried all)! Because it's the map you know, places you've been maybe, things from history you maybe wanted to change and resources are in right places, I don't know it's really interesting at least for me. It's nice to play under Communism or Faschizm, having gigantic armies - yours and enemies, having huge navy battles, yeah I'm talking about not just buildning a lot, but having that feeling when you're not sure if these 100+ modern armours and 6 modern armour armies will be enough Thats for high score, for living up untill 2050 or more, if you will want see some civ who occupied borth North and South America dead while in Euroasia It's good to have nuclear bombardments too.

Plus you can always refer to complete modpack and scenario section, where you can find WWII and modern era scenarious with all the stuff changed.

I hope this post will make some sense
Check my screenshots btw, under my avatar

 

[ChaosArbiter]

That's what I used to do with Civ2. I'd like to do something similar with Civ3 (if possible).

It's entirely possible to do pretty much the same thing (minus the overpoweredness of Fundamentalist Warfare, unfortunately). Republic is a powerful government, and so long as you have a handful of Luxuries and are willing to push the Lux Slider up a bit, warring as a Republic isn't a problem unless you're Always Warring.

So I'm looking for suggestions about what type (or combination) of governments players would recommend, and/or other strategic advice for this approach to the game?

As I said, it's entirely possible to play the whole game as Republic, being a peacemonger or warmonger as you desire; it's a bit harder in Vanilla/PtW, since Republic doesn't have Unit Support, but it's still doable. Democracy is not usually advised simply because it takes valuable research time, seeing as it's a dead-end optional after a previous optional tech.

Late-game, Communism is a fine government, although the fact that you're Whipping citizens instead of cash-rushing has always put me off it until I was strong enough to Win (as opposed to simply Not Losing).

tl;dr version: I want maximum opportunities for modern warfare AND a space race type victory AND a high score.

Frankly, I would suggest either the Huge Earth Map (Kal El's, I think) if you have it, or a Huge Pangaea. The larger the map, the longer the game will last, and my previous Regent game hit Panzers by the 1860s (and I got a slow, rather poor start and couldn't even war effectively until the 13th century or so). Pangaeas also tend to speed up the tech pace, since the AIs are able to communicate more easily with each other and thus trade techs. Beware enemy Rights of Passage, however - they can easily let an enemy AI backstab you if a 'friendly' AI is at Peace with them.

Score is averaged, actually - it's a balance of how well you did and how well you're doing, so you can't simply max out your score at the end if you weren't playing well at the beginning.

It's nice to play towards Conquest victory (don't remember if it's in vanilla)!

Conquest victory has been around since Civilization.

It's nice to play under Communism or Faschizm,

Fascism, however, is Conquests only - the OP doesn't have it.

 

[MysteryX]

You could also play on a standard map and just disable victory conditions that may pop up before you have some full-blown modern wars (space, diplomatic, culture). That should give you a nice long period of time to use your modern toys.

I have successfully engaged in modern wars under Democracy on Monarch level (I don't know if it is optimal, just possible). You want to target every Wonder that gives you a happiness bonus (that don't become obsolete), and still keep your wars very short, though very short wars are very possible when you are using Modern Armor.

Even if you Peacemonger mainly, expand your land and pounce the weak when you can, prior to entering the Modern Age. It hampers your modern warfare plans if you are caught without crucial strategic resources.

 

[GamezRule]

I think only C3C has Fascism. I mean out of the whole series.

 

[WhiteRabbit]

It's entirely possible to do pretty much the same thing (minus the overpoweredness of Fundamentalist Warfare, unfortunately). Republic is a powerful government, and so long as you have a handful of Luxuries and are willing to push the Lux Slider up a bit, warring as a Republic isn't a problem unless you're Always Warring.

Yes, I've been doing that so far, but the problem is that once I have conquered a whole lot of cities (under Republican government) I end up with over half my cities with only one shield production due to distance corruption.

This makes it very difficult to 'improve' these conquered cities at all.

As I said, it's entirely possible to play the whole game as Republic, being a peacemonger or warmonger as you desire; it's a bit harder in Vanilla/PtW, since Republic doesn't have Unit Support, but it's still doable. Democracy is not usually advised simply because it takes valuable research time, seeing as it's a dead-end optional after a previous optional tech.

I agree that Democracy is not a good plan because of all the extra techs needed plus the additional anarchy phase for so little benefit.

Late-game, Communism is a fine government, although the fact that you're Whipping citizens instead of cash-rushing has always put me off it until I was strong enough to Win (as opposed to simply Not Losing).

Yes, the lack of cash-rushing is a MAJOR difficulty with Communism, but Communism seems to be the only viable way to handle an empire of 50+ cities, or for engaging in wars that last more than 20 turns (in modern era period). If I'm wrong about this, please correct me!

And as much as I do planning and preparations to make my wars as fast as possible, I find it difficult to conquer a whole continent in under 20 turns during the modern era.

So is it viable to go Republican early and just stay there until I'm ready to launch my massive blitzkreig like attacks in the early 20th century and then switch to Communism for the end game?

I'm thinking of switching to Communism just after one hits the Modern Era technologies. Is it possible to achieve spaceship technologies in sufficient time using Communism at that stage? (I know science research slows down considerably under Communism compared to Republic).

Frankly, I would suggest either the Huge Earth Map (Kal El's, I think) if you have it, or a Huge Pangaea. The larger the map, the longer the game will last, and my previous Regent game hit Panzers by the 1860s (and I got a slow, rather poor start and couldn't even war effectively until the 13th century or so). Pangaeas also tend to speed up the tech pace, since the AIs are able to communicate more easily with each other and thus trade techs. Beware enemy Rights of Passage, however - they can easily let an enemy AI backstab you if a 'friendly' AI is at Peace with them.

Roger that. The bigger the map, the longer the game.

Score is averaged, actually - it's a balance of how well you did and how well you're doing, so you can't simply max out your score at the end if you weren't playing well at the beginning.

Playing on Regent level, I'm normally the tech, culture and population leader throughout the game, so I normally do have pretty good game scores throughout the game.

My comment about maximizing the score at the end is about increasing happy populations in a large number of conquered cities. Population makes up a big part of one's game score.

I'm guessing that it is better to say in Communism for this 'late game re-building after the war' stage (and space-ship building) rather than trying to switch back to Republic, even though Republic (or Democracy) is way better for growing population.

You could also play on a standard map and just disable victory conditions that may pop up before you have some full-blown modern wars (space, diplomatic, culture). That should give you a nice long period of time to use your modern toys.

Yes, I do find it necessary to disable the "Culture" victory condition, but that's all. I've won a couple games rather unexpectedly with culture victories and I consider that very annoying. Comes with being a serious builder I guess!

I have successfully engaged in modern wars under Democracy on Monarch level (I don't know if it is optimal, just possible). You want to target every Wonder that gives you a happiness bonus (that don't become obsolete), and still keep your wars very short, though very short wars are very possible when you are using Modern Armor.

Even if you Peacemonger mainly, expand your land and pounce the weak when you can, prior to entering the Modern Age. It hampers your modern warfare plans if you are caught without crucial strategic resources.

No problems here. As I noted above, I'm a rather military-minded peacemonger. I always find peace to be most easily achieved when I'm the most powerful player. I'm rather obsessive about a strong military defense at all stages of the game.

And I usually do a couple of short wars with Knights and then with Cavalry which usually means that by the middle of the Insdustrial Era, I'm usually all alone on my own continent, just waiting for the modern era weapons.

Btw, it is not uncommon for my 'peacemonger' army to be larger than the armies used by AI at war. Peace through strength is always the easiest way to achieve peace when you want it.

 

[CommandoBob]

I was a longtime Civ2 player from way back and due to an illness, I have a bit of time on my hands right now so I've taken up Civ3 (I have Vanilla with 1.29f patch installed).

If you can, try to upgrade to Civ 3 Complete; one install with vanilla, Play The World and Conquests, each fully patched. Conquests is the default game, but you can easily add shortcuts to start vanilla and PTW.

Plus, a few more modern era units are in later versions.

Yes, I've been doing that so far, but the problem is that once I have conquered a whole lot of cities (under Republican government) I end up with over half my cities with only one shield production due to distance corruption.

This makes it very difficult to 'improve' these conquered cities at all.

In vanilla you cannot do much with these cities. In Conquests they changed the corruption model and modified the specialists. Now a scientist specialist will give you three beakers of research towards a tech instead of just one. In turn, that opens up the use of science farms, which is where your corrupt cities produce wealth or artillery and hire as many scientists as they can. One or two cities won't make a big difference, but having 20 or more will. The beakers these guys make is not affected by corruption, so distance from the capital is not a problem.

This is a Succession Game that was aimed at getting modern warfare, CBob04 Achtung Panzer!.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Yes, I've been doing that so far, but the problem is that once I have conquered a whole lot of cities (under Republican government) I end up with over half my cities with only one shield production due to distance corruption.

This makes it very difficult to 'improve' these conquered cities at all.

As CommandoBob said, there's really just not much to do with highly-corrupt cities, and while switching to Communism could get you some increased results, it will also hurt your core cities quite a bit. What I do (and I do play Conquests, so it might be different) is conquer until I start getting ~50% Corruption, and then just start razing cities.

You could keep doing Specialist Farms, even if they aren't quite as useful as in C3C; just irrigate all the terrain around corrupt cities, don't build Aqueducts, and put as many citizens as you can on either Taxman or Scientist duty.

Communism seems to be the only viable way to handle an empire of 50+ cities, or for engaging in wars that last more than 20 turns (in modern era period). If I'm wrong about this, please correct me!

If you have all the Luxuries + Markets, JS Bach's, and Cathedral + Sistine Chapel, Happiness shouldn't be much of an issue, and even less once you increase the Luxury Slider to 20% or so. IIRC, all the Luxuries + Markets give you 20 Happy Faces, Bach's gives you 2 on that continent (another reason I like Pangaeas), Cathedral gives you 3 (?) and Sistine increases Cathedrals by 2. So a city with all those would have 27 Happy faces - unless you are consistently fighting in your territory or losing a lot of units (which increases WW more, IIRC) - or you have *really* big cities - you should be able to war for quite a while.

So is it viable to go Republican early and just stay there until I'm ready to launch my massive blitzkreig like attacks in the early 20th century and then switch to Communism for the end game?

Absolutely.

I'm guessing that it is better to say in Communism for this 'late game re-building after the war' stage (and space-ship building) rather than trying to switch back to Republic, even though Republic (or Democracy) is way better for growing population.

Unless you're a Religious civ (which reduces Anarchy time), I'd say you're correct.

No problems here. As I noted above, I'm a rather military-minded peacemonger. I always find peace to be most easily achieved when I'm the most powerful player. I'm rather obsessive about a strong military defense at all stages of the game.

Just a note - when the AI (and your Military Advisor) compares military strength, it favors the Attack more than Defense.

 

[GamezRule]

The best defense is a good offense, even more in this computer game.

 

[vorlon_mi]

The corruption model in Civ3 (vs Civ2) favors a "core cities vs. boondocks" arrangement. This is especially true if you built your Forbidden Palace somewhat close to your capital. You will have 8, 10, or 12 cities with high shield production and 50+ cities that will never give more than 1 uncorrupted shield per turn, under Republic.
Either resign yourself to having relatively backward cities in the boondocks, or use cash-rushing or partial cash-rushing to build some improvements. In Vanilla, I tend to cash build a Library (to get one culture pop), a Harbor if it's a coastal town, and maybe a Barracks to upgrade the defender. If we're talking about cities that the AI built for you, and you've conquered, then only a few cities need a barracks.
Communism is helpful if your modern battles are going to be long, and against the same opponent. Here is the link to the War Academy article on War Weariness... what to avoid.
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/war_weariness.php
If you can choose a religious Civ, you can switch to Monarchy for early wars, Republic for the big buildup, and Commie for the great late game battles.

 

[WhiteRabbit]

If you can, try to upgrade to Civ 3 Complete; one install with vanilla, Play The World and Conquests, each fully patched. Conquests is the default game, but you can easily add shortcuts to start vanilla and PTW.

Plus, a few more modern era units are in later versions.


In vanilla you cannot do much with these cities. In Conquests they changed the corruption model and modified the specialists. Now a scientist specialist will give you three beakers of research towards a tech instead of just one. In turn, that opens up the use of science farms, which is where your corrupt cities produce wealth or artillery and hire as many scientists as they can. One or two cities won't make a big difference, but having 20 or more will. The beakers these guys make is not affected by corruption, so distance from the capital is not a problem.

This is a Succession Game that was aimed at getting modern warfare, CBob04 Achtung Panzer!.

That sounds interesting (though it sounds like the new corruption model in Conquests would make the whole game easier).

As CommandoBob said, there's really just not much to do with highly-corrupt cities, and while switching to Communism could get you some increased results, it will also hurt your core cities quite a bit. What I do (and I do play Conquests, so it might be different) is conquer until I start getting ~50% Corruption, and then just start razing cities.

You could keep doing Specialist Farms, even if they aren't quite as useful as in C3C; just irrigate all the terrain around corrupt cities, don't build Aqueducts, and put as many citizens as you can on either Taxman or Scientist duty.


If you have all the Luxuries + Markets, JS Bach's, and Cathedral + Sistine Chapel, Happiness shouldn't be much of an issue, and even less once you increase the Luxury Slider to 20% or so. IIRC, all the Luxuries + Markets give you 20 Happy Faces, Bach's gives you 2 on that continent (another reason I like Pangaeas), Cathedral gives you 3 (?) and Sistine increases Cathedrals by 2. So a city with all those would have 27 Happy faces - unless you are consistently fighting in your territory or losing a lot of units (which increases WW more, IIRC) - or you have *really* big cities - you should be able to war for quite a while.


Absolutely.


Unless you're a Religious civ (which reduces Anarchy time), I'd say you're correct.


Just a note - when the AI (and your Military Advisor) compares military strength, it favors the Attack more than Defense.

Yes, I've managed to get some of my boonie cities to be useful - usually with a harbor, taxman and set the city to WEALTH so it generates some net income for my empire.

As for big cities and all the happiness, suffice it to say that I'm a builder and I always have to disable the "Culture Victory" condition as I seem to hit that often. In other words, 10-12 massive cities with huge happiness isn't a problem. Its the other 40-50 cities I'm concerned with managing.

And yes, wars under Republicanism is fine in the early game with Knights or even Cavalry. But once you get to the modern era, that war-weariness comes really quick (especially when I'm the leading power in the game, no one declares war against me so I have to start the war which makes the WW worse/faster). Slogging through a dozen enemy cities each defended with 6-10 infantry and counter-attacking with tanks and aircraft does tend to take a bit of time and it can be a real problem to try and get ALL of one's enemies to agree to a peace treaty at a time that is convenient to you to avoid war-weariness. The AI seems to know that you need the peace treaty and demands gifts even though they are losing the war.

The corruption model in Civ3 (vs Civ2) favors a "core cities vs. boondocks" arrangement. This is especially true if you built your Forbidden Palace somewhat close to your capital. You will have 8, 10, or 12 cities with high shield production and 50+ cities that will never give more than 1 uncorrupted shield per turn, under Republic.
Either resign yourself to having relatively backward cities in the boondocks, or use cash-rushing or partial cash-rushing to build some improvements. In Vanilla, I tend to cash build a Library (to get one culture pop), a Harbor if it's a coastal town, and maybe a Barracks to upgrade the defender. If we're talking about cities that the AI built for you, and you've conquered, then only a few cities need a barracks.
Communism is helpful if your modern battles are going to be long, and against the same opponent. Here is the link to the War Academy article on War Weariness... what to avoid.
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/war_weariness.php
If you can choose a religious Civ, you can switch to Monarchy for early wars, Republic for the big buildup, and Commie for the great late game battles.

Yes, with Republic and a builder-strategy, I usually have LOTS of money, so I do cash-rush a temple or harbor in those lame boonie cities.

My principal worry about using communism in the late game is the science hit. I'm afraid that communism will slow down my science so much that I'd be unable to pivot to the spaceship program AFTER my massive modern war phase in time to beat the clock.

I suppose the earlier suggestion of using the Conquests version to get the new corruption model with the super-science-specialists is probably the only viable solution to this late-game communism-science shortage problem.

Thanks to all for such thoughtful suggestions!

 

[ChaosArbiter]

And yes, wars under Republicanism is fine in the early game with Knights or even Cavalry. But once you get to the modern era, that war-weariness comes really quick (especially when I'm the leading power in the game, no one declares war against me so I have to start the war which makes the WW worse/faster).

It's easy to get the AI to Declare on you - just demand a city until they get nice and Furious, wait until they send a unit into your territory, and give them a Boot Order. Most of the time they'll declare. Or found a city right by them and leave it unprotected - the AI has a hard time resisting the temptation to take undefended cities.

As for WW being worse in the Modern Age ... huh? Police Stations and the Universal Suffrage reduce it, so WW should be lower in the IA/MA than in earlier ages.

Slogging through a dozen enemy cities each defended with 6-10 infantry and counter-attacking with tanks and aircraft does tend to take a bit of time and it can be a real problem to try and get ALL of one's enemies to agree to a peace treaty at a time that is convenient to you to avoid war-weariness.

Well, the 'easy' way to get everyone to sign peace with you is to dogpile one AI with all the others, but that usually kills off that AI.

But even then, you shouldn't need to avoid War Weariness, per se - just avoid being crippled by it, which a lot of Happiness (especially the Lux Slider) will do.

My principal worry about using communism in the late game is the science hit. I'm afraid that communism will slow down my science so much that I'd be unable to pivot to the spaceship program AFTER my massive modern war phase in time to beat the clock

The main reason for a 'lowering' of Science when you switch to Communism is that your Commerce decreases - however, you're also not paying as much in Unit Support ... ah, hold on a sec, I'm gonna fire up Civ (Conquests, so it might change some) and see what I look like in Republic and Communism.


Edit:
Alright, I'm the Germans, it's 1920 AD, and I'm a Republic running 2.6.2 for my stats. I don't MM terribly well, but I'm making 1233 Beakers and netting 134 gpt. I have 223 units with 196 Allowed, so I'm paying 54 gpt in support.
Switching, I get 5 turns of Anarchy ... wow, that's a lot of WLTKD ending messages. And lots of pollution.
Few, that took a while. Anyway, as a Communist ... I can support 558 units now, so I'm not paying anything for the measly 224 I've got. I am currently making 973 Beakers from my income, but I haven't done anything to the Lux slider yet (which I'd been running primarily for the WW). Reducing Luxuries to 0% means I can run 80% Science instead of 60%, which gives me 1311 Science and 117 gpt. My largest cities (17) have only 1 Unhappy Citizen due to size ... oh, right actually my largest city is 18 at the moment, but it's a former French city and currently has 3 polluted tiles and hasn't had a cultural expansion yet.

So you see that Communism won't hurt your Science that much, if at all. You'll probably get lower GPT, but you won't need that since you'll be Whipping instead of Cash-Rushing. Note that in the game I checked it in, I'd been planning to go into Communism (possibly Fascism), but wars kept getting in the way.

 

[CommandoBob]

That sounds interesting (though it sounds like the new corruption model in Conquests would make the whole game easier).

It does.

The Messy Details
In vanilla and PTW it was discovered that if you placed your cities an equal distance from your capital, they all had the same rate of corruption. I don't recall all of what was involved, but the effect was that you tended/needed to build cities in rings around the capital. CivAssistII, a free utility program for CivIII, has a tool to show you the rings.

The Forbidden Palace acted like a second capital (zero corruption in that city) and it had its own set of city rings, too.

A common tactic was the Palace Jump, where the Forbidden Palace was built close to your capital and then you abandoned the capital and the game chose the new capital for you. Now, almost instantly, you had two core areas, one around the Forbidden Palace and the other somewhere else.

In Conquests they changed the corruption model. Now the rings don't exist and the Forbidden Palace, while still a good build, works differently. Palace Jumps are not needed in Conquests.

 

[WhiteRabbit]

It's easy to get the AI to Declare on you - just demand a city until they get nice and Furious, wait until they send a unit into your territory, and give them a Boot Order. Most of the time they'll declare. Or found a city right by them and leave it unprotected - the AI has a hard time resisting the temptation to take undefended cities.

Sounds good in theory... in reality, when I am the most powerful in the game, the others tend to dogpile alliances against me.

And yes, I can sometimes get the AI to attack me to start the war I want, but more often than not, I can't get them to do it at precisely the moment I want. I prefer to fight wars on my own schedule, when I'm good and ready, not one determined by the AI.

As for WW being worse in the Modern Age ... huh? Police Stations and the Universal Suffrage reduce it, so WW should be lower in the IA/MA than in earlier ages.

I wasn't say WW gets worse, only that the effect seems worse - primarily because of the slower pace of modern war (larger cities, more defenses). WW is more easily managed in earlier eras because wars can be fought effectively in short periods. I find it almost impossible to have a 'short' war in modern era (unless I'm playing defense). If I want to conquer a continent in modern era, WW will kick in long before I'm finished.

And yes, as I've previously noted, I'm a really serious builder type so I usually have just about every building improvement in my core cities (including courthouses and police stations).

Now I haven't been playing on huge maps yet, only standard ones and that's why I'm asking these questions - given that I often have 50-60 cities on a standard map (after a war or two), I can only imagine the scale of the issues with 100 cities or more - and the even longer distances involved (making modern era war even slower, hence more problems with WW).

Well, the 'easy' way to get everyone to sign peace with you is to dogpile one AI with all the others, but that usually kills off that AI.

In my modern war experience, as soon as I'm at war with one, they ALL are at war with me. I don't usually care because militarily, I can easily handle it. It just makes forcing peace for WW difficult with multiple opponents - many will agree, but at least one will demand some high-value technology for the privilege of agreeing.

But even then, you shouldn't need to avoid War Weariness, per se - just avoid being crippled by it, which a lot of Happiness (especially the Lux Slider) will do.

I've cranked up the happiness slider to max and in some cases, that's not enough - my empire goes into general disorder if the war goes on too long (even with courthouses, police stations and the Suffragette wonder). Sure that works for a few turns, but the effect wears out quickly.

The main reason for a 'lowering' of Science when you switch to Communism is that your Commerce decreases - however, you're also not paying as much in Unit Support ... ah, hold on a sec, I'm gonna fire up Civ (Conquests, so it might change some) and see what I look like in Republic and Communism.


Edit:
Alright, I'm the Germans, it's 1920 AD, and I'm a Republic running 2.6.2 for my stats. I don't MM terribly well, but I'm making 1233 Beakers and netting 134 gpt. I have 223 units with 196 Allowed, so I'm paying 54 gpt in support.
Switching, I get 5 turns of Anarchy ... wow, that's a lot of WLTKD ending messages. And lots of pollution.
Few, that took a while. Anyway, as a Communist ... I can support 558 units now, so I'm not paying anything for the measly 224 I've got. I am currently making 973 Beakers from my income, but I haven't done anything to the Lux slider yet (which I'd been running primarily for the WW). Reducing Luxuries to 0% means I can run 80% Science instead of 60%, which gives me 1311 Science and 117 gpt. My largest cities (17) have only 1 Unhappy Citizen due to size ... oh, right actually my largest city is 18 at the moment, but it's a former French city and currently has 3 polluted tiles and hasn't had a cultural expansion yet.

So you see that Communism won't hurt your Science that much, if at all. You'll probably get lower GPT, but you won't need that since you'll be Whipping instead of Cash-Rushing. Note that in the game I checked it in, I'd been planning to go into Communism (possibly Fascism), but wars kept getting in the way.

Interesting. I'll do some testing with a religious civ to see the effects.

I notice your example doesn't mention taxation. If you put science to 80%, lux to zero, will you have enough income to pay for maintenance? That's a big issue for a large empire with large cities (with lots of improvements).

 

[WhiteRabbit]

It does.

The Messy Details
In vanilla and PTW it was discovered that if you placed your cities an equal distance from your capital, they all had the same rate of corruption. I don't recall all of what was involved, but the effect was that you tended/needed to build cities in rings around the capital. CivAssistII, a free utility program for CivIII, has a tool to show you the rings.

The Forbidden Palace acted like a second capital (zero corruption in that city) and it had its own set of city rings, too.

A common tactic was the Palace Jump, where the Forbidden Palace was built close to your capital and then you abandoned the capital and the game chose the new capital for you. Now, almost instantly, you had two core areas, one around the Forbidden Palace and the other somewhere else.

In Conquests they changed the corruption model. Now the rings don't exist and the Forbidden Palace, while still a good build, works differently. Palace Jumps are not needed in Conquests.

That's interesting. I have read about the 'ring' effect (only in Vanilla eh?).

Oddly enough, of all the special buildings in the game, FP is the one I tend to build the least often because it is most useful in places where production levels are so low it would take centuries to build the darn thing.

I have found that I can usually manage my empire (on Republic or Communism) without it and save it for my modern era conquest - given that I usually start collecting GL's when I go full-bore blitzkreig mode, I like to GL-rush the FP in a conquered city on another continent. This really helps me lock down my conquered cities from culture flipping back to the enemy and makes the newly conquered cities on that other continent useful/productive.

Generally speaking, 99% of the culture flipping I observe in the game involves the AI losing cities to me - even on their home continent (after I take out their capital and build the FP in a conquered city) - in my modern war campaigns, I always go for the enemy's capital first because it seems to neutralize the culture flipping.

 

[CommandoBob]

One cause of War Weariness is having your troops inside enemy borders at the end of your turn (and thus during your enemy's turn).

Thus was born the Combat Settler.

This is really an ordinary settler but the city it builds is meant to allow easier access to an enemy city. Using a combat settler with artillery and rails is deadly.

Sometimes the combat settler will need to spend the IBT behind enemy lines. If it is protected by a healthy army, it will survive (usually). Once it is built, most of the tiles around it will be friendly territory. Those tiles can be railed (if they are already roaded) and then artillery can move to the newly railed tile and bombard the city defenders before the fast movers attack. Once that city is taken, there may be a whole lot of unclaimed land where another combat settler can be placed to help attack another city.

Overall, long wars are bad in Republic and Democracy. Short wars for specific goals are not a problem.

 

[WhiteRabbit]

One cause of War Weariness is having your troops inside enemy borders at the end of your turn (and thus during your enemy's turn).

Thus was born the Combat Settler.

This is really an ordinary settler but the city it builds is meant to allow easier access to an enemy city. Using a combat settler with artillery and rails is deadly.

Sometimes the combat settler will need to spend the IBT behind enemy lines. If it is protected by a healthy army, it will survive (usually). Once it is built, most of the tiles around it will be friendly territory. Those tiles can be railed (if they are already roaded) and then artillery can move to the newly railed tile and bombard the city defenders before the fast movers attack. Once that city is taken, there may be a whole lot of unclaimed land where another combat settler can be placed to help attack another city.

Overall, long wars are bad in Republic and Democracy. Short wars for specific goals are not a problem.

That sounds like yet ANOTHER way that C3C makes the game much easier to win (in addition to that new corruption model with the super-scientists). I'm not a fan of making the game easier. I'd rather work with the challenges.

That being said, I agree that short wars for specific goals are not a problem with Republic (or even Democracy). My question in this thread is all about how to deal with the problem of long wars in the modern era (attacking with 60-100 units plus air and naval units) to take over a continent (or 8-10 major cities).

 

[Hasdrubal Barca]

The trick with Comunism is to produce workers like mad, some 200 or more and then join cities with them and whip the build you really need, that should be Factories, but of course never whip to Factory directly, go for short-rushes, like whip for a temple/library then switch to a Factory or even whip to an earlier building before. Join more workers to hire as entertaineers and you´ll never go revolt, you can mass up huge armies this way while using only a couple cities.

If you don´t want to stagnate during the 7/8 turns it takes on the anarchy period, time your builds and rush all of them in every city before you change to Comunism, then join workers to get the city level back up when out of anarchy, they work slow during that period anyway.

As always the key for playing whiping governments are your workers, they are your lifeline. Money should be saved for Upgrades, Research and Stealing enemy plans, techs, sabotaging production and so on.

 

[CommandoBob]

That sounds like yet ANOTHER way that C3C makes the game much easier to win (in addition to that new corruption model with the super-scientists). I'm not a fan of making the game easier. I'd rather work with the challenges.

No, not really. The Combat Settler is a generic tactic. It doesn't need a special unit; any settler will do. It gets its name from how it is used. There is no unit called Combat Settler; I should have been more clear about that.

The changes to the corruption model do make the game easier, yes. City placement is now more natural and less rigid. Corruption hasn't gone away, but there is much less a player can do to control it.

The thread Ring City Placement discusses how to make the corruption model in vanilla and PTW work to the player's advantage. I've done it in my PTW games, once I knew about it; I just don't want to go back to it.