Everyone trying Emperor for the first time gets discouraged at being behind in size,
tech and military throughout the Ancient Era. The most reliable survival strategy
I've found is a swordsman attack at the end of the Ancient Era, and the key is
careful pre-planning of what to build though the AE. Of course all the ideas here
can be found in different strategy articles; this is just my way of putting ideas
together with a specific focus.
You will need to experiment with adjusting the actual numbers to take account of
your game parameters. I play plain vanilla Civ 3, England, large map, continents, 8
opponents, OCP. It goes without saying that you're trying to expand number of cities
as fast as you can at the start; I typically end the initial expansion phase with 7
cities, and with 1 or 2 neighbor civs with 10 cities.
Pre-planning phase.
In this strategy we keep our eye on a "critical time", about 8 turns before
completing mandatory AE advances. At this time I want (assuming 7 cities)
9 workers, 8 regular spearmen, 4 veteran swordsmen, 1 galley, 4 barracks.
I'll talk later how to achieve this, but let's go to the fun part.
Attack phase.
Use barracks cities to build an extra 8 veteran swordsmen and 2 veteran spearmen.
Thus takes about 15 turns, during which you start researching Republic. [You are
now a little over the despotism military quota]. Attack one neighbor with the goal
of taking over 3 cities [within reason, don't worry that your military advisor says
they're stronger than you!] Do this by 2 simultaneous city attacks with stacks of 6
swordsman/1 spearman. Typically the defense is 2 regular spearmen and maybe an
archer, and you will lose 3 swordsmen in all, leaving you with 9. After recovering
health in the captured cities, use 7 swordsmen to attack (after combining forces en
route) the third city. Here you will face stronger defense or
counter-attack, so count on losing 3 more swordsmen. In this phase your focus is on
speed to capture cities rather than on minimizing losses and maximizing kills.
This all takes about 8 turns. It's tempting (especially if you built more swordsmen
during this time) to try for another city, but this usually gets you bogged down.
Instead, go into defense mode; your goal is to kill as many counter-attacking units
as you can without suffering much loss. Do this by taking advantage of terrain, and
also by using the previous 8 turns to build horsemen instead of swordsmen. Horsemen
can both get to the front line quickly, and retreat to safety after attacking. They
can also attack enemy unit landing by galley. After 8 or so turns on defense, enemy
should be willing to make peace on very favorable terms. Try to get 2 Medieval advances
(Feudalism and Monotheism)
from them. Anyway, you now are no longer lagging all other civs in size and
technology, and have survived the AE!
Switch goverment to republic and develop infrastructure with minimal military for a while.
Back to the pre-planning stage.
Key idea for initial expansions are:
(i) build spearmen and settlers at the same rate until filling of sphere of
influence, that is until
cities + settlers + settlers under construction = 7 (say)
spearmen + spearmen under construction = 8.
(ii) then start on barracks in the most productive 4 cities.
Fit in production of workers where convenient.
Next you start building swordsmen in the barracks cities.
Usually, the time at which you've got 4 swordsmen is the "critical time". If
earlier, delay the attack until the critical time, because your goal is to get some
Medieval tech from the other civ. If later, there's some risk that the opposing civ
already has Feudalism and hence pikemen, but (being stupid) the AI often won't put
pikemen in its frontier cities.
tech and military throughout the Ancient Era. The most reliable survival strategy
I've found is a swordsman attack at the end of the Ancient Era, and the key is
careful pre-planning of what to build though the AE. Of course all the ideas here
can be found in different strategy articles; this is just my way of putting ideas
together with a specific focus.
You will need to experiment with adjusting the actual numbers to take account of
your game parameters. I play plain vanilla Civ 3, England, large map, continents, 8
opponents, OCP. It goes without saying that you're trying to expand number of cities
as fast as you can at the start; I typically end the initial expansion phase with 7
cities, and with 1 or 2 neighbor civs with 10 cities.
Pre-planning phase.
In this strategy we keep our eye on a "critical time", about 8 turns before
completing mandatory AE advances. At this time I want (assuming 7 cities)
9 workers, 8 regular spearmen, 4 veteran swordsmen, 1 galley, 4 barracks.
I'll talk later how to achieve this, but let's go to the fun part.
Attack phase.
Use barracks cities to build an extra 8 veteran swordsmen and 2 veteran spearmen.
Thus takes about 15 turns, during which you start researching Republic. [You are
now a little over the despotism military quota]. Attack one neighbor with the goal
of taking over 3 cities [within reason, don't worry that your military advisor says
they're stronger than you!] Do this by 2 simultaneous city attacks with stacks of 6
swordsman/1 spearman. Typically the defense is 2 regular spearmen and maybe an
archer, and you will lose 3 swordsmen in all, leaving you with 9. After recovering
health in the captured cities, use 7 swordsmen to attack (after combining forces en
route) the third city. Here you will face stronger defense or
counter-attack, so count on losing 3 more swordsmen. In this phase your focus is on
speed to capture cities rather than on minimizing losses and maximizing kills.
This all takes about 8 turns. It's tempting (especially if you built more swordsmen
during this time) to try for another city, but this usually gets you bogged down.
Instead, go into defense mode; your goal is to kill as many counter-attacking units
as you can without suffering much loss. Do this by taking advantage of terrain, and
also by using the previous 8 turns to build horsemen instead of swordsmen. Horsemen
can both get to the front line quickly, and retreat to safety after attacking. They
can also attack enemy unit landing by galley. After 8 or so turns on defense, enemy
should be willing to make peace on very favorable terms. Try to get 2 Medieval advances
(Feudalism and Monotheism)
from them. Anyway, you now are no longer lagging all other civs in size and
technology, and have survived the AE!
Switch goverment to republic and develop infrastructure with minimal military for a while.
Back to the pre-planning stage.
Key idea for initial expansions are:
(i) build spearmen and settlers at the same rate until filling of sphere of
influence, that is until
cities + settlers + settlers under construction = 7 (say)
spearmen + spearmen under construction = 8.
(ii) then start on barracks in the most productive 4 cities.
Fit in production of workers where convenient.
Next you start building swordsmen in the barracks cities.
Usually, the time at which you've got 4 swordsmen is the "critical time". If
earlier, delay the attack until the critical time, because your goal is to get some
Medieval tech from the other civ. If later, there's some risk that the opposing civ
already has Feudalism and hence pikemen, but (being stupid) the AI often won't put
pikemen in its frontier cities.
