My Strategy For Each Ages

[luke_syafiq]

--Ancient Ages--
EXPAND - Yeah baby,expand.A lot.At this time,your research is slow,and,you can hardly earn cash at each round.Once you've created a worker and a warrior in each base,create a settler and begin expanding.Expand and expand.Make sure the distance between cities isnt to big in order that corruption can be reduced and you can easily send back up when neccesary.
MILITARY - Not much.It's a waste if you create to much warriors.You can only upgrade 'em to swordsman's later.Imagine your in the Modern Age,and you have hundreds of swordsmans.Disbanding them would be a waste.Wouldn't you agree?
DIPLOMACY - Four words.Stay out of trouble.Dont get messed up with other civs cause during this time your concentrating on expanding your civ.
BUILD - Build everything there is to be built.Pyramids and stuff. (After you've done creating a worker and a settler.
RESEARCH - Concentrate on it.You wouldnt want to be left behind in the research sector when battling with other civs.Bad idea.

-Middle Age-
EXPAND - Allright,during this time,take it easy.Build extra cities if you think its neccesary.You should have quite a large empire by now.
MILITARY - Create Musketmans a lot.Why? Look at this : Musketman --> Rifleman --> Infantry --> Mech Infantry.They are a worthy investment.Just go a head and start building your army.
DIPLOMCAY - Okay.Well,if you wanna get into war,then do it.But I do not suggest you do so.You still have a lot of work to do.
BUILD - Coloseums,Libraries,Courthouse and Marketplace are an essential to your empires growth and prosper.
RESEARCH - During this time,your rivals might be more advanced than you are.No worries,just concentrate on your research.

-Industrial Age-
EXPAND - Minimize expanding.You have a lot of work to do.If you think its suitable to build a base here or there.Just do it.But dont over expand or you'll be having a hard time concentrating on other stuff.
MILITARY - Dont upgrade yet! Upgrade ALL your Musketmans when you are able to create Infantries.See? They're upgradable.That's why it's a worthy invenstment.Continue growing your army as you will need it soon.
DIPLOMACY - Stay out of trouble.This is your golden age and you must concentrate on propering your civ and strengthen your military.
BUILD - Make sure you have Wall Street,Banks and Smith Co.As these will boost up your funds which will be used for war.Do also build Airports at several strategic locations so that it will be easy for you to strike and defend your civ.
RESEARCH - Give it everything you've got.You must reach the Modern Age as this will help you a lot.

-Modern Age-
EXPAND - Halt! Dont create new bases.That's enough.Now is the time to "steal" bases from other civs.You should have a vast empire by now,if now,your bases should prosper.Make sure each base by now has a population over than 12.
MILIYARY - Upgrade ALL your Infantries to Mech Infantry.This will help you defend your bases.Do create Nuclear Submarines with Tactical Nukes inside them.Build up to 10 - 20 ICBM's just in case somebody's tryin' to mess with you.Stealth Bombers are nothing but a nuisance to your quest.They can only bombard,and if your lucky,you just might destroy it.Sometimes the bombardment may fail.Battleships are also neccesary if you are to guard your seas.I'd prefer Aegis Cruisers.
DIPLOMACY - War! War! War! Trade! Trade! Trade!.Dont wage war against to many civs as this maybe a burden to you.Start attacking from the south of the civ as that is the best way in order you can corner them up in the northern perimiter.
BUILD - Each city must have :
Barracks
Airport (5 - 6 cities are enough)
Mass Transit System
Recycling Centre
Cultural Influences (Coloseums,Libraries etc..)
Factories with Solar Plants
RESEARCH - Take it just a bit slow.You should be leading now.If you want,sell your research.Dont sell it in Lump Slumps but in Per Turn modes.E.g. - Sell your Intergrated Defense technologhy to Germany for 20 gold per turn.Use the gold well as it will give you a staggering of 4000 golds at the end of 20 turns.

Okay.Here's my guide to War.
ICBM
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Use it carefully as if u mis-strike it.It will bring devastation.Make shure you use it outside of your empire,and use it to strike multiple units.For instance,there are 10 German Modern Armors in a single square.Check the surrounding,if there are other units (allies) then withdraw your strike.If it's clear,then launch the strike.It's a 3 x 3 nuke assault resulting grasslands become to flood plains,flood plains become plains,and plains become deserts.

Stealth Bomber
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It you really wanna build this stuff,here's my strategy.Dont use this bomber to directly strike the city.Build a Carrier and strike from the coast.Strike the city's surrounding improvements in order that no reinforcements may be sent.

Nuclear Subs with Tactical Nuke
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Use this in combination with the Stealth Bomber.Once the bomber has outrunned the city's population to 1,and the are no more improvements surrounding it,launch the tactical nuke on the city in order that it will never grow again.

Attacking Other Civs
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I suggest that you strike from the southern perimiter.If your north to it,then strike from the south.There's no point striking from the east / west as they may easily run off using a Transport when their cities are being destroyed.

Spying
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Spy the city you wish to attack before attacking it as this may enable you to calculate how many units may be sent to destroy the cities garrisoned units.This will save gold and turns easily.

Republic
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It's best if you set your government to Republic as it has a lower war weariness affect compared to Democracy,and it has a lower rate of corruption compared to Monarchy,Anarchy,Despotism and Communism

Thats all,hope it's helpfull.

-To the Civilized players of Civilization III

 

[Speaker]

I am curious what difficulty these strategies are for. This sounds like a pretty good strategy for the lower levels, but would never work on Emperor or Deity, when upgrading troops usually is not worth it, ancient wonders are close to impossible, and medieval war is a necessity. It is important to be specific in these forums, especially when talking about strategy.

 

[luke_syafiq]

Well,like you said,it's for beginners like me.I just bought the game like,around,nearly a week ago.Im open to suggestions though.

 

[anarres]

Use the force luke, or failing that have a read around the Strategy Articles forum for good tips on the higher levels.

One glaring oversight is that diplomacy is your friend. Researching techs and diplomacy is an art form, and you can find many good articles about how to do it well.

As Speaker says, fighting early wars is sometimes very benificial on higher levels (and lower ones), and sometimes you simply don't have the option not to fight.

Oh, and the Musketeers are a very poor choice of soldier at any time, but they are in the middle of a great upgrade path. Build Spearmen and promote them spears -> pikes -> muskets (skip this IMO) -> riflemen -> infantry -> mech infantry. This way the ancient units last forever. Also, I prefer the horse route too: chariot -> horsemen -> knight -> cavalry. You can then use the spear/horse combo all the way until the AI get infantry, at which point you generally are best waiting for tanks.

Your government choice for long term war is mine too, Republic is best for long campaingns. However, even for medium-length campaigns Democracy works. There are some good articles about waging war in a democrary.

 

[billindenver]

There are a lot of people that would argue your strategy. BillChin's great Swordsman Conquest strategy is that you build 4-6 cities, research Iron Working, and find Iron. Then set research to zero, build up cash and build LOTS of warriors. When you get several hundred cash, connect the Iron and upgrade all the warriors to Swordsmen. With 10-15 swordsmen, you can eliminate almost any civ early in the game.

You end up with 8-12 cities, all the techs and Wonders that the other AI had, hopefully a Great Leader or two, and a strong military before 1AD (or even before 1000BC).

There are lots of strategies that work. Yours is the 'peaceful builder' one, which I use most of the time as well. Expand til you can't expand anymore, keep science spending high, build up your cities and military gradually, then start expanding by war. As long as you keep even in science, you are fine.

 

[Adofl Lundgren]

It's great that this strategy has worked for you. That having been said, have you considered the following...

Ancient Age: MILITARY - Not much.It's a waste if you create to much warriors.You can only upgrade 'em to swordsman's later.Imagine your in the Modern Age,and you have hundreds of swordsmans.Disbanding them would be a waste.Wouldn't you agree?

Warriors upgrade to swordman, and IIRC to Med. Inf. (in PTW)meaning that 10 shield investment you made 3000BC has become useful through the middle ages (big time bang-for-the-buck).

Ancient Age: BUILD - Build everything there is to be built.Pyramids and stuff. (After you've done creating a worker and a settler.

IMHO, you missed an important subtlety...an integrated road network (getting resources to all town in order to maximize flexability.)
I think Anarres touched on the Spear -> Mech Inf. upgrade path already, so I'll spare you on that

RESEARCH - During this time,your rivals might be more advanced than you are.No worries,just concentrate on your research.

Quite frankly, if you're not getting techs every 4-10 turns, there's some optomizing that could be done.

 

[wargasm23]

the most i ever have is 1 unit for each city because of the outrageous defense bonus you get defending a city. Why stack units and crash your economy?

For exmaple, if i have 1 spearmen unit guarding a city, but i just made a archer, i disband that spearman. Then if i get horses, and create horsemen unit, i disband archer.

That way my military is alot easier to manage.

try it sometime.

 

[anarres]

wargasm23 - those spearmen are upgradable to Mech Infantry! Why get rid of them?? I suggest moving up a level or two, then see if you can get away with disbanding spearmen.

If you like playing below your abillity then doing this to easyly manage your army is a possibility, but suggesting you disband units is not the way to help people improve their gameplaying abilities!