My Thoughts

[N. Breaksapart]

First time posting.

Now that I've wasted so much time playing Civ3, I'd like to share my strategy and thoughts on the game.

I've been playing on Prince, but I don't think there isn't a huge difference between Warload, Prince, and King. (Sorry, I still haven't adjusted to the new gender-neutral vocab)

I like to play on the real world (Standard). I know it's sorta cheating, but I like the familiarity. Is Marla's map really better? Also, I can't play on huge maps 'cause the game runs too slow.

My favorite Civ attribute is definitely Industrious. Commerial is good too.

Lately I've been playing as the French and Russians. I like the later GA, even if their UU are crappy. Trade-off with the early vs. late period GA is appearance of leaders. It seems I tend to get my first leader in my GA.

The best UU has got to be the Hoplite, tho, at least if you are like me and avoid conflict at the beginning. I just HATE getting the GA so early in the game, and even the Persian's aren't much better with that. So if I want an earlyish big war I'd pick the Japanese.

I think the key decision very early in the game is the extent to which you pursue quick expansion or focus on wonder-building. I find that you can build most of the ancient wonders first if you want, but the AI will way outexpand you. After all, a city building a wonder can't be building settlers.

I focus on relentless expansion. I try to space my cities four spaces apart and build on hills, or on the only desert sqaure next to a bunch of plains. Your immediate city square always produces the same (I think) regardless of what the land is. Building on a forest is also good.

The AI is usually fairly timid and waits a long time to attack even if you are virtually defenseless (I can give bribes also), and barbarians don't burn down or take over (like in Civ2) your cities.

One wonder that is key in the early game is the Pyramids. I love to use despotism to kill population to buy wonders, and the Pyramids make it a lot easier. It's almost the only way to build stuff in high corruption cities anyway.

Technologically, I break for Literature. Then I really like to build Great Library. While I'm building it and after, I cut way back on tech research. By the time Education is discovered, I've saved a lot of dough (as I'm still in Despotism and didn't use the gold) and can now crank the tech spending way up to break for Democracy.

Since I haven't been playing Relgious civs, I hate to change governments. Anarchy sucks. So I shift right from Despotism to Democracy.

By now I've amassed a big, well developed civ. I try to build Sistine Chapel, JS Bach, and the Art of War (in that order of priority). Is it cheating to pre-build as Palace or something 'cause it is tough to beat the AI to the Wonders.

I wait until the gunpowder age for a big war. I can economically kick ass, and if I have lots of luxuries (another benefit of early expansion) and the Chapel or Bach, I can fight as a democracy too. It's great to trigger your GA in this era, you really get a lot more bang for your buck.

I like to be the first to build Tanks or Modern armor and whoop up on the world, esp if I'm on a big continent, but it can be very slow (my computer) and time-consuming (the vast preparation). The Space Race is boring, so now I'm going for a cultural victory.

My only real complaint about the game is that it runs slow. I'd disable autosave but I do stoop to using it sometimes.

What are your early-game strategies? What do you think of mine?

 

[radar42]

My strategy is very similar, but on Emperor it is hard to out-expand the opposition. So I spice up the game by having one war in each era. If I'm lucky, the outcome after the first war in the Ancient era will have provided me with more territory than the other civs as well as some important ancient wonders. I need a bigger empire to be able to buy the techs I need from the other civs. It is only after the second war, in the Middle age era, that you will be strong enough to gain a tech lead early in the industrial era. I always stop warring when the opposition has more modern units than me, then in the Industrial era I race to replaceable parts to once more get the military advantage. Repeat for Modern era with synthetics.

After playing the game for half a year I find it unsatisfactory to win peacefully on the lower levels. On the higher levels warring is absolutely neccessary to avoid getting swamped. I usually have wars going on for a while, then build in peace for a while before the next war. In the late game I may choose to race toward a peaceful victory.

 

[jshelr]

radar42 is absolutely right. many of the aspects of Breaksapart's strategy are related to playing on a lower level. higher levels will make it impossible to 1) build out peacefully 2) keep up in tech by researching. The key IMO is to time your wars properly so that you build a civ while fighting when necessary. for example, after building 4-6 core cities on a large map, on Emperor you will probably find yourself in hot competition for space with neighboring civs. let them have the space! instead, research for iron working and horseback riding. Get either iron or horses and build barracks. While they are building settlers for you, you build a military to take their cities. As a reward for winning the first war, they will give you all the techs they have. So, stop researching seriously after horseback riding and hoard gold while you gear up your military. Don't go hog wild in the war, however. It's critical not to get overextended and to remember that, at this stage, you are fighting in order to get the tech and the space to build.

 

[Sullla]

Everywhere I go, people think war is the only answer...

It is not necessary, in fact, to fight an early war to win on the harder difficulties. I have played and easily won a 5 city challenge game on Monarch (standard size map) in which I never fought a war, out-researched the AI civs on tech, and ended up with a whopping 50,000 gold when I won a diplo victory. Could have been spaceship just as easily, but I was bored.

The only level you probably have to fight a war on is Deity, but nothing says it has to be an early one. I have had success with avoid warfare entirely unless absolutely necessary to prevent defeat even at that level:
http://www.geocitites.com/lcsullla/GOTM7
This is a *spoilers* for this month's game of the month, so don't read if you are playing. Warfare can help you out a lot, but I don't like reading that it's somehow "necessary" in order to win.

 

[bobgote]

I'm not so much of a pro as some of you guys. I seem to win easily on regent, but struggle a bit in monarch. I think it is important to get a fair bit of land. If you can do this without war, well and good, but especially when you get to monarch you need to have a strong military anyway.

I like playing on large islands, and it's best in those scenarios to have an island to yourself. Having other civ's on your island is good to get you off to a good tech start. I play as the Persians (Scientific, Industrious) which best suits my playing style, also they have what i believe is the best UU. Since i can generally trade for pottery and ceremonial burial, i start by researching iron working, which also gets me my UU

But once you have the basic techs it best suits you to take over these other civs, which you can usually do just make sure you have plenty of attack, and do this before you (and them) develop too much. Set two civs off against each other if necessary. This is how i find you can get an early start and set you up for a good game.