My Typical Civ3 Experience

[RJMooreII]

I am a huge fan of the Civ series and have been playing since Civ 2. I remember I got Civ2 at Toys R Us in my early teens and practically had to be pried out of the computer chair. However, I have noticed a very typical order of play in Civ 2, 3 and 4. Lately my good computer has been dead, so I decided to specifically talk about my usual Civ 3 gameplay, though this applies to 2 and 4 to some extent.

Pick a Civ, usually an Agricultural or Commercial Civ. Pick a map size, I prefer huge but I have played on smaller ones.

Head straight for Republic ASAP, avoid conflict with enemy civilizations if possible, build my cities in an extended 'ring', focusing on optimal growth locations. Focus on techs that allow me to build city improvements and certain specific money and tech boosting wonders.

I'll garrison each city with a couple of my toughest units, but generally spend my shields building either improvements or settlers. Eventually, I get tanks. For some reason, even if they have the tech to build better, the enemy will usually have cavalry and spearmen for a majority of their units.

I either get attacked or decide to conquer someone. Since my cities are usually MASSIVE, and I have a good tech lead anyways, I switch to Fascism. Spam tanks, bribe every other civ to declare war on my enemy. Conquer like nothing. Repeat.

Now, in very poor resource maps or high difficulties it goes a bit differently, but it really tends to be the same thing, just slower and not quite so foregone conq-lusion.

Does anyone else share this experience? I mean, WTH is the point of mech infantry? Tanks, tanks, tanks. And bombers. Usually I can conquer cities without even fighting because I've bombed every enemy to death!

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

what difficulty do you play on

 

[RJMooreII]

what difficulty do you play on

It varies depending on my mood. Monarch if I want a decent game, Chieftain if I want a time killing curb stomp. My point is, though, that though it's not as easy on higher difficult levels, this usually works pretty well even on higher difficulties because the AI is kind of ********.

 

[vmxa]

The AI plays the same at all levels, that is why they gave it ever larger bonus boosts as you move Regent.

 

[Elephantium]

Try playing some variants. An Always-War game. A 5 City Challenge. 0% Science. Go for cultural victory with a rule that you have to stay in Feudalism the entire game.

If all else fails, download some mods

As for Mech Infantry, well, it's the same point as having spears even after swordsmen are available. It helps to have at least a few defenders to absorb attacks, especially on higher levels where you can't automatically bomb every enemy attacker into oblivion (setting aside the impact of armies, of course).

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Head straight for Republic ASAP
...
I'll garrison each city with a couple of my toughest units

Why do you garrison cities in a Republic? It doesn't do you any good ....

Anyway, you could sell/give techs to the AI and/or limit your expansion until a certain date or something - I find that if a couple AIs are significantly larger than the rest (and you) and are on tech parity with you, it's at least a bit more interesting than "stomp."

Finally, this thread makes me smile a bit because when I read it, I read "Hey, I pick the best civilization, the best government, then turtle until I have the best units! Why is this game so easy?"

 

[RJMooreII]

Why do you garrison cities in a Republic? It doesn't do you any good ....

Barbs and random attacks.

Why do you garrison cities in a Republic? It doesn't do you any good ....

Well, I just think it's funny how reliable the strategy is. You play Softy McCommercial until you're overweening with ridiculous amounts of money, science and industry, then every one of your giant cities can spam a tank every turn. Even when there is an AI who is close to my size and tech level, they NEVER do this! They just don't get the concept of converting their entire civilization into a dedicated war machine.

Last time I played I took down so many AI cities I had a support limit of like 500 units, even though the 200 I had were more powerful than all the other civs in the game...lol.

 

[RJMooreII]

If all else fails, download some mods

Any recommendations? I like fantasy and sci-fi/high tech mods, but it's been years since I downloaded any.

 

[ThERat]

Try CCM, the game alters the rules quite a bit and your strategy might not be so easy.

Or play AW, makes the game so much more challenging and exciting. No more republic for you either in those games due to war weariness.

 

[RJMooreII]

Try CCM, the game alters the rules quite a bit and your strategy might not be so easy.

Or play AW, makes the game so much more challenging and exciting. No more republic for you either in those games due to war weariness.

I'll DL them when I have the chance, for now it's Lord of the Mods.

 

[Spoonwood]

RJMooreII,

Welcome to CFC!

You might want to check out GOTM competitions, the HoF, the War Academy, and/or succession games for ideas on how other people play.

My experience comes as different in that 1. I play for several different victory conditions and occassionally play a variant 2. unless I play a space game or 20k game, I don't foresee myself warring with tanks these days. If playing for conquest/domination/100k, if I can wipe out/pulverize the AIs before I've known Military Tradition for a while, I'll do that. If not, then 1. I'll buy armies by short-rushing a worker and then buying the rest of the army on that turn if I can, or 2. buy the army as soon as possible if I don't have the cash upfront to buy an army on one turn. If I still haven't taken care of the AIs by the time Replacable Parts pops up, then I'll bring out the artillery proper.

This isn't to say that I've never had tanks in a war, as when I first started playing, I didn't know how to run wars like I do now.

 

[vmxa]

Watch out for some of the mods as they were never really finished. Lots of them have broken concepts and pedia entries with errors and omissions. Turns them into zero fun.

A few like CCM and AoI are pretty well polished.

Want to not have a cakewalk, try Sid and not coming out of Despotism. That will keep you busy and sweating, at least it did me. Plenty of things to do, several mentioned by Spoonwood. Try playing emperor and winning with knights or earlier.

Very rough emperor game I played (someone else was playing it first) was AWE and no fast units as a conquest. You will have to stay on your toes in that variant.

 

[GamezRule]

How did the Despot Sid game end up, anyway?

 

[vmxa]

I killed everyone. I was barely able to keep up in techs by mostly stealing. It was not AW. All you need is armies and lots of them. I did not start out to play despot all the way. I got into the second tier of techs in the middle ages and still did not manage to revolt, so I decided then to play it out and see what would happen. It was no problem in that I did not try to research. Just let them provide the tech and the gold.

 

[CommandoBob]

Pick a Civ, usually an Agricultural or Commercial Civ.

Let the game select your civ and play from the first start that is created. Take the Zulus to the stars...or help France conquer the world.

Which Civ III are you playing: vanilla, Play the World or Conquests? If you have Civ III Complete, the default is Conquests. There are big changes between each version, and that can make a difference in how you play.

Try a game where you build no Great Wonders. Acquire them from the AI instead.

Visit the Civ III Hall of Fame and try to beat some of the times posted there for Difficulty, Map Size and Victory Condition. Or submit a game of your own that meets the criteria for an HOF submission.

For a different flavor of a Civ III game, join or start a Succession Game. Four or five people playing together really adds some spice to game. I've learned a lot from being involved in the SGs. There is a subforum for those kinds of games and it easy to get one started.

 

[GamezRule]

I have Complete and tried Vanilla once, I didn't really find it fun. Conquests is much more balanced. My only beef is that Map Trading should have stayed with Map Making. I mean, it makes more sense.

 

[RJMooreII]

I have Complete and tried Vanilla once, I didn't really find it fun. Conquests is much more balanced. My only beef is that Map Trading should have stayed with Map Making. I mean, it makes more sense.

Same experience here. I mean, I thought Civ3 was great when it first came out, but C3C is much more balanced and elaborate. I agree about map trading. Temporally speaking, humans have been trading geographic maps before there was even regularity in written language, as pictures are easier to understand than representative characters.

 

[RJMooreII]

I did beat a fun 'role playing' session of China last night, where I went from Monarchy to Communism and tried to research techs according to what I thought fit China's historical priorities. Went isolationist after I became Communist.

 

[GamezRule]

Did you also remember to go isolationist for the Renaissance techs and maintain a tech lead before that?

 

[darski]

I double dog dare you to try CCM. it is most interesting indeed.

I love the game - I'm just not any good at it.