Need help with next step

[dawright]

I've played 3 civ games now. I quit the last two and I am on the third now. The problem that I have is taking the next step after knocking everyone else off my continent.

I seem to have trouble fighting a war on another continent. I am a democracy but corruption and logistics are killing me. I find courthouses and police stations to be less than effective.

Typically I select the biggest guy on the block to attack. Currently that is England who is number 2 behind me in score and slightly in technology.

I built a toe hold on their continent while I had a slight military advantage. Unfortunately we both have infantry and calvary now. I loose so many troops trying to take cities now because of the 6/10 attack defense advantage.

Right now I am waiting on tanks to break the stalemate. This should give me a few rounds advantage but in the end it is his continent and I'm not sure that I can produce things fast enough before the stalemate comes again.

Some stats are
27 Cities - Most are 12 or larger. I have six with barracks making military units

I have Pyramids, Adam Smith and Hoover Dam wonders (both are nice).

I have 5 Galleons moving units protected by 3 destroyers and 5 ironclads.

England has 16 Cities. 21 before I started my attack...

Should I have picked on someone else? Persia is number 3, but when I am at war I fall a little behind on tech so I'm afraid England will slip past me. They have attacked me twice while I was at war with someone else.

 

[Tomoyo]

Artillery. Lots of it. By lots, I mean like 100. Use it to redine the english infantry before attacking. Cavalry against infantry without support is suicide.

 

[Zelda's Man]

You probably want to switch out of demo if this is going to be a long war. The WW will get you in the end. Communism is a much better choice, especially if your empire is large. Wait for artillery to attack infantry with calvary. Move a stack of arts with a few inf protecting it to the outskirts of the city (preferably on a hill or mountain). Bombard it and then attack the redlined inf with your calvary.

What level are you playing?

You should consider bombarding the outskirts of their island with battleships. Esp. if they have any important resources within bombardment range.

Tanks work much better against inf, but it is still nice to bombard first.

 

[dawright]

Thanks for the suggestions. Civ3 is really much more involved than Civ2. I keep forgeting to do things that in Civ2 didn't matter but in Civ3 are important to the success if the games. I am still running on Civ2 tactics. Build enough units and other civs will fall!

I never built an artillary piece. In Civ2 the game was over before artillery. In Civ3 I just couldn't see the value of bombarding. I was really disappointed in the changes to catapults so I just wrote off bombarding altogether. I'll give it a shot. I guess I'll have to backup again.

 

[QuantumEleven]

Not just you, dawright! I, too, migrated from Civ II, and immediately discounted catapults (why build them if you can't kill anything with them...?! Especially as two catapults were a force to be reconed with in Civ II, but in Civ III they barely scratch anything).

However, bombardment units are one of your best friends in Civ III - Artillery, especially, shines. The trick is to build a steady stream of artillery units, and move them around in one or two mammoth stacks (well protected by Infantry) with you main assault force. One three or four Artillery won't do a great deal of good, but continue building them, and soon you'll have ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred (as you should, in theory, never lose an Artillery). Fifty Artillery can reduce any city to dust with all its defenders at one HP. Then you can waltz in with Cavalry... much more efficient!

Also, if you're playing Conquests, Bombers have lethal bombard. This is great, as it means that you can kill units with them, dealing death from above, so to speak. And unless the AI has amassed fighters and AA units, your bombers are relatively safe to deal death turn after turn, with limited danger to them.

For everything you've always wanted to know about Artillery (including some downright devious strategies from moonsinger), take a look at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=25078

Welcome to CFC!

 

[777]

In Civ2 Howitzer was a great unit. It ignored walls and had 12 attack. Allmost every unit falled in front of it.

I never started invasion without huge hordes of Howitzer&Mech Inf groups.

 

[dawright]

Y'all are going to have to stop this Civ2 talk. I'm getting nostalgic and I told myself it was time to move onto Civ3.

I noticed in Civ3 that advancing your Navy is much more important than it was before too. When England declared war on me, they had 12 ironclads that just sat off my shore and decimated my improvements.

This tactic was annoying and I had to switch some production to deal with it. It didn't really hurt too bad because they didn't follow it up with any real invasion. Four destoryers and a battle wagon later and he had no ironclads.

 

[Bucephalus]

You really need to upgrade those galleons if you intend a major invasion

 

[Shadow Phoenix]

#1 get Bombers ASAP. PERIOD. 200 bombers= NO deffenders in ANY english cities.
#2 Get TANKS. They kill.
#3 Switch to COMMUNISM NOW.

 

[Chinghis]

Hey, another Civ 2 convert! I'll have to look around, there must be some threads about making that transition for those of us having trouble adjusting.

Oh, and yes, I've discovered the joys of large stacks of arty. I had about a fifteen trebuchets to take down London... but then started leaving them in conquered cities. Need to re-accumulate that stack.

Ah, here's something that's hard to make a transition to in Civ 3 (mentally, at least) - cities don't support individual units. So, a stack of 100 arty pieces just seems preposterous - I'm thinking, how on earth could you support that? But, of course, it's just gold, so long as you can afford it, you can build it. Have to get used to that.

 

[rschissler]

Just to emphasize what a previous poster said, you need artillery. Before you can get bombers and tanks, you need to use artillery to redline infantry, and then attack them with cavalry.

 

[xiaoafei]

at least 20 artilleries.
In civ3, attacking force would be composed of:
archers+warriors -> hosrsemen+spearmen -> knights + pikemen -> chavalries + musketeers + canons -> chavalry + infantry + canons -> tank + infantry + artilleries (+bombers+battleships) -> Modern Armos + Mech infans + Radar Artilleries + bombers
The total army should have at least 100 units, with another 100 units defending your own cities.