Newbie to Civ 3. Numerous Questions for perfecting early game play

Warmongering 101: A Tactical Primer

 

It is not.

For each round the chances to win that one round are 16/(16+10)=61.54% or rather 16/(16+10.5)=60.38%.

The chances for winning in each combat round would be (16/(16+10))^4=14.34%, or rather (16/(16+10.5))^4=13.29%. That is assuming that the rifleman has 4 HP.

Assuming both the riflemen and tank have 4 HP, then losses of 4/16*10.5=2.625 HP are to be expected, that is 65.625% of 4 HP.

Actual losses are a bit lower because destroyed tanks can no longer lose HP. Whose HP are used up first does of course matter.

 

I think you might have misunderstood me. 1 combat-round = 1 HP's worth of combat, not a complete individual "Tank vs. Rifle" fight to the finish.

"Total Tank HP" is for all Tanks used (vs all Rifles attacked), not per Tank.

(It also seemed more sensible to show percentages at 1% increments, since I will rarely if ever be bringing >1000 HPs to a battle!)

Point is, a stack of 5 vTanks has 20 HP, so against 5 vRifle city-garrisons*, I can expect to have lost about 38% of my Tank-HPs (i.e. 8/20 HP) at the end of the first full set of 5 battles.

But how that 8 lost HP is distributed across my Tank-stack will still be essentially random: (barring promotions) I might have 5 Tanks at 4/4, 3/4, 3/4, 1/4, 1/4 (= no units lost = 'best' outcome?), 1 Tank lost and 4 Tanks each at 3/4 (and more vulnerable to Cav-attacks!), or I might have 2 Tanks lost and 3 Tanks all at 4/4.

*NB @ArenE: This is a theoretical example: apart from the capital and/or Wonder-towns, most AI-cities won't have more than 2-3 dedicated defender-units.

That said, the AI will also build Rifles for attack (both AI-strategies are flagged for this unit in the Editor) if it has Nationalism but lacks MilTrad and/or Horses. And injured 'attacker-Rifles' will retreat to the nearest friendly town to heal, so will add to any 'defender-Rifle' pool that's already there.

That's why, once you're going on the offensive, it's generally better to focus your forces on taking the next target-town first, and only do mop-up on AI-units in the field afterwards if you still have bombardments/ attack-units available and in a fit state to do so.

 

No. The loss of about 38% of HP refers to 4 battle rounds. But an actual battle can take longer. Statistically at A=16 vs. D=10.5 it would take to suffer 2.625 HP to remove 4 HP, so the figure would be 65.625%.

 

So far I have read most of the articles recommended in this post. I really appreciate these well written articles. The articles really helped with learning the nuances of C3C. Having said that, I feel confident in my military ability (comparatively) as evidenced by my last game on Monarch (I finished that before 1800 with Elimination only VC). Overall I think I have improved my early play significantly. Now I lack the most in is cultural, scientific and diplomatic victory paths.

So, I felt like trying (after the rush of beating AI) Emperor difficulty for a just overall understanding of the difficulty level. I plan to read some more before trying it but do you guys have Recommendations regarding which Civ to use at Emperor level? I know a lot of it depends of style of play. So far I have only played Americans, Chinese and Maya since I like the industrious trait but I am considering Germans next on Emperor for science and military.

Again Thanks to All of you who have taken you precious time to help me.

 

Well the French are Industrious and have a UU that is not too early or too late.

 

Choice of civ and choice of VC go hand-in-hand. It's possible to win any VC with any civ (or at least, I think it is), but some are clearly better suited to one VC than others. My favorites are always domination or space victories. I would go for conquest, but by the time you own 60% of the map at Emperor, there's rarely much challenge left, so I just shoot for the domination limit and start a new game. I'm going to try my hand with the French again soon, as vmxa has suggested them a couple of times recently. The Iroquois are an early war powerhouse, as are the Celts. The Romans do early war well, and the Chinese excel in early MA warfare. If you feel like shooting for space, the Byzantines are a favorite of mine, as are the Germans.

 

I've done Germans from Chieftain-Monarch, but only did Byzantines once (Regent, Spaceship win). Any suggestions at Monarch?

 

Theodora can build an outstanding Super Science City as her capitol. For space ship at Monarch: (1) Push out 3-4 settlers and then start on the Colossus (your capital will grow while you work on the Republic slingshot and generate commerce when it's done); (2) grab the Republic slingshot (starting with Alpha on Monarch and a commerce bonus makes this very manageable); (3) Push out some curraghs to make contact with the other continent to open up trade opportunities; and (4) Don't build Dromons until you are ready to trigger your Golden Age, preferably after you have an established Republic.

 

I'd build dromons as soon as you can on a watery map, because you'll want a fleet of them and they'll otherwise go obsolete quickly in a space game and you won't be able to build them anymore. Just be careful if you end up in an early war. With a sufficiently large fleet of them, you can bombard enemy ships, units, and towns and avoid combat. (Just be careful about the lethal bombardment.) With a sufficiently small fleet, they can hide in towns without costing an arm and a leg until you learn the republic.

Personally I don't usually put out a bunch of settlers before building the Colossus, and waiting for that long would make me very nervous unless none of my opponents started with bronze working. However, the more you can build first, the stronger your empire will be.

 

Having a fleet of dromons is nice, but I've never had the AI build enough ships at Monarch or even Emperor to make it worth the shield expenditure. And that's a shame, because I actually really like dromons. At higher levels (DG+), it may be a different story.

 

I suspect that my "fleet of dromons" isn't particularly large by your standards. If I don't start them early, I'll end up with 2 or 3, which is barely enough to explore and ferry units to nearby islands.

In any case, I use them for land bombardment, too, as I never have enough catapults, either. Even though they can't go inland, they are speedy and they fire two shots, which helps makes up for their low bombardment value. (This does make lethal bombardment a little tricky if you are trying to avoid a golden age, but I don't usually worry about this. If I have to trigger a GA with units, I'm more likely to not get one than to get a despotic one.)

 

Aabraxan, long ago I had a game on Sid where Monty sent so many galleys with units that I nearly lost the game. I don't remember the numbers now, but I still have a picture in my head of seeing a long line of them and some had several in a stack. Dromon are the reason I am glad to see or rather not see the Byz nearby. If they are on the other side of the map, then they not an issue.

 

Well, perhaps if I really want to use some Dromons, I should try my hand at DG and a watery map.

 

So what's the word, @ArenE , @WeirdoJoker ? Have y'all made the jump up in difficulty levels? If so, how's it going?

 

Not since I went up to Monarch. Actually haven't played in a few weeks ... work & all that. Hopefully up to Emperor by the end of the year, though. Haven't even had a moment to start my Byzantines game.

 

I carried on playing this game after we got back from our vacation, and have made further progress. Having also researched Amphibious War (to allow me to take the smallest island-town) after MotorTransport, my glorious Chinese empire has Modernised: I learned to build Computers (for MechInfs — not that I really need them at this stage!), and I will also have Rocketry very soon (for TOW-Infs -- and also Aluminium, if I feel like going for a ModernArmor overkill).

After I finished pushing Ragnar offshore, I tore through Portugal very quickly, as expected (although Dora took his last island-town), and then started on the Mayans. I can't remember who declared, but I recruited Dora to help me fight Smoke as well, mainly so that I wouldn't have to deal with his loose units, or — in the very near future! — most of her Cavs (suicided against his Rifle-garrisons). It's now 1525 AD, and Smoke has also just been exiled to the small Tundra island NW of Palenque (sharing it with Ragnar). But I've seen dozens of Byzzie ships sailing north along the formerly Viking/Mayan coasts, so she will most likely administer the coup de grace there, too — with any luck, at about the same time as I finally finish off Ragnar (a small strike force of Tanks + Marines + Infs, backed up by a small Destroyer task-force, will land next to Stockholm in ~2T).

In the meantime, I've already started repositioning for the imminent war against the Byzzies, once my current Lux-import deal runs down (because I prefer to play clean even though, gameplay-wise, that's also meaningless at this stage). Various Rider- and Cav-Armies are within striking distance of the few captured Mayan/ American/ Viking towns that I gifted to Dora, and an Inf-Army, a small Arty-stack, and a Transport-full Marines has already been shipped to the largest of the offshore islands, to soak up potential Byzzie Cav-attacks against the 2 formerly Portuguese/Viking towns over there. So once the DoW is issued, Byzzie holdings in the northern half of that continent, and the islands, should fall to me very quickly.

My northern garrisons + Arty will then be free to use the thin rail-network through Mayan/ Portie/ Viking lands (constructed using foreign Workers), to reposition to the chokepoint-towns adjacent to Dora's mainland borders, where I'll be able to kill her remaining stacks just like I did Cleo's. Slaves will also soon build Airfields outside all my core-towns, with 1 landing-zone built on each receiving landmass, so that I can fly Tanks/MechInf across the ocean instead of shipping them. I estimate that this game should be won by 1650–1700 AD at the latest.

 

^^^Excellent!

 

Did I say 1650? I meant, of course, 1605... Got Synthetic Fibers, even built a few Modern Armour, but didn't get to use it...

 

Early success does have its downsides.