Noob in need of advice - Can I still win this game?

[fishjie]

Hello, I am currently playing a game in Regent (plain civ3 - no expansion packs or anything) and am worried I might lose. I need advice. Normally I play Warlord on Pangaea (sp) and my strategy involves being in a constant state of conquest, starting from the beginning age to the ending. When I hit calvary, I railroad all my cities, and assuming my enemies have too, I then conquer a city, defend it with riflemen, and take over the next city using its railroads. Once they get infantry, I tech to modern armor and repeat. So I'm almost always monarchy and then communist. Occasionally I switch to Democracy/Republic to get money and tech, but then go back to Communism and wage war (because cities grow unhappy under Democracy/Republic when I wage war too long).

So in this game on Regent, I am playing on islands and I'm worried. its 1950, I'm the #2 civilization in terms of score (#1 in terms of empire size though), however I'm behind in technology due to my war mongering ways. Everyone else has just reached modern times, however I still need Radio before I can reach it. Greece, the #1 nation on the map, has practically researched half of modern times already. The reason Greece is #1 is becuase it has had a relatively large island to itself with no one to disturb it. However, I have ample room to keep expanding on my island - and they don't. They are also right next to me so I can eventually invade them.

The island I started on had 4 civs, and I have conquered most of it. Japan is the only real civ left on it, with about 10 cities or so. I was planning on conquering it, but I'm worried by the time I do, Greece will win Space Race or something. So my borders managed to expand across the island and into a bit of Greece, so naturally I sent a settler over and plopped a city down - to serve as a future beach-head for an invansion. Unfortunately, they have mech infantry and I only have plain old tanks. So I can't invade any time in the forseeable future.

So yeah, although I'm #2, I dont know if I can win because Greece is so far ahead (They have 1500 points I have 1200 points while the next civ has 1000 - to give you an idea). Any advice? Should I take over the rest of my island? If I do I'll be even more behind in science. I ask other civs for tech but no ones willing to give me. What should I do? Start over? Or keep trying? I figure if I can't invade Greece I can take over the rest of the islands, and gain a domination victory. A huge problem is that a lot of the cities I've conquered have such high rates of corruption that I'm not getting anything from them. At later levels in the game I dont really micromanage my cities (getting tax collectors scientists and choosing to work what tiles etc) so I dont have much experience in that.... Help would be nice.

Maybe I can take a screenshot of the world map later when I get home.

 

[Steve2000]

More than a screenshot - a savegame would be even more helpful to diagnose your situation.

Just offhand a couple of random thoughts that could help
- do you have every available tile roaded/railroaded?
- If you are having a major problem with corruption, just stay in communism, and did you build the Forbidden palace yet? If so, how close is it to the capital city? you might want to think about moving your palace farther away.
- read the war academy article on waging a war across the ocean. there is good stuff about how to do a D-Day style invasion and be successful

 

[fishjie]

yah i'll post a screenshot in a few hours.

the problem with communism is that i research a lot more slowly than i would with democracy. plus i cant purchase buildings. its only good for war (imo) but like i said im really far behind the greeks at this point i dont want to fall further behind in research.

and almost everything is railroaded at this point.

and i haven't built the forbidden palace yet, since the island im on is big, i wanted to take most of it over before i built one (so that they wouldn't be too close together and give greater benefit). i think i've found a suitable location for one.

 

[SJ Frank]

A few mistakes that I spot:

1) Communism was changed in Conquest to make it a good government. In Civ3 and PTW, it is the worst government in the game!

2) By delaying the FP until now, you have missed out on its benefit for most of the game. I would say that you lost more than what you would get for picking the perfect location now. If you want to have two far away cores, then build the FP early right next to the capital, then move the palace later.

... and a few advice:

- Artilleries. With enough artilleries, your tanks will slaughter the mech infantries.

- Spying. While communism is not great for researching. It is does have veteran spies.

- How to slow down Greece? You've already found the answer in your own experience -- drag them into communism. Declare on them, sign the world in alliance against them, pillage his tiles, do anything to kick them out of Democracy.

 

[fishjie]

Communism is bad in Civ3? But how are you possibly supposed to wage war in Democracy? I'm pretty bad at it - because all the cities get unhappy and I just end up creating entertainers everywhere (I have all the happiness buildings - temple cathedral colloseum etc)

anyway here is a screenshot. So in the minimap I am purple (iroquis) and greece is the light green that is right next to me. As you can see I built a little beach-head city in their island for a future invasion. They are way ahead in technology like I said with mech infantry and modern armor and all that stuff though. Yeah this is my first time playing Regent so I'm used to playing warlord and being #1 by the 1900s so I dunno if its possible to win.

 

[berserks01]

If you have a spy in Greece, see what kind of troops they have and how many. Then you can see if your troops can take them out. But my guess is that your cavs are obsolete, so I'd only use them to garrison cities more than attack unless there are still AA troops hanging around in the other civs.

I see that you've irrigated a lot of greens, and some of your tiles aren't irrigated/mined. So that's probably costing you in faster unit production because you're producing too little shields. I'd set my workers to mine all those irrigated tiles on greens.

I think you can still win this, provided you start producing more military and less city improvements. Not sure, need to see a save file.

 

[vmxa]

Warmonggers cannot use Commie or Demo in vanilla CivIII. They need to use either Rep or Monarchy. If you will truely never have peace, then you need to use Monarchy.

Get a couple of armies to use to attack and shield forces. Make some explorers to pillage tiles. In Conquest armies cna pillage, but IIRC they cannot in vanilla.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

If you are the only one who still needs radio it should be fairly cheap. Trade for it - you have a good deal of money.

Communism is bad in Civ3? But how are you possibly supposed to wage war in Democracy? I'm pretty bad at it - because all the cities get unhappy and I just end up creating entertainers everywhere (I have all the happiness buildings - temple cathedral colloseum etc)

Plan your wars in advance. One of the most important things is that just before you attack to get a couple of other Civs to declare war also. This will very likely spare you any big counter attacks. Moreover willl this lead to endless trench fighting amogst the AI's, which in turn yanks up their war wearyness and before long sends them into the Communist quagmire.

Also, instead of using entertainers, you may want to use the luxury sliders (20-50%).

And don't forget to read about how war wearyness works and the corresponding thread.

As to your game, don't forget that there is an Anarchy phase that Greece would have to go through should their Democracy fail due to war wearyness. During that phase they`ll not be able to produce anything. And that is your chance.

 

[fishjie]

blah in year 1997 ad i lost the game due to the Greeks finishing the space race. I was focusing on conquering the rest of my island (and was succeeding) before attacking the Greeks when all of a sudden I lost. which is weird because in Civ2 I'm used to it reporting when another Civilization has successfully completed a part for a spaceship. Guess its different in Civ3 huh.

So I plan to load to a previous save, maybe 1900 AD, and instead of conquering my island I'm going to focus on attacking the Greeks. So I'll follow the advice in this thread and form an alliance with every other nation, put mines on all my green tiles, and attack. But um... how do I get other nations to ally with me?

 

[Twonky]

blah in year 1997 ad i lost the game due to the Greeks finishing the space race.

Don´t worry, this happens to best. You´ll be better next time

I'm used to it reporting when another Civilization has successfully completed a part for a spaceship.

You can check each nations progress on the F10 screen. Still, you need an embassy to see the details.

But um... how do I get other nations to ally with me?

If you have an embassy with the civ you want to ally, you can negotiate a Millitary Alliance trough trade. Usually, you need to pay them. It depends on how friendly they are towards the victim. Plus, they will only agree when you are already at war with victim.

Good luck with your retry!

 

[SJ Frank]

To establish an embassy, you can either double-click on the star next to your capital, or click on the little 'E' button on the lower right corner of the screen. Then the next time your open negociations with the AI, the option to sign alliance will be there.

I believe you need spies in order to check spaceship progress via the F10 screen.

 

[zerksees]

which is weird because in Civ2 I'm used to it reporting when another Civilization has successfully completed a part for a spaceship. Guess its different in Civ3 huh.

Besides the embassy, check your options because you may have turned off the notification about completion of other civ's spaceship parts. It has been a while since I played vanilla Civ 3 but I know PTW and CSC will tell you when another civ has completed a part of the ship.

 

[fishjie]

ah, much better. i loaded from 1600 AD, had everyone ally with me and declare war on the greeks, set science to 0%, traded for a bunch of tech, traded my luxuries, and focused on destroying the greeks. yup, i gotta say, having everyone at war definitely slowed down all the civs and made them all bankrupt. made my job a lot easier. i conquered a greek city, and worked my way from there, eventually taking over their whole island.

I ran into some trouble near the end because the Greeks managed to get everyone else allied against me, but I ended up killing them all. France had 6/10 of the spaceship completed, but I sent over 32 modern armors and put an end to that nonsense. man regent is a lot harder than warlord!

I guess the lesson I learned from all this is that if theres a really huge and powerful civ, you've got to go to war with it and get everyone else involved, and drag them down, and youve gotta do it early on, before its too late.