Hi all, im an old civ1 player, never played civ2 or SMAC. Grabbed Civ3 the other day, WOW!. I was starting to think it was impossible to have a fun game of anything just against computer AI. All the other games ive played recently had single player aspects but were extremely boring. Only the online vs humans part was interesting..
Ive been playing for about 2 weeks now, and reading this forum for about a month..jotting down a few things for discussion
The manual states while at war all culture generation is halved. I haven't seen any discussion on this at all, but it is another very important reason to keep wars short. Not at home now so I can confirm it is actually true..
What are the rules for armour auto-firing at passing units during enemy turns? ive had it happen both in and out of fortresses but it doesn't seem to happen consistently.
Ive found a very effective tactic at slimming down the inital enemy counter attacks. I had just declared war on english(but not attacked yet) , they were easily the biggest civ on the planet but i had some buddies ready to go. The almost endless stream of english units starts flowing up to a land bottleneck, where I have 2 mountains with forts, with 3 infantry and 4 cannons in each. The english wisely didn't attack these positions but instead tried to pass by them (bottleneck). EVERY cannon shoots at EVERY passing unit, so I went from being very worried having 40 odd full health veteran enemy units to having 40 odd 1-2 life bar units just in my border(they cant heal). Sweet pickings for my 15 or so elites waiting on the other side (with the extra advantage of the enemy not being able to use my roads). 3 turns later the entire 40 odd english attack force is gone, and 2 great leaders for me
Ive seen many people complain about artillery not being able to kill units, and how it is pretty useless... without artillery in this case i would have been in alot of trouble.
I counter-counter attack with my elites and new army, and took my arty down from the hills with them, in a war that lastest less than 20 turns total the strongest military power in the world was destroyed. The key was not attacking first, but let the main part of the war take place on my border under my control.
Like others have mentioned, i have found that not trading my maps until i have secured my land (culture borders over into the ocean all around the continent) really helps stop the AI put annoying cities in tundra etc. This works even better if you are the one to get the lighthouse, a wonder i think many people seriously underestimate.
The lighthouse (for all maps except pangea):
-If youve got it no-one else can get across large oceans for decent amount of time, resulting in more continent based civs rather than the annoying civiliztations with a few crappy tundra cities on every continent..
-You can meet with every other civ in the world early, a HUGE diplomatic advantage, you get to choose partially who has contact with who. What techs are traded between continents. You can kinda be the world communicator.
eg. In a game recently I was attacking the russians in a remote area of my continent. I made sure they never got contact with anyone(early knowledge of the map), this means no tech trades, no resource trades, no alliances.. just poor russia all alone getting wiped out, very cruel, very fun
-You get an early idea of the landscape which is crucial to maximise chances you have for future resources. eg. that crappy little island covered in jungle you find early will likely have critical resources, without the lighthouse you probably wont be the first there..
-HUTS... even though in my games most of them are taken by this stage there are still a few on islands... get them first for a few free techs which always help.
-early knowledge of the continents and who is on what, identifying potential bottlenecks really help guide a gameplan.
-You cant see how well a civ is going on the score screen until you have contact with them!
Its all about finding out sooner rather than later... or sooner rather than too late.
-have 5-6 galleys ready on the corners of your known world, as soon as lighthouse is complete you can send them straight out rapidly discovering the world.. its nice becuase it doesn't have any turnaround time, the effects are instant and apply to all your galleys. With 6 of them going even on a large map you can quickly get an outline of the continents, meet some civs and see how they are going.
I love pyramids and sun-tzu's together, building a new city with the 2 basic improvements already there is really nice..
Border cities on hills! the extra defense is great early game and with 2 good defenders are nearly impossible to take. Especially with walls or size > 6. Channel the enemy to attack these cities to get your defenders elite..
Military training camps...oh i mean Barbarian camps, got a small black spot in your territory that keeps spewing out barbarians... keep it and train you armies on it, if you miss out on sun-tzus then barb training camps can help you get vet and elite units out into the field fairly easily. The only risk here is you want them fenced off fairly well, else they get out and destroy improvements.
The best spots ive found to make them are pushed up against inland lakes, the land is normally desert around these, and with the lake on one side you have half your defense taken care of. You can purposely create barb spots by leaving spots outside culture borders... you can even turn them 'on' or 'off'.. just kill it and park a unit there for a few turns to turn it off.. pull out when you want it back on. later in the game the barb camps spew out alot of units.
Has anyone ever had a great leader appear from a barb fight?
Or a great leader from a defender on enemies turn?
If a city is stuck at a size limit. eg size 12 waiting for hospitals and has nothing to build pump out workers or settlers even if there is no work to be done. When you do get a hospital put all the workers, even settlers back into the city for an instant mega city
If you already have heaps of workers ready and the city is still trying to grow past 12 without a hospital make sure you change the land the people work, get maximum shields or trade because while the city cant grow that extra food is useless!
Under depostism when you capture enemy workers, but dont want to have them hanging around the battle have them build roads back to a close city, put them in that city, and then whip them out into units for your war efforts, which can go straight out into the fray over your new roads.
Something i haven't tried out yet.. but ive noticed you can activate units on a transport mid ocean.. sure they cant do much.. but can arty shoot from a transport?
If so a transport with 8 mobile arty stacked with a battleship for protection could be the most dangerous ship of the ocean, Bomb Bomb Bomb pick off 1HP unit easily with battleship..Nice way to get vet battleships as well if it works.... Let alone absolute terror for costal enemy cities... free shots from a safe distance....
On ships it would be nice if their was an equiv to a 'hero'. For a vet ship that wins. It could become like the flagship of your navy, giving +2 movement and the ability to attack twice in a turn or something...
Or for a carrier flagship +2 defense +2 capacity or something..
Oh crap.. here comes the american navy.. and they mean business as they have brought their flagship. Just an idea to spice up naval combat
Discussions, comments, nits, flames, questions, corrections please
-Zedar
Ive been playing for about 2 weeks now, and reading this forum for about a month..jotting down a few things for discussion
The manual states while at war all culture generation is halved. I haven't seen any discussion on this at all, but it is another very important reason to keep wars short. Not at home now so I can confirm it is actually true..
What are the rules for armour auto-firing at passing units during enemy turns? ive had it happen both in and out of fortresses but it doesn't seem to happen consistently.
Ive found a very effective tactic at slimming down the inital enemy counter attacks. I had just declared war on english(but not attacked yet) , they were easily the biggest civ on the planet but i had some buddies ready to go. The almost endless stream of english units starts flowing up to a land bottleneck, where I have 2 mountains with forts, with 3 infantry and 4 cannons in each. The english wisely didn't attack these positions but instead tried to pass by them (bottleneck). EVERY cannon shoots at EVERY passing unit, so I went from being very worried having 40 odd full health veteran enemy units to having 40 odd 1-2 life bar units just in my border(they cant heal). Sweet pickings for my 15 or so elites waiting on the other side (with the extra advantage of the enemy not being able to use my roads). 3 turns later the entire 40 odd english attack force is gone, and 2 great leaders for me
Ive seen many people complain about artillery not being able to kill units, and how it is pretty useless... without artillery in this case i would have been in alot of trouble.
I counter-counter attack with my elites and new army, and took my arty down from the hills with them, in a war that lastest less than 20 turns total the strongest military power in the world was destroyed. The key was not attacking first, but let the main part of the war take place on my border under my control.
Like others have mentioned, i have found that not trading my maps until i have secured my land (culture borders over into the ocean all around the continent) really helps stop the AI put annoying cities in tundra etc. This works even better if you are the one to get the lighthouse, a wonder i think many people seriously underestimate.
The lighthouse (for all maps except pangea):
-If youve got it no-one else can get across large oceans for decent amount of time, resulting in more continent based civs rather than the annoying civiliztations with a few crappy tundra cities on every continent..
-You can meet with every other civ in the world early, a HUGE diplomatic advantage, you get to choose partially who has contact with who. What techs are traded between continents. You can kinda be the world communicator.
eg. In a game recently I was attacking the russians in a remote area of my continent. I made sure they never got contact with anyone(early knowledge of the map), this means no tech trades, no resource trades, no alliances.. just poor russia all alone getting wiped out, very cruel, very fun
-You get an early idea of the landscape which is crucial to maximise chances you have for future resources. eg. that crappy little island covered in jungle you find early will likely have critical resources, without the lighthouse you probably wont be the first there..
-HUTS... even though in my games most of them are taken by this stage there are still a few on islands... get them first for a few free techs which always help.
-early knowledge of the continents and who is on what, identifying potential bottlenecks really help guide a gameplan.
-You cant see how well a civ is going on the score screen until you have contact with them!
Its all about finding out sooner rather than later... or sooner rather than too late.
-have 5-6 galleys ready on the corners of your known world, as soon as lighthouse is complete you can send them straight out rapidly discovering the world.. its nice becuase it doesn't have any turnaround time, the effects are instant and apply to all your galleys. With 6 of them going even on a large map you can quickly get an outline of the continents, meet some civs and see how they are going.
I love pyramids and sun-tzu's together, building a new city with the 2 basic improvements already there is really nice..
Border cities on hills! the extra defense is great early game and with 2 good defenders are nearly impossible to take. Especially with walls or size > 6. Channel the enemy to attack these cities to get your defenders elite..
Military training camps...oh i mean Barbarian camps, got a small black spot in your territory that keeps spewing out barbarians... keep it and train you armies on it, if you miss out on sun-tzus then barb training camps can help you get vet and elite units out into the field fairly easily. The only risk here is you want them fenced off fairly well, else they get out and destroy improvements.
The best spots ive found to make them are pushed up against inland lakes, the land is normally desert around these, and with the lake on one side you have half your defense taken care of. You can purposely create barb spots by leaving spots outside culture borders... you can even turn them 'on' or 'off'.. just kill it and park a unit there for a few turns to turn it off.. pull out when you want it back on. later in the game the barb camps spew out alot of units.
Has anyone ever had a great leader appear from a barb fight?
Or a great leader from a defender on enemies turn?
If a city is stuck at a size limit. eg size 12 waiting for hospitals and has nothing to build pump out workers or settlers even if there is no work to be done. When you do get a hospital put all the workers, even settlers back into the city for an instant mega city
If you already have heaps of workers ready and the city is still trying to grow past 12 without a hospital make sure you change the land the people work, get maximum shields or trade because while the city cant grow that extra food is useless!
Under depostism when you capture enemy workers, but dont want to have them hanging around the battle have them build roads back to a close city, put them in that city, and then whip them out into units for your war efforts, which can go straight out into the fray over your new roads.
Something i haven't tried out yet.. but ive noticed you can activate units on a transport mid ocean.. sure they cant do much.. but can arty shoot from a transport?
If so a transport with 8 mobile arty stacked with a battleship for protection could be the most dangerous ship of the ocean, Bomb Bomb Bomb pick off 1HP unit easily with battleship..Nice way to get vet battleships as well if it works.... Let alone absolute terror for costal enemy cities... free shots from a safe distance....
On ships it would be nice if their was an equiv to a 'hero'. For a vet ship that wins. It could become like the flagship of your navy, giving +2 movement and the ability to attack twice in a turn or something...
Or for a carrier flagship +2 defense +2 capacity or something..
Oh crap.. here comes the american navy.. and they mean business as they have brought their flagship. Just an idea to spice up naval combat
Discussions, comments, nits, flames, questions, corrections please
-Zedar
