Background: I'm a lot worse at Civ III than justanick, Lanzelot, or Spoonwood, who are all top-flight players. I can usually win at Emperor, though; I think a fair amount of the difference is I'm less dedicated to playing optimally, and thus am not going to be winning on Deity outside of edge case maps (an optimal tiny island start, for example), and will have a rough time of it if I try Demigod. You could also say that I don't have the patience to micro-manage enough to win at those upper difficulty levels.
If you do everything that justanick, Lanzelot, and Spoonwood suggest, you'll soon be blowing Deity out of the water - but there are a lot of things that can be suggested. If you only do what I suggest, you won't be taking top spots on the CivFanatics Civ III Hall of Fame, but you can likely win on Emperor.
That said, here's what I see:
- You seem to have fallen into the "expense minimization" trap. 90% science, and the only things you are paying for are a barracks and granary at Thebes, a very new temple at Lisht, and a barracks at Byblos. There's nothing wrong with producing warriors for military police without barracks, but right now there are 10 cities building War Chariots of which only two have Barracks, and none producing Barracks. That extra hitpoint is worth its weight in gold. Ideally, all of your offensive units will be produced from Barracks, but if you get into an unplanned war early, you should still try to get Barracks in all of your major military-producing cities as soon as possible.
- More workers and non-automated workers. You have 50% as many workers as cities; I generally aim for 100% or more workers per city. The amount of tiles improved per city isn't bad, but the automated workers are doing silly things like irrigating grasslands without cows under despotism. Especially with the keyboard shortcuts ('i' for irrigate, the NumPad to move, 'r' for road), I find worker assignment to almost be on autopilot a lot of the time.
- Diplomacy. Zululand is pretty much optimal for opposing Egypt and its War Chariots, with its 2 movement points, the Impi prevents the War Chariot from retreating if it is losing, negating its main advantage over the Archer. Plus Zululand is powerful. Getting the Hittites to take half the load off your shoulders would make it much easier. Indeed, good use of alliances is increasingly important on higher difficulties.
Of course many of the other items mentioned would help as well, but if I had to choose just three, that's what they would be. Curragh exploration for more trading, yeah, it's a good idea, but even against Zululand a War Chariot offensive should be possible, especially if Zululand has two fronts. The Republic slingshot, it's optimal, but Monarchy is perfectly viable on Emperor, and even Despotism can work out (until 90 BC, not necessarily 2050 AD) in the "swarm of many cheap units" approach that the War Chariot lends itself to. Not saying it's better, as it isn't, but I've had a delightful time re-discovering Despotism in recent years, and finding that it's not a defeat sentence to stick with it for a while so long as your strategy is making use of its unit support limit, and isn't too reliant on tiles with 3 yield (irrigated grasslands, mined hills, etc.).
I'll admit that I like early-unique-unit civs on Emperor, despite often starting a Despotism Golden Age. Gauls, Iroquois, Egyptians, Romans, Babylonians. As a less optimal player, the tough hurdle to clear on Emperor/Demigod for me is winning that first war; once I've absorbed half of another empire's land, I tend to be competitive. And an early unique unit helps with that. Thus I'd probably favor sticking with one of those civs until you get your first Emperor victory, and once that's accomplished, you could switch to China or Arabia and aim for a Republic slingshot and Riders/Ansars, and see how that can supercharge things. But for a first victory, I think the early unique unit makes it easier, even if the score isn't as high in the end.
If you do everything that justanick, Lanzelot, and Spoonwood suggest, you'll soon be blowing Deity out of the water - but there are a lot of things that can be suggested. If you only do what I suggest, you won't be taking top spots on the CivFanatics Civ III Hall of Fame, but you can likely win on Emperor.
That said, here's what I see:
- You seem to have fallen into the "expense minimization" trap. 90% science, and the only things you are paying for are a barracks and granary at Thebes, a very new temple at Lisht, and a barracks at Byblos. There's nothing wrong with producing warriors for military police without barracks, but right now there are 10 cities building War Chariots of which only two have Barracks, and none producing Barracks. That extra hitpoint is worth its weight in gold. Ideally, all of your offensive units will be produced from Barracks, but if you get into an unplanned war early, you should still try to get Barracks in all of your major military-producing cities as soon as possible.
- More workers and non-automated workers. You have 50% as many workers as cities; I generally aim for 100% or more workers per city. The amount of tiles improved per city isn't bad, but the automated workers are doing silly things like irrigating grasslands without cows under despotism. Especially with the keyboard shortcuts ('i' for irrigate, the NumPad to move, 'r' for road), I find worker assignment to almost be on autopilot a lot of the time.
- Diplomacy. Zululand is pretty much optimal for opposing Egypt and its War Chariots, with its 2 movement points, the Impi prevents the War Chariot from retreating if it is losing, negating its main advantage over the Archer. Plus Zululand is powerful. Getting the Hittites to take half the load off your shoulders would make it much easier. Indeed, good use of alliances is increasingly important on higher difficulties.
Of course many of the other items mentioned would help as well, but if I had to choose just three, that's what they would be. Curragh exploration for more trading, yeah, it's a good idea, but even against Zululand a War Chariot offensive should be possible, especially if Zululand has two fronts. The Republic slingshot, it's optimal, but Monarchy is perfectly viable on Emperor, and even Despotism can work out (until 90 BC, not necessarily 2050 AD) in the "swarm of many cheap units" approach that the War Chariot lends itself to. Not saying it's better, as it isn't, but I've had a delightful time re-discovering Despotism in recent years, and finding that it's not a defeat sentence to stick with it for a while so long as your strategy is making use of its unit support limit, and isn't too reliant on tiles with 3 yield (irrigated grasslands, mined hills, etc.).
I'll admit that I like early-unique-unit civs on Emperor, despite often starting a Despotism Golden Age. Gauls, Iroquois, Egyptians, Romans, Babylonians. As a less optimal player, the tough hurdle to clear on Emperor/Demigod for me is winning that first war; once I've absorbed half of another empire's land, I tend to be competitive. And an early unique unit helps with that. Thus I'd probably favor sticking with one of those civs until you get your first Emperor victory, and once that's accomplished, you could switch to China or Arabia and aim for a Republic slingshot and Riders/Ansars, and see how that can supercharge things. But for a first victory, I think the early unique unit makes it easier, even if the score isn't as high in the end.
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