Privateering?

[Random Passerby]

If you ever play a game where the field is actually leveled out a bit so you can't just roll over the AI, ocassionally some of the enemy civs will put together a fairly sizeable air force--that's when carriers come into their own. Battleships don't do much when your opponent can bomb them to 1 hp with impunity.

That said, their capacity is absurdly low at least compared to transports.

 

[sadu]

Pirate ships can be quite handy, but you do need the tech lead to use them properly. In my current game, I got water control early, and used privateers to shut down all galleys, caravels and more recently galleons that were patrolling the coastline.
There are 2 continents in this game, and as of 1800AD all AI civs don't know the other continent exists. This means that they can't trade techs quite as fast as they usually do, and all AI are now back in the dark ages.
The value of the privateer is shutting down the AI exploration missions, if you can get privateers before they get caravels (tricky I know).

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by sadu
. . .The value of the privateer is shutting down the AI exploration missions, if you can get privateers before they get caravels (tricky I know).

EXTREMELY unlikely.

One of the biggest problems with Civ 3 is all the fun of exploration and settlement well into the game (as in Civ 2) does not exist. Often, there is nothing left to explore by the time I build my first caravel! That's the unfortunate result of the crazy AI land-grab (Settler Diarrhea) made necessary by the far too low resource appearance rates. (At least that can be Edited).

 

[Willem]

Originally posted by andyo
privateers can be very useful - you can use them to attack other civ's boats - but since the nationality flag on the privateer is hidden, the other civ won't get pissed at you - won't start a war - etc.

That's only partially true. They may not declare war if you use one, but it will affect their attitude towards you. They know who those ships belong to, but they can't do anything about it directly.

 

[D9phoenix]

Random Passerby: Well the transports have about the same range as bombers, so i use that to my advantage. I end the turn with my transports outside the bombard range and inside there landing range for next turn. Once my troops hit the shores i could care less what happens for them as my reinforcements are on more transports usually already on the way. Im still not a big fan of airforces in civ3 yet. They have there uses, mostly just for bombing ships that approach my shores.
My lines tend to shift to quickly for aircraft to be usefull for any length of time, atleast until we can build airstrips. Late in the game i tend to just raise enemy cities and only hold onto strategic city locations as i hate dealing with revolts and culture flips.