Suffer from the Build Bug?

[krimson34]

Well first - hello all. Great forum, an abundance of resource for those like me who have only recently discovered the wonderful Civ3 - good job!

I'm catching up on most threads on this forum, and it seems to myself that I've fallen prey to a particular play style which inhibits me from adhering to my true intentions - DOMINATION BABY!
I suffer from the Build Bug.
What I mean to say is, when I start out, my goals are to get a nice, comfortable civilization going, medium research and expansion, yet also with a reasonable and medium military, sufficient enough to wage war. When the game ends, I want to beable to have successful war encounters under my belt, perhaps some extended land where other civilizations once stood, and yet have retained a decent, advanced, and quite prosperous network of cities.

But that ain't happening at all, Bob. No sir.

What is happening, is that I find I am completely seduced by the civilization side, while not finding the means to wage a successful military campaign, or two. It usually takes me well into the 1900's before I can even make a military move, having been completely raptured by "I need that wonder! All my cities must have this university! Have to mine and irrigate and railroad every tile! Must have every city at 16+ pop with enough shields!"
So the game usually ends with me having a good city base and a productive civilization, with little or no luck in the militarisitc side of the game, ending up with perhaps a war or two done, or being waged, but mostly by the AI.

I look around this forum and hear people having built military campaigns consisting of 100+ tanks and artliery!
The most I've ever built by 2050 is about 20 tanks, a few ships and some carriers with bombers, and maybe a MI in border cities.

Any ideas on how I can whip myself in to shape?
Basically, I have this *thing* drilled in to my mind, urging me to build every improvement in every city, and to grab every wonder available, and so I leave no available time or resource for war.
Which then leads me to believe the game is simply too short to do it all in. When I know there truley is sufficient time to wage war and build a good civilization.

Regards. And thanks!

 

[dozenlong]

It's much tougher in Civ3 to be succesful with that mentality than it was in Civ2. Set specific goals, based on civ and map size -- right now, for example, I am playing the Vikings and have my heart set on on some Berserker wars. To that end, I have expanded but have built a few high production cities with Barracks, which will start pumping out Berserkers shortly.

Make goals.

 

[Mano3]

I feel your pain brother! You have to make a focused plan from the beginning based on your CIV's traits and UU. I love to build too, but I've found that if I have a war-like CIV and a good UU, I can dominate faster.

 

[Hornhelm]

Instead of trying to get rid of your *thing*, you can use it to your advantage by switching your focus from city improvements to luxury and strategic resources, or strategic (or aesthetically pleasing!) city locations. If your compulsion is to acquire all luxury resources, for example, you're going to learn the art of war much faster, it will put you in a better position than building up all your cities would, and you will notice at the end that somehow, you ended up building most of the improvements in your core cities anyway. Remember that generally, power comes from land grabbing; or at least killing off your neighbours. Don't think you can sit peacefully in your corner, build up your cities, and get ahead while all the 'warmongers' beat themselves silly.

 

[Trev]

I am a builder by nature, but I always end up with a strong army because I have no city improvements left to build, they have all been built! So I ended up in my last game at deity having about 120 radar artillery plus some normal artillery and substantial numbers of MA's and MI's, which meant not having much to do, I initiated several wars and aconquering I went. As is usual with a builder I won by the spaceship method ( I always leave all win options on).

If you do not have time to build military units then it appears you have not made your cities sufficiently productive, you need to look at whether you are building mines and irrigation early enough in the game for your cities ie do you have enough workers? Also are you railroading all squares very quickly after learning steam engine? In general all city squares should be roaded, mined/irrigated just prior to learning steam engine (this includes clearing all jungles and forests) so that all workers can be put onto railrading all city sqares at this point. This will then maximize your city production so that you do have time to build improvements and military units

 

[Salamandre]

I think your problem is the dif.level you playing on. Try monarch/emperor and you will never have the time to build universities everywhere.

 

[magicianeer]

Start a new game on a Tiny map playing as an ancient Militaristic civ like Zulu, Persia or Aztec. You will start with prohibitively expensive buildings and cheap but Deadly units. Build 6 cities, barracks in all cities, and lots of your UU. War follows naturally-- attack your nearest neighbor no later than 1000BC with whatever you have. Ideally, you should hurt your neighbor before 2000BC. You should be done one way or another in a few hours.

Tip: Make a special point of fortifying a unit on all Iron and Horse resources, especially in AI territory. Don't listen to any AI complaints.

 

[Affirmative]

Originally posted by magicianeer

Tip: Make a special point of fortifying a unit on all Iron and Horse resources, especially in AI territory. Don't listen to any AI complaints.

The above is a huge exploit when using a unit such as a worker or scout. Don't do it.


However, the rest of magicianeer's advice is top stuff. You might want to check out the gotm QSC's. They outline some of the best early game warmongering strategies around. You'll notice that most players build four or five core cities. These cities are all located in shield rich areas and produce at least 10 spt. The other cities often just build culture or workers.

Your core cities then cdan produce one veteran warrior every turn for a while. After you have somewhere around 40 warriors connect your iron source, upgrade the warriors, and go take a dozen cities or so.