Ringo Kid
Prince
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2004
- Messages
- 536
Builder Strategy for the Portugese- Conquests C3C
Standard Map, Continents, 70 % water. Civ is the Portugese, seafaring and expansionist.
Standard victory conditions, cultural conversion off
Who, what and why.
This is a builder strategy for Regent/Monarch level players , and is designed for those who would like to build a huge empire of metropolises and try out most of the feautures in the game. This strategy is effective because it uses the AI civ’s to build yours.
The tactics I use in the strategy I learned from the other posters on the forum and in the War Academy. So if you like my strategy and it improves your play or enjoyment of the game, give the credit to those guys and gals.
Usually playing this strategy you will end up with a cultural victory at just about the time you are ready to build and launch the spaceship. But you can go for whatever victory condition you like.
The twelve step program.
Step one: Build ten cities.
Your first goal is to get ten cities up and productive. They should be close together , two or three spaces apart. Build coastal cities, and on rivers where possible. Build near any close luxuries but dont go wandering around the map to reach them. It's critical to get your first ten cities up and running asap.
The research path is straight to Republic, starting with Writing. Turn your research slider to minimum, and you will learn writing in 50 turns while accumulating a large treasury. Do not trade techs at this point, but do give in to any demands for tech. You do not want to fight anyone until you are ready.
When you get Writing, adjust the slider upwards to research Code of Laws and then Philosophy as quickly as possible, about twenty turns. At the end of every turn check to see if you can lower the tech slider without slowing your research. Often you will be able to do this when your research is on the last two turns. When you learn Philosophy choose Republic as your free tech. Now trade Code of Laws and Philosophy with your neighbors to pick up the other techs. Hang on to your gold, dont buy techs, just trade for them.
Your scout should be out popping huts and locating the other civs, and seeing what luxuries they have. You should build mostly scouts and a few warriors. Also build a curragh and explore with it.
Your secondary goal is to have a temple, barracks and worker for each of your ten cities. The simplest way to get your ten cities up and running quickly is to have your cities build the buildings and units while waiting to grow to size three. At the end of every turn, check and see if any of your cities have grown to size three or are about to. If so, then switch production to a settler. Once you have your ten cities built, then stop building settlers and get the rest of the workers, barracks and temples built.
Third goal in this phase is to build a military of twenty veteran units. Exactly what you build depends on your resources. If you have iron, do not hook it up right away. Build fifteen warriors, and then hook up the iron and upgrade them to swordsmen with the gold you have set aside. If you do not have iron then build horsemen or archers. Also build five veteran spearmen. When you have your twenty units built, it's time for step two.
Step two: Attack your weak neighbors and take their stuff.
In this phase your goal is to take some good locations, resources and luxuries from your weak neighbors with the military you just built. It's important to attack the weak and leave the strong alone at this point. For example say your neighbors are the Byzantines, the Japanese and the Iroquois.
Your scouts have determined that the Japanese are the weakest of your neighbors, most of their cities are small and in the jungle. But the capital is nearby , on a river, and has incense. The Byzantines have better, larger towns but are a bit further away. They do have a city with both iron and wine, so that's a good target for you.
The Iroquois are busy expanding on the other side of your continent, and have Mounted Warriors. They are the strongest civ at this point. You dont yet have horses or iron. So you decide not to mess with them. You do whatever it takes to maintain good relations with them. Tell them you like their haircut, give in to any demands they make, and trade them a luxury if you can.
So you declare war on the Japanese, and march your entire stack of twenty units directly to the city on the river with incense. Your archers attack and take the city. You decide which other two or three nearby Japanese towns are best, the ones that have good terrain or a coast or resource. You wait until your attackers have healed and replacements have arrive for the troops you may have lost in the assault. Then you move the entire stack to the next town you want, and repeat the process until all the towns you selected are under your control. Then you make peace with Japan. You only want the good towns at this point, let the Japanese cut down the jungles for you and build some stuff in the weaker towns that you can take away from them later. When you make the peace offer, ask them for a town or a tech or a gold as part of the deal. Not a big deal, but you take whatever they are willing to give. If they dont want to give you anything, make peace anyway, because you have already taken what you decided you really wanted.
Your ten original towns have been producing new veteran attackers and defenders in the meantime, so your military is now large enough to take on the stronger Byzantine towns. You have added a catapult or two to your force. So you declare war on the Byzantines, and march your entire force in a stack to that city with the Iron and Wine. Capture that city and some other nearby good ones, just as you did to the Japanese. You want to take any good resources or luxuries that are near to your original ten towns.
When you have taken the good towns that you want, make peace with the Byzantine and get ready to switch to Republic.
Step three: Switch to Republic and build cool stuff in your cities
Okay, so now you have about 20 cities in good locations with lots of resources and luxuries. It's time to switch to republic. You should now be building all the cultural buildings you can, cheapest ones first in all your cities. I disband all my foot soldiers at this point, keeping a few mounted units for defense. This builds the cultural stuff faster and lowers your expenses while in Republic. You should also build barracks in the captured cities, and aqueducts where you need them.
Build the forbidden palace in a coastal city near your capitol that has strong shield potential. This will make a good city for building wonders. The most important wonder to build is Magellan's Voyage, to trigger your golden age. Secondly it gives you a faster Navy. Don't freak out if anyone beats you to a wonder you want, because you will take it away from them later.
Research Path is to Chivalry, Astronomy, Printing Press, Navigation and Military Tradition.
When you have Printing Press and Astronomy, be ready to upgrade your Navy to Carrack's, and immediately cross the ocean to meet the civ's on the other continent. You will probably be able to trade techs, contacts and maps for a huge amount of gold, since you will meet them first.
As your cities finish building the cultural improvements, build Knights / Cavalry to get ready for the next phase.
Step four: Attack your strong neighbors and take their stuff
Now it's time to take your strong neighbor's good stuff and add it to your burgeoning empire. If you have not already , build about twenty Cavalry as an attack force. Add some strong defenders too. I like to time it so I declare war just as I discover Nationalism. That way I can upgrade to rifleman as defenders, and "mobilize" to increase my production of Cavalry at the same time. You should be at least as strong as the Iroquis by now, and probably in the tech lead. So switch most of your cities to cavalry and have a few cities along the border build riflemen and cannon. Again, you want to attack the first target with your entire stack of twenty cavalry, wait for healing and reinforcements, and then go on to the next target. If there is a large gap between targets a good tactic is to move a small force of riflemen and cannon to a point two spaces form the target, so you dont leave your cavalry unprotected for a turn.
Just keep taking cities until war weariness becomes an issue, and then make peace terms, getting a tech or city in the process if you can. This should leave you in a position of about thirty to forty large cities, while your remaining continental enemies have four or five small weak cities each.
Step five: Expand and fill gaps
During peacetime, you want to build up the cities you just took with cultural improvements and barracks. If your largest towns have reached size twelve, build settlers from those towns and expand your borders or fill gaps between cities with new towns. Build workers also to improve your new territory. I like to have about 2 workers per town, more is always better.
In your established towns you should build marketplaces, banks and courthouses.
Your tech goal is learn Communism.
Step Six: Communism Quashes Corruption (and your enemies)
Once you research Communism, switch to it right away. This will fight corruption in your cities and end war weariness. Research espionage and build your Secret Police Headquarters which further reduces corruption. Also build police stations in corrupt cities. If you enjoy micro managing you can use your civil engineer and policemen specialists to adjust city by city to get maximum production and happiness. If you can get your cities into "We Love The Comrade" celebrations, (Size 6 or larger with no unhappy citizens) that will further reduce waste.
I enjoy fighting corruption, it has always been annoying to me that Civ 3 has so much of it. But this strategy will get all your cities in the area of only twenty percent corrupt or better, which solves that problem for the most part.
Step Seven: Grab your entire continent
Now that you have solved the war weariness issue, you can go ahead and take the remaining cities on your continent whenever it's convenient for you. Sometimes I save one neighbor for later in the game so I can do a little tank combat, just for fun. But usually I go ahead and grab all the real estate on my continent. That pretty much ensures that you will have all the coal, oil and aluminum you need later in the game within your own empire.
Step Eight: Industrialize
In this phase you build railroads, hospitals, factories and the Hoover Dam great wonder. This gives you a continent full of huge,extremely productive metropolises. And since you have built all the temples, coliseums, and cathedrals all your cities will be happy ones. And with the banks, stock exchanges, commercial docks plus the trade bonus in coastal cities the Portugese get as a seafaring nation, you will be a very rich empire too. (I like to build Smith's Trading Company for all the free improvements you get empire wide. )
At this point you will be number one in pretty much every category, since you own an entire continent and three or four civs share the other one.
Step Nine: Build an awesome navy
Since you have a huge Communist empire, you can support a very large Military with no support costs. Also, since you have an entire continental coastline full of powerful cities, you can make a huge Navy very quickly. A large powerful Navy keeps the enemy away form your continent for the rest of the game. Just sink every ship you see.
Step Ten: take some stuff from distant countries
If the AI civ's have any luxuries you dont, you should take those cities from them. This is because you want to control all the luxuries, so your cities will be happier and therefore more efficient. Take the large military you created while conquering your continent, load them onto transports and sail them over to the city with the luxury, with a huge number of escorting ships. The more the merrier. Bring Infantry, artillery, cavalry , tanks, whatever you have. Just bring a lot all at the same time. Land your troops next to the town, bombard with your ships to redline the defenders, then take the city and the luxury.
Do the same until you have at least one of every luxury.
Step Eleven: Enslave the AI population to build your empire
You can never have too many workers. Rather than build them though, you can use the military to take them from the AI civs. There are all sorts of fun ways to catch AI workers, and you can get even with them for all the times in the past they have stolen workers from you. Don't you hate that? So turn their trick against them, and steal all their workers.
One good way is to bombard their coastal squares with your navy, which will attract workers to repair the damage. Then you land troops nearby, which will cause the workers to run into the city. Capture the city and raze it. That way you get the workers who tried tohide in the city and turn the former city's pop into yet more workers. Needless to say, you should bring extra transport along with you to carry the slaves back to your continent.
Other tactics include simply cruising along the coast with marines in a transport, and grabbing any workers you stumble upon. Or razing every coastal city the AI builds and carrying away the slaves. Or look for an area of the map with three or four large cities close together, and attack with a large enough force to raze them all. Razing four size seven cities will get you about a dozen slaves.
It's fun, and moreimportantly it's good strategy, because with every raid you increase your strength and weaken your enemy. In effect you are prompting the AI to build more settlers, plant new towns which will grow up, and then you can come back and harvest them again later for more slaves. It's like planting a crop, really.
Also its good to pillage any resources the AI can use to build strong defenders, like iron, rubber, oil. Makes it easier to raze the ctites they build for you.
Step Twelve: You win.
Obviously by this point in the game you are in complete control and can win with whatever victory condition you like. High score, space ship, culture, or you could just wipe out the enemy altogether and win by domination or conquest.
I enjoy seeing how large I can get my cities to grow, how many cities I can build all the possible city improvements in, and how many slaves I can capture before the cultural victory occurs.
Questions, comments and suggestions appreciated.
Standard Map, Continents, 70 % water. Civ is the Portugese, seafaring and expansionist.
Standard victory conditions, cultural conversion off
Who, what and why.
This is a builder strategy for Regent/Monarch level players , and is designed for those who would like to build a huge empire of metropolises and try out most of the feautures in the game. This strategy is effective because it uses the AI civ’s to build yours.
The tactics I use in the strategy I learned from the other posters on the forum and in the War Academy. So if you like my strategy and it improves your play or enjoyment of the game, give the credit to those guys and gals.
Usually playing this strategy you will end up with a cultural victory at just about the time you are ready to build and launch the spaceship. But you can go for whatever victory condition you like.
The twelve step program.
Step one: Build ten cities.
Your first goal is to get ten cities up and productive. They should be close together , two or three spaces apart. Build coastal cities, and on rivers where possible. Build near any close luxuries but dont go wandering around the map to reach them. It's critical to get your first ten cities up and running asap.
The research path is straight to Republic, starting with Writing. Turn your research slider to minimum, and you will learn writing in 50 turns while accumulating a large treasury. Do not trade techs at this point, but do give in to any demands for tech. You do not want to fight anyone until you are ready.
When you get Writing, adjust the slider upwards to research Code of Laws and then Philosophy as quickly as possible, about twenty turns. At the end of every turn check to see if you can lower the tech slider without slowing your research. Often you will be able to do this when your research is on the last two turns. When you learn Philosophy choose Republic as your free tech. Now trade Code of Laws and Philosophy with your neighbors to pick up the other techs. Hang on to your gold, dont buy techs, just trade for them.
Your scout should be out popping huts and locating the other civs, and seeing what luxuries they have. You should build mostly scouts and a few warriors. Also build a curragh and explore with it.
Your secondary goal is to have a temple, barracks and worker for each of your ten cities. The simplest way to get your ten cities up and running quickly is to have your cities build the buildings and units while waiting to grow to size three. At the end of every turn, check and see if any of your cities have grown to size three or are about to. If so, then switch production to a settler. Once you have your ten cities built, then stop building settlers and get the rest of the workers, barracks and temples built.
Third goal in this phase is to build a military of twenty veteran units. Exactly what you build depends on your resources. If you have iron, do not hook it up right away. Build fifteen warriors, and then hook up the iron and upgrade them to swordsmen with the gold you have set aside. If you do not have iron then build horsemen or archers. Also build five veteran spearmen. When you have your twenty units built, it's time for step two.
Step two: Attack your weak neighbors and take their stuff.
In this phase your goal is to take some good locations, resources and luxuries from your weak neighbors with the military you just built. It's important to attack the weak and leave the strong alone at this point. For example say your neighbors are the Byzantines, the Japanese and the Iroquois.
Your scouts have determined that the Japanese are the weakest of your neighbors, most of their cities are small and in the jungle. But the capital is nearby , on a river, and has incense. The Byzantines have better, larger towns but are a bit further away. They do have a city with both iron and wine, so that's a good target for you.
The Iroquois are busy expanding on the other side of your continent, and have Mounted Warriors. They are the strongest civ at this point. You dont yet have horses or iron. So you decide not to mess with them. You do whatever it takes to maintain good relations with them. Tell them you like their haircut, give in to any demands they make, and trade them a luxury if you can.
So you declare war on the Japanese, and march your entire stack of twenty units directly to the city on the river with incense. Your archers attack and take the city. You decide which other two or three nearby Japanese towns are best, the ones that have good terrain or a coast or resource. You wait until your attackers have healed and replacements have arrive for the troops you may have lost in the assault. Then you move the entire stack to the next town you want, and repeat the process until all the towns you selected are under your control. Then you make peace with Japan. You only want the good towns at this point, let the Japanese cut down the jungles for you and build some stuff in the weaker towns that you can take away from them later. When you make the peace offer, ask them for a town or a tech or a gold as part of the deal. Not a big deal, but you take whatever they are willing to give. If they dont want to give you anything, make peace anyway, because you have already taken what you decided you really wanted.
Your ten original towns have been producing new veteran attackers and defenders in the meantime, so your military is now large enough to take on the stronger Byzantine towns. You have added a catapult or two to your force. So you declare war on the Byzantines, and march your entire force in a stack to that city with the Iron and Wine. Capture that city and some other nearby good ones, just as you did to the Japanese. You want to take any good resources or luxuries that are near to your original ten towns.
When you have taken the good towns that you want, make peace with the Byzantine and get ready to switch to Republic.
Step three: Switch to Republic and build cool stuff in your cities
Okay, so now you have about 20 cities in good locations with lots of resources and luxuries. It's time to switch to republic. You should now be building all the cultural buildings you can, cheapest ones first in all your cities. I disband all my foot soldiers at this point, keeping a few mounted units for defense. This builds the cultural stuff faster and lowers your expenses while in Republic. You should also build barracks in the captured cities, and aqueducts where you need them.
Build the forbidden palace in a coastal city near your capitol that has strong shield potential. This will make a good city for building wonders. The most important wonder to build is Magellan's Voyage, to trigger your golden age. Secondly it gives you a faster Navy. Don't freak out if anyone beats you to a wonder you want, because you will take it away from them later.
Research Path is to Chivalry, Astronomy, Printing Press, Navigation and Military Tradition.
When you have Printing Press and Astronomy, be ready to upgrade your Navy to Carrack's, and immediately cross the ocean to meet the civ's on the other continent. You will probably be able to trade techs, contacts and maps for a huge amount of gold, since you will meet them first.
As your cities finish building the cultural improvements, build Knights / Cavalry to get ready for the next phase.
Step four: Attack your strong neighbors and take their stuff
Now it's time to take your strong neighbor's good stuff and add it to your burgeoning empire. If you have not already , build about twenty Cavalry as an attack force. Add some strong defenders too. I like to time it so I declare war just as I discover Nationalism. That way I can upgrade to rifleman as defenders, and "mobilize" to increase my production of Cavalry at the same time. You should be at least as strong as the Iroquis by now, and probably in the tech lead. So switch most of your cities to cavalry and have a few cities along the border build riflemen and cannon. Again, you want to attack the first target with your entire stack of twenty cavalry, wait for healing and reinforcements, and then go on to the next target. If there is a large gap between targets a good tactic is to move a small force of riflemen and cannon to a point two spaces form the target, so you dont leave your cavalry unprotected for a turn.
Just keep taking cities until war weariness becomes an issue, and then make peace terms, getting a tech or city in the process if you can. This should leave you in a position of about thirty to forty large cities, while your remaining continental enemies have four or five small weak cities each.
Step five: Expand and fill gaps
During peacetime, you want to build up the cities you just took with cultural improvements and barracks. If your largest towns have reached size twelve, build settlers from those towns and expand your borders or fill gaps between cities with new towns. Build workers also to improve your new territory. I like to have about 2 workers per town, more is always better.
In your established towns you should build marketplaces, banks and courthouses.
Your tech goal is learn Communism.
Step Six: Communism Quashes Corruption (and your enemies)
Once you research Communism, switch to it right away. This will fight corruption in your cities and end war weariness. Research espionage and build your Secret Police Headquarters which further reduces corruption. Also build police stations in corrupt cities. If you enjoy micro managing you can use your civil engineer and policemen specialists to adjust city by city to get maximum production and happiness. If you can get your cities into "We Love The Comrade" celebrations, (Size 6 or larger with no unhappy citizens) that will further reduce waste.
I enjoy fighting corruption, it has always been annoying to me that Civ 3 has so much of it. But this strategy will get all your cities in the area of only twenty percent corrupt or better, which solves that problem for the most part.
Step Seven: Grab your entire continent
Now that you have solved the war weariness issue, you can go ahead and take the remaining cities on your continent whenever it's convenient for you. Sometimes I save one neighbor for later in the game so I can do a little tank combat, just for fun. But usually I go ahead and grab all the real estate on my continent. That pretty much ensures that you will have all the coal, oil and aluminum you need later in the game within your own empire.
Step Eight: Industrialize
In this phase you build railroads, hospitals, factories and the Hoover Dam great wonder. This gives you a continent full of huge,extremely productive metropolises. And since you have built all the temples, coliseums, and cathedrals all your cities will be happy ones. And with the banks, stock exchanges, commercial docks plus the trade bonus in coastal cities the Portugese get as a seafaring nation, you will be a very rich empire too. (I like to build Smith's Trading Company for all the free improvements you get empire wide. )
At this point you will be number one in pretty much every category, since you own an entire continent and three or four civs share the other one.
Step Nine: Build an awesome navy
Since you have a huge Communist empire, you can support a very large Military with no support costs. Also, since you have an entire continental coastline full of powerful cities, you can make a huge Navy very quickly. A large powerful Navy keeps the enemy away form your continent for the rest of the game. Just sink every ship you see.
Step Ten: take some stuff from distant countries
If the AI civ's have any luxuries you dont, you should take those cities from them. This is because you want to control all the luxuries, so your cities will be happier and therefore more efficient. Take the large military you created while conquering your continent, load them onto transports and sail them over to the city with the luxury, with a huge number of escorting ships. The more the merrier. Bring Infantry, artillery, cavalry , tanks, whatever you have. Just bring a lot all at the same time. Land your troops next to the town, bombard with your ships to redline the defenders, then take the city and the luxury.
Do the same until you have at least one of every luxury.
Step Eleven: Enslave the AI population to build your empire
You can never have too many workers. Rather than build them though, you can use the military to take them from the AI civs. There are all sorts of fun ways to catch AI workers, and you can get even with them for all the times in the past they have stolen workers from you. Don't you hate that? So turn their trick against them, and steal all their workers.
One good way is to bombard their coastal squares with your navy, which will attract workers to repair the damage. Then you land troops nearby, which will cause the workers to run into the city. Capture the city and raze it. That way you get the workers who tried tohide in the city and turn the former city's pop into yet more workers. Needless to say, you should bring extra transport along with you to carry the slaves back to your continent.
Other tactics include simply cruising along the coast with marines in a transport, and grabbing any workers you stumble upon. Or razing every coastal city the AI builds and carrying away the slaves. Or look for an area of the map with three or four large cities close together, and attack with a large enough force to raze them all. Razing four size seven cities will get you about a dozen slaves.
It's fun, and moreimportantly it's good strategy, because with every raid you increase your strength and weaken your enemy. In effect you are prompting the AI to build more settlers, plant new towns which will grow up, and then you can come back and harvest them again later for more slaves. It's like planting a crop, really.
Also its good to pillage any resources the AI can use to build strong defenders, like iron, rubber, oil. Makes it easier to raze the ctites they build for you.
Step Twelve: You win.
Obviously by this point in the game you are in complete control and can win with whatever victory condition you like. High score, space ship, culture, or you could just wipe out the enemy altogether and win by domination or conquest.
I enjoy seeing how large I can get my cities to grow, how many cities I can build all the possible city improvements in, and how many slaves I can capture before the cultural victory occurs.
Questions, comments and suggestions appreciated.
