Ultra fast strategy for moving up as a newbie

[ssvensson]

Ision - I must admit that at first when I read ur post I thought it was the cheapest advice ever written!!

But then I thought again and realised that out of all the many civ3 (and civ1 and civ2) games i've played I have only lost 2 or 3 (one in in civ3) because I only play levels where i'm almost sure to win (I have beaten Deity in civ2 thou). This means that I'm rarely challanged from medieval times - just attacking spearmen with MA etc.

When I recieved C3C I started with chieftain eventhough I were a decent vanilla player!!

Why this hesitation to challenge myself? (nobody cares if I loose anyway) - I think it is because I can't stand the thought of spending 2 weeks on a game that I might loose!

Funny I thought I played for the challenge - and it turns out that I'm just killing time - hehe (I might go directly to emperor after finishing my monarch game).

 

[Torisen]

Hey guys - I think this is my first post here.

I think this is an excellent point that I will try to take to heart. Something that I think goes along with it is, at the higher levels you have to expect to be behind at some point in the game. After playing many games at regent and cruising to victory, I'd get very discouraged when I went to Monarch or above and was perpetually behind in tech. In reading some of these strategy articles, I'm seeing that early on it looks like you just need to survive and then you can try to turn the tables further down the road.

It's taken me a long time to realize just how different this game is from Civ I & II... I used to always pull ahead by exploiting the democracy-WLTK growth explosion, can't do that here! But it took me a long time to realize that mining grassland was a good thing.

OK enough rambling. Just wanted to say, good advice!

 

[Zyrexius]

I, too, must give props to Ision. Im currently playing on Regent, and getting killed, and instead of starting over frusterated like usual, IM playing this one out and generating LOTS of statagies in my head of what to do next time. I will say that that is some sound advice!!! THX

 

[dozenlong]

I just took his advice to a point. I decided to do a random-random-random Emperor game, and ended up as the Zulus on a 80% water island map -- I am normally a pangea or at least continents player.

I also had a bad starting position (no bonuses, several mountains). However, playing it through, I learned quite a few things. I learned how to win with units that are a generation older (ie; difference between spearmen/pikemen, horsemen/knights, swordsman/Medieval Inf.) through careful use of stacking and terrain, GL farming to make armies, and use of said armies and actually ended up with a conquest victory in 1350 AD. While I didn't lose, this normally would have been a game I would never even have attempted, and it ended up being quite fun (there's something to be said when your enemy brings hordes of knights down, and you emerge relatively unscathed -- while your catapults, horsemen, impis, and ancient calvaries (taking this wonder was nice) ultimately mop up the musketmen.

I would encourage people to try a random-random-random.

 

[Ision]

deleted post - error

 

[useless]

still play cheiften

 

[oogabooga22]

That's really good advise. I find that too often I get bored and abandon my games only to start new ones that I never finish. I've had the game for almost a year now, but I still play on Chieftan (pathetic, I know.) There still is some basic strategy involved, but it's probably nothing compared to higher levels. The thing I hate about Chieftan is that my civ is practically guaranteed to be the dominant civ in the game, and it requires little skill to acheive that.

So you're right, I should open up some old saved games and finish them. There are a lot of good games that I quit playing for no real reason. Probably the one game I enjoyed the most was one that I played through until the end. Yes, it was on Chieftan, and yes, I won, but it was a lot more fun than spending lots of time on something and just giving up.

I think I'm defenitely going to try this advise and maybe I'll be moving up to Warlord soon.