what am I doing wrong?

[misfitpunk]

I have difficulty beating the game on warlord difficulty. I usually play the babylonians, because I like getting tech advances fast and the culture trait helps keep my people happy, plus I can take enemy cities without warring via cultural defection. But for whatever reason, if I start building as many cities as possible at the beginning of the game, either the persians or the zulu take advantage of my weak military and slaughter me. If I stay small at the beginning, I'm quickly closed in by other civs, therefore my strong culture value is too small. I barely won my last game, at 2049 with a space victory. I keep hearing people on the forum giving strategies for deity or emporer level games, so I must suck.
can anyone give me any suggestions that don't involve war? I hate the time consuming task of moving unit after unit, and I'm not much of a tactician either. I usually just build the great library to get tons of free tech advances, and try to get republic and democracy asap, as well as the tank and modern armor units before anyone else and THEN go for some easy war victory. (most civs will only have infantry by the time I use modern armor or tanks)

 

[punkbass2000]

Well, I'm builder too, but I find an early war to be almost a necessity at most levels, just to bring down your nearest rivals and give yourself some breathing room, so I don't know what to tell you. I believe I could get by on Warlord without an early war, but I consider myself a decent player, and I know that I really can't compete even at Monarch without one. In short, I don't know what to tell you. Try an early war, there aren't many units that you have to push around, the tactics are easier, and you only need to take 2-3 cities and they'll give you everything they own (well, not all their cities).

 

[RX2000]

Do you have ANY military at all early on? Usually on warlord one or two defensive units in every city is enough for the computer players to respect you enough to not bully you around. If you just build improvements and have NO units at all in your cities, your enemies will consider you weak, and start a war just because they know you cant stop them. So the best thing to do is have at least 2 defensive units in every city. I usually have a city build a spearman in between when its building a settler. If the city is size 1, and its gonna take 10 turns for it to reach size 2, and it can build a settler in say 8 or 10 turns, then having it build a settler right away is going to waste several turns when you could be producing something else, like a spearman or two. When I played on warlord, I had no difficulty using this method. The key is making sure, even if you are peaceful, to keep a strong defensive force, or the computer players will know you are weak and exploit it.

 

[misfitpunk]

of course I do! All my cities have at least 2 units, starting with spearmen because you can upgrade them all the way to mech infantry.

 

[Sullla]

Originally posted by punkbass2000
Well, I'm builder too, but I find an early war to be almost a necessity at most levels, just to bring down your nearest rivals and give yourself some breathing room, so I don't know what to tell you. I believe I could get by on Warlord without an early war, but I consider myself a decent player, and I know that I really can't compete even at Monarch without one.

An early war is not needed to win on any level; that philosophy is a myth. I have had success at every difficulty level without needed to brutalize other civs to get techs. The best thing to do on higher levels is to let the AI do the research for you and buy into techs. On warlord, you should be able to out-research the AI though since they are penalized on that level. If you're getting out-expanded on warlord difficulty, you're not doing something right; try building more granaries to expand faster, for one thing. I also think the "two defender" rule is a bad idea as well: this slows down your growth potential greatly. I tend to go light on defense early to be able to expand faster. This has worked for me on Emperor and Deity wins, so maye there's something to it. And remember, to stay out of war you can always just give in to AI demands.

Try reading the info on my website, maybe it will help
http://www.geocities.com/lcsullla/Civ3page

 

[RX2000]

Actually it doesnt cut into your expansion at all. A city has to be size 3 for it to be able to make a settler. Usually I can squeeze a spearman out before the city gets to 2 or 3, and still make the settler come out as soon as the city hits 3. If you have a settler being built and the city isnt 3 or wont turn 3 by the turn the settler is completed, it wastes time.

 

[alexander dumas]

Move most of your units to the cities most likely to be attacked. You can get by with no defense early on in the cities with cultural buffers. Also, trade all extra luxuries, sell techs, and establish embassies.
Sometimes a culture, especially a militaristic one, might take a dislike to you that lasts forever. In those cases, build fortresses and maybe catapaults.
Another tip is to build cities on hills. The units inside will get the defensive bonus of that terrain.

 

[sabo]

I agree with punkbass, an early war is essential. right now I"m playing the German and the Russians and the British were also on my contanent, emphasis on the word WERE. 1400 AD

 

[punkbass2000]

Are you, by chance, playing the GOTM? Or is that just a coincedence?

 

[RX2000]

An early war is not necessary. I just got through playing a game on regent level where I won a spaceship victory, and almost never went to war. The few times I did were because some neighbor thought they could bully something from me. They were wrong. I especially had fun beating the tar out of the Zulus in the late game, and getting like 5 of the other 7 civs to help me. I also had an embargo against them with every other civ. I dont know if it was the embargo with everyone or the constant war with most of us, but the Zulus went from being the most powerful to being a non-threat pretty quick. They were bankrupt near the end. Anyways, you CAN play the game peacefully. In fact, I like trying to maintain peace. Anyone can build an army and go smear everyone, it takes some diplomatic skill and balance of culture/military to go the peaceful route. They are both viable options however.

 

[Sullla]

Well said, RX2000! Sometimes I wonder if the warmongers out there have even tried to play a peaceful game of Civ3. My favorite games have been the ones where I maintained world peace, my least favorite ones where I ended up in endless wars. It's honestly not that challenging to kill everyone else, whereas staying ahead of everyone else and building your way to a peaceful victory is a challenge. It's not impossible, though many people claim it is, and I recommend people play Civ3 as something other than an "attack and kill" game on occasion.

 

[TheEvilCheater]

U dont need an early war. Just dont forget to build defensive units. On regent i dont goto war tell i et knights, then again at calvary,tanks and modern armor. Swallow alot of towns up with culture which is fun

 

[Qitai]

Peaceful build is possible, but you will need to know how to expand fast and where! Food is king in the early stage. Get the food fast. Know your terrian and food bonus well. Worry about the city overlap last. You can easily re-position cities later.

Getting the AI not to war you is easy, just build tons of warrior. The purpose is not to actually fight but to let the AI know you have troops, and warriors helps with exploration and keeping the peasant happy too. Spearman is useful only if you actual go into a war (which a peaceful builder don't!). And if you do, a swordman upgraded from warrior is much better then a spearman.

 

[punkbass2000]

I know building is possible, even at Monarch. But I would be surprised if any of you could win at Emperor/Deity like this. If you can, let me know, and tell me your secret! At DEity,I find the AI often has three cities before I found my first one (not the capital). How can you possibly outbuild and out expand a civ that gets settlers for 18 shields to your 30?

 

[misfitpunk]

Originally posted by Qitai
''Spearman is useful only if you actual go into a war (which a peaceful builder don't!). And if you do, a swordman upgraded from warrior is much better then a spearman.''

I think spearmen would be a much better idea. Swordsman can't be upgraded, spearmen can be upgraded to pikeman, musketmen, riflemen, infantry, and finally, mech. infantry. I hear you can build any unit and have the AI consider them troops and therefore consider you a large military and be less likely to war with you, but if I do end up goung to war, I'd like to always have the best defensive units I can.

 

[mauiduck]

While I wholheartedly agree that an early war is not a must play option I find that it clears out room for me and gets me some extra cities quicker than if I had to build a bunch of settlers. One thing I have noticed is that the AI cheats like h*ll. Every time I have captured an AI city it is amazing how down the line Aluminum, Coal and Uranium pop up like crazy in those city's production squares when I had teched up to that level. In one case the French built a city in 2000 BC and I took it over since they were right on my butt at the time. Once the modern age came around I had heaps of high-end strat resources there and that former French city was producing 115 shields a turn, while the city I had built at the same time was no where near that. To coroborate my theory, the Brits (who had only industrial age tech) were building a road to a uranium resource which they supposedly couldn't see. So I guess for me IMHO an early war to capture a few key AI cities early is justifiable in getting some cities that will pay-off big for my people in the future and helps me keep up with the radical city expansion that the AI has going in the begining.

 

[Qitai]

misfitpunk> The cost saving in the beginning will help in your growth which is better in the long run. Planning for something 3000years later when you have problem surviving now is not a good idea. At deity level, every bit counts especially in the beginning. I can easily build pikeman later if necessary. Though, usually I do not need to do that, since I am able to out-expand AI even at deity level, if the the terrian around me is at least decent(cattles, wheat, river). Afterthat, I am on the offense.

mauiduck> AI has FULL knowledge of all troops (including barbarian - psst if you are wondering where the barbarian camp is, buying the world map at 1gc from the AI will tell you where it is) and terrian (including unseen resources). So, you are right that whereever they build a city, there must be gold underneath it.

 

[RX2000]

I myself havent played many games above regent level yet. I'm about ready to move up though since I usually win every game on regent. It just makes me mad that the only real difficulty change is that the AI can cheat and research faster than you.

Anyways, I have read several people's posts and guides who play on Deity level, and apparently its not absolutely necessary to go to war on that level either. It makes it much easier, but its still possible to be peaceful and simply be a tech broker and go for the Diplomatic victory, etc.

 

[Bamspeedy]

An early war may help some people, but I have recently discovered something (thanks to some people on this forum) that helps tremendously in the early expansion phase. Granaries! I never really built them before because they seemed to take so long to build, but if you set it up right, the payout from it is tremendous! Here is how you should do it:

First while you are waiting for your first settler to be built, just build a couple warriors, scouts, etc, and then get your first settler right when you hit size 3. Have your worker mining 2 bonus grassland tiles. Note, by this time your borders should have expanded and hopefully you have at least 2 bonus grassland tiles in your capital's sphere of influence. After the first settler build the granary. The granary should be complete before you would be ready for the second settler anyways. If it slows down putting out that second settler by just a couple turns it doesn't matter. After the granary, your capital will be growing so much faster you can pump out settler, settler, settler, settler, instead of settler, warrior, spearman, settler. Your second city can be building all the units you will need for the other cities.

I like to just build warriors first before spearmen. They are cheap and any cheap unit will work as military police. Later on, you can build those spearmen. Upgrade the warriors and you have a swordsmen army ready to attack your neighbor.