Civ3: Who's resolve is first to falter?

[War4ever]

Thanks rich, you of all people know i take an unorthadox approach when it comes to civing.

As per usual i am up to my tricks of leaving a light defense at home while i cruise for ladies of the night in my rival empires

The trade off for going for iron working is that you will fall behind in techs..... by using a form of REX (ics) once can establish a large piece of land no matter where your placed. Yes jungle will slow you down and so will not having a kicking food tile but i just finished part of a game where i started around alot of mountains and had no decent food. I got iron quick , made peace with the indians and in three turns crippled the roman empire from 9 cities to three. Sueing for peace i received the other two cities for free along with all the techs i was behind in. Two turns later the capital fell and i basically had two empires in the form of two donuts...well actually a donut and a half. but the half i am missng borders mountains where i control the iron...... so it looks as if my neighbors and allies the indians have to go. with them out of the way i have 1/3 of the map easily making me the largest and giving me room to grow.

the romans had iron working but all of their cities were just out of range of the iron resource. You don't want those tough roman legions getting themselves organized as that is their UU and could spell a long costly war that you don't recover from.

I have been razing cities lately but didn't this game and although corruption is a pain i managed to capture the pyramids

making me virtually unstopable now ......though i have received no leaders yet this game

i explored the map and have to say that the gold is handy, so are the upgrades from barb camps and the couple of techs you get that the ai doesn't' have ..........gives you bargaining power.

the fast attack works with horses as well.:

i have also noticed that the ai seems to slow research down to a crawl when i am liberating a rival

they still can't make a proper decision to ally against me in time.

Rich your right about not wiping them out completely....they grovel quite nicely

every city had a barracks and a temple..... captured workers were used to connect the cities to form the circled wagon look, then dumped into cities for rushbuilding.

Forced labour is great and way too powerfull. culture and war are a perfect mix and i can always affoard my two city improvements.

I got three techs for offering an iron source to the chinese way on the other side of the map who were the powerhouse of the western world.

An road to a capital can help your early bargaining power.

an observation i made durin the last three games.....

My elites are having better luck fighting from high ground, and by not attacking across rivers.

elites acquired via combat against cities are far more likely to succeed against other cites.... same goes for combat wins against troops which aren't in cities.

so if you become elite via an attack on grasslands, have your elite attack other units on the ground first before using him to attack the city. I have lost way too many elite units when i switch from troops outside the city to defenders in the city.
i hope i explained what i meant.... now i am

Of course i can't guarrantee these results just passing on what i have experienced.

one more thing....... when your first unit fails odds are the war will either be very costly to you or you wont' win at all. When your first unit wins, your odds of taking the city increase dramatically..... (the ai must see my banner of a man bent over the barrels )

[Alexander's Horse]

One thing I'm noticing is I can't do my old single player strat, which was sit tight and develop my civ for most of the game and then blitz the AI's in the last century or even half century. If youy want to conquer the world you need to start much earlier.

[ColdWizard]

Originally posted by rah
Coldwizard Great line. Especially after checking out the final position after our last game. Wha Happened? Please tell me your second settler was killed by barbs.

i wish. my third city guarded by a warrior on forest was wiped out and my fourth city was captured outright by barbs. at least i learned something

[note to self: build more phalanxes]


rasputin: you may as well play it since you already have it. maybe you'll develop some wondrous strategy and share it with others (like me ). at least you could find some bugs that firaxis will be able to fix before MP.

[War4ever]

bah take your chances with warriors...... phalanxes are for wimps

If someone hands you your a$$ once out of ten times, thats a strat that works....therefore early warriors are the way to go ....especially when the enemy isn't going to mount a huge attack on your core.

live and die by the warrior...its the only way to go!

[War4ever]

So heres a typical opening scene in civ3......

build first city and as the radius expands your horizons around Fenway Park you notice a hut........ you have lucked out and see a kicking food tile (wheat or cattle work best) so you put your city worker on it to grow the city quickly which is important under any circumstances...

what to do with the worker unit? do i move the two squares and take a chance on the hut..... odds aren't good that i will get a nomad , i could jingle around a sack of 25g or be given a scroll of wisdom....... worse it could be deserted, provide maps of the region or awaken some shady characters from their siesta which really means your worker is screwed and your city is likely to be overun, which only causes some gold to be lost.

more than likely i will improve a tile in my radius....thereby leaving the hut for my warrior to open. By the time i hit that hut Fenway Park is two turns from growth via the kicking food tile.

so i saved the game here to run tests to try and figure out some suspicions i had been having about huts. I moved the warrior to the two possible squares adjacent to the hut to test the results.
First time i got a warrior, second time a nomad, third a nomad , fourth a nomad and fifth a nomad , after that it was all conscripts.... the tile i moved from was a hill.....when i built a road with my worker first and then moved the warrior, i received a nomad once and a conscript 5 times in a row

the second tile i moved in from was a forest..... it produced the same result time and time again with one exception..... i received a conscript warrior 9 times and 25g once..... and no matter what i did with the worker, the results were the same.

i still haven't figured out the hut system yet, but one thing i know is that nomads are only possible from your first hut. I have popped alot of huts and nomads are hard to get period and i have never ever seen more than one in a game and never have i seen one come out of a hut after you have popped your cherry.

However later in the game i did come across a horse from a hut.... as a conscript which caught me totally off guard

and now for my little piece of advice to speed up your culture.....

if you find yourself in a position like the one i described above with the hut two squares away from your capital, and you send your warrior to open and you pop a conscript, send him back immediately to your capital. He will arive just as your city hits size 2 from that kicking food tile. Switch production from warrior to temple and rush it . True you lose a population point, but your culture expands that turn and allows you the opportunity to use perhaps a better tile when she grows in 7 turns again.

The reason you send your conscript back is because your other warrior will arrive one turn too late to prevent the disorder which occurs in an empty city when her culture expands and/or she goes to size two.

Now your capital is size one , your culture has expanded,your producing three culture points 8 turns in instead of 1 and you have two warriors exploring (temple allows you to move the consript out and about. The downside is the loss of growth ....but this is easily made up for by the kicking food tile

i did this with a nomad from a hut and built the second city and rushed the temple anyways..... while you can rush the temple in time, your city goes into disorder if the extra cultue causes it to grow that turn. Haven't figured out why this is...could be i missed the city growing to size two and even though i rushed the temple that turn, the size one city expands and maybe the game takes border into account before it factors in the temple

again this strat works best if you have the food tile.... essentially its the equivalent of starting without a great food tile as far as expansion is concerned, yet you have three times the culture and just as many troops in the field.

the hut pattern isn't identical to civ2 but i am finding huts frequently while using this type of exploration.

as for barbs ...bring em on......one rarely loses and the upgrades seem to come in patterns too....

conscripts never upgrade on all three attacks...in fact i have never seen all three attacks by barbs upgrade my unit from conscript ot elite.

usually i see one upgrade..... then have to go through TWO more different barb encounters to upgrade to elite with a conscript

if its a regular and i only lose one bar off the first barb i get vet status....the second barb is defeated easily and the third takes a bar of damage before going down and upgrading me to elite with two bars of health left

when three barbs attack, the first and third usually provide me with the upgrades if i am going to get any....

if you find a civs capital before they have bronze and you have a vet or better warrior its worth the risk to take the cap.

first, you know its in a prime location if its a capital..second this means you knock the civ out of the game and onto a different part of the map.....third, they come back into the game that turn with four techs nd 100g which you can take all of.

My last game i did this , kept the capital as my second city, plus two workers inside the city (maybe he had just built a settler , he did have two wheat in the radius and i picked off his origional worker who was adjacent to the city. of course i picked off the worker after i captured the city and before i sued for peace.

I added one of my three workers to Moscow...rushed the temple and in about twenty turns i had two cites with temples, three workers building roads and three warriors exploring land. Not too mentioin my culture was rocking and i was on my way with a third settler.

The only downside is if your attack fails....but its so early and you shoudl have enough units to counter his weak units anyways.

anyways it was quite the score and it all happened because i got a conscript from a hut and my other warrior found the russian warrior in compramising terrain and won a battle to become a vet, which allowed me to beeline into his borders.

a little luck never hurts and without risk there is no reward

[Rasputin]

Well Ok I succombed to the temptation.

So here are my initial thoughts...

1.It feels very much like a CTP3 game not a Civ 3 game.
2. A lot is going on that you dont have time to check out
3. I find it hard to find the info I am used to getting in civ2, its there but its in different places.
4. too much effort went into the graphics, I dont need animated Leaders or even a animated worker.

So with all that its still ok, but only stinks cause it doesnt have MP!!


So how didmy firs ttry go?? Well I am upto about 580AD, I deliberatly set up the game to make it easier for me, I set Chieftan level, large world, only 5 civs, Barbs Sedantary.

I had read so much of the 'Experts' having problems I didnt want to fool myself playing up the levels, and al lI wanted was to get a feel for the game.

Oh by the way, the game jsut runs with only 32MB of RAM !!!

So I set out using my usual strategy of build city, defender , per civ 2 , then went for a settler and added a temple while i waited for population to recover and let me build a worker. I continued like this and founded a few citys slowly, buildsing roads to connect them and then irrigating between.

I found by continuing to build city improvements my people were generally happy except occasionaly when the city grew too fast before i removed the worker of built the next improvement.

I found i was alone on a continent and without ship building techs enjoyed my isolation. my few battles with Barbs were rewarded with elite units.

I built a few wonders too, which surprised me as most people complained of not being able to build them, but thne again i palyed on chieftan level. (Hanging Gardens, Lighthouse, and another one i cant remember) All tihs increase my culture.

I currently have the most advanced tribe and have now begun settling the other major continent ( i am surprised that the world though large is made of mainly two continents mine is half th esize of the other which houses al lthe AI together.)

The first war broke out with egyptians, I started it to see how combat works, I had initial success but am now losing a few horses.

its 580AD I am researching cannons so am well behind compared to civ 2 research, but i am ahead of AI so i am happy.

will finish the game tomorrow and if i win will go up one level and try again.


It is a fun game, but it isnt civ 3 its CTP3 !!!!!!

[ColdWizard]

Originally posted by War4ever
bah take your chances with warriors...... phalanxes are for wimps

If someone hands you your a$$ once out of ten times, thats a strat that works....therefore early warriors are the way to go ....especially when the enemy isn't going to mount a huge attack on your core.

live and die by the warrior...its the only way to go!

barbarians always mount large attacks on my core
i'm tired of dying
i am a wimp

but one thing i know is that nomads are only possible from your first hut

i distinctly remember getting a nomad past my first hut. on two seperate occasions (2 different games, 1 chieftain, 1 warlord), i have gotten nomads far from my capital and had hit huts prior to getting that far away.

[War4ever]

coldwizard...on the standard map i have never received a nomad from a hut after my first hut..... but i am sure it is possible...someone else reported more than one per game on larger maps ....

i don't know the exact logistics, but i have played alot of games to know that they are not frquent like in civ2

[Blaupanzer]

Great game, magnificent add-ins regarding diplomacy/trade and culture. Early aggression is not a necessity, but a strong military is. Therefore, one tends to follow the old Civ2 military advisor's advice regarding what a waste it is to have the soldiers sit around, "why build them if you won't use them."

That said, some deficiencies have emerged. Ignoring bugs related to air superiority and coastal fortresses, modern era combat has several real drawbacks. First, it is not well balanced. Despite the nonsense clamor about spearmen killing tanks, one problem appears to be that the odds go in streaks. This is compounded by the fact that several units are differently represented. Bombers and artillery (including combat ships) can bombard, but not target very well. You are as liable to destroy an improvement as to hurt the unit in the square, especially if the target is in a city. Two, bombardments can't kill. A damaged unit must be mopped up. (May be realistic, but a stack of seven walking deadmen shouldn't be able to hold off your five full-strength attackers, but they can.) Third, there clearly are differences in the combat odds for elites, veterans, regulars, and conscripts. (Elites win much more often, round-for-round than do regulars, for example.) While this is not a bad thing, it is undocumented -- and that is confusing at best, error-inducing at worst. Fourth, the navies are a complete shambles. Unit speeds, firepower, and bombardment capabilities are all out-of whack. Submarines are a joke. Fifth, while you can only lift one unit out of an airport per turn, you can lift an unlimited number in. This says build one airport at the invasion site, fly in the crushing force, and crush away. (In a small way, this makes up for the ridiculously slow ships. However, workers, settlers, and LEADERS cannot be airlifted.) Sixth, the diplomacy segment remembers personal betrayals all game but forgets atrocities in about forty turns. Thus, breaking a treaty is constrained, but not razing cities. (In the "real" world," quite the opposite is true. New governments generally get a clean slate as to treaties, but massacres and slaughters inflame ethnic war 700 years or more after the fact.) With the exception of the navies this is all easily fixed in patches.

This leads to the BIG question. Can this game be adapted to multi-player? Perhaps if each player builds separately on a small continent in SP with one AI neighbor for 2000 years prior to the game, and then those continents are meshed for the game, it might work. Otherwise, everyone's going to be bored out of their skull and itching for a fight by the time contact gets made so much that the new features will rendered meaningless.

I look forward to playing all of you when MP comes out.

[War4ever]

you forgot to mention starting positions are just as unequal, the streaks you talk about are kewl i think. No army has ever crushed everyone at the same time.... there were always individual breakdowns and the the tide can turn in a war quickly...

perhaps troop morale ie....how many vets to his, how many concsripts, elites etc..... that would be kewl..

i agree that naval and air units are messed right up and the combat ala civ1 is just plain dumb...but then i would prefer stacking ala ctp2

i prefer public works instead of terraformers/workers...

despotism a govt you will stay in for a long time is far too powerfull with its forced labour...making monarchy not a priority anymore

an early nomad will greatlly unbalance the game as will kicking food tiles.....

the food boxes are so small that WLTKD'S aren't necessary....

troop ugpgrades are coool but disbanding units is not..

corruption can be out of control and the idea of cutting and replanting trees makes me yawn...so does clearing the damm jungles...although i like that the city square is at least cleared for you now....and that your specials stay when you terraform the land

victory conditions are rather weak.... alll you do is build the ship....hahahaha i don't think your first ship would make it to the moon without some trial runs

not being able to switch between small wonders annoys me...once its built and you build another..you can't get the benefits...i wish they had a toggle for this..

its too easy to keep the ai docile.....they are only agressive in the land push and if your military is weak....if not , you can exploit them too easily

they flank in wars, travel on mountains and dont charge at fortresses anymore, but they still only attack en masse....and a killing zone is easy to set up

borders shoudln't be seen until contact is made...too often i spot the border and send my sets that way..... if i couldn't see the border i might expand in the wrong direction

iron work is two techs away .... making the rush way too easly...horses are too powerfull early especiallly with the retreat option...

culture is fun, so are defections, and so are the extra diplomacy issues.....

espionage is too expensive and not worth the cash......i miss my caravans and dips/spies....

i like the trade model...somewhat more realistic....

i like how the ai escorts its boats now.........

ics is still a problem sorry REXing is till a problem

capturing sets/workers makes the game easly...you just use your rivals empire against him...

losing the shiellds from a wonder is a good idea but you should get half the value in cash for selling the scraps of what you have built

there should be no palace/wonder/FP/SS parts loophole though.... you build it or you don't .

scouts shouldnt be able to attack a city , but should be able to capture one that is undefended.....anyone can walk right in...

leaders unbalance the game...i got a leader in 3000bc..i rushed pyramids which is the most unbalancing wonder of the game....

the game is refreshing though ..... if they can work out the flaws it has a chance.......

[Xin Yu]

I played on huge map, raging.

I was Iquinous (spelling?), Expansionest and Religious. I set up my capital to build a settler every 8 turns (with a granary). Then, whenever I need to catch up with techs, I put down a city and offer it to an AI. I ask the Americans: what do you offer in return of the city, the Americans offered a lot and I was amazed by the list. Since I frequently build settlers, I immediately put down cities to surround the American city so it will never have any room to expand. Then I met Aztecs and got another deal from another city, to the other direction of my capital.

This all worked well, however suddenly a message 'huge barbarian uprising near capital' appeared. After a couple of turns, 22 Barb hourses appeared. I had to give away another city to the AI to avoid loss. Then I quit and decide to restart. 22 barb horses, can you believe that?

Expansionest civs are crucial in playing huge maps. Got some gold and techs from huts (never got more than 3 though), also some warriors. My map worthes a lot as well. Religious characteristics has made my culture comparable to AIs. I may have a chance to get a culture victory.

[War4ever]

Xin if you get a warrior from the first hut ....rush him home and rush a temple instead of a set..especially if you have a kicking food tile...thatearly temple does wonders for your borders/culture

if the food is good the seven turn loss on food is worth the temple trade off in the long run

[Xin Yu]

Yes I did that. But the city I gave to American did not come back, even if it was two squares away from 3 of my cities, of size one and did not have anything in it.

[Rasputin]

well as usual i am way behind the level of all these others, but for all you civ2 weakling slike me who play for fun cause we rarley win !! here is the tale of my second outing...

Moved up a difficulty level, (chieftan was good but you have to have some pride!!)

still playing huge map, changed Barbs to resltess. still only 5 civs playing.

made sure i turned off civ specif attributes !!!!

So i palyed the as romans again and soon had the most culturally advanced nation in world. citys popping up everywhere, no real problems till the jealous iriquis to my north decided to invade.

They immediatly headed to my weakest citys even bypassing many on their way there!! I had a decent group of horses in my other citys nearby so i wasnt too upset when i lost 2 citys to them knowing i could get them back and then hopefully get peace.

But to my annoyaqnce, i discovered that they wouldnt talk to me anymore, they wouldnt receive my envoys, so how the heck do i get peace!!!

any weay the war started t odrag on as they wouldnt accept peace so my other citys started getting war weariness which meant i had to switch production , make entertainers and so lost my production advantage....

Still too early to call , but this war weariness causing city unrest is annoying, especially when you only repsonding to a foriegn invader!!!!

[Alexander's Horse]

I like the way if you lose a battle you don't lose the whole stack. It means you can deploy armies more like they should be deployed.

No so sure about the lack of zones of control.

My first game is resolving itself in a massive war, which I probably won't be able to win before time runs out. Just about everyone is against me I'm losing isolated cities and gaining cities. Nice to see the AI can fight a bit.

[War4ever]

it doesn't fight better....it justsends out swarms of troops making the appearance of better tactics....when in reality it still blindly moves forward

[Alexander's Horse]

That means it does fight better - much like Civ I.

I have an empire with isolated groups of cities (from past wars) on 3 continents. The AI is going for them as it should. That's an improvement on civ II.

[War4ever]

in theory its not always the weakest cities that should be attacked ...more like the most strategic ones..... with horse iron saltpeter , alluminum etc....

[Alexander's Horse]

I don't have high expectations from AI but the fact that it attacks in strength and goes for weak points is a big improvement.

[Steve Clark]

I have to agree with AH, war4. Even in its swarm, it knows how to surround, to keep some units in reserve and to cut off key roads...pretty much the way I tend to fight. The AI in Civ2 did absolutely none of this. For example, in my current game, I have been engaged, off and on, in a long ancient age warfare with the Germans (I'm French). I have hogged all of the horse resources in our part of the continent and when they go on the offensive (which I help to bring about), they go around three fortified cities near the border and right at the two weaker cities near 2 horses. They are sending vet/elite archers and warriors and I manage to hold most of them off with walled spearmen, but they are suprised by my vet horsemen waiting in ambush.

After two campaigns of this, they are going right at the horsemen while they swing around along the coast. Right now, my horsemen can't get at the two groups but I know my defenses will hold. I have to keep this up because I have been constantly 2-3 techs behind everyone with no wonders (near the end of the middle age). I get caught up just for a short while when they sue for peace, but I can't keep this up. In the meantime, I'm having to pour everything into culture are the expense of mounting a heavy offensive and tech research.

I am waiting to Cavalry to take out the 6 large German cities because that will be the only time I'll have an advantage on them. Musketeers unique unit won't help at all because they are not on offensive unit.

[Alexander's Horse]

I'm using very heavy concentrations of artillery in my city assault stacks, seems to work well but maybe too many. The inf units seem to have better offensive ability than in civ II.

[Bird]

What's the deal with courthouses? I rushed one in a city to try to reduce corruption and speed up the time to build a Forbidden Palace, and it had absolutely no effect at all, even under democracy. 10 shields before, with 9 wasted. Afterwards, 10 shields, with 9 wasted. Same effect with commerce too.

[Smash]

I am fairly convinced that courthouses aren't working correctly.It is near impossible to get anymore than 1 sheild out of some cities.No matter what you do.This doesn't seem quite right.
Its not awful on the same landmass(not good either but managable)..but as soon as you hit the seas....maybe they never wanted you to...no that can't be it.
In my current monarch level game,My Republic cities bring in 806 per turn right now.491 of that is being lost to corruption.That seems a little severe.With or without courthouses.

[Carolus Rex]

Is there a compiled list of these unbalanced features/bugs somewhere, that can be sent to the people at Firaxis for upcoming patches?

Carolus

[Bird]

Smash: my courthouse was on the same landmass even. It had no effect whatsoever on corruption. Except for the fact that I haven't built any other courthouses to test it, I'd say it has to be a bug.

[War4ever]

Bird..... courthouse, wltkd, democracy etc....still isn't enough to combat the corruption bug......if the city is far enough away, there isn't much you can do......

i have democracy much better than republic or monarchy however....

a patch to tweak this problem is a must

[Alexander's Horse]

I susepct they couldn't find a way to differentiate the difficulty levels so they tweaked up corruption. On Chieftain its not a problem at all.

A bad solution all round.

[SlowwHand]

Oops. I just posted my answer in another thread.
It's about casting a dollar vote.
I'm casting my dollar vote by never buying Civ III SP.
Down the road, it will be the same as Civ II and Civ II MGE.
I'll wait.

oh yeah, and patches suck.
Just another indication that they wanted the bucks now, rather than doing the game correctly.

[War4ever]

thats why for a couple of hours work and a cheap disk you pirate games..... make them put something worth buying out on the market...and if u feel guilty about it ...play the game , delete it , and buy it at the discount bin....... or buy the MP version when it comes out....

are matey... have you ever been to sea

i refuse to pay for crap again...... and civ3 is soooooooooo boring now.... i have only one level to beat and one victory condition left to achieve....once i get cultural victory on deity this game is finished unitl mp (if we ever get there) or if the patch(es) fix things

[Alexander's Horse]

I'm finding the interfaces annoying but apart from that I'm having fun. The AI is giving me a hammering in some areas whilst I'm winning in others. My armies are fighting on 2 continents. On one continent, I'm facing the French and Germans. I've almost run out of infantry and am at risk losing about 20 pieces of artillery. But reinforcements are soon to arrive (9 inf). If I can finish off resistance on the second continent, where I've conquered the Babs and am now finishing off the Zulus, I can turn all my attention to French and Germans. But naval battles are hotting up and I must control the seas between the battle zones to have any chance. Will I get there in time? I'm fighting a coalition of 5 civs. Meanwhile, my homeland continent is in danger of invasion by the French, who have better ships than me.

Happy as a pig in mud