Early game strategy

[Fremantle]

I typically follow an expansion policy early on in the game, but this tends to leave me quite open to attack. By 1200 AD I typically find myself with cities already suffering from corruption, unable to complete the vital temples or libraries required to expand borders to include more arable land in a reasonable time. I've most of the resources I need, but a small military due to the need to expand my borders and link up my cities. It is then that the AI strikes, typically demanding some resource or tech, or pissing me off by trying to settle the few remaining holes in my empire, which forces me to expel them, but at the end of the day, they attack, and I end up losing a few cities until I can strike back and attack, then sue for peace. By this time, I'm generally pretty weak militarily, get bored as I see no hope and give up the game, only to try again. Is there any way to peacefully expand, without invoking the wraith of the AI? Or should I stick to 4-5 cities centred around my capital, build up a sizable army and strike out, destroying civs completely, to expand?

Is this a flaw in CivIII? I remember playing CivII on the world map as America, expanding peacefully with a continent to myself, then when I've secured the Western Hemisphere, settling Africa and perhaps Australia. If I tried a similar tactic in CivIII, before I've even gotten to the West Coast of North America, I think I'd find some other civ had got to South America and I'd be fighting to maintain control.

[JFB]

Hey, Freemantle, what level are you playing on mostly?

I played deity when I first started out, feeling that the best way to learn was to have my head handed to me on a platter a few times, uh, several times by the AI and learn what DOESN'T work first ... here is how I think now when I play a game ...

First thing, is you need to get out and contact other civs AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Trading is essential to keeping in the game, because if you don't do it, the AI will. It's also great to be able to get free stuff just because you happened across one neighbors' border a few turns before your other neighbor and can trade contact for tech, cash, or luxuries/resources.

Next, you need to figure out what the strong and weak points of the other civs are, especially your neighbors. Do they have a big military? Is their culture taking over the histograph, or are none of their cities expanding past nine squares?

Then I look at my own strengths and weaknesses and develop a plan, OK I have a bigger military but my cities are going to depose unless I start building some culture on the border, or I am ahead in tech and have X more advanced unit, so I better attack now, or that civ doesn't have saltpeter, so thus no musketman, or I have a whole continent I can backfill to expand and get more cities, thus more volume of cash, units, culture, resources, etc. etc.

You have to periodically check and think like the AI ... try to figure out what your weaknesses are and how they might be exploited ... military, expansion, culture, tech, etc. etc. Unfortunately, you cannot play exactly how you want, you have to adapt to the particular game and gain some kind of edge and exploit it while making sure you don't leave any glaring weaknesses.

I have read these boards a lot, and there are some great strategies on here, (Vel's strategy threads - for instance, first to come to my head, but there are many many great threads). I don't think these thoughts are particularly unique to me but it's how I play. Of course, more specific strategies, pop-rushing, settler/worker factories, creating choke-points and/or military walls, researching a different line of the tech tree than the AI, trading tech for per-turn money to slow down their research rate (and speed up yours!), etc. etc. are already in other threads.

I've found, especially on deity, some military action is necessary to keep up with the AI, and playing peacefully only keeps you small, boxed in, vulnerable and no chance for leaders. Also, not keeping a large military or land area makes trade deals less profitable.

I understand the frustration! But I think it's all balance, and then exploiting your strength or the AI's weakness, and that varies from game to game, and era to era.

Hope this helps a little bit!

[Fremantle]

Originally posted by JFB
Hey, Freemantle, what level are you playing on mostly?

I tend to play monarch, although I started out on regent. I kind of found that at regent level, the AI is not inter-active enough, but that at monarch they get just a bit too aggressive and smarter, but perhaps I'm just wishing they'd leave me alone for a few thousand years until I can stuka and blitzkrieg them (when is a damn SCENARIO editor coming out?).

I've read a few of the strategy guides, I guess it now really is up to me to be disciplined and actually follow them through. Only problem is the game does become tedious, I think I'm hooked more by the potential than the reality!

Trading is good, you can easily keep up with tech levels, zeroing in on techs like chilvary etc. that give you the edge.

One of the ways I liked to speed up CivII games was the accelerated start, beginning with 2-3 cities and a number of units, after all most civilisations were created by a group of city-states unifying, rather than a single capital spewing out settlers. There really is only one modern civilisation that did this, America and perhaps Russia expanding into Siberia, but even America started out as 13 separate colonies.

However, I'm playing CivIII, and the challenge isn't playing what *could* be, but rather what is.

[Platypus]

I recommend using the Despot population-rush to build one culture producing building in each of your border cities (which are also probably the cities with the most corruption). This gets those cities off the ground (with larger borders), much sooner. My approach is that I use my core cities, which are also generating the settlers for expansion, to generate the garrisons for the border cities.

If the AI insists on settling cities in what you consider to be your territory, I recommend just letting them be, until you have the sufficient military for a successful war. (Think of them as cities that are being built for you by the AI, that you will take later.) And if the AI makes demands while you're still not strong, I've had much better success with giving in to their demands, and focusing on building up a strong military and THEN going to war. Every time I end up in a war on the AI's time table, I end up in some degree of trouble. When I go to war on my time table, things go very well.

A big part of how strong the AI considers you to be is the total number of units you have, which makes it worthwhile to crank the cheaper warrior units at the beginning of the game, rather than the more expensive spearman. I have found this helpful at monarch level. If you save your gold, you have the option of upgrading those warriors to swordsmen.

The other thing that works well for me is attacking one of the AI civs fairly early. Here's Velocyrix's strategy of how he does it:

Rush one barracks in place close to the front, and upgrade all existing warriors to swordsmen, and I'm ready to roll with an attack force of 7-8 Swordsmen (figure an average of four cities, each with a warrior garrisoned, and 3-4 warrior scouts that can easily be pulled back for upgrading and a quick war)--note here, that yes, this means I'm stripping my cities completely empty....NO defense anywhere....my closest cities will, of course, start working on Spearmen in between settler builds to bulk up the front, and my cities further out will do so when it's convenient or when they're threatened, but this generally does not cause significant delays to expansion.

I haven't (yet) tried an early assault that aggressive, but I've had good success with cranking out a bunch of archers to take an iron city or two from an AI who has only recently hooked up the iron to the cities. Taking cities from the AI early in the game really knocks 'em down a notch.

[JohnE]

Originally posted by Fremantle
Is this a flaw in CivIII? I remember playing CivII on the world map as America, expanding peacefully with a continent to myself, then when I've secured the Western Hemisphere, settling Africa and perhaps Australia. If I tried a similar tactic in CivIII, before I've even gotten to the West Coast of North America, I think I'd find some other civ had got to South America and I'd be fighting to maintain control.

I am not sure I would call it a flaw. Basically, you have to slow expansion down sometimes for warfare. In Vel's strategy threads, there are discussions of "vassalization," and "oscillating war," and some other ideas. They all boil down to sometimes you have to fight. In most Civ III games I have played, it has been a question of who I fight and where, rather than if.

[SSushi]

I used to have similar problems. The way I got off the mark is to use 2 or 3 scouts to survey as much of the map as I can. This has 3 results: 1) I find lots of lost tribes who give me research (about 5 or more) 2) I have a good map of everyone else 3) Iknow where the gold is.

~You can trade all the to improve further. Also, if an opponent demands something that I don't want to give, I say no and bung them 10 gold. This keeps them sweet and they stay off my back.

[Arrian]

I usually expand and build up my infrastructure (temples/libraries/courthouses/marketplaces/cathedrals/etc.) prior to building my military up, so I know where you're coming from. I play on Monarch.

The key is keeping your neighbors happy until you're strong enough to crush them. Make it a priority to connect yourself to their road net, so you can trade luxuries and resources. Although I would not recommend trading strategic resources, luxuries are great for making some money, getting maps, and improving relations. I've had AI's go from "annoyed" to "polite" as a result of one luxury trade (I just accepted their offer, no haggling the first time around... later is a different story).

Once your cities have their improvements built, start pumping out units. This works best if you can start doing it in a couple of cities during the late ancient era (in other words, pre-chivalry). Then you can upgrade those horsies to knights. That saves time, as knights take longer to build. By the mid to late middle ages, you should be strong enough to pick a fight, or at least survive a war without the loss of a city.

-Arrian

[Worthingtons]

I take a different approach, I get my 'core cities' cities up, then I find any food bonusus and create cities to Pop-Rush Units (I usually try my hardest to get pryamids so as granary in every city).
Even if these cites overlap into others it doesnt matter - they will be disbanded.

In Some games, I've had 5-6 Cities units pumping out legionaries every other turn, while my other 'real' Cities work on improvements. No messing keeping the neighbours happy, they are weaker than you anyway.

[siredgar]

Attack early with warriors and take their workers. It's difficult for the AI to conquer your cities when you already have spearmen.

This will help you build faster and it will cripple the AI at a crucial point in the game. It will never recover if you are good at it. But only do this when it is against a civ without an early special unit like the Zulu or Babylonians.