Civ 3

Remove all ads!

I dusted off my copy of Civ 3, and I find the game just as frustrating as I remembered it. I considered myself an expert Civ player in Civ 1 and Civ 2. I could play on the hardest level (emperor in Civ 1, deity in Civ 2) and win with a fair amount of consistency. Then Civ 3 comes along and they completely change the game around, mostly for the better I have to admit. I expected a learning curve in the beginning, but eventually I expected to become just as proficient as in the earlier re-incarnations. However, after numerous attempts, I must conclude that when it comes to Civ 3, I suck. I can win about 50% of the time on Reagent (3rd difficulty), and as soon as I go to Monarch, I get owned. Worse still, I'm not even competitive on Monarch, so I haven't even bothered trying Emperor or Deity.

Has anyone else experienced this? Specifically, that in the past Civ games, increasing difficulty represented a gradual increase in difficulty, whereas in Civ 3, difficulty increases exponentially with each difficulty level? Monarch difficulty is such a aggravating experience for me. It seems the AI of the computer can produce things so much faster than me, that I have no hope if I start the game next to an aggresive computer civ. OK, I'm whining now, but I got to know if other people feel the same.

 

The computer cheats more as you increase difficulty in civ III.

 

Yes, the AI does seem to cheat excessively. The key to winning Civ III at higher levels depends on what version you have (whether you have patched it and/or loaded the add-ons) and on a extensive micro-management. For example, in the non-patched version you can get some great gains through clever diplomacy. If you time it right, you could buy a science from someone then sell it to each of other tribes for a significant profit. The effectiveness of this tactic has been toned down a bit in the upgrade.

In my opinion, it requires far too much micro-management to win at the higher levels. This is OK as an academic exercise to prove that you can do it, but it takes too long and is not very exciting. So I just carry on playing at the medium levels where I can play lazily and still have a challenge and try out all the different victory options and tribes.

I think the higher levels are there to give all the Civ fanboys something to debate and/or show off about on their message boards.

 

I have the unpatched, original collector edition. The thing that gets me in Monarch and above (in terms of the difficulty level, not the government I'm using) is the combat. It seems like the computer is producing units at a much faster rate than he should be able to do.

 

he is, after prince, the computer gets all kinds of cheats, thats how the civ3 AI works.

 

The worst cheat of them all is how the AI will always zero in on your least defended city, no matter where it is. He always knows which one is still protected by that lone Spearman.

 

Yeah, I got tired of the "cheats" the computer was using. I turned on some cheats myself, and just started nuking my enemies and letting them clean up the pollution before invading and conquering them. I just started razing cities.

It's a tough call between it and Alpha Centauri. SMAC is probably a bit better, in terms of gameplay, but Civ3 has prettier pictures.

The manual is T.H.I.C.K.

 

Oh yeah, that's worst. I especially hate when it's on the opposite side of the continent, and he had to sail all the way around my continent to get to that city. When that happens, I'm just like, WTF? HOW could he KNOW that?

 

I am a fairly proficient CivIII player but I never bother playing above monarch. As have been stated you have to micromanage like crazy to be able to beat the AI's vast number of free units and its production boosts. Regent is a bit too easy and you tend to steamroll over the AI without much effort but in Monarch it puts up a bit of a fight.

Aldeth, I am going to presume to give you some tips here. Ignore those you see as selfevident. First, you really need to expand as much as possible in the beginning, cranking out those settlers. It is also a very good idea to have a rather early war to eliminate your closest neighbour. I tend to do this as soon as I find iron and I can build a bunch of swordsmen. Sometimes I get lucky and stumble upon an enemy capital defended with just a warrior with my first exploring warrior and am lucky enough to take it and instantly gain a great boost.

Secondly, there is quite a disparity between the civilizations and their traits. Industrial is greatly overpowered and any civ with that trait is great. I like to combine industrial with scientific or religous for the maximum gain.

Thirdly, you need to come in touch with as many AI civs as soon as possible and star trading tech, every turn for best effect but you can get by on monarch by just doing it every time you get a new tech. Also try to go the branches the AI doesnt seem to take so often. For instance beeline for polytheism in ancient age. You can get a feel for which branches they are on if you see what they have. Thus you can get techs no one has and can broke them to everyone for considerable gain.

Fourthly, never ever use wealth, if you dont have anything to build in your cities build units. Catapults is great for this as all artillery units are highly effective and upgradable. A couple of stacks of 20+ artillery are sweet to have whne coming up at those size 20 cities with four infantry in. Just stack em up and upgrade when possible. This both makes you look strong for the AI so it wont attack you as readily and it gives you the huge army you need for a succesful war in republic or democracy. You need to have quick wars in those governments and thus a huge army is needed to overrun the enemy civ in a matter of a few turns.

Fifth, workers, lots of them. Here the player can gain a significant advantage over the AI as the AI just tends to build a few workers for their entire territory. Spit out those workers and connect all cities, mine most of your grassland and so on.

Sixth, luxuries. This is a probably a nobrainer but you should get as many luxuries as possible even if it means paying dear money to the AIs.

Seventh, go here www.civfanatics.com and read their strategy articles and their forum for real expert advice.

I hope I have been helpful, I have been a Civ sucker for more than a decade now.

Edit, oh and the AI knowing where your least defended city is can work to your advantage. Just leave a city somewhere in the middle of your territory and the AI will often beeline for it ignoring your other cities and expose themselves for your attacks.

 

You see, I thought my problem was having TOO many cities. It got to the point where I had major corruption in just about all of them, and I figured I was getting so big it wasn't worth it, because the outlying cities were costing more money to support than they were bringing in with taxes. Maybe this idea is flawed. I resolved this by playing on smaller maps, which naturally, don't have as much land to occupy.

I totally agree with your thoughts on civilations - the Persians are my favorite, as they are scientific and industrious, and also offer a great unique unit - Immortals, which are more offensive swordsmen.

 

I agree with joacqins points. I play on Monarch most of the time now and do much of what he says.
As far as too many cities are concerned, that is why the Forbidden Palace is key. Try to build it as early as possible. Be choosey on the site. It should be in a city with high production potential (for cranking out Wonders, units, and SS components). I also try to make it as far from my capital as possible, but in an area where I have a lot of poorly performing cities.

I usually play as the Egyptians (Industrious, Religious), that way I can change governments at will. I expand rapidly. I don't let cities go above 3 for quite some time. I try to place strategic cities to pen in my opponents. If I can destroy an opponent early, I do it.

Try to time your golden age. I only do it when I have a fairly large civ. I use the golden age to speed up the production of the Forbidden Palace.

 

The other key tactic is judicious use of your first Great Leader. One of the benefits of an early war is that it increase your chances of getting a GL early. I will usually use my first GL to build that Forbidden Palace. To get maximum benefit from Forbidden Palace it should be in a part of your kingdom with high corruption. But then it would take 200 turns to build. I use my GL to build it instantly, thus slashing the corruption in that area and providing a huge, potentially game-winning boost to production, science, and cash.

As with the other people here, Monarch is the most fun level to play on. I also prefer the smaller maps as the game just takes too long on the bigger ones.

 

Every piece of land you have is a piece of land the AI doesnt have. So even fully corrupt cities are worthwhile in that aspect, and dont forget, you can buy in a temple or library to have it gather some culture.

I would recommend you to get Play the world or Conquest though Aldeth as the corruption level in vanilla CivIII is way over the top and atleast for me detracts a lot from the fun of playing. I often even go as far as lowering the corruption rate in the editor. Its cheating but for me it makes the game a bit more enjoyable. I like big empires.

 

I have never got a great leader. I'm not even sure how you do it, other than by having your unique units acheive military victories.

 

Yes, the big thing about getting land is it increases your chances of securing luxuries and strategic resources. There's nothing worse than discovering you have no Iron or Rubber. If that happens I usually give up because the AI never gives you a good deal on something as important as that.

Great leaders: You get a random chance of getting one whenever one of your elite units has an offensive victory. Militaristic civs get them more often due to their increased number of elite units. Once you have one, you can use it to either rush a city's production (usually to get a Wonder instantly) or to build an Army (which are quite powerful but usually not as good as a Wonder)

 

You can get great leaders on the defence as well. Also the chance increases if you win two attacks on the same turn with the same unit.

 

Really? I have never ever received a Great Leader on defence. Actually, I hardly ever get them at all unless I'm playing a Militaristic civ. I'm playing as the Scandinavians at the moment and I'm getting a few from my Beserkers. They're class.

 

Each time one of your elite units wins a fight against a rival, there is a 1 in 16 chance that a leader will appear. If one of your cities has built the small wonder "Heroic Epic" then your chance of getting a leader improves to 1 in 12 when you win a fight with an elite. You can not get a leader by fighting a barbarian. Only fights won against rival Civs have a chance of producing a leader. Once an elite unit makes a leader it cant ever make another.

 

For that reason, it is sometimes tactically useful to not upgrade certain elite units because if you do they downgrade to veterans and therefore decrease the chance of them becoming Great Leaders. A good example is the Knight who has only marginally less firepower than the Cavalry. An elite knight can still take potshots at passing enemies (especially weakened ones) for the chance of generating a GL. The sacrifice of that little bit of cavalry firepower is more than worth the chance of getting a GL.

 

Yet more questions and comments:

The Heroic Epic wonder would normally be a no-brainer for a build, especially because every civ can make one. However, in order to build it, you already had to get at least one great leader, and since I've never been able to get one, I can't even improve my chances of getting one.

Also, I'm not entirely clear on how the army concept works. I don't even know how to make an army, although I'm sure it would be obvious if I ever got a GL. So, how do you make one? Secondly, is this how they work:

1. Place two or more units into an army - for example purposes, lets say you have three knights.

2. Attack a unit/city/whever

3. First knight attacks until he loses one bar of health, then second knight attacks until he loses one bar of health, then third. They keep cycling until unit is dead or all knights are down to one health bar?