Can't win at Civ III Monarch!

[solkoe]

Well I have won once or twice but generally I get way behind in technology and get bowled over in the end. Any advice?

[Crocodiles And Boulevards]

Originally Posted by solkoe

Well I have won once or twice but generally I get way behind in technology and get bowled over in the end. Any advice?

What ruleset are you playing? World conquest?

[Illuminatiprimus]

Originally Posted by solkoe

Any advice?

Yeah, stop wasting your time and pick up Civ 4!

[solkoe]

Originally Posted by Illuminatiprimus

Yeah, stop wasting your time and pick up Civ 4!

I have thought about it.
I've wonder if the gradations in Civ III are a little extreme. As I understand it,
Civ IV gives you a lot more control. Is that right?

[solkoe]

Originally Posted by Crocodiles And Boulevards

What ruleset are you playing? World conquest?

Domination and Conquest only

[Pushkin]

Originally Posted by Illuminatiprimus

Yeah, stop wasting your time and pick up Civ 4!

Sometimes I find myself thinking of going back to Civ III... There's just something not quite right with Civ 4, can't put my finger on it though.

[Zsofia]

Originally Posted by Pushkin

Sometimes I find myself thinking of going back to Civ III... There's just something not quite right with Civ 4, can't put my finger on it though.

Civ II is the true prophet.

[Illuminatiprimus]

One of the best things about Civ 4 is the mods, particularly Fall from Heaven which is effectively Master of Magic 2.

[smiling bandit]

Basically, you have to cheat. Well, not exactly cheat, but around Monarch you need to start using all the ridiculous exploits, because the A.I. will start cheating like a bored French housewife.

[Pushkin]

Originally Posted by Zsofia

Civ II is the true prophet.

I went straight from Civ to Civ III and then Civ IV, so I never got a chance to try that one.

I picked up the add on for Civ IV, so I may try a few mods and maps from Civfanatics.com

[Illuminatiprimus]

Originally Posted by Pushkin

I picked up the add on for Civ IV, so I may try a few mods and maps from Civfanatics.com

You seriously SERIOUSLY need to check out fall from heaven, it rocks quite spectacularly. Try out FFH1 and once you've got the hang of that try out FFH2 which is better but several orders of magnitude more complicated.

I've sunk some serious hours into both, you won't be disappointed.

[solkoe]

Originally Posted by smiling bandit

Basically, you have to cheat. Well, not exactly cheat, but around Monarch you need to start using all the ridiculous exploits, because the A.I. will start cheating like a bored French housewife.

Are you referring to Civ III or IV? I dont't know what your referring to if you mean Civ III.

[smiling bandit]

Originally Posted by solkoe

Are you referring to Civ III or IV? I dont't know what your referring to if you mean Civ III.

I'm not "referring" to anything.

The computer cheats, plain and simple.

[Sitnam]

Civ IV is great, the expansion pack Beyond the Sword's Rhye's and Fall of Civilization is the reason I missed last November.

[Miller]

Originally Posted by smiling bandit

I'm not "referring" to anything.

The computer cheats, plain and simple.

I think he meant the "ridiculous exploits" he'd need to use to beat the cheating computer.

[treis]

There's really only one way to win:

(1) Research asap to Swordsmen and severely weaken/kill the nearest Civ.

(2) Get to the Great Library and build it.

If you gradually take over the nearest Civ you can get the upgrades through forced diplomacy. In other words, declare war, take a couple of cities, and then get all the technology you can. Rinse and repeat. Hopefully you beat everyone else to the Great Library after this. Then you can never fall too far behind.

A couple other tips:

(1) There's no hope in defending your cities. Keep a warrior in each of them, and if someone declares move every available unit to that border. There's no way to keep up with the computer's building speed early. You just gotta hope you can achieve local superiority despite the CPUs overwhelming global advantage.

(2) As with 1, when you attack you will never have the theoretical strength to defeat the CPU. If the CPU weren't retarded about unit distribution, it would smack your army around. You need to position yourself to get local advantages on your attack route, and the CPU's likely invasion route. Try and get 1-2 cities and then negotiate for peace.

(3) Bribing your neighbors to declare war on the Civs that declare on you is tremendously helpful.

(4) It's a tremendous advantage to build along rivers. Do so when ever possible.

(5) You need to "steal" important resources whenever you can. It's worth it to build a city solely to get iron, coal, gun powder, oil, or horses if you can't get them elsewhere. Don't be shy about building your city really close to an enemy city in order to take one of those resources.

(6) The time to attack is as soon as possible after you get Swordsmen, Knights, Cavalry, and tanks. It's not necessary to attack at each of these steps, but if you do attack you should do it at this time.

(7) Upgrading your units is a very good strategy. Turn your research down to 0 and rack up the gold for a couple turns. This might be your only hope in defense at times.

[smiling bandit]

Another concept involves not using the Great Library - it's really cheezy but it works. Get a trireme early and find as many opponents as you can. On YOUR turn (not the AI's), sell a technology to all of them. Or buy a tech (at inflated prices) and sell it to everyone. You get the tech and some cash, and you can leave your research at 0.

[Pushkin]

Originally Posted by smiling bandit

I'm not "referring" to anything.

The computer cheats, plain and simple.

I think this was raised in another Civ thread a few years back. Basically the computer will start responding to things you do that its Civs shouldn't be able to see. It will know where you are building certain units and where they are moving even when out of range of its own units.

And good advice from treis, the Great Library is fantastically useful.

[Frank]

Originally Posted by Pushkin

Sometimes I find myself thinking of going back to Civ III... There's just something not quite right with Civ 4, can't put my finger on it though.

I agree. I think one of the things that bothers me is that I don't see marked results of the Wonders, like the aforementioned Great Library. When you build that in III and start getting new techs every few turns, that's a vivid result. And is it the Great Wall that you can force peace with? Anyway, the Wonders don't seem as usefull in IV. Too subtle for me, perhaps.

[smiling bandit]

Originally Posted by Pushkin

I think this was raised in another Civ thread a few years back. Basically the computer will start responding to things you do that its Civs shouldn't be able to see. It will know where you are building certain units and where they are moving even when out of range of its own units.

And good advice from treis, the Great Library is fantastically useful.

They also don't build things in their cities very often, but seem to have no problems doing without. Which really ticks me off, because when I capture that city, I have to waste precious time and money bringing it up to be something usable.

[Frank]

Originally Posted by smiling bandit

They also don't build things in their cities very often, but seem to have no problems doing without. Which really ticks me off, because when I capture that city, I have to waste precious time and money bringing it up to be something usable.

I've always assumed that that was a result of capturing the city. Of course, there's no explaining why your troops always burn down the temple and the bank.

[smiling bandit]

Originally Posted by Frank

I've always assumed that that was a result of capturing the city. Of course, there's no explaining why your troops always burn down the temple and the bank.

As near as I can tell, nope. I've seen the occaisional building, and in the late game, many cities will have one or two buildings, but they are usually trivial. Capitol cities can have as many as five, counting wonders. It wil spend time building aqueducts and hospitals, since it does need to them to get to the really big sizes and such.

This is what ticks me off so much. The A.I. isn't spending any time building strucures, and somehow can support a much larger army than its income should support. And of course, it's always producing troops.

Funny story: I was playing the Americans on a continent with the Japanese and Chinese. I early on boxed the Japaese into a peninsula, conquered them, then exapnded across the continent at a breakneck pace. The Chinese were starting to get going, but I took them down and hard.

Now, for no known reason, all the other A.I. players on the other continent immediately hated me the second they learned of my existence. This upset me greatly. Apparently they'd been locked in a nightmarish three-war free for all for the last eon and directed their rage at me. By this time I was bored making my cities into awesome citadels of awesomeness, and having factories everywhere I wanted them along with tanks, marines, transports, and so forth I went off and captured a city over there. I had quite a large stock of tanks, marines, and infantry, and the city had walls built-in.

It was a massacre. I lost coutn around 50, but each A.I. sent at least that many units to come give me a good rogering. Even I couldn't afford that many, and I saw at least TWICE that many being moved around in my general direction These units were, at best, cavalry, and often much less. Then their galleons sank my transports I pretty much quit that game and never went back. or maybe I worked up to nukes and levelled them all.

[saoirse]

Originally Posted by Frank

I've always assumed that that was a result of capturing the city. Of course, there's no explaining why your troops always burn down the temple and the bank.

This is true. I know, because one of the ways I've always cheated is by saving, investigating the other civs' cities, and then quitting without saving. I usually do this when I'm ready to quit anyway. I'm not quite that obsessive.

[LurkMeister]

What always used to annoy me about Civ III back when I played it was that the A.I. players were always sending scouts or soldiers through my territory. If I objected they would move out, usually taking the longest possible route. But the instant one of my people would cross their border, I had to pull them back under threat of war. And the A.I. always seemed to know where resources were, even in my own territory, and would have no problem exploiting those resources.

[Fuji]

If you're talking about Civ 3, then ICS is still a winning, though mind-numbingly tedious, path to victory - especially if you're playing an Agricultural civ (assuming you're playing Civ 3: Conquests).

They nerfed ICS a bit for Civ 3, though not enough for my tastes. Civ 4 finally dealt ICS the death-blow, and the franchise is much the better for it, IMHO.

[ExTank]

I picked up Civ III in the bargain bin, and have recently started playing it (I played Civ II years ago).

So I have a question: how in the hell do I keep pollution down? I build Recycling Centers, Mass Transit, and Solar Plants, but I can't keep pollution away.

I seem to recall in Civ II a city improvement, Sewer System, which helped a lot, along with the ones mentioned above, but it seems to have been replaced in Civ III with Hospitals, gained when you pick up the Civ. Advance Sanitation.

As far as I can tell, Sanitation doesn't do much for you, aside from letting you build Hospitals to allow cities to grow beyond size 12. Mass Transit and Recycling Centers help some, but in Civ II I recall having much larger cities (around size 18 or so) with no pollution.

Am I missing something?

[smiling bandit]

Nope, that's just the way it is. The Hydro plants help because they aren't as efficient at production, so you get free production but less pollution. Less overall output, though.

Corruption, though. That's the big pain.

[Lute Skywatcher]

Originally Posted by Zsofia

Civ II is the true prophet.

I was unable to wrap my brain around that one for some reason.

Originally Posted by smiling bandit

Corruption, though. That's the big pain.

And what the Forbidden Palace is for.

[smiling bandit]

Originally Posted by Lute Skywatcher

And what the Forbidden Palace is for.

Doesn't help much in the endgame, though.

[aptronym]

I seem to be in the same boat as the OP. Yeah, yeah, I'll get Civ4 sometime, but meanwhile I want to get the maximum enjoyment out of Civ3.

Fact: the AI cheats. They know where all the resources are at the beginning of the game, so they'll plant down cities in random places knowing oil will be discovered there 2000 years later. They also know your exact military strength at all times.

You can actually use these to your advantage. Retain a large military, even if some of the units seem extraneous. Diplomatic negotiations move smoother when the computer senses you have a stack of 15 swordsmen, even if they're on the other side of the continent.

Also, aside from an initial burst of planting cities, I like to conquer cities. The computer knows exactly where to place them - who am I to argue?

Fact: the AI cheats. They all collude to research separate techs, and then sell it to one another for a discount.

At the beginning of the game, I almost always set my research to 10% and gold to 90%. You can't keep up with the AI in tech, so why bother? Just buy it (or beat it) out from them later. The prices go down as more people have it; you'll always be a step behind, but you're only really in trouble when you're 3-4 steps behind.

At some point, usually during the Middle Ages for me, I turn the corner. This usually involves a big score - beating down a rival to the point where they'll give you all their tech for peace, for example. Better yet, find an AI that's about to get knocked off by another AI. Try to get an alliance against the dying AI for tech, and then sue for peace and try to score more tech (you'll take a reputation hit for that one).

Basically, at that point, you start researching yourself, and your goal is to get a tech that nobody else has. Set all your cities to produce beakers and emphasize production. Good ones that the AI often skips are Military Tradition and Medicine. I also scored with Invention once too.

Start with the richest AI and work your way to the poorest AI. Squeeze as much as you can out of everyone, and most importantly, make sure that you give it to everyone - because otherwise the AI will trade with each other.

If you're successful, the rest of the game is pretty much cakewalk. You can pump out a tech every 4 turns, and when you sell it to the AI, they pay for 20 turns. Sooner or later, you essentially bankrupt them - they cut their own research to pay for yours. You'll rule the rest of the game with a 5-6 tech lead.

Little tips and tricks:

- Read about "Ring City Placement" on Civfanatics. I don't know how much it helps, but it's pretty cool. I usually build a 5.5-square ring and an 11-square ring, and then build a Forbidden Palace far enough away and cram a lot of cities close to it.

- I throw the AI 1 gold every few turns as a gift and it seems to help their attitude towards me.

- If you fall more than 5-6 techs behind, you're toast. Sooner or later your pikemen will end up getting rushed by tanks. I just give up at that point.

[glee]

I've played a lot of Civ 2, Civ 3 and quite a bit of Civ 4.

Because there were no penalties for building many, many cities in Civ 3, I found that it was very difficult to keep up with computer opponents and also to keep track of what all my cities were doing.

One huge benefit of Civ 4 is that there are financial penalties with each new city above a certain number. So all Civilisations are restricted, and you can easily focus your attention on the cities you have.

On low to medium levels, I have won Civ 4 under all the different victory conditions with 6-10 cities.
With tougher levels, I am sticking to 4-6 cities.

I find it easy to pick up the thread of a saved game, because there are so few cities to look at. Also the resource system makes it relatively straightforward where to build cities, and what function to allocate them.

Finally the multiplayer and team system is great. I can tackle higher levels by teaming up with a computer, until I get the hang of the level.

Civ 4 rules, OK!

[smiling bandit]

Originally Posted by glee

Because there were no penalties for building many, many cities in Civ 3, I found that it was very difficult to keep up with computer opponents and also to keep track of what all my cities were doing.

Ummm... yes, yes there was.

it's called corruption, and it absolutely nails any players trying for a large civilization without cheating or gaming the system in ludicrous ways. In the endgame, it's not uncommon for my farther cities to become totally helpless, with 1 production shield.

[asterion]

Did they ever fix corruption in later versions? I played the initial release and found it almost unplayable because the corruption penalties were so bad. It's like saying that everything west of the Mississippi contributes absolutely nothing to the US economy just because it's all a thousand or two thousand or three thousand miles away from Washington. If Civ III had its way, the best place to put the US capital would be in Lebanon, Kansas.