Can somebody give me some strategies?
Also, maybe some kind of help with the commands? Because I usally get to a point where I can’t do anymore(atleast from the way I’m doing it), just wait for my advisor to reccomend me to do something.
I’d much appreciate it…
Rather than spending resources to research your own techs, save up your gold and use it to buy techs from the most advanced civs. Once a tech is owned by more than one civ, its price drops and you can afford to buy it. In the same turn in which you acquire a tech, immediately sell it to everyone who doesn’t have it, thus increasing your revenue. In my most recent game, I spent most of it way behind on techs. But I traded for them until I caught up to the tech leader, and went on to a spaceship victory (definitely the coolest kind of victory).
When I first started playing Civ, I was timid about going to war, but once I found out how easy it is to trounce the other civs, I discovered that it’s an important way to build up your power in a hurry. You just have to make sure to prepare yourself by building enough units. Build way more than you think you’ll need. Send out expeditionary forces with a 3:1 ratio of attack and defense units. Never use defense units for attack, if you can help it, and try not to use attack units for defense.
Look, I could go on and on, but you will find much better advice at the CivFanatics forums on strategy and tips. The URL is http://forums.civfanatics.com/
Well, I am by no means good at Civ3, but here is my general strategy: (By no means perfect!)
*I build few cities. But I make sure that they are well spaced (to allow maximum production), and I irrigate/railroad every tile in my domain. In other words: Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure.
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I avoid all military conflict until I get nukes. If that means that I have to grovel, then I grovel. Tip: I give potential enemies my maps every turn. It keeps them a bit happier, and doesn’t seem to be any skin off my back. (Free!)
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I build a few ‘outposts’ (cities that I don’t start until later in the game, and don’t really have a chance to fully develop) in arctic/near arctic areas. This is key…
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Remeber those nukes? Let them rip. Preferably, hit enemy cities which contain nuclear reactors; More pollution! The goal here is to pollute the world well past the point that workers can clean it.
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Remeber thos arctic outposts? They are now well-placed to grow. Assuming you had enough global warming, they will probably be the only non-starving cities on the planet.
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Enjoy!
Wow - a scorched earth strategy, huh, Brutus? That’s a new one to me.
I like it.
I’ve used that one since the original Civ. I love the game, but suck against too many opponents at a decent difficulty level, so I have to be all weasaly if I want to win 
Expand, expand, expand. Size does matter. Keep building those cities.
Build scouts if you can, if not send warriors out exploring. Find the enemy civs. When you do, build cities as close to their frontier as you can. What you want to do is establish the national borders in your favor.
Mine those grassland squares. You’ll need the extra shield more than the extra food. Make sure you have at least one worker for every two cities to mine and build roads.
Build the Great Library. Then meet everyone you can. Trade techs to meet other foes if you have to. Then you can cut off science to build up your war chest, at least until Education makes the GL obsolete.
Hog those resources and luxuries. If a weak enemy has control over something you want, go ahead and take it.
Get a better game. Like Civ II. Or Call to Power II.
This is vital. Especially if you can place cities at choke points early. Keep up good relations and they won’t eneter your territory at all. So if you can use your city zones to make roadblocks you can effectively seal off most of your initial continent without a contest.
I say - don’t be timid. But avoid aggression till you’re ready.
You’ll notice how enemies are trying to cross your borders, probing defence and taking shortcuts. Be sure to open up the dialogue screen and tell them to buzz off, from day 1. If not, the A.I. will judge you a pushover and keep probing until one day - WHAM - you got a war you didn’t plan for on your hands.
Hint: The aggressor will almost alwaysknock on your door and ask to trade territory map, just before an attack.
When ready - go to war, using hints mentioned earlier in this thread. Be sure to use offensive units. Before even thinking about this, get research iron, and find some iron ore, to build swordsman. Later, cavalry is very good for aggresice manouvers. And come modern times - modern armor are awesome. . Especially if you have elit units and pile them into an army. In the game I’m playing right now, I have 15 armies and they’re virtually unstopable.
For defense - upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. And see to it that you have enough guys defending each city. I usually have four units.
Great wonders you’ll find immensely helpful:
- Pyramids (automativ granary in every city)
- Art of war (automatic barrack in every city)
- Great Library (cranks out those culture points every turn, even when obsolete)
- Leonardo’s Workshop (upgrade units att half price)
- Adam Smith’s Trading company (you never, ever again have to pay for a marketplace or bank, saves lotsa money)
- One religious (I don’t remeber if it’s 16th chappel or J.S. Bach Cathedral - it doubles effects of all cathedrals, making your guys happier).
Enjoy.
RickJay’s Guide To Winning At Civilization III
- Above all things, EXPAND.
In your first city, build a settler. When your settler is done, build another. You should be dedicating the majority of all your production to settlers, with a few workers and military untis thrown in, until you have occupied the entire natural geographic limits of your nation.
Occupy ALL land you can. Don’t worry about having cities overlap - it’s better to have a city limited to just four coastal spaces than it is to leave those spaces undeveloped. Allowing even your big, important cities to overlap a square or two. is just fine, as long as you make sure you build lots and lots of cities and occupy all land available. If you have an island to yourself take every square inch of it. If you share a landmass with another civ, expand as fast as you possibly can and establish a clear border to your advantage. And even after yu’ve occupied everything, when you get navigation, make sure you send a few boats around with settlers to grab any islands that haven’t been claimed.
I can’t stress this enough; you must take EVERY square inch of land you can, overlapping cities if need be. The rest of the hints here, combined, are not half as important as the need to EXPAND. The computer expands very aggressively, and you must be twice as aggressive. The larger civilizations have a huge production and science advantage over the smaller ones, one that after awhile is very hard to make good.
If you’re bigger than your opponents you’ll crush them like grapes. If you’re smaller you’ll need much fancier strategy to beat them.
- Play to your civilization’s advantages by
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Know what Wonder of the World or game action causes your civilization to enter a Golden Age, and go for that Wonder/action like a ferret. Golden Ages are huge boons to your progress.
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Know when your civilization is going to get its unique military unit and be especially aggressive at that stage of the game. If you’re the Zulus and your neighbour is Germany, you should be aggressive early because you’ll have Impi warriors and he has no special units until modern times.
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Play to the civilization’s advantages. If you’re Scientific, go nuts on science and sell old rechs for money. If you’re Commercial, go nuts on money, buy techs, and resell them.
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Play to the game rules. If you play at a lower difficulty level but with barbarians, be an Expansionist civilization and use your scout unit to snap up villages; you can get several free technologies this way.
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Know the technology tree and play to it. Make sure you’ll researching what will give you your needs now.
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Go to Republic/Democracy ASAP.
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In the midgame, remember that you’ll start going broke if you’re slow to develop Currency (Marketplaces) and Banking (banks.)
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Fight wars one at a time. Even if 3 civs declare war on you, hold off two with a skeleton force and hammer the third. Force him to make peace, then work on the next one. Always concentrate your forces. Coordinate your attacks on cities so that all your best offensive units attack at the same time, which prevents the computer from building or transferring new defensive forces in between attacks.
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Don’t put much stock in bombardment units. It doesn’t work very well.
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If you lack a resource, fight for it.
Once you have established your national borders and there is no more room for expansion, put some border guards all along your frontier. That will stop those pesky AI civs from wandering all around your empire as they tend to do. Look at your map and figure out where an attack may come from. Fortify in that neighborhood. The enemy will leave a tempting target alone if they see they will have to fight for it.
The location of the Forbidden Palace is key. Build it a good distance from your capital, but not so far that corruption makes it take forever to build. Also, when you discover coal, see if any cities have or can be built with both coal and iron. If so, build the Iron Works.
Choose your battles. If you share a continent with one other civ, take it to them early. Pick on smaller foes close to your borders. Don’t waste your time attempting a cross-ocean war unless you can send over a dozen boats with units.
When you conquer a city near the opponents capital, just raze it. If you take it over, they may revolt on you anyway.
For a fairly complete collection of Civ III strategies check out Civilization Fanatics’ Center at http://www.civfanatics.com/ They have a great forum and a collection of articles on strategies along with patches and other downloads. Their Forum is one of the other Forums I check daily besides the SDMB.