31-03-2002 17:05									#1
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Hi. I've been playing Civ for a while but never really employ any expert tactics (I'm still playing Cheiftain on Civ3). In the attached SAV I have built up my Civ with good culture, great science, and a reasonable military.

I would like some advice from some experts out there as to what I should do next. Do I keep improving my cities as I am now, and ignore the military til later, or would anyone recommend starting a war now. Any thoughts appreciated as I would like to start playing a bit more intelligently using more advanced tactics and strategies.

I don't really mind how I win a game - just want a good score and to learn something about how to play well, although I do quite fancy a nice war at some point.

Also, do you recommend playing at low levels and doing well as I think I am, or should I play at Deity and get my butt whipped a few times??

Thanks for your time.

	31-03-2002 17:14									#2
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Sorry. I just checked the forum and couldn't see my ZIP attached. I'm new here - does it show?

Hope this works now.

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	31-03-2002 20:27									#3
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Well, without having seen your save, I have at least a couple comments. First, whether or not to attack can be a stylistic question. Being a builder myself, I would be inclined not to attack and just wait for someone to declare war. Of course, there are many factors which could affect this decision. Are you in the lead? If not, I would be inclined to expand as much as possible. So, if you have space to expand into, I would do so, and if not, I would take a couple cities from your weakest neighbouring civ. Another question would simply be whether or not you currently have much to build. Do your core cities have all or almost all the improvements that are currently available and useful to them? If they do, I would build a military with them and go for the best civ around and take a chunk out of them.

As to increasing score, from what I understand, the best way to do this is to disable domination victory and warmonger, warmonger, warmonger. A good civ for this is Aztecs, who are militaristic and have a great early UU (religious is also a great trait). Right off the bat, build 3-4 Jaguar warriors, find a civ and destroy it. Your Jags will likely be able to take out 1 or 2 other civs as well, depending on map size and civ #. After those first Jags, your capital should build a settler, then barracks, then another settler (give or take, depending on food and mineral supply), then more jags, and maybe archers, depending on how your jags are doing and if you have anything else available. I would beeline for ironworking and not build archers at all, as they're not that good, but sometimes you haven't much choice. Don't build anything but barracks and units. Maybe the occasional temple for culture (this is why Aztecs are good for this strat, cheap barracks and temples). The goal is to destroy everyone except for one AI city, gain as much territory as possible, and build your pop., because territory and pop. are the main factors for scoring. Remember that my building suggestions for this strat are guidelines only, you must be able to adapt! No iron? Beeline for horseback riding and go take some! No horse? Build a million Jags and swarm! You will probably generate a ton of GLs to grab important GWs and build at least one offensive army so you can get the Heroic Epic and further your GL production. Now, as I said before, I am a builder, so I don't like to use this strat, because, if you ask me, though is is good for score, it isn't fun. It removes the empire-building and diplomatic aspects from the game, and makes you more like a nomadic band of barbarians with many encampments. You end up just moving pieces around. As a result of my not using this strat much, I would ask one of the guys around here who does for more specifics and suggestions.

As for playing level, I would suggest getting away from Chieftain. You will learn strats there that are inapplicable to other levels. Don't jump straight to Deity, but I would move to WArlord or Regent, even. As you become comfortable winning at each level, move up. I, for example tend to play at REgent/Monarch, because I generally win at Regent (but it's far from a guarantee) and I go to Monarch for a challenge, where I almost always lose.

For overall strategy, there are some selected threads at http://apolyton.net/civ3/strategy/ which have a variety of starts. I recomment Vel's threads, myself, http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...1104#post581104 , http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...0526#post630526 and http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...1781#post651781 .
I one of them (I can't remember which, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the first one), Vel describes a city (or 'base' as he calls them) pairing strategy which will work well for the warmonger start I was talking about earlier.

ANyway, that's all. Good luck.

	02-04-2002 03:29									#4
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That's a very good builder game... now it's time to go to WAR!!!

A couple of thoughts :

1. It feels like you're playing Civ2. You don;t need units in cities under Democracy. And having a navy to watch for enemy ships is unnecessary. So, upgrade all units as far as they'll go, and pour down on Zululand. They don;t even have Military Tradition yet, so you'll have Cavalry and Riflemen against Musketmen and Knights (maybe just Pikemen, actually; I don;t think they have saltpeter). Also, draft a Rifleman everytime a city hits 12 pop. Pour them down to the front as well, and use as cannon fodder and to create forward defensive encampments. Don;t "mobilize" but start building military units in most cities... if a an enemy attack lands, you'll have a steady stream of defenders, esp. if you're drafting often.

2. Fill in your cities!!! I would build cities 2W1S of New York, 3SE1S of New York, and 3N of St. Louis, as well as expanding the empire south. In general I would say you're too spread out; don;t worry about tile overlap... as you can see, cities get to 12 easily and stay there a looong time.

3. Connect the silks 2S of San Francisco, someone will want it.

4. Just realized, you've got no COAL. Ah, but look there, next to Amatikulu... Mix in building some workers, so you can build RR after you have the coal.

5. Forget the Privateers... just throw'em down south and see if you can have fun.

6. I would probably take Research down 10%, and put it towards luxuries instead.

7. Get Espionage next; build the IA, and then it'll be easy to get Zululand to declare war on you, which will help with warweariness.

Good learning experience, but move on from Chieftain.

R

	02-04-2002 11:51									#5
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I would also stop having the workers build fortresses. only build them on chokepoints.