Geronimo Finally buys CivIII

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Speaking of wars and combat, in civ3 superior units do not always win a fight. Attack a def of 1 with an attack of 2 and you may lose. In fact it could have a greater gap and still lose, although it is less common as the difference grows.

No more of the build a wall and still one good unit in the city and forget it ala civ2. Even if you unit is say an infantry vet and they attack with ancient units, they will send enough to finally at times.

OMG, are you saying the inane 'mob of spearmen annihilate the army of MBTs' problem not only remains in c3c, but has actually gotten even worse??

[Geronimo]

In practical terms do I need to wage relentless wars and get some leaders out of them if I ever plan on rushing wonders? The civpedia says that there are supposed to be occasional 'scientific leaders' who could do that job which can appear when my civ is first to learn a new tech but I have been first to learn dozens of techs now and I have yet to see a single 'scientific leader' or any indeed see any leader of any sort whatsoever at all.

There has got to be a better way to get wonders.

[Geronimo]

Is there anyway to encourage trades of resources and luxeries with the AI civs? So far it has been insane. Two of the AI civs have spare luxeries that I don't have and both are experiencing internmitent revolts in major cities and yet both refuse to accept any trade of luxeries with me unless I sweeten the deal by given them over 1000 gold and 3 techs each in addition to my own luxeries! wth? They need the luxery goods far more than I do and yet they refuse to trade on even terms? It doesn't make the slighest shred of sense.

There must be some additional steps needed to encourage simple mutually beneficial trades. But damned I can figure out what they are.

[Kuciwalker]

Have you broken any deals before?

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Geronimo
In practical terms do I need to wage relentless wars and get some leaders out of them if I ever plan on rushing wonders? The civpedia says that there are supposed to be occasional 'scientific leaders' who could do that job which can appear when my civ is first to learn a new tech but I have been first to learn dozens of techs now and I have yet to see a single 'scientific leader' or any indeed see any leader of any sort whatsoever at all.

There has got to be a better way to get wonders.

There are now two types of Great Leaders:

Scientific - Can rush GWs or SWs. Can also (supposedly) speed up research overall, but I don't think anybody uses them that way. And yes, they are damn rare... In general, I think most experienced players favor pre-builds for GWs, and also tricks liking bulking up a given GW city via joining Workers.

Military - Cannot rush GWs. They can, however, rush SWs and regular buildings. Most importantly, however, they can create ARMIES, which are insanely great, and in C3C, insanely powerful. MGLs are created via elite land units winning battle.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Geronimo
... simple mutually beneficial trades...

That's your problem right there. If the amount of happiness that will be generated in *your* civilization greatly exceeds that of the AI's, they will want loads of other recompense above and beyond a simple 1:1 lux trade.

[Solomwi]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is Zone of Control. In all versions of CivIII, a unit with ZOC no longer blocks another unit from moving inside its ZOC. Now, a unit can move anywhere you like, but passing a ZOC unit means that unit takes a potshot at the passing unit that may or may not cost you a hitpoint. Hope that made sense.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Geronimo
In practical terms do I need to wage relentless wars and get some leaders out of them if I ever plan on rushing wonders? The civpedia says that there are supposed to be occasional 'scientific leaders' who could do that job which can appear when my civ is first to learn a new tech but I have been first to learn dozens of techs now and I have yet to see a single 'scientific leader' or any indeed see any leader of any sort whatsoever at all.

There has got to be a better way to get wonders.

Wars/combat can only lead to Military Great Leaders. They cannot rush great wonders, only small wonders and some structures and units. This includes Armies.

SGL's are someting like 5 and 6%, so gettign 20 techs first is only going to mean you have a shot. Getting say 10 in a game still is only 10 tries at a 1 in 20 target.

So your best shot at a great wonders is to build it from scratch with a prebuild.

SGL are not a given so don't count on them. MGL's require combat with your elite winning and are not hard to get if you have enough of those fights. Just take care of your elites and get them into fights they are pretty sure to win and you will get a leader in no time.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Geronimo
Is there anyway to encourage trades of resources and luxeries with the AI civs? So far it has been insane. Two of the AI civs have spare luxeries that I don't have and both are experiencing internmitent revolts in major cities and yet both refuse to accept any trade of luxeries with me unless I sweeten the deal by given them over 1000 gold and 3 techs each in addition to my own luxeries! wth? They need the luxery goods far more than I do and yet they refuse to trade on even terms? It doesn't make the slighest shred of sense.

There must be some additional steps needed to encourage simple mutually beneficial trades. But damned I can figure out what they are.

Like T said, they know the additional lux is going to do a lot for you and the one you offer them will not do nearly that much, so they want more for theirs, that makes sense to me.

Think of baseball cards and you need only two for the whole collection and I know this. I have one of the two and I need 100 and you offer me a most common card straight up. Would I be willing to make that deal, no. That card is not all that important to me or you, but my offer to you is very important to you.

This is the case in CivIII as the marketplace make lux do multiple happy faces as you have more and more of them. So that 7th and 8th luxs are huge boost to a large empire with the other 6 luxs already.

The 2nd or 3rd lux you offer them, is not nearly so useful and they may not even have markets in most of their cities to take advantage of the trade.

Just note that the advisor is going to give you a good ballpark on what they will accept in a trade. If it is techs and cash and the lux, you will not move them very much from that position.

[Geronimo]

so pre-build simply consists of building something big and hopefully having the tech for the weonder before you finish it and then switching over? doesn't sound like it will really rush the wonder at all, in the sense that the wonder won't really get done faster instead your just starting to build it before the tecyh is quite there.

[Alex]

yes, but pre-building a wonder is vital in the higher levels of difficulty, otherwise it will be damn hard for you to get a chance against the AI... unless, of course, you have a SGL or you conquer the city with the wonder...

[Willem]

Originally posted by Geronimo
In practical terms do I need to wage relentless wars and get some leaders out of them if I ever plan on rushing wonders? The civpedia says that there are supposed to be occasional 'scientific leaders' who could do that job which can appear when my civ is first to learn a new tech but I have been first to learn dozens of techs now and I have yet to see a single 'scientific leader' or any indeed see any leader of any sort whatsoever at all.

There has got to be a better way to get wonders.

Sorry, but there's little opportunity to rush Wonders, you're going to have to build them. In fact, the only way is with a Scientific Leader, which as you've already noticed, you don't get very often. Military GLs can only build Armies and rush Small Wonders, as well normal improvements.

[Xorbon]

To clarify a few things:

Inferior units do win more often than in Civ 2, but it's not really that bad. You'll see a lot of complaints about it here (and on other sites). Just make sure your forces are strong enough and backed-up with arty and you won't have to worry about the occasional loss of a tank to a spearman.

Zone of Control rules have changed as Solomwi has stated. However, not all units have ZoC. Check the civilopedia to see which units have it. I think it's under "Game Concepts". One more thing, any unit inside of a fortress automatically gains ZoC.

Another thing that affects trade costs is the relative size of your civ when compared to the size of your trading partner. If your civ is larger, the other civ will demand more from you. When making deals, I don't think the other civ takes into account the fact that you could kick its ass.

Lastly, when building wonders, make sure you build them in your most productive core cities. When you select a city, make sure you maximize production in that city by building mines while leaving enough irrigated tiles to keep your population fed. Sometimes you may want to join workers to your wonder-building city to maximize that city's population (be careful about unhappiness due to overcrowding).

[Theseus]

MINE MINE MINE!!!!

[gunkulator]

Another point not mentioned much: trade. At lower levels, you can out research the AI without too much trouble. Once you get to Monarch or even Regent, you can no longer be the first to discover every tech. What you need to get used to doing is trading techs. This was anathema in Civ2 of course but it is absolute vital in Civ3. In Civ2 there was a penalty for having tech. Each tech made the next tech more expensive. Not so in Civ3, so trade trade trade!

The correct way to do this is to contact as many civs as possible asap and then trade any newly discovered tech to each and every civ possible. That way you get something like 3 techs for the research price of 1. If you don't trade, the AIs will trade amongst themselves and you'll be left out of the dealing and behind. Always trade on your turn, never at during the AI's turn. Don't give them the oppurtunity to trade the tech you just discovered.