Need help with a monarch level game

[StoryTellerSJEM]

Speak English, Leb.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by lebensraum
sorry v,
forget about the armies. this is vanilla.
no combat bonii
no healing in enemy territory
no fast healing
no blitz ability

my knee jerk reaction is to start with building up your arty defense. then i realised. i don't even know if this is pangie or archie.

don't know if leader farming will do any good. might let you rush theory of evolution, but that'd require scientific method.

anyhoo, v's wrong, commy's nuts - and don't buy tech from the germans, for sid's sake!

how about a piccy?

Yeah no full healing for armies in Civ3 (vanilla), but other units do get full healing. Armies are still quite strong even in Civ3 or PTW.

You won't be in enemy land as you are founding a town, but the lack of fast healing will slow down the invasion, but not much.

These do not change anything I said, only makes the armies less powerful, not powerless.

I made the point that buying tech is a mistake, so I do not see where I am wrong on anything. Now if you want to make a case that there is a better way, then make one.

Armies do not get free pillaging in Civ3, but they still can pillage quite nicely and will probably be immune from attack, except by bombers.

Any other means of invading will require a lot more units and a lot more transports of whatever flavor you have. It will take more losses and need to be replaced.

[Terra Nullius]

@ storyteller s.j.
conquests introduced a whole bunch of new powers for armies. these include
- armies heal in foreign territory (great for pillaging resources far from home)
- armies in a city with a barracks heal in one turn
- armies can attack multiple times in one turn (blitz)
- combat values are greatly increased for units in an army
- the ai is lousy at dealing with armies
this means that in conquests armies are huge, arguably too powerful.

in vanilla, armies are basically a waste of time.

- it takes a long time for an army to heal. if you keep your units separate, they can move independently as soon as any given unit is healed. if you load them into an army, you have to wait for the whole army to recover.
- an army can only attack once per turn, so instead of three tanks each being able to attack on a given turn, if you load those tanks into an army, you lose the extra attacks.
- it costs 400 shields to build an army. that's a lot of production for very limited benefit.

i don't know anything about the topology of the map. so i can't say what sort of tactics you should use. there's no point pumping out loads of transports if you can just build a railroad straight into german territory.

it'd help a lot to have a screenshot. just fire up civ. press 'print screen' and paste it into 'paint' or similar. make sure to save as .jpeg
then when you 'post reply' - hit the 'img' button and type in "c:\my pictures\screenshot.jpg" or whatever you called it.

Originally posted by vmxa1
I do not see where I am wrong on anything.

oh, and don't buy tech from the germans!

[StoryTellerSJEM]

Conquests sounds kewl but I don't have it.

Back to the game . ..

QUESTION: the Germans just got tanks but I think my border cities can hold them for a while. I have artillery that can weaken them big time and then attack with cavalry or infantry. Crude, I know, but I'm 4 turns away from refining.

Anyway, if I save up enough money to steal a tech from the Germans, do I get my choice? Meaning can I steal mobile warfare or is there some chain where I have to steal previous techs.

Each tech looks to be about 5000 for a very probable steal and I'm only getting 300 GP per turn if I don't do any science or luxuries. OUCH. lol

And, even though I have a ton of luxuries, everyone is furious b/c of broken treaties, heh, so it looks like they won't give me a good deal for a while.

I really need to do something to catch up b/c I don't have marines yet and I'm stagnating with tech. I can pillage german territories, which I'm doing now with infantry conscripts (i.e. really fast to produce and pump out b/c it takes turns to get them over to the Germans, like 3-4 turns).

And, I know it will get worse when they get better ships and the like and drown my navy of ironclads, frigates and galleons.

If a map copy is a must, let me know and I'll post.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

StoryTeller

[StoryTellerSJEM]

BTW, let me give you an idea of units.

I have TONS and TONS of infantry and a fair number of cavalry, mostly elite. Also have about 40 to 65 artillery units all over.

So, I think I can hold but over time the Germans are going to run me down even if I have a lot of infantry.

A lot depends on if I can steal the desired tech or if I need to go through a chain or branch (i.e. if I have iron making and I want to steal chivalry or metallurgy can I do so even though I passed up several techs along the branch?).

Thanks,

StoryTeller

[vmxa1]

A steal will pop up their tech tree and the ones in blue are the ones they know and you do not. You can select any of them.

A screen shot is not all that useful at this stage, a save would be better.

You are correct that you need to do some damage to them and pillaging is one way. Razing cities is better yet. If you can get an army up make it with calvs so it can cover ground faster and use it to pillage tiles. Use large stacks of inf and arties to go to towns and raze them. Bring one or two calvs with this stack. They can pillage the tile and still move on with the stack.

They can capture any workers left out, probably none, but you hate to miss out if they are some. Maybe even a few more to kill any units that you find damaged.

[StoryTellerSJEM]

Armies can't pillage in the basic game, from what I can see, but units within can.

Am I right in what you seem to be implying? A stack, even if weak conscripted infantry, will be avoided by the
tanks?

I asked about tech b/c even though Bismarck has tanks I can only trade for steel, sci method and refining. I'd hate to save up 5000 over the next several turns and find out I have to pick one of those three instead of mobile warfare.

If the stack of infantry and conscripts won't be attacked by tanks, that's exactly what I'll do.

BTW, when you keep breaking treaties, the patch shows less concessions (i.e. patch as in the normal ones here b/c I just added them after playing the boxed set original). Babylon, for instance, had 15 cities. I've destroyed or taken 14 of them and while they'll give me all their gold and even their smaller cities, they won't give me any tech.

Not sure what's up with that logic but oooookay.

StoryTeller

[vmxa1]

I know that only C3C gets the free pillaging, but I am not clear if armies in vanilla can or cannot pillage. It has just been too long.

I do think I was using pillaging armies in PTW. I am sure I did that in some AU games????? Never can be sure with us old people as we do tend to get our wires crossed from time to time.

No I am not saying stacks will be ignored, just that if they are big enough they should be able to handle attacks. Especially with lots of arties.

If they have an army on top of them and you do not use the NoAiPatrol in C3C armies of full health are not attacked. I cannot remember if that is true in vanilla.

I am not positive, but I seem to recall I was able to steal techs without having prereq techs, but that may be wrong.

They seem to have made it harder to beat techs out of them, but not impossible. They made it so you cannot make deal for cities, except as part of a peace pack.

[inca911]

Without looking a save, here are some thoughts:

1. You are allied with your greatest enemy?!!? You need to get others to wage war against your enemy. You should be able to prepare to defend well against the Germans prior to getting others to fight them. Of course, this leads to the next problem you have.

2. Your reputation seems to suck. Lots of broken treaties early in this game appear to be a big problem. Your rep is more important the higher up you go in difficulty level. With your existing lousy rep, your trading is hindered, your ability to get others to go to war with you is affected, etc. You sometimes need to pass up a lesser gain for a few turns to preserve your rep. Those towns can still be conquered after the peace treaty/trade deal expires.

3. You let the Germans get tanks before taking care of them. The Germans should be dealt with before Panzers.

4. What is your government? Sounds like you are in Monarchy. Republic is a much better choice for a healthy civ with a good economy. Yes you have to support your units, but with luxuries, markets, banks the extra bonuses of Republic are needed and make a huge difference. At Deity, many players go from Anarchy to Republic and never change again (too much anarchy).

5. Do you use Mobilization? If you want war, make sure you take advantage of the extra shield bonus of mobilization.

6. Related to #1, don't trade anything to the Germans! Every deal you are making to help yourself is helping your greatest threat stay on top.

You have stated you are a warmonger. I haven't played Monarch in forever, but a good war requires a sound economy to support the effort. At higher difficulties, this is more and more true as the AI production bonuses are substantial. The game you are in sounds like a slugfest at this point, but you are learning some principles for your next Monarch game. I'm very interested in hearing of your next game results after preserving your reputation. If I were interested in doing better at Civ, I'd quit the game you're playing and start over. You may eventually outfight the lousy AI, but improving in that area isn't going to get you to Emperor or Deity anytime soon.

[StoryTellerSJEM]

But, I like waging war as a monarchy and it's the first time of playing CIV 3 that any power has had this type of a leap against me.

And, I like slugging it out, so, just trying to figure out the best way to whoop Germany.

I'm no longer allied with Germany; they broke the alliance and attacked me. I'm monarchy b/c communism makes you take bodies to complete projects fast instead of gold.

Reputation is definitely shot. And, yes, I use mobilization.

It's going to get ugly now that they have tanks and the best thing I can think of is saving up 5000 GP to make a safe and probable steal of mobile warfare.

Does it behoove me to change to communism to get faster tech?

Thanks,

StoryTeller

[Modo44]

Communism could reduce overall corruption, if your empire is big. This is the main bonus it gets you. As to techs, it might help research, but the main thing is the Veteran Spies.

Why did you not post a save yet?

[StoryTellerSJEM]

Screen shot . .. uhm, maybe it's late, but, I'm not seeing a browse key when I hit reply. How important is it for me to post a map.

Didn't think about veteran spies b/c I never stole technology. I used to play w/o any of the patches and they would give you tech after you beat them up some. Now they're willing to be destroyed before giving tech, I've noticed, so, change of strategy.

StoryTeller

[StoryTellerSJEM]

.... I'll wait until I get some definitive info rather than clogging up this discussion. Apolyton won't let me delete my messages.

StoryTeller

[Terra Nullius]

to post a screenshot:
take a screenie in the usual way and save as
(for eg.) C:\My Documents\My Pictures\screenshot.jpg

take the blue pill

or,.. hit the post reply button
at the top (-ish) of the 'post reply' screen is a row of buttons, like this

[IMG]C:\DATA\My Pictures\Screenshot.jpg[/IMG]

hit the 'img' button and an input box will pop up
type in the location of your screenshot
(eg. C:\My Documents\My Pictures\screenshot.jpg)

[IMG]C:\DATA\My Pictures\Inputbox.jpg[/IMG]

hit ok and submit reply

but if you want to keep the ol' dragon happy,
to post a save:
you may need to zip the file first
then hit the 'post reply' button
at the bottom of the screen, hit the browse button and point to the location of your save.
submit reply

[IMG]C:\Data\My Pictures\Why wont this work.jpg[/IMG]

edit: i just tried doing this and couldn't get it to work myself.
but it has done the job before

[Golden Bear]

I would like to see a screenshot or save of this game also.

I wonder whether the game is winnable at all from this point with the Germans running panzers.

Golden Bear