Space Victory???

[Tutantravis]

I've been playing Civ III for ages now, and I've never managed a space victory! It's so much harder than Civ II. I always manage to lead the field against all the other civilizations, but I always run out of time before I start researching advanced flight.

I can't work out where I'm going wrong. I always have over 10 cities before the year 0, so I get a good start in the game. What is the strategy to get so far advanced that you launch your rocket before 2050?

[Xerrex]

well if u don't mind "cheating", u could change the time limit

[Tutantravis]

Actually, I don't like cheating. However, if there's no other way to get a space victory, I may have to!

[vmxa1]

What are the settings of the game? I take it you mean you run to 2050AD and then win by Histo?

If that is the case, I would suspect that the level is too low. Not saying you could not get a launch in Chief, but it is a lot harder and Chief players are not going to be getting the most out of their empire.

So you could move up a level. I would expect at Monarch you could do a SS.

If the map is smaller than standard, then change that. If the number of civs in the game is less than the default, change that.

If you are playing archipelago, go to at least contients.

If archi or contients, reduce the amount fo water.

Use the middle settings for age and temp.

Basically many of those settings will slow the AI down and it will not be much help in researching.

[Tutantravis]

Excellent! Thanks for the tips. I'll try it out!

[Aqualung71]

The best advice I can give, not knowing your play style, is:

1. Build more early Granaries

2. Build your cities closer together, with spacing of CxxC

[Tutantravis]

That close together? OK, I'll give it a shot! Thanks Aqualung71!

[Aqualung71]

I'm not sure what level you play, but you won't succeed on Emperor or above using much greater spacing than CxxC. Perhaps you should try CxxxC - I suspect you may currently even use CxxxxC

Think about this: the greatest area/pop of any city is 21. No city can grow above 12 pop without a Hospital, which are not available until early in the Industrial age - usually about 60-75% through your game.....and Sanitation is an optional tech anyhow that many top players won't even research. With city spacing planned to achieve beautiful mega-cities of 21 pop, for most of the game therefore you will be wasting at least 9 tiles in every city. The imact of this is:

1. Corruption is higher on average, since one large factor determining corruption is distance from your capital or Forbidden Palace;

2. You will be required to improve more tiles to ensure your cities are connected - meaning either more Workers or a lower rate of critical tile improvements;

3. Distances between cities are greater, making it more difficult to move your military units where they need to be for defensive duties, MP duties, and to gather for offensive operations.


By all means create a large empire, however of any two empires of similar size, by far the most efficient and effective empire in terms of commerce and production will be the one that has more cities

[realpolitic]

Life is cheap in the early game, even if you end up autorazing a few cities while your opponent is despotic, sign a peace treaty until they're in Monarchy, then you'll have a punching bag. After you've wiped out that civ, sucker punch civ#2. This weakened civ will be ragged when your treaty expires, as you've built barracks to work them over further.

[vorlon_mi]

OK, to get a spaceship built, one has to have
discovered enough techs to get to the modern age,
and have built the Apollo small wonder, so one
can build SS parts.

How does one speed up science?
- more income; with the science slider at 50%,
you get more beakers from an income of 2000
than with an income of 1500
- more science buildings, like libraries and univ's
- more science specialists

As others have posted, building lots of roads will
increase commerce, which means more income.
Build these in the ancient and middle ages.
Switching to Republic will also get you a commerce
bonus, and allow cash-rushing.

Science buildings can be cash-rushed, even in cities
that are further away than your capital.
You may or may not want to try to get the two
early science great wonders, Copernicus and Newton.

Corruption is the enemy of commerce, and science.
Try to build your Forbidden Palace as soon as you can,
to help with corruption -- the benefits are different
in C3C and Vanilla, but it helps in both.

In these outer, corrupt cities, one should irrigate
the surrounding squares, let the city grow to size 6,
and then turn some workers into scientists,
so that there is zero growth. The beakers that
scientists produce are not corrupted, and corruption
does not affect food production.

Getting a good road and library infrastructure built
before going into the Industrial age should ensure
that you have a good chance at a SS launch.

[Tutantravis]

Wow, that's awesome, Vorlon_mi. Thanks a lot for that.