Winning Early: What do YOU do?

[Rhothaerill]

Welcome to 'Poly Forest. I happen to agree with you. I almost never build the great library anymore as I find it disruptive to my plans more than it helps them. Aggressive tech trading is the way to go.

[Theseus]

forest, the GLib can be *extremely* useful in certain situations (e.g., isolated start), but in general I agree with Rhothy, there are much better ways to stay abreast and profit from tech... researching what the AI civs do NOT and / or and gaining a lead in a tech branch will do wonders for your game.

[MysteryMan]

The Great Library - indespensible or useless?

Well, I play it as follows:
If I am a warmonger, I don't build the damn thing. Tech is easy to extort (if you have the stronger military) and the cultural effect is fairly unimportant to warmongers.
If I am an enlightened leader then I do build it whenever possible. I still pursue a tech trading/selling policy and don't rely on the library, in fact I often never get a tech from the library. There are 2 compelling reasons to build the Great Library:
1)Culture. I doubt I need to go in depth here
2)I call this The Hasek Theory. "If he's on our side, we won't have to play against him". This means that if you build the Great Library, no one else can build it, thusly no one else can benefit from it.
This SOUNDS good but is not good against the computer, particularly at the higher difficulty settings.

In the older versions of Civ, I could often totally redeem a terrible start if I could get the Great Library. Not anymore. Useless for an early game win (unless you want an early cultural win, good luck with that...)

[WackenOpenAir]

not enough information ???

if you combine all the information around here and translate it to a language a monkey can understand, any monkey can win a deity game.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

If you're on a crowded continent (for you huge map fans out there) the Great Library is INCREDIBLY useful. If you plan to CONQUER those neighbors - and spend your time and money doing so - it's THE most useful ancient wonder, in my view. Because the bottom line is, if you're up against ALL the Europeans at once, with a few other expanionists thrown in, it's gonna take a lot of money to buy all the techs from them, and you won't necessarily be in a position to take the techs via force before the end of the ancient era.

And I for one like those free techs... I means I get free cities when I negotiate peace deals after aggression, instead of free techs...

...but then again, what do I know?

[vmxa1]

I don't think it is a function of map size, so much as your ability to tech. If you are out researching the AI, then the GLIB is not going to give you free tech. So if you are at emperor, you can get some value out of it before you take the lead, if lower, you do not have to catch up in most games.
The one case where map size can aler things is a huge map with lots of civs. They can pop so many techs and trade them around that you can get to education very fast.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by vmxa1
The one case where map size can aler things is a huge map with lots of civs. They can pop so many techs and trade them around that you can get to education very fast.

But the flip side is that, while education comes up very quickly, thus invalidating the GL, you also can get very easily left in the lurch, with most of the civs having many more techs than you, early in the game... this levels out a bit when the medival era comes 'round, but if you're stuck still researching construction while others are researching theology, well then, you've got some catching up to do.

GL is hence very valuable for crowded large/huge games where the player wants to get Map Making, Philosophy, Code of Laws, Republic, etc., for free, and then readjust strategy as needs be for the new (medival) era.

...now, I am most curious to see if that theory about giving away the GL and re-taking it AFTER education, to make the wonder work anew, is valid! That would radically enhance the value of the wonder, and if it's true, I'm going to smack myself 100 times for not doing this in every damn game.

[MysteryMan]

Getting the GL working again in the modern era could be quite useful. I'll check it the next chance I get and let you know what happens.

[Tolwyn]

I've beaten the number 2 civ in the game to bloody pulp in different huge-map games and the only time I could get techs from the civ in peace negotiations was on the lower difficulty levels. givin' peace didn't work,extort didn't work. I could buy the techs but I just went to war to GET those techs for FREE... any solution? in the ancient era..yes there is..the GL

Oh, btw I foud it very useful to give sell give sell every tech away to prevent 16 or 24 civs swapping techs like crazy. Seems to work. Why? I think because if the AI is researching the tech you give him their beakers go to 0 and they start over again and the aI does not have anything to trade with.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Cookie Monster


You must make sure that you are militarily stronger than the target civ for this to work.


Side note re: Great Library. Has anyone gifted the city with the GL away just before Education and then conquer the city back after education. Supposedly I read at CFC that you can benefit from the GL a second time all the way to the beginning of the industrial age!

hi ,

, yes and no , the AI might get loads of free stuff , but he has nothing at all ( well almost nothing ) of classical military tactics , ..... one good example for this are the demogames , even at deity a small under powered civ ( played by the humans ) goes after a more modern and better equiped civ and beats the heck out of them , .......

and it has happend in the real world dozens of times also

have a nice day

[Konquest02]

I was browsing through the must read threads, and this one surely needs a bumping. Most of the things here should still apply to C3C, as this is the base of Civ...

--Kon--

[Theseus]

As part of a very involved and longer discussion, Aeson chimed in with an unbelievable treatise on the early game. It is specific to the map / game being discussed, but there are a ton of valuable lessons and ideas in his posts:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103910&perpage=30&pagenumber=5

[Khalim]

Sometimes i have fun playing a looooooooog game on a laaaaarge map.

Other times i find it satisfying to go for an early victory, it depends on my mood

For early victories a figured out for myself this strategy :
(Btw i play basic Civ3 with no Add-Ons, so there might be other civilizations (i.e. Celts) which are as good in ptw/c3c)

I choose Romans or Persians (Legionary/Immortal), develop Iron Working as fast as i can and pray for Iron near one of my maximum of 3-4 cities.

If there´s no iron ... see you later, alligator... and dig my grave

If there is iron : Lucky me. All cities switch to production of Legionaries/Immortals. Dont waste time building useless Temples. 1-2 Luxuries should be enough to keep your people satisfied.

After building 10-12 of em, i start war with my nearest neighbour and eliminate him, taking over all of his cities which instantly start to produce barracks and, after those are built, more attack units.

continue this until the world lies down to your knees ...

This works fine in Civ3-basic, even though you might get those stinking greek hoplites (1.3.1, i hate em) near to you if playing Romans. Give them a quick death before they can spread.
(In PTW Carthago is even worse. Who invented those Numidian Spearmen ? Blargh, they really can destroy all of my efforts without a little luck).

Of course, this wont work well and fast on a map larger than small (maybe standard).

[Shogun Gunner]

One thing I noticed is that I haven't seen "formulas for success relating to build queues" like I used to read for Civ2.

People would often post

warrior, warrior, settler, temple.... as their stated Civ2 build strategy. There seems to be more variables in Civ3 which makes these "cast in stone strategies" less relevant.

I like that.

Great suggestion on Aeson's thread, Theseus. Thanks for posting that.

[ducki]

I've found myself just beating the tar out of Monarch-level by starting exactly the same every single time, regardless of Civ.

If I don't have it, research Pottery at 100%.
Warrior(explore)-Warrior(garrison/explore)-Granary(or prebuild)-Warrior(escort)-Settler

Every time.
I get my second city out very few turns later than the AIs, but my third, fourth, etc come very, very fast. So fast that I rarely have time to build anything in my capitol but Warrior-Settler-Warrior-Settler, though I try to get a Curragh out within the first 10 units I build.

And this is with Random everything except for World Size(standard).

nbarclay has a turn-by-turn analysis on this opening somewhere in this thread if you want to know exactly how many(few) turns your second settler is delayed, but it's not much. Beyond the first Settler, I vary things quite a bit, but the first warrior to the first settler is the same, which I hate, but short of creating a self-imposed rule, it seems the best way to win early.