Civ 2 veterans....

[Steve Clark]

One more thing. Memorize Vel's posts in his strategy guide thread. He is an extremely good anaytical player, articulate and well versed in the differences between Civ2 and Civ3 as it relates to strategic thinking.

[kmj]

I've been able to avoid war at lower levels by being militarily stronger than the other civs. Also, I played a game where I was weaker (about 4th out of 8) for the whole game, but I stayed on the good side of Rome (had to pay a little tribute occasionally) who was the real big dog and joined when the world beat up on egypt (weakest) and india (stronger than me). I kept pace, building up enough military to make the other civs know I wasn't a pushover. I was near the lead in techs, but not ahead, but I managed to pull out a space race victory when rome (1st place), china (3rd), and Germany (5th) joined against an aggressive Japan (2nd place). They wasted resources destroying japan while I beelined for synthetic fibers. China built the UN, but with only 4 civs left I could guarantee a "no majority" by abstaining.

It was a great game, because I was behind the whole time. I did gain a bit of power by being opportunitistic when Egypt was down, taking three of it's once great cities after the other civs had weakened them, but I don't think the results would have been too much different if I hadn't. I kept up good relations with the right civs, stayed near the lead in techs and pulled out a space race, all that after starting on an isle (room for 6 cities) that was >75% jungle. 'Course this was on warlord.


It's a different game; in fact, I think its less focused on war than Civ2... you need to be strong in all aspects: diplomatically, culturally, militarily, scientifically; which is something I think is great. If you think that you can avoid war for the whole game, the just remember pre-WWII england and france... pre-perl harbor US.. etc. War is inevitable, but if your prepared and have decent relations then usually its much less painful. Sometimes they do gang up on you. I had that happen once, and it was annoying; but that's only happened once, so far.

[zapperio]

It is simple to avoid a war with most belligerent civs. When they demand something outragious offer a counter-proposal. offer to give the civ 5 gold tribute and they'll be happy and go away. conflict avoided at the cost of 5 gold.

Zap

[MarshalN]

You sure about that 5 gold thing?

I'll give it a shot

As with the game, I think I am still just sticking with the bad habit of keeping maybe 1 or 2 units per city like I used to in Civ2. With Great Walls back then you don't need more. Now, of course, is a different story.....

[vmxa1]

I always avoid request that way. They want tech or MPP or RoP, I just offer maps and ask what would you give. They make an offer and that is the end of it. I never have to give the MPP or a one side tech trade.

[War4ever]

you know i have no problem giving 5-17 gold when asked upon by a strong nation... i NEVER did this in civ2 but then .....look at my name...civ3 doesnt' work that way and just remmeber how revenge is sweet later on...

a large or medium sized military seems to prevent all but the most hating of your civ to declare war on you

i make sure i have 3 defenders per city and / or in despot as many as the indicator states ...

i tend to be real weak early.....taking chance with new empty cities.....but i build my cities closer together than most i think..

easy on my corruption and i make up for the smaller cites late by acquiring more land through forcefull means

[ranald]

Originally posted by MarshalN
You sure about that 5 gold thing?

I'll give it a shot

As with the game, I think I am still just sticking with the bad habit of keeping maybe 1 or 2 units per city like I used to in Civ2. With Great Walls back then you don't need more. Now, of course, is a different story.....

Negotiation in Civ3 is almost like real life- you *never* accept
the first offer, or expect someone to accept your first offer. (Hey,
or if someone accepts your first offer, you didn't ask for enough).

I did that too in Civ2, just have a few units per city until later
in the game when I had a big tech lead, a huge productive
economy and an urge to see exactly how many cities I could
take in onr turn....

In Civ3, the AI is better- the AI civs are more aggressive and
better at taking advantage of opportunities. Weakness is treated as, well, weakness, and if you are weak the AI will abuse you.
You may even get dogpiled and partitioned. Build some extra
units, they're worth the investment. And don't worry, unit
maintenance no longer requires shields, only gold, so there is
no production penalty to having a standing army.

[Arrian]

Maintaining a large army (compared to what a peaceful builder is used to from CIV II) is a necessity in CIV III. I discovered early on that if the AI thought you were weak, it would demand things and/or attack you.

The way military power is calculated appears to be pretty silly: number of units (including workers, btw). So when you go to your military advisor and he tells you that your army is weak compared to the AI... build some units. Once you reach parity, you're usually actually stronger than them, as you will tend to keep your troops top-of-the-line, whereas the AI has a puzzling tendency to upgrade some, but keep all sorts of ancient units around into the modern age. Having high culture also aids diplomacy, which does help out the peaceful builder strategy.

I don't recall having played an entirely peaceful game yet, but I also don't end up fighting constantly (2-3 wars per game, I'd say). Be particularly wary of Mutual Protection Pacts - they will often result in unexpected consequences, so stay out of them unless you have a specific purpose in mind.

-Arrian

p.s. I, too, am a Civ II vet who eventually got to the point where even Diety was easy. Still, my first Civ III game was on chieftain, and I'm hangin' out on Monarch for now.

[MadWombat]

Heh. Oddly, I played CivII on King, but am having no troubles with CivIII on Deity. *shrug*