Is this cheating? Twin-Cities Leach Method

[zeace]

I accidentally tried this strategy when I played my first game on a small map. I was aztecs, and the iroquois were very close and cutting me off from the rest of the continent. Jaguar Warriors are great for the first few turns of the game. I easily took the iroquois capital. Every time they built a new city, I was taking their old city so I never had to build any settlers of my own.

The only problem was when I finally rid the continent of them. I quickly fell behind in the science race as I couldn't find any other civs to trade with. By the time I had navigation, the other continent was already enjoying the industrial age.

Ze Ace

[Plutarck]

I gotta try this

[DK36]

It's not cheating AT ALL. Not even exploition. Just a strategy like any other.

But, my question is, none of you guys got absorbed by culture!? By the time you find someone, plant a city next to them, their capital should already be booming with culture (well, mine is).

[morbak]

Stay peace and love guys

I mean , in the beginning , i prefer stay cool , and offer a maximum help to others civilization so they grow at maximum and help mine .

[DanS]

Shanky: I appreciate your deviousness. Start as the Greeks! But I've fallen into a pattern of playing as the Romans, so I sort of want to play them until I win a deity game. One of the very interesting things about Civ3 is that you have to play to the strengths of your civ. So if you aren't winning, then it's your strategy that's the problem!

DK36: I've never had this problem.

After playing several more games like this, I think that catapults really suck early game. I mean REALLY suck. I had five catapults and the only thing they did was knock down the population of the enemy civ's capital. But those are very valuable population points! They can be liquidated for units or for, say, a temple.

Playing more variations, a preferable way of starting is to have twelve archers, if your treasury can handle it. Break it into two forces 7 and 5. Attack the capital with the 7. Attach the second city with the 5. Fortify the second city. Move on from the capital city with the remainder after fortification.

I'm still trying to find that perfect mix...

[DanS]

Military Ring Variant...

It's amazing what you learn on Apolyton. After reading of randomturn's victory on deity, it became clear to me that my system is flawed. Rather than planting your capital right next to the enemy civ's capital, you should leave a 5 square gap, so that he can fill it in with a settler. Here's the kicker. DON'T ATTACK CITIES RIGHT ON THE EDGE, ALWAYS GO ONE LEVEL DEEPER.

So in this strategy, you will at first be attacking his capital city and the second largest city, which will be one level deeper always. Sue for peace, if you can get anything valuable and then renew the attack.

[Jing]

DanS: If you play as the Romans, the Greeks will be always nearby if you let the game choose your opponents at random. So one way to avoid them is to choose all your opponents manually at the start of the game.

[Enigma]

DanS-
You are correct that catapaults and cannons suck, but I am talking mainly about the later game, perhaps I overrated artillery but let me present some numbers to you...
Infantry- defense 10
Size 13 city- +100% - defense 20
Fortified, +25% - defense 22.5
plains- +10% - defense 23.5
Even at the lowest possible way of evaluating defense modifiers, this is a defense of 23.5. Lets compare calvalry- offense 6.

I would attack some cities with like 10 calvalry, and although I wouldn't lose any the damage would be so low that nothing would happens. It seems you need armies to take the really large cities. That point in the game was where the offensive techs lagged the most behind the defensive techs, later on I was able to use modern armor without artillery.

[DanS]

Deity is pretty tough and I've been working on an early game strategy for deity-large world-raging hordes. This sure isn't easy.

Enigma: I think the key is to have veteran units and to not fall behind on tech. Always attack the weakest opponent, etc. But maybe you're right when you get to the middle ages.