3-Step approaching for beating Deity

[Selkirk]

Did you rely on pop-rushing?

No.

How big did you get those cities to be able to outproduce the AI?

Both starting cities were on rivers, but I think they were less than size six when I had my golden age. I am sure the second one was small because to get it on a river I had to snuggle it up next to a greek city and the greeks dropped another city on the other side of it, so it had a really distorted culture shape. I put it there because there was a cow next to the river and the area had a lot of grasslands. Fortunately, the horses were in my cultural sliver.

All the cities were maxed at 12 by the time I hit the sanitation except the one that I put down to grab the gems. The cities I captured were size 3 to 6 when I got them. Since it was early, I didn't starve out the citizens.

How were you able to get the money rolling in so well?

It helped that I had alot of rivers. My first two cities were on rivers. All of the cities that I captured were on rivers except 3. I specifically targeted cities on rivers for conquest. The only non-river cities I took had luxuries or wonders. I left 4 enemy cities that weren't very good completely surrounded by my territory. This is why I was hurrying culture improvements before 10AD to get the longevity effects. I flipped one of the four and disbanded it.

I also directed my conquest to gather up as many luxuries as possible for trading fodder. My capitol had a clump of furs by it, the english had a clump of dyes, and the greeks had a clump of gems. I had to be very aggressive to get the gems. For most of the game there were civs who could have used one of my 3 types of extra resources. I was never able to trade away all my extra luxuries. I would only trade for good amounts of gold per turn or a tech. If they couldn't pay, I just waited until they could. I was very aggressive on the trading screen and I re-negotiated everything as soon as the 20 turns expired.

Once I was ahead in tech, I was able to do a lot of tech-whoring. I was able to sell the advances leading up to motorized transport for 20-60 gold per turn to 3 or 4 civs. Also, if they wouldn't pay per turn for a tech, I wouldn't sell it. Sometimes the computer would sell it to them, but sometimes I could get more money out of them on a later turn.

Also, how did you manage to build barracks, temples, and 8 chariots with the AI still only using spearmen?

I don't remember how many chariots I had exactly. It was certainly more than 6. It wasn't a lot.

I only had two cities so I didn't waste time building settlers or workers. Also, one city had a cow. I think I was ready for the rush prior to 1000 BC. I don't think I would have succeeded rushing the greek hoplites with only 8 chariots. I did them at the end of my golden age when I had a lot more. Also, I only mine, never irrigate grass squares so they produce the extra shield in the golden age.

It was a standard default size map, 8 civs.

[Selkirk]

One more word about rushing with war chariots. Their advantages are that they are cheap and that they trigger a golden age. Rushing with chariots is more about economic power than about military power. Because the golden age is limited, I will use the chariots to beeline for the computers most developed cities and capture and raze them. My goal is to destroy the computer's capability to produce units. I very often leave less well developed cities behind in my growing territory.

Since there are always new chariots heading to the front lines, if these cities do produce a unit there is usually a stray chariot to mop it up or slow it down. For the same reason, I never build spearmen and build warriors only to defend against barbarians and keep citizens happy.

In the game I described above when I attacked the greeks, I first attacked one of their cities on my border and razed it. Then I attacked the next city in the direction of their capitol, leaving cities closer to my empire alone. Then I took their capitol. Once I had their capitol and a clear line between my empire and their capitol, I used it as a base to clean up their surrounding core cities. Usually after you take out the core like this, the other computer players all declare war on the empire and take over the crappier outlying cities. If any of them have resource or luxuries you want to make sure you get there first.

Through the course of my golden age, I always expect to have an increasing number of chariots especially as newly captured cities come online. If you don't take care of their production centers immediately, the computer will wear down your chariots and you will have an ever decreasing number of them. Momentum is key.

[Selkirk]

More on the war chariot rush ... Make sure you don't get Iron working too soon because you may be forced to build spearmen at twice the price of warriors. Also make sure you don't get horseback riding because horsemen are 50% more expensive than war chariots. Either of these techs can ruin your momentum. I'm going to try a new game as the egyptians tonight. If I can win again using this strategy, I'm going to switch to the babs and try to win with a pacifist strategy.

[DrSpike]

Not getting the tech isn't really the point. It is always better to have the tech; you can always remove the road that connects it to your empire if necessary.

[Selkirk]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Not getting the tech isn't really the point. It is always better to have the tech; you can always remove the road that connects it to your empire if necessary.

This is true for iron working and swordsmen, not for horseback riding and war chariots. Once you get horseback riding, all of your cities will automatically produce horsemen instead or war chariots and as far as I know there is no way to go back.

When your strategy is to use the extra production of your golden age to overwhelm a computer player with cheap units, any increase in unit costs is damaging.

Since with this strategy you are going to be extort all of the tech of your defeated foe, why trade or research for these things just before you are going to get them for free? (Iron working is an exception, because it leads to construction -- but you can get it just before you intend to sue for peace.) The thing to watch for is capturing (or building) the great library too soon and destroying your production momentum with more expensive units.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Selkirk


This is true for iron working and swordsmen, not for horseback riding and war chariots.

True. You probably should be able to choose which units become obselete.

Interestingly in the 1.17 strat thread I opined at the start that the egyptians would be a good choice of civ in 1.17, due to them having a cheap well-timed UU. Cheapness matters more when rushing is harder. I haven't had much chance to test it out myself, as I've just got dsl and I got a little sidetracked

Nice to see it's working out.

[soupboy]

I Just finished playing a game using this stratagy, and noticed something I consider fairly important... your vassal states will never vote for you in a UN election, thus when you hear that somebody is building the UN (or if you are about to finish the UN) you need to buy/beg/barter/steal military aliances against your vassals in such a manor as to ensure a no-majority vote (the larger civs almost always vote for themselves) ...

much to my dismay this didn't occure to me until after I had suffered a defeat, and had to reload from a saved game to win.. 8-( (which I don't consider a real win... )

[IthacaMike]

Originally posted by Selkirk

This is true for iron working and swordsmen, not for horseback riding and war chariots. Once you get horseback riding, all of your cities will automatically produce horsemen instead or war chariots and as far as I know there is no way to go back.

Are you sure about that? I don't play the Egyptians but looking at the Editor it looks like War Chariots are not obsolete until you can build Knights. This is after 1.21f.

Mike G

[DrSpike]

We were bandying around these ideas for 1.16f, which is 2 patches ago. Anything that seems out of place in the discussion is due to that fact.

[resmc751]

That is a great strategy, but I have a INCREDIBLY more effective one, but it is soooo effective, & basically allows you to blow away your enemies at any level, & achieve any type of victory way earlier than it usually would with the most seasoned civ3 player.
I'm trying to figure out how to post this strategy on this site.
If there is a way for any user to post an article under 'Strategy", please say something. I'm very new to the site.

P.S.what is w/the "Settler" under my username?

[Theseus]

resmc751,

Either post the strat right here, or start a new thread.

The Settler thing relates to how many times you've posted.

[Napolean]

Hey, everybody is talking about waste and coruption when it comes to faraway cities. Why no one has ever mentioned the drastic drop in shield procustivity? Any way to counter it the way randomturn counters corruption?

[Dominae]

Waste is Shield Corruption. You deal with it the same way as you deal with Commerce Corruption (build improvements, switch governments, etc.).


Dominae

[Napolean]

not that i didn't realise but what improvements are that which is able to crack waste? And by switching govt, how does that help in eliminating waste?

[Harovan]

Corruption and waste are reduced by Courthouses and Police Stations. Additionally, a well-placed Forbidden Palace (small wonder) can very much reduce corruption and waste, because it basically gives you a second core area. There are plenty of threads around this issue, just browse this forum and may be the directory.

Governments also affect corruption/waste. Despotism has the most, then Monarchy, Republic and Democracy (least corruption). Communism (the "make all even" government) has a special form of corruption, as the corruption due to distance is leveled over the while empire, making your core less efficient and border cities more efficient.