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The strategy boards on Apolyton have been a great assistance to my progression as a Civ3 player, and I have decided to refine what I have learned here into a strategy guide. Much of what I will discuss has been gone over in other threads, and I will attempt to give credit where it is due.
Most of the information given here will differ from those in other guides as I will be exclusively dealing with the builder style of play. I find that this style, while not always condusive to the highest score, is both the most flexible and most enjoyable to play. This allows the player to enter a game with no predetermined victory goal in mind and adapt as the game as it progresses. It should also be noted that I play my games mainly on standard sized maps, on Monarch or Emperor difficulty.
Civilization Selection
Two main factors go into selecting the best Civilization for your game. The more important of these is the traits possessed by the civ. Most traits have some merit, but for the builder style of play there are three that stand out. If you are going to focus on infrastructure building, it is only natural that you select traits that enhance this desire. Often in strategy games I will select a faction with abilities contrary to the playstyle that I wish to use, in order to hide weaknesses. In Civilization, this is an option, but not one I would reccomend. The second difference of civs is of course their Unique Unit. For the builder, however this is a wholy secondary concern.
The traits I have identified as the most important are Industrious, Religious, and Scientific. The first of the three allows you to build up your terrain tiles more quickly, the latter two allow cheaper city improvements. The secondary abilities of all three traits are also very attractive to the builder, giving them a clear edge over the field. I have found that the corruption reducing effects of the commercial trait do not offset the benefits of having cheaper infrastructure in the first place. If your temple costs half as much in that far off city, you effectively have a 50% reduction of corruption for the purposes of building that improvement anyway. If this trait halved the cost of marketplaces and banks, it would be an exceptional trait, but as it stands, it cannot compare with my three prefered traits. There are three civilizations that have two of these three traits, and indeed in practice as well as in theory they are the strongest civs. A wonderful bonus is the fact that two of the three civs have exceptionaly powerful ancient era UU's, and the third has some unique strengths.
The Persians are my choice as the top civ in the game. Although at times I find myself wishing for the religious trait, I suspect I would not be happy completely unless I could have all three. Combat will be discussed later, but suffice to say that a 4 power attacker in the ancient era is nearly unstoppable against a single target.
My second choice would be the Babylonians, and it is only their weaker UU that tips the scales in the Persian's favor. There are two very important strengths of this UU that are often overlooked, however. Very few games are played where the player has neither horses or iron to build an army with, but the first time you find yourself in that position, you may wish you had a low tech option. The Babylonian player need not fear having to fight his initial war with archers, knowing that regardless of his map position, a 2/2 unit is only a tech away. Idealy, however, the Babylonian player will save his Bowman to trigger a golden age at the time of his chosing. This allows for excellent coordination of the Golden Age with wonder building.
The Egyptians are probably best for those who seek to expand rapidly before settling down to build. I am not one of those, but the strategy is sound. War Chariots are frighteningly quick to reproduce, and are the choice of many a pop rushing despot as well as the culture builder. I don't do much military pop rushing, and large scale wars in the ancient era are difficult if you wish to quickly build cultural improvements as well. For this reason, I seldom play the Egyptians.
Any of the three are great choices. A few other civs bear mentioning. An interesting choice is the Aztecs, which I have experimented with some after reading here about the power of their UU. Obviously the early warmonger in me refuses to come to the surface, as I managed to play them as a builder civ, exploiting their 2 move warriors as explorers to compliment their religious ability. For all intents and purposes, the Aztecs are Religious, Militaristic, and Expansionistic, and I will be playing this civ some in the weeks to come to see if indeed this civ has the potential to reach the same level as my preferred three. Other militaristic civs such as the Germans, Chinese, and Japanese have strong UU's in later times, and share at least one of the "builder" traits. These civs are good for those who wish to build peacefully for some time before engaging in their war of conquest sometime in the middle ages.
The Early Game
Not unlike chess, Civilization has many theories as to the best series of opening moves. The 1.16f patch changed many of my opinions, and an early military rush is very much nerfed. To begin, I would suggest that you not make more than one settler move prior to colonization of your first city. Moving your settler onto a gold hill, or into contact with a river or fresh water lake would be the only moves I would suggest. Covering a poor terrain tile with your opening city is also acceptable, but I would reccomend against it.
Once your city is founded, your first build should always be a warrior. If you have a bonus food tile, your initial worker should quickly road and mine it (or irrigate in the case of a flood plain). The initial warrior will begin exploring. I suggest using an expanding circle pattern as opposed to following a shoreline or walking steadily in one direction. First priority is of course finding a site for your second city.
Your opening city will not be working more than 2 tiles for some time, so after your worker has improved the two best tiles, he should start building a road towards your second city site. You must ensure that your city is producing at least two shields at this point. If you irrigated a flood plain, your second terrain tile must produce a shield. Two flood plains does little good, as you have no garrison, and will not be able to keep the bonus population happy anyway. Irrigating a desert will produce settlers more quickly than two flood plains. If you have a bonus food tile, you should be able to start your settler immediately after building your first warrior. If you lack a bonus tile, a second warrior. If your starting position is so poor that more than two warriors need be built before your city has a chance to grow to size 3, I would strongly suggest using the "Worker Gambit", where you rejoin your initial worker to the city in order to more quickly produce a second city. If you do use this gambit, it is essential to replace that worker as soon as possible, as your road network must be built as quicky as possible.
After building the first settler, your capitol needs some bounce back time before producing another settler. Since we are builders, we are already thinking about building our first wonder. We're going to need 2 garrison units and a temple to keep that population happy while building our wonder, and thanks to our excellent civilization choice, we can either build a spearman or a half price temple at this point. Make it so. We only have one or two warriors out there exploring, so the second city should pop out another warrior, then a settler.
Once the capitol has it's spearman/temple, it needs to produce another settler, followed by either spearman or temple, then start that wonder. The second garrison troop will be provided either by one of the initial warriors (once it reaches a size where it is required), or idealy by a conscript warrior popped out of a hut. If you wait and crank a third settler out of the capitol before starting your wonder, you are going to lose it to the AI 90% of the time. By using this method you will win it 90% of the time. To recap, I advocate a Warrior, Settler, Spearman, Settler, Temple, Wonder opening in order to ensure that you grab that all-important lead in the wonder race.
If your capitol is in a poor site for wonder building (or you cannot find a good second site for settler building), you may wish to switch the roles of your first two cities. If this is the case, I would suggest not building any settlers from the second city, and simply following the spearman/temple/wonder progression. This will allow your capitol to continue cranking out settlers. If it turns out that your second city is in a far better location to serve as capitol of your empire, I would suggest working towards the collapsing capitol stragegy as described by Xin Yu and reposted here.
Strict micromanagement of your wonder city is the key to winning the race. Move those workers onto forest/hills tiles early. You aren't in a race to get your city to size 6. All you want is that wonder as quickly as possible... not only because you want to win the race to the wonder, but because the sooner your wonder city is done, the sooner you are out of the defecit position you have put yourself in.
Once your first three cities are started, you need to realize that your early commitment to the wonder is going to seriouly hinder your development throughout the BC period. At this point, you most likely have three cities, a settler, a worker, two spearmen, and a pair of warriors. One of the two warriors is going to have to head back to the capitol to garrison eventually, so use it for now to garrison your third city while it builds a worker. As your first worker progresses towards your third city, your second worker will improve a couple of tiles in each of the two satelite cities, and then head to the capitol (with the warrior) to finish the tiles around your capitol as it grows to maturity. Your second city should continue to produce settlers. Either City 3 or City 4 will need to be on a coastal tile, as this too will soon be earmarked as a wonder city, dedicated to either The Great Lighthouse or The Collosus. I am currently following the "Size 12 City" city placement system for core cities. This system is exceptionally illustrated by Dimension in his essay "City Spacing Paradigms" found here...
After your first worker has completed your four city road network, you will most likely have discovered Iron Working, and must now concentrate on securing a source of Iron (using a colony if needed). Soon your wonder will be complete in the capitol, and you will be able to use that production power to address your laughable military. New cities should follow the Spearman/worker/temple pattern if possible, and those workers should be used to improve 2 tiles around their host city, and then assist in the military/resource road network.
As soon as you fill out your territory with cities, one city should be dedicated to cranking out workers for the duration of the game. I tend to rename it to "farm" and leave it building workers. A city with one grassland can be set to crank out 1 worker every 10 turns and never grow above size 2. an excellent investment and a fine use for that wasted space between your main cities.
Continued...
Most of the information given here will differ from those in other guides as I will be exclusively dealing with the builder style of play. I find that this style, while not always condusive to the highest score, is both the most flexible and most enjoyable to play. This allows the player to enter a game with no predetermined victory goal in mind and adapt as the game as it progresses. It should also be noted that I play my games mainly on standard sized maps, on Monarch or Emperor difficulty.
Civilization Selection
Two main factors go into selecting the best Civilization for your game. The more important of these is the traits possessed by the civ. Most traits have some merit, but for the builder style of play there are three that stand out. If you are going to focus on infrastructure building, it is only natural that you select traits that enhance this desire. Often in strategy games I will select a faction with abilities contrary to the playstyle that I wish to use, in order to hide weaknesses. In Civilization, this is an option, but not one I would reccomend. The second difference of civs is of course their Unique Unit. For the builder, however this is a wholy secondary concern.
The traits I have identified as the most important are Industrious, Religious, and Scientific. The first of the three allows you to build up your terrain tiles more quickly, the latter two allow cheaper city improvements. The secondary abilities of all three traits are also very attractive to the builder, giving them a clear edge over the field. I have found that the corruption reducing effects of the commercial trait do not offset the benefits of having cheaper infrastructure in the first place. If your temple costs half as much in that far off city, you effectively have a 50% reduction of corruption for the purposes of building that improvement anyway. If this trait halved the cost of marketplaces and banks, it would be an exceptional trait, but as it stands, it cannot compare with my three prefered traits. There are three civilizations that have two of these three traits, and indeed in practice as well as in theory they are the strongest civs. A wonderful bonus is the fact that two of the three civs have exceptionaly powerful ancient era UU's, and the third has some unique strengths.
The Persians are my choice as the top civ in the game. Although at times I find myself wishing for the religious trait, I suspect I would not be happy completely unless I could have all three. Combat will be discussed later, but suffice to say that a 4 power attacker in the ancient era is nearly unstoppable against a single target.
My second choice would be the Babylonians, and it is only their weaker UU that tips the scales in the Persian's favor. There are two very important strengths of this UU that are often overlooked, however. Very few games are played where the player has neither horses or iron to build an army with, but the first time you find yourself in that position, you may wish you had a low tech option. The Babylonian player need not fear having to fight his initial war with archers, knowing that regardless of his map position, a 2/2 unit is only a tech away. Idealy, however, the Babylonian player will save his Bowman to trigger a golden age at the time of his chosing. This allows for excellent coordination of the Golden Age with wonder building.
The Egyptians are probably best for those who seek to expand rapidly before settling down to build. I am not one of those, but the strategy is sound. War Chariots are frighteningly quick to reproduce, and are the choice of many a pop rushing despot as well as the culture builder. I don't do much military pop rushing, and large scale wars in the ancient era are difficult if you wish to quickly build cultural improvements as well. For this reason, I seldom play the Egyptians.
Any of the three are great choices. A few other civs bear mentioning. An interesting choice is the Aztecs, which I have experimented with some after reading here about the power of their UU. Obviously the early warmonger in me refuses to come to the surface, as I managed to play them as a builder civ, exploiting their 2 move warriors as explorers to compliment their religious ability. For all intents and purposes, the Aztecs are Religious, Militaristic, and Expansionistic, and I will be playing this civ some in the weeks to come to see if indeed this civ has the potential to reach the same level as my preferred three. Other militaristic civs such as the Germans, Chinese, and Japanese have strong UU's in later times, and share at least one of the "builder" traits. These civs are good for those who wish to build peacefully for some time before engaging in their war of conquest sometime in the middle ages.
The Early Game
Not unlike chess, Civilization has many theories as to the best series of opening moves. The 1.16f patch changed many of my opinions, and an early military rush is very much nerfed. To begin, I would suggest that you not make more than one settler move prior to colonization of your first city. Moving your settler onto a gold hill, or into contact with a river or fresh water lake would be the only moves I would suggest. Covering a poor terrain tile with your opening city is also acceptable, but I would reccomend against it.
Once your city is founded, your first build should always be a warrior. If you have a bonus food tile, your initial worker should quickly road and mine it (or irrigate in the case of a flood plain). The initial warrior will begin exploring. I suggest using an expanding circle pattern as opposed to following a shoreline or walking steadily in one direction. First priority is of course finding a site for your second city.
Your opening city will not be working more than 2 tiles for some time, so after your worker has improved the two best tiles, he should start building a road towards your second city site. You must ensure that your city is producing at least two shields at this point. If you irrigated a flood plain, your second terrain tile must produce a shield. Two flood plains does little good, as you have no garrison, and will not be able to keep the bonus population happy anyway. Irrigating a desert will produce settlers more quickly than two flood plains. If you have a bonus food tile, you should be able to start your settler immediately after building your first warrior. If you lack a bonus tile, a second warrior. If your starting position is so poor that more than two warriors need be built before your city has a chance to grow to size 3, I would strongly suggest using the "Worker Gambit", where you rejoin your initial worker to the city in order to more quickly produce a second city. If you do use this gambit, it is essential to replace that worker as soon as possible, as your road network must be built as quicky as possible.
After building the first settler, your capitol needs some bounce back time before producing another settler. Since we are builders, we are already thinking about building our first wonder. We're going to need 2 garrison units and a temple to keep that population happy while building our wonder, and thanks to our excellent civilization choice, we can either build a spearman or a half price temple at this point. Make it so. We only have one or two warriors out there exploring, so the second city should pop out another warrior, then a settler.
Once the capitol has it's spearman/temple, it needs to produce another settler, followed by either spearman or temple, then start that wonder. The second garrison troop will be provided either by one of the initial warriors (once it reaches a size where it is required), or idealy by a conscript warrior popped out of a hut. If you wait and crank a third settler out of the capitol before starting your wonder, you are going to lose it to the AI 90% of the time. By using this method you will win it 90% of the time. To recap, I advocate a Warrior, Settler, Spearman, Settler, Temple, Wonder opening in order to ensure that you grab that all-important lead in the wonder race.
If your capitol is in a poor site for wonder building (or you cannot find a good second site for settler building), you may wish to switch the roles of your first two cities. If this is the case, I would suggest not building any settlers from the second city, and simply following the spearman/temple/wonder progression. This will allow your capitol to continue cranking out settlers. If it turns out that your second city is in a far better location to serve as capitol of your empire, I would suggest working towards the collapsing capitol stragegy as described by Xin Yu and reposted here.
Jump moving capitals. Looks like if you disband your capital, the capital will re-appear in your most populated city. So if you build or capture a city near another civ and use workers to add to the population then disband your capital (build a settler at size 2 while make food shortage by hiring all citizens as specialists), you move your capital for free -- save the need of a great leader (well, not exactly free since you lose a well established city but it should be a lot cheaper than spending 400 shields for the new capital). But remember don't build wonders in your first capital or you may lose them.
Strict micromanagement of your wonder city is the key to winning the race. Move those workers onto forest/hills tiles early. You aren't in a race to get your city to size 6. All you want is that wonder as quickly as possible... not only because you want to win the race to the wonder, but because the sooner your wonder city is done, the sooner you are out of the defecit position you have put yourself in.
Once your first three cities are started, you need to realize that your early commitment to the wonder is going to seriouly hinder your development throughout the BC period. At this point, you most likely have three cities, a settler, a worker, two spearmen, and a pair of warriors. One of the two warriors is going to have to head back to the capitol to garrison eventually, so use it for now to garrison your third city while it builds a worker. As your first worker progresses towards your third city, your second worker will improve a couple of tiles in each of the two satelite cities, and then head to the capitol (with the warrior) to finish the tiles around your capitol as it grows to maturity. Your second city should continue to produce settlers. Either City 3 or City 4 will need to be on a coastal tile, as this too will soon be earmarked as a wonder city, dedicated to either The Great Lighthouse or The Collosus. I am currently following the "Size 12 City" city placement system for core cities. This system is exceptionally illustrated by Dimension in his essay "City Spacing Paradigms" found here...
After your first worker has completed your four city road network, you will most likely have discovered Iron Working, and must now concentrate on securing a source of Iron (using a colony if needed). Soon your wonder will be complete in the capitol, and you will be able to use that production power to address your laughable military. New cities should follow the Spearman/worker/temple pattern if possible, and those workers should be used to improve 2 tiles around their host city, and then assist in the military/resource road network.
As soon as you fill out your territory with cities, one city should be dedicated to cranking out workers for the duration of the game. I tend to rename it to "farm" and leave it building workers. A city with one grassland can be set to crank out 1 worker every 10 turns and never grow above size 2. an excellent investment and a fine use for that wasted space between your main cities.
Continued...
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. Since this strategy allows for only the 2-3 initial warriors as your "military" until the completion of your wonders, it is quite possible that even a few barbarians will be too much for your scouts to handle on their own and your warrior-garrisons may fall to them. Your point about the roving defensive troops is a good one, however. Perhaps I will try to mix in a few horsemen with my early builds as barbarian defense. If nothing else, it sounds like a good way to start building up an elite core of attackers for your first war, even if they are built without the benefit of a barracks. Perhaps then, I can hold off on building spearmen for a while, and then later upgrade the warrior garrisons to swordsmen attackers. Unfortunately my prefered civ will not upgrade warriors... one of the few weaknesses inherant in the Persians. 
which will make it even more of a pain in the ass getting my GL for the FP. Probably stick to spearman, tho I may start bulding warriors in those first satelite cities and then having the second garrison be a spearman. Frankly never gave any thought as to garrisons, just built the best defensive unit I had. Glad you guys brought it up.
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