Please help!

[anemic CIVver]

Hello, and greetings from a frustrated Civ III player. I've had Civ III for about a month or so, and I never seem to get anywhere. My Foreign Advisor tells me that (for example), the Romans fear my Swordsman. I build about 5 Swordsmen, and attack them. My Veteran Swordsmen promptly get defeated by their Warriors. I don't even 'injure' them at all. And how do you possibly research new techs in 4 turns? I read the corresponding thread, but it doesn't make sense to me. My Science Advisor tells me to increase Science spending, because we are falling behind in the tech race. If I do that, I run out of money. Also, in order to make it to the end of the 'tech tree', in what year(s) should I enter the Middle Ages, the Industrial Ages, and Modern Times?

I am totally

[Franses]

I know the feeling. Do not worry. Over time things will go better.

Swordsman being defeated by warriors is not my experience unless the warrior is in a city with walls and build on a hill or so?

Getting a tech in 4 turns is not that difficult. Just wait untill every other civ has the tech you are researching and then you will generally be able to research that tech in 4 turns. Trying to get the tech lead in the ancient era is, even on the lower levels, not easy (if at all possible). It generally takes me to the industrial age to get a tech lead.

Good luck. Enjoy learning the game. It is in my opinion the best part. After you know how to do it all, a lot of the fun is gone.

[Dominae]

anemic CIVver, if you're new to the Civ games, try just exploring and expanding on Chieftain level in order to get a feel for building your empire. The tutorial is pretty good at explaining how to do this. At the heart of any strong empire is a bunch of good cities; if you manage to expand well, you'll find other things (such as military endeavours and scientific research) will fall into place.

Don't worry too much about losing a Swordsmen to an enemy Warrior; the odds of it happening repeatedly are somewhat slim (you were just lucky, I guess ).

You'll have to learn what the advisors are really telling you with their little comments. When they say: "The Romans fear our Swordsmen" this just means that they know your best unit is the Swordsmen. They may very well have a horde of Swordsmen (Legions, actually) themselves and have nothing to fear.

The precise year that you enter all the different ages (Industrial, Modern, etc.) doesn't matter one bit. You may enter the Middle Ages before 0 AD. In my last game, I had Stealth Bombers in the year 1750! The only time you need to worry about the Age is when you find yourself an Age behind (still in Ancient times when your neighbours are in the Middle Ages, for example). In such cases, the game is simply giving you a hint that you should hurry up your research.

Hope this helps; as Franses said, enjoy learning...it's the best part of the game!


Dominae

[rpodos]

Two places to go for helpful guidelines:

1. Vel's strategy thread, here on Apolyton
2. The strategy articles (which are cleaned up posts) on CivFanatics.

Regarding war and battles, you'll find that starting with overwhelming force is a good idea... that means show up with 10 swordsmen instead of 5. As you get more comfortable with the game, you can balance that out.

Regarding tech: Don;t worry about being in the tech lead. Once you have assessed your situation (starting position, neighbors, etc.), create a game strategy and plan to research the techs you need for it. Set research to 10% initially though, and save up some cash... you may find the techs in goody huts, you can often buy early techs for a reasonable price, and techs get "cheaper" to research as more civs no them.

I pretty much ignore the advisors.

Also, set your city governor to manage moods... you'll never have to worry about disorder.

R

[anemic CIVver]

O.K. Here's my current game: Chieftain level, Tiny Map, It's me and 3 AI Civs. The year is 1754 A.D.. I have 9 Middle Age techs, and am now researching Chemistry. I'll get it in 13 turns. Is this game a lost cause? I picked a Tiny map, because I wanted to go for a Conquest victory. (I'm the Japanese). I once started a game with a Huge Map, and me and 2 AI Civs. I thought that this would give tons of time to build up my empire. 5 turns in the game, I was attacked by the English. It's a