Civ 3-- what am I missing?

I recently dusted off my copy of Civ3. Didn't play it a lot earlier on;
I just had too many problems getting past the strategies I used a lot in
Alpha Centauri to do well.

I'm doing better now, but... is there any point to going to war?
Seriously? I'm having such a difficult time actually getting anywhere
at all with it. How do you become a warmongering military powerhouse in
this game?

bbottorff DeleteThis @nomail.com (Boyd Bottorff) writes:

>I'm doing better now, but... is there any point to going to war?
>Seriously? I'm having such a difficult time actually getting anywhere
>at all with it. How do you become a warmongering military powerhouse in
>this game?

Um, hm. Well. Good question. I tend to prefer the economic
powerhouse model of world conquest, so I have to be dragged into war
rather against my will. But I do try to win it at least efficiently,
where possible.

Some of the things I've found useful are:

-- The automation panels let you choose production priorities.
Setting a couple cities or even the whole empire to make military units
`Sometimes' is a pretty good policy for keeping your standing army not
too desperately far behind the neighbors.

-- Experience counts. Build units only when you have a barracks,
and it's worth sending new units out to battle barbiarns or whatever, to
give them a taste of combat and maybe a promotion to Veteran or Expert
units.

-- Strategy counts. Whatever you do, you want to do it from the
higher terrain. And you want to start with a ranged weapon like the
catapult or artillery first, then with units that can go twice or three
times in one turn, like cavalry or mechanized infantry.

-- Resources count more than anything else. Targeting a city
by pillage-destroying its roads is a mighty good way to start, because
that chops off its resources and luxuries (unless the target city has a
harbor or airport). This means your target city can't build the unit
you just know it was ready to do, and it makes the citizens that much
more unhappy, making it easier to target.

-- Resources really do count more than anything else. Send a
squad into enemy territory to pillage its roads to its iron and coal
and saltpeter; also it luxuries. If the opponent is smart he'll fight
you quite hard about this, because if he doesn't have any connected
(say) iron mines, he can't build *any* new military units, not until
a new road is established. You'd be surprised how quickly this can
make an army collapse. And losing luxuries produces crankiness and
instability in his whole empire, perhaps not quite so dramatic but a
great way to mess up not just his empire but also trade agreements.

-- Strategy still counts. A good target city has some immediate
economic benefit (like a large population or surrounding resources), and
some strategic benefit (it opens up natural attack routes to several
distinct targets, or it governs a critical point like the isthmus between
continents). You won't always be lucky enough to have such a target city
to go after, but it's a good ideal to keep in mind. If your army can,
credibly, get to any of three alternate targets from where it is in a
turn or two, the opponent's got a tougher problem of where to concentrate
his defenses, and that's good for your side.

--
Joseph Nebus
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