Jeff Morris Strategy Guide at Avault

[donarumo]

Jeff Morris has started a Strategy Guide on Avault with the ancient era and looks to include other eras in the future.

www.avault.com

[donarumo]

They plan to post a new part of the guide every day until release and then a review...

Originally posted by the Adrenaline Vault
We will have the answers for you early next week when Civilization III hits stores. Until then, the Adrenaline Vault has something special in store that will prime fans eager to play this heavily-anticipated sequel: Starting today and continuing each day until the release of the game, the Adrenaline Vault will publish new strategy briefs written by Jeff Morris, associate producer at Firaxis Games, creators of Civilization III. Each installment will cover one of the title's four eras -- Ancient, Middle Ages, Industrial, and Modern -- with Morris' fifth essay discussing overall strategies for era advancement. The final day of this feature will see the publication of our review just hours before the product hits stores. So bookmark this page and prepare for a new experience in gaming!

[ixnay]

Sweet! Looks like 2 new screens, too.

[Blaupanzer]

Good clue! Especially useful for new folks and for those not paying attention to the implications of the new trading systems.

[ixnay]

Hmmm...on the wonders screen it says:

Hanging gardens: being constructed by Egyptian
Hanging gardens: being constructed by Roman

Shouldn't those be Egyptians and Romans?

[Slax]

Odd. The Avault Wonders of the World screen shows wonders BEING BUILT as well as those already built. How do you know this, through an embassy or something?

[SerapisIV]

They screwed up, Modern Era is up and running too:

Avault: Modern Era

Modern Map Screen

Modern Military Advisor

[SerapisIV]

Damn, look at the modern military map. It'll take forever to conquer


Here's the middle ages

Avault: Middle Ages

Can't crack the industrial term yet

[SerapisIV]

Here' the Overall Strategy Page:

Avault: Overall

[ixnay]

Heh, the spaceship sounds like quite an undertaking now:

the equivilent of constructing 10 wonders back to back

And what on earth is that orange stuff next to London in the modern screen?

[donarumo]

middle ages as well

www.avault.com/featured/civ3/index.asp?p=middle

and the first prosperity screen I think

http://www.avault.com/featured/large...024&height=768

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by SerapisIV
They screwed up, Modern Era is up and running too:

Nice discovery.

[ixnay]

Good job cracking open the other pages there, Serapis.

[donarumo]

Originally posted by SerapisIV

Can't crack the industrial term yet

Just hit NEXT from Middle Ages

[StratAll]

They screwed up twice

http://www.avault.com/featured/civ3/index.asp?p=middle

for the Middle Ages

and maybe the Industrial ages are up too, but I can't find the word to unlock it.

Enjoy!

[SerapisIV]

I'll save the webpages and copy the text if AVault takes the pages down later.

Still can't crack the industrial or the full review wording

[StratAll]

donarumo, you beat me to it

[SerapisIV]

Cheers Donamuro

Here's Industrial Era:

Avault: Industrial

[Haphazard]

Try:

http://www.avault.com/featured/civ3/index.asp?p=indust

Or hit the next button from middle ages. Nice try AVault, but not good enough!

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by StratAll
donarumo, you beat me to it

Heh, I was about to post the same thing.

[ixnay]

About privateers:

The Privateer is a weakened Frigate that can attack another nation's ships without triggering war. Primarily useful as an interceptor against naval landings, which become fairly prevalent during this time, Privateers can keep the other civilizations off balance and irritated. They are a potent new addition to the Civilization arsenal.

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by SerapisIV
Still can't crack......the full review wording

If you find it, I'm guessing the full review probably hasn't been written yet.

[donarumo]

Dang, they appeared to have taken the pages down. I saved the modern and middle pages, anybody grab the overall and industrial?

[ixnay]

None of the links work any more. I think they figured out and fixed it. No problem, though, I'll see if I can pull up the pages from my history and save them as html files for everyone who hasn't seen them yet. I have all but industrial.

[kcsaff]

It looks like they fixed the gap, so if anyone has the "middle", "indust", or "overall" pages cached, why not share them with us?

Here's "modern":

The Modern Era is the final era in Civilization III and could be the one in which you spend the most time. It's an era dominated by city improvements such as Spaceship Components and is home to the pinnacle of military hardware. By the time you make it to the Modern Era, you'll have a pretty good idea of the type of victory you're aiming for, so it's time to put your opponents out of their misery.

<http://www.avault.com/featured/civ3/screens/civ301t.jpg> In order to accomplish a Space Race victory, you need to focus on securing the advances needed to acquire the ten components for building the spaceship. The first advance is Space Flight, which allows for the Cockpit, Docking Bar, and Engine. Next, the Synthetic Fiber advance enables the Exterior Casing, Stasis Chamber, and Storage components. The Superconductor advance bestows the Fuel Cells and Life Support parts. Finally, the Laser advance allows for the Planetary Party Lounge, and the Satellite advance bestows the Thrusters. In addition, you'll need to enable Rocketry for Aluminum and Fission for Uranium, since they are the two strategic resources that are required to construct the spaceship parts. As you can tell from this recipe, the Spaceship is a massive undertaking.

Suppose, however, you've been fairly civil to your neighbors and don't have the industrial base to construct what are essentially ten wonders back to back. Perhaps then you should look to make your civilization the world's inspiration. Beyond being the gateway into nuclear war, the Fission advance also permits the construction of the United Nations. Once constructed, you are guaranteed a pole position in any Diplomatic victory race. If you're behind the eight ball, you can sometimes perform a miracle with the United Nations Wonder.

Most competitive civilizations are no doubt experiencing some awful pollution by the Modern Era. Fortunately, there are a number of advances that enable improvements to help combat this production hurdle. It all starts with the Ecology advance, which enables the construction of the Mass Transit and Solar Plant improvements. The Solar Plants are especially useful if you've got coal plants and factories boosting your shield and pollution production. Solar Plants allow similar production boosts without the pollution. Follow this up with the Recycling advance, which allows the construction of Recycling Centers, and you're well on your way to having a large city and low pollution.

<http://www.avault.com/featured/civ3/screens/civ304t.jpg> Combat becomes exceedingly lethal in the Modern Era. Nuclear submarines enabled by Fusion and Tactical Nuclear Missiles enabled by Space Flight create a pretty potent one-two punch. These vessels are invisible except to other submarines and AEGIS Cruisers, so you can safely moor them off the shore of your rival. While they can only carry one missile at a time, a small wolf pack of four submarines can absolutely decimate important enemy cities. ICBMs are even more devastating. Enabled by Satellites, they can deliver a nuclear payload to any location on the globe.

Precision bombing comes onto the scene with the discovery of Smart Weapons. This advance allows Stealth Bombers and Fighters to target only city improvements, which reduces the risk to the general population and can ensure that those cities you're planning to capture are still fairly intact at the end of the siege.

For good old-fashioned slugfests, the stars of this era are Mechanized Infantry and Modern Armor. While they require a lot of prerequisite strategic resources, they're by far the most dangerous, non-nuclear military units on the battlefield. Mechanized Infantry have more than double the defensive value of Infantry, and Modern Armor's attack is a third stronger than a normal tank.

<http://www.avault.com/featured/img/next.gif>

[donarumo]

here's middle

The Middle Ages is where the meat of the game begins for me. Strong defensive units, robust naval warfare, and powerful cannons color the battlefields of this era. In addition to this increasingly sophisticated arsenal, you also have access to more Great Wonders in the Middle Ages than in any other era. It's a time in which you can choose to spend a great deal of time exploring each technology or you can machine-gun through, bypassing some or all of the eight optional advances. It's one of my favorites.

The advances with which you start this era are all attractive. Feudalism gives you Pikemen and Sun Tzu's Art of War (the maintenance cost-cutting warmonger Wonder). The equally useful Monotheism bestows the Cathedral, a very important element in expanding your territory and the first non-Temple happiness city improvement available. Although Ancient Great Wonders like the Hanging Gardens can also allow you to combat unhappiness throughout the continent, it doesn't accelerate cultural development like the Cathedral, which hurts those cities without the Wonder. Engineering is another potential starting advance in the Middle Ages. While it doesn't give the player any flashy units or Wonders, it does allow road bonuses to persist over rivers and is a cornerstone prerequisite for gunpowder. Basically, you can't go wrong with early Middle Ages advances.

The most powerful offensive military units of the Middle Ages are mainly horse-based, so prepare for this before leaving the Ancient Era either through luck, diplomacy, or steel. Knights are the dominating force for much of the Middle Ages since they can defend like a Pikeman, move like a Horseman, and attack like a Longbowman. As long as you have the prerequisite strategic resources of horses and iron, now would be a good time to expand your empire the hard way. Right at the end of this era, Cavalry appear, which are pretty much the be-all end-all of the Middle Ages' offensive military units.

Another military highlight of this era is the first primitive gunpowder unit. This is definitely the era where defensive units come into their own. In every case, you'll need some resource (saltpeter for Musketmen and iron for Pikemen), but if your goal is to turtle your civilization, you'll need gunpowder units do it. It's also easy to forget about cannons, which, if gathered in sufficient quantities, can begin to achieve some very useful results. The Ancient Era's catapults were fairly effective smashing town walls, but were next to useless on the battlefield. Cannons are very effective in both shaking a city to the ground and blunting mass attacks against your territory.

The Middle Ages offer some great Wonders and city improvements. Newton's University, Copernicus' Observatory, and Universities all can keep the civilization advances coming fast and furious, which is especially crucial on higher difficulty levels without the Great Library. The Military Academy small wonder will finally eliminate the need for battlefield-promoted leaders in order to create Armies.

The world's oceans truly become the playground of nations during the Middle Ages, as opposed to the treacherous depths that were feared and avoided in Ancient times. You can now utilize naval trade routes in the exchange of resources after the required advances are researched of course, and the first naval units capable of bombardment are introduced, which is a critical breakthrough and another powerful benefit. For example, Frigates are a naval bombardment unit that now make it much less dangerous to attempt a D-Day, since you can be assured the foreign city you're storming has been blasted for a few turns. The Privateer is a weakened Frigate that can attack another nation's ships without triggering war. Primarily useful as an interceptor against naval landings, which become fairly prevalent during this time, Privateers can keep the other civilizations off balance and irritated. They are a potent new addition to the Civilization arsenal.

http://www.avault.com/featured/large...024&height=768

[ixnay]

Here's a zip with the modern and overall strategy pages.

[Pembleton]

The links to the pics still work if you link from the htms or htmls...

[ixnay]

Did anyone get the industrial pic? That was the only one I didn't see. If no one got it I might have to (gasp) wait two days to see it!

[Mannamagnus]

Here's Ixnai37's zip for strategy:


As I mentioned before, my favorite games are those that involve strong, established empires going to war with each other. In these situations, the vocabulary introduced into diplomacy and trade is fantastic, and you can revel in the fun of invading an opponent's continent. This completely shapes my approach to advance research. My overall game strategy is to focus on not falling behind the AI and building large, well-defended, and improved cities in the first two eras. After that, it's World War time.

During the Ancient Era, I go to the Tech Tree and queue up the advances leading to Literature. While an optional advance, the Great Library wonder is a critical Wonder for my play style. It pretty much ensures that as long as I'm actively establishing contact with other civilizations, I won't fall too far behind in advance research until at least the late Middle Ages. Plus, it's nice being able to reallocate research gold into entertainment or the treasury. After that, I pursue Monarchy. This is my default government type unless I'm alone on a continent or I decide to go for a heavy culture game--with its corresponding high maintenance costs. Then I simply mop-up any required advances, usually focusing on the Iron Working and Construction branch of the tree.

In the Middle Ages, I'm gunning for Gunpowder. It's not a quick trek, particularly because you need to survive the Knights and Cavalry that populate the era, but it's a prudent goal. With the discovery of Gunpowder, I usually am flagging civilizations as targets for future wars. If I've got the saltpeter strategic resource, I will plan on attacking the most vulnerable or unpopular. If I don't, it's time to start heavy diplomacy, swapping maps and making friends from whom I can borrow saltpeter. Next, I may start acquiring naval advances like Astronomy, Navigation, and Magnetism. Otherwise, I'll take advantage of the research already completed and secure cannons with Metallurgy. While they pale in comparison to the Industrial Era's Artillery, they can be upgraded and are fairly effective defensive units.

The Industrial Era starts, as it probably will for most players, with Medicine and Sanitation for their hospitals. Without these elements, it's fairly difficult to amass enough population to produce the increasingly expensive improvements and units. Then, it's time to secure the bread and butter of my military: Replaceable Parts. Next, I'll start mass-producing artillery and infantry and then acquire Flight and possibly Amphibious War. Both Amphibious War and Advanced Flight are very useful advances on small island maps, since they enable versatile assault units like the Marine and Helicopter. If I'm attempting a Space Race victory, I'll pick up Espionage since sabotaging production is a very effective way to ensure you launch for Alpha Centauri first.

By the time I get to the Modern Age, the stage is usually set for both my opponents and me. If you're not careful, pollution can be a very devastating handicap in this era. While I'm usually good about keeping production cities well staffed with workers to clean them up, I'll sometimes still find Ecology and Recycling worthwhile. I don't always go down this road, but if global warming is turning your grasslands into desert, it can be a lifesaver. After that, I'll usually pick either Synthetic Fibers if I'm feeling the pressure in my campaigns of conquest, or Genetics for it's Great Wonders that sooth and boost the population. Occasionally, Integrated Defense can be an early priority if nuclear weapons are in play. To be honest, though, it's a better preventative measure than cure. Usually, if there are mushroom clouds sprouting across the globe, global warming will starve you and everyone else back into the Stone Age no matter what you do.