The "I think I might be losing this one, what do I do?" thread - Page 3

petermarkab · December 22, 2003, 17:42

finally, here's the Western Russian Empire.

Hope these screenshots provide enough incentive to download the save and give me lots of fabulous advice.

thanks,

Pete

Primative1 · December 22, 2003, 18:43

Thanks vmxa1 - first off let me say in my defence that this is my first game and I havn't read the civopedia - i'm just discovering it as I go - I will be switching my research to go for the Hoover Dam tho.

I switched to Communism because my far flung cities were crippled by corruption to the point of not being viable. How does one overcome this? City improvements arnt the answer - it was taking 80 turns to build basic stuff.

Whats my 'RR'?

Thanks for your time and efforts v, and for not dumping on me *L*.

vmxa1 · December 22, 2003, 20:19

RR is railroads. They allow you to move units at no movement cost. This means you can send defenders anywhere you have rails and then still have all you moves to fort up or attack or whatever.

You also get food bonus, so you can get by with less irriagtion.

vmxa1 · December 22, 2003, 20:29

Quote:

Originally posted by Primative1

I switched to Communism because my far flung cities were crippled by corruption to the point of not being viable. How does one overcome this? City improvements arnt the answer - it was taking 80 turns to build basic stuff.

To some degree you will have to accept corruption for a time. You do not want to sacrifice you core or producing cities to get a bit out of those far away and weak cities. You will not gain back enough to pay the bills.

I don't recall if there was an FP (forbidden palace) or not and where it was. One way in CivIII or PTW (not C3C so far) to get some help is to build the FP out in the middle of those far flung cities. It will act as a second palace and those cities will have corruption ranks as if they where around teh palace (more or less).

If you have an FP and it is well placed, then you can try to rush some improvements with cash (depending on the form of gov).
Weither this is a good plan or not is dependant on many things and is sort of a specialty. Look for threads on corruption from Alexman the corruption nazi to get the real scoop.

If you are stuck with those 1 shiled cities, you can use them to crank out workers or settlers. You can set pop to taxmen or scientist to get some value. In C3C you have other specialist called civil engineers.

The thing is, communism is worthless in Civ3 or PTW (IMO).

UnityScoutChopper · December 23, 2003, 08:36

Hi Peter,

I'll leave it to other players to make a more in-depth analysis; I'll just get a few "basics" out of the way.

CITY DENSITY

A key problem visible in your screenshots is low city density. I realize that knowing a city will never be able to work its maximum of 20 squares is irksome, but the problem with giving cities enough space to reach or approach their maxima is that for most of the game -- all the way until somewhat into the industrial age, when you can build Hospitals -- you will have squares that will never be used. In other words, you will be producing fewer shields and less gold than you could be. In some cases, like the one shown above, the effect can be dramatic. As a rule of thumb, you should provide each city just enough space to have 12 workable squares for itself, i.e. the maximum size pre-hospitals.

Higher city density:
- increases your worked tile count to total territory tile count ratio
- just plain gives you more food, shields, and gold
- gets your cities built faster
- reduces border gaps without requiring culture production (a biggie for non-religious civs in despotism)
- often increases the rate of your territory expansion despite the smaller jumps each time, since you will have more places from which to produce settlers (and workers to speed them on)

As an example: in "North Russia," I could envision (if we ignore military threats) placing new cities:
4 squares NE of Moscow
2 W + 1 NW of Moscow
on the tobacco E-SE of Moscow
in the middle of the minimap :-)

I may have ignored crowding from some West Russian cities in this; if so, my apologies.

WORKERS

All in all, your territory seems a bit underdeveloped. Since you are currently at war, you probably will not be able to afford to build many workers. But once the war is over -- and from the start in future games -- they should be a higher priority. "How many workers" is always a tough question to answer; the general answer is "enough that your cities are never working undeveloped tiles, all your cities, luxuries, and resources are connected, and your settlers are sped towards their destinations." This is actually usually unattainable if you are expanding quickly, but you get the picture. The short answer is "twice is many as you think." The shortest answer at ANY GIVEN MOMENT is "more."

GOVERNMENT

As soon as possible, switch out of Despotism. I'd recommend Republic despite its disadvantages in war, because it is a better government in the long run than Monarchy (and eventually becomes better even during wars), and as a non-religious civ, you don't want to switch twice.

USC

Cerbykins · December 23, 2003, 15:01

Communism in this game, is much like in real life: in PRINCIPLE it's great, in practice it's a heap of junk

In the older civ games, I remember it being of some use - but as it stands in Civ 3, even democracy works out better. The down-sides there are, if you wanted to use forced labour to rush build - democracy can't and if you fight wars, you'll have to keep them short and sweet. But in trade terms, the corruption is actually less than in communism.

This may have been cured a bit with the new Secret Police HQ in C3C, but we'll have to wait to find out about that

I did test this a while ago - Ottomans, chieftain, in a bid to see what I could get out forced labour and communism in general. And democracy was STILL better for world domination :P

petermarkab · December 23, 2003, 15:15

thanks for the tips USC

Quote:

A key problem visible in your screenshots is low city density.

Quote:

All in all, your territory seems a bit underdeveloped.

I agree - I think i've attended to my expansion and military while neglecting core infrastructure. Will do better in future.

As for the remedy, I had a hunch i should be filling in the gaps so will do so while stalling the war. In twenty turns I should have enough 5-plus shield producing cities to resume the Portugal war.

Quote:

"How many workers" is always a tough question to answer

IIRC, I've currently got about 6 workers and 20 captured workers - they're all working on Moscow's shield production in the mountains. Will reassign to new core cities ASAP!

Quote:

As soon as possible, switch out of Despotism.

Can't see this happening for at least 40 turns, but my preference is for Despot -> Monarchy -> Democracy (haven't tried Fascism or 'New Communism' - hehe, very May 1997!)

I guess its like the "two pit stops vs one pit stop" argument in F1 - will the extra set of new tyres allow me to make up the extra 8 seconds?!

Regards,

Pete

UnityScoutChopper · December 23, 2003, 15:45

Hi Peter,

I don't know about Monarchy --> Democracy, but I remember someone -- may have been WarpStorm -- investigating semi-scientifically the effect of the "pit stop" between Republic and Democracy, and coming to the conclusion that the loss that a non-religious civ incurs from anarchy is only recuperated many dozens of turns later. I would assume that Monarchy/Democracy would be the same. In anything but the most warmongering of games, my personal recommendation would thus be to make a single switch -- to Republic. It's nice in that its war weariness is low enough to make war feasible throughout the game, yet it still have the tremendous commerce boost shared with Democracy. Well... try a "single-switch" game out for a test run with a non-religious civ sometime and come to your own conclusions, not mine.

USC

vmxa1 · December 23, 2003, 17:23

I would only make one switch if not religious. It will be very hard to recover the lost production. As you already are finding it hard to switch once, how can you find a time for a second one?

Republic is a more problematic than it was in PTW as the support cost can be a killer, if you have a large army. If you expect to fight, Demo will be harsh, unless you can do it quick and or have many luxs.

Workers should be at least 1 per city and more is even better. Slaves only as half.

Theseus · December 23, 2003, 21:00

Quote:

Originally posted by UnityScoutChopper
CITY DENSITY

Higher city density:
- increases your worked tile count to total territory tile count ratio
- just plain gives you more food, shields, and gold
- gets your cities built faster
- reduces border gaps without requiring culture production (a biggie for non-religious civs in despotism)
- often increases the rate of your territory expansion despite the smaller jumps each time, since you will have more places from which to produce settlers (and workers to speed them on)

Also, and I think this is REALLY important, it lets your cities share improved tiles. This is critical in the early game, especially if you have some nearby cities fluctuating in size due to Settler and Worker builds. Remember: The name of the game is to maximize food, shield, and commerce production from tiles actually being worked... thus, improving and SHARING the best tiles goes a long way.

One more: From a military perspective, using 3-tile city placement (CxxC) and having a good military road network go a long way towards enhancing your defensability, due to 3 and 6 tile movement on roads.

Cerbykins · December 24, 2003, 14:51

Curiously, this latest game at Monarch level (which for some reason I keep calling 'Governor'

) - my first for a long while there - Persia's busy trying to pull the 'killer civ' trick. Anyhow, as you can probably guess, they wanted war...

...and the odd part - it's been going on some considerable length of time, with little combat taking place - yet no sign of the usual war weariness under republic...is this new patch's doing?

If this is true, it suddenly makes republic/feudalism much more viable...!

Jaguar · December 25, 2003, 05:42

I'm playing on Sid level. I have three cities, and no iron. The Ottomans have 8 cities. They just declared war on me. They have riflemen defending their cities and they have Sipahi as well. I am working on discovering feudalism. What should I do?

vmxa1 · December 25, 2003, 16:15

JW resign. Three cities in the middles ages? You are funny.

Cerbykins · December 25, 2003, 17:19

Even from a coward like me...sounds too late to make a comeback

sabrewolf · December 27, 2003, 09:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Aeson
I forgot to mention this on asking the AI to remove troops. Even if you are much more powerful they will always declare war if at a certain level of furious. To take advantage of this, just demand something from the AI you want to declare war on you numerous times until they are very furious(after they get to furious, keep demanding a few times), and then demand they withdraw their troops. They will declare war, even if they're on their last city with no military to speak of.

i do this too and maybe i'll be burned as a heretic...
but isn't this an exploit?

vmxa1 · December 27, 2003, 15:11

Could be considered an exploit, I rarely use it so I never gave it much thought.

Thrar · December 27, 2003, 16:16

This one is giving me a hard time at the moment.
It's on Demigod, playing as the Chinese (random), my neighbors are mainly Rome, and a bit further away the Aztecs. As things stand now, all land is settled, i have about as much land as i can use productively with one core, but just one lux and no horses. In addition, i'm at least 3 techs behind Rome/Aztecs, and there seems to be another continent even further ahead, we don't know them.
Here's an overview over the whole situation:

Thrar · December 27, 2003, 16:28

I fought one war so far, against the romans, who had sent a large portion up north against the Indians at that time (i have their contact, but dunno where they are). That gave me Byzantium (south), Hispalis, Hangchow (founded by me, flipped, recaptured, flipped again not long ago.

) and Veji (flipped back as well).
My culture is roughly the same as Rome's, there's not much i can do about those flips.
However, there is no way i can go to war again soon. Rome now has iron (they didn't have until the end of the first war), and all their troops are in their homeland i suppose, since they are at peace with everyone now. A couple of legions, pikes for defense, and MI, maybe a few archers or horses left from earlier. I'm researching Feudalism at 50 turns (21 left), but until then, they may even have knights. I think the slow research was a mistake, otherwise i might have it now or very soon, although i wouldn't have the gold i have now.
I just switched to monarchy a turn or 2 ago, when i noticed that i can't build much more military for support reasons. With just one luxury, and another traded from India, i don't think it's a good idea to build aqueducts everywhere and go to size 7, so i think i'm sort of stuck here. Ravenna looks really yummy, and i also would like to recapture Hangchow and Veji, but i don't think i have a chance at it.

Here's the save, if anyone wants to take a look:

vmxa1 · December 27, 2003, 20:50

You look to be in good shape. Why did you get flipped? Did you have enough troops garrisoned? Did you put everyone on entertainment?

I see some furs, do you have themas well? If not that would be a nice target to work towards.

I would still build a Duct when I get a chance. I would rather have it in place and use specialist, than not have it. I would pick an choose the cities that gets one though.

As China, I would be for getting to Chiv and get some Riders to do bunch of regulating. So I would probably speed up my research for those few techs. Being able to bust Romans now is worth a lot. They look to have a less then well defined empire.

I am just going by the screenie though.

Aeson · December 27, 2003, 21:06

Quote:

Originally posted by sabrewolf i do this too and maybe i'll be burned as a heretic...
but isn't this an exploit?

Just about anything useful the player can do is exploiting the AI or game mechanics. If you feel something ruins your fun in the game, don't use it.

Not really worthwhile to worry about whether something is an exploit or not outside of that consideration. Unless you're running some kind of comparative or competitive game where it's necessary to give everyone an even playing field.

steoc4 · December 29, 2003, 19:57

Hi
I was wondering if anybody had any recommendations for my game. It's my first attempt at the second difficulty level, after easily winning the easiest difficulty level it's gotten surprisingly harder. I had been doing very well, the strongest of all my local civilizations, but then the Japanese came out of nowhere and conquered germany and egypt(I actually got them to ally with me against them but they wiped out the opposition before I could take any cities), and declared war on me. I'm slightly more advanced I think, but they've a seemingly never ending army and I've little or no military because I'd been focusing on infrastructure. So any suggestions to quickly mobilize an army, or to try and weather the storm and hit them back later because I think I'm ahead in technology as long as I survive.
It's Civ 3 Conquests by the way, and I'm quite new to it so I've probably done a lot of things wrong. Any advice would be appreciated

steoc4 · December 29, 2003, 20:18

Here's a screenshot. I'm the Koreans in the middle, with the Chinese(at peace) to the south and the Japanese to the north. Japan's main cities are all to the west, the ones to the north are the land they've taken from Germany and Egypt. I'm in anarchy by the way because I was changing from a Republic to Democracy, after reading the above posts maybe that wasn't such a good idea.

Cerbykins · December 29, 2003, 23:07

Democracy + war usually works out, -IF- you can keep the war short and not lose any cities (or at least, only 1-2 + get them straight back).

That japan has 'loose cities' on the edge of it's empire is good for you. You might not be able to kill the japs in one fight, but you should be able to 'strim' cities off their border, if you can get the units together.

The best policy for actually fighting battles, is to keep a couple of attackers in each region (just in case the japs decide to take a swing at you) and focus most of your force in one big stack. If you can, drag the Japs neighbours into it too, and perhaps the Chinese before the Japs get the idea of bringing them against you.

Hope it helps

Edit: I'm gonna have a go at this, and see if I can get something out of it. If I can, I'll repost the save so you can see how I got around the problem Japs

Cerbykins · December 30, 2003, 00:12

This game is, unreservedly, the hardest I've EVER seen

Doesn't prove a lot, because I normally chicken out as soon as it gets tough

Anyway...

Democracy is OUT OF THE QUESTION. Monarchy chosen instead.
We had good and bad luck. We lost some HORRENDOUS dice rolls, BUT - we got a leader and your lost city culture-flipped - so I hung on to it for a while before they got it back.

The leader has been used to produce an army of Musketmen. Considering your predicament, entirely appropriate

The good thing about this army is, it can also be used to pick on attackers daft enough to leave themselves open to a shot or two. And if you need it, you have a -FANTASTIC- defender you can have run to any city you need it at.

Your tax rate has been changed to 90%. You -DESPERATELY- need this cash for rush jobs and upgrades. Forget science - if you don't survive this, science is no use to you.

I've used your tech advantage to get the Dutch into the war and to get the Chinese back in. Apparently you betrayed the German badly, and no-one's forgiven you. SO badly, in fact - they wouldn't accept any 'per-turn' deals or right-of-passage agreements. Tip - don't betray folks in future. Yes, the AI does it - but that's why you need 'per-turn' deals - so that whatever you offer it stops being given as soon as the deal is broken. If you give a lump sum or tech (as I had to) there's nothing to stop the AI betraying you in turn. As it may well do later on.

Most production jobs have been scrapped in favour of units. You have a decent shot at Sistine and it would REALLY benefit you, so I've left it on.

I've changed some of your tiles to mines, due to the fact you need units BADLY, and the quicker you can produce them - the better.

Your culture-borders are holding up the hordes long enough to make counter-attacks. Nice job - it's saved you several times

I've ordered the governor to take charge of citizen moods. This means it's in charge of allocating tiles and keeping the city out of disorder, but otherwise won't interfere. Change it if you like, but personally - I think you've got enough problems to worry about

Japan is now at the stage we call "Killer Civ". And it appears to have got there not through it's own effort, but through several failed attempts to kill it with other civs. Probably the cause of the betrayal - you called peace in the middle of the alliance with Germany. If you are to stand any chance in this game, Japan HAS to be stopped.

In future, have a military force handy. Your defenders were good but I had very little to fight back with, and no way to stop pillaging. If you lose those horses - you're in SERIOUS trouble. (no more knights!)

The save is still at a desperate point - but at least now you have a chance (albeit a slim one) of survival. If you wish, if you still can't come back from here, I can make another go at it...

Oh - and 'Metal Mickey' is the ex-Pikeman you have to thank for your army

It has to be said...I've learnt a lot from this one game...but hopefully you'll learn even more

Edit: Fixed typos

- also noticed you already talked about some of these points earlier, like how Japan got so big. Disregard those bits

Anyway, I want to see if I can win this game, so I'm gonna plough on regardless. I don't yet see a path to victory, but if I can get one it'll help when my own games get into nasty states like this

(part of the discouragement is losing sight of victory...)

Cerbykins · December 30, 2003, 03:46

The Japs are on the run! (sort of

)

The secret? I got enough knights now...

BTW, your Sun Tzu and Knights Templar are much appreciated

Anyway...for an example of what I was blathering on about as regards spreading your forces and having one big trouble-maker stack, here's the latest save for you.

You'll also notice that I feel safe with most cities only having one defender. Yes, it's true, one defender could NOT hold an assault off. But then, that's why you have the trouble-maker stack. The free unit support won't stretch to several defenders for ever city, AND a standing army to keep troublesome civs like Japan in check/under-foot (choose as appropriate

)

Don't be afraid to go over your support limit, it's not wasting cash. In fact, it's wasting cash if you DON'T go over the limit, because you're not getting the free support you're entitled to. It's like gold you never got to collect.

Anyway, that wraps up my boring lecture for the day. It's coming to 8 am and then my net connection gets chopped

(some of us do still only have off-peak dial, y'know

)

And did I forget to mention? MORE MILITARY! AGAIN!

vmxa1 · December 30, 2003, 15:01

First thing I saw was that it was 10xxAD and you knew very little of the map. This mean no contact with Mayan/Celts/Arabs/Vikes/India and maybe others. I don't know how many are in the game and how many are left. I suspect Mayan civ is gone.

The lack of contact is costing you research and trade.

You are in anarchy, why? Did you switch governments in the midst of war? You should have been in republic long ago and not need to switch. Being in despotism and now anarchy is very expensive.

Japan declared war as you have very little in the way of troops.
1 crusader 1 MI 6 muskets 18 pikes 1 spear according to the advisor. These are basically defenders, so how can you carry out an attack? You are starting to crank out some knights and that is good, but you should have had 10 or more horses already and then upgraded them to knights and turn the lights on some of the japanese cities.

Keep and eye on your advisor to see if you are weak compared to other known civs. If so build more troops. Once you have enough experience to ignore the advisor, you can think about skimping. In the mean time the AI willbe making attacks and demands if you are weak.

No where near enough mines and 8 workers and 6 slaves is a bit thin as well. I see cities that have citizens on irrigated land getting 2 food and 0 shields, while a tile with a mine on a grassland is not worked? It would yields 2 food and 2 shields.

Early game requires food and shields. If in doubt mine. Be careful about mining mountains, save them for last. They take too many worker turns to finish.

Footballgod128 · December 30, 2003, 19:14

i just wanted to see if theres anything i could do to improve my game, just look at my save please and tell me what you think i could do, im playing a regent, pangea 70% map with i think everything default, i am the persians and i went to war with the mayans earlier and got a few cities and incense and about to go to war again when i get some knights built.... thanks for the advice before hand, i really love this site, i think it helps me out alot, if you need anymore, info or anything, just ask

Cerbykins · December 30, 2003, 20:55

Ok.
Minor tech deficit, a bit of smart trading will keep you in the running

Yes on the knights before your next attack...in fact...it's what I was thinking myself

BUT - be careful who you attack. Carthage will still be rife with their UU, while the Zulu Impi/Pikeman will be easier to deal with.
Alternatively, you could call in the Zulu to help fight Carthage?
Remember to continue to use your immortals, even if only as second line troops/fortification to keep the flips at bay.
Be careful with war under republic...remember the problems you get if it goes wrong

This map looks frighteningly like the one the last guy posted

(in shape at least)

Oh yeah, and the big vets are no doubt not impressed, but I'm enjoying stamping on the Japs. Even if it were only to see how/if it could be done so far in

Joint biggest area with Japs now. They -WILL- be mine

steoc4 · December 30, 2003, 21:21

Thanks for the advice! I'm downloading that save now to have a look.
I know I skimped on military, I thought as long as I was at peace with everyone it would be better to build up my land and cities and I'd be well developed enough to be able to build a superior army when wartime eventually came, I really wasn't expecting it to happen so quickly. Won't be making that mistake again anyway.

Cerbykins · December 30, 2003, 21:28

I learnt the hard way, now you too

Anyway - the best path to follow now, is to forget ever letting the AI get it's way and from now on to beat it's head into the nearest wall

At least, that's how I live