Strategy Notes From Vel - The Early Game....

[Velociryx]

Hey guys! The bad news is….I had to report for work today….the upshot to that is that it FORCED me to pull myself away from Civ for a while, so I figured while I’m here and until I can get my “fix” later this evening, I might as well write about it….

Some interesting notes from my first “Huge-16 Game” too, that highlight the importance of a few of the things we’ve been talking about here…good stuff, GREAT game!

Comments to the comments and questions:

Chris: I think the main difference is that I really try hard to find someone to battle during the latter stages of the Ancient Era. Specifically, my “target civ” to attack has 8-12 cities and no iron….::evil grin:: So…at the end of the Ancient Era (and sometimes lasting through to the early part of the Middle Ages), I’m hacking and slashing, and the time after that is spent bringing those relatively recent acquisitions up to par with the rest of the empire.

That, coupled with the hatefully expensive upgrade program (Pikemen --à Riflemen = 100g EACH…UGH!), (Catapult -à Cannon = 40g each), and a few irresistible builds (Hospital, Factory) pretty much keeps me tied down through the bulk of the Industrial Age….and if I finish up sooner, then I’m verging on tanks and Infantry –another upgrade cycle ::sigh:: so I’ll just hold off my attack till I get the good stuff.

Dissident: re: Early-Game Research – ‘s all about gold mines, rivers, and roads. If you’re looking for an early game boost (and this is very much dependent on geography), one thing that’s worked for me is if your capitol starts on a river, CRAM cities in along that river, veering off that path slightly to take advantage of gold mines fairly near your capitol (founding cities ON the mine squares when possible.) High corruption or no, if you throw ENOUGH gold at the problem, you will begin to make headway….

Henry! Yes sir….VelociCivSlave reporting for duty! I SORTA remember what the whole sleep thing is like since this game came out… And thank you for the compliment! Got me blushin’ here as I write this note….superior brain, eh? I’ll have to see if I can convince my co-workers of that….I’m regarded as the “token hippie” ‘round here.

::nods to both Henry and Jguy:: ‘k guys….the checks are IN the mail….seriously….thank you both….and I’m glad that this thread is proving helpful. Already, the stuff that’s been discussed here is laying the foundation for what should be an AMAZING strat guide for this game! :: pondering a moment:: “On another plane….” Yep….now that’s one I should be able to convince my co-workers of pretty easily….

blc: AWESOME idea! Culture Capture seems like it would work VERY well for religious civs, too….cheaper temples at the outset makes for happy citizens, bigger borders and more culture, more quickly….VERY cool!

GaH: Thanks man! And I'm glad you're liking the thread! Looks like we're pushing the 250 post limit, and will have to open Part two of the thread, but hey....that's cool....I get the feeling there's plenty more to be said!

And an excellent call about using your workers in gangs! Quite right, too! The faster you can make a target tile more productive (especially if that target tile is already being worked), the better for the city in question! I had a number of similar instances in the game outlined below where I would not have completed a wonder ahead of the opposition if not for gang-forming!

Game Notes
Huge Map, 16 Civs, Regent Level Play
Velocirabi, leading the Babylonians

Had an average start….decent terrain, but my capitol was at the tip of a short peninsula, which, as has been talked about here, did nasty things to my cities founded later, since ALL of them were pretty far from my capitol, requiring me to think about relocating it sooner, rather than later.

Began expanding in REX fashion from the get-go, taking the occasional break to build a few additional workers so I could build roads at a decent rate (I MISS my Industrious French workers!), and in roughly a triangular pattern (began at the tip of that little peninsula, and began founding cities following the coast till I encountered border markers, thusly)

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Since I chose the Babylonians, I made temples a BIG priority, setting them as my first build everywhere (even before garrisons). At half price and with pop-rushing, it was a snap to get them in place, and my borders simply exploded!

Soon as I saw borders, I changed my expansion focus to something like:


.........x
......x...x
...x......x
x.........x
...x......x
......x...x
.........x

Backfilling from there (note that in some cases, I was able to space my cities a little farther apart cos of border expansions in my older cities, allowing for wider placement with no gaps….also note that because of marauding barbarians—and sometimes rival Civs—some cities wound up being only three apart….but in general I tried for a fairly balanced approach where spacing was concerned).

My nearest neighbors were the Russians (butting up against the “top” portion of the shape you see above), and the Aztecs (butting up against the right portion of the shape above), and in addition to them, we shared the continent with the Zulu (north of Russia), Iroquois (north of Zulu), Americans (past a choke point to the NE), English (North of America), and Persia (north of England)….so….LOTS of early contacts, but not much tech swapping after I snagged the Great Library (which sent me into a largely useless golden age….I wasn’t working on any additional wonders, didn’t yet have the tech to switch to republic, and had already pop-rushed all my early infrastructure, so I build swordsmen….::yawn:: TOTAL waste of a GA, but….the GL and free tech was still kinna nice….

So….lots of early game tension as I tried to out-expand the AI…lots of wide open terrain meant no choke points I could use to my advantage, either. I did pretty well I think, having consistently the largest number of cities of any civ on the continent (I kept track each time we’d hold diplomacy).

The Russians were actually fairly slow to head my way, and partly this was due to local geography….explorations revealed a wide expanse of desert terrain separating us…true, it DID contain a whopping SEVEN tiles of spices, but still….it’s desert.

I was trying to expand to it, and got to the edge of the desert, but when the Rus saw me heading that way, they suddenly got a lot more interested, lit a fire under it, and next thing I know….there are two new Russian cities in the desert.

DRAT.

Meanwhile, the Aztecs were rapidly becoming an ancient-era Godzilla…..they certainly lived up to their fearsome reputation, at one point, fighting a coalition of Americans, Zulu, Persians AND Russians to a standstill! Despite repeated attempts by this large, cooperative group of nations, only one Aztec city fell, and was set upon by no less than thirty Jaguar warriors, who swarmed in and took the place back two turns later, then proceeded to pick the attack force apart relentlessly.

I was very glad I sat that one out, tho I did have a small, serviceable army (three battle groups, consisting of 4 Swordsmen, 2 Horsemen, 2 Catapults in each group), sitting on the borders of Aztec land….had they faltered, I’d have jumped in as well.

Tech-wise, I was one of the first people to snag “Iron working” as a tech, and saw that I had two deposits of the stuff inside my borders. Sweet.

I also took note of the fact that neither the Rus NOR the Aztecs had any, though the Rus had easy access—a lone mountain that they were far closer to than anyone else….sooner or later, they’d snag it. Also, neither of my near neighbors had horses—I had one source, the Americans had two.

All of this left me feeling fairly secure. True, my army was smaller, but we had superior goods…horses AND iron, and I was the only Civ on my continent to have researched Mathematics, so I could count the catapult among my strategic advantages (of which I had six total).

Not bad….not bad.

Then, for reasons that remain a mystery to me, the freakin’ Persians decide to declare war on me. Fortunately, the force they had dispatched toward the Aztecs got wiped out to a man, and I never saw the first Persian soldier before I was able to contact them again and sue for peace.

Xerxes musta just got up on the wrong side of the bed or something.

So….I watched the armies of rival civs clash in and around my border towns….everybody was violating my borders, nobody would listen to me when I’d tell them to leave, so eventually I stopped trying. As a safeguard, I moved my battle groups toward the worst of the fighting, figuring if they wanted to kill each other on my turf, that was cool, but the first worker of mine that got kidnapped, I was gonna unload on whoever did it.

Lots of biding my time, and LOTS of culture. In fact, in the ancient era, my culture was nearly twice that of everyone else’s combined. It was insane.

I was watching borders, too, and figured that the Aztecs would eventually bite off more than they could chew….and when they did, my plan was to swoop in on them and snag three of their cities bordering mine.

As it stood, despite being lush, rich ground (lots of gold, lots of rivers, and a TON of bonus food tiles), my rather large Empire had all of two luxury resources (both dyes, and both near the capitol). The Aztecs had silks and ivory, and I was looking to expand my options, so I started casting my eye toward selectively acquiring Aztec cities, and repositioning my armies accordingly.

Before the battle groups could even complete the move, two of the three cities I had my eye on were culturally absorbed into my fold, and a few turns after the armies were re-positioned, the other fell as well! Talk about a totally bloodless battle! I was loving it, AND I now had a decent spread of luxury items (2 tradable Ivory and 1 tradable Dye). That, along with the tech lead I was enjoying, courtesy of the GL, and being surrounded by iron and horse poor neighbors….life was good.

Still….I bided my time….when I committed to war with someone, I wanted to make it count. Wanted to make it decisive. And until then, I was content to build on my tech and culture leads, making good use of my surplus luxury items to keep my rivals cash-poor and use the money to ratchet my research all the higher.

Broke through to the middle ages in 500-something AD, WELL ahead of everybody else on my continent, switched to Republic and kept steaming right along. Wonder-wise, I snagged the Observatory and Newton’s University in the same city, and got Sun Tzu’s for good measure. Also during this period, I relocated my palace to a more centrally located city, taking a small hit to Empire-Wide corruption (I actually LOST 8 gold per turn initially, because my oldest cities were larger and produced more, but I knew long term, it would be a boon).

Also, the Russians managed to land on a little nub of shoreline that hadn’t yet fallen inside my borders and set up a miserable little town there. THAT ticked me off, and was the moment that I began thinking in terms of making eventual war with the Russians, rather than the Aztecs, especially since three Aztec cities had fallen to me already….pruning them sufficiently that they just didn’t seem like the Godzilla they had before.

As this segment of the game wore on, three MORE Aztec cities would be absorbed into my burgeoning Empire, reducing the Aztecs to a smallish (but still heavily armed) state off to my east.

Halfway through the Middle Ages, the folk of “the other continent” got in touch with us and ohhh man was it scary looking over there! The lower half of the continent was fairly orderly. The French, then the Japanese, a small Germanic state just north of them, slowly being crushed between the Japanese and a MASSIVE China….north of China though, it was total chaos…Greeks in the middle, beset on all sides by Romans, Indians, and Egyptians…borders were total chaos, and there was almost constant warfare. Clearly, the Big Dogs on the other continent were China, followed somewhat distantly by Japan and France, while on our side of the Pond, I came out on top of the heap, followed somewhat closely by America and Russia, with Persia somewhat weaker, and the others (Aztec, Iroquois, Zulu) all having been reduced to minor roles and technological backwaters.

True to form, about ten turns after selling contact information all around, the Aztecs declared war on China and India, and those two nations pressured the Rus, Persians, and Zulu into declaring against the Aztec Nation.

Without iron (The Rus finally build a city out toward their source of Iron), I knew the sturdy Aztecs could not hope to stand up against such an onslaught.

I had only built roads to one of my two sources of iron, but when war was declared, I set two workers to build a road to “activate” my second source of iron—and actually “found a new reserve” a few turns later. This, I traded to the Aztecs, and gave them Chivalry for good measure.

On their own, they traded for horses (from the Americans, I assume), and began cranking out veteran Knights like nobody’s business, while they sent their older, outdated troops to hold off the invasion until the new stuff could come online.

The early battles did not go well….their aging army of Jaguars, Archers, and Spearmen were ground up by Immortals and Swordsmen arriving in droves.

Clearly, if they were to survive, they’d need a bit more help, so I gave them Right of Passage through my lands, and suddenly, the entire landscape of the battle changed.

As before, much of it was fought in my turf anyway, but now, with access to my road network, the jaguars began inflicting more punishment on the floundering Russian, Persian, and Zulu troops. Aztec units could move into position more quickly, and they used that with deadly effect on their enemies.

Soon after, a large contingent of eight Aztec Knights poured through my road network, and swept a contingent of Impis and Immortals aside, and suddenly the coalition was on the defensive.

Meanwhile, I had been busy building Knights of my own (and upgrading my existing horse troops), and quietly repositioning my armies on the Russian border.

My attack would consist of four prongs.

One group was devoted exclusively to the capture of the “cheese-town” that the Russians had set down on my coast.

The second group would drive straight for the capitol.

Third group would raid the desert and secure the spice sources I had been after ages ago, and the fourth group would attack Russian border towns up near where the Russian border met the American border.

Absolute mayhem followed, and I found in the Aztecs, a sturdy and QUITE capable military ally. On two separate occasions, when my damaged troops were threatened by possible counterattack, the Aztecs swept in with Knights and took the opposition forces out before they could move against me.

They were so good, in fact, that they actually beat me to a couple of my combat objectives, capturing three Russian towns I had set my sights on! It was the first time I have ever played a game with only AI players that I really felt as though I had a PARTNER in the battle. This was not some useless, “fifth wheel” military ally…..this was a capable and deadly partner, and together, the Aztecs and I picked apart the Russian Empire, and while they were helping me against the Rus, the Aztecs also put a serious hurtin’ on the Zulu and Persian armies.

Absolutely awesome battles!

I got a great leader out of the deal and made an army out of it with an eye toward the Heroic Epic and such (hoping like HELL for a second leader tho, so I can rush a project in the future!), and made peace with the Rus when they were down to four cities….at that point, my army was pretty widely scattered and badly out of position, and war weariness was starting to become an issue, so I accepted peace in order to re-organize my armies and get ready to polish them off once and for all.

During the course of the battle, I broke through to the Industrial Age (so far, I’m the only one on either continent to do so—city icons for the other have not changed yet), and am two turns away from being able to build hospitals.

One of the cities captured by the Aztecs recently reverted back to Russian control, and I’ve duly put in on my target list as the troops reposition themselves.

Another recent development, Nationalism, so all 33 of my pikemen were upgraded to riflemen (and btw, I think the main reason I don’t fight during this time is the fact that those stupid riflemen shoot each time they move….UGH…how annoying!). Anyway, Riflemen defending most of my towns, swordsmen gathering to be my sacrificial lambs, an army in the field looking for an easy kill, and a core group of veteran and elite Knights at the ready.

The destruction of the Russian Empire has solidified my position as this continent’s superpower (though, score wise, I am listed as third, behind both China and France), it has brought me new and valuable resources, and it earned me the trust and respect of the Aztecs, who proved themselves to be an invaluable asset! Best thing I ever did was sell them iron and give them a tech!

I finally forced myself to stop at ten minutes to three this morning…..but I can hardly wait to get home! As fascinating as this game has been, I find that I can’t wait to see what’ll happen next!

-=Vel=-

[vmxa1]

I have now seen a couple of mention of building factories, is that not a dangerous thing due to pollution? I have been skipping them as I get more than enough pollution, even with mass transit and recycle. I would think you would at least ned those and maybe even some other anti pollution stuff. The only thing I fear is the global warming, that can ruin a game.

[Jguy]

Hey, a few things.

First, pollution and factories. In my last game, it was never too much of a problem. With an industrius civ, my workers took care of it pretty easily. Maybe 3 workers for each square, and maybe 2 squares per turn? By this time, I'm pretty much done with improvements around my cities, and with >20 pop, theres no need to add the workers back into the cities, so there isn't much for them to do. Once mass transit/solar plants and hydro plants/recycling centers come around pollution is basically a non-issue. (although I admit its not fun cleaning it all up, its definitely worth the extra production.) I haven't had too much of a problem with global warming, maybe 3 or 4 squares before i launch my spaceship (I'd definitely like to hear if other people are having problems). Conclusion: factories are an unavoidable risk if you want to achieve the necessary level of production. I was amazed how the industrial age was so much like the real world, in that I could just pump out massive amounts of anything once factories were in my cities. Pollution is definitely worth it.

Second, city improvements. Between settlers, once the surrounding area has been explored, what do you guys build? Temples are good, and the expanding borders are useful, but it seems like I go for granaries first. Its a very tangible bonus to my settler farms. What are all of your priorities? Temples on border towns, granaries on inner ones, or just temples first all the time? Also, I'm usually neglecting barracks until I'm upgrading horsemen and such. Does anyone use them in the early game? What are some benefits to doing so?

Third, early research priorities? The great library is an amazing wonder, but what about those smaller techs? Besides temples and granaries, do you guys get into early wars enough that horsemen and iron working and such are high priorities? I'm usually expanding my empire full out without thinking too much about war (maybe I should change that?)

Finally, congrats on your success on your current game vel. 16 faction games are quite an adventure. Unfortunately, they take waay too long on my computer.

I'm going back to doing a massive english project. Vive la Strategy Notes Thread!

[Gamer at heart]

Jguy, I totally agree with you about the factories, there is just no way of keeping pace with producing increasingly costly units and buildings without them. pollution can always be cleaned up.

about the building order, I think yours is excellent. in fact I don't use granaries enough and that can slow down my early settler rush, or at least prevent it from being as quick as it could be. I do like to aquire a few barracks along the way because veteran units in the first part of the game make such a HUGE difference. which brings me to that last part...

an early war! I believe it to be more of a question of circumstances than anything else. I like to start the game with a vast territory, and if there is someone that's a little too close for my comfort, I usually will give him a good whack. a well prepared early game offensive only requires a hanfull o' archers and warriors. 3-4 archers will often capture a town, be it the enemy capitol. throw in a few warriors for safety, and you're in business. of course there's always a risk of seeing things go wrong, but the potential gain is worth it. if you succeed on gaining 2 cities that way, you'll have a insurpassable advantage on that civ, and you will be able to get more of his towns later on. the barracks are an invaluable asset in such a situation, since most battles will involve 2-attack-strength units and 2-defence-strength units. may the most experienced fighter win... not to mention that it's almost the only way of getting an early great leader.

on another note, I plan on starting a 16 civ game tonight...it just looks so exciting !!

[Bradlei]

I'm loving this thread. I usually take 10 - 15 mins everyday to read it while I'm at work. (All my time at home is occupied by playing Civ3. )

Everyone seems to have stories about horrible losses to the AI. I have one amazing victory I wanted to share. It was still fairly early in the game, I was French and had a rather large island all to myself. The Persians came by and dropped off a settler and a musketman on a tundra covered penninsula. A few rounds later they declared war on me. Since I was on an island all alone my military really wasn't up to a fight, but we could gear up quickly because of our extensive infrastructure. To hold them off I activated two elite warriors from the closest city. They'd been with me since the beginning and had repeatedly proven their worth fighting barbarians. Amazingly the elite warrior hacked away with his massive axe and took down their defending musketman! To make the victory even more amazing it spawned our Great Leader, Napoleon!

The weekend is almost here, and I think I can hear my civilization calling for my enlightened leadership.

[vmxa1]

Ok, you talked me into, when I get to factories I will try them (ducks in case). I put up temples every where once I get the city going (no need to make workers or settlers as the out skirts are to far away). I agree with gamer, those vets make a huge difference if you get hit my the AI early with a low level unit on defence. One vet in fortified city can handle two attackers if they are not far superior.

[Bblue]

Hi all,

Just wanted to throw in a few off-the-cuff stratagies that I've been using and see what the community thinks about them (for good or bad)

1) Early Tech Research

Although nothing is absolute but given a normal/good starting location, the first techs I reserch are the Wheel and Bronze/Iron working. Reasoning that these reveal the location of the Horse and Iron strategic resourses, this in turn allows me to concentrate my direction of empire expansion. This seems to be most useful when there are multiple directions of expansion and/or when you need one of these reasources from your civs UU (ie. Persians/Iroquis ... Indians; feathers, not dots ) Just don't want to be left out in the cold without my ancient era UU.

2) Culture Warfare

Having a more peaceful/hybrid style of by I've found I can make tremedous gains (sometimes up to 3/4 of an Ai civ) with nothing more then cultural expansion. Key to this is the civ specific trait of Religious. This trait has quickly proven itself the most useful for my playstyle. Only fleeting glimpses of anarchy and cheap Temples/Cathedrals is a tremendous advantage. Unlike one of the more recent posts where they consider letting the AI civs backfill gaps in thier Civ then aquiring them through culture, my stadagy is more of an ever-marching wall of cultural assmilation.
I'll position city locations on my frontier as close as possible to neighboring civs cities (2 spaces if possible/ but a minimum of 3). Then rush build cheap temples, libraries, and later cathedrals. Assuming you've managed to get an overall cultural advantage, which you should with cheap temples, my borders experience a steady, though not lightning fast expansion, doing nothing more then building things in cities that I'm going to build anyway.
Some more sutle points to this that I have found effective, is if an opponents city is 'culturaly pressured' from multiple cities, they defect faster, so I consentrate rush building around the oppisition's cities that form recesses into my borders. With the relegious trait, it is extremely nice the drop back to despotism for a turn or 2 so you can rush build with population instead of shields. Palace/Forgotten city placement also plays a important role, I tend to build my FP fairly early in the game and typicaly not a great distance from my Palace, this allows 2 things; fairly fast production of the FC, since corruption is not totally crippling near the Palace and that when I do move my Palace my older more developed cities don't take a huge courption hit. Palace moving is also somewhat key to this stradagy.. once the FP is in place move the Palace as near the advancing cultural front as feasable, thus keeping your new cities out of nightmare couruption and putting additional pressure on oppisition cities.

3) A Possible Use for Priveteers?

Stumbled across this in my last/current game and came in rather handy, granted this situation isn't that common, but this could be a handy tool in the CIV3 toolbox. One of my continential neighbors, the Aztecs, who I have/had a good relationship with and had no intention of fighting a long drawn out war with had only one supply of Saltpeter. with no saltpeter on the open market for trade this was thier only source. The deposit was on an island with one city and thier only navy was galleys. Thier city didn't have a harbor yet so it wasn't getting to thier mainland, so I had my spy...umm I mean 'tourist' visit the city and saw thay were building a harbor, I quickly built 4 Priveteers and proceeded to embark on a PEACETIME blockade of thier harbor for 30 turns or so (before a french armada of Galleons from half a world away sailed by and sunk them) this was 30 free turns for me to build up a gunpowdered military and... well... take care of the situation before it became a fair fight . Combine this with the 'cheat/bug' where you can stack other ships (ie. battleships) with the priveteer where the game allows units to attack the Priveteer's square, lets the battleship defend and no peace treadies are broken, and this becomes a viable stratagy even in late game. (although exploiting this 'bug' is up to the individual, personally I don't feel it was the way the game was intendend and will not use it unless I see the AI use it (not likely).)


So.. any comments on any of these? Suggestions how I might improve these tactics,or reasons I should abandonded any of them cause thiere just wrong-headed

[Zorkk]

Hi All,

Vel, great posting! keep it up, I love it

Nero... i'm glad you found out "civilization" as I am another admirer of your work on pharaoh, I look forward to what you can do with Civ!! Do ya know any other pharaohers that are going the civ way??

So I've noticed that there's been a lack of discussion about technology so far... not surprising really, since there's some definate "paths" that most people like to take, but that isn't alway's the smartest thing to do. ESPECIALLY if your not the tech leader.

In my current regent game, i'm not doing too bad. I've just come into the modern era, and am finally pulling ahead in the tech race (I've never attempted to play regent before, in any civ game). Before that, I had a tough time keeping up to the AI in techs, and have had to continually wage war to get the techs I need. So what I've noticed is that most of the AI's usually go for the same techs... usually the same tech that human players would go for... so I got into the practice of trying to go for something "off the beaten path" that way, when the AI got a tech i wanted, I'd have something worthwhile and they'd actually trade with me, and then I could go shop the techs around, to beef up my treasury.

While I'm not sure if you can find out what a tech is researching anymore (I at least haven't seen a way to know), you can make a pretty fair assuption.... military civs will almost alway's go with military techs (ones that allow them to build more units) same with expansionistic. The scientifici & religious I haven't fully figured out yet. I have found that the Medicine -> sanitation path is usually not taken by any AI, and i've alway's been able to sucesssfully trade off those techs to get the more "military" techs.

I have to say something abougt combined arms also...

I love it! i've been using it since i first read about it, and I use it starting with catapults. using CA make those iffy battles alway's turn out in your favor! I've gotten to the points, where my main attack force in the industrial era is like 10 cannons/artillery with 10-20 cavalry, and some musketmen/riflemen for defense. Works like a charm! I've actually been able to "steamroll" the competition like the good old civ 1` and 2 days!!!

Zorkk

[Jguy]

Hey, privateers, somehow I haven't heard of them at all. thanks bblue, I'm going to have to use them myself. Thats an awesome strategy...but...the 'bug' seems a little too much. If you don't consider it cheating, go ahead, but it seems like it to me. I personally would feel guilty about it.
Hey, theres some fans of pharoah here? I'm a huge fan of caesar and pharoah. now they had an amazing community.

[vmxa1]

I can not make up my mind (not enough test) on Culture. I won my first win with it as religous type. I have only won a few cities in curent game on a large map even though I have as much as all others combined. Maybe it is due to being at war for the last 400 years without a break. I am on one end and can not access the others, only one close. I make peace with one and they start in within a year or two. Funny thing is I am way ahead in score and have riflemen and they do not. They still ask for peace and want a tech? Once in a while one of them gets a few troops in my area and I kill them. My neighbors are taking the brunt as I have capture 4 cities. One other civ must have an ROP as they have sent 50 low level jag warriors and such to my captured city that over looks a narrow pass over water (this city will give me access to one more if I ever clear off the jag warriors). This city has 15 or 20 troops of Cal/rifle all vets or elite and an army of cavs, plus three cannons. They just keep coming and dying. I just do not understand how the AI figures it request for peace? I have the lead and the best units (EPIC and Tradition built) and they all want me to toss in a tech (except the one that has lost cities)? I have scored 4 leaders, but none after the EPIC? I am playing Greeks.

[eMarkM]

When people post strategies I think it's important to mention the level you're playing on and other common game settings. What works for a 8 civ Regent game is completely different than what will work on a 16 civ Monarch game. I've worked my way up from getting the game. Started with domination wins on Chieftain/8 and Warlord/8, a space ship win on Regent/8, another ship win on Monarch/8, and playing as I write this, Monarch/16. And, man, M/16 is a whole different mind set from 8 civs on a lower level. Strats that work on lower level/8, just don't hold up on higher level/16.

I think we should have a standard short cut nomenclature for our our personal games, such as: Persia/M/16/C for Persians/Monarch/16 civs/continents game. (don't think it matters age/climate, maybe add barbarian level). Thoughts?

My Monarch/16 Civ Game
This Monarch/16 game is a dozy. Diplomacy is king. I mean, every turn you have to work diplomacy once you know everyone, or you're not taking advantage of it. There's deals to be made on every turn. Wow!

The long and the short: This has been an incredible game. I'm industrious & scientific Persians w/ ass-kicking Immortals that I'd won my recent M/8/C game as. I'm smack dab in the middle of my continent, Americans to my left, Zulus to my right, Babylonians to my south. They declare what amounts to a three civ alliance against me very early! I was hamstrung from the beginning in expansion plans having to defend against this. I didn't give up one city in the trifecta alliance with my counter attacking Immortals (did I mention they kick ass?) until I gave up Sidon to the Zulus. I sued for peace and gave them 2 of my 6 Dyes in the deal. I just had to do it in order to deal w/ the weaker Americans and Babs. They were by far the most powerful of the the three and I had to appease them. They would have crushed me at the time. Since then, they've been very polite--thank god. The early concession has led to supurb relations with the almightily Zulus.

I sued for peace finally with Amer & Babs, caught my breath, and tried to build up my empire. I fell woefully behind in tech. I pumped science up to 80-90%, straining my treasury--and got nowhere. Behind in tech and couldn't upgrade units with no $$. Behind in tech w/ no cash = you lose. I did start a war w/ Babylon, whose expansion northward I had cut, and the weakest of the 4 on this continent because they lacked iron. I tried to use the advice in randomturn's thread here, the "3 step Deity" one, and attempted to make the "weaker militarily, but stronger in tech", Babylons into my "vassal".

Oh, this is a highly recommenced strategy. On any level where you're behind tech to a weaker opponent, who often can't do anything to you because they lack some critical resource. Do this:

SQUEEZE THEM!

This is a situation very prevalent on the highest levels. I decided to make the Babylonians my vassals. I denied them iron in an early war. It worked to perfection, they were my b***** once I had knights descending on them. Conquer as many cities as it takes to bring at least one tech-superior race to the table and they will give up their tech advantage to sue for peace. Within the 20 turns of peace, do not provoke or your rep will be damaged. Instead try to provoke them into starting war. I did this with Babylon repeatedly, they would put their troops in my borders, I'd say move or declare war, and they'd declare war with my 15 Knights ready to wreak havoc on them. I did this until I nearly caught the leaders. Here's the trick, you must maintain a delicate balance. You want to make them JUST so powerful that they produce tech, but not so powerful that they are a threat. If beaten down too low, they produce nothing and might as well be conquered.

This I had to eventually do to the Babylons. They provided me with much tech before they became useless and, thus, expendable. But thanks to them, I got back in the thick of the tech race. I eventually expanded my territory while slowing squeezing the AI' s science edge to my advantage. Vassals! A key strategy!

The other way I caught up was abandoning the 80-90% science allotment, and going to 90% gold. A big difference, when you're dead last in tech on a 16civ map. Get the gold and buy tech on higher levels. Someone will give you a good deal. When I changed to this tactic I closed the tech gap from 4-5 to 1-2 from the leaders very shortly. Don't even try to play catch w/ the AI on higher levels, just hoard gold and wheel and deal.

Now on my continent in mid-Industrial and it's me, an America that's on par w/ me, and a Zulu that leads everyone. Oh, those Zulus, they're fearsome. They have in their territory--are you ready for this--10 gems, 5 wines, 6 irons, 3 dyes, 2 rubbers, and a couple of incense! But besides the Zulus, I'm right there in the tech lead. I have 100% science, because I'm generating 50 gold a turn in trade from my incessant trading. I have my railroad network in place, almost completely updated to infantry. Ready to take on the Zulus in the inevitable modern day showdown. I can't wait. I'll provide details here.

On Factories: If you want to win the space race, or even a modern war, you better have a lot of factories to crank out SS parts/units. Factories, Coal/Hydro/Solar/Nuclear plant, Iron Works (oh, my!), all of the production enhancing improvements need to be in a core 2-5 cities.

Now I've conquered the world with regularity on a Civ2-Large Map-Deity and in most of those games I never had any city produce more than 60 shields. This was because of pollution and the devastating effects of one "big bang" global warming. Also, since you suffered less from corruption in Civ2 than the punitive damages you suffer in Civ3, you need "super producers" in your core. With Iron Works I've had cities that produces upwards of 120 shields a turn.

Don't worry about pollution. First, it's incremental now, not all or nothing. Yeah, it sucks when your plains turn permanently to desert (no terraforming), but it's not that bad now.

Most of the strategies being developed on this board revolve around some kind of early conquest. You MUST have some early conquests to be successful, especially on higher levels. Whether, limited to a Strat Res, just getting a little elbow room, or genocide, there's just too many advantages to not being aggressive militarily. At least early. There's many benefits to this and one of the ancillary benefits is SWARMING SLAVES. Your slaves will works their little butts off over the millennia for you. I've never built more than a dozen workers in any game, and at the end of my wins so far on Civ3, I've always had 80+ workers, 90% slave labor. In the end game this horde clears every pollution in one turn.

==========

BTW, I've written this whole thread waiting for the AI to finish between turns in a 16civ game tonight. I don't know how many of these mondo maps I can play, very slow on my year old system. Ugh! And as a software developer myself, I know performance isn't something that's likely to get cured in a patch.

e

[Brab]

Originally posted by Velociryx
So….I watched the armies of rival civs clash in and around my border towns….everybody was violating my borders, nobody would listen to me when I’d tell them to leave, so eventually I stopped trying.
-=Vel=-

This is so true ... Usually the first time I ask some unit to leave my border, they say "ok", but they keep staying there (or usually crossing some part of my territory to get to some nice spot, right in the middle of my cities ;-)

Then the next try I want to ask them to leave, the only option I have is "leave or war", and I don't want to risk war just yet.

It'd be great if there was some way to make the AI that lies about leaving the borders pay (like decreasing reputation, but I don't know how to quantify it).

Brab

[albiedamned]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I am on one end and can not access the others, only one close. I make peace with one and they start in within a year or two. Funny thing is I am way ahead in score and have riflemen and they do not. They still ask for peace and want a tech? Once in a while one of them gets a few troops in my area and I kill them.

I think Soren said that the AI is more likely to sue for peace and give you favorable terms if they are on the defensive. In the situation you described, even though you are mowing down their attacking troops, you're not threatening their territory yet. So that probably explains it.

[albiedamned]

Originally posted by eMarkM
I sued for peace and gave them 2 of my 6 Dyes in the deal.

Is there a way to trade more than one of a resource to a civ? From what I've seen, once a civ has at least one, it won't even show up as an option in the diplomacy screen. It would be cool if there was a way, because then you could truly try to play a mercantilist strategy (for example, trade for all the horses in the world, then sell them back to those without for a higher price).

[Bblue]

From my experience luxuries and resources will only show up in the trade screen if the other side dos NOT have access to that resource/luxury and has the appropriate tech to make use of it. So I don't think you can corner the market totally by trade.

However, you can trade for your/thier single access resource. Need something to trade desperately you can trade your only source of an item (assumeing the other civ don't have it) I've done this a few times when I needed a tech or some vital resource or just don't need the resource in question (ie. horses in the late game) That said I've still not managed to have an AI civ trade me thier single source, they hold on to these with a death grip although I can't really blame them but it is a valid trade option. My guess is that the AI treats thier single access resources/luxuries almost like cities in terms of trade value.

[Gatamelata]

I've been playing a few games on a standard sized map on Regent difficulty. I play random civs, and I set the terrain features to be random, as well. It's certainly a different game than the huge/16 civ games I had been playing. Here are some of my observations:

AI Behavior:

I have to add my voice to the chorus of praise for the AI. At first I was puzzled by some people who claim that the AI is impossibly aggressive, and others who said that it is completely docile. What's more, I've noticed both behaviors in my games. I studied the phenomenon some, and this is what I came up with.

It seems that the AI is strongly influenced by its early experiences. In games where I refused to share world maps, refused to trade technology, and was otherwise completely polite and well-behaved, the AI typically turned into a group of raging tyrants. On the other hand, when I traded frequently and yet was opportunistic and occasionally aggressive, these were the games where I could see 5700 years of peace. At this point it seems that if the player becomes the bad apple in the early trading barrel, to use a clumsy metaphor, it'll spoil the whole bunch relatively quickly.

The AI seems to place a large stake in willingness to trade. You might notice that sometimes a refusal to trade will even change a rival's attitude an entire step downward; say, from Polite to Cautious. So here are a few tips on forestalling AI aggression via trading:

1) If the AI wants to trade, do it! This doesn't mean you should accept those ridiculous late-game requests for mutual protection, right of passage, and 108 gold per turn. But trade something. My usual placation is just a token trade, such as territory maps, or even just a small gift of gold. Making such little gestures seems to keep the AI thinking of you as a friendly and viable trading partner.

2) If you see the AI getting ready for one of its ambush extortion gigs, where it builds up a huge military, requests a lopsided trade, then either goes to war when you refuse or sneak-attacks you the next turn, then you can still avoid the attack. When you see the piles of infantry gather just outside your border, and Alexander rings to ask for Sanitation, Flight and Radio in exchange for his World Map, offer a counter-proposal. Then do everything you can to arrange an alternate deal that involves per-turn payment. This seems to have two effects: first, the AI still regards you as a good trading partner, and second, the AI seems less likely to attack somebody who still owes them a balance of gold, or who is providing them with crucial spices.

3) Mutual protection pacts are a good way to keep a potential aggressor away. Find the biggest bully, and sign one with him. That way he's less inclined to attack you, and when war does break out, chances are you're on the winning side.

Finally, when your carefully-balanced millennia-long peace finally breaks down, there are a few things you can do. First, try to stay out of it if you can. Everybody else at war means that you've got a bunch of turns of production that they don't, and it means you're gaining ground in the Big Race. Unfortunately there is often a tangled web of mutual protection pacts in these games, and by the time somebody decides to be the turd in the punch bowl (so to speak) and plunge the world into global war, you may well be involved in one of these pacts. If so, then take any extra turns between the outbreak of hostilities and your own involuntary involvement to fortify your borders. Chances are you'll be fighting off two to seven civilizations, depending on world size and how the pacts shake out. Be prepared to lose some ground and keep your eyes on the long term goal - survival. You may even be lucky enough to be in a position that lets you do some serious land-grabbing right now. But be careful, and be ready to set aside some of your new cities as appeasement. Finally, keep in mind that it's usually pretty easy to sign a peace treaty during these conflicts. Not even the AI wants to fight several people at a time. If the pact that got you into the mess in the first place has expired, you can usually extricate yourself, and it pays to do this. I have found that the last couple of civs still engaged in the global war tend to stay in it much longer, for a couple of probable reasons: first, they've usually either gained or lost something significant, and they want to capitalize on the gains or recoup their losses. Then again, I may be anthropomorphizing, here - those are the reasons I'd stay in ;-) But this trend indicates that you should get your land-grabbing done quickly. By this time you have probably already got a manageable empire anyway, and there are only a couple of cities you should grab anyway: critical chokepoints, resources or luxuries, or perhaps a wonder.


Treaty manipulation:

Okay, so while we're on the subject of global war and far-reaching mutual protection entanglements, what if you're the fly in the world peace ointment? In a recent game I played the Romans, and the Greeks and the Russians each had a presence on my part of the continent that was too much to bear: each empire was right next to my capital, which made mine long and thin, and which made their cities potentially excellent ones if they belonged to me, for corruption would be minimal. Furthermore, the Greeks sat on vast oil reserves and the Russians had furs. Mutual protection pacts abounded, so I did some study and this is what I came up with:

When I just rode in and attacked the Greeks, I found myself at war with five other civs. The Greeks called in the Russians, who called in the Iroquois and the French (ironically enough), who negotiated with the Egyptians to put me down. Okay, not unexpected given all the pacts. But then I tried again, with a twist: I negotiated mutual protection with France before attacking Greece. Greece called in Russia. Now France is not involved, but they're sworn to protect both Russia and Rome. So who do they attack?

It turns out that they fall on the side of the defender, which was me. My forces were committed in Greece, so when Russia crossed the borders and attacked one of my cities, France declared war... and then got the Egyptians in on the deal, too. I couldn't stand to see the Americans idle, so I negotiated them into the mix, as well. But the point is that you can get past the tangled web of pacts if you're careful and clever.


Nationalism: a powerful tool

In another game I found myself using tanks to attack an England armed with Riflemen and cannon. It was here that I learned a painful lesson: conscription and mobilization are extremely effective defensive tools, and the AI is not at all shy about using them. The AI will ruthlessly rush-build, conscript, and mobilize in order to ensure its own survival. How do I know? Well, aside from the abundance of conscript-level riflemen that I killed, whenever I took a city it was ridden with unhappiness. When I checked to see why, aside from the predictable "Stop the aggression against our mother country!" business, there were also three other categories: "We can't forget the oppression you have bore down upon us" [sic] (rush building), "All we are saying is give peace a chance" (war weariness), and "Hell no, we won't go!" (conscription). Now, I hadn't been conscripting or rush building, so it seems that I inherited some discontent from the unlucky English.

Because this was such an effective tool for the AI, and because I am such a blatant rip-off artist when I see good tactics for the first time, I heartily recommend this. I have yet to fight much of a defensive war after the discovery of Nationalism, but I'm eager to be in the position so I can test the effectiveness of these tools. Now, to be sure, nobody wants to be in this position, but I enjoy playing a losing game to the bitter end as much as I enjoy playing a winning game to completion, so I would like to try. Perhaps when I start playing on Monarch or Emperor, I'll have a chance? ;-) Currently my T-REX (heh, cute name, Vel) style of expansion means that if I can forestall any serious AI aggression past the middle ages, I won't be seriously threatened militarily. Which, of course, explains why I have committed so much research into pacifying the AI.


Vel, I'm glad to read that you're trying the huge map/16 civ gig. Man, they can be brutal. I think you were right to sit out the early battle with the Aztecs... your massive culture advantage underscores the advantage of avoiding these wide-reaching wars, although preparing for an opportunistic land grab is clearly a great idea. I also chuckled at your account of contacting the 'other continent'... I think that scenario is always a shock to me, mainly because I've been planning and scheming and preparing for all the known enemies, and then suddenly 5-10 new factors are introduced to the equation. I find it interesting that you choose to bolster the underdog in worldwide conflicts. I do so, as well, in part just to encourage warfare and the corrosive effect it has on my rival's advancement, but also because I don't like to see other civs die - the more minnows in the pond, the less likely I am to be jumped, I reason.

Good stuff from everybody. On factories... being a perfectionist myself, I typically didn't build them until I had discovered ecology and recycling, but waiting can be a cruical mistake. At one point I had size 12 cities without factories (dutifully waiting for mass transit and recycling centers). I discovered electronics at least 20 turns before France, and started building Hoover Dam right away. She starts building it when I have 17 turns to go, and I think "no problem." Wrong. She completed it when I had 4 turns to go. How? She had a size 26 city with a factory working on it. Now, it was polluting the heck out of our planet, but that didn't bother her... and honestly, I had a ton of idle workers, so I shouldn't have let it bother me. Hoover Dam should have been mine, and I won't make the same mistake again. I now build hospitals and factories as soon as they're available, because the advantages they grant are fantastic.

Ok, I need to make the 3 hour drive back home before it gets too dark. I'm jonesing for some Civ3 tonight, I can tell you. I love Thanksgiving weekend, food is great, but... well, addiction is addiction.

[albiedamned]

Regarding the factory building issue, I definitely agree that you can't afford to wait until Mass Transit and Recycling Center because you will be at a major production disadvantage, especially for wonders. Granted there aren't that many wonders in the time between Factories and Mass Transit/Recycling, but they are important ones: Suffrage, Hoover, Evolution, and possibly SETI, UN, and Manhattan depending on which order you discover techs in the early Modern era. So one strategy is to build Factories, but only in a couple key cities where you already have high production (your capital and FP city are most likely the best candidates). Then use these cities for wonder production.

If you're in a major war and need to build units ASAP, then not having factories everywhere will hurt you. You'll be forced to do conscription or mobilize for war, neither of which are attractive options. But this has never been a problem for me - I've always had enough production in other cities to be able to turn out the military units of the time (Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry/Tanks) in maybe 4-6 turns without Factories.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Velociryx
The Factions – A closer analysis (Part One)

Very well observed, accurate information. Great post!

I would add only 2 small things:

-Expansionist Civs tend to have a Diplo advantage, in that they contact their competitors earlier.

-Industrious is great for Conqueror type players, because the Worker bonus extends to slaves!!! Ambush lots of Settlers early, and you will multipy the power of this bonus.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Just like in SMAC, yes, you can construct a linear attack force (all swordsmen, for example), and you WILL win lots of battles, but….the first time your swordsmen get picked to death by a zillion Iroquois Mounted Warriors, backed up by strategically placed catapults guarded by fortified spearmen, and never even get to attack will be the LAST time you design such a one-dimensional attack force!
-=Vel=-

Good thoughts again, but this time I don´t agree all the way.

I have noticed at least two strange things:

1) Industrial Era Longbowmen

You can stack Longbows with Rifles, and use the Longbows for attack. Why? Because Longbows are much cheaper, and have the same AV. So Musketmen become obsolete long before those timeless Longbows. Why did no one tell that to Napoleon and General Grant?

The problem is that Muskets and Rifles are very expensive, and for their price they should both have a slightly higher AV.

2) FLASH

(Forced Labour Rush): Under Despotism, you can mass-produce Horsemen (or, even worse, Mounted Warriors) with Forced Labour, and rush everybody else for a short, pointless game with the highest possible score.

What´s broken here? I think it´s not the Horsies. It´s a) Forced Labour, and b) Walls.

a) Forced Labour should cause Unhappiness. But, afaIk, there is, unlike in CivII, no 'Ultra-Unhappiness'. You should have, say, 4 unhappy people, but if, after Forced Labour, only one guy is left in your town, only one will be unhappy. One soldier is enough to keep him in line. I believe they didn´t intend that, it´s a bug, plain and simple.

b) Walls/Cities give now only +50% DV. That´s not enough. That´s the second reason why FLASH works. Walls should stop Horsies. In real life, they stopped nearly everything. Or Hannibal would have conquered Rome.

[DFHNY]

Vel or anyone out there:
How do I get coal when it is only located on a med sized island dominated by the Egyptians? Std map, Regent level, I am france on the dominant land mass keeping the persians, germans, english, etc at bay. I know I can go to war, but its far away and I just got steam power ahead of any foe, but it is useless w.o coal. Thoughts? Get toehold in Egypt to extract coal? I tried trade but none of my adversaries have sea routes (odd?).

Also, any thoughts on building a defensive line that works across an entire continent (Persia and I touch each other across a huge section of land). Do you keep the connecting roads down to just one or two??

Thanks.
Dan in Brooklyn

[Zurai001]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
Walls should stop Horsies. In real life, they stopped nearly everything. Or Hannibal would have conquered Rome.

Hate to break it to you.... Hannibal DID conquer Rome. The only reason he left is because a Roman General attacked Carthage and the Carthaginian leaders recalled Hannibal and his armies.

[BigRocks]

Vel, Thanks for the great tips. I am wrestling with the corruption monster. I've made it to 1816 a.d. with the Romans and I am in the middle of a war with the French. Having a heck of a time with getting money because of corruption even though I have built the Forbidden palace on the far side of my empire.

I look forward to more tips from you.

[padillah]

I'm new here but I've been taking careful notes from the amazing mind of Vel and have come up with a little more concrete production line.
I start out as America, mostly because of the extra 2-move unit but also because they come with pottery and I don't like "wasting" an advance on something like that.
My first city was in a mediocre possition, some flood plains with little food and some mountains (with no food) so I had to burn a couple turns irrigating instead of building a road to my next city.

Any way, I pretty much kept this production line with all my cities until I had ten and it works like a champ.

Warrior-Settler-Warrior-Settler-Warrior-Library-Settler-Warrior-Worker

Getting that Library in as early as possible (needless to say I head straight for Lit. so I can get the GL and the "library" is on the way) is very helpful when other civs are stuck with no culture in the border towns and my guys have their first growth spurt and swallow them whole with little or no complaint at all.

Then I keep the alternating unit/improv. going until I'm out of city Improvs.

Then I tried Wealth-Unit-Wealth-Unit until I made my advance. Not enough to stop production but still toss a little something in the coffers.

Quick wonderment here though... Has anyone found out how to make the stupid friendly AI stop changing all the production to Catapults or other unwanted bombardment units after it finishes with a unit?
I'm in the middle of a war and I've got 12-15 catapults and 3 swordsmen. This doesn't help.

In my current game (Warlord/8 civ/Continent) I have to find a way to keep the English from waging war until I can deal with them.

That "cutting off a civ" strategy works great but MAN do they get mad! Ive got the English pinned to the bottom of the contenent and they are chomping at the bit to punch a hole in my line.
I've got some of their cities in a squeeze and I think they're getting expensive to keep from falkling into my hands.

Well, here's hoping I can get away with this a few turns more, then I'll be set.
Thanks,
Hank P.

[deafhawk]

I am playing reagent level, 8 civs, standard sized? map of north america I got somewhere from here and guess what? I was sited right in a very central location right in middle of the midwest of US, very flat and fertile lands- lot of rivers, wheats, cattle. It is a huge basin of mostly plains and grasslands room enough for 20-30 cities easy between the rockies mountains and that chain of mountains near the New England part, appachlain (sp?) (mountains or big hills whatever. they are hills in the map) and I had it almost all by mine ( all mine, mine, well for now...) . The other civs? They were clustered beyond the rockies mountains and the appachlain hills chains and to the south of what would be texas and one all far north in what would be the arctic area ( funny, in this map, the arctic area, what should be tundra, is basically an large area of grassland with occasionally hills and forests) Hence this is a true paradise for me to use to test the effectiveness of REX strategies described in this thread.
Now I built like this: cities, exactly 5 spaces away W, N, E, S. 4 spaces away, NW, NE, SW, SE. only like a ring of cities around my capital. It is similar to city placement grid plan with palace and FP described earlier in this thread that showed cities placed abstractly as squares of cities around your capital and FP. But in my opinion, better to think in a circle, rings not squares of cities. I had workers building roads running from capital to the first ring city sites built as soon as possible before the settlers are built, with two horsemen units stationed in capital for easy rapid deployment to protect settlers or workers as necessary defense agaomst pesky barbarians (or a hostile civ for that matter) call it my rapid response defense team. Then after first ring is built, I proceed to build a second ring around the first ring about 4 spaces away, if possible. 3 spaces if i have to if the other civs are too close. In no time I had 18 cities fairly close to my captial, not too bad but I did not get my second ring fully completed. The other civs grabbed seven sities I wanted to build cities as part of the second ring there oh well, nothing that a little military solution can take care later. I think I could be much better. I need to work on my REX strategies and work around having no luxury. There was absolutely no luxuries or iron to have in the whole midwest! Only horses to be had. About having no luxury I did not realize how that really got to hurt on reagant level. If you use the whip to force build ganaries it is not possible without temples to have past size two without having third citizen become entertainer and you still will have to use two garrisons to keep size two cities full productive. You would have to build temple and two garrisons to have size three cities full productive. The citizens have a long memory! I used the whip and because of that, I had to build second garrison and a temple beside a ganary and I believe this slowed me down. Maybe it was just better not to use the whip and so I do not have to build second garrison and temple and I can have size three cities churn out the settlers fast enough for the land grab race for my second ring area. I did have the cattles and wheats and rivers to irrigate, plenty of them indeed, to help me. Another thing I think I should have was to build less workers as I am playing an industrious civ and my workers build more roads faster hence needing less workers at start.
But anyways this brings me to think of a planning theory I will call the deafhawk triple-ring plan to propose as an aid to visualize what you want to do with city placements and whether you should trouble to keep your conquests or just raze or sell them. This is an optimizing plan to use prime circle of land ( area size depending on factors determining extent of corruption) near your capital best you can to place the most possible potiental productive cities in that area and a long-term defense plan. This is only good I guess for larger maps if you are lucky enough to start in a central location in a huge landmass with no other civilizations too close by and if land area is relatively flat ( not too many mountains) you can have unbelievable a lot of productive cities ( read: cities that actually produce some commerce and shields as opposed to fully corrupted cities) than you would ever think is possible with just the palace and not the FP built yet if you expand aggressive like I did, hopefully with help of luxuries! You can squeeze 8 cities or more five squares or less from your capital in a ring around it and having roads connecting capitial to ring cities so you can station your horsemen in capital for rapid response defense. These will be your good productive cities. They will be churning those needed workers, military units, and settlers for the second ring of cities. You use those productive cities to build the second ring, 3 or 4 or 5 squares if you can get, just grab those area 10 to 12 squares from your capital and make sure you use close to every square 10-12 squares from your capital. Those second ring cities would not be much good as producting cities as due to corruption problems. But they are potiental good or decent producers later on when you tackle the corruption problem . For this purpose of this rant I am using this term to refer in relation to corruption, the ablity to produce without waste commerce and shields, and not general infrastructure) You can have like 24 cities nearly optimal spaced relatively close to your capital, 8 cities in the first ring plus capital already good producers and about 15 cites potiental decent producers (potiental to be realized later). And while you are racing to settle the first ring then the second ring area, you should be researching straight as possible to code of laws for courthouses and then on to republic. By this I mean when you get them road connected to your capital, courthouses in them and you switch to republic, presto, you have 15 extra good or decent productive cities. And WLKD helps too. 25 ( or more depends how you space them?) productive cities to churn all those military units eh? This is the general REX plan and the point you step out of the land grab is when you get the second ring of cities built. At this point you should be preparing for the republic switch, that means building courthouses, temples, and ganaries and getting your cities big as possible as republic works best when the cities are big. Use the whip liberally and switch only after you got those improvements in place and after that, wait until cities grow back to decent sizes if they are not already. Your workers should be emphasizing on irrigating any squares that get you more than two food and building those roads then mines lastly. Under depotism your food growth is the real producer not shields if you use the whip effectively and that is especially true for the second ring cities with their corruption problems.
After you are done with all that, switch to republic and presto! you have nice 25 productive cities, not very bad thing to have in civ 3! Oh, , in any time during the expansion phase or preparation phase you have to wage war ( pray a short war and you survive!) and you conquest some cities or you culturally assimalite cities. Do keep the cities in the second ring only if they are good placed to use effectively the second ring area squares ( like 8-12 squares from capital) Remember in this plan you would want to space to squeeze most potiental productive cities possible in that area (but not squeeze too much of course). If they do not, raze or starve and build a new city instead. If the acquired cities are in the third ring (liek more than 12 but not much as more than 16 from capital) you keep. Why? they probably will be worthless ever as productive cities unless you build the FP near them and I do not recommend that. Yes, but you keep them as "buffer" cities. You do not build any improvements except for barracks and walls and just set those cities on wealth and forget about them and do not bother to improve the land excpet for military roads. The third ring cities are to be your fodder cities, merely cities with walls and barracks and some place to station your armies. In other words, a ring of defense, your frontline defense. Remember the plan assumes a huge landmass whereas you are in the middle and surrounded by potiental hostile civs, meaning no chokepoints to block out civs, and making defense much harder if you get ganged on. So you need kind of a early warning system. The cities are better than a lot of fortesses and your troops are more concrenated and more effective and if you get nationalism you can take advantage of the third-ring population for draft and not have to resort to draft from your productive cities. IF you ever get your third ring cities up and you are attacked and you lose, no biggie. No major blows. you fall back to your real cites and counterattack later. That is for the third ring cities. Any cities you acquire that are not of the triple rings area you just sell or raze unless of course they are close to resources you need.
Of course, this is all abstract, and have yet to be implemented in real practice, and only in certain maps and situtations. But modifications and variations can be derived from the general idea. This plan is based on assumption on standard maps ignoring FP for now, you have a limited range from your capital where cities within the range can decently produce (whatever in your judgement) in republic with courthouses and that cities beyond this range will not be any good use as producers. I do not have an idea how far this range extends yet. Maybe someone would figure that out. And this range creates a limited circle area of land that you should focus on how to better use this area for your city placements and get them set up quickly. And that in peaceful or relatively peaceful race of empire-building, the civ that focus only on and finds the best use possible for that limited area and set up their potiental producers soon as possible not just their actual producers and try to realize the potiental as quickly as possible will be way ahead of the others that do not.
Now enough of armchair general, time to put the triple ring cities plan in practice in my REX paradise.

[Arrian]

I've been pondering early expansion a lot lately, and I've come to a conclusion. Luxury resources are more valuable than strategic ones. Why? They never run out and never become obselete (a-la saltpeter). The AI will often pay OBSCENE amounts of money for them. Early in the game I charge pell-mell towards any luxuries I find.

This sometimes does have negative side effects, however. Sometimes those lux. resources are far away on marginal terrain (jungle/desert). Thus, spending a precious settler on a city in that area can hurt early expansion overall. I think balancing the desire to secure these resources vs. building up a strong core to your empire is one of the (if not THE) most important things you must deal with in CIV III. One the one hand, if you grab these resources, your people will be happier and you will be able to trade them to the AI. On the other, if you use those priceless settlers to build cities near your capital on good terrain (and I'm not suggesting, btw, that I totally ignore this now) you will be able to produce a solid army and take the resources at a slightly later date. I think tonight I will try placing slightly less emphasis on grabbing luxuries early (so long as I can snag at least 2 types) and more on building up the core.

Also... I've been trying to play as all the different civs, but I find myself gravitating back to the Babylonians and Greeks. Though I've given it every opportunity to prove its worth, Expansionist really isn't worth it, as everyone else already knew. If I got just ONE settler out of a hut per game as an Expansionist, I'd say it was worth it. I've started 4 or 5 games as either the Iroquois or Russians, and have NEVER gotten a settler from a hut. Yet I got one last night as the Greeks (which I used to plunk down a city in the middle of the jungle because it had spice... hmm, perhaps I should have built a more viable city with that turn 6 gift). Heh, go figure.

Vel & others - your thoughts on early expansion priorities?

-Arrian

p.s. eMarkM is right about clearly defining the settings we're playing under - I've been playing Regent difficulty on normal/large maps with 8-10 civs.

[Bill_in_PDX]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I have now seen a couple of mention of building factories, is that not a dangerous thing due to pollution? I have been skipping them as I get more than enough pollution, even with mass transit and recycle. I would think you would at least ned those and maybe even some other anti pollution stuff. The only thing I fear is the global warming, that can ruin a game.

vmxa1,

I have found no real increase in pollution problems due to factories alone. I anecdotially find that population itself tends to cause more pollution than do factories.

To me, the benefits of a very good boost in production have far outweighed any consequences.

Coal plants on the other hand are a completely different animal, and I think I have probably built the last one I ever will. Better to wait for hydro, solar, nuclear.

Bill

[Velociryx]

Grrrr….’tis a typical post-holiday Monday here at the office, so in an effort to preserve my sanity, I’m spending all my time between calls catching up on forum reading and attempting to craft a coherent reply….my fingers are crossed that my attempt will more-or-less succeed!

Factories:
Very good topic!!

I don’t know if this is at all the norm, but here’s how I approach it….and let me start by saying that every city I’ve got gets a factory! True, pollution can be a problem, but with a team of 4-6 workers on permanent pollution patrol (ctrl-P, if memory serves??), you’re all set! And, read on for some ideas on how to get your pollution patrollers for free, too! (no upkeep).

I regard industrialization as a pivot-point in the game. Corruption or no, the addition of factories to even horribly corrupt cities can do nice things to your overall productivity, and to that end, the MOMENT I get the tech for it, nearly city I’ve got changes its production from whatever it’s working on to a factory.

There are exceptions, of course. Cities currently working on Wonders keep working on them, unless they’ve just started, in which case I’ll still switch, then rush the factory and finish the Wonder even more quickly!

Cities who are at or near growth limits and building an aqueduct/hospital get to finish those builds before starting their factory (yep….I generally beeline for Sanitation before factories….this is because even without granaries, my cities spend tooooo much time stuck at size twelve if I do it the other way…), and cities that have recently been culturally absorbed/militarily captured and don’t have “the basics” in place yet (cheapies that I can rush easily, up to and including: Temple, Library, and Cathedral (esp. if I have the Chapel Wonder).

Of course, factories are honkin’ expensive builds, especially on the fringes, where you have scant shields to work with to begin with, BUT…there are some things you can do about that.

First…consider the early game. Your worker-priorities look something like this: Road-build to new city sites, road-build to connect critical and luxury resources, make mines to boost mineral counts in cities you want to build early Wonders, and irrigate the occasional food tile, but only those that will see some benefit to it under despotism.

Note then, that clearing forests was not on the hot list for your busy workers, and when you start mass-producing factories, now would be an excellent time to start doing so a vengeance, generating LOTS of those “10 shields to…” messages to speed your factories to completion. Also, now would also be a good time to gather up all of those out-dated warriors and swordsmen, ship them to some fringe town and have them line up to offer to melt their armor and weapons down for the cause. It’s only a few shields, but hey…every little bit helps, and those guys have no doubt paid for themselves many times over by now anyway.

Doing both of the things mentioned above, and mixing in liberal amounts of cash will see you speeding selected factories in strategically important cities to completion relatively quickly, and if you’re really in a pinch for money, once your first few new factories come online, having them build a few artillery units (or something) and transporting via rail for disbanding at fringe cities should see all your factories coming on-line in good time. (you’ve got the “built up” production from the stuff they were working on before the tech, you’ve got an army of workers milling around anyway, who instantly begin descending on every patch of forest anywhere close to cities now working on factories, and you’ve no doubt got a number of obsolete units milling around).

Also….in terms of raw production, there’s seldom any contest at all between a factory and a courthouse, so if you find yourself having to choose between one or the other, always do the factory first and use the productivity gains to speed in a courthouse. Post-patch (depending on how they “deal with” corruption, this may change, but for the moment, nine times in ten (or more), the factory is the way to go in that comparison.

So….factories as soon as they become available. You’ll be glad you did!

With coal plants though….I never do. Hoover Dam comes right on it’s heels (or at least that’s what it feels like in terms of getting tech), and I’ve found that by focusing on running my fledgling rail network through mined tiles (everything eventually, of course, but starting with the mines!) where I want to build HD, I can spike my mineral counts obscenely high anyway (without a coal plant), and generally get it built in something like 20 turns (and by this point, I’m running about 4 techs ahead of the next nearest competition, which means that even if he destroys his economy in the name of science, the turn he gets the tech, I’m finishing the project.

Factories with Hydro plants everywhere…build a courthouse for the 25% reduction in corruption, and suddenly those formerly “1-shield” towns are actually….well, okay, not GREAT, but better….viable….

OoO

On the topic of build orders:
I find that for cities with bonus food tiles, they generally grow faster than I “need” them to, or can easily control anyway, so the only place I build granaries in the early game are those cities with what I’d call only “average” food production, and for them, it’s a good investment.

Even when pop-rushing though, if you’ve got a city near a flood plain with a bonus wheat tile, and you’ve got it, and one other floodplain tile irrigated (which does net you one extra food under despotism), the city’s going to grow like a freakin’ weed anyway….and your fledgling economy will be hard pressed to support granaries everywhere in any case (especially if you’re already bulking up on temples and libraries for culture), so the places with astronomical food production….I’m inclined to let them run without one. Keep in mind that in the early game, you really only need pop points for three things:

1) Rush-building facilities or units

2) Making workers

3) Making more settlers

To that end, any city that grows over size three in the early game is growing too fast, IMO! (The exception would be a city that you have earmarked for Wonder-Building, and in this case, a granary is a must-have, along with a temple!) So….for a city that I KNOW will be making a Wonder for me, when the city gets founded, it gets: Temple, Worker (who is devoted exclusively to that town to bulk up mineral counts), Granary, Wonder (the town’s garrison is provided by some neighboring town doing the Warrior/Settler/Warrior/Settler routine). Again, I don’t know how typical that approach is, but it’s the one that made the most intuitive sense to me as I began exploring the game.

Bblue: I like your strats! I hadn’t thought of the privateer one, but will definitely try it out if the opportunity presents itself to me in my next game! I too, generally take the approach of the “ominous wall of culture” and use it to batter one empire apart.

In fact, generally, I’ll spend much of the game in the mindset of fighting a “two-front war,” with an eye toward military subjugation of one neighboring Civ, and cultural dominance of another, and I plan the location of my FP and Palace around that! So…while I’m out fighting my enemies on one front, I can be pretty well assured that the cities I’m taking would not have fallen to my superior culture anyway, and in the meantime, on the other front, cities are coming into the fold in droves, strengthening me and weakening my rival….

Zorkk, hey bud! And I TOTALLY agree with you re: medicine/sanitation. I generally research those first for that very reason….I can give medicine as a coveted tech, trade it to get steam power/nationalism when I make the rounds, withhold Sanitation and grow giant, productive cities. In the ancient era, I’ve also noted that Mathematics seems a path less taken….so that’s two eras, and by that time, you should be in the position of holding your own tech-wise in any case.

Combined Arms and Attacking – Additional Notes:

It’s important to keep your objectives in mind when prepping for a war, and since we’re sorta on the topic of the Industrial Era, I’ll use that, and a recent game, as an example.

I was adjacent to the Zulu, as Babylon (a faction that I dearly LOVE, by the way, despite not having industrious workers…lol). We’d just entered into the Industrial Age, and I picked up Nationalism as my “freebie tech” Heh…good news indeed! And, I had been saving for that very tech, so the first priority was to spend the 100g each to upgrade all my pikemen to riflemen. Poof…there’s almost three grand down the tubes.

Next step…all the Knights get their upgrades, and suddenly I’m looking kinna mean.

No…strike that…I’m DEFINITELY looking mean, but we’re not done yet! No sir…those 8 catapults I’d been keeping around….yepper…upgrades for them too!

So now, sitting off the Zulu border, I’m feeling pretty secure with my 26 Riflemen, 17 Cavalry, 8 Cannon. Secure and….rowdy.

Step one was to get ready to get ready, which essentially meant building more riflemen (and one more Cav, since I like even numbers!), and splitting the attack force into two equal groups.

It was to be a slow, stately march through Zulu Lands.

Riflemen moving in to hold the ground for the Cav, Cannon blasting the defenders into weakness, and Cav doing the dirty work of attacking the city itself.

Conquest in Civ 3 is not so much about taking what the other guy has, it’s about keeping what you take! This is where most people fall down in Civ3. You bring enough big guns, but not enough stount defenders! If you go in all guns and no shields, you WILL win your initial battles.....you'll also see most of your gains undone on the counter attack.....and that is why I bring VASTLY more defense-oriented troops to any attack, figuring that a smallish elite core can punch through the city defenses, and then hide there behind stout defenders to get back to full strength. My general formula is 1 Garrison troop per resistor, plus 1, to a MINIMUM of five units (not counting the wounded who are there to rest before moving on). As I conquer additional cities, the garrisons in “secure zones” drops from five to three (and sometimes two, if I think I can get by with that), freeing troops to continue to push forward.

Re-supply is handled entirely by rail. Captured workers are assigned a 3-unit (Riflemen) guard, and put on the task of building or repairing the existing rail-infrastructure of the company to keep reinforcements coming, and to ensure that we have the advantage of mobility over our opponents in the event of a counter-attack.

Additional Riflemen units (exact number varies, depending on prevailing local geography) take what high ground is available at strategic points and are given instructions to “watch all ways” for approaching enemies.

If attacked or threatened, these positions will be reinforced, and to that end, where possible, rails are built toward them, if not all the way to them.

Needless to say, the attack force above was only sufficient to take four cities before I had to stop, re-group, get reinforcements, and move on, but….there are numerous advantages to large-scale combat using this approach:

First, of course, is the fact that you don’t see many, if any of those skewed combat results that have been mentioned repeatedly over in the general thread. There’s not a spearman alive that can eat four cannon volleys AND face down an elite cavalry….at least, I’ve never met him, and I’ve had, by now….ohhh, a few hundred wars, with scores, if not hundred of individual unit battles in each.

Never seen a frigate or smaller do anything other than dent one of my destroyers, either….of course, the fact that they travel around in packs, with a capitol ship at their head (either a BB or a CV) probably helps….a pretty typical operational fleet for me is shaking out to look a lot like:
4 Ironclads + 2 Destroyers (or 4 Destroyers)
2 Transports
1 BB or 1 CV (full compliment of planes)

There’s just not much the occasional Frigate or Galley can DO against that….you know?

One of these fleets posted at each “end” of my empire, along with a third (and possibly fourth) to send out to control shipping lanes or obvious approach points, and I’m pretty much uncontested on the high seas. In times of peace, I generally have them lined up with back-to-back LOS positioning, so I can watch the shipping traffic coming back and forth (early invasion warning), and in war-time, I’ll bunch them back up and start hunting down enemy shipping/bombarding coastal towns trying to lure enemy ships on over (‘specially with my carrier groups!).

Anyway….talk about veering off-topic a bit….suffice it to say that, while the combat was exciting and dicey and awesome, (once more, hats off to Soren for that…on a number of occasions, the AI hit me from unexpected directions, and on TWO occasions, the AI successfully counterattacked in a bit to re-take his territory, and in both cases, the battles were well-executed and sharp!)

Nonetheless, I approached the entire war with a high degree of confidence, and that confidence was justified. We were a slow-moving juggernaut, taking and holding key territory, slowly crushing the life and ability to fight out of the enemy.

Very cool….

Tribune! Glad you joined us over here man, and than you for your comments on my posts! I’ll be formally closing this thread out and starting it’s sequel soon, and when I do so, I’ll take “distilled notes” with me over to the new thread, and will make sure I update my initial comments with those observations….good call!

DFHNY: Hmmm….well, the most likely reason you’re getting the note that none of them have sea routes yet is that no one has built a port yet….that’s a bit odd, since the AI generally does, but….not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Now…as to this coal….if you’re ahead of tech, you know they’ve got it, and they don’t, which is why you can’t trade for it….(the AI has to have the tech tied to the resource in question in order to make the trade, apparently).

One quick and clean way to get the island cities is to actually attack mainland Egypt. Let’s say, for example, that the island in question has two cities on it….attack mainland Egypt, take three cities (preferably all in one turn), then drop to the defensive and hold that territory until they cry uncle…in the peace negotiation, offer to give back those three cities you took, but demand one or both cities on the island. I’ve had a similar situation in a recent game where I wanted a small island as a naval/air base. Worked like a charm….

Big Rocks! WhoooHoooo! Know what you mean ‘bout the corruption beast, but here’s what I fear….we’re all going to get used to dealing with the corruption as it is now, and if they reduce it in the patch, it’s going to feel too….easy..?

Padillah: Hiyas to you as well! “…the amazing mind of Vel…” eh? Could I pay you to say that in front of my co-workers?

And, it sounds like you’ve found a very comfortable build rhythm….excellent! Depending on the city, I could definitely see myself going a quite similar route! Oh…and btw, the answer to your question is: The AI Governors are pretty clueless, and about the only way to remedy that is, when you pick a city that you KNOW you want cranking out troops for a good while, load up the queue.

In case you’ve never played with the build queue in Civ 3, to load it, you go into the city view, and click to change the city’s current production. Once the list of stuff to change it to pops up, hold the shift key down and you’ll see some red lettering that says “queue active.” At this point, anything you click on to build will be loaded into the queue. I use it frequently when churning out lots of the same type unit, or units in pattern (destroyer, destroyer, transport, destroyer, destroyer, transport, etc…).

::grin:: And you’re right….when you out-expand them, sometimes they’re none-too-fond….

Deafhawk – Circles….circles….I like it! Proving once again that there’s certainly more than one way to skin the proverbial cat! (one of the reasons that I REALLLLY like this game!). Very cool!

This post is getting rather longish, so I’ll publish it, and then start workin’ on my next post….something I’ve been thinking about this weekend.

PS to Arrian, who wrote his post after I started workin’ on mine! I TOTALLY agree with your assessment re: Luxury items! If there are none in my starting city’s radius, then city #2 or 3 will definitely be founded with Luxury items in mind. If I can get two tradable (more than one) Luxuries, I know I’ll be okay, and of course, more is always better!

Not sure that I have any set in stone rules I use to go by, expansion-wise, except that I make sure all the basics are covered before I go hog-wild on resources….get 1-2 wonder-bases, a troop center, and two settler farms up….always better if these bases can pull double duty of course, and speeds your game up correspondingly, but absolutely….once I get the basics humming along, it’s Luxury time!@

(Note too, that this is one of the most critical advantages a Scientific Civ has, IMO….they start with Bronzeworking, and are one tech from Ironworking….add those juicy iron deposits onto the map with the discovery of that tech and….::as he visibly struggles with the urge::

“N…no….must be….good….must not….attack the Persians….who are without Iron……”

Heh.

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

I industrialize ASAP. I usually bypass Sanitation and go straight for the factories. Why? Because in my experience, it seems that population causes much more pollution than production. Hence, the factories provide much more "bang for my buck." I actually tend to keep most of my cities at size 12 until I have mass transit. With factories, these cities produce plenty, but pollute only a reasonable amount. Once I have mass transit, it's hospital time. I've decided, due to the fact that "specialist" citizens provide only minor benifits (1 gold/research per taxman/entertainer), that the optimal city size is at or around 20. Thus, much of my grassland remains mined, not irrigated. I usually sell ecology and recycling to the AI for tons of cash, as they pollute like crazy and don't seem to emphasize those techs.

Vel - it seems we often cross-post. Liking those Babs, huh? I couldn't agree more. Scientific is nice for the starting tech AND cheap-as-dirt libraries. Libraries pump out TONS of culture (more than temples), which, in combination w/religious, is why the Babs are so great for culture bombing. Temple+Library+Cathedral+University and watch those border towns flock to your banner!

Persians without Iron? If there is even the slightest excuse (any luxuries at all) TAKE THEM OUT! The meek may inherit the Earth, but not in CIV III...not on MY watch, anyway.

Regarding fleet operations... it seems that although I've made the conversion to CIV III land combat rather well, I'm still thinking in CIV II mode at Sea. I probably don't build enough ships, and I only recently accepted that it just makes more sense to bombard and THEN hit an enemy vessel, rather than just charge about wildly with a Battleship and expect to sink an opponent's navy (even if it is MADE OF WOOD AND SHOULD HAVE NO CHANCE... ehem, sorry about that, I had a bad dream about a Caravel sinking my Battleship last night...).

-Arrian

[padillah]

One thing I've noticed about massing troops, DO NOT let the AI see you do it.
If your building up troops just keep them in a city until you are ready to use them. I was amassing my horsmen on Aztec boarders (they got to the city site before I did and I REALLY want that site) and boy did they get mad! Made a deal with the English and now I have to revert to a saved game because there is no way I'm gertting out of this one alive. (The English already hate me for land locking them in the bottom 1/4 of the continent so they want nothing to do with any of my envoys)

And since the English were getting ready to trounce me anyway... they had all kinds of knights piled up waiting.

So, a word to the wise, keep them in the city or get trounced!
Hank P.

[Romulus]

eMarkM, brings up an excellent point regarding: Posting the size of the map and number of other Civs in the game. I have played several games (all default settings and 8 civs) mostly with the Romans (I love the UU 3/3/1 rocks!) and have been inching my way up from cheiftain, warlord, etc. I had just completed a space victory on monarch over the Russians (it was very, very close), and was about to try emperor.....when I chickened out and tried monarch with a huge map and 16 civs. This is a totally different game. I found that contact with the other civs was MUCH more important, embassies are a must, and well worth the 2000 gold or so it will take to establish them everywhere, and I mean everywhere! I have noticed that the AI is more likely to ask for and agree to trade embargoes. The diplomatic aspects of the game are much more intense. Late in the game, I have completely given up on Mutual protection pacts. Playing a standard map with 8 civs I am hesitant to make these agreements (I do not like the AI deciding when I declare war), but I have still found them to be *somewhat* useful. With 16 Civs, a MPP is pure insanity. The world wars spiral out of control VERY quickly.
Quick question: Anyone else playing a 16 civ game, have you noticed that the Circle-o-heads diplomacy screen still only shows 8 civs? Am I doing something wrong? This makes it impossible to tell who has what agreements, etc.