Civ3: Who's resolve is first to falter?

[rah]

you have to have a city on the continent that you want to trade with. it also has to have a harbor and then be connected by road to their capital.

[deity]

AH, you need Astronomy, I think, to cross ocean squares with trade.

[deity]

My first effort, as I said, I dived in on Deity level. I chose the English, major mistake - Man of War is their special unit which was not needed, got TWO wheat for the capital on a river floodplain, near jungle. Was ravaged by raging hordes and disease from jungle and with only 3 cities by about 700BC was sandwiched between Persians in the North and Russians in the South who attacked me at the same time... well to cut a long story short, well to cut a short story even shorter I was Elizabeth the worthless!

BTW
THEY SPELL DEITY AS DIETY IN THE HALL OF FAME!!!!!!!!!

major grrrrrrrrrrrrr

But I really like the culture thing and got this working really well in my current second game.

I droped back to Emperor level in this game and, like AH, I'm taking it slowly so I don't miss anything - unlike that Canadian Cowboy

I chose the Greeks and got 5 cities on an island with Romans who had 4 cities. The Greeks start with Hoplate unit which gives great defence from Day One. So I was nice as pie to Romans, gifted a few little things to them and their Northern city fell into my lap

So with 6 cities and in Republic my techs are rolling.

Then I realised I needed aqueducts to grow above size 6! Then I realised I couldn't irrigate ANY squares cos I have NO fresh water ANYWHERE on the island! Have to wait till Electricity now?????
So, building harbours.

Built no Wonders.

Traded no techs.

Am behind in techs but planning on taking out remaining Roman cities who are entirely unsuspecting.

Does WLTPD work for growth??

I get the feeling that the game designers are now telling us what a lot of their true intentions were with Civ2.
NO Inc rush buying;
NO super trade/growth stuff;
etc etc...

WE all just used the loopholes to create another game altogether with Civ 2 ; but Civ 3 is really the ultimate diplo game where wars of all scale are necesary. Civ 3 reflects the real world much more closely.

It is brilliant. I think I said that

[Alexander's Horse]

I got a leader and killed one of theirs

The Russians are fighting hard on Chieftain

Much nicking of slaves going on

[War4ever]

Deity i am just plowing through....although i meet with much success, there are plenty of failures...

trying strats on the boards and avoiding others which feel like cheats...

today i learned how to upgrade my units i expect other scrolls of wisdom to fall into my lap anyday now

all in all though, i am having fun with it.... finding it best to pump 8 quick cities and then rush rush rush


Trying all the different civs, the ones i stay away from now are the expansionistic type.....

militaristic and religious seems to be a nice early combo .... the ability to switch to a different govt when the war machine is up and running at full spead makes a big difference....

The name is Fierce. Mr. not so Fierce

[Smash]

we still have unlimited movement on RRs but you need coal and iron to build them.
They also add 1 food to irrigated squares and 1 sheild to mined squares.
RRing and farming have been combined it seems.
Pollution takes alot of worker effort.Dam captured workers aren't as efficient as your own nationality.At least with the worker speed bonus of Democracy.

Cut roads that connect to other enemy cities in captured cities to greatly reduce the chance of defection.Try to connect to your cities at the same time or ASAP to bring in your luxuries and resources.
Don't move large numbers of troops into newly captured cities.Keep them around it.If it defects you won't lose them all and you can retake immediately.So far,it seems defecting cities get 1 defender of the civs units.Your units that might have been inside are gone forever.

holding shift and right clicking on a leader's portrait in the foreign advisor screen will change the civ if you are playing with more than 7 ais.

[Alexander's Horse]

No problems with captured cities here. I just raze them and make them all slaves Then I resettle with my own

[CapTVK]

Slowdown on 966Mhz PIII on Huge Maps

I run a 966Mhz PIII, GeForce2 (64Mb), 256Mb RAM, WinMX machine. When I play the game on huge maps (255x255) w/ 16 civs, it slows down to a crawl between turns.

It goes from no delay to a 1-minute delay in the middle ages. Then it gets worse. I'm currently in 1920 and I have to wait 15-16 minutes for the game to complete the AI moves.

The game is not slow at all on my moves, except when I raze or conquer a city. Then I get a 2-minute delay while the map updates. I have no problems with scrolling or anything like that though.

BTW the save file is up to about 9Mb!

Does anyone know if this is a bug or a feature? And if it's a bug will it be fixed?

Oh Boy, are they in for a surprise when Civ3MP comes out!

[deity]

Originally posted by War4ever
Deity i am just plowing through....although i meet with much success, there are plenty of failures...

trying strats on the boards and avoiding others which feel like cheats...

today i learned how to upgrade my units i expect other scrolls of wisdom to fall into my lap anyday now

all in all though, i am having fun with it.... finding it best to pump 8 quick cities and then rush rush rush


Trying all the different civs, the ones i stay away from now are the expansionistic type.....

militaristic and religious seems to be a nice early combo .... the ability to switch to a different govt when the war machine is up and running at full spead makes a big difference....

The name is Fierce. Mr. not so Fierce

Interesting. I think I'm actually going too slowly. I put my 2nd game on hold as I entered the second tech era as the whole wotrls once again began targetting me!

I think Nappy is right. I can't just use MP approach and not trade techs. I'm way behind tech wise now.

Started a 3rd game as Egyptians all on my own on an ICY island with 6 cities now. I want to see how I can go if I get Lighthouse and use E War Chariots to VISIT other nations.

[War4ever]

Deity i find myself way behind in tech too...... I am playing the Persians and using their unique units.....they are impressive at first.....but long wars are not effective yet for me......

i had to relearn the tech tree and specific buildings as there are some minor tweaks in this department also....

the one nice thing about being persia is that leaders come early and easily....allowing me to pick a wonder and build the FP....

i have noticed the ai puts little effort to build the Colossus...

i am also finding the combat a little weak..... a elite warrior doesn't do very much....... and i am now experimenting with mobile units in the ancient era....... the results are....... interesting and scary at the same time....

i now raze every city except for the capital.......which i keep and try to put the FP in........

i have been holding off on temples now....... instead building granaries and barracks.......so that i can work my slaves harder and quicker to produce my vet immortals....

i have stopped trading early tech with my closest neighbor.... instead trying to isolate and conquer him quick enough that the other civs won't trade my precious techs i give them....

And is it just me or are the horses grouped in bunches yet iron can be very sporadic

well back to playing......

[deity]

I've only created three worlds and this is the third one - Emperor level. Got 6 cities.

By Civ2 standards it sucks but not as bad as first glance suggests. It's also, again, more realistic.

I thought I couldn't irrigate without fresh water but when I put a worker on auto it irrigated that square East of the enclosed coastline, West of my cap. So, does this represent fresh water? It says it's sea.

How does my mess compare with other folks??

Sorry about the colour but I can't get my jpg's to save...

[Rasputin]

sound slike a bug Deity if it can auto irrigate but cant do it manually !!!!

[War4ever]

man my current game is fun...... i am the persians..with no access to iron or many other resources for that matter ....

no golden age but i have rifle and calvalry.......pinned the aztecs..... and have mutual protection with my other two neighbors.....

i assume i will hear from the germans......they along with france one of my partners have overtaken me ..... but if i get the aztec empire i should be fine....

89a turn for iron for 20 turns..... talked him down to a lump sum of 350 adn teh infamous world map

Running tech around 6 a turn 89gold a turn in a rip roaring democracy!! Using the mobilization model to prepare the war machine along with the draft button......

i wish i new the way to revolt without long periods of anarchy.... i have communism and would like to go that route but the period of unrest is killer......its cost me 13turns for two revolutions

Has anyone noticed once your picked on or a tribe is picked on....everyoone unites to wipe him out....

i was able to sign many treaties and rights of passage against the USA who are now officially gone thanks to france....the whole game...and each ai took pot shots at the poor usa.....i gifted techs so they would survive longer.

built the gl..... traded those techs to the others for the 8 techs or so i could do this with......made alot of cash...running 119gold a turn in monarchy.....

buy high off France.... Trade to everyone else....and make around 5-9 gc per turn everytime a new tech reared its proffitable face....
i went from +45 - to + 119 in only a few turns....
just for the record..i wasted 509 shield when i was beat to sistine bach and leos and copernicus by the ai...just in one city.... in another i lost out on pyramids and settled for the FP right beside my cap

Culturlly its easy to absorb cities behind your front lines that sneak in from boats..... i have taken 5 cities culturally now this game.....and no one gets pissed at you when your talking face to face the next turn....

Ok so maybe the game is growing on me a bit..... but why do units sometimes not move their full MP on roads

and i hate having to chop the damm diseased forests down....its driving me bonkers

one more ? then its bedtime...... why can some of my units upgrade but the same units in a different city cannot? does this have to do with cultural takeovers and such?

[Ming]

Originally posted by War4ever
Ok so maybe the game is growing on me a bit..... but why do units sometimes not move their full MP on roads

If the road crosses a river... and you don't have bridges yet

[rah]

why can some of my units upgrade but the same units in a different city cannot? does this have to do with cultural takeovers and such?

War, you need a barracks in the city in order to upgrade troops.


Ming, don't forget to send you picks in today.
BTW, great job on the pen, it worked great on saturday.

Rich

[Ming]

NP rah... I sent my picks in for this week before I left town.
Not knowing how good the "connection" would be from Dad's, I figured I shouldn't take any chances.

Go Bears!

[War4ever]

ah the rivers must be the case and i must have missed a barracks or two in my empire.... thanks guyz

Nationalism makes the diplomatic side of the game that much more intense....

i like the diplomacy but find the ai weak unless they truly have the upper hand and then they are pretty much too agressive...its hard to find the happy medium.

[Bird]

I've started 4 games now on monarchy level and gotten killed in all four. The first game was actually my best. I have been unable to keep the ai from declaring war. No matter how much I appease them, one of them eventually attacks and often it's followed by an alliance against me. When I've taken the offensive, elite archers start losing.

I have been playing in a style that tries to spread the cities out so that city radii don't overlap, but that makes defending difficult against the onslaught of ai units, since zoc doesn't apply. The ai is relentless in destroying my improvements, particularly to critical resources. You cannot settle cities while at war unless you send out 3 or 4 good units with the settler, b/c the ai makes a beeline for that city. I'm beginning to think the only way to start is to be extremely aggressive at the outset and wipe out your neighbors, but in the game I tried that, my elite units mysteriously started losing as I tried to take out the last two iroquois cities, and then they allied with the egyptians, and that was that. Still have never gotten a great leader.

One thing I've learned, though, is the importance of trading techs to all civs when you trade to any civ. If you're gonna trade it away, trade it to each of them b/c the others will if you don't.

The wonder building is incredibly frustrating. I was one turn from pyramids, and had oracle, colossus and lighthouse available as alternative wonders. The ai built all 4 wonders on the turn before me. I got a very expensive granary. I quit that game then out of sheer annoyance, so maybe I've played 4 1/2 games.

I'm not sure yet whether I like this game.

[Steve Clark]

Bird, remember when we all used to laugh about the stupid AI at deity in Civ2? Certainly times have changed.

[War4ever]

Bird its my belief that you must get your a$$ kicked a few times before the machine goes......

"ok if we don't let him win a game he just won't play with me anymore!"

seriously though..... i have just finished a game as the Persians and much to my delight it was a slugfest.

i made the mistake of attacking my neighbors the axtecs... whom had a MP pact with the french and the babylonians and the zulus...

so i allied with the germans and the iroquos.... but i got these agreements because i had traded maps so often, given free tech, and eventualy had free passage and mutual protection....

IMO you need to establish a trust with the ai civs to get these.... and i would think that the above go along way towards that.


In the end of world war one (1590ad) i had erradicated the aztecs thereby almost doubling my land..... while using the germans and the iroquios as a buffer.

Wars in this nature are easier to survive....i too used suffer from the ai gangbang

i started the whole thing by building an obsolete immortal UU....who walked up to the border and picked off a jaguar warrior which then put me into a golden age and my cashflow went from 350gc to 550gc per turn....... during my golden age i managed some elites who in turn brought me two leaders...whom rushed wonders although i did miss theory of evolution....

i did neglect my navy and suffered losses at sea but the land campaign was nice though costly..... but not as costly as it was for all my enemies

only problem now is that i am still Democratic and even with universal sufferage i have huge war weariness and i can't get the other sides to agree to a peace treaty

a quick question for anyone.... i know you can only have one small wonder active at any time... and i know you still keep the culture from the ones which are no longer functioning , but is there anyway to go back to one of the ones i built earlier or can you only use the one you have most currently built

Oh yeah....and bird...... i know that feeling of being screwed to four wonders in a row...... it happened to me this game..i still can't ever build the sistenn chapel..

As for leaders..... all my armies are weak unless with modern units.... even then its better to use them on wonders....

attacking from your city on to units in your land is safer that being in the open especially if you watch his stack to know when to leave one left.... and with railroad you can effectively move troops around to cover your flanks....

riflemen era with infantry are great for attacking mounted riders......i won so many battles this way and their defence is even better....

Question for debate...... is it better to upgrade (without leos) and lose a status....nothing like reg going to conscript on the upgrade or is it better to just build the units and disband your weaker ones?

ok no more

[Smash]

upgrades maintain their status.Vet,elite....Leo's just makes it 50% cheaper.

I just had an aircraft carrier sunk by a galley and a modern armor defeated by a pikeman.Uh oh.......can you say civ1?

[Xin Yu]

On river
A lot of shield grass or specials such as wheat along the river.
A luxury special inside region of the capital.
Two civs on two sides of your civ, not too far but not too close as well, so you'll not be pinned by barbs from 3-4 barb villages, and can get contact with two civs and others via them.
The other two sides will be close to but not immediately next to the coast so that you can put down 3-4 cities there in later stages.
commercial and expansionest (English). So you get some techs and units from huts, and be able to build the GL.
Even so, you can only keep up with the AIs before GL expires.

[Alexander's Horse]

Well while you guys are jumping in, I'm still dawdling along in my first game at Chieftain. Its 1920 now and after one big war in the Middle Ages it looks like another is starting. Everyone is ganging up on the Babs, including me. Cultural domination seems to work a lot better than warfare for expansion but if you go to war, scorched earth seems to be the go, raze their cities and send the slaves back to the motherland to work. At this low level its hard to get the AI to declare war on you and the civs have a long memory if you start a war or break a treaty. That can make it very hard to trade for essential resources.

[Nap Bonaparte]

War4.....as far as deciding whether to upgrade or disband units, it all comes down to individual preference. I generally run out of cash on my major offensives from rush building temples and cathedrals to prevent captured cities from rebelling back to enemy control. So when that happens I will disband my non-elite obsolete units in captured enemy cites to reduce the cost of rush building temples. For example, I am currently disbanding my cannons and riflemen while my homeland cities are cranking out vet artillery and infantry. What works really well is conscripting infantry for 1 pop point and then disbanding them for 22 shields.

In my current game as the French on Monarch level, I captured the Egytptian capitol of Thebes twice and both times it rebelled back even with a rush built temple. The third time I captured it I immediately sued for peace and then rush built a temple and cathedral on consecutive turns by disbanding units. So far I have held on to it for 5 turns. I will post here if I lose it to rebellion again.

When I lose a city to rebellion, it seems to have a regular enemy unit as garrison when I retake it no matter what I leave as a garrison when it rebels(usually vet). For example, if I leave a vet infantry as a garrison and the city rebels it has a regular rifleman in it when I retake it. Anyone else have any experiences with this???

[War4ever]

Nappy... i have experienced the revolt back with only one garrison troops which falls easily to my forces yet again.

i thought i read somewhere that you lost one degree of experience on upgrades.....ala civ2 but i could be mistaken

you don't need to be the tech leader via GL to rape the ai for techs...... it helps but once it expires your in the same predicament.... i found it quite easy to maintain good relations with everyone by paying a large sum to the civ with the tech and then selling it to everyone else for half the costx5 or 6...which makes for a steady profit

Is it just me or do wars tend to pop up during the ages as large crusades to rid the world of someone.......even when your not the one on the rampage and if your the one being picked on then your in trouble unless you have friends......

[Alexander's Horse]

I find the workers tiresome. They should have given options to be cruel to them. A few executions would have been fun.

[War4ever]

LOL @AH.... i too find the workers annoying ...what would have been better is for them to include an automate that works properly....as it is now they run around fixing one tile and then ripping it up to put irrrigation on it....or giving you the opportunity to prioritize minning, irrigation or roads/rail..... this way groups could work together to finish the job

and they don't prioritize well..... i like the public works idea of CTP better to be honest

building on hills is key for defense and it doesn't hurt the growth any......

does the coastal fortress not work the way its supposed to? damm bab navy was pounding me until i got a makeshift fleet of dingys out to arrest them for dumping hazardous goods.....

Go greenpeace

[Alexander's Horse]

I found if you raze cities and enslave the inhabitants you soon end up with lots and lots of workers and soon every tile is improved in your homeland cities. I'm not sure if improving tiles outside the city radius does anything, seems not unless you can build a colony, but I did experiment a bit with that i.e. like more direct road routes. You can use roads to block tresspassers though if its within your cultural border - though not all!

One thing I noticed is the ai mines every grassland square it can't irrigate so I've started doing that. But in the end I just have teams of workers (3 or 4) planting forests, harvesting them and then planting them again, say one square per city. Its tedious but the cash adds up. Sometimes special resources have popped up on those tiles but I don't know if that's just a concidence.

Oh yeah! You also need to guard workers from barbs!

If anyone has better ideas I'd like to hear them.

Also I noticed on the population roster of captured cities you end you end up with a mixed population of your own citizens and those of the subjugated nation. Maybe over time the chances of defection decrease as your own population increases? (provided you build the happy improvements) I haven't got my head around the "resistor" concept yet either.

[rah]

When I capture cities, I starve down the population, rush a temple and when the city is down to one or two pop, my workers come in and join the city. I keep my citizens at 50% or more, and have yet to lose a city to defection. I'll also sometimes use workers from one civ to help raise the pop in other ex-civs cities.

Being religious, after you finish a major offensive, sometimes you can drop into desp for a turn and reduce the bad pop into a couple of quick rush buys then switch back.

I'm having my best luck with the (militeristic, religious) civs. Cheap happy improvements, lots of combat upgrades and more leaders than from any other characteristics. I used to like industrious for the improved workers, but that only helps you real early because as most of you have found out, most of your workers are in the chain gang. My workers are feeding pop points to conquered cities.

RAH

[ColdWizard]

don't know if its been mentioned yet, but razing cities to get workers can be powerful under communism. rushing under communism costs population and where better to get that pop than by using the remnants of your crushed enemies.

i won my game on chieftain, cultural victory in 1970.