questions from a CivII vet

[Sharkyy]

Hey all, I'm a little late getting on the CivIII bandwagon, but all of your strategy threads (especially Vel's) have been a great help. A few questions, mostly because I don't understand some of what you're saying on there:

(1) What are "REX" and "T-REX" expansion? I gather that they're basically the same strat, but don't know exactly what everyone means by that...

(2) Being able to consistantly destroy deity level on CivII, I was a little bit shocked to scale down all the way to Prince level and *lose* my first game. What level is most analogous to the "King" level on CivII, which was basically a level playing field for the human and computer players?

(3) I am having incredible problems with early expansion, barely being able to keep up with the AI even at Prince level... i think my problem has something to do with the way i utilize my early worker(s). What's the best way to make use of them, and does that change with an expansionist or industrialist civ?

[Velociryx]

Hiya Sharkyy! And thanks for the vote of confidence re: the strat threads! To answer your questions.....:

1)REX = Rapid Early eXpanionsion - T-REX (just a wordplay I made up to describe the big dog of the rapid early expander crowd)

2) Regent is the level of play where there are no bonuses or penalties for the AI (tho it's *amazing* at any level of play how the AI can unerringly build cities where late game resources magically appear!

3) The only early game consideration for workers (at least in my personal playbook) is roads. Roads to speed settlers to future city sites. In fact, the only things I BUILD in the early game are warriors and settlers (sometimes, if a city needs time to grow, I'll toss in a temple, barracks, or something to kill time, but otherwise, it's warrior-settler until I run outta room. Only then do I start cranking out other stuff!

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

Sharky,

The level that is even is Regent. Monarch (where I'm at now) gives the AI some production/research advantages. Emperor & Deity are where it gets silly.

REX = Rapid Early Expansion. Basically, pump out settlers for all you're worth. There was a thread all about this a while ago. As for the first worker, it depends on the starting terrain, but...

Keep in mind improving various terrain will do (or NOT DO) under despotism. For instance, if you have a cow on plains (2 food, 2 shields), irrigating or mining won't do anything until you use a better form of government. Therefore, the most you want to do there is build a road. Irrigating wheat on floodplains does give a bonus, and that is a good idea to help early city growth. I always mine (step 1) and road (step 2) grassland. I often reverse this order if I'm playing an industrial civ.

Expansionist, unless you're on a large/huge map with lots of land, kinda sucks. Sure, you can get lucky with huts and you do have pottery to start, but it's a civ trait that does not give benifits throughout the game. All of the other traits do.

Start position is crucial. Restart until you have a good one. By this I mean fresh water (no need for aqueduct) and a couple of bonus tiles, like wheat or cows.

The AI expands like crazy (as you've noticed), so you have to keep up - at least in the beginning. After you've got a good core built up, and access to a couple of luxuries, let the AI continue to waste resources plunking down cities halfway around the world on tundra (though understand you may have to take them by force later).

I, too, am a Civ II vet. The first time I played Civ III, it was chieftain... then warlord... the regent - where I got beat up for a bit... and now Monarch, which still can give me trouble (the first few games kicked my butt).

Sorry for the length of the post... it's a complicated game, ya know?

-Arrian

EDIT - Vel beat me to the punch, LOL! Warrior, Warrior, Settler is what I do, too, the only difference is that I will mine a bit to boost production of those warriors early on... and so it's prepared to start on a wonder when I'm ready to hand off settler production to other cities. "Worker farms" handle producing my road-builders.