Why do I keep getting lit up?

[whistlernj]

When I first got my (LE:) edition of Civ3 I was expecting something a little different from what I received, just as everyone was. I wasn't dissapointed, I was just.. bored by the game. It felt like the gameplay was dragging, and the time in between the turns was intolerable. Last week after multiple months of not playing with my investment I took it back out and started my first actual game.

I'm getting lit up in various ways, shapes, and forms by my computer opponents. I refuse to lower my level, I'm playing on a huge map, with eleven opponents, on Emperor. I originally played the Persians (because traditionally in TBS games, 'scientific' races always have a massive advantage, take MOO2/Psilons for example, but they seem to have equalized the advantages very well in Civ3) but now play the Iroquois. Throughout the game, those damned annoying animated advisors (more annoying than the bouncing paper clip in MS Word, however you can disable the paperclip!) are telling me how much I suck. I stopped expanding at 15 cities because of a chain-reaction war I got involved in (by not acceding to paying tribute after having payed some to a different race). Luckily, my special unit the mounted warrior became available and my race entered it's Golden Age simultaneously. To the north, I fought the Indians taking three cities, to the south I fought a more painful war with the Chinese. I had to succumb to some rather dishonorable tribute (12G/Turn + Lump) to avoid war with the Babylonians - the largest and most powerful civ.

Both my wars ended well, and my civilization's Golden Age ended around the same point. I began to concentrate on culture but was soon distracted when, again, the Babylonians came after me for some cash. I briefly weighed what I thought the consequences would be versus what I thought my ability to sustain a one front war would be and decided to stick it back in there faces. They declared war and my impending doom is, in the game, about to arrive.

After successfully taking two of their cities, the Babylonians have struck back and quite fiercely. Their stacks of 10+ units are far from a match from my stacks of two mounted warriors. They have knights, I'm just getting feudalism. I've been behind in technology the entire length of the game simply because the computer refuses to trade with me. The only way I've became competive was through the sole advantage of having a scout at the beginning and being able to get techs from huts. I'm three technologies behind everyone, and four-five of their knights killed my ENTIRE expenditionary army. My swordsmen which I'm using for defense (can't build pikemen, most cities are still resisting - because they are Indian ones I took over, or I don't have enough gold, etc, etc) can't keep up. I've lost the one of the two Babylonian cities I captured to their culture, and the other I gave away for a technology because I knew it was going to be captured the next turn. In that (I gave it to a neutral nation) I've slowed the Babylonian advance on one front. The war evolved into two fronts based on the two cities I took. Both eventually lead to Babylon which was, now laughably, going to be my ultimate goal and way to get out of the war - or at least to use as a bargaining tool. On the other front (the cultural takeover front), I'm about to lose my first city (I consider it my first, cause I built it, not that I'm not pissed about losing the other two).

The Babylonians refuse to talk to me. I was lucky enough that the Indians, forgetting about our little skirmish offered me an alliance against the Chinese, I used their want for that as a bargaining tool to also get an alliance against the Babylonians (though I'm now paying the Indians 20G/turn). I have chivalry, but I can't cheat like the computer and pump out twenty knights. There is, essentially, nothing I can do.

Why am I sucking so hard? Why is the computer so good? I can't trick them, I can't fight them. I'm really not doing anything wrong and I simply can't compete, I never was really in a position to be able to. The only reason I won my war against the Chinese was terrain, city walls, my special unit, and my golden age. Now I have none of those four advantages against the most powerful civ who controls half the damned board. I don't want to restart either - though I fear I might need too.

The only thing about my inevitable defeat I'm happy about is that it has revitalized my interest in Civ.

If I restart I'll played on a large map with 7 civs so they can't trade as much. Also on continents as opposed to Pangaea. But I really can't get a game going unless I have that scout in the beginning of the game. There is simply NO WAY you can play without it. What am I missing? I haven't played in so long that I've missed all the 'general' strategy that people have posted and don't want to look it up. I can't rush for monarchy, rushing for tech's only hurts you more in this game. I can't bargain and exchange techs because I'm almost always, except in the very very beginning after a few lucky huts, behind in technology. What do you do? I know my key mistake was stopping my expansion, but I was fighting a two front war - North and South on opposite sides of my land, an ocean to my west and a desert and the Babylonians as well as some of the enemy to my East.

[whistlernj]

Also a note - I know I'm suppose to fall behind the computers in the beginning, that became apparent when I started to catch back up. But this, this is just beyond that. Attached is my autosave. This is as far back as I have available. I'm sure one of you can not only fix but win this but I sure as hell can't

[Dominae]

The simplest fix to your tech problem is to never do your own research; set your Science and Luxuries to 0%, make a lot of money, and buy all the techs from the other civs. Do this until you feel that you can compete technologically (this usually happens in the early Industrial Age, if you're empire is strong enough). I guarantee this will work for you on Emperor.

For a complete discussion of why this works, check out "A real reason why tech race looks like me vs World" started by player1 on this forum.


Dominae

[Inverse Icarus]

i don't see an autosave, but quite honestly, i probably wouldn't have looked at it anyway.

the coders @ firaxis made sure you "got your money's worth" by giving the AI the skill and expertise in CHEATING. they can't code a decent AI (not that i can, or anyone else i know) so they made it cheat.

you can beat it if you keep at it, and thats part of the fun.

and besides, if you're not the biggest civ, you're doing something wrong

[punkbass2000]

Well, personally, I have been playing Monarch lately, so this may not all apply, but it's only one below Emperor. For one thing, war is essential as an early game strategy in Civ3. The warrior gambit (term coined by BillChin) is usually a good bet, I find. This entails building three warriors right off the bat, finding a nearby a civ and taking their capital. Then, you extort techs and money. On Emperor, they are likely to have about 4 techs that you don't, so this typicaly pays off. Even if you don't want to pull the gambit, this probably the best build order for the beginning, as they are good explorers, and there isn't much else to build between the beginning and your first settler. I would build them over spearmen, if you are scientific, because they're half the price and worth it. However, if you are Militaristic (and not Japan or Aztec), I would recommend an Archer rush, which is similar, excpet build archer, archer, settler (because archers take longer than warriors) and then another archer, and then go attack the nearest civ. Even better is to play the Aztecs, who have the Jaguar Warrior (1/1/2), which is a warrior with one extra movement point, very effective. You can probably take out at least two nearby civs with them, maybe three.

As to science, forget about it. I can't stress this enough, there is no point in trying to keep up once you're playing above Regent. Set your science rate as low as you can go without stopping research altogether, typically 20% with your first city. Then drop to 10%, and if you ever have a scientist (never make more than one scientist at this point in the game) drop to zero. You cannot take more than 40 turns to research a tech, and trying to be faster is just not effective. For example, about half through the Anciant Age, I would collect about 30gpt with no science and research in 40 turns, or lose10gpt and research in 30 turns. It is definitely not worth 40gpt to research something ten turns faster, especially considering that you'll probably just buy it from the AI anyway. They will sell you tech at pretty decent rates. I recall buying Alphabet, Ceremonial Burial and the Wheel for like 80 gold. This is because the AI trades vigorously, so all the other civs have the techs, so they become cheap for you. And if they won't trade, well, you'll just have to beat the techs out of them!

You probably know this, but REX expansion is key. Build settlers quickly and often. TRy to have two settler 'farms' that have either two cows or two wheat in them so that can build settlers non stop and expand until there is nowhere to expand to. Try cut chunks of land from the AI with your borders (ie. if you start on a subcontinent or if there's a chokepoint that's 3-10 squares). Being a builder at heart, I typically will build until there's no more room before I go to war, aside from the early rushes described earlier. If you find you are competing for space that you can't cut the AI off from, make sure to grab luxuries and strategic resources first, they are incredibly valuable. By the same token, I tend to beeline for iron working so I can try to deny resources from other civs (so you were partially correct about Scientific civs, as they have an advantage of starting with Bronze Working, which is the prerequisite for Iron Working).

Resource denial can be very effective. Cutting off a civ's supply to iron is practically a death sentence (excluding Iroquios and perhaps Egypt, as they have early horse-based UUs, so try to cut off their horse supply). Thus, target their cities or colonies with said supplies, or cut off the roads to them, if at all possible. Same for luxuries. Taking away even a single luxury might very well throw their whole civ into disorder.

Try to make friends with at least one civ that is reasonably powerful, especially if there are several civs on your continent. At higher levels, you're almost guaranteed to not be top dog in such situations, and the AI will know it. At the higher levels, this means the other civs will often demand tributes. Unless you're willing to pay, you have to be prepared to go war, and that friendly civ you trade with a lot who is polite may be willing to aid your cause, for the right price. For example, in my current game (Monarch, Persians, Large, 8 civs, Pangea), I share my continent with America, Russia, Rome, France and Japan. By rank, we go Japan, France, America, Rome, Persia (I got into an early war with Russia that I ended up winning, but it set both of us back, and I had only just recovered by the end of this story) and Russia. The continent is essentially a circular blob, with water coming in a bit at the north to divide it a little. I am in the east, the Russians to my north, Rome to my south-west, America in the middle to my west, Japan to their north-west, and France to America's south-west. Japan demands tribute, I refuse we go to war. They make an alliance with France, who make an alliance with Rome. So, I call up my friends the Americans, and spend most of my money (which was considerable at this point) and get them to ally with me against Japan and Rome, and they go to war with France too, as a result. Now, so far I haven't seen a Japanese or a French unit, and, quite frankly, don't know the Americans are managing to survive against them both, and I don't really care. As Rome is the only civ I'm against, I go after them, and wallop them with my relatively new Immortals, despite their legions. Incidentally I capture many workers, which build roads to speed my movement into their territory, after taking a couple cities, they beg for peace, which I refuse, so as not to betray my American friends, wait for the alliance to end by taking Veii, and subsequently sue for peace, which even includes a city that has iron within its borders. In the meantime, Russia attacked me, but they are no threat, and I took two cities (including one with two spices!) and sued for peace. This is where I am now in my game, my empire having been approxamitely doubled by this war. Initially I though I was dead for sure, but I tries getting alliances with the Americans, and, by golly, it worked. They actually do something, unlike Civ2. Incidentally, me and America had an ROP agreement.

Wow, that was long. I didn't know I had so many strategies.

[whistlernj]

I just switched between my game and this window. I started a new game, and this is actually a lot more fun. When my capital expanded, it overtook a barbarian hut with three barbs in it. I was attacked, obviously, but their attempts only yielded an elite spearmen I lost a worker, however. I decided to keep playing despite the early down note. I have lots of neighbours, a particular bad-ass Russian, but whenever they demand something - if it's small I give it to them, if it's big I flick em off. They are not declaring war because of my high culture. In the lulls between getting a size 3 and finishing the settler I build temples. I have pretty high culture, but one race recently edged me out on it. I'm hell far behind on techs, but I've essentially bought all of mine. That 0% tech strategy has actually helped a lot, I'm making decent money and normally just have to pay between 100-150 for my technologies (usually a combination of 5G/Turn and a lump sum).

I'm very worried about my military, when I inevitably deny someone's extortion due to my own pride, I will inevitably get attacked.

As for the comment about the AI cheating.. well no duh. This AI is by and far superior over the Civ2 AI (which was remarkable for it's time as well) in every aspect, namely it's use of the terrain. No computer can be programmed to be smarter than the person who programmed it, it can't happen.. but that's a far-reaching philosophical question anyway. The only way to make the game competitive is to allow the computer fast expansion and techs. My only beef is that they stick together, it makes the player uncomfortable and you can't get out of the me vs. the world mentality. Comparatively, however, other games have ridiculous AI systems when it comes to cheating. Look at non TBS games, StarCraft is just a hulk of crap, it's cheating is well beyond the scope of having fun playing single-player... but then again, it's not designed to be a single-player experience and it is (was) a remarkable game. Going back one generation, if you look at SMAC and the computer production cheating, it was quite literally infuriating. I never got far in my SMAC games simply because I wasn't having that much fun (also you don't have as much fun building The Great Neutrino Inversion Machine as you do building the Hanging Gardens )

Oh well, back to the game...

[Dominae]

whistlernj, I hope you enjoy your Civ3 experience now that you're "back on track". I just wanted to comment on a minor point you made:

"No computer can be programmed to be smarter than the person who programmed it, it can't happen...".

This is simply untrue. Had the designers at Firaxis decided to implement some learning algorithms to complement the already wicked AI, I'm sure all of us would get trounced before long (including the designers). They didn't do this for 3 reasons. First, a learning algorithm that would operate in the Civ3 domain would be extremely expensive, computationally (but possible, mind you). Second, at some point, our learned AI would beat us no matter how well we played (just imagine the AI employing ICS). If each civ had a seperate AI (agent) running, they could even learn to truly cooperate in plotting our destruction. Scary. The AI could get so good to we would have to reinstall the game to "reset" our copy, which would be kind of silly. Third, the game is made to be fun, meaning not purely competitive. As ICS demonstrates, the best strategies are not always the most fun.

As another minor beef, I still contend that Alpha Centauri was by far the coolest of all TBS games. The voice-overs for every tech advance and Secret Project was what made the game exceptional in my opinion. I guess you just have to like science fiction.

Sorry if I sound like I'm on your case...I just wanted to get those two things off my chest! Have fun gaming.


Dominae

[whistlernj]

I agree that a learning algorithm would aid the computer greatly, but again, pure philosophy, humans learn faster. Well, whatever. I do like the voiceovers for SMAC The whole SMAC interface and feel to the game was very cool. Well, in any case technology is getting expensive.. very fast. I traded incense and 17G/turn for 20 turns to the Americans for construction & currency.. it was a good buy because both allow me to make more money, and no one was willing to trade them anyway.. I couldn't have done it without the incense, which I can do without for a little bit.

[notyoueither]

Don't worry about KruX. He's just bitter that he occasionally loses.

re the me vs the world point of view. I can't agree. I find it possible to twist the AIs around to suit my own purposes. To do so you need to pay attention to both culture and military. Too low culture and they diss you. Too small a military and they extort and or invade you. If you stirke the right balance they will mostly leave you alone. Then, when you need to you can bribe them off for aid in wars and make the game you and everybody else against your enemy. Doesn't work all the time, but it will work most of the time.

BTW. If you want to expand fast enough to stay in the game, it is seldom wise to build Temples before Settlers with most cities. That's my experience at higher levels.

The alternative is to go Postal on them. KruX and Aeson seem to favour early and frequent thrashing of any and all civs they can get to. Seems to work for them. Build city, Settler, Barracks, Military Military, Military. Or something like that.

BTW. Search for users. Look for Aeson. Read what he has posted if you read nothing else. If you wish, he can show you how to beat the game like a rented mule using both legitimate and exploitative strategies.

Glad to know you're making progress. Your story is being heard more frequently around here lately.

[dunk]

Originally posted by whistlernj
I refuse to lower my level, I'm playing on a huge map, with eleven opponents, on Emperor.

I wonder why you're getting whooped.



Oh, it's because you refuse to lower your level.

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by whistlernj
No computer can be programmed to be smarter than the person who programmed it, it can't happen..

maybe we should have some poly kiddies program an AI ala freeciv

[Raion]

As noted, there are different ways to play Civ III.

Everytime, a Civ asks for a tribute, because, I use to be behind, I ask them if they would sell a tech after saying I had a proposal.

Well, let's here it, usually is their answer.

In the case of the Romans, Casear will usually say something like,
"Well, its cutting my own throat, but I sell you the tech for 40 gold coins".
Of course, this makes them mad again, so they ask for another tribute later.

Well, anyway, some Civ's are expansive, and with playing with 8 Civ's on a scenario map I made, I found that they will start wars to gain a leader to build a wonder faster, because their culture sucks.

Anyway, everyone else was fighting, except me, one fighting another one, like several different wars going on at the same time.
Usually one of the Civ's or a couple will ask if you want to get into it on their side, and its mass mayhem and confusion.

But still, there is a way to develop research faster to keep up, but it involves more micromanagement of the tax rate.

Civ 3 is more involved in playing and the leaders seem to be the crazyiest SOB's on the Planet.

[whistlernj]

Obviously the game is suppose to be most comfortably designed for a total of eight players.. but now I'm playing with twelve and the other eleven leaders don't even register in gameplay or on the foreign advisors screen.. what the heck is up with that?

Anyway, the game is going good so far. I'm still behind everyone else in tech's and it's getting to be around 450G/tech. I recently culturally took over an Indian city and wanted to know what exactly are the requirements to do that. Is it high culture throughout your empire or in border cities to the city you're getting? I want to use this as a strategy because I'm simply boxed in and can't expand and it's frankly too late to do that well anyway. Can anyone elaborate on the process?

[Shadowlord]

About not seeing all the leaders on the diplomacy screen, Civ 3 only shows you eight, but you can contact the others by using the little tiny "D" button next to the status/end-turn stuff in the lower-right corner of the screen. The "E" button should let you do espionage and such on them all, as well.

About culturally taking cities, in my experience it won't happen often, and it only happens when you have a city so close to another that your zone of control extends into the 2-square resource-box of the city that rebels from your opponent to join you.

In addition, cities seem to flip away from you most often when they belong to an opponent who you are at war with, and are near the enemy capital, or when you build them in the middle of enemy territory far from your capital.

For flipping cities from the enemy, I've only seen it happen if the flipped city's civilization has lower culture than you overall, AND if the flipped city itself has lower culture than your nearby city(s).

Although I had 2 greek cities on islands which I had cities next to both spontaneously flip to my side within 5 turns of each other, after being near my cities for the past 100 years without incident...

Of course, my experience is just from playing on Warlord level, the computer trashes me on anything higher, and I'm just now getting to the point where I can survive on Warlord, heh. I've still not completely gotten used to Civ III and still do some things I shouldn't that I'm used to doing from Civ II... I'm winning a war with modern armor now against the Egyptians, the only problem is that it is around 2300 AD and we all only got modern armor around 2200 :P. I was still in the industrial age when the game ended - but so were the computer players!