Ok guys I need your input here....

[Knightblade pDM]

If I change the maximum research time(in turns) down from 40 to 24..make the Golden Age 30 turns and make the city sizes 8 and 15, will it unbalance the game?? I've made other mod changes as well, but I notice that the game never became unbalanced.

I want to lower max research time down to 24 to make combat during the ages quicker and get into the Modern Times earlier. Do you guys think this is good? If not, your suggestions please are welcome..thanks

[Lucarse]

It depends what era you like playing in? alot of people get more out of the early game and the later.

I can't see how it would become unbalanced if the AI is researching tech as fat as you, the AI doesn't tend to upgrade units so if you advance quickly you may get a military advantage?.

[Knightblade pDM]

Well, I love Ancient warfare and I always try to get an early military advantage anyway. Sometimes, depending on my starting location, I don't upgrade units that fast either, but that also depends on resource locations. The AI to me seem to upgrade units as quick as they possibly can. The main reason I'm doing this is because I want Modern warfare to come sooner. Most of my games are over before nukes and MI/MA. So I want to speed things up a little bit

[Lucarse]

If its just a matter of getting to the end techs before 2050 or what ever, try upping your reserch and aggressively trade techs, you'll find if you maitain peace and trade techs you'll advance quickly then unleash hell!.

[Knightblade pDM]

Yeah I do that, but I still seem to finish my games quick because of how aggressively I warmonger against the AI. Sometimes I barely make it out of the Middle Ages because I conquer the AI rather quickly, depending on my mood during the game LOL.

Normally what I do, as soon as I meet my first civ, is turn off research and buy/trade techs then resell them to civs that are behind. And if I get the GL, once that is obselete I start research again or just keep buying/trading then reselling. So it's not really a matter of getting to Modern quicker, I just want to speed things up a little bit more and combining it with my current style of play.

[miccofl]

If you really want to speed things up decrease the "minimum" research time down to one, or just start the game with all civs in the age (or just before) you prefer to play in. For those who like to play with stone knives and bear-skins, increase the minimum to 12 or more to keep your game in the preferred age.

[Lucarse]

Originally posted by Knightblade pDM
Yeah I do that, but I still seem to finish my games quick because of how aggressively I warmonger against the AI. Sometimes I barely make it out of the Middle Ages because I conquer the AI rather quickly, depending on my mood during the game LOL.

Leave the poor AI alone and get advanced! then kill him later with better toys!

Bully.

[Knightblade pDM]

LOL for all the hell they've given me over the past months, it's time for me to get some payback. But anyway, you guys think this is a good idea? I really want to play around customizing my own mod. I already changed UUs, other units and other settings..I just have the general sets to figure out then I'm set

[Hurricane]

Reducing the max research time to only 24 turns is sure unbalancing the game, since the 0% research strategy becomes even more viable. As we all know, the AI won't ever use this strategy.

City size OTOH might even be a small advantage for the AI, especially on the harder levels when they grow faster. Larger cities early means a wide city spacing is less bad as otherwise, which is good for the AI.

30 turns GA sounds awfully long, as they are extremely powerful already. This means it is vital to time the GA well, and means it largely will boil down to which civ you play. A civ with a middle age UU (like the Japanese or Chinese) will probably benefit most of this change.

[Knightblade pDM]

So don't do the changes at all then? I don't want the game unbalanced at all and give the AI and even bigger advantage in the tech race. I play on Regent, and sometimes find myself way back in tech because of my warmongering. When I get the GL I'm back on track and after that I pull away and annhiliate the AI

[cracker]

Knightblade,

I have been following your other posted threads. Not to chase you around but definately to try and figure out how to help you out.

I downloaded the save game you posted and looked at you position and play style.

Do not mod the game at this point becasue you existing style of play is not very effective. Your openning moves seem to be weak, slow, and helter skelter. This translates into a weak empire that is not strong enough to support you in making all the tactical and strategic mistakes that you are still making in the game.

You can fix these problems by reading some competent strategy articles and learning some of the key skills that they present.

The first article you should read is the article on:

Improving your Opening Play Sequences

(when the server comes back up on 9/13 you should read the article and play with some of the test scenarios to get a better feel for what you should be doing in the first 50 turns of the game.

Regent is a fairly easy difficulty level to win at once you know the basics of how to play the opening game.

Modifying the game when you do not yet understand how to play the basics, will really degrade your ability to play the game or get help in finding the skills that will make you a better player.

After you get your opening play upgraded to a functional level, I would guess that you will need to practice some skills with letting your AI rivals live long enough to do some important work for you (research techs, build roads and stuff, clear jungle) while you strategically deny them the resources that might make them a major threat to your survival. (you want to play as some non-industrious civ and play next to France, China, America, or Egypt to get a better impression of why this is an important skill).

You also need to master the value of using units with increased mobility. Most novice players have to make a transition to understanding how valuable horesmen can be if you truly get a handle on the attack and defense values of units in combat. The player how can understand and master the conditions where horsemen can dominate the world will almost always perform better than the player that always relies on swordsmen (use the Iroqs to first learn these skills and then switch to the Egyptians). We have a second detailed strategy article up and available for you to read to help you gain a better understanding of how mobile unist should be used:
War Chariots in a Campaign Against Japan
(again this link may not be up on 9/13 but keep trying)

Keeping working at the Regent level and avoid the temptation to mod the game until you have a better handle on how the software works.

Good luck,

[reefer addict]

Most of my games are over before nukes and MI/MA. So I want to speed things up a little bit [/QUOTE]

if your winning that early and easy you should move up to monarch or emperor, you wont be killing off everyone in the middle ages and will probally have alot more of a challenge.

the down side of changing the max time for research is your units will be obsolete by the time you build them.

emperor means you start off slow and behind in tech most of the early game but can usually pass the ai when you get to the industrial age, the ai seems to drop the ball when it comes to modernizing and gives you a chance to catch up in time to have some serious modern warfare

[Knightblade pDM]

Thanks for all the help and pointers Cracker. Every CPU game I play I catch on early to. I never had any strategy problems with games until I purchased Civ III LOL. So I thought I can just pick it up, play and win. I'm playing another game now, as Japan(drew it randomly) on a Standard map with 7 other civs. if I upload this game, do you want to take a look at it?? My closest neighbor in that game is Babylon I believe. I've read the "..Opening Moves.." thread before, but for some reason it won't sink in. But I'll C&P them and read them offline which is probably what I should've done earlier. Thanks a whole bunch Cracker..much appreciated I'll upload that game a little later in this thread

[Nosferum]

---If you're like me, the problems you had with Civ III had to do with shaking off your old Civ II habits.

[Knightblade pDM]

Nosferum..I never bought Civ II or even the original. I bought Civ III about, hhmm, early '02, maybe late '01, so I'm new to Civ completely. On top of that, I've been involved in other games that have taken more of my time

[Knightblade pDM]

Ok, this is for cracker, but anyone can download this if they like and see what's going on in this game and give me any advice if they feel they have to

It's inspired by another mod("The Balancer Mod")and I drew Japan. It's a standard size map, 7 other civs and I seem to be doing rather nicely here, better than the game cracker was talking about that he looked over earlier. LOL So any comments/advice would be much appreciated...thanks everyone

[cracker]

Mark,

Make sure you're sitting down when you read this.

I had electrodes strapped to your temples (or some other sensitive place) and then if I had a fourth button on my mouse, every time I would type a then I'd push the fourth button and give you a little psychlogical stimulation aversion so you think " I promise I will not due that dumb thing again".

Your city placement is way too spread out to build a successful empire.

You founded Osaka in 2750BC (turn 26) and Tokyo in 1950BC (turn 46). With a start position that include two bonus game resources on grassland right next to a supply of fresh water you are moving way too slow and should have settled Osaka by at least turn 19 (3100 BC) and Tokyo at least by turn 36 (2450 BC). These slow choices begin to multiply and over time you are 40% to 50% behind where you should be by this point in time. Part of the problem is that you built the temple in Kyoto in 3150 BC before you built your first settler and that was the wrong choice. You capital comes with a built in culture engine in the palace

You need a minimum of 5 cities placed in positions at distance of 2 to 4 squares from your palace city and you only have 2.

All your city governors are turned off and you have no food or production priorities set. In several cases, you have citizens sitting idle as entertainers for absolutely no reason and you have citizens working on some of the most unproductive terrain combiantions.

Every where I look, you have workers mining the plains.

You already have 12 elite military units, but 8 of those are so far back from the front lines that it would take 10 to 15 turns for you to bring them into combat and have a chance at producing a great leader.

You have over half your workers working in gangs of two to build roads and this wastes one extra worker turn out of every four turns available.

You have workers mining every square on either side of a river so there will be no possible way to get access to the river so you can irrigate the plains.

Satsuma, Tokyo, and Osaka are management eyesores wher you are wasting at least 5 or 6 shields or gold units per turn for the past 50 turns of the game.

You have three or four military units fortified in each or your five cities near your start position and none of your enemies could possibly reach these cities by land or sea and you have semi control of a choke point up near Kagoshima which would make your original core area almost unassailable. The maximum number of miltary units that should be in these core cities should be two of your weakest units if you need the military police happiness.

You are obviously headed for the Great Library but have been on the fools errand to gather all the ancient age armaments first. You started with the wheel and temples and have pursue both the horseman and sworsdman branches of the tech tree. The GL branch is your third branch of the tree.

There is some sort of goofy mod factor that restricts your ability to set the science or luxury rates to levels above 50% so you ar basically shot in both feet before your even attempt to play this game.

You already have the writing tech but have established no embassies yet. An embassy with Hammurabi would be really cheap and would show you where his capital is and if he has any resources hooked up. In this case it would also show you that you are wasting lots of time and shields by attempting to build the Oracle in your capital city. Depending on how many turns you have had writing, this is a very big mistake.

You have 10 archers and only 4 spearmen and 2 horsemen and that's way too many archers for a civ that has a UU on the horse chain. You've had horse since 2750BC for godsakes. That was 105 turns ago; you ought to rule half the world by now.

On the positive side, you're not dead yet and your enemies are really stupid.

If you have the original 4000 BC file saved, then I would stop playing right where you are and back up to the start position to see if you can fix these glaring mistakes and improve your position in the game. If this is a mod, you can use the editor to export this map and then play it with the standard rules so you won't have the current tech research screw up that seems to be built in to your game. You should be able to more than double your production power and your commerce production when playing this same start position up to the same 50AD date with a stronger opening sequence.

[notyoueither]

Strange, I've always tried to slow down tech development.

[Hurricane]

Had a quick look at the game and noticed the same things as Cracker. I would restart this one.

Just one correction to Cracker's post: this game is modded so that veterans have 5 HP:s, so he doesn't actually have any elite units.

[Knightblade pDM]

OUCH!!!!! LOL Believe me I ended that game quick soon after. That 50% research BS was just that, BS, so I quickly disposed of that mod, and didn't even bother starting the game over. What I did do is start another game. Same settings, 8 civs and I drew the Aztecs. I'm much better in this game but still not great.

Two problems that I do as a civ player and both I need to stop doing: I automate workers and I don't use Governors..two taboos around here I'm sure. Both are probably reasons why I basically suck. But the automation I'm starting to stop. The Governors on the other hand, I never got the hang of, so I never used them. What would you suggest I do? Stop playing Civ III because I suck at it and I'm giving Civ players a bad rap?? LOL

I don't like overlapping, which is why I go the max distance in tiles between cities, and if there was any overlapping, it wasn't unpurpose. In the game I'm playing now, I was much smarter in my opening sequence in my capital:

Jaguar Warrior, worker, J.W., J.W., Settler, worker, J.W., worker, J.W., Settler.

I got into a couple of early wars with Gandhi, we took cities back and forth, he currently has two of mine. It's about 800 AD or a little bit later, Middle Ages, Monarchy, and almost a grand in gold. I didn't get the Great Library or Great Lighthouse, I missed both of them by only a couple of turns(damn Zulu and Germans) which sucks because I am on an island and my Galleys keep sinking when I try to cross the waters. I'm almost purely going military, just building some happiness improvements in my cities.

I should've taken Gandhi out when I had the chance. He sneak attacked me but I fought him off. He got Swords first and seemingly made a massive army. Three turns later I got them when my city expanded to take the iron into my territory(I already had a road built to it). So now it's a Swords war. I'll post the save so you can take a look at it. I have no other communications since I can't cross the damn water. This game does not like me very much LOL

If you can give me any suggestions about the governors though it's much appreciated. I just don't have the time to practice on this game and I never really did since I bought it. If I practiced 7-8 hrs a day I'd be kicking rear, but alas, I'm getting mine royally beat

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Knightblade pDM


Two problems that I do as a civ player and both I need to stop doing: I automate workers and I don't use Governors..two taboos around here I'm sure.

No its only one taboo. The governors are generaly not well thought of. That was one thing I think you will find that is somewhat unique to Cracker's well written comments. Some people let the Governors controll mood but that also means that the governor will have the city putting too much into growth most of the time. The governor almost invariably keeps extra food production even when you are pegged out and need to finish the bloody aqueduct as soon a possible so that you can REALY grow instead of just waste food. Does the same dumb thing at twelve or when growth will throw the city into disorder.

Both are probably reasons why I basically suck.

Apparently you aren't building cities fast enough.

I don't like overlapping, which is why I go the max distance in tiles between cities, and if there was any overlapping, it wasn't unpurpose. In the game I'm playing now, I was much smarter in my opening sequence in my capital:

Overlapping helps on higher levels. It can make a significant difference because perfect city postioning won't help till your have sanitation. By then you should have the lead or at least be within striking distance of it. Packing the cities a little tighter can give you a better start at the expense of late game production. Production you won't get if you got wiped out early.

Jaguar Warrior, worker, J.W., J.W., Settler, worker, J.W., worker, J.W., Settler.

Jag, Jag, jag, setler, jag setler, next city can worry about settlers an build a barracks or temple. Unless your stuck in jungle. Then you are in trouble and will need more workers than normal. Lots more if you aren't industrious. You can use jags the same as scouts. You should have some out mapping and looking for goody huts. Its a big advantage of the Aztecs. In fact the main problem that I can see is that the darn things are likely to get your Golden Age going when you still only have city just by running into a barbarian.

You may be able to get away with just two warriors before you start building a settler but on higher levels it helps to have two for Military Police so you won't go into to disorder just before the settler is produced.

You should NOT be building those workers till AFTER you have produced some settlers. Its killing your growth. You MUST produce settlers before you can have something worth a workers time to improve. What the heck are all of them doing anyway?

If you were industrious one settler will do till you have several cities and the capitol might then want to kick out some more. As a non-industrious civ you will need more workers but NOT TILL YOU HAVE CITIES FOR THEM TO WORK ON. The first worker you get should mine TWO tiles and MAYBE irrigate one if you have a food bonus. Road both those tiles and then move on building a road to the next city site. Your capitol is only going to have three pop max while it is kicking out settlers and the same for any new cities. All your early cities should produce at least one settler each unless your capitol has some serious food bonuses and even that won't do all the settler production you need on maps bigger than standard.

[/QUOTE]

[Knightblade pDM]

Played a lot more of that game I posted earlier. I'm involved in a long drawn out struggle against India. I got Cavalry before he did, and started on Knights. Completed Sun Tzu's. Took three cities from him. Researched gunpowder and moved Muskets in to find out he was War Ellies. I have contact with all the civs(who are annoyed with me). I had an MA with Persia against Gandhi but two turns later Persia was being doubled by a then powerful Greece(now only the capital) and the Zulu.

I'm 2nd in score now thanks to India(what a war). I had *the* strongest military in the game(now I'm 4th). Captured six Indian workers, 2 catapults, and have 7 elites(knights, swords). Making about 105 gpt and thinking of just buying tech now(lowered the science to 0%, would make about 168 gpt). Germany and America(Hitler and FDR respectively) have been quiet most of the game and are the only two civs who have not been involved in a war. The world is getting ugly now, wars everywhere. And if I get started with India again, I have a feeling all hell would break loose. I REALLY want to reach the Industrial Age before they do and run over them with riflemen. Damn Gandhi!! LOL

As for the governors, I only have them taking care of the moods of the citizens in each city. All of them are size 12 and not one complaint..I actually had a mega multi-turn of WLTKD. It seems that I always do my best with the Aztecs. The workers are off automation(so proud of myself) But I AM about 4 techs behind so I need to catch up in that area..other than that..I might not win this game but I'm not a pushover either I just want to kill India then I'll be the superpower

[Theseus]

Looked at the SAV... a couple of comments:

You desperately need to build temples and barracks... it's a shame you haven;t, as they match your traits and are therefore cheap. Not the end of the world... build them NOW, ASAP!, it'll only take a couple of turns.

You don't need granaries.

One of the biggest problems with automating early workers is that they f-cking IRRIGATE!. Go back and mine all grassland, including the cow next to Tenochitlan.

Cut down the jungle!!

I would have put a defender on the mountain near Tenochitlan, and built a fort (until you extended south from there into India's territory).

You need to pack towns in more, and work on placement a little. I counted 14 useful tiles that you had foregone.

Lastly, you need to upgrade all units, and concentrate them toward the battle front. The benefit of garrisoning more than one unit is minimal, and can better be achieved through the use of the luxury slider. At the point of the SAV, I would have been building strictly Horseman in the cities that were free to build units.

Lastly, since you are religious, you should alternate between republic when at peace and monarchy when at war.

Otherwise though, you seem to be in pretty good shape.

BTW, if you turn off most of the animations, the game goes much faster.

[Knightblade pDM]

Thanks Theseus! Yeah before I completed Sun Tzu's in this game I built a few added 'Rax, upgraded all my units, and now flooding the Aztec/Indian frontline with Knights, Muskets and Swords.

I have a ways to go yet tech wise, like I said before, I'm about 3-4 techs behind. I'm not automating workers as much and I'm going to be cutting down that forest just north of my southern border. If I attack, they have a few resources I can go after so I'm planning my attack wisely.

Here's the .Sav from where I left off..I'm currently a peace with India but I want to take them down to a few cities so that I can make em my *****es

If I can get a GL then forge an army of Knights and maybe another of Muskies or Swords I think I have a decent chance of taking them out

[cracker]

Mark,

I haven't downloaded any of these last two save files to look at your game progress because I spent a good deal of time on your Japanese game and gave you some critically important advice that I feel very strongly about in your case.

Stop modding the game and stop playing the game at all until you read this article:

http://civ.strategy-gaming.com/doc/c...r/civ3_starts/

This is the same article I recommended to you 4 days ago and then again near the beginning of this thread.

If you are automating your workers, this is a strong indicator that you really need no other help other than a swift kick in the. Read the article and learn how to double or triple the power of your empire compared to what you get with automated workers. Once you know how bad this really is, you will realize how most things that go wrong or go slow in your game are because of this choice you keep making.

I would tend to disagree with Theseus' advice about the luxury slider in most circumstances. At your current skill level you need to stay away from the Luxury slider because it can waste a lot of cash when you do not know how to balance your empire or assign worker tasks.

I also generally discourage upgrading units unless there is a strategic use for the upgraded power. A few units upgraded to your strongest possible defenders and placed at strategic locations will usually hold the line. A warrior standing around doing nothing has the same value as a swordsman standing around doing nothing, it just cost you less cash.

The religious oscillation between republic and monarchy also may be a bad idea in many cases depending on the military units ratio and how overall productive your empire may be at that point in time. The one turn total losses of productivity and commerce may not be offset by the net differences between your economy with free military support vs a slightly reduced level of corruption and no military support.

Even without looking at the maps, I can tell your problems still reside in the way you are playing the opening sequences.

Read the article. I guarantee you will be gald you did.

Then set up an unmodified game to play with Babylon, Regent difficulty on a standard map. Save this game immediately at your start position in 4000BC so you will have the start position saved. Then play the game up to the end of the year 1000BC and stop.

Post the 1000BC sav file and the 4000 BC save file together in a zip file and ask for comments if you would like.

Your real task will be to go back to the 4000BC save file and then seriously read the article on Improving your opening play sequences and see if you can do a better ob while playing this exact same game position forward to the 1000 BC time frame.

This Quick start playing technique only takes about 81 turns of play really sets all the other results based on how well you develop your starting position. Everything else you are doing is really a waste of time when your ignore important tasks in the opening play sequence.

[Theseus]

Carver, that thread's a great idea... can't wait to see each of the new installments.

Re this specific game, at the time of the SAV, Knightblade had the northern half of a continent shared with the Indians. He had clearly just negotiated peace, but more warfare was inevitable... thus the recommendation for keeping his units fully up-to-date.

I suggest you read the recent thread on the use of the luxury slider, here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=61665

Nathan does an excellent job of explaining the actual mechanism and it's impacts... moderate use does not have extreme impacts, and in general I prefer encouraging newer player to experiment a little.

You're probably right about avoiding too many revolutions... Knightblade, forget what I said earlier, stick with Monarchy for the time being, at least until you have wiped India from the continent. Later, if you are going to go "builder" for a prolonged period, you may want to switch up to Republic or Democracy.

[Theseus]

Knightblade, I looked at the second SAV.

First, the bad news... at this point, you are at least 5 techs behind, not 4, as the AI civs know economics and are building Smith's. Also, you weren't aggressive enough in the last war with India... the cities you took were more or less inconsequential.

It's still OK though.

Here's what I would do (actually, I just did it) in this situation:

* Leave just one defender in each of the cities above Tlacopan and Kolhapur. Leave the weakest / oldest ones, and do not upgrade them. Move everyone else down Tenotchitlan as a rally point.

* Sell spices and silks to Germany for 15 gpt.

* Establish all remaining embassies.

* Take research down 10%... see the improvement for only 2 turns more research! STIRKE THAT: Make it 40% research on Printing Press; if lucky, the AI civs might skip this, which would be great for trading and catching up.

* Rush the Pikeman in Tlacopan and the temple in Kolhapur.

* Change all other cities to Knights, other than Leonardo's and any city that needs a cathedral.

* Redistribute the Knights so that you have a completed Maginot Line. Don;t leave any tiles with just workers on them.

* Wake up all the other workers... you are PAYING for them! Join three of your original workers, not slaves, to Kolhapur ASAP (this is for both culture flipping and to get pop over 7). Otherwise, clear all jungles and re-mine all irrigated grassland.

Basic plan: Get all available units upgraded and down to the front. Strengthen the Maginot line with Muskets. Get the attack force up to 30 Knights... maybe wait for Cavs, maybe not, we'll see in 13 turns at the end of the current peace treaty. The attack will be to permanently cripple India, gain control of some of the dyes, and extort.

I'm gonna play out a couple of turns.

ps: Evidently you had fun with Liz.

[Theseus]

* Build 4 more towns.

* Forget about Leonardo's... too many AI civs working on it. Give up, lose some shields, and turn it into a university.

* After Printing Press, Democracy... starts to catch things up.

[Theseus]

Check out the SAV.

Declared war on India; got a few alliances too, LOL.

Hit enter... you'll like it!

[Knightblade pDM]

A few hours ago, I played this game out(didn't look at the save yet Theseus but I will)

What I did was wake up all the workers, cleared those forests, mined the grasslands, established the rest of the embassies, reduced the research to 0% and caught up in tech.

I allied with Germany, Persia and America against India, but it turns out they were too busy with their own wars to really help me out. So I was on my own. Eventually I made a bunch of Knights, took 5 cities, sued for peace, a couple of techs, and gold. The Indians achieved peace with all other civs. Greece and Zulu perished. Then the focus became my way....

America and Persia ALLIED WITH INDIA!!!! Oh no!! I was fighting a war on two fronts, well three since America and Persia landed in different areas.

I was holding off America but not Persia and India. Eventually Gandhi's War Ellies and Cavalry broke through, then an Indian Army. Persia ripped me a new one as well. I lost my capital(w/Hanging Gardens) to India. Eventually, with just three cities left, I retired.

Oh well..I had fun, and I learned a lot from you guys on how to start out..and that's my toughest thing to do, start with a strong opening. Anyway..

Theseus, thank you so much for the help and suggestions. The Aztec UU brings that Golden Age way too early as I could've used it in the Middle Ages. As for England, yeah, I wiped them out way early with three Jags

Cracker, I started a new game, no modding, and no more modding until I win a few games and get to really know this game like you guys do. Believe me I feel bad enough And I know you gave me those links in the beginning, but CFC is still down, but I'll keep trying

But I'll keep playing, and if you guys want me to I'll keep posting to see what you guys think

Thanks guys