AU 107: Hints and Tricks

[Catt]

Please use this thread to post non-spoiler help and game tips for others. Obviously the subject of a tip may bear directly on some of the challenges of AU 107, and that's fine - but let's try to avoid "Attack the %^&$#^ first" sorts of tips.

The end-goal is general gaming tips that occur to you as you play (and that otherwise never seem to make it into a 'Poly thread or post).

[Catt]

Growth is the key strategic imperative in Civ III. More citizens working tiles or acting as specialists produce more shields or commerce. Shields and commerce win the game. But in order for a citizen to produce shields or comerce, that citizen must be fed! Food scarcity can therefore impose significant restraints on even the most shield- and commerce-rich environments.

Absent any special bonus resources (such as wheat, cows, game, fish or whalees, and some luxury items) flood plains and grasslands are the only terrain types that produce 2 or more food bushels per turn during the ancient (despotic) age - which means that they are the only two terrain types capable of fully supporting a working citizen. Tundra, hills, mountains, plains, jungle, forest, coastal, sea and ocean tiles all produce less than 2 food bushels -- a citizen working this tile only produces half (or less) the food necessary to support him -- unless another citizen is producing 3 or more food bushels per turn, the citizen working any of these tiles will begin to starve. Irrigated plains produce 2 food and therefore support a citizen laborer.

In food-lean environements, the player can direct his or her scientific research efforts in order to enhance food production. Building a harbor in a coastal city acts as a "mass tile improvement" for all surrounding coastal and sea squares -- they now produce 2 food bushels when worked, allowing a citizen working such a tile to support himself. A change in governements allowing an empire's citizens more freedom also spurs increased food productivity -- tiles that produce only 2 food under a despotic government may begin producing 3 food under a Republic or Monarchy -- irrigated grasslands for example produce only 2 food while a despot reigns -- but crown a king or hail an Emperor and the same irrigated grasslands will produce 3 food -- allowing not only self-support but also partial support for an additional citizen.

A player can also direct his workers to aid in food production for the cities. While forests produce only 1 food per turn, workers may clear forests to reveal the underlying terrain -- if the underlying terrain is grassland or plains, it will support a laboring citizen (provided the plains are irrigated, of course).

Finally, remember that a city tile itself always produces 2 food bushels. Even if a city is founded on tundra, the city tile will produce 2 food and therefore support a citizen. In food-scarce environments, it can be quite important to avoid locating new settlements on scarce grassland or plains tiles - it may be better to find a nearby hill or tundra tile which, when hosting a city, will produce 2 instead of only 1 food, and which will allow a citizen laborer to work the adjacent or nearby grasslands or plains tile.

Catt

[alexman]

Also, don't forget granaries! Although these buildings don't actually change the number of citizens that can be supported by the surrounding terrain, a town with a +1 food surplus and a granary grows as fast as a town with a +2 surplus without one. Build some granaries to grow your cities faster and to pump out workers to clear the forests and irrigate.

[Chemical Ollie]

Where did the AU 106 spoiler thread go? It's not on the top list any longer and it's not where it was this morning either. Am I the only one still (re-)playing it? My game crashed twice at the same spot, at the AI turn 1900 AD. Crap! This would have been on my top-5 high-score list and my second best on emperor level. I was fu**ing winning, so why did it chrash?

I do not like the settings of AU 107 and I believe much less will try it than AU 106. I see 2 choises now:

1) Start a tour of my own, with special rules.

2) Give CtP2 a chance. I played 2 hours of it last night... Even Vel is playing it!

Naw, that game sucks! A minitour it is! Look for the "Luxury Conquest" thread!

Edited typos.

[Theseus]

Here's my first tip: be ready for stress.

OK, for real, when on inclement terrain, PACK your towns in. Again, look at Aeson;s original SVC thread for his Borg approach... not necessarily at first, you want to start with the best sites, but then there's no reason not to backfill the slow zones.

Watch every penny... negotiate every deal (don't just take what an AI civ offers).

Mine almost everything, but when you've got limited decent tiles, you'll want to re-work some after you've gotten to Monarchy or Republic. Shielded grassland is best irrigated then, assuming you've got some hills around.

You are going to be weak and tech-poor for a long time... act accordingly, but be thinking about when you'll break out.

Above all, don;t be discouraged... Txurce's peaceful deity threads are like prayer beads.

[Theseus]

New tip, from my second go-around.

You are Mighty Rome. Your strengths are Legionaries, and Mil /Com.

Act accordingly, in your building and in your research.

[DaveMcW]

Build the Forbidden Palace near the center of your island as soon as it becomes available. (You probably should make getting 8 cities a priority).

You'll have noticeably less corruption, and later when you have decent holdings on the mainland you can move your palace there.

Even a pop 2 city working two unimproved hills can finish FP in 67 turns.

[Theseus]

Dave, GOOD call.... it may take a while, but a local FP is a must.

Continuing my series of non-spoiler tips:

Audaces fortuna juvat.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Olaf Hårfagre
Where did the AU 106 spoiler thread go? It's not on the top list any longer and it's not where it was this morning either. Am I the only one still (re-)playing it? My game crashed twice at the same spot, at the AI turn 1900 AD. Crap! This would have been on my top-5 high-score list and my second best on emperor level. I was fu**ing winning, so why did it chrash?
Edited typos.

A few months ago, it seemed like there was a void threads slipped into for a while between the time they got bumped off the first screen of threads and the time they appeared on the second. I don't know whether it's still there or not. Anyhow, the thread showed up again and I posted on it.

One possible thought on dealing with the crashes might be to back up to an auto-save from a couple turns before and try doing a few things differently. That might or might not work, depending on what caused the crashes.

Nathan

[Catt]

When selecting a city location in my average game, I usually give very short shrift to terrain defensive conditions -- I instead look for settler placement that will allow an efficient utilization of nearby terrain and resources and count instead on superior forces and human tactics to crush any AI offensive.

Placing a city on hills, tucked in the crooks of nearby rivers, adds a 75% defensive bonus to the town's defending units and 125% if the town grows into a city -- assuming the units are fortified in the town / city, that bonus goes up to 100% and 150%, respectively. A legionary now defends at 6 and 7.5 respectively, and a musketman defends at 8 and 10 respectively.

When establishing settlements in a foreign land, especially one inhabited by aggressive and technologically / industrially superior foes, strongly consider the defensive bonuses available from the natural terrain -- they may be far more important to your civ in the long run than moving to a less defensible city location that allows the city to capture a nearby shielded grassland.

Catt

[nbarclay]

This is probably too late to do much good this game, but here goes:

On a bad map on a hard difficulty setting, the Great Library can be truly fantastic if you can get it. It's a serious gamble since if the AI beats you, you may waste a lot of shields and also waste some luxury slider gold helping the city that was trying to build it get big. But if you get it, you can catch up and keep up in research until Education while building up a huge financial war chest. The interesting thing is that city-wise, you can do it almost as easily with only one really good city as you can with a bunch of them.

Nathan

[Theseus]

Chiming in...

Nathan, you keep DOING WHAT I DON't, and BETTER!

I DIDN'T do the GLibrary here, to my regret.

We've had a couple of similar situations... what are your thoughts on when to go for the GLibrary or not, when isolated??

[vmxa1]

How about when you are on a small land mass or island on emp/deity and have less than stellar lands. By the time you get to where you have the tech to build it you have seen all of the land in that situation and now know you are are in trouble.

[nbarclay]

The general rule for the Great Library is that the less competitive you'll be able to be in research, the more important the Great Library is.

In AU 106, I built the Great Library but wasn't about to rely on it for my research. For one thing, due to the special nature of the game, cutting research back to zero would mean waiting until an AI discovered Navigation to get any more techs - definitely not a viable proposition. For another, I had a pretty decent home continent and, given that the game set-up didn't give the AIs a lot of contact with ech other either, I felt that I had a good prospect of matching or beating the AIs in research. (I always prefer to be the tech leader if I can pull it off, and a Great Library-based approach is simply not compatible with a tech leadership strategy.)

AU 107 was an entirely different proposition. With such a horrible starting position, there was absolutely no conceivable way that I could even begin to be competitive with the AIs in research. That meant my only options for not staying hopelessly behind were either to build the Great Library or to beat techs out of the AIs. Of the two, the Great Library gambit would be both more powerful and less painful - if I could pull it off. I would have tech parity going into my fights instead of having to wait until a war was over, and I could spend more time in builder mode instead of in warmonger mode.

Also (and this isn't too much of a spoiler even if someone hasn't started yet), fairly early in the game, I saw another civ's borders across the water. That told me that at least one civ was in easy galley range, and with even the tiniest bit of luck, there would be others. So I didn't have to worry seriously about getting stranded if I stopped researching and waited for the Library to do its thing.

So even though both games started us on a land mass by ourselves, everything else was as different as night and day. And it was those other factors, not the type of land mass we started on, that were critical to the decision of whether to try to compete in research or settle for tech parity through the Great Library.

Which brings me back to my original sentence: The general rule for the Great Library is that the less competitive you'll be able to be in research, the more important the Great Library is.

Nathan