Hi Everyone,

First of all I'd like to congratulate Bremp on making an unbelievable score on Cheftain level. I was totally amazed to see 34 cities and researching Engineering by 1000BC. How did he do it? I tried very hard for a week and all I could do was 12 cities and researching Monarchy.

I don't know where I am going wrong. Aeson, SirPleb, Darkness, SuperSlug, Bremp - need some help.

Thanx

Even though my current game on Monarch looks like it's going to score rather well, my only position on the HOF is on Chieftain, where Bremp whooped me big time (I didn't even crack the top three), so your inclusion of me in that list of players is quite flattering, if undeserving, so I thank you. (I guess my constant posting activity can be misleading).

I'd still like to give you some advice though, but I'm not sure I can. I'm just assuming you use warm/wet/huge/pangaea like the rest of us. Experience has shown us that 5 bil gets the most grassland tiles, as well as future grassland tiles (jungle).

Have you read Bampspeedy's four turn settler article? It's pretty much gospel for us here!

I guess all I can really ask, is do you have a .sav of a 'typical' game I could look at? And having said that, what's your general strategy, preferred nation, preferred civ traits, etc?

Thanx for the advice superslug and I still believe that the praise is well founded. You are one of the top players I have come across.

My default setting is wet, warm, huge, pangea, 5 Bil, default rules, no fast production, America. I don't know how to load a .sav file on to the forum. But I will figure it out soon.

Excellent advice on Bamspeedy's article. I have a clarification on it though. Should the min population for the settler factory be maintained at 4 i.e. it should produce a settler each time it hits 6?

Thanx a mil (more like 5 bil)

In regards to the .sav, there's an attach file option on the screen when you hit post reply instead of using the quick reply box. You can also use the file upload feature described on the second page of the General Discussions FAQ.

In regards to the population amount for settler factories, I'm not entirely sure how to answer that myself...however, whenever you get a .sav up I'll be happy to look at it and provide pointers I am sure about...

The minimum starting population for a four turn settler factory depends on the tiles used and the shields they can produce. Your objective is for production to total 30 shields every four turns, and food surplus to total 10 every two turns.

An example: suppose the "best" tiles a city has are an irrigated wheat on plains, an irrigated cattle on grassland, a mined bonus grasslands, and two mined regular grasslands. And suppose there is also a forest available. (The game will put your new citizen on the forest each time you grow since you have so much extra food, giving you 2 shields extra each time you grow, before you move the new citizen to another tile.) The settler factory can work starting from size four by using the following cycle:
size 4.0: wheat(1), cattle(1), bg(2), grass(1) = 6 shields (the town always adds one of course)
size 4.5: wheat(1), cattle(1), bg(2), grass(1), forest(2) = 8 shields, 14 total
size 5.0: wheat(1), cattle(1), bg(2), grass(1), grass(1) = 7 shields, 21 total
size 5.5: wheat(1), cattle(1), bg(2), grass(1), grass(1), forest = 9 shields, settler finished

Suppose that in the same situation we replace the irrigated wheat on plains by an irrigated cattle on plains. Then you can start each cycle earlier:
size 3.0: cattle(2), cattle(1), bg(2) = 6 shields
size 3.5: cattle(2), cattle(1), bg(2), forest(2) = 8 shields
size 4.0: cattle(2), cattle(1), bg(2), grass(1) = 7 shields
size 4.5: cattle(2), cattle(1), bg(2), grass(1), forest(2) = 9 shields

If on the other hand we change the original situation so that there's no bonus grassland, just three mined regular grasslands, then you'd have to start each cycle at size 5.

That's the basics. There are also situations where you might want to start a cycle at size 3.5 or 4.5, i.e. start with the food bin half full. Another variation is a case where you have lots of shields available and can start at size 4.5 with 8 shields produced, plus 2 more on the first growth. This situation lets you produce a warrior plus a settler every four turns. A very unusual twist is when you have a lot of food available (e.g. a flood plain with wheat plus other food bonuses) - then it may make sense to have alternate turns gaining 6 food and 4 food.

About having a very fast initial build: I think the most important thing is to focus on food. If you find yourself mining a tile which could be irrigated to gain food, you should ask yourself if that's really right. It usually isn't :) Try to develop so that every bit of bonus food is used by one city or another on every turn. Micro-manage to avoid over-runs, e.g. if a city will grow next turn with 2 food, it shouldn't be getting 4 food - another city should get 2 of that food on that turn.

Another important thing to work on is granaries. (Still food :) ) It is tricky deciding when to build a granary and when not to. Difficult to give hard and fast rules for this. Some rules of thumb which should usually work:
1) Don't build a granary in a town which gains just 2 food per turn. The reason for this is that a granary doubles your food. For a town which gains just 2 food, you can build a settler faster than a granary, and that settler can go somewhere else and start gaining 2 food/turn in its own town. So producing a settler in a 2 food/turn town will gain food faster than producing a granary.
2) Almost always build a granary in an early town which gains 5 food per turn. The granary in effect doubles food, so building one in this town adds 5 food/turn to your budding empire. Exceptions to this rule:
a) If the location is very shield-poor. I.e. if it would take a long time to build the granary, or if the location can't run a four turn settler factory anyway. (Though then you should still consider a two turn worker factory.)
b) If there's another high food (say 4 or 5 per turn) location available for a new city. In that case pump a settler first to go and settle there, then build your granary.
3) Locations which gain 3 or 4 food/turn must be decided individually, usually depending on shield availability, as to whether to build a granary.

Timing of the granary is also important. You want to build it asap but sometimes your goal of maximizing food will be acheived quicker by producing a worker first to help things along.

To get to amazing expansion rates such as Bremp's 34 cities by 1000BC you'll need even more. I think that to get that kind of expansion you'll need either or both of:
1) An extremely food rich start position
2) Build Pyramids quickly. This is a subtle thing to try - it means dedicating one town early on, which reduces the very early expansion rate noticeably (that's a town which isn't producing settlers who will produce towns which produces settlers...) But having the Pyramids changes everything. It is an exception to the "don't build a granary in a 2 food/turn town" rule - getting a free granary in every town is of course highly desirable. Going for the Pyramids becomes more risky as the game's difficulty level increases.

I hope some of that helps RAj, good luck!

An often overlooked factor for building a granary is is the amount of bonus grassland the town has.

+5 food is nice, but if you spend the first 25 turns building a granary you lose a lot of growth potential. I usually use type of high-food, low-shield city as a 4-turn worker factory.

Conversely, a town with +2 food and 3 bonus grassland can easily afford a granary.

Of course the ideal situation is bonus food AND bonus grassland everywhere, like Bremp had. :)

where can i get bamspeedy's original article?

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3acad_deity_settlers.shtml

Originally posted by RAj
Hi Everyone,

First of all I'd like to congratulate Bremp on making an unbelievable score on Cheftain level. I was totally amazed to see 34 cities and researching Engineering by 1000BC. How did he do it? I tried very hard for a week and all I could do was 12 cities and researching Monarchy.

I don't know where I am going wrong. Aeson, SirPleb, Darkness, SuperSlug, Bremp - need some help.

Thanx


Hi RAj, thanks for the compliment :)

When I decide to try to play a huge map with HoF purposes, I established some conditions:
- I wanted I good starting position, allowing me to build at least one settler factory (I had 2 settler factories in my game)
- I wanted a settler from a hut early (in my game I got it in 3950BC)
- and I wanted a map with a good domination limit.
It take not one hour, nor one day, but two weeks to find such a map ;)

In recent games that I milked (like GOTM18) I didn't build enough workers and it affected directly my score. This make me think: why not to build workers in all those size 6 cities without an aqueduct?
I did it and in this chieftain game I had 701 workers in 720AD (all of them manually controled), and I basically finished to improve all the land by that turn. In 10 turns I joined them all to the cities, but I still was poducing more workers in some cities. Now I think that the more workers you have, more your population will grow. By 1000AD I had almost 5000 population (78,5% of the total I got in the map), which is a personal best.

I hope this can help you, and good luck in your game!

Now I could add another lengthy post ;) , but I think SirPleb, DaveMcW, Bremp and Superslug have said it all, so I'll just add that I totally agree with them.

"Food is King" in the early expansion stage!

I think, I found something like a bug - see a city foundation dates in that Bremp game (in city screens near a capital at 1000bc) - 3950BC, 3900BC, 3800BC - it can not be true!

Hi all,

Thanks a lot for the replies - Superslug, SirPleb, DaveMcW, Bremp and Darkness. I appreciate your inputs.

At the current stage in my game (390 AD), I have 99 cities, pop 314, acquired tiles 1214, dom limit 3662, a score of 437, researching Invention. But I am so far away from Bremp's score.

Bremp at 500 AD - 264 cities, pop 1356, acquired tiles 2541, dom limit 3721, score 1206, researching Electricity. Wow!

Superslug, I tried to upload a .sav file of the current game but I was told that the file size is too lare!!! It was only 193 kb. I will try again.

The replay shows Boston being founded in 2710BC in Bremp's game. I'm not sure why the founded date would display as 3800BC, it wasn't there until 2710BC.

I can't remember ever noticing the founded dates in my own games, or ever having them mentioned in a timeline sense for anyone elses, so it's probably just a bug that slipped through to 1.29f undetected until now. I'll look into it more.

I think we may have discovered a bug. I just took a look at my current game, and my third city has a founding date of 3800bc!

Hi all,

I have finally been able to upload the saved game. Supeslug, I'd appreciate if you could have a look and give some feedback. Thanx once again.

File: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RAj390AD.SAV

Hi all,

I have finally been able to upload the saved game. Supeslug, I'd appreciate if you could have a look and give some feedback. Thanx once again.

File: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RAj390AD.SAV

Okay, I’ve taken a look at your game and poked around in it for 20 minutes or so.
Potential Improvements:
The first thing I did was hit F4 to take a look at how you’re doing with your future citizens and slaves, um, the AI I think they’re called. I did notice you have established embassies, however, you didn’t have ROP’s with any of them. This should be done as early as possible! Given the AI’s reluctance to break deals, signing ROP’s can usually serve as a defense. I personally never build spearmen or pikemen, as I don’t need them.

On lower levels, the chances of an AI breaking a deal are slim. On higher levels, given your size compared to theirs, you can use ROP’s to get cash out of some of them. It’s just too vital to ignore.

Having said that, I’ll move on to general production. ROP’s would free up a lot of your cities production capabilities. I scrolled through and spotted less than five producing settlers. With ROP’s in place you could completely skip producing defensive units and start work on settlers the minute cities are constructed. You should be producing primarily just settlers, workers and offensive military units. The marketplaces and aqueducts should really wait until the milk phase when you secure the map.

In regards to specific production issues, the most glaring omission I’ve seen is your Forbidden Palace. You should have built it by now, with intentions of jumping the Palace itself later. Also, the Great Wall is purely defensive, thus a tremendous waste. (The Great Wall does become more effective in Conquests, but I digress).

You do have the Pyramids, which is of tremendous benefit. The only downside there is that it’s in your Capitol, so any Palace jumping will have to be done via a Great Leader, and you may not get many on Chieftain playing the Americans. (In my Chieftain game as the Chinese, I only got two and rest assured I was trying!)

Okay, on to military production. I’ve already covered the needlessness of defensive units. I did notice the AI in your game is annoyed with you and might want techs for ROP’s. I’d go ahead and do it just to secure stability. They are not going to catch up to you! So, thus endeth the warriors, pikemen and spearmen. I’d probably stop making archers as well.

I did note on the science screen that you’re beelining for cavalry. That’s generally a really good idea. However, given the few number of AI cities and the fact you’re on Chieftain, I’d stop research and use the cash to rush knights. They’re killable now. If you want to get more advanced, pillage the roads connecting your iron sources and build lots of horsemen. Then reconnect the iron, build a barracks and upgrade the whole stack at once.
Things you’re doing well:
Your city placement is extremely solid. The towns are far enough apart they won’t choke each other until after aqueducts/hospitals but close enough together you generally maintain contiguous borders. This negates most need for cultural improvements.

The need for cultural improvements is also negated by your collection of luxuries, which is seriously impressive. Five different luxuries is very good, especially given that you have dyes and incense inside your borders but just not roaded yet!

Your workers: you have 110+ workers for 100 cities. 1:1 is an extremely good ratio for an Industrious civilization. Your use of them is equally impressive, you’ve got a lot of tiles with roads and the irrigation pattern shows an adept understanding of the larger picture, considering you’ve taken the water far far from the rivers.

I noticed some of your American cities named Persepolis and Pasargadae. Kicking Xerxes teeth in early makes the Ancient Ages much more comfortable. :goodjob:

I would not abandon this game! Don’t worry about Bremp’s score, just play this through as best you can to the end so you can give yourself an idea of where you stand. If you place in the top ten, great! If not, you’ll at least know how far out you are from getting in, and you can take comfort in the knowledge that all of us learn and improve with every game.

Hope this helps…

Originally posted by superslug
I would not abandon this game! Don’t worry about Bremp’s score, just play this through as best you can to the end so you can give yourself an idea of where you stand. If you place in the top ten, great! If not, you’ll at least know how far out you are from getting in, and you can take comfort in the knowledge that all of us learn and improve with every game.

Hope this helps…

Yes, don't worry about Bremp's score. That one is just huge and it'll take a tremendous effort to beat it.

We all improve with every game played. 9 months ago I could barely beat regent, now I can 'easily' beat deity.
Try to play this one to the end, you'll learn heaps about the game, as well as your own strenghts and weaknesses and you'll benefit greatly from it.

Good luck. :)

Originally posted by Darkness

We all improve with every game played. 9 months ago I could barely beat regent, now I can 'easily' beat deity.


Just curious...as somebody who's currently comfortable in Regent and looking to move up, just as soon as I can max a big score in Regent...

If nine months from now, I'm in your shoes Darkness (beating Diety), what should I do for a new challenge? What do you do?

Originally posted by PRIMEMOVER
If nine months from now, I'm in your shoes Darkness (beating Diety), what should I do for a new challenge? What do you do?

I can't speak for Darkness, but for me there will always be challeneges. For starters, there's always the capacity to improve over whatever my last game was. Secondly, if I improve enough, I could conceivably go for the top score on the top level. Even if I were able to knock SirPleb out of the top spot (speaking very hypothetically here, he and Moonsinger are in a class of their own), I'd have to likely defend the spot, as he did recently from Markstar.

Originally posted by PRIMEMOVER


Just curious...as somebody who's currently comfortable in Regent and looking to move up, just as soon as I can max a big score in Regent...

If nine months from now, I'm in your shoes Darkness (beating Diety), what should I do for a new challenge? What do you do?

For challenges I try to get top posistions in the HoF (also on lower levels, to polish my milking skills), I play some succession games (to learn other peoples' tricks). I can still see a lot of room for improvement. I also sometimes handicap myself, for example play a bad start on deity or do AW on emperor. Or I play with different (worse) civs/traits/UU's. And when I get conquests, there are some nice scenario's in there.

All in all, I don't really need a huge challenge, I am contend with minor ones. For example, right now I'm generating maps for a HoF run at monarch. Now I know I can easily win a monarch level game with the Ottomas, but I want to try to get a huge score and maybe knock EMan of the no. 1 spot.... ;)

Hi Everyone,

I am extremely sorry for not replying to your posts earlier.. too much work.. to little time for Civ 3. Has anyone tried Conquests yet? Its awesome. I believe the sid and demi level shoud be far more tougher than the deity levels in Civ 3.

I appreciate your inputs Superslug and Darkness. I have taken your advice and picked up the game which I left half way. Here is the update - 820 AD, pop 792, tiles 1846 (out of 3662), score 860, researching Theology after completing Milatary Tradition.

In reply to Superslug's suggestions:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by superslug

did notice you have established embassies, however, you didn’t have ROP’s with any of them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I did not know that ROP's were so powerful. I will try them in my next try. I still have lots to learn about the game.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by superslug

In regards to specific production issues, the most glaring omission I’ve seen is your Forbidden Palace.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wanted to uncover the entire map and then place the forbidden palace based on it. Besides that I was also wondering if use the palace rank exploit to reduce the corruption (place cities closer to the forbidden palace). I am not sure if that is allowed, but I noticed that Bremp had used that in his HOF game.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by superslug

Okay, on to military production. I’ve already covered the needlessness of defensive units.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think I messed around with the AI's in the begining, partly bcos I did'nt like them being in my way... hehehe!

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by superslug

If you want to get more advanced, pillage the roads connecting your iron sources and build lots of horsemen. Then reconnect the iron, build a barracks and upgrade the whole stack at once.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do not completely understand how this works. Is this a good way bcos it costs lesser to make less adavanced units?

I also appreciate your comments on stuff that I am doing well. Hope that it will help me to get a decent score.

Hi Everyone,

I am extremely sorry for not replying to your posts earlier.. too much work.. to little time for Civ 3. Has anyone tried Conquests yet? Its awesome. I believe the sid and demi level shoud be far more tougher than the deity levels in Civ 3.

I appreciate your inputs Superslug and Darkness. I have taken your advice and picked up the game which I left half way. Here is the update - 820 AD, pop 792, tiles 1846 (out of 3662), score 860, researching Theology after completing Milatary Tradition.

In reply to Superslug's suggestions:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by superslug

did notice you have established embassies, however, you didn’t have ROP’s with any of them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I did not know that ROP's were so powerful. I will try them in my next try. I still have lots to learn about the game.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by superslug

In regards to specific production issues, the most glaring omission I’ve seen is your Forbidden Palace.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wanted to uncover the entire map and then place the forbidden palace based on it. Besides that I was also wondering if use the palace rank exploit to reduce the corruption (place cities closer to the forbidden palace). I am not sure if that is allowed, but I noticed that Bremp had used that in his HOF game.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by superslug

Okay, on to military production. I’ve already covered the needlessness of defensive units.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think I messed around with the AI's in the begining, partly bcos I did'nt like them being in my way... hehehe!

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by superslug

If you want to get more advanced, pillage the roads connecting your iron sources and build lots of horsemen. Then reconnect the iron, build a barracks and upgrade the whole stack at once.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do not completely understand how this works. Is this a good way bcos it costs lesser to make less adavanced units?

I also appreciate your comments on stuff that I am doing well. Hope that it will help me to get a decent score.

Originally posted by RAj
I still have lots to learn about the game.

Raise your hand here if you don't have more you can learn! Anyone? Anyone? That's what I thought...
Originally posted by RAj
I am not sure if that is allowed, but I noticed that Bremp had used that in his HOF game.

It's legal. SirPleb illustrated the power of this, and so several of us have taken it up as habit.
Originally posted by RAj
I do not completely understand how this works. Is this a good way bcos it costs lesser to make less adavanced units?

Horsemen are cheaper to make. You can make them faster than more advanced units in your noncorrupt zones. The money you use to upgrade them can be generated anywhere. Costs less? That's relative. For me, the advantage is the speed.

Hello Everyone,

I am back. I moved recently bcos of a job change. Everything was crazy. No internet connection. My computer kept crashing. Looks like I can resume with the game and also this post. While playing I came across something interesting. Here goes

When you destroy the last city any AI, it respawns with pretty much the same configs. Configs - what I mean by that is - they get a new city somewhere on the map with 2 spearman, 1 Archer & a 100 gpt. I have seen this happen every time I destroyed the civ on the same turn (after respawning). Any Comments?

so, switch of the AI respawn option when you start a new game. That'll be the end of that problem... :)

Hi, My first post here, been playing civ since it first came out but have only just got the internet on due to remote location.
I have been looking at Bremps game bec i have been planning an attemt at HOF chieftan level and yes it is an amazing game. I have a question tho to you folks who have been here for a while. I loaded up his saves in the Multitool utility and it seems that from his 4000bc start that he unchecked the option "Allow cultural Conversions'. Is this allowed in the rules, and if not how much would the score be affected by? I know in some of the practice runs I have had that by concentrating on settler farming and hoseman building to the detriment of culture that when I have gone to war and captured cities a lot of them have assimilated back to their civ again bec of this play style.

Originally posted by Muldoon
Hi, My first post here, been playing civ since it first came out but have only just got the internet on due to remote location.
WELCOME TO CFC MULDOON! :band:

@Muldoon: There is not an option when playing Civ 3 v1.29f when it comes to allowing cultural conversions.......you CANNOT switch it off! :)

Looks like Bremp's game was played under 1.29f, so ACC was switched on automatically.

I say he played 1.29 only because it is in his saved zip filename on the HOF List.

Help Me: For some reason, and perhaps someone could enlighten me, I was ABLE to download his zip file but was UNABLE to see (using Windows Explorer) any files inside the zip folder. :confused:

AND Muldoon, Welcome to CFC. :)

Thanks Eman,

Didn't think to check the version - (turns red @ slaps himself):crazyeye:

Sorry Bremp for calling your integrety into question.

Eman- not sure why you can't see the files, had no prob. myself

Thanks for the welcome guys:goodjob:

AFAIK Bremp always plays with vanilla civ 1.29f. He always did for the GOTM anyway...