The first 10 turns.

I'm not exactly a newbie to Civilization III but I am far from an advanced player. Recently, however, I have found myself playing more and more and my enjoyment of the game has increased exponentially. I have always had a competitive nature and find myself taking on Civ 3 as a whole new experience in my past few games. Unfortunately, I am apparently not that good. I haven't won a single game...ever I think.

I got into a discussion with a friend of mine that is a huge Civ fanatic and we agreed that in many ways a game of Civ can be determined by what you do in the first 10 turns. I thought maybe that might be a few too little, but after watching a few of my post game replays I realized there might be something to it.

Most AI civs seem to have three or four cities by the team I'm settling my second. I have a hard time managing production of workers, warriors to guard my capital, warriors to explore, and settlers in the early game and I really feel that my income, production, and resource management in my early game is flawed. At the beginning of the game, after a few turns have passed, you get that pop up that tells you your standing with other civs in culture, wealth, etc. I am always mediocre or forgettable for about the first three or four times that pop up. I usually get higher in the rankings later on but I am always behind in techs, wonders, money (which I have huge problem with throughout the game...I never seem to keep a steady positive cash flow), number of cities, etc.

So in the spirit of conversation I was wondering if a few of you great civ players could help me out and give me a few hints. I would like to see a few posts from games that break down your first ten turns as to exactly what you did, how you spent your money; basically a detailed analysis of your early game. If that is too much a short break down would be nice as well.

I've really gotten addicted to civ 3 but now I'm tired of loosing. I've found a lot of great strategies and tips at CivFanatics but I really need some one-on-one early game tutoring.

Thanks a bunch.

Revenant One

I'd say the first hundred turns.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=91948

QSC says the same about the turns up to (and including) 1000bc which is more than your suggesting. But I dont exactly know how many turns that is.

Up to 1000 BC is 80 turns

It also depends on the level you are playing at, the higher you go the faster the computer starts. I'd recommend you take a look at some of the succession games to find some ideas and follow how others might do it.

My first ten turns are spent building a warrior and getting my worker to build the right thing on the right square.

The first 10 to 30 turns a the hard beginning. There is a great article about improving your opening game in the war academy.

You're not getting another city in the first ten turns anyway without a popped settler, or two flood plains and three forests... but that only gets you a settler in eight (you need to chop two forests), so your second city would be two tiles away...

Tomoyo said:

You're not getting another city in the first ten turns anyway without a popped settler, or two flood plains and three forests... but that only gets you a settler in eight (you need to chop two forests), so your second city would be two tiles away...

Click to expand...

Surely two flood-plains with wheat, being the Maya (Agr+Ind) is the only way. Because your poor worker can only do one thing at a time and those bare fps in despotism still only give 2 food.

Calculations, assuming settle-in-place, non-Agr, non-Ind:
T1 (size 1): +4f, +1s, worker->forest1
T2 (size 1): +4f, +1s, worker chops(1)
T3 (size 1): +4f, +1s, worker chops(2)
T4 (size 1): +4f, +1s, worker chops(3)
T5 (size 1): +4f, +13s, worker completes chop
T6 (size 2): +6f, +1s, worker->forest2
T7 (size 2): +6f, +1s, worker chops(1)
T8 (size 2): +6f, +1s, worker chops(2)
T9 (size 2): +6f, +3s, worker chops(3)
T10 (size 3): +5f, +13s, work completes chop, settler produced (6 shields wasted)

Maya (Agr+Ind) assuming settle-in-place by fresh water:
T1 (size 1): +5f, +1s, worker->forest1
T2 (size 1): +5f, +1s, worker chops(1)
T3 (size 1): +5f, +1s, worker chops(2)
T4 (size 1): +5f, +13s, worker completes chop
T5 (size 2): +7f, +1s, worker->forest2
T6 (size 2): +7f, +1s, worker chops(1)
T7 (size 2): +7f, +3s, worker chops(2)
T8 (size 3): +6f, +11s, worker completes chop, settler produced (2 shields wasted)

Bartleby said:

Up to 1000 BC is 80 turns

Click to expand...

The quick start challenge covers that turn as well, i.e. 81 turns. Conventionally, 4000 BC is named turn 0 and 1000 BC turn 80.

To make a good start, try the following:
1) Be prepared to start a couple of games, you are looking for a good start area with a couple of Cattle or Wheat squares, a river is obviously good, as are some hills for shields later. Don't shy away from starting again if the area looks poor.
2) I usually play as the English, on a Huge map (I like long games). And always start by building a second scout, the bonuses from this are variable but it is worth noting that Expansionist Civs NEVER activate barbarians when investigating Barb. huts. On a good day your Scouts can find you half a dozen techs, a new settler, and some cash right at the start of the game for virtually no cost to yourself. Of course all this is academic if you don't have access to scouts.
3) Build 2 warriors for defence/military police.
4) GET YOUR WORKER MOVING! build roads on all good squares, build mines or irrigation on the best squares, use your head, you want to get 4-6 really good squares for later.
5) Once your defences are in place, build a granary, i know it seems to take forever, but DO IT!
6) Hopefully by now your Capital is about size 5. Now see how long you take to build a settler; maybe 5 turns? Note that with good tiles and the granary your population will grow in 2 turns, so you don't have to worry about the city shrinking and being unable to build the settler as fast. You also get bonus Shields of production when a city grows (if I remember correctly)
7) SETTLER FACTORY ONLINE! If you micromanage your city properly, ie; you check your production/pop growth each turn to maximise city output, you can build a settler in 4 turns without the city shrinking. Build half a dozen or so and you will outstrip the AI civs in 20 turns or so and can then concentrate on having fun for the rest of the game.

General tips:
I like to build a worker to improve every city radius.
Build roads between all cities, for trade and to aid defences.
Build Temples to prevent cultural conversions.
It is vitally important to use Courthouses to reduce corruption in distant cities (and Police Stations later on ).
Use one city to pump out military units, it doesn't matter if it doesn't grow, you need to defend yourself.

There should be a guide to making a settler factory around this site somewhere. Also discussions on how to place all your cities - eg using ICS (Infinite city sprawl) tactic, whereby you place loads of cities close together, to maximise use of land and reduce corruption to a minimum early in the game, rather than spread out to get maximum benefit later on - bearing in mind that you won't use more than 12 tiles around a city until the industrial age.

I wasn't really thinking at the time, I think the first 10 terms was a conceptual Idea representing the "early game" rather than being literal and I just presented it that way here. Realistically not much could get done in 10 turns so I'm more asking about strategy in say, about the first 30-40 turns...the part where you are setting up your empire, feeling things out, and trying to get that first nudge of power.

I've read the great article on improving opening moves and it was pretty good but a bit hard to get through at times. Still not sure if I could ever just look at the map and know what to build where off the top of my head.

I've also tore through the war room. There are a lot of really nice articles that have helped me out a bunch, just not on what I'm doing wrong so early.

Thanks for that 100 turns article though, that was helpful.

By the way, right now I"m on a standard map playing on the level above monarchy...don't remember what the name is right now because I"m working 3rd shift and just about off and can't keep my eyes open.

You said you havent won a single game yet but you play on a difficulty higher as monarchy

maybe you should try to win on lower difficulties first before trying higher difficulties.

Drop a level to regent. As you have played a few times, you should have the gameplay basics alread. At regent, the AI doesn't get any production bonuses over you, so you'll be able to keep pace earlier. Mostly importantly though, don't worry if you are a bit behind early. You can easily catch up as the game progresses.

If you can post a save, or even a screenshot, it'll be easier for people to give you some more specific pointers.

Più Freddo said:

The quick start challenge covers that turn as well, i.e. 81 turns. Conventionally, 4000 BC is named turn 0 and 1000 BC turn 80.

Click to expand...

It's truly scary how long it took me to figure that out.

On-topic @ RO: Why not start a game and post a few screenshots or saves? That might help pinpoint what you could do better. As for dropping back down a level, don't, unless you're really really sick of losing. If you start getting good habits now and get a little guidance, there's no reason you won't be able to win a Monarch game within your next few tries.

Renata

You can't really say its the first 10 turns or the first 100 turns.

The point is, the first turns are very important, and the last are least important. The impact of what you do in your turns steadily declines from the beginning to the end.

You probably already read it: growth is what its all about.
Early in the game, if you delay your settler factory by 2 turns to build a warrior, you must realise that those 2 turns imeadiately translate into 2 turns for the rest of the game. all your settlers will be 2 turns later, all your cities will be 2 turns later, everything you build with all your cities will be 2 turns later, your victory will be 2 turns later.
And that is not even counting the disadvantage you get from the AI being a little harder to conquer when you try to do so 2 turns later.
As you get more cities, the importance of what you do with 1 city is reduced proportionaly.

Therefore, be very very carefull what you do in the beginning to get your growth going as fast as possible. Try to get that factory running asap at all costs. If no factory, try to get those first settlers out asap at all costs.

On the other hand of course, that warrior is not totally wasted, it might in the very best situation, even pop a settler from a goody hut, it might save you from destruction and it might find opponents to trade technology with.
So i am not yet saying you should not build one, but before doing so, realise the immense cost of building this warrior and surely think twice about it.

So you come to building settlers, workers and granaries in early game. You need to make decisions between those continuously. That is a hard part.
I can tell you that building a worker before settler/granary is not beneficial in 95% of the situations. I can tell you to build a granary in cities with a food bonus. Build settlers without granary from cities with no food bonus and no extraordinary production. There are guidelines for these things, but still you will find many situations where the choise is not gonna be obvious.
Perfectionist players use excel sheets to calculate and predict the outcome of the different choises to make.

If you just realise that the sole target of the early game is to make as many cities and citizens as possible and that building anything not related to that comes at a very high price, you should come a long way

I am too lazy to find the link now, but offa has made a partly automated excel sheet to do these calculations for the first 20-30 or so turns in the game.

PS: i do not neceserily agree with the posters suggesting a lower level. If you are really a serious and competetive player willing to learn every espect of the game by both putting some serious thought in it and reading every thing you can find on the web, you could do it like i did:
I started at deity from the start, during my first 6 games, i spent more time reading, thinking, reasoning and calculating than playing, but after 6 games (about a month of spending all my spare time on it) i did win on deity.
If you are really serious about learning the game, i think this is the fastest way to get there.

The one value of playing a few games at a lower level is that you become familiar with how the AI does things. This makes it easier to adjust as you move up the ladder.

Some of the early Gotm games had very detailed logs of step by step actions. You could find one that covers a game that is close to what your settings are and see if it helps.

You won't do the first turns exactly the same in every game, even at the same level. You find you have different terrain and resources and neighbors. You have different traits and so you have to change things.

I mean one time you start with Pottery and another you do not. One you have bonus food tiles the next you don't.

In the main players fall behind at Emperor and fail to catchup when they do not expand and improve their holdings. What you see frequently is that they have wide spacing and too few workers. Too few mines and too much irrigation. They have mined mountains before other tiles (burning lots of worker turns).

They do not get in a hole by their choice of build queue. Yes they may not have an optimal one, but it is rarely so bad as to be fatal. They may build more structures than they can support comfortably and build structures in some towns that makes no sense, but even these are only keeping them from doing their best, not killing the game.

I'm not really into dropping down a level. I usually plays games at the hardest level from the start but Deity is a little too humbling for me...I like to at least know that I'm in the game when I get my butt kicked. Deity whoops a newbs butt to much for me. So I started just above the half way point in difficulty instead.

Here is a save from a game I played on monarch/standard last night that is really weird. My goal was to build a bunch of Gaelic swordsman and own the continent quickly, which didn't exactly happen. I managed to take control of the southern half of the continent that I was on and got had some pretty good resources around me. I built up a good army and gained techs real fast but I noticed something strange. At no point, to where the save is now, like 750 AD, has any of my cities had even the ability to build a single wonder. I'm essentially getting my arse whooped in all areas now even though I own half the continent.

Why not try out an old GOTM, and then compare your start with some strong players. It's certainly how I learnt, and is more fun than solo games.

I agree the first ten moves are vital, with a real potential to ruin your game. Whether to move the settler is a big question that has to be considered unless you are already in a peachy spot? Then you need to work out how to set up the city quickly, and decide whether or not to build scouts/warriors etc first. There is a bit of luck involved in some of these decisions of course but you can try to maximize your chances of making the right choices.

Thans not a bad idea. Thanks, offa.

Contructive criticism on your savegame:

-It is 750 AD and you're still in the ancient age. I dont know if you've not been trading with the AI or what, but dont forget to check the trade window often if not every turn. However, the AI is NOT that far ahead of you; the wonders being built are Leo's and Knights Templar. I would increase tech speed to catch up a bit (you can get currency in 5 rather than 12 w/ no loss) and build more cities towards that end. With some extortionary research by warfare, you should be able to catch up soon. This game is certainly no where near lost, Ive got faith in you.

-Next game, work hard on expansion, city placement, and placing your cities a bit closer to each other. Your city to the south cant grow any larger because it was poorly placed; if you had put it west a tile or two it could use the grass and more fertile land there. You have room for 5 or more additional cities in your empire, and a lot of unworked tiles. Construction may have made more sense to research than currency for some aqueducts in those size 6 cities, or at least get it via trade.

-Try to practice getting 10-20 cities built by 1000 BC on non-desert starting locations; that may help your expansion experiences.

-For the early game here if I were you (from what I can remember of your map's layout) I would build a warrior (send him out as a scout, since you have no size 2 happiness problems at monarch), 2 MP warriors, and then a granary since you start with pottery. For the most part, settlers would follow, interspersed with a warrior or two. City 2 I would have founded NE on the river, City 3 NW or west. My first build in those cities would probably be a worker.

-I cant remember your capital's layout, but I dont think it had a food bonus. Therefore for early worker moves I would mine, and then road the bonus grasses surrounding Entremont in the early going.

-For research, I would have gone either Mysticism or alphabet. It seems you had a number of scientific civs in the game who all start with bronze working for trade. If your chosen goal was to dominate/conquest early, a trade for bronze and a run on iron would have then been in order. If not, or if you wanted a non-despotic golden age, writing and its progeny would have been good to get.

I dont know if any of this helps at all, but there it is.