How Does this Happen ?

Getting back to Civ 3..my favorite of them all and started a new PTW Game. It still baffles me how "they" do it.

China
Playing Regent.
5 other Civ`s on a large Map ( that never works toward Victory, but I keep trying )

I know the AI has "Advantages" , but look at the comparative City sizes here.
I Road and Mine and Irrigate all over, he does none of that so how can he get so large so soon in the early AD game ? How can he feed those size Cities ?

I can see a few differences that cumulatively explain it.

A couple are in terrain use. Your cities are closer together on average, which yields fewer workable tiles per city, and thus on average smaller cities. This isn't necessarily a bad thing strategically, it just means your maximal city size will usually be smaller.

The other terrain one is that you have quite a few plains that are mined or not improved at all, such as near Yangchow and that city whose name is obscured by a Rider. Since mined/unimproved plains only gives one food, and each citizen consumes two, they quickly result in not having enough food to grow unless counterbalanced by tiles that give 3+ food apiece. Other than the wheat tiles by Yangchow, I don't see any of those near those two cities, so your growth it limited. I'd recommend irrigating more of the plains if you want better growth.

The other factor is that Persia appears to already have the Sanitation technology, allowing them to have multiple size 13+ cities. If it were just one, I'd guess it was a city with Shakespeare's Theater, but with two or more they must have Sanitation (unless the rules are edited). 870 AD is pretty early for Sanitation on Regent, but the high amount of land per civ with 6 civs on a large map likely resulted in more scientific progress per civ than usual.

Edit: Also, when you get Railroads in the near future, railroading irrigated tiles will give you +1 food in addition to the existing irrigation bonus, so that will contribute vastly to larger cities (provided you have the requisite aqueducts/hospitals to allow that).

Another point: May be the Persians have irrigated and mined their land, but you did not explored it after they have done their work.

Irrigiation, Mines, Road, Railroads and so on, will not show up until you explore them or make a map trade with someone who knows the actual state of those tiles. Knowing the tile for ages does not help here.

Actually the AI has no bonus on Regent. You play even up. It gains bonus above Regent. The cost factor is 10, same as yours. It starts with no extra units.

Your being on plains and their being on grass is the big difference. The AI is irrigate-happy, so plop them on grass and they'll always grow, often to their disadvantage because they cause themselves happiness problems and low-shield production until later in the game. But now it's later in the game, and that's a monster civ!

For the human player the rule of thumb is mine grass, irrigate plains, and you almost always want to have enough 2-food tiles per citizen per city, so on plains you have to irrigate early and often!

Why are you building Wealth in every visible city including your capital? That is almost never a good idea for most long-term strategies.

Edit: Also, how do you not know the whole world map already? In PTW you can trade maps in the ancient era.

Guys, thank you all sincerely for the detailed answers.

I`m very poor on city management starting with placements so that`s all a great help.

In the old beginnings days I had printed out "Bamspeedys" ?? article on game development but lost it on life's road...I have been looking at some of the training games but wonder if anyone can recommend some good articles on city placement & development ?

I managed to stumble to getting cities in a China PTW regent to late in the Game, but am stuck at war with the Greeks. even though I have more tech.

LowEndUserII said:

In the old beginnings days I had printed out "Bamspeedys" ?? article on game development but lost it on life's road...I have been looking at some of the training games but wonder if anyone can recommend some good articles on city placement & development ?

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I'm lazy today and don't have links handy, but it depends on terrain and your ultimate strategy. One recipe is to not move more than one or two tiles with the game-starting settler, and only do so if there is a clear advantage to doing so. Since you're playing PTW look up RCP "Ring City Placement" and be aware of a corruption calculation feature you may or may not want to consider. Try to complete settlers as you reach size 3 in each city and ensure each new city has at least two 2-food tiles to work towards a settler. When you hit the OCN Optimal City Number (10 on a standard-sized map; it will give you the "forbidden palace" message after reaching OCN and Masonry is researched.) or when you run out of room, start building "up", growing city size from the capital outward, be very choosy on buildings, grow your military and attack a neighbor when you have too many troops to support.

I managed to stumble to getting cities in a China PTW regent to late in the Game, but am stuck at war with the Greeks. even though I have more tech.

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I see Greek radar towers. They give their owners a 50% combat advantage within a certain radius of the towers. (I think they either increase defense 50% or half your attack strength; I forget exactly what they do except that they are bad for you if the enemy has them nearby.)

Also, I see a lot of rivers. If you attack across a river your attack strength is halved. Yeah, your tank stack by the gold hill is across the river from Greek infantry. If you attacked them, you were nerfed by the river and perhaps one of the towers, too--yeah, there's a radar tower 2 tiles away. The defense range is at least two tiles, so you're attacking at 25% strength I think. Whatever it is, it's bad!

Also, again with the wealth in the near-capital cities. If you're fighting a war your core cities should have barracks and be pumping out military to throw at your enemies. (Generally speaking, for most effective and fast conquest. There is actually no wrong way to play.)

Puppeteer said:

Try to complete settlers as you reach size 3 in each city

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This is a common mistake which I would not recommend. Producing settlers at size 3 slows down your settler production rate and everything else - like e.g. research - on top of it... It is especially bad, if you do it in your capital, because a capital at size 1 is a sure way to defeat... In the early phase, your capital is contributing like 90% of your empire's total production & income, so you want that town to be operating at size 5-7, not at size 1-3!!

I try to time my settlers so that they complete in the turn the town would reach size 7 (or the turn before that, if the town doesn't have fresh water). Then the town drops back to size 5 (or 4 without fresh water) upon completion of the settler and remains fully productive. And can produce the next settler much faster than it could at size 1! Not to mention that all other things get produced 4-5 times faster... In particular you'll reach Republic much faster, so you get rid of the Despotism penalty much earlier. (Which is the most important factor in the game.)
So let me repeat: building settlers at size 3 is a sure-fire way to hamper the growth rate of your empire.

Of course sometimes there are exceptions to that rule. E.g. on very small maps or in Deity/Sid games you may sometimes be forced to spit out that early settler because if you do not, the AI will have taken all the available territory (and you are too weak to conquer these AI towns early enough).
And of course sometimes there are other considerations to be taken into account, e.g. when a settler at size 3 would allow you to grab an important luxury source or horses/iron much earlier, which would then benefit the rest of your empire.
But in all other situations, waiting with the settler until you reach size 6-7 is better.

Puppeteer said:

I see Greek radar towers. They give their owners a 50% combat advantage within a certain radius of the towers. (I think they either increase defense 50% or half your attack strength; I forget exactly what they do except that they are bad for you if the enemy has them nearby.)

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AFAIK, nothing in Civ3 'decreases attack strength' as such. But many factors can increase a unit's defence strength (D-value), which is not quite the same thing -- although it has a similar effect:

Terrain:

• Flat tiles: +10%
• Marsh: +20% (C3C)
• Defending across river: +25%
• Forests/ Jungles: +25%
• Hills: +50%
• Volcanoes: +80% (C3C)
• Mountains: +100%

Units outside settlements:

• Unit-fortification: +25%
• Terrain improvements:
  • Fortresses: +50%
  • Barricades +100%
  • Radar towers: +50%(?) to all friendly units within 2 tiles (i.e. in the 5x5 grid) of the tower (not additive between towers)

Units inside settlements:

• Towns (Pop1-6):
  • no Walls: +0%
  • with Walls: +50%
• Cities (Pop7-12): +50% (replaces Wall-bonus)
• Metropolises (Pop13+): +100%

These bonuses are cumulative -- so for example, when defending a walled Town or a City (+50%) on a Hill (+50%), from an attacker who has to cross a River (+25%):

• a Spear (base D=2), will have an effective D-value of 2 + 125% = 4[.5]
• a Pike (bD=3) would have eD=6[.75]
• a Musket (bD=4) would have eD=9
• a Rifle (bD=6) would have eD=13[.5]
• an Inf (bD=10) would have eD=22[.5](!)

Combat results are rolled based on the total of the Attacker's and Defender's A and eD-values, respectively:

• Attacker's win-prob. per combat round = A/(A+eD)
• Defender's win-prob. per combat round = eD/(a+eD)

...so a Sword attacking a Spear in the above example would actually only have a win-prob. of 3/(3+4[.5]) ≈ 40% per combat round. Generally speaking in Civ3, in engagements between same-era units, full-strength city-defenders are almost always favoured over city-attackers.

That's why 'combined arms' tactics of bombardment -> fast-unit (M-value ≥ 2) attacks -> slow-unit (M=1) attacks are recommended (if possible) when attacking AI towns, especially at higher levels, especially in Vanilla/PtW (where Armies are less overpowered). By first knocking down defenders' HPs with bombardment (zero risk to your units -- albeit a relatively high risk of killing city-pop and destroying buildings in Vanilla/PtW), and/or fast units (50% retreat-prob. if redlined first vs. a 'slow' opponent), you are then less likely to take losses during subsequent assaults, because in order to survive, each successive defender has to win (significantly) more combat rounds in a row than your attacker does.

Extreme example:
A redlined 1HP Spear would have to win 5 combat rounds in a row against a full-strength 5HP eSword, to kill the attacker before the attacker scored one successful 'hit'. Even if in the situation above -- Spear in a City, on a Hill, eSword attacking across a River -- the Spear would have an overall win-prob. of only 0.6^5 = 0.077, i.e. 8% -- or to look at it another way, it would have a 92% loss-prob.!

If you're playing Conquests, use bombardment and Armies to assault cities. Bombardment will redline mil-units before pop/buildings start taking damage, and as well as being able to draw on the combined HPs of all units in the Army, units loaded into Armies get additional attack- and defence-bonuses based on the Army's size and composition (which are increased if you've also built the Military Academy).

Also, I see a lot of rivers. If you attack across a river your attack strength is halved.

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Not exactly -- see above