Need advice for higher difficulties on huge maps

I have been playing Civ III for many years now but most of time have been used playing different scenarios (love history). However, a month ago or so I decided that I wanted to beat this game on the higher difficulties (hopefully on Sid in the end). I have been reading through some training games and really been surprised about how incredible bad I was before I feel that I have improved a lot (beat emperor pretty easy and now progressing in DG) but I still have some questions which I hope you guys can help me with.

My approach is using the easiest settings until I have been beating Sid (meaning mayans on huge achipelago maps with 60% water right?), then trying to randomize my civ and playing smaller maps afterwards.

Now on to the questions

1. Empire construction - Okay so my general understanding of how the experts do this, is building a core (size depending on map size) which gets fully optimized and then everything outside the core functions as either settler/worker factory or science/gold farms depending on what you need. Have I understood this correct?

2. City placement - I quickly learned that I should be placing cities way closer (something like distance 3-4 for first ring and 5-6 for second ring for standard map size), however does that also count on huge maps? I think it would make sense to place them further apart since the core needs to get bigger for the late game or am I way off?

3. Forbidden palace - What I think I have learned so far is that the FP should be placed in a commerce/shield rich city to get the most out of it. However I have a hard time to figure out how far away it should be placed from out capitol and how many rings of cities it can support.

I have more questions but lets start with these first

Of course everyone is more than welcome to help answer these questions but I would in particular be happy if I could get the attention of Lancelot, bede and templar_x since they have been the experts on the best training games I have read

Tonnypikhoved said:

I have been playing Civ III for many years now but most of time have been used playing different scenarios (love history). However, a month ago or so I decided that I wanted to beat this game on the higher difficulties (hopefully on Sid in the end). I have been reading through some training games and really been surprised about how incredible bad I was before I feel that I have improved a lot (beat emperor pretty easy and now progressing in DG) but I still have some questions which I hope you guys can help me with.

Click to expand...

Up until recently I was a struggling Monarch player, but for the last 5 months or so I have been playing an Emperor SG with Lanzelot, and a lot of his wisdom has rubbed off (I hope!). I'm planning to play my next couple of games at Emp and then DG, so I hope you won't mind me putting in my 2 cents' worth...

1. Empire construction - Okay so my general understanding of how the experts do this, is building a core (size depending on map size) which gets fully optimized and then everything outside the core functions as either settler/worker factory or science/gold farms depending on what you need. Have I understood this correct?

Click to expand...

Yes, but it's not EITHER Settlers/Workers OR science/gold, its EITHER science OR gold, from Specialists who are supported by excess food production (from railing+irrigating all the surrounding tiles). What you build in an irredeemably corrupt 'farm' is a separate choice, with the option to build Workers or Settlers (or Artillery or Ships or Defenders) depending on the size/location of the town.

Usually the outlying 'farms' only generate 1-SPT even at Pop12, so you'll build units very slowly (and it's usually not worth building more than 1 cheap building -- if that -- in a corrupt town). If you are lucky enough to get a 2-SPT town, it can build unit(s) a little bit quicker (well, in half the time!), but by the time you're farming, Settlers are really only needed to fill in gaps/build more farms. Once you've done that, you can build whatever you want/need most.

You can use Workers from established farms to quickly pump up newly-built farms to their maximum potential size, or to improve terrain (if it still needs doing) -- but any you keep running around free will almost certainly be costing you unit-maintenance (=2GPT per unit under Demo and Rep). Other than that, they're not really useful (I suppose you could try selling them to the AICivs, if you don't mind helping them...). But if you don't want to be reassigning builds every 10 turns in a lot of two-bit towns, then just set them to build a really expensive unit, like a Tank or an Infantry (90-100 turns to completion!).

2. City placement - I quickly learned that I should be placing cities way closer (something like distance 3-4 for first ring and 5-6 for second ring for standard map size), however does that also count on huge maps? I think it would make sense to place them further apart since the core needs to get bigger for the late game or am I way off?

Click to expand...

You can certainly try building loose (CxxxC or even CxxxxC) on Large+ maps, but you still won't be able to use most of those BFC tiles before acquiring Sanitation (an optional, Industrial-Age tech) and building Hospitals -- in a DG+ game, you will almost certainly have more pressing uses for the beakers and shields that those two non-essential items represent.

Also, your core-cities should already be at Pop12 long before Sanitation is available to research/buy, so it therefore may still make sense to plan your settlements on the assumption that they will not ever get bigger than Pop12. In that case, to make the most efficient use of the terrain you have managed to acquire (bearing in mind that the AIs will almost certainly all have out-expanded you at an early stage), that means placing your core-cities so that each can work exactly 12 tiles (and harvest 24 FPT), i.e. usually at CxxC or CxxxC. On a Huge map, yes, you will get more non-corrupt core cities (higher OCN) than you would on a Standard map, but at higher difficulty levels, you don't get as many non-corrupt cities as you would at lower levels, so it kind of evens out.

Also, although Pop13+ Metros will boost your 'free-unit' numbers (under Rep/ Demo/ Commie anyway -- but NOT Feudalism!) and have an increased defence bonus (+100% on the D-value instead of just +50% for Pop7-12), you would also have to keep that extra population happy with more Lux-Resources, Military Police in every city (if under Monarchy/ Commie/ Fascism, which all have lower commerce than Rep/ Demo) and/or a higher Lux-slider setting. Since each unique Lux can be shared by multiple cities, it's much easier to keep two Pop12 cities happy, than one Pop24 city, if Luxes are scarce...

3. Forbidden palace - What I think I have learned so far is that the FP should be placed in a commerce/shield rich city to get the most out of it. However I have a hard time to figure out how far away it should be placed from out capitol and how many rings of cities it can support.

Click to expand...

The general advice I've seen is to (pre)build the FP early in Conquests (when you reach half the OCN for that mapsize/difficulty), which usually means you'll be building it in either a 1st- or 2nd-ring city (i.e. only distance 3-7 from your capital) -- and yes, the FP city should be one with a good potential for production/ commerce.

But unlike in Vanilla Civ3, the FP in Conquests (and the Secret Police HQ under Commie) only significantly reduces the corruption in the FP(/SPHQ)-city itself, not in the cities adjacent to it. Basically, it allows you to reach the full OCN (i.e. total potential uncorrupted cities) for that mapsize/difficulty, but the corruption-level in those other cities will be based primarily on their distance from your Palace, not your FP.

I'm no Lancelot so take my advice with a grain of salt.

Tonnypikhoved said:

1. Empire construction - Okay so my general understanding of how the experts do this, is building a core (size depending on map size) which gets fully optimized and then everything outside the core functions as either settler/worker factory or science/gold farms depending on what you need. Have I understood this correct?

Click to expand...

It's all about calculating whether a long term investment will pay off before the game ends. In a corrupt city (or with science at almost max) with only 6 gold going to treasury, you'll make 2 more gold per turn with a marketplace. But it costs 100 shields so it will take 200 turns = 400 gold before it has payed for itself and you start to earn gold, before that it's a loss!

If there's free land, building a settler and horseman instead, with the cost of 40 food + 60 shields = 100, could give you 4 (free upkeep) + 1 + 3 = 8 gpt in despotism and 1 spt.

Building 3.33 swordmen or 5 catapults instead, to assist in capturing multiple cities, could get you much more than 8 gpt if you extort your enemy for peace later.

Tonnypikhoved said:

2. City placement - I quickly learned that I should be placing cities way closer (something like distance 3-4 for first ring and 5-6 for second ring for standard map size), however does that also count on huge maps? I think it would make sense to place them further apart since the core needs to get bigger for the late game or am I way off?

Click to expand...

12 tiles per core city, preferably 13-15 to have some room for the possibility to switch between different types of tiles without ridiculous micromanagement between cities.

Tonnypikhoved said:

3. Forbidden palace - What I think I have learned so far is that the FP should be placed in a commerce/shield rich city to get the most out of it. However I have a hard time to figure out how far away it should be placed from out capitol and how many rings of cities it can support.

Click to expand...

There's two types of corruption: rank and distance. In Conquests, the FP only helps against distance corruption. A city 7 tiles from the FP will have the same distance corruption as one 7 tiles from the capital. Put rings of cities as close as possible to your capital while giving them at least 12 tiles each, and one or more rings as close as possible to your FP. Don't put farm cities closer to your captial than the core cities around the FP, they'll steal rank.

tjs282 said:

The general advice I've seen is to (pre)build the FP early in Conquests (when you reach half the OCN for that mapsize/difficulty), which usually means you'll be building it in either a 1st- or 2nd-ring city (i.e. only distance 3-7 from your capital) -- and yes, the FP city should be one with a good potential for production/ commerce.

But unlike in Vanilla Civ3, the FP in Conquests (and the Secret Police HQ under Commie) only significantly reduces the corruption in the FP(/SPHQ)-city itself, not in the cities adjacent to it. Basically, it allows you to reach the full OCN (i.e. total potential uncorrupted cities) for that mapsize/difficulty, but the corruption-level in those other cities will be based primarily on their distance from your Palace, not your FP.

Click to expand...

This is last point is very important. Which expansion(s) are you playing? Civ 3 Complete = C3C a.k.a. Conquests. They changed the function of the Forbidden Palace (FP) in C3C. It used to be important to build it somewhat far away from the capital, to get the benefit of a second center of reduced corruption; not anymore. The current thinking is to build it as soon as you can -- even in a city next to the capital -- to get the benefits earlier.

@tjs282

Thanks for the link, its very informative!

Yes, but it's not EITHER Settlers/Workers OR science/gold, its EITHER science OR gold, from Specialists who are supported by excess food production (from railing+irrigating all the surrounding tiles). What you build in an irredeemably corrupt 'farm' is a separate choice, with the option to build Workers or Settlers (or Artillery or Ships or Defenders) depending on the size/location of the town.

Click to expand...

Good point. Related question: How do you recognice whether a given city will be a "farm" or not. To try and answer my own question, I guess its a calculus about whether or not building a courthouse is profitable (as in ahmans example)? Which leads me to another question: How do you know the exact effect of a courthouse in a given city?

Also, your core-cities should already be at Pop12 long before Sanitation is available to research/buy, so it therefore may still make sense to plan your settlements on the assumption that they will not ever get bigger than Pop12. In that case, to make the most efficient use of the terrain you have managed to acquire (bearing in mind that the AIs will almost certainly all have out-expanded you at an early stage), that means placing your core-cities so that each can work exactly 12 tiles (and harvest 24 FPT), i.e. usually at CxxC or CxxxC. On a Huge map, yes, you will get more non-corrupt core cities (higher OCN) than you would on a Standard map, but at higher difficulty levels, you don't get as many non-corrupt cities as you would at lower levels, so it kind of evens out.

Also, although Pop13+ Metros will boost your 'free-unit' numbers (under Rep/ Demo/ Commie anyway -- but NOT Feudalism!) and have an increased defence bonus (+100% on the D-value instead of just +50% for Pop7-12), you would also have to keep that extra population happy with more Lux-Resources, Military Police in every city (if under Monarchy/ Commie/ Fascism, which all have lower commerce than Rep/ Demo) and/or a higher Lux-slider setting. Since each unique Lux can be shared by multiple cities, it's much easier to keep two Pop12 cities happy, than one Pop24 city, if Luxes are scarce...

Click to expand...

12 tiles per core city, preferably 13-15 to have some room for the possibility to switch between different types of tiles without ridiculous micromanagement between cities.

Click to expand...

This is really an eyeopener for me! The only question I have here is; what about late game/space race. Dont we need BIG cities for that?

Don't put farm cities closer to your captial than the core cities around the FP, they'll steal rank.

Click to expand...

This last part I dont understand, I mean how do you actually avoid this? Say we have a capital with two rings around it. Then we place our FP in a city east of our capital in ring 2 which we build another ring around. However, in this situation how can I build a city WEST of our capital without breaking that "rule"?

Thank you for your replies btw

Tonnypikhoved said:

This last part I dont understand, I mean how do you actually avoid this? Say we have a capital with two rings around it. Then we place our FP in a city east of our capital in ring 2 which we build another ring around. However, in this situation how can I build a city WEST of our capital without breaking that "rule"?

Click to expand...

You can build cities, just don't fill that territory with ICS cities that you're not gonna develop. I try to place the FP in a direction where there's more free land, and jump the palace to "close" to the coast. But I think it's more important to have the capital ring in a good area, e.g. with rivers.

You don't have to place the farm(s) adjacent to the core, but it makes it easier to handle military protection, and having the AI build cities "inside" your empire is a pain. To fill territory, settle just a few cities and build libraries for culture.

Tonnypikhoved said:

@tjs282

Thanks for the link, its very informative!

Click to expand...

You're very welcome. That SG has been a real eye-opener for me as well. I've learnt more about playing both versions of Civ3 (Vanilla and Conquests) from this one game than from about 5 years of playing mostly-Vanilla solo games, mostly at Regent/Monarch: chronic mistakes I've been making, tactics and strategies that I've read about in theory but never systematically put into practice, game-mechanics of which I was either in total ignorance, or had never seen in action, etc.

I am currently toying with the idea of starting my next game at DG, maybe specifying at least Small 60% Continents, but with everything else Random, so I have to develop a strategy from scratch based on what I get, and take it as far as I can. If anyone's interested, I might even start a thread, and/or do a couple of these as an SG-series... (tentative title: "Bow to the pRNGods, foolish mortal!")

Good point. Related question: How do you recognice whether a given city will be a "farm" or not. To try and answer my own question, I guess its a calculus about whether or not building a courthouse is profitable (as in ahmans example)? Which leads me to another question: How do you know the exact effect of a courthouse in a given city?

Click to expand...

Short answer: CivAssist II. It has a Map/Terrain function that will tell you exactly what the 'corruption rating' will be for any tile, based on either your current Palace location, or if you were to move your Palace to another existing city (either by rebuilding it brick-by-brick, or by disbanding your current capital and 'jumping' your Palace to your next-best non-FP city)

The only question I have here is; what about late game/space race. Dont we need BIG cities for that?

Click to expand...

Why? Not for production. Think about it like this: In an inland city working 12 tiles for 24 food per turn (FPT), those tiles will mostly be mined rather than irrigated (and if you've got un-mineable Floods, you can usually mine the neighbouring Deserts/Plains to make up for it). So, even before you get Steam, you can expect to gain around 1-2 shields per turn (SPT) per tile, i.e. between 13 and 25 SPT for the city, including the city-shield. Let's call it 20 SPT for the sake of argument. After you get Steam (and assuming Coal+Iron are available), railroads will add ~1 SPT per tile, so your city's base-production will climb to 32 SPT.

In a non-Palace/FP 1st-ring core city, you can expect to have ~15% wastage(/corruption) without a Courthouse. You need Nationalism then Commie -- both optional Industrial-Age techs -- for Police Stations, so let's assume that you just build a CH (if you haven't already) and reduce that wastage to 5%, i.e. your unwasted base-production will be 32 - ~5% ≈ 30 SPT. A Factory (+50% shields) and an Industrial-Age powerplant (Coal or Hydro, both +50% shields) will double that to ~60 SPT (tip: build Hoovers!). Adding a MfgPlant (+50% shields) will increase it again to 75 SPT (I think), or a NukePlant (+150% shields, needs freshwater access) will triple it to ~90 SPT; adding both of those Modern-Age city-imps would bring your (originally 20 SPT) city to a whopping 105 SPT -- although it would cost you 1 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 10 GPT maintenance, and pollute like mad!

The most expensive Spaceship component (Exterior Casing, IIRC) costs 640s (IIRC), so even if you only build a Courthouse + Factory + Coal/Hydro, you'd still be able to build it in a maximum of 640 / 60 = 11T (rounded up). If SPT was the only limiting factor, with 3 or 4 landlocked high-SPT core cities, you could probably build your whole Spaceship in ~20T at most after completing Apollo. However, the limiting factor's much more likely to be how fast you can research all the needed Modern-Age techs -- and that's what your coastal cities and your Science-farms are for!

And don't forget that you can use e.g. TacNukes (300s), SolarPlants (320s), ICBMs (500s), a new Palace, or even as-yet unbuilt GWonders (800-1000s,) as 'prebuilds' to store up Spaceship-component shields while you're researching the techs you need to finish that component(s). Although prebuilding doesn't cut down the total number of turns you need to accumulate the needed shields, it does allow you to start doing it earlier than if you'd waited to get the tech, so can be a major help in offsetting the AICivs' production discounts at higher levels (whereby they don't need as many shields to build things -- or food to grow cities, or beakers to research techs, come to that).

This last part I dont understand, I mean how do you actually avoid this? Say we have a capital with two rings around it. Then we place our FP in a city east of our capital in ring 2 which we build another ring around. However, in this situation how can I build a city WEST of our capital without breaking that "rule"?

Click to expand...

I have a feeling Ahman may have confused distance and rank corruption, or told you the rule for Vanilla/PtW rather than Conquests, but since I'm not 100% clear on the various terms regarding corruption calculations myself, don't take my word for it, take it from someone who's done the research...

Depending on which version(s) of Civ3 you're playing, I would strongly recommend you read the article(s) by AlexMan regarding corruption, if you haven't already: he wrote one for Vanilla/PtW, which had some serious corruption-dodging bugs/ loopholes; and an updated version for Conquests, in which those loopholes were mostly closed (albeit other bugs introduced...). I can't promise that you will be less confused after reading this stuff, but it might help.

Or you can just use CivAssist...

tjs282 said:

But unlike in Vanilla Civ3, the FP in Conquests (and the Secret Police HQ under Commie) only significantly reduces the corruption in the FP(/SPHQ)-city itself, not in the cities adjacent to it.

Click to expand...

The SPHQ reduces overall corruption (whole empire) since corruption is equal in all cities under Commie.

So it doesn't matter where you build it really.

Good point Theov.

I have to plead ignorance on this subject, since I usually only even contemplate doing more than one gov-switch per game if I'm running a Religious Civ, and anyway tend to be a Republican builder (aiming for a Space or Diplo vic) rather than a Monarchical warmonger. So I rarely go Commie (I vaguely remember using it in a Vanilla game once, but never in Conquests), and have never actually built the SPHQ.

However, I did find a post by Chieftess in this very short thread, the SPHQ still has an effect (presumably only on its city) outside of a Commie gov, so (assuming that her post wasn't invalidated by a subsequent patch...) building it in a 90% corrupt city that would otherwise have the potential to be a good producer would seem to be sensible.

On a slightly related note, if you're planning on going Commie, I would guess that specialist farming is not a sensible tactic -- since a vast number of tiny-but-corrupt cities would drag everything else down? So it would be better to build fewer cities, but more spread out (CxxC to CxxxC) so that they can all get to Pop12 and work 12 tiles...?

tjs282 said:

Good point Theov.

I have to plead ignorance on this subject, since I usually only even contemplate doing more than one gov-switch per game if I'm running a Religious Civ, and anyway tend to be a Republican builder (aiming for a Space or Diplo vic) rather than a Monarchical warmonger. So I rarely go Commie (I vaguely remember using it in a Vanilla game once, but never in Conquests), and have never actually built the SPHQ.

However, I did find a post by Chieftess in this very short thread, the SPHQ still has an effect (presumably only on its city) outside of a Commie gov, so (assuming that her post wasn't invalidated by a subsequent patch...) building it in a 90% corrupt city that would otherwise have the potential to be a good producer would seem to be sensible.

On a slightly related note, if you're planning on going Commie, I would guess that specialist farming is not a sensible tactic -- since a vast number of tiny-but-corrupt cities would drag everything else down? So it would be better to build fewer cities, but more spread out (CxxC to CxxxC) so that they can all get to Pop12 and work 12 tiles...?

Click to expand...

I went Commie before I ever made science/gold farms. I hardly use them nowadays.
When you then conquer a large empire and have some productive land to work with (like, you're on the Americas and you conquer something in Asia/Australia) and you're on a warpath to victory, it can help to get production up, you whip new cities for a granary or lib, the war weariness is None and the chances of a flip reduces when the original population is whipped away.... Commie can be a good end-game gov.
I've used it a few times and it makes the "I've won already, all I need to do is wipe everyone out now" stages of the game.

No. The SPHQ becomes just a pile of bricks when you are out of Communism.

Specialist farms are pretty much the same under commie. But you can put those maggots to work by mining the tiles.
But indeed, if you're planning to go Commie, you're better off with large productive cities.

See my sig for some extra info about govs.