Just to be clear: I rather advise against building market places for the purpose of cash-rushing improvements. Courthouses are usually more valueable than market places and aqueducts are more valueable than courthouses. Once those 2 buildings are up and running your regular production should grow so much that it will suffice for building what you need. Cashrushing is meant to be the exception, using it for research should be the standard operating procedure.
This is embarrassing.
- Thread starter jkk
- Start date
Just to be clear: I rather advise against building market places for the purpose of cash-rushing improvements. Courthouses are usually more valueable than market places and aqueducts are more valueable than courthouses. Once those 2 buildings are up and running your regular production should grow so much that it will suffice for building what you need. Cashrushing is meant to be the exception, using it for research should be the standard operating procedure.
jkk
Warlord
One trend I need to develop, that this statement in particular highlights: better accounting. I need to do a more diligent job of squeezing out bang-per-buck in every way. I need to remember to dial the research down on the last turn of discovery, to be alert to when growth will hit size 7 provided there is an aqueduct, and so on.
jkk
Warlord
I see the logic. I think it was Civ II where one had to rebuild barracks for each new era, and I guess a part of my brain got held up there with regard to barracks building.
I see the point. Especially considering the enormity of corruption losses far out in the hinterlands once one gets big. Okay, Marketplaces ixnay until later, Courthouses yea as soon as we get 4 lost arrows/shields.
And the prize for understatement of the year goes to ... jkk!
I had not considered that it would be so easy to lead the AI. This suggests a strategy of building a dinky, stunted city in the middle of one's empire, then leaving it ungarrisoned but with a whole bunch of bad boys hanging nearby to punk on the invaders.
I think my best option is to pay attention to what you all say, and where there is consensus, to take that consensus to heart. Slowly, my eyes open.
jkk
Warlord
Hi Jkk, welcome to nitpick central
Heh. Thanks--nitpick central is exactly what I need. As it appears to me, it works like this. Do a wrong thing one time--say, improve terrain in the wrong order in one square near one city--and it's not that big an impact. Do it by habit, every time, at every city, and it's a magnified weakness that will degrade one's gameplay.
I am getting that impression. Ancient Age is when you lay your groundwork and bust your butt for Republic (for more trade and because it's not Despotism, and because using Philosophy you can get it sooner), then for Aqueducts.
I have noticed this, that at first, the effect of Republic is a collective yawn. So I'll keep expanding, let the core cities take off as production and trade centers (they have the least corruption anyway), and widen the rings around the capital. I have done tech trading with neighbors in as exploitative a manner as I can arrange. Hopefully they are happy enough with me to wait until it's too late to come and rough me up.
Naturally that should refer to the turn before the courthouse is finished. Construction would need to start a lot earlier. This is one reason why building Courthouses(and police stations for that matter) should primarily depend on relative corruption. The other reason is that farer away cities do need those anti corruption buildings for proper development while core cities can afford to wait for them a bit longer. Meanwhile the core cities could build the military needed to protect your empire even if they suffer the same absolute corruption.
If your impression is that the first turn of being a republic is not much improvement compared to the last turn being despotic, than you might be wrong. One bottleneck one encounters when leaving despotism is happiness. If you relied on 2 military police during despotism, than you will have a problem during anarchy that will force you to slow down grow by using entertainers and starvation is not impossible either.
But what would happen if happiness is not the issue? Than your cities could grow during anarchy as fast as during depotism. That can be achieved by keeping your city size low. If by building settlers and later workers you keep most cities below size 4, than they can properly grow during anarchy. Here are 2 screen that compare turn 77 - 1075BC oneandhalf turns before anarchy with turn 88 - 800 BC one turn after leaving anarchy. Net commerce has climbed from 44 to 105. Meanwhile production climbed from 39 to 49 and productivity from 123 to 226.
http://www.civforum.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=605312
http://www.civforum.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=623572
http://www.civforum.de/forumdisplay.php?390-Die-Deutsche-K%FCche
I guess it depends what your goal is. If you're sticking to the OP request to find a way to just improve Regent, then all you need is Republic/Luxury Slider/Libraries and everything else should fit into place with a bit of common-sense and experimentation.
Justanick and TJS will not be giving just general advice about Regent, they'll be telling you stuff that's only relevant if you want to fully maximise your play and be playing SID level a few weeks from now. The last guy to ask for similar advice wanted this and quickly shot to diety and job done, but I personally find the experimentation aspect of gaming more interesting than beating a game on the hardest difficulty as quickly as possible from using on-line guides.
So what your objective is and how you want the advice to be tailored to your own personal specific requirements is important here. On Regent it really wont matter if you build a Road or a Mine first on a Bonus Grassland square, for example, but on Diety then it's likely worht considering. Etc etc etc
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
Nitpicks incoming -- TAKE COVER!!!
(Seriously jkk, go check out those threads -- you'll find them under the 'Statistics: Threads started by...' tab on his user-profile: Even if they're more advanced than what you're looking for, they're still good fun, not to mention edukashunul!)
Can't let this slide: Justanick may well have his fun at Sid(?), but I guess you missed (or ignored) this part of my first post in this thread (emphasis added here):
...and this bit from my last one:
Just sayin'...
You're referring to Walletta's Epic Quest from Emp to (DG to Klutz to) Deity...? He was braver than me, though, because I still haven't tried Deity... but I do remember him saying (to you, IIRC) in a later thread that having finally beaten it, he dropped back to playing at Emp because it was more fun/relaxing for him...
(Seriously jkk, go check out those threads -- you'll find them under the 'Statistics: Threads started by...' tab on his user-profile: Even if they're more advanced than what you're looking for, they're still good fun, not to mention edukashunul!)
bbrady413
Chieftain
I found that the biggest boost in my game that boosted me up to the Emperor level echelon was rapid expansion.
In my old Civ days, I would build the occasional settler, try to put it in the perfect spot, and then waste time developing the land around that city, and waste resources building every improvement in that city.
The big difference came when I started having 1 or 2 settler factories, and just expanding as fast as possible without much regard for defense or improvements. Most of the time that early on, most Civs aren't looking to start a conflict. Plus, with the extra cities, taxes and science go up, along with having greater access to resources/luxuries, so you end up having more to trade with.
Another thing that I found really upped my Civ ability was using perimeter towns to feed and build the core cities. At a certain point, corruption makes building anything in distant towns pretty much useless. But workers are still cheap! So I began using perimeter towns to just crank out workers, which I would use to either develop lands and roads (especially if they gave access to a trade route or a key resource), but the big thing was having those workers JOIN core cities. That would make my high production, less corrupt cities produce even more science, tax, and shields, and in turn those core cities could push out military units.
In my old Civ days, I would build the occasional settler, try to put it in the perfect spot, and then waste time developing the land around that city, and waste resources building every improvement in that city.
The big difference came when I started having 1 or 2 settler factories, and just expanding as fast as possible without much regard for defense or improvements. Most of the time that early on, most Civs aren't looking to start a conflict. Plus, with the extra cities, taxes and science go up, along with having greater access to resources/luxuries, so you end up having more to trade with.
Another thing that I found really upped my Civ ability was using perimeter towns to feed and build the core cities. At a certain point, corruption makes building anything in distant towns pretty much useless. But workers are still cheap! So I began using perimeter towns to just crank out workers, which I would use to either develop lands and roads (especially if they gave access to a trade route or a key resource), but the big thing was having those workers JOIN core cities. That would make my high production, less corrupt cities produce even more science, tax, and shields, and in turn those core cities could push out military units.
This is where it starts to get thread-silly though with this kind of detailing. You are right that there are lots of advantages to city-spamming, but this is sort-of common-sense to most players and more of a n00b question than improvement question. I dunno, if someone's playing Civ III that's the kind of thing that goes without saying (?). I'm not being patronising here, it's valid advice, but then you're into the realms of advising large stacks of armies to take a city instead of using ones and twos, it's, like, is that really what's being asked here. And I say this because, for example, if you're going for a 20k win on an Island then city spam is counter-productive as you'll want your Capital producing wonders the second the first Settler is out and city building is secondary to maximising your Capital - so, again, it's also game-dependent. Republic/Libraries/Lux Slider is pretty universal and a feature/exploit that's quite well hidden from common-sense and intuition.
bbrady413
Chieftain
The guy said he is stuck on Regent, so that requires basic level types of strategy changes. Is it a pretty noobish type strategy? Of course it is, but that is also what elevated my game level, so I'm going to pass on my experience. Not everybody who reads these boards are looking at making a run at Sid and get in the Hall Of Fame. Some people are just trying to survive the 540 turns!
I know, that's why I was being dismissive. I have HoF Regent games and I've never used outlier cities to spam workers. I build one worker for every city and rarely ever have more than a dozen or two workers by Victory Condition. People are free to disdain me all they want, but having this view doesn't prevent a HoF result so why would it effect fun games? With threads like this it's easy to just parrot how you like to play instead of just giving neutral info, the two are interchangable, but Republic is the one that's both key and generally hidden from plain sight and fairly crucial for any Regent easy steamrolling. Having excess workers join cities is cool, but it's not something to plan for per-se, as by the time outliers are settled the core cities will already be well up in population anyway if they're high food centres, and there are drawbacks to populating row 2 cities too quickly if you want to go down the nit-pick route.
jkk
Warlord
I am definitely not going to look sideways at any guidance because it's too noobish or basic. So happens, I'm pretty hasteful at expansion, but if I were not--if I were worrying too much about getting all the development done--it would slow down my game. I wasn't hurrying fast enough to get out of Despotism and take advantage of the Philosophy maneuver, and that's game-changing (I can already see), so any question about my gameplay no matter how basic might turn out to uncover a significant error in what I'm doing, and I appreciate each one.
jkk
Warlord
And believe me, I appreciate that experience. Sure, right now I'm stuck on Regent, but I do not think I will be for much longer. As I get better, maybe I won't try for Sid or Hall of Fame, but there are still a lot of levels to climb that will take some time and require increasing refinements of strategy. If someone were to post, "take care to use units with higher defensive value to garrison your cities, and use units with higher attack value to hit the enemy," I wouldn't feel talked down to. I think there are some players so basic they really do need that guidance, and I can't expect volunteer helpers to be psychic, so I'd just say, "I'm on that, thank you."
jkk
Warlord
I will definitely have to read the Wallettasaga. If it rocketed him to Deity that quickly, it will surely be educational. I'm glad that folks like Justanick and TJS offer guidance that will foster good long-term habits and methods. Otherwise, I'll have to keep relearning everything from the ground up every time it gets harder, when I could have just taken the time to learn how to do it well to begin with. Every level of guidance is of value. Even if it's something I already know, the guidance reinforces that knowing.
jkk
Warlord
I had not considered this, but if a city is headed for the Courthouse benefit threshold (which I understand to be the loss of 4 trade, but the loss of four shields is also significant), I should start sooner on the Courthouse.
I was looking at the first 5-10 turns post-revolution conclusion. I was failing to think of the time it takes for the increased growth to start showing. Now, it seems, one of my headaches is going to be that workers cost maintenance. Of course, getting cities to 7 helps to afford that.
I get the sense that if I'm needing an entertainer in most of my cities, I should start to look at diverting some trade to luxuries instead, on the logic that I will get back some of that trade as the entertainers get off the street corners and go work on a farm or in a mine.
My Anarchy period was very short, almost over before I even had to come to terms with adjusting to survive it. That didn't break my heart one bit.
Lord AJ
The Quartermaster
Well here's a few things that I think could help:
1. Get 3 specialized cities: a settler factory, a worker factory and a city with 10spt. Do this by devoting a major part of your worker force to improving these cities to meet the requirements.
2. Keep workers in stacks of 3 (Road in 1 turn, Mining in 3) or 4 (irrigate in 1 turn, clear forest in 1) .
3. Never let workers leave a tile without roading it. A turn now will save 2 later.
4. When improving tiles go city by city. Don't spread your workforce all over. Concentrate on one city closer to the capital and then move outwards.
5. Do not indulge in wonders. They're pretty manageable on Regent, but there's always better things to do with a city's production.
6. When attacking, aim to cut the enemy resources supply. Attack cities with resources first.
7. The 10 spt city should be producing units every 2-3 turns. Add to it a couple of cities with, say, 4spt and it won't take long to build a sizeable army.
8. Even if you have just 5 cities before you're outexpanded, you can take land from the ai. Most Regent ai dint defend outer cities this early with anything more than a Spearman and a warrior or archer. Take these asap. You get land, AI loses unit support, resources, gold and military.
Hope that at least some of this would be helpful. Sorry if I cross posted with someone.
1. Get 3 specialized cities: a settler factory, a worker factory and a city with 10spt. Do this by devoting a major part of your worker force to improving these cities to meet the requirements.
2. Keep workers in stacks of 3 (Road in 1 turn, Mining in 3) or 4 (irrigate in 1 turn, clear forest in 1) .
3. Never let workers leave a tile without roading it. A turn now will save 2 later.
4. When improving tiles go city by city. Don't spread your workforce all over. Concentrate on one city closer to the capital and then move outwards.
5. Do not indulge in wonders. They're pretty manageable on Regent, but there's always better things to do with a city's production.
6. When attacking, aim to cut the enemy resources supply. Attack cities with resources first.
7. The 10 spt city should be producing units every 2-3 turns. Add to it a couple of cities with, say, 4spt and it won't take long to build a sizeable army.
8. Even if you have just 5 cities before you're outexpanded, you can take land from the ai. Most Regent ai dint defend outer cities this early with anything more than a Spearman and a warrior or archer. Take these asap. You get land, AI loses unit support, resources, gold and military.
Hope that at least some of this would be helpful. Sorry if I cross posted with someone.
That is usually already the case when more than one of your cities would need an entertainer or at least a scientist to deal with happiness. If a scientist does suffice for happiness, than that is much better. Still working tiles is usually by far the most efficient means to use a citizen.
That seems extreme. By using big groups you will lose a higher percentage of turns just moving to yet to be roaded tiles. Groups larger than 2 will usually be a waste. When dealing with swamp or even jungle groups of 3 or even 4 may be suitable.
I tend do do the opposite. By having them relativly equally distributed less turns are wasted on moving and improvements might get ready on time for growth if growth is distributed equally aswell.
Workers should match growth, but growth will also depend on workers, so sometimes the stronger fucussed approach may be an opportunity to reach the city size threshold earlier. That helps a lot with unit support and it also increases the yield of the city tile. That is more pronounced with commercial civs. On growth to city size normal civs gain 1 commerce in the city tile, for commercial ones it is 3. When growing to metropolies it is similar. Than normal civs gain 1 commerce, commercial ones 2.
jkk
Warlord
Heh. I very much empathize with how he felt as he took his first awkward steps. I like his good humor about it all, made himself a lot easier to help. I think you're right, they will be more beneficial to me as I get out of the playpen.
I want to reinstall CivAssist II, but the impression I get is that it throws up under Win7. I had enough of a battle getting C3C to work on Win7 in the first place.
