The second phase of the game...

[WaterDragoon]

I have done Alot of reading on the boards and have tried not to bother everyone to much. However i seem to find a blackhole when it comes to a certain "phase" of the game. I thought it would be a good idea to start a
thread about what players do after the initial expansion phase.

Obviously it differes by version and the map you are playing but I think, as with the expansion phase, there could be a concensus of general guidelines to follow. There of course has to be segments for C3C, Vanilla, and PTW. But otherwise I think we can do it. If it wasn't obcious i am having trouble with this phase in my own campaigns (2). I play vanilla, and i find i have no sense of direction now in both campaigns. I am sure there are other brand new and semi new player that also wonder...

What say the more seasoned players?

[Tomoyo]

My goals for the phase following the expansion phase are the following (in order of importance):

1. Build the important buildings in my major cities. Usually, these are marketplace, barracks, aqueduct (if necessary), and sometimes library or temple. Some better players will tell you that markets aren't necessary, but those are also the players that just tell you to build lots of units and barracks and go conquer the world. But that's boring.
2. Let my cities grow in population. Population means gold. Gold means good economy.
3. Fully improve the terrain. This should probably be higher up, but I don't focus much on it, so it goes down here.
4. Trade for luxuries, if possible.
5. Build offensive military. Depending on the game, this could go higher too, but usually I save the bulk of this for later in the game. It's sort of a style thing.

If you find that your cities have nothing good to build, build offensive units. If you have too many useless units and not enough gold to maintain them, disband them. If you have too many units that you think are useless but really aren't, go kill someone.

If your workers have nothing to do, look again. If they still don't have anything to do, go kill someone.

[AutomatedTeller]

at this point, it depends on a few things:

1) What do I want to do in this game? SS? 100Kculture? Domination? Conquest? Diplo? Once I know that, then I know how much infracture to build - if I'm justtaking over the world, then we need barracks and units and maybe not a lot else.
2) What do I need? Do I have iron/horses? Do I have a fair amount of jungle/hills/mountains for coal? Desert for saltpeter? Desert/tundra for oil? Luxuries? How do I get those things if I don't already have them?
3) Who is next to me? Do I want them around? For science games, it's often useful to keep scientific civs around, so you can get their free techs or at least research faster. If you are ending expansion and you know that india is next to you and they have chivalry, then you can expect to fight war elephants if you attack them.

[WaterDragoon]

Okay well lets start by picking a victory condition. Lets say domination.
You have finished expanding.... now what?

[MAS]

Originally Posted by WaterDragoon

Okay well lets start by picking a victory condition. Lets say domination.
You have finished expanding.... now what?

For domination, you haven't finished expanding until after you reach 66% of the total land mass.
Try to start your military build up in such a ways that you can immediately start conquering your first target after you run out of freely available land to settle. Then just continue your expansion, but this time a part of your resources are spend on military units.

Build city improvements in your core in between unit builds in such a fashion it doesn't slow you down to much. Your core cities will most likely need a library and a marked (lib for research, marked for happiness) An aquaduct when not near fresh water, and barracks before building any units. (except artillery)
Switch settler (and worker) production from your settler factory(s) to the outer regions.

[Delphi456]

Here's a strategy that worked great for me: goto war with the civ that's on the other side of your neighbor. Get your neighbor and 3-4 other civs involved. Grab the cities you want and then backstab your neighbor and take everything they have. I took my neighbor's 30+ cities in 3 turns because they were so weak from fighting a much stronger civ. Rinse and repeat. I like using lux or gpt for alliances because giving a tech or straight cash can leave you hanging if peace treaties are signed early.

[AutomatedTeller]

Ok - say you have expanded as much as you can peacefully and safely.

For a 100K or domination game: You need more land if you aren't at the dom limit, so you have to take it. Build a military and go to war to get it!!

For a space game: Can you do 4 turn research? If so, you won't be able to as techs get more expensive, so build markets/libs/unis and irrigate a lot to grow your cities. Trade for luxes. Build the FP. Go to war to make sure you have coal and to get more land, cause you'll need it - MT techs can cost 10 times as much as MA techs.

For a diplo game - much the same as a space game, except be more careful about war and you don't need to research too many MT techs so don't need quite as much expansion.

For a 20K game... well, if you are deciding *now* to do a 20K game, you are probably not going to make it but war is important to a 20K game, so go to war!!

[Aabraxan]

Originally Posted by AutomatedTeller

Ok - say you have expanded as much as you can peacefully and safely.

For a 100K or domination game: . . . Build a military and go to war to get it!!

For a space game: . . . Go to war . . .

For a diplo game - . . . be more careful about war . . .

For a 20K game... war is important to a 20K game, so go to war!!

I think this pretty well sums it up.

[AutomatedTeller]

ahh - i was hoping to be more subtle than that, but that is basically the point... once you have filled up, get ready for war.

I almost never play a game of Civ without war.

[Abegweit]

Originally Posted by WaterDragoon

Okay well lets start by picking a victory condition. Lets say domination.
You have finished expanding.... now what?

Just keep expanding. That means war.

[Kool Keith]

WaterDragoon, I am not a highly experienced player, but I do have this to add: looking for a CIV III "recipe" to follow is only going to hurt your game in the end. I played Monarch for a while and I most definitely found myself falling into a routine. I wondered why I was never able to beat the game any faster. Lately (I'm talking like this past week) I moved up a level to emperor and was getting clobbered early on, so, instead of starting a new game and playing until the finish, I started playing JUST the anicient age over and over with random maps and civs. I made a point to try something different every time, sometimes radically different or even asinine. By not being afraid to lose, I learned a TON. It is amazing how many different strategies can work. You just need to understand the situation you and your rival civs are in.

So try not to think like, "okay now I've expanded this far and it is time to _____." Just keep playing and try different strategies, and don't be afraid to lose. Your game will inevitably grow by leaps and bounds.

[Sashie VII]

Although on continents, the best move is IMHO to take over your continent and kill everyone else in it

[Delphi456]

Originally Posted by Sashie VII

Although on continents, the best move is IMHO to take over your continent and kill everyone else in it

Additionally, I think there ARE a set of 'generally accepted principles' that apply to all civs, all levels, and all maps, like:

1. build a settler pump
2. get out and explore
3. trade, trade, trade
4. don't automate your workers early on
5. get out of despotism asap

Although not all need to be followed on lower levels, I think they serve as overall good advice, and they never seem to become obsolete as you move up in difficulty.

[Sashie VII]

Originally Posted by Delphi456

4. don't automate your workers early on

Actually, I don't think you'd want to automate the workers..ever..

Proper worker management is an advantage we have over the AI

[Abegweit]

Settler pumps are not always the right move either, especially on the higher levels.

[Sashie VII]

Originally Posted by Abegweit

Settler pumps are not always the right move either, especially on the higher levels.

What do you mean?

[Abegweit]

Well, if you only have time to get out maybe five cities before getting hemmed in by the AI, then you'd better get them built instead on wasting valuable resources on granaries. You don't have time for such luxuries. Claim what little land you can ASAP. This is one reason why early exploration is so useful - to make strategic decisions like this. I certainly have played Deity games where I seriously regretted building a settler factory.

Also, when space is tight, you need to put more emphasis on military. Again, especially on the higher levels.

[Sashie VII]

Ah, I see what you meant. That happened in my current game, though only emperor. I shared a continent with expansionists (Inca 10 tiles away), Mongols not far off, Arabia and Zulus. Took a lot of wars to expand.

And this while I had the chance to build two 4-turn settler factories and one 2-turn worker factory with my first three cities!

[WaterDragoon]

... but we digress into the intial phase again.

Yes i am aware that i "blueprint" to civ is not going to work. however As was posted i do believe in "guidelines"

After one expands and makes the initial jumb to republic Early war over no other civ near enough to matter ...then what?

So many people say to build this or that but not this. Here is waht i have done over the past few games. I build markets and libraries and aquaducts where needed. temples. never have a built a colesium or harbor or cath. at least not yet because i am not sure how i am supposed to move forwar when i get to this point in the game. When i think of building something i get this
thought of reading a post here that says don't cuz it's to much maintence...

in civ1 and civ2 i generally dominated the games i built everything and generally never had more then 25-30 cities and always on one land mass. I find it's not so easy in Civ3. becuase it seems like everyone goes in one of the directions... basically i have to much info and i can't seem to move forward in any direction.

[Delphi456]

Originally Posted by WaterDragoon

After one expands and makes the initial jumb to republic Early war over no other civ near enough to matter ...then what?

Sounds to me like there is still available land for you to settle. Why don't you want it? That's the whole point of domination.