My attempt to make a tutorial for struggling Regent players

This will be an attempt to document some sort of tutorial for players that are having trouble at the Regent level. I think the problem is that they do not have a good enough grasp on the early empire management. This leads to points in the middle ages where they are starting to get squeezed. Some will have enough staying power to drive on to the industrial age where they tend to get swamped and want advice.

I hope to aim this at players that see this from chieftain up to monarch. The ones I have seen post all have the same common issues. They post a save or a screen shot where you see lots of tiles with no roads. You see too few mines and often too much irrigation. They may have too few cities or insufficient land for the point in the game that they are currently playing. Infrastructure is either over done or not done in a useful manner.

My idea is not to set down a pat strategy or to play at some perfect style. It is rather to show the steps and timing needed to make the empire strong enough for levels of Regent or less. It should likely work at Emperor, but would benefit from more trading and more micro-management. You could still win with decent land, but beyond that more would need to be done.

We will attempt to manage some of the loss of the shields and food. This is where you can make a different. If you produce more food or shields than can be used for the build or growth, it will be lost. We will endeavor to try to minimize this and maybe save a turn here and there or shift the excess to another city. The degree that you are willing to manage this is up to you.

There is a best and a worst turn to finish a granary in a city: The best turn is the turn before the city grows. You get the granary. The next turn the city grows and your granary box is full. You then need only half the food to grow again. The worst turn is the turn after a city has grown. Then your granary starts empty. I am not going to go to this level for this tutorial, but now you are aware of it.

Beakers are another subject that can be done to varying degrees. We will mainly focus on the turn before breakthrough. You can do even better and save more commerce, but I do no want to turn this into work. Many threads exist to do this to the nth degree.

This will be played on C3C patch 1.22 with these settings:

Standard map size, 70% ocean, Continents, normal climate, temperate, 4 billion years, normal AI aggression at Regent, with roaming barbs. We will use the full default number of civs as I feel that it is the best way to learn the game.

The civ will be the French. They are industrious and commercial and start with knowledge of Alphabet and Masonry.

The steps I would take in most games of Civ III is to move my non settler units, if I have them. This is to expose as much land as I can. So if I had a scout, it could move first, then the worker and finally decide what to do with the settler.

Actually you would move the worker first, IF you have an obvious tile to work first. In this case, we can see the cow right off and a deer. So what else do I want to consider? Well I can see I do not need to move my settler, so all the other things mentioned can be skipped. I am on a hill next to a river and a hut. I also see a BG tile next to me, so I am not likely to want to lose a turn for a better spot.

It would come down to worker turns. I have a deer that is in a forest and on a river. It yields 2f1g2s. That is 2 food, 1 gold, 2 shields unimproved. The cow on a plain and a river is the same. Now the cow is across a river and two tiles away. So I would have to move to it or road to it. The cow is not in our border at this time, so we do the deer. By the time we finish and get to the cow, it will be in our borders.

I found Paris. We have a river next to us for the free aqueduct, I move the worker to the deer. When Paris was founded, it started a warrior.We need to meet the Jones and see what is about the area. I set research to 20% as any more is not going to speed things up. I will note that in truth, you can add some beakers over the long haul and may in fact speed up the break through, but it is seldom worth it. I prefer to pile up some gold to use to finance research when we need it or to make a deal.

We should not have to worry about any demands at this level. I know for those that fail to build troops, you can encounter demands, but you should not. In any event, I would just let them declare war on me and take the happiness and some land.

What do we research first? Well a common scheme is to hit F10 and see who is in the game. Map out their traits and starting techs. We have 2 others with Alpha. We have 3 others with Masonry. So our techs may not be worth much, depends on who meets whom and when. Pottery is known to 5 and BW is known to 2. WC by 2. Lots of overlap. What is the plan? I intent to play a non AW game. I intend to not be very aggressive in the early game.

I mean by that that, I will let them start the wars as much as I can, till well into the Middle Age. I think most of the players posting for help play some thing like that. They may even try to avoid wars period. That is going too far as wars are fun and are needed to gain land. So that means I do not have to rush to IW.

I am not going to build the GLB, unless it just gets too easy and I have little else to do. So I do not need to rush for Lit. I should not need temples right away, so CB can wait and I would expect to get it in a deal or learn it fast with so many already knowing it, once we met them. I do want to get Philo, so I will start on Writing as Alpha is know to many and we have to be concerned that Expansionist will pop Writing or Philo.

Speaking of huts, I failed to mention we got CB upon the founding that popped the Goody Hut. You can see we could not have gotten a conscript at this juncture. About the goody huts, here is the quote from Firaxis:

"It's not really that it's difficult; it's just that it was implemented by an intern. Here are the conditions:

Gold: *The tile must not have any type of resource or luxury on it.

Maps: --always available

Nothing: --always available

Settler: *Player must not have a settler (active or in production) or any unit with the Settle AI strategy. *Number of player's cities must be <= (Total_Cities / NumActivePlayers).

Mercenaries (skilled warrior): *There must be a unit available to the Barbarians as well as the player and that unit must be able to be built (or have been built) by some player in the game.

Tech: *Player must still be in Ancient Times.

Barbarians: *Player must not have Expansionist trait. *There must not be a city within a 1-tile radius. *The player must have at least 1 city. *The player must have at least 1 military unit. *The unit popping the hut must not have the "All Terrain As Roads" ability.

Mike Breitkreutz Programmer FIRAXIS Games Last edited by Mike B. FIRAXIS on Aug. 01, 2002 at 09:37 PM".

One thing I could mention now is the chance to get an SGL in C3C. I would say that, since we are not scientific and so likely to see the AA techs popped, I would ignore this concern. If this was a lower level, a larger map, then I would select a tech and go 100% to try to fish for a leader. The higher you go the less you need to think about SGL's.

Here is a break down of how the game processes a turn for a city (tip of the hat to Dominae):

0. Commerce summed up and allocated.

1. Food added to the Food box (20/20 Food).

2. Food box empties, if growth reached (0/20 Food).

3. City grows one pop point.

4. City gets a new Citizen

5. City Governor assigns new Citizen to some tile according to its algorithm, let's say a forest.

6. Shields from each Citizen summed up and added to production.

7. Production checked for completion. So, as you can see, when a city grows you get "free" Shields from the new tile it gets to work, but no Commerce or Food from that tile. In the early part of the game, this source of Shields is definitely nontrivial, accounting for 10-20% of most production items. In particular, it nets you 4 "free" Shields out of the 30 a Settler-pump needs to function.

One other topic I will briefly address here is tundra tiles and forestry. I am not sure we will need to use all the smarter ploys, but here is lineup:

first, mine them since it's the only improvement possible in the ancient era. Second, forest them after Engineering. Third, chop these forests so that they can build faster. Fourth, replant forest to get the shield bonus. And finally in the industrial era chop them again for good and mine again since it is faster to build railroads and clean up pollution in tundra than in forests. Two other considerations are 1) global warming (I ignore it), 2) invaders. You may want to have forest up in coastal tiles to slow down invasion troops.

I may not do things like that as it is so dependent on the game. The main thing for me is to not plant trees until I have railed that tile, unless I need to chop for shields. If tree are already there, I chop, if I have the chance.

3950BC I mentioned shield management. Here we are pretty much stuck with an over run of 2 shields as we make 3 shield per turn and need only 10. Worker starts a road. I am not going to cover scouting efforts, except to say you want to use terrain to gain extra sight, when you can.

3800BC warrior done, start another and move this one straight ahead. This is just arbitrary, but I have no hills or mountains close by to use. Basicaly I will send a warrior out east, west and south as we have water north.

3750BC worker goes to BG to road it. Just noticed the capitol is Orleans, not Paris? Hope during my attempt to write stuff down, I did not mess up something.

3650BC warrior sees Incense, so we have Spice as well in range.

3600BC worker moves to cow and new warrior heads west, but angles to the river and we start another warrior.

3500BC worker starts road, but you could irrigate first.

3450BC worker starts irrigation. I maybe should mention the worker turns choices here. We are industrious, so we are going to get the road up and the irrigation up within the next growth cycle. If we irrigated first, we would have gotten 2,2,2,3,3 for 12 food. We grow in 5 with 2 extra. Now we will still grow in 5, but at the end we have the same output with 3 extra gold. This is because we got the extra commerce while we irrigated.

3350BC we make a 4th warrior and hold him at home as we only have 3 directions to cover, due to the water. Start a barracks as a place holder for now. We have several expansions civs in the game and none have been seen so far. Our growth is not good as we are +2, but that will change as the cow is irrigated. I had hoped to see at least one hut by now. I am not sure if it is bad luck or a scout has hit one or two.

3300BC worker is mining the BG. I do see a border to the west.

3250BC spot silk.

3150BC see Inca capitol and on the far east I am next to a hut. Looks like the scouts have been clearing the land as I would have expected huts on the South and Western area by now.

IBT: Pacchu offers Pottery for Alpha. That is a 43 beaker tech for a 110 beaker one. Here is a choice that you can go anyway you want. We could hold Alpha and risk it being worthless when they met someone that has it or trade it. I make this deal: Alpha and CB for Pottery and WC and 30 gold. Not an equal one, but we now have the ability to make a granary and archers. We may need them, if we have neither horses or iron.

3100BC pop a warrior. I should have mentioned we dropped research to 10%.

3000BC start granary. Slow yes, but no harm. We are only doing +3. Worker is doing a chop to speed it and will then make a road and go on to road Spices. I sent the conscript home for MP.

2850BC spot dyes, four lux in sight Got the msg that we are the forgotten in regards to size.

2750BC see another border. It looks like we are not going to be getting any help from huts, so I will send the other warrior back to MP the next town. We see 4 lux, so it could be expected that we will have at least 4 civs on this continent. I have seen 2 others, one or more should be around. Not a lock, but half the lux tends to mean about have the nations.

2670BC Met Xerxes. Not sure if I started a settler this turn or last, but we have a granary and it did not get timed, but was speed up with a chop.

IBT: Xerxes offers WC for Pottery, so I do it. He is down Alpha and CB.

2x50BC settler out and moving it to spot above the cow. Start a spear, while I wait to grow a bit. I would not do this in a Regent game, but with Xerxes around, I may have to face Immortals.

2390BC found Lyons. It starts a wall as we cannot grow fast enough to make a worker. Met Caesar and they are down 3 techs, not easy to do at this point.

2350BC rats hut gives 25 gold. Not seen many and they are not real great.

2190BC settler on its way to the desert incense and sent a warrior from Orleans, which is making a spear.

2150BC pop a hut and got The Wheel. It looks like that is as much as I will get as Rome blocks the only area left. It is surely the end of the continent.

2030BC found Rheims and starts a worker due in 10. This matches it growth. We are off to a slow expansion so we have been able to get by with one worker using the industrial trait. We are at the bottom in score with 71 and the top is 86. I am making an archer to let Orleans grow a bit larger. I do not want to drop to size 2 any longer. We have a road to Lyons and I am irrigating the tile that connected it.

1990BC Lyons starts a worker as it is now size 2. Worker to connect Rheims now. I am sending the two spears we now have to Rheims. This puts them in position to defend all towns as they can reach them in time, if needed.

1910BC I let Orleans make another archer as I see Pachu has 2 warriors closing on Rheims.

1870BC I dial up Pacchu and demand he leave and I get a DOW.

IBT one warrior attacks and dies (1-0).

1830BC Lyons makes worker who goes to forest to chop for a barracks. I see two more warriors coming, so I do not attack the last warrior as I would be exposed.

1790BC Orleans starts a worker to hook up the horses and I send the latest archer out to deal with the warriors that will not attack. I attacked with the regular warrior and it goes red, but promotes. I figure we could afford to lose it and take a shot (1-0) [2-0].

IBT both warriors die attacking spears (2-0) [4-0].

1750BC Writing comes in and I select Philo. I put up embassy in Persepolis and it is to be expected. Size 1 making a settler. Rome gets an embassy and is only a bit better at size 2 making a spear.

Oh NO, game is going to be not so great a trainer as I just got an SGL from Writing. Research to 100% on Philo.

1725BC rush Pyramids with Louie. Worker from Orleans to horses. I would expect that Pacchu will soon be calling for peace after going 0 for 4. Disband the warrior that is behind Persian town.

1700BC start spear in Orleans to go with the next settler. As we have two lux and war happiness we can wait and grow larger before making settlers. Sold granary in Orleans. I trade Xerxes Alpha and CB for IW.

1675BC scout gets close to Orleans, so I whack it with archer (1-0) [5-0].

1625BC start settler in capitol. All three nations have early UU.

IBT Chas scout attacks and dies, a bit of a surprise. I know they do it in the open, but a fortified spear? (1-0) [6-0]

1550BC settler to tile by BG on the lake, with deer. Spear goes with it. Xerxes has IW, not sure if he has iron. I see iron on the moutain by that lake. drop research to 30%.

1525BC take CoL for free tech and start on Republic at 100% in 34 turn - 3gpt. I take CoL as I have no coastal towns and hence no interest in help make MM cheaper. Not going for GLB, so no rush for Lit. I feel like trading with the AI below DG should be banned. I trade writing to Xerxes for HBR and 10 gold. No one has any tech.

IBT Pacchu wants peace, but has nothing to give, so I say no. I do this as we are getting happiness and could get a leader, so no reason to not make him suffer more. Start horse in Lyons.

1450BC found Tours.

1325BC horse kills Chas, archer kills archer, horse kills archer (3-0) [9-0].

1300BC Orleans starts spear and settler heads to hill by silk on coast. Note I am making spears due to having 2 sword nations that are UU. I do not know if either has iron, but why take a chance?

1250BC Xerxes wants Philo, no so DOW. Give Writing to Rome for alliance vs Persia. I hope they do not get hurt too bad. If one has iron and the other does not that one could get stronger. Ideally neither has iron or both have it. I prefer Legions in a fight with Immortals. This is due to their 3 defense. Do you like attacking pikes and those pikes can attack back? Anyway I did not want to risk going against both. I could do it, but that really changes the game to an AW. It will be hard to stop the wars as they have nothing to give right now and I have much to gain as long as I am in Despotism.

1225BC horse kills spear at Olla... and it autorazes (1-0) [10-0].

1175BC found Marseilles and start a boat. Note worker on silk to connect it and town. Iron on hill next to it. Let me mention here that the reason I am making a temple in Tours is I needed border expansion to get the iron. I now will have access to another souce and could have skipped the temple. I will let it go so as to have a back up source. Horse from Rheims kills the archer (1-0) [11-0].

I will take a moment to talk about the micro managing, that is not being done. In part it is due to the game going so easy. It reflects that fact that we have have no need to use the slider for happiness and that no town has gotten larger than size 5 or 6. We have 2 lux and war happiness, so with 2 MP's, we have no need to use the slider. Most of the time towns are small and working the correct tiles. We have no tile to share, we could use the cow in two towns, but no need. So I like the fact that we are able to be lazy with no real loss.

As towns finish builds we should be looking at how the citizens are being used. Not sure how the techs are on other land masses are coming, but I have not heard of any wonders starting and no one beat us to Philo. Some of the worker jobs were not done to improve the empire as much as to not expose them to danger. I want to plant a town in the jungle to grab a dye. Then start pushing towards Pacchu. The land in that direction is not so great, but may as well get them.

1150BC Horse kills Chas (1-0) [12-0]. Sending horses to newest Inca town.

1100BC horse kills Persian warrior and still only seen one promotion and it was from regular to vet (1-0) [13-0]. Rheims starts settler.

1075BC Lyons starts settler. Note that Orleans started MoM a turn or two back. This gives 3 happy so I go for it as the capitol can then be max size.

1025BC sell temple now that border expanded in Tours. Start a wall.

1000BC horse kills archer and goes elite, yeah first one (1-0) [14-0].

975BC this is too much, elite horse kills archer and gets a leader. Send leader to nearest town. Rome beat me to the dye spot, will get it later. Send settler to the elite horse and start a horse. Two horses defeat 2 spears at Tiwanaku and we need to choose its fate. (3-0) [17-0] I have a settler going to the elite horse and intent to make a town on the gold hill seen to the right. The hill three tiles from horse looks like a good place for a town, so where does Tiw fit? It should be a decent spot, would rather it was on the coast, we can use the flood plains for a town, so I keep it. The clincher for me is that I had brough along a spear, so I should be able to hold the place.

We see that Xerxes has spread out some as well, so has Caesar. I suspect they are doing limited fighting. I have yet to see any UU units form either. I got two slaves in the town, so I send them to chop for a wall. This is not so much as to defend the town as it is to discourage attacks.

950BC Horse kills archer (1-0) [18-0]. I decide to be nice as many of the players this is aimed at would make peace by now. I agree to peace with Pacchu for Map. Still at war with Xerxes. Form an army. Start a sword at Rheims. Drop research to 50%, Republic next turn.

925BC set research for Math in 5 at 100% -3gpt. Do we want to revolt now? Looking at our numbers we see 44 in 47 out sci 39. If Republic it would be 73 in 106 out sci 65. Most of this would be due to units. We would disband a few and maybe lower the slider. I will wait 5 turns to finish the current tech and MoM. Note I added one worker to speed the wonder. At times you may need to build a temple and improve tiles and add in one or more workers to get a wonder first. At Sid I will try to get to size 11 or 12 to improve my odds. Here we have three luxs, so did not make a temple.

875BC Looking at Marseilles we had two citizens. One was working the BG that just got a road. The other was on a grass tile no road. So we had +2 food for growth, but 1 net shield and 1 beaker. Moving the pop from the grass to the silk gets 5 food, 3 net shields and 3 beakers net. The galley goes from 18 turns to 6. These are the things we are trying to catch, at least once in a while. I move the new town over it is Chartres.

850BC disband a 3/3 warrior in Lyons that is making a sword. this is in prep for Republic and it shaves a turn off sword. Tours starts settler. Chartres is making a worker.

825BC drop research to 60%. Move horse and settler to hill with river. This will be an over lap of Pacchu borders and is a very aggressive act. Pachu is already furious so I do not care and I want to fill the borders so no gaps are available for other to cross my land. I move the spear from Rheims to Chartres and the spear at Chartres to the settler. Rheims can get by until the sword is done in a few turns.

800BC MoM is done and I start a sword for the army. Research set to Currency at 90%. Found Avignon and start a cat.

775BC I waited to revolt until the sword was done in Rheims and it is now loaded in the army. I revolt and get 3 turns? Did not even know I could get that low of a number as a non religious nation. Wow, no need to do anything as we do not have any towns that will riot. I did switch the lone citizen in Tiwan to a beaker head. That should have been done long ago, my bad. I see 1 Inca archer moved next to the new town, not sure if this is a war or not. I would bet it is war.

750BC I was wrong, the spear that just enter probably made it change Pacchu's mind. Actually I was probably wrong all the way. It was more likely that the archer was moving there already and could not change. No action from Xerxes so far. Lyons grew and now needs a specialist. I make a scientist. You have two ways to check on the pop. The first is to go to F1 and look at the faces. If you see more blue than green, you need to take action. You have a choice of increasing lux slider, if you can and are not in anarchy. You could also make a citizen a specialist. You would normally pick a scientist for the 3 beakers. If you need more happiness, you may need a joker instead.

It depends on several things, but check the food to be sure you will not starve or if you will it won't drop pop right away. If more beakers does not help, then tax is ok. The second way to check on happiness is a tool like CA or Mapstat. The archer did move toward Chartres, so I am still watching.

710BC Now we are a Republic and lets see how the citizens feel. Tiwan, I flip the pop to a hill. This lets it start to grow, real slow and we give up a beaker. We grew enough to now make 100gpt and get 80 beakers. I will now look at disbanding non vets warriors. I send two to Rheims to disband. I go ahead and upgrade the vet warrior there for 60 gold. I order Pachu to remove archer and he does.

690BC Add second sword to 1st. disband unit in Lyons. Did not make it to Rheims.

670BC Galley leaves port and we start a second one. Army is full and I send it out. I am going to eliminate Pachu as he is now behind me and I do not want to look over my shoulder. I kill the archer that was near Avignon (1-0) [19-0].

650BC drop slider to 70%. Note that I had to switch Tiwan to scientist after going to war.

630BC start Lit in 4 at 50% iirc. That suggest other know it. I look at the cost and it is 240 beakers. We are making 66bpt at 50%, so no one else knows it. I am researching it to get libs as we want some help on research and the culture would not hurt. I may make the GLB or start it just for a place holder or to deny it. One thing about continents is you need to invade, so armies are critical. We will get an army win soon and start the HE. We want to get leaders to be able to make the Pentagon.

610BC 1st kills archer (1-0) [20-0]. Several cities start a market.

570BC drop to 30%.

550BC start on Construction at 60%. 1st kills spear at Huamanga and it autorazes (1-0) [21-0].

530BC found Besancon and it starts a worker. 5/5* horse kills Chas at Avignon (1-0) [22-0].

470BC 1st kills 2 spears at Macchu Picchu (2-0) [24-0].

450BC 5/5* kills archer. Note it was yellow as it was pinged last turn and this one. 1st kills Chas and archer at Macchu and it autorazes. I think Pachu is OCC. Sword kills Zerk at Lyons. Sword kills zerk near Lyons. Xerxes shows up with a few friends. Archer from Lyons kills a zerk. Now we need to choose. I have a red lined archer that will die on the IBT or I could commit another sword from Rheims to take out the zerk. Then the sword would be next to two archers. I decide to do neither.

I will take the spear in Lyons and cover the archer and hope the zerk move to the town and not attack any units. (5-0) [29-0] Whoops town is not empty the damage sword is there. I notice we are now at +16gpt so I tried to raise the research to shave a turn off, but no dice. I do however manage to lower the research and still get it in two turns. So we now get +26gpt.

430BC the zerk attacked the spear. The archer pinged it and it lost to us and I send them back to the town. Timing is good as the two archers will be on our soil next turn and we moved in one 4/4 sword and the one already there will heal (1-0) [30-0] true this was on the IBT. 1st is healing as it was red. Drop research again.

410BC 3 swords kill 3 archers (3-0) [33-0]. I should have mentioned that the first galley found a small island near Rome and a tiny next to it. No one on it. It looks like Caesar has 7 towns. I can see 6. they are all less than size 4. The same for Xerxes. I have 9, two are cities. I will start the HE after a market finishes or I may even go for a lib then HE. Research dropped as Myst in 4. One sword went elite.

390BC horse kills archer (1-0) [34-0].

370BC horse kills archer (1-0) [34-0].

350BC 5/5* kills spear (1-0) [35-0]. Drop sci to 0. I see Pachu has two towns left now. 1st is near their cap now.

330BC research Poly at 50% in 4 turns. Horse kills archer. 2/4 horse kills archer and goes elite. The rich get richer. Galley sinks galley no damage, nice turn (3-0) [38-0].

310BC 1st kills both spears at Cuzco and it is ours. Start a worker, it is size 1. (2-0) [40-0].

IBT Immortal dies on 5/5 sword. It was backed by archer that failed to hit and sword is now 1/5 (1-0) [41-0].

290BC 1st kills spear at last town (1-0) [42-0].

270BC 1st kills last spear and town autorazed. Bye Pacchu (1-0). I am not going to mention research any longer in terms of increase or decreasing as everyone gets the point. Check on it at least before the break through. I put the lone pop in the two captured towns to work now as they are happy, no war. I did get two slaves from the last town.

I don't know if this game is much of an example as a horse kills immortal on a hill, even though the cat failed (2-0) [44-0].

250BC In the MA now and select Feudalism. I research at -19gpt. I mention this as I think that many players will not go into deficit financing for research. I have over 800 gold. Saving a turn off this tech time is not going to cost me that much. First I will probably gain some income and markets are starting to come online. Second 7 turns at -19 is 133. I will probably at least be able to gain back 60 on the last turn, so no more than 70 or so is lost.

The pikes will make the towns very much safer than spears. The tech is needed for knights, if I want them. Some libs will finish during this run as well.

230BC Xerxes buys in Caesar so now I can add in the dye town fair and square.

210BC sword kills spear by Rheims. 1st kills immortal and archer at Tiwan. Horse kills archer (4-0) [48-0].

150BC two archers from Caesar show up at Tours, no Legions. I see Shaka now, I do not contact him as I want to met any others on his land first. 5/5 and 4/4 sword kill the archers. Horse kills archer at Tiwan. 1st kills immortal there as well (4-0) [52-0]. Shaka has Construct, not Currency.

130BC I drop research and get +130, so got back all the money more or less. Start FP in Tours. With only a few promotions in 48 fights, I do not swap the HE for the FP. I can wait for the FP. Note I do not pick Tours for any special reason other than it is ready to build something and is decent size right now. I am not making a single unit at this time. That is why I am not able to press on. I have control of my borders and will make a few upgrades to pikes, so I should be fine.

110BC start Mono at 70% in 8. Upgrade some swords and a spear. 1st kills immortal (1-0) [53-0]. No one knows Lit and Glb next turn, don't know why I bothered.

90BC 1st kills immortal at Tyre (1-0) [54-0].

70BC met America. They do not know Philo or Map and others. Still no one has Currency. Put up embassies with those I do not have them with. Shaka is making Soz at 5spt. I offer 3 techs for Monarchy and Sam is not going for it as it has a wonder.

In a fit of pique I steal the tech, thanks to the embassy. Probably not worth the money, but just thinking about whipping up the gardens to spite Sam. Not sure if I mentioned it, but have my last two galleys on the new land. 1st kills 2 spears and we capture it. I was going to dump it, but it is in the CxxC pattern, so it will save a settler built later. (2-0) [56-0]

50BC I see purple border, must be Henry. I have upgraded spears and moved them.

IBT I may have gotten this on the wrong ibt, but this one or the next one an immortal attacked Tiwan and died. I forgot he was there (1-0) [57-0].

30BC met Henry, HG underway last turn or this one, forget which it was started. One nation left to met.

10BC wow, Sam started Colossus. I had not even realized no one is making it after how many turns? I had only one coastal town anyway, I switch to it for now. Most people will sweat over it or the Lighthouse. I do not care much about faster boats, even on island maps. They are not bad, but I do not need it. The ships will get there eventually.

It can be a pain in high level games when you cannot catch their ships, but not critical. There are so many wonders available to build. On the subject of this mythical wonder addiction, it can only pertain to those building wonders when they should not. IOW, it is fine to build them, when you have no reason not to do it. Here the only thing it impacts is filling the land faster or taking towns faster. Speed is not important in this game as we are inevitable. We can fill the land at our leisure.

30AD start Chiv in 4 turns. I elect to be nice again and make peace with Xerxes for all is gold, a massive 30 gold. I wanted to free the army to go to the dye area.

50AD 5/5 kills archer at Tours and MDI kills the other and I cover with pike (2-0) [59-0].

70AD MDI kills archer (1-0) [60-0].

90AD galley sinks galley and is now vet. 4/5 kills archer (2-0) [62-0].

110AD start on Engineering.

130AD finally see the light blue of Sumeria.

150AD Lyons starts lib after HE. Embassy in all now. 1st stops to kill a spear/settler (1-0) [63-0]. You can see a few MDI going, will switch to knights.

Edit:
This may not be the proper place for this, but I may have missed an issue that was just posted. The player was talking about not making aqua's. Related to that is government. You want to get out of despotism as soon as you can, period. Go to Republic or Monarchy as suits your plan and style. They offer different values and basically Monarchy is for those that will be at war much of the time and may have trouble with War weariness.

Republic is better for economy and hence for researching, but wars cause WW. So whatever one you pick, you want to get the towns up to cities for extra unit support. Monarchy has more free unit support and will get back some of the loss income Vs Republic, IF you will have a lot more troops.

Cities provide more than extra unit support, they have increased production and income, so it is critical to get as many towns to cities as you can. At some point it will not be worth putting in an aqua, say if it is a 1 shield town or it cannot feed 7 citizens. If you get to Replacement Parts, you can use Civil Engineers and then you may reconsider those towns.

Getting cities up to max size can be done by adding in workers, but this is something that I reserve for a single wonder city and only in Sid games or a tough AW. This is because I usually cannot spare the workers, until the game is so late that I do not care about growing that way.

170AD 5/5 kills archer and mdi kills one (2-0) [65-0].

190AD Summeria finished Colossus so I switch to Light. Funny they do not yet know Writing. The same sword and MDI kill another pair of archers. 1st gets 2 spears in dye town (4-0) [69-0].

210AD 1st two archers (2-0) [71-0].

230AD 1st gets the last archer, but town autorazed (1-0) [72-0]. I do not have a settler ready right now. I started KT last turn. I go for Invention, but I leave research at 10% for a turn or two to get the cash to upgrade to knights. We are so far ahead, no reason to not do it.

I wanted to mention the reason workers are making roads on those mountains near Rouen. It started with the Roman galley. I did not know if they had units, but could not risk it. So I was moving workers to block a landing. The town and two workers and a horse forced them to move, till it got to where I could attack it. So I may as well make roads now. Once I get a town down to claim the dye, I will offer peace.

250AD 5/5 kills spear (1-0) [73-0].

260AD knight kills archer (1-0) [74-0].

270AD run research up to 70% so Invent in 5. I up lux to 20%. Could avoid it, but wanted to have a few towns using all pop. Upgrades done. I have a 5/5 spear and a 5/5 sword I will leave for now. Knight kills archer and 1st kills spear (2-0) [76-0].

300AD knight kills archer, its 3rd and no promotion (1-0) [77-0].

310AD knight gets its 4th archer and 1st gets 1 (2-0) [79-0].

330AD 1st kills 2 archers and we found town (2-0) [81-0].

340AD I see Xerxes is about to plop a town on a dye and I cannot have that. Knight kills the immortal (1-0) [82-0]. I make peace with Caesar and then a pack for the princely sum of Math.

350AD knight kills persian spear and autorazed town (1-0) [83-0]. I start a harbor in Rouen now to get pop to work all those gold tiles. I am sending boats off to homeland, but across ocean, so they may sink. I am fine either way. If they make it great, need some to invade later, if not I save maint and will build new boats later.

360AD switch Tiwan to settler from aqua, we need more to fill the open land.

370AD Zulu DOW America. Knight kills spear at Sardis (1-0 [84-0].

380AD knight kills immortal and grabs settler. Knight kills another spear at Sardis (2-0) [86-0]. Start on Theo, not full out in 5. We have salt hooked already and at least one more unconnected.

390AD Great wall done, I switch Tours form Sun Tsu to Artemis and then start Sun in Orleans. I found a fair size island near us as the boats come home with no real exposure. I have not upgraded any pikes as I do not need Musketeers at this point. Knight kills spear and capture the place. It starts a worker. Our culture is the best so little risk of a flip. send a pike to Sardis.

410AD Xerxes asked for peace so I gave it. Sorry about that Caesar, who will now take some lumps. I was premature on the boats as there is a 1 turn stop in the ocean and the first one out sunk.

As best as I recall I have had 86 wins and 2 regulars promoted and 3 vets as well as one leader. What are the odds of promotions? Odds of promotion are based on whether the civ has the Militaristic trait or not and whether the victory was against barbarians or not. Basically, chances of promotion are halved for victories over Barbarians and doubled for Militaristic civs.

Non-militaristic civ vs. non-barbarians:

conscript to regular: 1 in 2, regular to veteran: 1 in 4, veteran to elite: 1 in 8.

Non-militaristic civ vs. barbarians:

conscript to regular: 1 in 4, regular to veteran: 1 in 8, veteran to elite: 1 in 16.

Militaristic civ vs. non-barbarians:

conscript to regular: 1 in 1, regular to veteran: 1 in 2, veteran to elite: 1 in 4.

Militaristic civ vs. barbarians:

conscript to regular: 1 in 2, regular to veteran: 1 in 4, veteran to elite: 1 in 8.

If a victorious unit fails to get promoted, it will always be promoted upon surviving any other battle in the same turn . This gives an obvious advantage to defenders as well as an incentive to use the same offensive units for additional battles whenever possible. Thanks again Mike.B of Firaxis. So as you see the promotions are not as bad as one may have thought.

Since we have Flood Plains, let me mention there is a 0.5% per turn chance of disease for every floodplains/jungle tile a city is working. Disease always hits twice in a row if you have enough population, but then you go back the the 0.5% per turn chance. Removing citizens from floodplains/jungle after disease strikes does not prevent the second consecutive strike.

As to chops, if you need to know what town gets the shields, here is the lowdown. When you chop a forest, the city receiving the shields is determined in this order of priority (keypad directions to city location from forest): 9-6-3-2-1-4-7-8-98-99-96-36-33-32-12-11-14-74-77-78.Cities building a Wonder or belonging to a different civilization are not considered. Worked tiles make no difference to where the shields end up.

420AD found town and now we have the dyes in our border.

430AD I found Poitiers in the desert and I make the pop a scientist so it will not grow. I do not want to put any thing into the place and its tiles can be used by other towns.

440AD Light is done and it triggers a GA, so I can upgrade pikes, but will wait a bit. You can see the drop in time to finsih wonders now. I forgot to mention I am now doing Education. Yes it will kill the GLB, but it was not worth anything anyway. The most it would do is give us optional techs we skipped. I would rather get in a few universities. We could trade for them or steal them or beat them out of the AI, if we want. I switched the market in Cuz to an aqua for growth.

470AD start Astro, boat back as the GL made it fairly safe to cross with extra move and such.

510AD start Music. This is not a normal play as I would skip these optional techs, but we have a sand box and can do as we please, it is Regent after all. I may as well take the happy face for all towns and it takes only 4 turns at 50%.

I am making a harbor in Marseilles to upgrade the boats for getting some people to the island. We could easily have gone straight to MT and make boats and invaded to end this game in short order, but I do not normally try to win fast. I also intend for this to be game that gets at least into IA. Many post about not knowing what to build or what to do next after getting into the Middle Ages. I hope to present a possible way to go.

520AD Henry starts Sun Tzu, so someone made the next age. For those that do not know it, when two nations are in the next age, you can get uprisings of barbs. The camps can only occur in fog. We have no fog near us. Some fog exist by Rome and Persia. BTW a crusader emerged from the KT. There are even more wonders now with Copes. I will wait for Sun Tzu to finish and then start Copes in Orleans.

530AD Artemis finishes, so I decide to start Copes there. I should mention that Zulu and then America asked for alliances and RoP against the other. I often deal with these by just making a counter offer and only give then 10 gold as a token. No deal made and no anger as I give them 10 gold. I do not want to get involved in wars where I declare, unless I can end it quickly. Oh and Zulu starts Sun as well.

550AD start on Chem in 4. I have not noted some towns being created. BTW it looks like the other continent is much larger than this one. I did not look to see if they in fact have the other 4 lux, but it is likely.

580AD dye finally connected. Chem will finish next turn.

590AD start Bachs and sell off hand made barracks.

630AD Finished Metal and doing MT, but GA will end after this turn. It is a sick game for sure, 14 wonders done or being done of 17. Artemis was obsolete about the time it finished. Rome has not fared well and is down to two towns.

680AD Caesar is down to Rome a few turns back, I start Physics to get Mag. I am not ready to send boats out as I do not have enough settlers. This is solely due to the wonders and not going to war more.

I have not upgraded units as I will wait for Leo, why not? Perhaps I should say something about the irrigation going on in places that really are not being used. I will road all tiles, used or not and once I move out to the corrupt zone, I water only. Later rails will make it so I can use more specialist. I will not have to wait to irrigate in these tiles as many will have already been done. The workers are able to get the important tiles done and the roads down. So it will be easier and I have already put water where no river or lake existed.

720AD start Mag in 4. I could drop lux, but I did not. I switched Orleans from Bach to MT in 3. I start over on Bach in Tours that just finished Copes. As you can see even the mountains have a road. No mines past Rheims. Most of the tiles are irrigated past that point.

I am making some courts, which I tend not to do as I would prefer to make units and attack. I have aquas in many places that are not on a lake or a river. We are close to being border to border. The next town will probably do it. I see Rome is no longer on the continent and has moved to an island.

760AD MT done, but I elect to squeeze in a uni, before starting an army. I was going to do Bank, instead will do Nav and go for Magel. I know people would worry about Smith, but really it is yours when you are ready.

770AD I am sending 3 workers to the cap to do some chopping to get the uni done or any armies. I also want to clear those tiles and mine, before Steam. It lets me gather a few workers to rail as well.

800AD I got the disease in Cherbourg back to back, in spite of clearing some jungle. Sent a few more workers to Lyons to chop after Leo. Doing Bank now and switched the tiny palace pre to Magel. Forgot, volcano blew near Roeun, but so far only polluted that tile. I had clear the pollution early, oh well.

840AD started on Econ in 4 at 50%. I did drop lux a few turns back to 10%. Several nations have come to want this or that deal, but I just click goodbye. If they have the nevre to come talking deals with an annoyed or worse attitude, I do not bother being nice.

Summeria did want to do a lux for lux, but wanted 23gpt. I will cover this issue now from my perspective. I am loathed to give gpt to the AI. It will only help them. That is not to say I would never do it, but I have 4 luxs, so another can wait at this level. I would go for a lux for lux and me give a tech, but not gold per turn. I have gone for some of these optional techs now otherwise if I went to the next age, I would never research them.

I want some of these wonders, Smiths, Magel and maybe Shakes. I would not mind getting Steam sooner, but I can wait a bit. In a game to win fast, this is not a good play. I would have used my cavs to take them out.

870AD I am chopping and mining the core tiles. I sent the latest crusader to be disbanded for shields to speed the army. I had two archers and they will do the same as well as the 5/5 sword. All other units upgraded. I send the 3/3 mdi to disband as well.

890AD whoops I accidently rushed the army for 760 gold, oh well. I am doing 4 turn research at +223gpt.

910AD Smiths is going now. I send all three galleons to Trye to prep for invasions. 2nd is now 3x cavs. Xerxes finished Caesar.

960AD Start Free Art. Sistine done.

1000AD rushed the 3rd army. Free done, start on Shakes and ToG. Start Pentagon in Lyons. Still have 3k. I am making banks, which I would not do either. Here we not going hard on troops, so why not. The maint is free after Smiths.

I have 3 full armies, 3 units anyway. Will go on the attack so I can get on with the invasion. I am not use to being in Republic as I normally go for Monarch to war. This is yielding the extra cash. Maybe I should say more about this government issue now.

To me, if you are playing at a higher level, the wars are likely to not end so fast. You would not expect to get so much land so early, nor the lux. You do not have 4 contented citizens. So the upshot of it all is that Republic would be harder on the happiness as a rule. I bypass the problem with Monarchy and pay a price for income, but I do not have to stop a war at time not of my choosing. Republic is certainly fine for Regent and Monarch levels.

1020AD 3rd kills 2 spears and 2 immortals to capture Antioch and gets a promotion. The extra hit point is a good thing for a 3x army. 2nd kills immortal and also promotes. Two slaves in town. Cav kills immortal and another cav kills immortal. Cav retreats doing no damage to spear. Had to happen sooner or later (7-0) [91-0]. Cav is covered by 4 crusaders and a musketeer.

IBT immortal retreats a cav.

1030AD 2 crusaders kill spears in Samaria and captures it. Send in Musketeer and red lined cav. Crusader kills immortal on hill next to town and cover with crusader, it went elite as well. 3rd kills immortal and cav gets one. Then 3rd kills spear and captures Pasargade, Move in the wounded cav as well. (6-0 [97-0]

IBT immortal attacks the crusaders on the hill and dies (1-0) [98-0]

1040AD we are industrious now and I select Steam, a must in my book. Note I generally do not research Nationalism and will not here either. Steam in 5 at 80%. Lyons is getting a few irrigated plains mined as it has more than 24 food and the shields can speed up the Pentagon. I have not started Newtons.

1050AD 3rd kills spear at Istarhr (1-0) [99-0].

1060AD 2 cavs kill spears at Arbela and captures it. 3rd kills spear and autorazed town. 2 cavs kills immortals. 2nd kills 2 units at Persepolis. A cav and a crusader kill units (9-0) [108-0].

1070AD 3rd kills 2 immortals and raze Persepolis. I rush aqua in Rouen for 60 gold. (2-0) [110-0].

1090AD the stack that was clearing jungle start to rail towards the capitol. Electricity in 5 as I race for RP. My .02 on RP. It is the next most important tech in the age. First it increases the speed of workers. Next it provides infantry and artillery. It also lets you use Civil Engineers. CE's are very useful in corrupt farms. 3rd kills 2 spears and captures Antitium. Cav kills wandering archer. Generally I am starting workers in the capture towns. Not so much to shrink them as I need lots of workers to rail the land. Remember we are kings of culture here, so flips are of little concern.

1100AD 3rd kills 3 units in Gordium and razes it. (3-0) [113-0]

1110AD mdi kills archer at Samaria and goes elite (1-0) [114-0].

1120AD 3rd kills 3 at Bactra and captures it. It was too small to raze for workers and I do not have enough settlers to fill all the wholes. The other thing is they are nearly off the land, so not the need to use the army to eliminate them. Two cavs kill spears and capture Hamadan. Cav kills archer and goes elite (6-0) [120-0]. 2nd is trapped waiting for relieve.

1130AD 2nd breaks out and kills two at Pompei and razed it. Two slaves. It was too close to my town. (2-0) [122-0]

1140AD 2nd kills 2 and captures Rome. RP in 5. Cav kills archer (1-0) [123-0].

1150AD 3rd kills 2 spears and captures Zohak. 5/5 cav kills spear at Veli and 2nd kills one to capture it (4-0) [127-0]. Run two cannons over to ping galley.

1170AD 3rd kills 2 spears and captures Ergili. 2nd kills 2 spears at a town I missed the name of and I razed it for 2 slaves. That was the last town on the continent. 5/5 cav kills last unit on the land that I know of and gets a leader. I make peace with Xerxes and he give me the only 3 towns he has other than the capitol.

I abandon the one on his island. I start a worker on one and a harbor on the other on small island. This may be abandon, unless I send support there soon. (5-0) [132-0] It is so sad to see him give those towns, but I can see his point. So no war right now and RP in 2. The main cities have gotten rails on most used tiles now. I left his two workers alone.

Well that is enough for one day. I am probably nuts to do it. I am at least hoping that the next player that says they cannot beat Regent or lower can be given the link. Then they can see how easy it is and some idea of how to approach it.

As can be seen this does not require much micro management at all. Just pay attention and not even all the time. It is not going to help anyone that is stuck on a samll island with no resources.

If you cannot beat Regent, then roll a new game, if you get a "so very cold of the" start. save those rough starts for when you are whipping high level games. All you learn form tough starts is how to bare down.

That is useful, but not to new players. They need to have some fun first. I am sure I have made many typos and probably a few brain farts, but all in all it should at least be coherent. I hope anyway.