Civ Old Timer Has Questions About Civ3... Answer Them Please!

[Spoonwood]

I haven't built a temple in a very long time ... am I right that they are almost always useless except for cultural victories?

Pretty much. I'll sometimes put one in a border city in the long buildup to the first war, but I tend to hesitate to advise that, especially since I'll purchase or buy them. I only do so as a way to attempt to prevent a flip, but I'm skeptical it helps enough. Sometimes for a border expansion inland. Coastal cities can use them to make more commerce, but in both cases, hopefully I'll sell them soon after that.

They are useful in any histographic game for border expansions for coastal cities.

 

[Spoonwood]

Second lesson: rush build culture to avoid major cities flipping.

Possibly can't get culture in fast enough at demigod and above to prevent a flip.

 

[Spoonwood]

I had been away for over a decade myself. It was upon my return to Civfanatics that I discovered the Flintlock C3X mod. Give that a try, it’s the way the game should have been designed in the first place. A bunch of new features that did not exist when we first we’re playing.

The quality of life features, the AI using armies, and Scientific Great Leaders working, yes. However, the artillery changes should not have been in the original game. The AIs have problems with them (they can drop off a catapult and a pikeman near an empty capital... and then lose the pikeman due to unit support), and when they lose them, they don't bring an offensive unit with their artillery + defender stack. It also messes with their economy and results in them building units faster and more overall, which leads to them not having as much gold.

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

OK, so thanks all for the feedback.

So some lessons I learned and will try to apply to my heart's content, thanks to the insightful and intelligent discussion here:

1 - build culture only when necessary and near AI cities. That's IMHO.
2 - use the luxury slider in a Republic and avoid temples.
3 - do not pop rush unless strictly necessary. OK I'll apply it.
4 - Stay far behind the culture race until the Middle Ages.
5 - Do not build Wonders, pre-build only what's strictly necessary and planned, steal them.
6 - Build tons of workers and get settler factories running.

 

[justanick]

1 - build culture only when necessary and near AI cities.

For research you want culture buildings like libraries and universities in your core, not so much at your border. It can make sense to have 1 culture building each in border towns, but it is not always a priority. Walls, barracks, courthouses and aqueducts can be more important. Where you put your priorities regarding border towns is a genuine decision, there is not obvious choice.

6 - Build tons of workers and get settler factories running.

Here it is settlers first. While you pump out settlers the need for workers is still limited because settlers make your towns shrink. Once peaceful expnsion is over you need many workers, about 2 per town. Going even highr has also merits, but it is also costly. Getting the right balance is not easy.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I haven't built a temple in a very long time ... am I right that they are almost always useless except for cultural victories?

I build them for border pops... that's it. If my civ has cheap temples, I build them as I am often going for a 100k cultural victory.
If my civ has cheap libraries, I build them *everywhere*, either for the science or for the border pop.
If my civ has neither cheap libraries or temples, the temples still cost fewer shields. For those towns that need a border pop, I usually do this:
start building the temple, get a few turns in, then cash-rush to finish it.

Yes, I should remember to sell it after the border pop, but I don't always. Those towns usually have temple-marketplace queued up, so I tend to forget about them. No, I don't check every city, every turn, the way some excellent players do.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

I build them for border pops... that's it. If my civ has cheap temples, I build them as I am often going for a 100k cultural victory.
If my civ has cheap libraries, I build them *everywhere*, either for the science or for the border pop.
If my civ has neither cheap libraries or temples, the temples still cost fewer shields. For those towns that need a border pop, I usually do this:
start building the temple, get a few turns in, then cash-rush to finish it.

Yes, I should remember to sell it after the border pop, but I don't always. Those towns usually have temple-marketplace queued up, so I tend to forget about them. No, I don't check every city, every turn, the way some excellent players do.

Thinking along those lines, though, unless going for the 100K (+/- depending on map size) wouldn't libraries serve the same purpose and be worth more in the long run? Or are you thinking of cost depending on whether you are a Religious and/or Scientific civ?

 

[justanick]

In the long run corruption can be lowered to 70% or less. Therefore a library will pay off in the long run. It may be very long, though. So the question really is if rushing is worth it.

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

I've taken my weekened free time to start a game as France, 60% Continents Large, Monarch, and try to apply the strategies and lessons given here.

So far, in early age just built settlers, had two settler factories working, also built some workers and started manually improving everything. Got two luxuries, luckily iron and horses were nearby. Instead of building temples and libraries, or pop rushing, succesfully built the Colossus (which is a valuable early wonder) in my capital for the commerce, then started building masses of Swordsmen in anticipation of war.

Was still in Despo, found the Zulu, dowed the Zulu, mostly well behind in culture and infra. Swordsmen rush killed most of them, sent settlers to remaining empty spaces. Switched capital earliest of all to build infra, started building temples to get border pops on my cities, by then I had lots of land including one island-like space (but still connected thru two chokepoints) that was all mine.

Used the luxury slider up to 30 and 40% just like people said. WW was somewhat hitting me, but luxuries stopped it. Then started trading for luxuries, building stuff, lowered it to 10% without detriment to me.

Also switched as early as possible to Republic, and this time, got it working.

What I know now is by building only the essentials and adopting the new Civfanatics inspired grand strategy, I was able to keep Republic working from early on. I beelined to it, and switched at about 250BC.

Previously, my strategy worked around hitting critical mass, using pop rush to build culture and units, and then switching out of Monarchy and Despo only after critical mass was hit, I was already big, and we would be a bit late, like 800 or 1000 AD.

Now however I'm consistently capable of keeping Republic working from much earlier, thru the war and critical expansion phase, even before I hit critical mass. And the technological and economic boni of Republic are just too large to miss, so now I finally learned to use it consistently.

 

[justanick]

Still the focus on an early war likely negatively impacted your pace of progress. War is something that can well wait till military tradtion or at least till feudalism allows you to build proper units. During Despotism you need nothing better than 3/3 warriors for exploration and military police as a means to research faster in order to leave despotism ASAP.

Once you are a republic those 3/3 warriors offer little value at high expense. Disbanding them does therefore make sense. 4/4 MedInfs do then enable you to be superior as measured in F3. That should help to keep AI at bay so you can concentrate on building your cities up before you start to expand your territory. That way you advance faster in tech and when cavalry is available you can conquer territory which workers of AI have already improved. Patience can be a virtue. Let the AI work for you, it does save some bucks.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Still the focus on an early war likely negatively impacted your pace of progress. War is something that can well wait till military tradtion or at least till feudalism allows you to build proper units. During Despotism you need nothing better than 3/3 warriors for exploration and military police as a means to research faster in order to leave despotism ASAP.

Once you are a republic those 3/3 warriors offer little value at high expense. Disbanding them does therefore make sense. 4/4 MedInfs do then enable you to be superior as measured in F3. That should help to keep AI at bay so you can concentrate on building your cities up before you start to expand your territory. That way you advance faster in tech and when cavalry is available you can conquer territory which workers of AI have already improved. Patience can be a virtue. Let the AI work for you, it does save some bucks.

Is it worth upgrading those Warriors, or just disband them & build new units from scratch?

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

Also some extra notes: the bonus commerce from Colossus and Republic was vital to keep my research going. To keep pace with the AI at Emperor and Monarch, you need it. IMO.

I was able to time my Golden Age. I basically replaced all my army with Musketeers, then entered an early industrial age war with the pitiful, pathetic remnants of the Zulu. A single UU victory allowed me to trigger an early industrial GA, and now I have 430+ Gold per turn and 7 tech research times right at the correct time.

AI got the Smith's Trading Co. My bad. I was just three turns away from it. Prebuilding from forever before, planning is essential, but still enjoying modest tech lead I used the production to build Newton's University which I tech rushed, now building Coal Plant and switching to Palace so I can get Universal Suffrage, ToE, Hoover Dam in my main productive hub near the capital.

I'm now keeping a modest tech lead on Monarch, which is a great great improvement, before I was just lagging behind badly. Not quite big yet (30% or plus), but later expansion is planned.

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

Still the focus on an early war likely negatively impacted your pace of progress. War is something that can well wait till military tradtion or at least till feudalism allows you to build proper units. During Despotism you need nothing better than 3/3 warriors for exploration and military police as a means to research faster in order to leave despotism ASAP.

Once you are a republic those 3/3 warriors offer little value at high expense. Disbanding them does therefore make sense. 4/4 MedInfs do then enable you to be superior as measured in F3. That should help to keep AI at bay so you can concentrate on building your cities up before you start to expand your territory. That way you advance faster in tech and when cavalry is available you can conquer territory which workers of AI have already improved. Patience can be a virtue. Let the AI work for you, it does save some bucks.

I always make war so I reach some 24%-30% map critical landmass. It is important, because as I said in Civ you have to be big to be competitive. Not huge, but relatively big, enough to get beyond my OCN, built FP but no rushing now. I have a decent, safe, strategically well placed and guarded landmass for myself now. Usually this entails curb stomping the first two AI's, but Hittites dowed me and I was able to conquer some limited objectives before reaching peace.

 

[justanick]

Is it worth upgrading those Warriors, or just disband them & build new units from scratch?

My implication is to build them from scratch. 90 gold per upgrade donnot seem sensible. And building from scratch becomes reasonably cheap soon enough. Early on a military worth a few turns of regular production may well suffice. If you produce 10 shields per town and have one 4/4 MedInf worth 4 turns of production this i more than enough if not too much already.

Also you donnot want to build baracks before warriors and by the time you have barracks you may no longer want to build warriors. But that depends on details that can vary from game to game.

 

[justanick]

I always make war so I reach some 24%-30% map critical landmass. It is important, because as I said in Civ you have to be big to be competitive. Not huge, but relatively big, enough to get beyond my OCN, built FP but no rushing now. I have a decent, safe, strategically well placed and guarded landmass for myself now. Usually this entails curb stomping the first two AI's, but Hittites dowed me and I was able to conquer some limited objectives before reaching peace.

There are instances in which an early war cannot be reasonably avoided. But if you manage to secure land sufficient for about two thirds of your OCN this does suffice. There is no rush for war while your cities can still grow very much. Early on a focus on civil development offers a better return on investment than military expenditure. This changes soon enough when your workers have completed improving your core cities.

Also i would like to point out that your preference for many (early unused) tiles per city will curb your economy early on, therefore mitigating your military potential. This means that you are less capable of waging war while also having a higher need for it, because you need more area for the same amount of towns. I would not be comfortable with such a choice.

 

[Spoonwood]

Universal Suffrage is a waste of time, unless playing for 20k.

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

Disagree, the amount of WW I get even in a minor, limited war can be significant and need a lux rate increase. In Republic, WS mitigates this.

 

[Lanzelot]

Universal Suffrage is still a waste of time: I forgot the exact numbers, but it decreases War Weariness by like 2%. In most cities, this is lost due to rounding effects, so for all practical purposes, the Universal Suffrage has zero effect... Complete waste of time.
(My theory is, that the programmer, who had to implement it, botched it up somehow, e.g. forgot a factor of 10 somewhere, and they never noticed and consequently never fixed it... )

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

I didn't know this, but thanks!

I'm being sucessful in Monarch, so now I'm going to climb the ladder to Emperor and Demigod.

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

Also, an important question: when you're big and late, when you have to upgrade your Muskets to Infantry, for instance (I wait until I can have INF), do you upgrade manually and prioritize Leo's, or do you simply produce new units to replace the old?? Thanks.

Also what are some useful tips for somebody climbing the Emperor ladder. I'm already reading and taking notes on this article here: https://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/introductory/monarch-to-emperor-the-great-leap/.