Nolition's CivIII Chronicle (Now Playing Game 3: Maya, Emperor)

[Nolition]

Something I noticed when you posted a screenine of your F8-screen earlier, but didn't bring up at the time: 1000 turns for the game?

It might have been helpful to note at the start that you were/are technically playing a mod, rather than the epic game (which has a default 540 turns). Also, AFAIK, if you're playing using a modded .biq, your score is not recorded in your Hall of Fame anyway.

(Unless there is some hidden means of changing "turns in game" during the setup stage for the epic .biq, that I don't know about...?)

I am not sure what a .biq is. The game did appear in my Hall of Fame, so maybe I did leave it unchanged. My civ4 game regularly changes the assets mid-game and wrecks my plays, and I think my computer is possessed. This is why I hate technology. I did change the amount of turns in the length of the game to the maximum value, which is 1000. I always play with time victory disabled on civ4 after one particularly insane game where I ended up with zero strategic resources whatsoever (outrageous) and micromanaged like hell to finally win on the final turn of the game, only to realize that the game prioritises Time over all other victory conditions if they are achieved in the same game. Since you cannot outright disable the time victory in civ3 (at least, not without mods), this was my workaround using the game options. I went back and re-read, and I didn't point this out. Oops - I had intended to (I usually screenshot the game settings as one of my first pictures). I believe I also disabled "culturally linked starts" and wonder victory, because I didn't really understand it and the description that I read sounded like it didn't really add anything to the game.

It just occurred to me that the game might calculate score by (turns remaining until Time victory) and that this could throw the calculations off.

I'm planning on creating the next game tomorrow or possibly wednesday. Can I ask about your thoughts on increasing to monarch?

 

[vmxa]

Kibitzer:

Here is the score mechanics:

SCORES

Everything is multiplied by the difficulty factor. 1-8, Chieftain-Sid.

Population consists of 1 point for every specialist or content citizen in your civ, and 2 points for every happy citizen. This score is multiplied by Difficulty.

Territory is 1 point for every tile within your cultural borders. This score is multiplied by Difficulty.

Future technology I'm not sure on, but it's suppose to be like 50 points per each. This score is multiplied by Difficulty. I think this is broken.

Adding Population + Territory + Technology up gives you your turn score. Adding up every turn score and then dividing by the number of turns played yields the base score. Then the bonus is added.

The bonus is simply by date, the formula is (2050 - Date) * Difficulty. It is awarded for any victory condition.


F11:

Approval rating:
The percentage of your people that are happy. If every single person is happy, you have 100%. If everyone is content it is 50%. Edit: This can be misleading when you get specialists, because the specialists count as only content people. So even if everyone is happy or an entertainer, you won't have 100% approval rating if you have any specialists.

Rounddown (50% + ((Number of happy citizens) - (Number of unhappy citizens)) / (Total number of citizens) / 2 * 100%)

Population: Add up all the population you get from the city view from all your cities. Not population points, like size 1, 2 or 3, etc. but the 10,000 or 100,000 you see under the city name.
Sum(i=1..N) {Pop in City(i)}
Pop in City = {Sum (j=1..(City Size)) {j} + (Food in Storage) / (Storage Size)} * 10000


GNP: Total gold in all your cities before corruption takes a bite out of it.
1 gold= 1 million

Mfg. Goods: Total non wasted shields in all your cities.
1 shield = 1 megaton.

Land Area: # of tiles in your territory * 100.
1 Tile =100 square miles
Sea is included in this, but does not help in the territory part of your game score.

Literacy (%)
(Citizens who live in a city with a Library + Citizens who live in a city with a University + Citizens who live in a city with a Research Lab) / 3 / (Total Number of Citizens) * 100% + (3% if Literature discovered)
If every city has just a library you will have 33%, because they are missing the other 2 science buildings.

Edit: Or live in a city with 1 or more scientific Great Wonders (Great Library, Newtons, SETI, Theory of Evolution, Cure for Cancer, and Internet) Copernicus's does not count because despite it helps science, it isn't given the scientific flag. Having 1 of those wonders counts the same as if they had all the other improvements in the city. Two small wonders (Apollo and Intelligence Agency) give you credit for having 50% science in that city. You also get 3% added to your literacy rate when you get the literature tech. No bonus when you get education. Great Library still helps your literacy rate even after it is obsolete.

Disease (%)
(Number of Floodplains + Jungle in territory) / (Total Number of territory tiles) * 100%
Marshes have no effect and neither do granaries.

Pollution: # of tiles that are currently polluted. 1 ton = 1 polluted territory tile.

Life Expectancy (# of years)
20 + {(Citizens who live in a city with a Granary + Citizens who live in a city with a Aqueduct + Citizens who live in a city with a Hospital) / 3 / (Total Number of Citizens) * 80}.

Family Size: The average amount of excess food that each city is producing/2. If you have 1 city that is producing 4 extra food, that 4 food would feed 2 people, so your family size would be 2 children. Minimum is 1, hard to say exactly what the max would be. In most cases you won't see this above 2, maybe 3 or 4 if all your cities are extremely rich in food, experiencing a very fast growth period or just put down a a lot of railroads on irrigated tiles.

Military Service: 10 years * # of military units / # of citizens. Military units are units with an attack and defense value, so workers, scouts and princesses don't count. Kings do. So at the start of a mass regicide game you will have a military service of 70 years because of the 7 military units *10 years divided by just your 1 citizen. 0 years if you have no army or you have just a few units, but thousands of population points.

Annual Income: The number of connected strategic/luxury resource types in your territory. The minimum value is 1 and you get a +1 bonus for your first trade route with another civ. Thanks DaveMcW.

Productivity: The total amount of uncorrupted gold, unwasted shields, and excess food you are producing in all your cities.
(Total Shields) - (Total Waste) + (Total Commerce) - (Total Corruption) + (Net Total Food).

 

[tjs282]

You can change the amount of turns in the standard game preferences before you start. In the same window that controls how many cities are required for Elimination, for example, or how much gold a Princess will give you (even though Princesses are pretty bugged as far as I know)

Well well well. I did not know that, and now I have learned something new about this great game. Thank-you (both) very much.

I am not sure what a .biq is. The game did appear in my Hall of Fame, so maybe I did leave it unchanged.

The .biq is the ruleset file that the conquest .exe uses to create a (new) game. Data from the .biq (including the map, whether randomly generated or preset) is then stored in every .sav file for that game.

It includes the tech tree, tech-costs, terrain yields, units/buildings available, unit/building statistics, etc., and it tells the game where to find all the needed assets (animation-files, sounds, etc.) if anything new has been added. You can edit the Conquests .biq using the included Editor (even adding completely new units, so long as you have the files to go with them), but as I say, if you do (and over-write the original), then you will no longer be playing the 'epic game' so scores are not recorded (because they would not be comparable).

However, anything that can be changed in the game setup screen does not affect the .biq itself -- so your score is still recorded.

My civ4 game regularly changes the assets mid-game and wrecks my plays

Civ3 does do that from time to time: strategic resources, once hooked up to a trade-net, may become randomly 'exhausted'. But this actually just means that they disappear from one tile, and re-appear somewhere else instead (this possibility, and the frequency with which it happens is also set in the .biq!)

I did change the amount of turns in the length of the game to the maximum value, which is 1000.

See above. I've been playing Civ3 since 2009 and Conquests since 2012ish, and I did not realise this was possible

I believe I also disabled "culturally linked starts" and wonder victory, because I didn't really understand it and the description that I read sounded like it didn't really add anything to the game.

If you habitually Randomise your own Civ (as I do), you should always turn off Culture-linkage, because it's bugged. If it's turned on, then you'll always get the American Civs on the board -- which means that on a Standard map, 5/8 Civs will be American, and 4/5 of these are Agricultural (the strongest Civ-trait in Conquests, which really helps the AI out).

The Wonder VC is more intended for Scenarios (e.g. the Mesopotamia-Conquest uses it). What it does is force an 'early' end to what might otherwise by a straight Histographic game (2050 AD, if you haven't changed the number of turns to win!) -- but you need to have the highest score when the last Wonder gets built (by anyone), or it's a guaranteed defeat.

Can I ask about your thoughts on increasing to monarch?

Monarch? Naaah... You've just finished showing us that you're already competent at Regent, so you've got a pretty good handle on the game: if you want to increase the challenge, I'd suggest to just skip straight up to Emperor. Yes, really!

The main/only noticeable difference between Regent and Monarch is that at Monarch, your people start getting unhappy sooner (only the first citizen per town is born content, instead of the first two citizens), which makes the early game a little more challenging (you need to use the LUX%-slider a little more). The Monarch-AI does also get an extra Worker and an extra defender(s?) to start, and a 10% discount on growth, build costs and (compared to you) tech-beakers, but it continues to be pretty inept at tile-improvement, micromanagement, and warring (and it still won't build Artillery!), so the early game still feels pretty much like Regent.

And the only additional (noticeable) differences between Monarch and Emperor are that the AI's discount goes up to 20%, which makes up for some of its ineptitude/wastefulness in early production/growth (brings it to pretty much an even standing with the human), and it gets a few more starting units (3 defensive, 1 attacker, 1 more extra Worker, IIRC). So you need to pick your priority town-sites carefully, and you can't faff around quite so much with buildings, you'll need to put more early shields into units (including Settlers and Workers).

But if you're still doubtful, just pick the Mayans as your Civ (IND + AGRI = strongest Civ in the game, usually!)

 

[Nolition]

The bonus is simply by date, the formula is (2050 - Date) * Difficulty. It is awarded for any victory condition.

Ah, it is a constant. I was thinking that the 2050 might actually just be the game limit (term) given in the game setup. That post does a good job of explaining the scoring calculations. We'll see if I can make more optimal use of that, this time around.

Well well well. I did not know that, and now I have learned something new about this great game. Thank-you (both) very much.

I guess it's pretty cool that it can still surprise after all of this time. I think I only found that setting because I was bound and determined to try to find a way to shut time victory off completely.

Civ3 does do that from time to time: strategic resources, once hooked up to a trade-net, may become randomly 'exhausted'. But this actually just means that they disappear from one tile, and re-appear somewhere else instead (this possibility, and the frequency with which it happens is also set in the .biq!)

This happened in the previous game and I attempted to grab a screenshot of it and failed, and then I completely forgot to write about it.

If you habitually Randomise your own Civ (as I do), you should always turn off Culture-linkage, because it's bugged. If it's turned on, then you'll always get the American Civs on the board -- which means that on a Standard map, 5/8 Civs will be American, and 4/5 of these are Agricultural (the strongest Civ-trait in Conquests, which really helps the AI out).

I forgot to mention - this was another alteration I made, because I didn't like how the feature sounded. And I always like to play random leaders, and used random.org to determine who I was playing in this second game instead of the game's random feature. I want to play all different leaders, so I excluded Korea.

Monarch? Naaah... You've just finished showing us that you're already competent at Regent, so you've got a pretty good handle on the game: if you want to increase the challenge, I'd suggest to just skip straight up to Emperor. Yes, really!

I'm a little skeptical, but definitely willing to try it out!



For clarity, I'm going to share the game settings as I set this up. I'm going with a truly random map this time, but have set the size down to small. I have a natural preference for smaller maps, and am anticipating a tough game. I feel that a smaller map will be more manageable.



Here are the game limits and settings I selected. The game limits are all unchanged except for the maximum allowable turns. I've disabled wonder victory, culturally linked starting location and respawn AI players.



The gods of random.org demand that I play as Sumeria. They seem like they have very good traits, but I am not particularly sold on the Enkidu Warrior. Perhaps it is better to think of it as a half-price Spearman rather than a defensive warrior. I feel that if I don't get a golden age early, it's going to be completely impossible.

In that picture, you can also see my starting location. No bonuses are within view, and there are 3 desert tiles in my immediate vicinity. In games, I tend to settle in place more often than not. However, in this situation, I am inclined to step once south in order to get on the water and ditch one of the desert tiles.

I didn't actually start playing the game, mostly because I only got 4.5 hours of sleep last night and I am honestly in a bit of a fog. I don't want to bungle the whole game up by playing while half-asleep.

 

[Toxicman007]

Not sure if you are that kind of person, but I would restart that game . I'd keep the settings randomised, but play as Sumeria (as the gods have already decided that). That start just doesn't look appealing to me.

 

[Nolition]

Not sure if you are that kind of person, but I would restart that game . I'd keep the settings randomised, but play as Sumeria (as the gods have already decided that). That start just doesn't look appealing to me.

I am generally the kind of person who takes great, perverse joy out of overcoming adverse starts. I'll have to think about this. I don't want to put hours into this game if it's truly hopeless, but a challenge would be nice. Perhaps I'll try playing out a few turns and seeing if it's progressing.

 

[vmxa]

Kibitzer:
I see an early GA in your future, unless you can kept your UU out of fights.

 

[tjs282]

The gods of random.org demand that I play as Sumeria. They seem like they have very good traits, but I am not particularly sold on the Enkidu Warrior. Perhaps it is better to think of it as a half-price Spearman rather than a defensive warrior. I feel that if I don't get a golden age early, it's going to be completely impossible.

The AI usually does reasonably well as Sumeria (AGRI+SCI) as well, so it's not a bad 'choice' per se.

And the Enkidu is awesome! Yes, it's a half-price Spear, and yes, it does tend to produce an early GA (because you don't always get to 'choose' when the AI attacks you), but provided you only build 1 per town, and balance it with a whole bunch of Archers/Horses, you may be able to discourage the AI from declaring war in the first place (abject grovelling in the face of tribute-demands also helps!). Plus your exploring Enks are more likely to survive when they pop Barbs from huts (which will happen more often at Emp than it did at Regent).

The Small map does mean that you will have less space per civ, though, which means the AI-Civs will fill it up that much sooner. Once there are no more free city sites, that's when the AI tends to start on the warpath, but until then, you should be relatively safe with a minimal military...

However, in this situation, I am inclined to step once south in order to get on the water and ditch one of the desert tiles.

For non-AGRI Civs, I would usually agree, but you're playing as Sumeria -- which means you can irrigate Deserts for 2 FPT, so they're no worse than Plains (at least once you've located a freshwater source!).

So before you move your Settler, I would first move the Worker, either 1SW or 1SE. Those BGrass tiles will both need a road+mine anway, and 1SW will also let you check whether the water is fresh (i.e. does it give 2 food?), and/or whether that Jungle(/Forest?) has a food-bonus. Because if the answer to one or both of those questions is yes, moving the Settler south will likely be your best option (a freshwater-source gives an AGRI-town 3FPT even under Despotism -- not to mention saving you 100 shields for a 'Duct!).

But if not, I would actually rather suggest considering moving the Settler 1N, or 1NE, or 1E, to convert one of those Desert tiles into 'Grassland'; 1N or 1E also gives you direct access to additional Grassland-tiles to the west or east, respectively (you want to get your capital to Pop7 ASAP), and leaves the (coastal) Jungle(/Forest?) as a potential 1st-ring town site (get Alph ASAP, build 2-3 [suicide-]Curraghs for exploration, and then you could start building Colossus there!). Remember, you can't afford to place your initial cities so loosely at Emp as you did at Regent, because corruption starts closer to your Palace, and a more compact early empire also allows you to shift (foot-)troops around quickly, which makes it easier to defend using a smaller total military (and thus saves gold for research).

Another thing that is (much) more important at Emp than at Regent, is beelining at max. affordable SCI% to specific late-tier techs, and then trading those for the other (lower-tier) techs that the AI always goes for first, e.g. Masonry, Wheel, HorsebackRiding, Polytheism, IronWorking (trade away your BronzeWorking starter to everyone you meet, and I guarantee that they will all do IronWorking next!).

Soooo... do you already know about the 'Republic-slingshot' (research/buy/pop Alph, then go Writing --> CodeOfLaws --> Philo, and take [expensive!] Republic as your reward for getting Philo first)? Do that if you can, because you'll then be able to trade CoL/Philo for just about everything else (and maybe even save Republic for trade-bait in the early Medieval!). But if one or more AI-Civ gets to Writing before you do, consider just going straight for Philo, taking CoL as the freebie, and then setting a single Scientist to get you Republic in 50 turns while you bank gold at SCI%=0%.

 

[tjs282]

You can change the amount of turns in the standard game preferences before you start. In the same window that controls how many cities are required for Elimination, for example, or how much gold a Princess will give you (even though Princesses are pretty bugged as far as I know)

Now that @Nolition posted his screenshot, I remembered that I have briefly looked at that game-settings list before, but I must have assumed at the time that it was simply a rundown of preset parameters -- I didn't realise (although I probably should have) that you could actually change them. A couple of months back, someone actually asked about how to engage the 'Marathon' setting in Civ3: I told him/her that (AFAIK) there wasn't one, and asked if (s)he was perhaps getting Civ3 confused with Civ4? I'm now feeling a bit guilty about being so dismissive (although no more knowledgeable CFC-er corrected me at the time, either), but I can't find the post in question, to contact the user and apologise for my ignorance...

So... (sorry for digressions, but) this "[Extra] turns in game" thing has been nagging at me a little (not least because I'm also sporadically working on a mod-in-progress which aims to preserve the vast majotrity of the epic game while also fixing/re-balancing some of C3C's known issues). In the standard 540-turn epic game, the '[time-units]-per-turn' and 'no. of turns per time unit' values are set in the .biq, and determine the dates in-game when the turn-increments change, and hence the default histographic end-date of 2050. Do you (or anyone lurking) happen to know if/how increasing the total number of turns actually works with respect to these values?

Looking at the screenshots posted here, the .biq-set values appear to be used as is, so the 'increment-change' dates are preserved. But that would suggest that a game could potentially end (histographically) (much) later in the timeline than 2050 AD: i.e. assuming that the last listed increment-value is applied to all additional turns, a 1000-turn game (460 extra 1-year turns) would 'naturally' end in 2510 AD. Conversely, if the number of turns is shortened (if that's possible?) presumably e.g. a 450-turn game would end in 1960 AD.

Have I got that right? Or are the adjustments to the .biq values cleverer/more complex than that?

 

[Toxicman007]

As far as I am aware from my own tinkering with the amount-of-turns setting, you are correct with your assumptions. I have had games go over the standard 540 (Huge maps with only Conquest victory enabled), and they continue as 1year turns. However, I have not really shortened the amount of turns, but what you say makes sense, a game lasting for X turns would end in the corresponding X year.
But you can alter how/when the turn-increments change, as I have played various mods where this has been done (no idea how to do it as I am not a modder myself), and I'm pretty sure some of the original Conquests also do this. They are, of course, mostly shortened (except the glorious Sengoku with its standard 540).

 

[Nolition]

Kibitzer:
I see an early GA in your future, unless you can kept your UU out of fights.

I'm assuming that defeating Barbarian conscripts doesn't trigger it, based off of what happened here. Heh. I wasn't thinking at all about intentionally avoiding triggering the GA until midgame by hiding away my UU. Is this a common strategy?

As far as I am aware from my own tinkering with the amount-of-turns setting, you are correct with your assumptions. I have had games go over the standard 540 (Huge maps with only Conquest victory enabled), and they continue as 1year turns. However, I have not really shortened the amount of turns, but what you say makes sense, a game lasting for X turns would end in the corresponding X year.
But you can alter how/when the turn-increments change, as I have played various mods where this has been done (no idea how to do it as I am not a modder myself), and I'm pretty sure some of the original Conquests also do this. They are, of course, mostly shortened (except the glorious Sengoku with its standard 540).

I'm not certain, but this is my gut instinct, as well.

Oh boy! These turns! I definitely need some help.

Spoiler Part 1 (hidden for quick page load) :

That's not fresh water!



So I settle Ur to the east, and find another row of Desert.



I begin researching Alphabet, intending to go for the slingshot.



When Ur is settled, it reveals a bonus resource (cow). This is welcome news, at least!



This shows the shape of the continent.



I settle another city. Is this a good location? I want to share the cow between three cities. In the early turns, I micromanaged what city was working that tile quite a bit.



My first village turns out to be hostile.



Meeting the Chinese neighbours.



And the Celts.



This tip of the continent is uninhabited, except for some barbarians that came out of the second village to attack me. 0-2 now. The AIs have perhaps gotten better luck than me, as they both seem to have 4 or 5 techs that I don't already.



I move onto the next step: writing.



And settle my third city.



And my fourth! I'm really trying to pack them in, here.



I decide to go for Code of Laws first.



This is how I learned that you don't get any cash for using a settler to destroy a barbarian settlement. Oops! I kill the warriors after settling Umma.



I accept, having learned from the Mongols last game.



The final step! I'm pretty scientifically backwards at this point, and am really hoping that this will help fix things.



I'm experiencing major happiness cap problems, so I tried to settle on those mountains to snag the incense. It turns out you cannot build a city on top of them! Oops. I settle for the desert on one of the incense tiles.



This should get my cities past size 3 without stagnating.



Is this random???



The Dutch have slipped a settler and warrior around in a ship and have established a city on "my" side of the continent. I don't know why, but I really wasn't expecting this. I had focused on settlement efforts on racing east to grab the territory between myself and the celts, somehow thinking that all of this territory on my other flank would be left available for me to spread into. Not happening!



I seem to have missed out on the Philosophy bonus tech, which throws a wrench in my plans. Additionally, this is the only trade I can make with any of my known techs.



It does reveal a source of Iron, and I settle Agade in order to claim it and stick as close to my capital as possible. Too bad about all of the desert, but I am really starting to feel that swordsmen are my only way out of this mess.

So there we have it - a somewhat rough start! I missed out on my main strategic plan (to get that slingshot) and the AIs are off to a technological lead. I will have Iron hooked up soon, but I'm still kind of looking for a path forward at the moment. I could continue to try to peacefully expand NW as much as possible, throwing up courthouses as I go and making the most I possibly can out of that territory. Or I could begin thinking about fighting a war with the Celts to try to get a few cities and broker a treaty to help me catch up in technology. The one thing I know is that I need to start turning things around, because it's only 850 BC and I am already in a bit of a hole!

But if one or more AI-Civ gets to Writing before you do, consider just going straight for Philo, taking CoL as the freebie, and then setting a single Scientist to get you Republic in 50 turns while you bank gold at SCI%=0%.

Is this the path that I should take now, moving forward? I'm a bit concerned about the AI extorting all of that money from me.

 

[vmxa]

Kibitzer:

You are correct you cannot trigger a GA via barbs. It should not be real hard to avoid triggering. Soon as you get an upgrade (pikes?) to your UU, upgrade border units.

I would think most players try to hold off a GA as long as they can to have more towns and more tiles improved. This gets more for your twenty turns. There are games where I need an early GA to survive, such as AWD.

It hurts to get a GA with say three towns and few tiles mined.

 

[tjs282]

Urgh... That's not a great start. Not entirely your fault, that terrain kind of sucks for Settlement -- lots of Desert/Jungle in your core, and no freshwater anywhere to convert the Plains/Desert into useful 2 FPT tiles. I'd almost be inclined to give Feudalism a go... (kidding, don't do that!) However, you do have access to 3 Luxes (or you did, before the Dutch grabbed the Furs), which you should get hooked ASAP, to reduce unhappiness.

Missing the slingshot was bad luck, but also due to less-than optimal exploration, which limited your tech-trading opportunities. When you met the Chinese (MIL + IND = Masonry + WarCode), I would guess they'd already met the Celts (REL + AGRI = CBur + Pots), and swapped their starting techs 2 for 2. The Dutch (AGRI + SEA = Pots + Alph) are likely on (or near) your Continent as well, if you couldn't trade Alph for anything after you researched it. You need to meet the other Civs (especially overseas Civs) as early as possible, so you shouldn't just send out explorers overland, you should get a coastal town(s) up for building suicide Curraghs to explore your coastline, and 'hop' across any narrow channels to find other islands/continents.

On which subject, your city-placement has hamstrung you as well. I know I said pack them tighter, but I meant Cx(x)xC (distance 4.0-4.5) rather than Cxx(x)xC (distance 5.0-7.5), not CxC (distance 2.0-3.0)... Also, Sumer and Kish could have been much better placed -- they are crowding Ur and Lagash, respectively, but both are 1 tile distant from their nearest Coast, meaning that you will have (multiple) 1-FPT tiles in their BFCs, that you will never be able to 'improve' to 2 FPT by building a Harbour. Sumer should have gone 1NE, and Kish on any of the 3 tiles to the east of its current position (i.e. 1NE, 1E or 1SE).

The barb-uprisings are not random: they happen when 2 Civs (I think) reach the next era -- so you are still stuck in the Ancient Age, while at least 2 Civs have already made it into the Medieval! That's not a good sign, either.

But no game of Civ is lost until the AI actually starts overrunning your cities...

 

[vmxa]

I wrote this as I went down your report and it is nearly 3am, so I may not be fully coherent. Just wanted to give you some feedback FWIIW.

Not played on emperor other than AW in a long time, but I would expect you have little chance for a sling shot with this start. Especially with hut popping, bound to be a civ with scouts.

What is the thinking on mining so far from town? Make a road maybe and head back to town or just take the hit and move towards town. You need the cow soonest.

Looks like a lot of worker turns with no roads, so just moving. May want to read Crackers open move article. The worker and any units will be a one tile at a time, till you road. No real value to get a road to the next town, if it is not cnnected to the capitol.

Remember happy faces and content citizens are a bit harder to come by in emperor.

Citizens born content 4 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
Emperor is where you get one content pop.

"Is the second spot a good spot" if you are expecting war soon, yes. Otherwise I would prefer CxxxC rather than CxxC. If you think you are on an island, then yes squeeze in those towns. If that is jungle two tile from the new town, then I may have settled on it to insta clear it and maximize green tiles as you seems to have a fair amount of sand around.

As to techs, the AI have a cost factor of 8 on emperor, yours is 10. So they have to pay 80 beakers for a 100 beaker tech and you pay the full 100. Not to mention they have 150 ai to ai trade and will be doing deals. They likely beat you to huts and the huts out of your area are all theirs.

Sending out settlers and no escort can be costly as barbs are 4 times stronger on emperor than on Regent. IOW you can lose to them with equal units.

Remember you will get an uprising, when two civ go into the next age. That means barb camps will spawn extra barbs and they will have horsemen as well as warriors.

Don't make trades on the inter turn, unless you think it is the only play. The trade to one civ is going to likely see your tech passed to many others and you will not be able to traded it around on your turn.

 

[vmxa]

tjs282 mention exploring and that is a solid idea. I do not know, if you knew the area to the left of your start, before you planted the first town or not. If you had that knowledge then, expanding towards the one close lux would be a wise move. You are going to have to get happiness somewhere right away on emp, so furs would be a nice item. Otherwise you have use specialist and that slows you down in the early game. Avoid getting into the jungle right away is also reasonable.

You have a crap start, no doubt. I remember Aeson game called so cold of the AI, now that was a tough start and he won. Of course he was a really great player.

 

[tjs282]

Swords are expensive, especially when none of your towns can make more than 4-5 SPT... I would probably have traded CoL for the widely known 1st-tier (and hence now dirt-cheap) techs, then built some Archers rather than buying IronWorking. But make the best of what you have, I guess...

I would also suggest planting your next town on the coastal Desert 2N of Sumer, where it can use the Fish to make up for the lack of land-food, and act as a staging post for the imminent removal of Holwerd. You do not want to allow the Dutch to build a foothold in the only decent terrain and expansion room that you have readily accessible. Destroying Holwerd will free up the BGrass 1NW of its ruins for Settlement (CxxC, distance 3.5 from the Desert-Fish site), to grab you both the Furs (one for you, and one for a friend): just remember to chop the Fur-Forest into something useful, e.g. a Courthouse, Harbour or Barracks, before roading+mining those tiles.

Spoiler Here's a quick'n'dirty dotmap for your next half-dozen towns... :

You also really need to get your existing towns up to at least Pop6 as fast as you can. Three Luxes hooked and at least 1 (cheap!) mil-unit per town (Enk or Archer) will keep 3 citizens happy and 1 content under Despotism, preventing riots at Pop6, and possible also at Pop7. Once you have Republic, the commerce-bonus plus LUX%-spending should make up for the loss of military policing.

I suspect that you missed the slingshot (or should that be, 'longshot'?) at least partly because you didn't only build your first Settler out of Ur (which you have to, obviously), but all(?) the rest of them as well, which kept it small, and thus crippled its commerce-output. Your capital is 100% non-corrupt, so it should grow! (So Construction should be a top priority after Republic, and Ur at least should be a high priority for a 'Duct, which you should start prebuilding before you get Construction, so it doesn't get stuck at Pop6 for any longer than it has to be)

 

[vmxa]

Kibitzer:

I was too sleepy to mention that it s a good idea to get a boat out soon as you can to explore. Making contacts lets you try to get some trades. It also lowers research cost. If you know others that know a given tech, it reduces the number of beakers needed to learn that tech. This is another reason the AI gets ahead as you move up levels of difficulty. They have starting units and get to huts and contacts.

On emperor the ai starts with 4 defensive units, 2 offensive units, 1 extra type 2 unit. They have extra free unit support, so the have lower cost. Type two unit is a worker, so they have 2 at 4000BC, you have 1. The off/def unit types is a function of their
starting tech. They get the best unit of off/def that they can build. Mil civs start with archers/bows. Bronze civs start spears or the equivalent.

 

[vmxa]

Not sure, if you ever got a response to the biq question.
Bic is for civ3 vanilla
Bix is for civ3 ptw
Biq is for civ3 conquest

 

[Nolition]

What is the thinking on mining so far from town? Make a road maybe and head back to town or just take the hit and move towards town. You need the cow soonest. Looks like a lot of worker turns with no roads, so just moving. May want to read Crackers open move article. The worker and any units will be a one tile at a time, till you road. No real value to get a road to the next town, if it is not cnnected to the capitol.

The thought process was that my worker was already on that tile and I didn't want to waste a turn moving it, I believe. Where would I find that article? on the civ3 site?

Don't make trades on the inter turn, unless you think it is the only play. The trade to one civ is going to likely see your tech passed to many others and you will not be able to traded it around on your turn.

Ah, I will try to keep this in mind.

I would also suggest planting your next town on the coastal Desert 2N of Sumer, where it can use the Fish to make up for the lack of land-food, and act as a staging post for the imminent removal of Holwerd. You do not want to allow the Dutch to build a foothold in the only decent terrain and expansion room that you have readily accessible. Destroying Holwerd will free up the BGrass 1NW of its ruins for Settlement (CxxC, distance 3.5 from the Desert-Fish site), to grab you both the Furs (one for you, and one for a friend): just remember to chop the Fur-Forest into something useful, e.g. a Courthouse, Harbour or Barracks, before roading+mining those tiles.

Definitely. I can see the logic behind this, and I think I understand how you chose the locations for the dotmap. I'm only counting two luxury resources (not counting the silk currently owned by the Celts, though.

I suspect that you missed the slingshot (or should that be, 'longshot'?) at least partly because you didn't only build your first Settler out of Ur (which you have to, obviously), but all(?) the rest of them as well, which kept it small, and thus crippled its commerce-output.

You are correct - I didn't think about it from a commerce point of view, but a food one. This was my only city with a granary and I was thinking that I could regain the 2 population in half the time by building all of my settlers out of my capital. I can see the flaw in that reasoning now.

I was too sleepy to mention that it s a good idea to get a boat out soon as you can to explore. Making contacts lets you try to get some trades. It also lowers research cost. If you know others that know a given tech, it reduces the number of beakers needed to learn that tech. This is another reason the AI gets ahead as you move up levels of difficulty. They have starting units and get to huts and contacts.

My Curraghs are sinking like crazy. Is this to be expected, and just a necessary cost of doing business?

And now, onto the writeup:

Spoiler Part 2 (hidden for quick page load) :

More settlement problems, I'm afraid. I asked the Celts to leave my territory and they wouldn't listen. The only other option seemed to be to declare war on them, which I wasn't willing to do.



I was definitely ready and willing to wreck this Dutch city before he could build any real defences, though.



My Golden Age got triggered, as a result. I didn't think it was worth trying to avoid it, at this point in the game. The demands of the present outweigh the demands of the future.



With Holwerd gone, I realized that I could construct a wall out of Enkidu Warriors and take advantage of Civ3's tile control system to prevent the Celts from leaving my territory and being able to settle.



Desert Fish City is established, and begins building a Curragh.



And the Fur City.



And the Dutch are willing to make peace. I am in no position to pass up techs, as well.



The Iron is hooked up. You can see some of my builds here - the Mausoleum is pretty much a shield-reserve at this point. My populations are very low from the settlers + workers that I've produced, which isn't providing me with a particularly strong economy.



I begin to fill in more and more of the dotmap cities.



And the beginnings of a recurring theme. You can also see the Chinese and Celtic galley-settlers in this picture.



I wasn't sure if now was a good time to change government types, because I am very close to having to pay unit maintenance and am thinking about warring.



This is the situation. My settlers were just a few turns too slow to claim the Chinese and Celtic positions, but I guess that's life. I am currently thinking that I absolutely need to consolidate the northwest, get it entirely under my control and then attempt to wage some kind of war of conquest against the Celts on the other flank.



This may not have been the best trade, but in the heat of the moment I was just excited to be able to trade something and both of the other known AIs had The Republic already. I figured that they would soon trade it to the Celts.

And so we have it. The fact that they've managed to slip three cities on the coast there is an annoyance, but it seems like a problem that can be dealt with. I am thinking that it makes the most sense to go to war with the Dutch first, then China, then fight a concluding war with the Celts on both fronts. My situation may not have objectively improved a great deal, but I am feeling more optimistic about the future.

 

[vmxa]

I usually just send out a boat and hug the coast, till I have circumnavigated the land mass I am on. Then I can probably upgrade or just build a galley and try to go into sea or ocean. Never actually sent a curg to sea.