Recent content by ecofx

Still haven't got the game, but already tuned into strategies. Questions for nato on strategies using food/growth: 1.What is the speed of the forest cycle, is is done by settlers or workers and how many resources do you get? 2."rush buying under Despotism" - can't you do it under anthing else...

Exactly my planned strategy, but I haven't got the game yet. Even without knowing of the corruption and waste problems I was thinking of slaveing a city of size 3 with a granary permanently back to size 2 and making sure it couldn't be unhappy. I just don't know the repeat rate. Does a 2 growing...

Nice evaluation :) I haven't got civ3 yet, but I'm a big supporter of commercial and industrious. You have changed industrious from first to fifth place on your list. Questions: what are the resource costs (shields) of workers and settlers, and how much faster are the workers on roads...

Hi vanniken.. being balanced, exactly! Rex Martin, Lead Play Tester writes.. "Add to this the fact that they are "Industrious" as well ..(+commercial).., and you have a combination that gives great flexibility in this game, making France perhaps the most balanced of the civs. The French...

Well, time flies, but my opinion is still the same.. My new interest in city sprawl is to create cities of size 2 and 3 to intentionally slave labour the inhabitants. The info is that you can set the shield production rate per lost city point, but what will the default be and which citizens...

:) - thanks Tao for the compliment. My thought for the day is about happiness, as this was also linked to expansion through the happiness (or not) of cities through wonders. The cathederal (extra happiness for each city on continent) was an open invitation to have lots and lots of cities to...

Oh, it's ok stravaig, just think of it as creating multiple parallel universes of your civ, that diverge at each goody hut, and you only play the best universe. As a systems analyst, I tried it out, too, but became hopelessly powerful in that game :lol: I even created a map with rivers flowing...

Nice to see this thread doing well ;) Robespierre: I've reckoned that the most efficiencvy expansion plan is to wait until at least size 5 before finishing a settler in a city. This gives that all-important first city time for at least 2 units, before I start on a granary or something, so my...

Hi Tao. The Chinese, like the French, are industrious. We agree that this is good. You also argue cheap military upkeep will make a big difference (good for Chinese), but isn't it 'Reduced military improvement costs' as the benefit, not 'running costs'? An extra commerce per city AND lower...

Hi WUM. By the time you get engineers, the advantage may be gone, but that's further into the game. I'm interested in earlyish advantages that stick. An extra scout is nice, but with 40 goes for size 3 in my first city, I'll have time to build a couple of anything cheap and get moving around...

Hi WUM, yes, the first answer you got was basically correct. You need 2 diplos to get them all in 1 go, otherwise the rest will attack you and your new troops. Secondly, with the leo wonder, they got upgraded every invention, usually as far as cavalry status. By the time they were back in...

I want to expand quickly and have been looking at strategy for this. Looking at civ abilities, I've decided the best civ to be is the.... French!! (commercial/industrious) Why? Well, workers work faster (vital for setting up land for fast growth), there's one extra production and commerce in...

Wrong!(partly) In civII it was more efficient to build settlers off small cities, so at full expansion all cities were small and un-irrigated etc (waste of settler time). In civIII a well-irrigated size 5 or 6 city (with granary) will be able to produce settler after settler much faster than a...

i also used diplomats to get units through enemy zocs, a bit of a trick really! Together with the goodie-box army trick, and normal functions, diplomats and spies were pretty important, and cost no upkeep. Still, with borders in civIII, I'd need to get permission to cross quite a bit of...

Yes, I've just mentioned the slow start myself (3 posts up), but because the worker can do so much work (irrigation) at the beginning and growth stays at 40 food, at size 4, cities will be onto size 6 in about the time it takes to build a settler (down to size 4 again) anyway. I now reckon that...