A little newbie

[Alundra]

Hello sirs,
I'm new to the forum.

I played Civ 3 since its release, but I am never been very competitive. I always played at Chieftain or Warlord... I was a Civ 1 and Civ 2 veteran but I always played at low difficulty levels.

Recently I tried to increase my gameplay level, I won a couple of Regent games with ease.

Now I'm trying Monarch but it's hard. I was wondering if there are some downloadable saves from skilled players (even with Emperor, Demigod or Sid) to catch some of their tricks.

Could I ask some questions to you here...?

Thanks.

 

[Yoda Power]

Of course you can ask all the questions you want. Usually moving from low levels to the mid levels most people have to get used to the fact that it's OK not to build all (or any for that matter) wonders and that they have to put more consideration into keeping their cities happy defences ready.

 

[Alundra]

Ok, thanks. Wonders are a little problem... With Regent I didn't managed to build any of them in the AA (except when I was VERY lucky). I usually start to be competitive in Wonders building from the Middle Age... In my last game I began with Leo's Workshop and Sun Tzu AoW, and from then I built almost all of them because I had the tech lead (which became wider as proceeding in the game).

But now with Monarch I missed Sun Tzu for a few turns and lost all the shields, now I'm building the Sistine Chapel and I believe I can do it. I only met 4 civs and I'm 2nd in the science race, but Celts are 3 techs ahead and I don't know how to fill the gap. My slider is 5.5.0

I always built a lot of improvements in my cities but this time I'm trying to be more economical... There some impr. that I really consider invaluable... Temple, Cathedral and Colosseum.

Also corruption is a problem because I have many cities that grow and produce very slowly, just for a defending unit 20 turns or more. I've heard time ago to use small corrupted cities to become "specialists farms" to but I didn't catch the meaning of that.

I'm playing as Koreans.

Do you know anything about downloadable saves?

Thanks again.

 

[Immortal7777]

Wonders are one of my top priorities. Get the great libray and you can stop researching science until education is invented.

I wouldn't recommend building temples or cathedrals because of the price. Get a market place/Bank/Stock market to save you. Bad cities that don't grow are good for wealth. I ususally go for conquest victory but as the Koreans there isn't much you can do when your special unit is just a siege weapon.

To solve corruption you might want a new government although that's a bit pricy.

Statue of Zeus and Knights templer make you the most powerfull people in the game so try to get them if you can and if you miss it destroy the civilization that built it and capture it before they have time to get a good number of Crusaders/ Elite calvaly. I play on Monarch as well.

 

[Theov]

Wonders are one of my top priorities. Get the great libray and you can stop researching science until education is invented.

...but you'll always be behind 2 of the AIs.
Which can be ok, depends on how you play.

To solve corruption you might want a new government although that's a bit pricy.

Repo is best overall. Commie if you're at war and have a large productive empire.

Statue of Zeus and Knights templer make you the most powerfull people in the game so try to get them if you can and if you miss it destroy the civilization that built it and capture it before they have time to get a good number of Crusaders/ Elite calvaly. I play on Monarch as well.

yes, those guys can make a difference.
If you're building a wonder though, make sure the shields don't go to waste. Have a backup plan. If you lose the race, the lost shields will put you back a long way and it's hard to make up for it. That's why I avoid Wonders early on.
Leo's and Darwin's are my only priorities.

 

[Yoda Power]

I would never build the GL. You can make so much money and techs by selling techs the AI would get for free the next turn anyway. It's almost cheating!

Generally why spend/waste shields on building wonders when they can just be conquered? Use your energy on building settlers and military. I do build wonders sometimes, but only when I'm 99% sure to get them.

 

[Alundra]

About tech brokering: I can't do that...

As I said before, Celts are the most advanced: they are 2-3 techs ahead. I am on the same level of other civs, some have a tech that I don't (and the same for me: for example I have Invention but they have Chavarly). But I can't do good exchanges, because other civs have no gold, I can't sell to them. And they offer to give me a tech only if I give them one or two. Celts don't sell any techs, I tried to offer plenty of gold but they don't want to sell anything. I'm blocked.

 

[Aabraxan]

Might I suggest reading through some of the Training Day Games? Most of them are played at Emperor, but there is a tremendous amount of discussion of the hows and the whys of the game.

For specialists, go read Bede's "The Role of the Specialist Citizen."

 

[CommandoBob]

Might I suggest reading through some of the Training Day Games? Most of them are played at Emperor, but there is a tremendous amount of discussion of the hows and the whys of the game.

For specialists, go read Bede's "The Role of the Specialist Citizen."

Do what Aabraxan says. Read through some of the Training Day Games. Some of those games, the more recent ones, might still have saves attached to them. A few years back all the saves were lost by some server issue/failure. Plus, we only have a max of 60 MB per person to store saves, images and other things here. Most current Sucession Games have saves attached. You can download, play and learn from them too.

If all else fails, post a save of what you have done so far and ask for help.

When I jumped from Chieftain to Monarch, I chronicled my game. Chieftain to Monarch: Game Two tell that story. It was played in Civ 3: Play the World, which has some different rules on city corruption than Civ 3: Conquests, the latest version of Civ 3. It was not a very pretty game but it was nerve wracking and exciting for me, as I tried to apply what I had learned from the forum on how to play a game.

Also read Aabraxan's article on Multipler Building listed in his sig. Very helpful.

Hello sirs,
I'm new to the forum.

I played Civ 3 since its release, but I am never been very competitive. I always played at Chieftain or Warlord... I was a Civ 1 and Civ 2 veteran but I always played at low difficulty levels.

Your Civ 1 and 2 experience mirrors my own. I played at the game but never really tried to master it. Then I found this forum and boy-oh-boy did things change!

 

[splunge the 2nd]

I've been off the forums for a while, back for a visit!

Alundra, no reson you can't trade 2 for 1 techs with a rival AI if it moves you ahead, especially if you can then sell the newly learned tech to another civ.

I'm surprised you build temples/cathedrals/colloseaums. Are they for happiness or culture? I rely on luxuries (and markets) and the happiness slider. I ignore culture for the most part unless looking to win by culture.

My biggest mistake starting out was making too few workers and neglecting tile improvements in my core, which hurt my economy.

I'm not sure what immortal7777 meant by avoiding government changes. It's generally worth getting out of depotism ASAP. I tend to stay in whichever government I switch to for the rest of the game, typically repulblic. Switching again is costly and in my opinion, hardly worth it.

Regarding unit building wonders Knights Templar and Statue of Zeus, I don't find them that useful and rarely build them. Crusaders are slow units and I don't find make much of a difference in my games, so I'd take SoZ over Knights any day. Having aggressive neighbors with SoZ can be a pain, so I might build it myself to deny it to the AI.

 

[Lanzelot]

Do you know anything about downloadable saves?

In the GOTM score tables you can download basically any game that has been played in the GOTM competition since 2001 (though for some of the old ones I'm getting 404 not found?!?). Among these games there are some played by the greatest masters of Civ3. (Although you'll probably not learn that much from them just by looking at the save, if you don't know what they did to get there...)
The replay feature is quite nice, though, but don't look at it with InternetExplorer...
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