A noobs cry for help

[Aabraxan]

If you haven't found CivAssist II or MapStat (in the utilities section), I suggest that you dig around for them. Republic always suffers from what I think of as "growing pains" when you first switch, and either of those two utilities will help you decide when you can switch with the least amount of pain.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

2.Is there any way to play Civ III kinda peacefully ? I mean i know there will be some wars but i don't like to be warmonger i always hate how war deflecting on my economy.

I'm going to somewhat disagree with the given answers. Yes, it's entirely possible to play for a 'Peaceful' victory - that's what the Space Race, UN, and Cultural victories are for. If you aren't careful to maintain a powerful military, however, you stand a good chance of being overrun, particularly if one of the AIs starts to 'run away' and conquers half the map.

If you want to try this path, however, I would strongly stepping down a step or two from the Monarch Difficulty level, at least for a few games.

Now I'm confused, i played this save further and i changed gov to republic, and ... BANG my economy crashed, since i have small towns and unit support per town is 1... i have way too much units, and it's hard to advance towns to cities ( is that size 6 ?) because Military Force Limit is 0 and you said to not build temples, so I'm pretty much screwed, i had to put my research slider at 30 and entertainment at 20 to stabilize situation.. and i doubt i can play successful much longer with that settings..

Any help for me ? Or advise to future ?

Okay, your economy crashed because of a combination of too many units, not enough support, and not enough infrastructure. Because Republic's Free Unit Support is generally going to be smaller than Despotism's at the beginning (1/2/6 vs 4/4/4, IIRC), a Despo Civ can maintain a stronger army for less.

As a Republic, you're going to want Roads ... lots and lots of Roads. Any tile that's being worked needs to have a Road on it. That will essentially double your income as a Republic. Once you have that extra Commerce, you can manipulate the Income Sliders in the F1 screen to maximize gpt and Science.

 

[del62]

Now I'm confused, i played this save further and i changed gov to republic, and ... BANG my economy crashed, since i have small towns and unit support per town is 1... i have way too much units, and it's hard to advance towns to cities ( is that size 6 ?) because Military Force Limit is 0 and you said to not build temples, so I'm pretty much screwed, i had to put my research slider at 30 and entertainment at 20 to stabilize situation.. and i doubt i can play successful much longer with that settings..

Any help for me ? Or advise to future ?

Nothing wrong with having luxury and science slider as quoted when you first hit republic, your cities will now be able to grow faster and as you get more tiles improved your economy will strenghten.

Getting luxuries hooked up will help, cities over size 6 will help so you need construction or / and towns on rivers and now is the time to concentrate on the quality of your military,

 

[Dusk Horizon]

If you haven't found CivAssist II or MapStat (in the utilities section), I suggest that you dig around for them. Republic always suffers from what I think of as "growing pains" when you first switch, and either of those two utilities will help you decide when you can switch with the least amount of pain.

Hmm i really not a fan of 3rd party programs, i think i could figure by myself WHEN to switch, but problem is most of people here recommended switching to republic ASAP.

now is the time to concentrate on the quality of your military

Even if i will be able to make my whole towns -> cities (and i really doubt that) it will allow me to
have 2 units per city for free.. and since 'rule of a thumb' is 1.5 worker per city it will not even be enough to provide defensive units...

So i have to pay it seems like.

Now you say :

As a Republic, you're going to want Roads ... lots and lots of Roads. Any tile that's being worked needs to have a Road on it. That will essentially double your income as a Republic.

Pretty much have that

So it leaves us with conclusion :

Nothing wrong with having luxury and science slider as quoted when you first hit republic, your cities will now be able to grow faster and as you get more tiles improved your economy will strengthen.

I will play this further and give you a report how it is But maybe republic so fast is not so good idea, maybe monarchy would be better ?

Also : In Republic description there is something about 'increased commerce' anybody care to elaborate about that ?

edit : what is your point of view for chopping the forest on : grassland/plains/desert ?
should i do it ?

 

[ChaosArbiter]

But maybe republic so fast is not so good idea, maybe monarchy would be better ?

It can be, particularly if you're Lux-short and need to go to war frequently (Republic may have low WW, but if you don't have any Luxes it can still be ruinous if you're not careful). Frankly, I think once you figure out how Republic 'works,' (I guess that's the best way to say it) you'll be able to figure out how to keep your economy afloat after the switch.

Also : In Republic description there is something about 'increased commerce' anybody care to elaborate about that ?

Any tile that's producing at least 1 Commerce produces 1 extra Commerce under Republic (And Demo, IIRC), which is why you always Road a tile you're working as a Republic.

 

[CKS]

In republic, you will almost always be paying for your military. However, the increased commerce will cover your bills. When you first switch out of despotism, you may be small enough that your worker and military budget is a big chunk of your income, but the extra food that you get when you get out of despotism will let you grow out of this problem pretty quickly. You will need to budget for entertainment until you get some luxes online.

As for chopping: If you need food, chop grassland. You may get a bonus grass tile, in which case you can mine it and get the same shields as a forest plus an extra food. If not, you've traded shields for food on a 1:1 basis. Don't chop plains unless you can irrigate them, as you won't gain any food; the exception is if you need the 10 shields for something - you can trade worker turns for shields. Once you get to engineering, you can chop and replant for shields (you only get shields for the first chop), but I'm usually to lazy to do this on a large scale. Once you get to railroads, chop all grassland - you'll get extra food but even regular grassland can give you the same shields as before.

 

[Raliuven]

I know I promised to have this done yesterday, but I’m having trouble getting access to the site. So here is the Settler Factory Start (SettlerFactoryTestStart) and Game (SettlerFactoryTestReady1b). You can play the game and just try to produce a settler in 4 rounds. It shouldn’t be hard – remember, you want 30 shields in 4 rounds. When you are ready to optimize, read the spoiler. If you want to practice setting up the factory, use the start position and try to recreate my set up – or a setup that works for you.

Spoiler :

Settler Factory at the ready (Warlord)
This is PTW, Tribe is America.
The blue dot is a Cow on Irrigated Grassland with a road by a river - 4 food, 1 shield and 2 gold.
The Yellow dot is Wheat on a Mined Grassland with a road by a river – 3 food, 1 shield and 2 gold
The Orange dots are Mined Grassland with a road by a river – 2 food, 1 shield and 2 gold.
The Black dot is Grassland with a road by a river – 2 food, 0 shields, 2 gold
The red dots are all Mined Bonus Grassland with a road – 2 food, 2 shields and gold.
The forest tiles (not colored) – 1 food, 2 shields. One is on a river for 1 gold.
The City Center is worked for free – 2 food, 1 shield, 1 gold.

2 warriors are fortified in the city to control happiness. We have a granary in place with 10 food already in the storage bin.

The other cities are to offset unit costs but you can also practice ‘sharing’ these tiles during optimization. You don’t need all these tiles for the settler factory – I created them so you can try swapping them out and try new combinations.

All you need is to make 30 shields in 4 rounds and keep everything at +5fpt. Watch you citizen assignment when you grow to size 5 and size 6. Reassign them after the settler builds.


City is size 5, ready to grow to 6 next turn and we are read to produce a settler. All citizens are content. The goal is maximize food, shields and gold.

Turn 0 (2230 BC)
Washington is set to produce a settler. Just his enter/spacebar.

Turn 1 (2190 BC)
Washington creates a settler. City size is now 4. Move the settler, fortify, stack in a corner, disband, whatever.
Set Washington to create a settler.
Upon creation of the settler the citizens are assigned to the blue dot, 2 red dots and a forest tile. Total expected production - +3 fpt, +8spt, +8gpt. This is just no good.

Reassign citizens to the blue dot, yellow dot, orange dot and one red dot. 10 food and 0 shields in the boxes. Total expected production – +5fpt, +6spt, +10gpt. Much better.

Give the extra red dot tile to nearby Philadelphia – they need help with their granary project.

Turn 2 (2150 BC)
Citizen assignments stay the same. 15 food and 6 shields in the bin. Total expected production – +5fpt, +6spt, +10gpt.

Turn 3 (2430 BC)
Town grows to size 5. New citizen is automatically assigned to the forest tile. 10 food and 14 shields in the boxes. 14 shields? Hmmm. 6+6=12. But, when the new citizen is ‘born’, it was automatically set to work the forest giving us the gold and shield production of +2 spt. So it is 6+6+2=14.

The interesting note on this is that the new worker was assigned to work the forest for 1 food, 2 shields and 1 gold. You receive the shields and gold, but the citizen does not ‘eat’ the round they are produced – thus food production stays at +5fpt. Food appears to be calculated first – generating the Citizen and then shields and gold are calculated.

Now we have 14 shields and we need 30. 30-14=16. But wait, we will grow to size 6 when the settler is created so we will pick up 2 more ‘free’ shields from the forest. So 16-2=14.

Go to New York and take away their orange dot – give them an unimproved bonus grassland instead. Give the orange dot to Washington.

Citizens are now assigned to the blue dot, yellow dot, two orange dots and one red dots. 10 food and 14 shields in the boxes. Total expected production – +5fpt, +7spt, +12gpt.

Now we could have given Washington Philadelphia’s red dot. Our production would be +5fpt, +8spt, +11gpt. So we gain 2 more shields but 2 less gold. The 2 shields would be wasted and we would miss out on the gold (unless another city picked it up, but corruption may taint that gain).

Turn 4 (2070 BC)
No!! We did something wrong!! We have growth in 1 turn but our settler will be produced in 2 turns! We missed out on our 4 turn settler factory. Relax. Remember, the computer doesn’t ‘know’ you will get the bonus 2 shields upon growth, so it calculates this time from what it currently knows – and it knows you have only 21 shields in the box and you are set to produce 7 more for 28 total shields – so no settler in 1 turn. So it thinks. 28+2 (from growth)=30.

Citizen assignments stay the same. 15 food and 22 shields in the boxes. Total expected production – +5fpt, +7spt, +12gpt.

Turn 5 (2030 BC)
We have a settler! We are back to Turn 0. Rinse, repeat.

 

[TheOverseer714]

You have to have a lean, offense-based military to be Republic. There is no need to have units as military police because they have no effect in that government. Your military needs to be 80-90% offensive units, workers, and artillery. Don't be afraid of the luxury slider, you can lower it when you get luxury resources hooked up and marketplaces built.

 

[Spoonwood]

CxxC, according to Chamnix originally meant 12 spaces that the city can use. CxxC, therefore, comes as a way to represent what the better players do in a linear format like this. CxxxC may give something of the wrong impression here, since it comes as better to space tighter than wider especially in military type games.

With respect to the viciousness of the AIs, if you go out and get Conquests, you have some new options. The aggression level of the AIs has 5 levels which you can select from in Conquests, which you can't do in Vanilla. Lowering the aggression level can make it easier to play non-Conquest/Domination type of games. Signing Right of Passage agreements, as well as trading, even gifting the AIs almost surely decreases the probability of an unwanted AI attack. Having more offensive units, also will help.

Here's an article which contains a few links to some good War Academy articles.

 

[Lanzelot]

Another tip on the CxxC topic: Raliuven, in your screenshot above you have set up the first three towns around Washington an pure RCP3 style, of course avoiding to settle on the BGs. Unfortunately that meant all of them are off the river, even though all three of them could be on the river (extra commerce, no aqueduct necessary).

So in this particular situation I would have gone for RCP4 and settle all three towns on the river. And we have enough space available here, so that a second ring can be placed at RCP7 without problem.

 

[Raliuven]

So in this particular situation I would have gone for RCP4 and settle all three towns on the river. And we have enough space available here, so that a second ring can be placed at RCP7 without problem.

Definitely listen to Lanzelot on this. I wasn't really thinking in terms of the long game when setting up the test, but I should have modeled good behavior. Many factors go into city placement - settling on a river should be a strong factor.

RCP3 vs RCP4 has a lot of pros and cons. Without going into the whole list, one good feature of RCP3 is easy warrior movement for protection and MP duty. RCP4 allows larger, more productive core cities in later ages - and putting a RCP4 cities on a river capitalizes off this strength.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Another tip on the CxxC topic: Raliuven, in your screenshot above you have set up the first three towns around Washington an pure RCP3 style, of course avoiding to settle on the BGs. Unfortunately that meant all of them are off the river, even though all three of them could be on the river (extra commerce, no aqueduct necessary).

So in this particular situation I would have gone for RCP4 and settle all three towns on the river. And we have enough space available here, so that a second ring can be placed at RCP7 without problem.

Very good suggestion. I've taken the liberty to create a dot map

Looks like a kick-... uhmmmm ... gorgeous inner core to me with 9 nearly uncorrupts cities, 6 of which have fresh water and don't need 'ducts.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Are the colored dots supposed to represent tiles that are shared by cities? Some of the ones by Washington wouldn't be shared, which is why I'm asking (all the tiles with dots that border the city except the Wheat).

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Are the colored dots supposed to represent tiles that are shared by cities?

The colored dots were placed by Raliuven, and are explained here:

The blue dot is a Cow on Irrigated Grassland with a road by a river - 4 food, 1 shield and 2 gold.
The Yellow dot is Wheat on a Mined Grassland with a road by a river – 3 food, 1 shield and 2 gold
The Orange dots are Mined Grassland with a road by a river – 2 food, 1 shield and 2 gold.
The Black dot is Grassland with a road by a river – 2 food, 0 shields, 2 gold
The red dots are all Mined Bonus Grassland with a road – 2 food, 2 shields and gold.
The forest tiles (not colored) – 1 food, 2 shields. One is on a river for 1 gold.
The City Center is worked for free – 2 food, 1 shield, 1 gold.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Oh, my mistake - I thought that you'd put them there. Sorry.

 

[Lanzelot]

Very good suggestion. I've taken the liberty to create a dot map

Yep, that's what I had in mind...

 

[Elephantium]

Lord Emsworth, your dotmap has only two waterless cities. That coastal square is a lake.

Also, I'd probably move the two waterless cities by one tile to get 'em on rivers. 1 NE and 1 SE, respectively. They'd be CxC with their closest neighbors but CxxxC with their other neighbors, so I don't think that tile assignments would be a problem.

 

[Lanzelot]

Also, I'd probably move the two waterless cities by one tile to get 'em on rivers. 1 NE and 1 SE, respectively. They'd be CxC with their closest neighbors but CxxxC with their other neighbors, so I don't think that tile assignments would be a problem.

But then they drop from rank-1 towns to rank-7 towns, that's quite a lot in terms of corruption. I didn't do the calculations, but I expect in a medium/long game the corruption would eat up more than the 1 extra gold from the river and the 100 shields for the aqueduct!?

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Lord Emsworth, your dotmap has only two waterless cities. That coastal square is a lake.

So much the better. I had only seen the screenshot.

Also, I'd probably move the two waterless cities by one tile to get 'em on rivers. 1 NE and 1 SE, respectively. They'd be CxC with their closest neighbors but CxxxC with their other neighbors, so I don't think that tile assignments would be a problem.

That is not possible without breaking the RCP4. Both those city-spots, which are now at distance 4.5, would be at distance 5 then.

ETA: x-post with Lanzelot.

 

[Elephantium]

I'm not sure I understand this business about RCP4 and why it's bad to break it. I remember reading something about exploiting the corruption calculations with RCP in vanilla Civ 3, but I had the impression that it was changed in C3C.

Am I missing something?