Advice on Warlord difficulty

[Creosote]

Ive been playing Civ 3 for a week, and now beat the game on the starting Chieftain difficulty every game, so decided to move to the next level - Warlord. I am getting stuffed!! and need some advice please, so several questions if anyone would care to help.

Is there a "best" nation to play the game with?
I was finding Religious quite good to reduce costs of the many Temple type improvements, and the instant switch between governments. I thought Commercial would be good but saw no real difference in Corruption.

How do I get a faster start?
It seems to take forever to get going, in Chieftain I was putting Science high in the early game but now I am forced to take it down to 40% else I lose what improvements I have made because the Treasury runs out of money, so it takes forever (20 or so turns) to research new discoveries.

How do I reduce Corruption?
I'm building Courthouses, and the Forbidden Palace away from my capital, but even in Democracy my biggest cost seems to be corruption. Is there a technique to reducing corruption?

Should I go to the highest form of gov as soon as poss?
In my other games I was going as fast as poss to Democracy, but I am not seeing real benefits now.


I appreciatte this is all basic stuff to experienced players but I am in that situation where I just can't get my Civ going in the early part of the game, and get hammered by the other Civs who lead in everything.

 

[Tomoyo]

1. There is no "best" nation, but for beginners, I think that Persia or China is a good choice. Industrious is the best trait in vanilla, and those two civs both have good UUs.

2. Don't buil so many improvements, and don't play on Chieftain. The tech pace is very slow on Chieftain.

3. Temples are bad. Don't build them. They cost one gold, but only give you one happy face, the equivalent of one gold, and take 30/60 shields to build.

4. Nope. Corruption is lasting. Ya gotta live with it.

5. No. Republic is the best government. Democracy has very high WW.

 

[Choffy]

1) Expand like crasy. Build as manay cities as possible. For this see War Academy artivcle on settler factory
2) Produce 1 or 2 workers per city to road and mine / irrigate all used tiles
3) Except if you are going for cultural victory, you can avoid building temple. You'd better connect luxuries(4+) and build marketplace and / or library.

Regarding nation, try agricultural civs such as Iroquois or Sumerian.
For government, Republic is good and you should be able to manage with it (excpet if you are doing endless war).

 

[Brain]

First of all welcome!

Is there a "best" nation to play the game with?

No. I agree with Tomoyo on this one.

How do I get a faster start?

How fast? It's always going to take a while to get going, but if you want a good start then build a grannary as soon as possible and then start cranking out workers and settlers. My initial build queue is often warrior, warrior, warrior, grannary, settler, worker, warrior/spearman, settler, worker, warrior/spearman, etc. You have to continue building workers and settlers until you have no more space to expand. To do this you have to improve your land continuously.

It seems to take forever to get going, in Chieftain I was putting Science high in the early game but now I am forced to take it down to 40% else I lose what improvements I have made because the Treasury runs out of money, so it takes forever (20 or so turns) to research new discoveries.

20 turns per tech is quite normal in the early game. After that, if you improve your terrain, switch governments, and keep your unit support low then it will speed up. By the end of the middle ages you should be able to get techs in 5-8 turns.

How do I reduce Corruption?

You just gotta live with it. You won't be able to produce much in those border cities anyway. Make your corrupt cities produce maximum food to be able to turn as many citizens as possible into specialists, and then use your core cities for production.

Should I go to the highest form of gov as soon as poss?
In my other games I was going as fast as poss to Democracy, but I am not seeing real benefits now.

No. I've also recently discovered that democracy doesn't give much benefit. Only about 4-8% more gold than republic. Just stick to republic.

I just can't get my Civ going in the early part of the game, and get hammered by the other Civs who lead in everything.

Try this: play as the persians, go for iron and build about 10 immortals, then attack your neighbors. On warlord level it should be pretty easy to do and will make you feel better about yourself.

Good luck.

 

[tR1cKy]

You're obviously quite a newbie. Don't feel ashamed, everyone start that way.

IMHO, the first thing you need to learn is how to expand properly on the early game.
Build settlers and go founding new cities.
You need roads to connect them. Then you need to road the productive tiles and improve them with mining or irrigations. This means: workers. Get 3 workers quickly, they'll be able to road a tile in a single turn or mine a grass/plains in two.

Temples are not so useless, expecially if you're a religious civ. They're a cheap way to expand your borders, have access to more tiles and have a minimal culture. An extra happy citizen would mean 1/2 shields and 1/2 golds per turn, forever. In warlord level, you can happily afford them. In emperor/deity, things must be evaluated carefully before building a temple.

Build granaries in your growing cities. A population growing at a 2x rate means more settlers and more workers.

Build barracks in productive cities. This means veteran units rather than regulars. And build at least a minimal defense force, or the AS will see you as an easy prey and will knock at your door.

When available, marketplaces will be useful, but only if your city already produces a decent amount of gold, or if you know it will in the very near future.

If you're scientific, libraries can be a better alternative to temples.

Connect luxuries and work them. They provide extra happiness and give at least an extra gold income or a bonus in shields.

Don't raise research at the start of the game. Keep it as low as possible. Trade your start tech with other AS and keep the extra money to buy maps and contact with other AS.

I think i've given enough advice. Good luck!

 

[Admiral8Q]

Bring in the dog and put out the cat.

 

[vmxa]

Be sure to improve worked tiles and to have roads up quickly. Visit Crackers thread on use of workers.

Try to create at least two pump cities. One for settlers and one for troops. Toss in a worker in the troop city from time to time. Have new cities make a worker when it is 10 turns as the first item.

Did I mention roads, they are a must. Use forest chops to get the granary up in those pump cities.

Get explorers out quickl to find the others. Keep an eye out for the chance to buy workers from the AI. It will help you and hurt them in the very early game.

 

[Admiral8Q]

The secret is to concentrate less on one particular thing, multitask, react to changes and readjust, and focus on all your units carefully.

 

[Roxlimn]

1. Is there a "best" nation to play with?

No. All the civs have pros and cons and each trait is worth more or less depending on your start position. Tomoyo recommends Persia or China and both of those are very decent civs to be starting play with. I would also highly recommend either Greece or Babylon, especially for people who started off on earlier Civs. I do not recommend Industrious civs to start because it makes play too easy and messes up worker management skills, a basic skill you must learn to play all civs.

2. How do I get a faster start?

Faster meaning what? Faster research? Faster tech acquisition? Faster unit production? It goes without saying that more cities mean more citizens means more population and more population. For a beginner in Civ3, I would recommend getting out Settlers, Workers, and early Military units fast and furious. Science is based on Commerce and Commerce is generated by roads, government forms, and tile bonuses. Get to the civilopedia and find out how you can make more Commerce! Most of the technologies you gain during the Ancient Age should be done by trading with other civs, even at Warlord level.

3. How do I reduce Corruption?

Connect all cities to the capital. Unconnected cities generate more corruption and waste. Build Courthouses. Build Forbidden Palace, Secret Police HQ (for Communism), Police Stations. Adopt less corrupt forms of government.

4. Should I go to the highest form of government as soon as possible?

No. In Civ3, governments are usually situation specific. Both Democracy and Republic require a minimum population count and a number of improvements in key cities to really pay off. If you do not have cities beyond population 6 and have few Marketplaces and Cathedrals/Colesseums, then a move to Democracy is a very bad move. It's questionable at best for Republic. Monarchy is the form of government you want for an early shift away from Despotism with little to no infrastructure. If you like, you can build up population and improvement in Despotism and skip directly to Republic. It's a strong play, but you probably have to know what you're doing. In the Ancient and early Middle Ages, maintaining a large military and entering a long war in Republic is not a good idea. Even with the corruption issues, Monarchy is demonstrably superior with better unit support and no war weariness.

Find out what you can about War Weariness on this site. If you think you can manage to "fight" a war without incurring any War Weariness, Republic is the better choice.

Generally these are tips I give for starting players:

1. Never order a worker to improve a tile you won't be putting to use. Workers are generally used to improve tiles for Citizen use, but don't improve tiles your citizens won't be using for another Age or so! Either link the cities better or generate trade with roads or resources, improve a difficult to improve tile, or set up trade networks. You will never run out of useful things to do. Don't waste worker time.

2. Learn how Commerce is generated. Make more Commerce. 'Nuff said.

3. Never build a unit you don't know the use of. All units built should have a specific and direct objective. Units can garrison cities or be gathered for an impending attack. You can use unit buildup to make civs scared to attack you (learn which units do this the best). If you don't know what to build, you don't have enough goals for your civ. Set more goals!

4. Never build an improvement you don't know the use of. All city improvements have specific effects and most cost to maintain. All cost shields to build. If you're not likely to build a unit in a city, don't build a Barracks. Find ways to concentrate costs. It's probably better to fund a Library in a big city rather than in a small one. Making one city build most of your troops means less Barracks to maintain and build, and guaranteed Veteran units. Most city improvements hurt your civ through upkeep so make sure you're getting what you're paying for!

 

[Creosote]

Thanks for all the suggestions and ideas.

I'm running a new game on a tiny map at Warlord and doing fine now thanks, next stage is a large map.

 

[alva848]

Post some screenshots as you go along, that's the easiest way for us to <strike>bash</strike> help you.