Are we nuts here????

[stwils]

I am playing Civ3. Not winning, of course.

And I am pulled back to Civ1. Why? I don't win Civ1 either.

And now I am getting the two mixed up. ^$#^%$#

I love Civ1. The graphics are not as great. And Civ3 has a lot of new stuff, like colonies, etc. But Civ1 seems so basic to really getting a handle on the game.

And after a year, starting last year with playing Civ2, I still don't quite have a handle on the Civ games.

I don't know why I can't win. But for some reason, I don't worry too much. It is always exciting to start a new game.

Anyone else in the same boat?

stwils

 

[Zwelgje]

You still can't finish a game? ahem, sorry about that.
Why not, I mean what is holding you back, what are the troubles you have so much trouble dealing with? Maybe me and other posters can help you out.

 

[gonzo_for_civ]

Yeah, we were all there once, just let us know what your problems are and we'll help you. Perhaps there is just something you don't quite get that is completely killing you.

 

[stwils]

OK. I'll give you an example of the game I am in the middle of. Babylonian, Chieftain, 3 civs, and it is now 1900BC. I have one city. 100,000 pop. It is producing 4 food,2 shield, 2 trade per turn.

I'm on an island. No one else. I have 3 militia,3 phalanx, 2 legion (got from goodie huts), and 1 chariot.

Science rate 90%. 222 in Treas.

I have researced pottery, wheel, ceremonial burial (from goodie hut) bronze working (I was given that), Masonary, Iron working, Alphabet, Map Making.

All my military are scattered all over everywhere and there is nothing else for them to do.

I want to build a settler, but it will take me 40 turns! A Granary 60 turns.

My shield production is puny so it takes me forever to get a unit.

I want to build a Trireme, a settler, and go explore, but that will be about 80 turns later. In the meantime, what do I do???

At this point my game is going no where. I haven't lost. But I haven't won either.

Sometimes after a game like this I just save it instead of plowing forward. My shield production is so sad that I can't produce anything without it taking forever.

Anyone want to jump in and tell me what I have done wrong so far and how I might go forward? Advice welcomed!

stwils

 

[Zwelgje]

Attach your saved game and I will have a look at it. It's in your Civ1 directory and it has the name you gave it followed by .sav. So just attach it to your next message and I will tell what to do, does that sound good to you?

 

[stwils]

Yes! Will try to attach it.

stwils

 

[stwils]

stwils game

 

[stwils]

I forgot to say that I was playing CivNet. Same as Civ1, but I don't know how you are going to be able to see it without CivNet CD.

Let me know. If it doesn't work, then I will play a game very soon using Civ1 (for windows) and send that.

Hope you can view this one though.

stwils

 

[stormerne]

OK. I've not downloaded your save, but there are some obvious things here from your description:

1. You've made some poor choices about your research topics so far. Always, always, always go for Monarchy as soon as possible. To do that, research Alphabet, Code of Laws and Ceremonial Burial first. When you get Monarchy go for revolution immediately. Otherwise you're stuck in Despotism which is inefficient in many ways.

2. You've built too many units. You have a single city 100,000 population = SIZE 4. Under Despotism this means that you can support up to 4 units free of charge. BUT you've 9 units which you've admitted are doing nothing. This means 5 of them are drawing 1 shield each from your one city every turn! No wonder it takes so long for you to build anything now. Disband 5 of them and you'll see your build-speed rocket.

3. When build-speed has returned using point 2 above, next thing you should do is keep on building settlers in your capital to make new cities. Keep doing that until it's too far for them to walk to free space when only the outlying cities need build new ones. Then build just one more settler in your capital and have it improve the local terrain. When that's done either build the settler back into a city (move settler to city of less than size 10 and press 'b') or ship it to another island.

4. You can switch your 4 workers to work on different squares that whatever Civ has given you by default. On the City screen look at the map and see where they are. You can click on each one to pick them up and click again on a square to drop them (all except the extra one on the city square). If you drop them on sqaures with higher shields you get more production though you might get less food or trade so be careful.

Disband those units first!

 

[Zwelgje]

Oops forgot that you're playing civnet as I only have winciv, anyway I'm going to try to open it anyway. What Stormerne is telling you is true, you've got too many units, in the beginning I build one unit: a phalanx, that's it.
Let me tell you first how I start:
I try to find a spot which will give me lots of shields and food: grass with a shield on it or rivers. Then I build the city on that spot and set tax to 0% (science 100%). I start building settler and I start researching bronze working. I will finish the settler and then I start building phalanx. The settler goes off to improve terrain if necessary or it will build another city. By the time I have finished phalanx I will have researched the wheel and will build chariot to find out what the island looks like. When I'm alone on my island I keep on building settlers and build cities all over the island. When I've researched monarchy I'll go into monarchy because that will give more food and that will allow your city to grow and produce more.
Building improvements, when your city has grown I want to build marketplace and temple and then caravans and triremes to make trade routes with other civs. After trade routes start building improvements as you need them, aquaduct when city reaches size 10, cathedral when people are unhappy, factory when you need more production, mass transit to avoid pollution etc.

A good thing to do when you've mastered this is to try to build Colossus in a game. This is what I do: Build first city, research bronze working, build a settler and a phalanx in that city. Fortify the phalanx in city 1 and then found city 2. After the phalanx in city 1 you start Colossus there. This will take many turns but science will increase by a great deal, Colossus is absolutely necessary to win the tech race against other civs. Then follow the way you should play as described above.

 

[gonzo_for_civ]

I am just going to clarify and drop two MAJOR hints:

1) As they said, rush towards monarchy and then change your gov't to it.

2)Build settlers and found AT LEAST 8 cities. You should have more but at least 8.

 

[stwils]

Thanks everybody. I have printed out your comments.

So now I am going back and reopen up that saved game, disband those extra units, and follow your advice.

It may be too late for me to rescue this game, but I am going to try.

If it fails or just drags on to eternity, I will start a new game in Civ1 for Windows and try to use my new knowledge. (By the way, I don't play on earth.)

stwils

 

[Zwelgje]

OK, so I've taken a look at this. Once again it is shown that city placement is crucial.... This city has a special (ocean with fish) but further on in its city radius it has got nothing but unimproved grass, forrest, ocean, swamp and jungle. Next time when you build a city be sure it has got a few grassland with shield or a river in its radius. I decided to play a few turns and I am not claiming I did a good job but there is some improvement.

1900 bc:
Disbanded every unit except phalanx in city and the chariot.
Chariot will return to city.
Changed workers positions (see screenshot).
Changed production to settler.

1880 bc:
Chariot has returned to city and is sentried.

1740 bc:
Settler is produced and will go to the tile P and will irrigate this and build road.
Production is changed to Colossus.
Because of the production of the settler there is one worker less for the city itself and the worker is taken away from tile K.

1720 bc:
Writing is discovered now researching the monarchy.

1700 bc:
Settler reaches tile P and begins irrigating.

1600 bc:
Finished irrigating starts roads.

1560 bc:
Roads are finished.
Worker changed from tile J to tile P.

1520 bc:
Settler arrives at tile N (which is jungle) and starts irrigation.

1300 bc:
We discover the monarchy, continue research on mathematics.
Revolution! We want monarchy!!!

1280 bc:
We're in monarchy now.

1220 bc:
Irrigation complete and out comes grassland with a shield, now settler builds road. Worker moved from tile K to tile N.
Settler moves on builds roads and...

980 bc:
Settler founds a new city: Sumer. In Sumer production is switched to phalanx.

900 bc:
Babylon goes to size 4 and a worker is placed on forrest for extra shields.

Then before I can take a screenshot of the new city my computer decides it doesn't like Civnet and ends the session....and it doesn't want to restart it either, grrrr.
Anyway as you probably noticed it's very hard to get your civ started when you placed your first city in such a bad spot. Always continue searching for a spot with a special and several grass with a shield in its radius.
I located Sumer to the right of G on a piece of grassland with a shield. It had two other grasslands with shield and the horse in its radius so this city will become big soon and will be able to pop out a phalanx and a settler in no time and this settler should make roads on the grassland with shield and irrigate them.

Well, I hope this helped you somewhat, good luck with the rest of the game.

 

[stwils]

Hi Civ1-addict,

Thank you so much for looking at my game and studying what I had done. And thank you for playing it further and detailing it.

Before I got your message I had played the game onward to 120 BC. I disbanded three units right off and that helped. But then as I played I was told "Babylon can not support Chariot" and they took it away. This happened to about 4 of my units.

I got several advances and built a few settlers who built roads etc and one new town. But when I stopped at 120 BC, I just was not going anywhere. As you can see from the attachment, both my towns were being approaced by barbarians.

But I did get Monarchy!

You were surely right about my picking the worst spot on the map to build a city. It was terrible and I should have moved my settler around some to find something better.

If you had continued to play the game to 120 BC as I did, where do you think you would have been? Would you have had more cities and explored off the island? I wanted to but just could not get there.

Here is the game to 120 BC.

stwils

 

[stwils]

Something has just dawned on me after re reading your playing the game.

It seems you irrigate or mine a square with a settler and THEN you move a worker/citizen there to take advantage of the new situation! I never thought to do that. I guess I thought it would just produce on its own. I never moved the worker.l

Thanks again.
stwils

 

[cliff]

I think your city site looks ok. If one of the grassland squares had been shielded it would have been a perfect spot for a city early in the game. As it is now I would still have built a city there. Maybe not my capital but say the third or fourth city.

You said that units were disbanded because you couldn't support them. That was probably caused by the switch to monarchy that you made. In monarchy every unit requires support as opposed to despotism where you can have a number of uints up to city size that don't require support. That's four units in your city. Personally I'm not very fond of monarchy. I very very seldom use it. Despotism is better for early expansion and if you want to modernize your civilization, republic or democracy are better (but more difficult to play). I suggest that you stay in despotism for a while and build some cities. When you have founded all the cities you need you may switch government type. You can choose monarchy if you want.

Also build roads in one or two of your city squares early to increase trade. In your example there where no roads. You can even build a road before you found the city and then put your first worker on that square.

If you only have one city you will never lose it to barbarians provided that a military unit is present in the city, even if it is a settler or diplomat. You don't need to be that afraid of barbarians early in the game.

 

[Zwelgje]

That's right stwils, when you've improved a tile,move your worker (in the city screen) to that tile. That's quite an essential part of the game. Good luck!

 

[Zwelgje]

OK I've taken a look at your 120bc saved game.
The spot you've chosen turned out to be a decent one with the rivers but again you didn't pay any attention to the grass with shields. Anyway you were quite lucky that the river tile you put your city on had a shield otherwise the initial productioncapacity of your city would have been very low. There is one other river tile with a shield and the rest doesn't so you needed to improve those plains so that you would have some decent production/food tiles in case your city would have grown. If you had chosen tile A or B in the screenshot you would have been surrounded by grassland with a shield, put roads on it and you have 2 food, 1 production and 1 trade, further irrigation would have given you 3 in stead of 2 food. A would have given you a shield in the city but overlap with Babylon, B would have avoided overlap but no production in the city itself which gives low production early in the game. I would have chosen for one of these and especially I would have made roads to Babylon while my settler was on its way to this spot. If the new city would come under attack by barbarians the chariot could come to help, without roads the chariot might come too late. That's also a problem with the way you situated Sumer, it's far off and in its first turns it's undefended and out of reach of the chariot in Babylon, Barbarians could have killed it right away.

Some nice city locations I've seen:
C: when you locate here you get 2 food, 1 trade and 1 production in the city and 2 tiles of grass with a shield in the city radius, and also that nice coal special, mine it and you will get a high production from that one (once you've put a worker on it in the cityscreen )
D: This is a beauty, three specials in your radius! You're in monarchy now so the horses in the forest will give you 3 food and 2 production (nice!!!) and again that coal special and if that's not enough 4 grassland with a shield. City spots rarely come better than this one. Remember to first irrigate the spot with your settler (turn it into plain) and when you've done that build the city on that spot. Otherwise in your city you only have 1 food and 2 production and personally I like 2 food, 1 production and 1 trade better.

Now I'll try to attach a screenshot:

 

[stwils]

OK. Thanks. I will play the game further and try to build a city on spot D as you have indicated.

But I did not know about irrigating the spot first that I would build a city on. Somehow I thought all city squares were irrigated and "roaded" at once as you built on them. I was under the impression that it was all the other squares that could use the work of the settler.

But do you get the feeling that now in 120 BC my game is going no where? Shouldn't I be far ahead of where I am?

Thanks for all your help.

stwils

 

[Zwelgje]

Tiles where you place your city on or irrigated and roaded but not forrest, swamp or jungle. Mind you, when you want those irrigated you always have to do it twice so when you build a city on it it's only irrigated once and that apperently doesn't work.

You're playing chieftain so the other civs aren't doing better than you so don't worry about that, build colossus in Babylon, or are you already doing that? It will boost science and then build a library there and science can't go wrong. Let Sumer build another settler while the one that is busy goes to found a new city now. Build more cities, the beginning of the game is the time of expansion.

First city founded: build settler, phalanx and start colossus after that library. The settler founds another city and builds phalanx, settler, settler phalanx, and a settler. The first two settlers found new cities right away and the third settler improves terrain. Then build improvements. I like a library in every city because with colossus it gives me huge science!