Army stack

[Alexander great]

HI guys


I am new here . In CIV 3 i have won in warlord and chieften with small enough armies.but it seems to be impossible to attack another nation in regent difficulty and above.How do u guys built such big stacks of units without suffuring Unit cost.I have to reduce science to sustain my troops but i become tech backwards.The AI is also unforgiving and never accepts peace.

HELP
Thanks in advance

 

[Turner]

Well, having a government with unit support helps. Building cities increases the number of free units. Having marketplaces helps bring in more commerce, as well as having Libs/Uni's to increase science spending.

So More Cities = Higher Unit Support = Less spent on unit upkeep.

What version are you playing?

Also, the AI is very forgiving when you outnumber their troops.

 

[MAS]

Simple, build lots of cities, road everything. A road does not only increase movement, it also adds +1 commerce to the tile when a citizen works it. So make sure you have lots of workers to quickly road (and mine/irrigate) everything. (rule of thumb, 2 times as many workers as cities)

Also, don't try to build x # of spearman too protect every city, paying gpt upkeep to those is a waste. Protect your borders with offensive units, and place a few defensive units where they really do something. A city in the middle of your empire won't need defense if the enemy is killed at the borders anyway.

Don't build useless city improvements. Only build the city improvements that really help. Say, a greenery in a city that sits at its growth cap won't do a lot, a barrack in a city that is not going to build units until much later is also a waste of gpt. Any structure at all in a city that is so corrupt it will only produce 1 uncorrupted gold and shields is a waste.

So only build a greenery in cities that will serve as settler and worker pumps for some time, and build barracks in cities that will focus on units. Build a library in cities that produce 10 or more base SCI, and only build a marked if you have at least 4 lux resources. Don't build anything at all in far away land (see below)

But never stop expanding, an empty city cost no upkeep, conquer the other civs and fill the land far away from your capital with lots of small towns, city-tile-city. Irrigate the land in those area's and hire specialist (taxman or scientist) from the surplus food.

 

[IronJeff]

A lot of new players seem to have this problem when they try to build everything a city can build. Only build the buildings you need. Spend your sheilds on settlers and troops.

 

[Norton II]

Speaking of useless city improvements, don't build any happiness buildings. Temples, cathedrals, and especially colosseums are not worth the cost either in initial shield investment or in gold per turn. Only build them if you're going for a cultural victory, and even then you should focus on expansion and military buildup before building any cultural improvements (for 100k culture games, i mean; 20k culture's a different matter). Use the lux slider along with luxury resources and marketplaces to manage happiness. At regent and monarch, a size 12 city with a marketplace and 8 luxuries will be in permanent WLTKD mode unless war weariness shows up.

Beyond that, I can only second everything that was posted earlier. You should post a save file from one of your regent games so that you can get more specific advice.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Use the lux slider along with luxury resources and marketplaces to manage happiness. At regent and monarch, a size 12 city with a marketplace and 8 luxuries will be in permanent WLTKD mode unless war weariness shows up.

No, markets + lux is not enough. You need either one more content or one more happy face.[/nitpick]

 

[Norton II]

Oh yeah. The last citizen's still unhappy. I just didn't apply the happy faces in the right order. The first two would make the two content citizens happy, the next 18 would make nine unhappy citizens happy, but the last guy would still be unhappy. A temple might be useful in that case but maybe still not worth the shield cost unless e.g. you can get a city to produce 20 shields instead of 19 so as to make it more useful for building cavalry. It's been a little while since I played below emperor.

 

[Alexander great]

Thanks a lot for ur help. still have questions?

1. What do u do with captured cities?
When i capture a city i have to keep some of my troops in defence thus reducing my offensive troops?
When i raze it i lose reputation?
HELP AGAIN PLEASE

by the way i play "play the world"

 

[Decebalus]

Ahhhh you just hit the Regent hump! Seems to be a big jump in difficutly when you go to Regent. Can't ignore defences, build EVERYTHING in every city and take on the world with a handfull of units anymore, sorry. There will actually be another such hump when you move on to Emperor.

On the lowest levels you and the AI are roughly at the same build speed. On higher levels however AI cheats and builds things alot faster than you. Which is why you always seem to be outnumbered and every damned city you try and take has WAY too many units in it.

One good example of a game I had once, I was trying to go for a conquest victory so I was at war continuously. Towards the end, I had to go to war with basicaly the biggest superpower because they had nearly all the territory left which I needed to win. Towards the end of that war, it (carthaginians) had roughly 10 cities left, but at the beginning of each turn I would see about 15 modern armour come out to attack. They wouldn't do much because I litteraly had mech inf armies garrisoned in each town they could attack, all died on each attack. But each new turn of theirs there were another 15 or so modern armour built.

Now do the math, 10 cities 15 armour??? Something not right, how could they build more units per turn than they had cities. And in addition, how in gods name could any city build a modern armour in just 1 turn?! Especially since this was towards the end of the war, and most of the cities left were not quite the largest and most productive.

So yeah, like everyone mentioned make sure you have enough money to keep a large army, put a roads on everything, build only buildings you need. Build evenly too, make sure you don't build say a library in each city, build libraries in some, and markets in other simultaneously. Dedicate certain cities to ONLY build units, and don't build too many defensive units to put in all cities. 1 or 2 are good for the core ones as millitary police, and say 4+ or so for the border towns both as defence and as garrisons to move forward with an attack.

As what you do with captured cities, well I suggest you keep them them. They add to your income and everything. Which means when you plan your attack, plan in such a way that you have pleanty of defensive units that can move up just behind your main attack. Some people don't belive in this and would actually just garrison with attacking units, but I don't. See the thread on border defence for example.

 

[Norton II]

Thanks a lot for ur help. still have questions?

1. What do u do with captured cities?
When i capture a city i have to keep some of my troops in defence thus reducing my offensive troops?
When i raze it i lose reputation?
HELP AGAIN PLEASE

by the way i play "play the world"

If you raze a captured city, you get an attitude hit, but it doesn't affect your reputation. The difference is this: A reputation hit affects the AI's willingness to enter into diplomatic or trade agreements with you. For example, if you have a military alliance with another civ against a third civ, and you sign peace with the third civ before the alliance expires (i.e. before 20 turns are up), other civs will no longer be willing to sign alliances with you. An attitude hit means the AI is just less happy with you; they'll still make deals with you, though. However, if the AI is furious with you, they're more likely to declare war if provoked (e.g. by a failed tech steal or a "remove-or-declare" ultimatum).

As for what to do with captured cities, it depends. If the AI has a massive cultural lead on you, you might want to raze their cities. Just make sure you have settlers standing by to replace them. OTOH, if your culture is stronger, or if the city has a useful wonder in it, you'll probably want to keep it. Just keep in mind that captured cities may not be very productive if they're far away from your capital. Others can advise you about what to do in this case; I have C3C, not PTW. Also, don't keep too many units in captured cities; one should do for defense (preferably a fast attack unit). That way, if the city flips back, you'll only lose one unit, and you can keep attacking with most of your units.

As I said before, post a save file. I won't be able to look at it, but others will.

 

[Alexander great]

Here is one of my saved files it is a hotseat game one india & one china.U guys may be more able to help me. Check this out please

Thanks a lot for the advices.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

A temple might be useful in that case but maybe still not worth the shield cost unless e.g. you can get a city to produce 20 shields instead of 19 so as to make it more useful for building cavalry.

I guess it depends on what you are doing. In a fast research game the need for military units is likely very low, a few beakers on the other hand might save the day.

 

[Ringo Kid]

Set a goal to build ten productive cities as quickly as possible. Then build a few warriors to go find your closest neighbors. Build one or two workers per city, then build a barracks in each of your ten cities. Have the workers develop the cities roads and mines while you build attackers. You can look at your military adviser screen to get the total number of units you can support without support costs. And dont sent the workers around at random, have a plan. Look at each town , figure out which squares will produce the most from being improved. Then have the worker improve them in a logical order that doesnt waste a lot of turns going back and forth from place to place.

When you have a stack of 20 attackers built, build a few defenders and ad to the stack. Then - attack! Attack only cities, only with the whole stack. Attack the nearest city, then the next nearest, so that you take cities quickly. Dont leave damaged units unprotected, cover them with a defensive unit until they can get inside the city to heal. When your stack runs out of units, and you might not have enough to take the next city, stop and wait for your damaged units to heal, and for fresh reinforcements to arrive from the rear. Always keep the stack together, no matter what.

Its important to attack the neighbor sooner rather than later, because the longer you wait the stronger they get. Best to kill them while they are still small. So try to plan everything according to what yo can do in the fewest number of turns. Turns saved early in the game have the effect of multiplying your advantage thru the whole rest of the game.

You should get a good strong start that way, which should also solve the problems with support and gold you are having.

 

[Abegweit]

Here is one of my saved files it is a hotseat game one india & one china.U guys may be more able to help me. Check this out please

Thanks a lot for the advices.

OK. I took a look at your game. It's the same story as usual.

1. Your cities are waaaay tooo far apart. I've never seen spacing this wide. I would have two between Madras and Bangalore and another couple towards Delhi. Cities should be spaced CxxC. E.g., there should be two spaces between cities. A little wider is OK, but not much. If you don't have much space (not the case here), put them even closer together. There are seven spaces between Madras and Bangalore.

2. Don't build temples. Don't build walls.

3. Don't build defensive units.

4. I understand it's a long way to the water but you should have brought it into your core long ago.

5. The city governors are on. You're smarter than the computer. Take advantage of your strengths. Are the workers automated too? I sincerely hope not.

6. Your cities are too far apart.

7. Don't defend cities that your opponents can't get to. For that matter, don't let them get to your cities. Kill them before they get there.

8. Except for a few explorers and MPs at the beginning of the games, all units should be vets. You need barracks.

9. Did I mention that your cities are too far apart?

 

[mangxema]

Ahhhh you just hit the Regent hump! Seems to be a big jump in difficutly when you go to Regent. Can't ignore defences, build EVERYTHING in every city and take on the world with a handfull of units anymore, sorry.

I play Regent all the time and win or get to the mop-up stage (my score >> all others..combined) and lose interest. And I do build just about everything in every city. I think the important thing is to recognize what you need to build when. When you need a city improvement, when you need a soldier, etc. But aside from granaries and barracks, improvements almost always get built in my game eventually.

It should be noted that I am usually not a warmonger, at least not for awhile. I prefer to get ahead in research and then overpower with an advanced (and still large) army. Almost all of my wars are victories.

I'm sure when I take it up a notch, I'll have a slightly different opinion.

 

[Turner]

5. The city governors are on. You're smarter than the computer. Take advantage of your strengths. Are the workers automated too? I sincerely hope not.

I disagree. The govenors can be quite helpful to the new player. They're not that bad. Yes, you can think and pick better than the gov, but when you're first learning how to play the game having the govenors build for you doesn't kill your game. I used the govenors up to Regent and did just fine.

I've never automated, tho. That part of the govenor is just wacky. I also never allowed the govenor to build my units for me. I always chose what units to build and when. I allowed the gov to pick the improvements.

 

[Abegweit]

You're not going to learn if you leave them on. They should be off.

Incidently, Alex, the governors should be set to prioritise production. Bamspeedy's excellent "Deity settlers" article in the War Academy explains why so I won't repeat it. There's a lot more info about the early game too. Also Cracker's "Opening Moves" is well worth reading too. The latter explains very well why governors should be off.

Edit: actually the game can be played with governors on at levels far above Regent. It's still not the right way to learn. Automating workers is far worse than automating cities.

 

[Turner]

You're not going to learn if you leave them on. They should be off.

And again I submit that at the learning point of the game it's better to learn the major mechanics of the game. Micromanaging is something that you can't really do well until you understand how the game works. A new player doesn't always have the luxury of knowing enough of the theoretics of the game to successfully use micromanaging.

I do agree that you can play a better game with MM. That's why I learned it, because I saw my game suffering and it could be pointed right to the use of govenors. And since I understood the game, MM wasn't as hard to learn than if I used it when just starting to play the game.

 

[Abegweit]

But aside from granaries and barracks, improvements almost always get built in my game eventually.

Granaries and barracks are really the only thing you need but usually not in the same city. Your granary cities build your empire. And your barracks cities... grow your empire.

Beyond that, harbours and aqueducts in cities which require them... Once you have your empire you can fill it with whatever you want.

 

[Abegweit]

And again I submit that at the learning point of the game it's better to learn the major mechanics of the game.

I have never used governors and have never played a game, except the Gotm, at levels below Monarch. Wacken apparently has never played a game below diety.

Furthermore, Alex is not a noob. He has played games at chieftan and warlord and certainly has the mechanics down. You can see that from his game. Reading the War Academy and finding out how he can do it better than the AI is far more useful than continuing bad habits.