Being Out-Expanded on Regent! What do I do?

[cgannon64]

Now, I have heard many horror stories about the amazing AI expansion on Diety and such. But I have never really heard stories about AI expansion on Regent! Here is my situation:

I had just finished an American game on Warlord. I took over half the world, then stopped playing for boredom. Since I won quite easily, I decided to try my hand at Regent.

I am the French, in a nice start on a river with lots of wheat. I discover the English next to me (Standard map, max civs). By the time I get my 2nd city, I discover they have 5. I thought this was quite fast for Regent, b/c I believe the AI was no advantages on Regent---the playing field is level.

Is this rate of expansion very quick for Regent, or should I just get used to it? My strategy on Regent was the same was mine on Warlord: just keep pace with the AI until you are ready for an early war to gain breathing space. This strategy is worthless, however, if the AI is expanding at 3.5 cities for everyone of mine. At this rate, I'll have to go the kiss-up route.

Was this a freak expansion, or the norm?

 

[satchel]

How long does it take you to get that second city? I play on Regent as well - I've only just mastered it and will move up to Monarch on my next game - and I find that the AI expands ridiculously fast, and I have to focus very intently to keep up early on.

Here's what I usually do:
1. Build my first city wherever my settler is plunked down. Some folks like to scout for a turn or two to find that "perfect" site but not I! I don't want to waste a moment.

2. Build a warrior to begin scouting, and as soon as my city can pop out a settler build one. I try to time it so that the city grows to 3 on the same turn as the settler is finished; at most one or two turns later.

3. By now you should know where your second city is going to be, and you might even have built a road partway there since your worker is improving around the first city. Send the settler there. I usually go no more than 4 squares away so it doesn't take more than 2-3 turns to get there. All told, I should have my second city no more than 18 turns after the game starts, unless I got a really crappy site for my capital.

4. repeat, again and again, in all cities. With both your first and second cities cranking out settlers, you can have 4 cities in the same amount of time it took you to get to two. And so on. I don't start worrying about defenders and wonders until I have about 6 or 8 cities. (I play on huge maps though.)

hope this helps ...

 

[SirJethro]

The English must have popped a settler in a very early goody hut with their scout, and may even have some very fertile ground to boot. You could find out by restarting the game on the same map and see if they are as successful.

 

[cgannon64]

Yes, I think the English did pop a settler. The Russians only have 3, and the Aztecs only 2...

 

[DaDoo]

I don't believe french have spearmen to start, right? I have only been playing on regent and what I do is I plop my city down wherever I end up starting at and build 3 warriors first. 2 to explore and 1 to guard my city. After that, I build either 2 or 3 settlers. 2 settlers if I want to have pyramid, 3 if I don't. The 2 settlers I made will go out just far enough so the city radius won't overlap and where the land is relatively fertile. Have those 2 cities build 1 explorer, 1 defender, temple(if possible) and then pump out settlers till there's no more land. As much as I can I try to put the 2nd and 3rd cities on opposite side of my capital so I can expand better. As for my capital, after finish with settlers, I'll have it start on a wonder. It's quite a gamble this way since all your newly found cities will be defenseless for the first 5-10 turns, more if you don't have accelerated production. Most AI will leave your undefended cities alone. Your only problem will be barbarians. Using this method I can usually claim the #1 title on land area when free land runs out and before the AI's start warring at one another.

 

[Sullla]

No one here has mentioned the most obvious and most important way of all to speed up early expansion - build a granary before you build any settlers. Barring a very food-rich starting position (multiple cattle, wheat, floodplains tiles), you will always expand faster in the long run by building a granary before your settlers. This is due to the fact that food, not shields, are the limiting factor in early expansion. A granary will allow you to regrow back to a larger size at twice the speed, at which time you will be pulling in more shields, more commerce, and can start work on another settler. Nothing is worse than completing a settler just as a city hits size 3 and dropping all the way back to size one again, where it will take 20 or so turns to reach size 3 again, during which time you are getting no more than 4 or 5 shields/turn. Trust me on this one: build the granary early on, and this advice should be doubled if the starting position is a dry one without any food bonus tiles.

And satchel - "always" settling on the starting tile is not a good philosophy. If you can move one tile and get onto a river or other source of fresh water, you not only greatly increase your commerce but can avoid building a 100-shield aqueduct. That's worth one turn's delay in founding a city.

 

[cracker]

cgannon (and others),

Try spending some time with the article on:
Improving Your Opening Play Sequences

I am certain that the topics covered in the article will radically improve your capacity to expand at the maximum rate.

Sulla's advice about building an early granary may be helpful for some civs but it will all depend on your starting position and what civ you play as.

On regent level, your rivals begin the game with no military either, so building bucket loads of warriors is not your best choice in most of these games unless you are a military civ with a warrior/sword UU.

What every one of your rivals will be fixated on is a build plan that sets one warrior and then one settler regardless of what their starting position might be.

In the case of this game where cgannon is playing as France, he starts the game with Masonry and the Alphabet and does not have pottery to build the instant Granary. Expansionists civs are generally the only civs where the instant Granary tactic has a great chance to work.

The two techs that France starts with are worth 40 and 50 gold respectively. England starts with Alphabet and Pottery at 50 and 20. Aztecs start with Archers and Temples at 30 and 20. You have an early trading advantage if you can learn to use it.

France's primary strengths in the early game will come from exploiting their extra fast workers. You have to be a better manager of worker tasks in order to get the most bang for your buck here. The reduced corruption and extra gold from the commercial trait will be a bigger benefit later in the game.

A high priority early task for you is to buy a worker from one of the other civs as soon as absolutely possible in the game. This will cost you 27 to 30 gold and you have to watch the diplomacy listings every turn, but this purchased slave worker can be paired with one of your industrious workers to cut the time to build roads in a square down to one turn.

The English probably did get an early settler from a goody hut in this case but that would not account for their whuppin you into the dust with five cities by the time you get to two.

You are building the wrong things in your build order and not managing your initial start position effectively. With wheat, a river, an the human ability to think and assess terrain in the big picture you should be only one city behind. If you automated your worker, then this is a self inflicted head wound. If you haven't read the "start positions" strategy article yet, then the wound is still self inflicted but it may be in some other appendage.

Your basic strategy of: "just keep pace with the AI until you are ready for an early war to gain breathing space" is also really weak for the resources you have available. Your rivals have absolutely no advantages over you on this regent level and in fact you can cripple them quickly just by playing the openning sequence of the first 80 to 100 moves in a manner that shows you are the human player and that you can alter your playing style to fit the terrain and map position you are dealt.

Good luck,

 

[cgannon64]

I think I am going to read your article, Cracker. I always micro my workers, but something tells me I am not doing it right...

 

[bbaws]

Careful you don't disappear up your own behind with micromanagement. It is becoming a hardy virus on this site.
As far as the original query goes, the english are close and appear to be popping goody huts, sounds like it's time for war. Capture those cities with a medium sized force, then switch back to settler production.

 

[cgannon64]

I am pretty sure that they popped a goody hut and got a settler---they are outexpanding me by 3.5/1, and outexpanding all of the other civs 3.5/1. Looks like I just got unlucky.

 

[bbaws]

If they are close it might be worth trying the early war before they get too comfortable. Even if all you manage to do is destroy some English cities and gain some slaves it could pay massive dividends as time goes on.

 

[EdwardTking]

A high priority early task for you is to buy a worker from one of the other civs as soon as absolutely possible in the game. This will cost you 27 to 30 gold and you have to watch the diplomacy listings every turn, but this purchased slave worker can be paired with one of your industrious workers to cut the time to build roads in a square down to one turn.

This can be very helpful. However I often add worker to an early
size 1 city (e.g. if original just reduced from size 3 to 1 for first settler) to speed up the next settler rather than keep foreign worker too long and risk offending the worker's civilisation.

 

[BillChin]

One of the best ways is to practice the early game. Start several games and quit after the first age or first 100 turns. Learning the early game is the key to playing on higher difficulty levels. A full game of Civ III takes a long time, but playing the first age usually is one sitting.

Some ways to build faster, are as suggested, the early granary. For the granary, get the population to increase the turn after it is completed, to maximize the impact. A second way to boost the early game, is a dense pack of early cities (two or three tiles apart). A third (good for Regent, but weak on Emperor) is to send out Warriors looking for enemy cities to capture early. A fourth is to plan for a relatively early war after two to four player cities are built. Depending on a player's personality, any and all of these are good ways to play early. A player can mix and match all of these.
- Bill

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by EdwardTking
A high priority early task for you is to buy a worker from one of the other civs as soon as absolutely possible in the game. This will cost you 27 to 30 gold and you have to watch the diplomacy listings every turn, but this purchased slave worker can be paired with one of your industrious workers to cut the time to build roads in a square down to one turn.

There is an ongoing debate over whether this is an exploit, because it severly cripples the AI economy, often with permanent consequences. I prefer to refrain from this, because I am from the 'exploit' camp.

 

[Nifelheim]

In the emperor mode, the AIs start with one setler, two worker, two spearman ( if they start with the bronze working, unless warrior) and two of three (don't remember exactly) archer (if they start with warrior code, unless warrior again). So, they don't have to make worker, spearman or warrior. in the beginning, they only make settlers. so, in my opinion it is not impossible. (In deity mode, they start with one more settler. and the production is very very fast) You can view this by save your game as ".... multi.sav", if you didn't update the civ3 packages. so all of them are cheating

 

[Allemand]

An expansionist civ can pop more than one settler from the huts. I got three in one game, although one is the norm. The English could probably pop the settler in the first 10 turns and that would double their ability to build more settlers from that point on. In the early game each city is important.

The granary idea works like a charm when you have multiple food bonuses in your city radius. By turn 60 the granary will more than pay for itself with extra settler production. The best rhythm seems to be a settler every five turns. But shift all other production to another city.

And don't forget to sell the granary when you have the pyramids!

 

[cgannon64]

Yes, it was definetly a fluke. In my current Greek Regent game, I'm outexpanding the AI!

(Getting 300 Today!!!)

 

[Gundam]

just expand... no early war...and if you go to war just don't lose your warriors.Just contain the ai by destroing their roads...hf