building city improvements faster

[macthk]

Just a cool thing I discovered by accident. Anyway It's best with bombers, but will work with cannons, ships etc...

Anyway one day I decided to get rid of my catapults so I disbanded the unit and then I noticed that shields were used to build a city improvement faster. anyway it has become useful for slow growing cities, 87 turns to build a temple or something else.

anyway with bombers it is easy to transfer to other cities, but complete Railroads help as well.

also I discovered the wartime production mode, which can be cool as long as you are able to sign a peace agreement at some point. as long as you are at war you can set the production mode to war time, and you get double shields. So usually I will select something to build in most of my cities, and they get built faster during wartime.

anyway the only down side to war production is that you can only build war units until peace is signed. However, once peace is signed you can go through your cities and change the unfinished mil units to another unit usually at 3 or 4 turns to complete. Also you don't get bugged to build aqueducts during war production mode.

anyway increasing the science spending helps with building cities up quicker as well as getting ahead in techs, as long as you have gold.

Communism seems cool, cause you can kill your people to hurry up projects, useful when you are about to be attacked or you are going to war. Plus the draft is better.

one other useful feature is the governor button, where you can put the Gov in charge of city production and people management, although there seems to be less taxes.

anyway I am new to civ III, been playing for 3 weeks and still learning.

 

[Aabraxan]

Welcome to CFC, macthk!

Yes, you can disband units for some shields. However, I think you get something like 1/7th of the shields invested ( & I'm not sure about the rounding) towards the project. So an 80-shield artillery unit would only net you about 11 shields. In the early game, if you're going to disband regular warriors or the like, it's not a bad idea to make sure that the soon-to-be-disbanded go someplace where their shields can be reclaimed. By mid- to late-game, though, I'm usually too busy invading someone to disband units like that. And I'd be very hesitant to disband bombers for their shields. They've got Lethal Land & Sea Bombard, which makes them very, very useful.

Also, if you're playing Conquests, you get access to civil engineers at some point (which tech?), which contribute 2 shields each towards buildings (but not military units). And policemen (I don't know when they came along), reduce corruption, allowing faster builds of both buildings and units in some cities.

 

[gmaharriet]

Also, if you're playing Conquests, you get access to civil engineers at some point (which tech?)

Replacable Parts

And policemen (I don't know when they came along),

Nationalism

 

[Kool Keith]

Just a cool thing I discovered by accident. Anyway It's best with bombers, but will work with cannons, ships etc...

Anyway one day I decided to get rid of my catapults so I disbanded the unit and then I noticed that shields were used to build a city improvement faster. anyway it has become useful for slow growing cities, 87 turns to build a temple or something else.

anyway with bombers it is easy to transfer to other cities, but complete Railroads help as well.

also I discovered the wartime production mode, which can be cool as long as you are able to sign a peace agreement at some point. as long as you are at war you can set the production mode to war time, and you get double shields. So usually I will select something to build in most of my cities, and they get built faster during wartime.

anyway the only down side to war production is that you can only build war units until peace is signed. However, once peace is signed you can go through your cities and change the unfinished mil units to another unit usually at 3 or 4 turns to complete. Also you don't get bugged to build aqueducts during war production mode.

anyway increasing the science spending helps with building cities up quicker as well as getting ahead in techs, as long as you have gold.

Communism seems cool, cause you can kill your people to hurry up projects, useful when you are about to be attacked or you are going to war. Plus the draft is better.

one other useful feature is the governor button, where you can put the Gov in charge of city production and people management, although there seems to be less taxes.

anyway I am new to civ III, been playing for 3 weeks and still learning.

Welcome.

You could play this game for 3 years and still learn something new every time you play. That's part of the reason this game is so much fun.

Now, a word of advice. You mentioned using bombers to help build a temple that would otherwise take 87 turns. Don't do this. Ever.

One of the things you need to learn is the impact that improvements have on your civilization and how they help you accomplish your goal. A general rule of thumb is that temples are worthless. What do they really do for you? They give you some negligible culture, but cost maintenance. If you build temples everywhere in your empire, you are creating a huge gold vacuum in your budget. And not only that, but you could spend the shields you used to build the temple on something that would help you conquer your rivals.

You really should never build improvements in highly corrupt cities.

 

[Chamnix]

Yes, you can disband units for some shields. However, I think you get something like 1/7th of the shields invested ( & I'm not sure about the rounding) towards the project.

1/4 rounded down.

 

[Aabraxan]

Ah, 1/4 then. It's not quite as rotten a deal as I'd thought, but still not great.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

doing that (building units to disband in other cities) is quite useful, but you are almost always better off using those shields in the original city to build improvements there until you have nothing else to build there.

 

[Snarkhunter]

You really should never build improvements in highly corrupt cities.

Is that true even if you are going for a 100K(+) win? Ie, is a reasonably large and robust core enough to get that many points, or does it usually need some help (discounting any GW's you might seize from your neighbors)?

 

[Theryman]

100k is a whole different ballgame- you want ICC as fast as you can, and pump as many cheap cultural buildings as you can into those cities. Feudalism was made for 100k.

 

[Aabraxan]

Is that true even if you are going for a 100K(+) win? Ie, is a reasonably large and robust core enough to get that many points, or does it usually need some help (discounting any GW's you might seize from your neighbors)?

GW's that you seize from your neighbors don't generate culture for you.

 

[PaperBeetle]

And policemen (I don't know when they came along),

Nationalism

But you can't build police stations until you get Communism (which is often never), so in the meantime, your poor policemen just have to sit by the side of the road or something.

 

[gmaharriet]

But you can't build police stations until you get Communism (which is often never), so in the meantime, your poor policemen just have to sit by the side of the road or something.

You're correct about police stations, but a policeman can often be useful when one of your core cities has not enough tiles to work and needs a specialist. In that case, a policeman may grab that last corrupt shield and a gold piece for you as well. Policemen work best near the core, but are useless in corrupt areas.

 

[TruePurple]

Noone caught this, a temple costs 60 shields (30 with religious) A town always produces a minimal 1 uncorrupted shield. A temple would NEVER take 87 turns to build.(unless rebelling here and there) 60 turns, max.

 

[macthk]

60 shields - I may have exaggerated a bit. But for example. If I get a foothold on a enemy island, using planes to build an airport is helpful, to move large amount of troops in quickly. maybe it is a waste of shields, but it seems to get that airport built quicker. I guess it depends on the game really. Like I said I am new, and I just started on warlord last week.

for example my current game, I just finished a war with the Germans and they gave me a isolated city in Persian territory as part of a peace deal. Persians have been isolated from the rest of the civs cause they are on a island. Anyway they have been a pain the whole game and when I tried to mount a sea attack, my troops have been taken out quickly due to RR and no mountains to land on and no other civs attacking them. anyway this game has been kind of crazy, cause I have been at war with at least 3 or 4 civs at a time. mostly because of the Persians, who sit back and let the others fight. Can't trade with anyone, cause of constant embargo s so can't really get too much ahead of the persians on techs. they seem to be 1 ahead always. So anyway I just made peace with everyone, only indians and Persians really left on the board. anyway I plan to increase the production of troops and drop them in via airport to the new city for my final assault. There is only 40 turns before mandatory end. so I need to take the persian culture down a few notches by destroying their cities and capture wonders etc, cause I think I am behind them in culture and points..

anyway the point was that 4 planes get you like 25 shields each towards an airport, so I guess it may be a waste but it seems to work when needed. Meaning i can build an airport in 1 turn and start sending troops over every turn.

temples, seem to increase people in the cities which seems to lower the cost of building stuff quicker. I could be wrong. I do have trouble with cash flow for building techs faster. So maybe temples are useless.

 

[TruePurple]

You don't know what temples do? If you simply right click them and look them up in civipedia it will tell you. They make 1 person happy. In less corrupt cities this means you can have the luxury slider lower. In more corrupt cities this means you can have more specialists.

If temples seem to to cause increased population rate then you haven't been using luxury slider right. With AI changing your citizens to the extremely inefficient entertainer specialists that you should rarely ever use.. You have less population heads working the land thus less food and less growth.

 

[Aabraxan]

. . . . If I get a foothold on a enemy island, using planes to build an airport is helpful, to move large amount of troops in quickly . . . .

Try building an airfield. Put a worker on a tile and look at the buttons along the bottom. There's a "Build Airfield" command. On flat land, it costs you the worker, but it's 1 turn. An airfield can also receive incoming airdrops. Here's the kicker: An airport or airfield can only send out one unit per turn, but it can receive an unlimited number. So you need several airports or airfields near your core and a couple of airfields near the field of battle.

. . . . I think I am behind them in culture and points . . .

Press F8. That will show you your score and culture and that of your closes rival.

 

[Aceman101]

He may be playing vanilla. Which would explain why there wasn't an airfield button. There was no clue that he was playing conquests. Germany and Persia are in vanilla. There was no conquests units he mentioned.. So it is possible.

macthk,

Do you have access to all 31 civs? Or can you only choose one from 15? Go to the civilipedia. Search for "medieval Infantry" if you can find it, you are playing conquests (or ptw). If you can't than you are playing the original version of civ 3 with less features than the expansion packs.

Anyway, I would advise not to disband bombers in cities because they are EXTREMELY useful.

However, bombers in the original version of civ 3 were not as useful as the expansion pack bombers'. But they can still be the difference of victory or defeat. Also, if you're running short of gold, don't build temples in your corrupt cities, build wealth. Irrigate all the tiles around the corrupt cities and turn some citizens into tax collectors or scientists.

EDIT: Only build wealth in your very very corrupt cities. Build units in the other cities.

 

[TruePurple]

Temples in corrupt cities that have decent extra food mean more scientist specialists. But only if extra food.

 

[Snarkhunter]

GW's that you seize from your neighbors don't generate culture for you.

Is that also true of ToA & the temples it should put in your cities (& thus the culture you should get from them)? I've never seized it from the AI before, so I don't have any direct experience, but I'm assuming that if you seize it, you get a temple in every town (if not a chicken in every pot!).

 

[Bartleby]

Temples in corrupt cities that have decent extra food mean more scientist specialists. But only if extra food.

Assuming you have a couple of luxuries, you don't need Temples for happiness in specialist farms. Or if you seem to need Temples, what you actually need is a tighter build.