C3C Korea Regent- Any way to salvage this?

[brtndr_rex]

So I have just recently started playing on regent level and this is my first game where I let the computer decide the map layout (i.e., put everything on random). I am the Koreans and have had a ton of trouble with the Persians the entire game, just can't seem to stay at peace with them without giving up a ton of strategic advantage in nearly every area of the game. I have been trying to build up my military but seem to get attacked by one civ or another before I can get anything respectable going. Now I am afraid that the Persians have gotten too big and I can't do anything about it. Any help or advice on how to salvage this situation?

I have posted two save games, the first is where I am really getting hammered and am thinking of going back to the other one. Advice on either is appreciated.

 

[CommandoBob]

Welcome to the Forum brtndr_rex!



You have chosen one of the best ways to enter the forum, a game with a problem. People will look at it and offer you advice on what to do and how to do it.

I haven't looked at your save but I plan to.

In the Civ III War Academy, in the Miscelleanous section, is an article on coming back from last place, also a Regent level game. You might want to read that. It seems so easy when you are not in the driver's seat.

 

[joycem10]

My initial takes:

Start up the TOE. You're the only one with Sci Method and you're on regent. pick a good production city, change over to TOE, RR all shield tiles and you should get it. Dont trade SciMethod until you are at least halfway done.

Where are your slaves? You took out the English, you should have chain gangs of English slave workers linking up RRs.

Link all cities with RRs ASAP to be able to quickly counter invasion.

Block land access to Breda with units to keep the Persians from marching all over your home continent.

More cities... Im not one for splashing a city every 2 squares, but there are definite places for more on that map.]

Irrigate from Nampo and Sariwon over to Pyongsong to get some pop growth out of those plains/desert cities.

Use your workers more efficiently. In this age you should concentrate on RR all cities together, then maximizing shields in cities.

If you're in communism you might as well be at war. Either that or stay in republic.
More offensive units and less defensive.

Might as well trade useless/way outdated techs to backward civs. Theres at leat 130 +1/gpt on the board for old techs.

 

[Spoonwood]

I don't know about what to do at this point, but perhaps the biggest reason you got into such a rut comes as something I noticed when I went forward a turn. Automated workers. Even if you don't have a clue what to do with workers initially, if you want to play better, you really need to manage workers yourself. The AIs tactics at worker management just doesn't help them at all. On top of this you have the AI managing citizen moods. Manage this yourself also, because the AI never uses any specialists. I also recommend having "emphasize production" as "yes" with all the options as "no", as only emphasize production will give you *extra* production (you get extra shields when you grow). Try and look into a helper program... I like MapStat myself, others recommend CivAssist 2... to help with managing citizen moods. Also, did you ever move the science slider up or down at any point in the game? You might want to do this. I don't want to discourage you... probably my first couple games looked a lot worse than this really... but *what victory condition* do you want? Your strategy should focus around your desired victory condition. It's O.K. to change your mind if you can or have a back-up plan if you need to do so, but without a victory condition in mind you simply won't play a focused game.

Oh, and you choose Korea. Do you know about unique units? I'll assume not. For whatever tribe you play as, read the civilopedia entry about their traits and their unique unit. You don't have a single Hwach'a. Heck, the civilopedia even goes so far as to recommend accompanying a Hwach'a with a defensive unit. The Hwach'a has *lethal* land and sea bombardment. This means that if you have a nice stack of them and a few rifles on top, you can kill a lot of units via bombardment and not lose a single unit... at least so far as I understand it and other players have posted on these forums. You might also want to search around for information about armies on these forums... because either you've had really bad luck with elite wins, or you've not tried intelligently enough to spawn a leader.

Sorry if I seem harsh. The game takes a lot longer to learn to play well than perhaps myself or others on here make it sound.

 

[joycem10]

I played through the first 20 turns on this game to see what I could do. I was planning on building up about 20 cavs and hitting the dutch, but halway there the arabs demanded lux. Since I was planning on them next I went for it and told them to screw off. They grabbed alot of workers that I was using to build up Pyongyag for the TOE and took a couple of the new cities I laid down on the west side of the continent.

I turned it around on them, grabbed Damascus with cavs and lucked into a leader for an Army. After that I took the entire middle of the continent and started pushing down into the southern part. Right after I cleared out my "Arab Corridor" the dutch made their move to jump me. I made peace with the Arabs and next turn I go after them. Once I have my rear secure and get hold of the rubber on the island Ill move on to the Persians. Thats where I stand with this post.

As a note, generally I agree with what Spoonwood said about the arty, but I went all cav here because you just dont have the time left to roll up artys and blast away next turn.

What VCs are on this game? It looks like only conquest, right? If so It will be a tough play to knock out the Persians in less than 100 turns.

 

[brtndr_rex]

I don't know about what to do at this point, but perhaps the biggest reason you got into such a rut comes as something I noticed when I went forward a turn. Automated workers. Even if you don't have a clue what to do with workers initially, if you want to play better, you really need to manage workers yourself. The AIs tactics at worker management just doesn't help them at all.

Actually I only automate my workers once I have done all the improvements that I want myself. I know that the AI is horrible at worker management at at the point of the save game, I had just researched Steam Power and was getting ready to use the workers more wisely.

On top of this you have the AI managing citizen moods. Manage this yourself also, because the AI never uses any specialists.

I have found that letting the AI manage moods keep things under control better than trying to micromanage them myself. I have recently started setting emphasis on production and it does help.

Also, did you ever move the science slider up or down at any point in the game? You might want to do this.

I am always messing with the science slider when necessary. This game has been unique in that I have needed a bit more gold than normal because I missed out on building Leo's by a couple of turns (to the Persians of course), so I have been using the extra 10% of my science research to upgrade my troops.

I don't want to discourage you... probably my first couple games looked a lot worse than this really... but *what victory condition* do you want? Your strategy should focus around your desired victory condition. It's O.K. to change your mind if you can or have a back-up plan if you need to do so, but without a victory condition in mind you simply won't play a focused game.

Trust me you are not discouraging me, I just think you have a misconception about my experience with the game. I usually set the victory conditions to only conquest or space race because I like longer games. 90% of the time I win by conquest. I am not sure why I turned diplo on for this game, probably because I never use it and wanted a "easy" win condition in case things went badly. Unfortunately, things just have not gone well as far as my diplomacy goes, probably need to bone up on that for future games.

Oh, and you choose Korea.

Actually I didn't, I let the computer choose. I have played this game so many times that it just really doesn't matter to me what civ I end up with. I also think it is a bit of a challenge not being able to choose the perfect set-up.

Do you know about unique units? I'll assume not.

Well that's a faulty assumption. I know about unique units and I know how powerful they can be in certain situations.

You don't have a single Hwach'a. Heck, the civilopedia even goes so far as to recommend accompanying a Hwach'a with a defensive unit. The Hwach'a has *lethal* land and sea bombardment. This means that if you have a nice stack of them and a few rifles on top, you can kill a lot of units via bombardment and not lose a single unit... at least so far as I understand it and other players have posted on these forums.

Here's the thing, I have never liked using artillery of any kind. It's too slow and vulnerable, IMHO, to be an effective tool for any long military campaign. I would rather build better offensive and defensive units. Now maybe I need to rethink that strategy, but I have never really needed artillery and consider it a waste of production.

You might also want to search around for information about armies on these forums... because either you've had really bad luck with elite wins, or you've not tried intelligently enough to spawn a leader.

I know about armies, and you are right, I have not had good luck in this particular game with generating leaders or even keeping armies alive. See the problem in this particular game is that Persia has been able to build up a very sizeable army and I have not. It's why I keep getting attacked and can't sustain any momentum.

Sorry if I seem harsh. The game takes a lot longer to learn to play well than perhaps myself or others on here make it sound.

I don't mind the criticism, I just wish you would have not assumed that I have never played the game before. Like I said, I have played this game since it's inception (that's right Civ I) but usually just to waste time. I have just gotten bored and decided to up the ante so to speak and start playing on a higher difficulty level. I posted this particular game here because I was getting frustrated with where it was going and wanted to see if the "experts" had any advice that I hadn't been thinking of already.

I do thank you for taking the time to look at the save and respond.

 

[CommandoBob]

Like I said, I have played this game since it's inception (that's right Civ I) but usually just to waste time.

That's usually what did in Civ I and II, just waste time. It wasn't until I found this site after I got Civ3 that I really started to play the game. Before, I just played at it.

 

[CommandoBob]

Here's the thing, I have never liked using artillery of any kind. It's too slow and vulnerable, IMHO, to be an effective tool for any long military campaign. I would rather build better offensive and defensive units. Now maybe I need to rethink that strategy, but I have never really needed artillery and consider it a waste of production.

I agree that Catapults, Trebuchets and Cannons are hard to use well since their range is only one tile. In turn that means they cannot attack with Horses and Knights, since they can attack quicker with their faster movement.

Artillery has a range of 2 and it can keep up with the Horses and Tanks, especially with rails.

The use of artillery and all bombardment units is to damage the target so that when it is attacked by your units the target will die and do little damage, if any, to the unit that attacked it. You could attack a vWarrior with your own vWarrior, but who would win? Only the RNG knows for sure. But, if you redline that vWarrior first, so that it has just one hit-point left, your vWarrior is much more likely to kill it and not be hurt. In turn that means your unit is more likely to be able to continue the war on the next turn and not have to spend time healing (or as much time) healing.

You will lose units in a war. Proper use of the rock-throwers means you will lose fewer units. And generate more leaders.

 

[brtndr_rex]

I agree that Catapults, Trebuchets and Cannons are hard to use well since their range is only one tile. In turn that means they cannot attack with Horses and Knights, since they can attack quicker with their faster movement.

Artillery has a range of 2 and it can keep up with the Horses and Tanks, especially with rails.

The use of artillery and all bombardment units is to damage the target so that when it is attacked by your units the target will die and do little damage, if any, to the unit that attacked it. You could attack a vWarrior with your own vWarrior, but who would win? Only the RNG knows for sure. But, if you redline that vWarrior first, so that it has just one hit-point left, your vWarrior is much more likely to kill it and not be hurt. In turn that means your unit is more likely to be able to continue the war on the next turn and not have to spend time healing (or as much time) healing.

You will lose units in a war. Proper use of the rock-throwers means you will lose fewer units. And generate more leaders.

Oh don't get me wrong, I love bombarding cities with frigates early and bombers later, but have been able to get by without in the early stages of games. But the longer I play at Regent level, the more I am changing how I "normally" play the game. That's the great thing about this game, it actually takes different strategies at different levels and you can play it for several different reasons.

 

[brtndr_rex]

Ok, so I played from the previous save for a couple of hours to try to turn things around before they got out of hand. I immediately made peace with the Persians in order to save my army and build up again. My plan was to try to take out the Dutch before Persia decided to attack again. And it almost worked. I had taken all of the Dutch cities on the main continent except Amsterdam when the Persians attacked. I finished off the Dutch while playing defense around Dariush Kabur. Went okay, lost a couple of those cities along with a couple of the English cities but was able to weather the storm and take back nearly everything I lost. I am now back at peace (just signed) and have a tenuous hold on the rubber on the island in the north. I have most of my cities connected by rail and plan on building up both my defensive and offensive units. If I can keep the Persians at bay for awhile, I a plan on consoldationg my hold on the mainland by taking out the Arabs. Any other advice would be appreciated, but I am feeling much more confident about the chances of turning this game around.

 

[Bucephalus]

Artillery has a range of 2 and it can keep up with the Horses and Tanks, especially with rails.

That is only true of Radar artillery, CBob.

 

[Calis]

That is only true of Radar artillery, CBob.

He is talking about shooting range, not movement...

 

[Spoonwood]

Actually I only automate my workers once I have done all the improvements that I want myself.

The problem lies in that the AI will then proceed to change your improvements... they'll irrigate mines and mine your irrigations. I think there exists an automate pollution button that people like.

I have found that letting the AI manage moods keep things under control better than trying to micromanage them myself.

It's not just about citizen moods. Sorry I didn't explain more. In your first save you have some cities something like this: you have 6 happy citizens, 1 content citizen, 4 unhappy citizens, and 1 geek. Personally, I'd probably turn the luxury slider on to 10% here and lose the geek and work another tile. But also, with that configuration I could use a scientist, tax specialist, civil engineer, or policeman (given the requiste technologies) have have 5 happy citizens, 1 content citizen, 5 unhappy citizens, and 1 specialist. You'll get more commerce and/or production this way. If you don't manage citizen moods yourself, you won't get production like this. A helper program like MapStat or CivAssist 2 can help you manage the happiness problems so you don't have revolts (which *only* influences production on the first turn it happens).

Here's the thing, I have never liked using artillery of any kind. It's too slow and vulnerable, IMHO, to be an effective tool for any long military campaign. I would rather build better offensive and defensive units. Now maybe I need to rethink that strategy, but I have never really needed artillery and consider it a waste of production.

In favor of artillery: many players consider lethal bombardment huge. Some players think the Hwach'a broken. When people play tested conquests, one person actually took bombers and crated an entire continent, because lethal bombardment pretty much comes out ridiculously overpowered when used well. See here: http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ3/conquestsed.html In terms of regular bombardment:
I've heard of some players on here using stacks of medieval infantry and long bows with lots of artillery to take out entire scores of Deity-level tribes in the industrial and I think modern era. Artillery can help you minimize losses. This works out huge in a few respects. 1. You use your shields from your cities more effectively... less gets wasted going into losses. 2. You lose fewer units this war. So, warring in a republic or democracy becomes much easier since you minimize weariness this way. 3. Your fighting units have more chances to go to elite status. 4. Once you have elite units, you can bombard enemy units down to a single hitpoint or "redline" as people say, and then get a cheap victory that way. 5. If you have enough defensive units to defend your artillery stack (you won't lose them if you do), the artillery will bombard when the AI tries to attack your defensive units, making it easier for you to battles. Moonsinger has an interesting article on artillery proper in the war academy http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/artillery_effective.php, which I'll need to try myself sometime. By all means play as you like and strictly speaking you don't need artillery to win via conquest... I just mean the above as something to consider.

See the problem in this particular game is that Persia has been able to build up a very sizeable army and I have not.

Yeah, it seems strange to me to see such a large Regent level army... but I guess it's also 1906.

 

[joycem10]

The problem lies in that the AI will then proceed to change your improvements... they'll irrigate mines and mine your irrigations. I think there exists an automate pollution button that people like.

SHIFT A will automate without changing prior improvement. I usually use it when I am done improving cities as pollution control.

 

[Bucephalus]

He is talking about shooting range, not movement...

Right.... it was the bit about keeping up with tanks and horses that threw me.

 

[vmxa]

brtndr_rex, if you go back to the 1730AD save, avoid Nationalism and whatever else you researched. You got to go for Steam as the top tech in that age, sell your mother to increase your research to get it asap.

As Spoonwood and others mentioned, your plan to win determines what is next. Given you have to deal with Xerkxes on a shared land mass, I would strongly suggest going straight to RP (via Steam).

If you have Rubber and can make Infantry, life is so much easier on defense. No need for Rifles when you can soon have infantry. Drafting maybe useful, but you should not need it.

How did London get back in the hands of Liz in the 1906 save? How did you manage to go after England ahead of you nearer neighbors? It is usually better to go for the close nation to avoid having your land partitioned.

It makes it harder to re-enforce and defend, when one or more nation is between them.

Still looking at the 1730AD, I see a lot of entertainers and running zero lux?

31 towns and 17 workers and you are way under the unit cap, so why not make more workers? Maybe send over some spears to disband and rush a worker from the currently resisting Tyre?

Cheju was a poor location to have the MA. It is a location that is loaded with plains and desert tiles. Now that you have the MA there, rails will at least let you bump it up, by getting more food from tiles to allow using more mountains and the extra shields form the mines.

You are in Monarchy, so you have given up a lot of commerce and may as well commit to combat. Otherwise, no sense in going Monarchy in the first place.

Structures should be chosen with an eye on the what the town can do, if anything. Court houses are not required every where and not immediately. Some places have them, that have too little corruption to warrent them and others will not really pay back the cost.

In 1730AD, why start a 100 turn market in a size 5 town? Pyongsong has a court, temple, harbor and a barracks? It is making a market? It is sitting on the coast with some plains and desert tiles.

Why spend on structures here and workers mining tiles? I know, you may not have done some of these, but this place would be better either making a worker now and then or a bombardment unit or nothing.

What happens is you end up with lots of these places and the maint cost will drag down your research. Do not be afraid to pop up a beakerhead and let the place sit there doing nothing.

Latter you can come back with a gang and rail and water and get more specialist. In the mean time it is not bogging you down with the support for those 5 buildings and those shields could have given you some bombardment support.

Banks are a tricky subject to me, but in a game like this, where you are in Monarchy, I would probably not build them. Why, well units are better as I would expect to not be running the tax slider that much.

Most would go to research and lux. Now if you got Smiths, then I could squeeze in a bank from time to time. In any event, they are not a priority while at war.

You have lots of land to conquer, so shields are well spend on units, that includes workers and settlers.

I think it was alluded to that you aught to have more slaves. One way to get them is to have razed places like Tyre. Have a settler to plant in that spot and maybe get 4-6 slaves.

Now you are not sweating about a flip and do not have to have so many troops sitting on it for the next 20 turns. If you are in the late industrial age and can rail up top front, you may think about holding large cities for the quick farming.

This works, if you are going to be blasting beyond that city quickly and the parent will not be around for that long.

I did not look around to see if you really need to be building more muskets, but I would expect a cav would be better. Think offense, not defense.

Getting to Steam means, you can slam defenders in to a hot spot and hopefully some bombardment to soften them.

I think Spoonwood mentioned the UU, even if you hate bombardment, you got to love this one. It kills things, that goes for ships as well. It can generate leaders, you cannot ignore this unit.

 

[vmxa]

I played the 1730AD save out a bit to show what a little micro-management brings. BTW the Hwach'a was used to sink several galleons as well as kill some barbs that came out of some open land, when I did not have cavs to send.

No spoiler here as you already played way past this point:

 

[vmxa]

1894AD:
Hwa makes a leader.

1902AD:
All are eliminated and last IA tech, Flight, in 4 turns. Hit enter and game should end.


save if you want to look at it:

 

[brtndr_rex]

Alright, finally had a chance to finish this game. I used alot of the advice here from my last thread post and it helped immensly. I was able to wipe the Arabs out i just over five turns and immediately turned my sights on the Persians. By this time I was three or four ahead in the tech race, so I attacked just before they got flight, basically rolled over them with tanks and bombers. I wasn't able to finish until about the year 2000, but had a respectable score (not HOF but that's okay).

Anyways, thanks to everybody who took the time to look at my saves and post advice. I will use quite a bit of it in future games.

Also if you are interested I am posting the last save before I took Persia's last city.

 

[brtndr_rex]

1894AD:
Hwa makes a leader.

1902AD:
All are eliminated and last IA tech, Flight, in 4 turns. Hit enter and game should end.


save if you want to look at it:

Thanks, I will definitely be taking a look at that to see how you managed to win faster than I did.

Some of the stuff from your earlier longer post I wanted to answer too.

On the London thing, it flipped back to England about ten turns after I made peace with Liz, that is the first time a flip has happened that long after I pacified the city, not sure why. Also I took out England because I could. IIRC, they demanded something and I told them where to stick it, so they declared. At the time I had the troops and needed the land so I went with it. I was going to take the arabs out once I consolidated my position there, but then the Persians went on a rampage, so I kind of got stuck.

The MA was one of those things where it was my highest production city at the time, so I put it there because I thought I would really need a couple of more armies soon. Obviously didn't really work out too well until later when I had railroads and a factory.

For all of the other stuff, I just haven't gotten that in depth with the game yet. I tend to put every building in every city whether it needs it or not. Obviously there are more efficient strategies though, and your advice will definitely be used in the future.

Once again, I appreciate the time and effort everybody went into to help this low-level player step up his game. Happy civving everyone.