Care to help out a newbie?

[Thanatos]

Let's start off with a short introduction.
Hi there. I'm Thanatos, a 18 year old student from the Netherlands with a passion for thaiboxing and boxing. There, now that we have that out of our way let's get down to business

I've played "Conquest of the new world" 2 years ago which is similar in some ways to this game. But I soon found out this game is way more advanced.

Now... what I want from you is some basic tips.
Let's say I start a new game with the following specs:

• huge
• 6 other civs
• temperate climate
• 4 billion years old
• archipellago

I start off and build my city next to a river (btw: I usually play as american for it's expansionist and industrious traits).
I find there are several resources around. Some tiles of grassland with grey stains, a cow, gold and a tile with wheat. What do I do with these feckers? Am I just to drop a mine on all of these spots right away? Irrigate some of them?
I heard it's best to start with building roads on the tiles which are adjacent to your city... is this correct?
What I usually do is build 2/3 workers and immediatly put them on automated, but in my opinion this takes all the fun out of the game. I want to do it myself!

Sure hope I'm not boring you with all these newbie questions. I've looked on this forum to find answers but I never found solid answers to the questions I was looking for and well... they were mostly scattered and unclear. So I though a new topic with all these questions united would do just fine.

Good to be here and I'm sure I'll enjoy this game for the next 1/2 years to come

 

[beowolfff]

It's good to work on roads first to connect your new cities to those "feckers" since these bring the resources to your citizens (happy points). From there you focus on roads connecting all your cities for domestic trade. But as the game progresses, you would have to put some of your workers, especially those in developed cities in "A" mode for you to focus on racking up those cultural points or concentrating on conquering the nearest city (you shoud have prepared some roads as well to connect to the rivals city -- troops move faster)

 

[Tassadar]

Dont start building worker so soon, you got one its enough for the first few turn.

build road on worked tile, look into city display to see wich one.
irrigate cow and wheat, it give you growth

First step usually is 3 warrior then a settler, you need city. your secon city will support 4 units for free, so built another warrior or spearman, then settler again, you need a fine core cities ( about 5-6) then built a few worker to improve more and more. road=commerce income. mine shield grassland= production boost. good luck, read the war academy on this site for a lots of good strategy.

 

[bobgote]

You start with one worker. This is enough until you build a second town. First build a road to the cow. Now build a mine on it. (This isn't always the case, but since your industrious you can do a lot of improving in less time). This gives you more production. Until later in the game, you should mainly do mining and little/no irrigation (irrigation only when your town grows above 6).

As America, build a warrior (fortify in your city), a scout, then if you have the growth required, build a settler for your second town (make sure that your town will grow to at least 3 before settler is built or you'll waste resources).

(This next bit is what I do, but most people may do something different).
When you build your second town, build a worker to improve nearby area. Use original worker to build a road to new town. Now build in new town warrior, scout. Do this until you have about 4 scouts.

This strategy will mean you have adequate military, but you will be best using your traits of industrious (with plenty of workers) and expansionist (scouts).

After you have this base, build warriors (and later spearmen) and settlers when you can. Your government will give you 4 free military units (incl. scouts) for each town you have. Any over that limit will cost 1 gold per turn.

If anything's unclear, just ask. This is just my way of doing things, and not everyone does it exactly the same.

 

[Thanatos]

I notice you guys do a lot of military production. When do you find the time to enhance your city by building temples, wonders and such?
And about the cow... do I mine of irrigate the bastard?

 

[Bamspeedy]

Whether you irrigate or mine depends on what other terrain you have nearby, so it depends if you need the faster growth, or production. If I start on all grassland, I like to mine it.

Most players don't start on temples or wonders until they get at least 2 or 3 settlers out of their capital. You need to expand fast. After you get other cities settled you have more options in which direction you want to go. People build military quick because you need them for defense, military police (on higher levels you only get 1 or 2 people content before you start getting unhappy people), and exploration (to find the AI, resources, and good future city sites), and to possibly wage an early attack.

 

[Matt_G]

Thanatos,
There is a lot of good strategy info on this site and at Poly. Go back through the Strategy and Tips forum here and do some reading. Also there are many good articles here.
http://apolyton.net/civ3/strategy/

Most useful to me at least was this thread started by Vel.
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=651781#post651781

Be forewarned though. The thread by Vel is a very long read. It was also written before any patches were released so some of the info isn't accurate. As a general guide though, it is well worth the time to read it. It helped me tremendously when I started playing Civ3.

 

[Thanatos]

Why thank you
I haven't patched my version and probably won't do so either so the info found in that threat will do A ok.

 

[Dearnen]

I recommend patching if you can. The game has some bugs that will effect combat in the later game. In particular, aerial combat does not work right for the human player, giving great advantage to the AI.

-Dearnen

 

[Thanatos]

Well, I would patch if I could... can't though

 

[The Persian]

hey, those grey stains, those are Rock outcroppings, MINE THOSE!
also, if you've settled on a desert, plains, or floodplain, IRRIGATE!
in shoter terms, mine everything that u can, unless youre low on food.[phaser]

 

[Thanatos]

I figured out that if you want your city to grow real quick, and produce settlers without losing too much of your production, you gotta produce a lot of food. So at this point I'm irrigating every cow and wheat tile when I start off. As my city's population growth is coming to a stop I'm mining those tiles.

I had my first full game yesterday... until 2050 AD. But for some reason that's where the game ended. After that I could choose to play on, but the score wouldn't be registrered anymore. Any way to just play on until you basicly whiped out your opponent?

PS: I finished second last of the 6 civs (chieftain level)

PPS: I can't patch because I haven't got the official version. I might buy it if I like it even more than I do now.

 

[Yzman]

The game has a mandatory retirement at 2050. The scoring always ends there. Keep on trying cheiftan a few more times. It sounds like your getting the hang of it.

 

[bobgote]

You'll be able to go through a full game (ie wiping people out etc, research all science) in later difficulties later on. Just learn how to play on chieftain then move on to warlord for more of a challenge. I really struggled in my first game on chieftain too, but my second game i won easily. First game in warlord was a struggle, then easy. It's a sharp learning curve.

At the start I only irrigate plains (if i can) and floodplains(I try to avoid floodplains), but i mine everything else. At the start, you need production more than growth.

 

[Trickey]

As far as mining and irrigating go, sometimes in the early game, irrigating has no bonus. You see, under despotisem (the strating governement) each tile can only produce a certain amout of food. Any food over that amout is wasted. So if you have a tile producing 4 food, you wouldnt want to irrigate it, because the fifth food would just be wasted.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[JohnGalt]

Originally posted by Trickey
Any food over that amout is wasted. So if you have a tile producing 4 food, you wouldnt want to irrigate it, because the fifth food would just be wasted.

Not exactly.

Under despotism, any tile which (after all other modifications) produces more than two of anything, produces one less of that thing.

So in your example, if you had a tile which produced four food, you WOULD want to irrigate it, because you would increase from (4 - 1 = 3) to (5 - 1 = 4) food.

The tiles that aren't worth irrigating/mining are ones that already produce two of the resource, because (2 - 0 = 2) vs. (3 - 1 = 2) means you're wasting your workers' time, unless a government switch is imminent.

 

[Trickey]

ahhh, i guess ya learn something new everyday

 

[The Persian]

:die:

I'll tell you how we get such large militaries, money, and patience (at least thats how i do it) the money pays for upgrades, and patience is for building up the forces. ok? people may disagree and send a bunch of replies that condradict this, but try it, and plan an invasion waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy before you take action.