Civ 3 too hard!

[Rickard77]

Anyone more than I that agree?

To play Civ 3 on level Chieftian and with the enemy "less aggressive" is like playing Civ 2 on level Prince. I think its sad, because in all other matters Civ 3 is a fantastic game with a great feeling. And even if you increase funding on science it still takes up to 14 turns before a new knowledge is found.

And I also have a question.. What does the "enter seed" in the beginning means, when you choose map size a.s.o.?

 

[Cyc]

Try playing on a larger map, where your nation has a chance to develop into more of a civilization. Your neighboring nations MAY start farther away, giving you some elbow room. Your resources may be farther away also, so expand quickly. That's the key.

Once you are comfortable with the game, you can start using the editor to create your own maps/worlds/games. For example, with the editor you can increase the amount of resources available on the map. This can help, as C3C will really screw you on availability of resources, while giving the AI plenty.

But reading all of the tutorials and articles here on Civfanatics will also help you understand some of the tricks needed to fine-tune your game. Ask all the questions you want. There is usually someone here to help.

About the seed number ~ Everytime you create a "world" with the editor, the editor gives it a number, just as you give it a name. That number is the "seed" number and basically represents the DNA of your "world". Well everytime you start a normal game "world" in C3C, you spin the random number generator for a game "world" seed number. Whatever number comes up, that's the world you play. That's how you can play the same "world" over and over again. Just copy down the number and type it in the seed # box. Or click on the "Play the same world" link, if you see it.

 

[vmxa]

I have no way to evaluate the question as I do not know what you mean by too hard. Any strat game will have a learning curve that is longer than games like FPS or even RPG's.

If you mean hard to win, then at the lowest level it is nearly impossible to lose. At the highest level it is hard, but that is what it was menat to be.

There are many detailed games where every turn is mapped out and you can see what actions are taken and why. These basic concepts are germain for most c3c games played at the same level.

How long it takes to research a tech is a function of the cost and the empure you have at the time. 14 turns does not tell me anything. If this is early AA, that is quite fast, if it late game and you are running at 80% research that is not so geat.

IOW how strong is your empire and how much of the income is devoted to research? Stuck with 6 towns and many tiles not fully improved, then it will be hard to research at a good rate. Empire with 80 towns and many citizen as scientist and you should be moving right along.

 

[Theov]

It's complex in the beginning. But hard? Lower levels are easy. (duh)

 

[timerover51]

If you are having problems at Chieftain level, you are probably on too small a map. Use a setting for a huge map, archipelagos, and with maybe 6 opponents. That should put all of your opponents a reasonable distance from you, and give you time to develop a bit before running into them.

Another option is to play one of the scenarios that comes with the game at Chieftain level, and use that to get a better feel for the game. I would recommend that if you do that, use the Age of Discovery scenario as England, as you start fairly advanced, and England is well positioned to win that scenario.

If you want, I will set up a map for you as a learning one, with some extra resources and a couple of good starting positions. The game is a bit stingy when it comes to strategic resources. I did some analysis, and discovered that the game generally puts on the may the same number of each strategic resource as there are civilizations in the game, plus/minus 1.

Also, if you are having problems with getting enough science, use one of the Scientific civilizations.

 

[teacher_mark]

I tried CIV3 a year or two ago, not having played other CIVs. I had enjoyed Pharoah and Caesar immensely, and expected something like them. I had fun in the early expansion phases, but always found myself hopelessly behind as time went on. I put the game away.
I came back recently and keep having to remind myself of the many accomplishments that show I'm a smart guy, cause it feels overwhelming. I'm in this cycle of getting beat up and coming back here to understand something better. I guess that's a good thing. I still want to get better. But, yeah, it's harder to learn than an FPS.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

I'm in this cycle of getting beat up and coming back here to understand something better. I guess that's a good thing. I still want to get better. But, yeah, it's harder to learn than an FPS.

Sounds like why I'm still playing this game after 10 years, and get bored with FPS games.

 

[Theov]

I tried CIV3 a year or two ago, not having played other CIVs. I had enjoyed Pharoah and Caesar immensely, and expected something like them. I had fun in the early expansion phases, but always found myself hopelessly behind as time went on. I put the game away.
I came back recently and keep having to remind myself of the many accomplishments that show I'm a smart guy, cause it feels overwhelming. I'm in this cycle of getting beat up and coming back here to understand something better. I guess that's a good thing. I still want to get better. But, yeah, it's harder to learn than an FPS.

Empire management is key later in the game.
What government am I gonna use and how am I going to keep my people happy. Happy people = worked tiles = income = science and money.
It took me a while before I got the hang of using the luxury slider. Works way better than using clowns.

 

[teacher_mark]

Today I tried a more limited war, with a specific objective. It went really well.
Then the Chinese crossed the sea and killed me.

 

[vmxa]

Seems hard to imagine, the AI doing an invasion well? They tend to send 3-4 boats at a time, with only 1 carrying units. They can get several of these stacks moving one after the other at times.

You should have been able to see them coming in time to react. Especially if they had to cross ocean, that means Nav or Mag. Unless you were quite far behind in tech. I only once had the AI invade and take me down and that was on maybe my third Sid game and my island was too big for me to control.

It was more of a case of they colonized, rather than a true invasion. They can also send a dozen stacks in pretty short order.

 

[gps]

Anyone more than I that agree?

I don't think so. Many people have proven the game is beatable on the highest levels...

 

[teacher_mark]

Unless you were quite far behind in tech.

Bingo. Swordsmen against cavalry.

 

[vmxa]

You do not mention the level and the settings, so it is hard to know how that happened. If the level was above emperor, then you can get a runaway civ on another continent. However, if you are playing above emperor, you should know how to deal with continents.

So I am guessing we are talking about a level closer to Regent. Here is where newer players get into trouble. If you are on an island/continents map, it is possible for one civ to get very strong on another larger continent.

You have to get al the land on your landmass quick as you can and you need to do a fair job of managing that land. Nothing spectacluar, just use workers well and have enough. Not make too may units and too many structures that are not needed at least not right away.

If you do those things and maybe some decent trading and a good start location, you should not fall behind or at least not massively.

Post a save of the game and we can see what is going wrong, unless you are in fact playing Deity. I figure anyone playing above emperor already knows the game.

 

[Ozymandius]

I have been playing Civ III for a decade now and continue to learn with each game.
I like playing Pangaea maps because Wonders apply only to the main continent.

Your starting position is very important. For research and growth always pick a river location. I pick only the lowest level of barbarian movement.
I play only on maps where I have a good starting location and a nearby goodie hut which as often as not gives me a second tribe.

I send out four warriors to locate other civs for trading techs.
I also like domination endings best.

 

[teacher_mark]

Thanks ya'll.
He he- no I'm not playing on Emperor.
Here's my latest save. (Not the game mentioned above.) It's the 13th century. It's a standard map with only 5 of us, so there's been a lot of time to expand before clashing. I think I did well founding cities and making terrain improvements. I have avoided working on wonders after it cost me in my last game. (3 times when AI completed a wonder there was nothing good to switch to.) But lately it's clear the others have gotten ahead on research, and I think they'll be coming for me.
So at this stage I'm struggling with how to speed up research or effectively trade, and wondering if corruption is interfering, or I need to develop the land or manage the citizens better, and especially whether I should generate Wealth to increase research or convert citizens... Well, you know...
I'd appreciate any tips about what I should be paying more attention to.

 

[Cyc]

Your starting location isn't that good. Just South of the equator. You have Mountains on 1 side and plains/desert on the other, but you are on a river, which is good. Your nation is too small (18 cities) for your military size (61 units). You can change this ratio with a war, which probably is not a good idea at this point, or by learning to move water to your cities with irrigation. You have concentrated on mining when growth is what you need. You have cities just outside your core that can't get beyond size 2. You have 18 Workers which is good. More won't hurt.

You are in a Republic, which is where you should stay. Change tech research immediatly. You couldn't gain anything by switching to a Democracy. Start Gunpowder. Gunpowder, you say? Yes. I trade one of your 3 or 4 Irons to England for Ivory, Invention, and 33 gold. I made changes to your build ques in quite a few cities (mostly stopping your Knight production, and mostly switching to Marketplaces). Learn about Marketplaces and how they multiply happy faces when you bring in 3 or more luxs. Other changes were to a Courthouse, a Granary, a Library, etc. Walls are not really doing you any good, but they are not that expensive.

Your main concerns in my opinion is stop clearing jungle and start getting water to your cities to let them grow. The larger your cities are, the more you will be able to afford your oversized military. You are now studying Gunpowder and over half your military is Spears ans Horses. Might think about disbanding some into Markets or Libraries. Stay friendly with the other nations until you can catch them in research. You are backwards now.

Even if you have to irrigate over those mines, get water to your cities.

 

[MysteryX]

Playing with fewer AI opponents is not necessarily an advantage. If one or a few very productive opponents pull out in front in the technology lead, you have fewer options to trade your way back to parity.

It also isn't necessarily an advantage to have too much free time to expand. It's too easy a trap to focus on expanding and not spending enough time developing your core.

When you get beyond your core and corruption starts really kicking in, you start getting diminishing returns with each new settlement. Grabbing as much land as you can is important; developing your core is more important. If an AI gets to that outlying land before you, no big deal; once you get your core developed, you can get the tech and production going to capture it. If you expand to fast without developing your core, it is the AI that's going to come marching first to take that land from you.

 

[vmxa]

teacher_mark, I wish I had more time to give you the response that would help. To paraphrase a commercial "I don't always play the Germans, but when I do" I take advantage of their start techs.

iirc you start with the knowledge to make spears and archers. I would just run over the nearest civ with a bunch of archers and a couple of spears.

In any event I think you said this was a small pan map, so land will be hard to come by, so get all you can right away. Here you are at 1290AD and have zero settlers in queue.

Land to the north is still open, got to love low level civs. If you were to look in the strat forum at my roadmap for Warlord you will see one of the things I usually tell players at this level is to not even build spears.

With only 5 civs in the game you should only build workers and settlers and a couple of warriors to met the neighbors. Concentrate on expanding and improving tiles.

To that end, I hate to see the core going to seed. No workers on Berlin? Why do you let it sit at size 9 and use jokers? You could increase all stats by working the spice and the river plains.

Set lux to 10%, disband the 2 spears and switch to a market. Send some more reg spears to disband. Get markets up, that should have been done long ago in your best towns.

Do not space so wide, get your workers grouped and get most to the core to get the best tiles fully improved. Crank out more workers and a few settlers.

Look what has happened due to lack of border control. Mao is walking a settler in to fill your gaps, why let that happen? At least you could have out some units to block his access. They won't cross your borders, if you are strong just to bust fog or settle.

 

[teacher_mark]

Cyc, MysteryX, and vmxa: Thanks so much!
In a couple of days I’ll start my summer vacation and should have long, long hours to try out your suggestions. A few more questions & issues:

Irrigation and Specialization: I’ve thought of irrigation as an improvement to a single tile, but I take it I can chain irrigated tiles like building a ditch. Oh… that’s important. Also I can see that I took too much to heart the warning that it didn’t pay to irrigate grassland under despotism and became biased in favor of mining—beyond despotism.
I think here I also need a larger sense of specialized cities. I got a clue that a settler factory should produce a lot of food, but then other cities would specialize in shields or commerce. A city specializing in shields would have lots of mines and mountains, I think, and would be good for producing wonders and, um… what? And a city specializing in commerce would have gold, roads, and related improvements (stock market, bank?), and I think it would help speed up my research?

Military: I keep reading that I only need to defend border cities, but I am very nervous to leave any city without at least a spearman. The AI seems to know when I have and unprotected city and make a beeline for it (while I never seem to know what defenseses its cities have). And when war starts, there’s no time to send defenses all over. Should I be thinking in terms of mobile response squads stationed around the map to go where needed? Is it really good enough to just guard the border? (Makes me nervous just thinking about it.)
Also, regarding walls: even having built the Great Wall, they don’t provide a meaningful addition to my defenses?

Government Type and Research: I think I have two rules of thumb now that can guide my play for a while at my current level. 1) Try to hurry from Despotism to Monarcy; 2) Aim for Republic and then settle there. Under Republic, War Weariness is a pain, but I’m to address that by having short, focused wars. But one of the suggestions above seemed to say I therefore don’t need to research Democracy. I’m with you, but it seems like at some point the game will make me research it to move on, won’t it? Can I skip techs I don’t want?

Disbanding Units: Ha! How had I forgotten about this? Especially for those that can’t be upgraded, I could use them to speed production and get rid of the old units? Any guidance here?

Developing the Core/Cost/Benefit of City Improvements: So a well-developed core would mean interconnected cities, each of which has terrain improvements to make the most of its workers (considering specialization too) and has appropriate city improvements, yeah? I’ve been telling myself “everyone has the right to a temple”, with the belief that temples are required for growth and add to happiness and are therefore always a good thing. I’m also driven to give every city a barracks, so I can produce soldiers quickly in time of need, and so they can defend themselves (healing). When the time comes, I want to give everyone a library and then a university, because I have the vague sense that it speeds up research. I don’t know how to decide whether a granary is worth it, except in the case of a settler factory. I see I need to value markets more. Am I wrong so far? What else should I keep in mind?

Thanks again for your help. I look forward to taking your advice with me on some great voyages.

 

[vmxa]

The AI knows what is on all tiles, so it knows if you have units in town or not. They do not make a beeline for your towns, if you are not weak. It may not know a path to a giventile though, only if it has explored or traded maps.