Constructive criticism on my first Emperor Game please

[noni]

Hi Guys,

I,ve been playing Civ since the Civ1 but i played Civ 4 only 2-3 Times yet and Civ5 i havent played. Seems i am sticked to Civ3 since everything seems more clearly and reduced to the main instead of having 3D Graphics..

But i was never a very deep player since i am only a Monarch player till now. This is my first shot on Emperor. I have read quit a lot here. I would be very thankful to get some constructive criticism on my Gameplay.

I am using a Mac and Civ3 Complete 1.22

My Civ: the french

Large/Continents/Roaming
Normal/Temp/ 4 Billion


opponents: Random ( Contact yet to: Spain, England, Scandinavian and Zululand)

Turn now: 760 AD


I started directly with tech 10% and tried to buy/trade the techs only but couldnt manage it to catch up at any time since they keep on demanding to much gold. But other than that i may be not doinf so good with anything that i dont have that much gold or i did any other thing wrong.

My reputation is good since i didnt broke any contract yet. I kept all my other on "Polite" but England attacked my right from beeing polite. Right after their attack i managed to make an vs. England Alliance with the others 2 Civs Spain and Scand. I allready could claim 4 of their cities including their capital city. England would sign a PT and give me Lit. I would attack them directly after such a deal but then my Rep. might go bad and i would not get the other 2 for a vs. alliance anymore..?

The biggest problem i see is that i am so much behind with the techs that it might look not good for me in the future...

i am thankful for all help as i really want to get better and master the Emperor and beeing able to play in it also in future..

thanks in advance

 

[vmxa]

I will try to get a closer look today. Just loaded and two things jump right out. Lots of dead tiles and many tiles in the core do not have a road, while workers are minning hills far far away form the core?

Only 17 workers.

Going broke on support cost with not htat large of an army. This is in part casued by the lack of workers. It could be helped with more town in the land you already control.

I do not like to see workers/slaves working solo. Gang them up so they can do a task in one turn. You maybe cannot gang themearly in the game, but by now most should not be working alone.

 

[vmxa]

Sorry Spain vs France in LoL cup, so little time. Here is a few more random thoughts.

I already posted a few things so forgive me, if I repeat them. Quick look at the F1 shows your pop is way too happy for my taste, why not drop the lux slider. You do not have Lit, so no libs can be built and you will be slowing your research.

I see a lot of horses going up and they are not worth a dime in the middle ages and you already are going broke with support. You will be hard pressed to upgrade many at 120 a shot. MDI are much better at this point. A couple horses for posible upgrades and to kill any damaged units that stray close is enough.

No pikes and none being built. Upgrade a couple vet spears, you are at war right? Spears do not cut it once you are in the middle ages.

I see a deer with forest on it and no road, that should have been a priority tile by now. I would in fact drop a town next to it.

I see places like Toulouse with a granary at size 6 and cannot grow, that was a huge investment at the time for nothing. It has a temple, not real fond of them in more than a couple of my real strong cities and not in towns. You would be better of with a market, better yet that aqua.

I see places with colosseums, this is a near never build item in most games. I may toss one up in a super strong town and I have zero or 1 lux.

 

[Puppeteer]

I really should be doing something else, so no time for commentary, but I loaded the game and took screenshots for a broader critical audience.

 

[Puppeteer]

Apparently only 10 attachments per post, and I went a bit screenshot-crazy.

 

[vmxa]

I can't even post a single screen shot, unless I delete something. At 59.95MB iirc.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I can't even post a single screen shot, unless I delete something. At 59.95MB iirc.

There are still all those image hosters. You generally don't even need an account. I use Imagebam as it tends to be very straightforward and uncomplicated, but I guess others such as Imageshack etc are as good.

 

[vmxa]

Thanks, maybe that could work. I looked at one site, but did not feel good about it. Going to take another pass at what I have here and see, if I can finally let some of it go. Just been too lazy.

 

[Aabraxan]

I've been using Imageshack for years without a hitch, and you don't even have to register.

 

[Elephantium]

I like Imageshack, too.

 

[vmxa]

I broke down and delete about half the stuff.

 

[Puppeteer]

Okay, now I have a little time to comment.

First, you realize you can put mines on grassland, right? I don't see a single grassland mine in your game. In fact, mining grassland is usually the preferred option. Look at how much excess food your cities have! Cities can only grow to size 6 without an aqueduct or touching fresh water, and can only grow to size 12 before industrial-age hospitals (or a one-city MA wonder). Having extra food after hitting max population is a waste. Here are how much food per turn some of your max-pop cities have extra (= are wasting): 10, 9, 6, 4, 4, 4. (I am getting this info from the F1 / Domestic Advisor screen, but it can be seen in the city windows, too.) By mining grass instead of irrigating it you would be producing more shields and less wasted food.

Each pop point eats two food per turn from its city, and the city center square gets two "free" food per turn. So you really only need enough irrigation to support working low-food tiles like hills and mountains. Or to turn plains into 2-food tiles. (Or, if agricultural, to turn desert into 2-food tiles.)

Also note that irrigating plain grassland before getting out of despotism has no effect due to the despotism penalty, so early-game irrigating of those grasslands are just a waste of worker time.

Second, understand how corruption works. Your capitol city has no corruption, and then corruption increases with each city's distance from the capitol. To leverage that, be sure your capitol and core cities are fully improved. You have only one mined hill for Paris out of 7 available. You're working 3 unimproved hills for 3 shields per turn instead of 9 shields per turn if they had mines. And being the capitol you wouldn't lose any of those to corruption. And you clearly have the food available elsewhere in the city to work these low-food hills.

In Emperor the AI enemy gets to build and research things cheaper than you, and they start off with extra units and have extra unit support. So you need to use your human advantage (real intelligence) to maximize your production. Paris is only getting 11spt, but it should be over 20...probably around 25 shields per turn working all 7 hills, and with the wheat and deer should still probably have enough food for working some mined grasslands. Maybe more due to bonus grassland. The other cities have the same problems, but optimize from the capitol outward.

Your cities are too far apart, and that's some really nice starting lands. Until early industrial age (more than half the game) you can't go past size 12 per city and therefore can't work more than 12 tiles per city. All that potentially productive low-corruption land near the capitol is not being worked and therefore going to waste. It could be producing an army to kill your enemies right now, but it is just sitting there looking pretty instead.

The iron by Tours is crying out for a mine. Mined iron hills get 1 food and 4 shields per turn.

At the beginning of the game, how many turns did you wander around before settling? Why? Opening moves are amplified in importance, and moving around 2-5 turns effectively puts you that many turns behind the entire game, and you shouldn't walk your starting settler around unless there is a very compelling reason. I think generally people have a limit of one or maybe 2 moves if they see a compelling reason to move at all. (I can tell you moved probably 2 or more turns by the histograph.) A compelling reason might be to get the settler off of a food bonus tile or bonus grassland tile or to move it one step to get onto fresh water or a coastal tile. Or perhaps the scout or worker moves and sees a food bonus that's worth moving the settler nearer.

Workers: need more! The rule of thumb is 2 per city, but I typically get a high-food city to churn out workers continuously. With marsh and jungle I go worker-crazy. I'd probably have 50 workers by now, and people would be telling me that's not enough for this map. Workers make your cities more productive and make wars faster by building roads.

Early worker priorities include improving 2 tiles per city and roading between cities. (2 tiles because you're probably popping out a settler as you hit size 3). After that, improve flat lands nearest the capitol, and as you finish that and approach a government besides despotism, start mining hills near the capitol. Somewhere around that time the marsh- and jungle-clearing crews can get started on the core wetlands. And as you start bumping borders with the other civs, workers will connect them by roads for trade and wars.

 

[Puppeteer]

As for research, at least two things for you to improve:

- Once again, improving the core cities. Every tile a city works should have a road; that increases commerce by one. More cities closer together would be producing more commerce, too.
- Find the other civs! I can't believe you haven't been to other landmasses yet. You should have at the very least sent out galleys to map your coastlines and see if you can safely get to other lands. And you can, as I can see by your border with the Vikings. But the human advantage is that you can use suicide galleys: ships you send venturing into the ocean at risk of sinking, but with a chance of living to reach a far landmass way, way, way before the AI civs can do it.

Meeting more civs increases your trading opportunities and lowers your tech costs if they discover the techs first.

Your research is currently at 10%. I'm not sure what's up with that.

 

[CommandoBob]

There are still all those image hosters. You generally don't even need an account. I use Imagebam as it tends to be very straightforward and uncomplicated, but I guess others such as Imageshack etc are as good.

I use Photobucket. They offer 500MB of free upload space. I'm on my second account.

 

[Spoonwood]

What sort of victory condition do you want?

 

[noni]

Thanks for the effort vmxa and Puppeteer,

I want to sum it up:

- enough workers /with the option to gang them up
- upgrading to modern units
- unworked food recources (like deer)
- mining grassland
- understanding the growth borders
- checking waste (on F1 / Domestic) Q:but i do i see the waste exactly?? and what can i do against it ??
- despotism penalty is clear now
- i understand the more distance from my cap the more corruption but what can i do against it (build FP?)
- mining iron hills
- ok i got the point finding the other civs as asap / to trade

i read that on Emp it would be no sin in havin research oder 10%... just buy techs but this doesent seems to work out here for me ...

i will play it further and post it here again by time.

@spoonwood: i was aiming domination





since i was not at home though read through ur replies i started a new game on Emp would you be so kind to have a look at it since i tried to keep all the things written here in mind and i would like to know if i am kinda on the right way now..

here i got a big prob with corruption though which is eating up most of my income :-(

 

[Theov]

The 'gang up workers' effect is less and less with every worker you add.
So 1 does it in 16, 2 in 8, 3 in 6, 4 in 5 etc. My most efficient method is only use 2 a piece. Or 4 on one tile, one for road, one for mines...
.
I'd build a lot more cities in that land. Your cities are spaced too far apart. A city can only work about half of its tiles (12) since you need sanitation/hospitals to get them beyond 12.
So, like said above: closer cities, more mines, less food.

 

[Puppeteer]

Re: 2nd game

Holy cow what a nice collection of terrain for a start! I'm seeing almost half BG over the whole core area, plus deer, cows, rivers and wheat galore.

You moved your starting settler more than 1 turn again, perhaps up to 3-5 turns. Why? And why did you not settle on the abundant fresh water available? Your completely uncorrupt capitol could have been working 12 2-food, 2-shield tiles by now if you had settled on fresh water. Well, maybe 10. In any case your capitol should be at 20 shields per turn right now, but you now have to wait until aqueducts for that.

How long have you had Map Making? I see no ships and none building. In higher levels it's extremely helpful to find all the other civs early. This increases trade broker opportunities and reduced your tech costs for techs the AI discovers ahead of you. This helpls whether you research yourself, trade for a tech or get tech in peace settlements.

Why do you have two settlers way up north past the chokepoint? I see the dyes, but how soon do you think you can connect those to your core? And those cities are too far out and too corrupt to be worth the effort. You won't be able to defend them in your first wars. The obvious expansion pattern based on the landmass was to settle to the chokepoint and go to war with the Zulus once you start bumping borders with them. Of course other strategic factors may emerge and change that, but that would seem to be what the land dictates. Also Zulu is usually an aggressive civ, so you'll probably find yourself at war early with them, anyway. The dyes would be a target of conquest for me, but it's at least two wars away.

If you placed JinJan 2 tiles NE you could have completely blocked the chokepoint with a city. Sure it's on a BG and out of reach of the deer, but this city won't be productive at least until Republic (or Monarchy) and a courthouse is built. I might have considered the strategic value of blocking the chokepoint (and also allowing your ships shortcuts across the land) more important than future production planning.

Good job on the number of workers and the overall speed of expansion. I'm a bit surprised you managed that without any granaries, but I guess all the food bonuses really help. My first impression was that there aren't enough improved tiles, but I see that the core cities are all working improved tiles, so you are keeping up with that. And on second look I see that the road network is coming along beautifully. I'd probably have at least 2-4 more workers around the capitol. My goal at this time would be to grow the core cities since they are least corrupt and get the most out of them. The outer cities will develop more slowly due to corruption.

I would have placed probably the first 4-6 cities on rivers or the fresh lake and probably stuck a city to the west to work that land. Some of your cities are closer, but there is still plenty of land near the capitol that won't be worked soon enough.

Zulus are at war with Babylon? Odd, they don't seem to be anywhere near each other. Your aggressive settling against his borders will probably incite him to attack you soon. Remember his 2-move Impis can grab a bunch of your workers in a hurry.

If you're not ready for war soon you might consider an MA against Babylon and try to buy some tech in the deal. I'm not sure it's a good idea, it's just an idea.
The irrigation is helping your growth short-term, but your cities are going to hit max pop pretty quck and be wasting 3-5 food per turn. I probably would have nothing irrigated at this time unless needed for a 4-turn settler pump, of which I'm pretty sure you could have had two or more on this map, even in despotism.

 

[vmxa]

Thanks for the effort vmxa and Puppeteer,

here i got a big prob with corruption though which is eating up most of my income :-(

You are welcome for sure. I just ignore corruption. It is like the weather, not much I can do about, even though it may be giving me grief.

I rarely put up courts as they are too expensive. The FP I am only looking for the OCN boost and the tiny corruption boost, so I put it up in a strong city most of the time to get it done asap.

If the game is pretty easy I may toss in a court in a few select cities where I can use the boost to good effect. IOW what is the value of gaining an extra shield, if it is not going to reduce build times? Saved a gold coin, need to save at least two to make a profit.

That is a profit at the expense of not getting out a unit instead, which may have been beneficial and put me farther down the road. In short, corrupt I seldom even notice the F1 impact as it is like looking at your pay stub at the FICA. Nothing gain by looking at it, except pain.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I am using a Mac and Civ3 Complete 1.22

I have loaded the second game, and it appears that you are using PTW and not Conquests. For example, tax collectors and scientists yield only one gold/beaker, and you can trade world/territory maps already. This is consistent with the C3/PTW ruleset and is very different in Conquests.

On the other hand, when I tried to upgrade a warrior to an Immortal I was told that the upgrade cost would be 80 gold. And this is not consistent with either C3/PTW where it should cost 40 gold, or Conquests where it should cost 60 gold.



The reason why I point this out is that there is a vast difference between game mechanics, and hence strategies, between C3/PTW and Conquests. In C3/PTW you CAN reduce corruption very, very effectively with Ring City Placement, whereas in Conquests, as vmxa said, there is little to be done about it. You can - normally - also employ very effective upgrade strategies, while in Conquests it is more tricky. Conquests OTOH has the advantage that you can build Curraghs, i.e. small exploring boats, as early as Alphabet, while in C3/PTW you have to wait 'till Map Making before you can start naval exploration. You also get a free tech if you are the first to research Philosopy (ideally used to take the Republic), whereas in C3/PTW there is no such freebie.