Doing something wrong?

[meldor]

I automate all my workers and have the governers control the people's mood.

Automated workers are brainless. They will have your cities producing way more food and a lot less shields than they could. The first step is to learn to manage those workers yourself.
Governers are idiots, fire them all, better yet have them face the firing squad. The second step is to learn to direct where yoru citizens work almost all the time. All of the best player micromanage production. Learn to shift from food to shields and back again as needed to get the most out of your cities. Last you must road and railroad every square that you use to make most of it.
Some other things that may help you, do trades as pure gold and not gpt. They are cheaper as cash and not gpt. Only use gpt when it is coming to you or the civ in question is likely to reneg on the deal. At the lower difficulty levels you should be able to stay way ahead of the AI in tech and if you milk the game to 2050, you should have completed all of the techs and be on the "advanced tech" for bonus points.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Some people like to automate workers as that helps releive the tedious micro-managing of the game and takes the game so much less time to play. If someone just wants to play a casual game, I don't blame them at all for automating the workers. Just one thing, though- Use shift-A!! not just 'a'. Shift-A tells them to automate without changing previous terrain improvements. Just pressing 'A' or the automate button your workers will spend alot of time changing mines to irrigation, then irrigation back to mines! If you just want to play a casual game, I recommend auto-mating some workers, and manually move some to do certain tasks that need to be done.

Future techs are useless. Aeson on Deity researched 24 future techs and only got something like 5 pts for them. (which would only be 1 or 2 pts on Chieftain). Since his total score was over 63,000 you can see how useless future techs are.

 

[Lostman]

I agree. I like this game a lot, but I'm not going to spend 2 weeks playing one game. I don't have that kind of time. If I didn't automate my workers or my cities I'd spend half an hour playing one turn. half the fun of the game is seeing the progress made.

Lots of good info. Thanks for the help fellas!

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

Originally posted by Lostman
I agree. I like this game a lot, but I'm not going to spend 2 weeks playing one game. I don't have that kind of time. If I didn't automate my workers or my cities I'd spend half an hour playing one turn. half the fun of the game is seeing the progress made.

Lots of good info. Thanks for the help fellas!

Of course, some of us who manage our workers find fun in having the workers make useful progress, which in turn makes the cities produce faster.

When I first started playing Civ3, I automated almost all my workers, maybe keeping a couple under my control to build the road net. After a few months, I had shifted to about half of my workforce under my control. Now, my workers are controlled by me exclusively.

I guess after a while you begin to realize it ain't so much fun to have a size 6 or size 12 that can't grow but producing 6 extra food, but it's more fun when that city can crank out military units in a lot fewer turns all because you took the time to have the workers make useful tile improvements.

 

[meldor]

I like this game a lot, but I'm not going to spend 2 weeks playing one game. I don't have that kind of time. If I didn't automate my workers or my cities I'd spend half an hour playing one turn.

A lot depends on the map size, the number of workers, the number of civs. On most standerd maps I rarely spend more than 5-10 minutes, towrds the end of the game when I have the most workers, assigning worker tasks. Because most players who manage their workers stack them (gets one improvement done now, not six finished in six turns), combined with stack movement, cuts out a lot of time spent with worker management. I rarely play a game that lasts more than a couple of evenings unless it is a large or huge map or on deity level. However, I respect your right to do what you want to while you play the game. You should just understand that your civ will not progress as fast at any level without using all the tools. Again, the choice is yours and you should do what makes it enjoyable for you.

[EDIT] Also, for most cities, except the core most productive cities, you don't have to micromanage them every turn. The outer less productive cities can be looked at only when they grow in population. They don't produce as much shields and therefore need less worker. You just check them when they grow to make sure the new citizen is not going to start a riot and they are working the best tile for the city. A lot of the outer cities will only produce a limited number of shields and so you can set them to max food and macromanage them.

 

[kb2tvl]

latter on in the game, you can assign one worker per tile and have them toil away. Work gets done slower than stacking 4 or 5 workers to a square but faster than having the comp manage the worker. In any case, have a gang of workers completing a road between cities before automating.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Control-R = Build Road to (tells the worker to build a road from where he is to the tile you select).
Control-Shift-R = Build Railroad to this spot
Shift -P = Clean pollution only
Shift-I = Make terrain improvements in this city only
Control-I=Irrigate to nearest city
Edit: Forgot about Control-N (trade network, connects all your cities by roads)

If playing on a large or huge map, I recommend automating workers, unless you are playing in a tournament, GOTM, or Hof where score is important to you. If you are just playing for fun, than by automating, you'll have more time for the fun battles and other aspects of this game!

Automate for several games, then when you want to get more serious into the 'technical' aspects of the game, you can worry about manual worker movements and micromanaging. Until then, just have fun.

Some people whine to me if I play to maximize score, but really I do have to ask them this: What is the difference between someone micromanaging to maximize score, and someone micromanaging for efficiency?

Quote:
latter on in the game, you can assign one worker per tile and have them toil away. Work gets done slower than stacking 4 or 5 workers to a square but faster than having the comp manage the worker. In any case, have a gang of workers completing a road between cities before automating.
---------

Yeah, but with stacks, do you realize that if moving a stack of workers onto an unroaded tile, all of them just wasted a turn. If you really want to be efficient, assign each worker to 1 tile like you said at first.

 

[Tassadar]

Regent or warlord level. with german.

1.- i built a fine core of 5-6 city around my capital. luxuries are important.
2.- each city have a spearman, a warrior, an at least 1 worker.
3.- road an mine shieled grassland, irrigate cow and wheat and later on road and mine hills and irrigate non-shileed grassland.
4.- temple in each city, then library, no grannery before size 6 same for marketplace, produce wealth if neccesary, science 80-90 %.
5.- Republic rule, put 10 % on lux slider.
6.- If you are lucky with luxiuries, your city can grow to size 12 without cathedral.
7.- once your core city reach maximum size, find a way to built a second core or capture an a.i. civilisation ( with knight in medieval age).
8.- This should give you around 15 city, and the best city reach size 12 with temple, library, marketplace, courthouse, university, bank. cathedral only if neccesary.
9.- on a standard map, with this setting, you get a tech lead in industrial age.
10.- as you can see no old great wonder, great wonder slow you. Medieval age great wonder are very good.
11.- if possible, try a coastal city with colossus, copernic and newton college, this city can give you around 150-200 beaker per turn.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Lostman
That ruined my rep for many years.

You don't have to ruin your reputation to declare war. Just make sure that you have fulfilled your treaty obligations, then cancel the treaty in the diplomacy screen. Later, you'll still be able to set up trade deals.

 

[bobgote]

The early war to wipe them out is fine, just make sure you don't do anything bad (ie break treaties) to do so. I usually wipe out my nearest, weakest neighbour.

Also, i can see how you can play a game without temples, but that can only really benefit if your scientific, and not religious. Even in this case, i still build the temple. Hey, I'm more a builder, i guess that technique works for the warmongers, but i like the temples.

(EDIT): Didn't see stuff about workers

The problem with shift - A is that it doesn't clear forests (or jungle?) I know for sure the forests. What the automated guys do is make improvements that you'd want (probably) for optimum city growth and production. I think this assumes that you have aqueducts and hospitals. Under the 6 or 12 sizes, you want to get as much production as possible, so I keep personal control on workers around my big cities/wonder cities.

I keep them under control until my empire gets too large.

Important command is Shift - J Clears All Jungle

 

[Lostman]

Well, last night I played a full game as Greece vs. 3 civs at Warloard level on a small map. I didin't plan on which way to win, because I wanted to try some of the tips you all gave me.

I turned science to 10% after I made my first contact. I didn't build any religious bujildings. Built library's, marketplaces and Univ's in my surrounding cities and had most of my workers automated. I was bringing in 500 gold per turn and keeping out of trouble. Passing 100 gold every couple of turns (kissing ass) to the other civs to keep on they're good side.

I was only dragged into one war against Egypt because of a stupid MPP. Attacked Rome a few times for some resources but nothing big. Went to Dempcracy and ended up winning the Space Race in 1982.

This is the first game I actually won. Now that I have a better understanding of how it works I'll pick a bigger map with more people this weekend.

Thanks for the help guys (all those that didn't say expierence was the key).

 

[BCLG100]

the more civs you have the cheaper the tech gets

 

[Bamspeedy]

Congrats, Lostman!

Shift-A does clear jungles (not forests, though). This is one task for manual controls so you can time the clearing of the forest to when a project will get the full 10 shields (so you don't end up getting only 1 or 2 shields from the clearing of the forest because you were almost done building the unit/building). And forests do provide some good shields if there is plenty of other food sources around, so you may want to leave some forests.

Shift-F if you want all the forests gone.

The problem with shift-J (and shift-F) is after the worker clears that jungle he goes to another jungle square, thus leaving an unroaded tile behind that another worker will end up using a turn just to reach that square. With shift-A, most of the time they will road that tile after clearing the jungle. I guess it depends on how much jungle you have. Shift-A also does clean up pollution, but it doesn't always clean it up right away, as it sometimes views other projects as more important.

You are right about shift-A working for maximum future 'potential'. Since it irrigates grassland in despotism, which has no effect. I guess then, I would suggest manually controlling them until you get into Monarchy or Republic, then you can automate.

 

[Portuguese]

To the ones who don't already now that, there is a must-have file at the official site saying all the shortcuts of the game and have all the main tables that the manual should have...

PDF, 1.69Mb zipped, 1.77Mb normal, 15 great pages, good pics, no text

Click here to get it!
If you don't have it already, go and get it...

 

[Portuguese]

Explanations to how to use shortkeys contact bamspeedy

 

[Mad Bomber]

Just so ya'll know

Shift-A automated workers will clear forests; its just their last priority, when your workers start running out of tasks you need to watch out for falling trees. TIMBER!

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
Just so ya'll know

Shift-A automated workers will clear forests; its just their last priority, when your workers start running out of tasks you need to watch out for falling trees. TIMBER!

Shift-A will not cut down trees. It leaves existing improvements in place, including trees. I know because I always use shift-A from the late Middle Ages onward, and I always keep my virgin timber until the end of the game.

 

[Portuguese]

Have you seen my shortcut?
It is not very visible, but it is there and it's worth it.
That's why I never fail one info I need to wrote in Civfanatics...

 

[murewa]

Originally posted by BCLG100
it is experience that makes the difference say if it was your first game you might not use artillery because they had no attack power
next game you use a bit and see it helps a lot
next game you builf hundreds of them and you find that they are one of the most useful things in the game because they lower the hitpoints down alowing your units to kill them
so it might just be that hes inexpereienced

this is so true!! well it was of me. as of now 50 of them even on a Regent game is quite natural to me. hehehe...

 

[bobgote]

I keep 2 artillery units in each city, and each time war comes i roll em out.