Enemies supposed to have far more settlements?

[Catma]

It seems that every game I play, The nearest opposing civ has four or five settlements while I have two. The settler for my third city is often cut off by yet another settler from said civ. This is on monarch difficulty... can the cheating really be that rampant?

I suspect I'm doing something wrong. What population should I have when I build settlers? How many workers should I have at the start? How many warriors/scouts? And when should I build a granary?

 

[Bulgarian]

I am a noob maybe but here is my idea:
1/ AI on the higher difficulty levels build faster and start with more units In the beginning it is normal for them to be stronger
2/ Right after you start , do 2 warriors (so you have 3 units for scouting) and right after that do a settler
3/ You do not need many workers in the beginning-- 3workers for 4 towns are enough for me (What if I am wrong......?>/
4/ If your civ starts with a scout , do not do more in the beginning

 

[CKS]

Try looking at Cracker's opening plays site. It doesn't address your specific questions, exactly, but it shows you how to improve your early game play. I think it was not updated for conquests, but mostly that is not an issue.

http://www.civfanatics.com/content/civ3/strategy/cracker/civ3_starts/index.htm

You might also look at Spotting Settler Factories.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/settler_factory.php

Both of these are in the war academy, which is a very useful resource.

 

[vmxa]

At Monarch they start with 2 defenders and one attacker. Most nations that will mean 3 warriors. Those that start with the tech will have archers and or spears, Germany starts with both.

The have a 10% bonus, so they grow a little faster, can make a settler for 27 shields. Not much, but it may save a turn or two at times.

They will often start a settler, even though they will not reach size 3 before they have the shields. That means they will get those first settlers out before most humans. Human players will rarely start right off with a settler.

The thing is that can get out that second town quickly and then have two towns making a settler, not always though, so they will soon have 4 towns, while I may not have started my first settler.

I know that I am not in a race to get that first settler out, I am in a race to kill them. That said, you probably are not doing all you can either. Monarch AI's should not be able to crowd you in right away, DG maybe. They do start with an extra settler.

 

[Catma]

I've read Cracker's site, and that article. Found most of Cracker's site obvious. The settler factory article seems unhelpful due to usually not having such locations lying around; usually I will have a place that can produce the shields but not the food, or vice versa. Also in the amount of micromanagement it takes... but I guess that is the game. Should a settler factory location be highest priority for the first settlement? I usually place higher priority on luxuries, resources and strategic settlements but I guess that's a mistake.

Oh, while that article was mentioned, I want to ask something.

When a city grows and a new citizen is added, if you have the governor set to maximise production but turned off, it will be added to the highest producing square available and the shields will be added on that same turn.

What? Why should the governor be set and then turned off? That doesn't make sense, it shouldn't do anything. This feels like an exploit. Moving on.

It doesn't sound like the AI should have a significant advantage at Monarch. I am pretty certain that my problem is in my build order. I'd like to know when and how often people build settlers, workers, warriors and granaries. Also, do you make use of military police and the luxuries slider? If so, when?

 

[vmxa]

I run with production set to never on all. The pop growth occurs, before the cities production is calculated. This means the new citizen will be placed on a tile, if any are available. That tile's production will be added.

So if you have all tiles in the radius with a road, you want the citizen to go to the shileds tile. This will happen, if you have a forest available. So you can gain the two shields.

All of that is, if you are looking for extra shields at that time. Most of thime early in the game, you have the food, but not the shields.

It depends on what you are about. I am not in a race to get the most towns down versus the AI. It does me no good to get a town up, if I cannot hold it. If it will flip later or be taken (not at Monarch). Maybe those are not issue for you.

I do not worry about "settler factories" per se. IOW I am not going to wander around looking for the site that makes that easy. I may not even ever get up a granary as I may not have the tech, until it is too late to matter ( land is filled or has to be faught for).

It is great, if I can get +4 or +5 food to make settlers on a fairly steady basis, but maybe I have no food bonus and few grass tiles and water is not all that close.

I just take what I have and figure out what makes sense at that point. If they are boxing you in at Monarch and you do have good land, then what are you building that is slowing you down?

Maybe you are building structures too soon an dlosing time? No way for us to know. I am messing around with AWM and they are not boxing me in on a std map. 4 towns seems very soon for normal maps. You can always draw a funky location and neighbors are very close to start.

 

[Aabraxan]

In addition to the two excellent articles linked by CKS, vmxa has a Regent-level tutorial in his signature that you might find useful. If you're getting boxed in with 4 or 5 towns, my guess is that you're either building early wonders, like the Colossus or Pyramids, or lots of structures. What's your chosen victory condition? If you're going for cultural victories, some of those early improvements make sense. OTOH, if you're just interested in killing off the AI, you really don't need much other than settlers, workers, raxes and military. The best way to get specific advice around here is to post a save, though. That will let some of our resident experts really see what's going on in your game.

 

[Catma]

Nope, no wonders. On the advice of some article or post I don't build them anymore. Well ok, I do sometimes try for Theory of Evolution or Smith's Trading Co.

I will build a barracks, and often even a granary, if it looks like it will be finished before I have the population for a settler. Maybe this is a mistake and I should let the settler sit at 30 shields until I have the population?

I never bother with cultural victory, seems like the other conditions are easier to fulfill.

As to saves and specific advice, I'm not really looking for specific advice but rather generalized advice. This happens in most games that I play. But maybe I'm making an obvious mistake.

Attached are two saves from a recent map. The 1625 one is my first attempt. It looks like I did go a little overboard with structures, but I find the limiting factor to be food and not shields. In a few turns there will be another inca settlement just east of Ollantaytambo.

The 1575 is my second attempt. I managed to get three cities that time. I think in retrospect a problem in both games was that I should have settled on the nice food spot that he stole rather than going for the luxuries first.

I also want to discuss the governor again. When is it supposed to move laborers to more productive tiles according to the orders you give it? Immediately, or when population increases? In either case it doesn't seem to be listening. I've tried in a few different cities and saves since I started toying with it and it never moves any laborer to a more productive tile, and seems to place new workers wherever it feels like it... Am I missing part of the controls for the governor or something? I just click the drop menu on "emphasize production" to yes, and hit circle right?

 

[vmxa]

Sad to say, but I am not very versed in the gov as I do not use it or care. AFAIK it will move citizens around at growth or pop loss. I try to keep an eye on pop changes in core towns.

I am unclear on the part about the 30 shields.

"I will build a barracks, and often even a granary, if it looks like it will be finished before I have the population for a settler. Maybe this is a mistake and I should let the settler sit at 30 shields until I have the population?"

When is the barrack going up? When do you start the granary and in fact learn Pottery? In a normal game (not AW) there is no rush to get a barracks at Monarch. At least not in the setlter town.

I like to chop it in at a point where I have too low a pop for a settler or a worker (to suit me). The granary, it not an early thing for me as Pottery is not a high priority and it takes a long time to build.

Again, when I do start it, I hope to add at least one chop to speed it. I am reading the sitting part that you mean your have 30 shields in the box, but have not reached size 3.

This is not a good plan. The better plan is to reach 30 shields at size 3. An even better plan is to reach size 5 or 6 or 7. I loath dropping down to size 1 in the capitol.

Yes I may have to, but not at Monarch. I try to keep popping out a settler at larger size, so I can recovery quick enough to make another as soon as I get my 30 shields.
Here is where sliping in the rax or granary comes in .

Try to set it up so you are able to grow back the 2 pop in time to make the next settler. It may be that I need to make a settler or even 2, before I can get to this stage.

I want to get to that stage as soon as I can. I do not care, if it is the capitol or some other town. Being on river lets me get to size 7, if that makes the timing better. It likely will let me build other things, bewteen settlers.

Getting a settler out and regrowing in time to get the next is is my definition of a factory. I love it to be 4 turns, but 5 or 6 works. If I can toss in a unit or worker now and then, I am smoking.

 

[vmxa]

1575BC save:

Capitol has a barracks and a granary and it is turn 57. You are currently making 5 shields, so that is 20 turns for them. Ignore the times you made less and the possible times you made more. You spend about 20 of the 57 turns on those two task.

3 warrirors
2 archers
3 spears

total 130 shields. Not sure where they all were build and maybe even got a warrior from a hut. Still a lot of production for 57 turns on top of the structures.

Copenhagen making a temple, it has silks and you have incense at Bergen, so why not wait on that temple? Get them hookled up.

You have +2 food in capitol, so it will be hard to make settlers as it needs 10 turns to replace the pop, even with the granary.

I do not know what the exploring went like, nor the Inca movement, but if you found the cow it should have suggested a site. I would have wanted to get a town down on the lake to claim that cow. A premo site 4 tiles over on the lake with 2 BG tiles and a cow. Here is your granary town.

The capitol could get its rax and make the troops and squeeze out a worker from time to time and possibly a settler now and then, depending on what happens.

As you just made Copenhagen, the two boats (30 shields) also came out of the capitol and nearly all the troops. This wll make it hard to grab sites, that is for sure. There is no great urgency to get boats in the water. They could come out the next coastal town.

In fact I am not seeing the need to place Cope where it is, I am guessing you saw the lux and lost it. I would have prefered to make the town on the lake and get the free aqua, this is your third town. I want it to be productive and close to the capitol (lower corruption).

Where that archer is would be super. I still get the slik and the free aqua and not too far away. I also get the town up two turns sooner and have less worker turns to connect it.

100 capitol structures
30 boats
137 troops
60 settlers

327 shields in 57 turns is impressive though.

I would focus more on getting towns down and less on other things, especially troops. It is Monarch and it is early. The AI is not lgoing to attack you, unless you leave the capitol empty and it has a unit near. Even then, it may not.

Once the land is getting filled, then you need to take care. I would not have made a single spear and maybe not even an archer. Warrirors are good enough for now.

 

[Aabraxan]

Catma I took a look. First the basics: Monarch, continents, Dom, SS, Diplo, Conq, and Cultural victories enabled. The first question: What VC do you want? I seem to recall you wanting to go for a conquest or domination victory, but I could be remembering wrong. At any rate, the rest of this will operate on the assumption that you were going for a military victory.

Here's what I see in the 1575 BC save. (I should have looked at the 1625 BC save first, but got mixed up.)

You've got 3 towns & nobody has more than 5. I think only 1 had 5, and that was an expansionist. At Monarch level, that's not too bad. You've only got 2 workers. It's always hard to have enough workers at this point in the game, but bear in mind that you'll want more than that. I always tell players to shoot for 2 per city. You might skate by with 1.5 per city if you're industrious. Don't overlook opportunities to buy or take them from the AI.

Trade-wise, you're down IW and HBR, and up Masonry, writing and Mysticism (only to the Hittites, though). You're on research towards MapMaking at 80%, 14 turns out at +2. If you raise it to 90%, it drops to 11 turns at -1 gpt. If you're planning on becoming a Republic, you probably should have gone straight for the slingshot. Doesn't look like you're having too much trouble exploring. It kind of looks like you researched top-to-bottom, though. As a general rule, try to research left-to-right instead. Yes, your science advisor might tell you that you're backwards, but that's because you'll be researching more expensive techs. Once they come in, you should be able to trade them in two-fers and three-fers. Plus, any time you get a monopoly tech, there's a chance of getting an SGL, if they're on.

Military: 2 workers, 3 warriors, 2 archers, 3 spears, 2 curraghs. You are strong compared to everyone.

Frankly, I'd say that you're in pretty good shape. Yeah, expansion could have been faster. You should've grabbed the cow, probably could have done research a little differently, but if you swap Trondheim to archers, put up a rax in Bergen and start building some archers there, you could take those two Incan towns pretty easily. Once you've done that, the Incas might give up IW for peace.

 

[undertoad]

I've found the early game can be extremely deceptive. This could be what's getting to you Catma. You struggle around finding good city sites, building settlers, taking centuries to discover a tech. Meanwhile endless Expansionist Scouts zoom offensively past your trudging Warriors and Settlers, popping all the goodie huts and finding out all the juicy bits of the map; the AI seems to plop down cities just where you were planning to; and everyone seems to be more advanced than you.

It's pretty depressing - but I find a lot of it is in my imagination. Once I've got a tech or two under my belt, the game tends to swing my way - simple because I (as a human being) am better at trading than the AI; and once I actually discover the AI civs for real (as opposed to meeting their scouts), I realise they've made some moronic choices in city-placement, failed to take advantage of ideal sites, and researched all the wrong stuff!

One tip which may be helpful: you can sometimes get away with really running close to the edge in terms of military. If you don't have an extremely aggressive civ close to you, and barring barbarians, you can get away with having all your military out exploring, and leave your cities undefended. Of course this changes if an enemy Warrior turns up right on your borders; but the nightmare I used to have of enemy hordes zooming in and taking my cities before I can react just doesn't happen - simply because, at the start - until Horseback Riding - everyone is trudging across the map at the same speed as you are. Once I realised this I stopped worrying about immediately building a hi-quality defender in every town, as well as Warriors for exploration. This leaves more production time for Settlers and Workers.

Another thing I've found useful: once you have established a few cities, and got Warrior Code, build an Archer or two, even if they have nothing to do except keep the peace. They have twice the attack-strength of Warriors, and their mere existence makes the other civs more scared of you, and less likely to attack - even though they may be at the other end of the continent! I read somewhere that AI civs gauge your military strength on attacking power, discounting defence completely.

 

[Ataxerxes]

One tip which may be helpful: you can sometimes get away with really running close to the edge in terms of military. If you don't have an extremely aggressive civ close to you, and barring barbarians, you can get away with having all your military out exploring, and leave your cities undefended. Of course this changes if an enemy Warrior turns up right on your borders; but the nightmare I used to have of enemy hordes zooming in and taking my cities before I can react just doesn't happen - simply because, at the start - until Horseback Riding - everyone is trudging across the map at the same speed as you are. Once I realised this I stopped worrying about immediately building a hi-quality defender in every town, as well as Warriors for exploration. This leaves more production time for Settlers and Workers.

Another thing I've found useful: once you have established a few cities, and got Warrior Code, build an Archer or two, even if they have nothing to do except keep the peace. They have twice the attack-strength of Warriors, and their mere existence makes the other civs more scared of you, and less likely to attack - even though they may be at the other end of the continent! I read somewhere that AI civs gauge your military strength on attacking power, discounting defence completely.

This matches my experience. The AI's guaging your military strength is mostly correct. However, they don't discount defense completely, but they do give a much greater weight to attacking power.

In the early game, however, the AI doesn't seem to think about attacking you much until they've done all the peaceful expansion they can.

 

[undertoad]

In the early game, however, the AI doesn't seem to think about attacking you much until they've done all the peaceful expansion they can.

This makes sense. I always thought of it as a "feel" about how long I can get away with having little/no military (beyond exploring Warriors), and when it's time to start stacking up the weapons. It's very hard to quantify - part of the same difficulty that can make an early game depressing when in fact you're doing fine: just as I find it hard to gauge whether I'm making good progress, because time flows in a weird way in the early game.

There's also barbs to think about: again there's a "feel" about how long you can leave a square unseen and then move a Worker next to it without the poor thing suddenly coming face-to-face with a hairy bastard holding an axe, with no move left to escape.