Getting butt kicked as Ottoman........

O

oosik

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 4, 2002
Messages
22
Been playing as Ottman on large map with 7 other civs on large island archipeligo. Into the game I realized I had this whole island to myself, except half of the island, where I started is that semi-dead, desert land....not very productive. In any case, I'm in the 1700's I"ve pushed the Gerrys and the Babs off the island so I have it to myself for the most part.

Here's the problem, I have a lot of cities, about half at 6-10 and the others 12, but my happiness slider and science slider can't be set higher than 20% for one and 10% for the other, otherwise I eat up too much gold. In lieu of this I'm way behind the 8-ball compared to 5 other civs. Those guys are at least 5-9 techs ahead of me!!! the only way to conquer other cities is by sheer quantity which takes a lot of time.

Unfortunately I don't have any screenies. I set the governer to manage all cities, but I determine what gets produced. The Gov is set to manage (i think) happiness, commerce and production "often".

what can I do to improve tech production?
 
are all the tiles have road on them? Marketplace and library improvement in every city? it's hard to diagnose the problem without more info.
 
You just might try playing a few games in the standard Civ3 executable before you play in the PTW version.

This is not because PTW will be any tougher or easier, but because you can post a civ3 save file and get better advice from a broader base of more experienced players. Yes you will not get to ask this question from the perspective of one of the 8 new civs, but then again if you can't ask and answer the same question from the perspective of one of the original 16 civs, the problem will still be the same.

Knowing what difficulty level you are on is very important to understanding the multipliers that control the the costs of techs for research and trade.

The 1700's is probably too late to really ask this question. The government you are currently in and the size of your military will effect many things.
 
sorry about leaving out so much info. I was at work when I typed it and realized I was late to go doing things so I left you all hanging.

As for roads, yeah, just about everywhere. There are a few new towns settled that are still in the works, but anything that has been there since around 1400 or so is as developed as it will get for now.

market place, library, univ, everything you can thing of is going into it. again there are the straglers catching up. those cities at a level 12 pop have everything!

difficulty level is 'warlord'? The second from lowest I think.

My gov is Republic and a fairly large army, only to keep the other civs off my back and to take the only iron deposit owned by the Celts and defend it. I'm trying to research Democracy, but it's set at around 22 turns only because I can't set anything higher than what I mentioned without it eating into my gold, which I presently need to add units as America has just declared war and heading for my iron deposit. Even though America already has cavalry I"m about 9 techs from getting to that point, so I have my work cut out for me.

I noticed these civs still cheat amongst themselves. When looking to buy a tech I noticed 5 of the 7 other civs have the exact same techs!!!!!????? so they are all well ahead of me.

I've played civ3 a lot at this difficulty setting and never had a situation where I couldn't advance, or that I had to set my hap/science both so low.

I'm at home so I can post screenies if that would help.

This has been difficult trying to describe and probably harder for you all to decipher without actually seeing it for yourselves. Appreciate the help though.

oosik
 
Ahhhh

So the problem is most likely the combination of a big army and the corruption level for the government Republic. I usually run into the same problem around that time. I'd only be able to devote 40% research and 60% tax to keep a positive cash flow. If possible, try to lower the number of troops you have or lower the number of worker you have. I try to keep around 2 - 4 workers and 2-3 defenders per city. Waging war AND keeping a strong research will be very hard. If you have some cash on hand already, try to boost up the research to 50% and let the cash flow be negative for a couple of turns. Make sure you watch your treasury very closely so you do not run out of money.
 
Yes. Screenshots. Get one of the map, one of a city or two, and then one of your main land area. I couldn't help you if you posted a save, however (although most could), because I'm on a slow computer without Civ3 I can't load saves (well, I don't have PTW, so it wouldn't help anyway).
 
The location of your capital and your forbidden palace will also have a tremendous effect on your gold output.

The closer a city is to either of these two cities, the lower the corruption will be and the more shields and gold you will produce. So if you have you capital and forbidden palace too close together you may not be getting maximum benefit of their abilities. Having them optimumly located within your territory can be a huge benefit.

How many luxuries do you have? If you only have a very few, then your happiness level will be considerably lower and you may have to compensate by turning citizens into entertainers (thereby losing the gold they would normally produce) and by putting excessive amounts of gold into entertainment to keep cities from going into civil disorder.

There are other factors to consider, like the fact that your army may be too big, but these are some of the big ones that directly effect gold production output.

And always build those marketplaces, because not only do they increase gold output directly, they also make people in the cities happier (when you have multiple luxuries going to that city). And that will indirectly effect your gold production by giving you more citizens able to work the tiles (and thereby produce gold) around your cities.
 
Are you in the midst of a long running war? If you set the governor and go to war for a long time with republic, you might not notice the computer slowly switching everyone over to entertainers. Obviously, this can be remedied by signing a peace treaty.
 
Originally posted by oosik
I noticed these civs still cheat amongst themselves. When looking to buy a tech I noticed 5 of the 7 other civs have the exact same techs!!!!!????? so they are all well ahead of me.
Click to expand...
I think this sentence of yours may highligt the source of your problem:

First: No, the AI does not cheat amongst themselves, at least not when trading. On the higher levels (regent and above) they give other AIs discount, but on warlord there is no souch discount. The leader AI will demand just as much for a tech from another AI as from you.

But it looks like your problem is that you're not trading. When behind in techs, it is much more cost-effective to buy a tech from another civ than to research it yourself. Don't be an isolationist, but buy techs and sell them to others if possible as much as you can.

As an example, on my prevuious game (on Emperor) I started out on an island with two other civs which I had destroyed by the middle of the ancient age. When I finally discovered the other continent with 5 civs I found that I was one whole age behind the leader (I had 3-4 techs left of the ancient age while France had 3-4 techs left of the middle age), but I had ~2500 gold. I used this gold and my earnings to broker techs, and I managed to get through the rest of the ancient, and the entire middle age in less than 30 turns, and actually beat France to the Industrial Age.

Almost all of those techs was bought with cash and luxuries (I was the only owner of three luxury types).
 
Also it may look like they have the exact same tech, and this is probably true, but bear in mind in the diplo screen you can't trade for anything you don't hav all the prequisites for. E.g. if you don't have chemistry and astronomy you won't see the option to trade for physics until you do. (Don't mean to depress you really:)). As for help I can only echo every one else, especially on the tech trading issue.

If the other civs are in Democracy or Republic, which they usually are, they will sign an even or favourable to you peace treaty after a while because of the war weariness. Keep checking every 6-7 turns to see their stance. If you can stop the wars, try reducing your army...(famous last words). :D... so you don't have to pay for it.
 
I agree with cymru_man. Try to get out of that war as soon as possible. Reduce your army to as little as possible and get Democracy as soon as possible. If you haven't built the Forbidden Palace, build it, but a decent way away from your capital.

I normally wouldn't recommend building the Forbidden Palace on a small-medium island that your capitol is already on, but this sounds like it may be needed to get back into the game.

Get Steam Power as soon as possible for railroads.
 
Originally posted by TheNiceOne

but on warlord there is no souch discount. The leader AI will demand just as much for a tech from another AI as from you.
Click to expand...

I know you are trying to help, but even on chieftan the AI gets a trade advantage of 110 and on warlord 120 (anything over 100 is an AI advanage). Now it is very arguable whether this should be called a "cheat" since you can change it in the editor (I would say it's not a "cheat"). But I can remember the first time I played CIV3 and I remember that it seemed unfair to me, and complaints about this are very common on this forum. (In fact I think the game design was unfortunate in this respect but others would disagree). I think I read someone (Qitai?) that there is a built-in (under the covers) cost addition of 30% on all levels when the AI sells, but I can't find that post and can't remember if that applied to selling to humans only or to both humans and AI. I have not personally tested this theory. Does anybody remember?

Theniceone, in your defense I should mention that the AI gets a higher cost for producing/researching things on warlord so this compensates somewhat for the AI to AI trade rate. :)

oosik, email me peebles@grandecom.net if you want directions on how use the editor to make trading even. You could also play an expansionist civ on a huge panageia map if you want to avoid trading for a while, but even with a tech lead sometimes trades are useful.

Or you could play an email game but don't expect all humans to be friendly. :)

And thanks for everyone's suggestions!

I am playing the ottomans now in a hotseat monarch game and they are doing just fine.
 
Originally posted by sumthinelse


I know you are trying to help, but even on chieftan the AI gets a trade advantage of 110 and on warlord 120 (anything over 100 is an AI advanage).
Click to expand...

To add a small but important gloss to this -- the trade advantage only kicks in if the buying AI civ can't otherwise afford the tech. Even on the higher levels where the AI trade advantage is higher, if an AI civ has assets sufficient to pay "fair" price, the seller will demand the fair price -- if the buyer doesn't have sufficient assets to pay fair price, the discount may apply. Soren described the intent behind this feature as imbuing in the AI the concept of "sometimes its better to get something instead of nothing."
 
Originally posted by Catt
...the intent behind this feature as imbuing in the AI the concept of "sometimes its better to get something instead of nothing."
Click to expand...
That's only between AI civs... :(
 
Originally posted by Catt
Soren described the intent behind this feature as imbuing in the AI the concept of "sometimes its better to get something instead of nothing."
Click to expand...

Like mophaki, I don't buy that because when trading with the human the AI's attitude is "better to get nothing than something."

Are we getting off topic a little? If we are it's my fault. :) OK, now what should the ottomans do?
 
Originally posted by sumthinelse


Like mophaki, I don't buy that because when trading with the human the AI's attitude is "better to get nothing than something."
Click to expand...


Ah, but the key word of my paraphrase of Soren's point might very well be "sometimes" -- an alternative translation application of "sometimes" could be "sometimes, if it won't serve to help that d*mn human idiot at the keyboard." ;)

Seriously though, I think this is one of the several instances when the AI (as a collective group) get an advantage over the human due to the difficulty of coding a decision algorithm re: tech trading -- I imagine it would be very difficult to code an AI "strategic trading" concept that would be workable and not subject to massive exploit by the human player just as the early ability to trade / buy / sell cities was ultimately removed due to the difficulty of a workable, non-exploitable process.

Are we getting off topic a little? If we are it's my fault. :) OK, now what should the ottomans do?
Click to expand...

Yea, a little off-topic, but not too much so -- oosik speculated that his / her troubles were do to AI cheating via tech trades -- we're just trying to get the facts out. ;)
 
Uh...wow...didn't expect so many replies......

Here's the update:
What I first wrote it was around 1743, now I"m at around 1940'ish or so. though I'm second overall, America is well into having bombers and I haven't even reached the point of having destroyers. If I go to war with AMerica, I"m pretty much doomed. I think I'm about on par with the other civs at this point.

It sometimes seems as though the AI decides what battles it's going to win or not. It seems pretty convenient that anytime I go to war with anyone, they magically have ROP with whatever civ nearby.

I don't know. I really like this game. I know civ3 consumed me while on deployment, good laptop game. But this PTW, as fun as it is, seems almost more convoluted than the original. Almost as if the civ knows what I'm doing and can keep one step ahead????

Also, how can I spit out settlers as fast as the civ. Seems as though the civ kicks them out whenever it wants without the prerequisite number of turns......

And how does a a regular impi kill a verteran sipahi???

Right now I'm at war with Rome, who then is assisted by Zulu and the Babs, while everyone else is fighting with the Greeks.

As it stands there is no way that I can see that I can catch up to America they just have way too many cities and too much land. I may just start another game.

I'll have more questions in the future...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

K
Commerce-slider-rounding issues
Replies
1
Views
200
justanick
J
T
some things annoying me
2 3
Replies
45
Views
3K
tjs282
tjs282
K
Early Game City Building
2
Replies
20
Views
1K
Lanzelot
Lanzelot
K
Alternative campaign-The English
Replies
5
Views
564
Fergei
Fergei
K
Happiness/entertainers/rel buildings
Replies
15
Views
643
justanick
J
Back
Top Bottom