That wasn't what I meant. You don't try to flip the city, just steal the tile. It is pretty easy to steal the tile, but very difficult to flip the city.
So raising the tax slider for a single city when I have let's say 20 and It has for example a hospital in late game is not worth it, does that also count for early era as if for example I have 4 cities 3 of them have 2 citizen and the last on is growing to population 4 from 3 and thus It's citizens will riot in one turn which is the best course of action? Should I rise the lux slide, put a temple (let's assume It will be ready next turn, also I doubt this is the correct answer) or convert a citizen or two to worker or settler (let's also assume that one of my other 3 cities produces a settler every 4 turns so expanding is going smoothly for now) what should I do in such situation?
Late game you won't have a single city that is much larger than all the rest, unless it has Shakespeare's Theater, in which case you won't need a temple anyway. In the early game, you might have a bunch of towns that are size 3 or 4 that are occasionally building settlers or workers as they grow along with a size 8 city that is building the Statue of Zeus. This town might get a temple if I plan ahead.
In your example, I'd most likely use the lux slider, but I might change one citizen from a worker to a scientist. Which I would choose would depend on the food situation, how many improved tiles I have to work, and how seriously I am researching. I would not build a temple.
For some context, I play mostly 20k culture games with minimal warfare. I stink at conquest and domination, but I'm pretty good at science and culture games. Outside of culture games, I don't build temples. The exceptions are very rare (demigod and higher games where resource trading isn't possible until astronomy or navigation is the exception that comes to mind).
So basicaly horsemen and cavalry are expanding my borders like the cultural improvements do or you mean that I can use their increased movement to find better places to settle?
No, horsemen and cavalry are just an example of good military units. You can use them to destroy enemy units and take other cities. Due to their high speed you can annex many cities and completely eliminate another civilization which is a significant advantage. Wars are a quite efficient way to increase your power.
By the time you can have cavalry all places to settle are used already and by the time you can have horsemen in meaningful numbers most places are settled. Most of the settling happens before you have horsemen.
I know that republic and later democracy is a better form of goverment than monarchy and communism because of their extra commerce however If I plan on having war for more than 20 turns (assuming I don't possess Universal Suffrage) should I go for monarchy or communism (note that I never went fascism or feudalism so I don't know much about them)?
It does depend on circumstances. Communism has a slim chance of catching up to the net commerce of republic due to lower corruption. But for simplicity it may really be best to just go for Republic and keep it. Universal Suffrage is probably not worth much, but police stations are. They decrease war weariness by 25 percentage points and obviously help with corruption.
If you plan to be at war for more than 20 turn(exactly 20 turns can be sensible to avoid breaking an alliance) that in all likelyhood is quite poor planning. If you go to war, than you should build up a large force of fast offensive units, declare war, take many cities and preferably eliminate the enemy completely in much less than 20 turns. If that is no option you should aim for a victorios peace after say 5 to 15 turns depending on when you will have taken all the towns in your reach.
Cities you have taken have a meaningful chance to flip back to your enemy. This is why eliminating an enemy completely is very valuable.
This is not what CKS meant. Taking the city with your military is usually much preferable. The usual strategy is to expand the amount of your cities and thus your territory until you accidently hit the domination limit of 66%/66% and thus win the game.
If your goals is a different victory you need to stop expanding before hitting the ceiling of 66%/66%.
So raising the tax slider for a single city when I have let's say 20 and It has for example a hospital in late game is not worth it, does that also count for early era as if for example I have 4 cities 3 of them have 2 citizen and the last on is growing to population 4 from 3 and thus It's citizens will riot in one turn which is the best course of action? Should I rise the lux slide, put a temple (let's assume It will be ready next turn, also I doubt this is the correct answer) or convert a citizen or two to worker or settler (let's also assume that one of my other 3 cities produces a settler every 4 turns so expanding is going smoothly for now) what should I do in such situation?
Rioting and WLTKD happen before production. Expensive buildings are no good short term solutions, effectively they only work long term.
You should aim for a population distributions that utilizes the same luxus sliders setting. That can be done by building workers and settlers and even joining them to existing cities if that really suits the circumstances. A more common thing is to use experts. Policeman, engineers and scientists are good choices that are never unhappy. Entertainer even create a happy face, but their use hardly is sensensible. Citizens on tiles are usually better than experts and just one happy face at the price of 2 food is inefficient.
I don't aim for cultural victory I was thinking of going for space race (yes with a military based civ I am hitting my head in the wall) but I just don't know... the Iroguois are growing to powerful since they expand consistently, the Celts are also closing the gap in the science race (they are close to gaining modern ships and will probably give it to the Iroguois (maybe an embargo is the solution? I also have the tech but not the oil and I also fear that the uranium resource won't be in my territory so perhaps a conquest victory could be more easily attained (Iroguois and Celts are the only civs that pose a threat to me).
As almost always in Civ3 war is the solution. Declare war on your stronger opponent and pay with gtp to make your lesser opponent join your war. Wait till he breaks the alliance and then sign peace with your opponent.
That wasn't what I meant. You don't try to flip the city, just steal the tile. It is pretty easy to steal the tile, but very difficult to flip the city.
Late game you won't have a single city that is much larger than all the rest, unless it has Shakespeare's Theater, in which case you won't need a temple anyway. In the early game, you might have a bunch of towns that are size 3 or 4 that are occasionally building settlers or workers as they grow along with a size 8 city that is building the Statue of Zeus. This town might get a temple if I plan ahead.
In your example, I'd most likely use the lux slider, but I might change one citizen from a worker to a scientist. Which I would choose would depend on the food situation, how many improved tiles I have to work, and how seriously I am researching. I would not build a temple.
For some context, I play mostly 20k culture games with minimal warfare. I stink at conquest and domination, but I'm pretty good at science and culture games. Outside of culture games, I don't build temples. The exceptions are very rare (demigod and higher games where resource trading isn't possible until astronomy or navigation is the exception that comes to mind).
Oh, I'm sorry for misunderstanding your suggestion, I see your point now.
Ok so the lux slider is the answer, thanks!
By the way in my current game I have build a lot of temples and cathedrals (almost all my cities actually) and I also have Sistine Chapel and Js Cathedral should I disband my temples and the cathedrals and just raise the slider?
Also since you specialize on space race and cultural victories what is your order of building science and commerce based improvements I would appreciate some feedback!
No, horsemen and cavalry are just an example of good military units. You can use them to destroy enemy units and take other cities. Due to their high speed you can annex many cities and completely eliminate another civilization which is a significant advantage. Wars are a quite efficient way to increase your power.
By the time you can have cavalry all places to settle are used already and by the time you can have horsemen in meaningful numbers most places are settled. Most of the settling happens before you have horsemen.
It does depend on circumstances. Communism has a slim chance of catching up to the net commerce of republic due to lower corruption. But for simplicity it may really be best to just go for Republic and keep it. Universal Suffrage is probably not worth much, but police stations are. They decrease war weariness by 25 percentage points and obviously help with corruption.
If you plan to be at war for more than 20 turn(exactly 20 turns can be sensible to avoid breaking an alliance) that in all likelyhood is quite poor planning. If you go to war, than you should build up a large force of fast offensive units, declare war, take many cities and preferably eliminate the enemy completely in much less than 20 turns. If that is no option you should aim for a victorios peace after say 5 to 15 turns depending on when you will have taken all the towns in your reach.
Cities you have taken have a meaningful chance to flip back to your enemy. This is why eliminating an enemy completely is very valuable.
This is not what CKS meant. Taking the city with your military is usually much preferable. The usual strategy is to expand the amount of your cities and thus your territory until you accidently hit the domination limit of 66%/66% and thus win the game.
If your goals is a different victory you need to stop expanding before hitting the ceiling of 66%/66%.
Rioting and WLTKD happen before production. Expensive buildings are no good short term solutions, effectively they only work long term.
You should aim for a population distributions that utilizes the same luxus sliders setting. That can be done by building workers and settlers and even joining them to existing cities if that really suits the circumstances. A more common thing is to use experts. Policeman, engineers and scientists are good choices that are never unhappy. Entertainer even create a happy face, but their use hardly is sensensible. Citizens on tiles are usually better than experts and just one happy face at the price of 2 food is inefficient.
As almost always in Civ3 war is the solution. Declare war on your stronger opponent and pay with gtp to make your lesser opponent join your war. Wait till he breaks the alliance and then sign peace with your opponent.
Ah I see yes, sorry I wasn't thinking clearly about the use of horse based units.
Ok for now I will stick to republic until I gain more experience on the subject.
I see so I should prioritize police stations over Universal Sufrage (should I not build It at all?), also what is your opinion on courthouses should I build them only on cities far from my palace or will propagada threaten my core cities in the future?
I have a problem with waging war when my opponent is very big I mean in ancient era I could finish the war in about 6 turns but I happen to prolong my later era wars (can't meet my goals), I also believe poor planning on my part has to do a lot with this.
Yes I now understand what he meant.
At this point in the game I just want victory no matter what kind It is.
Equal distribution of the population isn't something I ever thought of. Noted!
Yes I also agree that citizens on tiles are the better choice.
Ok I will do that (it won't affect my reputation if my ally left the war first I assume).
If I plan on having war for more than 20 turns (assuming I don't possess Universal Suffrage) should I go for monarchy or communism (note that I never went fascism or feudalism so I don't know much about them)?
It is possible to lead long wars under Republic, if you carefully avoid high losses. I've played entire Domination/Conquest games under Republic. Even if some war weariness starts to kick in, you just raise the lux slider a bit. It won't be forever, and it is much preferable than going through another anarchy period! Only if war weariness reaches level 4, it might become unbearable. Then you make peace, extort as many towns as possible in the peace treaty, and just attack the next target. This is known as "Alternating War". War Weariness is not a "global thing", it is attached to one particular nation. Once you make peace with that nation, the WW is gone, and starting a war with another AI (even if you do it right away) does not cause any new WW (until you have accumulated a certain amount of losses in terms of lost units or even lost towns).
Universal Suffrage is ridiculous. I think it reduces WW by as much as 2%... You'll never notice the difference... (I only build it, when going for a 20K culture victory, but not in military games.)
Ok, CKS already cleared up that misunderstanding... Flipping a city is a huge effort and involves a very big chance factor. If the RNG gods are against you, you may wait forever...
Flipping a single tile (the one with the important resource), however, is quite easy: usually the town that is nearer to the tile, will get it, independent of any culture. If both towns are at the same distance from the tile, the town with the higher culture value will get it. And if both have the same culture value, the town that was founded earlier, will get it.
By the way in my current game I have build a lot of temples and cathedrals (almost all my cities actually) and I also have Sistine Chapel and Js Cathedral should I disband my temples and the cathedrals and just raise the slider?
See above: Universal Suffrage is really not worth it. Police Stations are good, but very expensive. Depending on your aspired victory condition, it may be better to build different things instead.
also what is your opinion on courthouses should I build them only on cities far from my palace or will propagada threaten my core cities in the future?
Depends on the victory condition again... In quick and dirty military games, don't slow yourself down by too many city improvements: just build a few barracks and then horsemen, horsemen and horsemen (and ships on water maps) and conquer the world. When going for UN or space-race (and to a certain extent when going for 20K), Courthouses are great. And the earlier you get them, the better! Under Communism, Courthouses should be in every bigger city. Under Republic I suggest to build them in "second ring" and "third ring" cities. (In first ring cities they are not needed, as those don't suffer from corruption, and in any cities further out, they don't do anything. Explaining all the details would take some time, but the simplified version is: once a city is too far from the capital, the corruption is so high, that the effect of the Courthouse basically gets "rounded away".)
I have never seen the AI use propaganda, so I guess this aspect of Courthouses can safely be neglected.
So raising the tax slider for a single city when I have let's say 20 and It has for example a hospital in late game is not worth it, does that also count for early era as if for example I have 4 cities 3 of them have 2 citizen and the last on is growing to population 4 from 3 and thus It's citizens will riot in one turn which is the best course of action? Should I rise the lux slide, put a temple (let's assume It will be ready next turn, also I doubt this is the correct answer) or convert a citizen or two to worker or settler (let's also assume that one of my other 3 cities produces a settler every 4 turns so expanding is going smoothly for now) what should I do in such situation?
I wrote this earlier, and then saw that @justanick had weighed in before I got it posted. But having taken the time, here it is...
SpoilerOld news... :
Generally in the early game, if you have one town(s) growing significantly faster than the others (due to Flood-plains/ food bonuses, etc.), then that is the town(s) where you should be building your Settlers and/or Workers anyway, so the problem of unhappiness due to overpopulation becomes self-limiting. The high-food, fast-growing town(s) is the only one(s) that will really 'need' a Granary in the early stage, as well: it is not (usually) necessary to build Granaries everywhere!*
You can then use (Workers from) the fast-growing town(s) to increase the size of your other, slow(er)-growing towns, either indirectly by sending the Workers to irrigate tiles around the other towns, thus increasing their food-harvests, or by directly joining Workers from large unhappy towns to smaller, but still happy towns. If you can thus keep all your (core) towns at roughly the same size/ growing at roughly the same rate, they will then all gain roughly the same benefit from your LUX%-slider spending.
*
SpoilerSome notes on Granaries :
Pop1-6 towns harvesting the 'standard' +2 food per turn (FPT) net will still grow reasonably fast without a Gran, needing a maximum 10 turns per growth cycle, i.e. ~60 turns to reach Pop7 — which should easily be enough time to build a cheap military unit(s) and/or a Worker to improve that towns's tiles, a Barracks or Multiplier-building (if available), a Courthouse (if corruption/ waste is already >30% or so), and an Aqueduct (if needed to reach Pop12)*. If you already have a high-FPT Granary-town set up, then by spinning Workers out of it, and then adding those Workers to your Pop7 city(s), you can then likely get a much faster growth-rate for fewer shields (and more importantly, lower building-maintenance) than might be required to put a Granary in each Pop7, +2FPT city.
Once a +2-FPT town hits Pop7, it might be worth building a Gran there to keep that 'growth every 10 turns' — but at this stage (i.e. early/mid-Medieval Age, when the wars/ colonisations start in earnest) you will likely have multiple better uses for those shields, and having switched to to a non-penalised government (Republic or Monarchy) you can also likely get 10-turn growth by e.g. simply converting a couple of BonusGrassland mines to irrigation, giving you +4-FPT net instead of +2-FPT. Conversely, if you have few/no food-bonus tiles in your core (e.g. mainly Plains), then you might want/need to build Grans in some/most/all of your Pop7 cities, just to keep up with the AI's growth.
Another consideration for building a Gran, is when a city gets up to Pop12. If its tiles can't easily be micromanaged/ improved to provide exactly 24 FPT in total (e.g. Floodplain-cities, which frequently produce food-excesses), and especially if your acquisition of Sanitation isn't imminent, it may then be worth building a Granary in that city to allow you to siphon off excess food as new Settlers/ Workers just before the town fills its food-box at Pop12, while still minimising the time that town then spends at Pop10-11 (when you'll be building the more important/ expensive projects — such as Cavalries!).
*
SpoilerInterturn processing :
During the interturn, food is harvested and new citizens are born before shields are collected and applied to projects.
Therefore, Granary-builds should be timed to complete just before growth is due, so that half the town's food is already stored on growth, and the turns needed to grow your next citizen are minimised (ideally you should have 1T left to complete the Gran when you need 2T to fill the food-box, so that you're not paying maintentance on the Gran for multiple turns before you start getting the benefit from it). Conversely, if a Granary-build finishes on/ just after the interturn when growth happens, then your food-box gets completely emptied, and it will then take twice as long as it 'should' before you grow your next citizen.
Similarly, Aqueducts and Hospitals should be timed to finish 1 turn before growth to Pop7/13 is expected, so that the new citizen can be added immediately, without wasting any food. If you have the gold to do so, it may be worth cash-rushing any remaining shields on these projects, 2T before growth is expected.
Otherwise, the second-best choice for a soon-to-become-unhappy citizen — at least before you've built a Library (which multiplies your SCI%-slider spending) and/or a Marketplace (which multiplies your [virtual] TAX%-slider spending) — is to convert him into a Scientist or Taxman (depending on whether you would rather have beakers or gold).
By the way in my current game I have build a lot of temples and cathedrals (almost all my cities actually) and I also have Sistine Chapel and Js Cathedral should I disband my temples and the cathedrals and just raise the slider?
Also since you specialize on space race and cultural victories what is your order of building science and commerce based improvements I would appreciate some feedback!
Up to Monarch you'll be doing most of the tech-research yourself (especially towards the Modern Age), so you need to start building Libs as early as practical in the Ancient Age, and beelining for Education (Universities) as early as possible in the Medieval Age. All your core-towns should eventually have both these buildings, but you should prioritise building them in high-commerce towns first, where they will have their greatest effects. Markets will be needed for Lux-Happiness (with 3+ Luxes) but not TAX%-boosting (because you'll be running SCI% at the maximum sustainable level). Banks/StockExes only magnify the TAX%-slice of your spending, but when SCI% + LUX% = 100%, there will be no TAX%-income to magnify: these buildings will therefore not help you in a Science-focussed game (i.e. if you build them, you'll just be wasting maintenance on them).
Useful Wonders for a Science game are Colossus (for the Commerce boost), if you can get a decent Coastal town founded early enough to have a good chance at it, Copernicus, and Newton (great if you can get all 3 of these in one town -- but frequently not possible!), ToE to get you AtomTheory + Electronics for free (the 2 most expensive techs of the Industrial -- and great trade-bait), and HooverDam to boost all your Factories for building miliary units and spaceship parts quickly (without having to pay for Coal/Hydro-plants in those towns). SETI and TheInternet can give you the final kick you need towards the Spaceship techs (ideally, start pre-building SETI in the late Industrial, so it's ready to replace the Colossus-effect lost when you learn Flight).
UniSuff makes a useful prebuild for Theory of Evolution or Hoover Dam, but it has so little effect on War-Weariness for its price that I wouldn't bother with it for its own sake. 800 shields = 10 Courthouses, and I know which I'd rather have. Speaking of which...
also what is your opinion on courthouses should I build them only on cities far from my palace or will propagada threaten my core cities in the future?
Not only are your core-towns close to your Palace, but by the time that Propaganda is even an option (requires Espionage, the Intelligence Agency, and a successfully planted Spy), they are also likely to have accumulated a substantial amount of Culture from their Libs and Unis (and Temples and Cathedrals, if you built them!). AFAIK, both these factors go a long way towards making propaganda efforts against those towns much more expensive, and less likely to be successful; and at Monarch, the AI is very unlikely to have sufficient cash for Propaganda efforts anyway...
So generally I won't build Courthouses in my innermost towns during the early game, since I'm not worried about Propaganda at that point, and wastage isn't high enough to be a concern. In the late game I might build them in the core, to get more from my multiplier-buildings (Libs, Markets, Factories), especially if I'm close to but not quite making a 'magic shield-number' (e.g. I'm getting 75 shields without a Courthouse, but I want >80-90 shields for 1-turn Cavalries or Artilleries or Infantries). My rule-of-thumb for building a Courthouse in an outer, semi-core (2nd or 3rd-ring) town, is based on red-shields out of total shields, usually at around Pop2-3: if it looks like the town is going to be >25%-50% corrupt (i.e. 1-2 red shields, 2-3 blue), I start building a Courthouse before starting any other substantial project.
If you can get it to work for you, the CivAssist app (which you can find here, discussion thread is here) will also tell you how corrupt a (prospective) town(-site) is likely to be, based on your current Palace and FP-locations (but while the game is also running, I find that using the World_Map screen in CAII makes it really really slow)
Nope, your (trade) rep is only affected if you're the one to break the MA (by signing peace while the obligatory 20 turns is still running). After the 20 turns has run out, I believe it's safe to sign peace with your enemy before talking to your ally, but just to make absolutely certain, I always do it the other way round: formally cancel my MA via the Diplomacy-window (Go to "Active deals", select "Military Alliance vs..." than click 'Clear Table'), before I sign the Peace Treaty.
EDIT: Dammit, now I've X-posted with @Lanzelot instead...
It is possible to lead long wars under Republic, if you carefully avoid high losses. I've played entire Domination/Conquest games under Republic. Even if some war weariness starts to kick in, you just raise the lux slider a bit. It won't be forever, and it is much preferable than going through another anarchy period! Only if war weariness reaches level 4, it might become unbearable. Then you make peace, extort as many towns as possible in the peace treaty, and just attack the next target. This is known as "Alternating War". War Weariness is not a "global thing", it is attached to one particular nation. Once you make peace with that nation, the WW is gone, and starting a war with another AI (even if you do it right away) does not cause any new WW (until you have accumulated a certain amount of losses in terms of lost units or even lost towns).
Universal Suffrage is ridiculous. I think it reduces WW by as much as 2%... You'll never notice the difference... (I only build it, when going for a 20K culture victory, but not in military games.)
Ok, CKS already cleared up that misunderstanding... Flipping a city is a huge effort and involves a very big chance factor. If the RNG gods are against you, you may wait forever...
Flipping a single tile (the one with the important resource), however, is quite easy: usually the town that is nearer to the tile, will get it, independent of any culture. If both towns are at the same distance from the tile, the town with the higher culture value will get it. And if both have the same culture value, the town that was founded earlier, will get it.
No. Once you already have them, better use them. A cathedral + Sistine's gives 6 happy faces at the cost of 2gpt. That's actually quite good.
See above: Universal Suffrage is really not worth it. Police Stations are good, but very expensive. Depending on your aspired victory condition, it may be better to build different things instead.
Depends on the victory condition again... In quick and dirty military games, don't slow yourself down by too many city improvements: just build a few barracks and then horsemen, horsemen and horsemen (and ships on water maps) and conquer the world. When going for UN or space-race (and to a certain extent when going for 20K), Courthouses are great. And the earlier you get them, the better! Under Communism, Courthouses should be in every bigger city. Under Republic I suggest to build them in "second ring" and "third ring" cities. (In first ring cities they are not needed, as those don't suffer from corruption, and in any cities further out, they don't do anything. Explaining all the details would take some time, but the simplified version is: once a city is too far from the capital, the corruption is so high, that the effect of the Courthouse basically gets "rounded away".)
I have never seen the AI use propaganda, so I guess this aspect of Courthouses can safely be neglected.
I wrote this earlier, and then saw that @justanick had weighed in before I got it posted. But having taken the time, here it is...
SpoilerOld news... :
Generally in the early game, if you have one town(s) growing significantly faster than the others (due to Flood-plains/ food bonuses, etc.), then that is the town(s) where you should be building your Settlers and/or Workers anyway, so the problem of unhappiness due to overpopulation becomes self-limiting. The high-food, fast-growing town(s) is the only one(s) that will really 'need' a Granary in the early stage, as well: it is not (usually) necessary to build Granaries everywhere!*
You can then use (Workers from) the fast-growing town(s) to increase the size of your other, slow(er)-growing towns, either indirectly by sending the Workers to irrigate tiles around the other towns, thus increasing their food-harvests, or by directly joining Workers from large unhappy towns to smaller, but still happy towns. If you can thus keep all your (core) towns at roughly the same size/ growing at roughly the same rate, they will then all gain roughly the same benefit from your LUX%-slider spending.
*
SpoilerSome notes on Granaries :
Pop1-6 towns harvesting the 'standard' +2 food per turn (FPT) net will still grow reasonably fast without a Gran, needing a maximum 10 turns per growth cycle, i.e. ~60 turns to reach Pop7 — which should easily be enough time to build a cheap military unit(s) and/or a Worker to improve that towns's tiles, a Barracks or Multiplier-building (if available), a Courthouse (if corruption/ waste is already >30% or so), and an Aqueduct (if needed to reach Pop12)*. If you already have a high-FPT Granary-town set up, then by spinning Workers out of it, and then adding those Workers to your Pop7 city(s), you can then likely get a much faster growth-rate for fewer shields (and more importantly, lower building-maintenance) than might be required to put a Granary in each Pop7, +2FPT city.
Once a +2-FPT town hits Pop7, it might be worth building a Gran there to keep that 'growth every 10 turns' — but at this stage (i.e. early/mid-Medieval Age, when the wars/ colonisations start in earnest) you will likely have multiple better uses for those shields, and having switched to to a non-penalised government (Republic or Monarchy) you can also likely get 10-turn growth by e.g. simply converting a couple of BonusGrassland mines to irrigation, giving you +4-FPT net instead of +2-FPT. Conversely, if you have few/no food-bonus tiles in your core (e.g. mainly Plains), then you might want/need to build Grans in some/most/all of your Pop7 cities, just to keep up with the AI's growth.
Another consideration for building a Gran, is when a city gets up to Pop12. If its tiles can't easily be micromanaged/ improved to provide exactly 24 FPT in total (e.g. Floodplain-cities, which frequently produce food-excesses), and especially if your acquisition of Sanitation isn't imminent, it may then be worth building a Granary in that city to allow you to siphon off excess food as new Settlers/ Workers just before the town fills its food-box at Pop12, while still minimising the time that town then spends at Pop10-11 (when you'll be building the more important/ expensive projects — such as Cavalries!).
*
SpoilerInterturn processing :
During the interturn, food is harvested and new citizens are born before shields are collected and applied to projects.
Therefore, Granary-builds should be timed to complete just before growth is due, so that half the town's food is already stored on growth, and the turns needed to grow your next citizen are minimised (ideally you should have 1T left to complete the Gran when you need 2T to fill the food-box, so that you're not paying maintentance on the Gran for multiple turns before you start getting the benefit from it). Conversely, if a Granary-build finishes on/ just after the interturn when growth happens, then your food-box gets completely emptied, and it will then take twice as long as it 'should' before you grow your next citizen.
Similarly, Aqueducts and Hospitals should be timed to finish 1 turn before growth to Pop7/13 is expected, so that the new citizen can be added immediately, without wasting any food. If you have the gold to do so, it may be worth cash-rushing any remaining shields on these projects, 2T before growth is expected.
Otherwise, the second-best choice for a soon-to-become-unhappy citizen — at least before you've built a Library (which multiplies your SCI%-slider spending) and/or a Marketplace (which multiplies your [virtual] TAX%-slider spending) — is to convert him into a Scientist or Taxman (depending on whether you would rather have beakers or gold).
And now for your latest post...
Since you've already built SisChap, you might as well keep the Cathedrals too. But by all means, dump the Temples...
Up to Monarch you'll be doing most of the tech-research yourself (especially towards the Modern Age), so you need to start building Libs as early as practical in the Ancient Age, and beelining for Education (Universities) as early as possible in the Medieval Age. All your core-towns should eventually have both these buildings, but you should prioritise building them in high-commerce towns first, where they will have their greatest effects. Markets will be needed for Lux-Happiness (with 3+ Luxes) but not TAX%-boosting (because you'll be running SCI% at the maximum sustainable level). Banks/StockExes only magnify the TAX%-slice of your spending, but when SCI% + LUX% = 100%, there will be no TAX%-income to magnify: these buildings will therefore not help you in a Science-focussed game (i.e. if you build them, you'll just be wasting maintenance on them).
Useful Wonders for a Science game are Colossus (for the Commerce boost), if you can get a decent Coastal town founded early enough to have a good chance at it, Copernicus, and Newton (great if you can get all 3 of these in one town -- but frequently not possible!), ToE to get you AtomTheory + Electronics for free (the 2 most expensive techs of the Industrial -- and great trade-bait), and HooverDam to boost all your Factories for building miliary units and spaceship parts quickly (without having to pay for Coal/Hydro-plants in those towns). SETI and TheInternet can give you the final kick you need towards the Spaceship techs (ideally, start pre-building SETI in the late Industrial, so it's ready to replace the Colossus-effect lost when you learn Flight).
UniSuff makes a useful prebuild for Theory of Evolution or Hoover Dam, but it has so little effect on War-Weariness for its price that I wouldn't bother with it for its own sake. 800 shields = 10 Courthouses, and I know which I'd rather have. Speaking of which...Not only are your core-towns close to your Palace, but by the time that Propaganda is even an option (requires Espionage, the Intelligence Agency, and a successfully planted Spy), they are also likely to have accumulated a substantial amount of Culture from their Libs and Unis (and Temples and Cathedrals, if you built them!). AFAIK, both these factors go a long way towards making propaganda efforts against those towns much more expensive, and less likely to be successful; and at Monarch, the AI is very unlikely to have sufficient cash for Propaganda efforts anyway...
So generally I won't build Courthouses in my innermost towns during the early game, since I'm not worried about Propaganda at that point, and wastage isn't high enough to be a concern. In the late game I might build them in the core, to get more from my multiplier-buildings (Libs, Markets, Factories), especially if I'm close to but not quite making a 'magic shield-number' (e.g. I'm getting 75 shields without a Courthouse, but I want >80-90 shields for 1-turn Cavalries or Artilleries or Infantries). My rule-of-thumb for building a Courthouse in an outer, semi-core (2nd or 3rd-ring) town, is based on red-shields out of total shields, usually at around Pop2-3: if it looks like the town is going to be >25%-50% corrupt (i.e. 1-2 red shields, 2-3 blue), I start building a Courthouse before starting any other substantial project.
If you can get it to work for you, the CivAssist app (which you can find here, discussion thread is here) will also tell you how corrupt a (prospective) town(-site) is likely to be, based on your current Palace and FP-locations (but while the game is also running, I find that using the World_Map screen in CAII makes it really really slow)
Nope, your (trade) rep is only affected if you're the one to break the MA (by signing peace while the obligatory 20 turns is still running). After the 20 turns has run out, I believe it's safe to sign peace with your enemy before talking to your ally, but just to make absolutely certain, I always do it the other way round: formally cancel my MA via the Diplomacy-window (Go to "Active deals", select "Military Alliance vs..." than click 'Clear Table'), before I sign the Peace Treaty.
EDIT: Dammit, now I've X-posted with @Lanzelot instead...
Okay I now pretty much have an idea of what my mistrakes were in my game.
1.I wasn't trying to 'balance my cities by distributing the settler-worker producion ratio of my towns. In other words I was exclusively creating military units only from some towns and had my workers - settlers be produced exclusively from other towns. My thinking was that this town with mostly hills and mountains should produce my military units while my cities with grassland and close to river were producing settlers workers, while I believe this was a bit correct I now know that I should also produce some workers and settler in my military unit production cities as so to keep my cities in relatively same population number and balance their happiness with the luxury slider.
2.I was focusing way to much on city improvements where I got to the point of having every single upgrade in a city. As an effect my commerce isn't increasing in the way It should due to high maintainance costs and what's more just like tjs282 said they don't take full advantance because I put every science and commerce upgrades together...
3.I didn't expand when I had a clear advantage over my rivals (I am seafaring, had berserk UU) and I was ahead of them in science. I was aiming for a space race but now that I lack many resources I understand that I shouldn't be so peaceful and cooperative, I should have picked a rival (preferable someone strong to weaken him as well) take most of his good city locations including luxuries and strategic resources, issue for peace since I was republic and issue war to another rival like Lanzelot said.
4.I constucted many wonders and thus placed a lot of shields in them when I could use them for something better (boats, berserks).
5.I also focused a lot in the creation of infantry (who needs so much protection in an archipelago map with railroads anyway) where I should be aiming for berserk and later marines.
6.Like it was said I made the mistake in trying to flip cities (instead of taking them with force) by investing insane amount of money on the construction of temples, libraries, cathedrals and in general culture linked upgrades.
7.I wasn't putting upgrades in the cities in the right time for example I completely diminished the value of aquadect thinking that It doesn't matter if I have one more citizen because the city couldn't go to size 10-12 even though it's value doesn't lay only on the production but also on it's unit support reduction, also I was placing the granary as early as I could without waiting to build it in the right moment (and I also placed it in every city...).
8.I messed up some of my cities placement (many of them could be coastal) being misguided by the acquiration of more luxuries in a single city.
9.I also believe I should have created some frigates to accompany my galleys (lost many ships with units because of that...).
I believe I am covered with the advice here I will start a new game on regent (tiny map) to see if I can implement those and then I will go for the (hopefull) victory on my monarch game and will post here the results. If anyone else wants to contribute something or correct me on some of my above statements feel free to do so.
ı won't challenge the difficulty of flipping a city , a discussion that seems to have stayed in the second page , but the thing is ı have had Civ III on and off during the last decade and encircling a target with my own cities have happened in only a few cases . Like it is a bridgehead sort of thing where the AI can marshall its forces and catch me unaware with a surprise attack into my core and ı can't attack him , because he has a long history of alliances with everybody else . Generally against me . Might solve a tricky problem in a period of peace , without too much a fuss . Unfortunately , fighting tends to be a better option in this game as well .
By the way in my current game I have build a lot of temples and cathedrals (almost all my cities actually) and I also have Sistine Chapel and Js Cathedral should I disband my temples and the cathedrals and just raise the slider?
No. 6 content faces for 2 gtp is a good deal. 1 content face per 1 gtp may not be, but once you have a temple selling it is not so sensible. Culture is of some use after all. With 20 happy faces from luxury goods additional content faces may not be needed but they may help to trigger the WLTKD which reduces waste and assuming the production would be spent on wealth, than that difference can pay for the maintenance. But that is really quite long term, a reserve for times of war is the more important concern.
Also since you specialize on space race and cultural victories what is your order of building science and commerce based improvements I would appreciate some feedback!
That order is a bit twisted by the effect market places have on luxury goods. courthouse, aqueduct, market place, library, university seems like a good order. If corruption is low courthouse become less important. If no aqueduct is needed it can be replaced by a granary. Cities with fresh water should be the ones to be founded first and they are likely to build workers and settlers to benefit from granary and they can exceed size 6, after which the food needed per growth doubles and so does the worth of the granary. The market place can be less valuable if luxuries are scarce or additional happy faces are not needed anyway. Often libraries before market place can make sense, also because one culture extension is needed to use tiles in the second ring of the city.
This order works relativly well for most victories, the decision which one to aim for can be made later. For culture one might want to build more culture buildings, but getting enough advantage(factor 2) over the second best civ usually requires war and having more cities is a main determinant for 100 k.
Universal Suffrage reduces war weariness by 1 in every city at the price of 0 gtp. All wonders costs no maintance. So if you have plenty production do build it. ToE and Hoover are the clear priority.
also what is your opinion on courthouses should I build them only on cities far from my palace or will propagada threaten my core cities in the future?
Ignore propaganda. It takes about 20000 gold to take a city that way. For purposes of corruption i like to use them in all cities but the capital and maybe 1 or 2 towns nears to it or even more if the map is large and the difficulty setting is low. In communism every town but the capital needs a courthouse, this should have happened before the anarchy leading to communism.
I have a problem with waging war when my opponent is very big I mean in ancient era I could finish the war in about 6 turns but I happen to prolong my later era wars (can't meet my goals), I also believe poor planning on my part has to do a lot with this.
At the higher settings it tends to be the opposite. In early wars it is hard to make a dent against the AI. Against a strong enemy a good way to deal with it is to declare but donnot enter enemy territory for a few turns. Instead let the enemy move his offensive units into your territory and weaken those with artillery before attacking them. Also your allies weaken the enemy. After a few turns you go on the offensive to take a big chunk of the weakened enemy before someone else grabs it.
Eventually some or your units get promoted to elite and elite*. The later creates a great military leader which you should use to create an army which you fill with your the best kind of unit you have at the time. swordsmen, MedInfs, knights, cavalry, tanks and modern armour, but normally just one kind of them of course. Armies are very powerful and tend to be used best to take heavily defended cities.
In first ring cities they are not needed, as those don't suffer from corruption, and in any cities further out, they don't do anything. Explaining all the details would take some time, but the simplified version is: once a city is too far from the capital, the corruption is so high, that the effect of the Courthouse basically gets "rounded away".
That is quite untrue. Without anything corruption is always equal or less than 90%, with courthouse or police station itis equal or less than 80% and with both it is equal or less than 70%. VP and secret police HQ reduce those values by 70 percentange points, so 3 cities can have zero corruption.
The greatest effect do couthouse have when corruption is between 60% and the respective upper threshold. The corruption can be reduced by about 30 percentage points and for police stations it is quite smilar.
2.I was focusing way to much on city improvements where I got to the point of having every single upgrade in a city. As an effect my commerce isn't increasing in the way It should due to high maintainance costs and what's more just like tjs282 said they don't take full advantance because I put every science and commerce upgrades together...
I believe the maintenance costs are a minor concern before the mid of the industrial age. It is the lack of expansion that likely was the main impediment to greatness. That however requires shields put into an effective military which disenables you to use those shields for lesses purposes.
5.I also focused a lot in the creation of infantry (who needs so much protection in an archipelago map with railroads anyway) where I should be aiming for berserk and later marines.
Berserkers are an exception. Marines can be useful, but Tanks and Modern armour are the better attackers.
Usually cavalry is the most important attacker in the game. Your republic aims to have military tradition early and to maximize your military strenght measured in the amount of cavalry. Earlier wars tend to be less efficient because you lack shields or commerce to maintain an army. Later wars tend to be less efficient because defenders get stronger and war weariness gets more relevant because the amount of units grows a lot.
Let me add two more important Wonders to your list: Hanging Gardens and Bach's Cathedral. Usually they can be had much earlier than it is possible to hook up or trade for all 8 lux resources, so they enable you to lower your lux slider significantly or -- if your lux slider is already at 0% -- to grow your cities while keeping lux at 0%. Both of this gives you more commerce that can be directed into science!
Both wonders last for a long time (HG becomes available at the end of the Ancient Age and expires at the beginning of the Industrial Age, Bach becomes available in the early Middle Ages and never expires), both work world-wide, so they are useful, even if an AI on another continent builds them for you. All of this makes them extremely powerful.
Only drawback is: both require an optional tech, which of course you should not research in a fast science game. This is a problem on the lower difficulty levels, because it usually takes much too long for my taste, before the AI researches them for you. But at higher difficulty levels, it's usually not a problem, because the AI gets these techs pretty quickly, and sometimes even builds the wonders for you faster than you could yourself...
My thinking was that this town with mostly hills and mountains should produce my military units while my cities with grassland and close to river were producing settlers workers
Well, that's the way I usually do it. Nothing wrong with that?!
I even join workers (built in the high-food towns) into my hill/mountain cities to get them up to speed faster.
General rule for Wonders: never build them yourself, if you can get a nearby neighbor to build them for you...
Or in other words: "He, who builds a Wonder, has the Wonder -- he, who builds units, has the units and the Wonder"...
The exceptions to this rule are of course the wonders that need to be in your best core cities in order to show their effect, like Colossus, Copernicus, Newton, SETI, and of course the Wonders with a "one-time effect" like ToE.
This order may be ok for second- and third-ring cities, but in my first-ring cities I usually have a different order, because of the following factors:
First-ring cities have so low corruption that they need a courthouse only very late in the game (if at all). So I omit the courthouse.
First-ring cities are founded very early, at a time, when the techs for market and aqueduct are not even available. So I already build the library earlier, and aqueduct/market follow later when possible and needed.
Of course other factors play a role as well. High-food towns get a granary first and then build settlers and/or workers for a long time, so they get their buildings much much later, when all towns I need are settled and pushed to size 12. If I am up to a military game, I only build barracks and then units. (Maybe the occasional market, if I have many luxes and the game is going to take a bit longer.)
Earlier wars tend to be less efficient because you lack shields or commerce to maintain an army. Later wars tend to be less efficient because defenders get stronger and war weariness gets more relevant because the amount of units grows a lot.
Interesting observation. I never thought of it that way, but it has a lot to it. Now is it a coincidence, that the availability of the best attacker in the game (Cavalry) coincides with the point of time, when wars are most efficient?
It is a bit of coincidence because if your research is slower due to not having republic early enough or due to a higher difficulty setting, than you will not have the tech in time. While the net effect of a higher difficulty setting on research remains open to interpretation the net effect on economic and military build up of the AI will be clear. So at Monarch, Emperor and probably Demigod choosing for a republic to aim for cavalry works quite well. Above it keeping up with AI will not be as easy and without republic research will be remarkably slower.
ı won't challenge the difficulty of flipping a city , a discussion that seems to have stayed in the second page , but the thing is ı have had Civ III on and off during the last decade and encircling a target with my own cities have happened in only a few cases . Like it is a bridgehead sort of thing where the AI can marshall its forces and catch me unaware with a surprise attack into my core and ı can't attack him , because he has a long history of alliances with everybody else . Generally against me . Might solve a tricky problem in a period of peace , without too much a fuss . Unfortunately , fighting tends to be a better option in this game as well .
No. 6 content faces for 2 gtp is a good deal. 1 content face per 1 gtp may not be, but once you have a temple selling it is not so sensible. Culture is of some use after all. With 20 happy faces from luxury goods additional content faces may not be needed but they may help to trigger the WLTKD which reduces waste and assuming the production would be spent on wealth, than that difference can pay for the maintenance. But that is really quite long term, a reserve for times of war is the more important concern.
That order is a bit twisted by the effect market places have on luxury goods. courthouse, aqueduct, market place, library, university seems like a good order. If corruption is low courthouse become less important. If no aqueduct is needed it can be replaced by a granary. Cities with fresh water should be the ones to be founded first and they are likely to build workers and settlers to benefit from granary and they can exceed size 6, after which the food needed per growth doubles and so does the worth of the granary. The market place can be less valuable if luxuries are scarce or additional happy faces are not needed anyway. Often libraries before market place can make sense, also because one culture extension is needed to use tiles in the second ring of the city.
This order works relativly well for most victories, the decision which one to aim for can be made later. For culture one might want to build more culture buildings, but getting enough advantage(factor 2) over the second best civ usually requires war and having more cities is a main determinant for 100 k.
Universal Suffrage reduces war weariness by 1 in every city at the price of 0 gtp. All wonders costs no maintance. So if you have plenty production do build it. ToE and Hoover are the clear priority.
Ignore propaganda. It takes about 20000 gold to take a city that way. For purposes of corruption i like to use them in all cities but the capital and maybe 1 or 2 towns nears to it or even more if the map is large and the difficulty setting is low. In communism every town but the capital needs a courthouse, this should have happened before the anarchy leading to communism.
At the higher settings it tends to be the opposite. In early wars it is hard to make a dent against the AI. Against a strong enemy a good way to deal with it is to declare but donnot enter enemy territory for a few turns. Instead let the enemy move his offensive units into your territory and weaken those with artillery before attacking them. Also your allies weaken the enemy. After a few turns you go on the offensive to take a big chunk of the weakened enemy before someone else grabs it.
Eventually some or your units get promoted to elite and elite*. The later creates a great military leader which you should use to create an army which you fill with your the best kind of unit you have at the time. swordsmen, MedInfs, knights, cavalry, tanks and modern armour, but normally just one kind of them of course. Armies are very powerful and tend to be used best to take heavily defended cities.
That is quite untrue. Without anything corruption is always equal or less than 90%, with courthouse or police station itis equal or less than 80% and with both it is equal or less than 70%. VP and secret police HQ reduce those values by 70 percentange points, so 3 cities can have zero corruption.
The greatest effect do couthouse have when corruption is between 60% and the respective upper threshold. The corruption can be reduced by about 30 percentage points and for police stations it is quite smilar.
I believe the maintenance costs are a minor concern before the mid of the industrial age. It is the lack of expansion that likely was the main impediment to greatness. That however requires shields put into an effective military which disenables you to use those shields for lesses purposes.
Berserkers are an exception. Marines can be useful, but Tanks and Modern armour are the better attackers.
Usually cavalry is the most important attacker in the game. Your republic aims to have military tradition early and to maximize your military strenght measured in the amount of cavalry. Earlier wars tend to be less efficient because you lack shields or commerce to maintain an army. Later wars tend to be less efficient because defenders get stronger and war weariness gets more relevant because the amount of units grows a lot.
I see so I should always build aquadect/granaries and marketplaces/libraries depending on my goal and civ trait on my first ring since it is low on corruption and on my second and third ring cities I should prioritize courthouse or aquadect (is granary needed here?) depending on the corruption it suffers and library (maybe temple if I have religious trait?) to create some culture and take advantage of more tiles.
I always aim for ToE and gain atomic theory and electronics, however I have a bad habit of not making many factories which I know are really neaded to accelarate production and thus I discard (on most of my games) the hoover wonder, I will try to fix this. Also I am a bit confused about Universal suffrage should I build it after all or not?
I ignore propaganda but what about my citizens , just kidding got it !
Okay so if I get it right you're suggesting I make military alliances when I have comparable military might with the enemy so that I don't suffer huge losses and play it defensively until the enemy gets weakened from my allies conflict, right?
Yes I am aware of armies and I also put barbarians in hordes mode so that I can upgrade them to elites. I have a bad habit of having my elites killed in wars though and thus I do not gain many military leaders... I need to revisit war academy, I remember it mentioning some things about this subject.
I see so they do decrease corruption even if not by a lot. But building those in cities that suffer from such corruptions will take a while I have read something about pop rushing helping create them faster in despotism/communism should I make it a priority to buy them off if I don't have the option to whip them?
It's not that I am annoyed a lot about the maintaining cost I am already ahead of all civs in science however in my current game, however if I had used correctly the commerce in science I could have advanced scientificly faster and thus find faster that I didn't have coal and oil in my territory and do something faster. Still working on how to expand fast while maintaining good military units, I also heard that granary helps if the city has 3-5 food supplus.
I know armor is better but marines is the best I can do right now because I don't have oil. Also I am trying to attack with marines and capture a city with oil to produce better units but my galleys always sink because of privateers and enemy frigates. Perhaps I should accompany on galley with 2 frigates otherwise I don't see how I can keep up with the competition later on.
I always go for military tradition (favourite tech) but I must admit that I haven't build a lot of cavalry in this game since I doubted about their usefulness in this type of world setting (archipelago) but now that I revaluate I believe they could have helped weaken my enemies by fortifing to mountain and attacking passing enemy units.
Let me add two more important Wonders to your list: Hanging Gardens and Bach's Cathedral. Usually they can be had much earlier than it is possible to hook up or trade for all 8 lux resources, so they enable you to lower your lux slider significantly or -- if your lux slider is already at 0% -- to grow your cities while keeping lux at 0%. Both of this gives you more commerce that can be directed into science!
Both wonders last for a long time (HG becomes available at the end of the Ancient Age and expires at the beginning of the Industrial Age, Bach becomes available in the early Middle Ages and never expires), both work world-wide, so they are useful, even if an AI on another continent builds them for you. All of this makes them extremely powerful.
Only drawback is: both require an optional tech, which of course you should not research in a fast science game. This is a problem on the lower difficulty levels, because it usually takes much too long for my taste, before the AI researches them for you. But at higher difficulty levels, it's usually not a problem, because the AI gets these techs pretty quickly, and sometimes even builds the wonders for you faster than you could yourself...
Well, that's the way I usually do it. Nothing wrong with that?!
I even join workers (built in the high-food towns) into my hill/mountain cities to get them up to speed faster.
General rule for Wonders: never build them yourself, if you can get a nearby neighbor to build them for you...
Or in other words: "He, who builds a Wonder, has the Wonder -- he, who builds units, has the units and the Wonder"...
The exceptions to this rule are of course the wonders that need to be in your best core cities in order to show their effect, like Colossus, Copernicus, Newton, SETI, and of course the Wonders with a "one-time effect" like ToE.
If you aim for berserks, there will be no "later"...
This order may be ok for second- and third-ring cities, but in my first-ring cities I usually have a different order, because of the following factors:
First-ring cities have so low corruption that they need a courthouse only very late in the game (if at all). So I omit the courthouse.
First-ring cities are founded very early, at a time, when the techs for market and aqueduct are not even available. So I already build the library earlier, and aqueduct/market follow later when possible and needed.
Of course other factors play a role as well. High-food towns get a granary first and then build settlers and/or workers for a long time, so they get their buildings much much later, when all towns I need are settled and pushed to size 12. If I am up to a military game, I only build barracks and then units. (Maybe the occasional market, if I have many luxes and the game is going to take a bit longer.)
Interesting observation. I never thought of it that way, but it has a lot to it. Now is it a coincidence, that the availability of the best attacker in the game (Cavalry) coincides with the point of time, when wars are most efficient?
Quite a good addition I can say , I was aware that js bach cathedral was powerful but I completely dismissed the value of hanging gardens, until today that is.
About my point of having cities produce exlusivily military units and have others become settler/worker factories, It's not that I believe it was a wrong move but that I should have created a worker or settler when the city hit it's 6 pop limit. Generaly in this game I played a lot inefficient.
Already started following the worker addiction article advice from war academy so I have a rule to create only on wonder and the ToE and I plan on stealing the rest of the useful wonders .
Indeed if I had aimed for zerks I believe I would have won by now or atleast I would be in a much better position. I learned how to use them correctly when I asked for advice here.
Should I aim to put upgrades like library in my first ring as soon as I can and have the the second, third ring produce units? I am talking after expanding of course.
Quite interesting, another rookie mistake is that I don't truly commit to expansion as much as I should.
It is a bit of coincidence because if your research is slower due to not having republic early enough or due to a higher difficulty setting, than you will not have the tech in time. While the net effect of a higher difficulty setting on research remains open to interpretation the net effect on economic and military build up of the AI will be clear. So at Monarch, Emperor and probably Demigod choosing for a republic to aim for cavalry works quite well. Above it keeping up with AI will not be as easy and without republic research will be remarkably slower.
Universal Suffrage: completely useless... (Except for when going for 20K culture victory, as I said.)
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It depends on circumstances(not your long term goal, but rather geographic details of relevance). As a rule of thumb a city should have an aqueduct or a granary. Both would likely be inefficient. A granary instead of an aqueduct would lead to the end of growth at size 6. A granary after an aquaduct could make sense, but there are many other things that do need shields.
and on my second and third ring cities I should prioritize courthouse or aquadect (is granary needed here?) depending on the corruption it suffers and library (maybe temple if I have religious trait?) to create some culture and take advantage of more tiles.
Granary and high corruption donnot mix well. Corruption does not effect food, so production will be scarce, but food will not.
Temples are not needed before the industrial age. Libraries are a must and they do create culture. In rare cases temples may be preferable, but those circumstances are really rare. Waiting for the more expensive library will likely be preferable.
It is not a priority. But at the time railroads, factories and powerplants can have threefolded production and together with hospitals it its a fourfolding of production. So with production as ample as that there is no reason not to build it. When war weariness is a concern it saves 1 gtp on luxury slider which due to universities equals 2 gtp on science. That times 30 metropolises is 60 gtp at the price of 800 shields. There are worse deals.
Okay so if I get it right you're suggesting I make military alliances when I have comparable military might with the enemy so that I don't suffer huge losses and play it defensively until the enemy gets weakened from my allies conflict, right?
Yes. But comparable should be further specified. This strategy is mostly relevant if your are inferior and do need the allies. And even if you donnot need them making them join the war against your enemy helps weaken your allies and prevents them from joining the war against you. So comparable can effectively be cancelled from your formulation.
I probably would not do this. Land is more valueable when it is utilized by your civilisation. Also it does not work too well at emperor and above where barbarians are more dangerous.
I have a bad habit of having my elites killed in wars though and thus I do not gain many military leaders... I need to revisit war academy, I remember it mentioning some things about this subject.
The key is to use artillery first to redline your enemies, thus minimize your chances of losing units. When the initial phase of the war is over armies and the more replacable veterans can take over the fighting when slow artillery is too slow to reach the enemy in time. Elites can still attack weak defenders such as longbowmen or redlined units.
I see so they do decrease corruption even if not by a lot. But building those in cities that suffer from such corruptions will take a while I have read something about pop rushing helping create them faster in despotism/communism should I make it a priority to buy them off if I don't have the option to whip them?
Both pop rushing and gold rushing may not be the best choice. Disbanding of unneeded military makes the city it happens in regain 25% of the building cost. So disbanding MedInf gives 10 shields and disbanding cavalry gives 20 shields. Once you have replable parts you can use engineers that give 2 shields for construction at the price of 2 food that every citizen or specialists consumes.
Getting the techs military tradition, steam engines and replaceable parts has a high priority, so gold rushing is a bad idea and poprushing does create discontent. A substitute for poprushing can be to draft and disband the drafties where it suits most.
Having many cities and having cities of size 7+ helps with free unit support that is of great importance early on. Once you are a republic the amount of units must be under heavy scrutiny to minimize unit support.
A granary lets you keep half the amount of food consumed by gaining a new citizen. Effectively that doubles your net output of food. That does of course only help while that is beneficial because you can still grow. If you are stuck at size 6 or 12 a granary will do no good but cost 1 gtp. So too many granaries are not a good idea.
It really is size 6 vs. size 7 that makes a great difference. If growth is limited by lack of aqueduct gold rushing is usually worth it. Also courthouses can deserve gold rushing, but donnot overdo it either, those are just exceptions. You should be ready to build a capable military fast if needed.
I know armor is better but marines is the best I can do right now because I don't have oil. Also I am trying to attack with marines and capture a city with oil to produce better units but my galleys always sink because of privateers and enemy frigates. Perhaps I should accompany on galley with 2 frigates otherwise I don't see how I can keep up with the competition later on.
You should use frigates or better ships as protection and also to bombard the enemies in the town before you attack. Ironclads are good at this, but destroyers are much faster. If i were in your shoes i would probably gift the tech for oil to an unimportant remaining AI and trade for the oil. Building frigates or researching for ironclads would be a greater waste and not supporting your marines and transport ships is a great waste, too.
Should I aim to put upgrades like library in my first ring as soon as I can and have the the second, third ring produce units? I am talking after expanding of course.
It depends on circumstances. Libraries should have a high priority.
As a rule of thump it goes as:
1. build about 2 warriors for exploration of possible expansion.
2. build settlers for expansion.
3. build workers and meaningless units such as warriors as military police.
4. become a republic, disband now unneeded military.
5. build libraries.
6. build barracks.
7. build meaningful military.
For barracks to pay off you need to invest 40 shields for the barracks and further 120 shields to break even on hitpoints per shield. Military should be produced where production is ample. Artillery(with the exception of the korean UU) does not benefit from barracks. They can be build in lesser cities having nothing better to do.
It depends on circumstances(not your long term goal, but rather geographic details of relevance). As a rule of thumb a city should have an aqueduct or a granary. Both would likely be inefficient. A granary instead of an aqueduct would lead to the end of growth at size 6. A granary after an aquaduct could make sense, but there are many other things that do need shields.
Granary and high corruption donnot mix well. Corruption does not effect food, so production will be scarce, but food will not.
Temples are not needed before the industrial age. Libraries are a must and they do create culture. In rare cases temples may be preferable, but those circumstances are really rare. Waiting for the more expensive library will likely be preferable.
I see so the choice is aquadect for high corruption cities. Okay I thought that temples was not the answer as it was said repeatedly here but I just had to make sure.
It is not a priority. But at the time railroads, factories and powerplants can have threefolded production and together with hospitals it its a fourfolding of production. So with production as ample as that there is no reason not to build it. When war weariness is a concern it saves 1 gtp on luxury slider which due to universities equals 2 gtp on science. That times 30 metropolises is 60 gtp at the price of 800 shields. There are worse deals.
Okay Universal Suffrage has to be build only in rare cases and if I pretty much have made all the production related improvements, I have a strong army and if I have completed ToE and Hoover wonders.
Yes. But comparable should be further specified. This strategy is mostly relevant if your are inferior and do need the allies. And even if you donnot need them making them join the war against your enemy helps weaken your allies and prevents them from joining the war against you. So comparable can effectively be cancelled from your formulation.
Yes I see your point, I will be trying to bribe other civs to war with my enemy if I judge that I will have many losses from the war, but I won't be bribing with techs. A luxury or gpt will make the trick and if they back away I won't be paying them or provide a luxury to them.
Both pop rushing and gold rushing may not be the best choice. Disbanding of unneeded military makes the city it happens in regain 25% of the building cost. So disbanding MedInf gives 10 shields and disbanding cavalry gives 20 shields. Once you have replable parts you can use engineers that give 2 shields for construction at the price of 2 food that every citizen or specialists consumes.
Getting the techs military tradition, steam engines and replaceable parts has a high priority, so gold rushing is a bad idea and poprushing does create discontent. A substitute for poprushing can be to draft
Both pop rushing and gold rushing may not be the best choice. Disbanding of unneeded military makes the city it happens in regain 25% of the building cost. So disbanding MedInf gives 10 shields and disbanding cavalry gives 20 shields. Once you have replable parts you can use engineers that give 2 shields for construction at the price of 2 food that every citizen or specialists consumes.
Getting the techs military tradition, steam engines and replaceable parts has a high priority, so gold rushing is a bad idea and poprushing does create discontent. A substitute for poprushing can be to draft and disband the drafties where it suits most.
I see yes I can do that. Something confused me though because I think that drafting creates unhappiness as well. You meant to use it when I am in republic/monarchy/democracy as an alternative to buing upgrades?
I probably would not do this. Land is more valueable when it is utilized by your civilisation. Also it does not work too well at emperor and above where barbarians are more dangerous.
The key is to use artillery first to redline your enemies, thus minimize your chances of losing units. When the initial phase of the war is over armies and the more replacable veterans can take over the fighting when slow artillery is too slow to reach the enemy in time. Elites can still attack weak defenders such as longbowmen or redlined units.
Having many cities and having cities of size 7+ helps with free unit support that is of great importance early on. Once you are a republic the amount of units must be under heavy scrutiny to minimize unit support.
A granary lets you keep half the amount of food consumed by gaining a new citizen. Effectively that doubles your net output of food. That does of course only help while that is beneficial because you can still grow. If you are stuck at size 6 or 12 a granary will do no good but cost 1 gtp. So too many granaries are not a good idea.
It really is size 6 vs. size 7 that makes a great difference. If growth is limited by lack of aqueduct gold rushing is usually worth it. Also courthouses can deserve gold rushing, but donnot overdo it either, those are just exceptions. You should be ready to build a capable military fast if needed.
True granaries sometimes outlive their usefulness, also I didn't quite understood how they worked until now so thanks for the information . About rushing aquadects I asume the same applies for hospitals if the city is limit 12 and yes I won't overdo it as I was informed in this thread I tended to do just that and lose valueble resources and gold that could be used in army or for times of need.
You should use frigates or better ships as protection and also to bombard the enemies in the town before you attack. Ironclads are good at this, but destroyers are much faster. If i were in your shoes i would probably gift the tech for oil to an unimportant remaining AI and trade for the oil. Building frigates or researching for ironclads would be a greater waste and not supporting your marines and transport ships is a great waste, too.
The only two civs that have oil are Japan and America I tried to steal it from America because I didn't know that Japan had it only had 4 cities and I was hasty I can admit that now, they are far behind in science so I think I should make a ship full with marines, accompany it with two frigates and just take their oil. Then I will make strong ship units and submarines to steal the oil from America and gain a Monopoly. I believe it is the fastest road to victory (I could have taken the oil from America if I hadn't lost so many galleys. It's also worth noting that I have the ironclad technology but they need oil right?
It depends on circumstances. Libraries should have a high priority.
As a rule of thump it goes as:
1. build about 2 warriors for exploration of possible expansion.
2. build settlers for expansion.
3. build workers and meaningless units such as warriors as military police.
4. become a republic, disband now unneeded military.
5. build libraries.
6. build barracks.
7. build meaningful military.
For barracks to pay off you need to invest 40 shields for the barracks and further 120 shields to break even on hitpoints per shield. Military should be produced where production is ample. Artillery(with the exception of the korean UU) does not benefit from barracks. They can be build in lesser cities having nothing better to do.
My building order for first city usually goes like this:
2 warriors for scouting (I haven't played expansionists civs yet), granary if production is high and there is forest inside my first 9 tiles (I chop it to accelerate granary) and settler.
I don't know if it's as good as the order you suggested, also I sometimes make an extra worker before the first settler to help make a 2 tile road for the settler and I build a barracks in my second city for veteran archers/spearmen in general I don't disband very often. Indeed the artillery can be produced in cities that don't have barracks as well, I will keep this in mind.
I see yes I can do that. Something confused me though because I think that drafting creates unhappiness as well. You meant to use it when I am in republic/monarchy/democracy as an alternative to buing upgrades?
Yes, drafting gives unhappiness per drafted unit, but no, drafting is not an alternative to buying (unit) upgrades(?), it's a substitute for whip-rushing under those governments that usually use cash-rushing.
Justanick's saying to draft 'excess' population into whatever draftable unit you can currently build, move that unit (along your rail-network, which you should already have built) to where you need extra shields, and then disband the unit to put 1/4 of its shield-cost into whatever you're building. e.g. a Rifleman costs 80 shields, so 4 cRifles could build you a Courthouse in a town that would otherwise take too long to hand-build it.
Disband-shields don't work for Wonders though, so don't try that.
Depends on your aim. If you're happy with your Republic (and why wouldn't you be?), then the best use for 1-shield towns in 'irredeemably' corrupt areas is more likely Specialist farming. You wouldn't build any improvements in such towns, just maximise their irrigation, rail that irrigation, and use the excess food to support Scientists or Taxmen to produce gold or beakers.
Unless you've bee-lined directly to Sanitation (not recommended!) in the Industrial Age, then by the time you're building Hospitals, shields should no longer be an issue, so you shouldn't really need to (cash-)rush them.
Look at it this way: Hospitals are really only worth building in your core anyway, so that's only 15-20 towns on a Standard-size map that will be getting one, at most. If you have a Pop12 town producing 1.5 shields per tile, that's about 20 base-shields straight off (discounting corruption, because we're still in the core). A Hospital costs 160 shields, so once a Factory (needs Industrialization) + Coal-Plant (needs Industrialization) or Hydro-Plant /Hoover Dam (Electronics) have doubled that 20 base-shields to 40 shields, you'll get your Hospital in only 4 turns -- and that's a conservative estimate, because you'll likely be able to get around twice as many shields if the town is landlocked, and fully mined + railroaded (which it should be, by this point!).
And remember what I said before about planting your towns initially at C1-x-x-C2-(x)-x-C3? Only C1 (and later C3) would then get a Hospital: C2 would be shrunk and then abandoned, freeing up the space for C1 and C3 to expand into -- just 'encourage' the population to migrate where you want it to go (i.e. build Workers out of C2, and then move them to C1 and C3!)
Yes, drafting gives unhappiness per drafted unit, but no, drafting is not an alternative to buying (unit) upgrades(?), it's a substitute for whip-rushing under those governments that usually use cash-rushing.
Justanick's saying to draft 'excess' population into whatever draftable unit you can currently build, move that unit (along your rail-network, which you should already have built) to where you need extra shields, and then disband the unit to put 1/4 of its shield-cost into whatever you're building. e.g. a Rifleman costs 80 shields, so 4 cRifles could build you a Courthouse in a town that would otherwise take too long to hand-build it.
Disband-shields don't work for Wonders though, so don't try that.
I didn't explain it good enough but what you said is basically what I asked for. I can't whip in republic/democracy so I can use drafting as a somewhat alternative without spending cash. Also got it for your warning about the wonders .
Depends on your aim. If you're happy with your Republic (and why wouldn't you be?), then the best use for 1-shield towns in 'irredeemably' corrupt areas is more likely Specialist farming. You wouldn't build any improvements in such towns, just maximise their irrigation, rail that irrigation, and use the excess food to support Scientists or Taxmen to produce gold or beakers.
Unless you've bee-lined directly to Sanitation (not recommended!) in the Industrial Age, then by the time you're building Hospitals, shields should no longer be an issue, so you shouldn't really need to (cash-)rush them.
Look at it this way: Hospitals are really only worth building in your core anyway, so that's only 15-20 towns on a Standard-size map that will be getting one, at most. If you have a Pop12 town producing 1.5 shields per tile, that's about 20 base-shields straight off (discounting corruption, because we're still in the core). A Hospital costs 160 shields, so once a Factory (needs Industrialization) + Coal-Plant (needs Industrialization) or Hydro-Plant /Hoover Dam (Electronics) have doubled that 20 base-shields to 40 shields, you'll get your Hospital in only 4 turns -- and that's a conservative estimate, because you'll likely be able to get around twice as many shields if the town is landlocked, and fully mined + railroaded (which it should be, by this point!).
Oh so I shouldn't research sanitation until a little before modern era after I have build factory + any type of plant (also should I sometimes skip hospitals if for example I have a town with factory and nuclear plant and has awesome shield production, but perhaps I should always build it and put specialists in towns I have no need for extra shields)
And remember what I said before about planting your towns initially at C1-x-x-C2-(x)-x-C3? Only C1 (and later C3) would then get a Hospital: C2 would be shrunk and then abandoned, freeing up the space for C1 and C3 to expand into -- just 'encourage' the population to migrate where you want it to go (i.e. build Workers out of C2, and then move them to C1 and C3!)
Yes I remember your city planning tip , I assume C2 should serve as unit building only with barely upgrades like barracks since it's going to be abandoned later on.
Also shouldn't I build another city ring? Is the corruption unbearable after a certain distance?
If corruption is high courthouses should have priority. And if corruption is very high and expected to remain very high, than no buildings at all can be reasonable. Instead you use few tiles with high food to feed scientists in order to generate science cheaply and build a worker every 10 turns with excessive food. Such farms should be built very close, put as many towns in limited space as possible. Normally this would be harmful due to corruption, but if corruption would exceed 100% anyway(its upper limit is 90% or less) that does not matter. Free unit support does matter.
Okay Universal Suffrage has to be build only in rare cases and if I pretty much have made all the production related improvements, I have a strong army and if I have completed ToE and Hoover wonders.
If you do consider this to be a rare case you do need to improve your gameplay. Still i would like to mitigate strong military to sufficient military. There is no need to have unneeded units.
All production related improvements can probably be mitigated, too. If you do have ample production and nothing better to do build the wonder. Commerce is scarce, but production will become ample soon enough for Universal Suffrage. It is not a priority, but you run out of more useful things soon enough.
Yes I see your point, I will be trying to bribe other civs to war with my enemy if I judge that I will have many losses from the war, but I won't be bribing with techs. A luxury or gpt will make the trick and if they back away I won't be paying them or provide a luxury to them.
I see yes I can do that. Something confused me though because I think that drafting creates unhappiness as well. You meant to use it when I am in republic/monarchy/democracy as an alternative to buing upgrades?
Not exactly. It should be understood that both drafting and whipping creates 1 discontent per population lost. That discontent is reduced by 1 every 20 turns. It is seperately for the 2 causes and it does happen in each town seperately. So 1 every 20 turns is almost for free in terms of discontent. You can reduce unneeded population and create shields where needed.
About rushing aquadects I asume the same applies for hospitals if the city is limit 12 and yes I won't overdo it as I was informed in this thread I tended to do just that and lose valueble resources and gold that could be used in army or for times of need.
It does not apply the same. The relative usefulness is much smaller and the availability of shields will be much larger in the industrial age. Courthouses, aqueducts and harbours(food and trade network) can deserve gold rushing, but even that is rather the exception than the rule. If you are under attack gold rushing of military can be needed for sheer survival. There needs to be a proper trade off and a good diplomacy that mitigates risks. Having an embassy is worth gold.
The only two civs that have oil are Japan and America I tried to steal it from America because I didn't know that Japan had it only had 4 cities and I was hasty I can admit that now, they are far behind in science so I think I should make a ship full with marines, accompany it with two frigates and just take their oil.
How soon can this be realized? My intuition tells my that it is much wiser to just gift the techs to japan and get the oil ASAP. Donnot spend shields on outdated units. Your units should be of best quality possible. Donnot economize in a way that is the opposite of economical.
After 20 turns your army can be in place so once the oil imports are cancelled you can attack japan and annex it quite comfortably.
Look at it this way: Hospitals are really only worth building in your core anyway, so that's only 15-20 towns on a Standard-size map that will be getting one, at most.
30 at least would be the better estimate. At emperor as a republic with FP, courthouses and police stations the 35th city has a rank corruption of more than 50%, if your civ is a commercial one it is the 38th city.
Distance does matter under despotism and without courthouses. With FP, courthouses and police stations distance can be almost be ignored. What counts is the amount of cities. The capital has rank 0, the next one to the capital rank 1 and the one with rank 34 or 37 will be where corruption starts to become unbearable. It can still be reduced, but for it to pay off you would need to play very long, likely much longer than you need for victory.
If corruption is high courthouses should have priority. And if corruption is very high and expected to remain very high, than no buildings at all can be reasonable. Instead you use few tiles with high food to feed scientists in order to generate science cheaply and build a worker every 10 turns with excessive food. Such farms should be built very close, put as many towns in limited space as possible. Normally this would be harmful due to corruption, but if corruption would exceed 100% anyway(its upper limit is 90% or less) that does not matter. Free unit support does matter.
Yeah sorry for misunderstanding and about high corruption cities I will do what you said in early game and perhaps later on I could just build an aquadect by recycling units with the drafting ability and specialize most of the citizens to scientists/taxmen like it was suggested in the above replies.
If you do consider this to be a rare case you do need to improve your gameplay. Still i would like to mitigate strong military to sufficient military. There is no need to have unneeded units.
All production related improvements can probably be mitigated, too. If you do have ample production and nothing better to do build the wonder. Commerce is scarce, but production will become ample soon enough for Universal Suffrage. It is not a priority, but you run out of more useful things soon enough.
I have come to that conclusion because I get many mixed opinion about that wonder. I guess I will be building it after all but not until I have covered other more important aspects of the game like building units and certain improvements like you said.
Indeed I haven't thought of it and yes I sell some techs to slow the AI research speed and increase mine along with my commerce, I pretty much meant what you said.
It does not apply the same. The relative usefulness is much smaller and the availability of shields will be much larger in the industrial age. Courthouses, aqueducts and harbours(food and trade network) can deserve gold rushing, but even that is rather the exception than the rule. If you are under attack gold rushing of military can be needed for sheer survival. There needs to be a proper trade off and a good diplomacy that mitigates risks. Having an embassy is worth gold.
Yes I see your point later on I can pretty much produce at a faster rate compared to earlier eras, also I do understand about the exceptions (I cash rush harbors and military units on enemy contients/islands. I try to have good diplomacy most of the time and I build empassies whenever I have the cash for it (but I haven't mastered this aspect yet because I play average maps with not as many AI as large and huge maps do).
Not exactly. It should be understood that both drafting and whipping creates 1 discontent per population lost. That discontent is reduced by 1 every 20 turns. It is seperately for the 2 causes and it does happen in each town seperately. So 1 every 20 turns is almost for free in terms of discontent. You can reduce unneeded population and create shields where needed.
It does not apply the same. The relative usefulness is much smaller and the availability of shields will be much larger in the industrial age. Courthouses, aqueducts and harbours(food and trade network) can deserve gold rushing, but even that is rather the exception than the rule. If you are under attack gold rushing of military can be needed for sheer survival. There needs to be a proper trade off and a good diplomacy that mitigates risks. Having an embassy is worth gold.
How soon can this be realized? My intuition tells my that it is much wiser to just gift the techs to japan and get the oil ASAP. Donnot spend shields on outdated units. Your units should be of best quality possible. Donnot economize in a way that is the opposite of economical.
After 20 turns your army can be in place so once the oil imports are cancelled you can attack japan and annex it quite comfortably.
Yes I admitted my fault, I should have studied the map better as soon as I got refining.
Japan is very far behind in technology should I just gift them until they can trade it and also they possess only one reserve will they trade it?
I will try it this way if it is possible.
I thought they needed oil and so ended up not researching it. I know I can build them if I have the resources for 1 turn and put them in production but I will try a more decent approach and create modern navy units with your above advice.
Distance does matter under despotism and without courthouses. With FP, courthouses and police stations distance can be almost be ignored. What counts is the amount of cities. The capital has rank 0, the next one to the capital rank 1 and the one with rank 34 or 37 will be where corruption starts to become unbearable. It can still be reduced, but for it to pay off you would need to play very long, likely much longer than you need for victory.
Oh I see so corruption distance is only a problem in despo and without the neccesary improvements made. So should I stop making and capturing (I will destroy them instead) if I have 34-37 cities? What I mean is does corruption become a problem from the 35th to 38th cities and all the cities that follow or do they affect my previously made cities?
Yeah sorry for misunderstanding and about high corruption cities I will do what you said in early game and perhaps later on I could just build an aquadect by recycling units with the drafting ability and specialize most of the citizens to scientists/taxmen like it was suggested in the above replies.
The mixing oft scientist farms with aqueduct may not be the best idea. If you invest many shields into a city you might as well do it full scale with courthouse, police station, hospital and university. Corruption will be 70% at most.
Also keep in mind that you need at least 4 cities per army.
Yes I see your point later on I can pretty much produce at a faster rate compared to earlier eras, also I do understand about the exceptions (I cash rush harbors and military units on enemy contients/islands.
I donnot believe you should do the later. By the time you can afford to have a meaningful navy you can afford to have a meaningful army by means of regular production. No need to waste valueable cash.
That formulation is a tad to strong. It only can be almost ignored with courthouse and police station. Also it does not matter in communism, but that is a different story.
So should I stop making and capturing (I will destroy them instead) if I have 34-37 cities? What I mean is does corruption become a problem from the 35th to 38th cities and all the cities that follow or do they affect my previously made cities?
rank does primarily depend on distance to your one capital. The amount of cities further away from capital does not matter, just the amount of cities closer to the one capital does matter. So no need for genocide here.
You can have 35 or 38 metropolises with proper buildings, further away there is the place for the scienctist farms.
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Flipping a city is a huge effort and involves a very big chance factor. If the RNG gods are against you, you may wait forever...
, just kidding got it 
!
, I was aware that js bach cathedral was powerful but I completely dismissed the value of hanging gardens, until today that is.
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