Help me get better at civIII

Perhaps you should learn how to play instead of putting down good advice. :rolleyes: To put it bluntly, everything you have said on this thread is wrong and you should listen to folks like MAS. You might learn something.

Listen to what!!! do you call that GOOD advise (are both of you having a laugh) The purpose of this thread on how to play the game ... or better still WIN that is way I play the game! not end up a stalemate situation ... or should I lose?

Looking what is available on the rest of the map
(http://img480.imageshack.us/my.php?image=continentnorthfi1.jpg)
it's 2950bc ... hmm

1. only one hill in view - I hope it contains iron :lol:

2. no other civs in sight - as of yet ... oh my god where did all these "Immortals" come from ... can you see under the fog of war?

Anyway, regardless what these "so called experts" decide on how you should play the game, do your own thing :) use the save option and dont be afraid to replay certain saves in the end you WILL get the knack of it ... preferably in in yuor own way
 
do your own thing
Um... he asked for advice on how to play this came.

@ Dutch fire: I think you should fortify your warrior on the chokehold (the square with the most southern ivory) so no foreign units will go through. Also, you do not need the ivory as of yet because the highest size of your cities should be size 3 until you stop your early expansion (you need a lot of settlers and workers so your cities will be below size 3).
 
Um... he asked for advice on how to play this came.

I have posted 3 times in this thread ... try reading the the other 2 or use my qoute in full

And yes a good piece of advice from "civverguy use the Choke point (to protect Paris and surrounding city's) ... but explore to the South, I know it's 2950bc but you do need access to more hills (or mountains) because you will need Iron.

My previous post(s) still count ... use "save" and try different options i.e. learn by mistakes or replay certain moves
 
Perhaps you should learn how to play instead of putting down good advice. :rolleyes: To put it bluntly, everything you have said on this thread is wrong and you should listen to folks like MAS. You might learn something.

Now you are taking the p!ss ...

What on earth could you two teach me :lol: just because I don't have as many posts as you (or MAS) you should not automatically imply that I do not know how to play the game.

Remember everyone plays the game differently, or should I be playing your methods ... nah don't think so
 
And yes a good piece of advice from "civverguy use the Choke point (to protect Paris and surrounding city's) ... but explore to the South, I know it's 2950bc but you do need access to more hills (or mountains) because you will need Iron.
You can use one warrior to protect the chokehold and the other to explore.
@ Dutchfire You can follow both Hydrogen's and MAS' methods to see which method is more successful .
 
Advice can be as good as it costs, or it can actually help. I try to keep my eyes open and decide about advice by trying it out and ignoring the personal nastiness that can crop up. And there are more ways than one to succeed, so no advice is 100% perfect.
 
Now you are taking the p!ss ...
Same answer you gave MAS, I see.

What on earth could you two teach me :lol: just because I don't have as many posts as you (or MAS) you should not automatically imply that I do not know how to play the game.
I didn't imply anything. I was upfront and honest. l said that you do not know how to play the game. You don't. Deal with it. This has nothing to do with the number of posts you have made. If you actually wanted to learn the game, you would listen to folks who know more than you. But it seems that your ego is more important to you than knowledge. :(

Remember everyone plays the game differently, or should I be playing your methods ... nah don't think so
Look dude, play the game the way you want. If you want to zero in on luxes instead of RAXing efficiently and building good low-corruption cities, go ahead. However, don't claim that everyone plays "differently" and that all ways work. Good players know the game and they all play more or less the same.

As I recall, MAS plays Emperor and is moving up rapidly. As for me, I find that level boring. Way too easy. Where do you play? Regent I would guess. Possibly Monarch. No way it could be anything higher. You simply can't go above that without understanding the slider.
 
I have a question for MAS, but first I like to say; MAS, I've read quite a few of your posts and I'm learning a lot from them. I would like to thank you for being a regular poster here!
But my question is about city placement: MAS, you're suggesting to put a ring of cities 2 tiles away from the capital. That's very close, you're gonna have a lot of overlap of city radius. MAS, is your decision to build so close based upon the terrain limitations- you simply have a very limited landmass around Paris, or would you even build so close when you would have more space available?
 
Same answer you gave MAS, I see.

I didn't imply anything. I was upfront and honest. l said that you do not know how to play the game. You don't. Deal with it.

Where do you play? Regent I would guess. Possibly Monarch. No way it could be anything higher. You simply can't go above that without understanding the slider.

Deal with it? oh sorry I forgot I'm talking to an "expert" ... yeah alright

For your info I play Emperor (have done for about 2-3 years)

Don't know how to play the game? try this save I posted (C3C)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=212341
 
Definitely build that granary. It will pay for itself immediately. Orleans should immediately start on a granary too. In civ3, you want to the granary to finish just before the cities grow. Otherwise you waste the food in the box. Once the granaries are finished, one city, probably Paris, should build a settler while the other trains a worker.


A granary is going to be helpful eventually, but in this case, it won't be for a while. A granary costs 60 shields, 1gpt maintenance, and takes 5 turns to fill up. The net result is double growth. Because of the grassland and no additional food bonus, this means the granary, in this case, has a value of +2 food.
Your first 4 cities after the capital also have a +2 food value, because they will all be near grassland, but a settler cost 30 shield, and 3 turns to reach their site and settle. In addition, these cities will also generate extra commerce, unit support and produce shields on their own.

Those granaries can wait, maybe they won't be build at all on this map.

More Lux in a such a dense area ... great ... so grab it, at such an early stage the more happy people you have is the most important thing (the less you have to worry about keeping them happy the better) personally I would prefer building a Settler than than a Temple (or using the lux slider)

Lux is good, but there is a time for everything. Grabbing those ivory is not going to be a problem in this case, so why worry about getting them a.s.a.p?
For the first 100 turns or so, none of his cities are not going to be past size 4, he will build a few more warriors between settlers that can be used for MP, and this difficulty level allows 2 natural content. with a little bit of luck, he won't need to use the lux slider at all until he finally grabs those ivory with his 7th, 8th, or 9th city.

And even if he does need to use the lux slider for a few turns here and there, I would value the early extra growth and power far more than the commerce lost to lux.

MAS, you're suggesting to put a ring of cities 2 tiles away from the capital. That's very close, you're gonna have a lot of overlap of city radius. MAS, is your decision to build so close based upon the terrain limitations- you simply have a very limited landmass around Paris, or would you even build so close when you would have more space available?

A bit of both.
Yes, if I had more land available, I would build the first ring a bit further away from the capital than I suggested in this case. Even If build the cities 2 tiles away anyway, (what I normally do) I would still prefer to avoid the one I suggested to be 1 tile away, right below the capital, but in this case, the small land mass makes it necessary.

But even if I had all the land in world, I wouldn't mind a bit of city radius overlap. Until you get hospitals, your cities are not going to be past size 12 anyway. If you avoid all overlap, you'll waste 8 out of 21 tiles per city for the first half of the game,(even more, as you'll have at least 4 to 3 tiles between cities that can't be worked by any citizen) the most important half, because by the time you reach the industrial age, you should be settled in your winning position.

And even then, metro's are often more costly than worth it, a hospital is 2 gpt upkeep, city-sizes above 12 cause pollution, lots of pollution (1 triangle per citizen above 12) and it will be more difficult to keep all those extra pop happy or content. (especially if you also have war weariness) And the extra production that a size 20 city has will not always lead to less turns to build a tank or modern armor. And even if it did, 2 size 12 cities could still build more tanks per turn than 1 size 20 (depending on the situation)
It helps for building wonders, but pre-builds will net you all the late game wonders you ever want anyway. (you can plan, the AI can not)

I would say, plan 12 tiles per city, (and a 13th for the core) especially in conquest, where the ring-placement is no longer useful.
Unless there is not enough food around for a city to grow that large anyway, then plan whatever amount of tiles you can possibly get the citizens for for.

INTARNET WAR

Please don't fight over my back, it makes me feel uncomfortable, and please don't give to many compliments and thanks in a row either, it also makes me feel uncomfortable.

I'm not the best player in the world.
For example: I learned the trick to determine when to use a granary and when not to from WackenOpenAir's posts.

I play mostly Monarch and sometimes Emperor, but that should not be an indication of the value of my comments. It is quite possible to win an emperor game while making lots and lots of stupid mistakes.
Some people won Deity games in the early days of Civ3, when no one knew how things worked and how to value stuff, just on their gut feelings. (though case by case calculations are still always better than gut feelings)
 
I don't play vanilla, so I may be off base here. With that caveat, Here's my 2¢:

I'd say build your core around the capitol first, then worry about the ivory. You've got furs, so the first lux is a gimme. Ivory only becomes important: (1) when your cities get big enough to need a second lux; (2) when you get a road network sufficient to trade with your neighbors; or (3) when you get mathematics. All three of those are a ways off. A strong core should allow you to build units sufficient to take the ivory by force if necessary.
 
Try keeping the discussion positive guys.

Anyway, I played some more. I met the English and made this trade. It looked good as it saved my some research and gave me some cash.


I moved my warriors to her city, and I was wondering if it would be good to attack her now. I could steal her warrior, and halt her economy.


And my homeland at the moment:


Long term, I'm thinking about going straigth for republic, and switch to that. However, I might need Map Making too, to meet the other continents.
 
If you can destroy the English before they make contact with other civ, you can Sneak attack them and get away with it without a reputation hit. It'll be a gamble though.

It may be better to let them in peace for a while, their land seems to be terrible, yours is a 100 times better. Expand until borders are about to meet, then have your attack force ready. (probably archers)
In the mean time, you can let them research an other tech or two for you, that you can trade for. Maybe they will research warrior code (archers) for you, and thats exactly what you need to attack them with. In the mean time, they will also pre-improve that horrible land a bit for you.
If you don't have anyone to trade with, you'll likely end up behind with the group of civ's on the other continent.

But do wipe them out once your borders meet. (without sneak attack, just to be sure your reputation is safe)

While I would normally advocate to research republic first, in this case, side-stepping to map-making, to make contact with the rest of the world would not be a bad idea, just make sure the English don't get it. (There is no philosophy slingshot in vanilla) And If it doesn't look like you can trade warrior code from the English in time, you'll have to research it yourself.
 
By the time those northern warriors get to London, London will have built a spearman. IMO it's too awkward to attack Victoria just now. But the future looks good; with those elephants, you should be able to build the Statue of Zeus. Make sure you build a barracks as well in the town that's gonna produce those ancient cavalries, so your cavalries get that extra hitpoint. When it comes to fighting Victoria, the Statue of Zeus is what I would gamble on.
 
Letting England in peace for a while is probably more productive and certainly much safer: if you immediately sneak attack and fail, you will be forced to make more units instead of expanding.

Also don't make a spearman in your 2nd town. Build a granary instead. +2 food per turn may look small, and it would be if you could build a worker pump elsewhere, but here it means 10 turns instead of 20 to recover the 2 citizens you will pay each time you build a settler. Anyway you cant build immediately a settler here.

About ivoiry & maths: Am i wrong or is SoZ a C3C feature?
 
No such thing as Statue of Zeus in vanilla civ3...

And I agree with the notion of not building a spearman, their use is very limited, though, if you hit the unit support cap (warriors would then cost to much upkeep) , can't build archers yet, and need to build something before you can start on a settler, a spearman my be the only thing left...
 
I've built another city, and I'm ready to plot down my last core city (1 S) of where my settler is now. After that I'm thinking about building a galley or too, and some more settlers. What should I use my newer cities for? Worker pumps? I'm feeling like I don't really have much use for my workers, but that is probably not correct :p

Note: I got Warrior Code from the English, as predicted :D
 
When you start building archers, make it veteran archers, build a barracks first in the city you decide to specialize for unit production.

You can build 2th ring cities about 2 or 3 tiles away from your 1th ring cities. make them coastal, and make sure that they are both the same distance from the capital. Then plant a city on one of the 1tile-wide land area, to create a kind of Panama-channel-city.

Beyond that, start thinking of a Second core with the Forbidden Palace in the English part of the continent.
If you are lucky, the war will give you a leader, safe that leader to rush the FP. Don't count on a leader though.

You will want to channel water from the Parisian lake to the plains area. you can eventually start using these corrupt cities to build workers and settlers from, allowing your core cities to grow.
If you run out of land to improve (there is still the English jungle to take care of though) you can join the workers back into cities to make them a larger size faster. This is especially useful for cities past size 7, it will make them reach their maximum size even faster than a granary could.
 
... and I'm ready to plot down my last core city (1 S) of where my settler is now.
That site would be at distance 4 from your capital, while your ring is at 3. You might want to consider moving the settler at SE instead, so he is on the ring again.
Also, look out for where the timber of the cut forests is delivered. Planing that is useful, it´s 10 free shields!
:)
 
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