Hi everybody!

Tusike

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 27, 2007
Messages
17
I'm new to this forum, though I have been playing Civilization III since a long time. I need some strategy tips. My problem is that no matter what I do, I just can't reach the top of the tech tree by 2020 AD, and I have no idea why that is, and I'm nowhere near building a spaceship. I can't afford more than 70% of my income to help science. My idea is that the problem lays in the number of my cities. I only have about 10-15 cities by the end of the game, and I create 75% of these in the first 4000 years. After things get complicated I somehow never get to build another city, only when I need a city to aquire a resource. Thanks for any help!

-Tusike
 
I'm new to this forum, though I have been playing Civilization III since a long time. I need some strategy tips. My problem is that no matter what I do, I just can't reach the top of the tech tree by 2020 AD, and I have no idea why that is, and I'm nowhere near building a spaceship. I can't afford more than 70% of my income to help science. My idea is that the problem lays in the number of my cities. I only have about 10-15 cities by the end of the game, and I create 75% of these in the first 4000 years. After things get complicated I somehow never get to build another city, only when I need a city to aquire a resource. Thanks for any help!

-Tusike
Depends which level you're playing at. More cities would help boost income
and science. Are you at war and making lots of troops? My earliest space
win on Monarch was 1928 with all the techs and 8 future techs researched.
In the late game I wasn't at war, so devoted as many of my cities as poss.
to wealth and jacked my research over 80%. You can only really do that
in Democracy or Communism though.:)
 
If you want to win quickly via space you still need to have lots of cities. You get them best by annexing them from your neighbors. You want to make many beakerheads in those farms.

Lots of cities with railroaded tiles irrigated to allow most pop to be scientist. As in all games of civ3, other than culture wins, build only structures needed and only in places that can use them.

I don't care if you only use 40% on research, if you have scores of scientist, hundreds is even better.
 
First of all welcome to CFC, Tusike!

More cities is the easiest solution. You sound like quite a peaceful player so maybe you need to consider relieving a few civs of their prime real estate at the point of a sword

However that is not the only solution. I've managed to launch spaceships many a time with just 5 cities and also done it a few times with just one city so it is partly about setting up your empire to help research effectively. I'll talk about the things that you can do that don't involve aggressive play.

Too low a level can be tough because the AI will not give you much help. A pretty decent player can outresearch the Regent AIs playing a 5CC game. In this case you are on your own so concentrate on getting your own house in order. Some ideas for this are
  • Have enough workers to make sure that worked tiles are roaded.
  • Get to Republic asap. The commerce bonus is really important. Don't get fooled by the percentage of your income going to science-look at the net gold. (F1 screen)
  • Once you have republic, head for literature. Build libs in your core towns asap.
  • Don't build everything available to you and don't build more units than you need. Every building costs gp in maintenance and every unit above the free quota costs gold in upkeep. That money could be going to research so only build what you need. With units, quality rather than quantity.
  • Even on the lower levels the AI can help you at the start. Check who's in the game (F10) and don't research techs that they have. You can trade with them when you meet them. Just make sure that this is sooner rather than later by getting a few scouts/warriors out early looking for your rivals. They will also look to research some techs. See the link below but even the lowest level should give you a chance to trade for Iron Working.

On higher levels the techs cost more but the AI has a greater boost and so will help you research more. Learn what techs (s)he is likely to get for you and so avoid researching them yourself. You should go fo the less fancied techs and then trade with the AI. This article might help you decide which techs you should go for.

Hope this helps a little. You could always post a game save if you want more specific advice.
 
thanks for all the advice! So I started a game with 16 players in Vanilla. I don't think I'm doing really well, because I'm technologically behind, and don't have a lot of money... Anyway, I already conquered China, and am now trying to assemble an army that will help me get America, too. I'm war with them, England, and Persia. I'll try to upload the save-file. Please tell me how I can increase my income and make people happier! thanks

-Tusike

Edit: here is the save: <a href="http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/132002/Conquest.SAV">Conquest</a>
 
I've had a quick look and I'd like to repeat some of the things that I said along with some game specific advice.

1. Don't build things that you don't need.

You have some pretty useless buildings and top of the list is a courthouse in your capital. Your capital will not suffer corruption or waste so you are simply giving away money with buildings that are not worth it. The fact that you were spending more on building maintenance than on science should be of concern IMO.

2. Many people will tell you not to build temples and cathederals but to use the lux slider instead. Personally I think that they have their place in some games but only when they are needed so I'm tempted to lump some of them into the useless building catagory. (I don't rate colloseums though,; they really are not worth the shields or upkeep!) You've used both religious buildings and the lux slider and so you are spending more cash keeping people happy than you ned to. This could be spent on research. I left the buildings alone (even though I was tempted to sell them) but I did drop the lux slider to zero as no town needed it. I also put those specialists to work and this enabled me to double research as you can see from the F1 shots, before and after the alteration to the sliders.

commerce.JPG


3. If you want to research fast, use a representative government. At the moment you have one option: Republic. I ditched Monarchy and after a few turns I came out of anarchy (after razing an American town for a laugh) and adopted Republic. Now look at the F1 screen.

commerce2.JPG


Without doing much at all I've increased you science budget from 93gpt to 317gpt so you will research three times as fast. Maybe if you had been in Republic from the start you would be behind in the tech race.

I could talk about building some more towns on your island plus more on the island to the north but this will take time. What I have done has had an immediate effect. If you carry on with this game, I suggest that you switch those bank builds to settlers and workers. More towns=more commerce and you've got room for quite a few.

To be fair to you, the start was not the best as you were on a small island whereas many of your rivals were on a big continent. Getting rid of the Chinese must have helped so well done on that. (However you must have broken a deal with them as your rep is ruined. I couldn't trade that spare iron with the Romans for a tech as word has spread of your broken trades.) I am not sure how far into the IA your rivals are but I reckon that you could catch up. The AI get obsessed with Nationalism, Communism and Fascism which enables the human player to get the important techs.

Next time though, use Republic asap!
 
Thanks Tone! These tips help a lot. By the way, I did ruin my reputation, before I completely destroyed the Chinese (1 town left) I made a treaty with them in exchange for communication with almost every other nation, and most part of the world map. Then I just had to attack them... Next time I will make them declare war on me;)
 
[party] Welcome to CFC!

The most important part of the game is the start, there are a couple of important things you need to know in order to best take advantage of the way the AI works at the beginning of the game:

1) Your AI opponents will not generally attack you until all the available land has been claimed, until then - unless you provoke them or do something stupid like expose an undefended city to a Psycho like Ragnar Blockhead - you should concentrate almost entirely on founding new cities.

2) When deciding whether or not to attack you the AI places vastly more importance on your unit's attack capabilities than their defence. So just build warriors - you'll end up with more units overall because they cost less than spears, and the AI will therefore be less likely to attack you.

3) Use the luxury slider to maintain order, rather than use entertainers. This is important: turning a citizen to an entertainer stunts the growth and productivity of your city, which will hurt in the long run. Whether or not to build Temples or other happiness improvements is up to you, although the others are correct when they say they are not necessary.

To see how to get a really good start, look up Bamspeedy's settler factory game "Babylon's Deity Settlers" IIRC. Or SirPlebs "SIrPleb: Going for SId"
 
if you have enough money go a few turns with science at 100% and try to pop as many goody huts as possible
 
I was able to win the space race by 1975. Unfortunately, even though I was the most powerful nation, I still only got about 1000 points and am remembered as "Elizabeth the Cruel"... And I created a lot of cities, too! Maybe I need more than 25?

-Tusike
 
I still only got about 1000 points and am remembered as "Elizabeth the Cruel"... And I created a lot of cities, too! Maybe I need more than 25?

It sounds like you may be playing at Chieftain level. The game gives more points for playing at a higher level. If you got 1000 at Chieftain, that score would be multiplied by 2 at Warlord, 3 at Regent, 4 at Monarch, etc., giving 2000, 3000, and 4000 points respectively. It's very hard to get a high ranking on the beginning difficulty.

Also, in Civ3, 25 cities are rather few. On a standard map, it's not uncommon to have 100 to 200 cities, depending on the type of victory condition you are going after. Yes, most of those cities are highly corrupt, but they can be made more productive by using them as specialist farms.
 
I was able to win the space race by 1975.
Great news! Are you hooked yet? :)

I support everything that GMA has said. In fact reading her post got me thinking. Do you know about specialist farms? Do you know about settler factories?

I'd like to suggest that you visit the War Acadamy area if you want to improve some of your game skills. Don't be mislead by the title-it's got so much more in there than just a few words on how to beat up your neighbours more effectively. There are some fantastic articles in there that have helped me to improve my gameplay in a number of areas. Some are aimed at veteran players but most are accessable to everyone. Highly recommended if you can drag yourself away from the game to read them.
 
choose an expansionist civ on a pangea map, use the scout, and hopefully you should be able to find lots of goody huts and many techs in them
 
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