Hi, new to civ III with questions

[yavoon]

I'm playing a game on emperor right now as americans, standard map, raging barbarians, blah blah. I have a fairly large continent to my lonesome and as such fell behind in tech. I've caught most of the way up towards the end of the middle ages by buying techs but I find now that the tech race is happening so quickly that I feel like I can't even use my units. All the computer opponents appear to be sharing pretty much everything with each other, I myself get a new tech every 6 to 10 turns. I just started making caravels in one city, but before my first caravel was done and could do much of anything I could make frigates. I tried to rearrange all my spears to make pikes but by the time they got back to their defensive positions I could make muskets. And some of my secondary core cities are still trying to build marketplaces!

I just dont see how this can end unless the computers start killing each other, they keep almost no money in the treasury and seem to be all but abhorent research whores. Is this normal? am I doomed to just whizz through the tech race or fall behind by some insurmountable margin? I kind of wanted to do stuff with caravels and frigates and musketmen, but now its time to start pumping riflemen and making armies.

 

[Little Corporal]

What difficulty are you playing on?

 

[yavoon]

What difficulty are you playing on?

emperor difficulty, and I just thought of another question. is there no real way to build ur forbiden palace far away from ur core unless u have a great leader? none of my more distant cities even with a courthouse have worked themselves over 1 shield, originally I had a whole area planned for the forbidden palace as it had nice resources. but the palace just aint gna finish 1 shield at a time. so I think I have to now bail on that idea and build it closer in now I suppose.

 

[Sashie VII]

@LC:

I'm playing a game on emperor right now

It was the first sentence

That's pretty normal, I think it's because the AI trade with each other at discounts. You just got to trade and broker a lot. Marketplaces still not built in core? Have you enough workers?

 

[yavoon]

@LC:

It was the first sentence

That's pretty normal, I think it's because the AI trade with each other at discounts. You just got to trade and broker a lot. Marketplaces still not built in core? Have you enough workers?

right now I have very few workers, though before I got to republic I had like 50. though I'm not sure what workers have to do w/ marketplaces finishing...

 

[Sashie VII]

Workers improve terrain, which would boost production. More workers means faster improvement, which leads to more production of spt, gpt etc.

What happened to your workers? How many cities do you have anyway?

 

[yavoon]

Workers improve terrain, which would boost production. More workers means faster improvement, which leads to more production of spt, gpt etc.

What happened to your workers? How many cities do you have anyway?

somewhere just under 30 cities, I think I built too many. pretty much every square on my continent is improved. I built boatloads of cities/workers/units for a longish time then got republic, jacked my smilie slider up to 30% and started massive joining of workers into my core cities.

 

[Sashie VII]

Was the joining after you've finished terrain improvement? Have you railed your empire completely?

Personally I can't think of a time when I've had too many workers, you just can't seem to build enough

 

[yavoon]

Was the joining after you've finished terrain improvement? Have you railed your empire completely?

Personally I can't think of a time when I've had too many workers, you just can't seem to build enough

I just got railroad, and that is an issue NOW because I dont have a terrible lot of workers anymore. and yes everything has been improved for a while. including useless squares in the borderlands where corruption owns me. I'm pretty sure I originally built enough workers, because I had so many cities most of them's sole goal was to put out a worker every 10 turns(not good for much else).

 

[vmxa]

A lack of workers tends to mean all worked tiles are not fully improved in time. That means loss of commerce/shields/food.

If that was not the case, then it was just an improper prioity as markets are very important to core cities.

One way for it to end is to get to the industrial age and the techs will be too expensive for most of the AI's to research quickly and to trade around right away.

Why do you have a bunch of spears and why do you want to upgrade them. Save the money for better things, rotate out a few muskets to the front and forget about spears.

 

[Sashie VII]

Even after I've completely railed my territory I usually keep a good number of workers for pollution (factories, which comes a bit later). Corrupt cities should become specialist farms. Oh, and I'd think that building offensive units should be better.

EDIT: cross-post with vxma

 

[Lord Emsworth]

The research pace will stall if you get them to fight. So, you could declare war on some and make MAs with others. Sow the seeds of war.

 

[yavoon]

A lack of workers tends to mean all worked tiles are not fully improved in time. That means loss of commerce/shields/food.

If that was not the case, then it was just an improper prioity as markets are very important to core cities.

One way for it to end is to get to the industrial age and the techs will be too expensive for most of the AI's to research quickly and to trade around right away.

Why do you have a bunch of spears and why do you want to upgrade them. Save the money for better things, rotate out a few muskets to the front and forget about spears.

yes I dont think workers are at the core of my play problems, perhaps efficiency with workers or other subtleties, but not numbers. I've irrigated entire deserts, built mines on most mountain ranges, cleared, roaded and mined/irrigated jungles. my continent be improved

and the new IA(which I just entered) will slow this down? and what do u mean forget about spears? u mean disband them? leave them to rot someplace?

as for the markets thing, the order is different in different places but market/harbor/courthouse/library I think were generally the first four I built. but say I needed a harbor to feed a larger population, then a library to kick the border out to reach more squares THEN a market(atleast thats how I did it). all the while I'm getting a tech probably every 4 turns(considering I'm buying them as well)

 

[yavoon]

The research pace will stall if you get them to fight. So, you could declare war on some and make MAs with others. Sow the seeds of war.

that would be interesting if I could pull that off.

 

[Obormot]

You have no time to build everything in your cities, that is perfectly normal. You should choose carefully and only build stuff that is most usefull.

For example happiness buildings like temples, cathedrals and colosseums are usually almost useless because they basicly do the same thing as the luxury slider (give happy faces, but consume gold for maintenance). They are a bit more efficent, but definitely not worth the shields invested.

Banks and stock exchanges are also quite useless. You should run the science slider as high as possible, so the benefit of buildings that give +50% to your gold is really small. For example if you are running 10% gold, 80% science and 10% luxury (very tipical for me at that point) a bank will only give you 2 coins in a city producing 20 commerce - totally useless since it also costs 2 coins to maintain.

Marketplace is the only exception because it also gives happiness and unlike religious buildings it can give lots of happy faces if you have enough luxuries and it is quite efficent. But it is also not a no-brainer, if you have only 2 luxuries it won't give you anything, if you have all 8 luxuries you won't need any buildings.

Alternatively you can build only gold improvements and no science improvements and buy techs for gold. Some people here like this method, but i prefer self-research so that i can research techs fast enough and in correct order . What you should know when doing self-research is AI priorities. They will research some techs ASAP and skip others untill later. Now if you go for techs that AI don't like you can get to them first and have a monopoly that allows you to trade very nicely. Sometimes you can get all AI techs, all their gold and all their gpt for one tech. There is an article somewhere that lists AI techs in order they'll usually research them (but there seems to be a mistake with goverment techs which should be higher then they are ranked). There is also luck factor involved here.

Good work BTW, building many workers and improving the continent fast. Most new players make a mistake of building too few workers 2 workers per city is a good number, but having more never hurts. And you can always rejoin them. You should also make sure that your cities grow fast, to do that you should MM your cities though since the governors will always try to balance food and shields which is not a good idea. Try to have +5 food everywhere and build aqueducts in time.

 

[yavoon]

You have no time to build everything in your cities, that is perfectly normal. You should choose carefully and only build stuff that is most usefull.

For example happiness buildings like temples, cathedrals and colosseums are usually almost useless because they basicly do the same thing as the luxury slider (give happy faces, but consume gold for maintenance). They are a bit more efficent, but definitely not worth the shields invested.

Banks and stock exchanges are also quite useless. You should run the science slider as high as possible, so the benefit of buildings that give +50% to your gold is really small. For example if you are running 10% gold, 80% science and 10% luxury (very tipical for me at that point) a bank will only give you 2 coins in a city producing 20 commerce - totally useless since it also costs 2 coins to maintain.

Marketplace is the only exception because it also gives happiness and unlike religious buildings it can give lots of happy faces if you have enough luxuries and it is quite efficent. But it is also not a no-brainer, if you have only 2 luxuries it won't give you anything, if you have all 8 luxuries you won't need any buildings.

Alternatively you can build only gold improvements and no science improvements and buy techs for gold. Some people here like this method, but i prefer self-research so that i can research techs fast enough and in correct order . What you should know when doing self-research is AI priorities. They will research some techs ASAP and skip others untill later. Now if you go for techs that AI don't like you can get to them first and have a monopoly that allows you to trade very nicely. Sometimes you can get all AI techs, all their gold and all their gpt for one tech. There is an article somewhere that lists AI techs in order they'll usually research them (but there seems to be a mistake with goverment techs which should be higher then they are ranked). There is also luck factor involved here.

well I used a lot of gold to catch up in tech, and in reality I was making I think 120 gpt(during the high point of my catching up) and buying things for 290-350ish so in reality I was getting new techs quite quickly. this was through the early to mid middle ages.

as for the other way around, getitng the computer to give me ungodly sums for techs, it hasn't happened, I've been able to get a few techs to try it on. but like I said earlier they never seem to have any gold and even modest gpt demands are met with "they be insulted." One time I was able to trade a 20 turn luxury for 4 techs, but those were all pretty non eventful techs that I probably haven't used to much extent.

I'd say 3 of my core cities have built pretty much everything under the sun. I've lost all the wonder battles thus far and they are my big shield cities so unless I want to make enormous armies I end up just puting up more city improvements. the rest of my core cities aren't like that though.

 

[yavoon]

Good work BTW, building many workers and improving the continent fast. Most new players make a mistake of building too few workers 2 workers per city is a good number, but having more never hurts. And you can always rejoin them. You should also make sure that your cities grow fast, to do that you should MM your cities though since the governors will always try to balance food and shields which is not a good idea. Try to have +5 food everywhere and build aqueducts in time.

most of my cities are pretty leveled out now in terms of how far they can grow. either reigned in by corruption or availability of food or both. I do have a decent amt of specialists up where I was originally gna put my forbidden palace(before I realized it would never finish).

 

[Sashie VII]

Don't build city improvements you don't need. They waste shields and upkeep (think colosseum ) Build good units or anything useful that you need.

This should help on understanding the AI's research priorities.

 

[yavoon]

Don't build city improvements you don't need. They waste shields and upkeep (think colosseum )

This should help on understanding the AI's research priorities.

then do what with the shields? build units I dont need? is there a way to outsource the shields? that wealth thing seems to be the biggest ripoff in the entire game. 19 shields for 1 gpt? if I understand it right atleast.

 

[yavoon]

so I guess its normal for the middle ages to blow by pretty quickly?