How do you compete in wonders against AI?

Kime11

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Feb 26, 2004
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Serbia
When playing more dificult levels?
I'm not very advanced,I can win easily on monarch,but not so good at emperor... the worst thing is advantage that AI has in growing (taking land) and building a wonder.... 20 % is to much there.... in building units and buildings isn't that important that advantage,but I can't stand looking him taking land in front of me, and building all wonders before me (I can't play without at least two wonders),and the worst part is when I go to wonder-race,and I loose all three wonders and have to switch to bloody coloseum loosing 400+ shilds.... don't have to mention that I can't have city AI build so easily at the start because of bonus units in them....
So how do you combat for land and wonders?????
 
Forget wonders. Most of them are too expensive for their cost. If you must build wonders, only build ones that are absolutely necessary, and pre-build them. (Build a palace, then when you get the tech, switch to the wonder)

For land, just forget everything but granaries, workers, settlers, and MPs. Learn how to make a settler factory. Don't keep your cities small.
 
what is settler factory (making city produce much food&settlers?),what is MP?
I think Sistine chapel is necessary,or Bach cathedral,but I lost even them as well as Leonardo's and those that build baracks (can't remember)... it is very hard to play against civs that has all these wonders?! Just how much gold they save per turn+ dont have to build all that stuff...
 
MP = Military Police

Sistine's is a bad wonder. 600 shields for doubling those useless cathedrals. If you take some luxuries from other civs and building markets in your cities (or build your cities close, keeping them small), you'll have no happiness problems.

JS Bach's is a good wonder, but it isn't necessary, since you can use the shields you would have poured to the wonder on military to take some luxes.

Leonardo's is a very good wonder, but by no means necessary. What will you ever be upgrading after Leo's? Kinghts to Cavalry, which is only 30 gold, anyways.
 
I agree with Tomoyo for higher level games. An exception may be the Statue of Zeus, which produces some tremendous military units, ancient cavalry.

For lower level games, the wonders are easier to justify.

If you can get theory of evolution, it can help a lot. I also like Hoover Dam.

Breunor
 
Yes but how to build Hoover Dam or Theory when they are ahead (not only with techs,but with bonus shilds-AI needs to build 80% for instance of wonder...)
It's been a while since I've played a fool game,but I do upgrade a lot of rifleman->infantry (100+) and tanks->modern armor,same 100+.
And if you put 600 shields in that Art of war or what was it,you save 40 shields in all cities+1gpt in every city (pure gold,without corruption),and this is for 300+ turns which is very good,especially earlier,when there is no gold... just for instance that was...
I never thought about building small cities,I was thinking the bigger the better,because I like to build everything that can be build in them,so it takes big city to be payable (I thing it wouldn't be there if it isn't worth,for each building...).
Nevermind,I still have to learn a lot....and you didn't told me about settlers factory?:)
 
Kime11 said:
what is settler factory (making city produce much food&settlers?),what is MP?

You have answered your own question, but a settler factory is a city which has a big food surplus and which mission in life is to produce settlers. For more details please see:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3acad_settler_factory.shtml


Regarding the wonders the higher you get, the less Wonders you should try to build. This is difficult! I like wonders and always feel tempted to build them but to win on higher levels you need to let them go.

I am still attached to a few wonders, namely ToE and Hoover Dam.
 
Settler factory is a city condition in which you arrange it so that a city produces a setteler every 4 turns. You have to have 5 excess food coming in with a granary along with the ability to generate 30 shields every 4 turns. Generally this is done by producing 7 shields during the first two turns and 8 during the second two. It's very nice when you can manage it, but most of my starts don't give me the opportunity. By the time I find a good place for one the expansion phase is nearly over.
 
Kime11 said:
So how do you combat for land and wonders?????

First of all, you´ld better listen to Tomoyo and forget about wonders...

If you really really can´t do without one: PREBUILD! Works best in a city that is not your capital so you can use palace or FP as a prebuild.
 
Cu Chulainn said:
Settler factory is a city condition in which you arrange it so that a city produces a setteler every 4 turns. You have to have 5 excess food coming in with a granary along with the ability to generate 30 shields every 4 turns. Generally this is done by producing 7 shields during the first two turns and 8 during the second two. It's very nice when you can manage it, but most of my starts don't give me the opportunity. By the time I find a good place for one the expansion phase is nearly over.
Or 6 the first turn, 8 the second turn, 7 the third turn, 9 the fourth turn. This assumes there is a forest, of course.
 
TimBentley said:
Or 6 the first turn, 8 the second turn, 7 the third turn, 9 the fourth turn. This assumes there is a forest, of course.
Bah, too much micromanagement, I much prefer the self sufficient ones.
 
I agree with Tamoyo-forget them. Once you have more land than the AI and have built the roads, you can out-research them and get a headstart on the MA/IA wonders if you really want to.

Just get a couple of granaries up and running in food rich towns to enable you take as much land as possible and to produce the workers to get the roads up that give you the commerce for research. Someone once offered the advice that if a town is using an unworked tile, your next build should be a worker and I tend to go with that. By the time you get to building ToE, the most advanced AI will be trying to get Nationalism!

If you can get a settler factory going-great! If you are lucky enough to get a start with two cows and three bgs, you can actually get a warrior-settler factory going, producing a warrior/settler pair every four turns. Awesome! The AI's advantage at Emperor is no match for the human in such circumstances.

If you want the AA wonders (eg going for 20K win), then you have to sacrifice some of your early development.
 
Here is a real good explanation of why not to build wonders if you are struggling to get better at the game:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3acad_wonderaddiction.shtml

As for forcing to learn things like better city placement, try the Rise and Rule mod :D (double your pleasure if you're using vanilla or PTW) If you aren't careful enough there you're really in trouble. Taking 3 food instead of 2 to support a population makes a huge difference!
 
Don't build wonders in youy capital, so you can switch to palace if you loose and switch back to a wonder once you get a new wonder tech.
 
I would be inclined to disagree with Tomoyo that Sistine Chapel is less useful than JS Bach's Cathedral. Three happy faces is better than two, and Sistine applies even off-continent. Cathedrals are absolutely necessary at high levels to keep large cities happy, even if you have 4-5 Luxs and Marketplaces. (This assumes that you aren't using ICS, which, IMO, is both cheap and unaesthetic.)

Wonders to consider:

The Statue of Zeus
The Great Library
The Sistine Chapel
Leonardo's Workshop
The Theory of Evolution
The Hoover Dam
The United Nations

None of those are necessary and all others aren't even worth considering.
 
I don't build the Great Library even on levels like Emperor, Demigod and above (maybe Sid if I tried though!). It just takes away some of the fun of the game I think.

Also, I don't go after any AA wonders - waste of shields, unless it's for the SoZ. Even in the Middle Ages, since I go after the top half of the tech tree, I don't build many. I may get lucky and build Sistine's or Smith's, but other than that, the only wonders I usually grab 100% of the time are ToE, Hoovers, and the ones beyond that. Once I get rails I can't be stopped...
 
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