Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
From another thread someone suggested I post my reply here so more beginning players will see this and it can be easily linked to for the FAQ. (I added some addition comments).
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You must try and get the Great Library wonder it can make a huge difference but hold off researching education - as it will negate the Great Library.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On chieftain the Great Library will be rather useless. If you build infrastructure properly and have contact with everyone, and have a good size empire, the player should easily outresearch the AI. Setting science to 0 on chieftain, it will take forever for the AI to finally get to Education that this may really slow you down when trying to get to the modern era. The one good thing about the great library is you might get techs like Polytheism or Monarchy for free, but if you have contact with enough civs, the techs are pretty cheap anyways, if everyone else has that tech. Holding off on education is dependant on whether you want to hold off on getting universities and getting Democracy (republic is better IMO, so I don't bother with Democracy), while you research the military end of the tech tree (Invention, gunpowder, etc.), while hoping the GL will get you Monotheism, theology etc. But even then you are slowing yourself down from not getting cathedrals built, and the Sistine Chapel.
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Four: American stink... choose a civ with a more scientific profile and a civ with a specific unit that come before the modern age. That should help you get a better start...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You don't need a UU to get a golden age, you can get it from wonders. Industrious is rather useful. Last game playing the French on Monarch level I got my golden age from the Colossus. Won by spaceship.
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Third: War War War War War... and democracy... war is a great way to expend quickly even if you do not want a military victory and if you don't want to be savage, at least take a good governement... no communism for the peace like...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
War is not necessary, but can help. By claiming more land you'll get more cities, and with war, you might get a great leader that can be used to rush the Forbidden Palace for example. It would be smarter just to stay in Republic than to keep going in and out of anarchy when switching from Democracy to a war-time government.
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Six: in your major cities and most importantly in those with the wonders I talk above, place scientist. You can change them in the city view by removing citizen from the working squares, that gives you an entertainer that you'll need to change to a scientist by clicking on them. That should improve your city science's production.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NO, NO, NO!!! Not in your major cities. In your low-corrupt cities you need as many citizens working the tiles as possible, because all of the shields/commerce they bring in is uncorrupted, plus the libraries, universities multiply this gold. Scientists add just 1 beaker and their beakers do not get multiplied from libraries or universities! In the high (95%) corrupt cities, then scientists would be good, because the beakers are corruption immune. You just need enough food to feed these specialists, of course.
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have not played chieftan in quite a while and can't remember much about it. Is this another surprise from Firaxis? In the editor it has a tech rate in each difficulty level, but that is supposed to be for AI only.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Difficulty does not slow down the human's potential to research.
EDIT: With PTW, and the latest Civ3 patches, it does cost the human more to research on higher levels, so the above statement is no longer really true. On chieftain-warlord, techs are cheap for the human, but since you will have little help from the AI, the tech pace will be slow.
The reason it seems that on lower levels it takes so much longer to go through the tech tree is because:
1. On chieftain, after you get the first couple of techs that the other civs start with or techs they got from goody huts, you pretty much have to research all of them yourself. On higher levels you can trade quite a bit for other techs that you didn't research yet alot further into the tech tree. Trading industrial age techs for example happens alot more on the higher levels than chieftain. In the industrail age, it takes the AI 40 turns for every tech it seems. It takes the computer so much longer to build infrastructure that they do not have the resources to research those expensive techs.
2. On lower levels, due to poor infrastructure, the AI has no money to give the player to help/trade the player to speed up his research.
My suggestions: Like has been said before, make sure you have roads everywhere. click on a city and zoom in, see which tiles are being worked. Make sure those tiles have roads on them (don't completely ignore mines/irrigation though). Build Libraries, courthouses, universities, etc. Make sure your people are happy, entertainers won't help you at all in production or research, so secure some luxuries and build happiness improvements. Don't place cities 1 tile away from a coast, because then you can't build harbors and that will stunt your growth and commerce. Build cities on rivers whenever possible. I recommend being a Republic if you want to take the scientific route. Ignore the dead end techs unless you really need it for a specific wonder/military unit/government, etc. Let the AI research those techs for you and buy it from them. Or if you are at the same speed technologically as the AI is, researching those dead-end techs might be smart because you could trade that tech for some others.
On chieftain I recommend having the science bar set to 70%, or the highest you can afford and still make a little gold each turn. If you end up with too large of a treasury, either use the money to rush improvements or increase science even more, even if you are losing a little money each turn. Try to get Copernicus's Observatory and Newton's University in the same city. In the last game I played I had both those wonders, plus colossus in my capital and when I set science to max, I was making over 200 beakers/turn from just that one city. Later on, I got SETI program in that city also, but the spaceship was launched just a few turns later.
Whenever you are 1 turn away from getting a tech, adjust the science meter (F1 screen) and see if setting the science rate lower for that turn will still get you that tech that turn. Any extra beakers does NOT get passed onto the next tech.
I will shortly make a thread on trading and post the link here, so you can get some tips on trading, also. Edit:http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24553
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You must try and get the Great Library wonder it can make a huge difference but hold off researching education - as it will negate the Great Library.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On chieftain the Great Library will be rather useless. If you build infrastructure properly and have contact with everyone, and have a good size empire, the player should easily outresearch the AI. Setting science to 0 on chieftain, it will take forever for the AI to finally get to Education that this may really slow you down when trying to get to the modern era. The one good thing about the great library is you might get techs like Polytheism or Monarchy for free, but if you have contact with enough civs, the techs are pretty cheap anyways, if everyone else has that tech. Holding off on education is dependant on whether you want to hold off on getting universities and getting Democracy (republic is better IMO, so I don't bother with Democracy), while you research the military end of the tech tree (Invention, gunpowder, etc.), while hoping the GL will get you Monotheism, theology etc. But even then you are slowing yourself down from not getting cathedrals built, and the Sistine Chapel.
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Four: American stink... choose a civ with a more scientific profile and a civ with a specific unit that come before the modern age. That should help you get a better start...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You don't need a UU to get a golden age, you can get it from wonders. Industrious is rather useful. Last game playing the French on Monarch level I got my golden age from the Colossus. Won by spaceship.
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Third: War War War War War... and democracy... war is a great way to expend quickly even if you do not want a military victory and if you don't want to be savage, at least take a good governement... no communism for the peace like...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
War is not necessary, but can help. By claiming more land you'll get more cities, and with war, you might get a great leader that can be used to rush the Forbidden Palace for example. It would be smarter just to stay in Republic than to keep going in and out of anarchy when switching from Democracy to a war-time government.
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Six: in your major cities and most importantly in those with the wonders I talk above, place scientist. You can change them in the city view by removing citizen from the working squares, that gives you an entertainer that you'll need to change to a scientist by clicking on them. That should improve your city science's production.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NO, NO, NO!!! Not in your major cities. In your low-corrupt cities you need as many citizens working the tiles as possible, because all of the shields/commerce they bring in is uncorrupted, plus the libraries, universities multiply this gold. Scientists add just 1 beaker and their beakers do not get multiplied from libraries or universities! In the high (95%) corrupt cities, then scientists would be good, because the beakers are corruption immune. You just need enough food to feed these specialists, of course.
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have not played chieftan in quite a while and can't remember much about it. Is this another surprise from Firaxis? In the editor it has a tech rate in each difficulty level, but that is supposed to be for AI only.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Difficulty does not slow down the human's potential to research.
EDIT: With PTW, and the latest Civ3 patches, it does cost the human more to research on higher levels, so the above statement is no longer really true. On chieftain-warlord, techs are cheap for the human, but since you will have little help from the AI, the tech pace will be slow.
The reason it seems that on lower levels it takes so much longer to go through the tech tree is because:
1. On chieftain, after you get the first couple of techs that the other civs start with or techs they got from goody huts, you pretty much have to research all of them yourself. On higher levels you can trade quite a bit for other techs that you didn't research yet alot further into the tech tree. Trading industrial age techs for example happens alot more on the higher levels than chieftain. In the industrail age, it takes the AI 40 turns for every tech it seems. It takes the computer so much longer to build infrastructure that they do not have the resources to research those expensive techs.
2. On lower levels, due to poor infrastructure, the AI has no money to give the player to help/trade the player to speed up his research.
My suggestions: Like has been said before, make sure you have roads everywhere. click on a city and zoom in, see which tiles are being worked. Make sure those tiles have roads on them (don't completely ignore mines/irrigation though). Build Libraries, courthouses, universities, etc. Make sure your people are happy, entertainers won't help you at all in production or research, so secure some luxuries and build happiness improvements. Don't place cities 1 tile away from a coast, because then you can't build harbors and that will stunt your growth and commerce. Build cities on rivers whenever possible. I recommend being a Republic if you want to take the scientific route. Ignore the dead end techs unless you really need it for a specific wonder/military unit/government, etc. Let the AI research those techs for you and buy it from them. Or if you are at the same speed technologically as the AI is, researching those dead-end techs might be smart because you could trade that tech for some others.
On chieftain I recommend having the science bar set to 70%, or the highest you can afford and still make a little gold each turn. If you end up with too large of a treasury, either use the money to rush improvements or increase science even more, even if you are losing a little money each turn. Try to get Copernicus's Observatory and Newton's University in the same city. In the last game I played I had both those wonders, plus colossus in my capital and when I set science to max, I was making over 200 beakers/turn from just that one city. Later on, I got SETI program in that city also, but the spaceship was launched just a few turns later.
Whenever you are 1 turn away from getting a tech, adjust the science meter (F1 screen) and see if setting the science rate lower for that turn will still get you that tech that turn. Any extra beakers does NOT get passed onto the next tech.
I will shortly make a thread on trading and post the link here, so you can get some tips on trading, also. Edit:http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24553
