I Wanted to be a Builder

[Eclectic99]

Vanilla Civ3. I've always been a total warmonger. After reading posts here I decided to reform and become a peaceful bulder. So I played Greek (instead of Persian), continents, large map, intending to pursue peaceful scientific research and win by out-teching everybody, smart trading etc.. At beginning, I made settlers like crazy and grabbed as much land as I could. Result was the continent was divided 10 cities for me, 9 for the French, and 15 for the Aztecs. French also had a few cities on a nearby island. After a while I had Pyramids and Great Library. French had Oracle, Aztecs had Colossus and Lighthouse. As a chess player of sorts I know a losing position when I see one. The only way I could see to win would have been to clean out the French while trying to avoid war with the Aztecs, then clean out the Aztecs later. So much for peaceful good intentions. Will some succcessful builder tell me how he/she does it? Doesn't seem to work for me.

 

[Knowze Gungk]

The secret to being a sucsessful builder is to kill everyone, thus creating a peaceful world to buld in.

 

[Bismarck]

It's not possible (or extremely difficult) to be a pure builder on the higher levels.

Think of building as something to engage in between wars

 

[Eclectic99]

In the poll, 65% said they were master builders and I wanted to be like them...now I know I am like them!!! Glory Hallelujah!! I'm so glad I'm not really a warmonger just because i have to wipe out an AI civ or two along the way.

 

[china444]

I like war much better. Actually, I get really big in the beginning, then goto war.

 

[Henry_X]

You almost can't prevent going to war with the civ closest to you and often with others too. Let France and Aztec fight , by MPP and provoking/declaring a war. Make sure you got settlers and a lot of defensive units ready to get all available place. Don't go to heavy on offense, just get the cities you want and let the Aztec do his damage.

If you have artillery you can bombard cities to size 1 then fill them up with your settlers to prevent flipping back ( especially with a country as France ).

I'm pretty sure you'll have to kick the Aztecs'*** too, befor the game is over. Build a lot of ships , preventing other nations too reach your continent and destroying your infrastructure. Ships count for a lot in your civ's power.

 

[zagnut]

With the understanding that I don't know on what level you are playing and haven't seen your map, I think you can still win as a builder. If you can get ahead in techs -and this is the key - then you can win by space or diplomatic. You have to build up your military - mainly defensive, but also some offensive - because the AI can always attack. However, if you are strong it will probably leave you alone. The fact that many of the other civs are on other continents gives you an advantage in playing a builder game. The AI is lousy at conducting amphibious invasions. It does it without concentrating its forces. Therefore, it is usually easy to defeat.

Stay on good relations with the other civs by giving them techs and luxuries. As long as you can stay ahead of them you can give this stuff away. It will generally improve their attitude toward you, but not always. That's why it is important in the later game for you to get the UN. That way you can control when the elections take place and not have them if the other civs are angry with you.

If they are angry, you go for a space victory. If not, you go for a diplomatic victory.

 

[MadScot]

Originally posted by Henry_X
If you have artillery you can bombard cities to size 1 then fill them up with your settlers to prevent flipping back ( especially with a country as France ).

That's a common misconception, but it's not the way culture flipping works.

What matters are the number of foreign citizens AND the number of tiles in the 21-tile 'fat x' that are not under control. The number of your citizens in the city is irrelevant.

So, all other things being equal, a size 1 city is equally likely to flip as a size 25 with 1 foreigner. And the size 25 with 2 foreigners is more likely to flip.

Rather than adding your settlers to a town, the only sure guard against flipping is to raze or abandon, and use your settlers to found a new city. (Other than massive military garrisons)

 

[Henry_X]

Thx MadScot, didn't know that. Anyhow, filling up with settlers gives a faster production.

 

[MadScot]

Workers are a more productive means of transferring population - 10 shields per pop point. Settlers are 30 for 2 pop, so they are 50% more expensive in shields.

Plus you can use workers for other things first, then join them to a city - settlers aren't much use if you don't plan on building a city otherwise.

Since I normally have a fair few workers, and assuming you have been capturing enemy cities you may have a fair few slave workers too, you can spare some to join to a city if you want to increase it's production.

In fact, if the city is not at size 1 when you take it, build workers to shrink it down to one as fast as possible, then add some of your own back if you wish, or just let it grow. The slaves will be slower, but they are free.

 

[jack merchant]

Actually, if you have the Pyramids and the Library, I'd say your position is the stronger onne, as you'll quite likely have higher population even with your lower number of cities. Also, you can run minimal science up till education, meaning sackloads of money to rush infrastructure. That infrastructure will help you take a technological lead once the Library expires, plus you'll gain another tech due to being scientific. Plenty of room to still be a builder IMHO, as long as you maintain a strong enough army.

 

[Txurce]

Eclectic, the level you're playing at is a big factor, but ten cities is enough to win the space race... and you could theoretically found more offshore. All you have to do is stay close in research - and close doesn't even mean close all the time. You could sit back, save your money, build markets, banks and Wall Street, then buy your way back into the tech race, prebuild and "steal" the ToE, and win going away. Even without the ToE, you can win the space race if you're a couple of techs behind in the modern age.

 

[MadHatter]

Originally posted by MadScot

What matters are the number of foreign citizens AND the number of tiles in the 21-tile 'fat x' that are not under control. The number of your citizens in the city is irrelevant.

True, but bombarding before taking the city lowers the number of foreign citizens in the city once it's taken, which as you stated, is a factor in determining chance of flip.

So, it does lower culture flip chances to bombard.

 

[Gothmog]

Try never declaring war on anyone. Just don't do it. Even give in to reasonable demands - let a few troops pass through your territory - then win by Diplo. Imagine you are truly the leader and the population is human and not bites (this assumes you love humanity of course). I was a big time builder when I first got civ3. I wanted to learn about the AI in peace, not in war. Most of my early wins were Diplomatic - and I almost always fought exclusively defensive wars. As Txurce says ToE was a big part of my strategy (and of course Fission with a prebuild in place).

 

[peace_frog]

Eclectic, as others have said, it really depends on the level you are playing, but I would say you are in a strong position. Either Diplomatic or Space victory should be easy.

First of all, being a builder doesn't mean you can never go to war. I call myself a builder, but I fight 1 to 3 short term wars throughout the game to expand my territory or handicap a neighbor. My wars usually only last 20 turns if I brought in a partner in a miliatry alliance.

Whichever goal you go for, effective trade will make things much easier. So don't break any deals or sign any MPPs. MPP will draw you into wars you don't want, forcing you to break trade deals. If you maintain the tech lead, you can bankrupt neighbor civs and make them reliant on you by selling techs. If you go for the UN, tech brokering will keep everybody polite, and if you give the last round of techs as gifts before the UN vote many will go to gracious, gauranteeing you victory. For the space victory, you just need 3 to 4 powerhous cities and be on tech parity. Just pay attention to the techs you need to launch your ship and ignore the rest. The AI gets sloppy with its space race, they investigate meaningless techs for it so just being on parity gaurantees you success.

 

[Eclectic99]

Thanks for your very good points here. As for the game on which this thread was based, I had already given up and quit without saving because I thought I was militarily too weak to continue. I've always been subjected to having AI Civs declare war on me for no apparent reason. Never thought it was possible to go through a game without having to defend myself from my more powerful neighbors at some point. Now you tell me that isn't necessarily so. OK. I'll try being a peace-monger and see what happens.

 

[MummyMan]

I used to be all builder when i played civ 2 and the lower levels of civ3 up to about regent. Then i tried that on monarch, out-expanding AI, being number one in research, all of it. It doesn't work, it just doesn't. So i had to change my strategy and set my science rate really low, and go to war every so often to get tech parity (even with everybody else in tech). Around the industrial age you want to be able to start researching for yourself because tech gets really expensive to buy, also because you can out-produce the AI by building factories and improving terrain (something the AI doesn't do as much as they should). So yeah, do that, in pangea games the AI get into wars easily, which you can avoid doing and catch up.

 

[peace_frog]

Mummy, I'm playing an emporer game, I'm at 1425 AD and have not fought a major war yet (I usually have one by now, so that isn't normal). I think I have a good shot for either a diplomatic or space victory. The only challenge with diplomatic for this game will be getting the UN, but I should be able to prebuild and tech trade for that.

So you can be peaceful at least up to emperor. I agree you have to set tech at 0 most of the time but you can stay in the middle of the pack tech wise by trading.

 

[Michael York]

CAUTION: adding slave workers adds population of that nationality! Workers produced possess the same nationality as the citizen they remove from the city in which they are produced.

 

[anarres]

MadScot:

IIRC, there is a x2 modifier in the culture flip formula that is only there if there are more foreign nationals in the city than you own citizens.

So, while adding lots of settlers to a size 1 city will not stop a flip, adding 1 settler to a size 1 city will cut out that modifier and half your changes of it flipping. Adding more than that will just increase the number of you citiens you stand to lose if it does filp.