In Desperate Need of Help!
- Thread starter Nothingspace
- Start date
Use Monarchy then and not deal with WW.
Sweetchuck
King
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2006
- Messages
- 649
When you take over a city and if you starve it down, turn the specialists into tax collectors.
Get a little boot out of the deal.
Get a little boot out of the deal.
D0NIMATRIX
Full of drivel
Start around chieftain or warlord, preferably chieftain. As was said, Civ3 is a universe apart from Civ2. It's a game you have to play on easy to get the hang of. Starting on the harder levels only makes you annoyed with the game.
Mike Hussey
Cricketer
lol
I think you should skip straight to CIV in this situation!
I think you should skip straight to CIV in this situation!
DS_Legionary
King
I'm somewhat of an old CivIII vet. Was playing and winning on random Emporer starts before CivIV came out (eagerly anticipating Revolution). I no longer have a comp that plays CivIV, but I can still play III so I'm back to the game that got me started with Civ for the time being. Keep in mind I skimmed through most of these posts, and without a screenshot or save it may be difficult to give really accurate advice. But I'll give it a go.
#1 DO NOT EVER PLAY CHEIFTAIN!!! You learn many bad habits on this level, and they are all hard to break. I started here, and it hampered my development for a long time, because I always wanted that wonder, I was used to always having a tech lead, and I never had to speed my expansion, because I always outpaced the AI. I see you haven't been playing much with Cheiftain so this is good.
#2 Forest chopping and pop-rushing. You seem to be focused on playing the higher difficulties and pop-rushing and chopping are, IMO, essential above Monarch. Need to complete that building a turn or two faster? Chop that forest. Need to crank out a library in a town that has no really productive tiles....pop-rush baby, pop will grow back, and they can't stay mad forever
Be careful though with pop-rushing, unhappiness can and will bite you in the ass if it goes unchecked.
#3 NO WORKER AUTOMATION!!!!! EVER!!!! These little units are arguably the MVPs of every game. The way to make up for the advantage the AI has above Regent is smartly used workers. You can maximize your city efficiency with these babies, ultimately making you more productive then the enemy AI. If you can outproduce him, even with the horrible RNG you can beat him. I've had games where I've fought with Swords and Trebs against rifles and won. It's hard and takes much more time, but use your workers smartly, outproduce the AI, and you can't lose.
#4 BUILD MORE WORKERS!!!! Far too often new players do not have enough workers. Don't build so many it drains your economy, but you need to have enough workers to transform your terrain quickly, and new lands you conquer from the AI as well.
#5 Slaves are good. What's better then a worker? A worker with no upkeep. Although they work slower, capture enough of them and you can replace your worker force with your enemies. (Wont happen often, even on Emporer AI workers are fairly hard to come by before the middle ages) Most games these bad-boys will be an excellent addition to your workforce, and by the end-game they are perfect for cleaning up pollution....again if you have enough, disband your workers and go to a completely slave driven workforce. Saves money....this leads me to my next point.
#6 Money = whatever you want.....so long as you can cash rush. If you can use cash t rush, money will build those improvements in newly conquered towns, research that tech to give you the edge, pump out those troops so you can destroy an enemy capital before it launches the spaceship. This is more a late-game tip, but don't be afraid to spend that money if you can.
I think most everything else has been covered. Don't build Ancient wonders above Regent as a rule of thumb. Regent you can usually nab one or two. Take them instead. 300 sheild for a wonder = 10 Swordsmen to take that wonder plus the profit of having a new city. To be honest, I don't ever build wonders before Industrial Age. Even then I usually only build Theory of Evolution and Hoover Dam, by the Modern Age the game is usually won, so tend to snatch up all the wonders to make up for the lack of early ones
The only exception to the wonder rule is if you're using the Great Library gambit. Though it is a crutch, and I don't recommend it while you're learning. It's more a necessity if you're on Deity and above. Demigod maybe, but I've dabbled in Demigod with some succes and I didn't find the gambit necessary.
Otherwise, like I said it's probably been covered already, close city spacing is much more superior to spaced out (though I've been guilty of keeping my cities next to my capital to spaced out myself) You can always demolish that city later if you need or want to. Again, it comes to the point of outproducing the AI....more cities = more sheilds earlier in the game when they count the most.
One last tip now that I think of it. Moonsinger was/is a god a CivIII. I learned alot of what I know from reading through some of his exploits. Moonsinger played a game on a modified Diety (before there was Sid) with basically the same settings as Sid. I'm too lazy to find it but it would benefit you greatly to read through it. It's very interesting to say the least. If I can find the post I'll update it here for you.....some old vets around may know the one I speak of and beat me to it.
Welcome and best of luck.
#1 DO NOT EVER PLAY CHEIFTAIN!!! You learn many bad habits on this level, and they are all hard to break. I started here, and it hampered my development for a long time, because I always wanted that wonder, I was used to always having a tech lead, and I never had to speed my expansion, because I always outpaced the AI. I see you haven't been playing much with Cheiftain so this is good.
#2 Forest chopping and pop-rushing. You seem to be focused on playing the higher difficulties and pop-rushing and chopping are, IMO, essential above Monarch. Need to complete that building a turn or two faster? Chop that forest. Need to crank out a library in a town that has no really productive tiles....pop-rush baby, pop will grow back, and they can't stay mad forever
Be careful though with pop-rushing, unhappiness can and will bite you in the ass if it goes unchecked.#3 NO WORKER AUTOMATION!!!!! EVER!!!! These little units are arguably the MVPs of every game. The way to make up for the advantage the AI has above Regent is smartly used workers. You can maximize your city efficiency with these babies, ultimately making you more productive then the enemy AI. If you can outproduce him, even with the horrible RNG you can beat him. I've had games where I've fought with Swords and Trebs against rifles and won. It's hard and takes much more time, but use your workers smartly, outproduce the AI, and you can't lose.
#4 BUILD MORE WORKERS!!!! Far too often new players do not have enough workers. Don't build so many it drains your economy, but you need to have enough workers to transform your terrain quickly, and new lands you conquer from the AI as well.
#5 Slaves are good. What's better then a worker? A worker with no upkeep. Although they work slower, capture enough of them and you can replace your worker force with your enemies. (Wont happen often, even on Emporer AI workers are fairly hard to come by before the middle ages) Most games these bad-boys will be an excellent addition to your workforce, and by the end-game they are perfect for cleaning up pollution....again if you have enough, disband your workers and go to a completely slave driven workforce. Saves money....this leads me to my next point.
#6 Money = whatever you want.....so long as you can cash rush. If you can use cash t rush, money will build those improvements in newly conquered towns, research that tech to give you the edge, pump out those troops so you can destroy an enemy capital before it launches the spaceship. This is more a late-game tip, but don't be afraid to spend that money if you can.
I think most everything else has been covered. Don't build Ancient wonders above Regent as a rule of thumb. Regent you can usually nab one or two. Take them instead. 300 sheild for a wonder = 10 Swordsmen to take that wonder plus the profit of having a new city. To be honest, I don't ever build wonders before Industrial Age. Even then I usually only build Theory of Evolution and Hoover Dam, by the Modern Age the game is usually won, so tend to snatch up all the wonders to make up for the lack of early ones
The only exception to the wonder rule is if you're using the Great Library gambit. Though it is a crutch, and I don't recommend it while you're learning. It's more a necessity if you're on Deity and above. Demigod maybe, but I've dabbled in Demigod with some succes and I didn't find the gambit necessary.
Otherwise, like I said it's probably been covered already, close city spacing is much more superior to spaced out (though I've been guilty of keeping my cities next to my capital to spaced out myself) You can always demolish that city later if you need or want to. Again, it comes to the point of outproducing the AI....more cities = more sheilds earlier in the game when they count the most.
One last tip now that I think of it. Moonsinger was/is a god a CivIII. I learned alot of what I know from reading through some of his exploits. Moonsinger played a game on a modified Diety (before there was Sid) with basically the same settings as Sid. I'm too lazy to find it but it would benefit you greatly to read through it. It's very interesting to say the least. If I can find the post I'll update it here for you.....some old vets around may know the one I speak of and beat me to it.
Welcome and best of luck.
MAS
Deity
A forum member named "WackenOpenAir" once argued that you should start directly at the difficulty level you want to learn to beat.
So if you want to become a Deity player, you should start at Deity and find a way to beat it.
This because different difficulty levels require different approaches, and moving up a level means you have to unlearn some habits that are bad for that level and re-learn new habits that are good. This is a "waste of time," so to speak. Simply starting at the level you want to be good at, you'll learn how to beat that level the soonest.
Nergal
Prince
I'd agree mostly, I've just dropped down to Regent play fun games. But I've noticed my performance against the AI is much better than it used to be.
D0NIMATRIX
Full of drivel
Slaves are free?
Well it's a good idea to get familiarized with units and stuff on chieftain, since you have a lot of them and a lot of modern ones. Chieftain is the basics.
DS_Legionary
King
Yes, slaves are free. Unless you pay yours. I sure don't, if I paid them.....they'd be workers.
As far as Cheiftain, yes you get acquainted with units and such but the bad habits you learn are entirely worse. You can lose gold every turn and have nothing in the treasury and not be penalized. (I had a hard time breaking that one for some reason) You will always get the wonder, so on and so forth. Start on Warlord. You still get a decent bonus against the AI (20% IIRC), so you can still get familiar with the units and such at a still leisurely pace while still playing b the same rules as you would on other levels. The handicaps on Cheiftain are just to unbeleivable. This is only my opinion, but I'd skip Cheiftain and start on Warlord.....
As far as Cheiftain, yes you get acquainted with units and such but the bad habits you learn are entirely worse. You can lose gold every turn and have nothing in the treasury and not be penalized. (I had a hard time breaking that one for some reason) You will always get the wonder, so on and so forth. Start on Warlord. You still get a decent bonus against the AI (20% IIRC), so you can still get familiar with the units and such at a still leisurely pace while still playing b the same rules as you would on other levels. The handicaps on Cheiftain are just to unbeleivable. This is only my opinion, but I'd skip Cheiftain and start on Warlord.....
I agree.
Warlord is easy enough to start with.
Slaves are free, I suppose. So I guess you pay upkeep for 'lost' workers??
You pay support for all units you build after you pass the free unit support for your government. That tends to mean that most of the game you pay some unit support for even workers, but slaves you did not build and hence they require no support.
bob rulz
Prince
One tip that's been mentioned but not emphasized enough:
Build offensive units! They're more useful than defensive units! If you're attacked, which you almost certainly will be at some point, you will absolutely need offensive units available immediately. You also definitely do not need 2 defenders in every city. I always leave at least once, because the AI absolutely loves to go after undefended cities, but under no circumstance do you need 2 defenders on every city.
Also, I don't know who said that space race victory is the hardest, but I always found cultural victory the hardest, personally.
Build offensive units! They're more useful than defensive units! If you're attacked, which you almost certainly will be at some point, you will absolutely need offensive units available immediately. You also definitely do not need 2 defenders in every city. I always leave at least once, because the AI absolutely loves to go after undefended cities, but under no circumstance do you need 2 defenders on every city.
Also, I don't know who said that space race victory is the hardest, but I always found cultural victory the hardest, personally.
Nergal
Prince
I just find there are so many factors in Space Race, tech supremacy then building all the components. It still seems to require war to get the land and resources. Before you actually get anywhere near building it you can have another of the victories quite easily. Cultural is easy, build early temples with a Religious civ, then get lit and build libraries and expand on that basis. Go to war, build more towns and fill them with temples and stuff and its dead straightforward. 20k culture VC is harder. I normally play with all VC possible, unless its a deliberate attempt at one in particular. I've won domination games where my culture is around 95k, and UN where I'm close to dominating or hitting 100k culture. And in those games I'm nowhere near a space race at all. My normal monarch level victories come at around 1760 or so. Tech level varies but I'd say I'm just building tanks so maybe late industrial to early modern ages. At Regent level the game can be over before I get steam power.
But I'd agree, build offensive units and keep building them. The worst mistakes I've made are pausing to build a university or something. I will build them but I do it by rotating cities so that only one of my most productive cities isnt building units at a time. And then only if its to build a Uni or a factory or something.
But I'd agree, build offensive units and keep building them. The worst mistakes I've made are pausing to build a university or something. I will build them but I do it by rotating cities so that only one of my most productive cities isnt building units at a time. And then only if its to build a Uni or a factory or something.
