Is it always this complicated?

[WarpZone]

I've started like five games so far, and each time, I've quit early, because at some point, some weird esoteric mistake I'd already made years ago came back to bite me in the ass at some inopportune moment.

It's like reality is out to get the player, and the AIs all abstract these problems away, so they don't suffer from them. From building my capital city on a flood plain, to getting caught without a garrisoned soldier when a friendly neighbor decides to attack, to my citizens just randomly being born evil and me with no money devoted to happy'ing them, I think I've stepped in nearly every bucket the game has to offer so far.

Is the game supposed to be like this? Am I just playing it wrong? Even after reading the FAQs and walkthroughs, even after carefully building and optimizing my little modest collection of towns, somehow I always seem to end up realizing too late that apparently everything I did was exactly wrong because there's some barbarian off in the darkness or my main center of production decided to start building the pyramids thirty turns ago without telling me and now I have to choose between wasting all the shields or going without that final spearman or settler I need in order to shore up defenses.

Is this esoteric complexity a desirable feature of 4x games my brain just isn't trained to appreciate? Or am I just doing it wrong, and once I find the right balance and play-style it'll start to gel better?

 

[Aabraxan]

Welcome to CFC, WarpZone!

Yeah, it really is supposed to be that complex. I've been playing for ~2.5 years and I still learn new stuff about the game. I guess that's one of the reasons that I'm still playing and expect to get several more years of play time out of C3C.

You may be frustrated, but the problems that you've mentioned can be solved.

. . . . It's like reality is out to get the player, and the AIs all abstract these problems away, so they don't suffer from them.

The AI suffers from its own set of problems. Keep playing and you'll begin to see that.

From building my capital city on a flood plain, to getting caught without a garrisoned soldier when a friendly neighbor decides to attack, to my citizens just randomly being born evil and me with no money devoted to happy'ing them, I think I've stepped in nearly every bucket the game has to offer so far.

First of all, just about all of us have stepped in those same buckets. Anyway, here's what I know about those specific problems:

Flood plains: can cause disease and kill citizens up until Sanitation. I think (but am not sure) that the problem is not that your capital is built on a flood plain, but that you've got a citizen working an FP tile.

Ungarrisoned cities: While this may seem to have the obvious solution of garrisoning every city, that's not really a great idea. Use fast movers (horses, knights, cavalry) to play a "zone defense." Check with your military advisor and try to remain strong as compared to your neighbors.

Randomly evil citizens: The number of content citizens in a city, before lux spending, luxuries and markets, is fixed according to your difficulty level. Look in the Civ III: Info Center for more information.

Is the game supposed to be like this? Am I just playing it wrong? Even after reading the FAQs and walkthroughs, even after carefully building and optimizing my little modest collection of towns, somehow I always seem to end up realizing too late that apparently everything I did was exactly wrong because there's some barbarian off in the darkness or my main center of production decided to start building the pyramids thirty turns ago without telling me and now I have to choose between wasting all the shields or going without that final spearman or settler I need in order to shore up defenses.

Barbs spawn in the fog between turns. Post lookout guys on mountains to move the fog further back and hunt barbs for gold. Sometimes, I'll intentionally leave an area foggy so that they've got a place to spawn. Then I leave a small stack of units that I think of as "barb farmers."

Also, go into your preferences screen and look for something like "always ask for build orders." That will make your cities ask for direction on what to build. Oh, and be sure that "always wait at end of turn" is on.

Is this esoteric complexity a desirable feature of 4x games my brain just isn't trained to appreciate? Or am I just doing it wrong, and once I find the right balance and play-style it'll start to gel better?

Truth be told, you're probably just making the same mistakes that many new players make. You'll get better, and here's my free advice. It's worth what you paid for it.

First, the best way to get advice around here is to post a save. We've got some outstanding players who will usually be glad to take a look at your save and give you some pointers.

Second, off to the War Academy with you! Look for Cracker's Opening Plays, Bamspeedy's Deity Settlers and Warmongering 101. They won't all make a lot of sense yet, but they're excellent articles.

Third, head down into "Succession Games," which is in the "Stories & Tales" forum. Look for Training Day Games (TDGs), as well as some of the higher level games. Read through those and you'll get a lot of good information on various strategies.

Fourth, there's a new thread in the "Strategy Articles" forum by vmxa. It's a tutorial for players struggling with Regent. He plays one game through the early stages and posts a detailed log of what he did and why. I'm afraid that I haven't read it in depth yet, but it looks good.

Good luck & keep us posted.

 

[WarpZone]

Well, I just played a game where I managed to secure a commanding lead. I'm not quite sure yet how I pulled it off. I suspect some of the factors contributing to my success were: lots of flat land, killing my closest neighbor early, figuring out how to properly tap strategic resources, having exactly two main production towns, forcing manual build orders, and lots of roads so the luxury bonuses to happiness get spread around a bit.

Is it just me, or does it seem like horsemen, for all their mobility and high stats, seem to die a lot? I could see burning through a few of them against a spearman in a city with lots of improvements, but one caveman with a flint knife shouldn't be able to take down an armed rider. That just seems nuts. Oh well, I guess the moral is, build more than you need, and make them all attack at once.

I'm down to one enemy culture. I'd be very surprised if victory wasn't inevitable by this point, since their treasury is tapped dry according to the negotiations screen. Bastards used a boat to drop a town on top of some of my colonies. I didn't realize they could do that. So, you know, I had to react to protect my people's interests. Just when I was thinking about switching from warmongering to Republic, too.

Oh well.

One thing I've noticed, though: The advisors keep telling me I need aqueducts to raise populations. And it's like, dude, I don't *want* population growth, okay? If you guys would agree to quit breeding I'd build you whatever you want, but the moment my back is turned you're just going to start popping out fully-formed disgruntled artisans with a torch in one hand and a pitchfork in the other, so screw you guys. No aqueduct. I've put too much work into this empire to let you idiots break it by having kids.

My culture will be forever remembered by archeologists for inventing birth control before the flintlock.

 

[vmxa]

Horses are defense of 1, so they are no better than warriors or archer on defense. The game figures out the att vs def for each round. So a horse will have some issue, but it can retreat.

Get those aquas in some of those places, you need the towns to become cities. If in Monarchy or Republic, after despotism, you get free unit support. How much is a function of government and town/city/metro.

Not only that, but cities can research faster and build faster.

 

[WarpZone]

Free unit support?

When I switched to Republic one time, it suddenly was charging me insane amounts of money to maintain my existing army, because my allowed size of my army was zero. I assumed this was how "war-weariness" was implemented. Are Republics supposed to be allowed to have an army? Based on the way it went down the one time I tried it, I assumed Republic was for extremely limited peacekeeping only.

 

[Aabraxan]

The free unit support that vmxa mentioned is for Conquests. There was no free unit support in vanilla (civ 3 w/ no expansions) Republics, so it will depend on what version you're playing. If you're playing Conquests, Republic has plenty of unit support for warmongering. There's an article in the war academy on war weariness. It's not caused by simply being at war. The biggies for WW are losing towns and losing units.

 

[Sashie VII]

vmxa's tutorial might be useful.

Republic is actually a good government. But to make it work you need some things in correct places, such as fairly high population, roaded tiles everywhere, markets, etc. Unit costs are high, so you make it work by making more gold, for instance. Here's a sample discussion thread about post-despotism governments.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Republics have to maintain a lean, efficient army, only defending their border towns. Also, a Republic needs cities for unit support and luxuries to keep the people happy. I am still working on maintaining Republics, and I have been playing Sid Meiers games for over a decade, this one at least 6 years.

 

[Optional]

Flood plains: can cause disease and kill citizens up until Sanitation. I think (but am not sure) that the problem is not that your capital is built on a flood plain, but that you've got a citizen working an FP tile.

You're right, but it comes down to the same thing, as the town centre is always worked, so there's no escape from the risk then. But it's not a big risk, and gets smaller as the game goes on, because the game uses some random time interval system based upon years, and the years pass slower and slower as the game goes on.

Barbs spawn in the fog between turns.

I've seen them pop up, it's just always away from borders.

 

[capnvonbaron]

@ WarpZone:

Make sure to cruise through the forum threads, there are quite a few "n00b needs help" topics in there that will probably solve a lot of your ails. Also, the war academy is a great start. Hope it works out for you.

Out of curiosity, what difficulty level are you having a tough time with?

 

[WarpZone]

Oh, this is the easiest difficulty level.

Without barbarians, even.

On a Tiny map.

It's the whole scope of the game, is the issue. The learning curve, not the difficulty level. I'm used to dealing with like action games or turret defense games. Simple things where all the information you need to know is on-screen at all times, threats are obvious, goals are intuitive, and generally you always know what you need to do, the only tricky part is pulling it off. This game is like you just turned on the lights in the kitchen, only to discover that the floor is covered with roaches, who all immediately scatter when the lights go on. Every turn is like that. Or so I thought. It turns out, rapid dominance does a lot for you on a small map.

 

[Aabraxan]

@ WarpZone -- I'm a big fan of "rapid dominance." It's very, very helpful.

@ Optional -- That makes sense on the FPs. I've never looked into the issue all that closely. As for barbs, interesting. I always thought they only spawned in the fog.

 

[capnvonbaron]

Rapid dominance is great on any map/difficulty level. Well, you are making the right move; here in the forums you will benefit from many others' mistakes and learnings. Here are a few things to get you started:

1) Beeline research your way out of despotism asap; monarchy or republic doesn't matter. You will grow much faster. Hunt for goody huts or trade with the AI to backfill your techs.

2) don't automate workers, the computer sucks big time. Mine green, irrigate brown. Build roads near rivers for the commerce (gold) bonus. Stay clear of jungle/floodplains/mountains early on, they waste worker-turns. You also want around 2 workers per city to make roads and improvements.

3) turn barbs to "sedentary". Goody huts are a great early-game tech boost. Occasionally they'll pop barbs, but you can take 'em!

4) don't build everything in every city; your capital doesn't need a courthouse any more than your distant cities need graneries. No Colliseums Anywhere. Also; selectively build wonders if you are in a good spot to build them. Wonders can be a great big shiny waste of shields (production). On cheiftan, you could probably build them all anyways, but its much more productive to build military and go take wonders from your rivals. That way you end up with wonders AND a decent military, instead of just a bunch of wonders!

5) remember, you can't build a settler until your city gets to size 3. So if your size 2 city is going to take 15 turns to grow to 3, even though it says the settler will take 10 turns to build, it will take 15. Build warriors or whatever until your city gets a bit larger.

6) make sure you are using your science/happy sliders under the domestic advisor. You want to adjust science to be pretty high early on; make sure not to research yourself into debt, tho. Every time a tech is one turn until completion, bump the slider down to the minimum value that will still get the tech in one turn; your treasury will thank you. You should be adjusting that slider a lot.

7)Attack the computer with large stacks. You are not going to take cities with a trickle, because the AI will heal between turns. Use artillery whenever possible to soften up defenders. Shock and awe!

7a) Make sure you understand the unit A/D/M, or "attack/defense/movement". Each has strengths and weaknesses. Consider a Longbowman: 4/1/1. That means his attack is a repectable 4, but defense is a meager 1. Verses a swordsman, 3/2/1, when you are on the attack, you are going to win approx. two battles for every longbow you lose. However, if the sword attacks the longbow, he will WIN on average 3 times to your one! If you are defending, you are better to do it with a pikeman, 1/3/1. The sword will lose at least one for every one it takes, even more if your pike is fortified! (defensive bonus; look in civilopedia) Oh yeah -- and read civilopedia a lot! It is a good source of info on many things.

8) You can largely ignore what your advisors say to you in the little upper-righthand-corner box. View the information they give you and make your own decisions.

9) you should NOT be having happiness problems on the easiest difficulty. Either you are not connecting luxuries, not using the happy slider, or using your gov't type the wrong way. Growth is great for core cities; but is largely expensive in distant ones. Make sure to use your forbidden palace wisely; I would place it three or four cities distant from your capital, and make sure it is equally surrounded on all sides by your cities (or AI cities you plan on "aquiring" ). It does little good to have a FB on the coast where half of it's corruption fighting effect is out over the water.

10) Place your cities fairly close together. A big newbie error is putting cities waaay too far apart. Each city can only work 11 surrounding tiles out of the 20 in the expanded "fat-cross", so make sure to overlap some. This will do three things:
a) tighter grouping = larger core of cities = less corruption
b) faster to settle/easier to defend (since settlers/units don't have to move as far)
c) better use of resources (fewer "wasted" tiles)
to give an example, cities should look something like this (C = city, X = tiles)

CXXCXXCXX
XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX
CXXCXXCXX
XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX
XCXXCXXCX

Obviously there is wiggle room to account for lousy terrain (like deserts, tundra, mountains) and bonus resource placement, but generally two-to-three spaces apart is good for starters. Its a bit complicated to explain, but just go with me on this

*whew* ok, there is a lot more, but that should help some. Good Luck!

 

[Rodrig0]

to give an example, cities should look something like this (C = city, X = tiles)

CXXCXXCXX
XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX
CXXCXXCXX
XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX
XCXXCXXCX

Obviously there is wiggle room to account for lousy terrain (like deserts, tundra, mountains) and bonus resource placement, but generally two-to-three spaces apart is good for starters. Its a bit complicated to explain, but just go with me on this

Isn't that placement too tight? That will only allow 8 tiles perc city! Shouldn't it be at least 11 tiles? like...

XXXXXXXXXXXX
XCXXXCXXXCXX
XXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXX
XCXXXCXXXCXX
XXXXXXXXXXXX

That's what I use, and it still leaves little room for wasted tiles, and every tile is used even before hospitals.

Changing preferences can also solve many problems. Mine are:

Always wait is mandatory, as it gives you time to watch what your people is left doing one last time, to be sure.
Wonder pop up to warn you when someone is building some wonder you want.
Disable pop warning to stop the advisor telling you when your towns need aqueducts.
Always renegotiate, so you don't have to check how many turns you have left of a luxury, and prevent a sudden burst of smoke in your cities in case you forgot to renegotiate trading a luxury... not to mention that in the mean time, they may have sold it to someone else
I don't like show and animate moves, but that's a personal choice here. I don't actually need to see every one of my stack of horsemen moving from one tile to another... I already know where they're going. And I recall the AI seems to like to move its units in its territory even if they're not going anywhere. I don't *want* to see that.
Cancel orders for enemies... that leaves your workers vulnerable, but helps a lot if you like auto bombard.
And for audio... well that's totally a personal choice here I like to play my music while playing C3C, and even with Sound FX off units still make sounds when they attack or sneeze. And for Music on... what does Mr Sid know about my music taste? I'd leave it on if C3C had at least some Moonspell songs, but otherwise, no thanx, I'll play my own

 

[darski]

You miss out on a lot of intel if you don't watch the enemy moves. you get so that you know what someone has in mind by which units they move and how. The AI does tend to telegraph its plans.

Always renegotiate deals is a matter of personal preference and many good/expert players recommend that you leave that un-ticked.

But then Preferences is just that... your personal choices.

 

[WarpZone]

So far I've been playing as Germany, because I like the military and science bonuses, and in general I just refuse all trades unless they want to give me tech for gold. I never bothered with renegotiation because the interface is so damn scary... you say "Let's make a deal" to get to the screen that shows you what they even have to offer, then you can only say "Duh, never mind, I'm a ******!" if they have crap. I was never really clear on whether or not saying illogical things (because the menu only GIVES you illogical things to say) worsens your reputation overseas, so for the most part I just go "KTHXBAI" to any and all trade offers. One time I even did this to a "get off my lawn" by accident, heh.

My preferred strategy hinges on rapid research and superior firepower, so giving technology to the enemy is not something I'm ever prepared to do. Especially not when they want tech AND gold, and their treasury says they currently have 0 gold, and my eyes near their border shows they're still in the stone age. Can you say status quo?

But then I usually end up faring pretty badly in a prolonged conflict. Random AI = one chaotic war of attrition. I almost feel obligated to wipe out the nearest empire, though, because if I don't, they'll catch up with me. Then there's two guys over on the other continent... what if they decide to team up against me? I don't know enough about the late game yet to know what would be prudent.

I have learned that jumping at shadows in the stone age isn't such a good idea. Sending archers or even horsemen against a town just because "you saw the luxury goods first" is rarely a win. Especially since the AI takes its time building roads, and there's apparently no penalty for destroying a road in no-man's land. You want the satellite colony that bad? Fine. Let's see you maintain it. Suckers!

 

[Aabraxan]

So far I've been playing as Germany, because I like the military and science bonuses, and in general I just refuse all trades unless they want to give me tech for gold. I never bothered with renegotiation because the interface is so damn scary...

Then it's time time learn the interface. My gaming history involves many years of hoarding techs, but trading is important in Civ 3, so I had to break that habit. I suggest you do the same. Look at it this way: The AI civs are going to trade techs amongst themselves, whether you get in on the action or not. If you do not trade, it's your research power against that of several AIs. If you trade, you get to take advantage of some of their research. At Chieftain, you can outresearch all of the AIs combined. As you move up in levels, learning to tap into their research power is very, very helpful.

My preferred strategy hinges on rapid research and superior firepower, so giving technology to the enemy is not something I'm ever prepared to do. Especially not when they want tech AND gold, and their treasury says they currently have 0 gold, and my eyes near their border shows they're still in the stone age. Can you say status quo?

Good trading is a whole dimension in this game and it's worth learning. If you research from left to right on the tech tree, rather than top to bottom (for example: Alpha->Writing->Code of Laws, rather than: Alpha->Bronze Working->Ceremonial Burial), you'll increase the chances that you get a monopoly tech, which you can then trade around for multiple techs.

Granted, at Chieftain, the AI won't have much to offer, but trading is valuable at higher levels (assuming you're not playing All-War or some no-trading variant). When evaluating a trade, here are some things that you should think about:

• Do I need it?
• Can I afford it?
• Can I sell it for a profit?
• What does the AI get out of it?

Once you really start looking at trades, you'll figure out what's a good trade and what's a bad trade. Read some of the SGs and you'll see lots of discussion of trading. Some trades are an obviously bad idea: Don't trade Feudalism to the AI just before you attack them with swords. You do not want to face pikes with those swords. OTOH, some trades are just fine: If the AI wants to trade me some workers and a large pile of gold for Music Theory right before I DOW and hit them with cavalry, I'll take it. What will the AI do with Music Theory? Start a wonder? That's OK with me.

But then I usually end up faring pretty badly in a prolonged conflict. Random AI = one chaotic war of attrition. I almost feel obligated to wipe out the nearest empire, though, because if I don't, they'll catch up with me. Then there's two guys over on the other continent... what if they decide to team up against me? I don't know enough about the late game yet to know what would be prudent.

First of all, I'd recommend Warmongering 101 - A Tactical Primer. Here are my pointers, for what they're worth:

• Civ 3 warfare is best fought in stacks. Pile up your best attackers and go sack towns.
• Use fast movers (horses, knights, cavs) that can either take out cities or retreat if wounded.
• Use artillery (including cats, trebs & cannons) to soften up defenders.
• After the first few regular warriors, build a rax or five and only send veterans and above into the field.
• Protect elites and use them for leader-fishing.

 

[capnvonbaron]

...you say "Let's make a deal" to get to the screen that shows you what they even have to offer, then you can only say "Duh, never mind, I'm a ******!" if they have crap. I was never really clear on whether or not saying illogical things (because the menu only GIVES you illogical things to say) worsens your reputation overseas, so for the most part I just go "KTHXBAI" to any and all trade offers. One time I even did this to a "get off my lawn" by accident, heh.

Don't worry about that, you can open up the trade talks as many times as you want and back out. The AI whines about you wasting its time, but it doesn't actually get ticked off. There are only a few ways to do that:

1) Demand stuff in tribute

2) Continually offer trades that could "insult" them, as indicated by your trade advisor (example of this would be asking for a trade embargo vs one of their friends)

3) Demanding them to "get off your lawn". In the easier levels, they generally comply, but as you increase in difficulty, if they sense any weakness on your part or any advantage on their part they will declare war.

4) Break gpt/resource/lux trades before 20 turns is up. That one will get everyone angry at you.

Braxy is right, though. You need to trade more techs. Don't worry if you are allowing the AI to stay within your same age; if you are even one or two tiers ahead of them you should be dominating. You also need to not research "junk techs" even if they seem like they will be quick. Spend 6 turns researching something important, rather than 10 turns researching a junk tech and then your important tech. The AI will always research all the techs in a given era before moving on to techs in the next.

An example: I never research music theory or free artistry if I'm not going for a culture win, chivalry if I don't have horses or iron, printing press, or navigation if I'm not going to be doing a lot of ocean travel. In the middle ages, that can save me anywhere from 20 to 30 turns that I can put into getting steam power, industrialization, and medicine while the computer is still tinkering away back in the middle ages. I will then gladly trade medicine for every tech in the middle ages that I lack, and many times I find the AI more than eager to give me every tech they have PLUS all the gold, maps, and resources I need.

Now in some cases I can still screw the computer in a wonder race even if they get the tech before me. A great example: I'll start a palace build in a coastal city right as I hit the IA, where nothing is really happening in the time period while I'm researching all those newly expensive Industrial techs. As soon as I find one of the AI with navigation, I'll offer up medicine for it, usually get all their gold, maps and perhaps a luxury or resource, and then switch the palace to "magellen's voyage" and complete it in very few turns before many of the AI have even had a chance to start building it. There I've done three things: I've used my researching for more important things, I've gotten a ton of stuff from the computer for what is really a semi-worthless tech that I needed to research anyways, (although truthfully, many people on the forums don't even research it), and I've still gotten all the benefits of that tech. Talk about bang for your buck!

 

[tombohnstedt]

I've started like five games so far, and each time, I've quit early, because at some point, some weird esoteric mistake I'd already made years ago came back to bite me in the ass at some inopportune moment.

It's like reality is out to get the player, and the AIs all abstract these problems away, so they don't suffer from them. From building my capital city on a flood plain, to getting caught without a garrisoned soldier when a friendly neighbor decides to attack, to my citizens just randomly being born evil and me with no money devoted to happy'ing them, I think I've stepped in nearly every bucket the game has to offer so far.

Is the game supposed to be like this? Am I just playing it wrong? Even after reading the FAQs and walkthroughs, even after carefully building and optimizing my little modest collection of towns, somehow I always seem to end up realizing too late that apparently everything I did was exactly wrong because there's some barbarian off in the darkness or my main center of production decided to start building the pyramids thirty turns ago without telling me and now I have to choose between wasting all the shields or going without that final spearman or settler I need in order to shore up defenses.

Is this esoteric complexity a desirable feature of 4x games my brain just isn't trained to appreciate? Or am I just doing it wrong, and once I find the right balance and play-style it'll start to gel better?

Regarding your post: "Is it always this complicated?". I would echo what everybody else has said here, and just sum it up this way: I think it IS supposed to be this complicated, and like others have said, you will get better over time and learn from your mistakes. And...as you get better you will see where the AI is terribly lacking, and you will wonder "why in the heck did that civ try to attack me that way???" After a while you may find yourself wishing it was MORE complicated, or at least, more sophisticated.

The best overall thing to remember is this:

Expand or Die. The bigger your civilization, the quicker you gain new technologies, the better your cash flow, and the better you are able to absorb things like attacks from enemies and natural disasters. In the early stages of the game focus on making as many new settlements as possible, while researching techs.

In the middle part of the game you will do a lot with diplomacy. Trade techs to gain new ones and keep up with your neighbors. Trade maps - Knowledge is power.

In the last part of the game just kick a lot of ass (unless you are trying to win through diplomacy). Get your hands dirty and use overwhelming force. Just keep conquering and expanding and increasing your tax base and your scientific output. Eventually you will gain a lot of momentum that will surprise you.

Another thing: If a neigbor attacks and you're not ready for war because you're too weak or not advanced enough, dont be shy about bringing someone else into the fray. ASk another civ neighboring your enemy for an alliance. this will distract your enemy and split his attention and military resources giving you some breathing room to grow stronger, build more units, and move in.

But: dont let your "Ally" do all the fighting. Sieze the moment to gain as much new ground as possible. If you let your ally take it he will grow stronger, and will eventually use it against you anyway. Take lessons from real history.

It's all about survival of the fittest. Expand or Die

P.S. One quick point on basic tactics: if you're at a point where you are using air power, dont just concentrate on bombing cities. My experience says that ground units seem to go down quicker when they are out in the open (Targets of Opportunity). That's a good way to thin out the herd. Also, do strategic bombing of resources. Remember, quite probably the biggest mistake the Japanese made at Pearl Harbor was not taking out the oil tank farms. Bomb roads leading to resources, strategic resources like oil and saltpeter and uranium to be sure, but even luxuries because they might be generating income in trade. Cut off the money flow too. Just because your enemey knows HOW to build tanks doesent mean you have to allow him the resources to actually do it.

One last tip, dont be afraid to trade, or even GIVE Steam Power to enemies you plan to conquer soon. If they've built lots of railroads by the time you invade, your campaign will go quicker. As each of their cities falls under your control you can quickly move in fresh units to the front by railroads that your enemy has convieniently built for you. Help them help you.

I dont think this really addresses all of your specific questions, but maybe you will find this useful.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

Just wanted to say thanks Warpzone. You had me near tears with your reminders of what my first few years were like with this game. I think there is a special enjoyment that only the ignorant can take part in. Once you start down the road of grasping ever more scope and detail it starts driving you crazy!!! I learned to deal with it by going to bigger maps and fewer AI opponents to give me some space to work out the mechanics of an expanding empire without having to deal with war every other turn. Good Luck