Late Game problems

[civ4lyfe]

Now I don't know if this is just me, but unless I lose a game early, or win one early I rarely finish my games.

Right now, I play on warlord(inno noob) but I am still getting used to this game.
It seems to me that the first half of my game, I am the top in everything...happiness, military, gold, population and technology.

As the game goes on, the first thing I notice I go down in is my tech. Slowly, other civ's that were even with me, have far surpassed me, and I can't even make viable trades anymore as they won't trade me for the latest techs. even if i have a ton of gold to pay for it. The only time I have advanced tech is the ancient and med. eras. It seems once I get to the Industrial, I dont really know what techs to research and the AI just seems to blow me out of the water at this stage.

Next is military, usually there is only one other civ besides me that has a stronger military, at this stage in the game. They usually grow a stronger military, because they go to war and completely demolish another civ, therefore bigger civ, bigger military.

The last is culture. As the game goes on, I find my cities deposing to other civs, especially of civs that I recently warred with and the cities still have their citizens in them.

When I have to start dealing with my cities deposing, and rioting which comes often with late game I usually just quit or start a new game at this point.

Maybe it's just that converting my pop. to entertainers and building a happiness building everytime my cities revolt, gets a little too repetitive for me, and this seems to happen quite often late game.

I also feel that changing govts. usually kills me late game, especially since some take 5 or more turns and I'm totally missing out on research, money and production.
The thing is though, i usually go with despotism until I research communism. Is that what's getting me? I usually dont even waste my time researching monarchy, republic or democracy as they aren't necessary to advance.

My play style is I usually expand until there is no room, then go to war with my weakest neighbor, while steadily keeping good research levels at about 70 or 80%. So is there another govt. for my play style... What is my late game problem?

 

[Aabraxan]

. . . .As the game goes on, the first thing I notice I go down in is my tech. Slowly, other civ's that were even with me, have far surpassed me, and I can't even make viable trades anymore as they won't trade me for the latest techs. even if i have a ton of gold to pay for it. The only time I have advanced tech is the ancient and med. eras. It seems once I get to the Industrial, I dont really know what techs to research and the AI just seems to blow me out of the water at this stage.

Are you trying to buy techs outright, or pay gpt (gold per turn)? If the latter, there may be a problem with your reputation. If you break per-turn deals, it ruins your reputation, and makes trading difficult.

The other thing that I suspect is that you may be choking your economy with buildings. Just because you can build something does not necessarily mean that you should. Build only those improvements that push the empire towards victory. One of my favorite Civ sayings: A city needs nothing. The question is, "What does the empire need for the city to have?"

Next is military, usually there is only one other civ besides me that has a stronger military, at this stage in the game. They usually grow a stronger military, because they go to war and completely demolish another civ, therefore bigger civ, bigger military.

How much are you paying in unit support? That could also be choking your economy. If you have a massive military, you should go use it.

The last is culture. As the game goes on, I find my cities deposing to other civs, especially of civs that I recently warred with and the cities still have their citizens in them.

I stink at culture. My rule of thumb: if they have enough culture to make my cities flip, that's one more reason to burn them down. At Warlord, that really shouldn't be an issue, though.

I also feel that changing govts. usually kills me late game, especially since some take 5 or more turns and I'm totally missing out on research, money and production. The thing is though, i usually go with despotism until I research communism. Is that what's getting me?

Yes! The despotism penalty is killing you! Generally speaking, Republic is preferred for (at least semi-) peaceful games, and Monarchy for All-War. You're spending a full age of the game in a crippling government when you don't have to.

I usually dont even waste my time researching monarchy, republic or democracy as they aren't necessary to advance.

Even though they're not mandatory, getting out of despo is huge and needs to happen much sooner than communism.

My play style is I usually expand until there is no room, then go to war with my weakest neighbor, while steadily keeping good research levels at about 70 or 80%. So is there another govt. for my play style... What is my late game problem?

Your late game problem is (I suspect) caused by the early game problems I discussed above. The best advice I can give you is this: post a save of a game in which you're having the problems you mentioned. Then we can get a look at what's really going on.

 

[Puppeteer]

I highly recommend visiting the Civ III War Academy, a collection of strategy articles posted to this forum. It has helped me a lot.

Tech increases in price as the game goes on. There are big jumps at each age change. The trade value of a tech has lots of components, but note that techs that reveal resources and/or allow a new government or an unbuilt wonder carry a premium. It's very difficult to trade for Feudalism, for example. You also have a "reputation" that may make per-turn trades more expensive or impossible if you've acted dishonorably in the AI's eyes. War Academy: Trading Tips War Academy: Reputation

Hmm, after looking through the War Academy, I recall that it is useful, but there is some older stuff in there. I also learned a lot from reading succession games at this forum and how they manage trades, diplomacy and everything else. You'll be amazed at what they can pull off. Sort by rating to see the most popular SGs.

Don't fret the military strength as reported by the military adviser. The AI defends every city with multiple units and the others randomly walk around their territory. You can anticipate where the enemy will attack and stack the odds in your favor for each individual battle. Better yet, get somebody else to fight them for you. In my recent game I had a land mass with a relatively weak England next to me, a strong China beyond her, and then Carthage (Numidian Mercenaries). Carthage also build the wonder giving him Ancient cavs. My solution? Attack England to steal her wonders and because she's next door. When she allies Carthage against me I bribe China to fight Carthage, so China and Carthage are busy weakening each other while I finish off England. WA: Warmongering 101 WA: Let's You and Him Fight

Culture flipping: The short easy version is to raze conquered cities and re-settle them with your own settler. Another upside of this is you end up with a bunch of slaves from the razed cities. Alternatively take over the city, starve it down to size and/or rush workers to reduce foreign population to one, then grow it quickly and build culture. Meanwhile you station your army outside the city to retake it when it flips rather than lose your armies during the flip.

Placing a new city that won't flip: If all the citizens in the city belong to your civ, and your culture dominates the "big fat cross" of 21 tiles that the city can work, then the city won't flip, ever. Level 1 culture is from 0-10 culture, and it's the 9 tiles you get when you found a city. Level 2 culture is 10-(something, doesn't matter) and is the 21-tile BFC. If two cities are competing for the same tile, level 1 beats level 2, and level 2 beats higher levels. If the contested tile is level 2 (or 1) for both contesting cities, the tile belongs to whichever city has more culture. So place a new city where your level 2 culture won't overlap an enemy civ's level 1 or 2 and then pop the borders to level 2, and that city won't flip (assuming all its citizens are from your civ). This is pretty much how you have to protect your border against a culture monster, especially if you're invading another continent where your new cities are always closer to the enemy capitol.

Yes, staying in Depotism until the Industrial Ages is killing, killing, killing you. Any tile that will produce more than two food, shields or commerce will produce one less instead. So hills are 33% nerfed as are most bonus tiles until you get out of Despotism. There can be an adjustment going off of Despotism unit support (and, in the case of Republic, miltary police for happiness), but you eventually learn to have your cities ready for the next government ahead of time.

Going back to tech research, another common killer is overbuilding and building support. Most buildings cost at least 1c per turn. Put a temple, colosseum, cathedral, library, market, bank and university in every town like I used to do and it really drags your economy down.

Returning to wars, picking a fight with the weakest neighbor may or may not be the way to go. Somewhere I read that every war should have a purpose and a predetermined end. I am going to take Elizabeth's Iron. I am going to capture The Great Library which my neighbor just completed two towns away. I am going to capture that Saltpeter to prevent my neighbor from building muskets, and soon Cavalry. I am going to expand my core. I am going to capture some land for specialist science farms. I hate Ghandi and I am going to pwn him before he nukes me. (Reasons can be personal, this is a game.) In many cases prolonging a war is overly wasteful, but sometimes I have nothing better to build than swords, knights or cavs so I might as well expand my territory. Otherwise, know why you went to war and when it's time to end the war (for 20 turns, anyway).

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

I suspect you are used to mastering a game within a few months of picking it up. It doesn't work that way with Civilization. Relax, either the game is enjoyable for whatever skill level you're at or its not. Keep reading for clues to improve your game and keep playing looking for aspects of the game you're not aware of, sounds like the list is pretty long. Trading/Tech and you're economony are ones that don't come all at once.

 

[Smellincoffee]

On early governments: Republic is best for peace, Monarchy for war. If you're going into Republic, you want to make sure your workers are roading every worked tile (to take fullest advantage of the commerce bonus), and that your cities are as large as possible. Large cities will support more units autonomously, so build those aqueducts!

Managing workers and city tiles directly saw me jump from struggling at Warlord to prospering on Monarch. The game's AI can be terribly inefficient. Stack workers to speed things up.

 

[creamcheese]

I also feel that changing govts. usually kills me late game, especially since some take 5 or more turns and I'm totally missing out on research, money and production.
The thing is though, i usually go with despotism until I research communism. Is that what's getting me? I usually dont even waste my time researching monarchy, republic or democracy as they aren't necessary to advance.

You REALLY need to get out of despotism sooner! Geez, waiting for communism is forever, and it doesn't even have a commerce bonus!. The only time you want to use any gov other than rep/monarchy is if you are religious or going for 100k (feud). I would say republic is good for money problems, and make sure you post a save so we can see what you are doing wrong!

 

[civ4lyfe]

i would post a save, how is this done?

 

[Raliuven]

Not to mention that you are researching down a path of optional techs that the AI beelines towards, reducing or eliminating its trade value.

If you must have communism, research down the steam/electricity/industrial path (etc.) and trade for nationalism/communism/etc. The AI WILL research the government techs. Maybe not fast, but they'll get there eventually.

What you could try is to play a religious civ. Then play a game with the goal of exploring the +/- of switching to different forms of government at different stages of the game. Religious will take the sting out of the anarchy time.

One point - you seem to think (based on the OP) that the micromanaging (MM) of happiness is bothersome. A common mistake is to manage the problem purely with clowns. If you are not comfortable using the luxury slider to control mass happiness, then you should give it a try. You could be choking both your economy and productivity with clowns, especially in the early game. A clown produces only happiness and costs you 2 food per turn (fpt) to feed. If that clown is working a tile, he may produce 2fpt, 1spt, and 1 gpt (for example). If it costs 2gpt on the luxury slider to keep him employed, that means you are only spending 1gpt for 2fpt & 1spt. That may not be such a bad trade. Added benefit - your happiness level goes up in all cities and makes everything easier to manage (reduced MM).

This is about exponential growth. Every shield/food/gold you make now will produce something that will make 2 shields/food/gold in X turns. Then 4 shield/food/gold in the next X turns, etc. So every shield/food/gold you miss/squander in the opening turns in the game is power/growth/wealth lost for the future.

Controlling happiness was a big speed bump for me. I stuck to Monarchy because of MPs and no WW (but watch those foreign nationalists, they whine a lot). Now I prefer Republic, but you need to be comfortable using the luxury slider. MM your workers/citizens is a definite plus, especially in the early game (see above).

 

[creamcheese]

i would post a save, how is this done?

Hit 'reply', than scroll way down to where it says 'manage attachments', hit the 'browse' button and select the location of the save file on your hard drive. Then you hit 'upload' and it will upload, then you post your reply to the topic and the save is attached at the end. There is a good tutorial in the succession game forum I think.

 

[Theov]

Get out of Despotism.
Science slider: Adjust the science slider so you're just over breaking even.
If you run into unhappiness, don't take away the tiles for entertainers in the city screen (you also take away production and food), but move your luxury slider until there are no or almost no unhappy people (then again move the science slider so you're just over breaking even).
This should give you: the most growth, most science and a steady income for when it's needed.
That's why you should be aggressive to getting luxuries (wine, gems, incense, ivory, furs etc). These reduce unhappiness with one IN EVERY CITY. And even more with marketplaces. Luxuries are SO GOOD for your empire.

Sometimes I also do above, then go to a city screen and click the middle tile - this optimizes the tiles worked. Then in the city screen press the right arrow on your keyboard to scroll to the next city, click the middle tile, hit right arrow, click tile, arrow, click, arrow, click, arrow, click.
Do this AFTER you've set the sliders.
-
When you see you have only 3 turns left for a tech: move the slider down one notch. Still only 3 turns? Good. Keep it. Do the same the next turn. 2 turns to go, back one notch. Still only 2? Good. And again on the last turn. Those 2 little adjustments every tech can haul in big amounts of gold.
-
This might sound like a paradox, but it sounds like you get the hang of trading.... so move up in difficulty next game. The AI will be better, but that also means they are richer. See it as more money for you .
In my first monarch game, I couldn't believe how much money I could squeeze out of the AI. Could never do that on lower levels, because they simply didn't have it.

 

[civ4lyfe]

Ok, well here are 2 saves from 1 game, one in about 1500's and one in 1800's. idk if this was the game i was talking about, but i have deleted and moved around some saves since i first posted this.

I will also upload one from a Carthaginian campaign that I have started since reading your replys.

 

[Theov]

Ok, well here are 2 saves from 1 game, one in about 1500's and one in 1800's. idk if this was the game i was talking about, but i have deleted and moved around some saves since i first posted this.

I will also upload one from a Carthaginian campaign that I have started since reading your replys.

Quick notes Scandinavians 1510: You can trade with Germany for furs and silks for banking and 80 gold. That's 2 happy people per city.
You're producing wealth in a city that's producing a lot of science. Why don't you add 50% of that science with a library. More science means you can put more commerce into tax.
.
ROADS. A worker shouldn't leave a tile unless he put a road there.
You are working about 30 tiles with a mine or irrigation, but not with a road. That's 30 gold per turn (gpt) not in the pocket right there. (Check out Alesund, it has 7 mine/irrigation tiles worked, that have no roads.)
Check out worker actions in the civilopedia - a road ads 1gpt.
Workers: as a rule of thumb; have about 1.5 to 2 workers per city. Sounds like a lot, but you should be expanding and new cities don't build them easily.
What's up with you building wealth? They should be building workers, libraries, and marketplaces.
See this sum: a library adds 50% more science output. All science is bought with income, so 1 bulb = 1 gold.
So if you put a library in every city, you're science is going 50% faster. Meaning you can rake in more tax.
Don't produce wealth.
.
Short: just build all those multiplier buildings in low corrupt cities.
=======
Haniball game (looks better already):
You've got 9 cities, size 1, 4, 8, 9, 8, 7, 4, 4, 5.
6 Workers.
And you have armies at the borders of an enemy, one city is building a wonder.
That should be:
15 cities of 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3, 2, 2 etc. (they should be small, because they just made workers and settlers)
Have 14 to 18 workers.
Most cities should be building either a settler or a worker.
And a few armies, just in case them Northlings there want to pick a fight.
Theveste is building a barracks. You shouldn't be building any armies yet. Just build a temple, marketplace, library first.
Utica is building a courthouse. It reduces corruption, but it barely has corruption. So don't build it. And a courthouse will cost you 1gpt (the red coin on the left of the city screen).
And ehm... why are you building Sun Tzu's AND barracks?
.
Expand, expand, expand. Then grow.
.
Oh and as always: criticism might sound hard, but it's all in good will, I (and everyone here) is willing and trying to help to improve your game.

 

[civ4lyfe]

Quick notes Scandinavians 1510: You can trade with Germany for furs and silks for banking and 80 gold. That's 2 happy people per city.
You're producing wealth in a city that's producing a lot of science. Why don't you add 50% of that science with a library. More science means you can put more commerce into tax.
.
ROADS. A worker shouldn't leave a tile unless he put a road there.
You are working about 30 tiles with a mine or irrigation, but not with a road. That's 30 gold per turn (gpt) not in the pocket right there. (Check out Alesund, it has 7 mine/irrigation tiles worked, that have no roads.)
Check out worker actions in the civilopedia - a road ads 1gpt.
Workers: as a rule of thumb; have about 1.5 to 2 workers per city. Sounds like a lot, but you should be expanding and new cities don't build them easily.
What's up with you building wealth? They should be building workers, libraries, and marketplaces.
See this sum: a library adds 50% more science output. All science is bought with income, so 1 bulb = 1 gold.
So if you put a library in every city, you're science is going 50% faster. Meaning you can rake in more tax.
Don't produce wealth.
.
Short: just build all those multiplier buildings in low corrupt cities.
=======
Haniball game (looks better already):
You've got 9 cities, size 1, 4, 8, 9, 8, 7, 4, 4, 5.
6 Workers.
And you have armies at the borders of an enemy, one city is building a wonder.
That should be:
15 cities of 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3, 2, 2 etc. (they should be small, because they just made workers and settlers)
Have 14 to 18 workers.
Most cities should be building either a settler or a worker.
And a few armies, just in case them Northlings there want to pick a fight.
Theveste is building a barracks. You shouldn't be building any armies yet. Just build a temple, marketplace, library first.
Utica is building a courthouse. It reduces corruption, but it barely has corruption. So don't build it. And a courthouse will cost you 1gpt (the red coin on the left of the city screen).
And ehm... why are you building Sun Tzu's AND barracks?
.
Expand, expand, expand. Then grow.
.
Oh and as always: criticism might sound hard, but it's all in good will, I (and everyone here) is willing and trying to help to improve your game.

Well i was building barracks cuz those damn english kept attacking every 10-15 turns. I then tried to get sun tzu's and must have forgot about the barracks being built. I gotta be more aware of that kind of stuff.

It didn't matter though as the greeks built it about a turn after that save.




And with the 'should have 15 cities' part are you saying that I should settle more cities and build more workers so the pop. of those cities stay down. I feel I was sort of crammed on that island, and also some of the areas were desert with little to no gold, food or shields. I usually want to keep expanding but then I really look into the terrain and thigns like that keep me from expanding. I expanded north a few turns after this save, then another war with England, and am already settling their ruins.

Thanks for the constructive criticism though, it's really helping me improve the game.

 

[Theov]

I've played 12 turns (820AD) into the Hannibal game.
It doesn't show too much of a spoiler, but it is roughly of how I would have taken the game from there.
Oh, I continued the Sun Tzu's, but only as a pre build to Leonardo's.
.
Look at own risk, it's only your island still though, so no major spoilers.
View attachment Hannibal of the Carthaginians, 820 AD.SAV

 

[Theov]

And with the 'should have 15 cities' part are you saying that I should settle more cities and build more workers so the pop. of those cities stay down. I feel I was sort of crammed on that island, and also some of the areas were desert with little to no gold, food or shields. I usually want to keep expanding but then I really look into the terrain and thigns like that keep me from expanding. I expanded north a few turns after this save, then another war with England, and am already settling their ruins.

Thanks for the constructive criticism though, it's really helping me improve the game.

Those extra green river beds in the desert? Those are flood plains. Right click on the terrain to see the goods.
Flood plains (rivers in a desert) = good.

 

[creamcheese]

Okay my first thought on seeing the carthage game is empty space! It is 700AD and you have not filled up your continent with cities! You could be gaining so much more gold and production with additional cities. You must have been fighting with the english or they would have filled it up already. Your capital is also starving, not a good situation.

Viking game, you are still in despotism at 1520AD! This is severely limiting your growth and gold potential. The cap is hurting you a lot. The later save is little improvement. Communism is not helping you much as you are not very large. You have waay to many cities building wealth.

In both games you need lots more workers and settlers, especially early in the game. You also need to use the luxury slider instead of entertainers, and road everything. Build only what you need and no extra buildings.

 

[Aabraxan]

Ok. I've downloaded all of the saves. Please take all of this as constructive criticism. I'm simply going to take them in chronological order.

Carthage, 700 AD:
Problem #1: 10 cities, 6 workers and 1 contact. This is the first thing I see. By this point, you should have lots more cities and should have sent out boats to find ou who else is out there. Domination, Conquest, and Cultural are the ony VCs enabled, so I can't use F10 to see who else is out there, or if you're even playing with the standard number of opponents. You should be, as this has an effect on the number of resources available. I can get that information through CivAssist 2, though, and I see that it's a standard map with 8 opponents. A full slate, so that's good.

Problem #2: TONS of open space, and good space at that. By now, you should be much closer to filling all that space and even pushing Beth off of the northern edge. An early Rapid Expansion phase goes a long way to making the rest of the game easier. More cities = more unit suppport, more gold, more science, well, more of everything. Even in the desert, you can make the lone citizen a specialist and get a small amount of unit support out of it.

Problem #3: You haven't sent boats to the other landmass. The AI doesn't use what we call "suicide boats," but humans can. If you send boats to the other continent, you can put yourself in the position of tech broker, and make a significant amount of gold. Buy a tech on the other continent, bring it home, and sell it. Take techs from your continent, and sell them to civs on the other continent.

Overall, I'd call this a series of typical new player mistakes. I'll be the first to admit that they're the same mistakes I made as a new player. Early mistakes are compounded, and early advantages are magnified. The early game is crucial.

Vikings, 1510 AD

Same basic problems: 28 cities, 9 workers, 43 defensive units, and 11 offensive. You don't need anywhere near this many defensive units at this level. If this were my game, I'd be going for conquest, and the ratio would be reversed . . . if I had that many defenders at all.

But your biggest problem here is that you're still in despotism. Perhaps a quick expanation of the despo penalty is in order: Under despotism, every tile that produces more than 2 of food, gold or shields, automatically has one unit taken off the top. That's every worked tile in your empire. Let's take a look at Trondheim. I see 2 irrigated grass tiles and 1 irrigated bonus grass tile. Grass and BGs generate 2 food unimproved. If you irrigate them, they become 3 food tiles. That triggers the despo penalty, and that food is taken away again. So those tiles are the same, food-wise, as if you'd never irrigated them. So all of those worker turns were wasted. Multiply that out across the empire, and you can begin to see how wasteful that is. At Trondheim alone, that would have been an additional 3 food per turn, every turn, once you emerged into a different government.

Also, if you're going for space, you need to go Republic. Why? Because of the commerce bonus (which also comes with Democracy). The commerce bonus says that any tile already producing at least 1 commerce gets another added. So if you have a riverside grass tile, it's 1 gold under despo. (Despo penalty isn't triggered.) Add a road, and it becomes a 2-gold tile (still no despo penalty). Become a Republic, and it becomes a 3-gold tile. Again, multiply this out across the empire, and you can see the effect. Commerce translates directly into beakers or happiness via the sliders on the domestic advisor (F1) screen. Looking at CivAssist 2, you're currently making 259 gold, of which 72 is being spent on science. If you could instantly change to Republic, that would change to 440 gold, with 130 going to science. That's with absolutely no change to the sliders.

The AI won't have much gold at Warlord, but you can trade a couple of techs away for 2 luxes that I located, and make more people happy. There's at least 1 other lux available. That means that they can go back to work.

Vikings, 1896 AD

Because this is simply a later save from the 1510 game, I'm not going to go in-depth. It's going to have the same problems, just later in the game. Well, except that you have changed governments by this point.

Be sure to turn on "Select all" on your diplo (F4) screen. It's imporant that you be able to see all of the deals that are out there. Otherwise, you can't make educated decisions on trading and diplo.

I see lots of temples and cathedrals, but cultural victory isn't even enabled. You don't need those. If you wanted to go for conquest, the shields would have been better spent on workers and military units.

I've also noticed that you don't build catapults or other artillery units. Do not underestimate their value. You can use them to: (a) knock hit points off of enemies to make them easy kills; and (2) count defenders inside a city. By the time I can build artillery, I have dozens of them on hand. They can't keep up with armies, but they're great for slow-moving slugfests.

My last piece of advice: Choose a victory condition and let that guide your builds. Don't simply build things because you can. When I first started playing C3C, I picked up a saying here at CFC that I've found incredibly useful. It goes like this: "Remember that your cities need nothing. The question you need to ask is, 'What does the empire need for a city to have?' "

 

[civ4lyfe]

Well, just read what you guys said. I have another save here from Carthage. Played, before I read your most recent posts, so I still think you'll have some criticisms.

But I'm going to play through Theovs 820ad game he's posted me and start another game, and show you that one at around 500-600 AD or so.

Thanks again for the constructive criticism.

Also I'd like to point out that I was going pretty good with bui;lding workers and settlers in my Carthage campaign, but the English and that Beth, kept declaring war on me, and they had a stronger military, so I had to use most of my cities to build attack units. Also some barracks here and there. That really impeded on my original plan of rapid expansion and threw me off completely.

EDIT: THEOV having a hard time figuring out how to play the save game you posted for me. I Dl'd but now idk how to play it.

 

[Aabraxan]

On the Carthage save, your ratio of workers to cities was much better, granted, but expansion was still below what it needs to be (unless you're playing a small empire challenge, like a One City Challenge). If the English kept DOWing you, it's because she perceived you as weak.

When you start another game, save it at 4000 BC, and post that save along with it. Maybe one of us can find time to play it out to a ways from that save. For that matter, if you have a 4000 BC save from one of the others that you've posted, you could post that.

 

[creamcheese]

EDIT: THEOV having a hard time figuring out how to play the save game you posted for me. I Dl'd but now idk how to play it.

Put it in your saves folder, the same one you uploaded your saves from, then load it normally in your game.