Needing more Strategic Resources

[Illuminous]

Would you mind showing me your latest save so I can see how you went about things?. Did you even settle on the far NW island near Greece, with horses?. What about North of the Zulu's where the iron is?. The tundra there has oil later on, (near the fish).

I downloaded .NET Framework 1.1, plus .NET Framework SP1, and am going to try out CivAssist II.

What do I need to do now?, if I launch Civ3 Complete with CivAssist II in the background, and start a new game, will it automatically detect the new save?. Or, do need to load a save first - 4000BC for example, then launch the game and play?. I'm going to enable alerts for the game so I must have to load a save prior to launching, correct?.

 

[vmxa]

I think I have all alerts on, except QSC. There is an option that will automatically load the save, if you want. I often load others games, so I use the pick as well. IOW it will detect the latest save and load it.

 

[vmxa]

I played out to 1070AD and finally check to see that in fact this is a large map. I figured as much when there was still so much empty space. A large map should have 12 nations, not 8.

It makes the game easier for the human, with fewer. You couple the low number with respawn it is ugly.

Here is the log for as far as I played, before I saw the map size. My point in playing it was to see, if it made sense to try to find land to get Iron/Horses. I think it is better to take the direct path.

This is likely to get the resource sooner and gives you an edge in that you have taken down one of the civs already. In this case it was actually two civs. Hittites and Zulu.

 

[vmxa]

620AD:
Traded Mono to Abrabia for Horses and switch all troops builds to knights. I have towns all the way to Shakas borders now. Researching Chem. Leo in 5 and no one has Invention. KT in 7 no one has Chiv.

Waiting to kick off the war with Shaka for a few knights so I do not have to use Immortals. Do not want to trigger Ga, not sure about the wonders though. Have not played Persia in a long time and cannot recall the trait they have along with Scientific.
Guess I could look it up, but no matter.

Ind I thought that was it as I recall the workers speeds. So those wonders should not trip a GA.

630AD: disband the curragh, to lazy to move it any more.
680AD: working on Metal. Tiles on new land are mostly improved. Road and water all but three of the flat ones. Roads on the 7 hills sting. Cleared and watered 4 swamps. All workers and slaves over there (21 workers and 10 slaves).

750AD: DOW Shaka and send in some units, no response. 5 AC and 4 knights. Crusader popped out last turn.
770AD: razed a city with 5 units mostly Impi.
800AD: start on MT, no more AC's now. Found two towns in Zulu land and grab the Dye. Not a single MGL, no SGL either.
870AD: I bite the bullet and trade Eng/Ivory for Horses with Arabia. I had a deal for horse that ran out a few turns back. Finally got an MGL.
880AD: got a second one, but no cavs have reached them yet.
890AD: Arabia DOW's after the deal last 2 turns, ouch. Not sure why they would want to do that as I am strong compared to them and have cavs, they land 2 horses next to cavs and immortal? I kill the horses and sink their boat.

930AD: got SGL for Theology and rushed Sistine. No reason, just to use it.
940AD: got MGL form 3rd. I have razed two cities and will soon have trhe horses.
970AD: razed Zimbob it had at least the Great Wall. Shaka has not even filled in the tundra in all this time.
1000AD: razed Incombe working on Astro. Have Horses. 42 cities. Three cav armies
3x each. Did not rush Penta or MA as I cannot fill armies and ship them and I do not have a strong enough city to build armies now anyway.

They are slowly going up. Shaka is not putting up a struggle now as no units are in my lands of late.

 

[vmxa]

1020AD: razed Mpondo.
1040AD: got leader 4th formed. Razed Bampedi and Swazi and I think they are OCC now. Not able to fill all the land as fast as it is available. 4 settlers moving into place now.
1060AD: Shaka has been removed from the continent. I ran out of settlers again. Two in route 4 will come out next turn. 4th now has 2 cavs. Upgrade leader knight and it will be the 3rd one next turn. Arabia wants to talk, no.

Going to turn on America after armies heal.
1070AD: kill 2 wandering American units in the tundra and war is on.

Far enough. Would get the Silk soon, still not used GA. Working on Banking. Have to decide, if Copes is worth having your GA now or not. 47 towns. Everyone down at least 5 techs.

I hope this gives you the method I used, the tutorial has more details for a Regent game for some other perspective. Given this was a large map with only 8 civ, you really drew a poor start. One of the things that the map gen considers is the number of civs, so on a map that size with 12 nations there would have been more resources. The lower number meant fewer spread over the same large map. Easier to end up without some key stuff.

 

[Illuminous]

Yeah, I launched Civ3 Complete with CivAssist II in the background and loaded a save, it detected it automatically. The problem is, the system I'm running it on isn't that fast, and units move slower than normal, it really sucks. I don't think defraging will help.

Another thing I noticed was that I needed to look at CivAssist II every turn in order to see alerts, I though it would show a popup in-game, telling me the situation, but it doesn't. I selected the alerts manually, just to see.

Wow!, you posted alot while I was writing this post.

 

[Illuminous]

Persia's two traits are Industrious and Scientific. I posted the map size on the first page, along with other info.

 

[Snarkhunter]

Another thing I noticed was that I needed to look at CivAssist II every turn in order to see alerts, I though it would show a popup in-game, telling me the situation, but it doesn't. I selected the alerts manually, just to see.

Actually, it should. You have to hit the show alerts button on the bottom left when CAII first comes up, but you also have to go into, um, options I think & tell it specifically which alerts you want to have shown. I don't select all of them myself, too much information!, but things like potential riots in cities, enemy/foreign units in my turf, & 1 turn left to get a tech are very useful to me, also how many turns left in GA.

And as you noticed, it automagically picks up which save/game you are currently running.

kk

 

[vmxa]

I forget what you had as preference, but turn off things that animate, except battles.
I had no issue with performance on my old machine. I have a new a few month old and it is pretty good with 512 L2 cache.

I play all my games with Winamp or Web radio going and no issues other than when you get into massive maps and AW or huge maps on Sid playing conquest only. Those games will have thousands of units and are not fast.

The stuff I posted I had written yesterday, except for edit for finger checks and readability. When I play others games I run a log as I go as no way I can remember things clear enough even a few hours later. Just too many games that I have played and they start to run together.

 

[Illuminous]

I actually reverted to an older save after this, but is this what you were talking about VMXA?. Is this to small of a stack to bring over?. I landed them on top of the iron and razed their road, then moved them to Hattusas. Two swordsman attacked me, and my spears took em' out, with help from my archers. I didn't bring a settler with me.

Persepolis needs one more unit to prevent starvation, as you can see in the picture.

I decided I'd use Philosopy to get Literature and build The Great Library, instead of The Great Lighthouse. Should I even bother to build wonders early on?, it's hurting my expansion. I need to build the Statue of Zeus for the Ancient Cavalry though.

 

[Illuminous]

System Specs

AMD Sempron 3400+ (1989MHz)
512MB (400MHz)
Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 3
DirectX 9.0c
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 (256MB)
Sound Blaster Audigy 4

 

[vmxa]

System Specs

AMD Sempron 3400+ (1989MHz)
512MB (400MHz)
Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 3
DirectX 9.0c
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 (256MB)
Sound Blaster Audigy 4

Much of the game is processor bound so the slower cpu the more pain for the player. I doubt the 2gh is a big issue, but 512mb of mem is a problem for anything. XP should have 1.5gb imo. I had that on my old 3.0 gh and it got some delays.

My ssytem now use DDR3 mem quite fast. Find out how many bays and what the sticks in the pc are and add or replace. Last I knew 1gb was about $60.

Check the bays and see if you have two and how much each can take. Check the Motherboard and see what speed mem it can handle. You should be able to look it up online.

The OS is swapping virt mem like crazy at 512mb of real. 400 speed is a ways back, I think DDR2 was out 4 years or so.

 

[vmxa]

Is this to small of a stack to bring over?. I landed them on top of the iron and razed their road, then moved them to Hattusas. Two swordsman attacked me, and my spears took em' out, with help from my archers. I didn't bring a settler with me.

Persepolis needs one more unit to prevent starvation, as you can see in the picture.

I decided I'd use Philosopy to get Literature and build The Great Library, instead of The Great Lighthouse. Should I even bother to build wonders early on?, it's hurting my expansion. I need to build the Statue of Zeus for the Ancient Cavalry though.

You can do some damage, but it would have been better to have them all vets. The value of the settler is you sit on the iron and cut it off from them and only need a harbor to bring it to you.

I am not fond of cutting roads, unless it is a real tough game. AWE on a massive map with 31 civs, yeah I will cut roads (out in the edges, not in my soon to be land). Those are your roads, well soon to be, so I prefer to leave them.

They are weak and will not put up much of counter attack. I had the knowledge of Feud, so all I needed was to get up a barrack and I could upgrade spears to pikes. Then I was safe from attacks.

The starving can be prevented with a 10% lux as well.

As to GLB, I did not build it as I knew it would not provide me with anything as I would be ahead of them about the time it was done. It also has the drawback that it could trigger a GA.

I think I did get the lighhouse, but it is not important as you have a massive continent one tile away. I would not build anything that slows me down, unless it is critical. None of the AA wonders met that in this game.

Pyramids on an island is not all that useful. I can make a few granaries cheaper. Plus the AI will work hard to get it and often start with the tech and I often do not have the tech for some time.

 

[Illuminous]

I have four memory slots/sockets, two are being used (2x256MB)
Supported Speed: 70 ns, 60ns, 50ns
Form Factor: DIMM
Memory Speed: 400MHz
Maximum Capacity: 2.00GB

What's wrong with triggering a GA?.

I'm in the Middle Ages now and have The Great Library and am currently working on the SoZ. The only land I have is my Island. Two civs are at war with me because I declined their demands. My free tech for the age was Engineering and my next tech being researched is Feudalism, I'll try for Sun Tzu's AoW. I'll build up my forces and attack the Hittites soon. Since I didn't get the TG Lighthouse I can't reach the the far west island for horses. I had more land the first time around.

 

[vmxa]

So you can either add to more 256MB sticks or if they are at a good price toss out the ones you have and put in 4 512MB sticks or 2 GB sticks. You could ask at Best Buy what can be used and if any mix and match.

I would think the 400mb would be very cheap now. It could be your MB could handle faster memory. If you do check, look up the MB model.

 

[Illuminous]

Motherboard Model: AMETHYST-M
Motherboard Vendor: MSI
Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard

 

[vmxa]

Did you even settle on the far NW island near Greece, with horses?. What about North of the Zulu's where the iron is?. The tundra there has oil later on, (near the fish).

No as I prefer to fan out with no breaks in the empire, if I can. I do not want land far away to defend or even conquer, unless I have to it. By the time you could fill out the entire continent next door you would have gotten so large and so far ahead, you could do anything you wanted.

If you found you were missing coal, you may decide to get it some place by force, but you could trade a tech as well. The thing is that they sometimes do what Arabia did and break the deal.

That is more problematic with coal as it will take a very long time to rail the empire. Horses you could as you can start 20 towns on cavs and if they take it back, you still get the 20 cavs.

 

[Illuminous]

Info I got from CivAssist...

At war with America and Zululand
Gold: 683 (1st)
Land: 156 (1st)
Cities: 15 (5th)
The Great Library was built in 50AD
SoZ under contrution, 5 turns remaining
Still using Despotism, will switch to Monarchy soon.

 

[vmxa]

You can get the wonder built via F7. Do not delay long the switch as the larger your empire the more likely it is you will get a bigger number for turns of anarchy. 9 is the worse I have gotten. It is also easier to manage the happiness with smaller towns, without starving.

YOu wait till you get 7 turns and have size 9 towns, it will be a problem, unless you went ahead an build happy structures. The lux slider has no effect during anarchy.

 

[Illuminous]

I restarted once again, and by 710BC I had two wonder's up, thanks to SGL's. I rushed The Great Library and The Pyramids, but it started a Golden Age and didn't earn me any extra gold.

The SoZ, built in 590BC
The Colossus, built in 210BC

The Hittites city of Ugarit culture flipped, (the city next to insense and a cow). Now I've got nine units in the city - four ancient cavalry, three spearmen, one archer and one catapult.

It's now 130AD (early middle ages) and I'll soon take Hattusas with the iron. Gotta switch to Monarchy.

Gold: 654 (1st)
Cities: 16 (2nd)
Land: 171 (1st)
Population: 40 (1st)
Units: 46

I not gonna use CivAssist while playing anymore, the game plays normal without it. I can review save's afterwards. It's a great program though, I really like the World Map.