Noob with savegames to critique.

[Chopkinsca]

I am very new to the Civilization series. Before I bought C3C 2 weeks ago, I've only played the tutorial for Civ 4. I saw C3C for only $5, so I figured I can't go wrong. Before playing, I did some reading up on the game and tried my first game (And lost horribly). After doing more reading, I tried my second game. I lasted longer, but still did pretty bad.

I'm on my third game and kind of hit a brick wall. I don't understand what I'm doing, so I mostly stopped playing. I thought maybe I could ask you guys for some guidance. I've read a lot of articles/guides, but I still don't understand basic things like shields or food. I'm never sure what to build in my cities. The first two games, I was always running out of money because I had too many units or city improvements. My latest game, I have too much money and no idea what to spend it on.

I've attached 2 savegames for some poor soul to critique. I would have a larger army, but I didn't realize how fast the CPU would get settlers to the island I started on.

Thanks for your time.

 

[MPK]

I saw C3C for only $5, so I figured I can't go wrong. Before playing, I did some reading up on the game and tried my first game (And lost horribly). After doing more reading, I tried my second game. I lasted longer, but still did pretty bad.

Sounds a lot like my Civ3 start... it gets easier.. ,, I looked at your saves. I played Boatshow1.

[ Is a terrible piece of land to play on. You dont have a water source on the western Island.... I would start again. You can save the game>quit the game>check the game map>load game{again}.]

Having said that,,, I did this ....

1: I lowered happiness from 30% to 10%, (watch for rioting in cities-add an entertainer to help with this in till your garrison with troops in it takes control)

2: I set science on 70%.

2: I started to build Spearmen in all cities.(I got rid of all the wealth...wealth wont kill your enemies) You need troop(s) in your garrison).. you need to protect your cities.

3: I changed science to Polytheism which leads to Monarchy.. A better form of government than Despotism.

4: To many mines.... Irrigate the grass land. - I irrigated over some mines to get irrigation to Grass tiles.


= Again I would find another Map. Post a 4000Bc game....

 

[Chopkinsca]

I'm going to reply to two points you made.

3)That's one thing about being a noob, I'm not quite sure what tech is the proper one to go for. I imagine this gets better as you play more.

4) I am never sure what to build on tiles. This comes from not quite understanding how food and shields work (I think I get the idea of shields though).

Thanks for looking into this.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

Don't be in a rush to know everything about this game, the learning curve is long and as step as you want to make it. The biggest change for me was when I mapped out the relationship between population and the results of putting them to work: You get food, production and commerce. From food you get more people, from production you get units and city improvements, from commerce you get research, happiness and gold per turn. Get good at roading, mining and irrigating, the rest will come.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

I'm at work and can review your save, but the best noob advice (given to me as a newbie too!) includes:

Don't neglect workers. Ideally make 1 1/2 workers per city. Early improvement of your land pays dividends all game.

Oversimple rule of thumb for workers- irrigate brown, mine green and road everything! Don't automate workers. Food is needed to feed your city population and to grow and is not subject to corruption, shields allow you to build stuff and gold lets you buy stuff, research techs and keep the population happy with the luxury slider.

What to build? Whatever helps your empire overall. Civ 3 has a corruption system so core cities near the capital are very productive and more distant cities waste shields (unit of production) and gold (unit of, well, gold) City improvements that cost gold to maintain need to offer benfit. For example-in a very corrupt city that only produces 1 or 2 uncorrupted gold per turn it would be wasteful to build a library that costs 1 gold to maintain and which increases the effective gold put to research by 50%. A core city that has lots of shield production you may decide would be a good site to build milatry units, so a barracks there makes sense (all units built therre start as veteran, 1 more health)
If you intend to research on your own throughout the game, science boosting buildings make sense and banks and stock exchanges that boost non-research, non-luxury income would be wasteful. If you plan to buy and trade techs and do little research, the opposite would be true. Many people (myself included) rarely build "happiness" buildings such as temples, cahtedrals and coloseums. It also makes sense to make cities that are very food rich settler and worker "factories".

There are articles in the War Academy on multiplier buildings, use of specialists and settler/worker factories that are worth the read. The article on openning moves is especially helpful (and detailed) in worker management.

Good luck and please remember to have fun!

 

[Chopkinsca]

I just finished a 5 hour game and did quite well, relatively. It was quite rewarding to see my civilization not being at the bottom of the "how well everyone is doing" popup. I was leading in culture and power, but I was last in terms of victory points. I was doing somewhat fine until around 1850AD when a neighbouring civ declared war on me. One mistake I made ended up loosing a lot of land...

Upgrading units. For some reason I thought you could only update unit ranks (Regular -> Veteran). I only just now realized my mistake while looking at the Civ3 data .pdf.

The military side of the game is something I'm struggling with at the moment. I suppose it gets better with practice. I tend to play a more passive game style, trying to avoid wars. Again, it probably takes time to figure out how much armed forces I need for my style of play.

I went through a bunch of articles from this site and still couldn't find anything on the reasoning for how to work tiles. I'd like to know the purpose for irrigating brown and mining green. I suppose I could look at the Civ3 data .PDF and reason from the tile stats what to do with them. On tiles with resources (Wheat for example), does it matter if you mine or irrigate it?

The learning curve on this game is steep, but in a way that is incentive to get better. I get thinking "someday I'll understand all this stuff and it will be second nature). I also like it because it gets the brain working as apposed to most of the games out there that don't require a brain at all to play.

 

[MPK]

The military side of the game is something I'm struggling with at the moment. I suppose it gets better with practice. I tend to play a more passive game style, trying to avoid wars. Again, it probably takes time to figure out how much armed forces I need for my style of play.

Military is important. If you have troop empty cities or just 1 defense troop per city your neighbours will see you as an "easy target". Seems the AI is more respective of attack units than of defense units. I like at least 3 troops per city (many will disagree with this- also having extra fast units in a few cities is a good idea so you can quickly rush to defend any threatened cities). Your border cities definitely need good protection. also having Archers and Catapult type siege weapons is a good idea, as they have bombard and defend potential and will counter-attack any attacks. Seems the AI will always retreat if their health isn't 100%.

I went through a bunch of articles from this site and still couldn't find anything on the reasoning for how to work tiles. I'd like to know the purpose for irrigating brown and mining green.

Its irrigate Green, mine Brown.
= Green produces 2 food per tile,
= Brown produces 1 food per tile,
= Irrigation produces +1 extra food per tile.
[In my games I have changed the rules so I can't get shields from mining Grass or Plains, so it is pointless.]

 

[dalgo]

The correct procedure at the start of the game is to irrigate brown and mine green. This is because your initial government is Despotism and that penalises you by eliminating the third food or shields from a tile.

To explain:

'green' is grassland and that naturally produces 2 food. If you irrigate a grass tile you will get (2 +1 -1) food so you don't gain anything. If you mine it you get 2 food +1 shield (for a bonus grass tile it would be 2 food +2 shields).

'brown' is plains which naturally produces 1 food and 1 shield. If you mine it you get 1 food +2 shields, but that won't help your city grow. So it is best to irrigate it resulting in 2 food +1 shield.

Once you have moved on to a Monarchy or Republic the despotism penalty no longer applies and you can choose to irrigate grassland tiles if that is more beneficial to your city.

 

[bigFRANK]

Simply put food makes your city grow in size (population).
Shields allow you to build things quicker.

Population is important to start with as you will be wanting to make settlers and workers, I would say that in the early stages of a game shields in your first 2 or 3 cities aren’t that important as if you need to you can always whip (exchange population for what you are building) the population to rush that settler in the final turns (and crush the dissent). So what you’re looking in for is excess food to increase the population.

As the game progresses, the land mass fills up and your cities all reach maximum size you’re going to want your cities producing as many blue shields as possible and excess food becomes unnecessary in your core cities.

 

[Chopkinsca]

Thanks for the help guys. This is a nice community. Lots of helpful people. Maybe someday I'll be one of the people giving out advice!

This kind of game requires to some degree; trial and error. Losing will teach you as much as winning. I like that. I also like that when you start a new game, you never know what you'll get.

 

[MPK]

Its irrigate Green, mine Brown.

Seems I got this wrong way around... sorry. Mines aren't mine thing..

The correct procedure at the start of the game is to irrigate brown and mine green.

Its an option, not necessarily 'the correct' way...I don't bother with mines,,,as I seek Monarchy as soon as possible... and don't see the point in re-calling workers just to irrigate over mines. Different methods I guess. I find mines everywhere annoying so I don't use them, they don't gain anysheilds or commerce on grass or plains, nor do I use roads for commerce..

 

[CKS]

Mines give you shields on grass and plains.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

I must humbly disagree with MPK.
Mines add 1 shield per turn for worked desert, tundra, grassland, plains and 2 for hills and mountains. As noted above the despotism penalty may absorb the increase if that's your government. Roads add 1 gold per turn to any worked tile it's on and under republic or democracy, it can bump to 2 if that's the only commerce on the tile.

Oops- on rereading your post, you play a modded version with mines not benefitting some terrain types. In the standard, unmodded game I assume the first psoter is playing, my advice stands.

 

[MPK]

Yes my is a modded version, Mines and roads everywhere is very messy looking. I don't like the spider web look of roads on every tile. A hang up from 15 years of Civ2 I guess. So no mines or roads everywhere....much cleaner land.

Having said that,,even in an 'un-modded' game I wouldn't worry to much about mining grass/plain tiles. Why have 6-9 tiles mined when your cities are only 3-5 in size. Just a couple of mines would be enough. Or, find a forest for a shield or two.

 

[Bowsling]

If you feel like you'd be building too many mines, place your cities closer together.

 

[Chopkinsca]

I was wondering if I should prioritize mines or irrigation. Or maybe it depends on the plans I have for the city. Mining will give me extra shields, but food will give me more citizens which (I think) will allow more tiles to be worked, thus giving more shields (depending on the new tile worked). I'm going to have to learn how the food system works exactly. It will be easier once I know if I have the optimal amount of food for growth without waste.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

It absolutely depends on your Plans for the city as well as the terrain. A very corrupt city where nearly all your shields go to waste will be better served as a "specialist farm" where you maximize food production to support scientists or taxmen. The gold towards research and income from them is unaffected by corruption.
A city nestled among hills and mountains will end up shield rich and food poor, so irrigating grassland would make more sense there.
A city with bonus food resources might make a good site for a worker or settler pump and how you choose to improve tiles may be affected by that choice.

MPK makes a good point in not improving files you won't be able to work for a long time, but the strategy of balanced development (adding food to shield producing plains or shield production to food rich grassland) still holds (at least till you max out the population.)

 

[MPK]

the strategy of balanced development

Good point splunge, I think this the key to any development,, be it the player or a greater Civilization building plan.

 

[Padma]

One of the best resources I have found is Cracker's Improving Your Opening Plays . Check it out .