PTW - Harder to win

Trev

Prince
Joined
Aug 17, 2002
Messages
498
Location
Adelaide, Australia
I played a lot of games with vanilla civ3 and its very high corruption levels before purchasing PTW and playing single player games with it

I have found being competitive at emperor level much harder with PTW than with the original civ3

With PTW the ai's consistantly ask very high prices for techs and at emperor level it is impossible to keep up in technology, particularly from late in the first era to mid industrial era, either with very high tax rates and buying science or high science rates and learning science

Also with PTW the ai's use the raze option when they conquer cities much less, preferring to keep the cities instead

With original civ 3 I would keep relatively peaceful, but rush in to war zones with settlers, constantly building cities and expanding that way until I became dominant. As they now keep the cities they conquer, this is no longer possible, all expansion must now be earnt through warfare.

Also, the decrease in Culture Flips has damaged my strategies, no longer can I accumulate a significant number of cities through culture flips, most it is possible to get in a reasonably normal game is now generally about 3 or 4 instead of ten or more that I could get in the past

The changes made to civ3 in reducing significantly corruption, odds of culture flips, ai's razing cities less has made it more difficult to win at emperor level with PTW, and taken some of the unique challenges of civ3 away from the game

I prefer the original version of civ3 with all its corruption and culture flips to the revised PTW version for single player games
 
I have also noticed that PTW is harder to beat. I beleive this is becuase the AI has been improved, making them more difficult to handle. I have noticed less culture flips, but you simply need to work harder to get them. I prefer PTW because of the new civs and tougher AI. The only real draw back that I see is that to be successful you must rely on trading with AI more, which is difficult if you damage your rep.
 
It's not harder to beat to me... Easier actually.... With the stock markets and extra improvements and can boost my infastucture and produce more gold than I ever could in Civ3...
 
I agree that there is more cash to be earned with stock exchanges and commercial docks, but also it appears that the asking price for buying techs is much higher, which means the extra cash gains you nothing.

Also it is very difficult to get good money from selling techs as all ai's behind the frontrunners never have enough money to buy techs at a reasonable price from you.

So overall it is harder to get ahead through buying and selling techs
 
Your goal on emperor shouldn't be to get ahead through buying and selling techs. Stay at or near tech parity by buying @last or near last prices, and don't trade techs for money, but rather for other techs. Then you can use Theory of Evolution as a slingshot that puts you ahead to stay. With the AI advantage on emperor, even if you get ahead early, you can't hope to stay ahead for long.
 
I find on emperor with PTW that no matter what I do, I always seem to be a mininum of 10 - 15 techs behind by the time I approach the 2nd age, the cost of buying techs even at last prices is exhorbitant, in fact there does not seem to be any significant difference between last price and second price, also you get so far behind there is noone to onsell or ontrade purchased techs to, they even have them all or have no money at all
 
Build more roads and establish contact as fast as you can. I hardly ever work a tile that does not have a road on it. Early game, I stockpile money going minimum science and try to broker techs as much as I can. I've gotten to the point where with the Americans, on Deity, I can be in the best economic/technology position by the start of the Medieval Age, every time.
 
Never had very much problems keeping up in technology in the higher levels.... Make a quick war where you take 2-3 cities before the AI has time to make a major counter-assualt then sue for peace.... You'd prolly get a good number of technology for it.
 
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