Quick Answers (formerly Newbie Questions)

[DaviddesJ]

I think people say "farmer gambit" for a strategy of starting the game with no (or few?) military units, hoping to quickly grow and avoid conflict.

I don't think it's very descriptive, though. I haven't seen too many people use the term.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Salisa
I will try the galley question again but I may have my saved game still, so you can see i am very correct the AI does in fact sail safely over many turns in the open ocean..

There can only be three explaination that I can think of.

1. A bug in the earlier version of the game. What patch and version are you playing?

2. The AI has learned the secret of Navigation.

3. The game was modified to allow the galley to travel safely on the ocean square.

Other than that, it would be impossible for the AI to sail in the open ocean. The AIs just don't do it at all no matter what.

 

[NewDestroyer]

itd be nice if some1 could say all the game gambits they're are and explain each one

 

[Salisa]

well I found the game, that the galley sailed the ocean blue, the patch is 129f of the Plain Vinny ver. However I did not save the game when it happened.. and the auto saves don't go back far enough (sigh).. I have built both of the wonders... can a Galley sail deep ocean?, even if Nav has been discovered if so then that is the only reason.. I only play on chiefton or warlord thats as hard core as i get

 

[Moonsinger]

Salisa,

The secret of Navigation will allow the galley to travel safely on the ocean square. It is the technology, not the Wonder.

 

[mayakovsky]

Okay, can someone point me in the right direction here? I need to learn how to efficiently trade techs. I am sure there is a great faq around here but I can't find it.

BTW- I am playing my first Monarch game and am in great position to win! I jumped straight from Chieftan to Monarch. I'm playing Domination and should win shortly. The only problem I am having is lack of techs. I'm getting killed in that area. Since I usually play on Chieftan, I was always way ahead of everyone and never needed to trade. Now I do. Thanks in advance.

 

[Speaker]

Take a look at the Training Game I just ran. In the Ancient Age we had a priority on tech trading and you can pick up some great tips on how to get the most out of your money.

EG1

 

[barron of ideas]

As I understand the term Farmers Gambit, it involves building settlers, and forming cities when a more pessimistic or realistic player would build warriors, archers or spearmen. If you can build more advanced units than that, you are probably no longer in a farmers gambit as it is an opening strategy, not something that continues for the entire game. ("Til 2000 BC I ran a farmer's gambit.")

The word "gambit" comes from Chess where the offer of a piece like a pawn, or unequal exchange (rook for bishop or knight), for position can be an opening strategy. The loss in material is offset by improved position. More broadly a "gambit" is just a strategy. The farmers part is likely from the growing population needed to make it work.

You don't hear other strategies, (archer rush, swordsman rush, pillage thy neigbor, building "lots" of workers BEFORE fighting units or buildings) as gambits. I assume the reason for "gambit" is to emphasize that you give something up to get something else. What you give up, mostly, is the ability to respond to raging barbarians or an AI with high agression. Certainly you leave yourself with limited responses to demands for tribute.

Some very good players have published games using the farmers gambit. I suspect it may succeed better in the "literature" than in real life (whatever that is in Civ III terms) because when it doesn't work you loose quick and those don't often get written up.

 

[Speaker]

That is an excellent explanation Barron. The "Farmer's Gambit" is taking a risk building more cities instead of a military, to keep up with the AI's rapid expansion. It would be hard to make a list of all the different "gambits" because there are so many different strategies for the game, although the War Academy is the best place to look for such strategies. I can't think of too many that are actually called "gambits" but that's just how they were coined.

 

[NewDestroyer]

could some1 tell me how to pop rush settler or workers, sometimes people refer to it as buying the worker, could u tell me how this works and what i need to do to make it work

 

[Bamspeedy]

I view a 'gambit' as taking a gamble (sometimes a HUGE one).

The farmer's gambit is basically building nothing but granaries, workers, and settlers. If nobody attacks you, you expand very well, because you devoted 100% of your resources to expansion. If somebody does sneak-attack you, the game would probably be over for you.

A good example of the farmer's gambit in action can be seen in the screenshot of this post:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1088338#post1088338

There is also the warrior's gambit, which is sending your first two warriors directly at your neighbor's capital in hopes of defeating their lone defender. This works best before they have Bronze Working (so they won't have spearman), and this is usually done ~3000 BC (sometimes earlier).
If you win, you already defeated a civ, and captured a city. If you lose, you face the wrath of the AI counter-attack.....
Don't ever try this on anything above Monarch.

NewDestroyer- You don't want to pop-rush settlers or workers. Rushing them with cash (when you get out of despotism) is a better idea.

But anyways- To poprush a settler, I would only suggest it in a population 4 city that is 95% corrupt (only producing 1 shield/turn), but even then you have happiness problems to worry about. If rushing a settler, wait until the city has built up 10 shields, so when you pop-rush, the citizen gives you 20 shields, which will give you the 30 shields you need, plus still have the population points to be able to send 2 citizens out of the city (the settler).
You'd be better off building workers non-stop in those super-corrupt cities.

 

[theGhost]

Why do automated workers take down mines and irrigate the land? Are they obsessed with growing the population?

 

[Bacon King]

Originally posted by theGhost
Why do automated workers take down mines and irrigate the land? Are they obsessed with growing the population?

because thats what they do.
If you want automation with no terrain improvement altering, press Shift-A.

 

[superslug]

The best thing to do is to micromanage all of them all of the time, but a good mix between micromanagement and automation is to order them around manually until you complete tile improvements in your core towns and then cut them loose on Shift-A once you're only developing towns too corrupt to be worth much, other than population. I usually do this and keep a few on manual to remine certain tiles I want left alone.

 

[Salisa]

I was under the impression that a Galley could not do that.. Thanks for correcting me..

 

[Turner]

It's confusing. . . . a lot of things were changed from Civ2. For the better, I think. Well, for the most part.

For this old Civ & Civ2 player, it was a stretch converting over to Civ3. But as I've been spending 18 months on this game, it's been worth it.

 

[hbdragon88]

Hmm, farmer's gambit. I think that was my strategy, to build as many cities as possible. Military was at a minimum. I usually built one warrior in each city and concentrated immediately on a granary to build. When I started using Moonsinger's startup strategy, I still did the same thing, but didn't build a warrior in the established city. The military factory city took care of that...

One thing I didn't do was build many workers, which was bad bad bad.

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by mayakovsky
Okay, can someone point me in the right direction here? I need to learn how to efficiently trade techs. I am sure there is a great faq around here but I can't find it.

Moonsinger ran a great training thread on trading at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54088. It provides a snapshot .sav file at a key trading point and you are invited to see how well you can do during that one turn.

The thread includes examples of the deal sequences created by some of the leading players. It covers more than just techs, but there usually is more to tech trading than just exchanging techs. Basically you need to find something that other civs need, and then make the most out of the resulting exchanges. I find I'm visiting the other civs on almost every turn in case a new opportunity comes up and I can take advantage of a monopoly position on a new tech or a new contact.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I have looked everywhere, and I can't find an answer.

What are the numbers next to government type in the info box?

 

[Grille]

These reflect your current settings of the tax/lux slider.
So 4/4/2 means your total commerce is devided into both 40% tax & science, 20% lux tax.
Not sure about the correct order atm (I *think* it's tax/science/lux), but you can prove easily by moving the sliders.