Simple "why" questions

[civlor]

I've been playing this game for about four months, and, of course, I'm addicted by now. Anyway, I have questions that have been nagging at me since I started playing. Hope that more experienced players can answer them and make suggestions.

Warlord level, standard setting, on large continents starting at 5000 BC:

1) Why does the game always show 4000 BC as starting time?

2) Why does my capitol always get built around the edges of the continent?

3) Why do the other nations always start creeping closer to my area when they have loads of space to grow in other directions?

4) Why does my iron get depleted before I have time to upgrade warriors to swordsmen? And what to do about that.

That's all for now. Thanks.

 

[Henry_X]

1) You don't set the start-date but the "age" of the world, if it's older, you get more mountains and resources.

2) I've noticed that some civ's have a "fixed" starting position. Some are always coastal, some are more likely to be on a island, some are always in jungles or in the center of the map.
Examples , Japan as island-civ and Egypt as center.

3) Because the you have less space to expand , I also "forward-build" to other civ , trying to steal "their" resources.

4) I don't have that problem , most of the time there I have plenty of resources, partly because of the forward building. You can always wait to build a road on the iron until your warriors are closer to your cities.

Welcome

PS there's in the general section of the forum a Newbie-question thread. You'll get fast and accurate responses there, please use this for these types of questions.

 

[civlor]

Thank you, now I know why. I usually play as American which starts on the coast, but I think I'll try Egypt and experiment with the others. I like to have a lot of room surrounding a capitol so I can spread out in all directions without getting too far. Thanks again.

 

[Henry_X]

Keep in mind , starting in the middle , you get boxed in from all sides too and you'll have much bigger borders with several civ's. You'll have to expand fast or the others will leave you no space at all.

 

[Astares]

Originally posted by Henry_X
1) You don't set the start-date but the "age" of the world, if it's older, you get more mountains and resources.

Actually the Older the world the less Mountains and Hills you will have, since over the billions of years of erosion and settling of geological action, the world smooths out more.


As for the original questions:

1. The game always starts out at 4000BC, not sure if you can change this is custom made scenarios. Reason for 4000BC is because this is around the time nomadic humans started to settle in fixed locations and started farming.

2. Often your first settler will be near the coast, sometimes though if your playing large/huge maps and especially on Panagea setting you'll be inland. Alot of players tend to move their Palace and thus capital later in the game after finding a better spot. Most will agree though that your best off establishing your capital as soon as possible, often wherever the game starts you, unless your one square from the coast or one a good resource square.

3. The AI will often try and hem you in, by building as close as it can to you, often its not deliberate just the way the AI spreads out. The AI will try and settle everywhere and anywhere there is a free spot.

4. Resource depletion is always a real pain, most times it will disappear and reappear in the same spot. But when you really need it, it will disappear.

 

[SeVeS]

4. If you don't need the iron rightaway, do not connect it... yet. Wait until the moment you want to upgrade those warriors and you really need it. Unconnected resources do not deplet.

 

[widdowmaker]

Dude. In my game i got like 5 iron sources hooked up and a monoply on most resources! They have never depleted on me. That depletion thing is a roandom occurance. (i ma on cheiftan so dont flame me if i am wrong)

 

[[GoD]Toxic]

Widdowmaker: youre right on the random depletion.

2) if you don't like your start location then start another game. Getting a nice startposition is the first step on the road to victory...

 

[greynite1]

Know to look at your terrain and see how powerful your starting position CAN be. Make sure you have a good balance of Hills, Woods even some mountains nearby. If your on a single player game you can do this although it is cheating and their are other things to do but they take much longer.

1. use the first movement of your Warrior or scout and Worker to scout in different directions to see if you can find a new city site. Then reload and go to that better site the first turn. As long as it doesn't take more then 1 at most 2 turns to get there otherwise you are falling behind too much.

2. You can simply build first have your scouts scout and find a better site then found a city and move your palace. But this takes a long time.

3. the best way is to just learn how use the terrain you are dealt with for instance on multiplayer games where time is a serious factor your need to work with what you got.

There is a great article on this site which talks about opening moves and a full analysis of the tiles and how to judge the power of your opening placement and whether or not to move.

http://www.civfanatics.com/doc/civ3/cracker/civ3_starts/

this is a place to start be sure to read the essays and articles on early game in the war academy. they helped me ALOT.

 

[Shillen]

I think restarting your game because of a bad start position is cheap. Effectively if you keep restarting your game until you get a good start position it's like you're actually playing on one level lower than you are. Just take what you get. If you lose, you lose, but don't give up without even trying.

 

[Paul_Hoplite]

There is a valid reason for restarting a game. If I'm trying out different strategies, i may want a specific type of starting location to test it. It's a waste of time if I start out in tundra or a jungle. (However, I agree that restarting a game does not give a true indication if your playing at diety level if you don't like your initial location.)

Also. as far a start location, there in an optioin toggle button to have starting locations culturally determined. It either on the game set0up pages or the game preference page. Once I turned it off I rarely am situated on the coast at start-up.

 

[Siegmund]

greynite1 wrote: "use the first movement of your Warrior or scout and Worker to scout in different directions to see if you can find a new city site. Then reload and go to that better site the first turn."

You can do this without having to cheat and reload! Just press 'W' to move your Settler to end of the units list instead of the top - then you can move the worker first and then, while it is still 4000 BC, either found your city or move the settler. If you have a scout, even better: move the scout first, then choose where your city will be and assign the worker to his first job.

 

[widdowmaker]

Yea well i am in a warlord game and i am on a ALL TUNDRA ISLAND with a few forest big enough to hold three cities. But then again i asked for it cause i took 5billion cold arid and got a cold desert aka. Tundra. Oh well the ottomans shall make due on 3 3 pop cties and shall counquer all!

 

[Greyhawk1]

I'm no expert but a few things I found:

Try not to build your cities right next to easily defended terrain. The AI always attacks from there and it makes it much harder to destroy them before they destroy you.

On your first initial scout try and find a decent mountain early on and you'll get a good view of your surroundings.

 

[wilbill]

Originally posted by widdowmaker
...i am on a ALL TUNDRA ISLAND with a few forest big enough to hold three cities. But then again i asked for it cause i took 5billion cold arid and got a cold desert...

And one thing to keep in mind is that since you picked a more extreme world, odds are the AI's didn't get all rivers, grassland and cows, either. I think that makes it worth playing a few turns at least.
Of course if you'd selected 3 billion, temperate, and wet and got stuck on your tundra island, it might be a good time to restart, lol.

 

[nihil8r]

feh, yesterday i started a 4 billion wet temperate and was on an island about 35 tiles total, with only hills and tundra and no bonus squares. i didnt even see any fish.

i restarted

 

[wargasm23]

Originally posted by Henry_X

Keep in mind , starting in the middle , you get boxed in from all sides too and you'll have much bigger borders with several civ's. You'll have to expand fast or the others will leave you no space at all.

Well said,

Need i say more?

 

[Zcylen]

Originally posted by civlor

1) Why does the game always show 4000 BC as starting time?

its, the "ancient age", dont worry about it, its just the begginig point.
it could have been any other year.

2) Why does my capitol always get built around the edges of the continent?

ah, very interesting, actually, its the best place for a starting civilization, a coastal city have great adventages.
starting in the middle of a continent is not very helpful, you get surrounded and no way to the ocean = no trade, no ships, no coastal wonders.

3) Why do the other nations always start creeping closer to my area when they have loads of space to grow in other directions?

thats a nasty tactic you can use too, if you know the location of your enemies build a city next their borders, that way you can stop their expansion, be sure to protect that city or it will be gone.

4) Why does my iron get depleted before I have time to upgrade warriors to swordsmen? And what to do about that.

depleted resources are random, no matter you have never used it before, there's a % in the editor, there you can see how likely a rersource can depelet