Starting out on Regeant (lvl3)

[MAS]

I couldve rephrased nothing to build to "nothing to build that my economy can support"

If I'm going for a histograph or space victory, then, all the way into the modern age, I run into the problem that building more units will hurt more than help. At this point, I switch to wealth. The wealth then helps keeping the slider at 100% SCI.

In the AA, everything I build is an investment that gains me more power later on. (with possible exception of some of the regular warriors I only build for MP and opportunistic deterrent)

If I'm alone on an Island, so that I won't be doing any conquest in the early AA, I'll indeed not build up units. Instead, I'd build workers to improve all the land quickly, then rejoin a lot of those workers to speed up the growth of my cities while they build improvements. If It takes long enough before I will be needing units, I may even end up building temples in my cities, or try for some wonders.
During some of the time I may need to lower the slider to support some of those workers, but this is only temporary, they end up improving my power very quickly.

If I'm going for conquest, I'll build up my offensive force. I may have to lower the slider temporary when I'm not fighting yet, but this is an investment, because those units will gain me a lot of new land and cities in the end, thus they will end up paying for themselves.

So I'm always planning on how to gain power. If not by conquest, then economically. I'm always thinking: "I need X! where do I get the shields/gold from?"
By the time I'm thinking: "I have some shields/gold here! What shall I do with it?" I've won the game!

 

[Simak]

When you start out and get your worker, have the worker road and then mine or irrigate the tile that is the most useful.....usually the one that the citizen is already working. You city will always have atleast one citizen, so might as well make the most effective tile, more effective. Do this with the second most effective tile and then the third. By then you should have another city. Do the same to that city. Rinse and repeat.

 

[mr_lewington]

when improving a tile should you balance it out, so each square has a bit of everything, or make powerhouse tiles (say, 5 food, 1 commerce on a wheat, or like 2 shields, 5 commerce on say gems).

 

[TheOverseer714]

As many things go in this game, it depends. Early, you definitely want to maximize where possible with the Despotism penalty, so you irrigate bonus food tiles and mine everything else, especially bonus grass, since a normal grass tile can only get you 2 foods until you can change governments. Later, you might mine a bonus food for shields if it has a shield anyway to boost shields. A Civ3 game can be divided into 3 eras: The food era, the cash era, and the shields era. These eras overlap, but each is important. The food era is about getting your empire off on the right foot with fast growth, the cash era is about keeping up tech-wise, and the shields era is about production, producing what it takes to win, whether it be buildings, wonders or military.

 

[MAS]

when improving a tile should you balance it out, so each square has a bit of everything, or make powerhouse tiles (say, 5 food, 1 commerce on a wheat, or like 2 shields, 5 commerce on say gems).

My thinking goes:

This core cities needs to grow to size 12: so it needs 24 food, and beyond that, it needs enough shields to produce X in the shortest amount of time, when there is overrun, I will try to maximize the commerce.

So there are some hills available, some mountains, some grass, and some bonus grass. The hills and mountains provide more shields, but I need extra food from the grass to be able to work them without starvation. I can chose to irrigate any of the city's grass tile for this, but I prefer the bonus grass over the plain grass, because if I'm in golden age or mobilization, a tile with no shields at all will not get the bonus.

An other city I chose to set up as worker pump, so it needs to generate 5 shields per turn and 5 surplus food per turn with a granary to produce a worker every 2 turns. (below size 7) So I irrigate and mine what is needed to get that amount.

If I'm in despotism, its early in the game, so my main focus is growth. I would have wanted to irrigate almost everything, but the tile penalty makes it useless to irrigate grass tiles. So I'll mine grass tiles, because thats the only way to get any improvement to a grass tile in despotism. Of course, in situations where the despotism penalty won't make irigating useless, I'll go ahead and irrigate.

As you can see, I never ask myself if I should "balance" individual tiles. I improve the tiles according to what I need for whatever city is working them.

EDIT: I just realized, I can somewhat answer the question in terms of balance.
As I said before. I you decide you need to irrigate a grass tile, and you have the option to chose between a bonus shield grass and a non bonus shield grass, or between a cow and a wheat grass. Then its better to irrigate grass with a shield from the bonus, and mine the grass without a shield from somewhere else.
This is because if you are in a golden age, or you activate mobilization. You will get an extra shield on every tile that already produces at least one. So, if possible, try to make sure every tile produces at least one shields. To get the bonus ton more tiles.