Strategic Resources

[Emblazoned]

What is a reasonable/normal amount of strategic resources on a map? I often find that I can just barely lead the tech race (on chieftain) but I never seem to find the resources I need. My territories are usually around the same size as the computer but I never seem to find anything. Is it just bad luck or am I choosing poor city locations? Even areas that I've explored but haven't built to don't have the resources that I'm lacking....

 

[Aabraxan]

Welcome to CFC, Emblazoned!

I don't know exactly how to answer your question. I don't know think I've ever counted how many of each strategic resource are on a map. Truthfully, though, if you're just barely leading the tech race and have an empire roughly the same size as the AI's at Chieftain, the problem is probably not a question of luck. Sounds like you're not expanding fast enough in the early game. The early game is all about claiming land. More land = higher chance that you'll have the resources within your cultural boundaries. With that said, sometimes you just get rotten luck with resources. And if you don't have them, go take them. As to the question of city placement, the best way to get that answered is to post a save.

Have you been to the Civ III War Academy? It's a great source of information. There are many very good articles, but some articles that I frequently recommend are "Cracker's Opening Plays" and "Bampseedy's Deity Settlers." Also, the "The Four Rules of Wonder Addiction" and "Warmongering 101: A Tactical Primer." Get through those and you won't have trouble taking resources from the Chieftain AI for very long.

 

[ecuwins]

^^What he is saying is right. I just want to add a bit. It is not uncommon to be missing some strategic resources. In fact you are blessed and lucky to have several of them within your initial expansion phase. I usually find myself lacking either iron or horses early on, sometimes both. As long as you have iron horses can wait but not necessarily the other way around. In just about all cases, with rare exceptions, war is inevitable. I am a peaceful builder at heart but I prepare for war at all times. I will go to war at the drop of a hat for an extra luxury let alone a necessary strategic resource. I will stop the war once I get what I want and then usually can extort the AI out of gold, techs, or whatever for the peace treaty.

 

[Emblazoned]

Thank you for the hints! I've been reading as much as I can after I made the switch from the easiest setting to Chieftain and got cleaned out. I find myself struggling quite often as there seems to be a large paradigm shift between the two difficulty settings. A three month learning curve as I've been hearing from people is mildly frightening. =P I'll try start another game and post a save if I don't feel like I have proper footing.

 

[Aabraxan]

I'd also suggest getting away from Chieftain (which, by the way, is the easiest setting). You get such obscene advantages over the AI at Chieftain that it distorts the game and allows you to learn very bad habits. Start at least at Warlord.

 

[MAS]

It depends on the type of resource, but a map with more players is generally given more resources. If you generate a map with only 2 players, then you have a big chance that there are only 2 of each of the more rare resources.

The solution to both your problems is expansion though.
Build settlers and workers, and settle lots of cities.
Exactly where you should settle them is a more difficult issue, but you can learn that later. First learn to focus heavenly on expansion.
Don't build temples and wonders, and don't build a spearman for every town. Just build settlers and workers.

 

[bob rulz]

What's so bad about temples? Why do I keep hearing this mentioned? Obviously building a temple in every city isn't necessary, but that's the second time I've heard "never build temples."

 

[Aabraxan]

It depends on your victory condition. If you're going for conquest or domination, it's more efficient to invest in military units and use the lux slider for happiness. If you're going for a cultural victory, that's a different story.

 

[ecuwins]

I am fairly new to the game and did not really understand the whole "never build temples" thing until recently. Ok so here it goes -- As a general rule never build temples. But there are some exceptions as to when a city might actually benefit from a temple, however the only way to figure this out is to play several games without building any temples. It sounds kind of crazy but I learned a lot by playing some games without temples.

 

[bob rulz]

It depends on your victory condition. If you're going for conquest or domination, it's more efficient to invest in military units and use the lux slider for happiness. If you're going for a cultural victory, that's a different story.

What if you're just playing to win? Whichever victory suits you best as you go along.

Temples increase your borders early, and they're cheap. And I'm not new to the game; I'm on Monarch difficulty level.

 

[Aabraxan]

Settlers increase my borders, too, and they're cheaper, faster, and mobile.

 

[bob rulz]

Settlers increase my borders, too, and they're cheaper, faster, and mobile.

Well, obviously. But temples increase the borders of cities that are already there.

 

[Aabraxan]

Yes, they do. There's a time and place for temples. But they're costly for what you get in return.

 

[bob rulz]

Yes, they do. There's a time and place for temples. But they're costly for what you get in return.

I don't see how. Especially for border cities, or cities that are pretty isolated or distant. Temples always to me seemed like the key to a thriving empire, besides workers and settlers.

But...I'm also not much of a warmonger. I'm more of a builder.

 

[Aabraxan]

You get one happier person, a little culture, and slowly expanding borders, for which you pay 60 shields (unless religious) + maintenance every turn. For 60 shields, I can build two settlers, each of which will temporarily reduce overcrowding in the cities where they were built. Each settler will expand the number of tiles under my control by a maximum of 9 tiles, but that's before I build any improvements. Then each settler will begin generating food, shields, gold, military units, more settlers, workers, unit support, beakers etc. I also have a great deal more flexibility with my gold/tech/luxury spending if I use the lux slider for happiness issues. Investments such as settlers (2 for the price of a temple), or military units (2 horses for the price of a temple) allow you to gain land, resources, luxuries (which help with the happiness). Most of my cities never get a temple. The exceptions tend to be coastal towns where I need to grab a whale or something, or, in very rare cases, border towns where the AI has lots of culture. (Truthfully, though, I usually just go burn some of their towns down and move their cultural borders).

 

[Emblazoned]

Oops, just read the remark about temples and here i am uploading a save game with cities turning out temples. i wanted to expand my borders to increase my income.

anyway, for anyone who looks, i caught china with their pants down early on hence the reason for those cities way way out. this is the second difficulty from the bottom... its a big jump from "easiest" to "second easiest" but i'm starting to feel like i'm getting the hang of it. any comments/suggestions welcome!

 

[TruePurple]

When expanding its usually not good to build temples unless your looking for cultural victories or need to claim territory.

But temples allow you to turn down the slider so you get more tech/gold. You don't want to stop a town from growing by making specialists in core cities. You don't want lux on real high because that zaps the gold/research(research is generally more important) Temples can easily pay for themselves. Build them in the cities that are larger then others/suffer from more unhappiness then others. If its generally even, build em in just about every core town.

This goes for cathedrals/colloseums too.

But of course only after expansion. Since he is right that settlers and workers work well for reducing unhappiness by reducing population. During expansion your only focuses should be, military, scouts, and growth. No wonder building till you have at least about 10 towns I think and then only in one of them. Do make sure you have enough troops to protect things. Also if in war it might be better just to build units till at least you have the upper hand.

Learn to chop forests for granaries. But remember not every town necessarily needs a granary build.

I personally started playing difficulty before emperor and switched to emperor pretty quick. I didn't always do well, but I learned good. For learning, use saves & autosaves. If you make a mistake, go back to a save and try it a different way and see how things would have gone.

 

[Jazzmail]

For 60 shields, I can build two settlers

Sorry but I have to be a nitpick here, but a temple really costs 10 shields less than 1 single settler.
Think about it: you can have a temple for 20 shield + 2 pop (pop rush).
A settler is 30 shields and 2 pop.

 

[bob rulz]

I have a few problems with these explanations. First off, there's lots of cities to build settlers from. You don't have to be building settlers and workers in all of your cities all the time. Secondly, who says said cities are going to be overcrowded? If they get overcrowded then yes, get a settler, but not all cities are overcrowded. Third, the fastest, cheapest way to get culture into a city is temples. A temple is only 1 maintenance; building a few early in the game isn't going to kill you if you know how to manage your treasury at all.

I, personally, think that the benefits are worth the costs.

 

[MAS]

But culture is almost useless.

If you are trying to win a 100K victory, the most efficient/fastest/overwhelming way to do it is to first conquer till near the domination limit (normally 65%) then switch to feudalism or communism and poprush culture everywhere. But by that time you have already won, you just need to finish it up. An you only need the culture to actually trigger the victory condition. (note also, that if you are just trying to win any victory, you can, at that point, win even faster by conquering just one more city and hit the domination limit.)

If you are trying to win the 20K single city victory, you need to build that temple only in that one city.