This is embarrassing.

[jkk]

I seem to get back into C3C every so often, and I don't know what it is, but this time it's harder than ever to do well. I'm hoping to figure out what key game dynamic I am ignoring or overlooking that would change matters.

Playing on Regent, restless barbs, huge normal world, all 18 or however many other civs. Some people win regularly on Deity. Regent should be a routine clownstomp, but it's not.

Sometimes I just get a crappy start location. Maybe it's shameful, but I usually try again.

I have a hard time expanding fast enough. Either I find neighbors way too soon, in which case they out-expand me and hem me in, or I don't. Plenty of neighbors means plenty of tech trading but stifled growth. Lack of neighbors means no tech trading but faster growth. Either way I seem hosed.

If I try early war, even if I'm technologically equal, I'm out-produced in units. If I wasn't lucky enough to get horses or iron, my technology doesn't matter because the other side tends to have them.

If I try to build any early wonder, someone beats me. Should we throw away 150 shields, Sire? Why, yes, yes we must. That'll be the loveliest barracks in the world. Unfortunately, there is not even a small wonder called The Presidio.

I do things I know to be sensible: take advantage of granaries in food-rich cities to produce more settlers, site cities sensibly to take full advantage without too much overlap, roads first, gather in luxuries where feasible and make a beeline for early resources, get early Warriors out exploring to pick up goody huts and get the lay of the land, get some coastal exploration with a ship when I can, build some additional workers mostly from cities that tend to go into disorder due to speedy growth, use UUs to trigger golden age at a time when I can take advantage of it, get police value from obsolete military units up to a point, make extra effort on the frontiers to generate culture, know when to accept a rough deal to make peace, try and trade a new tech to everyone else for a bunch more techs (on my initiative, not theirs, so they don't get to do that), and some others.

So I'm trying to figure out what I'm missing, humbling myself here. Since it's impossible to remember everything I think I'm doing right already, if anyone wants to ask me a lot of "Are you currently..." questions about excellent strategies, that would be perfect, because I either am or am not, and if not, am willing to try them. I am pretty sure I am screwing myself in the first era, sealing my fate by the time it's over. Hell's bells, I have been a gamer since 1976. Got to be able to do better than this.

Other than being willing to dump a terrible start, I don't want to use a cheat. Thanks for any input to help me get out of assisted gaming and keep my gaming independence.

 

[justanick]

Try to leave despotism as soon as possible, preferable towards republic. Once you are a republic watch over units support. Let your cities grow fast to size 12, but build enough workers so that each citizen can use a properly improved tile or a sea tile. Once the tiles are improved some workers can be added back to cities, so some planning ahead helps.

Until you feel safe you might better avoid building wonders. Let AI do it for you and take them by force. Also at times it can help to be patient, panic is seldom good advice. Waiting with war till your economic advantage of being a republic yields you the ability to build cavalry can be convenient. They are efficient means of war.

 

[Nathiri]

What do you mean by roads first? Not that big of a deal, but sometimes the little things could help alot. When mining first before roading, you can give your city a quick boost in production so you can complete it a few turns quicker, than doing road after. If you do things quicker, even just a few turns difference, it will gradually push you ahead as each turn counts.

What really helped me alot was to maximise the use of the tiles for cities, even in a small area, and to have workers in stacks of 2-3, and to have several of those stacks, and improve tiles as fast as possible. Also if you do early war, make sure cities are in good reinforce distance if the AI is quite threatening, though on Regent they usually arnt.

It can be surprising how little a city could need to be profitable.

When I discovered some different things I had missed before, I now find Regent super easy.

 

[jkk]

Try to leave despotism as soon as possible, preferable towards republic. Once you are a republic watch over units support. Let your cities grow fast to size 12, but build enough workers so that each citizen can use a properly improved tile or a sea tile. Once the tiles are improved some workers can be added back to cities, so some planning ahead helps.

Until you feel safe you might better avoid building wonders. Let AI do it for you and take them by force. Also at times it can help to be patient, panic is seldom good advice. Waiting with war till your economic advantage of being a republic yields you the ability to build cavalry can be convenient. They are efficient means of war.

Thanks. I've been aiming to get out of despotism and into monarchy, but republic has a lot of advantages tradewise. I should start aiming my positions down that path.

 

[jkk]

What do you mean by roads first? Not that big of a deal, but sometimes the little things could help alot. When mining first before roading, you can give your city a quick boost in production so you can complete it a few turns quicker, than doing road after. If you do things quicker, even just a few turns difference, it will gradually push you ahead as each turn counts.

What really helped me alot was to maximise the use of the tiles for cities, even in a small area, and to have workers in stacks of 2-3, and to have several of those stacks, and improve tiles as fast as possible. Also if you do early war, make sure cities are in good reinforce distance if the AI is quite threatening, though on Regent they usually arnt.

It can be surprising how little a city could need to be profitable.

When I discovered some different things I had missed before, I now find Regent super easy.

By roads first I mean that I am working first to get a good road network, both for the trade gains and for security plus getting connected to resources and luxuries, rather than going nuts early on mining and irrigation. But I see your point, that maybe mines should come first. Stuff like that is exactly why I asked the question--maybe what I think is the best method, has been wrong all along.

I can especially see the value of adding workers back to cities on peninsulas where natural growth is slow.

Really appreciate the input!

 

[jkk]

Okay, thinking further about early development, and bearing in mind that ground may later be redeveloped:

Desert: irrigate.
Plains: irrigate.
Grassland: mine.
Grassland + resource: mine.
Hills: mine a few.
Forest: road; clear extra and do as above if more than two or three in city radius.
Mountains: mostly leave be in early game, mine later.
Marsh: clear with stack of four workers.
Jungle: clear with stack of four workers.

Clearly, there would be exceptions. For example, it might be helpful early to irrigate one or two grasslands if they were going to be utilized by population. Roads should be on resources and luxuries, and on any space that is worked consistently, but come second in priority. It would seem ideal to design one's early road network to use the consistently worked spaces. And in any case, local conditions have to dictate, so never follow any of the above guidelines off a cliff.

Sound sensible?

 

[Nathiri]

Obviously if need a link to a city, then road first. But for general improving of city, it can be beneficial to get the food or shields in a few turns earlier than roading and doing the mine/irrigation after, unless, you have other workers coming in to help improve that tile, a road could get them all on the tile quicker.

I usually mine 2 BGs as soon as possible for decent production for my capital or the equivalent yield. I can normally do that amount before I have to start pre-roading my 2nd city.

I usually do 2 irrigated grassland for city size 2, and mine the rest of the grassland (after tile penalty is gone).

Remember normal hills provide same shield bonus as a mined plains with the despotism tile penalty. Same applies to forest and BG of course. Until you are about to change governments, it can be better to avoid mining hills as it takes a few turns longer than utilizing a forest or mining a plains.

 

[justanick]

Grassland: mine.
Grassland + resource: mine.

That does strongly depend on whether despotism penalty applies. Despotism penalty decreases each of the 3 tile yields(food, shields, commerce) by one if it was 3 or higher without the penalty.

The most relevant effect is that early on irrigating grassland is wasted as 2 food +1 food equal 3 food which is reduced back to 2 food by the penalty. If however a tile already had 3+ food prior to the penalty, than you should definitely irrigate. So wheat or cow or wine on grassland should definitely be irrigated. Prior to leaving depotism and anarchy net food is very limited. Once you have a proper government irrigating some grasslands is the proper choice, preferable those grassland with the extra shield and tiles on rivers should be irrigated as those tiles will be used even at low population. That increases growth at low population, additional citizens can then use tiles that have high shields and possibly low food so that once size 12 is reached net food is zero. But before that 5 net foods is somewhat reasonable after that agonizingly slow growth with 2 net food before the postdespotic government.

By roads first I mean that I am working first to get a good road network, both for the trade gains and for security plus getting connected to resources and luxuries, rather than going nuts early on mining and irrigation. But I see your point, that maybe mines should come first. Stuff like that is exactly why I asked the question--maybe what I think is the best method, has been wrong all along.

Well, the effect of this should be minor. Having enough workers in the first place is more important. Groups of 2 work well and having on average 2 workers per city is a proper amount of workers anyway.

Personally i like to road tiles early as this helps to leave despotism ASAP. Donnot underestimate that.

Thanks. I've been aiming to get out of despotism and into monarchy, but republic has a lot of advantages tradewise. I should start aiming my positions down that path.

The main thing about republic probably is that it takes some time to properly utilize it. You pay 2 gtp for each unit above the support limit and only have 1 one free unit per town. For cities it is already 3 free units. Before adding some workers back to cities in order to reach size 12 is somewhat inconvient to wage ware.

Even then warfare is of course possible, experienced players do it all the time even if that is slightly disfavourable compared to doing it in a monarchy instead. That is because the costs of changing government are so damn high. Once a certain empire size is reached it is 7 turns of anarchy on average! Less experienced players however risk that high unit support, lack of military police and war-weariness may lead to negative gtp at zero expenses on research. You cannot maintain that for long.

One thing you can do is to use high gold surplusses to help develop your cities. If you feel your cities are behind the development that would be proper for your available techs, than buying some shields for crucial buildings like aqueducts or courthouses where corruption is 30% to 85% helps a lot. That will greatly help to antedate the time you will be able to field a proper army by regular means. Other than those 2 buildings it is probably best to not spend gold on buying shields. Better spend it on research, building up stockpiles of gold for expensive research in the industrial age and if it needs to be you can spend it on upgrading outdated units. I am not a big fan of the later, but i understand it can help a lot under certain circumstances.

 

[tjs282]

If I try early war, even if I'm technologically equal, I'm out-produced in units. If I wasn't lucky enough to get horses or iron, my technology doesn't matter because the other side tends to have them.

I'm curious about this statement. At Regent, the AICivs have no production advantage, so they should not be able to out-produce you, certainly not on an individual basis.

Rather the opposite in fact, since the AI (1) under-builds on Workers and (2) does not know how to co-ordinate them properly, so will (for example) waste (many) Worker-turns irrigating Grassland under Despotism -- exactly what Justanick advises not doing, above. So if the AIs are out-producing you on units, that suggests to me that you might be over-investing your shields into city-improvements, and/or trying to erect buildings in all towns simultaneously, rather than staggering building-projects from one town to the next while pumping units out of your other (perhaps less productive) towns. That's certainly what I used to do...

I was playing C3Vanilla at Regent when I discovered CFC. I can now generally win most games (Civ3, PtW and C3C) at Emperor, and I am trying C3C-DG (haven't won one yet, though). I found the following general build-strat helpful for curbing my Regent-level tendency to over-build:

Under Despotism, each newly-founded town will spend its first ~10 turns building a basic garrison (Warrior, Archer, or -- possibly -- a Spear) and a Worker, before being dedicated to a specific purpose: military or growth and/or trade. Accordingly, no town (except possibly the Capital) gets more than 1-2 improvements before the (first) revolution: most will be Barracks-towns (to build vet-units), or Harbour-towns (for vet-ships and -- later -- research/trade), with only the 1-2 food-richest towns getting Grans (to build Workers/Settlers).

I'll build Courthouses in towns losing >3 SPT/CPT, so 1st-ringers usually won't need them for a while; 2nd-ring towns will build CHs as their second (or third) improvement; 3rd-ringers will often build a CH before anything else. Assuming you're playing C3Conquests/Complete, the Forbidden Palace should be built (in a high trade/shield-output 1st- or 2nd-ring town, preferably one that can get to Pop12 without a 'Duct) as soon as practical after you get the Domestic Advisor pop-up when you hit your half-OCN; ideally, you should already be pre-building it before then. (OCN for Huge Maps = 36 towns, so you should get the pop-up after founding/capturing your 18th town).

I don't usually build Libs until after the (first) revolution (usually aim for Republic), if I'm habitually running >50% SCI%, and prioritising them in high-trade towns. I usually only build Markets once I have at least 3-4 Luxes hooked, and/or am having difficulty keeping order at Pop6+. Unless my Civ is Agricultural, Construction is usually one of the last Ancient Age techs I go for, so 'Ducts are almost always Middle-Age and/or GA-builds.

No town which has fresh water ever gets Walls (and most really good players don't advise building Walls even in the dry towns: build a Duct and get the Pop7+ defence-bonus instead). I only build Temples/Cathedrals if I have a Religious Civ -- border/territorial-expansion is otherwise accomplished via Settlers (and/or Libs, if Scientific); and happiness controlled using Luxes+Markets and the LUX%-slider.

I use Forest-chops to help along the more expensive builds, if necessary/ possible; later on, obsolete units can be disbanded for some shields. I'm still not ruthless enough to feel comfortable with Despot-whipping my citizens to death, which is possibly holding me back at DG (but for a relaxed win at Regent, whipping isn't even really necessary).

 

[justanick]

I'm curious about this statement. At Regent, the AICivs have no production advantage, so they should not be able to out-produce you, certainly not on an individual basis.

I estimate that jkk feels outproduced much more than is objectively the case. But there are 2 important areas where higher difficulty settings will give AI no direct advantage: Workers and commerce. Commerce will be the same and so will research costs. Also the amount of needed worker moves will remain constant.

most will be Barracks-towns (to build vet-units)

I would like to add that barracks are usually not worth it during despotism. They might be worth if those units build by those cities are meant to be kept once you are a republic. By with gaining a forth HP it takes 120 shield be spend on units to reach the same amount of Hitpoints like spending 160 shields on units.

Unless my Civ is Agricultural, Construction is usually one of the last Ancient Age techs I go for, so 'Ducts are almost always Middle-Age and/or GA-builds.

Aqueducts are the most important building of the ancient age. They should enjoy high priority. They certainly are more important than granaries. Granaries for cities with fresh water and aqueducts for the rest can be convenient.

No town which has fresh water ever gets Walls (and most really good players don't advise building Walls even in the dry towns: build a Duct and get the Pop7+ defence-bonus instead)..

agonistes has detailed rather well how building many defensive units and walls can help at high difficulty level and huge maps. The bigger the map the higher total production / front size ratio is. This means that more units per front town will be available and walls become more decisive. Also they might be an efficient deterrent againt surprise attack by AI. If you have the choice to build 1 barrack and 2 veteran spearmen or 1 wall and 3 regular spearmen the later might be a lot better. During despotism and republic you save 1 gtp on barracks, but as a republic you have to pay 2 additional gtp. If this helps to avoid a war it might be worth the hassle of building walls that soon will be obsolete.

 

[jkk]

That does strongly depend on whether despotism penalty applies. Despotism penalty decreases each of the 3 tile yields(food, shields, commerce) by one if it was 3 or higher without the penalty.

The most relevant effect is that early on irrigating grassland is wasted as 2 food +1 food equal 3 food which is reduced back to 2 food by the penalty. If however a tile already had 3+ food prior to the penalty, than you should definitely irrigate. So wheat or cow or wine on grassland should definitely be irrigated. Prior to leaving depotism and anarchy net food is very limited. Once you have a proper government irrigating some grasslands is the proper choice, preferable those grassland with the extra shield and tiles on rivers should be irrigated as those tiles will be used even at low population. [...] Personally i like to road tiles early as this helps to leave despotism ASAP. Donnot underestimate that.

I am going to have to retrain my brain to remember the exact effects of the despotism penalty. I think it is failure to properly game these mechanics that is causing some of my trouble.

The main thing about republic probably is that it takes some time to properly utilize it. You pay 2 gtp for each unit above the support limit and only have 1 one free unit per town. For cities it is already 3 free units. Before adding some workers back to cities in order to reach size 12 is somewhat inconvient to wage ware.

I think I went a little overboard in my current game. I made a mad dash toward Republic. Positive: that passes through Philosophy, letting me get the bonus tech and giving me something that takes a long research time to pick as the bonus tech. Negative: by skipping Monarchy, I end up with the despotism penalty for too long. Might have been smarter to make a mad dash for Monarchy first.

One thing you can do is to use high gold surplusses to help develop your cities. If you feel your cities are behind the development that would be proper for your available techs, than buying some shields for crucial buildings like aqueducts or courthouses where corruption is 30% to 85% helps a lot. That will greatly help to antedate the time you will be able to field a proper army by regular means. Other than those 2 buildings it is probably best to not spend gold on buying shields. Better spend it on research, building up stockpiles of gold for expensive research in the industrial age and if it needs to be you can spend it on upgrading outdated units. I am not a big fan of the later, but i understand it can help a lot under certain circumstances.

Well...very true, provided one obtains a high gold surplus. I could probably do that if I dialed back research as a priority for allocation of trade points, but I have always thought that it was best to keep science high, which tends to mean keeping gold low.

 

[Theov]

One small thing I recently made a habit: after building the initial settlers and workers, when it it time to let the cities grow; then is the time to use forests to chop rush granaries, to speed up the impending growth of the cities.

 

[jkk]

Remember normal hills provide same shield bonus as a mined plains with the despotism tile penalty. Same applies to forest and BG of course. Until you are about to change governments, it can be better to avoid mining hills as it takes a few turns longer than utilizing a forest or mining a plains.

Plus, you would ideally want a road through the mined hills, and that also takes longer.

I'm curious about this statement. At Regent, the AICivs have no production advantage, so they should not be able to out-produce you, certainly not on an individual basis.

Rather the opposite in fact, since the AI (1) under-builds on Workers and (2) does not know how to co-ordinate them properly, so will (for example) waste (many) Worker-turns irrigating Grassland under Despotism -- exactly what Justanick advises not doing, above. So if the AIs are out-producing you on units, that suggests to me that you might be over-investing your shields into city-improvements, and/or trying to erect buildings in all towns simultaneously, rather than staggering building-projects from one town to the next while pumping units out of your other (perhaps less productive) towns. That's certainly what I used to do...

I think you are correct that I'm out-produced because I'm producing too many improvements. I asked myself if it was fair to say, if I built/maintained a force including two offensive units per town that I wouldn't be out-produced, and I think it is.

I was playing C3Vanilla at Regent when I discovered CFC. I can now generally win most games (Civ3, PtW and C3C) at Emperor, and I am trying C3C-DG (haven't won one yet, though). I found the following general build-strat helpful for curbing my Regent-level tendency to over-build:

I dug all over for the abbreviation key, failed to find it. What's CFC?

I'm interested in knowing how big the military towns usually get during that phase. I never perceived veterans as worth the additional costs associated with barracks (build, upkeep), especially when veterans can be created by promotion in combat, which is predicated on picking one's battles so that one's units survive the fights as often as possible. That's about the only thing I'm good at in this game.

I'll build Courthouses in towns losing >3 SPT/CPT, so 1st-ringers usually won't need them for a while; 2nd-ring towns will build CHs as their second (or third) improvement; 3rd-ringers will often build a CH before anything else. Assuming you're playing C3Conquests/Complete, the Forbidden Palace should be built (in a high trade/shield-output 1st- or 2nd-ring town, preferably one that can get to Pop12 without a 'Duct) as soon as practical after you get the Domestic Advisor pop-up when you hit your half-OCN; ideally, you should already be pre-building it before then. (OCN for Huge Maps = 36 towns, so you should get the pop-up after founding/capturing your 18th town).

That's how I decide on Courthouses: if it isn't losing four trade, it's a net drain to build one. The more over four trade that are being lost, the more valuable the Courthouse is.

I don't usually build Libs until after the (first) revolution (usually aim for Republic), if I'm habitually running >50% SCI%, and prioritising them in high-trade towns. I usually only build Markets once I have at least 3-4 Luxes hooked, and/or am having difficulty keeping order at Pop6+. Unless my Civ is Agricultural, Construction is usually one of the last Ancient Age techs I go for, so 'Ducts are almost always Middle-Age and/or GA-builds.

What's the logic behind waiting to build Marketplaces? I see the value they add with luxuries, but even without the luxuries, you don't think they are worth the construction time and upkeep?

No town which has fresh water ever gets Walls (and most really good players don't advise building Walls even in the dry towns: build a Duct and get the Pop7+ defence-bonus instead). I only build Temples/Cathedrals if I have a Religious Civ -- border/territorial-expansion is otherwise accomplished via Settlers (and/or Libs, if Scientific); and happiness controlled using Luxes+Markets and the LUX%-slider.

I never build Walls. I could almost always benefit from building more units, if I'm out of things to build. Of course, as has been mentioned earlier, the fact that I'm in a situation where I can run out of things to build suggests that I'm not building enough workers and fighters most of the time.

I use Forest-chops to help along the more expensive builds, if necessary/ possible; later on, obsolete units can be disbanded for some shields. I'm still not ruthless enough to feel comfortable with Despot-whipping my citizens to death, which is possibly holding me back at DG (but for a relaxed win at Regent, whipping isn't even really necessary).

I always thought of whipping as mainly helpful in floodplain cities that produce inundations of food but relatively few shields.

I estimate that jkk feels outproduced much more than is objectively the case. But there are 2 important areas where higher difficulty settings will give AI no direct advantage: Workers and commerce. Commerce will be the same and so will research costs. Also the amount of needed worker moves will remain constant.

You are probably right about it being perception-based. I think it emanated from the numerous buttkickings I've taken when I wasn't taking disproportionate losses.

Aqueducts are the most important building of the ancient age. They should enjoy high priority. They certainly are more important than granaries. Granaries for cities with fresh water and aqueducts for the rest can be convenient.

The issue there, or at least how it seems to me, is that the Aqueducts require Construction. I think I can race for Republic, or for Construction, but not both at once.

agonistes has detailed rather well how building many defensive units and walls can help at high difficulty level and huge maps. The bigger the map the higher total production / front size ratio is. This means that more units per front town will be available and walls become more decisive. Also they might be an efficient deterrent againt surprise attack by AI. If you have the choice to build 1 barrack and 2 veteran spearmen or 1 wall and 3 regular spearmen the later might be a lot better. During despotism and republic you save 1 gtp on barracks, but as a republic you have to pay 2 additional gtp. If this helps to avoid a war it might be worth the hassle of building walls that soon will be obsolete.

On huge maps, what I always prioritized was early warning. Obsolete Warriors were great for that: put them somewhere where their only job is to see enemies coming. If I knew where to concentrate against a threat, I could meet it more efficiently. I don't think the AI's tactics in battle are too great, most of the time.

 

[justanick]

Forest: road; clear extra and do as above if more than two or three in city radius.

If you clear them first and road later you save a bit of time.

I think I went a little overboard in my current game. I made a mad dash toward Republic. Positive: that passes through Philosophy, letting me get the bonus tech and giving me something that takes a long research time to pick as the bonus tech. Negative: by skipping Monarchy, I end up with the despotism penalty for too long. Might have been smarter to make a mad dash for Monarchy first.

That seems unlikely. Due to the bonus tech republic can often be obtained slightly faster than monarchy. It can be obtained a lot faster if you aquire code of law before philosophy. Than you can use republic as bonus tech. At regent that should work well. The boost caused by this is immense, but at higher level chances of succeeding with this so called slingshot are lower.

Well...very true, provided one obtains a high gold surplus. I could probably do that if I dialed back research as a priority for allocation of trade points, but I have always thought that it was best to keep science high, which tends to mean keeping gold low.

That is the reason why one should limit it to couthouses and aqueducts. The road to victory goes via republic to construction, then zero fund research for a while till all needed aqueducts are done and the essential courthouses are mostly done. Afterwards proceed with research towards cavalry or universities if you want to stay peaceful a little while longer.

I dug all over for the abbreviation key, failed to find it. What's CFC?

This website: Civilization Fanatics Center.

I never perceived veterans as worth the additional costs associated with barracks (build, upkeep), especially when veterans can be created by promotion in combat,

They are worth it. As a republic you want few high quality troops. Also production soon reaches levels where the shields are soon regained by higher hitpoints. Starting as veteran means to faster reach elite and thus earlier gain MGLs. Those can ceate armies that enhance your military capabilities a lot.

I could almost always benefit from building more units, if I'm out of things to build. Of course, as has been mentioned earlier, the fact that I'm in a situation where I can run out of things to build suggests that I'm not building enough workers and fighters most of the time.

If you are out of things to produce it indicates that your research is too slow. At huge maps absolute research costs are higher, so to some degree that might be normal. But you should be careful not to overbuild military, or unit support might kill you as you end in a cycle of even lower research and thus lacking things to build except military.

The issue there, or at least how it seems to me, is that the Aqueducts require Construction. I think I can race for Republic, or for Construction, but not both at once.

Republic is far more needed. Immediatly after assuming repulic your research may or may not increase a lot, but after 10+ turns being a republic your research should have at least started to increase a lot. If not you are likely doing something terrible wrong or AI has attacked thus forcing you to sacrifice research for survival.

 

[Lanzelot]

Something that has not been mentioned yet: try to make a plan early and then concentrate on that plan. E.g. if you are aiming for a quick military win, build a few barracks (after initial expansion of like 8-12 towns) and then units, units and units. Forget about markets, libraries, aqueducts and courthouses. Build 20-30 horsemen and conquer your continent (or even the world). On the aother hand, when aiming for a research victory (Space or UN), only build a minimal military and concentrate on libraries and markets.

Negative: by skipping Monarchy, I end up with the despotism penalty for too long. Might have been smarter to make a mad dash for Monarchy first.

Hmm, I think I start to get an idea of what your problem is... Tell me: when do you normally leave Despotism?

I ask, because it is much faster to reach Republic than it is to reach Monarchy! So why do you stay in Despotism for too long, if you go for Republic?!?!
In a Regent game with a decent start position, Republic can/should be reached somewhere between 1600 BC and 1300BC (depending on number of rivers and nearby luxuries and on whether or not your civ starts with Alphabet). Monarchy, however, usually takes a couple hundred years longer, let's say until 1000 BC - 800 BC.

In order to get the feel for it, I recommend you try a training game as follows:

• Pick the Netherlands as your civ. They start with the perfect combination of starting techs (Pottery for an early Granary and Alphabet for a quick run on Republic), and as an added bonus they are agricultural (the strongest trait of them all).
• Expand as fast as possible (but never let your capital fall below size 3. Best is to build settlers in a cycle starting a size 5, growing to 6, then growing to 7 the same turn as the settler is finished and dropping back to 5). This allows the fastest settler production and the highest research output at the same time.
• Research the following 3 techs in this order at full speed: 1. Writing, 2. Code of Laws, 3. Philosophy
• Pick Republic as your free tech and voila: with the investment of only a few hundred beakers you have obtained the most expensive tech of the ancient age for free!

So anyway, you see: there isn't any reason to go for Monarchy: Republic is much more poweful and at the same time much cheaper/faster to obtain.

 

[jkk]

That seems unlikely. Due to the bonus tech republic can often be obtained slightly faster than monarchy. It can be obtained a lot faster if you aquire code of law before philosophy. Than you can use republic as bonus tech. At regent that should work well. The boost caused by this is immense, but at higher level chances of succeeding with this so called slingshot are lower.

What I did wrong was I forgot to get Code of Laws first. Just didn't look at the tech tree carefully enough, so I ended up using the Philosophy bonus on Code of Laws. But I am sold: I'll follow the order Lanzelot has suggested, skip Monarchy, and blow straight through to Republic. Then, of course, change governments.

That is the reason why one should limit it to couthouses and aqueducts. The road to victory goes via republic to construction, then zero fund research for a while till all needed aqueducts are done and the essential courthouses are mostly done. Afterwards proceed with research towards cavalry or universities if you want to stay peaceful a little while longer.

So what I'm inferring is that you switch off research so that the massive tax revenue enables you to finish the aqueducts and courthouses well ahead of time? Might seem obvious, but I've already shown that sometimes I overlook a detail in the obvious.

They are worth it. As a republic you want few high quality troops. Also production soon reaches levels where the shields are soon regained by higher hitpoints. Starting as veteran means to faster reach elite and thus earlier gain MGLs. Those can ceate armies that enhance your military capabilities a lot.

A definite yes on the Great Leaders and Armies. Those just crush it, though it was always a drag that one couldn't remove units from Armies once placed within them. By higher hit points and regaining shields, I'm inferring you mean that it saves shields because it reduces full combat losses?

If you are out of things to produce it indicates that your research is too slow. At huge maps absolute research costs are higher, so to some degree that might be normal. But you should be careful not to overbuild military, or unit support might kill you as you end in a cycle of even lower research and thus lacking things to build except military.

I can see myself parting out a lot of obsolete units to get some shields back and save on maintenance, since it always seemed to me that unit upgrades were very costly. But if it were an elite unit, perhaps worth it.

Republic is far more needed. Immediatly after assuming repulic your research may or may not increase a lot, but after 10+ turns being a republic your research should have at least started to increase a lot. If not you are likely doing something terrible wrong or AI has attacked thus forcing you to sacrifice research for survival.

I assume that the research increases because of the trade increase, and because of the growth associated with eliminating the Despotism penalty? Might seem obvious, but just making sure I'm absorbing the mechanics. It is most helpful of you to take this much time to share your knowledge of the game.

 

[jkk]

Something that has not been mentioned yet: try to make a plan early and then concentrate on that plan. E.g. if you are aiming for a quick military win, build a few barracks (after initial expansion of like 8-12 towns) and then units, units and units. Forget about markets, libraries, aqueducts and courthouses. Build 20-30 horsemen and conquer your continent (or even the world). On the aother hand, when aiming for a research victory (Space or UN), only build a minimal military and concentrate on libraries and markets.

This, I actually do. I try to build a resilient, well-rounded civilization that is a very hard military target and can build sufficient military forces to go conquer others.

Hmm, I think I start to get an idea of what your problem is... Tell me: when do you normally leave Despotism?

In the past, it was the moment I got Monarchy, though I did not always prioritize the path to Monarchy. One overall lesson I'm absorbing here is that, in the early game, much else comes second to getting away from the Despotism penalty. In the most recent game where I made a beeline for Republic, my mistake was not to do Code of Laws before Philosophy. That cost me a lot of time, definitely not a mistake to make twice.

I ask, because it is much faster to reach Republic than it is to reach Monarchy! So why do you stay in Despotism for too long, if you go for Republic?!?!
In a Regent game with a decent start position, Republic can/should be reached somewhere between 1600 BC and 1300BC (depending on number of rivers and nearby luxuries and on whether or not your civ starts with Alphabet). Monarchy, however, usually takes a couple hundred years longer, let's say until 1000 BC - 800 BC.

We will soon find out, because I am going to do exactly what you suggest below.

In order to get the feel for it, I recommend you try a training game as follows:

• Pick the Netherlands as your civ. They start with the perfect combination of starting techs (Pottery for an early Granary and Alphabet for a quick run on Republic), and as an added bonus they are agricultural (the strongest trait of them all).
• Expand as fast as possible (but never let your capital fall below size 3. Best is to build settlers in a cycle starting a size 5, growing to 6, then growing to 7 the same turn as the settler is finished and dropping back to 5). This allows the fastest settler production and the highest research output at the same time.
• Research the following 3 techs in this order at full speed: 1. Writing, 2. Code of Laws, 3. Philosophy
• Pick Republic as your free tech and voila: with the investment of only a few hundred beakers you have obtained the most expensive tech of the ancient age for free!

Thanks for the specific directions; those include a couple factors I had not considered. I think one mistake I've made is building settlers too soon, thus continually stunting my major cities. I am going to try this as soon as I get the chance. I'm pretty sure that once I see the dramatic changes with Republic, I will be 100% sold on that as an automatic early goal.

 

[justanick]

So what I'm inferring is that you switch off research so that the massive tax revenue enables you to finish the aqueducts and courthouses well ahead of time?

Yes. But of course it is meant to be properly finetuned. It makes no sense to finish an aqueduct more than 1 turn before the city would grow to size 7. So buying a library for 80 shields but immediately switching back to aqueduct a few turns before it is meant to be finished often is reasonable. Similar is true for courthouses, there temples servere for this partial rushing.

Also sometimes it might make sense to give acquiring feudalism a good priority due to the new military units it enables.

By higher hit points and regaining shields, I'm inferring you mean that it saves shields because it reduces full combat losses?

That would also be sensible, but what i implied is only that shields needed for the same total of hitpoints will be lower, thus allowing you to regain the 40 shields for barracks.

I can see myself parting out a lot of obsolete units to get some shields back and save on maintenance, since it always seemed to me that unit upgrades were very costly. But if it were an elite unit, perhaps worth it.

Upgrades reduce the rank to veteran. For veterans and below the rank remains constant. The main thing about upgrades is that they allow you to utilize a tech very soon, especially the upgrade knight to cavalry can be convenient. You have a sizeable military ready at once instead of having to build it up from scratch in 10+ turns where the enemy might close the tech gap.

Also if your have a great deal of money, than upgrading is very convenient as it saves you scarce shields for buildings. After all upgrades cost "only" 3 gold per shield while buying shields costs 4 gold per shield. Once you use railroads and factories etc. your production will not be scarce. Money however will be, so i donnot like upgrades that much.

I assume that the research increases because of the trade increase, and because of the growth associated with eliminating the Despotism penalty?

Indeed. Also Despotism has higher corruption than republic. The main weakness the early republic has are the 2 gtp unit support. It is always some hassle to optimize for that. Be too stingy on your military and you end up meat for AI. Be too generous on workers and you end up behind in tech and possibly buildings. Be too stingy on workers and your cities will not be productive. Those first turns after leaving depotism are easily the most crucial ones in the game, a lot can go wrong then. Once you have your cities up to size 10+ the game becomes a lot easier.

This, I actually do. I try to build a resilient, well-rounded civilization that is a very hard military target and can build sufficient military forces to go conquer others.

If possible i will keep the civilization a military munchkin until the economy is strong enough to change that for good and take advantage of it. The less you spend on military the more you can spend on useful things. Naturally that does not always work.

One overall lesson I'm absorbing here is that, in the early game, much else comes second to getting away from the Despotism penalty.

That is the main lesson.

I think one mistake I've made is building settlers too soon, thus continually stunting my major cities.

Personally i prefer to not let my cities reach size 3 while they can still build settlers that will take good land. That way those new cities will add food, shields and commerce early, possibly outweighting the effects of a granary. But if net foods is high, than a granary can help a great deal. For a granary to be properly utilized the procedure Lanzelot mentioned will prevail.

 

[tjs282]

I'm interested in knowing how big the military towns usually get during that phase.

As big as I can make them and still keep order in them painlessly -- but for Ancient Age unit-builds, I'm 'happy' if I can get anything between 5 and 10 SPT, to allow those units to be built in ~2-4T. What I build then depends on what SPT I'm getting, what tech I know, and whether I've acquired any necessary StratRes, so e.g. a 5-SPT town would build 2T-Axes/4T-Archers, a 7-SPT town would build 3T-Archers/Spears (or Chariots if I have Horses; non-Rax towns may build Cats), and an 8- to 10-SPT town would build 3-4T-Swords/Horses.

I never perceived veterans as worth the additional costs associated with barracks (build, upkeep), especially when veterans can be created by promotion in combat, which is predicated on picking one's battles so that one's units survive the fights as often as possible.

I mostly play on Small-Standard Maps, Randomise nearly everything (including my own Civ), and usually play a longish game, to the late Middle Age/Industrial Age (if Dom/Conq) or to the Modern Age (if Space). I've never yet restarted for a better starting position, and I usually begin on the assumption that I won't have Iron/Horses readily available when I get the relevant tech(s), and will thus have to rely on a Poor Man's Army(TM), at least initially. Also, combat-bonus vs Barbs is reduced at Emp (not by much, relative to Regent, but still...), so Barb-hunting results in more unit-losses, and hence fewer promotions (plus, Emp-AIs have extra units to start, and love mopping up the goody- and Barb-huts at an early stage).

The upshot of the above is that I'm almost certainly going to end up using my units (or their upgrades) to fight the AI's units, rather than the Barbs, so for me, the extra 1HP per unit from a Rax is worth having -- especially once fast-units become available, since the retreat-probability is higher for vets than for regs, so (at least in theory) I should lose fewer of them.

What's the logic behind waiting to build Marketplaces? I see the value they add with luxuries, but even without the luxuries, you don't think they are worth the construction time and upkeep?

Not immediately, no, and not in small/ newly-founded towns.

Currency for me is usually a 'late' AA-tech (but see Justanick's point re. Construction above: possibly I'm also leaving Currency too late), Markets are expensive (100s), and they cost maintenance (1gpt), but aside from the Lux-boost, they boost only the TAX%-slice of CPT-income; if I'm running high-SCI% and low-TAX%, they don't give much if any economic benefit (but again, see Justanick's point about minimising SCI% after going to Republic, and cash-rushing improvements). That's why I generally only use Markets as Lux-happiness magnifiers -- but that only applies if I have access to >3 Luxes, which also doesn't usually happen in the first 100-150T (unless I've rolled a Pan-Map, or a 60% Continents). And even once I have my 3-4 Luxes, a Market happy-boost won't be needed in newly acquired towns until around Pop6-7, so that's when I'll build it.

Conversely, at higher levels (and on Large+ Maps), where buying techs may well be faster than researching them, Markets + Banks + TAX%=100%, rakes in the coin, so may be worth building earlier...

On huge maps, what I always prioritized was early warning. Obsolete Warriors were great for that: put them somewhere where their only job is to see enemies coming. If I knew where to concentrate against a threat, I could meet it more efficiently. I don't think the AI's tactics in battle are too great, most of the time.

And the prize for understatement of the year goes to ... jkk!

No they aren't, but to make up for that, the AI does know the exact disposition of all your troops at all times, and hence where your most weakly defended city(s) is/are (you know, that same knowledge that you can only get by paying a couple of limbs, in the late game, after you've also built the IntelAgency and paid to plant a Spy...). A few things hold true though: the AI wages war against cities, and will generally try to take the shortest available route to go after the softest available target(s); but it doesn't really 'care' how many turns it takes to reach a destination, and it recalculates the best target on every round. This means that you can to a great extent decide where you 'want' the AI's units to go, and position your troops accordingly ahead of time (or so I have heard!).

For example, by garrisoning your border- and coastal towns more heavily than at least 1 centrally located town, and positioning your attack-stacks accordingly (preferably on defensive-bonus terrain) along the most likely invasion route(s) towards that un(der)guarded town, you can chop down the AI's offensive units on your turf and your terms, before invading theirs. You can even lead the AI-units on a useless dance while you pick them off one-by-one, by shifting defenders around between cities on every turn, so that the AI changes its mind about where it wants to attack next.

(Lanzelot calls this the 'bait city' tactic. Full disclosure: to date, I have not managed to implement it routinely and effectively, until fairly late in the game )

CAVEAT to all of the above (in case it wasn't already obvious!):

My gameplay is still a fair way from optimal, and players like Lanzelot and Templar_X can do things with GotM-starts that I only dream of (and Justanick knows this game inside out). So pay more attention to what they say, than to what I say...

 

[Buttercup]

Hi Jkk, welcome to nitpick central

I seriously advise you just follow Lancelot's advice for the moment, he said everything you need to hear here. I to came to the board wondering why the leap from Warlord to Regent seemed so distinct as well, to which 95% of the answer was not knowing about the Republic exploit. Once you get used to manipulating your ancient age everything else will fall into place.

I had tried Republic prior to coming here, but the initial result of converting to Republic is very underwhelming, what with armies chomping up most of your gold. So the experiment appears, at first glance to be a pointless change, especially with the counter-intuitive loss of military police happiness. However, as your cities grow over size 6 and as you build more and more Libraries you will suddenly find yourself first into the Medieval era and getting to Gunpowder/Astronomy before the others have even learnt how to fish. (you replace military police with 20 or 30 percent happiness slider).

The most popular way to approach Civ III is also to use island maps instead and hope to get your own island with other civs in reach of your boats but your island not in reach of theirs (the AI wont end a turn on a sea or ocean square in the ancient age without The Great Lighthouse). On an island you can experiment away with different options to your heart's content and makes things like Science or 20k Victories especially easier to experiment with.