Trouble beating the AI in CIV III Conquest.

[shadowdefender]

i was playing CIV III for these past weeks, but i dont seem to understand few too many thing about this game.
Please check the screen shot here:

i came to find out, gold , food and shield are the basic resources as in Age of Empire(food ,gold, metal and wood) .
Every tile produces certain amount of food, gold and shield.
If a City is doing some research it requires " SHIELD ", this took me quite a while to figure it out.
And Shield was mainly yielded by forests n not jungle. So what would happen i run out of Forests.(Also some Tiles)
Even after having a numbber of Mines, "DOMESTIC ADVISOR", would pop up n say "Treasury running dangerously low".

(I always select one AI)

Few FAQ ?
1.What would i do if i run out of Shield, Research/Production would Freeze.
2.How do i win the game. AI never seems to die out.


(Currently playing CIV III, Conquest)

 

[Turner]

Cities don't use shields to contribute to research. They use commerce to do so. So make sure that every tile your citizens are working are roaded and irrigated or mined (A quick rule on irrigation / mining is Green=Mine, Brown=Irrigate). Shields are used to build units or improvements in the city.

Without seeing a savegame, it would be really difficult to point you in the right direction. However, there are a few articles in the War Academy that can help. Start with Cracker's Opening Plays Site and also Four Basic Starting Strategies. And don't forget Babylon's Deity Settlers. While that tutorial was created in the Deity setting, it's a very good starting tutorial.

And upload that save.

 

[puwen]

Um...I'll try to clear up some of your statements.

First of all, tiles produce more or less of the following:
Food
Shields
Commerce

Those 2 you mention in your example fo instance
Forest: 1 Food 2 Shields and no commerce
Jungle: 1 Food 0 Shields and no commerce

In general no tiles produce commerce, thats where improvment of terrain comes in.
A worker can improve a tile in different ways, the 3 most common are roading, mining and irrigating.

There are lots exeptions to this (check the civilopedia for different effects), but in general you can say:
Road +1 commerce on the tile
Mine +1 Shield on the tile
Irrigate +1 Food on the tile

The use of the different resources:
Food: Is used to gorw your cities to larger population (able to work more tiles)
Shields: Build units, city improvements and wonders.
Commerce: Is used for gold, research and luxuey (You set how much will go to each on the F1 screen)

Regarding your questions, you do not run out of anything.
For instance a forest that is producing 1 food and 2 shields, will produce that every turn. To make it simple, lets say that the only tile that is worked. Then you have the centralsquare which in this case produces 2 food and 2 commerce. That gives a total of 3 food 2 shields and 2 commerce.

Each citizen eats 2 food, so that leaves 1 extra food per turn. It takes 20 food to grow, so after 20 turns you will have another citizen that can work for you.

The 2 shields can for instance build you a warrior in 5 turns (10 shields to build)

The 2 commerse, can give you 2 gold, 2 beakers (research), 2 luxuries (keeps people happy) or any combination of it using the bars on the F1 screen.

So as you can se, building your mine (which give 1 more shield) wont help your gold running low, what you need is more commerce or change more of the commerse to gold (tax) instead of research or luxuries on the f1 screan.

I would realy recomend you to read some of the articles in the waracademy, you will learn lots from them.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/

Ok ill head back into my lurker status, hope i didn't make you more confused then you were before.

Edit: and ofcourse you got a very nice reply from Turner while my slow writing took place

 

[timerover51]

Following up on these comments, the screen shot shows that you are spending 114 gold per turn. You need to check on what you are getting for that by going to the Domestic Advisor screen and looking at your spending sliders in the upper right corner. Also, you have a hill and mountain next to your city that you are not mining for Shields. With two cows and a sugar cane, you should have sufficient excess food to have workers mining them as well.

From the fact that you have some bananas sitting in the open means that you have been clearing Jungle for some reason. That takes a lot of worker time that could be best used elsewhere, like mining hills and mountains.

Also, what is your difficulty setting? If you are just starting to learn the game, it should be at Chieftain or Warlord. You also might want to try a continents map, with one opponent so that you can work on finding out how the game mechanics work without having to deal with the AI bugging you. Use a standard size map, continents, 70% water, normal moisture, temperate climate, and 4 billion years. If you like to play Spain, you should locate a city on the coast to use the Spanish Seafaring trait to explore.

 

[CommandoBob]

Two things would help you.

One, as already mentioned, upload/attach a save from the game so that people here can download it, open it and study it.

Two, read through some of the Succession Games and you will pick up some pointers. The articles in the War Academy are theory; in the SGs you will find them carried out and discussed as the game progresses. Be aware that no one says 'Here is an example of The Four Rules of Wonder Addiction'.

 

[pol1]

Please browse through War academy and, as others have mentioned, Cracker's article.

What is evident from the screenshot is that You have just 5 settlements (!).
Only citizens in cities can work tiles and produce food/shields/gold the latter one can be directed into luxury, science or stash. Your cities are spaced too far from each other and thus leaving a lot of free space that could be covered by other cities.
Every city can work only tiles within fat cross (that are in Your cultural borders). There is no point in spacing cities further than 4 tiles apart (well if You want to have metros, normally two tiles works great). Those tiles will be wasted. And keep in mind that for most of the game, Your cities won't be able to use more that 12 tiles.

More cities = more tiles worked = more gold, production, unit support, land (without culture buildings), points

You are in Feudalism - government that have decreasing support rate 5/2/1 and every unit over free support limit costs 3gpt.

Other things might come up after seeing savefile.

 

[The Professor]

I notice that you have the sliders set at 5.5.0--fifty percent of your commerce goes to taxes, fifty percent goes to research, and nothing goes to luxury spending. Since this is the default setting at the beginning of the game, I wonder if you realize that you can move the sliders in the upper right-hand corner of the Domestic Advisor (F1) screen. You can increase your luxury rate, for instance, to prevent cities from going into Civil Disorder. You can also increase the tax rate (and decrease the research rate) to prevent running out of money.

There's a lot of reasons that you may be running out of money. The small number of cities that you have is certainly part of it. And Feudalism is not a very good government for your situation. A lot of people swear by Republic, because every worked tile that already produces at least one commerce, gets one additional commerce, which adds up. But you are going to be losing money, regardless of your government, because you have so few cities.

A number of people have already suggested using the War Academy and Succession Games to learn the basics. You may especially benefit from learning about "Settler Factories," which help you expand quickly and get a lot of cities, which is especially important in the early game.

 

[Rodrig0]

A city looks somewhat like this:
View attachment 226027

First, shields. They are used to produce things. This city produces 15 shields, so it could build a horseman (30 shields) in 2 turns.

Then food. It is used for growth. City has 9 citizens. Each citizen eats 2 food, so it needs 18 foods to keep 'em alive. Less that 18 means they will starve and a citizen will die. More means growth.

And commerce. It can be controlled by the science slider in the domestic (F1) screen, so if you adjust 70% science and 10% entertainment, it will be 15 gold to science, 2 to entertainment, and the rest, 5 gold, goes to the treasury and is used to pay for maintenance of buildings, troops support and trade, and anything left is stored. If your expenses are higher than the income to the treasury, like in your example, -114, then you'll have a deficit, your treasury will empty, and eventually you'll have no more gold and begin to lose some units and buildings.

 

[Big Rob]

attack !!!

 

[shadowdefender]

Hello folks,
thank u for the inputs, but its taking me 6 hrs just to understand n complete the game(without having to fight the AE for 6 hrs 25 mins).
i tried the linkhttp://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/deity_settlers1.php, to understand the basics, in theory was understandable but some went above my head.

+5 Food

Having a city produce 5 extra food every turn with a granary is the most optimal situation you can have for a settler factory. With a granary you need 10 food for each population point, so 5 is easily divided by this. If we had more bonus resources around it would not do us any good to produce 6 or 7+ extra food per turn as we would still need 2 turns to grow (food does not carry over) until we get to size 7+. Had we mined the cattle we would grow a pop point every 3 turns instead of 2 since we would be only gaining 4 extra food/turn. If we also mined the wheat we would take 4 turns. Without having a granary we would take 4 turns to grow at +5 food, 5 turns at +4 food, and 7 turns at +3 food. So at best our settler factory without a granary would produce a settler every 8 turns at +5 food, 10 turns at +4 food, and 14 turns at +3 food. If the wheat had been on grassland instead of plains we would have had to mine either the wheat or cattle unless we want to work the forest.

All the +5 shield n turns is making all the way more confusing:
I attached my Saved game(nothing much ,since i did Restore of my PC quite often n that meant the saved game getting erased.)


For starters i m understanding the grey/green dots of the planes.
I hvn't gone through all the TUT outlined by Turner n puwen, cause i m slowly beginning to loose interest in this Game( simply just to understand, will take forever). I hvn't played CIV III for the past 4 days, just because i cant figure a proper strategy n methods.
In last game, an AE Medieval Knight defeated my Gueralla (sorry for wrong spelling), without a sweat. The AE is seems to be setting city's much quicker, spreading too quickly.
Completing some Research (line Granary ,Gunpowder, doesn't seem to be fruitful). Every City has its own Research thing, too much waiting for the turn...(What happens if i h' 10 Citys ???)

 

[vmxa]

Growth in 9999 means no growth at all. The food box is full, but the city has reached its max size of 12. To grow beyond 12, you have to learn Sanitation and build a hospital. There is a wonder in Conquest that acts like a hospital as well.

The granary just makes it so you need half as much food to fill the food box and grow. Normally you would grow a new citizen and that would empty the food box. A granary means the food box never goes below half full.

The build box has a market to build. The little boxes represents a shield. Count the boxes to see how many shields are required for the build. You can right click on the market icon and choose the pedia option and it will tell you how many shields and what the structure does.

 

[vmxa]

Production shows 16 shields are produced each turn in this town. If you go around all the tiles that are worked you can count up and see the 16. You have no corruption as it is the capitol, so all shields are net. If there was corruption there would be a red shields on the line and you would lose a shield for each one.

Food is 25 and again counting the tiles we see the 25.

Commerce is 80.

26 are going to taxes. 54 for research.

It shows that you are at the default setting of 50% research and 50 taxes. Counting the gold on the tile it comes to 43 (if I got them all).

50% of 43 rounded is 21.
50% of 43 for research is still 21, but you have lib. This boost the beakers 50% as does the university. I cannot see what else may be in play here, in the end it comes out to 54.

I can only guess that you have 10 gold coming in from either trade/tribute or wonders. I cannot see what other structures are in the town or what deals may be in place. 50% of 10 is 5 and add the 21 we can get to the 26 for taxes. I do not know how we get to 54 beakers. I see 21 from half the gold converted to beakers. 20 more from the science boosters. 5 from the supposed other income for a total of 46.

Not sure how we get the 80 total. That is a simple look. Here is a detailed look that is maybe more complex to follow:

Total yield from tiles = the yield collected by every citizen in the city working a tile + city center.

Base commerce= Total yield from tiles + total tourist income from all wonders.

Netto commerce = Base commerce - corruption. (corruption is always 100% under anarchy)

Base tax = netto commerce * tax slider %
Base science = netto commerce * sci slider %
Base lux = netto commerce * lux slider %

Netto tax = base tax * sum city-improvements multipliers + (tax collector specialists * 2) + wealth
Netto science = base science * sum city-improvements and wonder multipliers + (scientist specialist * 3)
Netto lux = base lux (no city improvements or wonders multiply this in the epic game, but it is possible in some

scenarios)

The multipliers work like this:
Base tax + (Base tax * multiplier structure 1) + (Base tax * multiplier structure 2) + etc... Same for science.
So if you have both a market and a bank then the total multiplier is 100%

Example: a city size 24, in republic, no rivers, no bonuses on the terrain, 12 sea tiles, and 8 land tiles with

road, 20% corruption, sliders are 6/2/2 (sci/lux/tax) 3 scientist and 1 taxman.
The city has the commercial dock, a market a bank, a library, a university, newtons university (4 tourist money)
The total yield from tiles is: 24 from sea 8 from roads 12 from commercial dock, 1 city center. 21 government

bonus = 66
Base commerce = 66+4 = 70
Netto commerce = 70*0.8 = 56
Base tax = 56*0.2 = 11
Base sci = 56*0.6 = 34
Base lux = 56*0.2 = 11
Netto tax = 11 +5(market) +5(bank) +2 (taxman) = 23
Netto sci = 34 +17(lib) +17(uni) +17(newtons wonder) +9 (scientist) =94
Netto lux = 11

 

[vmxa]

The depiction of the tile(s) can be change to make easier to read. I think it is an option. Anyway the silver dot on the green tile mean the tile has a bonus. It yields a shield without any improvement.

A normal grass tile with no yield a shield, until it has a mine. Crackers Opening Moves explains the tiles very well. Grassland has 2 food, regardless of the bonus or not. each type of tile has its own default values for food, shields and gold.

 

[CommandoBob]

I hvn't gone through all the TUT outlined by Turner n puwen, cause i m slowly beginning to loose interest in this Game( simply just to understand, will take forever). I hvn't played CIV III for the past 4 days, just because i cant figure a proper strategy n methods.

If you try to understand it all it once it can be a bit intimidating, so don't do that. Break into smaller chunks.

A Few Basic Rules that are Generally Safe

1. Build more offensive than defensive units.
2. Aim for 1 worker for each city you have.
3. Have lots of cities (which varies by map size).
4. Connect resources/luxiries to your capital via roads to gain their benefit.
5. Build your first, core, cities in a CxxC pattern (City, tile, tile, next City).
6. Connect your cities via roads to allow mutual reinforcement by the roads.
7. Research left to right and trade techs for what you missed.
8. Build barracks, markets, libraries and granaries where you need them, not whereever you can. Avoid temples (except in cultural games).
9. Large military prevents (but does not stop) the AI from trying to extort gold and tech from you.
10. Wonders are neat but you can win without building or owning any of them (except UN for a Diplomatic victory).

Is this list complete?

No. But it is enough to greatly help your enjoyment of the game. These are some of rules of thumb that we've learned from playing the game and watching others play the game.

Nor it is correct in every situtation.

Each rule/suggestion has footnotes attached. That is, while generally correct, there are situations where they just don't apply or make sense.

City placement is a good example. The terrain may not allow that pattern, due to a mountain or river placement. Building by a river or lake means you do not need an aqueduct to grow to size 12. But to get to that river may mean a longer walk for units, needing 2 turns, not 1 for movement. Thus, that city would need to have a slightly stronger military force inside, since it cannot be reinforced easily.

In the later stages of the game, you would want you new cities to be closer, City, tile, next city (CxC) in order to create science farms. These cities are not going to be close to your capital, so they will have high corruption, netting one blue shield per turn. You can build things in these cities, at the rate of one shield per turn. Too long for most builds. Instead, in these cities, every tile would be irrigated. The goal is to have each city at size 6, no aqueduct (which is fine), bringing in 12-14 food per turn (3 citizens can do this) and the other three citizens become scientist (geek) to help research stuff faster. Tech costs are measured in beakers; each scientist adds 3 beakers per turn to tech research. If you have 30 science farm cities, that about 90 or so geeks adding 270 beakers per turn to your current science research (determined by the sliders). Even at 0% research, with the set-up I've mentioned, you are still able to learn stuff faster thant the default 40/50 turns per tech.

Hope this help!

 

[vmxa]

"shadowdefender
In last game, an AE Medieval Knight defeated my Gueralla (sorry for wrong spelling), without a sweat. The AE is seems to be setting city's much quicker, spreading too quickly."

The game posted does not have those units, so if it was Knight attacking Guerilla, then
it is about 37% for vet or 44% for elite knight vs reg guerilla. Toss in the rng and you can easily lose.

Looking at you game, it is not a case of the AI spreading too fast, but rather you spreading too slow. I would add too wide as well.

" Completing some Research (line Granary ,Gunpowder, doesn't seem to be fruitful). Every City has its own Research thing, too much waiting for the turn...(What happens if i h' 10 Citys ???"

Not able to follow this one. You have an empire wide research. The individual towns only contribute to the overall research. The number of cities, will tend to increase the amount of beakers added to the empire and speed up research.

Totally corrupt cities will not add, unless you use specialist.

 

[Turner]

" Completing some Research (line Granary ,Gunpowder, doesn't seem to be fruitful). Every City has its own Research thing, too much waiting for the turn...(What happens if i h' 10 Citys ???"

Not able to follow this one. You have an empire wide research. The individual towns only contribute to the overall research. The number of cities, will tend to increase the amount of beakers added to the empire and speed up research.

Totally corrupt cities will not add, unless you use specialist.

I believe he's confusing research with building.

 

[shadowdefender]

Hello if anyone can help me here :i uploaded two saved games after playing for 3 hrs n still figuring what to do:

• How do i decrease/increase Tax rate:
• How do i research more quickly.
• What so i do next with this Saved game.

Can someone show with pic: hope i m not asking too much:CIV III is the only strategy game which i h' not quite got hold of for 4 years:
If u check the saved game: u'll notice they are almost same,im playing CV III GOLD EDITION:
After 3 Weeks i m playing CIV III again because of boredom ,like i mentioned its very confusing n infuriating.

 

[CommandoBob]

To increase or decrease the tax rate, use F1 to get to your Domestice Advisor. In the upper right hand corner of that screen are the two sliders for science and luxury. Anything that doesn't go to luxury or science goes into the treasury (if anything is left over). Depending on how much gold you have in the treasury, it can make sense to sometimes run at negative gold per turn (a loss) in order to learn a tech faster.

 

[CommandoBob]

I am confused on which version of Civ III you are playing.

In the opening post I got the idea that it Conquests but your last save is for Civ III Gold, correct? Two different games?

I'm not familiar with the Double Your Pleasure mod; I'm downloading it right now. The .rar on the end of the saved file name tells me it is DyP and not straight Civ, which ends with .sav.

 

[vmxa]

The .rar just denotes the type of zip utility used. Winrar will make those types.

Edit this is PTW 1.27F