Trouble beating the AI in CIV III Conquest.

vmxa · Sep 23, 2009

There are two saves. One label mysave or something like that, you seem to have only 1 other nation in the game and they are not seen, though you have exposed half the map.

I would say you have played enough to understand the basic mechanics of the game, so start a new one. Use the normal number of civs and see how the game goes.

The 190AD looks like the same game 1200 years earlier. Place towns with rivers and lakes in mind. They provide a free aqau effect. This saves a lot of shields and time. Use at least CxxxxC pattern, closer is fine (CxxC).

Do not spread out just to grab land or resources. Build out and stay in contact with your empire. Look at my tutorial for Regent players to get some idea of what to look at as you grow.

Read Crackers Opening Moves.

CommandoBob · Sep 25, 2009

Downloaded WinRAR and extracted files. Could not run under PTW 1.27; it could not open the three saves files. Conquest could open them.

Opened the file named 'Alexandar of the Greeks, 280 AD'. Was really 1555 AD, Chieftain, with just Greece and America, I think.

'Attack or not Attack' is in 1735 AD; same game.

Uh, lots of ways to go from here.

I think I will go back to the 150 AD save and play to 1555 AD.

CommandoBob · Sep 28, 2009

I took the time to play from the 150 AD save to 1555 AD. That save is attached.

I kept a rough log as I played. It might be helpful, too.

Spoiler :

There are only two civs in play; Greece and America. We are learning The Corporation, the Yanks still lack Engineering. We are a full age ahead of them.

I have not declared war on America. That was the question shadowdefender was asking. I focused more on building, expanding and improving. A lot of roads can be railed in one turn with 100+ workers!

Once it became obvious that it was just the two civs and that we were pulling away from them in tech and stuff, I got a bit sloppy. I didn't look for new resources right away when they became available and the science farms in the north are sorta weak.

Declaring war in 150 AD would have been way too soon. By 500 AD is was possible to do so, if you played carefully. By 1000 AD it would have been much easier. And now, with Cavalry and Artillery facing Pikes and Spears (and Longbows, too) it should be a walk in the park. Except that some American cities willl be hard to reach without some sort of navy.

Hope this is helpful. I'll be glad to explain what I have done. I have saves from each turn.

Rodrig0 · Sep 29, 2009

I'm watching your game right now, and as I see it, this could be a problem:

First, you have no markets. Like they said before, imagine you open Orleans by double clicking on it. You'll see it is producing 64 commerce (gold coins). 2 gold are lost to corruption (red coins). That's 62 gold left. Now, leave the city (Esc) and open the domestic advisor (F1). In the upper right corner, you'll se the science and luxury sliders they mentioned already. You're giving 50% of your raw commerce to science, 0% to entertainment, so the remaining 50% goes to your treasury and is paying for your maintenance, units and trade. Quite a lot, but I'll go to that later.
So Orleans is making 62 commerce, 50% goes to science, 50% to treasury. That's 31 gold to science and 31 gold to treasury.
Now, a market increases gold that goes to the treasury by 50%. So Orleans gives 31 gold to treasury, so without a market, it will be only that, 31. But if you build a market, it will be 31, plus the market gives you an extra 50%, that's 16 more. So Orleans gives:
31 gold to treasury without market
47 gold to treasury with market
That's why you should build markets in all your most productive cities.

Now, on units. Just watch Paris! You have 26 units fortified on your city, plus another 5 just standing around, one is guarding a pack of deers, a warrior sitting on some gems, why? Each unit costs 1 gold per turn, so every turn you're losing 31 gold just to pay for the units around your capital. Just disband half of them and you won't be running at -13 gold per turn. Dude, you really really REALLY don't need 30 units defending your capital plus another 7 guarding Lyons, 4 on Orleans and some more on the rest of your cities. Especially when there aren't any enemies nearby! Send one of your pikemen to defend the iron colony by Rheims, keep a few to escort your settlers (oh, yeah, you WILL make more settlers) and kiss goodbye the rest of them. Especially your warriors. They might have been strong and manly in the Ice Age, but it is the medieval age now.
Build more cities closer to your capital. In the Orleans example, it is losing 2 gold to corruption. The further they are from your capital, the worse your corruption will be. So, your most productive cities will be the ones just around Paris. And there is A LOT of unused space around Paris. And even then you don't need the full 21 tiles for your cities, give each city 12 tiles and use the rest to build another city. Imagine, a city with 20 citizens produces as much as two cities with 10 citizens. And it is easier to keep 10 citizens happy than 20. So forget about temples, cathedrals, and colosseums. Go to the domestic advisor (F1), give some money to entertainment (moving the slider with the happy face to the right) and change all your cities building cathedrals to build settlers.

This is getting long so I'll cut it off now. Let's se what others think, I'm by no means an expert, but still, these few advices might help yo.

vmxa · Sep 29, 2009

I think that the 31 will be 15 as it rounds down. Not a big deal, but just in case. The rest is solid advice. The only other thing, is the pike to guard some resource. I would prefer to get a town up to bring the resource into the empire's borders.

I do not recall where that location is and if a town can be put down. If not expand the borders via culture. Typically using a worker to make a colony is not the best use of the worker, so early in the game.

Trouble beating the AI in CIV III Conquest.

vmxa

Deity

CommandoBob

AbstractArt

CommandoBob

AbstractArt

Rodrig0

Monarch

vmxa

Deity

Similar threads