Very Early Game

[FrenchElvisl]

Okay I have been playing Civ 3 off and on since last summer. I always get frusterated because I feel like my early game is less than mediocre. I can expand really fast, but whenever I do, I feel like I am lacking in military.

Also, I understand it is important to have an early settler factory. Should this be at the capital, or should I rush to find a better location with cattle/wheat tiles? Also, when should I build workers and warriors? Should I have a warrior factory and a worker factory as well? I find that if I have my workers building city upgrades( by this I mean mining, irrigating and roads...) I have trouble connecting my towns with roads and my settlers end up moving too slowly to get to settling sites.

I guess what I am trying to say is that my early game seems unbalanced no matter what I do. All the articles I can find are all on how to expand really fast, and this is not my problem. It seems like expanding fast is causing too many other problems. I play on regent level, and I usually outscore my opponents. Even though I am in the lead, I still feel my game is lacking. Please help me.

 

[Darkness]

Read bamspeedy's "Babylon deity settlers" recap from GOTM14 in the GOTM part of the forum, and crackers' "Improving your opening play sequence" in the strategy articles forum. I think these two 'guides' will help you a lot!

 

[Aggie]

Darkness gave you great suggestions. Here are the links to Cracker's article and Bamspeedy's Deity settlers

 

[Darkness]

Thanks for providing the links Aggie, I kinda forgot

 

[Clown2TheLeft]

French: you not automating those workers, are you? Is that your trouble in connecting those towns with roads?

Later!

-The Clown to the Left

 

[FrenchElvisl]

No actually, I never automate my workers. I would, but I'm afraid they'll irrigate over my mines and wander into enemy territory or something of the like. Anyways, I appreciate the help but I guess I wasn't specific.

I'm not having too much trouble with my opening moves. I get my settler factory running, I start pumping settlers about every 6-10 turns, I began spacing my cities. At each new city I make a worker, then some kind of protection unit (warrior, spearman, etc.). IT IS AFTER THIS POINT WHERE I GET STUCK.

I have about 8-12 cities. I am keeping up with the AI on territory, but soon I fall behind in tech. I begin to lose track of my cities and I never know what to build in each one. I think my problem is when I first started getting into this game I read so many articles on the "opening moves" and REX-ing that thats all I know how to do. And I can't get through the ancient age in the fashion that I want to. I never get wonders, and I can never get a sizable army up fast enough to have an ancient age war.

So, if I could restate my first post, I need help for the stages right after the initial expansion. Thank you for your time and I hope I'm making some sense and not boring or annoying anyone.

 

[Darkness]

build lots of workers and get most of the tiles in your empire improved, build city improvemnts and make sure you get in republic/democracy. Dramatic increase in commerce! Now you probably can catch up in techs....

 

[Rabid Pop Tart]

I've learned the value of early wars. Get into one and then extort techs from your foe in the peace treaty. If you have a problem with your military, you can try my strategy that I used in my most recent game. Get to Iron Working as quick as you can. Then cut your science spending way down to build up your treasury. Build a ton of warriors as you send some workers to a source of iron. As soon as you connect the iron, upgrade all of your warriors. Sever the iron source, and repeat. A storm of 21 swordsmen is tough for the AI to handle. Beat them way down, then get all of their techs. Rinse and repeat with the next civ.

 

[BillChin]

One tip is to build your first cities close together (one turn between cities), because this accelerates early production and is much stronger defensively. Another tip is to build granaries early, especially for cities on rivers. Get more luxuries by hook or by crook and when the cities get to size 7 the granaries will give an extra boost for mid-game.

I found it useful to study the timelines from the Quick Start Challenge Results:

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/qsc/qsc15/index.shtml

 

[Amask]

I've developed a nice little strategy for myself (I play on deity, but I think it would work just as well on lower levels), however, it doesn't always work.
Here it is: first thing I build in my capital is a warrior/spearman. Then a granary, then temple/barracks/4-5 archers if I see an enemy civ nearby (like in my game as aztecs, when Niagara Falls was founded by the iroquois right near my capital) or settler if I don't. Then a worker and continue building archers/horsemen/swordsman if I'm lucky enough to get a resource close to the capital. I send the army to the nearest AI city, capture it, sue for peace and get most of their techs along with peace treaty (they usually accept it when I've captured 1-2 cities). As soon as my archers are healed I go for the next city, and so on. Meanwhile my capital is producing settlers (but not getting below size 5) or library/colloseum. In the cities I capture I usually rush a settler/worker. Use those to build some more cities close to the capital. By this time I'm guaranteed a victory if everything went well because I have a nice size 7-8 capital producing at least 7 culture and the second city around the same. The newly built cities don't produce settlers or workers (leave that to captured cities), but instead grow in size and culture. By this time I have 4-5 cities of my own (+ captured) with pop 5 each at least and at least one worker per city, and I'm in the medieval age, ready to build cathedrals, universities, wonders.
Using this strategy I've played an amazing game as aztecs where I had six wonders in my capital and 3 in Niagara Falls, my second city (not counting 2 in London, 1 in Salamanca, 2 in Paris, 2 in Rheims). I also had the most culture and could research most techs in 4 turns. I finished with a space race victory securing all the uranium sources.

 

[FrenchElvisl]

Well since we are discussing opening moves:

Usuall with my capital I build: warrior/warrior/warrior/granary/settler.

After this I continue building settlers until I find a better location for a settler factory.

Anything wrong with this???

 

[BillChin]

It is difficult to generalize. Again have a look at the QSC results and study the log files to see how the very best players do it. You can download the save game to get the exact same starting conditions.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/qsc/qsc15/index.shtml

In my opinion, three warriors is a bit much to start, unless you want to try a warrior rush with two of them, or fear heavy barb activity and then a spearman may be more useful. Sometimes it is better to skip the granary in the capital, sometimes it is a must, again, tough to generalize.

As you said, you do okay getting to 8 to 10 cities, but then bog down. So it is probably not the first 30 turns that need improvement, but perhaps the second 30 turns. Again, a dense build for the first three cities gives a big production boost, though it is not so pretty. After that look for resources and luxuries.
+ Bill

 

[Tassadar]

You need city improvement to this point, i like to built , temple, library pretty soon so search for that in priority, next is to increase city size so you will need coliseum and then a marketplace, if you follow this path your city will be very good very soon. My goal is to reach size 12 for most city so the coliseum is important, use luxe slider if necessary then built a cathedral and lower it back to 0 %.

On regent level if you have 1 luxuries a temple a coliseum and a cathedral, your city reach size 12 without the need for lux tax (monarchy with 2-3 military police ). Then built a university and a bank.

So i always follow the tech path that give me those precious city improvement in priority so i can built them as needed.

 

[Darkness]

Originally posted by FrenchElvisl
Well since we are discussing opening moves:

Usuall with my capital I build: warrior/warrior/warrior/granary/settler.

After this I continue building settlers until I find a better location for a settler factory.

Anything wrong with this???

Hard to tell...
It all depends on the map!
There's now way you can use one specific build sequence to start every game...
I usually prefer to send out one settler before I start my granary, but as I said, it all depends on the map!

 

[cavemanf16]

I've found that if your cities are growing to size 6 or 12 and hitting the limit because you don't have the tech's to build aqueducts and hospitals, then you're building too much. Try building more military (even if you have to hire entertainers to keep cities happy), or building more settlers/workers. You're wasting resources if your cities are stuck at size 6 or 12 because you can't build the necessary improvements to let them grow larger.

 

[egreen007]

After a while you have to STOP expanding and focus on building up the infrastructure of what you have. This way you can make all of the cities you currently have more productive and stop founding additional unproductive cities. This is when you can start building up for a war, or decide on a wonder to build (or prebuild), or whatever other goal you might set. First and formost, stop overexpanding and make a plan for your empire. You can always expand later through some selective wars.

 

[Karl_t_great]

Originally posted by FrenchElvisl

I'm not having too much trouble with my opening moves. I get my settler factory running, I start pumping settlers about every 6-10 turns, I began spacing my cities. At each new city I make a worker, then some kind of protection unit (warrior, spearman, etc.). IT IS AFTER THIS POINT WHERE I GET STUCK.

I have about 8-12 cities. I am keeping up with the AI on territory, but soon I fall behind i
n tech. I begin to lose track of my cities and I never know what to build in each one. I kthink my problem is when I first started getting into thiis game I read so many articles on the "opening mov
es" and REX-ing that thats all I know how to do. And I can't get through the ancient age in the fashion that I want to. I never get wonders, and I can never get a sizable army up fast enough to have an ancient age war.


So, if I could restate my first post, I need help for the stages right after the initial expansion. Thank you for your time and I hope I'm making some sense and not boring or annoying anyone.

So Your opening moves are actually OK, You are doing fine on tactical level, what You need is a strategy target.
Selecting a target victory condition early is a good start, make some intermediate targets next (like eliminating opponents on same continent), then decide means to get to the first target (I usually do either horse or swords rush, some go after the GL).

Rigth (?) strtat allways depends on Your civ, level, map size ,etc, so there are many possible solutions, but that is
actually what makes civ such an interesting game....