well it got me again

[patinthedesert]

So I started a new game in Complete. Play the Iroquois which should go well, on a standard Pangaea map. Just one change from standard, I picked Cheaper Upgrades from the Content list, but don't know exactly what it does. It might be accelerated production?
So I'm playing along, going well enough. Got to Republic quickly. Then go to Iron Working. No iron appears. I am quite a few turns past that. I can see only one iron ore on the exposed part of the map, way over in the territory of the Dutch. And they have not even connected to it yet. I attacked Lincoln and the Americans who were crowding me from the other side. Taken several of their cities and doing pretty good for mostly mounted warriors and archers and spears. Not seeing any iron. It's getting late to be relying on the mounted warriors. Is this a dead end? I am second-to-last on the scores. Eligible for knights but can't build them. It is so annoying.

 

[Lanzelot]

Beeline for Military Tradition, hope for saltpeter and then upgrade your Mounted Warriors to Cavalry. 33% more punch and 33% more speed for almost the same price -- that's a much better deal anyway... If you have a few Libraries in big cities, MT doesn't take that long.

 

[patinthedesert]

I had played it a bit more and just got to gunpowder. And a saltpeter appeared just one square outside of a city that could expand. So that's good, but muskets are poor for offense. Military Tradition, I just looked at Tech tree, only about 3 steps away. Yes Cavalry would be major improvement.
Also my explorations with galleys have revealed 2 more iron. One in a place that could be used, if I send in troops, settler, builders by galley. This might have to wait for a better navy.

 

[patinthedesert]

Continued the game. Thanks to Lanzelot for the excellent tip. Best military units were cavalry, muskets and trebuchets. Mongols (1st on score list) declared war on me while I was trying to take America's capital. He got there just after I did. He had lots of keshiks his UU. Cavalry is stronger but he had Lots of Keshiks. If Ks attack first they have about 50% chance of winning and if attack again with 2nd K they get the crippled Cavs.. I gradually pushed them back but by the time I was ready to attack his first city, the War Weariness was killing my civ. So have to take peace treaty. After a long effort, I now have an iron ore (short war with China to get control of it). Bets part for that improvement is Cannon instead of Treb. Think I get frigates too but not much of any enemy navies. Developing peacefully for now. Probably have to do some diplomacy. There seems to be a shortage of luxury resources on this map, I have 3 now. Nobody is trading them that I can see.

 

[vmxa]

The bigger your empire and the more lux you have, the more they want for a deal. Makes sense as the extra lux is worth more in your larger empire, especially with markets.

 

[Chicken Pizza]

33% more punch and 33% more speed

100% stronger and 50% faster.

.

 

[Lanzelot]

However, Knight has Attack 4 and Speed 2, Cavalry has Attack 6 and Speed 3, that's a third more in my book (taking the Cav's values as "base").
(I was not comparing against Mounted Warrior, mind you, I was comparing against Knight, as he said "Oh shoot, I got no iron I can't upgrade my MW to Knight" and I wanted to express "who cares for Knights, if they can have Cavs! They are only 10s more but 33% better.)

 

[Chicken Pizza]

However, Knight has Attack 4 and Speed 2, Cavalry has Attack 6 and Speed 3, that's a third more in my book (taking the Cav's values as "base").
(I was not comparing against Mounted Warrior, mind you, I was comparing against Knight, as he said "Oh shoot, I got no iron I can't upgrade my MW to Knight" and I wanted to express "who cares for Knights, if they can have Cavs! They are only 10s more but 33% better.)

Ah, didn't see that, I just read the first third of all posts 33.3%

 

[justanick]

taking the Cav's values as "base"

That makes sense if you want to say knights are one third weaker. Else one should take the knights as base and call cavalry 50% better. In advertizing always go for the bigger number.

Makes sense as the extra lux is worth more in your larger empire, especially with markets.

AI seems to calculate the price based on the amount of happy faces you get. This means that the value of markets will vary a lot. Buying a 7th or 8th luxury will cost a fortune. Once you have 7 luxuries renewing any luxury deal will cost a furtune and AI will likely press for renewing existing ones.

This in turn makes it so much more profitable to adjust borders in favour of no longer having to import luxuries.

 

[patinthedesert]

The bigger your empire and the more lux you have, the more they want for a deal. Makes sense as the extra lux is worth more in your larger empire, especially with markets.

Nobody has luxuries any to trade according to the make-a-trade data boxes. These are rather smaller empires on a 'standard ' map pangea with 70% water.

 

[patinthedesert]

I continued the mission but it is not going well. When I reached Steam power, I get no coal. It's on the far side of the Americans. I had a very short-lived deal to trade for coal, but it only lasted for 5 or 6 turns until the Sumerians declared war. I think they got bought into a military alliance. I only had developed maybe 6 tiles of rail. Then when I got to where infantry is available the rubber was also far away. In America territory again. I then tried to step back a few turns using a save and go after the Americans to liberate the resources. The Americans resisted better than I expected. Before I could get to the city I needed the Mongols declared war again and were strong again. I could probably grind it out, avoid conflicts and get maybe 3rd place. I'm probably not completing this one.

 

[Jivilov]

When I reached Steam power, I get no coal. It's on the far side of the Americans. I had a very short-lived deal to trade for coal, but it only lasted for 5 or 6 turns until the Sumerians declared war. I think they got bought into a military alliance. I only had developed maybe 6 tiles of rail.

A similar situation occurred in a current game playing as Gilgamesh. This one with sort of an archipelago-continental Standard map (Randomly chosen [and BTW is there any way to find out exactly what kind of map and land-water ratio it is?--hitting F8 doesn't give that info]) where Sumeria shared a continent with 3 others while the rest have small continents or large islands. Despite having nearly a third of land area there was no coal. America had Coal hooked up but didn't have Steam Power yet despite having amicable relations at the time it wasn't shown as available on the Diplo screen. Had to invade Lincoln's island empire to get it. Really crippled core production since without rail on mined tiles shield production was severely attenuated, not to mention the difficulty of shifting reinforcements to fend off odd attacks in nether regions.

 

[justanick]

I had a very short-lived deal to trade for coal, but it only lasted for 5 or 6 turns until the Sumerians declared war. I think they got bought into a military alliance.

You should aim at being the one to forge military alliances, not being the one military alliances are forged against.

Also you should use F4 to check who is trading resources or luxuries with whom. If a nation is able to export a resource or luxury you need, but trades them away to someone else, this someone else may be an excellent target for a military alliance. Or you do it the other way around and try to get those resources for yourself.

 

[tjs282]

This one with sort of an archipelago-continental Standard map (Randomly chosen [and BTW is there any way to find out exactly what kind of map and land-water ratio it is?--hitting F8 doesn't give that info])

There's no in-game function that will give you that info, although once you've explored enough of the map you can probably make a good guess: Landform should be pretty obvious, as should %water. The Humidity, Temperature and Age settings are trickier, because the effects of these tend to interact more, but the extremes are easy to spot.

Dry = little/scattered vegetation (i.e. Forests/Jungles)
Cold = more Tundra (extends further from north/ south of the map), less Desert
3 billion years = large, continuous areas of Hills/Mountains

Wet = more vegetation (and rivers?)
Warm = less Tundra, more Desert (and Jungle?)
5 billion years = Hills/Mountains (very) rare/scattered

(If you can get it working on your current system) CivAssistII will tell you the exact settings, even for Random-everything maps: top button, "General", IIRC

 

[Jivilov]

So how come in a current game playing as Gilgamesh with Steam Power but without Coal, America's hooked-up Coal didn't show up as available for trade on the Diplo screen? We weren't in a war or trade embargo at the time. Was it 'cuz Lincoln didn't have Steam Power yet? Didn't think that was necessary long as Coal was roaded. Thanks.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

So how come in a current game playing as Gilgamesh with Steam Power but without Coal, America's hooked-up Coal didn't show up as available for trade on the Diplo screen? We weren't in a war or trade embargo at the time. Was it 'cuz Lincoln didn't have Steam Power yet? Didn't think that was necessary long as Coal was roaded. Thanks.

My understanding was that if they don't have the tech, they can't trade the resource.

 

[Jivilov]

Thanks Weirdo Joker. You may well be right, although personally could swear reading some old thread that mentioned something like, "If they [AI Civs] can't use the resource they'll be more willing to trade." Maybe it was in relation to Vanilla or PTW.

 

[tjs282]

Thanks Weirdo Joker. You may well be right, although personally could swear reading some old thread that mentioned something like, "If they [AI Civs] can't use the resource they'll be more willing to trade." Maybe it was in relation to Vanilla or PTW.

No it applies to C3C as well, but only when they can see the resource, i.e. once they know the tech for it.

And I think it really only matters for Oil, which is the only(?) resource in the game that is revealed (with Refining) before it actually becomes useful (first Oil-requiring units with Combustion). So if you have a tech-lead over a backward AI which has nonetheless lucked out and has Oil on its territory, you could sell/gift them up to Refining, then buy Oil from them really cheaply (though I think they'd still need at least 2 Oil-sources to be willing to sell you one of them) — and already be building Transports, or Fighters (Flight), or oil-powered ships (Mass Production), or Tanks (Motor Transport) before they learn Combustion.

 

[Jivilov]

Thanks for the confirmation tjs. Weirdo Joker was right after all. So basically they gotta have the Tech in order to trade. Note to self: in future don't rely on fuzzy memory during dotage .

 

[Chicken Pizza]

AI seems to calculate the price based on the amount of happy faces you get.

That's one of the things that I think Civ 3 does realistically rather than in a game-fun way.

Trading one luxury for another straight on - with the exception of ivory which could probably cost more, maybe two times - would've been nicer.

The player's challenge is to keep peace with important neighbourghs. The developers shouldn't punish him or her because he's managed to build a large empire.

I mean, what if AI opponents started to consider your empires culture, military size or population while trading _techs_?

Outsmarting your enemy is the fun in strategic games, and if you don't want trading to be a part of it, make it automatic.