What am I doing wrong?

[ACR]

I have been trying yo play the upper two levels in preparation for Civ 3 but my success has for the most part been non-existant.

1. Usually I use one of my settlers to creat my capital then try and keep the other for altering terrain... rational - I have a free settler with no city supporting.

2. I try to build settlers as the city begins to produce its 3rd or 4th citizen and add a phalanx into the mix to keep the city fortified.

3. I try to build Barracks, temple, library, grainary, market, aquaduct in theat order.

4. I try to get collossus, great lib, and leonardo workshop at the minium.

However, the foreigners in general build up # of cities and city size quickly and they seem to quickly outstrip me in science and buying power. I also have the proble tat at my first contact everyone demands cash for peace and very quickly mysmall civilization is being attacked to contain my agression What agression I'm samll and I can't do athing against an allied world. An

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated...


Thanks...

 

[funxus]

1: Don't do that , it's usually better to grow fast in the beginning, so I try to found another city with it.
2: Begin buildng settlers in your cities. I usually build maybe 3-4 settlers per city in the beginning. In between I build military units to guard my city from unhappy people. If you wait until size 3-4 the citizens will get unhappy and you'll need a lot of other things than settlers to keep them happy.
3: Wait with barracks. Build abrracks in those cities you wnat to produce military units in (except guards). Happiness is number one, so guards tyemple and marketplaces are good, depending on governement. Granary will speed up the growth in the cities too much, so citizens get unhappy.
4:Sounds good, but see if you can find a thread about SSC somewhere here, and I usually try to build HG and MC too.

 

[ACR]

What is SSC, HG, and MG?

What do you do about wonders?

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Dark Ascendant]

HG and MC are mike's Chapel and Hanging Gardens. SSC is a super science city, it's a city with a good location for lots of trade, like near or directly on a river, with special squares like gems, spice, gold or grapes for trade. You build all the money and science improvements in it, build Collosus, IN's college, and Cop's Observatory. Then add Shakespeare Theatre and grow the city rapidly. The goal of the SSC is to get as much trade out of the city.

 

[cliff]

Like funxus said, your expansion is a bit slow. Build a new settler as fast as possible when your city reaches size 2. Don't wait for size 3 or 4. I like to found at least 4 cities ASAP. When you found a new city early in the game, it is a good idea to have access to one shielded grassland (preferably with a road already built) and two forest squares. Now you will grow to size 2 in 10 turns or less. When you reach size 2, shift your workers to forrest. This will produce 5 shields per turn and the new settler is finished quickly.

The ai is often sour at first contact and may demand tribute to sign a peace treaty. There are three alternatives; give them money, give them tech or go to war. I think the best alternative is to give them a tech or two. A war requires you to build extra military units and the money you have is better to spend on rush buying.

Generally speaking, if you don't have the power to go to war, stay out of war. If you have good relations with the ai you can trade techs and maps with them. This is a way to get ahead in scinece - to trade techs with several players. Now you can have all the techs that anyone else has while they don't have all the techs that you have.

 

[Old n Slow]

A couple of thoughts added to the pile before:

If you meet the next civ near their home territory (because your're out exploring with units -- a GOOD idea), you have more options. War is not a big deal as the AI will start using resources and will otherwise be distracted. If your contact unit is an archer (for example) fortify on a defensive space (say a hill) preferably next to a city of his... As his warriors fall trying to give your archer vereran status, you might end up with an empty city -- feel free to walk in!

If on the other hand the civ comes to visit you & is near your cities, then you might want to allow his demand to met -- after all, your investments and industrial activity should be better served by growing and exploring.

Generally, the players that seem to do better at this game postpone much of the infrastructure building -- instead concentrating on settlers for new cities, units to stretch boarders & find huts, units to quell city unrest, units to deal with barbarians, and settlers to start a road network to facilitate some of the above. The players that follow this strategy of dramatic early growth and vigerous early search discover some fringe benefits -- a) more huts (which ususally generate good things), and b) more respect when the other civs are contacted -- so much so that often they demand tribute...and get it.

 

[Dark Ascendant]

Above King level, you need cities spread out to cover as much distance as possible. Build cities to create a border against other civs. The goal is to secure territory, then build roads to connect the cities and eventually irrigate, mine, grow and build improvements under Monarchy. Need more advice, ACR, look for Starlifter's thread on the Presidential Strategy.

 

[ElephantU]

Don't think that conquering Diety level on CIV2 is any preparation for CIV3 - they are totally different beasts. Or rather, CIV2 is the Beauty; CIV3 is the Beast.

 

[mirthadir]

A few other things to try:
1. Play on an archipeligo (yes I know my spelling sucks). Islands mean no early contact and even if they make a demand ... WHO CARES? It takes them forever to get sufficient forces to where you will be screwed.
2. USE DIPLOS AND SPIES. I have won the game on a one city square in the middle of the oceon with NOTHING BUT SPIES. Expand, then consolidate while waiting for spies. Then pump commie spies, swap to fundy and steal tech/bribe the enemy into the ground. Cities become ludicriously easy to take when you have sufficient spies to nix walls. If you can survive with a decent sized civilization till the advent of the spy ... you can win the game. There is virtually no defense against a swarm of veteran spies.
3. Screw the colussus unless its in a super city. Great lib is hideously overated, a super city kills it. Leo is the best wonder in the game. Abuse it. In particular nothing is more fun than ignoring a military tech tree for the express purpose of snagging tactics, gunpowder or conscription after building hoards of cheap units.
4. Pryamids are a bargain, they pay for themselves after just a few cities that don't need grainerys.

When you first start trying to beat deity your goal is to expand and survive till spies. Then build spies and go fundy until you have bribed the AI into oblivion. A good basic strategy is to just give the enemy whatever they want until you get spies, build spies, steal tech, save money, buy cities ... lather rinse repeat.

 

[funxus]

Originally posted by mirthadir
4. Pryamids are a bargain, they pay for themselves after just a few cities that don't need grainerys.

I love the pyramids, and used to build the all the time. The problem now is that I prefer colossus and HG before the pyramids, and it's hard to get all three of them at deity. You could capture it though.

 

[Andu Indorin]

Originally posted by ElephantU
Don't think that conquering Diety level on CIV2 is any preparation for CIV3 - they are totally different beasts. Or rather, CIV2 is the Beauty; CIV3 is the Beast.

Nicely stated!

 

[Cerebra]

Expanding your empire is an absolute must in the early stages. You can worry about the growth of your individual cities later in the game (like, when you've got republic or democracy - We Love The Ruler Day allows you to triple/quadruple your civ's population in only 10 turns at that point). Whenever you think you have expanded sufficiently, try to expand more. Otherwise, you will get to 1000 AD and realize that your empire will never be able to reach the size you would like it to be by the end of the game. That means a drastically lower score at endgame.

The Super Science City (SSC) is also pivotal. You want this city to be as happy as possible (Shakespeare's Theater is desirable) and producing as much trade and science as possible (that means Colossus, Copernicus' Observatory, Isaac Newton' College) plus marketplace+bank+stock exchange, library+university. This city alone can fuel incredible science. If you are playing higher difficulties, unhappiness will quickly become a significant problem, which is why Hanging Gardens is important. It works much better than simply putting temples everywhere.

Pyramids are nice, but since you really don't need to worry about your city growth too much, it's an unecessary luxury. Barracks are worthless, a total waste of production at a pivotal time for expansion. You will defeat your enemies with your spies and you $$$.

I would also like to echo the sentiment that preparing for CIV 3 in this way is not appreciably helpful. While Civ 3 is similar in a great many ways, they really changed the tone of the game in Civ 3, and you really have to unlearn your Civ 2 habits to excel in Civ 3. Personally, I have grown to dislike Civ 3. I could be wrong on this, but it just seems like you can really only make about 20 - 30 useful cities in Civ 3. Corruption makes further expansion meaningless (whereas it seems like expansion unfairly benefits the AI civs enormously). In other words, it seems as though they rigged the new Civ 3 to be harder simply by giving the AI extremely unfair advantages. It's definitely worth playing to be certain, and there are a number of extremely fun additions in Civ 3, but for my money, Civ 2 is a better game.

 

[CivMonger]

playing civ 2 in preparation for civ 3 won't work. I went to civ 3 on a king lvl of civ 2, got my butt on a platter in prince mode, and dropped down to warlord in civ3. Then my computer left, and I'm back to civ2 on an old clunky laptop. I went from prince(ish) on Civ3 to totally wasting everyone in king in Civ2. Civ 3 is more about smaller empires with powerful cities. Also, in civ3 it is possible to have good relations (everyone hates me in civ2). Good luck to ya.

 

[battle ship]

hey im a newcomer to but i had one porlm with my last game a nother civ put a city on my border when i was trying to build alot of citys.1 do i kill and take the city.2 do i pay a ton of techs or money to buy the city.3 do i build a some thing that wood cultura my borders over it.this game was at huge 16civ.last thing the civ that did this was small but was a civ that i realy liked

 

[Jace]

3 do i build a some thing that wood cultura my borders over it

Sounds like you mix up Civ 2 and Civ 3. What version of the game (and what game) are you playing?

this game was at huge 16civ.last thing the civ that did this was small but was a civ that i realy liked

I don't understand that - at all.

Try to write a little more about the situation - What your relationship with the other civ is, how much gold and what tech you have, what units you have nearby.