What Am I Missing?

[curtastic]

In my experience if you have any cities without any military in them, everyone will declare war on you. Something in their AI is like find the city with the least defense and declare war on that civ. Also you should be in Monarchy not republic. Monarchy is pretty much always by far the best government and you wouldn't have to waste time building coliseums since you can use 3 spearman in each city to make citizens happy.

 

[justanick]

Also you should be in Monarchy not republic. Monarchy is pretty much always by far the best government and you wouldn't have to waste time building coliseums since you can use 3 spearman in each city to make citizens happy.

It is wellstablished that repulic is better than monarchy under almost all circumstances. Just use the extra commerce on the luxury slider to keep your people happy. Usually it is no good idea to build temples or Coliseums before reaching the industrial age.

 

[Lanzelot]

But are you saying the civilopedia is incorrect?

There are in fact quite a few cases, where the Civilopedia is incorrect... My theory: it was written early on in the development process of Civ3, then later during implementation (coding), a few things were decided differently, but the Civilopedia didn't get updated to reflect that changed decision. Also in the later patches, some things got changed without updating the corresponding entry in the Civilopedia...

Just one example that pops to my mind: look up the entry for the "Curragh" unit. It says that the Curragh's attack value is 0, so you can't attack with it. Now build a Curragh in your game, and you'll see that in fact it has attack value 1, and you can easily sink enemy Galleys with it...

 

[Lanzelot]

Also you should be in Monarchy not republic. Monarchy is pretty much always by far the best government and you wouldn't have to waste time building coliseums since you can use 3 spearman in each city to make citizens happy.

Like justanick, I disagree with you on that point: Republic is far superior to Monarchy. The commerce bonus is just so powerful, that it overweighs all three benefits of Monarchy (military police, 4 free units per city instead of 3, no war weariness). In a well-played Republic your research progress will be twice as fast as in Monarchy, consequently you'll have better units than the AI, which means short and decisive wars (so war weariness is not a factor), faster expansion/more cities (so unit upkeep is not a factor) and more territory and consequently luxuries (so military police is not needed).

But I agree that it requires a certain degree of mastery of the game in order to use Republic successfully, while Monarchy is easier to use and can consequently already be used successfully at the beginner level.

 

[BlackHat]

This is not the city of a man expanding like crazy. And they're all like that. My suggestion? Self enforced building ban. Build NOTHING but settlers, workers and military until you've totally run out of space. You can build barracks too, but ONLY in towns with at least 5 shields, and that you have no plans to use for settlers. Early happiness can be addressed by using the population on settlers/workers to keep towns small, and if necessary the luxury slider or a specialist is the second option. the luxuries that come with huge expansion should fix the problem anyway.

Once you run out of space you could allow yourself some buildings, but it needs to follow some restrictions at first. maybe 1 building per town per age? They're part of the game, but you need to learn that they're really unnecessary.

ETA: allow yourself two granaries in core towns early too for faster settler growth.

 

[Nathiri]

View attachment 467621

This is not the city of a man expanding like crazy. And they're all like that. My suggestion? Self enforced building ban. Build NOTHING but settlers, workers and military until you've totally run out of space. You can build barracks too, but ONLY in towns with at least 5 shields, and that you have no plans to use for settlers. Early happiness can be addressed by using the population on settlers/workers to keep towns small, and if necessary the luxury slider or a specialist is the second option. the luxuries that come with huge expansion should fix the problem anyway.

Once you run out of space you could allow yourself some buildings, but it needs to follow some restrictions at first. maybe 1 building per town per age? They're part of the game, but you need to learn that they're really unnecessary.

ETA: allow yourself two granaries in core towns early too for faster settler growth.

Hmm well, both Libraries and Aqueducts is something that you should build some time in the second era and on for your cities, that is, if you want to be able to research tech... Marketplaces are especially helpful to increase the happiness that luxuries bring. Anyway, as you build up, there is always cities you can have that are not building settlers. It is difficult setting up 6+ cities to be built in cycles every few turns. In the first era of course though, you can get by not building most of the buildings, but as the need arises or is about to come, you set priorities.

 

[BlackHat]

Hmm well, both Libraries and Aqueducts is something that you should build some time in the second era and on for your cities, that is, if you want to be able to research tech... Marketplaces are especially helpful to increase the happiness that luxuries bring. Anyway, as you build up, there is always cities you can have that are not building settlers. It is difficult setting up 6+ cities to be built in cycles every few turns.

You're right of course, but it's not so much that it's an optimal strategy as that it will teach this player to actually expand early. And it will teach him that a lack of buildings rarely actually matters. The factors you're talking about matter when trying to optimize a game later on, but it's clear to me that discussing governments and build cycles or even settler factories is not really helpful. These are two or three levels beyond the players game right now. Just a decent expansion is enough to dominate on regent, including in tech. And libraries are overrated...

 

[Spoonwood]

Hmm well, both Libraries and Aqueducts is something that you should build some time in the second era and on for your cities, that is, if you want to be able to research tech

Believe it or not, one can research modern age Sid techs on a Huge map in 4 turns without having a single library.

 

[Zorrukk]

Colosseums could probably safely be sold in the smaller cities now

How exactly do you sell improvements?

 

[BlackHat]

How exactly do you sell improvements?

Zoom to city, then on the left side there's an "improvements" list. Right click on an improvement and select "sell". You cannot sell hospitals, aqueducts, or any building provided by a wonder like the Art of War.