what level do you play at?

View attachment 501204

Post a game save! I like seeing what others are doing. Lets me analyze and problem solve.

Here is my current game:

Emperor level, Japan. I am holding my own but not optimistic.

I like playing as I imagine alternate histories.
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_City_on_the_Edge_of_Forever_(episode)

 

That screenshot looks straaangely familiar...

... but I'm not sure why it's there. Did you mean to post one of your current game? (If so, you should be able to edit the post to put the right one up)

EDIT: ...And I see you've now done that.

That looks like an 'interesting' game. Jungle starts are often pigs, so you seem to be doing pretty well so far -- but I'd probably want to round out and shorten my borders if I was in your shoes. Putting towns on the river-Jungle 1S of the mountain between Aydin and Edrine, and the coast-Jungle 3SW of Aydin, would both help with that (as well as being potentially useful Pop10-12 sites in their own right).

Are you fighting anyone at the moment, or holding off until you can field Maces+Pikes?

And hey look! Xerxes has not only built a Catapult, he's even sent it out into the field! (Unguarded by anything else, but hey, baby-steps, right...?) ...Or did he capture it from the Ottomans?
----
Further to my earlier comment re. the Middle Ages Conquest, last weekend I brought my second Emp-level attempt, this time playing as the Fatimids, to a successful conclusion.

Spoiler Sorta bragging... :

I won on VPs, 6 turns before game-end. If the clock had run out, I think I would have won anyway, since I'd already been running the VP-lead for >50 turns, thanks mainly to the Abbasids declaring on me after I'd demanded that their barb-hunters and Settler-pairs leave my territory. On the turn that I was awarded the victory, I had actually had an Ansar-Army (plus a small Ansar-stack) standing on the Hills south of Jerusalem for a couple of turns, but the depradations of Abbasid Assassins had ensured that I hadn't quite managed to amass a sufficiently overwhelming force, to defeat all the defenders within a single turn. (I had been forced to retreat my other 2 Ansar-Armies, because they were so badly weakened). What I think actually triggered my victory, though, was recapturing an Abbassid town on the Red Sea which had back-flipped (it had the "Robin Hood" GW, so I'd kept it), allowing me to gain those 'city-capture' points a second time.

I was tickled to find out later that my end-game empire covered pretty much the same territory as the historical one had, at its height -- the entire North African coast, from Morocco to southern Israel, also Sicily.

EDIT II, Son of Edit:

Am now also in the final stages of (probably) winning the FoR Conquest at Emp, this time as the Franks (I already failed as the Anglo-Saxons, and twice as the Celts; in all 3 games, Caesar folded, but 'Dora won VP-vics).

Spoiler Wot I dun... :

I initially concentrated on expanding south and west, while building nothing but Raiders, Workers, Settlers, Barracks, and (a few!) Spears, then got sneak-attacked by the Anglo-Saxons just after I'd hooked up Iron to start building Marauders. So I allied with the Western Romans (at enoooormous expense) and let them spend their north-European Legions fighting my war, but captured Hengest's 8th town myself, finishing him off and freeing up that NE territory for further expansion.

After my ROP with Rome expired, Julie DoW'd me when I told him to get off my land (which was delicious, because I was paying him about 50 gpt for various techs at the time!). So I immediately allied with the Vandals and Visigoths against Rome (putting them also at war with Byzantium), and used my Pillagers to capture the 2 nearest Roman towns (keeping the one on the VP-location, but razing the other). The Celts cleared Caesar's forces out of Britain, but the Vandals finished the mainland Romans off, putting them ahead of me on VPs.

I was now into the second age and had researched Military Training so I could upgrade/build Ancient Cavalry, but all the roads south to Byzantium turned out to be blocked by stacks of Vandal and Visigoth Warlords, preventing me from joining that war before it ended with Theodora's demise (though it was the Huns who administered the coup de grace). So my troops marched northwards again, and I declared on the Vandals, destroying 8 of their Pop1 fringe-towns within a couple of turns, eliminating them as well.

The Celts had meanwhile started (re)colonising northern and western France, so it only took me another 10 turns or so to line up my Cav-stacks and finish them off too. A Warlord victory against a last-gasp Celtic landing brought me my GA, unfortunately too late to grab Justinian's Leadership for myself, but all my towns are now pumping out Cavalries in 3-4 turns. Which is good, because just before he died, Brennus also bought both the Ostrogoths and the Huns into an MA against me. I immediately paid the the Visigoths and Sassanids to fight them on my behalf, while I moved my troops back to my eastern borders to deal with the expected incursions. But they haven't shown up yet, and I'm nearly ready to start advancing eastwards myself: right now I have over 25000 VPs, so defeating the Ostrogoths (and if necessary, backstabbing the Visigoths) should be enough to win...

EDIT III, Return of the Son of Edit:

And it was! Although I made peace with the Huns myself, they managed to kill off the Sassanids just as I reached the Ostrogoth borders, and then captured the 8th Visigoth town one turn before end-of-game. But I did in the Ostrogoths, giving me nearly 36000 VPs.

 

Size 7 settler. *Shaking head*

 

Yeah, well, apart from that he's doing pretty good, considering his starting position/terrain appears to have consisted of mostly-Jungle-and-Hills, with a big chunk of Desert for good measure. And when your only food-bonuses are Banana-Jungles, a despotic 4-turn Settler-pump's not really feasible...

(You do know that not all Civ3-players are avid HoF-ers like your good self, right? And that some of us prefer to play it as it lays for the challenge, rather than re-rolling our starts until we get 2-Cows-on-a-Grassland-River?)

Mind you, I'm not saying that I would have done all the same things, or founded my towns in all the same places. e.g. Osaka's apparently not on the nearby river ; neither is Satusuma, nor is it coastal and it's occupying a Grassland in an otherwise food-poor region ; and Nagasaki looks dangerously exposed to potential French aggression

OTOH, if he's is only 9T from Feudalism in 10AD, he should be getting Chivalry/Samurai pretty soon (@robbus: trade Feud for Mono, if possible, so you don't have to spend turns researching it!), so the Continent — if not the world! — could still be his oyster before 1000 AD...

 

What are you going on about? If a city doesn't have food bonuses, then it takes more time for it to grow to size 7 while in despotism. I don't see any food bonuses around Osaka either. With a granary, that's 10 turns to grow 2 sizes. So, really, for someone who isn't playing a HoF start without all sorts of food bonuses, having a city that produces settlers/workers not grow to size 7 should be fairly straightforward.

 

After about a three year absence from playing - Monarch. I think I may have played some of the next highest level (Emperor?) in years past, and I might try that again, but I will not go beyond that because I don't like playing "bean-counting" games.

 

Necro thread alert...

Just a lowly Chieftain player that's won a game or two on Warlord as well. Hoping to get good enough to play Regent, but then I'll stop there. Just feels weird to play when the computer has distinct advantages it "shouldn't" have.

Played for years just played as civs I "liked" without really understanding the civ traits or UU's, or making a concerted effort towards war or peace. Now I'm starting to get a sense of what my playstyle is and the things that work for me, hopefully can build on it.

 

Thanks for reply... I have read a couple of places that AI plays at monarch level.

Using civ2 assist helps a lot.

I am on my first solo emperor game and struggling. Might go back to monarch but wins came easy.

The point is to have fun. At higher level you need to have strong familiarity with rules

 

I absolutely defer to lanzelot.... to whom I owe a great debt for his patience insight and skill!

 

With the exception that research costs for AI remain the same as on regent. But relatively to what they human player has to pay the cost factor does still apply. So inreasing the level does not reduce research costs for AI, it increases them for the human player.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/research-cost-formula-v1-29f.29485/

 

To that point, I actually tried my hand at Warlord again last night as it had been a while. Went with the Inca as I've taken a shine to them.

I'm at about 500 AD, and I've had 4 Civs (Greece, Rome, America, China) declare war on me for not paying tribute, and a 5th (Arabia) when I told them to get off my lawn and they refused. Statue of Zeus is really the only reason I've been able to repel them.

Could be that I didn't get off to the greatest start and the computer "sensed" that. I say that because I also just began a Chieftain game as Greece and sort of put my brain on autopilot. Ended up in a pretty bloody war with the Mayans in which I took 2 cities from them, just was a bigger headache than I'm used to.

Longer post than I planned, but all that to say yeah, maybe I'll eventually get there but it's better left to the folks who know what they're doing, while I sit here fascinated by the different Civ traits & trait combos.

 

The key to this whole game is to create wealth within the geography you are dealt. You have to recognize how to maximize shield vs food vs commerce/science production.

Trading with other civs increases your reputation and usually enriches you as well.

If you are struggling play on a small map.

I bought the game for $80 bucks in 2001 or so. Came with a poster and 250 page instruction book and promotional dvd. Book is very helpful.

The civilopedia is your friend especially terrain info and worker improvements.

 

This is true, but...

It's my feeling that smaller maps actually tend to be harder than larger maps, because for any given %water, not only do you get fewer land-tiles per Civ (i.e. wars start earlier)

Spoiler e.g. for a 70%-water map :

Tiny = 60 x 30 x 0.7 / 4 = ~315 land-tiles per Civ
Small = 80 x 40 x 0.7 / 6 = ~373 land-tiles per Civ
Standard = 100 x 50 x 0.7 / 8 = ~437 land-tiles per Civ
Large = 130 x 65 x 0.7 / 12 = ~493 land-tiles per Civ
Huge = 160 x 80 x 0.7 / 16 = 560 land-tiles per Civ

...but there are also fewer spawn-points on Small/Tiny maps, so (especially on 3 billion year-worlds), you have a higher probability of ending up with one of the poor(er) ones, e.g. near large stretches of low-food (i.e. 'useless', in the early game) terrain. Also, you have fewer potential trading-partners/tech-brokerage opportunites.

My recommendation to make things easier would therefore rather be to play a Standard–Large 60% map (more Civs, more land), Continents–Archi (fewer immediate neighbours/threats), temperate–warm (less Tundra, more Desert), normal–wet (more rivers/lakes/Floodplains[?], more vegetation — albeit also more Marsh/Jungle), 5 billion year world (greater probability of mixed terrain near each spawn-point).

 

Are you still playing the Japan game you posted above?

I am currently taking another crack at a (Nearly) All-random DG (Standard map; 70% Archi, I think). This one might actually be winnable, with a bit of luck...

Spoiler The story so far... :

This time I got the Russians, with a river (and Spices) nearby and Wheat-Plains next to my spawn-point, but I had to move my Settler 2 tiles to plant Moscow on the river without founding on the Wheat. Turned out that the river was really short (StPetes was founded CxxC away from Moscow, on the delta), and is the only one on my island (which I shared with the Vikings — until quite recently!). Those idle 2 turns (plus Restless Barb-attacks) essentially cost me the Republic-sling: I lost the race to Philo by 1T, to the Inca (sharing the big island next door with France), which really smarted.

On the biggest island on the map, Mao had several wars with Cleo, eventually kicking her out soon after he got Riders (although Joanie was the one who finally finished her off). During my first war with Ragnar, to take the 3 towns he'd founded on the eastern end of our island (SE of Moscow, but on the far side of my core from the rest of his territory to the SW), Mao also DoW'd me and dropped off early-Medieval troops near Moscow (completely unguarded, because all my forces were elsewhere), so I immediately conceded an adjacent, recently-founded but food-poor coastal core-town, to avoid the loss of my capital.

But later on, Mao used that beachead to back-stab me, bought in several allies (Pacha and Julius), and came about thiiiis —>||<— close to gutting my core, before I managed — with some help from the Vikings, ironically enough — to push him back into the sea (when it became clear that the Chinese posed the bigger threat to me, I'd signed a MAPT-deal with Ragnar). With my territory 100% back under my control (but still infested with Vikings, and mostly only lightly garrisoned), while researching towards MilTrad, I built up a large stack of Knights near the border, waited until all Ragnar's Knights and Zerks were back on his side of it, and then signed peace with Mao.

During the second Viking war, an eMace gave me an MGL, which I turned into an Army but left empty until I had Cossacks to put in it. I then used that Army (initially) to pillage Ragnar's Iron + Horses, allowing my Knights and a few more Cossack-upgrades to roll over most of his towns in fairly short order, gaining me another MGL. Trondheim fell about 10T back, Malmo (on the 1st island to the west) shortly after that, and a decent stack of troops are now stationed 2 islands away. But once again, the Inca beat me by 1T, administering the coup de grace to Ragnar on the IBT directly after my troops had got into position to attack his last town (Alesund).

Aggravatingly, I hadn't known that Pacha and Ragnar were fighting, and Alesund fell 2T after I'd made peace with Pacha, so I couldn't immediately take it from him. I'd actually invaded that island to go after the Pop4 Incan town first (with Pop5 Alesund intended as my second target), but my simultaneous invasion of the Incan mainland had just gone sour. Although I'd taken 3 of Pacha's towns (razing 2 of them to create my own beachhead), my second Army had been badly injured, and I lost it, the sole Rifle I'd shipped over to defend my Cannons, and about half my Cossacks (who'd been sheltering under the Rifle to heal) to Incan Cav-attacks, so I'd felt compelled to make peace to obtain some breathing-room, while I re-arm.

Oh well, at least all the WW went away, too. For now...

It's now around 1400 AD, GA-fuelled research has got me into the Industrial (my freebie was Nationalism), plus SteamPower, railing has begun, and I am researching Electricity —> RepParts. Of the 5 remaining AI-Civs (France, Inca, Iroquois, Rome, China), only Julius is more backwards than I am: in terms of obligatory techs (I have none of the Medieval optionals), I'm roughly at parity with Joan, Pacha and Hiawatha are ahead, but (pretty sure) Mao is already Modern! Even if he isn't yet, he's definitely the runaway (he'd built ToE before I'd even got MilTrad!), so I'm probably going to have to foment some wars against him (or at least, ship Iron, Horses, and/or Saltpeter to his enemies), just to slow him down...

 

[QUOTE="tjs282, post: 15610212, member: 163255"

Spoiler During the second Viking war, an eMace gave me an MGL, .[/SPOILER :

[/QUOTE]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is an eMace? Medieval Infantry? Thanks.

BTW am playing as Maya on Demigod. Started on a large Continent sandwiched between Carthage and Rome. Otherwise a decent starting position with grassland on river near Dyes. Had brutal wars with Hannibal, first one in Middle Ages. He was crossing Mayan territory to get at Julius and had already taken two towns. So rather than wait to be inexorably squeezed Smoke-Jaguar went for broke. Caught his units strung out and slaughtered a bunch with Trebs, Knights and MI, using a lone formaldehyde-preserved Javelin Thrower to kill a LB for a GA--this hero also took out three others on the IT, including a Knight before going down! Only enhanced production of units and AI stupidity (like attacking bombard-supported Pikes with Numidian Mercs) enabled victory in the First Punic War.

Others followed, interspersed with a go at Julius to the east in mostly Jungle terrain. This operation was interrupted by oversea interlopers from Turkey, Peru and Zululand, who conspired against us as they tried to get a piece of the action. Was fighting four opponents at once for awhile, but after the dust cleared Smoke-Jaguar was master of the continent. Pachacuti, Cleo, and Suleiman share a smaller one to the northwest while Shaka owns a medium-sized island in between. Justanick's advice to "agitate the AI" has been unnecessary since they've been agitating each other for centuries. How Sulie remains in Republic is a mystery as his claustrophobic neighbors have embraced Fascism to keep the pot boiling.

It's middle Industrial Age now except for Sulie, who's several techs ahead (he got ToE six turns to spare despite a pre-build) and constructing Hoover's. However Smokey has a huge power graph, five luxes (two on trades, and since these have been cancelled before by AI DoWs he prudently keeps the lux slider at 10% to leave a buffer against back-stabbers), most settlements connected while first and second rings fully railed, and is five techs away from Tanks, maybe forty turns on unless trade opportunities present themselves. Already cranking out Infantry and Arty to replace Muskets and Cannon. Will soon prepare three north coastal cities for mass production of transports with escorts. Needless to say Turkey is the target.

Wish me luck. Cheers and good luck in yours.

 

Yes, I'm just too lazy to type 'Medieval Infantry' out in full. But not quite lazy enough to abbreviate it to 'MDI', which I find less intuitive.

('LBM' for "LongBowMan" is fine though! )

And — though it sounds like you've already got your game pretty much sewn up — I do wish you good luck.

I've still got a little further to go before turnaround: RepParts = Fast rails + Arty = the Inca consigned to history, and the French evicted...