What would you do with this map?

[Regina]

Civ III is a game that I ended up poking away because I really am not very good at it. I hate trying to deal with the corruption and I never can seem to set a firm goal for myself so I end up playing in a rather willy-nilly style and not accomplishing much except for building cities as fast as I can and trying to improve those cities. A few weeks ago I decided to dust it off and give it another go. I've been reading this forum a lot.

Right now I'm playing the Hittites on a standard sized map. My opponents are England (orange), Russia (brown), Spain (light turquoise top right), and Celts (green). I am the dark turquoise color on the left with my empire spanning from almost the top to almost the bottom of the map. The English just beat my settler to the north and the Russians took a tundra spot in the south. Because I could build scouts and got a lot of the continent cleared early I managed to snag four luxuries within a pretty short time and have also been lucky in resources as I have two horses, three iron, one saltpeter, and two coal. The English built a town in one of those infamously stupid places so I figured they were after a resource that would show up later. Sure enough that city was situated near coal but by that time it had already culture flipped to my side.

So far only once has war ever been declared on me and that was by the Russians. I put a city in a spot where they wanted one so they decided mine needed to go. They didn't get away with it. They did, however, manage to sneak a settler down the coastline a bit in between a couple of mine but I figure it's only a matter of time before it, too, culture flips.

I hit the Industrial age not long ago and so far have researched ironclads, sanitation, and am now working on electricity.

A considerable time ago I changed government to Democracy (I understand now that may have been a bad move but make hay while the sun shines, I say, so I'm taking advantage of the faster improvement rates and lower corruption building up a couple of cities that are distant).

My thinking is that I would really love to go to war with England and lay claim to the land they currently hold at least on the same continent. The only problem is, Miss Elizabeth doesn't seem easily goaded into war. I'm not sure if I want to declare war on her (definitely not at this point while still in Democracy) but even though she's furious at me and gets snarkier with each turn she's just not taking the bait.

I would very much appreciate any comments. I'm adding a picture to show the lay of the land.

 

[dalgo]

Nationalism and Industrialization would have been more use than Ironclads and Sanitation but that said you have a gained a fair share of the territory. What is your tech position? If you are ahead I suggest you plan to ally with Russia against England.

I wouldn't worry too much about being in Democracy. Use that advantage to build up a force of cavalry in preparation for the war. Providing you are winning war weariness shouldn't be a factor until late in the war when you can use the lux slider to combat it

 

[Aabraxan]

Welcome to CFC, Regina!

Exactly what to do with that map depends on level and your chosen victory condition. What level is this? I usually play domination and conquest, so I'd mass cavs and start by pushing the English off to the east. I would not have switched to demo, but then again, I probably would have tried to eliminate them before I got this far. Also, I would not have bothered with ironclads. They're usually useless for conquest. I'd suggest posting a save. There's a whole lot of information that can't be gotten from a screenshot.

 

[Regina]

Thank you for the welcome! (And yes, Regina is my real name, not my "I wanna be queen for a day and conquer the world name. )

I'm playing on Warlord, I think, the second level from the bottom. I can do badly enough at that level that I don't dare currently go past it. I'm attaching the save file, probably should have done that before. Last I checked I held 25% of the world. Someone may have gained a small advantage since but it won't be much.

I managed to get spread out that far pretty early on trying to make sure I got hold of the luxuries. I remember one time years ago setting up a colony only to have an opponent put its settler down right next to it and taking my resource. I haven't built colonies since.

I thought about researching Nationalism and Communism and switching to that government but I hate killing my citizens if I want something done in a hurry. I just turned off the game a few moments ago but right now I'm researching mechanized parts or some such. (My memory isn't great on good days and tonight I'm tired so it's even worse.)

I did go ahead and switch back to Republic and overall that doesn't slow me down too much, worst hit is the city at the bottom of the map which is too far away from the Forbidden Palace surrounded mainly by sea and mountains. It only took about three turns to get back there so I didn't lose a lot.

Trying to figure out what kind of victory I'm after is always the hard thing. I never can figure out what to do. I admit I'm a culture freak and I love building all the nice stuff for the cities. Happiness is good with four luxuries and Entertainment set to 10%. Embarrassingly enough, Russia, England, and the Celts all hit the Industrial Age before I did probably because they were trading techs. I finally got to offer up something trivial to England or Russia in exchange for bumping me into the Industrial Age. A major weak point with me is diplomacy and trading. It took me a while to find the Spanish and the Celts and last I checked neither had even built a single harbor yet so no trading with them. I have a lot of excess stuff. I traded luxuries for spices from England for a long time but don't really need the spices.

I don't think I'm a lot ahead of anyone but Spain as far as techs go. I would have to check to make sure. Mr. Science Advisor says we're advanced but England has riflemen in their cities.

Militarily at the moment I have a lot of units that are close to going obsolete, especially the Wonder Units. I have a few cavalry and am starting to build guerrilla and artillery. Every city keeps wanting to build musket men.

Hm. Russia might enjoy the opportunity to trounce England. They've been annoyed with me the whole game. I'd have to butter them up a bit first. I think the Celts are even more annoyed with England, though, and we just entered into a mutual protection pact. I really am trying to work on the whole diplomacy thing.

 

[Aabraxan]

Thank you for the welcome! (And yes, Regina is my real name, not my "I wanna be queen for a day and conquer the world name. )

Woudn't have bothered us a bit if it had been. Most of us want to be monarch for a day now and again.

I'm playing on Warlord, I think, the second level from the bottom. I can do badly enough at that level that I don't dare currently go past it. I'm attaching the save file, probably should have done that before. Last I checked I held 25% of the world. Someone may have gained a small advantage since but it won't be much.

If you're looking to improve your game, hang out here and we'll have you smacking Monarch around in no time. The War Academy has some great articles and there's an archive of Training Day Games down in Stories and Tales. Also, vmxa has posted a couple of tutorial games in Strategy articles that might be of some help.

I managed to get spread out that far pretty early on trying to make sure I got hold of the luxuries. I remember one time years ago setting up a colony only to have an opponent put its settler down right next to it and taking my resource. I haven't built colonies since.

Colonies are fine on occasion, but given a choice, I'd much rather have resources inside my borders. You've got the right idea here, in that a good early Rapid EXpansion phase (often referred to as REX) is very important in most games.

I thought about researching Nationalism and Communism and switching to that government but I hate killing my citizens if I want something done in a hurry. I just turned off the game a few moments ago but right now I'm researching mechanized parts or some such. (My memory isn't great on good days and tonight I'm tired so it's even worse.)

I did go ahead and switch back to Republic and overall that doesn't slow me down too much, worst hit is the city at the bottom of the map which is too far away from the Forbidden Palace surrounded mainly by sea and mountains. It only took about three turns to get back there so I didn't lose a lot.

Why do you switch governments so much? As a general rule, you only need 1 switch, and that's to get out of Despotism. There may be a few situations where you'd make two (for example a huge map and a war-heavy game where you want to go Communism), but those are the exceptions. From what you've posted, I'm guessing you've gone Despo-Republic-Demo-Rep? So you've had something like 20 turns of anarchy, maybe more? Demo may have slightly lower corruption than Rep (I can't recall right now), but that marginal benefit is really not worth the gold and shields you lose by having your whole empire shut down.

Trying to figure out what kind of victory I'm after is always the hard thing. I never can figure out what to do. I admit I'm a culture freak and I love building all the nice stuff for the cities. Happiness is good with four luxuries and Entertainment set to 10%.

I would just suggest picking your victory condition early. If you like playing for culture, then play for culture. Let that guide your decisions. If you know early on that you want to win by 100K culture, it makes the decision of whether to build a barracks or a temple a little easier.

Embarrassingly enough, Russia, England, and the Celts all hit the Industrial Age before I did probably because they were trading techs. I finally got to offer up something trivial to England or Russia in exchange for bumping me into the Industrial Age. A major weak point with me is diplomacy and trading.

It took me a while to get comfortable with trading techs, because I had a long history of tech hoarding in my games before I started C3C. You have to be careful (don't trade replaceable parts to someone you're about to attack), but trading can be a very powerful tool.

It took me a while to find the Spanish and the Celts and last I checked neither had even built a single harbor yet so no trading with them. I have a lot of excess stuff. I traded luxuries for spices from England for a long time but don't really need the spices.

I don't think I'm a lot ahead of anyone but Spain as far as techs go. I would have to check to make sure. Mr. Science Advisor says we're advanced but England has riflemen in their cities.

I never did find the save, but rifles will make things a little more difficult. At Warlord, they won't have that many of them, but you're likely to have a few tough nuts to crack. Like I said, I usually play by warmongering, so I'd just build loads of cavs & hammer England. I might even shut research off long enough to do some cash-rushing.

Militarily at the moment I have a lot of units that are close to going obsolete, especially the Wonder Units. I have a few cavalry and am starting to build guerrilla and artillery. Every city keeps wanting to build musket men.

You might consider disbanding some of the old units to keep costs down, especially if you can make use of the shields. Move them to cities that need shields and disband there. Guerrillas are decent defensive units, but if you want to hurt England, go with cavs.

Hm. Russia might enjoy the opportunity to trounce England. They've been annoyed with me the whole game. I'd have to butter them up a bit first. I think the Celts are even more annoyed with England, though, and we just entered into a mutual protection pact. I really am trying to work on the whole diplomacy thing.

I'd say give Cathy the chance to fight Liz, then. Tentative plan: (1) beat up on England, and let Cathy burn off some units doing the same; (2) once England is vanquished, beat up on Cathy before she can rebuild. Sounds like a good plan to me.

 

[Regina]

Well fiddle sticks, I'm not sure what happened to the attachment and it was so late when I posted that I forgot to make sure it was there. Er, well, I do now. I forgot how vBulletin handles attachments so it didn't actually get uploaded. Maybe I got it this time.

As far as barracks, that's not a problem since I built the war academy. I don't necessarily build all the wonders but there are some that I think are pretty useful so if I can get them I do. Honestly, at this level of difficulty I should be able to build all of them but held off too long in getting a few started and lost out to the opponents.

If you're looking to improve your game, hang out here and we'll have you smacking Monarch around in no time. The War Academy has some great articles and there's an archive of Training Day Games down in Stories and Tales. Also, vmxa has posted a couple of tutorial games in Strategy articles that might be of some help.

I've actually been a lurker here over the years, every time I install C3C to give it another go. Usually what happens is that I try, fail, then give up for a long while and go back to other stuff. I have a copy of CivIV on its way, don't know if I even have the brain power to wrap my head around half of the new stuff that will need learning for it.

Why do you switch governments so much? As a general rule, you only need 1 switch, and that's to get out of Despotism.

Because I'm a dolt? Also because I can never just take someone's word for most stuff, I have to live through my own failures to reinforce what I read.

Financially I'm good. I learned years ago from reading here to micro-manage science funding so right now I have enough that I've been running at a bit of a deficit for some of my research. I have Industrialization researching at the moment, can get it in four turns running at a deficit of 178 G (which is slightly more than what my army is costing to maintain--under Republic I currently have 77 free units) but that's not a large problem since I have 3,980 G at the moment and will try to turn that down as I get closer to the tech.

I would just suggest picking your victory condition early. If you like playing for culture, then play for culture. Let that guide your decisions.

I agree, and I have a hard time choosing a condition early on. I am currently on turn 327 and my highest city culture score is 3272 (which is topped by one of the Celtic cities) and my total score is 30,418. Not very good, huh? Yeah, I have so, so much to learn.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

Beware of Mutual Protection Pacts, they usually just get you pulled into wars you don't want.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned railroads yet, I will always put off my next war if I'm anywhere near Steam Power.

 

[Aabraxan]

Regina,
I took a look at your save. Now, as I said before, I don't play for culture much. One of the best posts I've ever seen around here said something to this effect:

"I'm a builder at heart.
I build troops, so that I may build an empire.
I build libraries, so that I may build better troops.
I build roads, so that I may move my troops faster.
I build cities, so that I may support more troops.
. . . . "

I'd love to claim credit for that post, but I can't. It does, however, describe how I play.

With all of that said, here we go:

Looking at CA2, you'll cross 100K culture by about 2016 AD, and 20K (single city) culture by 2203 AD. The Russians currently have 18K culture and you have 30k. What I don't know is how fast anyone is gathering culture, because I couldn't download MapStat when I swapped computers not long ago. Nonetheless, that just means that you have to put together 70K culture before Russia puts together 82k. Kill off England, kill off Russia. . . this can be done. (Sayeth He Who Doesn't Do Culture . . . )

A space victory is certainly within reach. Space victories are all about commerce & your economy is clearly healthier than anyone else's. You have ~4k gold, nobody else has over 40.

Unfortunately, I see way too many defenders in cities that don't need them. In Republic, military units do nothing for happiness, so a military unit that isn't either attacking or defending does nothing but eat up unit support & gold. I feel certain that I could find at least 30-40 military units that I could disband without endangering your empire, even if I DOW Elizabeth. In Republic, the cash that you save by disbanding units can be used to cash-rush items, or spent on research, or to buy alliances.

I see several cities that have libraries and are building banks. Rarely do you need to build both in cities. It looks like you've pretty much built ever improvement in every city. You don't need every improvement. You don't need most improvements. Here's a good saying for you. "Your cities need nothing to survive. The only question is: What does the empire need for them to have?" Because you like culture, you're going to need more improvements than I do. I honestly can't recall the last time I build a cathedral, much less a colosseum. With that said, and going back to the issue of building banks and libraries, there's an article linked in my sig that you might want to go read. If you build both, you pay upkeep on both, but they work according to how the slider is set. If you're set for high research, the library works well, but the bank doesn't. If a high percentage is going to your treasury, the bank works well, but the library doesn't . . .

You have 27 cities and 32 workers. For a territory this size, you need many more for laying rails. In the future, try to get more workers sooner. If you've had a healthy economy all this time, you should have been buying slaves from the AI. They work half as fast, but they cost no upkeep. That means that the sooner you buy them, the better your return on investment. I also kill lots of AI settler pairs for the slaves. Worker management is one of the big advantages that the human has over the AI.

One last item: city spacing. It looks like you tried to give every city enough room to work its whole fat cross. That may seem like what you need for big, productive cities, but the other side of that coin is that it means that lots and lots of tiles go unworked for a very long time. Take a look at your cities and you'll see that few, if any, of them are working all of the tiles available to them. You could squeeze more cities into your territory without overcrowding. In fact, I see a couple of dead spots that none of your cities is working.

OK, so what, exactly would I do with this map? If I were shooing for SS, I'd want to clear my continent and build more cities, some of which would be specialist farms. If I were shooting for cultural, I'd want to clear my continent and build more cities, some of which would be specialist farms.

1) Get the strategic railnet (that connects most (if not all) of your cities) laid. That will let you thin out the defensive units more safely.
2) Thin out the military. If you're going to war in Republic, you need to be fast, mobile, and avoid losses. Start the thinning with those pikes far from the front lines. Get those 24 AC & 8 cavs in one pile and get ready for a fast blitz. Oh, and you'll need more cavs, so swap some of those bank builds to cavs. Build a few stacks of fast defenders and set them on rails. They can guard a huge territory that way. Leave a few defenders in towns that the AI can reach in one turn.
3) Get some towns ready to build settlers, because you'll need to fill the land that you're gonna empty.
4) Both England and Russia have Nationalism, so we have to assume that both have rifles. England has rubber & incense, neither of which you have. Russia doesn't have a lot of resources. In my book, that makes England the priority target. Try to get the Canterbury/Warwick/Newcastle/London area secured first.
5) Once you DOW, see if Cathy wants to join the fun. If you start up north, Cathy should be able to lose some units in the south. Just remember not to make peace with Liz until the alliance runs out.
6) Start a prebuild on the Theory of Evolution. To do this, swap the bank at Adana to a palace. When you learn Scientific Method, switch to the Theory of Evolution. That should get you about 200 shields invested when you make the switch, and a good head start on ToE.
7) After you've crippled Liz (& hopefully kicked her off the continent), see what you can do with Cathy. Don't worry about invading Liz overseas. If you can get her off this landmass, she'll never be able to threaten you again.

Anyway, that's what I'd do, and some of what I would have done.

 

[Regina]

Cool! I decided to blunder ahead and try to follow my instincts, which seem to be pretty spot on compared to what you've said here.

#1. I traded Russia some nifty goods for Nationalism then started upgrading the musket guys to riflemen. It took me a few turns since I was going back and forth between trying to break my bank and not trying to break my bank but by this time they are all upgraded and each city has at least two.

#2. I took all of my Wonder units (Ancient Calvary and Crusaders) and sent them to my city closest to Russia and the city with the highest corruption rate at the bottom of the map and used them to rush a cathedral and marketplace, respectively.

#3. My railroad system is already close to being in place (I usually start building those as fast as possible). The really important squares (meaning I concentrate on production) around almost every city now has railroad and where necessary I've been irrigating and railroading occasional grassland tiles and almost all cities are accessible from one another within one turn, sometimes two. That won't take long to fill in. I currently have thirty-nine workers. (Yes, I know I should steal workers from the other civs and at one point I actually had three I got from Russia during our little war but the speed at which they work drives me insane--do they ever get over being enslaved?)

I have already started building Universal Suffrage and have Battlefield Medicine already built.

I know I could build cities more closely and I'm trying to break the habit of spreading them out quite so far. I just hate for them to end up competing for the same important resource but I know two small cities are better than one, even if they are competing.

My current offensive unit count is twelve cavalry, six artilleries, and five guerrillas. Someone said guerrillas are getter defense than offense so perhaps use them and riflemen with the settlers after clearing the land?

So, if I understand correctly if I declare war on Elizabeth I'll end up with a reputation hit that will prevent any per-turn trade with anyone in the future? I don't know that I would end up trading with them but one never knows.

Okay, off to reading the Multiplier Buildings article and then back to building railroads and a few more attack units.

And thank you for your valuable insights!

 

[Aabraxan]

1) You didn't need Nationalism. You have Replaceable Parts. Get rubber, and you'll have Infantry. Rifles = 6 defense. Infantry = 10 defense.

2) Since you have RP, you also have access to Civil Engineers. If you're going for culture, don't be afraid to use a few of those to add shields when building improvements. They're 2 uncorrupted shields per turn towards an improvement.

3) I did see that you've already got a good start on the railroad. Well done. Getting things railed is a high priority, regardless of what type of game you're in.

3.5) Banks -- Basically, multiplier buildings are either science multipliers or tax multipliers. In short: (a) a city generates commerce; (b) some is lost to commerce; (c) some expenses are paid; (d) whatever is left over is allocated to either science, luxury or taxes. A science multiplier multiplies that leftover amount which is allocated to science. A tax multiplier does the same thing for taxes. No, you don't need a tax collector for a bank to work. In fact, the gold generated by the tax collector won't even go through the bank. See the article in my sig.

4) If you have more than 3 turns left on Universal Suffrage, use it for your ToE prebuild. Two free techs is worth more than the decreased war weariness.

5) No, you won't ruin your rep by DOWing Liz. If you had a current per-turn trade with her, you would. All you have is a peace treaty, and that has run its full 20 turns. You'll make her mad, but you won't ruin your trade rep.

6) No, slaves never get over being slaves. They always work at half speed. Amass enough of them, and it ceases to matter, though.

 

[Nergal]

I think its worth looking at tech shortcuts too, for future games. Ironclads are rubbish and I never bother with Diplomacy or Free Artistry. Skipping techs means you hit the better ones earlier.

 

[Regina]

Yes, I am now skipping a few techs but I have to say apparently my opponents felt the same way you did about Free Artistry. I had it, they didn't, and they were willing to make some very nice trades to get hold of it. So, here I am in a hundred-year war with Elizabeth and my pixel-citizens are just happy as can be because they're all drunk on the Celt's wine. Snagging the spices from Elizabeth didn't hurt with that, either.

Elizabeth is all but gone. As soon as I declared war on her so did the Celts and Spaniards. (I guess that pact agreement wasn't so worthless after all.) She originally had five cities on those two islands near the top right. Now she only has three because the Celts took two of them. I waited until rubber was within reach then invited the Russians to join. They did well for themselves, actually, and managed to take about four of England's cities.

Somewhere along the way I had oil show up in my desert (this map was definitely tipped in my favor). I also built quite a few more cities to fill in some of the gaps and added an extra settler to most of them to get them off to a fast start. I kept a few of England's and added a few of my workers to them but razed most of them so I could squeeze a few more in than there had been previously.

I don't remember the exact number but I'm now not far below 50,000 on the culture score so I think I'm making up some time. At least one way or another I may win this one.

I will have to remember civil engineers.

Thanks for the tips!

 

[Aabraxan]

Glad to hear it's going well.

Free Artistry does make make pretty good trade bait, and it's probably worth it for Shakes, if you're going for a cultural victory. (Some of you culture experts feel free to weigh in on the value of FA & Shake's here.) For conquest games, I never bother with FA. There may be some rare situation in which researching Ironclads is worthwhile, but I can't imagine what it is.

In general, Nergal makes a good point, though. Techs are only good if they get something for you, either directly, or as trade bait. The AI highly values government techs, Wonder techs, and defensive unit techs very highly. That makes them good trade bait. Somewhere around here, there's an article by Dave McW on how the AI values techs that'd be worth reading.

MPPs -- From time to time, they're a fun way to cause a free-for-all, but avoid them as a general rule. They'll suck you into wars you don't want and ruin your reputation too often to be worth the risk.

How does Cathy's culture look? You've got to get 100K and double the nearest AI, so if Cathy hits 50K, that's slow down your victory. If she's producing culture too fast, you might have to send some troops to kick in a few Russian doors.

Keep us posted.

 

[Regina]

"I'm a builder at heart.
I build troops, so that I may build an empire.
I build libraries, so that I may build better troops.
I build roads, so that I may move my troops faster.
I build cities, so that I may support more troops.
. . . . "

That is no doubt the best way to describe a Civ game ever!

1) You didn't need Nationalism. You have Replaceable Parts. Get rubber, and you'll have Infantry. Rifles = 6 defense. Infantry = 10 defense.

Definitely right there. I passed it by on the tech tree for some of the better advancements but then it was offered to me in a trade so I took it. I think it was when I was trying to schmooze Catherine and I offered her a luxury and asked what she had to offer and she gave me Nationalism, all her gold, and her world maps (never mind I could see the whole world by that point). On the upside by the time I managed to get the rubber I had two riflemen in every city plus guarding my important resources so it was an easy 15G apiece upgrade to infantry.

Ironclads are rubbish

There may be some rare situation in which researching Ironclads is worthwhile, but I can't imagine what it is.

No doubt you are right. I used them to bombard some coastal cities after which England started pulling her galleons into her cities. I started bombarding her cities with the ironclads which damaged units and destroyed improvements (took down the University in one of them). With the ship in the city the bombardment only hit the ship not the improvements or ground troops. So, with her ships defending her cities they wouldn't be able to be after my galleons I was using to transport a few units to the tiny island to the north. I'm sure it would be way better to bypass ironclads and get the tech that creates destroyers faster since they'll do the same thing.

MPPs -- From time to time, they're a fun way to cause a free-for-all, but avoid them as a general rule. They'll suck you into wars you don't want and ruin your reputation too often to be worth the risk.

I will remember that and avoid them hereafter. It was probably just beginner's luck that this one happened to work out.

How does Cathy's culture look? You've got to get 100K and double the nearest AI, so if Cathy hits 50K, that's slow down your victory. If she's producing culture too fast, you might have to send some troops to kick in a few Russian doors.

I'm at roughly 47,000 culture and Russia is at a little over 27,000 so her total is definitely over half of mine currently. I thought I would at least knock her off the edge of the main land mass. The area I have circled in green is a mix of the four cities she took from England and the five she had built there. I can take those or build new ones and still have reasonable production because my Forbidden Palace isn't too far from that area. If I go past that point I'm going to end up with serious corruption unless I switch to another form of government.



As much as I'd love to sit here today and give Russia her come uppance I had better get to work on finishing the move of one of my websites. Stinkin' responsibilities anyway, all the time getting in the way of having fun. I am so glad I posted here with this question because this is the first time I've actually enjoyed playing this version of Civ.

P.S.

6) No, slaves never get over being slaves. They always work at half speed. Amass enough of them, and it ceases to matter, though.

Can I just load them up in my fleet of galleons and take them back to England?

 

[Aabraxan]

The area by Krasnoyarsk (sp?) where you have that green line will make a good chokepoint. I was looking at it for that yesterday. Push Cathy back behind that and you should be safe. Don't worry about corruption, though. If it gets too high, build specialist farms. Specialist output is not subject to corruption.

Slaves: You could, but why would you?

 

[Regina]

That was also my thought. Specialist farms, must remember specialist farms!

I think I'm pretty much finished up with the business end of what I can do today so I may just take the afternoon and do that. My copy of Civ IV also just arrived. Decisions, decisions! One day my son said, "You sure do have a lot of different civ games!" I told him you can never have too many civ games.

 

[Aabraxan]

The only Civ games I have are C3C and CivRev. But then again, I have SMAC and MOO2. My wife doesn't complain about the number of games, just the time I have to dedicate to one game to finish it . . . and my daughter, well, she likes to play the occasional game and gets mad at me when I call her Princess Bloodthirsty, if that tells you anything. My wife says she plays just like her daddy. . .

 

[Nergal]

The main problem with ironclads as far as I remember is that they are only coastal vessels. It makes Frigates more worthwhile but I dont know offhand if disbanding an ironclad would be worth a few shields or not. If oyu are aiming for 100k then maybe hitting Cathy and rushing temples would be worth it.

 

[Regina]

I never noticed if the ironclads are only coastal or not. Even if they are they were still somewhat helpful in the fight against England. Even so, like I said, I agree there's not a lot of point researching them when a person could go straight for better stuff like destroyers.

Last night I played until I had all but one of Russia's cities that needed to go gone and since I had tanks and infantry and could pump them out to the tune of two or three turns each I started disbanding the artillery, cavalry and my few guerrillas to help rush some temples. Since by this time I had upgraded the ironclads to destroyers and couldn't find any great use for them they were also used to help rush-build a culture building. In outlying cities where production may only be one or two shields per turn the roughly twenty shields from disbanding one of those units goes a long way. I have a stack of settlers and infantry poised to take over that area as soon as I get back in the game. I didn't want to send them out too soon because Russian infantry keep showing up on the border.

and my daughter, well, she likes to play the occasional game and gets mad at me when I call her Princess Bloodthirsty, if that tells you anything. My wife says she plays just like her daddy. . .

I blame the whole video game thing on my mom. She's the one who bought Pong back in '72 then moved up to the Atari later. It's too bad she died just about the time the NES hit the market because she would have had a blast with it! One of my sisters got me started with Civ games about the time Civ II hit the bargain bin. She had it for her console and told me I should try it. I found it for around $10 so I did. That's one of the best $10 I ever spent. Later I picked up Alpha Centauri in the bargain bin, loved it too. Then I found out there was an expansion pack which at that time was really hard to come by so I kept my eyes open online and eventually found one I could afford. I know Civ II: CTP wasn't real popular but I have got a lot of enjoyment out of it as well. I've probably started more wars in CTP than in any other just because I won't let the slavers take my citizens if I can help it and if my troops run across one he's toast. So, everyone usually grows to hate me over all that war waging so ultimately I end up pretty much wiping everyone out. For me, CTP is the best game for total annihilation. I wouldn't recommend trying to play the second version because not being able to micro-manage your workers is not cool. Without resource management CTP is too heavy on the food production and cities grow out of control way too quickly. Civ II and III are much better balanced that way.

 

[CommandoBob]

This is the full quote, in SGOTM 10, Xteam, Post #175:

You guys misunderstand me. I am actually a builder at heart.

Seriously, I like to build stuff:

• I like to build cities, so that I may build an empire...
• I like to build barracks, so I can build veteran units.
• I like to build roads, to connect my trade network, make some gold, and move some units.
• I like to build markets, for happiness, gold, and unit support.
• I like to build libraries, so I can learn to build better units.
• I like to build MORE cities, for more unit support
• I like to build railroads, so I can move my units really fast.
• I like to build factories, so I can build units faster
• I like to build things that throw rocks and drop bombs, so I can ... kill other civs' units!
• I like to build universities and banks... (see "libraries" and "markets")
• I like to build airfields, so I can move units around really, REALLY fast.

Poor, misunderstood scoutsout!