why do I stink at civ3?

Ataxerxes · Apr 3, 2012

The others have made me rethink the value of embassies. I think they partially depend on the victory condition your pursue. Since I usually wind up killing off the AI's starting with my landmass I didn't use them. But I think they have a use - especially if you're pursuing a peaceful victory. I think I confused myself with thinking about Right of Passage = Embassies. I only give ROP's in very specific situations.

@Bamspeedy - Good to see you back in CivIII! :band:

I remember you as one of the old posters of some of the original strategy guides, including the article about AI attitudes.

MysteryX · Apr 3, 2012

I think embassies almost always are a benefit, even if you plan to win by rolling out the war machine.

First, merely having an embassy improves other tribes' attitudes for you, decreasing the chance they will attack you somewhat. It's always best to start wars when you are ready rather than to respond to wars when your enemies are ready, and embassies help you do that.

Second, if a tribe nevertheless attacks you before you are ready, you are going to need some allies to help you out by diverting your enemy's attention elsewhere. You can only make those military alliances with embassies.

Third, whether you start the war or your enemy starts the war, your enemy is going to start recruiting allies on the next turn. Unless you are ready to fight the world, recruit allies before your enemy does.

In my games, the first war involving my nation is going to be a world war. Tribes at war slow down their improvements production and slow down their scientific research. They soften up each others' military. But most importantly, the more damage they do to each other, the more likely they will be to be furious at each other forever. That means they will be far more likely to keep declaring war on each other. I can only orchestrate this global chaos through embassies.

vmxa · Apr 5, 2012

Robbus, not sure if you ever finished the game or if you are still working away on. I went ahead and finished, took 3 or 4 days. I was waiting in case Bamspeedy played it out. Anyway I will put the log up and I only took two screens, one the ending, as you already knew the map.

This play was based on the suggestions I listed for you a few weeks ago, with a few changes.

Spoiler :

vmxa · Apr 5, 2012

Wrap up:

Spoiler :

Bamspeedy · Apr 5, 2012

I was waiting in case Bamspeedy played it out.

I haven't tried that one. I have been trying the 1914 save, playing up to 1970 or so. Starting with 20 artillery (upgraded the rifles and sent most of them in the attack force and continued to build more artillery/infantry for backup) attacking the spanish continent, I took over more than half the continent and then realized just far ahead the Vikings were and wasn't sure I was going to be able to finish in time (for this attempt I put marketplaces and harbors in most cities).

Then I tried attacking the Vikings first with 30 artillery and got a foothold, but after that it was slow moving (half a dozen turns at least taking each city waiting to bombard the metros to size 1). I built just harbors and skipped the marketplaces.

Now I'm trying attacking the Vikings with 40 artillery (again just harbors) and having better luck. Vikings start 3 techs ahead or something and then they build TOE, US, Hoovers, etc.

I shut off science and sold the libraries. With 118 turns left, and having to go through anarchy to get out of democracy at some point I'm not sure I could do much with science anyways (unless I don't want the rifles upgraded). Doesn't take long before they have destroyers roaming my waters, but I do love sinking their transports! The race is on to destroy the AI before they get tanks.

If this doesn't work then I'll have to try skipping the harbors and just go with max production I can do with the current population, but I hate seeing all those unused tiles. I can make peace with the Vikings right away and that gets rid of the war weariness, but I'm not sure if then is the best time for anarchy or later would be better (but then it hurts seeing all my size 12 cities that are maxed out for production starve down during anarchy because I don't have marketplaces).

Note on Embassies:
Not really worth it at this point (one reason is because rep is ruined), but one thing I noticed is every time I play this save out the Vikings attack me again within 20 turns or so (with no embassies). When I did build embassies the Vikings attacked Spain instead (the top two AI in this save).

vmxa · Apr 6, 2012

Was that a different game? I only looked at the one. I don't recall Spain in the game. 1914 is very late, depending on what was left to be done. I could not even build Hoovers on his mainland as he had no river.

Slogging 40 bombardment units around is very painful to be sure. I rediscovered how much better C3C is compared to PTW. No flying workers, no lethal bombing, no flaks. I used C3C to at least get the better interface.

I am retired, so I can play 12-14 hours or as many as I feel like. So it does not take me long. I actually stayed up till 2 or 3 a few times. The boss lady went back to work, so no distractions.

Bamspeedy · Apr 6, 2012

vmxa said:
Was that a different game? I only looked at the one. I don't recall Spain in the game. 1914 is very late, depending on what was left to be done. I could not even build Hoovers on his mainland as he had no river.

Slogging 40 bombardment units around is very painful to be sure. I rediscovered how much better C3C is compared to PTW. No flying workers, no lethal bombing, no flaks. I used C3C to at least get the better interface.

I am retired, so I can play 12-14 hours or as many as I feel like. So it does not take me long. I actually stayed up till 2 or a few times. The boss lady went back to work, so no distractions.

Post #24 on page 2, his update had the 1914 save (I also realized earlier that the files he posted had saves from 2 different games).

The layout of the map is similar, so I didnt notice they were different right away until I was trying to figure out why so many cities moved to new spots when comparing 300 AD to 1914.

I am also using Conquests. I used to play 12+ hours a day but that was when I was unmarried and had no kids.

vmxa · Apr 6, 2012

Bamspeedy:

I see that is a different game.

Robbus:

Wonder how one can lose a town on a small continent so late in the game? Why one would not have tossed in a half price lib to get the extra tiles on a small continent? Why would one send such a small force to another continent? Then not even have escorts for the ships. I guess it is possible the force had escorts and was much larger, I doubt it.

The invasion of Spanish continent was very poorly planned. I mean Konigsberg is undefended, only 6 units in total are there. True there may have been a much larger force, but some how I would suspect not very large or effective.

I say again, do not trade or gift more than 1 lux to a strong civ. I would not trade any to them. I figure I can do better without a lux than the ai will. Exception exist, such as it is your 4th, 5th or more lux and it is their 1st or 2nd. You are much larger and have more markets, it could be worth it.

Why make rifles in those far off towns? 70 plus turns, use the core to make troops. Those towns need a wall and the front one a rax.

Really tiles without even a road on home front and trees not cut by 1914AD? Several cities rioting? That should not happen, steps have to be taken to keep them productive as you are fighting for your life here and running out of time. Not going to go around the towns and such as I did that in the other game and the concepts are the same.

If you intent to go with a UN or a Space win or a 20k then being on a small continent and going Demo is fine. Otherwise you probably should look to go Rep or even Monarch and ready for combat and lots of it.

At this point you probably should realize you cannot have research and win, you have to get out of Demo and stop research other than maybe a lone scientist. Steal techs, if you need them or beat them out of someone.

Bamspeedy you have a lot of grief coming your way picking this one up, good luck. If it was 1714 or maybe even 1814 it would be easier. Time is not on side as I think of the old Rolling Stones tune (Time is on my side).

robbus · Apr 9, 2012

Thanks for playing the game with me vmxa and bamspeedy. I played up until 1989 using your advice but got bogged down.

After defeating scandinavia went after germany. It seems that picking off peripheral cities and strangling core is easier then attacking big cities.

My big problem was I fell behind tech tree and eventually korea is building UN and I expect them to finish it before I can defeat them militarily. My strategy was to slog thru mongolia to get at them. Not working!

I have restarted my game after defeating scand.

This time I am going to be more aggressive and own german continent then go after china.

I have read your spoilr but don't understand all of it.

What improvements are best for maintaining culture as my 1980's map looks like swiss cheese yours looks like solid mass.

anyway here are a few saves the ones with a "b" in front are from my restart.

robbusIII

ps your sceencaps are blurry. I use www.photoscape.org gives good results

vmxa · Apr 9, 2012

robbus, not sure who you are addressing as you mentioned two names. Will load the game to see which game you are addressing. If all the saves are for the same game, then I wold suspect you are talking about the one I used as I see an 1834AD save.

I personally like to expand and stay contigous to my lands. IOW I do not want to take towns that are going to leave big gaps or worse other civs between me.

What parts are not clear? I do at times make my logs confusing when I go back and read them. That is hard to avoid as you try to recall what happened and what you were doing.

Culture is not needed, if you are going CxxC as they will be close enough. At some towns I slapped in a lib as you get 1/2 price. Then sell them after border expands. Use units to disband and get shields.

Pix are probably due to the screen res at 1920 and the game running using keepres. I can read the names and I have crappy vision nowadays. It is a bit unclear though. If it is really bad, then download and resize to a lower res. Irafanview can do that.

vmxa · Apr 9, 2012

A quick look at the 1986AD save. You could have more towns on the large continet to fill the gaps. You do not need to do that, but I did. The main reason for me was to ensure I could see any landings. I also figure to revolt at some point.

You could get settlers out of a number of towns on that new continent. In some cases you could short rush them in others use some of those obsolete units to speed the builds.

You do what I see lots of players do and that is to invest too much in ships and planes. I think I had 3 bombers and eventually I disbanded them s they were worth nothing in PTW. No lethal bombing means not much use for the price. Lack of range also.

I see ships spread out, stack them in one fleet and use 2 escorts, maybe three. At this level they will not even attack a stack with 2 DD's.

You have a leader, why not make another army? How did you get to this point with one army? I mean you should have had lots of battles by now.

Why do you have 4 sites on the last continent? You do not have to hold every town you take. Now you have to defend 4 sites and 5 towns. That is going to split your forces, unless you have gassed them all by now.

You have towns starving on the mainland?

You are still making ships?

Whats with the cruise missiles? I did not build any as they will not really send that many ships and I do not have to sink them, if they do. I just have to ping them and send them home.

I see an offshore going up, I do not build them either. Maybe in an OCC or xCC game. You are at war and racing to the end. Make troops and fly them over to the front or to places to disband for shields.

Workers making towers on the mainland? Workers sleeping on the mailand, while towns starve?

Making a mech with no rax on an island that is safe? Build a rax in a town (long ago) and upgrade a coulple units and disband some on all the islands. You have Leo so they are dirt cheap upgrades. Why risk a battle with a 3/3 rifle, why have a 3/3 rifle? At least a 3/3 MI can attack or defend.

You should be hooking up those spices. Basically get slim and trim on your forces. Get focused on that.

Jets, did not build them either. Fighters are good enough for recon of defense. Actually I finally disbanded them as no bombers. I mean if you keep pushing out the bombers will be overrun and the fighers never get on air superiority as you would have to move them all the time.

Bamspeedy · Apr 9, 2012

vmxa said:
Bamspeedy you have a lot of grief coming your way picking this one up, good luck.

And that is the fun....the challenge!

I'm at 2021 and I kicked the Vikings off their starting continent and just got a foothold on the Spanish continent. Not going to get conquest in this attempt, but domination might be possible.

I had 3 armies and then rushed the wonder that expands the size of armies.....and then dozens of turns later realized that made my armies too big to fit in the galleons anymore. That's what I get for not playing the game in 7 years.

vmxa · Apr 9, 2012

It would only take me about 7 months to forget most of it. In 7 years I would barely be able start the game. Anyway lots of us screw up the 4 man army and only having galleons. At least in PTW you still get 8 for a transport.

Bamspeedy · Apr 10, 2012

Domination won't happen in this attempt either.

Spoiler :

Hitting the Spanish continent first might be better, I'm not sure. Hitting the Vikings first because of the tech lead is good, but then I only have 4 luxuries after kicking them off the continent and they are still trading their luxuries most of the time. If I take the Spanish continent I leave the Vikings with only 2 luxuries, and more for me (and getting Magellan's right away).

When the home continent is railroaded, you don't need units in every city since you can send units anywhere in 0 turns. A few times I left 1-4 infantry (and 5-8 artillery) on the home continent, but only if there was some more being built in the next turn.

vmxa · Apr 10, 2012

Yes I would not go for the vikes as I would want to be stronger when I deal with them. Either Spain or France first.

Something like this:

Cav kills inf in one of the Vike towns on tip of Spain. Razed it.
Rifle dies redlined their rifle in Leipzig. Rifle kills guerilla there. We come within 1HP
of taking that town down. Send over a cav and a knight.
Load cavs on vike land into boats and shove off.

Move the rifle out of Pergamon.
Peace with Vikes and I give them Pergamon.

Switch Kron... to a wall.
Disband the hop on the mainland in Hippo.
Can't talk to Joan right now.

Would want to know who declared, us or Joan. Lots of clean up needed on mainland. Not sure how you get to 1914AD and not have all tiles fully improved.

Normaly I would minimize efforts to make ships, but the game may have gone so long that you would need to deal with them. If you have 9-10 arties, then I would not sweat ships.

How can anyone be building a temple in Avigon, when it has your only rubber and MUST have a harbor now. Rilfes are not as good as Infantry or even close to it.

vmxa · Apr 10, 2012

Since I loaded the save, I went ahead and made these notes FWIIW.

I hate to see fortress on the mainland. If you want to have a rifle sitting on a tile, why not pick a hill next to a town or a mountain. A tile that you do not want them to land upon. Rather than a desert tile of no value.

What is really upsetting is I could have taken Oea, if had some cavs. Two is not enough and it has to be done on the 1914AD turn, before peace. So I cannot use rifles as they will only enter the land, not attack.

Why would one allow that town to stand, when you are already at war? It is very bad play as it allows them to have Dyes, that is so aggrivating. You just cannot do that. Basically you just gave them back a bunch of jokers that now will be productive.

Found a rRifle and disbamnd it to finish the temple in Hippo.
Drop research to zero, not much use now. Will flip all scientist (except one). Need to get some happy in places anyway.

Rhodes: sell the granary, what is the point anyway? Someone spent all those shields to increase growth in a basically worthless town? Why would you do that? Switch rifle to a harbor.

Rusicade: why make a university here? Sell the lib and go to wealth. Will sell the temples on this island after a harbor is up.

Avignon: all pop to jokers, reduce risk of a flip.

Slider for lux to 10%.

Hippo: flip joker to tax.

Halicarnassus: sell wall, temple and lib. No need for a wall as it is not going to be attacked.

Leptis Magna: sell temple, granary and whatever else it had. Why a granary in a desert town? Flip a pop from desert to tax and set to no growth. For now I switch rifle to artie.

I see we have Sun Tzu and Magel. Rant time. You should be able to do as you please at this level, but once you see that you are struggling do not go for those optional techs. You researched 7 or aquired them. Only one was a good idea (MT).

You have a small use for Magel, but it is not critical. You did not get the wonders from the other optional techs, so that was a waste. It does not matter to me how you got the techs. Self research is the worse way, but trading for them is not good either as it helps them and not you.

I suspect that when you got most of them you already had no chance for the wonders anyway. Now I have said in many threads that once you see you are on an island or a small continent, that means wars or some VC like UN or Space.

Space is very iffy for you as you will likely not have the resources you need and not be able to be in front in tech. UN is marginal as you probably will not have friends, so no votes. This leaves basical domination or conquest, but you did nothing to prepare for that. In fact you shot your foot off by going for Demo.

robbus, if you read this, sorry for the rants. I would like to understand what your plan to win was and how you would go about implementing it. What was the thinking going for demo, did you just consider you could get more research? Where you not behind at that point already? Did you switch from despotism or from some other form of
government?

Two huge problems with demo imo is 1) too many optional techs to get it 2) too late in the game to revolt. You have to revolt twice or else stay in despotism for a long time. Now, if you are ahead then it may be ok, not good, but ok.

The top dog is not going to sit around an be happy with their holdings, while you are tucked in your demo world.

They are going to keep getting more land, unless you stop them. That is hard to do in demo.

Marathon: sell granary and lib.

Sabrtha: switch iron to market for now.

Leptis Minor: sell wall and granary. It has +1 food, so what is the value of a granary here? Switch clad to arty. A ship can not cover much area. An artie can go around on rails and help lots of areas.

Ephesus: sell granary, again not much food here. Switch rilfe to arty as we are in no position to invade right now and need to fend off ships. Sell wall, granary and lib.

Mycenae: switch rifle to harbor. This is not a clear choice as an arty would be useful now as well. We are not growing here at size 10. More gold from coastal tiles is my thinking. Sell wall, lib and granary.

Theveste: sell lib abd switch to arty.

Thermopylae: switch clad to cav to market. Sell gran and lib.

Delphi: sell gran and lib forget if it had a wall or not. Switch rifle to market. BTW a wall is of no effect in a city as the city has an inherent bonus of a wall.

Sparta: sell gran and lib and barracks (called a rax hence forth). Switch to cav. May as well get the 5 gold for the hand built rax as Sun Tzu provides one.

Argos: switch to market. Sell granary, lib, colosseum. I do not build colosseum's except in rare cases.

Knossos: switch clad to market. Sell lib, gran. Put joker to work as we need the food.

Pharsalos: switch to market, sell lib.

Corinth: sell lib. Decide to leave factory. Put joker back to work.

Athens: sell uni and lib. Sell colo and gran. Sell rax. Switch to coal plant. Take hill from Sparta. Need to think about the value of taking some other shield producing tiles for Athens and Corinth.

Now at 249 gold and 186gpt.

vmxa · Apr 10, 2012

robbus I am not sure, if you are aware of the attributes of the Colossus. One thing is that it could trigger a GA for Comm civ. On its own, it won't. However once you finish the GL you will trigger it.

The attribute I wanted to point out is the extra commerce. That only applies, if you are getting a commerce in that tile already. That means it is important to get a road on any worked tile in that town.

The Colossus was finished in 1125BC and you still do not have a road on the cow at 550BC. That cost you 2gpt. So about 25 turns or 50 gold up in smoke. Gold can be used to pay for deficit spending on research. This is one of the more important uses along with some judicious rushing.

Another key issue for me is you are researching HBR and not getting on to a new government. You do not need horses right now. You do need to get out of despotism asap. The next item would be to get Construction to be able to build aqua's.

You want to get Athens past size 6 soonest. These are things that will make you out perform the AI.

vmxa · Apr 12, 2012

I decided to make a run at the 1914AD game from the start. The thing about all these games and nearly all the Regent/Warlord games I see posted for advice is they get behind and stay that way.

The causes are all the same. Lack of aggression and a combination of worker shortage and structure excuberance (from my pov). The games all have decent to quite good starts and can usually be won from even a quite late save.

So I wanted to go ahead and post a log to present a possible guideline. Many choices
could be changed and make only a small difference. The point is not that this is the best method or perfect or even all that good.

The point is with some attention to empire management, not MM, some knowledge of the AI moves, you could win these games with ease. Barring a very poor start, Regent is a cakewalk. It can be played as Always War with no strain.

What I did was to find my PTW CD and get the game working so I could use the editor.
I created a map using the seed of the 1914 save. Verified the start locations and generated a map.

It looked like it was a match, but it may not be exactly a match, it is very close for sure. Started a game and made a reasonable log.

For those that are reading I will give away the end, so you can skip the log. I won by conquest in 1778AD, and got the end screen in 1780AD. Log to follow, with a few pix. Everyone involved already knows the map anyway.

vmxa · Apr 12, 2012

I had to repair my PTW install and d/l the patch and apply it. Now I went ahead and gen up a map with the seed for the 1914ad game. Using the viewer I located all the start locations for all the settlers. I think anyway. The map looks to be the same, but I am sure some things are not exact.

Start the game and I found on the start location, rather than move. Not sure why you moved two turns as not much gained and two turns lost.

To me the game is over from the first hut as I got a settler. At Regent the AI will not be able to over come that boost. Hooked up the dye and then the cow. Found Sparta with the free settler on the river silk.

BTW I shoved in a video=1280, but that is still making all the other things like notepad way too large. Del it and add KeepRes=1.

Spoiler :

vmxa · Apr 12, 2012

Spoiler :

why do I stink at civ3?

Deity

Warlord

Deity

Deity

Attachments

CheeseBob

Deity

CheeseBob

Deity

Warlord

Attachments

Deity

Deity

CheeseBob

Deity

CheeseBob

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Attachments

Similar threads