Working my way up

[Stratagist IV]

So, after a very long hiatus from CFC and the civ series in general I've decided to get back into the game and back into CFC.

Useless preface/reintroduction post:

Spoiler :

Most of you likely don't remember me, which is probably a good thing since when I look back at the posts I've made years ago I cringe at the aura I put off.
Anywho, I'm also looking into building a fantasy mod (yes another fantasy mod for CFC) and despite the fact that my gut tells me that it won't come to fruition I'm determined to at least make the effort to L2mod as it were. I also like to write so perhaps a story is in the future.

So, as stated in the hide, I've been playing CivIII for years, since I was... oh goodness, 9 years of age. Up until I stopped playing civ regularly a few years ago, I was always one to take the easy road out. By that I mean playing on Chieftain difficulty, accelerated production, basically turning everything in my favour and being proud of all my victories.

I suppose its my experience with other games but to me that just doesn't seem fun anymore. Its kinda like beating the living crap out of a punching bag and bragging to everyone you meet that you're the best fighter that ever lived. When I first joined CFC, one of the first threads I read was "The tale of king Tupac". (I've tried digging it up but the servers buggered up on me). In essence, the player was playing on Emperor difficulty, with no civ-specific traits, no UUs, couldn't research optional techs, and a plethora of other difficulty-enhancing, self-inflicted axioms. In short, I was amazed that someone would even play that hard of a difficulty (or anything other than chieftain/warlord for that matter) and that they saw it through to the end and won.

But I digress, I recently finished a game on Warlord without accelerated production (a big step for me) and I'm looking to climb the difficulty ladder up to maybe Monarch or even Emperor. I plan on moving up the difficulty regularly in my games and perhaps even making a story out of a few of them.

Do you guys have any tips/tricks to help me make the transition up the ladder? My play style generally revolves around early expansion (usually war) until I have enough cities to get a tech and/or production advantage, building up, then expanding again for industrial and modern resources. After reading a bit on the forums, I think I have the basics down. Don't have a wonder addiction, granaries are lifesaving, workers are possibly the most useful things ever, buy allies, and make as many contacts as possible.

On top of that, are there any other play styles you guys would recommend?

Thanks a ton in advance!
-For the record I have C3C just as it came out of the box, no patches-

EDIT: So I found the Tale of King Tupac and it turns out that Tupaclives was actually playing on diety.

 

[shl7070]

Technical first:
You can download the patches on this site somewhere.
If your c3c is unpatched nobody will be able to open any saves you post.

Most people have complete which equals to conquest 1.22f and they can only open games from:
vanilla 1.29, PTW 1.24 and conquests 1.22f.

If you post saves from the mod and the mod uses resurces beyond the editor (new pcx files,wav files etc...) you need to post those as well.

That's enough about the technical part.
There is the war academy with articles about emperor and above play as well as articles for Regent and I'll try to summarize them in seven sentences:

1) Early expansion is the most important thing- search the settler factory articles in the war academy, empire management section, you can expand faster then AI on chieftain wothout those but on emperor...
2) Having enough workers and roading every tile your citizens work- veterans here use 2 per city but lower level alows using 1 per city but not much less then that.
3) ICS approaches,there are many examples and articles here regarding specialists farms and infinite city sprawl strategies.
4) Tech trading (for monarch and above), early contacts are most important thing to keep tech parity on monarch and above-there are articles about smart trading there.
5) Dogpiling the enemy- check the article about the machiavellian approach in miscellaneous section, fighting alone against several civs is feasible up to monarch but is long, grinding and hurting the progress.
6) Artillery is the king of war since Industrial ages, you won't be able to conquer rifles/infantry with plain cavalry but bringing artillery stack allows conquest of anything.
7) Wonder building addiction issues: Try to win without any wonders or with fewer wonders, on regent and above getting the seven ancient wonders is impossible without extreme luck and the most important rule here is DON'T BUILD GREAT LIBRARY on regent and monarch.

Choosing civ traits: Best traits are agri and industrious (gt most votes in the polls) but if you playing warlord don't choose them, try winning with the "crappy" 3rd tier civs. If you can win warlord with portugal or england on pangea then you can beat regent.

 

[bigFRANK]

Keep the maps/opponents small whilst your relearning the game, nothing worse than investing x'00s of hours in a game that is going to run to a score draw.

 

[CommandoBob]

-For the record I have C3C just as it came out of the box, no patches-

Great!

C3C includes all three versions of the game, vanilla, Play The World and Conquests, and each is fully patched. You will not need to download any fixes for the .exe files.

You can download graphics for terrain and borders and smiley popheads to make it easier to see who is happy/content/unhappy in your cities. Without the smiley popheads I would count the Content as Happy, which is not good. Any of these downloads will replace what is delivered in the install, so it is a good idea to make a backup file before you make the change.

On downloads, also look at MapStat (part of CrpSuite) and CivAssistII. These utility programs are great for monitoring city unrest, flip chances and trade option changes (someone learns a new tech, has a worker for sale, etc). They save you the effort of going to each civ each turn of the game looking for changes. They can/do contain spoiler data, but the default settings do not.

[EDIT]
Welcome back to the Forums!

 

[Abaddon]

I really should get into using CivAssistII.

Where is it?

 

[vmxa]

In the utilities sub forum of the Creation forum.

 

[CommandoBob]

I really should get into using CivAssistII.

Where is it?

In the Civ3 Creation and Customization sub forum, in sub forum of that sub forum called Utility Programs.

 

[Raliuven]

Keep the maps/opponents small whilst your relearning the game, nothing worse than investing x'00s of hours in a game that is going to run to a score draw.

I would suggest using the Hall of Fame standard as an absolute low compared to map size:

Tiny: 2
Small: 3
Standard: 4
Large: 6
Huge: 8

One important aspect of moving up is trading - techs, luxuries, resources, etc. Fewer opponents = fewer trade possibilies. Work you way up to the maximum number of opponents for the map size. In a lot of ways, if you are shorting yourself enemies, you may actually be hampering your progress more than helping it.

As you move up, you don't need to do without wonders - but it is better to assume you will not get all the wonders on your wish list. Make sure you can compensate for missing wonders and learn how to make prebuilds. Breaking wonder addictions is great - but don't give up on them altogether. Just be reasonable and have reasonable expectations. Play without the Great Library and then once you realize you can make it with or without it, it is just a matter of whether you would like to use it this time.

Tech development is important - at warlord and cheiften you can meander you way thorugh the tech tree and still be an age ahead of the AI. The higher you go, the less room you have for mistakes. If you tech can't be traded because the AI learned it a turn before you, you are just out of luck.

Warfare - you will no longer outnumber the enemy 3 to 1. They will outnumber you. Learn to fight effectively. Don't string out units all over the place so the AI can pick them off. Use terrain. Skirmish. Bombard (as necessary). Don't fight across rivers (but use them for defense when possible).

Building - every city does not need every building (and that hurts just to say it because I'm a builder). At warlord you can build everything. Now you need to decide what the city needs and what will be used.

Luxury Slider - use it. If you are not comfortable with it yet, get comfortable. Clowns are evil. Opinions on temples/cat vary.

VC Condition - the higher you go, the earlier you need to pick a victory condition. Research, build and plan around your VC.

 

[Stratagist IV]

Technical first:
You can download the patches on this site somewhere.
If your c3c is unpatched nobody will be able to open any saves you post.

Sorry, I meant Civ 3 Complete, which from the post below I'm garnering that I don't need any patches.

1) Early expansion is the most important thing- search the settler factory articles in the war academy, empire management section, you can expand faster then AI on chieftain wothout those but on emperor...

Yeah, I understand the concept, and I'll make a point to check out the in-depth articles

2) Having enough workers and roading every tile your citizens work- veterans here use 2 per city but lower level alows using 1 per city but not much less then that.

Huh, to be honest I generally end up having more than that up until the modern era... is there such a thing as too many?

3) ICS approaches,there are many examples and articles here regarding specialists farms and infinite city sprawl strategies.

I always regarded having sprawling cities as more of a bonus than a staple, this looks like it should be worth checking out.

4) Tech trading (for monarch and above), early contacts are most important thing to keep tech parity on monarch and above-there are articles about smart trading there.

Yeah, using the fact that you go first to your advantage is something I'm well aware of (and obviously not trading techs to AI on their turn). I've also seen people make extensive use of tech stealing on higher difficulty levels, after figuring out a few tech monopolies, they stole them, then sold them.... which in turn that money was later used for more tech stealing. Are there any key things to keep in mind and/or do to make this effective?

5) Dogpiling the enemy- check the article about the machiavellian approach in miscellaneous section, fighting alone against several civs is feasible up to monarch but is long, grinding and hurting the progress.

I'll make sure to check the particulars, I've had this strategy come in handy more than once so its always a good idea to see what can make it more efficient.

6) Artillery is the king of war since Industrial ages, you won't be able to conquer rifles/infantry with plain cavalry but bringing artillery stack allows conquest of anything.

Duly noted, in the game I just recently finished I took careful note of the fact that other than some minor naval engagements, the AI never uses bombards for offense. When I led my counter-attack with escorted artillery, it was easy for land units (and in the late game) bombers to mop up. That said, due to Rate of Fire limitations, I've experienced that bombards only become useful from cannon (which is barely effective compared to arty's) and onwards, does this change with difficulty?

7) Wonder building addiction issues: Try to win without any wonders or with fewer wonders, on regent and above getting the seven ancient wonders is impossible without extreme luck and the most important rule here is DON'T BUILD GREAT LIBRARY on regent and monarch.

By this do you mean all seven or getting even a single one?

Choosing civ traits: Best traits are agri and industrious (gt most votes in the polls) but if you playing warlord don't choose them, try winning with the "crappy" 3rd tier civs. If you can win warlord with portugal or england on pangea then you can beat regent.

I personally prefer scientific over agricultural simply because of the pain that agri gives in micromanaging and the advantage of cheap libraries. I've had success with the Greeks, Germans, Chinese, Babylonians, and surprisingly, the Russians (scouts help make use of goody huts in addition to making those crucial early contacts) does the value of the agricultural trait increase as you up the difficulty? if so, how?

Great!

C3C includes all three versions of the game, vanilla, Play The World and Conquests, and each is fully patched. You will not need to download any fixes for the .exe files.

On downloads, also look at MapStat (part of CrpSuite) and CivAssistII. These utility programs are great for monitoring city unrest, flip chances and trade option changes (someone learns a new tech, has a worker for sale, etc). They save you the effort of going to each civ each turn of the game looking for changes. They can/do contain spoiler data, but the default settings do not.

[EDIT]
Welcome back to the Forums!

Thanks for the info and the welcome back. As for the downloads, the ability to see what's changing in the world without spending large amounts of time per turn seems really useful on large maps, I'll definitely give it a look.

Keep the maps/opponents small whilst your relearning the game, nothing worse than investing x'00s of hours in a game that is going to run to a score draw.

Meh, so long as I glean good tactical knowledge from it, I'll count it as time well spent

 

[vmxa]

Reducing the number of civs to half the norm is too big of a boost for humans and really hurts the AI. Playing with 1 or 2 less than the default is fine, but less than that distorts things.

I would also suggest learning on std size maps and using others sizes once you have experience.

 

[shl7070]

Regarding wonders:I meant ancint age wonders especially pyramids and great library. Getting all of them or even some of them above regent is tough so don't base your game around them.
If you got a scientific leader then build but if you didn't try for only one or don't try at all.
Statue of zeus is a special issue as it's resource dependant. If you want heavy wars in late ancient and you have ivory then build it but don't restart if you don't see ivory.

Regarding bombard units thw most effective are the arty and radar arty but trebs also not bad for their time.
As a rule:

If your units don't have 1.5 advantage over defence and it's not an archer rush strategy use any bombard units available at the moment, even catapults if nothing better.

If you are playing in any mod check which units may bombard, even the crappiest of them may help.

I'll add another saying about warmongering:
When building for war build units only in cities with barracks..

Regarding traits: The most important traits on higher levels are those aiding early expansion and those are agricultural- Bonus food in cities and industious- needing fewer workers means wasting fewer population early on for their creation and consequently having more settlers.

The reason for this is the AI bonuses with production and growth.
On Emperor you need 20 food to grow, the enemy needs 16. You need 30 shields to build a settler and the enemy needs 24. From monarch the enemy gets more and more free military units, with free worker on emperor and a free settler in diety.

The usefulness of scientific decreases in higher levels as you will research less and buy more techs.
Researching costs for you increase with level:
0.5-Chieftain
0.8-Warlord
1.0-Regent
1.1-monarch
1.25-emperor
1.4-Demi.
1.7-Diety.
2.5-sid.
The AI trade techs between themselves at ridiculus prices at high levels.

Interesting traits for higher levels are commercial,expansionist and seafaring.
Commercial increase your income through commerce bonuses and decreased corruption (which increase with level). The other two are map dependant and you saw what those can get you-hut popping and faster contacts, but be warned: Hut popping above emperor give you large amount of barbarians to fight...

You write as a warmonger by heart so religious and culture victories are less appealing to you but if I'm mistaken think about picking religious. It's very hard to win by culture in higher levels but religious may advance you to that goal.

Civ choises for higher levels: As I saw on these forums people pick the following civs in first game on increased level:
Iroquis-Agricultural,commercial,great unique unit.
Celts-Agricultural,religious,great unique unit.
Persians-Industrial,scientific,great unique unit.
Maya- Agriculture,industrial-enslaving unique unit.
Sumeria- Agricultural,scientific-unique unit gives good protection for silly cost (10 shields).

 

[Aabraxan]

I really should get into using CivAssistII.

Where is it?

Here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=21

 

[Ataxerxes]

Even on low levels going for AA wonders will hurt. SoZ if I have ivory - I do look hard for it - helps with barbarians and expansion.

Great Library is a special case. Don't use it when you're learning the game. Only build it if you know how to use/exploit it. I still see posts from Warlord players who go for the Great Library - it blows my mind. It sounds nice when a new player reads about it, but in fact it's only useful on high levels where you try to exploit it.

Really, almost all AA wonders will take shields/time away from your most important AA priority - expanding and creating enough workers. Pyramids is a strong wonder (build it if you get a SGL) but it is SO expensive.

Not sure about AA wonders if you go for 20k.

 

[GamezRule]

AA wonders for 20k are the Colossus, SoZ, and the Great Library, IMO. The Oracle, Pyramids, and Hanging Gardens are also useful, but usually you won't have those techs first.

 

[Spoonwood]

AA wonders for 20k are the Colossus, SoZ, and the Great Library, IMO. The Oracle, Pyramids, and Hanging Gardens are also useful, but usually you won't have those techs first.

It comes as very possible to get The Oracle, Pyramids, and Hanging Gardens without having those techs first. I don't know how many times I've done it, in fact. You just need to have a powerful enough city (this is 20k), which has high population early, and switch builds as soon as you can get the techs. On Sid, for example, I've found it easy enough to finish the Oracle/Pyramids (especially with Carthage) with my second city as my 20k city, while the Colossus often gets built before or on 2030 BC. On Deity and Demi-God I've often managed to trade Alphabet/Writing for Ceremonial Burial/Mysticism or Masonry as the Byzantines and other Seafaring tribes and nab either the Pyramids or Oracle after the Colossus, with the capital as the 20k city.

 

[CommandoBob]

Do you guys have any tips/tricks to help me make the transition up the ladder? My play style generally revolves around early expansion (usually war) until I have enough cities to get a tech and/or production advantage, building up, then expanding again for industrial and modern resources. After reading a bit on the forums, I think I have the basics down. Don't have a wonder addiction, granaries are lifesaving, workers are possibly the most useful things ever, buy allies, and make as many contacts as possible.

Granaries are useful, but not everywhere. It may not be very smart, but I hardly build them anymore.

Generally Build...
In your core cities, concentrate on building the basics: barracks (a few), granaries (a few), libraries and market (every core city), aqueducts as needed, followed by universities, banks and factories as they become available.

In cities where the corruption is rather moderate and production rather high build courthouses to reduce the corruption and make the city more productive with more blue shields. Libraries, markets and aqueducts might be good here, too.

In highly corrupt cities (say 70% or more) just irrigate everything, ignore production and grow as fast as you can until you can't grow no more. Once you hit size 6 or 12, fiddle with citizens, get your food to be +0, 1 or 2 and hire as many geeks as you can.

How the game is going will affect these things. Sometimes you need a barracks in the boonies. If you do, build it.

Just don't build everything because you can. Build what you need for each city.

 

[Stratagist IV]

Well, after two spaceship victories on standard continents warlord, I decided to try my hand at the same feat on regent...

I was kinda scared off at the beginning, my last two games had been complete disasters... but I pulled through, very well in fact. I actually managed to achieve spaceship completion before my dates on warlord... perhaps not too impressive to a group of established players but I was proud of a spaceship in 1856 with an ending score of 2044.

Upon further review, I found that on standard for spaceship, I would've been ranked 9th in the regent category for the CFC HOF, if only I would've known about the save files requirement and at least kept my 4000 BC save file

On a slightly related sidenote, I'm finding that I really like the Russians. People say what they will about expansionist but I think that the early contacts for tech trading and the early jumpstart in treasury or, possibly even cities is amazing. I haven't had the occasion to use the cossack much, but the traits make up for it more in my opinion. Thanks a lot for the tips guys, perhaps I'll write a story or two and/or attempt to move up even further in difficulty.

 

[shl7070]

Good!

If you can post a save right here.

My earliest spacehip was 1930 but had higher score (2451).

That game was also illegal for HOF as it had toggled off culture flips and actually reloaded from a pre-domination save in 1804.

And cosscks would be great there, used cavalry for epic wars all the way from 1100 to circa 1600then the tanks continued the job.

Probably you didn't take the approach of kill them first and build spacehip later for that victory, you played differently (judging from score) and it will be interesting to view the way.

If you want to increase score ask the guys here about milking or win regent pangea by conquest fast.

 

[vmxa]

Expansion trait is fine on Chief/Warlord/Regent and Monarch as the huts going to be be kind. As you get above those levels or use a smaller map it offers less and less payoff.

 

[Stratagist IV]

Ah yes, the save file...

Basically, my game went as such:

My scouts made good progress early, with my first city being directly produced from a goody hut. (which was weird for me, I've always just gotten settlers ). The Arabians blocked off contact with the Spanish early so I didn't discover them until much later.

The Indians, as usual, were city spammers so after they took all the areas I wanted I felt it was time to knock them down a few. By this time I had switched to Republic (and I stayed one for the remainder of the game) so I felt confident in my ability to keep up in tech while supporting a war. In the end, I took the entire northern section of the continent with little resistance, although I recall the siege of bangalore being particularly drawn out.

The three southern Indian cities I got as a sue for peace (gotta love bullying the non-aggressive civs) and I left the Indians with a OCC. This was fine by me, as since my army was in the north, moving them through the equatorial wetlands would've taken ages.

By this time I was in the high middle ages, and I decided to spend this time preparing for the industrial revolution. I popped a SGL on astronomy and I decided that it would be a good idea to rush JS Bach's. Since I'm used to playing on lower difficulties, I figured a permanent happiness boost would be more or less the equivalent of bringing my citizenry down to a chieftain-esque level. I popped another SGL on navigation and I used this to hurry Newton's in the same city I put Copernicus'. This began my golden age and, looking back on it, this GA had perfect timing. I don't think I could've asked for a better period to have increased production and research. In the end, I put SETI in the same city and it produced in excess of 220 science per turn IIRC.

Anyways, A few territorial hiccups with the spanish led to them declaring war with me and I got the iceland-like landmass with a peace sue after capturing their intrusion on my coasts... this served only as a minor disturbance as the WW didn't really kick in and I was able to accomplish this with the units left over from the Indian wars. During this time, India declared war on the Arabs (ha ha) and were quickly wiped from the face of history.

The industrial era finally arrived and by this time I had achieved tech superiority so instead of starting the early industrial wars (which I try to stay away from in general) I built up, using the ToE slingshot to get Espionage and Atomic theory, which then led itself to electronics and one of my favourite wonders, Hoover Dam. With this I was able to quickly dominate production and I stayed ahead the rest of the game.

By the late industrial age my relations with spain had improved and they proved valuable trading partners, hooking them on my technology while addicting myself to copious amounts of spanish gold. Eventually we signed a Mutual Protection Pact (for t3h lulz mainly) and one would think that such an alliance would serve as a deterrant but no.... after repeated incursions for almost a decade, the arabians provoked me enough to kindly tell them to leave or die.... they chose the latter option

The ensuing war I'll always remember as the great tank blitzkrieg of 1752, I finished off the entire Arabian civilization in 6 turns IIRC. Their units were horribly outdated and without any of my usual war strategies (arty+inf stacks, bombers, naval blockades, the like) I was able to almost march straight to the southern end of the continent. Out of a total 80ish tanks produced, I think I can count on one hand the number I lost. After this things had calmed down internationally and I was able to concentrate on rebuilding the southern expanses and preparing the north for the space race.

Not one hundred years after the assimilation of arabia, I had ridden the manufacturing plant, green, and internet revolutions (yes I built the internet, people told me to play without wonders but... screw em, I found the internet one of the best wonder's I've built)

As for the save game, I cant find it If any of you guys know the default folder in which saves are stored I'll upload it ASAP. I really hope I can find it, the events in the winning turn are precious.

EDIT: Turns out my score was actually 2444 and I was able to find the savegame but it gives me errors on uploading, how do I fix that?