Need strategic advice...

[Melboz99]

Hey all. I posted here a few days back, and some people informed me that I had set up the game quite wrong. So, today I started up a new game.

I am playing as the Mayans, with 5 opponents on a large map, continents, 60% water, normal, temperate, 4 billion years old.

The Year is 250 AD. I just got to the middle ages a few turns ago, which I think is pretty good, considering when the middle ages really occured. Oh yeah, the difficulty level is warlord. I need to get my feet wet before trying out any harder difficulty levels.

As you can see in the save, I have employed ICS, for a total of 40 cities so far. I could probably add another 20 in the next 15-25 turns.

I was manually controlling all my workers, but I grew tired of managing 20+ workers across my 40 cities (yeah, I should probably have more workers).

Anyway, one of the main things I want to know is where to put my FP. I could just put it in my top producing town, which is just 2 tiles above my capitol, and that would reduce corruption to some degree, I suppose. Otherwise, my capitol is pretty well centrally located.

Anyway, here is the save,
Thanks,
Dan O.

Edit:
Changed "regent" to "warlord"
I'm not sure why but I get those mixed up alot. Could be because they changed the names a while back.

Also, I am now sure that I set it up with 5 opponents. I had a bad experience with 7 opponents on the same map size so I toned it down.

One last thing, I just realized that I am 4% away from domination by population, if that is even possible!

Dan O.

[vmxa1]

IIRC you need 66% of land as well as pop to win by domination.

Anyway if this is C3C, do not sweat where to put the FP all that much. Just get it down in a place where you can get some use of the slight improvement of corruption for a few cities.

If it is PTW, then it is a whole nother ball game.

[Goethe80]

Given the more limited effects of the FP in c3c, I tend to put my FP on the 3rd ring of cities. My logic being that the 1st ring is reasonably efficient and the FP ought to help with the nearby cities on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th ring (at least the ones in the sector surrounding the FP). The end-product is (hopefully) a total of something like 20 efficient cities to act as a core.

Given the way corruption seems to work now, seeking a uniformly productive empire is virtually impossible unless you're stuck on a smallish island.

[Melboz99]

Thanks guys!

I only reached 65% of the world's population, at about 400 AD, and then I hit a wall. The Egyptians to my SE and the Byzantines to my NE, as well as the ocean in any other direction.

I ended up putting my FP about 3 cities to the east of my capitol. It gained me about 50 gold per turn in increased commerce.

I played for a while and can honestly say that I'm doing quite well. The year is now in the mid 1600s and I just upgraded one unit in all my cities to infantry. I also upgraded all my original warriors to guerillas.

I guess I am about halfway complete with the industrial age, and getting techs about every 5 turns with a 125 gold profit.

There is really no one that can compete with me currently.

I do have one big complaint with Atari or Firaxis, whoever programmed this one into the game.

I set the game to be on continents, 60% water, 5 random opponents, and no cultural starting locations.

What did I end up with? I got stuck on the same conitinent as 3 AI. Two AI got a whole similar sized continent to themselves.

What gives???

Had I been on a continent with only 2 AI things would be alot different. The main one being that I would have more room to REX. The other of course being that I wouldnt't have 2 AI that have a significant advantage over any other player in the game.

I suppose I'll have to start map editing to make sure that my maps are fair and ballanced.

Dan O.

[Goethe80]

What government are you running in? If you're in a democracy or republic, there's really no point in having military units in all cities as they don't help with unhappiness and cost you unit maintenence. This is particularly true at the tech level are you're at right now, which should mean that your railroad network should be more or less up, allowing you to instantly pool defenders at whatever cities you want.

[Melboz99]

Well, I'm currently running a democracy, but I'll have to wait for railroad until I can take out a neighboring Eygptian city that has the nearest souce of coal.

Doesn't a smaller military put me at a disadvantage in bargaining, and put me at a greater risk of unprovoked attacks, due to being viewed as weaker?

Othewise, I would gladly disband the military in all towns further than two cities from the Egyptian and Byzantine borders.

As it is though, I'm having a very hard time barganing. Carthage, for example, is demanding that I give him two luxuries for his one, and England is even more demanding, wanting 2 luxuries and a tech for gems. I have plenty to offer, but If I were to offer England, say economics, all they will give me is a world map.

Don't you think I would have even less political pull if I had a small military force?

Thanks,
Dan O.

[Cerbykins]

It may do, but every coin NPOT spent on the military is a coin that may become a beaker, go to a rush job, etc..
Having said that, I always plan on picking off opponents (or whacking a chunk out of them) one after another. It just means they're less unwilling to fight
And, should you be at war, a few hundred gold spread over gpt to a couple of neighbours always helps

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Melboz99
Well, I'm currently running a democracy, but I'll have to wait for railroad until I can take out a neighboring Eygptian city that has the nearest souce of coal.

Not sure if I'm misunderstanding you, but you can't build the railroad until you get the coal.

[Melboz99]

Thats exactly what I meant.

I have to take out a neighboring Egyptian city that has my nearest source of coal before I can build some railroads.

Dan O.

[Goethe80]

yes, having a bigger army does help with trading and general foreign relations, but as mentioned, at a democracy, it's very expensive to maintain a large army. So if you trim enough units to increase your research by say 10%, then you'd be that little bit faster in research, which gives you better units as well. So it's a nice little cycle, leading to you having monster MA armies when all your opponents are defending with are riflemen or infantry

A final note. If your neighbours are being uncooperative trade-wise, you can always beat the lux/techs out of them!

[Cerbykins]

Au contrare.
I get my biggest armies while under democracy. It might just be about the empire I have by then...but I don't recall EVER being stuck for cash to wage wars in Civ 3 democracies...
Now C3C republic - THAT'S a different matter

[Melboz99]

Yeah, often times when I get to the modern era, I have about 300 military units, am making techs in about 4 turns, and am making a 500-1000 gpt profit!

I have disbanded most of my army in a new game though. The reason is that I have a LOT of cities, just over 100. Add to that the fact that I am now playing on Regent, and corruption is rampant, I am not making very much gold. Pretty soon I will just set all the corrupted cities (about 75 of them) to wealth, and bring in about another 100gpt.

Of course, the year is only 1060 AD, but I already have a Democracy