New player needing advice

[Krak]

I just bought CIV3 and C3C a few days ago. In my most recent game with the Americans on 70% water continents, huge, 15 civs and warlord I was doing well until around 10AD. I need some tips on REXing as well because I don't have very many cities.

I have about 12 Cities and my only neighbor is to the north, the sumerians, and they have cut off my expansion because I am on a peninsula. So I have built up an attack force of 4 horsemen, 1 spearman and a catapult in hopes to grab some cities, cut him off and then sue for peace.

If someone could take a look at my save and give me any tips on my attack, defense and expansion it would be greatly appreciated.

[Solomwi]

You've got seven of your twelve cities building wealth. Why? Wealth really shouldn't be built until well into the late game. You're also using entertainers. Dropping science back 20% and luxuries up 10% allows you to hold at -2 gpt, get those entertainers back into the fields and still research Republic in 10 turns, instead of 9.

Also, your expansion is nowhere near cut off. You've still got plenty of room to grow in the area you more or less control now. I still applaud the idea of beating up on the Sumerians a bit, but your stack isn't going to take more than one city, if that, and you should be building reinforcements already. With the Enkidu, you're not going to be able to catch a city guarded by only warriors. Build more barracks and more units. Oh, and hook up that iron at Buffalo. In the meantime build some vet warriors to upgrade to swords.

You've got a commanding tech lead. Sell them and grab some cash to finance your deficit. You're also in need of more workers, as you have some unimproved tiles that need to be worked (by city laborers). You only have 5 workers for 12 cities. This should be at least a 1:1 ratio.

All in all you aren't in bad shape, but mainly need to build up your military, get more workers in the field and keep an eye on your cities.

[Krak]

Thanks for the advice, I built a couple more cities and launched my invasion on sumeria and I am doing well. I have managed to capture their capital and have them by the throat. There is one problem, all of the other civs are broke so I can't sell any tech to the, they all have less than 10 gold right now. Although I managed to sell literature to the chinese for around 100 gold which won't last me much longer because now I am in a -12 gold defecit.

[Solomwi]

You've definitely got to pick your spot on tech selling. For instance, there's about 250 gold to be had in 10 AD without sacrificing much of your lead. Another thing you could do is slow your tech pace down enough to get back in the black, budget-wise. You've got enough of a lead to do that without anybody catching you, and can buy yourself some time to develop your empire that way.

[vmxa1]

Krak, if you use a normal save, you will not need to zip it. It will be about 250k. The autosave is 10 times the size.

[vmxa1]

If you look at some of the cities that are like say Seattle. It was founded 50 turns ago and still has no structures of any kind and is producting nothing. It has no mined tiles and only one road.

This is costing you a lot of gold and shields. If you mutliply that time the other cities that are doing more or less the same thing, it would fund the lux and research deficit.

You have Math and Ivory, but are not building SoZ and in fact have no wonders built or started????

The reasoning, I am guessing is you see how long it would take. It would not be so long if you have mines in the key wonder cities.

You can get away with this style of play at the first three levels (maybe), but it will get much harder with a poor start location or higher levles. You will need to be out producing the AI then.

As was mentioned you just cannot justify wealth until very much later in the game. All cities during the first 150 turns need to be doing something useful.

Do you have the 4000bc save? If so post it.

[Krak]

Yes I have the 4000BC - here it is

I have now ran into a serious problem with the celts, they demanded a tech from me and as usual I laughed at them like I did Egypt. However he decided to take the tech by force, so I signed peace with sumeria and began taking on the celts. Then a few turns later my old enemy allied with the celts against me and now i'm fighting a 2 front war. I see where all that advice comes into play. My cities aren't large enough and do not have enough shields to produce reinforcements fast enough and i'm slowly losing ground. I have already lost my northern most city, Umar(sp?). The only thing that I have going for me is an army although it won't be of much use because I found out the hard way that you can't unload it so now my army has 1 swordman and 2 horsemen in it.

[vmxa1]

True you cannot unload units. If you had all three as horses it would still be an effective army.

I will play the save out to about 10AD to see what I come up with some suggestion.

If the AI gets those AC's coming your way soon, it will hurt.

[Krak]

I have effectivley lost that game, the celts overran me because WW finally got the best of me so I can no longer produce units and to top it all off, neither the celts or sumerians will respond to my envoys for peace. I think i'm dead?

[vmxa1]

Well I just started it, but it is unfortune, I got a settler at 3600bc.

Unless you got one as well. This is just so strong at this level. I have two scouts out and will be meeting others soon.

[Krak]

I got a town from the goody hut, not a settler

[vmxa1]

Well it is rough to say. As you have seen the game requires infrastructure to do well.

Anyway I will put up a few saves or screens along the way to see if we can find a better way of going about it.

I think I will save every turn for the first 100, in case you would want to see one.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Krak
I got a town from the goody hut, not a settler

Ok, that about the same thing. I have not made up my mind if I want to move the settler or not. Maybe I will build there to stay with yours.

[Krak]

That would be good, thanks

Then I can restart and get some revenge.

[vmxa1]

I decided to move it to the coast near the capitol. IIRC you said this was an island map, so having a place to get a boat out soon would be good.

The second city needs to be close anyway.