Geronimo Finally buys CivIII

[Willem]

Originally posted by Geronimo
Dang, it doesn't sound like there is anyway to modify the way the governors handle worker allocation. it's too bad because as has been mentioned the ai governors have the advantage of being able to make the necessary modifications on the AI's turn.

Yes there is. In the Governor screen, you can choose to have it emphasis production or food, and one or two others I believe. Your best bet though is not to use Governors; they're rather stupid. It means more micromanagement, but you'll do better at the game like that.

[joncnunn]

This effect is very minor.

Even with emphazie food, it will not naturally pick the allocation needed for a worker factory. (+5 fpt)

And even with emphanize shields, if the player wants ZPG, it generally won't pick that allocation. (City not stuck at size 6 / 12)

Originally posted by Willem

Yes there is. In the Governor screen, you can choose to have it emphasis production or food, and one or two others I believe. Your best bet though is not to use Governors; they're rather stupid. It means more micromanagement, but you'll do better at the game like that.

[Geronimo]

thanks guys! i already see several mistakes I made so I'm almost embrassed to post the file since it shows plenty of reckless build decisions and a general lack of prudence on my part. However hopefully this will be a good way to find out if there are any undiscovered glaring misunderstandings about civ3 either in strategy or whatever other failing might be manifest in the save file.

so be warned this file may contain gross stupidity.

The mods probably won't be of any concern at this point. i decided to make my modifications fairly shallow for this first experiment. The only mods are that I knocked the corruption slider down from 100% to 80%, I added a government "federal republic" made available with the discovery of democracy which is exactly like democracy in every respect except that it uses communal corruption instead of minimal, and finally I added a corruption reducing improvment that won't be unlocked until computers so I would have lots of time to see how corruption managment works out without it.

Those three mods are the only mods iirc, I certainly didn't mess with unit hitpoints or any other combat factors.

The final thing to mention is that I think I forgot a few turns when I was explaining the progress of the war, because it looks like the last save I have totally at peace is close to 10 turns back. But the situation to date is still more or less as I described.

Thanks for any advice be it friendly, or patronizing!

here's the save file

[Dis]

Originally posted by joncnunn
I bit of advice: if you ever see a stack of enemy units in your territory and ask them to leave or declare war, they will declare war. I

If you don't ask them to leave, it will head to it's desired location, which is probably the city of yours they envy the most. If you can keep them from getting adejent to any of your city, they'll probably stay at peace. This is very useful if your military is weak or if they are paying you a large GPT.

f all they have is a settler-defender pair, they'll probably accept it, but it will move back into your territory the next turn [if your leaving didn't relocate them to the far side of your territory]

What you need in this case is a mobile wall to keep them from reaching intended destination and even a undefended worker curriently working a tile can be part of it.

re: the stack of units. The only time I have not seen this to be true was when the AI was trying to get their units to attack someone they were at war with at the opposite end of my territory. I had braced my nation for war, opened up the diplomacy window and they actually agreed to remove all of their units! . I was surprised. Then they moved them all back into my territory the next turn. I then asked them to leave again, and they did. The third turn I just agreed to a right of passage agreement. That made me feel easy about all the foreign units in my territory.

[Geronimo]

is negotiating a right of passage sometimes a good way to make war less likely? does the ai often attack when it has negotiated a right of passage with the player?

[Dis]

actually I was going to ask the same question.

regarding the above situation in my post. I figured if they were going to go into my territory to pass through to attack the zulu, they may as well have a right of passage. I do believe they take a pretty good diplomatic hit if they break that agreement. I can't ever recall the ai breaking it (though I don't make them that often).

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Geronimo
is negotiating a right of passage sometimes a good way to make war less likely? does the ai often attack when it has negotiated a right of passage with the player?

Any running deal makes the AI less likely to attack you. A ROP will usually prevent any wars until mid/late Medieval Age. At this point, global conficts begin to destroy everyone's reputation, and deals are more likely to be broken. Still, a ROP helps keep that toned down.

If they have a ROP, they might be sending units through your territory, if that happens to be the shortest path. If you are on a paninsula, and have a ROP with someone, they will only send units if they intend to attack you. If you have Railroads, and sign a ROP, make sure all your cities have defenders, as the AI can sometimes slip a Warrior to take a metro, just for kicks...

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Dissident
actually I was going to ask the same question.

regarding the above situation in my post. I figured if they were going to go into my territory to pass through to attack the zulu, they may as well have a right of passage. I do believe they take a pretty good diplomatic hit if they break that agreement. I can't ever recall the ai breaking it (though I don't make them that often).

Without knowing all the parameters I can only say that RoP rapes do occur. I would prefer to let them pass, rather than give an RoP.

Then I can demand they leave anytime. They also have a nasty habit of being on your road/rails and forcing you to take a different route. This makes me fort a unit on any key choke points to keep the way open. I may not want to have to do that in all cases.

[Dis]

I usually have multiple routes, I build rails everywhere

[Geronimo]

Dang, i only just now realised an importance of a difference in terrain development between civ2 and civ3. All this time I have been mining only hills and mountains. What I should have been duing is mining any grasslands near cities that are at size 12 with a food surplus or which simply don't make enough shieelds to get by. I can't believe it took me this long to realise how useful mining grasslands might be early on. In fact it only just now occured to me as I was looking at the viking save game in the 'help me win at demigod' thread from the strategy forum. I could have been in *much* better shape in several cities if I had only realised this several turns back.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Dissident
I usually have multiple routes, I build rails everywhere

Yes has we all try to do, but this problem I mentioned is not a necessarily a question of not being able to get from here to there. It is often a question of how fast.

Especially in newly aquired land, with hills and mountains. When you are force to not take a road and enter a mountian or other movement penalities it can cost you turn(s) and mean the difference between getting an advantage or not.

Specially I am thinking of a gang up on a civ. Two ro more civs have surrounded a city and it is about to fall. Who gets its it, me or them? Not having access to the road may mean they get it.

Many other possibilities occur and I have seen a number of them.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by vmxa1


Yes has we all try to do, but this problem I mentioned is not a necessarily a question of not being able to get from here to there. It is often a question of how fast.

Especially in newly aquired land, with hills and mountains. When you are force to not take a road and enter a mountian or other movement penalities it can cost you turn(s) and mean the difference between getting an advantage or not.

Specially I am thinking of a gang up on a civ. Two ro more civs have surrounded a city and it is about to fall. Who gets its it, me or them? Not having access to the road may mean they get it.

Many other possibilities occur and I have seen a number of them.

what good is it to even get an enemy city? don't they have a rnadom chance of flipping back that can't be eliminated? I was under the impression that conquest is only really possible by razing everything you conquer to the ground and then building your own cities in their place. What good is it to build up a city and garrison troops there if there will always be a random chance of it becoming someone else's city without any warning or fightin g chance whatsoever?

[Dis]

razing

I conquer all. But what I usually do is an all or none approach. If they are on different continents I never conquer (I will raze in that situtation- but I don't rebuild). If I conquer on different continents it's because another civ is too large or are in danger of building a spaceship. What happens is I usually conquer all the AI cities on my continent (I leave them their pitiful island cities). This eliminates the chance of the city flipping. And gives you good cities often with wonders in them (usually obsolete ones though).

But again, that's my approach. I suck at mircomanaging a builder style. I win through large empires. I just haven't been able to win games at higher levels when I'm a small nation. Other maybe can.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Dissident
razing

I conquer all. But what I usually do is an all or none approach. If they are on different continents I never conquer (I will raze in that situtation- but I don't rebuild). If I conquer on different continents it's because another civ is too large or are in danger of building a spaceship. What happens is I usually conquer all the AI cities on my continent (I leave them their pitiful island cities). This eliminates the chance of the city flipping. And gives you good cities often with wonders in them (usually obsolete ones though).

But again, that's my approach. I suck at mircomanaging a builder style. I win through large empires. I just haven't been able to win games at higher levels when I'm a small nation. Other maybe can.

so cities can only flip if they are next to another civs city? they can't flip if all the cities on that landmass belong to you evne if the cities are primarily populated by foriegners?

[joncnunn]

If the civ in question is wiped out, your cities can't flip to them.

Before then there is a chance, but the more culture you have realtive to the other players, the less you have to worry about flipping and the more they do.