Taking my Game to the Next Level

[QuestGAV]

I gave up on it because the turns were taking forever and the French seemed like a lock for a cultural victory if I didn't ROP-rape them. That would have been easy enough but would have been less than aesthetically pleasing to me. Unfortunately the final save from 1505 is 707 kb zipped so I'd have to email it to you if you want to take a look. I believe I had all 8 luxuries till some trade embargoes slowed me down. I was four turns from miniaturization with an SGL for the Internet as well as 16% of land area and 24% pop.

I also wanted a fresh start with a chance to implement what I learned in that game and from all the feedback in this thread. I'm currently romping through an Emperor game with the Celts. In 550 AD I've got 21% of area and 28% of pop and lead in power, culture, and score by wide margins despite a slow start tech/trading wise.

And I finally just read "The Case for Food" and "Ducki Does Emperor" and am realizing I'm just scratching the surface. After I polish off the Celtic game it's going to be time to try my hand at settler and worker pumps.

[QuestGAV]

You can also count me in as a Commercial convert now too. I used to be solidly in the Industrious/Religious corner but obviously that changed with the addition of Agricultural. And going down from Huge to Standard I think it's alot easier to see the importance of core vs. periphery so Commercial matters more. Obviously learning to hold myself to 1-2 govt switches really knocks Religious down a notch also. Of course that also means my favorite civ goes from my ancestral Celts to the goofy-smiled Iroquois. Guess you have to take what you can get.

[vmxa1]

Well there are some other good civs out there for std maps, depends on what you want to do. If you want to be a bit of a bully, China is still not bad up to Emperor.

I prefer to think of the settings and then choose a civ. Although I confess I have little use for Rel trait.

[Terra Nullius]

tuppence from the culture slut

ooh, did i mention i loooove religion
lurv the celts, lurv the aztecs,
hey, if it's green it's good

but ... aaarrgh ... dwr
random civ still grabs me as the best way to test your strategy mettle

so, back to the point. expansionist always gets the wrap as heavily map dependant. same goes for religious. i.m.(less than)h.o. can be a god-send on some starts. but if you've got luxes coming out your ears and can get libraries/col's up fairly quickly, it's an utter waste. also loses it's oomph on big maps.

still, i get down on mah knees and pra-hey-hey-hey ... when i get to watch the ai try to counter attack against a solid wall of nuthin but culture.
my favourite order of battle;
i) horsies
ii) grunts
iii) clergy

ok so it's self-indulgent. but hell i'm just that kinda guy

[QuestGAV]

I've got my third strong win on Emperor in progress. I'm waiting for tanks to make my final move, but it's in the bag. I've actually been surprised at how easy the transition has been, though that's certainly due to having a handful of the best Civ3 players on the planet holding my hand.

My next game will likely be an entirely peaceful one, which I haven't done for awhile. I know I can hack it economically, but I'm concerned about resources in a peaceful game. Obviously they can be traded for but that's expensive over the long haul. The other possibility would be creating culture bombs on my borders. Is it feasible on emperor to rush build culture improvements via disbanding troops made in the core with an eye towards marching toward luxuries & resources? Or am I just going to be wasting my time trying to flip their cities?

[Modo44]

Originally posted by QuestGAV
My next game will likely be an entirely peaceful one, which I haven't done for awhile. I know I can hack it economically, but I'm concerned about resources in a peaceful game. Obviously they can be traded for but that's expensive over the long haul.

If you have a tech they do not, you can usually buy the resource. In a peaceful game you will be building more infrastructure anyway, and have a better research rate because of this. You buy for 20 turns, while usually researchign quicker, so your tech lead can stay unchanged and even grow.

What should concern you is the problem of resource distribution. If one civ has one resource, then they will not trade it. To prevent this, try maximizing your early expansion, to grab lots of land. Otherwise you might need to use inferior units for a while, or do something ugly (like war). A more difficult way is organizing AI vs AI wars to make one of them get surpulus resources they could sell to you then.

Originally posted by QuestGAV
The other possibility would be creating culture bombs on my borders. Is it feasible on emperor to rush build culture improvements via disbanding troops made in the core with an eye towards marching toward luxuries & resources? Or am I just going to be wasting my time trying to flip their cities?

It is possible to rush culture and get flips on Emperor, especially if playing Religious or Scientific civs. But this gets harder, the farther away from your capital and from your border. If the resource is close, you could go for it. Just remember to check relative culture first, because if yours is lower, flips will be much less likely. For cities far from your border and/or close to enemy capital, normal conquest is the way to go - it is cheaper and quicker.

You can do without Horses or without Iron or without Saltpeter in a peaceful game. But if you lack two or three of them, some neighbour is going to have to hand it over. One way or another.

[vmxa1]

I can't say as I ever made a consciences effort to flip any cities at any level, but I do not recall seeing a lot of it.

I would think it would be hit and miss and not a viable strategy to gain resources. If you find a resource owned my a newly planted town and it is more less isolated or at the edge of their empire, then you could surround it and it may flip.

If the town is integral to the empire, it would be hard. If you do plan on giving it a shot, select the civs in the game and not allow religious ones and maybe science ones as well.

[joncnunn]

I've successfully fliped AI cities on Demigod level. Lots of cash rushing of cultural improvements as they become adviable in that city, plus culture being high prioirty everywhere. And then wait, and wait, and wait, and finally it flips. It helps a lot to be either a scientific or religious civ to cut down the costs, but is not required.

And yes, that city your wanting to flip must not be too close to their capital.

[QuestGAV]

If my ultimate goal is for a spaceship victory, does it make sense to go for OCS for 5 core cities and then ICS beyond that? I'm thinking it may slow down my REX too much so I may have to build some intermediate cities. This should be an interesting game

I'll probably go with the Babylonians myself for the cheaper temples & libraries, though later in the game I may regret not having the higher OCN of Commercial and I'll sure as hell regret not having my Agricultural crutch early on.

[Solomwi]

Even at CxxC, I can usually come up with, in the modern era, 2-3 cities pumping out 100+ spt. Let these handle your large components and assign the smaller components to less productive cities (23-99 spt), of which you'll have plenty, where they can be built in the same amount of time it takes your major producers to build the larger components, and the tighter spacing won't slow you down a bit.

[vmxa1]

I don't think you need to plan like that on emperor for SS. At Demi I would think it is much more useful.

IOW you will have probably trimmed or eliminated a few civs by SS time and be the tech leader. You will pop a fw hospitals to grow metros and be able to build those parts just fine.

The bonus the AI gets is not so great that you cannot match their production and can always use a spy to stop production on a part, if they are ahead.

[joncnunn]

On a pure CxxC pattern, some of the "C"s paticularly near the capital should probably be treated as camps.

Now if it's CxxC in one direction and CxxxC in the other, then they'll work better.

[QuestGAV]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I don't think you need to plan like that on emperor for SS. At Demi I would think it is much more useful.

IOW you will have probably trimmed or eliminated a few civs by SS time and be the tech leader. You will pop a fw hospitals to grow metros and be able to build those parts just fine.

The bonus the AI gets is not so great that you cannot match their production and can always use a spy to stop production on a part, if they are ahead.

I'm planning on playing entirely peacefully which is why I'm a tad nervous, so I won't have trimmed/eliminated my neighbors. Otherwise, I'd agree I wouldn't really need to handle things much different at the beginning. Without the trimming I'll be working with a smaller territory & population base so that's why I'm concerned about whether I'll even have a shot. If I do allow myself some early warmongering the game won't play significantly different (or more challenging) from the last few games I've mopped up on.

I may adjust my plans a bit and allow for some military action where I can start a war and take up to 3 cities from the AI if it gains me a resource. Of course, I'll respond to aggression much more forcibly

[vmxa1]

It will be hard to avoid any wars, but you can play to not start them.