Awesome tech lead ?

[Pizza]

I think I got off to an awesome tech lead as the incas,

made it to middle ages by 900 BC. I traded with a couple of other civs at the start of the game for multiple techs, then I conquered them. Ran into zillons of good huts that were all techs.

I was playing at Regent level.

[Qilue]

It wont last. The AI seems to be able to catch up and overtake you in middle ages. I've never beaten the AI into Industrial except once where I reached that era at the same time as two other civs.

Industrial however, the AI falls into a muddle and if you've planned well, you could fully research industrial and modern before any AI civ reaches modern era.

[joncnunn]

Qilue, Pizza is only on regent level where the AI has no science advantage whatsoever.

Plus assuming that Pizza is remembering to use workers to keep his core roaded and rotates libaries, court houses, market places thru the core, the Incans are one of those civs that will cement it's early lead into a permenant state of affairs quite easily.

On Monarch level, I easily beat the AI by quite a few techs to the Industiral era. And once or twice [pre Conquests] I beat the AI to the industrial era on Emperor level. [But normally on Emperor the AI beats me by about one tech to Industrial and I catch up and pass sometime in it. My worst tech performance on Emperor level was the time I didn't get a full lead in all techs until I completed ToE. Plus one of the AIs caught up in one specific branch during the Modern era in that same game while I kept my full lead in the others.]

[Tattila the Hun]

"rotates libaries, court houses, market places thru the core"

Huh? Do the workers carry them around, or am I missing something?

[vmxa1]

Nice start Pizza. The bigger the land mass and the lower the level the more expansion shines.

Now see how you like it when the AI finishes IA wonders as you struggle with very early middle age techs. Nothing like getting the notice that such and such a wonder was built and you are not even in that age yet.

[joncnunn]

I'm refering to rotating the city builds around. Instead of having every single city only building units or every single city not building any units.

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
"rotates libaries, court houses, market places thru the core"

Huh? Do the workers carry them around, or am I missing something?

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Plus assuming that Pizza is remembering to use workers to keep his core roaded

oh yeah.

and rotates libaries, court houses, market places thru the core,

i disagree

having been caught in similar positions, i used to find i was actually making research easier for the ai. meanwhile i was getting myself mired in continually trying to get all these extra improvements built.

having got so much tech so early, your cities will still be too young to get most of the available building done quickly enough. i used to find myself well into the middle ages, still building temples (temples for cleo's sake!!) and helplessly watching the ai edge towards the industrial revolution.

my advice would be to accept the tech advantage as a nice bonus. then ignore it.

carefully select one or two really important builds and get on with rexing. i would recommend marketplaces wherever possible (not at the expense of units or rex). that should help you to build the sort of economy you will need to buy your way through the middle ages.

Plus assuming that Pizza is remembering to use workers to keep his core roaded

this one is so good, i just had to it again

[joncnunn]

Ok, I also assuming since he was even in the middle ages that he is done / just about done with REXing without looking at how early that date was.

Yes, REXing to natural boundary [or your newly expanded natural boundary form your conquest ] takes precedence, but the capital and maybe a few of the first (permenant) ring cities with access to fresh water should probably be done with settler and worker building by 900 BC.

[Pizza]

Still Rexing

I was still rexing. There was lots of land area left to fill. I ended up quitting the game though. The AI was too tough to beat.

A neighbouring civ (The closest one was about 30 or so tiles away) invaded with two warriors and two horsemen and took out four of my cities. They destroyed the cities It took about a half dozen archers and two spearmen to take out one warrior. Barbarians took out two more cities

I figure if a single warrior can take out a size six city guarded by two vetern spearmen on a hill then maybe it's time to call it a day.

[joncnunn]

Barbarbians can not take over cities in Civ III. All they can do is steal your gold, kill your units, and destroy the current build.
If you see a big stack of barbs you can't beat, your better off reducing your tresury via tech buys/ unit upgrads, moving you foces to safety and let the barbs ransack a city.

[Noctis]

REXing?

I keep seeing this term "REXing" being used. To what does it refer?

[Modo44]

Rapid Early eXpansion

It means trying to get as much land as possible, often disregarding things like infrastructure (except Granaries), and military (except Military Police against riots).

[joncnunn]

An ancient era peaceful player will have only one REX stage. (Or maybe two if you count overseas with Galleys as a seperate stage)

An ancient era war mongler may have several REX stages.
I once had 3 such stages in Vanilla as the French against the English:

During my inital REX and tech reseraching I notice when Iron Working comes in the closet site is claimed by England. I did have horses. So all future city builds canceled and converted into baracks and horses. Send an expition over to England, capture the Iron town and capture the capital. Cool, a MGL, guess I'll rush the FP in their capital. English fishing expetion getting close to my undefended cities so a 20 turn peace.
REX to fill in the missing cities between former England and myself and snag another site or two. Then more horses built.
Attack the English again, exile them out to the city they founded on a smaller landmass.
REX to complete filling out city sites on this landmass.

As I recall, evenually the Russian AI took over that one city island the English were exiled into, eliminating the English. When I win the game I find out why I never met the last AI , the Russian AI eliminated them before I met them. It was a small contiential map, with Germans and Russians on the other landmass.

[Noctis]

Originally posted by Modo44
Rapid Early eXpansion

It means trying to get as much land as possible, often disregarding things like infrastructure (except Granaries), and military (except Military Police against riots).

Ah, I see. Cheers.

[AeonOfTime]

On monarch I succeeded only once (C3C) to invent Steam Power and railroading part of my empire before JC with a sustained burst of Rapid Early Expansion. Okay, I had a huge continent all for myself, but I wonder whether the AI was sleeping in that game - I actually even managed to have all wonders to myself, and such a tech lead that I was building spaceship parts when my biggest rival (I think it was the egyptians) was still running around with musketmen.

Never succeeded in doing that again, however.