cities? barracks? grnary?

[Karl Biedermann]

trying to achieve something on monarch level i loose and loose so i need help
vanilla civ3 standard map as english vs 7 ais i finally always lose the research race.
now i try large map, english vs 6 ais.
either i build settlers s fast as possible- then they declare war on me an i would have needed barracks.
if i build barracks they have 7 cities where i got 2 only.
what should i do better?

[vmxa1]

Well as you may know the AI gets a 10% bonus on Monarch. So to stay even you have to do 10% better than before.

If they truely have 7 towns to your 2, you are way off the mark. I suspect that you have a very large exageration. If not I would go back a level or two to master my empire management skills.

Even a bad start location and a less than stellar civ (traits) should not cause that much of a gap until Sid. Taht is the only level I have had my second town and they had as many as 7.

Stick to a std map and std numbers of civs. Get a decent start to see if you can handle that. I don't mean 2 lux and 2 cows, just a river and some green around and maybe a food bonus in sight.

Manage your towns and workers. That means planning what the workers should do and reduce wasted movement and labor.

So if you do have food bonus and water, irrigate the food tile. Then road it. Look for the next best tile that can be worked and evaluate them.

Pick the best one that also requires the least wasted movement. Do note that rivers cost movement, even with a road, until engineering.

Do not work mountains or hills until nothing else is need or they have a critical resource/lux.

Keep enough workers to always have tiles being worked by citizens improved. That means a mine and a road, unless it is a food bonus or a plains. Those get irrigation and a road.

When towns grow, check on them to see that the pop is assigned to the appropriate tile. The gov will often work a tile with 2 food, when you do not need the food. A forest when maybe a shield is not as useful as 2 food.

You may be able to reassign pop from time to time to gain an extra shield or growth or commerce. These are not life or death moves, but will help if you want to take the time.

Now do not build things you do not need at the moment. That means a lib in a town that is getting 0 or 1 beaker. A bank in a town doing the same. Or if you are not researching or collecting taxes at the time.

It means not making barracks where they are useless. Those are towns that will not be attacked, nor make units. If you are making units in a town that takes 40 or more turns to build that unit, stop doing it.

Make a worker instead or even wealth may be better.

Temples are not always need in all towns at the very founding of the town. Wait, till it is needed, if it is needed.

To prevent attacks, learn when you need troops and when you can wait. Build only attackers or nearly only. Make them only in barracks cities after you get past the expansion phase. Sooner if you can.

Do restrain from making endless spears and archers and warriors. Make horses instead, if you can.

Do note the advisor when he says we are weak compared to them. You will need to get to average or risk an attacked or at least a demand. This is no longer Warlord, the AI will come around and hit you or demand tribute.

Do get strong enough to prevent them from thinking they can walk across your land to have a look around. It is not till about DG that you should be forced to pay tribute.

At levels below that I can hold my own in the early game. Actually it can be done at DG or deity as I have played AW at those levels, but it is possible to lose in those games.

Get a granary up in a couple of the early towns, especially if they have a river and or a food bonus and will make settlers. Do not make granaries all over the place.

Avoid cath and never make a colloseum.

Take care in you research path. You can get a tech that is not know to anyone or not many and trade it around to get more gold or techs.

This is just some of the things that cross my mind. More can be done.

[Mad Bomber]

To add to Vmxa1:


One rookie mistake is that they do not build enough workers, its great to settle new land but most tiles are almost useless until worked. Make sure you have workers working on improved tiles and improve the most important tiles first. Road, Road Road ALL tiles as soon as you can with obvious preference to worked/improved tiles first. (roads=commerce)

Next thing to remember is to try to keep yourself balanced. Building hordes of military units means you wont have your infrastructure built up. Vice versa if you only build improvements. Most vets like to have certain cities specialixze in certain areas these are also termed as camps or pumps. this allows the player to produce certain units without overly burdening all of their cities. For more info perform a search on settler/worker pumps and military camps.

Granaries are important in your early cities esp if you miss out on the pyramids. These should be built right after the cities first defender is built (providing you do not escort settlers). The only cities that should not have a granary are ones used for military camps.

As always posting a saved game can help vets to look at your game play and give a more detailed critique.

[Karl Biedermann]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
To add to Vmxa1:


One rookie mistake is that they do not build enough workers, its great to settle new land but most tiles are almost useless until worked. Make sure you have workers working on improved tiles and improve the most important tiles first. Road, Road Road ALL tiles as soon as you can with obvious preference to worked/improved tiles first. (roads=commerce)

Next thing to remember is to try to keep yourself balanced. Building hordes of military units means you wont have your infrastructure built up. Vice versa if you only build improvements. Most vets like to have certain cities specialixze in certain areas these are also termed as camps or pumps. this allows the player to produce certain units without overly burdening all of their cities. For more info perform a search on settler/worker pumps and military camps.

Granaries are important in your early cities esp if you miss out on the pyramids. These should be built right after the cities first defender is built (providing you do not escort settlers). The only cities that should not have a granary are ones used for military camps.

As always posting a saved game can help vets to look at your game play and give a more detailed critique.

THANKS!!!
tried to work along your advices. played as roman and built a lot of legionarios. had pumps for settlers and legionarios. standard map-8nations. chinese declared war. i won leaving them cities on some islands. but it took too long and i fell too much back in cultural and scientific. so i replayed making peace a bit earlier. in between the aztecs wanted iron an declared war. i won.
i thought doing well - got the great library and had the sosterne chapel , the galileo observatory and newtons wonder. nevertheless all the other naions ran away in scientifics. now by around 1600 the aztecs attack me again having infantery vs my riflemen.
WHAT SAVES shoud i send?
HOW must i do it to send the save and have a vet look into it for giving mor advice?
Karl-Eduard.Biedermann@t-online.de

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Karl Biedermann
nevertheless all the other naions ran away in scientifics. now by around 1600 the aztecs attack me again having infantery vs my riflemen.
WHAT SAVES shoud i send?
HOW must i do it to send the save and have a vet look into it for giving mor advice?
Karl-Eduard.Biedermann@t-online.de

If you had all of that and fell behind in tech, it is probably do to lack of cities. Getting wonders is more a function of having more productive cities than the AI. A few strong cities can make wonders, but you need an empire to research and fight.

Two ways to go, 1- post a save around the point you had the Aztecs declare on you and we can see if anything is amiss.

2- is to post one much farther back,if you have them.

To post a save just use the post reply function and then look down to find the browse button. Use it to find the save on your system and then submit.

It must be less than 500K. This is normally the case as long as you use the manual save, rather than the autosaves.

[Karl Biedermann]

Originally posted by vmxa1


If you had all of that and fell behind in tech, it is probably do to lack of cities. Getting wonders is more a function of having more productive cities than the AI. A few strong cities can make wonders, but you need an empire to research and fight.

Two ways to go, 1- post a save around the point you had the Aztecs declare on you and we can see if anything is amiss.

2- is to post one much farther back,if you have them.

To post a save just use the post reply function and then look down to find the browse button. Use it to find the save on your system and then submit.

It must be less than 500K. This is normally the case as long as you use the manual save, rather than the autosaves.

TRYING toupload

[Karl Biedermann]

Originally posted by vmxa1


If you had all of that and fell behind in tech, it is probably do to lack of cities. Getting wonders is more a function of having more productive cities than the AI. A few strong cities can make wonders, but you need an empire to research and fight.

Two ways to go, 1- post a save around the point you had the Aztecs declare on you and we can see if anything is amiss.

2- is to post one much farther back,if you have them.

To post a save just use the post reply function and then look down to find the browse button. Use it to find the save on your system and then submit.

It must be less than 500K. This is normally the case as long as you use the manual save, rather than the autosaves.

again

[vmxa1]

Ok, I will take a look after I get back from the clubhouse, so give 2 or 3 hours.

[vmxa1]

I looked at the F4 and see no embassies, except one. This makes trading a bit harder and relations a bit worse than they other wise would have been. I like to get them up in the middle ages. I know you do not have any money right now, but that is something that would normally have been done.

Looking at trades and you have some 840gpt coming in and are nearly broke and at 70% net 55 gpt? What is happening to all that money? I also dislike trading two lux to anyone, unless they are very weak, it just helps them too much.

Horses and salt are resources I am loathed to trade away until the units it makes are not important. Right now calvs are a danger. I would if either civs were weak or they could get the
resources elsewhere.

RoP and MPP's are another thing I am very very reticent to give. I will under the proper conditons, but at Monarch, I don't see it. The reason is I am not worried about them ganging up on me as I have no problem dealinh with AW conditions, especially at this level.

It is at deity or at times on even Demi I may make those deals. I often offer RoP's to warring factions to get them out of my land early in the game after the war ends. This is to get them out of my land fast before they decide to come for me. Again not at Monarch or Emperor.

I see this is C3, I loaded it in C3C, but that is fine.

So I start with the capitol and see it is making 30 food at size 12. That is 6 food you cannot use, unless you are popping out workers or settlers. You have to cut the trees by now and the jungle. You should have mined the cows once it got to making more food than it needed. Those two tiles alone would be making 6 more shields after being railed.

This is not done because you have so few workers. As you are getting to the IA you must have more workers to deal with the railing task.

Veil is making 34 food.

Canton is a corrupt town and nets 1 shield. It is not a place to make 80 shield units. Too bad this is vanila instead of C3C, we could do a few things here.

No Pentagon or MA or worse yet no FP.

Antium is 27 food and has a citizen working a plains with no road and no mine. Why not move that pop to the mined hill? You gain 2 shields and 3 gold. Fire the scientist and put it on the other hill and gain 2 more shields and 2 more gold. Now the bank is 4 turns.

I am sure more of these can be found. Some of this is due to using govenors and others to lack of workers. All are costing you a great deal of lost production and income.

Cath before markets is not in my play book, in fact, cath are not in my plans at all. I forget how much they cost at C3, but it is something like 160 shields. You pay 2 gpt for each.

You pay 99 for units and 89 for maint and 124 corruption. An FP would lower the corruption.

Basically if you play a civ with an AA unit you must explode once you use it. Legions can be used to just crush the AI at this level, IF you have the infrastructure to make them.

Getting the early GA, you must cash it in big.

You can be smaller than the AI, but at this point you should have started to annex some of there lands and be on par in size, if not bigger. The lack of shields made that hard to do.

There is too much open space near the capitol. So you did not make full use of the land you had. Yes it was not wonderful, lack of shields and too much jungle. The three cows demands some cities be using them. You could have gotten off to a great running start with two towns pumping out settlers and a third making units/workers.

I would go through all cities and change production to get out a few workers and settlers to fill in some of the spaces and get those tiles improved.

I do not like to see workers doing tiles alone at this stage of the game. Yes it is a good play early, but now it is railing time. I want gangs that can pop a rail each turn.

It is better to have 1 tile railed each turn than wait 8 turns and get 8 done. That first tile is getting extra food or shields now and can be used now to move at no cost. A CxxC spacing would mean in two turns that town is connected with just one crew.

You can field a calv army now, so you should be able to deal with the AI, especially if you could get that network up. I found one slave working a jungle railing at 25 more turns. What is the value of that? I see others railing moutains at the Chinese border, why? Others on moutains I really hate that at this stage.

Workrs are critical resources you cannot just ignore them and must use them carefully.

When I start researching Steam I start to plan my worker moves to have them gather at points that makes sense to get rails up in the most important places first.

I peeked at the 210BC and I really dislike it. Towns spread way out barried in jungles? I do not like using settlers like that. You are in a GA already, with no empire to take advantage of it. Either fight the war with archers or horses, not Legions. Better yet do not get in the war in the first place with early UU.

A town on the hill by the gold to use the cow as a second or third town would have let you make more settlers.

[Karl Biedermann]

dear advisor,
THANKS.
this is only to let you know that i finally made it to a space race victory in monarch level with my 2nd highest score, so all your advices were not in vane.
Karl.

Originally posted by vmxa1
I looked at the F4 and see no embassies, except one. This makes trading a bit harder and relations a bit worse than they other wise would have been. I like to get them up in the middle ages. I know you do not have any money right now, but that is something that would normally have been done.

Looking at trades and you have some 840gpt coming in and are nearly broke and at 70% net 55 gpt? What is happening to all that money? I also dislike trading two lux to anyone, unless they are very weak, it just helps them too much.

Horses and salt are resources I am loathed to trade away until the units it makes are not important. Right now calvs are a danger. I would if either civs were weak or they could get the
resources elsewhere.

RoP and MPP's are another thing I am very very reticent to give. I will under the proper conditons, but at Monarch, I don't see it. The reason is I am not worried about them ganging up on me as I have no problem dealinh with AW conditions, especially at this level.

It is at deity or at times on even Demi I may make those deals. I often offer RoP's to warring factions to get them out of my land early in the game after the war ends. This is to get them out of my land fast before they decide to come for me. Again not at Monarch or Emperor.

I see this is C3, I loaded it in C3C, but that is fine.

So I start with the capitol and see it is making 30 food at size 12. That is 6 food you cannot use, unless you are popping out workers or settlers. You have to cut the trees by now and the jungle. You should have mined the cows once it got to making more food than it needed. Those two tiles alone would be making 6 more shields after being railed.

This is not done because you have so few workers. As you are getting to the IA you must have more workers to deal with the railing task.

Veil is making 34 food.

Canton is a corrupt town and nets 1 shield. It is not a place to make 80 shield units. Too bad this is vanila instead of C3C, we could do a few things here.

No Pentagon or MA or worse yet no FP.

Antium is 27 food and has a citizen working a plains with no road and no mine. Why not move that pop to the mined hill? You gain 2 shields and 3 gold. Fire the scientist and put it on the other hill and gain 2 more shields and 2 more gold. Now the bank is 4 turns.

I am sure more of these can be found. Some of this is due to using govenors and others to lack of workers. All are costing you a great deal of lost production and income.

Cath before markets is not in my play book, in fact, cath are not in my plans at all. I forget how much they cost at C3, but it is something like 160 shields. You pay 2 gpt for each.

You pay 99 for units and 89 for maint and 124 corruption. An FP would lower the corruption.

Basically if you play a civ with an AA unit you must explode once you use it. Legions can be used to just crush the AI at this level, IF you have the infrastructure to make them.

Getting the early GA, you must cash it in big.

You can be smaller than the AI, but at this point you should have started to annex some of there lands and be on par in size, if not bigger. The lack of shields made that hard to do.

There is too much open space near the capitol. So you did not make full use of the land you had. Yes it was not wonderful, lack of shields and too much jungle. The three cows demands some cities be using them. You could have gotten off to a great running start with two towns pumping out settlers and a third making units/workers.

I would go through all cities and change production to get out a few workers and settlers to fill in some of the spaces and get those tiles improved.

I do not like to see workers doing tiles alone at this stage of the game. Yes it is a good play early, but now it is railing time. I want gangs that can pop a rail each turn.

It is better to have 1 tile railed each turn than wait 8 turns and get 8 done. That first tile is getting extra food or shields now and can be used now to move at no cost. A CxxC spacing would mean in two turns that town is connected with just one crew.

You can field a calv army now, so you should be able to deal with the AI, especially if you could get that network up. I found one slave working a jungle railing at 25 more turns. What is the value of that? I see others railing moutains at the Chinese border, why? Others on moutains I really hate that at this stage.

Workrs are critical resources you cannot just ignore them and must use them carefully.

When I start researching Steam I start to plan my worker moves to have them gather at points that makes sense to get rails up in the most important places first.

I peeked at the 210BC and I really dislike it. Towns spread way out barried in jungles? I do not like using settlers like that. You are in a GA already, with no empire to take advantage of it. Either fight the war with archers or horses, not Legions. Better yet do not get in the war in the first place with early UU.

A town on the hill by the gold to use the cow as a second or third town would have let you make more settlers.

[vmxa1]

Yahoo, glad to hear it.

[Fake Boris]

I know you've had plenty of advice already... but you really need to WAGE WAR, almost perpetually. Since the AI gets so much of a production bonus at higher levels, the only way to outpace them is to have more cities.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by vmxa1

Pick the best one that also requires the least wasted movement. Do note that rivers cost movement, even with a road, until electricity.

Not quite true - it's engineering that gives free river passage.

Electricity gives irrigation without river/lake.

[vmxa1]

I meant engineering, it allow bridges.

[BlackCat]

I was pretty sure you did - just no resaon to not correct it - some newbie could read and belive it