general gameplay question

[veeger]

Hello, everyone. I am very new to the civ family and while I hope to buy civ4 soon, 3 will have to do for the time being.

My question is one that I am sure has been asked before, but have not seen addressed.

I am currently still playing on chieftan because I am unsure what is a common tax allocation for science/luxuries. The few games of warlord and up I have attempted I often end up being far behind on techs as I attempt to keep my people happy and give as much as I can to science.

So, instead of having my butt handed to me a few dozen times, I thought I would come to the pro's. What do you consider a common allocation?

[vmxa1]

I doubt that there is a common allocation. It is a function of your empire and what you are trying to do at that point in time.

The closest I could come to a norm, is to say to put as much as you can spare into research.

The biggest issue for you is likely that you just do not have your empire developed well enough.

Common errors include, lack of workers to get roads up and tiles improved as soon as they are needed. This is seen in a town where citizens are working on tiles that have no road or no mine/irrigation.

Failure to get enough towns planted and not planted in optimal places. By this I do not mean allowing 21 tiles for a city, but rather making use of the best tiles and rivers.

Too many defenders, so you pay too much for unit support. This also ties back to not enough towns.

Not getting out of despotism soon as you can.

Not making contacts quickly.

Not making trades or not making the best trades.

[Aabraxan]

Just to add my two cents . . . Another common problem that I've seen is that new players try too hard to keep all of their citizens happy (as opposed to just keeping them content). In order to avoid civil disorder, it is only necessary to make sure that there are as many or more happy citizens as there are unhappy ones. Content citizens don't count and specialists are always content. Unhappy citizens produce the same amount of food, gold and shields as happy ones. (The exception to that is when a city goes into We Love the King Day.) If you turn your lux spending down to the minimum required to maintain this, it will free up funds for science.

[veeger]

Yes, I am coming to realize that more workers would make a difference. In my current game as persia I have taken over many aztec and zulu workers, and have noticed a large difference in gameplay ease. My vast empire is almost connected by railroads in less than 30 turns.

That took almost twice as long with my old japanese game, which had slightly less land and cities to cover. I had been using 1 worker per city, but I am leaning more towards 2 per expo and 3 in capital.

[Aabraxan]

Shoot for at least 1.5 - 2 workers per city and keep slaves around because they don't cost support.

[veeger]

Man! I got my first lesson in normal ai aggression today, lol.

Started a new game as japan on a standard sized map with all random opponents. I created a couple of warriors to explore and a couple of workers to improve the landscape, and no sooner had I settled my first expo then the hittites sent two warriors into my territory towards my capital.

It seemed awful early to me, but I made a point of saving before addressing them as I didn't have any defenders in kyoto. I was able to scrounge up a couple of warriors to beat back that first wave, but it was followed by some archers. In the end I lost kyoto, but thanks to an iron deposit near osaka and a colony, I beat them back, reestablished kyoto, and beat them to death.

I came close to not listening to them as I was battling their capital, but I'm glad I did. I finagled them out of three techs and all of their gold!

I might have to finish them off tomorrow. They have established a number of cities now, but so do I, and mine are much better defended than theirs -- my swordsmen will slaughter the hamlets with ease after the capital is razed.

[Aabraxan]

Good for you. Be wary of building too many defenders, though. (vxma1 already mentioned this). Build attackers instead. Defend your empire by attacking their units. Also, IIUC, the AI values offensive units more than defensive ones, so building more offensive units actually decreases the chances that the AI will attack you. Good luck & happy hunting in the hamlets.