German game

[Verrucosus]

Admittedly rather late in the day, I have decided to try to win a Civ3 game on emperor level. So far, most attempts failed because I did not grab enough land early on. Others saw me trailing behind most other powers by the middle ages and invaded during the industrial age. I have read a number of the "must read" threads, but I find it difficult to apply the wisdom to my specific games. In my current attempt with the Germans, I am in a reasonably good position (I think) as I enter the middle ages.

Early in this game, I had enough room to expand because I started some distance away from my continental neigbours (England and Russia). When they started to fight, I watched until Russia began to slip and then entered a military alliance with England. I was lucky enough to capture Moscow after it had been seriously weakened by English attacks. I believe I have a good chance of seizing the remaining Russian towns.

In terms of wonder building, the Egyptians beat me to both the Pyramids and the Colossus, so I had to settle for the Oracle and the Great Lighthouse respectively. The latter was a blessing in disguise because it allowed me, for once, to be the civilization to make contact with the other continent and get all the benefits from the initial round of trading that followed. The other (western) continent is shared by the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Japanese, the Romans and the Chinese. The Greeks are leading the pack and, in the long term, they might very well dominate the western continent and run away with the game.

Technologically, the Greeks are in the lead as well. They are the only power with Engineering. Most of the other powers have all ancient technologies as well as Monotheism and Feudalism. In the west, the Chinese are lacking the advanced government techs. In the east, the Russians are slipping since they are losing the war against England and Germany.

Wonders:
Egypt has the Pyramids, the Colossus and the Great Wall.
Greece has the Great Library.
Japan has the Hanging Gardens.

Given the unspectacular results of my previous attempts, I have decided to pause and look for advice. How do I proceed from here?

In particular:
1) Through tech trading, I now have access to Monarchy and the Republic. Should I switch now or wait for the war against Russia to end?
2) I have two elite swordsmen and one elite spearman campaigning in Russia. If I get a Great Leader (no luck so far) should I create an army to get access to the Heroic Epic and (later) the Military Academy or should I use it to rush the Forbidden Palace?
3) Where should the Forbidden Palace go? Moscow or closer to home?
4) Should I make plans to attack England at some point? If so when?
5) What approach should I take towards technology? Should I try to buy advances from others or do some research myself? If so, should I concentrate on the upper (civilian) or the lower (military) branch during the middle ages?
6) I'm lucky enough to have three luxuries (spice, ivory and fur) in my territory. When trade with the western continent opens up, should I limit myself to trading luxuries for luxuries or should I also spend money and advances to get more?
7) How many more workers do I need? (At this point, I have twelve including three captives from Russia.)
8) How soon should I spend resources to settle the less fertile areas of Germany and Russia?
9) In the long run, how to I prevent Greece from dominating the western continent and running away with the game?
10) In the very long run, how do I win this game?

I am sure there are more aspects to consider as I make plans for the rest of this game, so please feel free to draw my attention to anything that I may have overlooked.

For convenience, I will attach the current save game. It's classic Civ3. Some screenshots will follow.

[Verrucosus]

The German homelands

[Verrucosus]

The northern part of my home continent:

[Verrucosus]

Finally, some statistics:

[Krill]

you should have made atleast a 4 turn settler pump and a 2 turn worker pump from that land, using granaries in each city.

Also, place cities closer to gether, CxxC, where C = city and x is a tile. Your cities are way to far apart.

Could you also post the 4000BC save?

[Verrucosus]

Thank you for commenting, Krill. I had tried the closer spacing in several earlier attempts, but I was never quick enough to grab enough land. Maybe this time, the land would have permitted it.

Here is the 4000 BC save..

[ChrisiusMaximus]

id say your right about the land grab phase but krill has a point too, closer cities allows easier defence and more unit production.

there used to be a strategy thread somewhere about camp cities, ones you can abandon later when you need more tiles for your big cities to utilise.

I cant load your save as i dont where my disc is, but from your screens it looks like you dont have enough workers much of your land is undeveloped, perhaps more agrresively roading and mining etc would increase your production and science for you.

[Verrucosus]

Hello ChrisiusMaximus, thank you for having a look. I'm sure you are correct about the workers. I was so busy with expanding and tech trading that I only noticed it when I wrote the opening post.

I have tried the camp city idea with some success on lower levels. It's described in some detail in the "Draft Guide to Expansion and Growth in Civ3", the second link in the topped "Must Read Threads" post. It is very good for getting lots of troops in a hurry, but with my two neighbours being relatively far away, that has not been a major concern this time. It just seemed more important to get the settlements south of the jungle (Munich and Heidelberg) up and running to prevent the English and Russians from encroaching. Of course, I could have backfilled later, but that would have boosted corruption in the border cities where I needed some culture buildings quickly. I just hope that I won't have to build the Forbidden Palace stone by stone.

Edited spelling.

[vmxa1]

The camp idea was very good in C3 and PTW, but not used in C3C. I think the corruption model and the changes in the game reduced the need.

The idea of making towns to crank out out units and workers and settlers in dedicated or nearly dedicated towns is still a good one.

I will load this up after I get back from the clubhouse, playing pool, and see if I can add anything.

[vmxa1]

Re: German game (Questions)

Originally posted by Verrucosus

"1) Through tech trading, I now have access to Monarchy and the Republic. Should I switch now or wait for the war against Russia to end?"

You should have been out of despotism during the AA or soon after.
You will now take a bit hit and have to turn pop in jokers or taxmen, but do it.

"2) I have two elite swordsmen and one elite spearman campaigning in Russia. If I get a Great Leader (no luck so far) should I create an army to get access to the Heroic Epic and (later) the Military Academy or should I use it to rush the Forbidden Palace?"

That is a tough call, I would say I would rush the Sun Tzu as that is going to payoff quickly and for a long time to come.

The Epic can be done any time and is not critical. The FP can also wait as you do not even know where it should go right now. Two elites is not enough, especially as they will have few wins as they will need to heal and cannot win battles without loss of hit points for the most part.

"3) Where should the Forbidden Palace go? Moscow or closer to home?" too soon to choose.

"4) Should I make plans to attack England at some point? If so when?"

When you get knights.

"5) What approach should I take towards technology? Should I try to buy advances from others or do some research myself? If so, should I concentrate on the upper (civilian) or the lower (military) branch during the middle ages?"

Those choices are not important. I mean that you can do one way or the other and it will fine.

My style is to not do much to help the top dogs, but I will if it helps me more. I like to sell or trade to weaker civs as that keeps them form supporting the big one.

"6) I'm lucky enough to have three luxuries (spice, ivory and fur) in my territory. When trade with the western continent opens up, should I limit myself to trading luxuries for luxuries or should I also spend money and advances to get more?"

As I said, I do not like to help the other guy. I would probably trade little in the way of lux as they will not trade me any lux and that is what I want.

Weak civs that have cash/workers/techs, ok I will trade them lux.

"7) How many more workers do I need? (At this point, I have twelve including three captives from Russia.)"

I thought I counted 9 workers in F3. I did not look for slaves, but they are not workers, just slaves. Anyway I would like about 16 right now.

"8) How soon should I spend resources to settle the less fertile areas of Germany and Russia?"

Well this is not C3C, so that changes everything. The corrupt lands will not yield much as specialist get 1 unit in C3. still I just want to get the land and not spend much to improve it, if it is corrupt.

Let it make workers/settlers or bombardment units.

"9) In the long run, how to I prevent Greece from dominating the western continent and running away with the game?"

You probably cannot prevent it, just take over you continent and improve it better than they manage. You can at times give things to the other civs to help them slow down Alex a bit.

To do that yo need to do a better job with your empire.

"10) In the very long run, how do I win this game?":

See #9

[vmxa1]

Here is what I put together before I responded to the above questions for what it is worth.

Wow this is not a very well planned empire, I must say. So much dead land and so many tiles with no road.

Berlin at size 7 and trying to make a wonder? It needs to be at size 12 at this stage to have any shot. They will pay 480 shields for Sun Tzu and you will pay 600.

So at 15 spt, it will take you 40 turns. If they make 12spt they are there in 40 turns. IOW they have to be making less than you for you to beat them. Chances are they are making about 18 in a good city at this point.

The main way to get a wonder is to be making more shields by having full pop and mines on all the worked tiles, especially being able to work a hill or two.

Get a head start with a prebuild and for them to use a not so strong of a city to build it.

First place I saw was Moscow and it is making a lib, but it is a frontline town and should have either a wall or barracks.

I see why you got stuck with the Oracle, Leizig has no mines at all and is size 7. Not a good way to finish an early wonder. It looks like you just do not like mines as I do not see them in the towns I have checked so far.

Hamburg not founded on the river just one tile away? Making a market, but has no aqua and is not working any river tiles and in fact most are not even improved?

Frankfurt is the same story essentially. It is making a market and will take forever and it has no aqua. It could use a harbor, then it gets more commerce and the fish become a food bonus.

Heidelburg making a wall and will not be attack before you could react, so that is not useful.

You have 11 towns and a large number of tiles and only 9 workers. No settlers and apparently no plans to fill some of these holes. You are allowed 44 units and have 35, not a good idea at any level.

Too many temples and I am not sure about some of the lib, just because they are cheaper, they are not free.

The Greeks have a bit better land, but not much and only 2 more towns, so why are you so far behind them? I know they get a free tech, but you should have more towns than they do at this point and more land and be using it smarter than they will.

This and your ability to fight smarter, is how you over come their bonus.

The number one thing is to always try to have as many workers as it takes to improve any tile that is being worked to it max.

The next big item is to not let so much land go idle. This tends to mean tighter spacing. Yes you can get away with wide spacing at emperor, but only if you know how to do all the others correctly.

You just make the burden larger and why do that? The main point to the wider spacing is that people say they want to have the 21 tiles for all the pop to use at some point.

I say win the game before you can eve have metros and then it is a moot point. If you go 21 tiles, you have no more than 12 citizen for most of the game and have a lot of tiles that are dead.

These tiles stil need roads and that means using worker turns or travel over longer distance with no road, all bad things.

[Verrucosus]

Thank you, vmxa1, for those detailed comments. I have looked at the game again after reading your posts and the analysis of the problems is pretty convincing. I have an uneasy feeling that Krill's request for the 4000 BC save means that he wants to show what I should have done differently with that starting position. There will be a lot to learn here.

I am uncertain about your advice for using a leader. With just three elite units and the Russian campaign probably not lasting that much longer, I'll be lucky to get a single leader. If I use him to rush Sun Tzu, I will not be able to build the Heroic Epic or rush the Forbidden Palace before starting another war. That's not much of problem if the next war is just around the corner which is the case if I follow your suggestion to attack England when I get knights. That's not too far off because I'm just two techs away from Chivalry. Am I really ready to take on Elizabeth that soon? The English have been pounding the Russians for centuries now and an impressive number of swordsmen and archers to show for it. My expeditionary force has arrived just in time to take the spoils, but it is relatively small and - unless I get the Forbidden Palace, I have no effective production centres in the North. (I can see the virtue in waiting, of course, because it would be much more effective to build it in central England after conquering, say, London. The problem is getting there without a proper base at England's front door.)

With regard to technology, I agree that both a "tech buyer" and a "tech trader" approach can work. Doing substantial research of my own would allow me to benefit from my ability to build libraries and universities quicker than markets and banks, so I tend to pick that route.

Again, thank you for taking the time to respond in so much detail.

[vmxa1]

1050BC

Here is what I went with up to 1050BC. One settler is one its way to the horseman out on the finger where horse resource waits.

Working on Math now and it is the last 2nd tier tech. I have an embassy with Russia and they are pinned out of the area at the one tile choke. I have a spear and a warrior parked there now.

Raising lots of cash from the barb huts. I think they have a warrior and a spear wandering around in my area, but that is no problem. I have a few horses up and I am roading Iron in two places.

Berlin can make +6 on food, so I can make settlers at 4 or 5 turn, whatever I choose.

I have not decided what to do with the temple builds, yet. I was thinkiing I could one for a harbor and the others for aqua. Lep will probably go ahead and build its. I wil sell it after it pops borders.

The spear is a pre for a worker, once I get the town connected and it can grow fast enough, may make it something else though.

[Verrucosus]

Hmm, that looks very good. You have two more cities and all of them have decent terrain. Tile development is also much better than it was in my game.

I'm just curious, what does that icon below the menu button in the upper left corner do?

[vmxa1]

That is a program called civassistII. It is very handy for many things in civ3. It gives you no information that you cannot get from the game, it does give them to you in an easy to access way.

I have not looked in the utilities forum here for some time, so I am not sure if it available or not.

Somewhere around 350BC Russia demand a tech and war is what we agree is best. Then 250BC, I find the Queen trying to find a home for a spear/settler. I happened to have a vet sword on the spot and now I have 2 slaves and 2 wars.

14 towns and one next turn. sending units to the choke and I already have 1 cats there to met anyone wanting to see me.

190BC:
I see there is another one tile bridge into the land, so that ineeds to be close soon. I wondered how the Queen got into the area, now I see a Russian combo.

Started Lit, even though I am not sure the GLB is worth it, it maybe better that I have it, than someone else and I cannot be sure it will be built by the other neighbors. Anyway libs can be useful. That does not mean I will actually build it though.

130BC:
I played out that far and have 15 towns and 15 workers. Razed 1 Russian town. Looks like at least two civs are in the Middle ages now as an uprising hit.

16 barbs out by the missing choke point. this is where I kill the two spears, the barbs wanted nothing to do with them.

I have the sword there and vet horse close and another coming up. Will see what they elect to do next and pick them off little by little.

Been very lucky on battles the whole game. I have a 2 wound warrior kill a horse barb on a mountain and a 3/3 spear killed the 1/3 spear to raze the Russian town. The sword won several battles when wounded. I just had no choice, but to use them.