Advice

[surferskj]

HI everyone. I am a new beginner at the game. I have played four times so far, and for the first time I am actually winning! I am playing the Romans with the French as my only competitor, on the Chieftain level. I have built up my culture to a fairly high degree, and have amassed a fair amount of cities. The French are lower in units than me and are impressed by my culture.
The dilemma is this: The city of Marseilles decided to switch allegiance to my side and I accepted. Was this the right choice? The French immediately declared war on me, and sent their troops to do battle. I repelled them easily enough, but now am faced with different options. Do I still keep on building army units for further attacks? The problem there is that I am on the limit of units allowed without digging into my gold reserves. And if I do, then I will get behind on the culture. Or do I attack France? I have noticed that when you attack your units do not fare as well as when you defend. Or do I offer a peace deal?
Another thing. Corruption! I have a terrible amount of it, even though I am building Courthouses and other buildings mentioned in the manual to combat it. How do I stop it or at least reduce it?
Lastly, when I use a worker to build mines over a citizen's square to produce more shields, the shields it produces are the red ones, which are waste, so I cannot see how this can help me.
Thanks for reading this,
Kev.

[Feyd]

Re: Advice

Originally posted by surferskj
The dilemma is this: The city of Marseilles decided to switch allegiance to my side and I accepted. Was this the right choice?

Absolutely! Seeing as the name was Marseilles it was obviously near the interior of their land which gives you an instant base to attack from.

Do I still keep on building army units for further attacks? The problem there is that I am on the limit of units allowed without digging into my gold reserves. And if I do, then I will get behind on the culture. Or do I attack France?

Well, this is up to you. In my current game I am democracy (like everyone eventually goes to), and that means every unit costs 1 gold. Granted the commerce bonus helps with this, but units costing money is part of the game so don't fear it. If you spend 1 gold on a Knight and he in turn defeats the last defender in Paris crushing the French once and for all, then isn't it worth it? NOTE: You're playing a militaristic civ so go for the gusto!

Your other option here is to let France have it's little temper tantrum (cause it sounds like they aren't threatening you that much) and wait for them to offer peace. While the passive approach to warfare doesn't always work, eventually they should want peace. Finally, if you want to end the violence quickly, take an important city, garrison inside and let a turn pass where you don't attack. If she doesn't offer peace you can and she'll accept. Although, I don't like being the one to go to them...you can ask for more in negotiations if they come to you.

Corruption! I have a terrible amount of it, even though I am building Courthouses and other buildings mentioned in the manual to combat it. How do I stop it or at least reduce it?

Heh, I bet 90% of the ppl on this board would agree with you wholeheartedly. There really isn't much you can do about this... My only suggestion is to choose a city halfway in between your capital and your furthest expansion and build the Forbidden palace there. Remember, your palace acts as a corruption buster. Because they had made corruption so rampant in this game, they put in the forbidden palace which serves as a second palace so people can have an empire that spans a continent.

Also, even though it doesn't say it directly, Police Stations help with combatting corruption so you might help build those.

Hope that was semi-helpful and that you give those snail eaters a good whippin! (N'intend pas l'offence mes freres francais!)

P.S.-heh...it's been a few years since french class..hope that makes sense

[dunk]

Well, if you have a large military, the Frenchies will be more likely to respect you. If you shrink it, they will see that and be more likely to attack.

Corruption due to number of cities is very high when you have lots of cities. There is a thread in the "Strategy" forum that outlines an experiment done to calculate the effects. It showed that once you get enough cities, courthouses and police stations don't help any. Large empires are prevented from having tons of productive cities.

[surferskj]

Thanks Feyd and Dunk. You have been really helpful. And you were both right with your points about (Feyd) the French wanting to make peace, and (Dunk) the Courthouses not making any difference to my corruption. I will build a Forbidden Palace like you advise, Feyd.
Once again, thanks for such fast and helpful replies!