AU 106: Hints and Tips

[Theseus]

***This is for NON-spoiler commentary.***
_________________________________

Very interesting choices on the starting move. Definitely want to move the worker first, but where to? And then, there are three interesting choices for the first town...

[Theseus]

Dear god, I am such a dope sometimes... I built the Great Library!! Uh, can't take to the high seas without passing Education... DOH!

But I got those culture points, oh yeah!! (not)

[Harovan]

I built it too. What's bad with it? The solution is simple...

[Arrian]

You at least denied it to the AI. That could really help. Besides, what else are you going to use those shields on for the next few millenia?

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Ahh, not so bad... just a matter of timing.

A little weird for a while, but god this one is getting fun!!!

I'll try to do my first spoiler tonight... very cool.

Another tip: BUILD!

[Harovan]

My 2 cents:

• You have lots of bonus tiles around, most of which would be wasted in a build without overlap. If you aren't into borg style, build 2-3 temp cities as settler/worker factories and let the newly built cities build warriors and happiness/science improvements. Give 1-2 bonus tiles per temp city and irrigate them, it pays!
• The Great Library pays too, try to get it. Just try to ship around the earlier mentioned cliffs.
• After the island is settled, build barracks and vet units in the temp cities. This frees build capacity in the core cities. After you're done, you may disband the temps by building workers and adding them to the other cities.
• Get the Republic ASAP and switch immediately.
• Improve, improve, improve your terrain. You're industrious (if you're Persia), 1 worker per city will do a great job. Bonus tiles (cattle+wheat) get first an irrigation, later a mining. Irrigate plains and mine grassland, hills and mountains. Plant forest on tundra. Roads everywhere. Get rid of all forests and jungle ASAP. After you're done, add the workers to the cities, except a small force (I have 4). They build forts on all resources and luxuries, just not to hang around jobless.
• Focus on happiness improvements, then science improvements, then marketplaces. Set the luxury slider to 10-30%, depending on how many cities have happiness improvements. The growth will quickly compensate the luxury spending.
• Plan your new P/FP axis carefully and build it ASAP, it greatly pays!

This game is fun!

[vulture]

I'd have thought that the greta library could be unusually useful in this game. You can research the military tradition branch, and wait for the AI to make contact (even if you have to stop researching at all). When you make contact, you are likely to get everything up to navigation (or beyond) for free.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by vulture
When you make contact, you are likely to get everything up to navigation (or beyond) for free.

Good point.

But only if you make contact before one of the sneaky AI civs researches Education.

[Harovan]

FP: that doesn't matter. You can get Education and techs beyond it thru the GL, but just in the one turn of the contact. I got up to Astronomy this way, and it's even possible to get Navigation or Physics. After this, the GL is rendered obsolete and you're back on your own research. Just do not research Education yourself, that's the trick.

[jshelr]

I could use some help with the Vulture's zip file. In return, I'd be happy to help anyone with fortran coding problems. Fortran was in vogue when I was last fully up to speed with computers.

Do I,

1) unzip the file
2) choose one of the .bic files
3) use load game and select that .bic ???

Or, does this have something to do with the mysterious scenario button that I've always been afraid to push?

[Arrian]

I was thinking about this some time ago, and this scenario made me ponder it again... the situation:

You're alone on a fairly large landmass, and obviously the FP is the key to the game. Therefore, it pays to build it asap. As I understand corruption, the palace will provide a ring of corruption fighting power. If the OCN is 20, the 20 cities closest to the capitol will benifit. The 21st city will have near-total corruption. The 20 will still be effected by distance corruption, of course. Please tell me if my understanding is incorrect.

Assuming I'm right about how things work, here is my theory:

pick the FP spot as early as possible, and get a settler up there to build a city. Connect it w/roads, and start it on a prebuild of some kind until you can get code of laws. Meantime, continue normal expansion until you get close to the OCN. Then, all new cities should be built farther out from the capitol than the FP city, until the FP is complete. This ought to give the FP city a chance of less than total corruption while building the FP. Have some settlers ready to build cities in the as-yet-undeveloped area between palace and FP, and once the FP is done, backfill at will.

What do you think? Am I nuts? Or could it work?

-Arrian

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
FP: that doesn't matter. You can get Education and techs beyond it thru the GL, but just in the one turn of the contact. I got up to Astronomy this way, and it's even possible to get Navigation or Physics. After this, the GL is rendered obsolete and you're back on your own research. Just do not research Education yourself, that's the trick.

doh!
you're right of course, silly me.
/me sighs
I haven't played Civ for a month and I've forgotten everything I knew ... I was just starting to get good at it too.

I'll have to play some more soon to get ready for MP

[jshelr]

Arrian

It sounds correct that you will reduce corruption in the FP city the way you describe. As you know, you can reduce corruption in building the FP even more by using the Palace bounce and building the FP near the original capital. Since the orignial palace is only well sited by accident, that technique lets you control the location of both the FP and new palace. So, how would your suggestion stack up against that method of corruption control, given that the usual method of using a leader to build FP is not available?

[jshelr]

Sorry, duplicate post

[vulture]

Originally posted by jshelr
I could use some help with the Vulture's zip file. In return, I'd be happy to help anyone with fortran coding problems. Fortran was in vogue when I was last fully up to speed with computers.

Do I,

1) unzip the file
2) choose one of the .bic files
3) use load game and select that .bic ???

Or, does this have something to do with the mysterious scenario button that I've always been afraid to push?

It's the mysterious scenario button. Extract one or both bic files from the zip, start up civ 3, and use 'load scenario'. Then select the version of the game you want to play. It then takes you to a civ choice/difficulty level choice as per starting a normal game.