Winning Early: What do YOU do?

[Arrian]

Minmaster,

Well, on plains cows, mining will do nothing under despotism. Thus, irrigating is the way to go for sure. With grassland cows, it depends. If you have multiple cows, or another bonus food tile such as wheat, you probably want to mine the cow(s). If it's your only bonus food square, irrigate that sucker!

-Arrian

[jshelr]

Arrian correctly points out this priority.

"If you do not intend to fight for a while, I strongly suggest you pick a decent spot for the Forbidden Palace, work on getting the city in question up from 1 shield, and build the FP."

However, an option, if you have had a great land grab and want to put the FP in a great spot far from the palace, is the palace jump. Build the FP near the original palace in a high shield city. Select a river site for the target landing of the palace jump. Pump out a few settlers from your higher growth cities to build pop in the new palace city, and particularly work the population of the old palace down to nothing. Then abandon the old palace city when the FP is complete and the site of your palace will go where you want it to, very efficiently.

BTW, Arrian probably doesn't do this because he has had four great leaders in the time it takes me to get this finished and used one to rush his FP. That's the way you really want to build an FP.

[Theseus]

Wow!!!

Thanks for all the tips... this should be required reading for new players!!

I knew the mining advice would get jumped on... I even knew who would do it!!

Again, trying to focus on the very early game, I just think it's easier for a new player to understand that mining is critical. DeepO's comments on changing to irrigation later in the game are dead on.

I also expected some debate on tech spending... Arrian quite rightly points out that this is primarily a function of difficulty level.

Keep the tips coming... more stuff on the very early game, por favor.

I'll generate some new thoughts on the early game tonight. Hmmm, should I play as... Rome?

[Arrian]

Theseus,

I was pondering the same thing: "should I play as Rome tonight?" They're decent with v1.29. Still... I prefer China

More early game tips... hmm...

If you are industrious, do not underestimate the power of chopping down a forest tile here and there. 10 shields early on can be powerful, and an industrious worker does it in 4 turns, IIRC.

If you intend to fight, do not waste time and effort trying to beat the AI to various city spots. Build a solid core group of cities that aren't crippled by corruption, build your barracks and troops, and kill things. The AI will still be in expansion mode and you will have the advantage.

Growth is key. Be not afraid of the luxury slider. More citizens working tiles means more shields and commerce. I used to create entertainers early on to keep people happy, but no more (excepting captured towns that have been whipped). This is particularly true if I'm building a wonder.

If you are the peaceful builder type, avoid playing "militaristic" civs. The trait is nearly useless unless you do a fair amount of fighting.

Get the hell out of despotism. Wanna fight? Become a King. Wanna build? Become a Senator.

Don't ignore poor terrain types in your expansion. Sure, concentrate on the nice land first, but rather than building a city far, far away because it's got some cows and a gold mine, build that coastal desert town nearby... later in the game you may just find saltpeter and/or oil there.

An early leader. Actually, let me divide that into two parts:

1) The ultra-early leader (1200bc or earlier)
2) The early leader (pre - AD)

I have been playing around with generating the first of these (actually, being me, I'm lookin' for 2 of 'em). The ultra early leader is probably best described as one that appears before you have the option of buildng the Forbidden, due to a lack of cities. You have 3 choices:

1) Build the Pyramids
2) Build an Army
3) hold the leader for the FP or a different wonder.

I keep caving in to option #1. Tonight, however, I'm going to try holding the leader for the FP. I've gone the army route... and depending on how you execute that it can be quite successful.

In the case of the merely early leader, I'd suggest the FP. I've ignored this suggestion myself at times, but in general it's the way to go.

-Arrian

[sboog]

Please clarify when to mine, when to irrigate, when to road. Am utterly confused.

sboog

[Dukovsky]

I have a question, is it best to leave your workers automated, or control them yourself?

[Dukovsky]

Mine on grass land when in despotism, change to irrigation laster if needed, irrigate plains, and desserts would probably be irrigate

[Lord Merciless]

I'm in favor of using the first GL for an Army. Creating an Army opens the way for the minor wonder Heroic Epic which increases the likelyhood of another GL appearing by 25%. Armies are also incredibly powerful in covering an attack deep into enemy territories. You can almost guarantee that no AI units dare to attack a stack defended by an Army, especially early in the game.

Using up the GL is certainly a little risky, but my experience so far is that if you have your first GL generated, chances are that there will be more on the way. Heroic Epic greatly increases the odds.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Dukovsky
I have a question, is it best to leave your workers automated, or control them yourself?

You should always control your units and cities directly, if possible.

AI still can't match the human intelligence.

[mrmichaeln]

Before a critical move in the game, say prior to moving into a goodie hut, or attacking an enemy, save your game first. If you don't get the result you want, wait one turn, and try again.

I find that the results are usually very different, sometimes to your advantage.

(This is probably a cheat).

[Lord Merciless]

I also have some civ-specific advice:

Romans and Persians: their UUs are extremely powerful ones. If you have researched Iron Working, pump out these units immediately and begin cleanse your neighbors.

Egyptians: their War Chariots are actually Horsemen, but at 2/3 of the latter's cost. Of course, you may trigger your GA too early, but you can also gain a huge lead very early on.

Babylonians: the perfect archer rush civ as you don't even need to build Spearman to cover your archers.

Chinese and Japanese: these two are the best war-mongering civs in the whole game. You can begin with archer rushes, followed by horsemen rushes, and finally when you discover Chivalry, upgrade all your horsemen to either Riders or Samurais. The ensuing GA should be perfectly timed.

Iroquois: I would say they have the best UU in the game: cheap, powerful, fast, available at an early time, and upgradable.

[Dukovsky]

Why to stick with Industrious and Military CIvs

First of all, having an industrious civ is useful in three ways, 1: they can construct tile improvements faster which equals more production, money, and food quicker than your non-prodcutive foes.2: you can make roads to your enemies quicker, which would mean faster movement in settling areas, and in get units to your enemy, example, a horseman could move 6 squares on a road leading to an enemy for quick back-up, and an archer could move 3, think of the advantages.3: Expansion, this would allow you to simpley establish cities faster then the A.I.,and also, corruption would be redused a bit so that it will allow more then one production for moderatly away cities.

The advantages of industious also expand when you get the Electricity advance, letting you build roads in one turn and rail roads in two, and a leap-frog technique would allow you to make two tracks of road or rail roads in oen turn, allowing quick and easy production to luxuries and resources.

Now, it has been proven by many that being on the offensive is the key to victory on this game, even if you persue a space victory you must assure your dominance through the use of military might, ounce your enemies are weaker then you, you can really have fun with the game and research all those advances real fast, and your enemies will be left behind. The benefit of militaristic is that you can make barracks fast, and that means veterans, and with veterans, you have the increased chance for great leadres, which are key to getting wonders before the AI can make them, this is expecialy important in emporer-diety, when the AI has an extreme advanatage in production over you. And also, with the veteran and Great leader, you will be able to subdue the enemy a lot faster.

COmbined, these two qualities are dominate over the game, many will claim that religious and even scientific are better then militaristic, but I have had a MUCH easier time with China, because it has both, and I have dominated since the get-go when I bought this game with those two, well, that is about all I had to share with you, to all you newbies out there, keep tryin' man, took me a while to get this game down pack, and start getting into the higher levels, till' next time, IEN KOUF!

[Catt]

Wow! So many good tips and lessons. I don't have a whole lot of new advice (a little) but will also emphasize some of the tips I think are especially important to master.

* Spend some of your precious gold to establish embassies with other civilizations as soon as you can. Embassies (i) improve the AI attitude towards you; (ii) alert you / provide info on wonder construction by opponents which will help you decide whether and where to start a wonder and thereby risk wasting the accumulated shields if someone builds the wonder before you (embassies will alert you provided you have the "Wonder Initiation Pop-Up" preference checked, which you should; F7 shows you the current wonders being built by those civs with whom you have an embassy); (iii) allow you to investigate AI cities which can provide a wealth of information regarding your opponent; and (iv) permit you to enter potentially crucial diplomatic agreements such as military alliances.

* Spend some time in the editor - not necessarily making any rules changes, but becoming familiar with the default settings and all the possibilities to make changes in different ways - the editor is a wonderful storehouse of more detailed game information that never made it into the game manual. The editor is a separate program called "Civ3 Edit" and is in the Infogrames / Civilization III folder.

* Be prepared to give in to extortion. Although it may be painful and humiliating at first, if an AI civ demands tribute from you (tech, money, maps, etc.) ask yourself "Can XXX civ really hurt me in a war - take my cities or territory, deny my civ important resources, force me to alter my build strategies to rush military units all over my empire, drag others into alliances against me, etc.?" Unless the answer is a resounding "No. I can merrily go on about my business as I wish, occasionally swatting down enemy invaders like so many annoying flies," give in to the demands (also note in your little black book that the account will need to be settled some day ). Fight wars on your terms, at times and places of your choosing.

* Become very familiar with terrain properties and the potential improvements to various terrain types - you can always right-click on a tile and select "Terrain Info," but getting to the point where you know what each tile will produce just by looking at it will greatly speed your learning curve with respect to city placement / worker terrain improvement / city laborer tile choices -- optimizing your early cities' productivity (be it food, shields, gold, or any combination) dramatically imrpoves your prospects for success.

* Early culture can be crucial to the mid and late game. As DeepO pointed out, four or five temples built before 500 BC will be a tremendous cultural boost to your entire civ due to the very rapid doubling of their culture generation after 1000 years -- if you wait to build culture until the AD years, resign yourself to being culturally inferior for a long, long time (maybe the entire game) which will make life hard, even for the dominant warmonger (culture flipping!).

Catt

[Dukovsky]

Also, religious civilizations have the Anarchy advantage, this can be useful for changing goverments when intering war. Example: I start a war in a democracy, I will have too much civil disorder, so, I am a religious civilization, I can change to communist in the same turn I started the war, so, I get supported unit bonus and no civil disorder

[Catt]

Another one:

* Manage your reputation. Breaking any treaty in the early game will prevent you from making certain agreements / trade deals for a long time to come. Feel free to break a treaty, but understand that you may not get a Right of Passage Agreement or be able to trade luxuries or other strategic resources for millenia to come. It is often the better long-term strategy to preserve your good reputation by concluding all agreements honorably. Attacking or declaring war against another civ when any of your units are in that civ's territory is considered a grave reputational sin, even if you did not have a Right of Passage agreement at the time. Declaring war in and of itself, if done without the presence of your troops in enemy territory and without breaking an existing per-turn treaty, will not blacken your reputation (although it may affect others' attitudes towards you).