Winning Early: What do YOU do?

[Arrian]

In my first really successful PTW game (Monarch, standard settings across the board, Celts), I took over my continent (conquering Russia, Germany and England). Meanwhile, the other continent was slugging it out too: Babylon vs. Zulu, Babylon vs. Persia, Persia vs. Zulu... the Zulu generated FOUR GLs during that mess, which makes me wonder what the hell they did with them, because I used my 4 to secure world domination. The Babs and Persians got 1 or 2 each as well. Only isolated China managed not to fight anyone until I invaded them.

-Arrian

[ducki]

Mostly a bump for a great thread - not much of this is "dated" by PTW, most of it is still good strategy, definitely worth reading all of it, for those new to Civ3, anyway.


Winning early: What do I do?
Read threads here. Best advantage you can get, and it's free.

Another thing to do early - make more workers than you think you need, especially as a non-Industrious civ - jeeze those guys are slooooooooooooow.

[Big Fish]

Originally posted by Arrian
You're on to something there, jshelr. In my recent Ottoman game (the one I posted in the "A Strategic Choice" thread on the strategy forum), I was on a large continent with 6 other civs, and there was an awful lot of warfare.

The Arabs attacked me (2 reg warriors)
I attacked the Aztecs, knocking them to 1 city with archers.
The Arabs & Romans got into a war, don't remember who started it.
The Arabs got the Aztecs to ally vs. Rome.
The Aztecs fought France, getting the Arabs to ally.
I attacked Rome.
I attacked France.
The Arabs attacked me again.
I attacked Egypt

That's as of 900AD.

-Arrian

Sounds like WW1

[Tiberius]

The AI is definately better in PtW, it is a much harder challenge now. I had to go back from Monarch to Regent for a few games to get used with the new AI behaviour.

In my current game I started on a medium island with the romans being my neighbors. I managed to destroy them but lost the Great Lighthouse and was stuck on the island for a very long time, with only 6 or 7 cities. When I finally was able to travel, I managed to destroy the chinese, who were also isolated on a medium island. However the other civs who were on a great landmass flourished in the meantime, and by the time I conquered a few Zulu small island cities, the Persians have destroyed the Arabs, the Ottomans, the Babs and the Zulu! Now they are huge and are ahead of me in science with 7 or 8 techs!

So to keep this post on topic: don't stay isolated! Staying alone on that island (against my will) I won independence (the Persians tried to invade me with the help of the GL, without any success; I sunk all their invading ships) but I eventually lost the game!

[realpolitic]

Prepare for your first war early - Regular archers are OK, unless you're a militaristic civ. Vel is right abouut having 5 to start but an average early city should be conquered losing less than 3


look at this comparison

settler - 30 sheilds no pop gain
3 archers or 2 swordsmen 60 shields pop gian its worth the extra 30.

[bobbo008]

I change a few things in the editor if I play on a big map. For example, units move 5 spaces on roads per turn and settlers/workers have can move two spaces instead of one. Occasionally I'll make everyone expansionist.

[Bamspeedy]

Originally posted by sboog
Please clarify when to mine, when to irrigate, when to road. Am utterly confused.

sboog

Here's an article you may want to read if you really want to learn about tile values/worker assignments in the early game: (I'll warn you, that it is awfully in-depth)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31014

My opinions:

While you are in despotism you want to irrigate plains and mine grassland. Because of the tile penalty of despot, irrigating grassland is useless, and if you are mining plains you are slowing down your growth because the tile isn't producing at least 2 food.

Bonus resources confuses the situation. You should usually irrigate bonus resources. In despotism/settler production, FOOD is more important than shields in most cases. You need to look at how much excess food you are producing. You need 20 food to grow if your city doesn't have a granary (10 with a granary). Any excess food produced will NOT carry over when you gain a population point.

With no bonus resources (producing +2 food), the fastest you can build settlers on average is 1 every 20 turns (10 turns with a granary) because that is how long it takes a city to gain the 2 population points you will lose from building the settler. Before your city reaches size 7+, the best situation is to be producing +5 extra food, because you will grow every 4 turns (2 turns with a granary), thus building settlers on average every 8 turns (4 turns with a granary). Producing +6 food will still take you 4 turns to grow (and still 2 turns with a granary), so that won't help you at all. If you are surrounded with lots of bonus resources/floodplains (high food, but low on shields), then you may need to mine some of the bonus resources. If you are so lucky that you get 3 cattle on grassland in your city, then mine all 3, because that will still give you the ideal +5 food when working all 3 tiles. Irrigating multiple bonus resources may allow you to work some forests or hills and still get you at the ideal +5 food, it all depends on the terrain.

Building granaries extremely early in the game depends on terrain and map size. If you're only going to have room for 4-5 cities, or playing a tiny/small map then it's probably better to build your settlers before the granary. On larger maps (especially pangea maps) or maps with few opponents, building the granary before your first settler, or right after your first settler would be better in many cases.

I always irrigate or mine before roading a tile. If you're industrious and mine before roading, you'll get 2 extra shields. If you road first, you'll get 3 more gold. Shields/food is more important to me than gold. If you are trying to beat the AI in techs extremely early in the game, then it would probably be better to road first. Later on in the game, when you don't have workers desperately trying to keep up with the improvements to keep pace with your city growth and you start moving workers in stacks, then road first.

[BigDork]

Hi all. Thanks for all the great info. I just got the game and PtW for X-mas and have been basically been playing non-stop. I only played Civ II a couple times so I'm coming into this game pretty new to the whole Civ experience. I played a couple on the easiest setting and now and up to the next level. In my first game I'm kinda holding my own. I'm ranked about third. I have high culture but am behind in tech and military power. My nations size is I think 5th out of 8. I expanded some but ran out of room between the Carth's and the water. It wasn't the best starting spot but I don't believe in starting over, I'd rather face the challenges or starting wherever.

One thing I'm really wondering is what is the best way to aproach the different play styles. I guess I'm more of a builder than anything. I usually go for a cultural or diplomatic victory. I've tried to be a warmonger but usually am not as successful as I'd like to be. Do any of you pro's have any suggestions? How can I be a successful warmonger? How can I be the best darn builder I can be? Thanks

BigDork

[BigDork]

Actually I just thought of something else I don't recall seeing in this thread, which techs should you go for and in what order? I know wheel, bronze working and iron working are way up there but, what else are important? What can be overlooked? Any advice is appreciated.

BigDork

[Theseus]

Pretty broad questions, BigD.

What civs have you tried thus far? I'd suggest Egypt as a good starter. Also, if you wanna be a builder, try the Babs. For warmonger, China or Japan.

Early tech research order is tough without the context of a given game. In general, I'd say there are 3 'preferred' tracks:

1) Military
2) Literature (for the GLib)
3) Governmental (for either Monarchy or Republic, but usually Monarchy)

[Bamspeedy]

If you want to be a builder, you will place your cities in more of an OCP (optimal city placement) style. This style is where you try to have little or no overlapping of tiles. With this style, you will have many tiles that are unused until you get to hospitals, but when you do get hospitals these cities will grow to their maximum potential. And you'll have fewer cities, so corruption won't be so bad for cities farther away.

Warmonger (early conquest), go with ICS (infinite city sprawl), or some form of it. ICS doesn't care about overlapping of tiles. ICS allows about 10-12 tiles/city, and an extreme ICS allows about 5-6 tiles/city. Build cities 2-3 tiles apart. Forget infrastructure except for maybe barracks. You'll have many more cities which will give you so much more free unit support. Most (if not all) tiles will be used much earlier in the game. ICS is used mainly for massproducing cheap units to upgrade (warriors-swordsmen or chariots/horsemen to knights). Corruption will be worse for cities further away, but ICS cities aren't expected to produce many shields individually anyways because they are just producing cheap units,workers, and settlers. The small cities won't need cathedrals, aqueducts, etc. But if you do put a temple in each of those cities, you'll have lots of culture. Every city, no matter how corrupt it is will give you at least 1 gold, which will pay for the temple or barracks. Getting just 1 more luxury will add so many more happy faces because of all the cities you have. Using ICS on a huge map I can get over 100 cities before 10 A.D. and conquer the world with knights. With no libraries I can learn modern age techs in 4 turns (on a huge map), just from all the specialists from 511 cities.

Other warmongering tips-Make sure you have a nice large stack before declaring war. A large enough stack to take a few cities in the first few turns of war. After you capture a couple cities so quickly, they will beg for peace. Strike the AI while it is still in it's expansion phase (producing settlers). Often times their borders cities will be very lightly defended and will be easy to take. Deity and sometimes emperor may require you to wait awhile before striking because you need time to overcome all the free military units they start out with. Strike the AI while it is busy building a wonder. Give masonry to your neighbor so that he builds the pyramids, then capture it (make him build the wonders for you). Industrial age warfare-USE ARTILLERY.

But I think most people use a blend of OCP and ICS, where each city uses about 15 tiles. This way most tiles are used before hospitals, but the cities still have some room to grow after hospitals. But regardless, exactly how you place your cities should be more defined by terrain, resources, rivers, strategic locations (choke points), etc.

[BigDork]

What civs have you tried thus far? I'd suggest Egypt as a good starter. Also, if you wanna be a builder, try the Babs. For warmonger, China or Japan.

Okay, well here's what's happening in my current game. I'm playing as the Greeks on a large, continent, everything else is default. Difficulty is warlord. My expansion was blocked early buy the Carths. They were to the north and there was water everywhere else. I grabbed all the land I could but it wasn't a lot. My culture is 2nd highest in the world behind the Celts. The Celts are currently the strongest nation in the world. A huge military and more land than anyone else. Me on the otherhand have a pretty small military and am 5th out of 8 in land size. Well, I'm getting sick of just about every country demanding money, maps, and just about everything else from me. The Carths are really starting to piss me off and I wanna bloody their nose a little. That is where I run into my problems. I'm just not very good at the military aspect. What is the best strategy when attacking. Should I get a RoP first and to hell with my reputation? I've tried to get allies but no one will help me out. How do I get allies? What is a good size military to take to war? And one thing I really am wondering, is it better to raze a city and build your own or capture and deal with the resistance/bad placement/possible culture flip back? Thanks all

BigDork

[ducki]

BigDork -
Without seeing the game, I'm just guessing here...
Horsemen/Swords - 12 + 6 is probably what I'd start with, and switch every available other town to producing more Horsemen and keep them that way until the end of the war, throwing in a Spearman once in a while.

Knights/Pikes - As many Knights as you can possibly gather, 12-15 is a good start, 20-30 would be even better. Pikes as needed to take over Garrison duty from the formerly wounded Knights that got left behind to quell resistors.

Both of these numbers are for a "hurting" war - not sufficient to fully destroy a Medium-sized Carthage due to their UU.

I always have wounded, so I prefer to capture towns and garrison them with my wounded while the rest of the force moves on. As long as you are not a cultural zero, it should be ok most of the time

[Thoth]

BigDork: The AI will not sign a military alliance with you unless you are already at war with someone. Once your military build up is complete and you are thumping on the Celts you should be able to sign up an ally or two.

The demands for tribute will continue so long as you have a weak military. As you build up your forces these demands will likely stop.


**somewhat unreleated point**

Earlier in this thread it was claimed that you should always mine first, then road. There is an important exception to this if you are playing Industrious: The very first tile that you improve (assuming that it is grassland, and you are producing a warrior) should be roaded first and then mined. The mine will not be complete in time to speed up your first warrior, but if you road first the mine will be complete in time to speed your second warrior. A gain of three gold/beakers isn't much in 1800 AD, but in 4000 BC it can make a sizeable difference in the number of turns for your first tech. (I normally research one of the cheapies at 100% tech)

[Bamspeedy]

Thoth-Yes you are correct. But like all tips/strategies there are exceptions to the rules. Even your tip is wrong in some cases.
If you move the settler 1 tile before founding the city (which I often do, to either get to the coast, onto a river, or to move off of a bonus grassland) then you will speed up production of your first warrior if you are industrious (if your worker starts on the mine the same turn the capital was built). Just make sure your citizen is working the tile that is going to be improved so you get the benefit of the mine the same turn it was built. And if you are unfortunate enough to start with no shield tiles (cattle, bonus grassland) right away where it will take 10 turns to build the warrior then you will produce it faster by mining first.