Jungle Blues

[Cookie Monster]

Call me a whimp but I tend to restart games where I am located close or on jungles. I've learned that in Monarch if you don't expand fast or kill people quick you're gonna fall behind the AI. Once that happens it's game over. At least for me anyway.

[jkelly]

One thing to keep in mind is that Settlers clear jungle, too. It's rarely economical to be building a Settler just to clear a single tile of jungle, but if you've got a lot of jungle and time, you can start cities in the midst of thick jungle which will disband themselves by creating a new Settler, settle on another jungle tile, and repeat. Time-consuming, but so is that twenty-four turn (C)lear Jungle job.

City-spacing is really important in jungle starts; I try to make it a habit to focus on Clearing those jungle tiles which can be used by more than one city, and do a lot of micro-managing to make sure my citizens make the most of the cleared tiles on every given turn.

No big secret, but (C)lear then (R)oad is much more efficient than the other way around.

I'll start wars and pay cash just to get slaves; they make take twice the time, but they're free -- it costs nothing in maintenance to have two slaves who do the work of one Worker.

I suppose that I'm just arguing that Jungle starts take some extra work, which I happen to not mind. I can see why people don't find them fun enough to continue from. One thing you might want to do is check out the thinking and discussion around 'Poly's first Democracy game, which was a jungle start that was turned into a success.

[Shogun Gunner]

If there are good rivers running from the mountains through the jungle - I think about continuing.

If I have rivers, mountains and coast in my jungle, I continue.

If I'm in the middle of landmass with no mountains, rivers or coast -- FORGET IT!!!!!!!!

Shogun Gunner

P.S. Even ecologically minded civers are a bit more forgiving of Brazil cutting down the Amazon

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by jkelly
No big secret, but (C)lear then (R)oad is much more efficient than the other way around.

For a single worker or stack, yes. If, however, I know that in a few turns, I'm going to have a boost in available workers (travel, production or finishing nearby jobs), there are times I find it more beneficial to go ahead and road, so they can immediately start chopping, rather than wasting the turns moving onto the jungle. Admittedly, that's not an extremely common confluence of circumstances, but not exactly rare, either.

[justjake73]

One thing that frustrates me when I am starting new is finding large tracts of desert. If there is a floodplain, I continue, but if the desert would cause a big gap in my city network, I restart.

[jkelly]

Road, then Clear

Originally posted by Solomwi


...there are times I find it more beneficial to go ahead and road, so they can immediately start chopping, rather than wasting the turns moving onto the jungle.

Solomwi, I do that regularly myself, but generally it is in the Industrial Age, when I can give up some efficiency on any particular tile to maximize use of large Worker stacks.

[Puma]

If I am in emperor generally I use Shift-Ctrl-Q.
I did try a deity game in the jungle but it soon became depressing.

If I am in monarch:
Hell Yea, Jungle building beside rivers can be fun when you have 3 other good city sites.
If possible, use a floodplain city to pump out workers like mad. Don't be afraid to have as many as 45 workers. When they're done jungle clearing by the middle ages they can be a real boost.
Clearing the tiles beside rivers is like opening a gift. Got a shield square? Mine it. Got a plain grassland square? Wait for a way out of Despotism then come back and irrigate it.
Always try to stack workers when clearing a Jungle tile.
You don't need all 8 squares when you start a city. Like jkelly pointed out - clear jungle tiles that may be used alternatively by two cities. When one loses a citizen, the other might use the tile. Micromanage, micromanage.
If you find another civ stuck in a jungle, they're bound to have lots of workers too. Note that some civs are better suited for jungle. Don't try Aztecs with wet maps (poor fellows).

[Puma]

By stacking I dont mean put 10 on a tile, but also dont have 5 workers working on 5 different tiles for 24 turns for only one city radius

[Makahlua]

Yeah teams of 2-3 native workers or a stack of 4 captured ones can plow thru it in half the time, industriious or not.

1 worker = 24 turn
2 = 12 turns
3= ~8 (IIRC)

And that's -non- industrious later when it gets down to just cleaning pollutiin you can always rejoin a few to your cities to produce more too

[infoscott]

This is my stategy for dealing with large jungle tracts. It works well enough with non-industrious civs, but when I play France, I LOVE jungles!

* Dedicate one or two cities as settler pumps. Don't bother making them create workers, those will come from jungle cities and sprawl cities that are capping on population.

* In your clear land, build an urban sprawl. Designate core cities that will eventually take structures, and villages that will generate settlers, military units (with temporary barracks), and will work every productive tile. You'll the gold from the villages to make up for the lack from jungle cities.

* Establish jungle cities using your normal mid-end game city spacing. I try for 4-5 tiles between cities to maximize population in the Industrial/Modern ages.

* After the city is established you'll usually have one shield and one excess food. Build in the following order: 1 warrior (for defense and MP), one worker, and then a temple (library if you are scientific). You'll need your first culture strucuture to firm up your national boundaries.

* This may seem counterintuitive, but use your city's local worker to build roads before clearing land. You'll have plenty of time while building the culture structure, and the opportunity cost for slow movement through jungle is higher than the efficieny of clearing before roading. Have each city build it's first road back towards the capital connecting the next closest city. Once the connection is made, back the worker to his home city and start clearing jungle only on the roaded tile. Only clear roaded jungle tiles in the neighborhood until unroaded are left.

I find that since the AI doesn't like jungles, you'll be somewhat insulated from the more aggressive civs. You can set up great frontline defenses for the more ambitious ones, and your road network will give you a huge tactical advantage, especially against enemy horsie rushes. The most outlying jungle cities facing another civ should rush build city walls either before or after building the first culture structure.

Note; it's also important to mine every tile in sight. The more jungle you have the less high-shield tiles you have, and your game loss will usually come about from lack of production. Make a beeline to Engineering as soon as you hit the Medieval age so you can start planting forests.

Scott

[Shaka II]

Find the spices, silks and diamonds. Trade, get rich! At Regent, I think you should be fine. Expand toward some clear land, if you can, and send the jungle crew back later to clear the jungle. A huge map is a commitment though, so don't feel like a quitter if you hit Ctrl-Shift-Q. You might want to play it out. It can be fun to win with adverse starting conditions, but not Emperor or Deity.

I have been trying Deity recently and had a jungle start. To add insult to injury, the Greeks sneak attacked me with Hoplites and Archers, just as I was getting settled in. I think there is something in the AI for Greeks and Germans that makes them do that. Crtl-Shift-Q.

[Kuciwalker]

Just examine the first Civ3 demogame. That'll show you what to do

[Cookie Monster]

Puma/Infoscott:

You guys have me rethinking jungle starts. I play on monarch and your strategies seem like a good idea. Thanks I'll give it a try.

[sabrewolf]

knecht

have you got that 4000 BC save in your autosave folder? if so, please post it... i woundn't mind trying it and don't feel like creating my own map (i always tend to give myself too many resources then )

[Knecht]

Sorry Sabrewolf, I must have cleaned out my save folder since then (this thread has been hanging around for a couple weeks and I've started at least two games since then). That map was really a *****. I've bulled my way through a few games with a lot of jungle but that map had me in a little pocket of grassland and plains that was right on the coast of a pangaea continent and utterly surrounded by huge swathes of jungle and mountains. There was just nowhere to go but through the jungle or across the sea. I am glad I started the thread though. It generated a lot of good strategies from out there and some new and creative ways of thinking about jungle. I don't think I'll be so easily put off by the jungle blues in the future.