Vel's Strategy Thread - Part Three

[David Weldon]

Originally posted by vmxa1
[snip] I suspect that you could handle 15-20 workers if you can take the pain.

Vmax, this is why I always play industrial civs. I play standard size maps because anything larger gets _way_ too tedious to enjoy. Even with Industrious I have about 30 normal workers and perhaps 50 captured workers by the end of the Medieval Age. Later on it can grow well beyond 100 total workers and I control them all myself. It definitely sucks but it makes a _huge_ difference in the quality of my empire. I can easily beat Deity if I control them myself. If I let the computer control most of them, I struggle at Monarch. I don't change anything else, but just the inefficiency of automated workers destroys my empire's growth and development.

Of course, the more militaristic you choose to play, the less important it is to have a well-developed empire, but then you have to worry about moving around 100s of military units. I guess there's just no escaping the late-game tedium...

Full Disclosure:
I'm a massive micro-manager. I change the science slider to eek out extra gold on the turn before an advance, I move citizens to balance production/growth rates so that units or improvements are produced exactly when needed. I move citizens to avoid wasting production on the turn a unit is to be produced. I renegotiate deals exactly on the 20th turn before the AI has a chance to complain about or cancel them. I make workers work in groups so that after one turn the city gets benefit, and then the workers move to the next square (instead of spreading them out and waiting 'till they're all done). I buy smaller units so that when I switch to the real unit I want then the remaining production is provided by the city in the same turn. You get the idea...

Interestingly, almost all of these things could be avoided if Firaxis just wrote a little code to make them unnecesary. They can almost all be accomplished without any input or effort from the player and it would be _really_ nice to rely on the computer to manage "computer-like" things such as not wasting beakers or shields on the last turn or grouping workers enough to get the job done in one turn. Oh well, I guess Firaxis feels it would have been nice if they could finish the game before it was shipped, too...

[vmxa1]

I am up for doing most of what you talk about in the early part of the game. Eventually I have too many workers and I get frustrated at trying to figure out what to have each one do. It is ugly to see 20-30 all head for the same tile ( I have seen even more than 30). It is even worse (and this should be fixed) to see them head across someones border or go to the edge of the culture border and stand next to a calv unit while you are at war with that civ. If the unit is on their tile, they do not seem to notice the danger. If they are out and about and see a unit get in range they will head back to town. In games where I am just razing cities at the end, I just disband the workers on the spot instead of sending them back. I do the same with the old cannons/cats etc. The shields are not need at that point and I do not want to bother with it. That level of management is useful at the start, but I do not need it once I get rolling. I also see them improve squares that are never going to be occupied as no city has it in its radius. In civ2 I did not allow this as the upkeep hurt and one settler for each city was enough.

[Harovan]

vmxa1:

As far as I know, automated workers never improve tiles outside of a city radius, with 2 exceptions:

- they build roads (not RRs) everywhere, to make sure all strategic resources are connected with their upcoming
- they may need to build an "irrigated bridge" to the next fresh water supply

Also, I seldom see stacks of more than, say, 3-4 guys at the same tile. This might happen, but I suppose mostly because they lack of other work. Never happens to me, because after discovering sanitation pollution becomes a permanent problem.

I agree, their working schedule and the way they work is far from being optimal, but they do a nice "basic job" and I may disband them later (or join cities, carefully with captured!) and fine tune the improvements with a few surviving workers.

I find it impossible micromanaging all workers, if their total number exceeds 30-40 or the map is larger than standard, or else your turns will last very long. You can't keep in mind all of their tasks and will also often meet "automated decisions", which may follow another "algorithm", but basically isn't much more efficient. And nothing sucks more during a long war, than hords of workers asking for a job every turn, while you are planning defense or a cavalry ride.

[Latte Boy]

My Purist 2 cents

I discovered these threads just about a week ago, and all I can say is wow, thanks for all of the great tips!

The early discussions regarding Purist strat really got me thinking. I'm one of those that hates overlapping city tiles and pop-rushing. However, I took Vel's excellent advice and really considered my playing style. I have some insight for you other Purists out there who may be ignoring some great tactics here.

Regarding settler/worker farms and small cities that just crank out units. Think about the real world. There are lots of little rural towns full of farmers where the young folks pack up and leave for the big city. These are your settler/worker farms. There are also lots of relatively small, industrialized towns where practicality (i.e. jobs for an industrial work force) outweighs any cultural or environmental concerns. There are actually relatively few great cultural centers on earth. Sure, France has Paris, but how many little farming villages and industrial sea ports do they have? I'll bet a lot more than some of us think.

After looking at it this way, the ICS strategy seems less vile to me (no comment on it's worth; remember, I'm a Purist at heart). Also, even looking at my overly-anal city placement, I realized that I still have what amounts to a couple of settler farms and industrial centers. There's just no avoiding it in the early game. I've loosened up a bit on my city placement, and have found many benefits. Besides, lots of cities in the real world overlap each other, especially with urban sprawl.

My point is that we should all look at each other's strategies and use what we can. I still only pop-rush when absolutely necessary (being invaded or settled a city right on another civ's border), but do recognize that it's necessary. Do we really think the pyramids were built on a 5 day work week, with regular 15 minute breaks?

Sorry for the length, here.

[Arrian]

Workers

Though I don't think my micromananging reaches the levels David Weldon desribed, I am one who simply CANNOT trust the computer to do something on its own, like control my workers. No way, no how. The patchwork design of irrigation/mines I see in AI empires has convinced me of this. Why? I rarely irrigate. Sure, enough to get a city growing, but it's still mostly mines. I don't want my cities to grow beyond size 20, since specialists are useless, and larger cities start to get cranky. Pre-hospitals, they can only get to 12, so I tend to mine everything and set up the citizens such that there is no food surplus. I also delay hospitals until I have mass transit because I HATE pollution, and large cities pollute a ton.

I build relatively few workers, until it's time to RR my empire. Usually, the work gets done primarily by captured workers. Once the RR's are built, my "native" workers get joined into cities, so that I have only foreign workers left. These are for pollution control and for mining/rr the occasional mountain that I've missed. If they have nothing to do, I "fortify" them in stacks out in the open, and generally know where those stacks are if I need to clean up pollution, or decide I want something changed.

Actually, I suppose it's not entirely true that I build relatively few workers. Early on, I have a bunch, in relation to my # of cities. I don't find workers tedious in the beginning, because there is a lot for them to do, and usually I don't have to scroll to the other end of a big empire and "goto" them, and then order them to do something. My worker count tends to drop in the middle ages, spike in the industrial, and drop to minimal in the modern age. I've even found myself disbanding foreign workers sometimes, if I have more than I'll ever need.

-Arrian

[Skeletal Dragon]

Hey hey hey... Specialists aren't -total- crap y'know. Taxmen are great if u got several size 20+ city, so u can get like 7-8 of them working in each one. That extra 7-8 GPT a turn from each city adds up once u start getting more cities rolling.

I find myself having a lack of worker jobs in the Middle Ages since they've usually finished all their tasks by the time I get to Gunpowder/Chemistry. So they usually sit around for 20 turns or so until I get Steam Engine and Railroad. And after that, I only keep 5 or so around to clean up pollution and the rest can go join cities.

[Arrian]

Skeletal - I'll grant you that point, but I'd rather not have to deal with keeping 7 or 8 extra people happy for the 1 gold/turn each they produce. I've never been strapped for cash that late in the game anyway.

Latte Boy - good points. I do sometimes build cities with slight overlaps, but usually aim for none - even if a few good terrain squares are wasted. I realize that this may not be the best strategy, but I don't care. If I approached this game from a purely rational "by what means can I most easily and assuredly win?" viewpoint, I'd just ICS + Despot rush. *Shivers* This may be why I've been avoiding trying Emperor and Diety thus far. I have won spectacularly on Monarch, but I've also lost and/or quit out of many games - some of which were really, really ugly (not that I played them out to the bitter end... you know pretty early on if you're in an untenable situation). This is a result of my "purist" type strategy, which either does really well, or blows up in my face. I must admit, however, Vel's warrior upgrade idea does NOT conflict with my "purist" tendancies, as it involves normal city building, no pop-rushed units, and only requires 1 detour on the tech tree early on. And there is a perfect example of a "warmonger" type strat. that I wouldn't have really considered until Vel brought it up.

Speaking of Vel... we're coming up on the post limit, no? And you seem pretty involved with your mod... are these "Vel's strategy threads" to continue?

-Arrian

[Brinoch]

Workers, and new gaming thoughts

Prior to opening my big mouth and possibly sticking my foot in there, let me say that this is my first post. I've been reading this site for some time now, and some of the ideas here have been fabulous.

Certainly the strategies discussed have made a tremendous difference in my game play. I started playing as if this was Civ II. It's not; instead, it's a completely new game -- with some similarities. I still have trouble getting over that hump. Like Arrian, I prefered a peaceful builder game. But, new strategies were needed, like REXing and oscillating war, to round out my gameplay.

In my most recent game, I'm playing the Persians on a Standard map, continents, 70% water. This is the first time I've played the Persians, and wow, they are phenomenal. I decided that I would institute a variation of Vel's oscillating war prior to starting. Upon exploring my vicinity, I discovered I was on a continent with the Zulu and the Babylonians. I went for Iron Working to take advantage of the Immortal ASAP, but I didn't let that slow my first war down.

Instead, I brought several Warriors against the Babylonians immediately after discovering their location. I razed Ur, one of their two cities, and brought him to the table right away. A nice deal rich in tech and bucks per turn later, I took my veteran warriors (and some regulars, too) to bear on the Zulu. I augmented this force with my Immortals which were coming on line in force. The battles netted three cities for keeps and I had to raze two others that were too close to his Capitol (and too far from mine) to keep. (unfortunately, this basically wasted my GA...)

These battles not only netted me tech and money, but also a commanding position on the continent and a stranglehold of all the Horses and Iron on the continent. And, plenty of workers. I think all told I had captured some 20 odd workers from the Zulu and Babylonians.

This worker force, in addition to my own dozen industrious Persian workers, was enough to quickly build up the infrastructure in a cheap fashion.

I tried to automate the workers, figuring that 30 odd workers on a standard map would be tedious to deal with. However, the AI simply didn't do what I wanted. As mentioned before, they computer 'checkerboard' the map with irrigation and mining -- often ignoring shielded grasslands. With the discovery of steam power and my coal reserves, I wanted to quickly implement my railroads but the AI spread them out within the confines of one city. Luckily, my advantage in tech still allowed me to complete the railnet, despite this error, prior to anyone else.

I now just deal with the workers, one square at a time, and ignore automate.

Just for the record, after the two early wars, I ceased fighting against the Babs and Zulu. I had hamstrung them and driving in the stake would do nothing but kill them. I didn't want to do that at this point. The rest of the civs (Aztecs, French, Americans, and Iroquois) were across the ocean on another continent, and the Germans were alone on a decent-sized island nearby (almost in between the two larger continents). My galleys were the first to make the long voyage -- also netting me extra money for selling communications and acting as a clearing-house for technology.

Eventually, the Aztecs and French eliminated the Iroquois and Americans, splitting the large continent between them. While they bogged down in war, I focused on technology and culture. They took a while and moved ahead with some serious rapidity. With some judicious trading for older techs in industrial, the ToE Wonder gave me Replacement Parts and Corporation (I finished radio the next turn).

Now, with the Industrial age in full swing and the Theory of Evolution, Hoover Dam, and Women's Sufferage all mine (no wonders left), I picked on the Babs again. (They invaded my territory and declared war on me... Why? I can only surmise that they couldn't afford the payments for a tech (Sanitataion) I sold them. They were dead last in the Histograph--including the Iroquois and Americans who are dead--and I'm second or third.) I took all their cities on the continent (leaving them one left overseas). Unfortunately, this put me in a war with Germany. (MPP with Babylon, and I hate re-starting saves). So, I took a third of their empire--all their nice silk producing cities. They quickly came to the table and I make a handsome profit trading those silks to them and the rest of the world.

The Zulu are next--I just picked up refining and discovered the Zulu have the three oil on the continent, all clustered together around one city. Can't have that. I want tanks. Now.

After the Zulu, I plan to zoom over and smack the Aztecs with my friends the French. Then, I'll smack the French with whoever is so kind as to join me.

So, to distill my experiences from the games I've played recently: Oscillating war is a critical strategy to strengthening your early game position. In addition, one should also consider an early industrial oscillation as well (after Replaceable parts and as you head to refining). If you complete the wars in the early game correctly, it will leave both (or all nearby) civs weak. In the Industrial age, you are discovering many new resources -- coal, rubber, and oil -- and it's certainly possible you won't have one. This late game oscillation can take down those mid-level civs, net you resources and luxuries you might not have and set you up for the late game spaceship or domination.

Of course, you don't *need* an industrial oscillation to set yourself up, but it sure is nice. Especially if you target your rivals and draw them into expensive and deadly contests they won't be able to stop. It will also possibly draw them into a government switch, and that will slow them down sooner.

Now, I do know that many will avoid war with Cavalry against infantry -- I do too. But, so long as you have plenty of artillery, Cavalry and Infantry will do the trick. It's also pretty important to strike quick and fast, too. If you don't, you're liable to see those city populations drop from conscription.

I'm a huge advocate of artillery. If anything, I believe that artillery (and Radar artillery) is a little overpowered. Hitting cities from two spaces away, dropping their pop., the strength of their defending units, and destroying roads and improvements is very powerful and not to be ignored. Most of my wars are won quickly with tremendous use of arty fire. The drop in pop. allows me to use fewer troops to garrison, reduces the defenders effectiveness and springboards my campaign that much quicker.

War in Civ III is a serious business and you need a plan and a goal. For example, in my war with the Zulu, my goal is their oil and their Wonder city with the Pyramids. Now, bringing them to the table will take more than two cities, so I'll target several other weaker cities (using that spy handily planted earlier in the game) without great defenses. My experience is somewhere between a 1/3 and 1/2 of a Cic, post-patch, will bring them to the table. I like to fight in Republic and Democracy so that means a quick war, and preferably one you don't start. War weariness is a pain you don't want to endure, so speed is critical.

Okay, that's it... just some thoughts.

[David Weldon]

Arrian:
It's funny that some people keep foreign workers and some people get rid of them. For me it's simply a question of tedium. If my empire isn't too big or I'm not getting sick of things yet, then I definitely keep them because they're _free_! Once the game moves on, however, I find that gold doesn't matter as much to me as the extra pain of having to command twice as many workers to get anything done, so all my outsiders get thrown into cities just after hospitals.

Oh, and I agree about not playing Deity games, I don't think they're much fun at all. I get a lot more pure enjoyment out of Monarch games where I can afford a few sub-optimal turns or even some outright screw-ups. At higher levels the handicapping system makes CivIII feel a whole lot more like work than it should.

Brinoch:
Your post brings to mind something that I occasionally do that relates to oscillating war and also to workers. Until Republic it doesn't matter how long you're at war, so I will sometimes beat a neighbor civ down to one or two cities only, and then use them forever more to train troops and to build workers for me. I don't declare peace until after I switch to Republic. Really what happens is that the civ produces settlers and then sends them out with escorts to try and expand, but I sit near their border with horsemen and capture them. It works better for me than having to actually build settlers, especially because the captured workers don't count against your unit allowance.

[Arrian]

Yeah, oscillating war is a pretty good strategy, but I find that I tend to oscillate a bit slower...

My first attack is either late ancient or early medieval age. The second is either early medieval or late medieval (Cavalry). The first one usually sets up a strong position, the second generally puts me way ahead. If I fight again, it's usually with Tanks or Modern Armor.

Now, often the above results in more than three wars. Other civs get involved... other people pick fights with me... you know how it goes. But, in general, I try to fight wars of agression at particularly times in the game (in terms of tech). I like to try and hold my golden age until the early middle ages, and take advantage of the power of Knights, and then the Cavalry those Knights become (for a ridiculously cheap 20gold each!), while building the key wonders.

This is totally different to my style in Civ II. If I could avoid war until I had howitzers and spies, I would. I spent all of my time building city after city, building the usually improvements, racing ahead in tech, and building wonders with the help of swarms of caravans. Then, in a veritable blink of an eye, I conquered the world - all except for one AI city, which was allowed to live while I perfected the world (as much as I could before the tedium drove me insane) and finally launched the spaceship.

Hmm... I seem to get a little attached to 1 particular formula... but Civ III still forces me out of it once and a while - usually because of resources, luxuries, or a smarter (if still pretty dumb in many ways) AI.

-Arrian

p.s. I have discovered another reason to love knights. They simply aren't as overwhelming as Cavalry are - the war takes longer. Why is that good? Well, I find myself getting leaders. Cav sometimes runs over my enemies so fast that I don't get any.

[ChrisShaffer]

Re: Re: Automating workers/Governors

Originally posted by David Weldon
I should mention my best strategy for citizen management:
I save the game at the end of every turn (instead of at the beginning like the autosave). If a city goes into revolution because I was too weary to look at each one in turn and count the icons, then I re-load the turn and fix it. This doesn't change any battle outcomes or anything like that because the seed is saved, and it allows me to avoid wasting 2 turns of production from a city because the interface sucks. I wish they would flag cities in the domestic advisor with a visible mark if they had more unhappy than happy citizens...*sigh*...

I wish they would put in a pop-up the turn before revolt, and not the turn after.

[Brinoch]

Originally posted by David Weldon


Brinoch:
Your post brings to mind something that I occasionally do that relates to oscillating war and also to workers. Until Republic it doesn't matter how long you're at war, so I will sometimes beat a neighbor civ down to one or two cities only, and then use them forever more to train troops and to build workers for me. I don't declare peace until after I switch to Republic. Really what happens is that the civ produces settlers and then sends them out with escorts to try and expand, but I sit near their border with horsemen and capture them. It works better for me than having to actually build settlers, especially because the captured workers don't count against your unit allowance.

Now this is a particularly neat idea. I wish I'd thought of it. Darn good thinking.

This tactic might also be good for getting leaders in a crucial time -- as Arrian pointed out in his post about using Knights rather than Cavalry during his Medieval war.

I would certainly use this tactic if the Civ has nothing to offer -- no real money, technology, luxuries, etc. And, frankly, that can happen a lot when you hamstring a Civ early. Personally, I haven't had a lot of success in finding Barbarian camps I can use for my 'Proving Ground,' so this can take their place *and* supply me with some free workers. I'm gonna try this in my next game (whenever that may be...)

Just as another thought with workers -- I was playing a game (as France) and I had a mass of captured workers (Persian this time). As I reached the end of their usefulness, I sold them back to the Persians -- who were at the time giving me a run the money on technology. It wasn't for any great amount, but, it was around 15 or 20 workers and he was a Democracy. The Gold per turn he gave, plus the extra upkeep, dropped his science rate and he never caught up after that point. It was a peaceful way to slow him down and gain an advantage. Granted, I can't say for sure this is what slowed him down, but my instinct says so.

Brinoch

[Velociryx]

Not to worry Arri....it's true that the mod stuff has been what's been on my mind the most lately (which is why I STILL haven't gotten back to those civ-analysis essays--but they're still on the list!)

As to the strat threads.....you bet they'll continue! I'll start compiling all the highlights of this latest one to gear up for starting the next....only this time, I'm gonna take the advice given earlier and post a downloadable file of the highlights.....IIRC, the highlights were more than 10 posts long...!

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

That is a cool idea about playing "whack a settler" with a beaten foe pre-republic... but my problem is that I often don't fight until after I've make the switch to republic, which I do at the first opportunity.

However, since WLTKD does seem to give the old CivII style trade bonus under Monarchy (I investigated London at one point while the English were a Monarchy, and to my surprise, it was producing republic/demo levels of commerce. Then Liz decided she couldn't afford one of my luxuries and cancelled the deal. London dropped out of WLTKD, and upon further investigation, lost the commerce bonus), this strat. could work well if you have access to a bunch of luxuries. Just switch to Monarchy - your big cities w/marketplaces will be in WLTKD and produce republican levels of commerce, but you won't have war weariness. The outlying cities will suffer a bit, but not much that early. Sit there with elite units, and kill those spearmen/settler teams. You may get a leader, or at the least, 2 workers. Not too shabby.

Vel - good to hear it. Or maybe not... since you started these threads, my productivity at work has taken a nosedive.

-Arrian

p.s. Speaking of nasty fates for beaten civs, a friend of mine was finishing a game last night where he knocked the AI down to two cities (he didn't win domination, b/c he razed nearly three full empires, instead of capturing the cities - he has never seen the SS video, so he's going for that). Before making peace, he broke every terrain improvement they had left. Then, after he made peace, he set up a right of passage with them, and fortified Modern Armor in every square of their territory.

[Skeletal Dragon]

Now there's an interesting topic... WLT*D... I've found that its only useful in fringe cities or early on in the game when you don't have Sanitation. When you get hospitals and start to get populations in the range of 20+, it becomes too bothersome to try to get the citizens to be happy with entertainers/luxuries/whatever. Once you DO establish WLT*D in those cities, the output of the city actually tends to be higher without WLT*D, since you'd need a massive amount of entertainers and an obscene luxury level to keep a size 20+ city happy. I usually don't bother with WLT*D anyways because I almost always never have fringe cities because I like core cities better (and razing captured enemy cities too! Mwahahahaha!)