Playing at Emperor on a Huge archipelago

[FrustratedPoet]

Sorry if I've missed something, but what version is this?

I know it is regular Civ3 - but is it patched up to v1.29f?

/edit: I've downloaded the saves and I'll play from 3950BC later this evening (I'm at work now).
I'll save at 950BC to compare with the Mountain Sage original and try to work up a comparitive AAR (which might take a few days).
Should be interesting to see how I do since I usually play Monarch.

[bongo]

I still find 1 worker per city a bit much when I am industrious. I often go down to 0.5-0.75 +slaves. I have to add that I still play at monarch, maybe I need more workers at emperor. I will find out, just have to finish my current game first. My next game will be at emperor.

[Mountain Sage]

bongo and FrustratedPoet,

About Workers: I (almost) always build 1 Worker per city, usually it'is my 1st unit. The goal is to improve 3-4 tiles asap, without moving Workers from city to city.
After that, Workers expand the road network outwards (not necessarily useful if you're on a small continent/island, I agree). This helps tremendously on Pangea for Settlers/luxuries/resources (even for early wars!). It also helps a lot if you have jungle.
Then, when I plan to settle another continent, I bring some Workers with me.
Lastly, with 1 Worker/city (as industrious), all tiles will be improved by Steam Power, so all my Workers can build RR.
And finally, polluted patches get 'de-contaminated' in 1 turn (this is why I never build Mass Transit).

Bongo: slave-keeping is outlawed in my game, by direct order of Her... Joan of Arc.
The version is v1.29f. No jungle this time.

Germany? up to now, AD 550 (more or less), I'm 3 turns away from Theory of Evolution, then I'll go for Hoover Dam (pre-built Palace already started), the Germans are as meek as lambs since I feed them every couple of turns a world/territory map.

As I will play only up to the UN, if the Germans come with Panzers I will be only a few Techs before the end, but you're right, I should beware. Maybe I'll go to war (nominally, of course!) with some distant civ, and enroll them to fight for me. It will keep them occupied

I know I'm a bit crazy, but I would like to finish this game with my actual Military (2 Spearmen and 1 Galley). I'll let you know of course, and I will post another save this week-end.

[bongo]

I finally got to take a look at your saves. What impressed me the most was the size of your army!! I had the impression that the AI will go after you very quickly if you are too weak. How do you manage to keep them away? Are you a super-diplomat or what!

I always take slaves, lots of them As a matter of fact I have never built more than 4 workers in any of my game.

[Mountain Sage]

bongo,

Try to get some slaves with my 'army'?

In my case, you could go to war only after Map Making, which means you'll lose too many turns without terrain improvements with only 4 Workers.

Frankly, I don't know if I am a 'super-diplomat' but, yes, diplomacy is essential in this kind of game.


Theseus,

I just went thru cracker's masterwork and I stand
I owe you one...
Now I understand why I thought Emperor was so difficult

I'll go back and re-work lots of terrain improvements. At least with the French it will be quickly done...

[bongo]

I have no limit on how many workers I can build, it just so happens that by the time I have built my fourth worker I'm already beating my neighbours to a pulp and therefore get enough slaves so I don't have do build workers myself anymore.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Mountain Sage
How can you improve happiness with more Workers? I don't need more of them, they're outpacing the cities' growth anyway. In 370AD they finished improving every single tile.

By getting rid of unhappy citizens. At 10 shields, I don;t really worry about OVERbuilding Workers... when ready, just join them to newer cities for faster growth.

[Mountain Sage]

Theseus,

As I understand, I build a Worker in a city and an unhappy citizen becomes the newly-build Worker. Then the Worker is added to another city for faster growth.
Fine, I take your point.
But then, my first city will produce less shields and gold until it's up to its former size and I can add the Worker to another city only if I have food enough to feed the increased city size. Correct?
So Worker transfert becomes the 'great equalizer' in respect of city size, specially if you're not expanding any more.
But then, you should not do do this to all your cities, since you want some city with maximum production for Wonders.
Mmmm... a fine line. Anything I missed? And many thanks

[bongo]

I don't think that producing a worker to get rid of an unhappy citizen is smart. As you said, you loose some production. Producing a worker to get rid of an entertainer may be smarter as you don't loose a productive citizen.

Edit: Theasus, I read your post one more time and found that I missed some finer point of your worker strategy. Build the workers needed to do the job, when their services are no longer needed, join them to a city. The cost of bringing a citizens out on the field to improve something is just 10 shield.

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by Theseus
MS, some highlights looking at the first 950BC save:

Waaait a minute...

I just did max trading... this is heavily modded, yes?


I will say that whatever the mod is, it gave AI Egypt the ability to do incredibly well from a crap start... anybody involved in the AU Mod, you gotta check this out.

Theseus,

I believe I missed not only an episode, but the whole book. Can you direct me to a thread explaining what a mode is and what it does?
And I thought I was just playing Civ3 bought in a store + the v1,29f patch....
Well, so much to learn...

[bongo]

Have you turned on accelerated growth? The food-boxes look 'funny'...

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by bongo
I don't think that producing a worker to get rid of an unhappy citizen is smart. As you said, you loose some production. Producing a worker to get rid of an entertainer may be smarter as you don't loose a productive citizen.

It is situational. If the next citizen is going to make the city go into unrest as it often does at Emp/Deity, you lose the production anyway. If you do not have the luxs or other means to placate the pop, you have to keep the numbers down.

[Mountain Sage]

bongo,

Maybe it's all the irrigation... care to post a screenshot and comment it? Now you have me puzzled...

In my parallel game (real warmonger) I replaced lots of irrigation by mines. I must admit production IS better, but I have other worries. The Egyptians are down and I attacked the Germans. Gee! I never had a military of 60+ Cavalry.
Arrian's Gimini Cricket is on a very slippery slope

[bongo]

Here is a capture of one of your cities.

Hope this works, it's my first file attachement...

[bongo]

Here is a city from one of my own games. The size is equal and the tech-level is roughly the same. Note that the food- and production-boxes have twice the number of lines in my city than in yours. From what I remember in the manual thats exactly what 'accelerated production' does but I have never tried it myself so I'm not 100% sure.