New Civ 3-er: A few questions on Reagent

[Laxe]

Hey, I've been playing Civ3-PTW for about a week now on Reagent level (I've played CTP2 for a long time before) but on this level the computer always seems to have more units than mine despite building quite a few at the beginning.

I started off as the Cathineans (sp?) on an island with ONE bottle beck leading to another island and decided to build there. However it was quite far away from my main cities but still managed to find the Romans on the other side but held back on attacking until my forces were built up and sent down but they declared war first whilst I was still building and now they out-number me a good 3-1 right now.

How do you built up such an army so quickly without sacrificing making settlers?

For those interested I've uploaded my game here as an attachment. Any adivce would be appreciated.

[Stuie]

Check out this thread for some early game tips:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58720

There are some other good threads referenced in the "Must Reads" thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59216

If you have specific questions.... fire away!!

[vulture]

One thing to note with the Cathaginians is that the Numidian Merc is pretty expensive, and building a few of those can slow down your military buildup quite noticably.

Other than that, I can't say withouth looking at your game (which someone will no doubt beat me too anyway). If I had to hazard a guess, I'd imagine that you hadn't built enough workers so all your terrain was badly underdeveloped. My rule of thumb is if I have a city working a tile that isn't fully developed (road plus mine/irrigation), then I'd do better to build a worker than another settler at this point.

[vmxa1]

At Regent they do not have any starting unit advantage over you, so if they are making more units than you it is due to a better location or they out rexed you.
vulture is correct, it is often due to not having enough workers and not using them effiecently.
The good news is you can often defeat them with fewer troops, as they will not attack with everything they have.
Check your cities and be sure to have lots of mines and all tiles that are being worked are fully improved.

[Laxe]

Well it's true that Hippo (my city nearest the choke-point is considerably far away from my other cities but as those who have d/led my save game will notice I have built a road leading there bu unfortunately barbarians keep on popping up hence hidnering my workers (and killing them).

As for my other cities I have had workers on them constantly but due to me spawning 4 already before sending my settler down to the choke-point I had two constantly working together to clear jungles and build roads etc. and one workong on tiles somewhere else. Should I build a flock of them or concentrate them more cos I don't want to waste turns building workers when I can be building more settlers and units?

Also HOW effective are armies cos I've also managed to get two GL's at some point after the save (or before) but they're overall defensive strength aren't as effective as using the leaders singely to defend my city?

[bongo]

I looked at the save and Man, you've got lots of jungle

First, you should have built hippo two tiles SW, on the hill. That would have stopped the romans from bypassing the city without boats. Those hills also gives you a nice 50% defensive bonus. As it is now they can walk right past the city and head for your core.

The long road leading to hippo does you no good. As is the romans(and barbarian) will use it. You should have built a string of cities along the road. Ideally you would build hippo on the hill on the chokepoint, and build a line cities south of theveste, building road after you build the cities. We call it backfilling

Workers need to be defended, if they need to be in barb-threatened area, they should get some escort. Another tip, dont irrigate grassland while you are in despotism, mine it!

Leaders are great but you have to spend them. They have no use in their initial form. Hurry a wonder or make an army. Armies are great too, especially against legions but you have to fill them up with strong units to make them useful. Three swordmen in an army can work wonders against legions. Two swords and a num med would also be good.

Num meds. are great but you only need a few along the front.

[ducki]

Originally posted by bongo
build a line cities south of theveste, building road after you build the cities. We call it backfilling

Just two quick points.
First, just semantics - I was under the impression that backfilling meant building cities at the extent of your intended empire and THEN building cities from the outside in - filling in your empire backwards. Roads aren't really part of the back-filling equation as I understood it.

Secondly, I'd disagree, as would some of the old-timers here, about building roads after building cities. On the 'Winning Early - What do YOU do' thread, IIRC, some of the oldtimers recommend having a roadcrew that just builds roads for two purposes - 1)getting your settlers to their city-spot faster and 2)getting your military to your opponents faster.

I would recommend - since, IIRC, Carthage is Industrious - a two-man road-crew with a spearman/Num.Merc. doing nothing but building roads out ahead of your settlers and the chokepoint, then, heading straight for your enemies, enabling trade, reinforcements and considerably faster settlement.

That's just my opinion, though, I'm no expert.

[bongo]

Ideally your road-network would be complete just in time for the settler. But with all this jungle I would simply build my cities where I want them and follow with the workers. Then you don't have to worry about worker escort, you will also take advantage of the roaded and cleared city tile.

Laxe , this game is different from ctp2, you will need many games to get used to it. One tip, zone of control is almost non-existent in PTW.

[vmxa1]

BTW if you want to keep up or out do the AI take a look at some of teh AU games and see how it is done. Some have very detailed step by step logs of the play. Look at the ones at Monarch, I don;t remember any at a lower level (other than some very rigged maps).

[Laxe]

Ah, where might I find these logs of AU games?

[vmxa1]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=83557

All of the AU games are in this thread. Some are pre AU and some are special settings, such as AU208 (no peace allowed).
You can find the saves and the AAR/DAR threads here as well.
AAR/DAR are action reports that give some details of what the player did during a set of turns.

[Theseus]

BTW, Laxe, AAR means After Action Report, and DAR meaning During... (we changed to that format to better share our learnings).

Welcome aboard!!