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**MattHiggs** · February 12, 2002, 06:06

Have you got Great Library? If not GET IT

**Harovan** · February 12, 2002, 06:28

Techs that are already known by many civs are usually cheap. My hint is: Don't put much money in research at all, but try to adjust the slider at 10-20%. Collect money. Buy techs in a bundle, trying to throw in your map (won't give many) or a luxury if you can.

Generally, if you started on a real tiny island and the AI succeeds to settle there, you must have done something wrong anyway. First thing is to found as many cities as you can, cities give beakers. Build roads everywhere, that gives gold. Only after this you should build improvements. Once you realize that you're alone at an island, beeline for Map making, all other techs are secondary! Don't spend too much money for research, this is in the early state mostly a waste. Collect money. For a thousand you should be able to buy about 10 ancient techs.

Once you find another civilization, trade for contacts (or make them yourself). Mostly the first trade with a civ is a cheap one, often they even give a tech for free to your "puny civilization". Then ask around what techs everyone has, buy techs and sell them immediately to others that don't yet have them. That helps, but doesn't work very long though, because the AI keeps to trade during your turn too.

EDIT: Well, in your current game it seems that you are in the end of the ancient and they are in the mid of medieval ages. It's though to get even in research but possible. I think, there is enough time ahead for every kind of victory. Don't play wargames while you're stuck with swordsmen, try to get to military tradition as soon as possible and try it with cavalry. Or build embassies everywhere and try to join a war AI vs. AI to get a slice of the pie

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**Patience** · February 12, 2002, 07:33

A note on building roads before libraries:

roads create commerce.

You set the percentage of commerce that should go into research beakers

It is these beakers that your libraries increase.

Therefore, it makes good sence to build up commerce, before you start building libraries, since they will not speed up research significantly in the beginning, anyway.

You lose some culture, should you choose to build them later, but since the AI is usually very slow to build buildings, you should still be able to gain culture before other civs.

I agree with sir Ralph, if you find yourself stuck on an island, Map Making becomes your No1 research priority, as it is important to gain contact with other civs.

If you would like to get some hints on the eraly game, try looking for Vel's Strat threads, Blitzer has one about the builder game, which is also a great help (for us builders, anyway

)

**Windwalker** · February 13, 2002, 02:40

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Techs that are already known by many civs are usually cheap. My hint is: Don't put much money in research at all, but try to adjust the slider at 10-20%. Collect money. Buy techs in a bundle, trying to throw in your map (won't give many) or a luxury if you can.

Generally, if you started on a real tiny island and the AI succeeds to settle there, you must have done something wrong anyway. First thing is to found as many cities as you can, cities give beakers. Build roads everywhere, that gives gold. Only after this you should build improvements. Once you realize that you're alone at an island, beeline for Map making, all other techs are secondary! Don't spend too much money for research, this is in the early state mostly a waste. Collect money. For a thousand you should be able to buy about 10 ancient techs.

Well, the AI settled on some piece of crappy tundra with no trees and one fish square near the coast, so I wasn't too mad about that. I was actually relieved that the AI finally arrived (I think they had navigation to get across the ocean).
The main problem was that even with map making and galleys, I was still not able to make contact because my galleys couldn't make it past the sea/ocean squares. Anyway, I ended up using a similar strategy as the one you laid out; since I was so close to republic (and the other civs didn't have it), I got the republic and managed to trade it (+ gold and maps) for civ contacts and the 9 or so ancient techs I was behind! I guess they all got greedy and wanted to get republic really badly! So a specialist tech beeline may work just as well as the no-science-all-commerce tactic... Thank goodness it did work in this case!

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

EDIT: Well, in your current game it seems that you are in the end of the ancient and they are in the mid of medieval ages. It's though to get even in research but possible. I think, there is enough time ahead for every kind of victory. Don't play wargames while you're stuck with swordsmen, try to get to military tradition as soon as possible and try it with cavalry. Or build embassies everywhere and try to join a war AI vs. AI to get a slice of the pie

.

Yeah, most of the other civs were late ancient, with 2 in early medieval (by the time I hit medieval, france was only a couple of turns from completing the Art of War).

However, believe it or not, I did manage to turn it around with judicious use of trading and the ultra-don't-waste-a-square-development of my island (which was about average size for a civ territory, it turned out to be, after looking at the world map). I decided that my only real chance to catch up was to beeline for the industrial age while getting the good middle age wonders. So I skipped chivalry and went straight for the techs that give you sistine/bach's/copernicus/newton's, basically passing over any non-essential tech (except music theory... unhappiness is a pretty dandy problem at regent, esp. if you set entertainment budget to 0

. Anyway, I managed to get really good deals for music theory when i was near completion of Bach's Cathedral (muahaha) and was the first to make it to the industrial age!

However, I have run into a new problem... After getting Steam Power I realized that I have absolutely no coal (I had no saltpeter either), which means I have no railroads (I am mostly concerned with the production boost they give). Also, I can't take the resources from everyone due to my lack of cavalry; no one else has extra saltpeter or coal... What should I do? Should I just beeline for tanks and hope I get rubber and oil? My long term plan rests on the spaceship, since I'm stunted militarily and I'm the leader (if only marginally) in tech. I see unused coal in france's territory, but it is deep in the heart of the empire, and I definitely don't want to tangle with france... Any suggestions?

This is a fun game!
- Windwalker

**Harovan** · February 13, 2002, 12:50

If you are still stuck at your tiny island and not planning to invade yourself, you won't need a large military. I've never seen the AI to make a massive D-Day like landing operation. In wars they usually come about 1 ship every 2 turns and drop 3-4 Knights/Cavalry or a few footsoldiers to pillage, seldom more. To deal with that, you need 10 good offensive units, not more. So beelining for tanks isn't necessary.

You don't really need coal for unit building. Those steamers are weak, wait for oil, it might be found in your tundra. May be the AI has it in the "crappy" city?

As for coal giving railroads, well, besides speeding your units up it gives a food or shield bonus over improved tiles. While you don't really need the speed (on a "tiny island"), you'll miss the bonus. If you don't wish to invade and secure an AI coal deposit, I suggest you to wait for a war AI vs. AI (there almost sure will be one). Their trade will be interrupted and you could be lucky to buy a coal. Try to buy it twice (40 turns) and crank out workers like crazy. Build RR's everywhere. You can later add the workers back. I think you'll win the space race without a problem even without coal.

**Windwalker** · February 15, 2002, 06:46

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
If you are still stuck at your tiny island and not planning to invade yourself, you won't need a large military. I've never seen the AI to make a massive D-Day like landing operation. In wars they usually come about 1 ship every 2 turns and drop 3-4 Knights/Cavalry or a few footsoldiers to pillage, seldom more. To deal with that, you need 10 good offensive units, not more. So beelining for tanks isn't necessary.

You don't really need coal for unit building. Those steamers are weak, wait for oil, it might be found in your tundra. May be the AI has it in the "crappy" city?'

You don't really need coal for unit building. Those steamers are weak, wait for oil, it might be found in your tundra. May be the AI has it in the "crappy" city?

As for coal giving railroads, well, besides speeding your units up it gives a food or shield bonus over improved tiles. While you don't really need the speed (on a "tiny island"), you'll miss the bonus. If you don't wish to invade and secure an AI coal deposit, I suggest you to wait for a war AI vs. AI (there almost sure will be one). Their trade will be interrupted and you could be lucky to buy a coal. Try to buy it twice (40 turns) and crank out workers like crazy. Build RR's everywhere. You can later add the workers back. I think you'll win the space race without a problem even without coal.

You were correct about the AI vs AI war, and France (the most powerful country) actually got taken down by a coalition of 3 other nations! In any case, there was a little hole where the coal was due to France's decline and the small cultural boundaries of the newly conquered cities. So I rushed in their with a settler and managed to snag it! I ended up with 4 cities on the new continent, and they actually turned out to be quite productive as time grew by (even without Forbidden Palace). I culture-grabbed 4 more cities before the end of the game

The key was rushing units over and disbanding them, to rush all the happiness improvements for WLTKD. Anyway, I got my railroad network setup everywhere, which led to pretty good production boosts (esp. combined with factory)...

However, you were way off when it came to the military side of things. Despite the fact that I was everyone's friend (polite or gracious), that I was only going for the spaceship, and that I was building infantry, then tanks (before anyone else, mind you), I was randomly attacked by a coalition of the Chinese and Japanese! By this time I had just gotten mech infantry, but not in all of my cities (esp. not on my expansion continent). China attacked with about 15 cavalry and 5 tanks (on my expansion continent), while Japan sent boatloads of cavs (on my main continent). If I had not built up my military as much as I did, I would of lost more than the one city that China razed! Fortunately, I formed an MPP with Egypt (costing me a tech, but who cares, I was 3 ahead of egypt already), who fought with me against the two, which led to an early peace agreement....

It seems that no matter what victory type you go for, you ALWAYS have to have a decent military, because the comp will gang-bang you if it thinks it can...

BTW, the spaceship went up in the 1970's! You were right about that one! However, Russia was growing ridiculously powerful and had engulfed about 40% of the map with its tank legions, though it still was 2-3 techs behind me and had not started the spaceship (though it could have). If not for the spaceship, I definitely would have feared the russian hordes (and they were only 1 tech away from modern armor... shudder)...

Well, thanks for your comments... That was probably the most fun civ game I've had so far... Can't wait for 1.17 and stack moving!

- Windwalker

**Harovan** · February 15, 2002, 07:03

1.17f is already here, since yesterday. Stack movement works great.

**Unregistered** · February 15, 2002, 15:46

What a nice read! Sounds like you had alot of fun with this game. Goes to show what's possible if you just dig in & keep slogging!

What size map was this on? (sorry if I missed that...)

Thanks,

**Windwalker** · February 15, 2002, 16:10

Originally posted by Unregistered
What a nice read! Sounds like you had alot of fun with this game. Goes to show what's possible if you just dig in & keep slogging!

What size map was this on? (sorry if I missed that...)

Thanks,

It was a standard map, regent, on Pangaea (but I started on the odd island, of course

)

I was really surprised that my expansion cities on the main continent were actually productive (only 40-50% corruption loss) after some work, considering they were 16-24 squares away from the FP/capitol. I never got a leader to rush the capital to the new continent, so that was that. I guess it had to do with me being the Greeks (commercial) + WLTKD + courthouse + police station + democracy.

Great stuff, I'm not really sure if I'm gonna like the higher levels, where the AI gets 2x research for the same number of beakers. Seems like you'll have to use artificial (quasi-exploits) strats to win, such as pre-building, despot pop rushes, AI trickery, etc...

- Windwalker

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