1.17f strategy

[Ironikinit]

Right, so no more need to backfill techs now. I still ended up with the dead ends eventually, although I didn't get espionage until the mid-modern. The AI tends to tack them on to deals or I picked them up in peace treaties, treating worthless techs with the contempt they deserve. I offered my world map and got free artistry and 3 gold, for example. Shakespeare's Theater was completed, of course.

IMO, the Theory of Evolution is an important wonder as it gave me the tech lead and as a large democracy I was able to keep it despite AI tech trading. I'll have to see if it as useful in future games. Since the techs can now be chosen and backfilling isn't required, IMO the ToE is more important under 1.17.

[Xin Yu]

Well, I suppose you can still do high research rate, and just before the ToE is done, switch to another tech. After getting your free techs, switch backthen continue.

[Ironikinit]

What would be the advantage? You get the tech you're researching + 1 of your choice. AFAIK switching research causes all generated beakers to be lost.

[Xin Yu]

Originally posted by Ironikinit
AFAIK switching research causes all generated beakers to be lost.

Oops, you are right. They only keep your research for the same turn. The next turn it got lost.

[Panag]

ya know one thing that is not good with the theory is this ;

ya have to put your science low for whatever reason ya build the thing and then , only one advance , if you look at it good , grrrr , not only that , say , ya make a mod , and in the editor , you have marked somewhere , "+2advances" , ya only get one ! grrr

imagine you are like only 2-3 or even 1 turn away from a new tech , BANG , all the work for nothing , aint life great , in civ3 , LOOOOOOL just nice , just nice , okay , if we make ourselves heard loud enough , maybe someone , somewhere' will think of it in patch number so and so , ...........................


have a nice day

[DrSpike]

I'll have whatever he's having

[Encomium]

Originally posted by Arrian
. . . the biggest change is the AI tech trading. They trade techs immediately to each other at low cost (not for nothing, I've seen dirt poor AI's fall way behind). Though I found this VERY frustrating, I found that buying or trading for tech from the AI was pretty cheap too. . .

-Arrian

With Culture Flipping still occuring despite garrisons; with outrageous extortionate trade demands from rival civs; with civs constantly swapping techs cheaply; and with the AI cheating at least as bad as ever. . . my best strategy is to go back to 1.16. I'll miss stack movement, but that's all.

1.17 is simply the Human Against the World. No sale.

[Zouave]

Originally posted by Encomium


With Culture Flipping still occuring despite garrisons; with outrageous extortionate trade demands from rival civs; with civs constantly swapping techs cheaply; and with the AI cheating at least as bad as ever. . . my best strategy is to go back to 1.16. I'll miss stack movement, but that's all.

1.17 is simply the Human Against the World. No sale.

Will you ever stop harping on these things? Anybody who has read this forum in the last month is quite aware of your feelings. Let it go.

[DrSpike]

LOL

Well at least the humans V AI gripe is new...........and not exactly unfair.

[radegast]

Only one game played anywhere near completion on 1.17f. A few losses (Babylon got stomped by 100Ad, but then it started on a jungle/desert peninsular with no iron/horses/saltpeter and not much contact either). Only one luxury too.

Strategy doees not seem to have changed much with this patch other than I have to trade a lot more than before (when the AI allows this).

Playing Huge, 16 civs, Romans, Emporor all random. Tech advanced very fast indeed, I'd researched nuclear power by the mid 17th Century!

I've stayed in republic since i discovered it, the faster workers in democracy is not much of an issue, I've got 100 or so foriegn workers plus many others from the worker farms (see later), so cleaning up/building anything is no big deal. My core (original) empire is fully developed with most cities stable in population and producing tank/mech inf/mod armour every 1 2 or 3 turns.

I have more armies than in any other game (about 15 at the moment), making the capture of cities fairly guaranteed and relatively costless.

I control about 1/3 of the planet, with the English and Greeks my only serious competitors. (America were, but now they aren't!).

I'm now at about 100 cities, most of which are hopelessly corrupted. But there is 25 or so that have good solid production, fully built up so the armour just keeps rolling out.

An army of 250+ units, all mod/arm mech/inf with a few elite tanks/infantry/cavalry still hanging about. Plenty Arty,Airforce,Navy and Nukes around too. Oh, and an elite legionairre kept for sentimental reasons as the Palace guard. Actually these guys did sterling service in the industrial age, polishing off heavily damaged cavalry in stacks, garrisoning the mountain fortresses on the borders (even got it to take a chunk out a a passing cavalry once, so fortress ZOC obviously do work, at least on occasion), and generally rushing to where just 'one more unit' was needed.

What I have done this time is I'm getting some use of of my totally corrupt cities. Almost all of these have access to sufficient food for them to produce a worker every 10 turns or so.

I tend not to raze AI cities as this tends to slow down the blitzkrieg, espicially on established civs and cities. I'll raze peripheral cities, and even central ones if I've got a settler who can build immediately and the borders don't look to overlap. Sometimes the new city gets founded one square away.

I counter city flipping by destroying the host empire! Or at least by bouncing their capital a long way away, and giving some peace treaty cities away if I have too. City flipping really only becomes a major problem in the late game anyway, so early wars are usually not to destruction. Unless I can that is!

Basically, on capturing a city and deciding not to raze and rebuild, I'll start a temple right away. 60 turns, yeah right. So, normally I'll disband an artillery of two and pay the rest once resistance has been crushed. I use arillery mainly because once the blitz is underway, arty can't usually keep up and is relativly cheap. And building arty is better than building wealth because I don't have to use it to 'rush', I can use for offence/defence is I need too.

The temple is built to ensure cultural expansion, and hece borders If the captured city has no market place it is put straight onto making workers, if it has a market place then it will sometimes be able to produce a few shields from a large population, so these get to produce a factory or cathederal depending on the overall luxury state of the nation.

This is because a totally corrupt city can stiil produce normal food, and hence can produce population which can be turned into workers which can either work, or can be joined into productive cities. Most major cities are poulation stable with at most one or two specialists which will get consumed into workers/settlers every so often.

The AI has a propensity to draft/force labor to extremes so its is not uncommon to have cities with just one pop who is a specialist, so no growth at all. These just get settler disbanded and rebuilt, expensive but it pays back over time.

This feature does cause me a lot of frustration though, it wasn't me who drafted/forced laboured them yet they blame me for it. Doesn't seem right to me.

Often I'll use my own workers to 'dilute' the foriegn nationals in a newly captured city, I'm not sure this helps with the flip but it seems to. I've generally got enough workers anyway.

The AI loves sending its troops across my territory, these will get funnelled back with worker/unit walls if I don't fancy the risk of war by demanding withdrawal. By the end game, workers are just there to depolute there is often little point in improving much of the captured lands past building roads/railways/irrigation, and most of this has been done already.

[Aeson]

Deity/Huge/Pangaea/8AI 950BC

I played several openings to games until I got the perfect start. I was able to get every Ancient Era tech from huts, along with 3 Settlers (two kinda late though). The Pangaea was split into at least 2, with only 5 of the AI on my continent. I was able to get the Great Lighthouse, which slowed down my expansion, but should pay off as I will be the first one to make contact with the other 3 AI. I was never able to trade tech or maps for gold per turn, even when the AI were visably making 15-20 gold every turn. I still was able to get most of their gold by selling my map every turn though.

I had a tech lead of 5+ on each of the other Civs once I hit the Middle Ages 8 turns ago. The entire continent was mapped out, no huts. I traded Republic to each of the AI for a few gold, useless maps, and 5 workers (why I made the trade), putting me at 4 techs ahead. 8 Turns later I am now 1 tech behind all but the English, who for some reason have no money and are very backwards (only halfway through the Ancient Era). They do have as many units/cities as any of the others. I had swapped the Zulu and English places in the editor, so that I could use orange. The game crashes if you just try and swap colors. Then I modified the Zulu names, but no gameplay changes were made. Somehow it must have affected the way the other AI see the English, but sadly it hasn't helped my relations.

Without pop rushing, military buildup is falling way behind. I think conquest will still be the way to go, but Horsemen are almost useless on these settings unless I use the Scout trick to deny the AI Iron and Saltpeter. Knights are looking equally useless, as by the time I build any the tech for Cavalry will be available. I just will unhook my Iron and build up a Horsemen army, then reconnect and upgrade. Hopefully my Impi stacks can keep a couple of the AI without Saltpeter. Riflemen will probably be showing up by the end of the BC's though, and with Astronomy the other 3 AI will most likely be added to the trading loop to speed up the tech rate.

I would say that the tech trading system will make military rushes much harder, which is a good thing. The problem is that all gameplay has been cut out. Ancient Era units are obsolete in the blink of an eye. It isn't looking very good for Middle age units either. Those were the two most enjoyable era's for me. It isn't that it is too hard, just that it all flys by much too fast. I guess I can play lower difficulty levels to lengthen things out, but then the challenge is less too.

[Jack_www]

The first new game I played after I installed the new patch was as the Eygptions. I noticed that when a discovered a tech that led to a new form of government that if I chose to start the revolution right when it asked me if I wanted to start the revolution or stay with my current form of government that after I it fininshed telling what cities have produced something that the anarcy was over and was not even a full turn of anarchy, just the begining of the turn and thats it. I not sure if this was ture before the patch or not though.

Now it is harder to trade tech to the computer since it traded even more now and sometime when you got extra techs to trade they have no gold. But I did noticed that you can get pretty close to the 4 science a turn rate with out much gold per turn form other civs if you focus on building up your empire though.

[Panag]

hmmm , the only thing i start to see is people who start to be frustrated , hmmmm , more and more , hmmm , maybe , just maybe , if we complain hard enough , the will do something about it , just maybe , .................

have a nice day

[Ironwood]

What are you, a professional troll? That almost sounded like a psychologist's notes on the effects of a particular post on its readers.

[DrSpike]

I think its Jimmy's DL alterego for when he's partaken in one too many.