Is it hopeless?

[PerpetualNewbie]

It has been a while, but it seems to me you are progressing pretty well for cheiftain level. IIRC, when I was playing chieftain, I wasn't able to get the ship off the ground until 2030 or so, and I wasn't getting out of the ancient age until around 1500AD or so. When the AI isn't effectively doing any research, you have to do it all on your own, and that can be pretty slow going.

Couple suggestions, though. The science advisor is a moron. You can pretty much be sure that whatever he suggests is *not* what you should be researching. If you agree with his recommendation, ask yourself why.

Secondly, take one of your new cities and automate one worker for that city. (Shift-I). Though he does some things in an order I would not, it can get you thinking along the lines of how to best improve your cities. Through Regent (and if you get a sweet start in Monarch) you can automate all your workers except for the first half-dozen and they will do a pretty good job, IMO.

Third, you don't have enough workers. (I'm guessing. Took me a long time to get to the point I appreciated how much of a difference those buggers make.) It is kind of nice to be able to improve a town to the nines within a few turns of its founding. And when you get railroads, you can't have too many workers.

[Cookie Monster]

YOu could play on a huge map with just yourself and one ai and I'll bet you 1mega dollar that the ai will be placed right on your doorstep and declare war on you.............................

Civ3 is not a peaceful game nor is it one that makes you relax and get into it like civ2 did.

[Ethelred]

I think we have been talking to ourselves.

[notyoueither]

Some of my best conversations happen with myself.

[GeneralTacticus]

I was hoping that someone with a name like Tacitus would tell me. Some Roman you are.

Take a closer look at my name. It's GeneralTacticus.

[Ethelred]

Thats OK. I can't spell either.

[anemic CIVver]

Oh, I'm here. (more or less). I've been trying to figure out how to ZIP my saved game, and post it here, so you could tell me what's wrong with my Empire. Every time I open my saved game file, there's nothing in it. Any suggestions?

[anemic CIVver]

O.K. I hope that this does it. Here's the saved game 1754 A.D.

[anemic CIVver]

I posted the saved game, but it disappeared. Let's try this again.

[Ethelred]

It was there. I just downloaded it from the first post.

[notyoueither]

OK. Here's a very short reply. Expect more detail from Ethelred.

Conquest Victory? You're doing well as a builder. It doesn't look like there has been any war yet. If you want war, you will need many, many more military units. Samurai would be ideal. Why do you have cities producing Wealth?

1. Cities. You have way to few. You ignored that patch of desert over there with the Incense. Now your enemies have it by colonies.

1b. The citiers you have are waaay spread out. It's nice to have every city in an ideal place, but it will cripple your overall development. BTW. You are wasting a lot of good terrain. That desert on either side of the river? It's Flood Plains. Some of the most productive food producing terrain in the game. Cities built to take advantage of it will grow like weeds.

2. Wonders. They are invaluable. You don't seem to want any. Get some. They're good.

3. Production. You have no mines (almost). Cities need mines to become big, strong and productive.

3b. Workers. They build your mines. You need a lot more than 4 Workers for 6 cities. Each city should have 1 or 2 workers toiling away towards their perfection.

I don't know how much you can be taught by words alone. Ethelred will no doubt give you many more than I have. I'll leave you with a save of mine from 1750. Take a look at it. Take a look at the city improvements. Sell some to see what effect they have when the city lacks them. Note the mines. I'm set up to max production. Soon I'll be converting mines to irrigation to max population, but not yet.

Good Luck. I'll answer any specific questions that you have.

BTW. No it's not hopeless. Learn fast and conquer. You have time yet. Samurai would be almost ideally suited to help you pull it off.

[Ethelred]

Well lets see how the game looks.

This may look kind of harsh but there is lot you were doing wrong. Its possible to launch the Space Ship by 1750 on Chieftan if you do things right. Maybe not easy but possible.

F8 screen

Your in last but not far behind. India has 154 and you have 119. Not a big deal for a conquest victory on a tiny map. You are never going to have big score though. Its hard to get a big score on Chieftan anyway.

Lowest power but again not much lower.

Big cultural advantage.

F11 demographics aren't so good. Fourth in everything that counts. Out of four. You really should be in lead in everything on Chieftan. Something is wrong in the way you are starting I would guess.

You should have ignored Education since you were intent on conquest. Take it from the AI or just run roughshod over them early with horsies and later your Samurai.

Have you had your Golden Age?

You should drop your research when you are down to the last turn. I was able to drop it two ten percent and still finish in one turn. You save a lot of money if you do that for every tech when its down to one turn.

Two cities are building Wealth. Thats a complete waste till economics. You get one coin for each EIGHT shields. With Economics it becomes one to four which still isn't good if your intent is to win by conquest. They should be working on something usefull.

You have only four workers for six cities. Those two cities should build a worker. You are have lots of unimpoved tiles. Thats what is destroying your game. YOU MUST IMPROVE all the tiles you are working. Don't bother with the tiles you aren't going to work soon.


YUCK you have the city GOVERNORS contolling them. And on a tiny map. TAKE CONTROL. The governors are idiots. When you city reaches twelve they will have you working tiles for food you don't need till you have hospitals. Don't produce extra food in cities that can't grow.

There was an entertainer in Tokyo for no reason.

I set Tokyo to build a worker. Wealth was silly when you need to improve the tiles with workers.

Edo is pegged for growth till you finish the aquaduct. The governor had four water tiles being worked for no shields. Concentrate on shield production when a city is pegged for growth. Get the improvement built.

You had two worker wasting time building a road to saltpeter that no city could work. It would be OK if it was your only saltpeter but you allready had it. Your not going to trade the extra to anyone at this point in the game.

Your cities are too far apart. You could easily have more cities in you present area.

Corruption effects cities by the number of cities you have but also by distance. If you have a lot of empty space you are just increasing corruption especially on a tiny map.

The corruption effect changes with map size so you run into closer in on tiny maps than on standard maps.

You in Monarchy so you won't make as much money as you could in a Republic but then with so few cities it won't make all that much difference. Its better than despot anyway.

Yeah I could win this game. Build some more workers and improve the tiles.

Maybe not your behind on tech. Germany has navigation. As well as three more cities. China has four more cities and navigation.
Even with nearly unimproved city I was able to change the time for the aquaduct from 15 to six. If the city was improved it would go much faster. India has three more cities and navigation.

You really should have the tech lead. It must be the way you didn't use your workers effectively.

Well since Ghandi is a tighwad lets see if I can trade with Mao for some tech.

Got Banking, music theory and navigation for 80.

Now the science is under the delusion that Japan is advanced. It will be pretty late in the game to be getting navigation when you learn how to do this better.

Kagoshima is building a harbor. You don't need on yet. It does need an aquaduct however and a marketplace. You need marketplaces to make money.


There is worker in Tokyo city doing nothing at all. If was fortified.

That means of four workers only one was doing something usefull.

You should mine most of your grasslands. That would be something usefull. Road EVERY tile that is being worked. Road your borders if they don't have anything else to do. The faster you can reach every spot the better your defense will be.

Way to much irrigation of grasslands. Irrigate plains, mine grasslands then readjust later when you get railroads.

Go into preferences and set it to show food and shieds on the map. That may help you see where you should have your workers. It helps me anyway.

Forget about conquest untill you reach tanks. By the time I got the Japanese to the point where they could build cavalry some of the AI allready had Nationlism. Cavalry can't do much against rifleman and the next good attack unit is tanks.

I am going to attach what I have done. I have one city working on a settler. You have at least two city sites available. They may not be great but you can push back the AI fast with culture being a religious civ.

I would plan on going after India unless someone else make YOU a target.

If you want to flog this game it can be won. May have to be with tanks. Don't forget to build a Forbidden Palace. Either SOON or as soon as you get a leader when you war with tanks. Without a lot of work you will run out of time. The game ends in 2050. What I have it at in 1818 has the Japanese in last still but only 8 points from second. India is in front by about 30 points. That can be easily erased when you get tanks.

The best thing you could do though is start another game. Concentrate on getting a good start. You wasted your workers and therefore you wasted your other efforts. You need at LEAST one worker per city and thats with an industrious civ. one and half to two with Japan. You can use workers you get through war but to do that you must actually go to war not just plan on it.

Good luck. Maybe I will mess around with this some more but I can't right at the moment.

You will have to rename the file to a .zip file. For some reason Apolyton files always show up named as atachment. I just highlight the name and copy it myself and then paste the name into the save box.

[anemic CIVver]

I'll leave you with a save of mine from 1750. Take a look at it. Take a look at the city improvements. Sell some to see what effect they have when the city lacks them. Note the mines. I'm set up to max production. Soon I'll be converting mines to irrigation to max population, but not yet.

Good Luck. I'll answer any specific questions that you have.

BTW. No it's not hopeless. Learn fast and conquer. You have time yet. Samurai would be almost ideally suited to help you pull it off. [/QUOTE]


O.K. One question: Where's the saved game? ;o)

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by notyoueither


2. Wonders. They are invaluable. You don't seem to want any. Get some. They're good.

Generally yes but its late and he may have to go the conquest route. No sense wasting production on Wonders when he needs to build units. Still he isn't going to be able to start a war soon.

BTW. No it's not hopeless. Learn fast and conquer. You have time yet. Samurai would be almost ideally suited to help you pull it off.

I am afraid its too late of Samurai. The AI was about to enter the industrial age and did so almost imediatly. There are just enough of them to advance by trading with each other at a decent clip.

I built a few cavalry but I think that too will not be able to get anywhere. I know someone had nationalism by the time I got Japan to the Industrial age. Don't know who but it was cheap so someone had it. Other than that I agree with you completely.

To me the biggest flaw was the poor handling of workers and low quantitiy of them. Most of the rest of the problems came from that.

[notyoueither]

As I said, Ethelred would give you more in depth feed back. His point about too late for Samurai should probably be heeded. He has examined the consequences, I did not.

Second attempt at the 1750 save. The server is acting weird. I know I set it up the first time.