Mid to late game production

[DaveStall]

OK, after having spent countless hours on these fantastic forums I feel that my opening gameplay is close to where it needs to be. However, I have found that I tend to do very well scorewise, powerwise, and techwise until the mid to late game when the AI seems to overtake me and I am left in the dust. If I take a look around the world, I find that the AI cities are generally size 15-20, while most of mine are at 12-15 size. When my cities hit this size range, they tend to stop growing, and I was wondering if people tend to start irrigating some of the mined tiles to keep the population growing. It seems when I try this, I start losing enough gold that it doesn't seem worth it.

I guess I should point out that I tend to play more of a builder type game than a domination type of game, and I like to concentrate on keeping a tech advantage over the othe civs as long as possible. However, it seems like by the third age or so, I have less money to spend on research than the other civs, and I am wondering if the population level has an effect.

Thanks in advance,

Dave

[Datajack Franit]

Actually you should start irrigating tiles which were previously used as mines- production isn't important anymore as soon as you enter the modern ages, all that matters is just having a large population (20-30)

[vmxa1]

Irrigation is done when the city needs more food to grow, IF you want the city to grow. Later in the game I may let a city sit a the level it is at if it is not very production due to corruption, unless going for score.
If you had the lead and lost it late in the game, I would think it is due to your not growing your empire, while the top AI is expanding. This may occur when you run out of open land. You do not expand as you are not conquering cities and the top AI is taking land from someone. I am presuming that you are making reasonable infrastructure choices and research tree. At the lowest levels you may be able to carve out a large enough holding to win that way, but usually as you move up the ladder that will be hard to do. I suspect that most players are at least annexing cities when they are attacked or MPP's get them into wars. As the game gets later and later the AI is forced to get its infrastructure up to par and will close the gap with you if it has more cities. They need to be pruned, either by you or their enemies. If their enemies are weak and fighting them, you could aid them with money or techs, so the top dog does less well when fighting them.

[alva]

@dave:

it should be the other way around.
At first the AI runs away in every departement, from middleage you start crawming back to take over starting early industrial

[Theseus]

Dave, you've got an interesting problem. I find that game momentum is generally decided by the advent of Hospitals... post a SAV or two, and we'll dissect what's going on.

Admitting a personal bias, are you going to war enough?

[DaveStall]

Thanks for all the replies.

I started a new game, but this time I made a concerted effort at keeping my neighboring civs in check by taking a couple of cities from each (I have the Germans, Russians, and Greeks close to me ... I am playing as the Egyptians), and this has made a world of difference! I am still pretty new to Civ3 (having been an SMAC player for a long, long time), and the need for going to war so often is a new thing for me (but getting more fun all of the time. I will try to post a save file tonight from my previous game to see if anyone has some suggestions for my mid to late game techniques.

Thanks,

Dave

[MoonWolf]

If you succeed in taking out some citites in the ancient ages, maybe a couple of the 4-5 first the AI settles, then you will not only get a great start, your opponents will be set back for quite a long time and there is a great possibility that you might get some techs from a peace treaty.

[jshelr]

I've found that you do ok if you build hospitals, factories, and power plants (Hoovers if possible) asap. This is probably far more important than getting infantry units up and running if there is no clear and present danger. As far as I'm concerned, there is no unit between calvary and tanks that is really critical except artillery. As for irrigation, without thinking too hard, I follow a rule of thumb never to let a city that is fully mined stagnate if irrigating a tile will restart growth. Also on the lazy man's approach, once you have the military portion of the RR system up and running, shift-a all your workers. They will build mines in mountains, etc, to give your new population growth something to do. It may be that sometimes you don't want growth, but I just obey the rule of thumb. (Have you got harbors in the coastal cities?)

[vmxa1]

jsheir, that seems like the a good plan to me, since I follow it myself. I only make one harbor though until I have enough citizen working water tiles to make it worth while.

[Datajack Franit]

What's the deal with harbors? I thought their only function was ship upgrading and luxuries trade

[dac]

Harbors also allow you to gather additional food from water tiles.

[vmxa1]

The extra food for the worked tile via Harbors can be the only way to keep some cities growing. Sometimes you have to build them for that reason alone, even when only a few tiles are available. You just need the food.

[Datajack Franit]

You learn something new everyday

[bbaws]

If you are falling behind it's time to annex a neighbour. Hospitals and population are all very well but to keep growing your economy has to be growing constantly. Every new city gives you a place to build marketplace, bank, library, university and a new area to road and RR for trade. In the era you are talking about the techs start to get steadily more expensive. Unless you can trade techs for profit you are on the wrong end of a sh*tty stick.