How do rivals get ahead?

[Perry]

I am playing Warlord with AI = less aggressive. At about 1000 AD, I notice that my rivals have 5 or 6 technology advances I don't have. Yet when I watch a review at the end of the game, my rivals and I develop at similar paces; have similar number of cities and land. I maximize Science as much as I can to get ahead. Has anyone else noticed this pattern?

[[NN]Natmeris]

They trade techs around to themselves.

[pmcmull]

If you are playing Civ 3 Conquests at Warlord level it should be possible to at least keep even on tech. Are you building libraries as soon as they are available? And in most of your strongest cities. And later build universities as soon as available. Also try to keep your science slider at 70% as much as possible, or higher in early years. Also after you have contact with at least 2 other civs try to see if you can trade techs. If you can get a reasonably even trade of one tech for another or receiving a tech for gold, take it.
What other options do you set on your game? Could have an impact on this.

[red_mage_king]

The Library of Alexandria wonder is a great ancient wonder to build if you are trailing tech-wise against two or more AI civilisations, as any technologies that two or more civilisations know and you don't is given to you.

[Perry]

Last game, I traded successfully to keep up on techs. Sometimes I offer reasonable trades that would benefit us both (compared to other rivals) and get turned down. They are very greedy. Also, they reply to some of my offers that I treated another nation unfairly. But when I arrange peace with an enemy, there is no way to include my ally in a 3-way negotiation. -Perry

[korte_yeo]

at Warlord, maximizing science spending, by 1000 AD, you should have probably caught up. What Gov are you using? Are you staying in despotism? Are you building libraries? Are you getting taxed on unit costs by having a military beyond units supported without penalty? If you have say 10-15 extra military units/workers, that's $$ that would be going to science. At an early stage, wasting 10 or 12 gold per turn adds 2 3 or 4 turns to get an advance. You have to minimize waste. Also- what are your city grounds like? More shields means faster production and more $$ to science. In your best cities, your capitol, and best cities, EVERY available space should have a mine or irrigation. Build mines on the best, least wasteful cities first and the first turn you have a new gov available like monarchy and later communism or democracy, have a revolution (unless you are onlyu a fewe turns from building a wonder, then wait.

Good luck!

[Perry]

I max spending on science. I scimp on military, and I'm amazed at the huge militaries my rivals have. I irrigate and mine everywhere with about 30 workers. My favorite is monarchy, then communism.

[Valdar]

Originally posted by Perry:

Last game, I traded successfully to keep up on techs. Sometimes I offer reasonable trades that would benefit us both (compared to other rivals) and get turned down. They are very greedy. Also, they reply to some of my offers that I treated another nation unfairly. But when I arrange peace with an enemy, there is no way to include my ally in a 3-way negotiation. -Perry

Don't expect *reasonable* trades with the AI (especially on harder levels). Also, different civilizations will make/accept widely varying offers, so shop around and see who will give the most in return. Adjust your strategy according to the number of active opponents and their tendencies. If your game has a lot of active civs, they will trade among themselves anyway, so I suggest that you trade as often as you can and just accept the best deal regardless of the fairness of it. Otherwise they will just acquire the techs and resources from each other and you have no more bargaining power. The exception would be trading a military tech to an advanced aggressive rival. Conversely, if you have only two or three opponents, you might want to keep your advances to yourself and make them work for theirs.
I always make a bee line for The Great Library when playing against a lot of opponents. It can be a huge boost in the early game. If you get it, you can literally quit funding science and bank what you would otherwise contribute. You will still virtually keep up with the second place civ by virtue of the free techs you receive, and when the GL effect expires, you have a huge treasure chest of gold in the bank. You can then afford to run with a negative cash flow for quite awhile and pour money into science and quickly slingshot the top civ.

If you make deals contingent on peace or alliances, be careful in your military actions and peace agreements. If you ally with civ A against civ B, you can't make peace with civ B for 20 turns without getting a bad rep. One caveat is that you don't have to actually participate in battles. The Foreign Advisor screen tells you how many turns are left in ongoing agreements.

Originally posted by Perry:

I max spending on science. I scimp on military, and I'm amazed at the huge militaries my rivals have. I irrigate and mine everywhere with about 30 workers. My favorite is monarchy, then communism.

I wouldn't skimp on military. Besides making you weak in war, it makes you an attractive target. The AI knows your strength and is more likely to attack if you are weak. At least keep your perimeter well guarded, connect all cities with roads/rails, and beware of giving right of passage to other civs. They may use it to amass a force within your borders.

Irrigation and mining are very important, but you only need them on the squares that are currently being worked. If you have improvements on the worked squares and the city's growth is slow, you should be building roads rather than improving a square that won't be used soon. As for the amount of workers, there is no magic number. It depends on several factors. You will need a higher percentage in the beginning, and less and less as you get all squares fully improved. Use excess workers to grow cities later in the game when you find that you have a surplus of them. Also note that that if your civ has the 'Industrious' trait, workers work quicker.

Hope this helps. Enjoy!

[Perry]

I've noticed that a weak military invites attack. I did an experiment one time. Coal appeared in a jungle. I "went back in time" and cleared the jungle. The coal then did not appear. So now I avoid clearing jungles. Is this what you would expect? -Perry

[[NN]Natmeris]

Originally posted by Perry:

I've noticed that a weak military invites attack. I did an experiment one time. Coal appeared in a jungle. I "went back in time" and cleared the jungle. The coal then did not appear. So now I avoid clearing jungles. Is this what you would expect? -Perry

No generally not. Resources are pre-generated on the initial placement of terrain. This is how the AI knows to settle up against these resources as they see the whole map from the beginning. So if you cleared it, then it should still show up there regardless. The resource is just invisible/unavailable to use and then made visible on the advance activator. However, there could be other factors like exhaustion.

[Valdar]

Originally posted by NNNatmeris:

Originally posted by Perry:

I've noticed that a weak military invites attack. I did an experiment one time. Coal appeared in a jungle. I "went back in time" and cleared the jungle. The coal then did not appear. So now I avoid clearing jungles. Is this what you would expect? -Perry

No generally not. Resources are pre-generated on the initial placement of terrain. This is how the AI knows to settle up against these resources as they see the whole map from the beginning. So if you cleared it, then it should still show up there regardless. The resource is just invisible/unavailable to use and then made visible on the advance activator. However, there could be other factors like exhaustion.

Yeah, iirc, exhaustion and replenishment have a random factor included. Reloading a previous save may have different results in regard to resource spawning.
As for jungles, I always clear them. They are pretty much useless otherwise and cause disease. However, I usually wait until I have most of my roads and other improvements done since it's so expensive in terms of 'man-hours' for the workers.