new and I have never won a game except spaceship

Can't beat the AI? Is it too tame? Discuss the best strategies!
Anastasya
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2016 8:16 am

new and I have never won a game except spaceship

Post by Anastasya »

I am very new to the game, and have never won any except once got to the space thing first. How is the game to be won? I usually try to get republic asap, and if lots of rivers, then bridge quickly. after that i aim for getting engineers and then railroad, so i can develop the land, and connect all cities by rail. build lots of engineers to change the land. and then refrigeration so i can do farmland. i try to build cities so they do not overlap, to get max size. i try to get everything changed to grassland farmland because that gives the most food. after that i aim for getting battleships and tanks to attack. and i get democracy when i can. i find i almost always go in the negative on gold. and sometimes a city will go disorder forever without anything i can figure out how to stop that. i have no idea how to do all the fancy stuff like spies or nuclear. the easiest AI is always ahead of me in points throughout the game, usually 3 or 4 times my point score for that turn of the game. I have tried a few cities or about 30 or so. but the AI always wins. soon the game will bore me too much, always losing, and i will probably quit playing it, unless i can figure out how to win. any suggestions? Thanks!
sveinung
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Re: new and I have never won a game except spaceship

Post by sveinung »

What ruleset do you use? In some rulesets it is extremely important to establish trade routes. This is usually done by Caravan or Freight units. Think of trade routes as basic "buildings" every city must have.
Anastasya
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2016 8:16 am

Re: new and I have never won a game except spaceship

Post by Anastasya »

This is the free game i downloaded. it says ruleset default, which seems to be civ2civ3 or classic.
i have never used any trading trucks. it never made any sense to me, and i usually am not in vicinity to trade with the enemy ai player. why trade with myself?
if i did the trading trucks, what do they carry, and how can they be automated to go between cities designated?
what is it that determines how fast science discovers things.
why do some cities go disordered and i cannot get them to stop doing that.
is there a way to automate units to do something? Thanks!
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Arbogast
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Location: France

Re: new and I have never won a game except spaceship

Post by Arbogast »

My 2 bits:
Check what Pekka has to say about Trade routes -there are 3 or 4 topics about it.
They helped me quite a bit under certain rulesets, but not others, like Experimental. So experiment!
And now with Freeciv version 2.5.99 and 2.6, Culture and Acts things get a little hairier. So experiment!
Anastasya
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Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2016 8:16 am

Re: new and I have never won a game except spaceship

Post by Anastasya »

I started using trade trucks, and do one per city. the cities do not seem to go disordered any more. that is good. how many trucks can i do per city? And i started to mine the gold and coal instead of changing it to grass and farming it. when i look at the current score in a game, the ai enemy is always way ahead, often by 3 times my score, and always ahead in science discoveries, and i do not know how to figure out new science faster than him.
i have tried a setup that always causes the whole program to crash. start with continent, temp average as 0, all areas same temp, and no special squares. and no water on land, and no natives, no huts. the idea being that with only arctic land, the only place to start is at shore, where water can be used for food. and slowly transforming arctic > tundra > desert > plains > grsassland, and then farm grassland for food. in that would it be best to mine a few desert squares to get otherthan food? hopefully with the time needed to do this transforming of terrain, ai can get behind and stalled, and i can slowly get a big lead. having no special squares means that arctic will have nothing for food. it seems that arctic terrain is equal to glacier terrain. and using single big continent, few shore places are available.
i have been trying to figure out how to win without going space ship. i have never ever won a non-space-ship game. ever.
they could have a new scenario of antarctica, where the only starting terrain types are mountain, arctic and glacier. that could be interesting, and is similar to my plan which crashes the program.
i have version 2.5.3, gui-gtk-2.0 client.
is there a better version, and where do i get it?
Thank you for responding!
cazfi
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Re: new and I have never won a game except spaceship

Post by cazfi »

Most of the Help-menu items adjust themselves to the ruleset in use.

See for example
Help -> Economy -> Trade
Help -> Units -> Caravan
Anastasya
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2016 8:16 am

Re: new and I have never won a game except spaceship

Post by Anastasya »

i just quit a game where half of my cities remain in disorder, without anything i know of to change that, the ai "novice" enemy has a point score about 4x mine. And when starting a new city, it starts out as in disorder. if this kind of problem continues, it gets discouraging, and unless I can find it winnable and therefore more fun, I may simply uninstall it and never play it again. Why get breaten down? A game is supposed to give some enjoyment. Maybe if I could find a cheat to experiment with starting myself out with a research advantage or something, until I could get better at it. Also, the "novice" AI player is not really "novice", or I could beat it. Could the game makers change the AI players so that they are beatable? And is there a way I can go inside the game to allow myself various cheats? Except for space race, I have never ever won a game.
cazfi
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Re: new and I have never won a game except spaceship

Post by cazfi »

Which ruleset you are using? The "cities start out in disorder" sounds like you have too many cities to handle under your current government form. Researching better government forms and switching to them is one of the most essential things to do.

In the city dialog, see 'Happiness' -tab for breakdown of what is the cause of the un/happiness. I last explained it here: http://forum.freeciv.org/f/viewtopic.ph ... t=10#p4340
sveinung
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Re: new and I have never won a game except spaceship

Post by sveinung »

An old guide to win Freeciv.
Anastasya wrote:how many trucks can i do per city?
Unlimited. There is a limit to how many trade routes each city can have. The rules determining how many trade routes each city can have live in the ruleset. In classic you start with 2 trade routes per city. You get 1 more for dicovering Magnetism. Then 1 more for The Corporation. Some clients will show you how many trade routes each city can have. If you installed Freeciv but don't know what client you use you probably use the gtk client. Go to the "View" menu. Make sure that "City Traderoutes" is checked. You should now see the number of trade routes followed by "/" followed by the maximum number of trade routes below and to the right of the city name.
Anastasya wrote:half of my cities remain in disorder
Have you tried to increase luxury? (Government->Tax rates->Luxury)
Anastasya
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2016 8:16 am

Re: new and I have never won a game except spaceship

Post by Anastasya »

I did as suggested, went to view, made sure trade routes was checked, but nothing showed about trade routes after that, in the cities or elsewhere.
i generally play it this way: i generally start with lots of money. probably get pyramids because that does not ever go obsolete. Then go for republic asap. While building as many cities as possible. generally i place cities, if on big space like continent, 5 spaces from next city, in a big grid, cities as close as possible without overlapping. sometimes eventually i will have 30-50 cities. after i get republic, i try to get engineers and railroad and sewers, then refrigerator so i can farm. connect all cities by railroad. then try for tanks, and if on water, battleships. each city i will try to get all available buildings, leaving the first barracks for last because barracks 2 soon make the first obsolete. i try to make eventually everything farms except i mine all gold, iron, and coal. all other land not special i make into grassland for farming. max people i had on a city as i remember was 41. as soon as trade units are available i try to do all trade units i can do, aiming for distant cities when possible. if any city goes disorder, i make it go into luxurys. as soon as possible, i get to democracy. when available, i put a diplomat in each city for protection. whenever i get to a wonder, i buy it directly to shorten time, so another player does not get it first. When not in disorder, i aim for science, to get discoveries first. HOWEVER, consistently, the AI player, playing novice, ALWAYS is far ahead, making discoveries first, and grabbing most wonders before I get there. the AI point score is generalloy 3-4 times what mine is. What am i doing wrong? I only win when i do spaceship. having enough cities, i can usually send the spaceship in 3-4 turns, because i immediately put many cities making spaceship parts. Thanks! I have tried to utilize helps given. my version i put in a previous post here.
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