I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I've tried 3 times now and it seems like the Romans are bent on destroying me everytime.
They make demand after demand until I finally say no and they declare war. :mad: I tried to take them militarily and their warriors, yes I said warriors, destroyed my fortified veteran Hoplites and swordsmen that were defending my cities.:mad: I tried keeping good relations with them, contacting them every 5 to 10 turns and trading maps or buying tech, that didn't work either. It just got to the point where I was almost out of gold and they demanded a tribute. I have read the other threads here and most folks don't seem to be having the problems I have had :cry: through 3 games. It doesn't seem to matter what I do, the Romans always end up declaring war on me then start producing an impossible number of units. It wouldn't be so bad if I had anyway to defend against them. Has anyone else experienced the samething? Does anyone have a suggestion as to what I may be doing wrong?

I think the problem is that you're allowing the Romans to go on the offensive. It seems that once all the room to expand has been filled, that the AI will try to go to war with you to continue its expansion. If you have the Iron, conquering the Romans shouldn't be hard at all, though Horsemen are a better unit to use on the offensive than swordsmen in this case. The reason having the Iron is important is that you don't want to be fighting a 3 defense unit (legionaires) with your 2 attack horsemen. Using horsemen gives 2 main benefits. One, you will be able to cover a lot more ground than you would otherwise. Two, you won't lose many units as they can retreat from battles they are losing. Even if you don't want to go on the offensive, you need to have a large army on higher difficulty levels. 3-4 hoplites in your border cities should be enough to fend off most attacks. The AI judges your power based on the number of units you have (workers count too). If they think you are weak then they will attack.

GOTM #2 is extremely food-rich, and you have to fully take advantage of that. You need to constantly hurry out Hoplites and Swordsmen every other turn, from 3 or 4 of your towns, and have the Barracks built. Despot-rush the heck out of the Romans, while they're still busy building Settlers. I think I downed the Romans around 800 A.D., after getting tribute for about 200 years from them.

I am currently out-culturing the Romans, and their cities are joining me willingly every few turns. If they ask for tribute, I gave it to them. They havent been asking for it since I got the culture and science lead on them.

But the other civs are cranking so hard on science they must not be fighting. I'm afraid I'm going to see a battleship around 1000 AD. :D :D :D

If the Romans do attack, I must admit I think I will have a hard time fending them off. Even with the iron, they sure seem to really overwhelm with the numbers of units tromping around.

I'd scouted ahead and saw the spot where you can build a city with 4 cattle in the radius. From there, I built a road to the edge of Veii and Rome, and sent 3 archers and 3 hoplites early. I took both cities without too much of a problem, and asked for peace immediately, asking for another two cities in the bargain, rinse and repeat.

I also didn't start expanding until Athens was nearly 6 in size, and didn't research, so I didn't have anything worthwhile for the Romans to demand from me.

I had the same problem Ghengis. Romans showed up, scooping me on a goodie hut in front of my eyes, and then declared war on me without asking for anything- they walked into an undefended city (I know, why did I have an undefended city? Too much of a hurry to pre-build defenders, something that isnt usually a problem in the expansive, regent level games I am used to) and the ass kicking was on. I had to rush archers (a sucky unit, always ends up stopping short of the enemy and being killed by him next turn) to the scene and it was a long time before we could talk peace. We'll see...

Well, that tears it. I am an official Caesar hater. He demanded and demanded, circled my cities with spearman. My city defending the horse had walls, a veteran hoplite, and a horseman and fell to a warrior and horseman in one turn (the turn I asked him to please move and he declared war). I have tried this particular GOTM three times but every time it ends in a Roman disaster. F it. I dont have the strength to play it out. I hope to gosh we get a nice Warlord level game next time... and I end up next to the Romans. Oh if I only had cheat mode!!!! I hate them so much:mad: :mad: :mad:

I'm playing the gotm for the third time myself and and finaly Í'm beating the Romans. The first game I lost was my own fault. I got to the iron before the romans, build a few swordsmen and refused to pay tribute. Result: I got swarmed by spearmen and archers.

The 2nd time I played it isn't even worth mentioning :) It was a total disaster.

The strategy that worked for me was starting war from scratch. Build a warior in Athens and sent it south picking up goody huts. Look for barbarians and take them on carefully to turn the warrior to an elite one. Build a second warrior and sent it south too. Look for a Roman city that has only one warrior defending it and attack it with your two warriors.

Unless you really have bad luck you will conquer this city. Make peace with romans as soon as possible and start building new offensive units.

I discovered that the conquered Roman cities go into civil unrest once they have a pop of 4 (probably because they are to far away from Athens) Instead of making the 4th citizen an entertainer and ending up with a no growth city, I get out my whip and rush build an archer/warrior/swordsmen which will cost you 1 citizen. Do this again once the city reaches a pop of 4 again (about 3 turns later). I used the whip strategy for all my cities that are too far south to grow beyond 4 and had an impressive army in no time.

I declare war every few turns, take 2/3 cities from Ceasar, make peace for lots of gold and techs, and start war again after a few turns.

This worked out pretty well for me. I split the Roman empire in 3 pieces. Have twice the cities the Romans have and I'm culturally superior.

Now there's the difficult task to catch on wih the other civs that have twice the tech and money i have :(


Hope this helps.

I'm just fed up. I started again following the advice given and was doing very well. I had destroyed Veii and taken Rome and was on my to taking the new Roman capitol when it happened. My veteran Hoplite and veteran Warrior vs. an unfortified, regular, Roman Warrior in the exact same terrain type. Guess who won? There is either an AI combat bonus or something is very wrong. I should also note that the same thing has happened to me on Regent level as well.

Couple things, the flood plains can support 2 rush cities, I got 2 squares for each of city, and I can rush 40 shields every 2-3 turns. There are some cattle just south of the flood plains, you can get a good city there. I have given though to relocating my capital there since its so food rich, not resources to do that yet however.

I didn't attack any roman cities early, of course I was all over getting goody huts, but I didn't see an oppurtunity, ie all the cities were defended and with spearmen. So I had to pospose any attacking. Number 1 priority was getting lots of your hoplite defenders, 2 to a city minimum, and the great lighthouse. I would have liked the pyramids, and this is one of the first games I've played where I haven't gotten them, but oh well.

Getting and securing the iron is tough, but you have to at least get it, building and protecting a road to your main cities is difficult, especially since the romans expand quickly. I currently have my iron road going around 2 roman cities, which I'll be taking shortly.

I built a granary and barracks in my flood plain cities, and have been rushing hoplites since. Many many defenders, you need it since rome over does it with the attackers, and especially horsemen.

Think of combat as rolling dice, if it's 20 sided or 6, you still have the chance to roll a one. Just because your attack value is higher than the defense of the AI, or vice versa, it doesn't guarantee that the better unit will win, just that they have a better chance of it. Granted that sometimes unrealistic results occur (I just lost a battleship to a galleon, oh well), but thats how the game works, so play accordingly. I'm pretty sure that there is no "cheating" going on with the AI combat, as I've also taken out a rifleman with a horseman and had several other fortunate battle results.

As far as problems with the romans are concerned, I didn't have any myself. I started out building a settler in Athens, thinking that if barbs did show up, the most I would lose is a little gold. my worker built a road on towards where I was going to build my next city (up by the cow). I had though I was going to build sparta on the jungle to auto clear a space, but when I saw the gold I built on it. Then from both sparta and athens I just rotated between hoplites and settlers. My next 2 cities were set to just build workers, as they both grew in 10 turns, and both could build a worker in 10. I think having lots of workers early on is great if you are planning on building, as the AI views them as military units, and judges your power based on number of military. Each settler had a hoplite to escort it, and then the hoplites would go out and explore as the next hoplite/settler combo pushed passed the borders of my territory. I used warriors for garison units in areas that were safe (inner cities), and always kept extra hoplites on mountains and hills in areas I hadn't settled yet. Most of my cities built 2 or 3 workers before switching to the hoplite/settler rotation, and I was able to still keep pace with the Roman expansion for the most part. I think by the time they had built their 10th city, I had 9, with 3 settlers on their way to city sites. Every time I got a tech, I traded it to the Romans instantly, so they wouldn't research the same thing as I did. I bought all the techs that the Romans got first, and traded maps freely. From a research perspective I went for writing first, with as low a percentage as possible (takes 32 turns no matter what). Then I went for pottery, at 100% as it could be researched in 8 turns I think. I got 2 techs from huts, and 2 more by trading writing and the hut techs to the Romans. After Pottery I decided on Mapmaking, as by then I had pretty much explored all but the Roman portion of the continent, and figured it was just me and Caesar till I could send out some galleys.

After sending out several galleys (some were sunk by barb ships, blah) I realized that without the lighthouse I was alone, so started it immediately after a temple was built in sparta. All the other cities were still on the hoplite/settler rotation except for Athens which had switched to just settler settler settler (it grows to 3 in the exact time it takes to build a settler with a wheat and grassland). Soon I had most of the upper 2/3rds of the continent, and switched to rush building barracks in all the the less productive ones. I had settled on Iron and had 1 horse, so once barracks were build I started rushing out horsemen from all but 8 or so cities that I built temples and librarys in along the Roman border. I finally finished the lighthouse about 100AD I think, and sent my galleys out to make contact. I found that I was only about 2 techs behind the leaders, and with my treasury of 3000 or so, was able to easily buy the ones I didn't have. I was intent on wiping out the romans, as they had started demanding maps and gold, so I didn't give contact to anyone. Also I kept the Aztecs Isolated, as I wanted to take their Island once the Romans had been eliminated.

Before the war started, I had 50 horsemen, about 10 extra settlers for refounding cities, 2 Roman cities had defected already. I split my horsemen up into 3 groups, 2 of 20, with a few hoplites and settlers along to claim territory, and the other 10 for homeland defense (Caesar had LOTS of troops wandering around my territory). All my coastal cities (I only had about 4 at this point) were building galleys for the Aztec invasion.

I think it was about 500AD when I struck the first blow, razing 3 Roman cities on the first turn of the offensive, and building 2 of my own in their places. Rome had built the Pyramids, so that was the only city I planned on not razing. Rome didn't have anything I wanted, so I didnt sue for peace, just kept right on rolling. After the first couple of turns the Roman army had been wiped out, hoplites were stationed on the horses in his territory, and 10 new horsemen were headed to the front. Tech wise I was just into the Middle ages, and I researched Theology and Edjucation first, as I guessed the others would go for Feudalism and Chivalry. I wanted to wait for Chivalry and Knights to invade the Aztecs, so purposely allowed the war with Rome to be prolonged. This had a great side effect of giving me my first Great Leader, who was promptly made into a Knight army (for heroic epic). I took Rome close to last, as I didn't want it to revert culturally. All the others I razed, giving me close to 30 captured Roman workers.

And well, that's how I delt with Caesar. I think the important parts are to stay close in number of cities and number of units (counting workers). Even then they will start to make demands once the room to expand runs out, so make sure to have a large army, and if at all possible, keep the Iron out of Rome's grasp. Massed horsemen, with hoplite support, really makes of mess of the Romans. I think its better to raze than to try to quell resistance. It allows your army to keep moving, just make sure to have extra settlers to fill up the space, as barbarians will pop up if you don't. The biggest and toughest battle of the Roman war was the 24 barbarian horsemen who showed up near the end.

For the Aztec invasion, I loaded up every spare Hoplite, upgraded all non-elite Horsemen to Knights, took about 5 settlers with me on the first armada, and set sail for their island. The Aztecs hadn't built any wonders, so I planned on razing everything. About this time the AI researched Astronomy, so I gave contact with the Aztecs to everyone, and planned on an honorable genocide ;) This gave the Aztecs Gunpowder the next turn, so was a bad idea, as I should have put off giving contact to the Aztecs to anyone for as long as possible. It didn't matter much, as the whole Island fell in 10 turns, though the Musketmen probably cost me a Great Leader. I was using my elite horsemen to do most of the killing, with the Knights there just for support and to weaken the defenders. But even with 1 hp left, the Musketmen would often kill my elite Horsemen :( So I ended up just beating them down with my Knights. A few turns later I had colonized the whole of the island, and decided to turn it into a settler factory.

I'm currently about halfway through the conquest of the main Continent, with about 1/3rd of it re-settled. My original Continent is a terrible mess of pollution, as its too inane and nerve wracking to manually put each worker on the polution square to clear it, and with the patch (that I installed after the Aztecs were taken out), it doesn't seem to let you use shift-p after 2 workers are already on each pollution square. All my cities have recycling centers and mass transits on the original Continent, but still I get 5 to 20 new pollution squares every turn, and am slowly falling behind on the cleanup. My navy is horrendous, as every battleship I build gets sunk on its first fight (Galleons, Ironclads, Destroyers, anything kills my battleships, haha), so I just gave up. I'm the only one with Modern Armor or Mechanical Infantry, and am spearheading invasions towards all oil and rubber sources already not in my control. I had tried an invasion with just calvary (my upgraded aztec army) earlier in the game, but after wiping out the Indians and Germans my offensive stalled as everyone else had gotten Nationalism by that time. I formed a coallition against the Japanese and Chinese, but by the time I made it to the front, the French, English, and Russians had basically finished the war. So I sent the 30 or so settlers I had to grab up every free space, and took control of almost all of the resources on the continent, but that really made the English mad at me, and all my newly founded cities were wiped out within a couple turns. I did manage another Great Leader in the quick war with the English, and am saving him to rebuild my palace on the main Continent once I am done with the conquest. I plan on giving cities on the Aztec island away so that I can have the main 2 continents all to myself.

I have about 200 captured workers from all the razed cities, and had about 200 more that I added to my population already. If only there was an easy way I could put them on pollution patrol :( When I try to clean up all the pollution in 1 turn, I can, but it takes about 15-20 minutes to put all the workers to work, and the pollution comes back every turn. If you haven't installed the patch yet, I highly recommend that you don't, if only for this one reason. The reduced corruption, and having police stations also fight corruption is nice, but the automation of the workers is really awful.

Thank you to the people who are posting their successful resolutions here. You really do learn things from GOTM; for example, if this wasnt the game of the month, I would never bother trying to get it right, just start a new game with a better position.

Really I havent played much Monarch for Civ 3 (although that was my default for Civ 2) because it IS much more aggressive. I simply wouldnt ever start a game by sending veteran soldiers out to conquer - I would always be working on settlers and doing exploring. In a game with 10 civs, I would have to shoot for the Library before bothering with Iron Working and so it would be even more impossible for me to have a city over the iron than it is for anybody who researches iron first and is not restarting once they know where the iron is.

You may be right about the random combat but I do take it personally when I do everything right (walls, veteran defenders) and the AI is able to take me with a regular warrior. As for galleys beating battleships, you might feel better by pretending your ship was the USS Cole but again, in Civ 2 having a stronger unit almost always gauranteed a win.

I am way too frustrated to try and win this one again, and maybe it seperates the men from the boys but I hope the GOTM admins will do a little playtesting with next months. It would also be nice to have a run at specific strategies = how a bout a game where only culture, diplomacy, or space are options?

Originally posted by Aeson
Think of combat as rolling dice, if it's 20 sided or 6, you still have the chance to roll a one. Just because your attack value is higher than the defense of the AI, or vice versa, it doesn't guarantee that the better unit will win, just that they have a better chance of it. Granted that sometimes unrealistic results occur (I just lost a battleship to a galleon, oh well), but thats how the game works, so play accordingly. I'm pretty sure that there is no "cheating" going on with the AI combat, as I've also taken out a rifleman with a horseman and had several other fortunate battle results.

I fully expect the AI to pull of a miracle or two, the problem is that this happens all the time and not just in the GOTM. I figured maybe the AI just got lucky, so I reloaded to see what the rusults would be. I did this 5 times and each time the AI's regular warrior killed both my veteran warrior and veteran Hoplite. I gave up at that point and started a new game on Regent as the Americans. Now I have my veteran swordsmen and horsemen attacking regular and veteran Russian archers and I lose 3 out of 4 times. Its pretty sad when you have to go after a lone archer with 3 horsemen and a defensive unit. I'll see how this Regent game plays out but I'm really starting to get sick of having go to war by 1000BC or sooner in every game I play.

Brom, if you save the game, initiate a combat and then reload the game to the save 100 times each will give the same result. That is the way Civ III is made to avoid cheating.

As far as having to go to war by 1000 bc to have a chance there are two things to think about.

1) Maps can change this. Islands maps can often be won by just island hopping around and claiming more territory. Etc.
2) It seems most countries have at least a war per century so it shouldn't be surprising that you would have a war within the first 5000 years of the game.

Eliezar

Aeson, my early game has been very similar to yours. I wiped the romans out with horseman, the Aztecs with knights, and have almost finished off the rest with cavalry. One thing I have been doing differently is that I don't raze cities. Yes I lose some to culture but they are easily taken again as they only ever have one defender. As soon as 'Right of passage' becomes available I get one with whoever I want to conquer and park what I think is enough attackers outside of every city or at least half of their cities. Then I take that civ out in one or two turns - kinda hard to culturally acquire when they are dead, lol. I am still cracking the despotic whip at 1425AD and only the Germans remain, and they only remain because I gave them rubber for their infantry - IDIOT!
It now takes twenty cavalry to take a city with only two infantry defenders, grrr. I agree with you, the patch is a micromanagement nightmare.

Sounds like you are ahead of me, though I haven't been in a rush to take over anything. Letting the AI develop the land while I build infrastructure and such, then I don't have to bother as much with the workers at the end of the game. Normally I wouldn't raze cities in a conquest type senario, just I want to keep with the "perfect" city placement plan I've been working on the whole game. About 1 in 20 AI cities are in the right spot, so I didn't raze all of them, just most. After the initial barracks/horsemen rush, I haven't used the whip at all. I know it would go much faster with it, but it really does get boring after a while. Besides I'm not shooting for an early conquest this time, I want a huge, bloated empire for once! I've finished off everyone on the main continent now, gave one city to the English on the Aztec Isle (wanted to give it to the french, but Joan isn't on speaking terms with me) before I wiped everyone out. I imagine my replay will be quite funny to watch, as I wiped out about 5-10 cities per turn, and then in about 5 turns I founded 50 or so cities. With all the cities I razed, I bet I have well over 400 workers, not including the 200 I had already added to my cities. Now I'm just waiting for anarchy to subside and get back to building. The final war was very rewarding, as I got 4 great leaders in the space of just a couple turns. Granted they won't do me much good now, as I already had built my palace with a saved GL, and any of the new wonders that come along I could build in just a few turns anyways. That makes 6 GL's total in the game, very nice, especially for a non-militaristic civ. I used to think that GL's were more common in close fights, but in this game they were mostly from Modern Armor vs. conscript riflemen, and one was a Modern Armor vs. a regular Cavalry. I think I'm going to build my spaceship, and just wait till 2049 to launch, by that time I should have the whole world developed almost to the maximum. Probably not a difference in score between histograph and space ship if I wait that long, but a space race victory sounds better don't ya think?

Aeson, my goal is the same as yours, huge sprawling empire, 2050 finish. I'm just getting the conquest out of the road early, lol.
The Germans are down to one city and I have disbanded all military units and switched to democracy. I still lose cities to culture with only one enemy city - hmmm can't figure that one out.
My basic premise with an early conquest is that the score is largely based on land area, so the longest number of turns spent with the largest land area should reap the highest score. But using the whip all the time with every city has kept my population low so it will be interesting as to which of us has the highest score. As to how to finish in 2050, i'm guessing that any victory will give the same bonus, if any at all. Glad to have disbanded 300 cavalry - bad case of cramps having to move so many units plus workers every turn, can't decide if it's fun or hard work, hehe.
Talk about serious time consumption, it's taken me at least 30 hours to get this far.
Good luck Aeson, look forward to seeing your game replay.
BTW, out of all that conquest I only had one great leader.

Saltan

about your combat, you used a warrior and hoplite against a warrior, if you attacked him, then your hoplite is just going to be the equal of a piece of cr$p, It only has 1 attack and it's great defence is not usefull as you were the attacker, if you had attacked with your warrior, and let his warrior kill that and then attack your hoplite, you would have won most likely.

Attack with attacking units, only defend with defencive units unless the opposition is severly damaged and is an easy kill.

I think you're probably right about the landmass scoring Clint. My score has skyrocketted the last 50 turns or so, tripling just about. The downside is I just got done with 6 turns that took roughly an hour to complete. The English are being really obnoxious, they have caused me to go into anarchy twice by declaring war. I have no idea what they are thinking, as their only city is surrounded by battleships and mechanical infantry (just outside their cultural borders), maybe they just want out.. haha. I think turns will go by marginally faster once I finish up with the massive terrain improvements going on right now, but I'm dreading the pollution clean-ups that will follow shortly. Pollution on the first continent is finally under control, I had to use homemade workers instead of the captured ones, so its cutting into my bankroll a bit. I have roughly about 200 turns remaining, if they take as long as the past several have, I won't be able to finish at 2050 and still make the deadline (rough estimate - 40 hours of play left). Good luck on your game Clint, will be interesting to see how much difference the earlier start will make in the scoring. I really need to get a USB keyboard and mouse to hook up to this laptop, or my fingers will never survive till 2050 ;)

Oh, and sorry about the lack of leaders, I really think that it has something to do with multiple attacks per turn. My elite calvary won hundreds of fights without any leaders, but once I started using modern armor they upgraded very quickly to elite, and the leaders seemed to always come on the second win on the units turn. I'm sure you've noticed the automatic upgrades a unit gets when defending against more than one attack in a turn (first attack no upgrade, 2nd to vetran, 3rd to elite), maybe it also increases the chances for a GL. Either way, my 6 is by far a record for me, often I go several games between GL's when not using militaristic civs.

Tried it one last time.

I am glad some people can beat the Romans.

I cant.

(No I wasnt using hoplites for offense).

This time I built the Library (sadly too late realizing it only works for Civs you are in contact with).

I built the Colossus.

I built about six cities, all with barracks, all with two spearmen.

The Romans declared war once, we kicked them out, kept expanding.

They took my surprise the second time, somehow snuck an archer over a mountain into my territory, and were ready with HUNDREDS of horses and archers.

As the Romans collapsed my underbelly (Triple Cow, Double Ivory Towns), 800,000 barbarians sacked either end of my empire (hill of gold back to Athens). I had saved up money, built up defense, etc. etc.

To all of you who win, consider posting your games AT THE TIME YOU ARE KICKING THE ROMAN ASS so I can understand how it is done. I mean, I feel like I cant beat those guys no matter what I do.

Try this save game, it's from a few turns before I ended the Roman existance...

Sorry, hit the wrong button ;)

THANKS AESON! I cant wait to check it out.

GOTM is a worthwhile teacher of the game after all...:)

No problem. I'll just make a few suggestions about the course of action you should follow from this save game. First, wait maybe 2 or 3 turns before attacking, mass your troops. Try to have a hoplite or two along with each horseman stack. The hoplites can't move as fast, but the horsemen can attack and then move back to the hoplite defender if you do it right, or once the hoplite gets next to a city the horsemen can just attack from safety. I had just finished off 3 Roman cities the turn before and made peace, as my forces were somewhat out of position. I don't remember if I could get a right of passage or not, but if you can don't worry about breaking it, none of the others will ever know ;) I made sure that on the first turn of combat I severed Caesar's final road to horses, and then it was easy. The horsemen are the only ones you have to worry about, as nothing else can touch you. I razed all the remaining cities besides rome, to keep with my city pattern. Probably a mistake on my part. Pop rush another set of horsemen once the small cities get to size 2 again. The larger cities can produce horsemen in only a few extra turns, so don't need any pop rushing. After the last few despotic whip games I've played, I wanted something more aestetic. You should see how the final product turned out, it got a little messy around the coasts, but overall its a nice pattern of cities that kinda makes me think of the borg ;)

Here is another one its 510AD.

I just took their first real city, and I went on to then move my palace there, it was Veii. IIRC I then took Lugdunum(?) and Rome next turn, these are directly adjacent, north and west.

Only things to consider are that you have to keep the hops that are defending the iron and horses, both needed for knights. I've got 3 towns where I am rushing knights, all by the flood plains. You have to do the step process, rush a longbowman, change back to knights, wait for pop increase, then finish rushing the knight. In an emergency some other cities can be rushed, but because of the long lasting effects I only rush in specific cities that will be abandoned and rebuilt later on.

I tried to find a good save for you to mess around, and this is the best I have. The next one I have is at 780AD, and there is only one city of the romans left, Lutetia.

Couple other things, I got a leader soon after (or already) in this save, and I moved my palace to Veii. Check the old palace and see if its making anything important if you get that same leader, or if its just fortified or something in that save. I didn't check it.

You shouldn't have any problems beating the romans with this game, Knights beat spearmen and horsemen. Also I denied iron to rome forever so not a single legion.

Thanks Aeson and Smirk.

It is very rewarding to see how "the pros" have handled the Romans, and to have a chance to use that kind of firepower on the leader who has had me so burnt up in the past several retries.

I wonder, if I can ask you both, are these games fairly typical of your strategy? Did having a suboptimal starting position or militaristic neighbor influence you or would normally go spearman/settler as fast as possible? Do you play this way on easier levels? (I have only pursued full Civ 3 games at Regent level and below, where I find that it is not always necessary to even build defenders for some cities).

Let me know how your games wrap up, if you care to share that info before the big roundup (feel free to PM me).

Most of the games I play privately are on Deity level, which usually means I have to switch from expansion to military very early. It's nice to have a more relaxed type of game where the military can wait for the most part, and the greeks are definitely the best peaceful civ, with Babs not far behind. The starting location was a bit uncentered, but always play to the strengths of the terrain. For much of the BC's I was able to forgo garrison units in all but my border cities, because of luxuries (Ivory and later Spices), and because there is very little threat of sea invasions until much later in the game (never from barbs, they need to change that). So being able to expand only to the SW gave the advantage of only having to defend to the SW. This allowed me to explore better with fewer military, and have relatively strong forces at the front as well. With raging barbarians, I just kept 1 hoplite stationed up on the gold hill in the jungle, as barbarian encampments need more than 1 unseen space to develop in, and that was the only area that my cities culture didnt reveal, until I later built a city there. Otherwise I would have had to defend Sparta and Athens much more (though Sparta had 2 units for happiness reasons as it built the lighthouse).

I do try to use similar city spacing when not going for early military conquests. I find that during the expansion period of the game, it's a good compromise between territory aquisition and time spent in transit by settlers. It also builds diagonal culture walls, so each new city is linked culturally to the last, with a minimum of overlap. That means I can connect cities by roads and not have to worry about the AI using those roads. Also the AI won't build cities if it only has 1 tile spacing from any of your cities. That means they won't build in the culture gaps left by this city spacing pattern, even early on when cultural borders haven't expanded. That protected my Ivory colony that I built, even though the pattern had caused me to miss them. In the GOTM there was enough open terrain available to make it work just about perfectly. In most games though I have to adjust individual cities placement in many cases, though the ability to shift each new line of cities up or down, and still keep the same basic overlap helps.

From a build order standpoint, it's very dependant on Civ, terrain, and desired victory condition. If I have bronzeworking from the start, I try to keep spearmen escorting most of my settlers. There are times when a settler is headed towards a protected area, and doesn't need an escort though. When I don't have bronzeworking I try to just make due with warriors, but usually make only a few more than I would spearmen. Its important to take terrain into account as well. Athens was able to build a settler in the exact same time it took to grow to 3, without any improvements to the terrain. Where I built sparta, it was able to produce 2 hoplites and then a settler. The next couple of cities needed terrain improvements before they could get in any kind of settler/hoplite rotation, so they started out building a few workers each. I had 2 teams of 3 workers each that were set to just building roads out to new city sites. Almost all of my cities were connected by roads before they were even founded, helping the settlers get there quicker, and giving the luxury support from the start.

As far as my GOTM turned out, I posted a somewhat detailed summary of it over on the spoiler thread.

HA! You bet it did, I count like 3 strikes in this game.

The first is the greeks, ewww, they are the hyper defense tribe. Then there was the awful start, only thing of value to me was the flood plains. And third of course was the very agressive (at least in my game) romans. I took a look at aeson's game and the romans build the pyramids! I wish my romans were so useful, they ignored the pyramids and build non-stop horsemen, heh.

I'm more of a conquest player so I wouldn't normally play the greeks or any race that has a defensive UU (like the greeks/ french), or a balanced UU (like the romans and many others).

Ignoring the greeks there is really only 1 thing I care about initially a good food production square, preferrable flood plains because, one its 3 irrigated and 5 with wheat in despotism, and two where there be flood plains there be rivers. I settle almost always near fresh water, I don't do any crazy pattern stuff like Aeson described and did in his gotm. Rivers also give me two big benefits, no need for aquaduct, and you get +1 commerce on all adjacent river squares.

So all in all this start wasn't that bad, you got some flood plains (meager) and a bit more south there were quite a few cattle which certainly help. But once they finsih up this gotm get my endgame and check out Veii. Compared to Veii and Rome your starting cities are crap. I had over 100 production in Veii, and thats just with hydroplant. None of the later stage improvements.

I managed to get the Iron early and building the road back to my capital was a bit of an epic, but stuff the Romans! I let them beat themselves to death on the shields of my hoplites every time they threatened me, a seriously unfeasible amount of losses before they would give up. I even had massive barbarian uprisings at the SAME time, where my hoplite would take 17 or 18 units down with it. But on no occasion did I try to assualt a Roman city until all my cities were producing veteran swordsmen.

Somewhere around 400/500 AD I waltzed into three Roman cities, they tried to scare me with a large number of archers approaching my Iron city, but I'd already taken three before they were a threat and agreed to a pecae treaty.

It was pretty easy considering all the battering I'd been taking until then.

Now I'll wait, get some more troops, and the Heroic Epic and bust them up again...

Yah Smirk, the Romans were very nice to build the Pyramids. In all honesty though, I wish it had been built on the main continent, as it would have really helped my final score there. Most of the starting continent ended up waiting at size 12 for quite a while before I made it to Hospitals anyways. I did try to get the Romans to build the Great Library, I think Literature was my 3rd advance (non-hut) to that end. I was just going to give it to them, but they researched it at the same time I guess.

That is one of the things I really make a point of in my games now. I don't build graneries very often, and try to "help" my neighbors to get wonders for me to take later. Usually if I give Pottery or Literature to a neighbor, they immediately start building the corresponding wonder. If I can do that early enough, it gives them a good shot at at least one of them. Then I make sure that the city I'm attacking isn't building a wonder. They won't switch, even in wartime it seems, so I wait until they've finished, or lost the race, before I take the city. Pottery was my second advance, only took 6 turns to get, after the 32 for writing. I bet they would have gotten the Great Library if I had just gone straight for Literature, oh well. With how great a starting location the Romans had, it's suprising that they didn't build a wonder for you as well.

Hi. I have also had problem with the romans, so I played the game again. At one time I got to around 270 BC and quickly took the iron and the horse. After this I should have done fine, but I didn't. Some years later when I had some swordsmen and horsemen, I attacked. But the swordsmen weren't as effective as I thought, so I lost a city in the middle, which caused me to lose my iron and horses (Hard to take the city back). So I played the game again.

Now I am 530 BC. And the romans have really expanded quickly. And now they even took the iron!! (they have ironworking :eek:)

I know I gotta do something, and that quick, but I don't have any troops or anything. Is it over for me again? Look at the picture below and see for yourselves. http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~md99-jlu/iron.gif

Bah! The damn romans can kill my city defender (hopolite) with a veteran warrior, they can stand unfortified on plains and still manage to defend against 3 of my horsemen.

This just isn't fun.

Its hard to tell from just the picture, but I don't think you're in all that bad a position to tell the truth. You still have horses hooked up to your empire, did you build many barracks yet? It's important to use veteran horsemen, as regulars retreat too quickly. I would switch to horsemen in any city that has a barracks already, and pop rush them in any city that is over size 2 (Athens looks big enough that you might just want to let it grow and produce horsemen regularly). Cities without barracks should build them as quickly as possible, and then produce horsemen.

They have a spearman in the Iron city, but it doesn't look like they have a road connection to their main cities right? That means you don't have to worry about the Iron too much for right now, but taking back the city when you get spare horsemen would be a good idea. If you want to continue expanding (looks that way from all the settlers being built), then after 1 or two waves of pop rushing horsemen you should have a large enough army to take a few roman cities, and get Caesar to talk peace. It would be a long shot, but maybe your elite warrior can take the Iron city's regular spearman. It's just a Warrior, might as well give it a shot.

As far as Swordsmen are concerned, they aren't very effective unless you also send catapults along to weaken the defense. Otherwise you will still have high casualty rates when taking out spearmen in walled or size 7+ cities. Horsemen, on the other hand, only need minimal support (send a few hoplites into Roman territory, so the horsemen can have some "safe" tiles to end their turn in). Cut off Caesar's access to horses as soon as possible. Best way is to just take a hoplite and park it on the resource (pillage the road).

Hey, thanks Aeson. That were some good tips. I am right now in a huge war against the romans. We take cities back and forth. I have about 10 horsemen, but they took my "horse-city". I wonder if I had played the game a little differently, I would have had more uppertunities for war earlier on.

For example, I used my first worker to build roads to every spot I would build a city, until I came to the iron. Maybe I should have used my settlers to occupy the horse-tile earler instead of building a city in between (a crappy city on gold-tile, just north of "horse-city"). And maybe I should have whipped my people more :). I may have been too kind to them.

Btw, you are not familiar with Starlifter are you? You seem like him. (Long posts, helping others, feeding the AI's to kill them later.) ;)

I tip my hat to all those who managed to beat the Romans. I started rather badly. Never got the horses. Never got the iron. I even tried being nice and giving the Romans the iron working, they still declared war 2 rounds later. I could replay, but alas, I was beaten. I will look forward to GOTM #3. I have attached one of my final days. It doesn't look too bad, I know. But there were many behind them. Trust me.

Aeson, about the Romans, you letting them build the Great Library; the AI won't start constructing it untill they have encountered 2 civs.

It is good to hear that I aint the only one getting hammered by the Romans. They took a walled city with two veteran defenders with just a warrior and a horsemen, no casualties for them. Their archers can defend against my veteran horsemen sometimes. And the barbarians on this level, dont even get me started. I had an elite warrior on full health die to a barbarian camper with 2 health. Sheesh.

I would also like to see a preference setting that has the horsemen stay all the way, injured or not. I bet if they didnt go down to one health where they will be killed next turn by a one health warrior or archer, they could hang around and get some kills.

And conversely I would like an option to have them retreat always when they reach 1 hp. My view is that they have that ability why not always use it. If I wanted 2/1 attackers without an option to retreat I would use the less costly archers. However there is no cheaper non-retreating unit replacement for tanks and armor.

I would never lose modern armor to impi's and jaguar warriors if I had that option.

Hello everyone!

Well I had some problems beating the Romans too, but you have to be persistent and never ever let them have the Iron.

As soon as you can build a road to the small Sea inte the middle, where the horse is, and go there with a settler, the next city should be built by the Iron on the hills by the ocean to the west.

And build hoplites near the romans and horsemen in your more distant cities, it's also a good idea to use hoplites as the horsemens shields.

Well, well... that was not my question. My question was, if anyone invaded the biggest island?

My strategy was to defeat the romans and the build a great amount of cavalrys to invade the aztecs, but it was a failure so I loaded som turns back and started building up my cities, building culture stuff and so on (I actually almost won by culture, even if my only wonder was the Seti program, ended up with 96000p)

So I decided to invade them when I got Tanks instead. Which woukd ultimatly lead me to a Histographical victory... and that was almost my goal anyway...

Anyway, do you think you have to Invade the big Island to get high scores?

At the end of my game there was only me and China left, but I won by score, 3331p to be exact.

Here's a screenshot from my game 110 AD:
http://medieteknik.bth.se/frst01/rts-gamer.net/media/screenshots/civ3/civ3_10.jpg


And here is one from 2049 AD:
http://medieteknik.bth.se/frst01/rts-gamer.net/media/screenshots/civ3/civ3_49.jpg

I'm including the two savegames (110 AD, and 2049 AD)

Please tell Matrix that the savegames is here, because I don't know if he have got my email, I've had some problems with my email program lately...


The Information:
Nickname: Grey Fox
Name: Fredrik Henriksson
Date of Finish: 2050AD
Way of ending: Victory / Histographic
Final Score: 3331

Grey Fox -

Yes, the highest scores will come from those who invade the main continent. More room for cities, more population, more territory, all adds up to more points.

to Grey Fox

After I wiped the Romans from my island I started trading techs and managed to get about 3 techs behind the tech leader.

I decided to invade Aztecs with a load of cavalry, got 2 cities and then made peace. I intended to declare war a few turns later, take a few cities and make peace again just the way i got the romans. This also keeps the war weariness a bit down. But all went different. The indians started a war with me and they had MPP with the other main landers and in 2 turns i was at war with everybody but the aztecs. The war weariness made all my cities go into civil unrest after a few turns so I had no option than to pay for peace with everybody. After this I only wanted revenge and smash the indians.

After making MPP with some other civs on the main island i started a war. I made peace with the indians but the others didnt which gave me the opportunity to get back in the tech race. After a while i was tech leader and there were only 4 civs left on the island. When I could build tanks I shipped about 25 over to the main island and got a right of passage with Indians. I positioned my troops and razed three cities. This turned out to be a mistake cause I got lots of civil unrest being the aggressor and I lost all my luxuries in the proces ( i got them from the indians). I had to make peace again without really hurting the indians.

Then i raced for modern armor and mech inf. I got mech inf first, and when i reached synthetic fibers the other just got comps and started building their first few mech infs. I upgraded all my tanks to modern armor ( about 90 ). Payed the indians for right of passage again, positioned my troops and razed his 10- 15 oldest cities in one turn. That same turn i made peace and colonized all the luxuries. This worked great for the war weariness. Because i had peace before the end of the turn i had no civil unrest, and the luxuries even boosted my popularity to 80%. It was only 65% when I started the turn, and was 22% during the war.

I'm now on my way with about 25 modern armor to conquer some chinese cities and I plan to use the right of passage strategy again.

Its about 1860 in my game so i think i'll manage to get a conquest victory before 2050. When invading the main continent i would always go for razing the conquered cities and not taking them. This way you will never have cities reverting culturally and you dont need any troops to defend them so you can take way more land in a short time.

I think getting MPP with civs on the main island is critical to win the game. This way you'll be able to start wars between them which wil give you the opportunity to develop faster. When they are warring on their island they wont be so keen to expanding or fighting on your island too.

Hope this helps

Well, my tactics was to be nice to everyone (after I took the romans and azteks that is) and get a "right of passage" deal with the indians, then I placed about three, four cavalrys around every city he had and then I invaded. Then there were only the french and chinese left. (they had an own war with the japanese and the english while I took the indians). So I got peace with the chinese and tried to take the french cities, because they had declared war with me before. But that went bad so I got peace from them, got a right of passage and one with the chinese. And wham bham almost all the cities on the island was mine!!!

But I saved one of the french cities and got a Cultural Victory on the year 2050.

Yes I did, the year 2050!!! with 9986 points or something...