Civ 3 GOTM#4 *Spoiler* talks [Archive] - Civilization Fanatics' Forums

carlcmc

Feb 03, 2002, 09:59 AM

I immediately started researching towards horseback riding and plopped my first settler as far north in the choke point as possible and still be able to block it.

I accidently misplace two of my cities to the south where the horses show up so that neither had horses show up in their territory. So i had to use one of my workers to grab it as a colony.

I placed a scout on the horses site in the french territory. I don't consider this a cheat. They did ask me to move it but never forced me to.

By the time horseback riding was researched, i had completed a baracks in my choke point city on of my cities directly north of the horses and of course my capitol. I had a chariot building in my capitol and it switched to horseman. After building 4-5 horseman i took the first french city to the north and also destroyed the one that they created to the south of me when a galley slipped past. I sued for peace and got iron working and gold. BTW they killed my scout on the horses.

Built another scout after declaring peace and put back on their horses. I continued to pump horseman so that after 20 turns were up i broke the peace treaty and had ~10 horseman and proceeded to take their capitol and north east most city. some losses on each side. they managed to have made around 5 horseman during the time that i didn't have a scout on their horses. From there it was pumping horseman and taking cities. I finally sued for peace as they had 2 cities left. One was the name starting with a C to the far west, i demanded the north most city , all their research, all their gold and all their workers.

And here is the most important part of this. In a few turns the indians galley show up (they have lighthouse). I do some trades but don't trade contact because i reason that they will go from polite to annoyed real quick. BUT they are heading their galley north towads the Last french city. So i decide to break the french peace treaty at like 14 turns left point and wipe them out. (they had just completed the great wall, and the oracle and great library was in paris when i captured it). So i check my diplomacy screen and sure enough, the indians are still polite!!!! since i wiped the french out before they made contact they never new how much of a scoundrel i was to them.

I reloaded to test my theory (not cheating since i wasn't planning on using it, just to see the effect on their attitude) and if i waited till peace treaty was up and then killed them, by that point the indians had found them and went from polite to annoyed with me. I'm glad i hurried up and killed the french.

At this point i have contact with persians, indians, zulu, and aztec. I have brokered out a bunch tech and the persians are the only one ahead of me in tech (monotheism and maybe more) . indians and i are equal and i'm getting ready to sell monarchy to the other civs.

I'm not sure really where to go from now. I'm in anarch switching to monarchy so i'm not sure whether to try and keep up in tech with the persians, or whether to drop to 10 percent and broker tech. The problem is i drained the zulu, and aztec so much that i don't think i can recoup my investment if i buy monotheism for 500+ gold...

Plus those stupid indians have grabbed all the islands to the south of me. Its 340 AD and current rank is

Persians 821
India 632
England 524
Aztec 496
Zulu 481
and French (deceased) 420

The big decision is whether to go heavy man-o-war when i get their and bombard the persians (and maybe indians) into oblivion without invading until they sue for peach. (not sure if that will work but it might) or whether to go for diplomacy/space victory.

carlcmc

Feb 03, 2002, 10:20 AM

Forgot to mention that I got a greatleader when i took out the last french city and used that to hurry a forbidden palace in the middle of the captured french territory. Not sure if this was wise or not (whether i should have saved it for sistine chapel or not... oh well.

Aeson

Feb 03, 2002, 11:14 AM

I like this map, makes for quite an interesting game. I researched straight to Mapmaking, while watching the French get hopelessly more advanced than me. I had a warrior blocking them off from the south, and all my cities were pumping out settlers as fast as possible. By the time the French had Mapmaking (they got it before I did even), I had colonized the whole southern portion of the Island.

I traded for Horseback Riding and Iron Working, and was pleasantly suprised to find 2 Horses and an Iron within my borders. I upgraded all my warriors to Swordsmen, and started pop-rushing Horsemen from every city. I first sent a stack of Swordsmen directly to the French Horses, and cut off their supply. Meanwhile my Horsemen fought a hit and run battle keeping the French forces occupied. Then my two armies joined up and started sacking cities. I got a leader, which I used to rush the Great Lighthouse, the French had already built the Great Library. I razed all the cities except the one with the Great Library, and signed a peace treaty for the 2 French island cities, and all their tech. The next turn I took the final city and the French were no more.

I had sent my Galleys out immediately after the Lighthouse was built, making contact with all of the other Civs pretty quickly. I didn't trade anything, as I could tell that they wouldn't be able to make contact with each other until they had Astronomy. I blockaded the galley alley between my Islands and the Zulu's, to save the southern islands for later colonization. I also blockaded the Aztecs from the small Island to the west, so I could settle there first. The Zulu's became angry because of this, and declared war. I had my galleys out in the sea though, and they never would attack them. It was the first of many wars where no battles were fought. The Persians demanded that I give them contacts several times, each time I said no. They would declare war, but not be able to send any forces. Each time I would sign peace, I got a few gold per turn, which was nice.

I noticed the Indians didn't have any Iron or Horses, and so targetted them for the next invasion. I landed my armies, and razed all but 1 of their cities in about 20 turns of warfare. I got another Great Leader during the fighting, and sent him back to the main continent to rush the Forbidden Palace. I built it near where Paris had been.

I decided to try and take the southern Aztec isle next. I pop rushed several longbowmen on the Indian continent, and ferried them and the remainder of my Horseman force across to do battle. The Aztecs had Pikemen, so it was a bit difficult, but they only had 4 small cities on the island at the time. After wiping out several landings from the main Aztec continent, they sued for peace and I was able to get a city of theirs on the smaller island. I had settled there originally, but they had conquered my city during the fighting, and built another. I got them both.

After that I beelined for Calvary, letting the Great Library fill in the gaps. I upgraded my few remaining Horsemen, and invaded the Zulu's. They still hadn't gotten into the Middle Ages, so my Calvary tore them apart. The Persians were able to land a couple of settlers to claim some of the former Zulu lands. I built several small cities around the Persians, and rushed all the cultural buildings I could. One of the Persian cities defected, and then the Persians declared war again. I took the remaining city, and then just killed their landing parties until they were ready for peace again.

I'm waiting now for Tanks to continue any warfare, just barely holding a tech lead of a turn or two. I have been able to get all the Middle age wonders, except for Newtons (the aztecs beat me by 1 turn!) and Shakespeares Theater (I didn't want it). I had traded Theory of Gravity to the Aztecs just a couple turns before I was going to complete Newton, I don't know how they finished it so fast, as there wasn't any spillover from previous wonders.

Trash

Feb 03, 2002, 02:47 PM

wow the great lighthouse sounds quite powerful on this map.

The indians built it in my game stupid me i had a great leader but didn't use it because i was only a few turns away from finishing the lighthouse in London, when the indians built it.

What year are you in Aeson?

In my game i've wiped the zulus from their homeland in about 500AD, they have one colony left on an island to the south and i'm ferrying 3 swordsman down as we speak :slay: The war took alot longer than i intended because of those damn impi, i initally attacked with 20 horseman and managed to capture 3 cities but took HEAVY losses due to the 2 movement points of their defense units disabling my horsies retreat option. So i had to take a 100 year break from the war just defending the 3 eastern cities till i could get 10 swordsman in there to finish the job.

But now i'm still 3 techs away from astronomy, the only cities i can get too is a few small indian cities in the southern isles. I might take them and see if i can scare them into giving a city on their mainland for peace, then i might be able to mount an attack on their city with the Great Lighthouse. It's a long shot but i'll be researching towards astronomy as i go anyway.

civjunki

Feb 03, 2002, 04:06 PM

hey, i just finshed gotm4. what a great game!
i got a warrior out of that 1st goodie hut,and took him north.
hey theres the evil french,i killed there warrior and got 2 workers from there setller.by now i was making sperman,so when they send about 5 warriors to kill me they didnt have a chance.
anyways afer i got swordsmen i burnt all there cities to the ground,allbut paris.paris had the great libary and pyrimd,so i was able to keep up with everyone.
after a short war with the zulus i had the hole island and the small ones to the south.
afterthat i got the man of war,then the golden age.
after that i traded gold for tech,and just stayed out of war. the other civs killed all the zulus around 1800.
then aztecs and i were in a protection pact,as i started to build the UN. the persians were my only worrie,and i thought that the indians would vote for them. 2 turns befor i finished the UN the persians went to war with india,then i knew i would get there vote too. i won in 1891 with a diplomatic win, my score was 2594. that was the 1st time i ever won with a diplomatic win,and the 1st time i ever won on emperor level.
hope to see you all in the standings.

Captain Sexual

Feb 03, 2002, 06:03 PM

I thought the starting position sucks arse. Poor access to resources and right next to the French who are aggressively pouring out military units and not doing much else. On the plus side, some nice land and a chokehold position at the northern border with the French. So obviously the Frenchies must go, this continent ain't big enough for the both of us. They are too arrogant with their crossaints and big-arsed women parading around in tiny bikinis anyway. The Frenchies iron deficiecy was their downfall, swordsman made short work of the task. Once the French were quelled I now have a decent land mass and some OK resources. Built the Forbidden Palace in the centre of the old French territory, luckily produced a great leader in the war with the french through ensuring elites only fought battles they would win, and doing this as much as possible. Used him to rush the FP. So now I have two strong regions, my original position and palace (plus a southern peninsula which has good land but is far enough from my capital to have quite a lot of corruption) and the old French area which is looking really good.

So what is the overall strategy? Not much time to develop one early on, as the French solution required complete commitment. Time to consider the options now.

The usual objectives in any Civ 3 game are -

1. to have a decent continent/region with good growth potential, resources and defensive capability
2. build it up to create commerce and production
3. keep the people happy
4. expand culture
5. explore and make contact with other civs
6. expand territory where appropriate
7. develop science/technology
8. have a strong military (even if only as a deterrent)

Specific to this game -

1. the English suck. have to keep in mind their weak characteristics (and compensate). 5 turns of anarchy to change government...arrrgh!
2. Emperor level - very hard to keep up on science/tech - hence don't waste resources trying. Trade is the key here - have a strong empire in terms of resources and gold, contact all the other civs and trade intelligently.
3. On deity level I think you have no choice but to play militaristically, as the AI civs have such a huge advantage in development speed. On emperor level this is kind of true also, although not to the same extent. However in this game due to observations made early on I decided that I would need to be very militaristic.
4. Islands! Don't normally play island games, the logistics of sea travel are a pain in the arse-cracka. Anyway, need to develop marine capability ASAP, see what's out there and exploit.
5. On emperor level once a rival civ starts to pull away from you it is near impossible to reign them in - if this starts to happen you must act, no matter what the cost, or you'll lose anyway through inaction. The ideal situation is to create alliances or provoke situtaions that have the other civs fighting the strongest AI civ, as well as the required military effort from yourself.

So I follow this strategy and make contact with the other 5 civs. Recognise two threats - the Indians and the Persians. The Persians have more territory and a generally more impressive empire, however the Indians are flying along with tech delevopment. We all know how ****ed you are if a rival civ becomes significantly more technologically developed. So the decision is made - primary target India, secondary Persia. Cannot fight on 2 fronts at once (not strong enough), so try to encourage the others against Persia while staking out the Indians and building a massive offensive force. This took a while. I'm deliberating whether to just **** them up and leave (which would be easier) or try to take over. Decide I need to take over if I'm to have any chance later in the game, currently my land mass just isn't large enough.

So won't bore you with intense detail, flooded the Indians with cavalry and fought a bloody and protracted war which eventually resulted in me being victorious and commanding a new continent with some excellent great wonders also. The Indians are now crushed. Had a problem with culture-flipping cities for a while but sorted them out eventually.

Still trading as much as possible with anyone who will trade with me, have found a good friend in the Zulus.

During my Indian war however, the Persians strengthened - and really threatened to pull away. Had to act fast, before they developed infantry which would prevent me taking their cities. Continued building massive offensive force (at the cost of other development opportunities of course). Attacked the Persians in gusto, initially razing their cities as the battles were close, I was taking heavy losses and could not afford to waste resources attempting to retain their cities. Razed the top 5 Persian cities. Then decided I could afford to take some of their territory, I took about 40% of it, then they started building a lot of infantry - I decided I could not continue this war realistically any further - I sued them for peace, took some nice techs and a ****load of gold and staked out defensively in their land. They are now weakened enough to neutralise the threat, but only just.

Made mutual protection pact with the Zulus who I have identified as a good ally, they are loyal but not really a threat.

The Aztecs by now are fighting the Persians, sensing the opportunity created by my attack. This is good, as the Aztecs have become the most pressing threat due to being left alone for so long, they are next on the list for an arse-****ing by the Captain.

I decided that I need to spend 30-50 years in peacetime, developing my nation as I have neglected it during so much war. Luckily I have a lot of gold - spend it on hospitals, factories, cathedrals etc. Built the CIA and battlefield medicene. Start using espionage to great effect, am now at the forefront of research (with science set at 0% - not bad hey). 45 years later and now looking shipshape. No 1 on nearly all stats. No time to get cocky though, on emperor level that would punished swiftly. Will commence offensive strategy against the Aztecs when I play again tonight.

Aeson

Feb 03, 2002, 08:52 PM

Originally posted by Trash
wow the great lighthouse sounds quite powerful on this map.

The indians built it in my game stupid me i had a great leader but didn't use it because i was only a few turns away from finishing the lighthouse in London, when the indians built it.

What year are you in Aeson?

The Great Lighthouse is an automatic Golden Age for the English. Some may not like early GA's in Despotism, but I think on higher difficulties you can't wait for good timing, every little bonus counts when trying to catch up to the initial AI lead. Once in the lead it's easier to keep pace, as the AI will fund your research. Definitely on this map the Lighthouse is extremely powerful, this is due to the movement rates, and how the AI avoids ocean crossings with Galleys at all costs. I waited to trade contact a little too long though, as the Persians found the Aztecs and Zulu's while I was distracted with conquest of the Zulu island. Cost me about 500 gold or so. I think the Great Lighthouse is probably the single most important improvement on this map, and on archipelago maps in general. If not for your own use, than to keep the AI from taking advantage of early contact to get a huge lead.

I have currently wiped out most of the Persian holdings, though they had taken 3 of my poorly defended southern islands. I demanded 2 of them back, so now the Persians only have one city, and are at war with the Aztecs. The Aztecs only have one source of Aluminum, and I'm going to hit it as soon as possible. They haven't linked it up yet, as it was a city that the Persians took from me. The Aztecs have Computers, I just traded it to them, so I don't want to give them the chance to build any Mech Infantry. I have 4 transports full of tanks along with 12 battleships headed towards them now, and most of the Aztec armies are still on the Persian Mainland. It's 1920, the game has played out quite historically acurate in many regards.

Originally posted by Trash
In my game i've wiped the zulus from their homeland in about 500AD, they have one colony left on an island to the south and i'm ferrying 3 swordsman down as we speak :slay: The war took alot longer than i intended because of those damn impi, i initally attacked with 20 horseman and managed to capture 3 cities but took HEAVY losses due to the 2 movement points of their defense units disabling my horsies retreat option.?[/B]

I try to wait until Knights at least to attack the Zulu's, though even then they get killed a lot attacking Zulu cities. Zulu cities on hills are just Horse nightmares. On this game I was able to go straight for Military Tradition though, and the Great Library gave me Chivalry about the same time I got to Calvary anyways. Even with Calvary, Impies are worse than pikemen, or musketmen in causing deaths. If the AI would use mobile troops (Knights, Calvary, UU's) for defense at all, that would really take a bite out of Horse rushing in general. Thats one of the reasons why I like using the Zulu's on my privately played games, as an early Horse rush is always going to be effective. Impies are perfect defense for your Horse stacks as well.

When I took out the Zulu's they stuck around for 4 or 5 turns after their last city fell. I couldn't find out where they were, and then they just poofed. Had me worried about Zimbabwe defecting, as I had settler disbanded or razed all their other cities.

donsig

Feb 03, 2002, 11:10 PM

C'mon, be a man, play it out and submit it! I've been getting killed regularly and still submit...

...and this GOTM is no exception. I played this one really, really, really badly. I stunk, now the French are killing me and I deserve it. In 1700 BC I had NO CULTURE (except the free palace) and no army to speak of. I lost so many warriors to BARBARIANS that I never even dreamed of attacking France.

I hung in there, and actually built a few cities on islands. Then France attacked for no reason. They won't even talk to me. I think the AI remembers all those cheiftain games I played where I conquered all their civs - and now the computer is taking it's revenge :eek:

Aeson

Feb 04, 2002, 03:00 AM

Well, I finished this evening. I don't play in the modern age much, and was thinking they needed aluminum for Mech Infantry, this mess up cost me a lot of frustration. I had about 15 Battleships bombarding each city, then a stack of 100 or so Tanks would clean up afterwards. Still I barely had enough Tanks to complete the conquest of the Aztecs main island, I was losing 5-10 per city. I had the Aztecs down to 3 cities on the small southern islands, and was going to let them alone while I built up my score a bit.

War weariness was getting really annoying though, as the Aztecs wouldn't talk to me forever. There really wasn't enough landmass to get many more points, so I built a couple cities, took over 2 of the Aztec cities, and achieved domination. I didn't really feel like spending all that time building up anyways. It was a fun game, and cutting it short was nice. I don't think I could have improved my score more than another 100 points or so anyways, the date bonus was pretty well balanced on this map.

robinm

Feb 04, 2002, 08:59 AM

Well , I'm pretty sure I'm going to loose unless I can arrange some truly heroic WWI style industrial conquest from nowhere.

I found the french quite quickly, blockaded the choke point with 3 warriors , and managed to fill in all the southern island area with my cities , as well as grab 3 random whaling stations on the little islands to the south. All well and good. The French got annoyed once while there was still some territory to grab in teh southern island, but by then I had a walled city with 5 spearmen in the chokepoint. i never had the nerver to pop rush an army and take on the french , so they have been slowly pulling away from me.

They got the ´Lighthouse and most of the medevil wondres, and Joan of arse is a grumpy ***** to trade with. Polite , but... "We have no interest is such a trade" to _everything_. i found Zulus, but Joan would not trade any maps or contacts or techs... so IO lagged badly. Eventually got contacts from Zulus for tech ( I was foolishly trying to research tech s at this time, as it seemed the Zulus were backwards and France was not selling). Got monarchy , changerd govs , as soon asI recover from anrchy it seems Zuzlus want to sell me REpublic .... Damn...

Main mistakes.... 1. trying to research tech... should have gone 100% tax and bought contacts then traded. (and not built librarys). 2.Should have avoided monarchy and aimed direct for Republic. 3 . Not paying enough attention to the resources the French didn't have.. or those easily taken from them. I think there was a window there in Anchient age to pop rush units and kill them.... but I missed it.

Main cool plays... 1. getting city on choke point and pop rushing a wall !!! 2. Getting 4 techs , world map and contact with Indians from the Persioans for 50 gold per turn then declaring war. They HATE me..... but they can't get to me yet.

Problems.....
Slow on tech, inferior units to French.
Persians and Indians also show signs of powereing away to Victory.

Plan : Trade for tech parity , build many defense units , horse units and MANY cannon. I reckon I can cripple the french in a WW1 trench warfare massacry at the choke point , maybe enough to start taking cities , definatly enough for some GL's and generally to mess them up. I can't see how to deal with the other though , unless I kill the frech , then maybe a big economy can out tank the others.

Man-o-war will be irrelavent , as 2 turns after I trade for magnetism there will be Ironclads running around the ocean.

Perhaps I might win by killing Frech + all the little guys and get domination , or by trading my way to a really cheesy GL built UN victory.... but I think I can't win unless the French die.

I might replay this for fun and try to swordsman ruch the French.... after they build a few handy Wonders for me in Paris :-)

marshalljames

Feb 04, 2002, 09:12 AM

In order to win this game you have to eliminate the french right away.And the only way you can know that is by reloading.If you do not stay in a constant war/peace with them and take their advances in treaties you'l get so far behind it's not funny.
I may even go further to say that anyone who submits a winning score cheated.

Marshalljames

Aeson

Feb 04, 2002, 11:32 AM

It doesn't take reloading to understand how to win on Emperor difficulty, just some experience in playing at that level. Those who are familiar with "standard" procedure on higher difficulty levels know that the easiest way to catch up to the initial AI lead is through early warfare. Find the closest Civ, eliminate or disable them with an early pop-rushed military, getting all their tech for peace at some point in the conquest. It's almost required playstyle on Deity. Emperor it is just a good idea, though possible to win without.

I would say that for island maps, the Great Lighthouse should be a top priority going into the game, and early warfare helps there too. At least 1 AI is going to not have the resources to build it before you (as you are destroying their Civ), and all the fighting has a good chance of generating a leader to rush with. Playing as the English means you can research map making as your first advance, so its reasonably easy to get the Lighthouse with them.

Hobbes

Feb 04, 2002, 12:11 PM

SanPellegrino

Feb 04, 2002, 12:25 PM

I tried tro build colossus in london soon, because I thought that was the early wonder I was able to get - aztecs built it 15 turns earlier, aargh. There was no wonder I could switch to at that time, so I had to buy mapmaking from the french (very expensive). Now it's only 1 turn till finishing, but I got literacy a turn ago.
Should I get lighthouse or GL? I know, Lighthouse is important on pelago and I don't know if I am able to make contact to the other civs with galleys w/o lighthouse. Is it possible w/o?

Captain Sexual

Feb 04, 2002, 08:21 PM

Marshalljames says

"In order to win this game you have to eliminate the french right away.And the only way you can know that is by reloading.If you do not stay in a constant war/peace with them and take their advances in treaties you'l get so far behind it's not funny.
I may even go further to say that anyone who submits a winning score cheated. "

This is crap. I didn't reload and I killed the French. Found them very early with my scout, made the decision that same turn that they had to be eliminated - scouted their area whilst building up swordsmen to the chokepoint (btw they traded me iron working, fools), and killed them. Well not killed them, they had established one city on another island but wiped them off my continent - for all intents and purposes they were destroyed.

Anyways, had a great session last night. Pounded the Aztecs into submission. I'm well on the way to a convincing win by domination. Have attached my histograph.

Have broken the back of all resistance - now command the skies (fighters & bombers), seas (battleships, destroyers, subs, transports) and land (tanks & infantry). That's why they call me the Captain.

I've really enjoyed this game, I think the GOTM is a great idea. I never would have played the english or the island game of my own accord - but being in this comp and having it chosen for us has pushed me out of my comfort zone, it's been good.

Will spend the next couple of nights mopping up and boosting score a bit. Emperor level is perfect too, it's hard enough to be really challenging but not so hard that your strategies verge on the ridiculous through lack of options.

I think to be a good civ player (aside from understanding the technical aspects of the game) the most important quality is to be able to balance short term, medium term and long term objectives in an intelligent and adaptive way. What do you other civ fanatics think?

Captain Sexual

Feb 04, 2002, 08:33 PM

Marshalljames says

"In order to win this game you have to eliminate the french right away.And the only way you can know that is by reloading.If you do not stay in a constant war/peace with them and take their advances in treaties you'l get so far behind it's not funny.
I may even go further to say that anyone who submits a winning score cheated. "

This is crap. I didn't reload and I killed the French. Found them very early with my scout, made the decision that same turn that they had to be eliminated - scouted their area whilst building up swordsmen to the chokepoint (btw they traded me iron working, fools), and killed them. Well not killed them, they had established one city on another island but wiped them off my continent - for all intents and purposes they were destroyed.

Anyways, had a great session last night. Pounded the Aztecs into submission. I'm well on the way to a convincing win by domination.

Have broken the back of all resistance - now command the skies (fighters & bombers), seas (battleships, destroyers, subs, transports) and land (tanks & infantry). That's why they call me the Captain.

I've really enjoyed this game, I think the GOTM is a great idea. I never would have played the english or the island game of my own accord - but being in this comp and having it chosen for us has pushed me out of my comfort zone, it's been good.

Will spend the next couple of nights mopping up the Zulus and boosting score a bit.

I’ve used trade, espionage and resource management a lot in this game – cool features of civ 3.

Emperor level is perfect too, it's hard enough to be really challenging but not so hard that your strategies verge on the ridiculous through lack of options.

I think to be a good civ player (aside from understanding the technical aspects of the game) the most important quality is to be able to balance short term, medium term and long term objectives in an intelligent and adaptive way. What do you other civ fanatics think?

BillChin

Feb 04, 2002, 09:37 PM

MarshallJames, I have a suggestion for you. After you are done with your official GOTM submission, please read my post, Tips for Emperor Difficulty, which I posted before downloading the February GOTM. Please pay close attention to strategy #3, Swordsmen Conquest. For fun and learning, restart the Feb GOTM and try that strategy. It is a perfect fit for this map. See how you do and report back.

For those who missed my post, I'll repeat the Swordsmen Conquest strategy here:
Research Bronze then Iron. Build two cities very close to the capital, one square away on the diagonal, or two away on the straight. Build the first two settlers before a temple or a granary. With the third or fourth settler claim iron. Build 10+ swordsmen or upgrade warriors. Attack and crush the enemy and claim all their land. Best civs for this are Persians or Romans because they have unique swordsmen units (Immortals, Legionaires).

I favor the Horsemen conquest strategy and use it all the time on Emperor difficulty, random civ, standard size map, random type map, default barbs. It has gotten me out of far worse starting positions than the February GOTM.

Originally posted by marshalljames
In order to win this game you have to eliminate the french right away.And the only way you can know that is by reloading.If you do not stay in a constant war/peace with them and take their advances in treaties you'l get so far behind it's not funny.
I may even go further to say that anyone who submits a winning score cheated.

Marshalljames

Smash

Feb 04, 2002, 09:54 PM

I had no problems with the French either.I had the island to my self by 300 bc.If I was reloading,I wouldn't have had to spend $30 on a new mouse that got smashed when 3 swordsmen lost to a spearman :mad:

Trash

Feb 04, 2002, 11:52 PM

I think Marshalljames get the point by now.
This is the first time i've played emperor, I've played twice on monarch & once on regent and the rest i played on cheiftan in Civ1 about 8-9 years ago.

It's definately no where near impossible to beat the french earlish without reloading. No where near as quick as people beat the Japanese in the last GOTM. (And yeah it did seem a bit dodgy with all the people attacking with 2 warriors and no-one failing, by the time i got around to wiping them out they had about 6 cities, which suited me fine cause that was 6 cities for me :) ), but i cleaned up the French about 300AD, they were never that much of a threat to me, especially with the choke point meaning that you only had a very small front to fight on, and them not having iron didn't help their cause either. I beat them in about a 300 year war with about a dozen horseman and 4-5 archers. I took about 7-8 casualities with half of them being the archers. I got a Great Leader.

I personally found the Zulus to be alot harder than the french with their impis for defense and swordsman *trying* hehe to counter attack my spearman.

The only things that have really troubled me on the step up to emperor is the unhappiness (and that because i forgot about military police) and the bonus the AI has in the early stages (the french had 3 new techs by the time i researched my first). Although i'm sure the advantage they have is lessen alot by the island style map. I'd hate to see 8 AI civs working together ;)

Arizona_Steve

Feb 05, 2002, 08:30 AM

Had a go at the game last night - I normally play on warlord level and didn't expect to get very far. And I was right. The French declared war as soon as they found the Iron that I was linking up to my empire and that was that. Didn't have any time to get any swordsmen and my city that I'd placed in the chokepoint to deny the French access to the rest of the island was obliterated by a massive horseman rush. I knew it was all over then. UGH!!

Might try again tonight, accepting that this is no longer a valid entry for the GOTM.

Stephen.

damunzy

Feb 05, 2002, 09:28 AM

Originally posted by marshalljames
In order to win this game you have to eliminate the french right away.And the only way you can know that is by reloading.If you do not stay in a constant war/peace with them and take their advances in treaties you'l get so far behind it's not funny.
I may even go further to say that anyone who submits a winning score cheated.
Marshalljames Quit your trolling. I was having a decent game until I made the mistake of trying to kill the French off without building up a good sized force first. The French came down on me like a hammer hitting my big toe. It still hurts. I normally build up troops first, I don't know what I was thinking.....GotM games....I always do bad in them. I was also going to do the building close strategy but for some reason I didn't, another problem with my strategy this time around. I am going to finish this game but I feel I will lose before 0 as London is pretty banged up with 10+ Archers, Spearmen, and Warriors on the way. Damn French, WhoTF picked the English? Sheesh!
I happened to find the French early with my scout after scouting out the south completely. I decided to build a city on the choke point and also had a spearman defending until I flubbed up and attacked the French. So here is another person that, if he didn't mess up and attack too soon, could have defeated the French, although later than the others. I have just recently gotten up to Regent!

Aeson

Feb 05, 2002, 11:01 AM

Originally posted by Arizona_Steve
Didn't have any time to get any swordsmen and my city that I'd placed in the chokepoint to deny the French access to the rest of the island was obliterated by a massive horseman rush. I knew it was all over then. UGH!!

The AI seems to know when it is cut off from expanding by a city. If you use a unit to block off the choke point, they don't seem to realize that they have to go to war to get past you. They will just wait for you to move the unit in most cases. Try just fortifying your scout or an early warrior on the isthmus. A scout works best, as even if they build a city near, it won't have to be withdrawn for quite some time (20-40 turns at least). That will allow you to build your cities in a better food area anyways. This should help you expand a bit faster. The AI is less likely to attack if your number of cities/units is on par with theirs.

I had moved my settler to the coast to build London, as I figured the Lighthouse would be very important from the map settings. Then I built my first 2 cities north and one to the west, each 1 diagonal tile from the other. This made it so that the settler could build it's city just 1 turn after being built, and start pumping out settlers themselves. All an early city needs is 2 grassland tiles to serve its purpose. Later on I disbanded and moved the 'inbetween' cities to better locations, as they had only been used for pop rushing horsemen anyways.

BillChin

Feb 05, 2002, 11:21 AM

Steve, if you did not have time to get any swordsmen and the French had a mass of horsemen, the problem is your building speed. For your replay, I suggest the following: build the first two settlers before a temple or a granary or any workers. The build queue is something like 3 warriors then settler. Plant them very close to the capital. This technique provides for a very fast build out. Have the worker connect all cities with roads to share the luxury. Only after you have these two production cities in place, think about a city at the choke point or at the iron.

For those reading along that have already lost, this is an excellent map to practice some Emperor level starting strategies. Again, for a replay, I suggest that someone read my Tips for Emperor Difficulty and try a variant of Swordsmen Conquest or Horsemen Conquest. I suggest going through and defeating the French, to see how you can do it with a good starting plan.

I rate the Feb GOTM as an average map for Emperor level. I've seen a lot worse. Imagine a similar map and starting position, but instead of wheat you have jungle. Instead of the French, you get Romans WITH IRON and Legionnaires. Instead of having all the enemies separated, they are all trading techs and have five more techs than you when you meet them. (Shudder)

Originally posted by Arizona_Steve
Had a go at the game last night - I normally play on warlord level and didn't expect to get very far. And I was right. The French declared war as soon as they found the Iron that I was linking up to my empire and that was that. Didn't have any time to get any swordsmen and my city that I'd placed in the chokepoint to deny the French access to the rest of the island was obliterated by a massive horseman rush. I knew it was all over then. UGH!!

Might try again tonight, accepting that this is no longer a valid entry for the GOTM.

Stephen. :king: :king:

seghillian

Feb 05, 2002, 02:31 PM

Originally posted by Aeson

Try just fortifying your scout or an early warrior on the isthmus. A scout works best

Well that was the strategy I adopted and the scout worked well. I got the tip from elsewhere in these forums when someone suggested using a scout to deny a resource.

So the French were gradually eliminated circa 300ad and now I've got my first foothold on the main Zulu island. I chose to grab the city that has both iron and horses so he can't throw anything too nasty at me (I hope). I sued for peace and he paid quite handsomely for the rest although I'd have accepted much less. So I'll build one or two more galleys, horses and swords and ship them over to finish the Zulus soon.

To be honest though I'm not enjoying it much. The combat is a slow slog, shipping units 2 by 2 in galleys is a tedious (and dangerous) business and I feel I must be losing out heavily to the other 3 or 4 civs (can't recall how many offhand) in the game. I've not had any reports about them building wonders for a while so I'm just hoping they're all kicking hell out of each other somewhere but I suspect they're building up huge empires while I'm churning out horses, galleys and swords. :(

The trouble is that I don't think I can stop the conquest path. Emperor AI can build much faster than me so unless I go after the AI relentlessly, it will always be getting stronger than me. Am I right in this assumption?

Ah well, those Zulus and me have been at peace for long enough now - let's go and sort out those Impies. :)

flexo

Feb 05, 2002, 03:37 PM

the tactic is to just rush the french. I sent my scout north and found them in a couple of turns. I quickly created about 10 warriors and rushed them. That worked like a charm. Frenchy on the run. Unfortunatly he reappeared two times after I had first disaptched him.

[edit my tactics here]
That is not really what I did at all. I scouted it out. Put the scout in the area where the french couldn't move past me down to my cites. Created two more cites (three in total) then I rush produced my warriors and attacked.

So it was not until 10 ad that I had purged and claimed the first island as my own.

Unfortunalty it has gone all down hill from there ... The Zulus found me and I went to war with them. They are now history. So are the Aztech which where the third nation I found.

Unfortunatly it took me forever to find the indians and persians (they found me). Which means they have a horribly large tech advantage.

I have been at war with the persians on and off since I found them.

Currently it is 1960 I control most of the land. The Persians have their start island and one small one. The Indians have the same. I controll the rest of the world. Unfortunatly this is not enough for a domination victory (I really hope domination wasn't turned off cause then I missed that, can you tell how close you are to a domination victory somewhere in the game ?)

I currently lead in Culture by some 6 points. Only cause I have lots of land. I have basically no culture what so ever. I managed to sqeeze in the Great Wall that is all. I have not built any minor wonders either. The start core cities where corruption isn't a killer are the only built up cities. The others just get a temple, sometimes a barrack and/or a granary.

I run a hard despotic game. Could be why I have no culture to talk of. I pump out troops as fast as I can. But travell by sea has now become very hasardous.

Why ? Cause I'm such a technological looser. The others are waaaaay ahead of me. I have infantry and artillery. Big deal when they (persia) are currently building the united nations. So they are about 3/4 ahead of me tech wise. So they have subs and destroyers while I have ironclads ... whoohoo .. but a good tactic is lureing them towards land. Blasting them with artillery until they are in the red and hope for the best.

They have not started to use tanks yet. I assume that is cause they don't have the raw material for it. I have lots and lots of everything. But crushing infantry is hard enough as it is. I use mainly cavalry to do the fighting. Heck they are my best fighting unit so it is not like I have alot of choice. Sure they infantry have the same attack stat but they cost more and I don't do much defending. It is just Attack attack and attack.

Unforuntalty the game have started to crash every two or three turns. I have the latest patch and all. Judging from the dumps it crashes when it is supposed to change the music. It is really annoying.

The score is currently about ~ 2600.

But I must say I like this game better than the others. The maps should be big simply cause we have a month to play the game.

SanPellegrino

Feb 05, 2002, 06:58 PM

"I currently lead in Culture by some 6 points. "

How do you know? I only use the histograph screen with the ugly graphic scale, haven't seen absolute numbers.

Breddan

Feb 05, 2002, 09:13 PM

I've just finished the game by a conquest victory in 1822AD. This was the first time playing above Regent for me, and I suprised myself on how well I did.

Removing the French is necessary, because you need their territory for production, etc. The French built the Great Library, which I captured, then using the GL I got to rush the Lighthouse. The French were gone by 170 or 190AD, then I invaded the Zulus immediately after, taking their 3 western cities in 1 turn (helped by a ROP), and mopping up their continent took a few more turns. The impis really were not able to defend against 2 dozen or so swordsmen with a few horsemen to mop up the injured. They survived with a few cities on islands, until they though it would be fun to *try* to kick my butt. The Indians also thought that they could beat me when I was busy with the Zulus, but as I just had knights, a mere 8 knights landed on their continent was enough to raze 2 cities, and take Bombay and Delhi (Copernicus and Colossus in those). Taking the Indians out after that was easy, just some island hopping to clear the last few cities. With another Gl, I rushed the Sistine in London.

It seems that although I was equal to anyone in military power, the Aztecs declared war on me. Unfortunately for them, I had just got Military Tradition, and upgraded my 30ish knights to calvary. With an alliance with the Persians, the aztecs died quickly; I kept 3 cities and got another GL, used to rush J.S. Bach's in Paris.

After that, with 50+ calvary sitting around, I built several galleons and invaded Persia (with an ROP too :lol: ). Razing their capital and 2 other cities in the first turn, then with reinforcements, I just razed their entire island, then used the galleons to wipe out cities on various islands, finishing the game. I also got another GL in the middle of this, rushing Theory of Evolution (useless, I know, but what really could I have done with it?)

A few points:
I should have rushed the FP in Paris, because it took me 90 turns to build it, wasting a lot of production time from corruption.
Taking out the Persians earlier would have been better, they had riflemen when I invaded, giving my calvary a headache (up to 8 calvary required to kill 2 defenders).
Since I was going conquest, using a GL for an army and the Heroic and such, I figured there wasn't much time since happiness wonders are almost necessary.
With the Indian, Aztec, and Zulu islands, you can get 7 luxuries, very useful. I traded the Persians 5 of those for dyes, then when I went to war with them, most of their cities fell into disorder because of the sudden lack of luxuries.

I want to say that English's abilities are quite worthless, expansionism on an island map? worthless. And never did I build a man-o-war. I'm very used to playing as the Egyptians, religious and industrious seem awesome, especially after playing this game.

I may have forgotten something:confused: .

Breddan

Feb 05, 2002, 10:01 PM

Just a little "tip" ;)

By creating your capital immediately, then sending the worker to the wheat square, and setting the scout on automatic, the hut gives you Bronze Working.

I don't condone reading this post, then playing the game, using that method to get the tech; this is just for informative purposes. ;)

BillChin

Feb 06, 2002, 02:27 PM

I finished up my February game in 1956 with a Domination victory.

Here is my story:
I think I am alone on the island at the beginning and think about Monarchy. This is a head fake. I build two cities very close, then one up at the choke point. Then I expand to the West, but the barbs are pretty fierce. Once I see the French, I forget about Monarchy, and go for Iron Working, and Horseback Riding.

I build a lot of cities, sixteen, before attacking the French. I claim both iron deposits on the southern islands, so I have three iron. For my offensive, I have a mix of about 10 swordsmen and 10 horsemen at the chokepoint. It is very late, like 350 A.D. and I wonder what the other civs are up to. Not a lot of wonders being built so it can't be that bad. In most games, I try to launch the Horsemen war around 1 A. D. Peace is not a good option with this map because I have only one luxury and little land.

The French without iron are no match. The outcome of the war is never in doubt. Their culture is strong so I have to raze several cities. I get the Great Lighthouse and Great Library from them, and a great leader. I use the leader to rush the Forbidden Palace in a newly settled city just south of Paris. The French are still alive with a couple of island cities.

I have a lucky ocean crossing galley that finds India and most of the rest of the world except Persia. Two other galleys were not so lucky.

In 910 A. D. I invade the Aztecs, thinking it will be easier than the Indians. My decision become irrelevant because India attacks me three turns later. The two civs are pretty weak, especially for Emperor difficulty. I claim a few cities then make peace.

A turn after the peace treaty is signed with India, I complete the Sistine Chapel and get a golden age in 1345. The garrisons in India get drunk during the celebration and leave their stations. The old India capital flips and the men can not stand it. With all the cities emptied, the troops rampage and raze city after city. The India culture is so strong there is no way to keep their cities. By 1485 India is destroyed.

I wanted the Zulus as allies and it worked for a while. During the on and off war with India I must have done something like sign a peace treaty before 20 turns, because the Zulus are furious. They used to be polite.

I plan to ally with the Persians to crush the Zulu. I sign a MPP with the Persians. They backstab me! Attacking the turn after the protection pact treaty is signed. Bastards! All hell breaks lose as the Zulus, remaining Aztecs and French all declare war on me. They can not make much headway, but I am miserable. If I had nukes at this point I am angry enough to use them. I am in Democracy. There are peace protests in every city. Research and production approach zero.

I have to switch governments (1680) to Republic. I have a second leader saved and use him for Universal Suffrage. I make peace with Persia, paying them off with Industrialization. Two turns later, I demand they leave my land, and they declare war again! Bastards! A lasting peace is forged in 1756, with little change in borders or score.

In 1812, the Zulu are hell bent for war. I see their troops approaching and try to convince them to stay peaceful, but no good. War breaks out and the peace protesters take to the streets again. This despite the Zulus attacking me, a Republic, and Universal Suffrage. During this second world war, the Persians ally with me. I lay siege to the Zulu island as they have infantry. It is 1918 before I storm the Zulu capital with tanks, over 50 turns of war.

I plot my revenge against those lying, cheating Persians. I build an Aircraft carrier, some bombers, and many tanks. I have a third leader, and use him for a tank army. Just when my invasion starts to steam roll, I get the domination victory in 1956.

Ricco

Feb 07, 2002, 03:35 AM

This is the second GOTM I tried. Last month I forgot to save at 1AD, so I didn't send in. This month I forgot it again :( Well I just try to sent it in as I got nowhere near a winning score anyhow.
On to my game. I moved the settler to the right to the middle of the 3 forest tiles and began building two scouts. Started research on writing because I wanted to get Mapmaking quickly. My first scout went to the South, getting a warrior from the hut and finding some suitable land to settle. Then my other scouts met the French. They were way ahead of me in tech so I decided to research Literature after mapmaking and go for the Great Library hoping to catch up. I did get Bronze Working and later Ceremonial burial from them in exchange for pottery, writing and some gold. I put one scout on the choke point and some turns later built my first city there. Here I just built a spearman, rushed barracks and continued producing spearman, hoping they could stop the French. Second city I built to the North of London so I covered that part of the island. Then 3 cities on the Sout part of the continent and a 4th just North of these 3. At the same time London started Colossus and switched to GL after discovering Literature. I then just had to build one more city to the west of London in the desert to cut the French of from settling in my part of the island. Built it just before the French. They dropped a settler from a galley next to my settler. Put a warrior and a spearman next to it and used my scouts to occupy a few spots that were not yet in my culture.
The French never got agressive towards my although they were way ahead in tech and troops. Could this be because of their settler that was inside my territory surrounded by my troops? Maybe it was my 8 cities towards their 7 on the island, but they had some cities on the small islands to the South and West.
Next I finished the GL in London and was shortly after Mapmaking. Send galleys to the East and South were I could see some land. The ones to the South only discovered French cities before getting lost, but to the East I found the Zulu. This got me a lot of tech like the Wheel, Horseback, Iron Working etc. so I could now start planning for the conquest of the island. I started building Horseman in all my cities until I got about 20. This was enough to kick the French out even with 4 cities flipping back to them that I had to conquer again. This got me the Pyramids, Lighthouse :) and Great Wall as well as a Great Leader. The GL I used to rush the Forbidden Palace in Paris after their capital moved to a far away island.
After this I started developing my cities, switched to republic, made contact with the other civs, build Sistine in Paris and Sun Tzu's in London. Sistine's got me a Golden Age which made me fly through the Middle Age techs and wonders. I thought Sistine's only triggered GA for religious civs, but I was happy with the moment.
Then the Zulu's drop 1 !! Impi on my coast. I ask it kindly to leave and they declare war. I kill the Impi and get another Great Leader from it. I drop some Knights on their coasts research Military Tradition and start building Cavalry. Then Paris flips back to the French. I take it back the same turn, but have to use my GL to rebuild the Forbidden Palace. This changed my target from the Zulu to the island cities of the French. I wiped them of the face of the planet, getting my third :D Great Leader of the game. Never got so many playing a non-military civ. Used this one for Hoover Dam. I stop making war and get everything in research to build a spaceship. I'm about 5 techs ahead so that was no problem and I finish the game in 1932 still occupying just the starting island.

donsig

Feb 07, 2002, 03:46 PM

Elizabeth of England

4000bc - 1530ad

RIP

All her base are belong to them!

Lt. 'Killer' M.

Feb 07, 2002, 04:02 PM

Grey Fox

Feb 07, 2002, 06:58 PM

I killed the french! And I did not reload, you just have to block them in the beginning, I did this by my 2nd Scout (Went south with my first and I almost always build one as my first constr.)

And then get a RoP, I filled their country with at least 4-5 Swordsmen per city, waited and ended the RoP and attacked... I got The Lighthouse and G. Library without having the G.Age. That I got when I built my next wonder, didn't matter what trait it had...

So it's not hard if you play right, you don't even need Luck.

I even kept all of his cities... never culture flipped cus he had a city on an Island a long long way away and I starved the resisters and breed new English Residents...

Trash

Feb 07, 2002, 08:57 PM

I've just finished off the Zulus, and have discovered chivilary through the Great Library so everyone else has it as well.

I've been busy building Knights & stationing them in Galleys on the edge of the coast nearest to the Indians Waiting for the AI to discover Astronomy for me. I picked the Indians who i thought might be an easy kill with no iron or horses.

Then sitting here at work today bored, I looked through the unique units of the other civs to avoid the pain i had fighting the zulus with horsemen. To discover that indians don't need iron or horse for War Elephants!!! which are just as good as knights.

Bugger, oh well I found out before i charged in head first this time :) (Maybe mediocre players can learn from not reloading :) ) Looks like i might have to choose a new target for tonights massacre :rocket2:

Sirian

Feb 09, 2002, 04:33 AM

So it's not hard if you play right, you don't even need Luck.

Exploiting Right of Passage to prepare a sucker punch is "playing right"? I don't agree. That sort of move wouldn't fly in a multiplayer game, nobody would be stupid enough to let you do it, so that meets my criteria of "exploit". So does the "accept peace treaty to get their island cities, attack again next turn" move that Aeson posted about.

Now these kind of exploits, I have no problem with on a certain level. It's just a game, who cares, blah blah. I just find it... ironic that you guys are going on about reloading, but pull these moves in the same breath without blinking.

ALL diplomatic options ought to be permanently closed to any player who uses a RoP to set up a sucker punch. In real life, that kind of blind betrayal just wouldn't happen, but even if it did, no other civ would trust that leader ever again, and in this game, you remain the leader the whole way, so you (and your whole civ) would be forever untrustworthy. That the game does not dish out appropriate penalties for betrayal of various kinds is... unfortunate. But just as you talk about "not reloading makes you a better player", I'd have to say that not raping the game's loopholes fits the same category. What special skill is required to walk your units through rival land, plop stacks next to each city, and attack? Or make peace deals to get concessions knowing there won't be any penalty to you for breaking your word? If you honor your diplomatic agreements, and don't sucker punch an already handicapped opponent (this AI isn't bad, but it still has lots of weaknesses), wouldn't that make for a better experience?

Milking the score is a similar kind of deal. If a competition (based on the score) leads you to sit around farming points long after the game has been "won", there seems to me to be a flaw in both the scoring system and the weight being applied to it by the players.

Firaxis may be able to improve the scoring system, or improve the game balance of poprushing, or remove the disband city option (so you can't just erase these early "temporary" growth/rush cities), and they may be able to improve the penalties attached to diplomatic betrayals, but there's no way they can close every loophole in the game or improve the AI to a level where it can match human intelligence. So it falls to players to put integrity to the game -- or not. Have you guys put any thought into this?

- Sirian

Aeson

Feb 09, 2002, 07:05 AM

Sirian,

I agree with you to some extent, but playing the game by a certain set of defined rules is what competition/comparison is all about. Just because those set of rules aren't exactly what you would choose doesn't mean that there hasn't been any thought put into them. I enjoy playing private games with no pop-rushing, "honorable" diplomacy, and many other self imposed rules. When it comes to a competition I'm just going to use all the resources available to me so that I can do well.

Exploiting Right of Passage to prepare a sucker punch is "playing right"? I don't agree. That sort of move wouldn't fly in a multiplayer game, nobody would be stupid enough to let you do it, so that meets my criteria of "exploit"

Using the multiplayer argument, how many people would be stupid enough to sit there and not pop rush while one of their competitors were? If there were some sort of combination of multiplayer with AI opponents as well, who wouldn't exploit the AI as much as was allowed?

Doing "well" at a game will always involve exploiting stupid AI strategies. The fun of playing a GOTM isn't the challenge the AI presents, its the challenge of doing my best, and comparing that to other players who use the same set of rules. The game can be beat without any of the tactics you've pointed out, but the more a player takes advantage of AI loopholes or overpowered tactics, the "better" they end up doing. This is true whether you judge by score, date, or both. I can beat a Huge/Archipelago/16AI/Deity (or any other settings) game without pop rushing and without breaking any peace treaties or agreements. Thats just because the AI is predictable. What am I supposed to do, not think? Because doing so could be considered an exploit as well, as the AI sure doesn't do it ;)

Have you guys put any thought into this?

Just compare the administration of the CivFanatics GOTM to that of Apolyton, and I think it is obvious how much thought and effort has gone into setting up each. I post mainly on the Apolyton Strategy boards, and think it is a great community, but I don't really care for the way the tourny is set up there. I play the games to a certain point, but I don't really care where my name is on a list, I want ratings and little icons next to my name dammit! :lol: (note: animated icons would even be better!) So I don't go through the more tedious aspects of the game (for me) so that I can submit. None of the tactics that you have pointed out as "expoitish" have been ruled out of Apolyton games either. The only real difference in the competitions is the highlighting of "by date" for all of the victory conditions in the Apolyton tourney, and the format of the posted results. If you want to play the GOTM for the best date, go ahead, it's something that is listed in the results, just not highlighted.

That being said, having winners by date for each victory condition would be a good addition to the GOTM IMO. If you had read the boards here, you would have already seen that discussed. If Matrix and Thunderfall want to add that to their competition (and the added administration that would be involved), that is up to them, it's their game. And a very fun and enjoyable one at that.

In the end, reloading adds nothing to the game, while these other issues are gray areas. At what point does pop-rushing become exploitive? What constitues "honorable" diplomacy? What AI algorithms are proper to analyze and which aren't? I would tweak the rules a bit differently myself, and most others would want to tweak my prefered rules a bit after that, but it's not our competition. Doesn't mean we can't play and have fun. We just play by the rules that are set, and do the best we can within those limits.

If this game format doesn't appeal to you and Apolyton's does, no one is forcing you to play the GOTM. If you want to try a game that is very well balanced from a victory condition standpoint, GOTM4 might be one for you though. I was able to do quite well with only ~15 pop rushes the whole game. Not using any would definitely be possible, and it wouldn't make much of a difference in the end. Milking the game to 2050 probably would have increased my score a bit, but only because I had been initially setting up the game towards that end. An earlier domination, diplomatic, or space launch was easily possible, increasing the score by just about the same.

Sirian

Feb 09, 2002, 09:09 AM

Having been through this spoiler thread, I don't intend to start on this event now.

I'm not holding Apolyton up as a shining example either (I have nothing personal invested there), just pointing out that results based on score will tend to be skewed either way: score is based on early finish, and on territory-over-time. So the two ways to get higher score are to get more territory asap, and then either to press to early conquest or to sit around and milk it for as long as possible.

Someone taking the "warrior gambit" or poprushed military, or even a nonexploitative but successful early conquest, will get a lot more territory going early. They will surely thus score more even if they later switch to peaceful building -- and if they get leaders, they are doubly ahead of the game as they get wonders for free. If the odds for 2 warrior victory really are 65%, wouldn't you expect 35% of those trying that tactic to report failures? Are we seeing those kinds of numbers? I spotted somebody in Apoly2 who had reloaded with knowledge of where the key iron was. I was so curious, after watching their result, that I went back to duplicate it and proved they had to know where the resource was to head straight there on a boat through all that black fog. Their game played out quite differently as a result, as that location allowed for Iron Works. I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption to wonder if SOME of the folks posting successful "early gambit" results aren't fudging them. Most would be hard to prove, I just happened to come upon one that required a ship, and from an isolated start you can only get to mapmaking but so quickly.

With score being the focus of this tourney, I might still participate even though I wouldn't do the kinds of moves it would take to compete on a level playing field -- I came here today looking to see if I might be interested -- but aside from the competition, the more interesting part would be the discussion. Yet what would there be here for me to discuss? I don't feel I have anything to learn from, or contribute to, an event bent this much around the game's flaws. You might say I was put off by the apparent contradiction of such piety in regard to reloading, when I see very little distinction between that and Standard Operating Procedure for what SEEMS to be the bulk of the participants, re exploits.

You make a good point in asking where to draw the line. But... your conclusion seems to be that drawing it in any gray area is futile, and there I would disagree. More difficult, perhaps, and open to debate, but those are not reason not to try. As for enforcibility, you don't have that now. So any further conditions that might be adopted about what not to do while playing could be just as valid as the "no reload" restriction. Players mindful of following the rules would do so, those not would not.

As I have found fatal flaws in the AI, I have resolved not to exploit them. Some already on my list include not using workers as bait (deliberately -- sometimes it's tough to avoid, they go to ANY lengths), not parking cavs/panzers 3 spaces out just to prevent the AI from drafting/rushing more defense, not making treaties I have NO intention of honoring when they are made (I may still break one now and then, but very rarely, and always because something major has changed -- the one-size-fits-all 20 turns length of deals is problematic). There are others, but I'm sure you are already familiar with them all, on your own terms, so I'll spare you. :) I don't do this as some kind of "I'm better than those who don't" move, I do it to extend the life of the game. Don't you find it becoming boring when there's nothing left to figure out or try? When you know what the AI's will do, and what you can inevitably do to dismember them if you play ruthlessly? At that point, it has ceased to be a game, and become an exercise, in some cases even a clickfest. You lose suspension of disbelief, lose sight of the game world and end up as a puppeteer, pulling the AI's strings and watching them dance for you.

My way may ultimately be futile from a fatalistic standpoint, but if it buys me more entertainment time with this piece of software, then it's serving its purpose. So am I getting the wrong impression about this group of players? I wonder if I would fit in here, because even though I could cope with the results of my self-chosen principles in regard to game play, or else choose to set them aside for the event/exercise, do folks here care about the same elements I do? Or are you collectively content to exploit the game into oblivion? The discussions I've peeked in on have led me to believe it may be the latter, which would not interest me.

When it comes to a competition I'm just going to use all the resources available to me so that I can do well.

Within the limits of the rules. Yeah, I know there are always players trying to set extra rules. "This weapon is cheap." Blah blah, seen it all the time in competitive shooters. Competitions don't accept that kind of "honor". The rules are the rules, and what's not against the rules is legal. I'm all in favor of that, from the perspective of someone who understands rule systems. Yet there is also a side of gaming/sport where the spirit of the game is at stake. Just because something is not against the rules does not automatically make it fall within the spirit of the game. Sometimes the rules could stand some improvement.

Yet a well designed game can stand up to the standard of "whatever the game allows is cool". Games still in need of patching, with major flaws that allow for "strategies" that are so effective, they render the effort moot, are another story. Firaxis yanked some of the worst loopholes already, so let's just hope they continue to improve things.

You asked how much poprush is too much? That may be difficult to pin down precisely, but it's easy to point to in theory: if the unhappiness were given priority, then enough to force you to turn every population into a specialist and starve a city down to size 1 or disband it, is too much. That's the point at which you pass "feature" and move undisputably into "exploit". Keeping track of that would be hard to do if someone were trying to min/max within that restraint, but I think most experienced players have a feel for where this line lies, and know when they cross it.

Diplomatic betrayals are likewise easy to understand. How much betrayal is too much is a gray area -- it would be unfortunate to take betrayal completely off the table, as historically it has happened and is part of history and the rise and fall of civilization -- but where the game fails to implement sufficient reasonable penalty for betrayal, it falls to the players to add their own, or accept diminished quality. There could be any number of ways to limit it, all of which would be better than zero limits, better than "anything goes".

Some of the AI's flaws you just can't compensate for. Like, should you tie your hands behind your back and not attack, when the AI mindlessly moves defenders OUT of a city you are sieging, to go attack some irrelevant but exposed unit (worker, archer, etc)? I wouldn't go that far, as that kind of restriction "to give the AI a level playing field" is futile. But you can refrain from deliberately baiting with workers, knowing that the AI would jump onto any sword to capture them.

Is a competition that requires you to exploit these flaws to "do well" worth your time? That's up to each participant. Yet since the moment I got into online gaming, I have been compelled to find ways to improve the quality of competition, to invent ways if necessary, where the games themselves come up short. I've been dong that for seven years now, everything from Descent to WarcraftII to Deadlock, from Diablo to Jagged Alliance to Civ, from founding my own leagues to helping others who've done so to being a quiet but supportive participant -- been at all levels, and all sizes of community. I hunger for better gaming, for better games. Sometimes a game has plenty going for it yet comes up short in a few ways. I usually have something to offer, but I tend to be restless, critical, picky, if the game starts turning up too many shortcomings. And the more I get to know this AI, the more I long for it to be improved. If I didn't find something here to have some potential, I'd just quietly move on. Maybe I will yet.

So maybe you can explain to me, Aeson, how you come to draw your line at "going to use all the resources available to me", and justify these exploits, which you admit are exploits, and not be tempted to cross the line into reloading? I accept you at your word that you don't reload, but isn't the line there awfully thin? Can something be "just a little bit" wrong? If you're willing to compromise with the exploits, how do you know you won't just slide right down a slippery slope? I find myself slipping. I started using the draft rush, and next thing I know I have some games with 300 infantry units, 2/3rds of them drafted, and I realize this has crossed a line somewhere. It looked innocent enough, but now it's wrecked the balance of those games, has crossed into "being wrong", and the fun just melts away. I feel like I cheated myself out of a chance to play those games "fairly", within the spirit of the game, and see what I could do. That's what I'm getting at. You admit that reloading wrecks the fun, and I know for myself that no amount of justification allows me to keep having fun through deliberate exploitation. It's all the same, in the end. The exploits, to me, feel the same as cheating, so I come to think of them that way. For me. But not for you? Are you sure? You know you're not cheating the competition and the other players -- everyone is playing by the same set of rules -- but are those rules worthy of your devotion? Are you not cheating the game? Or does that not matter? Is the competition worth enough to go to that length to participate?

Heh. Sometimes I think too much. :) Sorry. :)

- Sirian

Thunderfall

Feb 09, 2002, 09:34 AM

Aeson and Sirian,

Please remain on topic. For Civ3 GOTM rules debates, use this existing thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15700).

Thanks.

Genuis

Feb 09, 2002, 07:34 PM

Just about to start my GOTM after a month off from Civ III (been playing Empire Earth, since it actually has a scenario editor). Wish me luck!

Genuis

Feb 10, 2002, 06:31 PM

Wow, I am doing horrible. Without using any pop-rushing or other debated exploits I am getting wasted. (OK, I reloaded once to save a settler from a barbarian horseman. SUE ME!!!)

I started out at a huge disadvantage; the French had double the amount of cities as me by close to 500 BC. Then Joan decided to backstab me. I held out against about 15 horsemen and a scattering of archers and was able to catch up to the French in techs with peace treaty. The rest of the game has gone on like this, with the French, English and Zulu warring constantly.

My biggest stroke of luck was when I got a Leader and built the Great Lighthouse. I think that is a must-have in this game, as it allows you to control who meets who. My biggest mistake was trading contacts with the other civs for techs. It allowed me to get Chivalry faster, but now the others have at least a 4-tech lead.

My game is going down the crapper at the moment. It's about 1400 AD and I am way behind. The other civs all got Astronomy so I don't control the seas anymore, and the Aztecs and Zulus both declared war when I stood up to their unfair demands. I think I could come back if I can land a few knights on Zululand and raze their cities. The French are pacified for the moment, as I retook the choke point and declared an uneasy peace. I think I could get back in this one, but it won't be easy.

Good luck, all.

Lt. 'Killer' M.

Feb 11, 2002, 06:14 AM

OK, I know it won`t count (I got clobbered by Barbarians early in my first try) but here`s how I fared:

I used the no-capital-strateg (exploit, some would call it :p ); so I immediately went with 4 veteran Archers to take Orleans. Then refounded my just abandoned capital and another city to the northeast on the hills. Thoses two would be my majory military production center for quite some time. the french came for me fast and hard, I had to abandon Orleans and retreat beyond the isthmus. I bought peace several times and was way last in everything. But then I managed to get a city buiolt on the isthmus and the French lost wave after wave of attackers.

The turning point - as always - was when i got a leader in 90 BC. Built an army of 2 Spearmen and one elite archer, and went to take all France. Took some flipping and retaking, but I never lost any military since I simply pulled out after 2 turns. Won`t flip before 2 turns that early in the game and my units were then healed enough to take the city back right away.

Got another leader, built Sun Tsun. Developed Chivalry - no waste no corruption and some extortion of the French had gotten me into tech lead.

The small southern island were heavily contested, but I managed to get a city onto the western one with iron. The other iron went to the Indians.

Declared war on the Zulu, took their westernmost city. they (idiots) cut all roads but somce I had Pikemen in there - soon 2 elite ones :D and rushed walls and barracks (still despotic!) they never stood a chance. Another leader appeared, used it for a 2 knight 1 leite horseman army. The Zulu quickly fell. After landing a Pikeman on their iron they sued for peace and got it at a horrenduos priece. Then i just killed them off. the small island in the south went back and forth for a while since I had concentraded on mainland defence and attacks on their mainland but since they never had iron or a harbor there.....

Next went the aztecs and then I realized that noone except me had rubber. Game over!

OK, they did try to cut me down to size, but attacking Infantry with Horsemen and Riflmen is folly. They did surprisingly kill some with Cavalery without HP loss, but I`m used to these flukes by now....

Why did I win???

1) I killed off the French early on - lots of territory and even tech
2) even without Lighthouse I could conquer the Zulus - even more territory.
3) there`s a nice trick for suiciding Galley and not löoosing them: rush a temple somewhere. I hardly have Galleys sunk that way. Bug?? quite possible! So I had those sothern islands shared with the Indians....
4) Luck!!!!!! Somehow the Indians never got their hands on iron except on that island they shared with me and the Zulu. Thus, when they went for me, it was their outmost province that was most vital - it died first, they lost.....
5) No capital means I was culutrally strong in faraway places quickly - never did anthing flip from me but just to me... also, I always ratzed except when I knew the Civ would be dead in less then 3 turns (this isn`t true for the French, here their culture wasn`t old yet and I needed the towns... also, they would only get a spearman and I had three Horsmen outside the each town plus an elite archer...)
6) Leaders and armies! I fight my wars to generate as many as possible..... Defensive armies are one of the most powerfull tools in conquest if used properly
7) Early decision: I spent all the time going for domination - no time and money lost for other stuff.....

just my 2 Cents :D

JoeM

Feb 11, 2002, 06:34 AM

Err... Is this just affecting me and what should I do to stick within the rules of GOTM?

Civ crashes out if I try to change to Republic (I'm currently in Monarchy. If I play on the game continues without problem, but if I try to change government I crash. I've tried reloading and tried the few years before and after my first attempt at going for Rep.

Does this affect everyone?

Is it the original GOTM4.sav, or has mine become corrupt?

...Now what?

If I reload a hundred years back and I can change gov, I'll break the gotm rules on reloading...

Okay I could stay in Monarchy for the rest of the game, but let's try to be realistic - I can't compete with the other civs tech rate if I can't swap governament. Or can I get a 'highest score in Monarchy' Award?;)

mogon

Feb 11, 2002, 10:51 AM

Originally posted by JoeM

Civ crashes out if I try to change to Republic (I'm currently in Monarchy. If I play on the game continues without problem, but if I try to change government I crash. I've tried reloading and tried the few years before and after my first attempt at going for Rep.

This often happens with disorder. Just open preferences windows (CTRL-P) and turn off the option "pop up disorder" (or something like that). It works for me ;)

JoeM

Feb 11, 2002, 11:15 AM

Cheers, I'l give it a go.

Beard Rinker

Feb 11, 2002, 01:16 PM

I tried BillChin's suggestion and replayed the start of this months GOTM a few times. I played a couple of variations on his dense build strategy up to the year 1750 BC (51 turns) and was impressed with the results.

This strategy appeared to work best:

London Build Order
- Warrior
- Settler - Build town two tiles north
- Warrior
- Settler - Build town sw, sw, s in forest on peninsula.
- Granary
- Spearman
Continue building spearman settler pairs until expansion complete.

Town 1
This is a temporary town with two functions. Its first function is to build warrior/settler pairs until expansion is complete. Once complete, pop-rush a barracks then pop-rush military units until you use a form of government that does not allow it. At this point disband the city as the citizens will never forgive you.

Town 2
Same as town 1.

Town 3
Located north of town 1, this town is intended as a permanent town.

Worker priorities.
Mine and build road on the hay tile, build road on the wine tile, then mine and build road on any grass tile with 1 production.

Using this strategy, by 1750 BC I had four towns and 1 settler/warrior pair moving to my fifth town location. I was also able to produce a new warrior/settler pair about every four turns.

When the French decide to attack or it becomes necessary to attack them set all towns except town 1 & 2 producing workers. Send all the workers to town 1 & 2 to pop-rush military units. If done right, town 1 & 2 can produce a military unit every 2 turns each. If necessary, a third pop-rush town can be set up near the border with the French.

I wished I had used this starting strategy in my actual GOTM as it would have put me in a much better starting position. My start was not nearly as quick and I didn't build towns specifically for pop-rushing for quite some time. I foolishly used some of my good towns at first and eventually had to disband them.

gzollinger

Feb 11, 2002, 03:44 PM

I start off and send my warriors out searching one south and one north. Find goodie hut, get warrior. I find France in the north, and plant warrior to keep them from developing south, until I can drop a city. I proceed to send out settelers packing my cities in pretty tight. I am 3 moves from putting down a final settler in the last spot south, and zulu's land and drop one in. I will deal with them latter.

In the meantime, France is going gang busters. They are researching like crazy, and they have built the Pyramids, the Great Library and the Lighthouse. Sweet, I think to myself...since they are who I'm attacking first. I build up a ton of horsemen, and a couple of swordsmen. I also get a boat with two spearmen and send him above, one move from their horses resource.

I proceed to attack and take three cities, one of which will turn shortly. Then Zulu's declare war and start sending boats to their city down south. I get scared and ask for peace from French and get some tech's. I head the army south expecting to see tons of units in the one city (because of all the boat traffic). when I attack, there is two spearmen and the city easily falls. I then send some units to the island south that the Zulus have just settled and take another city. I ask for peace and get some gold out of it.

Now I have to wait 10 more turns to redeclare war on the French. At this point I take them out and get 4 early wonders!!! And I am caught up in the tech race just like that! I use the great leader I got to build FP in Paris. Now my production is humming. I will catch those Persians soon!

Skip ahead 1000 years: I explored the southern islands and chose to put only one settler down their to act as a base to clear the islands out later. At the end of the game I realize that it was a big mistake. I should have put settlers on all the islands when I had the chance (resources came into play big time late in the game, that seemingly useless island becomes very important when uranium shows up).

Skip ahead to about 2000 AD: we killed off the Indians and Zulus. I decided to go for space race victory. However, my two sources of uranium dried up long before I could build fuel cells. The only two left were on on Persian homeland. and one on the bottom of a large island ( I was on the island, but a size 1 city of the aztecs held the resource. The Persians were building the spacecraft at an alarming rate and I was still building the appolo program. I realized that they were going to beat me unless I could slow them down. I decided to mobalize for war and send everything I had at them to knock them down a bit. I send everything and tried to take out their capital (I figured that was a good way to hurt them quick). Once I took the capital a supprising note came up that I wasn't expecting (I have never played to a space race victory before). It sayed I had destroyed their spaceship!!!!! Sweet I had no idea that capturing their capital would have that effect! I figure now I can beat them to the ship, so I go to sue for peace, and I can't get it. CR*P now I can't un-mobilize!!!! Waves of terror sweep over me. I decide I have to start razing cities to get peace, so I send everything I got at his next couple of cities and raze them. Now he gives me peace and the last two techs I need for the ship.

Uranium: I need uranium and the only one I can get is the Aztec owned one at the bottom of the map. I send my entire navy south. My plan is to build a city one sqare away from the resoure and try to get his city to flip. If that doesn't work I can take it by force and then hold on tight for the Aztec onlaught (I had depleted all my land forces on the persian push, and my cities were all building spacecraft parts). I get my navy down there and disband to create temple/library/cathedral/etc. The city doesn't flip but my influence takes over the resource!...I finsh the parts with 12 turns left and lauch to space.

This was my first Emporer game, and first space race, and I was VERY excited to get a win. I think my score was around 3500. Most of my games were Regent or Warlord, and I didn't think I had a shot at winning a game at this level. I always thought the game got boring late, about the time you get tanks because I thought it was monotonus. I found out in this game, it was only boring because I was playing too easy a level. Wars stayed VERY INTERESTING and challenging right up until 2038. It is a different story when your force isn't any bigger or more advanced then the opponent.

Genuis

Feb 11, 2002, 06:17 PM

Whatever you do...

Don't try to fight the Persians until late game! I refused their demands (25 gold would have saved me a lot of trouble) and they attacked. Soon, they had taken all of my colonies on the southern islands and I was left with my one island.

I'm still in the middle ages... Once I end the Persian-Aztec-English-Zulu War, I will go after Joan again. That seems like the best strategy now. I can get her wonders and catch up in tech.

LaZZyCaKe

Feb 12, 2002, 10:47 AM

Damn, my first attemp at GOTM and I'm sure I'll be last:cry:

Try to get the frech in the beginning when I've found them with my second scout. I got iron and they don't !!! So massive production of swordman and now, they declare war cuz they have one of my city that they want (iron one !!) .... soo hell, now is the time. I was doing well, capturing and razing like 3 or 4 city till they road their damn horse.... 10 turn later, the cake was dead.... was pretty fun tought, but I think my military capability need ajustment :lol:

jimtess

Feb 14, 2002, 02:40 PM

I have almost finished, the Persians are putting up a fight but have very few offensive units left. Wanted to share some strategies that worked well for me and one which did not.

I was able to build a city right at the bottleneck with the French and avoid war until I got Iron Working. When I got Iron Working I noticed two things, the French were kicking my ass at techs and they don't have iron. So I put my science to 0% saved all my money and started building massive amounts of warriors. This was before I attached the iron to my trade network. I built a barracks in my bottleneck city and stuffed about 15 veteran warriors in it. Then connected the Iron and upgraded as many as I could. Then as I took French cities I sent the Workers to the bottle neck and joined and popped them to Swordsmen and also used the money to upgrade the rest of my Swordsmen.

The French fell easily except Paris reverted once and I got the Pyramids, Great Wall (blah) and Great Library from French cities and got a leader.

The French reappeared on the tiny island south of our continent but I couldn't find them for a long time. Even after trading maps with them many times. They only had two cities until foolishly allying against me.

I rushed the Great Lighthouse and met all the civs through the Lighthouse. "India is the biggest threat" I thought so I didn't let any other civs know about them. And it worked beautifully, they were out of the picture until Magnetism. I wish the AI would have sacrificed some boats trying to find the Aztecs... They knew the Aztecs were there because they were so cultured their border reached over the ocean to them.

I should not have given Persia contacts/world map though that was my problem. Now Persia was a big problem / my only threat.

My elite Swordsmen did a good job on the Impis. I used to always use horsemen for early wars but Swordsman paid off in both early wars here and were still useful with my knights taking the Aztec continent.

Then I allied with the Persians to kill India but Persia did mostly Naval patrols while I took their cities. I saw the Indians as weaker than Persia because of their lack of horses/iron/gun powder but I didn't realize Persia gave them all this so, the war was some what of a challenge. Still I only saw about 5 elephants and 5 cavalry in their whole country... Weird.

So now I controll all of India, Aztecs, Zululand, France and most of the small islands. Persians have a huge Navy though. But all Frigates because they have no coal. They demand coal and declare war. The Man Of War actually did come in handy! I had about 12 to 38 Persian Frigates, but the Persians for unknown reasons were content destroying improvements in unproductive areas such as India and Aztec. I had the Forbidden Palace in Zululand... (I was very happy when I was able to create a city right next to it with the Iron Works - never got to build it before) So I grouped my Man of Wars in twos and slowly dwindled the Persian force until my Ironclads could step in and pick up the pace. Also found out the only river on the map was in Paris which was doing fairly well in WLTKD and able to eventually build Hoover Dam.

Now I just took the Persians only Rubber and they have only one oil... Still the only modern ships they have built is transports. I wonder what they are doing. They have their continent and two islands south of it. And one city on the tundra island to the east where I have two. They have no offense left but still 50 Infantry. Still before tanks, this is going to be slow. YucK!

I am wondering how much more of the Persians territory I need to take to achieve domination. They are much weaker but have a 2 tech lead.

I thought I would get creamed because I only won at Emperor once before but we got a real good starting location in that France is a culture builder and had weak forces/good wonders. Then the Zulus had a tiny continent and didn't develop any science to get off it and expand.

Looking forward to here others stories as they finish up!

Peace,
Jim

Thunderfall

Feb 17, 2002, 11:23 AM

hmm... the spoiler thread is awfully quiet this month. I hope it's not because of the high difficulty level... :nuke:

Matrix

Feb 17, 2002, 11:52 AM

I'm also playing this GOTM and I'm doing far better than you're used to. ;) But I keep up a log and will post it as soon as I've finished. I'm at 1794 AD and have 4 pages of text now. :yeah: I really do think it'll be quite interesting for others to read.

Lt. 'Killer' M.

Feb 17, 2002, 02:36 PM

Originally posted by Thunderfall
hmm... the spoiler thread is awfully quiet this month. I hope it's not because of the high difficulty level... :nuke:

Don`t worry, TF, that`s just because we all got killed off early on and - like the good civ-fanatics we are - we prefer not to whine too much ;)

Brasidas

Feb 18, 2002, 10:34 AM

My second crack at GOTM was better than my first but still no great shakes. I neglected to save around 0, unfortunately so I guess there is not much point submitting.

I found the French, found iron, found the bottleneck. My second town was at the bottleneck - think that was a mistake. My third city was by the iron. My fourth went down south. The French attacked me fairly early on. I lost and re-gained London, I lost and re-gained my town near the bottleneck. I was not able to make any headway against the French at all, but I was able to hang on to the southern half of the island. The French kept coming at me but somehow I hung on.

Then the Zulu declared war on the French and eventually I was able to win a peace and a number of techs. Fat lot of good it did me. I am miles behind everyone and losing ground. Eventually my iron ran out. I haven't built even a single wonder.

It is about 1400ad, I am the weakest civ by far, I have had to bribe people to leave me alone. I have saltpeter so I was able to build musketeers.

I have good relations with the Zulus, pretty terrible relations with everyone else. I have a snow ball's chance in hell of lasting to the end.

I really am going to have to pay attention to some of these clever opening strategies I keep reading about. It seemed to me the French were miles ahead of me from the get go and I never saw a good chance to take them on. Ho-hum, thanks for all the tips in this thread, guys, I have really enjoyed and envied your stories and your successes.

Trash

Feb 18, 2002, 04:50 PM

I'm making slow progress through the game, only played about 40 turns in the 8 hours or so i've played the game in the last week.

I managed to stop myself before attacking India and switched to killing the Aztecs instead, (an easier target because of the indian elephants not needing iron & horses). I killed off the Aztecs pretty easily, only trouble was Persia who attacked me about halfway trough my war with the Aztecs. My cities weren't very well fortified because i didn't share any continents with other civs. The persians landed about 10 units in total on my shores and managed to capture 3 cities, before i managed to fortify my positions, luckily i was in my golden age and was raking in the cash & tech for upgrades and rushing in republic (i switched just after getting astronomy).

After mopping up the aztecs I got peace with Persia by paying 2 gold :). I built up about 30 knights & some musketmen, discovered military tradition upgraded all my knights and stuck them on ships and sailed off to Persia.

I'm 3 turns into the Persian War. I did one REAL smart thing without realising it :P. I paid India to declare war on Persia for about 200 gold. Then sold Iron & Horses to them which they were getting from Perisa for 150 gold per turn :P
I captured the 2 Persian cities with Saltpeter and their capital which was about to beat me to a wonder in the first turn of the war and have held them for 2 turns now. just enough time to heal my cavalry for the next wave of attacks. I think i'll have to start razing cities, Persia has quite high culture and this war may take a while. I don't think the 30 cavalary were quite enough for the walkover I was imagining.

pompeynunn

Feb 20, 2002, 04:41 AM

I started my first ever GOTM last night, and missed the pinch point north of my Capital, so the French managed to get there first to block off my expansion. I realised this was a desperate situation, so quit the game in disgust. I have now found, after reading the posts here, that I haven't been alone in finding this one difficult. So with hindsight, I should have kept on playing (I guess now I've read these posts it's too late to keep playing and submit a game).

However, I notice that Genuis has posted that he is 'Just about to start the GOTM' - surely he has broken the rules of the GOTM by reading the spoilers first, so his results should be null and void? If not, does this mean I can keep on playing my game and submit it anyway?

Lt. 'Killer' M.

Feb 20, 2002, 04:55 AM

pompeynunn: check this thread and you`ll see how strict the rules for GOTM are. So, yes: Genius results are null and void IMO
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15892

otherwise I wouldn`t have had to refrain from going at it again - after all I knew less then he knows by reading this thread.....

but the entire GOTM system is based on honor and we won`t be able to control reloading, restarting, "multi"-map cheating and so on....

And honestly, I can`t really believe someone should be so lucky that he reaches the results you can find in the GOTM HOF.....

pompeynunn

Feb 20, 2002, 05:55 AM

Luck can play an important role - in this GOTM, the goody hut I found contained a settler - I thought I was set up nicely for the game (until the French beat me to the pinch point). Just a couple of moves different would have made all the difference for me.

Looking forward to GOTM #5 though - I guess the lesson I've learnt this month is to not give up too easily.

Matrix

Feb 20, 2002, 06:01 AM

The rules page doesn't mention the spoiler thread. But notice the first post of this thread. What I've added should be there every first post from now on. ;) I hope that'll do the job.
Originally posted by Killer
And honestly, I can`t really believe someone should be so lucky that he reaches the results you can find in the GOTM HOF.....
Please understand that you're not the first who doesn't believe that the top players don't cheat. But they don't. It's as simply as that. :)

ChumChum

Feb 20, 2002, 06:45 AM

Originally posted by Thunderfall
hmm... the spoiler thread is awfully quiet this month. I hope it's not because of the high difficulty level... :nuke:

well i saw a couple of people post (me included) that they were going to have a practise emperor game on a different map first so i only started the gotm yesterday.

i'll confess straight away, i pop rushed like a scumbag. i set up about 20 towns straight away, each with one food square (soo much wheat down south!) and a barracks and pumped out those swordsmen. the french died, and i turned france into a swordsmen bootcamp.

i then suicded some tiremes, and through diplomacy mapped out the world while only giving gold away. (i did not research anything so gold is abundant).

interestingly enough, the zulu 'demanded' that i move my tireme or else and i said Ok and i teleported across an ocean to persia which was very handy.

i'm about to sail my swordsmen to india and claim the great lighthouse. also interestingly, i am the tech leader by 3-4 techs despite not researching a single one myself. the french did all the work for me and their great library filled in the gaps. oh, i love being evil now. i think i have converted to the dark side bwahhahahahah

-ChumChum
:cooool:

ChumChum

Feb 20, 2002, 06:52 AM

Originally posted by pompeynunn
I started my first ever GOTM last night, and missed the pinch point north of my Capital, so the French managed to get there first to block off my expansion.

hey pompeynunn, this happened to me as well and i thought i was done for. but i stopped it in two ways...

1) build a bootcamp in the southern peninsual bit with lots of wheat. you can cram about 6-7 towns down their and pump out sworsdmen for the upcoming war. when they are growing from 1-2 you can switch to wealth for some extra cash.

2) position a scout just above the pinch point. this blocks the entry for the french too and the ai is too stupid to declare war to move the scout. this means they cannot get any army to attack you without boats and we all know hoe crao the air is with coastal landings. if you don't have a scout in enemy territory like me then just sail one in. call him Bond or something like that.

the key to kicking the french's bony butt is to get iron working and then whoop for joy once you realise they have no iron. veteren (don't build regular) swordmen will cut through them like a knife through fois gras.

-ChumChum

duke o' york

Feb 20, 2002, 07:09 AM

Well I don't think that Genius will necessarily have his application rejected because although he posted here, you don't know that he read the thread before doing so. If he has read all the posts and then used this knowledge to his advantage then his game would be void, but it is possible just to click on the Post New Reply button at the top of the thread without reading all the posts. The submission of a GOTM has a lot to do with how honest you are, and if he says that he hadn't read any of these posts before starting then we ought to believe him. It is similar with restarts. You are not supposed to submit if you have restarted the game or played on from a previous save except if it crashed (in which case you should make as close to the same moves as possible) but if you do then you will have to live with having cheated. Not only yourself, but all the other fanatics who submitted their games. :nono:

duke o' york

Feb 20, 2002, 07:19 AM

Originally posted by Genuis
(OK, I reloaded once to save a settler from a barbarian horseman. SUE ME!!!)

This makes me look very dumb doesn't it! :cry: Oh dear, I don't know how I overlooked that. Kick him out. Or better still, sue him! I know some good lawyers......

Desert Fox

Feb 20, 2002, 09:35 AM

Originally posted by ERIKK
Please only read this thread if you know the entire map, or are quite far in the game. Playing with foreknowledge is disallowed.

GOTM4: first it looks bad, but it's not that bad after all.

The starting position is OK, there is place for 2 fast-growing cities. After scouting southwards I thought we were alone on the island but then I suddenly made contact with the French (where did they come from???! => the north!) They had already had 3 more techs. I guess they must have had more luck with the huts, as I only found one, that gave me a map.

It was clear that it was us and the Island, so I totally focussed on settlers, grabbing the land! Research; iron and (later) horseback.

After all land was taken (real quick) I made barracks and --- IRON; our luck in this game -- swordmen! As the French didn't had iron they did the only good thing: they attacked! Suddenly there were about 10 warriers in my territory and I had at that moment not more than 3 swordsmen. It was 390BC and I wasn't really ready for this but the veteran swordsmen were superiour...

After a couple of turns skirmisch I managed to take 1 city. At 100BC I had taken 3 cities and made peace and got 3 techs in return (they still have 3 more then me). Also I got a Great Leader who hurried the GL.

It is now 270AD I made contact with the zulus, who are backwards and small. I've declard war on the French and have taken Paris. The French still have 4 more cities on the Island and a lot of colonies on the surrounding Islands (I don't even have a galley yet!). But it is clear that England is going to rule the world once again!

So, that's it for now. I think that if you don't grab the land real fast, it is going to be a real difficult game!

ERIKK :D

My hat goes off to you. I have restarted GOTM about 6 times now and I keep loosing part of my land to the french. I tried declaring war but I was way to weak. The very southern tip of my area is where I keep loosing land. I keep quiting when she does take a portion of my southern area. I guess I suck big time playing on chieftain to long I suppose is another problem. I SUCK! :king:
I don't care about high score I just was hoping to do well. I need to learn more about playing on higher difficulties. Good job on your conquest thus far! :goodjob:

Desert Fox :p

Lt. 'Killer' M.

Feb 20, 2002, 09:41 AM

Originally posted by ChumChum

swordmen will cut through them like a knife through fois gras.

Just for fun I retried under 1.17f

my sowrdsmen got mowed down by those Spearmen - ratio 1 win for 4 losses offensive, 1 survivor for 3 dead in French horsmen counterattck while only 2 Horsmen died and 1 retreated!!!!!!!!!

I think this clears uo what happenes if you play GOTM4 with 1.17 - your score will be considerably lower!

Trash

Feb 20, 2002, 02:01 PM

I installed the patch halfway through my game. I had just after my initial invasion of persia. You do tend to lose a few more cavalary, but i've managed to hold onto their 2 of their saltpeter cities without them flipping. I've just sued for peace with them in 1450AD for the last one of their island cities i hadn't captured. I think another build up of troops, (because of the retreating) and I should be able to finish them off before infantry.

JoeM

Feb 20, 2002, 06:24 PM

Hi all,

Seeing the blurb on this GOTM I had high hopes for the Naval warfare section of the game (if I could make it that far...It's my first Emporer level game...:eek:

I don't know who reckoned that reload crap about the french, in my game it wasn't easy, but with swordsmen the french finally disappeared, and although I've never been 1st in science I think I'm doing okay for an Emporer game.

So in short, got rid of the french, found zulus, and soon after everyone else...And they were all doing better than me.

Slaughtered the Zulus, just because they had land neaear London, unfortunately only two of their cities ever produced anything due to corruption since...nevermind eh?

Anyhow through trading I seem to be near the lead in science although in firm second in the power graph, so I got Magnetism and our SU the Man O'War - English naval superiority and all that so I started a war with Persia who aree winning so far, and got India and Aztec to join in, again with trading. Incidentally, just as the others moved into the Industrial age they startedd offering huge amounts of money for resources/luxuries which definitely helped pull me up to speed.

So back to my point, naval superiority...

I've lost virtually every F£$%^&$$ battle to be had. They crush my now iron-clad ships with ease whilst I batter myself to death on their hulls..!!! WTF! What's going on??!!?

Well so now we've been warring for ages and the populace are getting upset. Only one city has been lost, a persian city, and I'm wondering whether it's worth all the hassle now I've beefed up India and Aztec I've probably sealed my own fate...

Now I'm just bombarding their cities to spite them har har har.

Still at least I'm still alive...

JoeM

Feb 20, 2002, 06:26 PM

..so I can post right?

ChumChum

Feb 20, 2002, 06:37 PM

Originally posted by JoeM
Hi all,

Seeing the blurb on this GOTM I had high hopes for the Naval warfare section of the game (if I could make it that far...It's my first Emporer level game...:eek:
...

I've lost virtually every F£$%^&$$ battle to be had. They crush my now iron-clad ships with ease whilst I batter myself to death on their hulls..!!! WTF! What's going on??!!?

well you have to realise that the english are really no better than anyone else at navel warfare, in fact they are potentially worse than six other nations. because

a) militaristic nations (of which the english are not), get cheaper harbours, thus cheapoer veteren ships and better upgrading in battle

b) the only advantage the english have is the man-of-war. sadly this is sh!t because

bi) it only lasts about 1-2 techs before being obsolete by the ironclad
bii) it still only has an attack of 3 which is equal to the galleons defence so it will lose half its battles anyway.

i have also found naval attacking to be fustrating. i think its because a lot of the time the ships are attacking have equal or similar defense/attack ratings (e.g. ironclad vs ironclad) and so it becomes difficult to predict who will win. also because you don't stack as much naval units as you do ground ones, each battle can have a much bigger factor.

i've found a solution to this is to always stack your combat naval ships in twos. you have to build twice as many ships to cover the same water area sure, but you have less losses due to ganging up and any lose you do suffer can be instantly avenged by the brother of the deceased. also being a veteran can (as always) make a big difference so make sure to produce you ships in harbours.

however before the industrial age, the ships are all so pants i don't usually bother with naval combat at all (another reason why the man-o-war sucks).

anyway, sounds like you are having a fun game. keep at it chooks.

-ChumChum
:cool:

pompeynunn

Feb 21, 2002, 03:16 AM

Don't forget, there is also a 10% defense bonus for naval battles, so a straight ironclad vs ironclad battle will tend to favour the defender.

JoeM

Feb 21, 2002, 03:23 AM

Yeah I know the rules, but come on! I was hoping for an epic naval era...

Truth be told it's probably just cos I haven't figured out a good strategy, although blowing up all 6 of their silk supplies, sueing for peace and then selling them silks for 15/turn was a laugh!

Mwah hah ha ha haa!;)

Desert Fox

Feb 21, 2002, 08:56 AM

I guess most everyone is having trouble with the GOTM. I am going to wait for the next one this months is pretty much impossible for me at least.

From all the posts I see only maybe 2-3 players are not having major problems. Playing the GOTM just proves to myself how much I suck at civ 3. I keep playing though like I am addicted to drugs. :D

Desert Fox :p

Aeson

Feb 21, 2002, 11:44 AM

In my game there was quite a lot of naval warfare with more modern ships. I had about 20 battleships guarding transports and doing shore bombardments during my invasions of the Persians and Aztecs. They both had a like number of Battleships plus many destroyers and even a few aircraft carriers. Once my troops had landed there was quite a lot of fighting going on in the high seas. They were both at war with each other, so it was a 3 way battle, quite interesting. The first game I have played where building a navy mattered much at all. I tend to play on larger landmass settings. It does seem that pre-modern navies serve little purpose though. It's just a crapshoot as to who is going to win each battle.

Cartouche Bee

Feb 21, 2002, 07:13 PM

Well I finished with a domination victory in 1585AD so no one has to worry about me getting high score and they never will cause I can't imagine playing all the way to 2050. I'm pretty sure that the conquest on the last turn is a pretty good general strategy for getting big scores on most maps.

I ended up with about 100 cities cause I never razed a single city, of course, lost a few cities with populations of 1 on the way.

Since this was an archipelago map I assumed that domination would be the way to go for my style of play, so I would not have to chase start ups all over the map and play to the year 2050.

I had some of those typical battles that just make you shake your head like; the Aztec spearman who stood up to three knights, the two Man O War that slid into the drink trying to take out a single caravel and the 10 or 12 cannon shots that only got 2 hits to soften the Persian capital. However, I must admit that my opponents lost a lot more units than I did. :)

When I first met the French they had a warrior and a settler on the move. I tried to trade with them but they would not trade anything and would only offer 10 for my pottery. Well, I declared war and won the battle. They chased my ailing warrior all the way home with 5 warriors and kept sending more. By the time they got to my capitol I had a spearman and a couple of warriors. They were never able to break my defense else I guess I would not be making this post. Their early war effort must have taken up alot of their resources and they eventually just toned the war down. I could see though that I was losing the tech war to them and they seemed to build wonders at will. I didn't build a choke point city until fairly late, I just positioned a spearman at the choke point until I was ready to occupy that fairly barren piece of dirt. That was the beginning of the end of the French though. I took the French out of the game around 280AD. I did get a great leader from those battles with the French so I was able to make the Light House (which allowed me to meet all the opponents). I never did build that many swordsmen because I like the mobility of the horsemen.

The Zulus were starting to take up space on the islands to the south so they were next on the hit list, the war with the Zulus at 410AD. I finished them off about 740AD (without any more Great Leaders) and changed to Monarchy to go after the Aztecs. I chose the Aztecs cause I wanted to get some position on the Persians who were in the lead on points at this time but I was closing the gap fast. The Aztecs were able to hold on longer than I expected but I did get a couple of Great Leaders from those battles. Finished the Aztecs off about 1295AD. The Indians were not much of a problem but I think Delhi flipped 3 times due to their cultural lead over me but I just reclaimed it each time it flipped. That took me to about 1360AD.

While all this was going on I was filling up as much other space on the map as I could. Mostly using this type of land grab to keep the Persians from getting a widespread foothold.

The Persians were definitely going to be the most severe of the battles. I first took the city nearest to the Zulu's Island, which was on an island itself in 1410AD. This got them to get into the mode to make peace with me, we had been at war for many years but they could not reach me with any worth while forces. As I positioned myself for the final battles I signed a Right of Passage with them. I was able to land from the Zulu's Island and the Aztec Island at the same time and dropped my units on their critical resources. Then I just keep moving units onto their Island until I was ready to declare war. During that time I also positioned units at other choke points on their island to cut their mobility down. Then I made a trade for what ever I could get out of them before declaring war. I took their strategic resources so they could not replace their lost units with high grade units. I was able to take out about five of their cities on the first passin 1555AD and stabilize my positions. I got magnetism about this time so my Light House effects were gone and I needed to upgrade all my caravels, this gave the Persians a few extra turns to hang on but the result was already obvious.

I don't raze cities or occupy them until I have captured all that civilization's cities; sometimes the unit that captures the city can't get out right away but that's the price of war if it culture flips the next turn. First of all ,that provides your units with some zones were they can heal and it provides mobility for your advancing units. If the city flips then just take it back again. You don't lose units to flips and you don't spend you units trying to deal with resistors. Furthermore, you get to salvage the population and maybe some city improvements. Of course I try to not leave an easy path for the opponent to just waltz back into the city but then again I don't sacrifice units to try and stop them. Also, if the city has walls I sell them if possible and I remember. Anyway, once you take the opponent totally out you then deal with the resistors while your troops heal and you don't have to worry about culture flips cause they no longer have any civilization. Now there might be alot of unhappiness in some cities but in that case, starvation will eventually balance out to the cities general mood, so be it.

I kept pounding the Persians till 1580 AD and then sued for peace and left them with two cities. Domination win next turn.

Now I have to figure out how to play the current version of CIV III, which appears to be for the best overall.

Cartouche Bee

Rhyannus

Feb 22, 2002, 12:53 AM

Matrix

Feb 22, 2002, 03:24 AM

Judge: "Do you sweat to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"
Matrix (with hand on chest): "So help me God."

I did not reload and I have destroyed the French!!

I wanted to wait to post my log, but when you come with remarks like this I feel I must post some of it now. But this is not the whole log. I'm at 1973 AD now, but that's a log of 6 pages. :rolleyes: So I'll attach that.

Matrix’ English log

4000 BC
Though I’m a worthless Civ3 player compared to the others, I’m still gonna give it a shot towards this emperor game.

The starting location looks good; luxury just near the first city, which is going to be built…right now.

1000 BC
It’s very easy to forget to keep up this log. A few turns back (about 10) I discovered Iron Working. I went straight to that after discovering that I’m alone with the French on one continent. They need to be wiped out as soon as possible. In any case I was very relieved when I saw there is actually iron near me: to the north of London. So it wasn’t hard to figure out where my next city needed to be built. I also built a worker on London straight after the settler. And now I’m working on a road to connect the iron to London.

At first I was afraid the French would build cities through my future empire. But then I realised I built York in the narrow passage so that he can’t get through. I did build my second city there to get to them first. But I was actually smarter than I thought.

The barbarians in the south do not give trouble and soon all that will be mine.

800 BC
I just discovered the wheel and a horse appears to be on a square which already has a road, just under Nottingham. Handy.

670 BC
The road to iron is ready. Now it’s a question in every city between settlers, temples and swordmen.

250 BC
The French landed a settler and a warrior in the south of my continent where is just place for one more city. I’m sending two swordmen already. That city will probably start our war which will end until one of us is off the continent.

210 BC
The French made a step on my terrain (near York ofcourse). I asked to retreat and they declared war. The game’s afoot.

130 BC
The southern French city was easily destroyed (with one warrior) and Newcastle is built in it’s place. Though the French don’t have iron, they do have horsemen, and I don’t. That’s nasty. I could build some chariots to try to eliminate them. Also, this is the first time I’m using the pop-rushing tactic. Pretty neat!

10 BC
Orleans is mine; the first ‘real’ French city taken. Then I went for Paris, but they got 5 spearmen in there! Guess I’ll have to save some swordmen before I start another attack.

170 AD
I was able to use a chariot to remove the road to their horse! That should ease the battle a bit. Furthermore, I’m going to attack Rheims (in the north) instead of Paris. That should be less difficult, especially since Rheims can’t get backup from other cities. Paris is in the middle and also worthlessly located. I think I’ll sack Paris for that and because of it’s high French culture.

300 AD
Successfully captured Paris, because it has Great Wall, The Oracle and Great Library. Now they have 9 restisters plus a very high French culture. I doubt Paris will stay mine.

330 AD
Paris and Rheims is French again. Rheims through culture; Paris through a revolt.

I discovered map making. Let’s see what’s out there.

350 AD
Because I already saw a yellow border to the west of Hastings I went to there. They appeared to be the Zulus. We exchanged world maps (I had to add 10 gold) and saw they’re lonely on one island with only 6 cities. They also appeared to have exchanged territory maps with the French. Now I know all their other cities, off our continent.

420 AD
I got about 6 advances through the Great Library after recapturing Paris. Also, I rushed a temple in Paris after the restisting population was suppressed by about 6 swordmen. Dangerous but smart, I think.

550 AD
The whole continent is mine! Let’s hope it stays this way. In all French cities I’ve tried to eliminate the resistance as quickly as possible and after that I rushed a temple. In the mean time I’ve discovered the Aztec and exchanged maps. They’re in the same situation as the Zulus, but a bit larger. That makes them easy targets.

Desert Fox

Feb 22, 2002, 09:56 AM

Removed quote. It's the post above. ;)

That is the best story line yet for gotm attempt. You sir are a very good player :goodjob: I frustrated myself before trying what you did. French showed up in south I got pissed and quit!:cry:

I will be looking out for you when MP comes out. :D

Desert Fox :p

Rhyannus

Feb 22, 2002, 12:42 PM

I'm sorry, I'm new here, so I guess you guys wouldn't recognize my sarcasm yet. Maybe I should have included a :rolleyes: in my post. A good player can win on Emperor no matter what the situation. On Deity, however, I think this same game would have been nearly impossible. I just don't like whining.

Matrix

Feb 22, 2002, 01:13 PM

Smilies are usually perfect for that job, Rhyannus. ;)

Anyway, my game is finished and I won (histographically)! :yeah: I really thought I'd be able to win on emperor, but here it is...

As I said before I've kept a log. It a 7,5 pages long story of the most fun game I've ever had! :) But also by far the longest one. :eek:

Aeson

Feb 22, 2002, 01:38 PM

Just read your log Matrix, sounds like you had a very interesting game. Congratulations on your victory! So many revolutions though, just stay in Despotism next time. ;) Monarchy is also a good government if you have a large army and still are at war.

ChumChum

Feb 22, 2002, 02:06 PM

i agree with aeson matrix, far too many revolutions - and you weren't even religious! :nono:

also you'd probably have been a lot better rushing the Forbidden Palace with your leader, especially as you were trying to run some non-whipping governments there. nice victory though

one thing that happened in my game that was interesting was that i built the Hanging Gardens (neither expansionistic or commercial) and got a golden age from it! it was the only wonder i built by that point though i did capture thr Pyramids, Great Library and Collossus (which is expansionistic and commercial) off the french.

this leads me to think one off two things. either
a) the hanging gardens is actually industrial, expansionistic and commercial but wrongly mentioned
b) wonders you capture actually count towards your golden age but since the golden_age_start_check is only triggered when you build a wonder, they won't kick in till your next wonder.

anyone have the scoop on this?
-ChumChum
:cooool:

Aeson

Feb 22, 2002, 08:23 PM

The editor shows the Hanging Gardens as just industrial, so it must be option b.

SkyRattlers

Feb 22, 2002, 10:06 PM

This is my first real attempt at a GOTM and I'm not sure I'll have the time to even finish it before the end of the month.

I don't think I've had quite as much trouble as others because I'm still alive but if I do end up winning it'll be a close and hard fought war right to the end. I established the early city to the north and eventually the choke point city...but only after the war with France had alreadyt begun. I killed one of his warriors who was escorting a settler in order to get two workers so I could build infrasctucture faster. The French chased me back to my capital but I used the mountain square and a strong dfense to hold off their attack until they accepted peace. I then established the choke city and filled it with troops...but I had trapped several french units on my side of the continent and felt the need t get rid of them...causing another war....but the choke city held it's ground and I believe now it caused the French to slow their devlopment and thus they only ever built 1 Wonder, the Great Wall (useless). I then spent a very long time building up my half of the continent ( I never had problems with French incursions). Then I built up a horsemen army of about 25 units and effectively destroyed the french, although they had two island cities not worth my attention. Note: I didn't get 1 single leader during the whole French war which I feel has greatly hindered my ability to gain any ground on the other civs. The French not havng useful Wonders hurt as well. I was able to build the Lighthouse but that was the only thing helping my empire.

The Zulus arrived during my war with the French but I recognized right away that they weren't a major player in this game. They weren't aggressive at all because of the size of my army.

I set out to explore the world and found in rapid succession the Indians, Aztecs, and Persians. I denied them communications with each other but that was a mistake because it wasn't too long after that the Indians were able to make their own contact. I was just too slow to make that strategy work effectively. I tried to further develop my empire before taking on the rest ofthe world, but it wasn't meant to be. The Indians were moving way too far ahead in tech and weren't selling enough for me to keep up. I started to create an army of knights to send over but during the military build up I was forced to changed my target to the Persians because they were attempting to expand off their continent too aggressively. I made friends with the Indians instead and created an alliance with them against the hated Persians. So now the Indians will forever be my friends (I hope). The other nations wouldn't join the war at first and instead saw me as a weaker target, that was a mistake on their part....despite having all my power over on the Persian continent they were unable to land enough troops to ever take any of my cities.

So the Persian war was/is a simple strategy. Landed 22 knights beside their capital and crushed it in one turn, razed it cause I knew it would simply flip if I didn't. I have been moving very slowly in my war efforts but like a glacier I just keeping chipping away at 1 city at a time. At my current position in the game all nations are at war with Persia and I'm trying to balance my attacking stack of Knights/Cavalry with establishing cities. The trickiness being that with the Zulus, Aztecs, and Indians sending massive number of troops (mostly inferior) it is difficult to figure out where and how to get settlers into the right places. With the sheer number of caravels, galleons, jaguar warriors, indian elephants, etc, it totally looks and feels like a battle royale. It's 5 full sized nations fighting on only 1 half of the Persian continent....there are bodies everywhere! Strangely the Persians are ignoring me, probably because I don't move around single units, only my single stack of 25+ units. It's a nice balance, I kill cities and my allies handle the raging hordes of Persians. But they grow weaker with every city I raze and their time on this planet is short.

The Zulus are next in my plans but after that I'm thinking I'll have to figure out a way to keep peace the until 2050 and hope for the best.

Drphil

Feb 23, 2002, 06:29 AM

While I don't keep a detailed log like Matrix ;) this was a very interesting game. This game, for me at least, was won or lost by fortuitously taking my scout North instead of South after founding London. Discovering the French and the choke points on the map it was possible to block them from expanding east without starting a war. Also very lucky was that the iron resource was in English hands no matter how you played it - if it were the other way round (Iron far west in French territory) I don't see how anyone could have survived for long. By the time the French were getting uppity about blocking their east expansion, I had swordsmen vs archers and the French were done.
One thing I noticed was that the AI didn't seem to shift strategy for water-based map. After iron I streaked to map making as quickly as possible. Great Lighthouse was absolutely critical for a win, IMHO. While the other Civs were cranking out settlers with no where to go (when I took over one Persian city there were 6! settlers in it) I was populating islands all over the world that didn't start with a Civ. I'm surprised the French didn't respawn on one of these.
I'll have to admit that I'm getting very tired of GOTM. In my desired to max out my score I don't get to play the peaceful game that gets into the modern era - style of play I prefer. I still don't think I've ever known all the techs in any game I've played, yet. All of my games are just crank out tons of the best warrier I can make in huge supply and attack with great force. It appears my tactics will need to change,though, since 1.17 (which I didn't load, yet) finally treats whipping the population correctly. I don't know how I would have won this one without conversion of population into knights :rolleyes:
I won with a surprise domination victory - I had forgotten that this was a possibility. If I had to do it over again I wouldn't have attacked the Aztecs and converted to Democracy after wiping out the Persians (I used the one Great Leader I got to build the forbidden palace in the middle of the Persian island).
Anyway fun and very tough game, won by, I think the luck of turning my scout North instead of South to find the French early and deal with them with the sole iron on the island.

la fayette

Feb 23, 2002, 06:34 PM

Originally posted by Aeson
It does seem that pre-modern navies serve little purpose though. It's just a crapshoot as to who is going to win each battle.
It is written in the guidebook that the defence bonus for sea and ocean squares is 10%. In my games this results in humiliating defeats for the attacker in almost any fight between galleys.
Later on, contrary to civ2, the caravels have a defence better than the attack. Same with galleons. The frigate is the first one with some efficiency in attack, but I very much prefer to wait for the ironclad (though you had better take care if you meet enemy ironclads on your way: same situation as with galleys, the attacker generally loses the fight; the solution is to sail a squadron of 3 or 4).

Lucky

Feb 24, 2002, 07:48 AM

Here is my story of this nice (so far) GOTM.
I played the Civ1 GOTM and the Civ2 GOTM first this month, so I only started this Civ3 GOTM last week.
I´m playing the game fully patched to 1.17f to see how the different strategies work and what changes we have to adjust to. :scan:
And directed at marshalljames :mad:, I did also NOT reload and managed to kill off the French.

The Beginning
I started the game by moving my settler up to the no shield grassland tile and founded London there. Later that turned out to be a good decision because I didn´t only gain a shield but another wheat tile, too!
My scout was sent to the south because of the seemingly vast desert to the north and found CB in the only hut but also another great city location far to the south. That was also were my first settler was directed at, my worker was busy bringing the luxuries into London. A second scout was sent to the north and encountered the French who already had 3 or 4 cities and were 2 techs ahead. :eek:
In the beginning I only discovered 1 or 2 techs by myself, my science rate was at 10% and I bought most of the techs from the French, including Iron Working and Horseback Riding.
That gave me the possibility to build up my army. After all the southern part of the island was settled, excluding the desert isthmus, everything was switched to wartime economy.
I wasn´t an excessive pop-rusher before but with the 1.17f patch it is almost impossible to build an army only with rushed units. My only city which pop rushed horsemen was the southern city due to its great food supply. But after 4 or 5 units and a temple it was over, it didn´t even grow past size 1 without civil disorder (with temple, 1 lux., 1 police). :(
But on the other hand London was producing veteran swordsmen every 4, later every 3 turns! And 2 nearby cities needed 6-8 turns.

The French Campaign
I also blocked the French with a scout at first and later a spearman and the growing army. The French discovered MM several turns before me and as soon as they sent their galley to the isthmus and found a city there I decided that war was at hand. I gave in to one of their demands some time earlier, but when they trespassed into my territory and didn´t want to leave war was declared. :p
I quickly destroyed the newly founded isthmus city and started my campaign. But their horsemen and especially their fortified spearmen stalled the advance considerably. I lost nearly half of my swordsmen before their reinforcement movement slowed down a bit. My continuing reinforcement finally turned the tide in this war and I managed to destroy another 2 cities. I didn´t want them as they were pop-rushed down from size 4-5 to 1 and therefore extremely unhappy and also badly located. The nicer part of this first advance was to gain 3-4 elite units (no barbs to train) and after the 2nd desctruction a GL which I used to rush the Great Library. But what a surprise, I only gained 1 advance from it, the french were by far the most advanced civ of all. In retrospect it probably was a bad decision but I thought on Emperor level they should have a great lead.
Nevertheless the war waged on and after several other heavy losses, including 2 elites, the pop-rush period of the French seemed over, as the counter attacks of their archers and horsies weakened considerably. Now was the time to move on to Paris. A new group of reinforcement together with the remaining units grouped together on the mountain next to Paris and was able to capture it along with the Pyramids. Now that the resistance was more or less broken I only needed 6 swordsmen for 2 other French coastal cities and some more for the 3rd. I captured these cities and was pleasently surprised to gain another GL used for the Great Lighthouse. Peace was made with the French in exchange for a lot of gold, 3 or 4 techs and their second last city. In the same turn they moved 3(!) veteran spearmen out of their last city, I sent 3 elite units to this city and was able to capture it, losing 1 elite. :lol:
So 2 or 3 turns before the ADs the French were annihilated. It really is a shame we have to kill Joan off so early in most games!

The Golden Age
Building the Great Lighthouse didn´t only start my naval domination (hopefully) but also entered my civilization into our Golden Age.
That gave me the possibility to quickly restrengthen my weakened army, build up my navy, explore the world and also build the HG in London as well as other needed city improvements. :goodjob:
At first I discovered the Zulu, then the Indians, Persians and finally the Aztecs. They all had already colonized everything they could reach but weren´t as advanced as I was, thanks to Joan and my Golden Age. I concentrated on my own island and expanded to the archipelago south of it. But somehow the Zulu also got wind of these islands (I didn´t give them my map, I only traded territory but no world maps) and established a small outpost there first. My expansion force quickly settled the remaining spots but seeing even more galleys sailing there I decided it was time for another war. I was still in the Golden Age so I didn´t want to change to Monarchy, but some time later the GA ended and after waiting another 3 turns to finish researching construction (and losing ~100 gold) I went into anarchy.

Stopping the Zulu
Before Anarchy I was able to build up a considerable fleet of galleys which were able to decimate their navy and stopped their means of reaching my island. Taking the Zulu outpost wasn´t a problem at all and after Anarchy was over production could be changed to support the war.
My navy sunk another wave of filled galleys before landing my invasion force. I was able to capture the first city together with 2 catapults and started my siege of Zimbabwe. But the losses were heavy, my horsemen are no real use at all, so I´m probably waiting to get chivalry, but that will take some more turns. The only attacks I´m making right now are with my remaining elite swordsmen and that gave me another GL, I´m not sure what to use it for, yet. ;)
I will probably use it for an army of knights, but maybe also for the Sistine Chapel. I don´t like the idea of building the Forbidden palace on the Zulu island, too much desert and too close to my island.

It is now 500AD and the Zulu war is far from over, more like a stalemate right now.
The other empires have no means of reaching me or each other yet.
And I´m still not first in score, but the others have much bigger cities, can´t do that due to unhappiness.
The craziest thing is that Paris is still 100% unhappy because "of the cruel oppression" I have done to them. Joan decimated them from size 6 to 1 via pop-rushing and over 500 years late they are still unhappy at size 1 with 1 police, 2 lux. and a temple!!! :crazyeyes

I did have some prejudice against this GOTM, Emperor on this kind of map. But when you master your first challenge in at least keeping the French at bay you do have some serious advantages being with them on one continent, especially in science. And the map is really fun although still a bit large for my taste. Hope I can finish in time!
:D

Lucky

Feb 24, 2002, 07:55 AM

Originally posted by Aeson
It does seem that pre-modern navies serve little purpose though. It's just a crapshoot as to who is going to win each battle. In my game as written above my navy did indeed serve several purposes, not only exploring and colonizing quickly, but especially keeping the Zulu of my island. :p
When the war started they were very eager to visit me but their galleys stopped one tile from my shore and I could destroy them and their cargo. :D
It is indeed difficult to predict a winner but as with all battles in Civ3, you simply need the greater number of units!

Aeson

Feb 24, 2002, 02:04 PM

I also used a combination of Galleys and the Great Lighthouse to good effect on this map. By a navy, I meant ships for actual fighting, not the handful of ships needed for exploration and troop crossings. Those roles are actually served much better pre-modern, as Galleys/Caravels/Galleons have good defensive stats when compared to any available attackers. Until Destroyers show up, there really isn't an efficient form of naval warfare. I'd rather stick to land based fighting where I usually have mortality rates that are 1/4-1/5 what the AI suffers. On the seas, losses are close to 50-50, which doesn't gain the player anything in comparison to the AI being fought, and actually causes the player to lag a bit when compared to any uninvolved AI. Building up a pre-modern navy for actual fighting at sea is a relative waste of production in my experience.

Matrix

Feb 24, 2002, 02:12 PM

With galleys, frigates & ironclads you should always attack with more than one ship. When you win, you win; it's 1-0 for you. But when you're first unit looses, a second can usually finish the job: 1-1. That's the way to fight on sea. :) Always have a vast majority (not overall, but at the location of the battle).

Lucky

Feb 24, 2002, 02:22 PM

That´s what I did with my galley, I had a lot of galleys guarding the way to Zulu island.
Whenever they tried to cross I was able to sink them along with the cargo. :D
So in a way I carried the war to their island.
Without my early navy and those sea battles they would have landed on mine. And it was easier to build some galleys than quickly reposition and restrengthen my army.

SirPleb

Feb 25, 2002, 12:29 AM

A major bummer for me, sigh. I'd been really enjoying this GOTM and playing what I thought was the best game of Civ3 I've played yet. I spent longer per turn than ever before, squeezing the most I could out of each turn. Suddenly today, at 1340AD, I get an accidental Domination "victory". I could scream. I've got a pretty decent score but I think it is about 40% of what I would have gotten if I'd avoided this. And I don't get to enjoy the final bit of finishing and polishing, I leave the game in a messy unfinished state. A hollow victory. What especially galls about it is that the better you play, the worse a score this so-called victory can give. If I'd been less clever, had spent 1/3 the time per turn, had reached the same position on the map hundreds of years later, and had then hit the accidental victory, my score would be higher. This victory condition can actually penalize good play.

I'll write more about my game later, just came here to do some moaning to get it off my chest :)

SirPleb

Feb 25, 2002, 01:22 AM

Heavy sigh:

I snagged the autosave and replayed the turn, skipping all units to create an end of turn save for submission. Finished the turn and there was no Domination victory.

I've gone back and experimented to find out what makes the difference. It turns out that:
1) If I raze a Persian city and then finish the turn, Domination results.
2) If I do not raze that city, no Domination results.
Razing the city involved does NOT make any difference to my borders, it does not cause my territory to change.

So we can add yet another weirdness to the list of bizarre things about the Domination limit. Domination may or may not be triggered with the exact same territory in your sphere of influence, depending on some other condition on the map.

Lt. 'Killer' M.

Feb 25, 2002, 04:55 AM

Originally posted by SirPleb
Heavy sigh:

I snagged the autosave and replayed the turn, skipping all units to create an end of turn save for submission. Finished the turn and there was no Domination victory.

I've gone back and experimented to find out what makes the difference. It turns out that:
1) If I raze a Persian city and then finish the turn, Domination results.
2) If I do not raze that city, no Domination results.
Razing the city involved does NOT make any difference to my borders, it does not cause my territory to change.

So we can add yet another weirdness to the list of bizarre things about the Domination limit. Domination may or may not be triggered with the exact same territory in your sphere of influence, depending on some other condition on the map.

Similar things happened to me before, I once even got a dom vic when I LOST a city :confused: :confused: Especially since I believed myself to be at least one more 3-city-island short of domination.....

Maybe we could get a GOTM without domination???????? Matrix, whaddayasay??????

Matrix

Feb 25, 2002, 09:15 AM

Originally posted by Killer
Maybe we could get a GOTM without domination???????? Matrix, whaddayasay??????
Perhaps... ;)

Lt. 'Killer' M.

Feb 25, 2002, 09:16 AM

Originally posted by Matrix

Perhaps... ;)

whew, at least not a flat "NO!!!"
:)

Cartouche Bee

Feb 25, 2002, 09:19 AM

Hmmm, this domination victory discussion seems to reveal to me why I had about 95% of the world before my domination victory occurred. I got my victory at the end not from razing a city cause I never did through the whole game but I did sue for peace and got three tiny cities as part of the settlement. That must have been the event that triggered the victory. :crazyeyes

Cartouche Bee

ChumChum

Feb 25, 2002, 09:37 AM

Originally posted by Matrix

Perhaps... ;)

i'd rather not have (another) no domination game (GOTM2 was no domination). as that game showed, disabling domination means that pretty much all the big scores come from a 'milked' 2050 victory which is a pretty boring way to win.

more experiments with the victory conditions should try some new things, maybe only spaceship wins for example or perhaps no domination/no conquest so you have to have a peaceful victory.

Lt. 'Killer' M.

Feb 25, 2002, 09:47 AM

Originally posted by ChumChum

i'd rather not have (another) no domination game (GOTM2 was no domination). as that game showed, disabling domination means that pretty much all the big scores come from a 'milked' 2050 victory which is a pretty boring way to win.

more experiments with the victory conditions should try some new things, maybe only spaceship wins for example or perhaps no domination/no conquest so you have to have a peaceful victory.

I asked for a no-dom GOTM because it is so mysterious how it is calculated, and thus very easy to stumble into one. Otherwise it`s OK!

Lucky

Feb 25, 2002, 11:42 AM

Continuing my story!

Stopping the Zulu (contd.)
After 500AD my reinforcements began landing in Zululand and my veteran and elite swordsmen were able to finally capture the capital under heavy losses again. :(
But now England entered the Medieval Age, at first pikemen appeared and stabilized the defense, no more annoying counter-attacks! And this age brought the advance of Chivalry and gave England the Royal Knights, feared all over the world. As soon as they appeared on the Zulu battlefield, victory was quickly ensured and the last cities fell within a few years. Although it took some time for the generals to adjust to using knights, in the beginning there were some humiliating defeats, soon they were almost unstoppable.
Nevertheless the Zulu war ended and only few were able to return home to tell their story. Only 1(!) swordsman unit survived the slaughtering along with a few now elite knights. :cry:
The time for changes had come!

Southern Expansion and Royal Diplomacy
The Royal Navy was the first to circumvent the world and discover all reachable landmass. The most interesting discovery were some islands further to the southeast, they promised fertile and rich lands. Therefore a colonization expedition was formed to found some new colonies there. After their long voyage they founded 3 new cities and claimed this land for the Crown. :queen:
Meanwhile the Royal Guard was strengthened to suppress any foreign aggressions.
Her Highness, the Queen, was quite successful in improving diplomatic relations with Persia and India, several good trades were achieved. The citizens at home were growing increasingly happy and our cities prospered and displayed the greatness of the Empire. :cool:
The only drawback were worsening relations with the Aztec people due to their foreign culture and missing respect! So it was decided to once again call the armed forces together for another campaign.

Teaching the Aztec a Lesson
Thanks to our great intelligence we knew exactly where to strike first. But when reaching the Aztec island our forces were unpleasantly surprised to see pikemen guarding their cities. :eek:
Nevertheless our expeditionary force landed and was able to overrun their most valuable but not heavily guarded city and gain control of their only source of iron. :)
As experienced later they didn´t have all their defenders upgraded, so further advance was successfully undertaken with the Glory of the Emprire, our Royal Knights. They were accompanied by the first army that has set foot on this planet. The wise military leaders decided not to fill this army to full strength yet, our elite knights were more valuable when attacking seperately.
This proved to be a great decision when the Aztec counterattack started after taking the second city. :goodjob:
The Royal Navy was busy getting reinforcements to the battlegrounds, along with a Great Leader from the Zulu campaign. This Great Leader was able to finish our Forbidden Palace within a minimum of time. This enabled us not only to ship reinforcements to the Aztecs but also to build them there.
Our pikemen defenders were stalling the assault on the northern front, gaining a lot of experience. This lead to another great event in English history. When the onslaught of the Aztec horsemen and especially the Jaguar Warriors was at it´s peak another single soldier stood out from the crowd and advanced to Leader status. He was also a great writer when not fighting and so he began the Heroic Epic, the story of the Aztec campaign! :lol:
We now control the southern part of their island along with 4 cities, our navy patrols the shores and sinks every enemy. Our losses so far were minimal, nothing compared to the Zulu or French campaign.

It is now 1000AD, the great English Empire rules most of the world and will once again start a new era of peace as soon as the last Aztec opposition is overcome.
:D

Aeson

Feb 25, 2002, 02:03 PM

I'd vote for domination disabled. On standard+ sized maps it doesn't change the fact that the high score will come from a 2050 milking, it just makes luck the determining factor as to which milked game will score the most. Other than reloading once the domination limit is reached, there doesn't seem to be a reliable way to predict when domination will be triggered. Since reloading is out, figuring out domination is limited to educated guesses.

In my game I guessed that I could settle everything but the Aztec main island, and the Persian isles. When I decided to get the game over with and trigger domination, I found I was about 80 tiles off in my reckoning. I did play it conservatively, but if my guess had been off the other way, I still would have triggered domination at about the same time Sir Pleb did.

On a larger landmass game, an accidental domination victory would really set a player back score wise. On this map I don't think it will make too much of a difference, the bonus for an early finish should even things out quite a bit. Was the 40% figure while taking into account the early victory bonus? There really isn't much land to build up scoring on, and a 1340AD Emperor victory bonus is close to 3500 points (or was with 1.16f). I can only guess what SirPleb's base score was at, but with the bonus it should put him in contention still.

Trash

Feb 25, 2002, 02:18 PM

Is the vicotry bonus 5 points per turn on Emperor?

Aeson

Feb 25, 2002, 02:50 PM

It is 5 points per year.

(2050 - Date) * 5

SirPleb

Feb 25, 2002, 04:30 PM

Originally posted by Aeson
Was the 40% figure while taking into account the early victory bonus?I just went and did the math carefully. My 40% seat of the pants guess (which is after allowing for the bonus :)) was too optimistic. My seat of the pants guesses of final scores from such early dates sure are innaccurate. Doing careful math based on notes I made shortly after 1300AD:
Territory was 1430 tiles. Let's assume that was final, grows no more to avoid Domination.
I figure that after maximizing growth and happiness, the "per-turn" score in a game can get to between 3 and 3.5 times the territory. (Each tile can get 1 for the territory, plus 2 for a happy citizen working it, plus from 0 to a bit over 1 for specialists, depending on the food it produces. Not all citizens will be happy, reducing the overall average a bit.)
On this map I think the average food/tile is lower than an average map so perhaps use a multiplier of 3.
That means final per-turn score can reach say 21,500.
I figured on ramping up to near maximum citizens+happiness over the next 150 turns.
Current per-turn score is about 8000 (is coming almost entirely from territory, much of it recently acquired.)
Allowing for average over the ramp up period and adding it all up, final score would be a bit under 11,000. Plus or minus a fair margin of course.

My actual score, including the bonus, is over 1/2 of that. (Let's call it 6000 as a very rounded number :)) So my 40% guess was off base. But I think the bonus falls an awfully long way from what can be had by playing it out. Even if final score with the way I was playing would have been just (:)) 10,000, that's still quite a bit more than what I got for the early win.

Aeson

Feb 25, 2002, 05:10 PM

I would still think your score will do very well SirPleb, definitely beat mine! :p

SirPleb

Feb 25, 2002, 05:17 PM

I'm in a better mood today, I really shouldn't have griped yesterday. It just felt like such a bitter pill at the time. There are probably many people who are rightly shaking their heads at someone moaning about a 1340AD Domination :) :) They have graciously refrained from jumping on me and I thank them!

SirPleb

Feb 25, 2002, 07:07 PM

Here's the story of my game:

After moving the worker south and the scout north I decided to move the settler SE before founding London. (Archipelago - want harbor, want a shot at Great Lighthouse. Especially since we're playing England.)

On the second turn I decided to try an unusual (at least for me) start. The land looked like it might be very small and sailing an extremely high priority. I researched Writing, keeping the research rate at the bare minimum to make progress, letting it take 40 turns. This got me an expensive and high priority tech at very little actual cost. I built up a cash reserve so that later research on cheaper techs could be done at high speed. Also spent a bit of cash on happiness. I really like how this worked out. It won't work with many Civs - need to be able to research an expensive tech at the start, and it helps to not have to research Pottery. I started London on a warrior but before long I changed that. There was already a scout out there and it looked like food would be in short supply for a long time. I decided to build (and rush with 1 citizen) Granary before anything else. The wines would offset the unhappiness.

After returning south and going west, I sent the scout south. (Plains looked better than desert.) After seeing the southern limits the scout came back north and finally discovered the French. I left the scout blocking the isthmus while I brought up a warrior to take his place. The scout then continued to explore the French lands. (Note: I think this shows that picking a "lucky" start direction for scouting isn't even necessaryl to bottle up the French. I was able to block them after having started the other way and not knowing they were there until a fair bit in. The French weren't interested in my start techs by the time I met them but that turns out to be no big deal from the pittance I see that they paid others for Pottery.)

I skipped the goody hut until a fair bit later, eventually opened it with a warrior when time permitted. Got Ceremonial Burial.

I decided to try to settle the entire start and SW areas before the French could arrive by sea. Spent a long time in builder mode getting all that going. Lost a number of warriors cleaning out barbarian camps - the barbarians seemed unusually strong. I micro-managed London and its neighboring towns heavily throughout this game. They had shared access to the most productive tiles. I flipped the citizens around constantly to maximize food and shields. (I.e. to minimize wastage due to over-runs.)

After Writing I decided to bet on the Horseman research path. The terrain suggested better odds of horses than iron. (Of course it turned out we had both.)

1450BC: I have researched Writing, Warrior Code, and The Wheel. I trade The Wheel to France for Bronze Working.

1225BC: I have learned Horseback Riding and start on Map Making, hoping against hope to build the Great Lighthouse. The Lighthouse is obviously a priority on this map, and even more so for England since it will trigger a Golden Age. (Better too early than too late!) I didn't think at the start that Lighthouse was likely to be buildable on Emperor level. But the F11 screen is very helpful - our status in the world suggests that most Civs had a weak start. We're far from the 6th place position I expect at this date on Emperor!

875BC: I start construction of the Lighthouse in London, shifting it to maximize production. France has already started but even with their 80% bonus, the city they're building it in hasn't a hope of building it as soon as London.

350BC: I've had Galleys exploring our borders for a while and meet the Zulus. They're quite backward so I trade Writing for two "old" techs I skipped plus some gold. I also trade them Literature for their maps and all the cash they can afford even though it isn't much. Finally, I trade my maps plus contact with the Zulu to the French, for Philosophy and some gold. My favorite kind of deal - I get tech and money, my strong rival France gets useless maps of settled areas, and contact with a Civ who now has nothing to sell to them, and has no resources to buy anything from them.

230BC: Built the Great Lighthouse and entered a Golden Age! I've started rushing Horsemen in the south and building them in the north. My many galleys positioned at the limits of our known world begin moving out.

210BC: Met India and Persia. They are a bit behind us in tech but have lots of money. I buy their maps with a combination of tech and gold. Next I made a decision which I re-made throughout the rest of the game: I did not sell them maps or contact. They appeared to be (and I later confirmed they were) too far from anyone else to get contact until Astronomy. This was a very lucky map. Not only did we and the French get off to the best start, everyone else was isolated and could be kept that way.

When I met the Aztecs some turns later I dealt with them the same way. Over the following few hundred years, I traded techs with India and Persia to get the ones they had. I then started trading all three of them techs they did not have, for the maximum cash they could afford. Eventually I drained their cash reserves completely and sometimes got a bit of gold/turn. The end result was to slow down tech advancement drastically, which is the main thing I wanted. I hoped to keep them from reaching Astronomy and meeting each other before I had enough military strength to hit them.

110BC: I attack the French.

50AD: I capture the Great Library from France. This is a very lucky break. I can now slow research to a crawl. Allow the other Civs to discover techs at their slow (unconnected) pace, then get them for free. For a long time from this point, I generally had research at zero. I sometimes hurried research of a tech I wanted a lot (Monarchy and Chivalry.) The rest of the time, zero, use cash for rushing things under Monarchy and let the Library do its work.

110AD. I give the French peace in exchange for 3 island cities they've built plus all their gold. I didn't get a Great Leader during the war with the French. I want a Forbidden Palace somewhere. The Zulu island looks like a good place - a good chance of getting a leader and a nice place to build FP, lots of shield producing tiles. I start building Swordsmen. A combined army of Horsemen and Swordsmen should work well against Impi.

290AD. The war with the Zulu begins. This war lasted a while. Horseman losses were high. But the combination of Swordsman/Horseman was deadly against Impi and eventually prevailed. (Swordsmen for frontal attacks and for defense. Horsemen to pick off weakened Impi.)

440AD. The Zulu are no more. This war produced a Great Leader and I build Forbidden Palace in the middle of the ex-Zulu territory. The first of some no-casualty wars has started. (These happened with Persia and India when they got annoyed and declared war. My Galleys just stayed out of their reach and nothing happened except one Galley I lost due to a foolish move.) I've already started sending settlers to the remote islands. There are 6 which the other Civs can't reach. I'll settle each of them to prevent any nuisance cleanup later, i.e. to prevent other Civs from settling them when they can sail.

490AD. Finished the flip to Monarchy. Production shoots up.

540AD. I declare war on France. I lost a lot of Galleys in this war - I really wanted to sink their roving Galleys before wiping them out, in case any had settlers. But their Galleys seemed to be made of steel. Before cleaning out the French I check to see what any other Civ would pay for communications with them. The top bid by a large margin is 36 gold, not worth it. I have clearly squeezed their ability to pay fairly hard by this time.

600AD. The French are no more. I enter a period of building infrastructure, rebuilding the fleet and army, and saving up for upgrading Horsemen to Knights.

970AD. My first wave of Knights and Settlers sets sail for the Aztec homeland. I will mostly raze and replace their cities, hurrying a Barracks in our first new city of course. The invasion of the Aztecs is a bit protracted but there is never any doubt of the outcome, they are hopelessly over-matched.

1250AD. The last Aztec island city falls. I decide to shoot for a Culture win. It will require an average of 298 culture/turn from this point - challenging but seems possible. I'll settle one minimum size city in each of the Persian and Indian lands, will raze everything else except one captive enemy city. I'll start by putting a serious dent into Persia, razing Sun Tzu's and the Pyramids, and establishing the beachhead town. Then pick off their cities. The fleet sets sail for Persia. As always so far I leave few defenders behind. It will be a long time yet before India or Persia can sail the seas, I will try to raze both of them before then. If I'm lucky I'll be able to upgrade to Cavalry part way through the Persian war. It won't be necessary but would make the war very quick. Time to stop waiting for the Library, from here on I want all the tech as quickly as I can learn it. I start research toward Cavalry.

1315AD. Persepolis falls easily. I settle the beachhead town. Research is going splendidly, have learned Invention, Gunpowder, and will have Chemistry soon. I'll repeatedly pick off Persian cities now as quickly as my stacks can heal and attack.

1345AD. Domination "victory"! Argghhhh. The best laid plans...

Some closing notes: The Great Lighthouse is even more valuable on this map than I guessed at the start. It is an absolute must have. Starting by learning Writing slowly and cheaply worked well, gave a nice boost. Micro-managing the "best" tiles shared by London and its neighboring cities really paid off. Keeping all rivals in the dark paid off enormously. I felt like my dice rolls were overall as unlucky as I've had. I lost a number of warriors to barbarians. I repeatedly lost between 2:1 and 3:1 attacking rival Galleys (my 3rd or 4th attacker would finally sink the damn thing :)). I got one Great Leader from 45 wins with elites. I lost an unusual number of Horsemen in my initial attack on the French. But other luck was with me - the Great Leader I got was at a good time and place, and completing the Lighthouse was great fortune. The map itself was very lucky for the way I played. That 3 Civs were entirely isolated was quite fortunate. That the French got the strongest start and built the Great Library for me was also great! This was one of the most fun maps I've played. And before this I thought I hated Archipelago maps :)

Taé Shala

Feb 25, 2002, 10:50 PM

Yep, I also finally made it.:D

It took much of my time (too much I think) before I came to an end but it was fun.

Could have been better this time; I was in a war against persia and was forced to switch to mobilization to get my economy boosted for the naval war. At this time I had only a small fleet at all but I was the first with Ironclads.

It took some turns to build enough of them and after that I destroyed all persian ship and repelled them to their home continent.:goodjob:

I tried hard to get a city to establish a bridgehead. I got one but I decieded to raze it because I couldn´t hold it.:mad:
At this time the persians had discovered Infantry and stoped my expedition corps quickly.
After this it was a fight between Infantry and heavy Artillery bombing with small wins and losses of territory.:eek:
They didn´t want to meet me to end the war so I had to wait.

Time passed... .... .... .... ....
:eek:
In the meantime I dicovered Sanitation but I wasn´t able to build hospitals or the Battlefield Medicine because I still was in mobilization.
:eek:
Time passed... .... .... .... ....
:eek:
My government imploded...
:eek:
A lot of turns later: Peace (Never been awaited so much):cool:

Results of the war:
- destroyed persian fleet.
- lots of casualities (infantery, cavalery) on both sides;
It was a little bit like in France in WWI from my point of view.

Later in the game I have been lucky: I was the only one with aluminium.
So I started the space race an won (2048AD) without any danger of loosing it.

After all it was a interesting game. I think Emperor is a good experience level to play for competition.
And after this GotM I think I will play more often with much watercoverage.

And if you would ask me what I have learned:

Don´t use mobilization unless it is your only chance!

It took much points away from me...:cry:

IronKnight

Feb 26, 2002, 11:53 AM

Well...I'm running out of time, but I hope to finish my game this month. This is my 2nd GOTM and I've had a little bit of success so far. I want to thank Grey Fox, SirPleb, Bill Chin & Aeson for various tips they have shared. I was smoked by the Japenese in GOTM3.

I started out by moving my settler north and creating London there. I used BillChin's "suburb" tip and created 2 towns close to London. Of note, these towns are still major producers in the 1500's.

I used the "Swordsman Gameplan" and stockpiled them on the ithmus to the north. Once all of the land was taken, France declared war on me. I was ready. I used my stack of swordsmen, with a few horsemen and started a slow march through France. Of note, I gained a great leader. I debated what to do, and opted for an army. I then created a Heroic Epic, hoping to increase the odds of more leaders.

I took the main continent. I also gained France's wonders. The great library, great lighthouse, hanging gardens among others were now mine. The great library was very important, because I had been using the "zero science spending" strategy to increase my gold. What a payoff.

I'm now building Knights, and have invaded the Zulus.

I find that I am culturally backwards. I thought I was doing good, but everybody else is MUCH higher. This might prove to be a major problem in the near future.

Well, thats it for now. Thanks again to everybody for the tips.

IronKnight

Feb 27, 2002, 09:12 AM

Its now 1764, and I'm halfway thru my Zulu invasion. I've taken 3 cities, kept 2 and razed one. With one of my settler's I built a new town in Zululand. That was later captured and razed by the Zulus. During the battles, I've received 2 leaders. I think the Heroic Epic has paid off! The first leader built me Newton's University, the second is being saved for the Forbidden Palace.

I just might squeek this game in by the deadline. I hope :)

By the way, does anybody else have acccess to the History Channel? I caught a program last night about none other than...Elizabeth! Kind of ironic I thought. I believe it is a series they are running this week.

Trash

Feb 27, 2002, 01:56 PM

Is the deadline on the midnight between 28 Feb & 1 Mar or is it 2 Mar like i think some of the previous ones have been?

Lucky

Feb 28, 2002, 11:37 AM

Trash:
The deadline is March 2nd at Midnight! :sleep:
I´m not sure which time zone counts but I think it would be either American Eastern time or Central European time because Matrix lives in the Netherlands.
But anyway, I think it isn´t a matter of hours! ;)

Btw, this post doesn´t belong here!

Lucky

Feb 28, 2002, 12:16 PM

Now to my story!

Teaching the Aztec a Lesson (contd.)
In the following years after 1000AD the Aztec campaign continued, the Royal forces advanced and took city after city. But the casualty rate also grew, the Aztecs seemed to have adjusted to onslaught of the Royal Knights. Their resistance was in vain though, soon the last city fell. :lol:

The Time of Growing Together
Following this last invasion our Empire experienced the struggles and difficulties of forming one state with all those claimed territories. Population growth, scientific achievements and commercial activities reached a new height in this era. Several Great Projects were undertaken and successfully finished and the trade between the 3 remaining empires increased every year. :cool:
But the other empires, the Indians and Persians were foolish enough to try to disturb the newfound peace in the world. After razing some new colonies of the Indians they finally realized that we would be a much better partner than an enemy. And so we signed our first Mutual Protection Pact. But even those new friends weren´t allowed to trespass in our territory. The Persians were more aggressive in their way, even after we signed a MPP they tried to attack our empire.

The New Enemy
The Persians weren´t listening to our requests to leave our territory. They even landed 1(!) Immortal on Zululand island and suddenly declared war. :crazyeyes
For the first time our great Empire was involved in a war we didn´t want. Shortly before that we had changed our government to Democracy and experienced another boost in science and treasury. The interesting part was that even though we were almost 4 times as large as the Persians they and the Indians, too, surpasses or at least were even with us in science. :eek:
After the Persian declaration of war we modernized the Royal Navy with ironclads because most battles were fought on sea. The older Man´o´War fought along with the new units and slowly but surely we gained control of the oceans. We even traded the Indians some resources to build a navy of their own, and together we repelled all invasion attempts. The Indians are now even landing some units on the Persian island, we have no interest in it though! ;)
The 17th century right now brings new discoveries and will show again that the English are the supreme power on Earth.
:D

IronKnight

Feb 28, 2002, 12:37 PM

Well, my GOTM is winding down. I think I will be able to finish. It will not be a glorius finish. I think the best I can hope for is a histograph win. I will take pride in the fact that it is my first Emporer level game finished.

I'll share my updates, although they won't be written as well as Lucky's. By the way Lucky, I'm glad to see that somebody else is still playing their game too.

I eventually took the Zulu island and eliminated their civilization. During the battles I earned a Great Leader. He was used to rush a Forbidden Palace in my newly created town on that island. At the same time, a palace was being worked on in Paris. When both projects were completed, those regions became very productive! WELL WORTH IT!

While I was wiping out the Zulus, Persia wiped out the Aztecs. This has left India, Persia & England.

I've kept my science rate at zero, and use my large cash flow to buy my techs. I think this is quicker than researching them???

I am currently building my army. The English Army is larger than India's, but about equal to Persia...so says my advisor.

I am currently behind Persia in the histograph. I hope there is enough time to catch them. Will there be more war? Time will tell.

Trash

Feb 28, 2002, 02:18 PM

Thanks Lucky for the info on the submission date.

I played about 50 turns of peace last night, aiming for a diplomactic victory but, it turned out in a stalemate, me & india voting for ourselves and Persia abstaining as india & I were at war with them previously.

At the Electricity stage I had about a 3 tech lead, and even with building the Theory of Evolution, the AI both managed to catch up by the start of the Modern Age, as we've discovered new resources, they seem to appear on their islands as well as mine, so I'll have my work cut out for me to get a spaceship victory.

Then a few turns before i stopped playing last night Persia marched 20 knights & cavalry into my outposts on their island and declared war, I sighed because war REALLY slows down the game, and i'll be pushing to finish as it is. So after declaring war and not attacking me yet, I rolled my tanks I had been massing on their island over the top of their whiny mounted units, (After 20 battles i got 1 upgrade to elite???)

So i'm thinking maybe a quick foray into Persian territory and I might be able to pull off a domination victory. It won't be that good of a score in early 1800AD but it'll be finished in time :)

denyd

Feb 28, 2002, 09:53 PM

I've made it to 1340AD and have found everybody. I've kicked the French off my island and am pretty even in tech with everybody else (the Persians seem a little ahead). I've just been informed by my wife that Friday night and Saturday are booked, so I'm about to go postal on the world. It's swordsman, knights and caravels until a domination victory or an out of time no entry.!!:eek:

Trash

Mar 02, 2002, 02:41 AM

Well i spent all of Saturday playing. Razed about 6 Persian cities in the war and founded 10 odd cities of mine in their place. Added all the captured workers into my cities and rushed temples aqueducts & marketplaces in all the cities to maximise score.

After 20 turns or so Persians agreed to peace for a couple of island cities. Then i milked the game to 1994 (so boring [:)]) until i got a cultural victory. Had to spend about 15,000 gold sabotaging Indias production of the spaceship to avoid losing, because i hadn't attacked them all game.

Then! :( I discovered i didn't have a 0AD savegame @!#$@#%#$ i submitted anyway and am hoping for the best

Matrix

Mar 02, 2002, 04:27 AM

Don't worry Trash. A lot op people seem to forget to save at that point. That's why it's not a must anymore.

Lucky

Mar 02, 2002, 12:40 PM

I´m finished! :cool:
After playing yesterday and today almost nonstop I have finally reached a point where I decided to launch my spaceship!
I have just submitted my game to Matrix, should still be in time! Hopefully! :p

Lucky

Mar 02, 2002, 01:33 PM

And now finishing my story!
I´ll probably cut the last 4 centuries shorter, I´m somewhat exhausted right now! :lol:

The Years of Peace
After we defeated the Persian navy and India even invaded their continent we made peace and after a while all settled down. We could put our efforts to improving the terrain and making the cities prosper again. After we made a lucrative deal with both other Civs we experienced long years of peace until the 21st century. :cool:
The greatness of the English Empire made it possible to gain a decent science lead, we entered the Modern Age way before the other Civs and did not trade them any technologies. Some Great Projects helped in reaching this lead. So it was decided to undertake the greatest project of all, we started to build an interstellar spaceship. This was to be the final triumph of our impressive history!

The Spaceship
Thanks to our science lead and our overwhelming production rate we could quickly research needed technologies and almost instantly build the discovered parts of the SS. Our SS was already half done when the Indians entered the race to the stars. They were the only ones to also have a source of Aluminium.
It was decided to closely watch their progress and take measures accordingly. The English spy network undertook great risks but was successful to sabotage some of the more expensive parts. :p
In the meantime most cities finished their expansion and growth and switched to either some new military units or wealth.
Then the Persians finished building the Manhattan Project while only one SS part remained to be built. So we switched all productive cities to stockpiling ICBMs and some tactical nukes for our subs. A defensive shield was also installed because the AI civs also built some ICBMs. :nuke:
So the years passed, the English people became even happier and all was well.
Until the dawn of the 21st century!

The Final Years
Suddenly the Indians decided to launch a surprise attack against us!
US, the greatest empire this world has ever seen, how could they dare? :mad:
Well, of course their attack wasn´t all too well planned and carried out. Most invasion forces were sunk before they even saw a shoreline and those who did reach our territory were quickly overrun by our veteran, technologically advanced troops. It seems they really thought they could harm our Mech. Inf, Modern Armor and Jet Fighters with their puny cavallery, riflemen and oudated bombers. :crazyeyes
The 1st and 2nd English Carrier Group quickly reached their main island supported by many other navy ships. And they laid waste to their homeland, first most of they strategic resources were cut off and then all routes to their capital followed. Our stealth units were far too much for their defense, although we did lose some to their jetfighters.
And so they quickly recognized their vain attempt and sued for peace. But before they could do that the Persians entered the war, too. Soon peace, a MPP and an alliance against the Persians was formed. These two civs are real traitors. We had MPPs with them before they attacked and with each other, too, before our alliance. :rolleyes:
So the same tactic was used against the Persians, their navy was also no real match against us. Only our Polar island in the north was invaded several times, but they were repelled. At their third try, after we already cut the Persian capital off, only one sub was available to stop their force. So we were forced (;)) to use a tactical nuke. :nuke:
After this event they were suddenly very willing to sue for peace, but our alliance with the Indians wasn´t over yet.
So we had to wait and experience the results of war weariness in all outer reaches of our Empire. Even though we were the ones to be attacked these ungrateful citizen rioted in several cities and even destroyed some improvements. Now the eagerness to make peace was on our side, too.
And finally, shortly after peace and order was restored, we finished the last part of our spaceship.

In the year 2025AD the great English Empire triumphed over the world and all other leaders recognized our final victory when the spaceship took off to explore other worlds, reach new frontiers and fulfill the dreams of countless generations of humanity!
:D

Trash

Mar 02, 2002, 04:19 PM

Cool you used a nuke :)

Nice story, good luck in the standings

Dirty Clint

Mar 02, 2002, 10:55 PM

Only just finished this game and submitted minutes ago. Had a complete hard drive failure and only just installed my new one 2 days ago. Made for a fast and furious attempt at playing the game but i got there. Not one of my better efforts though and I doubt if it will be in the top 10, I dont reccomend playing a full game with no sleep.
Good Luck All!! :)

Aeson

Mar 02, 2002, 11:17 PM

Ah, my one shot to knock off Clint and I too have a less than spectacular score... doh! :D :rolleyes: :crazyeyes :p :cool: :scan:

I don't mean to imply anything by the smilies... just never used any of these before.

Lucky

Mar 03, 2002, 10:40 AM

Some final words and thoughts about this game!

First of all I decided to pick the game up again in 2025AD today and have some fun.
I had already built 33 ICBMs, both AI had 31 cities together.
So I started the greatest nuclear attack this planet has seen. :nuke: :lol: :nuke:
And soon every AI city was devastated. What a glorious sight! :cool:
I ended the turn without moving any of my units, with a better attack plan I would control all of the world, although pollution might pose a small ;) problem.
But as noted before I didn´t, I wanted to see the reaction of the AI.
And surely the Indians, who had 4 ICBMs attacked me with them.
But not my capital or any other vital city, NO, some unproductive city near the Persian border! :rolleyes:
And soon my SDI defense kicked into action and shot all 4 (!) down. :die!:
The animation is quite cool but much better is the notice which reads that the AI ICBM has been shot down by our superior SDI. :goodjob:
That was somehow quite fun!

As a summary of what I learned for playing with 1.17f:
No pop-rushing, do not use it unless really needed. Once or twice per city is ok but more than 5 times will throw you back more than you gain!
Use overwhelming force. Same as before, do not mount an invasion without a really strong military. And horsemen are almost useless against cities now as they don´t retreat every time, use them for flanking instead!
Great Leaders seem to be more common now, but you won´t get them in single fights or small skirmishes. Start a real war!
Armies are still pretty useless, they seem to take more hits than normal. Use them to quell rebellions and build the Heroic Epic! But they are great defenders!
Getting many wonders really helps, especially on Emperor.
Build up a formidable navy early, at least on this kind of map. It really helped me keep the Zulu and Persians, Indians off my islands. Although the battle odds are worse than on land I would always prefer to beat them on the ocean than to drive stacks of units back into the sea!
Trade much but not your own techs, buy others instead. Try to keep the AIs in war with each other to minimize their tech trading!
The AI is really impertinent with the new trading system, somehow I don´t understand it. When I traded them some luxuries they were giving me 10gold/turn each. But for their only luxuries I had to pay all my lux., a few resources and 30 gold/turn. This is crazy! :crazyeyes
Do not underestimate the AI. The Indians in this game had the worsest island of all, no hills or mountains to increase production and very few resources. But even I had an 5-8 advances science lead in the Modern Age I had to sabotage their SS production to yield me the final years of score increasement!
Do NOT trust the AI! It is the most unfaithful AI ever, attack you without warning, even with several trades, MPPs and a gracious attitude towards you! :mad:

Well, that´s it, let´s see if I can find the time for the next GOTM!

Matrix

Mar 03, 2002, 02:58 PM

I'm done with the results. :D Just waiting for one person who finished on time but got problems with his computer...

But I know who won! :groucho:
And who didn't. :groucho:

ChumChum

Mar 03, 2002, 08:02 PM

oooo... with all these normally high scoring players getting 'less than spectacular results' maybe i can get in the top10 with my 1080AD win. prob not though as i only had about 20 points of culture from my evil barbaric english.

hey, i'm from scotland. i had to play them that way. :rolleyes:

-ChumChum
:cool:

Trash

Mar 05, 2002, 02:23 PM

Come-on Matrix, it's not fair teasing us like this :)

I've been checking the site every 30 mins or so from work to see if the results are up yet :)

JoseM

Mar 13, 2002, 04:11 AM

Originally posted by Lucky

In the year 2025AD the great English Empire triumphed over the world and all other leaders recognized our final victory when the spaceship took off to explore other worlds, reach new frontiers and fulfill the dreams of countless generations of humanity!
:D [/B]

nice history lucky :) ;)

White Elk

Mar 19, 2002, 08:02 AM

I don't beleive my game is gonna count as an "official" game :cry: but I wanted to share my experiances anyway, in case anyones still interested.

This was my first real attempt at the Emperor level and the first time I played using patch 1.17f. At first I was concerned that using the new patch would give me an unfair advantage. But after a short time I discovered just how wrong I was. The increased penelties for pop rushing and the speed of the AI tech trading made for a much more challenging game. :goodjob:

In the begining it was clear that I would have to conquer the French to have any success. They were quite antaganistical from the get go and controlled the most productive terratory on the continent. After a very brief and pointless war, the French agreed to peace, and I began settling my way south. About halfway down the Southern penninsula, next to the Deer resources, I founded a city(1475BC) and began building the Forb. Palace. About that same time I sent a settler to the choke point with the intention of building a city there that would fuction as both Fort and Canal. But when I got there I couldn't pass up the oppurtunity to settle deeper in French terratory and thus limit their growth.

I continued settling the Southern regions, but before I could completley secure the area the French landed a settler. Not wanting to share my limited terratory I declared war and thus began a long and expensive war. The French immediatly retaliated, taking out my North mostern city and assailing my chokehold troops. It was at this time that I discovered that the pop rushing strategy was not effective with the new patch. Oops. To recover, I pillaged the road connecting my Southern cities so I could build the cheaper warriors. Then I set my commerce level to 90% tax with the intention of upgrading my warriors to swordsman. I was building the Great Library at the time and was hoping that would pick up the science defeceit.

With the Forb. Palace being so far from completion and the strength of the French military, I thought I might well face my first loss. My choke hold troops were lost as quickly as the reinforcements arrived, and it wasn't long before they had retreated to the penninsula's last stand. I had been attempting to strike peace with the French. But they wanted Literature, a city, all of my treasury and most all of my per turn commerce. I was reluctant to give them Literature, as I didn't want them to build the Great Library before I could complete it. Fortunatly as the French troops were assailing my last stand troops, they agreed to peace in 210BC for 52g and 6g/turn. Whew... That was a close one.

The years passed, and finally the city which the French built halfway down the chokehold had been irrigated. I sent two workers to tap into their irrigation. My workers completed the task the turn after that French city expanded it's borders. The French demended that I move my units, I complied. That same turn(10BC) I built the Great Library. To attempt to improve my relations with the French I traded them Literature for a measly few coins and a worthless terratory map. That would turn out to be a mistake as the French, right after the trade, declared war. Arghhh...

This time I was much better prepared, though I was not yet ready to do battle. I held them off for many turns, and then finally in 300AD I took the French penninsula city and they agreed to peace. I had gained a leader in the battle and decided to use it to rush build a Palace in Paris once I captured it. In 320AD my Forb. Palace was finally built and I was a few turns away from learning Monarchy. Things were looking up. Wawhooo....

White Elk

Mar 20, 2002, 11:32 AM

The years passed, my Nation was ruled by a Monarchy, barracks had been built, and a legion of Swordsman were being trained for the eventual assault on France. Then in 680AD the Zulu declared war on the French. In 700AD I followed suit, taking the first of two choke hold fortresses. It took a few turns but I took the second fortress and then sacked the South Eastern French city. A few turns after that I razed Orleans, and then founded my own city, capturing the wine resources. About this time the Zulu had captured one of the Northern cities, and the French had begun their decline. Paris fell after a three turn assault and I captured Hanging Gardens, The Oracle, and Sun Tzu's. Hehaaaw. To attempt to prevent revolt, I changed my commerce level to like 50% entertainment, and I garrisioned two troops for every french citizen. It was a big risk, and slowed down my assault, but I needed to quell the ressistance so I could rush build the Palace. Before the ressitance was quelled I was able to capture the coastal city South of Paris along with The Great Lighthouse.

Finally after many anxious turns, the Paris ressistance had been quelled, and I relocated the Palace. Paris was mine for keeps now. I suffered some corruption in my original capital and in the town near the iron resource, but I think it was a wise trade off. I could now redeploy the garrision troops(more than two dozen) and continue the assault. The French cities fell one by one, and in 1080AD I had conquered all of the mainland. The French were no longer a threat so I agreed to peace for two island cities and 80g. This is when I discovered another unpleasentry of the new patch. The new cities had no garrision. Cheeez(don't you hate undocumented changes/surprises).

The years passed and I focused my Nations energy on our Science infrastructure. Putting everything into the pursuit of new technologies. In 1260, the Zulus beat me to Copernicus by a measly four turns. Bumer. However, in 1350 I traded the Zulu some Wines for Navigation, Printing Press and 5g/turn. I also got 11g/turn and the balance of their treasury for Silk. About that time I decided to finish off the French, and conquered them in 1375, the same year I learned Magnetism. After gaining the Saltpeter resource I began building a fleet of Man of Wars and regiments of Calvary for an assault on the Zulu. In 1445 I invaded the Zulu, and used a Man of War to sink a Galley. And thus began the Zulu wars and my Civilization entered into a Golden Age. The first two cities were quite tough, but after that they fell easily. Although, I had a alot of trouble with reversions. Then in 1510 I conquered the last of the Zulu cities. During the wars I had gained my second great leader and decided to save him for rushing the Theory of Evolution. And once again my Civilization entered into the pursuit of science.

More to follow soon....