COTM 43 Spoiler2: End of the Middle Ages

Reading Requirements:


Must be able to research an Industrial Age Technology.
Must have contact with all remaining civs and knowledge of most of the map.


Posting restrictions


No maps showing Industrial or Modern resources.
No discussion of Industrial Age (or later).
Absolutely NO discussion of any other active 'X'OTM Contest


Your special sea/ocean movement capability should give you all contacts fairly early for a Huge Archipelago map. But with the game being SID, it takes a while to get the forces to challenge the AI on its own turf. So, were you able to do that, and if so, who did you target and how did it go? What do you think of the big island in the NW corner? I actually moved one of the civs off there to make you a nice, large AI-free island ... then promptly seeded it with barb camps! :p Have you been able to do much with this island? How about the European Privateer - has it made much impact in your game? I decided to give the AI some chance to make limited contacts early in the MA; did they do anything with that capability? Also, they have some ability to harass your shipping - did any of that occur? And what do you think of your amphibious 'MedInf' unit? :D (Nice, I'd think). Last question - what 'benefits' might the AI have to provide you in the MA, and were you able to take advantage of them?

Well, I have to say, very interesting concept.
Was fun playing it for a while; my first Conquest game ever and my first Civ3 in a long time. Was surprised to get my 2nd city destroyed by a volcano within the frist few rounds, so I though I wouldnt make it too far.

Thanks to building the Great Library, I am doing more than OK techwise, and I have settled the small continent South of the start. Killing all the Barbs was not that difficult, as they didnt either suicided themselves against Pikes-on-Hills- or just waited for me to pick them off. But it was tedious and time-consuming and not too much fun.

After that, I have spent dozens on Pikemen and Knights trying to invade the closest neighbour SW (blue) but it's becoming a pain in the butt. He must have lost >100 units already and still has about 20 spears and bowmen in his cities, building one more every turn. I must have killed 100 and while I will eventually be able to conquer the guy, it's getting boring and I'm running out of time, Game turns as well as Real Life Time.
With all this fighting, I would have expected some Great General to emerge, but it took forever to get the first one, and as it was on defense he got killed same turn before I could move him. Second one built an Army as I have enough wonders already (2-3) and I wanted a Cavalry Army for some extra punch.
Especially as there is no saltpeter near or far, I cannot build cavalry to speed things up, and with no bigger ships, Logistics is a pain.

I will not finish this game - but if anyone who can afford to play day and night for a few weeks, I'd be amazed to hear about it. My game will probably be hard to win against America who just killed off the Spanish, but not impossible. Should I still submit ?

You may submit an incomplete game at any time, if you wish. However, this contest is open until the middle of January, so you still have more than a month to improve your result.

OK, here is a question:
At MA I finally got first Victory over Spain and try to use "EA limited". In my game China and I run away Civs and China pay good deal of gpt for my Techs. (in normall mode). After Theology trade I got 206 gpt. Before Victory I descoverd Education, but no good deal from China yet. Meanwhile MAo discover Chivalry. 999 check showed 999 as China gross income more then 999. At Victory turn MA vs Spain + Chivalry costs about 300 gpt, but I put 500 gpt just in case. 999 showed 999 of course. I trade Edu for 254 gpt. I expeced more, actually. But it is what they payed. 999 again show 999.
Other "EA" worked only with Korea, they had 999 ->715 and paied 184 gpt for Education. Minor and other civs pay nothing no matter of "gpt gift amount". Probably I should focused on 1 civ, but I ran out of money.
After Victory 999 Check with China showed 915 gpt. So (254+206)*2=920.
It happend "accidently", I had no idea how much they had before. Probably, also, I could do this trade without "EA", becouse I paid for Chivalry a lot. (it is Sid...) Anyhow now China give me about 1/3 of their gross income. Is it what you thougth about? To be precise shall I pay 3 gpt to China?
Or you thought about 1/4? and I have to pay lot more? Or, vise a versa, I am allowed to have te same net pay from China as their gross income?
How to deal with this problem in a future? Most probably it will be more then 999 incomes.
Ivan

Well, I must rely on my memory for this since I stopped the log at 1000BC. I had all contacts by then but hadn't tried any colonization. I had tried a puny invasion of the Aztecs while still in AA. Had geared up for another upon reaching the MA. Read the first spoiler and realized a better plan would be to use UU to take out barb camps in the south island and colonize it. So that's what I did.

Decided to target India first and the UU worked good allowing me to take a city. Even got a leader. Tried some R&R and lost half my navy and army plus the leader when the city flipped back to Gandhi. :mad: Went back later, took another city, razed it and built my own. Made peace. Decided to settle the NW island and figured I'd deal with Elizabeth on the way since we were at war. Lost my invasion force and gave up on war when I saw the English had muskets and realized I had no saltpeter. :( Changed to republic. Managed to get saltpeter on the NW island. The Chinese and Koreans were there already.

Got to military tradition. Used loads of cavalry and muskets to finally conquer someone - the lowly Lapita. Took the Aztecs next. Gandhi declared on me and I lost my colony there. Didn't try re-invading. The Dutch were next on the list but I've had to be careful not to get into war with strong civs.

finally i'm here :cool:

i've taken some days off at work so i've been playing since wednesday.

some comments :

1. that's really great game!!

2. as i've written in 'First spoiler' enslaved worker (amphibious attack) appears in air.
2a. but he can be removed from AI's territory in diplomacy screen, when AI demands to remove troops...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/92288/c3c_cotm43_bug-edit.jpg


3. i've observed, thing that i named 'tech bug' :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/92288/c3c_cotm43_bug_02_trading-edit.jpg

or is it as You, civ_steve, wrote : MA bonus advantage? i've checked available tech 'every' turn [well, few went without check] and England hadn't anything from MA.

4. Poly's Marines were the way to go! i've conquered Lapitians luring their forces out of cities with units landed on mountains and taking their cities with marines [except capital, which was __tough__ fight!].
btw : i've intended to ROP rape them [they would be destroyed before anyoune could reach them], so i landed troops on mountain and trebs on grass [i couldn't unload cats/trebs on directly on mountain].
they were suspicious and had attacked first destroying my 15-20 trebs/cats...

moreover : using PolyMarines and decoys i've captured/destroyed many American cities, but most important were those on America's island NW peninsula that gave me saltpeter and bridgehead. later it was looong but routine procedure.

5. surely war between America and Spain has helped me, but OTOH i just took my chance :D



i'm going to write some more info in next post
once again : i've had lot of fun, i'm sure i'll have much more finishing that one!

Great! I'm glad you're enjoying the game! Sid level is a bit intimidating, so my intent was to make a number of changes to make the game still very challenging but also very playable (and fun! :D )

I believe the 'tech bug' you've described is due to England getting Gunpowder as a starting Tech. Quite appropriate given their historical effect on the Polynesians, but it (and other such edits) can create interesting effects!

Gunpowder - so i just missed it, i mean when i was research/buy it, only Korea and China had
it.
i've wasted some turns, cause i waited for GP only to learn that nearest easy accessible
saltpeter is on American-Spanish island... thus Lapita's war was delayed significantly. so i
used pikes for Lapita and America. now i control S island, Lapita's one, whole America's
(they have 3 towns far away) and Aztecs' (one city left).
Korea, Spain, Lapita were destroyed.

Now China is the biggest and most dangerous AI. I've chased them for a long time, then they
colonized NW island and run away. now with about 200 turns still to be played i've overtaken
them and i am the score leader, running away.
They are tech leader. i had to turn off research and rush many culture buildings cause there
was a threat, that China will achieve cultural victory in about 60 turns...

now the only VCs in question is about space ship, ahh and UN vote...

I believe the 'tech bug' you've described is due to England getting Gunpowder as a starting Tech. Quite appropriate given their historical effect on the Polynesians, but it (and other such edits) can create interesting effects!

And Spain got Monotheism as a starting tech I think? Did you give the Dutch some medieval tech too? In my game they had an unfortunate accident involving a cavalry army before they reached the medieval...
It seemed to me that we couldn't trade for these anachronistic starting techs if the European civ wasn't in the right age (I'm not sure whether they even had the use of them, i.e. could England build muskets right from the start, or only as soon as they went medieval?) as I had the same situation as pol1, researching Guns myself while Liz was still languishing in the ancient age.

Anyway, this game is insane but hilarious. I don't know what I would do without the marines; maybe I'll even postpone Replaceables so as not obsolete the marines. Or research Amphib? :lol: I don't even know what the prerequisites are, I've never researched it except as a precursor to Future Tech.
I also tried a ROP rape, but the antsy AI double-raped me first. Twice in fact; first time (Lapita) I lost my treb stack, and second time (Aztec) I lost my first army, which was still disassembled after coming over on a catamaran.

I had some success without marines in the previous sid game, but the set-up was slightly different that time, as a lot of AI were paired up on landmasses, so one could always get a safe start on a conquest by throwing AI against each other. In this game we only have two multi-civ continents (and I wasted both of those fishing for war happiness; Korea beat China and America beat Spain). Those guys are now my two biggest power rivals. :wallbash:

Anyway, I'll try to put together a proper spoiler soonish. Conquest VC of course. :ar15:

And Spain got Monotheism as a starting tech I think? Did you give the Dutch some medieval tech too? In my game they had an unfortunate accident involving a cavalry army before they reached the medieval...
It seemed to me that we couldn't trade for these anachronistic starting techs if the European civ wasn't in the right age (I'm not sure whether they even had the use of them, i.e. could England build muskets right from the start, or only as soon as they went medieval?) as I had the same situation as pol1, researching Guns myself while Liz was still languishing in the ancient age.

...
Yes, Spain got Mono, Dutch got Feud (but did you see any Swiss Mercs? ;) ), one of the minor tribes received Engineering, and I believe I placed Invention as well. My thought was that with some aggressive Trading a player could be well up the Gunpowder path shortly after entering the MA.

Since this is the first time I've tinkered with such things, it does appear that the AI (and the player as well) can not use any feature of a bonus Tech from a future Age until in that Age! Once any of these tribes had entered the Middle Ages, they would have immediately realized they knew that Tech, and could then build the units, or build the city improvements or Wonders, but not until they'd entered the Age. Very interesting.

Scintific civ (Babylon/Lapita) got 2 techs: Invention and Monotheism.
Korea only one.
Greeks/Aborigens got Engineering. I thought they are Scientific but they are not.

^ Oooo well spotted! I was just now agonising over how to kill them quick after gifting them up for a free industrial tech. Instead, they'll just have to die without even knowing about Writing. What do these AI do with their time? :nope:

To answer a few of civ_steve's questions from the beginning:


Yes, I made good use of the continent to the NW! Very valuable colony. I settled it from two sides, once coming round from the east via Menehune to settle the Incense spot and once from the west via Aztekia and Mayaland to settle the Gems spot. In the following I settled almost the entire continent and found more valuable resources (most important: Salpeter!). Unfortunately towards the end the Chinese managed to get a couple of cities on it. The barb problem was solved in two ways: a) found an unprotected city close to the barb camp and then keep cool and wait until a horde of 20-30 horsemen has stamped through it... :cool: I did this only when I had spent most of my money in that turn, so the barbs never got more than 4 gold and the one or two shields that the town had built in that time. b) Set a handful of Marines on a mountain/hill next to the barb camp and start producing slaves... :goodjob: I did this on the wine continent as well and could improve both continents with free workers.
Poly Marines were great! Can we have them in every game from now on? :D
The European Privateer had absolutely no impact on me. I saw a couple of them, but they never attacked. Probably because I can see which nation they are, they only attack when I'm at war with the owner?!


At the moment the situation is as follows:
I have settled three continents (homeland, the one to the south and the one to the far NW) and also started to settle the islands between Aztekia and Mayaland.

I started an invasion of Aztekia a while ago. I had landed a couple of Muskets and Trebs (later Canons) on a hill and hoped they would throw their legions of archers at it... But they didn't!! (Probably the Muskets work like "Armies" here, meaning the chance of an archer winning the fight is too small, so they don't try it?! In that case I should have used Pikes...!) Anyway that meant I had to kill all his units myself. My first attempt was with 16 Marines after a bombardment of ~15 Trebuchets. The pre-war investigation of that city had shown that it was protected by around 15 Spears and the same amount of 1-defense-point units, so I was hoping to take out his spears and then in the following turns large portions of his "1-units". But I had to learn that an unwounded Spear in a size 6 town on a hill is a 50-60% match for a Marine... I think it was like 9 wins, 7 losses. At least my GA was triggered during that attack.

So I started producing more Cannons and Marines and shipped them over to my beachhead. The second attack with ~60 units (30 bombards/30 Marines) had the desired effect: all Spears and a couple Archers were erased and my losses were only 3-4 Marines. Of course he kept sending substitutes, but these were not enough: each turn I had to kill only 3-4 Spears and then was able to decimate his "1-units". 16 turns after the original attack the town was mine! I got three leaders in the process, which I can use now as Cavalry-Armies, and a dozen slaves.

After I got the town, something strange happened: he started throwing his Archers at me! Immediately afterwards, two stacks of 50+ units moved up to the captured town and two more stacks of that size were visible on the border!! Why didn't he move the units into the city, when it was endangered?? It would have taken me ages to capture it! Now he was loosing them senselessly. I had moved my 8 Muskets and most Cannons into the town and it just barely survived the counter attack... At the end all Muskets were elite and deep-red, but I had lost only two or three. I rushed a city wall the very next turn, and from then on I was safe. His Archers keep killing themselves and the Cannons and Marines can then take on the accompanying Spears the following turn. A few more turns like this and then his stock of units should be gone and I can proceed picking up his remaining four cities.

There are seven more civs, which like Aztekia are still in the Ancient Age. So I think the way to go now is to take them in a similar way (which should be easier now that I have the necessary Cannons and Artillery), and that should take me close to Domination. The other option of Diplomatic or Spaceship will probably take too long, because the tech pace is so incredibly slow...! I fully agree with PaperBeetle here: "this game is insane but hilarious"! Is this really Sid?? Only China, Korea and America are getting a bit of research done. A couple have reached the Middle Ages (because I have used them as trading partners...) and the rest (8) is still Ancient!!

I guess in the beginning each civ had to research all the techs alone, and now that they have the first contacts, they have built so many units, that a decent research is no longer possible...
Because of the slow tech advance, I had done my own research even after I had gifted the Great Library to the Lapita people... (Wanted to get to Cavalry before taking the GL back... :D ) In the end it turned out that the GL trick wasn't so great after all: While I had the GL, it was somewhat useful, but not too much (had to do my own research for Republic, as otherwise that would have been delayed too much), and taking it back gave me only the MA techs that depended on Education (the others I had already traded or researched myself) and about the first-tier techs of the IA. But waiting longer would have slowed me down too much.

So the plan for now is to use the three advanced civs and the scientific Lapita to make some tech progress and in the meantime gobble up the ancient civs which I had kept isolated and out of the tech loop.

pol1: the "floating worker" can also be "rescued" by moving an empty ship beneath it and then activating the worker and pressing "L".

I. Larkin: very strange: up to now I also thought the Aborigines were scientific (the Civilopedia says so), but CivAssist now tells me they are not?! I've been gifting them all along so far...! :crazyeye:

Ok now, final stage! I wish everyone fun finishing this great game!
Lanzelot

@Lanzelot : i've also noticed it.

still 110 turns to play... space ship is not possible, UN probably also - China slowed down it's research... India and England try to keep up but they seem to have too many units and not much gold for research. i won't make it to modern age.

i'll go for histographic. i increase lead by 10-12 points every turn... i just hope to finish this one on time.
now i'm regrouping and am going to destroy Maya. first war was inconclusive, cause i just couldn't found safe decoy town.... needed some more armies there.

After I got the town, something strange happened: he started throwing his Archers at me! Immediately afterwards, two stacks of 50+ units moved up to the captured town and two more stacks of that size were visible on the border!! Why didn't he move the units into the city, when it was endangered??
Maybe look at this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=81424)by the greatest civ3 player of all times for some explanations about Ai behavior and how real SID level plays.

Mostly peaceful, but kicking into Golden Age when acquiring India's northern city with dyes. At that time, China was the lonely tech leader and thus my Great Library did not help me much.

Thus I bought gunpowder from England (their special tech) and started researching the lower tech branch in my Golden Age. I did not want China to pull ahead too much, as they had Copernicus', while I was lacking theology.

I left Middle Ages as tech leader in 840ad.

After I discovered the Republic and reached the middle ages in 1025BC I immediately revolted for a 6 turn anarchy. So the republic was settled in 875BC after which I decided to first learn literature and Polynesian Trade before going for a medieval technology.

In 550 BC I had discovered both. After that I gifted Korea (getting Engineering) and Lapita (getting Monotheism), I was able to trade for both. I never gifted the Aborigines into the middle ages because according to civ assist they were religious and agricultural.... (although according to the civilopedia they were scientific and commercial (just as the greeks). After the gifting I decided to go for theology (I figured one of the AI civs would go for Feudalism). The next turn after gifting Lapita and Korea I got a pop-up that Laptia was building Leonardo's workshop. As I absolutely love this great wonder I decided to do a pre-build for the great library (my size 11 city vs their size 4 city!) and was just hoping that an AI civ would discover feudalism on time so I could trade for invention!!

After the discovery of Polynesian trade I upgraded the archers to raiders with which I invated the southern island.

In the mean time I discovered Theology in 190BC and Education (I figured I needed those Universities to keep up whith the AI civs in science) in 90AD. Korea discovered Feudalism in 10BC which I bought from them and after getting Invention from Lapita (which I immediately sold to Korea for the same gold per turn as I paid for Feudalism).

I decided to continue the education route. Hoping Korea would go for the lower technologies. That didn't work out as I hoped (they did get gunpowder but after that went for democracy). After discovering astronomy and banking, I went for chemistry which I discovered in 470 AD. I normally always go for the invention-gunpowder-etc route (gotta love those cavalry-units!!) and I definitely should have done that this time around! 2 bad.

In 210 AD I finished Leonardo's Workshop and was almost in total control of the southern island. I decided my next step would be the America/Spain island, couple of reasons why this was my first target:
1. as they were almost constantly in war with each other I figured there forces were not to strong.
2. Amercia was slowly winning, if they had complete control of the island I probably wouldn't stand a change
3. the island was very close!

When America reached the middle ages in 440AD I decided I didn't want to wait till they had Feudalism. So in 450AD I started the attack with about 40 marines and a couple of pikeman, I immediately captured Philadelphia and San Fransisco (starting my golden age!) and made an alliance with Spain (they gave me Furs for this!!!). Afther this the American send a lot of troops my way. Therefore I decided to buy saltpeter from the Koreans in 490AD (although saltpeter was really nearby) and upgrading all my pikeman to musketman. In 510AD I discovered Chivalry (I first wanted to go for Militairy Tradition but decided I also didn't want to wait for that!) and continued my war against the american with 14 musketman and 31 chivalry against there depleted cities. The war went pretty well and I made a peace deal in 590AD in which the american gifted me a couple of cities, leaving them with 2 cities.

After that deal I turned my focus to spain, they were pretty pissed about me breaking the alliance (with nobody else other than America and me knowing Spain I could not care less!!!), but they still agreed to a ROP in 610AD!! After my ROP rape in 660AD, they only had 2 cities left! Which I conquered in 720 AD (they were far away in the mountains).

In 720 AD I also discovered Magnetism and bought Military Tradition from the Korean, reaching the industrial ages being number 1 in gold (691), cities (44), land (587), population (279) and having 218 units (including 84 slaves!!!).

I do have a couple of questions;
- was it possible to know that Spain (Monotheism), Aborigine (Engineering), the Netherlands (Feudalism), Lapitan (Invention) and England (gunpowder) all had middle age technologies as starting techs (besides ofcourse gifting them into the middle ages, but that doesn't make sense when 4 out of 5 weren't scientific)???
- how does the withdraw of fast units exactly work? I know it doesn't work when the defending unit also has a movement >1 and it also doesn't work if both the offensive and defenisve unit both have a health of 1. But it often happens that my (for example) cavalry has 1 health point left and the defensive unit >1 (sometimes even full health remaining) but the cavalry keeps attacking. That can be pretty anoying!!

In hindsight I should have gone straight for miltary tradition as I always do picking up education later on from Korea but I still was pretty happy about the outcome of the middle ages!

@Neo666 :
Spain with furs? i've seen only ivory on that island, all fur luxes belong to the other one, England.

retreat possibility : if Your fast unit has 1hp left and a) is not fighting against fast unit, b) is not in the city, c) unit on the other side has more than 1hp,
then before last attack there is a roll, AFAIK 50/50 (but i've seen some different values in the editor for regs/vets/elites).
so sometimes they will retreat, sometimes not.
and usually for us it seems that elites lose more than vets, arties miss more than they should, cavs keep attacking instead of retreating...

cognitive bias??

and usually for us it seems that elites lose more than vets, arties miss more than they should, cavs keep attacking instead of retreating...

cognitive bias??

"Never send an elite to do a veteran's job" I always say to myself. The minute they get that extra hp, their ATT drops through the floor ;)

@Neo666 :
Spain with furs? i've seen only ivory on that island, all fur luxes belong to the other one, England.



your right, I got ivory from Spain, thanks for your response!

Maybe look at this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=81424)by the greatest civ3 player of all times for some explanations about Ai behavior and how real SID level plays.

Well, actually I had read that thread in my preparation for COTM43... (That's where I got the "Great Library Trick" from.) So I knew that the AI attacks cities even if they are defended by an Army (or in this case by Muskets, which also are superior compared to their Archers).
But what I still don't understand is: if they had all these units, why didn't they move them into the city before I captured it?! I mean, my growing stack of Cannons, Marines and Muskets had been sitting next to that city for 16 turns. A human player would have defended it with all he got... :confused: :crazyeye:

Another thought of mine: to me it seems that because of all the "modifications" civ_steve made to this game (and because it's archipelago), it feels much much different from SirPleb's game. The most striking point is the tech pace: even a genius like SirPleb was trailing behind in terms of tech for most of his game, but in our game an average player like me can become the tech leader in the early Ancient Age... :) That can't be right...

Lanzelot