Ok, I am trying my first game on Monarchy (I usually play regent), with 4 civs on a small archipeligo. This is not like my normal stories, and is more of a report of my game. Enspired by Sirps game :), yet not as difficult as it is not on Diety and not Always War, lol. Although I do plan on war.

Anyways, here is the first part, hope you enjoy it.

The rival tribes of the lands finally unite to make the city of Carthage together. The Great Priests of this city predict both great and terrible hardships to come from this city. They soon elect Hannibal, the Great, to lead the people for eternity. Hannibal of course accepts, and the city creates the world's first government.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Carthage_is_born.jpg

The holy priests of Carthage predicted of more powerful and intellegent peoples in the world. Hannibal knew to keep up with these people was to fully expand his empire to the limits of the continent, and to expand onto other islands. Scientists soon predicted a Great Library would be the most benefical, and so it was technology required for this monument was well underway to be discovered.

The Great Library was soon constructed in Carthage, bringing scholars all over the continent to Carthage. Not long after, the full continent was settled.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/All_of_Continent.jpg

Iron was soon needed, as small bits were already being made into daggers in Carthage. Once the blacksmiths had full technology, a peasant stumbled on something hard in the northern tundras. Alas! Hannibal found iron near Hippo.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Iron.jpg

Sailors finally found their way to another island outside of the main continent. It was quickly named Iceland because of it's sub-zero temperature. Immedietly, settlers from the ships decided to stay. THey declared the city Sabratha a protecterate of Hannibal. A friendly native tribe, calling themselves Minoens, gave their maps to the Carthagineans, in hopes of good relations. The whole tribe was soon beheaded.

It wasn't long before Carthagineans were longing for sea travel, and so the necessary technology began to be researched.

After a daring attempt at sea farring, a royal galley carrying a town's worth of people finally arrive at a luscious new island. Hannibal is encountered by another people, called the Germans. They soon traded maps, and to Hannibal's dismay, the Germans stretch futher then his people have ever gone. Plus, they possesed technology beyond the beliefe. Settlers were soon disembarked on New Africa, and the first colony was founded.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/First_Colony.jpg

Now, soon Hannibal came into contact with the great powers of Russia. Bribing Catherine for her map and contacts were easy, as the great technological boom the Carthagineans just incurred. Because of the Great Library, Carthage welcomed scientists from aroudn the world who taught Carthaginean scientists everything they new. This must have brought in 10 technologies! With the new light, Carthage citzens soon saw the right of free representation, and began a small revolt for a Republic.

Meanwhile, Hannibal still conducted the diplomacy with the rest of the world. From his charts, he was able to tell the world powers of whome he knew. The French seemed a worthy ally, spanning across it's home island and 2 others, plus a colony in the south. Germany, once great in the eyes of Hannibal, was nothing more then a spreaded empire without a large enough military to support it. However weak these nations were, before Russia they had been strong. Russia lacked a full homeland, being occupied by the Celts AND a German colony. Only Moscow remained in the homeland. However, an island almost fully occupied by Russia lay southwest, which encompassed much of the Russian people. The Celts were among the smallest amount of people, only occupying the greater part of the Russian homeland, and a small colony in the north.

With theses fact, Hannibal soon prepared for a war.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Map.jpg

hi Jason,

Nice to see you enjoyed reading about my game enough to start your own! :)

I wish I had the fresh water that you have! I never got to irrigate in my game even once. Your land probably isn't quite as fertile, but I'd trade a bit of fertility for fresh water any day!

Your source of iron looks alot like mine! Directly north of a city, on hills, in the north-west most corner of your island.

I have some comments on how you could improve your playing style, but...I prefer not to be the giver of unsolicited advice, after all this is a story, not a critique page! If you want to hear my comments though, let me know and I'd be pleased to provide them.

-Sirp.

I would very much like to hear some comments! Im always looking to better play the game, lol, and i already learned so much from you game!

Plus, if I am to survive in Monarchy, then i need some help, lol.

Jason

Jason,

My major comment is that you didn't take good enough advantage of your starting position:

The most crucial thing at the start of the game is food. Lots of food. Food equals population, population equals settlers, settlers equals more cities. More cities, and bigger cities, equal power.

Starting near forests with game like you did is an excellent starting position: You should immediately cut down the forest, and irrigate it. This will give you a grassland tile that produces 3 food under despotism. Any tile that produces more than 2 food under despotism is exactly what you want at the start of a game. It will let your city grow faster, and produce settlers faster.

If you had chopped and irrigated both the game tiles, you would have had Carthage growing at twice the rate it would otherwise, since it would have a food surplus of 4 instead of 2.

What's more, I assume from the small size of Carthage in your screenshot that you didn't build a granary in Carthage early on. Most good players will immediately build a granary in their capital, before the first settler. It delays founding your second city, but after that you can pop out settlers very fast.

In fact, if you had irrigated the game, and built a granary, you could have Carthage growing every 3 turns, instead of every 10 turns. That means you can get a settler every 6 turns instead of every 20 turns, assuming you can produce that many shields in 6 turns, but if you can, the natural result is that your city will grow in size until you can.

Once you're done with settling, your capital will shoot up in size very fast. The effect of your food tiles will be magnified because your capital is on fresh water, letting it get to size 12 fairly quickly. That's exactly what you want: a big city which produces lots of commerce for research, and can build wonders! The Great Library for instance.

The other comment I have, is that you have lots of fresh water on your island, but only Carthage is founded next to fresh water. I would have changed the city locations a little, and had at least 2 more cities on fresh water. Fresh water is the most important consideration when choosing a city site by a long way. With it, your cities can grow to size 12 before construction, and after construction, they don't have to build expensive aqueducts to do so.

You also irrigated a whole heap of grassland. Irrigating normal grasslands in despotism doesn't help at all. It pushes the food output up to 3, but the despotism penalty pushes it back to 2. It's only if you can get the natural food output of a tile up to 4, that it'll get pushed back to 3, and still be a worthwhile thing to do in despotism. Almost always mine grassland in despotism; you can come back and irrigate some of it when you enter republic/monarchy, if necessary.

I hope I haven't bent your ear too much with my blabbering :)

Let me know if you want me to expand on any of these points.

I'm considering starting up a succession game training day for people who can beat warlord/regent and want to be able to beat monarch/emperor. Let me know if you're interested.

-Sirp.

definetly thanks a lot. I will use this information.

Oh, and you dont want to know what happened to this game, lol. Lets just say Carthage citizens speak French now :(.

Anyways, I would be interested in the succession game, though I have nver played in one. I have ptw if you want to teach me on their, lol.

btw, I didnt build a granary because i rushed in tech to Great Library. I researched strait away writing, then litereature. I didnt have pottery when my scholars were writing novels :).

I might start a story like this again, but it is not likely. If you take a look at my other stories, more or An Empire at War, I dont like to write these kinds too much. Your game just inspired me so much :). Please write another one.

Jason

Jason, sorry to hear your game went so badly :(

May I ask how the French managed to capture Carthage? Since you had iron, you should have been able to build a few swordsmen, and had them in range of any possible landing point, ready to counter-attack any invasion force before they get a chance to attack.

In my game, no landing enemies survived to attack again on my soil until very late in the game. On an island map, you should make sure you wipe them out as soon as they land.

Also in my game, I researched pottery before alphabet and writing. You really just can't do without granaries, and you don't have to rush to literature *that* fast. In fact, I'd suggest that you'd probably end up with literature faster by researching pottery first, since that'd give you granaries which'd equate to faster city growth which would equate to bigger cities, which would equate to more science. It'd certainly be a faster way to get the Great Library.

I'm currently trying to get my girlfriend into playing CivIII, so I have a succession game set up to teach her, but other players are also welcome to play. It's at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?threadid=43154

The game is half-way over now, but new players would still be welcome. However, after I've finished that one, I'll probably start up another one on a harder level: most probably monarch. The current game is on CivIII 1.29f, but the next one will probably use PTW. You'd be welcome to join either one.

As for me writing any more stories, that might happen. We'll see :) In the meantime I do have stories on my civilization III page, if you haven't already read them.

-Sirp.

well, i didnt have much forces on my main island cus, 1.) I was massing an attack on France from a colony, so I had only a few catapults and Pikemen in Carthage and 2.) Im an idiot :).

Its pretty ironic that after i last posted i started a few more games, and thought of myself to research pottery first, then writing and literature :). Yay!

I would be happy to play a succession game next time, I dont want to join late. However, I have never played a succession game, and so i dont know how to play. lol.

BTW, I have read your first two reports of your games on your website, and will read the third one tomorrow. Very well done. Again, I especially like the maps that accompany the writing, lol.

Jason

Jason,

I'm not an expert in researching technology nearly as much as some. However, one thing I do know: pottery is *the* most important early invention. You can have debates over whether it's best to go for bronze working/iron working vs alphabet vs ceremonial burial vs the wheel etc, but all great players I know of agree that you just *have* to have pottery, and have it quick. It's also another small advantage of being expansionist: you get such an important technology from the start of the game.

There is one exception to this: some people avoid building granaries, and just build the Pyramids early. In that case, masonry is the important technology. But, personally I don't like this strategy terribly much, for two main reasons: (1) it relies on acquiring a certain Wonder and not on good fundamental game play; (2) It's risky and stops working on the hardest levels. You try it on Deity and you risk losing all your shields for nothing.

A succession game is fairly simple. All that happens is you play 10 turns, and write a mini-story on what happened in your turns, and then post the saved game. The next player will then download the saved game, load it, and plays 10 turns and then the next player and so on. You usually have 4 to 5 people in a 'team' and once you've each had your 'reign', it goes back to the first player again.

You could try lurking in the Succession Games forum a little first to get the feel for it.

Training Day Games are a special type of succession game where a 'veteran' player plays with some less experienced players, and teaches them how to play better. Many players have become much better through participation in TDGs.

Also, joining a succession game midway through isn't at all uncommon. It's your choice of course, but you'd be welcome to join mine. Or wait for the next one.

-Sirp.