Egypt is famous for its reed, the papyrus. After this game, I believe it should also be famous for its weed...

After my first emperor game turned into a landslide victory (domination win pre-tanks) and quite a few successes at monarch level with variants (OCC, 5CC conquest (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=792510#post792510 ) , AW, and a few others), I decided the take the dangerous step towards Deity.


Player: Carthage
Difficulty: Deity
World: Standard size Pangea, 30% landmass, temperate, 4 billion years old
Barbarians: sedentary
Opponents: 7 random, cultural links activated
Victory conditions: all activated

I expected some warfare, but aimed at a diplo or space win.


*** The Early Years***

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

The starting position seemed nice enough: fresh water (river), two game forests. But it was all plains / hills and would require heavy worker care. I decided to found right there, and was happy to discover wheat in range as well.
I set Carthage to become a worker factory and followed the typical path of warrior – warrior – granary, then alternated between settlers and warriors.
After max research on pottery, I shut down research completely. The only other research I would do before a long time would be lone scientist 40 turn for Republic.

I quickly met with the Greeks, Aztecs and Romans, then a bit later the Americans and Egyptians. Apparently the Persians and Zulus did not share our landmass.

The early years are what really sets Deity apart from the lower difficulty levels imo. No room for sloppy play there. Not getting hopelessly behind requires constant attention. Let one tech trade opportunity go unnoticed, and you’re in dire trouble.
I checked diplomacy every turn, buying techs at 3rd and selling for another tech and change. Several times I had to rearrange tiles and adjust sliders just to be able to buy, hoping that I’d get enough cash from selling that tech at 4th and 5th to live through the deficit that normal tile arrangement and lux rate would entail.
All in all, I managed to maintain tech parity and keep growing. But while on monarch or even emperor that’s quite easy to do, here it required a lot of effort.

On the settlement front, things were tough too. Good news were that I had two native luxuries (wine and gems) and later also had horses and iron. Bad news were that I had very little room.
The Greeks were on my doorstep in the East. The Aztecs settled my North-East.
West was the sea. North was just a narrow tongue of land the western side of which I barely managed to settle before the Aztecs got that too.
South-East was some kind of Gulf.
Finally, the Romans were to my South. There was a little more room there, but it was all forest / jungle and the luxuries and ressources that I wanted to secure weren’t there.
In the end, I managed to settle 9 cities, although a good half of them were no more than half cities.
That’s another big difference between Deity and the lower levels: in the other levels, you settle where you want to (at least first ring cities) ; in Deity, you settle where the ai let you.

Here is the Carthaginian empire in 925 bc:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/egyptianweed925bc.jpg

I had been watching with worry the huge number of Roman troops marching through my territory. My territory isolated Rome from the rest of the world, so I expected Rome to declare on me sooner or later. But I wasn’t ready for that. At all. I was relieved when it appeared I wasn’t Rome’s target. I thought it might be Greece, but my foreign advisor denied it. Some time after that Rome declared... on America!

This Caesar was apparently no military genius. Picking the furthest target in the Ancient era isn’t exactly the best option from a logistics point of view. Futhermore, Rome got a real bad start (mainly jungles, with a dry plains and desert southern tip) and was the weaker ai.
To make matters worse for them, the Americans managed to call a dogpile on them. Rome was soon at war with everyone.

I watched closely because I had decided that Rome would be mine. My initial plans had been short wars with the Aztecs and Greeks to reclaim second ring territory and relieve cultural pressure on my first ring... but Rome made for a nice second core once all that jungle had been cleared away (after all, Carthage is industrious).

So I started to make war preparations but didn’t get involved for the time being. I was happy seeing Rome send its troops get slaughtered far away rather than focus its Golden Age mass-produced legions on me.
But I would have to get involved as soon as Rome was gassed and the fighting moved to it. The last thing I wanted was some other civs getting their hands on Roman cities.

The time drew near, and Caesar helped me with the decision: Alex and Cleo both demanded some gold from me on the same turn, and I caved in. Caesar thought he could do the same.
Well, he thought wrongly.

The war lasted about 500 years. It started in the late Ancient era with Swordsmen and NuMes vs spears, archers and legions, and ended in the Middle Ages with MedInf vs Muskets and the odd knight. (Rome was dying when Chivaly and Gunpowder appeared, so instead of trading for those techs, I decided to get them in the peace treaty).
In the end, all of Rome was mine, except for their small island city in the West.

I got two leaders in the war. The first was used to rush my FP in Pompei, in the heart of Roman land. The second I saved for Smith’s.

After the war ended, for the first time in that game, I felt I had a winning position.
No ai had swallowed another and got dominant, so I now controlled the largest territory. Once I got my second core productive, I would become the major player out there and a space win should be rather easy to get.

So I swapped everything to infrastructure, kept my neighbours happy, and nearly fired my military advisor as I geared to a peaceful win...

Two things had worked a lot in my favour:

First, shortly after I went to war with Rome, Caesar made peace with the rest of the continent. That was the best scenario for me: he was nearly gassed so I didn’t need help with him, and the others wouldn’t “steal” Roman cities from me.

Then, as I was conquering Rome, the ai dogpiled on X-man. Again, best case scenario: Egypt, America and the Aztecs weren’t on the same continent so couldn’t really hurt him. He was stronger than the Zulus, so again no threat there. The result was a stalemate, everyone keeping its position. That meant no civ got to grow larger than the others... except me. :lol:

Somehow Egypt was the tech leader, Greece second, then the Aztecs and Americans. Persia was slightly behind me, and the Zulus lagged.
So I bought from Alex, traded that for another tech from either Abe or Monty, traded for gold or luxuries from the others.

Everything seemed fine... except I hadn’t noticed at first just how much of a tech lead Egypt had. I don’t know how it happened, but Egypt was FAR ahead.
I didn’t get Smith’s in spite of my saved leader: Egypt completed it while it had a monopoly on Economics!

I hoped I could take advantage of the ToE slingshot to somehow close the gap, but that wasn’t to happen. Egypt’s lead kept growing. They were half-way through the Industrial Era when we all entered it!!
Egypt got ToE and dashed my hopes. :(
I couldn’t catch up to them. No one could.

A space win was now out of the way. Egypt would probably launch before everyone else got to the modern age!
A dogpile vs Egypt was needed, right now. But there was no way I could sign the others into an alliance, and if I declared on Egypt, the opposite was more than likely to happen. L As for MPPs, they would require some careful planning as small wars kept erupting so the last thing I wanted was to get dragged in them. Also, I just wasn’t ready for war. Signing an alliance meant I would be safe behind Greece. Signing an MPP with Greece and declaring on Egypt would mean that Egyptian SoDs would first find their way to my territory.

So I went for plan B: Egypt would built the UN, and I hoped to beat her to the win. Problem was... Cleo might not call a vote at all.


Then Cleo had a brain failure...

In 980 AD, a SoD of 20 cavs suddenly appeared into my territory via Greek rails, while a SoD of 80-100 infantry / guerilla appeared at my border.

My first feeling was a mighty ouchie.

I had not prepared for war at all (which is probably the very reason that prompted Cleo to view me as a juicy target).
I had traded for Replacement Parts a few turns before, but my military was mainly a left-over from my Roman conquest. I had one infantry. A few catapults and canons, no artillery. About 30 NuMes, MedInf and muskets. A few rifles. And that was it. Not even knights or cavs. Never built them in that game.
Why was I so unprepared? All my neighbours were “polite” to me, I wasn’t planning any military action myself, and I didn’t have the cash to spare for upgrades. I had planned to build infs and artillery once I had hospitals, but that was some 15 turns away.

It looked as if I was about to get slaughtered, and that Egypt’s timing had been perfect.

But...

BUT Egypt had not declared war !!!

It was actually the most pathetic attempt at a sneak attack, ever.
It was just the perfect occasion for me!

The only war at the moment was Greece vs Persia.
So I signed an MPP with everyone but Persia.

OK, so I would get my dogpile vs Egypt.
Problem was surviving the initial onslaught for it to make me any good at all. A payment to Alex had expired this turn, leaving me with about 150 gpt.

So I dialled Cleo, and asked her what she wanted for Sanitation. 70 gpt? Nice. Hmm... How about I offer you 150 gpt for Sanitation and 1,500 gold. Deal ? Nice.
Errr... Now there’s the matter of your troops on my territory. They’re not exactly welcome, you know. Oh? They’re here because you mean war? Okay... you are aware that by declaring war you just actually gave me a tech and 1,500 gold for free? Yes, I guess that’s why you won’t talk to me now.

Trading Sanitation to the civs that needed it gave me more cash and Espionnage.
I positionned my troops carefully, then used the cash to upgrade them.

15 infantry, 20 guerilla and 6 artillery still didn’t look too good vs 20 cavs and 80-100 infantry / guerrillas, but at least it was much better...

But mostly, my military railnet was in place. And that was the deciding factor. I could reposition my troops anywhere I wanted. That meant the infantry SoD was helpless. 80 infs vs 20 fortified in a city aren’t bad odds, but they’re not good enough for the ai. It won’t attack, and rather move deeper to a city defended by only one guerilla.... except that when it gets there, the 20 infs also get there.
The Cav SoD was more worrying: the ai is much more willing to attack with cavs than with infantry, and it could threaten several targets.
So I had to split my defenses.
The infantry SoD wouldn’t get into an attack position before 3 turns. The Cav SoD had to be dead by that time or I would lose cities....

Well, to make a long story short, 3 turns later the last of the Cavs had redlined themselves vs fortified infs and were easily picked off with guerillas.

That left only the infantry SoD, and that I could deal with. It was a slow process, but I started whittling it down. The plan was simple: build mostly artillery, and target stray inf / guerrilla next to cities.
Sometimes the ai had a few inf / guerrilla stray from the SoD, for pillaging purposes for instance. Other times, I had to create those strays by shelling the SoD. The wounded units would them stay behind to heal... and would actually die next turn.
I redlined them, then attacked them with guerrillas except for the last one: I couldn’t afford to lose units, so all my attackers needed to end their turn safely in town.

20 turns later, I made peace with Cleo. Of the big SoD that had entered my territory, only 14 made it out. I had only lost 4 guerrillas.
Everyone was at war with her except for X-man that she dragged on her side, but he mainly busied himself with Shaka.
Egypt had lapsed into communism and her research had stopped cold.

I had not only survived, but the game was now won...

Surviving the first few turns of the war, stopping Egypt dead in its tracks with everyone at war against her were good things.
But not enough to win the game. Maybe the war would last after I pulled out of it and I would be able to catch up to Egypt, maybe not. Remember that Egypt was way ahead of eveyone else, and I hadn’t built a single library. So if the other civs made peace with Egypt shortly after I did, all I had gained was a reprieve.

But I actually achieved tech parity with Egypt during the war.

How? Now that I was at war with her, I could steal techs from her with no fear of consequences. So a few turns into the war, when I had built up some cash (my gpt went up with a second payment to Alex ending), I was able to make my first theft attempt. Bingo.
I picked a tech Cleo had a monopoly of.
Alex had techs and tons of cash.
Abe and Monty had some techs (even better, they didn’t have the same techs).
So I traded the stolen tech to Abe for a tech I didn’t have. Then to Alex for lots of cash. Then the tech from Cleo + the one from Abe to Monty for another tech I needed.
So I got 3 techs in the process... plus enough cash to steal another one! J

All in all, I got 8 techs in that single turn !

After the war, no one had researched anything new.

Peace finally settled, but the research was dead. Alex became the lead researcher, but at a crawling pace.

I ended up building libraries / universities and researching myself.

At that point, I could have won the game in anyway I wanted. I was ahead in every stat. But I just went for the fastest win.
As I discovered new techs, I gifted them to everybody. Cleo stayed Furious. X-man took some work to get from Furious to Annoyed. Everyone else was Gracious to me.

I finally discovered Fission. The leader I’d been saving for so long rushed the UN... and the vote was no surprise: Cleo voted for herself, X-man abstained, everyone else voted for me.
:band:

First Deity game... and I must say I loved it. :)

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

Last note: I managed to self-build the Hoover Dam thanks to Alex... who burnt his cash by repeatedly sabotaging Cleo’s efforts at building it!

Very good!! You gauged that properly, the need to stop Egypt, there and then. How very nice of them to send up signal flares before their 'sneak' attack!

An excellent 'first deity' game, for sure :P
Charis

Good report. How long have you been playing? I can never seem to time my wars right, always end up with a dog-pile against me

Great game and great tale ! I enjoyed reading this, thanks to well-chosen strategies told in an epic way. I was happily surprised to see a "Vous avez gagné !" at the end ; just have a look at my location... :D I wish I could speak English as well as that, honestly.

So you've managed to win at Deity. As for myself, I'm stuck at Monarch : first game at this level started yesterday, and after managing to triumph over a quite difficult starting placement, I was today on the way to decline. Anyway, I have to rethink my strategies, since this game is really new in almost every different feature : yes, I'm not the Civ King I used to be. :(

Je pense que tu es un très bon joueur, et je cherche des moyens de jouer autrement que contre l'IA. J'ai depuis peu Civ3 1.29f et son extension PTW 1.14f en français. J'aimerais participer au GOTM 17, mais la version n'est pas compatible pour l'instant, j'attends les instructions de cracker (qui organise tout çà). Sinon serais-tu intéressé par du multiplayer ; je n'ai jamais essayé, mais pourquoi pas par e-mail ou autre ? Je ne sais pas si tu es jeune ou moins jeune, alors excuse-moi de te tutoyer (vive l'anglais pour çà !).

signé : un Frenchie qui cherche des Frenchies

P.S. : Est-ce que le :band: a une quelconque signification ?

@Charis: Thanks. :) But I did get lucky. Although I had gauged the threat properly, I failed to take any proper immediate action. But as someone is fond of saying, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Had I started to build-up my military sooner, Egypt might not have pulled than weedy move that spelt its doom.

@Bose: Been playing for 2-3 months... but also spending a lot of time reading reports on these forums and at RB. I learnt more about the game that way than if I'd been practising on my own for 3 years. Without Charis, Sirian, T-Hawk, Sulla and all the others spending time to share their knowledge and experience, I guess I'd still be stuck at Warlord level. :)
To prevent Dogpiles against you, check the diplo screen and study the world situation before you get to war. Buy allies if you can, or use MPPs wisely if you can't buy allies.

@Krys: Glad you liked it. :)

Un parigot, tiens, tiens... ;) J'habite à Clermont-Ferrand. J'avoue ne pas être vraiment intéressé par le multi-joueur à Civ3 mais si tu veux, on peut se faire une partie à deux en "succession" et j'essaierai de t'apprendre ce que j'ai appris... en lisant ces forums. Contacte-moi sur arutha@wanadoo.fr si ça te tente. (nb: je ne serai pas chez moi ce week-end).
:band: c'est l'orchestre qui joue pour saluer la victoire. :)

ahhh!!!!!!!!! all this crazy french talk.

Originally posted by bewareofgnomes
ahhh!!!!!!!!! all this crazy french talk.

As for me and a lot of French guys, French is the normal language, of course. And English is the "cool" language ; we use English words to make our speech look cool, to be in the mood, to be "aware" ! :D private French joke here ! :goodjob:
Yeeeaaah ! La N.B.AAAAAAA. ! Rock'n roll ! Civaïlaïzeahchionne ! And I don't tell you the vocabulary used in computing, it's all in English !

Yeeeaaah, baïbiiiiii ! :D :D :D

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Originally posted by bewareofgnomes
ahhh!!!!!!!!! all this crazy french talk.
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How that you don't speak french ?
I thought that was a Canadian site !!
must be wrong !

@ Arutha : Bien joué

Hey Arutha,

I just won my first diety game this last weekend. So congrats, and as you say, it really is better to be lucky than good.

Will be posting latter this week.

CoffeeCup