I just started playing CIV III recently after taking a MMORPG break. Most of my games were uneventful and Ive been going through a learning curve. Then there was last night....

I played as Carthage, regent, standard, 5 random civ medium continents, restless barbs with the victory conditions being limited to taking over the whole world with mass regicide (First time playing with Regicide). The AI showed up as Egypt, China, Rome, Korea, and the Arabs. I love the carthage civ because of its numidians and quick building workers.

The game started out with a perfect starting point for Carthage with a huge river some forests and some specialty squares. I promptly settled it then noticed I had all these little generals. To my surprise they moved and could fight. They moved rather quickly like a scout and quicker them im used to I had the whole continent mapped out except for what was past a southern isthmus covered with jungle. Luckily I got one settler out of a hut and no other AI was on my continent. I promptly blocked the Isthmus and went to work.

The tactic I use early is to not worry about building any wonders or defence early on. I scout out where I can best build 3 or 4 production cities and branch out from there. I crank up the science as much as possible and build libraries first to suck up as much territory as possible. I make a bee line for republic and switch as soon as I can. Once at republic I raise the happiness up and focus on building up my capital to 12 ASAP to begin working on the Bachs cathedral, Sun Zsu. I build military and worker units to build up my core cities disbanding hoards of units to use them shields to build improvements. (kinda like the old caravans)

Luckily for me I did all of this before running into another civ. Just as I decided it was time to move south I bumped into China. There was a land grab and we both wound up with about 50% of the southern part of the continent. I also settled 2 cities on the continent to my west just as Egypt was building there. I built Sun Zsu, then JS BACH almost back to back and decided to launch a little war to claim the southern part of the continent as China atm was behind me tech wise. In a rather quick campaign 5 cities fell. While my golden age was going on I built magellan. I then granted china a peace treaty. At this time I settled back in to peaceful growth. After some map trading I knew who my real rivals were. Egypt and China. Rome and Korea were fighting it out on a continent bleeding each other dry. The Arabs had built the great library but were not a factor languising away with 6 cities south of Rome.

Once I discovered gunpowder I also found out I pretty much had the salt peter resources of the world sewn up. Before I could really leverage this Egypt declrared war on me out of nowhere and gobbled up my 2 city foothold on the western continent. I brokered a deal with them for salt peter and ended the war.

My third war was a short bloody affair for China. I invaded them to disrupt their growth aiming for the capital. I didnt quite send enough troops. I took one city with shakespears theater and razed another, but ran outta steam before the capital. I brokered a peace with a one city foothold.

Just after this short war I switched to Democracy and an all out race to build the suffrage wonder. I had 12 turns to build it from start. The plan was to build it then once again invade China. Egypt was slightly ahead of me and china slightly behind me score wise. The thinking was to put a nail in chinas coffin then worry about Egypt later. Then it happened, I needed rubber and the only place it existed was egypt and China. I made a trade deal with Egypt for it then built infantry like crazy and shipeed them to my China foothold. The rubber was aprox 3 cities worth of battling to get to and I didnt want to run outta steam again.

Around this time I completed darwin and really jumped ahead tech wise of everyone. However, now I needed oil and guess who had it...... The Arabs. 2 oil wells on the whole map. One outside of Damascus and the other near Bagdhad. War with China for rubber would have to wait, we were going to the middle east. A convoy of 6 ironclads, 4 galleons loaded with inf, artillery and a settler saied forth. During transit Rome declared war on me and the arabs asked for a pact. I said no and invaded the hapless spear toting arabs rather easily. damascus, mecca and bagdhad fell quickly and the oil was flowing. Around this time I discovered flight and my factory cities (4 30+ cities by now) began cranking out bombers. I also began to build up in China again using the airfield to fly in a wave of troops.

I let the Arabs off the hook with 3 cities left and attacked once again in China.

12 Bombers
27 infantry
15 artillery
20 cav
23 Guerillas
10 workers
4 BBs
7 ironclads

All surged for the rubber. A huge battle for peking ensued. Caualties were high. Having air power when the Cinese didnt saved me as well as my workers building forts as we went. My infantry was chewed up quickly and I could not build more. The Chinese were thowing wave after wave at me but finally peking fell along with it Copernicuses observatory. The rubber was still out of reach and my army was exhausted. The people at home were getting ancy as well so I brokered peace with china again to build up. The very next turn the pesky Romans who I had peaced sometime during the Arab conflict stormed into the oil rich Arabian peninsula that I had weakly held with Guerillas and artillery to hold the oil. They were throwing everything at me from infantry to bowmen. I quickly lost Bagdhad and Mecca and retreated to Damascus flying in guerillas as fast as I could to stop the red swarm from taking my last oil well.


I stopped playing at 3am last night When China declared war once again. Im in a bit of a pickle having no rubber and one airsrip to fly in guerillas to stop infantry from taking my one oil well. I cant belive the AI is putting up such a fight.

Just thought I would share, Im bored at work.

1. very good interesting story
2.where do u work at that u can type stories all day long?

i like the report, could u supply any pics?

Finished this up Friday night.

The Battle over the oil in Damascus finally ended in Victory for Carthage as the Romans couldnt budge the entrenched defenders backed with air power. A leader rose from the bloodbath thaks to the relentless onslaught and promptly was sent home to make SETI.

With a peace brokered with Rome and the oil safe it was time once again to press China for rubber. After a few turns to build up and get my population back to being productive (im still a democracy) I once again surged forward. China seemed to be somewhat weaker this time and to my surprise 2 cities promptly fell. 15 or so artillery and 15 bombers probably made the difference. The rubber fell and my factories started churning out tanks. China had at least 15 or cities left scattered on 3 Islands. The next city I took however I killed the last of the Chinese kings and the whole chinese empire went "poof". I had completely forgot that was going to happen.

The year was 1998. Korea and Rome were backwards and way behind. China and Arabia were wiped out. Egypt was now the target as they had me by 300 points. I didnt have a lot of time left so I wasnt going to win the conquest game just have some fun and start a war with Egypt. I marshalled all I could for the invasion:

8 BBs
4 CVS loaded with bombers
2 DDS
6 SS
8 Transports
60ish MBTS
20 Artillery
15 marines
30ish mech infantry
15 paratroopers

I knew Egypt didnt have MBTs or Mechs so I thought I might have a chance at Thebes. Egypt was essentially broken into 3 parts. One was the main starting area which was a peninsula wide at the bottom with a very small isthmus leading to a huge continent. The rest of the egyptian empire was on another island. Thebes was at the center of the peninsula. It had aprox 8 cities around it. My plan was to attack in 3 places. One was to drop paratroops the only place in range of my homeland against the huge continent with aprox 30 egyptian cities to draw off egyptian forces from my force going in to take the istmus and set up a blocking force. (the second prong) The last prong was the drive on thebes itself which hopefully would not be reinforced from the big continent due to my blocking force.

Phase one went well with all the paras dropping on and around an Egyptian city to the north. One landed on some armor but the most important thing was grabbing some mountains that went off without a hitch.

The Isthmus campaign stormed ashore with 25 or so mech infantry and 10 artillery and built a city with a settler sitting right across Egyptian rails and occupying several mountains. An Egyptian city was also surrounded and bombed into oblivion by the carrier based bombers and battleships.

The Thebes assault was all the MBTs and marines landing and building another city.

The Egyptian reaction was ferocious. The paratroops bore the brunt of the Egyptian armor counterattack and were wiped out as they could not fortify yet. I counted some 30 armor units thrown against them. The isthmus force was also hit but not nearly as hard. They took minor losses but gave the egyptian armor a beating that attacked it.

The Thebes force was hit from the air. No less then 30 or so egyptian bombers pummeled it, but almost no ground forces showed up.

The next turn saw my airfields go up on the isthmus and Thebes fronts and bombers deploy from the cvs and fighters from home. More marines were flown is as well. The surrounded egyptian city was razed and the workers generated promptly went to building forts for the blocking force. Thebes army began advancing towards the egyptian capital. I love the look of all those mbts driving forward.

The egyptians counterattack next turn was once agian ferocious. The industrial might of the major continent sent a huge wave of armor and Infantry down the bottleneck of the isthmus. it crashed against my defences relentlessly. The dug in mechs backed up with artillery held rather easily. It was a bloodbath for the egyptians. Their bombers sortied once again near thebes and several were mauled by my now deployed fighters. No egyptian ground troops near thebes once again.

The next few turns saw my Istmus army now reinforced from the air driving south and taking anothe rcity and razing it. Upon its capture some 10 air units were destroyed. The thebes army pushing towards the city got a bloody nose from attacking dug in mech infantry that was now showing up from the egyptian factories. The assaults against thebes itself were one bloody fiasco after another. Thebes must have been defended by at least 2 dozen units. The war ground on for 15 or so turns finally grinding into a stalemate as my production was dropping rapidly back at home and I couldnt rebuild for a big enough push again. The eyptians were starting to snipe at my thebes army flanks as well.

About this time I got the message saying I was going to have to end the game soon. At this point it was clear I couldnt out muscle an AI that had probably double the amount of cities I had so it was time to start another game.

Mistakes were made and strategies will need to be revisited but all in all it was a hoot and my newest game with the persians is doing even better.

BTW I work at an internet company owned by Worldcom err MCI :) and quite frankly im bored most of the time. Cant play civ here tho.....

what level do you play on? it has to be warlord or below if tech moves that slow. also what size map did you play on?

It was regent, standard map. Im not sure why the tech was so stalled, but I was ahead most of the game. Im an old civ I and II vet and Im getting my learning curve up to speed with III so Ill be playing regent for a bit.

what governemnt where the other civs in? communism kills research rate. i know what you mean about the learning curve. i got civ in i think nov of this year. i played on *CHIEFTON* for about a month. then i jumped to regent for a game, then on to monarchy for two games, now im on empore, getting ready for deity. read the succesion games forum to get ALOT of tips. read the finished ones though. especially sirp's monarchy training day game.