SSgtBaloo
Apr 15, 2004, 12:50 AM
To start with, I have played Civ III about 5 or 6 times since I bought it last Thursday. This game is only the second one I've played to completion. The earlier attempts were just trials. I was just getting a feel for the game and trying to figure out how it worked, with no real intention to complete the game. The game before this, I played America vs. China, Germany, Egypt, and Zululand. I started in the middle of some pretty deep jungle and didn't expand as fast as I should have. I could've expanded faster towards Germany if I'd been thinking -- the jungle slowed his advance towards me as well, but I had gotten slightly behind in the tech race and was intimidated by German aggression. I wound up finishing mid-pack when the clock ran out and I hadn't even made any modern units (my territory did not possess horses, saltpeter, oil, rubber, or any other resource worth mentioning :p).
For the next scenario, I chose a huge world with continents, normal climate, middle-aged world, with a temperate climate. Those were pretty much the settings of the previous world, but I didn't choose quick start since I like the eventula map to be something I discover a bit at a time, instead of frantically expanding towards this or that resource or terrain feature I remembered from the last go. I chose roaming barbarians since I felt I was up to the task of keeping them at bay.
I started out with Persia, since I liked the idea of an industrius scientific people (it suited the basic strategy I like to use). For my opponents, I chose France, Greece, Egypt, and Spain.
My initial settler/worker started out in the middle of a floodplain, but from Civ II habit, I'd rather start where I find myself and then start a new game if it turns out to have been a BAD IDEA to begin there. I want to start earning culture points and building improvements right away. Besides, there were cattle right there, just one tile from the proposed city center. My city would have extra resources right from the start.
Initially I micromanaged the worker, until I had a warrior to scout out the surrounding countryside. As soon as possible, I cranked out a settler and set the worker to "auto". The second city was built by the ocean. In the early stages I try to space my cities just so that when they start to use all the area they can, they aren't stepping on each others' toes. My warrior did not enter any of the barbarian villages. Instead, I deployed my settlers in an expanding spiral around my capital city. Whenever my territory expanded into a village, I got nothing, some gold, or a technology advance (and my scout/warrior didn't get his head handed to him by hostile natives. When I learned the technology that lets you build horsemen, I already had two horse resources within my borders. The automated workers (there were now several) had thoughtfully provided roads to those tiles beforehand.
When the ring of cities was about two deep around my capital, one of my scouting parties (horsemen by this time) spotted an Egyptian warrior heading north, to the west of my main development. I sent one horseman to track his wherabouts, another to scout the direction he came from, and another to start exploring the rest of this continent, but fast!
The Egyptians were expanding from the southern part of the continent (I learned later that when I discovered them they only had four cities -- I had six). The continent we were on was shaped like a lumpy figure eight, so I quickly established a line of cities across the narrow but and started filling in behind them as fast as I could produce settlers and spearmen (by this time) to protect them. I didn't try to fill in the space between the narrow bit and the Egyptians -- I wanted to avoid a war until I was prepared and it became necessary. The Egyptians, even though they knew approximately where I was, would have to negotiate forests, jungles, and mountains to get to me, and that would give me time to prepare a defense in depth. As it turned out, the part of the continent I had reserved for myself was roughly twice the size of the bit that Egypt was confined to.
When I got the ability to cross the ocean without sinking, (yeah, I learned the difference between coastline, sea, and ocean the hard way -- Glug-glug-glug! ;)) I discovered a landmass to my east and settled three cities on it as quickly as possible. It turns out that this (rather larger) continent was populated by Spain, France, and Greece. I decided again not to crowd the natives, but let them hack their way through the jungle if they really wanted to see me up close.
Much later, I discovered an island to my northwest and I settled six cities on it. I quickly discovered that even though I had built the forbidden palace, I had not built it close enough to those cities. I wasted quite a lot of resources trying to get them to be productive, but by the end, they were still about 5/6ths corrupt.
The odd thing about this game is, that this is the first time I've ever played civilization (II or III) where nobody ever so much as declared war on each other. I had a few opportunities early on to attack (and possibly even wipe out) Egypt, but since I had plenty of room to expand (and he had a little) I figured I'd better spend my time expanding -- I had no idea where the other three civs were at that time, and I didn't want to get caught with my drawers around my ankles (so-to-speak).
I willingly offered my world map before it was demanded "as a gift", and the goodwill never grew too thin. I had almost built the United Nations wonder when the popup informed me I had achieved a cultural victory. How about that? I've never done one of those before. I was just marking time and building up my reserves for the inevitable cry of outrage from one civilization or other which feels like it ought to be given all my hard-earned technology on a silver platter (with a side of gold, please, and make it snappy!)
I guess I just lucked out and picked less-agressive opponents than I am accustomed to facing. (Next time I'll try Warlord and see if it doesn't kick my behind like I expected it to this time.)
If you're wondering why it took me 24 hours and change to run the game to a 1955 finish, it's partly because I didn't shut the game off a couple of times when I had to make a run to the store. I backed it up, but forgot to reload when I got back. The clock ran for an hour or two a couple times while I went to get a burger or some groceries.
--SSgtBaloo
For the next scenario, I chose a huge world with continents, normal climate, middle-aged world, with a temperate climate. Those were pretty much the settings of the previous world, but I didn't choose quick start since I like the eventula map to be something I discover a bit at a time, instead of frantically expanding towards this or that resource or terrain feature I remembered from the last go. I chose roaming barbarians since I felt I was up to the task of keeping them at bay.
I started out with Persia, since I liked the idea of an industrius scientific people (it suited the basic strategy I like to use). For my opponents, I chose France, Greece, Egypt, and Spain.
My initial settler/worker started out in the middle of a floodplain, but from Civ II habit, I'd rather start where I find myself and then start a new game if it turns out to have been a BAD IDEA to begin there. I want to start earning culture points and building improvements right away. Besides, there were cattle right there, just one tile from the proposed city center. My city would have extra resources right from the start.
Initially I micromanaged the worker, until I had a warrior to scout out the surrounding countryside. As soon as possible, I cranked out a settler and set the worker to "auto". The second city was built by the ocean. In the early stages I try to space my cities just so that when they start to use all the area they can, they aren't stepping on each others' toes. My warrior did not enter any of the barbarian villages. Instead, I deployed my settlers in an expanding spiral around my capital city. Whenever my territory expanded into a village, I got nothing, some gold, or a technology advance (and my scout/warrior didn't get his head handed to him by hostile natives. When I learned the technology that lets you build horsemen, I already had two horse resources within my borders. The automated workers (there were now several) had thoughtfully provided roads to those tiles beforehand.
When the ring of cities was about two deep around my capital, one of my scouting parties (horsemen by this time) spotted an Egyptian warrior heading north, to the west of my main development. I sent one horseman to track his wherabouts, another to scout the direction he came from, and another to start exploring the rest of this continent, but fast!
The Egyptians were expanding from the southern part of the continent (I learned later that when I discovered them they only had four cities -- I had six). The continent we were on was shaped like a lumpy figure eight, so I quickly established a line of cities across the narrow but and started filling in behind them as fast as I could produce settlers and spearmen (by this time) to protect them. I didn't try to fill in the space between the narrow bit and the Egyptians -- I wanted to avoid a war until I was prepared and it became necessary. The Egyptians, even though they knew approximately where I was, would have to negotiate forests, jungles, and mountains to get to me, and that would give me time to prepare a defense in depth. As it turned out, the part of the continent I had reserved for myself was roughly twice the size of the bit that Egypt was confined to.
When I got the ability to cross the ocean without sinking, (yeah, I learned the difference between coastline, sea, and ocean the hard way -- Glug-glug-glug! ;)) I discovered a landmass to my east and settled three cities on it as quickly as possible. It turns out that this (rather larger) continent was populated by Spain, France, and Greece. I decided again not to crowd the natives, but let them hack their way through the jungle if they really wanted to see me up close.
Much later, I discovered an island to my northwest and I settled six cities on it. I quickly discovered that even though I had built the forbidden palace, I had not built it close enough to those cities. I wasted quite a lot of resources trying to get them to be productive, but by the end, they were still about 5/6ths corrupt.
The odd thing about this game is, that this is the first time I've ever played civilization (II or III) where nobody ever so much as declared war on each other. I had a few opportunities early on to attack (and possibly even wipe out) Egypt, but since I had plenty of room to expand (and he had a little) I figured I'd better spend my time expanding -- I had no idea where the other three civs were at that time, and I didn't want to get caught with my drawers around my ankles (so-to-speak).
I willingly offered my world map before it was demanded "as a gift", and the goodwill never grew too thin. I had almost built the United Nations wonder when the popup informed me I had achieved a cultural victory. How about that? I've never done one of those before. I was just marking time and building up my reserves for the inevitable cry of outrage from one civilization or other which feels like it ought to be given all my hard-earned technology on a silver platter (with a side of gold, please, and make it snappy!)
I guess I just lucked out and picked less-agressive opponents than I am accustomed to facing. (Next time I'll try Warlord and see if it doesn't kick my behind like I expected it to this time.)
If you're wondering why it took me 24 hours and change to run the game to a 1955 finish, it's partly because I didn't shut the game off a couple of times when I had to make a run to the store. I backed it up, but forgot to reload when I got back. The clock ran for an hour or two a couple times while I went to get a burger or some groceries.
--SSgtBaloo