GOTM 46 First Spoiler - end of ancient age.

That extra settler doesn't appear to have helped the computer too much in most of the games shown here. I didn't reach the Middle Ages until around 200 AD. I always seem to run at very slow tech speed.

I was fighting a war on two fronts for awhile against both Spain and Egypt which made building anything except military units difficult.

At 1000 BC, my map looked like this (oops, need to get a new picture. Just realized that no minimaps are allowed. Have to go back and edit my snapshot)




7 Towns

Need the following techs to advance (Currency, Construction, Polytheism, Map Making, Code of Laws, Philosophy) 7 turns from Currency

Units
2 Archers
8 Spearmen
9 Jaguar Warriors
2 Workers (1 slave)

According to the Wonders Page:
Colossus and Lighthouse are owned by the Spanish
Pyramids by the Iroquois
Oracle by the Persians

I have already fought one war with the Egyptians.

One problem is that I built my cities way too close together. I was trying to get more cities to produce units faster, but it is now causing me lots of problems since my towns do not have enough squares to work and it appears that my science is suffering because of it.

shumble said:

I always seem to run at very slow tech speed.

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IMHO that is caused by slow expansion, because you did not chop and irrigate the game tiles.

You are probably right. I thought that it wouldn't matter if I chopped and irrigated the game tiles since I can't get passed 2 Food until I reach Monarchy for the grassland tiles.

Is this not true? Could I have gotten 3 Food for that square under Despotism?

I do have them chopped and irrigated now, but I didn't do it until I reached Republic (or am I Monarchy, I need to go check). If I am a Monarchy, I will switch to Republic to start researching faster.

eldar said:

At Emperor in default PtW, the AI gets a free "Start Unit 2" when it founds its first city (as set in the editor). "Start Unit 2" is by default set to "Worker".
My guess is that this wasn't done for this game, hence the AI getting free settlers when they should be getting free workers.

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I test standart emperior map and this. You are absolutely right. In standart I see addition worker - on gotm46 - setter.

@Shumble: To go a little old school, your comment reminded me of this illuminating discussion from GOTM 16: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=46698.

By Justus II in post #7: The reason the deer was so strategic is partly based on food, but also on the surrounding terrain. The key is to have at least one tile that can get you a food bonus (i.e. more than 2 food/turn). Rome had a great setup, all of those wine hills w/ 2 food each are excellent tiles, and plenty of bonus grassland, meant that sheilds were readily available. Each of those tiles, when mined, could generate 2 shields. However, at 2 food/turn, growth would always be limited to one citizen every 10 turns.

By cutting the forest, AND irrigating the deer (both key steps in this case), it is possible to create a tile that is +4 food per turn, even under despotism. This cuts the growth rate in half, adding a new citizen every 4 turns. It is equivalent to a free granary, just for cutting the trees and irrigating. Plus, you get 10 shields. Now, if timed right, those 10 could be added to a real granary, which would reduce the growth time even further, in this case one citizen per 3 turns. The key point is that with so many +2 food/+2 shield tiles, the deer in the forest is just average, and has no impact on growth, but as a +4 food, it allows Rome to grow twice as fast.

Again, it is dependent on the terrain. If for example most of the terrrain was flood plains, and the deer was one of the few shield-producing tiles, it might be better to leave it as it is.

Thanks killercane. I did not realize that the game gave you a +2 food bonus, and obviously when it's in the forest it is even easier to forget that it would give you more than +2 when you cut down the forest.

I will be more watchful in future games. In this case, I would have chopped the forest almost immediately and irrigated it. Of course, I did have the floodplains also since I settled to the North with my first city, so I did have access to some extra food.

shumble said:

I did not realize that the game gave you a +2 food bonus

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Good point. I know it is +2, but my reference sheet says +1. So does the original Firaxis manual. And
the online info.

The Civilopedia says +2.

Does anybody know when/how this was changed? In a game update? Or the gotm mod?

Actually with the way things panned out, and the relative lack of decent settling space, not chopping either game and getting to 2-turn Jags quickly might've worked well. (Start barracks->jag->jag... and jag-rush spain and egypt, neither of whom start with BW.)

Actually with the way things panned out, and the relative lack of decent settling space, not chopping either game and getting to 2-turn Jags quickly might've worked well. (Start barracks->jag->jag... and jag-rush spain and egypt, neither of whom start with BW.)

Click to expand...

It is said that hindsight is 20-20.

Moderator Action: Moved from Pre-game discussion thread. Posts discussing the game are only allowed in the official spoilers.

I don't know if this is the right place, or if I am even allowed to post, but I tried this after setting Civ 3 aside for some time and got promptly beat up by both Egypt and Spain pretty early on. I am too much of a builder, and figuring out how to really play well, especially at Emperor, is really tough. And I have been playing Civ since it first came out!

I would love to have a walk through example of some of these games, possibly with options. I have read through many of the articles in the War Academy, but it is not clicking.

I did manage to replay (I know I am not qualified anymore) and do much better with a AW rush, they did ok, even with a single city cranking them out initially. This was upgraded to swordsmen down the line, but then I found myself alone on the island. The rest will have to go in the next spoiler thread.

Brad

I have also played CIV III for quite a long time, but never figured I would be able to beat Emperor. I had played it for about 3 months with relatively no success until I found this site. After reading through games of the experts, I changed some of my strategies and I have been having much more success, although not near that of the good players.

4 of the biggest things that have helped me are:
1. Using the luxury slider.
2. Expanding as rapidly as possible and not putting as many squares between cities.
3. Constant trading with the other civilizations. The other civs are going to get the techs from each other anyway so I usually get as much as I possibly can from the other civs even if it's only money. Of course, this depends too on whether the civs know each other or how backwards a civ might be.
4. Not being afraid to crank out military units and go to war whenever necessary no matter how early in the game.

tao said:

Good point. I know it is +2, but my reference sheet says +1. So does the original Firaxis manual. And
the online info.

The Civilopedia says +2.

Does anybody know when/how this was changed? In a game update? Or the gotm mod?

Click to expand...

I use the Julian Egelstaff reference. That says +2 for game which matches the in-game data in vanilla 1.29. I don't believe it is changed by the GOTM mods.

The original manual I received with Mac version 1.14 vanilla says +1, but the Civ3 Editor shows +2 for version 1.21. So I assume it changed between vanilla 1.14 and 1.21

GOTM 46 - PTW Open.
Goal - fast Domination.

4000BC. Worker on Deer. Sees 2nd Deer!
Deside to move settler 1N, for more central capital. 2nd city will be 2S on the coast/river, on RCP3.

3950BC. Tenochitlan founded 1N, on a hill.
Worker - chop Deer. Build: Jag->Jag->granary->settler. Research: Pottery.

Jags meet Spain and Egypt. 1 Jag sits on isthmus not letting Egypt out.

3250BC - Pottery learned.
Trade Masonry from egypt for Pottery+WC.
Trade Alpha from Spain for Masonry+Pottery.
Trade BW from Spain for WC.
Research Writing at Min.

2800BC - granary complete, start on settler.
2550BC - Teotihuacan founded. Building Jag->Worker.

2510BC - Trade Wheel from Egypt for Alpha+20g.
2310BC - Trade Writing+18g from Spain for Wheel+ contact with Egypt. Research MM at min.
1575BC - Buy MM from Egypt for 160g.

QSC: 1000BC - 1 turn from Math. 8 towns, 17 pop, 7 workers, 2 galleys, 13 jags. 1 granary, 2 barracks, 2 temples.

730BC - Egypt dow! D'oh. We are right in the process of moving Swordsmen to attack Spain.
Will attack nevertheless! Buy HBR and CoL for gpt from Spain and dow!
Also started despotic GA with a defending Jaguar.

590BC - Egypt is coming hard on us, takes some cities and destroy others. We take some back.
Spain suffers badly and I offer peace after we take their Iron city. They hand over Poly and Republic for peace.

550BC - Suicide galley meets Persia!
They are very backwards but up Construction, so trade for WM, contacts with Iroquese, Zulu and Construction for some Techs.

390BC - we take back/rebuild our cities taken by Egypt and make peace with Egypt. They give us Literature.
290BC - dow Spain. RNG not good - attack fails. Our GA ends.

270BC - Buy Currency from Persia for Literature, WM and 40g. Enter Middle Ages, and Persia is already there!
They have Mono. We buy Mono from them for Republic+130g. Research Feudalism and don't gift Egypt, hoping to get Feudalism before them and attack their Spearmen with MDIs.

But whether it succeeded or not will wait till next spoliler.

Aztecs at 1000BC:

eldar said:

Open,
Anyone else notice that the AIs started with a bonus settler?! Look at the replays at the end of the game; they all founded 2nd cities around 3600BC. I was certainly surprised to run in to Barcelona as early as 3650BC (with no barbarians on the map)!

Click to expand...

You're right - and about the cause as well. Bonus settler instead of bonus worker. Sorry about that....

Has anyone else also tried stopping the Egyptians and Spanish making contact?
I discovered the land bridge early and so posted my first jag there, preventing the Spanish and Egyptians from making contact. It worked nicely or a while as I could freely trade between them and so getting a lot of good deals selling the other IA’s techs. But they seemed to get very frustrated that I was acting as a middle man and REALLY wanted to make contact, then they started offering huge deals for contact, and I refused (as I didn’t want to lose my position as middle man) and then they started threatening me when I didn’t give them the contact. Egypt was gracious to me (yah right) when Cleopatra decided to attack me.

Both Egypt and Spain declared on me, even though I had a decent army. They seemed extra agitated because they couldn’t meet, I was wondering if it would have been better to let them meet, and maybe they would have even fought each other (with some prompting) to soften them up for my invasion. That could have been better then being forced to fight a war against both of them on 2 fronts.

I don’t normally build walls in cities but it made a big difference, I got city walls immediately in my choke point city, then I just watched as Spanish archers and Egyptian chariots bounced off the mountain walls while they were poked to death by my spear men, that saved me a lot of time and energy to hold them off on 2 fronts while I regrouped my army. but why did the egyptians have to waste my golden age, i was planing to save it for a usefull time like early industrial. anyway at least i've got the Iron so this will turn the tides.

I’m just curions if anyone’s done experiments keeping all else the same (military power etc) and seeing the difference in aggression levels of the opponents when they meet and when they don’t get to meet.

Oh yeah, and the game are worth improving, I went jag, jag, granary, and chopped the first game for the granary, had first city on the coast W from start then chucked city 2 on the grass just on the north of the second game, and irrigated the first game, that worked nicely for micromanaging as I had a 4 food irrigated game, 3 food irrigated FP and 2 food 2 shield game in forest to share between the first 2 cities, that allowed some nice micromanaging switching between the cities, giving shields when I wanted to build but growth wasn’t critical (due to happiness), and then after popping out a settler I’d change the city to work the irrigated game to jump up in pop in a couple of turns thanks to the granary. I never previously got into switching between cities that much, but it made a huge difference being able to share the game between my 2 main cities. The whale city and the fish city on the lower two points of the peninsulars will make nice science cities later in the game when I get around to clearing all the jungle. Oh yeah shumble, don’t forget to road the dyes.

Interesting. In my game, Spain and Egypt met themselves in 3600 or 3550 BC. I saw this checking the prerequisite tech they had and noticing that they already traded a tech between them. I wouldn't have a chance to stop contact even if i sent the 1st jag in the right direction to block the chokepoint. They also had an extremely aggressive expansionist behaviour. Before 1500BC they had already filled their landmass and had founded a city each right next to my capital. I see in the other game posted it didn't happen. Probably the culprit is the AS behaviour in vanilla? The vast majority of GOTMers use PTW.

However, i found useful to have them met each other. They started an early war, and i profited from it to take over Spain. Egyptian sworksmen did a great job in weakening the spanish defenses in Barcelona, then my archers took it over easily.

I also noticed that they had a big number of units from the very early on. Madrid was defended by 7 or 8 spearmen. I had the impression to fight deity AS rather than emperor AS. But it's been fun.

By the time I noticed the chokepoint, everybody on the continent had already met each other. I don't think I explored northeast right away. I might have checked northwest first or directly east.

Also, I don't know if I would have thought of blocking it for trades, but I wish that I would have because it seems to have worked out very well for those who did.

I built a city on the Egypt choke point.
Later on, after I'd razed Barcelona, Spain built a fortress on their choke point. I rushed some culture in my city that had replaced Barcelona, and the fortress became mine! The Spanish never broke through

I also built a city on the Egypt Choke point, but I kept Barcelona when I conquered it so I didn't create a Spanish Choke Point.

Either way, I don't know if I would have been able to stop them from meeting. I guess if I could have gotten a Jaguar Warrior there immediately and fortified him on that choke point, I could have stopped contact. Didn't really think about it though at that point of the game.

I built a Jag Warrior who explored east. My second Jag went north and found Barcelona in 3500 BC. By then the Spanish were already shaking hands with an Egyptian warrior. I think I'd have had to explore directly NW towards the Egyptian choke point to have stood a chance of preventing them from meeting, so it could only have happened by pure chance for me.