G-III Able

Hello and welcome to the latest Gauntlet for the Civ III HOF. It's time to get your wonder addiction back.

• Mapsize: Huge
• Difficulty: Monarch
• Condition: 20k cultural

Submissions must be in by May 15^th 2008. Good luck and build the ultimate tourist attraction!

I'll throw down the first game - it's been several months since I participated.

It's not a great date, but...

1470 AD.

Settings

Persia
80% water, warm, wet, 3B years old. These settings give lots of hills and mountains, which can give you a city that has a lot of shields. I went with Persia for the fast workers and having Pyramids available for an early SGL.

Plus Immortals are useful until someone researches cavalry for you.

Opponents

Germany, Ottomans, Korea, Sumeria, Greece, Russia, Netherlands, France, Iroquois, China, Rome. The idea was to get a lot of civs so I would have targets for MGL farming, plus as many civs as possible with alphabet. I played some with a lot of seafaring, but dropped them, except I missed dumping Netherlands

The Start

No water, which is bad, but good food and some hills. It will turn out to have iron in it, but nothing else.

I quickly find ivory and get an SGL for CB, so this is playable. nearby are two more luxes, Korea, Greece, Germany and the Iroquois.

The map turns out to be one of those pangea's that's more arch, as Sumeria and Ottomans end up on a big island and Rome, China, Netherlands and Russia on another island which I dont' fine until the end of the middle ages.

Builds

I built nearly all the good ones, missing the 3 coastal, TOA, Great Wall, Knights Templar, Leos and Sun Tzu's, but getting everything else.

4000 BC Palace (540)
3150 BC The Pyramids (2012)
2190 BC Temple (898)
1350 BC The Oracle (1552)
1025 BC The Statue of Zeus (1448)
975 BC Library (1074)
730 BC The Great Library (2010)
650 BC Cathedral (969)
590 BC Colosseum (628)
490 BC The Mausoleum of Mausollos (598)
150 BC The Temple of Artemis (992)
50 BC University (932)
150 AD The Hanging Gardens (812)
350 AD Shakespeare's Theater (1264)
450 AD Copernicus' Observatory (512)
550 AD Newton's University (684)
600 AD Heroic Epic (436)
720 AD Sistine Chapel (582)
800 AD JS Bach's Cathedral (534)
850 AD Smith's Trading Company (252)
920 AD Universal Suffrage (308)
960 AD Military Academy (73)
1020 AD Theory of Evolution (201)
1030 AD Wall Street (132)
1100 AD Hoover Dam (118)
1110 AD Battlefield Medicine (58)
1150 AD The Pentagon (54)
1220 AD Research Lab (94)
1280 AD The Internet (152)
1325 AD SETI program (87)
1360 AD The United Nations (88)
1405 AD Cure for Cancer (39)
1430 AD The Manhattan Project (16)
1435 AD Apollo Program (14)
1465 AD Longevity (3)


MGL farming went well late in the game, but awful early - I didn't get Heroic Epic until 600 AD.

Research

I had mediocre luck with free techs. I got invention, fascism and Fission for free, having traded for all the first level techs in the MA and IA, and getting computers and ecology in MT.

I was able to get 4 or 5 turn research most of the game. I ran into problems late with luxes - I had 5 on my continent, but Rome broke a trade agreement with spices and wines to take my foothold city with gems, which put the empire into rioting for a little while.

Research path:
AA: CB, Mysticism, Writing, CoL, Phil, Republic, Lit, Currency, Polytheism, Construction. Traded for everything else.
MA: Traded for free techs with AA, then Theology, Education, PP, Banking, Demo, Free artistry, Astronomy, Gunpowder, Chemistry, Physics, ToG, Magentism, Mettalurgy.
IA: Traded for free techs, then Industrialization, go back to MA for Music Theory and Economics, back to IA for Sanitation (needed metros for research), Electricity, Scientific method, Rep parts, then up the top end. Got AT and Electronics from ToE and traded for Mil Trad and communism.


Wrap

This is a start, but it's not going to win. Getting another AA or early MA SGL would have given me ToA and better MGL luck would have given me Heroic Epic. Being coastal would have helped too, though I was able to get a base of 62 shields with rail, which helped some.

(edit: Chamnix pointed out that my build list shows me as having built ToA. I thought I had missed it, but apparently, not. You know, Nikodemus's 1405 win gets more impressive the more I look at it, because I thought I played this pretty well)

Interesting! I've got a bunch of maps, and I really hope I find time to play this one....

AutomatedTeller said:

Settings

Persia
80% water, warm, wet, 3B years old. These settings give lots of hills and mountains, which can give you a city that has a lot of shields. I went with Persia for the fast workers and having Pyramids available for an early SGL.

Click to expand...

3 billion years old makes a lot of sense (unfortunately all my maps are 5 billion years old because I pretty much always do that without even thinking ). Why 80% water? I've been looking at 60%.

You kind of confused me here :

AutomatedTeller said:

I built nearly all the good ones, missing the 3 coastal, TOA...

150 BC The Temple of Artemis (992)

...

Getting another AA or early MA SGL would have given me ToA and better MGL luck would have given me Heroic Epic.

Click to expand...

My thoughts were that, since a 20K game usually means the human is behind in expansion, if I made a crowded map, I'd still get 4 or 5 cities out and then would focus on war for further expansion.

That gives me more chances for MGL's.

Also, it makes it easier to find civs with alphabet, cause they are closer.

Finally, it should make ivory closer. In this case, that's not a big deal.


Huh. I thought I had missed ToA.

btw - the #1 game in this slot has settings of 60% land, wet, warm, 5B years old, with no other scientific civs in the game.

Try #2:

Better date, still not #1 - 1420 AD.

Changed settings this time - went with 70% land, not 80% (this made it a real pangea, not separate islands, which made it easier to get luxes) and went with fewer opponents, so I had more land - Korea, Greece, Iroquois, France, Ottomans, Sumeria, Germany and Russia. Of course, the 4 commercial civs were the furthest away, so I was almost done with alphabet by the time I found Korea

SGL for CB and one more in the AA - for CoL, I think - plus one for Theology. I used them for Pyramids, ToA and Sistine Chapel. This bit me in the butt a bit, as no one got feudalism and I didn't have a prebuild for Shakes and so I got it 10-15 turns later than I would have.

I changed research path a little, too - picking up literature before CoL and Philo, which worked well - I timed 4 library builds to finish within a turn or two of getting Lit which boosted my research speed tremendously.

Start was interesting - no cows, but 2 FP with wheat, plus 2 other FP, plus a nearby cow and ivory was near, and a bunch of hills, of course. Plus a ton of jungle to the south, so expansion was a bit problematic.

Beyond that, was pretty straightforward - expand for awhile, go MGL fishing and expand into russia and germany. It took a LONG time to get my first MGL - I had pretty much wiped out Russia and was taking on Germany - Greece and France had declared, too, and I had some nasty moments when random archers showed up in places I wasn't expecting, but I had enough extra units around that they never threatened.

With extra war, I got enough MGL's that I didn't have to build anything but Heroic Epic by hand, which was fun. Research went pretty well, too - AI got me espionage and mil trad, so I could ignore those and keep going. I actually researched Integrated defense and, if I had managed to get an MGL from Sumeria's late attack (they had some guerillas and bombers, but it was mainly AA and MA units vs. elite tanks, etc) - I am pretty sure I had over 60 elite wins with no MGL - I would have been able to build SDI, which I have never done!!!

Build List:

3950 BC Palace (518)
3250 BC The Pyramids (1948)
1830 BC Temple (818)
1350 BC The Oracle (1472)
1275 BC Library (1083)
1000 BC The Statue of Zeus (1344)
550 BC The Great Library (1728)
530 BC The Temple of Artemis (1140) (SGL)
510 BC Colosseum (564)
410 BC The Mausoleum of Mausollos (534)
330 BC Cathedral (765)
310 BC Sistine Chapel (1512) (SGL)
110 BC The Hanging Gardens (888)
70 BC University (864)
360 AD Shakespeare's Theater (1080)
460 AD Copernicus' Observatory (452)
510 AD Heroic Epic (432)
600 AD Newton's University (594)
630 AD The Pentagon (96) (MGL)
690 AD JS Bach's Cathedral (540)
750 AD Smith's Trading Company (252)
830 AD Universal Suffrage (304)
840 AD Battlefield Medicine (75) (MGL)
870 AD Wall Street (144) (I guess I hand built)
930 AD Theory of Evolution (198)
1000 AD Hoover Dam (118)
1080 AD Military Academy (51)
1140 AD Research Lab (90)
1210 AD The Manhattan Project (76)
1270 AD The United Nations (120)
1275 AD Intelligence Agency (29)
1310 AD The Internet (88) (MGL)
1340 AD SETI program (48)
1345 AD Apollo Program (30) (MGL)
1375 AD Cure for Cancer (27)
1410 AD Longevity (6)

Missed the wall by a turn, giving me a 300 shield market, which is why i have such a long time between the uni and shakespeares. That and the alpha civs being so far away probably cost me a shot at the top spot for this level.

Do most people play with goody huts on for this type of game? I've been trying a Russian strategy involving popping a very early settler or town so I never had to reduce the population of my 20K city, and I could get to the Middle Ages ASAP. The problem is that I'm having no success getting my Ceremonial Burial SGL, and I'm wondering if that is because an AI pops it before I finish researching it .

It's tough on a map this large with civs that get free units, cause they will pop huts a lot. I thought about trying russia, but decided not to for just that reason.

The AI will almost certainly pop CB, but I'd also be worried about them popping philosophy or literature.
I've been playing a set of maps as Carthage on archipelago maps. I've yet to be troubled by an SGL, so I might try again as a sci civ if I don't get a break soon,

I dunno that I would worry so much about lit/philo - it can happen, but, in general, the AI hasn't had writing before I got philo unless I traded it to them.

I'm probably being pessimistic, yes. I suppose if I did have huts I'd be leaving out the EXP opponents (I usually have a lot of these when using sedentaty barbs).
Maybe this reflects on my building abilities, but I could see me losing the Great Library following a ToA cascade.

edit: what I meant to say is I use a lot of expansionist AI when using no barbs.

oh - I thought you meant losing the SGL chance.

I hadn't thought about that, an AI popping a hut, getting literature and you losing the GLib. That could certainly happen, especially on a map this big with the number of huts. Good point!!

One of the problems with getting your CB SGL is the AI researching it. Ottoman's beeline monarchy, and I've noticed that Greece, at least, will research CB, and if they have a good start (FP wheat, for instance), they'll grow enough to get it.

geez. I've been trying a game as Carthage (start on the coast, have masonry and fast workers) - I've had maybe 100 starts without an SGL

Yeah, I also played around 20 maps but no SGL.

But got one food rich and decided to play it for fun. No SGL's so far.

Capital had 2 grass cows, 5bg's and 3hills. Spit out 3 settlers after seeing 3 cows and 2 wheats nearby before building culture.
Had rapid expansion - 15 towns, 48 pop and 25 workers by 1000BC.
Now I'm at 10AD. Tech pace is fast, built Shake's Theater in 110 BC. Projected date is 1720 AD but will improve, should finish around 1500 AD, if SGL's show up - a bit faster.
Will try to finish this

nice. Shakes in 110 BC is pretty good.

well, my carthage game got me 1430. Carthage is fun, cause you can get the coastal ones no problem, but you have to be careful, cause of Pyramids/Collosus will kick of a GA. On this level, that's usually not a problem - you can usually get to repulbic before the AI builds it and steals it from you.

I'll write up more later.

Persia 1405AD

Settings: 60% pangea wet warm 4BYO no barbs
Rivals: Aztecs, Inca, Ottomans, China, Maya, America, Zulu, Mongols. No Alpha civs as I had tried a number of games with several commercial/seafaring ones but getting contact before finishing CB/Myst was proving quite rare. Ottpomans was not a good choice though, due to them sometimes beating me to CB.

My start was very nice. Just one cow but 5bgs and six hills was a good mix for early growth and mid term production and it was coastal. Even better was the discovery of iron in one of those hills which gave me a city production of 30spt once out of despotism. I had played out a number of starts to 1000BC or even further without a sniff of an SGL so it was good to get one for CB. Even better was to get a second with the republic slingshot.

The attached screenie shows my skewed 'core' at this point, heading SE towards my ivory town, which was just on the Incan capital border. This was probably too far away to expect to claim such a valuable resource but the Incans had strategic resources as a priority which enabled me to take my sole lux.

The Aztecs made a tech demand at around 900BC and declared war on me when I refused. This gave me much needed happiness and also enabled me to kick off my GA before MoM was completed with an immortal win. Soon after I got my third SGL for Literature, and I hadn't even used my second one yet. They were used for GLib and ToA as the techs became available. Meanwhile the war with the Aztecs went on for a very long time. I finally got an MGL in 90AD although a bit later the onset of WW forced an end to my leader hunt. No more SGLs so I was taking my time to build the culture monsters of the MAs.

As I worked towards the onset of the IA, my thoughts turned to a railed/factory/pp boosted capital pumping out 100spt. Unfortunately I didn't have coal and there was no nearby source to steal from a neighbour. I tried setting up the Zulu as they were the only civ with more than one source but they took an age to get their surplace connected. The Maya were providing me with elite fodder so sending down workers did not seem like a good option to speed this up and they did not get a second source connected until I was in Modern Times. This was very frustrating as I had built a number of factories by then and pollution was popping up all over the place. Really quite tedius when you don't have rails to get there in one turn. A shame to end that way after such a great start.

Build details attached.

nice game!! too bad about the coal - that probably cost you a bunch of turns, since you were only able to get up to what...60 shields without rails and a coal plant?

54spt with a factory; 72 with a Hydro plant IIRC. Probably a couple of turns at most I would think but I could be wrong. Those late wonders don't do a lot. I did get rails for the last century though.

I played all out for research and only conducted defensive wars on the whole but maybe I should have gone on the offensive. You don't tend to have resource problems when you conquer a few neighbours!