Rat44 CCM - Ultimate Challenge

excellent progress

you can't expect a better kill ratio with knights against arques. I am confident NP will put Greece out of the game.

Let's try and get the infra in our empire up after that before moving north.

WOW - that is a brutal campaign. Greece does feel like the "ultimate challenge"

FYI - you guys inspired me to start playing Civ3 again.
Starting to recall the dangers with Civ3. Playing my world map as Australia.

LKendter said:

FYI - you guys inspired me to start playing Civ3 again.
Starting to recall the dangers with Civ3. Playing my world map as Australia.

Click to expand...

Australia in Sid?

Deity - only played Sid once. That was just two insane.

The Greek campaign is going well, despite flips. But I'm being plagued by the old technical problem of the program's zooming up to 800K on Task Manager and then freezing or crashing, so I'm not getting through a lot of turns. I hope to post by Tuesday evening.

I've finished playing, but I've run out of time to do the report. I'll post within twenty-four hours.

View attachment 320928, end of turn

1595 (0): I'm glad we got workers to Bulgan and Hovd.

I consider cancelling the (presumably rushed) Great Guild build about to complete in Greek Attack, because putting the GG in such a minor town wastes its 25% boost to production. But since the GG becomes obsolete with Imperialism, which isn't too far away, I let the build stand.

We have such a range of contacts now, at varying levels of development, that I'm confident a threefer can't fail. First we buy Ballistics from France for 266 gpt and 445 gold. Next we send Ballistics and 617 gold to Arabia for Free Artistry. Then we trade Ballistics and FA to Indochina for Jurisprudence, 29 gpt, and 45 gold. Finally we pick up 40 gpt and 42 gold by selling Medicine to Persia.

We now see that the tech leaders are still ahead of us by Economics-Absolutism-Enlightenment.

We pull some foreign workers away from inessential rear-area tasks and send them forward to build garrisons.

We lose three knights and a Jumbo to Greek counterattacks.

1600 (1): We culture-bomb Delphi.

We don't have a garrison set up for our attack on Mycenae, but on the other hand the town is only showing a Hoplite on top. So we attack and take the city, held by a regular arquebusier, two Hoplites, and a longbowman. We lose two knights and sink at least one ship in port (5-2).

We get garrisons built for our attacks on Pfarsalos and Sparta.

In skirmishing all along the front we bludgeon two knights, a crusader, a swordsman, and an invisible unit, losing a knight (10-3).

We go 1-1 with a redline-and-retreat against scattered Greek counterattacks, losing an arq and repulsing a longbowman (11-4).

Rhodes flips--no surprise, and we only lose two units.


1605 (2): In clearing the way for our attack on Pfarsalos we trample a knight and a LB (13-4).

We remove Pfarsalos's garrison (in the CCM sense), held by an arq (14-4).

We storm Pfarsalos, held by two arqs and a Hoplite, for the loss of two knights (17-6).

We dispose of Sparta's garrison, held by a late pikeman (18-6).

We move a stack adjacent to Sparta.

We build our road and garrison for the assault on Knossos, though we won't make the attack for a few turns since Knossos will be the best city to leave the Greeks if we have to work around the settler bug.

We build a garrison near Rhodes, then re-take the city at the cost of a knight (held by two Hoplites; 20-7).

We remove Corinth's garrison, held by a Hoplite, at the cost of a knight (21-8).

We move adjacent to Corinth.

Our northern caravel makes contact with the Dutch. They're down to two cities, so don't have much to offer.

The Greeks make only one attack, which redline-retreats a knight.

Ho-hum, Thermopylae flips. We lose one unit. We're not as well positioned to re-take the city as we were in the case of Rhodes, though.


1610 (3): Our only knight in range of Thermopylae slays a Hoplite there, but the town remains defended (22-8).

We seize Sparta, held by two arqs and a Hoplite, for the loss of two knights (25-10). We capture two workers and gain our first Great Leader of the round, who'll rush Supreme Court next turn—excellent.

We construct the garrison for our attack on Corinth.

The battle at Corinth is hard, but eventually we capture the city at the cost of three knights (held by two arqs and a Hoplite; 28-13).

We move adjacent to Patras, the Greek tundra city that was in fog at the beginning of the round.

We culture-bomb Sparta.

It looks as though we can buy Absolutism with enough gold left over for a twofer. It’s not an automatic decision, since the price is steep, but Absolutism is a tech we really want (for hussars and musketmen), so I choose to do it. We buy Absolutism from France for 296 gpt, then send Absolutism and 669 gold to Germany for Economics.

Thus our beautiful MM for one-turn knight production is destroyed, but it had to happen sometime.

We lose a knight to a Greek counterattack out of Patras (28-14).


1615 (4): The Portuguese have had a strange game. They’ve been reduced to five cities and their capital has been driven onto an island, but they’re the only civ we know with Colonialism.

We culture-bomb Corinth, improving our access to Athens and Patras.

We construct the garrison for our attack on Patras.

We re-take Thermopylae, held by two Hoplites (30-14).

We take Patras, held by two arqs and a LB, though it’s another tough struggle against a strong position and we lose two knights (33-16).

At various points along the front we overwhelm three LB and an arq, gaining a monk (37-16).

We can’t afford mass knight --> hussar upgrades, but we do enough to increase our chances in the final wave of attacks on Greek cities.

The Greeks don’t attack.

1620 (5): Our southern exploring caravel meets the Turks. They have 31K in gold and they’re ahead of us by all the techs we can see, though they have a relatively modest twelve cities.

We set up our attacks on Athens, Thessalonica, and Knossos, building the necessary garrisons in the former two cases.

Byzantion and Corinth both flip. We have recapture forces next to both, but they could fail, and more seriously Corinth’s flip wipes out the garrison meant to support our attack on Athens.

to me for selling the walls in those cities, anyway.


1625 (6): Fortunately we’re able to replace the garrison for our attack on Athens with other foreign workers in the area.

We re-take Byzantion (one Hoplite) and Corinth (two Hoplites) easily enough, though we lose a knight at Byzantion (40-17).

Thessalonica has a completely inaccessible garrison, so our new hussars had better make an impressive debut there. They do superbly, and we storm the town without loss, putting three arqs and a Hoplite to the sword (44-17). We capture a supply shipment.

Another hussar clears away Athens’s garrison, held by a Hoplite (45-17).

At Athens our hussars don’t make much impression, mostly redline/retreating, and the knights that follow them have the same problem. But we have too big a stack to fail, and eventually we seize the city for the loss of three knights (held by four arqs and a longbowman; 50-20). We capture a worker.