Conquest 03, Spoiler 2; entering the industrial age

ainwood

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Conquest 03: Spoiler 2.

For those of you who managed to drag your civilization kicking and screaming into the middle ages, now is your opportunity to share the secrests of your success. How did you deal with the rapid expansion of the Indians? Did you secure the marvelous beasts in the north? Did you send your dromons to defend your shores from the neighbours, or to support your own invasions?

To qualify for this spoiler, you need to be researching an industrial age tech (but please don't show screenshots with industrial age or later resources)
 
COTM03_Open

Ancient Times

*** Middle Ages ***

Summary: The Middle Ages is where my game started to go wrong. Basicly, there was nowhere I could expand. India was the strongest civ of all, so a war agaist them was out of question, and I didn't feel strong enough to launch an invasion on anyone else (in hindsight, this may have been a bad decition). As soon as the other civs had made contact with each other, the pace of the tech-race was extreme. I had to divert all my resources into keeping up, and before I knew it we were into the Industrial Age...

690 BC - Nicomedia founded on the island southeast of the eastern continent, very narrowly beating Scandinavia and Carthage to the Horse and Iron!

530 BC - We finally make contact with the Persians. They are backwards.

390 BC - We get Furs, Monarchy, 72 Gold and 4 GPT from the Indians for Engineering and Ivory.

350 BC - Amorium founded by the Horse in the north, just beating the Dutch and the Indians to it, but forcing the town to be placed a bit too far south. And what is worse, the Indian Spearman+Settler fortifies on top of the Horse tile, and we don't dare to tell them to leave.

250 BC - Adrianople completes Forbidden Palace.

210 BC - Ancyra founded south of Heraclea. We trade Monotheism and 1 GPT for The Republic with the Vikings, and our civilization descends into Anarchy.

110 BC - We are a Republic!

100 BC -> 600 AD - Peaceful times. We are completing Libraries and Marketplaces, and then Aqueducts and Universities in our core cities, while trying to keep up in the tech-race. We are constantly thinking about ways to expand our empire - attacking India or invading Persia looking like the most likely options - but the speed of the tech-race is too furious for it to be a likely success.

380 AD - Our discovery of Banking puts us in a good position for trading. We get Chivalry, Invention, Gunpowder and a good amount of gold from The Netherlands, Russia and The Ottomans. The Ottomans are clearly leading the tech-race, ahead of Carthage and India. We are now fourth together with Russia. The Vikings and the Dutch are just behind, while Persia are far behind. We secure a source of Salpeter.

430 AD - We are researching Economics, and are pre-building a Palace in Adrianople to try to get Smith's Trading Company.

570 AD - Oh no, Nicaea deposes our govenor and joins the Indians!



600 AD - We have Military Tradition, but there is still no one to attack, 'cause if I start building a military now, they will have Riflemen before I've finished building a decent number of Cavalry, and probably Infantry before I've taken their first town... Our only hope now is that we will have a monopoly on Oil or Rubber. India have Economics too, and are also building Smith's Trading Company. Ours is 12 turns away.

610 AD - Carthage starts building Smith's Trading Company...

650 AD - The Ottomans and the Vikings have destroyed Russia! The Ottomans are starting to look very strong.

700 AD - Our Ivory is very valuable. For example, The Ottomans give us Wine and 292 Gold for Ivory!

710 AD - We build Smith's Trading Company in Adrianople!

720 AD - The crazy Ottomans give us 41 GPT for the useless knowledge of Economics! WE TRADE ECONOMICS FOR MAGNETISM WITH CARTHAGE AND ENTER THE INDUSTRIAL AGE!

The Ottomans are still leading the tech-race, but we are now a very close second (only trailing some dead-end Middle Age techs), just ahead of Carthage. India and Scandinavia follows, with the Dutch and the Persians left behind. With the help of Smith's Trading Company and our valuable Ivory, we can now run 100% science and still have a balanced budget! Electricity is still 10 turns, though.



-- Roland
 
Puh! i'm still alive..

I decided fairly quickly that India was beyond me so i've tried to make friends as much as possible. I even send them the odd bribe and join in on alliances (late) when the opponent is close to collapse.

There was a war that wiped out the russians that gave me the tundra island with an extra salpeter to trade, the Indians paid 50gpt for that - it was a very hard decision to give it to them cause I could easily dream up a plan for where the units produced would be going!

Came in a tad bit late versus the vikings, dutch snatched Odense in front of my nose. Decided after this that i'd give the dutch a go, they were not doing to well in the scoreboards & tech race.

In picture attached i'm at war with them together with Persia wiping out their knights with my cavalry. My intent is to build up a second core and jump palace to the Odense peninsula. The leaders are however no where to be seen.

Major issue is that my economy is to small, i just don't produce enough units for war..

Buying techs appears to get even dearer as time goes from an already high price in ancient age. I was hwever suprised to find that a 50 turn music theory research program came first! it was nice to trade that.

cheers,
john
 

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I tried to keep AIs cash dry, so I checked every turn until late in the game if they had gpt/gold to trade for my techs. Unfortunately not, they were using everything for their own research. I got some gpt from Persians and they were quite broke, but still managed to upgrade all their defenders to muskets. :(

I decided not to build the Statue of Zeus because it's not worth 200 shields when you are rather quickly going for MT and it would be obsolete.

I started war against India in around 500 BCE. My goal was to take out India and then trade for luxuries to speed up research to MT. Unfortunately, the Indian war was a disaster which dragged until 200 CE. I think this was the reason I didn't achieve my conquest goal as soon as I would have liked.

I also attacked Dutch and allied others against them with a hope to stop their research. My goal was to take their seemingly only iron source. I achieved this in 30 CE before they had Feudalism. :) I got Feudalism in 975 BCE so this was a great success.

My next target was Ottomans with their saltpeter. Unfortunately, I didn't get an attack force until 330 CE when I had cavalries already (MT was researched in 310 CE). The good point was that I had a cavalry army to go to the saltpeter source so I would certainly hold it. Ottoman's only iron source was near saltpeter source so I disconnected it as well. I also shipped some elite MIs there and got THREE leaders with them. They formed more cavalry armies and with them I actually conquerred Ottomans. C3C armies are the decisive factor when doing a fast conquest so leader luck is very important. One leader rushed military academy and I rushed 4 armies with gold.

When I got MT my goal was to take Leonardo's ASAP. Persians had built it and I sent about 20 cavalries and a cavalry army there. After conquerring Leonardo's in 460 CE I quickly upgraded rest of my horsemen and soon I had 60 cavalries.

In 600 CE I had destroyed Ottomans and Persians and I attacked Russians and Carthage. Vikings were reduced to one city after my alliances against them. Russians were a problem, they reached IA during my attacks and I faced some riflemen, but with cavalry armies they are quite easy to kill. I have haven't seen an IA AI for ages in my military games. Russians also had the Great Library. I had shutdown research after MT and I got almost all MA techs except Magnetism. This was a setback, I had to research it myself to transport my armies (instead I would have liked to use the gold for army rushes).

Russia, Carthage and Netherlands were so spread out that I took last of their towns in near last turns which resulted in 780 CE conquest victory. It would have been few turns earlier, but I lost a 6 hitpoint cavalry army to an elite longbowman. I think this game went quite well, except for the Indian war, which significantly slowed down my research and conquest. Another problem was that I couldn't produce horsemen fast enough. The start position was too narrow for a good core. I wonder if an early swordman rush against India and jumping the Palace there would have helped production significantly. In GOTM20 DaveMcW said he was upgrading 10 horsemen a turn (was it during his golden age?). I would have needed such force for a great conquest.

Overall this was an easy game because AI lacked critical resources such as horses and saltpeter. Persians had two saltpeter sources but no iron.
 
OPEN

I got monotheism as my free tech, so I started to research theology for good trading. My Dromon I have sent towards Persia circled around the persian island, but only on the second round I found a persian galley. My dromon won the battle and I entered my golden age. I quickly made peace with persia and staid friendly with them for the rest of my game.

Since nobody started to build the great library I bult it after I had all the other infrastructure buildings such as university and cathedral. I only got invention and education from the GL, so it was almost a waste.
More important, I managed to get copernicus for better research.

The rest of the middle ages were heavy trading of techs and luxuries. I knew, that I will need tons of money for later in the game.

India and Carthago were the tech leaders, I was mainly third, researched the some techs first and made good money by trading.
I was falling behind India in the last stages of the middle ages, bought two techs to get into the industrial area.



The Indian troops are not heading for my little city, they are heading South to retake a former Indian city, now controlled by the Dutch (I am best friends with both)



So far, i still think that I have a chance for winning, getting ToE will be a crucial deciding moment.
 
War with india started late ancient early medieval era, a turn or so before the construction of zeus. feudalism was next. a bit of light trading with my fellow civs got me the other early techs in the era and I also managed to construct the knights templar. Wow lots of free troops there.

With my Ancient Cavalry, Crusaders and Medieval Infantry I crushed India in about what felt like a 1000 years or so. I had failed to controll my entire island, russia and the dutch had the north tip with the horses. I took the russian town in a little war, the dutch was left alone for quite some while, that city later fell to carthage and then later to me.

I was very surprised that not a single town flipped back to the indians even thou it took quite a while to crush them.

I did some remoddling of the indian towns, a few of them where moved a couple of squares. I put my forbidden palace in dehli. Dehli had the Mausoleum.

Carthage appears to be the sumo in the china shop pushing around the others, and me. My little war with india did drag on for a bit so when I was victorious they had already passed education and built all the science wonders and the whole shebang.

They had ju bypassed Bachs for some reason, quick research and prebuild and I had myself a wonder cathedral that keept my whole little despotic land happy.

With resources, happy wonders etc I changed to Republic. Took what felt like forever in the transition, think it was a massive 8turns. Next science goal was to try and grab the Theory of Evolution in the next age, slingshot up to the Hoover to seriously boost my production. All other wonders where built by the others, ok they where pretty much all built by Carthage.

Russia was at war with Otto, the dutch, persia, carthage, russia and myself was at war on and off thru the entire age.

Just as Otto was the russian victim, the vikings where being taken care of by Carthage.

Almost forgot, my golden age was triggered by the construction of the templars, not exactly the trigger I wanted. Me despotic and at war. Wow what a financial and scientific boost that was ... not.
 
COTM 03 – Byzantines (Open)
Civgeek


Middle Ages (530 BC – 1080 AD)
The Middle Ages? No, no, I don’t recall anything about that. Must have slept through the whole thing. I could just quote Roland E. word-for-word
The Middle Ages is where my game started to go wrong. Basically, there was nowhere I could expand. India was the strongest civ of all, so a war against them was out of question, and I didn't feel strong enough to launch an invasion on anyone else (in hindsight, this may have been a bad decision). As soon as the other civs had made contact with each other, the pace of the tech-race was extreme. I had to divert all my resources into keeping up, and before I knew it we were into the Industrial Age...
As expected, the Indians attacked almost as soon as I entered the Middle Ages, leaving me no time to switch governments (still in Despotism at this point :( ). With a well-fortified choke point, including Sardica several tiles W of the hills, Gandhi succeeded in killing a lot of his own troops, mostly MI, for little gain. Russia and the Netherlands joined our war against India, but aside from one lone Dutch galley, I never saw any of their troops. With the help of some of the first ACs from the SoZ, I captured Pune, eliminated any Indian troops inside our borders and then sued for peace when India developed Chivalry. Didn’t fancy taking on those War Elephants and wanted to get out of Despotism. I had several elite pikes at that point, but sadly no leaders emerged from the constant slaughter of Indian troops on the walls of Sardica. Didn’t make much use of Dromons either; used them mainly for shore bombardment of troops attacking Sardica. Never saw any Indian naval units, so sadly never got to sink anything and never got a Golden Age. This turned out to be the only war I fought in the Middle Ages and about the only thing of interest that happened to the lowly Byzantine Empire.

I switched to Feudalism (7 turn anarchy) as soon as the war was over, expecting a brief lull and then another DoW by Gandhi, but in the interim, most of the rest of the AIs decided Gandhi was prime target number one and by 490 AD Russia, Persia, Ottomans, Vikings, Carthage and the Dutch were all at war with India. I switched to Republic (6 turns anarchy) as soon as I figured India would be preoccupied for sometime to come. Started to fall significantly behind in the tech race at this point, despite making libraries/universities a priority build in all cities. I tried hard to trade what resources I had for gpt and lux to help free-up funds for research. This included trading the only saltpeter I had a few times when I wasn’t focusing on building/upgrading units. Carthage entered the Industrial Age in 590 AD while I was still only about halfway along the tech tree, buying what I could from Gandhi, and trading with the other sad sack tech folks such as the Dutch. At this point any pretence at further military expansion was just a shame, so switched to Democracy (6 turn anarchy) despite this being my third government change in the era. :mad: The Grand Alliance against India fell apart in 590 AD, leaving the world pretty much as it was before it started. None of the AIs lost any territory as far as I could see and Gandhi remained the only other civ on our continent.



Outlook for the Industrial Age: Not good at all; I’m dead last in almost every possible category and 6-7 techs behind most other civs. The only thing I have going for me is almost everybody is Polite or Gracious towards me and so far no other civ seems to be dominating the world. Best bet for any move up is if I get a resource monopoly on coal, rubber or oil. Still, my goal was survival, and that I’m doing (so far). In hindsight, I missed a golden opportunity by not joining the Grand Alliance against India and putting my AC to good use. I think I was just being too defensive because of the Demigod level. Not getting a GA also hurt, but I still have a few Dromons around so who knows, may be some injured ironclad will feel the wrath of the Byzantine fire ships yet! :D
 
Open class -

I started the middle ages during my war with India. So far they'd managed to send a lot of swordsmen at my choke-point city (not placed on the hill, but one square north. India had placed a city on the square S of the hill, so in peace time I could only place N of the hill). I got Feudalism for free, started upgrading warriors to MI and finally had enough catapults to make some headway through indian territory. Being the tech leader at this point, I set tech to 0% so I could upgrade units as fast as possible. I managed to raze+rebuild several indian cities, mostly on the strength of a couple armys loaded with Ancient Cavalry and stacks of catapults. But the war dragged on for far too long. Eventually someone sold me chivalry, and soon the Indians had it too; but the AI is pretty predictable with it's mounted units - they only attacked wounded units or workers left undefended by the boarder. A couple of times I'd leave a slave worker out as bait so the Elephants would attack and I could kill them the following round. By the end of the war I had complete control of the starting island and had eliminated the Indians, but I was dead last in Tech, and still in Monarchy. At least I'd gotten 4 armies out of it, 2 filled with ancient cavs and 2 filled with knights. I looked around and realized most of the AI's had resource problems. I could take out the Dutch as they appeared to be without saltpeter and having trouble hooking up their iron. Persia and Carthage lacked Iron, so I was able to repeatedly trade Iron to Carthage for 1 or 2 techs at a time. I finally bought enough techs to be able to research military tradition (the only tech I researched myself outside of the ancient age), and upgraded some dromons to galleys to transport my armies over to the southern tip of the Dutch continent. I was terribly far behind in techs, but so were the dutch, and my first two battles gave me two leaders, so I made quick work of the Dutch, but that gets into the Industrial Age... Where I'm still terribly behind in techs.

It's strange that others reported Carthage being the superpower after India's demise, in my game it was the Ottomans all the way. I think the Ottomans had all resources (iron from the island south of the Dutch) and took some territory from Russia. Carthage killed the Vikings eventually, but it took them a while. Maybe it's just the Iron that makes the difference? In your games, where was Carthage getting it's Iron from?
 
Erudine said:
In your games, where was Carthage getting it's Iron from?
In my game Carthage had iron just north of their capital on the mountains. They easily conquerred resourceless Vikings.
 
I just suffered a "Humiliating Cultural Loss" to Carthage (100K).
Year = 1955AD
Firaxis Score = 1925
Jason = 998
I'm somewhat embarrassed, but I had fun anyway.

That was a tough map, Ainwood!
I had a lot of fun playing, even though I knew that I was losing horribly. My only shot was an outside chance at a Diplo Win, but Ottoman's never called a vote and I had a tough time keeping the remaining AI Polite towards me anyway.

One thing that was funny was that Carthage was throwing 5 or 6 nukes every couple of turns at the Ottoman's for the last bunch of years. The Ottoman continent was an absolute wasteland.

Another thing that I learned - you only get like half the cutlure when in War Time mode! I had no idea, and did not even notice it until I was in War Time for the 4th or 5th time. I normally never use the War Time mode, but in this game I was in it for EONS because I had such a difficult time taking out the Indians. No wonder my Culture stunk.

Keep up the good work, Ainwood!
 
Open class (I always forgot to write that!)-

Another somewhat random log, although more detailed than AA log. If you don't read it all, please read the last few entries. I am hoping for some advice on where to go next with the game.

570 - Finally found Persia, though I can't talk to them yet. Next turn, will see where they are.

550 - Persia is backward. The seem to have been hurt by being left out of my trading ring, and lack Polytheism, Philosophy, Lit., and Mathematics. I give them Polytheism for 218 gold.

530 - For the second time, Ottomans make a demand, for the second time I say no, for the second time they declare war. I guess I fogot to write it down earlier. Oops. They made me pay a bit for peace before, which wasn't a big deal since I made it back with tech trading. Now, though, I have no means to get out of war and they do know where I am since I saw an Ottoman galley in the area. I also found Trebizond, where Middelburg used to be.

510 - The Dutch will almost give me a city for peace, maybe because of the Dromon floating around. Maybe I will go pick up a couple archers, which could convince them to give me the city.

470 - Dutch land a swordsmam next to our undefended capital, they know the tables have turned, so I give them polytheism for 6 gold and peace.

430 - 13 gpt gets Russia into the war against the Ottomans. Monotheism brings India in. Hopefully, that will keep both of them occupied for a little while, as I try to build my forces for an eventual attack on India.

410 - A small stack on my border appears to mean that India wants to fight me despite our alliance. It isn't unexpected, but I was hoping to survive to lose by some other condition than conquest.

370 - India did attack. I wasted a turn, but now I have Russia in the fight for 520 gold. Probably spreading her a bit thin. I'll see if I can get Carthage in, though it will probably bankrupt me. I guess it doesn't matter though, if I manage to survive. For 440, Carthage will declare on the Ottomans. Hopefully, that will save me from having to deal with them. The Dutch join against India for Monarchy. So I am at war with the two biggest nations, but I have three allies. We will see how much that helps. I also end up triggering my golden age. It is a complete waste, though, since most spaces are next to rivers and roaded, and there are quite a few bonus grassland. Commerce goes up 2 gpt, and I saw change in the the production of only a half of my cities.

290 - I lost one city (right past the choke), about to lose another (Heraclea, my choke point city on the hill, put inadaquetely defended and no walls), which isn't so bad. But I am kicking myself because I haven't used the Dromon at all effectively. I want to play this game again desperately.

250 - The RNG seems to be taking its revenge. Last game I got rather lucky, and now my dromons are 1 for 4 on the attack, and 0 for 2 on defense. I have lost three archers, two of them while attacking archers, and the other one of them only managed to promote a swordsman. And it looks like I completed SoZ just in time to lose the city to the Indians.

230 - I make peace with the Indians, trading The Republic for Chivalry. Now the Russians and the Dutch are pissed at me, and my reputation is shot. But the Indians were rolling right over me, and I expected to be seeing War Elephants soon.

210 - Somehow, I never really built all that many workers. That has been a huge problem this game, since I don't even have iron hooked up yet. With everything else, especially barbs, I never managed to get all that many workers.

190 - Dutch are angry about me getting peace with India, they ask for ivory, we have ROP so I tell them to take a walk, and they declare. I am hoping I can keep the Dutch away with my dromons, and maybe pick up some faraway Dutch holding. Or that the Dutch will make it quick and painless.

10 BC - The Dutch have evened the score from my taking Middelburg years ago, as I lose Trebizond. I finally had another victorious Dromon elsewhere, but I have yet to have a successful bombard after a dozen or so tries.

70 AD - Not a whole lot has changed. I dropped off a veteran archer and veteran AC on the island southeast of the Dutch mainland. Archer killed another archer and promoted, but the AC lost to a spearman in tundra. Ouch. Still managing to hang on with six cities, but my score is less than a third of India's.

110 - Woo-hoo! I captured Holwerd, on the Dutch main continent. Two AC victories and an archer victory gave me a holding on another continent, and a spot that might give saltpeter. If I make it to Gunpowder, since no one will trade with me now, and Engineering is still coming along. The Dutch have made one landing on my continent, which wasn't a threat. What does concern me is the Indian troops wandering around in my territory. Holwerd might not be a flip threat if the Indians make it my capital.

130 - Amazingly enough, Adrianople, my SoZ city, is a bigger threat to flip to India than Holwerd is to go back to the Dutch, according to the flip calc in Dianthus' MapStat.

150 - I have decided to make the change to Monarchy. My empire isn't really big enough for corruption to be a problem, and the extra commerce would not off set unit costs, since I am so small.

190 - After waiting two more turns, I finally revolt. Four turns isn't so bad, I was just hoping for less with such a tiny empire.

210 - Dutch bring three swordsmen onto Holwerd, more than I can handle, so I kill a couple, am sure that I can't hold it, and jump back on board my Dromon. I decide to learn a bit about getting peace, so I check what it will take for peace. They are close, but need a little something for peace. I abandon Holwerd, and suddenly they are willing to pay. I was never sure how much they took into account the ability to capture a city into the peace process, but this experience along with their early need for payment when they discovered that Constantinople was undefended proved that the situation is important.

280 - I capture Den Helder, on the island southeast of the Dutch. Getting the Dutch in on the war against India way back is paying off in a way, since they are still at war and Indian war elephants are aiding me in my fight, and distracting the Dutch galleys.

300 - Having a small empire [sort of] pays off! Carthage will pay me for ivory in addition to giving me silks. Of course, that and the fact they have completed Copernicus' Observatory means they have Astronomy, and I have yet to learn Theology. Persia and the Dutch are trading and catching up. I am afraid they will zoom right by and I will have nothing to trade.

310 - I can now trade World Maps with Russia, I just noticed, and they have been the slowest among the tech leaders. India gives me theirs and 30 gold for my world map. Carthage gives 56 and their world map, and Russia gives theirs and 5 (all they had). Scandinavia, I discover, doesn't have Navigation yet, and now that I have a world map it seems that Carthage has taken some cities from the Vikings. I am still at war with the Ottomans, but they go from insulted to almost willing to make a deal when I give a world map for peace, so I imagine there is much about the world they do not know.

320 - I abandon Den Helder, as the Dutch drop off a swordsman and two horsemen. I was planning on seeing if I could hold on, especially since an Indian war elephant was in the area and would probably attack, and then I could take out a horseman. But the elite swordsman was some sort of super-swordsman, as it beat both the vet war elephant (all 5 hp) and my elite archer. Once again, the RNG laughs at me. But holding Den Helder wasn't all that important, as its only value was the possibility of oil down the road, and I don't know if I will make it that far.

330 - I capture Leiden, which actually does have value. It sits atop horses, and could have iron inside its boundaries upon expansion.

370 - My last little attack on the Dutch mainland doesn't go so well, as yet again RNG spites me. A couple elite AC are attacked by and lose to regular swordsmen without retreating, so I call back a MI and a few AC and see what the Dutch will give for peace. I have two options. Eindhoven, founded near the ruins of Holwerd, or Harlingen, a small colony on the other side of the world, with an unconnected source of iron. I take Harlingen, which gives me three sources of iron in my territory, though only one is connected and one is inaccesible until I get Astronomy. My Dromons floating around with units are sent to the Ottoman chokepoint. It is the closest target, and if I threaten a city, even with no chance of capturing it, maybe the Ottomans will take peace straight up. At this point, we have been in phony-war for 900 years, the lone action being a failed Dromon attack on an Ottoman galley headed elsewhere, I guess, since I haven't seen anything orange since.

380 - I am disappointed now that my reputation is shot. I could pick up a couple techs for lump sums, but that isn't a long term solution. The bigger problem is that the Indians are now, after signing peace with the Dutch, without a focus for their military might. I would have to pay a huge amount, if they would make any deal at all, to get them into what would be a phony war for me and a real war for them.

420 - I make one of my little AC landings in Ottoman territory, and find that they still want huge payment for peace. Oh well. Interturn, my AC perform admirably, taking a knight and a MI with them, without terrian bonuses (I thought maybe if I landed in a remote place, where there might not be any units around, that would make up for lack of bonus, and I was wrong).

440 - Catherine asked for ivory interturn, I said no. Now I am at war with continent mates the Ottomans and Russians.

450 - The Ottomans threaten Leiden, and it is time to see what it will take for peace. After giving up 159 gold and my World Map, the nearly 1000 year conflict finally ends.

520 - Not much worth mention has happened. India has joined the conflict against the poor Scandinavians, and I have been trying, with little luck, to disconnect Russian resources. But they are willing to accept peace. I am a bit hesitant, since they appear to be rather weak, and without iron. Maybe I can sufficiently scare Catherine so that she'll give me a tech. I am afraid to bring any troops over, though, since Adrianople is still a big flip risk (1.7%) even though it has SoZ, a Library, Marketplace, and Temple. I am working on Cathedral, which should hopefully help.

620 - Well, what was the poor Scandinavians to me a hundred years ago may be an opportunity for the hapless Byzantines. I am at peace with all at this point, while the dogpile against Ragnar has grown. I am thinking that a few knights and a few AC, a force that even I can muster, might be enough to take Trondheim, if I work fast enough, and the Great Library. I have put off researching Education recently to keep this possibility open.

720 - I manage to get Metallurgy before a couple others, but I am holding on to it for a while because I still want to try for GL. I am three turns away from the invasion at this point, of three knights, two AC, and a pikeman. Pretty meager, but I am hoping the Vikings only have spearman and that their defenses have been worn down.

730 - DoW on Scandinavia by the weak Byzantines. We will find out shortly if I have made a huge mistake, or pulled myself back into the tech race.

740 - I make the first drop off, and then bombard. Both are successful (they won't be when it counts, though), and I see that they have an elite pike, and veteran spears underneath.

750 - AC wins without losing an hp against 3/5 hp pike. Vet knight beats vet spear, loses two hp and promotes to elite. AC loses two hp, beats vet spear. Third AC retreats after taking two hp off vet spear, and the spear is still showing. This might actually work, but I have no more units with moves.

760 - Vet knight redlines but defeats 3/4 hp spear (bombard). 3/5 knight retreats, and then vet AC also retreats against 3/4 unfortified spear. Don't do this to me! Finally, 3/5 AC defeats now 2/4 spearman, and Trondheim is mine. Nine resistors means I will really need to abandon it after getting my techs. I wonder if I will manage to get Electricity or Industrialization as my free tech. Wouldn't that be nice!

770 - Didn't get Steam Power from GL, but I did get it as my free tech. For some reason, I didn't get Music Theory either, even though I discovered that five civs had it. I got all other Middle Age techs, as well as Nationalism, Communism, and Medicine. Unfortunately, no money to upgrade. A bit of a brain lapse on my part, but I still had science at 100% the turn before, meaning instead of gaining 134, I gain 4 (getting 48 per turn from trading luxes, and low maintenance and unit costs mean I can research at 100%). I am wondering now whether I should even bother researching since it would take me about 30 turns for any tech at max. I also have a tech advantage on a few other nations, and with cavalry that could translate to some territorial gain.
 
Conquest class:

Quick summary of Ancient Age (as stated in the first thread):
India attacked early, but lost lots of units at my walled city on the chokepoint w/ hills.
Got an early leader and used the army to pillage their to iron sources. By the end of Ancient AGe, I conquered half of India.

Now:
I got feudalism as my free tech and started to build MI and got my second army. With that, it was easy to conquer the rest of India. They didn't build sea units so I still waited for my GoldenAge. I only had SoZ as a wonder. At the beginning of Middle Ages, I was the tech leader.
Since I stopped expanding, russia,carthage and persia managed to found cities on my continent (each of them had 1).
Decided to wait for democracy to make a government switch, but that was somehow wrong because while I was researching democracy at 50 turns, persia, russia and ottomans went by to the Industrial age.

Had two wars with persia in the Middle Ages, but signed Mil.Alliances with russia and ottomans against them.

Managed to conquer three island cities from he dutch, but lost one to persia. Captured one city of Persia on the dutch continent.
At the end of the Middle Ages, I was a few techs behind, I should have build my FP earlier , but I wanted to build it in Delhi, so it lasted about 70 turns to build it.

Russia meanwhile captured the other unfriendly cities on my continent.
But other than that no one could hurt me on my home continent, so I was the one with the largest land area.
When I got in the Industrial Age, I was preparing for war against the dutch, because they were a few techs behind and had no horses, so I thought I could crush them with cavalries.

Persia, Russia and ottomans were really strong but none of them was overpowered so they declared war on each other regularly (or signed MAs) and neutralized each other.

At that point, I had no idea, how to win this game, but now, as I am halfway through the Industrial Age, it looks much better, but I will tell later how it went.
 
Well..... (demi-god is fun :) ) I have owned my same portion of the island throughout the Ancient Age and Middle Ages. In hte Middle Ages i conquered several small islands from the Vikings.
My Tech pace suffered in the Middle Ages. In the beginning of the Middle Ages i was leading the pack in tech, but by the end i was one of the struggling few. I reached the Industrial Age around 800 AD (could be earlier or later forgot to take notes.....again:( )
By the time i got cavalry which is what i normally use for all my conquest victories that last into this far into the future the Indians had rifleman and other industrial ages defensive units so i knew i had nothing there. I think that the only hope i have is to go for a UN victoy which i will probably not win.
But until then I will try to stay alive :)
 
[c3c] Open

Spoiler 1: 4000BC to 530BC

I built 3 middle age wonders in Adrianople: Sistine Chapel, Shakespeare's Theater, and Newton's University.

But my main focus was generating great leaders. I declared on India in 50BC, capturing 2 cities before the flood of war elephants arrived. I set the cities up with pikemen behind city walls, then focused on winning elite battles. I used trebuchets and dromons to weaken enemy units and increase my odds.

After 20 turns of war with India, my alliances expired and I made peace with them. Then I declared on the Dutch, who had 2 towns on the north of my continent. Those fell easily, and I shipped units over to the Dutch continent to continue fishing for leaders. Then the Persians declared when I refused to give them Ivory, so I signed peace with the Dutch.

My first leader made an ancient cavalry army, which was great for picking off elephants. The second rushed the Heroic Epic. The third rushed the Forbidden Palace. I jumped my palace to Adrianople as soon as the FP was built. I got a fourth leader near the end of the middle ages, and saved him for the Military Academy.

I entered the industrial age in 660AD. Adrianople was up to 71cpt, 4072 culture total.

 
The MA sucked.

I feel so far behind in techs. I switched govs. to monarchy. The only two good things that happened where I took a city from the Dutch and for peace they gave me two cities next to the one I took. The other was I started a war with Russia and I took 3 cities, one island off my cost and 2 on their main land. Russia only has 3 cities left 2 on their main land and 1 island vary far away but yet they can still beat me to every tech. The Persians landed next to my new cities I got from the Dutch. They have been a royal pain this whole game. I ask them to leave they declare war. I stop them on the beach. Later I take one off their main land cities and make peace. The Ottoman keep demanding stuff, I pay do to the two Russian cities on their main land and they have a lot of cities and one I built. (I have never seen culture build as fast as it did in that 3 flipped city). It went from 0 culture to expanding 3 times in less then 20 turns. I cram as many cities as possible on my main land (27 until 2 of the cities I got after the Indian war depose back to India.). this is after I starve them to size 1. I also put temple and lib. in each. I did get a leader in the Russian war I use it for my FP in Karachi, now it will most likely flip back to India.

I’ve been buying all the techs in the MA most around 1000gp. I did get to trade 2 or 3 to Vikings and the Dutch. In 1050 AD I had enough money to buy the last tech but Persia decide to take that city on their main back. So I enter the IA at war with Persia and in last place in tech race. I do have almost 30 cities. I have 30 Cavalry and 13 Ancient Cavalry but every one else has Infantry, did I mention I was a little behind in the tech race. And lastly it get worse for my free tech I got Medicine.

Well I probably lose my first ever civ iii game tonight. I don’t see how someone won’t get the UN vote or a spaceship before I’m half way thru this era.

Note: This is the hardest level I’ve played on c3c. I have won 1 deity tiny world on PtW. I’ve also won a lot of Emperor games all world sizes on PtW. I need more practice with c3c.
 
Way too dense. He is severely limiting his production with consistent CxC city placement. And why are the pink guys doing so bad in every game I see?
 
The "pink guys" are Scandinavia. They are doing bad in probably every game because they have no resources. Yup thats right. Thats the reason why they are getting ripped apart by Carthage in almost every game, including mine :)
 
I think its more than that. they start on an island suitable for 4 cities and then have to go overseas to start new cities. This is a huge disadvantage because you lose many turns traveling and then youre empire is easily attackable. The lack of resources doesn't help at all though.
 
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