COTM 04 Spoiler 2: Entering Industrial Ages

Felton said:
My biggest dissapointment with this game was after winning a domination victory (at approximately the start of the AI, around 1200, maybe a little earlier), the guy with the hammer did not appear to ring the bell. I don't know why (first time I've completed a GOTM), and the game did not show up on my hall of fame, where it would have been highest
Click to expand...

It's because the game was loaded from an initial save which was modified (by Ainwood) in the editor. Or something like that. Incidentally, my final result in this COTM would also have been on top of my personal hall of fame. :) Does anyone know if it's possible to hack the hall of fame somehow?

-- Roland
 
As Smoke-Jaguar sat in the vestibule of the Temple of Artemis in Chichen Itza, he thought, “This new building is the beginning of a long series of Mayan culture achievements. I will still go to back to the stars, but first I will need to tame this continent.” The war with the Aztecs had gone well. The proud Aztec people had fought bravely defending the first three cities and had destroyed their cites before joining the Mayan Republic. As his troops moved on to the next cities, he had gotten word that the Aztec ambassador was coming to his palace to negotiate a peace settlement.

The three cities ceded by the Aztec Empire would provide a link to the fur supplies that the Mayan women seemed to covet so highly. Smoke was pleased that his people were once again celebrating the benefits of peace. Word from his American Ambassador of the completion of a large granary structure in the American capital, convinced him that once the Aztecs were subdued, his forces would begin moving north.

The sunset viewed from within the newly opened Hanging Gardens of Copan, offered a serene ending of another day for Smoke. His week was quite busy with the dedication of the new Forbidden Palace yesterday and the opening ceremony for the Art of War Academy tomorrow. He relaxed and enjoyed the peaceful ending of another day. His relaxation was short-lived as his Minister of Science tapped his shoulder to gain his attention. “Sorry to disturb you sir, but I have bad news. Those new weapons we’ve created that require saltpeter are complete, but we seem to have no access in any of our lands to the precious mineral. Our scouts have checked all of the known lands and by the power of Ainwood, there appears to be no available sources. “ This was very disappointing to Smoke, he had really hoped to be able to use these weapons in the upcoming battles. “I guess we’ll need to train our armored troops to ride horses,” he answered. “For now, the troops we have should be enough for the remains of the Aztec Empire. I need an immediate consul meeting with all my advisors. Have the aids prepare the southern border maps for our discussions.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, our neighbors to the south continue to breech our borders with obsolete military units. I propose we end this antagonism once and for all. Any objections? Good, now I want this to be a quick and decisive war, General Grahamiam, begin your planning. I’ll be leaving next week to dedicate the Great Library opening and when I return, I want positive news.

Positive news it was that Smoke received. Five cities had fallen to the Mayan war machine and no casualties had befallen the brave attackers. With the ceding of three cities for peace, the Aztec nation was reduced to a single tundra city and Smoke knew that in time that would be gone.

“Land, they’ve finally found land.” The Lucky Seven galley sailed into the Byzantine port and was greeted by the lovely Theodora. While no gains we’re made by this contact, the Lucky Seven began to circle the new continent meeting the other tribes who inhabited the lands.

At the dedication ceremony for the Knights Templar academy, Smoke managed to isolate General Grahamiam. “With the Aztecs on life-support, I think it’s time we turned our attentions north. The Americans have no horses, so our newly christened knight troops should be the able to move to a quick victory.” And so they did in the 100 years of the war, 11 American cities fell with little resistance to the brave Mayan troops. As the war was winding down, the peace treaty with the Aztecs expired and shortly thereafter Montezuma was exiled to a quiet, dark room in the Mayan capital. With 11 American cities now part of the Mayan Republic, Smoke reluctantly accepted peace with America their northern city of Detroit, leaving them temporarily with a single city. This new city of Detroit came with a surprise, 22 barbarian horsemen next door. Unwilling to cede his treasury to the barbarian horde, Smoke went on a spending spree to build embassies in all of the other continents capitals. With the remainder of his treasury, he added some new infrastructure to his new acquisitions.

The first barbarian horseman carried off 6 gold pieces and the second destroyed the work on a new harbor, the other twenty rode to their deaths for nothing. With America reduced to a single city and the Aztecs a memory only, the Mayan troops began staging for Spain.

The conquest of Spain will be but a couple of paragraphs in the Mayan history books. Without iron, the Spanish spearmen were unable to slow the Mayan knights and in seventy years Isabella was relocated to the same hall as Montezuma. Just to clean a little house, the final American city was captured as the peace treaty expired and Abe joined Isabella and Montezuma to wait for Hiawatha so they’d finally have enough for bridge.

The year 940 AD was quite a memorable one for Smoke Jaguar, the discovery of Education had ended his peoples belief in Artemis which now required him to have temples and cathedrals built to keep them happy and the Great Library of Quirigua no longer was considered by the world to be the place where knowledge would be cataloged, though his scientists had not gotten anything of value from the building, it had been a safeguard against discovering the other continent to be of an advanced technology state. He decided to take out his anger on his only remaining neighbor, the Iroquois. The first three Iroquois cites fell with limited losses. The next two cities were larger and better defended and Smoke lost too many knights to the Iroquois pikemen and the counterattacking mounted warriors. Soon the populace demanded peace and being a thoughtful ruler he abided by their wishes for a tribute from the Iroquois treasury.

With just six Iroquois cities left, Smoke called in his military commander. “General, I understand the troops are rested and in position to complete this campaign of continental conquest. We will be breaking our treaty with them and they must not be allowed to inform the world of our treachery. This must be a quick and decisive war, do you understand?” he asked. “Yes, sir, it’ll be over before the demonstrators can assemble” was his reply. And true to his word, the war was quick and causality free. At the battle for the Iroquois Capital, an Elite Swordsman’s bravery was awarded with the first Great Leader of the Mayan Republic. He rushed to Niagara Falls to form the First Crusader Army and before the new army could leave the city, an Elite Knight’s victory produced Eighteen Rabbits, the second Great Leader of the Mayan Republic. He entered Salamanca and formed the Second Crusader Army. These two Crusader Armies led the Mayan knights to quick victories over the outclassed Iroquois defenders and in the battle for Centralia Caucus Sky, the third Great Leader was born and soon Hiawatha was dealing the cards to the other disposed leaders.

The next one hundred years were very peaceful in the Mayan Republic. Celebrations for the Heroic Epic in Kaminaljuyu, Smith’s Trading Post in Quirigua, Copernicus’ Observatory in Tikal, JS Bach’s Cathedral in Chichen Itza and thanks to the hard work of Caucus Sky, in 1240 AD, the Military Academy in Chichen Itza was completed as the Mayans discovered Magnetism and entered the Industrial Age.

Smoke Jaguar sat on the third floor terrace of his recently improved palace and thought of the past with all of the magical discoveries and great victories and looked to the future. The entire continent was united under the flag of the Mayan Republic; his people were far ahead of the other continent in technology and production. Soon an expeditionary force of crusaders and knights would be landing in the lands once held by Theodora and currently in the hands of the Celtic Monarchy. There were luxuries and resources that the other continent had that would be needed for the journey to the stars. Smoke knew he had another chapter to write before that journey could begin, but the past had provided him with the power and wealth to achieve that goal.
 
Roland & Felton: The HOF file is a .txt file and can be easily edited using notepad (for MS Windows users).
 
[c3c] 1.22f - Open Class

I was still in my GA at the end of the Ancient Age in 370BC.

Middle Ages

I continued to build up horsemen and a few swordsmen during my GA. On the last turn of my GA in 290BC, I declared war on the Aztecs again.


At that point, I had 14 Horse, 9 Swords, and 3 JT. (I really didn't get many slaves with the JT.) I used roughly 2/3 of my units to attack. Keeping the rest on my northern border with America. In my first elite battle of the war, I got my first MGL. I created an army and saved it for later. In 70BC, I auto-razed the last Aztec city. I was able to capture the other 3. Of course, they respawn further south in the tundra below the furs. I went ahead and made peace. I was able to get a settler next to the northern-most furs, getting my 3rd lux. I moved most of my horse north and began to fill in the southern area. Most of cities along the mountain chain and just south of it were pretty productive (only about 50% corrupt) the whole game.

Researching Chivalry was my priority. Somewhere along the way I messed up with the F6. Two turns from completing Feudalism, I clicked instead Shift-Clicked on Chivalry. At time, I didn't even notice. Needless to say I was a little disappointed when I finished Monotheism to find myself researching Feudalism again. I wasted about 8 turns on that.

In 130AD, I got tired of chasing off, blocking and otherwise doing everything I could to keep the other civs from walking through my territory to settle in the south. With Chivalry one turn away, I kicked off my war with American. I quick snapped up a stack with 4 settlers that was try to move through my core and got another one protected by a horsemen on the border.


I had 21 horse and 11 Med Inf, but I started upgrade the horse to knights as quickly as I could afford. I cut research from 50-60% to 10% for about five turns to fund the upgrades. I was way ahead of the local civs, so self research was the only way.

After Chivalry, I decided to research Theology to get Sistine before working the bottom of the research toward MT. This was my first diversion from the Conquest/Dom track.

The war with American fairly brief. I decided to entice Spain and Iroquois into the war in the hopes of diminishing their forces for later. The Iroquois got a couple cities in the northwest while I got the rest. In 310AD, I captured the last American city and they respawned in the tundra down south. I made peace. By this time, I had 33 Knights and still had 10 Med Inf.


After a 4 turn consolidation, I was ready to move against the Iroquois. The had a bunch of Mounted Warriors so I want to knock them out quickly. During the break I decided to use my up-to-now empty army. I added 3 veteran knights. I got a second MGL in 380AD and formed a second knight army.

In 430AD, I parked a wounded army in St. Regis. I was using Dianthus's MapStat. I checked the flip chance. St. Regis was at about 0.7% chance of flip. I had captured the city a few turns earlier and it never flipped with a knight there. As soon as I parked the army it flips. I swear the program must looks for armies. :mad:


Anyway, in 500AD, I captured the last couple of Iroquois cities including the capitol and got my 3rd MGL which I used to replace the one I lost. They didn't respawn nor were they eliminated. They had had a couple galleys off my west coast that I had been trying to destroy. The last one was red-lined. The following turn I sunk it and ended the Iroquois. By this time, with the Aztecs and Americans respawned there and 3 Spanish colonies there was no more room in the southern tundra. No respawn.


After another short pause to reposition, I started the final push to clear the continent. I started by DoW on the Aztecs and Americans in 570AD. I eliminated the Aztecs in 610AD and started my invasion of Spanish territory in the north. In 620AD, I got my 4th MG which formed another army. The Americans were eliminated in 650AD. I got my 5th MGL in 690AD. I used him to build the Pentagon. I captured the last Spanish city in 720AD. Once again they weren't eliminated! It took my until 750AD to find and destroy their galley.


Research:

Sometime after 470AD, when I finished gunpowder and was working on Chemistry, I realized that they was no Saltpeter! Time for a little re-thinking of my research priorities. Once I completed Chemistry, I would go for astronomy asap. Once again I had diverged from the pure conquest/Dom path by researching Ed, Astronomy, Music Theory, Banking, Navigation, Economics. I wanted the wonders and the commerce bonuses. I would go back and get Metallurgy and MT before finishing the MA techs with Physics, Magnetism and finally ToG . I would get the rest through trades or pointy stick diplomacy.

Exploration:

I lost more than a dozen suicide galleys trying to find the other Civs. In 710AD, a Caravel found the Mongols and Byzantines. I started to explore the coast and trade for contacts. I Researched Navigation in 780AD and got around to trading for map around 800AD. I had contact with everyone expect the Hittites who only had 3 cities on the inner sea. I got contact them after I got the maps. I never gave them mine. They were barely into the MA.

End of the MA:

I spent the remainder of the MA researching and building infrastructure. I found the Saltpeter island and colonized it and built harbors to connect the saltpeter. At then end of the MA I have converted half my Knights to Cavalry and was building Galleons in preparation for the invasion of the other continent. I discovered ToG in 1020AD.


Wonders:
1600BC Colossus (Hittites)
1400BC Oracle (America)
900BC Pyramids (Aztecs)
590BC Temple of Artemis (Sumerians)
570BC Great Lighthouse (Germans)
310BC Great Library (Maya)
150BC Mausoleum of Mausolous (Germans)
50BC Great Wall (Maya)
50BC Statue of Zeus (Sumerians)
90AD Hanging Gardens (Mongols)
410AD Sun Tzu (Maya)
440AD Knights Templar (Maya)
520AD Sistine Chapel (Maya)
650AD Leo's Workshop (Maya)
770AD Copernicus' Observatory (Maya)
870AD JS Bach's Cathedral (Maya)
950AD Magellan’s Voyage (Maya)

3 turns to go on Smith's Trading Company and 12 turn on military academy in 1020AD. (Forbidden Palace, Heroic Epic, and Pentagon already built.)

Firaxis score 2395 - 34% land - 58% pop - Culture 11413 vs., Sumerian @ 10271.

By the end of the MA, I had pretty much decided to go for the Histograph victory. Trying to improve upon the bungled GOTM34 attempt. Of course, I now see that Kuningas is going for Histograph as well. It is a good thing I don't have high expectations, isn't it?
 
SirPleb,

Very impressive game and strategy. As a newbie, I appreciate that you take the time to share your strategy, etc. here in the forum.

Being well into a comparatively late IA and still lacking direction, I have a question. When do you determine what you expect to be your winning strategy? I noticed that you had Histographic victory in COTM 02, a Domination victory in COTM 03 and are going for a Cultural 100K victory here. These are obviously very different victory strategies.

I would also like to hear from others who had determined their victory goal by the end of the MA as to when/how they decided. I would particularly like to hear from those who completed their game in the MA. Do you always go for a Domination/Conquest victory, or did you decide based on certain conditions?

James
 
It it 670 AD. Technically, I don't qualify for this forum. Pathetically, I have only just received the first 3 techs of MA. However, I no longer qualify to submit my results, as I had to replay between 460 AD and 590 AD, due to “Invalid save file” error on my save-game (and all auto-saves) (my own fault, I thought I had 1.1 Gb free of disc space... I had 1.1 Mb free...). In truth, I doubt I will ever finish the game. I have discovered something with this game. Micro-management of large number of units BORES THE HELL OUT OF ME!

(Note: The worst part is, in those replayed turns, I didn't do nearly as well. Because I was rushing through them, I screwed up on a lot of worker micro-management. My combat roles weren't as good, and I lost several elite units that I didn't the first time. Worst of all... I screwed up on a unit move the first time... which payed off very nicely as a lone JT held off attacks of 5-6 AI units... producing an extra Great Leader for me)

(Side note: How the hell hard can it be, so that if you select a unit in a stack, the next unit selected continues to be of the same stack? Having the computer constantly jump me around the world as I try to deal with units from a certain stack drives me nuts)

As much as I respect those who squeeze every gold & shield out of their cities, I find this to very tedious and not how I wish to spend my leisure time. It reminds me far to much of doing boring math homework. There are many (great) players who dislike the randomness areas of the game, be it settlers from huts, or Scientific leaders. I like the randomness. I love it when I get lucky and 'win' something early, and I love the challenge of great plans going amiss, and having to re-plan and re-work my strategies. There are certainly many players who will agree with me that an easy win is no fun at all. I think this is what bores me the most about this particular game. Despite going to war simultaneously with all four of the civs sharing my continent, not once did I ever feel a single city was even threatened.

I think it is safe to say that I pushed Enslaving pretty darn far. I have hundreds of slaves now.

My conclusion is that the Javelin Thrower is just not worth it, though perhaps for slightly different reasons then most people might first guess. In the last forum, I brought up several ideas about the use of JTs.

Lets deal with the technology race first. Obviously a 2/2/1 unit is not going to fare well vs pikemen and beyond, so logically, to be of much use, you would have to stay in Ancient times; going against the the proven strategy of getting tech as fast as possible. However, the Mayans are unique with the ability to Enslave, so one could theorize that they may also be unique in the desire to slow down the tech race. I think few have ever seriously considered what slowing down the tech race could do. Outside of the Mayans, why would you? Most players like to get a tech lead, and then sell the techs to other civs, having multiple beneficial effects, including that of allowing the player to continue researching at a high speed, and hurting the AI's economy, slowing down their research. Interestingly enough, while still in Ancient times, once the AI has discovered The Republic, constant war is also a very effective way of slowing their research. War weariness and constant troops grinds their economy to minimum. Is this an effective tactic? I'm not sure. I don't think it worked well with my game, but its within the realm of possibility that others may be able to use it to their advantage in other games.

The main drawback of the JT is speed. A movement of 2 allows you to take cities approximately 2/3 quicker. When you are just planning a one or two city raid skirmish, that doesn't matter much, but when you are planning a conquest of an entire civ, that means you can be capturing their last city 5, 10, 20 or even more turns earlier. This applies not just to JTs, but to archers, swordsmen, etc, and even catapults, etc. The need for speed becomes brutally apparent in this game, where we are playing on a large map, and many cities are 4-5+ squares aways. Yes, you'll loose more units without artillery support units (catapults, etc), but I think this is made up for by the extra turns of production from the captured city (especially when compared in ratio to the AI loss of not having those city.) As fun as catapulting AI units down to red, and safely taking them without a unit loss of your own, is, I think I'd much rather trade (lose) 2-6 fast units, and have the city that produced the enemy units instead.

The early tech race isn't about getting tech, its about getting Knights (and/or Cavalry). Knights are what really allow you to take a civ or two, which in turn help guarantee your success.


The Slaves. I think a lot of players fail to produce enough workers early on, and therefore undervalue slaves early on. However, my feeling is that slaves loose their value later on into the game. Once you have expanded your empire, and moved out of despotism, it is very easy to turn a few high corruption cities on the empires outskirts into effective worker farms, with little economic loss. Before the steam engined is invented, many players can often have plenty of workers with nothing left to do except stand around practicing their singing of “Working on the rail road all day long...”


I did learn several things from this game though. As typical for me, from my mistakes.

Mistake #1:
If you are going to use 1 movement troops for war campaigns, might as well bring along plenty of artillery units.
Even if you screw up a bit, artillery aren't in danger of being destroyed. A 'lost' stack can generally be captured back the next round. That means their production shields are never lost, for which I think there may be a significant advantage somewhere.

Movement of 2+ units are much better for war campaigns!

Mistake #2:
If you have Horses, you don't want/need iron. I made the mistake of producing more expensive spearmen/pikemen, etc, as military police for inner cities. I should have pillaged my iron, and produced cheap & fast (production) warriors which would have worked just as well. Generally, only front line cities need defensive units, and as you take new cities, you can generally supply those cities with defensive units from cities that are no longer 'front line'.

Obviously, you need both Iron & horses for your Knights. Perhaps in other games, I can set it up that several cities connect to the forbidden Palace, but not to the Capital. They could then be isolated from iron, and be used as military police factories? (This assumes you are probably going the war-mongering route and not going for Republic)

Mistake #3:
Slowing down the tech race after Knights may be OK, but not before.


What I should have done:
Expanded much more aggressively using settlers. Settlers are still the best way to expand your empire. Taking enemy cities early on is just too expensive.

Use warriors as much as possible for military police and Barbarian defense. Concentrate on workers/settlers until core territory is settled, with all used tiles having road & mine/irrigation

Ideally, begin the wars by bottling up both the Iroquois and the Spanish up into their peninsulas. If they were still low on tech, I may then have set up the few front line cities with 4+ JTs and 6+ catapults, and used the entire civ as a slave farm.
Raced for Knights as fast as possible, then used them to first finish off the Americans, and then the Aztecs. Finally, deal with the Iroquois & Spanish, the order depending on who was more irritating.
 
Mayan Military Activities, 800 BCE - 690 CE

I invaded the Americans for the second time in 10 CE, this time with the goal of wiping them out. Unfortunately, they founded St. Louis north of the Spanish the turn I decalred war, which prevented me from destroying them outright. I did, however, conquer all of America in 8 turns and banished the Americans to St. Louis. I promptly declared war on the Spanish, during which I acquired an MGL, which immediately formed a Knight Army. By 230 CE, the Spanish had been eliminated and I declared on the Americans and took St. Louis the next turn in 240 CE, eliminating America.

At this point, I settled down for a long peace, as I felt compelled to build my infrastructure rather than immediately take down the Iroquois. However, in 440 CE, bloodlust won over and I declared on the Iroquois. Despite my initial expectations, the Iroquois proved themselves quite weak, collapsing in seven turns to the Mayan Empire, resulting in the elimination of the Iroquois in 510 CE. There would be no more wars involving the Maya until the Industrial Ages, when the enraged Maya invaded an off-continent nation for reasons as yet undisclosed...

Mayan Research, 800 BCE - 690 CE

My research focused primarily on the upper tree; having deemed the Great Library useless, I had no qualms about getting to Education quickly. After Education, I researched everything in 4 turns, finally discovering Theory of Gravity in 690 CE to enter the Industrial Ages. Also, after entering the Middles Ages, I never once traded technologies with an AI (because they were always behind) until the Industrial Ages, when I gifted the Sumerians and Byzantines up to nab their free techs.

Great Mayan Achievements in the Middle Ages

The Sistine Chapel - Copan, 430 CE.
Copernicus' Observatory - Chichen Itza, 400 CE.
Sun Tzu's Art of War - CAPTURED from the Iroquois, Salamanca, 490 CE.
The Mausoleum of Mausollos - CAPTURED from the Iroquois, Salamanca, 490 CE.
Spanish Eliminated - 230 CE.
Americans Eliminated - 240 CE.
Iroquois Eliminated - 510 CE.
Left the Middle Ages - 690 CE.

Overseas Contacts

I met the Byzantines first c. 350 CE with a suicide Caravel. I quickly contacted the French, Germans, Mongols, Celts, Hittites and Sumerians thereafter. The Celts and Byzantines were the dominant powers while the Germans had not yet entered the Middle Ages. Before the Middle Ages came to a close, the Germans were sadly wiped out by the evil Celts (who would later fall to the Allied sword in World War One!), preventing me from acquiring an Industrial Age tech from them. C'est la vie.

And, the Minimap:
 

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One sentence re-cap/summary: I captured the ToA from the Americans and crammed as many cities as possible on the continent and have shut off research. Well, two sentences. Now I am rushing Libraries, Cathedrals, and Colosseums if I get that far, in that order.




The year is 880 AD. Culture stands at 29884. Cpt is at 776, and rising about 9-15 cpt/turn, though I am not sure how balanced the drop off between having to rush cathedrals instead of libraries and the rise from 1000 double will be. But obviously I am going to miss out on the best date, which I thought I might actually have a shot at. Oh, and the Iroquois and Aztecs are still around because I have no military and thought building culture would be more effiecient than building a military to gain cities and get free culture. I am not sure if I made the right decision.

Edit: Notice I am researching PP at 0, and haven't gotten Education because I don't want to obsolete the ToA. But I qualify anyway.
 
I don't remember for sure, but I think I have 70 cities with names and I am up to 83 since I stopped naming them.
 
Roland Ehnström said:
It's because the game was loaded from an initial save which was modified (by Ainwood) in the editor. Or something like that. Incidentally, my final result in this COTM would also have been on top of my personal hall of fame. :) Does anyone know if it's possible to hack the hall of fame somehow?

-- Roland
Click to expand...
Aeson posted this somewhere in the dim past....

Aeson said:
Open up the HighScores.cv3 file and add a line like this:

Brennus 25 2866 3 4 1



code:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name Civ(Color) Score Difficulty VictoryType Victory/Loss
Brennus 25 2866 3 4 1--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Color: 0-31, matches up to the way they are listed in the editor.
Difficulty: 0-5 Chieftain-Deity
VictoryType: Domination(0), Conquest(1), Cultural(2), Diplomatic(3), Spacerace(4), Retired(5), Histograph(6)
Victory: 1 Loss: 0
Click to expand...



The HighScores.cv3 file is simply a text file - open it in wordpad or notepad.
 
LuuCkyJaa said:
Being well into a comparatively late IA and still lacking direction, I have a question. When do you determine what you expect to be your winning strategy? I noticed that you had Histographic victory in COTM 02, a Domination victory in COTM 03 and are going for a Cultural 100K victory here. These are obviously very different victory strategies.
Click to expand...
Yes the victory strategies certainly are different. I think that it helps a lot to narrow down your goal before getting too far into the game.

In this game I decided to go for 100K before the game started. I'd pretty much decided on that goal before ainwood posted the first information about the game. Partly I chose it because I haven't won a culture 100K medal in the COTM series yet. Also, my latest thinking is that it might be interesting to play each pair of GOTM/COTM games for the same goal so that I get a better feel for some of the differences between Civ3/PTW and Conquests. I'd already played GOTM34 for 100K before starting COTM04.

The six victory conditions divided into four groups as I see them:

1) Culture 20K. For this one you want to choose very early in the game. You need a site for a fairly strong city and you need to commit that city (probably one of your first three) to the 20K goal from quite early in the game.

2) Conquest and Domination. For these you want to choose relatively early in the game, probably before the end of Ancient Times. The decision to go for one of these might result in your slowing down your research around the start of the Middle Ages. It might cause you to be aggressive a bit earlier. It might cause you to throw other Civs into warfare among themselves via phoney wars and alliances, which might be a bad thing to do for other goals. It might influence your choice of government. You can delay till somewhat later in the game to decide between Conquest and Domination. I think it best not to delay very long though - if you decide to go for Domination you'll want to occupy cities and extend your borders more aggressively and you'll be less concerned about planning ahead to wipe out every remnant of any rival. For domination you may choose a slightly less efficient path through your rivals to avoid ever needing to war with a particularly strong one.

3) Diplomatic and Space. You can delay choosing these goals a bit but not very long. As long as you think you might go for one of these victory conditions you should be doing everything possible to hurry research. Sooner or later that will involve making a compromise with something else and then it becomes decision time, time to commit to one of these goals or something else. Between these two I don't see much difference except speed of the game. Diplomatic is better if you have less time available to play the game in one month than another. Diplomatic is also better if you expect to have a problem with some resource, and can also be a very good victory condition to use when in trouble - if the other Civs are ahead and might win the game, a Diplomatic victory may still save the situation.

4) Histographic. You can get a better histographic score by choosing it as a goal early on because you'll focus on mostly a domination style game, with some adjustments to your thinking for high score. (E.g. high happiness and hold the best land.) But this victory condition can also work reasonably well if chosen later on. If you feel that you're way behind where you wanted to be in going for another goal, you can catch up some of the lost Jason score by switching goals, taking territory as quickly as possible and then milking it.

In terms of scoring potential it should not in theory matter which victory condition you go for. If a map makes a particular victory easier (e.g. the scientific trait will boost your speed to Diplomatic, Space, and 100K culture) then the Jason scoring system will take that into account. I.e. if some characteristic of the map makes a particular victory condition easier or harder, the Jason target date for that victory will be earlier or later to correspond. And that will adjust the resulting Jason score accordingly.

In practice I suspect that the Jason scoring (awesome as it is - it really is an impressive accomplishment!) is skewed a bit in some cases. If you are shooting for a medal then I think that:

a) On a map with a good start position, the system works very well. Any victory condition can get a top score. Domination, conquest, and histographic may have a slight edge, I'm not sure. Not an overwhelming one.

b) On a map with a poor start position (no bonuses, or a small island, etc.) the best chance at a medal is with domination, conquest, or histographic. The other victory conditions will come at dates where the Firaxis score lost due to the weak start position is maximized.

c) In the early part of the game if you haven't pre-decided your victory condition, consider how the resources you've seen, the geography, your neighbors, and your UU might affect the ease or difficulty of reaching each victory condition. These are all things which the Jason scoring does not factor in, so if you see an advantage in some of them go for it.

And finally you might of course want to either play with a Civ's traits, e.g. going for culture 100K when religious+scientific, or be deliberately contrarian and go against your Civ's traits. Either way can be fun and neither case should have a negative result in scoring - the Jason scoring should equalize both cases. If you are not confident of victory then going with the Civ's traits is advantageous.
 
Open

Ancient Age

I chose to go for a domination victory this time, mainly because after going for space in GOTM34, I did not feel I had the patience to manage a sprawling empire across a large map on one of the latter victory conditions so soon after. In the event, I achieved my fastest civ finish getting domination in 1120AD, and scoring my highest Jason score to date, 9345. However, I believe I made a number of mistakes along the way that cost the readily achievable pre-1000AD finish. And what were the mistakes? Well first some history.

We had started a war with the Aztecs in 490BC, and hit the MAs in 430BC. As we were tech leaders on our continent, it seemed obvious that we were going to have to do our own research to Navigation (probably) to find the other continent, so we next researched literature so we could build libraries.

The Aztecs got peace for most of their remaining cities in 290BC. However, I left the largely tundra foot of the starting continent available for the Aztecs to subsequently recover a little and expand into. Thus tying up my forces for longer, later when they could have been used on the other continent - mistake one .

We had 17 horses, and 15 javelin throwers at this time. The JTs formed no part of the attack, they were simply used on defense, or to chase barbs if any appeared, but actually we got very few slaves off of them. We then repositioned our forces, so that in 90BC we could declare on Spain. In 110AD, Spain got peace, leaving them with just two weak cities.

In 300AD, we were finally ready for the Iroquoi, and by this time we had knights, although they were starting to get pikes as well. In 310AD we finally got our first leader which seemed surprisingly barren given the number of elite victories to this poiint. In 410AD, the Iroquois were given peace for all his remaining cities, bar the capital of course.

In 400AD we had finally found the other continent, after losing about a dozen suicide galleys in the process. We found Byzantium first, and seeing that they had pikes defending, I made what was probably mistake two and overestimated the state of the other continent civs, reckoning that I would want cavalry to take on that continent, and also fearing the might of the Byzantines I signed an ROP with them so as to aid finding the other civs. SInce I did not want to destroy my rep without knowing the technological capability of the enemy, this meant that I left the Byzantines alone for the rest of the game, instead of amassing a large enough force of knights and smashing the easiest to reach foe.

So we decided to clean out our continent completely, while we studied the top line through to Navigation, and then the bottom line through to military tradition. In 490AD the Spainish were no more, but the Americans and Iroquoi survived in galleys until 700AD. 700AD also saw the start of our campaign on the other continent, and mistake three . Having given the ROP to the Byzantines, and wanting to preserve our rep for now, I had decided to attack the Mongols first, as they were still in the AA, and they were the next easiest located civ for reinforcements. But on the way through Byzantine, I ran into the French, about three turns earlier than the earliest I could start a campaign against the Mongols, and so decided to declare on them instead. This meant we did the difficult to reinforce top of the continent first (French and Germans), then wasted time repositioning at the bottom to attack the Mongols (some units taking as much as 9 turns to move from one front to the other!). If we had stuck to the Mongol attack I am sure the campaign would have been more efficient.

At this time we had 48 knights, but of course, we had to split them between the other continent, and finishing off the Aztecs back at home. The latter being a task accomplished by 790AD.

The real problem with our northern conquest strategy was highlighted in 820AD when after finishing the French, and the German mainland holdings, the Celts opportunistically declared war on us, and we had to adopt a scorched earth policy to retrench back to a line we could defend. It did have the bonus of giving us an excuse to tie up the Hittites, the Byzantines and the Summerians fighting the Celts, though...

We had also started the Mongol campaign by this time(830AD). We started on Sumeria in 960AD, totally destroyed the Mongols in 980AD.

In 1020AD, we finished Sumeria. In 1040AD, we declared on the Hittites, and again brought the Byzantines in to help protect our weak northern front. In 1100AD, we finished off both the Celts and the Hittites, and just needed border expansions to finish the game. In 1110AD we fell exactly 6 tiles short of winning, so victory in 1120AD.

Final military was 10 knights, and some 78 cavalry!
 
mph3 said:
First post ever

...

I have a question, do players find their Jason score is better whe they expand culture in captured lands (whether by settlers or by libraries and temples), in order to get a quicker domination win, or is the conquest score so much better that its worth the extra years it takes to get there?
Click to expand...
Welcome to GOTM mph3! You've made a nice entrance :)

I wish I could answer your question. I think that's the trickiest area to gauge in the Jason scoring. I don't have a good feel for it. The difference between the Jason score target dates for conquest vs. domination vary from map to map.

There are a couple of rules of thumb I think will work most or all of the time:

1) If you can get a conquest win within five turns of when you can get domination, go for conquest.

2) If you can get a domination win 25 or more turns before you can get conquest, go for domination.

The in-between zone is where it becomes difficult to judge. I think the best bet there is to go with whichever one you feel you're doing best on. E.g. if you get near the end, both goals are in reach, and you see in hindsight that a much faster approach to domination was possible, then finish with a conquest. And v.v. if you see in hindsight that a much faster approach to conquest was possible, go for domination. If both, maybe flipping a coin is best :lol:
 
Cryspen said:
(Side note: How the hell hard can it be, so that if you select a unit in a stack, the next unit selected continues to be of the same stack? Having the computer constantly jump me around the world as I try to deal with units from a certain stack drives me nuts)
Click to expand...

Tell me about it... :gripe: This is extremely annoying, and simply a case of very very lazy programming! When I saw it in vanilla Civ some three years ago or something, I thought "ouch, this is one bug they will have to squash in the very first patch!", and here we are, after numerous patches and versions, and the same stupid thing is still happening! :mad: Actually, I think one of the early patches was supposed to help with this problem, but I don't think it made it much better, possibly it made it worse. The ability to move units in stack (thank god for that - moving 70 Artillery units one by one was *slightly* tedious...) helps too, but it's still incredibly annoying! :thumbdown

Anyway, to be a little constructive, here's what I do all the time, to keep from getting dizzy and disorientated from getting thrown from one side of the world to another all the time: Right-click on the stack of units, then hold down SHIFT and click on each of the units in the stack. Then you will get to manage each unit in the stack in the order you clicked on them. Now, of course, another case of annoying programming pops up: When you SHIFT-click on a unit, the order of the units in the stack is sometimes shuffled, so after a while, if the stack is big enough, you don't know what units you've already clicked on. The end result is usually that there are some units left behind with movement-points left. And if the stack is big enough for you to have to scroll through the list while SHIFT-clicking, it gets even worse, 'cause then often you will have to scroll up and down after clicking on each individual unit! :rolleyes:

Here's hoping that whoever is in charge of programming Civ4, hires some TALENTED programmers this time...

-- Roland
 
@cryspen: [slightly off-topic]

I completely agree with you on the boringness of micromanaging. I respect the people that squeeze out more points by spending more hours, and they absolutely deserve their scores, but for me the interesting part of the game are the macro decisions like when to attack, whom to attack, what to build, how much and what to research etc. etc..

That said, in the beginning micromanagement is an absolute must. The QSC difference between a micromanaged game and a 'macromanaged' game is just too big to ignore, especially given the 'exponential growth' aspect of games like civ. Moreover, in the beginning it is more manageable since there are simply less towns, less workers, etc..

In all of my games, I switch to a sort of macromanage mode shortly after the QSC period, giving the governor control over production and citizen moods and automating all workers (except for strategic road building). This is less efficient but this also makes winning at non-Sid levels [slightly] more challenging. I also wonder really how much difference it makes in the end, where workers are more or less free anyway and the governor building decisions are not too insensible. The one thing you miss out on is specialists (which is a shame since the governor could have easily turned unnecessary entertainers into scientists / tax collectors depending on tax levels)) but for the rest the governor is faily decent. You can also see this in that the AI is not too bad at settling and developing a country, but completely sucks at the military aspects of the games, be it defending or [counter]attacking. For that, you need multiplayer :)

When it comes to warfare, I agree with you that some more macro-manage options would have been nice. Some sort of 'activate all not-damaged units' would have been useful, and a stack 'move-and-attack' that only moves the units into enemy territory one by one (avoiding the loss of movement points). But then again, warfare is quite interesting and the stack movement certainly helps a lot.

What would have been great is some sort of custom action buttons with an underlying automation script (like MS VBA), although that might take away too much of the romance. Then again, top-level civ playing is very "scientific" due to our thorough understanding of the resource and corruption models and build queue optimization strategies (for which many thanks to a lot of people on this site). Maybe CIV4 will see MOO3 as a source of inspiration for macromanage features, even though I think civ3 is infinitely more playable than MOO3.

As a slightly more on-topic note, SirPleb referred to one of his Spotlight games for a discussion on slowing the tech race in the first spoiler. Although I doubt that would be very useful here since the JT is hardly a fantastic UU compared to the Gaellic Swordsmen, it is an interesting game to look at

@Sir Pleb: I'm glad to see that our dates at least sort of compare, although you of course went for 100k rather than military. And many thanks for your shared thoughts on victory conditions, I tend to try and finish a game that is obviously won as quickly as possible, which usually means military, but I'm inspired to go for a cultural victory next month :)
 
@ Roland Ehnström

I think you are being way too harsh on the Civ3 programming team here. At the very least, the decision how much time to spend on what fixes is probably not made by them, and by hanging around here you implicitely agree that the end product is at least playable.

Making changes in a complex program can be extremely difficult depending on the nature of the change and the program, and might cause other things to stop functioning. At design time, they thought of things to avoid micromanagement (like the governor and automating workers - both of which work well if you are prepared to sacrifice some efficiency), but they obviously couldn't think of everything. Changes after the product has been finished are generally non-trivial and frankly we don't have enough information about the source code to know whether something is left as it is out of laziness, resource shortage or prudency.

Blame the company, blame Sid if you have to, but don't blame the programming team.
 
@SirPleb

And if you forgot to steal the island city before it became a capital, go for domination :)
 
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