A brief story and a challenge

[Beamup]

I'm a comfortable Monarch player, can sometimes win at Emperor, and am working on moving up. As a practice aid, I designed a map so as to make one AI very strongly dominant - the idea was that it would boost up the difficulty and therefore playing Monarch on that map would be good practice for Emperor+.

Well, I found that I had done my job too well. I got utterly trounced on Regent playing this map and couldn't win even at WARLORD (though I came close...). So the map ended up being useless for its intended purpose. What it did succeed at doing is creating a very interesting (and difficult) variant of play that was significantly different from anything I've ever played or read about here.

This got me thinking - how would a player, substantially better than me, do playing this map at a high difficulty level? I expect it would be very interesting to see.

So, I decided to post this little story and offer a proposal (a small 'challenge,' as it were). Would anyone here be interested in taking this map, playing a game on it, and documenting the progress of the game? If so, post here. I'll provide the map, and the experiment will commence.

If not, I'll just save it for my own use when I want to almost get conquered by a Warlord AI.

 

[Bacon King]

Have you tried playing on Chieftain?

 

[punkbass2000]

I'll play it, though I must admit I probably won't play past the Industrial AGe, regardless. I usually drop out when I'm sure of victory/defeat.

 

[Beamup]

@Bacon King:
No, didn't bother. Judging from how Warlord went, I'd probably win there.

@Punkbass:
Wow, a taker already? Great! I'm at work ATM (lunch break), so I'll post the map when I get home. I'll be interested to hear how things go.

 

[viper275]

I might try, but I'm only a comfortable Emperor player (it sounds hard, maybe Regent or Monarch, is that high enough?)

 

[tR1cKy]

Hope it's not a conquest map, i don't own it. If it's vanilla or ptw, i'll take the challenge.

 

[Beamup]

Anybody who wants to try it is perfectly welcome, at whatever difficulty you see fit. I'm just most interested in how it ends up playing at high levels.

Anyway, here it is (zipped). A few facts:

- Made with the vanilla 1.21 editor, but has default rules so should be playable, I believe, with PTW or C3C too.
- Huge map, Roming Barbarians
- Originally continents/all average settings, but a large swath of the map was summarily erased and rebuilt from scratch, so those settings aren't terribly relevant anymore.
- Resource distributions and frequencies manually adjusted.
- Designed for 8 civs. Can probably be played with more, but resource frequencies in particular are meant for 8.
- If you get a start that makes your eyes pop out, that's where the dominant AI is supposed to start out. It'd be best to restart. (I won't provide more details than that right now, but it will, I expect, be BLATANTLY obvious.)

Hope it works out as interestingly for everyone else as it did for me.

 

[GibberingTwelve]

Unfortunatly, whenever I play this map I always end up starting in the eye-popping starting location. Is there any way to change that using the editor? (I haven't used the editor all that often).

Also, have you considered using this map in the other direction, Beamup? Set the difficulty to deity and start yourself in the primo starting location.

 

[GibberingTwelve]

Something else I just noticed is that I'm not starting in the exact spot that is indicated in the editor. I actually start 2 tiles away from the start location. Seems odd............

 

[DragonRunner]

Where exactly would I save this? To a Civ 3 Save file or what? I am fairly comfortable on monarch, but I haven't played in a few weeks.

 

[viper275]

@DragonRunner: It goes in Civilization III/Scenarios.
@GibberingTwelve: A) Right click a start besides the good one, go to properties then choose change in the order section. Choose Player 1, save, then play and you'll get that start. Otherwise just keep trying B) Don't know.

DLed.... playing soon, probably on Monarch (is this high enough for interest?)
Edit: I think I'll play this on C3C with C3C rules... hope no one minds.

 

[predesad]

i have some time off work coming up and i think i'll give this a try, i'll try Monarch difficulty and convert to C3C, although that means it wil be absent volcanoes, marsh, tobacco, and oasis, seems like there is something else too, but i can't remember righ tnow.

 

[Beamup]

Unfortunatly, whenever I play this map I always end up starting in the eye-popping starting location. Is there any way to change that using the editor? (I haven't used the editor all that often).

Well, the editor can specify which civ starts where. You could try that.

Also, have you considered using this map in the other direction, Beamup? Set the difficulty to deity and start yourself in the primo starting location.

No. It would defeat the entire point - circumstances would be sufficently abnormal that it wouldn't be good practice for anything.

 

[DragonRunner]

Thanks, Viper.

 

[punkbass2000]

Finally grabbed a moment to dive into this. I too am playing it with C3C rules. I chose the Iroquois at Emperor. I received a nice start, but I don't think it's the nice spot (didn't look at the map much, but I assume it's that large square in the center?) Played up to 2390BC so far, founded two cities and just finished a Granary in Salamanca and a Vet Archer in Grand River. Niagara is mostly doing Workers ATM. Have been playing quickly so things have not been fully optimized, but I have been MMing the Wheat for the most part. Contact with English and Japanese; traded 7gpt and 121 gold for WC from Japan on inital meeting. Researching Writing at 50-turn pace. Here's a screen and save:

 

[dgfred]

@ punk- Did you found Niagra to the north of your capital due to the incense
and Grand River to the east for a 'coastal' city? I would have thought you
would expand west and south toward the nice grasslands . Just curious on your hows and whys, could you elaborate your strategy for us
lurkers?- I know you are an excellent player from studying your
prior post and pbems, etc.

 

[punkbass2000]

@ punk- Did you found Niagra to the north of your capital due to the incense
and Grand River to the east for a 'coastal' city?

No, well, at least, not directly because. Right off the bat Salamanca produces 5fpt, so it grows in four turns. This is how long it takes for the Worker to move and road the incense, which is what I did first, allowing me to keep lux at 0 until pop 3. It was busy creating a Settler pronto, and the Worker immediately moved to chop the forest S of Salamanca. Niagara Falls was the best city spot I could see at the time (my borders hadn't even expanded yet) and my Settler could get there in one turn. It was also able to share the Wheat, which is of utmost importance. Grand River is not a coastal city, BTW.

I would have thought you
would expand west and south toward the nice grasslands .

FPs are better than Grassland, they produce enough food to be irrigated in Despotism. Grassland is fine, but non-BGs are not really even as good as Plains ATM, because Mining takes longer than Irrigating. I will expand W next, I want to creat my first ring first, and I am now working on a road that goes in that direction. I should post the save of 4000BC for those interested, I suppose

Just curious on your hows and whys, could you elaborate your strategy for us

FYI, Grand River was placed to be on a river and consume a (relatively) "useless" Plains and to concentrate on being high shield. It only gets into the 'Wheat Rotation' when neither of the other cities could make use of it. I could endlessly elaborate on my strategy, but if people wanted to post specific questions about things they don't quite follow (like you have) that would be much easier.

Other general comments/observations I've come up with since my first post:
-Pretty sure the Maya are the KAI. I'm pleased by that, they should be a real challenge.
-I should mention there were two huts that got popped by Salamanca's border expansion. One gave me CB, the other was probably 25 gold.
-I didn't read BeamUp's post in full, and played with all 16 civs. This could make things interesting, however; I'm presuming the Maya (if they are the KAI) will have no problems with resources, which would be my primary concern.
-Not sure why, but there are apparently four Mongol civs and two Celts.
-I'm hoping this game won't need to be scrapped as a result of the previous two points.

Here's my save after founding Salamanca:

 

[dgfred]

Thanks punk for the quick reply . Are you going for a tight 1st ring? Why
not put GR on the coast, was that to share tiles? I never do that stuff (mm)
so I can't really comment there. 2 Celts and 2 Mongol civs , that should be freaky!

 

[punkbass2000]

Thanks punk for the quick reply . Are you going for a tight 1st ring? Why not put GR on the coast, was that to share tiles? I never do that stuff (mm)
so I can't really comment there. 2 Celts and 2 Mongol civs , that should be freaky!

I wanted Grand River close and productive, any further would have neutered it corruption-wise once the first ring had been founded, as it would have been 4 tiles away. There will be room for another city that is on the river and on the coast this way, on the FP. On a Huge Pangaea, getting a Curragh out is still important, but not top priority. I will get several contacts anyway and I have such food-righ terrain to work with that getting up cities to take advantage of that and build Granaries is paramount. The aforementioned city location will probably be used in 3 or 4 Settlers from now.

 

[punkbass2000]

Played a bit more, not much to comment on. Discovered Writing and was only able to trade it to England, but I picked up a few techs anyway. Screen and Save: