All about war?

[TheOneHawk]

So I've read a bit about this game now, and I've played a few games (though I just had one freeze after ten hours and no saves. FML) and a few things are worrying me that I've read/seen. I'm a long time Civ Rev player on the xbox, and I really like that game, and I came to Civ 3 looking for a cheap (five bucks yeah) more complex version of the same idea. At first glance, that's exactly what it is, but now I'm not so sure.

From what I've read, this game is won pretty much 100% of the time by just straight up murdering everyone, everywhere. Diplomacy is only used to improve your odds of killing one civ, so you can turn on your once-partner safely and kill them. Culture I've seen dismissed as completely useless and the best style of city placement seems to be how my friend would play to piss everyone off in Rev. Place a city every 2 squares, if it sucks, just have it produce a few gold per turn and ignore it all game.

Personally, I like a game where war has a place, but a peaceful civilization can do well also. I want there to be more than 'I have better units than you, I win'

Am I playing the wrong game?

 

[vmxa]

Yes and No. It is quite possible to play peacefully. That is not so easy and is often not going to be the best stategy. Culture can pretty much be ignored, but you certainly can win that way.

In the end, it is really a kill game for most. BTW you should have an autosave, unless you disabled it.

Peaceful play in Civ is a matter of degrees as wars are going to happen, but you can avoid them usually. At a minimum the AI will fight one another at times. Peaceful tends to mean I did not start wars and ended them as soon as I could. Not that no wars ocurred in the game.

 

[TheOneHawk]

I don't have a problem with war at all. Wars are fine, but I don't want them to be the only way to win. I know they're going to happen, and I'll start them from time to time if I feel it's advantageous, but protracted wars aren't my style. I love the trade routes, and the diplomacy, but I feel like they're just means to a single end. If I wanted all war all the time I'd play AoE, y'know?

Is there a game in the civ series that's more balanced in victory methods? I really like Civ, it's a ton of fun, but I'm wondering if there's a particular one that would probably fit me better. Probably not the best place to ask, in the Civ 3 forum, but I'm here.

Also, thanks for the tip on the autosave, I'll take a look.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Spaceship? That's the usual win I went for. Sometimes there were a lot of wars, sometimes hardly any.

 

[MysteryX]

It's not too difficult to win without engaging in a lot of aggression. Perhaps that depends somewhat on the difficultly level, but I have found building and trading to victory just as easy as fighting for it. The culture, spaceship, and diplomatic victories are all very attainable.

You do have to defend yourself from the AI attacking you, though at least in Conquests, you can turn down the AI aggression level so they aren't declaring wars too often.

 

[Raliuven]

I don't think you can have a game without war somewhere in the world. Monty will always demand 15gp from Bismark who won't back down even though he has 9,578gp in his treasury and Monty is too stupid to realize that all he has are Jaguar Warriors and Germany already has panzers and that'll be an end to peace.

But just because there are wars all around doesn't mean you need to be involved. It is possible to play games that are fairly peaceful. Make a map with lots of land and a lower number of civs and that will relieve some of the early contacts and prevent AIs from being boxed in. It is the boxed in AI that will start a fight first. And since the human usually REXs better than the AI and under develops early military to do so, and then strategically places a city at that choke point or crowds the AI cities for that resource/luxury, the AI often picks a fight with the human.

You can also appease the AI and give in to demands and give them gifts and good deals. Protracted wars are usually because the human won't give a single dime for tribute but will break the bank for war. The AI will usually come around to the peace table within 5-7 turns of the commencement of hostilities. The only time (IMO) they are unreasonable is if they want you give up a city. Everything else is negotiable. Either that or kill a handful of their units and they'll come around quick. You don't need to have superior units to win (thought that certain helps). All you need are better fighting tactics, which is rather easy.

I personally don't play for cultural victories or histograph because they take so long. But diplomatic and spaceship are also (potentially) peaceful solutions.

 

[CommandoBob]

Culture I've seen dismissed as completely useless and the best style of city placement seems to be how my friend would play to piss everyone off in Rev. Place a city every 2 squares, if it sucks, just have it produce a few gold per turn and ignore it all game.

Personally, I like a game where war has a place, but a peaceful civilization can do well also. I want there to be more than 'I have better units than you, I win'

Am I playing the wrong game?

No, I don't think so. You can win with culture and many people do. It is just more fun for those of that post here to use military methods to win or to make winning a bit easier.

The city placement issue that you mention is a specific strategy used to increase science or revenue. It works better on larger maps and it occurs later in the game, after you have expanded some. Building your core cities 2 tiles apart is a very good way to lose the game.

And, by the way,



Welcome to the Forum!

 

[Lord Emsworth]

It is not all about war, but the thing is that the most threatening and most common way to be defeated is to lose a war, and so a lot of the strategies revolve around preventing that.

 

[bigFRANK]

I tend to play huge maps and max civs so yes I end up fighting (sometimes a lot). But its not my usual winning conditions as controlling 2/3rds of the globe is far harder than building a spaceship. As for diplomatic wins, I’ve only managed that once and tend to shy away from holding elections in most games as I see it as an easy way to grant victory to the AI as you have no way of knowing which AI’s like/dislike each other unless they are trading or at war with each other.

 

[MysteryX]

I feel that a Diplomatic victory is almost too easy. If you understand the factors behind how the AI develops it's attitudes for you, it's easy to manipulate them and guess how they will go when the time comes to vote.

If you get AIs fighting with each other- and they do some real damage to each other- their fury for each other will last the whole game and they'll never vote for each other. On the other hand, if an AI attacks you when you really would have preferred peace and their vote at the end, if you just go purely defensive, don't counter-attack, and get peace as soon as possible, you can repair the relationship back to where they will vote for you.

I don't disable Diplomatic victories (which requires me to build the U.N. before anyone else, if the game lasts that long, to deny any other opponent the ability to make that one surprise vote). But I don't take the vote even if I think I will win because it just seems too cheap. The only time I will take it is if some sort of dynamic in the game makes it such a grind to continue to try to win, I just want the game over.

 

[vorlon_mi]

But its not my usual winning conditions as controlling 2/3rds of the globe is far harder than building a spaceship.

That's what I have found as well. I'm more of a builder at heart, and I will execute military campaigns to achieve certain goals, like gain access to resources. Sometimes an AI drops a settler-spearman pair into some empty space before I can fill in all my gaps, and I need to clear it out. Of course, if I'm attacked, I will defend myself.

Since I usually play continents maps, I can easily control 45-55% of the land ... whatever my continent totals up to. But to win by domination or conquest means a serious invasion of the other continent, and that is less fun to me. Running thru the tech tree, upgrading my units, and watching the AIs run around is more fun.

 

[Quintillus]

A peaceful civilization can win. You can even win with both technologically and numerically inferior troops, although you have to be decent at tactics to do so. But, generally it's possible to keep up with the AI in techs at Monarch difficulty (or lower), without ever going to war, and if you can do that, you can win by spaceship, culture, or diplomacy a decent amount of the time. Or histographic, if you colonized a lot of land or have really happy citizens.

I actually find that I rarely go for a conquest or domination victory, just because it takes a long time.

Some people do consider a really tight city placement to be ideal ("infinite city sprawl" as it's often known). But, it certainly isn't necessary. I've won many times on Monarch where most cities had 15-21 tiles to work, and have also won on Emperor where all cities have at least 9 tiles to work (and most have several more than that). In some situations, infinite city sprawl helps, but it absolutely isn't necessary.

Culture isn't super-wonderful unless you are going for a cultural victory, but can be useful in the border areas. If you have much better culture than your neighbor, some of their border cities are likely to flip, giving you some nice, peaceful expansion.

Civ4 (with the Beyond the Sword expansion) expands the Spaceship victory a little bit by giving you the option of having a faster one with more parts or a slower one with fewer parts, and I think optionally has a Religious Victory, but is basically the same in victory conditions and how culture works. It disallows infinite city sprawl, but you can ignore that in Civ3 (if playing single player), too. I think I've read that Civ2 has a similar spaceship situation to Civ4 as well, but I haven't played it myself. Civ2 also doesn't have culture as a concept, from what I've read.

 

[TheOneHawk]

How does Civ 3 multiplayer go? I haven't tried yet because I'm still learning, and I'd get smashed ridiculous bad, but does anyone here play it? Is it fun?

 

[bigFRANK]

If you get AIs fighting with each other- and they do some real damage to each other- their fury for each other will last the whole game and they'll never vote for each other. On the other hand, if an AI attacks you when you really would have preferred peace and their vote at the end, if you just go purely defensive, don't counter-attack, and get peace as soon as possible, you can repair the relationship back to where they will vote for you.

See there lies my problem, someone attacks me I try and rip them a new ***hole.

 

[Lanzelot]

How does Civ 3 multiplayer go? I haven't tried yet because I'm still learning, and I'd get smashed ridiculous bad, but does anyone here play it? Is it fun?

Check out the PBEM (Play By Email) forum. That community is still pretty active.
The "realtime multiplayer" (people join the same game over internet) is pretty much dead these days, because a game usually lasts longer than one session, and you never get the same group of people together for a 2nd, 3rd, ... session.
(I'd love to, though. But alas, time is lacking... )


As to whether it is possible to play this game peacefully: from 2002 to 2007 I played all games peacefully (except for the scenarios that were designed for warfare, e.g. Rise of Rome, Napoleon, WW II Pacific...), only leading war when attacked and trying to win by 20K culture, 100K culture, UN or Spaceship. And I had lots of fun with these games!
(Then in 2007 I found this forum... )

But even on this forum, you can play peaceful games and find advice about it. For example, a well-played 20K victory is probably the most difficult and challenging victory condition, and many of the masters have written about the necessary strategies for achieving 20K. The basics are explained in the War Academy Article 20k Culture Win Strategy on Regent (Though the material is kind of old. These days using the latest refinements, players manage to achieve 20K on Regent with an "average" start location in the 1600s. With an "excellent" start position, even victories in the 1100s have been seen...) More food for thought can then be found in Guide to Single-City 20k Cultural Victory
For the finer points and latest developments, you should read Spoonwood's writeup, he has explored that VC extensively over the years.

Similarly there are well-written articles about 100K, UN and Spaceship strategies, and also excellent writeups of Succession Games featuring these VCs: just search a bit here: An Archive of Training Day Games and An archive of the legendary games

If you in the GOTM competition, you can also try your hands on peaceful VC: each month there's an award issued for the best played 20K, 100K, UN and Spaceship victory (though the highest scoring games/overall victory usually does not come from these VCs... )

 

[Raliuven]

I'll stick up for diplomatic vicotories - at least a little and hope that Darksi isn't reading this.

I don't see how diplomatic victories are any more 'cheap' then any other victory condition and a well played game can be just as complex and even more complex than any other. The missing part of the discussion is if you are trying to go for a high score, a quick finish date, etc.

For example, a diplomatic victory aiming for a quick finish date has all of the same problems as a spaceship victory with the additional problem that the AI will actually care what you've been doing when you hold the UN vote. It doesn't matter what the AI thinks when you launch your ship.

Although the vote can be rigged to an extent, you still need to play in a certain way to maintain a viable voting pool. Raze too many cities and even an AI that has never had a military dispute with you may not want to vote for you.

In addition, everyone can build spaceship parts. Only one person can build/control the UN. So you either need to time the build or plan to capture it.

The only cheap part about the UN victory is how easy it is to bribe the AI (as long as you've otherwise been careful). On the other hand, what's so hard about building a bunch of spaceship parts or running rampant over the AI because it doesn't matter what they think when they are all dead?

I will often default to a UN vote on a XOTM if I don't have the time or desire to go for a spaceship launch. This is much like decided to go for domination because you don't want to bother with conquest - or some joker has a 1-tile island nation.

 

[TheOneHawk]

You can get the same players together for a second session? How? I have some friends I can play multiplayer with, and we'd definitely be able to get together and play again. What do you do?

 

[Lanzelot]

You can get the same players together for a second session? How? I have some friends I can play multiplayer with, and we'd definitely be able to get together and play again. What do you do?

Well, the guy running the server just saves the game at the end of a session, and then loads it up from the MP screen again at the beginning of the next session...

 

[TheOneHawk]

That's awesome!

What does Tournament do?

 

[Lanzelot]

No idea...