I have only played once online with Civilization III (Conquests). I happened to win that game by doing every single thing wrong that you'd want to do. The game was a couple months ago so I may forget a few details. Here's the set up:
- Tiny Map
- Pangea
- Four human players
- Elimination Mode
- Accelerated Production
- Simultaneous Moves
- 2 Hour Time Limit
- I forgot who were what civs
Now here's the problem I had going into this game. At the time I could not even beat Regent. I had never played Civ3 online before. I had never played an elimination game before and didn't know what to do. I had never played a Simultaneous move game before and didn't know what to do. There was a time limit on each turn which rushed me into poor judgements. And the other three players actually knew what they were doing. Not good for me.
I started in the southwest part of the map on a fat penninsula. Another player started right smack in the middle of the continent. Another player started on the east side of the continent. And the threatening best player started in the north.
From the very start I did everything wrong. I acted like it was a normal game for me on Cheiftan. I spread out my cities. I only put one more defender in each than I usually did. I lightly explored. I built a ship to wander the small amount of ocean. I concentrated on technology, buildings, and wonders. You couldn't play an Elimination game much worse.
It wasn't long before I came across the civilization in the middle of the map. I kept a couple spearmen and an archer near their land in case they wanted to send an attack force my way. We were at peace and traded goods now and then. My one Galley was exploring the coast and found the eastern player. I did not make much chatter with them though. I did not know where the warmongering player was yet.
I started the game with the most score. My score soon shot up to a substantial lead considering I was building wonders and improvements instead of military to defend or attack. The other players seemed to chat amongst themselves every so often. They said things that didn't make sense to me, as I didn't know how to play. I think they quickly realized this. Nevertheless, no one challenged my borders for the first hour. All was quiet and I was the most technologically advanced with the most score. I thought I was doing good. Hah...
"So and So's civilization was destroyed". Uh oh... The eastern people got wiped out by the northern guy. He was playing the game as he should, a stack of a billion swordsmen. But I went about my usual business, only building a few more spearmen to defend with. I also kept up with my improvement and wonders. I built The Statue of Zeus to get free guys, although I wanted it just because it was a wonder.
Almost an hour and a half into the game, my advanced spearmen see a horrible sight, 20+ swordsmen heading my way. They had completely bypassed the middle guy and were coming right at my poorly defended cities. At one point the middle guy even started pointing out to the northern guy where my weakest cities were! I was being ganged up on. And of course because he needed to make sure to take out the only player with more score than him.
I had advanced warning, I ramped up my defenses immediately. I sent a couple spearmen and leftover archers at the stack of death to slow them down and even pick off one here or there. My ancient cavalry helped a lot at this. I soon had my own stacks of spearmen at my disposal, but it paid a terrible price. I was losing so much gold per turn now in my Republic government (I never even switched to another after this) that I started selling off every building all the time to hedge my losses! I was in disarray. And the stack of death was almost at one of my cities...
About 2 spaces away the stack turned away from a city and headed west towards my even less defended ones. Lousy middle guy giving away my positions. I moved my own stacks of 10-15 spearmen all over the place trying to figure out which city the stack of death would attack. They kept heading west and my spearmen had a hard time keeping up since I spread out my cities so much. Worst part of all, my score lead was now starting to diminish rapidly as the northern guy had more cities by now since I was losing everything to maintain my spearmen.
Time was on my side. The two hour limit was approaching and if I could hold the stack of death and my slim score lead for just a short while longer I could pull off a win. The middle guy was now taken out of the game. I guess he was useless to the northern guy now. My ancient cavalry fought valiently trying to pick off the swordsmen. The northern guy was accusing me of wasting time though. I was using up the entire alotted turn time limit now when he needed very little. While wasting the time would be an effective way to win, I wasn't even doing that. With my lag and moving everyone around and the fact that I had to sell stuff everywhere every turn, I used up the entire time just about.
To sum it up, I won, with a very slight score lead. The stack of death had finally attacekd a city of mine, but I had managed to get my pile of spearmen in there in time to hold the city and win the battle. My first and only online game, a bad one, but a victory! I'm undefeated!
- Tiny Map
- Pangea
- Four human players
- Elimination Mode
- Accelerated Production
- Simultaneous Moves
- 2 Hour Time Limit
- I forgot who were what civs
Now here's the problem I had going into this game. At the time I could not even beat Regent. I had never played Civ3 online before. I had never played an elimination game before and didn't know what to do. I had never played a Simultaneous move game before and didn't know what to do. There was a time limit on each turn which rushed me into poor judgements. And the other three players actually knew what they were doing. Not good for me.
I started in the southwest part of the map on a fat penninsula. Another player started right smack in the middle of the continent. Another player started on the east side of the continent. And the threatening best player started in the north.
From the very start I did everything wrong. I acted like it was a normal game for me on Cheiftan. I spread out my cities. I only put one more defender in each than I usually did. I lightly explored. I built a ship to wander the small amount of ocean. I concentrated on technology, buildings, and wonders. You couldn't play an Elimination game much worse.
It wasn't long before I came across the civilization in the middle of the map. I kept a couple spearmen and an archer near their land in case they wanted to send an attack force my way. We were at peace and traded goods now and then. My one Galley was exploring the coast and found the eastern player. I did not make much chatter with them though. I did not know where the warmongering player was yet.
I started the game with the most score. My score soon shot up to a substantial lead considering I was building wonders and improvements instead of military to defend or attack. The other players seemed to chat amongst themselves every so often. They said things that didn't make sense to me, as I didn't know how to play. I think they quickly realized this. Nevertheless, no one challenged my borders for the first hour. All was quiet and I was the most technologically advanced with the most score. I thought I was doing good. Hah...
"So and So's civilization was destroyed". Uh oh... The eastern people got wiped out by the northern guy. He was playing the game as he should, a stack of a billion swordsmen. But I went about my usual business, only building a few more spearmen to defend with. I also kept up with my improvement and wonders. I built The Statue of Zeus to get free guys, although I wanted it just because it was a wonder.
Almost an hour and a half into the game, my advanced spearmen see a horrible sight, 20+ swordsmen heading my way. They had completely bypassed the middle guy and were coming right at my poorly defended cities. At one point the middle guy even started pointing out to the northern guy where my weakest cities were! I was being ganged up on. And of course because he needed to make sure to take out the only player with more score than him.
I had advanced warning, I ramped up my defenses immediately. I sent a couple spearmen and leftover archers at the stack of death to slow them down and even pick off one here or there. My ancient cavalry helped a lot at this. I soon had my own stacks of spearmen at my disposal, but it paid a terrible price. I was losing so much gold per turn now in my Republic government (I never even switched to another after this) that I started selling off every building all the time to hedge my losses! I was in disarray. And the stack of death was almost at one of my cities...
About 2 spaces away the stack turned away from a city and headed west towards my even less defended ones. Lousy middle guy giving away my positions. I moved my own stacks of 10-15 spearmen all over the place trying to figure out which city the stack of death would attack. They kept heading west and my spearmen had a hard time keeping up since I spread out my cities so much. Worst part of all, my score lead was now starting to diminish rapidly as the northern guy had more cities by now since I was losing everything to maintain my spearmen.
Time was on my side. The two hour limit was approaching and if I could hold the stack of death and my slim score lead for just a short while longer I could pull off a win. The middle guy was now taken out of the game. I guess he was useless to the northern guy now. My ancient cavalry fought valiently trying to pick off the swordsmen. The northern guy was accusing me of wasting time though. I was using up the entire alotted turn time limit now when he needed very little. While wasting the time would be an effective way to win, I wasn't even doing that. With my lag and moving everyone around and the fact that I had to sell stuff everywhere every turn, I used up the entire time just about.
To sum it up, I won, with a very slight score lead. The stack of death had finally attacekd a city of mine, but I had managed to get my pile of spearmen in there in time to hold the city and win the battle. My first and only online game, a bad one, but a victory! I'm undefeated!
