An exciting seesaw struggle (longish)

[Grotius]

My current game is on a Small random map, as Japan, sedentary barbs, no save/reloads. It's the most exciting game of Civ3 I've played yet.

I started with BillChin's "dense build," so I had a nucleus of productive, densely-packed, corruption-free cities. (Now they overlap and give me headaches, but never mind.) India and I sandwiched China, and we gobbled it up. Meanwhile the Babs proceeded to dominate a huge continent of their own, devouring the Zulus, and the Persians did the same on a smaller continent.

That left four of us: India with a huge tech lead, gracious toward all of us, driving toward a spaceship victory; Persia in second place on tech and spaceship development; the Babs with the largest territory and culture and highest score but poorest tech; and me, apparently in last place on all counts.

India built the UN and seemed destined to win. India had an MPP with Bab, so I didn't dare attack. Before the first UN vote, I made an MPP with Persia; I'm not sure why, since I wasn't likely to be a candidate. When it came time to choose between India, Bab, and abstention, I almost voted for India, thinking it best to retire while I had a decent score. Had I done so, India would've won, since Persia voted for India. As it was, my abstention left it 2 India, 1 Bab, 1 abstain; inconclusive. As it turns out, my choice to abstain may lead to the unlikeliest of victories.

A turn later, India rashly declared war on Persia, and with my MPP I suddenly found myself at war with the tech leader. But tech leader doesn't mean military leader. All my tanks and bombers made the difference. My allies were at a disadvantage: they were further from the Indian heartland. So I won most of the military victories, seizing the UN and Delhi, and destroying the Indian spaceship, which was almost complete. In the most recent UN vote, Persia and I voted for Japan, Bab for Bab, and India abstained. Once India is destroyed -- as it will be momentarily -- I wonder if Persia will keep voting for me. I doubt it, but who knows.

So our endgame finds Persia in a slight lead in the space race; Bab with a lead in the Histographic race; and me with the UN, and a fair chance to beat Persia to Alpha Centauri. Three possible endings to the story! I haven't finished yet, but wow, it's been a blast. The moral: never give up!

 

[BillChin]

Glad to see that someone is benefitting from my spamming about the dense build. It does cause problems transitioning to the Industrial age because of the overlapping tiles. My latest idea is to make some of the cities military barracks. Limit them to a low pop so they do not interfere with the other cities. Have these military cities always crank out units and workers.

I often neglect unit production if I am peace. I start building improvments such as Library, Cathedral, Courthouse, Bank, University. If someone declares war, I have a bunch of obsolete units, and pay for it. By keeping a few cities small in pop and always cranking out units I can kill two birds with one stone, helping with the overlap and the need to maintain a military.

As for giving up, I have to admit I would much rather start a new game than play out an old one even if I am winning. However, I have come to the conclusion that virtually every game start is winnable on difficulty levels Emperor and lower. I just survived a nightmare start on Emperor difficulty. I play Emperor, standard size map, roaming barbs (default), 8 players. I am Persians on a jungle peninsula. I guess it could be worse because I did manage to claim an iron icon and the Babylonian neighbors did not declare war at first contact (though they had a notion).

 

[Grotius]

Thanks for your reply, BillChin. I am glad you suggested the magic-square; it does seem to have helped me in the early going, which can be quite rough, especially at higher levels. I'm going to move up to Monarch or Emperor and try it again. And yes, next time I'm going to try to limit the size and development of some of the 'extra' cities.

I also have to overcome my own cautious predilections. I don't like to attack until I have a very strong chance of winning. In this game, my caution often lands me in deeper trouble. <g>

 

[Mozenwrath]

I don't think I've ever played on any sized map except standard more than a couple of times, anything bigger and my computer basically shuts down. I've never tried the smalle ones, I prefer to expand and cover a large area. By the way, seeing as how my strategy is towards expansion, you can guess I play expansionist civs. However, the extra scout (!) didn't really seem like much of an advantage so I changed the rules to get a settler instead of a scout. It's really good for expansionist strategies and doesn't unbalance the game. Anyone else tried this?

 

[rodgersmc]

In my experience and extra settler with expansionist would be a bit unnecessary as well as a bit unfair... usually that first scout has given me several technologies and a free settler or two by the time most other civs are building their first extra settler.

When I play expansionist (which I did exclusively at first and rarely at all now) I scout with initial scout, and immediately build a second... then move on to a traditional type start.

 

[Grotius]

I don't play maps larger than Standard either; big games just take too long for me, and the waits between turns get me down. But I do recommend trying a Small map. It was not nearly as cramped as I thought it would be, and it made for a fast, exciting game -- my most interesting game to date. My empire was smaller than usual, but that meant less micromanagement, and more time for thinking about grand strategy as opposed to tactics. And there is some room to expand, even on Small. In my game, the Babs managed to dominate a very large continent early on.

BTW, replacing a scout with a settler does sound like a big upgrade to me! Two cities at the start would be a nice advantage. Me, I like to play with the default rules, but it's always interesting to hear about other approaches.

 

[Grotius]

BTW, to cap off my original post: I finally did win the seesaw struggle! My allies finished off the Indians, leaving three of us, each with a different possible path to victory.

The Babs had the Histographic victory sewed up, but only if they could run out the clock; it was still only 2010 or so. They also had a shot at a Domination victory, but for some reason were way behind in the tech race, so no spaceship. The Persians had the spaceship almost built, with plenty of time to finish it, but the Babs were knocking on their doorstep, preparing to destroy them. Me, well, I had the UN -- and the second-best spaceship.

Here's what happened. We were all allies against the Indians, so when Gandhi went down, we found ourselves at peace. I had had a Mutual Protection Pact with Persia since just before the war with India. Well, the Babs declared war on Persia to destroy their spaceship, which was fine by me -- but my MPP kicked in, so suddenly it was me and the Persians vs the Babs. (Oddly, moments after the MPP was invoked to drag me into the war, Persia rang me up to terminate it.)

As it turns out, I was *glad* to be dragged into this war. Because two turns later, the UN vote came around. The two candidates: Babylon and my Japan. The vote: Bab 1, Japan 2. Victory! Thank you, Mr. Xerxes, for that vote.

I wonder if he'd have voted for me if I'd stayed out of his war against the Babs. I also wonder if any rational human player would *ever* vote for a competitor, putting him over the top. I mean, I wouldn't have voted for Japan had *I* had been Persia; I'd have abstained. But heck, I like the fact that the AI can be woo'd; it makes the diplomatic victory possible, and thus interesting.

So, victory!

 

[Mozenwrath]

Well, as soon as I've finished my current game, I'll start one on a small map. But before I do, what is this Dense-city-build thing that BillChin has invented? May sound like a stupid question but I'd really like some detail...

 

[Grotius]

BillChin likes to build his second and third cities within 2 squares of the original, on a diagonal tile that it can't access. More generally, he likes a 'dense build' early on, to get cities online as fast as possible, to minimize corruption, and then to start cranking out horsemen to go on the attack. He later "trims" the extra cities by cranking out workers to keep their population low. This way they don't compete too much for resources.

In my one and only game using this strategy, I did win, so it does have merit. But I don't think there's any one "required" way to play. I did get tired of having to micromanage my densely-built city core. And I also lost ground to the AI in the initial expansion phase, since I was so densely built. OTOH, I was on a small map, so there wasn't that much room to expand anyway.

Hope this helps.