Banging my head against the keyboard

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Peebo

Grand Poobah
Joined
Jun 25, 2003
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Well, I've been seeing my skills improve a lot lately since I got back into playing Civ3, and reading the posts on this forum has helped tremendously. I beat my first game on regent, 20k cultural city which was surprisingly easy, and I won around 1876AD, but in another hundred years I think the rampaging Aztec army would have wiped me off the planet.

Anyway, today I was feeling more confident and adventurous, so I started a large regent archi map with the Byzantines and was getting ready for some naval domination! It started out well, got a pretty good starting location, popped a settler from a hut pretty early, and soon I had three cities humming along. I was a bit bold in having my warriors off exploring the land while leaving my capital undefended, and after some bad luck with barbs and the spotting of two incoming regular American warriors, I saw that I would pay for my foolishness. A simple pop rush of a spearman will do the trick, right? I was even able to move a warrior from another town to my capital before they attacked. Unfortunately, those were the strongest, bravest regular warriors known to man. Alas, history repeated itself, and Constantinople fell once again! A pop rush of an archer from another town and the return of one of my exploratory warriors couldn't put in a dent in the warrior now guarding my once-capital. I was now left with two towns and one warrior between then. If I had been a little quicker in getting iron working and hooking up the iron I might have had a better chance, but it was not to be. :blush:

I quit the game out of sheer embarrassment. It was humbling, but... now the healing can begin. ;)

Better luck tomorrow, I hope! :D
 
We've all been there, and feel your pain. :cry:

I just wanted to say one thing that may have helped: instead of pop rushing a spear, I would have pop-rushed an archer and attacked one of the warriors once they moved next to the capital (assuming they were in a stack when they did so). Reasons: if the archer wins, great! Now you only have one warrior to attack your city, and there is no way they can take it on that turn. Then heal the archer (one turn, hopefully), and take out the other warrior.

If the archer loses, well, you are in nearly the same boat as you started in. At least the AI is unlikely to attack with that damaged unit (assuming it was dmamaged), so as long as your lone warrior gets a decent RNG roll, you may luck out.

But definitely, I think the moral of the story is: always keep some troops close to home when there is angry AI is about! I have always been amazed at how they always manage to land a galley full of troops right where it could do the most damage.

Oh yeah -- and some people may frown on it, but there is always the auto-saves, so you can back up a turn or two and use your hindsight to properly get some defense up. If the game was going great except for that, thats probably what I would have done.
 
Thanks for the advice. I could do that, go back to an auto-save, but I don't like knowing what's going to happen. I'll just start a new game. I'm sure there's plenty of good archi worlds out there!
 
Whenever you see a stack (even two can qualify) you have to know something is up. I hardly use spearmen, but I think was a good try. I'm always at the AI warrior that kills my defender but my archer can't kill their warriors. :mad:
 
I have the feeling that there are some AI cheat components in handling units. Per example an AI unit is "digged in" for several turns near one of your own units. Than that AI unit suddenly attacks and wins. The unit did wait and attacked when the random odds were very good for attacking units.

On the other side, especially with bigger stacks I have the impression, that the AI frequently attacks like "lemmings". :)
 
The AI decides when it's going to declare war, even though it might not get their units toward your towns in the same round.

You can tell when there's a sudden burst in movement - ships suddenly appear and units are moving everywhere.
 
...or when 6+ units show up right on your doorstep, all pointing straight at your minimally-guarded city.

...or when a galley scoots straight up to your coast and drops off two combat units near your unguarded capital.

Keep in mind, always check to see if they are reacting to a barb hut popping up, or if they are at war with a cross-continent civ, or if its just a couple of settler/escort groups (although I've been known to abduct those with little provocation) before telling them to get out. You'll get a feel for whether they're invading or just trespassing with more gameplay.
 
if you can mount a defense before they get to your actual city and can attack, they can be put off the attack. I have had AI turn and walk away when I could get some units there on time. But early in the game... the farmer's gambit is risky at any time.

You can generally count on any stack (from 2-20) to be a war party. In most games it is 2 reg warriors who can kill any 5 fortified or attacking vet archers with one hand tied behind their backs. :lol:
 
darski said:
if you can mount a defense before they get to your actual city and can attack, they can be put off the attack. I have had AI turn and walk away when I could get some units there on time. But early in the game... the farmer's gambit is risky at any time.
Click to expand...

Very good point, darski.

Sometimes you can use it to your advantage. I had one of those aforementioned peacetime galley gambits where I got defenders into the closest cities. The AI would-be attackers fortified, their galley having already scooted off back into the fog. I was able to build several transports worth of good attackers, move them all offshore of the offending civ, and demand the dumbass to move the troops off my lawn. Sure enough, war was declared, I got war happiness whilst destroying the two trespassers, and had the last piece I needed for a domination victory. :king:

I would also like to add that barbarian huts have a statistically dubious tendency to pop up nearest to your unguarded cities, :hmm: and even conscript warriors seem a decent deterrant
 
Once the AI has an extra settler... meaning Demi-god level and up... at least on a pangea map with max opponents, it seems to me either you go with the farmer's gambit or you probably won't have enough cities for the FP. Maybe I'm wrong and more exceptions to this exist than I expect, but take your pick of a few cities, less production, and thus less military and commerce potential, or the farmer's gambit and more potential.
 
my current game is going better, after a few military scuffles i somehow ended up being first in land area, but it's the beginning of the IA and i'm several techs behind the leaders Plus everyone is pissed off at me and won't trust me ever since i declared war on the spanish, fought them down to one city, accepted a peace treaty for a tech i didn't have, and declared war that same turn to take their last city on the continent! It turned out to not be their last city, they have a town on a distant island, so I have one more angry civ still in the world. I'm down but not out. With my land advantage, there may be hope for me yet! Definitely a fun but challenging game, hopefully I can swim not sink in regent level from now on ;)
 
Ugh... just had one of those moments... monarchy map, large, max opponents, continents. Moi French.

So I'm cranking out swords like nobody's business because I need to conduct some unfinished business with Hammi. The majority of them are stacked in two or three cities bordering Bab-land, with a couple of archers and horses left over from earlier. Ghandi decides that its time to march a few spears deep into my territory. Hm, wonder what he's up to? The spears are about 20 squares in, and he hasn't bugged any of my unguarded cities... maybe he's going to harass the Babs? Oh -- hey that spear is going right toward my unguarded capita -- oh, now he declares war. In rushes... one horse and one archer :lol: Ok, well at least I have a half-dozen units within strike distance of Bombay. Take out the three spears and the horse and archer, pile the units outside Bombay and... proceed to lose three vet swords and two elite archers against a two regular spears in a size 3 city on plains. *sigh* ok, now you've made me angry. Long story short, Bombay fell after I could finally get some reinforcements built, Bangalore not long after, and Delhi a dozen turns past that... not after suffering a few more bouts of unfair RNG. Yes, I had twenty cities, Ghandi had four -- one of them is on some stupid island somewhere. One source of horses, no iron :rolleyes: I really don't understand the AI attack logic sometimes.

Ok, so now my western armies are hurting, but no big deal, my eastern armies are ship-shape, I have a MGL now, and I'll keep cranking out swords and horses (to upgrade) until I steal chivalry from someone. A few scattered swords and spears left from the India campaign should be good as a western deterrance guard for now, right?

Right. I watch as a mix of legionaries and warriors rush toward the French/Roman border. Oh no -- will he do it...? yep, he did it. Now I have legionaries streaming in, and the nearest mass of reinforcements are 4 to 5 turns away. I somehow only lose one city, mostly due to Roman mis-management of units, but taking it back killed at least two swords that I really, really could have used. Holding it meant losing several more units to the stack of legionaries at the door. Legionaries suck to fight against, btw, even once knights get online :sad:

Then Cherbourg, the city next to my FP city, the fifth city (I think) I founded, flipped to Bab control. It was only touching one Bab city that was all by itself, and both were somewhere between 10 and 100 culture. I lost my temper at that point; I've never had a size 8 city that I created flip to another culture, let alone when it was surrounded by my own cities and only touching a single foriegn city. The game got shut down and I had to resist the urge to discus my laptop through the closed doorwall and 15 feet down to snowy pavement below.

Just thought I'd share.

EDIT: Also, for some reason Hammi was "polite" with me, even though I'd captured Babylon like 2000 years earlier and demanded three techs + all his gold for peace. :hmm: Never had that happen before...
 
Yikes. I think I need to turn culture flipping off from now on. I keep thinking it will benefit me, but it always works against me.
In my game, I'm slowly catching up in techs and if luck smiles on me, I can build ToE. The AI seem to be dogpiling against america, who's on my border and #1 in score but lagging in military and tech, so I think I'll join the fun.
 
capnvonbaron said:
EDIT: Also, for some reason Hammi was "polite" with me, even though I'd captured Babylon like 2000 years earlier and demanded three techs + all his gold for peace. :hmm: Never had that happen before...
Click to expand...
Read the thread on whether one should keep a civ alive or not. You'll see my story about Russia being gracious to the guy that conquered all their cities but Moscow and repeatedly demanded all their gold for more than 2000 years.
 
Sharwood said:
Read the thread on whether one should keep a civ alive or not. You'll see my story about Russia being gracious to the guy that conquered all their cities but Moscow and repeatedly demanded all their gold for more than 2000 years.
Click to expand...

heh... maybe I'll dig it up. Interesting, though. I've just never had a civ ever be anything but "furious" with me for taking it's cities unless it was a crap outlying city, in which case they usually remain "annoyed" with me for some time to follow. Babylon was a prize that game... three cows and multiple BGs within the city bounds. I even moved my palace there due to its location and production potential (and to keep IT from flipping :shifty:)
 
I'm really turning this game around, went from being way behind in tech to the tech broker. As soon as I beelined for scientific method and built ToE, I was able to sell atomic theory for the techs I was missing, and get rich in the process. 5,000 gold war chest, making 200 a turn, and science at max research. Took some cities from the Americans and made peace, now it seems that a world war has broken out among all the other civs on other islands, so I think I'll sit this out and quietly build up my new cities and increase production. Aiming for a space age or diplomatic victory, but if all else fails I'll be first in score by 2050. Looks like I can swim in Regent after all! Look mom, the training wheels are off! :cool:
 
Sharwood said:
Guys, it's on the first page! :lol: And was the thread immediately below this when I posted. It requires about as much digging as picking up something you dropped on the carpet.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and I did a serious search to find the thread, searching for your posts, with the words Russia and gracious. I was very happy when I found it. :blush:

:lol:
 
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