Can I win this game? help!

[groobz]

Ok, i'm in a really tight situation here.

I'm playing as the Japanese on regent level. I got into a early war with the russians, which meant that I couldn't expand as quickly as I wanted. Now my country is the smallest out of all players (16 i think).

I'm playing on 2 huge continents. The continent that i'm on has me (Japan), Egypt, French, Russia, America, China and Germany. I share my borders with China, Germany and Russia. Germany and China being the strongest countries in the game .

Despite having not much land, I do have important resources (Iron, Salt/pepper, horses) I can build pikeman, samurai, longbowmen, musketmen. I do lag 3-4techs behind the top countries as well

Is this game winable? here is my country


on the eastern northern part of my country there is China.



To the West are the Russians



To the south are the Germans





China and Germany basically are the two largest countries on my continent,, and are very powerfull. However my adviser informed me that our army is about the same size as Russia's . All my cities are well defended with pikemen, and right now i've been slowley stacking longbowmen and samurai to get ready to attack russia, is this wise? please help me! what can i do!!

 

[Deatvert]

just build samurai don't bother with longbows, and yes it is winnable

 

[JustBen]

Longbowmen are really more of a help-I-don't-have-any-resources kind of unit. You want Samurai because 4/4/2 is way better than 4/1/1. More importantly, though, is that if the war (or your preparation for the war) runs long, you can upgrade your Samurai to might Cavalry, whereas your Longbowmen will simply suck.

If the Russians are your weakest neighbor, by all means use them as your whipping boy. It sounds like you owe them for past grievances anyway. Just make sure to get a nice, big military force assembled first (20-30; they may have Musketman, which will hurt your Samurai somewhat). Try to buy some maps of Russia, too -- that'll help you plan your attack.

Have you had a Golden Age yet? If not, a Samurai-based war with Russia could easily catapult you into a winning position.

If you're really afraid of your other neighbors, sign them into an alliance against Russia. Be careful with this move, though; they might steal all the land you'd hoped to gain for yourself.

If you're way behind in techs, consider setting science to 0% after you get Theology. It's probably marginally cheaper to buy the tech you need from other civs.

This is a perfectly winnable game. You'll probably be caught up by the end of the Middle Ages, but in the worst-case scenario I see you catching up by the discovery of Tanks.

 

[groobz]

Yes, I do owe Russia a thrashing! our early war meant that I couldn't expand quick enough, (however they managed to ok). Right now they're a larger country than me, but our militaries are equally as large.

Right now my main objective is to gain territory. I havn't hit the golden stage yet, when I build up a strong enough army to go to war with russia i don't want any other country in on it, as like you said they will probably capture the cities that i want!

You can see the yellow civ behind China, they're Egypt and I have a larger army than them as well,, i'm thinking if I can get a docks up and create transports to overunn them from behind.. but that may be in the future.

As for now i'll take your advice and strengthen my Samurai army, and make moves with Russia!
i'll keep posted!

 

[groobz]

Useless!

I built up 2armies of samurai (20 in each) added a couple of catapults and attacked them on 2 fronts.

my whole army was taken out by like 2 or 3 invintory or rifile men. My catapults were useless as they fail their bombardment everytime!.

Other sims have tanks now .

 

[Naval Freak]

now,

#1: build fortresses along yore borers and fortify them. this will cause casualties in ANY army.

#2: build a scrap navy. search for small, unihabited islands then build new cities on them. these islands are "last resort" retreat areas, so gain control of them quickly.

#3: when u get in the modern times, make a FAST run to integrated defence. if u r going to survive nukes, u need Strategic Lazer De-fence.

if u follow these guidelines, u will survive into 2050.

 

[Naval Power]

Hmm i definatly agree with Naval Freak about trying to find another landmass or small islands to colonize. A string of a few would make a excellent place for Forbidden Palace. I would try to get a country to go to war with Russia that isnt really close to them. This will cause russia to go after them. During this time see if you can leech some tank tech and attack.

Hopefully it might work.

 

[Arathorn]

Your original screenshot showed you were in trouble. You might have had the number of units of your foes, but they were obviously Industrial (China was building rails) and you were early EARLY medieval. A tiny targetted grab at one city (say, Rostov) might have worked, but a smarter strategy would have centered around building up your cash machine to buy techs from other laggards -- hopefully reselling them to other people (so-called 2fers) and catching up in tech ASAP.

A small land area is a good time to sell all your resources/luxuries to larger civs. They will pay a lot more than you need to buy them. Selling resources is a good way to catch up on techs, too. With only 10 cities (and some of those cramped) on a huge map, you're bound to be one of the smallest civs around.

Also, why don't you have a full world map? And have you bought contacts with all the other civs, at least, so you can trade with them, and so your tech costs go WAY down?

Even though you are a full age behind and small, the game is still winnable, but it will be quite tough.

Oh, and don't bother with trying to find other landmasses. The AI will have snapped those up long ago, since they're well past Navigation/Magnetism. Your hope is in diplomacy, not pie-in-the-sky ventures.

Arathorn

 

[Masquerouge]

And obviously Russia was in the industrial age too, by the look of their cities...
It's no wonder your samurais got wiped out, at least they had riflemen, more probably infantry.
Unless you catch up on techs reaaaalllly quick, say good-bye to a domination/conquest/spaceship victory... Maybe try to run for the United Nations...
But frankly, if I were you, I'd start over.

 

[Arathorn]

Originally posted by Masquerouge
But frankly, if I were you, I'd start over.

It depends on what you want....if you want a fairly easy ride, start over. If you want to learn as much as possible and improve your play, finish the game out. I've learned much more from failures than from victories (in general), and a come-from-behind victory when all seemed lost is one of the best feelings Civ has to offer.

Arathorn

 

[Beamup]

Originally posted by groobz
I do lag 3-4techs behind the top countries as well

Note that this is nowhere near accurate - as has been mentioned, you're not 3-4 techs behind, you're about an era and a half behind. Keep in mind that, if you look in the trading screen for what techs they can trade you, it ONLY shows the ones you could currently research. (e.g. if they had both Feudalism and Chivalry which you lacked, it would only show Feudalism since without that you can't research Chivalry) This can, if you're not used to it, lead to badly misjudging a tech gap... which is apparently what happened here.

Given that, I'd have to say you have no chance of victory (yes, I'm disagreeing with Arathorn here). You can't do any trading effectively - you have nothing to trade. Even with 80% taxes, your treasury's only 129 gold and +10 per turn? Even on 100% you won't get far. RoPs, MPPs, maps... you're so much smaller than they apparently are they won't care. Maybe if you had some strategics they don't you could get somewhere... but not far. So you can't catch up in tech, UNLESS there are a couple other civs as far behind as you are so you can do some tech brokering with them. But, given AI trading rates, that's highly unlikely - so you'd most likely have to buy a dozen or so techs before you could broker anything at all. And what would you but those techs with anyway?

With that big of a tech disadvantage, war is (as you discovered) pretty much out of the question - eliminating conquest and domination victories. Spaceship is obviously ridiculous. Culture - no way. You don't have time for a one-city win, and your overall culture must be way behind. Even Diplomatic isn't credible, since you'll never make it to the Modern era in time to build the UN and you're not big enough to make it into the election on size.

At this point, the most you could hope for IMO is to survive to 2050 and then lose the Histograph victory. But even that's highly unlikely - the AIs will almost certainly build the UN and hold elections.

Maybe, maybe, one of the really expert Civ masters could pull a win out of that game... but I strongly doubt it. Anybody ending up in that situation doesn't have the skill to pull a win out of it, definitely.

But, you can still proceed if you want. I'd question whether it's worthwhile, though. Getting solidly crushed no matter what you do isn't a good learning experience... though fighting valiantly against difficult-but-not-impossible odds certainly IS.

 

[Naval Freak]

beamup has a point, but u have got to find those islands. i have retreated to one in one of my games. my navy held off any invasions, and i made a run for nukes. nukes make excellent antiship weapons, trust me.

i will say it again, surrond yore cities with forts and put units in them. this WILL hold off any enimies for 2-3 turns, so you can build a settler.

happy trails, and jolly good luck!

 

[zerksees]

This game might be saveable.

Can you post a .SAV or email it to me?

I am conisdering taking it up as a challenge. Any save near or before 590 AD would be good. Is this vanilla Civ3 or PTW?

 

[Old&Slow]

Your game looks like a lot of my Games, jammed into a small area, behind in Tech, small Army, low Money, being attacked by a powerful Civ, and all the AI`s hate you

Of course my other Games are large Army, large Area, way behind in Tech, low Money, and being attacked by three AI Civs, and all the AI`s Hate You.

Then there is my other game version, large area, behind in tech ( would you believe that it`s 420 AD and the French who just attacked me for No Reason are in the Industrial Era !! ) low Money, big Army, and All the AI` Hate Me ....and my 4 Veteran Knights VS Knights lose 4 successive combats in a row defending a key City.

Then there`s ...well.. you get the idea... welcome to CIV 3.

Seriously, there are lots of Good People with much experience, and generious about helping Newbies like us. Now if I could only crack this Game and convince myself the AI doesn`t cheat on several levels.

 

[Gyokuran]

I'm going to have to say that finding islands is out of the question, the AI seems to gobble those up fast, and if they're in the industrial age, from my experence they are probably done expanding, and all the land on the map is claimed.

 

[groobz]

Ok i've up'd the save game so everyone can try the challenge.

I failed, but i want to see if anyone else has success.


another option is to use boats and try to take on Egypt who has the weakest army in the game.


http://www.fever-design.com/steve/Tokugawa of the Japanese, 590 AD.sav

 

[groobz]

Ok i put it up on the website but i can't seem to up it properly..

 

[zerksees]

Originally posted by groobz
http://www.fever-design.com/steve/Tokugawa of the Japanese, 590 AD.sav

I was able to access your game at www.fever-design.com/steve. That brought up a list of files and I downloaded the game.

Try this - cut and paste entire text from here into your browser:

www.fever-design.com/steve/Tokugawa of the Japanese, 590 AD.sav

Apparently the tools to build messages on this forum cannot accept spaces in a url.

I need some info to help me decide my approach:

What are the victory conditions?

I am also curious in what year and how did your game end?

Please be patient this will take a while. I am working a huge map game, and I am a few turns away from the end of conquest phase. Once that's done I'll take this on for fun. I'll keep you posted on progress.

 

[zerksees]

OK so I’m addicted. I played this game for 5 or 6 hours yesterday. Here is what has happened so far.

(edit: I later turned this story into a strategy article: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=77319 )

Phase I: Assessment

It is 590 AD. Japan is dead last following 11 AI players. There are no luxuries. There are only 9 workers, and they are automated. Land space is small – only 10 cities or so. There is no Forbidden Palace, as there are not enough cities to build it yet. Nothing to trade since there are no extra resources of any kind. Germany, the most powerful civ, is right next door. Japan is hopelessly behind in tech. What is worse is this is an accelerated production game, which means the AI can build units like crazy. Later game play shows we are losing ground on all the civs, including 11th place Egypt. Total gold income is 196 per turn. We still have no idea what the map looks like, not even territory maps for some of the neighbors. The situation looks dire.

The military is decent size, but it still has warriors and spearman. There are some pikemen and we have gunpowder so we can build musketman. A few are out there. There are some Samurai running around. No battles, let alone wars, are going to be won by this military at this point in the game. The AI has infantry. Japan will not be initiating wars anytime soon, if ever, in this game.

The political situation is not too bad. China and India are polite, and Germany is cautious. No one appears to be furious, which means there is hope that diplomacy is possible.

Japan is in Republic. The civ size may be a little small for that but since we are not going to have wars for a while, I leave it alone. In retrospect I should have ran some tests to see if monarchy or despotism would be better.

Japan does have iron and saltpeter within its borders and one port city.

In my opinion, the only hope Japan has is to survive long enough to get MPP and hope the AI country in the MPP doesn’t start a bunch of wars. At this point I have no idea how this game can be won. My short-term goal is not to finish last. This will not be easy. Japan will need to find a way to outplay Egypt. If that works, then new short-term goal can be established.

Phase II: Adjustments

590 AD:

Japan is not using city governors, nor are the cities being micro-managed every turn. This is a mistake as there are too many entertainers. I choose to avoid micro-management of citizens and turn city governor on by setting “manage citizen moods”, “emphasize food” and “emphasize production” to yes for all cities. Income increases from 196 to 220 per turn. With this change I increased science to 40% and was able to complete theology in one turn. Even after these changes, Japan is 10th in population and GNP, 11th in mfg goods and 12th in landmass. This is going to be a long road back.

I spot empty spaces in Japan’s current territory and cities that are growing too slowly. I change current production on most cities to granaries, workers and settlers. Japan finished a couple more musketman and that will be the end of military growth for a while. All of the tiles in Japan influence need to be worked, so she needs better population growth.

After this is done, I worked on culture, as I would hate to lose cities to culture flip.

I decide not to go with the new land exploration option. Without a good map or resources to buy one, and without the ability to set up right of passage, Japan is going to have to make due with the land she has, and what she can steal.

600 AD:

Set science to 0. Trade for techs. Buy chemistry from China for 15 gpt and 75 gold. Buy education from Egypt for 13 gpt and 35 gold.

Science will be at 0 for a long time, since techs are cheaper to buy than to build, especially when this far behind. Made later trades with Germans, Mongols, India, England, America, Arabs, Russia and France. Most middle age techs went for 380 gold. Some of the earlier trades were for gold and gpt, but I decided cash was cheaper. Some gpt trades were done to assure neighbors would have an additional reason for not declaring war. I always accepted the AI trade offers for non-required techs at low prices (like music theory for 10 gold from Mongols).

Rome demands territory map. Japan gives it gladly. This will be the case for demands from Germany in 880 AD and India in 1000 AD. Japan wants to survive the AI dogpile, so she swallows her pride and saves her ire for a future day.

750-760 AD:

Complete Forbidden Palace in Osaka. Sell any nearby courthouses as they would not be needed.

Made a strategic decision to sign MPP with China. Japan gave 98 gold, 2gpt and world map. To have any chance in this game, Japan is going to need help. MPP is a deterrent to other civs not to attack her. I know the risks, but what choice do Japan have? To get back in the game Japan needs to take chances.

820 AD:

Built city named “Ivory” near the ivory tile just inside the Russian border. The tile switches to Japan and the first luxury is established. Russia may not be happy but does not declare war.

880 AD:

Trade with Arabs for territory map. Most of the territory maps Japan acquired as part of a trade for technology. This was not. Also purchased German territory map for 95 gold in 970 AD.

I am learning that money is most precious in this accelerated production game. As all city improvements are completed Japan is building musketman, and disbanding warriors to keep the military count down.

Walls are cheap, so all border towns are getting them. Anyone who needs an aqueduct gets that built too.

990 AD:

Trade with India for Steam Power. Gave 19 gpt + 350 gold. Ouch. Industrial age techs are going to cost a lot more. Can’t build railroads. Need coal. Found coal in German territory on the border. Built city there. Voila – coal. Again, AI’s might not be happy but no wars are declared.

1020 AD: A Turning Point

Germany has been starting wars. Two against France and one against Russia. In 1000 AD China and Germany created a military alliance against Russia. This is bad news for Japan. All three of them have radar towers and tanks. Russia has about 8 units stacked up right next to Satsuma, the port city. It has one musketman and one medieval infantry. Japan moves several other units in there, including veteran Samurai. Musketman is no match for a tank, even if he has walls and is fortified. In 1020 Russia enters China territory and Japan is forced to declare war on Russia.

At this point I am ready to quit the game. I am resigned to Japanese defeat from Russian tanks.

To my surprise the AI sends only some of the units against Satsuma, sending the others after units not in cities. The attack results in a victory for Samurai and a golden age begins! The iron gets pillaged. The tanks attack but only one per city. Germany and China take out the tanks after they hit my cities once.

In 1000 AD Egypt declared war on Germany. This will help Japan. Japan now trails Egypt by about 205 points.

Now everyone starts lining up against Russia. China is turning them into the rogue state. I am glad Japan has avoided that fate.

Soon after China takes the Russian city just north of Japan, and razes it! Japan smells golden opportunity as there are four fur tiles out there. Japan builds two cities nearby and takes control of them all! In the mid 1100’s she trades one for spices. These luxuries should help with war weariness a little later on.

In 1050 AD France declares war on Japan. Oooh. I am scared. Perhaps they can beat all those German Panzers and get Japan.

Soon after the Germans and China start turning France into a second rogue state. And the wars continue.

1120 AD:

Japan completes research on Replaceable Parts. This is huge. Now Japan can upgrade musketman to infantry, and build artillery. Japan starts build artillery with vengeance. Any underpowered army can win a battle with enough artillery. Since the cities are close together, the skeleton railroad system is in place, so these units can get to the front lines easily.

Soon discovered Mongols did not have Replaceable Parts. Traded it to them for Industrialization , Economics and world map. Egypt did not have Industrialization. Traded it plus Electricity and 60 gold for Nationalism.

1170 AD:

France gets Egypt to join military alliance against us. Again Oooh. Egypt is on the rocks already, having lost many cities to Germany. They are really on the way out. What’s better is Japan is gaining on them. The point deficit in 1220 AD is down to 160. Japan has already taken advantage of gaps between conquered Egyptian cities to build a city and gain incense as a luxury.

It is also clear that Russia is losing her wars. In the wake of the razed city, there is a nice chunk of space, mostly under Russian control (but no city). Japan is at war with them. Settlers are sent up and the land is claimed. Two more new cities on grassland are born.

1230 AD:

Our artillery stack has been building. Japan has 25 artillery and 15 or so cavalry. Each turn she attacks Rostov, to the point where all improvements (city and tile) are gone. There are 2 mechanized infantry in there (one is elite), and I want enough artillery to get them down to one hit point before starting the cavalry charge. In 1230, the artillery barrage gets the 2 MI to one and two hit points. The cavalry charge succeeds, the four riflemen supporting the MI are also defeated, a great leader is born, and Rostov is taken. Japan will probably raze it and build another right nearby, rather than risk a culture flip.

Now Japan sets her sights on the next city: Krasnoyarsk

So far no cities have been lost.

I am starting to think about how to stop the spaceships and the UN vote.

More to come…

EDIT: To ultra newbies - there are many pages in this thread. At the lower left of the screen are numbers indicating the page numbers. Click on each one to read all the posts on the thread.

 

[apparition]

this is a good read. I'm very interested in what happens.