I just finished my game, a micromanagement nightmare. It was my fault for choosing to play they way I did though. Patching in the middle of the game didn't help, as some new features kinda suprised me, and don't get me started on pollution cleanup, it's a mess with the patch. This was my first real "bloated" Civ 3 game, and so I made a lot of mistakes from a scoring perspective. I imagine that I missed out on 5000 points or so, if not more.
I started out building a settler directly after Athens was founded. I figured that if barbarians did come, they could have my 10 gold, defense could wait. I chose writing as my first advance, more from Civ 2 thinking than valid Civ 3 strategy. My second city I founded on the gold hill to the northeast, and put them on a hoplite/settler rotation. Then next 2 cities each were put on worker production until they had built 3 each, then a hoplite/settler rotation for them as well. About this time I had contacted the Romans, and mapped out all but the southern portion of the Continent. Seeing that it was just me and Caesar on the Island, I researched Mapmaking directly after Writing and Pottery. This began the frustrating era of duplicate tech advances by myself and the Romans. Every time I researched a new tech I would contact the Romans, only to find that they had just researched it themselves. This cut our tech rate virtually in half.
After my first couple galleys had found no crossings, I started building the Lighthouse at Sparta, while all the rest of my cities continued on the hoplite/settler rotation. I was able to expand at almost the same rate as the Romans, usually they had 1 more city than me, but with 2 of my settlers or more still in transit to their city sites. Along the border I pop rushed libraries and temples, and quickly assimilated 2 of the Roman towns, sealing Caesar's fate. I beat the Romans to 1 Horse, and also made it to the Iron 1 turn before their settler.
The Iron didn't play an important part in my strategy, but not having to face legionaries was certainly a bonus. I started mass production of barracks, and then right after began building up my horseman army. A couple cities stayed on settler duty, as I planned on razing all Roman cities except Rome which had built the Pyramids. I completed the Lighthouse just around the end of the BC's, and a few turns later made contact with the main continent. I found I was about 2 or 3 techs behind, mostly due to the duplicate researching
I held off on trading my maps, and didn't give contact to the Romans away either. Around 400AD I had built up my army (50 horsemen with hoplite escorts), and wiped out the Romans in 9 turns IIRC.
I had found the Aztecs as well, and during the war with Rome all my coastal cities built up a fleet of galleys. I traded for Chivalry, and upgraded all my horsemen that weren't elite. The Roman war had given me my first Leader, and he was turned into a Knight army. Also at this time I started building the forbidden palace in the center of my continent, planning on later using a leader to rush my palace on the large one. The Aztecs fell very quickly, though my elite Horsemen didn't do as well as I had hoped. I had allowed the Aztecs to have communications to the others, and they now had gunpowder. Still my Knights swept over their empire, and the Aztecs were no more in 9 turns as well.
I held off on any invasion of the mainland until I researched Military Tradition. Then my Calvary, along with French, English, and Japanese allies, swept the Indians and Germans from the face of the planet. I claimed most of the Indian territory myself, with the others splitting up the German empire. The whole of the Japanese army were exposed for a couple of turns, and I decided to attack while the opportunity existed. The French and English both sided with me unfortunately, as my army wasn't in position to claim any territory. I wiped out about 50 of the Japanese units on the first few turns, but only was able to conquer 1 city, as the French and English again split the Japanese territory between them. I stopped my military campaign then, as all the other nations now had Nationalism, and didn't want to go up against riflemen just yet. I had set up the Aztec Island as one big settler factory, and by this time had about 40 extra settlers looking for somewhere to build. So I sent them to claim every unoccupied square inch of land on the entire continent. This seemed to really anger the English at me, as I was building cities often within 2 spaces of their newly conquered Japanese holdings. I had no defenders in any of my cities yet, and the English took about 30 of them in one turn. For the most part the French were between me and England, and were still my allies. In the war with England I found out how lame my navy was, but did manage another Leader out of the short lived conflict. This leader I saved for building my Palace.
I didn't resume the conquest until I had researched up to modern armor, and built an army of close to 50 of them. My settler factory was still pumping them out, and I had several transports filled with them. The french fell in less than 5 turns, even though I was fighting the English and Russians at the same time. The Chinese had been crushed between the English and Russians prior. I made Peace with the Russians after razing all their southern cities, and concentrated on the English. They fared no better than the French, though I did make peace and offered them a city on the Aztec continent. Then I surrounded that city with Mechanical Infantry and Battleships, and took their final holding on the main continent. This was by far my biggest blunder, as I couldnt get them to communicate with me for another 30 turns. The remaining russian empire fell a few turns later, and I went into revolution, to switch to Democracy. Up untill this point I had been in Despotism the whole time, except for a couple of turns I tried Communism, in a failed social experiment. When I finally got out of anarchy, my Civilization went into disorder and overthrew my government, as the English still wouldn't talk to me. The second time I made it to Democracy the same thing happened, as I still couldn't make peace with the English. Finally on my third period of anarchy I was able to contact the English and sign a peace treaty, and Democracy held. I wasted close to 40 turns in anarchy in the game, I should have just stayed in Despotism until the English made peace.
The conquest of the main continent had been quick, but the colonization was even faster. Using pre-built infrastructure, I was able to build 50 cities within 5 turns, and within 20 the whole of the continent was under my control. I also had close to 500 captured workers from the wars, and put them to work or added them to my population.
I built my palace near the center of the large half-circle portion of the main continent, and concentrated on building improvements everywhere that would facilitate population growth. I built libraries everywhere, and then sold them once the cultural borders had expanded, as I wasn't looking for a culture win, and would have had it very shortly. The next 200 turns or so were very dull, very boring, and made me hate the English.
Twice the English declared war on me, sending my entire civilization into anarchy both times. I had yet to use a Nuclear device in any Civ 3 game, but I was very tempted to do some testing of them on the English. The final insult was in 1995, as a size 35 city, 8 spaces from my palace, and surrounded by other size 30 cities, defected to the English. At the time my people were in distain of the English culture, and the English's only city was on the other side of the world, and size 5. After I launched my Spaceship in 2050, I kept playing just to nuke the English over and over again
I really had wanted to let the French have the last city, but they hadn't talked to me in time, oh well. I never did retake my city that defected before time ran out. I wonder if there is a cultural "wrap around" type bug? I guess if galleys can sink battleships, anything is possible.
How better to depict my long, drawn out game, than by a long, drawn out post, eh? Having domination disabled was a bad idea I think. The best scores, by far, will be the ones that follow the same basic premise of my game... conquest until 1 city is left, then build to 2050. If my formula for conquest victory bonus is right, to exceed the score I got a person would have to conquer the world by 1070BC. And I'm fairly certain that my score could be improved upon by 5000+ points if done correctly, using the same basic path to victory. Other than the disabled domination, it was a nice map to play on, great settings, and for the most part, a very enjoyable game.
Is the AI cheating?
