Civ 3 GOTM#3 *Spoiler* talks

[Lucky]

I found the time to play this Civ3-GOTM because the Civ2-GOTM was late and I went for early finishes in both.

Well, it really was a fun game, but I didn´t have a real overall strategy so I just played along, conquered city after city and expanded my empire. I´ve even built/captured all the wonders that were available, mainly because I got several Great Leaders, especially after building the Heroic Epic.
In the beginning conquest was a little slow, archers and swordmen aren´t fast enough and after the Persians the horsemen weren´t really strong enough.
But with the appearence of the first Chinese riders everthing got even better. First the Egyptians, then the French, the last Egyptians and then the English fell to their power. Finally, after taking some Indian cities, Domination victory was achieved.
I had a really good normal score before domination, but I don´t have the time to milk my empire for everything it´s worth this month (3 exams ). So I took those Indian cities and finished with a respectable bonus score but it wasn´t great.
If I would have pursued the conquest path more eagerly I could have finished a bit earlier but with less fun playing the game.

BTW, I did a little testing last weekend with the powerbar tool, and IMHO it is impossible to achieve a BC finish this month. Your units a just too slow and the unfriendly terrain isn´t helpful either. Even a 200-500AD finish is almost a dream, you got to be extremely lucky. The main obstacle for an early finish are the restarting civs.


P.S.: I also didn´t want to count the every land tile. I think that this is almost insane!:crazyeyes
This is a game after all and games should be fun, but some of you take this all far too seriously.
GOTM is also ment as a casual contest, but it seems some of you put more effort into it than into your real lifes.
No offense though, this is just my opinion. If you have fun milking your game, do so!
I´m a CivFanatic, too, and exploring every possibility to achieve a higher score is a main factor of the game, but when someone writes here that he plays the GOTM just for a high score and other games for fun ......... I don´t know.
Remember, it´s a casual contest.

 

[Matrix]

Originally posted by Lucky
P.S.: I also didn´t want to count the every land tile. I think that this is almost insane!:crazyeyes
This is a game after all and games should be fun, but some of you take this all far too seriously.
GOTM is also ment as a casual contest, but it seems some of you put more effort into it than into your real lifes.
No offense though, this is just my opinion. If you have fun milking your game, do so!
I´m a CivFanatic, too, and exploring every possibility to achieve a higher score is a main factor of the game, but when someone writes here that he plays the GOTM just for a high score and other games for fun ......... I don´t know.
Remember, it´s a casual contest.

Exploiting a game can also be fun. When you play any against one another, you also intend to win. Otherwise it isn't fun.

I know what you mean, but I don't think there is any danger or whatsoever. If they want to do their utter best, then they most likely like it. Let them. As long as they don't cheat.

 

[IronKnight]

How do you guys do it? I'm talking about wiping out a civilization immediately. In GOTM 3, many players have claimed that they wipe out the Japanese very early in the game. Wow!

I started out playing my normal style of building my peaceful empire and trading with other Civs. I was quickly dragged into war by Japan. I fended them off for a while, but they eventually took me down. I've tried playing again. Nobody wants to trade anything with me. Typically they ask for everything. This usually leads to war. I assume its because my Empire is tiny and they see me as a target.

So my question is how do you grow an army fast? How many cities do you build before you start to pump out warriors, spearmen, and archers? How much exploring do you do before you build your first city? How do you find the enemy before he has built up his Empire?

Thanks for the strategy tips.

 

[Grey Fox]

I almost always start by building 2 warriors, send them out in one logical direction (starting when the first one is completed), trying to find some experience boosting barbarians on the way. If I find an enemy with a city defended by one warrior, I'll attack. If I win It's a great start... an advantage on the others immediately.

The enemy will then respawn, and I'll open the diplomacy screen every turn and I'll wait for him to build his second city, then I'll trade it for peace. When I'll get his newly built city, which I will, then I start building a military force in that city and I'll try to take his new cities once again.

On this map, I did so that when I had taken the japanese city Kyoto (which is on a great location by the way.) I waited as I sad above. And then when I got his city, for peace. I discovered the French. I built two archers and took the two french cities. He respawned above the persians. Then I finished of the japanese. Now I had another great area! This area were actually my Palace area. I built the forbidden in Kyoto.

Then I made peace with the French, did not get a city (hmm?), but all their money, world map and contacts with Babylon and Persians.

My next goal was the Persians. I already had alot of warriors by their second city, they only had two while I had 5-6 .

I attacked, but their regular warrior killed my two veterans...

So I waited and took them out with archers.

My next goal were the French... now I had horsemen and I Invaded fast and furious.

Then I got an Right of passage deal with the Babylonians which were big by now...

I also started building galleys around beijing area.

Then when I built the Great Lighthouse I discovered the Egyptians I got a Right of Passage deal and shiped two settlers to the Island... built two cities and started rush building Libraries and Temples.

When I attacked the babylonians, it was over for them in a few short rounds.

Then I transported the horsemen to the Island with the Egyptians, Indians and English.

When I then got Chivalry I learned that you could not upgrade horsemen to Riders... My 74 Horsemen , no I could not upgrade them!!! Did this made me mad or what!

I got an Right of Passage deal with every nation and started to fill the egyptian territory with horsemen (about 3-4 per city). And I did the same to the English and Indians (But not as many yet...)
And at the same time built Riders with everyone of my productive cities...

I waited for my RoP deal to pass, and then I attacked... the Egyptians fell in about 2-3 turns. Then I filled the English territory.. they did not complain.

But suddenly they declared war...

But I won it... not so fast because they had Pikemen and swordsmen, but my reinforcement of Riders came, and I had an army of Riders too...

Then it was the Indians turn... they had Pikemen but I did´not care, I had Riders...

IN 1000 AD they only had one city, and I spared them, and covered the city with Riders.

Then I started to starve and abandon cities that were residing on Hill areas and Tundra areas... only grassland, plains and some deserts were included in my territory. This to stop me from winning a domination victory.

I built a city in my worst Tundra area and gave it to the Indians as a Gift and then I took their last city. Then I got peace from them again, and covered their territory with some soldiers so that they could not build new settlers.

Then I went for democracy, and started researching, improving and so fourth. On the New continent, I only built irrigation, and city improvements that would make the city increase in size and happiness (like the marketplace, it's best, In the end I built Mass Transit Systems in all cities there too).

Well then I milked the game as llong as I could...

I won't tell you how I won... don't wanna spoil the surprise.

 

[rangers85]

I've now acquired all the rubber deposits on the map to my knowledge after taking the last unowned (And only unowned one from the time rubber appeared). Cornered the market, and deciding if I should trade any out, or just sit on it all. Right now we're in a World War with 5 nations against Persia. I was stupid to let Persia stay around so long, but now they'll be driven back some. I destroyed the French finally in about 1700 or so and the Japanese way back in about 300 AD. Babylon is close to dead thanks to this war with Persia. Next I'm going to try to clear off the Persians to own this continent and work on taking some of the other continent. Not sure how much I can get done before 2050 though.

 

[SirPleb]

Sounds like you played a dynamite game Grey Fox! I'm looking forward to seeing the result!

IronKnight, you do need to be aggressive and go on the offensive early. I'm not as aggressive as Grey Fox. His approach is probably better! But FWIW here's a description of how you can start a bit slower but still take out the Japanese fairly early.

BTW, I often feel like I inevitably send my first exploring warriors in the wrong direction, and like I'm doomed in any one-on-one fight I pick against anyone except a barbarian. (Probably not true but it feels that way )So I often start a bit slower, beginning by stacking the deck in my favor.

I started by sending 3 warriors exploring. By the time I found the Japanese I didn't want to attack them with one warrior. (I'd sent the 3 warriors in different directions so each was alone. And, the AI adds defending forces fairly early in the game. If you don't hit one of its towns quite early then it will likely have 2 defenders when you get to it.)

I didn't attack the first Japanese town until around 1500BC. By then I had built something like this in Beijing (not sure of exact order), with the help of some population rushing: 3 warriors, a granary, a settler, a barracks, a worker, a couple of archers, a couple of spearmen, and one swordsman. I'd built a second city beside the flood plain a bit SW of Beijing. The first worker, after improving a couple of tiles around Beijing, had built a road to that spot, irrigated the flood plain tile, and then continued onward building road west through the mountains. The second town had a granary, a barracks, and had just started rushing fighting units. The second worker had colonized the iron SE of Beijing, and I'd just started building Swordsmen. A couple of the fighting units were defending the two starting towns.

Two of the exploring warriors (both upgraded due to fights with passing barbarians) and the first archer converged at the Japanese town SE of Kyoto. They captured it while I was starting to send swordsmen to that area from the home towns.

After that, a steam-roller effect. New units (I think it was 3 swordsmen before I advanced) coming from the home towns joined a survivor of the first fight and swept on to the Japanese capital. After taking that comes one of the most important parts of the technique: Offer them peace! (I think I had to wait a couple of turns before they'd talk to me, if that happens, just keep advancing your attack, keep taking towns if they won't talk.) Before I attacked them, I think the Japanese already had 4 towns. They'd been hurt so bad at this point that, as part of the peace treaty, I was able to squeeze one of those towns from them. (Don't forget to also sqeeze them for any technology they have which you don't, most or all of their cash, communications with anyone they know that you don't, and perhaps their world maps depending how desperate they feel. Be merciless, take everything you can squeeze out of them for peace!)

The result was that in a very few turns I had gone from having 2 cities vs. the Japanese 4, to having 5 cities vs. their 1. Soon after I went to war with them again and took their last city. (They respawned elsewhere at that point.)

I think that this starting sequence is not as fast and powerful as Grey Fox's. But it is not as terribly slow as it sounds because while I am building up preparing to attack, my opponent is building some nice cities for me to take over. (This early in the game the risk of a cultural revolt back to the original owner is very small, so keep the cities you capture at this stage, don't raze them.) Once I flip into attack mode it builds up very quickly. After taking out the Japanese, I paused just long enough to clean up a bit and build up more troops, then I went on to do it again against the next Civ.

 

[IronKnight]

Grey Fox & Sir Pleb, thanks for the tips. I look forward to using them. I have a couple more questions if anybody wants to answer them.

- When you mount an early attack with Warriors and use the barbarians to build up to veteran/elite what do you do if your warrior sustains injury? Send him home to heal or send him on? Can they heal early on without being in your city?

- To mount the early attack as Grey Fox and SirPleb recommended, do you rush build Warriors, Archers, or Spearmen? Or do not rush anything at all?

- Which techs do you go after first? I've tried going after iron first so I can build swordsman. Then I usually go after Horses to build Horsemen. Any thoughts?

- Do you build any wonders early on such as Pyramids?

- And finally. Has anybody been successful with the GOTM by being non-aggressive? It doesn't seem possible!

Thanks for all the tips!

 

[Grey Fox]

Well I prefer Horsemen to Swordsmen. They are upgradeable and almost never die.

Yes, you can heal in the field. Not as fast as in a city with a barracks but it's possible and worth it.

Yes I rush, but not in my capital. Every city I rush in, I rebuild later in the game (when my enemy civs are gone).


On this map I built almost every Wonder I could. I started by building Pyramids in Kyoto and Lighthouse in Beijing.

Pyramids are the best Wonder I think, a granary in every city on the continent... really boosts the expansion.

Then when in middle age I built Sun Tzu Art of War, which triggered my Golden Age (Chinese= Industrious and Militaristic).
Sistine Chapel is a must too.

 

[SirPleb]

Usually my first research priorities are Pottery for granaries and Warrior Code for archers. Then Bronze Working and Iron Working, or The Wheel and Horseback Riding. Then Ceremonial Burial, Alphabet, Writing, and Map Making. Early in the game I'll trade techs with any other Civs I meet in order to get anything on that list. After that list, I rarely trade my techs (but I'll buy theirs if I can.) I prefer to delay the development of the other Civs as much as possible.

I usually don't rush build in my capital. In GOTM#3 I did rush there a bit. Normally I would not wait as long (before getting aggressive) as I did in GOTM#3. In this game, early building was very slow for me and I reached a point (the time described in my previous note) where I was afraid I'd lose the initiative if I didn't attack soon. So I rushed a bit in my capital for Swordsmen, to get the initial attack launched. That turned things around, allowed me to take the initiative before the enemy became too strong.

Healing units in the field: I almost never attack with a wounded unit, it reduces the odds of winning dramatically. They are easy to heal in the field - move a wounded unit out of the sphere of influence of any Civ, then fortify it. It will wake up from the fortified state when it is fully recovered.

Archers are good for very early aggression. ASAP I go for whichever of Swordsmen or Horsemen I can get depending on research (trades from other Civs or goody hut discoveries can change the direction here) and resources. I prefer Horsemen due to their speed and later upgradability. But Swordsmen are very powerful and may be available earlier (they were for me in GOTM#3 and took me through the first three opponents.)

I recommend keeping fighting units together when launching an attack. I prefer not to attack until I have high odds of winning. Attacking a town and losing could set you back a lot - the wounded defenders in the town will heal quickly and the AI will prioritize replacing any unit it lost, so repeated attacks which just barely don't succeed will just wear me down, it won't wear the enemy down! Better to wait a turn, or a few turns, to get 3 or 4 units together together and then attack. Very early in the game 2 units might be enough, a bit later on more than 4 is necessary. Going in with a strong stack means that if the dice roll against you, you nonetheless will probably win your primary objective. If the dice roll average or in your favor, you can quickly "top up" the stack and move it on to the next objective.

I don't build any early wonders unless I get Great Leaders to spare. One exception: If I discover that I'm on a relatively small island then Lighthouse becomes a priority early on.

 

[Grey Fox]

I agree with the tech order SirPleb discribed. I always, I mean always go for Pottery as the first tech...

 

[rangers85]

Bad part is in this game since it's the Chinese, horsemen aren't upgradable since the Rider is the UU. That's one reason I went the swordsman route this game and waited for my rider before starting to build horse units. That and I didn't have a source of horses for a little while until taking the horse island.

 

[Grey Fox]

Yea, well I did not know that until I played this game... argh!!

I had 74 Horsemen waiting to be upgradaded on the Eastern Island... man did it make me mad when I discovered that you could not upgrade them...

 

[Thunderfall]

Originally posted by Grey Fox
Yea, well I did not know that until I played this game... argh!!

I had 74 Horsemen waiting to be upgradaded on the Eastern Island... man did it make me mad when I discovered that you could not upgrade them...

Ouch! That gotta hurt! What are you going to do with all those obsolete units?

This is my luckiest game so far! I managed to get 3 Great Leaders in just 5 or 6 turns! Now I have both the Forbidden Palace and the War Academy in Susa, and will have an army of Riders soon... I expect to get a few more GLs in this game.

 

[gonzo_for_civ]

2 words: Immortals aren't

What do I mean? Immortals aren't Immortal.

After finishing off Japan, I had about 45 swordsmen just sitting around. I think half were vet and half were elite, so I decided to kick some persian butt. I discovered they only had 1 iron source so I moved in and took it out. After that, they moved a stack of 25 Immortals near Beijing. I was in despot so every city near Beijing was turning out veteran pikeman every turn. It was 4 turns before they could reach Beijing and I had a force of about 10 swordsmen for an attack on their stack just sitting inside of beijing.

Well, they came in and wiped out about 15 of Beijing's defenders. Unfortunately for them, they lost all but 3 immortals who were killed next turn. After this, I discovered something. Immortals are not Immortal. They can easily be killed. Now that I was confident, I moved in and destroyed persia. They did come at beijing again when I was in Monarchy and greatly unprepared, and took it. I was jst greatful they didn't raze it???

So, after about 200 more years, the Persians finally fell. The last persian city was taken by an elite warrior, who, ironically, had to beat a fully healed regular immortal. I came, I saw, Iconquered. The french are huge though!!!!

That is my game so far

 

[Grey Fox]

They weren't called Immortals because they were hard to kill (I'm talking history here), they were called Immortals because the number of Persian soldiers seemed to never decrease.

If you killed one Immortal, there were one just next to him.

That is, the name "Immortals" come from the fact that they were so MANY, not so well defended and not so hard to kill.


And in Civ3 they are no harder to kill then Swordsmen. You know they have 4-2-1, and Swordmen have 3-2-1.

 

[Smash]

Unlike some people ,I can't get leaders for the life of me.In the 3 gotms.I have a grand total of 4 leaders.3 in gotm3.1 in gotm1 and notta in 2.
In this one my first went for Pyramids.My second went for an army and 3rd for JSB.From now on,I am going to try for an army and get Epic for more.

A major invasion is in full swing on the Foreign island.I am raising everything to avoid domination victory.With some luck I can have a conquest victory around 1300-1400ad..maybe earlier.

I went back to Monarchy to research to Navigation.I know,I know,but I had too many troops for Republic.Then after Navigation,it was back to Despo and hopefully a final spurt of pop rushing.

I've got around 80 cities on the mainland and 2 on the other land.1 culture flip and the former Egyptian capitol which was spared the torch because it had the Lighthouse.Kinda late,but 1 more move to caravals is helping with re-enforcement.

As I have laid waste to much of the island,the barbs are setting up camps all over.Too bad gold is not much use in Despo.

 

[agent_delphi]

Well the game was going quite well for me as it is my first regent level game, i all but wiped out the japanese about 300 AD and then i attacked persia to take their iron source which i did quiclly (yipee no immortals) i waited til i got riders before i wiped them out. I got riders about 1000 AD and built 20 of them to take out most of the remaining 10 persian cities, attacked in 1400 and by 1500 had captured all but 3 cities of the persians. Two of their cities were in the frozen wastes at the top of the map and thier other city (the capital now) was the other side of a couple French cities, so i left them (big mistake) i disbanded half my invaders to help production in my new cities and left myself with 11 riders in Susa and 10 swordsmen by the persian horse city in the north, then about 6 turns after i declared peace, Susa flipped back to the persians, but their culture was no where near it but it just flipped back. Anyway after this setback i have built up the other cities and its about 1650 and i'm about to take on the French who have taken all the rest of the land on the island that i haven't got. I have really enjoyed this not GOTM despite the poor terrain, next month i hope we stay on regent but if we do go up a level the the map be very forgiving?

 

[IronKnight]

Well, after I got demolished in GOTM3 I decided to play again for more practice, after getting some good strategy tips from SirPleb & Grey Fox. Thanks guys, it has helped! As was recommended, I took out the Japanese right away, then went to work on Persia. Japan respawned between France and Babylon. By conquering cities, I've been able to grow without creating settlers. This lets my military grow quicker. I've found Swordsmen to be great in attacking Spearmen & Archers. However, I hold my breath whenever they are attacked by anybody. I've been able to keep up pretty well against the other Civs tech wise. My nation is producing enough gold to keep my research up very high. The one area of concern that I have is my low culture. I have not been able to build the required military and keep the culture growing. Its around 1000AD and I'm just starting to build libraries and such.
Of note, I received a great leader in battle. He was used to hurry the Tsen Szu's Art of War. I received another great leader in battle which I used to create Bach's cathedral. I now have Riders, which will be used to invade Babylon, who are stuck with just Bowman. They don't have Iron or Horse resources connected to city, so they can't build anything better.

I look forward to continuing my learning. I hope to be ready for GOTM4. Thanks for the help!

 

[rangers85]

I'm currently around 1980, looking like historograph. I've personally put the finishing touches on the Japanese, French, and Egyptians, Persians took out the Babylonians. Luckily in my Persian war, I captured the Sun Tzu. Very nice English declared war on me after us being polite all game. That's fine though, I called in the Indians to hold them off to build back up after the Persian war and for me to send my troops to their continent. The war also gave a nice excuse to rid our continent of English cities. This has been my best game ever on Civ3 score wise, although probably no where near the tops. Techs are advancing really slow in this game, the whole world didn't get into the Industrial age until about 1900.

 

[Grey Fox]

I'm Glad you used mine and SirPleb's tips IronKnight! And I hope you improved your gaming style... and made it more fun for your self to play, because that's what it is all about... having fun.

I also learned how to play the game through the GOTM, I never played GOTM1, but I had only started to play on regent when I tried GOTM3, but it went pretty darn well on that map... I has some luck and managed to eradicate the Romans pretty fast... so.

And now I have started to play on Emperor and one Deity actually (setup to get a High Score, played Iroquai against America, small Islands, cultural linked...). I have also started to practice for the next GOTM, GOTM4. It will be english ans I have never played english before, and I think the game will Be an Island map, so there should be a lot of naval activities... looking forward to it...