Civ 3 GOTM#4 *Spoiler* talks

ERIKK

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GOTM4: first it looks bad, but it's not that bad after all.

The starting position is OK, there is place for 2 fast-growing cities. After scouting southwards I thought we were alone on the island but then I suddenly made contact with the French (where did they come from???! => the north!) They had already had 3 more techs. I guess they must have had more luck with the huts, as I only found one, that gave me a map.

It was clear that it was us and the Island, so I totally focussed on settlers, grabbing the land! Research; iron and (later) horseback.

After all land was taken (real quick) I made barracks and --- IRON; our luck in this game -- swordmen! As the French didn't had iron they did the only good thing: they attacked! Suddenly there were about 10 warriers in my territory and I had at that moment not more than 3 swordsmen. It was 390BC and I wasn't really ready for this but the veteran swordsmen were superiour...

After a couple of turns skirmisch I managed to take 1 city. At 100BC I had taken 3 cities and made peace and got 3 techs in return (they still have 3 more then me). Also I got a Great Leader who hurried the GL.

It is now 270AD I made contact with the zulus, who are backwards and small. I've declard war on the French and have taken Paris. The French still have 4 more cities on the Island and a lot of colonies on the surrounding Islands (I don't even have a galley yet!). But it is clear that England is going to rule the world once again!

So, that's it for now. I think that if you don't grab the land real fast, it is going to be a real difficult game!


ERIKK :D
 
Update: it will be an intesting game!

340AD Captured one French city, burned another one.

380AD They sue for peace, they have it for one city, their last city on our Island.

460AD The Great Lighthouse pays off: I made contact with the Persians. They are really BIG but Xerxes is on his own and he has only one luxury. On the histograph Persia is in the lead by 925. England has 594, France has 569, Zulu 520. Persia is a little bigger but has much more culture. So we have to build up our culture as fast as possible!

470AD Damn, the Zulu’s dropped 2 warriors on my Island and the next turn they declare war. They don’t have a chance. I call upon the French and they join me. The French are good for all the fighting at sea!

560AD I made contact with the Aztecs. They are of medium size and backwards. They are not very interesting….

580AD F**K, I lost a settler and a spearman on a ‘Galley-misclick’. The good news is that meanwhile France and the Zulu’s are losing their Galleys in various battles at my coast. Just what I wanted!

----> a strange thing is going on: I’ve learned philosophy, construction and currency on ‘the great library’-way. Until now I’ve never seen this (I don’t have the great library!). Does anybody know what’s going on?
EDIT: after loading my savegame the Great Library was visible in Paris. (Before that only the Oracle was visible.) This bug explains everthing!


ps: Good luck and happy civing!


ERIKK :D
 
Theres no fresh water!!!!! I cant irigate and get my cities over the size of like 8!! I really wish there were food caravens!!:p
 
There is fresh water by Joan's first city.

You'll still have to build irrigation canals of less than 10 tiles(?) before you clear the desert between you.

Has anyone found the fact that there is a desert on that tiny part. Dont I remember from geography that that it would become green if surrounded by water like the way it is ?

Anyway, no matter, Im not picky, Im still a regent :king: .
 
My game isn't going too bad it's 250AD, i'v just made contact with the other 3 civs, that weren't next door. The french are dead and i've got about 20 horseman waiting outside zulu cities.


My game started i just built in the small bubble of land were you start, i pushed north and managed to get a city in quite close (but not close enough) to the second luxury. I started expanding south then just before planting my last city down there the french landed i decided i wouldn't let them plant the city, so i attacked the settler which was only defended by a warrior. over next 2 turns i captured 2 french cities, because luckly i had been gathering archers & spearman in the choke point.

I captured a third city just before declaring peace for 3 techs, which then flipped back. By the end of this war i was just discover horseman so i built about 12 and then started another war on france ( i really wanted the second luxury), settled for peace for 3 cities after about 15-20 turns (as soon as the would talk to me) then backstabbed and took their last city the very same turn :)

by the end of the war i had 20 or so horseman so i rested them all while i built 5 gallies or so and then got a ROP with the zulus and shipped my force in
 
On thing i forgot which must've slowed me down alot was military police, since i had the choke point taken care of i had no defense in any of my cities and with only 1 luxury at size 3 i had to have an entertainer :enlighten: it was till i started producing units for the war when i remembered :p
 
New Update:

640AD England is a monarchy. I’ve contacted the Indians. A look at the foreign advisory’s screen tells me everybody hates me. War with Zululand ended.

750AD Persia demands contact with the Aztecs, I think for their luxuries. I say no and they declare war on me. Found a couple of nice Islands far away.

About 820AD Settled on a defensible Island west of the mainland.

890AD Peace with Persia after no bloodshed. There are lots of small Islands on the southern hemisphere but I’m not going settle there because they will be attacked by the computer in future wars (I suspect), so let the other civs have conflicts about these Islands!

950AD Damn, source of iron dried up. I must sent settlers to the southern hemisphere for iron now! This will take a while and messes up my strategy….

1050AD Zululand declared war on France. Their war does not interests me, as I am focused on city growth and city improvement.

BY NOW the other civs still haven’t met each other, which really works for us! I'm trading absolutly nothing, except luxuries but they still demend far to much. Paris is building the Forbidden Palace, takes about 30 turns. Researching towards the man-o-war, strategy changed towards maritme superpower, as England of course is supposed to be!

ERIKK :D
 
Disgust at myself I should add.

All was well to start with, I had the initial good fortune to find the French and choke off the connecting land, and managed to get Iron Working and be churning out a few swordsman before they became to aggressive.

Fairly soon I established a line of cities down to the Southern aspect of out min-continent - but the French managed to use their galleys and landed there too. It was only a matter of time before war was inevitable.

I decided to try and keep the French appeased - but despite my frequent gifts, they declared war. (That's why I never trust the French!). Luckily my troops were strong enough to soak up anything the French threw from the North, and I was able to hold on to my cities.

Eventually I was actually making some progress North and even dreaming of taking Marseilles for myself - but then the French offer peace (and I demand an advance from them too and get it!).

Now I need to catch up - the Zulus are no real help or threat - but hey they have an island with a second Iron deposit and they haven't secured it! A short galley journey and its mine!

Later on - decide to give the French a chance and trade Iron with them for some much needed funds.

All going fairly well - now I can see the Aztecs and see that they're the second most powerful (I'm still 4th of 4).

Then the French land to the South again (after I'd already claimed all but two squares for myself). Its no good - war again I think. Ah but the Aztecs are already at war with them - time for an alliance against the french!

Now I see real trechery at work! Next turn, the Aztecs and French make peace! Gulp! and the French have pikemen now and ....

Damn a few turns later its vurtually over ... half my cities gone - widespread anarchy - London itself under threat and no hopes of catching up even if I manage to get out of this war!

Oh I quit (I think) - maybe I'll resume later but I doubt it.

My first serious attempt at GOTM and its a disaster.

Moral: Trust no-one!
 
Don't feel bad, Ian, I quit in disgust, too. This probably wasn't a good scenario for my first-ever game on this difficulty setting combined with my first time playing the English. (What's all this talk I keep hearing how one of the English advantages is they always see the world map? I sure didn't.)

The French declared war on me fairly early, attacking with at least 12 warriors and 6 archers, this attack force being about double the size of my entire army. Having swordsmen available, I did push them back, but really gained nothing doing it aside from killing units and managing to mooch off French irrigation. At the peak of my game I sacked a French city, I was driving forward fairly well with swordmen, but they began to land horsemen in my rear areas, forcing me to pull back my swordsmen to keep them from running wild.

The French were so technologically superior, it wasn't even funny. Paris was size 10 before I even could think of researching construction, let alone building an aqueduct anywhere.

On the whole, I would say I outfought them tactically, but they just buried me, plain and simple. Even standing on the defensive in a fortress they conveniently built for me at the bottleneck with about 8 veteran and elite sword/spearmen, I couldn't resist their horsemen. They were incredibly lucky on the attack, frequently killing spearmen fortified in the fortress without their horsemen even being taken to one hitpoint.

I suppose I could have tried to sue for peace, but by that time, the Fench were a republic, they had the hanging gardens, the great library, and the great lighthouse, and still had a much larger army and twice the cities I had. Between them and the Zulu, I had nowhere to expand, they had colonized all the little islands, the situation seemed hopeless, because I knew my odds of even biding my time in hope of future strategic resources were slim at best.

When I saw that they had gained iron on a little island, in about 400 AD, I just turned the game off. I guess its time for me to start practicing above regent level.
 
I immediately started researching towards horseback riding and plopped my first settler as far north in the choke point as possible and still be able to block it.

I accidently misplace two of my cities to the south where the horses show up so that neither had horses show up in their territory. So i had to use one of my workers to grab it as a colony.

I placed a scout on the horses site in the french territory. I don't consider this a cheat. They did ask me to move it but never forced me to.

By the time horseback riding was researched, i had completed a baracks in my choke point city on of my cities directly north of the horses and of course my capitol. I had a chariot building in my capitol and it switched to horseman. After building 4-5 horseman i took the first french city to the north and also destroyed the one that they created to the south of me when a galley slipped past. I sued for peace and got iron working and gold. BTW they killed my scout on the horses.

Built another scout after declaring peace and put back on their horses. I continued to pump horseman so that after 20 turns were up i broke the peace treaty and had ~10 horseman and proceeded to take their capitol and north east most city. some losses on each side. they managed to have made around 5 horseman during the time that i didn't have a scout on their horses. From there it was pumping horseman and taking cities. I finally sued for peace as they had 2 cities left. One was the name starting with a C to the far west, i demanded the north most city , all their research, all their gold and all their workers.

And here is the most important part of this. In a few turns the indians galley show up (they have lighthouse). I do some trades but don't trade contact because i reason that they will go from polite to annoyed real quick. BUT they are heading their galley north towads the Last french city. So i decide to break the french peace treaty at like 14 turns left point and wipe them out. (they had just completed the great wall, and the oracle and great library was in paris when i captured it). So i check my diplomacy screen and sure enough, the indians are still polite!!!! since i wiped the french out before they made contact they never new how much of a scoundrel i was to them.

I reloaded to test my theory (not cheating since i wasn't planning on using it, just to see the effect on their attitude) and if i waited till peace treaty was up and then killed them, by that point the indians had found them and went from polite to annoyed with me. I'm glad i hurried up and killed the french.

At this point i have contact with persians, indians, zulu, and aztec. I have brokered out a bunch tech and the persians are the only one ahead of me in tech (monotheism and maybe more) . indians and i are equal and i'm getting ready to sell monarchy to the other civs.

I'm not sure really where to go from now. I'm in anarch switching to monarchy so i'm not sure whether to try and keep up in tech with the persians, or whether to drop to 10 percent and broker tech. The problem is i drained the zulu, and aztec so much that i don't think i can recoup my investment if i buy monotheism for 500+ gold...

Plus those stupid indians have grabbed all the islands to the south of me. Its 340 AD and current rank is

Persians 821
India 632
England 524
Aztec 496
Zulu 481
and French (deceased) 420


The big decision is whether to go heavy man-o-war when i get their and bombard the persians (and maybe indians) into oblivion without invading until they sue for peach. (not sure if that will work but it might) or whether to go for diplomacy/space victory.
 
Forgot to mention that I got a greatleader when i took out the last french city and used that to hurry a forbidden palace in the middle of the captured french territory. Not sure if this was wise or not (whether i should have saved it for sistine chapel or not... oh well.
 
I like this map, makes for quite an interesting game. I researched straight to Mapmaking, while watching the French get hopelessly more advanced than me. I had a warrior blocking them off from the south, and all my cities were pumping out settlers as fast as possible. By the time the French had Mapmaking (they got it before I did even), I had colonized the whole southern portion of the Island.

I traded for Horseback Riding and Iron Working, and was pleasantly suprised to find 2 Horses and an Iron within my borders. I upgraded all my warriors to Swordsmen, and started pop-rushing Horsemen from every city. I first sent a stack of Swordsmen directly to the French Horses, and cut off their supply. Meanwhile my Horsemen fought a hit and run battle keeping the French forces occupied. Then my two armies joined up and started sacking cities. I got a leader, which I used to rush the Great Lighthouse, the French had already built the Great Library. I razed all the cities except the one with the Great Library, and signed a peace treaty for the 2 French island cities, and all their tech. The next turn I took the final city and the French were no more.

I had sent my Galleys out immediately after the Lighthouse was built, making contact with all of the other Civs pretty quickly. I didn't trade anything, as I could tell that they wouldn't be able to make contact with each other until they had Astronomy. I blockaded the galley alley between my Islands and the Zulu's, to save the southern islands for later colonization. I also blockaded the Aztecs from the small Island to the west, so I could settle there first. The Zulu's became angry because of this, and declared war. I had my galleys out in the sea though, and they never would attack them. It was the first of many wars where no battles were fought. The Persians demanded that I give them contacts several times, each time I said no. They would declare war, but not be able to send any forces. Each time I would sign peace, I got a few gold per turn, which was nice.

I noticed the Indians didn't have any Iron or Horses, and so targetted them for the next invasion. I landed my armies, and razed all but 1 of their cities in about 20 turns of warfare. I got another Great Leader during the fighting, and sent him back to the main continent to rush the Forbidden Palace. I built it near where Paris had been.

I decided to try and take the southern Aztec isle next. I pop rushed several longbowmen on the Indian continent, and ferried them and the remainder of my Horseman force across to do battle. The Aztecs had Pikemen, so it was a bit difficult, but they only had 4 small cities on the island at the time. After wiping out several landings from the main Aztec continent, they sued for peace and I was able to get a city of theirs on the smaller island. I had settled there originally, but they had conquered my city during the fighting, and built another. I got them both.

After that I beelined for Calvary, letting the Great Library fill in the gaps. I upgraded my few remaining Horsemen, and invaded the Zulu's. They still hadn't gotten into the Middle Ages, so my Calvary tore them apart. The Persians were able to land a couple of settlers to claim some of the former Zulu lands. I built several small cities around the Persians, and rushed all the cultural buildings I could. One of the Persian cities defected, and then the Persians declared war again. I took the remaining city, and then just killed their landing parties until they were ready for peace again.

I'm waiting now for Tanks to continue any warfare, just barely holding a tech lead of a turn or two. I have been able to get all the Middle age wonders, except for Newtons (the aztecs beat me by 1 turn!) and Shakespeares Theater (I didn't want it). I had traded Theory of Gravity to the Aztecs just a couple turns before I was going to complete Newton, I don't know how they finished it so fast, as there wasn't any spillover from previous wonders.
 
wow the great lighthouse sounds quite powerful on this map.

The indians built it in my game stupid me i had a great leader but didn't use it because i was only a few turns away from finishing the lighthouse in London, when the indians built it.

What year are you in Aeson?


In my game i've wiped the zulus from their homeland in about 500AD, they have one colony left on an island to the south and i'm ferrying 3 swordsman down as we speak :slay: The war took alot longer than i intended because of those damn impi, i initally attacked with 20 horseman and managed to capture 3 cities but took HEAVY losses due to the 2 movement points of their defense units disabling my horsies retreat option. So i had to take a 100 year break from the war just defending the 3 eastern cities till i could get 10 swordsman in there to finish the job.

But now i'm still 3 techs away from astronomy, the only cities i can get too is a few small indian cities in the southern isles. I might take them and see if i can scare them into giving a city on their mainland for peace, then i might be able to mount an attack on their city with the Great Lighthouse. It's a long shot but i'll be researching towards astronomy as i go anyway.
 
hey, i just finshed gotm4. what a great game!
i got a warrior out of that 1st goodie hut,and took him north.
hey theres the evil french,i killed there warrior and got 2 workers from there setller.by now i was making sperman,so when they send about 5 warriors to kill me they didnt have a chance.
anyways afer i got swordsmen i burnt all there cities to the ground,allbut paris.paris had the great libary and pyrimd,so i was able to keep up with everyone.
after a short war with the zulus i had the hole island and the small ones to the south.
afterthat i got the man of war,then the golden age.
after that i traded gold for tech,and just stayed out of war. the other civs killed all the zulus around 1800.
then aztecs and i were in a protection pact,as i started to build the UN. the persians were my only worrie,and i thought that the indians would vote for them. 2 turns befor i finished the UN the persians went to war with india,then i knew i would get there vote too. i won in 1891 with a diplomatic win, my score was 2594. that was the 1st time i ever won with a diplomatic win,and the 1st time i ever won on emperor level.
hope to see you all in the standings.
 
I thought the starting position sucks arse. Poor access to resources and right next to the French who are aggressively pouring out military units and not doing much else. On the plus side, some nice land and a chokehold position at the northern border with the French. So obviously the Frenchies must go, this continent ain't big enough for the both of us. They are too arrogant with their crossaints and big-arsed women parading around in tiny bikinis anyway. The Frenchies iron deficiecy was their downfall, swordsman made short work of the task. Once the French were quelled I now have a decent land mass and some OK resources. Built the Forbidden Palace in the centre of the old French territory, luckily produced a great leader in the war with the french through ensuring elites only fought battles they would win, and doing this as much as possible. Used him to rush the FP. So now I have two strong regions, my original position and palace (plus a southern peninsula which has good land but is far enough from my capital to have quite a lot of corruption) and the old French area which is looking really good.

So what is the overall strategy? Not much time to develop one early on, as the French solution required complete commitment. Time to consider the options now.

The usual objectives in any Civ 3 game are -

1. to have a decent continent/region with good growth potential, resources and defensive capability
2. build it up to create commerce and production
3. keep the people happy
4. expand culture
5. explore and make contact with other civs
6. expand territory where appropriate
7. develop science/technology
8. have a strong military (even if only as a deterrent)

Specific to this game -

1. the English suck. have to keep in mind their weak characteristics (and compensate). 5 turns of anarchy to change government...arrrgh!
2. Emperor level - very hard to keep up on science/tech - hence don't waste resources trying. Trade is the key here - have a strong empire in terms of resources and gold, contact all the other civs and trade intelligently.
3. On deity level I think you have no choice but to play militaristically, as the AI civs have such a huge advantage in development speed. On emperor level this is kind of true also, although not to the same extent. However in this game due to observations made early on I decided that I would need to be very militaristic.
4. Islands! Don't normally play island games, the logistics of sea travel are a pain in the arse-cracka. Anyway, need to develop marine capability ASAP, see what's out there and exploit.
5. On emperor level once a rival civ starts to pull away from you it is near impossible to reign them in - if this starts to happen you must act, no matter what the cost, or you'll lose anyway through inaction. The ideal situation is to create alliances or provoke situtaions that have the other civs fighting the strongest AI civ, as well as the required military effort from yourself.

So I follow this strategy and make contact with the other 5 civs. Recognise two threats - the Indians and the Persians. The Persians have more territory and a generally more impressive empire, however the Indians are flying along with tech delevopment. We all know how ****ed you are if a rival civ becomes significantly more technologically developed. So the decision is made - primary target India, secondary Persia. Cannot fight on 2 fronts at once (not strong enough), so try to encourage the others against Persia while staking out the Indians and building a massive offensive force. This took a while. I'm deliberating whether to just **** them up and leave (which would be easier) or try to take over. Decide I need to take over if I'm to have any chance later in the game, currently my land mass just isn't large enough.

So won't bore you with intense detail, flooded the Indians with cavalry and fought a bloody and protracted war which eventually resulted in me being victorious and commanding a new continent with some excellent great wonders also. The Indians are now crushed. Had a problem with culture-flipping cities for a while but sorted them out eventually.

Still trading as much as possible with anyone who will trade with me, have found a good friend in the Zulus.

During my Indian war however, the Persians strengthened - and really threatened to pull away. Had to act fast, before they developed infantry which would prevent me taking their cities. Continued building massive offensive force (at the cost of other development opportunities of course). Attacked the Persians in gusto, initially razing their cities as the battles were close, I was taking heavy losses and could not afford to waste resources attempting to retain their cities. Razed the top 5 Persian cities. Then decided I could afford to take some of their territory, I took about 40% of it, then they started building a lot of infantry - I decided I could not continue this war realistically any further - I sued them for peace, took some nice techs and a ****load of gold and staked out defensively in their land. They are now weakened enough to neutralise the threat, but only just.

Made mutual protection pact with the Zulus who I have identified as a good ally, they are loyal but not really a threat.

The Aztecs by now are fighting the Persians, sensing the opportunity created by my attack. This is good, as the Aztecs have become the most pressing threat due to being left alone for so long, they are next on the list for an arse-****ing by the Captain.

I decided that I need to spend 30-50 years in peacetime, developing my nation as I have neglected it during so much war. Luckily I have a lot of gold - spend it on hospitals, factories, cathedrals etc. Built the CIA and battlefield medicene. Start using espionage to great effect, am now at the forefront of research (with science set at 0% - not bad hey). 45 years later and now looking shipshape. No 1 on nearly all stats. No time to get cocky though, on emperor level that would punished swiftly. Will commence offensive strategy against the Aztecs when I play again tonight.
 
Originally posted by Trash
wow the great lighthouse sounds quite powerful on this map.

The indians built it in my game stupid me i had a great leader but didn't use it because i was only a few turns away from finishing the lighthouse in London, when the indians built it.

What year are you in Aeson?

The Great Lighthouse is an automatic Golden Age for the English. Some may not like early GA's in Despotism, but I think on higher difficulties you can't wait for good timing, every little bonus counts when trying to catch up to the initial AI lead. Once in the lead it's easier to keep pace, as the AI will fund your research. Definitely on this map the Lighthouse is extremely powerful, this is due to the movement rates, and how the AI avoids ocean crossings with Galleys at all costs. I waited to trade contact a little too long though, as the Persians found the Aztecs and Zulu's while I was distracted with conquest of the Zulu island. Cost me about 500 gold or so. I think the Great Lighthouse is probably the single most important improvement on this map, and on archipelago maps in general. If not for your own use, than to keep the AI from taking advantage of early contact to get a huge lead.

I have currently wiped out most of the Persian holdings, though they had taken 3 of my poorly defended southern islands. I demanded 2 of them back, so now the Persians only have one city, and are at war with the Aztecs. The Aztecs only have one source of Aluminum, and I'm going to hit it as soon as possible. They haven't linked it up yet, as it was a city that the Persians took from me. The Aztecs have Computers, I just traded it to them, so I don't want to give them the chance to build any Mech Infantry. I have 4 transports full of tanks along with 12 battleships headed towards them now, and most of the Aztec armies are still on the Persian Mainland. It's 1920, the game has played out quite historically acurate in many regards.

Originally posted by Trash
In my game i've wiped the zulus from their homeland in about 500AD, they have one colony left on an island to the south and i'm ferrying 3 swordsman down as we speak :slay: The war took alot longer than i intended because of those damn impi, i initally attacked with 20 horseman and managed to capture 3 cities but took HEAVY losses due to the 2 movement points of their defense units disabling my horsies retreat option.?[/B]

I try to wait until Knights at least to attack the Zulu's, though even then they get killed a lot attacking Zulu cities. Zulu cities on hills are just Horse nightmares. On this game I was able to go straight for Military Tradition though, and the Great Library gave me Chivalry about the same time I got to Calvary anyways. Even with Calvary, Impies are worse than pikemen, or musketmen in causing deaths. If the AI would use mobile troops (Knights, Calvary, UU's) for defense at all, that would really take a bite out of Horse rushing in general. Thats one of the reasons why I like using the Zulu's on my privately played games, as an early Horse rush is always going to be effective. Impies are perfect defense for your Horse stacks as well.

When I took out the Zulu's they stuck around for 4 or 5 turns after their last city fell. I couldn't find out where they were, and then they just poofed. Had me worried about Zimbabwe defecting, as I had settler disbanded or razed all their other cities.
 
C'mon, be a man, play it out and submit it! I've been getting killed regularly and still submit...

...and this GOTM is no exception. I played this one really, really, really badly. I stunk, now the French are killing me and I deserve it. In 1700 BC I had NO CULTURE (except the free palace) and no army to speak of. I lost so many warriors to BARBARIANS that I never even dreamed of attacking France.

I hung in there, and actually built a few cities on islands. Then France attacked for no reason. They won't even talk to me. I think the AI remembers all those cheiftain games I played where I conquered all their civs - and now the computer is taking it's revenge :eek:
 
Well, I finished this evening. I don't play in the modern age much, and was thinking they needed aluminum for Mech Infantry, this mess up cost me a lot of frustration. I had about 15 Battleships bombarding each city, then a stack of 100 or so Tanks would clean up afterwards. Still I barely had enough Tanks to complete the conquest of the Aztecs main island, I was losing 5-10 per city. I had the Aztecs down to 3 cities on the small southern islands, and was going to let them alone while I built up my score a bit.

War weariness was getting really annoying though, as the Aztecs wouldn't talk to me forever. There really wasn't enough landmass to get many more points, so I built a couple cities, took over 2 of the Aztec cities, and achieved domination. I didn't really feel like spending all that time building up anyways. It was a fun game, and cutting it short was nice. I don't think I could have improved my score more than another 100 points or so anyways, the date bonus was pretty well balanced on this map.
 
Well , I'm pretty sure I'm going to loose unless I can arrange some truly heroic WWI style industrial conquest from nowhere.

I found the french quite quickly, blockaded the choke point with 3 warriors , and managed to fill in all the southern island area with my cities , as well as grab 3 random whaling stations on the little islands to the south. All well and good. The French got annoyed once while there was still some territory to grab in teh southern island, but by then I had a walled city with 5 spearmen in the chokepoint. i never had the nerver to pop rush an army and take on the french , so they have been slowly pulling away from me.

They got the ´Lighthouse and most of the medevil wondres, and Joan of arse is a grumpy ***** to trade with. Polite , but... "We have no interest is such a trade" to _everything_. i found Zulus, but Joan would not trade any maps or contacts or techs... so IO lagged badly. Eventually got contacts from Zulus for tech ( I was foolishly trying to research tech s at this time, as it seemed the Zulus were backwards and France was not selling). Got monarchy , changerd govs , as soon asI recover from anrchy it seems Zuzlus want to sell me REpublic .... Damn...

Main mistakes.... 1. trying to research tech... should have gone 100% tax and bought contacts then traded. (and not built librarys). 2.Should have avoided monarchy and aimed direct for Republic. 3 . Not paying enough attention to the resources the French didn't have.. or those easily taken from them. I think there was a window there in Anchient age to pop rush units and kill them.... but I missed it.

Main cool plays... 1. getting city on choke point and pop rushing a wall !!! 2. Getting 4 techs , world map and contact with Indians from the Persioans for 50 gold per turn then declaring war. They HATE me..... but they can't get to me yet.

Problems.....
Slow on tech, inferior units to French.
Persians and Indians also show signs of powereing away to Victory.

Plan : Trade for tech parity , build many defense units , horse units and MANY cannon. I reckon I can cripple the french in a WW1 trench warfare massacry at the choke point , maybe enough to start taking cities , definatly enough for some GL's and generally to mess them up. I can't see how to deal with the other though , unless I kill the frech , then maybe a big economy can out tank the others.

Man-o-war will be irrelavent , as 2 turns after I trade for magnetism there will be Ironclads running around the ocean.

Perhaps I might win by killing Frech + all the little guys and get domination , or by trading my way to a really cheesy GL built UN victory.... but I think I can't win unless the French die.

I might replay this for fun and try to swordsman ruch the French.... after they build a few handy Wonders for me in Paris :)
 
In order to win this game you have to eliminate the french right away.And the only way you can know that is by reloading.If you do not stay in a constant war/peace with them and take their advances in treaties you'l get so far behind it's not funny.
I may even go further to say that anyone who submits a winning score cheated.

Marshalljames
 
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