Civ 3 GOTM#5 *Spoiler* talks

[Alc0p0pz]

I learned about the free palace jump. It goes to the city with highest number of native citizens.

Apparently, not always.
I've stuffed my game because of this.

Basically, I'd built the FP in Paris and was readying to jump the Palace from Washington (the start location) to my new settlements on the spice island. The intended target (Atlanta) was my biggest city at size 5 by (native) population. The Palace instead jumped to Lyon, which was size 4 but with a Temple, Walls, and the Collossus. Unfortunately, my Palace and FP are only about four squares apart now. Too bad.

My guess is that it goes to the next highest rated city, according to the criteria by which the top five are shown on the F11 screen.

 

[Aeson]

There have been a couple of threads on how to predict where the Palace will jump to over at Apolyton. It is very difficult to be sure where the Palace will end up if you have more than one city of size 4+. I have always (about 20 games) been able to make it work by having my target city the only one size 3+.

 

[Zachriel]

I was curious how much time I actually spent at war in GOTM5. The answer, 22% of the turns.



http://www.crowncity.net/civ3/gotm5/

 

[Cartouche Bee]

This GOTM seemed more difficult than the emperor game last month. I'm sure the new patch took a role in the new difficulty along with the 3 billion year aged earth.

I settled right at the original start point because it did not seem too bad. Well it was not long there after that the news from the scout sobered me up. When the scout found a settler, I established New York immediately cause no better site had been found, besides the city foot print provided a choke point to protect the wondrous lands to be discovered to the east.....

I was in full blown world war around 300BC, all civs knew of one another by this time and things had been real peaceful until this time. This world war had the effect of slowing the tech race to a crawl. Anyway, I took the French out of the game around 10BC as the world war started to fade.

Then I ground the Russians with swordsmen for the next 500 years. I got my only great leader in the Russian wars. I shut down Washington city and moved my palace into Paris. I razed Moscow and reestablished Washington city complete with a Forbidden Palace, thanks to the great leader.

By the time I went after the Japanese with my knights, their source of iron was dried up so they provided little resistance.

The Greeks were a bit tougher but my knights were still the most powerful units because gunpowder was not yet invented.

I had started to pop rushed temples in my cities to expand my borders and fill the gaps back during the Russian wars and continued through all the ages.

This left me to square off against the Egyptians. By this time I had caught up to them culturally and my culture production was surpassing theirs. I spread out into remote areas as best I could, while I tried to gather my forces into a position to launch an attack and contain any of their further expansion.

I focused primarily on a domination win at this time (I knew I could fall back on a cultural win if required) but I had to start the war with the Egyptians because the out lying territories were slow to develop. I triggered the domination win shortly after the war started.

If I would have continued on, with a cultural win, I probably could have milked out a score around 8000 on this map (I'll be interested to see the top scores). The domination win was far less but a good compromise.

Happy Gaming,

Cartouche Bee

 

[ButSam80]

I've been able to avoid war altogether, and I'm in 400 AD. I think part of the reason is because the French and I are on such good terms (they're letting me conduct training operations in their territory...or at least, I was able to use that excuse successfully and without lowering opinion of Gracious when my workers entered French soil!), and the French are winning right now. But man, all I can say is Russia and Egypt got it GOOD! I hope the future maps aren't this hard, but I am very happy with how I am doing--this is my first game on Monarch. I'd like to see a Monarch with at least a "normal" starting position for the next month...but perhaps an Archipelagos map where each civ has their own eqaully-sized island or something similar. Also, I think I would prefer a Standard map with max civs just because I found the exploring aspect ended too soon...no, I don't know the whole map, but I do know all the civs, and have since about 1 AD.

 

[Alc0p0pz]

Also, I think I would prefer a Standard map with max civs just because I found the exploring aspect ended too soon

True, but the thing that bugged me about Small compared to Standard is that, because corruption is scaled according to map size (but workable city radius obviously isn't) I ended up with far more city overlap in an attempt to build a decent 'core' around my F/Palace.

I don't like having any city overlap.

(Infact one of the first things I do in my own games when I've founded my capital is see if it's capable of producing exactly 40 food, as this allows the entire population roster to be working every workable tile.)

 

[lawren8]

Originally posted by IronKnight
What is the best way to deal with overcrowding?

I'm a communist government, at war. My cities are approximately size 8 and smaller. I just upped entertainment to 10%. I have 7 luxuries. Are there any cities improvemnets which specifically combat overcrowding?

With 7 luxeries, you should build marketplace as it significantly
multiplies the happy faces. Are you sure you aren't getting unhappiness from the draft ?

 

[lawren8]

Originally posted by Beard Rinker


Technology and Trading

My technology strategy throughout the ancient and middle ages was to buy or trade for most technologies, keeping research at 10% throughout. When selecting a research project, I would select a technology I didn't want or one I thought the AI would not research. My reasoning was twofold:

• Any important technology will likely be discovered by one of the AI opponents first and could be bought.
• Any technology discovered is worth more if no one else has it.

Furthermore, I never sold my contacts and bought contacts as soon as available. At one point, I had contact with all opponents except the Egyptians. All others only knew about the opponents on their island. I was able to broker technology between the two groups at premium prices until around the start of the middle ages.

For most of this period, I almost always got a technology for less than 100 gold and often for free or at a profit through brokering.

This strategy also allowed me to focus on military production. No need for libraries, and gold was always plentiful.
[/B]

Same strategy here.
You can set tech to 0% and then create one specialist scientist to generate enough for the 40 turn min.

Saw an explanation where the AI devalues the tech based on
the total number of civs (not %) that already know about the tech. So not trading contact significantly increases the $$ you can charge. As I was behind in tech in much of the early game, I quickly traded contact and my cost to purchase techs went down significantly. Not sure wich is better

 

[ButSam80]

OK, I practically got wiped out by the Russians, but managed to find a way to salvage myself! All my cities except Washington died, most of them razed (die, russkie scum)! Anyway, the French were a buffer between me and the Russians. While the Russians were fighting the French to get to Washington, I loaded up a boat with three settlers (Washington WAS size-12) and sailed away just before they attacked, off to an island that no civ started on somewhat close to that area (I wish I knew about that island in the first place!). Anyway, I still am not too far behind tech-wise, but I would just like to thank the French for acting as a small buffer--without them, I would have lost completely! Now I am still alive...and the one thing I hope is that my score won't be lower because I am living longer just because the conditions are a bit rougher! (Yes, this is my first Monarch game, so I am happy to live as long as I am--it's after 1100 AD--and be right there with the computer as far as techs go at least, even if my army developments were very low!)

 

[The Rainmaker]

First GOTM. First game as Monarch. Stuffed by the French. Thankfully I'm not the only one.

Thing is, I did some of the right moves, like establishing a city west of the French (New York, trying to reach the gems in the mountains - hadn't discovered iron working yet). Then Boston followed on that desert by the iron (popular site, it seems).

Then the French establish a city west of New York, and I'm boxed in. The only way to break out seems to be to take them out, so I send out a force to capture Paris. Paris fell, but was recaptured in the same turn.

Fighting moves to New York, and after three or four turns of heavy fighting, the French finally burns it to the ground. It's all downhill from there, I'm afraid.

 

[Thunderfall]

What's wrong with the Russians in this game? ? They keep asking me for tribute! Russians seem to be programmed to hate Americans in Civ3.

I paid them tribute 2 times but they still won't stop! So I moved 10 swordsman and captured Minsk, and a peace treaty was signed soon after.

I gave 15 Gold gift to the Russians after I signed peace treaty with them. They said "This gift won't heal the rift between our people, Lincoln". I wasted 15 Gold for nothing....

I have enjoyed peace with all Civs for the last 25 turns...

 

[Creepster]

First GOTM. This is quite the start for the game. I am not fond of starting in the mountains. I made the right move by accident at the beginning. I established a few cities to the north and west. This allowed me to be a buffer between the French and the Russians. Like everyone else I had to put a city near the iron once I found it. I then switched to producing swordsman as fast as I could. Once I had about 6 of them I attacked the French. After a long war I finally settled with them only to be attacked by The Russians. I was able to beat them back to a narrow part of land and get peace with them. As a result of the war I got a leader and built my forbidden palace. I should have moved my capitol instead, but I didn’t think of that till much later in the game.

For the next several hundred years I developed my empire researching and trading as fast as I could until I could build tanks (I had to trade for the rubber). I built up an army of 35 tanks, and set out to make war. The French were gone on the first turn. This allowed me to get the Russians to declare war on me. Over the next several turns I was able to grind them up, cutting of their supply of resources as I went. After about five turns the Japanese attacked me in an alliance with the Russians. This allowed me to get the Greeks and the Egyptians in the war against the Russians, and to hopefully not fall too far behind on the techs.

After reducing the Russians to 3 cities I am now concentrating on the Japanese. I wish I had known how close and easy of a victim they were earlier in the game. I would have attacked them when swordsmen were the best units. They have no tanks, or any offensive unit to speak of. I now have one city on the coast and am in the process of ferrying over as many tanks as I can. Hopefully they won’t take too long, as I need to get out of the communist government and back into democracy. My production sucks and I have no Navy to speak of. Currently just a transport. The Greeks and Egyptians have huge fleets sailing by all of the time. Well it is 1802 and we will see what happens. This is the first time I have tried to complete a game on Civ III so it should be interesting. Up until now I have been playing to try to learn the subtle, and major differences between this version and the other two.

 

[Sullla]

Well I posted some comments earlier on this thread, but now that I've finished the game I'll sum up my game and give my impressions. I had a lot of fun playing this map, and by a lot of fun I mean that I was sweating it out and working like crazy to stay alive for most of the game.

In 4000BC the game starts, and I found Washington in the starting location because it looks good. And the location is good for that city. But my scout quickly reveals that the land around me isn't very good. I sent the scout south to start, which probably cost me a turn or two in exploring; never got the goody hut that a lot of other players claimed to find.

I get my second city up around 3000BC, and build it SE of Washington on the coast. It looked like the only good spot at the time. So throughout the game I had this pseudo ICS city that was not right next to Washington but borrowed some tiles from it. Not sure exactly what I was thinking when I founded this city. I have two warriors out exploring at this time and see that France has only one warrior fortified in their captial. That's a little too tempting, so I "treacherously" attack them, capturing an undefended worker and getting their warrior in the field to attack my warrior fortified on a hill - with predictable results. A few turns later it is my two warriors vs. their warrior fortified in Paris. I belive the odds of winning are about 65% so I gamble and go for it - and fail miserably. The next 1000 years were spent recovering from this.

So I'm at war with France and have NO units whatsoever now. Hmm... might be a good idea to build some archers. So I build one, and he's prompty attacked by a barbarian horseman out of the darkness and killed. Ok, let's try again. The next archer is also killed by a barbarian horseman out of the blue. At this point I'm seriously considering quitting the game. The French are bringing an attack force near (undefended!) Washington and I have to whip a spearman to defend it! This was the low point of my game.

Well I made peace with the French next and got horseback riding from them in the settlement. I can now see the horses NW of Washington, so my next settler narrowly beats a French settler to them. I get iron working somewhere along here and send a settler to claim the iron, but France gets there first. I therefore build a city just outside their cultural border and attack the French two turns later. Their city is defended by only a warrior, which doesn't stand up to archers well...

In this war, I raze some more French city and limit them to their capital and I think one other city. Paris was sooo close to falling, but I couldn't kill their last spearman. Anyway, I used the peace to get some cities up to the south of the French, but only as far as that region of desert. South of that, the Russians already have a city by the gems. I had just started attacking the French in an effort to wipe them off the map when Russia demands tribute. Since I don't want to fight another war, I pay. The next turn Catherine declares war! Grrrr....

The good thing is that I took Paris on the next turn, leaving the French with only one city. The bad news was that I had nothing around to stop the Russian advance. I diverted almost everything south to my desert city, which became a chokepoint in the following battles. I rushed a barracks, city walls, and moved spearmen out of other cities, leaving them undefended to prevent the Russians from breaking through. They had so many more units, but I managed to hold them off. A few turns later I killed the French (no respawn, oddly) and things are looking up.

Then I get this message: the Greeks have declared war on us! I should mention I had a city on the Greek mainland that I had founded to get their silks. Well fortunately the Greeks had no units better than archers, because my two defending spearmen quickly became elite. Every turn they would throw some warriors and archers at me, and at the end of the turn my spearmen would heal up from the barracks in the city. Then I get this message: the Japanese have declared war on us. No! I'm the victim of an AI feeding frenzy! The Japanese have units near my Greek city and they start attcking too. The balance is tipping against me there - and then a great leader pops out!

No surprise, since my elites won about 10 battles, but still amazing. But there was no way I could hold that city for long, and since the city was size 1 I couldn't whip a gally to get him back to the mainland. I whipped a galley in the next closest city and had to hold out for three turns until it could get there. Talk about tension! One of my spearmen died and the other one was really taking a beating. Finally I got him out of there. The NEXT TURN the city falls. Whew! That was too close. I built my Forbidden Palace in Paris, which finally gave me a chance to compete with the other civs.

I signed ruinous peace treaties with Russia, Greece, and Japan to get them off me. Russia's was particularly bad - all my treasury and something like 30gpt - this is around 450AD. I have to run 0% science just to avoid a deficit. Ouch. BUT all of my cities are still mine, despite a (near) worldwide coalition to take me down. The AI would never get a better chance to defeat me and they failed. I finally got some peace and a chance to build badly needed city improvements. How bad was my early game? I didn't build a temple in Washington until 600AD!

 

[Sullla]

There was another war with Russia that netted me the gems city and several others, but not really a big result. The next big event began around 1300AD when Greece declared war on Japan - or vice versa, I don't know. Over the next 100 years, Russia and Egypt joined in the fight against Japan. It's another feeding frenzy - these AI opponents are viscious. Naturally I waited until Japan had been greatly weakened, then jumped across the sea and captured almost all their cities with cavalry. Japan was destroyed, btw. I was now on even strength with the other 3 civs, except in culture where I was pitiful.

My luck was bad with resources too. The saltpeter in the desert moved on me, and there was (of course) no coal or rubber in my territory. I thus founded a city on one of the islands in the south to get the coal that was down there. Around 1700 Egypt sneak attacks me for no reason, capturing my coal city! Well I responded by taking one of their cities, but their navy was too strong and it was the wrong era for offense as infantry was around but not tanks. This was essentially a stalemate. But with all this AI warmongering both Egypt and Russia's democracies collapsed into communism - just what I wanted. As a result of this and building Theory of Evolution, I got to tanks first and did NOT give out the tech (duh). I had to trade for rubber, but 20 turns saw a good 20 tanks built. (By this time I had by far the best production of any civ, although I was only 3rd in size - the AI just does not build factories enough.) From there it was an easy conquest of Russia (where I secured my own rubber - they had no fewer than 5 sources!), slowed only by my desire to capture instead of raze their cities.

I finished this around 1850AD. Who to go after next? Well I was petrified that Egypt would win a cultural victory - you should have seen their culture on the histograph - so I landed 16 tanks on their mainland and declared war. I captured the first city and rushed an airport, then started flying in first tanks, then modern armor. I razed all Egyptian cities because of their immense culture, and by 1878 I had wiped out all of Egypt's cities on their main island. A peace treaty gave me all of their cities except their capital. I had gotten Greece in on this war and collapsed their government to communism too. An interesting point is that I never built any nval units except transport ones; I was able to avoid naval warfare using airports and by bombarding their naval units with lots of artillery. In a close game, building naval units can sometimes be a waste of resources.

The next 10 turns were spent moving my forces into a position to attack the Greeks. I had a choice to make: betray Greece with a ROP in order to cut off their ONLY source of rubber or attack in normal fashion and struggle through masses of conscripted infantry. I felt bad, because I never do this to the computer, but I did betray them and took out their rubber. The war began in 1908 and finished in 1942 with the complete destruction of the Greeks, as I had a lot of their workers captured and didn't want to risk the cities reverting. From there it was build up my score until 2050...

...except that in 2016 a city that had been building a cathedral one shield at a time for apparently the last 80 turns finished it and expanded its borders, triggering a domination victory. D'oh! I had sold my temples to ensure that wouldn't happen. Well, getting any victory at all was good after my terribly bad start. Score should be somewhat in the middle - I won't list it because I know we aren't supposed to put them on this forum.

Lessons from Game:
1) If the starting position sucks, build in the ICS style and manage the few good tiles. My pseudo approach to this helped considerably more than I though it would.
2) If you're weak, buy tech! I was buying tech for most of the game since there was no way I could research it faster than the AI. Try to build Theory of Evolution to get ahead.
3) If a war is going poorly, don't hesitate to sign a gpt treaty to end it. Russia could have crushed me at one time in this game but they were content with a painful gpt treaty. I wonder what they were thinking when my tanks rolled over the border 2000 years later.
4) Take advantage of the AI feeding frenzy if you get an opportunity, like I did against Japan. The computer is bad at capturing cities, so you can sneak in with small forces and make big gains.
5) Don't give up if your start sucks! It can be overcome with some luck and a lot of good planning.

 

[ButSam]

Not only did I up my difficulty, but I also learned that I can overcome a "bad" starting position. (Washington itself isn't bad...just that it's so cramped and you probably get split or have to go to war RIGHT away). When I first attempted the GOTM, it was my first Monarch game. I was destroyed around 1600 AD. Now that I have replayed it once, I am living and even thriving, researching just as fast as others (faster than the Japs), and currently taking over the Japs to try to get my points up even higher still! It looks as if I may even win. Granted I lost once, but no harm done AT ALL! I now will play on at least Monarch level when I play Civ 3...if doing good upon replay in THIS starting position is possible, then it's possible in ANY starting position. Just have to compensate! Of course, it also helps to know the map the 2nd time through, but the start is unusually bad, so I have confidence I can handle Monarch fairly well now

Anyone up for Emperor next month? If I can live to 2050 on Emperor, it'd be a HUGE boost of my confidence! In the meantime, I'm gunna finish up the replay; if I don't win that (but I very well could), I will do a random Monarch map and never look back to lower levels (well, at least, rarely...still it can be fun sometimes to go back for a moment). And to think once upon a time I thought Monarch was impossible!

Sam

 

[spork]

I also think GOTM#5 is a good place to learn strategy, and replaying it has really improved my understanding of Civ3, and of the 1.17 patch. Now if the GOTM people are mean, or just want to keep us on our toes, #6 will require totally different types of strategies.

I've got to say that I really enjoyed Monarch+bad starting position better than I would have liked Emperor+good starting position, even if the two come out to be equally hard. It just felt good to scratch your way from being a marginal power on the little peninsula to being a multi-continental super-nation.

 

[ButSam]

Thanks for the comparison This was my first GOTM, so I am not sure how it compared to February's...but sooner or later, I will play all of the GOTMs that I missed I'd like to try a semi-difficult starting position on Emperor...perhaps maybe not so difficult as this one was because of the higher difficultly level, but still...I think we need to go Emperor, then Deity, then we can go back to easier ones (perhaps Regent?) and work our way up again. This gives satisfaction and further refinement Anyway, that's just my suggestion, as the idea is to get better. Going back to Regent after Deity too will mean you will be better, AND be able to be satisfied that you are better No I'm not saying this just for my own good--I'll be in training for most of May and part of June, then I've got a wedding to plan, so I'm gunna hafta bow out of the May, June GOTMs...I just think it's a good idea in general to naturally push people toward progression, and then give them a way after Deity to show they actually ARE progressing!

Sam

 

[Taiga Merlin]

This is my first GOTM and I want to thank Matrix for all his work on this. I also want to thank Aeson, Sir Pleb and many others for posting insightful tips, and everyone else for posting their games. It is great to read others experiences.

This was also my first game on Monarch difficulty. I settled immediately and put NY by the cow near Paris. It seemed the only decent patch around. I did get the goodie hut east of Paris and got Ceremonial Burial. What is funny is that I put Boston in the hills north of Washington before I learned iron working and horseback riding and missed the iron and the horse. I was able to build a temple to get the horse, but I had to send another settler to get the iron. From NY I sent settlers to found 2 cities west in the jungle. I was waiting until I had a decent amount of horseman and swordsmen to attack France. Since I had to wait so long due to my unfortunate placement of Boston, I was given an ultimatum by Russia. I gave in once, but the second time around 400 BC I said no and it meant war. I did not want war, since France was my target(and Russia was much bigger than I), so I trashed a Russian size 1 city (Sverdlosk)and they agreed to peace at no cost. I switch to Monarchy and then attack Paris in 50 AD. I am dead last on the histogram at this point and have been the whole game. The war lasted until around 110 AD. I get a few French cities and some tech. I found Seattle on the Greek island around 190 AD to get silks. I am surprised the Greeks left the spot open. 250 AD I polish off the last French city. 450 AD I use a ROP to attack the Russians. They are so much bigger that treachery is the only way. I take out Moscow and Minsk immediately Two other Russian cities fall quickly and then it is a long slow war. Finally I get a GL, build FP in Moscow, take 3 more cities including their source of iron and horses. This war ends 670AD. Then I focus on Japan who had made some ulitimatums. I take five Japanese cities fairly quickly starting around 860 AD including Kyoto which has the Great Wall. Then another fairly long war. I got another GL and built JS Bach's. Finally 1130 AD and I get 3 cities for peace. I give one to Egypt on the other side of Greece. Then turn and finish off Russia 1260 - 1305, finally switch to Democracy, then back to finish off the Japs 1330 - 1350. In 1375 I attack the Greeks and take their 5 largest cities. I stop in 1400 to consolidate and prevent war weariness. I am pleasantly surprised that no Greek cities flip. Athens was size 11 when I attacked it. I did build 3 workers and kept alot of troops in it, but I have never kept a city that big before. I would have razed it but, it had 2 wonders. My warmongering ways now seem to catch up to me and Egypt and Greece sign a trade embargo against me. Then I ask Egypt to go to war with Greece and they do in 1445. By now I have cavaly and railroads and Greece goes down fairly fast. I was surprised how effective cavalry was against riflemen. Of course when you have 20+ cavalry it helps. I rushed temples and in 1495 AD I got a domination victory. When I looked at the top 5 cities they were all Egyptian.

I think my biggest mistakes were researching tech until halfway through the ancient era since no one would trade with me. I seemed to be researching the same things as every else and basically wasting my money. If I had just saved my money I should have been able to buy it. If I could have put NY on the iron I could have attacked France much earlier. I would have used the palace jump, but I only learned about it reading this forum. ICS probably would have helped. I also researched Military Tradition a little late since I did not notice the other civs had moved into the industrial age until they had researched 2 techs.

 

[ButSam]

I personally found that if I traded to the east, until the Industrial age, I could trade techs for the gems, furs (once I took over Paris), and other luxuries I had lying around...that's what saved me (on the replay AND original...though I did a lot better on the replay as is to be expected). By the Industrial age, I had a solid basis to research. My problem the first time through (the one that counted) was that I built neglecting my military...and I didn't get the Iron source--France did...so I couldn't defeat France early-on.

 

[Ribannah]

Grrrr ... why couldn't we play Russia, huh? They had all the advantages and the only river in the world!

Given the rotten starting position, I decided to put both Washington and New York at the shores near the starting position, instead of Washington in the middle, and the next few cities sat on the hills and never grew beyond size 6.

Tried to be peaceful, but in 1750 BC Russia demanded 1 gold as tribute and I said no ...

Thus started the Great War during which everybody else sided with Russia and kept invading my small territory . But we defended fiercely, our spearmen even killed archers in the attack and we never lost a city!

Things looked bleak though when finally the Egyptian invasion forces landed on our hills in masses, but fortunately they accepted my peace offer or we would surely have been wiped out. Russia continued the war until in 560 AD some guy named Washington rose from the rubble, shortly after the Colossus started our Golden Age.
From then on we were able to keep the peace; the AI tribes never fought each other in this game.

Later, George would built us Bach's Cathedral ...
the Forbidden Palace in Houston on the island south came sloooooowww but the site proved the best as Houston found coal and iron, and completed the Iron Works in 1495 AD.

Step by step the USA climbed the ladder, always concentrating on infrastruture. In 600 AD we overtook France and claimed 5th place, in 1275 AD Japan was next and from then on we were unstoppable, until finally in 1760 AD we caught up with Egypt. Trading for 7 luxuries (Russia never offered us gems during the entire game, but they were nice enough trading their extra rubber) and putting cities in every open spot, the USA democracy prospered.

That was, until 1772 AD when it appeared we had no uranium and could only get it from Egypt for 100 gold per turn ...

But our people prayed and behold, 8 years later a source of uranium popped up in our lands and we were free once more.

In the year of 1794 AD, Houston completed the United Nations, 10 years after Washington built the Apollo Program. Everyone was now in awe of our culture and voted for us (except Russia of course): Lincoln the Lion-Hearted victorious for a score of a measly 2557 points.

In what is known as the Alternative History Line, the USA launched its Space Ship in 1838 AD which gave a score of no more than 2512.