Civ 3 GOTM 7 *Spoilers* Thread

[Sirian]

Deity game? Yeah. I decided to give it a shot. Game over in 1495AD. This game was a blast. At times it looked very bleak, and it pushed me into new ground, strategically.

I played a PEACEFUL EXPANSION game, no exploits. The first combat action my forces saw was in 1355AD. By that time, some of the AI's already had all the techs they needed to launch, so I had to "take steps" to interfere with their production. Kind of hard to do when you've got five tanks and a dozen artillery and they have 180 mechs and dozens of modern armor, so I had to pull out the old smoke n mirrors.


- Sirian

 

[LaRo]

It's 710 BC and I am just one tech behind all civs. Trade worlds maps and communication to stay in the "race".

I got 2 techs by goody huts

I payed tribute to every civ that asked to keep low profile.

I build 5 cities on the starting location but south, too much mountains and all land have been colonized behind.

I went west by boat and founded Oil spring beside iron.

Now, I will try to build as much cities as I can near Oil Spring. And build more units to defend my capital.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Ye Gads...


My first diety game in a while...and I have to say I could have played it much better with hind-sight (I expect we have alot of those types!).


I concentrated on exploration as the expansionistic ability makes all goody huts good for you. NOT one settler from a goody hut, which really disappointed me.


I quickly built cities along the peninsula and at the junction between the peninsula and the jungle land. Problem for me was technology and the speed at which the A.I discovered tech.

Quite simply it is 450 A.D I have a reasonably large civilisation but the lack of water nearly EVERWHERE I AM to irrigate is hindering me big-time. The A.I rarely traded tech with me and we have some very powerful civs out there dominating the world.

I wish I had just gone military and mounted warrior rushed the Russians instead of the Germans taking them over.


I will survive, the question really is will the A.I by fighting itself give me the chance to win? I think the lack of rivers and the numerous hills really have made this an arduous game.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

1946AD - Lost....it was close to a miracle comeback

I figured I would be history by 10AD as I popped 8 goody huts and got..........can you guess???...........squat...didly...nothing!

So I stayed on my peninsula and beelined for map making. I left one tiny square uncovered in the extreme NW of my territory and Catherina plopped down Riga. It took away the second fur from me eventually.

So I played to hold out as long as I could. Yes, I sold my only iron and fur to other civ's attempt to catch up. I watched in dismay for centuries as that little city Riga led to many Russian units rolling through my territory without regard for my soveriegnty...nor did I say a word. I saw a stack of infantry and calvary roll by my capital, defended by five spearmen. I was poor and weak. I bought all my tech from Catherine so she wouldn't attack me. Eventually I got tanks, and plopped a settler down next to some oil in the former Roman empire.

Then I saw my chance, the Brits built the UN beating the Russians to it, but the Ruskies were conquering the world (took out the germans and greeks, had the Egyptians on the ropes.)

I knew it was only a matter of time before war broke out with England, so I loaded my two Galleons (yes, I could not afford to upgrade them) with tanks and set them off the coast of england waiting for the war. Unfortunately for me, the Japs struck first and raised London.

So I built into the spaces left by former Civs. Eventually had about 16 cities with factories and was starting to build a spaceship when the Russians wiped out the Japanese and the remainder of England. Won by domination, and an impressive victory it was, 30,000 gold in the bank, and hundreds of modern armor running around.

Amazing game in that I didn't go to war once, nor was I attacked, but in the end, I could have had a shot at winning if the Japanese could have held out.

Bill

 

[Sullla]

Well, when I last posted a few days ago, I had played up to 1400BC and had just made contact with all civs and revealed the whole world map. I was riding high at the time, with a territory almost as large as the other civs and only one or two techs behind the leaders.

Well a lot has changed since then...

Fortunately, not all of it was bad. I fell behind drastically in the Middle Ages, both in terms of expansion and tech as the AI bonuses began to offset the advantage I had from popping so many goody huts. Well, that and the starting postition is terrible land for rapid growth, and cities quickly become corrupted since east and west of the capital can't be used to build cities. Let me put it this way: I was on Education when the Russians entered the Industrial Age! THAT was an unpleasant wakeup call (I knew they were ahead, but not by so much...)

The sad thing is the AI didn't even skip optional techs, they were just researching purely at that speed. Well, the most important thing I learned is that everything on Deity is about trade. You cannot possibly survive without squeezing every possible tiny drop from the trading system, especially in this month's starting position. And the biggest bang for your buck in trade comes from trading luxuries and resources.

Around 500BC I began settling in very spread out locations in order to secure as many resources as possible. Unfortunately I lost almost every settler race I was engaged in. The Russians beat me to the horses near the starting position by 2 turns, then proceeded to build a library and university in the city so I couldn't steal the tile by culture. England beat me to the cluster of two silks in the south by 3 turns, though I did get the lone silk next to it. (That city had better flip to me soon too... it has no culture and I control almost 10 of its 21 tile possible radius) My scouts saved the gems for me though, by standing on the only desert tile in the mountains where a city could be built, thereby saving it from the Russians Those two gems have, of course, more than paid for themselves. The Romans had built a city on iron in the south, but it was razed by the English in a war and I settled there almost immediately. That iron brought in big time deals from the Japanese, who have none on their island (and I'm still supplying them now )

So the goal was to trade luxuries and strategic resources for tech. I kept one lux for myself and sold the others to the highest "bidder". I deprived myself of both irons again and again for tech - it's not like I could stop an attack anyway! Slowly, the 12 tech deficit began to lessen. The AI civs got into some bigtime wars; England and Rome fought practically forever, with the result that the Romans have now been reduced to a single island city (darn; they're gracious with me too... there goes a UN vote) The Germans and Russians similarly went at it, and unfortunately for me the Russians won. They are also hunting down a few scattered German cities at the moment. But this did slow tech down a little (although not much)

Finally, I got into the industrial age in 330AD (AI entered it in 10AD), only to see that the other civs were still about 5 techs ahead. It was a bit frustrating to see the Russian infantry walking by as soon as I entered the industrial period. I continued to make harsh deals as much as possible, but increasingly found that my luxuries were losing their buying power as the techs increased in "cost". Fortunately, strategic resources are always in demand.

The AI hasn't made it easy either, as Russia and Persia took different research paths and rushed through several techs very fast. But again, as expected, the industrial age introduction of railroads (which I paid all my income to get), factories (an iron deal), and electricity --> irrigation everywhere (another pain in the ass deal) have started to turn the game in my favor. I have a good group of about 12 core cities that stand to become massively productive in the near future. They are currently low on population and shields, but now that I can actually irrigate, the granaries I have in place will explode growth all over the area. I also have a well placed Forbidden Palace, and very little overall corruption. To make matters better, Persia's only source of coal popped into my territory to accompany the one I already had. I was more than willing to give it back - in exchange for replaceable parts.

Finally, after another massive series of trades I got the message I wanted: Sid told me "We are technologically advanced." I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment from that! As it stands now in 530AD, I am one tech back, lacking only Scientific Method. Unfortunately, someone else is going to build TOE, so I will be behind again soon. But my income and production is going to be going up drastically over the next 50 turns (it already has in the 10 since I got the crucial techs) while the AI civs will go practically unchanged. Barring an AI attack, I should stay caught up on tech permanently now and be in position to nail the UN. As long as they keep fighting each other, I *should* win. With that said, no game on Deity is ever in the bag until the victory message pops up, and this is a Looooong way from that point. But I feel I have weathered the storm and things are only going to be going up from here.

 

[cracker]

Finally done. Made it alive to 1650 AD and was only 3rd fron the bottom when England jumped to the lead and completed 2 parts of the Shuttle in one turn.

It is important to emphasize here, that games on the Diety level are really dominated by the impact of the start position and the random number generator. Because the AI cost factor is 6 to ur human cost factor of 10, every small variation in the random number outcomes gets multiplied turn after turn. This means that no two people will be playing anything that looks like the same game after about 100 turns of play.

In my game we got bupkis from the goody huts due to the RNG.

In my game, all the AI's survived by the grace of their peers. Rome, Japan, and England got into the first war with Rome setback about 50% and England gaining all the former Roman holdings.

Russia and Germany dominated all the early growth and wonders by a 4 to 1 lead such that it seemed at one point as if Russia was up to almost 6000 points in the early AD and had a culture lead that was unholy.

I think Hiawatha was researching Astronomy when the first AI civ offered a MPP. We cowered and set back because Russia was all about us and Germany's expansion had surrounded us on the west side. The Settler Diarhea was over whelming. At one point there were 20 AI settlers moving through the Jungle isthmus to the south.

Russia had beaten us to the isthmus and the oil but had position their isthmus city to take the Uranium mountain (that was invisible to me as the Human but obviously the Russians could see). Instead of blocking the isthmus with the city and also positioning the city to open a "Panama Canal" between the east and west, Russia chose the mountain position. This left the isthmus open to traffic. All the AI civs would tromp about 40 units toward the isthmus and whenever someone would pass a unit through the one tile neck, then all the other units would reverse and head back the other way because they thought their route was blocked. Stupid.

Finally saw the world map and Cleo. The Egyptians definately had the worst starting position of all, but the ability to build $6 people instead of the standard $20 kept them in the game.

In about 890, Russia threatened us with annihilation if we did not give her 11 gold per turn and join an MPP/ROP. Thought this might be the beginning of the end. Already trading her Gems to keep peace and gain techs so how could me refuse. About 12 turns later, all hell breaks loose and Germany attacks Russia. I think the point count was Russia 6100 and Germany 3200 with the Iroqs in 8th place at about 500 points. Kept stacks of about 10 spearmen fortifying the home isthmus and loaded all 8 of our mounties into our single Galleon (two trips in one turn) across the narrow water gap to the southwest.

The mounties assaulted one German infantry defender backed up by a rifleman and 6 of them died in the valiant effort to crack a GA before golden number 7 scored the victory. Our one gold per turn effort to build the FP also came on line and "Wallah" 200+ gold miracle economy.

Now began building stuff and buying techs to regain parity.

Russia decides the MPP with us is of no value and cuts us off but keeps ROP and trade.

By the end of the GA, Russia had reduced Germany to Berlin plus about 4 cities and then Persia, Egypt, Rome, England, and Japan all join in against Russia. The ensuing war reduces the russian world domination (losing Moscow and many other Russian home cities.) Russia's point total remains number 1 throughout the game even though they are now clearly in 4th or 5th place.

The war lasts up until the 1300Ad time period and I am able to gain techs and them colonize an oil source way down south in the promised land. Only got two turns of oil out of that location because Russia, Egypt, and Persia were all at ware all around and the links back to Salamanca were via ROP and the foreign harbors. SInce the AIs were decimating each others roads and cannibalizing their own communist populations, the harbors and road links evaporated.

Used those two turns to upgrade infantry to mechs.

Even though Russia was virtually destroyed, the massive culture memory had her cities flipping back to her throughout the game.

Eventually got our local oil source to culture flip to us from Egypt who had taken it from Russia, but that evaporated in just about 10 turns as well. Had set every city to build mech inf in the interim.

Bought improvements at every turn possible to minimize the impact of almost constant extrotion demands from Persia and Japan. Sold worthles World maps for 1 coin or 2 coins per turn to suppliment income for almost 200 turns (tedious, tiring and not lots of fun).

 

[Sullla]

Fortunes are swinging back against Sulla...

Another 20 turns played has resulted in a much worse situation. To put it simply, the AI is researching WAY too fast. Russia took out Germany by 400AD in this game, and Moscow has a perfect central location for a combined Russo-German empire. With their 24-shield libraries, they are just pulling ahead at massive speed. Since both Rome and Germany are finished, and Egypt is way behind, I have to buy techs at 5th civ prices, which are very, very high. The AI is staying out of war, which I desperately need them to start to have a chance. At the current pace, the modern age will be entered in 900AD - that's pretty fast even for a Deity game. Even after paying for a ton of techs, I am still behind by one (Radio).

I see only one real chance: trigger a golden age at the critical time right before the AI enters the modern age and use the boosted income and shields to catch up and steal the UN. I can do this by sending mounted warriors to attack Germany's 2 remaining cities; I plan to try this very soon. It's a longshot, but the only chance. Otherwise, I will have to start a war between Russia and England, but that will be extremely dangerous to me.

As others have said, Deity games come down to a lot of luck. I've had my share before, but the lack of real AI warfare over the last 500 years has really hurt my chances at winning. Similarly, if the civs had all stayed relatively equal, I could have bought techs at the cheap 8th civ costs. But the victory of Russia over Germany has been a disaster for my chances of winning.

 

[Sirian]

Originally posted by Sirian
Sullla: I popped 16 huts, got a maps, a conscript warrior, one tech, and 13 abandoned villages, in that order. My second city was founded in 2390BC. You got within a few techs of the lead? I was behind by a whole era or more through the whole game and came within a few turns of an AI completing a launch. When it's over for you, try replaying without that free settler at the start and see how it goes for you.

Originally posted by Sullla
Sirian: I'm 100% convinced I would have had no shot without my incredible fortune of an earlier settler. Starting with two settlers, like the AI does on Deity, probably makes my game uncomparable with other who didn't have that fortune (my second city was built in 3750BC, thanks to the hut).

One thing I'd like to know is how you were able to catch up on tech; I've fallen behind at various points but was only ("only" ) about 12 back at the worst point, and rarely more than 4 or 5 back. I understand the idea (probably necessity) of starting a war between the AI civs on Deity so they go communist, but I still find it hard to believe that they didn't build a spaceship if so far ahead. Were you sabotaging their production on spaceship parts, or are they really so dumb as to build nothing but military? I am planning on triggering a war between the #1 AI civ versus the #2, 3, and 4 ones in the near future, but I need to get some infantry and not warriors/spearmen in my border cities first!

Research bogs even for the AI's in the industrial age, and especially in the modern age. Egypt was #3 on totem pole in terms of tech and had only four techs (Computer, Rocket, Fission, Space Flight) when I finally got to the modern age. The AI's stopped having enough cash to buy techs automatically late in the industrial age, and so I think the "simultaneous research" down different paths came to a halt, and the true tech leader was pulling all the weight with pure research and no more help. I also pulled some diplomatic tricks to better my own position, but I don't want to give them away even in the spoiler thread, since I don't actually believe everybody still playing always avoids the spoilers. (HINT HINT, NUDGE NUDGE. What are YOU doing here in the spoiler thread while still playing? ).

I don't think the AI's got ALL the techs needed to launch until right about the time I got my spies into operation, as only Russia had modern armor for many years, and they were pursuing (and not entirely out of the range of achieving) a domination victory, with no resources spent on the space race. The civs that stayed in democracy until the very end (Persia, Egypt) were the ones who started building their ships asap.

As for how I kept up, well... other than min science gambit, which netted me five techs total, I did not do a single lick of research until SuperConductor. This includes the very start of the game, for the first time ever I tred a NO RESEARCH policy and had just enough cash on hand as a result to trade for a commodity I could then trade for research, and caught up on all the very earliest techs in one big leap.

Germany was wiped out relatively early, so my last-civ prices were 7th of 7, and this held true until I caught up to modern age. I got a couple modern age techs at 5th of 5, then one at 3rd of five for which I traded for two more at 5th of 5, then I had to research the last three techs myself. I also traded once more with low man on totem pole for Recycling, at 5th of 5, but that was last minute and of no consequence.

I was more than a whole era behind from the moment the AI's hit the midieval age (while I still had NO TECHS AT ALL other than the two I started with, plus Mysticism from a hut) until I caught up to the industrial age while they were all building Hoovers in about 700AD. Other players got to industrial before me, it seems, but they either had free settlers or went the militaristic route. I was building my cities peacefully, so I didn't NEED more tech yet anyway, I was still building the basic stuff then in all but my innermost core cities, who were busy building me a scrappy military anyway. That's when I started to close the gap, and the whole way I skipped all the optional techs except Monarchy (at min science) and Democracy (paid for with my firstborn), so I could swap to those governments at my earliest chances. I had WAY too many units (warriors, workers) to make early republic a good choice, as I spread out as far and wide as I could and wanted to keep my unit count very high to deter surprise attacks.

The AI's were RACING on tech through the middle age, the leaders all in republic and using cash to rush their infra (some were expanding borders a few turns after founding cities), and the rest in Monarchy tagging along. The German war was the only early war of note, and it was a massacre. They vanished in less than ten turns. The wars from then on were either wiping out colonies (consolidating control of disputed areas down to one or two civs) or else phony, for the most part, until the modern age was already WELL upon us, and Russia marched THIS SoD across my land in 1100AD.

When that stack got to Rome, Rome started dying in a big hurry. Russia even had a base in the area to retreat to, to heal its wounded tanks and cossacks and mechs, so its losses were high but not as bad as a typical invader. You can extrapolate backward on how long it would take Russia to amass that many mechs for how soon the AI's entered the modern age. I think it was around 850AD (shortly after I got to Industrial age).

Russia went communist early but that may even have helped them, since they were widely spread out but not having so many cities yet that their total corruption was kaput, and they had already built all their infra long ago at home, so they could afford a production hit there. The communist let them build up culture and strength in their distant cities too and that was just killer for them overall. Being in lots of brush wars, they did most of the colony destruction. Rome was Monarchy all game long, but the rest were democracy for huge stretches, and tech FLEW until they hit tanks.

How did I catch up? I never did. The AI's beat me to the space race, it was only on a prayer that I managed to maneuver some of the AI's into badgering other AI's enough to disrupt production of the last couple ship parts while I raced through a very late Golden Age, desperately clinging to extremely thin hopes. Having your fate in the hands of AI generals is NOT a fun place to be.

Now if only my luck with the huts had not been historically BAD, I might have had an easier go with this. I was in desperate, dire straits the whole way, even compared to other Deity games I've played.


- Sirian

 

[Sullla]

Hmmm, well I assumed that Sirian had the game in hand, and never dreamed that it was such a struggle. If Sirian had so much trouble, what real chance do I have of winning?

I had a lot of breaks in my game with the huts, and I would feel almost bad if I didn't use that to produce a good result. I've been rethinking my strategy a bit, hoping to use a war to slow down the other civs. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't - we'll see.

 

[BadAndy]

This is my first GOTM game AND my first Deity game ever

anyways...some bad starting position give me some bad start...my scouts went out to find some better location...but by the time my scouts crossed the mountains to the east, Russia was everywhere already...but the funny thing is...10 turns later, Germany has taken almost all of Russia. Persia and Egypt took the rest to the east. I got just one city there b4 all the lands were filled there. Also sent some settlers down south. Took that choke point to prevent the east civs from going west and west civs from going east. But Persia and Egypt got across the sea anyways.

Well...by 0 AD, i STILL dun have iron, and everyone was getting into the industrial age...i m still getting Monarchy at 40 turns...that was sad...but i acquired some gems, spice, and silk, got a whole bunch of tech. Still, no iron...

By 200AD, English went berserk and took the entire west side of the continent, killing Rome like it was nothing. I had to pay all those civ some big money just to stay out of war...since all i have was MWs and Spearmen

In 400AD, found out to the south below the jungles were all empty rich land...if i had only found out earlier...start making settlers like mad, sent them down in ...galleys...I as too late, Persia and Egypt took most of them in the turns i used to get settlers, i barely got 4 cities there...but they were everywhere now.

Right now, its around 840 AD, surprised that i m still alive, maybe cuz i m ton a war yet...got iron...finally...and knights could finally be made. I traded for military tradition, but no i cant get any slatpeder, so it was only knights..

I think i m not going to win this, but surviving my first deity game would be good enough...

 

[Lawrence]

I don't think the AI's got ALL the techs needed to launch until right about the time I got my spies into operation, as only Russia had modern armor for many years, and they were pursuing (and not entirely out of the range of achieving) a domination victory, with no resources spent on the space race. The civs that stayed in democracy until the very end (Persia, Egypt) were the ones who started building their ships asap.

When Sirian mentioned this I realized that the Persians were shooting for a domination victory in my game. That would help to explain why they started a war on the Romans so soon after destructing the Germans.

In my game the AI got to modern age at about 1400 AD. Surprise as you might be, it is that late. I'm now pretty sure that my territory just helped to this fact. In my game, the English and Egyptians are lagged, but still far from destroyed. Actually, no civ was destroyed in my game until the Germans became the first victim of the Persian empire. In Sirian and Sulla's games, at least one civ is destroyed. I would guess that this would give the destroyer a great advantage in tech so they could modernize that early.

Since the modern age came as late as 1400 AD. I was able to keep up with the research. I researched a total of 6 techs in modern ages by myself. Don't believe that you can still buy advances at that time, since I offered Persia my exclusive Superconductor and 3900 gold for their Synthetic Fibers and they would still reject me until I have discovered Satellites which I gave them too.

 

[Sullla]

The AIs hit the modern in age in 850AD in Sirian's game; in my game they are on pace to hit it around 950AD. I cannot possibly imagine anything keeping them from hitting it until 1400AD; if they were even 20 turns slower I could easily stay caught up on tech.

EDIT: Re-read Lawrence's earlier post. A high-risk strategy played out big-time when he captured the Great Library and got all of the Middle Age techs at once. Not giving out a ROP to other civs, forcing them to take forever to get their armies to one another, was definitely a great move (though I'm sure unintentional). The result was constant warfare by all civs, with no one strong enough to defeat the others, dragging them all down to the player's level. Whether Lawrence engineered it or not, this is the ideal situation for a player on Deity, so I commend his strategy

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Originally posted by Sullla
The AIs hit the modern in age in 850AD in Sirian's game; in my game they are on pace to hit it around 950AD. I cannot possibly imagine anything keeping them from hitting it until 1400AD; if they were even 20 turns slower I could easily stay caught up on tech.
:

I'm at 1200 AD and the current state of the art tech is Refining and I'm the only one who has Electronics. [Thanks to 'Darwin' the only wonder I have been able to build so far.]

The Egyptians took out the Persians. The Romans took out the English.[After the English attacked me and my MPP was activated.] The Germans took out the Russian. Now Romans have just started a major war with me but they are at war with everyone left on the planet. The Romans and i have traded a few cities the first few rounds of the war but it looks like I'm getting the upper hand now. If that happens I might get a chance at domination.

Cartouche Bee

 

[Magnum]

This is the worst game I've ever played.

Around 10BC I had the entire world at war with me It was impossible to survive to the German Knights and its allies.

Being an ex-deity player in CIV2 and a Monarch/Emperor in CIV3 I believe this was my first and last game in Deity.

Thanks a lot Matrix

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Footnote to my previous post.


This is the second GOTM that the English stabbed me in the back while in Polite relations. But this time the Romans, while we had a MPP and a ROP ran about 15 squares up my railroad and razed one of my behind the lines cities to declare war. They then razed about 5 more of my puny ICS cities. When I counter attacked their cities in the jungle areas they only had a riflemen and a musketman in those cities. Taking these cities from the Romans now makes a connected railroad network from every city that I own. This will increase my military mobility to a much stronger position. I still only have a single scientist in the entire empire under democracy and have purchased or traded all my techs to this point of the game. I won't change this until I can research techs cheaper in the number of turns required than the turns required to get enough cash to make a tech purchase. Although I have Electronics I have not found a single site in my domain that I can build the Hoover Dam. <sniff>

CB

 

[Pygzilla]

This is my first GOTM and first deity. Guess I'm not godlike yet. I established one city beyond the mountains. the That Russian wench demanded tribute. Then declared war when I refused. Every nation in the game joined in witthin 3 turns. (I tried to by some help they politly refused). Exploring with my one galley and met the Germans. next turn they joined against me. I think I made it to 450 BC.

Do I send in the Autosave before I died so you all can share my humiliation?

 

[Sirian]

By the by, although I read a line by Matrix somewhere in one of these threads that random seed would always be preserved, I discovered (MUCH to my annoyance) during the game, quite by accident in the final couple of turns of my game, after a crash, that when I reloaded from save and tried to duplicate my exact seuquence of moves to preserve the purity of my game to the last detail, I got DIFFERENT (and much worse ) combat results!

I knew immediately the random seed preservation was disabled. However, just to prove it beyond any doubt, just now before posting, I loaded up the 4000BC official save at the start, and three times performed the same exact sequences of every move, to beeline to the closest goody hut, and yes, I got three different results. Here is a composite screenshot to prove it.

Apparently, those of us like me who drew really bad luck in the goody huts had more than luck stacked against us. We actually had a worse hand dealt to us! I'm disappointed in this, although in an odd way, even more proud of my win as a result of it. Nobody can discount any of my results as "you had better luck with the huts".

Without the random seed preserved, every RNG outcome in the game changes, not just player to player, but the course of destiny within the same player's game changes at every session break, every new loadup. Was this a mistake? Or by design?

I found it most odd when Sullla told me his second city was founded in 3750BC. I'd bet he and I made almost the exact same moves to start with our scouts. The dice rolled differently.

I mentioned spotting this in my report to Matrix, but perhaps he has not opened or read any of those, or even in this thread paying attention, if he is still playing the game. I actually had three game crashes, but only the one at tail end of the game involved combat, allowing me to see that rolls were not coming up the same, as they should have been.

Anything that adds more luck factors to the comparison between games is not a good thing, in my view.


- Sirian

 

[cracker]

Yes, I noticed late in the game that the preserve random seed option had been disengaged. After a small stacked movement accident where I ran all my mounties off the edge of a cliff, I reloaded and tried to set the mountis back on their original position and it took four reloads to get the the setup to come back up as it had originally been.

I got a terrible yield for the 12 huts I popped and after I finished the game to submit, I reloaded the start game and played a couple of sequences to see if the out come would be improved. In 3 tries up to about 1200 BC, I got substantially improved results from goody huts just by making sure to always take the long way around to get to the next hut (that I knew about where it was).

Also the random outcome generator had Germany destroyed prior to 1200 BC in one of the scenarios. In one other scenario Russia was hammered down to less than 230 points and 2 starving cities and ROme had beaten england to smoking pulp. All three outcomes were radiaclly different and my iroqs played absolutely no roll in the outcomes short of effecting the generation of the random seed.

I should reemphasize my position that randomness in tournament games and GOTMs is not appropriate on the buggy scale that it is implemented in CIV3. If this game had had barbarians in it the random effects would been even more widely varied.

GOTM maps should be randomly generated in the editor and then strategically editted to add or remove resource positioning. I am currently seeing about 1 in 4 to 1 in 3 of the random maps that have screwed upr resource allocations and screwed up starting positions due to flaws in the CIV3 map generation algorithms. The code is amazing in what it does, but there are still some severe unbalancing outcomes that can make a game either trivial or torturous.

The Map generated by Matrix in GOTMV was a great example, only one river on the whole map and that was through the Russian start position.

We have already seen several examples of maps without OIL anywhere on the map as well as maps without reasonable ratios of horses and or coal/iron.

This does not mean that random games may not be challenging or exciting. They just do not qualify as "tournament" games because after only a few turns, the players are no longer playing anything that remotely looks like the same game.

 

[Sirian]

They then razed about 5 more of my puny ICS cities.

When I read that, my first impression was

Upon further reflection, though, I realized that might not even be a major factor, much less the decisive factor, in why the tech race is lagging SO much in his game compared to mine. It could be, but it may not be. And I would like to figure that out at some point. The pace of AI research dictates how much time you have in which to work. Cartouche Bee may indeed have a shot at domination with tech parity in the industrial age. I've gotten to virtual tech parity at that point in a Deity game, and secured every wonder I cared to from ToE onward, but that was prior to the current patch when it was markedly easier to buy your way up the tree.

ICS, that S stands for "sleaze". I didn't say that. But that term is now widely in use to refer to it, so apparently I'm not alone in thinking it falls outside the parameters of the spirit of the game. I am sincerely hoping that it's not such an effective move that it will inevitably dominate Civ competitions the way that a couple of overpowered weapons dominate any Descent competition, unless they are left out. If it really is that strong, to a point where going without it would (in terms of competition results) mean a major handicap, it will be impossible to regulate, and all the contests will take on the same flavor, everyone doing the same things. If packing more cities boosts score and boosts chances of taking control of the game, in any and all situations, then any rules "against" doing so could still be exploited. Say that a rule was made forbidding any cities within two tiles of another city. ICS-minded players would then just squeeze all they could in without violating that rule. At some point, piling on more and more rules only ruins the game, as there are times when NOT doing any city packing at all for score or general advantage purposes, where you would do so in a disputed area to claim more of the land, or in some oddball rocky area because the settlement sites are limited by mountains, etc etc. It would be simply impossible to control.

Since I have no interest in milking goats or anything else, nor any other form of contorting my game to angle toward advantages offered by flaws in the game design, and since I understand that one player's sleaze is another player's good time, I've been hoping that Firaxis could close all the major loopholes and what remains would not dominate competition. If ICS dominates THIS gotm, though, I'll have to surrender that hope.

In any event, something has led to dramatically slower tech tree progress for the AI's in Lawrence's and Cartouche's games than in my game. AI's are a whole era behind in their games, vs where they are at the same time period in mine. Since I was never in a position in the middle game to foster wars, all I could do was keep my head low and hope I didn't get stepped on while the giants played their games around me. Did Cartouche Bee also pursue an aggressive early war strat? Could that be the key to slowing up AI tech race? If so... ...yet one more advantage to early war. Most of the teeth of that has been taken out with the closing of poprush loopholes and diminishing of value per population sacrificed (although still necessary for GOTM to forbid adding workers to cities to whip them). Early war should be a viablo option, but if it's the main ingredient in slowing AI tech, I'd find that almost as disappointing as ICS being the cause.

Or could it be something else? Might it even be pure luck? If so, that's an even bigger problem for unpreserved seeds.

Whatever is the cause of such dramatic shifts in which AI's survive, grow strong, etc, and the pace of research, it would definitely be useful to figure out. Whether by luck or by result of my moves, or both, the AI's in my game were tech gurus.


- Sirian

 

[Sullla]

I had indeed wondered about the results from that first goody hut. I did what I'm sure every other competent civ player did: moved the scout on the initial turn to get a survey of the land for the initial settler, then proceeded to pop the goody hut immediately afterwards. The fact that the "preserve random seed" is off explains this.

But why is it off? I play the game fairly, and believe that the vast majority of others do as well. However, there are some who will reload when things go badly, and this gives them an open invitation to do so. You can reload until you get a settler from the first hut, or reroll every battle turn to ensure that an ultra-risky early war pays off. This is NOT what we want to see in a tournament game. I always felt that one of the best things about Civ3 was that it ended the Civ1/2 possibility of reloading to change battle results. Please, please, do not allow this in future GOTMs.