Civ 3 GOTM 7 *Spoilers* Thread

[chasbolt]

In this game I quit around 550AD, 4 cities left & with 480 pts v. Germany at 1300 or so. Deity isn't for me. Not yet. I've been playing Civ3 since the beginning and generally at the Monarch level. I win a fair amount and score only in the 1-2k range. Playing GOTM is cool but I have a big problem at racking up score either by milking or other"player" means. Tried milking one game made it to 3.8k, got bored and quickly built my spaceship to end it.
My point is; Play to have fun. That's the ticket!

 

[Archer99]

We'll have to wait until the end for a play by play. I guess one person's virtuoso performance is another person's gross exploitation. I probably could still have won by removing all my troops after the RoP expired instead of declaring war but it would have been far less certain and far less efficient and the Germans had cut my road network through an aggressive placement of a settlement which pretty much forced my hand. I've played enough Iroquois pangea games for the strategy to be fairly routine. I typically want to finish a game in a single night or a single weekend and developed what I consider efficient strategies to do so.

 

[Cartouche Bee]

OK, let me get this straight:

Because you can diplomatically trade and sell items to your advantage over the AI that has not been programmed to realize that you are manipulating them, that's OK.
If you can 'confuse the opponent' in battle in a way that allows you to leverage your strength to win because the AI has a typical response pattern then, that's OK.
If you can use espionage in ways superior to the any concept available to the AI, that's OK.
If the AI attacks me on a ROP like the Romans did to me this GOTM game, that's OK.
If someone attacks the AI on a ROP that is NOT OK.
If the AI builds ICS as the Romans did in my game that's OK.
If I build a ICS that is NOT OK.
If you play to achieve points that's NOT OK.

I would contend that a smoke and mirrors tactic is no different than the ROP attack.
If you exploit the AI in ways that you are happy with then have at it, if you think that your exploits are intellectually superior fine, to me they are also just exploits.

Directing the actions of players in succession games may be appropriate but not here in GOTM. That's my opinion.

If you want to attack peoples tactics and hide it under the veil of opinion, good for you. You can fool some but not all.

True hypocrites usually are the last to see where they actually stand, if ever.

Cartouche Bee

 

[Pygzilla]

what exactly is ICS. I think its Infinite Span Cities. But what does it mean
Is it just tightly packed cities.

can you make a canal by setting up a row of city centers?

 

[Archer99]

AFAIK, its just the abbreviation for the primary goal of every civ and the standard victory conditions. I've not seen the term used in a clear context so I'm not sure where the acronym comes from or what its specialized meaning is, if any.

Last time I checked the game didn't let you put two cities on adjacent squares nor on mountains so I don't think you can make a canal across a thick section of land.

 

[Bamspeedy]

I know that the I and C stands for Infinite City. The S some people say stands for sleaze, I think maybe it originally stood for style or span. It's the process of putting cities only 2 or 3 tiles apart (1 or 2 spaces between the center city squares). Some use this at the very start of the game. Giving up territory area, but make up for it with an early leverage and lower corruption (not many cities far from capital, and cities will be sharing terrain improvements as the population goes up and down from settlers and workers, quicker defense).

After placing the first 2 or 3 cities this way, then some players space their next cities farther out to start gaining more territory and resources. Some players continue this pattern pretty much throughout their empire. A dense build gives you a very early advantage, and the only drawback is later in the game (when you get hospitals), your cities will not reach size 25+, but the game should be pretty much won by then.

It's possible to make a canal using two cities (I used it in GOTM6). This will only be possible if there is isthmus that is 3 tiles wide and there is a lake right in the middle. Otherwise, no it's not possible.

 

[Sirian]

Cartouche Bee posted:
OK, let me get this straight:

Here comes the obfuscation. OK, bring it on.

Because you can diplomatically trade and sell items to your advantage over the AI that has not been programmed to realize that you are manipulating them, that's OK.

That's called business. Buy Item X from Party A at Price N, sell X to Party B at N+, turn a profit. This is not exploitation, and yes, it's OK.

If you can 'confuse the opponent' in battle in a way that allows you to leverage your strength to win because the AI has a typical response pattern then, that's OK.

No, not necessarily. Sullla offered his understanding of smoke n mirrors, but I coined the current usage and that's not my definition.

In RBD9, Cyrene discovered that sometimes an AI tends to call back its entire army. I followed on the next turn, and tried out a few things, and pinpointed that sending troops into range of an enemy city does kick in a stimulus AI response in which they abandon their current target and send everything they have toward the threatened city. This Army-Wide response, wherein ALL the offensive units of a civ get essentially the same mission on every turn (with a few local target-of-opportunity exceptions) is a most unfortunate weakness of the AI. I spotted this as an exploit at the time, but I have not used it since, not as puppet strings. If Sullla is using it, that may be exploitative, but it may not be. Just because the AI is mind-numbingly dense and one dimensional at times does not mean you do not get to play the game, though. Sending a diversionary attack or using the chance to counterattack where the enemy is weak are, in general, legitimate war tactics.

Another example of this "confuse the enemy" dilemma is in LOTR2, Always War variant. We declare war at first contact with all civs and never accept peace, so the game is nonstop war end to end and an interesting struggle of attrition as our civ fights off continuous invasions by all the others. Just because the AI's will turn their entire army around and run off on a wild goose chase if we send out raiding parties to go pillage some of their lands, should this take the option to do so off the table for us? No way. On the other hand, if you stick one unit out there somewhere and hop in and out and in and out of range of an AI city, just to paralyze their entire army in a back-and-forth go-nowhere dance, yes, that would be exploitative and, IMO, not OK.

So who am I to say what is or is not, what should or should not be OK? I'm just another player like any other, yep. Tis true. But I have the right to voice my opinion. Who are you to declare that because the issue is subjective, I don't have the right to state my opinions about it? You're nobody special either.

If the AI attacks me on a ROP like the Romans did to me this GOTM game, that's OK.

The Romans did not move a whole army next to one of your cities, abusing the RoP (and the turn-based nature of the game) to move everything into perfect attack position while you are paralyzed because you're not "up", then attack you.

If someone attacks the AI on a ROP that is NOT OK.

Correct, that's not OK in my view. You understand why, so you aren't doing your point of view any good by equating what Archer99 is doing to what an AI does. They don't compare.

If the AI builds ICS as the Romans did in my game that's OK.
If I build a ICS that is NOT OK.

The AI's never, ever, EVER build a city within two tiles of any existing city. More obfuscation. They won't build within three tiles in most situations, but sometimes they will. They do not do ICS.

If you play to achieve points that's NOT OK.

It's OK, but is it worth basing a contest around? When the GOTM was conceived and put into play, was it with the idea of setting up a row of cows and seeing whose bucket would have the most milk in it at the end of the day? The fact that score is also hugely influenced by early warmaking, which has until the current patch been the sovereign realm of poprush exploits, indirectly links milking to exploiting, since the two converge under the scoring system. But... I admit, you can milk the score without exploiting, so even though they often go hand in hand, they don't have to.


You can disagree with the lines I draw and limits I set on my own gameplay, but you here disputing the right for me (or anybody) to draw lines and set limits would put you at odds with the GOTM, which has at least two rules of things it has deemed to be Not OK, and with SirPleb, who has detailed his understanding of exploits but indicated he sets his limits differently than I do. You... you don't believe in limits. Do you? Well so what. I do, and I think the contest would be more meaningful with a few more limits. It's Matrix's and Thunderfall's contest, so if they disagree with me, nothing will change. What's it to you either way?


- Sirian

 

[MiDEvIL]

the whole definition of AI is "Artificial Intelligence" well I dont think its very intelligent at this point

 

[MiDEvIL]

Originally posted by chasbolt
In this game I quit around 550AD, 4 cities left & with 480 pts v. Germany at 1300 or so. Deity isn't for me. Not yet. I've been playing Civ3 since the beginning and generally at the Monarch level. I win a fair amount and score only in the 1-2k range. Playing GOTM is cool but I have a big problem at racking up score either by milking or other"player" means. Tried milking one game made it to 3.8k, got bored and quickly built my spaceship to end it.
My point is; Play to have fun. That's the ticket!

Thats exactly what i do, play at monarch and dont try to "milk" a game, the whole reason to play is to have fun

i lost at 1655 A.D. w/ 540 pts

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Sirian,

Glad we both got to express some opinions.

I know that the exploits that you use are tactics developed after much study of the game. Your own descriptions and terminology from your first few posts lead me to believe that you knowingly used tactics that you believed were exploits. Apparently you used them cause you had no choice if you were to win in the position that developed. On the other hand, it seems pretty hard to expect the other participants not to use the tactics that they learned and developed, based on your action.

Cartouche Bee

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Archer99
Are you going to milk every game you play SirPleb or are you going to try for a quickest something? Maybe the last 290 turns go a lot quicker than the first 250.

I definitely won't milk every game Last month it was a toss up for me to go for early space or late diplomatic.

The later turns start going quite fast once everything is railroaded and all city improvements have been built. Up to then can take a while getting everything in place. The amount of effort for those things depends on how early you control the world - it is nice in this regard if the other Civs have already railroaded much of the territory before you capture it.

Originally posted by Archer99
Is there some point where the computer opponents become permanently furious and you can't win a diplomatic victory no matter what?

They do seem to become permanently furious at some point. I don't know what the limits are though. I'm pretty sure that razing even one of their cities goes past their limit - after that they're permanently furious and will abstain rather than vote for you. I know for sure that you can war a number of times with a Civ, kill some of their units, culture flip some of their cities, and still recover relations to get their vote. And you can raze other Civs, it doesn't hurt getting a vote from the ones you are not razing. Some things I don't know about either way: capturing their cities, launching a nuclear war against anyone, breaking a ROP.

With your style you might end up learning more about the furious limit for us!

 

[philippe]

its now 800 ad and im almost dead.i am still in ancient era becuase i didnt get much tech trading .germany is destroyed by russia(wow deja vù )and i got only 300 points its look its the first time i lose a game.....

 

[DaSilva]

Every time I come into this thread I'm expecting to hear how people have been doing in this GOTM.

Not how some people shouldnt have done this or shouldn't have done that. Everyone else has a different style of play and lets face it, after someone makes there first move their playing a different game from everyone else, regardless of RNG.

We all play same map, same level with same civ and that should be the leveller and how we do is based on the way we play regardless of breaking treaties etc. ( I dont do it btw but it doesnt bother if someone else does)*

I lost btw in 1485 with very low score.

Disclaimer

*Dasilva had been drinking some when writing this post. May not necessarily agree with what he wrote when he wakes up

 

[Archer99]

I played 2 OCC and won a game by diplomacy and now I'm ready to go back and milk my diety game. I found that the computer has 5 different moods instead of just annoyed and furious. I'm used to the computer being annoyed when I first meet it and furious from then on.

I learned what ICS was. In the game where I disabled all victory conditions other than diplomacy and there was never a war and I didn't build any military other than a few garrison units in the beginning. Cultural assault is just as brutal as attacking someone. You wedge a bunch of cities up against their border and push back the radius. When the radius gets pushed 2 in, build another city and push more. Its amazing how you can sever an empire when cities are placed 5 tiles apart without crushing them with overwhelming might. You can steal resources just as easily as you deny them using explorers. If I had used this technique in my GOTM, I could have made each initial assault that much more brutal because I'd be able to reach their cities in a single round (trading ICS exploit for RoP betrayal) and had more flexibility (using rail and roads with my cultural radius) instead of having to use those tall combined arms stacks like the computer.

The new abandon city feature is great. It makes it so much easier to flex your empire when setting up milking. I have to build 6 transports in a pangea game (imagine that!) to transport all my armies, elite infantry and explorers to scrub Japan clean so I can freely milk. The individual cav can clean up the rest of the continent now that no one else has any resources. Their wonders are worthless anyway.

Did anyone notice that Hanging Gardens has 3 happy faces on it even when its supposed to be expired? Are those still having an effect in the building city? Its hard to tell with so many different types of unhappiness.

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Archer99,

Sounds like you had some real fun, good! The building of cities close to your targets so you can wedge right up to them is good and very powerful. Quite often you can get the AI to declare war and save your reputation. Once in war you can build cities right in the AI's cultural sphere as close as 1 square away from their cities and quickly over take the cultural zone of control of even their most powerful cultural cities.

ICS should give you a good shot at some real good milking and if you get the diplomacy win also you could grab 2 medals on this run. Good Luck!

CB

 

[Archer99]

Nope, no diplomacy victory this time. Everyone is their usual permanent furious. I won this game with the 7 turn destruction of the entire German empire (who absorbed the Russian empire)which doubled my power on the graph immediately and it just went up from there. You'll be able to see it when the games are posted. The wide German part tapers to a fine point and disappears and my bar gets a whole lot wider.

The city governor really good now. You can tell it to keep maximum happiness and never use tax collectors and scientists and you can let it build the improvements you want to build in every city by setting the growth and commercial to often and the other bars to never.

 

[Sirian]

Cartouche Bee posted:
Your own descriptions and terminology from your first few posts lead me to believe that you knowingly used tactics that you believed were exploits.

This is the third consecutive post you've made with the sole intent of painting me as a hypocrite.

I see the game as more complex than "exploit" and "nonexploit". There are actions and moves that, if conducted in real life, I would see as good. I categorized these as Honorable. There are actions and moves that, in real life, I would view as detestable, and these I label as Dastardly. The context of the game is intended to support both of these. "Evil" moves -- betrayals, broken deals, unprovoked aggression, strong preying on the weak -- are intended to be options in the game.

Then there's a third category of moves, things that undermine or show contempt for the context of the game, which offer a "free lunch" in some way or other, rewards wholly out of proportion to the rest of the game. Exploits. These are options not intended to be in there, whose presence disrupts or even destroys the game balance, diminishing the whole exercise IN THE SAME WAY as a hack, cheat code, "trainer", etc. Most of the exploits are in there on the Dastardly side, so that might be confusing you. I did indeed express distaste at some of the moves I made, but then to presume that could only come because I'm exploiting the game is the same baseless assumptions you've been making about me all along.

I played a peaceful expansion game and I WANTED to play it all the way through with only Honorable moves, but turned out I could not do that and win. So I had to pull some Dastardly moves, mainly including lining up the world against one nation solely because they were about to win the space race. That's a pathetically selfish and evil reason to cause the deaths of thousands if not millions, even virtually, and yes, it's dastardly. But it's not an exploit. I also jumped in there and pounded the remnants of a broken civ just to ignite a late golden age, and that too was dastardly, but it's not an exploit. A few times I ran interference of enemy units crossing my territory to delay them getting to the other side, and delay their pounding of the enemy, but they had no right to be traipsing across my lands in the first place. Often I had to fortify a unit on one tile of a bottleneck to stop them clogging the whole thing up and preventing my workers and units from getting by. Most of my "diplomatic tricks" involved a matter of whom to give my money to for the techs, and why, and how to mesh that with any other deals, and the resources I had available and the possible buyers for those resources. None of these are exploits.

I did momentarily ponder the RoP Rape to attack the spaceship, since that is specifically allowed in GOTM, but decided I'd take my chances within the context of the game instead. We don' need no steeking exploits. OK? Even if it means I might lose the game.

You're out of line and off the mark with the hypocrite charge.

On the other hand, it seems pretty hard to expect the other participants not to use the tactics that they learned and developed

This is patently absurd. Aeson pioneered the add-workers-to-whip-cities concept as a way to continue to get unlimited poprush in 1.17, but GOTM expects him not to use that tactic here. What about the poor souls who have developed the "tactic" of reloading the savegame and doing things over if they don't like the original results? GOTM expects them not to use that tactic. What's "hard" about the idea of labeling some things as outside the context of the game, and making them off limits? Where the game itself fails to do so, it's up to us to plug those gaps.

SirPleb understands the distinction between "what an exploit is" and "what the rules of the GOTM are". If the game allows it and the GOTM rules allow it, it's legal for this contest, but it may still be an exploit and harmful to the spirit of the game. I've made that point enough times now. If you don't get it, you don't get it. Feel free to continue with the blowhard accusations of hypocrisy, though. Maybe if you say it enough times, you can persuade a few people on force of persistence.


DaSilva: My apologies. I said my original piece and that got all of this started, so I'll take the responsibility, all of it. I don't consider it off-topic since it has all concerned GOTM7 spoilers. I've said my bit now, though, and even finished defending myself against Cartouche Bee's diversionary campaign, so this subthrust should settle down soon. I'm sorry the game didn't go well for you, but I hope the beer was good!



- Sirian

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Sirian
SirPleb understands the distinction between "what an exploit is" and "what the rules of the GOTM are".

Sirian, that's the second time you've characterized my understanding and used it in your arguments. Though I have no interest in prolonging this discussion, I do feel that I should address that:

I do not think you understand my thinking, limits, or principles, nor that you understand those of other people in this discussion. Please do not assume that there is any qualitative difference in my thinking vs. those you are attacking here. (On re-reading all posts in this conversation, it seems clear to me that you've repeatedly been the one to throw stones. I realize that you disagree with that of course.)

I don't want to debate this stuff, just wanted to ask you to stop assuming what I think. I'm going back to having fun and playing the game.

 

[Phillip_martin]

I am in agreement with DaSilva's thinking. The discussion so far on the philosophy of the use of exploits/actions/moves allowed in the GOTM has been healthy and interesting but it should not dominate this thread which is based around the sharing and comparing of our games. Can I suggest that it moves to another? I will stilll follow the debate .

To my game.......

It is currently 680AD and I was playing a peaceful expansion strategy from the begining which I lost badly. I did beat the Russians to the gems but lost the chokepoint and hence the lands to the south.

Mistake 1. Sent my scout east through Russia and missed the vital chokepoint
Mistake 2. Did not build another scout!

Life was horrible and I thought it was going downhill when my diamond town flipped to the Russians trapping me in my peninsular. Concentrated on getting a temple and library in each town. Have I mentioned I am still only in the Ancient Age .

Mistake 3. Did not get early embassies into the other civs and they now cost a fortune.

After a period of consolidation with my 7 cities (Ha!) I switched to minimal reasearch (Well I was an age behind) and tried extracting blood from a stone (read: trade for techs) with my fingures crossed as the "annoyed" Russians are tramping their rifleman/settler stackes passed my mountain spearman "wall".

Managed to cultivate a polite trade relationship with Persia and moved my focus to the lands in the west as I had no easy way to get down south which was plan 'A'. I had hoped to get a 1 sheild per turn FP going for a laugh.

Panicked when Russia went to Cavalry and Infantry so negotiated a MPP with Persia. This was OK until they went to war with Rome putting my westland expansion at risk. Actually the first Roman war was OK as I held onto my town until I could negotiate peace getting two Roman settlements. The Germans had cities razed by Roman Knights which I filled. I put an embassy in Rome traded furs for dyes which got an "annoyed" relationship. With five towns on in westlands (my mood more optimistic) I crossed my fingers.

With three turns to go before I could cancel my MPP, Rome attacked Persia invoking my automatic assistance, and in the same turn razed two of my cities. My mounted warriors are running out against the Cav. Need Peace!

It is 680AD and I am still in Ancient Age with my GA about to run out losing money in tributes and embassy setups.

My trading sucks! I went out looking for construction and every AI wanted the contents of my treasury, 5 gold per turn and World Map, even my 'gracious' Persian allies.

Not sure what to do now. No money, tech, culture, power, I think I will keep the peaceful expansion up once I get out of my MPP and Roman War. My goal is to keep out of trouble, cultivate diplomatic relationships, fill the gaps in the Roman/Persian war with settlers to try and get some city bulk to increase the limited respect I get from the AI. Any Civ at this stage can take me out so I need them to focus on each other.

Long term goal is to survive. Only option for victory (Ha!) would be for a Diplomatic unless masses of cheap techs come my way.
Did I mention that I am still in the Ancient Age

 

[JoeM]

Originally posted by JoeM
Next I'm gonna try trading luxuries if I can link any up, but I'm not holding up much hope - We offer Silks, furs, horses, etc. We want 1 gold "They'll be insulted by this deal"...

Just to follow up, I was absolutely right about trading luxuries rare to see any worthwhile trade. Although once I got three techs from Persia for silks it was a one off.

My game is a little confusing to assess, as far as I'm concerned
I'm cannon fodder.

Tech: All the other civ's have had infantry for hundreds of years...I've just got democracy.

Diplomacy: All Civ's are annoyed/furious with me.

War: Strangely I've had successful wars against all the other Civ's. I really can't fathom this as they are all so much stronger techwise and numbers. I've taken several small cities defended only by spearmen then settled for peace four or five turns later getting tech out of the deal sometimes too!

My only saving grace (apart from luck) appears to be land area: I have the most land, and all the resources/luxuries I need. It's about 700AD and I'm not sure how to win from here.

Another oddity; I'm lowest on score but the score graphic shows me with the highest (not culture or power but score).

I'm so far behind technically Space race is out, I don't have the tech/micght for Conquer, or the culture for Cultural win. Can I still make a diplomatic victory? With the most land are I should get a nomination, but how too get everyone to like me considering one of them will build the UN without a doubt...