Civ3 GOTM #6 *Spoilers* Thread

This is the first GOTM i am playing. My game plan is cultural victory since I don't have enough time and patience for milking the game.
I want to build as many cities as quick as possible, very close together, rushing the cheap temples in all of them, get warrier code fast, producing archers, and settlers.
This strategy works nicely on Monarch level, so it should be fine in warlord as well.

It turned out quite well, the Babylonians lost a city very early, the Persians one somewhat later. I am having 10+ cities, the Babylonians only two and Persia 4. Researched horseback riding, changed my building sequence to horsmen and settlers the continent is mine.

Now i'm trying to get one of my ships across to where the other civs should be. The third one survived. Now I'm having contact with everyone else.

My continent is filled with cities spaced either one ot two tiles apart, everyone has a temple. Now its time to switch to Republic (3 luxuries should be enough on warlord and small cities). I'm keeping research to a minimum and buying libraries, cathedrals and collosseums whatever I can afford.

The damned Zulus land on my continent and declare war at me. This actually turns out to be very nice. I get an alliance with China and Japan, they do all the fighting, my second war elephant wins a battle - golden age :lol:

The English join the Zulus and declare war against me, Germany is coming to help me out against the English - they never made it across to land on my continent.

I keep buying cultural improvements, the cultural victory should be only a question of time.

I make peace treaties with everyone, the Japanese destroy the Zulus.

Finally I trigger a cultural victory in 1758AD. Probably it won't be the fastest, but I should be not too far off.

A very entertaining GOTM - Thanks Matrix
The Japa
 
Tried not to read to far in the thread ~ only went as far as Aeson's first post since he went to 300 ad and im only in 510 bc yet. Have full maps of the continent im on ~ no iron for me :(. Up to 16 cities with 5 settlers on the roads [dance]. My culture is squeezing the Perisans and Babs pretty strongly. Debating an attack on the babs for iron. Just a couple of turns into map making and galleys should be coming quickly now. Ive blocked the babs off their horse square and have installed warrriors on the iron supplies to slash them if i need to for war. Almost to monarchy and according to f11 have the two top culture cities. So things seem to be running smoothly. Never played Warlord before so no clue how my score is doing.
 
Only my 2nd GOTM but very enjoyable so far. Victory is not really in doubt but just how is the question. Probably cultural since temples and cathedrals are so cheap.

Even though the game starts the same for everyone, it is probably good to note that the element of randomness is still there in many things such as yield from goody huts and victory random number generation.

I popped 8 or 9 goody huts and got bupkis in total. Probably the worst goody hut yield of any game so far. I think I got FOUR (4) maps of barbarian territory, TWO (2) sets of angry incompetent warriors, ONE (1) abandoned village, ONE (1) conscript warrior way out in the boonies, and a token tech of Pottery.

GL's and unit promotions were also very hard to come by, I had to send my last 4 elite warriors against the last remaining Persian spearman in a desperate attempt to get a GL before the two civs on my continent were obliterated. Got 1 GL on the last hit point of the last elite warrior and used it to build the FP in the hilly middly of west lobe of the continent to seal the fate of the world.

I am going to start another thread on RESPAWNING because this occurred for me with both the babs and Persia. It is disturbing enough that I contacted INFOGRAMES live human tech support and found out that they say respawning should not be occuring.

In this game, the respawning was a pain but yielded lots benefits. I just set outside the cities and killed off settler parties and harvested 2 slave workers every time. I think I ended up with about 15 or 20 slaves early on.

I really enjoyed the bottleneck (isthmus) and got a chance to build the panama canal using the lake. Always have wanted to do that.

I'm up to about 1400AD and at least 3-to-1 ahead points and culture. I just popped the Theory of Ev and am getting ready to build destroyers. The Germans, Japs, Eng, and Chinese are researching Magnetism. I am experimenting with cultural assaults on the far continent.

Also got the thrill of about 15 turns with privateers to wreck havoc on the foreign galleys. The random number generator again kept this from being total annihilation with some attacking privateers going down to lowly galleys, but have to hope the galley contents made it worthwhile. It would be nice to have all the transport contents go through death animation before the ship actually goes down. This would be just gratuitous reward but it would help reward you for catching the transport at see before it can land its cargo of hate.

more later,

polly wants a ...
 
Ive got a quick question.If you build the UN, and call for a vote, can civs that have no communication w\ other civs vote for the other civs. Well, i ask this becuase i have the babs encircled, w\ one city left. They have no hopes of ever knowing anybudy else unless i want them to, and are currently doing some spice buying thats is big$$:goodjob: . I dont want to get rid of them and heres y: If it is so that you can only vote for people in the UN vonte that you have communication with, they could only vote for me!!:king: I really hope this is true, and if so, i would keep them. If not, i would probably just use my legion of swordsmen on them when their money runs dry. Thanx a bunch.
 
At this GOTM (first for me :) ) I really noticed how stupid AI is. When I started to attack babylonians I first moved spearmens towards their iron source and guess what? They didnt have road even there yet althought they had iron working tech and why the hell they didnt build any horseman just those stupid babylonian archers.
And when babylonians was taken out I started fight persians. First I sent 2 galleons with 4 spearmans total to their iron source and it wasnt protected so I easyly pillaged it but now comes the most funny thing, when I finally reached my troops persepolis there wasnt even workers building new road there...
I think firaxis should try to make AI a bit better...

Topi
 
Goat_guy, I think it's possible, but I also think the AI would rather abstain than vote for someone they don't know.
 
Aarghh!! This is why I hate playing maps where almost everyone else is on a separate continent. Whiped out the babs and persians pretty easily with a warrior rush! Surprising how easy those spearman are to beat with veteran and elite warriors. Spent most of the early game in monarchy, putting just 3 warriors in each city for military police, and building libraries, temples, courthouses, marketplaces, and banks in most cities. I have 72 cities on the home continent. But I never got a GL, so no forbidden palace for me :mad:. I was a little behind the others in tech, but once my golden age hit I blew right past them. After I accessed all 8 luxuries via trade I switched over to republic since I didn't need the military police anymore. Got everyone allied against the Chinese and was thinking of attacking Germany. But then I started having second thoughts.

I'm dependant on everyone but Japan for luxuries, yet Japan doesn't have anything for me to take (I took over a dye from Germany by culture, but still need Germany for Gems). Elizabeth is being a royal pain in the rear because I depend on her for 3 luxuries and she's expecting 150+ gold/turn, plus 3 of my luxuries for them! I feel like I sold my soul when I sold my tech lead for luxuries :( . I'm thinking of attacking zulu for their gems (so I won't need Germany), but I rely on the Zulus for wine! I made the mistake of sending my massive cavalry/war elephant army to that one dye instead of focusing on Germany earlier. I guess I'm going to send the 30+ cavalry that was at the dye location to come from the Zulu's east (as they are finishing off the Chinese to the west), while I have my caravel fleet of cavalry attack the Zulu Gems. In the meantime, I will try to capture some English furs by culture so I don't have to send so much money to that greedy Elizabeth.
 
Umm... warrior rush? Talk about lucky! The odds of a veteran warrior beating a fortified regular spearman are very low, on the order of between 10-20%. More than one warrior increases the odds, but sustaining a war around these percentages is not practical. If you managed to take more than 1 or 2 cities defended by spearmen with warriors, consider yourself *VERY* lucky. :) If it makes you feel better (and I know it doesn't), you can consider this luck as balancing out your lack of leaders. In my game of the month last month, however, I had two regular warriors fail to take out 1 regular warrior in Paris, and it probably cost me a good 1000 points in score. That's the last time I ever try the warrior gambit in a GOTM! :lol:
 
The odds of a veteran warrior beating a fortified regular spearman are very low, on the order of between 10-20%. More than one warrior increases the odds, but sustaining a war around these percentages is not practical.

No, It wasn't a 1 on 1 battle of 1 warrior against 1 spearman. I always had at least 2 warriors (of veteran or above), preferably 5. I waited outside their city, and after I got writing (which I bee-lined for with science at 100%), when I established an embassy I noticed they only had 1 spearman defending and were currently building a settler (or had just completed one, so their pop was down to 1 so they couldn't pop-rush an extra spearman). With 1 vet, 1elite, and 3 regulars I could take out that spearman. Using the vet first seems to have worked the best by taking some damage off of it, the regulars to maybe chip away another hit or two (after the spearman had been promoted) and the elite to finish it off. I made sure also, that my warriors were not trying to attack from across a river or any other nasty terrain. Of course, later I had two elite warriors fall to a regular warrior in open terrain.

Remember this is Warlord level, I found quite often the AI only had 1 spearman defending it's cities instead of 2 or more like you would find on higher levels. And no, I didn't completely kill them off with just warriors, but I did take the original capitals, and force them to re-spawn elsewhere (which, luckily also denied the persians Iron) I wasn't worried about starting war this early because it is an easier level than I have been playing for the last couple months.
 
I'm not finished my game yet but I'm far enough along to be sure of how it will play out, so I'm joining the spoiler thread before finishing this month.

I shot myself in the foot a bit this time by over-estimating the AIs. I guess I've gotten too used to the AI at harder levels and have come to rely on them as a source of money. :lol: And have come to expect them to be more aggressive than they are on Warlord.

I flip flopped a bit in my approach so far because my original plan turned out to be hopeless. My early plan was to start with purely a builder approach, and to build up Persia and get her to reduce Babylon to just one city. I took Babylon's iron source with a culture squeeze to keep her military strength down. But not a chance as things worked out - Persia was passive, and the "horde" of Persian Immortals I was hoping to see turned out to be more like two or three of them. :lol:

So I ended up taking out Persia after all, and I'm now well into a typical warmongering expansion. But I started on it a bit late. I'd have started sooner if I knew how weak the AIs would be at Warlord and that I couldn't use them against each other. :) I've almost finished converting England and Germany to the Indian way of life. I have Babylon down to four cities without having gone to war with them. Since Persia was no help in reducing Babylon, I've moved my Palace to be beside hers. I now have Babylon down to four reasonably well contained cities (without having attacked) and am trying to culture flip the three remaining non-capital ones. I want to keep Babylon "polite" all through the game and get her UN vote at the end.

I love Aeson's Domination without a battle, that sure is a nice play!
 
skaternate and God: I noticed too that my culture was raising way too fast but instead of selling temples and colosseums i sold all my libraries and universities and I still researched as fast as before and already had good tech lead for other civs and finally when finished game 1725 AD by conquest victory I had only 51000 culture points. Also doesnt happy people give more points?
 
It's a good thing I did attack the Zulu. I found they also had furs, which I didn't notice earlier. And I culturally acquired an incense from Japan (in former China territory). Finally got a leader, so I sent him back to the home continent to build the Forbidden Palace. Putting in that Forbidden Palace knocked off over 400 gold/turn I had been losing to corruption. So soon I will have 72 cities pumping out nothing but cavalry and then tanks. I might have to build more caravel to ferry all the troops. China and Zulu are gone. Now I have Japan and England attacking Germany, while I settle the former China territory and prepare an assault on Japan. It's 1550 A.D. so I don't think I have a shot at any of the early victory conditions, so I'm going for a milking game, but doubt I will be real high on the list.
 
Bamspeedy: Best of luck on your game! :goodjob: I wasn't trying to imply you were a bad player or anything, just that I have never managed to take cities defended by warriors with warriors, much less cities defended by spearmen. With your FP, I'd say it's time to lay the smack down :hammer: on some opponents!
 
I just submitted. Domination victory way before I wanted to trigger. I said, I'll check it next turn, then 6 cities expanded & a big doh! This comes from the guy who made Mapstat! Pretty ironic, eh? Anyway, I guess I'll see where I stack up, hope it leaves me a shot at an early victory - not that I can compete with Aeson though... :) even more so since I wasn't trying to finish it quickly.

Actually, I outscored my GOTM05, which I also won, so that's pretty sad.

Built every wonder (up to the point where the game ended) except the Oracle, Great Wall & Great Library, since I don't really like the first 2 & always had the tech lead. I used Monarchy until the last few turns and kept a 3-4 tech lead.

Playing Warlord was pretty tough on the boredom factor for me, I'm used to Emporer. However, it was so so refreshing to play with a slow tech pace. Ancient units had a long lifespan! I almost built a chariot! This is one of my bigger beefs with the game, tech pace increases with difficulty. It should be mod-able though. Anyone know a good one to fix this?

GL generation was pretty frustrating for me. I think it's too random! I counted 17 elite victories before the 1st (that's ok). I used him to make the Heroic Epic. Then it took 29 more to generate a second! (that was my count, there could've been more)

I then won 8 more while already having the leader, used the leader (JS Bach), then got another on the next victory! Does anyone know if leader chances get used while you already have one? I don't believe it's a random number but a seeding. Nevermind, I guess it'd be impossible to tell.

With the long stretch, I had to build the FP myself, in a 3-shield town, but got it in an ok spot just a little east of where the Babs started. Didn't need all the extra productive cities, but it really helped the empire.

My domination was by military. First the Babs, then the Persians. Had the Lighthouse, so I found a connectable spot above the Persians. Beat the Chinese, Zulu, & Japanese. A few turns later, victory, yeah :rolleyes: . Anyway, I can return to normal life now, I guess.

I'm not sure if I could give anything more away, since this time it's a race...

Edit: I was just reading in the Strategy Forum about building a FP close to the capital & rushing a new Palace when you get your leader. What a great (and simple) strategy! Might've helped me here, except I would've had 1 less leader to use, not that it mattered on Warlord...
 
Posted without reading the thread.

The great iron war has ended in 210 ad. The babs have been reduced to one city falling prey to the the Indian horseman forces and losing 10 cities. :splat: Think this is probably one of the first times i engaged in major war so early, but i had to have some iron. One bab city could see the writing on the wall and culture flipped :egypt: Now have 33 cities to 12 for the persians who have less culture than a sterile petri dish.[dance] Little hesitant toward taking on the persians who have the immortals bouncing around. :confused: However they did build the pyramids which makes them kind of attractive :enlighten Adjusting to warlord has been a bit of a trick after playing on the higher levels, perhaps leading one to be over cautious in approach. :egypt:
 
I started using your Mapstat program long before I even got close to a domination victory just to estimate how much land I could still get. I really love it - it's an unbelievable time saver compared to counting up the tiles. :goodjob: I guess the only consolation is that you saved yourself a couple dozen hours of boredom :D
 
:mad: I hate Elizabeth!!! Here I was so nice to her by letting her be the last civ to survive and donating 4 cities to her, and she goes and declares war on me! I had 5 or 6 cities whose cultural boundaries were going to expand and with those 4 cities I got as a peace negotiation from Germany I would have gone over the domination limit (Thanks Chiefpaco for mapstat :goodjob: ). I was all set to peacefully claim the last tiles needed and then proceed to milk the game. (After razing all but one English city:mwaha: ). I'm now 58 tiles away from the domination point (england captured a couple of cities and after I recaptured one of them I decided not to keep it because it was mostly on desert).
 
Not yet finished, but have seen the hole map...

Started out by building infrastructure in my Capital, letting it get to around size 5 with the worker developing the wheat. Basically let me crank out settlers pretty quick. Settled the choke-point, and noticed there was still a lot of free space up north, so settled the west coast there as well. Built horsemen, and convinced the Persians to help me take out the Babylonians. All over very quickly. I regrouped, and then attacked the Persians. Was pleasantly surprised how easy this was - managed to attack the immortals pre-emptively in the open, rather than letting them attack me.

Started building up the entire continent, whilst the Great Lighthouse helped with my exploration - I sold contact with the Persians to everyone the same turn that I wiped them out :lol: Steadfastly refused to sell anyone my map, but selling luxuries got me up-to-date in the tech race.

Went over to the english, and founded a city on the bottom of the penisula. Loaded it up with lots of elephants and went to war (a bit prematurely, due to an unfortunate MPP that started a world-war). Wiped out most of the english, and am now regrouping again.

My main gripe is that I haven't had a single great leader, despite waging as many elite-lead unit battles as possible. Probably around 40 or 50 now! :mad:
 
i WON THROUGH THE UN! ok it's not that big of an accomplishment but still... my first GOTM. It was also my first UN victory ever. (normally i get too agressive) i'll write about it at the end of the month.
 
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