Civ3 GOTM #6 *Spoilers* Thread

[rangers85]

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Since it seems there isn't one, I'll start it for this month.

Anyways, it looks like a nice start after a little exploring. 3 wheat nearby, and a quick access to spices. After further exploration, I found the grassland to the south which looks even nicer. Then came the bottleneck that I found. Which became my first objective, so my 3rd & 4th cities sealed off the bottleneck. After that objective was complete I've now started expanding onto the Babs & Persian side of the continent and secured a source of ivory. Having that extra lux should help later.

Then came Iron Working and my big delima of no iron on our half. So I started assembling my archers to take Nineveh from the Babs which was their only iron city. Took Nineveh and Ellipi and sued for peace and got Akkad in the peace treaty. Assembled more archers and declared Babylonian War 2. That led me to destroying Uruk and a newly founded Nineveh and capturing Babylon.

I'm now in 70 BC preparing for War #3 most likely as the Babylonians are down to 2 cities and I want those silks from them. After that I should have the whole south side of the continent which seems to be the nicer half of it anyways. I still haven't even settled the spices on our half of the continent since I've bottlenecked our half off. I also now control both horses on the island, which will definately come in handy, especially when Cavalry rolls around and I can roll over the Persians in that.

 

[Taé Shala]

70 views and no one replies?

Don´t be to shy. Or are all of you cheaters?

Anyway. I started my GotM yesterday evening and played until late night. Got a settler from the first goodie hut and lots of barbarians from the later . The managed to destroy my scouting warrior so I finally got no bonus from the first goodie huts...

The difficult level is very interesting. Never had so many time to expand without war. The ancient age the wasn´t any swordfight unless the one with the barbarians.

Think that this will change now...

 

[SKILORD]

.

 

[Lemming]

so this is my story so far:

had quite a good start, settled the wide area east of the bottleneck. grabbed all the land and resources while fortifying at the bottleneck to make sure noone can pass. made contact with both persians and babylonians, with the babs being the stronger civ of those two.

biggest problem was that i had no iron, all iron resources were located in persian/babylonian territory...so i built a huge horseman-army and started to wage a war with the persians. it turned out that they werent much of a problem, i even got two cities through peace negotiations...

the persians had one iron city and it was my highest priority to conquer this city. meanwhile the babs also declared war to persia and tried to get that iron city, too...they obviously knew of the importance of that city...and they were a real PITA, their immortals gave me a very hard time. so i managed to conquer the city, but for the next ten turns or so it was a brutal war with many many losses on both sides...however finally they gave up and i made peace with them..

so now i finally have the important iron, and i'm waiting for chivalry to upgrade all my horsemen...after that i think i will attack the babs...it will not be easy, because they have nearly the same landmass and are quite strong with their immortals...

i wonder how the other civs are doing, i think they are much stronger, england and zulu already built 2 wonders and i just entered the middle age...

but all in all a funny game till now with much of action...i think its absolutely crucial to get a hold of that iron somehow, otherwise you have no offensive options...


edit:
uh, i just remembered that we're playing the indians so they need no iron for their elephants...ok, so i think you dont need that iron in the beginning, you can kick some butt with your elephants, too

 

[Aeson]

I've played up to ***** so far. I started out thinking I'd try to trigger domination without fighting, and build every wonder. The fact that we started out on a smaller landmass changed my mind about the domination, though I might still be able to do it. I have gotten every wonder so far, up to Sistene's. I'm sure the rest will be easy, everyone else has been relying on me for techs for quite some time now. I can't get any gold per turn though, not sure why. I haven't broken any agreements, and everyone is Polite.

As soon as I got Mapmaking I started suicide runs across the Sea/Ocean, looking for any other land. My 3rd galley made it across, and my 4th too! Both on different routes. I made contact with all the other Civs, but that didn't help much, no one had anything I didn't.

I've been fighting a massive culture war on the starting continent, no luck with cultural conversions so far, even though I have 3 times the culture of all 7 of the AI combined.

EDIT: edited out the screenshots, as the links were no longer valid

 

[Taé Shala]

When I look at your JPGS it seems like we´ve the same strategie...

 

[Hobbes]

Monday was a holiday, and the first day of the month. So what do you think I did with my day off? Play Civ3 GOTM6, all day and night (until the start of the NCAA finals). [dance] I managed to play till around 1500 AD.

Wonderful map, and playing at warlord is delightful, I feel like I am the AI playing on deity. Got lucky at the start and popped two settlers from huts, even got a few techs. Other than losing a warrior to some barbs that popped out of one, I felt like I was an expansionist civ. I had friendly relations with Persia and Babylon to start with and when traded for Iron Working from the Persians, I was mortified to find out that the Persians had all of the iron. Building the Colossus triggered an early great age, and this helped me to build up my infrastructure quick. Soon the Persians were at war with the Babs, and I decided to help out the Persians. After beating up on the Babs for a while and getting a few cities, I made peace and started to build horsemen. Having read Sir Plebe's crusade strategy, I decided that this was my best option. Horsemen and money, and a quick path to Chivalry so that I could do the baby elephant walk across Babylon and Persia (War elephants don’t need iron)

So that’s were I am now, I have eliminated the Babs and Persians and now have eyes for the main continent. I have built/taken a few cities and tonight I plan to take a few more.

 

[Genuis]

haha, nice "conquest" Aeson. I love it when the AI builds no culture in its cities, it makes everything so much easier...

Sounds like you all started your wars late. Well, I started mine pretty early. As soon as I found the Babylonians I attacked. The first war lasted 1000 yrs without result but I was still able to get all of their techs even though I had lost more warriors and archers than they had...

After building another small force of veteran archers I attacked again and sent the Babylonians packing. I colonized the land all the way out to the iron near the Persians and built a city to take the iron. I may have to wait on my conquest of Persia until I get Knights at least, depending on how many Immortals they are cranking out.

I'm really glad this GOTM was on Warlord. Makes it so much easier although I might develop some bad habits...

 

[dikwhit]

not too bad a gotm , or so it seems. The only serious difficulty is even if you take half the island during REX is the lack of strategic resources but thankfully the computer trades like a moron on warlord.My play version however has descended into chaos. Its so far been 5500 years of more or less continious assaults by the computer upon myself or each other by the AI. Fine by me, im more than happy to have my settlers follow their assault forces. Have gotten most of the lower continent and am now making my first real assault to clear the rest off "my island". Too bad i waited too long and now have to play for conqwest if i want a decent score. Then again its warlord so the scores dont seem to get that good anyway. Oh well ill finish it up today and go back to huge maps on monarch/emp til the next gotm.
Can i make a request, for a large/huge map one month soon... im not going to say anything about the difficulty, although i think they should be regent at a minimum, but i understand the easier levels make it more playable for every1.

 

[Lemming]

my story continued:

after taking out the persians, i switched to monarchy and researched like crazy to get chivalry first. in the meantime i sent out some galleys and they discovered the chinese in the north...they were a few techs ahead, and i got contact with all the others. seems i'm a bit behind in tech but still leading the pack scorewise.

finally i researched chivalry, upgraded my horsemen-army to elephants and taught these babylonian immortals a lesson they'll never forget ...just as i began my conquest i built the colossus, triggering a golden age, which speeded up things even more...

moreover i got a leader and built the FP in the middle of the (once) babylonian territory. now they had absolutely no chance and i destroyed them within a few turns

now its 1300 AD, i'm sitting alone on that island and planning my next steps...the chinese are HUGE, they conquered the whole zulu empire, england is also very strong...germans are weakest, so i think i will try an invasion at the south of the big continent next...



i really like that GOTM

 

[Erik Mesoy]

But I am happy to be on a different continent from the German and ZUlu, those are the WORST warmongers...

 

[spork]

Hey, is it just my lack of experience, or is this map not really a panagea as announced? I mean, there certainly are continents... This really messed up my strategy, which was counting on swordsmen to be able to WALK to "meet" all the other AIs. I wasted centuries looking for that "land bridge" to the rest of the panagea. Of course, I haven't played many panagea maps, and maybe this is normal, and panagea does not really mean "one big continent"--but if this is so, it's pretty misleading, and it really makes me want to restart.

 

[Lemming]

Originally posted by Erik Mesoy
But I am happy to be on a different continent from the German and ZUlu, those are the WORST warmongers...

hehe, strange...in my game the zulus aren't anymore (utterly destroyed by the chinese) and the germans are by far the weakest civ...

 

[Lemming]

pangea doesnt mean ONE continent, it just means a few (CAN be just ONE) big continents...

Originally posted by spork
Hey, is it just my lack of experience, or is this map not really a panagea as announced? I mean, there certainly are continents... This really messed up my strategy, which was counting on swordsmen to be able to WALK to "meet" all the other AIs. I wasted centuries looking for that "land bridge" to the rest of the panagea. Of course, I haven't played many panagea maps, and maybe this is normal, and panagea does not really mean "one big continent"--but if this is so, it's pretty misleading, and it really makes me want to restart.

 

[Babble-on]

I too am currently wagin a culture war against the Babylonians and the Persians. Fortunately, I was the first one to get Map Making and just started shipping out settler/spearmen units to "seed" them in a thin line right in between the persian empire and the babylonian one. Currently, I am trying my hardest to get those small cities to build temples, libraries, courthouses and coloseums so that they can swallow up the competing cities. I have already made it around the "horn" of this smaller continent using the extra navigation that the lighthouse granted me, I have made contact with the Chinese and traded contact with all of the other civilizations on the map and am currently trying to establish trade relationships to suck them dry of all of their money.

I have noticed that there are actually some nitches on the right hand side of the map (actually just off of the coast of where the game begins, but on the other continent) where I can start another culture war and hopefully its proximity to the capital will help with corruption. Once I have things going well there, and I can switch to communism to help the production of cultural buildings, I wil probably plant my forbidden city there and start absorbing the smaller civs. I crippled the babylonians when they were starting out enough that I can clear them out, and then head for the germans. My biggest current competitors are the zulus, but they are so far from my "homeland" across the northern sea, that I am just going to have to wait for modern warfare to take them out.

 

[Prince of Dorne]

i love this game. its not superbly challenging but its one of the more fun civ games ive played. i didnt want to fight early, as i usually play the aztecs and ima bit tired of early fighting.
i still got an early golden age from oracle and collosus.
im usually not a big fan of the indians because of their uu, bt this map gives you the perfect place to use them. i found myslef ready for knight combat and without iron. that doesnt always happen with the indians so in this case the elephants are great. they rolled over the babylonians whom i had denied chivalry. im now building sistine and are denying horses to persia.

 

[dikwhit]

WELL JUST FINISHED THE GOTM. VICTORY---LIKE THATS EVER IN DOUBT ON WARLORD BUT IT WAS THE CHEEZY CULTURAL 1.Oops caps sorry. I hate culture wins. Dont get me wrong but if youve got 20-25 cities and build em all you can get cultural victory every time. Didnt really mattter though another 5-10 turns it would have been conqwest, 15 turns on spaceship, or buy the diplomatic vote anytime. 1985 finish, 1261 pts.... god that seems way low but its warlord,, oh well heres hoping for huge/large monarch lvl for may. good luck all.

 

[Aeson]

Hey, is it just my lack of experience, or is this map not really a panagea as announced?

Often a Pangaea map with 80% water will look like a Continents or even Archipelago map.

Got lucky at the start and popped two settlers from huts

Do you know which version of 1.17f you are playing on? There were 2 different civ3mod.bic files released with 1.17f. The first version has extra units tagged as available to a barbarian cheifdom in the editor. This allows armies from huts, and extra Settlers.

In my experience with 1.17f huts (second version of the .bic) it isn't possible to get a settler on 4000BC, or more than one in a game from huts. This includes a test map where I opened 150 huts on the first turn, and well over 1000 overall.

In a game I played with the first version of the .bic file, I was able to get 6 settlers out of ~50 huts. Needless to say this can unbalance the game.

 

[SKILORD]

Well unlike almost everyone else i didn't crush the Babs and Persians right off the bat, now i have a coal resource that i stole culturally from persia and the horsies.... i try to avoid wars. but then again i've gotten ever wonder i've shot for.
With My Democracy, well placed forbidden palace + raather small empire i have virtually no corruption, i too got the oracle/collossus Golden Age.

i'm gonna have to go for a UN win.

 

[Justus II]

It's good to see that I'm not the only one trying to adjust to Warlord level. I have been so used to playing Emperor, and an ocasional Diety, that this one threw me for a loop. I don't usually attack first, since the AI is usually more than willing to attack me, but not this time! I started tonight (that seems so long ago!) and am now at 350AD, and have not fought a single battle except with barbs. The Colossus just triggered my GA, most of my cities are building cathedrals in 3-5 turns. Cool!

The biggest thing that seemed strange was the Wonders, usually I don't even bother to go for the early wonders, or else I make a mad dash for Great Libary, but this time I got all but Great Wall (didn't want it) and Oracle (chinese beat me by a turn). I haven't expanded much past the bottleneck, just past the Ivory, and the Babs and Persians are trading me Silks and Iron for techs. I got lucky, 3 out of 4 galleys made it thanks to Great Lighthouse, so I now have contact with all civs.

Should be interesting, I think I will still roll over the Babs and Persians when I get my elephants, just to consolidate this island, but at this point I feel like I could just secure my borders and build toward a culture win. The problem is most of my cities have every improvement and are running out of stuff to build, so I will have to build up an army, and then I guess I'll have to use it!