Civ3 still kicking... and still making me dizzy

[Hellfire]

C3C, started a game with the ottomans, regular map, 8 civs. Got a starting position near a floodplain and plains with no grasslands. D'oh #1, no good for production, but it would grow fast. I'll need to irrigate those plains quickly to get production.

But then to my surprise... Ivory nearby!!! The ivory resource is way too powerful now... ancient cavalry will be mine

Second surprise... four... count them FOUR, great scientific leaders in the ancient age. Needless to say I had the early wonder lead. I never got a leader when I had sufficient cities to improve science but I didn't need it to maintain the lead once I had the great library Used the others to rush the Pyramids, Zeus, and Athena.

Then the Chinese are the first to go. Shoved in a corner with no decent resources, and admittedly not terribly impressive land, they actually submitted to some of my demands, including a city, before finally saying no, and having to be trampled by my cavalry. Nothing exciting, but it gave me a border with the romans. Looks like I'm a ring like continent with five (oops my bad, now four ) civs. Bordered on the other side with the babylonians, who appear to be my strongest rival on this continent. The dutch are far to the south.

Romans are next eventually. Just starting the Middle ages now. Awww for the romans, they appear to have no iron!!! Damn sucks to be them. Little do I know that this irony will slap me in the face later. My Ancient Cavalry wash over them like a mountain stream, with little need for knights when they become available. ACs play a large part in this game.

I use a military leader to rush a FP in a strategic roman city. During the Roman war the Dutch launch an unprovoked sneak attack on my most distant city with a pair of horseman. My pikeman makes quick work of them. WTH? Beligerant SOB. As my AC thunders towards them through the Roman lands they eventually sue for peace. The dutch shouldn't be a threat now, and they are on my list for later.

Roman war over. During that time I got gunpowder. After the war I said to myself, time to upgrade my defenses to musketmen. What? No upgrade button?? Oh CRAP! Remember that irony? I have the land of 3 civs and not 1 saltpeter resource! Hello? I'm the ottomans! Damnit there went my Sipahi rush too. Grrrrrrrr. None within site of my borders for the babylonians or Dutch. And my borders weren't close enough to see if anyone had musketmen either. Not that I'd attack musketmen with knights. Too expensive. Time to rush Navigation, build knights, and make money. Fortunately I'm pumping money and science at a good clip. Luxuries suffer but I've got 5 luxury resources to help! Four were found within my original territory and the 5th picked up with the romans. Okay, it isn't all bad

Okay, navigation up, and in a good coastal city started magellan (I may not be a sea power but I'm not going to let anyone else get this wonder if I can help it!). I traded maps like crazy and.... ah HA! In luck. A border Babylon city has the only freakin' saltpeter resource on the entire continent. Damn Germany has 3 or so. 5 civs had only 1 to... ahem... share.

Bad news, scouting reports show they have Musketmen. Fortunately, I got a second great leader near the end of the roman war, and he's an army now. Load up some knights and CHARGE!

Only one musketman in that city. The next defender is a spearman. Cleared out the city and it's mine. Woo hoo. Load it up with defenders. Now... MASS SIPAHI UPGRADE.

One turn, no counter attack. *snicker* Babs don't got horses. Too bad I have like 4 horse resources . He's all turtle.

With Sipahi, it's short work of their cities. I created the knights templar so the crusaders that were generated get a shot at a couple cities as well. The venerable ancient cavalry clean up the scraps.

So rebuild, redeploy, and settle in for some development. Build build build, trade trade trade, happy happy happy. WTH? Hey you dutch people, you've been sitting on my land since the Roman wars, could you get off it please? WTH? Declare war??? You have got to be kidding me. You have no saltpeter! Sipahi ownz j00r c1t13s!

Riflemen and swiss mercs pour over the borders. Sipahi are strong but I didn't go offensive yet. An outpost I set up earlier showed me they had Rifleman. It would be hard to dislodge a fortified rifleman. Fortunately I had plenty of infantry so I wasn't going anywhere. This was a border war. Damn their navy was annoying me. I had only Galleons.

After a few turns of "Dutch border crossing duck shoot" the game went up a notch to.... CAVALRY????? They had no horses AND no saltpeter? WTH x10? They had to have some serious trading capabilities to get that. The trading screen showed active trades with the French and Germans. Damn Europeans. This was getting annoying and getting me nowhere. I wasn't prepared for this war so I ended it.

I was well into the industrial age as the war started. I built an intelligence agency and set up spies. I pumped out artillery and built some more Sipahi for later. I upped my infantry reserves as well. I also pushed towards combustion to make destroyers. I learned the dutch had 20 frigates. Destroyers should make short work of these guys, and their speed will help me get them to the fight, even with only minimal coastal cities. The Dutch were on my continent and 3 islands all over the world. Destroyers would get to them quickly but also I needed to get troops to them. How to take care of them efficiently? Ah ha! Diplomacy can be evil I shall withhold information now for the purposes of suspense.

Forces were built up and I was ready again. The dutch were encroaching yet again, this time with their annoying navy. How rude. My fishermen are complaining of your stench scaring away the fish, you mind leaving please? No? you want war again? Spunk little colony you are.

SURPRISE. Had a mutual protection pact with Germany. The dutch just went to war with the top two superpowers on the planet. Germany's navy was more prolific than mine, and should be able to help me take care of straggling colonies. I'll concentrate on my continent.

Artillery hit the nearby cities it can reach, and with the riflemen seriously wounded, Sipahi can take them even if fortified. Then, it's a matter of taking Sipahi, infantry, and artillery over the border one city at a time, bomb it, send in the sipahi, rinse, repeat. In the middle of the war, I get tanks, but I don't use them, as it will take too long to make them, and my strategy is working just fine. In fact, it *worked* just fine. I pushed them off the continent.

I took a two square island as well, and half of a larger but not too significant island near my main continent. Germany and I both had a foothold on this small island, with the dutch holding 3 cities. The germans moved in and threw troops at the Dutch. I took a smaller city, the germans captured another and razed a third.

This left 3 cities on an island very very very far from me. Close to the greeks, who were pretty unobtrusive in the game except for the luxury resource they gave me in exchange for iron

I sued for peace, Not sure I wanted to spend 20 turns crossing the water. But during the negotiations I managed to get one of the three cities as part of my treaty. And I just researched flight! If I ever want to finish the job, an airlift will do it for me. I probably will in a few turns. No uppity jerk trades two silk resources and a furs resource for horses and saltpeter and thinks they'll be able to be beligerant to me!!! Do you know how much I have to trade just to get incense out of the germans? Pain in my ass

So now I sit on the cusp of the modern age, ready to enter into a building phase, rebuild the dutch cities and pushing through computers to miniaturization. The last step to scientific domination will be to get the internet. The germans think they are advanced but they don't even know steel yet. The french are suffering without coal and the greeks are just too small and are both way behind.

Just have to plan how I will win

 

[Beamup]

I never got a leader when I had sufficient cities to improve science but I didn't need it to maintain the lead once I had the great library

Sounds like a really interesting game - similar to one I played recently.

But you should know that using SGLs for an Age of Science doesn't work. It gives you absolutely nothing, and is a waste of a valuable leader. SGLs must always be used to rush wonders.

 

[Nicci]

getting a golden science age can help. not sure why you are so strong on this.

 

[Padma]

The Golden Science Age is broken. Totally. It Does Not Work. Firaxis admitted this.

It *looks* like it works, displaying an improved science rate, etc. But if you track it, it still takes the original length of time needed to do research. It just reports it wrong.

 

[Hellfire]

I have a wonder addiction anyway, who needs a scientific age when you have pyramids as big as these!!!!

The greeks out of nowhere declared war on me. Probably to grab that city near the last two Dutch cities that I got when suing for peace. When I crossed their border and counter attacked, France and the Dutch had a MPP so they got in on the action.

The dutch, needless to say, were eliminated.

I secured the 5 city island and staged an invasion which cut a path across French and Greek territory. I only had one goal though... steal their luxury resources After taking six cities and securing their luxury resources so that I had 7 of the 8, I sued for peace. The french hurt more than the Greeks. The French will never again wage war with anyone. The greeks have FOUR aluminum resources, however, which gives them tremendous trading power when they get rocketry. Fortunately, they haven't even learned refining yet. I may go back and kill the greeks off out of spite and to secure those resources. I almost ran into the same problem with aluminum as I did with saltpeter, but fortunately the dutch territory had 1 resource. With all the lack of culture in the area I hadn't noticed it was out of my territory temporarily. When I got rocketry and was wondering why I couldn't upgrade might fighters to jets for a while.

The germans have also stalled. They have no coal, no oil, and no aluminum. The resources in this game have been supremely evil I tell ya. I gave them some coal because they wanted an arm, a leg, and an eyeball for incense, the last luxury resource I don't have.

 

[AlanH]

... and the difficulty level?

 

[Beamup]

getting a golden science age can help. not sure why you are so strong on this.

I'm so strong on this because the Age of Science is bugged and cannot ever help you in any way. It's just that simple.

 

[Hellfire]

... and the difficulty level?

Regent. I've been playing long enough that I should be able to beat regent easily and consistently. I find this game interesting because of all the lopsided and left field things which popped up (like lopsided resource distribution). Nothing any one hasn't seen before. I also got that sentimental "still going strong" kinda feeling since 90% of the world has moved onto Civ4, and we are all here on Civ3 still.

 

[AlanH]

Good work! You made it seem easy enough that I was afraid I ws reading a warlord or chieftain game

 

[Hellfire]

I completely blame the game being so easy on account of luck. Yes Regent isn't supremely hard, but again, 4 ancient age scientific leaders, 4 luxury resources including Ivory within my naturally expanded borders. It WAS too easy when you could pump out great wonders and then have half your army created by a wonder which pumps out the best ancient age unit exclusively for you while you are able to concentrate on building.

Have I mentioned that the Statue of Zeus is extremely unbalancing in C3C?????

Anyway, to finish up this game, as I was building, Germany finally decides to get in on the hate. One last great war before I get far enough to win the game. Note everyone hates me so a diplomatic victory is not an option. They declare war on me, and send approxamitely 90 (!!!!!!) units over my borders towards a city previously owned by the french. It was my least defended city on that continent. The Germans had ROP with the french and greeks, and a MPP with the greeks.

About 30 units were cavalry, which they threw against the city over and over. They all died, but not before leaving me with 1 MI with 1 bar left in the city. WHEW! That could have been very bad.

Then it was my turn. About 60 infantry and guerillas were camped just this side of the border. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough units for a full counter attack. So I threw as much as I could at them. Artillery to weaken the stack, then MA attacking as many times as I could afford to get the stack down. Eventually, I ended up with about a half size stack. That's going to play havok with my WW levels though.

Rules for fighting under a democracy:
1) Avoid leaving units in enemy territory at all cost.
2) Use CM to weaken enemy units far away, and Artillery for closer units.
3) Don't let any enemy units sit in your territory.
4) Do everything in your power to not lose units if you can avoid it (such as following #2 religiously), especially when attacking.

this battle was costly. My MA vs their infantry. I lost a couple units and got his stack down to half. I couldn't follow #3 without losing more units as I had thrown all my MA at the stack that I could (I had about 70 or so on the other continent waiting to be deployed. They wouldn't show up until next turn after massive airdrops), so I thought "WW without units or WW with units." Easy choice. Fortunately I had hurt all the infantry in the stack. I reinforced the city with an MI army and a few more MI. On Germany's next turn his infantry all retreated. He sent is guerillas against my MI army, and they all died with minimal damage to me. I then sent my bombers to bomb the germans across the border. The Germans had gone through french territory, then greek, then french again to get to me. As I bombed, they were in french territory. No MPP with france. SWEET. Greeks didn't jump into the war because the units were in neutral territory. They died next turn. Thus ending the land war very very quickly.

The seas however were choppy. The greeks were giving Germany oil and he had about 15 destroyers. I had about double that mixed of destroyers, battleships and subs, but they were scattered all over the map. Brinding them home and building more would take a lot of time. They were trying to take over land that I had on an island between my continent and their's. I countered with MA and a few left over sipahi. They never got a good attack on my cities on that island of course.

He also had a half dozen Transports, which he defended nicely with those 15 destroyers. I was not under attack, he went right around my naval forces to drop of units. Each Transport was protected by 3 destroyers. I only had a few battleships and destroyers in the area. This was going to get tedious taking out the destoyers to get to the damn transports and end this war.

Ah... but nuclear submaries could be advantageous here. I had a few, and as they got into the area, the transports started dropping. I got 5 of the 6 (the 6th must have been in hiding). Then the destroyers turned on me and got a little miffed. I lost two subs, as the game SOMEHOW found them... grrr. But now I had built and brought in enough units to finish off 9 destroyers. Bismarck had learned not to piss me off. This was quite an exciting portion of the war. In fact it was probably they only time in the game I felt I didn't have the upper hand and had to earn it, and did.

Now I had an option. There was rubber on the island we shared, the only rubber resource he had. If I attacked that, I'd go to war with Greece and prolong the conflict. However, taking away Germany's only rubber source would cripple their army and they'd be unable to replace the infantry they lost (which, by the way, they had about 110 before the war, and ended up with under 60 at the end).

Then I got an idea. I gotta finish this game and resources are key because the grumpy civs were trying to waste my time and hurt my happiness. Time to wage a war to end all wars. This wouldn't need to be a world war, just a minimally clever trap for the AI.

So I attacked, and took over the rest of the island. It strengthened my position in the seas between the continents to have the extra harbors and to deprive them of bomber staging grounds. And no more rubber for germany!

Greece declared war. Fine... cuz Greece is getting a spanking. About 12 cities, 30+ infantry, to my 100 MA, and way too many productive cities. At this time I brokered peace with Germany. Ha! Switched off one war for another. And I did this on purpose.

Greece moved a few units towards me, which got wiped out. I then marched on Athens and split their territory in two. It was then a simple matter of artillery and CM to weaken the rest of their cities. After the very heated and exciting sea battle with Germany, this was anti climactic. It was a methodical march across their terrain with no major battles. Greece was then wiped out.

Okay, why did I do this? Greece wasn't a military power, but they were a trading power. 2 Oil and 3 aluminum resources. Greece was giving Germany oil! The Greeks didn't have rocketry yet but they would eventually. Oil and aluminum open up every important land unit in the modern age. Okay, TOW infantry are nothing to sneeze at, but not as annoying as facing down MI and MA. By conquering greece, I controlled every aluminum resource in the game and all but one oil resource in the game. France had that oil, and they also only had 7-8 cities. They wouldn't be a threat for a long time even if they wanted to be and I don't think the AI at this stage would try to get france to trade away their only oil resource to Germany to be beligerant again. That's just too clever for the AI.

By controlling all the best resources, no one could produce quality units to threaten me again. Greece was wiped out and I upped the happiness slider to get a better score. I eventually finished with a space ship victory.

Side note: I turn off Domination victory. I might have had enough territory by this time for a domination victory. I usually only play with diplomatic, conquest and space race victory enabled.

 

[AlanH]

I completely blame the game being so easy on account of luck. Yes Regent isn't supremely hard, but again, 4 ancient age scientific leaders, 4 luxury resources including Ivory within my naturally expanded borders. It WAS too easy when you could pump out great wonders and then have half your army created by a wonder which pumps out the best ancient age unit exclusively for you while you are able to concentrate on building.

You can see why we turn off Scientific Great Leaders in the GOTMs. A complete lottery, and totally unbalancing.

 

[dojoboy]

I completely blame the game being so easy on account of luck. Yes Regent isn't supremely hard, but again, 4 ancient age scientific leaders, 4 luxury resources including Ivory within my naturally expanded borders. It WAS too easy when you could pump out great wonders and then have half your army created by a wonder which pumps out the best ancient age unit exclusively for you while you are able to concentrate on building.

Have I mentioned that the Statue of Zeus is extremely unbalancing in C3C?????

I agree to some extent. SoZ is definitely unbalancing because it requires ivory inorder to build it. The SGLs are no more unbalancing than MGLs in earlier versions of Civ3 (vanilla & PTW). Where the MGL once rewarded the warmonger, the SGL in C3C now rewards the builder. If you can obtain and hold the tech lead, your doing something right and your civ may produce individuals like Einstein et al. Makes sense to me.

Also, the SoZ and KT wreak havoc with the games geopolitical landscape. Whoever builds them becomes a target. If I can reach a civ that builds one of these, and my current situation is potentially threatened by this development, I go after them sooner than later. I find the beefed up Great Wall GW to also be a show stopper to some extent. Trying to take out the civ that built it w/ equivalent age units is difficult - trebuchets are often needed which slows the advance.

I understand disabling SGLs in competitions, but feel they're more than fair in SP games.

 

[Hellfire]

I agree to some extent. SoZ is definitely unbalancing because it requires ivory inorder to build it. The SGLs are no more unbalancing than MGLs in earlier versions of Civ3 (vanilla & PTW). Where the MGL once rewarded the warmonger, the SGL in C3C now rewards the builder. If you can obtain and hold the tech lead, your doing something right and your civ may produce individuals like Einstein et al. Makes sense to me.

Also, the SoZ and KT wreak havoc with the games geopolitical landscape. Whoever builds them becomes a target. If I can reach a civ that builds one of these, and my current situation is potentially threatened by this development, I go after them sooner than later. I find the beefed up Great Wall GW to also be a show stopper to some extent. Trying to take out the civ that built it w/ equivalent age units is difficult - trebuchets are often needed which slows the advance.

I understand disabling SGLs in competitions, but feel they're more than fair in SP games.

SGLs are more random though. With MGLs, you have some control over their creation. The more you fight, the more likely you get them. Also, knowing the factors that influence a MGL allowed you to create them more often, or at least control their creation. SQLs are completely random and when going parallel with other people in a scored game, you want to eliminate random chance as much as possible and rely on skill.

I find that whoever creates the SoZ becomes a conqueror, not a target. A 5 bar unit that can upgrade to 6 bars, has stats of 3/2/2 and is dominating basically until you have pikeman, med inf, and knights is extremely powerful.

I played in another ottoman game where, again I'm up against the germans, but this time the germans are on my continent and had SoZ, as they had the only ivory in the game. So they decided to cross the continent and come after me, even with other civs in their way. I had to sue for peace a couple of times, as I simply could not compete with my swordsmen. Once I had to get Russia and the Aztecs in on the battle. This wasted Germany's resources and time and allowed me to get higher in the research chain until chivalry. The aztecs got steamrollered. Once I got chivalry, however, all bets were off, and I could finally compete with that damn ancient cavalry. It was a challenging war but I managed to turn the tide.

Yes another game where I had only 4 civs. This game the aztecs had built it, and conquered the arabs on their own continent. With so many potentially productive cities, he was keeping pace with me year after year. It was essentially a tie until I started a war. This was a regent level game!

So I get SoZ, game is very easy. Someone else gets it, game gets unusually hard. grrrrrrrr