dojoboy
Tsalagi
Also, keep in mind that by obtaining nice gpt deals from the AI civs for your resources & techs, the AI civs are forced to invest less in research because they are paying you.Civgeek said:
COTM 02: Spoiler 2: End of Middle ages
- Thread starter ainwood
- Start date
I thought I had read in a previous post that the AI didn't attack armies in C3C, but I had three attacked (one almost destroyed) in this months COTM. Anybody provide any insight or point me to a suitable thread discussing this topic? 
dojoboy
Tsalagi
Civgeek said:I thought I had read in a previous post that the AI didn't attack armies in C3C, but I had three attacked (one almost destroyed) in this months COTM. Anybody provide any insight or point me to a suitable thread discussing this topic?
The AI will if the army in question is redlined (wounded). I've not seen a healthy army attacked. What were your armies' health bars like?
grs
nameless one
It will also attack armies in cities!
grs
nameless one
Open:
As we left the Dutch in the ancient age important decisions were made, but we were still awaiting the answers to these questions: Will the brave captain's ship survive the risky trip towards the wines? Are more barbarians waiting on the other side? Is the lone warrior really going to conquer the incense fields on its own? Will the Dutch be the first to finish the Great Lighthouse?
The answers were: yes, yes and yes! The ship survived, though - for some added tense - met a barbarian galley on the shore. After a fierce battle it was badly damaged, but the settler landed and Den Helder - near the wines - was founded 470 BC. In the meantome the lone warrior valiantly killed a barbarian horse and foot soldier and pluderd their camp. The nearby Spanish were so impressed they never neared the incense fields in all time. Harlingen was founded in 410BC to secure the supply.
In 350BC The Great Lighthouse was built in Groeningen. It gave way for trades with France and a deal exchanging silks for dyes was made. This deal was renewed in regular interval - though the Spanish got more and more greedy, but the Dutch did not care much. A similar deal involvong ivory and wines was settled with the Incas later on.
Only one more town was founded by the Dutch. Tilburg - 150BC became home of some families of hunters and fur traders. With the discovery of Astronomy in 130AD their business grew large over all the Dutch Empire.
Other noteworthy builds in the middle ages were:
The Hanging Gardens (230BC) in Amsterdam - starting a golden age of wealth, prosperity and research
The Forbidden Place in Groeningen - softening waste and corruption - from 50BC on
Copernicus' Observatory in 150AD and Newton's University in 600AD both increasing research
No blood was spilled by the Dutch after the barbarian battles in all this time; which made the people of Marseilles give up their French identities and become a Dutch colony in 580AD. With researching magnetism the middle ages ended in 640 AD. The idea about uniting the world in a great council was born and plans were made for the future to build a paliament for all nations. Dutch leaders aim for their decendants to be the heads of this council and difficult calculations were being made when and where to start such a building.
As we left the Dutch in the ancient age important decisions were made, but we were still awaiting the answers to these questions: Will the brave captain's ship survive the risky trip towards the wines? Are more barbarians waiting on the other side? Is the lone warrior really going to conquer the incense fields on its own? Will the Dutch be the first to finish the Great Lighthouse?
The answers were: yes, yes and yes! The ship survived, though - for some added tense - met a barbarian galley on the shore. After a fierce battle it was badly damaged, but the settler landed and Den Helder - near the wines - was founded 470 BC. In the meantome the lone warrior valiantly killed a barbarian horse and foot soldier and pluderd their camp. The nearby Spanish were so impressed they never neared the incense fields in all time. Harlingen was founded in 410BC to secure the supply.
In 350BC The Great Lighthouse was built in Groeningen. It gave way for trades with France and a deal exchanging silks for dyes was made. This deal was renewed in regular interval - though the Spanish got more and more greedy, but the Dutch did not care much. A similar deal involvong ivory and wines was settled with the Incas later on.
Only one more town was founded by the Dutch. Tilburg - 150BC became home of some families of hunters and fur traders. With the discovery of Astronomy in 130AD their business grew large over all the Dutch Empire.
Other noteworthy builds in the middle ages were:
The Hanging Gardens (230BC) in Amsterdam - starting a golden age of wealth, prosperity and research
The Forbidden Place in Groeningen - softening waste and corruption - from 50BC on
Copernicus' Observatory in 150AD and Newton's University in 600AD both increasing research
No blood was spilled by the Dutch after the barbarian battles in all this time; which made the people of Marseilles give up their French identities and become a Dutch colony in 580AD. With researching magnetism the middle ages ended in 640 AD. The idea about uniting the world in a great council was born and plans were made for the future to build a paliament for all nations. Dutch leaders aim for their decendants to be the heads of this council and difficult calculations were being made when and where to start such a building.
Roland Ehnström
Prince
Xevious said:Here's my turnlog. Beware, it's long and wordy.
Thanks a lot for posting this!
I'm currently reading it through, comparing it to mine, and hopefully learning some things. I also have a question: At 1830BC you set science to 10% on Republic. Then at 1625BC, you say "Have to bump science to 20%". Why did you have to bump the science rate up here?Also, I note that you build granaries in all your core cities very early in the game. Does everyone do this? I've always thought that building a Granary is a complete waste of shields, and usually don't build them until I have built hospitals. But then again, I always end up with way too few workers, because my cities are not growing quickly enough (I usually end up building just warriors and settlers). So I guess I should build more granaries.
-- Roland
Xevious
1 Solvalou left
Roland Ehnström said:
In 1625BC I abandoned Amsterdam to jump palace to the Hague. Instead of resettling, I moved the settler. This dropped me to 2 cities. I was researching at minimum and I need to go to 20% to get that 1 gold of science.
Roland Ehnström said:Also, I note that you build granaries in all your core cities very early in the game. Does everyone do this? I've always thought that building a Granary is a complete waste of shields, and usually don't build them until I have built hospitals. But then again, I always end up with way too few workers, because my cities are not growing quickly enough (I usually end up building just warriors and settlers). So I guess I should build more granaries.
-- Roland
You should have at least one granary, preferably more in the early game to increase population. The faster your cities grow, the faster you can pump out settlers and workers to grow your empire. This is really one of the best ways to blow by the AI, who seem to rarely build granaries.
Settler factories in particular work MUCH better with granaries. If you have a city with 5 extra food (like this game with an irrigated cow for +4 and Agri city on river for +1), and a granary, you grow every 2 turns. So if you can get 30 shields in 4 turns you can pop a settler every 4 turns. The cow site was so good that once developed you could build a warrior on the first of those 4 turns, and a settler on the last 3, making it a warrior/settler factory. You'll note that I figured that out in 775BC in my log. 4.5 to 6.5 means starting a warrior when I have 4 citizens and 5 food already. You have to have 8 shields per turn at that point, and a spot with 2 food/2 shields when you grow. On growth the extra 2 shields are immediately added, producing the warrior, and then you're at 10 shields per turn, for a settler in 3. If you REALLY want to micromanage, you can redistribute citizens on growth to 6 since you'll probably be wasting shields on the 4th turn. As tight as my cities were I did this when I remembered to to get even more production from neighboring cities. This is also why the palace jump or early walk of the settler was so important. If you settled on the BG and didn't move the palace, waste in the cow city would mean you'd need even more production to get the factory working.
Roland Ehnström
Prince
Thanks for the in-depth explanation, Xevious. 
I've already submitted my result, so I'm re-playing my game now, just to see if I've learned anything. And boy do I have a much better game going now!
At 1000 BC I have 13 towns and 9 workers, compared to 7 towns and 3 workers in my submitted game. I got to MA in 750 BC, compared to 150 BC. I destroyed Spain in 210 AD and France in 330 AD, compared to 940 AD and 1340 AD...
Things I've done differently this time are:
- Walking the initial settler to the cow.
- Building granaries.
- Building lots more workers.
- Chopping forests.
- Cramming in a couple more cities on the core island.
- Using the luxury slider instead of entertainers.
- Building a couple more suicide curraghs (to get in contact with the eastern civs earlier).
- Building less Spearmen (none, actually) and many more Horsemen.
- Not building any libraries and only a few marketplaces (we only have one luxury anyway), freeing up shields to build a strong early offensive military instead.
- Building the FP next to the capital.
- Trading techs for gold, especially with the eastern civs, to be able to keep the taxes at 0% most of the time.
- Resisting the urge to trade Writing too soon, managing the Philosophy slingshot to Republic.
- Attacking Spain earlier (with Horsemen instead of waiting for Knights) before they manage to build adequate city defenses and roads.
-- Roland
I've already submitted my result, so I'm re-playing my game now, just to see if I've learned anything. And boy do I have a much better game going now!
At 1000 BC I have 13 towns and 9 workers, compared to 7 towns and 3 workers in my submitted game. I got to MA in 750 BC, compared to 150 BC. I destroyed Spain in 210 AD and France in 330 AD, compared to 940 AD and 1340 AD...Things I've done differently this time are:
- Walking the initial settler to the cow.
- Building granaries.
- Building lots more workers.
- Chopping forests.
- Cramming in a couple more cities on the core island.
- Using the luxury slider instead of entertainers.
- Building a couple more suicide curraghs (to get in contact with the eastern civs earlier).
- Building less Spearmen (none, actually) and many more Horsemen.
- Not building any libraries and only a few marketplaces (we only have one luxury anyway), freeing up shields to build a strong early offensive military instead.
- Building the FP next to the capital.
- Trading techs for gold, especially with the eastern civs, to be able to keep the taxes at 0% most of the time.
- Resisting the urge to trade Writing too soon, managing the Philosophy slingshot to Republic.
- Attacking Spain earlier (with Horsemen instead of waiting for Knights) before they manage to build adequate city defenses and roads.
-- Roland
SniperDevil
Skipper of Barnegat Bay
ya i made many of the same mistakes that you made Roland 
It's been a busy weekend, so I've just had a few minutes to review the posts over the last couple of pages.
Roland Ehnstrom: that is a great list of points!! You have obviously gotten many good ideas from Xevious' turn log; I haven't read it, but from your list I'd recommend it to those who wish to improve their Civ3 strategies (at least for early fast war.)
civgeek: I think the question about income from other civs not being subject to corruption has been answered. Also, any income from Taxmen, or research from Scientists, is not subject to corruption as well. Since Civ3 has doubled the taxes collected per TaxCollector (and tripled the Science from Scientists), the value of high corruption cities has been increased substantiall y.
dojoboy: I haven't finished my FP yet. We had similar sized empires and numbers of cities which is why I thought a comparison of Palace placements would be of value. I didn't know that your central river city had your FP in it; it would seem that a centrally placed FP is not as efficient as a centrally placed Palace. My FP site is at Eindhoven, off the Western lake. I'm hoping to really help those 3 cities our there. I'll update my F1 screen once the FP is complete.
Roland Ehnstrom: that is a great list of points!! You have obviously gotten many good ideas from Xevious' turn log; I haven't read it, but from your list I'd recommend it to those who wish to improve their Civ3 strategies (at least for early fast war.)
civgeek: I think the question about income from other civs not being subject to corruption has been answered. Also, any income from Taxmen, or research from Scientists, is not subject to corruption as well. Since Civ3 has doubled the taxes collected per TaxCollector (and tripled the Science from Scientists), the value of high corruption cities has been increased substantiall y.
dojoboy: I haven't finished my FP yet. We had similar sized empires and numbers of cities which is why I thought a comparison of Palace placements would be of value. I didn't know that your central river city had your FP in it; it would seem that a centrally placed FP is not as efficient as a centrally placed Palace. My FP site is at Eindhoven, off the Western lake. I'm hoping to really help those 3 cities our there. I'll update my F1 screen once the FP is complete.
eldar
ChiefTank
civ_steve said:
Absolutely - and the value of just-captured (especially large) cities is even more so. If you've got into the habit of starving captured cities down to size 1, set the entire population to be scientists. If you have two or three size 8-10 cities on the go like that, you can get a decent research rate even at 0% science!
Neil.
jazz_man
Chieftain
After a good ancient curragh-trade-age start for me I moved on with an approach of 50-60% science and got first to the barracks wonder on a prebuild. Now I bumped up the tax and converted lots of warriors and built my first mercenaries.
Once in republic and with some cities with decent commerce/science I
wanted the golden age so I waged two small wars. Took a lonely french settlement on the icy peninsula and finished of the Zulus completely. The peace negotiation with France was good, got heaps of science along the path I wasn't researching, the lower thread with invention etc.
Did sadly not get any leader to hurry a forbidden palace - main purpose was however fulfilled, got the golden age. I was soon in the lead in the seafaring techs, got astronmy and built Copernicus. Started prebuild of Magellan and came out just 3-4 turns short, the Inca stole it =(
Rushed to get the physics and converted to Newtons, as you can see in the picture it is just about to be opened for hungry students.
What went wrong? I did have an army on the doorstep of the french that I fumbled with, clicked the "retreat automatically" button in the diplomacy dialogue by mistake after advancing one tile in to France from Spain (had an agreement with them). Guess where my dozen or so troops ended up? you got it, on that little island several squares to the east of the french coast!!
Might have been good 'luck' after all, just read up on the french musketeer unit(!). Outcome of blunder is that I'll be able to fill the ranks of cavalry much better. France & Spain are at war now and I intend to backstab my closest ally Spain very shortly..
Stats
-----
11 workers
6 knights
9 cavalry
4 warriors
11 med. infantry
21 swiss mercs
3 Galleons
2 Caravels
22 Cities
3 Banks
11 Markets
4 Universities
7 Libraries
Top 5 commerce cities - 72, 59, 51, 50, 48
Have got the Sun Tzu's Barrack, Copernicus & next(?) turn Newtons
Score? ..865 the Inca are at 1609
Power? Roughly equal to Inca
Once in republic and with some cities with decent commerce/science I
wanted the golden age so I waged two small wars. Took a lonely french settlement on the icy peninsula and finished of the Zulus completely. The peace negotiation with France was good, got heaps of science along the path I wasn't researching, the lower thread with invention etc.
Did sadly not get any leader to hurry a forbidden palace - main purpose was however fulfilled, got the golden age. I was soon in the lead in the seafaring techs, got astronmy and built Copernicus. Started prebuild of Magellan and came out just 3-4 turns short, the Inca stole it =(
Rushed to get the physics and converted to Newtons, as you can see in the picture it is just about to be opened for hungry students.
What went wrong? I did have an army on the doorstep of the french that I fumbled with, clicked the "retreat automatically" button in the diplomacy dialogue by mistake after advancing one tile in to France from Spain (had an agreement with them). Guess where my dozen or so troops ended up? you got it, on that little island several squares to the east of the french coast!!
Might have been good 'luck' after all, just read up on the french musketeer unit(!). Outcome of blunder is that I'll be able to fill the ranks of cavalry much better. France & Spain are at war now and I intend to backstab my closest ally Spain very shortly..
Stats
-----
11 workers
6 knights
9 cavalry
4 warriors
11 med. infantry
21 swiss mercs
3 Galleons
2 Caravels
22 Cities
3 Banks
11 Markets
4 Universities
7 Libraries
Top 5 commerce cities - 72, 59, 51, 50, 48
Have got the Sun Tzu's Barrack, Copernicus & next(?) turn Newtons
Score? ..865 the Inca are at 1609
Power? Roughly equal to Inca
Attachments
Jason Fliegel
Warlord
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2003
- Messages
- 281
No screenies or turn log from me, and the real interetsing stuff in my game came in the Industrial and Modern Ages, but ...
The Middle Ages were a time of building for me. I developed a strong core and decided to compensate for the lack of luxuries by building the Sistine Chapel and J.S. Bach's -- both of which I got. Then I decided it was time to expand and assessed my options. Spain had Statue of Zeus and was a more powerful than me according to my F3 advisor. Inca was a juggernaut -- no way I would voluntarily take them on. France had nothing I wanted. That left England -- home of saltpeter and spices. I traded with Egypt for saltpeter, started building an invasion forces of cavalry, swiss mercs, and cannon, and set sail for London. The war bridged the end of the Middle Ages and lasted into the Industrial Age, but I don't think I'm violating the spirit of this psoiler if I tell you that between the Inca and me, we carved up England, leaving them with nothing but a single town on the one-square island off the southeast coast of their one-time territory.
Next spoiler: it all hits the fan.
The Middle Ages were a time of building for me. I developed a strong core and decided to compensate for the lack of luxuries by building the Sistine Chapel and J.S. Bach's -- both of which I got. Then I decided it was time to expand and assessed my options. Spain had Statue of Zeus and was a more powerful than me according to my F3 advisor. Inca was a juggernaut -- no way I would voluntarily take them on. France had nothing I wanted. That left England -- home of saltpeter and spices. I traded with Egypt for saltpeter, started building an invasion forces of cavalry, swiss mercs, and cannon, and set sail for London. The war bridged the end of the Middle Ages and lasted into the Industrial Age, but I don't think I'm violating the spirit of this psoiler if I tell you that between the Inca and me, we carved up England, leaving them with nothing but a single town on the one-square island off the southeast coast of their one-time territory.
Next spoiler: it all hits the fan.
Another game to throw on the compost heap.
Spain built SoZ and it was in Dutch hands 3 turns later. Horsemen briskly galloped over the countryside and gathered new resources and luxuries as the spanish cities fell one by one, and not long after the initial attack Spain was gone.
My beady eyes then set on France and at the time we learn Chivalry. Joan was sent off her promised lands and got peace, left with 2 towns on either side of the world.
I researched to Astronomy at fastest pace possible and when the luxuries was connected I researched with a single scientist for the rest of the game.
Except for a few more horses/knights all cities popped settlers and I squeezed in towns where ever there was room.
Start the war on Inca and make decent progress and take 3 cities, then my knights attack a 3 pop town with 3 pikes within. 7 knights refuse to even retreat and die against them blasted pikes and my force is a memory. And my attack plan was shriveled to pieces.
I got a leader and built a knight army, which at least kept things up. It took another 500 years or so before I finally cleared the continent from foreigners.
Completely stopped micromanaging after that and just plopped down more towns and rushed cultural buildings for every penny I had.
Another notw: I lost every pre-build on wonders to the AI, except Smiths, which gave me a whopping 50gpt extra...and 2cpt. Wow.
100k victory 1660AD.
Spain built SoZ and it was in Dutch hands 3 turns later. Horsemen briskly galloped over the countryside and gathered new resources and luxuries as the spanish cities fell one by one, and not long after the initial attack Spain was gone.
My beady eyes then set on France and at the time we learn Chivalry. Joan was sent off her promised lands and got peace, left with 2 towns on either side of the world.
I researched to Astronomy at fastest pace possible and when the luxuries was connected I researched with a single scientist for the rest of the game.
Except for a few more horses/knights all cities popped settlers and I squeezed in towns where ever there was room.
Start the war on Inca and make decent progress and take 3 cities, then my knights attack a 3 pop town with 3 pikes within. 7 knights refuse to even retreat and die against them blasted pikes and my force is a memory. And my attack plan was shriveled to pieces.
I got a leader and built a knight army, which at least kept things up. It took another 500 years or so before I finally cleared the continent from foreigners.
Completely stopped micromanaging after that and just plopped down more towns and rushed cultural buildings for every penny I had.
Another notw: I lost every pre-build on wonders to the AI, except Smiths, which gave me a whopping 50gpt extra...and 2cpt. Wow.
100k victory 1660AD.
DaveMcW
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2002
- Messages
- 6,489
![[c3c]](/images/smilies/c3c.gif "Civ3 Conquests [c3c]")
PredatorSpoiler 1: 4000BC to 1600BC
Ancient Age Revisited
I decided to to go for a fast tech game. After I built my capital, I checked F10 to see who my rivals were. There were no scientific civs! So instead of my normal strategy of trading Republic for a middle-age tech, I gifted Republic to all civs to help them research faster.
I met Egypt, Zululand, Spain, France, Inca, and England by the time my revolution ended in 1500BC. I gifted them Republic and traded for Iron Working, Mathematics, and Mysticism. Then had to choose a tech to research next.
There is an article on what the AI will research next, but as a general rule they prefer techs with a defensive unit or great wonder.
So I picked Currency to research, letting the AIs go for the other "wonder" techs. I discovered Currency, traded it for Map Making and Polytheism, and started on Construction. In 1175BC a couple AIs got Construction; I bought it and entered the middle ages.
Luxuries
I completed the Great Lighthouse in 875BC, opening trade routes to the western continent. The AIs didn't bother to build roads or harbors, so I simply settled next to their luxuries and built my own.
Golden Age
Once I got Feudalism, I sent 2 Swiss Mercenaries and 2 Medieval Infantry over to start my golden age. They managed to capture Spain's ivory city and I got a second city in the peace treaty.
I used my golden age to build universities, and didn't fight for the rest of the middle ages.
Taking Out Loans
I ran a -50gpt budget for the entire middle ages. In order to fund my economy, I borrowed from the AIs. Every turn I traded 1gpt for 17 gold to any AI that had money. Since I got a tech every 4-5 turns, I would get all my gpt back in tech trades before the interest rates made me lose gold. This also had a couple side effects: it boosted the AI's ability to research and it prevented them from spending gold on silly things like rush-buying and upgrading.
Middle Age Research
In the middle ages, all the AIs went for Feudalism since it gives a defensive unit and a great wonder. I researched Monotheism and traded it to the 2 AIs who discovered Feudalism first. Now instead of gifting Monotheism to the other 5 AIs, I gave them only Feudalism. This hid Chivalry and Theology (wonder techs) from them, forcing them to choose between Monotheism and Engineering. Two of them picked Engineering, which I traded Theology for.
By now I had libraries everywhere and was beginning to pull ahead in research. But the AIs were able to get Invention for me while I researched Education and Banking. Then I switched to the bottom research tree, getting Gunpowder, Chemistry, and Metallurgy while they researched Astronomy. I researched Physics, Magnetism, and Theory of Gravity myself, and entered the Industrial Age in 260 AD.
Sandman2003
Prince
Open
Link to AA: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1979524&postcount=5
I actually finished this very enjoyable game back on July 6, but I have been away since.
I decided my goal was a rapid domination win. I went for a dom win in COTM01 as well, but the way I figure it, I was not nearly as fast as the top dogs so I have much to learn in this mode of victory still.
Contacts
I made all of the contacts in the AA. When I realised, that we were on an island pretty much to ourselves, I assumed that th emap would probably be an island map. In the end it turned out to be more a continets map, but the idea of making contacts as quickly as possible was clearly relevant in spite of this. I started sending out suicide curraghs before even completing a circum navigation of the starting island. For this reason I found England first in 1650BC. Because my first contact required traversing across the sea, I decided to prioritise building the great lighthouse, which also would help to maximise the seafaring ability. The other contacts came in as follows:
1450BC - Spanish
1375BC - Inca
1200BC - France
1000BC - Egypt and Maya
630BC - Zulu.
Tech
Because the Netherlands have a UU, the Swiss Mercenary, that gives the same defense as a musketman, but doesn't require gunpowder, is cheaper and available earlier, I reasoned that we would want to do most of our warring in the early middle ages to maximise our advantages vis a vis the AI. To my mind this meant rapid research to knights, and then basically turn off
research and reap the benefit. My research path was writng at min, then at max - map making, code of laws, philosophy and the slingshot to republic. In many ways I suspect that Monarchy would have suited my game plan better, but I had not tried this approach before and so decided to try it here and compare the effectiveness of the republic versus monarchy that I used in COTM01.
Tech Trades
I paid cash to the English in 1600 BC for Ceremonial Burial, because there werea few cities that I wanted cultural expansions in. In hindsight, if I had held off a few turns, this would have been a much cheaper trade. Still I had the money from my min research on writing.
I then held off any further trades until I was just three turns shy of philosophy. I was regularly checking to see if any AI had researched it, and was pleased to find that none had. So in 850BC, I traded writing aroung to the 6 civs I knew for all tech knowledge held amongst them, plus a bunch of cash. At this point I was down only Construction and Currency before the MA. So I could have rushed the discovery of these for a much earlier end to the AA, but chose not to. My thought was that the competition is a seperated Monarchy level AI who are down quite a few techs, so I may well be able to wage war with attack four units versus defence two units and make rapid progress. I suspect that this decision was actually a mistake, and a faster tech pace until I reached Chivalry would have played better into my hands. I would appreciate anyone's views on this topic.
I became a republic in 670BC and finished self research to enter the MA in 400BC. At this point I did contemplate gifting tech to scientific civs to assist my research path to Chivalry, but as there were no scientific civs, I decided against any gifting, and ended up having to self research feudalism, monotheism and Chivalry. As I had no libraries, was also building up infrastructure and had to support wars, it took to about 500AD to reach this point.
I did pick up additional tech but it really was not a priority.
Wonders
The only wonder I considered worth building was the Great Lighthouse. By successfully building this wonder, I could effectively shut off research at Chivalry instead of pushing on to Astronomy, and or Navigation. I completed the wonder in 190BC. I am fairly certain that it was worthwhile in my game. It opened up my path of approach to all my opponents very early in the game, and denied the capabilities to the AI, especially sea faring AI, thus isolating everyone, except the Spanish from attacking me.
Warring
Incan Phooney War
In 410BC the Inca, who were my closest tech competitor, but definitely behind, chose to demand the republic, and when I refused they declared war. I saw no reason to cave, they did not know where I was, and had to get past two civs to reach me. I proceeded to dogpile the Spanish, the French and the English on them, and otherwise ignored them. Eventually after the MAs ended, I made peace with the Incan. The Incan actually were able to use this war to make headway against both England and France, however.
Spanish War
I had taken a long time to start colonising the southern tundra due to sending unescorted settlers down to what became barbarian infested lands. I eventually learnt my lesson, and sent enough military down there to sort the problem, but then I was too slow to follow up with escorted settlers, and the Spanish settled there first. To make matters worse they then built the statue of Zeus. I decided to attack pre-Chivalry, and declared war in 310AD. I was able to land troops next to the SoZ on turn one. Within four turns I had removed the Spanish from my continent, captured the SoZ (Santiago) and another Spanish city on that continent. 350AD -
War with MI is slow, and costly due to no retreat, so progress was slow. Also in 500AD, I suffered a flip, and had to retake Salamanca. About this time my knights entered the fray. In 530AD, the Spanish finally find a little backbone and attack back triggering my golden age as my Swiss Merc won. In 590AD, I eliminated the Spanish.
French War
I repositioned troops, then declared on France in 600AD. France was down to about 4 cities at this time, and did not hold out long. In 640AD, they were no more.
Incan War
Buoyed by the French crumble, I declared on the much stronger Inca in 690AD (after repositioning troops).
I should have waited a bit longer. The Incans had moved a bunch of troops to our shared border and it took a bit to break through and start making progress. The other issue was the Incans had a much stronger culture resulting in quite a few flips in spite of a reasonably aggressive raze/replace policy. I razed cities above size 6, except where the knights templar was built, and the great library. Incidentally, the GL bumped me up to Astronomy, and then I razed the city. The KT city flipped at least once, but was easily retaken. My first leader of the game was generated in 700AD. Given the amount of elite victories to that point, I would say that that was long unlucky streak - still obviously that can not be blamed on the slower Incan campaign. The Incans also manage to drag England into the camapign on their side. Possibly I should have got England to fight the Inca, but they were not very strong at this point so I hadn't bothered. Around 1000AD, I finished off England, and then decided that since the Inca had no contact with the other continent, I could risk making peace and breaking the deal early. I made peace for three of the remaining 6 Incan cities. In 1060AD I redeclared and in 1090AD the Incan were gone! Sure enough this had no impact on my trading with the other civs!
Egyptian War
It took until 1160AD to be in position to attack the other continent. I chose the Egyptians first, and brought the Zulu and the Mayan in on the war. As it was taking a while to transfer troops from the other continent and reinforcements from home, progress was again a bit slow. Then the Egyptians got gunpowder, and things really slowed down. In 1270AD I made peace with the Egyptians while I hastily increased the numbers of trebuchets in my force to help crack these harder defences. I decided to keep the land gain happening I would ROP rape the Zulu. I could have wiped them out in a single turn, but for a one tile island that the Zulu possessed, so instead I took all their other cities (mainly defended by Impi) in one turn (6 in all). I then moved the forces back into position for Egypt. With the help of the trebuchets, we were able to redeclare and move through the remaining Egyptian cities fairly quickly. In 1390AD they were gone. In 1395AD the domination target was reached.
I think I will post lessons learned in another post.
Link to AA: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1979524&postcount=5
I actually finished this very enjoyable game back on July 6, but I have been away since.
I decided my goal was a rapid domination win. I went for a dom win in COTM01 as well, but the way I figure it, I was not nearly as fast as the top dogs so I have much to learn in this mode of victory still.
Contacts
I made all of the contacts in the AA. When I realised, that we were on an island pretty much to ourselves, I assumed that th emap would probably be an island map. In the end it turned out to be more a continets map, but the idea of making contacts as quickly as possible was clearly relevant in spite of this. I started sending out suicide curraghs before even completing a circum navigation of the starting island. For this reason I found England first in 1650BC. Because my first contact required traversing across the sea, I decided to prioritise building the great lighthouse, which also would help to maximise the seafaring ability. The other contacts came in as follows:
1450BC - Spanish
1375BC - Inca
1200BC - France
1000BC - Egypt and Maya
630BC - Zulu.
Tech
Because the Netherlands have a UU, the Swiss Mercenary, that gives the same defense as a musketman, but doesn't require gunpowder, is cheaper and available earlier, I reasoned that we would want to do most of our warring in the early middle ages to maximise our advantages vis a vis the AI. To my mind this meant rapid research to knights, and then basically turn off
research and reap the benefit. My research path was writng at min, then at max - map making, code of laws, philosophy and the slingshot to republic. In many ways I suspect that Monarchy would have suited my game plan better, but I had not tried this approach before and so decided to try it here and compare the effectiveness of the republic versus monarchy that I used in COTM01.
Tech Trades
I paid cash to the English in 1600 BC for Ceremonial Burial, because there werea few cities that I wanted cultural expansions in. In hindsight, if I had held off a few turns, this would have been a much cheaper trade. Still I had the money from my min research on writing.
I then held off any further trades until I was just three turns shy of philosophy. I was regularly checking to see if any AI had researched it, and was pleased to find that none had. So in 850BC, I traded writing aroung to the 6 civs I knew for all tech knowledge held amongst them, plus a bunch of cash. At this point I was down only Construction and Currency before the MA. So I could have rushed the discovery of these for a much earlier end to the AA, but chose not to. My thought was that the competition is a seperated Monarchy level AI who are down quite a few techs, so I may well be able to wage war with attack four units versus defence two units and make rapid progress. I suspect that this decision was actually a mistake, and a faster tech pace until I reached Chivalry would have played better into my hands. I would appreciate anyone's views on this topic.
I became a republic in 670BC and finished self research to enter the MA in 400BC. At this point I did contemplate gifting tech to scientific civs to assist my research path to Chivalry, but as there were no scientific civs, I decided against any gifting, and ended up having to self research feudalism, monotheism and Chivalry. As I had no libraries, was also building up infrastructure and had to support wars, it took to about 500AD to reach this point.
I did pick up additional tech but it really was not a priority.
Wonders
The only wonder I considered worth building was the Great Lighthouse. By successfully building this wonder, I could effectively shut off research at Chivalry instead of pushing on to Astronomy, and or Navigation. I completed the wonder in 190BC. I am fairly certain that it was worthwhile in my game. It opened up my path of approach to all my opponents very early in the game, and denied the capabilities to the AI, especially sea faring AI, thus isolating everyone, except the Spanish from attacking me.
Warring
Incan Phooney War
In 410BC the Inca, who were my closest tech competitor, but definitely behind, chose to demand the republic, and when I refused they declared war. I saw no reason to cave, they did not know where I was, and had to get past two civs to reach me. I proceeded to dogpile the Spanish, the French and the English on them, and otherwise ignored them. Eventually after the MAs ended, I made peace with the Incan. The Incan actually were able to use this war to make headway against both England and France, however.
Spanish War
I had taken a long time to start colonising the southern tundra due to sending unescorted settlers down to what became barbarian infested lands. I eventually learnt my lesson, and sent enough military down there to sort the problem, but then I was too slow to follow up with escorted settlers, and the Spanish settled there first. To make matters worse they then built the statue of Zeus. I decided to attack pre-Chivalry, and declared war in 310AD. I was able to land troops next to the SoZ on turn one. Within four turns I had removed the Spanish from my continent, captured the SoZ (Santiago) and another Spanish city on that continent. 350AD -
War with MI is slow, and costly due to no retreat, so progress was slow. Also in 500AD, I suffered a flip, and had to retake Salamanca. About this time my knights entered the fray. In 530AD, the Spanish finally find a little backbone and attack back triggering my golden age as my Swiss Merc won. In 590AD, I eliminated the Spanish.
French War
I repositioned troops, then declared on France in 600AD. France was down to about 4 cities at this time, and did not hold out long. In 640AD, they were no more.
Incan War
Buoyed by the French crumble, I declared on the much stronger Inca in 690AD (after repositioning troops).
I should have waited a bit longer. The Incans had moved a bunch of troops to our shared border and it took a bit to break through and start making progress. The other issue was the Incans had a much stronger culture resulting in quite a few flips in spite of a reasonably aggressive raze/replace policy. I razed cities above size 6, except where the knights templar was built, and the great library. Incidentally, the GL bumped me up to Astronomy, and then I razed the city. The KT city flipped at least once, but was easily retaken. My first leader of the game was generated in 700AD. Given the amount of elite victories to that point, I would say that that was long unlucky streak - still obviously that can not be blamed on the slower Incan campaign. The Incans also manage to drag England into the camapign on their side. Possibly I should have got England to fight the Inca, but they were not very strong at this point so I hadn't bothered. Around 1000AD, I finished off England, and then decided that since the Inca had no contact with the other continent, I could risk making peace and breaking the deal early. I made peace for three of the remaining 6 Incan cities. In 1060AD I redeclared and in 1090AD the Incan were gone! Sure enough this had no impact on my trading with the other civs!
Egyptian War
It took until 1160AD to be in position to attack the other continent. I chose the Egyptians first, and brought the Zulu and the Mayan in on the war. As it was taking a while to transfer troops from the other continent and reinforcements from home, progress was again a bit slow. Then the Egyptians got gunpowder, and things really slowed down. In 1270AD I made peace with the Egyptians while I hastily increased the numbers of trebuchets in my force to help crack these harder defences. I decided to keep the land gain happening I would ROP rape the Zulu. I could have wiped them out in a single turn, but for a one tile island that the Zulu possessed, so instead I took all their other cities (mainly defended by Impi) in one turn (6 in all). I then moved the forces back into position for Egypt. With the help of the trebuchets, we were able to redeclare and move through the remaining Egyptian cities fairly quickly. In 1390AD they were gone. In 1395AD the domination target was reached.
I think I will post lessons learned in another post.
jazz_man
Chieftain
Open class:
..disaster, my invasion of spain failed.
I put my stack of ~10 cavalry against a Madrid packed with musketeers and lost. Whats worse is that I didn't get opportunity to renew my salpeter deal & a few turns into the war they got nationalism and conscripts while my new recruits were knights.
It wouldn't surprise me if "my" salpeter was bought up by the spanish.. think what might have spoiled the trade is that I attacked Spain while a right of passage deal was still on. Think it was the Egyptians that I traded with, not sure.
This forced me to seek peace with only gain being conquest of the towns on the icy peninsula. Took the place next to incence but failed to defend it from spanish Cavalry suddenly popping up =(
Now I want to give up... two major blunders in the same game! suppose Ive learnt something. Bummer, felt i did better than the last cotm in the ancient age.
cheers,
john
..disaster, my invasion of spain failed.
I put my stack of ~10 cavalry against a Madrid packed with musketeers and lost. Whats worse is that I didn't get opportunity to renew my salpeter deal & a few turns into the war they got nationalism and conscripts while my new recruits were knights.
It wouldn't surprise me if "my" salpeter was bought up by the spanish.. think what might have spoiled the trade is that I attacked Spain while a right of passage deal was still on. Think it was the Egyptians that I traded with, not sure.
This forced me to seek peace with only gain being conquest of the towns on the icy peninsula. Took the place next to incence but failed to defend it from spanish Cavalry suddenly popping up =(
Now I want to give up... two major blunders in the same game! suppose Ive learnt something. Bummer, felt i did better than the last cotm in the ancient age.
cheers,
john
grs
nameless one
DaveMcW said:
A really impressive date. You have used a real lot of techniques to get the AI to be of some help with researching, while I had to research everything by myself. Really tought me some things ... predator might have beneficial too.
leopalas
Chieftain
Hi,
This is probably not the right place to say this but as i started it ill end it... Id like to post a public apologie to Xevious and namely sirPleb. Im also sorry that my post has in anyway disrupted the regular functioning of this thread. Im at work and its the first time i had the time to read all the discussion that followed my original post. Reading it now, the only thing that perhaps could justifie it is my latin blood, nothing however can justifie the rudeness. Its just that sometimes i get so frustrated... I understand know that im not too interested in quick domination/conquest victories and im just that kind of guy who likes the empire bulding type of game even if doesnt get that much of a Jason score. Spaceship victories, Histograph and 100K are probably the kind of victories ill pursuit in the future in what COTM is concerned ( it was just my second BTW ). Rapid tech advance is however important to this kind of victories, and i just cant get near the early pace that some players achieve. If someone could give me a hint on this or a link to any threads that provide information on the issue i would be obliged. Regards to you all.
This is probably not the right place to say this but as i started it ill end it... Id like to post a public apologie to Xevious and namely sirPleb. Im also sorry that my post has in anyway disrupted the regular functioning of this thread. Im at work and its the first time i had the time to read all the discussion that followed my original post. Reading it now, the only thing that perhaps could justifie it is my latin blood, nothing however can justifie the rudeness. Its just that sometimes i get so frustrated... I understand know that im not too interested in quick domination/conquest victories and im just that kind of guy who likes the empire bulding type of game even if doesnt get that much of a Jason score. Spaceship victories, Histograph and 100K are probably the kind of victories ill pursuit in the future in what COTM is concerned ( it was just my second BTW ). Rapid tech advance is however important to this kind of victories, and i just cant get near the early pace that some players achieve. If someone could give me a hint on this or a link to any threads that provide information on the issue i would be obliged. Regards to you all.
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