djb-3: "Persian Hegemony"

[dojoboy]

Hey everyone, here is an Open Succession Game (OSG) for anyone to play. Below is a short explanation of OSG games.

Open Succession Game (OSG):

An open succession doesn’t have a fixed number of players. After one player posts a game file, the next player in the succession will be the first person to post and say he is playing. OSGs are faster games because the player has a short period of time to play his turn (4h since the person said he was playing, this period gets higher as the late game is a bit slow). That way, every time you get to the forums, there’s a good possibility that you'll find an OSG in which you can play. Another attribute of OSGs is the fact that they hardly stall.

General OSG Guidelines:
- Open (anyone can play).
- 20 turns.
- Complete turns within 24 hours and post outline of important events.
- Upload save game in your post (email may be too slow re: gathering emails for who is playing next, but if it works it works).

*Be sure to post saying your next, then download the game.

Set-up:

Map (standard) --- "Imperialism" map from Civ3.com (all advance strategic resources are located on a large landmass covered by hundreds upon hundreds of barbarians)
Civs --- Random (8)
General settings --- standard.
Difficulty --- Regent
Civ --- Persia
Victory Conditions --- All Activated.
OSG Goal --- Space Race

My turns:

4000 BC - Moved settler south one tile.

3950 BC - Established Persepolis.

3750 BC - Barbarian ransacked capital.

3700 BC - Warrior built.

3100 BC - Settler built

3050 BC - Game Saved.

I'm sending the settler/warrior south to build next township. Persepolis is unguarded but a spearman will be completed in a few turns. Just looking at expansion for now. Tech-line set for literature (Great Library).

Persia Pic

Save Game

 

[dojoboy]

Another link for the save game.

 

[dcaint]

Uh oh- just downloaded the OSG (wife is in bed, dogs are outside, and I have a whole case of Diet Coke to myself....)

Then I realized- this newbie has no idea how to upload the thing when I'm done with it! If someone could just tell me that I'd be off and running.

Thanks!

 

[dcaint]

Oh wait- there it is. OK- I'm the idiot. Sorry.

 

[dcaint]

Ok- here's what I did:

3050 BC: switched Science to Iron Working as goal- these are the Persians, after all, and Immortals just ROCK.

2900 BC: Settler has moved south to the coast, Pasargadae built.

2670 BC: Our Warrior has earned his keep by killing off some barbarians and taking their wallets and valuables.

2470 BC: Same Warrior, drunk from previous victory, disturbs another barbarian encampment southeast of the first one and gets his butt kicked.

2230 BC: Persepolis had built another Settler- this one I would think should go northeast to expand towards the apparent isthmus the Warrior found. This would allow defense from the north easily if there be other peoples up there.

What I'm thinking is simple, I guess- the best thing the Persians have going is the ability to expand rapidly in the early stages, and build a really strong offensive unit early on. I would want Iron Working ASAP, then spend some time pumping out cities till we can build a real army.

Anyway, here's the game.....

 

[Txurce]

This turn was all about expansion, laying the groundwork for future wonders, and trading with the northerly Babylonians.

1950: Susa founded, further east than ideal, but the site is a guaranteed super-city. A temple prebuild is started, to keep unhappiness under control while growing well past size 6.

1870: Arbela founded, and starts work on the Colossus. I don't think we'll need a temple first, but that's debatable.

1790: Antioch founded and starts work on a granary. This should be our future capital, because Persepolis is too far west. The granary will allow it to grow fast enough to "catch" the palace jump, once we let the original Persepolis disappear with a last settler build. To make sure the palace goes here and not to Susa, it's probably worth building a temple first.

1675: Contact with Babylon results in a trade of the alphabet plus 18 gold for ceremonial burial and warrior code.

1650: Iron working is researched, and we have an iron resource within our borders. Research begins on writing. We shouldn't need the Great Library, as we can outresearch the AI and would waste the free tech entering the Middle Ages, but as a scientific civ, it's worth reaching literature and building cheap libraries asap.

1575: Trade Babylon iron working for pottery, mysticism plus 5 gold.

Pasargadae is now building a barracks, to be vfollowed by immortals, but it could switch roles with Arbela.

The cities built with future Persepolis workers may be best off building workers, barracks, and immortals.

Workers could clear forest around Antioch, and improve the two proposed wonder cities.

Because Persia is buried at the bottom of the globe, we will have to pay for communications once we research writing. On the other hand, our lands have terrain whose variety is ideal, and three different luxuries as well. Once our Immortals expand north into Babylon, we should have all the territory we need to achieve our stated OSG goal: winning the space race.

 

[dojoboy]

Remember, advance strategic resources will have to be secured from another landmass, filled w/ barbarians.

Also, I downloaded the save to look around, but I couldn't opoen it - corrupt. I wonder if I should start up in OS X for now on.

 

[Beamup]

Heh, I remember this problem people have been having. I spent a couple minutes looking into it. I don't know what causes it (my guess would be the programs used to zip and unzip the file don't do it quite right) but I do know how to fix it. Start ResEdit (can be obtained from here) and "Get File/Folder Info" on the .SAV file. Enter "GAMs" (without quotes, of course) into the "type" field and "Civ3" (again without quotes) into the "creator" field. These are almost certainly case sensitive, but I have not checked. Close the window and save changes. At any rate, once you do this, the file will have the normal savegame icon and will be recognized by Civ3.

 

[dojoboy]

Thanks Beamup! Another great example of a mac user going the extra mile!

 

[Txurce]

Oh, I didn't realize this was the imperialism map. In that case, we probably want to build the Lighthouse ahead of the Colossus. And all the more reaon to centralize the capital, since the FP will be built on the big continent. (That said, it would be interesting to win this game WITHOUT colonizing the other conrtinent!)

By the way, Dojoboy, were you able to open my game now? Or Tao's? I wonder why I could open dcaint's zip, but mine can't be opened.

Antone who would like me to email them a .sit file which they can then unstuff, email me at (material@gte.net).

 

[Beamup]

OK, I'll take the next turn. My thoughts:

- Lighthouse would be quite useful, yes. My pick for second-priority wonder is the Pyramids.

- A more productive government will be preferable before we start the war with Babylon. Our GA will be much more useful then.

- My priorities will be further expansion and a buildup of Immortals. Research priority will be Map Making (we want to start colonizing the center ASAP) followed by Literature (won't be building many libraries during the military buildup anyway).

 

[Beamup]

1550 (preturn) - Warrior in Antioch unfortified and sent off to northeast, production in Antioch switched to replacement Warrior. We shouldn't stop exploring. Pasargadae switches to producing a Spearman instead of a Barracks, a Worker will follow.

1500 - Negotiations with Babylon reveal that their army is bigger, but we have more cities (5 to 4)

1475 - Antioch builds Warrior, starts Worker. We need more Workers very badly.

1450 - Antioch connected to road network. Road to Iron begun.

1425 - Nothing of note.

1400 - Babylon founds Ellipi at the isthmus. Their borders cut us off in that direction, we are not yet ready for war. We now have only a couple more sites available for expansion. Writing has been discovered somewhere in the world. Warrior fortified at the border, another sent to join him - we want to keep an eye on them so Settlers can be blocked at the border.

1375 - Nothing of note.

1350 - Pasargadae and Antioch build Workers, switch to Barracks.

1325 - Settler built. Sent over to the north of Antioch to fill in that gap. The site will have substantial overlap with a couple Babylonian cities, but it'll just be coast tiles. We'll want two more cities over by Susa and Arbela.

1300 - Nothing of note.

1275 - The Worker by Arbela goes crazy and starts heading off east without orders. Reload - he does it again. Reload and move him manually. (I believe the reload is justified here because this behavior is clearly a bug.)

1250 - Nothing of note.

1225 - Writing developed, next target is Map Making (24 turns). Embassy established with Babylon. They will not sign an RoP unless we pay them. They have no communications with anyone else. Tarsus founded, starts Spearman.

1200 - Nothing of note.

1175 - Nothing of note.

1150 - Babylon starts building the Pyramids. There's little point racing them for it, we should simply capture it. Susa can build the Oracle instead. Spearman exploring near Arbela finds a tiny isthmus connecting to the east, despite the fact that it looked like a dead end! He has to turn around to become MP in Arbela, but one of the Warriors on the border is dispatched to explore further.

1125 - Susa starts the Oracle.

1100 - Nothing of note.

1075 - Babylon sends a Warrior south out of Ellipi. The Warrior and Spearman on the border will get in his way as much as possible. This is probably just a scouting/mapping probe.

1050 - Nothing of note.

1025 - Pasargadae builds Barracks, starts Immortals. Game saved.

Saved Game

 

[Beamup]

Not much really going on right now. There's a Babylonian Warrior inside Susa's borders (they just expanded). We could order him out or sign an RoP for cash, I'm more inclined to let it pass. We need more Immortals to start the war - maybe Susa should be switched to Immortals from the Oracle to produce a faster military buildup. Babylon's no match for our tech, and Bowmen can't stand up to Immortals, but we still want to hit hard and fast. Hopefully we can eliminate them entirely, since they don't have too many cities yet. Exploration to the east should continue (Warrior en route) but Babylon should be the priority IMO. We'll be getting Map Making fairly soon - we should trade maps with Babylon immediately so we can tell what we're dealing with as far as the war goes.

 

[dojoboy]

Cool! Beamup, could you post a pic. I'm out of town and on my Mom's PC. Txurce, I will not be able to try and fix tao's save until Christmas night, late. So, hopefully I'll get started on my turns sometime Thursday.

 

[Txurce]

Good turn, Beamup. Thinking about this game, it occurred to me that we may be prevented from reaching the other hemisphere until our ships can cross deep water, which isn't until late in the Middle Ages. By then, the Lighthouse will have lost its value. I think it still may be worth going for, so as to make contact faster with the other civs... but again, the odds are that we'll be last in this regard, given our starting position. My other thought about this scenario's conditions is that by the time we reach the other continent, barbarians will be so primitive as to barely be a nuisance.

 

[Beamup]

Originally posted by dojoboy
Cool! Beamup, could you post a pic. I'm out of town and on my Mom's PC.

*shrug* Sure. Not much to post a pic of, but here it is. *EDIT - ugh, that doesn't look very good. Unfortunately it's the best I can do getting it below 100K.*

Originally posted by Txurce
Good turn, Beamup. Thinking about this game, it occurred to me that we may be prevented from reaching the other hemisphere until our ships can cross deep water, which isn't until late in the Middle Ages. By then, the Lighthouse will have lost its value. I think it still may be worth going for, so as to make contact faster with the other civs... but again, the odds are that we'll be last in this regard, given our starting position. My other thought about this scenario's conditions is that by the time we reach the other continent, barbarians will be so primitive as to barely be a nuisance.

My thinking with respect to the Lighthouse is that we don't yet know what it will take to get there. It's quite possible the Lighthouse would let a Galley get there. Since the description doesn't make it clear what "advanced" resources are (e.g. would saltpeter count?), we don't really know whether we'd be intended to get there with Astronomy (or GL) or with Navigation/Magnestism. Even if not, we still need to know how the world stands and what it looks like. In other words, the GL will be useful regardless. And since the barbs are supposed to be an important factor according to the description, I doubt we'd need Navigation/Magnetism - as you say, that would make the barbs irrelevant.

As far as contact goes, I'd point out that the Babs have no contact with anyone else either. Because of that, and since designed maps usually try to balance the starting positions, my guess is that we're probably not in as bad of a location as it might look like. Again, we don't KNOW anything and need to find out. Also, we need to make contact anyway, even if it isn't easy.

So I still support the Lighthouse (as well as getting some Galleys out ASAP to start exploring). Once we actually have Map Making, though, we can get the Bab map and we'll know substantially more about the world. So the decision can certainly be left till then.

 

[Txurce]

Beamup, I think going for the Lighthouse will be useful as well. And it would be great if this wonder played into this scenario's central theme.

I think our starting postion is actually really good. My point was that because we are at the bottom of the map, and with the only path north being through Babylon, I predict that most or all of the other civs will discover each other first.

 

[n8mac]

Well, I guess if no one has kept the game going since 1025 bc then I will give a crack at this succession game (first one). Regency is my level anyway, I win on it but so far lost on my first Monarch game (no iron). If for some reason I don't upload the file right or no one can open it (OS 9.2) then someone else can take over from 1025 bc.

 

[n8mac]

I played my twenty, I upload the file, so how do I get it here?!!!
It is in the upload3 folder titled "Xerxes, 570 BC.SAV".

 

[dojoboy]

Originally posted by n8mac
I played my twenty, I upload the file, so how do I get it here?!!!
It is in the upload3 folder titled "Xerxes, 570 BC.SAV".

First, thanks for taking part in the OSG!

Second, uploading can be confusing. What you need to do after uploading a file. BTW, game files need to be zipped, your's came through as page of "gibberish" when I tried to look at it. I went to the "uploads3" page and found the game. When uploading, use the [http//:] feature above the text box when poating a reply. You'll first type in whatever name you want to show up in your post to represent the download, like "n8mac's save file." Then you hit okay and you'll be given a another window to type in the web address for the file, be sure the file name is correct.


Below link not operational, n8mac, if you would, upload it again as a zipped file. If you have problems, just email me [btherr1@bellsouth.net] the file and I'll zip it and upload it for you.

n8mac's save file