GOTM #11 *Spoilers* Thread

[cracker]

Oddible,

the "abandon city" command was added in the V1.21 patch. Any city that you own can be instantly abandoned just by clicking the command.

You access the command menu by right clicking on the city and you will find the command right there in the same list as "zoom to city".

Very useful command when you have way too many resistors and a city with no surviving improvements of strategic value.

 

[Mathias]

Continued from my post on page 1 of this thread...

As I suspected, Rome was ready to give up chivalry for peace as soon as I landed four horsemen next to one of their cities. I immediately started mass production of Samurai, and prepared an offensive against China. I didn't have much trouble taking them out. After capturing two of their cities, and advancing on a third, I commisioned France to take the remaining two Chinese cities as one of them was on the island to the northeast, where France and Rome each had two cities. China and Germany were both wiped out on the same turn, aroun 900 AD.

I regrouped and prepared to do battle with the French. I gave the Romans some furs for an alliance against France, then captured Tours. Joan only laughed when Rome declared war. She quickly captured one Roman city, then allied the Persians.

I made several attempts to capture Marseilles, while tours flipped back to the French. On the second attempt, I almost took it, leaving their last defender in the red. When I went back the third time, I killed her musketeer, but there were a couple of conscript riflemen there now. The best my samurai did was one damage before running away. I figured I was gonna need some cannons, and maybe even cavalry, to take out all of their rifles. I made peace, for now.

The year is 1355, and I am 5 turns from metallurgy. Military tradition should be 8 to 10 turns after that. I still haven't bothered with Theology, as I plan on eventually owning the Great Library of Paris, along with the Pyramids and Sun Tzu's. The French have built 4 other wonders, and are currently the only civ building Universal Suffrage. I know I have to get on the ball now and take them all before they get Infantry.

I am still amazed at how fast some of you have wiped out China and France. I see some of the different strategies, and perhaps I will do better the next time. As for this game I expect to have domination or conquest in the 1600s.

 

[FACEMAN]

continued from first post...

after I was only ale to found two more cities I decided not to wait for Samurais, cause I was far behind in tech.
From now on I broke every treaty possible and razed a couple of cities. This kepts everybody furious with me, but as a result everybody tried to backstab me, as well, what lead to everybody being constantly furious (and at war) with everybody. So nowbody got ahead in tech. I wiped the chinese of the Island with Swordsmen and decided to use the recently acquired leader to build a swordsman army which, together with a couple samurais and the following GA took out France.
Good thing the french AI had the passion to build a couple wonders despite being constantly at war.
I just cleared the island to the south with Samurais, where I finished off the chinese. Germany is long gone (must have been something like 1300BC). France only has one city on the Island to the northwest and I am going for Domination i think.

FACEMAN

 

[Yndy]

Reading your posts I think that this game was about being bold enough to attack the enemy.

I had boldly attacked the Chinese and the French only with Swordsmen and kept building swordsmen and horses with all my cities. I then attacked Romans/Persians/Germans (none of them were destroyed by the AI in my game). I finished the game having cavalry but the samurai won me the game in fact.

some of you had boldly attacked the chinese with warriors and won the game faster then me.

Some of you waited until the tanks came around and attacked only then.

I think this was the issue of the game: attack as fast as you can for best score.

 

[LKendter]

Originally posted by Oddible
LKendter and others talk of 'Abandoning cities'. I don't understand what this means. You suggest that you know there are 10 or 11 resistors so you must have taken the city rather than razed it. How do you abandon it? You mean just walk out and let it flip or let the other civ take it? If its got that many citizens, why not just raze it? Or starve them for 3-6 turns until its got a manageable number of people?

Curious.

If you right click on a city you get the abandon city option.

In my case, France had built MOST of the wonders and had culture twice or more mine. 11 of 11 citizens being resistors is an almost guarenteed flip. I didn't think it would be that bad

The cities such as Lyons that I did keep took an eternity to lose resistors - 3 or 4 units got rid of NONE most turns. I couldn't even start to starve some cities for several turns until I got some productive people.

 

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
I did not get a free settler even after waiting quite along time to pop the closest goody hut. [Got pottery, oh happy day.]

Perhaps I can win the worst position at 1650BC with a win over 9300?

Don't worry - I only had ONE city in 1650 BC (and that hut gave me a Warrior - grrr. Got Pottery from the French two turns later).

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Hi Ribannah,

Doing an OCC on this map (Emperor and poor start position) takes alot of determination

I think in your case, you will succeed. Best of Luck!

CB

 

[Cartouche Bee]

On Emperor the AI starts out with bonus units so an early attack can lead to doom. Attacking early with warriors may be the best in some situations but if your military advisor is telling you that you are weak compared to your foe, you better hope for some one sided victories on your part to balance the scales of power (terrain can help accomplish this though).

I chose to wait for horsemen before starting any wars but I like mobility in my attack forces.

CB

 

[Ribannah]

Thanks Cartouche Bee,

I entered the desert and when I saw the river I crossed over to the other side. Cost me 4 turns, but I had a decent city site.

 

[FACEMAN]

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
On Emperor the AI starts out with bonus units so an early attack can lead to doom. Attacking early with warriors may be the best in some situations but if your military advisor is telling you that you are weak compared to your foe, you better hope for some one sided victories on your part to balance the scales of power (terrain can help accomplish this though).

I chose to wait for horsemen before starting any wars but I like mobility in my attack forces.

CB

Worked pretty good for me. I had an early barrack and the chinese did not. I also used the mountains south of Bejing very efficient ;-).
The Ai doesn't seem to know the word micromanagement.

FACEMAN

 

[Smoking mirror]

Did anyone else try pop-rushing veteran archers, horsemen and spearmen early on to try to tip the ballance? I think I put too much in to one attack aginst the enemy, pop rushed loads of attacking units, and tried to take the chinese capital, I thew them all in to the offence and when they failed (I lost @50% first attack, leaving only a small garrison in the city, and in desperation lost the other 50% next turn trying to kill the final defenders) I couldn't restart the offensive cos I had to sit through 20 turns of unhappy citizens.

I think if I had ignored the cinese (they were fairly weak any how, and my "Culture assault" on the south island was a superb success) and cone after the french straight away while they were still weaker (perhaps with the help of the chinese who would have been happy to lend assistance in exchange for one of my sources of Iron) I could have secured the whole continent and perhaps the roman tech lead would not have been a big factor. It was just the fact that the chinese were closer to me than the french, and with their settler explosions seemed like more of an imediate threat.

 

[Thunderfall]

I build culture in my cities like crazy and have assimilated 4 or 5 Chinese cities. The Chinese only has Bejing and 2 cities on the island to the south. Cultural strategy seems to work pretty well in this game.

 

[MSGT John Drew]

This game is more like how your luck pans out. I, myself, knew that I would be in serious contention with the Scientific Persians. I always hate fighting these 'peaceful' people because they never start any wars! The Germans, although scientific, has their 'aggression-chip' installed and will easily sacrifice their 'scientific-ity' for more blue-land. God I hate Persians! They're tech a*holes!

So the Germans got cut down by the Romans (everyone had Iron so I think the Legionaries were too much for the Germans) and the Persians just watched (as always ). I broke the Chinese and renegotiated peace treaties every time taking techs I still did not have. I swarmed the French with Swordsmen and they gave up city after city until I decided I wasn't gonna allow their capital to leave my newly conquered continent (those far-flung towns of his will be totally corrupt to prevent further development ). The Chinese crawled their way to finally building the Great Library (at 3 shields/turn!!) and I finally had to destroy them to prevent them from tech trading.

Chivalry was drawing closer so I built horsemen and galleys giving myself a short respite from battle. When Chivalry came I had a dozen samurai ready to ship and by game's end I had 45 samurais running around the world. I then told them to lay down their swords, pick up the pen, and become what destiny has relegated them to -- 'politicians."

 

[pilferman]

My strategy for this GOTM turned out to be a disaster. Being a small map on Emperor, I figured the only way I was going to win was to conquer everyone else. I succeeded, but it was way too costly.

I kicked the Chinese off the island fairly quickly, as planned. Then came the French. At this point, they were the most powerfull nation in the world, but I had a plethora of swordsmen looking for something to do. I took most of their cities easily, until I got to Paris and one other city. They had discoved Feudalism and stocked Paris with about 5 pikemen and some other units. I'm not sure how they got the iron to do so, but that doesn't matter. Anyway, I finally beat them, and killed the remnant Chinese, German, and French cities on the three small islands. My campaign against the French killed many of my swordsmen and worst of all it was time consuming. This would prove to be the worst error of my game.

All that remained was the Roman empire (their entire island). I got Chivalry and began mass producing Samurai with plans to use them exclusively to topple the Romans. I masses a group of about 20 Sam's and landed them on the mountain at the far west of their island. That's when they assaulted me with their "Super-Knights." I call them super knights because they attacked 10 times and won 8 of those. They then stacked 5 more on top of the two victors and when I attacked, I lost another 6 sam's. I usually don't whine over misfortune, but sweet mercifull, that's absurd.

With that assault foiled, I started massing another army and geared up for another assault. This time I sent a decoy invasion to the east side. This worked temporarily, since while I was "away" making invasion preparations, the Roman scientific machine was busy churning out gunpowder. I figured that I should pillage their saltpeter tile to prevent musketman production, except I had halted my research back at chivalry and couldn't see saltpeter. Once I realized this, I went to pillage their road to iron. I did this and nothing happened. They continued building musketmen. Then I discovered another iron and went to pillage it. Same thing happened...nothing. That's when I consulted the civilopedia and discovered that they only need saltpeter, and no iron, to produce musketmen. Long story short, I stalled way too long chasing things I shouldn't have, then it took way too long to hack through all of the musketmen with my sam's.

Anyway, I finally conquered the world in the late 17th century. I won't say my score (because I don't think you're supposed to) but needless to say, it won't win any medals. Oh well. Thanks for reading this far.

 

[MSGT John Drew]

here's my 5-warrior gambit. Now that I looked at it I actually was 'very lucky' since I now see that there were 2 more archers in Beijing. And considering that the chances of a regular warrior beating an unfortified regular spearman is 18% I was really playing with fire that time. Don't know what came over me.

Possibly:

1. When I declared war and saw that a few units entered Beijing soon after I thought "Argh! To hell with it! I'm already here let's get to it!"

2. I hated the starting position. Felt like "This game is going to the dogs if I don't fix it quickly".

3. Through experience learned that civs whose territory is bordered early in the game will declare war just as early.

4. Saw archers, spearman, and warriors leaving Beijing without thinking about defense. Early on I saw huge numbers of Chinese units outside a barbarian hut. But on account that I had to fight 2 archers in Beijing means he wasn't that bad on defense.

And I forgot:

1. That once in a previous game I sent close to a dozen regular warriors to a capital city in a very similar situation and never killed a single defender (they were in a stream though and not in one attack).

2. That I should have used the Civulator to remind myself that all my warriors could have died to a single spearman (only 12% chances to a fortified spearman! - the spearman I battled with was, thankfully, unfortified). Damn if I knew all that I wouldn't have gone through with this stupid gambit!

And I had damn good luck to have:

1. Fought an unfortified spearman (only now do I see the stupidity of it all) and won.
2. Fought a fortified archer (36% chance to my regular warriors) and won
3. Fought another unfortified archer (45% to win) and won
4. No other defender present in Beijing
5. And a few turns later when China sent a horde of units (archers, spearmen and warriors) to retake Beijing I got to contact them, make peace, and keep Beijing.

So the lessons I'm trying to impart to all you souls are:

1. Don't go for a warrior gambit in a GOTM game. Do so if you want to cheat and reload each and every time to get that 1 in 8 chance of defeating that lone (always) fortified spearman. Hell even with veteran warriors you'll still only get a 1 in 5 chance of winning so forget it. Or go on with it if you're a fatalist and suicidal and have no care in the world if you submit a 20 turn game to Matrix. I don't believe in luck so there!

2. Read the first lesson 3 more times and get it into your brains! No warrior gambits in GOTMs!! No warrior gambits in GOTMs!! If I had a say on it I'd say anyone who say they went on a very very early warrior gambit is most likely cheating! Cast suspicion where there is plenty to be found. No warrior gambits in GOTMs!!!

Aaah ok... to qualify that violent outburst, if you know how many spearmen defenders in the city and compensate then you may just have a chance since these units will not heal fast enough and their hitpoints can only take so much. So if one warrior can take out 1 hp then 5 warriors to one spearman maybe ok. Still the danger of extra defenders must always, always, come to mind.

I don't cheat. Here's my savegame showing my 'incredible luck.' I don't blame others for casting suspicion on warrior-gambit-ers. For now on I, myself, am casting suspicion on anyone who says they won GOTMs on early warrior gambits. I won't be doing it again. It's plain suicide!

Attached hereby is my savegame. First I declare war on the Chinese through the 'renegotiate deals' option (I always do that) then move the warriors to that nearby mountain. Next turn I attack Beijing losing 3 warriors and 1 gets promoted to veteran. Beijing loses an archer and the unfortified spearman but the fortified archer gets promoted to veteran. That worker was supposed to build a road to Osaka. Next turn I take Beijing. A few turns later China goes for a retaking of Beijing but I get a peace deal before they get there. Luck. It's all luck. Plain dumb luck!

shame I could not post a screenshot. I just don't know how.

EDIT: too many 'myself's on this piece. 'twas starting to look silly.

 

[Greg Loader]

I, too was very lucky. My only cheating was that I replayed the game after being beaten down to one city in 1500BC.

I agree that with the start position, a small map and playing emperor, luck has a great deal to do with the outcome of the game.

MSGT John Drew, were you kidding about the peaceful Persians? They declared war on me out of the blue(but never attacked)! Took a while to make peace and only got 15 gold and world map.

Question: Each time I happened to make peace in this game with someone who had declared war on me, my citizens got unhappy. Is this normal? Should I wait for them to sue for peace instead of instigating it myself?

Greg

 

[pilferman]

I have a question for some of the veteran Civ3 players. Does the AI get a defense/attack bonus against the human player at higher levels? A perfect example is the situation I described above in a previous post. With Samurai having 4/4/2 and knights 4/2/2, you'd think that a samurai would have a very good chance to defeat a knight while the samurai is defending a mountain tile. Yet, if you read my previous post, I got wasted. Another situation involved 6 of my samurai fortified on a hill tile across a river from 4 knights. I attacked with two of mine and both retreated without inflicting any damage. I just decided it was a bad decision on my part, since they got a river defense bonus. When it came time for them to attack, I figured that I would get the defender bonus, the hill defense bonus, and the river bonus. Of the four knights that attacked, 3 won and the fourth almost won.

Perhaps it was just bad luck on my part. I would appreciate it if someone could shed any light on the issue. That's it.

 

[FACEMAN]

Using warriors early on isn't necessarily stupid or a high stakes gamble. It all comes down to the question HOW you use them.

What I did in this game, was essentially, what is also written down in a lot of strategy guides. I followed the chinese unit/settler pairs around and attacked as soon as the city was built. I never attacked a spearman with warriors, nor did I start a fight, I was not sure to win (which means+75%) when I didn't want to loose. (sometimes it happens that u need to sacrifice units)
The high art of war is to always be able to decide who fights where when and against whom.
This is the main difference between a human brain and th AI. The AI cannot "smell" a trap, that you constructed.

FACEMAN

 

[flexo]

I was going to do another OCC game but that idea collapsed quickly when I got a hut settler and the starting position was really sucky (atleast i thought so, the chinese and french had way better starts than me).

Two cities, a bunch of warriors. Don't know what the heck the Chinese was up to but it took them forever to get another settler out. I killed it with my brave warriors for some slave labour. Then we charged Bejing. So they really never got of the ground. Then the island was divided up between me and the French, just a minor battle for a few cities and then peace until the might Samurai came along. After building up about 20 I jumped the french and booted them off the island. Taking Paris which had several wonders. I also captured the Lighthouse, but I made the decision to destory the Sisteen Chapel, I was afraid of flipping. The lighthouse had already flipped once.

The French had managed to sneak a settler on a boat and took up residence on the Island south east of our starting position. I gave them piece for lots of gold and tech.

Meanwhile Rome has gone on a killing spree of their own. Only leaving the Germans with Berlin. Zulu got taken by the Persian. Which then got taken by Rome. Rome declares war on me, I form an alliance with the French for 70gp (they had only two cities left), Rome crushes them and we make peace again. So now only me and the Romans left. We have a couple of wars.

Weird thing after discovering Nationalism is that the Romans on several occations offered protection pacts. Protection from whom? We are the only two once left. What are they affraid of? Aliens?

I tried to be friendly trading a tech to the romans, that backfired and war was started a few rounds later.

So now the world i divided between us. I own start island, island se of start, and the one up by the french start. Rome owns the rest. I managed to culture my way onto one of the Roman islands and built a city there. Heavily fortified and with lots of purchased Temples, Harbour, Cathedrals and such. Romans took offence so it was war time.

This is the game at to moment. I'm in the lead, but I don't think I have what it takes to conquere him. Since his main island is big and we have evenly distributed the resources between us so I can't deprive him of anything so far.

I am a head a couple of techs. I think I can keep that distance since I have all the science boosting wonders. I am seriously thinking about nuking him. I am not there just yet but it would be fun to build a pile of nukes and then launch them all at once

Think I'll have to try it OCC style later. But I am definetly moving away from that sucky desert start point.

 

[Barker]

I figured that I would try this month's GOTM, even though I have never attempted any level higher than Regent.

I won my first Emperor game ever !!!!

Histograph gave me 8676 points. over 5,000 more than I have ever gotten.

Game Summary:

I never researched in this game at higher than 10%. I just built horsemen, spearmen and settlers. I popped a settler in the goodie hut to the north of my start position, and moved my settler over onto the dyes in the forest.

The game consisted of a number of long term engagements.

War 1:

I attacked the Chinese capital city with a group of 4 archers. I took it out with only 2 losses, and got a great leader in the process (the only one in the game) I rushed the pyramids in my main town near horses and iron. After taking all but 1 city, I sued for peace for 4 techs all Mao's gold and 2 workers.

16 turns later, Mao sends a settler exploring. I declared ar, grabbed my freee workers and proceeded to finish off the last of the Chinese civilization.

War 2:

France became the next target. the beginning stages of the war were a little rough, since Joan had alot of swords in her army. We swapped a couple cities, but I suffered some huge losses. I decided to send a horsie on a boat and landed on her only source of iron. Within 4 or 5 turns, I didn't have any swords left to face After taking her off the main continent, I proceeded to follow her onto the island. She enlisted the Romans and the Persians to fight me. I found this to be convenient, since they both had a presence on the island.

I ferried all my horse over, and with no time there was only a German city left. (We were gracious to each other) I declared war on Germany the next turn, and consolidated my position on the island.

War 3:

I made peace with rome and Persia and focused my attention on the 2 remaining German cities on their main continent. I lost 4 elite horse on a size 2 city that was on a hill The Germans were history in no time.

War 4:

I finally got Chivalry when I built the Gl in 540 AD! I couldn't believe that no-one had built it yet. I never thought that in an Emperor game the histest known tech in 550 AD would be Chivalry, but that is all I got from the Gl. It was more than enough. I took my first Persian city and triggered Domination.

Earliest win ever.