GOTM #12 *Spoilers* Thread

[MSGT John Drew]

Finally did it! Domination @ 1275 AD @ the time of Infantries. I would have gone the whole nine yards to conquest but France was powerfully defended by Infantries and we all know cavalries suck at beating them. (I even lost two 3-Veteran-Cavalry Armies to fortified infantries in cities. Ouch!) I destroyed all the other civs though and that's enough for me.

Good start! I love expansionist civs! By the time I got my last tech from goody huts I was 3 techs ahead of the 2nd most advanced civ and 5 techs ahead of the least advanced. Two scouts at the start and I was steamrolling.

I only built the GL wonder and let the other civs waste time on building the other wonders - focused instead on building up my military from impis, horsemen and a few swordsmen. I had very bad luck with my swordsmen - 4 died on 2 attacks against Delhi and I still did not conquer the city. I almost gave up. But when Delhi finally fell it also gave me a great leader (first or second) and I felt really good after that.

I reloaded only thrice:

1. When I accidentally clicked 'Go to Revolution while I was in a Golden Age'. I was in Despotism and I knew that given the current status(only 1 lux), my anarchy would take forever. I was also in the middle of a huge war (Me versus Japan, Babylon, China & India) so anarchy is a no no!!

2. When I pressed the wrong cursor key and caused an elite swordsman to move parallel to a target enemy city rather than towards it. I use the cursor keys when I get bored of using the mouse but at that moment I got confused with the orientation of the map. (I thought the up key will move my unit Northeast. Some previous games I played were configured that way.)

3. The connecting pin inside the mouse was loose so the mouse went haywire. Caused me to restart the pc (and Civ3) a number of times until I found what was wrong and fixed it.

Happy gaming you all. I know I did. Wonder if anyone went the OCC path? I was planning to but I had to try something new.

ps. A tip from myself to others who do it: don''t write a timelog too often - the game gets boring when you do that. I did not write one during the game and that decision stopped me from getting distracted.

 

[MPF]

My scouts have covered almost the whole continent (just met france and am selling communications with them for big bucks) and its big, I mean really BIG.

I think I found almost al the goody huts on the continent (I just love having those scouts) and now 3-4 techs ahead. I'am the only one who has horseback riding so i'm now builing an army of horseman to traverse and conquer as this map is HUGE.

As non of the civs have iron working (yet) my horsies will have a field day with those spearman. I'm going to really enjoy this one.

Good gaming all, MPF

 

[zagnut]

I had the good fortune at the beginning to expand toward the east. Apparently I got lucky with the barbarian villages because I took about 5 in a row and got civ advances in each one. As a result I was ahead in tech.

First I went after India and took a couple of their cities then made peace. I find that is a great tactic as you don't get involved in trying to destroy them, which takes a long time, and the couple of cities they lose sets them back for centuries.

The big problem I had in this game was when the Babylonians declared war on me around 500 AD. I quickly traded with Japan and Persia for military alliances because they had borders with Babylon. The war went well with all of the allies contributing equally to the Babylonian's destruction. At this time I had knights and the Babylonians didn't. I was the closest to their capital and so after taking 3 nearby cities I took aim at Babylon and took it without too much trouble. I got 2 wonders for my trouble so kept the city.

The problem was that in expanding my cities as quickly as possible, (I had 16 when the war started and France, the next largest, had 14) my culture had suffered. The only wonder I had was the Great Library. The Babylonians had a much greater culture than mine and so a few turns after I took Babylon it flipped back to them. I had not really anticipated this because at the time their civilization was about whopped. It only had one city left and I was advancing on it. I got careless and left 10 knights in Babylon because it had a lot or resisters. Needless to say I lost all of those knights and didn't have any other units in the immediate area to take the capital back. On the next turn Ninevah flipped back to them. This was the last straw. Now came the big decision - do I reload, or stuggle on? I hated to give up so much so I took the chickens way out and reloaded. I know I can't submit my game now, but I wanted to post this because the culture flips when the civ only had one city left really took me by surprise. Apparently the "memory" the computer keeps of the civs culture is still very strong even when the civ only has one city left and is about to lose that.

 

[MSGT John Drew]

zagnut:

it's a coin toss really: "Do I leave hordes of units inside his capital and wish for the number to prevent the flip or do I leave my units outside ready to retake it when it flips?" I did a little of both and crossed my fingers evertime I did the former.

 

[BillChin]

My game is winding down. It is 960 A. D. and I am finally changing out of Despotism. My game resembles an always war game. I refuse a demand from Japan around 700 B. C. and they get every single civ to declare war on me!

Fortunately, I am loaded for bear. I take out the Chinese first, then attack India. Granaries in cities on rivers help a lot. Thanks for that tip on some other thread. I make peace when it is militarily expedient, but I am at war with at least one civ practically the entire game.

At this point, China, India, Babylon, Japan are all vanquished. Leaving Persia and France. Persia doesn't even have iron, so they look ripe. France is strong, but when I get calvary nothing will stand before them. I may achieve Domination before even attacking France.
- Bill

 

[Smash]

What I have been doing for resistance/culture flips is the normal station them outside the city while I move up impi or warriors built in cities intentionally left unconnected.Then get the upgrade to a sword or musket.At least flips aren't so costly and can be recaptured straight away.

 

[Smoking mirror]

Phaze two is now also proceeding acording to plan... With just a few set backs;

#1 No second leader yet, no chance yet to build an army, so no heroic epic and little chance of more leaders.
#2 The persians have just declared war on me, at the moment they are pouring out of the choke point between the two sub-continents; If I can rush my defencive forces to "cork the bottle" quickly I can easily defend my babylonian conquests, but if the persian cavalry takes the city opposite the choke point, the difficulties in moving through enemy territories will make the war very costly for me.

Lucky for me Ive got a Very good reputation with the remaining civs and just the promise of 20 turns of a luxury was enough to drag the french in to a war with the persians, a war which even the victor will emerge from greatly weakened.
The japanese faced no real difficulties even with my good culture rating Ive had trouble with culture flipping all the way through (my capital is so very far away every war has to result in total extermination) so I move all my forces to a nearby defensive point rather than place them in the city.

One other point Ive not razed even one city so far, better to suffer a culture flip (retaking the city means an additional chance for promotion and great leader and also reduces the population by an additional point) than suffer the bad reputation, usualy I have a bad rep but during this game, I think I could probably win a United nations victory. (not losing that way again!)

Heres my status now, notice how by denying the indians a right of passage during our crusade I managed to limit their help to border cities, which would then be surrounded by my cultural borders; in the even they only took one city, their elephants being no match in the city grab rush with my cavalry;

 

[ainwood]

Well:

Looks like most took the Chinese early. I found the Indians first, thought they were too close so built barracks then archers and took the indians early. They had an awful starting position, and only had two cities when I attacked. I got a settler near the chinese, and built a city there but it was pretty useless and didn't give me much advantage.

After taking the indians, the chinese had too many cities (they seemed to be churning settlers at an alarming rate ). I got a GL in the war, and used it for a forbidden palace in the middle of the continent. So I built a few more cities, and changed production to build a horseman army. I then attacked the chinese and took them out pretty painlessly.

At this point, I had expanded to cover most of the land up to the babylonians. I realised that they didn't have any iron. I upgraded a few horsemen to knights, and used a combined horsemen/knight force to take out babylonia as well.

The persians also had no iron, so tried to attack them too. Damn Frenchies traded them iron, and they got gunpowder. So I'm holding off for cavalry - about 15 turns away

 

[Smash]

My first leader went for an army.Heroic Epic followed and I just got my 8th leader of the game..so far

 

[phage]

I am such a lame player, it's not even funny:

Only 3 cities at 840BC, Indians have got 7 more techs than me, and I haven't got a decent enough military to take out the chinese. No idea what I'm doing wrong

 

[zagnut]

Phage:

It's really impossible to explain the cause of your small civ without more information. However, what I have learned from the good players is to expand as fast as possible. I used to try to build my cities with temples and granaries, but always found myself way behind by the your time period. Finally I decided to build as many settlers as possible, along with military units. This keeps the population of your cities below 6 for a long time, but it provides the settlers that you need to get out there and build as many cities as possible. You would be surprised how many techs you can trade for or, if you are lucky as I was in this game, you may get a lot of techs from raiding barb villages.

I note that this is your first post. This site can make you a better player just by reading the advice in the War Academy and the strategy forum. Good Luck.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Well I finally got around to playing another GOTM. I liked the idea of playing the Zulu.

Got conquest at a pretty good date, not sure if it is the best, though. I did ICS, but I didn't go for the full settler flood. I did ICS at the beginning and then just mass produced military units.

I got 2 great leaders (Great library and Sun Tzu's). After I got the Great Library and set science to 0%. Then at the beginning of the middle ages I cranked science back up to go for chivalry. But when I did this I saw it would take forever (30+ turns) to research techs. I then looked at my military advisor and saw I was spending 70+ more gold for units that my monarchy couldn't support .

So I set every city to build a settler (more free units + more gold). Then when I got chivalry I could only upgrade 1 or 2 of my 70+ horseman per turn, so I set all high-corrupt cities to build WEALTH! I already had way too many workers and everything was well roaded, so I didn't need any more workers when I was already over the free unit support limit. By setting all cities to wealth I was making +240 gold/turn so I could upgrade 3 horseman to knights every turn. Other than 1 temple and 1 harbor (which wasn't needed by the time I got it built) I didn't build any infrastructure except for barracks.

I went for 100% science towards the wheel (I NEEDED horses ASAP), then horseback riding, then towards Monarchy. Traded for a few techs, but most I got in peace negotiations. I changed to monarchy right after my golden age. I like to not have my golden age while in despot, but considering the terrain, I think it worked out pretty good.

I don't play with barbarians normally, but they weren't too much of a problem as I placed warriors and Impi on mountains, etc to stop the camps from forming. I found out that a barb camp can form right in front of a worker or scout! I guess you must have a MILITARY (unit that has an attack or defense value) unit uncovering tiles from the fog of war to prevent the camps from forming.

 

[phage]

Originally posted by zagnut
Phage:

It's really impossible to explain the cause of your small civ without more information. However, what I have learned from the good players is to expand as fast as possible. I used to try to build my cities with temples and granaries, but always found myself way behind by the your time period. Finally I decided to build as many settlers as possible, along with military units. This keeps the population of your cities below 6 for a long time, but it provides the settlers that you need to get out there and build as many cities as possible. You would be surprised how many techs you can trade for or, if you are lucky as I was in this game, you may get a lot of techs from raiding barb villages.

I note that this is your first post. This site can make you a better player just by reading the advice in the War Academy and the strategy forum. Good Luck.

Thanks for the reply

I restarted the game (I'm not planning to submit it) and managed to expand a little quicker.

Someone told me I shouldn't make a city build a settler until it's size 5, because if I build one at size 3 it takes longer to regain the population, is this right?

 

[ainwood]

Phage,

It really depends on the lands surrounding your city. If you have a couple of "specials", then the extra population to size five may not give you much incremental production benefit over three. And you need to weigh-up getting extra cities built vs the production from the first.

I tend to build settlers at size 3 in the start of the game, (hopefully having built a granary first - that's more important than letting your cities get to size 5!). When I get a few more cities going and a bit of the terrain around my city developed, I then revert to building at size 4/5/6 - basically settler/defensive unit pairs.

 

[Zur]

This sux. Should have expected an early attack after war was declared. There's the v. short chronology of our insignificant civ:

3550BC Meet (and make war) with Indians
3400BC Indian warrior ambushes our scout!

We have built 3 scouts and no military. Then an undefended Zimbabwe falls to Indian warrior & archer. We escape with a settler a short way to the south to attempt to recapture the capital, but then more Indian reinforcements arrive and all is lost.

The shortest game I've ever played.

 

[Smash]

I would say if you are waiting for size 5 before building a settler,you are waiting way too long.My first settler was timed exactly with size 3.

I actually finished!!!
Mercifully,a domination victory was acheived in 1340AD.


Some comments:

The game has improved a fair bit with 1.29 patch but its still very tedious and frustrating.
Culture flipping is not as bad as before but still very annoying and terribly unfair.Nuff said.
MP is not going to work.Turns are gonna take forever except very early.If anyone even comes close to anything other than early KOs.I'll be shocked.

All in all,its a better game,but not anywhere near a great game IMO.Not yet....

 

[Oddible]

Got an excellent late game challenge going on here...
I'll be brief.

SETTING:
China- Knocked off early - can't have any militaristic Civs behind me
Babylon - started a war with me right after my China war except they had no iron so my Knights ripped them up.
Japan - wars with Persia and India the entire game - lots of land, not a player
Persia - whoops, they attacked me at the end of my Babylon war - I was way behind and couldn't defend so I got India, France and Japan involved and they got wiped - shouldn't have called in France, now they're top dog.
India - number 2 to France in tech - hit a city of theirs really early for a resource and now no ROP, but got MPP with them - good thing too, check the map - could wipe 'em but I think I need them as friends
France - Top tech, top land mass and moving in on my score. Just took ALL of Persia.

THE SITCH:
France has been building the UN for a while - haven't investigated, but they're close. Zimbabwe is 16 turns from UN completion. I had a couple failed spy attempts make my place in the world a little precarious. Now India is getting their Oil from France so they're sold. Japan furious with me for some unknown reason - never warred with them.

I must tip the scales back in my favor or I lose this game. I'm considering goading France into a war - maybe starting it then backing off until they attack on my territory so I can get India involved with my MPP. Can't get an MPP with Japan so may get one with Babylon just so I've got 2-1 allies. Problem is that I don't have Computers yet and am feeling a bit vulnerable despite 3 Infantry and an Artillery in every city. France has a LOT of production capacity and I know Japan is going to fall in behind them. India has few cities but good tech and lots of units from previous wars.

Not reading the spoilers until the end so will post back on what happened. (Home sick from work Friday - got lots of play in ).

 

[Bleser]

Well, this is my first game of the month, and I have to admit, it was very exciting! I think that the Zulu are one of the hardest civs to play, because expansionist is only good (to me, anyway) in the early years, and if you are not at war, then militaristic is worthless, too. The Impi's are only good at rushing to defend cities from barbarians, but that's about it.

I was doing well and not fighting anyone untl I discovered Persia and France, the two lucky civs with all the territory! I decided I needed more teritory to be competitive. So, gather your Knights and rush China! I made the mistake of getting a ROP with China and then attacking all of their cities at once, three of five falling to me within a couple of turns. Needless to say, no one else signed a ROP with me for the rest of the game.

I would have continued fighting China but the Indians got anxious and attacked me in the south, where I was weak. I lost a few cities, but got Persia, Japan, and Babylon to attack India to take the pressure off of me. I re-caputred my lost cities and gained the rest of India's territory, except for a couple small island cities, where they remianed for the rest of the game.

I only fought Japan a couple times and merely defened, and finsihed China off in one turn late in the game, and eventually won via Space Race, which France could have won if Persia had not traded with me.

This game was harder than I thought it would be, but very fun and makes me want GOTM XIII now!

 

[Bamspeedy]

it's a coin toss really: "Do I leave hordes of units inside his capital and wish for the number to prevent the flip or do I leave my units outside ready to retake it when it flips?" I did a little of both and crossed my fingers evertime I did the former.

I didn't have too much of a problem with culture flips, despite building ony 1 temple (which wasn't until late in the game). I guess maybe because I attacked before they were able to produce too much culture. I just stationed any injured troops in the city (to quell resistors and heal) and had the healthy ones move onto the next city. I had a continuous stream of units coming, so if a city did flip, I had plenty of units on the way to retake it. I lost a city or two to Persia (but only lost 1-3 units in them). What is really annoying is when you get a civ down to 1 city, then they are able to flip a city back to them that is 15 tiles away!

But then I fought France.. I lost a city that had 3 healthy knights (had just been upgraded) and 2 other knights that were healing up. After that I razed all French cities and that is why in my screenshot there isn't many ex- french cities. I only kept the city that had the Hanging Gardens.

What was really funny about my game is after I signed peace with Babylon (and getting the rest of their cities through the peace treaty), they only had just their capital left and they go off and start building a wonder .

 

[Balou]

This is the first time I play Game of the month.
I´m not so much of a warmonger, until somewhat around 1000AD I was not at war with anyone. (no great leader up to now)
I build a lot of wonders and improvements and traded away my resources.
Around 1000AD the Japanese decided to attack the Chinese (also destroyed the Babylonians) while I was still building my military to take away the few cities the Chinese had. I managed to get those cities before the Japanese and integrated them nicely into my culture. Then the Indians were attacked by Japan and Persia. The result was a lof of free space to found new cities which is what I did.
Now I´m slightly ahead in the tech race and have the highest culture rating. The core area of my country is already build up and producing wealth. (got my golden age through a wonder)

I´m not sure what to do now. On the one hand, tanks are only a few turns away and I could easily build more infantry(get rubber from Persia) to conquer the Japanese (they don´t have Infantry yet - Persia and France do). On the other hand, I could also go for a diplomatic victory (only attacked once) but I´m not sure if they would vote for me or France (they were nice throughout the whole game).