GOTM #12 *Spoilers* Thread

[Thunderfall]

Balou, are all other Civs polite toward you? If it is, then maybe you should head for a diplomatic victory.

Those Persian cities and Japanese cities south of you probably can be assimilated by your superior culture...

 

[bst1]

Hello all,

This is my first GOTM, I just finished the game and posted my .sav file and just wanted to share a little bit of my experience and maybe get some (much needed) advice from the guys here who really know their Civ. (trying to bone up for multiplayer )

My problem when playing Civ is I have a hard time coming up with clear cut goals for myself (like picking 1 particular victory condition and totally focusing on it) and I end up trying to do everything at once.

I'll use this GOTM to illustrate.

I started off the game by just focusing on pumping settlers and expanding (this is how I find myself starting every game no matter the circumstance). Also, since the Zulu are Expansionistic I made maybe 5 or 6 Scouts and went around grabbing all the goody huts I could. This helped take care of early tech and I kept science at 10% all through the early game and tried to pick techs to research that I didn't think the AI would research for trade purposes.

I met the Chinese first and then the Indians shortly thereafter. The Chinese had horrible jungle infested lands and that pretty much sealed their fate. After I had settled what I had in my mind as "my" territory and had a veteran Impi or 2 in each town (I normally pick a town or 2 and make barracks in them to supply defenders for my entire early empire and make culture improvements, settlers, and workers in all other towns), I started focusing on creating my army for attacking. I got Iron Working pretty quickly so that army mainly consisted of swordsman. I also made a few horseman with an eye towards upgrading to Knights when the time came so I wouldn't be caught flat footed militarily. Using a force of maybe 10-12 units I took out the Chinese before the Ancient Era ended. Luckily I managed to wipe them out entirely without triggering my Golden Age. The one thing I did differently in the Ancient Era than I normally do is that I didn't even try to build any early wonders. I'm not sure why, as I normally always go for the Pyramids, but I never seemed to have a town free in time to start it and after a certain point I figured there was no reason to start it because I knew the AI would have too much of a lead.

Next came the Middle Ages and lots more war. The Indians had grown fairly strong through the Ancient Era and had quite a bit of culture (as they always do), and they had a few cities that I felt would look nice in my cultural mass (you know how it is, you don't like seeing other colors in your blob on the mini map hehe). So I enlisted the help of the Japanese and Babylonians and together we took out the Indians. The war was fought entirely with Knights, Swordsman and Impis, and I ended up with all but a city or 2 of their holdings on the mainland and they were banished to the 3 city island to the SE of the main continent. I had triggered my Golden Age during this war and this allowed me to complete my first 2 wonders, Michelangelo's and J.S. Bach's. I was able to turn the luxuries that had made my Republic possible down to 0 and start to compete with the tech leader at the time (France) for getting new techs first.

After 20 turns or so of peace with the Indians the AI started declaring war on each other. The Japanese and Persians signed a military alliance against the Babylonians. The Babylonian lands bordered my newly conquered Indian territory, so I decided I had better get in on the action. I declared war on Babylon and took the majority of their western cities. Japan took a few Babylonian cities near it's border and Persia got their 3 or 4 easternmost cities and was the civ to wipe them out. India had also allied with the Babylonians during this lost cause and I took over their little 3 city island and they were vanquished. This war was still being fought with my old Knights and Swordsman.

After that there was a fairly long period of peace and territory consolidation that lasted up until the Industrial Age. After discovering Steam Power I realized that I had a city eligible to build Iron Works (only the 2nd game I've ever had that). I started Iron Works immediately and finished it just around the time I had researched the tech for Theory of Evolution (can't remember the name atm). I rush built a factory in the town and snagged Theory of Evolution there easily which I used to research up to Electronics and then popped Hoover Dam in a city I had been pre-building a palace in. When I discovered Steam Power I also went through and switched virtually every city to making a factory so when Hoover Dam completed it was almost like a 2nd Golden Age. Just as all this was happening Persia gets a wild hair up its ass and decides it wants to brawl. They were fairly strong, 3rd on the score list at the time and despite upgrading all of my Riflemen (which had been Musketmen, which had been Impis) to Infrantry as I had just recently discovered Replacement Parts my only offensive force was 5 Cavalry that had been Knights (that had been Horsemen) left over from my early wars. This didn't prove to be too much of a problem however as I enlisted the help of the Japanese and the French and set about making more Cavalry in my newly mega producing cities. The war with Persia ended up lasting all the way through to the beginning of the Modern Era but they were eventually vanquished, their last city being taken by the French. Again I ended up with the majority of their land and by this time the French had the East end of the continent and the Japanese had maybe 8 or 9 cities around their starting spot as the Persians had apparantly sent most of their offense in that direction during the war. By the time the war ended I had maybe 30 Tanks and a handful of Infrantry not assigned to defending cities as my fighting force (I normally just put 2 defenders in a city early on in the game and just upgrade them as I go and that's it for defense other than hotly contested border regions). I was also really starting to pull away in tech around this time as I had spent the entire war in Democracy and never mobilized. I also used (this is another thing I do in every game) the strategy of trying to get any tech that the AI doesn't have first and then selling it to them for mass gold per turn so as to hurt their own research pace and help mine.

After that we had more peace for a bit. I won the race to the UN using a pre-build but decided not to have a vote as that Victory method seems, for lack of a better word, gay.

I ended up winning by Domination in 1790AD. I had just finished killing off the Japanese the turn before (a 2 turn war that they declared when I got caught trying to plant a spy), and France and I were the only 2 civs left. They, obviously by virtue of the fact that I won by domination, didn't have much territory. I was 1 space ship part away from winning the Space Race. And I could have probably won by Diplomatic Victory since I first built the UN. If I used the tool that shows you how close you are to Domination I'm sure I could have won by Conquest too by razing enemy cities. The only Victory Condition that would have been difficult to attain outside the next 15 turns or so was Cultural. Although I had the strongest culture for the entire game according to the histograph I didn't have the Pyramids or Great Library, one of which almost seems to be a pre-requisite for a Cultural Victory.

If you read this far, I thank you. If you're not cursing me out for being a long-winded jackass, I thank you even more. The point of this little diatribe is that I need advice on how to play better. You see, despite my win my score was only 3478. A score in 3-4k range is about average for me on Monarch. (I normally play Monarch or Emperor). What can I do to raise my score? I feel like I'm in a rut where I play the game the same way everytime. I base all my decisions in game based on what I feel like is most advantageous at the time, but it always ends up coming out pretty much the same.

Other tidbits about my play style:

1. I'm a complete perfectionist. I try and space out my cities (I think people are calling it OCS?) to have no more than 1-2 tiles of overlap if any at all.

2. I enjoy going to war but I almost always end up waiting until Infrantry and Tanks to do my major warring because before that there's too many city improvements to build and I find myself only making the bare essential military.

3. My typical build order in a city is
-Temple
-Courthouse
-Library
-Marketplace
-Cathedral
-Aqueduct
-Colosseum
-University
-Bank
-Hospital
etc.....

That's the basics of it. Of course some towns get early barracks, harbors, etc and not every town gets Aqueducts. Also before Cathedrals I do Colosseums early and normally try to get them in my core cities before going to Republic.

Thanks for any and all suggestions.

 

[jeffelammar]

Very Nice. I think one of my favorite parts of the whole GOTM is seeing how things went in other worlds.

Looks like I got really lucky. My early scout poped 1 settler and then a few techs. Like in other worlds, I found the Chinese early and decided to remove them from the field of play.

I then worked my way through India till Babylon got obnoxious. I made peace with India and took all of Babylon's wonderful city sites there in the middle of the map. By this point India didn't have any really good cities, so I concentrated on Babylon.

Then Japan got their Samurais and imediately declared war. Fortunately for me, my knights were enough to fight the Samurais. (Mostly because Japan was quite foolish) Persia then declared war on me as I was finishing Japan.

All in all, I think I had about 10 turns of peace between 1000 BC and 1400 AD. The good news in this is that I got more Leaders than I have ever before. I wasn't counting, but I built 6 wonders with leaders and built at least 2 armies with them. Guess I'll have to play militaristic more often.

I could have decided to go the conquest route, but really wanted to build the Space Ship, so I fought with Persia and France (at this point the only remaining civs) untill I razed enough of their cities that they could no longer trouble me. At that point I went straight for the ship. Finishing it in 1818. Definately the earliest I've ever finished a ship.

Hope everyone else enjoyed this as much as I did.

 

[Bamspeedy]

bst1- Don't worry too much about score. The scoring system is screwy. You don't get any points at all for building infrastructure. (although they do help indirectly if they provide happy faces).
You did do alot of things right, and I'll just mention some things for you to think about, that might help you finish sooner. I used to play like you. And I still do sometimes.

You build too much infrastructure is one problem. Building every improvement will definitely win you games, but not really early. OCP (optimal city placement) is a good idea in theory, but not the most powerful for an early advantage. With OCP, every city has about 8 tiles that is not being used until hospitals. OCP will sure give you those powerhouse cities to run over the AI when you get railroads and hospitals, but before then you have alot of your terrain around your palace that is not being used.

Let's pretend that we have a perfect situation of every tile is mined grassland. If you take 20 tiles and place 1 city there, you have 12 tiles used for 24 shields, 24 gold. If you put a marketplace and bank in that city you would get 48 gold (if 100% tax, and then you need to subtract maintanence costs). If I squeeze 3 cities in those 20 tiles I would have 40 shields and 40 gold. The 3 cities are producing many more shields while that big size 12 city is producing less. The big city however, is producing more gold, but they needed to spend shields building the marketplace and library (plus any happiness improvements they needed to keep all those people happy and spend money on maintenence costs for those buildings).

Now, I'm not telling you to go the complete opposite and ICS, like I did in this game, where each city only uses about 4-7 tiles and not build any infrastructure, but some players like to limit each city to about 12-15 tiles. That way, the cities are not too small, but not too big. With 12 tiles, if you have a proper food supply, then every tile is used before railroads. 15 tiles, you would have most tiles used, and still offer some extra tiles for when you get hospitals.

Building a little denser, you can have half your cities building culture improvements, while the other half is pumping out military units. Then you can switch these cities around later and have the ones that don't have much else to build, go to military units, while the cities that had been building military units switch to culture, or keep on building units, if you want to go full military.

Did you put every improvement in every city? High corrupt cities would have no use for a library or bank as the maintence cost would cost you more than the benefit they offer. (unless you are building the culture improvements to help your culture and/or going for culture victory. I set all forever 1 shield cities to build workers or settlers. Colleseums some players don't find all that useful since they are awfully expensive to build. Cracker uses colleseums as a pre-build for universities and hospitals. Marketplaces, though are probably a good build in every city if and when you get access to more than 2 luxuries.
Barracks I put in nearly every city, since the Zulu are militaristic and get the cheap barracks.

You don't need the early wonders to get the 100,000 culture victory. It sounds like you put a ton of culture in your cities, so culture victory shouldn't be too much of a problem, especially if you play on a larger map where you have more cities. Culture victory 'normally' is not until late in the game, so you may or may not score higher (this depends on map size).

2 defenders in every city isn't always needed, especially when you are in a Republic or Democracy where you don't get military police. I rarely leave any defenders in any city, except border cities (this won't work against human opponents, but it does against the AI). Especially on a map like this one where you don't have to worry too much about the AI landing on your shore somewhere. I pretty much just worked my way from the west to east, so I only needed defenders on the eastern front.

Build lots of horseman (or even chariots). The
chariot-->horsemen-->Knight-->Cavalry chain is a powerful one. Swordsmen are great, but can never upgrade, they are slower and can't retreat. I rarely use chariots to actually attack, but they are cheap units, so you could squeeze in 1 or 2 of them in between settler production and upgrade them later. VETERAN Horsemen are surprisingly successful against spearman. Especially against regular spearman and when bringing along a large enough stack of horsemen and making sure you are not attacking across a river, and if you leave them with 1 movement point left so they have the possiblity of retreating. I'm glad Greece wasn't in this game. Horseman vs. Hoplites would be very difficult.

And did you automate your workers? Don't automate them until at least you get out of despot and get most of your productive region developed. Some insist you should never automate them, but that depends on your patience level. I used shift-A (automate without messing up previous terrain improvements) and control-R (build road to) at around 70 A.D. and I had about 40-50 workers.

 

[bug1]

I just won with a space victory, my first victory of the GOTM, score of 3000 or so.

Key moments.

Built an extra scout to explore all the huts, get tech for impi, then go straight to monarch.

Expanded towards the indians to limit there growth space.

Pushed up against the chinese with cities.

Grovel to every other civilisation (gave them anything they asked for) to avoid being the one who everyone ganged up on.

Everyone else slowly ganged up on Japan whilst i prepared to assult china with horsemen.

China declared war on me and the beatiful Impi gave me my golden age just after i ran out of places to put in new cities.
During the golden age i concentrated in building infrastructure in my at that stage bare cities.

Took out china and then continue to build infrastructure, im happily doign this while otehr civs are wasting their resources at war.

Change to Republic around here somewhere

Realise i dont have access to saltpeper and have to declare war on Indians.

Babylonians declare war on me, everyone asuslting Japan early gave the Babylonians extra expansion space, so they are pretty big.

Took 3 or 4 of the indian cities whilst my Impi continue to defend, manage to upgrade all my Impi to Musketmen and feel i can safely absorb any attacks. Make pease with India.

Continue consolidation.

India dont like me so they declare war again, i wipe them out on the mainland, giving me plenty of terretory, and enough resources.

Persian is stuck between and at was with two strong nations, france and babylon, i ensure they have a continuos supply of saltpepper and iron so they can build good defences and soak up there enemies resources.

Cahgne to democracy and concentrate on growth for ages, climbing from 4th on the scoreboard to number 1. France is close at second, followed by babylon at 3.

I decide to take out France as they have started building the UN, lukily my lengthy growth phase has left me with high resource cities, and i will overtake them and build UN before them anyway.

Prepare for the assult by building a good navy to control protect my transports, my assult force is made up of 6 armies of 4 x armoured tanks, and other armoured tanks.

Switch to communism to enable the french cities i capture capable of building ports and airports, to make further conquest easier.

Take my first city, manage to defend it till i get all my troops and air support over.

Nothing can defend against my Mighty armies, they gradually sweep through the French civilisation.

Build UN but nobody will vote for me or the babylonians

Babylon has been quiet, they start building the spaceship before me.

Manage to catchup and beat them at the space race rather than trying to conquor them

 

[Missing Persons]

An easy space race for me too after taking out the Indians, Chinese, and half of Babylon. I was pretty passive after that. 1832AD with a pretty average 3088. I must say Militaristic and Expansionist ain't all that great..

Anyway, I was able to expand to only five cities early on. After that, just kept pumping out Impi's and horsemen. The Chinese had a terrible starting location (jungle). Started kicking their @$$ around 600bc. They were nice enough to finish the Collossus in Shanghai for me, however. My first GL was spent on the Great Library. The Indians went down quick with a little help from the Persians who were first in power-graph terms at the time.

Fast forward>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The French beat me to the UN, but never held elections! Probably because St. ***** d'France new I would win. I was the only non-"Liar&Cheat" left. Anyway, After the UN was completed , I signed MPP/ROP's with everyone to buy friends expecting her to hold elections. Then the Japanese decided to take out the remaining half of the Babs causing me and everyone else to gang up on Japan. 18 turns left until those treaties expired. I razed some key Japanese cities then just took a defensive position. I researched only those techs required to build the ss. I met my MPP obligations before I made peace with Japan. My people did not like having to endure that long war. France, Persia, and Babylon fell behind in tech to me by continuing to pound Japan.

See you at Alpha Centauri.

Go boil YOUR head Tokugawa!

 

[Sparrowhawk]

Hmm… perhaps it wasn’t the best idea for my first game of Civ III in 6 months to be the GOTM. I finally gave up trying to play on my old laptop last april or so – I think that it’s a good indication you need a new computer when it won’t play TBS smoothly - but I just got a brand spanking new desktop, and so I’m back to my beloved Civ. All this is an aside though. What has happened in my game?

I built a granary ASAP, and then settlers as quick as I could. Went with settler expansion for as long as possible, which meant that I had only one scout and a very small army. I still managed to contact all the other civs and act as a communications broker. Somehow I managed to build the Great Library w/out a great leader. I missed the colossus by 3 turns, and every following wonder by about the same amount.

The upside of all this was that I had a decent core empire OCP style fairly quickly. The downside was that when the Japanese demanded tech and I told them to shove it, my empire consisted of 9 or 10 nice fat juicy targets er.. cities, each with exactly one impi garrisoned in it. Did I mention that I haven’t been playing civ in a while?

Luckily, it was a long trek from the japanese end of the continent, so I switched over to unit production, and built myself a large force of swordsmen and knights PDQ. Which was good, because in the following turns persia and babylon signed alliances with the japanese and attacked me too. As you might imagine, this delighted me to no end I didn’t want to go to war with any of these folks, because unlike them I had no desire to wage a war in distant lands. So I allied with the french against the persians, which really knocked the wind out of their sails. After a period of pointless knight-on-samurai battles I got the japanese to agree to a peace treaty, which freed up my army to deal with the indians who had declared war on me only a couple of turns previously. Oh yeah, somewhere back there I attacked the chinese in a fit of pique. An odd thing to do, perhaps, but it proved fruitful when I got a great leader after attacking one of their cities

Well, fortunately, it seems my alliance with the French reminded the AIs that they were free to backstab each other, and they proceeded to do so with gusto. One by one I made peace with the distant civilizations (persia, babylon) as they swung their greedy eyes upon their nearer neighbours, and one by one I took the cities of the closer civs (china, india).

I was most happy to discover that my impis had a penchant for hunting indian elephants, and the ridiculous number of impi-on-elephant victories made up for all the knights I’d lost to archers. I took the Indian city that had been infringing on my personal space, and then they sued for peace. I’ll be back in 20 turns. First I will absorb the chinese. Two of the chinese cities fell from culture, and another three fell to my mighty armies. At present (1080AD) I am mopping up the last of the chinese, and I am the third most powerful civilization. The french and Japanese are ahead of me, the babs and indians behind, and the persians almost destroyed. I have been buying my techs from france, though I plan on shooting ahead after I conquer India. I can tell already that my end score is going to suck, but so far this has been a really fun game.

 

[bst1]

Thanks alot for the input Bamspeedy. I think I'll try some games with limiting the workable tiles of my cities (especially those right around the palace and forbidden palace) to around 12-15 like you suggested and see how the game goes.

And yes, generally speaking I find myself building just about every improvement in every city. The really far flung cities that don't hit 2 shields after building a courthouse I don't though.

I must admit though, and it seems really stupid when I think about it, that if I build a courthouse and the production goes from 1 to 2 shields the next improvement I start is a Factory.

I probably need to do a little studying on what the different maintenance costs for the different buildings are so that I can make more intelligent decisions on what I build and where/when I build it.

As far as automating workers, in my normal games I typically put workers on shift-A after I have all my cities connected via rail. However, in this game I managed all my workers for the entire game.

I always mine the grassland squares that get a shield by default and irrigate everything else unless it has a resource that gives shields (i.e. coal, uranium, oil, etc). Those get mines too.

I think I'll also try shifting more of my military from defense to offense in the early game as you suggested.

Thanks alot for the tips!!

I'll try and report back with my experience using them

 

[Shinan]

Well this was my first GOTM... And I had previously mostly been playing on the two easiest levels, so this was a nice challenge for me. (all the other games at harder levels I've always put Barbarians on "raging" and all of a sudden I have no cities left...)

Well this went better than it usually does. I usually don't go to war, ever, except if they declare war on me.

Which is why I left the Chinese be and expanded east-wards in the beginning (until those other nations came in the way). Eventually I got communications to everyone and in the beginning Persia declared war on me. Although they were so far away that when their first unit reached my lands I insisted on a peace treaty and got it (and giving a city that was in the middle of China-territory.. which eventually caused a war with China and their Indian allies. which further into the future probably was the reason that India fell... ...).
Then everyone else started waging war against each other. The Babylonians got into war with the India-China-alliance (and I gave ROP to both of them so that they would destroy Babylon quicker and so that I could build cities where there had been Babylonians before). India was later destroyed by the French and China and Persia declared war on India. And some time later India too was destroyed.
During this time I had been peacefully building cities all around and some cities deflected to me. I am hopelessly after in technology but in the histograph I'm still on second place... Well it's some 1300AD now and I'm trying to make the Japanese and Persians fight each other rather than me...

During the whole game I haven't killed a single unit. There were some barbarians in the beginning but I only ran away from them with my scout... ... ...

I mightn't be so effective points-wise. But atleast it's fun 8^)

 

[kvortman]

This is my first GOTM and my first visit to this forum. I am amazed how you guys can remember the game so well and write complete reports about it. Do you write things down during gameplay?

I do not know how I doing. I'm in 1675 and winning. Score about 1600 now. Wiped out Indian, Chinese, Japanese almost, tolerate weak babylon because of their mutual protection pact with both persia and france, which are not as strong as i am, but i do not think i can handle both of them and do not think either i can put them up against eachother. I think i want to go for diplomatic victory now. Wonder how i'm doing compared to the rest of you.

I played the game 24/24 until april and re-installed it just 2 weeks ago. Luckely i found this great site. I've learned a lot of things about the game i did not know uptill now!

 

[Greg Loader]

1100 AD - Destroyed Chinese, Indians and Babalonians. Kept all of their cities. None flipped either way.

Judiciously planning my attacks, I've gotten 9 Great Leaders so far. Used them for two knight armies, Forbidden Palace in Delhi, and 6 wonders. Got no settlers from huts, but lots of tech.

Currently at peace, but about to declare war on Japan.

Persia is the military powerhouse. France the cultural Genius. Japan the crabby neighboor.

Greg

PS, I restarted again after missing the Great Library by a couple turns, so I won't be submitting this game. Wish there was another catagory for people like me, ie., less than honorable, but not a cheat.

 

[Baldrek]

This was my first GOTM and my first time playing on Monarch diff. it was fun to say the least and surprisingly easy, in spite of the terrible militaristic&expansionist special ability.

This is roughly how it went.

Met the Chinese first and attempted to "Settle them in" and succeeded quite fairly they only got 4 cities in their own blob on the mini map and a few others scattered along the coast all the way to Japan.
I was going to play nice with India but his expansion was quick and I had to react by building cities quickly without military support, and close to his borders. He decided to act on it and took 1 city luckily for me I´d been preparing for war with China and 1 city was all he got. I quickly advanced to Delhi and he had no answer to the fast moving Horsemen and their supporting Impi along with the occasional swordsman.
At this point Japan decided to intervene along with Babylon, I made my peace with India right away and attempted to advance on Babylon but was overwhelmed and finally had to negotiate peace with them as well.

At this time got Monarcy and switch. But terribly behind in tech.

A few turns pass and it was time to expand west.
China was easy and many cities fell to Impi hordes and the occasional knigt (I decided to build pikemen to releave the defendin´ Impi instead of upgrading)

I left china with 2 cities; the capital (inside Jap terr) and one city south of my larger cities.

Building time.

India again, this time with knights and Impi, the Impi were not so useful this time but the knights did their job well and India did not put up much of a resistance.

More Building time.

At this time I was far behind in tech (discovering Metallurgy with Persia and France building Newton´s University) but had the highest score with Japan close behind. No one wanted to trade or sell me tchgy so....
ME: ACCEPT THIS DEAL OR FACE THE CONSEQUENSES.
JAP: CONSEQUENSES SMONSEQUENSES.
ME: THIS MEANS WAR!

Got Persia with me and Persia got Babylon with him and later on France didn´t want to be left behind.

I got the majority of their cities and when one city remained and the last one was surrounded by French and Persian troops, I offered a peace treaty they couln´t refuse; All their tech and I give just less than 100 gold PER TURN and all the resources I could spare. On the next turn France destroyed their last city.

Persia offers a MPP, I accept.
Persia decided that France was not a team player and declared war two turns later. And I picked up a few of the cities France got from Japan.

Building time and this time I´m not so far behind France and Persia but Babylon laggin´ behind.

When I get replaceable parts I see that Babylon has two Rubber but not the tech, so I violate a few treaties to maintain the upper hand. His first three and best cities are all taken on the same turn and slowly but surely the remaining fall to slowly but surely advancing Infantry and their supporting CANNONS

I hadn´t taken the time to upgrade my cannons and at this time Persia and France had been at peace for some time. Suddenly when I´m loading troops to take the island and setting my troops up for the final offensive down the peninsula, the Persian army makes its move and I lose three of my newly captured Bab. cities.

But manage to set up a defence of Infantry and CANNONS in the bottleneck into Persia. Make peace with Babylon and bribe France into a MPP

Slowly but surely I pick up the Persian cities on my half of the continent and reinforce the bottleneck with Artillery

Sweep up the remaining Babylon and then headbang my way into Persia with Artilleryfire and Infantry destroying some 3 or 4 wonders. End the game in 1830/32 by building the city "Domination" where one of Persia´s finest cities once stood.

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

I have taken out most of China, got the great library, switched to Republic, getting ready to fight india. Its like 800 ad or something.

A problem I have is that I never militaristic civs, also I have gotten quite used to the accelerated production. Seeing 60 turn temples makes me ill. I can see that the strategy for this board is mobile unit land attack, conquest or domination the way to a win.

I have tried GOTM before but this is the first one where I havent given up in horror. We'll see.

 

[Serg]

Originally posted by qslack
By 1000 BC, how many cities do you all have? Right now I have 4...

In 1000BC I had 14 own cities (no war). In 10AD - 56 cities (30 own).

 

[Oddible]

Oh my, this is disturbing. I keep readin over and over again how y'all are getting 6-8+ great leaders a game. How in the #$%@?

I manage about 2 per game and this is with heavy warring. I use them immediately so as to not prevent the chance of another one showing up. I figured that with a Militaristic civ I should have a better chance.

Can anyone point me to a thread or article illustrating how this is done?

Do most of you with the high numbers of leaders build an army with yout first so you can build the Epic to increase chances? I hate armies, but I guess this is a reason to blow a leader on one.

Zoiks.

 

[dominic1976]

This is my first GOTM here's how it went

THE EARLY YEARS

I build a road with my worker on the game forest square right by capital and use worker to add to city. This gives me my second city by 3300 BC. I also build granary in capital ASAP then alternate settler and impi production. I set to 90% gold as all techs soon take 40 turns to research. Therefore I have a lot of money to rush build temples and barracks and buy
tech. I will never give gold/turn for a tech I will just wait till I have researched it closer then buy it for lump sum after it has cheapened. I use the scout to go east and follow the coast and I discover India Babylon Persia and France early. Also I find many goody huts that give tech (at least 3) Get communication with Japan in a trade. China discovers me and I send a warrior to investigate. I discover they are weak and jungle infested. However soon they start ****ting settlers like nobody's business. I build my initial ring of cities however India has butted in on my inner ring and is hogging the iron. Also they have "stolen" the furs to the south. For this they will pay. I always build temple first in all cities to secure the territory and get a culture boost. Then a spearman (impi) and then barracks then ready to **** war units. I secure the southern coast but India and china are now blocking me. I trade tech aggressively and share the top spot with Japan by 1000 BC researching monarchy.

THE FIRST INDIAN WAR 825 BC - 400 BC

I realize China must go but I attack India first because they are hogging the iron and furs. Also I need to knock them on their ass a bit as they are looking kind of tough. I set a worker to build a road to their closest city and send in the archers (7). I take this city quickly and make moves toward the fur-bearing city and the capital. I also found a new city right on their border beside Delphi before they can claim the territory. My military is not that strong, however, and they are killing my archers and are starting to swarm warriors. I also fear other civs entering the war and I have gotten my iron. They will negotiate so I sue for peace. I am surprised that they have monarchy already and I get this in the deal.

THE CONQUEST OF CHINA 210 BC - 110 AD

With my inner ring completed and barrack-ized, I start an unprovoked war of aggression with china as soon as I can build swordsman and shift my military focus northward. I invade with 14 swordsman ... 7 to each of the closest cities. They fall quickly and I set my production cities to build impis for garrison. I will always keep a city if I can because it keeps me from building a settler and I don't have to worry about flipping much with my early temples. China has expanded to the point where they have cities northeast of me toward Japan and cities east of India. I quickly secure the northern coast and send about half my army east to conquer the eastern reaches of China's empire. Also their eastern cites are sending archers west to harass me. I repel their meager counterattack and take the 2 cities on my northwestern border. Concurrently I invade China's inner ring and take the capital. I have 2 swordsman left in the area and an impi on the way so I take a chance and attack the only remaining Chinese city on the northern coast. Luckily the city falls and I now own the entire western continent. I make peace with them now and they give me their only remaining city way to the east on the coast between India and Babylon. Their lone capital is south of this.

THE FIRST PERSIAN WAR 510 AD

The Persians take my eastern Chinese city - what a bunch of pricks. However I want none of them so I make peace before they can attack my civilization proper.

THE SECOND INDIAN WAR 660 AD - 730 AD

I am happy with this amount of territory for now, as I am now the biggest. I also have many cities with libraries, marketplaces, aqueducts, and cathedrals. Soon I have a lot of knights (20) with nothing to do and I know I will eventually conquer India if I am to win. I attack their size 7 city north of the capital and it falls easily. Next come the southern coastal cities, which bear the fur luxury. After this I siege the capital and take it after 3 turns. India is left with 5 cities in the southern middle of the continent and is now nothing to fear. Japan is alarmingly large but is behind on the tech. Persia is beginning to rock and feudalism (hence pikeman) has proliferated. France is also up there. Soon I discover that Persia is getting techs at an alarming rate. I am 5 techs behind and they have chemistry by 1000 AD. It seems France, Japan, and Persia are feeding each other techs and collaborating. Something must be done.

THE CONQUEST OF INDIA 1050 AD - 1130 AD

I use knights to conquer India and banish them to the southern island in the middle. I also finish off China and begin my forbidden palace in the middle of the southern landmass. These vanquished, I endeavour to restructure my military, as I am spread extremely thin. I strive to garrison all cities with 2 troops, upgrading to musketman, and disbanding swordsman where temples and courthouses must be built.

THE FIRST BABYLONIAN WAR 1300 AD - 1340 AD

Babylon is at war with Persia and I have moved a majority of my knights to the north. Also Babylon has dyes and tech that I
would like. So I decide to attack as far as I can, knowing Babylon is next on my list anyway. The Babylonian empire is a string of cities between myself and Japan that stretches around the peninsula to the Persian chokepoint. I take the 3 cities that make a bulb at the end of this string and siege the city of Babylon itself. I would like the capital because it contains 2 wonders, but it is defended well and my knights cannot take it. I sue for peace and get some tech in the deal.

THE SECOND PERSIAN WAR 1415

I now have a border with the city the Persians took from me in 510. I notice some horseman and knights swarming in the area
around the city, but I think nothing of it, as the city is isolated from the rest of Persia. To my surprise they attack with no less than 5 cavalry from this city out of the blue, and I don't even have chemistry yet! Panicked, I get Japan and Babylon to ally with me for a high price, as they are ahead of me in tech as well. It is well worth it though to get the giants to fight each other. This allows me to catch up and they end up fighting each other the rest of the game. To defend I muster some knights to take out the cavalry and I use the opportunity to retake my city. To my dismay, the city flips and takes 4 knights with it. I check out the culture and Persia is beating me due to all the wonders they have built. I retake the city and rush build settlers out of it 3 times to ensure I keep it this time. I have to pay Persia a tribute to get peace which I do ASAP. My forbidden palace finally builds after rush building cathedrals and marketplaces and nursing the city to keep it in "I love the King Day". The building of this nearly doubles my commerce due to reduced corruption in one turn.

THE CONQUEST OF BABYLON 1725-1762

For 500 years I have been building improvements in my cities and upgrading my military. By 1600 I have my first city with all improvements including factory and hospital. Soon I am cooking infantry like hotcakes. I continue to incite war with Persia to hamper their tech. They are continually at war with Japan, Babylon and France. India is funny as they make mutual protection pacts and keep the war going and bringing others into the war with Persia even though they are now inconsequential. By 1700 I pass up everyone in the tech and it is soon time to begin warmongering again. I get 4 infantry in all border cities, ready to garrison. I research motorized transportation and get a few rounds of tanks out. I also have about 15 cavalry. I decide it is time for Babylon to die. Babylon and Japan are at war with Persia still and France is laughing at them all. I am now the top dog but Persia is right up there. Babylon goes down quick I take 2 cities at least every turn. I wonder if they are embarrassed as I expose their last unit defending each city and it is a spearman. It is funny because Japan and Persia continue to fight right through Babylon and eventually through me as it becomes my territory. It was quite annoying though because the Babylonians apparently had something against roads, and the Japanese or Persians would always end their turn on the only road through the empire. Once I destroy Babylon and finish India, it is time to
evict Japan.

THE CONQUEST OF JAPAN 1792-1816

Japan has a massive force in my territory and is going back and forth with Persia but I have many tanks (40ish) by this time and I open the offensive by destroying a large part of their force in the open the first turn. Japan seems very formidable as they were sending large numbers of infantries Persia's way and I could see the whole thing, but in the end they went down hard. France declares war on Persia and this stops Persia from trampling on my territory so this was a bonus. That very turn they had sent in their first tanks and I could see them turn ass around and head for the French border. I gain modern armor, upgrade, and attack Japan from 2 directions. I try to use bombers but my advance is often too fast to use them. My western empire is now completely developed with mass transit and research labs so I use a leader to move my palace to the northern landmass to reduce corruption in the newly conquered territory, and to show the Japanese I am here to stay. This reduces my ability to build units somewhat but not much and I continue to produce 6 mech infantry a turn.

THE END

Now the only ones that stand before me are Persia and France. France is weak and Persia is hurting them bad, I commence my attack on Persia mainly to hurt them and keep them from conquering France. I realize I am dangerously close to a domination victory but I would like Persia's wonders and each city has at least one wonder. Persia turns out to be weak because they do not have the resources to build modern units. The toughest unit I had to kill was infantry, and they put up almost no fight. I take the first 3 Persian cites past the choke point. Then I decide that I can take no more without winning the game, so I decide to pillage all their improvements and bomb all their cities to dust. I take their central city that is surrounded by water to use as an air base. Unfortunately the next turn I win by domination, before I have a chance to build up the former Japanese territory to pad the score. I think it was taking this last city and also mass culture border expansion from temples in the newly conquered cities that put me over the top.

COMMENTS

This was a tough game it had me constantly scared and scrabbling to keep up. Early on India and China were menacing and boxing me in faster than I would like. It took all my diplomatic powers to keep me in the tech game in the middle ages. Persia was really running away with it for a while, fortunately I got the other civs to war with them. I wish I would have been able to prevent the domination and win by space race, but oh well I am just glad I won this.

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

Bamspeedy - thanks for that tutorial, you should really post it in the War Academy, gave me lots to think about. For instance, I do push harbors, markets, libraries into my crappy corrupted cities when as you point out there ain't much point, or at least I did up till reading your advice. Workers workers workers, that is the ticket (but I still add a temple immediately for border growth).

bst1 - you will have to find a better word to describe UN victory than the one you chose.

My current status: building knights, researching chemistry, getting ready to fight elephants in India after reducing China to one distant city on an island. Raced for JSBach, something I never do but wanted to avoid the need for Cathedrals before embarking on the next war. Got scooped by Persia with 8 turns to go. That is probably the last wonder I will try to build in this one. It is going to be won by fighting.

 

[Durendal]

I built Impi and expanded as fast as I could. Goodie huts were ok for a few techs, warriors, and maps but no settlers. Oh well.

The first Chinese settler built a city with no defender. So I took it out with my lead Impi. After that Beijing was surrounded by Impi and China fell at my leisure.

I found horsemen a nice combo with Impi. I pushed the Indians back onto the tundra and let them live in exchange for catching up with all the techs.

I let Japan pick on Babylon as I expanded into the holes they created. Babylon never made it to industrial. During this stage I played as a builder and was neck and neck for the techs.

In Late industiral I signed an MPP with France and Persia attacked soon after. Getting the Japanese into the war was easy.
Indias remenant foolishly joined as Persia's only ally. I wiped up India and proceded to push the Persia back to the choke point.

At this point I earned my second Great leader. I noticed it was the world and I vs. Persia so I built the UN in one turn with the GL and won a diplomatic victory.

I rarely enjoy late game warfare.

I had not tried for a Diplomatic victory before. It seemed very easy.

Notes
Wonders: Hoover Dam & UN
Forbidden Palace in Dehli

Question: Does anyone have advice on how to avoid the tedium of moving dozens of units together? This is a neccessity for military reasons but I really get sick of the clickfest.

 

[Serg]

Select one unit in stack and press 'J' key. After that move this unit on the target location. All unfortified units of the same type moves together. Some anomalies with this action are happened sometimes.

 

[Aeson]

It's been a while since I played a game of Civ 3, GOTM10 was my last. Just had to play the Zulu GOTM though!

I started off with a few Scouts, and decided to go for a cultural victory. Partly because it should be an easy medal (who plays for culture with the Zulu's?) and partly because ... we'll it's something I've never done before.

The huts were about average, a couple techs, a warrior, and lots of maps and gold. Still was able to take the tech lead through trading, while saving up a lot of gold to rush temples and libraries with eventually. I traded away my tech lead for spare change near the end of the Ancient Era, and then started building up a large Horseman force.

I hit India and China at the same time, declaring war on just about everyone else as well (the Babs had declared war on me)... the others were so far away that there wasn't much to worry about. Neither China or India put up much of a fight. India had no Iron, and China only had 5 cities. Peace negotiations with those I hadn't been fighting netted me a couple of Middle Ages techs, and I researched Chivalry on my own.

Everyone hates me of course, but my Culture is 4x anyone else's. I'm not sure if I timed the building of cultural improvements very well or not, but the overall culture rating is doing very well. The Babs still don't have any Iron hooked up, and after the upgrade to Knights I shouldn't have much problem conquering out to the domination limit. Will be interesting to see how early I can get to 100k.