GOTM #8 *Spoilers* Thread

[cracker]

Pelman,

Tell us what happened as the outcome from Joan's parking all those infantry next to your cities in post #43 or so??

We know you survived, but what was really going on at that point in the game. AI Random unintellible behavior or was it an attack pending to somewhere that you were not paying attention to?

 

[Sullla]

Now that the game's in the bag, I've read the spoilers thread and can comment fairly. Unlike what many others appeared to have done, I am not a gambler and this didn't attack anyone early on. (I do find it somewhat surprising that so many people knew exactly where to send their archers to take out Russia quickly though ) I simply expanded until I ran out of room to put more cities, then began my attack. The winning move was my upgrade of 23 horsemen to knights on one turn, who then rampaged through Russia, conquering them in 15 turns. I then noticed that France and England had no saltpeter; poor Joanie and Liz! My knights immediately turned on France and ran through their cities as well, taking over all of France in 19 turns. I stopped for 10 turns after that to research Military Tradition, then upgraded 30 knights -> cavalry and rampaged through England in 8 turns (!) The three move of those cavs is almost unbalancingly powerful. Now I've just got to take care of the civs on the other island and then hit spacebar about a million times. The conquest timeframe isn't BC years here, but it's not exactly that late either. I expect a score somewhere around the 10k range.

My full, complete report will be on my webpage after I finish it; I'll post the link to it when it's done.

 

[Grey Fox]

Originally posted by Sullla
The three move of those cavs is almost unbalancingly powerful.

Checked their defense value? The +1 Attack and +1 Movement is what the extra 10 Shields pays for.

It still has the same defense of the Knight, which makes it balanced.

 

[BobFargo]

I believe it's +2 attack and +1 movement, but that +1 movement is huge when you're going on a rampage.

Quite often it's the difference between being able to attack the next city in one turn or having to wait two turns (and likely being exposed for one of those turns).

I'm not sure I'd call them unbalanced, but IMHO, they're definitely a significant upgrade from Knights.

 

[cracker]

Sulla,

I don't find that stumbling straight into Moscow early in the Game would be weird or unusual at all. I have not gone back and counted the tiles, but Moscow and Berling were almost at the minimum separation spacing and right on a virtual N-S axis.

Sent my first unit east and faded to the north when I ran into mountains and big water. That decison was driven by looking for the fat part of the map and running away from the first jungle and mountains I could see. (note: I used my worker for this)

Sent my second unit straight north 5 turns later and stumbled into mountains, goody huts, and pachyderms.

Kept building miltary units because the goody Gods smiled on me and then sent my third unit in a straight line south that found a goody hut off the path to the east and then waltzed straight into Moscow. --- Badda boom Badda bow. --- I probably would not have attacked Cathy with just an archer and a warrior (with another archer not far behind) if I had not seen her first settler pop out with a spear escort. I feel that the AI cities are at their weakest in the early game just after they have produced a unit and particularly just after they pop a settler. Making a settler drains their production bin and drops the population down to where they probably cannot rush an extra defender above and beyond the units you can already see. Strike one turn earlier and the can shift production to a military unit, plus still rush 1 or 2 more defenders.

Even if I lost the gamble to take Moscow, it would be 25 or 30 turns before Cathy would produce another settler and by that point (60 or 70 turns into the game) a civ with only one city would be doomed to a secondary role at best.

Would have sent the fourth unit straight west but quick contact with Cathy refocused the strategy. Met Libby and Joan in the Barb wars around Moscow after it was dressed in blue.

I thought it odd that I never saw Cathy or Libby's scouts at any point in the game.

In retrospect, the shortest route out of the jungle was right through Moscow anyway.

I would be interested to read more is to how people exploited the traits of Otto to their advantage. We shound see a different ratio of cultural and diplomatic attempts in this game. I only built one barracks early on and Berlin never made it into the top cities on the demog listing because I built military units and sttlers there almost constantly until Sun Tsu's came on line.

I was on a beeline for mapmaking and/or literature as first tech priority, hoping to buy up to mapmaking from contacts and then make libraries available as the planned first improvement in all cities. I bought horseback riding, temples, and polytheism from Libby as well and pretty much turned on the research and never looked back.

I was trying to add up the income from barb farming, but my note taking skills had a few holes in the process where I forgot to keep good track of things here and there (was doing more whacking and less note taking), but I am certain that the total income due to barb villages at 25 gold per whack was well in excess of 2000 gold. I got tired of the barb farming and shut it down with fortified and spaced frontier guards even before I could fully get enough settlers out to claim all the spaces.

One exploit that I felt was critical to this game was the "AI knows all the barbs on the map" exploit and that was one reason I was so hot for mapmaking. Trade maps with a neighbor and get all the barbs displayed for free even if the AI you trade with has never been near the area where the barbs are located. Later in the game, India and China where locating barbs in my backyard for me with their maps and yet they had never even seen my continent up close.

Any player that did not know of this exploit would have been at somewhat of a disadvantage in this type of game.

I said early on that the game would have looked much differently if Matrix had not editted out the civ that may have started on the Northern Plain and the civ that may have started on the eastern coast.

This map definitely had a culturally linked starting flavor: asian civs on one landmass and european on the other. The Meds, Mids, American, and Zulus were on break. What if Rome had been to the north and Greece to the East?

 

[Sullla]

Originally posted by cracker
I don't find that stumbling straight into Moscow early in the Game would be weird or unusual at all. I have not gone back and counted the tiles, but Moscow and Berling were almost at the minimum separation spacing and right on a virtual N-S axis.

I'm not trying to accuse anyone here; I believe that all of the best players, and almost all of the overall participants in the GOTM, play this game completely fairly and honestly. But at the same time, the spoilers thread always starts out with 6 posts and 150 views - happens every game. I'm sure that the majority of people found Russia fairly, but it does make me wonder sometimes. Maybe I'm just being paranoid; I tend to do well in the GOTM, and I certainly don't begrudge other people's success.

I think my game played out differently than other's, from what I've been reading. While I'm going to save most details for when I do my full write-up, in my game the expansionist civs seemed to get an enormous advantage from their trait. I found no more than 2 goody huts the whole game, and I had several warriors out scouting in every direction. Russia and England must have popped a ton of huts; they got 5 techs ahead of me by like 2500BC! I expect that on Deity, but not on Monarch. England may have gotten a bonus settler at some time too, because they were several cities ahead of the other AIs (and me!) for the whole early game. I also had next to no problem with barbarians; ONE uprising the whole game. Was that due to the fact that the AI civs were out there scouting so much? I don't know.

And three-move units rule! How else do you think I blitzed through roughly 20ish English cities, capturing all of them and quelling resistance in each, in a mere 8 turns? This is before the age of railroads BTW; I might have been able to do it in 1 turn with them. I have heard of others doing that, and I might try it with another civ later in the game. We'll see. I'm getting lots of feedback from my comments though, so that's a good thing.

 

[Grey Fox]

Originally posted by BobFargo
I believe it's +2 attack and +1 movement, but that +1 movement is huge when you're going on a rampage.

Quite often it's the difference between being able to attack the next city in one turn or having to wait two turns (and likely being exposed for one of those turns).

I'm not sure I'd call them unbalanced, but IMHO, they're definitely a significant upgrade from Knights.

Sorry wrote wrong...

Anyway, Cavalry is only overpowering when you get em before the AI get's Nationalism, and that don't happen so often on the harder difficulties, and they are just as good versus Riflemen as Horsemen versus Spearmen, so overpowered? Nope.

They are only overpowered if you are playing a difficulty that is too easy for yourself.

 

[Sir Ralph]

Originally posted by Sullla
(I do find it somewhat surprising that so many people knew exactly where to send their archers to take out Russia quickly though )

I see no surprise here, at least not at this map. Russia and England are expansionist and, in my game, their scouts found me early on. It's not too hard to search in the direction the scout came from, if prolonging the line from my capital to the place of meeting. I started to attack Russia about 2000BC with 5-6 archers and a spearman and could've done this even without having met their scouts, since 3 or 4 scouting warriors would have found them in this time for sure. After Russia, I attacked England, and only this peace treaty gave me contact with the French.

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by Sullla
But at the same time, the spoilers thread always starts out with 6 posts and 150 views - happens every game. I'm sure that the majority of people found Russia fairly, but it does make me wonder sometimes. Maybe I'm just being paranoid; I tend to do well in the GOTM, and I certainly don't begrudge other people's success.

I'm getting lots of feedback from my comments though, so that's a good thing.

Here's some more feedback!

I too find it "interesting" that there are lots of views, and little posting early on.

I, personally, don't read the spoilers until I have the entire world-map. I think that at this point, the game is well enough advanced, and that the spoilers don't "help" me. However, I don't post my progress on the thread until the game is progressed much further.

I sent my first warrior south, and did find the russians by a fluke. With warriors, I move to mountains to get the maximum field-of-view. I basically followed the mountain chain south, until I saw the russian cultural boundary. I was very surprised that it was so close, and given her poor starting position (littel food etc) I immediately decided on early conquest.

 

[Creepster]

and they are just as good versus Riflemen as Horsemen versus Spearmen, so overpowered? Nope.

GF thanks for the tip. I have never thought of Horseman in that way, and I have failed to use them properly in every game. For some reason I always go for swordsman to attack and it takes me longer to get enough together before I feel comfortable attacking. I am going to try that on my next game and see what happens. It should help out tremendously when I have to try for an early advance.

 

[Creepster]

I'm not trying to accuse anyone here; I believe that all of the best players, and almost all of the overall participants in the GOTM, play this game completely fairly and honestly. But at the same time, the spoilers thread always starts out with 6 posts and 150 views - happens every game. I'm sure that the majority of people found Russia fairly, but it does make me wonder sometimes. Maybe I'm just being paranoid; I tend to do well in the GOTM, and I certainly don't begrudge other people's success.

I understand your comment, but I think most people are honest when they play the game. I don't ususaly post until the game is in the wrap up stage which is very late in the game. I do look at the posts earlier though. I always wait until I have the world map, which is usualy not too long into the game, and I wait until I feel confident that I have the game won.

I found the Russians early on just by exploring the mountain range as others did, but I did not attack until I had 6 swordsman ready to advance on them. Three for moscow, and three for another city. There were more comning just behind them. I tend to be too cautious when I attack. The plus side is I almost never loose when I attack, but the bad thing is I don't get as early of an advance as I probably could. Russia lived in my world for a while before I finished her off with Calvary.

 

[cracker]

I think the view count for the thread counts every time you personally open it up. SO if I have posted an early post and then come back and read the responses 5 or 6 times over the next two days, then I count as at least 7 or 8 views against my one post.

I for one like to post and early impressions post in the spoiler thread even without reading what others are saying and then get back to the game until it is pretty much set on the path to its final outcome.

I am a believer in extreme patterns of play to maximimze score, so I beleive that the real scoring ouctome is set by 1) the sequence of moves in the first 100 turns combined with 2) effects of randomly generated events.

I don't think that anyone who found out that I built the GreatLight in about 310AD would really be able to do anything different in their game to get it any earlier unless they just happened to be the beneficiary of a well timed GL from combat and just lucked in into having an appropriate coastal city, AND were just lucky enogh to already have built their FP, AND were just lucky enough to probably have had mutiple GLs so they could already have an ARMY and the Heroic big bronze thing.

I am really amazed at how totally different the games really are by just 100 turns into the game.

If I was into creating interesting game formats that would provide something different to the GOTM after we complete the initial game cycle, I would post a game set that only used tiny maps and only counted the score up to perhaps 1000BC. There would be 4 or 5 different maps and your score in the game set would be your point total for all the maps.

The game is won (for the most part) by the person who builds the 8th through 10th cities first. Random factors such as Goody hut yield or not, and early combat luck, can induce as much as a 10% swing in the game results FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL EARLY EVENT. If you have a sequence 3 or 4 lucky breaks early in the game it can result in a 30% swing of the advantage in your direction. As the game progresses and more things occur each turn, then the outcome of each event has a less critical effect.

In one very early turn, I got a settler out of one Goody hut and a warrior out of another. Considering I had a total population of 1 citizen and an army of one worker and one warrior, that Goody Hut yield would be rated as a jump that virtually doubled my position in the game. In some ways, the randomly generated outcomes that give early game play depth also contribute significantly to making the games play differently for people even if they start with exactly the same features.

After 20 or 30 turns of play, Sulla's game would not really be the same as mine anymore. If you look at the SirPlebe's or CB's games as well you will see that there will be common elements suchs as the terrain and the start position but beyond those common issues and the box that the CD came in, the experiences will vary widely and diverge more than they will converge into the possibility of a single winning outcome.

 

[ainwood]

Following on from what Cracker said, I read somebody's (forgive me, I can't remember who!) post suggesting that the goody hut contents be fixed at the start of the game, rather than calculated randomly. Hopefully this has been passed on to Firaxis - its a very good idea!

 

[cracker]

I should expand on what Ainwood said, since I have repeatedly posted the request for a flag to lock the goody hut yield outcomes in a game.

By having the goody hut outcomes be randomly generated at the start of the game but fixed for the dureation of game play, I mean that the general type of outcome should be set at the start of the game. If a hut is randomly generated to produce a tech, then it might produce different techs depending on who opened it and if all the techs had been researched it would shift to gold.

If a hut was randomly generated to yield a warrior it would always yield a warrior, unless you were already in era 2 in which case you would get gold.

If a hut was set to spew out barbs you would always get barbs unless you were expansionist and then you would get a map or gold, or a deserted village. Since expansionists can't get can't get barbs they need something substituted just for their case.

If the hut was set to give gold it would always give gold regardless who found it but perhaps the expansionists would get more gold if that fit the game model.

The key point is that a flag needs to be available for tournament style play so that when I open a sequence of three huts and Ainwood opens the same sequence of three huts then we get the same outcome if we are playing the same civ. I should not get settler-warrior-settler while Ainwood gets deserted-barbs-barbs just because I took 6 steps to reach the first hut and Ainwood tok 5 steps or vice versa.

 

[Gargouille]

Cultural Victory in 2050 AD with 9074 points.

In 700 BC, I attacked Russia with 4 Swordmen (Great Leader for Pyramids).

Raging Barbarians in 350 BC, 48 crazy Horsemen from NE & NW plus an extra 24 in Cathy’s territory. AI Warriors were tracking them all over the map, knowing where to find them.

In 210 AD, second GL for Sun Tzu and Golden Age. My Knights defeated Russia in 360 AD. I attacked England the same turn.

In 480 AD, third GL for FP in York.
In 520 AD, fourth GL for Bach.

The same year India finished the Lighthouse and I thought they will be coming soon.

In 610 AD, fifth GL for Copernicus. England was defeated in 690 AD.

In 730 AD, France declared war after refusing to leave my territory.

In 740 AD, my Galley barely saw the Indian Culture Border and took a chance for a contact. My Theology was traded for World Map and contacts with China and Japan.

In 870 AD, 6th GL for Sistine and, in 970 AD, 7th GL.
Peace in 1030 AD for Theory of Gravity (using GL for Newton) and switch to Democracy.
At the end of the Peace Treaty (1230 AD), I attacked France with my fast moving Cavalry.
In 1255 AD, 8th GL for Universal Suffrage. France was defeated in 1335 AD.

In 1430 AD, invasion of Japan (2 cities with Saltpeter) and 9th GL.
In 1475 AD, India declared war and I used GL for a 3-Panzer Army.

Disorder in many Cities, so I made peace with Japan in 1500 AD.
In a few turns, India was defeated (one settler in a ship somewhere?).
China declared war in 1575 and I got my 10th GL for SETI.

Afraid of triggering Domination, I razed all Chinese Cities and got GL No. 11 in 1610 AD.

I declared war to Japan for Luxury No.8 and left them with only one City in 1635 AD.
Since peace as not possible, I went down in Anarchy in 1640 AD. The same turn they offered peace, remaining in Anarchy for 6 long turns.

Next 400 years of milking : I downloaded MapStat and Apollo (very useful utilities).

In 2000 AD, I realized a few mistakes :
a) Too many Cities in Tundra.
b) Too many Cities near Mountains
c) Grassland to Plains for not having Mass Transit in Metropolis. (Over 100 Workers for Pollution)

If somebody is not very VERY patient… then milking could be boring.

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Originally posted by cracker
I should expand on what Ainwood said, since I have repeatedly posted the request for a flag to lock the goody hut yield outcomes in a game.

Perhaps the removal of all goody huts would be an answer until a better solution was found; like locked outcomes. I doubt that the AI benefits as much as the human player with regards to the goody huts, at times it seems that the AI does not even try and open some goody huts. Anyway, removal keeps things balanced for both the AI and the human.

CB

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

I play monarch, raging hordes all the time and i never, never, ever, had this much trouble with them. Besides stacks of 24 horsemen sacking my cities, my warriors couldn't kill them, my archers couldn't kill them, and my horsemen couldn't kill them. Spearmen on mountains were killed by lone barb warriors. I went as far as rebooting to see if it might change the random # sequence. No noticeable change.

I missed all the early wonders as usual. Once i eventually got horse hooked up, i built as many horsemen as i could and joined an alliance againt Cathy with Joan. Most of her cities became mine. By the time it was over, Cathy had 2 cities to the far east of Moscow.

Right about the time i got chivalry and upgraded my horsemen, i started demanding things from Liz to get her furious. Then i demanded she remove her troops or declare war. She did and i signed aliances with everyone else (except Cathy). I took most of her cities but Joan took her share as well. Got my first GL in this war and a knight army gave me the heroic epic. No more Liz.

I had Newtons and needed suferage for a GA. As soon as i got it, Joan decides she doesn't like paying all that money for techs i sold her and starts moving units towards some inner undefended cities. She declared war and i signed alliances with everyone on the other continent. I took one of the old english cities and she moved a stack of 30+ riflemen towards it, so i backed off and let her take it. For the next 20+ turns, i fought a defensive war because my military wasn't that good. Using bombardment first then taking out her attacking units, i whittled her down to my size and got lots of elite cavalry. My second leader moved my capital to Moscow. This really upset her and she focused on attacking there which made a defensive war really easy. I took a city here and there slowly shrinking her empire. India had made peace with her, and eventually signed a MPP with her, so i signed one with him also. This whole war lasted over 40 turns as a republic.

The other continent never warred among themselves that i could tell. India started it's spaceship so i either had to go take them down or win via space race. With the huge continent and my core cities centralized, i never had much of a navy so it would be a major undertaking at this point to 'go get them'.

I'll post results because i probably didn't do that well and i see no reason to be secretive about it.
space race victory in 1780
score 3866

 

[Zachriel]

Germany may have a destiny, but every game of Civ3 has its own challenges. With valor and a little luck, we will persevere. Oh, and being Germany, we promise you tanks. Lots of tanks. And blitzkrieg, too. ---- Achtung, fertig, los! On your mark, ready, go!

** SPOILER **
** SPOILER **

http://www.crowncity.net/civ3/GOTM8/

 

[philippe]

nice stuff you got there zachriel.you did even better then me......
but i would finish france really early..

 

[BoBtheBUILDER]

Originally posted by ainwood
Here's some more feedback!

I too find it "interesting" that there are lots of views, and little posting early on.

I, personally, don't read the spoilers until I have the entire world-map. I think that at this point, the game is well enough advanced, and that the spoilers don't "help" me. However, I don't post my progress on the thread until the game is progressed much further.

I might be able to provide some insight into the high view and low post-count early on in the GOTM threads. Unlike you guys, I don't own a copy of Civ III yet (Dell promised it in 4-6 weeks... we're in the middle of week 3 right now).

Even though I don't own the game, I do enjoy following how different players play the same scenario. In particular, I find Sulla's and Zachriel's summaries entertaining and enlightening. I think there may be others that own Civ III but maybe are intimidated by competing in the GOTM and follow it like I do.

Just a thought...

Bob