Just Plain Stuck

[WeirdoJoker]

As the thread title suggests, I'm not seeing a path to victory as Mongols on a standard map* (playing at Regent). Here's why:

1. I'm too far behind in tech to make the space race work.
2. Because of my tech situation, and being low on resources, my military forces are not strong enough for domination, much less conquest. (I can probably defeat the Celts, if I can get through india who won't give me an RoP, but that seems to be about it.) I cannot get coal because while the Iroquois have extra, they refuse to sell to me and I have nothing they want. I could try going after Carthage for its coal (defeating the Utica metropolis would probably do the trick), but again ... tech parity.
3. Diplomatic is possible once someone builds the UN ... I won't get to it first, I'm sure, but at least I'll qualify.
4. I started building culture stuff once I was behind enough in tech and resources (for a while there) that anything I could build was obsolete.
5. The game will not last long enough for me to reach a histograph victory, even though I'm current ahead in that regard.
6. A lot of the problem came from the beginning, when tech development took forever because of lack of funding.

So basically I have no idea where to go from here, but I'm clearly not ready to throw in the towel just yet, as I've done with two of my last four Regent/Standard games. Any ideas out there? Am I just being pessimistic, or have I irretrievably blown it (notwithstanding I have older saves & could back up to an earlier save to move forward differently)?

* I've also noticed I've lost my last few games on a standard map. I wonder if there's something about that many AI competitors that is throwing me off.

 

[justanick]

5. The game will not last long enough for me to reach a histograph victory, even though I'm current ahead in that regard.

1300 AD is turn 250 out of 540. There are still 290 turns left till the end 2050 AD for a histograph victory. The amount of turns left is not a crucial bottleneck. Do you need to worry about an AI reaching a victory say per spaceship before that?

 

[CKS]

I'll take a look at your save tonight, but at 1300 AD on regent I'm inclined to say that you are just being pessimistic and that there are multiple ways to win, especially as you say you are ahead on the histograph.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

1300 AD is turn 250 out of 540. There are still 290 turns left till the end 2050 AD for a histograph victory. The amount of turns left is not a crucial bottleneck. Do you need to worry about an AI reaching a victory say per spaceship before that?

A spaceship loss is pretty much what I'm concerned about.

I'll take a look at your save tonight, but at 1300 AD on regent I'm inclined to say that you are just being pessimistic and that there are multiple ways to win, especially as you say you are ahead on the histograph.

Thanks.

 

[tjs282]

I had a look (mostly in CAII, because Civ3 crashed on me shortly after opening), and I really don't see what the problem is. Even if you're a little behind in tech, you're still winning this game: 1st in land, 1st in pop, and militarily stronger than 5/6 of your remaining opponents.

Well, 'no problem' is not quite true: I do (at least) see one major major problem: you currently have 175 units against a free allowance of 104, but more than half of them are (long-since) obsolete units, which you have neither upgraded nor disbanded. You can (now? already?) build Cavs, Infantry and Artillery, yet according to your Military Advisor, you still have:

Attackers:
8 Archers, 7 Horsemen, 8 Ancient Cavalry(!!!), 2 Maces plus 5 LBMs(!!), and 40 Keshiks(!)
(plus 35 Cavs, 3 of which are in an Army )

Defenders:
3 Spears(!!!), 16 Pikemen(!!), 13 Muskets(!), 13 Rifles
(plus 4 Infs)

Bombardiers:
7 Trebs(!!)
(plus 1 Arty)

And it's not even that the obsolete units are doing MP-duty in your Monarchic (why not Republic?) core, with your better units defending your border-towns; these wastes of shields/gold are scattered (apparently randomly) all over your empire! (even though your inner towns only need 3 units each for MP content-faces).

And you have built/ are building structures which are useless for helping you research, like StockExes (I count 5 in progress, plus WallStreet) which means you've also built useless Banks (at least 10, plus 1 in progress) -- while running SCI% at 50%. This is emphatically not how to research fast and win a Space-Race!

But even though 3 rivals are already in the Modern era, they are likely not even close to a Space-win, since you own more land/towns than all of them. And you nearly have MotorTrans (though how were you going to build/ maintain your Tanks once it's in?), so you'll be going Modern any day now yourself anyway.

What I would do from here:

Forget Space and go for Domination. You're on a Pangaea, so getting 66% land should be easy. You could even start right now, given your massive military superiority -- but trimming and 'modernising' it (that is, bringing it up to date with the best units you can build in it) first would make it (even) more effective than it already is.

So zero your SCI%-slider (this will give you >250 gold per turn right now, with all those Markets and Banks and StockExes you built!) and disband every single one of your Ancient and early Medieval units (you might want to keep Muskets for MP duty in your inner towns, though), preferably putting those shields into a useful build, like a vet Inf (in a Barracks-town) or another Arty. Getting rid of all those units will increase that 250 GPT-income by another 50 GPT.

(I did not look at your towns in detail, but -- knowing you! -- there are likely also multiple structures in them, such as Temples, Cathedrals, Colosseums, Hospitals, etc., that you did/do not 'need' for a Scientific or a Military victory. Selling any building that does not directly help you to win will also save you maintenance, raising your income still further)

Then use that gold to upgrade as many of your Keshiks as you can (60 gold per head = 2400 gold for all of them, which will take about 10 turns), and maybe some of your Rifles (30 gold per head = 390 gold for all, so 2 more turns, but you really only need Infs on your most vulnerable border(s)), and DoW someone.

Doesn't really matter who, since you should already be able to wipe the floor with nearly all of them, but I would pick the Carthaginians as your first victim, since their access to your land is relatively restricted, they are behind you in tech (lacking Corp, so a long way from Tanks), they have only 8 towns (some of which are close enough to Karakorum to be useful), and they have the Coal you need for Rails. Send all your fast units, and your strongest defenders to Mandalgovi and Tabriz, and station all your bombardiers, and other free units (as damage-soakers) in Pi-Ram and Batshi***t (which, BTW, would not now need a 'Duct if you had founded it on the lakeside, 1 tile east...) and declare: once Hanni has finished throwing all his Cavs at you, taking Theveste and Utica can be done directly from your side.

After Carthage falls, even if Gandhi is already Modern, the Indians' towns should fall quickly to a massed Cav-attack (preceded by Arty-bombardment). You already have access to the northern Spanish towns, and the formerly Indian lands will give you access to the Celts and then the Dutch -- and if that's still not enough for 66% land, then the Iros are just round the corner...

Good hunting!

EDIT to above, after re-opening Civ3 and looking into one of your towns:

Why (on Earth) do you have Accelerated Production switched on?!?

This mode is meant to be used for Multiplayer games, to keep them shorter, but is very unbalanced -- arguably game-breakingly so -- for solo-games. It also messes up the GUI (e.g. the city-screen does not display harvests/deficits properly), and can instill very poor city-placement and terrain-improvement habits (because you don't need to be nearly as efficient at extracting shields/ commerce to build/ research things).

Sure, you get to research/build everything quicker, but so does the AI, so AP doesn't help you.

 

[CKS]

I second everything tjs282 wrote, although I'd chose to play the game out differently myself. I'd play out a space or diplomatic game rather than a domination game, just because I don't really like warfare.

I'm going to rearrange things to play for space and then play it out some, and post some saves along the way. Then you can look at how I did things. I'm not the micromanager tjs is, so I'm sure my game won't be optimized, but I hope you'll find it helpful.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

I had a look (mostly in CAII, because Civ3 crashed on me shortly after opening)...

I gave up on CAII ... my system just hates it and won't let it work.

... and I really don't see what the problem is. Even if you're a little behind in tech, you're still winning this game: 1st in land, 1st in pop, and militarily stronger than 5/6 of your remaining opponents.

My experience has been that if I'm not ahead on tech, then for warmaking purposes I'm behind in terms of how well my units perform, so I tend to be pessimistic even though my best-scoring victories have been Domination more than any other method (judging by my top ten).

Well, 'no problem' is not quite true: I do (at least) see one major major problem: you currently have 175 units against a free allowance of 104, but more than half of them are (long-since) obsolete units, which you have neither upgraded nor disbanded. You can (now? already?) build Cavs, Infantry and Artillery, yet according to your Military Advisor, you still have:

Yeah, I know ... when I cannot afford too many upgrades, I tend to eventually forget about the obsolete units. I know I should have just disbanded them when I could not upgrade them. However...

Attackers: ... and 40 Keshiks(!)

I was at a point when I could get no saltpeter ... no one would trade it (or had any to trade), and I had nothing left to build but Keshiks. Or Wealth.

(plus 35 Cavs, 3 of which are in an Army )

And it still almost got taken out by a single defending Rifleman at one point, which was really annoying.

And it's not even that the obsolete units are doing MP-duty in your Monarchic (why not Republic?) core, with your better units defending your border-towns; these wastes of shields/gold are scattered (apparently randomly) all over your empire! (even though your inner towns only need 3 units each for MP content-faces).

Ok, I have no idea how "MP-duty" works, or even what it is. And I went for Monarchy because it was cheaper than Republic, when I missed the slingshot, and because at least I could get Hanging Gardens, though I think I missed that, too (I'm not on the game right now).

And you have built/ are building structures which are useless for helping you research, like StockExes (I count 5 in progress, plus WallStreet) which means you've also built useless Banks (at least 10, plus 1 in progress) -- while running SCI% at 50%. This is emphatically not how to research fast and win a Space-Race!

I wasn't really going for the Space Race to begin with. I was always low on cash, though, and figured that since I was resource-poor and behind on military tech, I could at least try & build up cash for later.

Forget Space and go for Domination.

That was my initial preference for this game. I just stopped seeing a path to that.

So zero your SCI%-slider...

I never think of that (on my own) ... it's just so counter-intuitive. ...

(I did not look at your towns in detail, but -- knowing you! -- there are likely also multiple structures in them, such as Temples, Cathedrals, Colosseums, Hospitals, etc., that you did/do not 'need' for a Scientific or a Military victory. Selling any building that does not directly help you to win will also save you maintenance, raising your income still further)

I did not build them initially ... I did later, though, when it was either that or obsolete units.

Then use that gold to upgrade as many of your Keshiks as you can (60 gold per head = 2400 gold for all of them, which will take about 10 turns)...

Not that I disagree as far as it goes, but by then I'm going up against Tanks that I won't have yet...

... and DoW someone. Doesn't really matter who, since you should already be able to wipe the floor with nearly all of them, but I would pick the Carthaginians as your first victim, since their access to your land is relatively restricted, they are behind you in tech (lacking Corp, so a long way from Tanks), they have only 8 towns (some of which are close enough to Karakorum to be useful), and they have the Coal you need for Rails.

Believe me, I've had my eye on that coal ... Iroquois won't sell it, and Celts are too far away to get it effectively. Taking Utica alone should do it (assuming I held it long enough).

Send all your fast units, and your strongest defenders to Mandalgovi and Tabriz, and station all your bombardiers, and other free units (as damage-soakers) in Pi-Ram and Batshi***t (which, BTW, would not now need a 'Duct if you had founded it on the lakeside, 1 tile east...)

I know ... I was trying to inch my territory closer to the Iron Pi-Rameses is built on, but the Egyptians got there first. It's one of the reasons I DoW them, was to get it.

Why (on Earth) do you have Accelerated Production switched on?!?

This mode is meant to be used for Multiplayer games, to keep them shorter, but is very unbalanced -- arguably game-breakingly so -- for solo-games.

No idea ... and didn't know it was designed for multi-player games. Unbalanced how?

It also messes up the GUI (e.g. the city-screen does not display harvests/deficits properly), and can instill very poor city-placement and terrain-improvement habits (because you don't need to be nearly as efficient at extracting shields/ commerce to build/ research things).

What's "the GUI"? This, I do not understand at all.

Talk about behind behind on tech ... can't even discuss Civ3 tech intelligently ...

 

[CKS]

GUI is graphical user interface.

I played through about 30 turns and am now the tech leader and nearly to space flight.
Here is what I did:
Trade for coal. Sell temples, cathedrals, colosseums. Disband some obsolete units.
Our reputation appears trashed, so learn motorized transportation as fast as possible (3 turns).
Trade MT to Dutch for Atomic Theory + oil. They'll take gpt so must be at war with whomever we cheated, buy Electronics for 75 gpt. Set research to Flight, 5 turns at -78 gpt.

1340 – enter modern age. India and Iroquois have rocketry, no other modern techs appear to be known. Start computers, due in 11 turns. Palace prebuild for SETI in Ta-Tu.
1365 Indians learn fission.
1435 We buy fission from Iroquois for computers plus 450 g. We trade computers to spain for rocketry. Start on space travel.

1455 We are the most advanced tribe, have the Internet, and have all the necessary resources to build the spaceship. We still have too many obsolete units, because I'm too lazy to have gotten rid of all them, but our military is a bit more reasonable. India has the UN (built by GL, unless they used a prebuild, which I've never seen the AI do), but they are too hated to call the vote, I think.

 

[tjs282]

Ok, I have no idea how "MP-duty" works, or even what it is.

MP = 'military police', i.e. removal of population-unhappiness by military garrisons (units defined as having minimum A/D values = 1), which is allowed under some governments, including Monarchy, up to that gov's specific limit.

If you are running an MP-capable gov and look at a town on the city-screen, you will see a 'content-face' under each of the first 'X' military units stationed there: Despotism allows 2 MPs per town; Monarchy allows 3 MPs per town. Note that the content-face is not specific to that unit, so if you have, say, 5 mil-units stationed in a Monarchic town, you can move (or disband!) any 2 of them, and still have the max. 3 MP-induced content-faces.

So under Monarchy, it makes more sense to keep the greater part (and all your most advanced units) guarding your borders, and only station 3 (obsolete) units at most in interior towns that are not in any imminent danger (basically, any towns which are inaccessible to a surprise-attack by your enemies' current fastest units). And when you've (over!)built on happy-buildings, you don't even need the interior MPs anymore.

Republic does not allow MPs, but since Republic gives (much) more base-commerce than Monarchy, you can usually afford to use 10-20% LUX% (and later Luxes + Markets) to make people content/happy instead. And under Republic, where free unit-allowances are lower, military maintenance is higher and your total forces should therefore be as small/efficient as possible, most (or nearly all) your units should be on/near your borders.

I played through about 30 turns and am now the tech leader and nearly to space flight.

I didn't play as far as CKS (I'm only up to AD 1355 or so), nor did I (yet) sell off all your useless buildings (Cathedrals and Colosseums and Ducts in Desert/Forest towns that have maxed out at Pop4?!? Why?!?), but I have modernised your military (one good thing about AP is that it makes upgrades much cheaper!), disbanded most of the deadwood into Factories and Ducts where it seemed appropriate, and started kicking the Carthaginians.

After wiping out their initial Cav-stack (which I'd already booted several times, before the Lux-deal you'd made ran out), Theveste (Pop11) fell relatively easily: I attacked it first to free up its tiles for use by Mandalgovi, hence freeing up some of Mandalgovi's tiles for Karakorum (your capital should almost always be your biggest town, but Mand was at Pop14 while KK was stuck at Pop10!).

I was tempted to raze Theveste, but didn't because I'd rather enslave as much of that pop as possible (I'll need a lot of Workers to get a rail net-up, once Utica's Coal is mine), and then Settler-disband it (maintenance free combat-Settlers are always useful at this late stage). That said, Utica is a Pop16 Metro guarded by multiple Infs (it has a GWonder), which makes it a much tougher nut to crack using only Cavs (so I need mooooarrr guns before I try that).

I've also used the relatively few Workers you had to convert most of your Grassland-irrigation into mines, to increase shield-yields: much quicker/cheaper than building a Factory, and will be further increased once the rails are up!

After I'd modernised and cranked SCI% back up, and with MotorTrans due in 2T, I got a wrench thrown at me by Hiawatha when (3T after signing a non-haggled 2-Lux importation deal with me!) he invaded out of the blue. Knowing it was going to happen anyway, I told him Leave or Declare, and of course he DoW'd — but on my turn, so I could bomb/kill the first few Cavs/Tanks he'd sent straight away.

Not that I disagree as far as it goes, but by then I'm going up against Tanks that I won't have yet...

Note for the future: Even individual vCavs can kill redlined Tanks relatively easily on flat ground (A=6 vs. D=8 is about 40% prob. of winning a combat-round: good odds when the Tank has to be lucky 4 times, but the vCav only has to be lucky once), so if you don't have any Tanks of your own yet, you should always bomb the enemy Tanks first, and only then use any remaining Arty-shots to damage slow units.

I currently have a pile of Iro Infs, Rambos and Marines (plus the occasional Tank) to deal with strung out all along the eastern border (I think they're going for lightly defended KK, which is fine, because I can shuffle defensive units around that area faster than they can advance), so the Cavs I have on that side of the empire are now busy whittling the foot-unit stacks down (with some help from the few Arties I had in that area). Towns in immediate danger of attack are building Infs, 2nd-line towns are building Arty, and more remote towns are building Cavs.

In the meantime, I recruited Isabella to help fight Hiawatha for me with her Tanks, but I'll need to keep supplying her with Oil so she can build more of them. I'd already sold Rubber to her so she can build/draft Infs rather than Rambos, but the other 2 Rubber-sources within my borders are currently disconnected, because Hiawatha cut one on the Indian border (turned out that he has an RoP with Gandhi, which I haven't yet been able to break), and the other is the formerly Carthaginian Rubber near Utica, which I'd pillaged with a Cav-Army before attacking Theveste (I combat-Settled on the nearby river after Theveste fell, but in hindsight I probably shouldn't have pillaged that tile in the first place).

With any luck, the Spanish will lose their formerly Carthaginian towns (to the north of us), which I can then 'liberate' for my own use. That might also help force Hiawatha into a PT until I'm ready to attack him properly.

 

[justanick]

So zero your SCI%-slider (this will give you >250 gold per turn right now, with all those Markets and Banks and StockExes you built!) and disband every single one of your Ancient and early Medieval units (you might want to keep Muskets for MP duty in your inner towns, though), preferably putting those shields into a useful build, like a vet Inf (in a Barracks-town) or another Arty. Getting rid of all those units will increase that 250 GPT-income by another 50 GPT.

I would have done it the other way. Disband the old stuff, but go full in on research. Once tanks can be built mobilize the economy for war. Less than 10 turns later you will have strong army. Gold is too valuable to waste it into production via upgrading.

 

[tjs282]

Disband the old stuff, but go full in on research.

I didn't feel I could do that (safely) at the time, and the events in the turns I played seem to have borne that feeling out (possibly a self-fulfilling prohecy, though...? ).

WJ founded his Mongol cities very haphazardly: some are 1 tile away from a River, and/or a Coast, several are badly impinged-upon by their nearest neighbour(s). To be fair, I suspect that some of these latter were originally founded as border-expanding combat-bases -- but instead of abandoning them after they'd served their purpose, or at least putting them on Worker-building duty, he put up 3 or 4 actual buildings in nearly all of them (most had Walls and a Temple; some even had a Duct, even though they hadn't enough food/tiles to grow past Pop6!).

And the 'good' cities had problems too: the Grassland had been mostly irrigated -- so even Mobilised, even with Accelerated Production switched on, he/I still had very few base-shields available in most towns to be able to build up a Tank-force quickly through 'natural' production -- I would have had to rush-buy most of them instead, which (as you know) costs even more gold per shield than upgrading. So to do what you suggest, along with the really old stuff, I would also have had to disband nearly everything else (assuming you're including the 40 Keshiks in that assessment?) -- which would have left me ripe for the plucking.

I mean, even after the upgrades, fighting Carthage, but still rated 'average' against the Iros, they went ahead and invaded my territory -- despite having several much easier targets available on their side of the continent (e.g. the Celts, who are even more backwards than Carthage; or Spain, who only has about 6 towns left on the mainland, 2 of which are on the other side of us from their capital). So with hindsight, seems like selling off all those old units would have been damn near-suicidal.

 

[CKS]

It is interesting that the Iroquois invaded in your game and not in mine. I suspect that it is because you were trading luxes with them while I was paying gold (54 gpt). If they win, they get the luxes they were importing from you, but the gold I was giving them is lost because I didn't have any cash on hand, it was all future earnings. It is also possible that my getting rails, motorized transportation, and flight earlier was a deterrent - by 1340 I was already in the modern age, and I had techs to use as bribes to drag everyone else into the war on my side, had they attacked, and rails connected all my towns.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

WJ founded his Mongol cities very haphazardly: some are 1 tile away from a River, and/or a Coast, several are badly impinged-upon by their nearest neighbour(s). To be fair, I suspect that some of these latter were originally founded as border-expanding combat-bases -- but instead of abandoning them after they'd served their purpose, or at least putting them on Worker-building duty, he put up 3 or 4 actual buildings in nearly all of them (most had Walls and a Temple; some even had a Duct, even though they hadn't enough food/tiles to grow past Pop6!).

Yeah, putting them on worker-building duty would be a better idea (and still is, come to think of it). Some were originally for border-expansion and combat bases, as you say. I've never actually abandoned a town (though I tested once just to see what it would look like ... appears the tile is useless until cleared away, or something like that). The only I put buildings in them at all was the need to produce something, when I couldn't build useful units. I suppose Wealth would have been better, though ... I've done that before, though not under these kind of conditions.

P.S.: I have no idea what I did to ruin my reputation. I suppose it could have had something to do with my war against Egypt, but I kind of doubt it. I did, however, end up in a stupid MPP with Carthage (I don't remember why ... I hate MPPs), so I was in wars I couldn't really fight with obsolete stuff I couldn't upgrade (for lack of resource), so it could be some are mad at me in relation to that.

Haven't had a chance to play again since starting this thread, so just trying to take it all in for when I have time ... I need a couple or three free hours before I'll really fire up a game, mostly, and work is killing me this week.

 

[tjs282]

I've never actually abandoned a town (though I tested once just to see what it would look like ... appears the tile is useless until cleared away, or something like that).

No, not useless, IIRC, the ruins-tile still gives its usual unimproved food+shields, just no commerce. It's not like the situation with pollution -- nor do ruins take nearly as many Worker-turns to clear (thank Sid!). Any tile-improvement over ruins -- even just a road -- clears them away automatically.

So the best thing (I've found to do) when Settler-abandoning a useless (often AI-founded!) town is to ensure that, immediately before the interturn the town is due to disappear, there are enough Workers stationed in the soon-to-be-ruins, that I can insta-road the tile afterwards (i.e. assuming non-IND: 3 Workers before RepParts, or 3 Slaves afterwards).

Then the new Settler can immediately move away (e.g. 1 tile sideways, to the river/coast that the AI ignored!) without losing a turn getting back on my road network.

P.S.: I have no idea what I did to ruin my reputation.

Any broken per-turn-for-hard-goods deal will ruin your trade-rep, even if you didn't do anything deliberately (like DoWing someone immediately after you bought a tech in exchange for e.g. Luxes or per-turn gold, or signing peace when you had an MA -- that you were paying for -- still running).

But unfortunately it can also happen accidentally, without any action on your part: e.g. if you were exporting a resource along the only road between you and them, and a barb-axe blocks it for 1 turn, the deal gets broken. Or you had a purely coastal trade-route prior to Astro (allows Sea-trade), and an enemy/barb-ship blocks that route somewhere. Or you were shipping a resource to an AI-Civ via their only Harbour -- which they then (pseudorandomly) dismantled because they went into negative-GPT with zero treasury (that one really sucks).

It is also possible that my getting rails, motorized transportation, and flight earlier was a deterrent - by 1340 I was already in the modern age, and I had techs to use as bribes to drag everyone else into the war on my side, had they attacked, and rails connected all my towns.

So fast? Wow. Guess I did choose the wrong option...

I'll probably still play it out my way, though, and see what happens (but not until after I've played my set in our SG).

 

[tjs282]

I've now played 3 more sessions since my report of the Iroquois perfidy above.

Spoiler Sessions 1 + 2 (2-3 weeks ago) :

During the first session, while continuing to fight off the Iroquois incursion, I made further inroads into the Carthaginian homeland. I also managed to recruit Gandhi against Hiawatha (using an MPP), while also continuing to stack-mine irrigated Grassland (and Plains/Desert near Floodplains).

During the second session, I founded Atlay NNW of Utica. This gave me a source of Coal within my own borders. So I could start getting a thin rail-net built across my territory. I also got DOW'd by Spain — presumably due to my MPP with India — so I was now fighting on 3 fronts at once. And Hiawatha MA'd with Willy against me (possibly as part of a PT-agreement?), so I am also fighting a phony war with the Dutch.

Since Carthage was weak/backwards, I was using Arty-bombardment followed up by Cav (and Cav-Army) attacks to take Hanni's towns, and my advance was limited by the slow Arty-movement. Conversely, I sent most of my newly built Tanks (and later Tank-Armies) after Izzie's towns, which were all immediately accessible to attack from my side of the border (or could become so by judicious application of combat-Settlement). So I evicted her from the mainland in fairly short order, then signed a PT, since I didn't want to be bothered with building a navy to invade her last, distant, island-retreat.

The Spanish war thus concluded sooner than the Carthaghinian extermination.

Spoiler Session 3 (yesterday) :

Since I'd initially only needed to fight a holding action against Hiawatha, I hadn't made (m)any strenuous efforts towards territorial gains on my eastern borders; those few tiles/towns had originally been owned by other Civs. But after the successful conclusion of the Spanish campaign, and Hanni's loss of his last town in about 1450 (beginning of this session), I was finally free to start punishing Hiawatha properly for his treacherous sneak-attack.

But despite @CKS' good opinion of my 1337 warmaking skillz (ha ha!), I've been playing this game in a fairly sloppy fashion (it's 'only' Regent, after all! ) — and as a result, I suffered a major setback right at the beginning of my invasion of the Iroquois homeland. Although I'd got Flight a while back (researching the obligatory [Industrial] techs myself in 4-5T, rather than trading, with Electronics being the last), I'd built no Bombers up until that point, because I hadn't needed them vs. Spain or Carthage — and I didn't see much point in building any for use against the Iros either, because they already had a 'large' (for the AI!) Bomber-fleet themselves, and also got Rocketry (not Computers, thankfully!) while I was otherwise occupied. But I didn't build any Flaks either, which turned out to be a(t least one) big mistake.

I'd started my advance east from Madras (captured by the Iros, subsequently liberated by me), by moving a Tank-Army (admittedly yellow, but with 7-8 HP), a couple of healthy vInfs, and most of my Artillery onto the nearby Mountain, just over the Iro border — with the intention of moving the Army+Arty further inwards next turn, as all my newly built/healed Tanks caught up with it. But over the following interturn, a concerted Bomber-campaign, followed by multiple Tank-attacks, redlined and then killed both the Army (effective D=24, if I calculated the D-bonus right: the Army had 4 Tanks in it, and I [think I]'ve built both the MilAcad and Pentagon) and the Infs (D=20), leaving me slack-jawed as my now defenceless Arty-stack was whisked away out of sight

If I'd also had a small Flak-stack (say, 6-8 of them) under the Tank-Army + Arty-stack, that might have saved some/all of those units: If the Bombers had attacked the stack, some/all of them might have been shot down; even if the Armies and Infs all got redlined, the Flaks could have acted as second-line tile-defenders (effective D=12) against the Tank-attacks, possibly preserving the stack long enough for it to be reinforced by further Infs. Or the Bombers might have targeted a different unit/tile altogether, leaving the Army too strong for Hiawatha to risk his Tanks in the first place.

So even though I had plenty of combat-Settlers available (built out of former Spain and Carthage) to assist my advance across the Iros' mostly thrice-popped Cultural borders, I realistically only had enough guns left (8 or so) to plant/defend 1 new FOB/ attack one Metro per 2 turns. And since Artillery-bombardment doesn't make much of a dent vs. TOWs, my remaining Tank-Armies and Tank-stack had a hard time as well, usually needing those 2 turns to heal/reinforce after each town-capture (while a combat-Settler crossed the border under cover of 2 Cav-Armies, to found the next FOB).

Things got (a lot) easier after I'd Settled on Hiawatha's last Rubber (no more Tanks for you, buddy!), and I (eventually) recovered all my lost guns as well (turned out he'd moved most of them to Salamanca, but there also were a few in each of his other towns).

It's now 1520, I have about 55% land and 68% pop, Computers + Rockets (working on Fission), and the Iros are pretty much toast (down to their last mainland town). Once I control the remains of Hiawatha's and Willy's territories, and have filled in the bigger Cultural gaps with rehomed Spaniards and Carthaginians, that should give me the 66% land I need for Domination (and if it doesn't, then Brennus will — and Gandhi as well, if he advances far enough to start Ship-building!).

So the game should be won within the next 15 turns or so — and possibly less if I (finally!) take @justanick's advice, and Mobilise* at the beginning of the next session.

Spoiler * :

With Acc.Prod. switched on, and the core now nearly fully railed and mined, the major towns are already building Tanks/MechInfs in 2-3T anyway, so I didn't feel that Mobilising was really 'needed' prior to this point. That said, if I'd Mobilised earlier, I would probably have got to this point a lot sooner — but my sloppiness has also included pandering to my own builder-y tendencies: adding Courthouses, Ducts, Libs, Harbours, and Markets, to 3rd-ring FOBs and captured towns that 'needed' them!

EDITS made to correct faulty recollection (based on examination of save-files in CAII)

Saves have now been added below, for anyone who's interested:

1330 AD = initial fixes, DoW vs. Carthage
1355 AD = post-DoW by Iros, MPP with India (end of "Session 0")
1375 AD = post-DoW by Spain
1420 AD = post-DoW by Holland, Carthage 50% annexed (end of Session 1)
1455 AD = Spanish exiled, Carthage = 1CC (end of Session 2)
1520 AD = Carthage destroyed, Iros = 1CC on mainland (end of Session 3)

 

[Spoonwood]

You have any saves tjs282?

 

[tjs282]

You have any saves tjs282?

Now added to my post.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

I was out of town on vacation and had forgotten to bring my save file along, so I've had no time to play this or any other game (having never solved the KeepRes problem on my laptop). Won't have time to really review until Monday or Tuesday ... real life is fun, too (sometimes).

 

[tjs282]

Finally played it out. Pushed the Dutch and Iros offshore, made peace with them both after the various Alliances had run down, then killed the Celts, and filled in a few remaining empty spaces with Settlers.

Didn't really fancy DoWing India. Although I would almost certainly have won (Gandhi doesn't have Nukes yet, and I was 1T from Manhattan myself!), that would have meant yet more war-grind, and I was getting kinda bored with this game (sorry!). So I researched Miniaturisation and (pre)built Internet, researched Space Flight (just for the hell of it!) in the time it took for the free ResLabs to pop borders around all the new towns, and won Domination in 1595.

I wasn't keeping a close watch on the Dom-limits over the last couple of turns, so the win took me a little by surprise (last time I looked was just after Brennus' demise, and I still only had about 61% of the tiles). After I got the victory-screens (rated 'Lion-Hearted') I retrieved the 1590 autosave, and re-saved it manually. It's attached if you want to look at it.

I spent some time shuffling Workers around on that last turn, but all I really needed to do was hit End Turn...

 

[WeirdoJoker]

... and I was getting kinda bored with this game (sorry!).

I don't blame you. At this point, I just want to finish it & move onto a more fun Civ to play (loved playing the Vikings, e.g., just for the Berzerkers), but haven't had time to play in a while, anyway. Hopefully this long weekend I can finish this one up & move on to another (if work permits).

After I got the victory-screens (rated 'Lion-Hearted') I retrieved the 1590 autosave, and re-saved it manually. It's attached if you want to look at it.

Unfortunately, I have never been able to get CivAssist2 to work in Win10, so I can't read the file. Aargh ... I really liked having CA2 to work off of...