BasketCase
Username sez it all
Yeah, the thread title alone is gonna be a shocker--2,500 posts, and I haven't gotten around to Diety level yet?? 
The fault is all mine, I'm just a lazy bastard when it comes to pushing the envelope. Okay, let's get straight to the action.
Starting parameters: Civ3 PTW. Playing as Ottomans (hey, Persians were the obvious first choice, but that woulda been too easy!), standard size map, 7 opponents. Roaming barbarians. All other map parameters (land percentage, land composition, age, humidity and temperature) are random. Adds more sense of exploration to the game, I've been playing random settings for a while now.
The starting position frankly looks pretty good:
Plenty of grassland, two bonus grass tiles, a cow, a couple of hills. Oh yeah, and it's coastal, too. Hot diggity!
Settler plunks down and sets up shop where he is. After which, I discover....
....that my starting position is even better than I thought! Two more bonus grass tiles, and furs, all within the fat X. Oh, did I say hot diggity???
Starting sequence: I notice that I forgot to name my capital city--and change its name to something suitable: Basketgrad.
Research Pottery full steam. Build two warriors, then start Pyramids as a pre-build for a Granary. Pottery research finishes, and the Granary goes up three turns later. Research is started on (you're gonna yell at me for this!) Ceremonial Burial. Somebody's gonna call that a bad move. However, I always get good results from temples; they allow one more person to work in the city, and the commerce from that one extra tile always pays for the temple.
During this time, the worker builds roads on the cow and then on the BG just above it, then roads up the eastern fur tile. Then he does a chop, which is applied to my first settler just after the granary finishes. Got some nice timing here. My two warriors don't get to explore much; they're mostly stuck on riot control duty. Basketgrad starts building a temple (and finishes quickly; it's got some fast-producing tiles). Iron Working research is started; it will require 35 turns at 100% research, so I do the 40-turn gag.
Barracks is next in the build order. Arab warriors appear from somewhere to the southeast. Dang. I got found out right from the get-go. It gets worse--over the next few turns, a parade of 8 or 9 Arab warriors goes strolling right past my capital city from southeast to northwest. Fortunately, I'm left unmolested--the warrior train doesn't see my capital city.
WHEW.
It looks like the Arabs sent their entire starting force exploring past me, which leads me to suspect they're on a dead-end piece of land. My plan, therefore, is to place my first two cities to block them into their dead end. Spamopolis is founded on the east end of my chosen choke point.
I build a couple more warriors, then start on another settler. Before I can get that settler built, my exploring warriors spot an Arab settler coming my way. That's the last thing I need. All four of my warriors are able to cut the settler off and give me time to found Costa Lotta to get my blockade together:
There, my problem with the Arabs is solved; my four warriors line up from Spamopolis to Costa Lotta, and the Arabs aren't gonna be sending any trespassing settlers through my territory for the rest of the game.
Iron appears in the hills just northwest of Basketgrad! Looks like I just got me a nice new home in the best part of Hotdiggityville!
Point Gratha is founded next to it, and a worker heads right over to hook it up. Basketgrad starts churning settlers, building a settler whenever it reaches population 5. A couple of my warriors are now free to start exploring the map; they discover Zulu cities to the north and northeast, and two Persian cities to the northwest. Looks like I'm pretty thoroughly hemmed in.
I've been constantly seeing Arab troops moving around just southeast of me. Nothing but warriors and spearmen. I have four swordsmen and two spearmen at this point; I play a hunch and declare war on the Arabs. My four spearmen move into Arab territory. They kill several warriors, two spearmen, and a couple of archers, and capture two settlers, taking no losses. Four slaves for my work force. The two uninjured swordsmen continue south, killing another spearman and an archer, and delivering a candygram to Damascus:
Right now the scorecard is Ottomans 12, Arabs 0. Just for a kick I say hello to the Arab ambassador, and--yeah, here it comes again--hot diggity! A bit of pointy-stick research pays off BIG TIME!
I have my obnoxious foreign relations advisor executed for....well....being obnoxious. Too bad firing squads haven't been invented yet, had to do it the hard way. I make peace with the Arabs, and make a personal note to declare another unprovoked war on them later to get some more freebies. Meantime, in the diplomacy screen, I notice that all the other civs are working the bottom half of the tech tree--so I go for the top, starting research on Mathematics.
Basketgrad churns out swordsmen every 3-4 turns, popping out a settler every now and then. The territory around my capital is pretty tough, so my next few cities are placed mostly just to establish territory. Up north I found the city of Flipopolis to claim a loose Incense tile--the city is so named because that's what it's likely to do, being right next to the Zulu capital.
Current situation:
I have contact with the Arabs, Zulus, Persians, and Babylonians (who were wised up to me by somebody else--I haven't seen them on the map yet). The Zulus and Babylonians are the two largest civs at the moment, and they ganged up on Persia a little earlier. Couldn't tell what the results were, though the Zulu score took a brief dip. I'm pretty much completely hemmed in by the Zulus. Fortunately, they don't appear to have hooked up iron yet (though they do have one way up north). My plans for the near future include beating up the Arabs, a big anti-Zulu swordsman swarm, and a few units to camp on that iron and prevent the Zulus from getting any use out of it.
Stay tuned for future updates!
The fault is all mine, I'm just a lazy bastard when it comes to pushing the envelope. Okay, let's get straight to the action.
Starting parameters: Civ3 PTW. Playing as Ottomans (hey, Persians were the obvious first choice, but that woulda been too easy!), standard size map, 7 opponents. Roaming barbarians. All other map parameters (land percentage, land composition, age, humidity and temperature) are random. Adds more sense of exploration to the game, I've been playing random settings for a while now.
The starting position frankly looks pretty good:
Plenty of grassland, two bonus grass tiles, a cow, a couple of hills. Oh yeah, and it's coastal, too. Hot diggity!
Settler plunks down and sets up shop where he is. After which, I discover....
....that my starting position is even better than I thought! Two more bonus grass tiles, and furs, all within the fat X. Oh, did I say hot diggity???
Starting sequence: I notice that I forgot to name my capital city--and change its name to something suitable: Basketgrad.
Research Pottery full steam. Build two warriors, then start Pyramids as a pre-build for a Granary. Pottery research finishes, and the Granary goes up three turns later. Research is started on (you're gonna yell at me for this!) Ceremonial Burial. Somebody's gonna call that a bad move. However, I always get good results from temples; they allow one more person to work in the city, and the commerce from that one extra tile always pays for the temple.
During this time, the worker builds roads on the cow and then on the BG just above it, then roads up the eastern fur tile. Then he does a chop, which is applied to my first settler just after the granary finishes. Got some nice timing here. My two warriors don't get to explore much; they're mostly stuck on riot control duty. Basketgrad starts building a temple (and finishes quickly; it's got some fast-producing tiles). Iron Working research is started; it will require 35 turns at 100% research, so I do the 40-turn gag.
Barracks is next in the build order. Arab warriors appear from somewhere to the southeast. Dang. I got found out right from the get-go. It gets worse--over the next few turns, a parade of 8 or 9 Arab warriors goes strolling right past my capital city from southeast to northwest. Fortunately, I'm left unmolested--the warrior train doesn't see my capital city.
WHEW.
It looks like the Arabs sent their entire starting force exploring past me, which leads me to suspect they're on a dead-end piece of land. My plan, therefore, is to place my first two cities to block them into their dead end. Spamopolis is founded on the east end of my chosen choke point.
I build a couple more warriors, then start on another settler. Before I can get that settler built, my exploring warriors spot an Arab settler coming my way. That's the last thing I need. All four of my warriors are able to cut the settler off and give me time to found Costa Lotta to get my blockade together:
There, my problem with the Arabs is solved; my four warriors line up from Spamopolis to Costa Lotta, and the Arabs aren't gonna be sending any trespassing settlers through my territory for the rest of the game.
Iron appears in the hills just northwest of Basketgrad! Looks like I just got me a nice new home in the best part of Hotdiggityville!
Point Gratha is founded next to it, and a worker heads right over to hook it up. Basketgrad starts churning settlers, building a settler whenever it reaches population 5. A couple of my warriors are now free to start exploring the map; they discover Zulu cities to the north and northeast, and two Persian cities to the northwest. Looks like I'm pretty thoroughly hemmed in.I've been constantly seeing Arab troops moving around just southeast of me. Nothing but warriors and spearmen. I have four swordsmen and two spearmen at this point; I play a hunch and declare war on the Arabs. My four spearmen move into Arab territory. They kill several warriors, two spearmen, and a couple of archers, and capture two settlers, taking no losses. Four slaves for my work force. The two uninjured swordsmen continue south, killing another spearman and an archer, and delivering a candygram to Damascus:
Right now the scorecard is Ottomans 12, Arabs 0. Just for a kick I say hello to the Arab ambassador, and--yeah, here it comes again--hot diggity! A bit of pointy-stick research pays off BIG TIME!
I have my obnoxious foreign relations advisor executed for....well....being obnoxious. Too bad firing squads haven't been invented yet, had to do it the hard way. I make peace with the Arabs, and make a personal note to declare another unprovoked war on them later to get some more freebies. Meantime, in the diplomacy screen, I notice that all the other civs are working the bottom half of the tech tree--so I go for the top, starting research on Mathematics.
Basketgrad churns out swordsmen every 3-4 turns, popping out a settler every now and then. The territory around my capital is pretty tough, so my next few cities are placed mostly just to establish territory. Up north I found the city of Flipopolis to claim a loose Incense tile--the city is so named because that's what it's likely to do, being right next to the Zulu capital.
Current situation:
I have contact with the Arabs, Zulus, Persians, and Babylonians (who were wised up to me by somebody else--I haven't seen them on the map yet). The Zulus and Babylonians are the two largest civs at the moment, and they ganged up on Persia a little earlier. Couldn't tell what the results were, though the Zulu score took a brief dip. I'm pretty much completely hemmed in by the Zulus. Fortunately, they don't appear to have hooked up iron yet (though they do have one way up north). My plans for the near future include beating up the Arabs, a big anti-Zulu swordsman swarm, and a few units to camp on that iron and prevent the Zulus from getting any use out of it.
Stay tuned for future updates!
but i know it's really the experience... haha
