Nolition's CivIII Chronicle (Now Playing Game 3: Maya, Emperor)

[Nolition]

Civilization III was my first foray into the Civilization series. I first played the game back in 2005, and spent quite a bit of time with it. Prompted by the fact that I have been having a blast playing CivIV recently, I decided to go on a nostalgia-trip and start a game of Civ3. Even a decade ago, my skill level with this game was not particularly high. I do not know if there is anyone in the forum-at-large who cares to read what I have to write here, but if there is anyone out there who is interested in pointing out my mistakes I would appreciate it, even if you just take the time to link me to a guide or article that would improve my play. If there is anyone who is willing to do this, I can provide much more detail as to my thought process and actual game decisions instead of giving a more nostalgia-driven approach to this first writeup.

Spoiler Table of Contents (with links, no spoilers) :

1.) Korea, Regent
2.) Sumeria, Emperor

Spoiler Summary of Results (spoilers) :

 

[Nolition]

Spoiler Part 1 (hidden for quick page load) :

Let me tell you - seeing that starting menu really brought me back. The purchase was worth the $5 I spent just for that moment. After getting reaccustomed to the menu navigation (the X O system), I set the game up with what I believe to be fairly standard settings. Standard map size, all random civilizations (including my own), random map style, standard climate. I did untick the "Respawn AI" box, but other than that this was a straightforward affair. I am playing on Regent difficulty in order to re-familiarize myself with the game mechanics before trying for more of a challenge. Hopefully I don't make a complete fool out of myself and lose!



I seem to have drawn Korea as my random civilization. The Commercial and Scientific traits seem to be quite reasonable.



I decide to leave my Settler in place, and found Seoul. It is nice to start with a worker, definitely!



I decide to build a warrior first, in order to begin scouting out the landmass. I also played around with the city management screen, getting used to it again.



I set my worker to build a few roads (as they provide commerce in Civ3. From my memory, there are really only two improvements that workers can build: farms and mines). An optimal start would probably be to begin with mines, but I decided to increase commerce. While doing this, I send my original warrior out into the world. I had forgotten that it is a bit annoying to move units in this game, and it requires you to hit the 'g' key each time you want to take a step. By the end of the 20th turn or so this had ceased to really bother me. I encountered a goodie hut and mastered Ceremonial Burial. Examining the early technologies available, I am a bit confused as to what an optimal research plan should be. Most don't seem to have as much importance as the early worker-techs in Civ4.



Another technology from the friendly natives. Warrior code, this time. I am nearly finished researching Pottery myself.



Domestic unrest in Seoul. Very early! It takes me a few turns before I realize that I can end it by setting one of my citizens as an entertainer. You an also see some of the shape of the continent from this picture.



At least I have money, even if my population is unhappy. I also figure out how to set the research slider at this time - it's tucked away under the advisor menu instead of on the basic UI.



A third technology from the natives. I don't know if this is usual (or the result of playing on an easy difficulty level) or if I'm just very fortunate. Either way, I'm not complaining.



I meet the Mongolians in the south. And I step into their territory. Civ3 has a very different set of mechanics for this than Civ4. You are allowed a turn of "grace" to walk around in unfriendly territory before they request that you leave.



Here is their capital.



My own warrior finds another village. This time, the result is not nearly so positive. He ends up getting destroyed by the barbarians, and the other warrior (that found the Mongols) is also destroyed further south. You can see here that I have decided that it is time to expand. Building settlers/workers does not prevent a city from growing in Civ3, but will instead decrease the population by 2 or 1 when the build is complete.



Classic Civ3! I still do not know what triggers this.



The beginnings of my palace.



I had originally wanted to make a very aggressive plant further east, but the Mongolians stuck their own city in the area. It cannot be helped, I suppose.

 

[Nolition]

Spoiler Part 2 (hidden for quick page load) :

I decide to embark on a relatively rapid course of expansion. There are some barbarians in the way, though.



This is an interesting way of handling AI communication.



Considering that I do not have horses, I decline.



With the barbarians taken care of, I proceed on a settlement campaign.



This is just about the worst place within my territories for Iron to be revealed. Not close to current cultural borders, and in such a location where founding a new city just to claim it wouldn't be ideal.



I get my first combat promotion. In Civ3, there are 4 different "levels" of units. Conscripts, Regulars, Veterans and Elites. Your standard units begin at regular and have 3 bars of health. As they win battles, they have a chance to be promoted up. If an elite unit wins a battle, there is a small chance that it will generate an Army (great general).



As the Mongolians are also rapidly expanding, I feel the need to keep up.



So far my economy is holding up, but this won't last much longer.



I'm also very unhappy! And the Mongols are the happiest. Figures.



With my final settler built, I construct a Barracks. My plan is to go to war with Mongolia, and attempt to capture their capital. Barracks in this game allow your units to start at Veteran level.



After a battle with the massed Barbarian forces, the city is founded.



With Currency researched, I begin Construction.



My expansion seems to have caused some economic destabilisation within my civilization. I assumed that the game would automatically lower my research slider when I ran out of gold, but it actually sold off the Barracks that you can see building in P'yongyang. Which is an annoyance - but every building costs maintenance in this game. It was probably my granary-building that caused the economy to become stunted. Universal-granaries would still be an ideal strategy I would think.

 

[fanofrazorblade]

deal with the mongols before they get too big, or they will be a massive pain in your ass. Training up elites so you can spawn armies is vital.

 

[Nolition]

deal with the mongols before they get too big, or they will be a massive pain in your ass. Training up elites so you can spawn armies is vital.

Thank you for responding! It is a bit amazing to me that this topic even has some views, considering that I am pretty much just playing around. The Mongols are indeed a pain in the ass.

Spoiler Part 3 (hidden for quick page load) :

Since the AI seems to be packing cities quite densely, I decide to put one here. My borders have also finally expanded to reach the Iron, and I begin work to connect it.



Here come the Mongols, asking for money. I refused, because I felt that accepting would put me in a position where the game would start selling my infrastructure unless I reduced my research. I figured I would just take the -1 relations hit for refusing to give tribute and move on with life.



Unfortunately, the Mongolian Empire did not see things the same way. Looking back - my decision was a mistake!



They send troops into my borders to menace P'yongyang.



The retreat ability of mounted units is quite annoying to deal with! My lone catapult bombards the besiegers and I drive off the first assault.



This tech unlocks two buildings - the Colosseum and the Aqueduct. The Colosseum provides happiness, while the Aqueduct allows cities to grow past size 6.



With my own territory clear, I send an expedition into Mongolian territory.



Iron is finally connected - although not to the rest of my cities, yet. A single road must be built before that happens.



My incursion was poorly thought out, and it was quickly repelled by the Mongolians. They then counterattacked and captured P'yongyang.



This was a very frustrating moment! Mongolia continues pushing forward. You can see the worker roading the iron (now outside my borders) - it is captured by the Mongolians, and I discover that all progress on the road is lost when interrupted.



Finally, some good news. I retake the city from the hated Mongols.



They are finally willing to talk. I think this is a little steep and am not sensing imminent danger, so I don't accept.



Good news - although I am already behind in research. This game is a lot trickier than I remember!



I'm not sure if this actually worked - I didn't notice that I paid anything for it.



Now they are willing to take peace equal terms. At this point I am advancing on their city of Dalandzadgad, which seems weakly defended.



When I realize that it only appeared weak because you cannot see how many units are garrisoned within a city, I took this peace settlement.

I think that my plan moving forward is to (finally) get that iron connected and begin to churn out Swordsmen. I need to at least get some territory from Mongolia if I am to overcome this early deficit.

 

[fanofrazorblade]

you need more workers, but you also need a bigger army, so this is a bit tricky. I think you need to build more cities where the mongols have left gaps, and perfects build up culture?

 

[Nolition]

you need more workers, but you also need a bigger army, so this is a bit tricky. I think you need to build more cities where the mongols have left gaps, and perfects build up culture?

Thank you for your post! I was afraid that I had too few workers. It's a very common mistake for under-experienced Civ players, I've been told. And I could definitely use some more military to help clear up the Mongol situation. The tough thing is prioritizing these two competing goals properly.

Spoiler Part 4 (hidden for quick page load) :

I've finally met someone that isn't Temujin. I spotted one of her Galleys moving around and decided to contact her.


I finish off the Aqueduct so that Seoul can grow, and then start to build some more workers. I want to get to an area where I have about 2 per city to get things improved. I made good strides over this set of turns towards reaching that goal, although some of the smaller jungled cities are still under-improved.


With Map Making, I set about building a few Harbours and then start to research Literature. I want to be able to build Libraries to overcome the research deficit I've found myself in, and neither of the AIs I am in contact with have it yet. Hopefully I can strike up a decent trade with Isabella if I can get it before she does.


With my Iron hooked up, I can build Swordsmen. I start to crank them out, building an army to take on the Mongolians. I stopped building those Marketplaces, deciding that the benefit was quite minor. One thing that is very convenient about this game: shields can be transferred to another production target at any point with no penalty.


I've figured out how to manage my science to avoid wasted beakers now. You can also see the beginnings of my military force being formed to the south. I still need to get some workers down there to road to the border and to improve those tiles generally.


Isabella is willing to trade with me! Good news.


I decide that I don't really care about Mysticism at the moment. I'd rather go for The Republic, despite it being (far) more expensive. The Mongols already have this technology.


This is the military that I have managed to create. I'm not sure if this is prudent to attack Karakorum at this point, or how important Catapults are. In particular, I'm quite interested in hearing other opinions here. Should I build more Swordsmen first, or is this enough to make an attack?

I feel that I am in a considerably better position now than I was at the beginning of these turns, so at least there's been some progress.

 

[Toxicman007]

I think that force should be able to easily take Karakorum. Probably a couple other cities too, but the Mongols will pick away at it with their horsemen so be quick.
I personally never build catapults in civ3, often not trebuchets either because I feel they are just not worth the shields. Cannon and artillery (if I get as far as artillery, which is very rare) are more value and can deal much more damage.

 

[Nolition]

I have put the other posts in spoiler tags so that this thread loads faster.

I think that force should be able to easily take Karakorum. Probably a couple other cities too, but the Mongols will pick away at it with their horsemen so be quick.
I personally never build catapults in civ3, often not trebuchets either because I feel they are just not worth the shields. Cannon and artillery (if I get as far as artillery, which is very rare) are more value and can deal much more damage.

This vote of confidence is reassuring! If not for that, I probably would have waited a few turns longer to build a better force.

Spoiler Part 5 (hidden for quick page load) :

I decide to move into Mongolian territory and let that Temujin know of my hostile intentions.



I advance on Karakorum as he sends a line of Horsemen to attempt to recapture P'yongyang yet again.



Unfortunately, I was very focused on the offensive side of the war and did not leave sufficient defenders to hold the city. I also learned that rushing production of defenders doesn't help - they are produced after the AI moves.



Our magnificent armies are victorious! His capital is in our hands. I captured a few workers and a few catapults here.



Leaving a nominal garrison at Karakorum, I advance troops on Ta-Tu (his new capital) and attempt to take it. In the battle, one of my Elite swordsmen generates a Great Person.



I am not quite sure how to put Yi Song-gye to best use. Does anyone have a link to a good guide out there? In the meantime, I set him to wait at Karakorum. It seems like the safest city that he can reach at this point.



The conquest of Ta-Tu occurs soon after! Things are going very well so far.



While there has been some great successes on the battlefield, his hordes of horsemen have indeed defeated many of my swordsmen and archers. My troops are scattered and he is starting to send more waves of mounted units, so I attempt to negotiate a peace settlement. Clearly, he is not a reasonable leader.



I just had to do it!



Temujin contacts me and offers a neutral peace. I reject it - because I can see that P'yongyang is only garrisoned by Horsemen. These poor defenders won't be able to hold on for long.



Sure enough - P'yongyang is soon back in good hands.



Now, the Mongols are at least willing to give me something for my victory over their civilization.

 

[Toxicman007]

Congrats on the successful conquering and the great leader! Sadly, in Civ3 conquests, the great leaders can't rush wonders like in the vanilla game (scientific great leaders can, though). Combat-generated great leaders can rush SMALL wonders, which is usually pretty unnecessary. Best thing to do is make an Army unit. What you put in it is of course up to you, but I recommend saving it for the Middle Ages when you can make a Knight Army. You don't seem to be too far away from advancing, but if you want to continue the war against the Mongols, just make a Swordsman Army and use it to crush the silly fools!

 

[Nolition]

Congrats on the successful conquering and the great leader! Sadly, in Civ3 conquests, the great leaders can't rush wonders like in the vanilla game (scientific great leaders can, though). Combat-generated great leaders can rush SMALL wonders, which is usually pretty unnecessary. Best thing to do is make an Army unit. What you put in it is of course up to you, but I recommend saving it for the Middle Ages when you can make a Knight Army. You don't seem to be too far away from advancing, but if you want to continue the war against the Mongols, just make a Swordsman Army and use it to crush the silly fools!

Thank you! It would have been nice to rush the Great Library. I didn't bother trying to build it because I figured that the AI would beat me to it. It turns out that that wasn't the case - I had twice as much time as I needed. Oh well. I am still giving thought as to what to put into the army, and will come up with a final plan before I declare war.

Spoiler Part 6 (hidden for quick page load) :

This shows the current situation on the borders with Mongolia. I intend to go back to war as soon as I can get some infrastructure and units built. Once Ta-Tu's borders expand (with the temple's culture) I will finally have access to Horses.



This seems to be the critical tech to get out of this awful Despotism civic.



I decide that yes, it is indeed time for a revolution. I do have a question for any readers - how long does it take for the whipping unhappiness penalty to clear? It seems like my cities have been very unhappy for a long time, and I'm just wondering if I can expect them to snap out of it soon. It would be easier to plan for the future if there were an easy way to tell how much longer they would be sulking.



This was a complete surprise! I was putting almost no cultural pressure on the city, and they just decided to join my empire. Clearly they know that Korea is far superior to the awful Mongols.



After what seems like a very, very long period of Anarchy (I believe it was just 5 turns) I am able to re-form a government. I pick Republic, contrary to what this screenshot is showing.



I have managed to advance to the next era!



This is my military as I prepare to declare war. I am slightly concerned because the Mongols beat me to Feudalism, but they do not seem to have Iron. This war will be very interesting, I think. I am currently undecided as to whether I should use my Great General now to create an army, or wait for later to build knights. I think the best thing to do is to sleep on it and come up with a concrete plan in the morning. Either way, I am feeling confident that Kazan will fall!

 

[Toxicman007]

What free tech did you get for being the Scientific trait?
Also, don't forget about the glorious luxury slider (found below the science slider). Unhappiness is a female dog, but luckily in civ3 you can literally pay your citizens to be happy!

 

[Nolition]

What free tech did you get for being the Scientific trait?
Also, don't forget about the glorious luxury slider (found below the science slider). Unhappiness is a female dog, but luckily in civ3 you can literally pay your citizens to be happy!

I'm not sure how to tell which tech I got. Is there any easy way to check this? Thank you for your advice about the luxury slider in particular. This was absolutely, critically vital in keeping my economy running through this war. The republic War Weariness is intense.

Spoiler Part 7 (hidden for quick page load) :

Deciding to preserve my Great Leader to build an army of knights in a few turns, I march my troops to the gates of Kazan. As expected, he demands that I remove them and declares war when I refuse. I see that his new capital is guarded by regular spearmen.



They do not put up much of a fight, and I capture the city handily.



At this moment, Isabella makes herself known. She's annoyed with me, apparently. I had held a very positive view of her because of her willingness to make the tech trade earlier in the game. I end up agreeing because I am in the middle of a war already and can cancel the deal later. This is enough to make her Polite towards me.



This was a brutally unfortunate and nasty mechanic. I lost the five catapults I had in Kazan and the city reverted back to Mongolian rule. I'm very unclear as to why this happened - was it because I moved most of my army out? Either way, I had to make the best of this unfortunate situation. This really threw a wrench into my plans to advance.



Feudalism. This seems to be a critically important technology, granting the ability to build superior military units.



I am able to re-take Kazan with the remnants of my Sworsman military. By this point, I am really regretting my decision not to create an Army immediately. I am pretty much out of units at this point, with a slow trickle arriving from my old cities far on the back-lines.



The Mongols have decided to change strategy, and are producing many cheap archers and using their Horsemen to swoop in and kill my units. This is enough to drive me back out of Kazan, which was quite frustrating to lose again.



This enables Longbowmen to be built, which are an offensive unit in this game. I don't have a particular need of them right now, as I am building Medieval Infantry in most cities at this point. However, the Mongols are not far behind me in reaching this technology and begin to send sporadic Longbowmen to seriously bother my spearman defenders. Fending off these attacks is preventing me from rallying troops to retake Kazan.



Rest in Peace, distant Sumerians. I never knew you! Apparently there has been a lot of action abroad, unbeknownst to me. At least I am not the worst in this game. At this point, Temujin is willing to sue for peace. I decline, thinking that I do not want to let this war be fought in vain. And I strongly believe that I can press on and take a few cities.



Once I get a few Medieval Infantry together, I am able to re-take Kazan without much difficulty. This was mostly possible because Temujin decided to focus his units on the eastern cities, and came very close to capturing Dalandzadgad and Ta-Tu. Good fortune (and steady reinforcements) prevented this.



Mandalgovi is now mine, as well.



I feel like pressing the war on, but Temujin has pressed into my territory and is threatening several locations with Longbowmen and I do not have defenders available to reinforce the cities. Since he is willing to provide me with multiple techs in exchange for peace, I take the deal with the intention of pressing onward with the war after re-arming.

 

[tjs282]

I personally never build catapults in civ3, often not trebuchets either because I feel they are just not worth the shields.

Even if this game was being played well above Regent, building Cats and Trebs would have been pretty much pointless in the early game, because there were so many Jungle and Mountain tiles between Korea and Mongolia. Both these terrain-types are 'Impassable to Wheeled (units)' and Cats and Trebs are both Wheeled, so they wouldn't get to Mongolia without clearing/ roading sufficient the intervening tiles—which will take a lot of Worker-turns.

@Nolition

As a general critique of what you've posted so far, your city-placement could do with some refinement.

First of all, you founded very 'loose', like the AI does, with 4-5 tiles between towns — even though none of those towns will be able to grow beyond Pop12 until Sanitation is unlocked in the (early) Industrial age. This means that you will only actually be able to use about half the tiles that each town has potential access to, for (more than) half the game, and your outlying towns will be that much more corrupt/wasteful due to their greater distance from your Palace. You could have fitted twice as many towns into the area you initially got control of, with only 2-3 tiles between each one, and then you would (eventually) have been able to use all those low-corruption tiles that you controlled.

Planting towns so far apart also makes it difficult to move forces around between towns within a single turn in order to defend your most outlying settlements, meaning that each town pretty much has to fend for itself (so you need to build more military units than you might otherwise). It also means that it takes much longer to hook towns up to your trade-net (including Resource-towns) — especially when you've got all that Jungle/Mountain to contend with as well.

And some towns themselves are poorly placed: I'm looking specifically at Pyongyang, which would have been much stronger if you'd founded it 1SE of its current position. First of all, it would have acquired a freshwater source (the 1-tile lake), so you would not have needed to build an Aqueduct (costs 100 shields and 1 GPT maintenance) to get it beyond the hardcoded Pop6 cap for a 'dry' town. Always found directly adjacent to freshwater (rivers, and lake-tiles which give 2 food per turn) where you can, e.g. that river north of Seoul could have supported two low-corruption Pop12 cities. Secondly, Pyongyang being 1SE would have got 3 food-bonuses into its eventual radius rather than 'only' 2, because it would have been able to use the second Wheat-tile.

And to answer some questions and make some more observations:

This was a complete surprise! I was putting almost no cultural pressure on the city, and they just decided to join my empire.

Culture-flips are nice when they happen, but you shouldn't count on them, because they are weighted-Random occurrences (that is, you can increase the likelihood of a flip by doing — or not doing — certain things, but you can never guarantee it).

The probability of any town flipping is primarily related to a comparison of total civ-wide Culture between the 2 Civs concerned, rather than direct impingement from the absolute Culture-total in a neighbouring town(s) (although the number of tiles in a flip-risky city's radius which are actually within another Civ's Cultural borders does have an additional prejudicial effect). At Regent, even with a half-decent start it is usually quite easy to out-Culture the AI, but at higher levels, they will likely out-Culture you, so building military units rather than Cultural buildings becomes an increasingly cost-effective way to take their cities.

Deciding to preserve my Great Leader to build an army of knights in a few turns,

Not sure if I've understood you correctly here, but if you're planning to turn an MGL into an Army anyway, you should do it immediately, regardless of whether you have the units you want/need immediately available to fill it (especially if getting these units requires a tech you don't yet have), because in Civ3 you cannot spawn another MGL while you still have one currently active. So do make the Army, but just keep it empty — or better, put 3 Medieval Infs into it: a 3-Mace Army has A/D/M = 6/4.5/2 and 9-15 HP (depending on how experienced the component units were/are), making it effectively a 'Knight with Blitz-ability plus Army-strength bonus ' (a 3-Knight Army would have the same A/D stats, but M=3).

The AI is generally reluctant to attack filled and healthy Armies directly; since a 2-move Mace-Army can move as fast as your Horsemen (if you have any?), you can therefore use it to cover them behind enemy lines, as they advance on your next target, e.g. to weaken city-defenders before your stronger attackers move in, or to skirmish weakened/retreating enemy units in the field.

... I march my troops to the gates of Kazan. As expected, he demands that I remove them and declares war when I refuse.

Declaring war while you already have troops on enemy territory means that you will no longer be sufficiently trusted to sign 'Right of Passage' agreements in the future, not just with the Mongols themselves, but also with any Civs who know the Mongols (or meet them before you finish destroying them). This applies whether or not you'd ever previously signed an RoP.

While trashing your (RoP) reputation at an early stage of the game may not be a major concern for a full-on conquest game, it is not always the best plan if e.g. you want to be able to play a longer trading game: being free to sign an RoP as part of any potential deal may make that deal cheaper for you.

This was a brutally unfortunate and nasty mechanic. I lost the five catapults I had in Kazan and the city reverted back to Mongolian rule. I'm very unclear as to why this happened - was it because I moved most of my army out?

Partly, yes. But the back-flip to the Mongols was generated by exactly the same mechanic which got you Dalanzagad, except it went the other way this time, likely at least in part because Kazan had built significantly more Culture before you took it by force (capturing a town automatically demolishes all the Culture-producing buildings in that town, but does not negate the Culture-points that those buildings had already provided for that town or that Civ).

You get only one turn after taking a city when flip-risk is zero; after that, it can potentially (randomly) flip back to its previous owner at any time. Moving large numbers of troops into a town to quell the resistance over that first turn is a good move (if you have enough troops to do it), but you shouldn't leave the majority in there any longer than that (maybe one cheap defender which you don't mind losing) — so evacuating was smart, but you should have moved the Cats out too. I would also guess that Kazan likely still had resistors(?) or at the very least, unhappy Mongol citizens ("Stop the aggression...!") when you moved your forces out, and it was a lot closer to the Mongols' new capital (Choybalson?) than it was to yours; all 3 of these factors also increase the flip-risk.

As well as quelling resistors, stationing multiple military units (A/D= >0/>0) in a town can actually reduce the flip-risk to zero, but exactly how many units this requires depends on multiple factors, and may be an impractically large number. Depending on how much longer you expect the war to last, it may be better to simply station troops outside, and retake the town every time it flips — or to use those forces to push on and wipe your enemy out completely, which will immediately reduce backflip-risk to zero in all the towns you captured from them.

I'm not sure how to tell which tech I got. Is there any easy way to check this?

Press F6 to talk to your Science Advisor. For techs which you already know, the Tech-boxes are coloured blue, so whichever of those 1st-tier Medieval boxes is blue even though you didn't actually research or trade for it, that's your Scientific-Civ freebie. I would guess it was Monotheism, if you researched Feudalism yourself and are now pursuing Chivalry.

The Mongols have decided to change strategy, and are producing many cheap archers and using their Horsemen to swoop in and kill my units.

They haven't changed strategy; they've likely lost their Iron (if they ever had any). The AI will always build the best units it has available, so if it's hitting you with Archers, it hasn't got Invention (Longbows) yet, and if it's hitting you with Horsemen, it can't build Knights (it lacks Chivalry or Iron, or both).

You need to be careful though, because once the Mongols do get Chivalry, if they still have Horses available they will start building their Unique Unit, the Keshik, rather than Knights. Keshiks cost 60 shields, have A/D/M = 4/2/2, need only Horses, move freely over Mountains — and a single Keshik victory will give Temujin a Golden Age, allowing him to build a lot more of them! So make sure you have Pikes defending your Mongol-accessible cities, reduce that accessibility by popping the towns' borders (build Libraries, which are half-price to the Koreans, so cheaper than Temples, and boost your research) and plenty of strong attack-units garrisoned near the front lines to kill incoming Keshiks during the next war (Temujin is still alive, so there will be another war)...

 

[Nolition]

Thank you. I really appreciate your very detailed response, and feel that it equipped me to play this critical turnset much better than I otherwise would have. In particular, your feedback on my city placement is extremely valuable. In my next game, I will definitely be packing them in more closely. I have this idea in my head where I like cities to have no overlap whatsoever - which seems to be an incorrect premise. The culture-flip mechanics (and the bit about declaring war with units in enemy territory, I always did this as a kid to get an "extra turn" of moving into their territory) are also good to know. And the advice about the Army would prove invaluable in this set of turns. I was not aware that you could only have one Great Person at a time, so was wasting my "opportunities" with Elite unit victories.

I did get Monotheism free. Is this determined randomly each game, or is it preset for each civilization like starting techs?

Spoiler Part 8 (hidden for quick page load) :

Looking back, I believe that I should have researched Chivalry before Gunpowder.



I decide to go ahead and build an Army, filling it with 3 Medieval Infantry units.



I did find a single source of Saltpeter within my territory.



I also detoured from Chivalry to get Chemistry. Next time, I won't be leaving that tech for so long.



After building up my defences and a sizeable army of Medieval Infantry, I declare war in the same cheesy manner. I've already done this 4 times this game and I'm sure everyone knows that I'm an aggressor who cannot be trusted.



My Army locates his new capital of Almarikh and the battle begins.



Wow, that Army is powerful! These things are just as important as fanofrazorblade pointed out. His territories are now split in half.



He is launching a few annoying raiding attacks out of these eastern cities, so I decide that it's time to crush them and ensure that I am only fighting on a single front. My Army leads the way, with the other units mopping up afterwards.



The final eastern city falls. I bring in some Pikemen to garrison them (taking care to crush the resistances before leaving with my Medieval Infantry). At this point, I decide that I still have enough forces to attack in the west. In the time it took for my troops to rally to the new frontlines, he broke through and killed a significant number of my troops with Longbowmen.



Finally I have the ability to build Knights. Since my empire is so spread out (and my unit-producing cities are on the backlines) it is taking my reinforcements a very long time to reach the battlefront.



Hovd puts up a strong fight, but eventually does fall into my hands.



Here, Temujin makes an unexpected move and drops some Longbowmen outside Pusan - my most weakly defended city. None of my units can reach it in time to assist.



Not wanting to lose the city, I decide to make an offer for peace. I had no idea where Erdenet was, but I was hoping that it was the city off of my coast. I have a strong dislike of launching naval attacks. I figure that taking 10 turns to re-arm isn't a big deal, especially if it saves both the headache of retaking Pusan and of having to build and load ships to go attack Erdenet.



Indeed, this is my new city. Nothing spectacular, but not too shabby. I am now in a position to soon launch a final war to destroy Temujin, once and for all.

 

[Toxicman007]

Well done! The Mongol days are numbered.

 

[Nolition]

Well done! The Mongol days are numbered.

Yes, they certainly are! I am determined to press this to its conclusion.

Spoiler Part 9 (hidden for quick page load) :

I got this technology because I want to try out my unique unit, the Hwacha. And then I decide to research Military Science - because I need more Armies for my upcoming war against Isabella (I believe the territory I see is hers).



War (yet again)!



This is nice to have! I hope that it's worth the expense of building.



Darhan falls - and I move onto his capital.



He has managed to build some Musketmen as defences, here. Fortunately they aren't enough to stop the assault of my Army.



The city falls.



Victory! They certainly did deserve it, with that nasty declaration of war early. Now I set my sights on the cyan territory to the south - Isabella's, I presume.

 

[Nolition]

Spoiler Part 10 (hidden for quick page load) :

Taking advantage of the ability to scout enemy territory before they request my departure, I move my mounted units to see what I can discover of Spain.



Military Tradition - this is a very useful technology for me, and the Cavalry that I will build will be very useful in destroying the Spanish. And I want to get started on the Military Academy as soon as possible - I've witnessed how powerful Armies are, and wan to build more.



The one thing that I don't really like about the tech tree in this game is these "filler" type techs that do nothing but unlock other technologies or allow a wonder to be built. I've made a conscious choice this game to try not to go after wonders (after reading a guide in the War Academy that recommends not to use them as a crutch). Note: I missed the screenshot telling me that I researched education later.



I also missed the screenshot where I declared war on Spain. But I didn't forget to take note of the destruction of another civilization - Celtia is no more. I never knew thee. There must be a pretty large civilization out there, currently undiscovered.



As I march my forces on Toledo, Isabella counterattacks with a fairly large army. I manage to work it down in size and destroy but, but take a few casualties myself.



Toledo falls before I can defeat the horde of spearmen she is marching towards me.



After Banking, I revise my strategy slightly and consider going for Economics to build a wonder.



This old trick, again. Fortunately, I just happened to have a musketman built in that city the turn they arrived.



I captured Barcelona, but at great cost. In an outrageously poor stroke of luck, my Army was destroyed by Isabella's defender.



On the next turn, the Military Academy is completed - and I see that building an Army to replace the one I lost will take 22 turns, not counting the cost of putting units inside. Ouch - that's costly.



I also complete the Forbidden Palace, which will help make these captured Mongolian cities less useful. I can understand the intent behind this corruption mechanic - to prevent large civilizations from snowballing. But I just don't think it's reasonable that cities should be limited to a single shield of production just because they are a few tiles away from the capital.



With my military depleted and the feeling that I cannot hold Barcelona for long, I take a very generous peace settlement from Isabella.



This is an overview of what I learned from the Spanish Territory Map.



She also holds two cities on what amounts to little more than a desert island off of the coast of our main continent. I fully expected to lose Erdenet during this war when she sailed a caravel to the desert island. I'm not sure what she was doing, but the city remained in my hands.

 

[Nolition]

I really felt like playing more today, and it's the weekend, so:

Spoiler Part 11 (hidden for quick page load) :

The Dutch make contact and offer a trade. Since I am not facing any happiness crunch at all, I decline because I do not wish to aid the AI by providing it with gold and a luxury resource.



The Hittites also make contact. I suspect that Isabella has gone and traded my contact information to all of the other AIs in exchange for some benefit to herself.



I have now met everyone, and I gladly accept this trade.



The Hittites are surprisingly close - just a few tiles off of my northern coast. They aren't really close to a cultural victory, but will reach the one-city objective in the distant future. I will want to conduct a war against them after I finish with Isabella, I think.



I feel the urge to advance the game along and get the technology necessary to begin building a navy.



I will use Galleons to mount an attack on Isabella's desert island, and to eventually go to war with the Hittites. I notice here that the Dutch have seized two of their cities. Not good - the Dutch are the clear forerunners out of the four remaining AIs, and I do not want them to become even more powerful at the expense of the Hittites.



I research Magnetism. To provide an update on what is occurring in the rest of my empire: I attempted to build Smith's Trading Company, pouring many hammers into it only to realize that my forest-chops weren't contributing. So I changed over to Army to accumulate the shields, intending to change back. That was when I realized that it wasn't possible - the no-rushing rule is stringent enough to catch that. Oops! Thinking about it, the wonder probably isn't worth the 600 shields that it requires. The Army is probably more useful.



With Theory of Gravity, I advance to the Industrial Age.



My free technology is Steam Power. I search my territory until I find two sources, allowing me to build railroads. This free technology is very useful, as I was just a tiny bit behind the AIs in terms of technology at this point. I've spent my turns accumulating Cavalry, continuing to invest in infrastructure in the former Mongolian territories and beginning the embryonic development of my navy. I am now ready to launch what I intend to be the final conquest of Spain.

 

[tjs282]

I have this idea in my head where I like cities to have no overlap whatsoever - which seems to be an incorrect premise.

It's not an incorrect premise for the late-game, but for the first quarter/half, while your town size is limited to Pop12 anyway — and especially while you are still in Despotism — it makes more sense to develop your initial set of 'core' cities in the tiles close to your capital, where (distance) corruption is less of an issue. By founding more towns closer together, you'll also get to build your FP earlier on in the game, which makes more of your cities more productive. Also, expansion/growth is key to success in Civ, so unless you're deliberately limiting yourself (e.g. a 'Five-/One-City Challenge'), there will likely never come a point where you 'need' no more Settlers/Workers — especially if you're going to play for Domination. Yes, the corruption gets bad quickly, but there are ways to deal with/play around this.

Once you hit the point where corruption in a new town ramps up sharply (my rule-of thumb is >50% wastage/loss at Pop3-4), that's when you'll likely need to build a Courthouse as your first build, to make it easier to build everything else. When a Courthouse is required just to get <75% corruption (again at Pop3-4), it may be more cost-effective to start founding 'farms' instead: small, fully irrigated towns whose only purpose (at this point in the game) is to run Specialists (Scientists for preference), who eat the excess food produced by the mass-irrigation. Farm-towns would build few or no buildings (at this point); rather, they would use their 1-shield-per-turn to spin out the occasional bombard-unit, Settler or Worker (depending on their regrowth potential and/or your anticipated needs).

Later on (if you want to), you can shrink some of your less useful 'early-core' cities by building Workers/Settlers out of them, to free up the tiles they were using in favour of any adjacent, Hospital-ised, permanent 'late-core' towns. The newly built Workers/Settlers form the shrinking towns can pump those newly instated Metropolises up to max.-size a lot quicker than they would have grown naturally, and by reducing the number of towns near your capital, you also reduce the 'rank-corruption' of your more outlying towns, making them more productive — so the limits of your 'late core' now extend further away from your capital than those of your 'early core' did, possibly into territory previously only useful as farmland.

I did get Monotheism free. Is this determined randomly each game, or is it preset for each civilization like starting techs?

It's random, but will always be one of the first-tier techs of the new era, if you do nothing special to change that.

Spoiler High-level trickery :

However, if you are at or near the tech-lead at the end of an era, there is trick (which I admit I've never really got to work effectively) where, on the turn when you discover your last obligatory tech, you use "What's the big picture?" on the era-change screen to navigate to your Advisors. Tell your Foreign Advisor to contact the (other) Scientific Civs on the map, and sell (or gift) them sufficient (i.e. obligatory) techs to bring them into the new era as well, making their new-era freebies available for you to buy. Hold back any optionals for now to use as additional bargaining chips. During negotiations for purchasing the freebie(s), you may need/want to (click on the Foregin Advisor then) tell your Domestic Advisor to zero your SCI%/LUX% sliders (to be able to offer gold-per-turn). If you're very lucky/skillful, you may then be able to buy/trade their freebie techs, brokering the techs around between them so that you acquire all the 1st-tier techs before you get awarded your own freebie — which will then be a second-tier tech!

So e.g. coming into the Middle Age, if Sci-CivA got Mono, and CivB got Feud, and Civ3 got Engineering (ideal outcome, not guaranteed), you might be able to buy Feud from CivB (maybe using Republic or Lit if you have it and they don't), trade it with CivA for Mono, and then trade Mono + Feud to CivC for Engineering; your freebie might then be Chivalry, Invention or Theology.

Looking back, I believe that I should have researched Chivalry before Gunpowder.

Depends... Both Chiv and MilTrad are optionals, but if your UU does not need Chiv, then Cavalry are (much) better attackers than Knights, and you need Invention (Longbows, Trebs), Gunpowder (Muskets) and Metallurgy (Cannon — or Hwach'a for Korea) to get to MilTrad, which should allow you to defend yourself from the AI's incursions in the meantime, before sending your Cavs on the warpath in the late Medieval/early Industrial.

I've already done this 4 times this game and I'm sure everyone knows that I'm an aggressor who cannot be trusted.

Yup, they do...

Here, Temujin makes an unexpected move and drops some Longbowmen outside Pusan - my most weakly defended city.

This should not be unexpected. The AI knows exactly where all your units are at all times, so it will always send its units (incuding naval invasions) towards for your most weakly defended town(s).

You can turn this to your advantage, by keeping one (inland) town ungarrisoned, but with a stack of attackers adjacent to that town (preferably on a high-defense-bonus tile — e.g. the Mountain outside Pusan! — to prevent the AI from landing there), to kill off the AI's units as soon as they land. At Regent and in the early game at higher levels, the AI will rarely drop off more than a couple of units at a time, so 4-5 attackers (and possibly also bombardiers, depending on what units/resources you and the enemy AI currently have available) should be sufficient.

Not wanting to lose the city, I decide to make an offer for peace.

Fair enough.

I got this technology because I want to try out my unique unit, the Hwacha.

Hwach'a have lethal land bombardment (unlike Cannon), but their bombard-strength, range and firing-rate are the same (B=8, R=1, F=1), i.e. they can only remove a maximum of 1 HP per unit per shot.

This means that you can only get a Golden Age from a Hwach'a by successfully bombing an already redlined enemy (to get the kill) — so you either have to find an opportune moment to use a lone Hwach'a, or you have to build a large enough stack of them (guarded by some Pikes — or preferably Muskets — to prevent the Hwach'a from getting destroyed by a fast-attacker) to be able to completely redline everything in an enemy unit-stack by bombardment before you've fired all your Hwach'a.

Ironically, that also means that for the Koreans, building (or capturing) the right combination of Wonders is a far more 'practical/reliable' way of getting a GA than using Hwach'a, but the timing of that GA may then be less optimal. Ideally, you want a GA in the early/mid Medieval Age, when you want to build lots of relatively expensive units (for a Dom/Conq game), or improvements like Ducts, Markets and Universities (for a Diplo/Space game) quickly, at a time when units/improvements get more expensive, but shields are still relatively scarce. The Colossus (COMM) is a great early Wonder to have in any game, if you can get it (and Korea starts with BronzeWorking), but the only early SCI-Wonders that Korea can combine with it are Mausoleum (Philo) or GLib (Literature), which may result in an earlier GA than wanted — but otherwise WangKon must wait until Newtons (TheoryOfGravity), which may be rather late. But going for MoM/GLib first, then trying for Magellans (Navi) or Smiths (Economics), means a later GA as well. Another possibility for the Koreans (if they can persuade a neighbouring AI-Civ(s) to co-operate!) is to let that neighour(s) build Colossus and MoM or GLib, then capture that town(s) (won't give the GA immediately) and then build any early Medieval Wonder (e.g. Leos or SunTzu) of their own.

This is nice to have! I hope that it's worth the expense of building.

Well, [Heroic Epic] gives you a greater likelihood of spawning MGLs from elite-victories (providing you don't already have one in stock!). And that means moooooar Armies!

And I want to get started on the Military Academy as soon as possible - I've witnessed how powerful Armies are, and wan to build more.

Prior to Industrialisation, the main value of the Military Academy is the boost it gives to your existing Armies, rather than the ability to build new ones.

Remember that 3-Mace Army I talked about earlier? The A/D/M stats I gave there were for the Army without the MilAcad. With it, the Mace Army's effective A/D/M stats increase from 6/4.5/2 to 7/5.25/2. The improvement to a 3-Cav Army is proportionally better: without MilAcad these have A/D/M = 9/4.5/4; with it, they have 10.5/5.25/4. And then you build the Pentagon, and add another unit to each of your Armies...

Toledo falls before I can defeat the horde of spearmen she is marching towards me.

If she's sending Spears (and Archers/LBMs?) and Conquistadores at you, that means she has no Iron, so you should be able to fight her off with little bother...

Conqistadores can be a pain, though: they have M=2 but 'All terrain as roads' which means they can move 6 tiles per turn, regardless of underlying terrain-type. So you should kill them as soon as you see them, otherwise they will run deep into your territory and pillage all your resource-tiles.

I revise my strategy slightly and consider going for Economics to build a wonder.

See above. Smiths is a great Wonder for a COMM-Civ, since it will complete half the GA requirement, and if you've built lots of Markets and Harbours (and Banks and StockExes), it will pay the maintenance on all of them, which can save you a lot of cash.

You could have set an Army as a temporary shield-bank for Smiths, while you researched Economics, which would almost certainly have got you a lock on it at Regent.

I see that building an Army to replace the one I lost will take 22 turns, not counting the cost of putting units inside. Ouch - that's costly.

Yes. Once you've railed+mined the tiles round a Pop20 Metro though, you'll easily be able to build Industrial (Cav or Tank) Armies in only a couple of turns.

Being able to build new Armies from scratch, does also give you a useful Wonder or Spaceship-component prebuild (see above).

With my military depleted and the feeling that I cannot hold Barcelona for long, I take a very generous peace settlement from Isabella.

Not that generous. Those 2 techs are both optionals, and PrintingPress gives nothing 'useful' (on a Standard-size map, some early Curragh- or Galley-exploration usually makes the 'new' ability to trade comms pretty redundant, sicne you will likely have met everyone by then). And MusicTheory is only useful for Bachs, which you don't really need if you have a decent Lux-supply plus Markets.

Wouldn't Izzy give up Astro? That's a mandatory tech, which is significantly more useful in a longer game (which this one is shaping up to be, since you are now in the early Industrial with only one AI-Civ defeated — by you — so far).

Not good - the Dutch are the clear forerunners out of the four remaining AIs,

Agricultural Civs generally do well, even when (mis)managed by the AI. I'd guess the Sumerians and Celts must have had really poor start-positions, to be knocked out of your game so early.

I attempted to build Smith's Trading Company, pouring many hammers into it only to realize that my forest-chops weren't contributing. So I changed over to Army to accumulate the shields, intending to change back. That was when I realized that it wasn't possible - the no-rushing rule is stringent enough to catch that. Oops!

Ouch. Yes, (unlike in Civ4) you can't rush Wonders with forest-chops in Civ3, and rushing any shields in any way (chopping, unit-disbands, cash-/whip-rushing) on any (pre)build, will prevent you from switching that build to a Wonder later on. So you also need to be really careful about chopping near a town (pre)building a Wonder, to avoid accidentally tainting that (pre)build.

Once you have ReplaceableParts, CivilEngineer Specialists can help build all Wonders, but as long as a (core) city's population is less than the number of tiles available to that city to work, then working tiles to harvest raw shields (and multiplying those shields using Factories and Power-plants) is likely a better use of your citizens than converting them to CivEngs. And even once you have more population than tiles avilable to work, Policemen [Nationalism] to decorrupt raw shield output may still be preferable to CivEngs.