Qsc17-Carthage - Results & Strategy

[GenMarshall]

Hmm, these QSC Timelines is making me want to return to the GOTM Community (I have only played 2 but I never submited them since they were incompleate )

 

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by jeffelammar
Quick question for some of you.

Several of you moved the settler south, and the worker se onto the BG on the first turn.

I saw that in alexman's case it was pure luck. For the rest of you, I would really like to know the reasoning that caused you to move south without first scouting the mountain with your worker.

TIA

The edges of the floodplain tiles were visible with some effort, so there was no real need to scout first. The wheat was a nice bonus, but knowledge whether there was any (of course I was hoping there was) would have had no influence on my decision.

Even if there weren't any floodplains, moving south would be good as it
- kept the shielded grasslands within range
- cleared one jungle tile
- moved away from four jungle tiles with good hope of getting closer to better land (also because it was a move away from the equator)
- moved to the other bank of the river, so settling more towns on the expected good land there would go faster
- left on the starting position a nice hill to be mined later on.

So luck didn't have anything to do with it.

 

[TedJackson]

Cracker,

I just noticed that I haven't been credited for researching currency (>615 pts)

Also the downloadable score table is incomplete. Only 76 entries are shown.


regards Ted

 

[Txurce]

I built on the east coast, and agree with Ribannah that this alone wouldn't consign a player to 70th place, which is where I ended up. In my ignorance, I was perfectly happy with my seven cities - six on the coasts, one in the center - six warriors and four workers. I can already see that I didn't fully exploit the southern floodplains - Utica is west of the floodplain river, Carthage on the coast, with nothing in between. I made this choice with the goal of maximizing my limited territory, but it seems obvious now that, even with Carthage on the coast, I should have had at least two cities benefiting from those floodplains.

I made other errors later on, like not looking for Egypt because I mistakenly thought clearing the fog was essential, and waiting too long for a GL before building a FP. My goal was to reach space with no corrupt expansion, and I launched in 1804 while purposely controlling only the home archipelago and one coal resource. This tells me my game is most lacking in the QSC, and I look forward to improving by reviewing all of the research provided, including SirPleb's timeline. (Since I play on a Mac, I can't yet open most of the game saves.)

 

[planetfall]

Originally posted by TedJackson
You might want to start with these two (both from the War academy):

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3acad_deity_settlers.shtml

http://www.civfanatics.com/doc/civ3/cracker/civ3_starts/

Reading (& re-reading these) took me from 40th last month to 15th this month.

regards

Ted

Thanks, it definitely looks like it is time to re-read these again.

-- PF

 

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Ribannah

So did I. It depends on your strategy, you could even win the game with only a single city (the One City Challenge).


Planetfall, how many Workers did you have? Someone has to perform those irrigation tasks! And if they build some roads before your next Settler is complete, you can start the new city much faster.

Last time I tried to focus on workers and settlers, I got creamed in techs. This GOTM I tried on purpose to limit workers to see what might happen during the early game.

Edit: I just had a look at your minimap. Why did you found your capital on a bonus grassland? You also have an improductive city in the middle of the large jungle. And it seems you had your workers clear a jungle tile (long and hard labor!) before improving the easier land.

Guess I was only looking at a defensive line. Thank you for highlighting the oversight.

As in any game of strategy, if you want to improve you have to ask yourself: "Why would I do that?" at every single decision.

Good suggestion, I guess I might have to slow down a bit and consider alternatives. Thanks again.

-- PF

 

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Ribannah
/QUOTE]

Hey, you have FULL GOTM logs and not just QSC logs. COOL !!!!

-- FP

 

[planetfall]

Originally posted by SirPleb

for GOTM17, my timeline notes include a description of why I made each move. (As well as detailing each move.) So if you want that level of detail, you could download the timeline notes, then recreate my moves to 1000BC and see why each one was made...

Great!!! I have not reviewed QSC 17 yet.
I would also love to see the same level of detail for QSC 18. I would appreciate it if you could PM me when QSC 18 is finished. I haven't decided if I want to play the full GOTM 18 or just replay QSC several times.

What a great idea, not just replay QSC but replay with asking why move A vs move B.

-- PF

 

[mad-bax]

I moved my settler south purely to save 12 worker turns in developing the jungle. I moved my worker to the BG before this because I use the rule of thumb that you should move your worker to the tile it will work first. Moving the worker here does expose a little more of the map. Moving the worker to the mountain loses 2 worker turns. In the end you can't explore the whole map b4 deciding where to settle. Most of what would be exposed by moving the worker to the mountain would need the settler to move at least two tiles to take advatage of it.

Other than that, in my case getting the wheat in the city radius absolutely was pure luck.

I think that people like Bamspeedy who set science to 100% right from the start will have a good QSC score, but not necessarily a good game in the long run. Without wanting to go off topic, the turning point for me came later by being able to wipe out the Egyptians without triggering my GA. The point being that the way research is weighed in the scoring system favours that style of play. It also helps people who get lucky with huts. I got Barbs and that's OK by me.

 

[Singularity]

@mad-bax
Regarding the huts, I agree with you. In fact I would go to the length of suggesting them removed entirely from GOTM as they can have a huge impact on the game. Getting polyteism for free just after you've learned mysticism is a grotesc example of how an entire game can be made on popping a single hut(Granted it's allmost impossible statistically, but I believe I've read about it somewhere). <Edited out some uncreative remarks.>

However, playing at regent at a start area with many +gold squares defends an aggressive research rate. Getting monarchy as soon as possible and getting navigation ASAP is obviously a game winning formula in a geography like this. Couple this with a palace jump like the one that DaveMcW did, and you have a score pretty close to being theoretically unbeatable.

 

[mad-bax]

Singularity:
I agree with everything you say. I opted to make money rather than research as I wanted the warrior/sword upgrade to kill the Egyptians, so I wouldn't trigger GA in despotism. Good players would be able to get to a higher form of govt so quickly that by the time they took on the Egyptians they would be in a position to benefit from a GA.

High research rate is a better plan than mine.

 

[GenMarshall]

Usualy that is waht I do when I start to slowly slip into Debt. Once I hit the 20g mark (After progressing through the game though ) then I set science to the lowest possible rate that will give me a positive gpt rate.
Normaly at the start of any game I set my science to 100% and build up my population and infrastructure.

Though I have not played a QSC nor the GOTM 17. But I have finished my first QSC and onward to compleating my GOTM and subbmitiong it (THe GOTM 18 will be the first GOTM that I finish and Submit )

 

[Bamspeedy]

Originally posted by mad-bax

I think that people like Bamspeedy who set science to 100% right from the start will have a good QSC score, but not necessarily a good game in the long run. Without wanting to go off topic, the turning point for me came later by being able to wipe out the Egyptians without triggering my GA. The point being that the way research is weighed in the scoring system favours that style of play. It also helps people who get lucky with huts. I got Barbs and that's OK by me.

That depends on how you view it. In this game, you wanted to go with 100% science, because basically you had to research all yourself anyways (no one could really help you) and the faster you researched the sooner you could win. Since DaveMcW got to Navigation some 30+ turns sooner than I did, he was able to start hitting the AI that much sooner, and probably didn't face any pikeman and was probably hitting towns instead of cities, fewer defenders in the towns, etc.. It made for an easier conquest. I didn't have my golden age until after I was in Monarchy (and after the QSC).

If you mean that my city placement would hurt me in the long run, you are right. With ICS, it's mostly about getting a quick power lead. ICS makes more money early in the game, but after awhile falls behind the player who spaces cities further apart when they starts getting libraries built, etc. I believe this starts happening right at the end of the ancient era (after the QSC). When I use ICS, I can go through the ancient era in decent time (if going for max science), but then I struggle in the middle ages, but then start making good money when I get railroads (getting tons of specialists). In hindsight, I know I did build my cities too close. I wanted to break the tie I had with Creepster for the cramus maximus record.

 

[jeffelammar]

Originally posted by Ribannah

So luck didn't have anything to do with it.

I didn't think luck was it in most cases, so that is why I asked the question. Thanks for the answers.

It's funny, because among my friends who play civ3, I seem to be the top player, but when I look at the results here, I realize just how much I have to learn.

 

[GenMarshall]

Usualy it is eather a Lucky RNG or just having the Right RNG at the Right time

(RNG = Random Number Generator)

 

[Timbo Nutski]

congrats to everyone that played - i was too late in starting to submit but tried a game anyway... final QSC 4811 according to the spreadsheet scoring system so that places me halfway. hmmm, methinks i must try hard or maybe think a bit more... i'm sure the thinking will come hardest

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by planetfall
I would also love to see the same level of detail for QSC 18.

Oops, I'm already past that point in GOTM18 and I didn't keep the same level of detail in my notes this time, didn't know till now whether anyone was reading that stuff It is good to know they are of interest - after I finish GOTM18 I'll try to go back and get the notes up to par.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by SirPleb
Oops, I'm already past that point in GOTM18 and I didn't keep the same level of detail in my notes this time, didn't know till now whether anyone was reading that stuff It is good to know they are of interest - after I finish GOTM18 I'll try to go back and get the notes up to par.

The same here, I used to keep a lot of details in my timelines for the first few QSCs, but no one ever read them. So I write less and less everyday. Now, that I'm falling down to the 32th place and probably will end up around the 50th slot in QSC18, no one would really care to read my timeline now.

 

[GenMarshall]

Originally posted by SirPleb

Oops, I'm already past that point in GOTM18 and I didn't keep the same level of detail in my notes this time, didn't know till now whether anyone was reading that stuff It is good to know they are of interest - after I finish GOTM18 I'll try to go back and get the notes up to par.

Back in my SG days, I had little Detail placed in my 10 Turn Timeline. On the QSC 18 I tried to put as much detail in it as much as possible Even if it is repetitive. Hopefully my Timeline and QSC would get a decent slot .

 

[hbdragon88]

I have a lot of detail in my strategy and stuff notes (especially in 17), but it was so mindless that almost all of the sections added in my qsc17 and originally in my first qsc16 were eliminated in this month's qsc18.

I read moonsinger's notes on qsc15 but never studied them in close detail because it was for fun at first - no strategy, 153th out of 155 in the table chart that time.