Regarding peaceful victories

[Walliard]

Okay, so I've been playing Civ 3 for a few months now. I mostly understand early expansion and warfare, at least to the point where I can pull off a conquest/domination victory at Regent. I've since moved up to Monarch, but that's not the point.

In my last Regent game, I decided to try for a 20K culture victory, since I knew that would take a lot of advance planning. Right now it's 1610 AD. I just fought a successful war and I now control about half the continent (25% of world landmass). While I'm in no position to conquer the world, it's safe to say I'm powerful enough to resist any one rival's invasion attempts. Babylon(the city) will be hitting 20K before the game ends, so I'll win provided no one launches the spaceship or builds the U.N. However, it will still take nearly a hundred turns, so that leaves me with a simple question:

What do I do until then? Should I build wealth? Continue conquering other civs? Or is this just a result of me playing on too easy a difficulty level, or with the civ best suited to this sort of victory?

I've attached the save file to give an example of what I'm talking about, but I've mostly abandoned that game and am just looking for some general advice about this type of situation.

On a different note, how practical is a "peaceful domination" victory - never declaring war, but rather controlling the prerequisite 66% through expansion, culture flips, and propaganda?

 

[Jokeslayer]

What do I do until then? Should I build wealth? Continue conquering other civs? Or is this just a result of me playing on too easy a difficulty level, or with the civ best suited to this sort of victory?

Without looking at the save: do you think anyone is likely to get to the space ship before you win? (seems unlikely on regent to me) Are you likely to get the UN first?

If both are yes, it probably doesn't matter much what you do. Keep a military in case someone comes after you, but generally don't worry. You can just press enter a hundred times if you want.

On a different note, how practical is a "peaceful domination" victory - never declaring war, but rather controlling the prerequisite 66% through expansion, culture flips, and propaganda?

There's a game somewhere in the stories and tales where somebody did it without building any military (on either warlord or chieftain - not sure which).

I think it would depend on the map type as to how easy it is. Arch and continents are probably very difficult (how would you get a foothold off your homeland? The only way I can think of is to have settlers wait offshore for someone else to destroy or capture a city and then grab the land.) Pangaea should be very doable though (not sure how close you would come to a 100K win first).

 

[WackenOpenAir]

We usually keep ourselves busy trying everything to reach and maintain 4 turn research or as close to it as we can, thats pretty much the fun of research games

 

[vmxa]

I would expect it to be very hard to flip many towns to gain 66%. Now if you mean only you do not declare, but can smash them when they declare, then no problem.

 

[vmxa]

Walliard, for what is worth, I really would not make those peace deals. No way would I give 2 lux to anyone, especially the next best two teching civs.

You even gave them coal, a real no no in my book. The best way to get peace is to crush them. You should increase your man power before now.

I also wonder why you selected tech other than AT and Elec with ToE. Those are very expensive techs.

You should consider not making units in place with 1 or 2 net shields, that is a waste in a game like this one. Some cities could be turn into science farms.
Gandasetaigon could take two off those hills and become beakerheads and I am sure many other places as well. In fact I do not understand why those hills were mines and railed. There is no value in shields in that cities, so you just wasted worker turns.

Irrigate some of the tiles to get more food to free up more pop.

 

[Walliard]

Like I said, I wasn't looking for specific advice on that situation, just posting it as an example.

Anyway, it's done. 100 new turns with no ill effects, aside from incradibly laggy IBT.

 

[eldar]

In a 20K game, all they key techs/wonders are pre-Industrial. So I tend not to bother with 4-turn research after I get Shakespeare's (though by that point I can usually 4-turn the rest of the medievals anyway).

Instead I go at the max rate that gives me a gold surplus.

What I do with those 100 or so turns... build military. Go whack stuff. Grab luxes and resources. Build nukes and use 'em.... The end phase of a 20K game is about freedom of expression in my book, there's no pressure on making friends or micro-managing a vast ICS'd empire to squeeze out every last beaker.

 

[PaperBeetle]

In a 20K game, all they key techs/wonders are pre-Industrial. So I tend not to bother with 4-turn research after I get Shakespeare's (though by that point I can usually 4-turn the rest of the medievals anyway).

Instead I go at the max rate that gives me a gold surplus.

Well if playing for date, you should definitely keep the research pace hot as far as Sanitation (in PtW) and Industry. It is true that the medieval era has all the best wonders, but to get them built fast and in the right place, you need to get that town up to size 20, railed and factoried as soon as possible. On a 20k run, I would expect to grab only Copernicus, Shakespeare and Newton (probably in that order) whilst in the medieval itself, then turn around when I get the city powered up, and try to grab Michelangelo and Bach, and Leonardo if I'm lucky.
Though of course you are right that the shining magnificence of your 20k town is probably enough to keep the research flowing into the industrial. I guess I would treat it differently to a research game inasmuch as I would not gift up any SCI civs who had any decent towns left, or knew people that did.

 

[fishjie]

i just finished a whole bunch of 20k monarchs. once ive railed my cities, i automate all workers, have governor manage all the moods, switch to communism (from republic), conquer the rest of the continent, queue up my cities to make stuff, with the last thing being wealth, and hit end turn a bunch of times. the ONLY city i micro is my 20k city. once you have the whole continent, you are invincible, since the ai cant launch a naval invasion to save its life. SCREW MICRO at that point, I HATE MICRO!

win.

and a lot of guys will say governor sucks and automated workers suck, but this is monarch. by industrial age my lead on monarch is so dominant is hardly matters. that and its HIDEOUSLY TEDIOUS to micro all the cities on an entire continent. i'm sure i could win earlier (my best win was 1850 as india) if i did micro and shaved off research turns, but whatever.