*Spoiler1* Gotm18-Celts - Full World Map

[LKendter]

Originally posted by cracker
Lest we have too much distortion of perspective here, you should remember that large sections of these maps are randomly generated by the Internal Civ3 engine. On this map, luxury placement was controlled by the Civ3 map generator with the exception of one terrain type and the exact proximity to the human start position. This was not done to "torture" you but was part of the big picture game sequence if you look at where we have been in the past three months and then look forward to where we will be going in the next three months.

You don't want all the games to be the same do you? or maybe you do?

I do believe you that most of the luxuries where computer generated. It blows my mind that the luxuries and resources worked out so well for the AI without much help. I have been very frustrated in the resource / luxury part of this game and that is why I may have used to strong a word with "contrived". My apologies if it came of wrong.

However, in the 75+ games of this I have played I have never had excess iron, saltpeter, dyes, wines and coal with almost no one to sell it to. The world stayed 100% peaceful until I started forcing wars around 1000AD. Without any trading material, it is been very difficult to do much to work the AI except giving up precious cash.

Although I don't want it " all the games to be the same", I don't want to be embarrassed with another disastrous score like gotm17 and falling way below my average ranking.

 

[civjunkie4ever]

I played all the way through to domination victory without a single flip. Normally about 1 in 4 captured cities will flip back on me. I chalked it up to playing on an "easier" level and having the lead in culture most of the game with cheap temples. But it was still unusual enough to warrant determining if in fact all PTW players had culture flip turned off.

I've never had a game where I captured so many cities and never had a single one flip on me. Regardless of how strong my culture was relatively to the AIs.

 

[LKendter]

So far, even with heavy resitor cities, I haven't had a flip back.

I also had some cities under severe cultural press, and nothing has happened.

 

[col]

I'm playing a culture game and I've had several flips so its definitely turned on!

 

[a space oddity]

Well, Greg you do seem to have a point here. It is possible that it option is turned off in the PTW save. Even moderators and GOTM staff are human.

 

[a space oddity]

@col: Are you playing the PTW version?

 

[col]

No - vanilla 1.29. So it could be different in the ptw version.

 

[jack merchant]

In PTW, the AI's are smarter at reducing the chances of cities flipping to you, so it's not so strange that PTW players should see less flips.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

M, as seen from my first response in this thread I've had cities flip to me too.
But I'm afraid I too play vanilla Civ and thus can't shed light on the PTW culture flip mystery. Would really like to see how this works though...

 

[jack merchant]

I encountered the formula for flipping a few times, and copied this from a post by Sulla (apologies if this has been posted here before):

There are number of factors that influence culture flipping, including foreign nationals, foreign control of city tiles, relative distance of capitals, relative overall civ cultures, whether the city has any resistors, whether the city is in disorder, whether the city is in WLTKD, and so on. But as far as I can recall, the only way to completely suppress a culture flip is to count up the foreign nationals, count up the tiles controlled by the foreign civ, add them together and double the number. The other factors just make the flip more or less likely when a chance for one exists.

the full formula (this is from Sorenson, who is responsible for this programming):

P=[(F+T)*Cc*H*(Cte/Cty) - G]/D

where:
P = probability that it will flip this turn
F = # foreigners, with resistors counting double
T = # working tiles under foreign control
Cc = 2 if foreign civ has more local culture than you, 1 otherwise
H = .5 for WLTKD, 2 for disorder, 1 otherwise
Cte = Total culture of the foreign civ
Cty = Total culture of your civ
G = # garrison units
D = factor based on relative distance to capitals

Now reorganizing this gives the required garrison as:
G = (F+T)*Cc*H*(Cte/Cty)

As you can see there is a nice set of extra factors there. Now when you take a city Cc is likely to be 2 for a long while. And then there is the culture ratio. And this is a true ratio so it could be 1.1:1, 2:1, 5:1 depending on how much culture each of you has

The national culture factor is probably the reason why some seem to have no problem with culture flips and others do. Since if you have strong national culture, this value might be approaching 1/2, which can keep the garrison down at a 1:1 ratio. However, if conversely the AI civ in question has double your culture, you are going to need 4 units for every foreigner and tile to prevent a flip.

Now, what has happened is that the AI in PTW has gotten smarter at using this formula, for example by increasing garrison sizes in cities under cultural pressure or rushing temples there, thus lowering the likelihood of AI cities flipping to you. However, the odds of cities flipping the other way are - at least in this particular game - in the early game reduced by the fact that the Celts are religious, and most everyone probably has built higher culture than their non-religious neighbours (only Greece being a cultural threat with its cheap libraries).

 

[Pikachu]

This game started very peacefully for me. I managed to build 6 cities with potential to become very productive around my capital. Afterwards I build 4 more cities before there was no more land to settle. I build barracks and temples in all my cities. My civilization quickly became the most cultivated in the world, so I decided to keep it that way and ordered libraries to be build in all my cities as well. Then I needed marketplaces, and finally I could build my armed forces.

After I got monarchy I used all my money to rush buildings. This made my civilization extremely backwards, but the Great Library should fix that problem. Unfortunately Carthage built it first

 

[el_kalkylus]

I experimented a little to see what I did wrong in the beginning of the game. Since this is a pangea map, you should meet civilizations early.

I started by founding the city on the start position and moved the worker to the hill (like I did in my last game). I then immediately built two archers. My first archer headed out west (like last game, but with warrior) and later saw neoCarthage and could trade techs. My second archer also went west to join my other archer. I then attacked and captured Carthage succesfully with two archers, gaining 3 eqworkers. NeoCarthage destroyed. The eqworkers built roads to connect my cities. One archer then continued west and the other moved around Carthage. The other archer found a hut and was immediately destroyed by barbs. The other archer found Paris and captured Paris along with 2 eqworkers. In the peace negotiations 5 turns later I was given Iron Working and 81 gold.

Here is a map of my test game:

Talk about an almost perfect start. The annoyed civilizations that were going near my territory were given techs to be polite (and speed up the world tech race). The barbs from the hut destroyed a road, and my capital was in disorder a few times, but this was a test game so I played it fast.

I played two test games before this, and tried to attack neoCarthage, but they always managed to build SpartanHoplites one turn after war, so I figured the best thing to do would be to start building archers from the start and neglect exploring. I don't know if moving into another civs territory makes them build a defense unit really fast or what it is. It feels like the AI is cheating.

The Iroquois, Greek and Romans would meet me later without exploring. Attacking neoCarthage with warriors would be hard since they always have a fortified veteran warrior on a hill (1.75 defender strength). So I can't build a warrior before building archer if I want to take out a civ early.

el_kalkylus,
Be careful to not do too much of this type of thing because it clearly relies on foreknowledge of the map and begins to have little or nothing to do with the "real game". In many cases, these foreknowledge and replay decisions are detectable within the game and may not actually lead you to develop the strongest long-term play skills. What you are demonstrating here is not "the perfect start" but how exploitive it can be to have foreknowledge of exactly where the rival civs are located without requiring you to develop this knowledge through some form of organized exploration. Going too far in this direction begins to be an Off-topic sort of thing that just would not occur as part of the real game. - cracker

 

[Phaedria]

I dont think I could heve played worse if I had tried! I am looking at this spoiler having failed to visualise the whole map. failed to discover monotheism and wiped off the map by the Japanese! Oh well everybody can study my game as an example of how NOT to do it!! Im going to play again now - using the tips I have picked up in this thread and see If I can do any better Incidentally th GOTM 16 which I only managed to download after submissions were closed seemed much easier than this - I did much better anyhow !!

 

[Bamspeedy]

I don't know if moving into another civs territory makes them build a defense unit really fast or what it is. It feels like the AI is cheating.

The AI likes to pop-rush a defensive unit whenever they are threatened. I like to keep an eye on the city's population and once it drops to 1 (from building a settler), then attack. They could of course, add a worker (or the settler) back into their city to pop-rush, but you can minimize the chances of them doing this.

I got to a pretty good start. I had 3 slaves by 3100 B.C.

 

[el_kalkylus]

Cracker, I see your point. It means I can never replay a game. But I still like the idea of early archer on a pangea map.

Bamspeedy, that would explain it. Thanks. Never thought about poprushing. I usually never use it.

 

[Shillen]

I finished my milked game, so I decided I'd play again and try for a face tech game. I haven't gotten much practice with fast tech games in a while. I didn't attack any civ's real early so I didn't abuse the foreknowledge of the map. I did send my exploring warriors straight for the other civ's though so I did get contact a little earlier, which helped trade a little bit, but not much. I had my first war with Rome in about 600BC and captured 4 of their cities including Rome. I built my FP west of Entremont near Carthage in 190BC, then I jumped my palace to Rome in 130BC. I took out all of Carthage except 3 tundra/mountain cities in around 50BC. In 10BC I learned my second middle age tech.

 

[Smirk]

Originally posted by el_kalkylus
Bamspeedy, that would explain it. Thanks. Never thought about poprushing. I usually never use it.

Thats definately whats going on, its annoying for long term reasons too, when you capture the town any past oppression is now your oppression. IMO this is a bug, but its been there since the original version. So prevent it by following Bamspeedy's advice.

I attacked Carthage early with warriors, I was reasonably sure they didn't have their UU (to rush that is, I of course didn't see any) and of course was a little lucky. This was purely opertunistic, I hadn't planned on doing that until I saw their workers.
By the time you get archers (unless you start with them) you'll need a more organized attack. The rush only works when done quickly. Had this been a game without a civ with a swordman UU, I would have done some archer wars since everyone was nearby. I'll be doing this without a doubt once gotm reaches the Vikings. :>

 

[ButSam]

I just acquired PTW...it looks like I am meeting with some stragenesses when playing the regular Civ3 and using that save. Anyway, in fairness to all, I will not submit a game at all, but I'll get the PTW version of the save and start again, trying out some of the new tips I got from you cool people Of course, that game cannot be legally submitted, but will still be a learning experience. This way I don't have as many distractions from finals either...lol

I am liking what I see from PTW so far! Keep up the good work GOTM crew!

Sam

 

[Ribannah]

In 300ad, I finally feel qualified to post in this thread.
We can see the multitude of Barbarian (Pict) camps, thanks to English explorers. In fact, we had sent a unit the long way around to explore, but last turn the elite Gallic Swordsman, fortified on a mountain, was killed by a sole conscript Horseman. The Horseman didn't even have a scratch.

This despite our possession of The Great Wall.

The very next turn, we would receive our second Mediaeval tech. So the timeframe for this spoiler thread is very narrow!

To compensate for the relatively poor starting position, we sent early harassing forces west and east/south. This proved to be an excellent gambit!

Our Warrior in the south found Rome and captured 4 Workers, killing two Roman Warriors in the process, and then continued to make contact with the Iroquois and England.

The Archer we sent to the west fared even better. Carthage was quickly discovered. They had Bronze Working, but hadn't built any Mercenaries yet, so we attacked and seized their one city! Five slaves, one rival eliminated, and an excellent location for the later Forbidden Palace was the result.

Our now elite Archer continued west, found Ivory, bypassed a hut (better have a civ with scouts pop them and maybe get a tech for us!), rounded the lake and made contact with France. Despite a good location for their capital - and they already had founded Orleans, too - the French were hopelessly backward and again this was a civ with only Warriors for their defence.

Five turns later, France was no more.

All this early action left me with an empire where the sun always shines, ie hopelessly streched from west to east.
But with slaves aplenty the long and winding road to connect them all was a matter of time, a task almost completed by the
end of the QSC date.

Meanwhile, my building strategy included the Pyramids, which was completed by Entremont in 1025 BC.
Luxuries were hard to come by but by 1000 BC we had 3 of them: Wines, Gems and Ivory.

Map in 1000BC

Preparations for things to come continued with the empire's switch to Republic in 650 BC, and the completion of the Forbidden Palace by Carthage in 550BC. By then Iron (near Paris), Horses (near Carthage), Dyes (near Greece) and Incense (in the far west) had already been connected. Our cities were growing and started on the production of the Celtic UU, the Gallic Swordsman.

In 490 BC, the time was right and we attacked and destroyed the Roman city of Pisae, starting our Golden Age! We were all set to deal with the AI's one after another, especially when Vincingetorix appeared and built the Great Library.

Unfortunately, the Aztecs had other plans and sneak-attacked 3 turns later, destroying our Ivory connection (it took me quite a while to realize this, since the joy over the new war compensated the luxury lost! But it was finally hooked up again 18 turns later .... I really wish the game would give a message in such a case!)

We turned to their neighbours for help and got Japan, Greece and China in on our side. The first two sent very little aid, but China did a great job and continued keeping the Aztecs in check long after the alliance expired.

Yet the need to fight on two fronts hindered our attack on the Romans. Orgetorix emerged to construct the Colossus in our only coastal city, Furs (tundra town) were connected, we entered the Middle Ages in 250 BC and still our Gallic Swordsmen could not make a lot of progress.

In 210 BC we finally managed to converge on Rome, and take the capital. After that the war was virtually won, and we had no trouble taking the remaining Roman cities.

In 150 BC, we aquired our first Mediaeval tech from the Great Library: Monotheism.

Map in 150BC

We continued to nurse the Romans for elites, making sure we conquered towns instead of destroying them (they had no culture at all) and Cunobelius emerged to make our first Army. The Great Wall was finished by productive Alesia (why not), and finally in 130 BC Rome was gone.

We immediately regrouped to deal with the Iroquois next. They had had an excellent start, but soon ran out of land. With the use of the Army of Cunobelius (3 Gallic Swordsmen), the Iroquois capital was quickly taken ....

Map in 300AD

-----
Edit: Forgot to mention, Carthage finished the Hanging Gardens for us in 250 AD, then started on the Heroic Epic (due in 330 AD).

 

[Moonsinger]

After reading Ribannah, and those who had eliminated other civs early, I can't help but wondering if I had made a big mistake in my openning move. The only early war I had was with Greece. I captured two Greek workers, but I also lost two brave warriors in the following turn. Therefore, I didn't gain nothing from that war. By 1000BC, I had only 6 little towns and a few temples.