*SPOILER3* Gotm16-Rome - Radio

[Dragonlord]

I've been reading the posts on this GOTM with interest - it's my first GOTM, and it's turned out to be a lot of fun!
Thanks to Crackers wicked map, I'm in a very interesting situation, which I haven't ever quite encountered before...
Since I first got the complete world map, it's been my goal to conquer all of my continent, then invade the second continent - go for domination or conquest.. OK, so I'm a warmonger... *g
I played a combination builder/conquest game, methodically conquering first the Japanese (couldn't stand against my legions), then the Americans (wimps, no match for my knights), finally slugging it out with the Germans, who put up a good but foredoomed fight with Riflemen and a few Infantry (I cut off their Rubber early, *harhar) against my cavalry armies. I got quite a few GLs over the ages, but mostly at the wrong times, so I spent most of them on armies, which I saved till Cavalry came along.
I did manage to build Suffrage with one, and Hoover Dam with another one, so I thought I was sitting pretty, owning the whole continent, making money and techs hand over fist, mostly by trading with the other civs... I'm near the front with techs, everything fine, right? This is about 1500 AD, I seemed to be right on plan...
But this is where it got interesting.. obviously I was going TOO good for the other AIs (did I mentions I had twice the points of the next civ?). Starting with Greece, one civ after another declared war on me, even though I had trade treaties with all of them! All of a sudden, I had to defend my west coast against dozens of warships, bombarding my improvements and landing troops. On the other side of the map is where it get's really interesting, though:
I colonized the whole Barb Ridge with about 8 or 9 cities - after all, I wanted those Silks and Furs - and here's where I'm REALLY having problems.. Greeks, Indians, Iroquois are all landing massive armies (mostly Infantry with some Cavs and Tanks) on those mountain ridges... not to mention constantly bombarding my Silks...oh well, some of my fighter pilots are getting to be aces already..*g
The problem is (thanks a bunch, Crackerus! *g) that, since I can't build any harbors there, I have no naval presence in that ocean at all - I can bomb the AI ships to the red line, but I can't sink them, so they keep coming - and all those Infantry and Tanks on mountains are the devil to kill. I think I'll have my a** handed to me there!

So, what are my options? Raze all 8 of my cities on Barb Ridge to deny the AI those harbors? Use up all my armies on defense to hold the Ridge? Both options stink...
I hadn't seen this one coming, though it's obvious on hindsight..

Crackerus gave me a really interesting game here!! I think this will become a slugfest to remember!

 

[Karasu]

I must have been quite lucky in my game, as I feared that the AI would land some troops on the Barbs' Strip to backstab me -and I must confess my military presence over there has never been too strong.

However, throughout several millennia of continuous war, there has only been the isolated landing of a single Babylonian Riflemen.
For the rest of the game, the AIs seemed to barely notice the presence of those lands.

It is true that I never fought with more than one at any single time. Still, their behaviour still puzzles me...


Dragonlord,
without being a master at this game, if I were in your position I would go for a massive counterattack. Let the war be fought in their homes...

 

[Bolka]

Heh, that's a pretty bad twist, I was afraid they would attack my ridge cities, but for some obscure reason no civ ever set foot on the ridge... got 3 battleships to go round the world to protect the western mountain coast, but they stand there idle... I bought an airport to make sure I could rush and defend the ridge cities, but never had to use it...


I had an interesting thing happening to me in this game though.
I let an english and a greek city live at the southern end of my continent. Every time the germans would go to war with either of these civs, a stream of german units would start flowing from north to south through my country, to go and hit these single small cities. I found that annoying and possibly dangerous. Now since both southern ends of the starting continent have to be reached through a bottlneck, they can be shut with a single unit (in my case, due to city placement). When this happens, the german units would flow back to their homes.

 

[el_kalkylus]

One horrible experience during this era for me was the government change from monarchy to democracy. When the germans had only a few cities left, my people went into anarchy for a while. When I switched to democracy, almost ALL citizens were unhappy. I had to contact governors to maintain their happiness. Of course, they starved my people until the germans were destroyed completely. This took at least 10 turns (at least it felt like 10 turns.) Then I started to dominate research for real.

 

[Dragonlord]

Originally posted by Karasu

Dragonlord,
without being a master at this game, if I were in your position I would go for a massive counterattack. Let the war be fought in their homes...

That's what I'm trying for - my amphibious (God, how do you spell that?!?) force is already steaming towards a couple of isolated Greek cities on the east coast of the other continent...loaded with Marines and a couple Infantry. I plan to take one or both of those cities with my Marines and massively reinforce, before the Greeks can bring their armies across the continent - and back from Barb Ridge.. From then on, it's total war! :ripper:
I just hope I can hold out another couple turns on Barb Ridge, till my strategy takes effect..
I'm dying to see how that works out this evening - stuck at work now...dreaming of Civ3 (I think I've got it bad!

 

[z0dd]

My game can be summed as early bad luck, a good comeback mid-game, and yet another Diplomatic loss.

I'm not sure what happened, but early on in the game all the Civs met each other and were unwilling to trade me anything. I couldn't get them to trade me one tech, any resources, and not even a single contact.

If that wasn't bad enough, I was within 5 turns of completing 6 different wonders when other Civs built them before I did, causing me to lose all my Wonder production, ... 6 TIMES!!! Grrr!

Added to that, I didn't get one leader after winning well over 500 battles with elite units. At one point I think I had about 75 elite Legionairres.

Early in the game I found the Barbarian middle continent and thought that it may be the only area with late game resources (oil, rubber et..). I settled some cities and let the barbs train my Legionairre force up to elite status.

At this point, I was behind on tech and no one was willing to trade with me. A window opened when the Americans and Germans attacked Japan. Roman elite Legionairres took over most of Japan, knocking them out of the game.

At this point I was behind about 15 tech advances but had a great infrastructure. My research was netting me a new tech every 3-4 turns and I was nearly caught up when Germany won a Diplomatic victory. Grrr!

Pics:
http://home.adelphia.net/~z0dd/gotm/

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Side notes....

(1)
There should be a poll to see if people want to see the text labels renamed (Library -> Bibli...) in future games. I wasn't fond of the label renaming in GOTM 16. For me, it felt like was an unncessary chore to relearn all the labels.

(2)
I feel the diplomatic option takes away from late game comebacks. In every game I've played where I've been behind, the result has been a diplomatic victory, not allowing for end game comebacks. For fear of diplomatic victory, you can't plot a late game (1700AD+) comeback. It's even worse in all human mp games.

(3)
I can't wait for GoTM to move to PTW. The extra features in PTW make the game less painful to play. It's been difficult using PTW features then going back to regular Civ3. The two biggest are bringing up the Civilopedia from the City build queue menu, and option to set workers to "Auto, this city, don't change current".

 

[IronKnight]

The continuing adventures of the IronKnight…
My Industrial Age period was very peaceful…except for the Barb Island.
Can’t remember which year I entered the Industrial Age, but I learned/paid for Industrialization in 1050 AD
I’ve started colonizing the Barb Island and have built towns in the south near the gems, and in the central region near the dyes. Germany has started to colonize the northern end. None of the other continent has landed here, although Greece & the Iroquois have cultural control over parts of the eastern coast.
1110 AD – I complete the Iron works in Pompei. I don’t get the opportunity to build this wonder very often, so it was a joy to have the chance this time.
1120 – On the 2nd continent the French city of Besancon, which I had captured at the end of the middle ages flips back to France. That leaves me with only York and their incense on that continent
1310 – The Russians destroy the Aztecs. This was a fairly significant achievement because Russia had been mediocre in size when I made first contact, and the Aztecs were a fairly large CIV. When I first met the other continent in 280 AD the Iroquois were the leading CIV over there, followed by the Greeks & then the Aztecs. The Russians, French, English & Indians were mediocre, while the Babylonians were puny. I believe that Russia had been at war with the Aztecs since 650 AD. Greece and Germany continue to be strong. I can count on both of them to be helpful in purchasing tech, although Germany is typically annoyed with me.
1335 – Complete Wall Street in Kyoto. Kyoto has become the 2nd leading production city in the Roman Empire, behind only Veii.
1425 – Edo flips to the Americans. This was a crushing blow to me! I had been trying to catch up in culture. Losing Edo also meant I lost my only source of Rubber! I contemplate war with America, but I had been trying to see if I could proceed peacefully. I quickly contact the other CIVS and end up trading Amphibious War to France for Rubber. War is averted and I can continue to produce Infantry.
That’s about it for the Industrial Age. They were very peaceful for Rome.

 

[PattonTwo]

Originally posted by z0dd
I didn't get one leader after winning well over 500 battles with elite units. At one point I think I had about 75 elite Legionairres.

I seem to have some games where GLs come every 16 elite victories, and then other games where I never get one. I've never had 500 elite victories without a GL though!

How do you get 500 victories, but have taken over only Japan? Do you use some kind of a limited war to get GLs approach?

 

[z0dd]

Originally posted by PattonTwo


I seem to have some games where GLs come every 16 elite victories, and then other games where I never get one. I've never had 500 elite victories without a GL though!

How do you get 500 victories, but have taken over only Japan? Do you use some kind of a limited war to get GLs approach?

Most of my battles were won vs the barbarians. It could be that GLs aren't awarded from combat with barbarians. I set up a situation where elite legionairres were contstantly attacked by, and attacking, hordes of barbarians coming from a fog area that had a barb city nearby. I purposely didn't destroy the barb city or clear the fog so I could both train my troops and hopefully get some GLs. My troops were trained, which helped me smash Japan, but I didn't recieve any GLs.

The question now is, can you get GLs from fighting barbs? If so, I wasn't very lucky. Do you only get GLs from attacking with elite units? Most of my battles were defending.
:[

 

[cracker]

Z0dd,

This is one reason that I encourage you to play more and read the comments and observations of the experienced players.

Your cries of being deprived of a great leader when you had 500 elite victories, expose us to the knowledge that you do not know that Great Leaders will never be produced in a combat event with barbarians. This is one of the basic knowledge element for production of great leaders and there is no sin in not yet having learned this. Unfortunately, things like this can contribute to some cummulative frustration and dissatisfaction on you part when in reality nothing is wrong, it is just that your expectations are incorrect.

Most of these things will sort out in time if you play the GOTM games and make a strong effort to listen (read) and learn form the experiences of the more knowledgable players. You will not find this base of knowledge about the game and how it workd in any other forum outside of the GOTM.

 

[Karasu]

z0dd,
I am almost positive you can't get GLs from fighting barbarians. Some knowledgeable player will surely confirm (or rectify) this in a short while. EDIT: See, Cracker was faster than me...

But I have made a mistake -you know, I've been working overtime today, it's about 10:30 pm and I still haven't eaten anything. I just finished, so I still have a hope to go home and cook something before dawn, and what do I do? "Let's check the forum one last time...". What an idiot...

Anyway, since I am here I can well throw in a short recap of my Industrial Age...

It all started with my attacking Germany. The moment seemed to be critical at the start, because I had Cavalry but Otto had Riflemen: 6 attack vs 6 defense is not nice on the attacker, as I soon discovered: after turn one of this war (1270 AD), I was preparing myself for a long and painful thing.

For once, things turned out to be a lot better: Otto didn't have any Saltpeter NOR Iron (thanks to my riding ), so the best offensive units he could build were actually Riflemen. And he used them all on the offensive, losing quite badly against my Musketmen.
What a nice surprise... My cavalries (well supported by cannons) made a quick job cleaning the northern part of the continent. Had I known this, I would not have allied with French and Greek against Otto -they did manage to get a foothold on MY land...

But that was part of a diplomacy approach which turned out to be extremely successful. For ages I had been continuously sponsoring wars in the other continent, and I increased the scope of this activity as soon as I became the sole possessor of mine. My fear was that I would not be able to stop the SS race -the evolution of facts demonstrated that this was not the case, but bear with me: I am not so experienced at dominating the world...

In 1345 I built my first Great Wonder, ToE, with a GL jealously saved for this purpose, and finally jumped ahead in tech.
After a while, I switched to Democracy and directed my research to getting Tanks.

In the meanwhile, I was continuously at war with someone in the other continent (preferably the second-best civ on the planet), and had alliances and MPPs so that each civ there was at war with at least two other.
They soon passed to Communism and stopped getting any advances just a couple of techs short of tanks.

Around this time (mid 1600's) India declared war on me for no apparent reason, and I kindly responded by landing on their continent and establishing a beachhead there.
I was actually planning to go for the French (who had Universal Suffrage and a few interesting Wonders, and most of all because Caesar conquered Gallia...): I was basically waiting for a 20-turns alliance to expire before landing in front of some city of theirs, but India was also ok.
Even more, now I realize they actually helped me not to waste my time. Thanks, Gandhi!

Around this time, IIRC, I discovered Radio and reached the spoiler threshold... Here is a picture of the world at 1655 AD

 

[SirPleb]

When I last wrote at 920AD Rome had entered The Industrial Age and had also just finished off Germany, the last of my rivals on the home continent. The Roman empire spanned the entire home continent so we next turned our attention to the new world:

I was ahead of my rivals in tech and hoped to conquer their lands before they gained defensive strength in The Industrial Age. At this time Greece and Iroquois were the strongest Civs in the new world. Greece was most advanced, Iroquois was largest. Iroquois had pretty much demolished England. Most of the other wars I'd encouraged early on had tapered off.

In 980AD the first wave of Roman Cavalry landed in the equatorial region and began an assault on the Aztecs. The Aztecs crumbled and were soon out of the game.

Next I attacked The Iroquois - they were the largest nation on the other continent but technically backward, I wanted to hit them while that remained true. By this time Greece had learned Nationalism and was well ahead of her neighbors in tech. I wanted to slow her down so I took an MPP with her and declared war on India. Soon India and Greece were at war.

Shortly after this I decided to get more ambitious. Some time earlier England had settled a tundra town on our home continent and I'd surrounded it, intending to keep England as a captive for a milked game. The Iroquois had taken all her other towns, she was down to just this one. England was merely "annoyed" with me, not furious. This suggested that there was a chance of going for a Diplomatic milked victory, something I've failed to do in my last couple of attempts at it. To have any chance at this I'd have to avoid any further genocide. (I wished I'd seen the chance to go for this and decided on it a bit earlier - my odds would be better if I'd stopped genocide before the Aztecs. Oh well, still seemed worth a try.)

So my goal was to wipe out 5 more rivals without delivering the final blow myself. I decided I'd convince Greece to be my "executioner", to wipe out each of the other remaining Civs except England. From this point onward I helped Greece a bit, maintained MPP and ROP with her, and declared war on one or two rivals at a time, inducing them to attack me. It took a bit of work to convince Greece to wipe each one out. In each case I wiped out all of the rivals' cities except for one which I left for Greece. I tried to leave a tempting one for last - a town near Greece with a resource or luxury in its area. I'd then bombard and attack the remaining town down to one weak defender. In one case I had to block Greece from the intended final town until I'd razed the rest of a rival. In another case I blocked and "funneled" a Greek Cavalry toward a rival's last town to try to encourage her to attack. Eventually Greece did her work in each case. One after another, Greece executed India, Russia, France, Babylon, and finally in 1375AD Iroquois. During all this time these Civs remained weak, only France ever learned Nationalism and that just before its demise.

As soon as my last treaties with Greece expired, I gave her a tundra town (to be her final repose) and declared war. (Couldn't leave an experienced executioner on the loose with nothing to do! She'd become a menace! ) I'd built up a fair pile of Cavalry and Artillery while waiting for Greece to finish off the other Civs so this war was swift - in two turns I'd razed all Greek towns except the final boxed-in one.

Now it was time to consolidate and build. The land in our world is harsh overall, there isn't as much good land as we can take. Before I'd reached the domination threshold I was taking some very marginal land indeed

During the entire conquest of the new world I'd continued research, first to Replaceable Parts, then to Theory Of Evolution. Soon after taking Greece's lands I started researching Radio, but at the 40 turn rate with a single scientist (wanted maximum income during that phase to buy improvements.) I learned Radio in 1600AD, ending this writeup.

I stayed in Monarchy so that I could stay allied with England against Greece. England remains "annoyed" at this point. So far I've had no luck budging her past that, even with regular gifts. Each time our alliance expires she makes peace with Greece and becomes "furious". I then buy a new alliance with her and she's back to "annoyed". It remains to be seen whether I can get relations with her up to a level where she'll vote for me at the end, i.e. whether this approach was worthwhile or a futile effort...

 

[Moonsinger]

First of all, I'm sorry for not having much time to give a full report on this. Since I'm currently at work, I have only a few minutes for a quick summary.

Around 850AD: My Romans conquered my entire home continent and spared the Germans with 1 city at the northpole. Frankly, we, Romans, have no idea why the Germans decided to build a city there, becuase it can not possibly grow bigger than a size-2. Since they decided to move their capital there and swore to leave us along, we spared their lives. And that was the last time we made contact with Germany.

Around 1000AD: We signed MPP with Greeks and began to invade England. On the English continent, Greeks was the strongest, Rusia was second, India was third, Babylon was fourth, English was fifth, Iroquois was sixth, and France was the weakest with only 3 cities. Because of our MPP with Greeks, and Rusia MPP with English, India and Babylons, other than the Frech, our war with the English caused the whole world were at war with each other. I guessed this were our greatest achievement since the dawn of our civilization.

My Roman cavalries were surprise to find out that the English defenders were mostly pikemans and spearmans. All of their few knights were doomed during their initial counterattacked. We finished the English quickly. Deal to the recent war with Greeks, the Iroquois had less than two dozens of spearmans left; therefore, our cavalries had virtually no problem in escorting them onto the stairway to heaven.

At this time, my Roman force were consitents of over 90 cavalries (and all core cities were focusing on producing more cavalries in every turn). Other than our 6 Galleons, 2 rifemans, and less than a dozen legionaries, we had nothing else but cavalries. In short, we had absolutely no defensive units of any kind since the 2 rifemans were fortified on the barb island to watch out for babs. Most importantly, absolutely no cannon or artillery of any kind.

Greeks were our next target. Since they just discovered electricity which they sold us, we knew that they were searching for Replaceable Part next. We had no other choice but to take them out before they discovered infantry. At the beginning of this Greek war, we finished our Intel Agency and were trying to plant our spies within the Greeks capitals. However, we failed! And our repeated failure caused the Greeks to break all their treaties and declare war again us. Actually, this was really what we wanted all along anyway. Since they broke the treaties and declared war, our reputations were still crystal clear after all these times.

After lossing two cavalry armies (14 hitpoints each against 4 and we lost.) to their rifleman defenders, we liberated Anthes and took control of their Great Pyramids. We shortly escorted them to join the Iroquois and the English.

Thanks to our previous MPP with Greek and since Greek were the second superpower in the world, there weren't much left of India and Babylons. After the Greek war, our brave cavalries also escorted the rest of the Indians to onto the stairway to heaven. Since some Babylonian seemed nice to us, we gave them one city in the tunda on southpole of our home continent.

We were currently down to about 60 cavalries, but we also had 3 cavalry armies too. Since the Rusian and France were teachnologically backward, both of them were also soon left this world. Our Romans had finally controlled the whole world. We quickly look at the time and it was around 1350 AD.

Around 1500 AD, we discovered Radio.

Around 1750 AD, we entered the Modern Age and started building our first hospital and this is where we are as of today.

 

[Bolka]

Very nice and impressive!

My germans had not one north pole city but 2. I took them pitylessly, especially because I wanted to get rid of the germans altogether, due to an excessively irritating wave of city flips (ever had a city flip with 12 of your units in it? Yes? Even after you bought a brand new temple and library to the ungrateful bas****s? If yes you know what irritating means).

I'm curious to know how your cities behaved on your main continent without defense?

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Bolka
My germans had not one north pole city but 2. I took them pitylessly, especially because I wanted to get rid of the germans altogether, due to an excessively irritating wave of city flips (ever had a city flip with 12 of your units in it? Yes? Even after you bought a brand new temple and library to the ungrateful bas****s? If yes you know what irritating means).

I know what you mean. In my game, I left the Babylonian with 1 city of size 2 in the middle of no where and far far far far far away from the nearest Roman border. And I was at peace with them for over two centuries. Suddenly, one of my cities of size 8 flipped back to them for no reason. I just couldn't believe it! Seven out of 8 citizens in that city were Romans and my Romans was also the strongest culture on the planet. Of course, I was mad; I declared war immediately and took it back by the next turn. Four turns later, the Babylonian sued for peace and I accepted. This was the shortest time I have ever seen the AI willing to sue for peace in the history of Civ3.

[Edit]:

Originally posted by Bolka
I'm curious to know how your cities behaved on your main continent without defense?

With the except of the war with the Japanese and Americans, my civ was in Republic during the rest of the wars. All my citizens were happy; there weren't anyone (not even 1) unhappy citizen in my empire. I had always rushed a market ASAP in all cities over size 5 and I controlled all 8 luxuries soon after the English war.

[/Edit]

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Around 1750 AD, we entered the Modern Age and started building our first hospital and this is where we are as of today.

Doesn't anyone find it odd that my civ was starting to build the first hospital when it's about to enter the modern age? Yes, that's correct. For some unknown reasons, I really hate pollution and I refuse to build any hospital until I can also build the mass transit.

 

[gskyes]

Previous Chapter

I researched Radio around 1300AD, but I still have 4 more techs in the Industrial age. This age was an age of trade for me. I didn't fight any wars, and declined all offers for military alliances and MPP's. The Greeks were leading everyone to war with the Aztecs, who apparently couldn't get anyone to ally with them, and were destroyed shortly before 1300. I was hoping for a longer war so I could get well ahead of Greece in technology, but they stayed in democracy.

I mixed researching and trading for techs, and together the Greeks and I led the technology race, with all other civs buying from one of us. With the completion of TOE, I got atomic theory and electronics, but the Greeks were not far behind. It is very tough to guess which tech the AI is researching for the purpose of trading. I put off researching combustion and researched radio, but instead of going for combustion, Greece researched electronics, which I would have traded to him for combustion. So I have to research it myself and trade it to him for money.

I have finally begun the task of colonizing the barbarian land strip. I have just been sending over galleons with settlers and infantry and letting the Impis die at the city walls. There is no hope of solving the barbarian puzzle for me.

Germany in my game hasn't really done much. They are still second in score but are behind in technology and never have any money. They could have become very powerful but they never even declared war on America once all game. In fact, they currently have a MPP together.

The modern ages are coming and I have either a diplomatic or a spaceship victory to choose from. For spaceship my biggest problem would be the Greeks. For diplomatic, the Greeks are probably only a problem if they build the UN first, which is something that shouldn't happen if I play smart. I don't know who would be the other choice if any: possibly Germany, America, Greece, or the Iroquios.

Once again here is a world map at 1300AD



and the score

 

[SirPleb]

Moonsinger, I think it is very nice that you avoid pollution. It shows that you are right to escort the other Civs to the stairway - they'd have made a mess for sure, you are saving the planet by sending them upstairs

I originally wasn't planning on using artillery in this game either. But then they seemed so useful in preparing other Civs for my executioner that I built a number of them after all...

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by SirPleb
I originally wasn't planning on using artillery in this game either. But then they seemed so useful in preparing other Civs for my executioner that I built a number of them after all...

Actually, artillery is my favorite units in this game. They are the most useful and re-useable unit in civ3. I love them (I really do).

PS: Do you think we can break 20K on this one? Since this map is full of rock and ice, it will be tough to find enough hay for the dairy cows.

 

[Moonsinger]

Well I finally passed the second test for this thread. I spent all morning at work playing Civ3. I did a full milk on this one, but I did not use any nuke. Since I don't want to disappoint SirPleb again, I also submitted the 2049ad save for replay. What's next? This also mean that I have to work this weekend to make up for this morning. At least, now I can really concentrate on my work and I'm longer wondering about my Roman next move.[dance]

PS: Btw, this was the first time I ever play game at work. And I will never do it again. Even if Cracker casts a another spell on the next game, it would definitely fail. That would be my resolution for the remaining of this year.