RufRydyr
QSC Map Maker
(sorry Ruf, no modern age yeeha's like modern armor etc. allowed here -cracker)
*Spoiler3* Gotm17-Carthage OIL+RUBBER
- Thread starter cracker
- Start date
da_greatest
deity
Peanut
A Slightly Nutty Flavour
Coal ! Beautiful coal ! Wherefore art thou, my coveted coal ?
Our top scientists laboured for years to learn how to make these magnificant iron locomotives. Alas, they neglected the minor detail of finding something at hand to run them with ! As they pondered upon their short careers in their tiny retirement cottages, their successors remembered not to repeat such a foolish mistake when they learnt how to use that strange black liquid from the ground and that sticky white sap from special trees.
Coal ? Coal ? Alas ! I seek it here, I seek it there ! No one has some spare for me ! No not anywhere !
But then ... the fates smile on Carthage. Shaka took a dislike to me. He declared war ! How foolish of him.
It seems that Shaka has some coal, right up on a hill, right on the coast, right for the plucking ! Poor ignorant fool, Shaka knows nothing about coal and iron horses. A ferocious, backward nation of savages.
Fast messengers are sent out to our ships bearing our cavalry and troops and a settler towards the far island of Barbaria. They are diverted in order to teach Shaka a lesson.
A lightning campaign - a few cities razed, a new city settled on top of the coal mines and a harbour rushed to completion.
Then the cargo ships come in, full to the brim with the gleaming black treasure ! Carthage's hardy workers (and slaves) scatter to build these wondrous new iron roads that lift us to new heights of glory.
We are the envy of the world. Eat your heart out Xerxes and Cleo !
Our top scientists laboured for years to learn how to make these magnificant iron locomotives. Alas, they neglected the minor detail of finding something at hand to run them with ! As they pondered upon their short careers in their tiny retirement cottages, their successors remembered not to repeat such a foolish mistake when they learnt how to use that strange black liquid from the ground and that sticky white sap from special trees.
Coal ? Coal ? Alas ! I seek it here, I seek it there ! No one has some spare for me ! No not anywhere !
But then ... the fates smile on Carthage. Shaka took a dislike to me. He declared war ! How foolish of him.
It seems that Shaka has some coal, right up on a hill, right on the coast, right for the plucking ! Poor ignorant fool, Shaka knows nothing about coal and iron horses. A ferocious, backward nation of savages.
Fast messengers are sent out to our ships bearing our cavalry and troops and a settler towards the far island of Barbaria. They are diverted in order to teach Shaka a lesson.
A lightning campaign - a few cities razed, a new city settled on top of the coal mines and a harbour rushed to completion.
Then the cargo ships come in, full to the brim with the gleaming black treasure ! Carthage's hardy workers (and slaves) scatter to build these wondrous new iron roads that lift us to new heights of glory.
We are the envy of the world. Eat your heart out Xerxes and Cleo !
zagnut
Monarch
Some observations gleaned from your posts:
1. Very few people got Great Leaders;
2. Many Galleys were lost searching for the other continents and some people just gave up until Navigation was discovered;
3. The other civs were surprisingly backward in techs when discovered;
4. Although just about everyone conquered Egypt early, there were few wars thereafter. Probably a reflection of the distances of the other continents and the supply problems. Most people seem to have gone to war to get resources, primarily coal. I don't think I have seen anyone post about aiming for a domination victory.
5. Greece was discovered first by most people.
6. Very few people got settlements on the bonus islands. It seemed that we discovered them for the other civs, but they were waiting just offshore with a Settler on their ship.
All in all, an interesting map. It required a different way of thinking than other recent GOTM games.
1. Very few people got Great Leaders;
2. Many Galleys were lost searching for the other continents and some people just gave up until Navigation was discovered;
3. The other civs were surprisingly backward in techs when discovered;
4. Although just about everyone conquered Egypt early, there were few wars thereafter. Probably a reflection of the distances of the other continents and the supply problems. Most people seem to have gone to war to get resources, primarily coal. I don't think I have seen anyone post about aiming for a domination victory.
5. Greece was discovered first by most people.
6. Very few people got settlements on the bonus islands. It seemed that we discovered them for the other civs, but they were waiting just offshore with a Settler on their ship.
All in all, an interesting map. It required a different way of thinking than other recent GOTM games.
- I got one after invading Greece for coal. It built an army, which was lost in a culture flip next turn.
- Yep.
- Yep.
- Wars to Greece, than Rome declared war on me, Greece joined in breaking our peace treaty.
1595 England declares war, Germany joins in. - Yep. (After Egypt.)
- I settled all 3 in the prime spots
beating the AIs by few turns on rubber (1305) and wines(1345) island. Volcano island was last in 1615; infantry got eqworkers from volcano. It had a southern Zulu settlement without garrison which obviously was not attacked by barbs. 
Stupid AI then built settler who joined the town. [/list=1] In 1600 we discovered flight and started building airports to surpass the long sea journeys.
That's a beautiful tale.
I love it!
In my game, after I discovered Steam Engine, I didn't have any coal for about 3 turns. Since my taskforce (of 1 musketter and 7 cavalries) was on its way to secure a source of dyes, as shown on the screenshot, the wonderful dyes on that little island was calling my name for many years. Coincidentally, the island on the left had a coal mine. And best of all, both islands were lightly defended by a couple spearmans. I immediately ordered my taskforce to make a quick stop to secure the coal first, then swinged over to get the dyes luxury too (killing two birds with one stone).
Phillip_martin
Make it so.
1. Got one turned him into an Army for future use. never got another when I needed it. This observation could be due to the limited warfare which can be acheived over a long period of time.
2. Lost around four before I gave up and waited for navigation. Got a strong suspicion of the map hence my caution.
3. There was limited warfare between the civs in my game and my early selling of contacts with each other after I was first to Navigation, meant a healthy trade of techs between themselves. Persia and Babs lead the way with me fighting neck and neck to stay ahead. After my second war (first was Egypt) with England in which she rallied others to her cause, most of the world remained in a trade embargo against me, so money was always tight.
4. After England a period of consolidation and peace. then Rome was next (sorry I don't have dates as my game is at home) with Cav v Rifles. Stopped just over half way through them after concetrating on their coal city which had just been revealed when I was in the middle of my firefight. I was struggling to keep democracy and research going at this time and I wanted to be sure of keeping the coal. Lucky me!! After that Persia sneak attacked and again I had a slog of Cav v Rifles to take them out. While on the way to oil and rubber I then attacked the Aztecs (if only I was further ahead of Persia and Babs so as to avoid infantry) and probably for the last time aimed to keep all of the captured cities. I burnt money to get to flight so as to support my far flung colonies as most of the world coming to bear against me (AGAIN!). So to answer your other question, I aimed for and am trying for a Conquest as I enjoy a challenge
Judging by Ynd's game I am too far along the timeline to stop at domination 
5. Nup.... England got to me first. Did I mention that I was not far ahead in tech. Can't remember if I got to Greece or America as the next contact shortly after.
6. First time I heard about the third island was reading these posts
which was cleared and settled before I ever took an interest in that part of the world (Note to self...)7. There is no seven
I have enjoyed this map as it has pushed me to try another strategy for a change although I am now finding the final push a bit of a slog. Into 2 turn years.
@ zagnut
<--- will probably get the conquest booby prize (assuming I can finish at all - stupid crashes )
It's the 1760s. Rome and Germany are dead, Greece is on the ropes (down to 2 cities IIRC), and America and Russia are down to a cruddy city each on one of the small islands. I have invasion forces in Persia and Zululand. Got flight recently, which has already helped my defenses hold up against a few telegraphed 'sneak attacks' (nearly everybody has declared war against me - this is basically fine with me since it'll keep war weariness down and the civs are really too scattered and backwards to threaten me too much). The one current thing I'm worried about is my Zululand landing. I took the leftover forces from ex-America etc to go down there when I was only at war with the Zulus but by the time I got there I was at war with the other two civs as well, and I'm not sure the three infantry in my new city there can hold out another couple of turns to the airlift. I really underestimated the attacking forces available - even with seven artillery in the town, so many longbowmen, knights, and swordsmen! have done some damage. (The Iroquois have a few cav, too, but the RNG has been weird; they've done almost no damage at all.) Of course, those three infantry have done *more* damage. Should be seeing some regime changes down there real soon now.
Coal wasn't really an issue for me. By the time I got steam power I was already landing on Rome's home island, and there was coal at Veii (iron works city actually, although I haven't used it - all of my captured cities are going purely to cash. Later captured another potential iron works at Boston
). Was probably a 7 or 8 turn delay from Steam Power to the renamed 'Veii Coal Mine' border expansion.
One funny thing - a 1 hp Iro galley has been blockading a former German harbor for about 20 turns now. I have 2 more on the landmass, so no big deal, but it's funny. Think I have a destroyer on the way to put its crew out of its misery.
I've had three leaders, IIRC, since the initial one that gave me my FP - two cav armies, and one shipped back home to build Hoover Dam on the starting landmass. Several of the cities there took a long long time to build their factories, so long that I normally wouldn't have bothered. But production is at such a premium that I figured it would be worth it with Hoover.
I never considered moving my palace out of starting territory as some did, because it would have crippled the western half of that territory and took too long of a time to build up the new area.
Anyway, it's been fun, if not exactly efficient (I have learned tons of ways *not* to do large-scale overseas conquest
) Hope I can finish.
Renata
<--- will probably get the conquest booby prize (assuming I can finish at all - stupid crashes
)It's the 1760s. Rome and Germany are dead, Greece is on the ropes (down to 2 cities IIRC), and America and Russia are down to a cruddy city each on one of the small islands. I have invasion forces in Persia and Zululand. Got flight recently, which has already helped my defenses hold up against a few telegraphed 'sneak attacks' (nearly everybody has declared war against me - this is basically fine with me since it'll keep war weariness down and the civs are really too scattered and backwards to threaten me too much). The one current thing I'm worried about is my Zululand landing. I took the leftover forces from ex-America etc to go down there when I was only at war with the Zulus but by the time I got there I was at war with the other two civs as well, and I'm not sure the three infantry in my new city there can hold out another couple of turns to the airlift. I really underestimated the attacking forces available - even with seven artillery in the town, so many longbowmen, knights, and swordsmen! have done some damage. (The Iroquois have a few cav, too, but the RNG has been weird; they've done almost no damage at all.) Of course, those three infantry have done *more* damage
. Should be seeing some regime changes down there real soon now.Coal wasn't really an issue for me. By the time I got steam power I was already landing on Rome's home island, and there was coal at Veii (iron works city actually, although I haven't used it - all of my captured cities are going purely to cash. Later captured another potential iron works at Boston
). Was probably a 7 or 8 turn delay from Steam Power to the renamed 'Veii Coal Mine' border expansion.One funny thing - a 1 hp Iro galley has been blockading a former German harbor for about 20 turns now. I have 2 more on the landmass, so no big deal, but it's funny. Think I have a destroyer on the way to put its crew out of its misery.
I've had three leaders, IIRC, since the initial one that gave me my FP - two cav armies, and one shipped back home to build Hoover Dam on the starting landmass. Several of the cities there took a long long time to build their factories, so long that I normally wouldn't have bothered. But production is at such a premium that I figured it would be worth it with Hoover.
I never considered moving my palace out of starting territory as some did, because it would have crippled the western half of that territory and took too long of a time to build up the new area.
Anyway, it's been fun, if not exactly efficient (I have learned tons of ways *not* to do large-scale overseas conquest
) Hope I can finish.Renata
1. I got one great leader in the egyptian war which was used to rush FP. I didn't get any more until the modern age.
2. I only lost 2 or 3 galleys, and one of those ran into a dense bank of fog so I figured it wasn't possible to reach other civ's yet and gave up. I waited until magnetism to explore like I said cause I'm dumb.
3. I wasn't very surprised with the backward techs. I'm always extremely far ahead in regent games. Only chance the AI would have had is if they were all on the same island except for us.
4. Yep, it's the distances that caused this. I did manage to take out America before modern age, but that's as much as I could do that early. Yndy did go for domination and did an amazing job at conquering many civ's early. I'm going for conquest just couldn't get started as fast. I have a feeling the next spoiler will have a lot more war stories, mine will be full of them.
5. Yep, they were closest to us.
6. I didn't even care about settling the bonus islands. With a conquest objective wasting transports/troops for that would only slow me down.
Hurricane
Sleeping Dragon
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2001
- Messages
- 1,197
After discovering the world and seeing how behind in tech the other civs were, I decided to go for a conquest victory. The Romans had sneak attacked me before (in 770 ad), so I decided to punish them first. Since the Greeks were on the way to Rome, I also attacked them.
1080 ad Greek & Roman war begins
1140 ad Newton's
1220 ad Greeks destroyed (pic)
The Romans were finished shortly afterwards, in 1290 ad. By this time I had discovered Steam Power and quickly connected the coal in the territories I had just captured.
I did my best to hinder the other civs from meeting. I noticed that they were very slow in exploring navigation (they seemed to follow the same research path as on Pangea maps), but I made their life even harder by an armada of Privateers! This was the first time I built these vessels. It was probably not worth it, but it was fun!
1290 ad JS Bach
With the troops left over from the Roman war, I continued against the Iroquois, who still didn't even have Musketmen. I managed to get a foothold, but the long distance to my home island meant little in terms of reinforcements (I was busy building factories), and Salamanca, built on hills and with lots of defenders in it, turned out to be too hard, especially since both the Zulus and Babs joined in the war against me. Eventually both the cities I captured flipped back to the Iroqs.
1320 ad Iroquois war
EDIT: hmm, this pic won't show up, but the link works. Ideas?
1365 ad Adam Smith's
1380 ad first AI overseas contact
1395 ad first Leader
1435 ad TOE
1465 ad Hoover dam
After completing my factories, I went against the Donut island, with America, Russia and Germany being about equally strong. They all quickly declared war on me, and I was forced to make peace with America. I brought them into the war against Russia&Germany on my side, and as soon as I hade destroyed them, I again attacked a now weak America.
1480 ad American&Russian&German war
1495 ad Women's Suffrage
1590 ad Tanks
1620 ad Germans destroyed
1650 ad Americans destroyed
1685 ad Russians destroyed
By this time I also entered the modern ages, so I'll stop here.
As a general note I can mention that I made a BIG mistake in underestimating the size of the landmass. I was afraid of triggering domination, so after developing my home islands and the Greek&Roman islands, I more or less left the rest of the world undeveloped. Most cities were just placeholders for barracks and harbors. With both the Palace and FP on my starting island, large parts of my potentially productive empire were totally corrupt. With the long transport routes, my quest for conquest was seriously delayed.
I built POE:s on my main cities on the home island, but the wall street only late in the modern ages. I felt the stock exchanges were much too expensive and unnecessary for my conquest strategy. Units had priority.
After looking at the scoring table, I can't believe anybody could win by conquest by 800 ad. I was exploring heavily in this game (and had several lucky suicide galleys) and I still hadn't even met all civs by this date!
1080 ad Greek & Roman war begins
1140 ad Newton's
1220 ad Greeks destroyed (pic)
The Romans were finished shortly afterwards, in 1290 ad. By this time I had discovered Steam Power and quickly connected the coal in the territories I had just captured.
I did my best to hinder the other civs from meeting. I noticed that they were very slow in exploring navigation (they seemed to follow the same research path as on Pangea maps), but I made their life even harder by an armada of Privateers!
This was the first time I built these vessels. It was probably not worth it, but it was fun!
1290 ad JS Bach
With the troops left over from the Roman war, I continued against the Iroquois, who still didn't even have Musketmen. I managed to get a foothold, but the long distance to my home island meant little in terms of reinforcements (I was busy building factories), and Salamanca, built on hills and with lots of defenders in it, turned out to be too hard, especially since both the Zulus and Babs joined in the war against me. Eventually both the cities I captured flipped back to the Iroqs.
1320 ad Iroquois war
EDIT: hmm, this pic won't show up, but the link works. Ideas?
1365 ad Adam Smith's
1380 ad first AI overseas contact
1395 ad first Leader
1435 ad TOE
1465 ad Hoover dam
After completing my factories, I went against the Donut island, with America, Russia and Germany being about equally strong. They all quickly declared war on me, and I was forced to make peace with America. I brought them into the war against Russia&Germany on my side, and as soon as I hade destroyed them, I again attacked a now weak America.
1480 ad American&Russian&German war
1495 ad Women's Suffrage
1590 ad Tanks
1620 ad Germans destroyed
1650 ad Americans destroyed
1685 ad Russians destroyed
By this time I also entered the modern ages, so I'll stop here.
As a general note I can mention that I made a BIG mistake in underestimating the size of the landmass. I was afraid of triggering domination, so after developing my home islands and the Greek&Roman islands, I more or less left the rest of the world undeveloped. Most cities were just placeholders for barracks and harbors. With both the Palace and FP on my starting island, large parts of my potentially productive empire were totally corrupt. With the long transport routes, my quest for conquest was seriously delayed.
I built POE:s on my main cities on the home island, but the wall street only late in the modern ages. I felt the stock exchanges were much too expensive and unnecessary for my conquest strategy. Units had priority.
After looking at the scoring table, I can't believe anybody could win by conquest by 800 ad. I was exploring heavily in this game (and had several lucky suicide galleys) and I still hadn't even met all civs by this date!
I was happily cruising along when I realised I didn't have coal. At that moment I had a tech lead and was selling it to other civs for big money, aiming for a diplo win, so I wasn't really inclined to start a war for this resource.
I was however a bit low on the military side, so I decided to address that issue anyway, and started to produce an army of sea-horses (cavalry on ships). The target would be Greece, since the other civs were much stronger than them, except for the Aztecs, but those seemed to be on Alpha Centauri - it would take forever to reach them.
By the time my sea horse armada was ready to strike, however, I had already discoved this thing called rubber, and I could still research techs at 4 turns/tech, albeit at 80% science ratio on average. So I decided to forget about railroads and keep everyone happy. When I was close to entering the modern era, I got coal from a trade deal with the americans. I eventually got a diplo victory in 1818 AD.
The AI in this game was a lot of 'A' and no 'I'; it would better be called 'artificial cluelessness'. All the time AI's would declare war upon each other but nothing spectacular would ever happen : no civ's were crippled, no cities were captured. I did notice through city-spying that a lot of cities contained a lot of defenders, probably because the AI didn't know what else to do on a limited land mass. If such a city is attacked by only one or two units at the time, no war can ever be succesful, of course.
Besides this lack of warfare-knowledge, urban planning was also a topic the AI was unaware of : Rome's culture included two incense-tiles, but they were never connected or exploited. Greece had access to coal, but didn't connect it. When they eventually did connect it, the connecting city didn't have a harbor...
I was however a bit low on the military side, so I decided to address that issue anyway, and started to produce an army of sea-horses (cavalry on ships). The target would be Greece, since the other civs were much stronger than them, except for the Aztecs, but those seemed to be on Alpha Centauri - it would take forever to reach them.
By the time my sea horse armada was ready to strike, however, I had already discoved this thing called rubber, and I could still research techs at 4 turns/tech, albeit at 80% science ratio on average. So I decided to forget about railroads and keep everyone happy. When I was close to entering the modern era, I got coal from a trade deal with the americans. I eventually got a diplo victory in 1818 AD.
The AI in this game was a lot of 'A' and no 'I'; it would better be called 'artificial cluelessness'. All the time AI's would declare war upon each other but nothing spectacular would ever happen : no civ's were crippled, no cities were captured. I did notice through city-spying that a lot of cities contained a lot of defenders, probably because the AI didn't know what else to do on a limited land mass. If such a city is attacked by only one or two units at the time, no war can ever be succesful, of course.
Besides this lack of warfare-knowledge, urban planning was also a topic the AI was unaware of : Rome's culture included two incense-tiles, but they were never connected or exploited. Greece had access to coal, but didn't connect it. When they eventually did connect it, the connecting city didn't have a harbor...
Actually my former core cities were all still very productive after I moved my palace. I made sure to build courthouses before the move, and they ended up only being about 30% corrupt. It didn't take long to get my new core up to speed either. Especially with Hoover Dam there.
Hehe same here. I didn't even know about airlifting units. You can imagine how much that hurt me on a map like this. You seem like you're doing better than I was at that date. I only had 1.5 "island-groups" conquered. I was doing them one by one at that point. I did end up attacking the last 3 all at once though.
Greg Loader
Warlord
The best move I made in the game was to seriously consider which of the other continents would provide the best base for my Forbidden Palace. Like most, I could put it in Egypt - but would prefer more room. Also, none of my existing cities was totally corrupt. the worst one still produced about 25%!!!
Rome/Greece was long and thin. Persia/England separated by a channel. The others were a little far away.
Germany/Russia/America seemed to have the largest, most symetrical landmass, was close by, and had a city at the very center. In my map, it was Boston. On others I have seen, it was called New York.
My first GL built a FP in this central American City. Then Iron Works. Then Factory. Then Hoover Dam.
With Hoover Dam, this continent (after Germany, Russia and America are destroyed) became a powerhouse!!! (HD wouldn't have been much on my home Island, but it's killer on this one!)
My second and last GL built an army which lost it's first battle. So, I still cant build Heroic Epic.
Funny, I never realized I lacked coal on my home Island.
***I did something I haven't been able to do since CIVII. I traded 100gpt to Zulu for Technology!!! Of course, declared war the next turn. Took a reputation hit, but got tech for free!!!***
I've built many battleships and transports. I am now ready to choose my next victim (who's got luxuries that I want), but this will happen in the Modern Age....
Greg
Rome/Greece was long and thin. Persia/England separated by a channel. The others were a little far away.
Germany/Russia/America seemed to have the largest, most symetrical landmass, was close by, and had a city at the very center. In my map, it was Boston. On others I have seen, it was called New York.
My first GL built a FP in this central American City. Then Iron Works. Then Factory. Then Hoover Dam.
With Hoover Dam, this continent (after Germany, Russia and America are destroyed) became a powerhouse!!! (HD wouldn't have been much on my home Island, but it's killer on this one!)
My second and last GL built an army which lost it's first battle. So, I still cant build Heroic Epic.
Funny, I never realized I lacked coal on my home Island.
***I did something I haven't been able to do since CIVII. I traded 100gpt to Zulu for Technology!!! Of course, declared war the next turn. Took a reputation hit, but got tech for free!!!***
I've built many battleships and transports. I am now ready to choose my next victim (who's got luxuries that I want), but this will happen in the Modern Age....
Greg
haegint
Chieftain
I would completely agree to your comment. I think the AI played just trerribly bad. I think its intelligence shortcomings are magnified by the specifics of the map (islands and lots of water in between).
Just an example, a lone (!) Roman legionary once attacked the well-enough defended coal city of mine in Iroquois land and we were Polite before (I think I had two infantries as defense). OK, Caesar later went to Polite again, but still: No half-sane player in the world would remotely consider such a plain dumb suicidal move. In this case it was even unneccessary for Caesar to attack as he had coal in his land near Veii:
(Yes I can make and post screenshots now
I could recite a few other instances of Artificial Unintelligence from my game.
How do you think the AI would have performed on Deity using this same map and scenario? Would the higher level have changed things significantly?
Txurce
Deity
Upon exploring the world with the onset of navigation, I discovered that I was well ahead of all the other civs in technology. By the start of the industrial era, I was also making up for lost time, researching at a steady 4-5 turns per tech rate. And I had plenty of gold, thanks to liberally trading my leading-edge techs.
I entered the industrial era in 1310, researching steam power, and of course discovered that there was no coal on my archipelago (or, interestingly, in that of Persia and England and they never traded or warred for any). I quickly settled on taking Smolensk, the small eastern Russian island with the coal deposit. Given the concern of a culture flip, I decided that Russia needed to be eliminated quickly. I immediately researched military tradition, sent a galleon of cavalry south, and allied with America and Germany against Russia in 1340. Smolensk fell in 1355, and I took St. Petersburg on the mainland for its luxuries. (Later I would hedge my coal bet by building a city on the inner coal isle in that same continent.) After that, my allies took care of mopping up Russia, and Catherine went into exile in 1440.
Although I was clearly the dominant power, my army must have looked very puny and far away to Lincoln, because America declared war in 1495 and promptly took St. Petersburg. This turned into a world war, with everyone against America, as I offered tech for a global alliance. St. Petersburg quickly rejoined the fold, and I then hassled the Americans for over a century, occasioanlly sending reinforcements to keep the war hot. (I never built a significant army the entire game.) Interestingly, America almost wiped out Germany, and I had to keep taking cities back for Bismarck. Greece was the only civ to establish a beachhead on the American continent before the inevitable global peace treaties.
I ended up building all of the industrial-era wonders, ports of entry and stock exchanges asap, and then Wall St.
I entered the industrial era in 1310, researching steam power, and of course discovered that there was no coal on my archipelago (or, interestingly, in that of Persia and England and they never traded or warred for any). I quickly settled on taking Smolensk, the small eastern Russian island with the coal deposit. Given the concern of a culture flip, I decided that Russia needed to be eliminated quickly. I immediately researched military tradition, sent a galleon of cavalry south, and allied with America and Germany against Russia in 1340. Smolensk fell in 1355, and I took St. Petersburg on the mainland for its luxuries. (Later I would hedge my coal bet by building a city on the inner coal isle in that same continent.) After that, my allies took care of mopping up Russia, and Catherine went into exile in 1440.
Although I was clearly the dominant power, my army must have looked very puny and far away to Lincoln, because America declared war in 1495 and promptly took St. Petersburg. This turned into a world war, with everyone against America, as I offered tech for a global alliance. St. Petersburg quickly rejoined the fold, and I then hassled the Americans for over a century, occasioanlly sending reinforcements to keep the war hot. (I never built a significant army the entire game.) Interestingly, America almost wiped out Germany, and I had to keep taking cities back for Bismarck. Greece was the only civ to establish a beachhead on the American continent before the inevitable global peace treaties.
I ended up building all of the industrial-era wonders, ports of entry and stock exchanges asap, and then Wall St.
jeffelammar
Space for rent
I too had issues with the lack of coal in the starting archipeligo. To make matters worse, I did not found cities on the eastern edge of the far east island of the starting archipeligo. I assume that the oil there was from the start.
Soon after we met, Persia declared war, and it took a long time to take them out. It wasn't till I had cavalry that I managed it. I finished off Persia around 1500 AD, and was stuck without coal until I managed to take the island just north of the Russia/Germany/America island. Once I had that I rushed a harbor and finally had railroads.
Simultaneously, due to the blunder mentioned above (needing to get the oil), I had to go to war with England earlier than I wished. I was able to finish of Persia and then England. At this point I hunkered down and played the peace game. I decided not to fight any more and basically held my place until an eventual Space Race victory. (But I guess that will wait till the next thread)
I keep thinking that I have a long way to go. It's scary. I have a friend who is as far behind me in Civ skill as I am behind the elite. Guess I haven't completely wasted my time.
Soon after we met, Persia declared war, and it took a long time to take them out. It wasn't till I had cavalry that I managed it. I finished off Persia around 1500 AD, and was stuck without coal until I managed to take the island just north of the Russia/Germany/America island. Once I had that I rushed a harbor and finally had railroads.
Simultaneously, due to the blunder mentioned above (needing to get the oil), I had to go to war with England earlier than I wished. I was able to finish of Persia and then England. At this point I hunkered down and played the peace game. I decided not to fight any more and basically held my place until an eventual Space Race victory. (But I guess that will wait till the next thread)
I keep thinking that I have a long way to go. It's scary. I have a friend who is as far behind me in Civ skill as I am behind the elite. Guess I haven't completely wasted my time.
SirPleb
Shaken, not stirred.
(Links to previous notes for my game: Spoiler1, initial development, Spoiler2, exploration.)
This spoiler thread covers a lot of areas so I'll write about major events chronologically.
In 170BC I triggered a Golden Age by completing the Hanging Gardens.
In 150BC I squeezed out a free tech: At this time I knew Persia and England. When I learned Currency, I gave Persia all the Ancient Times tech she needed to advance an era, then traded with her for Monotheism.
In 30BC when I met Greece and Rome I gave them the Ancient Times tech they were missing, and also gave Rome Monotheism, so that both would be researching something new to me.
A digression about science:
At this point, if I were using PTW 1.21 (I'm using 1.14), I'd have had a good chance of getting another free advance from Greece. Ribannah mentioned this 1.21 change in the pregame discussion thread - it is a change which gives scientific Civs a chance to learn any of the first techs in an era instead of always the same one. My guess is that on this map PTW 1.21 would, if one plays for maximum tech speed, gain from 3 to 5 additional "free" tech advances over the course of the game vs. previous versions of CivIII. (Results are variable depending on dice rolls.)
In 500AD I'd met everyone. Persia and England were my strongest rivals at this point, Greece and Rome next. I decided to keep everyone isolated as long as possible; to keep those four Civs fairly advanced as useful trading partners, and to keep everyone else relatively backward.
In 500AD I began my invasion of Egypt with 13 Knights.
In 580AD I completed Forbidden Palace the hard way, in a city on the incense (on the island south of the homeland.) That seemed a good compromise location, close enough to home to have built it quickly, close enough to Egypt to make the cities I'd eventually have there fairly productive.
I took until 620AD to wipe out Egypt. I slowed my advance deliberately, attempting to use my few elite Knights as often as possible, hoping to get a leader. (In all my wars in this game that would be a priority, slowing my advance a bit to increase opportunities for elite wins.) But by the end of this war I'd won only 7 fights with elite Knights and had no leader.
I decided to invade Germany/America next. Although I'd decided on a 20K culture goal, ongoing war would be important to 1) generate leaders 2) claim luxuries 3) claim land and increase score. The easiest lands to invade (due to land shape and backward Civs) were Germany/America and Zulu/America/Iroquois. Germany/America was closer. My troops sailed there, landed in 720AD in a no man's land, and began their attack in 740AD. I immediately got my first leader!
Another digression, about ship hopping:
I've never used ship hopping before. In this game, while my troops were sailing to Germany, I was thinking about how long it would take to sail a leader home. 12 turns, terrible! So I started building a ship chain, one every four tiles along the route. I was a bit short of completing the chain when the first leader appeared so he took three turns to cross the ocean. But after that, each time I got a leader, he hopped across the ocean in a single turn. I think this is neat, seems like a fun use for ship hopping. Once I had the chain set up I also used it to deliver some new troops from the homeland to the warfront. I sent perhaps 20 units this way during the following few wars. It is a very tedious process, not as much fun as hopping a leader. Powerful though - a chain of 12 ships can deliver a full load (4 units if the ships are Galleons) to most places in the world in one turn. This could be a powerful technique for conquest or domination on this map. The chain can be used to deliver one load every second turn by see-sawing back and forth. It could also be modified to deliver a full load each turn, by adding a new ship each turn at the sending end. For my purposes it seemed rather tedious so I often ended up purchasing troops in the new lands to supplement my forces.
My next leader came in 900AD, and after that I had a fairly regular supply of them for the rest of the game, about at the rate you'd expect with regular ongoing warfare. I used them to rush wonders in Utica toward my 20K culture goal. They helped of course but they were too late to have a really great impact - an early leader or two would have been nicer.
In 1120AD I learned Steam Power. Coal wasn't a problem, there was some in an area I'd taken from America by this date.
In 1180AD I finished off America (Germany was long gone.) I decided I'd eventually want to invade both the Greece+Rome lands and the Zulu+America+Iroquois lands. I chose Greece+Rome as my next target, in order to hit them before they could build Riflemen. (The other group was more backward and could wait.)
I invaded Rome in 1260AD, finished off Rome+Greece in 1385AD, then headed for the next group. Started war on Zululand in 1415AD.
I learned Replaceable Parts in 1440AD, ending the notes for this spoiler thread. Rubber wasn't a problem, turned out to have two sources under existing roads.
I had a few skirmish wars in the game up to this point, e.g. England declaring war at one point and trying to invade two of my islands. These minor wars were non-issues, it was easy enough to quickly purchase some superior local units and defeat the invaders.
I traded techs for luxuries throughout this game, doing less and less of it as I controlled more luxuries. Due to using Persia and England as my strongest trading partners I never did gain a source of silks, ended up trading Persia for them throughout the game.
With all the warfare I was doing in this game I acquired a fair bit of land. So I of course "back filled" it while pursuing new wars, building towns to claim all the land, then making the citizens happy. Might as well get some cows using all that lovely land while continuing toward the primary 20K cultural goal! So although my game won't be a whole milk run, perhaps it will end up being called a 2% milk run. As it stands at 1440AD there is no hope of a great 20K culture date but the game score will offset that somewhat due to fairly good expansion.
Re Stock Exchanges and Commercial Docks: By the end of this note I hadn't built many of these, just some Stock Exchanges. I completed Wall Street in 1430AD. By the end of the game I'd built many of both of these new improvements. They are nice but don't seem game altering to me. They do allow purchasing late game improvements more rapidly. There might be a noticeable (but not huge I think) effect from these in increasing final score in milked games since the improvements phase can run a bit faster.
Minimap at 1440AD:
This spoiler thread covers a lot of areas so I'll write about major events chronologically.
In 170BC I triggered a Golden Age by completing the Hanging Gardens.
In 150BC I squeezed out a free tech: At this time I knew Persia and England. When I learned Currency, I gave Persia all the Ancient Times tech she needed to advance an era, then traded with her for Monotheism.
In 30BC when I met Greece and Rome I gave them the Ancient Times tech they were missing, and also gave Rome Monotheism, so that both would be researching something new to me.
A digression about science:
At this point, if I were using PTW 1.21 (I'm using 1.14), I'd have had a good chance of getting another free advance from Greece. Ribannah mentioned this 1.21 change in the pregame discussion thread - it is a change which gives scientific Civs a chance to learn any of the first techs in an era instead of always the same one. My guess is that on this map PTW 1.21 would, if one plays for maximum tech speed, gain from 3 to 5 additional "free" tech advances over the course of the game vs. previous versions of CivIII. (Results are variable depending on dice rolls.)
In 500AD I'd met everyone. Persia and England were my strongest rivals at this point, Greece and Rome next. I decided to keep everyone isolated as long as possible; to keep those four Civs fairly advanced as useful trading partners, and to keep everyone else relatively backward.
In 500AD I began my invasion of Egypt with 13 Knights.
In 580AD I completed Forbidden Palace the hard way, in a city on the incense (on the island south of the homeland.) That seemed a good compromise location, close enough to home to have built it quickly, close enough to Egypt to make the cities I'd eventually have there fairly productive.
I took until 620AD to wipe out Egypt. I slowed my advance deliberately, attempting to use my few elite Knights as often as possible, hoping to get a leader. (In all my wars in this game that would be a priority, slowing my advance a bit to increase opportunities for elite wins.) But by the end of this war I'd won only 7 fights with elite Knights and had no leader.
I decided to invade Germany/America next. Although I'd decided on a 20K culture goal, ongoing war would be important to 1) generate leaders 2) claim luxuries 3) claim land and increase score. The easiest lands to invade (due to land shape and backward Civs) were Germany/America and Zulu/America/Iroquois. Germany/America was closer. My troops sailed there, landed in 720AD in a no man's land, and began their attack in 740AD. I immediately got my first leader!
Another digression, about ship hopping:
I've never used ship hopping before. In this game, while my troops were sailing to Germany, I was thinking about how long it would take to sail a leader home. 12 turns, terrible! So I started building a ship chain, one every four tiles along the route. I was a bit short of completing the chain when the first leader appeared so he took three turns to cross the ocean. But after that, each time I got a leader, he hopped across the ocean in a single turn. I think this is neat, seems like a fun use for ship hopping. Once I had the chain set up I also used it to deliver some new troops from the homeland to the warfront. I sent perhaps 20 units this way during the following few wars. It is a very tedious process, not as much fun as hopping a leader. Powerful though - a chain of 12 ships can deliver a full load (4 units if the ships are Galleons) to most places in the world in one turn. This could be a powerful technique for conquest or domination on this map. The chain can be used to deliver one load every second turn by see-sawing back and forth. It could also be modified to deliver a full load each turn, by adding a new ship each turn at the sending end. For my purposes it seemed rather tedious so I often ended up purchasing troops in the new lands to supplement my forces.
My next leader came in 900AD, and after that I had a fairly regular supply of them for the rest of the game, about at the rate you'd expect with regular ongoing warfare. I used them to rush wonders in Utica toward my 20K culture goal. They helped of course but they were too late to have a really great impact - an early leader or two would have been nicer.
In 1120AD I learned Steam Power. Coal wasn't a problem, there was some in an area I'd taken from America by this date.
In 1180AD I finished off America (Germany was long gone.) I decided I'd eventually want to invade both the Greece+Rome lands and the Zulu+America+Iroquois lands. I chose Greece+Rome as my next target, in order to hit them before they could build Riflemen. (The other group was more backward and could wait.)
I invaded Rome in 1260AD, finished off Rome+Greece in 1385AD, then headed for the next group. Started war on Zululand in 1415AD.
I learned Replaceable Parts in 1440AD, ending the notes for this spoiler thread. Rubber wasn't a problem, turned out to have two sources under existing roads.
I had a few skirmish wars in the game up to this point, e.g. England declaring war at one point and trying to invade two of my islands. These minor wars were non-issues, it was easy enough to quickly purchase some superior local units and defeat the invaders.
I traded techs for luxuries throughout this game, doing less and less of it as I controlled more luxuries. Due to using Persia and England as my strongest trading partners I never did gain a source of silks, ended up trading Persia for them throughout the game.
With all the warfare I was doing in this game I acquired a fair bit of land. So I of course "back filled" it while pursuing new wars, building towns to claim all the land, then making the citizens happy. Might as well get some cows using all that lovely land while continuing toward the primary 20K cultural goal! So although my game won't be a whole milk run, perhaps it will end up being called a 2% milk run. As it stands at 1440AD there is no hope of a great 20K culture date but the game score will offset that somewhat due to fairly good expansion.
Re Stock Exchanges and Commercial Docks: By the end of this note I hadn't built many of these, just some Stock Exchanges. I completed Wall Street in 1430AD. By the end of the game I'd built many of both of these new improvements. They are nice but don't seem game altering to me. They do allow purchasing late game improvements more rapidly. There might be a noticeable (but not huge I think) effect from these in increasing final score in milked games since the improvements phase can run a bit faster.
Minimap at 1440AD:
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