*Spoiler4* Gotm17-Carthage - End Game Submitted

[Singularity]

Just a question to the people who finished and fought late era opponents in PTW. I've not diddled much around in PTW before, but I see the importance in bombardment now after having fought a well defended city. An example:

MIs fortified in a metro on a hill with civil defence:

100% metro bonus, 25% fortify bonus, 50% terrain bonus * 18 defence. That gives you a very well dug in enemy against 'conventional' attacks like the MAs. Not building Artillery, bombers or Battleships in sufficient numbers cost me a much better score in this game - preferably battleships on this particular map.

Commercial docks are nice for builder games under peace. But in sum I would actually claim that civil defence was the one PTW issue that influenced my game the most. I know 50% doesn't sound like much in a battle. But since the game is balanced to even out MIs vs MAs in the late game it tips the scales to the defenders in the late games. Radar towers aren't that much of an importance, but in the right spot with good defence it would also be hard to take out without artillery. And adding it's 25% to the above equation would further slow down an advance without bombardment units.

BTW cracker, did the AI also have penalties on the radar tower buildtime?

 

[cracker]

Originally posted by Singularity
BTW cracker, did the AI also have penalties on the radar tower buildtime?

Yes, the build time changes applied equally to all players in the game.

Since the AI does not have the gray cells to stack workers into strategic work crews, the advantage will still be with the human player.

It will be interesting to actually see if there were any differences that you noticed in terms of the number of airfields and radar towers. I'm not sure this map format would indicate too much about the game impact of these features, however. Generally by the time you could build airfields and radar towers, the game would be well over for all the high end players.

On the airfields, do not forget that they are also restricted to the flatter, clearer terrain types so that you will not see the lunacy of airfields on top of Mt. Everest.

 

[Singularity]

Originally posted by cracker


It will be interesting to actually see if there were any differences that you noticed in terms of the number of airfields and radar towers. I'm not sure this map format would indicate too much about the game impact of these features, however. Generally by the time you could build airfields and radar towers, the game would be well over for all the high end players.

At the end of my game when I fought a modern age greece, I spotted a few radar towers. But they where undefended. No airports where visible, but with the tight cities on limited islands it would be no immediate need for the AI to build this improvement.

I guess that neatly puts me into the low end players category

Anyway, if the AI code encourage it to defend radars with available units and not the surrounding tiles - it would certainly proove a challenge even to high end players at emperor or deity difficulty. IMO airfields are, and like you've said before; a very limited tool both for AI and players in singleplayer games. Regardless of geology and mapsize. In multiplayer games it has a certain strategic value in conquest games on large continents.

 

[NewDestroyer]

always take out radar towers first itll save u more troops than u think.

 

[Zwingli]

Despite difficulties in exploration, Forbidden Palace placement, and obtaining coal I was able to maintain a 4-5 turn tech pace throughout the late middle ages, the industrial age, and the modern age. I kept the scientific civs updated on technology in order to buy their free starting techs, and Persia managed to research Corporation before me as an added bonus (this would be even more effective with the random scientific techs in the latest version of PTW). I was careful not to bankrupt the leading civs, and gave them luxuries for peanuts so that they could keep up on infrastructure, and be more valuable trading partners in the future. Indeed, later they contributed hundreds of gold per turn to fund 100% research with a substatial profit. All of the tech trading profits were used to rush growth (granerys, hospitals), and science (universities, research labs) infrastructure to keep up on the tech rate.

Even in the modern age my homeland cities were defended by lone regular warriors as every unit of production was devoted to buildings. Fortunately, the other civs did not take advantage of this weakness (although China landed with a 1 spearman invasion). Space Launch occurred at 1605 AD.


After the launch there was some unfinished business with that southern, barbarian infested island. It was something of a puzzle as to how it was possible to make a landing on the packed island. Marines could do the job, or perhaps a mech infantry could patiently wait for an opening to appear. Or...





Unfortunately the captives did not survive

Edit: Format

 

[Singularity]

@zwingli

Space launch in 1605. Very good for a regent game, should secure you a top ten postion. Where you playing PTW1.21f, and did you have periods where you didn't have a 4 round research?

 

[ltcoljt]

Its not supposed to be possible to get tech in less than 4 turns. Of course, one of the things Zwingli did better than me was to use the AI to help him research. I wonder if he had any war weariness problems?

Good play.

 

[Hurricane]

@zwingli:

OUR WORDS ARE BACKED WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS!

 

[HighlandWarrior]

space race in 1916, my first regent win, 2nd gotm. coal was a pain in the butt, i had to build a road in greece, for the greeks so i could get coal...

I liked the map, islands are easier to learn on. much nicer than living next to japan...

 

[RufRydyr]

Post game thoughts:

I gave techs to scientific civs in this game so they would get the free tech. This is the first time I've done this. I always play as a builder in the beginning and a warmonger once I've got some troops. I keep the other civs as poor as possible.

For the next GOTM I'm going to try to pick a couple of allies and give them gold, workers, etc. and see if working with them will help me.

I usually wind up with most of the civs furious at me by the end. I try to keep my rep good in the beginning because it has advantages. I'm thinking of trying to maintain great relations with everyone for the next game and go for a diplo victory on the next one. I went for the conquest/domination route on this one (as always), but in retrospect that wasn't the way to go.

I wasted a lot of resources on suicide galleys. If I had it to do over again I wouldn't have. I would have beelined for navigation instead of cav. For some reason I place a high priority on exploration, but studying the best players shows that they don't. Why work so hard to see what's so far away when I can't get to it for dozens of turns anyway? I stupidly rushed a harbor on the land to the SE of the 1st of the first land totally forgetting that the sea would prevent trade for a while. I also forgot that even when the suicide galleys got through I wouldn't be able to trade luxuries for hundreds of years.

As usual I put a low priority on culture. I did build a bunch of libraries and then a number of univercities because my research wasn't at 4 turns. In the next game, I'm going to focus more on culture. Actually, think 'in the future games' instead of just the next game. I lost some cities to culture flipping, but it wasn't as bad as it normally is for me. I usually have the lowest culture of any civ.

*There was one thing that I did this game that I learned from others in previous games that I'm very happy about. I may have already mentioned it though. I built the FP by hand beside the capital. Then, I used GLs to move the capital to the new continents as I got a GL. Several people talked about using GLs to build the FP on a new contintent. I love the fact that when you rush a Capital in a newly conquered city, that city will NEVER culture flip as long as the capital is there. After rushing the capital I'll hurry a barracks and heal units there without worry about losing them in a flip. In fact, I'll leave cities undefended after capturing them until I've destroyed the civ. I hate losing units in a flip. I destroyed the Egyptians first, but didn't get any GLs then. I went after the continent in the middle next. I used a GL to rush the capital there as soon as I got one. That also let me build fresh units there without having to ferry them from a long distance. I went after that middle continent because I figured it would be the easiest one to go after the other continents from distance wise. I attacked the weakest civs 1st. I build libraries and barracks and units and harbors and ships in that middle continent. Then I went after the continent in the lower left and moved the capital down there as soon as I got a GL. Then I went after the continent to the lower right and again moved the capital. So, I moved the capital 3 times! I think it's a great strategy on this type of map and appreciate the players that shared the idea with me.

Luckily resources and luxuries were never a problem. In retrospect I should have built some courthouses. This would have led to a lot more production in those cities that used to have a capital nearby. As usual I built cities close together, but I'm considering giving them some more space in the future. I'm used to milking where pollution can become a real problem over time. I didn't build any aquadects or hospitals until very late in the game. In the future I'm going to build more infrastructure.

I really like the speed of the workers. It really helped with jungle clearing!

It's amazing how many things I would have done differently in retrospect. I've learned so many things in the last 3 GOTMs. Thanks to everyone for such great comments.

 

[Pikachu]

I aimed for a cultural win in this game, but it didn't work out that way. I got into a lot of rather unsuccessful wars that made me broke so I couldn't afford to rush my culture buildings. I never totally abandoned my culture plan anyway, but I was far from the 100K total culture limit. The 20K one city limit Carthage would have reached by 2003 or something, but I won by spaceship in 1980 instead.

In 1904 when the horrible wars finally ended, my economy was wrecked and the AI had out researched me big time. Then I drilled my civ for commerce and traded for techs all the time. I was rather impressed by how fast I was able to catch up in the tech race. The AI civs were all at different tech levels, so there were always some less advanced civs willing to give me other techs in exchange for techs I bought from more advanced civs. This way I got several new techs every now and then until only Persia was more advanced than I was. Then I had to start my own research, and I managed to catch up with them just in time. I launched my spaceship in 1980 while Persia was working on their 3 last spaceship parts. Anyway, I had a decent task force anchored near Persepolis, just in case.

 

[Zwingli]

Re: Singularity

I was using the MAC version (regular Civ3 1.21) so all of the scientific civs got the expected Nationalism/Rocketry for free. In the industrial age, only Steam Power took 5 turns and the rest took 4 (except for the TOE techs). In the modern age the first 3 techs took 5 turns with the rest at 4 turns. Of course, I skipped most of the optional techs (ie. Communism, Music Theory, Military Tradition).

Just to head off any unwarranted controversy here, the tech costs for AI trading factors for the MAC game were identical to the the PC versions of the game. The current MAC software version is v1.12g and we have equalized the game for the MAC users so that they face the same mathematical challenges as other players - cracker

 

[alamo]

28 hours to a humiliating defeat via American SS around 1870AD - not quite what I had in mind.

The beginning of the game was great, but it went downhill after the middle ages.

I had 3 strikes against me -

No GL for a FP during Egyptian campaign - prolonged the war far too long trying for Hamilcar. Then building the FP in the right place took forever, and then building improvements took forever....


Little experience w/Archepeligo warfare and 12 opponents - my invasion for coal was pretty much a waste of 30 turns, and handling the diplo was a real challenge - could not keep anyone happy, did not handle the tech leaders right (must be a friend or an enemy with those tech traders, right?).


There was a bug in the diplo screen that caused a MPP w/Lincoln to disappear, so I broke it. I specifically remembered that I had signed a MPP, but the bluish line disappeared so I just assumed Lincoln broke it. This killed me when I needed everyone to attack America. Could not get 2 big civs into MPP because of the way I betrayed Americans.


It was an educational experience, but not something I want to repeat (or submit). Also, the turns were just too slow in the end. 28 hours is more than double the time I usually take to play a game, and that time was spent waiting for my turn.

 

[tao]

I was quite happy winning my Space Race in 1778.

But then I read about Zwingli's 1605 launch. :worshp:

Why was I so slow?

I went the science and money way, minimizing military. Research was 4 to 5 turns per tech, but I only pulled Russia and Persia with me tech-wise in the Modern Times to get rocketry from them; everthing else (essential techs) I had to research myself.

I did not get a GL from conquering Egypt, but had to build the FP the hard way.

I did not conquer (apart from Egypt) any country until late in the game (England, Greece, Rome, part of Persia between 1615 and 1778).

Obviously, it pays of to be belligerent.

 

[SirPleb]

The question of whether suicide galleys were worthwhile or not on this map has been nagging me. So I've tried to quantify their value in terms of the game's economics, i.e. converting what was lost and what was gained to gold, for how things worked out in my game.

This of course doesn't allow for a lot of intangibles such as whether one wants faster or slower tech, wants to focus on infrastructure or expansion, and the fun of exploring. Nonetheless I think the raw value in terms of gold makes an interesting and useful valuation.

Losses:
I lost 11 galleys. At 30 shields * 4 gold/shield (rush cost) that's 1,320 gold lost in treacherous waters.

Gains:
Monotheism: valued at 840 gold (notes below)
Net income from trades before learning Navigation: 688 gold
Total gain: 1,528 gold.

Notes about valuation (skip these if the numbers above seem ok to you):
1) I'm assuming that I'd have had to research Monotheism if I hadn't gotten it from Persia, i.e. that I wouldn't wait for Egypt to get to it (right, ) The cost I used is what I could have put in the treasury by having research at zero for the time it would have taken to research. That number varies a tad depending on how many libraries/marketplaces one has.
2) I also got Polytheism for free from the Great Library due to early contact. I haven't assigned it any value, assuming I'd have traded Egypt for it in the absence of contacts. (Not certain, it might have a real value here.)
3) I'm not sure exactly how much income I had from selling maps before Navigation. I sold maps most turns and didn't note each trade. The 688g number includes my best guess of this based on checking four saves in that time interval.
4) The total gains could be a fair bit different depending on one's strategy. I could have had more gold if I hadn't wanted to keep the other Civs a bit bit backward. I could have had less if I'd wanted to keep them very backward or if I'd given away techs to avoid hampering their research rate.

The bottom line seems to be that I made a direct gain by sending out suicide galleys. I'd have broken even if I'd lost 13 galleys instead of 11.

Having done this analysis, I think the galleys were worthwhile and would have been worthwhile even if I'd lost as many as 15 to 20. In addition to the direct economic gain or loss, the intangible benefits of gaining Monotheism earlier and of having options in controlling the overall tech pace seem high for the kind of game I was playing.

The number of galleys one loses of course includes a luck factor. I think odds of meeting at least two of the other Civ groups are good (of course not certain) with no more than 20 galleys.

Whether one makes contact with a scientific Civ before having to learn Monotheism the hard way is another factor. I think that can be planned. I didn't, it just happened that way, but I'm going to remember this as being important in future vast water maps.

Another observation: I think the maximum gain from suicide galleys would have come from meeting just one scientific Civ and then stopping risky exploration. The additional income I gained from Greece and Rome was small compared with the additional galleys lost. The main gain came from having met at least one other group which included a scientific Civ.

 

[Borealis]

Interestingly enough, this would have also worked with any of the nearby archipelagoes- Germany, Russia, Persia, and Greece, respectively, are all scientific, and with a good chance of at least one scientific civ surviving until you meet them, I wish I'd sent out more suicide galleys. I say there's a good chance because Persia has industrious workers & immortals, Greece has hoplites, and it's highly unlikely on Regent that America would have eliminated both Russia and Germany by the time you met them. The southernmost archipelago also had a scientific civ, Babylon, but was tactically unreachable without a rare streak of luck.

 

[Shillen]

With a conquest objective gifting techs to your opponent just to get monotheism generally isn't a good idea. Also I withheld my world map for a long time. Even after the AI's discovered navigation they didn't find me for a long time. I believe not selling my world map helped me out a great deal too. I didn't build the Great Library either. I don't think finding other civ's early would have helped me at all. Now on a higher difficulty level I imagine it would be crucial to meet up with the other civ's or you'd never keep up with the tech race.

 

[drewshark]

Here are my past posts; spoiler #1 http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=838032#post838032
spoiler #2 http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=838063#post838063
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=841634#post841634
spoiler #3 http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=846967#post846967
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=848065#post848065

Let me first say that I need to and will start to take better notes so I can compare events. Furthermore, I have learned many valuable lessons in this GOTM that many of you have touched on in this and earlier threads. That said, I will get to my game.
Not much at all happened from the time of the last spoiler thread. I've never lacked a resource such as coal in any game ever in GOTM, so I really was at a loss as I alluded to in the earlier thread. I was so committed to winning via Culture that I never even considered this to be a possibility. I did not have a large attack force prepared to capture coal, as I figured I would wait it out and just outdevelop the other civs to victory. This is a mistake I will not make again. I will never take anything for granted such as a valuable resource. The sad thing is that I could have produced an attack force and gone after a source, but I was frozen, just playing it out not even trying to aquire coal for some reason. Late in the industrial age, I finally got coal from the Greeks and I ripped out railroads in a few turns, but I lost 30-50 turns of production in that time that had a huge impact on my score. Ironically, I was headstrong on a non-military victory (after wiping out Egypt of course) and that was my downfall.
Next up is my confusion on victory condition goals. Early on I was thinking 100k culture, but I never had done it. I didn't realize that you really need to build wonders and lots of temples,cathedrals, collesiums early; especially if you aren't going to expand of the opening archepligo like myself. I obviously got started way too late and realized this too late to boot. Despite building all these improvements, I was lagging and then made a push for the UN, beginning to prebuild about 15 turns before learning Fission. I finished the UN about 5 turns after Fission, but I had made another mistake by aligning MPP's with several civs thinking that it would make the world stable. The only result was, despite never firing a shot, I had 3 or 4 civs furious or annoyed with me, inhibiting a diplo victory. I didn't realize this and took a vote which resulted in a 4-4-3 between me and Lincoln, a very close call. I never took another vote. I was forced into Space Ship as I only had roughly 30K culture around 1730. I quickly researched the required techs (I don't think the other civs even built their apollo program) and launched in 1838 with a scant score in the low 2k's.
A few other mistakes from this game I made aside from some obvious ones listed above. 1) I made suicide runs but not right away. When I finally got through to Greece and England, I was already just 7 turns from Navigation. Judging from SirPleb's formula of cost, I wasted my time, never even trading a tech until I met America after Navigation. 2)I should have just attacked. I had a great core set of cities and wasted all that time building culture when I wasn't even going to be able to achieve it when I could have gone for military and overwhealmed the Greeks, taking their coal and picking my victory condition. 3)I've mentioned it before, but my FP took 100 turns to complete in Heliopolis. I didn't get a GL but I could have rushed a courthouse and temple first (a big mistake). I realize that I have many logistical questions and aspects of Civ3 to learn in order to have any kind of consistency month to month. I am particularly interested in Rufrydyr's mentioned "FP hand build theory." (I know it is something you learned from other players, but I don't know who else to give credit). I started the Great Lighthouse right away in my 3rd city. I am curious when he started it and was it before GL?

@sirplep
What a fantastic city! I would love to learn how to win via culture and am looking forward to reviewing your QSC and final save.
@moonsinger
Imagine that....you "waiting around." Sounds like you took out a new page in your civ book. I know you don't view yourself as a warmonger, but I can't ignore your amazing military conquests in the past.

 

[RufRydyr]

@drewshark: I got beat on the Lighthouse. I had to use all those shields for something crappy.

After reading SirPleb's excellent analysis of suicide galleys I'm rethinking my decision to regret doing them. Does that makes sense? I sent several out, but afterwards regreted all the waste. But now I'm thinking maybe the tech trading was worth it. Guess I'm just confused now.

The 30 hours I spent on this one was nothing!!! I finished the previous game on the 27th of the month. I saved like 2 weeks and tens of hours by not milking in this game over that game and the one before it. That doesn't include the time strategizing while laying in bed. Some great ideas have come to me there! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


@space victory losses: If you have spies in all the civs and the wonder initiation popup checked you'll be notified when spaceship components are built. If you're concerned that someone is going to build the spaceship destroy it by:
1. Signing ROP with that civ.
2. Place a bunch of troops beside their capital.
3. Nuke their capital if possible. If you don't have nukes, just destroy it with all your units there. When you capture the capital it destroys their spaceship.
4. Abandon that city. It usually is a good city and it'll probably culture flip back anyway.
5. Fortify all the units that you have left in that spot on a mountain and watch the AUI commit suicide on them :suicide:
6. Laugh, laugh, laugh

 

[zagnut]

SirPleb:

I liked your analysis. I thought it was a good bet to send out suicide galleys. So much in this game is dependent on contact and trade with the other civs. I just couldn't imagine not meeting any of them. So I went. Unfortunately, I lost 37 galleys before meeting the first civ, so for me the cost/benefit ration was a loser. I realize that my experience was the exception and if I had to play this type of map over again I would still send out suicide galleys.