Conquest level - PTW 1.21
Here is a link to my industrial ages post:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1049126#post1049126
Going into the modern ages, I was well behind in tech., but had managed to start a world war, forcing most of the other civs into Communism or Monarchy. Japan built the United Nations while I was still in the Industrial Ages, but never called for a vote. As I entered the modern ages, I wondered if the Space Victory might be attainable.
I planted spies in all the other Civs and found out that no one had yet moved forward with the spaceship. I attribute this to the other civs being in a state of war. However, as I started to work on researching Space Flight, the French started building their spaceship. I was able to build my Apollo Program, but it was apparent that I would be too far behind the French to win.
Knowing Japan was the tech. leader and knowing I had around 4000 gold, I attempted to steal a tech. from the Japanese, and it worked! I then noticed that if I set my research to 0, I was gaining around 1354 GPT and could feasibly steal a tech. every 3 turns rather than research a tech. every 10-12 turns. So, I stole a second tech. from the Japanese. By this time, I was getting fairly close to the French in the space race, but they had Laser, which I needed to try to build the last space parts. France had already built 8 spaceship parts and was working on the last two. Since I had already stolen two technologies from the Japanese, I decided to steal The Laser from the French. Disaster struck as my spy was captured and the French (who were far more powerful than me in my game) declared war on me
I immediately paid the Celts and the English anything they wanted to declare war on the French, and then worked on re-building my treasury for another attempt at stealing The Laser. I lost 2 cities in 1 turn to the French and their Modern Armor, and started upgrading anything I could to Mech. Infantry to try to withstand the attack (I had built Sun Tzu's Art of War earlier). I put up a battle but lost a third city about the time I successfully stole The Laser from the Japanese. After stealing The Laser, I spent all available gold on upgrading, rushing and drafting units to survive the 4 turns until I built S.S. Exterior Casing.
I then proceeded to lose another two cities and Barcelona was almost captured
But I knew that nothing else mattered if I could just build S.S. Exterior Casing in Toledo and hold onto Madrid!
Finally, I received some timely help from the Celts, who used an army of Modern Armor to weaken one of the cities the French had taken. I then used an elite Modern Armor to re-take the city and had a great leader emerge
I immediately used the great leader to rush the last spaceship part and won the game
- my first GOTM win and my first win period on any level above Regent. Japan and the Iroquos also were working on their last two parts, and I the French were also before I lost my spy.
This turn of events raised a couple of questions regarding stealing technology:
1. Is it easier to steal technology from a civ based upon the type of government they are in? My attempts to steal technology from the Japanese (Monarchy) worked every time, but my attempt to steal technology from the French (Communism) backfired completely.
2. Is stealing technology rather than researching technology considered an exploit of some type? It seemed that I would have been able to start earlier and steal technologies on a regular basis from the Japanese.
In response to Cracker's questions:
1) Regarding how I felt during the ages:
Ancient age: I felt very good about having the Conquest level bonuses to start with and was able to stay close in tech. I loved the starting location, with lots of reources and room to expand.
Middle age: I felt good going in, but felt somewhat down going out of the Middle Ages as my plans for world conquest went terribly awry. At the end of the Middle Ages, I felt like I had no chance to win.
Industrial age: I started to become more optimistic, figured out how to trigger a late Golden Age, and start to wonder if I could win.
Modern age: I felt very nervous and excitied, as I can actually see how a win might be possible, and in fact happened.
2) NA - did not play GOTM 18.
3) The Zulu were very strong at the beginning of the game. Had they not been taken about by an alliance of several other civs, the game could have been much different.
4) Outside of starting a timely late Golden Age for me, I did not find the Conquistador to be a very useful UU.
I did learn overall from this game to not give up on a game too early, because you never know what might happen if you don't give up. Thanks for the Conquest level game that encouraged me to give this deity level game a try.
![[ptw]](/images/smilies/ptw.gif "PTW Icon [ptw]")
1.21f Open Class
Anyway, I really want to finish this month game because I want to see if trading alone (with the 40 turns reasearch - no Great Library exploit - no beating up AIs for techs - no I luring AI to declare war so that I don't have to pay them GPT exploit - you know what I mean
) can keep up with the AI technology. To finish this game, I have to play a lot of small sessions. Since I didn't really want to set off any low turn per session, I left Civ3 running most of the time. Please keep in mind that I didn't spend over 159 hours on this game; the actual play time may be around 50 hours.
The mini-map of my end game can be found 
