Unusual Game

[zeeter]

Here's an interesting game that I am playing now. I started with seven civs playing the Babalonians. With a medium sized continent all to myself I built about fifteen cities. Usually I don't worry too much about building the early wonders, but when I didn't have anything to build in my biggest cities for a few turns I decided to start them. Thus far in the game, and I am in the 1400's I have built every single wonder that there is.
At one point I got to a section where the age changed and looked at "the big picture." Since I hadn't made contact with anyone I could only see my own graphs. Not realizing this, and assuming that I couldn't be so far ahead of everyone that I'd get every wonder, I assumed that I screwed up and was playing only one civ on a world all by myself.
After playing for a few more years I had enough. I saved, then retired only to find that there were actually other civs there, but they were very far away and must have been very far behind me technologically.
I reloaded - sure, its cheating but I was so far ahead that I didn't worry about it. Plus I didn't really look at who was there or where they were. Just that they were there.
I built a galley and contacted the other civs - except one that I can't find. They are in awe of my culture. According to my advisors I am very far behind in military. Probably because they have a lot of swordsment and pikemen. This is not a concern because in a couple of turns I can have enough cavalry and infantry to put down any invasion.
I'm curious. Has anyone had a situation where they were so far ahead that they assumed that something must be wrong?

 

[Hawkx9]

On Chieftain, yeah.

 

[getak]

same here i had a huge map, 60% ocean, continents, 16 civs, and i was playing on cheifstain. at least i got all the claims on a treasure trove of all recources and was able to command and conquer all the land i saw with no problem, other than those raging barbarians. you need some challence on cheifstan.

 

[Ackrite99]

You said that you started on a medium sized island. In my current game (12 civs, huge map, Regent), being on this kind of smallish island was the worst deal ever. I didn't make contact with anyone until 1400 AD, and so had to research every tech myself (hard when you get past warlord), and I didn't get any leaders to complete any wonders because I had no-one to fight. My only chance for salvation was the great lighthouse - maybe I could send out gallies and settlers to save my flagging nation. But the computer built it.

When I finally got magnetism, and contacted the rest of the world I was way behind. So I decided to build up my economy and buy techs. Now (1902), I've still never been in a war with anyone, and am 2 techs ahead of my nearst rival - but its been tough, and I still have quite a small industrial base because my expansion was curbed so early.

In summation, if you start on an island, you might want to quit. The only good thing is being quite protected, and no sharing a border with anyone.

 

[zeeter]

Let me point out - in my previous fifteen games or so that I tried on whatever the second difficulty level is I had trouble. You know, playing like Civ2. I was never able to complete the game because I'd get into that rut of a hundred turns or so of just moving workers around and changing some build queues. This was late in the game on a PC which was a little slow so I'd lose interest after a while. When I got on the good PC I wanted to start from scratch, learning the Civ3 way. While there really isn't much competition at this point I will finish this game just so that I can say that I won and move on to the next difficulty. Plus I've never made it to some of the most advanced techs so that will be interesting.

 

[zeeter]

I wanted to give an update on this game. Presently I am in year 2015 and recently entered the modern era. In 1800 or so I finally made contact with the other civs on my planet. They are all very impressed with me.
I began a few cities on some outlying islands. On one island the Egyptians and the Zulus landed and built cities as well. After a while the Egyptians were gobbled up by my culture. For some reason, the Zulus sent a bunch of swordsmen to my city and started attacking my riflemen. I'm not sure what that's all about. Anyway I quickly removed all but one of their cities from my hemisphere. I think that they had demanded some kind of tribute from me and I told them to pound sand which caused the war.
So its 2015 like I said and has been for a few days now. I am in a rut because I know that I won't win by conventional methods because there's only 35 turns left. I have no serious threats to my civilization. I have to find an hour and run through the last few turns.
One thing that I noticed - when playing other games I was far ahead of where I am now as far as technology. This is probably due to trading with other civs. It was neat to play uninterupted, but after a while this game got real boring.

 

[loki]

what should I say... Going from chieftain to warlord is a _huge_ gap. It's probably too big.
I play Regent, because I like to win.

Playing on huge map, this also adds to the challenge, because the AI expands a lot, making it difficult to conquer.

loki

 

[Albert Einstain]

I played standard map monarch level game. I was Russian and I found myself on middle sized continent together with Indians. They expanded better than me and they has more resources then me... And after all, they start the WAR. War began very early in the game - after they got swordsmen. Worst of all, they from the beginning destroyed the road to the Iron (it was near border). After all, they took my Iron square culturally. And they had the Iron of they own. And horses. I had horses too - the only strategic resource I had. Both of us had all cities connected. So, situation was VERY bad for me. And now I want to tell, that computer is VERY stupid!!! Because he lose. It is very interesting thing, but he NEVER made a horseman! Never! Maybe, because he wait for tach to make their war elephant. But he uses only swordsmen. Thats the reason. I build a lot of horsemen. They attack swardsman, then retreat to my cities. So I kill a lot of his swordsman without loosing single horsemen. Then, when I had a lot of horsemen, I took all his cities one by one. Definitly, before that I took back my Iron and sent one horsmen to cut roads from his Iron to his cities. The interesting thing is that without Iron he made archers, not horsemen!!! I can't understand that. It is probably a bug. I believe human never been so stupid. At the end he made war elephants, but it was too late for him. But I had problems taking his last two cities - I loose all my horsemen (except one or two). But I was Russian, and that is OK - Russians anyway can't upgrade them to cavalry, only to knight. So, after war was over, I found that I don't know Where am I and where all other nations. I believed that I was far behind other civs. I was 1400 AD, I was still at Despotism with pretty low culture (I had to retake 3 cities after they flapped to Indians during the war). But when I found other nations (I saw one Egypt trirema and got everything else by trading), I saw that I am not too far behind in tech. That I am 1st in territory and army. My war was from 2500 BC till 1400 AD!!! By 1595 I was 1st in science and in culture since I had a lot of luxuries to trade with others. And beeing republic I had a lot of money. Actually, I took all money in the world. In 1895 England attacked me! With single swordsman!!! And I had mech inf. Computer is REALLY stupid. It is MONARCH level!!! Now it is 1920 and I am researching cosmos I have Manhatten project and I am waiting for that technology to build nukes. I really don't need to have them - I have plenty of modern armour units and mech inf, and marines, and bombers, and artillery etc... Just now I got all English Islands and I prepare to take their main continent. BTW, everybody else in the world are with me in that war (I am no need their help, but better to have them as allies). It is most exciting game I ever played! And in 2 turns I finish UN and I can win diplomatically. But my plan is to try to get culture win. Now I have 60000 culture points and I don't see any reason not to win by culture, I have 130 turns.

 

[Ragincajun]

While I generally like playing archipelagos, I just had an interesting game that showed up a quirk in the Great Library.

Starting on a nice 14 city landmass stretched east-west along the South polar region, playing on a large map with 11 civs at Emperor, I quickly gobbled up my territory. The English were next to me on another land mass, and after a short war I repelled them from my shores. As my culture expanded, I could see the fringes of several islands on the map.

Racing to the Great Library, having built the Colossus already, I researched Iron Working just in case those pesky Brits decided to try me again. Once I had the Great Library built, and managed to get the English to trade me mapmaking for Literacy, I went to war with them..I had 3 irons, and they had none. It was a fairly long war, as they sank quite a few of my transports, but the Swordsmen ended up doing the job quite well..and over the 500+ years of the war, not a single tech came from the Great Library. Checking the f11 stats, I was second in pop, first in production, second in landmass...and neither the English or myself had contacted ANY of the other civs...so I started sending those foolish Galley Captians out daring the seas and oceans, attempting to find someone else...no one was within range. The Egyptians had built the Great Lighthouse, which was a distinct disadvantage for my galleys.

Finally, at 1000 AD, the Egyptians meandered into my territory. All this time I still had not recieved a single Great Library Tech, but lo and behold..as soon as I finished speaking to them, tons of them flowed in..contact with other civs is apparently necessary for the Great Library to work.

After meeting all these other civs and catching up on tech quickly, I proceeded to get whooped by the Persians who were number 1 in tech and not trading the best military tech to anyone..and happened to be fairly close, along with having Copernicus already and thus being able to attack me without return warfare problems. Anyone else seen strange qualifications to Wonder use like that, or was this just one of those rare situations that generally dont come up often?

 

[Jimcat]

Check the Civilopedia entry for the Great Library. I think it specifies that the Library gives you any tech that has been discovered by two civilizations THAT YOU HAVE CONTACT WITH. You can't very well copy those scrolls if you don't even know where to find them.

Yet one more example of "why not to assume that Civ3 is just like Civ2".

 

[Bamspeedy]

Last game I played...

Huge Map/16 Civs Pangea 80% water, Warlord difficulty. Ended up with one large continent with 8 civs (I'm on that one of course), a slightly smaller continent with 4 civs, way out in the ocean is the Japanese with a small 7 city island, and there is another continent with 3 civs, each with about 7 or 8 cities.

By the time the Americans contacted the Japanese (1600's) the rest of us were in the late middle ages (I had only one tech left before the Industrial age), Japan still needed like 6 techs to get out of the Ancient Era! Out of pity I sold him Literature, and donated a tech or two.

Finally someone found the other three civs (1800's). India and the Aztecs were in the early middle ages (I sold them Engineering), while the Chinese still weren't out of the ancient era yet . Being the diplomatic person that I am , I gave them the two ancient techs they didn't have yet.