What is your gaming history like?

[axehaxe]

No problem if nobody remembers how many games much less what those games were like they played but it would be interesting to know how many games you played and at what speed you progressed. Even if you have lost on cheiftain many times your gaming timeline of progress has a truth and worth of its own...

Mine:

There were negligible practice games before this but....

My very first game was a chieftain, huge map, 7 civs, Koreans, and I won by building LOTS of cavalry and being very very to the AI (by save/reload cheating)

My second game was a warlord game as Koreans that I lost (retired) because I thought that you can't build roads unless you remove the jungle first and THEN build the road and also the Japanese declared war on me after I rejected their demand and they landed an archer from a galley on 2 of my empty cities and took them.



I was discouraged because it was "Soooo damn hard to get an 'acceptable' deal!!" And at that point I stopped playing for about 2 weeks. Then at work, I found civfanatics here by a lucky accident. I read bamspeedy's article on deity settlers and ision (I think?) his article on trading tips for beginners. Suddenly, it relit my desire to play because 'tech trading' was something I had never thought about.


So I played a regent game (scared, trembling ) as the byzantines on an archipelago map. I dominated that game! Except, I still used save reload cheating

Meanwhile, I kept reading and writing in civfanatics and learned a LOT.

So I tried the Celts on a Monarch game. I gobbled up the Spanish to the south, wrecked the Babalonians to the north, and gobbled up half of the dutch empire which was even more north than the Babalonians. I almost had this entire continent and I just knew I was doing good! Until I read a thread on civfanatics about cheating and that save/reload cheating is "the oldest trick in the book". Humbled and once again in the quick-learning spirit of a beginner I read many many many more threads on civfanatics until I was ALMOST confident that I could give a non-save/reload game a shot. Before that, I decided it was time to forgive myself for cheating in the Celts game and finish it without anymore of it. Mayans became a runaway AI and demanded Industrialization. Naturally, I said no. They declare. I send hordes of infantry on galleons and land them on a mountain in their offshore continent. Their cavalry commit suicide against my infantry. Slowly but surely, I bombard and conquer their HUGE continent. I win that game by domination and spent 138 hours or something to finish this Huge map's game.
From this game I learned never to cheat again because it is possible to win w/out cheating.


Then, it was time to try what everyone was talking about on civfanatics. I heard, "the transition from monarch to emperor is the hardest transition in the game but certainly rewarding".


So Arabia on pangea it was. Idea being, I was going to try to gain a tech lead by the expansionist trait instead of building the GL. Religious because I liked the Celts in the previous game but knowing nothing about this trait then when compared to other traits. Expansion went well and I had many cities up. However, I was behind in tech. Huts do no more good during the Medieval Times so I had to try something. So I try triggering my GA with an ansar warrior. Meanwhile, I aquired republic and revolted DURING the GA (bad idea!)
Republic installed, WW overwhelming, wondering why the heck republic "sucks" compared to monarchy but why everyone on civfanatics say, "Republic is the best government in the game." So I post a thread asking what the virtues of a republic are and find very very valuable answers that I would apply in future games. In this Arabs game I RE-revolted when I thought republic just wasn't doing it DURING the GA Also I didn't know then that attacking inside a civ's borders counts as ROP-rape.
I GLADLY ended this game by retiring (Lost)

So I took a deep breath, drank some coffee, did some push-ups, and got ready for another brave attempt at emperor as Vikings on archipelago. I neglected to build any ships and wondered when my first city was built how in the world am I supposed to make a settler factory when there my starting techs don't allow for a prebuild on granary?? My first city was not coastal either because I CHOSE to build it on dry land thinking "the sea is bad". Being a warmongerer I wrecked Arabia by AA blitz and pointy stick researched them 3 times for a total of 11 techs. They also built the GL and I took that city!! - " TIME TO PARTAAY!!! " and I gifted the city to the Romans (who had 2 cities) before education to do the GL trick. When the 'fruit' grew ripe and time to go harvest - the Egyptians declared war on the Romans and took the city instead !!! Getting REAL mad I declared war on the Egyptians and signed an MPP with the Persians b/c they were in democracy and runaway AI. Twofold goal here - 1 slow down the Persians, 2 get the Persians to ally with me at low cost. Then the inevitable happened - Mayans declared on Persians, I get involved in a war I don't want to be in, Egyptians are wrecking me, I'm like 2 tech ages behind, Persians had started building TOE. So I retired the game with a "sour-lemmon" face.

So I took a deep breath, drank some coffee, did some push-ups, and got ready for ANOTHER brave attempt at emperor as Vikings on archipelago. I built a curragh first thing and tech traded and got LOTS of cash. I ended up next to the Celts who demanded Literature from me! Being the first time ever being demanded a TECH nevermind a large sum of gold I rejected his "offer". Naturally, they declared war and took 2 of my cities. I signed a humiliating defeat. Determined to come back at them I had ALL my cities build catapults. I had the Great Lighthouse AND the Statue of Zeus in my capital because of my wonder addiction those days. I had a choke point city separating me from the Celts - idea being I was going to catapult their SOD's to pulp and use my
horsemen and ancient cav's to clean them off. I was going to use my GA to build a S*it load of beserks and galleys and go around razing all their coastal cities. So thats what I did and EVERY AI was pissed off at me. Not to mention India declared war and cut off my trade route with the Chinese !! I wasn't exactly winning the war against the Celts either. Disgusted when my choke point city was taken, I retired this game (Lost).


At this point I asked myself: "Why is emperor so hard? Why do I keep losing? Where did I go wrong?" After moments of deep thought and reading civfanatics, I decided that I needed to go back one level so I could REALLY learn the mechanics of the game from the inside out, from east to west, from the 3rd dimension to the 4th dimension. I thought, "Maybe I might be playing deity by now had I never used save/reload cheat my first games. There's a saying, ' it is easier to learn it right in the beginning than to learn it all wrong and have to relearn to correct whats been learned' "


So I started a game with a savename, "LearningfromPersia" and tryed the Persians on a pangea map. And soon enough, I AA blitzed and gobbled the Egyptians. I took out (forgot what civ) as well and I was doing VERY well having the combined empire power of 3 empires. The Romans ROP-raped me and took 8 of my cities in the west in 1 turn. Quickly, I woke all my cavalry, retook the 8 cities and took many roman cities over the next few turns. The Romans wanted to talk but I shooed away his messenger. I cavalried all their cities and infantried their last few cities. When they were down to 1 city I opened diplomacy just to see what their reaction would be when I asked them for 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 gpt. Then I finished them off after getting the obvious response. Because I knew I was wasting time on a game that I can very clearly see I won already, I decided to not finish this game.


Then, finally back to emperor, I took a deep breath, drank some coffee, did some push-ups, and got ready for ANOTHER brave attempt at emperor as Vikings on archipelago......

.................My timeline of Civ gaming is not half finished but I will continue this story as soon as possible............TO BE CONTINUED (much much much more to come - currently I am playing my 4th deity game after I won the first 3 deity games) So that's WAY past the point I am at in this story.

 

[DBear]

My first game of Civ3 was with Vanilla, on chieftain. I ended up with a histographic win. After that death march thru the modern age, I went to an earlier save and built the UN and won that way. I thought Civ3 corruption so broken that I went back to Civ2 and didn't come back until PTW. After that, I got comfortable on warlord and was middling on regent.
Similar story with Conquests, it took me playing the GotMs for me to progress from regent thru monarch to emperor. Demigawd is next!

 

[pneuma]

My first game was a tutorial game as rome with vanilla back when it was new. I lasted until the industrial ages, but never won and never really figured out how to play: I was frightened of war chariots in the industiral age because they look intimidating, I was so very confused when I could build riflemen without saltpeter when no other guns could be built, and I didn't understand why I couldn't build the Oracle after Delphi flipped to me.

I never went beyond warlord level until I killed that computer about three years ago and got a mac two years after that, at which point I came back on regent level and won my highest regent-level score in my third game. At the moment I'm kicking ass on monarch level and will be starting a solo emperor game in about an hour.

 

[Rekondite]

My first game was on vanilla at the chieftain level, all I remember is that I went through the game peacefully and won I think with the UN. I was also very lost in combat and really had no idea how to fight the AI. Anyway I didn't learn how to be more combat capable until one of my friends showed me how he played on his comp. After that, I got combat down but still played in Chieftain for a while (But later played in Warlord). Since I got Civ3 Complete yesterday I've been experimenting so I'm currently doing a test game with Korea on Chieftain.

 

[Mirc]

I used to play lots of games on Chieftain. Got Vanilla Civ3 in 2003, and in June 2005 I was still not bored with a 1.07 no mods no patches Vanilla only chieftain history of games. I started learning after I joined CFC. Note that my join date is wrong, I stayed almost 2 month in Italy right after I joined, then I went to Greece and Germany for about 2 weeks. I had less than 100 posts in September. I moved directly to Monarch in September-October 2005 (can't remember too well). Jumping to Emperor was easy, but I get to bored to manage a game on Deity or Sid. I can do a Demigod pretty easy now, though I am limited at warmongering style. I never won by Culture, Diplomacy, or Space Race. Got bored with micromanagement before reaching those.

 

[Tone]

Well unlike other posters here, I lost my first game. Badly.

It was on chieftain. When I got a new tech, I didn't attempt to trade because I didn't want to give my opponants a helping hand. I didn't build any additional workers-well, one was enough to link the towns I had together, wasn't it? I didn't build settlers because I wanted to build loads of city improvements first. I didn't revolt from Despotism-why would I want to? I remember getting a sneak look at the advanced civs on the other continent and seeing their lands absolutely covered in mines and rails and realising then that maybe I was doing something wrong. (Oh, those mines on grass actually help then, do they?) I eventually refused to give into an AI demand and got spanked by their cavalry. (Wow, I though, they *are* powerful. Maybe I need something more than spears next time.)

Needless to say I'd never played anything like it before but I loved every minute of it. I finished the game as the singing birds heralded the start of a new day ('wait a minute, last time I looked it was only 1am') and I was totally hooked.

I've improved a bit since then...

 

[gmaharriet]

I lost my first two tries at Chieftain almost 2 years ago, but finally managed to win one and then another. I found this board when I'd been playing for a couple of weeks, but still spent 6 weeks on Chieftain. Then came 6 months on Warlord and another 3 months on Regent.

THEN, I joined one of Bede's TGOM SG training games at Emperor and his next game at Demi-God. We won both of those and I've had the good fortune to play (and win) other SG's at Emperor with team mates who are far better players than I am.

My solo games are still played mostly at Monarch, where I can make a few mistakes and still have fun. I'm a very slow learner , but I still love the game.

 

[Aabraxan]

In truth, I have yet to actually complete a game. I tried a couple of Chieftain level games to find my way around the controls. I think I tried the Sumerians first. I never even made it into the Middle Ages. I also tried out the Hittites, but quickly decided that the 3-man Chariot stunk. I might have made it into the MA with the Hittites, . . . but I sincerely doubt it.

I spent my lunch hours combing through War Academy articles and reading threads here. (One thing I learned is that the two civs I'd tried (Sumerians and Hittites) were almost universally reviled.) Once I felt like I had my feet under me on Chieftain (at least as far as the theory went), I moved on to Warlord.

So I played out my first Warlord game from 4000 BC to 1335 AD, and started a thread on it. I hadn't lost, but the game was not going as I'd hoped. I figured, "What the hell, let me get some good advice before I learn bad habits." I didn't like the way the game was going because corruption was eating gold hand over fist, I was behind in tech and nobody wanted to trade with me. (I had totally trashed my reputation.) Anyway, I took the advice that was given to me, intending to play out the rest of the game to see if I could salvage it. Then I ran into a very, very slight technical difficulty, but decided to delete those saves and start a new game. (Patience is not exactly my strong suit.) Besides, my keshiks weren't holding up particularly well, and I wanted to try my hand at trading.

So I began again, Warlord, continents, but this time, I played China. I found myself on a continent with the Incans and the Mayans. I concentrated on following the advice I'd been given and the articles I'd read in the War Academy. By about 750 AD, I had my continent all to myself, having wiped out the Mayans and Incans. Then came my big blunder. I didn't know that galleys could cross into ocean squares, so it was around 1100 AD before I finally made contact with the other continent! I finally made contact and tried my hand at trading (and at keeping the AI broke). The Aztecs didn't want to trade, though. And then they declared war on me. By circa 1400 AD, I'd railed my continent, won a war on the other continent, wiped out the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans, crippled the Iroquois, built the Pyramids, Sun Tzu's, the Great Lighthouse, the Statute of Zeus, the Knights Templar, Leonardo's Workshop, and begun work Magellan's Voyage. In spite of all that, when I discovered magnetism, the Great Lighthouse went obsolete, and I was convinced that I'd just stranded 2/3 of my military on the other side of the world!

I'd done well enough in that game that I decided it was time to move on to Regent. So now, I'm in my first Regent game. I'm back as the Chinese (let's hear it for militaristic and industrious!). I built my first-ever settler factory, and have yet to build a wonder as of circa 500 AD. (The first step to recovery is realizing that you have a problem with wonder addiction -- see above). I've crippled the Hittites, made profits from the Carthaginians, traded with the Dutch, made contact with the Iroquois and just finished dulling many, many blades against the Americans' armor. I was totally on the offensive, but just can't seem to take Washington. I finally just asked for peace, their gold and some gpt, just to give me time to bring some more units up to the front. I definitely need a bigger SOD next time . . .

 

[drakdan]

I got to Monarch pretty quickly while still playing pure builder. Then I cut back on the buildings and I rose to Emporer, which I can win at consistantly. So now I play Demigod, and while I haven't played enough to say that I can win consistantly at it, it doesn't seem like much of a leap, although the AI is a bit less predictable with all it's bonuses. Last game the Maya went from 5th to 1st, had 3,000 gold in the bank in the early middle ages, converted to Facism, and has been warring against me on and off, constantly breaking peace treaties, and impaling huge troop stacks against my huge stack of artillery.
Also: Looking forward to hearing from some of the diety players.

 

[Sashie VII]

I can remember my very first game clearly, it was China on chieftain (vanilla), continental landmass. I had no idea what I was doing back then, so even chieftain was challenging..

My immediate neighbour was Japan, and was my very first enemy accross the battlefield. It was slow and full of mistakes but in the end, they're down to their last capital. I pillaged every tile, then sue for peace, ROP and MPP when it became available. Then I put units on every tile

North of my continent, there were the Persians, Indians and Babylonians on the far north. I was lusty for war, so I declared on Babs and got Gandhi and Xerxes to help. It was funny, I brought a catapult which was upgraded to arty in a captured city and changed hands quite a few times between the warring sides After losing quite a few units for a couple of cities, I decided to change my targets and began preparations for a sneak attack on Gandhi and Persia (never heard of rep back then). This was early IA, and my attack didn't commence until I had tanks

On the other continent, Egypts has cleared away the Russians. Catherine only have one island city somewhere, and my one attempt to capture and hold an Egyptian city failed after 20+ turns. Figures, I only brought a transport of Infantry and then tried to build defenders in the captured city

In the end, my stumbling steps toward world conquest was never finished. I won histrographically..and I was even surprised that there was a time limit

But I was hooked!

 

[axehaxe]

Originally Posted By drakdan

I got to Monarch pretty quickly while still playing pure builder. Then I cut back on the buildings and I rose to Emporer, which I can win at consistantly. So now I play Demigod, and while I haven't played enough to say that I can win consistantly at it, it doesn't seem like much of a leap, although the AI is a bit less predictable with all it's bonuses. Last game the Maya went from 5th to 1st, had 3,000 gold in the bank in the early middle ages, converted to Facism, and has been warring against me on and off, constantly breaking peace treaties, and impaling huge troop stacks against my huge stack of artillery.
Also: Looking forward to hearing from some of the diety players.

If you can beat emperor consistently, then you are certainly ready for deity. Don't play demigod. Go directly to deity. Do you build the GL a lot in your games? There are 2 ways of winning at deity: Build the GL and follow up OR be an agri civ (Mayans) and expand like no other. The AI having 3000 gold by the middle ages is nothing. You can expect one AI to have around 15000 gold by the end of the middle ages but don't let that scare you (it's actually stupid that they leave out this much cash for show and never use it!).

What civ's do you like to use? I like using the Greeks on deity. I've won once using the Mayans going no GL (my first deity game).

Do you use GA's to collect cash and then rush marketplaces and aqueducts with that cash?