14-01-2005 00:19									#31
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For me SDI is crucial as I play on large maps with plenty of civilizations to destroy and that as the only victory condition. I have as yet to play through a game and to not reach deep into the modern age.

I will say that SDI took a bit of a hit in C3C as cities with Iron Works have become very scarce. (Nothin' like building the SDI in 5 turns, trading the tech away for massive amounts of cash and then nuking the entire world with 50 ICBM's)

	14-01-2005 02:40									#32
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At the end of the game, why do you need Iron Works to build SDI in 5 turns? At least one of your cities should manage 120spt.

	15-01-2005 09:27									#33
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Ouch! this is exactly the kind of change i was worried about. i remember getting to the modern age all of the time in civ1 and civ2. Is this something distinctive about civ3 that causes the modern age to be harder to reach or is it just that most players in all versions of civ liked to avoid the modern age? I certainly don't remember the latter being the case but I admit it's been a while since I was discussing civ with other players.

	15-01-2005 10:10									#34
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I would say it is due to not wanting to manage large empires later in the game. You first do not know the game well enough to get that far. Then you get good enough to win before then with all wins types available.

At that point you have to play domination or conquest to get the late techs.

	16-01-2005 13:36									#35
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 I would say it is due to not wanting to manage large empires later in the game. You first do not know the game well enough to get that far. Then you get good enough to win before then with all wins types available. At that point you have to play domination or conquest to get the late techs.

Is playing with only spaceship victory allowed a good way to get to see the whole game?

	16-01-2005 17:04									#36
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Well, you'll never see the last few Modern techs, so not really.

	16-01-2005 20:03									#37
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I actually like to play out the "whole game"... perhaps like Geronimo, this is reminiscent of my days playing Civ1 and 2.

I suggest the AU Mod... the endgame techs are better distributed.

	17-01-2005 07:23									#38
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i go for total conquest as a demo...

i always seem to be way behind in the beginning..so i will do anything to avoid war early on.

around 1850 i start trying to take out any weaker civs.

In my current game...the aztecs had 280 soldiers/250 mech

40 tanks 9 nuke/3 tac nukes. 40 bombers/38 artillary (year 2000).

**--------
So i don't attack until i have integrated defense.

it STOPS 8/9 missiles (ai doesn't use its tac nukes)!
**-----------

the AI sends one huge force over...2 nukes wipe it all out. from then on it fights defensively.

(well plus 1 force i had surrounded on my territory and used 2 nukes on that)

only after the attack..does the AI think about building modern tanks (which is great otherwise..that attackin force coulda have reached cities before i could nuke em).

I always play on regent level...'cause corruption seems to hard above. But the AI must definately hold back at this level militarily.

	25-01-2005 19:17									#39
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I've always thought that the whole nuclear thing was implemented poorly in Civ. If you get to the point that the opponent uses it against you, everything becomes messy with large losses/pollution etc. Perhaps the damage is realistic, but the happy toss-around of nukes is not.

The integrated defense thing is royally late in the tech tree, and it offers rather poor protection once large quantities of missiles get fired (not experienced that myself yet) if you consider the rules of chance.

In any case I did build it in my recent modern-age game.

	25-01-2005 19:31									#40
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quote: Originally posted by Grim Legacy The integrated defense thing is royally late in the tech tree, and it offers rather poor protection once large quantities of missiles get fired (not experienced that myself yet) if you consider the rules of chance.

Not true about 'poor protection', I think... with the exception of a recent game of mine, the SDI pretty reliably hits about 75% of the time.

	25-01-2005 19:41									#41
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quote: Originally posted by Theseus Not true about 'poor protection', I think... with the exception of a recent game of mine, the SDI pretty reliably hits about 75% of the time.

Well poor in the sense that you can have it and still be riddled with more than a handful of nukes that come through anyway, which is rather unpleasant.

	25-01-2005 19:47									#42
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quote: Originally posted by Geronimo Is playing with only spaceship victory allowed a good way to get to see the whole game?

At the countrary, it is a good way not to get to see the whole game. You can launch the spaceship with only about half of the modern age researched, and will never get to SDI and alike, because almost guaranteed, if you can launch the spaceship, you will do it. I have fired up a game a week ago (my first one in over a year), moving slowly (only a few turns per day), where I deliberately disabled the spaceship victory in order to get to the later techs in the modern age, where I haven't been much in my entire Civ3 carreer because of the spaceship victory.

On a sidenote, and sorry for the threadjack, it's good to see you alive and well, T. It's scary to see all the snow on TV. We have snow too, but less than a centimeter.

	25-01-2005 19:58									#43
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph On a sidenote, and sorry for the threadjack, it's good to see you alive and well, T. It's scary to see all the snow on TV. We have snow too, but less than a centimeter.

Feh... snow to NYC is like Longbows in front of MAs... we just plow on through! It has been friggin' *COLD* though.

	25-01-2005 21:45									#44
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quote: Originally posted by Grim Legacy Well poor in the sense that you can have it and still be riddled with more than a handful of nukes that come through anyway, which is rather unpleasant.

It is not unusual to see the SDI stop 8 or 9 icbm's in a row. If you let the Ai build dozens of them, you may want to reevaluate your strategy.

To get to SDI, you need to play conquest only or maybe domination at all but the lowest levels.

BTW you should be able to rebuild a city in a very short time. You can send in a massive clean up crew and clear it in one turn. Add workers to the city to build it back in size and rush structures.

	26-01-2005 01:44									#45
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 It is not unusual to see the SDI stop 8 or 9 icbm's in a row. If you let the Ai build dozens of them, you may want to reevaluate your strategy. To get to SDI, you need to play conquest only or maybe domination at all but the lowest levels. BTW you should be able to rebuild a city in a very short time. You can send in a massive clean up crew and clear it in one turn. Add workers to the city to build it back in size and rush structures.

haha perhaps you are right and I am being overly paranoid about nuke storms. As I said, I've never even experienced a nuke exchange in any of my games.

	26-01-2005 03:07									#46
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You are wise to avoid it, if you get that far, build some as a MAD function, it often works.

You will see to your horror that dropping nukes on a civ with SDI is a very frustrating task. The beam shots out time after time and away goes 500 shields. You need three hits on the same city to wipe all the units in that city, so it can be very expensive vs SDI.

	26-01-2005 03:49									#47
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Sounds frustrating. I recall a few games long ago in which I did build one or two nukes to deter others. It never came to an exchange and I just realized I've never even seen the SDI beam!
Anyway I guess my avoidance instinct paid off this time, although being wise has little to do with it.

	26-01-2005 03:53									#48
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as far as i can tell, the ai never launches nukes 1st...

	26-01-2005 06:38									#49
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I can't say about it in C3C, but I am pretty sure I had the AI launch first in the vanilla version. I think I had one other first launch about 16-18 months ago, but I am not sure what version I was using then and I only play without mods.

It is not common for me to see nukes, so I can't say if they need any certain conditions or not. IOW I would not see them with nukes and me not on many games.

Maybe some others will address thier experiences.

Last edited by vmxa1 on 27-01-2005 at 05:54

	26-01-2005 08:48									#50
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quote: Originally posted by Redstar as far as i can tell, the ai never launches nukes 1st...

Oh yes they do.

	27-01-2005 05:39									#51
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i must be doing something right then.

The Ai has always counted on me to start lighting up the sky with armegeddon particles

	27-01-2005 11:28									#52
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quote: Originally posted by Redstar as far as i can tell, the ai never launches nukes 1st...

They certainly do......and here is a nice little action shot of a nuke that I took towards the end of AU501

And now back to the point.....AU501 is the last time I remember actually building the SDI, about a year ago.