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Nor Me
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quote:
Originally posted by Konquest02
But playing as the English might be OK too, as the commercial trait reduces corruption throughout the empire.
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I'm playing the English but I don't know. How much commercial helps is not obvious. You may know how useful it would be as much as I do.
It doesn't have that big an effect in despotism and with few cities. Its useful now (c. 1000AD) but on this map there seems to be a danger of early elimination. The Americans benefit earliest from their traits so they would be my choice. But then they're my 2nd favorite civ and playing them all the time would be too easy.
Last edited by Nor Me on 09-12-2002 at 00:07
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:24
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My first start (Arabia on Emperor, standard rules) was a disaster. I've gotten so used to growing quickly and intimidating AIs with my size without a need for much military that I've grown to rely on it, and it didn't work this time. Instead of just nosing around like I'm used to, an Iroquois warrior walked right into my undefended capital while all my units were out exploring. I had a nice city I'd popped from a hut (albeit a long way from my original capital), but I decided I didn't really want to try to play it out against the Iroquois on Emperor.
On the restart, I sent the first conscript warrior I found back to the capital to defend it, but interestingly, the Iroquois never showed up. My exploration path was different, and that must have tipped the balance on some other factor. (I wouldn't be shocked if the Iroquois popped an early settler the first time.) I played a buiilder game with minimal military, planning to take out the AIs when I got my UU. But an Iroquois MW escorting a settler near one of my border cities noticed (AI cheating) that it was undefended and razed it, starting a war. I brought in the Greeks, but then the Germans attacked on the Northern end of the empire. Double ouch, since I didn't even have the military for a serious one-front war.
I managed to fend the Iroquois off without further losses, finally making peace with little regard to what it breaking my allaince with the Greeks would do to my reputation. But Germany captured or razed a few cities along the border, and while high corruption levels meant the loss wasn't huge, it was still highly annoying. In the end, I made peace by trading my recently discovered knowledge of Republic to the Germans on favorable terms. I did get a leader out of (I think) my only elite victory of the war, and once peace was established, I used it to rush my FP along the German border.
The war between the Iroquois and Greeks went on for a long time, with Iroquois troops moving through my territory to get to the front. Greece got clobbered, in part thanks to my having bought two workers from them in exchange for surplus techs and just a handful of gold early in the game, but they survived. In the meantime, I went back to an economic focus, racing Germany to discover new technologies (and occasionally trading techs).
Finally, the big moment arrived. For many years, as cities had finished their marketplaces and banks, they'd built barracks (if they didn't already have them) and then horsemen. Leonardo's Workshop was completed in my capital, and I'd timed the discovery of Chivalry for the same turn. Someone was about to pay for their past sins against me, and pay big time.
Initially, I'd planned on making the Iroquois my first target. But when I checked the tech picture, I discovered that Germany had just discovered Gunpowder. Since they didn't have iron (my iron city on the German border was one I'd managed to defend successfully in the earlier war), I decided to try to hit them before they could build many if any musketmen.
Luck was with me. Germany didn't have a source of saltpeter hooked up, and Ansar Warriors sliced through their spearmen easily. In the end, Bismarck surrendered two of his three cities in exchange for being allowed to keep the third. (Two of the last three, including his capital, were down in southern Greek territory, and the third was the island off the German coast.)
By the time the German war ended, I was eight turns from discovering military Tradition, so I figured I'd wait just a little and hit the Iroquois with cavalry. That operation was complicated a little by the Iroquois holdings in Greek lands, but I had enough newly upgraded cavalry (along with a few elite Ansar Warriors) to handle things. By the time the dust settled, all that was left of the Iroquois was an island city they'd discovered using their Great Lighthouse. I got a second Great Leader during that war and moved my capital to Oil Springs just south of the pre-war border.
Around the time the Second Iroquois War was winding down, I got Magnetism and established contact with the rest of the world. The overseas tech leaders are just a few techs behind me; I'm not sure whether I can manage a cavalry strike in sufficient force before my prospective targets get Nationalism or not. (I'm in the industrial era, and they're three mandatory techs away.)
In the meantime, though, Greece was providing a small but ugly green spot on my map, and I decided to get rid of it. I moved almost all of my surviving forces into position, taking their three cities other than Athens in one turn and Athens the next. In the process, I got two more great leaders, letting me steal Smith's and Magellan's right out from under the AIs. (They'd already had a head start when I met them since I'd skipped over the requisite techs.)
Anyhow, that's where things stand now. It's 900 AD and the home continent is all mine except for a single German city (which will be mine in another three or four turns when my elites heal and get into position). From there, a space race win would be trivial but horribly time-consuming (especially without industrious workers), or I can see if I can rebuild my forces enough and provide sufficient transport to hit one of the other continents without facing a lot of riflemen.
Sorry about the lack of screen shots in this; I may go back and post some later.
Nathan
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Mazarin
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of Old Europe
Nov 2002
time: 05:24
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now, finally, I found the time to try this game... I started with ptw1.14 as the Arabs. I tried it at emperor because I was prepared to a difficult position. Built three scouts, a granary, spearmen/settlers/workers in my capitol and started scouting. From my scouts , I received one settler, two techs, 25gold and one warrior -not bad at all. I soon realized, that religious trait would be pretty useless in this game -for three reasons: 1.)because of the barbs (I normally play either with huts or without barbs) -I had to build military quite early and could not make temples first thing to build in new cities. 2.)Culturally linked starting positions being off, made relying on strong culture instead of building up military too risky and 3.) the closest neighbour, the Iroquois were religious, too which would make it very difficult to cripple them just by taking over their cities culturally.
So I started extremely carefully: expanded slowly, built defenders in all cities, made gifts to all the opponents (Otto attacked me nevertheless once...but only with three archers and one warrior). After the initial tech trades, I researched polytheism in 40 turns, could get every tech tat had already been researched by others -same thing with republic..now I'm the tech-leader, I'll build up my infrastructure a little more and then attack the Iroquois with my UU...I'm pretty sure, that I will not lose
 Attachment: 310ad-au202.jpg
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Catt
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California - SF Bay Area
May 2002
time: 21:24
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
My first start (Arabia on Emperor, standard rules) was a disaster.
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[Clinton voice]I feel you pain.[/Clinton voice]
My second go ‘round has at least matured. The German’s didn’t rush me this time, even though my military force was not much stronger than my first attempt. My hut-luck has been bad: Warrior Code, Settler!, map, map, empty, map, map, gold. Since I once again bet on techs from huts and blocked off Alphabet in the hopes of making headway towards Monarchy, I got behind quickly (but had a great world map!  ). My first game I got 4 techs from 9 huts (admittedly pretty darn lucky).
The Greeks “sneak” attacked me, but I had a chance to prepare. I sacrificed a warrior to fire the Greek GA and sought an Iroquois alliance in the hopes of (1) not having to fight hoplites (since I had few forces), and (2) drawing all Iroquois forces into the rugged Greek lands in order to later make available the more fertile Iroquois lands for Arab expansion  . When not even 10 gpt could buy an alliance I feared the worst. Sure enough, the Iroquois allied against me with the Greeks and declared war the next turn. The war was uneventful. I lost nothing but a few units, and took nothing but a few units. I did fire the Iroquois GA, which I decided to do now rather than later (and probably couldn’t have prevented in any case). I made peace by paying outrageous tribute to the Iroquois and little to the Greeks.
I REX’d, and built up a force of horsemen for an assault on the Iroquois. The Iroquois and the Germans were both traipsing across my lands, clearly readying an assault on either me (which I couldn’t survive) or on each other. Eventually, they went to war against each other (German “sneak” attack violating an RoP). The Iroquois dragged the Greeks into the fray. The Arabs sat quietly watching the troop movements. Eventually the Germans and Iroquois made peace without territorial losses on either side, but many battles and lost units. The Germans continued the advance on Greece. The Arabs positioned attack forces in place to strike 2 Iroquois cities simultaneously – it was all the Arabs could hope for on the first turn of the war. Hiawatha helpfully choose that exact moment to make a demand – and declare war when refused. The war went fairly. I took two cities and “orphaned” three others by cutting them off completely from the Iroquois core. A push to take a third city failed, and I made peace, taking the techs needed to push me into the Middle Ages and paying some gold in exchange. A look at the map at the conclusion of the war is below.
Future plans included a knight (or, Ansar Warrior) upgrade; a war to eliminate the Iroquois as a threat and to take furs and the Great Library in Salamanca; and a war to trigger an Arab GA and bring me up to snuff militarily, as well as strengthening my infrastructure. The plan required: (1) building up sufficient gold to upgrade horsies to Ansars; and (2) buying the techs necessary to do so. Unfortunately, the Civ 3 “reputation engine” wasn’t cooperating.
I don’t want to add fuel to the fire of folks like Coracle, but this particular “reputation surprise” was painful. Shortly after I made peace with the Iroquois, Bismarck demanded incense and I gave it to him. A half-dozen turns later, the Germans and Greeks made peace. Shortly thereafter I tried to buy Monotheism from the Greeks on a per-turn basis – I couldn’t do so since I had “broken a deal with the Germans.” When I looked at my trade advisor screen, I learned that I was no longer exporting incense to Germany; apparently, before the conclusion of the Greek and German war, the Greeks had severed my trade route with Germany. I had stationed troops on the two effective trade routes with Germany to prevent just such an occurrence, but apparently Greek partisans behind the lines managed to cut off the route somewhere further north. Bismarck, it is interesting to note, was “polite” and didn’t seem perturbed by the breech of our “deal.” The end result is that after giving in to German extortion, and having Greek forces pillage a road, I failed to uphold my end of the “extortion,” and am therefore not to be trusted. I’ll need to: (1) build up enough gold to buy techs in lump sums; (2) build up a treasury sufficient to upgrade a force of horsemen to Ansars; and (3) avoid becoming an inviting target in the meantime (while collecting 60+ gold per turn). Sigh.
It will be a satisfying win if I can pull it off. The game has already imbued Abu Bakr with a sense of slash and burn – we will show no mercy, and depending on the technological advancement of the other continent, we may throw all reputation concerns to the wind and raze vast swaths of territory as retribution.
Catt
Attachment: 230 ad conclusion of war 2.jpg
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Dominae
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For those of you who have been following my game through earlier posts, welcome back! This is the exciting(?) conclusion.
If you'll recall where I left off, the Germans were my main opponent, with a tech lead of Chivalry and Education, as well as a force of approximately 30-40 Horsemen (plus zounds of Archers and Spearmen). Conquering them earlier was next to impossible due to the Great Wall (which gives free Walls in every city). The war between the Germans and the Greeks was being fought in the middle of my territory, and (knowing Bismarck), any given turn the Germans could just turn around and decide to slaughter me too. The wonderful surprise was that they had not connected up their only source of Iron yet (right next to Bremen), so if ever total war broke out, I would still have a chance for the time being.
So, I need to get Chivalry fast...ideally before Bismarck gets his Iron. In this best-case scenario, I would be able to just swoop in, conquer Bremen without much resistance, and effectively end the game right then and there.
Fear of the German forces inside my territory makes me play cautiously for a few rounds. I'm hoping some other civ will obtain Chivalry soon because I've got the Great Library. Unfortunately, no one appears to be doing research in this game other than the Germans and I. The Greeks are getting slaughtered right in front of me, although a ROP ensures they are at least taking some Germans down with them. Germans Workers finally hook up the Iron, but Bremen is not connected to the rest of their trade network, due to some judicious pillaging on my part.
Suddenly, Bremen's borders expand. Great. I'm told to leave German territory, and German Workers jump then next turn to complete the road network (pretty good AI, I might add). Then I remember that the Germans have Sun Tzu's, and this game (once again) looks bleak.
Desperate times, desperate measures (or at least: "creative thinking").
Until now I've been holding back Contacts between the Eastern and Western civs, hoping to profit from "unfair trade". But then it comes to me: the Egyptians, Japanese and Babylonians are behind in tech, and have no money (Babylon took out France, Egypt is still fighting with Japan). So the Germans would gain practically nothing from them, in the short term. And since I plan to destroy Germany utterly, there won't be a long-term! So, I trade an oblivious Bismarck contacts to each other civs (and some gpt) for Chivalry. Excellent.
The same turn I upgrade all my Horsemen at a cost of nearly 2000 gold. Leornardo's is about 10 turns away, but having all the Germans right next to my cities is a golden opportunity, easily worth 1000 gold. The next turn I decimate every single German troop inside my territory, and advance on Bremen.
Here's a screenshot of the Knight versus Horsemen bloodbath:
Attachment: au202 extra1.jpg
This has been downloaded 143 time(s).
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Dominae
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Conquering Bremen spells the end for the Germans; no Iron not only means no Knights, but no Pikemen either. Even with Walls in every city, my Knights overrun their defenses. A few turns (and some minor flips) later in 1090AD, the Germans start playing OCC (actually 2CC, but I take care of that soon enough). I normally disband and rebuild conquered cities, but the German Wonders were really worth keeping: Pyramids, Sun Tzu's, Great Wall. By the way, founding a new city when in control of all those Wonders gives it Granary, Barracks and Walls for free (i.e. a pretty good investement).
With a recent Leader from the German war, I rush Adam Smith's in Berlin (I really want my borders to expand quickly up North, since the Greeks and Babylonians are annoying me by founding cities along the unclaimed coast). I heard rumors that Smith's is really good in PTW, and learn for myself that they're all true. With the extra cash I usher myself into the Industrial age in 1130AD. The Babylonians are the closest civ technologically, but they don't even have Chemistry yet.
I discover Industrialization in 1250AD, and slow down on the military front in order to "industrialize". A word of advice: if ever you don't have enough Workers to lay down Railroads *fast*, build some before starting Factories. Railroads are better than Factories. By 1395AD I'm completely industrialized, and complete the Theory of Evolution. I'm now about ~7 required techs ahead.
I plan on taking out the Babylonians next, simply because the Greeks were really nice to me until this point (I'm not used to Polite civs past 1000AD). But then I come to my senses and realise the Greeks are a much more convenient target. I don't yet have Military Tradition, and no one wants to trade it to me. Plan B is therefore to after the Greeks with Infantry, Artillery and Explorers. Actually, this plan is better than Cavalry, due to the geography of the Greek lands (Mountains, Hills, oh my!). My attack force consists of 60 Infantry, 30 Artillery, 15 Knights and 5 Explorers; I end up finishing the game without Military Tradition!
Here's a screenshot from the beginning of the war against the Greeks (note the suicidal Explorers):
Attachment: au202 screen10.jpg
This has been downloaded 140 time(s).
Last edited by Dominae on 10-12-2002 at 23:20
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Dominae
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After finishing off the Greeks, I'm expecting to trigger a Domination victory. But apparently, controlling the entire continent is not enough! There's no way I'm going through the motions of a Spaceship victory, so I begin picking the next target. Although no civ is past Steam Power (with me at Radio), I plan my attack based on strategic resources, just in case things get ugly. The Babylonians have no Rubber on their island, so I send my warships over there to prepare the way for my Transports.
The Babylonian culture is approximately equal to mine, meaning that I probably won't be able to conquer their cities without a couple of flips (which, incidentally, are really drastic in modern warfare, since you can't really afford to keep units in the open due to railroads). They've only got Riflemen and Cavalry, but I bring around twice what I think I need, just in case: 12 Transports, two with Artillery, the rest split between Tanks and Infantry. I declare war (subsequently putting the Luxury slider up way high due to war weariness), and blockade every coastal city with my Battleships and Destroyers. I conquer an average of 2 cities per turn, so the whole operation takes about 10 turns total. I very liberally abandon every Babylonian city 1 turn after its capture, fearing culture. Another Transport full of Settlers arrives in the 8th turn to litter the Babylonian continent with cities.
The turn after the last mainland Babylonian city falls, I win in via Domination. The year is 1675, and I score 5598 points (...with the English!).
Here's a screen of the very ugly Babylonian continent, just before I conquer their last city:
Attachment: au202 extra2.jpg
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Dominae
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Finally, here's a screen of the remnants of my two nemeses this game:
Attachment: au202 final.jpg
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by Jawa Jocky
This is a good example of the IDGAFIYF strategy. |
IDGAFIYF?
Dominae
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Zurai
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quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
IDGAFIYF?
Dominae |
Just a guess, but... "I Don't Give A F*** If You Flip".
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08-12-2002 15:39
They do have huge culture so I'm getting ready to deal with culture flips up the wazzu.
6 luxuries and he wouldn't be happy.
they don't want an ROP with me so they travel slowly through my land. Oh well
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