Strat Forum PBEM 3: Game Report

[Dominae]

If any of you remember a year back, we started a bunch of "Strategy Forum" PBEMs will the purpose of testing the AU mod (oh, and there was also the goal of having fun). There was the understanding that each player would write a report when a game they were in was over, in order to provide feedback on the AU mod and insight in PBEM strategy.

Well, the second of these games is now officially over. Strat PBEM 4 finished a while back, but no one wrote a report for that one. alexman was the unofficial winner. Strat PBEM 3 just ended, and DaveMcW came out on top.

Aptly named (I think), this thread is dedicated to the reports of Strat Forum PBEM 3. Everyone is welcome to comment, of course.

I hope that each player will provide at least a brief glimpse of this game from their perspective. I'm sure the Strat forum would be better place because of it.

Before I start my own report, here is some background info:

Players and Civs:

alexman - French
DaveMcW - Egyptians
Dominae - Carthaginians
jshelr - Chinese
Nor Me - Americans
Sir Ralph - Ottomans

I would like to point out that all our civ choices were Industrious.

Game Settings:

Scenario created by BRC.

Map Size: Standard
Land Form: Continents

All other map settings standard.

Difficulty: Emperor
Rules: AU mod, MP version

Special:

Not much. We wanted to test out PBEMs in a more or less unrestricted environment.

[Dominae]

I chose the Carthaginians because I wanted to try out the Numidian Mercenaries against human opponents. I thought (and still think) that this is one of the more interesting UUs from a MP perspective.

When I received my save, I was quite happy to see this (of course, BRC probably made sure that everyone would get a nice start spot, but I rejoiced nonetheless):

[Dominae]

I feel I've come a long way as a Civ3 player since the beginning of this game. As you will see, my report is little more than a long list of bad plays. Let's just say that this was a great learning experience for me!

The first of these bad plays is not sending the Worker to Irrigate the Wheat right away. I actually did a couple of test scenarios to determine what the "best play" was, but fell prey to over-analysis. When in doubt: Food is good. I should have remembered that.

I set research to Pottery first, because I knew I would want a Granary to create a 4-turns Settler pump in Carthage.

Then I did something weird and questionable: I figured that I could get away with no scouting whatsoever, so I built absolutely no Warriors in the first 30 or so turns! Since we were only 6 players on a Standard-size map, there would probably not be a bunch of neighbors around to harass me early on. Plus, human opponents are far more open to diplomatic manipulation...err, coercing; if a unit arrived around my borders early, I could probably guarantee my safety through diplomatic means.

So I decided to build a Granary first. This was a calculated gamble to get the economic jump over all the other players. And it actually worked (more below)! But now, at the game's end, a little wiser I think that this was an unecessary risk; I could easily have been eliminated within the first 40 turns.

Here's a timeline of the early-game:

3400BC: Pottery
3150BC: Granary
2900BC: Settler
2800BC: Utica
2750BC: Carthage Worker
2710BC: Bronze Working
2550BC: Utica Warrior
2470BC: Carthage Settler
2390BC: Leptis Magna
Contact China (jshelr)

As you can see, my "Granary first" gamble actually blossomed into a reckless obsession with economic growth. By the time a Chinese Archer appeared on my borders, I had but one military unit (a Warrior).

[Arrian]

Beautiful land. I can see why you were gung-ho about reckless economic development.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

If you're looking at that screenshot and saying: "Wow, Dominae was screwed", you're basically right. I could conceivably have rushed a Numidian Mercenary in Utica in case China attacked, but that would have been awful as it would have triggered my GA. I sure wished I had Warrior Code! On the positive side, I was probably REXing a lot faster than anyone else (barring a free Settler for America).

Anyway, unpleasantness was avoided when a few brief and very cordial dialogs with jshelr revealed that China was not interested in war so early on in the game. I may or may not have convinced him that trading was probably best between our nations, but I'm thinking he figured that out for himself. jsehlr's decision not to attack me was indirectly also a sign that we were probably alone on our continent, or more probably that he had simply not encountered another civ yet.

We completed the following trade, and I felt a lot better:

China: The Wheel, Warrior Code
Carthage: Alphabet, Pottery

I built a bunch more Warriors from that point on, though, actual contact with another civ sobering me to the possibility of quick defeat. A few turns later, reports from Chinese explorers, combined with my own pitiful scouting efforts, made it clear that it was going to be a Carthage-China early-game.

I was actually quite happy about this because: 1) Carthage is a great builder civ, 2) jshelr and I were not on the best of terms after Strat 4, and this would be a great opportunity to patch things up and see what cooperation can really do (instead of intimidation...Shaka Zulu!). All the while, however, I was wary that China was planning an attack, and so I took steps to guard against this. My mistrust lasted longer than I'm proud to say.

[Arrian]

Definition of "fast 'n loose" see Dominae's early game.



Oh, just look at those river systems!

-Arrian

[Dominae]

I'm not even going to discuss any micromanagement things, because most of mine were horrible this game (I used two Industrious Workers to build most of my Roads!).

jshelr and I agree to split up the Ancient era tech tree. I would beeline for The Republic and then pick up the Ceremonial Burial to Polytheism branch, while jshelr would do mostly everything else. We still did not trust each other 100% at this point, so we made sure that each trade was fair in terms of tech points and Gold. Later on we forgot this restriction and just pooled our resources in the most efficient manner possible.

In terms of economy, my plan was simple: build a lot of Granaries! I was really really big on Granaries at the time, and I think I went a little overboard here: I ordered the construction of a Granary in every city within the first ring from my capital (no, I did not use RCP, because it had not been discovered yet). For these cities a typical queue looked like:

Warrior
Worker
Granary
Worker/Settler
Aqueduct/Temple
Cathedral

Why Cathedral? See below...

Any city further out would build a Courthouse instead of a Granary. As I've stated above, this focus on Granaries was clearly a bad play: my population got too high too quick, and the lack of bumpy terrain (Hills, Forest) meant that the Shields spent on Granaries were sorely missed elsewhere. What I should have done was designate two (perhaps three) cities as pumps, and use those for expansion/growth.

Anyway, my REX plan worked out nonetheless. When I saw China's borders I knew I would be able to claim most of the continent's land mass. I was toying with the idea of letting jshelr have more land, but (again) I was not entirely trusting at this point and figured the more I had the better, in case things turned sour.

[Arrian]

That's a lot of granaries, Dom, especially since you didn't set up many of those cities on rivers for the auto-aqueduct.

Having said that, in my Hotseat game I'm currently playing w/my gf, I've built 3 or 4 granaries (I am also Carthage). Unlike you, however, I had a high-shield, low-food start, with a medium-sized jungle to my south (and desert/ocean to the north). I desperately needed those granaries.

-Arrian

[TheGuitarist]

Great report, post more soon!!

[Dominae]

In 1000BC, I discovered The Republic, and jumped into Anarchy right away. My empire stats at the time were:

Cities: 16
Pop: 31
Workers: 15
Settlers: 4

Warriors: 12
Numidian Mercenaries: 1

Granaries: 5
Barracks: 1

My military was just big enough to cover all the darkness, preventing Barbs from appearing and annoying me. The Barracks was to begin building a force of Vet. Mercs. "just in case".

Then, in 975BC, America (Nor Me) builds the Pyramids! Oh crap! As of now I'm still not sure if this was done with the hard way or with a Leader. Nor Me was the top in Score at the time (with me rapidly catching up), and the Pyramids on top of that was not a good sign.

In 650BC, the Egyptians build the Great Wall, which is actually really in good with the AU mod because it gives free Walls. Then DaveMcW demonstrates that Score means nothing, by first capturing the Pyramids then destroying America in 530BC.

My hope at this point was that alexman and Sir Ralph could band together to contain DaveMcW, who would surely be a superpower, with a strong economy (Pyramids) and the means to defend it (Great Wall). My plan was to play a very peaceful game, ideally pulling ahead technologically while the others beat each other senseless.

I realized very soon that there were only a couple of Luxuries on the home island (Furs and Spices). This is not quite enough. It was unclear how long it would take to trade for some overseas (probably too long), and even then I did not want to rely too much on foreign goods to keep my populace happy. So I hatched the plan to secure the Sistine Chapel. In the city with the highest Shield output, Hippo (a mere 19 Shields per turn, or something like that), I set up and executed the following queue:

Granary
Colosseum
Temple
Courthouse
Sistine Chapel

Since only one of my cities would be growing very big in the near-future, I felt the Colosseum would be a good option in lieu of wastefully raising the Lux slider to 30-50%. I felt reasonably confident I would get this Wonder because it's generally not regarded very highly, but still I could not wait and counted down the very long 30 or so turns it took. My other cities built Cathedrals in eager anticipation of the day.

When jshelr discovered Map Making, we both put a few boats in the water, but soon discovered that, other than a crappy Jungle island to the East (probably hiding all the Rubber, eh BRC?!) there was nowhere to go. Each Galley was sent on a suicide mission, and none returned. Rather than waste more resources in this manner, I decided to wait for Astonomy to try again.

[Dominae]

Just a post to show the border that jshelr and I finally "agree" upon. I probably should have left him more space, which would have been better for the both of us (I think). After this was over with (and I had rushed a Temple in both borders towns!), I felt a lot better and things went very well between jshelr and I from then on.

[Dominae]

jshelr and I also split the Medieval era tech tree, for obvious reasons. He took the lower (Invention) branch, and I took the upper (Theology) branch. There was still no word from the other continent. We felt we were doing quite well just the two of us (at least, that's what I thought!).

Then, in 130AD, the Ottomans (Sir Ralph) complete Leonardo's Workshop. I'm just a couple of turns away from Astronomy, and jshelr is just beginning Invention himself. I console myself by reasoning that Sir Ralph probably had a prebuild for that baby from around 2000BC, so the other continent is probably not much further ahead. Plus, my Sistine project is nearing completion and I doubt anyone is going to take it from me (I had to switch from a Palace prebuild a few turns earlier due to cost issues, so the whole world could see what I was planning).

279AD was a big turn:

Banking
Sistine Chapel
Contact France (alexman)

The French were nice but not really forthcoming with information, which could mean any number of things. I learned that the other continent is slightly ahead technologically, because the civs there had (annoyingly enough) been peacefully trading instead of making war (as they should). alexman gave me no further information, so I decided to just be the friendly neighbor that will help anyone in need (for a price), rather than take sides right away.

alexman and I also did not reach an agreement regarding Contacts and World Maps, mostly because I was reticent to give my map up. Why? Well, at first it was a matter of principle, but with the advent of Gunpowder and the fact that there was no Saltpeter on the entire western continent, I felt it was too dangerous to give up.

I could have provided alexman with jshelr's contact, but jshelr and I had engineered this "ruse" whereby we tried to make the eastern civs believe that relations between China and Carthage were very tense, and that we could got to war "at any time". I thought this would get us better trade deals, as the other civs would be fighting to support one side or the other. As it turns out, the other continent could not care less about us, so our ruse was not really important (if it worked at all; I think it was painfully obvious that China and Carthage were cooperating all along).

[Arrian]

If you were going for a Maginot line, when in the heck did you leave the hill tile 22 of Anyang open? That's the perfect tile to dump an invasion force on if you're China.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

I'll just post a log of the next few turns, which were exciting and eventful to play, but easily summarized in point form:

280AD: French discover Navigation (?); Luxury trade now possible

320AD: Contact Ottomans
Contact Egyptians
France Copernicus' Observatory

340AD: Economics

350AD: Purchase Chemistry from French

380AD: Purchase Physics from Egyptians for 512 Gold
Obtain Printing Press from the Chinese

390AD: Ottomania Sun Tzu's Art of War
Purchase Democracy from the Egyptians for ~500 Gold
Revolution (5 turns)

410AD: Egypt Newton's University

420AD: Obtain Metallurgy from French
Obtain Theory of Gravity from French
Agreement with French: Metallurgy, Theory of Gravity and Steam Power for Medicine, Electricity

440AD: Democracy

---

After meeting the Ottomans and the Egyptians, I became obsessed with catching up in tech. At Chemistry, jsehlr and I were 3-4 techs behind the eastern civs. jshelr and I had finally entered "the zone", where he was generating a lot of money with Marketplaces and giving it all to me in gpt, while I was using it and all my Libraries to research as quickly as possible. But it still was not fast enough. We needed to buy techs.

alexman's prices were not that great, and Sir Ralph did not at all seem interested in trading. There was a matter of no-trade agreements, but I was not really privvy to all the details.

All I knew was that DaveMcW was more than willing to sell me any tech, and at great prices too!

On the diplomatic front, here's what I remember (these are not real quotes):

alexman: "I'm fortifying my borders against the Ottomans, who are building up a bunch of Sipahi and are ready to attack at any time."

Sir Ralph: "You are unimportant to me. Do whatever you will, things will happen on my continent as they were meant to happen."

DaveMcW: "I long for peace and profit. Who knows what the future holds?"

The main point here is that, without a World Map I was almost completey in the dark with respect to the diplomatic state on the other continent. For my part, I wanted to get rich (hence my little detour to secure Smith's) while they fought, but I also did not want any of them to pull clearly ahead. Although I did not explicity count tiles, I knew that if each of the three remaining eastern civs were to split the land on the other continent, they would each be stronger than me. Therefore my plan was simply to hope.

In 450AD, France and Ottomania ally against Egypt, confirming my suspicion that DaveMcW is the top dog over there (his Score had surpassed mine a while ago). I no longer feel any guilt with respect to buying techs from Egypt, as it's usually best to support the lone man when there's a 2 on 1.

Then, something unexpected happens. alexman hints that the war is not going well for him and Sir Ralph. And the very next turn (490AD), Egypt gets Railroads, and proceeds to conquer all but 3 Ottoman cities in the same turn. That'll teach ya to place your cities so close, Sir Ralph (just kidding, of course)!



Sir Ralph conceded the next turn, and alexman the turn after that. We then exchanged World Maps and called it a game.

I had not even considered the possibility that DaveMcW was the favorite in that war. Of course, a brief glimpse at the World Map makes it all very clear: DaveMcW had as much land area as alexman and Sir Ralph combined!

I discover Medicine and build my Forbidden Palace (late, I know!) in 500AD, but the game is over.

[Arrian]

And the very next turn (490AD), Egypt gets Railroads, and proceeds to conquer all but 3 Ottoman cities in the same turn. That'll teach ya to place your cities so close, Sir Ralph!

-Arrian

[Arrian]

I'd love to see a AAR like this from Dave.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

I plan to write another post with some diplomacy comments.

For now, some kudos:

DaveMcW: for winning the whole thing, in a very convinciing manner.
jshelr: for sticking it out even though your chances for victory were very slim.
Sir Ralph: for creating a very scary Ottomania (Sun Tzu's, Leo's and a 30+ Shield capital!!).
alexman: for being patient with me in trades, especially when reminding me of the tech formula.
Nor Me: for building the Pyramids years before my first Temple!


Good game, all.


Dominae

[Rhothaerill]

Sounds like a fun game though. Too bad I missed out on all the PBEMS. Oh well, soon...

[Nor Me]

I didn't building the Pyramids!
I only built the Great Wall. DaveMcW built the Pyramids.

I did start an AAR some time ago. I will finish one eventually.

[Arrian]

Well that changes things.

From reading Dom's AAR, I thought that Dave built the GW as a prelude to war, using its benifits to shut down any attempted counterattack.

Instead it appears he built the Pyramids, triggering his GA very early, and leveraged that into conquering you despite the GW.

I'm even more curious now.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

I sold Dave his GA, letting him kill my warrior for 40 gold.

[vmxa1]

Wow that was very interesting to read, nice job of putting it together Dom.

[Nor Me]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I sold Dave his GA, letting him kill my warrior for 40 gold.

I see. Well, that proved to be a mistake.

[Catt]

Great game! Would love to see reports from other players.

Are you all still playing the "Balanced Pangaea" game and if so was there any unhappiness with the map / start?

EDIT: Just checked the PBEM forum and see that you're up to ~2000 BC after many months Hope you're having fun!

Catt

[BRC]

I really hope that everyone feels as if they got a fair start. After seeing Dom's, I can't help but feel that maybe I screwed up somewhere. Nice game all.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Nor Me
I didn't building the Pyramids!
I only built the Great Wall. DaveMcW built the Pyramids.

I did start an AAR some time ago. I will finish one eventually.

Ha ha! Goes to show how much I was paying attention. Correct me if I'm wrong, though, but the Great Wall changed hands rather rapidly after its completion, right?


Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by BRC
I really hope that everyone feels as if they got a fair start. After seeing Dom's, I can't help but feel that maybe I screwed up somewhere.

I'm not 100% sure about Nor Me, but everyone seems to have had a fair start, other than perhaps jshelr. Stuck in a smallish peninsula against Carthage, it made for a very tough game on the Chinese. Overall I feel the map was well-balanced enough. Without good knowledge of what happened on the other continent, my opinion on this is not worth much though.

Although I did have a sweet starting location, the balancing factor with it was that there were very few Hills and Mountains near my capital. This made for a very slow-moving middle- and late-game. I expanded well enough, but I ran out of gas rather quickly, and it took me forever to build Aqueducts and/or Marketplaces. With the need to keep research high, I could not really afford to rush these critical improvements.

What I should have done was Palace-jump to somewhere near the Chinese border, where there were plenty of Hills and Mountains that could be exploited to at least have a few cities over 25 Shields per turn.


Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
If you were going for a Maginot line, when in the heck did you leave the hill tile 22 of Anyang open? That's the perfect tile to dump an invasion force on if you're China.

Good eye, Arrian.

I would like to say I had a good reason for that, but the answer is far simpler. I took that screenshot after reloading the save today, and playing out the turn as I remember having played it previously (just to get the shot to agree with jshelr's experience). I did this rather fast because it took a little while digging through all the saves, causing this error to appear in my otherwise-superb Maginot line.

I should also add that that unit formation was just for fun, as jshelr and I were quite the team by that point. I could think of nothing better to do with the units until foreign boats started appearing on my coasts (at which point they would be put on "shuffle to block the coast" duty.


Dominae

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Nor Me
I see. Well, that proved to be a mistake.

It was obviously not my only poor decision in this game, and by far not the worst. In fact, for me it was a good deal, because 40 gold for an obsolete regular warrior, who was done scouting anyway, is a fair price. Better than 2 shields.

Generally spoken, I played the ancient age well, taking and multiplying the advantage of a good starting position. Despite the fact, that I did not find a settler (I hardly got anything useful out of huts), I turned out the #1 power at the end of the ancient age. But then, I completely screwed the medieval age. The seemingly cruel end was more a relief for me, getting me rid of a game I disliked since many turns ago, because I had hurt myself with a row of very poor decisions.

As I said, at the end of the ancient age my situation was, that I had a pretty productive core, with one full-power (4 turn) settler factory and one half power (6 or 8 turns, IIRC). Luxury-wise, though, my situation was very bad. All I had was one dye, and not even anything to trade. Later I secured 2 incense, already in 2/3 corrupt area, but then that was it in my immediate neighborhood. There were more luxuries farther away, deep in the 1-shield area.

What I should have done now is continue REXing into the high corruption area, keeping my population low, building a camp in the neighborhood of my capital to build an FP there, and later to palace jump into the new acquired area.

What I did instead was REXing half power, raising my population and building wonders in my capital, making a palace jump forever impossible. True, my capital was a kickass city with 30 shields at size 12 without GA, but that was about my only good city. The inner core was so-so, the outer areas sucked, and no Courthouses could help. I had completely forgotten to take in account the brutal corruption setting of the AU mod, and was reminded of it only after it was already too late. In this game I developed a deep grudge against this mod and never used it again, neither in SP, nor in a new PBEM, where I vehemently refused to apply it. That's probably a stupid move to reject a whole mod only for one setting, but... that's a very important setting for me. I hate corruption and waste. Others like it, but I effing hate it. I can't help it. And I just can't stand if the only legal means to fight it (switching to Republic + building Courthouses) are hurt in a mod, leaving only "illegal" - read: exploitative, not intended by game design - means like RCP (which wasn't yet known when this game started), "distant capital" and a palace jump. So, /RANT now.

What also was clearly visible: I completely, full 100%, suck at diplomacy. All I can do are "fair" trades. If somebody starts to nag about a price (ring, ring, Dominae...), I'm inclined just to say "screw you" (with better, more polite words of course), than to continue to haggle like on the fish market. I mostly left the haggling part to alexman, who was a good tech partner for the whole game. This gave me a rather obscure, may be even scary view. This is also a warning, never -ever- to give me a diplomatic office in a demogame. I will screw it for sure. But then, my demogaming period is over anyway.

In the mid-medieval, after realizing my mistake, I tried to repair my situation half hearted. I begun to build an FP the hard way in the northern mountains, after I spent a fortune to get the city up to 3-5 shields (5 with food deficit, 3 with surplus to fill up). After I got my UU, started that half-hearted war against Dave, which I had planned some 20 or 30 turns before. To be honest, I wasn't convinced to get anything good out of it, because Dave had set up a fierce defense, with walled cities on hills and city inspections had shown lots of defenders in them. I was out for a GA and may be a leader. I thought my chances were 50-50, but they were most likely worse. Oh well. Dave wrote me in a mail, that he saw it coming (of course he did, and I knew that) and I had better attacked alexman. But I just can't attack a good partner. And since due to my complete diplomatic failure Dave never developed into a good partner, well... we know how it ended. After I opened the save that day, my first thought was, damn, how could this happen? And the second, praise the Lord, that nightmare is over.

[FrustratedPoet]

Excellent read!