Yin has Civ3!: Let the testing begin ...

[Jeje2]

Sorry Yin, but you lost me on there.

What were you trying to say?
That when a unit comes to your territory it can just pass and if you command it to be removed from your terrotory it doen't go towards his nearest city, but instead towards the "emty" space??

So what did you try to say?

[yin26]

Jeje: Basically, yes. Only if the AI has got several squares to pass through your territory first to reach the other side will he withdraw back to his original position. This means, of course, in the early game, your borders are almost meaningless when the AI tries to push his settlers across you ... no matter how many times you complain to the AI. I've told India at least 6 times to get off my land. Now that I have expanded more, however, I have better success catching the AI deeper in my land. Then he will withdraw.

But this allowed a number of settlers to get behind me. You asked earlier why I bunch up my cities. Well, this is one of the reasons. Any gaps between your cities are perfect slots for the AI to withdraw to in a hip hop way across your land anyway.

So, I went back to an earlier save and said this: "Alright: I'm gonna ICS just like I did in Civ2." Guess what: ICS is alive and well, guys. In fact, it's not really a choice anymore the way it was in Civ2. It's virtually a REQUIREMENT! Take a look at the screen after using ICS (popping out a settler each time a city reached pop 3):

[yin26]

Yes, I have 19 cities by 640 AD. Now this is much fewer than you would have in Civ2 ... but this is a Civ3 version of Civ2 ICSing. It's the SAME thing. Now, "Won't India's culture eat you up?" No ... because India was pumping out settlers and workers in a much much less efficient way by having to send them all the way across the map. And he has a split empire now.

The real question is Japan, who is on the SE border. He has the biggest city, which tells me he could build some infrastructure. It will be interesting to see if all my cities down there just get eaten by Japanese culture.

Since I am tired, I will not comment on this except to say: It was a terribly boring way to spend the past hour. And if this turns out to be the only way to deal with an AI that just runs across your territory to build behind you, then this will be a definite black mark.

Well, before I conclude that, I'll play this game out.

[yin26]

By the way, the Domestic Advisor just said: "Build more cities!" Oh, Lord.

[Jeje2]

Originally posted by yin26
By the way, the Domestic Advisor just said: "Build more cities!" Oh, Lord.

LOL


Well in Civ and SMAC I hated to have cities overlapping each other at all.
I always optimized my locations carefully. And now it seems I have to throw out the window my likes...

Btw. Can you raise/lower land? (Conquer land from sea in lategame?)

[Steve Clark]

I don’t know if ICS is a requirement, probably it depends on what you want to do. In many of my Civ2 games, I never built more than 6 cities prior to Democracy (I just thought ICS way of playing really sucks). In Civ3, however, I’m having to build a little more cities than I normally like, but nowhere near ICS-like. In my Chieftain game, I’m on a island a little smaller than the Chinese/India one in yin’s game. I, as the Iroquois, share it with the Americans. He had 4 cities while I had 5, but I alternated building settlers and archers (some out of barracks), I was able to take over his 4 cities really easily. So it’s not all settlers, but at this level, I can concentrate on expanding some, building a small army and improve culture all at the same time. Now I have 8 (one razed) cities (at 410bc), 6 warriors/8 archers and 500+ points in culture. I am awaiting Monarchy so I can kick the game up a notch so I can see what’s elsewhere from my island. So I guess if you don’t like your enemy’s expansion, stop them (with military, not with territory) before they get too far.

[sgsmitty]

OK, I will bite. Having been a CIV(?) fan for the last 6 months, I do not know all the terms.

What does ICS mean? Please describe.

Thanks,

[eMarkM]

I'm having a similar experience in my first full game as yin is having in his 2nd. I'm the Germans (on "warlord", 2nd easiest) and did the "counter expansion" against the first civ I encountered, the French. I boxed them in with no room to expand, effectively choking their progress. Counter expansion, I think, will be a valuable strategy. You must pin them in before they pin you. You can't be passive about it. This can lead to some exciting "settler races" to see who will get the unclaimed land between you first.

They did the same thing with rushing settlers across my territory, but for the most part I was able to counter with troops blocking their access. Here's a question: why is it that when I ask another civ to get out of my territory that I can't give the "get out or declare war" ultimatum that the AI can use against me (where your troops are automatically placed outside their borders)?

Again, similar to yin, I'm able to employ ICS just fine. There's an isthmus that separates me from another large land mass where the Russians and English are and I just reproduced like crazy to claim this land before they did.

A big difference between this and Civ2 is that in this game jungle, desert, mountains are all potentially hiding valuable resources and must be claimed if you can, encouraging ICS into this "unusable" land. Here's a case in point. So I build up my empire, claim the jungle and mountain infested isthmus and my borders come close to the Russians (I took out the boxed in French easily with Knights v Spearman--I'm having no problems with funny battle outcomes). Between us is a huge swath of desert, really the only desert squares on the continent that I can see so far. At first my Civ2 brain said, "well I don't need to bother with that icky terrain, I can stop expanding right here". But Civ3 brain kicks in and thinks this area could be the Saudi Arabia of my continent and I'd better claim it. So I'm building cities of all desert squares! They're so far away from my capital as to be effectively useless production-wise, but I felt I needed them because I figure one of these 50 desert squares will have oil and such when that comes. Access to resources=land grab=ICS.

Anyway, I go on to crush the Russians and with the exception of the English, I dominate the largest continent. My Russian cities are useless, even with courthouse, etc, each one produces one lousy shield. To boost this I start the Forbidden City in Moscow. Of course, it'll take like 400 turns to complete so now I need a Leader to rush it. I have no leader currently, so that means I have to start a war. And who better than my weak English neighbor. So I pick a fight with the England as I have calvary vs pikemen and soon produce a leader to rush build the Forb Palace. This helps the corruption problem a bit. Though this is a curious kind of strategy to have to employ. Go to war so you can eventually lessen corruption.

All in all, this particular game has been rather e . The English will be toast soon and I'll have a continent to myself while the Chinese, Japanese and Romans battle it out on the other continent. I'm not complaining, it's still a very addicting game. This is a low level game just to get a feel and I know I won't have it this easy on higher levels. Still, ICS is alive and well, and as yin says, may actually be a requirement, though it should prove to be more difficult at higher levels.

e

[eMarkM]

ICS=Infinite City Sprawl.

A strategy where you just spawn off settlers at the earliest possible moment, found new city, create settler, found new city, etc, and never stop, to the detriment of your city improvements. Basically using quantity over quality. Eventually you can overwhelm the AI with so many cities. A very effective--and often disdained--tactic in Civ2.

Civ3 tries to limit this with settlers costing 2 pop, corruption getting ridiculous with large empire, and an AI that employs ICS to gobble up territory.

As someone who's employed ICS to beat Civ2 Deity, I do find in my first game that I do concentrate on city improvments in Civ3 more than I ever did in an ICS-Civ2 game because of culture and the fact that the core of your empire has to be very strong to support a large domain, as your outlying cities will produce next to nothing with corruption so bad. However, with the inclusion of resources, I find ICS still is needed (if you're not boxed in yourself by AI) even if the city produces nothing because of access to a strategic resource. Even the ones you don't see yet.

e

[yin26]

I find ICS still is needed (if you're not boxed in yourself by AI) even if the city produces nothing because of access to a strategic resource. Even the ones you don't see yet.

Yes ANOTHER very important point. I'm going to start a new thread suggesting a 'contiguous borders' concept.

[yin26]

Here is my proposal for fixing this problem.

[korn469]

well i have been playing the game as much as my time allows, and i will write a review soon

however in the mean time here is something to play around with...it's my latest game, played on a tiny map against 3 AIs on monarch

i didn't want to worry about pollution so i didn't build hospitals, and i started piddling around about 1600, and i thought that i was ready to finish the space ship for a win when in 1878 i found out that because i don't have rubber there is one (expensive) part that i have yet to build...so the AI beat me to Alpha Centauri

here's the situation:
i reloaded it from 1880, and luckily secured a source of rubber...so now i am trying to pull out a win, it is 1882, and the AI is close to launching their space ship, i was really piddling and i probably disbanded about 15 jet fighters (which was all i was producing) to get extra shields for a little more culture in small bases at my borders racked with corruption, in addition to a few other useful weapons i disbanded for shields

have fun with it

[LaRusso]

Originally posted by yin26
So, I went back to an earlier save and said this: "Alright: I'm gonna ICS just like I did in Civ2." Guess what: ICS is alive and well, guys. In fact, it's not really a choice anymore the way it was in Civ2. It's virtually a REQUIREMENT! Take a look at the screen after using ICS (popping out a settler each time a city reached pop 3):

isn't your corruption crippling?

[Grim Legacy]

LOL @ the "civ2 brain" comment. I too did that -left some unseemly tiles to rot. They are currently populated by infidels, but I have changed my mind already and my Great Armies are ready to whip the intruders back to their homeland. I guess I'll populate every place not likely to be covered by my cultural border soon.

Ah! If only I had some iron.

[yin26]

Korn: I am patiently waiting for your review. I'm sure it'll be a great one.

LaRusso: "isn't your corruption crippling?"
Yes, of course, but the overall benefits still seem to be there. 1) The AI saw that I had claimed the land and started to back off its settler push. 2) Access to resources. 3) Slow-growing but still growing cities all over the place. However, I stopped that game because that's not really how I like to play.

Instead, I have spent the past day testing Ancient Age build orders. I have also upped my difficulty to Monarch, but can't comment on the AI abilities there yet since I am only running the paces for the Ancient Age. I feel it will still take me a few days before I can comment on the game in a full review. I will have mine ready after Korn's and at least a few days before the Nov 16th release date overseas. I hope to have some good commentary and screen shots in the meantime, if possible.

[LaRusso]

just one thing, yin (for you know i do care about your opinion, even if it only gets out to put you in the limelight )
do you enjoy playing it?
i do

[yin26]

Well, it has that 'just one more turn feeling' -- unfortunately often just to replay some turns to avoid something I don't like and should have been fixed. That's a tricky answer, eh?

I plan to review the game a bit more harshly than did Korn, but I share his conclusion that the right patching could result in an amazing game.

[LaRusso]

Originally posted by yin26
Well, it has that 'just one more turn feeling' -- unfortunately often just to replay some turns to avoid something I don't like and should have been fixed.

hehe, cheater

In my chieftain game right now, i somehow reached 1000+ culture by 400bc.

Right, in 800AD, i sending two galleys, one after the other, with Warrior or Longbowman with a settler to the northern part of the map, from my southern territories. Sure corruption may go rampaent up there, but where they are going as two horses and two irons close together Also, if those galleys were Caravels, they would be at their destination by now...as galleys can't go deep sea, so they need to go all around to the Romans northern coasts to jump to the continent with the resources, then go all along that coast north-west wise to finally plot my settlers. WOuld seriously be annoyed if barbarians or abnother civ showed out of nowhere and killed my galleys


May aswell get asap, before one of the comp does. Besides, my northern Roman neighbour as Iron and making his darn Legionaires. So can't have his low-cultured, low-tech society kick my but whenever he decides to get into war with me. Only resources i have home wise is 4 Gems and 2 Dyes
Before going to bed last night, started trading a Gem resource for Roman Horses. And now building bunch of horseman

Economy rules and have enough gold support hoot of a large army for 50 to 100 turns.

-LMP

[mactbone]

Well, that's one of the REALLY frustrating things: "Oh, sure. Sorry. We'll remove them" -- on the FAR side of your civ, that is! I think the AI looks into your territory and if it isn't several squares deep, it feels it can cut across you.

I've heard lots of people comlpain about this and I did notice it... until I hit the Industrial Age (or maybe Nationalism..) that is...

You see in my game the other civs I was neutral with (no Right of Passage) couldn't enter my borders. So what I think is that

Before Industrial Age (maybe nationalism)
Everyone crosses everyone's borders with the only penalty coming from diplomacy menu.

After Industrial Age (maybe nationalism)
Without a Right of Passage Agreement I cannot cross your border, it doesn't matter how many times I try, it ain't happenin'. BUT if we go to war or sign an agreement we can cross borders.

At least that's how it's worked for me so far. Truth be told, that's how it was in real life for the most part. There just wasn't any way to make sure that the yokels from America didn't go traipsing off and start fighting a war (i.e. Teddy Roosevelt before he was Pres.). So this actually makes the game a whole lot more realistic.

Anybody else see similar things happen?

[Comrade Tribune]

First game, Monarch, I was ignominiously forced to retire around 1000AD: 383 points. Learned a lot, though.

Second game, Regent, doing very well (for now). Some rules are counter-intuitive, but may make a lot of sense. I plan to write a review, but only after I have beaten the game at Emperor (without save/reload). This may take a lot of time, however, so don´t expect my review anytime soon.