1st Apolyton CIV3 TOURNAMENT : 15-30/November/2001

[MarkG]

since we have many submissions, we'll also have standings according to victory type and year

[jimb0v2]

I popped a settler out of a hut and used a few workers to quickly secure the iron to the south and took over the world with swordmen. I played incredibly sloppy with regards to the towns that were leftover. Barbarians knocked my treasury out a few times as well, which caused a total of 6 temples overall to be sold automatically. I also pressured at least 10 cities to be surrended just through diplomatic, only to turn right back on them and declare war again.

[ChrisShaffer]

Originally posted by Out4Blood
First game I went Great Leader -> Army -> Heroic Epic. I think I got 4 GLs the entire game. When I didn't, I ended up getting 2. IMO, Heroic Epic is broken like Air Superiority.

You doubled the number of Great Leaders and you still think Heroic Epic is broken? I'll build a measly 200 shield Heroic Epic every game if it nets me two extra Great Leaders that be worth up to 1000 shields (not to mention the value of speed building wonders).

[BurnPoodle]

Hi... seeing the other people score makes me realize that i'm very bad haha ;D

I finished the game at 1842 AD and I scored about 1950

Heres the game...

[wolvrine32]

Good map. Using the Despotic Conquest strategy, I got a little over 6,100 points. Not enough to win, but that's because I made two mistakes...

1. Got gunshy about the Zulu's. Probably had enough troops to take them earlier, but in the game I played just before the tournament their Impi's kept killing my Horsemen.

2. Didn't build the temples/settlers needed for getting 2/3 of the map until way late in the game. If I'd focused on culture and expansion a little earlier instead of churning out the units, I'd have won a LOT sooner. Ah well, we learn by doing.

Clearly the winner of the tourny will be using the Despotic Conquest strategy. Even if the Domination victory were turned off for later tournament games, it's really the only way to go in the early game.

[wolvrine32]

Here's the file...

[Robert Plomp]

ack, I was winning.
conquered the zulu's, persians, chinese and the egyptians....
and then the greek almost launched their spaceship :-(

I managed to get a diplomatic win just in time.
'only' 3122 points though :-(

I think it's discouraging that you still get more points by razing the entire world as soon as possible then building up a giant civilization, conquer half the world, spread it with culture etc. etc.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by MarkG
since we have many submissions, we'll also have standings according to victory type and year

I like your idea to arrange the tournament around a 'theme'. Well done! This is as close to a scenario as we can currently get.

One more idea for your next theme tournament: Exclude all victory conditions but one. This should force players somewhat to re-think their generic strategies!

And another Christmas wish: A Monarch level tournament! This should make scoring more meaningful, because there would be only a dozen or so survivors.

[volcanohead]

A fun map indeed...

First game at Regent level, I've been playing at lower levels to test out various ideas and strategies that I've picked up from this wonderful site. My plan from the beginning was to be hyper-aggressive in the first few thousand years, taking advantage of the cities made by the AI to accelerate my land area coverage, until I reached steady state with the remaining civs. This went quite well, and I managed to take out the Persians, Chinese and Egyptians in the early part of the game, leaving me with more than 50% of the land area. The Bowman is a very powerful early UU, having not played as Babylonians before I'd failed to appreciate this. I then pumped out temples and whatnot to build up culture (doing this with core cities from the beginning).

I continously traded advances with the AI for money and rep, so I was friends with all the civ's I'd left alone.

Phase II was infrastructure and peace, but I began to become rather irritated by the Greeks who seemed very good at getting to the Wonders just before me. I began to prepare an invasion force of Knights to take over Athens, which contained some nice wonders, but was concerned about the other civs declaring war on me if I launched a unilateral attack on the Greeks. Fortunately the Greeks attacked me (around AD1200 if I recall), and I was able to mobilise all the other civ's behind me against them. They did not have much of a chance.

I sent out a horde of knights to knock out the infrastructure around Athens, none of whom survived but they managed to inflict a crippling blow the besieged peoples of Greece. The second wave of knights saw the capture of Athens and the beginning of a long story with Sparta which fell to me after several attempts from the other civs and myself. In the end I got three of the ten or so greek cities, and the other civ's had a share of the remainder. I then rushed two settlers and culture-bombed all the cities in the mixed region, and a few centuries later they began to fall to me.

My plan was to win by domination, but I do like to build the cultural improvements (naturally I'm much more build/expand type player) and so by the time I got the tank unit I was very close to a cultural victory: I decided to rush the Zulus and finish with the greatest possible land area and pop. I was one turn away from wiping them out and I won by culture... could have probably organised things better but I was happy with the performance of my Bab's.

Final score: a shade under 4000 in 1802 AD. Not sure if it's enough to make it against the stiff competition I'm sure will arise here, but I really did enjoy playing this game.

Good luck to you all!

V

[jimb0v2]

I took one of my older saved games and tried to see if i could dominate the world earlier than I could conquer it. I had taken out everyone but romans, greeks, and chinese in the save game. If I could have started with domination in mind from the beggining i think a BC victory would have been possible. This could be accomplished by destroying everyone but the greeks and making sure to make settlers with cities that are to far from the front lines to contribute units any longer. Also, I prefer to use swordmen because I don't lose as many battles taking over cities, but someone who uses horsemen may be able to do it quicker if they are lucky and win the same number of battles as my swordmen, or at least enough in proportion to make the sacrifice in power for speed worth it. I'm curious, has anyone achieved a diplomatic, space, or culture victory worth more than 6000 points in any game?

[Eli]

2219, spaceship victory in 1798AD.

[Ecthy]

how do you guys do all these high scores and early landings? playing on warlord, I didn't even manage to discover space flight by 1798, and you guys even send your spaceships before that on Prince

[Out4Blood]

jimb0v2 - nice score dood! although i still got ya beat on date. :-)
I use horsey cuz they are about 50% faster on the move and they almost NEVER lose a battle. You just need a crapload.

You mentioned that you win more battles with swords - well, my horsey retreat before dying. So as long as I have enough horsey to beat down the defender hitpoints, I can take the town and let them heal for 2-3 turns. This keeps me from losing troops as I conquer. This means I never lose troops. I might lose a round of fighting, but they come back quickly. Fighting the greeks, I needed about 15 horsey to take down Athens (>6 size and fortified hoplite defenders).

On a rugged map (like this one) horsey are only about 50% faster than swords since hills, mountains, forests etc. reduce movement speed to 1.

[jimb0v2]

I think it's important in this tornament setting to play to your civilizations advantage. It seems that Conquest followed by domination is the best way to win, mostly because with babylonians you can rush bulid temples after 1 turn. The scientific aspect really does not help that much though.

I'm not entirely sure if horsemen are absolutely better on this map. I think an important question is what did you pop out of your huts. If you pop the techs needed to get horsemen then I think you can make a good argument that is the best strategy. But since babylonians start with bronze working, by the time you get iron working i had 3 or 4 towns up ready to start churning. So i might get a 10-20 turn lead on starting my war in that aspect.

Also, you cannot be lazy, you have to attack every single front, and send the absolute minimum amount of units to take what you need to take.

Also, your point about the map being rugged is a good one. I think for that reason maybe swordmen are equal on this map. If it were more wide open land to get to the romans or greek then horseys become a much better choice.

Just as in civ 1 and 2 popping a settler out of a hut is incredibly overpowered.

Do you think you could have gotten a domination victory even earlier by building temples in all of your towns, and rush building settlers in your >4 pop towns? I think I easily could have reached domination victory 10-20 turns earlier if I had settled a bit more in the beggging, I had at least 15-20 swordmen that never got any action at all.

Also, I have read a lot of the posts about using leaders for wonders vs using them for armies. I built armies with both of mine, this may have been a mistake, as the army really didn't help me any more then just 3 swordmen would have.

I did not build a single wonder in my game. my main town produced at least 10 bowmen just because i was too lazy to mess with it. If i had instead focused on working the land around my non corrupt cities, I may have alos been able to squeeze out some wonders.

I'm also unsure if you get points for the ranking screen at the end. Athens was the number 1 town in my domination victory. It might be neccesary to take over athens to achieve a better score in domination.

I might start from scratch again trying to merge all my thoughts on this etc.

[Out4Blood]

If you are trying again - try this:

1. Send an early scout out to meet all the civs - this is how I got horseback riding early. I just bought it off one of the civs - not sure who gets it that early though. I dunno whether swords or horsies are better - I had few problems getting everyone into battle though.

2. Focus on the flood plains and specials - there are a few choice spots for despotic whip towns to crank stuff out every 2 turns. I never built anything there but a granary, rax and temple.

3. Settlers in midgame - you might switch to settlers in the midgame to fill out the open terrain locations and build temples.

4. Know what the town is for - I was lazy. Recruit towns need only: granary, rax, temple, MPs. Culture only towns just need temples (and libs maybe). These extra towns can provide needed territory. After which they can switch to settlers.

5. Own all the horse & iron locations - with 5-6 early horsey you can dash off there and keep the enemy from ever getting anything better than spears/bows, except for greeks.

6. Attack greeks/romans first - these guys are furthest away and have the best land for expansion - they are also gonna provide toughest competition in later game with hoplites and legions.

I am SURE a BC domination victory is possible (or at least by AD 100). I decided to just do conquest (I had guests over so I couldn't micro everything).

Good luck.

[jimb0v2]

I agree with everything you said, and you said it much more eloquently than I could.

I'd like to hear from someone if they think a Conquest/Domination strategy could possibly be beaten, in either score OR time of victory.

Blood: What did you pop out of your huts? I know there were like 4 or 5 that I got.

[hurdygurdy]

I won the Space Race with a score of 2265.

Cheers,
/hg

[Out4Blood]

I got mathematics in one near greeks. Other than that I either got barbarians (twice) and died or 25 gold (all others).

oh and i never had a city change hands due to culture - we all had basically zero culture

[V_A]

Hello

Finally I've decided to submit my game. The score is not so big: something around 5200, 600AD, Domination Victory Type. The game was cool . Happened right before I've finished romans - Greeks were still alive but romans bothered me too much with their numerous legions (I had just horseman at that time - but a lot of .

The only technology I've researched myself was the Chivalry - I wanted knights badly.

Funny thing during the game has happened to me: one four or five my cities were attacked by massive barbarian assault. Actually I had to sell two of them to Chinese guys when I saw the horses hordes approaching them: had no wish to loose my units/money .

Has anyone had such an experience? Does anyone has a strategy how to prevent this or what is the best policy for defending your city in such cases.

BR
VA

[Eli]

How can you get a domination victory so early?
I'm playing a game now with similar settings(pangea, regent) with the Romans... And while my legionaries kick everyone's asses they move too slow... My research is barely moving and the AI doesn't want to give me a thing.

[V_A]

Well, no research (at 0%), no culture, no new cities - only some workers and many, many fast units. Check the replay of the saved game - I haven't founded a single city until the very end of the game.
All the technologies you get from your opponents for temporarily peace treaty. After you've got whatever you wanted to just continue the war.

BR
VA

[Velociryx]

Sounds very cool! Tho....not being into the rush strat, I can tell already that my score won't even be in the top ten....still, I"m interested enough to dl the map and give it a go....

-=Vel=-

[Comrade Tribune]

I am going to try something totally different: Domination Victory by a mixture of Culture/Tech Superiority/Trade/Diplomacy/Limited Wars without ever using Forced Labor! Should work with the Babs.

One thing about the Despotic Conquest strategy: Don´t you get insane amounts of unhappiness?

[Dog of Justice]

I'm not going to pretend that I achieved this the first time through without any reloading. However, I figure that just puts me in the same boat as the other top submissions; I probably just reloaded more times.

Basically, I figured out the correct sequence of early moves to get a Settler out of the first hut and Warrior Code out of the second. Then I started doing nothing but cranking out Bowmen, and sent the first ones to the east. The workers I captured at Tenochtitlan were quickly converted into valuable front-line Bowmen via the despotic whip, and things just accelerated from there. It didn't hurt that I was able to demand an Aztec-respawn city that was near the Greeks.

I relented a bit on the micromanagement over the last 15 turns or so, so it should be possible to improve the score a bit... but I suspect it won't be possible to beat the conquest date by more than 5 turns or so without genuine cheating, simply because of movement limitations. (While if I memorized all the moves I made, I should be able to reproduce this result without any cheating or exploitation whatsoever, in principle.)

*later edit: file deleted because you can't get a replay from it. Look on the next page for the correct file.*

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Dog of Justice
I'm not going to pretend that I achieved this the first time through without any reloading. However, I figure that just puts me in the same boat as the other top submissions; I probably just reloaded more times.

I was under the impression that both replaying and reloading were no no's in this tourney? Restarting till you get a settler out of the first hut is going to be worth a couple thousand points in any game with these settings (if taken advantage of properly). Knowing the map beforehand can be worth just as much, and reloading often also makes a tremendous difference if you understand how the "random" number generator works. Its good to see that people are being honest about the circumstances regarding their games though. And a score that high Dog, very impressive even with reloading and replaying.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
One thing about the Despotic Conquest strategy: Don´t you get insane amounts of unhappiness?

The key is to keep one unit in the town policing, and keep the city at size 1. Also having a good network of roads helps by bringing luxuries, with the benefit of speeding troop movement as well.

[Out4Blood]

Dog of Justice - nice score! I am suitably impressed. Although, waiting to get setts and warrior code from huts is kinda lame...

Aeson - IMO, saving and reloading should not be a no-no. It's stupid to create unenforceable rules. (it's also stupid to have a tournament when you can mod the .bic files, but that's another story). I saved at various points when I was making risky strategic decisions as well. As Brice Willis says, " there are 2 kinds of people, those who save and reload and those who lie about it." Even with saving - a 1350 BC conquest is very impressive. Dog is correct when he says that it may be impossible to beat with due to move restrictions.

I think we have a winner!

[jimb0v2]

Dog nice score man!

I think anyone who pretends that people are not going to reload huts, or reload battles is living in the clouds. It's still fun to see who can do the best. I started another game, but I'm not going to bother finishing it since Dog showed it could be done. Knowledge of the map and different conquest strategies will allow for this.

Blood, and dog do you guys think that monarch or emperor would have made this strategy harder?

I still realize no matter what you do popping huts for settlers and certain techs is always going to be possible, and telling people not to do it is not going to stop them, so it's really stupid to try and set the rules that way.

Dog, did you use only bowmen the whole time? I'm assuming you also reloaded battles?

[jimb0v2]

dog: is that save file after you completed your victory? When i take the turn it does not trigger a victory. And when I retire it just shoots me back to the main menu. I'm interested to see the replay etc.

[Aeson]

The point isnt whether or not you can enforce the rules. I was just wondering if it was an acceptable way of playing or not in this tournament? Not everyone saves and reloads, and not everyone takes advantage of rules that can't be enforced. I don't really care if someone beats me by cheating, there's really no way I can know if they did or not. But I do care about seeing how well I can do given a set of rules. I'll always know if I played by the rules or not, and thats the only thing that matters to me. If saving and reloading is legal, why not hex editing of game files? Its just as difficult to enforce, and actually takes more skill (though not particularly civ related skills).