Sub Incident

IronSpam · November 28, 2001, 03:27

I had this happen to me recently and wonder whether anyone else has seen this.

A naval vessel of mine, either a destroyer or battleship, was on auto-pilot making its way on a pre-planned route. As I watched the automoves take place, I was horrified to see a battle between that surface ship and a hidden Zulu submarine. Apparently the automove forced the piece into the same tile as the offending cigar boat. This auto-battle ended with the Zulu sub sinking off the coast of one of my overseas territories.

That was a costly victory. My American Democracy was at peace with the Zulus for the entire game. In that move, I saw a luxury trade agreement or two cut short, which later threw some cities into civil disorder, followed by a declaration of war by the Zulus. A Zulu-instigated trade embargo or two was declared a turn later. All of this happened over an unfortunate mishap with that damned submarine!

I thought of reverting to an autosaved game and preventing this from happening. But then thought I should just live with it, since each turn for me takes quite some time when you're playing a huge map with fifteen AI players (I'm playing with an 800 MHz processor and it's still a dog!). Who knows, maybe this unlucky turn would present some opportunities I hadn't thought of because of the Zulu peace treaty.

Eventually I pounded the Zulus enough that they sued for peace and I was none the worse for wear, except for the lost trade agreements. But it could have been much worse if I had not been in such a good military and economic position.

Anyone else out there have this happen to them?

Barchan · November 28, 2001, 03:53

Yup. Several others have too. I'm a pretty creative guy, but I've been having a tough time imagining a scenario in which a Battleship simply happens to run into a sub and immediately initiate combat during peacetime without checking in with the National Command Authority (in the game’s case, me!). It’s almost like “Crimson Tide” afloat!

IronSpam · November 28, 2001, 04:07

Yeah, really. This ain't Star Trek, where ship captains make or break foreign policy!

Easy Rhino · November 28, 2001, 05:29

Anyone see this old movie? An American destroyer and a Russkie sub accidentally have a nuclear exchange. I only saw part, but it was neat:

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0058962

So yeah, I guess it's possible. But pretty dumb in Civ3. I think it would only work if you were doing something sneaky with subs, like spying or privateering.

ER

Blaupanzer · November 28, 2001, 12:18

Between the World Wars, such incidents were quite possible, althouh war was averted in most cases. Whether the ships shoot it out is really up to the captains until the advent of sonar, radar, and modern radioes, all developed to usefulness during WWII. As far as Civ III is concerned, this sounds like a bad imlementation of the automove, with the ship not triggering the foreign minister prior to the battle. If you move the ships by hand, you do see the sub, and get a message from the foreign advisor about really wanting to do this if you blunder into another ship.