2nd Apolyton Civ3 Tournament : 1-15/December/2001 (results are in!)

[adaMada]

How does the hopefully soon-to-be-released patch change all of this? Everyone who submits must play game w/ patch? With out? Tell if you have patch or not when you submit? What if you change half way through?

Just wondering if you've thought about this yet, as the patch looks like it'll change a lot...

-- adaMada

[MarkG]

yes, for this tournament, the patch is out

if you have started a game or plan to, you shouldnt use the patch

[philler]

or... post a new map this weekend after (if?) the patch is released

those who want to finish the current map without the patch can, and those who want to start a new map with the patch can too.

this way, everybody's happy

[GeorgeWang]

Saving and reloading isn't a big deal. He's basically crippling them through diplomatic deals, trading away the 3-4 "dummy cities" he built last near his capital and taking them back the same turn.

This probably causes the A.I. to think its getting killed warring against the English, and giving up all the real cities it has for peace. Land a few troops and take over their capital and the few other cities they're unwilling to surrender.

[Trash]

Will people stopping filling up the board with these incesent posts about loading save games.

If you bothered to read anything MartyParty stated that he had used a load/save method to achieve the victory. Which a few people were submitting in the 1st tourney post. I'm pretty sure these submissions won't be counted as a winning entry in the proper tournment and the submiter would propably agree.

I for one, and there are alot of others i would suspect, am alot more interested in reading his post and viewing his save game then reading your uninformed drivel

I don't want to accuse anybody of anything, but Conquest victory in 200 AD?
Common, you don't even have time to visit all continents so quickly.
And, since it's on monarch and you don't have horses, I have doubts that you can conquer any civilization in such short time.

Read the freakin post

btw: please don't reply to this on here. Email me if you have to, don't waste everyone elses time

[MartyParty1]

I could play the scenario again in ironman style and get a better score now that I know how the other civs are arranged. Save/load is not the key.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by MartyParty1
I could play the scenario again in ironman style and get a better score now that I know how the other civs are arranged. Save/load is not the key.

Replaying the game is also considered against the rules

If you do play again, just remember to mark it as such
(i plan on having another go, conquest this time )

[MartyParty1]

Not really inclined to replay it anyway so you wouldn't have to worry. My point was that save/reload had hardly anything to do with it, and people who can't evalute beyond save/load as a difference maker should probably try to think back to the last time they came up with an original strategy for anything. While people are arguing if a strategy works so well that it works *too* well, I'm coming up with the next one.

I tire of mundane checks such as making sure there's no potential civil unrest before ending the turn, so often I'll end the turn then backtrack to correct the problematic cities, thereby saving some painful manual checks, and so on.

I'm more interested in seeing any new strategic attempts since I'd be real surprised if existing strategies discussed on these boards could do any better anyway.

Not the least bit surprised that some people would automatically shout "cheat" simply because a result is in a different ballpark than what they can do (though it always makes me laugh), but if you only recognise strategies everyone knows about then what's the point of playing a strategy game LOL.

BTW GeorgeWang deserves a cookie for being a good student.

[Conqueror]

Originally posted by GeorgeWang
Saving and reloading isn't a big deal. He's basically crippling them through diplomatic deals, trading away the 3-4 "dummy cities" he built last near his capital and taking them back the same turn.

This probably causes the A.I. to think its getting killed warring against the English, and giving up all the real cities it has for peace. Land a few troops and take over their capital and the few other cities they're unwilling to surrender.

This should be considered as cheating. Atleast i consider it to be that.

[PavementIstRad!]

I settled a few cities on my starting continent, researched map making as quickly as possible, and sent scouts out to the islands on the west and east and India's continent to the south. I really wanted the incense, so I settled the continent to the east, and noticed that India's continent had some empty spots for a couple of cities that would get me iron and dyes, so got a couple of settlers to those spots, too. I got a couple of cities on the island to the west, but I ended up sharing it with the Iroquois.

I was somewhat puzzled by America's situation, and kind of pitied them, so I built a worthless city on tundra and gave it to them, thinking that maybe I could use them later for gold or something.

As time went on, wasn't sure what kind of victory I'd go for. I noticed Germany was coming dangerously close to a cultural victory by building a buttload of wonders in Berlin and 1 in Leipzig, so I decided I'd try to stop their plans of cultural domination by taking all their wonders from them. I amassed a good size army of cavalry, infantry, and artillery and landed on a mountain to the south of Berlin. After a few turns of bombardment, my cavalry made short work of the infantry defending Berlin, then I moved in my infantry and let my cavalry regroup as they quelled the resistance. Germany had almost no offensive units, so Berlin only got attacked once, but we held them back. I next marched on Leipzig, and quickly took it as well. Having accomplished what I'd set out to do, I negotiated peace with Germany.

After a few turns, I risk of the cities reverting back to Germany was too high, so I gave them to America (knew they'd be good for something), then took them back, and this time razed them. America was in no position to seek retribution, as they only had one city (that I'd given them), and a puny army, so they dealt with it.

Anyway, I never got a chance to use the Man O War, so I never got my Golden Age, which I was pretty upset about, but oh well. I even waged war with India to stop them from building the United Nations before I could finish it, in an attempt to trigger a gold age for myself, and ended up raising Bombay, where they were building the UN. I completed the UN, but still no GA.

Time went on, lost a few cities, gained a few, then the Iroquois, who hadn't been much of a threat the entire game, decided to build their spaceship. I was technologically behind, so I had to trade around and pay quite a bit to catch up, and we were pretty much neck in neck in the spaceship race, I even had an army ready to invade and take Salmanaca should they come close to building their ship before me, but I was able to discover synthetice fibers before them, thereby allowing me to build the remaining SS parts before them.

Heh, sorry to make this so long, but it was such a fun game, man, it was a blast!

[ChrisShaffer]

Well, if we aren't allowed to play the tourney after we apply the patch, I might as well submit what I have now. I'm not going to have much time to play before the patch is released. There's no way I'll hold off on installing the patch just for this tournament.

I beelined for Mapmaking, then Literature at 32 turns each. I ran the start of the game at 10% (or 0% with scientist) science rate and built the Great Library in 90AD and immediately received 11 technologies! I've been at 0% science since I build the GL.

I sent out settler/warrior combos on galleys and claimed dye (in the Indian jungle), gems (on the east side of India), and ivory (on the Iroquois island). Combined with the grapes and incense on my second/third islands and the silks on my main island, a nice set of 6 luxuries.

Being the first (only) nation to build galleys and explore the world helped a lot. I have met all the nations, which are in three groups: Iroquois, Germany-India-America, and France-Russia-Japan. With the Great Library, I made a good living selling technology between the groups.

The attached game is at 330AD. I just became a Republic and have bought two harbors (to link gems and ivory to my network) and some courthouses in key locations. I'm about to build aqueducts in my primary group of five cities. Marketplaces should come soon after, when Russia or India (the big researchers) discover Currency. I don't think I'll need Cathedrals until after Sanitation, with all the luxuries.

I have a settler about to build a city by the horses on the island between France and India, with a rushed harbor next. I was planning to go on the offensive soon, sending Knights to take dye, grapes, and iron from the Indians for trading -- and then to shift into a mercantile empire, selling luxuries and resources to the world. A late middle-ages Golden Age would be nice too....

But, I probably won't finish this game. When the patch arrives, I will install it immediately and skip over to CivFanatics for the GotM, which promises to be a fun Grecian pangeatic experience.

330AD retirement. A "humiliating loss." 1st place in Approval Rating, GNP, Land Area, Pollution, and Productivity. 2nd place in Population, Manufactured Goods, and Annual Income. 4th place in Literacy. 7th place in Military Service (guess the Americans were in 8th, lol). Score: 575.

Strange, my score is 575 (1st) and Germany is 493 (2nd). Shouldn't that count as a win?

[ChrisShaffer]

Whoops, forgot the attachment.

[Trash]

Giving away cities next to your capital type stuff is definately a cheat (exploiting a bug), because its being 'fixed' in the patch.

[philler]

so, how about a new map for the 3rd apolyton Civ3 tournament as soon as the patch is released?

[cgrecu]

Originally posted by MartyParty1
I could play the scenario again in ironman style and get a better score now that I know how the other civs are arranged. Save/load is not the key.

Unfortunately this is true...
And I apologize for accusing you in the first place.But I still think that this IS NOT A STRATEGY.What you did, is just another exploit and is really no different that the One Million Bug.
And , this is not allowed in the tournament.
Ok, you have discovered a new bug, but you should try getting a high score without using this *strategy*, because that's what this game is all about.

I think that the AI have some serious troubles.I saw that some of them are corrected in the patch(including giving cities away), but still, this game is very unbalanced and it really makes the tournament lose its purpose.
Now I'm sad

[Bloodaxe]

Well here it is. Its a bit dismal as I lost interest when I found out you weren't allowed to use the patch with this tourney. Someone decided to start WW1 two turns before I launched but I didn't worry about it when I got attacked, just finished the spaceship and launched.

Now where's that patch...

[Peets]

Okay, here is my game.
You'll notice that I had a bad start but the last turns I was coming up a lot. Until I had to many wars but then Diplomacy came in and the game was finished.

[Ahlyis]

Originally posted by Trash
Giving away cities next to your capital type stuff is definately a cheat (exploiting a bug), because its being 'fixed' in the patch.

How do you figure that? The patch deals with the AI building cities near you, and says that it fixed an exploit related to giving cities away in diplomacy, but I'm not sure that this is what was meant. Perhaps it is, but I have installed the patch, and you CAN still give cities away to the AI.

Has anyone verified yet whether the patch does indeed deal with giving away and retaking the cities to force concessions?

Anyway, it IS an exploit, but it is NOT a cheat. The gold bug is an obvious bug since there is no way the AI could possibly pay that much gold per turn. In this case though, the AI simply wasn't smart enough to recognize what was going on. Sounds like a brilliant strategy that obviously needed to be fixed, but accusing someone of cheating because they discovered it seems ridiculous to me. Are you saying that any time I find a weakness in the AI and use that to my advantage, I'm a cheater? For example, currently I buy and sell techs for a nice tidy profit without having to do the research myself. Since I can obviously make more money than I lose and a smarter AI would do the same thing, is this cheating? If they decide to put a fix for this into a patch, does it then suddenly become cheating? It IS an exploit. I am taking advantage of a dumb AI, but to say it is cheating seems thesame to me as saying the city swapping strategy is cheating. Just because city swapping is several orders of magnitude more effective should not make one a cheat and the other not. If so, then WHO decides how big an exploit can be before it is deemed a cheat?
--------
Also, I won't submit my game. I was doing well, but I installed the patch before I read here that the patch would be disallowed. I suppose I could try to find a save game from before I installed the patch, but since my score was only about 350 at that point, what would be the use?

[LitheDuke]

Like a bull at a gate I got the patch and installed it, and then after playing for a few hours, read this thread to see how everyone else is doing. So what can I do now? I don't want to uninstall the patch.
Please, can we have a new tournament game?

(apart from anything else, I was being creamed, again, on this one, even with reduced corruption)

[Trash]

Anyone else had any trouble with the barbarians?

hehe one turn i had 24 horseman advance into view, i thought the game had crashed cause they just kept coming LOL.

i held off the first 8 or so then my city got ransacked 11 times they took about 600 gold and a couple of improvements i was gutted

[Dog of Justice]

Installed the patch as soon as I could get my hands on it, but as a side effect I won't be submitting a valid tournament entry this round. Might try the map once-through anyway, not experienced with archipelago strategy.

Anyway, regarding yet another round of save/reload discussions... "save/load is not the key", my friggin a**, Marty. Saving and reloading of BATTLES is not the key, and I commented as such in the past. But I definitely got an 80+ turn advantage by saving and reloading last game, and I attributed 60+ turns of that to the extra information one has, and being able to take maximum advantage of all kinds of other things like diplomatic tricks.

In a real game, one will often send their troops in entirely the wrong directions, and lose tens of turns to this... and then because they arrive later, the enemy defenses are stronger, and the units are thus insufficient for an early blitz, and thus one falls literally hundreds of turns behind. This doesn't have that much to do with saving/reloading battles... but it has everything to do with using save/reload to know where to send the troops, in what order.

[MartyParty1]

For those who were mistaken, your first mistake was assuming nobody had any new super strategies/tricks.

Your second mistake is assuming that he only used one strategy you didn't know.

Like I said, while the last trick is being debated for whether it works too well, more have already been hatched, or are hatching.

I'm sure someone can find things that I can't, and I'd be interested in seeing those in action.

[MarkG]

to those who complain about not allowing the patch:
1) we cant have people playing with different rules
2) some of the changes of the patch dont affect existing saved games

therefore, if we did allow it, we would end up with one big mess....

[Skanky Burns]

Mark, we should start another tournament for those that have installed the patch now (which will be just about everyone).
We've only had 4 entries to this one so far, and i doubt many people will hold off installing the patch so they can finish the tournament game...

Anyone agree with me??

[LitheDuke]

MarkG We are not complaining - you are quite right to say that the game should be played on a level field and all using the same rules! We just don't want to get rid of the patch, but we do want to play one of your wonderful comparison games - I think most of the people that have a go at this are not in it to win, (even to post - I have been doing this for the last couple of years and have never bothered posting, because I generally don't get time to finish). We just want a common challenge and to see how everyone else gets on - and all the flames about cheating are getting tedious and silly. As long as someone declares what they do, we can all judge who we think is the best player, and who we can best learn from. But there is little point in us all effectively playtesting the patch for the nesxt couple of weeks and not having a common base game to compare.

I want to learn how the patch changes the game, and what problems/quirks other people have discovered. If I wanted to play an old game I would go back to CivII....

So please, bow to public demand, start tourney 3 - call it a christmas special. Hmmn, you could even theme it - no BC civs, and victory only by culture or UN world peace?

[gus_smedstad]

Diplomatic Victory, 1814, 2080 points (roughly).

This wasn't a very fun game for me. The Expansionist ability was worthless since there were no huts, and very little land on the English isle to explore. The island nature of the map meant there was almost no interaction between civilizations until the middle ages. Even though I pushed directly for Mapmaking, I didn't get it until 950 BC.

I deliberately avoided any use of rush-building using population in this game. I'm not sure it would give you much advantage anyway, since you can't even meet your neighbors until fairly late.

Despite that, the game was moderately easy. I concentrated on gold for much of the early period, since full research wouldn't have given me the techs more than a few turns earlier, and bought all the techs I was missing as soon as I encountered the Iriquios. From then on, I played the usual tech brokering game.

I suspect I could have won the space race, but I was bored enough with the game to go ahead with the Diplomatic win when I could get it. The first vote after I built the UN was a tie, because I hadn't bribed everyone sufficiently.

I did build a substantial military by the time I entered the Modern era, but never used it. I kept eyeing the Iriquios oil fields, but didn't want to start a war with India, which had a mutual protection pact with them.

I had only one war - Germany declared war when I tried to plant a spy on them. I promptly brokered a world war against Germany, and never fired a shot.

- Gus

[Duncan Idaho]

Went straight for Astronomy, established presence on east and west islands, then on some island deep south. Because I had Astronomy first, the other civs were very generous. I decided to go builder-style, so did all the other civs. I can't be totally sure, but I don't think there've been any wars in this game. Indians and Germans dominated. I controlled the tech market, until the Russians took it over, mid-Industrial. When the Indians finished the UN, everyone decided to vote Cathy.

[Admiral PJ]

No one seems to have mentioned this-

Can we use the newest 1.16f patch?

I have been using the new patch, which significantly alters the game.. with things like only 1 use of forest harvesting (not much fun, dosen't seem to stop the enemy building ever wonder under the sun just about)

I'd suggest we assume everyones using 1.16f , if their not then they SHOULD say so.

Other Things different with this patch are science max research rate 'reduced' to 40 from 32.. i say reduced as its slower.
General corruption and tax rates seem improved to help the player too.

[Skanky Burns]

Admiral PJ:

Originally posted by MarkG
yes, for this tournament, the patch is out

if you have started a game or plan to, you shouldnt use the patch

[cgrecu]

Originally posted by Trash
Anyone else had any trouble with the barbarians?

hehe one turn i had 24 horseman advance into view, i thought the game had crashed cause they just kept coming LOL.

i held off the first 8 or so then my city got ransacked 11 times they took about 600 gold and a couple of improvements i was gutted

This happen to me also, but I gave that city to the Germans(I really hated then...
After the city was ransacked, I just took it back ...
Of course they were uppset, but it was early in the game, and after a few hundreds years they just forgot about it...