3rd Apolyton Civ3 Tournament : 17/Dec/2001-7/Jan/2002 (results are in!)

MarkG · December 17, 2001, 05:38

Theme: Military Time(against 6 militaristic civs)
Size: Standard Map
Ocean coverage: 70%
Land form: Continents
Climate: Normal
Temperature: Temperate
Age: 3 billion years
Barbarians: Raging
Civilization: Greek
Level: Monarch
Opponents: 7 (Romans, Germans, Chinese, Japanese, Aztecs, Zulus, English)
Huts: Removed
Victory types allowed: All
Version: 1.16f

Patch only!

MarkG · December 17, 2001, 05:39

here's the file

Mongoose · December 18, 2001, 03:41

Brutal!

philler · December 18, 2001, 06:25

have to agree with that

Solver · December 18, 2001, 11:41

Markos, a question. How can you be sure that someone who hasn't got the patch doesn't play it? I mean, the savegames are compatible, so there's nothing preventing those with 1.07 playing this.

Max Rum · December 18, 2001, 12:31

Quote:

Originally posted by Solver
I mean, the savegames are compatible, so there's nothing preventing those with 1.07 playing this.

Don't be afraid. This savegame dosen't work in my 1.07.

philler · December 18, 2001, 12:33

Quote:

Markos, a question. How can you be sure that someone who hasn't got the patch doesn't play it? I mean, the savegames are compatible, so there's nothing preventing those with 1.07 playing this.

yeah, well, who cares?

it's not like there's money at stake or anything.

I think that the vast majority of the players taking part to this tournament are trustworthy.

(I admit I *do* reload the last turn autosave every now and then, because I don't feel like checking for civil disorder every turn.)

Sirian · December 18, 2001, 19:23

I, too, backtrack now and then over a riot, but mostly not. Just not worth my time, as you have to go back a whole turn. What I will do is backtrack to the same-turn autosave if (barring combat) I do something silly like move a worker off a jungle square I just moved them ON to clear it. Now that really bugs me.

Doesn't happen often, maybe a few times per game, as I am rushing through assigning orders and botch something.

Civil disorder no longer means loss of commerce from that city, as in previous civ games. So you aren't going to lose a WHOLE TURN on tech over a small mistake, or go slowly broke, just one round of shields from that city. Most of the time I just eat that and move on. I try not to let it happen, but nobody can micromanage flawlessly and not grow bored. Some silly civil disorder in a city that's building a wonder, I might well go back and undo that. But there are larger concerns in the big picture, generally. I also think that to some degree, eating it leads to allowing it less. At least for me, I seem to develop a better sense of preventing it after suffering from inattention. I manage to pay better attention without having to pay too much attention. Or so it seems.

I'm a little disappointed with the difficulty of this map, compared to the last one, but there is ONE interesting element to it that has forced me to innovate a little. Perhaps I've learned the lessons of the last game. I'm slightly embarrassed to say, barbarians ransacked my capital in this game! Luckily for me, the consequences were not fatal, as they would have been in earlier civ games. I really REALLY like the barbarians in Civ3. They finally make some sense. On the other hand, I'm not too sure about losing an elite fortified hoplite to a barbarian horse that takes no damage. One of those "roll your eyes" combat results, when you draw a really bad seed. But these two events (not connected) were the only bad things to happen to me in the early game, and I never looked back. Still going in the early industrial age, but the result's a foregone conclusion now. Just a matter of degree. When I'm done, I will probably hold off posting my save file for a while, though. I really need to catch up on writing about previous games, for my site.

I think the all-militaristic theme is partly to blame for the lack of difficulty. Militaristic doesn't help these guys when there aren't many wars going on, you know? Although, in my game, the one nonmilitaristic civ, the English, certainly have suffered brutally (and been eliminated), so what was my point again? Hmm...

- Sirian

MarkG · December 18, 2001, 21:01

small secret: spending all this time working on apolyton, i dont have the time to become an excellent player

therefore, as long as there are no suggestions and the settings of the tournaments are left entirely on me....

and no, dont post your suggestions for the next tournament here
post it here

Manuel · December 18, 2001, 22:16

I'm a little embarassed to post this particular game but it contained a lot of firsts for me in tactics, style and most importantly the difficulty level (first time on Monarch). Those cursed Chinese gave me a run for my money at the end and I couldn't catch up. End result: I eked out a cultural victory in 1985ad with a measly score of 1600. Alexander the Fair, phooey.

Bring on number four Mark.

wrgj · December 19, 2001, 09:58

For those who want to avoid war with the militaristic civs: Try trading with them - if they have everything they want from you, they generally don't demand things. If they don't demand things, they generally don't declare war.

This tactic is broadly set out on the Tactics> Money Making tread, entitled "Money making, money money making." Look for the Negotiator

I've experienced it to sometimes be the only way to avoid certain war playing deity.

Disclaimer:I haven't tried it on a map smaller than huge, with less than 16 civs.

Sirian · December 19, 2001, 10:55

The easiest way to avoid wars is to avoid grabbing any strategic resources. That should be easy to achieve on this map.

Why would you fear a war as the Greeks? Hoplites are a marvelous thing. You won't go conquering diddley with them, but they give you a middle ages defense in the ancient era. Any land you grab will remain yours if you play well, so grab the choice land first and let the AI declare its wars on you if it likes.

Seriously. Avoiding giving them any reason to attack you is not what I'd call the best plan on this map. To the aggressor go the spoils.

- Sirian

Nimbus · December 19, 2001, 16:05

Didn't use save/load once during the entire game, if I had I could have achieved victory much earlier. This was my kind of map -- a large continent, room to spread out and push my weight around (even if there wasn't much grassland :/ ). I didnt even really need to make rights of passage and betray, the cavalry overcame the early civs so I didnt bother making rights of passage and though I did this with the romans, I attacked too soon and it didnt matter, so I had to kill them the hard way also. There were a couple of major things that slowed me down:

1) DIDNT GET A HERO UNTIL LIKE #$@(*#@*($) 1600 AD. This really hurt because I put my forbidden palace way up on a peninsula between the former german and aztec lands to take advantage of that grassland, but it friggin took 60 turns to build because of the corruption. A hero could have saved me like 50 turns of development.

2) My Democracy lapsed into anarchy when I launched my attack on the romans. This set me back 6 turns.

3) I probably should have been more aggressive when I had my cavalry advantage, though I was pretty aggressive, just not ultra aggressive.

Lack of resources in the beginning HURT. Thank god for hoplites, I could be aggressive. Luckily the only civ to have a worse starting position than I did was the zulus. I used my early cities to build archers to skirmish with the zulus and spread out a little bit more. Then I sped to Invention, built a bunch of longbowmen, and wiped them out. This gave me horses, and they had saltpeter as well luckily, and I rushed right up to Military Tradition.

I got to military tradition far ahead of the rest, as by this time I was a republic (I built JS Bachs and Michaelangelos to deal with happiness) Couldnt get Leonardo's workshop though (or the pyramids or sun tzus). The Aztecs were busy wiping out the germans with knightrs, and when they finished I recaptured all the land and more in a flash with my cavalry. Once I resettled the land and got defenders into the cities I went after the Chinese and wiped them out, resettled their land and went after the English. By this time the English had infantry, but only like 1 in each city and I was able to overcome them with hordes of cavalry.

By this time I was about 10 turns away from tanks, and most of my cities were productive thanks to that forbidden palace that finally built. I sent the remains of my cavalry at the romans, they got shredded (took out like 2 cities), I sent over a shipment of tanks, then lapsed to anarchy, but I had enough tanks to slowly nail the romans. Out of anarchy, masses of tanks and transports lining up into position for a supply line to the Japanese. Then, much to my surprise, I was informed I had a domination victory.

Fun game, my biggest surprise was getting Steam Engine and hitting CTRL-R and not being able to build a railroad. I was like WTF %*(*#(* i control half the map!!! Luckily I was 2 cities away from the aztec city with coal or I would have been quite upset.

here's the save, if you just end this turn you will achieve domination victory.

Architect · December 19, 2001, 16:36

Attached is another example of diplomacy corrupting the civilizations and making the game unplayable. This time there is no contact trading at this moment, but I did trade for contact earlier in the game.

Here's the deal, I am only needing currency to get to the next era. The Germans do not have currency yet but the Chinese and Zulu do. So, to verify this bug, go into diplomacy screen and notice that Bismark is still dressed for the ancient era and he does not have currency for trade. Go to the Chinese and offer them 110 gold for currency. Go back to the Germans and all of a sudden they are in the middle ages and don't need currency anymore. No turns have elapsed, they just magically got currency and they are 17 turns away from completing the Great Library.

I know others in my original thread are saying this is a game breaker and I agree. I think we need a smaller patch to fix this bug. I've provided two saves where this is very repeatable. Can someone from Firaxis at least say its an XP bug, its my system or something... I'm no whiner and I love this game but this bug is huge for me.

Nimbus · December 19, 2001, 17:01

In my opinion, that is neither a bug nor a game breaker. Why is it so bad for computer civs to trade with each other during your turn???? This makes it more realistic, more of a challenge, and doesn't allow one person to be the SOLE trading broker. Think about it, if the Chinese discovered Currency, and then traded it to you, why should YOU be the one that gets to reap the benefits of trading it to eveyrone else? Why cant the CHINESE decide to trade the tech to the Germans, once they let the cat out of the bag??

In real life, during trading negotiations, do you think everyone is like OK, its Germany's turn, they get to go around and trade with everybody. Once they are done, someone else gets to try. NO, thats ridiculous. All the civs should be able to trade with each other at all times, making an unpredictable and challenging environment in which you can not control completely.

Architect · December 19, 2001, 18:15

If that is the intended rule then fine. However, I can't trade with other civs during their turns so that's a bit unfair.

Plus, the civs that get free techs like this often change their stance to me and become like other civs in the game. Its like they aren't only getting the tech, they are getting the mindset of the civ that has corrupted them. I guess if you want alien mind melds and takeover then that ok too...

For me, I just want a little integrity and fairness because what could happen now is I trade them a tech and I don't get an opportunity to trade it to other civs because they could all get it during my turn... Is that fair?

Anyway, Soren himself said it sounded like a pretty big bug and was clearly not intended... and I think it ruins tournaments like this one because it give the civs in my game an unfair advantage.

Sirian · December 19, 2001, 18:27

Nah, it's just another AI cheat, a crutch. If you can't trade when it's not your turn, they shouldn't be able to either. If they are allowed to do it, then when someone makes a between turns trade with you, you ought to be able to turn around then and trade with whomever you like, while the game is still on the AI's turn.

I don't like it one bit, on principle. Giving the AI advantages like production and research discounts is one thing. Having them play by different rules is quite another, and I thoroughly despise it. It's a sad, cheap substitute for stronger AI.

What happened to allow the Germans to get the tech was that after the player bought the tech, one more civ had it than before, so the price dropped and those Germans could then afford to buy it. However, regardless of how you view this new AI "ability" to play when the game's not on its turn, until another patch is sent out, it's a fact of life. Players need to adapt and cope, or else they have no choice but to shelve the game completely. I'm QUITE sorry to say, that the AI's are now back to the Civ2 cheat of wholly shared research. They now trade everything back and forth, the moment that they have the gold to pay the "market" price, and that price has gone DOWN for widely known research, so once two or three civs have a tech, the others will ALL be able to afford to catch up. You may literally sell one civ a tech to find out they turned around and instantly sold it to every other civ on the planet, if they all had gold lying around. Tsk, tsk, Firaxis. That is the kind of move that may actually turn me off. Maybe you had to do something to close the loophole of brokering being too strong, but is this really the best solution you could come up with? Backtracking to the same old same old shortcuts that have plagued Civ AI since the very beginning? Arrgh.

- Sirian

Achnor · December 20, 2001, 10:53

Oh baby! Did I like this one! I really really really liked this map!
Excellent startingposition enabling me to only have a one-flank war almost all the time.

I stayed in the tech-lead throughout the game, selling and trading tech. Stopped trading a few techs before cavalry and tanks so I had the offensive upperhand and managed to wipe out all save for the romans and the japanese. I just landed about 20 modern armor on the roman-island when I won...was kind of an anticlimax because I had the whole anti-roman campaign planned and was ready to be executed...oh well. Won in 1952 (or 1953?) and got 2k-ish something.

Excellent game!

I'll be leaving for christmas tomorrow, so bye bye for me! Merry christmas to all!

Achnor

Ozymandous · December 20, 2001, 15:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Sirian
Nah, it's just another AI cheat, a crutch. If you can't trade when it's not your turn, they shouldn't be able to either. If they are allowed to do it, then when someone makes a between turns trade with you, you ought to be able to turn around then and trade with whomever you like, while the game is still on the AI's turn.

Sorry, but wrong, this IS a bug, not a cheat and Soren et al, knows aobut it. I believe they even asked for some save game examples to look at it. This bug was traced back to people reloading fron an auto-save vs. another save I believe. I am sure it also happens at other times but does NOT happen ALL the time or to ALL people. I have been able to almost always sell the tech to other Civ's on the same turn in all the games I have played after the recent patch.

Quote:

I don't like it one bit, on principle. Giving the AI advantages like production and research discounts is one thing. Having them play by different rules is quite another, and I thoroughly despise it. It's a sad, cheap substitute for stronger AI.

lol, it's cheap and sad to assume that something that only happens to some games it written into the game when everyone doesn't have the same issue.

This is a known bug.

Quote:

What happened to allow the Germans to get the tech was that after the player bought the tech, one more civ had it than before, so the price dropped and those Germans could then afford to buy it. However, regardless of how you view this new AI "ability" to play when the game's not on its turn, until another patch is sent out, it's a fact of life.

Umm, this also happens when the AI discovers a tech and then the player (who was more than a turn away) suddenly get's a tech the next turn as well. If the AI was the only one to benefit I would say this was wrong, but since the player also benefits I'd say it all evens out.

Quote:

Players need to adapt and cope, or else they have no choice but to shelve the game completely. I'm QUITE sorry to say, that the AI's are now back to the Civ2 cheat of wholly shared research. They now trade everything back and forth, the moment that they have the gold to pay the "market" price, and that price has gone DOWN for widely known research, so once two or three civs have a tech, the others will ALL be able to afford to catch up. You may literally sell one civ a tech to find out they turned around and instantly sold it to every other civ on the planet, if they all had gold lying around. Tsk, tsk, Firaxis. That is the kind of move that may actually turn me off. Maybe you had to do something to close the loophole of brokering being too strong, but is this really the best solution you could come up with? Backtracking to the same old same old shortcuts that have plagued Civ AI since the very beginning? Arrgh.

The AI doesn't cheat as bad as they did in Civ2 except in the case of this bug so it's a overall improvement. Don't accuse Firaxis of the same broken crap Blizzard did with Diablo, because at least Firaxis seems to be willing to listen to players, which is more than happened most of the time with Blizzard...

vincepai · December 21, 2001, 03:57

Domination Victory, year 1828
Score: 3824 (Highest Ive gotten!

Just end the turn at this autosave and skip the popups

Sirian · December 21, 2001, 22:30

Ozy:

Quote:

Sorry, but wrong, this IS a bug, not a cheat

Apples and oranges. You're confusing the function with the programmer intent. The effect is that of a cheat. The AI gets an ability that players don't have. Whether that's by design or not is a seperate question.

Quote:

I have been able to almost always sell the tech to other Civ's on the same turn in all the games I have played after the recent patch.

I haven't, and I have had no reason to believe others haven't either until your post now. Does reloading even once from the autosave corrupt the game thereafter? I've had this problem occur to me at times far removed from any contact with the autosave, and frankly, I'm not watching every forum and every thread, but going by my experience in the game.

Quote:

lol, it's cheap and sad to assume that something that only happens to some games it written into the game when everyone doesn't have the same issue. This is a known bug.

Known by whom? Not by me, and not by other posters in this thread. I made a criticism of a game feature, there's no need to make this personal.

Quote:

Umm, this also happens when the AI discovers a tech and then the player (who was more than a turn away) suddenly get's a tech the next turn as well.

You're mistaken. The player still has to go another turn to get the tech. The AI's are getting them INSTANTLY, on your own turn, and they are most definitely doing so via TRADING, not sped up research, as gold is changing hands between the AI's, all on the player's turn. Bug or feature, all games or only certain games, it's a cheat, in that the AI's now play by different rules than the players.

Did you misunderstand my point about the Germans? The Germans would already have traded for that tech if they could afford it, and apparently they were close to affording it. When the player bought it, the price dropped. The Germans should have then been able to buy it on THEIR turn, sure. But on the player's turn? That's not something players can do when the AI's turn is active.

Quote:

Don't accuse Firaxis of the same broken crap Blizzard did with Diablo

Where did I do such any such thing?

Don't go there, Ozy. You know me from another gaming community, but this is not the place to carry on any continuing arguments referring back to some other game and company. You are reading more into what I wrote than is there.

If people are going to participate in this current tourney, they are going to have to do so with the current version. That was my point to Architect. I've played this game with this problem active (I've had the AI's pull this move on me twice, and just ate the lost opportunity to sell the tech around before the AI's could trade it back and forth -- and became very stingy with my techs). On THIS map, it hardly mattered, as this was not at all a tough map for me.

This issue does point up some weaknesses in the AI, though. In fact, this map and tourney game was, for me, about AI weakness from top to bottom. The AI did some astonishingly dumb things in this game.

- Sirian

Sirian · December 22, 2001, 01:02

I've finished the game, and then some. I got a Domination Victory in 1756, but not by my preference. Score: 3028. That's the one I completed, so that's the one I'll submit, but I went back and played the ending differently to try to investigate a few things, and I'm not pleased with some of what I learned.

Warning, spoilers for anybody still playing.

Firstly, by blocking off the last section of the continent once I wiped out the Chinese, and not settling it, I was able to stay short of the domination threshold, in pursuit of the Cultural Victory I had been pursuing from the first turn. However, even approaching and about to reach triple digit per-turn Cultural Points, I was barely more than halfway to a Cultural victory in 1750, and looking at an earliest possible date of about 1880ish for the 20000 in one city, and the win, assuming I kept building the remaining wonders. A few turns more if I did not.

Now I totally dominated this game, in terms of wonders. I went for the Great Library early, with just five cities built, and let my other cities build more settlers for me. I got it easily, and then went zero research for a long time. The Germans built the Pyramids, the Japanese got the Oracle, and my wonder was the third started (actually finished BEFORE the Pyramids, so incredibly, I could actually have had them if I wanted them -- this was just an AMAZING starting location). That left the Lighthouse and Colossus, which only a few cities could build, so that actually ended the Cascade right there for most AI city locations. Amazing. The GL gave me Construction before too awfully long, and everyone started on the Great Wall. I built it because I could, and a runner up got the Colossus afterward. The Lighthouse was finished in there somewhere, and the cascade was again halted. I had total control of all wonders from there on out except for Sun Tzu's, which I didn't want.

This was so effective, I may have to upgrade my evaluation of the importance of the Great Library. Building it was intended to grab the best ancient cultural improvement and get a free tech ride for a while, get the jump on trying my first bid for a designed Cultural Victory. But wow, the results.

As I'm building the GL, I discover just how rare the early resources are. No horses or iron on the starting land area, no iron in sight anywhere even, but plenty of horses in the Zulu area. The last tourney game, and DaBear's successes in skipping settling some of the land near his capital to reach out and seize the vital chokepoint, was fresh in my mind. All the horses had been grabbed except one, and that one was smack in the middle of four fresh new AI cities. But none of those had culture yet, so I decided to go for it. I built a settler and sent a hoplite with him up there to settle next to that horse. One corner of my little square was eaten by a German city, that's how close to the AI's I was. There were cultural borders all around me. I feared takeover, despite my would-be strong culture, so I decided to build another half-city in the desert, to connect this horse city with the main body of my kingdom, and cut off that one Zulu city on the east coast. This was aggressive settling at its most ardent, for me. I whipped and whipped and whipped that poor horse city. Whip a temple, whip a library, whip a barracks, and whip a horseman out. I'm not big on whip-rushing military in the ancient era. I build mostly, and fight later. This is by the far the worst I've ever whipped a city, and frankly, the cost IS steep in the long run, but worth it in some cases. The poor thing was saddled with about a dozen or more whippings by the time I was done, but I had horsemen and the strongest cultural center in the area, and it was all worth it, even though that city suffered unhappiness and stayed at size 5 for millenia. It was squeezed on all sides, anyway, and only had a few squares to call its own despite cultural dominance.

My first galley had sailed clockwise around the continent, meeting everybody on my own (not paying for contact). As I almost returned home, I found this little island off the coast of my horse city... the Chinese had come down and grabbed it, and on it was a patch of iron! Well, say byebye to the Chinese, those are destined to become Greek lands. Off I go, carting a horse, archer, hoplite and settler to that island, smacking down the Chinese Archer and settlement, and bang, my resources worries are over for the time being. Got horses, got Iron, got them secured, got them early, and I'm set.

The Chinese, astonishingly, sent quite a force down to attack me, via land. Weathered that with no problem, but it was interesting. Lost a few units.

And then the Aztecs decide that they like my other half-city, which has one incense. Here come the jags, volunteering to give me a Golden Age just as I have switched to Republic. Gee, thanks, guys. Got to love it when the AI goes into "greed" mode and comes after you. They sent a LOT of jags, but I traded furs to the Germans for an alliance, and that distracted the Aztecs. They attacked German cities, and my horsies wiped out the wounded Jags with great ease. Sadly, the Germans lost a few cities, but hey, that's not my problem, you know?

Building wonders, wonders, wonders, wonders. One after another after the next. So many, I had to build a couple (the ones with less culture, to be sure) in other cities. I went straight for Free Artistry and got Shakespeare's before Bach's, that's how much culture I had running. I'm thinking "Yeah, going to get that early cultural win for sure!" Heh.

So I get to Steam Power and realize that there's no coal within thousands of miles of Greece. Arrgh. I look around the map, and the Zulu's have some in their outpost above the German lands. I send my cavalry up there, about six of them (didn't have tons, too busy building cultural improvements). I figure that ought to overrun a few impi, right? Right. Only... along the way, I'm passing up two HUGE stacks of swords/Jags moving into the remains of German lands, and I realize that Aztecs are about to overrun Germany. Hmm, that ain't good. Well, OK, the coal can wait (Did I actually SAY that? My goodness). I have to prevent the Aztecs from taking root here. So... I offered Germany a mutual protection pact, cancelled all my agreements with the Aztecs, KNOWING they were about to declare war on Germany. Bang, it happens, and my forces retake the German city the moment they overrun it, smacking the Aztec Swords and Longbows all over the field of battle. I wanted the Chinese in on the action, so I offered to give them alliance against the remnants of the English in exchange for their alliance with me against the Aztecs, and they went for it. A few turns later (and building more Cavalry, and also drafting quite a few conscript riflemen and upgrading a few of my Hoplites and sending them up there), I have control of the Pyramids and three other former German cities, have completely fought back the Aztecs, and am ready to grab my coal.

I've never been one to do much forced labor or conscription in the modern era. Conscripts, frankly, aren't much in battle. But... in this game, I drafted a ton of forces. I mean a ton. I drafted at least one unit from every size 12 city BUT my capital (replaced immediately on the next turn, as I didn't have Sanitation yet), and more from a couple size seven cities who would grow back immediately, over and over. These drafted units allowed me to have more force in play, and although they didn't get into a lot of combat, they DID help out a lot by giving me more forces, more defenders for newly captured cities, and just more units in play to intimidate the AI. Like the Great Library, I may have been undervaluing conscription: it certain is too pricey in some situations, but having the Sistine Chapel and Bach's, it was virtually painless in this game. Free military! Can't beat that! If you don't overdo it, just one or two units from most cities, the unhappiness caused goes away before it can really hurt you. It sped up my conquests and allowed me to beat down the AI's with just a few units, relatively speaking, as I didn't have to commit ANY of my elite forces to city defenses and garrisons, except on the front line.

All is going well so far, right? Right. Grabbed the coal easily, and finally can start building Railroads. The Zulus don't yet have serious troops, so I run over their Impi and raze their eastern city, and resettle the land there. I am then working on their front city and get my first leader, circa 1400ish. Used him to rush an FP in a German city to the north, along the coast. Then the zulus get Rifleman, and all of a sudden I'm not running over them any more. I realized I could not beat down that city, so I was ready for peace and to settle in now, finally with full resources, and build build build my way to cultural victory. Ah, but on a whim, I decide to send my last healthy cavalry unit to check out the Zulu capital, and I find an Impi guarding it??? WTF? Well, OK, then. I attacked. I sent WOUNDED cavalry to attack, figuring that if I lost a couple horses, so be it. None of them died. Zimbabwe razed to the ground. End of Zulus as a primary rival. I settled in that spot and made peace.

This is the first point I have about the AI. They are NOT skilled at recognizing a blitz threat. If you move units within two squares of a city, they build up its defense. But they do not anticipate blitz attacks by fast units using rails to arrive at the battle. THE STUPID AI WAS RUNNING LONGBOWS AND IMPIS AROUND IN CIRCLES OUTSIDE THE CITY! If they had just stationed these units inside the city, they'd not have been caught, as my troops were very thin, and they could have bought another turn, to draft and to reinforce, etc.

The AI's are just not wise about city defense. They will run all their defenders out to attack workers, for goodness sakes, when you are sitting with a stack of units next to their cities. I don't even exploit this, I don't have to. I can't stop them from doing it even if I try, short of holing all my workers up inside the cities the way the automation does. And what is the point of all that useless patrolling, running around making a big show, while blitzkreig takes and burns down their cities? Good grief.

The AI does not put enough priority on attacking your stacks of invaders. They would rather run a few units into your territory, where you can deliver ENDLESS retaliation via rails, rather than make a stand on their own land. If you leave a city open, unguarded, but 100% beyond the AI's reach on one turn of movement, they will beeline forces there to attack. I don't even exploit this either, but sometimes I have a NEED to use some reserve garrison units, and the AI goes ape-caca over an undefended city, and wastes its units on a hopeless attack to try to grab it. They'd do better just to hole up all their units in their cities and try to weather the storm.

So because the Zulus are running in circles with patrols, and rushing into my land with hopeless counterattacks, instead of defending more vigorously, they needlessly lost their capital, and that was a crushing blow to them.

I decided to swallow the rest of Germany. That took, uh, zero time at all. Cavalry vs spearmen is a sad contest. No casualties. Forgot about that former English city of theirs (the English were long extinct, swallowed by the Germans and Chinese eons ago). So I had to send cavalry across China (with Right of Passage) to take that last city, lest the cities I'd taken pull that revolt crap on me.

And then the world decided that Aztecs looked too weak, and everyone declared war on them. My alliance with the Chinese against the Aztecs inadvertently spelled the end of Montezuma, just as my alliance with the Germans, which cost them a couple cities, had spelled THEIR doom. It seems that once you start making military alliances with the AI, that SOME AI or other comes due for extinction. The AI's are like sharks once they smell blood. I had to grab my share of that pie, so off I went to help wipe out the Aztecs. A great power laid low. I was not intending to make this much war, but the AI's either led me to it, or forced me into it. I had to make war to get Iron, then Coal, to stop the Aztecs, and then because stopping them hurt them so badly, to finish them off. Good grief.

And then I made a mutual defense pact with Japan, and got the Romans to declare war on me by trying to plant a spy on them. Perfect! My aim was to get them both out of democracy and into Communism, but that would never happen. They did little more than fire at one another with fleets of ironclads.

I retook the two Aztec cities the Romans had grabbed, and now I was set. I had all of Germany, most of Aztec land, and some of the Zulu land, and I'm ready to sit back and get my cultural win now.

And then the Zulu attacked the Japanese. HUH??? Like, WHAT IS UP WITH THIS AI? That it would deem firing at some grassland with a stack of frigates worth starting a fresh new war with the world's superpower, a worthwhile maneuver, is simple idiocy. The AI is WAY WAY too enamored with using ships to bombard the shores. It works well when they are harassing one another, but there's an obvious hole in the AI in dealing with Mutual Protection Pacts: they don't. They seem oblivious. They make peace with you and then turn around and declare war on your MPP allies?

So the Zulu got wiped out. I made special effort to build some extra cavalry, and I did not let up. The fools.

So China has some cavalry on my land. I want them to move them off, so I ask them to leave. I have about a dozen and a half tanks I've built. They decide they don't want to leave. HUH??? They could have avoided war! But no, the AI is totally sad at evaluating the threat posed by blitzkrieg. So what the hey, it's a chance to beat back the strong Chinese a bit. I'll just burn a couple of their cities to the ground, make peace, and move on to my cultural win. Right? Wrong.

They wouldn't talk to me. Turn after turn after turn, I put more and more hurtin on them, and they wouldn't talk to me! My war weariness shot up to oppressive levels, and I'm now desperate to make peace, and they won't talk. So I burn another city down, then another, then another, then another. I'm running 20% luxuries, got some cities starving from needing so many entertainers, my people are massively upset, and still the Chinese dare me to burn down more of their cities.

Well, I'm not going to sit and do nothing. If they refuse to make peace, or even to TALK, they're going to suffer for it. So I conquered most of China. And finally, FINALLY they talk. I get one more city for free in the negotiation, then I'm ready to sit back and settle in and go for my cultural win.

And what do the Chinese do? They send a stack of ironclads to go bomb Japanese shores.

OK, so there I am, clicking "I Don't Care, Let Them Riot" over and over and over and over (and over and over and over) and over again. Three out of four cities in my empire go into unrest, all back INSTANTLY to oppressive war weariness, because the Chinese AI just HAD TO go fire uselessly at some land improvements against someone with whom I have an alliance that I cannot cancel. Brilliant.

Well I know they aren't going to talk to me, and this war weariness is so bad, the best way to end it is to end the Chinese.

So that's what I did. In 1752, the Chinese were extinguished. My libraries expand my borders and bang, the game's over. Not at all a satisfactory ending for me, on several levels. Yes, I'm pleased with my successes, but the AI has a couple of glaring holes in it.

Is the Cultural Victory option properly balanced? I don't know, but a totally dominating cultural performance could not get me the win before about 1876, and the inept AI's forced me to beat them down long before that, with multiple diplomatic blunders combined with my need to grab resources from them. It is my opinion that the Cultural Victory option could be improved. If your civ has literally more than half the world's culture, and you've got a city with 100+ per turn, the game's still going to make you sit around and click on Next Turn seventy or eighty times? Hmm.

That leads me to another unsatisfactory discovery. Unhappy with the Domination win in this circumstance, I wanted to try to see what I could do for the cultural win, even though I'm going to submit this first win anyway. Well... OK, so I go back, burn down more Chinese cities instead of capturing them, build no libraries, cordon off the unsettled land with a large ring of military units so that the last two remaining AI's don't rush there, can't get there without going through me, and I chuck all my workers to automation and click Next Turn, Next Turn, Next Turn. Well, sort of. Polution, plus waiting on the settlers, plus managing riots and construction, research, and some military reshuffling, it took way way longer to click "next turn" than I'd have liked, but I went through it anyway. Along about 1830, some city or other expanded borders on its own and I got saddled with another domination win. Apparently, I was right on the threshold already. Result? Score was 400 points better. Just for sitting around doing NOTHING but clicking next turn, my score went up markedly? Arrgh. I presumed that would happen, but it was disappointing to see evidence of it. This means that Domination wins are going to score more and more and more by taking longer. I'll call that a flaw in the scoring system, though I don't have any alternative solutions to offer.

And since that was all I was doing, in going for the cultural win -- sitting around and clicking next turn -- I decided to stop, not even to investigate any further. Milking the game for score is just not something that entertains me, so I'll take the original win it gave me and move on to the next game now. It seems to me that the cultural option will be relegated to "last resort" in the scheme of my gameplay, since you can get all the other victory conditions much sooner, with a dominating performance, but that one is going to take until at least 1850 no matter what you do.

I had good fun with this game, but so many rivers and such a rich capital (river meant size 12 early, and so many shields for building wonders -- I was sitting on luxuries at 30% in the ancient era, to keep my capital happy -- didn't need any research, as I was sure I'd get the GL after a certain point) made for a strong game.

That's my final point. Fresh water means too much. Not only do you not have to build that expensive aqueduct, but you can irrigate, too, and build certain improvements later on that you can't get without a river, and you can grow large before you even get to construction, which is what made this game for me. The free aqueduct is the real kicker. I know it helps the AI's as much as the player, but when you get your first five cities on rivers, with flood plains instead of deserts, with all the extra free trade, with so many goodies, it just makes for an overwhelming advantage compared to dry homelands. I have to wonder at the balance of rivers. I LIKE the idea of them, historically they really were that important, but is that in the best interest of the gameplay?

- Sirian

Sirian · December 22, 2001, 01:07

Oh, and by the way, I don't exploit the AI's flaws in handling Right of Passage. I cancel my RoP agreements with my forces outside the enemy borders, declare war honorably, and proceed from there to conduct my military campaigns. That the AI will continue to deal with players AT ALL after a RoP betrayal is a major flaw in the diplomacy (and ironically, the game is not good at determining what IS a betrayal, as the game does not recognize "Legitimate Provocations", like Mutual Protection Pacts. You get penalized WAY more for getting drawn into a war that way, without a chance to cancel your trade agreements, than you do for outright raping the AI with blatant and repeated betrayals by design). I hope they can improve upon this.

- Sirian

(Figure me to discover that the forum has a 20000 character cap on a single post. Also figure me to ignore that, by posting the rest of what I wanted to say anyway.

Heh.)

Duncan Idaho · December 22, 2001, 14:34

This map is a lot simpler than the previous one, despite the barbarians and the militaristic civs. The starting position is simply perfect, good food, shields and even a luxury.

Pretty much from the start I concentrated on getting Literacy to build the GL. The other civs were reasonable when it came to trading.

Ancient times were spent building the big culture producers. I managed to score the hanging gardens, the great library, the oracle and the great wall. The other civs set up bases in my peninsula. Barbarians sent a few hundred horsemen to attack a hoplite on a mountain. Shrug. Them dumb.

In medieval times, the other civs gave me a run for the wonders. The Chinese destroyed the English, the Chinese destroyed the Zulu, the Chinese destroyed the Aztec. I thought I'd lost. The Chinese were aggresive and probably outnumbered me 20 to 1. But they didn't target me, so... I got the sistine chapel, sun-tzu's art of war, copernicus and newton.

Industrial times were, well, mostly eventless. There really isn't much to build in the third age that gives culture. Nobody in the world had more than one coal, except the Chinese, but only for a few turns. I bought it off them and built a few rails around Athens before it ran dry. Shrug. I spent the remaining time setting up fortresses and riflemen around Athens.

One thing that struck me is how cheap the AI would sell me luxuries or strategic resources. I guess the price depends on the number of cities you own. The Chinese would sell the full package of luxuries for about 70 gold and a world map.

gus_smedstad · December 22, 2001, 19:15

Space Race victory, 1780, 3202 points.

I had resolved to play this peacefully, with no whipping. That went fine for a while, I expanded at a pretty decent pace, until the Zulu decided I looked entirely too tempting and declared war.

I was definitely weak. No horses, no iron, and maybe one Hoplite per city. The Zulus pretty much rolled over me with horsemen. When they showed up at the gates of Athens, principles went out the window. I started whipping archers out as fast as I could.

About this time (500 BC or so) the entire world pretty much went to war. Mostly it was every civ for itself, very few alliances. All those militaristic civs are pretty hotheaded.

Eventually my brutality produced an army of archers which pushed the Zulu back all the way to the German borders. At which point I made peace with the Zulu and continued on into German territory, since the Germans had declared war on a while back (not that I'd seen any Germans).

At this point, I had horses captured from Zulu territory, so I used a mixed force of archers, catapults, and horsemen. I also gave up whipping my populace - from here on out, all units were produced normally.

Shortly after I finish of the Germans, the Zulu decide they can take me again, and declare war. I push them off the continent entirely, leaving them just two cities on an island.

For a while it was quiet, and then the English (with whom I do not share a border) decide I'm an attactive target, and declare war. I pay the Chinese and the Aztecs to attack them, and between them they dismember the English. I'm not really involved.

Finally I get steam power, and I discover I've got coal, but only one square. Shortly after I connect all my cities by rail, but before I fully improve every square with railroad, the city with the coal defects to the Chinese. Arrrrgh.

No amount of negotiation will get the Chinese to give it back (and I offer a lot, a city, 3 techs, several thousand gold), so I go to war with the Chinese over it, and end up pushing them off the continent as well.

For a while it's peaceful again, and I consider invading the Romans, who have declared war on me in the past but not done much more than bombard my shoreline, but with whom I'm current at peace. I start loading up transports with tanks and cavalry, and the Aztecs, to whom I've been very, decide to attack.

The initial Aztec attack involves a lot of cavarly, which could have been a problem - except that they use it all to capture my hordes of workers that are all on "auto-improve" building rails, etc. My Roman invasion force docks, unloads, and my army (25 Cavalry, 12 Tanks) wipe the Aztecs out in a few turns.

At this point, building the spaceship looks like less work than conquering the Romans and the Japanese, so that's what I do.

- Gus

gus_smedstad · December 22, 2001, 19:18

Forgot the save game.

- Gus

dmjohnson · December 23, 2001, 22:17

Less than impressive performance judging by what I see on the thread but:

a) 3 Leaders (one for army, one for forbidden palace, and one for UN so the evil bad-guys did not build it themselves).

b) Had to invade and eventually destroy Japan for coal.

c) Rome had 9/10 of it ship built. Destroyed the City of Rome, as well as several others to preserve the win.

d) Overall entertaining.

Can't post file, since maximum size is 500000 bytes (1/2 meg?)

Final score 1700ish

dmjohnson · December 23, 2001, 22:19

Oh, I see, they zip up nicely.

Madog · December 24, 2001, 10:43

Space Victory 1954AD, 1901 points.

This was my first tournament game, and I think it when pretty well. I wasn't sure what to expect, so I went for caution, and aimed for a culture victory. In retrospect I probably could have been more agressive, the Germans and Zulu were so weak in this game, I could have taken them at almost any point. As it was, I got to see the Chinese do some impressive single turn invasions that game them most of the continent. I was lucky enough to find the island with Iron before anyone else settled their, and gave it heavy defenses since it was about the only target of attack I had. There were a few short wars, started by the romans, but they never organized a full invasion so nothing come of them other than my only Golden Age, fairly early in the game. The lack of coal hurt me, and I ended up as the only empire without extensive railroads. I had a great supply of saltpeter and oil, especially after Zulu cities started joining my side, thanks ot an invasion from China that took half their cities and left their culture weak. In the end I wasn't about to get the culture victory I aimed for. The Japanese seemed to have slightly over half of my culture, thanks to their cheap temples and Cathedrals, so I went for a space victory. I had the UN and could have gone for a diplomatic victory, but that seemed too easy to me.

I hope the file is attached right......

Allondro · December 26, 2001, 13:27

This one was tough. I goofed up and didn't start expanding soon enough, and I paid for it the entire game. Ran into the Zulus fairly early, and attacked them right off, taking Zimbabwe with one hoplite. They never recovered. The desert was a battleground the entire game, with Ephesos changing hands among everyone but the Japanese.
Rome was a thorn in my side the first half of the game. They took a couple of my cities, but my culture was strong enough to win them back.
The lack of coal was a real pain. I finally got the coal in the Aztec lands after Rome destroyed Tenochtitlan and I made a land grab. Once I had coal I made great strides, but the game was too far gone. I had most of my spaceship completed when the game ended in 2050. I played a few turns after it ended and got a spaceship launch in 2059.

I never did get a leader in this game, but Zulus, Japan, England and China did. Zulus sent an army after Zimbabwe, and I destroyed it rather easily.

This was the first game I haven't won by space or cultural victory. I'm almost embarrassed to post it.