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Settler
Local Time: 17:27
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Harrington Park, New Jersey
Posts: 1
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The story of a noob
i've been a fan of civ for a while, starting as far back as civilization on SNES, then proceeding on to civ 2 for pc, and countless others... alpha centauri, test of time, etc. i had been getting into real time strategy a bit recently, and even some first person shooter (counter-strike), yet when a good friend by the name of 'PinkBunny' told me of the upcoming civ III.... i decided i had to at least take a look at the preview.
so i read a bit about the preview... and i had to admit, it looked good... a strange thing about previews.... they seem to make every game look good. so, not for the first time in my life, reading some silly preview had convinced me to pre-order civ III.
i had mostly forgotten about it, so i was quite surprised to see it sitting in the doorway when i got home from school one fine wednesday afternoon. eagerly, i ripped it out of the package and got it installed... like any new game, it intrigued me for a while... however i found myself playing age of empires the next day.
it was a while before i took another serious attempt at civ III. during the beginning of december, i started a game as the russians i believe. i played for a few days, getting as far as cossacks... rampaging over some germans with hordes of knights and cossacks... then forgot about the game again.
only a few weeks ago, i stumbled across the civ III cd. i had gotten a new computer for christmas, and decided i deserved to give civ III one, last chance. i did poorly, but regardless, i actually found myself having LOTS of fun. being used to the fast paced, hacker-dominated, cruel world of counter-strike, i found the relaxing yet oddly pleasing joy of building an empire strangely familiar and quite satiating.
Yet i was not satisfied, i couldn't settle for even making the top 8 list of 'Most Powerful Nations'. I tried hard to remember how i played civ 2.... i could win on Prince... (yes, not a big accomplishment by your standards :P) yet here i was... getting owned on warlord. i realized my mistakes, many dealing with changes from civ II -> civ III, but many just plain stupid (building cities in forests and jungles, thinking i could clear them later, for example).
I remembered a great website from Civ II that could help me... Apolyton Civ II... or something like that... it was bookmarked on my old computer. so i told google to search for Civilization III, and sure enough, i found Apolyton Civilization.
So there i was, it was a Sunday night, i had a research paper due the next day, one which i had to recieve a passing grade on to pass freshmen year, and i was staring at strategies for Civilization III, my rough draft minimized, but ready at hand, should parents come to check on me.
unfortunately (or, perhaps fortunately) i was far too intrigued and interested in Civ III to even think about a bunch of 14 line poems Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter.... i knew there was no point resisting... i was going to anyway... so once again, i started up Civ III.
Based on a few people's strategy posts, i chose France as my civ. I chose World Map (Huge) as the map, blind to the superior world map available here. I played on warlord again, my reputation too damaged to try anything more difficult. I started on western north america, probably in washington or somewhere around there. luckily for me, i recognized this quickly, and decided where i could expand.
it didnt take long for my warrior to find the greeks, situated slightly east of the Rockies. I also noticed, they lacked grassland squares, having only a good bunch of plains squares in their city radius as well as mountains and hills. Knowing this, i decided it would be too easy to build around him and prevent growth. Orleans was founded a bit farther south from my capital than usual, located in either southern california or arizona. While contemplating the location of my next city, i noticed a strange looking spearmen defending Athens, and after further investigation, found it to be a Hoplite, with a defense factor of 3. Realizing it would be near impossible to take a Greek city, i became determined to let Athens become the only Greek city.
My next few cities were placed in strong places geographically, but still touching borders with Athens. I had copmletely shut him off to the immediate north and west, and had one city to the easy of Athens. His only route was south, but i wanted to be careful to not let him expand south too far, if at all, for valuable incense lied in mexico, along a flood plain.
By this time, i had found the aztecs, who dwelled around New York and the forests north. My attention turned towards them, because, after i had obtained the wheel from them, i noticed the only horses i saw, were in the great plains which i controlled, and the grasslands of the south east coast, where the aztecs had not yet expanded, though they threatened to. I felt it was of utmost importance to remain dominant in North America, if i were to be successful this game. Fortunately, their poor starting city locations greatly assisted me, as before the end of the Ancient era, i was able to capture athens, and force both the greeks and aztecs to the forest covered tundra of northern canada, and a somewhat fertile region around new york.
Now, however, my growing concerns were with the growing power of southern American civilizations. The Egyptians, Zulus, Americans, and Germans all shared this continent. South america is not the most fertile of areas, and many had already started expanding up into mexico. I tried to at least control as far down as the gems located in central america, but the Zulus established a city in the moutains containing the gems. I was further annoyed to find an Egyptian city located in a small gap between two of my cities, located in the great plains around maybe eastern texas.
Frantic to retain control of Northern America, i took to war with the Egyptians. Luckily, they had only a single spearmen and a few workers defending the city, which fell quickly. They would not accept peace yet, however, and i felt little choice other than to drive them out of Mexico as well.
However, at this point i learned a lesson. Apparently, i had a very poor reputation, possible because of the way i had treated the Greeks and Aztecs, and possibly because of the way i 'savagley razed' Greek and Egyptian cities. Soon, i found all of south america at war with me, all allied. Though none threatened me immediately, i decided i could at least take the gems in central America. I marched into central america with some swords and horsemen, and knights in production. the cities fell fast, i captured Mpondo, the city built on the gems. I razed a few cities poorly build in the yucutan, and other parts of central america. I took over a city on Columbia. I even pushed slightly further south, into another Egyptian city, now limiting the Egyptians to just 3 cities. However, i met an unexpected twist here.
The Americans, who had been mostly quiet, suddenly stormed my newly controlled cities in the northern part of south america. Unprepared for the swarm of swordsmen, my cities fell just as fast as i had taken them. In no time at all, i had fallen back as far as Mpondo, which they then captured. Soon, they threatened to pour into North America. Refusing all but completely absurd offers of peace, i decided i had no choice but to fight back.
Swordsmen swarmed a french city in northern mexico/southern texas which controlled valuable incense. The lone spearman and musketeer could not match wits against veteran and elite swordsmen. Now, however, many knights and musketeers were being produced...
They advanced slowly, luckily, but pillaged everything along the way. they finally approached the nearby city of Cherborg, built on the Mississippi. It was defended by two musketeers and a knight, and the swordsmen seemed to be hopeless against them. After many swordsmen were lost, they resorted to simply pillaging the countryside around Cherborg. I was, however, producing many knights in the core of my empire, and soon they marched down and swarmed the swordsmen.
American power had peaked during this time, as had mine when i briefly held parts of South America. But like me before them, they could not hold their newly prized possessions for long. Like an ameoba engulfing its food, a torrent of knights swarmed their cities from all sides. It wasnt long before i had taken back as far as Mpondo, and i wasn't done yet. I moved further down into central america, this time holding the cities i captured. i wasn't at war with zululand, egypt, or germany at this time, so i simply captured more american cities until they offered a fair peace deal. after recapturing Alexandria and Thebes (they had taken it from me before), i marched on New York and Philidelphia, and managed to grab them. Finally they offered a fair peace deal, and although they were diminished in power, they still had a fair amount of cities, left, and remained dominant in the carribean.
At this point, i noticed the time was 3:30 a.m., and decided i wasn't going to school tommorow without my research paper, so i went to bed and would fake sick tommorow, just to play some more civ III and MAYBE work on that research paper....
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now!!!
