AU 107 Spoilers

[Dominae]

Funny, most "normal" computer games take 30 hours to finish, and you've seen it all, as they say. Another way to make my point: at 60$ a copy, you get 2$ per hour entertainment value if play just one game of Civ3...


Dominae

[alexman]

Let us take a moment to salute our once powerful enemies, the Babylonians, who put up a valiant fight in defending their fertile homeland island. Alas, after all was said and done, our Caesar had finally gotten his summer palace in Babylon, and Roman scientists had catapulted our empire into the position of the most enlightened nation in the World.

How fast power eludes some civilizations, while gracing others! After the sacrifice of our knights, centuries ago, a cold war ensued. Could we field another army, unstoppable this time, before the Babylonian provinces became aware of their nationality and hence present more than token resistance (men with rifles!) to their “Romanization”? It was nail-bitingly close.

As soon as we developed a military tradition, the World frowned upon the launch of our offensive on our active trading partners. But apparently money is more valuable than morals, as they all joined our quest for dismantling the Babylonian threat.

Unfortunately, half way through our cavalry march down the Island of Babylon, the treacherous Persians not only broke our alliance against Babylon, but also leaked the secrets of Nationalism to the enemy. Now facing scores of riflemen fortified in hill cities, our cavalry started to falter. But despite huge losses, our brave army occupied the most fertile regions of Babylon and then watched as Germans and French invaded the southeast part of the island and ended the Babylonian existence as an independent nation. Hated Hamurabi is no more, and the glorious Democracy of Rome, now in a position of global dominance, after discovering the Theory of Evolution shall easily build the Hoover Dam in Babylon. We are the underdogs no more.

[alexman]

A RL disaster has kept me away from Civ for 10 days but now I'm back and I'll finally finish this game. Better late than never...

At this point I think the game has become relatively standard for me. With a strong economy (read capital-FP placement) and a tech lead, I can grab all the AI's income and win by any number of ways.

Theseus, did you make that switch to Communism? If so, how did your income compare to when you were in Monarchy? In my game the Germans have been Communists for a while and don't seem to have slowed down compared to the Democratic Persians (their empires are approximately the same size)

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
Theseus, did you make that switch to Communism? If so, how did your income compare to when you were in Monarchy? In my game the Germans have been Communists for a while and don't seem to have slowed down compared to the Democratic Persians (their empires are approximately the same size)

Depending on Persia's palace/FP placement, all that English and Russian territory they hold may or may not be worth much to them. I find it interesting that Persia rather than Germany gobbled all that up!

Nathan

[alexman]

Originally posted by nbarclay
I find it interesting that Persia rather than Germany gobbled all that up!

It was all because of Rome! We got poor Kathy to fight Persia when we were kicking Xerxes out of our island. Germany was not in that war.

[Arrian]

Alexman,

RL disaster? Do tell.

-Arrian

[badman]

In my game, the English rule (and me ).
They are way ahead in tech of everyone else and have built about every medieval wonder after Leo's (after I started attacking the Bab's )
After some problems where I nearly lost an important city to the Germans, I managed to finish off the Babylonians (the only have the upper part of their continent left, their big cities are razed except for Babylon because it had Leo's) and then take my forces to Germany (I had to leave my 2 armies on that island because I don't have Caravels yet .
My knights reached the German border just in time to get upgraded to Cav's. It was too easy after that because they only had Pikemen since I managed to deny them their Saltpeter source (I pillaged their road to their iron source too but they import it from England or France).
Now I have the decision to either take out England (they will soon be able to build riflemen) right away or I'll switch to democracy and try to outresearch them (unfortunately I don't even have astronomy yet).

[Theseus]

Very interesting about the way Persia developed for you alexman... I'm surprised THEY are not the commies.

I never did it... I had planned to use it to draft down captured cities, but I ended up mostly razing instead and building my own, in which case communism truly sucks rat turds.

Hope all is OK...

[De Gaulle]

It seems that getting about 5 to 10 hours of civtime per week is not enough to advance at the same pace as most of you guys…

OK, here comes the AAR of a PeaceLover who had to stay at war more than 70% of the time to eek out a victory…

Settings: Monarch, standard AI.

Part I: Ancient Ages

I started with the strategy used in AU106: maximize your (ugly&isolated) continent research potential and try and secure the Colossus and the GL early on.

The map wasn’t as bad as I had thought (room for only one good city) but rather had space for 4 potential size 12-16 cities (see screenshot) and for a bunch of smallish coastal ones. The coastal cities were almost useless production-wise but, with harbors, provided my empire with much needed trade.

In order to ensure the building of the GL AND the Colossus under such defavorable conditions I had to have my second city (Veii, coast&spices) start on the Colossus as soon as it was founded. It built it many turns later while still being a size 2(!) town. Rome produced a second settler to found Antium and switched to the Pyramids as a pre-build to the GL.

Setting 2 out of my first 3 towns to build GW so early literally killed my expansion rate: I founded the last city on the island around 1000AD! But I got both of them and they were game-breaking for my style of play.

However, I was so behind in tech that as I was running 100% taxes while constructing the GL I got surprised by a Barbarian Uprising! I ran all of my units to protect Antium (2 spears, 3 warriors…) … to get trashed by 25 horsemen who not only killed EVERY unit I owned but ransacked half my precious treasury… Talk about rape…

Much later I came in contact with the Persians, built galleys and made/bought contact with all other civs. And let the GL do its thing. But it turned out that the AIs hadn’t progressed that much since the first 2 entered the Middle Ages… The western continent had seen some serious wars with England, Russia and France taking a beating from Germany and Persia.

[De Gaulle]

Part II: Middle Ages

Since our land mass could not compete in terms of research and production I had to tweak the equation: luxury were needed for both happiness at home and income from other civs.

Zululand had been cornered by Babylon early on and had settled 4 towns in the northern eastern continent, securing horses, dyes and ivory. Using my valorous legions and a couple (literally) of knights I assaulted them and gained control of both dyes and ivory. The legions (helped by catapults) proved worthy of their glorious history in the following onslaught of Zulu knights and cavalry… Several times it came down to a lonely legion defending successfully (walls +cat+hills) against multiple opponents.

The Roman GA was triggered during the conquest just as Education came around. A nice timing which ensured that I did not fall behind in the following 20 turns while building up my own infrastructure (MP, Libs and Aqs)… and a few warriors for upgrade. By the end of the GA, I could sell luxuries for income which enabled me to research my own techs reasonably rapidly.

A Persian demand led to a war that I felt was necessary to keep their growing power in check. Every civ was bribed (except Zulus) to join the party. Persia quickly became a monarchy but was actually gaining ground (losing worthless former Russian towns but gaining productive German cities) after the first few turns of war. England was destroyed, Russia eviscerated, France weakened and Germany retained only Berlin and a few other small towns before peace was signed. An important goal had been achieved though: Persia had fallen seriously behind in tech and had never threatened the Roman homeland.

[De Gaulle]

Part III: Industrial and Modern Ages

The histograph display of the era change showed a nasty surprise: peaceful Babylon had spent all her energy on building a good infrastructure and was running away with a cultural victory. Something had to be done.

Once again, the puny Romans refused a demand from a dominant civ and were drawn into an unwanted war. Once again, the whole world agreed with Rome (and its luxuries) and joined the fight. Once again things went seriously wrong before starting to pick up… The Zulu participation in the war provided a critical relief to the Roman luxury trading posts under severe attack… but ended with the extermination of Shaka’s people and left the whole Eastern continent into Babylonian hands!

What followed was a war of attrition between Rome and Babylon with everybody else formally at war with Babylon but not really fighting her. At least the communist regime of our enemy could not research, or trade, techs very efficiently. This tilted the balance in favor of Rome who could soon field (after some nerve racking turns: thank God for legions!) more technologically advanced (infantry) units who were well entrenched and devastated the Babylonian cavalry hordes.

While this was happening Rome had seized juicy opportunities in the French area where war devastation had left 3 gems and 2 wine resources up for grabs. Grab we did. Selling all of our extra luxuries to Persia, Germany and France allowed us to run a 90% research rate while 10% luxuries dealt with WW. Incidentally, we sold every tech at an exorbitant price to both Persia and recovering Germany to generate a positive cash flow and hamper their research abilities.
When the Modern Era came along this tactic started to show its limitations and we slowly fell behind techwise. However we had built the UN and we called an election: Rome 3, Persia 1, Abstentions 2. It looked like the only way out would be the spaceship if Babylon could be prevented from reaching 100K culturally. Fortunately, we had had access to Tanks for a while and the few we could produce (ten?), when protected by a few infantry and helped by some artillery, could take out a Babylonian city every 3-4 turns. Razing was all the rage. J Eventually, 6 cities were reduced to ashes.

Tech was progressing more and more slowly although a GL built SETI in our SuperScience city (OK, it only had the Colossus before… J ) . A SS win looked more and more iffy and was going to require some serious effort, if at all possible due to the ongoing war. Fortunately a new UN vote came up and Germany went from abstaining to voting for Caesar!

Conclusion:
Challenging game as it was only my 3rd Monarch game…
Winning by being solely a builder was not feasible and I had to gain control of multiple luxuries to be able to both compete techwise and have bribe ammunition to try and take down the more threatening AIs successively. I feel a lot of my success ( and potentially other’s successes as well) resulted from our civ. I used legions successfully into the Modern Age and they are so cheap… Additionally, cheap harbors, barracks and walls helped build up population (trade) and provided us with an extremely cheap (30 shields or 10 shield + 40g), yet potent (vet legion in town with walls/barracks) military force.
I know the fate of this game hanged several times on ONE legion defending a luxury town.

OK, gotta start AU201 before you guys finish AU203…

[badman]

I just finished the game, too.
I won by launching my space ship. All my productive cities were on the former Persian/German/English country except 2 cities on the Roman island. In the end, I was really angry at myself that I had built the FP on the island because it would have been way better if it had been on the Babylonian continent.
Once I had cavalry the game wasn't too challenging any more but it still was a great experience to be so far behind in techs all the game. I gained parity at the beginning of the modern times.

[alexman]

Caesar stares at the red button with a blank expression on his face, longing for the old days of his Monarchy. How much simpler things were back then, without anti-war demonstrations in the streets, he sighs. Ruling a Democratic nation with aspirations of World Domination is definitely not his idea of fun. On one side he has to deal with the Germans, the war against whom has been going on for decades, even though he could have crushed them in just a couple of years if the bloody peace-lovers wouldn’t go berserk every time the Roman Army entered German territory. On the other hand he has to deal with the crippled Persians, who hold a grudge against him from previous wars and continuously abstain in UN voting even though Rome is their ally against the other Candidate, the Germans. And last, but not least, he has to deal with the cowardly French, who’s sorry behind Caesar has been saving for centuries from Persians, English, Germans, and God only remembers who else, now charging black-market prices for a couple of crummy furs.

He dreams of escaping all this frustration, and starting fresh on a new planet… But alas, his scientists advise that a Roman spaceship will not be ready to colonize space for at least another 20 years. And 20 years of this stressful job is more that Caesar can handle.

Will history remember him as a backstabbing murderer? He no longer cares.

“Do it!” he finally whispers to his Minister of Defense. And he depresses the red button…

[alexman]

What goes around comes around. Caesar had backstabbed Xerxes and Joan, launching nuclear weapons from his submarines, breaking right-of-passage agreements, and wiping out two entire civilizations within a year. Oh the irony! Murdered by his own son, Caesar is no longer among us to enjoy his enormous empire. He is in another World now, playing with his friends Isabella, Hannibal, and Brennus, among outposts, radar towers, and commercial docks…

[Catt]

Originally posted by alexman
What goes around comes around. Caesar had backstabbed Xerxes and Joan, launching nuclear weapons from his submarines, breaking right-of-passage agreements, and wiping out two entire civilizations within a year.

Naughty Caesar (Nice game).

. . . . He is in another World now, playing with his friends Isabella, Hannibal, and Brennus, among outposts, radar towers, and commercial docks…