Your favorite civ3 game?

[johncmcleod]

What is your favorite game of civ3? Have you played any games where there was a lot of personality to them? Games that you'll never forget?

My favorite game was this one game when I was the England. It was very late industrial age. I had sort of beelined for amphibious warfare because I was on an island and when I had to go to war I would probably use marines. War with Japan was inevitable. I was on an island but I had plenty of territory way overseas, where I got my resources from. I was rich and had a decent size military, but I had built too many ships and planes and didn't have as much of an army as numerous I would have liked, and most of it was protecting my overseas territory. This was because I couldn't afford to lose my resources. I wanted to get as much cash as possible and I sold some techs to Russia, which was a weaker nation. I didn't think they would affect the outcome of my game, but I was wrong. I had made a big mistake. Russia of course traded amphibious warfare to Japan. So Japan built marines and now could invade me much easier, because before I had units on almost every coastal square. Now they could land their forces wherever they wanted to. I no longer had control. A few turns later, they declared war on me. I was scared because "compared to these guys, our military is weak!" Their navy was on the prowl around the world and was the first to attack me. I had large naval and air battles (they had a lot of planes on carriers), but I fought well and destroyed much of their navy and air force.

When their transports came afterwards, my navy had the upper hand and was able to wipe out a lot of their invasion force before it landed. They landed on several different spots around the coast. At first I held off their attacks very well. But after they took a few important cities on the coast, they started making a lot of progress. They sent in more troops through the newly captured cities and they started taking a lot of the interior. I seriously considered quitting the game, but decided that I would fight this game to the death. I regrouped my forces and began a counterattack. This was the turning point. I gained ground, slowly at first, but then I began taking more and more cities. All while this was happening, Leeds had been cut off from the rest of my country. They took the cities around Leeds during their offensive, but Leeds didn't fall. So it was surrounded. I couldn't reinforce it. They attacked the city for several turns. The defenders miraculously held the city until I recaptured the area around it. After many very bloody battles I finally forced them off the continent.

That was my favorite game.

[vmxa1]

Good story, I wish I could remember more than a few choice parts of better recoveries. I still remember how much time it took to finish AU408 or what ever the huge one was.

[Dr. A. Cula]

My favourite game has to be one where I moved all my neighbours on the world's largest continent to remote 1 or 2 square islands, then proceeded to invade the other 2 continents at the same time. An interesting situation presented itself on one of the continents, when the Romans came up to me (Germany) and asked for MPP. 2 turns later, when I looked for roman cities, there were none left. I then noticed a roman caravel heading for the last unoccupied spot on my continent. After I put a city there, they just stayed where they were until I started making progress on the other continent. Feeling generous, I gave the Romans a couple of their old cities back, which they proceeded to lose instantly to hordes of iroqouis knights (the sames knights that were crashing against my infantries, making them elite). For a few centuries, I just watched the progress of the roman caravel, returning home for a few turns, then stopping until I returned to take back their cities. On the other continent, it was even more hilarious: Cleopatra sent dozens of war chariots every turn against my infantry and refused any peace talks that didn't involve me paying her an arm and a leg. It was funny how everybody had TONS of ancient units just lying around, even though they were on my tech level and had enough resources available. Even the romans were getting an infantry in their restored cities (I gave them rubber).
I had fun with this for a few centuries, then I got bored and built the spaceship. By that point, it was Modern Armor and Mech. Inf. against Cavalry, but still they kept attacking me and demanding outrageous tributes for peace.

Oh, and johncmcleod: you should have renamed Leeds to Stalingrad.

[Arrian]

Hmmm.... my favorite...

Tough call. I'll go with the last game I played before PTW came out.

Egypt, Emperor, Standard/8civs. Though I asked for "continents" I got a near-pangea. I was in the North. America was *really* close, crammed between the ocean and me, to my North. Germany to my East. Aztecs to my South. Iroquois to the S/SE of Azteca. Japan West of Azteca. Zululand NW of Japan. Yeesh.

Anyway, the start position was, um, nice. Though Thebes had nearly all plains tiles to work (plus 3-4 desert and 1 hill), FIVE of them had cows on them. I built my 2nd & 3rd cities such that they could use the outlying cows on either side of Thebes.

Very early on, I beat on America. I think I used 2-3 warriors to hit a settler team and then kill a couple of units. For peace, I got a couple of techs, a worker, and some gold. Mmm.

I think I beelined for Monarchy. I hit America again with swordsmen, this time leaving them with only 1 city, and again got tech and gold for peace. Then, having built a ton of WCs, I unleashed Hell on Germany. While my WCs were eating Germany, my remaining swords crushed the Aztecs (they were pretty weak). Then I went builder for a bit, working on the FP in Tenochticlan.

Then the Iroquios decided they wanted a piece of me. I thought I was screwed. I had WCs and Swords to fight Mounted Warriors.

I actually managed to take 1 border town and then fight them to a standstill. It was a nasty fight. But I do remember 1 extremely brave little War Chariot. He killed a MW, and ended his turn on a forest tile (I couldn't pull him back). I had written him off for dead. But when attacked by a MW the next turn, he held, with 1hp remaining, and was promoted to Elite. I think I could hear the AI raging at the RNG.

I built up, and decided to hit the Iroq again with Knights. They had the Pyramids and Sun Tzu, so I really wanted Salamanca. I hit them with all I had, but I was unable to take them out. I captured several cities, but just ran out of troops. The casualties were horrible.

So I had to come back later, with Cavalry, to take their final 4-5 cities (including the jewel called Salamanca). This I finally did.

Shortly thereafter, Japan hit me. I had worried about that for a while. Luckily, I had a strategic advantage. Japan & Zululand's territory was connected to the rest of the continent by a fairly thin bottleneck. I stationed all spare musketmen & cannon in the city on my side of the neck prior to the war (like I said, I was worried).

I dealt with Japan's attack, and then counterattacked. I had managed to accumulate a large number of Cav by this time, so even Japan's rifles couldn't stop me. I gutted them.

Then, just as I finished off Japan, Zululand hit me. I responded by destroying roughly 1/2 their empire (razing all the way). I had infantry/arty now, so I was invincible.

And then I just stopped. I had 7 luxuries, a tech lead, military superiority, and nearly all the wonders. I had met the 8th civ (England, on a largish island), and they were of no concern. So I figured I'd play out the SS win.

But nooo! Elizabeth had to be a *****. So, in response to a pathetic sneak attack, hordes of Egyptian troops sailed for England, spearheaded by 3 3xTank+1xMech Inf armies. I captured 1 city (for the luxury) and then set about razing everything else. Everything. I actually destroyed the entire continent (except for that 1 city), and was set to hit the last English island city when I accidentally triggered domination (I forget how). EDIT: I remember now. I had left the Americans alive, with 1 coastal city up north. They decided that they should attack me with their 1 longbowman. This irritated me, and I ended their existence. That triggered domination.

I was proud of that game. Near UP on Emperor. Mmm.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Top on my list of most-remembered (and therefore favorite) games are the AU courses and PBEM games. The former because of they're created to be interesting and AARs are always a blast, the latter because the time it takes to play one turn means you have a lot of time to think about the game and how you're possibly going to beat these "beyond Deity" opponents.

But my truly favorite game is not among these. I played the Japanese, on Emperor (probably my first or second attempt at that difficulty). I won via Domination earlier than I ever had before, somewhere around 1500AD (and consequently beat my personaly highest score). I would be lying if I were to say these things did not matter to me then, but at least there's more to the story.

I was directly in the middle of a very fertile Pangea map, with the AIs expanding and denying me land from all sides. I was sure I was going to lose this one, but I stuck with it and just built a horde of Samurai, and tackled each opponent in a perfectly counter-clockwise fashion (starting with the Zulus directly South and going around through the Romans, English, Egyptians, Persians and finally Greeks...not sure about the other civ).

The game was constant warfare from Chivalry onward, but was never a foregone conclusion because the AIs started ganging up on me at some point. It also felt very cool to take on a large chunk of the world with Samurai (the coolest UU).

The game was a series of "firsts" for me, since I felt I had to use every trick I knew about to keep up.

1. It was the first game I stopped being squeamish about placing cities closer than OCP; I felt I still needed Workers at some point but could not stop producing military units, so I created a couple of Worker camps on Flood Plains between my "perfectly-placed" cities. This worked wonders. Of course, I disbanded these cities rather quickly, because they "looked bad". How I've changed as a player!

2. It was the first time I ever brought Workers along with my military units to patch up the tiles I had pillaged (another first).

3. It was the first time I allowed myself to get behind in tech in order to focus on warfare.


I'm sure there are other "firsts". Suffice it to say that I felt I was pushed into a corner, and I used all my abilities (obtained through 'Poly, of course!) to get out of it and prevail. For me, that's fun.


Dominae

[johncmcleod]

Oh, and johncmcleod: you should have renamed Leeds to Stalingrad.

I actually though about that, but I was very mad at Russia at the time and I didn't want anything Russian that had to do with my empire.

[Spiffor]

My favorite game started like this

(this of course is genuine)

[Arrian]

What were the settings on that game, Spiff? And who where you, Russia?

I remember an old game as the Iroquois on Regent that involved a River and 5-6 grassland cows (all w/in the capitol radius!!!). That was just insane.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Son of SVC, for me.

I loved every part of it... Roman Legions, an adverse start, early IC invasions being a necessity, TOUGH opponents, and a massive late game IC invasion to win.

There have been a lot of others, mostly from AU. I remember situations more than whole games... the inverted T that inspired that inspired "Care, Feeding, and Death", a massive Maginot Line that I created across a mountain range, the first time I used huge numbers of Arty, my first IC invasion combining Sammies and Cavs, an Army that survived with 1 hp...

These are a few of my favorite things.

[Arrian]

I can hear Julie Andrews now...



-Arrian

p.s. It was her, right?

[Anaximander]

Hmmm...my favorite game was one as France. There was one part of that game that I still think back on and smile. My starting continent was one the small size so I looked to overseas expansion. I had captured about half of a good sized continentsized continent which I shared with the Iroquis. The Iroquis were the worlds super power, with me running a close second. As such I took great caution with them, heavly defending our border with huge numbers of calvary. I also placed three calvary units on a transport, setting off the Iroquis coast. These units were to hurrass the enemys rear while our armies duked it out on the border. Well, the expected confrontation ended up not happening right a way and a cold war of sorts developed. During this time both sides developed technologically. Calvary became outdated and my large border army was replaced by tanks, and then Modern Armor. I still had those three Calvary units in that one transport though, sitting off the coast waiting for a war that I thought would never come. Finally, the Iroquis picked a fight. We were pretty evenly matched in the field in the begining, but then I landed my secret weapon, those three calvery! Two of them were destroyed shortly after landing on the beaches. But the third fought on bravely! Open combat was suicide so I focused on pillaging the Iroquis reasource network. I was able to cut off access to several vital resources and generally make a huge mess of their road network, all in the middle of the Iroquis heartland. His efforts, combined with bombing attacks to the areas of the continent that he couldn't reach, turned the tide of the war against the Iroquis! The brave calvary unit survived for about 10 turns before he was finally cornered and destroyed, but his legend lives on to this day!

[vmxa1]

I remember some of the situations, but not the game. One of my early Regents games before PTW and maybe the first or second patch.
Anyway the thign I remember is that I was in some trouble, but about holding my own. The problem was I did not have old and tanks were starting to pop up. I had just invaded. I spoted some oil tucked next to a friendly city and some barely open patches between cities to get to that location. So I was able to sneak asettler next to the city an found my city to get oil and finally hook it to my invasion city. I was very proud of the tactics I used to get it.
It was nothing special, but I just enjoyed the idea that I had to stop and figure out a way to get the oil that did not involve trade or war.

[Theseus]

You got it, Arrian.

[-proletarian-]

The game I'm referring to here was finished just a few days ago, actually. I was the Egyptians, playing on standard map, pangea, 6 enemy civs, and it was on Monarch difficulty setting. I had the most land on the western hunk of the pangea, the russians were on a sizeable penninsula on the far east, the aztecs were to my south and east, and the Persians, Chinese, Greeks and Iroquois were muddled in the middle (my east).

The Greeks were the first to go, the poor bastards didn't even last to the middle ages.
A coalition of the Aztecs, Persians and Iroquois had taken care of them. They didn't have much land to expand early on, and it proved to be their downfall.

The Persians were the first Civ to give me a migrane. We fought several wars during the ancient and middle ages over the lands that would eventually make the northern half of my holdings on the west of the landmass. It all started when he poached two prime spots that I intended to settle. I tolerated it for a while (okay, until I had control of the region! ) then let 'em have it. There were only two cities that I wanted (the two they had planted there) so I had no problems taking them with 15 or so vet swords. I then made peace as soon as I could. (Lucky for me they had no iron, I made sure of that before going to war with x-man )

A few more wars came and went with the Persians in the early middle ages, they took a city back, I took it back again.....and promptly renamed it from "Ghulaman" to "Victory City".
That was all the trouble I would have from them. During our third and final war, I signed up every single other civ against them. Ha. That'll teach 'em to squash my tamater! (Simpsons joke ) Needless to say, they folded like cheap lawn furniture. Unfortunately, I had given rise to a beast in the process.......

The Aztecs. They had taken 90% of the spoils of the great "screw over the Persians" war I had initiated. They now surrounded me on my south (their original starting region), east and northeast. I had to do something.....I waited until I got cavs, then let rip. Unfortunately, they had recently researched nationalism (they were a tech or two ahead of moi) so my war sputtered. I took no cities, and my invasion force of 30 cavs were turned away from their major cities. I pulled back. Made peace without a city being lost. Phew!

In the meantime peacetime I completed my railnet. All was going well. I had gained the tech lead. Then it happened......I had put "show friend moves" off because I was sick of watching the AI's incessant patrolling turn after turn (didn't 1.27 fix that supposedly?) but was shocked to see 3 SOD's of cavalry, infantry, and a smorgasboard of obsolete medievil infantry, and longbowmen, about 120 units in total, all deep within the heart of my territory, heading to my lightly defended interior cities. They had bypassed my heavily fortified border cities and were going right for the heart of my empire. I realized that I could't take the stacks on head-on, as they were defended by infantry (my best attacking units were cavalry, it was mid industrial age) and were taking a mountain route. Then it hit me. I would fight as the Russians did in ww2. Let the enemy in, allow them deep into your territory, then engage them in a war of attrition, taking advantage of being in your own land and all the benefits that come with that (unlimited movement, cities with barracks, an easily accessible front). I assembled all my cavs in El-Ashumein, a city surrounded by grassland, as that is where the cavs appeared to be heading. I was correct. Their 3 movement left them (25 or so cavs) within a square of the city. On the next turn my cavs atatcked before they could. Hoo boy. I slaughtered them. That was the offensive, fast-moving element of their invasion force dealt with, now I was left with 3 stacks of infantry. I assembled all my artillery in the city closest to their mountain range excursion through my lands, and let rip. Turn after turn. 50 artillery blasting away at them without remorse every turn. They got bogged down, in a constant cycle of healing, then being bombarded again once taking 3 turns to get healthy. The cycle kept the SOD's at red health constantly. The stragglers I mopped up with cavs and infantry.

Angered (and having a lot of fun! ), I decided to punish them for their nerve. I instituted the game's second "screw over the -insert civ name here- war" and signed up everyone against the Aztecs. Ha.

Bottom line; The Aztecs got slapped down in that war, and after a short war ensuing between me and the chinese and russians (the bastards turned on me after they got sick of beating on Monty's men) I made peace; researched rocketry and fission and nuclear power, then went on a huge buildup of ICBM's. I then proceeded to nuke the living hell out of the remaining 4 civs on the planet.

I won a conquest victory.


Sorry for the rant, I just enjoyed that game so much and felt like sharing it with all you fine gents.

[Theseus]

proletarian, you are my kinda guy.

[Spiffor]

Arrian:
Actually, it was not my favorite game (it was on a small continent and I love having a huge territory when I play Russia).

My favorite game was what I called the "Korean Challenge". Emperor, 240*240, 24 Civs, Continents, modded rules. It was one early version of PtW, so the Civ strating positions weren't equal at all.

I begun on a tiny island entirely covered with Jungle. The only thing that made my spot viable was the fish next to my settler. And I said "what the heck, I take the challenge"

I "quickly" settled the 4 cities that my Island could support. Of course, there was no luxury nor resource there. I "rushed" to get mapmaking (yeah, that's 120 turns), and in the meantime I cleaned and mined every single tile on the Island.

Once I had mapmaking, I tried to explore with my triremes, but to no avail. My isolation was to curse me for the rest of the times, or that's what I thought. I managed to build the Lighthouse (never thought I'd win that race), and that had been an eye opener for my Civ. I could quickly discover the Americans, and I immediately got techs by entering an alliance against the Russians.
The Americans and Russians shared a rather small continent to the southwest (I was in plain center) with the Spanish, Aztecs, and Brits. Sadly, I was so backward I couldn't trade techs, and I hadn't enough money to buy them as well.

Some time later, I discovered another small continent to the North. There were a few Civs there, most of them were barely more advanced than me, and all of them definitely less advanced than the southern continent. For centuries, I flourished being the middleman between the Southern and the Northern continent. Selling southern techs made me rich (and advanced by those standards). Meanwhile, it made the Northern continent more advanced, and I soon became the middleman in tech-trading itself, gaining from both sides I really managed to make an insular merchant empire Everything was all right as long as both continents were struck with galleys.

In the meantime, I discovered the Celts, who managed to be even worse off than me. They had an isolated Island which could only bear 2 cities, and they were completely backwards. Since my greatest priority was to expand everywhere it was possible, I quickly set up an invasion force of archers and catapults (I had no resource, and them either).
I sucked and the war dragged on for centuries. It was completely one sided, since they had no chance to disembark on my Island. But in the end (and one disembarkment later), I finally succeeded eliminating the Celts. With these two cities taken, my empire grew by 50%

Then things got out of hand because of the people of the third, eastern continent (mainly, the Egyptians and the Germans). The third continent was very large, and the Civs there had as much room as they wanted. They brought modernity to my world, and they brought ruin to my intercontinental trade / whoring.
I was dismayed. Both southern and Northern continent could now modernize without my input. And they did quickly. For 40 turns, I put my science slider to 0%, buying techs for loads of GPT. At the beginning it was great, but it ended up sucking being a bad investment when I reached the industrial age.

During this time, the guys at the eastern continent were flourishing, being half an age in front of me, and making the difference bigger and bigger. I knew I was going to lose. I still tried.

I found three backward Civs similar to the Celts at the Antipodes (south of the Eastern Continent). I crushed them vehemently to double the size of my empire over the previously Indian, Celtic and Japanese Civs. Sadly, my acquisitions could not pay off before massive investments. I was still badly lagging behind the main powers.

Fortunately, these great powers have decided to ruin it all for them. They switched to wommunism, and the Germans and Egyptians begun fighting with each other. Other continents saw war between the regional powers. And I was here, one of the few democracies still existing, not sharing any landmass with them, and still making business.
And I was here, regaining on the gap despite the shitty starting position. I could watch them killing themselves, meaning that I could be the middleman again when I was whoring techs.

Sadly, the waiting times between turns became unbearable at this point (more than 30 minutes), so I stopped there. I still have the save though. One day, when I'll be patient enough, I'll finish this game, and I'll win by spaceship !

[-proletarian-]

Originally posted by Theseus
proletarian, you are my kinda guy.

-lol-

It's funny, I'm usually a builder-type player but recently on monarch and above I've found that a little ass-kicking is necessary if you want to keep up.....plus it's fun as hell to beat up on the hapless AI.

[Sheik]

Sadly, the waiting times between turns became unbearable at this point (more than 30 minutes), so I stopped there.

grab a good book.

[Kaos XIII]

My first Civ3 game.

I went to war Civ2-style and got steamrolled by the Aztecs and their Jaguar Warriors.

Oh yeah, and this game was on CHIEFTAIN!!!

[ChrisiusMaximus]

It was the Russians that totally screwed me over the first time I played Civ3, as Kaos said it was chieftan and I was still in civ2 mode.

That sour faced old hag Cathy makes me sooo mad!!!

[johncmcleod]

I can hear Julie Andrews now...

I was hearing John Coltrane.


I won't forget my first civ3 game. I had never played a tbs civ game before, and for months I could not play civ at all I was so terrible. I didn't know that you had to expand fast. I started out on a medium sized island. I built two cities after hundreds of years and found the French on another island right by me. They came in and settled on my territory and took up all the land. I ended up with like 4 cities and I couldn't keep up with tech very well. I don't remember what happened next. I either quit or was destroyed.

[Vince278]

I've played too many games to be specific. My favorite game would have to be ones where I came all so close to losing but still managed to pull out a win. Very satisfying.

[zorbop]

my favorite game was as the ottomans, emperor, huge map, 16 civs. I was on a continent with 6 other civs, and was behind in tech.
i was able to catch up by the industrial age. i sent out over 100 sipahi and took my entire continent in 5 turns, with very few casualties(on my side). Needless to say, i was satisfied. i had not yet found the other continent.
within the comming years, i had become somewhat alarmed.
i kept on noticing messages like these "the french have been destroyed by the rampaging indian forces", or "thed celts have been destroyed by the rampaging indian forces"
the indians kept on conquering, but i still had not meat them.
this is about when i noticed that the indians controlled 6 anciant wonders, all midievil wonders, and every industrial age wonder yet discovered.
i finally meat them, and i found that ghandi (yes, ghandi) had conquered 2 continents and eliminated all rival civs on them. my spies discovered they had an army of : over 250 infantry, 170 tanks, 80 marines, dozens of artillery, a whole bunch of bombers (but not a single fighter, bug?), 60 battleships, and a handful of other ships! i had never seen the ai do anything CLOSE to this

i managed to trade up and equalize myself in techs, but they still researched faster than me.
in the modern age, the indians declaired war. it was a bit one sided... they took all of my cities except my capital and 2 others. i pulled off a space victory with 200 modern armour outide my capitol.

[Theseus]

Wow!!!

[Harovan]

That's one amazing game, zorbop!

[vmxa1]

Amazing, I would say frightening.

[bernardjan]

I tried a OCC on a small (5 AI) pangea map with the iroquis. I wanted a cultural victory. This means a lot of
leaders in order to rush the Medieval wonders.
The first part of the game went fine. I crushed
the Americans and France with my Mounted Warriors
got some leaders and all wonders
form Hanging Gardens til Bach's cathedral.
The Aztecs were beaten afterwards and I had my own
continent. (Just put captured workers on all coastal
squares).
There happened to be a large empty continent
and a small island with the Romans and Egyptians.
Now everything went wrong: the Romans destroyed
Egypt, so there was only one opponent left and I could
not destroy him. Fortunately I was able to deny them
coal, (place workers on top and fortify).
This slowed them down, but they were racing towards their spaceship. Fortunately, they also build VN
and Cure of Cancer instead of SS-parts, so I just got
my cultural victory. When I continued playing and spied
on them, I learnt that they were already building their
last parts. The narrowest escape.
The lesson: a weak AI is much more usefull than a dead
AI.

[Vince278]

zorbop - Great way to illustrate my point.

[Gufnork]

Well, I can tell you about my latest game which I believe will be the first game on Deity I actually win without playing Merchant (huge pangea, trade, trade, trade). Chinese, Standard Pangea (8 AI:s), standard rules.

I started in the sw part of the continent, very nice start (by a river, a game forest, large patch of grasslands to expand into with a few cows). I decided to go out bows first. So I started with a barracks, an archer, a warrior then a settler. The first four cities got barracks and produced archers when they could. My only neighbour was the ottomans, which I decided to pound a bit. I razed a few bases and just as my archers was all but gone, I got a treaty. The result, more territory for me. In fact, I had the largest territory of all civs (that's a first). Much thanks to the nice sultan who didn't seem to have the guts to expand to the west after our first war.

After some heavy REXing to fill the territory and tossing an obsene amount of gold at Gandhi to catch up I managed to get feudalism not too much later than everyone else (I warred instead of getting G. Lib) about when my expansion was done. Now I got Riders. So, I wanted my golden age. Now I wouldn't have warred the ottomans since they were so nice and gave me all that territory. But I had no other neighbour, so sorry. I ganged up with their neighbour Korea and ate them. Well, I made peace just before to get stuff and Korea ate them. Of course I forgot that I was in an alliance with Korea so they got furious with me.

Right now I'm the largest with Korea as a not too distant second. Korea had two luxuries close to my border, I hadn't gotten a leader to rush my forbidden palace yet and Korea was furious with me. What to do, what to do. I politely asked Korea to move their spearman that was travelling across my country, they declared and my riders on standby massacred the Koreans huge army (40 or so knights, 20 or so Med. Inf and 20 or so pikemen). It cost me a lot to do so, but I had the terrain advantage and the brains. I got a great leader for my palace, after a while I took three of their bases, two of which had luxuries. Now my people were getting upset (republic) so I agreed to a pretty lame peace treaty (a few hundred gold). Now I was the largest, had six luxuries and enough resources to get by. I continued to pay India for tech while building libs in my nation (India was on the NE tip of the continent, had no iron or horses and the smallest territory). Then I started researching on my own (steam engine was my first selfdeveloped tech). I railed my nation, built factories (India wanted to pay 32 gpt for coal, what a cheapskate!) and started developing my nation. Now the whole world decided I didn't deserve to live. In my usual "oh right I need to defend my cities" manner I realized that I only had upgraded riders and a few infantry I panicked. Then I realized that I for once had gotten nationalism and started recruiting. A lot. In fact I didn't lose a single city to their assaults. About 20% of the infantry died, 20% became regulars, 40% became veterans, 20% became elites and one produced a great leader (what a hero!). Militaristic ain't half bad sometimes.

I realized that I need more infastructure before I could war for real (and it's tedious to war with infantry) so I built infastructure and then artillery while researching towards mobile warfare. Unfortunatly I was forced to switch to communism during this period (it was a full blown world war, no nation was at war with fewer than four other nations) so it took a while. Now I've finally got tanks (so does most others too though), the largest empire, factories and rail everywhere and a single front. I just have to win this one!

EDIT: Eat my spacedust! I made peace after making sure I had only one neighbour again, switched to democracy (you can rest assured that I'll play religious next game) and started teching. Didn't take long to get a tech lead and producing the parts was a cakewalk. I can beat deity on ideal conditions. Yay me!

[GePap]

I can;t really say which game has been my favorite...but I do remmber an early game as the japanese which struck me because it was the first time the sheer destructiveness of modern war in civ3 was. In civ 2, cities were taken, sometimes destroyed, but overall, infrastructure remained OK as long as nukes didn;t get involved and usually a city size 20 or so ended up maybe a 15 before it was taken. But this time, in a war against the Romans, whole cities of 20 plus ended up being 2 or 3, and huge swaths of tiles bombed back to the stone age. It was all very impressive.