Emperor games C3C: how to improve your skills

[Inverse Icarus]

i started amassing warriors for a swordsmen upgrade. when i got 7 of them, sumeria sneak attacked me, saving me the trouble of declaring war. the march begins in 1200 BC.

military great leader generated in 875 BC, during a failed assault on Ur. how many god damn enkindus do they have in there?! Leader runs back to Groningen and builds army.

[Inverse Icarus]

630 BC: one of my 3 exploring galleys found some land to the north, and i've met byzantine and the hittites. they do not seem to be any more advanced than anyone on my home continent, which is odd, since my science has been at 10% for a while now while my warriors were being upgraded.

speaking of the war, it didn't go as planned. the army of swordsmen killed 3 enkindu, but then retreated. it ran to a barracks and came back fully healed. i am now marching the army and 5 swordsmen in to Ur. the Sumerians are attacking with archers, which i eat up.

[Inverse Icarus]

490 BC: after 3 regroupings and 17 dead enkindus, Ur has fallen. i have to say, that is the most defense i've ever ****ing seen.

[Inverse Icarus]

190 BC: the year of glory.

• Sumeria has been destroyed.
• I have taken control of the Oracle, and the Statue of Zeus
• I have built the great library and heroic epic
• I have met the Maya and Inca, and after some trades, I have entered the Mideval Era

my army won't even stop marching. a short rest, and then on to Portugal.

[Inverse Icarus]

and somehow it's 5am. Lisbon just fell, and Rome just razed two cities i got earlier for peace with Portugal on what i think is an island to the east. grrr. sleep now.

[Enriquillo]

Morning all (almost 2pm, but ok).

A question for Enriquillo if you’re reading this – you moved from Despotism into Monarchy and stayed there for quite some time. What’s your rationale there – is it simply the war weariness in republic you wanted to avoid? For me, monarchy and republic are so close together that I never see the value in monarchy.

I'm very keen on republic, but since I figured I would be at war for quite some time I decided on monarchy, also a bit more fitting for the dutch
I had around 90 SM's so Republic would not give me any advantage over monarchy.
Recently I made a switch from republic to democracy and was actually worse off, so I'm beginning to feel democracy is losing it's appeal, unless you're reasonably sure of not having to fight too many wars.
Even in this particular game with the dutch my switch to democracy was great for a while until I declared war on the Byzantines, within a few turns warweariness set in and caused all sorts of trouble, bleeding liberals

I'm starting to feel a one time switch is the way to go with non religious civs, those 8 turn anarchies cannot be compensated by any benefit another gov will give you.
Ofcourse there are exceptions, but this is what I believe to true in most cases. Communism is the most attractive option in late game imo, democracy just limits your warmongering ability too much, especially on sea maps where wars always take longer.

I just compared your 920ad to my 1000ad, you under republic me under monarchy. My army was larger and I had much more territory. You had the techlead. So there you have it, you want to play relatively peaceful, go with Republic, the extra production is very valuable.
If on the other hand you're at the brink of a 2000year war, go with monarchy and later switch to communism.

[Inverse Icarus]

i've run into the problem of having a huge military and nearly no navy. whoops!

[EnduringBlue]

I'm at 725 BC, in the previous turns I seized Ur, then Sumer, with 7xSwd, 5xArc. Winning was quite painful...Stephen Hawking couldn't theorize how many Enkidus were in there. I obtained Pyramids and Mausoleum.

Also obtained tech parity as I taunted then with peace before smiting them (while declaring war outside of their borders and without sneak attacking them as they so richly deserved...).

I managed to build the Great Lighthouse on my own. ToZ I am trying to finish fast enough, hopefully nobody will get it first. I would like to locate the Mayans soon if they're not too huge, as I know they have Temple of Artemis.

Right now I'm REXing into the former Sumerian empire, and massing troops along the bottleneck with Portugal. They already have troops and settlers waiting at the border, and I expect I'll see their first boats right around when I start building my first galleys in a couple turns.

This is a good map! I still haven't done anything with the forests-and-snow western side of the continent, though. palace is going to move soon to compensate, i'm predicting.

[Aqualung71]

Can’t say I disagree with you there Enriquillo. Which really demonstrates the Catch-22 of Civ3. Being non-religious really locks you into only one government change. A second change in the industrial era will penalize you drastically. And once you’ve made your change (be it Monarchy, Communism or Republic), you may be forced into a certain play-style.

Having said that, I find that prolonged warring in Republic is certainly possible as long as you trade for (or capture) sufficient luxuries, have your markets built and all your temples/cathedrals and even coliseums and give the luxury slider a bit of a nudge. I for one will never move into Communism – I’ll always seek out those extra luxuries under Republic to keep my people quiet. But I don’t see the value in moving from Republic into Democracy when non-religious. I’ve never seen enough of a corruption reduction to make it worthwhile, though I haven’t yet experimented with the change in unit support costs to see whether that might make it more effective.

[Aqualung71]

Update: 109AD. Just finished JS Bach and Shakespeare. 4 turns to go on Smiths. Traded the useless Music Theory to about 3 other Civ’s for gold + gpt the turn before I finished Shakespeare.

Finally got around to looking for that Saltpeter and as expected, none on the continent. Sent my Caravel a-searching, and found some on a small island, luckily just East of my continent. Currently inside a Hittite town’s borders, so guess who’s next on the agenda for my weary AC and new Knights!

Physics in 1 turn, at least 2 techs ahead of everyone else, but my GA doesn’t have much longer to go!
Back to the game.

[Enriquillo]

1860ad, made the switch to facism to see how that would go compared to communism, I must say I'm impressed.

You get all the benefits of communism without the corruption in your core cities.
The lost populationpoints aren't really a problem, it just sets you back a few turns that's all.

I can now warmonger as much as I like

Thinking of starting a new game as the AI's cheating in battle is becoming hilarious. Cavalry beating my fortified MI and stuff like that
I figure it's a sign the AI is losing, when it must resort to such measures.

[Enriquillo]

1908ad, we have a military alliance with Inca against the Byzantines.
We've captured one of their heartland cities and are flying in MI every turn, also a regiment of them is marching towards the capital. This will surely bring them to their knees.

I've build a new palace on my northern island, where the Romans used to be. Utrecht has the FP and most other original corecities are producing MI so a few more corruption doesn't hurt them at all. The capital change did set me back about a 100gpt at first but my new northern cities are now beginning to be profitable.
Also I really want to develop this bit because this is where the Byzantines only oil was, I cannot let them take it back.
They are so screwed and don't even know it

Best part so far was capturing a Byz city and catching 13 bombers in the process, that must have hurt. I haven't seen a single bomber since... it's hard to fly those babies without oil isn't it?

[Aqualung71]

Can someone please look at the attached save and tell me why I can't switch from my nearly completed Bank in he Hague to a Palace pre-build? I can do it in Utrecht and every other city I've checked, but not in The Hague. But once I've finished my Bank, I can then build a Palace.

Weird? Or is there some game rule in effect here I don't know about?

[Truman_Capote]

Have you disbanded a unit for shields in The Hague?

That might do it, but I don't know whether palaces have the same restriction on shields from disbanded units.

Edit: Beat you to it vmxa1

[vmxa1]

Thriller is most likely do to tainted shields. This means doing things like chopping trees, disband units during any build and then trying to switch to a wonder or palace. Not allowed.