Could anyone post some saves on higher diffs?

[GTPoompt]

Hi,

I just recently got back into civ 3. (played a long while ago, lost my CD, then bought civ 3 complete at discount price).

I played a game on warlord, and it was too easy. Time for me to jack up the difficulty.

Anyway, I was wondering if some people could post some of their savegames in the higher difficulties (monarch and up) somewhere in the middle (around late medieval i suppose. Also when you're doing well, I can easily reproduce the crappy games )

I was just curious on stuff like city layouts, mines//irrigations, amount of workers/cities, what you build in cities, etc etc. I just thought some saves would make the process much easier then explaining.

I'm using civ 3 complete (which is all the xpacs) and the newest patch.

thanks for the help.

P.S.: is CxxCxxC still one of the better ways of city layout? or is there another?

[punkbass2000]

Yes, cxxcxxc is a good spacing. cxcxc is usually the best, but it's somewhat an exploit and also gets tiresome. Here's a screen:

[vmxa1]

There are a numer of threads with games at various points in this forum and detail posts in the AU forum.

[GTPoompt]

k thanks, i'll check the AU forum.

Also, what is the government most people use in the late game? Is it worth it to go for democracy or stick with republic. /communism

EDIT: I looked throught the forum quick there, I saw a lot of pictures, but no actual save games other than those starting in 4000 BC. I'll check again a little later, as I have to go to a huge party at the library for about 4-5 hours because of a test tomorrow.

[vmxa1]

The form of gov is a tricky one. If I am not religious (and I seldom am), I will only make one change. This mean no commie or no Demo for me.

Mostly Rep, but I have played Monarch all the way through at sid a few times.

[Arrian]

Here is a medieval save...

Monarch level. Babylon. I avoided any games in which I got absurdly good luck (like an early SGL). This one obviously isn't a hard luck start, of course...

Note: I'm in my GA.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Here is another one.

Neither one is perfect - having loaded them up to look at them, I can see a couple of things I might quibble with...

You will no doubt notice that my city spacing is rather wide compared to many other players. I can get away with it on Monarch, and I like the game better that way. But I cannot really argue that my spacing is more powerful, especially the higher up you go in difficulty... it gets to the point where playing like me is like handicapping yourself.

-Arrian

[GTPoompt]

Nice games, much better than mine

are armies that much better than they used to be?

Well, I never seem to get great leaders in the first place though

Is there a reason that you don't leave the inner cities defended? Or is it the fact that the AI attacks the outer cities first?

[Arrian]

Yes, armies now official ROCK. They're too good, really. For instance, once you have all the buildings built (Military Academy, Pentagon) and put 4 units in your armies, the combat bonii basically end up doubling the stats. A 4x Cavalry army is then 12.6.4. Plus free pillage and better healing than armies in vanilla civIII or PTW.

Inner cities are not defended because there is no need. The AI cannot get to them (I'm generally careful about signing right of passage agreements with AIs that share a land border with me). I typically set up a coastal defense net of units so that if the AI sails over and drops off a couple of units I can kill them. The balance of my units go to border cities.

Key to this is that under Republic, the form of government I'm using in both of those games, units in cities do not help curb unhappiness. Further, Republic makes you pay a hefty premium for having a large military - so it's much more cost efficient to have a smaller force and concentrate it at the front. Later in the game if/when I switch to communism, I may put units back into core cities to assist with happiness. If I used monarchy, same deal. Since I almost always use Republic, crappy old units (regular warriors, archers, stuff like that) tend to get disbanded. If I used Monarchy instead, I'd keep them for MP use.

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

Thanks for posting those saves, Arrian.

The first things that struck me about the Babs game were :

(1) It's so dark . There might even be another Civ somewhere down south! The Iroqois looked more as I'd expect, with the home continent circumnavigated.
(2) Excellent pop level and terrain improvement for a non-ind Civ in about 460AD. How many cities were dedicated worker pumps - two or three? 9 cities just about maxed out, with another bunch of medium sizers all productive. I'm guessing that wads of workers were added to cities for maxing the GA.
(3) Seems like a huge rex - did you bash visiting settlers to keep the area clear, or were they all a long way off. Also, why do they only have a few cities each now? Did you smiteth them unto the dust?
(4) That's a cunningly slim military you've got in both games for simultaneously defending a large empire and eating up a neighbour. 5 defenders, 4 Horse/MW, 6/7 MI in 2 Armies, 6 Ancient Cavalry and a few Cats. What I can't understand is how you're strong to all neighbours with that. In the Iroq game you're stronger than the overseas Civs too.

In all, two very impressive civs. :notworthy: Any chance of a brief military history?

[GTPoompt]

As for getting the armies...

do you build barrack to get veteran units then go pick on the weaker enemy civs until a GL?

Or is it just pure luck (but i mean after the first one you can build)

[vmxa1]

Most of the time I will not build troops after the initial warriors without a barracks. So you have vets whatever they are and can try to get some elites.

Then you use elites in fights that they are nearly sure to win and hope for the best.

[Arrian]

Cort:

I remember the Babs game best, so I'll try a quick recap:

Darkness: I must have lost my curragh to barbs and not bothered to build another. No matter, what you see is what you get. France, England, Carthage. The others are overseas.

REX/size/pop: Start position was far away from the nearest neighbor - France. Powerful REX, yes. Babylon and the city directly to its southwest were the settler/worker pumps. Babylon stopped pumping and started building wonders, but the other city kept going for a long time. IIRC, by the time of that save, I had stopped pumping and it was up around size 9 or 10.

I added lots of workers to cities. I actually found myself (as I often do) short of workers when I got to Steam Power. I ended up creating a 1-turn worker pump down south (north/northeast of Paris).

I can't remember, really, but I may have nailed a french settler team early on. But overall I did very little until the main invasion of France, which is ongoing at the time of the save.

My military is pathetic! But the AI civs arrayed against me are quite weak. By the time I got around to fighting England and Carthage, it looked quite different (horde of cavalry, a bundle of cannon, muskets... the works).

...

I remember less about the Iroquois game since I love playing that civ, so I have lots of Iroquois games... they tend to blend together.

...

I've taken to being a pretty extreme builder (outside of some settler bopping) until I get my empire built the way I like it (at least temple, courthouse, library, market... probably cathedral and uni as well) and THEN doing a massive buildup -> Cavalry attack. In a sense, I am become Nathan.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by GTPoompt
As for getting the armies...

do you build barrack to get veteran units then go pick on the weaker enemy civs until a GL?

Or is it just pure luck (but i mean after the first one you can build)

I will typically build a few regular (no barracks) units in the beginning. Primarily warriors, and maybe an archer or two for exploration, barb killing & military police duty. Some of those will get promoted (or killed) fighting barbs. Pretty early, though, I start building barracks to turn out veteran troops.

As for getting MGLs...

Procedure:

1) If a undamaged defender is showing, I attack with vet unit first (preferably something that can retreat, like a horseman), UNLESS I am fairly certain that the undamaged defender showing is the last defender, or it's weak enough to pose little threat to my attacking elite unit (like a knight attacking a spearman in a size 1 town on flat land). Elites are used to mop up, thus giving them better odds of victory. Elite victories = chance for MGL. Lose your elites, lose your chances for MGLs.

2) Soften the enemy with bombardment. I don't always do this (my most recent ancient war, in fact, was a standard archer attack, before I even had mathematics). This gives better odds for all of your units. Better odds of victory/survival = better odds of promotion = more elites = more elite wins = more leaders.

3) No rush, especially if you're a despot, a king, a commie or a fascist. March in deliberately, one tile at a time. Protect your units, bring bombard support. If a stray AI unit tries to run around you, kill it (with an elite, if possible). If that delays taking a city, ok. Minimize casualties by allowing your units to heal properly. The flip side of that is if you have, say, a 5/6 elite ancient cavalry and a regular AI warrior wanders by... by all means hit the warrior with the elite AC.

In short, maximize the generation of elite units, and maximize the number of battles they fight in which they have a good chance of victory.

There are some threads on this... IIRC, "Taking care of your elites" was all about it...

-Arrian

[Muad'Dib]

Can't help you with a save game. First, it's too large to post here. Second, I'm at Modern Age. Unless you really want it , then I will e-mail it to you.