AU PBEM AAR: Game 1

[Dominae]

Isolationist America, Part 1

I posted an AAR earlier on the PBEM section, but this is the correct place to do it, so I'm transferring it to here. My AAR is necessarily brief, as I contacted no one and so was just playing "Civ3 Economics" the whole time.

More by chance than by design, the American people were segregated from the rest of the world. With my Scout I learned this rather quickly, as my island was quite small (yet still large enough to be competitive, or so I believe). It turned out to be a mixed blessing that I chose Expansionist: although my Scout only popped 1 hut for a measly 25 gold, I learned very quickly that I could focus on being a uber-builder with no fear of opposition.

I researched The Wheel first because I like doing that in MP, then went Alphabet, Ceremonial Burial, Writing and I was just shy of Map Making when we stopped. I was going for a Republic beeline, but realised that there is not much to build improvement-wise along that vector! This marks a great difference from SP where you can just pick up almost any old tech you want whenever you need it. So I researched Ceremonial Burial in 4 turns to get Temples, Map Making to get Harbors, and I was planning to go Literature before Philosophy and Code of Laws just to ensure I would be ahead technologically.

Lesson 1: Prepare to do your own research in MP play. Plan way ahead because there is no guarantee techs will simply appear through favorable trades (like with the AI).

I've attached a screen from my start location. I'm not sure if any of you are following the Granary debate in the Strategy forum, but this is a great example of a time when a very fast Settler was the better option. I chopped and irrigated the Grassland Game tile, and built a Settler first (no Warrior!). I unfortunately lost 5 Shields in the process, but my subsequent growth was very good. If you're doubtful that a Granary would not have been better, let me say that I actually tested it out by reproducing a map in the scenario. Perhaps I would have not settled the entire island quite as fast this way (being behind my 3-4 turns in the end), but my interim research rate was certainly higher, which was very important here.

Lesson 2: Sometimes early Granaries are not best. Even if they speed up growth down the line, they reduce your early research significantly.

[Dominae]

Isolationist America, Part 2

Here's a screen from the last (full) turn we played. Some point-form notes:

1. I've completed a Temple in Morristown and am planning to Palace-jump with the current Settler build in Sorenville.

2. Meierburg is my designated Granary city.

3. There is one Luxury, Furs, on the entire island, and one source is sitting under East Dawson.

4. The placement of my first four cities were based around making maximum use of the irrigated Game, which let me grow rather rapidly. The order of placement of my cities was as follows (see below for screenshot):

Sorenville
Meierburg (awesome site)
Morristown (benefits from irrigated Game, future Palace site)
St.Reynolds (accesses second irrigated Game)
East Dawson (hooks up Furs)
Magaham (again benefits from great improved tiles)
Breitkreutzia
Briggsbury

5. All in all I believe I would have had a nice productive core by the time I would have met the rest of the world. My hope was to get ahead in technology and infrastructure and contact the rest of the world before the fighting on the mainland was over. Given my jump in score, I believe the only potential problem with this plan is if I would have had to build the Great Lighthouse to cross the ocean. In that case the game would have been very tough.

Lesson 3: Being caught alone on an island in MP forces you to perfect your builder play. In general such a setup should allow you to stay in the game until contact is made, due to the lack of nearby opponents.


This was both a fun and boring game for me (for obvious reasons). I hope to bonk some heads on the next one.


Dominae

[Dominae]

Wow, Sir Ralph, I've never seen expanding borders pop two Barb huts before. One would have been unlucky; two is just brutal!


Dominae

[Catt]

I hope you all will do this with the other PBEM games as well!

Catt

[Robber Baron]

Interesting that if Dom had been playing SP (at higher levels) he would be falling "behind" early -- but in an MP context, he was probably well ahead -- at least, compared to Ax and Sir Ralph.

Btw, how'd you end up on an island, Dom, if the setting was pangea?

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Robber Baron
Btw, how'd you end up on an island, Dom, if the setting was pangea?

Pangea maps are described as having one or two large landmasses. This helps make SP more fun, but is annoying in MP when you actually do want one big island.


Dominae

[Bluefrog]

Sometimes pangaea is a bit of a misnomer in Civ3. I've usually seen one huge landmass and a smaller, separate one in the pangaea games I've played.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Arrian
Cool stuff (great screenies, SR). But I most protest the razing of the town that bore my name, by the FRENCH, no less!

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Originally posted by alexman
The plan was to expand, produce an army of War Chariots and Mounted Warriors, change to Monarchy, establish an embassy, and then attack our closest neighbor with our unique units, triggering a Golden Age outside of Despotism.

Jesus, that's a badass plan. I haven't played enough MP... WCs and MWs and lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

[jshelr]

Thanks for the directions Dom. I'm having a slow day on the uptake.

This Is The True and Accurate Story of the Tragic End of Rightful Iroquois Domination

I'm going to post this before reading the tall tales of the minor players that are recorded above:

The Iroquois were born, as they justly deserved, in a virtual Garden of Eden. Early settlers had ample access to water supplies and the main problems were not stumbling while crossing the prevalent wheat fields and avoiding the bulls while circling the many cow herds that dominated the lush grasslands. Luxuries were nearby for the population to enjoy. Their backs were to the sea, where maurading neighbors were blocked and invading ships were unlikely to appear for a few millennia yet. Just beyond the initial home valleys were tall mountains bordered by fertile flood plains, raising visions of long-run production powerhouses in the minds of the Iroquois wise men.

After building a few scouts, but by no means enough to satisfy Aeson, the Iroquois settled down to a placid but efficient Rex. Scouts brought back good news that the agreeable Egyptians were located well to the east and appeared likely to be very helpful in the defence of the homeland as well as partners to mutual advantage in the steady advance of knowledge. The scouts, themselves, contributed substantially, first by locating a settler to join our civilization and later by bringing back knowledge gained from wandering tribes of the east.

Even further to the east, the French were sighted and the Iroquois contact suggested few reasons for concern. All was going according to plan.

Trouble broke out between our neighbours as the French learned of the agreement between the Iroquois and the Egyptians to share knowledge. As often happens in human affairs, the French feared the worst and, heroically, staged a pre-emptive strike on our Egyptian neighbours, overcoming odds stacked against them to destroy a critical initial Egyptian city. The war council of the Iroquois could not help but to admire such chutzpah. But the real politic of the situation was that a sweep of Egypt by the rampaging French was not in the Iroquois best interest.

Back at the rex, however, cities were founded so rapidly that spare military units were difficult to produce and the trail to the battlefront was long and barb filled. The Iroquois decided to talk loudly and send a small stick toward the no-man's land between Egypt and France. So, they threatened the laudable French with destruction of their road and mine system if the French were to attack the wounded Egyptians.

The Iroquois had visions of soon being as large as France and Egypt together. A settler was prepared and was proceeding to claim a nearby horse resource, horseback riding already having been learned. There was vigorous debate about triggering a golden age too early. So, hoping to learn the secret of more advanced government organization first, the Iroquois were ready to balance further expansion against the speed with which a 15-unit MW stack could be produced to sweep the crude, warlike civs to the East from the rightful continental homeland of the Iroquois.

After all, we had an historical score to settle with the Americans, and, if we were to rewrite history successfully, we needed the ample resource base to give old Abe what he deserved in coming years.

Such pipe dreams all came a cropper, however, when the great God software decided the end was…………………………………….

[Dominae]

Originally posted by jshelr
After all, we had an historical score to settle with the Americans, and, if we were to rewrite history successfully, we needed the ample resource base to give old Abe what he deserved in coming years.

Nice to know the lonely Americans were targets before time even began.




Dominae

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Theseus
Jesus, that's a badass plan. I haven't played enough MP... WCs and MWs and lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

Thank God, it seems at least one can understand my desperate harsh reaction.

[jshelr]

To Sir;

'tis said that the only thing more difficult than being completely misunderstood is to be understood completely.

[jshelr]

RB wrote, "Interesting that if Dom had been playing SP (at higher levels) he would be falling "behind" early -- but in an MP context, he was probably well ahead -- at least, compared to Ax and Sir Ralph."

There is a real possibility that being on an island will be even harder in MP, to the point that a reasonable person will only play because he promised to.

The reason is that human cooperation in technology has the potential of doubling research speed, making it even tougher than chasing the AI on higher levels from an island. Even when Alexman was under duress in this game, he could always put an expensive tech on 40-turn speed and make a contribution to a joint effort.

It's not been done yet, but there is a chance that another game will see a triangle research relationship take root among neighboring civs. We don't know how these would unwind at the other end yet, but I would not like to be the one on the outside looking in while a cooperative group gains its tech lead.

So, making an overly long post even longer, I believe most MP games with four players or more will be won by a civ that starts out in cooperation with others. It should be a "what have you done for me lately" kind of relationship. But it is fun to do the diplomacy.

Having experienced exactly no MP games from start to finish, this advice should, perhaps, be treated with a grain of salt at this point.

[Dominae]

I too was wondering about my chances in this game. First: how far along were you guys in the tech tree? From your reports I'm thinking up to Horseback Riding and Iron Working, maybe Mysticism, but nothing along the Writing path. It is difficult to say for sure, but I believe that a rapid switch to Republic would have allowed be to at least keep up in tech, in spite of the trading that was going on. As I said above, the very big problem would have been if I had had to build the Great Lighthouse to meet you all. Then you probably would have surpassed me in tech. And perhaps not.


Dominae