AU 103: Island hopping

[Catt]

Tina did all she could to both defend her possessions and try to generate a great leader – she still hoped to relocate her palace to the English northeast territories. Her naval forces inflicted serious damage on the aggressors navy, and “privateering” English naval forces both blockaded distant American ports and swarmed on trespassing foreign ships. Foreign forces occasionally landed on distant English lands and the English homeland – all of which were destroyed quickly. English forces – barely adequate to defend the homeland, made one early offensive effort against Houston, but retreated when faced with multiple defending infantry. The war dragged on, Tina’s Republican government counting on the aggressors’ democratic governments to fall – they never did. With the discovery of Flight, Tina was able to provide air support to her naval forces and distant colonies, significantly altering the balance of power. The subsequent discovery of Motorized Transportation inspired the creation of tanks, and the taking of Buffalo from America – America’s sole supply of rubber. Increasing war weariness among the English populace induced Tina to make peace with her enemies (Rome had abandoned the MPP only 8 – 10 turns into the war) some 20 turns into the war. England’s enemies, all democracies, had survived the wars.

The world war set back English scientific research significantly; England, previously a nation that gifted technologies to the world in the interests of world parity, suddenly found herself in a neck-and-neck technology race with others. Those particularly “scientific” civilizations actually acquired a technology lead over England briefly. An unfortunate decision regarding a palace build allowed the Romans to build the United Nations one turn prior to England’s completion of the wonder – Rome never called a vote, however. Tina was then surprised to lose the race to build SETI Program – at least in the chosen city – SETI was built outside of London, in Dover.

In the mid to late modern age, world war again erupted. Tina managed to remain neutral, and, as the world moved to communist governments, English republicanism triumphed, letting Tina’s subject enjoy the launch to Alpha Centauri in 1900 AD. Tina ended the game having fought in one prolonged world war, and having never generated a great leader. The English capitol remained in London, although small portions of the northeast territories had become productive with the construction of marketplaces, courthouses and police stations. Despite much naval warfare, very little ground combat occurred – Tina’s boyfriend Hippie Sam indicated that the advance of civilization didn’t require warfare and he was correct.

[Catt]

It's been a long day - I can't produce more. Suffice it to say that I was pretty confident that the game was mine before ToE - and yet, given my cockiness and willingness to make nice thereafter, I did fail to crush my rivals - the spacerace, though not "close," was not exactly a walk in the park.

Catt

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Theseus
I've grown very fond of Privateers... I think they're useful as long as there are enemy units of up to 4-defense around. As soon as Mass Production is known, I stop building them, move the remaining fleet to hotspots and chokepoints, hide'em in cities, and take out opportunistic targets.

I can't really think of a use for them in the modern era that's not an exploit, and I don;t think that there should be a modern equivalent ...

So player1 was actually right when he made Privateers upgrade to Destroyers - and therefore obsolete with Combustion, which is slightly before Mass Production. After all, Privateers are 'weaker' Frigates, and Frigates upgrade to Destroyers.

[alexman]

Catt, very entertaining account, as usual!
You fulfilled all the requirements of the course: A+

Good job finding and colonizing all the important islands!

But... first the weird peace negotiations, and now this: are you sure you built the Colossus before your GA? In the editor it's marked Scientific, Expansionist, and Commercial.

PS: LOL @ the screenshot of your floating navy museum!

[Mellian]

Okay, i haven't played Civ3 since January as i have been part of a program which keeps me away from the game and my computer. and i never did have enough time to go further then Medieval Age in the few games i ever played.... sad, i know :/ ...

so may as well make it understandable why i would ask this silly question....

what does the Privateer unit actually do other then disguised as an Barbarian White?

-Mellian

[alexman]

It actually doesn't get disguised. The AI knows whose they are. The advantage is that you can sink ships without having to declare war.

[Catt]

Originally posted by alexman
But... first the weird peace negotiations, and now this: are you sure you built the Colossus before your GA? In the editor it's marked Scientific, Expansionist, and Commercial.

PS: LOL @ the screenshot of your floating navy museum!

Joan of Arc built the Colossus - I coveted the Lighthouse and was determined to launch my GA in a Republic, so I actually delayed the construction of the GL and caused a revolt only a few turns from its completion -- my anarchy only lasted 2 turns - shortest I can ever remember seeing (as a non-religious civ, of course ).

The naval museum - it was actually a little bit painful to keep (not upgrade) the older ships, especially when racing to colonize. I didn't think about the possibility of the screenshot until ironclads came along. Luckily, I still had a galley and a caravel floating in distant colonial lands.

Originally posted by Mellian
what does the Privateer unit actually do other then disguised as an Barbarian White?

It is a "hidden nationality unit" with a 2 attack value. It follows its owner's commands, but other nations accept them as a non-flagged, independent, outlaw pirate ship - no declarations of war when privateers are used to attack. Great for harrassing your "friends" without the threat of war. Even though it's only a 2-attack unit, a stack of 8 - 10 of them are quite effective at hiding in harbors until a passing "friend" comes along, gang-attacking the "friend," and then returning to port.

In our game, my privateers lost most of their utility upon the advent of battleships - but I was able to use them to sink a couple of wounded destroyers. 7 of my last 8 died trying to sink a 2 HP battleship - the last English privateer stayed in port as part of Tourist Tina's floating museum.

Catt

[Catt]

I was re-reading the thread and others' experiences in the game and a question I forgot to ask came to mind: Theseus - what are the "traps" that you were referring to?

[Theseus]

I meant mostly the distribution of resources. The other big one, for me, was the selection of a research strategy at the end of the middle ages... really tough three way choice, between economic, naval, and land warfare.

[alexman]

The Tourists are Coming!

Here's another example of what you can do when you have more resources than you need.

All three screenshots are from the same turn, and Tina didn't use a single tank in the offensive. Hammurabi lost his Uranium and his dyes before he could open his tourist guide and say "where's the bathroom" in Latin.

All you need is 16 Battleships, 8 Destroyers, 7 fully loaded Carriers, 45 Marines, a couple of Mech. Infantry, and two settlers (to colonize the empty 1-tile dye islands).

[alexman]

British Invasion, part 2.

[alexman]

What a mess!

Dyes for Tina's new hairstyle

[Catt]

Great action shots, alexman!

[alexman]

Thanks Catt, I try to learn from the master!

Also, I know you're pleased to finally see someone else use Marines. This map made them required for some 1-tile islands, but I'm still not so sure I would build them instead of tanks if I wasn't using the AU mod. (10-8-1 vs 8-6-1)

So where's the rest of the class? Sir Ralph? Arrian? Killerdaffy?

[Catt]

Originally posted by alexman
Also, I know you're pleased to finally see someone else use Marines. This map made them required for some 1-tile islands, but I'm still not so sure I would build them instead of tanks if I wasn't using the AU mod. (10-8-1 vs 8-6-1)

Yes, it did warm the cockles of my heart, but I resisted the urge to cheerlead. When I discovered that I had settled all of the one tile islands (other than two dyes which weren't settled but fell under Hammy's cultural border), I toyed with the idea of giving away a city just so I could take it back with marines . I decided against it .

So where's the rest of the class? Sir Ralph? Arrian? Killerdaffy?

Indeed - would love some more game reports to compare and contrast.

I'll add a few things from my game that didn't make it into my summary (although I don't have screenshots with me at work). I almost managed to settle the 3-tile island in the center of the map (where saltpeter and coal eventually appeared) -- my caravel carrying a settler and two workers was in position - I unloaded one worker on the jungle tile and was about to move my caravel to unload the settler on the hill, and the other worker on the mountain (to prevent any next-turn landings) -- my unloaded worker revelead a Roman settler and spearman standing on the hill - Rome founded a city next turn and I loaded my worker back aboard and headed for Barbarian Island.

I really felt I had the game won after building ToE. I sold a tech or two for obscene amounts of gold-per-turn (but not enough to bankrupt anyone, even in the event of a lot of pollution, or loss of a city (and its commerce) due to a city flip, etc.), and then started gifting techs here and there to keep the AI close. This almost bit me in the ass -- about 10 turns into my tech-for-gpt deals, Greece sneak attacked me. As a Republic, with all others Democracies, and without the ability to build tanks, I figured I'd fight a largely defensive war with lots of naval battles and let war weariness destroy my enemies. The war went on for more than 20 turns, I bumped my luxury spending up a bit and lowered my science slider to generate cash for rush-building units. I was surprised to see that the 4 civs with whom I was at war were not only maintaining their Democracies in a happy state, but hadn't slowed their research in any way -- They had actually passed me in the tech race while at war! I wasn't overly concerned, but was pleasantly surprised . I eventually conquered Buffalo with tanks to deprive America of its sole source of rubber, and ended the wars thereafter.

It was very interesting trying to coax some productivity out of my colonized landmass to my northeast. As I mentioned in my summary, I intended to relocate my palace there, but never generated a GL the entire game. Building it from scratch would have taken into the 21st century, and I had built so many wonders in London there was no way I was going to abandon it in a palace jump. So I played the whole game with my FP located 3 tiles from my Palace. A Middle Ages GL and palace relocation would have made me absolutely unstoppable.

I've played archipelago's a fair amount (on random settings) and it always strikes me how different the game proceeds when compared to other map settings. In Tina's game I struggled to produce any really strong shield-producing cities. I think London was up over 100 shields at the end (with a nuclear plant) - most others were in the 40 - 70 range. I built the Iron Works on the little island just north of Tina's homeland, but the city only had 4 shield-producing tiles (including the city tile) in its entire radius - I think that, with a factory, the Iron Works and a nuclear plant, it was producing something like 35 shields . Getting to Miniturization and the Offshore Platform imrpovement would have helped a bunch, but with the space race a little closer than I had intended, I decided to go ahead and research the techs to launch.

Catt

EDIT: Skimming back through the thread, including my own summary, I see that the above post is largely duplicative to what I already posted. Well, they say that memory is the first thing to go with age . . . or is it something else that's the first to go . . . damn, I can't remember what it is that they say . . .