Xerxes is a jerk!

[D4everman]

I know this has probably been discussed before, I haven't played in awhile. I decided to check out the latest patch and give it another whirl. While I can't say I haven't been enjoying the game, I can say that I am completely sick of the Persians!

Every single game of Civ3 I've ever played Xerxes is the fly in my ointment. (ok, occassionally its the Zulus, but they're relatively easy to beat) Persian Immortals are tough and they swarm in numbers like bees! In the game I'm playing now I'm barely keeping up tech wise, even as the Babylonians. Early in the game when everyone was still claiming territory I had to plop some cities in a jungle to (A.) Claim it for myself. I knew that my only real chance of finding any coal or rubber when it came available was to stakeout that area. Also the Only source of iron within my reach was there. And (B.) Cut off the russian expansion. Fortunately the russians were between me and the Persians. Unfortunately the Japanese and the Germans cut of my eastward expanse. I knew it would take centuries to make any city viable in that area but It took a long time just to get roads connected so I could exploit the iron, and right on time, here come the immortals. grrrr. I hate doing this, but I didn't want to let hours of planning go to waste so I went to a previous save and shuffled every available unit to my jungle cities. ("city" would be more appropriate. Since the AI knows where your troops are the Immortals made a beeline STRAIGHT for the least defended jungle city....bypassing the one with the iron which was closer!) Guess what? The immortals didn't even show up this time. Fine, I went back to trying to maintain a tech rate and improve my cities while also building a better military.

No big shock here....later on here come a swarm of persian riflemen and some immortals. So now I had to do what I hate doing! Make a mutual protection pact with the russians and give them Right of Passage. I hate doing that because then I get dragged into someone elses war eventually. (I understand the irony of that statement....I'm dragging the russians into my war.) The persians however started kicking russian butt and took two cities bordering my land! I got scared at that and made alliances with the germans and the japanese (costing me a lot of gold!Grrr!) From what I can see the germans ain't much help, but the japanese sent a ton of samuria and cavalry pouring into the fight. The russians took one city back and I took the other since I could redirect my troops to it. (the japanese took on the closest stack of persians to my iron city.) I even found that the persians had a city on a nearby island with iron on it and captured it. But now, as a democracy my cities are going bananas. Is there a way to tell how long my alliances are right now? I don't want to break my word and make the others mad at me, but I need to stop the war now and make peace or I'll only start falling behind. (the russians made peace with Xerxes! Traitors!) I need to achieve peace while I still have an admittedly slim chance of winning. And why are the Persians always jack***es?

I'm really just ranting and venting but any advice or tips would be appreciated. Take care all! By the way, the game is regent level...I'm not a pro at this game!

[Catt]

Sounds to me like you're handling the "fly in the ointment" quite admirably.

To check on the status of your MPP and military alliances you need to enter into diplomatic negotiations with one of your allies -- that is to say, you need to get to the diplomacy screen where both you and another leader show up across a "table" and can select items to put on the table as part of a deal. At the bottom of the "table" are three little-noticed words / buttons: "Clear All - New - Active." Click on "Active" and your current deals with that civilization will appear on the table. If there is a number in parentheses next to a particular agreement (such as "(8)Aliiance against the Persians"), this number represents the number of turns remaining before you can cancel the deal. If no number appears next to the deal, this means that the deal has run its 20-turn course and may be canceled by you or the AI civ. To cancel, click on the deal itself -- this will automatically switch you back to the "New" deal proposal table -- be sure to then remove the military alliance or MPP from the table before exiting the diplomacy screen -- you certainly don't want to enter into another 20-turn deal!

To help avoid war weariness, be sure to manage you population's happiness (through the luxury slider and/or converting laborers to entertainers). Pulling back your troops from enemy territory and refusing to engage in battles (unless being attacked of course) will slow the war weariness effects as well.

Catt

(and yes, this is a pretty clumsy way to check on the status of deals)

[HazieDaVampire]

If they keep on getting on your nerves, try islands or continents and pick another civ or turn off culturaly linked starting posistions! So you'll have a bigger chance of not being near the Persians!

[HazieDaVampire]

oh and catt, is it possible to reverse war wearyness by just moving troops?

[Cookie Monster]

The best advice I can give you is what was given to me when I was just starting out. Go to war early in the game. Don't waste too much time building. Found 3-4 cities in addition to your capital and then build nothing but military units. Get to iron working fast. Set your TSL rate sliders to 8.2.0. YOu need to make a lot of money in the game early. Then just buy techs from people.

Good luck. Check out Sir Ralph's "Archer Rush" thread in the strategy section. It turn my games right around! Now I am doing better than before although I still need to master Regent level. Haven't beaten the game yet at Regent, but I'm working on it.

Good luck

[Jaybe]

Persians are always such jackasses because they are aggresive, like the Germans, and are often powerful enough to be real pains. As the Babs, remember that you can switch governments in one turn, so if you can afford the $$ loss, then switch. Going to Republic will cost little gold and will decrease your war weariness (your mileage may vary). OTOH, leaving Democracy will slow down your workers.

[Catt]

Originally posted by HazieDaVampire
oh and catt, is it possible to reverse war wearyness by just moving troops?

Slightly OT:

War weariness remains one of the least understood aspects of the game, IMHO. My personal view is that nothing can reverse war weariness during war -- it is like a bank account -- additional war weariness accumulates in the account until you make peace (and even after making peace, the "bank account" doesn't just disappear -- it depletes over time). Even changing governements after a revolution caused by war weariness doesn't reduce it -- try playing a religious civ, get to the point of overthrow, select monarchy or communism (no war weariness), and then try to move back to a democracy the next turn -- hello anarchy again!).

But, according to the manual, the civilopedia, and my own observations, the accumulation of war weariness is greater when: (1) the enemy has units in your territory; (2) you have units in enemy territory; and (3) you engage in battles. It also either (i) accumultaes more quickly, or (ii) starts with a higher "bank balance," if you declared war (rather than having war declared on you). So, if I've accomplished my war goals but can't make peace due to active alliances, I try to remove all my forces from enemy territory, destory all enemy units in my territory, and then avoid all battles if possible (i.e., let others fight the enemy in enemy territory until my alliances run their 20 turns). While I haven't done extensive playtesting, I've done a little, and it does seem to slow the growth of my war weariness "bank account."

Catt

[Palleon]

When I deal with the Persians, there's 2 approaches I've found that tend to work.


1) If you start next to them, declare war and try to wipe them out before they can get iron working. Make military alliances with everyone near you, and get them eliminated, because they and the Zulu are always marching in and attacking me later.

2) Appease them at all costs, I've discovered that in the late game, Persia loses a lot of fire. I was playing as the Babylonians in a previous game, and lost 2-3 cities to them in ancient times, then got them off me. We shared the continent for a while, until I got to tanks. I proceded to wipe them clean off the planet.

I generally do the same thing with the Zulu, Germany, and occasionally India. I've noticed they tend to be the most aggressive towards me in most games. When I find any civs city near mine in the beginning, especially those, I do whatever I can to wipe them out, or at least disrupt them a bit so they fall behind tech wise. If you can take their capital, and then make peace, they're gonna be at a severe disadvantage for the rest of the game.

[D4everman]

I don't know if taking their capitol works. months ago in another game I was the Babylonians (again....hey, i like the babs...their UU isn't much help, I just like them) and I was in a long nasty war with the zulus. They bordered my north and the persians bordered my south. Xerxes kept creeping over my border EVERY SINGLE TURN and I had to ask him to leave EVERY SINGLE TURN. I couldn't fight him and Shaka at the same time so I did my best to appease the persians and still keep them out. Finally I destroyed the hated zulus, and by that time I had a huge military and a few great leaders. I waited until I could secure my cities before I finally told Xerxes to stop crossing the border and saying my security was lousy (Gah, I hate him!) or declare war. I knew he'd choose war so I swamped him with two armies, a lotta cav and lotsa infantry. My plan was to make it a short war....take a few of his border cities, cut off some of his resources and most importantly....take his capitol! I did this in about five or six turns.

Remember in Civ2 when you could do that and the opposing civ fell into anarchy? Not in civ3. The capitol of Persia moved to another city instantly! Now that was frustrating! I had hoped that the ensuing anarchy would make Xerxes give up and sue for peace, plus give me time to even better secure my holdings! I kind of quit the game after that. I knew I could beat the persians if I tried, but I don't like prolonged stupid wars, I wanted to just build my spaceship. I wonder what happens if the human player loses their capitol. Does anyone know? I'd love to hear it.

[Palleon]

Well, I was referring more to taking his capital in the early game, when they only have maybe 3 cities or so. Warrior rushing. Past that, it doesn't do much except probobly deny them their most productive base, and get rid of a lot of culture. I had a thread about taking the capital somewhere around here, and I think the general consensus was that the only real benefit you get from doing it is *possibly* putting their capital in a worse place centrality wise, and getting rid of stuff that's giving them a lot of culture. Otherwise, no real point.

[D4everman]

I just wanted to add this...

In my current game that sparked this thread, I decided to end the war before War Weariness set in....(I don't know how many turns its been, but it hasn't yet and I was surprised!) When I entered the negotiations I noticed that Xerxes had THREE techs that I hadn't researched. Now, its not impossible, but from past negotiations the persians were a little behind me and didn't have a lot of gold.

I know the AI trades a lot amongst itself, but I had pretty much rallied everyone else to war with them. If they got these advances through trading I'd like to know how. No one trades tech fairly with me, even civs in awe of my culture. The Germans wanted me to give them military tradition for their world map and wouldn't trade medicine in the deal unless I offered them more than 500 gold! The japanese wanted industrialization, dyes and 10 gold per turn in exchange for wines and a world map! And NO ONE would trade me industrialization before I discovered it (I was only 4 turns away from it but I was testing the waters) even when I offered 700 gold (and trust me, no one had more than maybe 50 gold) and dyes.

I could be wrong, and I hope I am, but I hate it when the AI "gives" itself stuff just because. I don't want to sound bitter about it but this all happened in a game where a rival civ beat me out of at least three wonders by 1 turn. I didn't mind the Sistine Chapel being lost, but Sun Tzu's and The Great Lighthouse really irked me.

As it looks now, everyone has leapt ahead of me in tech by a good amount and none of my allies are willing to trade any tech without asking for my right (insert name of male sexual organ).

[D4everman]

hmmm, Palleon, that is a good point. In the game I mentioned though it didn't seem to affect them much.

The part I hate about the Persians though is that they attack me for no real reason...at least none that I'm privvy to. In the game I mentioned they had no reason to provoke me. They already had a large empire and resources. I was already bordered by the French and they didn't bother me at all. I can understand the Zulu's agression. I had "grabbed" an unclaimed stretch right out of their border with the only saltpeter they could possibly reach.

But in this game its a mystery. The persians have no real goal in attacking me that I can see except that they just hate me for whatever reason. And yes, I turned the culturally linked thingie off at the start. I can see now that I'll have to treat them like I used to deal with the carthaginians in Civ2....if at all possible destroy them on sight, or do whatever is needed to keep them on their knees. They wouldn't be as big a pain except for those darned immortals.

[Palleon]

They probobly attack you for the same reason that I attack most people in my game. I find the weakest civ, and I attack. My theory is survival of the fittest, and the one with the least technology or military power deserves to be wiped out. I'll go through a few turns of peace to get culture and restock military, then I find the weakest (or sometimes most aggressive) civ, give away all I can to get military alliances against them, and fight til they have no hope of being a threat anymore.

[HazieDaVampire]

The Persians on my current game are a world power, and they are right next to the Zulus and Americans (i put them on full agressive). And they seem to like to join the croud when it comes to picking on a civ!

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by D4everman
Whats that supposed to mean Jaybe? Are you calling me a jerk?

(from the closed thread)
No, I was NOT saying that you would be a jerk if YOU were playing the Persians. I was saying that you would probably be a powerful civ, and victimizing the AI civs by starting wars when they weren't ready to fight!

Or are you a TOTAL builder, never starting wars?