So, remind me, which Civ ARE we again???

[Arnelos]

Simple enough...

I was about to go play a couple games of PTW as whichever Civ we are, but this reminded me that I'm quite thoroughly confused on which Civ we actually are at this point No small part of this confusion stems from the fact that in attempting to mislead everyone else about where we stand on which Civ we are, I've successfully managed to confused myself!

I think I'll play one game as Carthage and another as Spain until further notice

[Togas]

Play Spain.

We're giving away Carthage, the deal is nearly done.

--Togas

p.s. I highly recommend that any member of this team who has PTW should play Spain and get in some practice.

--Togas

[Ninot]

Will do

ive already been concentrating play on Spain, ill step up my playing time

[Arnelos]

Ok, Spain it is.

I'll tell you one thing, though:

Spain on Monarch level is an entirely different beast from Spain on Chieftan level

I played a game of Spain on chieftan level just for the hell of it and that Conquistador is actually the most incredible UU when you play at that level The AI players still all had spearmen and I ran around with conquistadores and wiped them out WAY TOO EASILY while getting 2 GL's in the process

This is rather different from playing Spain on a more fair difficulty level... at Regent and above, the conquistadore is an overglorified explorer unit...

That said, India was always one of my favorite original Civ3 civs and Spain is essentially India with different graphics... (and both have a useless UU that serves only to time their GA). The only thing that makes Spain superior to India is that you can time the GA for a little later (which I like better).

[Arnelos]

Just played another game on Monarch level as Spain. However, I did something different this time... I set up the board with the set-up I suspect that our PTW demogame will have... (or at least close):

Standard Map
Random Barbarians
Random Landmass (or Continents)
Temperate Climate
Moderate Temperature
4 Billion Years Old

Civilizations:

I play Spain (us)
AI's:
Celts (GoW)
Ottomans (Lux Invicta)
Carthage (Legoland)
Iroqouis (placeholder for Gathering Storm)
Random AI
Random AI
Random AI

Other settings:

All normal victory conditions ON
Civ specific abilities ON
Culturally Linked starting locations OFF
All special PTW victory conditions OFF
Respawn AI civs OFF

------------------------------------

Game went quite well. I don't need to go into too many details, but I did get to watch one VERY FASCINATING thing take place.

The Iroquois (which were my placeholder for Gathering Storm) were by far the dominant civilization of much of the Ancient Age. They beat up first on the Celts, taking some of their land, backing them into a corner (I did the rest of the work of that just by building cities in the way) and then making peace with their tiny empire. Then the Iroquois went after the Ottomans and, while they had only limited success, did manage to prevent further Ottoman expansion (which kept the Ottomans small throughout the game).

The fascinating thing was watching HORDES of Iroquois mounted warriors go after Carthage. I was able to observe the individual battles of this conflict because the battleground was the all jungle, mountain, and river area that made up the middle of the map. I had a few cities in the area and units to let me view the parts of it which were in no-one's cultural radius.

I watched as stacks of Iroquois Mounted Warriors headed north toward Carthage and a few Numidian Mercs made their way south from Carthage in the other direction. I figured, for sure, that the small Carthaginian empire was doomed...

However, and this is what astonished me... the Carthaginians did lose 2 border cities to the Iroquois (which promptly flipped to me ), but once able to switch their economy to building units were able to first repell and then REVERSE the assault. After a while, I was watching hordes of Numidian Mercenaries headed south from the small Carthaginian Empire toward the sizable Iroquois one rather than Mounted Warriors heading north.

By the end of the Ancient Age, small Carthage was the dominant military power on the board (with myself as Spain as a close second). Once the war was over, Carthage went back to building workers and city improvements and was able to maximize their small empire and stay ahead in the tech race while even I (given that this was playing against a bunch of AIs at Monarch level) wasn't always able to keep up.

The Middle Age was dominated by me (Spain) and England (on the other side of Carthage from everyone else), but also by Carthage. I got my Golden Age when I completed Adam Smith's Trading Company (I had already built the Sistine Chapel - my only other wonder at that point).

In the Industrial Age, Carthage was conquered by England while I conquered both the Celts and the Iroquois (which hadn't even gotten Astronomy and Chemistry yet!).

I won a diplomatic victory, but that's with AI's... England was really my only competition once Carthage, the Celts, and the Iroquois were out of the picture. Persia was the dominant lost civ (over the Arabs), but he couldn't keep up (and the Arabs were as far behind as the Iroquois - same traits...hmm...).

-----------------------------------------

CONCLUSION:
1. Carthage royally rocks the ancient age. Numidian Mercs are so effective only because they're combined with an Industrious/Commercial Civilization. A small Carthaginian empire can still pump the suckers out early-on and whip the a-- of a much larger empire just through the Numidian Mercs' superiority and the Carthaginians' productivity edge. This strategy I'd bet is most effective when Carthage plays more "perfectionist" than "expansionist".
2. Commercial civs, as I've noticed repeatedly since the patch that fixed the trait in normal Civ3, are typically the dominant civilizations. Industrious civs can sometimes be dominant as well. Commercial civ's superiority likely has to do with that powerful 25% reduction in corruption and those incremental boosts to income... it's a seemingly minor advantage that REALLY adds up over time.
3. Spain worked well because it has a cultural advantage (I was culture bombing both the Iroquois and the Carthaginians while they were busy building military units) at the same time as it has the long-term commercial advantage. The lack of the industrious trait makes them a pain to play if you're accustomed to having it, but their two traits are very powerful. Spain is better than India (of the same traits) only because you can use the Conquistadores to give yourself the properly timed Golden Age if you fail to build the right wonders.

[mrmitchell]

Argh...disconnected and I lost all my hard post-writing work...argh...

Anywayz, this is early Anceint Ages for my first game with Spam:

Found capital, another city, guess what? Spearman discovers Carthage, razes undefended Carth city, quick short war, I get all their techs out of the peace because I wiped out 1 of 2 cities, continue to found, build cities to block Carthage from India, India give me all techs (must be fraid of my military) I keep going discovering, find out our continent is so far much like a string in the equator. Home cities prosper, border/frontier cities develop nicely, everything falling according to plan.

[Arnelos]

mrmitchell, what difficulty setting?

[mrmitchell]

Ah, yes, difficulty setting.

I'm playing Warlord because this is my first serious PtW game (what a unlucky time to get busy...) and I don't want to get whooped by the new and improved PtW AI.

(Of course, I'm also not htat excellent of a CivIII player )

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Ah, yes, difficulty setting.

I'm playing Warlord because this is my first serious PtW game (what a unlucky time to get busy...) and I don't want to get whooped by the new and improved PtW AI.

(Of course, I'm also not htat excellent of a CivIII player )

That's ok... I played on Chieftan level for the first several times when I first bought Civ3 and got my a-- royally kicked the first 2 times before I started to realize that my killer Civ/Civ2/SMAC strategy was entirely ill-suited to Civ3 and I needed to develop a new strategy...

I currently play comfortably on Regent level, but that's typically only if I use my builder strategy (hardcore builder through Ancient Age, warmonger the Middle Age, hardcore builder the Industrial Age and early Modern Age, only go back to war if I have a monopoly on large numbers of Modern Armor). If I ATTEMPT to go pure warmonger (which is sheer battle of will for me... since if I don't think about it, I always pick city improvements over military units ), I have to turn down the difficulty setting...

[Togas]

As a sidenote, I'm still waiting for the official word from the Builders. But I'm 99% sure we'll have Spain, so let's continue to practice and plan for it.

In my game with Spain where I had Zulus on one side and Germany on the other, my well-timed GA occured against the Zulus. Cut off their resources and luxuries, developed Mil. Theory during my GA war, and conquered their entire civ, taking two new luxuries (6 total), and lots of additional resources. The Indians bordered them and with a little bribe they occupied the Zulus but never conquered anything.

Germany has floudered without precious resources like coal and salt peter. India is my b*tch and chief purchaser of Spanish goods. My nation has become a commercial empire and should easily win the game as we make an obscene amount of money and have more research per turn than any other nation.

I will start a new game soon to practice with different conditions.

Notes:
Spain expanded very easily and quickly and was great in REX phase.

We survived some nasty early battles with the Zulu and Germans, but were not able to conquer either until our golden age and the march of the Conquistadors.

Conquistadors will frustrate our enemies worse than even a Tactical Nuke. I tore up my enemy's infrastructure and with a single RoP with a neighboring nation, I had virtually unlimited range to destroy their roads and cut off needed resources.

Wise human players will place guards on their resources. We may have to strike with multiple Conquistadors at key targets. Best targets are Repubic and Democratic civs, though. Warmongers will be able to beat their people into submission.

I cannot stress enough just how critical the Forbidden Palace was. My nation's economy soared once that thing was built. We were marginally better the rest of the time.

Our GA is excellently timed. I was four techs behind the rest of the world when I scratched my way to Navigation. At the end of my GA I was tied with the rest of the world after a little conquest and some wise tech exchanges. It also comes when we want to build some key wonders. I would suggest that we bee-line to Navigation to get the GA option as soon as possible.

Spain is a merchant civ. We need to branch out, build a mercant empire, and use our money/commercial benefits to our advantage.

--Togas

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Togas
Notes:
Spain expanded very easily and quickly and was great in REX phase.

I have found this to be the case as well. However, when I've played the game specifically placing into it the civs that I believe the other teams will chose the high number of early UUs ("Gallic Swordsmen, Numidian Mercenaries, Mounted Warriors, oh my!" ) makes building CITY WALLS in every single village an absolute necessity. City Walls are extremely cheap, so the expense is well worth it. The Cheap temples for the Spanish civ also makes a Temple+City Walls combo as the first construction in a new city quite reasonable on time to completion.

All things being said, however, Spain does expand very fast because of the standard units and Religious advantage. Having a militaristic trait would help for REX phase for the reasoning cited above, but we can easily do without it (especially since the commercial trait is so unbelievably powerful in the long-run).

Conquistadors will frustrate our enemies worse than even a Tactical Nuke. I tore up my enemy's infrastructure and with a single RoP with a neighboring nation, I had virtually unlimited range to destroy their roads and cut off needed resources.

It let you do that under a RoP w/o declaring war? .... or did you pre-position your conquistadores before doing the first pillage? If it's the second one, I highly doubt a human player would let you get away with that...

Wise human players will place guards on their resources. We may have to strike with multiple Conquistadors at key targets. Best targets are Repubic and Democratic civs, though. Warmongers will be able to beat their people into submission.

I've actually seen the AI do this when I was using conquistadores. The Germans fortified a pikemen on top of both of their iron tiles when I attacked them in one of my earlier games as Spain (I was using conquistadores for my attack almost exclusively - they're rather pricey for that...).

I cannot stress enough just how critical the Forbidden Palace was. My nation's economy soared once that thing was built. We were marginally better the rest of the time.

Well, 25% reduction in corruption is pretty good and it does make the Forbidden Palace even that much more powerful (as there are far less cities stuck at 99% corruption).

Our GA is excellently timed. I was four techs behind the rest of the world when I scratched my way to Navigation. At the end of my GA I was tied with the rest of the world after a little conquest and some wise tech exchanges. It also comes when we want to build some key wonders. I would suggest that we bee-line to Navigation to get the GA option as soon as possible.

I agree with bee-lining for Navigation. I've done that in every game as Spain so far... the Conquistadore is absolutely useless against musketmen. This makes the Spanish far less effective on higher difficulty levels (emperor and deity), I'd assume.

Spain is a merchant civ. We need to branch out, build a mercant empire, and use our money/commercial benefits to our advantage.

This has been very much my overall impression from playing them. However, I almost ALWAYS like to play commercial civs (my fav civs are Rome, Greece, India, England from original Civ3... I really like Carthage and Spain from the new set... haven't really played Korea yet) For those of you unaccustomed to playing commercial civs all the time, I guess it's sorta novel to see that 25% reduction in corruption and those marginal increases in trade values... as I've been saying, "it adds up"

[Arnelos]

Oh, and something else about playing commercial civs... ALWAYS build marketplaces at the earliest available opporunity... the additional monetary advantage (it augments your slight monetary advantage and your advantage of extra trade due to reduced corruption) gives you a simply sickening edge in the late Ancient and early Middle ages.

(edited)

[GeneralTacticus]

I didn't think Commercial Civs got cheaper marketplaces. Are you sure?

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus
I didn't think Commercial Civs got cheaper marketplaces. Are you sure?

You're right...

[GeneralTacticus]

Pity.