Dan Magaha about playing peacefully in Civ3

[Inverse Icarus]

Dan, any chance you could leak out some of your own in-game images?

seriously, i'd love to see some of the pacifist strategies that a warmonger like me will love to crush.

also, on a hush hush level, show me some tanks. thanks.

WILL CODE FOR CIV3 SHOTS.

[Darkknight]

Wahoo! Does this mean there's no choosing between two allies type thing.

[The diplomat]

How about a new feature for the civ3 website: a monthly game story. Firaxis could give us stories about the games they are playing?

[Nikolai]

Yeah, listen to good old Diplomat, Firaxis!!!
Actually, that was a very good idea!!!

[Gramphos]

Go for the gamestories! I must read them. The described games so far makes me want to read more. That would tell you more then some screenshots.

Edit: Spelling

[lockstep]

Originally posted by The diplomat
How about a new feature for the civ3 website: a monthly game story. Firaxis could give us stories about the games they are playing?

After Civ3 is released, Apolyton should create a forum where people can post particular interesting game stories. The website of the game 'Europa Universalis' includes such a forum called 'After Action Reports (AAR)', and it was quite interesting reading for me.

BTW, I just digged in the EU website and found an AAR (http://www.europa-universalis.com/fo...threadid=15514) from a user called Velociryx?

[Edward]

Dan Magaha,

Thanks for reassuring us of Civ3's challenge. Thanks too for taking time out to answer our questions. It looks like you all are creating a very well-balanced game.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by lockstep
After Civ3 is released, Apolyton should create a forum where people can post particular interesting game stories.

I hope so too. That would be lots of fun, and I would definitely post my own stories!

[Steve Clark]

A Tale from Imperialism II

I was thinking about an Imperialism II game that I got done playing last week. In it, I tried not to be too aggressive in that I wanted to develop my economies to a more advanced level than I normally do. I played on a random map (as England) that was bordered by two Great Majors (Spain and Sweden). Things went along fine until about 1700 (100+ turns) when France declared war on Holland and set the wars in motion. However, I didn’t want to join in the fun. So I carefully watched the alliances and the attitudes each country had with each other and acted accordingly through changing situations. The last thing I wanted to do was to get two other countries mad at me and thus plunging me into having to fighting wars. I waited until the right time to go after neighboring Spain. The right time meant when I was strong militarily and that I could declare war on them without consequences. It turned out that France was still fighting Holland (and some of the Minor Nations) and Sweden was going after Portugal. That left me to take care of Spain at my leisure since there were a few years no one was friendly with them. (Later on, I got all of Sweden with its Portugal provinces to win the game.)

My point is that the key for a peaceful growth depends upon managing and threading through the alliances carefully (and getting an abundance of resources from the New World early on, but I digress). There were times when Spain came groveling but that would have upset the balance of the wars, as well as others asking me to help them. Learning to play one country (or civ) against another and entering into (or rejecting) alliances, treaties, pacts, etc. helps to allow you to grow relatively peacefully, giving you the advantage in the late game to win however you want to.

I recall a Civ3 screenshot showing all of the relationships between the 6-8 civs (one of several reasons why I don't think playing with more than 7-8 civs would be playable or fun). You won't be able to avoid fighting some battles (esp. if you covet a neighboring territory), but sometimes you just want to grow peacefully without turning into war production. Know when to pick a fight and then letting go. Know how and who to be friends with (and when).