How did I lose?

[stonewall]

My current game just ended in the year 2048. It declared me a big loser, but it did not say how the AI civ won the game. How can I tell which victory condition was the winner?

[Capt Dizle]

Having never lost like that I do not know. But, anyone who plays to 2048 is no loser in my book.

[stonewall]

Thanks... It was a hard game - my first on the huge map, with 16 civs on warlord. I played a couple on chieftain, standard map to get the hang of the game and won those diplomatically. This game I was playing catch up in tech the whole game. It was weird to have not built ANY great wonders, but by the end I was doing pretty good and could have probably won a war against any other civ.


Anyway...
I did find that if I go into the Hall of Fame, it says I lost via the Space Race. However, it still doesn't tell me who "won". It would be nice to know so that maybe I could learn something for next time.

[Capt Dizle]

Well, if you have a save from late in the game you can go in and look at the dialog box in the lower right hand corner. The is where you click to end turn. On the right side there will be some little boxes. D for diplomacy, H for histograph, E for espinage, and S for Space Race.

Click that and look on the screen for a button labeled "view space race" and click that. It will show the space race progress of all of the civs you have a spy planted in.

There is also a function key for this, maybe F8, don't remember.

[Carver]

Originally posted by stonewall
I played a couple on chieftain, standard map to get the hang of the game and won those diplomatically.

I don't know how you won diplo victories on chieftain seeing as how its so easy to beat everyone into the ground on chief.

This game I was playing catch up in tech the whole game. It was weird to have not built ANY great wonders, but by the end I was doing pretty good and could have probably won a war against any other civ.

I've played a few games where the only wonder I built was SETI.

[alva]

Originally posted by Carver

I don't know how you won diplo victories on chieftain seeing as how its so easy to beat everyone into the ground on chief.

Well, we ALL started on chieftain.
Thinking how the hell can someone play and even win
anything beyond regent.
But a couple months later monarch starts to be to easy/predictable.

Hang in, You probably still need to get the hang of a couple game mechanics and how to use them to their full potential.
Once you can do that, the AI will not launch anymore ships (maybe a galleon, but that's about it ) into space.

[Todd Hawks]

Isn't the type of victory/defeat displayed in the Hall of Fame where you can see your scores?

[YC4B4U]

Hall of Fame = correct

Or perhaps in my case Hall of Infamy...

[mwaf]

2048? isn't that time's up?
(well 2050 actually, but IIRC, you'll never see that date (unless you hit, 'Lemme play just a few more turns'))
When time is up, the winner is the one with the highest score. You can see those stats in the Histograph (the H-box).

My first Civ3 game (on Cheiftain) ended when time ran out and I was pronounced winner due to my higher score.

[Grumbold]

There's lots of useful screens tied to the F1-12 buttons and small icons on the interface. They're easy to miss unless you know to look for them.

[Foolishman]

Well, if you gte that far in the game, which I have did only ounce on warlord, then you probably did not conquer your neighbors very well, I have only played this game for a couple weeks but, already, you notice that invading early and making peace and trade later in game goes a LONG way to being victorious, if you try and be peaceful and not make a single war until modern, industrial age, then they will be much to strong in most cases, so, you lost either because you were passive, or because you got a sucky starting posisition and could not make units fast enough and grow.

Well, that is my thought

-Ronald

[Grumbold]

Almost everyone is caught by surprise at how badly you need to REX at the start of the game to get yourself into a good position. It takes some of the fun out of what I think is the best part of the game.

[stonewall]

Thanks for all of the advice.

I did go back and load an auto-save game and I tried to plant spies with all of the other civs, but ALL of my attempts were thwarted (what is the trick?). I do think it may have been my western neighbor the Iroquois because on the portrait screen of the end game screens, the only smiley face was them (I think it was them, I don't really pay attention to the picture associated with each civ). So, I think my original question is answered.

In this game I tried to expand as quickly as possible in the beginning of the game. When I had hit other civs on all sides, I basically took a peaceful approach and tried to build my infrastructure and military. The whole world was pretty peaceful until about 1850 when everyone declared war on everyone else. I was able to stay out of most of it. This war lasted until about 1950.

Around 1980 it seems 4-5 of the larger civs decided that my southern neighbor England shouldn't be with us anymore. So I took the chance to join in and gain some cities and territory. It worked and peace ensued.

During that war the distant Egyptians had acquired a few of the English cities. Then about 2025 they decided they wanted the ones I had. They didn't last long against my Modern Armor. I think I cleaned them off the continent in about 5 turns. After that it was all peace until 2048.

I went back to my hall of fame to refresh my memory and found the following results:

Game 1 Chieftain: Retired - Lost
Game 2 Chieftain: Retired - Won
Game 3 Chieftain: Diplomatic - Lost
Game 4 Chieftain: Diplomatic - Won
Game 5 Warlord: Space Race - Lost

As you can see, I haven't been much of a warmonger. I guess I had done enough of that with Civ 2 and am just exploring the new peaceful means to winning.

Well, I guess it is time to start game 6.......

[JohnM2433]

Originally posted by Grumbold
Almost everyone is caught by surprise at how badly you need to REX at the start of the game to get yourself into a good position. It takes some of the fun out of what I think is the best part of the game.

You need to REX in the beginning because the AI does the same and eats up land. The AI REXes because that's the best strategy. If they didn't, it would be easy for them to lose out to the human. I think this happened a lot in Civ II. So it may not be fun, but it's necessary.

Incedentally, I haven't been posing here long... What exactly do "REX" and "AU" mean/stand for?

[vondrack]

Originally posted by JohnM2433
Incedentally, I haven't been posing here long... What exactly do "REX" and "AU" mean/stand for?

Rapid EXpansion
Apolyton University

The latter may have other meanings, dunno...