Your First Game

[Dis]

I crushed. I was the aztecs.

I was on chieftan after all. My next game was warlord, and I stuggled on that with the Romans.

I went back to the Aztecs and crushed on all my Warlord games. I think I lost my first Regent game, but won all the one's after that with the Japanese.

I cannot lose with military/religious!

[Th0mas]

In my first Game, pre-all the patches, I got the worst map I have ever played on.
A Single island (enough for 6+ cities) with no water, no luxuries, no other civs and The island was over a third of the map away from the other mainland.
That was a harsh 4-6 hours play, and very boring!.

[bobbo008]

I played on a huge map one time and nobody discovered the final civ until the mid 1800's because they were on an island in the middle of nowhere.

Previous to that, I realized that there was no wine, and then I checked the histograph and realized there were only 15 civs listed (I had them all in). So I looked at the map and realized there was a big black area of ocean and set sail for it with a Battleship/Carrier group, the only one in the area. Upon getting there, I found I was one step behind the Russians, and the Indians only hads Spearman and a couple Galleys (still stranded) as opposed to my Panzers. They had 8 cities, I sailed in 8 panzers, took 3 cities, and made peace with a couple more cities taken. I built an airport, flew in my now-modern armor, and took the rest in two turns, wiping out the Indians, and taking all the Wine in the world.

[VixBlu]

Well, my first play wasn't really mine: I just wanted to know what my husband was doing what seemed to be more interesting than spending time with me , so I got a chair and watched him playing Civ3 (this was a year ago when Civ3 just was released), my expierence in playing PCgames was zero, and didn't interest my at all (but I do take interest in my husband!).

After several games I noticed I got interested, and started to ask my guy, why he did the things he did, later on I found myself screaming and demanding: 'nonono, don't put your unit there', 'get them gems' etc..
My loving husband then gave my his chair, made himself do other things (watching soccer mainly), and I was playing Civ on my terms.

That first game I was very nervous, because I didn't have the expierence in playing PCgames everybody seems to have, so I cheated like hell. That learned me quite a lot, and now history repeating: my man is playing Civ3 again (after absence for 3/4 year-the time I confiscated his PC), and I'm teaching him to play better (no screaming anymore, just polite hints), so we can do a Hot Seatgame in a few days (yes, we cancelled christmas this year, no family, just us & civ ).

I still think I miss a lot of strategyknowledge, because of never playing any other game before, and I don't have any interest in other games but Civ3, but comparing to my man, I'm better at Civ3, and he has many years of experience in strategygames.

I started as Chieftain, and now it's sometiemes Regent, but I miss the 'i want to win on a high level & defeat the AI'-mentality (I'm a real girl when I get acces to nice luxuries -pathetic...)

[Crousto]

I can't remember exactly how was my first game, but I guess it must have been rather painful... As a Civ2 veteran, I probably tried the monarch level with the typical Civ2 strategies, which of course ended up in a complete failure. My first day with Civ3 was also the day just before I had to go to work for the first time, which was very frustrating

I can also remember my first Civ I game on the Amiga, 10 years ago... A friend of mine lend me a copy of the game, I didn't understand anything about it. I must have spent something like 20 turns wandering my settler around before understanding that I had to build a city with the 'B' key

[bobbo008]

would the dutch/belgian prefer to play as the French, German, or anyone who kills the French and Germans?

[King_Henry]

First Civ game ever, Aztecs, Cheiftan. I learned that you must defend your cities decent troops the hard way. Military loss in 1912 AD. Oddly enough, I was on tech par and I razed a few of Hiawatha's cities. Oh hell, at least I won my second game .

[congobeast]

My first game:
Chieftain, All victory conditions. Civ2 and AC & Alien Crossfire vet. Never saw Civ1. Still haven't. I played Persia.

My AC strategies worked fair to middlin- though I found myself befuddled by the usefulness of armor, and the uselessness of helicopters. I spent a while pounding my head into my desk over the balance of tank:helicopter units I built.
(Noted to self: Read the F'ing Civilopedia FIRST. I shoulda paid attention.)

I got my first GL in the early industrial age- and couldn't figure out for the life of me what to do with him. Again- failed to bother looking at the Civilopedia. Ended up bumbling him into a city, and seeing his other options. I proceeded to build an army, then send that army against an enemy city.
Without loading any troops onto it.
(Noted to self: READ THE F'ING CIVILOPEDIA!!)

Working on my Civ2/AC knowledge, I built the UN as soon as I could, without (you guessed it) looking in the Civilopedia to see what I did- I assumed it was roughly the same as the AC Planetary Council.

I was wrong.
And I lost.
Hard.

Now... I look at the %^%^%ing Civilopedia before I build as much as a bloody Worker.

[Egbert]

Originally posted by congobeast
My first game:
I got my first GL in the early industrial age- and couldn't figure out for the life of me what to do with him. Again- failed to bother looking at the Civilopedia. Ended up bumbling him into a city, and seeing his other options. I proceeded to build an army, then send that army against an enemy city.
Without loading any troops onto it.
(Noted to self: READ THE F'ING CIVILOPEDIA!!)

Umh. I received my first great leader after playing several partly finished games. I found myself with this useless thing that had 0 attack and defence ratings so I promptly disbanded it.

[star mouse]

My first game was 1.07f, Chieftain, standard map size, continents, playing as the Egyptians.

I got a beautiful continent to myself - large enough to give me a good home base, small enough that I could settle all of it before the AI came calling with their hordes of settlers on boats. I remember annexing the Babylonians on the main continent because they annoyed me for some reason.

I won with a Cultural victory.

[MoonWolf]

Can't remember my first one. I only remember that it and the few next ones I quit before the end. Like many others, I tried with Civ2-strategy and it didn't work at all. But in difference from Civ1-to-Civ2 I didn't go back to Civ2 for a while!

The only one I remember of the first ones, was one I was playing around and in Christmas last year. I played on a 256x256 Earth map as Germany on China. Unfortunately, I didn't edit the movement of the ships and used a really long time to visit the Pacific Islands and America. After a while I grew really big and I realized how slow the turns on big maps are. I was reading "The Silmarillion" in between! This was before I had the patch that prevent the AI from trying to build a city when the maximum number of cities was reached, so I just had to leave it...

VixBlu,
Where can I find a woman like you??? Or maybe I would just have been too lost in Civ3 then....

[sabrewolf]

i played on the lowest level and didn't have any problem. but then ofcourse higher levels were something else

[HolyWarrior]

My first game I played soon after Civ3 originally came out--I don't even think it was patched. Anyway, I found the modern era such a deathmarch that I built the U.N. and won a diplomatic victory. I thought that was so wussy, I tried to win via starship, but couldn't do it.
I went back to Civ2 and dominated by 1700 on chieftain. I thought WTF is with Civ3? I put it in mothballs for a LONG time until PTW came out. IMO, PTW (along with the patches) saves Civ3. And I'm not even talking about internet play.

[Darkknight]

My first game I played the largest map with islands. As far as I can remember I gave up around the time I discovered saltpeter. Or more appropiately didn't discover saltpeter.
I was the last nation to meet everyone else and I was way behind everyone else (on regent) in technology and they all had saltpeter from trade or in their own territories. They had two major alliances among the 8 of them 4v4 and they were fighting it out so I thought ok not too bad I'll get my tech up as they fight maybe even get into a destroyed cities area and get my saltpeter.
a few turns later they declared peace... bugger.
A few turns after that the two major countries signed an alliance... double bugger.
A few turns later both alliances declared war on me. I quietly tip toed out of my palace and decided to live this one out in with the peasantry. prefarebly in a nice deep cellar somewhere.

[bongo]

I actually started with the tutorial, it helped me understand some of the new concepts. After that I started a normal game on chieftain. Moving up one level at the time as I got used to the new game. I never bothered with ending a game until I reached monarch where I'm playing now. I just quit when I knew I were winning anyway. Of course I had lots of situations where my old strategies didn't work and I have to come up with something new(or read these forums ) I find monarch both fun and challening and have to think real hard sometimes to stay in the game. My old civ2 strategies varies from being real useful to totally useless, The trouble is knowing which is which.