How's this for masochism? An 8 player hotseat against myself?

[Dis]

Yep I tried it. I controlled all 8 factions/civs.

I'm close to the end of the ancient age. I think I'll give up. Taking too long.

But it was an interesting test. I originally did it to compare the civs. I always had a hunch I knew religious/militaristic was best for me. And I pretty much got my proof.

The only other factor scewing it is starting position. That is more of a factor than I previousy realized. But my celts didn't have that great a starting position yet they excelled. It was mostly forest and a few grassland squares. The kicker may have been the cows.

This is why I am certain how important it is to have a food resource on grassland that can be irrigated within your city radius. And withing your small city radius too- you don't want to wait 10 turns to take advantage of it.

More on this. I had 2 civs that started on a river with flood plains. 1 of them did fairly well (Ottomans- I kind of like the Ottomans), the other (Carthage) did not fair so well. I may have to run more tests on starting posistions on flood plains on rivers. Although in Carthage's position their second city wasn't on flood plains while the Ottoman's was. Hmm


But it does seem that I did better with military/religious even though I did not go to war. Expansionist just are terrible. I am convinced of that now.

Commercial isn't all that great either. France is hurting in my game even after going to the Republic.

Scientific is still kind of nice. That is one trait I will consider. And while I like the fast workers of industrious that trait isn't that great.

So for me I'll stick to the Celts, Japan, and the Aztecs.

[Dis]

no one has any comments about starting positions or civ abilities?

It's a good way to test which civs you like. The hard part is finding equal starting positions. I think all starting positions should have a river for irrigation. But actually in this game all 8 civs had irrigation not too far away.

I may create a play balanced map just to test the civs.

[aaglo]

I have tried similar stuff with Master of Orion 2 and SMAX. It's fun, but time-consuming.

But not with that many civs/factions/races. Only with two.

How long did it take for you to reach the end of the ancient age?

[Alex]

I don't own ptw yet, but I tried a similar experiment with SMAC and it was fun. But I have to agree with you, a good starting position is essential in order to surpass the other civs. In SMAC, it doesn't matter that much, because of the powerful terraforming tools that the player has available to him almost from the start (if you build the Weather Paradigm, for instance), but in Civ3, with its limited terraforming options, a good starting position is a must.

[Dis]

well let's see, I did it in one day. And I stopped to watch the Sopranos and Frasier.

Probably not more than 10 hours. But actually I'm not quite to the end yet. Some civs are still researching construction. Some haven't got to it yet. Some don't have literacy.

I traded a little bit of tech, but not that much. If I had traded more and chose seperate research paths I could have got out much sooner. But I have to assume that the one civ does not know the research path of the other. I just chose what I thought was best for that civ. Some went for monarchy first. Some went for the republic.

In the case of the celts they actually lagged behind in tech. Yet they were still ranked #1. I had them research iron working because that is what I'd do in a real game to get their special uu.

[Trifna]

Someone should try this all-faction playing with StarCraft

[hahntsak]

i occasionally will try hotseat to play 8 bordering civs to test a scenario out... a debugging tool.

too bad that hot seat and lan games are only 8 player...
if lan/hotseat/pbem could be more than 8 player - especially hotseat games it could help test and fine tune.... yeah it would take awhile... but make number of mp players adjustable from 2-31 would be cool... [just don't guarantee over 8 - especially dialups]

just my thoughts

[Jaybe]

Dissident, I am currently in a phase where I do not select my civ, it's Random. In this way I am "forced" into learning how best to handle the situation I am given.

Re Expansionists, they can get and maintain HUGE tech leads by the player on a large+ map. I had three consecutive games of Zulu and Iroquois.

... And the Greeks, they can be the PITS if stuck on a continent with only the Carthags (my current game). It looks really pathetic.

(EDIT: ... with ONLY the Carthags)

[SpencerH]

Re: An 8 player hotseat against myself?

Did you win?

[Zero]

I hate playing civ while watching TV... I end up doing my turns during the show and waiting for turns during commercial.. no matter what I do...

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by Trifna
Someone should try this all-faction playing with StarCraft

you can do that. set up a team game with of each race in the slots (even if u only have 1 player) and you get 1 of each worker unit (well, 2 of 1 race cause you get 4 workers to start).

you also get 200 of EACH RACES food to play with