3rd Apolyton Civ3 Tournament : 17/Dec/2001-7/Jan/2002 (results are in!)

[MarkG]

Theme: Military Time(against 6 militaristic civs)
Size: Standard Map
Ocean coverage: 70%
Land form: Continents
Climate: Normal
Temperature: Temperate
Age: 3 billion years
Barbarians: Raging
Civilization: Greek
Level: Monarch
Opponents: 7 (Romans, Germans, Chinese, Japanese, Aztecs, Zulus, English)
Huts: Removed
Victory types allowed: All
Version: 1.16f

Patch only!

[MarkG]

here's the file

[Mongoose]

Brutal!

[philler]

have to agree with that

[Solver]

Markos, a question. How can you be sure that someone who hasn't got the patch doesn't play it? I mean, the savegames are compatible, so there's nothing preventing those with 1.07 playing this.

[Max Rum]

Originally posted by Solver
I mean, the savegames are compatible, so there's nothing preventing those with 1.07 playing this.

Don't be afraid. This savegame dosen't work in my 1.07.

[philler]

Markos, a question. How can you be sure that someone who hasn't got the patch doesn't play it? I mean, the savegames are compatible, so there's nothing preventing those with 1.07 playing this.

yeah, well, who cares?

it's not like there's money at stake or anything.

I think that the vast majority of the players taking part to this tournament are trustworthy.

(I admit I *do* reload the last turn autosave every now and then, because I don't feel like checking for civil disorder every turn.)

[Sirian]

I, too, backtrack now and then over a riot, but mostly not. Just not worth my time, as you have to go back a whole turn. What I will do is backtrack to the same-turn autosave if (barring combat) I do something silly like move a worker off a jungle square I just moved them ON to clear it. Now that really bugs me. Doesn't happen often, maybe a few times per game, as I am rushing through assigning orders and botch something.

Civil disorder no longer means loss of commerce from that city, as in previous civ games. So you aren't going to lose a WHOLE TURN on tech over a small mistake, or go slowly broke, just one round of shields from that city. Most of the time I just eat that and move on. I try not to let it happen, but nobody can micromanage flawlessly and not grow bored. Some silly civil disorder in a city that's building a wonder, I might well go back and undo that. But there are larger concerns in the big picture, generally. I also think that to some degree, eating it leads to allowing it less. At least for me, I seem to develop a better sense of preventing it after suffering from inattention. I manage to pay better attention without having to pay too much attention. Or so it seems.


I'm a little disappointed with the difficulty of this map, compared to the last one, but there is ONE interesting element to it that has forced me to innovate a little. Perhaps I've learned the lessons of the last game. I'm slightly embarrassed to say, barbarians ransacked my capital in this game! Luckily for me, the consequences were not fatal, as they would have been in earlier civ games. I really REALLY like the barbarians in Civ3. They finally make some sense. On the other hand, I'm not too sure about losing an elite fortified hoplite to a barbarian horse that takes no damage. One of those "roll your eyes" combat results, when you draw a really bad seed. But these two events (not connected) were the only bad things to happen to me in the early game, and I never looked back. Still going in the early industrial age, but the result's a foregone conclusion now. Just a matter of degree. When I'm done, I will probably hold off posting my save file for a while, though. I really need to catch up on writing about previous games, for my site.

I think the all-militaristic theme is partly to blame for the lack of difficulty. Militaristic doesn't help these guys when there aren't many wars going on, you know? Although, in my game, the one nonmilitaristic civ, the English, certainly have suffered brutally (and been eliminated), so what was my point again? Hmm...


- Sirian

[MarkG]

small secret: spending all this time working on apolyton, i dont have the time to become an excellent player
therefore, as long as there are no suggestions and the settings of the tournaments are left entirely on me....

and no, dont post your suggestions for the next tournament here
post it here

[Manuel]

I'm a little embarassed to post this particular game but it contained a lot of firsts for me in tactics, style and most importantly the difficulty level (first time on Monarch). Those cursed Chinese gave me a run for my money at the end and I couldn't catch up. End result: I eked out a cultural victory in 1985ad with a measly score of 1600. Alexander the Fair, phooey.

Bring on number four Mark.

[wrgj]

For those who want to avoid war with the militaristic civs: Try trading with them - if they have everything they want from you, they generally don't demand things. If they don't demand things, they generally don't declare war.

This tactic is broadly set out on the Tactics> Money Making tread, entitled "Money making, money money making." Look for the Negotiator I've experienced it to sometimes be the only way to avoid certain war playing deity.

Disclaimer:I haven't tried it on a map smaller than huge, with less than 16 civs.

[Sirian]

The easiest way to avoid wars is to avoid grabbing any strategic resources. That should be easy to achieve on this map.

Why would you fear a war as the Greeks? Hoplites are a marvelous thing. You won't go conquering diddley with them, but they give you a middle ages defense in the ancient era. Any land you grab will remain yours if you play well, so grab the choice land first and let the AI declare its wars on you if it likes. Seriously. Avoiding giving them any reason to attack you is not what I'd call the best plan on this map. To the aggressor go the spoils.


- Sirian

[Nimbus]

Domination Victory 1826 AD, 3295 Points

Didn't use save/load once during the entire game, if I had I could have achieved victory much earlier. This was my kind of map -- a large continent, room to spread out and push my weight around (even if there wasn't much grassland :/ ). I didnt even really need to make rights of passage and betray, the cavalry overcame the early civs so I didnt bother making rights of passage and though I did this with the romans, I attacked too soon and it didnt matter, so I had to kill them the hard way also. There were a couple of major things that slowed me down:

1) DIDNT GET A HERO UNTIL LIKE #$@(*#@*($) 1600 AD. This really hurt because I put my forbidden palace way up on a peninsula between the former german and aztec lands to take advantage of that grassland, but it friggin took 60 turns to build because of the corruption. A hero could have saved me like 50 turns of development.

2) My Democracy lapsed into anarchy when I launched my attack on the romans. This set me back 6 turns.

3) I probably should have been more aggressive when I had my cavalry advantage, though I was pretty aggressive, just not ultra aggressive.

Lack of resources in the beginning HURT. Thank god for hoplites, I could be aggressive. Luckily the only civ to have a worse starting position than I did was the zulus. I used my early cities to build archers to skirmish with the zulus and spread out a little bit more. Then I sped to Invention, built a bunch of longbowmen, and wiped them out. This gave me horses, and they had saltpeter as well luckily, and I rushed right up to Military Tradition.

I got to military tradition far ahead of the rest, as by this time I was a republic (I built JS Bachs and Michaelangelos to deal with happiness) Couldnt get Leonardo's workshop though (or the pyramids or sun tzus). The Aztecs were busy wiping out the germans with knightrs, and when they finished I recaptured all the land and more in a flash with my cavalry. Once I resettled the land and got defenders into the cities I went after the Chinese and wiped them out, resettled their land and went after the English. By this time the English had infantry, but only like 1 in each city and I was able to overcome them with hordes of cavalry.

By this time I was about 10 turns away from tanks, and most of my cities were productive thanks to that forbidden palace that finally built. I sent the remains of my cavalry at the romans, they got shredded (took out like 2 cities), I sent over a shipment of tanks, then lapsed to anarchy, but I had enough tanks to slowly nail the romans. Out of anarchy, masses of tanks and transports lining up into position for a supply line to the Japanese. Then, much to my surprise, I was informed I had a domination victory.

Fun game, my biggest surprise was getting Steam Engine and hitting CTRL-R and not being able to build a railroad. I was like WTF %*(*#(* i control half the map!!! Luckily I was 2 cities away from the aztec city with coal or I would have been quite upset.

here's the save, if you just end this turn you will achieve domination victory.

[Architect]

Well, I'm out due to bug...

Attached is another example of diplomacy corrupting the civilizations and making the game unplayable. This time there is no contact trading at this moment, but I did trade for contact earlier in the game.

Here's the deal, I am only needing currency to get to the next era. The Germans do not have currency yet but the Chinese and Zulu do. So, to verify this bug, go into diplomacy screen and notice that Bismark is still dressed for the ancient era and he does not have currency for trade. Go to the Chinese and offer them 110 gold for currency. Go back to the Germans and all of a sudden they are in the middle ages and don't need currency anymore. No turns have elapsed, they just magically got currency and they are 17 turns away from completing the Great Library.

I know others in my original thread are saying this is a game breaker and I agree. I think we need a smaller patch to fix this bug. I've provided two saves where this is very repeatable. Can someone from Firaxis at least say its an XP bug, its my system or something... I'm no whiner and I love this game but this bug is huge for me.

[Nimbus]

In my opinion, that is neither a bug nor a game breaker. Why is it so bad for computer civs to trade with each other during your turn???? This makes it more realistic, more of a challenge, and doesn't allow one person to be the SOLE trading broker. Think about it, if the Chinese discovered Currency, and then traded it to you, why should YOU be the one that gets to reap the benefits of trading it to eveyrone else? Why cant the CHINESE decide to trade the tech to the Germans, once they let the cat out of the bag??

In real life, during trading negotiations, do you think everyone is like OK, its Germany's turn, they get to go around and trade with everybody. Once they are done, someone else gets to try. NO, thats ridiculous. All the civs should be able to trade with each other at all times, making an unpredictable and challenging environment in which you can not control completely.