Slowly getting better (and the greatest start position ever!!)

[FrustratedPoet]

I just had to share this with somebody ...

I'm at last getting the hang of Civ3.

I can finally win on Regent ... that's lame I know, but you should have seen me before....

Anyway, I've just won my first ever Regent game.

It was with the Chinese, 1700 points, Histograph win - which is a lame way to win but I was stuck on this annoying island map (I will never select Archipelago again!) and I just couldn't be bothered to clean up the other Civs that I had reduced to 3 or 4 puny cities in the middle of a barren ocean.

Anyway, I started up another game on Regent to try and win in a respectable fashion . I'm playing as Egypt because I've become addicted to Industrious Civs now (Vel! It's all your fault! ).
This is easily the best starting position I have ever had!!!!!!! ....
If only the poor Civ3 Democracy game people had this start....

Check it out:



note: this image has been messed up by me mistakenly saving it as a gif and ruining the colours, but you can easily see what's going on and I can't be bothered to do it again. At least the file is small

If I can't win from this start then I think I will give up on this game completely

[Theseus]

Sweet... mine the wheat adn irrigate the cows.

[DaveV]

Originally posted by Theseus
... mine the wheat adn irrigate the cows.

I disagree. Then he'd be growing like a weed, but have no production. I try to pump out as many units as possible between settlers, which means mining everything in sight (except for plains, of course).

At higher difficulty levels, high food/low shields is a recipe for major happiness problems. Also, the AIs will see your thinly defended cities as an invitation to attack.

[Arrian]

I would probably mine it all too. That will give you a TON of production with above average growth. If, for instance, he had a cow and a game, with more forest, I'd irrigate the cow. But 2 cows and a wheat? Thats plenty 'o food. NICE spot. The only drawback is that it's coastal. Bad location for empire growth (corruption).

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

A city with three food bonuses, all mined (if they're on grassland), and a granary makes an absolutely fantastic settler/worker pump. On this map, get it oscillating between size four and size five with mines on at least one of the grassland with shield tiles (using some gold to keep unhappiness down) and it can churn out a settler every four turns or a worker every two, whichever you need. (Note: you may have to work to keep the idiotic computer from choosing a forest tile over an unmined grassland with shield tile for someone to work .) And pottery isn't all that expensive to research when you have a river and don't skimp on road-building. (If this game is on one of the lowest two barbarian settings, I'd be VERY tempted to prebuild something else while I research pottery at maximum science and then switch to a granary as the first thing I build.)

Nathan

[FrustratedPoet]

I had Barbs set to Random and I think it came out as Sedentary ... I haven't seen many about at least, just one group and they might have come from a goody hut that was popped by the english scouts.

This map is Standard size (6 civs, I think, or was it seven?) and I'm on a medium sized island with England to the north and Germany to the south. Persia, Rome and China are all off somewhere else, but I just got a message to say that China were wiped out.

My great start allowed me to build settlers like crazy (of course) and so I spread like a plague across the island. Bismarck and Lizzy were squeezing me into the Jungle in the centre of the island so I decided that one of them had to die ASAP. I chose Lizzy, naturally.

I got Bismarck to join in the war on my side, but he didn't do anything, I just wanted to make sure that Lizzy didn't make friends with him first.

My initial army of 8-9 swordsmen captured a couple of English cities (including London), despite poor combat results when I fought their spearmen. I then produced masses of War Chariots (once I had roaded through the jungle to reach the enemy) and destroyed them completely. They had some nice territory up there.

Bismarck is now being belligerent (as usual), but I'm keeping him happy by paying him off because I don't want to fight him yet. I've culture-expanded and flipped most of his territory (including his only source of iron) and so I think I'll just keep him as a vassal-state for a while, at least until I get Knights to make the job easier. I'm researching Feudalism at the moment, so it shouldn't be too long. He's quite under control at the moment.

I've built the Colossus, the Great Lighthouse and the Pyramids in Thebes (yay! ). I'm trying to explore to the other continent now, but even with the Great Lighthouse I've lost 4 Galleys searching so far. I'll keep trying because I've got to know what they're up to, but since I've beaten them to a couple of key wonders it seems likely that I have a tech lead over them. Hopefully the Romans and Persians will fight a war of mutual extinction and I can sweep up the mess afterwards. I'll probably go for a Conquest victory.

If anybody is like me and only just making the step up to Regent level then I could post the 4000BC save for them to try. I'm not sure you'll find many easier Regent games than this one.

[FrustratedPoet]

Once I know exactly where the other Civs are I'll decide what to do about building the Forbidden Palace.
If they're clustered together and I have a significant tech lead then I think I'll build the Forbidden Palace on my continent (probably London) to increase production for a mjor razing mission.

If they're more spread out or more powerful than that then I'll save it for building on their continent to give me a good base for a war.
It'll need to be rushed if I follow this plan, though, and I don't have a great leader yet. Hopefully I'll get one when I clean up the German presence on my continent.

[Arrian]

Honestly, unless it's really close to your capitol, an "ok" forbidden palace built early is better than a "perfect" forbidden palace built late.

-Arrian

[Alkis]

Excellent starting position. Why do I never get one of those in my games?

I like your colours too

[LotC]

Can you post the 4000BC .sav? I might like to give it a try for my next game.

[FrustratedPoet]

Here you go:

(let us know how you get on)