So very cold (of the map generator)

[Aeson]

I decided to fire up Civ III last night and start a new game. I wanted one of those epic games where I had a decent chance of being slaughtered at least for a large portion of the game.

The Settings:

Deity
Huge
80% water Continents
16 Civs
Raging Barbarians
Everything else random

I decided that I would play out the first 'bad' starting position that I ran into. That just happened to be the first starting position, this is what I got:



This is the landmass:



As you can see there isn't a whole lot of food available, only 2 city sites with more than 1 food source until harbors. The Iron is nice, but I had to fight for them as the AI was starting up colonies by the time I had 3 or 4 cities.

I got the barbarians under control somewhat early, but not before a stack of 24 Horsemen ran off with my treasury. I made contact the next turn with 1 AI, but was dead broke.

Once I got Iron working it went better. I waited for each of the colonies to grow to size 2, then captured them with Immortals. I even received some favorable peace treaties from the smaller AI's. I've started declaring war on small AI's in a Republic and waiting until they have to give in to war weariness, none of them have much chance to invade.

I'm pretty sure I can pull off a victory here, Spaceship or Diplomatic. Oil may be the saving grace of my holdings. I want to try and see if any of the others are possible though. If anyone else wants to try their hand at this map feel free (I realize the Huge map setting eliminates some from being able to play it), I'd love to see how it turns out for you! I'll write a bit more about my game as I get farther into it. At this point it's still rather in doubt

[Dinner]

My hat is off to you for even giving that deplorable map a go. Personally, I would have restarted and gone looking for greener pastures.

[FrustratedPoet]

This thread runs very nicely in contrast to my 'Best start ever' thread.

On the one hand we have...
ME, a Civ3 Lamer, playing on a near-perfect start on Regent with less-than-max # of Civs and Sedentary Barbs.

On the other hand we have...
AESON, a Civ3 God, playing on a near-impossible start on Diety with max # of Civs and Raging Barbs...



I hope you win Aeson ... good luck

(you got some Iron, though, man ... that's just cheap ... you suck )

0 downloads so far????
OK then .. I'm gonna try this game ...

[DrFell]

Dammit, this looks like a nice challenge, next time play on a smaller map though, don't know this thing can handle those kind of huge maps (tried a huge map game once, by the start of the AD years it was getting slow).

[Catt]

I like being challenged by the game . . . but I'm not a masochist.

Catt

[FrustratedPoet]

Ok then .... this thing is SICK!

SICK SICK SICK!

I was playing for about 10 minutes.
I lost 2 workers and 5 warriors to rampaging hordes of Barbarian horsemen.
Persepolis was sacked 3 times.
I quit in fear ....

Aeson: I can't imagine how anybody could win (or even get halfway into the game at all) from this position ... it seems impossible from where I'm sitting ... how do you do it?

Just before Persepolis was sacked for the third time I got this message: "Your people admire you so much, they offer to expand your palace blah blah blah". '
Are these people crazy?

[Aeson]

Yah, the Iron really helps, not that I can invade with Immortals or anything, everyone has Musketmen or Riflemen by the time I could build my first galleys, but it makes for good trades.

[Txurce]

Aeson, how do you catch up in tech to win the space race when you are so far behind that you have ancient-era units, and the AI is in the industrial age?

Having no answer to this question is one reason why I have yet to try Deity.

[Jaguar]

I'll try it I've never taken anything but a lucky start on deity, but this will be a bit more challenging than usual, to say the least.

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Txurce
Aeson, how do you catch up in tech to win the space race when you are so far behind that you have ancient-era units, and the AI is in the industrial age?

You hurl abot 4 Immortals at every 1 of thiers, taking a few cities from them before they can react. Then you take all their tech (that you can negotiate for) in a treaty. Then you move on to another AI. You'll actually find yourself in 10th or so after not too long. But 16 civs is very hard... Ive only done it once.

[Aeson]

Those barbs really do hurt! Gotta get a lot of warriors out and posted everywhere quickly. Barb encampments can't pop back up if there is a military unit around. Barb uprisings can only happen in the 'dark' (they need less of it than a barb encampment does).

I've been trading my Iron sources for 2 or sometimes 3 techs (when I can find a buyer), the Horses are sometimes good for a tech or luxury. Once you have contact with everyone the tech cost isn't so bad. To get the comms I just declared war on the civs which had colonies on my island. They all were in Republic at that time, and if you can wait them out long enough they start to give better deals. After getting a few comms it gets much cheaper to buy the rest.

I don't think any military action until the Modern Era is possible off of the starting continent though. With all that tundra I'm just hoping for oil to trade. The AI's are always lax about launching, which might be the only real hope on that map.

[alva]

wow, this is really impressive!!! :
good luck,!!!
like you need it

[Aeson]

Ok, I started a new game on this map to try and recreate (and explain) what had happened up to about 1500BC (when things finally settled down) for anyone who wants to know how I got started. It didn't work out exactly the same (huts were different and such), but pretty close.

The real game is still at 290AD.

4000BC:
The starting location doesn't look so good
- on the coast, so the palace won't be centered very well
- only 1 decent food source in the city radius

So I decided to go look for a site further inland (to center) and with more food. I would have gone south (not that it would have helped) but I kind of liked the idea of building a frozen kingdom. My objective is to find a site with at least 2 tiles of 2 food for faster settler builds.

3700BC:
Scouted around the lake with my settler and worker looking for a second food source. I ruled out the fish to the south as I needed at least some production. Worker saw the game and so we're set. Built Persepolis by the lake, with the game available once the borders expand.

Started researching the Alphabet, at 10%.

3250BC:
Borders expand, warrior built. The warrior goes exploring and I use 10% luxuries to keep the city productive.

3150BC:
My worker building a road to the south can see a fish off the coast, looking for another food source nearby. It looks like an isthmus or peninsula south, bad news. My warrior heading towards a hut on a mountain to the north.

3100BC:
Getting the hut was a gamble, but as it was on a mountain I figured I had pretty good odds. It turned out to be barbarians, but my warrior held out only losing 2 HP's and was promoted to elite. There is also a fish off the coast. No other food nearby.

3000BC:
2nd warrior built. I want 3 before building a settler.

2900BC:
The worker see's a whale and game by the southern fish, definitely the second city site.

2800BC:
Found 25 gold in a goody hut, another fish off the coast.

2750BC:
3rd warrior built. Starting the first Settler. Lux increased to 20%.

2650BC:
It's official, I'm on an iceberg. Spot of luck with the 3rd hut, got Ceremonial Burial.

2430BC:
Settler is built, time for more warriors. Already have a road built to the southern site, will only take 2 turns to get there. I can see a purple border across the sea, and am tempted to build on the southern tip of the peninsula just to make contact. I would miss out on all the food though.

2310BC:
First barbs show up, to the east. Pasargadae is founded.

2270BC:
Got an upgrade when the barbs attacked my warrior to the east, no HP's lost. Looking for the encampment.

2330BC:
Another warrior built in Persepolis. Starting on a settler.

2190BC:
Found the eastern barb camp, its on a forest though. Have to attack it anyways.

2150BC:
My veteran warrior didn't even dent the barb camp, ouch!

2110BC:
Warrior built in Pasargadae, building a temple now to expand the borders and be able to use the fish and the whale.

1990BC:
Barb Horse shows up to the east, right next to my warrior. I kill it and take out the barb encampment two turns later. More barbs show up to the west.

1950BC:
Western barb camp spotted, I destroy it the next turn. Finished researching Alphabet, researching Writing at 10%.

1870BC:
Russia builds the collosus, and someone else built the Oracle. I only have built 5 warriors and a settler so far!

1725BC:
Settler in Persepolis built, headed back to the original starting point.

1500BC:
24 barb horses show up from the north, and the Indians build a city to the southwest. At least this time I have contact and can trade all my gold for techs.

I just ran my warriors away from the barbs, and let them sack Persepolis. After that I had enough warriors to keep the whole island scouted.

[Alkis]

LOL!
I play random settings and accept every starting position but this one is unique. I can remember only one game that I had a position equally terrible.

Aeson, even if you don't win this game, my hat is off to you man, just for your determination.

Your walkthrough is also great, congrats.

P.S. I would had tried it too (maybe) but my PC slows down on huge maps and... ok I admit it, this is not the only reason

[Aeson]

The Persians

Ok, now for the real strategy... some of which even worked!

The one thing that tundra/coast tiles can compete with is commerce, my holdings having a goodly amount of rivers. Being scientific I debated about whether to go for research or gold. As I didn't have much production, libraries and universities would take a while, so I choose gold.

I bought most of my techs very cheap, India being my best source. China also was giving me techs for Iron, the Americans would sometimes give me a tech for Horses, and eventually I sold my only remaining Iron to India for even more techs. I was amazed at how well this was working, I was usually only 4 or 5 techs behind everyone else on average. This continued until almost through the Middle Ages.

Then I got my big break.

There I was sitting on my iceberg, thinking up some elaborate MPP schemes to allow me to scavenge a few mainland cities and finally start making a mark on the world. I wasn't paying too much attention to the rest of the world, just waiting until someone got to industrialization.

I didn't notice until the Zulu's were down to their last city that just about everyone was at war with them, and they were even with me on tech. Praying that my ships could make it there in time, I sent 4 Immortals to take Zimbabwe, which was on very good terrain.



The Zulu's put up a galant defense, holding off Cavalry, Knights, Riders, and Longbowmen just long enough for me to land my Immortals. A few turns later the city was mine.



I made preperations for a palace jump to the mainland, building several small cities on the iceberg so I could build the FP before jumping my palace.



India came to me and offered a MPP + ROP for only 3gpt, and I took it. They were my closest neighbors so it seemed a good idea. I had no idea what a megalomaniac Ghandi would turn out to be. Thinking back, I should have gotten techs instead of an ROP, which wasn't worth a lot for me, but was the big money part of the deal.

Ghandi immediately started a war with Japan, the closest neighbor to my newly conquered Zulu lands. I sent my 3 remaining Immortals to the south and attacked a former Zulu city that the Japanese were holding. I didn't want to wait until my MPP forced me to declare war. In the meantime, Ghandi organized a multinational coallition to take out the Japanese, just about everyone joined in.

Not satisfied with having everyone fighting the Japanese, Ghandi then proceeded to sign several (probably 20 in 20 turns) military alliances against various civs, and between that and MPP's, almost everyone was at war with everyone in short order. I was dreading being pulled into this by my MPP, but Ghandi offered 4 techs and 300 gold and so I resigned the agreement.

My Immortals were successful in taking Intombe to the south of Zimbabwe, giving me a ready built harbor connection. One of my Immortals became elite, my first upgrade since early on against the barbs. A few turns later my captured workers from the area hooked up the gems and I traded them both away, getting very good deals in return. Zimbabwe had rushed a settler, I was going to disband it and move further north, and build my own new capitol a bit south.

To the west, Japanese cities were being destroyed, being taken over by one nation after another, most being at war with each other. Somehow India was only attacked by 2 of the nations at war with it, Japan and Greece. Greece being far across the sea was no problem, Japan was in the process of being crushed.

My immortals were first to one Japanese city on the coast, only defended by 2 spearmen. In capturing the city my elite immortals were lead by the leader Darius, who would rule my new mainland empire from Dariush Kabir. I admit this is fantastically lucky, my only elite immortal spawning a leader on it's very first fight at elite status. This allowed me to forgo the palace jump and have Darius build the FP on the mainland, saving a lot of turns and forced starvations back home. I recieved democracy about this time, and although I was at war with 2 nations, I figured I could sign peace by the time my anarchy was finished, so the Persians finally went into revolution.

Finally my empire gained some food. The floodplains of the new holdings, combined with hills and mountains, should make for several very productive cities. I may even have a chance for some massive military campaigns once tanks are available. My MPP with India expires in 4 turns, at which time I can make peace with everyone, and watch the carnage from afar. My settlers are reclaiming much of the Japanese lands which have been razed. I just made it into a democracy, and can now buy Industrial Age techs every 4 turns of commerce. Things are starting to look good!

The Kingdom of Darius, 640AD