Aggie vs Eldakkar *spoiler*

[Aggie]

This is a straight deity game vs Eldakkar. I'm the Germans and he's the English.

We progressed quite nicely and are at turns 120 at the moment. Eldakkar had full advantage of his trait and got a free settler or city very fast in the game. So he outpaced me in the beginning. The expansionist trait is only useful early in the game and it is no surprise.

I built an RCP at 3/3.5 and 7/7.5

This was my core at turn 80:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Aggie/2003828101352_AgEl80territory.jpg
95.63*KB

Around that time I sent out a galley to find out more of the world. At turn 92, I said hello to America and through trading I got:

- World Map
- All contacts
- Philosophy, Currency, Code of Laws, Mysticism, Polytheism, Literature, Republic, Feudalism, Engineering :D Gotta love scientific!

Between turn 105 and 115 I joined Carthage in a war vs Mongolia. I got two luxury spots out of that war. Salzburg and Dortmund are founded on Mongol ruins:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Aggie/2003828102446_AgEl120luxues.jpg
67.79*KB

At turn 119 Eldakkar got into a war vs America and took New York and Chicago quickly. Unfortunatelly we decided upon 'no phoney wars', so I'm not able to use this situation and get cheap techs through an alliance with America.

This is the world map at turn 120:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Aggie/2003828102649_AgEk120map.jpg
8.16*KB

[Aggie]

Turn 133:

Eldakkar almost finished of the Americans...which is impressive. Luckily I could capture two Greek towns that I had my eye on for a long time. Now to wait for peace and cheap techs :)

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Aggie/2003829221658_Eldmycenae.jpg
26.1*KB

Turn 135:

Here is the world map.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Aggie/20038308466_AgEl135map.jpg
8.3*KB

I will make peace with the Greeks for a couple of techs in 137. Then I will turn my attention to Carthage. The souternmost cities are far from Hannibal's core and should be easy to conquer.

Turn 137:

I take this deal and start min research on Printing Press:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Aggie/200383011307_AgEl137peace.jpg
9.81*KB

I didn't immediately find saltpeter, but it turns out that Konigsberg was built on it.

[Aggie]

Turn 183:

I haven't spent a lot of time updating this spoiler. So I guess I have some catching up to do!

I did indeed capture and raze two Carthage towns, for the pure purpose of getting a few cheap techs. This worked, but Eldakkar managed to get two very healthy cores :(

When time progressed I got further and further behind.
This is my tech situation while everyone is in the IA:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Aggie/2003916194638_agel183mytechs.jpg
19.05*KB

I won't be able to trade for two turns. Then I will get 150 gpt back. My guess was that Eldakkar sold all possible free techs to the AI, so no slingshot possibility there.

But all these ideas changed when I saw this on my border (I am STILL medieval :(:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Aggie/2003916194855_AGEL183gameover.JPG
228.99*KB

I don't even have cavalry, so this is a clear case of GAME OVER [sad].

Eldakkar played a fine game. I felt the game slip away in the last 40 turns. I was obviously quite right about that.

[Plux]

Tough one. Too bad eldakkar doesn't have a spoiler. He clearly must have had some lucky breaks, together with excellent play of course :)

[anarres]

Gutted! [:o]

[Aggie]

In my last two finishes I had Germany in both cases. In one of them I have an amazing tech pace and in the other....not really.

[Eldakkar]

Thanks again for a great game aggie,

Imho you were unlucky that the carthaginians wiped out the mongols very quickly so you could not get to that crucial bit of terrain. The chokepoint proved to be a disadvantage in this game, those 3 defense num mercs are not easily defeated. Whereas my neighbours, the wealth loving, not too many units buildings, and horseless, americans had a laughable army ready. 17 knights were enough to eliminate them.
I think this is what decided the game. You couldn't expand, for me it was easy.
With the two healthy cores, and the golden age, it was very easy to sprint to replacable parts.

We played without ma's, this enabled me to do a teching game. This secured me 300 gold per turn permanently from the powerful ai's while researching at max power. When one is behind in such a situation, it is not possible to catch up by peaceful means i think.

Anyway, I had fun. I'll definitely play another.