Opening moves

[akots]

Now with patch 1.09, I'm playing on a Standard map on the Immortal level as Caesar. It does not look good but it does not look horrible either. I've had a start without any bonus food right away (cow on plains does not count until discovery of Animal Husbandry). And also very aggressive neighbors which settle like mad at my borders. So, I played 3CC for awhile before building an army of 6 Preatorians. I then tried to clear some space near the borders and waged a rather successive war against Persia reducing Cyrus to 4 cities. The warmongering continued a bit against Peter the Great (captured a city of his) and evil Mali (razed a city). Now I have a problem. It is very difficult if not impossible to keep up the budget balance with expansion. I have 10 cities and can spend only 30% science without losing money. Still Preatorians rule though but I need Construction to be able to capture the cities and advance. The problem with military based economy is that war feeds war and to advance, you have to plunder. When advance is slow, there is no plunder and you go bankrupt. I'm building cottages and doing my best to keep up though. Of course, no wonders and no religion means no culture. While the evil surrounding AIs make culture like mad and steal your valuable tiles.

Now these features does not make the life easier:
1) Techs cannot be extorted in exchange for peace.
2) Cities cannot be extorted in exchange for peace.
3) There is huge war weariness even with basic civics. I guess it comes with no production penatly for primitive civics.
4) City upkeep hurts and gold production sucks.
5) There is way too many shields(hammers) imho.
6) Most of the luxuries are calendar-based and not accessible in the forseeable future.
7) AIs put a formidable resistance mostly because of having multiple resources like copper and iron and horses.

It seems that winning the game on this kind of setting with only military means is not possible or requires some very nice start and doing something completely different from what I've been doing early in the game. Of course, I played very recklessly and lost many units still trying to get hold on combat features.

Now here is the attached save. Please, take a look at it and pray tell me what I have done wrong and what I'm continuing to do wrong. I don't think the game is lost, my position is very strong and once and if I can get to Construction, it might be possible to turn the tides of war because only a single AI has Alphabet although it is 200AD already.

Also note that the game had been played essentially in Defiant mode without Open Borders or trade or alliances (war declarations). I'm not comfortable with using Diplomacy a lot yet, just trying to learn some basics.



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[DavidC]

quote:1) Techs cannot be extorted in exchange for peace.

Wow is that a new 1.09 feature because that was the only way I could win on Immortal and sometimes Emperor when I played some games with 1.00. You get into a tech hole in classical era and the only way to keep up is to extort with effective limited wars.
I have to play this week end to check this more.

quote:6) Most of the luxuries are calendar-based and not accessible in the forseeable future.

Yes thats a problem at this high level.

I will check your game this week-end however I doubt I can bring any help.

I think Immortal level is not interesting for now. I am more busy to be consistent at Emperor which is really the right level for now : its a big challenge, yet it remains fun and "getting out of holes" is what happens often at that level.
I doubt we play for the same reasons though as I really hope there will never be a way, recipe, to consistently beat Immortal

[DavidC]

Now I fully agree with you akots : tech trading for peace is not possible anymore in 1.09 and I feel that it is a broken feature !
Its just not possible anymore to get out of the tech hole and AIs are very reluctant to trade techs at all once you get over them in score.
This is real bad now, I think I might de-install the patch now

[akots]

Well, I know it is not balanced and stuff, I was just curious on how does it go in patch 1.09. Here is duel map of Caesar against Roosvelt on a pangea map on Deity without barbarians. First try at a game. Conquest victory 150BC for a score of 119740. Have not built anything but Praetorians and barracks. But Roosvelt actually founded 3 religions and it help a little bit. IMHO, I could have won by Domination as well, just chop a few obelisks or build a couple more cities. Plunder was enough to sustain the Roman Empire for some time. Indeed, in a few turns, I could have made it to zero financial balance.

The map was bad but it had a choke which was possible to fix with an obelisk and I had iron in the vicinity. Also Roosvelt had only horses and no copper or iron. IMHO, it would not have been different though. There is not much use for axemen against preatorians. At least the chariots were annoying.

I'm still thinking of a similar Deity level game in Civ3 and I doubt it would be possible to win it. At least in this no-brainer style. Not talking about Sid level, sure loss imho.

Save attached, just kill the last defending American chariot.

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[Sir Eric]

I found this link to a website from one of the beta-testers (Sulla) at CFC.

It's got a good walkthrough on how to best utilise great leaders, Civ's traits to their fullest advantage. The section on how to do a 'culture dump' to acquire a city was certainly something I'll give a go at.

[Ribannah]

Hmm, I've tried that. Owned the zero-culture neighbouring town for 100% for the rest of the game but it simply would not defect and kept sitting there on its single tile.