Another Civ III report

[prog]

I finally scored my first Military Victory (by wiping out all opposing civs), and achieved my best Civ III score to date, but even so I didn't feel this was the best game I'd played.




Played as Zululand, on Regent. Since I wanted to try for a Military win from the get-go, I picked a militaristic civ and built an arena world: tiny planet, one continent, one random opponent, default everything else.

Unfortunately, my opponent, Babylon, didn't stand a chance, though I didn't know this until it became obvious. Basically, as our civilizations grew in opposite directions, I picked the side of the continent with all the iron and horses on it, and ol' Hammurabi picked the other side. Once we got to the Iron Age, I was able to poke at them a little bit, but things remained pretty even and interesting. (I even had Mr. H teach me about Code of Laws, which was pretty cool, considering.) Once I developed Chivalry, though, it was all over. My armies of Knights took about 300 game-years (not very long) to methodically plow through all the Babylonian cities defended by pathetic Bronze Age units. I felt like I was playing on Chieftain.

To my surprise, I got a personal high score, beating even my celebrated Diplomatic Victory last year only around 30 points. I didn't feel like I earned that many points... that other game was very rich, with lots of trading and treating and battling across multiple fronts. This one was just two wheels grinding against each other until one's axle snapped off; still fun, but not nearly as interesting. (Or as long. This game lasted only two play-sessions.)

High point of the game: wondering what to do with a new Leader unit, realizing I hadn't yet built the Forbidden Palace (which allows a city to exert the same political influence as one's capital), so I started its construction in an enemy city I has just captured -- many miles from my capital -- and rushed the Leader into it for an insta-build. Suddenly I straddled the continent like a Colussus, ho ho ho. That was pretty cool; I'll have to remember that trick for next time. (I usually end up building the FP somewhere stupid so that my people stop bugging me about it.)

I might go ahead and restore the game from just before my win to see if I can also get a Domination Victory, by taking over most of the land while letting one little Bablylonian city stay in existence.

That's two games in a row I've played aggressively, and successfully. I've just started a new game as the Americans on Monarch, with no particular strategy in mind except for survival. This is the highest difficulty I've yet tried, and the first tier at which the computer cheats in its own favor, giving all its cities accelerated building speed and its units an edge in combat. (At the first two diffculty levels, it also cheats, but in the player's favor.)

Comments

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

Should we be scared now?