Almost time to go home and crank up the Civ III !

by **simonov** » Thu Dec 17, 2009 12:50 am

Ottoman fuckers attacked me out of the blue last night, and just as I was in the middle of kicking their asses the goddamned Hittites attacked me too! WTF? Fucking Hittites!

The Hittites have a mutual protection pact with the Sumerians, the second largest power in the world, after me (we are the mighty Aztecs). Shit. So first thing I did was negotiate a mutual protection pact of my own with the Sumerians, and now I just have to sit back and let those fucking Hittites step to me one more time. That will bring the Sumerians into the fray on my side.

This is shaping up into what will certainly be the first World War in history (the Mayans are already fighting with the Ottomans due to an alliance I had with them earlier). I only hope I can maneuver the sniveling Iroquois into the war on the opposing side, since there's a lot of Iroquois territory I've long wanted to gobble up!

by **DBaker** » Thu Dec 17, 2009 1:21 am

I'm on to Civ 4 myself...
I generally like to start in the Americas, eradicate all of my neighbors while being friendly to everyone else, and build a nice strong navy...

By the time I develop aircraft, I've turned all of the midwest and the amazon basin into farmland, and my population is approaching 1 billion quite rapidly. It's at this point I usually attack whomever is not particularly popular at the moment, winning the approval of most everyone else. I continue this process until my (well fortified) homeland can pump out enough resources for an economic victory.

by **simonov** » Thu Dec 17, 2009 11:49 pm

MikeTX wrote:this sounds highly addictive.

It can be. But contrary to impressions it's not really a war game. It's more about managing a nation from the dawn of civilization until modern times better than the other nations in the game. There is a variety of possible victory scenarios.

As a matter of fact, I try to avoid wars as much as possible (there are considerable costs to entangling one's self in wars in Civ III), but si vis pacem, parati para bellum. You've got to be ready for anything your rival nations might try.

For a long time we Aztecs carried on a massive arms build-up and were sort of hoping our only neighbors, the relatively small and weak Iroquois, would do something stupid so we could go to war and take a shitload of their territory. Unless yours is a fascist government (or your Vice President is Dick Cheney), you don't usually want to attack countries out of the blue. Your people get upset at you and so do all the other nations.

But while we were waiting for our chance at the Iroquois, placing spies in their capital and setting up alliances we hoped might get us into position to righteously invade them, the idiot Ottomans attacked, for no conceivable reason. Usually the AI is pretty good (it has kicked my ass numerous times), but occasionally it does something completely irrational, something no human player would do. The Ottomans are a small nation and had nothing to gain from attacking us. The Hittites joined the fray because that's a not unusual response when one nation is distracted by a war, though they would have been better off trying to participate in the dismemberment of the Ottomans. But we Aztecs bloodied the aquiline Hittite noses in a minor war centuries ago and I guess they haven't forgotten.

As I predicted, the irrational Ottoman aggression triggered the first World War we have ever seen. I forgot to mention in my first post that in addition to the Mayans, the Incas also joined the war against the Hittites and the Ottomans (the Incas are so far away from us on the other side of the single large continent that makes up our world I never see what they are doing).

My Sumerian gambit worked out as I planned, and the Sumerians soon joined us against the Ottomans and the Hittites. Frankly, I would have preferred to keep the Sumerians out of the theater of war, which was mostly in Ottoman territory, but at least I wouldn't have to worry about having the second most powerful nation in the world as an enemy. The downside was that I was now entangled in a long term alliance with the Sumerians that I could not honorably break. Protracted wars are bad news for democracies like ours, but I was fortunate that much of the Ottoman territory I was conquering gave me and my people access to a variety of luxury items that helped keep the home front happy enough to continue fighting.

So for the first (only?) World War the lines are drawn thusly:

The Allies: Aztecs (strong), Sumerians (strong), Mayans (relatively weak) and Inca (WTF?)

vs

The Axis: Ottomans (weak) and Hittites (moderately strong, apparently).

The Iroquois alone remained neutral.

At first my primary logistical route to the Ottoman theater was overland through Iroquois and Mayan lands, but I soon established an excellent sea route across the Ottoman Gulf. The sea route was indispensable once the fucking Iroquois engaged in a sneak attack on two of our home cities, thus joining the Axis Powers. With virtually my entire military force far away in the Ottoman theater, this might have seemed like a good time to strike; but given my standing mutual protection pact with the Sumerians, who share a long border with the Iroquois to their north, the attack was simply madness. The Iroquois instantly found themselves in a two-front war with two much stronger military powers.

In fact, despite my earlier strategic intentions regarding the Iroquois, I am less interested in fighting them than I was. I have conquered nearly all the Ottoman lands, as well as a few Hittite cities, and now have free access to strategic resources and luxury goods for which I formerly coveted Iroquois territory. I'd really like to just polish off the Ottomans, extract a peace deal from the Hittites when my alliance with the Sumerians expires, and consolidate my gains. But I have no choice but to continue the war against the Iroquois.

by **Charles** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 1:49 pm

Last game like that I played was a Roman thing. Used to like it too.

by **simonov** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 3:13 pm

It got surreal last night.

Soon I had eliminated the Ottomans completely from the game, and could start thinking about gobbling up chunks of Iroquois territory, when suddenly my erstwhile ally, the Inca, declared war on me, for no conceivable reason. Again, this set them against the Sumerians as well, and since they had an alliance with the Mayans, the latter were soon also at war with me and the Sumerians. So it was Aztecs and Sumerians against the world.

Then, for whatever reason, the Iroquois declared war on everyone they hadn't already declared war on.

This bizarre turn of events was mostly a distraction for us Aztecs. There was little I could do to take advantage of the Incas' truculence, but I had an opportunity to rapidly take no less than four Mayan cities adjacent to the former Ottoman lands, controlling their dye production into the bargain (we Aztecs were the only combatants in the world with armies of armor, which were unbeatable). I concluded a peace deal with the Hittites as soon as my alliance with the Sumerians allowed me to, and focused on doing what I could against the Iroquois, my most ancient rival.

Problem was, I didn't have enough war matériel in the Aztec Motherland to effectively prosecute a war against the Iroquois, as most of my armed forces were far away in the former Ottoman territory. There was no question of the Iroquois doing anything but raiding our borders from time to time, we had very good defenses, but my single attempt to invade Iroquois with every offensive unit I had available ended in disaster. As a democracy, we had been at war for too long to produce the necessary units quickly enough (by now, most of the other combatants in this, the first World War were fascist states). After the Iroquois debacle, all I wanted to do was extricate the Aztecs from this increasingly futile and dangerous war.

I easily brokered a peace with the Mayans (after you take a few of their cities, rival peace negotiators tend to be eager to make a deal), though it cost me some technology trading to get the Iroquois to stand down. The Incas, on whom I had never laid a hand, refused for some time even to parley, but soon after our Iroquois disaster they came to the table and agreed to a very equitable peace.

So with the rest of the world still raging against each other, we Aztecs are the sole power at peace. The World War allowed us to nearly double our territory, and provided access to many luxuries and strategic resources. While the World War continues (with so many fascist governments involved, it may last a very long time), we will be able to transition to a productive peacetime economy, and surge ahead of the rest in technology and scientific investment.

Given that the Aztecs were recently at war with everyone else besides the Sumerians, a diplomatic victory, my preferred form of dénouement, is out of the question. I will just have to beaver away on space technology and win the space race while everyone else is duking it out.

by **gordonye** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 10:40 pm

Sounds like a very cool game. Your post made me dig up some info on it. Love strategy games like Risk but haven't played any for a while.

Almost time to go home and crank up the Civ III !

Almost time to go home and crank up the Civ III !

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