CHRONICLES

RBCiv Epic Four

I didn't play on Thursday, didn't have the time. Friday evening, after Opening the Epic, I continued my game. My expansion had come to a halt. I was now building basic infrastructure: markets, colleseums, harbors, courthouses, and in some cases, even still working on temples and granaries. I trained spearmen, pikemen and legions: not enough to do much of anything, but a start toward having some riflemen and also making sure I had enough units in my towns (especially ones with resources) to deter wars of opportunity.

I caved to all the AI demands, of course. I had three iron, three silk, two dyes, one wines. And that was it. I started trading away my extra lux for techs, which helped, but was no great immense boon. Since the latest patch, the once-absurd tech deflation rates (allowing one to buy their way to tech parity for pennies on the dollar) are now gone, replaced a still-significant but more sensible deflation. You still have to come up with SOME of the value, and this would turn out to be the KEY to this game. More on this later.

In 210AD I decided to spend the bulk of my available gpt, to India, in exchange for loads of techs. I managed to pull almost all the way up to the Industrial age: I completed the upper side of the tree (skipping all the optional techs except democracy). I got as far as chemistry on the lower side of the tree. I did not go flat broke, either, keeping a little something in reserve. With banking tech now available, I put all my core cities on banks. Cumae remained "second city" status, since Veii was so far behind on infrastructure that it continued to lag.

The hoped-for destruction of the Egyptian city in the desert never came, and long about this time I gave up on it and sent the settler pair that had been waiting around for centuries to grab a niche of unclaimed land in a high pressure zone between the Chinese and Aztec colonies on the south shore of my region. World wars broke out. The Zulu had four or five nations going against them, while Germany and Iros teamed up vs France. Lots of battles appear to have been waged but few cities changed hands, and most of those that did were exchanged several times. This effect slowed the tech pace somewhat, as the AI's kind of stalled in the middle industrial age.

I pulled in a couple more techs at last civ prices from India, and I considered revolting to democracy when my previous round of major gpt deals would expire in 430AD. I also found out I had one saltpeter deposit in the mountains south of Antium, close to the border. I left it disconnected so I could continue to produce pikemen.

Come 430AD, I changed my mind about the revolt. I used my freed-up lux deals to acquire tech from the larger AI's. I was unable to sell to the largest, actually, as other suppliers had them locked up. So I sold to America and Babylon and the Zulus (middle of the road size customers) and pulled in Metallurgy + Free Artistry, then Physics, then Magnetism. I had only Theory of Gravity left to go to reach the industrial age. The following turn, in 440AD, is the best I have ever had in any Civ III game I have played to date.

The image above is one I went back to take, after the fact, by reloading the game from autosave, to get the picture. Note, ToG on the empty research queue. Also note ALL of the units facing SE direction, which is how they all face after loading a game. You can generally note throughout my screenshots that units are facing all kinds of directions. That's how they look and ought to look if you take screenshots as you play. Some shots in which I go back after the fact (like the wide-view shots from previous pages) to record the layout, you can tell they were taken from a reloaded save. Just a minor tidbit, if you've never paid attention.

I had to go back to take that shot because I didn't realize the significance of this turn until it was over. You can see that with some banks newly finished and gpt deals expired, I had 180gpt with which to work. I figured I could safely spend as much as 160gpt of that on techs. Why should I waste time in Democracy? Just buy my way to factories and swap ALL my cities to factory and try to catch up on productivity (wholly at the expense of culture. SHEESH o Man o MAN! At the expense of culture is an understatement! More on that later).

So, from India, I purchased Theory of Gravity for almost all cash, and entered the industrial age. I then bought Steam Power for ~60gpt and Industrialization for ~76gpt. Woo! I had factory access, baby, yeah!

I wish I had made an RBD SG7 style of trade report, because this here is classic stuff. I checked the diplo screen and realized to my dismay that I had overestimated AI progress! I had just bought Steam at 9th-civ, not 12th, and I had bought Industrialization at 5th-civ price! Egads! I had overpaid!!!

Ah, but wait. What's this??? The AI's are NOT ALL BUNCHED TOGETHER!!! The reduction of tech deflation means that not all the AI's can keep up any more. Some may start to fall behind. India, infused with ALL my tech purchases, was top-ranked behind only Germany and America. France and Babylon were strong and Iro's and Egypt were lagging a little.

I made a straight tech for tech trade, Industrial @6th for Electricity @8th, with somebody I don't remember. Was it England? Or Zulus? I then traded Industrial @7th for Nationalism @11th and two obsolete techs @12th, Monarchy and Music Theory, and some change.

And then the miracle. The wars had caused some disruption of the AI old-boys trade network. Germany lacked for Iron! The largest civ on the planet WANTED MY IRON! I traded 20 turns of Iron to Otto for Replacement Parts @3rd civ! Plus money! 3rd civ! Third. Only Otto and Abe had this tech!

I then brokered this tech for other techs, flowing through the food chain. Because all the AI's were spaced out, and I had been able to sell an urgent resource to somebody whose supply was temporarily interrupted by warmaking, I got admitted to the big dance! Rep Parts @4th to Babylon for Corporation @5th. Corporation @6th to India for Medicine @8th. Rep Parts @5th and money to France for Sanitation @5th. Iron and lower techs to Zulus for Communism @11th. Rep Parts @6th and Sanitation @6th to India for Espionage @5th. Somewhere in there, I picked up the other two obsolete middle ages techs, Navigation and Economics.

That's the best I can remember the sequence of deals. I surely misquoted something -- wrong trade or wrong partner -- but the total result I know for certain. I picked up FIFTEEN techs on this turn. Here is the "after" picture:

For ~400g, plus 110gpt net, plus two Iron resources plus lots of dealmaking, I advanced a total of eleven vital techs and picked up four useless obsolete techs also. The only time I have ever gained more techs on one turn was from the Great Library in RBD SG7, when Charis and I picked up eighteen techs, almost the entire Middle Ages. This beats that, hands down. This was TRADING FOR fifteen techs, and I had gotten four more on the previous turn.

The above chart shows the order of techs two through eleven, as I acquired them. This is certainly the best single turn I have ever had.

I did not quite have full tech parity. The Americans were several techs ahead. Germany, Babylon and India were all ahead, too. Tiny little India, propped up by my econonmy and now with renewed support, all the gpt I was paying them for Steam and Industry, was the third or fourth strongest scientific power and still going! France, Iros, and Egypt were all on par with me, while the others were now BEHIND.

Acquiring Rep Parts on the same turn as Steam Power was a huge boost. It was as good as having swapped to democracy! My workers were now double speed and the rails started being laid.

Around 500AD, I finally sent a legion to attack the barb camp on the northernmost tip of the continent, behind that Chinese settlement. The Egyptians had two longbows moving slowly toward it through my territory and that was angering me. I also thought I could use the 25g. In the mean time, I finished factories in my first and "second" city, and started coal plants. I figured to lose out on Hoover, although the AI's hadn't researched Atomic Theory yet and I held out some slim hopes. I spent some money to upgrade a few units to rifle, and I also skimmed conscripts off the top of some of my size 12 cities. (Why not? My military was SO thin!)

I had left that camp there all these years to let it harass the Chinese town. That kept them from training workers or building a temple, though it did promote their spearman to elite. After I cleared out the barb camp, the Egyptians started the long trek homeward and I got a bad feeling about them, so I started shadowing them with a pair of vet riflemen. It was mainly precautionary. Cleo and I were on good terms.

So I went to sleep Friday night with a good feeling. I was in this game and had a shot at winning, despite the relatively untangled and moderate warring taking place. (Often, by this time, if the AI's aren't at one another's throats on Deity, you can forget about it).

Little did I suspect, I wasn't the only one thinking I had made good progress. There would be just one more session to my game, and the end would come upon me far faster than I could have imagined.

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