CHRONICLES

RBCiv Epic Four

Picking up rails and replaceable parts on the same turn is something I've never done before. To pick up nationalism and hospitals at the same point, too, was just insane. Of course, I built factories first, but right after that came banks and hospitals, and when the hospitals did come online, the improvements were mostly in place to grow my largest cities quickly. This would turn out to be important.

However, first things first. That final barbarian camp behind the Chinese colony was finally cleared up, but the two Egyptian longbow units had wandered almost all the way across my territory. Now they had to march back, and... I decided I didn't trust them. So I paid to upgrade a few of my pikemen and I also drafted about half a dozen units, skimming one each off my size 12 cities when their food boxes got full. I started my final session in 550AD, with the turn completed, hit enter, and got this message:

I had a rifleman on each side, but as you can see I had a worker exposed. One unit attacked the city on the left and lost, the other ate my worker (disbanded him).

The game, as they say, was afoot.

I figured that I had a little time, but I was very poorly prepared. I had three vet rifles, five or six conscripts, half a dozen or so legions, the rest pikemen and not many of those. Not a single piece of artillery, and no navy. (First game ever that wasn't specifically a no-ships variant or an inland OCC where I never built a ship all game long).

The first few turns were quiet. Egypt had war with the Zulus and they were closer, so I thought I might escape Cleo's main attention, but the Zulus had their own continent while I was on the same one with Egypt, so my thought that she'd not really bother with me was wishful thinking.

Then the diplomatic games started. She signed England and China to trade embargoes against me! Then this joyous event:

India was the one I was paying out the wazoo to. I only had four turns left to go at this point on the gpt deals for Theory of Gravity, Steam, and Industrial, but I had more to go on the deal for Steel. Ghandi gave up near a grand worth of payments from me to join Cleo. I wonder what she gave him in return? You can see in the shot that I'm working furiously on banks, instead of troops! My economy needed the boost, not only from Wall Street but the banks themselves. I could buy alliances, peace, and more tech, with economic power. I figured that I'd throw conscripts at her if I had to, but that I could buy time as long as she was sending only foot units. If she had sent cavs, I'd have been in real deep dogdoo.

There was still no rubber on sale anywhere, so I had to fight with riflemen. My game plan was simple: just keep my units in front of the enemy. The first attackers were a few regular rifles and a couple longbows. I tried to protect my exposed oil source in the desert, right on the border, but I had a second source up north AND as yet nothing to use it on. When Cleo's stack came on, I didn't have enough units to defend both the oil and the exposed city, so I defended the city. I had some of my back lines cities empty as I piled conscripts, pikemen, legions, whatever, into Lutetia, on the west coast at the whales.

Cleo pulled an odd move. She attacked the city with about half her units (mostly the bows) and then kept marching onward with the others. She also passed up the oil with the first two stacks, apparently intent on taking my cities. I had one rifle promote to elite and I lost one vet, while she used up about six units. She also did not block the rails wholly, so I was able to reinforce further, and to blockade her path toward Rome.

The Indians coming into the war scared me. I feared a worldwide cascade of piling on, as the AI's are wont to do when they smell blood in the water. I had to convince the other world powers that I was more than fresh meat. So I started with my trading partners, Germany and Zulus, both getting Iron from me. I signed them to Embargoes vs Egypt. France and Iroquois would not sign, they must have had deals with Cleo ongoing. I got Babylon and America to join me also, though. The Trade Wars had begun.

Then one of those who did NOT sign with me came to me with this offer, and though pricey, I decided I had better take it!

The following turn brought the Iroquois into the war on my side! I didn't believe they would do much to help me, and I did fear a restart of the France-vs-Germany/Iro war, but this was a time of great danger and great daring for me.

This is also the turn in which the iron deals with Germany and the Zulus expired. I had to take the window of opportunity to advance in the tech race! Only a few civs, the tech leaders, had researched up the Atomic Theory branch. My trading push begins with Germany.

Atomic Theory was Tech 1. Yikes, iron not worth quite as much as I hoped, not even a full tech at mid-range prices (7th civ). At least it was the granddaddy expensive tech, though. I then traded Atomic @8th and Iron to Zulus for Combustion and change, so that was Tech 2, and both my irons locked up now. I checked around found that only three civs, the tech leaders, had Electronics: America, in the godly position of lead researchers, Babylon, and India using all my moneys to buy in @3rd.

This was the time for bold movement. Tech 3 follows (and ouchie at that price):

I chose Babylon over America because America was super rich, and I wanted the Babs to be able to buy @2nd, which is the most costly, to lower the price so that *I* could better catch up. India, of course, was no longer an option, being at war with me now.

Then I found three more techs available, all from those who did not yet have electronics. Joinie had Flight and Mass Transit, while the Iro's had only Mass Transit. This is how you have to stagger your way through a tech trade. If you choose the right techs at the right moments, you can stretch their value through trade by trading them over and over to those who still need them. The price you get deflates each time, though, so you need to trade for OTHER techs that some have but not all, then trade THOSE techs to the ones further behind, but who still have tech you don't.

Then I checked again. India was an unknown. I could tell they had electronics because they had started the Hoover Dam. Beyond that I did not know. I found out Babylon lacked only Radio to reach modern age, and that America was already there. (I hadn't noticed that Abe's picture this turn went Modern Age, but I did note it when I spoke to him, after seeing that he had both Motor and Radio).

Confirmed: modern age for an AI in 640AD. That beats even the early modern age of my game in GOTM7 by more than 200 years, twenty turns! And yet I was within survival range. I needed only two more techs myself to get to modern age. Unfortunately, that 160gpt for Electronics @4th was too much. I COULD afford Motorized @3rd and be flat broke, but Radio @2nd was wholly out of the question. I would need some of these other AI's to catch up a bit and drop that cost, or god knows what else.

Then, since I could, I traded for a sixth tech and got my cash back from Germany in the process. I also hoped that this would stimulate them (and France, who now also had Electronics) to work on those last two techs for me.

So... for two loads of iron and one BIG gpt payment @4th for an advanced tech, I pulled in SIX techs total. I tried to shop my new gains around further, but everyone was pretty much broke. I decided against giving Electronics to the Iro's. They didn't "give" me an MPP, did they? I'd sell them the tech when they had something to pay for it, or let them buy off others. Zulus and England were strongish but engaged in war, neither in position to help me. Egypt, ironically, was also lagging now, and getting nothing from me, yet they had become the world's largest civ by swallowing colonies and some Zulu and Chinese holdings.

So... that's now two major rounds of tech trading for me fueled by having extra iron and some large customers in need because of wars disrupting long-held trade relationships. That and boldness, and most urgently perhaps, the latest patch. That's right, the patch. It's the reduction of tech deflation for late buyers that is responsible for this. Firaxis has finally (and perhaps wholly) fixed the "bunching" problem of all the AI's at continual tech parity. The fact is, now the small fry tend to fall behind a bit more, and the big fish can pull a little further ahead into the bargain by getting paid more for their breakthroughs by the rest of the AI's. The game balance in this regard is FINALLY sensible, and I just pray they don't screw it up again in any future patches. It was the differences between the AI's in where they sat on the tech tree, all spaced out in terms of who knows what, gave me the openings by which to make quantum leaps for my own civ. This is the most satisfying game of Civ III I've yet had, because the opening was so narrow and yet I managed to find it.

The game's not yet over, though. Here comes Cleo's army now. Not the vanguard, but the real thing: stacks of rifles and now also some infantry. Oh, and now India has brought another Civ into the war:

Please note the quality of my units in that screenie. I may be on top of the world, having moved from last place to tied for third place on the tech heirarchy, but I'm definitely still dead last or next to last on military might.

Cleo's units are heading for my cities, and I only have enough forces to protect one, maybe two cities at a time, and that's assuming turtle mode, hole up inside while they pillage to their hearts' content. Could... get... ugly...

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