Jack Merchant - Aggie part 3
 

Unlike the 3rd part of the Godfather, this will be the best version of Aggie - Jack Merchant! I'm sure of that [:p].

We play a continents, easy deity game (two settlers). We made tech stealing extra difficult and also agreed upon limited use of Military Alliances (against a human player only one alliance can exsist every time). I'm Germany and Jack is Spain.

My start (thanks to Skyfish, who made the map!):

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...45_AJstart.jpg
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Well, here's my start again:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up..._AJ3_start.jpg
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Turn 92:

The world map. Jack beat me to it, but he didn't take full advantage (he couldn't know). So I have the map and a couple of techs as well:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up..._AgJM92map.jpg
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Turn 200:

We didn't post that much in this open thread [:o]. Meanwhile we both entered the Modern Age, it's 850 AD now. Jack, how the heck did you get in the modern age this fast? [thumbsup]

Wow ! That's nice and fast....must have been very few wars ;)

or lotsa wars, Sky, pointy stick is still the best way to learn secrets.....;)

I was in three wars up to now. Two vs India, who didn't play a role in the tech research and one vs Persia, but wenever really had a fight (they wanted a tribute, I declined...7 turns later we have peace again).

Jack was at war with Persia just recently, but the Ottomans and Greeks still managed to research very fast. And remember that we have 4 scientific civs: Germany (me), Greece, Persia and Ottomans. And four commercial civs: Spain (Jack), India, France, Greece.

The AI didn't have any wars at all for a long time!!! Only now the world ganged up against India.

I threw everything but the kitchen sink at getting into the modern age, meticulously micromanaging everything under the sun, selling off all non-essential infrastructure, disbanding a whole lot of military to speed up construction of revenue-increasing improvements. When those were done, I put all cities on wealth (which means a good amount of money in your GA). Finally, since Aggie set up the entire planet against India, I was able to screw them over for about 200gpt without it affecting my ability to buy tech just yet.
After all, there's only one tech in the MA that's really interesting [evil]. Think 640gpt and 500 gold will do the trick ?

We await Aggie's turn for the outcome.........

Hmmm, sounds interesting [eek].

Turn 201:

I have it, despite Jack's previous post:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...10_AJ201UN.jpg
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But I am surprised about Joan in the vote. How did SHE get there? [:o]

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...201thevote.jpg
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...2623_AJ_UN.jpg

Inconclusive !

But Aggie can survive that, while I broke my rep, disbanded all my artillery and several infantry too, and set all my cities to GA-enhanced wealth production, meaning I would have gone bankrupt the second my GA was over.

I concede, and congratulate Aggie on the win [goodjob]

Thanks Jack. I was amazed that you managed to get Fission. That really took me by surprise, but luckily you were one turn too late. I had 2700 gpt and +10000 gold, so it's fair to say that I could have a massive army sailing towrads you very quickly.

Hmm, it seems the world would prefer Joan! [rotfl]

Congrats Aggie! [drunk][stoned]

In hindsight I made an enormous blunder to go for the vote! Jack gambled and rightfully tried to get the UN (assuming that he wouldn't be in without it), but I COULD have known that he had to dig deep to get it and that he would be in trouble after the GA. ICBM's were only 2 techs away for me... I guess that a 860AD UN victory was too appealing to avoid.

congrats, aggie!

Congrats and very well done Aggie, a possible UN victory in 860 AD is most impressive!

Thanks Kemal. This was done on deity with two settlers and techs stealing prices twice as high as normal. With four scientific civs and four commercial ones. I don't think that the two settlers and the higher tech steal prices would be a major influence on the early date. The AI has two settlers as well and the humans always trail early on.

I don't know if Skyfish indeed tweaked the AI and made them less aggresive. We almost had no wars, so that DID increase the tech speed. Also my luck regarding free techs helped a lot.

I decided to have the 860 AD vote as SP game. I won it and got a total of 9000 points. That would be my record, but a tweaked game isn't logged in the HoF.

Skyfish, now that the game is over...could you tell us what you changed except from steal prices? One thing is for sure: the tech speed was absurd and the AI very peaceful.

I set the agression level of the AIs to 1, to give a faster game but also to avoid the bad luck of the Erikkian Aggian game where I was disatisfied with my balance of the game...One could say this "should" have been the Space Race...
Also here I blundered on having you too close to the French-Indian island... [cry]
I just never get it right [aargh] [wallbash]

I don't think that THAT was a deciding factor. Jack managed to meet my continent first and trade contacts and techs.

So did you like the map ? [blush]
I purely ask this for "improving" purposes...

I loved it! But who am I to complain after a thrilling tech race :). Maybe Jack has pointers, but for me the increased tech prices were a success, not only because I was in front.

steal prices you mean yes...
Thanks a lot, will ask Jack ;)

wrong, buddy! K8 was clear over 9000 ;) OK, it was an SG, but you had a [b]huge]/b] part in the success.


btw, I have eliminated another three civs in it :p

You are right Killer. That score was indeed a bit higher. But that also didn't make the Hof :(

The map was very nice Sky, although it was a good thing Aggie told me early on that he had contact with 4 AI civs as otherwise I might not have gone for the suicide galley (which, quite irrationally I know, find to be rather overpowered & exploitative). Also, despite me grabbing as much land as I think was ultimately possible, Aggie grabbed more. Or that may just have seemed that way because of the tightly spaced RCP-ring around his FP.

The one thing I really didn't like was the resetting of the agression levels. My play usually depends on assumptions about the AI's behaviour, and in this case all those turned out to be totally false. For instance, I kept my Southern border fortified more strongly than I otherwise would have, and also made several attempts to get the Ottomans to declare war on me through sabotage and of course, they didn't bite.
If I'd known that this would be a pure builder game I wouldn't have signed up for it. On the bright side, Aggie now really owes me a game where all the AIs have their agression level set to 5 :D.

I had more land, but I maybe even had a more agressive landgrab phase than you. At one point most of my cities produced settlers.
True, it was in my benefit, but it would have been better to be informed about it.
For me it is the opposite. I like a real builder game for a change and it made me realise that we have other ways to win, even in PBEM
Then I first have to perform a 'Heintje Davids' act. :)

Since none of you knew about the mod i dont think it favoured either of you...however point taken on not informing you even though i did leave some indication early on in diff threads...
Sorry about that I understand it disturbed your play style Jack...

Hehe - I just hate it when the AIs don't react as expected.......

Well I love to have to improvise ! :D

Yup, me too. I love to be surprised by the game. All the standard situations have been played to death :D

I love to improvise too, but my point is that in this case, we didn't know that we had to improvise .

I played on from two turns before our PBEM ended to go for an early space race win. I got it in 1110 AD :D

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...110ADspace.JPG
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Some people really got time on their hands... ;)