I was quite pleased to get the domination victory message in 990AD, exactly one turn before my target date:
Amercia had been battered down to their last two cities, which would have fallen on the next turn (probably). I was happy that I did not have to betray Egypt, my one and only friend in the game (I didn't have any deals with them, so I could have attacked if needed). It was an awesome game for me, and one that proves that I definitely have mastered Emperor difficulty. Looks like I'll be playing mostly Deity from this point on, not out of arrogance but because the other levels simply are not a challenge anymore.
What a game though. This was possibly my best game ever played, for a number of reasons. I didn't have an outstanding starting position, only a slightly better than average one. In fact, many of the opposing civs had considerably better starting positions than mine! I didn't get much of anything from goody huts, and certainly no early settlers. I used the expansionist trait to find everyone early on and extract all their cash and techs to my benefit, then combined that with the commercial trait to upgrade my warriors to swords and destroy Japan. From there it was no turning back, as I was continuously sneak-attacked by other civs and I fought back to destroy them one by one. I had average combat luck the whole time, only got one leader but used that to my full advantage by triggering a golden age with it. My Forbidden Palace was built early enough in the game to make a big difference (not leader rushed, hand built) and put in an excellent place. All in all, I got no big breaks of luck and still managed to win an absolutely crushing victory over my opponents.
And the thing that makes this the sweetest of all is that it was done with the ENGLISH, of all civs! They get constantly knocked on the Civ3 discussion boards for having a useless UU (true) and "worthless" civ abilities (not true). Here's a small sample of some of the things I'm used to reading:
"England is the weakest civilization overall. First, they feature the two weakest attributes: in all major categories, they will be behind other
cultures, and the commercial bonus will never give them enough gold to
overcome this disadvantage. Nor will expansionist give them a lead that
cannot be overcome. But beyond this weakness, the Man O War is a very weak
unique unit. At this period, naval units are still very weak and will have
great difficulty in effectively supporting your land army. Bombardment in
this era has almost no chance of destroying improvements or killing citizens
in enemy cities. Of course, Man O War is useless against landlocked enemy
cities. It also creates a Golden Age that is undesirably late. Few worthwhile
Wonders are available in this time period. It doesn't upgrade. It really
drags down England. I don't have much advice for how you can win with
England; it's going to be a tough battle, and will probably require a good
bit of luck."
- from Ragnarok757
"I guess a lot depends on what sort of maps you play on and what approach you want to use
For me? The English are the worst (although it pains me to say it...!) - UU is utterly useless and the attributes stink."
- Tweedledum
"America has good traits; Industrial and expansionist. England has commercial and expansionist and has the Man'O'War. I would say England is the worst. Most of the other civs are pretty good. Some better than others but all decent and better."
- God (a regular CivFanatics poster)
"England is definitely the worst. Industrious is useful for early development(France and America), but not as good as religious, militaristic, and scientific civs. But England is only good to expand your empire when you crush them - I always try to."
- Sanaz
"Hardest: English – Man-O-War is an updated frigate that has a little better attack/bombard values. They can sometimes sink ironclads, but the age of sail is so short. And Magnetism doesn’t lead to a particularly valuable GA, other than the fact that it comes late. If you need coal, you can leverage your GA into an attack, but that’s not terribly realistic. Expansionist and commercial the British may be, but that is hardly an advantage, as they have no culture benefits, no shield benefits, and a world map only has value so long."
- this from our very own Arathorn! (albeit over 6 months ago)
Poor Liz - the English can't get any love on the message boards! Of course what everyone is saying is partly true; the Man O' War is a worthless UU and their civ traits are difficult to turn into a quantifiable advantage. But that doesn't mean that the English are useless, just that in order to use them effectively you must get the top value possible from their commercial and expansionist traits. This was my second game with the English and my second crushing victory with them; my previous effort with them was so thorough a victory on Regent that I never went back to the difficulty level again. So two games with the English and two stunningly effective wins; I don't know what it is about them, but for me at least they don't suck at all!
In any case, this is going to be one crazy discussion when the game ends. I really want to see both what it was like in other starting positions and how other England players did. Although this was a friendly competition, I also *should* have the fastest finish for this game (though if Arathorn is playing I could have been too slow here as well!) The game was a blast, so now on to kick some Deity behind in Epic9!
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