Advice on ‘Sid’ game

[Hobo with a space program]

Hello all!
I played Civ3 many years ago when it was released with a decent skill level, but recently I was feeling nostalgic and bought the game on steam. I am now trying out a Sid difficulty game as I was interested to see, how you could beat this. I’ve seen different strategies around various forums and tried to gather some good advice (love Suede Civ on youtube!) – commonly it was mentioned that you can’t win on Sid by outbuilding the AI and winning peacefully. To see if that was really the truth I set up a game with following conditions:
‘Small’ map size (not tiny), Land mass 80% water, Archipelago (big enough for enemies not being right next door, small land area so AI won’t go on an expansion spree, just the right amount of narrow water between islands, so they can be blocked by my ships until ocean crossing is unlocked)
Cold climate (lots of tundra and ice), young mountains (as much barren land as possible)
No barbarians
AI aggressiveness set to LOW
My Civ: England – Seafaring (better chance of getting to Islands early, extra movement to outmaneuver enemy ships) Commercial (more commerce with better income and science generation – slighty less corruption for my vast empire (relative to the small map 😊 ). Good UU for this map setup. Starts with the alphabet for trade and quick access to Great Library.
Opponents: 3 Civs Americans, Zulus and Mongols - chosen as they are NOT seafaring and ARE expansionist (no advantages on islands, no output from goody huts)
Cultural flips ON!
All victories ON except for wonder.
Reloads allowed at will – I just want to see if this win is possible with optimal decisions / moves
Game progress
I started out on my own island with the right terrain for a settler factory as my second city. Started going crazy with settlers and also built up a fleet ships to contact my enemies and eventual settle all islands possible before the AI.
The Zulu and Mongols started on a shared island with possibly the best land in terms of fertility and luxuries – but as they are both among the most aggressive Civs, they spent a lot of resources fighting each other. While they were doing so I managed to trade techs with them on a regular basis to I could keep up. In the end the Mongols destroyed the Zulu and the Sid AI now owns a significant amount of nice land and suddenly stepped up its tech research and have now become much more interested in my islands.
FIRST QUESTION: I wonder if should have tried to save the Zulu from complete extinction? I considered offering them a one tile island with a recently built city – I would then demand a right of passage, and surround the city with ships, so the Mongols couldn’t attack and the Zulus couldn’t get out? Possibly due to their now small size and their AI SID tech speed, I could regularly trade (or threaten) techs from them. Also, I believed an extra CIV still alive would make the Mongols techs more expensive? Anyway, I didn’t do this (but made a save at that point).
Meanwhile the Mongol and Zulu infighting I also discovered the Americans on a smaller island with lots of tundra, hills and mountains. They were very poor and surprisingly a third way through the game they were behind in tech and always had 0 gold to trade. I wonder if they switched government at an unfortunate time, meaning that they would pay a lot of their huge SID armies, resulting in almost no research? They did however manage to settle and extra ice flake (almost worthless 😊 )
Back ‘home’ I had early on also prioritized two important wonders for my strategy – after several attempts I managed to get both the Great Library (so I could keep up in tech and have something to trade with others) and the Great Lighthouse, so I could get to all the unsettled Islands and make the most out of my fleet and outmaneuver the enemy ships if they tried to cross the narrow waters or unload settlers.
So far, my strategy has been a great success. I managed to settle the whole map (except for the three AI islands). However, I have a lot of barren land and a lot of fully corrupted cities (1 shield, 1 commerce), but I have seized a lot of resources and land. Due to the distances and the number of cities my empire has been very inefficient for many years, but I managed to finally get the forbidden palace in a fairly good spot, built lots of courthouses, had the feudal government until democracy for corruption handling while still being able to ‘whip’ production in 1 shield cities, built harbors to get luxuries and food on the icy islands. But this is not enough. I further plan to have ‘We love the…’ in all my remote cities to reduce corruption – this by maintaining them at size 6-7 while having marketplaces and lots of lux (still waiting for my luxuries to be able to cross oceans however). Police stations should also help. Maybe it could be an advantage with communism down the line, but I doubt it due to the reduced commerce. When all these things are in place, I wonder whether I can start keeping up the with the Mongols tech, with my additional number of cities.

SECOND QUESTION: I have one city (New Birmingham) that due to its location will never go beyond size 2 and will therefore always have 1 shield / 1 commerce – would you destroy such a city or won’t it matter to the other cities as I am already way past the optimal city number in terms of corruption? Currently its producing a worker every 10 turns, being of some use to me.
THIRD QUESTIONS: Perhaps due to all the land now being settled, the Mongols will declare war on me in the coming turns (I know from advancing the game). They are now significantly ahead of me in tech – riflemen vs musket men etc. Is there anything I can do to postpone a WAR or prevent it? I have been friendly towards them, but they are of course an aggressive civ and my democracy is their shunned government. I had anticipated fighting them at some point, but ideally, I would have discovered my UU man-o-wars, which I could use for taking out (and possibly enslaving) all their incoming ships – but I still need a few more techs!
Due to my peaceful builder strategy and focus on research, I have kept my military at a minimum. Do you see any way to avoid this war? I tried trading and gifting then, but they seem set on war.

The year is 1320 AD, as I recall I have 62% of land area (will increase a bit with expanding culture) and around 55% population (many small cities) so am actually close to a domination victory.
Save game linked here if anybody wants to help me out or try the map for themselves. Really appreciate any input, thanks!

[Hobo with a space program]

Link to save https://we.tl/t-KiYwjsgWhj

[Suede]

I had a look at the save file.

Seems it'd be a pretty easy domination victory just by killing the Americans. You'd need a ton of units, but you definitely have the time for it. But I suspect that's not what you're trying to do, so let's see other options.

So the good news is I don't think the Mongols can win a space race. Their island is too small, they're likely missing some key resource like uranium or aluminium.

But for some reason, you have victory points turned on? It looks like they might feasibly reach the goal. You'd have to run the numbers to find out how long that'd take.

If they don't win that way, a diplomatic victory is also a possibility. Just give America a bunch of gifts, and get them into a military alliance vs the Mongols a turn before the vote is held. I guess space race is also possible too, but diplomatic is likely easier.

[Suede]

For question 3: the best way to do that would be to get a military alliance with The Mongols against The Americans. Don't worry, the AI stockpile a millions on civ, but only land them one boat at a time. I don't think they'd ever kill America.

To do this, you'd have to declare war on America first. You might have to offer a ton of gold.

Alternatively, maybe try to steal physics/Magnetism and rush out some man o wars.

[Hobo with a space program]

Wow a reply from my civ mentor! ;-D
As I didn’t seem to get a response in this forum I was actually considered forwarding to the comments section of one of your videos, suggesting you should do videos with subscriber saves ;-)
But thanks for the analysis. I had 15 mins last night where I concluded that a way forward is indeed a military alliance against the Americans so I have time to build my man-o-war armada!
Tried rushing caravels and intercepting the mongols, but attack 1 is not enough against their ships.
Had also tried stealing tech but with no success.
As you guessed I trying for a long going peaceful victory - im just very rusty on victory conditions and likely haven’t completed a game since 2005 - I guess you can’t change the conditions with save game editing?
Should I be worried about the mongols having a cultural victory?

[Suede]

I wouldn't be too worried about cultural victory. They don't have enough cities for 80k, and likely their wonders are too spread out for 20k.

[skibidi rizz gyatt ohio]

Ive only ever won from domination. What ive learnt is that ai rarely mounts proper naval insertions/attacks, if you have any coastal fortresses or just a couple of units on the endangered continent, everything is fine.
Alliances are a bit unpredictable, but that may be stemming from my poor multiplayer experiences. Keep troops around and save often. Just in case.
Good luck!

[Lagrange]

Originally posted by BENIS DD:

Ive only ever won from domination. What ive learnt is that ai rarely mounts proper naval insertions/attacks, if you have any coastal fortresses or just a couple of units on the endangered continent, everything is fine.
Alliances are a bit unpredictable, but that may be stemming from my poor multiplayer experiences. Keep troops around and save often. Just in case.
Good luck!

Noob question, how do I make my troops stronger? I've reached the middle ages, but every other nation's army seems better than mine.

[Suede]

More technology will allow you to unlock better units obviously.

Having a barracks in your city building ground units will make them veteran, instead of regular (so 4 hitpoints instead of 3)

Also look at the civilopedia entry for combat bonuses. If you're engaging on unfavourable terrain, the enemy can get bonuses of up to 100% or more.