This was the big gambit, me versus Russia, with some limited help from my allies. Here was the world map and histograph in 950AD just before fighting broke out:
Both the world map and histograph show the same thing: Russia is the big dog in this world in every respect possible. Rome had been killed off in 670AD, and the Germans were reduced to a small offshore island. But Russia was clearly as strong as any two other nations put together. This was going to be tricky.
I used my large income to sign a MPP with England at about 5gpt, then one with Persia for some 20gpt, and then another with Japan for some 35gpt. The fact that the cost of Mutual Protection Pacts keeps going up as you sign them must be built-in to the game to keep the player from getting them will all civs and declaring war. I was able to get one with Egypt too by giving them an out-of-date tech. Then it was a matter of starting a war. I asked Catherine to send her soldiers out of my territory. She gave one of those "OK, we'll move them" answers that means nothing, so I asked them to be moved again. The result: "The Russians have declared war on us!" It looks like if I had ever refused an AI demand earlier in the game I would have faced war. My earlier appeasement was thus a good move indeed.
Something else nice came out of this: I had traded Catherine about 110gpt two turns earlier in exchange for Radio, which I then traded to England for Mass Production, which left me only two techs (Flight and Motorized Transportation) short of the Modern Age. When the Russians declared war, this agreement was broken, and I immediately got Motorized Transportation from England for about 100gpt. Therefore I didn't break a deal; crazy Cathy did. The fact that the AI was willing to give up 110gpt and enter into a war against 4 other civs show that they only evaluate the power bar when deciding on war. This is a flaw in the AI programming that I exploited accidentally; I plan not to use it in future games as it is hardly fair. If you don't care about being an honorable player of Civ3 though, it's something for you to think about.
Here was the alliance against Catherine, although this picture was actually taken later in the game when I got Germany to join in so they would become "gracious" with me:
The war started out badly for me. Imagine my surprise when the Russians ignored my fortress city of Centralia and headed for my virtually undefended core cities! This testifies to the generally excellent AI of Civ3, which has come a long way since the first release version. A stack of some 10 infantry was beelining into an area in which all of my most productive cities were located, which were defended by...2 infantry, 2 SPEARMEN, and a galley? Uh oh. In the far south of the Tyendenaga front, the Russians were preparing massive stacks of about a dozen infantry each in some 4 different locations. Had I bitten off more than I could chew here? I thought so at first. I signed a ROP with the English immediately to get their forces down there ASAP to take the heat off of me. Here's the map from 1 turn later, which shows the Russian stacks moving in to attack:
Notice the big stacks? It's a little hard to see, but the stack of infantry located 1 tile south and 1 tile southeast of Cattaraugus has about 10 guys in it. All of the stacks down at the bottom have some 5-6 infantry in them. Look at my homeland: all of the cities are EMPTY! Things were really tight at this point.
Thank the gods for artillery. That's all I have to say about my defense. There was no way I could have survived without it. After some very nervous turns, I managed to get some more artillery in my homeland and bombard the incoming stack down to a few hit points. At this time, the Russians turned around and went back to heal at the closest barracks, rather than push on and capture cities, which they could have done without much trouble. Another thing I was very glad to see. I pillaged the oil near Vlaivostok using explorers even though the Russians had another source; I don't think it did anything, but I only had to deal with maybe 2 tanks the whole time so maybe it did.
In the south the English were taking the pressure off of me admirably. I would bombard every Russian unit within range of my rails down to 1hp and then the English would use their units to finish them off. I saw some spectactular battles down in those jungles. It's amazing how many units the AI can keep without penalty under a democracy on Deity due to their insane unit support bonuses. The English, for whatever reason, didn't make any progress in this area though, as they failed to capture a single Russian city. What they WERE doing was tying down vaulable Russian forces that could have been better used elsewhere. In the east, far out of my view, Persia was methodically carving up former Germany and taking it one city at a time from the Russians. I bet that there were some enormous battles over there that I would have liked to see.
By around 1000AD, the my main front against Russia had stabilized with neither of us able to advance against the other. Russia was committing almost no troops to this area - for which I was very greatful! - because of the more serious threat posed by England and Persia. Sometimes it's nice when the AI ability to see all units on the maps causes them to degrade the relative importance of your civ! The next phase of this war began in 1070AD when I entered the Modern Age.
