Early Landing Games Strategy Guide

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Early Landing Games Strategy Guide

Contents

1. About Early Landing Games (ELG)

1.1 Origins
1.2 Comparison Games
1.3 Rules

2. Strategy

2.1 Types of Cities Used and Their Roles

2.1.1 Super Science City (SSC)
2.1.2 Helper Cities
2.1.3 Colonies
2.1.4 Station City
2.1.5 Tech Trigger City
2.1.6 Space Ship Contractors

2.2 Dealing with the Artificial Intelligence (AI)

2.2.1 AI Diplomacy
2.2.2 First Contact
2.2.3 Trading Technology with the AI
2.2.4 Trading Commodities with the AI
2.2.5 The Importance of the Key Civ
2.2.6 Space Flight and AI Attitudes
2.2.7 Dealing with Barbarians

2.3 Wonders used in ELG

2.3.1 Apollo Program
2.3.2 Colossus
2.3.3 Copernicus’s Observatory
2.3.4 Darwin’s Voyage
2.3.5 Hanging Gardens
2.3.6 Sir Isaac Newton’s College
2.3.7 Leonardo’s Workshop
2.3.8 Marco Polo’s Embassy
2.3.9 Michaelangelo’s Chapel
2.3.10 SETI Program
2.3.11 Shakespeare’s Theater


2.4 Governments used in ELG

2.4.1 Anarchy
2.4.2 Despotism
2.4.3 Monarchy
2.4.4 Republic
2.4.5 Democracy
2.4.6 Communism and Fundamentalism

2.5 Acquiring Technology

2.5.1 Science Beakers
2.5.2 Technology Carrying Costs
2.5.3 Research Choices
2.5.4 Research Priorities
2.5.5 Scientific Improvements and Wonders
2.5.6 Using Scientists
2.5.7 Commodity Delivery Beakers
2.5.8 One Turn Advances
2.5.9 Turns with Two Advances
2.5.10 Using Zoom to City

2.6 Trade

2.6.1 Base Trade
2.6.2 Trade Routes
2.6.3 Demand Bonuses
2.6.4 Maximizing Delivery Payments
2.6.5 Importance of Quick Deliveries
2.6.6 Alternating Trade System
2.6.7 Commodity Supply and Demand Basics
2.6.8 Sixteen Turn City Cycles
2.6.9 Commodity Overview
2.6.10 Techs Affecting Supply and Demand
2.6.11 Supply and Demand List Wildcards
2.6.12 Predicting Commodity Supply and Demand Lists
2.6.13 Manipulating Commodity Supply and Demand

2.7 Stages of Development

2.7.1 The Opening
2.7.2 Early Expansion and Exploration
2.7.3 Early Trade and Colonization
2.7.4 SSC Expansion and Development
2.7.5 Helper and Colony Expansion
2.7.6 Hyper Trade and Accelerated Research
2.7.7 Space Ship Construction and the Launch
2.7.8 Waiting to Land

3.0 A Sample Game and Log

4.0 References

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1. About Early Landing Games (ELG)

Welcome to the fascinating Civ II world of early landing attempts. This guide will provide details and strategy useful to those interested in joining the quest for earlier AC landing dates while playing on the Deity level. If you decide to join in on the comparison games played in this forum, it’s possible that some of the advice you pick up here will help you set the next record.


1.1 Origins

Seeing how early one can land a space ship on Alpha Centauri has captured the imagination of Civilization II players for years. In my second Civilization game, played on the Chieftan level, I thought my landing in the 1800’s was pretty hot stuff. Then I found out that others were doing this regularly at Deity level, and that a few players were managing it by playing with only one city!

I had a lot to learn, but was fascinated to read the account of the competition between Ming and Rah (forgive me if I leave other early participants out) to be the first player to manage a landing with just one city. Ming did it first, but as other players joined this competition, it was Paul who perfected the technique. He wrote a comprehensive strategy guide for playing with one city naming it the One City Challenge (OCC) Strategy Guide, and hosted a number of fortnightly comparison games in these forums, during which landing times continued to improve.

Just when it seemed that no more improvements could be made in OCC strategy, a newcomer to the scene started describing OCC games with excellent results, which were being played with less than full-sized OCC cities. This “OCC on a shoestring” approach, introduced by Samson, was soon pushed to the limit, until early landings were being made using just a single citizen. Once this limit in OCC had been attained, interest in this way of playing began to fade.

Although some amazing things had been accomplished using just one city, not much had been done to see just how early a space ship could be landed using a random deity start, and playing without the one city restriction. For a long time, Ari’s record of 1075 AD was the time to beat, holding off some notable attempts to do better. I managed to challenge Ari’s record first, in a game with a 776 AD landing, but this attempt was tainted somewhat by the use of caravan re-homing and by some pre-knowledge of the map. However, Samson soon joined me in exploring new strategies for improving landings times and soon we were both managing landings before 500 AD. The best result was Samson’s 16 AD date using a small map.

This seemed the ultimate accomplishment, since space ship parts were not available for construction in non-scenario games during the BC game years. Improvements could be made to the best times on larger maps, and they came fairly rapidly, benefiting tremendously by the newest research about trade. However, a new kind of early landing challenge was needed to further test player skill, so I came up with the idea of seeing what could be done in games in which the human player is not allowed to tip any huts.


1.2 Comparison Games

Early Landing Comparison Games take place in the Apolyton Civilization II Strategy Forum, and are open to anyone that cares to participate. All games are played at deity level on a medium map, with 7 civs, and a barbarian setting of raging hordes. Although starts with free starting techs and those not having suitable Super Science City (SSC) sites are discarded, comparison games all begin from a random 4000 BC start.

Once generated, a save of this starting position is made. Then a new thread announcing the game is created, where a copy of the start is posted. The start is compatible with, and may be used with, Civ II 2.42 and Civ II MGE. Those wishing to participate may download this start and use it to play their own game, competing with other players to see who will be first to land a space ship on Alpha Centauri.

After the game’s deadline, the player with the best landing date is declared the winner. There is also an ongoing competition to break the “official” record for the best landing date attained so far during comparison play. After each game is completed and results are compared, the next may begin.


1.3 Rules

The rules are simple:

a) The human player may not tip any huts. What’s a rule without an exception, so in the rare situation where a hut may block a player’s movement, the player must save the game, after which the hut is tipped enough times until it produces a military unit or a nomad, which must then be immediately disbanded. Huts appearing in a radius of any city can be destroyed without reaping any benefit by placing a citizen on the hut’s tile while in the city display.

b) Since the game attempts to prevent caravan and freight re-homing, this exploit is not allowed. Any other ploy or exploit is allowed.

c) As a minimum each player should provide a summary of their game, using the format provided with each game start. Each player is also encouraged to keep a chronological log of their game, listing significant events. The addition of details describing the game and strategic decisions made while playing it add interest, so doing this is very much encouraged. Once a game is completed, a short game summary and the optional log should be posted in the game’s thread. Attached to this post should be a save of the game made showing a completed ship or one on the way to Alpha Centauri.

d) The player posting the best landing date before the deadline will be declared the winner of that game. If the date is the best so far attained in comparison games, it will become the new “official” record.

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2.1 Types of Cities Used and Their Roles


2.1.1 Super Science City (SSC)

The key to making early landings is to acquire techs as quickly as possible. A full sized SSC, located on a site with good trade specials and including all of the scientific improvements and wonders, can easily produce enough science to sustain an advance every two turns. In comparison, it would take 12 or more size 8 cities, each with a library, university and research lab, to produce the same amount of science. An SSC can be very efficient since adding the Shakespeare’s Theater wonder to it also makes it possible to keep all those extra citizens content without having to use any luxuries. SSCs are an economic force, too. With the addition of a marketplace, bank, stock exchange, and superhighways, they can add 50 or more gold to tax revenues for each 10% increase in taxes. Adding the Colossus wonder allows them to do even better. Caravans and freights built in an SSC and delivered to cities on other continents demanding SSC commodities usually produce maximum payoffs.

Following are some ideas for getting the most out of SSCs.

a) If there is a choice of SSC sites, pick the one that will end up giving you the maximum number of trade arrows. This may not necessarily be the site with the best trade specials, since the potential trade of all city tiles must be considered. The amount of extra food the SSC will produce is another factor, since extra citizens can be put to work as scientists or taxmen. Don’t give a second thought to shields, as a total of 10 or so will be plenty when the SSC reaches full size. At that time almost every build will be rushed, and only 10 shields are needed to finish off the last row for freights when they are being built.

b) There are two reasons you may not want to use your capital as the SSC. Later on during Democracy, the SSC can build a cheap courthouse to celebrate beyond size 21 and since a helper is now the capital, it can add an extra citizen for free because of the palace. It can also be useful to have a few helpers contribute their beakers towards the next advance being learned after the SSC has added its own to the one currently being researched. These helper beakers often allow one to get a good jump on learning the next advance, when SSC beakers have provided enough to trigger the first one. (The order of processing cities and their beakers at the beginning of each turn is the reverse of the order in which the cities were founded, so the capital is always processed last).

c) When convenient, triremes and caravels should be homed to the SSC, so that they are free to travel about later during Democracy. As with any other units, it is better to use helpers to produce them, since any unit except caravans and freights can be re-homed to the SSC later, if necessary. The SSC should not have to be wasting its time building units.

d) Since SSC growth is a priority, so is the timely acquisition of techs such as Construction and Sanitation. SSC growth should never have to be interrupted because you lack the tech needed to build an aqueduct or sewer. Similarly, learning Medicine should be an early priority, and if the SSC has many ocean tiles, Seafaring becomes important, too. After the first group of cities has been established, early settlers should concentrate almost entirely on the SSC’s tiles by adding roads and irrigation to them.

e) The fewer luxuries needed to sustain the SSC’s celebration while it grows to size 21, the better. Significantly fewer luxuries are needed by adding trade routes, roads, a harbor, a marketplace, a bank, and the Colossus wonder.

f) The best order of adding improvements and wonders to the SSC mostly depends on the trade specials it has to work with. For example, an SSC having gold specials might make the most out of this heavy concentration of trade arrows by adding a library, university and the Copernicus wonder before adding Shakespeare’s Theater and celebrating up to size 21. A city with weaker trade specials will do better by adding more citizens sooner. In this case, economic improvements, Shakespeare’s Theater and the Colossus should probably precede the addition of some or all scientific improvements and wonders.

g) Once it has reached full size, the SSC no longer needs an aqueduct or sewer and both may be sold. When I first learned that this could be done, this exploit rubbed me the wrong way, because a full-sized city needs a source of water supply and the ability to dispose of sewage more than it ever did while it was growing. Then I learned that others had an equal distaste for ploys I had no qualms about using on a regular basis. Ultimately, the appropriateness of any exploit, trick or ploy is a matter of personal opinions, which will always differ. Rather than try to arbitrate or pass judgment, it was decided to allow all exploits in these comparison games in order to give individual players more tactical choices. I still choose to keep SSC aqueducts and sewers around unless an urgent need for some extra gold arises. Alas, at some point during most games, this usually happens! Oh well.

h) Generally, caravans and freights produced by the SSC should be used for trades instead of for wonders. An exception can be made for a vital wonder needing just one more caravan immediately or in cases where SSC can only make food.

i) Each turn of SSC production is precious, so the SSC should rush buy as much as finances permit. Especially in the second half of the game, the SSC should be building something new on every turn, if possible. The speedy delivery of SSC freights to demanding cities on other continents will cover the extra expense of rushing all SSC builds from scratch.

j) If an AI city is close enough (within 22 tiles on the same continent), the SSC should establish trade routes with it early, to take advantage of the road and rail trade route bonuses. If these are established in time, SSC supply commodities will have changed by the time it reaches full size. If these bonus routes established with obsolete commodities “stick”, then supply commodities appearing later can be traded repetitively, using the wonder bread ploy. In addition, deliveries to the SSC from colonies will not block SSC demands.

k) If no AI cities are close enough for establishing the route bonuses, there is a possibility that a helper city can be given up to an AI or barbarian attack. Afterwards, this new AI or barb city will be within range and the bonuses obtained with roaded and railed routes should make sacrificing a helper worthwhile.

l) Adding improvements such as factories and power plants to boost SSC shields is probably not a good idea. In the second half of the game, most builds are rushed and more shields increases the chances of pollution, which can divert engineers from doing more vital tasks. The appearance of pollution can sometimes interrupt the acquisition of technology, too. On the other hand, pollution due to having many citizens can be eliminated by building mass transit and this probably should be done if the SSC population grows much beyond size 21.

m) Mastering the techniques used to unblock supply commodities is vital in making the most out of the huge trading potential of the SSC in early landing games. Since most of these techniques could not be implemented in OCC games, SSC trading opportunities in them were more limited. However, for early landing games, it might more appropriate to rename this key city the “Super Science and Trade City”, but the familiar SSC abbreviation is close enough and will be retained, just so long as we don’t forget to trade.


2.1.2 Helper Cities

Helper cities are those located near the SSC. Their main job is to produce caravans and freights. They are also used to produce ships and other units, as needed. Later in the game, the best helpers may have to build scientific improvements to provide enough extra city science to sustain one advance per turn. For most of the game, helpers will stay at size 3, having temples as the only city improvement. Once freights become available helpers will start trading as actively as the SSC, and will celebrate up to size 7 or 8 while adding harbors, colosseums, and superhighways.

When playing on a standard sized map, happiness is adversely affected when the number of cities exceeds 4 under Despotism, 6 under Monarchy, 8 under Republic and 10 under Democracy. Since more cities are not needed for successful early landing games, and because of the time needed to build a new settler to found each new city, it’s a good idea to stick to these limits, with the possible exception of Democracy, where it might be tactically prudent to add few extra cities late in the game. Because the number of helpers is limited, it’s a good idea to find the best helper locations in proximity to the SSC. Helper city sites should be based on the following criteria:

a) Shields are important for helpers in order to produce caravans more quickly. Locations providing 5 or more shields for size three helpers are best. Specials to look for when locating helpers are oil, buffalos, pheasants, silk, iron, peat and whales. Coal and wine need mines and there may not be enough time to build these. If shield specials are not available, forested tiles are the best free source of extra shields.

b) Enough food is important for rapid growth. At least two extra food will be needed to support the settlers and engineers used to build roads, mines, etc. A food special is desirable (especially if it is a pheasant since it will also produces shields), but if no food specials are available, preference should be given to founding helpers on grassland tiles, to ensure an adequate amount of free food, since irrigation takes a lot of time.

c) If possible, helpers should be located on a coast. This allows them to build ships and allows them to take advantage of all of the free trade arrows provided by ocean tiles later in the game, when they grow to full size and shift their emphasis to trade. Coastal access is also needed to build harbors to feed citizens located on ocean tiles. Finally, these locations often allow access to whales, one of the most useful specials for size three cities. Whales offer an excellent combination of shields and trade, while providing adequate food.

d) A total of five helper cities are probably best, allowing for the addition of 4 colonies later on. A mix of 6 helpers and three colonies will work well, too, but it may be best to add the 6th helper later, having it double as a station city, if one is needed.

In the early part of the game helpers will be devoted to producing caravans needed to construct SSC wonders. However, the first caravan or two produced by each helper should probably be traded to an AI city on a nearby continent. Gold is in short supply early in the game, and early trades will help provide enough of it to be able to rush SSC city improvements that are needed, such as harbors, marketplaces, aqueducts and libraries. There’s no use in getting Shakespeare’s Theater built earlier if the SSC’s subsequent growth is delayed while it waits to finish an aqueduct that can’t be rushed for lack of gold. Early trades are also an effective way to acquire techs quickly. So, if in doubt as to how to use a helper caravan, send it off for a trade.

Not much rush buying will be happening in helper cities early in the game, hence the emphasis on shields in order to produce caravans quickly. However, there should be enough gold to afford partial rushes, which will get the most out of the number of shields a helper has to work with. For example, a helper producing 6 shields should rush two more after the first three turns are used to produce 18. The remaining 30 shields needed to finish the caravan will only take 5 more turns. Similarly, a helper producing 7 shields will want to rush two more to add to the first 28, so that the 20 that remain will only take three more turns to build. Similar mini-rushes can save a turn here and there when producing caravans, and when all these saved turns are added together, a better landing date will result.

Once helpers have built enough caravans to finish Sir Isaac’s, which is usually the last wonder built in the SSC, they can shift to building harbors, colosseums and transports, while waiting for freights to become available. Any extra caravans produced by helpers after the discovery of Invention or Navigation, will not bring in much gold from trades. If 8 of these extra caravans happen to be around, they might be put to better use building Darwin’s, in order to speed up the discovery of Corporation.

Later in the game, when the trading of freights is in full swing, there will be enough income to rush freights in helper cities, but it’s probably best to do this in two turns, to avoid the penalties involved in rushing freights from scratch. Most helper citizens will now be best off working ocean tiles and trade specials, and you’ll want to add superhighways to maximize their trade arrows and to make 50% more on their trades. As more beakers are required to cover rising tech costs, the best helpers will add libraries and universities, too.

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2.1 Types of Cities Used and Their Roles (cont)


2.1.3 Colonies

Colonies are cities located on a different continent(s) than that of the SSC. Their main job is to build caravans and freights for trade with the SSC and its surrounding helpers. In the second half of the game, a system of alternating trade can be set up using ship chains. On the first turn of each pair, SSC and helper freights are shipped out to the colonies and AI cities located nearby. On the second turn, freights built by the colonies can be shipped back home. This system allows each helper and colony to build and deliver a freight every other turn.

The first colony or two should be started during early Republic, and the final two can be set up after the switch is made to Democracy. Since there will be a wide choice of possible colony sites, the criteria for selecting where it would be best to put them can be quite specific. Here is a list of things to consider, in order of importance:

a) Strategic locations, such as an isthmus separating two bodies of water can allow a colony to act as a shortcut to AI cities that are hard to reach. Plan colony placements in a way so that future freights coming from the SSC and helpers can be delivered to overseas AI targets in one turn by using ship chains, coastal cities and connecting railroads. Clustering colonies together can be a good idea, especially if connecting roads and railroads can be built in time to facilitate the shipment of freights.

b) Colonies should be located far enough away to ensure good payoffs for their freights which are sent home, but not so far that it will end up taking more than one turn to
complete these shipments. A distance of over 15 tiles from the SSC to the closest colony is far enough away. Probably no more than 4 or 5 transports should be required to bridge the distance between the colonies and a home port. The idea is to maximize the number of trades and not the size of the fleet that carries them.

c) Hopefully, a good strategic location can be found that is also rich in food and trade. Most colonies probably need food specials, in order to grow to size three in time to join all other colonies and helpers when they celebrate up to size 7 or 8. Access to trade specials help fulfill the primary purpose of colonies, which is building freights for trade. In the absence of trade specials, coastal helpers will do very well by building harbors and placing most citizens on ocean tiles.

d) Another important factor to consider for colonies, are the type of commodities they will be supplying and demanding. If you want to get the most out of their trades, it is worthwhile calculating the supply and demand wildcards of several potential sites, to identify those with commodities matching those that will appear in the SSC when the trading of freights is well underway. The most dedicated colonists may even want to work out the complete supply and demand lists, but the necessary calculations are extensive. A good estimate, based on terrain and grid coordinates, will probably suffice here. A one tile move in one direction or another can often make a big difference in commodity supplies and demands.

e) A good way of establishing colonies may be to bribe AI cities that already occupy suitable locations. This may be the best option for adding the final one or two colonies after the switch is made to Democracy. Inciting revolts is not that expensive, and can produce instant size three colonies without going to the bother of producing settlers and founding and developing them yourself. The number of suitable candidates for bribery may be limited, but this may be the only option if a size three colony is needed in a hurry.

f) Another idea to consider is shipping settlers who have been working at home to prime colony sites just before Explosives are acquired. The settlers can found and join new colonies, building them up to size three rapidly, while new engineers are produced in existing cities to replace the settlers previously used as terrain workers. Colonies founded during Democracy may not grow to size three quickly enough without getting such a quick boost in population.


2.1.4 Station City

The value of trade routes is boosted 50% each by road and rail connections between trading cities. However, if these connections are only made to an intervening station city along the “go to” route from one trading partner to the other, this is far enough to earn these ongoing bonuses. This is because game’s algorithm for determining the bonuses stops at the first city encountered without verifying the rest of the route. If the SSC can establish these bonuses with an AI city that is within 22 tiles on the same continent, the huge increase in trade route values can translate into a 25% increase in its beaker capacity. This is well worth doing.

In some games, a helper city may already have been founded along the “go to” route from the SSC to its AI trading partner. In that case, it can double as a station city as soon as it is connected by a road, and later by rail to the SSC. However, most helpers are founded before AI city locations have been discovered, making these coincidental and fortuitous helper placements unlikely. Usually, a station city has to be founded just outside of the SSC’s city radius to establish the connection along the proper route. Often this route is not at all obvious, so if there is any doubt, a good way to check it is to use the “go to” command, using a settler or another unit sitting in the SSC, and picking the AI trading partner as the destination of the “go to” order. The tile where this unit exits the SSC’s radius is where the station city should be founded.

A station city may also function as an additional helper city, but if there is a lack of suitable terrain, it may be more convenient to keep it at a minimal size, having the station start accumulating shields in an unused wonder, acting as the recipient of the “wonder bread” food freights that the SSC will be producing to unblock its supply commodities. Later, when Space Flight is discovered, a good part of the Apollo Program will have been completed by the station. This dual role is probably the most efficient way of using this special city type. One should note that the station need not be adjacent to the SSC, but proximity does allow quicker road and rail connections and may allow the station to serve more than one AI city. For those interested in more details or examples, here is a link to Samson’s thread on the topic:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=66560

Finally, if a station city is the last city founded, it can perform the additional function of a tech trigger city, which will be discussed next.


2.1.5 Tech Trigger City

When enough freights have been delivered to fulfill the beaker requirements of a tech being learned, the tech will still require 1 beaker from a city in order to trigger the advance. This beaker will come from the last city which was founded, since at the beginning of each turn when the game processes cities, it does so in order from last to first. If the last city founded is producing many beakers, all of these except one will be wasted whenever this triggering function is performed. Since a second advance may be possible from city science on turns where the first is provided by freights, available beakers can be used more efficiently by adding one more city to perform this tech triggering function.

Having a tech trigger city may become a necessity late in the game, when total city science barely exceeds mounting tech costs. It may be more efficient to quickly add a small trigger city than to continue adding scientific improvements to other cities. However, its addition to the game may bring the total number of cities over 10, causing some unhappiness in others, so doing this should be delayed until all other cities have finished celebrating to full size. A tech trigger city can also be used as a space ship contractor.


2.1.6 Space Ship Contractors

Before Space Flight is discovered an inventory of resources should be made to determine how quickly a ship can be built and how many components one can afford. A minimal space ship will need 15 structurals, 2 components and 3 modules. Ten cities are enough to build a minimal ship in two turns, since a total of 20 parts will be needed. If there are enough resources, faster ships may be built by adding 1 or 2 more sets of components. However, when 20 years separate each game turn, faster ships will not arrive any sooner, unless they can be built in the same number of turns as slower ones. It may be necessary to add one or two more cities as space ship contractors, so that there are enough cities to handle all of the space ships parts which will be needed.

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2.2 Dealing with the Artificial Intelligence (AI)


2.2.1 AI Diplomacy

The AI's attitude and actions towards the human player are largely determined by relative power ratings. Power ratings are computed by a mathematical formula based on the number of citizens, number of techs and amount of gold belonging to each civilization in the game. It is important to note that the number or quality of military units is NOT a part of this formula, and that the AI haven't a clue about the size of your military. The AI can not "see" city flags, either, to tell if there are any defenders waiting to repel their attacks. Their attitude towards you is shaped only by your power rating, your conduct towards them, and by specific game situations.

If the human player has a low power rating, the AI will be friendly, will often offer to trade techs, and will want to form alliances. If the human player's power rating is pathetic enough, the AI will become like doting grandparents, bestowing generous gifts whenever asked. OCC players often take advantage of this fact in their games, because their power rating is limited by having only one city. AI generosity reached surprising proportions in OCC games played with a limited number of citizens.

If the human player has a high power rating, the AI is apt to be more abrupt and demanding, but will cower and offer tribute when confronted with an immediate threat. In early landing games, a human player will become Supreme, but will lack the time to produce the military might needed to enforce his or her will. Since the AI will become petulant, it will be necessary to control their attitudes using technology gifts, in order to prevent wars and sneak attacks.

This policy of appeasement may go against the grain of players used to dealing more aggressively with the AI, but it works. It may be satisfying to intimidate the AI and prove that your knowledge of military tactics is superior, but doing this will delay your arrival on Alpha Centauri. Let the AI fight each other.


2.2.2 First Contact

If you still want to stand up to the AI, the first contact is the best time to refuse to give into their demands for tech or gold. If they have something useful to trade they are more likely to do this when relations are on the rebound after making peace, and a peace treaty is often possible on the very next turn! Since early wars are most often just a war of words, no damage will be done, and you will have eliminated the risk of being branded the spineless appeaser you intend to become until your space ship is launched.

Some exceptions to this general advice to start early wars are when the AI is an aggressive neighbor posing an immediate threat, or if you want to keep that caravan or other unit they can easily kill on their next turn. Use common sense and if in doubt, appease.

If the first contact is friendlier, there's no point in provoking a war. You're better off trading for a useful tech, gifting enough more to make them worshipful, and getting some more information about their cities by trading maps.


2.2.3 Trading Technology with the AI

Early in the game, the AI may help provide several techs through trade. Early ones that are almost always available from one or more AI are Pottery, Alphabet, Warrior Code, Horseback Riding, Bronze Working, Masonry and Ceremonial Burial, but the trick is meeting the AI with the tech(s) you need before having to learn it yourself. In our games, this becomes a problem due to a lack of NON horsemen and chariots which would usually be available for early exploration after being tipped from huts.

A good plan then, is to research techs on the path to those offering a better government and postponing research of others commonly available through trades. Another viable option is to research Trade quickly and to build Marco Polo's Embassy, which will probably result in your obtaining 5 or more techs from the AI than would have been possible without possession of this wonder.

If you are patient, techs such as Seafaring, Map Making, Mathematics, The Wheel, Iron Working, Currency, and Mysticism are often acquired by an AI in time to make trades. Later in the game, the AI will not be much help, only acquiring an odd tech here or there that is of use. Often these later techs come from huts normally tipped by the human player instead. By keeping track of techs being fed to one or more AI and postponing the gift of Invention, one can increase the chances of beneficial AI hut technology. A few techs such as Feudalism, Chivalry, and Conscription can be deferred for quite a while, and may actually be learned in time for trades by AI research.

One more way of acquiring an extra tech or two from the AI is to give them all Railroad when it is discovered. One or more will start building Darwin's Voyage, and when its imminent completion is announced, give all of your techs to the AI about to complete the wonder. This will produce two techs you can trade for later, and one or both might even be on the path towards Space Flight. When this happens, you'll be getting the full benefit of Darwin's without having to pay for its construction.

In our early landing games without huts, it might be of some benefit to delay meeting most of the AI. The vast majority of techs they are able to research will have been acquired by the time contact is established. Waiting will also give you time to obtain some leverage by establishing a bit of a tech lead, too. Once your tech gifts begin, it doesn't take many to substantially reduce their pace of research. In fact, once contact is made and tech gifts begin to the key civ, it can be counted on NOT to learn anything new for the rest of the game!

Once gifts begin, make sure each AI gets Republic and Democracy as soon as possible, as these governments allow them to become more peaceful and studious. Remember that Democracy is a prerequisite of Conscription, which is a tech an AI may have time to learn before you need it, yourself.

Of course, trade for off path techs should be deferred for as long as possible to reduce tech carrying costs. When one is offered by an AI for trade, it is most likely that they will not have anything better, so it's best to decline the offer. The acquisition of needed techs should also be deferred until their possession becomes more vital, unless a wonder tech, such as Astronomy, is available. Later on, you don't want to hear about AI "brilliant minds" building Copernicus and refusing to part with Astronomy.

Finally, tech gifts made to the AI are the best way to keep them peaceful and to prevent sneak attacks. Each AI session should end with enough gifts to make them worshipful and end with an exchange of maps to keep city information up to date.


2.2.4 Trading Commodities with the AI

In early landing games opportunities for acquiring gold are limited, especially in the earliest part of the game. Gold from huts is unavailable and the amount of gold available from the AI in the form of gifts and/or tribute is limited, too. Since the human player quickly becomes Supreme, this power rating will soon shut off gifts of gold from any alliances that can be formed. Although the Supreme rating increases the chances of extracting tribute, this can not be done as a Republic and later, as a Democracy. If the switch is not made to these higher forms of government when they become available, research will be delayed and so will any chances for a good landing date.

Luckily, caravans provide an excellent and reliable source of income. Delivery payments can vary considerably, but if most trades can be made to demanding AI cities on a different continent, you can take full advantage of the bonuses that are built into the payment system. Each caravan is a considerable investment at 50 shields, and since they take time to produce when they can not be rushed, it pays to use them to make these more profitable deliveries. An added bonus of higher payoffs is that foreign trade speeds up research considerably, since an amount of beakers equal to the gold payment received on each delivery will be counted towards the advance currently being researched.

Although internal trading of caravans is faster and will establish ongoing trade routes for your own cities more quickly, the cash payoffs (and beakers) obtained are minimal. Internal trade also blocks supply commodities more quickly, since a free one will be blocked in a city on the receiving end of a trade whenever a new route is established. The pool of available supply commodities will be reduced twice as fast.

Therefore two early priorities should be the discovery of Trade and the discovery of a nearby AI-infested continent. If this can be done quickly enough, the earliest trades may result in some 1 turn advances. Triremes can be used to ferry these early caravans to AI cities quickly, and tech gifts can keep a testy AI from hacking caravans to death before they are delivered. Deliveries should be timed to make the most out of the beakers that are earned, too. The best time to deliver is right after a new advance has been earned.

Later in the game, after freights have replaced caravans, will be a better time for some internal trading. Colonies will do well by trading with the SSC, and when superhighways are built, the trade bonuses provided by this improvement will end up canceling the same civ trading penalty. It is also later in the game that internal trades are needed to unblock supply commodities. Profitable trades with the AI will still continue, with the target of most trades being the most remote, but easily reachable, demanding city.


2.2.5 The Importance of the Key Civ

There is another important relationship with the AI that depends on power ratings, that affects the cost of techs being researched. For a long time players knew that if they gifted all their techs to one of the AI (known then as the "6th civ") they could reduce their own research costs. However, it mattered which AI civ received the gifts and things were further complicated by the fact that this special civ was not always the same one throughout a game. So most players ended up gifting techs to all of the AI all of the time, just to make sure that key civ was included. Samson's key civ discovery allowed players to easily identify the AI civ they needed to give their techs to in order to minimize research costs.

It turns out that every civ in a game, including the AI, have their own key civ. The key civ assigned to any player is based on that player's power rating, and the civ colors are used to determine who the key civs will be. Here is a summary:

Power Rating - Key civ color

Pathetic - white
Weak - green
Inadequate - dark blue
Moderate - yellow
Strong - light blue
Mighty - orange
Supreme - purple

For example, the human player rated as Supreme will use the purple civ as his or her key civ. Other civs in the game will have a different civ to key on, and which one it is depends on their own power rating. Key civ assignments can change whenever there is a change of power rating assignments, a frequent occurrence in Civ II games, especially in the early years. It is also possible for a civ to become its own key civ. In this case no research penalties or bonuses apply.

Anyways, the point of all this is that human players will want to gift all techs they acquire to their key civ, in order to reduce their own research costs, since the penalties for not doing so can be quite substantial. In early landing games, the human player is likely to become rated as Supreme, so it's important to find the purple civ quickly and gift to them any and all techs that are acquired.

Since each AI has a key civ of its own, the human player can influence their rates of research somewhat by presenting gifts to key civ's of the AI they want to help and by presenting gifts to any AI civs they wish to slow down. Doing this may help certain AI acquire a tech you may want to trade for. The most can be made of these opportunities if embassies have been established or if Marco Polo's has been built, so that tech research choices can be monitored.

Finally, you can find out what your own power rating is by invoking the Foreign Minister option, where your power and reputation will be displayed. AI power ratings can be surmised when they are contacted by counting the weapons on the left side of their diplomacy screens. No weapons means pathetic, one weapon means weak, and so on up to the higher ratings.


2.2.6 Space Flight and AI Attitudes

The discovery of Space Flight can have an adverse affect on AI attitudes. Previous to this, their attitudes could be monitored and shored up, whenever necessary, by presenting tech gifts. However, the AI attitudes displayed by the Foreign Advisor mean little at this point, but it's still nice to know that sneak attacks and other treachery can still be delayed by gifting tech in a timely way. One must be especially vigilant with cities neighboring the AI, such as colonies, so that they can build their space ship parts without any nasty interruptions. As with all other AI contact, spend what you can before ringing them up to give away techs, for it's likely they'll be wanting some gold, too. Appease one more time, to buy time to for your launch.

After you launch, the AI will go bonkers, but as long as your capital and SSC are quickly protected, it doesn't matter. While waiting for the space ship to arrive, there will be plenty of time to build some nifty weapons and join in on all the mayhem and fun.


2.2.7 Dealing with Barbarians

Since AI behavior can be controlled with tech gifts, the only reason for protecting cities is to repel barbarian attacks. The best way to do this is with a diplomat, which can be used to bribe one attacker and use it to kill off the other. If cities are defended with phalanxes and the like, this will use up precious shields during Republic and Democracy, and building up such bulletproof defenses will take time and resources away from the primary task of making an early landing. Players more used to conquest games may not feel comfortable playing with defenseless cities, but some chances must be taken. Barbarians usually signal their arrival well in advance, anyways. This gives you time to decide how to deal with them.

The worst that barbarians can do is capture the SSC, so if any defenders are built, they might as well all be stationed there. However, the SSC is really only vulnerable during the early years, when there may not be enough gold or any diplomats around to spend it. One can survive the loss of a helper or colony, and its better not to spend all kinds of resources defending one that is threatened. If considered precious, a captured city can be repurchased later with a bribe, and before that, it might even become a good trading partner or a source of cheap NON units.

If you are lucky, barb leaders may provide extra gold. Diplomats can bribe cheap barb units such as horsemen, which may end up paying for themselves by capturing a leader. Triremes that are exploring or delivering caravans often can pick off barb leaders rebounding to coastal tiles after unsuccessful attacks against AI cities. Although always welcome, this source of income is so unpredictable, it's better to depend on a better one such as trade.

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2.3 Wonders used in ELG

Various wonders are commonly used in Early Landing Games. Some are necessary for a decent result and others may fit a particular game situation or individual strategy. Only wonders that may be of some real use will be discussed below. One may make some arguments for including others such as the Pyramids, Magellan’s, the Oracle, etc., in this list, but in a successful game there will probably not be enough time to build any of these, in addition to all of the ones that are essential.


2.3.1 Apollo Program

The Apollo Program is a requirement to build space ship parts, so there is not much else to say about it, except that shields used to produce it may be accumulated in another wonder while awaiting the discovery of Space Flight. Players making use of the “wonder bread” ploy will want to be doing this, but in games where this unblocking technique will not be used, it still might be a good idea to get an early start on Apollo, since this wonder is expensive and building it gradually will provide more resources later when space ship parts have to be built quickly.


2.3.2 Colossus

The Colossus wonder is a good one to add to the SSC, since it provides the city with many additional trade arrows, increasing SSC income and beaker capacity. When added early enough, the extra trade provided will reduce the percentage of luxuries needed to start and maintain “we love” celebrations used for SSC growth. Another good reason for building the Colossus early is because if you don’t, one of the AI may beat you to it, since most will have knowledge of Bronze Working early on.

Although very beneficial, having the Colossus in the SSC is not essential. If the SSC site has good trade specials and some rivers, it can get along quite well without this wonder. It could be that a helper or colony site will be found having some trade specials as good, if not better, than those in the SSC. With the addition of the Colossus and other city improvements, this other city may become a mini-SSC in its own right, adding significant amounts of income and research capacity.

There may also be some good reasons for not building this wonder at all, the main one being that its benefits expire with the discovery of Flight. While it’s true that Flight can be postponed for a long time to avoid this loss of trade arrows, it’s necessary to acquire quite a few off path techs to take this route through the tech tree.

In some games, it’s possible that airports will work better than ship chains for conducting trade between the colonies and the home cities. Since the Radio and Flight techs are needed before airports can be built, a player planning to use airports will research Flight as early as possible, and may decide to skip building the Colossus for this reason. Although such a strategy may suit small map games better than the ones we play on medium maps, it should be noted that it was used with much success in Samson’s record 16 AD game.


2.3.3 Copernicus’s Observatory

Copernicus’s Observatory is an essential SSC wonder. While all other scientific improvements and wonders only increase SSC science by 50%, Copernicus stands alone, since it doubles SSC beakers. If Copernicus is not added to the SSC, it will only be half as effective for research.


2.3.4 Darwin’s Voyage

Since the discovery of Railroad decreases caravan payoffs by 1/3 and allows the construction of Darwin’s Voyage, this might be a smart thing to do if there are a bunch of caravans still sitting around. Darwin’s will help speed the way to Corporation, just when such a boost in research is most useful. An argument against building Darwin’s is that it is quite costly and there are probably better things for helper cities to be building than caravans, after they have helped complete SSC wonders. If an advance per turn can be maintained until freights are available, Darwin’s can be skipped without losing much time. If Railroad is gifted to all of the AI, one or more of them will start building this wonder. Gifting all techs to a civ about to complete Darwin’s may allow you to reap its benefits without having to pay its costs.


2.3.5 Hanging Gardens

The Hanging Gardens is so well suited to the early game, that investing in it may prove to be well worth while. It certainly simplifies early SSC celebrations and may allow helpers and colonies to grow to size 5 or 6 much earlier in the game. Since size 5 allows “Xinning”, a strategy developed by Xin Yu making extensive use of scientists, research may get a very welcome boost while the SSC continues to grow and develop. (For more details, please consult Xin Yu’s Five Size Strategy in the Great Library).

The main problem with the Hanging Gardens is that it expires when Railroad is discovered, which is fairly early in the game. This can be a difficult transition at a time when funds may not be too plentiful. Many players may end up having to use some entertainers and/or luxuries to keep extra citizens happy until the happiness problem can be solved in a more permanent way.

Another problem with the Hanging Gardens is that it requires the knowledge of Pottery, an off path tech. Pottery also triples the chances of your cities being suppliers of salt, which will probably not be the commodity of choice when trading freights later in the game.

A final argument against building the Hanging Gardens is that when used, it is usually the first wonder built. Using early resources on this wonder may delay the construction of others that are more essential, such as Copernicus.


2.3.6 Sir Isaac Newton’s College

This wonder is much less effective than Copernicus, so it may seem unfair that it costs 100 more shields to build Sir Isaac Newton’s College. However, Newton’s College is just as essential, because it is the combination of having all scientific improvements and wonders in one place, that allows the SSC to live up to its name. Because it costs so much, build it last, but still add it as quickly as you can.

Players should also realize that Newton’s is ineffective unless there are scientific improvements such as libraries and universities already in place, so make sure these are built before completing this wonder. When Newton’s is added, it improves these improvements by 50%. In contrast, Copernicus doubles a city’s beakers under all conditions.


2.3.7 Leonardo’s Workshop

If there are a lot of caravans, small ships, settlers, and military units hanging around when Invention is discovered, it might be most efficient to build Leonardo’s Workshop. However, this wonder will be of most benefit to poor planners or to those who are just not comfortable using a strategy of AI appeasement. It could be that aggressive players may be compensated by collecting enough tribute, but each non-essential wonder that is built leaves fewer resources that might have come in handy later when there is rush to build a space ship.

Spare caravans can be used for another wonder such as Darwin’s, or may start pre-building Apollo. New ships can be half way built by disbanding old ones. Spare settlers may found new cities, join existing ones, or be disbanded to speed engineer builds. If you have a lot of military units, ask yourself why? So, before building Leo’s consider whether its cost justifies the instant upgrades it may provide. I doubt it, but that’s just my opinion.


2.3.8 Marco Polo’s Embassy

Without huts that produce fast explorers, it may take a long time to contact the AI in Early Landing games. This wonder can be built when Trade is discovered, and since Trade is as much an early priority as AI contact, Marco Polo’s may be the best wonder to build first. Those who build it will probably average 5 or more useful tech trades with the AI, than those who don’t. A big advantage provided by this wonder is the knowledge of the techs currently being researched by each AI. This allows precise gifting of techs, which increases the odds that some useful ones will be learned in time for trades later in the game.

There are some good reasons for not building Marco Polo’s. One is that Map Making permits triremes and Writing permits diplomats, and that this combination is a good one to use for contacting the AI quickly. Trade is usually discovered a bit later, and by this time some contacts may have already been established. Also consider that an embassy with each civ is probably not needed, and that diplomats can establish embassies with civs judged to be good researchers, and that embassies created with diplomats do not expire with the discovery of Communism.

Since the resources needed to build Marco Polo’s may be put to better use, and its main benefit is the immediacy of contact it provides with all the AI, it may be best to only build this wonder in games where there has been early difficulty in locating the AI, or in games where the key civ’s location remains elusive. If two or three civs have already been found by the time Trade is discovered, it’s probably not worth building MPE.


2.3.9 Michaelangelo’s Chapel

This is the best wonder for controlling happiness, but two off path techs must be acquired in order to build it. This may be worth doing in games where the SSC location is weak and when it might be beneficial to add more cities than are usual in early landing games. If the total number of cities does not exceed 10, it is probably better to use colosseums, so that Polytheism and Monotheism can be bypassed. Colosseums are easy to rush and maintain if helpers and colonies wait until after freights are in the game before beginning their own growth.

If the AI are able to research the techs needed for Michaelangelo’s in time, trading for Monotheism might be a good idea, since building this wonder would use fewer resources. Players starting off the game with the Hanging Gardens are apt to need Michaelangelo’s later, when Railroad is discovered.


2.3.10 SETI Program

Usually the only city that will need a research lab is the SSC. By the time this wonder is available, there is not that much more research that has to be done, and there probably will not be enough resources on hand to build the SETI Program and still be able to build a fast ship quickly. SETI is probably for those games where the SSC is quite weak and where all helpers and colonies already have libraries and universities, and when there is more cash around than is needed.


2.3.11 Shakespeare’s Theater

This is the wonder that makes the SSC work so efficiently. The main advantage is that Shakespeare’s allows the research slider to be set at 100% during Democracy, something that has to be done frequently in the second half of the game. The other big advantage is that triremes, caravels and other military units can be homed to the SSC once Shakespeare’s has been built, eliminating happiness problems during Republic and Democracy.

Almost every SSC will need Shakespeare’s Theater, but in games where SSC site has poor terrain accompanying its four great trade specials, the SSC population may be limited, and it may be more efficient to control its happiness in another way. So let’s call ST almost always essential.

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2.4 Governments used in ELG


2.4.1 Anarchy

Anarchy is actually lack of government, and for a long time players had to endure unpredictable durations of it when changing government types. Then Oedo discovered that the length of Anarchy was governed by a simple 4 year cycle. Ever since, the year of 3850 BC, and every fourth year that followed during any game became known as “Oedo years”, and players were able to minimize Anarchy by starting revolutions on the turns preceding these years.

It wasn’t long before players added another refinement of timing the discovery of techs like Republic and Democracy, so that these discoveries would coincide with Oedo years, since this eliminated Anarchy altogether, saving a turn of research. However, when doing this, the switch of governments had to be made immediately after discovering the tech for the new government type. Waiting until later on that same turn to make the switch did not work.

Once knowledge of Oedo years was widespread and tables of these years compiled, they could be consulted whenever a new government type was discovered. Since odds were best this would happen on bad turns for starting revolutions, players had to make a mental note of when to begin a revolution and then would usually be distracted by other things and end up forgetting to do this! In one OCC game, I cruised along in Despotism for about 25 turns before realizing I had forgotten to switch to Monarchy, but the game had been so interesting, I hadn’t even noticed.

Though generally scorned, Anarchy may have a limited use for players with a high power rating, who are currently using Republic or Democracy. If some extra gold is desperately needed, a one turn revolution will provide the opportunity to demand some tribute from the AI. Another good time for trying this is when the switch is made up to Democracy from Republic.

Below is a table listing Oedo years at the deity level. Every sixteenth turn is highlighted for two reasons.

1) The first time barbarians spontaneously appear in the game is in 3250 BC, the sixteenth turn of the game. Following that, they are spawned like clockwork, every sixteen turns, appearing on a ship at a random location on an ocean tile. Barbarians can also appear spontaneously on other Oedo years.

2) 3250 BC is also the first cycle turn of the first city created in the game. City cycle turns are when their commodity supply and demand lists are automatically updated and these will be discussed in more detail in the section about trade.

BC Oedo years

3850, 3650, 3450, 3250,
3050, 2850, 2650, 2450,
2250, 2050, 1850, 1650,
1450, 1250, 1050, 925,
825, 725, 625, 525,
425, 325, 225, 125,
25,

AD Oedo years

60, 140, 220,
300, 380, 460, 540,
620, 700, 780, 860,
940, 1020, 1100, 1180,
1260, 1340, 1420, 1500,
1540, 1580, 1620, 1660,
1700, 1740, 1756, 1764,
1772, 1780, 1788, 1796,
1804, 1812, 1820, 1828,
1836, 1844, 1851, 1855,
1859, 1863, 1867, 1871,
1875, 1879, 1883, 1887,
1891, 1895, 1899, 1903,
1907, 1911, 1915, 1919,
1923, 1927, 1931, 1935,
1939, 1943, 1947, 1951, etc.

Remember that the worse time to declare a revolution is during an Oedo year. It’s the turn before that you want to do this, so that the following Oedo year can be used to make the switch in governments.


2.4.2 Despotism

Despotism is the worst government type, which is the reason why players try to acquire Monarchy or Republic as soon as possible. Need more be said?


2.4.3 Monarchy

For many players the discovery of Monarchy is the first priority in the game. Monarchy can be researched quickly, and it is well suited for small cities, since it’s easier to maintain units and because martial law can be used to enforce happiness. Monarchy also allows one to demand tribute, an option not available under Republic or Democracy. Without huts, sources of early income are so limited that this benefit of Monarchy may be enough in itself to decide to go with it until trade gets underway, or even until Republic is needed for we love celebrations.

A disadvantage of Monarchy, is that it lacks the extra trade arrows available under Republic and Democracy, resulting in a slower rate of research and lower profits from early trades. A slower research rate may not end up being a bad thing, since this allows the AI more time to learn techs that one can trade for, but taking this approach entails the assumption that one will benefit from some good luck.

An advantage of skipping Monarchy is that the carrying costs of another off path tech can be delayed. In fact, chances are good that an AI may discover Feudalism in time for a trade, making it possible to complete a game without ever having to acquire Monarchy.


2.4.4 Republic

Research speed is so much faster in Republic than in Monarchy, it is often a good idea to bypass Monarchy in order to get to Republic a bit sooner. It does take a few more turns to get to this government, since Writing and Literacy are pre-requisites, but the carrying costs of Monarchy, and the delay in researching that tech can be avoided by going straight for Republic. Another advantage of making an early switch to Republic is that two more cities may be added without inducing any extra unhappiness. This will allow one to get a jump on founding some colonies, with the idea of adding two of them during early Republic. Finally, if Republic is given to the AI right after it is discovered, most will make the shift, become more peaceful, and start learning new techs twice as fast.

Although Republic is not well suited for tiny empires having small cities, various accommodations can be made to make things easier to manage. Temples in all cities need to be an early priority, so that when Republic is available, city happiness can be controlled without using any luxuries. There should be enough time to get these temples in place. Another requirement for playing early Republic with success, is realizing that tech gifts can be used to control AI attitudes and prevent their sneak attacks. Therefore only a few diplomats will be needed to guard against barbarians, the only real threat. After the switch to Republic is made, very few (or even no) city shields should be wasted supporting military units. Another requirement for early Republic is to locate enough cities in areas having enough food to support the needs of settlers working on roads and other jobs. Finally, the early use of Republic entails a commitment to set up for and to do a lot of early trading, since delivery payoffs will become the main (and possibly only) source of income.

There can be some good reasons for not going to Republic early. Small cities can grow larger without luxuries and may contribute more towards the overall cause during a prolonged stay in Monarchy. Much depends on available resources and specials. If Republic can be delayed, techs such as Writing and Literacy may be learned by the AI in time to make trades for them, avoiding duplication of research during the part of the game when the AI are still able to learn techs at a reasonable speed. One may become lucky, taking advantage of other techs the AI happen to tip from huts. Although speedy human research is vital later on, purposely going a bit slower early on may even result in netting more techs than were possible in early Republic.

Don’t count on so much good fortune, though. In most cases, better progress through the tech tree will result by using early Republic. Most important to remember is that the situation presented in each game is unique. Success will be more likely when strategies are flexible enough to adapt to specific situations. Forcing a situation to conform to a favorite strategy may be a recipe for failure.


2.4.5 Democracy

It’s obvious that Democracy is the best form of government. Income improves and the science slider can be set to 100% when needed for those 1 turn advances. This is the main reason why the total number of cities has been limited and why helpers and colonies have been kept at size three. It’s important NOT to be using any luxuries to control happiness, in order to allow this 100% science setting. When 100% science is not needed, more gold always is, and under Democracy, an SSC with all economic improvements can start to contribute considerable income through taxes.

Democracy is so much better than Republic that the shift in governments should be made as soon as possible. SSC growth and development is usually almost complete by the time Democracy becomes available, and if the switch can be made early enough, the SSC will have enough science to sustain 1 turn advances for a number of turns. With the help of SSC caravans, this pace of research can often be maintained until freights become available. Democracy should be gifted to all of the AI. Many will shift to it and become even more agreeable and one or more may be able to research Conscription in time for a trade.

The only problem with Democracy is that any triremes or caravels not homed to the SSC must do so or be disbanded. Good planners will think of doing this when opportunities arise earlier in the game. Going to Magnetism before Democracy to allow galleons will probably delay the benefits of being in Democracy too long. Since trade comes almost to a standstill during the Renaissance, the only good thing about this age is Democracy, which helps speed the way to Industrialization and Corporation. Since Democracy allows two more cities, they should be added soon, so they can get to size three in time for the helper and colony celebrations.


2.4.6 Communism and Fundamentalism

After a space ship is launched, it may be more convenient to switch to Communism or Fundamentalism, in order to mix it up with the AI. These governments allow more freedom to express aggressive impulses and to unleash any latent hostility felt towards any or all of the AI. Doing this may relieve the boredom of waiting for the space ship to arrive.

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2.5 Acquiring Technology

Acquiring technology quickly is the name of the early landing game. Trading with the AI is the quickest way to acquire new techs, and gifting techs to one’s key civ, as detailed in section 2.2.5, is the best way of keep tech costs at a minimum. However, an understanding of the basics underlying technology costs is essential, as well as knowing how to chart an optimal path through the tech tree. These topics, as well as some specific techniques and tips used to speed up research, will be discussed here.


2.5.1 Science Beakers

Science beakers are used to acquire technology and the cost of each new tech can be precisely stated as a number of beakers. There are two ways of finding out how many beakers are needed for the advance currently being researched.

One way is by temporarily setting the science slider all the way to zero per cent in the Tax Rate Menu. The number of turns displayed for “Discoveries:” will be the same as the number of beakers needed. To avoid an inaccurate reading, make sure none of the specialists in any of your cities are being used as scientists when checking a tech cost this way. Any scientists should be taken off duty temporarily, before the Tax Menu method is used to get beaker amounts.

The other way of determining beaker costs is by calculating them directly, using Samson’s formula. Full details on how this is done are in his “Cost of Research Explained” thread. Here is the link:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...&threadid=2672

It is well worth knowing how tech costs are calculated, because it is often useful to know how much more future techs will cost than the one being researched at the moment. The thread also explains how your research costs are affected by your key civ and by starting techs. Although the human player in early landing games will not receive any free starting techs, it’s possible that AI civs may get some, and one of these may be your key civ.

Tech costs constantly climb higher as the game progresses. The first tech only costs 10 beakers, but ones towards the end of an early landing game can cost up to 2000 beakers or more. For the first 19 techs that are learned, the average increase for each new tech is about 15 beakers. The 20th tech is an important threshold, because it will cost about 200 more beakers than the 19th, making this a major one-time jump in costs. After that you’ll average 26 beakers more for each new tech. This major shift upwards in beaker costs that begins with the 20th tech means that the first 19 you choose to acquire should include each early one you consider to be vital. Remember that any techs acquired through trades with the AI count as part of these 19.


2.5.2 Technology Carrying Costs

In early landing games, there is no such thing as a free tech. It is true that any tech from a trade with the AI is acquired immediately, but every tech added to the total ends up costing you about 26 beakers more for EVERY advance researched afterwards. It pays to be very selective when acquiring new techs, so that research costs can be kept low for as long as possible. Remember that once you possess a tech, it may become like an incurable disease because you can never get rid of it. Ideally, no tech should be acquired until it becomes vital.

It is often possible to skip over many techs while playing a game and to benefit by avoiding their carrying costs. For example, if an AI is able to learn Seafaring, we can trade for it and can bypass Pottery entirely. If the AI are able to learn one or more of the techs along the military part of the tech path, such as Feudalism or Chivalry, we are relieved of the need to acquire techs like Warrior Code. If only 4 techs can be bypassed in this way, over 100 beakers can be trimmed off the cost of each new tech.

To get a proper perspective on this, consider that 100 beakers are at least 1/12th of what a good SSC will produce. A good helper or colony needs all of the scientific improvements to have a chance of producing this many beakers. It’s much easier to limit carrying costs in the first place by avoiding unneeded techs, than to try and make up for having them later on in the game by adding more science. In the second half of the game, there will be many more chances of earning an advance per turn if carrying costs have been minimized as much as possible by avoiding unnecessary techs.

Extra carrying costs may also be incurred by making detours through off path techs such as Theology or Monotheism in order to build a wonder such as Michaelangelo’s Chapel. Is the detour made to build this wonder worth the carrying costs of these extra techs?

Carrying costs impact the AI civs much more than the human player because they are such lousy researchers. It also pays to be selective in the techs which are gifted to them, so that they have a better chance of learning useful techs you can trade for later.


2.5.3 Research Choices

Whenever a tech is learned a new tech list is presented, from which the next tech to be researched must be chosen. Sometimes none of the techs on the list are along the early landing path. All players already know from experience that these research lists do not include all of the techs they have the pre-requisites for. These omissions are explained by Oedo’s discovery that all of the Civ II techs have been split into three arbitrary groups, and that all eligible techs from one of these groups will be omitted each time a list of choices is presented.

These three tech groups can be identified by the numbers 0, 1 and 2. Oedo discovered that techs belonging to group 0 will not appear in first list presented at the beginning of the game. The second list will omit techs belonging to group 1. The third list will not contain any techs from group 2. Subsequent lists will repeat this sequence for as long as the game lasts.

There is an exception to this general rule above. Oedo also discovered that the first tech on each list could belong to any of the three groups, so he called this first tech a “joker” tech. For example, even though the Alphabet tech is in group 0, it does appear at the top of the very first list, whose other members must come from groups 1 or 2. Therefore Alphabet was the “joker” tech on the first list.

Since techs are always presented in alphabetical order, the joker tech always ends up being the eligible one that is closest to the beginning of the alphabet. For example, after Alphabet has been researched, it no longer appears on research lists and will be replaced by a new joker tech, such as Bronze Working. Other techs starting with letters near the beginning of the alphabet, such as Automobile, Atomic Theory and Banking, commonly appear as joker techs. Joker techs are used a programming safeguard, to ensure that each research list will contain at least one tech to pick from.

Another important thing to realize about these research lists is that the sequence of their appearance can be interrupted whenever a tech is acquired from a trade, a hut, or by any other means, such as the extra one that can come with Philosophy. For example, an uninterrupted sequence of tech lists would be 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, etc., with the number representing the group number of techs being omitted. But suppose that one trades for a tech while learning another that came from the first list that omits group 0. Once research is complete, the new list of choices will omit techs belonging to group 2. The trade caused the list omitting group 1 techs to be skipped. Here the sequence of tech lists would be 0, 2, before resuming in normal sequence with 0, 1, 2, etc. Now suppose that one trades for 2 techs while learning another that came from the first list that omits group 0. Doing this will make the game skip the next two lists that were expected, the ones omitting techs from groups 1 and 2. In this case, the sequence would be 0, 0, 1, 2, etc. Finally, suppose that one trades for the same tech that is being researched. In this case, the normal sequence will not be interrupted.

A handy way of finding out the group number of the techs that will be omitted in the next list is to total up the number of techs acquired so far during the game. (This total must NOT include any free techs that came with the start). Add 1 to this amount to include the tech currently being researched. Then divide this total by 3. If there is no remainder after this division, then the next tech list will be the one omitting group 0 techs. If the remainder is 1, then group 1 techs will be the ones omitted, and finally, if the remainder is 2, it will be the group 2 techs, instead. For example, suppose that a tech has just been learned. If 3 techs are known already, it will be the 4th one that has been acquired. When 4 is divided by 3, the remainder is 1. This means that techs from group 1 will not appear on the next list of choices.

Here is a list of all the techs used in the game, with each one identified by its group number:

2 Advanced Flight,
0 Alphabet,
1 Amphibious Warfare,
2 Astronomy,
0 Atomic Theory,
1 Automobile,
2 Banking,
0 Bridge Building,
1 Bronze Working,
2 Ceremonial Burial,
0 Chemistry,
1 Chivalry,
2 Code of Laws,
0 Combined Arms,
1 Combustion,
2 Communism,
0 Computers,
1 Conscription,
2 Construction,
0 The Corporation,
1 Currency,
2 Democracy,
0 Economics,
1 Electricity,
2 Electronics,
0 Engineering,
1 Environmentalism,
2 Espionage,
0 Explosives,
1 Feudalism,
2 Flight,
0 Fundamentalism,
1 Fusion Power,
2 Genetic Engineering,
0 Guerrilla Warfare,
1 Gunpowder,
2 Horseback Riding,
0 Industrialization,
1 Invention,
2 Iron Working,
0 Labor Union,
1 The Laser,
2 Leadership,
0 Literacy,
1 Machine Tools,
2 Magnetism,
0 Map Making,
1 Masonry,
2 Mass Production,
0 Mathematics,
1 Medicine,
2 Metallurgy,
0 Miniaturization,
1 Mobile Warfare,
2 Monarchy,
0 Monotheism,
1 Mysticism,
2 Navigation,
0 Nuclear Fission,
1 Nuclear Power,
2 Philosophy,
0 Physics,
1 Plastics,
2 Plumbing, (just ignore Plumbing, which was dropped from the game)
0 Polytheism,
1 Pottery,
2 Radio,
0 Railroad,
1 Recycling,
2 Refining,
0 Refrigeration,
1 The Republic,
2 Robotics,
0 Rocketry,
1 Sanitation,
2 Seafaring,
0 Space Flight,
1 Stealth,
2 Steam Engine,
0 Steel,
1 Superconductor,
2 Tactics,
0 Theology,
1 Theory of Gravity,
2 Trade,
0 University,
1 Warrior Code,
2 The Wheel,
0 Writing

Now let’s use an example from a game to see how this all works. After founding a capital, the first list of research choices is presented:

0 Alphabet
1 Bronze Working
2 Ceremonial Burial
2 Horseback Riding
1 Masonry
1 Pottery
1 Warrior Code

Notice that only techs from groups 1 and 2 are included in the list, and that all group 0 techs are omitted except for Alphabet, which is the joker tech. In this game, Alphabet was chosen to research first, and after it was learned, the following list was presented:

1 Bronze Working
2 Ceremonial Burial
2 Code of Laws
2 Horseback Riding
0 Map Making
0 Writing

Since the total number of techs now is 1, the remainder after dividing this total by 3 is 1, which means techs in group 1 have been omitted from this list, with the exception of Bronze Working, the new joker replacing Alphabet. Suppose Code of Laws is chosen from this list. After it is learned the next list will be:

1 Bronze Working
0 Map Making
1 Masonry
1 Pottery
1 Warrior Code
0 Writing

A total of two techs have been acquired, Alphabet and Code of Laws, and when this total is divided by 3, the remainder is 2. This means none of the group 2 techs will appear in this list, and none of them do. Bronze Working is still the joker tech, and this time it happens to be in one of the groups that were included in this list.

Many players are used to starting off their games in this sequence, and would rather that the third list included Ceremonial Burial, allowing them to research Monarchy a bit sooner. Many are also aware, that if a tech is acquired from a hut or by trade while researching Code of Laws, the third list of choices will be different. Let’s suppose that this actually did happen in this game, and that Horseback Riding was acquired from an AI while researching Code of Laws. In that case, when Code of Laws is learned, the tech total will be 3, instead of 2, and when this total is divided by 3, there is no remainder. Sure enough, the third list will be different:

1 Bronze Working
2 Ceremonial Burial
1 Masonry
1 Pottery
1 Warrior Code
2 Wheel

As expected, no group 0 techs appeared, and Ceremonial Burial can be researched immediately, so it is chosen. After it is learned, the new tech total will be 4, which when divided by 3, gives a remainder of 1. The next list will be:

1 Bronze Working
0 Map Making
2 Monarchy
0 Polytheism
2 Wheel
0 Writing

Only group 0 and 2 techs appear, except for the joker tech, Bronze Working. Now Monarchy can be chosen for research earlier than usual. The tech trade that was made while researching Code of Laws changed the sequence of research lists, allowing the research of three group 2 techs in a row.

Hopefully this example will demonstrate how important the timing of tech trades can be, since they can be used to hasten the appearance of desired techs on research lists. If trades are made without understanding the consequences, one’s progress towards desired techs will often be delayed, instead.

Once understood, this technique is quite simple and becomes very useful throughout an early landing game. One can keep research lists along the track towards desirable techs. This information can be used to predict tech lists well into the future, allowing one to plan and predict the order of tech acquisitions without having to learn more unwanted techs than is necessary.

A good way of keeping track of tech totals while playing an early landing game is to keep a running count of your tech total. As each tech is acquired, I’ll write the new tech total next to it in my game log. This total has other uses, too, such as telling me when I’m nearing the 20th and 32nd tech barriers, which are important milestones.

For those not wanting to keep track of tech totals and who don’t mind marking up their tech tree posters, there is another simple way of predicting the next list of tech choices. Using the list above, you can write down the group number of each tech somewhere inside its box on your tech tree poster. Whenever a list of research choices is presented during a game, check to see which group of techs has been omitted. If there are not any group 0 techs on the list, then group 1 techs will not be on the next list. If group 1 techs are missing now, group 2 techs will not appear next, and finally, if group 2 techs have been omitted, group 0 techs will be absent next time.

Here is an example from one of my own games. The list below was presented to me right after I discovered Space Flight:

1 Amphibious Warfare
2 Communism
2 Genetic Engineering
1 Mobile Warfare
2 Monarchy
1 Plastics
1 Recycling
2 The Wheel

I wanted to research Plastics next so I chose it, but I also noticed that group 1 techs would be omitted from the next list because none of the group 0 techs were appearing on this one. I also knew, by looking at the group numbers on my tech chart, that the two remaining techs I wanted to research, Super Conductor and Fusion Power were both in group 1. Since I wanted to skip this group when the next research list was presented, I traded for The Wheel during this turn. This trade allowed me to pick Super Conductor from the next list, and Fusion Power from the one that followed. I was able to avoid learning an off path tech I didn’t want by timing this tech trade correctly.

[solo]

2.5 Acquiring Technology (cont)


2.5.4 Research Priorities

Research priorities should be fairly obvious, and mostly depend on the unique situation presented by each game. For example, if we have a game where we start off on a small island, almost every Civ II player will announce how important a strategic decision it was to research Map Making quickly! Need more be said?


2.5.5 Scientific Improvements and Wonders

The SSC deserves all scientific improvements and wonders, so add them quickly. As noted earlier, Isaac Newton’s College is useless unless there is at least a library in place, and since it costs the most, too, it should be added dead last. Copernicus doubles city science whenever it is built, so this wonder can never be added quickly enough in order to give that SSC its first good boost in beakers. Once all scientific improvements and wonders are in place in an SSC, its beaker output in Democracy at 100% science will be 8 times the number of trade arrows being produced. It’s this cumulative effect of scientific improvements and wonders that make SSC science so powerful.

As tech costs mount later in the game, it will be necessary to add scientific improvements to some helpers and colonies. When doing this, pick the ones with the most trade arrows and finish off improvements in one city first, before moving on to the next. Since exact tech costs can be determined, don’t overdo these improvements by supplying more beakers than are needed for timely advances. It’s easy to get carried away with researching quickly and then finding out later that you have to scrounge around for resources a few extra turns in order to build a space ship. When research is no longer the priority, sell off helper and colony scientific improvements, making sure there are enough turns left before the launch to sell them all.


2.5.6 Using Scientists

Scientists can add a surprising amount of beakers to the total produced by an SSC. After all scientific improvements and wonders are in place, a scientist adds as much science as any citizen working an ocean tile, since each scientist will be producing 24 beakers. Because of this, the food potential of an SSC should be maximized before it celebrates up to its final size. For example, irrigate SSC wheat tiles to get maximum SSC growth first. This gains a few more citizens before the wheat is converted to silk to increase trade arrows. SSC sites with excellent food specials can reach sizes well above 30 citizens. Lots of grassland in the SSC site may make Refrigeration a useful early landing tech. A huge SSC population is almost like getting two super science cities for the price of one.

It’s a good idea to be aware of the beaker capacity of scientists under different circumstances, so here is a summary:

Your basic scientist – 3 beakers
Add a library – 4 beakers
Add a university – 6 beakers
Add a research lab – 7 beakers

Now if Newton’s College is in the city
plus a library – 6 beakers
plus a university – 9 beakers
plus a research lab – 12 beakers

Now if Copernicus is in the city, double ALL of the amounts above.

One neat thing about scientists is that when they are done thinking, they can be recruited immediately as tax men. The IRS will add significant amounts to the treasury if the SSC’s owner has remembered to give the city a marketplace, bank and stock exchange.


2.5.7 Commodity Delivery Beakers

Each time a commodity is delivered the payoff in gold is matched by as many beakers, which are credited towards the tech currently being researched. This means trade can become a major contributor in the quest to acquire techs as quickly as possible. It’s important to realize that if a trade produces more beakers than are needed to complete the advance currently being researched, any extra beakers will NOT be carried over and will not be applied towards the next tech chosen for research. This means that it is usually not a good idea to deliver a commodity when a tech discovery is imminent, since many of the delivery beakers will be wasted.

In the earliest part of the game, caravan deliveries are the only way of getting one turn advances. If caravans could be produced and delivered quickly enough, it would probably be most effective to use them only for trades and to use the cash payoffs to help build the improvements and wonders needed in the SSC. In any event, caravans delivered to demanding AI cities on other continents will be a better source of beakers than city science for quite some time, so it pays to trade as many caravans as possible before payoffs and beakers are cut by the discovery of Invention or Navigation, and cut again later by the discovery of Railroad.

When freights appear trade can resume with a vengeance, since transports and railroads allow them to be delivered very quickly. Freight deliveries will provide half of the science and most of the gold needed in the second half of the game. In OCC games, the number of freights that the SSC could produce was limited when supplies became blocked. This put more emphasis on developing the SSC more fully, by using extra citizens gained by adding farmland and by boosting SSC shields by building factories, power plants and offshore platforms. However, in early landing games, the unblocking techniques which are enabled by having more than one city has led to strategies where trade plays a more central role.


2.5.8 One Turn Advances

Once the SSC is full sized and has all of the scientific improvements and wonders, it will be producing enough beakers to learn each tech every two turns, but in successful early landing games, an advance per turn is more desirable, since this is twice as good. Some extra beakers will be provided by helpers and colonies. Another good boost to SSC beakers may come from trade routes established to a nearby AI city that have connecting roads and rails. Most often though, caravan and freight deliveries can be timed to add just enough extra beakers to make the difference. The goal of maintaining one turn advances will probably be a struggle until the discovery of Automobile.


2.5.9 Turns with Two Advances

Once Automobile has been discovered, and superhighways have been added to the SSC, city science may start producing enough beakers to earn an advance per turn. As helpers and colonies reach full size and begin adding superhighways and scientific improvements, this capacity can be sustained and usually maintained until the discovery of Space Flight. During this period, there will be several turns where enough freights can be delivered to secure the first advance, allowing city science to earn the second of a pair. If a good system of alternating trade has been established in time, it’s even possible to sustain 2 advances per turn for most of the turns following the discovery of Automobile.

However, in most games the opportunities for two advances per turn are usually limited, so it’s best to plan for them in advance. This involves choosing turns where you will not be faced with a bad list of techs to choose from when selecting the second advance of a pair. The two techs should both be along the paths towards Space Flight. If not, the effort put into getting two advances per turn instead of one may be wasted. This is another good reason to learn and understand the system of rotating tech lists described in detail earlier.

Another point about two advances per turn is realizing when enough is enough. Progress through the tech tree can be so rapid that one arrives at Space Flight without enough resources to build a ship quickly. Another mistake would to be use up freights for one last opportunity of two advances and then be caught without enough city science to learn the remaining techs at a reasonable pace. Sometimes it’s better to spread out those final freight deliveries to enable many 1 turn advances instead using them all up on a final two-bagger. Two advances per turn are a thrill, but this euphoria fades quickly when it takes city science two turns for each necessary tech that follows.


2.5.10 Using Zoom to Home City

By using the “zoom to home city” trick discovered by Samson, you may be able to complete some SSC builds a turn earlier than is usually possible, and benefit by getting extra beakers sooner. Here is an example of how it works.

Suppose Automobile is the tech currently being researched and will be learned very early on the next turn, before the SSC and some other cities are processed. If an SSC unit is placed in another city which is processed before the SSC, and this city completes its own build after the discovery of Automobile, you can enter that city, click on the SSC unit stationed there and use the “zoom to home city” feature to sneak over to the SSC before it is processed. While there, whatever is being built can be changed to superhighways, which is now allowed by the discovery of Automobile. Superhighways could be rushed to completion a turn earlier than usual by doing this.

In this way, a city improvement or wonder can be sometimes be completed on the turn of the discovery of its enabling tech. Samson exploited the use of this trick to finish a spaceship that landed in 16 AD, by creating a “zoom to” chain involving many cities. For those wanting more complete details about this trick, here is the link to Samson’s thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=64201

[solo]

2.6 Trade

The system of trade developed for Civilization II is arguably one of the best ever designed for a computer game. Although the game has been around for many years, the depth and complexity of the underlying mechanisms governing trade have remained a mystery to players longer than any other aspect of the game. Many discoveries concerning the properties of commodity supply and demand lists are quite recent, and will be covered here in detail. Players need an excellent understanding of how trade works, if they hope to become competitive in early landing games.


2.6.1 Base Trade

Trade arrows are the unit used to measure trade. Base trade is defined as the total number of trade arrows being produced in a city by its citizens who are working city tiles.

One aspect of managing trade is selecting city sites with tiles conducive to trade. Ocean tiles promote trade and produce 2 trade arrows each. Rivers produce one. When deserts, plains and grassland tiles are improved with roads, they will each produce 1 trade arrow. Eight of the special tiles produce varying amounts of trade arrows, and here is a list, in descending order of trade arrow potential:

Gold – 6 arrows
Wine, Gems, Ivory, and Spice – 4 arrows each
Furs, Silk, and Whales – 3 arrows each

An additional benefit of these specials (except whales) is that any roads built through them will add an additional trade arrow, even if their terrain type does not ordinarily provide an arrow for adding roads. Bridges (roads built on rivers) always add 1 trade arrow too, irrespective of the underlying terrain.

Others ways of increasing trade arrows are:

1) Improving the government type. In Despotism, tiles with 3 or more trade arrows will produce one arrow less than their potential. There is no such penalty in Monarchy, Communism and Fundamentalism. In Republic and Democracy, one extra trade arrow will be added to any tile already producing one or more. Higher forms of government limit or eliminate corruption, too, resulting in more usable trade arrows.

2) An extra trade arrow will be added to any tile already producing one or more in a city if it builds the Colossus wonder. This benefit will last until the Colossus is cancelled by the discovery of Flight.

3) Superhighways will increase trade arrows by 50% in tiles having roads. This boost in trade arrows can be quite substantial.

4) Finally, a city can produce more trade arrows by adding more citizens or by moving existing citizens to city tiles with the highest trade.

An SSC priority is locating it on a site having the most potential base trade. Using the criteria above, the maximum amount of base trade for any site can be calculated in advance. This is a good way of comparing the usefulness of potential SSC sites.

When a city’s caravans and/or freights are used to establish trade routes, these routes will provide additional trade arrows which are added to the city’s base trade. The resulting total is the one that appears in the city display.

The value of trade routes and delivery payoffs are derived from the base trade of the cities involved. Because of this, it is important to remember that a city’s base trade is equal to its total trade minus the arrows being earned from all of its trade routes. For larger cities it may be much easier to make this calculation than to try and count up all the trade arrows being produced by every city tile.


2.6.2 Trade Routes

Trade routes can be established when commodities are delivered from one city to another. Once established in a city, each trade route provides an ongoing trade bonus in the form of extra trade arrows. Establishing good ongoing routes in all cities should be a priority, especially in the SSC. Cities with trade routes require far fewer luxuries to sustain “we love” celebrations, and trade routes provide a permanent boost to income and science.

The number of arrows generated by any route is calculated from the base trade of the two cities involved in the route, and the resulting route in both cities will usually have the same number of trade arrows. I am not sure of the exact formula used, but this approximation might suffice:

1) Get the total base trade by combining the base trade of both cities involved in the route. If this total is less than 8, just make it 8.
2) Divide this total by 8, for a route with an AI city.
3) Divide again by 2, for a route with one of your own cities. (This result might be zero).
4) Now add 50% if there is a connecting road.
5) Add another 50% if there is a connecting railroad.

It can be seen that trades made to AI cities will provide about twice as many trade arrows for the same amounts of base trade. A connecting road and rail will allow an internal trade to make up this difference. However, roaded and railed routes to AI cities yield the most trade arrows, especially when these kinds of routes are established with the SSC, where the benefits are magnified.

Some other characteristics of trade routes are worth noting. When a city produces a commodity caravan or freight, its supply of that commodity is blocked. In the city display, this is shown by placing parentheses around this commodity. When this caravan or freight is delivered to another city, a new trade route is usually established. When this happens, the city receiving the caravan will have one of its own supply commodities blocked, too. If the delivery is made to an AI city, this is not a problem, but if the destination is one of your own cities, you can end up blocking the supply of a commodity you might have intended to build there. So, as a general rule, it’s probably best to trade with AI cities until your own cities have finished producing all the commodities on their own supply lists.

Another characteristic of trade routes is that only 3 are allowed per city. When additional trades are made, the existing routes of any city will not be replaced unless the base trade of its newest trading partner is greater than that of the base trade of one or more of the cities used to establish the existing routes. This is something to keep in mind when delivering commodities, because the base trade in your own cities can be changed temporarily to control route replacement or route retention. This control over trade route replacement can be exploited to unblock your own supply commodities or to keep demanded commodities unblocked in AI cities. Techniques for doing this will be discussed later.


2.6.3 Demand Bonuses

A policy of delivering commodities to cities that demand them will pay off in a big way since the demand bonuses received can be quite substantial. Even for the commodities having the smallest demand bonus, the amount of gold (and beakers) received will be doubled, so it is well worth learning how to maximize the chances of earning delivery bonuses. Here is a list of the commodities grouped by the size of their bonus multipliers:

Hides, Salt, Wool, Beads, Copper, Dye 2
Cloth, Coal, Wine, Silver 5/2
Silk, Spice, Gems, Gold 3
Oil 7/2
Uranium 4

It’s important to realize that the delivery of any demanded commodity to one city by another will always do better than a delivery of a higher quality commodity which is not currently in demand. Demands depend on a lot of factors, and can even be manipulated, but when given a choice of commodities when building a caravan or freight, it will be the commodities that are currently in demand that should be built. So always check this out with the trade advisor.

For example, it’s of no use building an oil caravan early in the game, since demand for oil will not appear for a long time. Oil’s great multiplier will be useless unless there is a city somewhere wanting it now. Following sections will provide more information on factors affecting demand for the various commodities.

Now that a strong case has been made for delivering commodities to cities that demand them, it’s a good time to list some exceptions to this general rule.

One exception would be when you are establishing SSC trade routes with a nearby AI city from which you are planning to receive the road and rail bonuses. These routes should be established fairly early in the game, using commodities likely to become obsolete later on. Very often, this AI city will not be demanding any or all of the commodities that your SSC may be supplying. However, the continuing bonuses received are so high, that this is more than enough compensation for establishing the routes using commodities that may not have been in demand.

There is another situation where the delivery of a cargo not in demand may be the best choice, and this is when that delivery unblocks the supply or demand of another commodity in the targeted city. For example, a delivery of coal from a helper to an SSC not demanding coal may trigger a new demand in the SSC for oil at a time when there happens to be an oil freight coming in from a colony. Oil pays extremely well when it is in demand and its bonus will more than compensate for the puny amount brought in by undemanded coal.

A third situation is when deliveries are being made to the SSC from colonies. Since the SSC has so much more base trade than the other cities in the game, an undemanded delivery there may bring in more than a delivery to a smaller helper or neighboring AI city that does demand the goods. This is because anything that is multiplied by next to nothing still comes out pretty close to next to nothing. Fortunately, payoffs can be estimated before deliveries are attempted, to see when it’s best to choose the SSC as the delivery target for arriving cargos the SSC does not demand.

Finally, commodities built by helpers that are not in demand are probably best used in building SSC wonders, and later on, spaceship parts.

[solo]

Trade (cont)


2.6.4 Maximizing Delivery Payments

The demand bonuses, detailed in the previous section, are the best way to maximize delivery payments, but there are other things that can be done to ensure the highest possible payments. Samson’s thread “Calculating Caravan and Freight Delivery Payments”, discusses all of the factors involved in the calculation of these gold (and beaker) payoffs. It is certainly useful to have a good idea of how much will be received for imminent deliveries, especially on those turns when a combination of commodities is being used to secure the first of two advances. For the specific details about payoff calculations, here is the link to Samson’s thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=64729

For those just wanting know what they should do to maximize their payments, here is a summary of the base payment and its modifiers:

a) The base payment is roughly equal to the total base trade of the two cities times the distance between them. Thus, more base trade and greater distances increase payments, but it is usually the factors that modify the base payment that influence the final payment the most. In any event, citizens in your own city(s) should be temporarily placed on city tiles generating the most trade just before making a delivery.

b) It’s worth repeating again, that delivering demanded commodities increases payments the most.

c) If delivery is made to a city on another continent, the payment is doubled.

d) If delivery is made to one of your own cities the payment is halved.

e) Freights receive a bonus multiplier of 3/2.

f) There will be a road (50%) or railroad (100%) bonus for valid connections of these types between the two cities. The “go to” path leading from the Destination to the Source city is used to determine the connection’s validity

g) If both cities have an airport, the bonus is 50% if the cities are on the same continent, and 100% if they are on different continents.

h) Superhighways in one city provides a 50% bonus, and superhighways in both cities provides a 100% bonus.

i) Payments are cut when entering into each new age. The discovery of Invention or Navigation signals entry into the Renaissance and cuts payments by 1/2. Railroad signals a transition to the Industrial Age, and Flight signals the Modern Age, and the discovery of each cuts payments by 1/3.

j) Finally, a science cap can limit the total payment. This cap is always 2/3 of the total number of beakers needed for the next advance, whenever this total happens to be 300 or more beakers. Prior to that, the cap is 200 or a little bit over that.

From this summary, it’s evident that the most can be made from caravans by delivering them to a demanding AI city on another continent, and to do most caravan trading before reaching the Renaissance.

Later on when freights are available, superhighways and airports can be used to increase payments. Superhighways are especially effective because they also increase a city’s overall trade by adding trade arrows to its base trade in addition to supplying a 50% delivery bonus. With superhighways one can neutralize the penalty on trades made to your own cities.

Payoffs for trades involving the SSC are often limited by the science cap. Since the science cap is lowered whenever you lower your tech costs by gifting techs to your key civ, the timing of these tech gifts is important. In the period preceding one or more SSC trades it might be a good idea to build up a tech lead over the key civ. This will increase the payoffs (and beakers) received for SSC trades. Afterwards, the key civ can be gifted techs to lower the cost of the current tech being researched. Since beakers received during the trade were 2/3 of the higher tech costs, they will actually end up contributing a good bit more than 2/3 once tech gifting is complete.

Another good reason for building up these temporary tech leads over the key civ, is to avoid being shunned for being too chatty. A lead of 6 or so techs before bringing the key civ up to date is not unreasonable.


2.6.5 Importance of Quick Deliveries

While it’s a good idea to try for maximum delivery payments, speed of delivery is even more important, since early landing games are a race against time. It’s much more useful to make several rapid deliveries for modest amounts rather than sending just a few commodities all the way to their most profitable destinations. What is needed is a kind of Fed Ex mentality when it comes to getting caravans and freights delivered. One good reason for emphasizing maximum speed is that whenever a city builds a commodity, it can not build it again as long as the first copy is still in transit. (Hides are an exception, and this will be discussed later). Another good reason is that more gold, beakers and decent trade routes are always needed now rather than later on.

Now with a little planning, most freights can be delivered on the same turn they are built. This is because a system of railroads, coastal cities and ship chains, can move a freight vast distances without expending any of its movement points, so that when it debarks near an AI city, it will be able to reach it on the same turn to complete a trade.

For early landing games, the trick is getting this delivery system in place quickly enough to be of real use. Since transports can be built quickly and railroads take time to construct, it makes sense to maximize the use of ocean tiles when planning trading routes earlier in the game. Colonies should be placed to facilitate the travel of freights to them and/or through them to AI trading partners.

Special consideration should be given to the SSC and the cities with which it will be trading with on a continuous basis. Rail and road connections promoting 1 turn SSC deliveries are a top priority. Sometimes this even means exporting engineers to build roads leading up to AI cities. Commodity supply and demand will have to be pre-determined so as to match up the SSC with its future trading partners, and then this list should be pruned to those cities that are within 1 turn’s reach.

Another thing to briefly consider is the use of airports, and they would be the preferred means of travel if weren’t for several serious disadvantages. One is that each airport can only be used for one freight on each turn. Another problem is that once a freight lands at its destination its turn immediately ends, even if it had movement points it hadn’t used. So freights must waste a turn of transit while in the air. Airports also require the Flight pre-requisite, which cancels the Colossus and cuts freight delivery payments by 1/3.

Perhaps it is a design flaw in Civ II, that allows unlimited sea travel by chaining transports together, since one would expect air travel to be a lot faster, but this exploit is just one of many that exist in the game. It just turns out that ship chains serve the purpose of early landing games very well. So if the opportunity is there, we might as well shamelessly exploit the use of ship chains and make the most we can out of all those free, frequent freighter miles!

While consistent 1 turn deliveries for freights is a realistic goal, the slower pace of caravans, makes it important to find the best ways to expedite their travels. The problem is getting them delivered far enough away to make a decent profit and to accomplish this quickly.

Again, ocean travel is the best solution. Triremes usually triple the distance that can be traveled in one turn and are the only means of reaching AI cities on separate continents, too. By enabling the AI and separate continent delivery bonuses, these caravans will earn excellent payments for any demanded cargos shipped across a bay. Each one can reach its destination in just a handful of turns, and if commodities with good demand bonuses are in supply, these kinds of trades will often trigger the science cap.

For any newcomers unfamiliar with the mechanics of ship chaining, here’s a brief summary of how it is used to ship freights a long, long way:

a) When built a freight can move by rail into a port city in which the first transport is located, where it is put to sleep to board the ship.

b) Once loaded this transport moves 5 tiles (6 is possible with Nuclear Power) to the tile where the next one is waiting. Now click on the tile holding both transports and click on each freight you want to transfer before clicking on the 2nd transport.

c) Now move the 2nd transport (which should now hold the transferred freights) 5 tiles to where the 3rd transport is waiting, and transfer the freights to it. Now the 3rd transport can move on.

d) Keep repeating this process for each transport in the chain. Do not forget to transfer each freight during each step along the way or you will experience a wee bit of frustration when noticing an empty transport pull away from another that can no longer move! Things can get a little confusing when making transfers, making it very easy to make this mistake, so don’t forget to concentrate.

e) The last transport in the chain can end its turn in a coastal colony. All of the freights will still have all of their movement available to them. They could conceivably move by rail to another colony, board another transport there, and continue farther in another chain used to access an AI trading partner. Once there, the freight will use its own movement to complete a delivery.


2.6.6 Alternating Trade System

Although ship chaining is the quickest way to move freights long distances in one turn, the transports used in the chain have to move in the reverse direction every other turn to reestablish the position of each link. This is the rationale for having a few colonies, since they can use the turn the chain is being reset to send their own freights home. Once an alternating trade system can be set up, it will become very efficient and quite profitable, too.

A side benefit of alternating trade is that if colonies are able to produce commodities demanded by the SSC, this will increase the chances of having two advances per turn more often, since an SSC trade of some sort is usually required to obtain most of the beakers needed for the first advance. In addition, these deliveries by colonies to the SSC often perform the secondary function of unblocking SSC supplies. It’s a very pleasant feeling to be able to do this while earning a maximum delivery bonus. Unblocking in this fashion often works for colonies, too, when SSC or helper freights are delivered to them.

This alternation also perfectly suits the rushing of freights in helpers and colonies, too. On the turn freights are headed outbound to the colonies, helpers can start off new freights, with the idea of rushing them to completion the following turn, while freights from colonies are being sent home. This avoids the extra expense incurred when rush buying a freight on one turn. Colonies can also rush their freights using two turns in the same way, with their builds coinciding with the turns when transports head back home.

It takes a lot of planning in advance to set up a system of alternating trade that is successful, but when an effective one is up and running, the hyper trade permitted will accelerate the pace of the game and almost guarantee an early launch.

[solo]

Trade (cont)

2.6.7 Commodity Supply and Demand Basics

For newcomers, many of the terms and techniques related to commodity supply and demand may seem confusing. It might have been a better idea to start off this guide with a bunch of definitions, rather than wait until the middle of it to clear up questions that might have arisen, but here we are now, and before forgetting again, it’s better to do this late rather than never. So, if you are wondering a bit what is meant by references to “triggers”, “wildcards” or “unblocking”, you may not want to skip this section of the guide.

Once trade has commenced, each city has a list of three commodities that it can supply and another list of three commodities it demands. Here is an example:

Supplies: silver, beads, wool
Demands: coal, dye, silk

Whenever a caravan (or freight) is built, one can choose to make it a commodity or food. In the example above, one could build silver, beads, wool, or food. Suppose beads were chosen. If so, a parenthesis will be put around beads afterwards, and the list would look like this:

Supplies: silver, (beads), wool
Demands: coal, dye, silk

The parenthesis means the supply of beads has become blocked, since if we were to build another caravan right away, we could no longer pick beads. The list of choices would be limited to silver, wool, or food.

Suppose two more caravans were built, and we chose one to be silver and the other to be wool. Then the list would look like this:

Supplies: (silver), (beads), (wool)
Demands: coal, silk, dye

Now all commodities supplied by this city would be blocked and if we were to build another caravan the choice would be limited to food. Now it may seem like that’s it for this city, and that it has used up all the commodities that it can supply, but that is not the case. As the city grows and the game progresses through the various ages, a city’s supply list can change, and one or more of the original commodities on the supply or demand lists may be replaced by others. It is also possible that one of the original commodities that were built may come back into supply later on, which is what we mean when we say it has become unblocked. If, for example, the supply of beads were to become unblocked, the supply list would look like this:

Supplies: (silver), beads, (wool)

Now another beads caravan can be built, but doing this will block the supply of beads again.

The demand list works in the same way. Using the list above, suppose that a silk caravan were delivered to this city. Again, a parenthesis will appear around that commodity and the demand list will look like this:

Demands: coal, (silk), dye

Now it will still be possible to deliver silk or any other commodity to this city, but for this city the first delivery of silk satisfied the city’s strong desire for fancy clothing, and we can say that the demand for silk has become blocked. What this means is that future deliveries of silk will not earn the demand bonus, and the payoff will not be any more than it would have been for any commodity not in demand by this city. Suppose deliveries of coal and dye followed the silk delivery. Then the list would look like this:

Demands: (coal), (silk), (dye)

All demanded commodities would become blocked, and any commodity delivered afterwards would only receive the minimum payment, since no demand bonuses are available. However, as with the supply list, the demand list will go through changes, too, and different commodities may appear on it later. It is also possible to reestablish the demand for a commodity that was previously in demand. This is what we mean when we say a demand has become unblocked. If dye were to become unblocked, the demand list would look like this:

Demands: (coal), (silk), dye

Again, the parentheses are removed and the city will pay the demand bonus again for the next shipment of dye that arrives.

As a city grows and as a game progresses, its supply and demand lists may change. New commodities may replace the ones originally appearing on the lists, and commodities that are bumped from their lists can even make a comeback, and reappear later.

For example, as a city grows the demand for hides will go down, but the demand for other commodities such as coal might increase. Factors that can influence the supply and demand of commodities in any city include its terrain, location, continent, size, and its improvements. Nationality and tech progress are other factors. Of these factors, city size and tech progress (and to a limited degree, terrain), are dynamic and these along with city improvements will account for changes in the types of commodities appearing on supply and demand lists.

As an example, suppose a size 1 city starts out with this list of commodities in supply.

Supplies: silver, beads, hides

It is the city’s location, terrain and other static factors that made the inherent and initial supply of these three commodities the highest. However, when this city grows beyond size two, its ability to supply hides will be cut in half. As this increase in population lowers the supply of hides it will also raise the supply of wine, perhaps high enough to make wine replace hides on the supply list. While this city grows to size 3, its civ may discover Pottery, which causes the supply of salt to triple. This increase may be enough to make salt replace silver or beads. The relative level of supply of all commodities will be constantly changing as the game progresses.

The commodities appearing on supply and demand lists are listed in order of strength. Here is a sample list:

Supplies: gold, beads, dye
Demands: cloth, copper, hides

On this list cloth has the highest demand, followed by copper and hides. Similarly, the supply of gold is highest, followed by beads and dye. When list memberships change during the course of a game, one would usually expect commodities to retain their relative positions. For example, the discovery of Pottery triples the chances of salt being in supply. This may move salt ahead of gold, the former top dog, resulting in a list like this:

Supplies: salt, gold, beads

Dye was bumped off the list as gold and beads shifted downwards. To disguise these shifts somewhat, the game also uses what we have defined as wildcard commodities. Wildcard commodities are determined from calculations based solely on a city’s map coordinates.

For those who may not know, a city’s map coordinates will appear in the game’s status box if you right click on the city’s tile. An example is (8, 64)1. The numbers within the parentheses are the horizontal and vertical map coordinates of the city. The number outside the right hand side parenthesis is the continent number. In this example the horizontal coordinate is 8, the vertical coordinate is 64, and the continent number is 1. The map coordinates of any tile on the map can be checked by right clicking the tile.

All other factors normally influencing the appearance of that commodity are ignored when making these wildcard calculations. Each city has a particular supply and demand wildcard that can appear as the middle commodity. Wildcard commodities can also change during the course of a game, but while in play they usually are the dominant commodity on their respective lists. One of the following sections will be all about wildcards.

Supply and demand lists are not updated every time a change is enabled by city growth and/or tech acquisition. For a long time, many players believed that changes to supply and demand lists occurred randomly. Other players, including myself, believed that changes in the demand lists of AI cities usually coincided with the turn before attempting deliveries of demanded cargos. Such notions have been disproved by recent research, which has revealed that the game will always use a trigger to signal when it is time to re-evaluate and update a city’s supply and demand lists.

There are different kinds of triggers. One of them is the sixteen turn city cycle, by which lists are reevaluated at periodic intervals for each city throughout a game. This trigger will be discussed in the next section.

Commodity deliveries can also act as triggers. Players often notice this when the delivery of one demanded commodity causes a change in the city’s demand list, sometimes resulting in the disappearance of another commodity previously in demand.

Three other triggers are related to the abnormal behavior of dye and copper in commodity demand lists that can occur during a city’s cycle turn. Not looking at a city during its cycle turn can either trigger or avoid this aberrant behavior, depending on the version of the game being used. In Civ II 2.42, another way to trigger this effect is to temporarily reduce a city’s shields to zero or less. This trigger was discovered by SCG and has become known as the “SCG Shift”. Finally, if a diplomat is used to investigate an AI city during its cycle turn, the effect of the dye or copper bug will be reversed. This is because the AI never “look” at their own cities, causing cycle turns to always implement the bug. These triggers will be discussed some more later on.

Food caravans and freights can act as triggers, too. The delivery of food to another city can act as a trigger, or the use of food when building a wonder.

Triggers do not always cause city supply and/or demand lists to change. No changes will occur if a city does not grow and/or if its civ’s progression through the tech tree is going too slowly. In addition, the inherent level of supply or demand of certain commodities may be so strong in some cities, that they become permanent fixtures on their respective lists.

The term trigger has also been used to describe events that change the status of commodities on supply and demand lists, causing them to become blocked or to become unblocked. List memberships may not be changed by these kinds of triggers, only the status of one or more of the commodities already appearing on them. Techniques for doing this will be discussed in the last section.

[solo]

Trade (cont)


2.6.8 Sixteen Turn City Cycles

While investigating the behavior of supply and demand lists, I happened to discover that the commodity supply and demand lists for each city are automatically updated every 16 turns. These turns are defined as city cycle turns, and the 16 year spans between them have also been called “solo cycles”, since I noticed their existence first. A city’s cycle turns depend on when the city was founded, and cycle turns are best illustrated by using an example. Below is a table of cities compiled from a multiplayer test game in which I was playing every civ.

OOOOOOOOOOOOXOOOOOOOOO Delhi
OOOOOOOOOOOXOOOOOOOOOO Berlin
OOOOOOOOOOXOOOOOOOOOOO Leipzig
OOOOOOOOOXOOOOOOOOOOOO Rome
OOOOOOOOXOOOOOOOOOOOOO Washington
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Athens
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Thebes
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOX Memphis
OOOOXOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOXO New York
OOOXOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOXOO Babylon
OOXOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOXOOO Bombay
OXOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOXOOOO Veii
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Sparta
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Ur
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOXOOOOOOO Nineveh
OOOOOOOOOOOOOXOOOOOOOO Ashur
OOOOOOOOOOOOXOOOOOOOOO Hamburg
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Heliopolis
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Thermopylae
OOOOOOOOOXOOOOOOOOOOOO Madras
OOOOOOOOXOOOOOOOOOOOOO Ellipi
OOOOOOOXOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Boston
OOOOOOXOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Antium
OOOOOXOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Konigsburg
OOOOXOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Elephantine
OOOXOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOXOO Bangalore
OOXOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Corinth
OXOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Frankfurt
XOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOXOOOOO Alexandria
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Delphi
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOXOOOOOOO Akkad
OOOOOOOOOOOOOXOOOOOOOO Pi-Rameses
OOOOOOOOOOOOXOOOOOOOOO Calcutta
OOOOOOOOOOOXOOOOOOOOOO Uruk
OOOOOOOOOOXOOOOOOOOOOO Pharsalos
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Cumae
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Philadelphia
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Knossus
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Munich
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOX Argos

The table spans the period from 2250 BC to 1200 BC, and each “O” represents a turn where there were not any changes to a city’s lists, and each “X” indicates turns when the city’s supply and/or demand lists underwent an update of some sort. From top to bottom, the cities have been listed in the order in which they were founded while playing the game. It can be seen that city cycle turns (“X” turns) form a pattern, allowing one to anticipate all the cycle turns for every city in the game. Note that there are also some gaps where an “expected” X did not appear. These gaps turned out to be cycle turns for some cities whose commodity supply and demand lists were left unchanged by the automatic update. Not enough change or growth had occurred by those turns to warrant any changes in supply or demand for that city at that particular time.

Delhi was the first city founded in this game, and it had a cycle turn in 1650 BC, which was also the 48th turn of the game. If the table above were expanded to include additional game turns, the next change for Delhi would be noticed 16 turns later, which would be 925 BC. Delhi’s first cycle turn of the game was 3250 BC, the 16th turn of the game, and its second cycle turn was 2450 BC, 16 turns after that.

The second city founded in the game was Berlin, and its cycle turns always precede Delhi’s. In the table above, Berlin’s cycle turn is 1700 BC. Berlin’s next cycle turn will be 16 turns after that, which would be 950 BC. Berlin’s first cycle turn of the game was 3300 BC, the 15th turn of the game, and its second cycle turn was 2500 BC, 16 turns after that.

Similarly, the cycle turns of Leipzig, the third city to appear in the game, always precede the cycle turns of Berlin. This pattern continued for each city that was added to the game, until 16 cities existed. Then when Hamburg was founded as the 17th city in the game, the pattern was repeated, since Hamburg shares the same cycle years as Delhi. The next city sharing the same cycle years as Delhi and Hamburg was Calcutta, the 33rd city to appear in the game.

Although the table does not span enough game turns to show more than one of the cycle turns for Delhi, Hamburg or Calcutta, a few cities had cycle turns making more than one appearance. Examples above are New York, Babylon, and Bombay, in which their second cycle turn in the table was 16 turns following their first.

From these observations it can be seen that once you notice when a city undergoes an automatic update, you have identified one of its cycle turns, and can predict that the next one will occur 16 turns later, and the following one, 16 turns after that, and so on.

Furthermore, if you have a chronological list of all of the cities in the game, you can predict all of the cycle turns for every city, since the first cycle turn of the first city founded in any game is always the 16th turn of the game, 3250 BC. By using 3250 BC and every 16th turn after that as reference points, you can plot X’s on a table of cities vs. game turns, as was done above, easily identifying all of the cycle turns for every city in a game.

For players using Civ II version 2.42, such a chronological list is available using the “Find City” command, where cities are listed in the order in which they were founded. If you have managed to contact all of the AI, and have been diligent in sharing maps, so that you know about the existence of all cities, “Find City” will provide the complete list.

Players using Civ II MGE have a little more work to do, since their version of “Find City” lists cities alphabetically, instead of in order of appearance. However, cities are listed chronologically by the trade advisor when commodity supply and demands are being checked. Although all of the cities do not appear on each commodity’s lists, the lists can be used to piece together the sequence in which cities were founded. One can also observe updates for individual cities as they occur during a game.

At this time astute observers might be asking what happens when a city is destroyed or captured. The answer is that once a set of cycle turns has been assigned to a city, it keeps that set for the remainder of the game. If a city is destroyed, the next new city entering the game will fill its spot in the chronological list, even though it was founded later on. When more than one city has been destroyed, gaps in the list are filled in chronological order until no gaps are left. Then any additional cities are added on to the end of the list in the usual way.

This knowledge of city cycle turns can be put to many uses. First of all, one can time the delivery of commodities to targeted cities to occur before their cycle turns, to avoid the disappointment of seeing their demand lists change at the last moment. Since commodity supply and demands are apt to change on cycle turns, one can time the builds of caravans and freights in anticipation of these changes to a city’s lists. Finally, several of the triggers used to manipulate supply and demand lists only work during city cycle turns.

One more thing I would like to add is the list of cycle dates (deity level) for the first city leading each group of 16 (cities 1, 17, 33 etc.) on the chronological list:

BC years

3250, 2450, 1650, 925, 525, 125

AD years

220, 540, 860, 1180, 1500, 1660, 1764, 1796, 1828, 1855,
1871, 1887, 1903, 1919, 1935, 1951, 1967, 1983, 1999, 2015

Since cities are processed in reverse order, the year preceding each in the list above would apply to the second city in each group of 16 on the chronological list. For example, on the 1918 turn, cities 2, 18, 34 etc. would be processed. In 1917 it would be cities 3, 19, 34 etc. Moving forward in time from 1919, for the turn 1920, it would be cities 16, 32, 48 etc. and in 1921, it would be cities 15, 31, 47 etc., working down a notch each turn to form the pattern illustrated in table above.

For those interested in reading my thread documenting this discovery, here is the link:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=66374

[solo]

Trade (cont)


2.6.9 Commodity Overview

Most of the information to be presented in this section and the three that follow has only recently come to light as a result of Samson’s investigation into how supply and demand lists are determined. The complexities underlying commodity supply and demand, and the depth of insight displayed by Samson in revealing them, probably ranks his achievement as the most remarkable piece of research conducted so far concerning the game. Readers wishing to read Samson’s own thread describing his discoveries can find the link to it below:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=67754

Even after reading Samson’s thread, many players have been a bit daunted by the complexity of the subject and by all of the calculations that are required to predict individual commodity supplies and demands. Since I assisted Samson, by helping to test his formulas, my sometimes incorrect application of many of them has made me sort of an expert now at using them. This experience has also given me a very good overall understanding of the ebb and flow commodity supplies and demands that occur in a typical early landing game.

One thing I hope to do in this section and in the one that follows is to impart a general sense of what is going on, so that those who do not want to get into more detailed calculations can still have a pretty good idea of which factors influence the supply and demand of different commodities. Following that will be two more sections covering all of the calculations involved, using examples from an actual game, so that players wanting to use Samson’s formulas can be confident that they are making the calculations exactly as specified by him.

Before discussing individual commodities a few words must be said about terrain, about wildcards, and about tech totals.

A city’s terrain plays a significant role in determining which commodities will appear on its lists, and it is the quantity of different terrain types that is important. The terrain specials do not have unique or unusual effects on commodities. All they do is make their underlying terrain count as four of the type rather than just one. For example, a silk or pheasant special have the same effect, making the forest tile they occupy count as 4 forests instead of one.

A city’s wildcard commodities are based solely on its grid coordinates, allowing a commodity to appear on a list it ordinarily wouldn’t be qualified to occupy. For example, a city needs at least one hill tile to have a chance of supplying any coal, but if there are not any hills in the city, coal still might appear as the supply wildcard commodity if that city’s grid coordinates happen to be the right ones for coal. Since wildcards almost always show up on their lists, commodities that can not be wildcards will show up less frequently on lists than those that can. Before a civ has learned 32 techs, only hides, beads, salt, copper, wine, silver and gems can be wildcards. This limits the appearances of wool, cloth, coal, silk and spice on early supply and demand lists. After 32 techs have been acquired hides, wool, beads, cloth and salt can not be wildcards, but all the others can.

Tech totals should include the tech currently be researched, and should not include any free techs provided at the start. (Early landing comparison games do not include any free starting techs).

Hides

Hides are most likely to be in supply and demand in tiny cities and by civs having few techs. Tundra, glacier, forest, jungle and rivers increase supply. Tundra, glacier, mountains and forest increase demand. Demand is high for cities far away from the Equator. The discovery of Industrialization decreases demand and the discovery of Mass Production eliminates demand. The demand bonus for hides is 2, the lowest.

Hides have a unique quality. Unlike all other commodities, the supply or demand of hides will never become blocked. This allows a city to produce multiple copies of hides caravans, and allows a city demanding hides to keep paying the bonus for repeated hides deliveries. An SSC supplying hides can do a very good repeat business with an AI city where hides is in demand.

Hides are a good commodity for trading, since they are repeatable and because demand is usually widespread. Even near the end of an early landing game, small cities belonging to AI that lack Industrialization and Mass Production may still demand hides.

Wool

A city without any grass, hills, or rivers can not produce wool. Terrain increasing supply is the three types above plus tundra and glacier. Supply increases for cities within 13 tiles of the North or South Pole. A city needs plains or forest for demand and demand is strongest close to the Equator or the Poles. Industrialization doubles demand. The demand bonus for wool is 2, the lowest. Supply and demand for wool tends to be spotty, since it can never be a wildcard.

Beads

As with hides the supply and demand for beads will decrease as a civ progresses and as its cities grow. Ocean tiles are needed to supply beads, and proximity to the Equator increases supply. Demand is the reverse, increasing with more land tiles and increasing near the Poles. The demand bonus for beads is 2, the lowest, but beads are usually in supply and demand somewhere at most times during a game.

Cloth

A city without desert or plains can not supply cloth. Rivers reduce the supply. Supply increases with Industrialization and as the number of techs increase. A city without forest or hills is very unlikely to demand cloth. Demand increases for every 10 techs acquired and for cities near the Poles. Mountains, tundra, and glacier tiles help increase demand. The demand bonus for cloth is 3/2, which is average, and like wool, its supply and demand can be spotty since cloth can never be a wildcard.

Salt

Desert, swamp or ocean tiles are needed to supply salt. Every 6 techs acquired reduces supply. Pottery triples supply and supply is increased after an aqueduct is built or if the city is located on continents 1, 3 or 5. A city with a large population demands a lot of salt but the accumulation of techs reduces demand. The demand bonus for salt is 2, the lowest, and it is much easier to find cities supplying salt later in a game than those that want any of it. Trading opportunities are better early in the game.

Coal

A city without hills will not supply any coal. If hills are present they count a lot, but other terrain including plains, forest, swamp and jungle help increase supply. Supply is higher on odd numbered continents except for #1 and before one acquires 20 techs. Larger cities are more apt to supply coal. Demand is very good for large cities far from the Equator and for civs having many techs. The discoveries of both Industrialization and Electricity both double the demand for coal. The demand bonus for coal is 3/2, which is average.

One problem with coal is that it is most likely to be in good supply early in the game, a time when it is unlikely to be in demand, since any city must reach size 5 before it can demand coal. Later on, the demand for coal can grow so much that many cities that could previously supply it end up wanting it even more, leaving a shortage of coal suppliers. Coal caravans, built early in the game can not afford to wait until demand finally appears, and are probably best suited for building wonders. Delivering coal to demanding cities can happen, but not very often.

Copper

A city needs hills or mountains to supply copper. Supply will double if the continent number is even.

Copper demand is problematical, since there is a bug in the game that sometimes creates an abnormally huge demand for copper, and this bug operates differently in 2.42 than it does in the MGE edition of the game. In 2.42, the bug is activated by city cycle turns or be using the “SG switch”, but can be cancelled by looking at a city’s display on a cycle turn or by making a caravan (or freight) delivery. Since the AI never “view” their cities, each cycle turn implements the bug for them. The reverse holds true for human cities, which are usually inspected on cycle turns. In MGE, it’s just the opposite, caravan deliveries and viewing city displays cause the bug to be implemented, and the automatic update on a cycle turn cancels it.

When this bug is not in effect, demand for copper requires rivers or roads and increases when Electricity is discovered and as cities grow in size. Marketplaces and banks in a city increase the demand for copper. The discovery of Computers reduces the demand of copper by 1/4.

Copper has a demand bonus of 2, the lowest, but because of the demand bug and because copper always has a chance of being a wildcard commodity, cities that supply copper will never have a problem finding others demanding it. The copper bug can often be deliberately invoked or cancelled to suit one’s purposes when trading it or other commodities affected by these manipulations.

Dye

Grassland increases the supply of dye the most. Rivers also add to supplies, but if a city has too many plains, this may cancel a city’s ability to supply dye. If the continent number is a multiple of 4, supplies double.

Dye demand is also problematical. The same bug that affects copper applies to dye. In a game, dye is usually the first of these two commodities to be affected by the bug, but copper comes on strong later supplanting dye as the top demand commodity.

When the dye bug is not affecting demand, a city without desert or plains can not demand dye unless there are some roads. Rivers reduce demand. Demand increases with Industrialization and as the number of techs increase, but the techs Chemistry and Mass Production will each cut the demand for dye in half.

Dye has a demand bonus of 2, the lowest, but the demand bug almost always insures demand for dye somewhere, so trading opportunities are frequent. As with the copper, the bug allows deliberate manipulations to supply and demand lists.

Wine

Plains or rivers increase the supply of wine, but grassland reduces it. Large cities far from the zero meridian (0 horizontal coordinate) and in the northern hemisphere are much more likely to produce wine, especially if the civ is French. Demand for wine increases when a city’s grid coordinates differ by a large amount and for larger cities.

Wine has a demand bonus of 3/2, which is average, but since it always has a chance of being a wildcard and because many cities will be supplying or demanding wine throughout the game, it is one of the best commodities for making profitable trades.

Silk

A city needs forest, jungle or hills to supply silk. Supplies increase for cities in the Eastern Hemisphere with a high horizontal coordinate, and supplies double if the civ is the Chinese and if the continent number is a multiple of 5. Terrain types increasing demand are desert, plains, swamp and jungle. Demand increases for large cities close to the Equator and far from the zero meridian (0 horizontal coordinate), and may be higher for cites located on continent #1.

Silk has a demand bonus of 3, which is good, but supply is not abundant early in the game. However, the quality of silk’s demand bonus makes it worthwhile to seek out and exploit any opportunities to match silk suppliers with cites demanding it. Silk has better availability in the second half of a game, when it has a chance of being a wildcard commodity.

Silver

Mountains or hills are needed to supply silver, but mountains boost silver supply much more than hills do. Supplies increase closer to the zero meridian and for continent numbers over 8, but are lower if Iron Working has not been discovered or if the city size is below 5.

Demand increases as city size increases. Although any city can supply silver, further qualifiers for silver demand depend on the city’s map coordinates. If the remainder of their sum divided by 3 is zero, Chemistry increases demand, but Economics and Computers lower it. If the civ is Spanish or if the city has a bank or cathedral, demand increases.

Silver has a demand bonus of 3/2, which is average, but silver always has a chance to appear as a wildcard, increasing its availability. Demand for silver is much more likely than it will be for gems or gold, so a city supplying silver can usually find a city demanding it. This can more than make up for its lower demand bonus.

Spice

Spice supply is tricky, in that it depends on having desert, swamp or jungle AND also depends on having ocean or rivers. If a city has at least one tile in both groups and is located near the Equator chances of supplying spice increases. Being on continent #1 will cut supply in half as does being on a continent having over 300 tiles. Small islands under 26 tiles double the chances of producing spice.

The larger the continent, the more likely spice will be in demand, but if the sum of the city’s grid coordinates divided by 2 is an even number, demand is zero. Demand is cut in half by the discovery of Refrigeration.

Spice has a good demand bonus, but chances are not good of founding a city that supplies spice. Its appearance is fairly spotty, but may pick up in the second half of a game, when Spice has a chance of becoming a wildcard. As with silk, gems and gold, spice pays very well when supplies can be matched with demanding cities.

Gems

Desert, mountains, swamp or plains are needed to supply gems and supplies increase if the continent number is 7, and as the city grows. Demand for gems is the same as for silver, but with one important exception. Gems will not be in demand in a city unless the remainder is 1 after dividing the sum of the city’s map coordinates by 3. The demand bonus for gems is 3, which is good, and even though demand for gems is rarer than demand for silver, it always has a chance of being a wildcard. Considering their value, gems are in pretty good supply and demand during a game and often provide several opportunities for great trades.

Gold

Mountains, hills, or rivers will increase the supply gold, even though none of these are a requirement. Lack of mountains cuts potential supplies, but supplies increase as a city grows. Gold is often in supply because a city lacks enough supply commodities, which often happens in the SSC in early landing games, where demands for most commodities outstrip the values of corresponding supplies.

The problem with gold is that it is rarely in demand, especially early in the game when gold can not be used as a wildcard. Demand for gold is also the same as for silver and gems, but with one important exception. Gold will not be in demand in a city unless the remainder is 2 after dividing the sum of the city’s map coordinates by 3. The demand bonus for gold is 3, which is good, making it worth checking wildcards to find cities that will demand the gold the SSC is likely to supply late in the game.

Oil

Desert, tundra, glacier and swamp are needed to supply oil, which makes natural oil suppliers unlikely. Supplies increase on continent #9. Chances of supplying oil increase vastly after Combustion has been discovered. Cities over size 37 double the chances of oil supply.

Demand for oil will not occur until after the discovery of Industrialization. The discovery of Automobile triples demand. Demand increases as the tech total grows and for large cities. Factories and superhighways increase demand, but it is reduced by mass transit and by recycling centers. Oil can appear as a secondary wildcard after the discovery of Industrialization, which means it will appear if the normal wildcard is not expressed.

Oil has a demand bonus of 7/2, which is excellent, but supplies are most likely to occur as the result of oil being a wildcard rather than by natural means. Many cities will be demanding oil, but only a few lucky ones may find the matching supplies. When oil can be delivered to a demanding city, the payments are often limited by the 2/3 science cap.

Uranium

Uranium supply and demand is enabled by the discovery of Nuclear Fission. Desert, tundra, glacier, mountains, hills and rivers can increase the supply of uranium. With all these terrain types boosting uranium, you might think that supplies of it might be easy to find, but this is not the case. The reason is because demand for uranium is based on the number of techs squared, which will be a very large number by the time Nuclear Fission is discovered. If this were not enough, Uranium can appear as a demand wildcard, too, but never appears as a supply wildcard.

About the only chance a city has of supplying uranium is when it has run out of other supply commodities, which is not too often. This is why uranium’s demand bonus stands alone at 4 as the very best. You hardly ever get to collect it.

The appearance of uranium in the game severely limits the variety of commodities on city demand lists afterwards, since most cities will be demanding the stuff. Things you were able to supply may be bumped off demand lists by uranium, which makes it a good idea to delay the discovery of Nuclear Fission for as long as it is convenient.

I actually did get a supply of uranium once in my SSC in an early landing game. It was on the turn before the space ship arrived on Alpha Centauri!

[solo]

Trade (cont)


2.6.10 Techs Affecting Supply and Demand

Tech progress and the acquisition of certain techs can have quite an impact on the supply and demand of many commodities. Although tech influences on each commodity were presented in the previous section, a complete list of the techs affecting supplies and demands can be a handy thing to reference when deciding what path to take through the tech tree or deciding which techs to gift to one or more of the AI.

The effect of an off path tech on supplies or demands may be the determining factor when deciding whether or not to acquire the tech. An example of this might be Refrigeration, which you might consider learning to increase the size of your SSC. If acquired, Refrigeration will also cut your cities’ desire for spice in half. Since it’s possible that your SSC may be demanding spice which your colonies can supply, more benefits may be obtained by trading spice than by using Refrigeration to add a few more citizens to the SSC.

Tech gifts to the AI can change some of their commodity supplies and demands forever, so it’s important to know if gifting a certain tech might eliminate demand for a commodity you wish you could have continued delivering. It may also be that you have cities producing a commodity having no takers. An example of this might be oil. By including Industrialization and Automobile in a large group of tech gifts to the AI with the largest cities, you can increase their need for oil in a significant way.

A major consideration when gifting techs to the AI is tech totals. Once an AI acquires 32 techs, all the wildcards for its cities will change, so it’s a good idea to keep track of what these wildcards are and what they could be if you allow them to change. For example, if you are doing a great business sending gems caravans to a Japanese city having gems as a demand wildcard, you might want to think twice before your tech gifts unintentionally ruin this profitable trade route. Another example might be when your SSC has gold in supply and you notice that the new wildcard for two French cities will be gold once the French obtain 32 techs.

A good general piece of advice is to avoid gifting Nuclear Fission to any of the AI you intend to keep trading with. Since you will hardly ever supply Uranium, you don’t want to see it hogging spots on the demand lists of AI cities.

AI tech totals do affect which commodities they will be demanding quite a bit. Since you can never take back a tech, or group of techs, once they are gifted, it pays to check out how additional techs will affect certain demands first, so here is a summary:

Gifting techs will reduce demand for hides, beads, and salt.

Gifting techs will increase demand for cloth, coal, dye, oil and uranium.

Below is a list of relevant techs in the order they might be encountered during a game. All techs influencing commodity supply and demand and the techs controlling the amount of delivery payments will be included.

Pottery

Supplies of salt are cut by 1/3 until Pottery is discovered.

Iron Working

Supplies of silver are cut by 1/2 until Iron Working is discovered.

Chemistry

Reduces the demand for dye by 1/2.
Increases the demand for silver, gems and gold by 3/2.

Economics

Reduces the demand for silver, gems and gold by 1/2.

Invention or Navigation

Cuts caravan payments by 1/2.

Electricity

Doubles the demand for coal.
Increases the demand for copper by 3/2.

Refrigeration

Reduces the demand for spice by 1/2.

Railroad

Cuts caravan payments by 1/3.

Industrialization

Cuts demand for hides by 1/3.
Doubles the demand for wool.
Increases the supply of cloth by 3/2.
Doubles the demand for coal.
Increases the demand for dye by 3/2.
Enables the demand for oil.
Enables the use of oil as a secondary wildcard.

Combustion

Supply of oil for all civs is reduced by 1/8 until Combustion is discovered by any civ.

Automobile

Triples the demand for oil.

Mass Production

Eliminates demand for hides.
Reduces demand for dye by 1/3.

Flight

Cuts freight payments by 1/3.

Nuclear Fission

Enables the supply and demand of Uranium.
Enables Uranium as a secondary demand wildcard.

Computers

Reduces the demand for copper by 1/4.
Reduces the demand for silver, gems and gold by 1/2.


2.6.11 Supply and Demand List Wildcards

Whenever the supply and demand lists of a city are updated the game calculates new supply quotients and demand quotients for each commodity. If a commodity’s supply quotient is higher than its demand quotient, the commodity goes onto the supply roster. Otherwise the commodity is added to the demand roster. The three commodities of the supply roster having the highest supply quotients are used for the updated supply list of the city. Similarly, the top three commodities in the demand roster are used for the updated demand list. Then these updated lists are checked for the presence of the wildcard commodities. Wildcard commodities not already present on either list are then placed in the middle position of their respective lists. By the way, if the city’s supply and demand wildcard happen to be the same commodity, only the demand wildcard will be placed.

It is almost a guarantee that both wildcards will always appear somewhere on their city’s lists, because if they do not appear because of their high quotients, then they must be assigned to the middle position of their respective lists as wildcards. The only exception is when their quotients qualify them to be in the middle position of their opposite member’s list, and end up being replaced by the other wildcard. For example, suppose silver is the demand wildcard, but its supply quotient puts it into second place on the supply roster. Now suppose the supply wildcard is beads, and beads’ quotients are too low for it to appear on either list. Then beads will have to be used as a wildcard, and when it is placed in the middle position of the supply list, it will replace silver and silver will end up being absent from the final lists. Although this is kind of tricky, it does not happen very often.

Well the point of this is that you can be pretty sure that the supply and demand wildcard commodities will usually be somewhere on their city’s lists, and it’s usually a good bet that they’ll be appearing in their capacity as wildcards, too. The end result is that city supply and demand lists appear to have a great deal of variety and changes that occur to them seem quite arbitrary and unpredictable. This is because the wildcard commodities tend to mask shifts in lists and the changes that control the quotients of non-wildcard commodities. However, the wildcard commodities are like permanent fixtures, and it’s their staying power that makes them so useful when planning a strategy for trade. Other commodities may come and go in a capricious manner, but you can depend on those wildcards to hang around.

Each city does not have one set of wildcards for the whole game, because once a civ has a total of 32 techs, the old set of wildcards is replaced by a new set. In addition, oil and uranium can enter the picture later on as secondary wildcards. The fact that wildcards change and that we have a degree of control over whether they will change for the AI, provides more opportunities to match the wildcards of AI cities with the best commodities available to us for conducting trade. The other great benefit provided by wildcards is that they are determined by a calculation based on a city’s map coordinates, which are static. This is helpful because it allows us to test for wildcards that will appear in colonies before they are founded. The map coordinates of a city can never change, so the same is true for its wildcards.

Now an example from an actual game will be used to illustrate how wildcard commodities are calculated and how this information can be used in planning a strategy for trade. At the end of this section a save is attached, named “wild”, which is the position in my first comparison game at the time my tech total reached 32. If you load the save and take a look at Rome, you will see that it has the following lists:

Supplies: (coal), (gold), (wool)
Demands: silver, beads, salt

Now exit the city display and right click on Rome to get its map coordinates, which should be (18,12). The horizontal map coordinate for Rome is 18 and the vertical map coordinate is 12. Using Samson’s formula, let’s calculate the first set of wildcards that were assigned to Rome.

Supply Wildcard = RemainderOf((Horizontal x 13 + Vertical x 7)/14))

Supply = RemainderOf((18x13 + 12x7)/14))
= R((234 + 84)/14))
= R(318/14) = 10

In this case, when 318 is divided by 14, the result is 22, with a remainder of 10. This can be verified by multiplying 22 by 14, which gives 308. 308 can now be subtracted from 318 to find out that the remainder is 10.

Most people will probably want to be using a calculator, though, which will give the following result for the division:

318/14 = 22.714285

Now subtract 22 from 22.714285 to get .714285, which is the remainder expressed as a fraction. To find the actual remainder multiply .714285 by 14

.714285 x 14 = 9.999999, which when rounded off to the nearest whole number is 10, the remainder.

Now we can consult Samson’s list, to see which commodity is assigned to this number:

0 = Hides
1 = Wool
2 = Beads
3 = Cloth
4 = Salt
5 = Coal
6 = Copper
7 = Dye
8 = Wine
9 = Silk
10 = Silver
11 = Spice
12 = Gems
13 = Gold
14 = Oil
15 = Uranium

The remainder of 10 points to silver, so silver is the supply wildcard. Now let’s calculate the demand wildcard.

Demand Wildcard = RemainderOf((Horizontal x 3 + Vertical x 5)/14)

Demand = R((18x3 + 12x5)/14)
= R((54 + 60)/14)
= R(114/14) = 2

In this case, when 114 is divided by 14, the result is 8, with a remainder of 2. This can be verified by multiplying 8 by 14, which gives 112. 112 can now be subtracted from 114 to find out that the remainder is 2.

Again, if using a calculator, the result of the division is 8.1428571. When the fractional part, .1428571 is multiplied by 14, we get 1.999999 which rounds to 2, which is our pointer to the demand wildcard. From Samson’s list we can see that the demand wildcard is beads.

Now let’s check Rome’s commodity lists for the presence of these wildcards. The supply wildcard, silver has such a high demand quotient, that it appeared on the demand list. Since it was already on one of the lists, silver was not used as a wildcard and was not placed in the middle position of the supply list. On the other hand, the demand wildcard, beads, was not on either list because its supply and demand quotients were too low. Because of this, beads was used as a wildcard and was placed in the middle position of the demand list.

This save was made at the time the Roman tech total reached 32 techs, which means that Roman cities were due to switch to their new set of wildcards. The tech total can be determined by using the Science Advisor. If you use it now, you will see that 31 techs have been acquired so far. Since the game includes the tech currently being researched as part of the tech total, we can add 1 for Physics which is being studied, for a tech total of 32. Since we have reached 32 techs, let’s calculate what the new wildcards will be by using Samson’s formulas.

Supply Wildcard = RemainderOf((Horizontal x 13 + Vertical x 7)/9) + 5

Notice that the horizontal and vertical calculations are the same as the ones used for the first supply wildcard. Only the divisor has changed, which is 9 instead of 14. Another change is the addition of 5 onto the remainder to get the wildcard pointer. Plugging in Rome’s coordinates we get:

Supply = R(318/9) + 5
= R(35.333333) + 5
= 3 + 5 = 8 wine

One handy feature of having a divisor of 9 now instead of 14, is that the digits repeated in the fractional part of the result happen to be the same as the actual remainder. After dividing by 9 with a calculator, all you have to do is look to the right of the decimal point to see what your remainder will be. The second demand wildcard is derived from this formula:

Demand Wildcard = RemainderOf((Horizontal x 3 + Vertical x 5)/9) + 5

Plugging in Rome’s numbers gives us:

Demand = R(114/9) + 5
= R(12.666666) + 5
= 6 + 5 = 11 spice

So now we know that wine will be the supply wildcard and spice will be the demand wildcard in Rome as soon as Rome’s lists are updated by the its next cycle turn or by another triggering event. It just so happens that in this save there is a coal caravan from Rome waiting to be delivered to Samarkand, a Mongol city, so go ahead and complete this trade now. When the coal is delivered, 195 gold will be collected and a new trade route between Rome and Samarkand will be established. This triggering event also activated the new wildcards in Rome, and you can see this by inspecting the city now. The lists have changed, and now they are:

Supplies: (coal), wine, wool
Demands: (silver), spice, salt

Sure enough, both of the new wildcards appear and both are being used as wildcards too, since they are have both been placed in the middle position of their respective lists.

Calculating wildcards is pretty easy to do, and knowing what they are in advance is a big advantage when setting up for advantageous trades. To get some more practice you might want to calculate all the wildcards being used for two of the AI cities, Tlatelolco and Isandhlwara. Try this now and compare your results to those listed below:

Tlatelolco (31,39)

First set of wildcards

Supply = R(676/14) = 4 salt
Demand = R(288/14) = 8 wine

Wildcards after 32 techs

Supply = R(676/9) + 5 = 6 copper
Demand = R(288/9) + 5 = 5 coal

Isandhlwana (68,52)

First set of wildcards

Supply = R(1248/14) = 2 beads
Demand = R(464/14) = 2 beads

Wildcards after 32 techs

Supply = R(1248/9) + 5 = 11 spice
Demand = R(464/9) + 5 = 10 silver

Notice that if the Aztecs are kept below 32 techs, then Tlatlelco will keep demanding wine, which Rome will be supplying. In fact, if you click on that city, you’ll see that wine is in its wildcard position. Since I did not want to disturb this demand for wine, I kept gifts to the Aztecs at a minimum.

It can also be seen that Isandhlwana will be supplying spice, matching Rome’s demand wildcard. I also noticed that this city was well positioned as a colony, so I made the decision to incite a revolt there later on, to take advantage of these two great opportunities, spice supply and a good colony. Later in the game, when spice was finally delivered from Isandhlwana to Rome, the delivery payoff was the biggest one achieved in the game.

Astute observers might notice that Isandhlwana is not demanding beads now, even though it has beads as a supply wildcard and as a demand wildcard. The reason for this is that the city has a high supply quotient for beads, and it just so happens that this quotient was the right amount to place beads in the middle position of the supply list before wildcards were checked. Since beads was already present on a list, beads was not used as a wildcard at all. This placement of beads can be checked by invoking the cheat menu and switching to the Zulu civ long enough to inspect Isandhlwana’s supply list. Tlatlelco’s supplies can be checked in the same way, by becoming the Aztecs long enough to see salt, its supply wildcard, in the middle of the supply list. Of course these supply checks via the cheat menu can not be made while playing an actual game, but doing this serves are purposes here for checking up on the validity of the formulas and the accuracy of our calculations.

Hopefully, it can now be seen how valuable this wildcard information can be while playing a game. Since wildcards are easy to calculate, it makes a lot of sense to keep track of all of them for each city while playing the game. The knowledge of wildcards is especially useful during the part of the game when the 32 tech totals start coming into play. Using this knowledge can make a huge difference in how profitable trade will become during the second half of an early landing game.

A final thing one should know about wildcards is that not all of the commodities have been treated equally. As Samson noted, the sum of any two map coordinates will always be an even number, which when divided by 14, will always result in an even remainder. This means the first wildcards can only be hides, beads, salt, copper, wine, silver, and gems, the even numbered ones. This also means that wool and cloth can never be wildcards. The second set of wildcards are limited to those numbered from 5 to 13, which are coal, copper, dye, wine, silk, silver, spice, gems, and gold. Only a few commodities can be wildcards in both halves of the game, and these are copper, wine, silver and gems. These discrepancies in wildcard possibilities over a course of a game help explain why experienced players have noticed that some commodities always seem to get a lot more action than others.

[solo]

Trade (cont)


2.6.12 Predicting Commodity Supply and Demand Lists

Using Samson’s formulas, it is possible to predict what the supply and demand lists will be for any city at any time in the game. Since these formulas are complicated, and because there is a need to calculate two quotients for each commodity each time a list is updated, it’s difficult to justify the time and effort required to do all of this. Plus, there are so many variables at work in determining the values of commodity supply and demand, it would not be surprising to find out that one or more of the formulas are incomplete or partially incorrect. In fact, while working on this section, I think I uncovered a new problem with the formula for the demand of spice. This will be discussed a little later when illustrating calculations.

Thus, the use of these formulas may be limited to the most important cities such as the SSC, where a more precise understanding of the ebb and flow of supplies and demands may be desired. Rome, which was the SSC used in my first comparison game, will be used to illustrate the use of these formulas. Rome’s wildcards were figured out in the previous section, and the save attached there named “wild” will also apply here.

Before getting into the calculations for Rome, a few words about Civ II geography might be helpful, so that players using Samson’s formulas will not make any errant assumptions that might throw off the accuracy of their calculations. Civ II has an option to use small, medium and large maps, and each tile for all maps is assigned a horizontal and vertical map coordinate. The zero horizontal coordinate (or zero meridian) corresponds to the International Date Line of our Earth, which makes Civ II’s mean meridian correspond to the Prime Meridian of Earth, so it is important not to confuse Civ II’s zero meridian with Earth’s zero longitudes. Less confusing are Civ II’s vertical coordinates, which start with zero at the North Pole and reach their maximum at the South Pole.

For each of the standard map sizes (small, medium and large) used by Civ II, here are the key statistics:

Horizontal Map Coordinates (east and west)

Number of Coordinates (Map Width) 80, 100, 150
Range 0-79, 0-99, 0-149
Zero Meridian 0, 0, 0
Mean Meridian 40, 50, 75
Range of Western Longitudes 1-39, 1-49, 1-74
Range of Eastern Longitudes 41-79, 51-99, 76-149

Vertical Map Coordinates (north and south)

Number of Coordinates (Map Height) 50, 80, 120
Range 0-49, 0-79, 0-119
North Pole 0, 0, 0
Northern Polar Circle 8, 13, 20
Northern Temperate Zone 12, 20, 30
The Equator 25, 40, 60
Southern Temperate Zone 37, 60, 90
Southern Polar Circle 41, 66, 100
South Pole 49, 79, 119

Any distances required for Samson’s formulas will always end up being positive numbers. Since some of the horizontal calculations may be a bit confusing here are a few examples to go by (MC will be used as an abbreviation for the Civ II Horizontal Map Coordinates):

Small Map Examples

MC 31 is in the Western Hemisphere and its Longitude is 9 (40-31)
MC 77 is in the Eastern Hemisphere and its Longitude is 37 (77-40)
The Distance to the Mean Meridian for MC 31 is also 9 (40-31)
The Distance to the Mean Meridian for MC 77 is also 37 (77-40)
The Distance to the Dateline for MC 31 is 31 (31-0)
The Distance to the Dateline for MC 77 is 3 (80-77)

Medium Map Examples

MC 31 is in the Western Hemisphere and its Longitude is 19 (50-31)
MC 77 is in the Eastern Hemisphere and its Longitude is 27 (77-50)
The Distance to the Mean Meridian for MC 31 is also 19 (50-31)
The Distance to the Mean Meridian for MC 77 is also 27 (77-50)
The Distance to the Dateline for MC 31 is 31 (31-0)
The Distance to the Dateline for MC 77 is 23 (100-77)

Large Map Examples

MC 31 is in the Western Hemisphere and its Longitude is 44 (75-31)
MC 77 is in the Eastern Hemisphere and its Longitude is 2 (77-75)
The Distance to the Mean Meridian for MC 31 is also 44 (75-31)
The Distance to the Mean Meridian for MC 77 is also 2 (77-75)
The Distance to the Dateline for MC 31 is 31 (31-0)
The Distance to the Dateline for MC 77 is 73 (150-77)

With these preliminaries out of the way we can load up the save “wild” and inspect Rome. A right click on the city reveals its map coordinates which are (18,12). From the last section we already know that the wildcards for Rome are, so let’s continue by counting up the terrain features in Rome needed for the calculations:

Ocean = 9 + 2 fish = 17
Grassland = 4
Plains = 3
Hills = 1 + 2 wine = 9
Rivers = 3
Roads = 6
Land = 10

Note that each fish counts as 4 ocean and each wine counts as 4 hills, and that the Land count ignores the extra amounts provided by specials. Rivers are counted in addition to their underlying terrain. From the save we can also collect the rest of the information we will need for the making the calculations:

Tech total is 32 (31 plus the one being learned)
Known techs affecting commodities: Iron Working, Chemistry, and Economics

Improvements affecting commodities: aqueduct, marketplace and bank

Number of citizens in Rome: 21

Continent Number: 1 (displayed to the right of Rome’s map coordinates)

City Number: 1 (from “Find City” list, Rome is first)

[solo]

Trade (cont)


2.6.12 Predicting Commodity Supply and Demand Lists (cont)

Now let’s figure out the Supply Quotients and Demand Quotients for each commodity. For the supply and demand of each commodity I will provide a copy of Samson’s formula followed by the calculations that were needed when using it.

Hides

Supply = Forest x 4 + Tundra x 6 + Glacier x 6 + Jungle x 3 + Rivers x 3
Location: N/A
Techs: N/A
# of Techs 1-15: 4x 16-23: 2x 24-48: 1x >48: 1/2
City Size 1-2: 2x 3-7: 1x >7: 1/2

Special Note: If Techs>48 the 2X bonus for Size<3 does not apply.

Supply = 0x4 + 0x6 + 0x6 + 0x3 + 3x3 = 9
# Techs 9x1 = 9
City Size 9/2 = 4

SQ for hides = 4

Demand = Forest + Mountains x 2 + Tundra x 5 + Glacier x 5
Location: + DistanceToEquator x 3/2
Techs: Industrialization: 1/3 Mass Production: eliminates demand
# of Techs: 1-9: 4x 10-19: 2x 20-47: 1x >47: 1/2
City Size: 1-2 2x

Demand = 0 + 0x2 + 0x5 + 0x5 = 0
Location 0 + 28 x 3/2 = 42
# techs 42x1 = 42

DQ for hides = 42

Hides goes into the Demand Roster with a DQ of 42

Wool

Supply = (Grass + Hills x 2 + Rivers/2 ) x (Tundra + Glacier + 2 + PolarCircle)
Location:
Techs:
# of Techs:
City Size:

Supply = (4 + 9x2 + 3/2) x (0 + 0 + 2 + 1) = 69

SQ for wool = 69

Demand = Plains x 2 + Forest
Location: + TemperateZoneOffset x 2
Techs: Industrialization: 2x
# of Techs:
City Size:

Demand = 3x2 + 0 = 6
Location 6 + 8x2 = 22

DQ for wool = 22

Wool goes into the Supply Roster with a SQ of 69

Beads

Supply = Ocean x 8
Location: - DistanceToEquator
Techs: none
# of Techs: >32: 1/2
CitySize: 1-9: 1x >9: ½

Supply = 17x8 = 136
Location: 136 – 28 = 108
CitySize: 108/2 = 54

SQ for beads = 54

Demand = Land x 3/2
Location: + DistanceToEquator
Techs: none
# of Techs: >47: 1/2
CitySize: 1-3: 3/2 4-12: 1x >12: ½

Demand = 10 x 3/2 = 15
Location: 15 + 28 = 43
CitySize: 43/2 = 21

DQ for beads = 21

Beads goes into the Supply Roster with an SQ of 54

(Notice that the SQ of beads will drop to 27 very soon, since we already have 32 techs)

Cloth

Supply = Desert + Plains x 3 - Rivers
Location:
Techs: Industrialization: x 3/2
# of Techs: 1-7: 1/4 8-15: 1/2 16-19: 1x >19: 2x
CitySize:

Supply = 0 + 3x3 – 3 = 6
# techs: 6 x 2 = 12

SQ for cloth = 12

Demand = Forest x 4 + Hills x 4
Special: + ( (Techs/10) x (Forest + Mountains x 2 + Tundra x 5 + Glacier x 5 + DistanceToEquator x 3/2) ) / 8

Demand = 0x4 + 9x4 = 36
Special: 36 + ((32/10) x (0 + 0x2 + 0x5 + 0x5 + 28x3/2))/8 = 51

DQ for cloth = 51

Cloth goes into the Demand Roster with a DQ of 51

Salt

Supply = Desert x 4 + Swamp x 2 + Ocean x 3
# of Techs: - Techs/6
Location:
Continent#: 1,3,5: x 3/2
Techs: Pottery, if not discovered: 1/3
CitySize:
City Improvements: Aqueduct: x 3/2

Supply = 0x4 + 0x2 + 17x3 = 51
# techs: 51 – 32/6 = 46
Continent#: 46 x 3/2 = 69
Techs: 69/3 = 23
City Improvements: 23 x 3/2 = 34

SQ for salt = 34

Demand =
Location:
Techs:
# of Techs: - Techs/2
CitySize: 1-5: + pop x 8 6-10: + pop x 4 11-15: + pop x 2 16-20: + pop x 1 >20: +75

Special Note: The first five citizens each demand 8 salt, the next five demand 4 salt, the next five 2 salt and the fourth group of five demand 1 salt. Size-based demand maxes out at 75.

# techs: - 32/2 = -16
CitySize: -16 + 75 = 59

DQ for salt = 59

Salt goes onto the Demand Roster with a DQ of 59

Notice that salt would have been on the Supply Roster if Pottery had been acquired.

Coal

Supply = (Plains + Forest + Swamp + Jungle +1) x (Hills x 5)
Location:
Continent#: If ODD and >1: x 3/2
Techs:
# of Techs: <20: 1/2
City Size: 1-7: 1/2 8-17: 1x >17: 2x

Supply = (3 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1) x (9x5) = 180
City Size: 180x2 = 360

SQ for coal = 360

Demand =
Location: (DistanceToEquator + 10) x (CitySize+2)/5
# of Techs: + Techs
CitySize: 1-4: Demand = 0 5-7: 1/2x >7: 1x
Techs: Industrialization: 2x Electricity: 2x
City Improvements: PowerPlant: 2x NuclearPlant, HydroPlant, SolarPlant: 1/ 8

Special Note: CitySize has two affects in this formula: once as a multiplier of the location factor and later, after # of Techs has been added, a penalty is applied to smaller cities.

Location: (28+10) x (21+2)/5 = 152
# techs: 152 + 32 = 184
CitySize: 184x1 = 184

DQ for coal = 184

Coal goes onto the Supply Roster with a SQ of 360

Coal is almost always a factor on the SSC lists, first being in supply and later being in demand.

Copper

Supply = Hills x 5 + Mountains x 5
Continent#: If EVEN: 2x

Supply = 9x5 + 0x5 = 45

SQ for copper = 45

Demand = Rivers + Roads
Techs: Electricity: 3/2 Computers: 1/4
CitySize: 1-2: Demand = 0 3-4: 1/2 5-7: 1x 8-12: 2x 13-17: 3x
18-22: 4x ... etc.
City Improvements: Marketplace: x 3/2 Bank: x 3/2

Special Note: The formula for Copper Demand is theoretical, as there appears to be a serious bug in all versions of Civ2 with regards to the demand of both Copper and Dye.

On 2.4.2, the formula as given is valid only when the city's Supply and Demand lists are updated by a caravan delivery. When the update is caused by viewing the City Display on that city's 16-year turn, the Base Demand is Rivers + Roads + City#. When the update is caused by the 16-year automatic update, then Copper's DQ is a LARGE NUMBER.

On the Gold Edition, the formula as given is valid only when the city's update is caused by the 16-year automatic update. Both caravan deliveries and City Displays during the 16-year turn cause the DQ to be set to a VERY LARGE NUMBER.

Formula to use is: Demand = Rivers + Roads + City#

Demand = 3 + 6 + 1 = 10

DQ for copper is 10

Copper goes onto the Supply Roster with a SQ of 45

Dye

Supply = Grass x 10 + Rivers x 2 - Plains x 2
Continent#: If multiple of 4: 2x

Supply = 4x10 + 3x2 – 3x2 = 40

SQ for Dye = 40

Demand = SupplyOf(Cloth) + Roads
Techs: Chemistry: 1/2 Mass Production: 1/2

Special Note: See the note for Copper Demand. The same bug affects the demand of Dye. The common factor in both formulas appears to be "Roads".

Demand = 12 + 3 = 15

DQ for dye = 15

Dye goes onto the Supply Roster with a SQ of 40

Wine

Supply = LesserOf (Plains x 4, Rivers x 5 - Grass)
Location: +DistanceToDateline/4 If NorthernHemisphere: x 2
Continent#: If RemainderOf(Continent# /4 ) = 2: x 3/2
CitySize: 1-2: 1/2 8-10: 2x
Civ: If FRENCH: 2x

Supply = LesserOf (3x4, 3x5 – 4) = 11
Location: 11 + 18/4 = 15 x 2 = 30

SQ for wine = 30

Demand = 0
Location: + | Horizontal - Vertical |
CitySize: 1-2: +4 3-7: +8 8-12: +12 13-17: +16 18-22: +20 23-27: +24 28-32: +28 etc.

Location: + | 18 – 12 | = 6
CitySize: 6 + 20 = 26

DQ for wine = 26

Wine goes onto the Supply Roster with a SQ of 30

Silk

Supply = (Forest x 2 + Jungle + 1) x (Hills + 1)
Location: + LongitudeEast x 2
Continent#: Multiple of 5: 2x
Civ: If CHINESE: 2x

Supply = (0x2 + 0 + 1) x (9 + 1) = 10

SQ for silk = 10

Demand = Desert x 4 + Plains/2 + Swamp x 2 + Jungle x 4
Location: + DistanceToPole x 2 + DistanceToDateline
Continent#: If Continent = 1 AND CityNumber/2 is ODD: x 3/2
Techs:
# of Techs:
CitySize: 1-2: 1/4 3-6: 1/2 7: 1x >7: 2x

Demand = 0x4 + 3/2 + 0x2 + 0x4 = 1
Location: 1 + 12x2 = 25 + 18 = 43
CitySize: 43x2 = 86

DQ for silk = 86

Silver

Supply = Mountains x 8 + Hills
Location: If NON-ZERO: + DistanceToMeanMeridian
Continent: >8: 3/2
Techs: If Iron Working not discovered, 1/2
# of Techs:
City Size: 1-4: ½

Supply = 0x8 + 9
Location: 9 + 32 = 41

SQ for silver = 41

Demand = CitySize x 8
Location: RemainderOf( (Horizontal + Vertical) / 3): 0 = silver, 1 = gems, 2 = gold
Techs: Chemistry: x 3/2 Economics: 1/2 Computers: 1/2
Civ: If SPANISH: 2x
City Improvements: Bank: x 3/2 Cathedral: x 3/2

Special Note: The Demand Quotients for Gems and Gold use the same formula as Silver. The remainder from the division by 3 of the sum of the city's map coordinates determines which commodity the formula is applied to. All cities demand Silver as CitySize x 8, but the Tech modifiers only apply to Silver if the location is 0 mod3. If the location is 1 mod3, the city demands Gems at the full formula rate. If the location is 2 mod3, the city demands Gold at the full formula rate.

Demand = 21x8 = 168
Location: RemainderOf((18+12)/3) = 0 silver, so proceed
Techs: 168/2 = 84
City Improvements: 84 x 3/2 = 126

DQ for silver is 126

Silver goes onto the Demand Roster with a DQ of 126

Spice

Supply = (Desert + Swamp + Jungle x 3/2 ) x (Ocean + Rivers)
Location: DistanceToEquator < 10: 2x; - DistanceToEquator
Continent#: 1: 1/2
ContinentSize: <26: 2x >300 ½

Supply = (0 + 0 + 0x3/2) x (17 + 3) = 0
Location: 0 – 28 = -28
Continent#: -28/2 = -14
ContinentSize: -14/2 = -7

SQ for spice = -7

Demand = ContinentSize/10
Location: If ContinentSize > 400 and (Horizontal + Vertical) /2 is EVEN: demand is zero
Techs: Refrigeration: 1/2
CitySize: < 4: 1/2 5-7: 1x >7: 2x

Demand = 350/10 = 35 (This is an estimate)
CitySize: 25x2 = 70

DQ for spice = 70

Spice goes onto the Demand Roster with a DQ of 70 (amended to 35)

(Later on, when I was making up the lists, I discovered that with this DQ, spice should have appeared in the place of salt on the demand list, but it didn’t, so I have concluded that something is incorrect about the demand formula for spice. A glitch like this is not unlikely, because it is hard to track and account for every possible variable that determines spice demand. Spice also gave Samson and myself a lot of trouble when he was trying to develop a formula for it. After conducting some tests, by altering terrain, city size, etc. and seeing the effects of doing this on the demand list for Rome, I have concluded that the actual DQ for Spice must be lower than that of salt. Spice’s DQ is probably 35, and it might even be zero. The fact that there are not any other spice demanders on continent #1 and that this continent often gets special treatment as it does for spice supply, adds credence to my conclusion that spice should not have a DQ of 70. It is too bad Samson is absent, as he was much more adept at zeroing in on problems like this. For now, I will assign spice to the demand roster with a DQ of 35).

Gems

Supply = (Desert +1) x (Mountains + 1) x (Swamp + 1) + Plains
Location:
Continent#: 7: 3/2 x
Techs:
# of Techs:
CitySize: 1-7: 1/2 8-12: 1x 13-17: 3/2 >17: 2x

Supply = 0+1 x 0+1 x 0+1 + 3 = 3
CitySize: 3 x 2 = 6

SQ for gems = 6

Demand: See Silver

Demand = 0

DQ for gems = 0

Gems goes onto the Supply Roster with a SQ of 6

Gold

Supply = (Mountains x 2 + Hills + 2) x (Rivers +2)
Terrain: If Mountains < 3: 1/2
Location:
Techs:
# of Techs:
CitySize: 1-4: 1x 5-9: 2x >9: 4x

Supply = (0x2 + 9 + 2) x (3 + 2) = 55
Terrain: 55/2 = 27
CitySize: 27 x 4 = 108

SQ for gold = 108

Demand: See Silver

Demand = 0

DQ for gold = 0

Gold goes onto the Supply Roster with a SQ of 108

Oil

Supply = Desert x 10 + Tundra x 8 + Glacier x 8 + Swamp x 6
Location:
Continent#: 9: x 3/2
Techs: If Combustion NOT discovered by anyone: 1/8
# of Techs:
CitySize: >37: 2x

Supply = 0x10 + 0x8 + 0x8 + 0x6 = 0

SQ for oil = 0

Demand = 0
Location:
Techs: Enabled by Industrialization; Automobile: 3x
# of Techs: + Techs/6
CitySize: 1-2: 1/2x 3-4: 3/4x 5-7: 3/2x 8-9: 2x 10-12: 4x 13-17: 5 x 18-19: 6x 20-22: 12x 23-27: 14x 28-32: 16x 33-37: 18x 38-42: 20x
CityImprovements: Factory: 3/2x Superhighways: 2x Mass Transit: 1/2x Recycling Center: 1/2x

Special Note: Oil can appear as both a demand and supply wildcard after Industrialization if the regular wildcard is not expressed.

DQ for oil = None

Oil goes on the Supply Roster with a SQ of 0

Uranium

Supply = (Desert + Tundra + Glacier + 1) x (Mountains + 1) x (Hills + Rivers + 1)
Location:
Techs: Enabled by Nuclear Fission
# of Techs:
CitySize: 1-2: x0 3-7: 1/6 8-12: 1/3 13-17: 1/2 18-22: 2/3 23-27: 5/6 27> 1x

SQ for uranium = None

Demand = 0
Location:
Techs: Enabled by Nuclear Fission
# of Techs: + #Techs squared
CitySize: 1-2: 1/8 3-7: 1/4 8-12: 1/2 >12: 1x
City Improvements: Nuclear Plant: 2x SDI: 2x

Special Note: Uranium can appear as a demand wildcard after Nuclear Fission if the regular wildcard is not expressed

DQ for Uranium = None

No roster appearances yet for uranium.

Here is a summary for each commodity with its SQ and DQ. The quotient in boldface indicates which roster the commodity was assigned to:

Hides 4, 42
Wool 69, 22
Beads 54, 21
Cloth 12, 51
Salt 34, 59
Coal 360, 184
Copper 45, 10
Dye 40, 15
Wine 30, 26
Silk 10, 86
Silver 41, 126
Spice -7, 35
Gems 6, 0
Gold 108, 0
Oil 0, -
Uranium -, -

Now the commodities having the three highest quotients in their rosters can be assigned to the supply and demand lists:

Supplies: Coal (360), Gold (108), Wool (69)
Demands: Silver (126), Silk (86), Salt (59)

Now let’s apply the first set of wildcards, which were calculated in the previous section about wildcard commodities. The supply wildcard is silver, but since silver appears on the demand list silver will not be used as a wildcard and will not be placed in the middle position of the supply list. The demand wildcard is beads, and since beads do not appear on either list, it is used as a wildcard and will be placed in the middle position of the demand list, covering silk. So, before the supply and demand lists are updated to reflect the new tech total of 32, the lists will look like this:

Supplies: Coal, Gold, Wool
Demands: Silver, Beads, Salt

If Rome’s city display in the save is checked, you can see that the lists have these commodities. Now let’s apply the second set of wildcards, which were also calculated in the previous section about wildcard commodities. The supply wildcard is wine, and since wine does not appear on either list, it will be used as a wildcard and will be placed in the middle position of the supply list. The same is true for spice, the demand wildcard, which will go into the middle spot of the demand list. (Please note that this placement of the spice wildcard has nothing to do with the problems I encountered while calculating spice’s DQ). After applying these wildcards, the lists will look like this:

Supplies: Coal, Wine, Wool
Demands: Silver, Spice, Salt

Now if the coal caravan in the game is delivered to Samarkand, Rome’s lists will updated to reflect the switch to the second set of wildcards, which were enabled by the new tech total of 32. After the caravan is delivered, Rome can be inspected and it can be seen that the lists have the commodities which were predicted by the formulas.

After making these calculations in my own game, I also took note of how coming events would alter the SQ’s and DQ’s of each commodity as the game progressed, and changes to lists that I anticipated did occur right on schedule. The formulas may not be 100% reliable yet, but using them can improve anyone’s management of commodity supply and demand.

[solo]

Trade (cont)


2.6.13 Manipulating Commodity Supply and Demand

Whenever commodities are built and traded, commodity supply and demand becomes blocked for the cities involved. An exception is the commodity hides, which is immune to being blocked, probably due to a bug in the game. However, hides are only one of 16 commodities present in the game, and sooner or later enough trades might be made that cities are unable to build new caravans because their supplies are blocked, or are unable to collect delivery demand bonuses for the same reason, demand in the target city has become blocked. Fortunately, there are several unblocking techniques that can be used to keep profitable trading going, and these will be detailed in this section. In addition, more details will be provided about the mechanics of city cycle turns and about the copper and dye bugs.

Attached at the end of this section is a zip file containing several saves from Civ II games, which you can load and use in order to follow the examples as they are being discussed. It helps to actually use these techniques a few times to get an understanding of how and when they should be used. These saves have been given the creative names “blocked”, “bugged”, “food”, “goose”, “resupply”, “tricky” and “wonder”. Thanks are due to Scouse Gits(2), a regular participant in our comparison games, who was kind enough to provide the save I have renamed “bugged”.

First, I’ll review a few basics about commodity trades. When a city (source) delivers a caravan or freight to another city (destination) already having three trade routes, one of the old routes in the destination city’s display will be replaced by the source city’s route if the source city’s base trade exceeds that of one of the three cities appearing among the routes. The first trade route city is checked first, and so on down the list, to see if a swap can be made. If the base trade of the source city is not high enough, none of the three existing routes will be changed. (The base trade of any city is determined by subtracting the number of trade arrows generated by its trade routes from its total number of trade arrows.)

Now for some specific examples: If you load resupply and take a look inside Chicago, you will see:

Supplies: (gold), (oil), (beads)
Demands: (oil), spice, silk
Paris beads: +18t
Veii gems: +18t
Rome Copper: +19t

All supplies are currently blocked. The beads delivered to Paris earlier in the turn have replaced the first trade route. This delivery enabled the re-supply of beads, but a triggering event is needed to make this happen. If you deliver the Atlanta beads freight to Chicago, the display will change as follows:

Supplies: (gold), (oil), beads
Demands: oil, spice, silk
Atlanta oil: +9t or Atlanta gold: +9t
Veii gems: +18t
Rome copper: +19t

Since the Paris beads route was replaced after Atlanta’s delivery, beads was unblocked and can be built in Chicago the following turn. I think most players are aware of this basic unblocking technique. Whether gold or oil are assigned to the Atlanta route is determined by random, and if you reload resupply and repeat this delivery a few times, you will see this is true. Also note that this delivery unblocked the demand for oil in Chicago and this often happens when an undemanded commodity is delivered. The only negative aspect of this particular trade is that it only brought in 68 gold.

Now save the game. If the silk freight, north of Chicago, is delivered next, no changes will occur in the display, and note that even though silk was in demand, the delivery did not block Chicago’s demand for silk. The reason for this is that the base trade in Detroit was only 6 trade arrows when the delivery was made, which was too small to allow Detroit to replace any of the existing routes. The important thing to notice and remember about this trade is that Detroit’s delivery did not block Chicago’s demand for silk.

Now reload the save just made and go into Detroit. You’ll see that you can increase Detroit’s base trade from only 6 arrows up to 27 arrows by moving workers onto tiles having the best trade. After doing this, deliver the silk freight to Chicago. The result is:

Supplies: (gold), (oil), (beads)
Demands: oil, spice, (silk)
Detroit beads: +10t
Veii gems: +18t
Rome copper: +19t

Now Detroit’s base trade was higher than Atlanta, allowing Detroit’s route to replace Atlanta’s. Although this trade brought in a little more gold, it blocked the demand for silk and also re-blocked the supply for beads. This is a good example of what not to do, and of how the replacement of routes can act as a blocking mechanism.

Now reload the temporary save a few more times, but before delivering the silk to Chicago, sell off the superhighways in Detroit just to see how much less gold the trade will bring. Finally, do this again, but sell off the superhighways in Detroit and Chicago before delivering silk, and you’ll see another substantial drop in revenue. Now you know why I like having superhighways everywhere.

Now, reload the original save, named resupply. I’ll insert the original display of Chicago again, so you won’t have to scroll up:

Supplies: (gold), (oil), (beads)
Demands: (oil), spice, silk
Paris beads: +18t
Veii gems: +18t
Rome Copper: +19t

Before making any trades, go into Detroit and set its workers so that they generate enough trade to replace the Paris route. (More than 10 arrows will do, since this is the likely amount of base trade in Paris. Paris probably has 2 arrows each, for the 5 workers on roads, and no more for the two working its mines, making a total of 10.)

Now save the game, and afterwards, skip over Atlanta’s freight and deliver the silk freight from Detroit to Chicago first. There are three possible results of this trade:

Supplies: (gold), (oil), beads
Demands: oil, spice, (silk)
Detroit oil: +10t or Detroit gold: +10t
Veii gems: +18t
Rome Copper: +19t

Or

Supplies: (gold), (oil), (beads)
Demands: oil, spice, (silk)
Detroit beads: +10t
Veii gems: +18t
Rome Copper: +19t

Whether gold, oil or beads are assigned to Detroit when its new route was created is determined by chance, and if you reload and re-deliver this silk freight enough times, you will eventually get all three results above. Notice that there is a 66% chance of unblocking beads by making this trade, and also note that it always blocks Chicago’s demand for silk. If you had another silk caravan coming into Chicago, you could unblock the demand in Chicago for silk now by delivering Atlanta’s freight. Go ahead and try this now, if you want to see. Furthermore, if beads had been assigned to Detroit after making its silk delivery, the subsequent delivery of Atlanta’s freight would have also unblocked Chicago’s supply of beads. This can be seen by loading the save named blocked and delivering Atlanta’s freight. The displays before and after this trade will be:

Supplies: (gold), (oil), (beads)
Demands: oil, spice, (silk)
Detroit beads: +10t
Veii gems: +18t
Rome Copper: +19t

Supplies: (gold), (oil), beads
Demands: oil, spice, silk
Atlanta oil: +9t
Veii gems: +18t
Rome Copper: +19t

The delivery of undemanded beads from Atlanta unblocked the supply for beads and unblocked the demand for silk in Chicago.

In my actual game, I wanted the big payoff for delivering demanded silk and also wanted to unblock the supply of beads in Chicago, so I traded the Detroit freight first, since the odds were in my favor this trade would unblock the supply of beads. It did, but had I been unlucky, I had the Atlanta freight standing by just in case, to deliver afterwards, just to make sure beads became available for Chicago’s next build. Had I another silk caravan coming into Chicago the following turn, I could have created demand for it by delivering Atlanta’s freight, too.

For the next example, load the save named tricky, and inspect Chicago. Its display should be:

Supplies: (gold), (oil), (beads)
Demands: uranium, spice, (coal)
St. Louis oil: +11t
Veii gems: +18t
Rome copper: 19t

Now deliver the oil freight from Detroit. You will see that only one change occurred in the display. The Veii trade route was replaced by a new Detroit one:

Detroit gold: + 11t or Detroit beads: +11t

has taken the place of Veii gems: +18t

Also note that since gems does not appear on the supply list it can not become unblocked or become available for the next build in Chicago. The reason Detroit replaced the Veii route was because Detroit had more base trade than Veii, but could not surpass the base trade of St. Louis. However, if we could get Detroit to replace St. Louis instead, this would unblock Chicago’s supply of oil, which is what we would rather do.

Since Detroit’s base trade is as high as we can make it, we can work it the other way instead, by reducing the base trade in St. Louis temporarily, by making its wine worker into an entertainer. Doing this will reduce the base trade in St. Louis to 24 (50 – 26) from its original value of 33 (62 – 29). Since Detroit’s base trade is 33 (44 – 11), and it now exceeds that of St. Louis, the same delivery will result in:

Supplies: (gold), oil, (beads)
Demands: uranium, spice, (coal)
Detroit beads: +11t or Detroit gold: +11t
Veii gems: +18t
Rome copper: +19t

Since the oil delivered by Detroit was not in demand in Chicago, oil could not be assigned to Detroit’s route. This meant Chicago’s supply of oil was sure to become unblocked by this trade, as long as Detroit replaced St. Louis’s route. No harm was done to St. Louis, since its worker could be put back onto the wine after the delivery was made. Of course, one shouldn’t forget to do this. The only downside of this trade was that there was no demand bonus for making this oil delivery, but superhighways still ensured a decent payoff. The main purpose of the trade was accomplished, by providing Chicago with a fresh supply of oil.

Now if you load the save named goose, an example will be given of how to get an AI city to become like that proverbial goose that lays golden eggs. In an earlier post, Orleans had been identified as a city having gold as a wildcard, and this was revealed and verified earlier in the game after a silver delivery to that city.

In this save, the first gold freight from Chicago has arrived next Orleans, so go ahead and deliver it. Afterwards, you can see that Orleans still demands gold, and that it also desires beads now, another commodity Chicago supplies. Although Orleans is puny, and has minimal trade itself, its location, distance and demand choices are enough to give the SSC maximum payoffs whenever deliveries are made. Icing on the cake is the fact that Orleans is easy to access, so that these profitable deliveries can be made quickly, too.

By now you may have noticed that other gold freight from Philadelphia parked next to Paris. If you go ahead and deliver this to Orleans, our golden goose, you will have cooked your own by blocking Orleans’ demand for gold. Hmmm. How come one trade blocks gold demand and the other made to the same city didn’t? It’s not a matter of trading order, for if you reload goose and deliver the gold from Philadelphia first, you will block the demand immediately, and this time you will be even worse off, since the gold standing by from Chicago is no longer wanted anywhere.

The answer is found by looking at Chicago. Reload goose again and deliver Chicago's gold to Orleans, and then look inside Chicago. Orleans did not appear as a new trade route, and the reason for this is because its base trade is so puny that it hasn’t a chance of replacing any of the other cities making up the 3 routes. After a trade, the destination city must appear among the source city’s trade routes in order to block its demand for the commodity being delivered. Now if you deliver Philadelphia’s gold, you will notice that Orleans appears as a new route for that city, causing the demand in Orleans for gold to become blocked.

This can all be verified by conducting the following experiment. Reload goose again, and check Chicago’s display:

Supplies: (gold), (oil), (beads)
Demands: uranium, spice, (coal)
St. Louis beads: +11t
Veii gems: +18t
Rome copper: +19t

Since St. Louis appears on the first trade route, go into that city and make all of its workers into entertainers, to make its base trade as low as possible. Now deliver the gold from Chicago to Orleans and you’ll see that the demand for gold in Orleans has been blocked. Checking back with Chicago’s display, you’ll see that a new route with Orleans has been created, replacing the St. Louis one.

Now it should be obvious, that as long as you do not mess up demand in Orleans by making deliveries from other cities, it will keep demanding as much gold and beads that Chicago is able to deliver. Orleans’ base trade is so small, it will never be able to replace other cities making up Chicago’s trade routes. So if I knew this, why is the Philadelphia gold sitting next to Paris? For the moment, it ensures that the adjacent coal freight can reach Paris on the next turn, and not be blocked by a coy AI move of its phalanx onto the same RR tile. After I am sure my last gold freight from Chicago has been delivered to Orleans, I can finally cash in the Philadelphia gold, too, near the end of the game.

In the example where St. Louis’s base trade was minimized, astute observers may wonder why the gold delivery from Chicago did not unblock beads on its supply list. After all, Orleans supplanted the St. Louis trade route. The reason is that there is still a Chicago beads freight on the map that has not been delivered yet.

If you reload goose, deliver Chicago’s gold to Orleans and then space Philadelphia’s freight to end its turn, you’ll see that a beads from Chicago is waiting to be delivered to Buffalo. Making this delivery will free up a new supply of gold in Chicago. A new route for Buffalo appears in Chicago, taking place of the one previously held by Veii. Gold will also be re-supplied in Chicago, if you lower St. Louis’s base trade enough to have Buffalo replace its route instead. The reason gold was re-supplied is because when Chicago delivered gold to Orleans, a new trade route tied to gold was not created to replace one of Chicago’s 3 routes. It’s Orleans’ lack of base trade that makes such favorable manipulations possible.

[solo]

Trade (cont)


2.6.13 Manipulating Commodity Supply and Demand (cont)

There are also ways of using food caravans to unblock commodity supplies. One method I discovered makes use of the supply and demand list update that occurs in a city when the city contributes a food caravan to a wonder. This was dubbed as the “wonder bread” trick by Samson, and it has become invaluable in refreshing the supply of SSC commodities that do not create new trade routes when they are delivered. Following is an example of its use.

If you load up the save named wonder and take a look at Boston’s city display, you’ll see:

Supplies: (dye), (silver), (cloth)
Demands: Uranium, (coal), copper
Karakorum oil: +35t
Karakorum cloth: +35t
Rome silver: +21t

You can see that all three supply commodities are blocked. Now if you go back outside and look at St. Louis, you’ll notice it’s building a wonder, accumulating shields towards the construction of the Apollo Program later. Now take Boston’s food freight and add it to the wonder being built. Then recheck Boston’s display. No changes. Hmm! Wonder bread didn’t work!

The reason it did not work was because dye can not be re-supplied until Boston’s dye freight next to Hastings is delivered. Now reload the wonder save and deliver Boston’s dye freight to Hastings first. Now check Boston’s display. No changes, and the reason this delivery did not create a new trade route to replace one of the existing ones to Karakorum or Rome, is because both of these cities are size 8, and have most of their workers earning trade arrows, giving them more base trade than Hastings. Although delivered, dye did not replace any of the existing routes and went into what you might call a state of “limbo”.

Well, to release dye from this purgatory, the wonder bread ploy must be used, so try it now, by adding Boston’s food freight to the wonder being built in St. Louis. Now check Boston’s display and you’ll see it has changed, with dye now in supply.

Supplies: dye, (silver), (cloth)
Demands: Uranium, (coal), copper
Karakorum oil: +35t
Karakorum cloth: +35t
Rome silver: +21t

After this new supply of dye is built and delivered, Boston can produce another food freight to keep this re-supply of dye going indefinitely, which is what I ended up doing during my game.

Without the wonder bread ploy, my only option would have been to sit and hope something changed on the next cycle turn, but these turns are few and far between. It’s no good having all that trade potential and not being able to put it to constant use.

Now you may ask what about silver and cloth. Why doesn’t wonder bread unblock either of these two? The reason is because they did not go into “limbo” when they were delivered. Cloth went to Karakorum and the silver went to Rome. To unblock either of these two, a trade would have to be made to a city with more base trade than one of these two, causing one of these trade routes to be replaced. I didn’t want to do this, because demand for dye was widespread. I also wanted to retain the lucrative Karakorum rail bonuses.

Regular food deliveries can also be used to unblock supplies, too, and here comes an example of doing that. If you load the save named food and take a look inside San Francisco, one of the two colonies I set up in this game. It’s display should be:

Supplies: (silk), (copper), (salt)
Demands: uranium, wool, wine
Boston copper: +9t
Buffalo silk: +1t
Boston salt: +9t

Now if you take San Francisco’s food freight and deliver it to Boston, you’ll notice that the only change to Boston’s display was the increase in food, which is good, because we don’t want to disrupt any of its trade routes. Now check San Francisco, and you’ll see the following changes:

Supplies: silk, (copper), (salt)
Demands: uranium, wool, wine
Boston copper: +9t
Boston Food Supplies: -1f
Boston salt: +9t

Notice that this trade replaced the Buffalo trade route, causing a re-supply of silk. This is a good thing, but in this game I was more interested in getting a re-supply of copper, since copper was in demand in my SSC, and I could get more gold from a copper trade. I would rather replace the Boston copper route if I could with the new food route.

This can be done by temporarily reducing Boston’s base trade until it is lower than Buffalo’s. You can do this by making all Boston city workers into entertainers. Try reloading this save and do this before delivering the food freight from San Francisco to Boston. After the food is delivered the display will change to:

Supplies: (silk), copper, (salt)
Demands: uranium, wool, wine
Boston Food Supplies: -1f
Buffalo silk: +1t
Boston salt: +1t

Since the base trade in Buffalo was higher than Boston’s, the Boston copper route was replaced, instead. Now San Francisco can produce and deliver another copper freight to Boston, which is what I wanted to do in this game.

Now reload the save again and make all of Boston’s workers into entertainers. Instead of delivering the food to Boston, deliver it to another city instead. The result is the same, copper has been re-supplied. The food can be delivered to any city. What matters is which of San Francisco’s trade routes it replaces.

Now reload and fix up Boston’s workers again to reduce its base trade. Use San Francisco’s food freight to help build the wonder in St. Louis, in attempt to use it like wonder bread. When you check back in San Francisco, you’ll see that this did not work, and all supplies are still blocked. The reason is because none of the blocked supplies were in “limbo”. Get the difference?

So when dealing with food and re-supply it’s a good idea to:

1. First, deliver what you want re-supplied before making any attempts to unblock it.

2. Use wonder bread to unblock commodities that went into limbo when delivered.

3. Use food deliveries to unblock visible trade route commodities.

If used correctly, using food to re-supply commodities should always work. The only problem is that you have to take the extra time to build the food, and that you may end up wasting a valuable caravan or freight if its food can not be put to good use.

[solo]

Trade (cont)


2.6.13 Manipulating Commodity Supply and Demand (cont)

Now the save bugged will be used to illustrate some ideas about city cycle turns and the copper and dye bug, so go ahead and load this save. I will assume you are using Civ version 2.42 while doing this. If not, and if your only version of the game is MGE, then you’ll have to just read this part and use MGE later, when I cover the examples using it. If you remember, the copper and dye bugs work differently in the two versions of Civ II, so it’s important to be using the same version. I’ll be discussing version 2.42 first.

Using “Find City” you’ll notice that Ulundi, the SSC used in this game, was the 8th city founded during the game. While in “Find City”, also make a note that Madrid was the 6th city to be founded. Now check the game turn, which should be 400 AD. This just happens to be Ulundi’s city cycle turn, and this can be verified by counting ahead 7 turns… 420, 440, 460, 480, 500, 520, to 540, which is the city cycle turn of Zimbabwe, the first city founded during this game. If you check the list under the section describing city cycle turns, you’ll see that 540 AD is one of the ones used by the first city. We can also see that Madrid’s cycle turn is coming up two turns from now in 440 AD.

First a reminder that the copper and dye bug results in an abnormally high demand quotient being assigned to copper and/or dye. Dye is usually affected first, earlier in the game, and then copper gains steam and moves even higher than dye. A result of this bug is that copper or dye will end up in the left hand position of the affected city’s demand list, because of its high Demand Quotient. If copper (or dye) had previously been on the supply list, or on another part of the demand list, its move to the left side of the demand list can shake up the positions of other commodities on one or both lists, too. This may end up being either good or bad, depending on which commodities you want to be trading with next. Sometimes you’ll want to purposely invoke the bug, and at other times want to cancel its affects.

In 2.42, the copper and dye bug works like this. It is invoked by the city cycle turn’s automatic update. It can also be invoked by using the “SCG switch” on a city cycle turn, by temporarily lowering the city’s shield capacity to zero. The bug can be cancelled in two ways, too. One way is by inspecting the city on its cycle turn and the other is by establishing or replacing a trade route on any turn by using a caravan or freight delivery. Let’s use this save to verify these statements.

First, and before looking at Ulundi (if you did already, please reload), check dye with the trade advisor. You’ll see that dye is in demand now in Ulundi. You can also check spice if you would like, which is now in supply there. Now you can take my word for it that dye was not in demand in Ulundi in 380, the previous turn, because it was actually in supply then. It was Ulundi’s city cycle update occurring at the beginning of this turn, which caused dye to move to the demand list. Since the trade advisor is always kept up to date, you can count on it being correct that dye is now in demand in Ulundi.

Now look inside Ulundi. The very act of looking at a city during its cycle turn causes another update to occur, but this time you are watching, and this makes all the difference. In Ulundi, you’ll see the following display:

Supplies: (dye), (wine), gems
Demands: (coal), (silver), copper

Looking at Ulundi has cancelled the dye bug, since dye has moved back to the supply list, where it was before. You can check with the trade advisor and will see that it has been updated to reflect this change.

Now reload the save and this time just space each unit to end the 400 AD turn, but do not look inside Ulundi. Hit enter to start the next turn and then when it’s 420 AD, look inside Ulundi, and you’ll see:

Supplies: (gold), (wine), spice
Demands: dye, (coal), (silver)

The dye bug is still in effect, because we didn’t look at Ulundi during its cycle turn. Now we see what we had confirmed with the trade advisor in 400 BC, dye is in demand and spice is in supply. When the dye bug was invoked during Ulundi’s cycle turn, dye moved from the supply list to the demand list. This caused gold to move out from under the wine wildcard to the left position of the supply list. Gems took gold’s place under wine, leaving room on the right for the newcomer, spice. On the demand list coal and silver got shoved to the right. (The demand wildcard is dye, by the way, and is not expressed here as a wildcard).

Now the list will stay like this until we look at Ulundi again during its next cycle turn or until we create a new trade route for Ulundi, by delivering a caravan. If you move west a bit you’ll see that there’s a caravan from Ulundi, waiting outside of Madrid. Go ahead and deliver it, in order to cancel the dye bug. Then inspect Ulundi again to verify this:

Supplies: (dye), (wine), gems
Demands: coal, (silver), (silk)

Dye has moved back to the supply list pushing gold under the wine wildcard and pushing gems back out to the right. Coal and silver have moved back to where they belong and silk has joined the demand list, taking the place of a “debugged” copper.

Now we can illustrate how the “SCG Switch” invokes the dye bug. Reload the save, enter Ulundi and you’ll see:

Supplies: (dye), (wine), gems
Demands: (coal), (silver), copper

Now set shields in Ulundi to zero by removing workers. You’ll also need to re-home that horseman to Ulundi. At zero shields you’ll see that the bug has been invoked again:

Supplies: (gold), (wine), spice
Demands: dye, copper, (coal)

If you move a worker back and forth now, you can flip flop from bugged to not bugged. If you end this turn with shields at zero, the bugged list will stay there when the next turn starts, too.

Now there’s one more thing here worth illustrating. Reload this save and look at Ulundi:

Supplies: (dye), (wine), gems
Demands: (coal), (silver), copper

Now exit Ulundi and you’ll notice a settler on a forest tile ready for an order. This settler has actually been interrupted from irrigating that forest into plains just before he finished doing this, so he is “fully charged up”. If you give this settler the irrigate command, the tile will turn from forest to plains immediately. Go ahead and do this now. This terrain change happened to give gems a slightly better Supply Quotient, good enough to make it trade places with gold on the supply list. Look at Ulundi and you’ll see:

Supplies: (dye), (wine), (gold)
Demands: (coal), (silver), copper

Gold has taken gem’s place. Now use the “SCG Switch” to invoke the copper/dye bug one more time and look at Ulundi now:

Supplies: gems, (wine), spice
Demands: copper, dye, (coal)

This time copper has been “bugged” with dye right behind it, pushing coal all the way to the right on the demand list. Gems, with its “improved” SQ has moved to the left side of the supply list where dye used to be, gold has moved left underneath the wine wildcard, and spice has joined the supply list on the right.

Now if you wait a turn before trying this with the settler, city looks or using the “SCG switch” will no longer do anything, because it is no longer Ulundi’s city cycle turn. That’s important to remember.

Another thing to remember about the copper/dye bug in 2.42, is that since the AI never “look” at their cities, the bug is always invoked during their city cycle turns. If you reload the save one more time, we can demonstrate this by delivering the gold caravan to Madrid. After the delivery inspect Madrid’s demands, and they should be:

spice, silk, (gold)

Now space all units to end the 400 AD turn. Go to the next turn and finish that one the same way. Keep doing this until you reach 460 AD, the turn after Madrid’s city cycle turn, which is 440 AD. Now look at Madrid, and you’ll see:

copper, coal, silk

The copper bug has been invoked by Madrid’s cycle turn. Because the Spanish turn followed ours in 440 AD, we had to wait until 460 AD to see the result of Madrid’s automatic update that occurred in 440 AD.

The bug can be cancelled in AI cities by delivering caravans to them, which cause an update to their lists. With this save you can try this by first looking at Panormus, which shows the following demands:

dye, copper, silk

Now deliver the beads caravan from Swazi and check Panormus:

silk, hides, cloth

Bye, bye, bug.

Now in the MGE version of Civ II, the copper/dye bugs work in just the opposite way. They are invoked by looking at a city during its city cycle turn or by creating a new trade route by delivering a caravan or freight on any turn. The only way to cancel the bug in MGE is by not looking inside a city on its cycle turn. The “SCG switch” has no effect, because in order to try and use it you must enter the city display. Doing this invokes the bug anyways, making the “SCG Switch” redundant. The lack of methods for canceling the dye/copper bug in MGE makes it much more pervasive, especially in the human player’s cities. So there isn’t as much we can do in MGE, but we’ll do what we can.

Go ahead and load the save using MGE. If you check with the trade advisor, you’ll see that Ulundi supplies spice and that Ulundi demands dye. Check copper also, and you’ll notice Ulundi does not demand copper. Now look inside Ulundi, and you’ll see that the look on this cycle turn has triggered the copper bug, since copper is now in the left hand slot of the demand list:

Supplies: (gold), (wine), spice
Demands: copper, dye, (coal)

Now just to see the effect, use that settler to irrigate the forest and change it into plains, and re-check Ulundi:

Supplies: gems, (wine), spice
Demands: copper, dye, coal

Just as in 2.42, the extra plains tile has improved the SQ of gems, allowing it to swap positions with gold, which is now under the wine wildcard. Getting back to the bug, now that we have instigated the copper bug, we are stuck with it until Ulundi’s next cycle turn. In MGE the copper/dye bug limits our ability to manipulate the demand lists in our own cities.

Now reload and space all units to end the 400 AD turn and go to the next turn without looking at Ulundi. Now inspect the city and you’ll see:

Supplies: (gold), (wine), spice
Demands: dye, (coal), (silver)

Notice that dye is bugged, but at least copper hasn’t joined the demand list yet. Now use that settler again to change the forest into plains and look at Ulundi and you’ll see that nothing has changed, and this is because city looks only update lists during cycle turns, and this is the turn after, 420 AD. To get gems to swap places with gold, deliver the gold caravan to Madrid again, and you’ll see that this trigger worked to update the list, but also reactivated the copper bug:

Supplies: gems, (wine), spice
Demands: copper, dye, coal

Like a nasty virus, this bug is hard to shake in MGE. To conclude, let’s examine how the bug works with AI cities in MGE. Reload the save and check Madrid’s demand list:

Spice, gold, silver

Now deliver the gold caravan to Madrid, and check Madrid’s demands again:

copper, (dye), spice

Now let’s move ahead in the game two turns until we get to 460 AD, when we can view how Madrid’s city cycle turn affected its demand list:

spice, coal, (gold)

It’s back to normal. Since the AI never inspect their cities, the copper/dye bug stays cancelled after their city cycle turns until a caravan or freight is delivered by us. This allows a little more flexibility when dealing with them.

One final trick I should mention is that if you use a diplomat or spy to investigate an AI city on its cycle turn, you can invoke the bug in MGE or cancel it in 2.42.

Well, that about wraps up all the ways there are to “influence” commodity supply and demand. Thanks again to SG(2) for providing this save. While following these examples, you might have noticed that there are two other Ulundi caravans in transit, which makes this save an excellent one to use in practicing other unblocking techniques, as well as combining their use with the updates provided on Ulundi’s cycle turn by city looks or the bugging chances permitted with the SCG switch. It’s probably well worth experimenting with this until you get the hang of manipulating commodities to what you want them to be. With these techniques there is almost always a way of accomplishing what you most desire in regard to supply and demand. It’s also a lot more fun to be able to deliberately change lists than it is to just wait and hope they change the way you want them to.

[solo]

2.7 Stages of Development

This section will put all these pieces of strategy together by summarizing the different stages of an early landing game. The best way of adding meat to the skeleton provided here is to read the discussions accompanying the threads about early landing games and to study the detailed logs of the most successful games.


2.7.1 The Opening

In the beginning the first job is to get to a better form of government early. This means founding the first two cities quickly, to get research started and to get two more cities down as soon as possible right afterwards. In the beginning the quickest way to learn faster is by adding more cities. Favor sites having access to the ocean. This allows all cities to expand later using harbors and to contribute toward transporting freights by building transports.


2.7.2 Early Expansion and Exploration

Black clicking (right clicking on unexplored terrain and noting continent numbers displayed after coordinates in the status box) will tell you the size of your home continent and the location of other continents nearest to your own. If you start on anything but a small island, it pays to contact the AI as quickly as possible, so the first warrior should probably be used as an explorer. An early priority is locating the key civ, and if this is delayed, one should consider building Marco Polo’s Embassy.

All other efforts should be towards laying down new cities and learning Monarchy or Republic so that more cities can be added sooner without increasing unhappiness.

Once enough cities are in place and the SSC site is chosen, temples are the next priority, so that each city can stay happy at size three. An alternative to temples is building The Hanging Gardens in the SSC. After temples, diplomats and triremes are needed for exploration and defense. As cities approach size 4, settlers can be built to start building roads and to develop the SSC’s terrain.


2.7.3 Early Trade and Colonization

Once in Monarchy or Republic, trade is the next priority. The first few caravans built should be the best quality ones available which are in demand by the AI on a neighboring continent. A quick steam of deliveries will help boost early science and income substantially.

As soon as a good location is found, at least one settler should be shipped out to start building colonies. There are so many things you want to do, that it will be hard to stay committed to early colonization, but for the best trade later on, this is a must. Another way of starting colonies is by buying them by bribing suitable AI cities using diplomats. Doing this can be quite cost effective and less time consuming than building colonies from scratch, and is less dangerous, too, since young colonies can be vulnerable to barbarian attacks.


2.7.4 SSC Expansion and Development

Just when carrying costs start to slow down research, the time comes to accelerate the development of the SSC. All efforts should go into completing the development of all SSC tiles and into the construction of SSC improvements and wonders. The SSC should be the first city to establish all three of its trade routes. If an AI civ is close enough, plans should include connecting to one or more of its cities via a station to get the bonus provided by three roaded trade routes. By the time one is ready to switch to Democracy the SSC should be size 21 and should have all wonders and scientific improvements in place.


2.7.5 Helper and Colony Expansion

As soon as sufficient cash is on hand to start rushing colosseums, helpers and colonies can be celebrated up to size 7 or 8 while the SSC continues up to its maximum size. It’s best to get this done before the discovery of Automobile, which allows superhighways, the best city improvement of them all. Try to build them in every city.


2.7.6 Hyper Trade and Accelerated Research

With full sized cities, a system of alternating trade should be developed quickly. Soon delivery beakers should be enough to afford the first advance on turns where two are possible. Income from freight deliveries will rush superhighways and scientific improvements in helpers and colonies to keep cities at the 1 tech per turn science level. Research will accelerate until the discovery of Space Flight is imminent.


2.7.7 Space Ship Construction and the Launch

A few turns before Space Flight is learned, cities can start selling off their improvements to provide more gold for building a space ship. Freights that can not earn more than 200 gold by being delivered should be saved to help build space ship parts. Freights can be added to wonders which can be converted into any of the SS parts without any penalties. Below is a list of the fastest ships, the first number being structurals, the second being components, and the third being the time it takes to arrive. All of these have one each of each module. Any ship that can be launched is guaranteed to arrive regardless of the percentages listed by the game.

15, 2, 36.1
15, 4, 21.0
15, 6, 15.7
17, 8, 13.2
21, 10, 10.0
25, 12, 8.3
29, 14, 6.7
33, 16, 5.7

Remember that the game switches to 1 year increments for turns after a launch, so that a ship taking 15.7 years launched in 1200 will beat the 5.7 year ship launched on the following turn, 1220.

Surprisingly, I’ve found that SS Structurals are the hardest to build even though they are the cheapest. That extra 30 shields needed beyond a caravan’s first 50 can be an extra 120 gold, and for 15 parts this can add up. Fortunately, quite a few transports and engineers will be available and should be disbanded to help in the construction of these parts. If planned right, everything will be needed and you will be down to about zero gold, when a ship is ready launch. If this is not the case, you might have been able to do so a turn or two earlier for a better date.


2.7.8 Waiting to Land

Just make sure your SSC and your Palace do not get captured. Then find a hobby.

[solo]

3.0 A Sample Game and Log

This section will provide the summary and log of my own game from the first Early Landing Comparison Game. At the end, a zip file will be attached, containing several saves made from various stages of that game, which interested players may download and inspect.

Game Summary

Republic – 1450 BC
Democracy – 540 AD

Shakespeare’s Theater – 200 BC
The Colossus – 120 AD
Copernicus’s Observatory – 420 AD
Isaac Newton’s College – 540 AD
Apollo Program – 1200 AD

SSC size 8 – 75 BC
SSC size 12 – 40 AD
SSC size 21 – 260 AD
Max. SSC size – 24

Trade – 775 BC
Invention – 440 AD
Railroad – 640 AD
Automobile – 920 AD
Nuclear Power – 1040 AD
Computers – 1100 AD
Flight – 1120 AD
Space Flight – 1180 AD

Arrival Date – 1276 AD

Early landing comparison game #1

I landed in 1276 AD after a launch in 1240.

BC years

3950 Rome
3850 Veii

Rome was at the SSC site. Veii was at the coast at the end of the left hand river. The wine in Rome and the two rivers added some extra trade early, which helped speed up discoveries.

3700 Alphabet, Rom – warrior
3400 Rome – warrior

Veii started with a settler. The plan was for one warrior from Rome to arrive in time to establish martial law before Veii reached size two. The earliest priority is 4 cities, so explorations must wait until this is done.

3350 Code of Laws
3100 Vei – settlers
2900 Antium

Antium was at the first location eastward along the coast from Veii that had a grassland city tile and access to a whale.

2850 Writing

Writing is on the way to early Republic, and it also permits diplomats, who are the best land units for early explorations.

2800 Rome – settlers

This settler will be used for the 4th city, and headed along the coast westward from Rome, looking for a good site.

2650 Ant – warrior
2450 Cumae, barb trireme appears next to Rome

Cumae was on the coast and had a whale to work. Cumae was the 4th city and since 4 cities are the limit for Despotism, the remaining two helpers will be added when the switch is made to Republic. Libraries are being used to accumulate shields for temples until Ceremonial Burial is discovered.

2400 Rome attacked

Without much gold on hand, all I could do was sit tight and hope for the best. Rome survived an attack by a barb archer and its warrior became a veteran. The other barb archer headed off towards Veii and attacked it later. Veii’s warrior survived this with the help of the river’s defensive bonus.

2300 Ceremonial Burial, Mongols discover Veii, Ceremonial Burial given on demand followed by a peace treaty.

It was nice to have found the purple civ so early, but it was also too bad that it happened to be the volatile Mongols, who were looking for trouble. The fact that they were cornered by Roman cities did not augur well.

2250 Vei – temple

The first priority for helpers after making a settler for a new city is to produce a temple to control happiness now and especially a bit later, when the switch is made to early Republic. There is a temptation to use more martial law in the early going, but doing so makes the transition to Republic more difficult. Some players may opt for building the Hanging Gardens instead of using temples, but this plan has a few things working against it in early landing games. Pottery must be learned first, which is an off-path tech, and taking time to acquire it delays the switch to Republic. The HG expires fairly early with the discovery of Railroad, when temples will have to be built, anyways. Controlling helper happiness with luxuries during Republic, and later during Democracy, is not a good idea, either, as this reduces income considerably and can limit research capacity. A clinching argument for early temples is that there isn’t that much else to be doing before the discovery of Trade permits caravans.

2200 Cma – warrior

(I usually use just the first 3 letters of a city’s name when listing builds, but with Cumae this presents a slight conflict with the word choices permitted on these forums!)

1950 Ant – temple
1800 Literacy

Monarchy must be skipped, of course, to reduce tech carrying costs. If acquired, its benefits would not be in effect long enough to make this a worth while plan. It’s better to get to Republic a few turns sooner.

1500 Vei – settlers, Rom – temple
1450 Republic, switch made, Mongols demand it, so it is given. Trade for Bronze Working.

The Mongols also have The Wheel and Horseback Riding, but these will not be needed until later. Now that I’m in Republic, the discovery of Trade becomes a priority, and Bronze Working saves a step along the way. With knowledge of Republic, the Mongols also made the switch and became less menacing afterwards. Warriors that have not already been disbanded to help make temples are disbanded now to free up shields. Now that I have a tech lead, that is all that is needed to keep the AI peaceful, and diplomats can be built, when needed, to deal with barbarian appearances. All cities will be without defense until a space ship is launched, later. Doing this is not as risky as it may seem to those who are used to dealing more aggressively with the AI.

1400 Cma – temple, Ant – settlers, Rome – settlers, Neapolis

Neapolis was westward along the coast from Veii, and was a great location, being on a river and also having a rivered buffalo. The Rome settlers set to work improving the SSC site. After irrigating a grassland, one of the first jobs was to mine those hills having wine, to make the most out the citizens working those tiles.

1250 Mysticism, Pompeii

Mysticism came just in time since the early cities were reaching size 3. Pompeii was located along the coast, southeast of Antium, and had the fish and spice specials. It was also on a river. Having so many rivers around was a great boon to early research and transportation. The first few caravans produced made it to their destinations a lot quicker because of these handy rivers. Cumae was the only city lacking this advantage. Later on, not as many harbors were needed for helpers because of the extra trade and adequate food available from rivered grassland tiles.

1000 Map Making

Map Making is the last key tech needed before pushing on to the discoveries of Trade, Medicine and Sanitation. Now explorations can commence to find an early trading partner, so that the first caravans can be traded for some quick advances and for some extra gold to finance SSC development.

950 Nea – temple, Cma – settlers

Building a settlers in Cumae was a probably not the best thing to do, since this left Cumae lacking enough food to grow to size three, even if some time were taken for extra irrigation. A diplomat or trireme first would have been a better idea, but I was anxious to connect this city to Rome with a road quickly. After extending the road part way, I acknowledged my error and cut my losses by having this settler rejoin Cumae, to get it up to a more productive size 3.

925 Vei – diplomat, Ant – trireme
875 Currency
850 Pom – temple, contact Aztecs, they demand a tech, I refuse, and they declare war.

I know I have been recommending appeasement in earlier posts in this thread, but when the AI is on a separate continent, they do not pose an immediate threat, so a declaration of war does not present a problem. If they have useful techs to trade, they are more likely to do this when peace is established later and relations are on the rebound. However, in situations where a vulnerable caravan is standing by an AI city waiting to be delivered, or when an AI catapult or chariot arrives on the doorstep of a colony demanding Philosophy, appeasement is always the best choice. The AI could be bluffing, but there’s no point in denying their demands to find out they really wanted an excuse to start a war.

775 Trade, Aztecs contacted, peace, trade for Masonry, give tech, share maps.

During this exchange, I also found out that the Aztecs had acquired Monarchy and Warrior Code. With the exchange of maps, all of the target cities for early caravan deliveries were revealed.

700 Nea – wine

This will go to an Aztec city. For helpers such as Neapolis, the first commodity choice was the most valuable one in demand that could be delivered quickly. Wine was wanted by the Aztecs and has an excellent demand bonus.

675 Philosophy, and the freebie is Construction, Aztecs – give tech, share maps; Mongols – trade for The Wheel, give tech, share maps

It wasn’t until now that I had accumulated enough of a tech lead to work the Mongol attitude up to worshipful, in order to share maps. Earlier in the game, I only had enough techs to keep them appeased.

650 Vei – wool, Cma – trireme
625 Rom - copper

The trireme built in Cumae headed to Rome. While there it would reveal the rest of the ocean tiles in Rome’s city radius and would be rehomed to that city, before heading back towards the Mongols with the copper caravan built in Rome.

600 Ant – dye
525 contact Chinese, peace, give tech, share maps

The Chinese offer to trade Seafaring, which I will want to trade for later when a harbor is needed.

500 Pom – settlers, Medicine, wool(d) to Tenochtitlan, 144g, wine(d) to Tlatelolco, 160g

Finally, some gold to speed up Rome’s development. These deliveries also trigger the first 1 turn advance of the game. In my opinion, the onset of trade is the most significant milestone in an early landing game. Before trade, everything comes slowly and with difficulty. Afterwards, it’s just the reverse.

475 Engineering, Rom – beads
450 Nea – cloth, Cma – salt, copper(d) to Karakorum, 104g

This is the first trade route for Rome, and more importantly, became one of the rail connection routes that were so useful later on, after a helper was added next to Rome as a “station”.

425 Rom – wool
400 Pisae

Pisae was the first colony and had access to 2 whales and a buffalo. It was located east of the Aztec cities on their continent. Next to it was another excellent colony site, too.

375 Ant – hides, Vei – dye, Sanitation, Rom – marketplace, dye(d) to Texcoco, 120g

With Sanitation, all tech needed for SSC growth was in place, and all that was needed was Shakespeare’s Theater to get this going.

300 contact Vikings, they demand a tech, war; Mongols, give tech, share maps
275 Vei – hides, Banking
250 Cma – beads
225 Ant – settlers, Rom – food, contact English, trade for Iron Working, give tech, share maps; Chinese – trade for Seafaring

200 Nea – cloth, Rom – Shakepeare’s Theater, we love commences, beads(d) to Tlatelolco, 240g

175 Pom – settlers
150 Rom – harbor
125 Pis – settlers, Mongols – give tech, share maps; Vikings, peace, give tech, share maps
100 Vei – dye, Rom – aqueduct, Mathematics, English – give tech, share maps; beads(d) to Texcoco, 328g; barb horseman bribed, 41g

75 contact Zulus, they demand gold, war
50 Cma – dye, Rom – bank, Zulus – peace, give tech, share maps

I guess the Zulus didn’t really mean to start a war. Another AI inanity is that they often will make peace the turn after declaring war! With a marketplace and bank in Rome, it will start to be earning extra gold coins every turn. These improvements allow the celebration to continue with a lower luxury setting, too, allowing faster research.

[solo]

3.0 A Sample Game and Log (cont)

AD years

1 Nea – coal
20 Bridge Building

Normally I wait on this one, since the odds are good an AI will learn it in time for a trade, but all those rivers needed bridges. I had thought that this tech among many others would be available through trade from the AI in this game, because we had no free techs at the start and because the AI were likely to tip more huts for techs. However, this did not happen in my own game, where I only got the usual number of techs from the AI via trades.

40 beads(d) to Tenochtitlan, 280g
60 Ant – wool, Rom – coal
100 Rom – sewer system
120 Pom – beads, University, Cma – dye, Rom – Colossus, dye(d) to Tlatelolco, 216g; Zulus, Vikings, English – give tech, share maps

One of the AI almost beat me to building the Colossus wonder.

140 Vei – hides
160 Pis – temple, Nea – cloth, Rom – library
180 Astronomy, beads(d) to Tlaxcala, 96g, wool(d) to Tlaxcala, 120g
220 Pis – beads
260 Economics, Rom – size 21, we love ends
280 Cma – salt, Ant – coal, Vei – hides, Rom – gold
300 Nea – coal, Rom – coal
320 Theory of Gravity, beads(d) to Rome, 420g

This was the first colony delivery back to Rome, and it pays off big time.

360 Ant – food, Rom – university, Ravenna

Ravenna was the second colony and was founded next to Pisae, the first. Unfortunately, while Pisae’s settler was making roads and preparing for Ravenna, the Aztecs snuck in with a settler and founded a city of their own close by, which made it a tight fit for Ravenna. The Aztec city hogged some of the best river tiles in the area, so a harbor for Ravenna became a necessity. However, this city was easy to reach when quick trades had to be made, so its presence was also somewhat beneficial.

380 Pom – wine, Chemistry, Mongols – give tech, share maps, gold(d) to Samarkand, 462g

Now another route to a Mongol city had been established with Rome in preparation for the rail trade route bonus later on.

400 Rom – stock exchange, dye(d) to Tenochtitlan, 296g, hides(d) to Tlaxcala, 144g
420 Rav – beads, Navigation, Pom – salt, Nea – coal, Cma – salt, Ant – coal, Vei – hides, Rom – Copernicus’s Observatory

440 Pis – salt, Invention

So much for good caravan payoffs. Now it’s a race to Democracy, and on to Corporation quickly in order to get trade going full tilt again.

460 Rav – harbor, Vei – hides, Rom – food
480 Democracy, Mongols, give tech, share maps, coal(d) to Samarkand, 195g

I just missed the 460 oedo year for switching governments, which was too bad, since if this can be timed correctly, a turn of research will not be wasted with a revolution when changing governments.

500 Rav – temple, Rom – wool
520 Rom – wine, Physics, revolution

At this time I was learning my 32nd tech, which is when the commodity wildcards for cities change. This introduced some new commodities in Rome at just the right time. Previously, three trade routes had been established with two Mongol cities, which were “sticking”, since these Mongol cities had excellent base trade. This meant that “wonder bread” could be used when newer commodities were delivered from Rome, since the Mongol trade routes were not being replaced. It also meant that deliveries made to Rome would not block commodities that it was demanding.

At this point, a break was taken to figure out which commodities Rome would be supplying and demanding once it was fully developed and after certain techs affecting supply and demand were acquired, and it was determined that Rome would be supplying wine and dye, but that if Pottery were acquired, salt would take the place of dye. I wanted to supply dye, so put off trading for Pottery until the end of the game, saving that trade to reset the tech list. I also determined that Rome would be demanding coal, oil and spice later on, but that when Nuclear Fission was discovered, this would mask the desire for coal.

So the next step was to figure out the demand wildcards for each of the AI cities, in an attempt to find matches for what the SSC would be trading. Supply wildcards of bribable AI cities were also checked to see if any would be suppliers of coal, oil, and spice. I discovered that it would serve me best to keep the Aztec tech total below 32, since this would keep up a good and repeatable demand for wine in Tlatelolco. I also noticed that Isandhlwana, a Zulu size three city, would become a good supplier of spice, which Rome wanted. Its coastal location provided easy access to other Zulu inland cities, too, so when the time was right, I sent in a diplomat to incite a revolt.

540 Rom – Sir Isaac Newton’s College, switch to Democracy, salt(d) to Rome, 234g

The salt came from the first colony, Pisae, which had reached size 3 and had enough trade to displace a Mongol trade route. Doing this unblocked the supply of coal in Rome.

Now that Rome was fully developed, helpers could turn to making harbors and colosseums, to get ready for their own growth. They had already begun on this after enough caravans had been made for Sir Isaac’s.

560 Ant – harbor, Rom – coal, Gunpowder, beads to Rome, 126g

This trade to Rome from the other colony, Ravenna, replaced the Pisae route with its own by lowering the base trade in Pisae temporarily before making the delivery. This trade also unblocked the supply of wine in Rome.

580 Pis – colosseum, Pom – colosseum, Magnetism
600 Rav – colosseum, Cma – harbor, Rom – wine
620 Steam Engine, wine(d) to Nottingham, 165g
640 Pis – copper, Railroad, Chinese, Vikings – give tech, share maps, Zulus – war, Mongols – give tech, share maps, coal(d) to Smarakand, 134g

This final coal trade was made to Smarakand after lowering the base trade in Ravenna enough to replace its route with the one from Samarkand. After this, Rome had three routes established with Mongol cities, in time to get a rail connection established. These routes would “stick” for the rest of the game after this was done.

A war was provoked with the Zulus to justify the dirty work needed to subvert Isandhlwana.

660 Rav – dye, Nea – colosseum, Vei – colosseum, Rom – diplomat, Metallurgy
680 Pis – galleon, wool(d) to Tlatelolco, 344g

The trireme not assigned to Rome was disbanded in Pisae while building a galleon to continue trade with the Aztecs. The trireme assigned to Rome was headed for Isandhlwana.

700 Rom – coal, Industrialization, Nea – transport, Isandhlwana bribed, 488g, 72 gold and Horseback Riding in tribute; Zulus – peace, give tech, share maps

Somehow, I don’t think a human opponent would have wanted a peace treaty right after such treachery. I consider this lack of revengeful feelings to be an endearing AI trait! This city came with a harbor and many military units and took some of the steam out of the Zulu’s aggression towards the English.

720 Isa – colosseum, we love starts in all cities

Isandhlwana had many military units. I disbanded more than were needed to build a temple, so started it off with a colosseum, instead.

740 Mongols – give tech, share maps, dye(d) to Karakorum, 115g, Hispalis, another settler joins the city

Hispalis was located just outside Rome’s city radius, and was used as a station leading to Samarkand and Karakorum, the two Mongol cities making up the three trade routes in Rome. An instant rail bonus was established a few turns later by the remaining settler, which ended up doubling the amount of continuing trade being earned by these routes. Since the “goto” route used by the game to determine this bonus can be tricky, station placement should be as close as possible to the SSC to make sure this benefit is claimed, especially when more than one AI city is involved. The individual “goto” routes to Samarakand and Karakorum diverged after leaving Hispalis. Now, 1 turn advances are easily attainable with city science.

Hispalis served another function, acting as the recipient of “wonder bread” from Rome, when this ploy was needed to re-supply Rome’s wine and dye. Hispalis never grew and just accumulated shields that were used to help build the Apollo wonder later on.

760 Corporation, wine(d) to Tlatelolco, 430g
780 His – temple, Isa – silk, Pis – cloth, Rom – dye, Rav, Vei – transports, coal(d) to Samarkand, 137g

800 Cma, Ant – colosseums, Rom – wine, Refining, copper(d) to Rome, 176g, we love ends

Now all helpers except Hispalis were at size 7 or 8, and all colonies were at size 7. Rome reached its maximum size of 24 citizens, and could produce 1008 beakers, now that the rail connections were in place. These had doubled the three ongoing trade route values from 12 to 24 arrows, each. Without this bonus, Rome would have only been producing 786 beakers. Helpers and colonies were adding a little over 200 beakers, so at the maximum science setting, 1227 beakers were available. The current tech cost was only 1134.

820 Isa – temple, Pis – gold, Pom – salt, Explosives
840 Combustion, dye(d) to Calixtlahuaca, 532g, wine(d) to Tlatelolco, 650g, Mongols – give tech, share maps

860 His – engineers, Rav – engineers, Atomic Theory, Isa –coal, Pom – dye, Nea – engineers, Cma – coal, Ant – gems, Vei – engineers, Rom – dye, Electricity

This was the first of many turns with two advances. The only disadvantage with Rome, was that its freights could not reach transports on the south coast without using up movement points. It’s desirable to deliver an SSC freight on the turn it is produced, so that another can be re-supplied more quickly with wonder bread. Most of these new engineers were used to speed up the rail connection from from Rome to Veii. One engineer was going to be sent to make some roads leading to inland Aztec cities, such as Tlatelolco, so that freights landing on that continent could reach their destinations without wasting a turn.

860 Rom – food, gold(d) to Hispalis, 132g

Each food produced by Rome, when contributed to the wonder being built in Hispalis, caused a re-supply of wine and dye, since neither commodity had been used in the 3 railed routes to the Mongol cities. Wine was always in demand in Tlatelolco, and dye was always in demand somewhere else.

880 Rom – wine, Electronics, salt(d) to Calixtlahuaca, 152g
900 His – silk, Rav – wine, Isa – beads, Pom – library, Steel, cloth(d) to Cumae, 192g, silk(d) to Calixtlahuaca, 294g

920 Pis – gold, Vei – copper, Automobile, dye(d) to Kaupang, 680g, wine(d) to Tlatelolco, 660g

More turns with two advances are imminent. Automobile means superhighways, and things that are already very good, get dramatically better when this improvement is added to Rome and all of the helpers and colonies.

940 His – dye, Mass Production, Rav, Pom – superhighways, Nea – silver, Cma – hides, Rom – superhighways, Nuclear Fission, gold(d) to Pompeii, 218g, gems(d) to Nottingham, 300g, English – trade for Warrior Code, share maps, Aztecs – trade for Monarchy, share maps

The addition of superhighways in Rome increased its beaker capacity to 1308.

960 Isa – spice, Pis – superhighways, Rom – food, Conscription, silk(d) to Ravenna, 188g, silver(d) to Rom – 300g, copper(d) to Tenochtitlan, 180g

980 Isa – dye, Nea – cloth, Vei – superhighways, Rom – wine, Feudalism, wine(d) to Karakorum, 397g, copper(d) to Tenochtitlan, 306g

1000 Rav – oil, Pis – cloth, Pom – gold, Cma – superhighways, Rom – dye, Chivalry, wine(d) to Tlatelolco, 1008g

1020 Isa, Nea, Ant – superhighways, Vei – transport, Rom –food, Leadership, Zulus – give tech, share maps, coal(d) to Pompeii, 544g, beads(d) to Hispalis, 188g, oil(d) to Rome, 1026g, cloth to Veii, 116g

1040 Nuclear Power, Rav – cloth, Pis – gold, Pom – university, Cma – oil, Rom – wine, Laser, coal(d) to Pisae, 400g, wine(d) to Tlatelolco, 1062g, hides(d) to Tlaxcala, 360g

1060 Tactics, Isa – engineers, Pom – oil, Nea – gold, Ant – library, Vei – library, Rom – food, dye(d) to Beijing, 336g, dye(d) to Tlaxcala, 828g, dye(d) to Hlobane, 546g, Vikings, Mongols – give tech, trade maps

The Vikings were given enough techs to make sure they had more than 32, because a destination for some gold was needed, and Kaupang’s demand wildcard would be gold when the Vikings had enough techs.

1080 Machine Tools, Rav – food, Pis – cloth, Pom – silk, Cma – copper, Vei – university, Rom – wine, Mobile Warfare, spice(d) to Rome, 1074g, gold(d) to Hispalis, 200g, wine(d) to Tlatelolco, 1005g

Trades peaked on this turn with over 2200 gold earned.

1100 Miniaturization, Nea – food, Ant – university, Rom – dye, Computers, oil(d) to Ravenna, 537g, cloth to Ravenna, 32g, dye(d) to Teotihuacan, 104g

1120 Rav – oil, Pis, Pom, Cma – food, Vei – dye, Rom – Research Lab, Flight, silk(d) to Kaupang, 330g, gold(d) to Kaupang, 330g, gold(d) to Kaupang, 378g, dye(d) to Tlatelolco, 500g, copper(d) to Texcoco, 252g

The silk trade to Kaupang was used to trigger the appearance of its gold demand wildcard. On the previous turn, the cloth delivery to Ravenna was used to unblock its supply of oil. Beakers available peaked here, with Rome producing 1368 and the other cities adding another 458 for a total of 1826, which was more than enough.

1140 Radio, Isa – dye, Nea – food, Cma – oil, Ant, Rom – food, Advanced Flight, oil(d) to Rome, 598g, Mongols – trade for Pottery, give tech, share maps

Now that trade was winding down, Pottery could be acquired to allow research to be switched to Rocketry instead.

1160 Rav, Pis – food, Pom – gold, Vei – food, Rome – dye, Rocketry, dye(d) to Nottingham, 232g, oil(d) to Isandhlwana, 480g, dye(d) to Tlaxcala, 432g

1180 Isa – spice, Pom – dye, Nea, Cma, Ant – food, Rome – wine, Space Flight, wine(d) to Bokhara, 176g, oil(d) to Ravenna, 358g, Zulus – 200g tribute, give tech, share maps, Chinese – give tech, share maps, Aztecs – trade for Communism, share maps, Mongols – give tech share maps

I was looking for an AI that had a tech to trade to reset the tech list next turn.

1200 His – Apollo Program, Rav – oil, Isa – diplomat, Pis, Vei – food, Rom – salt, Plastics, spice(d) to Rome, 947g, cloth(d) to Hlobane, 350g, gold(d) to Kaupang, 300g, English – give tech, share maps

1220 All helpers and colonies – SS structurals, Rome – SS Component, salt(d) to Nottingham, 608g, oil(d) to Rome, 629g, dye(d) to Samarkand, 296g, Mongols – 50g tribute, give tech, share maps

Not too greedy on part of the Mongols, since I had over 4000 gold.

1240 His – SS Component, Rav – SS structural, Isa – SS Module, Pis – SS structural, Pom – SS Module, Nea, Cma, Ant, Vei – SS structurals, Rom – SS Module, Fusion Power 15-1-1-1-1-1, Launch, ETA 1276

Well, at least I was able to launch by Dr. Spike’s landing date! I had over 2000 gold leftover, and had purchased most of the spaceship with cash from trades, so could have made a faster ship by building two more cities a few turns earlier.

Once a spaceship is launched, the game becomes boring for me and doing things like building more wonders or attacking the AI were worn out amusements while waiting 36 turns, so for this game I decided to defend and play it Gandhi style, and adopted a policy of non-violent resistance.

I defended my cities, but never attacked nor declared war on any of the AI, and they were not impressed. During this time the Aztecs devoted themselves to some single-minded sabotage against Pisae, and with an almost endless supply of diplomats, stripped that city of all improvements and sabotaged every build attempted there for the rest of the game. This put me into Anarchy for awhile, during which the Zulus got even by reclaiming Isandhlwana by inciting a revolt. The other AI were not impressed with the non-violent approach, either, and numerous “secret” alliances were formed to try and do in the Romans. My attempts at Satyagraha failed miserably with the AI, and I have concluded that they have no conscience or morals, whatsoever.

1276 Arrival on Alpha Centauri

[solo]

4.0 References

The best reference is the Great Library put together by Scouse Gits, which contains pointers to many of the best strategy threads ever to appear in this forum. For more specific discussions about early landing strategy, I will provide a few links here to my own threads on the topic. These threads preceded the advent of our Early Landing Comparison Games, which all are welcome to join in on as new participants. The only real requirement is that you enjoy yourself while playing your own games.

Going for 500 AD on Standard Maps

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=70512

Going for 1000 AD without Huts

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=76250

[DrSpike]

Since this looks finished, allow me to be the first to congratulate you. The Solo-icy is a great piece of work.

[Patashu]

can I be the second to congratulate you? Didn't think getting an early AC landing could be so complex.

[La Fayette]

A jewel!
The vade mecum of all serious early landers (and also the less serious ones like me ).
Should of course be transfered to the GL ASAP.

Ming
The key, please!

Rah,
When I was a youngster, we used to sing now and then "open the door, Richard!..."

[solo]

Thanks Dr. Spike, Patashu & La Fayette,

It was fun putting this together but I'm glad it's over with, too. I agree about updating the great Library, especially with many of the recent threads authored by Samson. I borrowed heavily from his research and that other many others while working on this project.

As new ideas evolve about early landing strategy I encourage others to post their findings here to keep things up to date.

[SCG]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Since this looks finished, allow me to be the first to congratulate you. The Solo-icy is a great piece of work.

perhaps we could call it a Sololiquy on Early landings?

[Scouse Gits]

solo - I'm looking forward to reading your masterpiece
I have only had time for a quick scan (after [1]'s wedding ) but am very impressed with the amount of detail you have included.

You should receive the Apolytoner of the year award for the massive amount of work involved.

------------------

SG(20