Space race bug and other concern.

[soulfire777]

Hi,

First off an annoying bug I have not been able to get any feedback on:

When I get the required technology, the space elevator does not show up on the build lists of any of my decent cities most of the time. All my junky and/or captured cities can build it, but their production is usually too low there to bother trying.

There are no missing prerequisites listed anywhere in the game manual, the game itself (with hover-over help), or civilopedia. There are also no "logical" reasons I can think of like not being able to build a hydro-plant or dam wonder without a river, etc.

Lastly, does anyone else find (in single player games at least) that the game is ALWAYS won or lost via the space race? I think maybe something needs to be adjusted to make the other victory conditions more viable in standard-setup games. I'd hate having to disable the space race victory condition to make any of the other victory paths useful.

[tezster]

I'm at work so I can't check verify this, but if the Space Elevator is a national wonder, then you can only build it on cities where you have less than 2 national wonders (since you can only have a max of 2 in every city).

But if it's a world wonder, I don't know what the problem might be.

[akamal]

Re: Space race bug and other concern.

Originally posted by soulfire777
...
Lastly, does anyone else find (in single player games at least) that the game is ALWAYS won or lost via the space race? I think maybe something needs to be adjusted to make the other victory conditions more viable in standard-setup games. I'd hate having to disable the space race victory condition to make any of the other victory paths useful.

I definitely agree that space race is by far the most common way to win or lose the game, on standard size of greater worlds at least.
It's definitely not the only way the game is concluded though, I have lost a game to the AI getting a diplomatic victory. I've also lost several to an AI space race due to wasting time trying (and failing) to get a diplomatic victory.
I'd be reluctant to say that anything's in need of rebalancing at this point though. No ones had the game much more than a couple of weeks, so I think it's too early to say.

[soulfire777]

Originally posted by tezster
I'm at work so I can't check verify this, but if the Space Elevator is a national wonder, then you can only build it on cities where you have less than 2 national wonders (since you can only have a max of 2 in every city).

But if it's a world wonder, I don't know what the problem might be.

Thanks for responding. The space elevator is listed as a world wonder. Even if it is a national wonder that is simply mislabeled, I still cannot build it in many cites that have not yet built thier limit of two national wonders. =(

[Timme]

The Space Elevator has to be build near the Equator ( i think at least), i stumbled across the same question in my first Space Victory try. But after reading the civilopedia entry, it said something along the line of "hypothetically i has to be build near the Equator" (I use the german version of the game), i picked one of my cities located there, and voila, i could build it there. It was a crap city with nearly no "production hammers" whatsoever thanks to beeing a pure grassland city in the former jungle. But lucky me had some Great Engineers in my backhand, the last few hammers i bought.

[soulfire777]

Re: Re: Space race bug and other concern.

Originally posted by akamal


I definitely agree that space race is by far the most common way to win or lose the game, on standard size of greater worlds at least.
It's definitely not the only way the game is concluded though, I have lost a game to the AI getting a diplomatic victory. I've also lost several to an AI space race due to wasting time trying (and failing) to get a diplomatic victory.
I'd be reluctant to say that anything's in need of rebalancing at this point though. No ones had the game much more than a couple of weeks, so I think it's too early to say.

I've only played about 8 games to completion so far, all on fairly standard map settings, but so far every victory has been a space race victory.

The only way I can see anyone getting a diplomatic victory is if one of the 2 largest powers had a lot of formal alliances/defensive pacts or enemies they were at war with. Most Civs simply abstain from the vote no matter how much they "like" you. As far as I can tell, they will only vote FOR a candidate if they have an alliance or defensive pact with them, and I think they will vote for the other guy if they are at war with the opposing candidate. Otherwise as far as I can tell they will always abstain making it almost impossible to win like this unless one of the two largest nations is an imbecile at war with several nations.

The domination and conquest victories only seem somewhat practical on very small maps and/or in games with formal "teams" where much larger armies can be amassed.

So far I have not seen anyone even get CLOSE to a cultural victory before someone built the space ship. I can see it maybe happening in a multi-player game with a sneaky player though.

I think a lot of these other victory paths might be more workable in multi-player games, particularly ones that allow teams, but I have not seen anybody ever even get CLOSE to any other victory path in a single player game before somebody wins with a space ship. =/

[llwellyn]

The Space Elevator is the first example of an improvement that is restricted by latitude. It can only be built within a certain distance of the equator of your map... if your poles are north and south (i.e., not playing Tilted Axis) then cities in the middle 10% of your map by latitude should be able to build the Space Elevator. This makes real-life sense, as they would only be able to be built AT the equator. I can look up the exact range in the XML when I get home later... but I think the 10% range is pretty accurate.

[SpartanLord]

I started to build it in one of my games that I lost to Fredrick. He somehow managed to out build me. I had 20 cities and he had 5. I was 70% when he won. He only built 3 parts before me and he was in a two front war while I was not and ranked number one. I was amazed to say the least. Anyway, the player can buld it.

[akamal]

Regarding the AI voting for Diplomatic victory, its seems they will vote for someone if they're well into the 'Friendly' range (say 15+), and the other candiate is someone they actively dislike (annoyed/furious).

I have missed out on a cultural victory by about 35 turns (to Space Race predictably) while playing as the persians. I think it should be theoretically possible, if you start out aiming for it, and drop your science rate if favour of culture as soon as possible.

In fact I'll give that a try in my next game...

[akamal]

Originally posted by llwellyn
The Space Elevator is the first example of an improvement that is restricted by latitude. It can only be built within a certain distance of the equator of your map... if your poles are north and south (i.e., not playing Tilted Axis) then cities in the middle 10% of your map by latitude should be able to build the Space Elevator. This makes real-life sense, as they would only be able to be built AT the equator. I can look up the exact range in the XML when I get home later... but I think the 10% range is pretty accurate.

He's right. In CIV4BuildingInfos.xml there is the following:

<BuildingInfo>
<BuildingClass>BUILDINGCLASS_SPACE_ELEVATOR</BuildingClass>
...
<iMaxLatitude>30</iMaxLatitude>
...
</BuildingInfo> 

Not sure what the exact effect is though. Within 30 tiles of the equator? In the middle 30% of the earth?

[soulfire777]

Thanks for the answer guys. They should document restrictions like that however if this is really the reason. =(

[Melboz99]

Just thought I'd stop in and say that I have completed two Culture Victories in the past week. The first was on Chieftan and the second was on Warlord.


There's a few tricks that you have to do to get it though.


1. Build as many culture wonders as you possibly can in your core 3 Cities. This especially includes all the ancient era wonders, as after so many turns, they can accumulate the most culture.


2. Use all your GA's in your core 3 cities, putting an emphasis on the one you know will be the furthest behind in total culture at the end.

3. It helps to play with the IND trait. No, it doesn't really help to be Creative. Philisophical helps as well, because of number of GA's and GE's you get.

4. Get Free Speech and use it ASAP. I decided to wait on Free Speech until I finished my war with Alexander on the last game, it cost me 3,000 points in the Total Score. .

5. Get Music first. (Free GA)

6. Make sure you get the Eifel Tower. If you can't, then at least build Broadcast Towers in your three core cities.

7. Don't build any NW's other than culture bonus ones in your three core cities. One exception, if one city, say your capital has a surplus of Culture, have it build the Hermatige so as to get more GA's and GE's.

8. Found as many religions as you can, and let them spread across your lands. If you have enough cities (I think I had about 25-30) you can build a Monestary in each of your core cities.

9. If your're not builiding a Wonder or Production improvement, produde Culture.

10. Use your specialists first as Artists, second as Engineers (production goes towards Culture )

My first Cultural Victory I had 550+ CPT in three cities. In my second I had 640 CPT in Bombay, 560 CPT in Delhi, and 484 CPT in Madras. All three were size 17, Delhi and Bombay both having three Artist Specialists. All three were producing Culture.

Dan O.

[akamal]

Yup, it's definitely possible.

Cultural victory in 2008 with Louis XIV, standard pangea world, default number of opponents, Noble difficulty.

God, the last fifty turns were nerve racking though!

All three target cities building culture, the other three on wealth. Flipping between 90-100% culture every few turns to stop going bust. Worrying about whether my feeble military was going to be over-run. Watching the Inca and the English racing to Space, wondering if I should turn research back on to get Communism and build spies. (I didn't, but wished I'd managed to trade for it before switching off research after I'd got Biology and Mass Media, around 1934)

The last twenty or so turns, when literally all there was to do was wait, knowing that Victoria and Huyana-Capac only need one component each to win, was probably the most tense series of turns I've ever played - fun though! : )

Turned out it wasn't as close as it felt, took Victoria another 15 turns after the end of recorded history to finally launch.

A few of thoughts:

1) Religions - probably would help a lot if you could found one in each target city, and build the shrines. As it was I stuffed the start up a bit, missing all the religions and getting three Prophets I really didn't want. Still, shows that religions are not required at least.

2) Specialists - These seem to be the key. I didn't really force very many until the final push, when I cleared out the forests/lumbermills for farms, and mines for windmills. Had I given a bit more thought to getting even a couple of Great Artists in each city earlier, I'd probably have finished much sooner. I think had only two Great People (both scientists) in the main portion of the game (after the early prophets), and then a load in the in the final sixty-ish turns (last one at 1600 GPP).

3) Empire Size - You don't need a vast sprawling Empire. I had only five cities till end of the Renaissance. At which point I realised I was one short to be able to build the Globe or Oxford Uni. As if on cue Mao then declared war and I was able to quickly grab a sixth.

Melboz, I'm curious about you having such a large empire. What settings do you play on? Were you deliberately holding off winning by conquest or domination for the culture victory?
Nothing wrong with that of course, I'm just glad it's possible without having to do that - had I failed to pull of the culture victory I had no other options available.

Just as comparison to yours, in the end game my three cities looked like this:

Paris: ~482 CPT, legendary in 1984
Orleans: ~250 CPT, legendary in 2006
Lyons: ~360 CPT, legendary in 2008

Great Artists were split between Orleans and Lyons, mostly going to Orleans obviously.

Wow, that was a long post!

[llwellyn]

Originally posted by akamal


He's right. In CIV4BuildingInfos.xml there is the following:

<BuildingInfo>
<BuildingClass>BUILDINGCLASS_SPACE_ELEVATOR</BuildingClass>
...
<iMaxLatitude>30</iMaxLatitude>
...
</BuildingInfo> 

Not sure what the exact effect is though. Within 30 tiles of the equator? In the middle 30% of the earth?

Wow, that's actually a bit more range than I remembered. With that setting, any city in the middle 33% of your map should be able to build it. Divide the screen into thirds, and the middle slice should be able to build it. It might depend on what the minimum latitude is set to as well.

[Melboz99]

Originally posted by akamal
Melboz, I'm curious about you having such a large empire. What settings do you play on?

I did the "Play Now" Option with Ghandi, Contients, Large, Low Sea Levels, Warlord, 10 Civ's.


I happened to get an entire continent with just me and Alexander. Alexander was stuck north of a large patch of Jungle, and I moved towards his direction, eventually capturing all of his cities.

He had about 10 Cities, and I had about 10-15, so I guess the total was about 20-25.

Originally posted by akamal
Were you deliberately holding off winning by conquest or domination for the culture victory?

Nah, since it was a large map, there was a whole 'nother continent 150% larger than mine with about 6 Civ's on it, and another one about the size of mine with 2 Civ's on it.

I did happen to stop producing the SS Stasis Chamber 1 turn from completion just so I could win Culturally. Total difference would have been 6 turns.

Originally posted by akamal
Just as comparison to yours, in the end game my three cities looked like this:

Paris: ~482 CPT, legendary in 1984
Orleans: ~250 CPT, legendary in 2006
Lyons: ~360 CPT, legendary in 2008

You should read Sava's post in the Stories Forum.

It seems he won Culture Victory on Noble in the 1500's. He wound up with a score close to 60,000!


One of the things that's really fun to do, is get Free Speech, The Eifel Tower, and put your Culture Slider at 100%.

If you're bordering lots of AI towns, have fun watching them flip!


I just won Culture Victory in the early 1800's in less than 2 hours of gameplay.

Trick is balancing techs and the Culture Slider. Too much culture right away and you won't get things like The Eifel Tower fast enough. Too little and you'll delay Victory.

Dan O.