NEW Civ2 Tournament August 16 - September 14, 2004 : SPOILER Thread

[Peaster]

@La Fayette - Thanks for the encouragement. Dave's GL post and .sav's really made it pretty easy to get the main ideas and follow in his steps. If there are any other newbies out there, I highly recommend these sources. I have tried to download your .sav too, but it stalls, with a message something like "accessing file data" (same thing with Scouse's HOF *sav. I did get his *sav from this thread OK).

[Peaster]

Many thanks !
@ La Fayette - I did a search but found nothing. I 'll forget about scoring, though. I was just curious, because it's part of the tournament.
@ Bloody Monk - Yes, I just found the "hidden special" post in the G.L. This makes sense now.
@ 6000 - That makes sense, too. Clever! The ICS strategy generates a lot of Settlers, so the loss does not seem too great.

[Scouse Gits]

Peaster - pre 1000 even on a replay is outstanding - very well done -- we shall all have to gird up our loins for the next one!!

Stu

[DaveV]

Peaster - your questions were already answered correctly. I'd expect someone with more patience than I have to be able to beat my result, since I lost a pretty fair amount of production to rioting in the late stages of my game (as can be seen in my screen shots).

Scoring is primarily based on happy people. Cranking up luxuries makes a huge difference in score. Like M. La Fayette, I don't worry about score.

ICS is, I think, still the best way to early conquest. The secret to success is focus: follow the path that leads to your goal, and don't allow yourself to be distracted from that path.

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by DaveV

ICS is, I think, still the best way to early conquest.

I am afraid you are right
... but I would very much enjoy playing the next game with exactly the same rules (no tribute?, no bribe?, no wonder?,...) and do my best.

[Makeo]

Hello.

I've finished my game with a conquest at 900 AD. I will post some logs and what not later today. The original civs were killed off in 840 and it took a couple of turns to get the respawns.

I played with MGE if that makes a difference.

[La Fayette]

@makeo

Oldtimers seem not to forget the basic rules

[offa]

You are a bloodthirsty lot. Even Solo!

I am giving this a whirl (may not finish in time though) to try to spread civilization to Alpha Centauri, where hopefully bloody monk at least can have the beers cooled ready for my arrival.

I am however, finding it a real struggle as trading is very slack. I would be very interested to see how better players cope. It takes ages for me to get anywhere. The Mongols who are closest have no coastal towns and are Icy so my caravans have to take great risks to earn peanuts. At one point I paid them 450g tribute: I can't believe I did that. My not so-SSC stalled at size 12 for ages until the mid 6th century and I have no money. Further growth of the ssc is about to hit the buffers again as I can't get enough food.

In fact the Spanish are almost as powerful as me and I may not even stay supreme for long.

[solo]

Offa,

Not surprising with this map. Profitable trades and an SSC with 4 good trade specials are essential for a successful EL game. All the civs are on the same continent on this map, too, making trade even more pitiful, as you have noticed. Establishing good colonies on some of the islands would be the best you could hope for in this one.

[offa]

Thanks Solo, that makes me feel a bit better. You are right of course.

However, how did you know the map would be no good for early landing before playing it? I presume lots of black clicking revealed the single continent, and the absense of a good ssc site became apparent early on.
Or was there something else?

Fortunately (?) I am sufficiently inexperienced at early landing that I don't mind too much about the poor map setup. It is still a fascinating exercise, and anything quicker than 1850 will do for me. It may be a close thing though.

Very impressive early conquests everyone: obviously you are very good at this game. I might like a try at a quick conquest at civ2 sometime, and clearly studying this thread will be a good place to start: Peaster's learning curve is extraordinary. However, for a variety of reasons I think that combat is generally much better in civ3, although this may not be a general view here.

[solo]

Offa,

Early on, I could not find a suitable SSC site (with 4 good trade specials), so decided to play it as a conquest game instead. It turned out the map was also a poor one for EL trade.

As mentioned earlier, after so many EL games, I was also ready for a change of pace.

[debeest]

My "early" landing game is running into the same problems. I'm at 1500 and just learned techs in the range of metallurgy, conscription, corporation. I've finally managed to build some decent-sized cities on the few islands, but having all the civs on the same continent (and mostly pretty inconvenient, at that) has made it really hard for me.

Well, next time I try early landing, I'm bound to get a better date....

[Zenon]

I completely agree with Solo. This game is a very difficult setting for an early landing in almost every aspect. On the other hand, any landing with this map is a success. It is good to see, that the interest in Early Landing Games is still there.

A possible strategy on this map might have been to build the SSC on one of the islands. But without blackclicking there was probably no chance to get there in time.

I have just finished my game with a conquest. In my case it wasn´t the missing 4 special site, I was indeed a bit bloodthirsty.

Zenon

[Bloody Monk]

offa,

Don't feel too bad about your game; this is a very poor map for a landing game. It was sheer bull-headedness that got me into this one. All the AI on the same rock with poor growth and development prospects; almost no islands and only one of them easily exploitable for colonies; a difficult map for trading needing more than one long shipchain; excessive need for land clearing for an SSC site with only three (one hidden) specials; make this a difficult game.

Due to poor health I have not played any this week, so I may not finish either. At least the deadline has been extended a week (if I read the newsletter rightly). In my game it is now 820a and I have 6techs + 2trades to go before getting Fusion Power. There was a long string (16) of 1tech per turn, but those days are gone; and with the poor trades available to helpers (in terms of $/beakers), I do not have any hope of quickly accumulating the cash and freights to build the ship until long after research is completed. I will probably roll the dice with a 36yr ship and hope for the best, assuming I can play this out. (It may be easier on me to wait another 60yrs to launch just to have a 15yr ship!!) I am not loking forward to a 36 yr dance with the AI.

Some of the things that might have helped you...
--I built a station city just at the North edge of the (9,17) SSC which with roads and rails made three routes to Karakorum worth 35arrows each after re-forresting the specials.
--Uncovering the hidden special, then irrigating both silks to irrigated grain gave extra food for growth. Adding a granary and food routes from a city with a harbor, got the SSC to size 27.
--I was very lucky early in the game trading techs with the AI, getting many needed techs on a timely basis.
--The Chin were the best trade partners, in terms of payouts and SSC demand.

Worst mistake (so far )
--The Mongs researched Fuedalism for me and then chose Chivalry next. I thought whoopy!! They would start the Tactics run for me while I did other things, and I would keep the 20shield line open longer by not quickly getting Chivalry. But they kept making trades with other AI, delaying discovery of Chivalry. By waiting for Chivalry, I avoided carrying WC and Fued for a long time and that's good. But by the time I got Chivalry and then did the big tech dump on the Mongs, they were 15 techs behind. I had paid a huge penalty (on the tech multiplier) for not dumping earlier and doing Chivalry myself.
--Not so much a mistake as a bad habit...once again, I waited way too long to find and found colonies.

It is fun though!!

Monk

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Zenon
I was indeed a bit bloodthirsty.

Zenon

...but you forgot to tell us whether you found enough to drink ... and when you finished drinking

(BTW nice to see you back )