Hildays Civ 2 Tournament - Russians (spoiler)

[solo]

Holidays Civ 2 Tournament - Russians (spoiler)

[solo]

Well, I was thinking that I might get into Babylon by 1 AD, but they had 5 defenders spoiling my early attack. The following turn they killed off my remaining knights and also destroyed Sverdlovsk, my favorite colony!

[Peaster]

Five defenders is pretty unusual even for a large city, though the AI seems to stockpile defenders when it notices us humans around. I guess Babylon was about size 4-5 before you started attacking it ?

I like to make colonies, too, but mine don't seem to last very long when they are close to the AI. So, now I try for a 5-square separation.

My game has been fun so far. It seemed impossible to grow quickly and get monarchy at the same time. After all I've written about shields vs beakers, I had to choose growth to see how it would turn out. I got 6 cities in 2250BC and then monarchy in 1850BC. At 800BC most stats seem normal (12 cities, 2 new wonders).

[solo]

Yes, Babylon was size 5 before my attack. Later on, when I came back with 6 more knights, only 2 were needed to drop the flag! You can never be sure.

I went for Monarchy before growth, getting it in 2050. My sixth city came the turn after, in 2000. After that, I did not found any more cities until placing a few strategic colonies later. I got an advanced tribe on a vacant island in 1450, but by 800 BC, still had only 7 cities.

I tried a brand new approach in this game. First, I decided that happiness wonders were not really needed, so concluded it would be better to research to Chivalry right after getting Monarchy. Knights are almost as good as Crusaders and require much less research. I could start producing them as early as 1000 BC vs. about 500 BC if I were to go for crusaders, instead.

Instead of building more cities, I used ones that were captured from the AI, instead. While finding the AI, I used my best production city to build the Lighthouse, which was ready in 525 BC, while researching to Trade. Since restarts were on, I felt it necessary to add MPE later in order to track down respawns quickly. If restarts had been off, I would have skipped this wonder and would not have bothered to research any more techs after Chivalry.

So far, I am liking this lean and mean approach, although my production has not been as good as in games using happiness wonders. However, I'm compensated by facing weaker cities and defenders (except Babylon!). It will be interesting to compare results later.

[Peaster]

I got 2 settlers and 2 barbs from huts, and felt OK about the opening. I didn't sweat much over arrows, and the lack of starting tech, and got monarchy a little late, in 1850BC. I built MPE/HG/LH/ST and hoped the game results would be a good measure of this non-lean approach. But my invasions went badly, so my 460AD finish doesn't seem very early. Maybe I'll replay the second half to see where the problem was.

Solo, we agree about LH and MPE in this game. I am starting to think SunTzu is not quite worth 300s. I still believe in HG, but maybe not in games where expansion is limited by a lack of land (including our last two). Hopefully, you'll tell us more about playing without it. I still think MPE is required for EC (at least with MGE AI) even with restarts off. But I am interested to see whether you can manage EC without it.

2200BC: 6 cities, 10 units.
1850BC: monarchy
1000BC: 10 cities, 22 weak units (none from huts). I am carefully working around the Mongols until I can make some ellies.
950BC: Trade. Then I accidentily clicked on feudalism instead of mapmaking. Arrgh.
800BC: MPE and 3 maps. No talk with the Persians until they finish learning to write, or with Spanish until they make peace with the Vikings. I get myst/pot and mapmaking from AI's.
750BC: HG. Writing and map from Persia. I decide they are the critical civ in this game.
575BC: Defeat the Mongols, no re-spawn.
550BC: LH. Abandon monotheism idea - Taxes to 70.
500BC: First flotilla departs for Spain, with plans to continue on to Persia ASAP.
375BC: 13 cities (very low growth while building the wonders) .
275BC: Sun Tzu arrives and so does the bad luck -my loaded trireme is sunk near Spain. I can raze cities but cannot capture any for outposts. My diplomats cannot quite afford crucial bribes. I lose many battles. The raging hordes seemed allied with the Spaniards.
40AD: English defeated, no respawn.
120AD: Vikings defeated, respawn as French on a new island.
240AD: French defeated, no respawn. Another loaded trireme is sunk by barbs near Spain, which suddenly becomes a big problem.
340AD to 460AD: Defeat Babs/Pers/Spain and about 6 respawns.

END: 28 cities, 84 units including 33 ellies (30-34 units lost), score 1692.

[solo]

I’ve completed my game and here is the log:

BC years

3950 Moscow, St. Petersburg
3800 Alphabet
3500 hut – Horseback Riding
3400 Mongols – peace, give tech
3250 Code of Laws, Mongols – give tech
2950 Kiev
2550 Ceremonial Burial, give it to Mongols
2300 barb leader – 150g
2200 hut – 50g
2150 Smolensk
2100 Monarchy, revolution
2050 govt. to Monarchy
2000 Odessa

This is it for home cities. I plan fewer cities and an earlier army instead.

1800 Map Making, Mongols – trade for Warrior Code

With Monarchy and Map Making, now I head straight for Chivalry so I can build knights. I am not going to use any happiness wonders, so won’t bother with Pottery or Monotheism.

1700 Mongols – 50g tribute
1650 Mongols – 25g
1600 Mongols – 25g, hut – 50g
1550 Mongols – 25g
1500 Mongols – receive Bronze Working as tribute, hut – barbs
1450 hut – Sevastapol

This advanced tribe was on the neighboring vacant island. The location was not bad, so I kept it to build knights. For other colonies I will depend on captured cities, more advanced tribes or nomads. Fewer cities will mean a smaller army, but I hope to strike earlier while the AI are still weak.

1460 Feudalism
1300 hut – barbs
1150 hut – legion
1050 hut – barbs
1000 Chivalry
825 Mongols – 50g
800 hut – Iron Working, English – peace, trade for Writing & Currency; Mongols – 25g
775 Spanish – peace, give tech, share maps
750 Vikings – peace, give tech, share maps
725 Bokhara taken, 13g
700 Babylonians – refuse demand for 100g tribute, war; hut – nomads
675 Samarkand taken, 18g, Mongols destroyed, found out later there was no respawn
650 hut – knight

Another benefit of early Chivalry is the free knights coming from huts.

575 hut – knight
550 hut – 25g, hut – legion
525 Lighthouse, hut – knight

The Lighthouse was built only using shields and it was completed in time to be of good use. I only planned one other wonder, MPE, because I felt it was needed to track down respawns quickly. So Trade would be the last stop for me on for research.

500 Kaupang destroyed, 24g & Polytheism as tribute, hut – Trade

Wasted hut here, since I was about to learn Trade anyways. Now I set taxes to 70% and the rest went for luxuries. Later on, as I accumulated more cities, luxuries were boosted to help keep cities content. The lack of happiness wonders did not slow down my attack on the AI.

475 hut – 25g
450 Babaylonians – peace, give tech, share maps
425 Tblisi

I used a settler that had finished roads at home for this colony, which was in between the Vikings and the Spanish. Later this colony was destroyed by the barbs, wreaking havoc on my end game campaign against respawns.

400 Spanish – 25g; Tronheim taken, 52g & Mysticism, Vikings destroyed

A trireme rubbed up against Berlin, the Viking respawn, a few turns later.

375 hut – Literacy
350 Sverdlovsk; Toledo taken, 48g & The Wheel

Sverdlovsk was planted in between the two Babylonian cities. You can usually get away with such risky colonies in 2.42, if you just ignore the parade of tresspassing AI troops and keep their attitude high enough with tech gifts. However, in this game, trying this did not work out for me.

300 hut – knights
275 Madrid taken, 84g
250 Hastings taken, 47g & Pottery
225 Marco Polo’s Embassy, Persians – peace, give tech, share maps

This wonder was finished in a leisurely manner, since I only wanted it to identify respawns that would come later. It did allow contact with the Persians a turn before bumping into their island with a trireme.

125 Canterbury taken, 64g & Masonry; Berlin destroyed, 6g, Germans destroyed, no respawn

I kept 3 techs away from AI that did not have them; namely Masonry, Feudalism and Chivalry.

The BC years went quite well. All AI had been located, and two of the original AI along with one respawn have been destroyed before 1 AD. Simultaneous campaigns on the remaining AI are underway.

AD years

Things went well before 1 AD, but on this turn I had a major setback in my attack vs. the Babylonians. I just missed taking their heavily defended capital and lost my adjacent colony in the process. It took many turns to get another attacking force into their area to continue the job. If Babylon had had one less defender, I would have destroyed their remaining city quickly and might have finished off all of the original AI by 200 AD or earlier. It took until 320 AD to wipe out the Babs.

1 hut – barbs

Why not? Everything else went wrong this turn!

20 Canterbury destroyed, 20g
40 Pasargadae taken, 78g; London taken, 71g
60 Coventry destroyed
100 Cordoba taken, 43g, Spanish destroyed; Ur destroyed, 24g

The Spanish respawned as the Egyptians. I did not have enough extra tech to allow trading maps, so I had to start searching for them. I was starting to regret diverting resources into building MPE.

140 Arbela destroyed, 24g; York taken, 68g
180 Persepolis taken, 82g
200 Nottingham taken, 150g; English destroyed; hut – Yatusk; hut – nomad

The English did not respawn. These hut results were not of any use now.

260 Egyptians found, Thebes destroyed, Egyptians destroyed; respawn as Aztecs

The Egyptians were located where I thought respawns would be most likely, which was the island east of the Babylonians.

280 Aztecs – peace, give tech, share maps; Susa taken, 80g, Persians destroyed, no respawn

The respawn area shifts because the barbs have taken one of my colonies. Had I taken Babylon on 1 AD, the game might have ended more quickly than it actually did. My second group of attackers wiped out the Babs easily, but my luck against this color went south again following two subsequent respawns. If the Babs had not respawned, I could have finished by 400 AD.

300 Babylon taken, 54g
320 Nineveh taken, 34g; Babylonians destroyed, respawn as Zulus; Zulus – give tech & 50g to trade maps

Only two respawns left, for now.

360 Zimbabwe taken, Zulus destroyed, respawn as the Japanese; Japanese – give tech & 50g twice to share maps

A bit of additional bad luck here, since the barbs destroyed Madrid on the previous turn. This changed the likely respawn area dramatically, and it took 5 more turns to reach the Japanese settler’s location.

400 Aztecs destroyed
460 Japanese destroyed, Japanese respawn again in the same spot

Now an oddity, since after I traded maps with the second version of the Japanese, the game decided to end by itself anyways, granting me a victory. You can still see the Japanese settler "surrendering" to my adjacent knight in the 460 save. Checking with the foreign advisor confirms the game is over.

Final score 1892, 245%.

I see that I have matched Peaster’s execellent result, so count this as some sort of confirmation of my newest EC strategy. During my game I had a much smaller army, but never felt I was lacking enough attackers. In earlier games with crusaders, my armies were much larger, but never seemed to arrive quickly enough where they were needed the most. If Babylon had fallen in 1 AD as planned and expected, I believe I could have finished this game by 300 AD or even a bit earlier. It would have depended on the quantity and location of respawns.

[solo]

Oh, now that I have downloaded Peaster's game and examined the log details, I see that both of us had the same idea of not using crusaders.

Elephants may be an even a better choice than knights, since using them will keep warriors around for incremental rushes and eliminate Feudalism and Chivalry as the techs the AI usually ask for as gifts. The only drawback I see is that anything can kill an elephant.

[Peaster]

Solo - This is amazing! Two ties in a row! The GOTM end dates are usually at least 200-300 years apart. Our strategies were fairly different (you built half as many cities and wonders, and relied more on exploration than MPE). Our luck seems pretty similar - fairly good in the opening, but rather bad in the late middlegame. I guess it means both methods are playable - unless someone like ST shows us how to do it in BC years.

Anyway, nice game!

I had planned to go for monotheism and not feudalism, but I got tech-bombed from demanding tribute, and got feudalism by clicking the wrong menu item! So, I decided to go with SunTzu and ellies. Knights are good, especially if you already have feudalism, but the defense factor is not important very often, is it? I prefer crusaders if I can get mono by about 1ad.

But on an island map, it is hard to get much early tribute, so I raise taxes and stop science a bit sooner. If I had realized this was an island map early enough, I probably would have delayed MPE.

I doubt you can open my save with 2.42 (if you can, please let me know). I noticed from your save that you left no trace of the Spanish - just wondering if that was part of a plan or if it just happened that way.

I just did a replay with no major change of strategy, starting from 375BC. I had much better luck this time, and finished the original civs by 260AD. I quit in 300AD, leaving one respawn of a respawn. I believe you could do about the same starting from your 1AD.

[solo]

Yes, quite uncanny to tie two games in a row. I have a copy of MGE, so I was able to look at your game using it. A very nice job of taking out the AI yourself!

Don't worry about ST, who has panicked because restarts are on, but do worry about what Zenon might be up to! He always seems to find the best solution in each game.

I prefer crusaders, too, but knights can be researched much earlier. I think defense factors are important. A typical attack has damage going both ways, and I think the defense factor helps determine how much damage is taken by an attacker when the defender scores a hit. In my own limited experience with them, elephants never seem to hold up very well although they are excellent attackers. I think I could afford a smaller army because so many of my kinghts survived counterattacks that would have killed your elephants. I did not need as many replacements.

I would say the about a third of the AI cities I attacked were razed by the attacks, including 2 of the 3 Spanish cities. When the barbs razed Madrid later, all the Spanish cities were gone. This was counter to my plans and is a minor drawback of attacking so early in the game. Smaller cities are more likely to be razed than captured, and razed cities can not be used to recover unit health or build new attackers. Whenever a city is razed, the respawn areas are apt to change, too. This is part of what kept me from a very early finishing time.

Again, nice game, and perhaps there will be more to learn about EC strategy as others start reporting their results.

[SlowThinker]

125 BC now. Still fighting for the BC end (two civs respawned and I must hope they do not respawn again).

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
Hm, no restrictions, I will try a conquest in BC years.

I finished 1AD
Bye, I am stopping to play this nasty game of Civ2. Will play Strip Poker only.

[solo]

Sad news, indeed!

[Peaster]

ST - Before you go, you must tell us how you did it ! And when you get tired of strip poker, you must come back. But please put your pants on first.

[SlowThinker]

Sorry, I have no pants anymore.

I played Civ2 FW.

My strategy was based on completion of a shipchain and rehoming hides caravans to a SuperTrade city ('ST' city ). All I needed more was to send expeditions containing 1 Settler to AI positions.
The main problem is to synchronize expeditions with the economy. Both should be prepared for a phase of final rushbuys simultaneously. But it is better to send expeditions too soon than too late. In the first case you delay your economic power by a fraction of turn per every turn of an earlier launch of expedition, but in the second case every belated turn causes the game will be finished one turn later.
I finished one EC game before this one - GOTM 41 at CivFanatics. I used an identical strategy there, but underestimated gold from trading and sent expeditions too late. So I was enlightened and calculated correct time of sending expeditions corectly.
This strategy was ideal with this game: rehoming caravans + hides supply&demand + restarts on. But I think also delivery of undemanded caravans should work: you must grow your city(ies) and this delays you about 10-20 turns but still it should be better than standard strategies.

In 175 BC I had positions prepared (I had Barracks in each colony in AI land, capital have been inspected, vet Crusaders for the capital were prepared, diplomats to bribe non capital cities were prepared too). No AI were trying to build walls (only English+Babs had Masonry).
So 175 BC I started wars, in 125 BC all original AIs were destroyed, in 1AD I finished also respawned civs.
I had 3 respawns only: Vikings respawned as Germans and Spanish as Aztecs. Then Germans respawned as French but on an identical area and were destroyed immediately.
I don't know if I was lucky with few respawns or if my strategy of filling gaps on the map by cities was successfull (let us move tothe Respawn thread with this question).
I had very low casualties: 3 warriors, 2 horses, 1 crusaders. Most of them because of Mongol's sneak attack, only crusader lost against a respawned Settler on Mountains.

I had a SuperTrade City that grew to size 8 (10 at end of the game), all other cities were suppressed at maximal size 2. STC grew from irrigation early then granary was built and food caravans were added.
Maximal taxes from 4000 BC, maximal science from 2750 BC (in middle way to Monarchy) to Trade (1750 BC). Then science 0% or 10% (if new tech from caravans). I forgot I could use 0% science + 1 scientist in STC
I was lucky with huts - 2 nomads in first 2 huts around Karakorum. But I got not so big advantage, since I couldn't use them for new cities.
After these two huts I didn't care about hut popping. I only sent a warrior for two remaining huts in Mongol area. Later I popped huts only if some unit was iddle and there was a hut nearby. But after I sent first two expeditions (only Settlers on boats) to west and east I realized I should add also hut-popping units for a chance of Tribes and Nomads.
An important moment: I traded Ceremonial Burial from Mongols. It was a risk based on a bad thinking (that Mongols would have BronzeW) but it succeeded.
No early barb landing near my cities and no ransome paid before I was rolling in money due to trade. Barb defense were based on having Phalanxes and keeping number of cities below 8 (to save one tech on way to Trade), after Trade I went for vet horses and continued to build cities. Before horses I was risking a little and wasn't always 100% secured against barbs.

My stupidities weren't serious or I perceived them in time or I was lucky.
Most serious mistakes were:
Building a SuperTrade City on square where it cannot celebrate. Fortunately I perceived it when I was preparing plans in turn when MPE was built, and so loses weren't so large.
Trading for Warrior Code. Then I popped huts and forgot a chance of Feudalism (expensive rushbuys). Fortunately I perceived it before I got Feudalism, but I lost chance of tribes and nomads.
I posted in the respawn thread and got the respawn theory about out-of-the-way areas for respaws little bit late. Also I should apply it more carefully - with a detailed analysis of the map (and right-black-clicking) you can cope with respawns easily probably.
When MPE was built Seville demanded hides and soon also Madrid did it. Probably I shouldn't bank on it: probably I should build a spare STC on some island (since also Karakorum demanded hides). This would give me safety from having to deliver undemanded caravans. (I say 'probably' because it would work only if demand of hides stops soon. Later you cannot teleport a finished or nearly finished ship chain to another area and you must work with undemanded caravans) Fortunately hides were always in demand in Spain.
I don't count usual slips like unneeded riots and similar failures. (I hate that Civ2 isn't more slip-resistant. I am upset by things like the F4 window is not refreshed until you open a city window. Also some undo is missing - Peaster's report with clicking on Feudalism is terrible. The game result depends on your carefulness. (Maybe some kind of reload should be allowed...))

[SlowThinker]

This is the end of the story:
125 BC
My prospects to finish in 25 BC: I have a 75% chance to get to Aztecs in 50BC (2 crusaders are moving there, they will step on forest in 2nd move) and attack in 25 BC. Situation with Germans is little bit unclear: I do not see all the terrain around but it is mostly forest. Shipchains with Crusaders from Madrid and VikingCanal go there, but a success will depend on movement of Germans.
75 BC
a thrilling moment - if one of my 2 crusaders goes on forest by 2nd step then I can destroy Aztecs in 25 BC. First one manages it! But there is a hindering Aztec Settler there... moreover the 2nd crusader doesn't manage to step on the forest tile... No chance to win in 25BC since there is a defender in Tenochtitlan.

I will post a log later.

The final save is attached, I can post more saves if anybody is interested.