OCC 2005 Game 1

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Elephant
I have a business trip tomorrow and another next week that I have been spending too much time preparing. I am probably unable to post anything for the next week. I will try to continue my mediocre AD500 save but suggest you not wait for me on Sunday.

Are you back from your trips? If we wait a few more days will you be able to continue to AD 1000? We seem to have slowed down all on our own, so no harm done if you think you can post something. Otherwise, do we continue to AD 1500?

RJM at Sleeper's

[rjmatsleepers]

OK guys,

how about we choose our saves and play through to AD 1500? Can anyone play and post by next Sunday (22nd May)?

RJM at Sleeper's

[Peaster]

OK for me. Any chance somebody might be launching?

[Elephant]

I got back home yesterday evening with a dead laptop. I should be back in operation by evening. Go ahead with the 1000-1500 round; from the looks of things Solo might make launch status but I doubt the rest of us. I am still at AD500; I might catch up by the weekend.

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Peaster
OK for me. Any chance somebody might be launching?

If anyone launches, it won't be me. My best result in a normal EL game is mid 16th century. In an OCC, I'll be satisfied with a win.

RJM at Sleeper's

[StuporMan]

Greetings,

I know this is probably not the best way to introduce myself to you guys, so I apologize for posting so late in this discussion, but I am just so glad to see that Civ 2 is still alive and kicking as it is still one of my favorite games of all time.

I am still new to OCC and EL games, so I do not know how much I can contribute to this discussion/game, so I will refrain from submitting my results from playing this start in any official capacity, but will instead use this opportunity to state some observations and hopefully get some questions answered so that I can participate in the next OCC game of 2005 in some meaningful way (assuming there is one).

First comment, from reading through this topic, the Paulicy, and Solo's magnificent EL strategy guide I realize that I am amazingly far behind all of you as I have not played Civ 2 in years and up until about a week ago had yet to deliver a commodity caravan! However, after having played a few games using the strategies laid out, I was amazed at how quickly one can improve their game just by a few adjustments in thought process and game style. I was able to acheive a landing in the early 1700's using only one city on deity, whereas before that was my best landing time using 30+ cities on Prince or King level. I am obviously not up to par with any of the players involved in this thread yet, and do not consider myself anywhere near being able to even compare my gameplay with the likes of Solo, one of the all time great masters of Civ 2, but I hope to improve through participating in events like this.

Second comment, I have played this OCC start a few times already using a variety of openings and have analyzed the logs of all the players currently participating. It appears as though and early Republic is superior to the celebrating Monarchy for OCC (at least from what I have seen on this map). While this style does start considerably slower than the celebrating monarchy, it does appear to catch up quite fast after MPE is built. I have yet to discover exactly why this is the case, but my guess would be that it has to do with not wasting beakers on techs the AI will likely discover, and the ability to skip sometimes several early techs entirely.

Third comment, I have also noticed that the reverse of this is true in EL games, that a Monarchy start is superior to the early republic start as it allows for more cities and colonies earlier. It would be interesting to discover the cut off at the number of cities that benefit more from an early republic start before an early monarchy start becomes more beneficial.

Fourth comment, I believe that 1500AD is safe from all players this go round. I have played Solo's save on through a couple of times and my best result so far is a landing in 1636AD IIRC. As good as Solo is, I am not sure even he will be able to deliver enough freights fast enough to improve upon that time by more than about 100 years. Of course, I could be wrong (and often am).

All right, now for the questions. First off, how do you determine whether or not an Ally will gift tech or gift gold? I know that they must have more than 50 gold in the bank, but often times I ask when the AI has over 200 gold and they still gift me Pottery instead of gold.

Second, how do you determine what a city will supply and demand throughout the course of the game? This is especially useful in determining whether or not my SSC will have a supply of hides or not.

Third, where can I find out about the Hides "bug" and the Copper Dye "bug"? I have read quite extensively on these forums and the GL Index and have yet to run across these topics.

Thank you all for providing many insights into arguably the best game of all time. And apologies for the length of this post!

Stuporman

[solo]

Originally posted by StuporMan
All right, now for the questions. First off, how do you determine whether or not an Ally will gift tech or gift gold? I know that they must have more than 50 gold in the bank, but often times I ask when the AI has over 200 gold and they still gift me Pottery instead of gold.

Second, how do you determine what a city will supply and demand throughout the course of the game? This is especially useful in determining whether or not my SSC will have a supply of hides or not.

Third, where can I find out about the Hides "bug" and the Copper Dye "bug"? I have read quite extensively on these forums and the GL Index and have yet to run across these topics.

Thanks for the kind words, and welcome to our community! I have continued this OCC game and my landing date was 1606, so your 1636 was only 3 turns later. Nice going!

In response to your questions:

1) Besides making sure an ally has at least 50 gold, I make sure of two other things before asking for a gift: one being that my power rating is lower (this may not be obvious) and that their own attitude towards me has not slipped. When doing this I almost never get a tech in place of gold. Variation in AI reponses may also be affected by the version of the game you are using.

2 & 3) These things are discussed in the section on Trade in my EL Guide, but you can find more details and additional discussion in Samson's thread "How Commodity Supply and Demand Lists Are Determined". I believe I also provided a link to this thread in my guide.

[StuporMan]

Thank you for the information Solo.

I am sorry I forgot that all the trade information was listed in your EL guide. I read that a while ago and forgot how in depth it was in regards to supply and demand and how they are calculated.

I am now looking over samson's thread on the subject of supply and demand and am a little overwhelmed by the scale of it all. Truly a work of genius on his part to figure all of this information out.

I am currently working on a tool to help those of us without our masters degree in Civ 2 trade mechanics to be able to (more) easily figure out the supply and demand lists for each city. This may take a while, since the complexity of such a task is daunting, and the free time I have to work on such a project is limited, but we shall see what I can come up with.

Thanks again,
StuporMan

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by StuporMan
Greetings,

I was able to acheive a landing in the early 1700's using only one city on deity, whereas before that was my best landing time using 30+ cities on Prince or King level. I am obviously not up to par with any of the players involved in this thread yet, and do not consider myself anywhere near being able to even compare my gameplay with the likes of Solo, one of the all time great masters of Civ 2, but I hope to improve through participating in events like this.

Stuporman

Welcome aboard.

If you've managed an OCC landing in the 1700s, you're way ahead of me. I think my best is in the 20th century.

If you haven't done so already, I encourage you to pick up an AD 1000 save from Peaster, Grigor or myself and play it through to 1500 - Grigor's is MGE BTW. You can then post the results - the more saves and logs we get, the more we learn.

RJM at Sleeper's

[StuporMan]

Thanks RJM,

I will pick up a few saves and see what I can do.

One note about my 1700s landing is that I did have some knowledge of the map and a good guideline to follow from Solo's log. The other benefit I had was knowing what the city would supply and the (likely) nearby cities that would demand them. I would not have done nearly as well without this prior knowledge, which is why I am so interested in playing one from the beginning with no prior knowledge. This is also why I have not included a log as this was mainly an experiment on my part to see what I could learn before making a legitimate attempt.


StuporMan

[Peaster]

Welcome, Stuporman! You know more about OCC than I do. I am just here to make the others look good .

Congratulations on an excellent result, solo!

Spoiler:

I played out my previous save to 1500AD. I am getting about 1 tech every 3 turns (just past Automobile now). My engineer and 2 settlers are overworked, trying to finish farmland, clean up pollution, and build RR's. I think this is where my practice game started to fall apart. Maybe I can find some notes about what not to do at this point.

[solo]

Perhaps another game is in order after this one is finished to give StuporMan a chance to participate in a complete game.

Peaster, are you making use of the key civ? A tech every two turns should be routine in OCC after all science improvements and wonders in the SCC are in place.

On to the finish line, although I go a bit beyond 1500:

1020 oil, The Laser
1040 food
1060 food, Flight
1080 food
1100 food, Radio, oil to Tlateloclo, 256g
1120 beads
1140 food, Advanced Flight, Germans – trade for Ceremonial Burial, 50g
1160 food
1180 food, Rocketry
1200 Manufacturing Plant, (now there are 82 shields, 2 to spare)
1220 food, Space Flight, beads to Tenochtitlan, 240g
Chinese & Aztecs – give tech, share maps
Babylonians – trade for Pottery, share maps

1240 Apollo Program
1260 S#1, Plastics
1280 S#2
1300 S#3, Superconductor
1320 S#4
1340 S#5, Fusion Power
1360 S#6
1380 through 1520 S#7 – S#15
1530 M#1, Germans – they deliver a caravan, 50g gift
1540 M#2
1550 M#3
1560 C#1
1570 C#2, launch 15-1-1-1-1-1, ETA 1606 AD (just missed a pre-1600 landing)

With the benefit of hindsight, I think an earlier landing could have been achieved by going to Monarchy early instead of choosing early Republic. Other players got off to a much better start than I did by doing this. Coupling early Monarchy with a game focusing on overseas trade was probably the best strategy for this OCC game. I think either city site would have produced a similar result, since both were good hides producers.

Perhaps some things have changed since Paul’s Guide: namely, the use of Marco Polo’s Embassy and the exploitation of additional trading opportunities. However, most of the ideas outlined in the guide have remained valid.

[solo]

I downloaded Peaster's save and have answered my own question. In it his power rating was weak, and after gifting all techs to the Babylonians (green civ is the key civ when we are weak), tech costs are reduced enough to learn a tech every two turns. When superhighways are added, it will be close to 1 tech per turn.

[Grigor]

Bravo, Solo! I have played my MGE save to 1500AD, and am not going to get to Space Flight until th mid-1600s. However, this represents by far my best OCC game.

I finally figured out to work the Wonder Bread trick, and will be able to get some 1-turn advances as a result. What I have been really enjoying is my NONE shipchain made of bribed Chinese and Babylonian Transports and Caravels. With Magellan's, I can reach the Aztecs in 2 turns, which is the minimum without starting from within the city. I have deliberately not been gifting so that I can bribe units cheaply and prevent all danger. That may have led to some slowdowns, but had I thought of Wonder Bread earlier I think it would have been enough to land in the 1600s. The city is size 29 and will grow next turn on 10% luxuries.

[solo]

A NON ship chain is a great idea for OCC when trade is being exploited. This might be especially useful before galleons and transports are available, since city growth over 21 must be postponed when triremes and/or caravels are being supported. I've looked at your save and concur that Space Flight is likely in the mid 1600's, leading the way to an excellent result.

It's too bad a road/rail connection could not be made to the Germans in time to take advantage of the 1 turn advances that might have been achieved.