OCC 2005 Game 1

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by StuporMan
I went ahead and played on to landing from my 1500AD save. I managed a pre 1800 landing, which I am most pleased with.

Observations and Analysis:

I am currently working on a two continent EL strategy using two large trade cities delivering commodities back and forth using this Wonder Flipping technique, but this will have to be carefully planned and a second SSC site would have to be found on another continent quickly in order to get the growth and development of both SSC to work out properly. This most likely would not be a viable strategy, but it might be worth exploring. At any rate I have gained much more knowledge of OCC, Trade, and Civ 2 in general through this exercise and I look forward to more events like this in the future.

StuporMan

Good result, well done. If possible can you post your launch save (or your turn before landing save) so that we can look at it. Do I gather that no one ever discovered Communism?

I recollect that Solo is a great advocate of using 2 continents for trade links to the SSC. With superhighways in both cities, the pay offs can be very large. Of course the lack of science wonders in the second site reduces its contribution somewhat. And I suppose without Shake's you will need temples, etc to get the growth up. However, a while back we played a game in which we didn't build any wonders, so it can be done!

RJM at Sleeper's

[StuporMan]

Sorry about not posting my save, here it is.

RJM,

I was using Grigor's save where Communism was already discovered (by the Chinese I believe). My comments about tech bombing civs researching Communism was due to the fact that I had no use from MPE from 1000AD. Only having one embassy really hurt me as I believe I could have traded for feudalism and thus avoided researching 2 techs, saving me at least 4 turns and possibly more.

The difficult part of my 2 continent strategy is trading between my 2 super trade cities without blocking each others supply and demand lists. This is the part that would be most difficult, but if it could be successfully achieved then it would be possible to deliver a super trade city carvan or frieght to the other SSC every turn! This could lead to several 2 and 3 tech turns. I believe that with this method you might even be able to eek out a 4 tech turn every now and again by delvering some helper caravans to demanding cities, but this would only be in extremely rare circumstances near the end of the game. However, since this trading method is more than likely not possible, a ship chain could be set up for each SSC to deliver frieghts to the AI. This would probably make 4 tech turns much more difficult and more in the realm of the impossible (if they aren't already).

There are other issues as well, such as founding SSC2 early enough and building enough settlers/engineers to fully develop both SSCs and to build enough colonies and helpers. Pyramids would likely have to be built in order to facilitate growth in the SSCs, helpers, and colonies as workers become more important. Several off path happiness wonders would also likely have to be built to allow for SSC2 growth. As I said before, this strategy is more than likely infeasable as it would take too much time to set up, but would make an iteresting experiment. I may go ahead and grab one of the old EL game maps and see what I can come up with. The results of such an attempt obviously could not be counted for anything official, but would make for an interesting feasablility study of such a strategy.

StuporMan

[solo]

StuporMan,

I managed some 3 tech turns in one EL game, but I believe this is the limit, since only one tech can be earned with freight deliveries. All the others must come from city science alone.

Samson and I thought of using a second SSC, but with the idea of making it a Super Trade City, by giving it the Colossus wonder. Turns out there was not enough time to develop a second SSC or STC, but perhaps you might find a way we hadn't thought of.

I have found a good start we can use for another OCC game when this one is completed. No need to wander in this one, as you start in the middle of a prime SSC location! Adding possibilities is a free tech, Bronze Working, that came with this random start.

[StuporMan]

Solo,

I had assumed that this had already been attempted before, and as I said in two previous posts I think that this will probably be an infeasable strategy. There are some variations I want to try, however, that might make it a bit better. I was thinking that perhaps the second STC should not be grown to size 20, but rather to size 12 so it would not have to be fully developed and would require fewer improvements. I was also thinking of using an early Monarchy with rapid expansion using Map Making as my off path tech to Monarchy to allow for an early trireme to found the second STC very early on. This choice would obviously start much slower, but might catch up at the end with more 3 tech turns.

As for a 4 tech turn, I assumed this would be nigh on impossible at best, but thought it might be possible with enough good helpers. My thinking was 1 tech from trade, 1 from SS(T)C2, 1 from SSC1, and 1 from the other helpers. I assumed that a 4th tech per turn would more than likely not be possible, but thought that perhaps on an extrordinarily good map with size 8 helpers and colonies with all science improvements, that it just might be possible to achieve this. Again, I still think that any such attempt would probably fall short of that 4th tech, but I thought I might give it try. The only other way I thought might work was building Darwins in the capital city during a 3 tech turn to get the 4th tech.

This is probably just a dream. I doubt I will be able to outdo solo or samson in achieving techs per turn or at EL, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try . Trying new and different strategies is part of the reason why Civ 2 is still fun almost 10 years after its release. And who knows, it might just turn out that a 4 tech turn would end up being more destructive than helpful, as it could lead to getting space flight before the proper infrastructure can be put into place to build all the space ship parts in time.

Solo your save for the next OCC save sounds good, Bronze Working for free means we get trade even faster and we can start off rushing the second row of shields! I look forward to playing from start to finish without any prior knowledge. Hopefully I have learned enough from this game to make a reasonable go at the next one.

StuporMan

[dr vanderhevel]

do you guys consider gems to be a good special to build a city next to? is there a special ranking list anywhere?
one time i had a city with 2 whales and 2 fish. that was sweet

[rjmatsleepers]

I played my AD 1500 save through to the end (several times in fact). I attach one of my better efforts. They all had a landing around AD 1800 except one where I tried to build enough vans to complete the space ship before building Apollo. That was not a success

AD 1500 sell colosseum; Radio->Nuclear Fission
AD 1510 build factory dye-Berlin (u) 142
AD 1520 build mass transit Nuclear fission->advanced flight
AD 1540 advanced flight->rocketry
AD 1560 Rocketry->nuclear power
AD 1580 nuclear power->the laser
AD 1600 the laser->space flight
AD 1620 space flight->plastics
AD 1640 complete apollo; plastics->superconductor
AD 1660 superconductor->polytheism
AD 1670 swap with aztecs for polytheism; start researching fusion power
AD 1690 fusion power->espionage
AD 1700 sell research lab
AD 1710 sell university
AD 1720 sell library
AD 1784 launch
AD 1799 landing

The log for this game is very uneventful - apart from a small war with the Chinese between launch and landing. I haven't included the endless begging for money that eventually caused my allies to end the alliances. Actually, what seemed to happen was that they ended the alliance as soon as I reached the point where I had given them all my techs.

Anyway, I'm pleased enough with this result. It's certainly my earliest OCC landing, even if it was not all my own work

If we play again, I'd prefer an EL game, but I'll join in another OCC.

RJM at Sleeper's

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by dr vanderhevel
do you guys consider gems to be a good special to build a city next to? is there a special ranking list anywhere?
one time i had a city with 2 whales and 2 fish. that was sweet

There was a thread a while back where we debated the various specials. IMO whales are very good in the early years, but I don't like fish because of their lack of shields. Silk is one of my favourites - particularly on a river Spice and wine are good as well - wine particularly after building the mine. In this game, the site that most of us chose had silk, wine, whale and one other - I've just had a senior moment and I can't remember what the 4th special was

The non-trade specials are OK, and I'll use them if I'm building a city somewhere in the area, but I don't go out of my way for them.

RJM at Sleeper's

[StuporMan]

Congratulations on a pre-1800 landing rjmatsleepers! That is a very good landing date indeed.

As to the fourth special, that one was spice.

dr vanderhevel,
Nearly every special has a good benefit, the issue is what kind of city are you trying to build. Most of the time the main resource you are looking for is trade and the secondary resource is shields or sometimes food. My two favorite specials are Gold and Wine as they produce a good number of trade arrows and both produce shields when mined (although I rarely have time to mine a gold mountain). Silk and wheat are often chosen for OCC sites as wheat allows for quick early growth and silk, especially when on a river, produces a good number of trade arrows and shields. One particularly good thing about these specials is that they can be transformed back and forth. If you mine a wheat, it becomes a silk. If you irrigate a silk it becomes a wheat (though few ever do this transformation).

Essentially what this comes down to is that finding a good OCC site or SSC site depends on a number of factors. The basic goals are to maximize trade, the ability to grow to size 20 or higher, and the ability to produce a minimum of 10 shields. Note, that the site does not have to be perfect from the start, but you do not want to have to rely on an army of engineers to get the site there. This is a very brief overview of this subject, and there are some much better civ 2 players than I that have written about it. Here are some good places to start if you are interested in OCC or in improving your landing times:

Solo's Early Landing Guide

The Paulicy (OCC)

The Great Library Index #2 (A listing of some of the best writing on Civ 2)

These are the top three reads for anyone looking to improve at Civ2. Reading these has definitely made me a better Civ2 player, and I am sure that they will be of great help to you as well.

StuporMan

[solo]

RJM,

There are two other possible reasons why you did not get that 1 turn advance you were expecting, both depending on a change in your power rating between the two turns:

1) The old key civ, upon which you were estimating success, might have had more techs than you did (off path ones not on your way to spaceflight, or others you might have purposely avoided or skipped). This would have lower required beakers even more than tech parity does. The new key civ, upon which the actual result depended, probably did not have any extra techs or as many extra ones as previous first key civ, which added some beakers to the cost of the tech.

2) You might have become your own key civ, and the previous key civ had more techs than you did after you gifted all of yours to him. (Again, that civ probably had some off path techs that you hadn't acquired).

StuporMan,

Curiosity has made me research why the AI sometimes gift a tech instead of gold, and I think I have found the answer. If their tech total exceeds yours when you make the request, they will give you a tech. If it is the same or less, they will give you gold. Since the human player almost always has a huge tech lead in EL and OCC games, this would explain why gold is almost always received.

A tech gift is likely early in the game, when the AI are likely to have a number of techs you lack. When you use some tech gifts to make peace or an alliance or to trade maps, their total may exceed yours when you ask for a gift. Later in the game, when you are tech bombing a key civ, its total can temporarily exceed yours again, and a request may bring you an off-path tech instead of gold.

This means it's important to keep track of who the key civ is or is likely to be, since tech bombing everyone leaves them all with a higher total. It also pays to check tech totals before asking for a gift.

Of course, the other requirements for receiving a gold still apply, i.e. the initial waiting period of 8 turns, 50g minimum, and lower power rating.

All,

I will be away for the holiday weekend, but since most have finished this game I will post the OCC start I recently found in a new thread, so that others can get started.

Also, I must reiterate my recommendation of the game Dominions II, perhaps encouraged after winning my first PBEM contest among some experienced players! There is a free demo that can be downloaded to try it out.

[solo]

Originally posted by StuporMan

As for a 4 tech turn, I assumed this would be nigh on impossible at best, but thought it might be possible with enough good helpers. My thinking was 1 tech from trade, 1 from SS(T)C2, 1 from SSC1, and 1 from the other helpers. I assumed that a 4th tech per turn would more than likely not be possible, but thought that perhaps on an extrordinarily good map with size 8 helpers and colonies with all science improvements, that it just might be possible to achieve this. Again, I still think that any such attempt would probably fall short of that 4th tech, but I thought I might give it try. The only other way I thought might work was building Darwins in the capital city during a 3 tech turn to get the 4th tech.

This is probably just a dream. I doubt I will be able to outdo solo or samson in achieving techs per turn or at EL, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try . Trying new and different strategies is part of the reason why Civ 2 is still fun almost 10 years after its release. And who knows, it might just turn out that a 4 tech turn would end up being more destructive than helpful, as it could lead to getting space flight before the proper infrastructure can be put into place to build all the space ship parts in time.

Well, good luck then!

EL7 perhaps presents the best opportunity although this was an edited map and not a true random start. Your best chances of 4 techs/turn would be on a small map which has lower tech costs. On a standard map, a fully developed SSC rarely can sustain 1 tech turns by itself. I think 1 tech per turn from another SSC is out of reach since there is only one copy of Copernicus and Isaac Newton's, so if you can manage this, we will all be quite impressed! These wonders provide most of the SSC beakers.

[StuporMan]

More news on the 4 tech turn,

I did some research using one of Solo's saves from EL game 7 just to see if my theory would pan out. Unfortunately, what solo and samson had discovered about the 4 tech turn and 2 SSC or STC is correct.

The best that you can do is get the same total number of beakers out of two cities instead of one. This is achieved by splitting Copes and Newton's between the two cities. This, however, assumes that both produce an identical number of trade arrows and are the exact same size. The only benefit to this method would give would be the STC delivery every turn using Wonder-Flipping. Again, this only affects the first tech, and does not make the 4th tech any closer.

Basically what it boils down to is that to double the number of beakers a SSC produces requires a minimum of 4 STCs without any wonders and having all tech improvements. This would mean the minimum number of cities to reasonably be able to acheive a 4 tech turn would be 10, 1 SSC, 8 STC, 1 Tech Trigger City. Again, this assumes that the SSC produces enough science to generate a tech per turn for each of the 4 techs and that the other 8 STCs are good enough to generate 2x the amount of science the SSC generates. It would be nearly impossible to find the 9 excellent locations required to generate these cities. Also, this would also require a good number of helper cities in order to be able to get all the STCs up to speed in time. More and more it appears that sustainable 4 tech turns are out of reach.

That being said, I have generated a save that generates 5 techs in the next turn! Yes you read that correctly 5 techs. This save was, again, taken from solo's excellent EL7 game and edited to remove Darwin's Voyage from Chengdu and add a nearly complete Darwin's Voyage in Beijing. This save is in MGE format, I will try and get a 2.42 version this weekend.

So I have proven that it is possible to get a 4 and even 5 tech turn, unfortunately these possibilities only come up 1 time per game. I will experiment more with getting the 9 STC method, but I have a feeling this will be nothing more than an exercise in futility.

StuporMan