We did it. 400bc

[markusf]

@400 BC i researched the final 2 components of the spaceship and at 50bc we ran out of techs to research. We had to wait till 1ad to launch as you can't build spaceship parts before then. (strange) SF managed to build all 56 cities by himself...

[Paul]

The Egyptian spaceship just landed in 6 AD

[SmartFart]

Wasn't hard with all that money you guys gived to me.
Excellent work. I didn't think that's possible,but now i believe it could be done with 4 players.
Thanx to everyone for playing.

[BuilderR]

Do you made a log?

[Xin Yu]

Congratulations!

Now there are three ways to make it more difficult:

No gifting caravans
Larger map
Less civs

If gifting caravans are allowed, then larger map doesn't count against you since the trade bonus are bigger.

One question: Did you guys skipped invention to maintain the trade bonus? Is it working?

[Empress]

Congrats guys! can't belive it happend in a Multiplayer game!

[SmartFart]

Xin: Frankly,I don't have clear idea about anything.
With Pyramids and as many cash as i needed,all I haved to do is to rush-buy some settlers and build about 10 caravans in whole game.
My part was definitely most boring. In possible next challenge I want a different job.
Definetely.

SF

[oedo]

smart you had the most honorable job of constructing and launching the spaceship. and while you were doing this we could do nothing but wait. and this is at least as boring. as Bird pointed out in the end game...our biggest problem will be boredom

and yes, caravan tradings did make the challenge too easy. I think at the point we started yesterday (1850), everyone knew we would finally succeed

[rah]

Yes congratulations to all.
The team.

Paul...The OCC specialist in charge of the SCC. And our little trade monster

Ming 1st session/Smartfart 2nd session...The ICSers. (if you thought what you did was boring, try what I did, but glad I didn't have to make the spaceship as the sun was rising)

XinYu/Bird...The support troops, provided the boats and the settlers to the wanderer, went down the off tech paths. Gave to the detriment of their own civ. (true team)

Matt...The King of the size two cities. With a handfull of cities that stayed sized two the whole game but were contributing 100 beakers each. I'm going to check them out after i catch up on my sleep.

Odeo...The imperial Romans. Switched his civ with paul since his start looked best for the occ player. The perfectionist style.

(AI/Bird) 1st Session/Markusf 2nd Session... (The BANKERS) The AI handicapped this civ at the start but Bird took it and started to resurrect it. Markusf turned it into a financial/science power house. Yes money can help any start.

RAH...The wanderer/defender/keeper of the techs without ever contributing one science beaker. Opened every hut on the board (thanks for the ships Xin) without any barbs. Used the troops to defend wherever they could. Didn't put a city down till 1500 BC. I thought the cities I created would be given to the Space Ship cause, but alas they weren't needed.

MONEY MAKES IT EASY. And after trade, it was plentiful. For fun I finally wanted to build the workshop to upgrade all the non-units that I had collected from huts or other players. It really wasn't necessary but we had the money. (so much that we rush built every wonder/except manhatten after we launched the ship.)...one civ had retired and we didn't the the ai to build nukes.

We could have launched much earlier if not for the 1 AD restriction. Enough techs/ enough cities/ enough production, NO PROBLEM.

We only lost coordination and developed or got a tech we already had ONCE. My fault which was tough since it was my responsibility to pay attention to that. Without cities, I didn't contribute much to the cause.

To make it harder...
1. no gifting of caravans. (the only trick that we used)
2. Less civs. 4 people may be able to do it.
3. Smaller world. Less huts/shorter trade routes.

A special thanks to all the players east and many hours ahead of rest of us. I was exhausted when we finished so I can almost imagine what it was like for them. The nicest thing about this victory was that no one can launch faster, all they can do is tie it.

RAH

Thanks to all the victors again.
I really liked being pathetic all game. And thanks Markusf for the comic relief when we bartered the one time and you used the demand option to get techs from me. (to crush my puny civilization) I laughed for five minutes.

[suas333]

nice job guys.

[markusf]

I had 1800 beakers at 100% and 1500 beakers at 90% the SSC at 100% had 1300 beakers. I had 6 cities.

I am the only person that goes for Super big cities right away in normal games. I am pretty sure that if someone close to me built super big cities right away we could get a HUGE lead over other players. Because once your cities get over size 12 your looking at a trade bonus of close to $1,000 over size 20 its close to $2,000. Just think about it, if someone else also builds a huge city you will have size 13ish trade routes instead of size 6. This brings more science trade and $$$ from the initial bonus.

Next time we should try to get to 1ad without gifting caravans..... That makes a HUGE HUGE difference.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by markusf (edited August 06, 2000).]</font>

[Paul]

Xin, in the end I had to take Invention because it was the only choice I got. I guess next time someone else should get to Invention and Gunpowder a bit earlier. Oedo got Gunpowder just after I got Invention. It certainly did lower the caravan bonus. Before Invention two caravans could get me a tech even if I sent them to very small cities.

Without caravan gifting it will certainly be more difficult but on the other hand the SSC player could build more cities. In this game I couldn't have more cities because gifted caravans wouldn't be homed to the SSC if I built other cities. Being on an island certainly also helped with the caravan bonuses.

[KhanMan]

Congratulations, all!

I take it everyone was allied, with no ai civs until someone retired?

I shudder to think how long it must have taken to finish that game.

-KhanMan of the Sayen

[markusf]

~7 hours in total. Same as the first game.

[Paul]

It took longer than that, Markus. The second session took ~9 hours and the first took ~3 hours, so about 12 hours in total.

We had 7 human players. Only the Greeks started as AI because Bird joined later on the first session. They were on AI at the end because Markus left early from the second session, but they only had one city because Markus gave away all cities except Athens.

By the way, I thought of another way to make this more difficult: don't let all players have contact from the start, but only when they actually meet.