spaceship in 1AD - a theoretical approach

[Caesar the Great]

I tried this on hot seat once. 7 players coordinating together. I got a landing somewhere around 1100/1200 AD. Not very good, but the science city had 3 whales, 1 silk, no river, 4 mountains, and no coast. Its an interesting idea, but will be hard to do. I'd like to see how it turns out.

I would have loved to participated but I am currently not in possession of any civ 2 cd

[Matthew]

I'll be around after 8 eastern, but can make it 7 eastern if necessary.

ICQ 26064384

[Xin Yu]

I cannot play tonight. Too busy (working overtime). Good luck guys. Don't forget to ally with each other at the beginning.

[Paul]

I could start at 7 or 8 pm eastern time. Oedo and I talked about this on ICQ earlier this week and he said he would be able to play after midnight (which would be 6 pm eastern) so I guess he would also be playing. So who else would be able to play?

[Hydey]

We all wait to hear what the benchmark is for other teams to try and beat. Perhaps the various tribes could have a crack or even groups from various countries, the USA , Canada, England etc etc.

[Paul]

Well, we just quit after 9 hours of play in 20 AD. My guesstimate would be an AC landing in 200-300 AD if we had continued.

[markusf]

I am very impressed with with the fact that i could match the SSC or in fact beat it for a good portion of the game. I would have had space flight in 6 turns, if i didn't have any help from pual and the SSC.
at 60% science i was at 2 turns/tech with $80/surplus a turn.
I took this image at the end of the game. I had 8 cities, 4 science cities and 4 support cities (settlars ships etc) mostly cuz i had such terrible land!!! it was all swamp, that prevented me from expanding more. Note that i am still in a republic, if i went to dem i would have well over 1000 beakers.

[rah]

I now believe.

A standing ovation for the marathon players that joined the game. We didn't succeed, but we now know it can be done.

A special congrats to Markus and Paul for carrying the burden. And a special thanks to all the other support civs that payed the price for the team's good.

"The world needs ditchdiggers too."

RAH

[Matthew]

Markusf:

Impressive indeed. And you made excellent use of availible terrain.

I think that our experience this last game suggests an optimal approach as follows:

Aside from the OCC civ at most 2 other civs work on building 4 or 5 very good science cities Any more than that and resources will probably be spread too thin. Other cities could be built for support, but these might be given to someone else later. That way if anyone gives a caravan to one of the trade civs it will always be homed to a very trade rich city. If it seems that science is not going to be the limiting factor one of the trade rich civs could always forgoe universities and libraries and build tax improvements instead. 4 cities could crank out 1000 gold per turn. This could act as a cash reserve allowing the science civs to ignore taxes even if caravan revinues are running scarce, as well as saving up enough gold to buy an optimal space ship in 1 turn.

One civ acts as an organiser and a repository for all knowledge, just as we did. But he also should have an embassy with each civ, be kept up to date on the city improvements and needs of the trade civs as well as others, and direct monetary priorities. The 4 non-trade civs give of their resources to build and maintain the big trade cities, getting these cities as large and productive as quickly as possible. This is probably the toughest part; doing the dirt work while others get the glamour cities. But help grom the dirt workers is essential, and the more skillfully they perform their inglorious task, the earlier the launch date will be. Some of the possible tasks:

1. build caravans in demand by trade civ cities primarily. move the caravans to trade rich cities of one trade civ, and gift it to another. This is probably more cost effective than giving it to a trade rich civ to be moved into a city of the original owner, although perhaps some trade routes should be established in all cities.

2. Build boats to facilitate the above.

3. Building roads.

4. Improving SSC terrain (and possibly terrain of other trade cities)

5. building food caravans for the final space ship building.

6. sending food caravans to help grow the SSC.

7. Perhaps building wonders for the use of the other civs.

[Scouse Gits]

Well?? How did it go guys??? The Civ community awaits!

[added in edit: woops - just realized that this was a two page thread - hard luck - but it will be done! - another random thought - did you all know all the available techs - if not why not?]

A rather belated thought - I know that a random map was really required, but if the technique needs ironing out you might like to think about using OCC#9 as the starting map - a good OCC site - lots of space and thanks to the M25 some excellent start in the communications arena...

Good luck - hope you managed it

____________
Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Scouse Gits (edited July 31, 2000).]</font>

[oedo]

very informative the fact that even only two researchers seem to be able to do the necessary research. three researchers would be ideal, especially if no one can find a good ssc position. actually this one was looking pretty good.
we don´t need an occ map

as I recall the smallest spacship needs 24 parts. this is not the fastest one but we might be able to pay it, all we need for building it is 24 cities and about 12400 gold.
in 1AD I had 16 cities and this is only because I stopped building settlers as soon we had trade and produced nothing but caravans then. else I easily could have built 25+ cities. each one of them having a trade route to the science city is a good way to manage the unhappines problem without the need of a wonder.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by oedo (edited July 31, 2000).]</font>

[Ming]

Yeah... the real key is teamwork. The grunts really help.

The initial wanderer (go for huts, don't lay a city down until invention) really needs to be the holder of all sciences since he isn't going to be developing them anyway. Plus, if everybody allies with him, you really don't need to build any diplos. As long as everybody ALWAYS gives him any science they get WHEN they get it, all you have to do is contact him, attempt to barter sciences, and see if he has what you are looking for, and be able to see what science you might want to be working on next.

Also, once the wanderer finds a few good non units, he can start moving his non settlers toward the SCC and help improve terrain, or maybe even give it to the SCC so he can merge it into his city early to help take advantage of more special resources...

Teamwork is key. I didn't mind playing one of the grunts, because everybody is key in this challange

[Paul]

Ming, I mentioned in the other thread the need for settler help. But I don't see the need for merging the settler into the SSC. With early rep and WLTCD city size would not be the limiting factor. Not being able to improve the land fast enough to keep up with city growth is a bigger problem.

Hi SG. I don't know if you regularly read the MP forums or just found this thread through the link in the Strategy forum, but you might also want to read the other thread about saturday's game: http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum2/HTML/001689.html

[Ming]

You are right Paul... but it does depend on how early you can get republic, and how close the other settlers are. Your second settler will already be improving the land... and how many squares can you really be using that early, especially since you are probably using special resources at first. The extra pop may let you use a key trade special resource earlier... who knows

[Paul]

Well, maybe if we got republic before the SSC had reached size 3 adding a settler would allow WLTCD, but otherwise settler help would be better used to prepare the squares that are not yet being worked. With WLTCD the city will grow every turn, so the land would need to be ready before you start celebrating. You can not keep up with the growth if you improve only the squares that are being worked at the time.