spaceship in 1AD - a theoretical approach

[BuilderR]

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font><font size=1>Originally posted by Xin Yu on 07-26-2000 04:40 PM</font>
Paul: if cities can be traded among civs then a city can build 6 SS components before the end of turn.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

cheating....

BuilderR

[Ming]

But Xin... trading cities like that during the same turn... wouldn't that be creating 6 different space ships? You only need one!

[Xin Yu]

Ming: you are right. We only need one space ship. So the best we can do is to cumulate 6x shields before the end of turn for one SS component.

[Matthew]

I disagree with the Masterciv idea. Any civ that gets too far ahead on the power graph will both have a narrower selection of techs to choose from and I believe will take an additional research hit too.

Also, the SSC definitely shouldn't be a lone city. Much better to have it in conjunction with at least 4 or 5 other cities. That way we won't wind up wasting so many precious precious trade beakers.

I'm a Physicist, so let's play math. If by 700 B.C. we have 5 civs able to produce 800 or so beakers per turn, that should be enough for each civ to get 1 tech every two turns. That's 28 turns, so 14 techs for 5 civs. 70 techs by A.D. 1. That's more than enough to get Space fligt by then. 6 to 8 good trade cities should be enough to accomplish that. Caravans will help too, and will give us a sufficient cash reserve to keep science rates high. The other two civs can play more of a supporting role. One can act as a repository for all availible knowledge. The other civs should only have the bare minimum techs necessary , to maximise the productivity of research. They can also build lots of cities. Aside form preparing for a Space ship, this will also provide more markets for trade goods produced by the other 5 civs, and goods not otherwise availible.

Our chief enemy is time. We have to build only what is absolutely necessary for our objective. Something that might help in a game that would last till 1500 A.D. may be absolutely worthless, or take too much time to build in a game that is to end around 25 A.D. It may even be that (OK, prepare to proclaim blasphemy) the SSC will not be sufficiently time- efficient. We must ask ourselves if the 18 caravans that go into building all of the SSC wonders are worth it. More likely than not they are, but we must consider that 18 caravans, if they can bring in a very conservative 300 gold each add up to 5400 gold, (about 1/4 of what is needed to buy a 5.7 year space ship) and quite a few techs. Of course that is assuming that the cities building those caravans had commodities in demand. But it's soimething to think about. Paul, what is the earliest you think an SSC can get into the 600 tech per turn range?

[Paul]

I think that the SSC player should not have too many cities. In my experience in OCC games research goes faster because you can devote all your resources to one city. If you have more cities you usually need to set a luxury rate and I have noticed in my own OCC games that lowering the science rate by 10% can easily cost more than 100 beakers.

If the SSC player is going to have more cities they should be self-sufficient and if they get happiness problems it would probably be better to use entertainers instead of a luxury rate.

The HG and temples in combination with the Oracle should be able to get them to a decent size, but it would be better if the settlers to found those extra cities were supplied by other players, at least for the first one or two cities.

[oedo]

as I said, I played a hotseat game with an occ location last weekend. playing the scc part I decided to use the second settler to found a second city. but I wouldn´t do it once again. first thing I noticed, it takes definately too long to get this settler back in order to road, irrigate and mine the scc-squares.
the next problem will come with democracy. sometimes the scc city will need a tax rate of 100% in order to research each turn (or each two turns). with the help of shakespeare this city can easily afford a 0% luxury rate. however any other city of its civ will get to unrest, unless it´s at size one and vitually worthless. you know what this means:
unrest in democracy=anarchy=no beaker production.

that´s why I highly recommend not to found any additional city to scc. I´d even go further: Paul should avoid to grab all huts placed on plain or grassland so he won´t have the risk of getting an advanced tribe from them.

[rah]

No problem, just give the cities away.

We tried it last night. (with Ming, Bird, Xin Yu, and me.) This will be a tough nut to crack. We learned some things.

We will try again. I think we need Paul.

RAH

[Ming]

Yeah... it seems that to get off to a good start, you need the host to get some key free techs, and be the one to find a great OCC city location fast. He can use his second settler to improve the land around his city.

One player can play the wanderer, never start a city at first, and just go tipping huts. He should hold all the sciences that the team has, and dole them out as needed to players. This way, he won't get a science from a hut that somebody already has.

One player should be the ics'er. You will need lots of cities to build the space ship quick, so somebody needs to start cranking them out.

One player needs to concentrate on production and odd jobs. He will be building tons of caravans...

And additional players should also be cranking out caravans...

Right or Wrong, this seemed to be the lesson learned last night as four of us gave it a try.

[Paul]

I think that with the combined research effort of all these civs we would most likely get a very early republic, so the SSC player would be starting to celebrate even earlier than in OCC games. And I find that the one NON settler can barely keep up in OCC games, so in this game he would definately require assistence from other civs' settlers. If we are going with Ming's idea of the wanderer civ that builds no cities, I would suggest that the wanderer's settlers start helping the SSC player once he has some units from huts.

Another thing that I thought of: it would be a good idea to connect our civs with roads so that caravans can get to their destination faster.

Mathhew, you asked how soon the SSC could get to 600 beakers. In my OCC experience that happens after building INC and WLTCD-ing to size 20. But I find that after Copernicus I usually get an advance about every 3-4 turns if I have a good game. For this kind of game I can't put an exact date on that, but in my best OCC game I had Copernicus around 700 BC and INC + size 20 around 100 BC or so. With our combined efforts we should be able to get there much earlier.

Anyway, I think Ming's idea about the OCC'er, the ICS'er, the wanderer and the caravan supllier(s) would probably give good results.

[Matthew]

Yes, shortfalls in beakers can be helped with caravans, but with only 1 city trade routes will in general be limited to 3 routes in however many turns it takes to change, unless we get a repeat commodities thing going. Are we going to do the caravan gifting thing? Even if we do give the SSC player caravans, the best we can do if he only has the one city is 1 tech per turn, unless the SSC is producing beakers enough to get 1 tech per turn. With a few more cities (positioned strategically so it will still be a simple matter to give the SSC player a caravan from a long way away and still have it be homed th the SSC) by gifting caravans we can get him up to 2 techs per turn (the thing about only being able to get 2/3 of the beakers for an advance by caravans in any 1 turn is a myth)
The SSC player doesn't even need to build his additional cities. We could give them to him, complete with happy improvements. Surely 4 good trade cities would make up for the 10 % loss of science from the SSC. If we can get 1500 science max from the SSC, that's only about a 100 beaker loss to be at 10 % (since some science comes from specialists). Even just 4 additional cities should be able to give another 400 beakers at maximum. Of course now that I think about it, it's kind of senseless to chat about this here. If during the game it becomes obvious that it would be helpful to Paul (I assume) to have additional cities, we'll just give him what he needs.

A few more ideas.

1. I assume that once the best SSC location has been decided on, we'll be switching civs, and giving that one to Paul?

2. Host should start as a Purple Civ. We want him to get the poorest location to start with so he will get more starting techs, since only he will get any.

3. We might consider having at least some civs starting out in republic first. Assuming we go villages Only there will be little need of defense, so free support won't be such a benefit. Only problem: do any of us know how to do this effectively? The SSC civ should definitely start out in republic if we get it soon enough, because he won't have any support cost anyway, and if he needs money to build a happy improvement, well give him the money. Note- happiness isn't that big of a problem in early republic as long as you don't go over 7 cities too early. We just have to do things in a much different way than we are all used to. The first citizen is always content, and if you have a road per worker you can keep the second happy with 30 % luxuries (your still ahead,since you are taking in 6 trade, as opposed to 3 for a city in Monarchy). with size 3 cities and no special you need to go up to 50 %. Now you are even with Monarchy, except that you have less corruption, so you're still slightly ahead. And a size 4 city with 20 % luxuries and a temple is getting 8 trade after luxuries, still better than the 5 you would get in Monarchy. and any time you're ready to grow a bit, just crank up luxuries for 2 or 3 turns.

Please feel free to shoot down any of these ideas without mercy if you find flaws.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Matthew (edited July 27, 2000).]</font>

[Matthew]

I see the value of not using the first settler for anything but irrigation for the SSC, but I'm just not sure the SSC player should confine himself to just one city. Tip over a goody hut or two by 3000 B.C. and he's bound to get a tribe or a nomad since he will have only 1 city at the time. I just think that there is a lot of value in having some support cities along with the SSC both to take maximum advantage of it's science output (ie, to not waste unused beakers) and to have caravan builders very close to the SSC.

Example: say the SSC is producing enough science for 3/4 an advance in 1 turn. The best it can do is still only 1 advance every two turns, the other beakers being lost. But if he has science output from the other cities,and/or help from a caravan from the supporting cities this can be upped to one discovery per turn.

Not to mention the trade routes these cities can produceon their own. I've tried similar things before and when I really wanted to crank science up to 90% I've been able to do so. With Shake's 100 % won't be a problem. A couple of elvi and a happy improvement or two can keep the other cities reasonably content. Perhaps someone else should build the supporting cities, but one way or another I think the SSC player should have some.

Statue of liberty may actually be a good wonder to have if we are going to bother going into democracy. Every turn counts, and we don't want our best science civs to spend 5 or 6 turns in Anarchy.

[Ming]

You do raise a valid point in terms of beakers produced and the potential waste. However, couldn't that be controled with the use of well timed trade caravans to make up any deficits

And, I do agree that the super city needs to have some supporting cities nearby. But, does that civ really need to own them? Any huts that turn into cities or wandering tribes can be given to one of the other team members. The non settler can even be given to another player after it has completed any needed early improvements to start a nearby city. Any later improvements can be handled by other players settlers once they make the trek to get there.

Another advantage is one that Rah pointed out to me. By not starting that second city, you can use the "crank out your first settler from a size one city without lossing your stored food" trick. When the city gets to about 17 or 18 food, you can buy the first settler. The city will produce the settler and not be disbanded, because it is your only city. You then wait until the city increases to two, and then merge the settler back into the city to have an almost instant 3 size city. If you picked a good location, this could mean the use of those extra special resources even quicker!

I will admit, things didn't work like this last night when we tried. But, it was a valuable learning experience for when we try again. Any additional thoughts and comments would be appreciated... this is a tough one!

[oedo]

bang!

btw, do you have icq?

[Paul]

I think it won't really be necessary for the SSC player to get multiple advances per turn. For a fusion powered spaceship a total of about 75 advances is needed. If with gifting some caravans the SSC player could get an advance per turn after say 1000 BC he could get a total of 40 advances before 1 AD. That would leave 35 advances to be researched by the others, from huts, as starting techs and researched by the SSC player in the 60 turns before 1000 BC. That certainly seems possible.

I certainly like your idea of an early republic for the SSC player. With a temple and mysticism you can WLTCD to size 7. It would be necessary to have some roaded grasslands or a harbor to get there. I think an SSC site with some ocean would be good to limit the necessary land-improvement and allow for earlier WLTCD growth.

I also think that at least one other player should go for early republic and have at least one large city for the SSC to set up profitable trade routes with.

I also like your idea of switching civs. After all, each player has his own specific qualities, so it would probably be a good idea to compare starting locations to see which location would be best for each role and then assign that civ to a player with the qualities to best play that role. My OCC experience would probably make me most suited for the SSC player. I don't know all your qualities, but there probably is someone who is best suited for the wanderer and ICS civs.

The ICS player should have about 60 cities to build the fastest spaceship, but if he can't get them all before 1 AD he could of course also get some cities from the other players who will no longer need them anyway after all advances have been discovered.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Paul (edited July 28, 2000).]</font>

[Ming]

Well, for the end game... it doesn't really matter which player is given all the cities needed to build the space ship... But, it should be somebody that doesn't go first in the turn sequence. That way, space ship parts can be completed in the same turn that Apollo is built