space race with minimum cities-strategies-

[rah]

Get a faster machine. From quit to new world generated for me is only about 8 seconds. Your hand does get sore from hitting the enter key. At least it remembers your selection.

[Ming]

Rah... I'm appalled! You actually used the airfield on a mountain trick, and you reassigned caravans. Well! What kind of record is that? He he he... I'm sure both of those tricks must have cut 50 years off a legitimate run. So maybe we should just add those to your time and call it 2003 instead.

I just want to announce that I would never use those sleazy tricks. (actually, the opportunity never presented itself) My record will be clean! (Unless the opportunity does present itself)
As long as you aren't resetting huts, resetting combat or peaking... what the heck.
Your tainted record will still fall. JK

[rah]

Yes the record will fall, starting in a forest with no science really slowed me down. Anyone that can get into monarchy quicker should be able to knock 20 years off mine. I'm guessing Ming will do it by 1935. The only reason I took that start was because besides the forest, I had wine,silk,spice and pheasant in range. And it was in a river basin. And most important there were two huts in sight that produced chariots. (helps considerable) It was also very defendable. I never let the ai's get closer than 10 squares to it. Until the snapshot from space came back, they never knew were I was. Good luck all of you (except for Ming of course) I wasn't planning on trying it again, but maybe I will to do once more to make it harder on Ming. It only took a couple of days. (and all this assumes that the ai's can't eliminate before 1953 (ten years left)
HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[rah]

And just as a salve for those egos out there. Please remember, between Ming and I, we have many many years of experience with Civ. I used every legit cheat, including airports on hills, Reassinging bribed caravans to my capital, etc. But most important, I played over 200 starts between 0 and 30 turns before I found one I wanted to try it with. Patience will prevail.

[geofelt]

I finally did it on deity! launched a 15/3,3/1,1,1F ship in 1984, landing in 1999.
The starting position was nothing special, with one whale and coal, along with a few grassland rivers and some ocean. It was on a peninsula of sorts. I used some dips stationed a few squares away in likely city spots to keep the sioux at bay. Late in the game, raging horde barbarians landed, and I sent the dips scuttling back to the city. I forgot to move them back, right away, and found a sioux city established. A key, I think was an early alliance with the sioux(I normally never do alliances). I asked and got gifts(mostly gold). I found a number of huts, but only two units, and one of them got wasted by a surprise encounter with barbarians.
I built colossus/copernicus/isaac newton, and the essential shakespeare's. I got beat out on great-library, but built marco-polo instead. It might have turned out just as well. I later built UN and got peace with everyone.
The key was staying peaceful and out of wars. I think the AI tries to build a city one square away just to aggravate you. If this happens, the AI gets very pushy. Keeping the AI from building such cities seems essential.

[rah]

Congrats geofelt, well done. I originally thought it was impossible and I thought people were making it up when they talked about it, but once I thought it could be done, It became possible.(gee a life lesson)
I always set my defensive perimiter a little farther out if terrain permits, so noone ever gets close to my capital. I still think wars are good. The ai is stupid and you can get them to expend a lot of their production capacity to waste as they attack fortified units in fortresses in mountains. You can also keep them from expanding at will or protect weaker civs. You can't have one civ conquer half the world or you're in trouble, unless it's one that doesn't do science. And you can't make money offering peace if you never go to war. And my final on war, it's fun and gives you something creative to do during the middle game. I still haven't finished my last ten turns yet. I was thinking of eliminating a few civs if I can to add to the amusement.
RAH

[Theben]

I'm close to winning my 1st game w/one city. My city site is beautiful. A flat grassland/plain completely ringed by hills and mountains, with a river running along the city's outside edge. Only two specials, but I hilled 3 river squares and flattened 3 regular hills(that runoff from my mines is gold, baby!). I have 7 fortesses with 1 each of my best defenders + 1 spy in them, except the one facing the Japanese which has 2 DEF units. I was producing 55 shields/turn before industrialization!

Observations from the field:
At 1st I thought a island world would help you win, but I now think a single continent is better. You have to have a military presence on the same land mass to threaten people, and you will meet them quicker, allowing you to get their money before they can spend any.

Must have port: At 1st I thought so; now I'm not so sure. This game I don't have a port. Also don't have to worry about Lighthouse, Magellan's, building harbor/platform, or marauding ironclads.

wonders:
Colossus-Effectively doubles your science for many, many years. Must have if you don't get GL early.
MPE-If you can't explore and people are not coming to you, or surrounded by hostiles. If you have a port maybe not so necessary.
Copernicus/Issac Newton-complete the science city. You'll need it.
Hanging Gardens-Makes getting "we luv you" days much easier. Helpful to early growth, but not necessary.
Sheakespeare's/King Richard's-YOU MUST HAVE THESE! Get KRC ASAP since the sooner you get it the more shields you will generate in the long run. Sheakespeare's allows lux to be set to zero, or automatic "we luv you" days in repub/demo. Don't forget to sell that unnecessary temple.
Leonardo's-Very useful since you don't have time to rebuild units.
GL-Helpful but not as much as I thought since by the time I can devote sufficient resources to build it it's halfway to obsolesence.
Darwins'-If you have lots of trade(you better) quite nice to get 2 techs fast. Max the tax and buy it in 3-4 turns.
Apollo-If you don't build it you're not going to win. Although if somone else is building it but doesn't have all the techs to build a ship consider letting them finish while you build caravans to help build spaceship parts.
U.N.-Useful to stay in peace in end game.
Lighthouse/Magellan's/Oracle/eiffel-All useless. Don't bother. Distances in small world are still close, and oracle just doesn't last long enough to get it even to keep from the enemy.
All others-Useful only to keep the enemy from having them, although pyramids and Hoover are especially so. For SOL, if you have Sheakespeare's, go to Democracy and stay there. Otherwise it could be helpful.

Most important: Try to kill off one civ if you can. Then try your best to keep all other civs in balance towards each other. This is important, and why being on the same continent is helpful. If one civ is too tough send an expeditionary force to take their capital and trigger a civil war. Bribe them to fight each other constantly. Keep people fighting the one who is looking the toughest(also a good reason to get Marco's).

Well, does this mesh with other people's tactics?

[Theben]

How about 1 city MP game? Who's up for that?

[rah]

Just finished. 1953 it was. The last ten years when fast, enter enter enter enter etc. My continued harassment of them must have worked. There great assualt to take my capital after I launched was feeble. They were so far behind in science I never saw artillary or planes from them. It was so boring, that I went back and replayed the ten turns to use all of my defensive troops to launch an assault. In those ten turns I captured 5 of the 7 Babylonean cities including their capital. 4 out of 9 of the greeks cities. (I didn't bribe the cities either, those were the two civs that annoyed me the most during the game, payback's a bit**.) The only interesting part of this is that once I left my protective shell and owned cities where they could get spys at them, within 4 turns over 40 spys from all the civs deluged these cities to steal techs, then all the exchanges and they were all building spaceships the next turn. It was hilarious. Now all that's left to wait for is when Ming will post that he beat it. I know he will.
I would like to thank everyone that contributed to this thread because it encouraged me to do it.

RAH

PS. For the real diehards, the next challange should be that after you launch, you have to conquer the entire world before it lands.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, no one could do that because it's impossible. (but wait, we thought one city was impossible. hmmmmmmmm)

[Makeo]

A 1 city MP game would be great fun. I'm in.

[gambler]

Aaargh , I can't manage to do it at Deity !!
I did it quite easily at Emperor, at my first attempt, but at Diety level I'm always losing. I seem to be well on the way but in the end there is always a civilizition that conquers all the world and defeats me or makes me late enough so that I can't finish my spaceship.

About conquering the world with one city:
I was about to do it at King, just two enemy cities left... (well, I had Howitzers and Armors, they have just discovered gunpowder)

[Carolus Rex]

Against the AI, the next challenge would be to try with larger maps. With the largest world possible, the AI's production advantage would really take off.

Carolus

[Ming]

Geofelt... Congrats!
Since my ISP has been down often (a nice company that never had any problems until they were bought out be a big communications company) I'm giving it another try. Started with 3 whales and a wine, but had to start the city on plains. I just passed 1800, and I don't know yet whether Rahs record will fall. We will see...
As far as 1 City MPE goes, it won't work. Or I should say, it wouldn't be the same. Tribute is the primary source of income, and that doesn't work against real people.
I like the thought of trying with bigger maps.
And I might try a Kill everybody game. In the game I'm playing, my army is huge, and all non except for one ship that I built early.

[Carolus Rex]

This has opened my eyes to new ways to play the game. I did understand from reading the threads in the MP forum that the diplomat is a key unit in those games, but never thought they would be so effective so early in AI games.

Sure, I've had my fun bribing against the AI, but I never tried it this early before. I would build most of the early units myself.
Yesterday I started a three city game on a normal map. Three cities! After the recent orgie in one city games, it's pure luxury!

Still played conventional in the beginning, building a phalanx in each city. After that, I went shopping. It's a lot of fun.

Carolus

[Ming]

Again, my ISP has allowed me to continue my quest against Rah's record my not letting me access the web at home... I'm at 1890, and it's going to be close, or I won't be able to do it. Science is not coming fast enough.

Carolus Rex, yes, it is fun. I now have over 80 non military units, and nothing better to do but harass the nearest civs... Just bring your Visa card, and let the fun begin.