14 river 4 special start! / 1001 a space odyssey returns

[CrazyOldBear]

Soz, I'm a beginner 2 this site and forum. Quite a beginner 2 Civ as well. But when you say 14 rivers and 4 specials, do you mean all of that within a city radius? And is this original Civ2 we're talking about? Kind responses would be helpful, no taking the piss out of my inexperience.
Cheers

[Gastrifitis]

quote: Originally posted by solo on 05-16-2001 10:49 AM Yes, the 14 river start. I did destroy the Spanish capital with my archer, and did not receive a free tech for this. Soon afterwards, I discovered the first city of the next interfering yellow civ right next my original starting position. Why not play a game from this start and prove me wrong?

Hmm. I have played from this start, and I had my choice of free techs. Maybe you've proved me wrong from when I said "they can't possibly build a defender fast enough". Did you destroy the city when it didn't have a defender? I suppose it's always possible that the yellow civ will show up in your back yard again, but that didn't happen to me.

[Ribannah]

This is surely a great start for OCC!

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Scouse Gits]

CrazyOldBear - welcome - we do not make a habit of taking the mickey out of newbies here - unless they do something unbelievably crass - and asking an honest question does not qualify.

Yes - in this forum we virtually all play Original Civ2 either v2.42 single player or Multi Player Gold Edition (MPGE) with the 1.3 patch - there are a few exceptions, but it is a safe bet that if no qualification is made it will be one of the two above versions.

14 rivers in the 21 squares (including the city itself) of the city radius together with 4 'special' squares which must be in the 'corners' of that radius - by a special square we mean one of whale, fish, gold, iron, coal, wine, pheasant, silk, wheat, buffalo, oil, oasis, game, ivory, peat, furs or spice (hope I got them all ) which lurk around the map. This is a very rare start indeed - and hence its value and interest here.

Hope this helps, welcome again

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Scouse Git[1] -- git1@scousers.net

"Staring at your screen in horror and disbelief when you open a saved game is one of the fun things of a succession game " - Hueij
"The Great Library has been built!"
"A short cut has to be challenging,
were it not so it would be 'the way'." - Paul Craven

[samson]

Hi all.

I agree with Solo here, it's a nice city site but not a spectacular start.
The lack of starting techs is a double killer. Not only do you miss out on the jump
to your techs but you will never be able to pay minimum beaker cost
for your research due to the lack of non-acquired techs to give away.
Sure you've got a 40+ city here, but it will take a long time to get there.
Also, IMO, the buffalos aren't that great.

On Solo's other points, however, I disagree. Close neighbors can be good
(depending on your play style). And one continent is no obstactle.

What is a good start? Like Solo says, you need 3 or more starting techs,
including the pre-reqs for Monarchy (or Monarchy itself) plus a good site.

Speaking of which ...
I just finished a game with a pre-1000AD AC landing.

The key elements were: 5 starting techs, an SSC site with great trade
specials, and diligent tech-gifting to the Key Civ. The last of these
was crucial. Since I was SUPREME for most of the game, after I contacted
the Mongols I paid the minimum research cost to the end, saving thousands
of beakers.

In contrast to this 14-river site, my SSC site had a very low population.
It maxed out at size 16. It only had seven grassland squares (4 rivered).
It had 2 mountains, 3 hills, 4 ocean, 2 forest, 1 desert, 1 swamp,1 plains.
But ahhh! the trade specials: 2 gold, 1 wine, 1 spice.

Also, countering Solo's other points, I had two close neighbors and only
one continent (medium random map). Trade was not a factor in the game.
I'll post a full log and analysis later.

samson

[This message has been edited by samson (edited May 17, 2001).]

[La Fayette]

WoW Samson!
Ban caravan rehoming!
And let us rehome OCCers... for example Paul, Ribannah, Samson, Smash and Solo in a high tower, with a hot line to Xin Yu and the key of the one and only entrance door in Ming's left pocket.
Should give us a number of pre 999 landings quite soon.

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aux bords mystérieux du monde occidental

[solo]

Gastrifitis,

My attack with the archer did destroy the Spanish capital. It was very early, before there was a defender, so perhaps too early also for them to have earned a tech for me to take. Does one get a tech for obliterating a city, instead of just capturing it? I'm not sure, but I doubt it.

I like to have one or two AI fairly close to where I start, but in the case of this yellow civ, I felt it was just too close, like a mosquito buzzing in your ear. Maybe I should have been clearer in making this distinction.


Samson,

Welcome back! I knew you were up to something and it's great to see another early landing. I have been looking in vain for another suitable start, and would appreciate it if you could email yours to me at:

pmh@mediaone.net

With your key civ discovery, techs can be acquired even faster, especially with the help of embassies. I'm now convinced that any civ other than the purple one is best for rapid tech acquisition. In OCC #25, I was able to remain at a slight tech deficit to my key civ for quite a while, by not trading for unuseful techs the key civ had acquired.

Size 12 and not much trade. Hmm! You are doing something new, again, and I eagerly await your log and discussion of the game.


LaFayette,

Ditto your sentiments on the ban to rehoming, which I took to the extreme in the 776 landing game. I believe samson's newest game to be the best effort so far.

[samson]

Solo,

quote: With your key civ discovery, techs can be acquired even faster, especially with the help of embassies. I'm now convinced that any civ other than the purple one is best for rapid tech acquisition.

I've played a number of games now trying to take advantage of the Key Civ
discovery. Depending on the type of game, I seem to bounce between
SUPREME and MIGHTY or WEAK and PATHETIC. Thus, I choose not to play
white, green, orange, or purple to avoid the blindspot in tech-gifting.
For me, light blue (STRONG) seems to be my least common power ranking.
Therefore I usually play Americans or Chinese. As late placements,
these civs also tend to have less desirable immediate terrain
and more neighbors, and therefore more starting techs. This is a win-win
situation for a key-gifting strategy -- lots of techs & nearby civs.

quote: I have been looking in vain for another suitable start.

Here's what I did. I went through hundreds of starts looking for ones
with 4 or more starting techs and all the pre-reqs for Monarchy. Then
saved them into a file without looking at them. I got dozens of candidate
games this way. Some with 8 or 9 techs, quite a few with Monarchy,
a couple with Trade. Then I went back and started picking my way through
them, exploring the nearby terrain. A couple of things I noticed.

First, if there's a river in view you almost never get starting techs.
I saw a bunch of starts with a lot of river and no techs. CTRL-Q.
So expect a good hike to your city site. Frankly, rivers aren't a must
for me anymore (nice for the city square though.)
Second, you get more techs the closer you are to your neighbors.
Therefore screening your starts for good techs will also give you early
contact. For my current play style, that's a plus. But maybe not for all.

I still have a bunch of games I haven't explored yet. And a couple of nice
ones that don't fit my play style. One has 8 starting techs, including
Monarchy and Trade. It's on a small island and has a city location with
4 specials. For someone who likes naval exploration and building lots
of overseas trade routes it might be dynamite. But it isn't for me.


La Fayette,

I started out with the idea of doing that game as OCC but ...
well, wait for the log.


samson

[Gastrifitis]

Solo, I don't understand. If you open the downloaded file, the 4000BC save, turn on cheat mode, and check out the Spanish, they start the game with 3 techs. This can't be a glitch, can it? They have Alphabet, Ceremonial Burial, and one other one, maybe Horseback Riding, I forget. And capturing an undefended city of size 1 does let you take a tech, while razing the city to the ground. (Otherwise it wouldn't be OCC!) It gives you all their money too, but that's not really important so early in the game. I suppose you could even wait a turn or two right outside their city and see if you can blackmail them out of more techs before crushing them. Is there a feature somewhere that you can turn off receiving techs by capturing cities? That sounds vaguely familiar.

Buffalo squares are perhaps the worst specialty squares for OCC. Any river square is as good, though you're not supposed to put airbases on hill squares in OCC. Food isn't really a problem here, though, so the buffalo squares are really a waste.

[SilverDragon]

I got them before they built a defender, so I got CoL. I built a city on the gold, and that got me to monarchy quickly. I ACed in 1136 AD.

[solo]

Silver Dragon,

Very well done, as there are not many landings earlier than that! Did you record a log that you can post and can you elaborate somewhat about your gameplan and how it went?

Gastrifitis,

I can't explain why I didn't get a tech, but never went into cheat mode to check.

samson,

Yes, I agree that the Americans or another civ their color are preferable.

I'm also wondering if you were able to leapfrog any portions of the tech tree with the help of the AI, an idea I stumbled onto in OCC #25, too late in the game to take real advantage, but now I can see some real potential for using such a strategy. What I was doing was holding back on tech trades until I really needed to make them to keep my beaker costs lower. For example, all that is really needed from the Feudalism, Chivalry, Leadership, and Tactics group is Tactics, a pre-requisite of Machine Tools. If one waits for the AI to research this path, which they are pretty diligent about doing, it can cut down on beaker costs considerably. By always quickly supplying them with the best form of government, they are not really that slow as learners. You just have to hope they don't go after useless techs.

Ribannah,

Haven't seen you around for awhile, so welcome back! I suspect you're up to something, too, and will spring it on us soon. I agree that SD's great start would make for a very good OCC game.

[samson]

Solo,

Re: tech-tree leapfrogging.

I try to avoid researching Pottery or WC. You can usually get someone else
to research Seafaring, Iron Working, and Feudalism for you, and then trade
for them. Avoiding the acquistion of even one unnecessary tech, like Pottery,
can save a considerable amount of beakers. For example, say you are researching
your 20th tech and paying the minimum of 480 beakers. If you accept Pottery
in trade you now pay 504 beakers for the same tech you are researching.
24 beakers, big deal. But that's not all, every tech you research from
there on costs 24+ beakers because you have Pottery. That means by the time
you finish with Fusion Power, 55 techs later, you will have paid 55X24 = 1320
beakers just for the priviledge of having Pottery on your tech list.
Think of this as the "maintenence cost" of owning a tech. You don't
want to be paying a lot of beakers for a bunch of junk techs.
Any tech you don't need should be avoided, or delayed as long as possible.
For me, this includes Monarchy if I'm going for early Republic.
The longer you can delay acquiring techs, the less you pay overall.

Another possible "junk" tech, surprisingly, is Mapmaking.
If you don't need triremes, you can wait to trade for Seafaring
and skip this, too, even though it's high on most folks' research list.

In the late game when your tech tree goes whack, it's nice to have these
junk techs in other civs' hands. You can pick one to research and then
immediately trade for it and switch on the next turn for what you really need.

samson

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by Gastrifitis on 05-17-2001 04:47 PM Buffalo squares are perhaps the worst specialty squares for OCC. Any river square is as good, though you're not supposed to put airbases on hill squares in OCC. Food isn't really a problem here, though, so the buffalo squares are really a waste.

Change the buffalo squares into coal and you win turns in the late game. Because of your production power there is no need to research Robotics, or to make a lot of food caravans.



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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Jaguar]

Hi, its me. . I got some good huts, so monarchy was very early. (2850) I built a city on gold, so my research brought me to trade quickly, thereby letting me get collossus fast. I went straight to Astronomy, which allowed me to get Cope's and sprint to monotheism, and after I built Mike's I switched to republic. Meanwhile, I had a huge ICS empire, and eliminated all the AIs except for one city, which was four special and being improved round the clock by my engineers. I gave the AI only the techs that they needed to get higher trade, keeping their power at the minimum. I sent literally thousands of caravans to that city, making huge amounts of money. My game was looking like it could be pre 1000 in the BC years, but I slowed down, and I missed the mark by 136 years.

[samson]

Dragon,

It sounds like you played that game very well. But, I bet you got
more research (especially early research) out of that 1 gold city
than from those 14 river squares. Rivers take a while to develop.
You need Bridge building for them to start making double arrows
and even then it's time-consuming to build all those bridges.
With ocean squares, you build a harbor and Bam! 2 trade/2 food.
For a fast start, I'd rather have 3 starting techs and a couple gold mines.

samson