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

[solo]

FireDragon,

I assume you have morphed from SilverDragon.

You eliminated all but one of the AI cities, and still managed to land in 1136? This blows my mind a little. How many cities did you end up with, and how much science were you getting out of them at the end? Would you mind sending me an email of a save at or near the end of your game? I just have to see this.

Also, with no free techs to start with, your 1136 arrival is quite an achievement, and certainly in the same league with our games benefiting from multiple starting techs.
[This message has been edited by solo (edited May 19, 2001).]

[Jaguar]

quote: Originally posted by solo on 05-19-2001 09:17 PM You eliminated all but one of the AI cities, and still managed to land in 1136? [This message has been edited by solo (edited May 19, 2001).]

I got a lot of mercenaries, and the AIs weren't being helpful, so I just got rid of them all very early. Like in your 776 game, I felt like a lotto winner.


OK, time to fess up. This landing was because there was a great bug in my game. I had taken a tech from egypt when I conquered them. (CoL) And the next AI i talked to, I traded to them, for, strangely enough, code of laws. Then I noticed that my next tech was almost completed, even though I just started to research it. After that, I don't know what happened. It just seems like I was paying an awful little for my techs in beakers. Now, as I load the game again to look at it, I get error messages. Also, my cities are all really wierd sizes. Such as 4 with an exponent 2 and a lowercase Bb.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by samson
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.

Damn. I go away for a couple of months and come back to find I need a new glossary! So what is the "Key Civ?" I'm aware of giving techs to reduce the number of beakers that I need for future advances, but obviously the concept has been refined.

Isn't it amazing how much we ("We, white man?") are discovering in a game that has been out as long as this?

-- Hermann

[Scouse Gits]

Hermann - it has been discovered that the only civ that matters in terms of your on-going cost of tech is the 'key-civ' determined by inverse mapping of colour with power - hence if you are supreme youmust maximize the tech level of the purple AI to reduce your beaker costs ...

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
Hermann - it has been discovered that the only civ that matters in terms of your on-going cost of tech is the 'key-civ' determined by inverse mapping of colour with power - hence if you are supreme youmust maximize the tech level of the purple AI to reduce your beaker costs ...

Always the purple civ? (Assuming that I'm not playing purple, of course!)

[samson]

Hermann,

The Purple only if you are Supreme.

Read more in the GL under Beakers, "The key to tech-gifting".

samson

[Edward]

Hermann the Lombard
As samson suggested, see his mind boggling discovery from the link in the Great Library entitled "The key to Tech Gifting"

http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum3/HTML/001828.html?17

It matches your current power rating (not how far ahead you are in research) with a civ of a certain color. That's your "key" civ, the one who's number of techs (relative to yours) influences the number of beakers you need for your next advance. Like quantum mechanics, it's absolutely crazy and counterintuitive. samson's discovery proves he's an inspired genious.

[rant]I think the key civ idea (while true) is very stupid and haphazard and only leads to more exploitation of the game system. Would it really have been that hard to make your "beakers needed" influenced by how far ahead of the average techs of existing civs you are? I hope the programming in Civ3 is less capricious.[/rant]

The Great Library link to samson's "Cost of Research Explained"

http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum3/HTML/001831.html?6

details exactly how much your required beakers go up and down. You get a minor bonus for being behind your key civ (which you might occasionally be since starting techs don't count). It's the same bonus regardless of how far behind you are. It's not too bad being equal to your key civ in techs. In fact if you're usually supreme (or pathetic) in your games it can be a good strategy to play the purple (or white respectively) civ to ensure you're never "ahead". (Of course min-max micromanaging OCCers will want to exploit to bonus of being a pathetic purple.) The real kicker is when you're ahead of your key civ because there's no cap to how awful a penalty you can get. Heaven forbid your key civ gets eliminated!

[Hermann the Lombard]

Samson, thanks for the reply (and the great work...how the H*LL did you figure THAT one out?).

Edward: thanks for the links. So much has changed in the GL and I haven't figured out how to search for keywords yet.