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Having been temporarilly banned from MPG by the cruel, cold handof fate I have been forced to content myself with single player.
Playing on a large world map as the Sioux, with the other civs being the Chinese, Vikings, English, Romans, Egyptians, and the Zulus (original starting positions), restless tribes, and without once asking for tribute or gifts (which in my opinion is more than a bit overly imbalancing), and without rehoming caravans to the super science city, I managed a launch date of 1510 AD, with an arrival date of 1525 AD.
What's more, with a couple simple improvements I'm sure I can go back to a save aroung 1380 AD, (7 turns before launch) and launch by 1480, arriving before the dawn of the 16th century. I can save one turn by getting 4 more cities down, allowing me to build the whole 15-3-2-2 ship in 1 turn instead of 2. Also by not sending some freight off on a journey that they would never have time to complete I should be able to build the Apollo program a turn earlier.
My original intent was to land before 1800, which I didn't think would be all that impressive, so I didn't keep a log. but I can reconstruct a log to a fair degree from saves, so I'll write a loose log tomorrow.
The strategy was fairly straight foreward, and was a Super Science - Trade strategy. I built my capital along the river, where 13 river squares were included in the city radius. It was kind of heavy on plains, but did include wheat. I tried to get my first 7 cities down quickly, while choosing Ceremonial Burial-Alphabet-Bronze-Code-Monarchy-trade. I kept building settlers and martial law units primarily until I got trade, but rather than run off and build new cities immediately these settlersdid a lot of road building and irrigating. My first wonder was the Hanging gardens. Until this was built (in Little Bighorn, my ssc of course) I only got up to 9 cities, with one in the far northeast with 2 pheasants and silk, primarily for shield production, and one where one would find Seattle on a real map. This would be my only American Pacific coast city, and would later prove invaluable.
In all I never had more than 14 American cities, one of which was never much more than a canal city linking the Great Lakes to the Atlantic.
Collossus and MPE followed in that order, and all three early wonders were done by 700 BC I believe. Not an extraordinary task by any means when your whole civ is working on them via caravans, but they did have to all get done early so the AI wouldn't get any of them, and the AI's do tend to start on wonders early on a large world map for some reason.
When I got MPE I found myself well behind in tech, as one would expect for 2 reasons. First, having an entire hemisphere pretty much to myself, I got no extra starting techs, whereas some of the AI's were a bit crowded. Second, the AI's had been trading techs for 85 turns. So this was to be expected. What concerned me was that the Chinese already had mono, and were after Theo. I wanted at least to get MC. Fortunately the Chinese were willing to trade it away, but this would still mean that I would have to be quick to build it if I wanted it.
I kept tech trading to a minimum so as not to slow my research down. I figured I could always trade for other techs as I needed them.
Getting Masonry and Mathematics from trade I was able to get Astronomy almost immediately, and Copernicus was done by 350 B.C. About this time I got navigation, and soon thereafter 3 settlers were on their way to Australia. The idea was to establish a 2 continent trade thing once trade with AI's wore thin. In retrospect I'm not certain this was a worthwhile expenditure of resources, but it could have proven more effective if I hadn't had to deal with Zulus in Australia as well. In all I wound up with 5 cities in Australia, two of which (including Holbane) never amounted to much more than places to build Space Ship parts. I think only 4 caravans from these cities ever reached their destination, although 3 of them did bring in over 800 gold, and one recieved a gold caravan for 450 or so.
I think they would have been far more useful had I not put off celebrating till after I got Railroad. Bye bye gardens. I waited because I wanted to finish JSB first, but since only my SSC ever got above size 12 this proved an unnecessary and costly delay.
(Gardens help more in celebrating cause they don't just make an unhappy content. They make a content happy. Between 12 and 24 cities in republic you often just can not celebrate eeffectively without the Gardens.)
If I had been smart at this point I would have just thrown a few more cities down immediately to get a double unhappy in each city, then celebrated. Instead I went for Democracy first. I was in Democracy by 700 AD, and this was enough, along with a Bank, Market place, and the palace to get my SSC to celebrate at 20 % luxuries. The rest of my civ had to wait for the cure for cancer, since I was too stupid to just build a few more cities instead. (I figured that CfC would be cheaper than about 16 courthouses)
In the mean time, Magellans was completed by 1 AD, with Newton's College and Adam Smiths following shortly thereafter.
I built Magellans because I didn't want to build a lot of boats. I think it was a good idea.
I think you all know why I built Newton's College, and where.
I built Adam Smiths because I tought thatit would be economicall with all the libraries I thought I would build (I never had more than 2) and because Ithought it would take me longer to launch than I did. Should have skipped this one. Trade routes would have been better.
I skipped Leo's cause English got it first, but just as well. Never would have been worth it.
I also built JSB around 500 A.D. (Chinese were quite slow in getting this one). Not sure I should have gotten this. My SSC probably didn't need it to celebrate, and I never got any other city above size 12 anyway.
All through this I kept the AI's happy by gifting techs to them on a very regular basis.
I put Darwin's off as long as possible to get the most out of it since later techs are more expensive.
By 800 A.D. or sooner my Super Science city was graced with a super highway. It was celebrating at 20 % luxuries, and by 1000 A.D. I was over size 20. Soon after this I wasted a bundle on CfC and started celebrating with the rest of my cities as well. I was able to keep up one discovery a turn for the most part with a science rate of 50% (luxuries at 50% to celebrate) and a caravan or 2 every turn. Like I said no city got above size 12, except the big one. By the time they got to this size it had become abundantly clear that I would be getting space flight quite early, and I didn't want to waste resources on sewers.
In the end I got Space flight well before I had the resources to build a ship, but a few well placed caravans, as well as a tax rate of 90% and a few city improvement sales quickly remedied the situation. I did have to fight off a horde of Barbarian musketeers near my science city in the mean time, however. Launch date 1510 A.D. Arrival, 1525 A.D. I also left a lot of room for improvement. I think a launch by 1300 A.D. is certainly feasible with a good start. and a few improvements on what I did. A full 6 turns to revolt to Democracy wasn't exactly a boon either.
A few possible improvements:
1. Celebrate well before railroad comes to screw you over.
2. Build 24 cities. This allows you to build a 15 year space ship in 1 turn. Or if you can amass enough gold to build something that can allow you to build a faster ship, do that too.
3. I could have also built Appollo's before I had the tech to build modules and components. This would have allowed me to build a few structurals while waiting. But once you have the tech to build modules and components, you want to launch the next turn. When turns are still 20 years apart, you gain nothing by waiting a turn to build a faster ship. Remember that when you launch, no matter the time period, turns always go to 1 year apart.
4. 24 or more cities would have also allowed me to celebrate without wasting resources on the CfC.
5. 2 continent trade strategy: I either needed to get democracy earlier to celebrate these Cities up to a better size sooner (it's hard to celebrate when you have 30% corruption even with a courthouse) or I should not have done this. I would have been better served to have built these cities closer to home, and therefore faster, than I was with what I did.
6. Screw Adam Smith.
7. Probably screw JSB as well, although I'm not sure about this one.
8. Had I celebrated earlier not only would I have been able to get more lucrative caravans, but with a few libraries and universities I probably could have gotten 1 discovery a turn with research alone, at least for a while. Add in a judicious use of Caravans, and the occasional 2 tech turn would have also been possible.
One possible drawback here. If you get too big, not only do techs cost more, but your selection tends to get limited as well. Sharing techs liberally with AI's would probably mitigate this somewhat.
9. It would have been nice if the English hadn't gotten invention so darn early. It's nice to be able to get magnetism and the like from a hut.
[This message has been edited by Matthew (edited July 02, 2000).]
Playing on a large world map as the Sioux, with the other civs being the Chinese, Vikings, English, Romans, Egyptians, and the Zulus (original starting positions), restless tribes, and without once asking for tribute or gifts (which in my opinion is more than a bit overly imbalancing), and without rehoming caravans to the super science city, I managed a launch date of 1510 AD, with an arrival date of 1525 AD.
What's more, with a couple simple improvements I'm sure I can go back to a save aroung 1380 AD, (7 turns before launch) and launch by 1480, arriving before the dawn of the 16th century. I can save one turn by getting 4 more cities down, allowing me to build the whole 15-3-2-2 ship in 1 turn instead of 2. Also by not sending some freight off on a journey that they would never have time to complete I should be able to build the Apollo program a turn earlier.
My original intent was to land before 1800, which I didn't think would be all that impressive, so I didn't keep a log. but I can reconstruct a log to a fair degree from saves, so I'll write a loose log tomorrow.
The strategy was fairly straight foreward, and was a Super Science - Trade strategy. I built my capital along the river, where 13 river squares were included in the city radius. It was kind of heavy on plains, but did include wheat. I tried to get my first 7 cities down quickly, while choosing Ceremonial Burial-Alphabet-Bronze-Code-Monarchy-trade. I kept building settlers and martial law units primarily until I got trade, but rather than run off and build new cities immediately these settlersdid a lot of road building and irrigating. My first wonder was the Hanging gardens. Until this was built (in Little Bighorn, my ssc of course) I only got up to 9 cities, with one in the far northeast with 2 pheasants and silk, primarily for shield production, and one where one would find Seattle on a real map. This would be my only American Pacific coast city, and would later prove invaluable.
In all I never had more than 14 American cities, one of which was never much more than a canal city linking the Great Lakes to the Atlantic.
Collossus and MPE followed in that order, and all three early wonders were done by 700 BC I believe. Not an extraordinary task by any means when your whole civ is working on them via caravans, but they did have to all get done early so the AI wouldn't get any of them, and the AI's do tend to start on wonders early on a large world map for some reason.
When I got MPE I found myself well behind in tech, as one would expect for 2 reasons. First, having an entire hemisphere pretty much to myself, I got no extra starting techs, whereas some of the AI's were a bit crowded. Second, the AI's had been trading techs for 85 turns. So this was to be expected. What concerned me was that the Chinese already had mono, and were after Theo. I wanted at least to get MC. Fortunately the Chinese were willing to trade it away, but this would still mean that I would have to be quick to build it if I wanted it.
I kept tech trading to a minimum so as not to slow my research down. I figured I could always trade for other techs as I needed them.
Getting Masonry and Mathematics from trade I was able to get Astronomy almost immediately, and Copernicus was done by 350 B.C. About this time I got navigation, and soon thereafter 3 settlers were on their way to Australia. The idea was to establish a 2 continent trade thing once trade with AI's wore thin. In retrospect I'm not certain this was a worthwhile expenditure of resources, but it could have proven more effective if I hadn't had to deal with Zulus in Australia as well. In all I wound up with 5 cities in Australia, two of which (including Holbane) never amounted to much more than places to build Space Ship parts. I think only 4 caravans from these cities ever reached their destination, although 3 of them did bring in over 800 gold, and one recieved a gold caravan for 450 or so.
I think they would have been far more useful had I not put off celebrating till after I got Railroad. Bye bye gardens. I waited because I wanted to finish JSB first, but since only my SSC ever got above size 12 this proved an unnecessary and costly delay.
(Gardens help more in celebrating cause they don't just make an unhappy content. They make a content happy. Between 12 and 24 cities in republic you often just can not celebrate eeffectively without the Gardens.)
If I had been smart at this point I would have just thrown a few more cities down immediately to get a double unhappy in each city, then celebrated. Instead I went for Democracy first. I was in Democracy by 700 AD, and this was enough, along with a Bank, Market place, and the palace to get my SSC to celebrate at 20 % luxuries. The rest of my civ had to wait for the cure for cancer, since I was too stupid to just build a few more cities instead. (I figured that CfC would be cheaper than about 16 courthouses)
In the mean time, Magellans was completed by 1 AD, with Newton's College and Adam Smiths following shortly thereafter.
I built Magellans because I didn't want to build a lot of boats. I think it was a good idea.
I think you all know why I built Newton's College, and where.
I built Adam Smiths because I tought thatit would be economicall with all the libraries I thought I would build (I never had more than 2) and because Ithought it would take me longer to launch than I did. Should have skipped this one. Trade routes would have been better.
I skipped Leo's cause English got it first, but just as well. Never would have been worth it.
I also built JSB around 500 A.D. (Chinese were quite slow in getting this one). Not sure I should have gotten this. My SSC probably didn't need it to celebrate, and I never got any other city above size 12 anyway.
All through this I kept the AI's happy by gifting techs to them on a very regular basis.
I put Darwin's off as long as possible to get the most out of it since later techs are more expensive.
By 800 A.D. or sooner my Super Science city was graced with a super highway. It was celebrating at 20 % luxuries, and by 1000 A.D. I was over size 20. Soon after this I wasted a bundle on CfC and started celebrating with the rest of my cities as well. I was able to keep up one discovery a turn for the most part with a science rate of 50% (luxuries at 50% to celebrate) and a caravan or 2 every turn. Like I said no city got above size 12, except the big one. By the time they got to this size it had become abundantly clear that I would be getting space flight quite early, and I didn't want to waste resources on sewers.
In the end I got Space flight well before I had the resources to build a ship, but a few well placed caravans, as well as a tax rate of 90% and a few city improvement sales quickly remedied the situation. I did have to fight off a horde of Barbarian musketeers near my science city in the mean time, however. Launch date 1510 A.D. Arrival, 1525 A.D. I also left a lot of room for improvement. I think a launch by 1300 A.D. is certainly feasible with a good start. and a few improvements on what I did. A full 6 turns to revolt to Democracy wasn't exactly a boon either.
A few possible improvements:
1. Celebrate well before railroad comes to screw you over.
2. Build 24 cities. This allows you to build a 15 year space ship in 1 turn. Or if you can amass enough gold to build something that can allow you to build a faster ship, do that too.
3. I could have also built Appollo's before I had the tech to build modules and components. This would have allowed me to build a few structurals while waiting. But once you have the tech to build modules and components, you want to launch the next turn. When turns are still 20 years apart, you gain nothing by waiting a turn to build a faster ship. Remember that when you launch, no matter the time period, turns always go to 1 year apart.
4. 24 or more cities would have also allowed me to celebrate without wasting resources on the CfC.
5. 2 continent trade strategy: I either needed to get democracy earlier to celebrate these Cities up to a better size sooner (it's hard to celebrate when you have 30% corruption even with a courthouse) or I should not have done this. I would have been better served to have built these cities closer to home, and therefore faster, than I was with what I did.
6. Screw Adam Smith.
7. Probably screw JSB as well, although I'm not sure about this one.
8. Had I celebrated earlier not only would I have been able to get more lucrative caravans, but with a few libraries and universities I probably could have gotten 1 discovery a turn with research alone, at least for a while. Add in a judicious use of Caravans, and the occasional 2 tech turn would have also been possible.
One possible drawback here. If you get too big, not only do techs cost more, but your selection tends to get limited as well. Sharing techs liberally with AI's would probably mitigate this somewhat.
9. It would have been nice if the English hadn't gotten invention so darn early. It's nice to be able to get magnetism and the like from a hut.
[This message has been edited by Matthew (edited July 02, 2000).]
.That has been my experience.Completely random.
.
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