Earliest AC date you have so far?

[liupang]

I just finished a standard deity game. I get AC date of 1285AD. Not that it's very good, but I am wondering....:
What's your guys' best AC time so far? Anybody make an really impressive date yet? Like the 770AD AC of Civ2?

I know I can improve my AC date some 200-300 years if I replay my previous game, since 1) I stay in monarch for too long; 2) I was holding key techs in Modern time, in the fear of giving it out will cause me losing the space race. I really should have give all of the techs out---The CPU seems don't know the art of "fake-build-then-change" technic, so I should be able to win the space race easily .

But I don't think delibrately play a previous record qualifies for record-setting. I think you can only blindingly start a game, and accept whatever happens and never reload. Yes, that's the sportsmanship

OK, so lets hear some cool AC dates! Please state your difficulty , size of map, civ, etc.
Mine is here:

Deity, Standard, Roaming , Persian. AC date: 1285AD

[DK36]

770AD at civ2? I trascended way earlier than that in ToT.

[chiren]

earliest ac with reload or without ?

btw i never reload a civ-game

[solo]

That date looks very good to me. I just managed 1730, quite a bit later, in my first successful AC attempt. I used a tiny map, played as the Babylonians, used raging hordes and left all other options at the defaults. I think progress through the tech tree must be a lot faster on a bigger map, with so many fast AI researchers sharing techs as they race along.

CivIII is so much different than CivII, that comparisons of AC dates don't really make much sense. There is a huge difference in AI research capability and research costs are based on different system. One and even two advances per turn, which became routine in CivII in the best early landing games, do not seem to be possible in CivIII. However, in CivIII, one can probably trade for many more advances than was possible in CivII, and it is a shorter trip through the tech tree to all the advances needed to build a SS.

By the way, the best CivII landing date using a random map was samson's 76 AD. The best OCC date using that same map was Ribannah's 446 AD. With custom maps, things became ridiculous, with landings in the BC years.

[MarshalN]

Um, 46 AD? What difficulty are we talking here? In deity in Civ II there's no such thing as a turn at 46AD.... They're all in multiples of 10

[solo]

These games were all on deity level. 46 AD was a landing date, for a ship launched in 20 AD, taking 26 years to arrive. After a ship is launched, each turn afterwards only uses up a year, even if you are in the part of the game normally having multiple years per turn. Thus, most early landings used a very small or minimal ship to take advantage of this anomally and their AC arrival dates usually ended with a "6".

[MarshalN]

That's right, I was thinking launch date and so wondering how you can do that in 46ad.

46 sounds really early. We're talking about getting all the necessary techs and making the spaceship. On Deity? How?

[Eli]

He's talking about Civ2.

[MarshalN]

I know, which is all the more reason I wonder how.

I've been playing Civ2 for 6 or 7 years, but from what I know about the game, I don't see how you can send it out in 20AD. We're talking getting all the techs, getting enough production, etc, in deity.

[eMarkM]

I just finished a standard deity game. I get AC date of 1285AD. Not that it's very good

Huh? You won a Civ3 deity space race on standard map in middle ages? How the hell did you get all that tech so early? With the way advances are set up having to get so many in order to advance to the next age, I figured we wouldn't be seeing these kinds of Dark Ages space wins like you could in Civ2. Could you post your save game?

I've won a Monarch space race by early 20th century and thought that was an accomplishment.

e

[Capt Dizle]

I know that part of the answer for Civ2 was small maps and caravans. In SMAC you would use a tiny map and immediately rush factions and get submission pacts. Then you just give them your tech and whenever they get a tech they would give it to you. And build a SSC and mirror field and mass produce supply crawlers to build the wonders for transcendence.

In Civ3 it would seem much harder so I indeed would like some details as how this was done so fast.

It is very easy to trade for techs in Civ3. I would start by always selling or outright giving all of my techs away so that I could then trade for the AI's discoveries.

I think 1285 AD on a standard map in a diety game is pretty awesome. How many turns is that? Wow!

[Capt Dizle]

I thought that tech cost pertained to map size and would be slower on larger maps. Is this not true?

[JoeCamel]

If you get time, would you mind posting a log? That would be very interesting. Very impressive AC date given the limits with rush building science wonders.

[MarshalN]

For Civ2 -- ok, small maps and caravans, but that doesn't mean you can do that in .... I think 80 turns (if I remember correctly, 4000 BC to 1 AD is 50 years a turn in deity). Plus the one turn (20 years) for 20AD.... we're talking 81 turns here. Unless I am missing something, I just don't see how that's possible.

[solo]

For CivII early landings, many details are in threads posted by samson and myself on the CivII strategy forum last Spring, especially this thread started by samson where strategies for even earlier landings were discussed and developed:

pre-1000 AD landing

The earliest landing in which a detailed log was kept was my

336 landing game & log

For a description of the earliest landing, see samson's

new landing: 76 AD

I would set up links if I knew how to do it, but these threads can be easily located using the search function.

For CivIII, the AI research very quickly on deity level and share techs a lot, so it is no surprise to me to see a 1285 landing. Even though the cost of research is slower on larger maps, having more civs sharing the job of researching techs is what really speeds up progress through the tech tree. In CivII, the AI were such slow learners that only a few techs were available through them by trade, while in CivIII at deity, most techs can be acquired through trade with the AI.

Though hardly close to the 1285 date, I did keep a log of my deity game, where I launched in 1730, and will type it up and post it if there is enough interest.