Building a Battleship in a Lake

I remember when I first was playing Civ in 1992 and I was having a great time. I wasn't doing too well in a game. I scrolled through the cities and one of my cities had great production so I assigned it to build a battleship. I figured that since I could build a battleship from a city with high production that I could really pump out some great sea units.

Well, the turns went by and the ship was built. I was excited!!! I had a battleship ready to move out and hammer the rival nations' fleets.

I found out that I didn't look at the map and that the city was landlocked with only one square of water around it.

I built a battleship trapped in a lake.

Haha, that happened to me too, I just sentry'd it in the city for a while and kept attacking enemy ground units from the city

Reminds me about the AI in AOE2. They build many boats in puddles, really quite silly. Oh, and the AI in civ2 does as well I think.

Has anybody ever seen the AI in civ1 do that? I haven't.

trada said:

Reminds me about the AI in AOE2. They build many boats in puddles, really quite silly. Oh, and the AI in civ2 does as well I think.

Has anybody ever seen the AI in civ1 do that? I haven't.

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They don't do that. Civ 1 has more advanced AI than those other games

It's true. +1 for Civ1

trada said:

... ...
Has anybody ever seen the AI in civ1 do that? I haven't.

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i did.

btw.
it makes sense under certain circumstances.
together with city walls the battleship is a great city defense unit (active [=eliminates up to 5 areas the other tribe's units surrounding the city with 5 fire-moves in one turn] and in defense it's better than the best land unit, too...).

trada said:

...boats in puddles...
Has anybody ever seen the AI in civ1 do that? I haven't.

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Funny just the other week or was it month. I was playing a game as I closed in on a city I saw a sail darting in and out of a city belonging to one of the games civilizations on a lake of only one square. I believe this is another of the CIV Dos bugs. My research into how a city is able to build boats has led to the following:

When a world is created by the game it numbers each sea according to size. The largest being given the number 1, the next 2 and so on, up to the number 15. If there are more than 15 seas the rest are numbered 15.

When a city is founded by a human player the game checks if the city is on any sea and sets the "by the sea bit" in the city descriptor.

When a city is founded by one of the games civilizations the game appears to check if the city is on sea number 1 and only then setting the "by the sea bit".

Sometimes it seems in error one of their cities ends up with the bit set on a little sea. I have also seen the opposite where a city doesn’t have the bit set when it should.

I assume that this method was used so that the game didn’t have to waste time building ships that would not be useful. Or one could think of it as an advancement that the human played has no access to, that being the ability to distinguish between fresh and salt water.

Dack said:

Funny just the other week or was it month. I was playing a game as I closed in on a city I saw a sail darting in and out of a city belonging to one of the games civilizations on a lake of only one square. I believe this is another of the CIV Dos bugs. My research into how a city is able to build boats has led to the following:

When a world is created by the game it numbers each sea according to size. The largest being given the number 1, the next 2 and so on, up to the number 15. If there are more than 15 seas the rest are numbered 15.

When a city is founded by a human player the game checks if the city is on any sea and sets the "by the sea bit" in the city descriptor.

When a city is founded by one of the games civilizations the game appears to check if the city is on sea number 1 and only then setting the "by the sea bit".

Sometimes it seems in error one of their cities ends up with the bit set on a little sea. I have also seen the opposite where a city doesn’t have the bit set when it should.

I assume that this method was used so that the game didn’t have to waste time building ships that would not be useful. Or one could think of it as an advancement that the human played has no access to, that being the ability to distinguish between fresh and salt water.

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That's roughly what I thought it was

Tenochtitlan at Jan 14 said:

There is a byte that tells the city if it is next to water or not, editing the map does not change that.

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Glad to see you have finally cracked it

Tenochtitlan said:

...
Glad to see you have finally cracked it

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Does that mean... ...Terraform is now on the (right) way (again)...?

Fortifying a battleship in a city gives you the highest defensive level possible in civ1. go nuts

Tristan_C said:

Fortifying a battleship in a city gives you the highest defensive level possible in civ1. go nuts

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Except for the fact that you can not fortify battleships

I have a question about defending cities with battleships or other naval units: does the ship defend the city against ground units or is it only effective against naval units?

I'm in the middle of a game (500 BC) where I have 6 coastal cities and only 2 inner cities, so this can be a great help for defending my cities in the near future.

By the way, I'm playing the «Humans» (white colour, so no russians or romans), at King level against 6 other civilizations. I started in the south of a very big continent (almost as big as Eurasia+Africa for those who play Earth) and only the chinese are located outside - I haven't started maritime exploration yet so I don't know their location. This big continent is also home to the egyptians, the mongols, the german, the babylonians and the english (destroyed by germans before 1 AD, so the greeks must be somewhere out there...). I managed to quickly colonize the south of the continent with 8 cities and my territory is clearly identified by a wide range of mountains and hills that serve as a natural border to the neighbouring empires of the egyptians and the mongols. The egyptians and the mongols now have 4 cities each. The germans have 3 cities and the babylons only 2. So the continent has 21 cities, by now.

I'm trying to play peaceful and I haven't been engaged in any war yet. There was one occasion when I had to pay 50 bucks to the egyptians because I was still starting to build my defensive system (after concentrating in my initial goal of building at least 5/6 cities at good sites) and they were pressing hard. I think I did the right thing and I think I would do it again. Now I have all my cities defended with 2 veteran phalanxes and 1 veteran catapult (for «defensive attack» as I call it - hit first before the enemy hits you). All my cities are linked with roads and now my priorities are changing to republic before 1 AD and building railways throughout the empire. Wish me luck!

Osvaldo Manso said:

All my cities are linked with roads and now my priorities are changing to republic before 1 AD and building railways throughout the empire. Wish me luck!

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Cool story! let us know what happens next.

Yes, please do Osvaldo Manso. I want to know how you fare.

Thanks void and trada for your interest in my current game of Civilization. Last night I only had about 20 minutes to play and because I like to carefully plan every move I make, the game didn't progress that much.

Now the year is around 360 BC. I've just changed government to republic. My cities have populations of 4 or 5 (the total is around 900 000 hab.). Since money is not a big issue for my empire (I have about 600 in my treasury, largely due to 200 bucks demanded in tribute to the babylonians and 100 ransom paid after the only barbarian invasion I've suffered) I immediately bought some temples in the bigger cities, because martial law is not available at this form of government and I need to keep my people content.

After discovering The Republic, I focused my scientific research in Invention. This will be one more step towards Railroads and, as a bonus, the benefit of Hanging Gardens to the Egyptians will end. Oh, by the way, I haven't build any wonder yet but I have a nice stock of caravans (maybe 20) so I'm just looking for some wonders to be available and then I will build them right away. The egyptians have built 4 wonders (including Pyramids which I find the most important wonder of the old age) and the chinese (located outside my continent) built The Lighthouse.

My neighbours are all very polite to me. They keep showing up with proposals for trading technologies. They all insist in offering Monarchy and I always turn down their proposals because I don't want to give them important technologies and I'm well ahead in scientific research. The babylonians (the weakest civ in my continent, after the english were destroyed) are suffering war from both the mongols and the germans. I believe they will not be able to resist much longer. Besides, they only have two cities. A third city was immediately destroyed after being founded. The two babylonian cities are adjacent which I can't remember to have seen before in Civilization. Has anyone seen something like that?

I will keep you informed of what will happen in the next turns, if you are still interested. I'm still waiting for the answer to my question about defending cities from ground attacks with battleships... Thanks!

It would add to the interest if you would post the map and sve in a ZIP file with your description.

Osvaldo Manso said:

...I'm still waiting for the answer to my question...

... does the ship defend the city against ground units or is it only effective against naval units?...

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It seems both. I have had a few occasions where I have bombarded a coastal city with bombers from a carrier, taken the city by landing units from a transport. Then moved the carrier into the city to give adequate defense until I could reinforce.

Dack said:

It would add to the interest if you would post the map and sve in a ZIP file with your description.

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After I finish the game, I will attach the map and sve files that I saved in 3980 BC.

Osvaldo Manso said:

After I finish the game, I will attach the map and sve files that I saved in 3980 BC.

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I thought it would be interesting to follow your progress with each description you give by having a map-sve for each.

Dack said:

I thought it would be interesting to follow your progress with each description you give by having a map-sve for each.

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Sorry, but when I'm in the middle of a game, I consider that world to be mine and I don't want to give others the opportunity to rewrite history in that same world simultaneously. I'm afraid that could result in a kind of competition between ourselves to see who performs better. I'm not interested in competing against other Civ fanatics. Competing against myself, Ramesses II, Genghis Khan, Frederick William II and Hammurabi is enough for me and very enjoyable!

I hope you'll understand. The best I can do is to attach some snapshots of the map in my next «reports».