The nicest space race I ever had.

After all these years that I've been a forum member, this is the first time I actually start a thread.

With pretty much all my civ games, I play peacefully and try to go for the space victory (SV), and thus becoming the ultimate underdog. Normally I win this victory without having any real challengers (when I reach Alpha Centauri, the others often just have 1 or 2 structurals). It has been quite a time that I played civ1, so today I started again.

The game difficulty is Prince, because I want an easy start. Luckily I was alone on this island where I could fit four cities on. Enough to win SV with. Just for fun I sailed around to meet others and to steal some tech. All other civs were like 10 techs behind, so they weren't a threat. From the time I built AP the Babylonians suddenly start to tech up a lot. My space ship was going slowly, because I had only 5 cities in total at that time. The Babylonians spammed 2 space ship parts every turn, to my surprise. Suddenly they built like 5 pieces in one turn and launched the damn thing. I sold all the universities I had to be able to rush my spaceship and make it so fast, it could actually outrun the Babylonian ship. It was faster, yes. But only by two turns and four turns earlier they launched theirs, creating a gap of two years. So here the fun part kicks in.
Although I was running a democracy, I loaded a transport as soon as I could full with the few armors I actually built. My plan was simple and something I wasn't sure of. I can recall from civ2 that if you capture the capital of the enemy, their space program is canceled completely. This was the only shot I had to still win the game. My tanks arrived at the beaches of Babylon and by a strange twist of fate they all won their battles (!). By capturing Babylon, the civ descended into a civil war (which I hadn't seen in a LOOOONG while) and the space ship indeed returned to earth, closing the 2 year gap.
I loaded just enough armor to actually conquer Babylon. If it was one armor less, I would have lost.

The other thing that was interesting is that all my opponents where peaceful building civs. This gave the game a very cool feeling. ^_^

Sorry. This must have been very boring, but it was really exciting to play. My point is that civ1 can sometimes be totally unpredictable and challenging. Even at a lower level!

Not boring, it's a nice story. Keep 'em coming.

Thanks! I always dislike only reading a story. That is why these pictures should make things more pleasant. Note that I dug up autosaves and captured something interesting at that time. Too bad I didn't had pictures of when my civ lost a city when a huge, mighty barbarian horde (1 legion, 1 leader) invaded my realm. ;-)

Note that I made a custom civ. When I want to play an underdog role, where I go to Republic and Democracy immediately, I always call my people "the Dutch". Very fitting, because in the renaissance they were the true underdog. ;-)

My biggest error in the game. Look at this picture from 1AD:


And this one of 1500AD:


What is the difference? Yes: practically nothing! My settlers were ambushed by foreign ships and I didn't rebuild them. Especially for a civ that is not expanding this is bad.

The big operation was not too impressive. This is my boat full of armor:

Note that it is 1939AD. In 1943AD their ship arrives. Due to low funds and lack of army, I can't send more; this is my one and only shot.


There! I captured Babylon and my goal is indeed accomplished! The Babylon Eastern territory also became English (not visible on screenshot). The poor Babylonians also had to endure a civil war.


The Babs were not pleased. With an enormous force, they crushed my army in Babylon in seconds. But capturing Babylon was not the goal; crushing their spaceship was.


Two turns later I win. The graph shows the big underdog position my civ had.

Quite the game, good job. Im glad you dont lose your spaceship in Civ4... I just played a space race game where Shaka mowed me down till i only had 2 cities left, but i still won...
Sounds like an excelent game

Great thread!
Now start some more!

That was a nailbiting finish.
Poor Hammurabi.
He doesn't get to play all that much,
and now you've snatched away his victory
at the last minute...

@Tlalynet: Thanks! Is there any other way in civ IV to sabotage the spaceship of your rival, when it already took off?

@Gundus: Thanks! I'm thinking of doing this more often; but only when it is interesting. Most of my games are fun for me, but have no plot like this one had. And Hammy is indeed a rare sight; in some way I feel bad for kicking his ass.

Maybe it would be nice if a "Stories" thread would be opened on the civ I forum. It can already contain Drakes stories for instance.

It seems like once the spaships gone the only way to prevent the win is to kill everything. That saved my butt vs Shaka, still, I think its more exciting when you can loose all your precious spaceship work, in 4 you cant even do anything about it BEFORE it takes off...

Keep up the good stories and good luck with your future games. Civ 1 is a good game, I only played it a few times because I started at 2, but I had fun with 1.