Gotm_136

[Ali Ardavan]

Game of the Month 136: July and August 2012

Game Settings:
Civilization: Celts
Map: Known game generated map, 4 civ's
Difficulty: Warlord
Barbarians: Raging hordes
Victory: Conquest of the original rivals (Vikings, Americans, and Sioux)
(Typically you have to deal with respawns as well, but we have decided to relax that here. See responses below for the reasons and discussion.)

Special conditions:
This is a 500 turn scenario based on the now famous 10-year game of Lycerius. (If you have not yet heard about it, search for his name on the internet and in this Civ 2 forums.) Game starts in 3991, based on the save uploaded by Lycerius. However, because of the mechanics of creating it, a turn of production (not movement) has taken place compared to the CU_A3991 save of Lycerius. That is if a city produces 10 shields and +1 food, its shield/food box have an extra 10/1 items in them compared to CU_A3991. However all the units are where they were.

The game is at the original Warlord difficulty. I really wanted to make it Emperor, but decided that for comparison reasons (with people off this forum) we better stick with the original.

The production in the size 1 city of Mycenae has been changed from Engineer to Freight. Had I not changed that, the city would get a "disband the city" message. Since the city has half a dozen improvements in it, I did not want some one to lose all of those accidentally

When scoring this GOTM, pollution penalty will be calculated by hand and it will be -6 per tile instead of the usual -10. This is to prevent a negative score by people who just want a quick conquest and do not want to make any attempt cleaning up the world.

Typically in GOTMs replaying is not allowed. You get one shot at a game. However, since here we are starting in the middle of someone else's game and there are likely going to be quite a few new GOTMers, we have decided to relax that rule. You may replay as many times as you wish. But you get to submit only one game. I should explain that replay means going back to the starting save and playing from there. Going back to some intermediary save is considered cheating. Reloading for a different battle outcome is also considered cheating.

Instead of the usual 3 submissions, submit the saves after 50 turns, 100 turns, and right before conquest. However, save every 2-3 turns and keep those saves on your computer. We may require you to turn in more saves to qualify for the results tally.

Please be sure to follow the submission guidelines when submitting your game (please do not send your files in a .zip file. Attach them directly to your e-mail with your name in the save file).

Please sent the savegames only to civ2gotm@gmail.com.

You have till October 1st. Have fun.

[Prof. Garfield]

Here are some resources.

GOTM rules and scoring information.

GOTM Techniques, Cheats, Rules & Discussion Thread

To finish or not to finish; that is the question

OEDO years. I'm not sure when the first turn is in this scenario.

The GOTM thread usually acts as a place to pose questions about a game. It is also a place to discuss strategy, but that discussion should only involve information available at the start of the game (before moving units). Other discussion about the game is held in a "spoiler thread."

[Ali Ardavan]

Thank you Prof. Garfield for the pointers. Those new to GOTM or returning after a long absence will surely find these useful.

Originally Posted by Prof. Garfield

OEDO years. I'm not sure when the first turn is in this scenario.

I made year 3991 turn #1. This means year 3994 is the first oedo year.

One more note: Typically in GOTMs replaying is not allowed. You get one shot at a game. However, since here we are starting in the middle of someone else's game and there are likey going to be quite a few new GOTMers, we have decided to relax that rule. You may replay as many times as you wish. But you get to submit only one game. I should explain that replay means going back to the starting save and playing from there. Going back to some intermediary save is considered cheating. Reloading for a different battle outcome is also considered cheating.

[Magic_gorter]

I've added a screenshot....

[Prof. Garfield]

Well, I might as well start the strategy discussion. Specialist290 has a good assessment of the situation.

There isn't much to be said about selling off improvements and changing production. It will have to be done over the first few turns, and competent players shouldn't have much trouble with it. What is more interesting to discuss is the broader strategy that can be employed.

The fact that this is a 500 turn scenario means that you will have to conquer sooner or later. A fast conquest (except for a pet city or two) provides the following advantages:

1. Safe access to all pollution squares. This will allow engineers to clean up the world, stop Global Warming, and therefore allow terrain improvements to be permanent.

2. Focus can then be switched to development without worrying about enemy attacks.

On the other hand, a delayed conquest will allow more resources to be put into growth sooner, making the civilization more powerful and allowing a "part time" conquest.

Food for engineers is going to be a problem. Oceanside cities can support their own citizens on the ocean, but engineers can only be supported by the extra food from special squares. The alliance with the Americans is useful, because you can get a NON engineer by building a city near an AI city and then disbanding it. An alternative is to support lots of engineers in a large city, and then to send food caravans in from other cities for the half-box bonus every few turns.

Government. I plan to switch to Democracy at least for a little while, in order to build up the coastal cities. The difficulty of building new cities may make a power fundamentalism strategy appealing -- perhaps alternating between that and democracy for temporary growth.

[Ali Ardavan]

I did quite a bit of investigating and analysis. I played one turn last night. My priorities, in no particular order, are:

1. Reduce Vikings to an easily manageable trading partner. Take the cities with useful wonders, and their capital first. Then beat them up to the point that their nuclear threat is nullified.

2. Build a network of SDIs to make sure front cities (doubt if I need to do this for all cities at Warlord level, but we will see) are protected.

3. Trade for cash, FT bonus points are welcome but cash is tops.

4. Build a ton of spies while still in Communism, switch to fundy at first chance.

5. Celebrate.

Clean up is a secondary goal I may or may not have real time for.

What I have not figured out yet is how to best deal with Americans. They have such a huge treasury that bribing their cities is out of the question.

[Jokemaster]

First notes:
1. I won't repeat what the others said about building orders/improvements. Also some specials are unworked when they could have been put to better use.
2. We have the Pyramids... why all the granaries?
3. The need for harbours and offshore platforms is painful.
4. Engineers. Only seven. And some quickie cities to be built too alongside the railways. (Assuming you're not going for a fast conquest)
5. A lot of factories that aren't worth it, even with Hoover Dam in Dublin.
6. Speaking of Dublin, why the heck is there a supported crusader in there?
7. City at (44, 50) PLEASE. Also a lot of boats on both sides so howies will be sent from the Viking to American front quickly.

Overall strategy?
Regroup at first, sell unneeded and rush needed, buy barracks, rehome engineers.
Finish rail network for both offensives. Trade.
Howitzers and spies for both. Ground-based offensive.

In other words, more or less the same strategy you'd follow for a D+game conquest.

[Inkerman]

Great idea - the ultimate accelerated start game! Many thanks to Ali, Garfield and Lycerius. I look forward to tackling this; it does look a big one though, and with GotM 135 quite new too, it may be some time before I get going.

In the meantime, yes we'll sell off those granaries (Memphis, Heliopolis, Delphi) and other things too, to help fund spies, howitzers, stealth fighters, harbours, platforms, airports and more SDI. But before that I'll rename a few places, because of duplication and preferred spelling, such as the Issus near Americans to Reno and Capua (in the north) to Ragnhild.

I am cautiously optimistic: it seems like we have been the cause of much of the devastation and at this level the AI does not push too hard.

[FriendlyFire]

1) Look for my copy of Civ2
2) Found copy of Civ2ToT
3) Why u not work ?
4) Sadness

[Sir_Lancelot]

Originally Posted by Ali Ardavan

The game is at the orginial Warlord difficulty. I really wanted to make it Emperor, but decided that for comparison reasons (with people off this forum) we better stick with the original.

Why is Warlord better for comparison? Lycerius said he played on either Prince or King. Was that not true?

[Prof. Garfield]

Lycerius was wrong. He obviously didn't pay attention to the popup that you get when you load a game.

[Prof. Garfield]

Originally Posted by FriendlyFire

1) Look for my copy of Civ2
2) Found copy of Civ2ToT
3) Why u not work ?
4) Sadness

As far as I know, submissions for the GOTM using Test of Time are not allowed anyway. This post has a version of the game playable on Test of Time.

[mackerel]

I've encountered a problem with this scenario. I have killed off all the rival civilizations, even the United Nations agrees on that, and when I end the turn.. I just get another turn, instead of the expected victory screen.

I'm using the right save (can't build spaceship, power graph when I Retire starts at 3991, so it's not Lycerius's original), and I'm not aware of any scenario victory conditions beyond eliminating all rivals, or if that's even possible. Anybody had a game that just wouldn't end? Or a clue what to do when this happens?

[ZanzibarZim]

Mackerel, it happened to me, too.

Light blue and dark blue both respawned. I killed them off and they respawned again. This time I kept units in the respawning area in order to prevent that. So they didn't respawn and the game didn't end. It was kind of frustrating.

So I decided to finish cleaning up the planet and rebuild civilization. That was kind of fun.

[Inkerman]

I would imagine it was expected to end when there were no more opponents. I suppose from what you write instead we can all expect to play 500 turns ? Not sure how many folk will be up for that.

[ZanzibarZim]

I'm just going to finish the clean-up and quit. It's an interesting challenge.

It's about 4070AD and I think I've got over 200 engineers going now. I had hoped to finish with a military victory, but oh well.

For some reason, stacking engineers isn't working, either. So I have to wait for each individual engineer to finish each square instead of using teams to do each square in one turn. That kind of complicates things. I seem to recall that stacking engineers worked in Civ2. Maybe I'm wrong or maybe it's just a glitch.

[mackerel]

Somebody did a study on engineer teamwork. The details are surprising, it's worth a read if you can find it. In essence, you can get work done twice as fast with two engineers on the job, but they get confused and actually slow down when you add more than that. You can put 2 on irrigation and 2 on roads in the same square, just not 4 on irrigation.

[Ali Ardavan]

mackerel is right. Adding more than two engineers to a job, if done in the typical manner, would be pointless. There is a way to get several engineers to cooperate on a task but it takes some finesse. It is explained in the forum and you can look it up. Having said all that, you never need more than 2 engineers for pollution clean up since two accomplish it in one turn.

As for the original problem mentioned by mackerel (UN showing no rivals and the game is not ending), my inclination is to say that you can turn that in as your final save. However, I would like to see what Prof. Garfield and Magic have to say about this since the three of us are managing this together.

[Prof. Garfield]

Light blue and dark blue both respawned. I killed them off and they respawned again. This time I kept units in the respawning area in order to prevent that. So they didn't respawn and the game didn't end. It was kind of frustrating.

That's odd. I thought I turned off restarts. I would say that destroying the Sioux, Americans, and Vikings should be sufficient to submit the GOTM.

As for the original problem mentioned by mackerel (UN showing no rivals and the game is not ending), my inclination is to say that you can turn that in as your final save. However, I would like to see what Prof. Garfield and Magic have to say about this since the three of us are managing this together.

I agree. It will actually be easier to manage if the score is still present.

[Sir_Lancelot]

Originally Posted by ZanzibarZim

For some reason, stacking engineers isn't working, either. So I have to wait for each individual engineer to finish each square instead of using teams to do each square in one turn. That kind of complicates things. I seem to recall that stacking engineers worked in Civ2. Maybe I'm wrong or maybe it's just a glitch.

Stacking Engineers works for me, both in the original Civ2 version and in the patched version. But I have not played this save and perhaps the save (or your game installation?) is glitched.

Originally Posted by mackerel

Somebody did a study on engineer teamwork. The details are surprising, it's worth a read if you can find it. In essence, you can get work done twice as fast with two engineers on the job, but they get confused and actually slow down when you add more than that. You can put 2 on irrigation and 2 on roads in the same square, just not 4 on irrigation.

I have never found extra Engineers to slow down the work, but extra Engineers do not always mean that the work is done faster.

This article on Apolyton is very detailed. Info: Settlers/Engineers.

You can stack 10, 15, 20 or even 30 Engineers together and no work-turns will be wasted, but all of them must start the work in the same turn.

A task that takes 20 turns can be done by 7 Engineers in three turns, wasting only 1 Engineer work-turn.