Finding the Limits of Possibility: A Deity Plus Four Succession Game

[CharlieChuck]

I thought at first when I saw the map I'd have a chance of finishing in 8 turns, but I didn't. It took longer than I thought, but it was pretty easy to play as all the work's already been done by others.

1620 rush Ultica barracks, Caralis Transport, Gades Cruiser, Kagoshima transport, Kvivik transport, Build Port Cannae 88,118 & rush Transport, Roskilde Spice-Gades (UD) 125g

1630 Refining -> Combustion, rush Harbour Madras, spice Hladir-Hades (ud)141g, dye hispalis coralis 98g, Gifted & swapped maps with Romans, Malaca captured, Cartena captured, Panormus captured, Rush 5 cruisers, satusma gold hades (ud)97g, Spice trondheim Gades 152g, Askrig silver gades 52g

1640 van 162, hut= at capua, van 171,taxes 4-6-0, Turin founded, Genoa founded, spanish attacked, Bilbao captured, Bibed spanish Ironclad 441g, Crete launch founded & rush transport

1650 Verona, Valladaloid captured 58g

1660 Barb uprising near bilbao central stack destroyed with cruiser, Himera captured, Tingis captured 67g, Lisbon founded, Hamburg founded

1670 Combust->refridge, Prague

1680 Akragas captured, Leptis parva captured, salzburg founded, rusicarde captured

1690 Kyoto Cure Cancer, haven't moved any units.


There's 23 cities left, quite a lot of the spanish ones aren't revealed, but they shouldn't be too hard to find. Some of the spanish cities I spied had about 4 defenders plus city walls, so the next player may want to rush an army of spies before trying to take them. Have fun.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I have the game, and plan to finish this week.

Why are we researching refrigeration? Flight would have been a much better choice (according to the science advisor, it will not be available next research cycle).

 

[Prof. Garfield]

First thoughts:
I think I may be able to finish in my set of turns, but it will require planning and careful management of logistics. I’ll have to think several turns ahead for rush-buys to make sure that I maximize the number of troops that get to the front every turn.
We are researching refrigeration, and are about 1 third the way there. I t will serve no purpose for conquest to finish it. The only tech that might be of value would be flight (there aren’t enough railroads in Spain to make artillery effective), but the science advisor says that it won’t be available for research next round. I don’t think that I can muster enough caravans to achieve two and a half techs without sacrificing more military transportation than flight was worth.

(1) 1690: Set Taxes to 60%, luxuries to 40%. Will cut luxuries after celebrations start. Find the empty city of Theveste and capture it (get 25g). Take Oviedo, 55g; Rusucurru, 112g. Incite revolt Lutetia for 158g, get 184g, Romans destroyed. Carthago Nova captured, 90g; Cadiz captured, 87g; incite revolt Pamplona for 527g, get 83 and an ironclad. Sell off buildings for almost 4000g. Rush port facility in Oviedo to repair and build cruisers. Rush barracks in Carthago Nova to heal units. Spend 3600 gold rushing units (some of which won’t be done for a couple turns). Notably, I rushed marines for the attack on Burgos because they will be able to travel with the ship into the city and heal 1 turn sooner.
(2) 1700: Oviedo Port Facility, Carthago Nova Barracks. Lots of celebrations. Defense Minister: 51 cavalry, 7 cruisers, 29 transport, 19 spies. Take Vigo with costal forces, get 135g, rush port facility. Take Oea, 94g, Carthaginians destroyed. Sabotage Valencia Courthouse, bribe city for 1608g because I wanted to save space in only available transport for more cavalry, get 143g. Sell off buildings worth 3200g. Decide that there are enough cavalry, will rush more spies and engineers to speed the advance. Spend 2700g in rushbuys. Taxes to 70%.
(3) 1710: Spanish develop University. Spanish bribe a partisan, cavalry, steal medicine. Issus Harbor, Vigo Port Facility, Valencia Port Facility. Defence minister: 53 cavalry, 8 cruisers, 35 spies, 26 engineers. Only 1 musketeer in Toledo, destroyed by cruiser, take city, get 75g. Marines attack Burgos (no walls), take city, get 69g. Ribblehead wine to Avila (d) for 520g. 3 spies fail to sabotage city walls in Leon; cavalry attack city, no casualties, but do not empty the city completely. Attack Alalia without sabotaging walls because the city has no barracks and also a fortress beside the city to protect wounded troops, take city 64g. Sabotage Barcelona walls with 1 spy, take city, get 39g. Bribe partisan for 250g. Bribe Spanish transport for 205g, because it was in a good position to ferry more units. Take Seville, 56g, Salamanca, 51g. Bribe partisans to prevent them attacking my engineers (4 for 1160). Spy: Madrid has barracks and 4 musketeers. 1 spy destroys Saragossa city walls. Pre-charge a lot of engineers. Only do a small amount of rush-buying (transports and cruisers near Spain) because it is tedious and I believe there’s enough units only awaiting transport from Carthage to finish off the game (not to mention bribes are always possible. Don’t do a round of selling either.
(4) 1720: Peasant revolt near Akragas. Take Leon, 98g. Accidentally sign Cease-fire and quickly violate it. 1 spy destroys Avila city walls, take city using marines and some cavalry, 77g; no partisans. Destroy Corodoba city walls, take city, 49g. Destroy Granada City walls, take city, 44g. Destroy Malaga city walls, take city, 40g. Take Saragossa, 36g. Destroy Madrid city walls (was not expecting to be in position to take city until next turn, so cruisers ended up being useless), destroy defenders.
A cavalry is flashing to take the city.

Final Score (80% luxuries) is 2247.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Attached are end of turn screenshots for a visual view of what happened.

I have a couple ideas for the next succession game.

1. We play Deity + 4 on the World Map as the Spanish. Computers are Celts, Zulus, French, Americans, Carthaginians, and Mongols. Spain has relatively poor starting terrain, and the Celts, French and Carthaginians would make it difficult to expand. Meanwhile, the Americans will be able to expand unchecked in America and the Mongols would have all of Asia to grow large and powerful. The Zulus are there to occupy a potential expansion area that would otherwise be relatively safe. I recommend them over the Babylonians because the middle east will face pressure from more civs and directions.

2. We play Deity and we stay in Despotism the whole game. We stipulate that some number of civs must be "relatively undamaged" at the time we discover future technology.

3. We play Deity and play as a civ that does not engage in any seafaring whatsoever (build no ships). As an added restriction, we might forbid building Marco Polo's Embassy. We would essentially have to play interacting only with civilizations that reach our island, at least until someone builds the UN. This would force us into a relatively perfectionist game and might reduce real-time commitments later in the game.

Options 2 and 3 would also allow a wider range of direct spectators for our games, because MGE players could view them.

 

[Magic_gorter]

I like the 2 and 3 options. If I must chose one of them I prefer option 2.

Right now my attention goes to GOTM 110 where we kind of play an early landing game. So when we start a next succession game it will be july/august when I have time to play...

 

[elmenhorster]

hey guys, i just stopped by and read only last post by garfield, i have never played succession games and probably never will... but it would be interesting to watch how game will develop in 1st option as spain, that sounds like realistic game, celts change to russians, and no peace treaties or case fires available, only war. I mean you will need to conquer americans before they research cruise missiles...

 

[TheViking]

I've been somewhat busy recently so I temporarily 'retired' from Civ but now I'm back and WOW! - the game is finished not too many turns after I played. Great work and I'm happy to have started the large scale war (though admittedly our forces were spread pretty thin at the end of my turns).

I'm in if you start a new game. All of the ideas look interesting but I'd probably prefer option 1 (a plus for 2 and 3 though is that those with MGE can follow the game or even participate).

 

[Prof. Garfield]

hey guys, i just stopped by and read only last post by garfield, i have never played succession games and probably never will... but it would be interesting to watch how game will develop in 1st option as spain, that sounds like realistic game, celts change to russians, and no peace treaties or case fires available, only war. I mean you will need to conquer americans before they research cruise missiles...

I recommended the Celts over the Russians for a couple of reasons. First, Great Britain would have been the most logical expansion place; get map making early, sail there early and establish a group of relatively protected cities that can also trade with all of Asia and Africa with the different continent bonus. Also, the Russians would serve as a check on the Mongols, and I wanted a civ (actually 2, which is why I also suggested leaving the Americans on their own continent) that could grow large and powerful so that the modern age warfare might be interesting, and at least a little challenging.

I can't see being able to play a "no peace" game at deity+4 without playing as the English (on the world map). To succeed at such a game, you would have to be close enough to steal technologies from other civs (and later send caravans), but still protected from the hordes of military units they could produce with their large production bonuses.

I'm in if you start a new game. All of the ideas look interesting but I'd probably prefer option 1 (a plus for 2 and 3 though is that those with MGE can follow the game or even participate).

We can't alternate between MGE and classic in a game, because MGE saves can't be uploaded in Classic. I can play MGE (though it is a little more convenient to play classic), so if there are some MGE players out there who might be interested in playing, I am open to the idea. Of course, this would prevent classic players from playing or observing the game.

On a related note, does anyone know if the upgrading and downgrading patches for civ2 are still out there? I seem to remember reading about them in old succession game threads. A downgrading patch would be most useful, because then anyone who wanted to play could downgrade to classic, while anyone could view the game on whatever version they have.

 

[Magic_gorter]

The upgrading patches are still available on CFC. They are on the download section of civ2->patches and updates. I've used to upgrade my classic version and have no problems playing it. Just be sure to save a classic version next to the MGE version and you always can choose...

 

[Bloody Monk]

Congratulations to all on a jolly good game, and captivating read!!


They say that what doesn't kill you leaves you stronger...still waiting on that result, though. At least I still wake up most days and that's a good thing.

Reading the logs, (from around page 2, hehehe) I realize how much I love being a part of the Civ community. There's no way I can play (at least for now) but I would love it if someone would shoot me an email heads-up if you start another game. In the words of Chance the Gardener, "I like to watch".

Best wishes to you all,
Monk

 

[Magic_gorter]

Good to see you're still around Bloody Monk....

I hope we can start a new game after the summer holiday season...

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Yes, it is indeed good to know that Bloody Monk is still around.

I started a new succession game thread so that we can start the game as soon as players have the time to play, rather than try to set it up later and perhaps miss someone's window of free time. (Also, I had a window of free time, but I'll probably be rather busy for the next few weeks, and may not be able to devote much time to civ.)

 

[Prof. Garfield]

This is just a message for anyone who has subscribed to this thread that we're trying to get the next succession game started, and that we still want players.