Early spaceship

[cliff]

I read somewhere (here?) that if a spaceship is launched before one turn is one year, then it might dissapear somewhere in outer space and never reach alpha centauri. I would like to inform you (and also brag about my last game) that this isn't so in winciv. Once you launch your spaceship the years start to run "normally", so that if you launch in 1000AD and flight time is 12 years it will arrive in 1012.

And now comes the interesting thing: it works in the BC's as well!! In my last game (here we go), emperor of course, I decided to try out a new way of finishing the game; by building a spaceship as early as I could. Bla bla bla, and finally, there I was, confriming the launch in 20BC. The next year was 19BC and so on. The film was nice I think, saying "...arriving at alpha centauri in -8"!!

If you want a challenge, then try to beat me. This wasn't a perfect game and the island where I started only had room for 10 cities. By the way, I played with 7 civs and resurrection and normal everything, if that matters, I didn't see any other civs except the zulus who started on my continent (wiped them out early).

 

[babadger62]

It seems your challenge is too daunting. I have never lauched in BC! Any clues on how you did?

 

[stormerne]

And you must have a different version of Civ1 than me. Whenever I get an early(ish) spaceship launch with the years still moving, say, in tens, they stay moving in tens and don't change to moving in ones (like they do, for example, in Civ2). In those circumstances my spaceship lands in two turns!

 

[elibb]

I think that the years only start moving by 1 when you launch your spaceship early in Winciv. I've never really played the dos version but I know it does in the Windows version and I think stormerne plays the dos version.

 

[cliff]

Switch to democracy early, don't build many city improvements, let all of your cities reach size 3 at roughly the same time, increase the population in all cities with we love the president day sales, build a settler for each city to improve the land.

I only built a temple, a marketplace and a library in every city. After that I only built caravans and wonders (and some military units) until i had the apollo program and all necessary techs. I built Bach so that I could lower my luxuries rate ta 20%. Normally I have railroad as my main research goal but this time I researched computers first so I could build SETI and double the research. That's about it. After I had all the necessary techs I used 80% tax and sold the libraries and rush bought spaceship parts as fast as I could.

 

[Irish Caesar]

I play DOS version also, and I have never seen a change in years at spaceship launch.

 

[cliff]

I tried to use a "colossal science city" strategy for an early ac landing where I had one size 20+ city and 10 smaller size 3-5 cities. That turned out to be slightly faster than my other strategy. I just landed in 185BC (emperor).

Someone asked for a way of playing fast games and this was reasonably fast. The game took 3 hours to play.

 

[SomeGuyNamedRob]

Originally posted by cliff
Bla bla bla, and finally, there I was, confriming the launch in 20BC. The next year was 19BC and so on. The film was nice I think, saying "...arriving at alpha centauri in -8"!!

If you want a challenge, then try to beat me.

My best launch/land time for the ship was in the 100 BC range.

The computer went nuts loading Australia with whales, goodie squares and huts, which meant I had huge trade, and was finding scrolls at a rate of 2 per turn (my first hut was a friendly tribe with 3 horsemen, making exploring very fast). I also made contact with other tribes fairly quickly (they came to me) and I exchanged techs to grow faster.

My cities grew huge in short order under a power democracy, and I cranked up my science rate as high as I could go. I took the direct tech route to the space ship and launched as soon as I could. I think I had a 22% chance of it landing, but it made it.

I have yet to start with such a great hand. I honestly didn't believe the computer could load one area of a map with so much stuff.

 

[cliff]

Nice job.

I like the simplicity of civ1, that's why I prefer it to civ2 when I want a fast game. Anyway, I played a new early spaceship game last week and landed in 325BC, a new personal record!

I played the Russians on the world map and basically founded a city in the middle of Asia somewhere close to a river and let it grow huge and I build some science improvements and wonders in it. Apart from that I just expanded all over Asia and made peace with other civs. That's actually a civ2 strategy of mine to make peace with or ally with enemies early in the game so that you can expand in whatever direction you want to.

Oh, here is a screenshot from 326BC:

 

[cliff]

I think it's kind of cheating though to play on the world map since Bach's Cathedral becomes so powerful. I think I only had two or three temples, a handful of entertainers and a 20% luxuries rate. That was enough to keep all the small cities in order.

 

[kmad]

you play on earth, how cheap

 

[Andy6474b]

Earths a cool map to play!

The random maps tend to turn out with long stringy 'continents' that really suck, and the computer is always a right b*****d by creating a whole bunch of empty continents and then sticking you on the same continent as a bunch of other civs.

(Having said that, exploring the random maps has always been one of my most favourite aspects of civ)

Anyone know a way of editing WinCiv maps?

 

[Licentia]

My favorite Civ1 game ever had me on a small island all by myself. All the other nations were located on one huge continent or maybe there was 1 other nation also on a small island. Anyway, in this game, I built only 6 cities (I can't stand lots of cities) and Britain had conquered the whole continent they were on.
I loaded up my transports and carriers, and I attacked. It took hours, but I destroyed all of Britain. They must have had 100 cities or so. It was insane. At times I thought I would not be able to take them out, but in the end I succeeded. That game was a blast, and i've never had that much fun again in Civ.
I know one thing is for sure, if that had happened in Civ2, I would never have been able to win.

 

[Andy6474b]

Yeh, its really great when something like that happens.

One of my best games ever was back in '94 when I hadnt been playing long. I was on prince level and I was behind the Russians in tech. It was the modern age already and the russians had totally developed a large continent with railroad etc...
Id land transports full of tanks and watch the russians send out waves and waves of artillery to take them out. It dragged on for hours and hours. I think I even resorted to nukes towards the end!

Had a similar game not long after that on Earth, where I had the Americas and the Russians had almost everything else. At the end of that war, practically every square was polluted and global warming was in overload! Having reduced the russians and what was left of the zulus to single cities, I set about cleaning up the world, and planting forest in every square possible all over the world. I then reduced my civ to one city (located in Java) and fooled around out till - get this - 5000AD! lol...

 

[Zwelgje]

@ andy
You must have had quite a lot of time on your hands when playing that game.
I usually don't build nukes at all, just because of all the pollution you have to clean up in the end. Sometimes it's fun to do OCC on chieftain, by the time you've got armor and nukes and everything the others are still fooling around with chariots. Then at one day you produce a big army and just take over the world as quickly as possible. It's the best to take all capitals first to see all those empires split because of the fall of their capital.

 

[Irish Caesar]

I played with tons of nukes in the game of the month a while ago and finished not too well because i didn't bother to clean up the planet at the end.

I haven't launched a spaceship in a while, back to the subject.

 

[carniflex]

*** 720 BC ***
Player of dos civ1 for years, i've just got a modem, and... I found this website. I began to look for the earliest spaceship mentionned (the most interesting quest, to my mind). I found a 325BC.
Here are excerpts from the replay.txt civ1 made after I won.
"2840 BC: EGYPTIANS BUILD THE HANGING GARDENS
2560 BC: EGYPTIANS FORM DEMOCRATIC
2220 BC: EGYPTIANS BUILD J.S.BACH'S CATHEDRAL
2100 BC: EGYPTIANS BUILD MICHELANGELO'S CHAPEL
1200 BC: EGYPTIANS BUILD HOOVER DAM
1200 BC: EGYPTIANS BUILD SETI PROGRAM
920 BC: EGYPTIANS DISCOVER PLASTICS
920 BC: EGYPTIANS BUILD APOLLO PROGRAM
920 BC: EGYPTIANS DISCOVER ROBOTICS"
In 720 BC, the Thebes Weekly announce:
EGYPTIAN SPACESHIP ARRIVES AT ALPHA CENTAURY
(Of course, I played as emperor)
French, I hope my english to be understood, and soon have replies !

 

[Marx]

Sorry. I have not played civilization 1 for a long time. But when I see al these screenshots. I think this night I will start my first "new" game.

 

[Zwelgje]

This thread always reminds me of how much I suck at Civ....my earliest spaceship has been around 1700ad.

 

[Marx]

Originally posted by civ1-addict
@ andy
You must have had quite a lot of time on your hands when playing that game.
I usually don't build nukes at all, just because of all the pollution you have to clean up in the end. Sometimes it's fun to do OCC on chieftain, by the time you've got armor and nukes and everything the others are still fooling around with chariots. Then at one day you produce a big army and just take over the world as quickly as possible. It's the best to take all capitals first to see all those empires split because of the fall of their capital.

Whehehe. I played many games on earth with the English. And when I had discovered everything, and London was a nice city. I took some units and overrushhed the world. (Or used the good-old diplomats for a revolt )