[Civ2] Earth% Proof-of-concept speed-running

[Jarek Noschese]

Yet another attempt to get people to speed-run something other than NES SMB1

On Chieftain: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Atlxk3lFv7S9x2QulpF5hoRCevUu?e=uLIlhP (15m30.09s)

 

[Jarek Noschese]

On Warlord (several failed attempts to get the "optimal" RNG Seed) [20m37.87s]: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Atlxk3lFv7S9x2XdOPma-ldy0oya?e=9lqsM6

 

[Jarek Noschese]

On Prince (several, several more RNG seeding and strategy optimization attempts) [5m6.75s]: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Atlxk3lFv7S9x2YTuED7oG7KkIOF

 

[Jarek Noschese]

On King (again, this is only a theoretical exploration of what such a run is supposed to look like, nothing else) [13m54.47s]: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Atlxk3lFv7S9x2efO7OffbYSZ63K

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Just tried this at deity level. After a few false starts, my time between getting a horse/chariot from a hut (I didn't want to waste time setting up an entire game just to get that first hut) and defeating the last tribe (whereupon my game crashed since I'm using WINE) was 11:33.

I played against Celts (who didn't start in Britain), Zulus, Carthaginians, Persians, Indians, and French.

In all attempts, Babylonians would have a second settler mining a hill, which I couldn't get past. Carthaginians also had 2 settlers every time, so sending my settler to quickly conquer them didn't work.

My strategy was horseback riding, then Polytheism, then just money. Zulus were last to be defeated.

It occurs to me that if you're choosing the AI tribes, no player restarts, etc., you might as well just choose to play a game with 3 tribes instead of 7.

The idea of speed running Civ II has crossed my mind from time to time, but this setup doesn't really capture much of what makes Civ II interesting.

 

[Jarek Noschese]

Just tried this at deity level. After a few false starts, my time between getting a horse/chariot from a hut (I didn't want to waste time setting up an entire game just to get that first hut) and defeating the last tribe (whereupon my game crashed since I'm using WINE) was 11:33.

I played against Celts (who didn't start in Britain), Zulus, Carthaginians, Persians, Indians, and French.

In all attempts, Babylonians would have a second settler mining a hill, which I couldn't get past. Carthaginians also had 2 settlers every time, so sending my settler to quickly conquer them didn't work.

My strategy was horseback riding, then Polytheism, then just money. Zulus were last to be defeated.

It occurs to me that if you're choosing the AI tribes, no player restarts, etc., you might as well just choose to play a game with 3 tribes instead of 7.

The idea of speed running Civ II has crossed my mind from time to time, but this setup doesn't really capture much of what makes Civ II interesting.

Weird. I use Wine via Porting Kit and my game never seems to crash. Impossible to get music and videos and sound effects are sputtery and glitchy, but I don't mind that a bit. As it turns out, staying a Despot is viable at harder levels thanks to higher research costs and the (theoretical) possibility of miraculously having a greater population city. Despotism and Monarchy have the Martial Law bonus. Monarchy's Free Support Cap is 3, whereas Despotism's is the City's Population. With so few techs early on, the Despot Productivity Penalty may not be so harsh. Again, fewer techs lowers research cots across the board, and tech costs on the hardest levels are so high it usually won't make a difference what you do. Playing against fewer nations definitely makes this go faster, but it also removes much logistical and strategic depth. Be wary against more opponents however because you never know when your fast-moving units may no longer have enough Defense, even as Veterans, to cut through the enemy's city garrisons. Much frustration from me stems because of this, even at lower difficulties.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Weird. I use Wine via Porting Kit and my game never seems to crash. Impossible to get music and videos and sound effects are sputtery and glitchy, but I don't mind that a bit.

I used Test of Time with TOTPP, so I get music when I want. I know of a later version of WINE that allows the spaceship video to play, but that one occasionally causes momentary reduction of the program window to the top left corner, especially when loading a game (which I do a lot when programming in Lua, and I find extremely annoying). For my regular use case (scenarios and scenario programming) my setup works, so I haven't looked too closely. I also virtualise Windows XP if I really need good game behaviour.