GOTM 48 spoiler

[Ali Ardavan]

Hi !! Why is that most people consider the Ligthhouse and the Marco Polo so important ?? Do you get extra points ??
I rarely build the Lighthouse..and Marco Polo is not an essencial Wonder..

You remind me of myself about 3 years ago when I first discovered this site. I had played Civ1 many many times and Civ2 half a dozen times thinking I know the game. You are obviously more advanced than I was back then, but you have a LOT to learn. There is far more to this game than you realize. Expect to be humbled and amazed for quite some time to come. Start reading. There are plenty of good stuff in the forum.

I have seen high scores in the hall of fame that are beyond incredible .....but the scores I have seen are beyond logical !!!!!!

Look at some of the saved games. You will see cities with populations in excess of 100. That is where the unbelievable part of the high score comes from. They are built to that size using food caravan trick.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

My OCC attempt was abandoned in the AD years after bulking up to size 30 and not getting out of "Inadequate" rating. With no Blue player I could not exploit tech gifting the KeyCiv, so each tech was costing max beakers. At Warlord level I probably would have made it in AD2000, but I just don't have the time or patience for working it that long. With such a large island I was sure there should be at least one civ on it, but no...

I am surprised you even bothered with OCC. Less than 7 Civs and restarts off are each bad for OCC; together they are poison. The situation was even worse here because the missing civs were the dark blue and yellow which meant that you had to beat not one but two other civs in the power rating.

 

[Peaster]

Ali - "Look at some of the saved games. "

Confession that may help other noobies: I didn't know where to find these games until today. The archives page is too wide to fit into a window, so I never noticed there was a third column !

 

[la fayette]

I never build Colossus, Lighthouse , Gardens or the Oracle they are all needless.
.

This is not the right way to improve your gameplay.
You had better read (there is good advice here) and ask questions (there are experienced players willing to answer you).

 

[ElephantU]

I am surprised you even bothered with OCC. Less than 7 Civs and restarts off are each bad for OCC; together they are poison. The situation was even worse here because the missing civs were the dark blue and yellow which meant that you had to beat not one but two other civs in the power rating.

My original thought was that the settings you mention would draw everyone toward conquest, at least one OCC needed to be attempted. Wish I had known Blue was missing from the beginning. I did not think I would have enough time to do a "serious" game this month, with another succession game ongoing and lots of year-end "real work". Once it started heading south I got pig-headed and tried bulking up the city but that failed too. I was even tempted to try a "One City Conquest" but would have started too late...

 

[ElephantU]

But if you play in the deity the Lighthouse is useless...
Marco Polo is not a necesity in the higher level...
I never build Colossus, Lighthouse , Gardens or the Oracle they are all needless.

Welcome to the CFC GOTM, URUWASHI! It's nice to see another decent, opinionated player. Peaster and La Fayette are two of our stronger Early Conquest players; don't take their advice lightly. Lighthouse is of advantage early on at all difficulty levels due to the limitations of Triremes across open seas. It also makes your Caravels move faster. A little tech gifting with Marco Polo gets you enough of an attitude improvement with the AI that they will give you their local map long before you come in contact with them, at which point you can start filling some Triremes with Elephants. Sending them straight across the sea is much faster than zig-zagging between islands. The other wonders did not get a chance to shine in this game with such low happiness issues. Hanging Gardens can keep an empire of 10-20 cities from going into disorder till Michelangelo's and Bach's come along to help out, and Colossus is the core of an early Super Science/Trade City.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

3200 Ngome
3180 Curr=>Trade (80)
3080 Trade=>Maps
3060 Hut: Barbs. My horse dies.
3000 Hut: Umtata

Grigor, the cities after Ngome are Swazi, Tugela, and then Umtata. What happened?

Impressive game. I concur that you will get the green star, if not more.

I have started playing. Like most others, I am going for a conquest. I have just built Marco in -2520. Nothing noteworthy so far except that I got 2 cities out of advanced tribes at the far end of my continent.

 

[grigor]

Sorry, I neglected to note Swazi and Tugla founding (from settlers) sometime between 3080 and 3000BC. I was doing a classic Dave V ICS and plopping settlers down 2 squares away, sometimes even within city radii. I startd building roads after trade, but it would have been even faster if I hadn't. I can't seem to resist resist roads, even though I know better.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Status at -2500
Population: 0.3M; Cities: 11; Trade routes: 0D0F; Government: Monarchy
Finance: Treasury: 25; Cost per turn: 0; Income: 12; Tax rate: 30%
Science: Total advances: 17; Advance every 13 turns; Science rate: 70%
Production: 39MT; 0 polluted tiles
Wonders: Marco Polo.
Units: 8 settlers, 3 Archers, 2 Horsemen, 1 Chariot, 1 Elephant, 3 Diplomat, 1 Caravan.

Russian: 3 cities, 8 tech, 131g, 11 units;
Chinese: 3 cities, 11 tech, 123g, 6 units;
English: 2 cities, 11 tech, 200g, 6 units;
Mongol: 3 cities, 9 tech, 194g, 10 units;

 

[URUWASHI]

Thanks Elephant ! Food for thought is good.
I consider CIV II one of the best games ever...not much different than chess.
In both games, I believe certain patterns had to be followed if you want to win.
In both games ( Unless I play against my 8 year old grandson, he just strted playing chess )...defending your Palace ( or King ), creating a solid infrastructure ( controlling the 4 middel squares in chess ), and then attacking you opponent with all you power and might in a few moves are essential.
Thats how I play the game of CIV, expand , control , and then attack your best opponent/s and destroy them./.....One by one either by the sword or the Pen....
Did enybody beat Casablanca , Kasparov or Karpov in 8 moves ??
If you are playing a master AI , thats not possible.
Granted, I can play against my grandson and beat him in 12 moves....will that make my week ?? Will I celebrate it ??
I rather play against a formidable opponent and take the lost , the tie or the win...
I am not saying that playing in level 1 or 2 is bad, or early conquest is wrong.
Just not my cup of tea.
Quick Conquest to me , is not on my book ...unless my grandson is around...and he is bugging me to play chess...and I want him out of my hair....LOL
I have allways dreamed of beating Bobby Fisher in 10 moves....
After all this years playing CIV II is hard to change your ways.
Though I appreciate the suggestions ..I will still play against against 6 civs, raging hordes, Large Map toughest chances....
Nothing sweeter than play against a grandmaster, and beat him...one of my dreams

Thanks. ;-)

 

[URUWASHI]

To Elephant ( Response II )
I undersand your point about Triremes.
Except , I never research Map Making unless I can get it thru the Library or trade it for another advance.
By buiding Diplomats, I can buy a Trireme from the Barbarians for 41 coins ,and circumnavigate my continent.
I wont be ready to Conquest until I get Elephants or Crusaders , and Caravels.
I use the Triremes to explore my continent...or wahtever is nearby..not for conquest..Trirems only carry 2 units....Caravels 3 , and if you have Magellan 5...
Therefore, the Lighthouse wonder is pretty much needless to me.
I can get Caravels from the Barbarians at 82 coins , without building Navigation...
After Navigation , THEN conquest is feasible to me, not before...I need at least 10 Caravels, 20 Crusaders, and 10 diplomats...thats my Armada after that I am pretty much unbeatable.
My goals about wonders are ..Pyramids...Great Wall and Great Library.( Maybe Polo and Kings Richard ) Then Invention , The Chapel , Bach , Statue , Smith and The Dam
If Marco Polo or Kings Richard are availabe I will take it...its not necessary.
Hanging Gardens to me are useless....why ?? I play Monarchy , ( Republic is a waste unless you have Hanging Gardens and Oracle ..and Temples in every city ) until Statue of Liberty is build then change to Fundamentalism.....then I know I can Win the game.
And I am talking Deity Level.....aginst 6 civilizations....etc..etc..
After the Statue is Built I change my government to Fundamentalism , and keep my 80% , set luxuries and discoveries to 0 ....The Library will keep me up with rest of the world...I can built 11 units per city at no charge, build aqueducts , Banks..in a few turns
In the mean time I can Bank 500 coins per turn...and use my diplomats to bribe the stongest cities....If I can conquer the capital city ...thats good....the rest become cheaper....I have bought Cities for 6000 , ....Piece of Cake....LOL
Then when Electricity is discovered and the Library useless......I change to democracy...30% luxuries, 30% Tax , 40 % Science....not a glitch.....All my cities are slef sufficent by about 1800......
Discovering advances in 3 turns....What book did I miss ?????? LOL
I consider myself a Field General....after spending 100's hours getting beat by the AI in Deity Level....I learned my ways...Not from books , but by getting my behind kicked by the AI....for several months ..and several hours...
And Finnaly , Some of the scores I have seen in the Hall of Fame are Juiced....its not way that a player can score 2500% and have 250 cities....But in Baseball Steriods are cool , Maybe jucing the score a bit is not illegal here either.....

Food for Though.... NIGHTS!!!

 

[Old n Slow]

To Elephant ( Response II )
...After Navigation , THEN conquest is feasible to me, not before...

......Discovering advances in 3 turns....

Yeah I go out & visit the neighbors a little on the late side as well.

Read some more of Elephants stuff -- especially about trading. The you can enjoy turns of netting 5,000 coins per turn and a tech or two per turn.

 

[URUWASHI]

I did not get your point Old ..its OK OK being Senile , I am getting there....LOL
As far as I know Elephants are paquiderms that live in groups.
You sound like a George Bush Speech ..too many words...no logic.
What was your point ?
5000 coins ?? I am Flabbergasted....
( English , Spanish or Italian will be understood...)
Thanks

 

[URUWASHI]

Ok Old , sorry about Old age, after all I am an old man....we may be both senile and forget things....LOL
Elephants..Presidents....Grandsons....LOL
I never have been a good stand-up comedian.
But truth be told, I have been wondering If I fit here....am I as good as I think I am ??
Because I just did joined the sorority ..that makes me a rookie ??
Some Interesting Points....How do I know If I can compete with the " Civilization Gods " ?
Or .....are the guys here as good as they say ??
To prove either point, or neither....Only numbers , the ONLY perfect thing in the universe may prove it wrong..or right.
So I decided to play a few games of the Month , Past games ( Yes I am also Playing the current one and submitted the January One, But I wont play Level one.... )....I picked GOTM46 , Abe Lincoln....and played *.
I was suprised that my score was as good ( a weenie bit better in reallity 1172 , instead of 1171 ) as your GOLD medalist....our ratings were the same 152% , except I finished the game a few turns later....
I am not making this up...I have the files and try to upload them....
That give me the certainty that I can compete here.If Only I could have found that last city 4 turns Earlier......ohhhhhhhh wellll.

Old Adage " I may not win the gold medal , but If you want to beat me ...you have to beat the world record "

* I will upload my GOTM46 game If i knew how to attach files here.....I have been trying ..any help will be appreciated...or If you like to I can send the game straight from my regular E-Mail ( Its possible to attach files ?? ..) I see an attachment option but it does not seem to work....

Nights!!

 

[Ali Ardavan]

So I decided to play a few games of the Month , Past games ( Yes I am also Playing the current one and submitted the January One, But I wont play Level one.... )....I picked GOTM46 , Abe Lincoln....and played *.
I was suprised that my score was as good ( a weenie bit better in reallity 1172 , instead of 1171 ) as your GOLD medalist....our ratings were the same 152% , except I finished the game a few turns later....!!

First of all congradulations for doing so well. You obviously are quite capable of competing here.
However, keep in mind that the GOTM ranks are assigned based on GOTM score and not the Civ2 score. The GOTM score heavily rewards finsihing early. In fact, if you look at the score board you will see that the 5th rank had a civ2 score more than double the civ2 score of the 1st rank; but the assigned GOTM score was nearly half as much, all because of the extra turns.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

I just finished this one by conquest on year 1AD. I started very well and could have finished long time ago. I should have expanded only to the hilly range to the southwest of the starting position (14 cities). But I got 2 cities from advanced tribes at the west coast of my continent, and got greedy. The west coast expansion distracted me too much and delayed conquest by many turns.

 

[Peaster]

Uruwashi - Welcome to the posts! You are obviously enjoying the game and having good results. I like early conquest because it keeps the game exciting to the end. In GOTM49, I got one of the LOWEST scores ever, an 81. But I am happy with the game because I finished fast, and maybe I'll get a green star.

Of course, many people enjoy playing for points, or early landings, or just to build an empire the way they like it.

What's wrong with the attachment option ? Click "post reply", "manage attachments", "browse" , find your file and double-click on it, then click "upload" and "submit reply". Do not click on "preview post" - I think that erases the attachment.

 

[ElephantU]

To Elephant ( Response II )
I undersand your point about Triremes.
Except , I never research Map Making unless I can get it thru the Library or trade it for another advance.

Different styles of play. I like to make peace with the AI and gift techs in order to get their maps. Both players must have MapMaking in order to exchange maps, so that is the first tech I try to gift. I also like to gift Republic, Ceremonial Burial and Mysticism because they tend to "settle down" more aggressive AI players and allow bigger cities with more trade arrows for my incoming caravans.

By buiding Diplomats, I can buy a Trireme from the Barbarians for 41 coins ,and circumnavigate my continent.

You may be waiting a long time to buy a Barb Trireme...

I use the Triremes to explore my continent...or wahtever is nearby..not for conquest..Trirems only carry 2 units....Caravels 3 , and if you have Magellan 5...

Magellan increases speed of movement, not carrying capacity - unless you look at it as "effective capacity boost over time"?

Therefore, the Lighthouse wonder is pretty much needless to me.

Again, if you are trying to conquer before Caravels come along (a lot more research is needed to get from Triremes to Caravels), LightHouse is very useful in maps with lots of open water.

I can get Caravels from the Barbarians at 82 coins , without building Navigation...

In order for Barbs to have Caravels, one of the players have to have discovered Nav - and if it's not you, you're behind...

After Navigation , THEN conquest is feasible to me, not before...I need at least 10 Caravels, 20 Crusaders, and 10 diplomats...thats my Armada after that I am pretty much unbeatable.

Not a bad strategy, but if you can do it earlier... I like a few Settlers in the mix for some vital terrain improvements and the option to plant a "beachhead city".

My goals about wonders are ..Pyramids...Great Wall and Great Library.( Maybe Polo and Kings Richard )

All three of them I skip and let the AI build; I like Colossus for my STC and MarcoPolo for early contact with AI, sometimes HangingGardens for happiness control and LightHouse if I'm going early huntin.

Then Invention , The Chapel , Bach , Statue , Smith and The Dam

Missing Michelangelo, and either SunTzu for huntin' or Copernicus for spaceship, plus Magellan for faster ships...

Hanging Gardens to me are useless....why ?? I play Monarchy , ( Republic is a waste unless you have Hanging Gardens and Oracle ..and Temples in every city )

Perhaps the issue here is that you have not yet faced Deity-level unhappiness issues. That plus more than 10-12 early cities makes HG very useful. Republic is easily managed with Michelangelo instead of Oracle, which expires too fast.

Discovering advances in 3 turns....What book did I miss ?????? LOL

That would be the book about trade and research. A good start would be Solo's Early Landing Guide. For comparison, my single size 28 city was researching one tech per turn around 1000AD in GOTM 49...

And Finnaly , Some of the scores I have seen in the Hall of Fame are Juiced....its not way that a player can score 2500% and have 250 cities....But in Baseball Steriods are cool , Maybe jucing the score a bit is not illegal here either.....

"Them's fightin' words" to Duke and Andu Indorin - they've gone through the Hall with a fine tooth comb, weeding out the questionable scores. There's no secret to getting scores in the thousands and 250+ cities - find and kill off all but the Purple civ, which you reduce to a "Pet City". Then cover the map with your own cities and terraform everything for max food. Grow the cities with WeLoveDays and food caravans. The process takes a lot of time and micromanagement, which GOTM discourages by giving bonuses to earlier finish games.

 

[ElephantU]

As far as I know Elephants are paquiderms that live in groups.

Haven't seen that spelling used in English - no offense taken. They are slow, but rarely forget...

5000 coins ?? I am Flabbergasted....

Read some threads about trade...

 

[URUWASHI]

Here I go Again....I did not intended to step in other's peoples toes....but I have done it again..
I guess I will follow my wife advise and ...." SHUT UP " " AND DO SOMETHING INSTEAD OF TALKING TOO MUCH ".
Thats why she calls me Lenny Perot...( Lenny Bruce the ironic Stand up comedian....Ross Perot ..the unusual Politician....)
I was not trying to be a jerk..but I sounded and acted like one...I guess it is my competitive side....
Yes..I am controverisal and opinionanted...but I am not a bad person...just hard to live with....
SO....From now on..I wont post any comments...any ideas......I will play the game and try to do my best...
Again If I stepped on sombody's toes I apologize..... or if I was unrespectfull I apologize....If I was hurt somone....I deeply apologize.

I am just a competitive person....

I never knew that was so many people that love this crazy game !!

Thank you