gotm 58 spoiler

[Ace]

Ali, I disagree with you regarding gifting. The coins you get from the AI civs give you a big boost in incremental partial rush building. Even infrastructure can be rush built with enough coins. Getting MP as early as possible can create a coin flow that is nearly as good as van deliveries, and definately provides free coins to help build "stuff".

As for seeing the map at the start of the game, I still maintain that that would remove the fun of exploring for no real gain, especially with this map.
Reading between the lines in the discription of GOTM58, and considering the demenions of the map, it was readily apparent that the only option was to go East.

 

[Peaster]

My opinons on the Ali-Ace discussions:

* Black-clicking was VERY helpful on this map.
* I also enjoy exploring an unknown map, and probably more so without black-clicking (but I will keep doing it in GOTMs, if it is legal and if it seems worth the trouble). Some verbal description of the world at the start can stimulate my interest, but I'd rather not know too much.
* I don't see how MPE would have helped in getting tribute from the AI in this game. Achieving superior force on their homeland [required for tribute] took much longer than making contact. I made embassies using dips, and eventually got the AI's maps and most of their gold. I didn't miss MPE much (except when wondering "how much further to find those darn Spaniards?").
* But I agree MPE is a great help in most games. More so on large square maps (for finding the AI) and on large continents (for early tribute).

 

[Ace]

Peaster-your point 4 contradicts your point 3 and confirms my thought that MP is a big help early by giving you an "embassy" with each AI civ. This lets you make "nice" with them and demand/beg gifts and trade maps long before you can get a dip to them to establish an embassy. Also, in my experience, it seems to be easier to get the AIs to "like you" if you have MP, especially in the BC years. I suspect that MP has some "influence" on the AI being more likely to contribute to your cause if you have it, but I have no proof of this. Maybe ElephantU or some of the other OCC players have noticed this and/or can comment on it.

Note: Superior force is not a requirement to get a gift from the AI! In fact, it can work either way. 1: if you are strong, they may yield coins, and 2: if you are weak, they will usually give you a gift because "you have been peaceful for a long time". I believe #2 is the reason the OCC types are so successful in getting coins from the AIs.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

There are two ways you can get money from your rivals during a diplomatic contact:
1. They are your ally. You ask for a gift.
2. They are not your ally. You are not in Republic or Democracy. You ask for a tribute.

The first method rarely works if your power is stronger than theirs. Since the experienced human player is typically Supreme, this method is only useful when one is playing OCC (or with some other self-imposed limitation).

The second method rarely works if you do not share a land piece with the rival you are trying to fleece; as already pointed out by Peaster.

Hence, my conclusion that in this GOTM because of the geography there were few opportunities of receiving gold from rivals to beign with unless you were playing OCC.

 

[Peaster]

Yes, I made an assumption that you were playing for conquest, and were seeking gold from tribute. Zenon made a thorough study [at Apolyton] of the conditions required for getting tribute. IIRC the sum of your attack factors (from units on the AI's home continent) must exceed their total number of units. I didn't know your government matters, but that's probably correct.

Ace: Why do you say I contradict myself? GOTM 58 was not on a large square map, and our homeland was not on a large continent (and not shared with AI's). I was saying that GOTM 58 is a bit unusual.

 

[Ace]

Gotm58 certainly was a bit unusual! Just what does a "large square map" have to do with the effectiveness of MP? 58 is still a large map, volume-wise.

 

[Peaster]

Maybe the best thing about MPE for early conquest is getting the AI maps, to know where the targets are. Without maps, it's hard (for me, at least) to plan campaigns. This is especially true on large squarish maps. But it was not a big problem on the long thin map of GOTM 58, because it was so obvious that we had to go east, east and more east.

The map might affect how useful MPE is for tech, too, but I don't understand that completely. On a normal map, I usually try to get MPE pretty early and then weasel a few techs from the AI even if I have to give them much more in return - just like everbody else plays, I guess. But in GOTM 58 it seemed better to race ahead of the AI in science (thru trade). If you decide to do that, MPE doesn't fit into your tech plans very well.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

The map might affect how useful MPE is for tech, too, but I don't understand that completely. On a normal map, I usually try to get MPE pretty early and then weasel a few techs from the AI even if I have to give them much more in return - just like everbody else plays, I guess. But in GOTM 58 it seemed better to race ahead of the AI in science (thru trade). If you decide to do that, MPE doesn't fit into your tech plans very well

I usually play for a space ship victory and have to stay ahead of the AI in the tech race. Marco is very useful as long as it is your first or second wonder. You can get several techs from the AI that you are going to need but have not obtained yet. It works best if there are a mixture of civilized and militaristic rivals.

About the only time Marco is not useful, is on a known map where your rivals are close by. You can just send a unit over and establish contact with them. You cannot see what techs they have prior to initiating trading, but once you make one trade you know everything they have.

 

[Old n Slow]

Speaking of MPE -- I finally reached it (now being 1923) & I'm seriously exploring future tech. All the wonders have been built and it seems a shame to destroy this one -- especially since the city also houses the Great Library.

Oh well.

 

[TheViking]

This was probably the most interesting map I have ever played on - thanks to the person made it. It would have been even more interesting to play this game on deity level.

I didn't use black-clicking, I like exploring the unknown. Using black-clicking I would have finished much earlier by discovering the 'shortcut' through Russia in the south, meaning I'd have reached the Greeks earlier.

Still I quickly was way ahead of the AI techwise and conquered Russia fairly easily once I invaded after careful preparations. Unusually, I built the GL (I almost never build it), mainly because I didn't want the AI to get it and because I wasn't allowed to build MPE. It was marginally useful, I acquired very few techs from it but two of these were highly useful. I also built the Lighthouse which proved very useful. I lost just one significant 'wonder race': The AI built Magellan ahead of me. Having Magellan would have been nice but I didn't consider this to be a major setback since the continents weren't far from each other.

Proceeding east then took a lot of time since I had to 'rebuild' my navy from scratch each time I visited a new continent. Eventually I reached the Spanish in the far east and finished the game with fireworks in 1912AD by conquering the entire Spanish empire (roughly 25 cities) in one turn. This required a huge number of engineers and spies plus a few howitzers (12 transports in total) as well as several stealth fighters, a carrier and a nuke.

A few unusual things about my strategy: I used lots of stealth fighters and paratroopers to 'bypass' the western half of enemy continents and quickly get to the eastern half. Also I needed huge amounts of $$ to build an army, stealth fighters, a new navy and to buy enemy cities and partisans plus lots of city improvements. This meant I relied heavily on trade (caravans and freight) and got by far the biggest delivery bonuses I have ever seen. Late in the game I typically started a turn with roughly 30,000 gold and regularly spent about 15,000 gold or more per turn. I stayed in democracy for most of the game, including all of the major wars. A 3000+ freight delivery bonus was fairly common and the biggest ones were 3813 gold. This raises a question: What is the biggest possible delivery bonus? And the biggest delivery bonus ever seen by players here?

 

[grigor]

I limped to a 1786 finish, which may have arrived too late in the month for consideration. The last 10 turns took over 1 hour each.

Once I found the Spanish, it was only 10 turns to conquest, despite a seriously far-flung Spanish empire. I finished with 164 Cities, and only one content citizen...

Next month will be faster

 

[Old n Slow]

I ended up a couple of decades past the Viking -- and had to build a spaceship because I ran out of month. (Maybe it was just as well -- the Spanish had 39 structurals in orbit and discovered the next couple of space techs -- and here I was a couple of turns away from meeting the Vikes in force.)

I discovered a few things -- such as Nukes pillage RR (but not roads) (Yup took a hit from the Vikes.) Also noticed that skulls from nukes are not counted in the score (that turn at least -- I cleaned those up, got back to "zero" cleaned up one of the other remaining skulls, then got a -10 for the last one yet to do -- so there must be a refresh with the registered skulls, but not the "new" ones.)

Got the message about 'don't airlift -- potential enemy fighters...' -- so I shot up the nearby city instead, taking out the baby plane and next airlift attempt, no message. Hmmm maybe a hint for potential airplane check for those folks who use bombers.

Picked up 3.5, 3.6K for demanded Oil trucks going to my SSC 200+ spaces away -- undemanded freight from decent cities was usually 1K+ at the end of the game...

But the major discovery was a sad one. Not knowing the cost of a complete S/S, I decided to deliver all of my existing trucks and see if I could do it in one turn (Yes -- delivered about $25K worth) started with $59K, ended up with $34K, although most of the cities had a few shields to start with and a number of military units were disbanded. The sad news is...my two techs per turn went to zero. (!!?) And the next turn, techs came in at...zero. Three turns after the launch, the techs finally picked up where they left off, which begs a question -- if one 'rolls' over the tech wheel due to commodity delivery, does it put a crimp in the system?

If anyone is interested, I'll post a few relevant saves -- maybe in the strategy forum.

 

[Ace]

Yes, it screws up the system. I don't remember the exact details, but if you "over delivery" beakers, it can cause the beaker total to go negative. I did this once a long time ago, just like you did, and it took a turn or three to "work off" the negative beakers! I believe its a bug, just like the one with the coins going negative if you get too large a number in one turn.

Ask the DoM about this. I think he might remember this bug.

Found my notes!! If you have a save at the end of the turn your beakers went crazy, load it, activate cheat mode, edit king and select set research progress. This screen will show the number of beakers accrued toward the next advance (also shows the number required). If my theory is correct, the number will be negative....

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Ace is correct. The variable used to keep track of beakers is a 16 bit signed integer whose range of values is -2^15 to 2^15-1. Thus the max is 32767. Like many other things in Civ2 there is no overflow check, so if you go above 32767 it rolls over and becomes a negative number.

In GOTM55 I developed a huge empire and went deep into future techs. I had nearly 200 cities that could produce well in excess of 30K beakers a turn. Any time I set my science rate near 100% the trade report would show my total beaker production as a negative number.