GOTM 7 ((SPOILER)) discussion

[starlifter]

posted August 30, 2001 12:03 AM

The main times I used WLTP days to grow were 800 -> 1000AD, 1400 -> 1500 AD and 1600 -> 1640 AD.

I use WLTP in spurts early in the game, like Republic. If money is really tight early in a democracy, I'll hold back the growth. But pretty much from democracy onwards, I set the luxuries to 30% (minimum). In effect, I earmark that 30% for Al Gore's "Lockbox"... and the remaining 70% is split up between science and taxes. At times, science has 0%, and at time taxes are 0%... depending on the needs of the time.

Starlifter,
How do you get 7 advances per go? When science was 100% briefly, I was getting 4 (1 from freight + 3 from > 20,000 beakers) Do you just continually send freight everywhere?

First, let me make a comment about late game freight. There are only 3 things to know about freight:

1. Make lots of freight.
2. When you think you have enough freight, make more freight.
3. When you know you have enough freight, make even more freight!!

Of course, I'm not talking about food freight. But you will wind up missing some cities that end their commodity supply, which you will discover when asked to choose the contents option. Just stockpile these food freight for constructing obsolete wonders like Oracle, Great Wall, Great Library, etc. that always seem to go unused at lower levels like King. They are also great for assisting quick SS construction.

About the number of advances per turn. To be honest, that depends largely on the initial conditions of the original game setup. If you are the purple civ and supreme (like GOTM 6), science will be fairly easy. If not, you need to gift the AI. But that will not help your FT research, since the AI bums won't accept gifts of FT. This is why it cost so much more for FT in GOTM 7.

It is a given that my freight are expected to deliver one advance per turn from Automobile (at the latest) onward. Normally, I expect my caravans to assist in achieving an advance every other turn at a much earlier date, too.

Freight (& caravan) movement is of such importance that my own game planning, growth pattern, road & RR construction, construction of port cities, and especially city naming are all designed to facilitate freight value & freight movement.

When science was 100% briefly, I was getting 4 (1 from freight + 3 from > 20,000 beakers)

In GOTM 7, I was able to sustain only 4 advances per turn (at 60% and later 70% science). Freight would give one advance, and research would give the other 3. BTW, I never moved my research to 100% because my growth always required 30% and was still a long way from completion when my SS landed. It was my feeling that the growth value still outweighed the advantage of 25% or 50% more FT per turn.

 

[noughmaster]

AD 1555 ******* SS Landing ******* Score 11179 (GOTM 392)

Christ!

It shows what is possible with hundreds of engineers.

392, eh? I thought a little over 200 would be enough.

 

[starlifter]

by Noughmaster:

It shows what is possible with hundreds of engineers. 392, eh? I thought a little over 200 would be enough.

It depends on what you want to do. At it's heart, Civ II is just a big mathematical simulation... albiet a fun one!

Anyway, the math is there from the outset (when the map is created), in terms of engineer-days required to construct roads, rail, irrigation, airfields, transformations, etc. The question is how to accomplish the engineer's work with minimal impact on an empire's production. My solution is generally to pump my engineers up to a thousand or more in late game, and use Democracy and Refrigeration to create and support the engineer hordes. Others use fewer engineers for much longer periods, notably Shadowdale.

A disadvantage to my approach, as was demonstrated in GOTM 7, is that you cannot accelerate your late-game strategy without sacrificing a great deal of work... I had to dispense with almost all transformations, and just chop trees and clear swamps, because it became mathematically impossible for me to grow, while simultaneously making and supporting over 1,200 engineers for 40 turns to complete all the work in the 1500's.

Originally (until I had some computer problems late last week), I'd planned to land a SS in the 1700's with most terrain transformed. This approach will yield a high Civ II score. But because of the 50^PNP function in the GOTM score, figuring just what the balance point between transformations and completion year becomes sort of an "art".

BTW, the bulk of my engineering work was actually done with approx 220 to 280 engineers. In the 1500's, I was "consuming" engineers in expansion faster than I could produce them at many times (esp. joining cities), which slowed things a lot. Constructing my SS before I was ready (in 1515-20) cost me over 90 engineers, which is 30 cities. I never recovered from that, and as a result I had a lot of cities that never finished growing when the SS arrived. Also, I could never finish founding the cities I had planned.

In summary, even 500 engineers would not have been up to the task of taming the world's terrain (esp. transforming) on a 40 year timeline.