GOTM Techniques, Cheats, Rules & Discussion Thread

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Threads Merged.

I'm going to put up a poll on allowing blacking-clicking or not.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=98654

 

[SlowThinker]

rule 10:

10. Food Caravan Trick
Disallowed* (Post #29)
(FC feed/grow cities=YES; intentional FCT=NO)

looks unclear for me.

There are many "systems" of implementing the FCT, like:
...
2. Setting up a FC/FF swap between two cities.
All such FCT systems are disallowed in GOTMS.

What is wrong on a swap between two cities?

Let's say there is an existing trade route from A to B. So there is -1 food in A and +1 food in B.
1) Now if I send a food cara from B to A then city B has 0 food now. So one food was lost.
2) Situation will be equal if I send a food cara from B to C (I want to say to any other city, not participating in FCs yet) - but it appears rules allows this delivery(?).

As I understand this thread, 1) is disallowed and 2) is allowed??

 

[SlowThinker]

Hm, I will switch to
Food for Thought because the debate about this may be longer...

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

GOTM Rule changes

After thinking on this for quite some time here's my decision:

Black-clicking (#3) will still be allowed. The game provides the information to the player wihout any manipulation. If this was disallowed, we would also have to disallow looking at the maps of AI cities (#6) and also possibly rule #28. The only reason I would think to disallow it is if a major version of the game did not allow it (either classic or MPG).

Caravan rehoming (#24) will be disallowed. It is fairly obvious that this was not within the intention of the game since there was actually programming made to block this from happening with the keyboard commands.

FCT (#10) will be allowed, as well as unusally large cities (#12). If, at a later point, I find it is being abused, it may be removed again, but we will give it a trial run of at least 6 months.

So, rules #10, #12, and #24 have changed.

These rule changes will take effect starting GOTM 45.

 

[SlowThinker]

I thought there wuold be another poll about caravan rehoming...

I played one ELG game on Apolyton with rehoming disallowed. Searching for demand is fun, but only up to some point. It starts to be extremely laborious when you have 10 cities on one continent and 10 one another, a ship chain and you deliver 5 or 10 caras each turn. You must unblock supply in your cities after each delivery and it requires extremely much of micromanagement.
So I started to like caravan rehoming...
It is true caravans are too strong without rehoming and even stronger with rehoming. But it doesn't change way of your playing because in both cases you trade and trade and trade...

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Nope.

Matching supply and demand is one of those things like micromanaging cities. For those who care to put in the effort, it can provide a benefit. If you don't want to put in the effort then don't expect the benefit.

 

[SlowThinker]

But GOTM is about high score.
You can enjoy micromanaging cities in the beginning when you have few cities, abandon it later when it is boring, and still go for high score, because micromanaging of cities yields only small advantage in comparison with caravans.
But with caravans - you must micromanage them up to the end, 100 turns for example.
Going for a high score shouldn't be a question of a 30-day * 12-hours play IMHO.

Due to same reason I have objections against unusually large cities.

Maybe I would suggest to insert a GOTM without rehoming sometimes, so that people tries it (it is really a different game), but on a regular basis ... hmmm...

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Actually, you don't have to micromanage Freight up to the end. They give a payout and trade route wether they are demanded or not. The choice to continue matching up supply/demand is the same as micromanagement. Those who feel the benefit is worth it will put the effort into it. Those who don't won't.

The game is about a competition between players to see who can do the most with the game. Those who choose to put more effort into it may get more result from it. However, the GOTM also takes into account the number of turns that are played, so doing more is not alwasy better if it takes too long.

 

[Stardimple]

As you will see, I'm pretty new to the Civfanatics forum but I've been using the website as a guest for ages. I've been playing Civ 2 for literally YEARS and I've got Civ 3 although I reckon that compared to 2 that it sucks! I've created an account so that I can play the GOTM, I've just got a few questions to ask about the rules. I realise that this information is probably available somewhere on this forum but please forgive me as I've been through quite a few threads and posts and can't find what I'm looking for.

I'm not sure that I understand the concept behind caravan rehoming? My guess is that you produce a load of caravans in a city with high production and then send them to cities that have still got spare trade capacity and then "rehome" them there to take advantage of it whilst that city still produces other things? Is this right?

The other question I've got is - how do the admins know whether people are using these "cheats"? I'm fully prepared to stick to the rules that are set but I'd be pretty annoyed if I thought that the people I'm effectively competing against are reloading the game etc.

Once again sorry to trouble you!

 

[SlowThinker]

Caravan rehoming - usually you rehome to a city with a large arrow production (so preferably a large city at Ocean). You can have only 1 such city and rehome all caravans there.

Cheating is and will be always easy in Civ2, it is about confidence.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

We have a very good GOTM staff that is able to do 'forensic reconstruction' of games and see, with chilling accuracy, how people played their games. Hut results, expansion paths, caravan deliveries...

 

[Stardimple]

OK thanks for the quick replies! I'll give it a go and see how I do. I have to save the game at AD1 AD1000 and at the end if I'm intending to submit the game?

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Yes. Save it just before the game would normally end, either by conquest, spaceship, or retirement. If, after you save and try to check your score, it says 'scoring complete' then it will not be counted.

 

[zenon]

I'm not sure that I understand the concept behind caravan rehoming?

Stardimple, welcome to the forum! ST allready gave the main reason for caravan rehoming. Let me add a few more details. The caravan delivery bonus is among other factors calculated on the basis of the base trade both of the delivering and the destination city. If you produce a caravan in one of your smaller cities and rehome it to your biggest city you get the larger delivery bonus both in gold and science. Another possible reason could be the trading distance. If your caravan/freight is produced close to a city were you have a corresponding demand you could bring it first to one of your cities that is further away and then deliver it. The larger distance also gives a better delivery bonus. In the early game rehoming has also a disadvantage. The producing but not delivering city doesn´t get the ongoing trade route bonus while your SSC can not have more than 3 of them. But in the end game you can build and grow a far away colony on a different continent, build superhighways and later airports in SSC and colony and rehome everything to these 2 cities and get huge returns. A very strong approach that is now forbidden for good reason.

 

[Thyriad]

First i want to greet you all ;] i am new in civilization 2 on comp but i already played on playstation version^^
I got 2 questions:
1. what do you mean with this

If, after you save and try to check your score, it says 'scoring complete' then it will not be counted.

2. how do you know if ppl dont reload games ? i saw ppl with very early finished game, i dunno how they could do this without reloading? dd you check them somehow if they didnt reload game after a bad for them event?

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

1. Basically, be sure you save your game just before you would end it. That means, save it before you take the last AI city in the game. Save it before you end the turn when your spaceship is going to land.

2. We are able to recreate people's games to see what they did during their games. If we feel what happened during the game is not 'normal' we may ask for more saves that may prove it or disallow the game.

 

[geofelt]

I would like to see caravan rehoming allowed for the protection of caravans (food or otherwise) from the possible destruction of their home city. Early in the game, some cities might be vulnerable to conquest by barbarians or other civs. If that city has delivered a caravan to another city for the purpose of building a wonder, I would like to protect it by supporting it elsewhere. This is the same technique you might use to protect a diplomat or any unit. The rule could read that rehomed caravans could not be used to deliver for trade.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Good idea geofelt. I second that.

 

[ElephantU]

The other issue to consider is "how are they going to police that?"...

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

I don't see how it could be tracked. As long as the caravan is not used as a delivery there's no real way to tell if it had been rehomed otherwise.