Hi

[PlatinumFX]

I was searching the net for civilisation 2 maps / scenarios for the first time ever and came accross this impressive website. Im so chuffed to find such a large following for this game despite its age. A testament to its quality and re-playability. Civ 2 (classic) was the 1st PC game I bought for my 1st new PC (1995 ish) and to this day one of the best. These forums seem a great place to share idea's and so I thought i'd gatecrash.

It seems right to describe myself as a civ 2 player, so here goes:
I now always play on maps I edit to be mostly grassland. I however ensure every civ has access to good terrain, and a lot of it. I expand quickly and concentrate on city improvements. My principle goals all along are to research fast and build most wonders as I percieve most can give me a tactical advantage sooner or later. I tend to keep to myself and only engage in diplomacy for technology exchange for map sharing. I dont form alliances. I dont start wars. If a war come's upon me, I play mostly defensive. I develop my cities improvements, and the terrain around them for one goal. Maximum production. After decades of terroforming, cities with production levels of 100 are quite common. Their goal: to raise an army, navy and airforce to conquer all. Im very much a believer in combinded arms. But once the way is clear, I find a howitzer or 10 makes my enemies cities turn to me very quickly. rar! Call me a barbarian, but the AI in civ 2 leaves me with little desire for peace ultimately. I cant to play it online and enjoy far more enriching games where diplomatics relations between humans can no doubt open up a whole world of oppurtunities and richer gameplay. [/rant]

I have a question. Ive only ever played the single player and only ever been slightly aware of the multiplayer capabilities of Civ2. It is my understanding that I need Civ 2 Gold to be able to play internet multiplayer. Is that correct?

Another question. In here: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ2hof.shtml
Ive DLed some of the games there and they appear to be from the players cheating. Can some one point me to a "legit" game where some one has achieved world control through military means, on a large map, with a nation whose population =>100 million. And on a difficulty of King or more. I can do it myself on Prince but Im finding it hard to scale up and seek to learn from others to improve my own game.

Regards
PlatinumFX

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

May I ask, which games do you feel are cheated?

 

[PlatinumFX]

http://www.civfanatics.com/games/civ2hof/Modernize.zip For example. Right at the top.
What gives it away for me are factors such as:

- The last remaining players tech level (celts) is considerably lower than the greek player.
- The huge assembly of Calvalry and Partisan barbarians on an island.
- The fact that the last celt city is sorrounded by frigates, a unit is surely upgraded to transport (might be wrong on this) by the discovery of industrilisation and construction of Leonardo's Workshop. It might be feasible that the wonder was built by another nations city, a city later captured by the human player. However the city has an greek name so this cant be the case.

Whats interesting is that every city has three trade routes running from it. Unless this was a lengthy exercise to see whats the highest possible score attainable, I would be both shocked, but also interested were this game "legit".

I dont like the term cheat anyway. I meant (not clearly though) to suggest this particular game, and a few of the others I downloaded were exercise's in gaining terrifically high scores not to trick others but just out of curiousity.


As I said, thats just one of the 5 (approx) I DL'ed. I didnt fancy DLing any more (note I only have civ2 classic) without advice from a more experianced player to help me on points mentioned in my first post. If ive got it tottaly wrong, im sure you will say and I suspect this will illustrate my freshness and dire need of help.

-PlatinumFX

edit: typo's >_<

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

I can assure you that such a game is possible.

With well played games the AI can and will be very far behind the human player as far as tech and development goes.

My guess is that you don't use caravans very much, so it may seem an impossible task. But, that also shows the reason why every city has three trade routes in it.

The huge assembly of Barbarian units is due to the fact that all the cities were founded already and there was quite a bit of uncovered land left. My assumption is, given the number of turns in the game, the Barbarians kept popping up in the only spot that they could since the rest of the map was covered.

As far as the non-upgraded ships go, Leo's does expire thus any ships that are bribed from the AI after that point are left in their original state.

 

[PlatinumFX]

I have much to learn. =]

Your right in that my use of caravan's is limited. I tend to only use them for assisting quick wonder construction.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

You'll see how powerful they are.

This thread has links to many useful threads:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=89646

But, yes, you will need MPG to play multiplayer games.

 

[Stegyre]

You'll see how powerful they are.

Indeed, I think it is fair to say that caravans/freight are the MOST built units in the game, if you want to thrive.

 

[jadelicia]

Yah, but I still don't get the purpose of food caravans...they suck.

 

[ElephantU]

They are something to produce when you run out of commodities, allowing you to stockpile caravans for future wonders or spaceship parts. If you have a blocked commodity that is not pinned to a trade route you can use an unblocking technique called Wonder Bread, contributing a food caravan to a wonder in order to release the commodity supply. And if you really want to build up a city you can create food routes and fill the food box with two food caravans.

 

[jadelicia]

I suppose. They still drive me crazy because you can't get rid of them.

 

[Specialist290]

But using them to rush a Wonder gets rid of them, doesn't it? Or do you mean the option?

 

[jadelicia]

No, I mean, if you establish a trade route with another city with them, they can reduce the growth of the city they came from and you can't get rid of them.

 

[Specialist290]

Oh.

In that case, make sure the city you build it in has a high food surplus (or rehome it to one).

Of course, one of the benefits of a Food Caravan is that it doesn't just give you 1 extra food per turn; it also fills up the food box in the city. There is a strategy (or a cheat, really) called the Food Caravan Trick that exploits this.

 

[jadelicia]

What strategy is this?

 

[jadelicia]

If you had a food caravan from City #1 and sent it to City #2, and if you had a food caravan from City #2 and sent it to City #1, would they cancel each other out?

 

[ElephantU]

Check the GOTM Techniques and Cheats thread in the GOTM Forum for a better description of the Food Caravan Trick (FCT). The food routes would cancel out, but you would have an extra half box full of food in each city.

 

[jadelicia]

Hmmm....that's actually kind of useful then.