How do i effectively use Democracy

[WildPony]

Except when playing OCC I do not like early Republic. At higher levels (I usually play emperor or deity) it is impossible to celebrate without Michelangelo's which is not an early wonder.

Hi Ali,

Since you are a master of civ in your own right, i am very surprised to see this post from you. Actually in Republic with HG in Deity, cities celebrate quite nicely even at the earliest stages of the game and with 36+ cities in deity inducing "critical mass" (more anarchists creating a fantastically heightened benefit brought forth by luxury rate), cities can celebrate beautifully with no wonders and no buildings at all. Where anarchists are concerned, 2 lux acts like 6 bringing them all the way to happy guy status, skipping unhappy and content.

The only remaining advantage of Republic is better trade payoffs. But I can mimic the same most of the time by thinking ahead: one turn before delivery I employ enough entertainers to make my city celebrate in Monarchy which then gives me the same arrows as republic.

As intimated by Peaster, a celebrating size 3 city in Monarchy can not mimic a celebrated size 7 city in Republic.

 

[WildPony]

I dunno ... Human-vs-Human might be even more interesting strategically than single player,...

Oh God Yes ... Can you imagine a game where you have to share the wonders and fight an equally powerful enemy with 50-100 cities each ?. I've had games where one guy has HG, pyramids, Sun Tzu's and Magellans, and the other guy has Lighthouse, Mikes, Bachs, Leos, and Statue. Awesome when you start fighting with iron clads, each man sinking 50 of the other guys.

but AFAIK nobody has written a guide to it, or even a list of general principles (I think there is only a short guide, written by eyes-of-night).

A formal guide, perhaps not... but there are a lot of writings out there. As a side note, when i played eyes of night, I beat him 4 games out of 4 . He makes some good points, but there is a lot of better information out there than what you find in his guide.

Why don't you start one, or maybe just a thread in this forum to see if MP players have ideas to share ?

Honestly, in my experience with this forum, there is very little interest in multi player. If it was otherwise i might have been motivated to write something. There was a German multi player League which flourished until about 2005 where a handful of masters were able to sharpen eachother's steel . I learned quite a bit playing in that league. If somebody else took the initiative i would likely be happy to contribute.

Interesting ! I'd expect that growth would be a bit faster in Monarchy because of the support edge, but maybe the need for early HG is enough to give Repu an edge.

When ICS'ing, the support edge doesn't have much of a chance to make a big difference. The rush level of plopping the next city down 2 steps away goes a long way in assuring this. Having to get HG so much earlier in Monarchy is to me a much larger limiting factor and let's not forget that you are forced to build warriors instead of focusing all of your shields towards settlers.

This kind of thing is hard to calculate, but fairly easy to test in comparison games.

Indeed, and comparison games would be best without huts as one guy can find a lot more early tribes and the other guy a lot more red horses and that can dramatically skew the comparison of which strategy works better. Have you ever stopped to consider how powerful it is to find a tribe when you and your enemy have one city each? 2:1 can become 18:10. Of course over many games this would generally balance itself out, but my favorite game is one without huts, skill against skill.

I don't know of any EL player [or EC] who has tried this, but I haven't studied many EL games ... do you know of any like that ?

No, being mostly a human vs. human player i haven't taken much time to study the GOTMS, so you would know a lot better than me .

Do you have any old saves from the games you quit? Especially useful would be saves from approx 1000BC to 500BC, preferably in some GOTM that I also played in. If not, I might replay the early years of one of those gotms myself, but that might not be fair ... I might not play early Repu as well as you, or as well as I play early Mona. Would you be willing to replay one of those, thru approx 500BC ?

This is a very interesting possibility and i do have saves somewhere. I have not played a turn of civ in 3 months or longer. My old laptop died and i don't have civ installed on my new laptop, having taken this opportunity to take a long break from it. You have made it very tempting to reinstall the game, especially with your Masterful track record. I had always hoped we could play eachother .

 

[Peaster]

A formal guide, perhaps not... but there are a lot of writings out there. As a side note, when i played eyes of night, I beat him 4 games out of 4 . He makes some good points, but there is a lot of better information out there than what you find in his guide. ... If somebody else took the initiative i would likely be happy to contribute.

Personally, I don't really care about a guide to MP/PBEM, and won't get involved in that. But it's puzzling to me that nobody in the MP community does. At the least, I'd expect a thread with links to the best writings.

When ICS'ing, the support edge doesn't have much of a chance to make a big difference. The rush level of plopping the next city down 2 steps away goes a long way in assuring this. Having to get HG so much earlier in Monarchy is to me a much larger limiting factor and let's not forget that you are forced to build warriors instead of focusing all of your shields towards settlers.

No, being mostly a human vs. human player i haven't taken much time to study the GOTMS, so you would know a lot better than me .

This is a very interesting possibility and i do have saves somewhere. You have made it very tempting to reinstall the game...

I was looking into some old EL comparison games at Apolyton today, and found a short discussion of early republic by solo. I've lost the link now, but if you are interested, I think it was game #5, approx 2003, and you can probably find it with Google.

IIRC, these players [some very strong ones!] believed in early republic for a while, but eventually became convinced that early monarchy works better. Solo gave some reasons, which I don't remember very well, but I think they were based on support costs and growth rate, so it has become "your word against his" on that, I guess. To me, the fact that early monarchy worked better in high level comparison games is pretty convincing. There is still a chance your idea is correct, but IMO you should dust off those old saves and show us!

 

[Peaster]

@Wildpony:

Here's a link to an old discussion at Apolyton, of republic vs monarchy, with quite a few good points on both sides. One was that tribute is possible with monarchy (in single-player games, of course). The players felt this gave monarchy an edge on large maps, and also when there was no great SSC site.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=80550&page=4

That's from Game #2. By Game #5, it seems solo had switched from the early republic side to the early monarchy side. IMO one of his strengths was his willingness to change his mind and his habits. I am not sure if all the other players agreed on early monarchy; this question seems to be trickier than I thought, at least for EL games.

AFAIK these were some of the best EL games ever played... if anyone knows of better ones, please share!

 

[Magic_gorter]

I know comparison game 7 was the best as far as I know. You can find it here.

I do know they tried it also with only human players and managed an 1 AD launch....

 

[Ali Ardavan]

I agree with most of your points, but maybe not this one. In GOTM 110 [Emperor], I switched from Monarchy to Republic in 625BC when I had about 20 cities. I celebrated my size 3 cities up to about size 6 without Mike's [and without city improvements]. According to my notes, I set luxuries to 80, so you could argue that it was expensive, but IIRC this was only for a few turns. You could also argue that size 6 isn't much, but it was a great help to trade bonuses in that phase of my game.

I am amazed that you managed to celebrate size 3 cities to size 6 without Michelangelo and without temples. Perhaps I am wrong in my assessment and need to revisit the issue.

Since you don't ICS, this probably wouldn't work well in your games.

That is true and I am sure it has affected my judgement significantly. I place most cities with little overlap. Sometimes I found cities with huge overlap but I consider them special and notate their name to remind myself they are meant to remain small.

Hi Ali,
Since you are a master of civ in your own right, i am very surprised to see this post from you. Actually in Republic with HG in Deity, cities celebrate quite nicely even at the earliest stages of the game and with 36+ cities in deity inducing "critical mass" (more anarchists creating a fantastically heightened benefit brought forth by luxury rate), cities can celebrate beautifully with no wonders and no buildings at all. Where anarchists are concerned, 2 lux acts like 6 bringing them all the way to happy guy status, skipping unhappy and content.

Good points. As I said above, I should revisit the issue. But for me, 36 cities is not early game, it is mid game.

As intimated by Peaster, a celebrating size 3 city in Monarchy can not mimic a celebrated size 7 city in Republic.

Indeed. What I meant was that I can make most size n cities in Monarchy to look like a size n city in Republic for one turn with proper planing and small cost.

I should add one more point here. While we are all talking about "switching to Republic soon after you can and not waiting for Michelangleo" here that is not what many discussions on the topic of "Early Republic" are about. For many "Early Republic" means skipping monarchy altogether and shooting for Republic as your first tech goal, switching to it from despotism. Keep that in mind as you look up forum articles on the subject.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Oh God Yes ... Can you imagine a game where you have to share the wonders and fight an equally powerful enemy with 50-100 cities each ?. I've had games where one guy has HG, pyramids, Sun Tzu's and Magellans, and the other guy has Lighthouse, Mikes, Bachs, Leos, and Statue. Awesome when you start fighting with iron clads, each man sinking 50 of the other guys.

No, being mostly a human vs. human player i haven't taken much time to study the GOTMS, ... You have made it very tempting to reinstall the game, especially with your Masterful track record. I had always hoped we could play eachother .

I have often wondered about playing against a human in Civ2. I know it would be very different and very challenging. Your description is certainly tempting. I have never tried it myself mainly due to lack of real time and partially because I do not own the MP version of the game.

Just out of curiosity, are all MP games 2 humans and some computer players? Are there ever games with more than 2 humans? I do not know if that is even technically possible.

I wish you would join GOTMs. The more players, the more fun it is for all of us.

 

[WildPony]

I have often wondered about playing against a human in Civ2. I know it would be very different and very challenging. Your description is certainly tempting. I have never tried it myself mainly due to lack of real time and partially because I do not own the MP version of the game.

Just out of curiosity, are all MP games 2 humans and some computer players? Are there ever games with more than 2 humans? I do not know if that is even technically possible.

I wish you would join GOTMs. The more players, the more fun it is for all of us.

Hi Ali,

Thank you very much for your post.

MP games can be played with as many as 7 humans or any number of humans and ai's adding up to the 7 colors. What is most common in multi player (but it all depends upon what each player wants) is the "duelle" consisting of one human vs. another with no ai's, and 3 human games are reasonably common as well. There is actually a way to download the full version of civ 2 multiplayer gold for free though i would have to re-discover how to go about this. If i'm not mistaken, this very site provides an update to convert single to multi.

Normal movement/normal production Deity was and is one popular style and that's what was played in the German liga which as i mentioned before thrived until about 2005. Also multiplayer allows for the possibility of double movement and/or double production and for many players this was and is the preference... and this is usually played on "king" level which allows cities in republic to celebrate early with no wonders or buildings (introducing a great imbalance to the Monarchy vs. Republic debate). Most multi player games evolved to include "villages only" since the real enemy was the other human and this was the majority preferred setting.

Other popular variations: One city with no huts and with premade equal and beautiful rivered land containing 4 specials, 2-3-5-10-15 city limit games and certainly the always exciting unlimited city game.

I have played tons of both single and double production and love them both, each providing slightly differing overall strategies. As you might imagine, "One city" games move very quickly and within 2 or 3 hours you are fighting eachother with Battleships, trying to sneak or escort the ever important trades, attempting to occupy the other's land, each player with 4 or 5 wonders. My favorite is a game that reaches the point where you are fighting with Battleships, Stealth Bombers, Stealth Fighters, Carriers, Howitzers and Mech Infantry. Nukes are generally banned because they are so powerful as to diminish the fun.

As to the time, you are correct that it can become immensely time consuming. For me though, the Gotm's become that every bit as much unless i play them as one city. In a game vs. another human, you don't need to conquor their every city. Once they realize they can't win they will resign. In the Gotms, for me it gets very tedious managing 100+ cities each turn and searching out every last city in every corner of the world. Not to knock it, that's just been my experience and it becomes unexciting for me to continue, especially when compared to the turbo excitement i find in multi player. At some point i decided i was only going to play gotms as one city games and i got derailed because certain games are not suitable to one city . Nevertheless i think it would be fun to find some 500bc or 1ad saves and make some comparisons.

One final point is that often once unlimited city games become extremely busy, they can become "one turn per day" games, each player taking most of his turn without the other player needing to be there and saving before ending turn.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Thank you for the details WildPony. It is now even more tempting. Judging from inexperience I find a mixture of computer and human players very intriguing.

Very good point about time consuming end game in regular Civ2.

 

[WildPony]

Thank you for the details WildPony. It is now even more tempting. Judging from inexperience I find a mixture of computer and human players very intriguing.

Very good point about time consuming end game in regular Civ2.

A lot of players who are used to ai's enjoy bringing them in to the multi player games. They are like old friends . I always want to accomodate the wishes of someone new to multiplayer and will play anything, allowing them to decide every setting from ais to barbs to size and everything else. Usually new players are quite inexperienced and ineffective and it becomes a training game for them, so it would be exciting to face masters like you or Peaster .

Players who have learned to completely dominate the ai will always be able to make the transition into being great players against other humans also. The adjustment that has to be made is that now you are facing a skilled enemy who will employ clever tactics just as you do, and as such will never attack your mountaintop pikemen with horses or engage in other such shenanigans .

 

[WildPony]

Thank you for the details WildPony. It is now even more tempting. Judging from inexperience I find a mixture of computer and human players very intriguing.

Well my new laptop has windows 7. I tried to download civ 2 yesterday but it was rejected. Does anybody know of a way to download civ 2 onto windows 7 or is it only possible through Vista? My other computer is still down.

 

[Hoffmann]

Definitely build Shakespeares Theatre in a democracy to make the most of your army, navy and air force without unhappiness problems and riots. Just let the ST city own the units.