[TOT] Lalande 21185 - Civ2 Test of Time Sci-fi Scenario Help

[timtofly]

Seems like a necro... but nevermind

I'm surprised people still play Test of Time. It is really addictive, I need to win at least ONE game but its so difficult

I have a question - I'm an alien civ (Ka Rhee) and I set the game to 2 other AI players. I have killed one of the other AI players, but I cannot find the other one! On the Foreign Minister menu, it says that the other civ has a city size of 0 and only 2 cities, occasionally the menu will show that the city is in revolt. And only today, it made a HUUUUGE leap in tech and got from learning about Merchant Marine straight to Artificial Gravity

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I have the tech to go to Orbit and Naumachia, the AI dosen't even have VTOL or Forward Vectoring. I have also explored all of Funestis, almost all of Naumachia, and almost all of Orbit. No AI cities!

Some help would be VERY appreciated!

Welcome, I think this is the only TOT thread?

Why do you need to win? If you play as an alien, it will be harder, but you need to have at least two humans and probably another alien to get all of the tech tree, before you eliminate one or more AI. There are two jumping points that open up more of the tree. I think Artificial Gravity is the result of one of those points. The only thing I can think of, is they may have tipped a hut and that was the only available tech, so they were forced to take it. Did you look along the poles for the cities? They will only be on Funestis.

 

[Arcoolka]

Hey, thanks to Valka and timtofly for speedy responses <3

To Valka - I think the surviving civ is Observers (how ironic) and the one I killed was Cadre, I believe.

To timtofly - I want to win because I've never won before without cheating
I have checked the poles of Funestis, but I can't find the final two cities anywhere. Also, the tipping the hut theory might be right - they got Artifical Gravity whilst they were still learning Merchant Marine

Also, I did attack them before I had Xenolinguistics, so I wiped all traces that I know of them off of the planet. But even stranger, when I obtained Xenolinguistics and built the Marconi Tower, they were Reserved to me, despite me attacking them!

I'm not sure if I did attack them before or after I could build SSTO Pads, so that might mean they could've made a very lucky escape to the Orbit platforms.

Oh, and the Observers won't let me exchange Artificial Gravity with them.

 

[Arcoolka]

Update! I have managed to exchange Artificial Gravity for something! I only had to give them Omniform Bacteria, 5500 BP, and Syncretic Biology for it. But it is so worth it.

Now I need to find where they are and eat them with my Plasms!

EDIT - VERY UPDATE: They do have cities. Somewhere. They have just developed Merchant Marine... somehow. This AI is really hating me at the moment...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well, giving them Omniform Bacteria isn't too bad; it's always best if everybody knows how to minimize pollution. But Syncretic Biology? I try to avoid letting them get that one, if possible. It's too easy for them to sneak in and steal my tech or commit sabotage. However, if you build a Salmagundy in all your cities, you should be able to prevent them from harming you that way.

What units are you using to explore? Aerial units should be able to find their cities.

 

[Arcoolka]

Well, to explore all of Funestis, I used Bombus, and found both of the civs... the last trace I've ever seen of them was a Repeller. And now I've brought the apocalypse of flying death crystals, electric gyro balls and rusty giants, I don't think they can live for much longer

If it helps, I've explored all of Naumachia with HohManns and Gyrfalcons, starting on Nona with Dropships, and almost all of Orbit with Dreadnoughts. Still no trace of them!


However, I'm getting close to the View from Earth wonder, so then I might be able to track them down and obliterate them... > : )

Oh, and if it helps, they are still on the default city icon - that one with all of the orbs and tubes and stuff, I think its Harmonic Biopods or something...

 

[Arcoolka]

Ok, I did some snooping in the Events.txt folder in the Civ 2 ToT directory and found this -

;
; if a human civ gets 61, but no alien civ has 76 (flag 4),
; then give all alien civs 76
; (except any renamed player civs)
;

So it seems that if an alien civ learns Unification Theory (or a human civ learns Artificial Gravity), the other civ will automatically learn the race specific tech, regardless of their technological advances...

Oh, and I found the Observers. And killed them. Turns out, they ran away at the last moment to an unknown island, and managed to get ONE town on Naumachia. I noticed some strange Irrigation... then sent in the Gyrfalcons

And I've managed to take down three Dondasches with a HUGE Excelsior army. (I haven't counted them, but in total, I've built over 30 of them!)

Thanks to Valka and timtofly for the great help - you've helped the Ka Rhee alienify Lalande 21185!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Ok, I did some snooping in the Events.txt folder in the Civ 2 ToT directory and found this -

;
; if a human civ gets 61, but no alien civ has 76 (flag 4),
; then give all alien civs 76
; (except any renamed player civs)
;

So it seems that if an alien civ learns Unification Theory (or a human civ learns Artificial Gravity), the other civ will automatically learn the race specific tech, regardless of their technological advances...

Oh, and I found the Observers. And killed them. Turns out, they ran away at the last moment to an unknown island, and managed to get ONE town on Naumachia. I noticed some strange Irrigation... then sent in the Gyrfalcons

And I've managed to take down three Dondasches with a HUGE Excelsior army. (I haven't counted them, but in total, I've built over 30 of them!)

Thanks to Valka and timtofly for the great help - you've helped the Ka Rhee alienify Lalande 21185!

You're welcome, but please don't be offended if I don't drop in for tea - I pretty much always play one of the human civs!

BTW, it takes a lot less effort to kill the Nona aliens if you sabotage them with a half-dozen or so Salmagundy units first.

 

[timtofly]

One or two kinecticore will also work in attack mode.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

^ I tried that... my Kineticore units always ended up dead.

 

[timtofly]

Sorry, Two Salmagundy to weaken it and then two Kineticores. Also, I always use the "limited" attack instead of the "direct kill" mode. That may make a difference also. I have not played since V came out, so I do not have a current game, but I think that the kineticore will not die even if it looses in that mode. But even 4 units is better than many Excelsiors.

Another thing is do not kill them after the first one. Make them weak, if you kill them they just respawn.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

*snicker* I have a game going right now... I haven't cleared the Nona map completely yet, but have so far discovered one of the aliens puttering around on a storm area (small one only with only 8 tiles!). So that's one I don't need to worry about.

 

[Arcoolka]

You're welcome, but please don't be offended if I don't drop in for tea

Heh, that got me thinking - want to play an online game? Sci fi mode, of course.

 

[Blake00]

This is a serious thread necro sorry but this seems to be the only big ToT Scifi Scenario strategy thread in existence which should be forever preserved and added to by players! Firstly I want to say thank you to the guys who posted here years ago, it's been immensely helpful with my game.

Back when ToT came in 99ish out I was a bit 'done' with Civ2 and only had a quick go at the extended original game mode and never got around to playing the big scenarios. However now after all these years I decided to give them a go starting with the Scifi scenario. Boy was I missing out as this is great fun!!!

I learned a few extra tricks that I didn't see mentioned in this thread so I thought I'd add to the guide to help others in the future.

Things I discovered:

• My game got badly stuck for ages because I could not get the critical Plasma Chamber tech allowing you to continue on to other worlds despite having several space Shuttles. I eventually realised after re-reading this thread a few times that the script doesn't detect if you 'have' a Shuttle, it detects if you 'BUILD' a Shuttle so if you've used the lovely Morphon Attractor wonder to auto upgrade all your ships to space Shuttles it will NOT count and your game will get stuck. So if you don't need another Shuttle just build one to trigger the event and disband it to get half the shields back.
• There's some great talk in this thread about the best ways to kill the Nona gas giant titan super barb units (Urdars, Adamastrors & Dondaschs) however I think I've found an even better and safer strategy for feeling with them. Kineticores (Fighters) seem to be most peoples favourite strat here and on lower difficulty they can certainly get the job done but on the higher ones they get smashed and you have to sacrifice a ton of them. Nu Plus Ultras (Nukes) permakill the barb super titans and break story script events so they're no good at the beginning until you get all the super techs and wanna clean up. I tried using Stings (Cruise Missiles) but they barely dent them so you'd need so darn many! So the most effective strat I found was to use Salmagundys (Spies)! The barb super titans are immune to bribery of course but they are NOT immune to spy sabotage. Amazingly only 4 or 5 Salmagundys are required to bring them done to 1 hitpoint. When they complete their mission the Salmagundys auto teleport back to your nearest city saving them from retaliation. Then you send in a Kineticore to finish the job. I just created a couple of Dropships with 8 Salmagundys on each and went barb titan hunting haha! Was easy in the end although I was using a Hierarchy (Communism) gov that gives you veteran Salmagundys so perhaps under another Gov the spies may do less damage and get captured more but a Dropship can carry 8 Salmagundys so that should hopefully still be enough. If not just build more assault teams haha.
• I think this has been mentioned in this thread a few times earlier but I found that if the Nona gas giant titan super barb units 'die' while attacking you they just respawn infinitely and you get no techs. However if you're the attacker and kill them using the above tricks then that will trigger the super tech rewards. Also interestingly I did not need Nu Plus Ultras (Nukes) to permakill Urdars however I DID need them to permakill the Adamastrors & Dondaschs.

Well I think it's time I go have a go at the Midgard scenario now! Hopefully there's a nice strat thread somewhere around here for that too!

Screens form my game...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Wow, what a welcome necro!

This thread began before my time on staff and my last post was toward the end of my time on staff. So much has happened over the years, but ToT is still my favorite Civ game, and I'm still partial to Lalande and the Fantasy scenarios (Midgard is a bit different as it has designated quests and is much harder than the ordinary Fantasy game).

So the most effective strat I found was to use Salmagundys (Spies)! The barb super titans are immune to bribery of course but they are NOT immune to spy sabotage. Amazingly only 4 or 5 Salmagundys are required to bring them done to 1 hitpoint. When they complete their mission the Salmagundys auto teleport back to your nearest city saving them from retaliation. Then you send in a Kineticore to finish the job. I just created a couple of Dropships with 8 Salmagundys on each and went barb titan hunting haha! Was easy in the end although I was using a Hierarchy (Communism) gov that gives you veteran Salmagundys so perhaps under another Gov the spies may do less damage and get captured more but a Dropship can carry 8 Salmagundys so that should hopefully still be enough. If not just build more assault teams haha.

The Salmagundy strategy was discussed in a couple of posts upthread. My recommendation is to have at least two Dropships with 8 Salmagundys (remember, Dropships can also be built in any Naumachia city that's adjacent to a Dust Bowl or any "coastal" Orbital city and can teleport to Nona. I suggest more than the one Dropship because of the tendency of the Nona aliens to attack them (resulting in both ship and Salmagundies being vaporized).

Well I think it's time I go have a go at the Midgard scenario now! Hopefully there's a nice strat thread somewhere around here for that too!

I don't remember if we got around to that. If not, feel free to start one.

 

[Blake00]

The Salmagundy strategy was discussed in a couple of posts upthread. My recommendation is to have at least two Dropships with 8 Salmagundys (remember, Dropships can also be built in any Naumachia city that's adjacent to a Dust Bowl or any "coastal" Orbital city and can teleport to Nona. I suggest more than the one Dropship because of the tendency of the Nona aliens to attack them (resulting in both ship and Salmagundies being vaporized).

Oh darn it.. sorry mate haha. I did read the entire thread I swear! However it was about 2 weeks ago before I started my game and it's taken me that long just to finish it haha!! I guess I forgot the stuff about Salmagundys and thought I'd come up with some new and amazing strategy for you all haha.. my bad lol.

So Midgard is a lot harden then?.. Hmm should be interesting.. now I'm scared haha

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Oh darn it.. sorry mate haha. I did read the entire thread I swear! However it was about 2 weeks ago before I started my game and it's taken me that long just to finish it haha!! I guess I forgot the stuff about Salmagundys and thought I'd come up with some new and amazing strategy for you all haha.. my bad lol.

So Midgard is a lot harden then?.. Hmm should be interesting.. now I'm scared haha

The regular Fantasy game is a hoot (no pun intended; I usually play the Buteo race). But the Midgard scenario is brutal.

 

[Blake00]

I don't remember if we got around to that. If not, feel free to start one.

I found a couple here (which I can see you participated in back in the day haha) so I'll probably bump one of them and we can make it the 'unofficial Midgard tips' thread like this one is for Lalande Scifi. I've been playing Midgard for a couple of days now and am making some good discoveries on how to play it properly. However it's still early days so we'll see if I end up getting bloody stuck like just you did lol.

This one has some useful bits of info from you and others so I'll probably choose this one.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/test-of-times-midgard.151248/

This one has some VERY useful info from Catfish on Bifrost requirements right before he fixed the Midgard bugs however after that the thread sort of gets sidetracked by mod talk.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/tot-midgard-woes.382827/

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I found a couple here (which I can see you participated in back in the day haha) so I'll probably bump one of them and we can make it the 'unofficial Midgard tips' thread like this one is for Lalande Scifi. I've been playing Midgard for a couple of days now and am making some good discoveries on how to play it properly. However it's still early days so we'll see if I end up getting bloody stuck like just you did lol.

This one has some useful bits of info from you and others so I'll probably choose this one.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/test-of-times-midgard.151248/

Holy female bovines, that was almost 13 years ago!

I had honestly forgotten about that whole conversation. What I discovered is that there are maybe two tiles on the whole map where you can teleport to the underwater world (land on the surface world has to correspond to passable land in the underwater world, and it's the same for water - ie. a Kraken on the surface can't teleport to the underwater world unless the tile directly below it is also a water tile).

When you encounter a Dwarf, do not kill him. You get control of a Dwarf by bribing him (cost is 287 gold in the Fantasy scenario; not sure what is required in the Midgard scenario). Dwarves are the only units that can terraform underground and underwater tiles (yep, in the Fantasy scenario it's possible that late in the game you can teleport a Dwarf underwater and he can terraform any kind of tile, although it takes a loooong time).

Dwarves and Goblin Miners can exist on solid rock tiles underground. The only way you can catch a Dwarf to bribe him is if both of you are on a tile that you can reach (with a diplomat or Fairy). I've spent centuries in some games trying to lure some damn Dwarf out into a tunnel so I can bribe him; sometimes he's attacked my units and gotten himself killed, which is really annoying. You need Dwarves to properly explore and exploit the Underground, especially when the Great Dragon has its lair in an area where there aren't any tunnels.

 

[Blake00]

Holy female bovines, that was almost 13 years ago!

I had honestly forgotten about that whole conversation. What I discovered is that there are maybe two tiles on the whole map where you can teleport to the underwater world (land on the surface world has to correspond to passable land in the underwater world, and it's the same for water - ie. a Kraken on the surface can't teleport to the underwater world unless the tile directly below it is also a water tile).

When you encounter a Dwarf, do not kill him. You get control of a Dwarf by bribing him (cost is 287 gold in the Fantasy scenario; not sure what is required in the Midgard scenario). Dwarves are the only units that can terraform underground and underwater tiles (yep, in the Fantasy scenario it's possible that late in the game you can teleport a Dwarf underwater and he can terraform any kind of tile, although it takes a loooong time).

Dwarves and Goblin Miners can exist on solid rock tiles underground. The only way you can catch a Dwarf to bribe him is if both of you are on a tile that you can reach (with a diplomat or Fairy). I've spent centuries in some games trying to lure some damn Dwarf out into a tunnel so I can bribe him; sometimes he's attacked my units and gotten himself killed, which is really annoying. You need Dwarves to properly explore and exploit the Underground, especially when the Great Dragon has its lair in an area where there aren't any tunnels.

Yup I found the little mountain spots near my human start that you can use to get to the under water world with bribed fairies. A underwater M settler 'visited' me from one of the mountains and I bribed it and sent it back colonising the under water world mwahaha. Haven't seen dwarfs yet however bribing goblin miners should give me an unlimited supply of under ground tunnelers!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Yup I found the little mountain spots near my human start that you can use to get to the under water world with bribed fairies. A underwater M settler 'visited' me from one of the mountains and I bribed it and sent it back colonising the under water world mwahaha. Haven't seen dwarfs yet however bribing goblin miners should give me an unlimited supply of under ground tunnelers!

As I recall, unless you're a Goblin yourself, you can't create Goblin miners just by bribing another one or conquering a Goblin city. So you need a steady supply of skalds to use for bribery. Some of the Underground barbarians are moderately useful for exploring and helping defend your territory (ie. the Bats and Spithres). Some Stygian units are useful in that they can teleport to all map levels (including clouds; that's how the Stygians can build cities there, by finding a nest (aka goodie hut) that turns out to be either a city or a Buteo settler that they can use to build a city. Personally I get really annoyed when barbarians or AI build cloud cities, because they almost never build them in the best spots.

Another thing to be aware of in case of global warming: Build Buteo cities on the Magic Clouds as much as possible, because if Global Warming happens, the white and grey clouds vanish... and so do any cities built on them. You can't irrigate clouds, but you can get lots of other benefits by mining.

On the matter of bribing Dwarves... When I find one that's hiding next to a tunnel, I try to get as many Goblin Miners in there as possible to build extra tunnels so your skald/Fairy can actually get to the Dwarf. Eventually he's got no bedrock to retreat to, and you can finally catch him. But he's apt to attack when cornered, so be careful not to leave your skald or fairy in an adjacent tile. Skalds can move 2 tiles and Fairies can move 3, so you should be able to catch the Dwarf eventually.

And you absolutely do need Dwarves, because they can terraform bedrock to tunnels, and tunnels to caves. They build railroads and clean up pollution much faster than normal settlers. A bonus is that bribing a Dwarf automatically grants you the Metallurgy tech.