Map trading trick

[viciokie]

To get other civilizations to trade their maps without giving away too much or goig to war there are two tricks i use alot. 1. build the wonder marco Polo before anyone else and use that to contact other nations, that way they dont feel threatened by you being on their doorstep. 2. and much more sneaky send a trade caravan throughout a uncooperative nations territory to explore or a diplomat.(diplomats do get expelled if you are anywhere close to their territory).

 

[BaconLad]

this is a better trick.
1st save the game, then gift them all your tech and money untill they all share maps, make a mental note of where everybody is, and then load the game back to the point before you gave anything away.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

If you were to do that, why not just go into cheat mode instead?

 

[civiijkw]

If you were to do that, why not just go into cheat mode instead?

Going into cheat mode (and then restoring from a pre-cheat-mode save) would also let you know where the barbarians and undiscovered areas are. Cheat mode is easier (and you don't have to worry about discrepancies between two AI maps that are based on when the AI last saw something) but BaconLad's option gives less of an advantage than cheat mode.

 

[BaconLad]

i have the ps1 version of civ2 which i play on my ps3 (its looks really sexy in high def), so cheat mode isnt an option....

also, i wouldnt really consider saving and re-loading as cheating.

 

[Terrapin]

The issue of cheating aside, why worry about having given your techs away? Giving other civs your techs makes your research costs lower. The only techs you need to worry about giving the AI are ones that allow WoWs you want, but have not built yet. I can routinely trade for everyone's maps upon completion of MPE without giving up any such techs.

 

[BaconLad]

The issue of cheating aside, why worry about having given your techs away? Giving other civs your techs makes your research costs lower. The only techs you need to worry about giving the AI are ones that allow WoWs you want, but have not built yet. I can routinely trade for everyone's maps upon completion of MPE without giving up any such techs.

in my opinion, technology is the key to success in civ2. therefore i never under any circumstances gift/trade tech to rival nations.
despite this policy, the cost of researching tech doesnt affect my progression. i still manage to research tech at a rate of every turn (with a well establised ssc and trade network)
in past games ive been naive to share tech. it's much more beneficial to be the superior nation in terms of intelect
in my games tech = dominance.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

The key to success in Civ 2 is production, not techs. Knowledge is simply an enabler to produce what you want. Enabling a computer to produce things doesn't usually harm you directly, the exceptions being wonders, spaceships and a few military techs at certain times. Some enabling techs are great to give to the computer, like Construction, Sanitation and Republic. Meanwhile, a map will give you destinations to good trade cities, and tell you what commodities to load your caravans with. Such information will do you far more good than the odd tech will do for the computer. Another issue is convenience. It is easier to have a map readily available instead of having to make efforts to get it whenever you want it, and this is most crucial for the supply/demand screen. A few techs is a small price to pay for such convenience.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

When you play it right you can use the AI to help you discover techs you want while you're working on others. And, I can't think why anyone wouldn't think of saving and reloading as cheating.

 

[Terrapin]

Right on, DoM. Save/loading is definitely cheating. After all, if you want to save/load, you can open a game, open the cheat mode, do anything which does not require saving, such as look at the map, and then re-load the game.

Bacon, you lose very little by giving highly advanced techs to the weakest civ (which is how you lower beaker costs). Such a civ usually lacks the productive capacity to build the more expensive modern units and improvements. Plus, as P-Cat suggested, it actually benefits you when your trading partners have certain techs, such as democracy and automobile, because you can benefit from trading with them in a systematic way which the AI can never manage.

 

[civiijkw]

When you play it right you can use the AI to help you discover techs you want while you're working on others. And, I can't think why anyone wouldn't think of saving and reloading as cheating.

As far as save/reload goes it depends on how people feel about things the AI does. There have been other threads talking about how the computer seems to know which direction to go to get to you, so some feel that looking at the map and then reloading is merely a way to even the playing field.

Also, there have been some posts that said that the original documentation mentioned saving/reloading when hitting goody-boxes. An obvious comment is that if it is mentioned in the rules then it is okay.

Finally, in the OneCityChallenges you are actually obligated to save before hitting a goody-box and then reload so that you can redo it if you got an advanced tribe.

The majority here disagree with the idea that save/reload is not cheating, but those are three reasons that can be thought of for people to disagree with the majority.

P.S. Saving/reloading works wonders when you are checking out how the computer does something (such as comparing the effect of actions on research costs or seeing what happens with barbarian wrath). I don't think the majority cares about cheat mode or save/reload in an investigative game that was never meant to be played to completion.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

As far as save/reload goes it depends on how people feel about things the AI does. There have been other threads talking about how the computer seems to know which direction to go to get to you, so some feel that looking at the map and then reloading is merely a way to even the playing field.

I think a lot of AI "cheats" are a method of compensating for the fact that it is playing against a human. I imagine it is far easier to program the computer to know where to send caravans, for example, than to program it to calculate the risk vs. rewards of sending a caravan into the unknown. Similarly, unsinkable AI triremes were probably done to save the trouble of programing the computer to keep them on the coast.

Also, there have been some posts that said that the original documentation mentioned saving/reloading when hitting goody-boxes. An obvious comment is that if it is mentioned in the rules then it is okay.

I think that was for the tutorial, where they wanted to lead the player through the basic steps of the game, and there was a hut to pop.

In private games, cheating can obviously be defined however you like, because the first point of the game is to have fun. If you are playing in a compettition or comparrison, cheating obviously depends upon the rules set out by the group. What I find odd is the need to post a circumvention (and a very obvious method at that) of the general rules as a strategy.

 

[BaconLad]

Bacon, you lose very little by giving highly advanced techs to the weakest civ (which is how you lower beaker costs). Such a civ usually lacks the productive capacity to build the more expensive modern units and improvements. Plus, as P-Cat suggested, it actually benefits you when your trading partners have certain techs, such as democracy and automobile, because you can benefit from trading with them in a systematic way which the AI can never manage.

im quite happy to gain a new tech every turn. therefore i feel it is pointless to lower the beaker cost.......
also, sharing advanced techs with weaker tribes is a bad idea, as the tribes have a habbit of sharing those techs with your biggest and more advanced rivals that can make use of them.

 

[Magic_gorter]

Don't be afraid that the AI civ's become stronger then you. You're always ahead in tech's when you can discover a tech every turn. And if a civ tries to attack you you can attack him without a penalty (power democracy). And if you give away enough techs you even can discover more then one tech in a turn.

 

[WildPony]

Haha, i can't get beyond the idea that gifting techs to get maps, memorizing them, then re-loading before the map trades were ever made is not cheating . Might as well nab 10,000 gold too and walk away knowing that you have done no wrong . As to "cheating because the ai cheats"... u have to realize what a pathetically weak enemy it is and let them cheat all they want if it makes the game more interesting. The only way i have found to create a challenge vs. ai (misnomered "deity level" which implies "God-like" difficulty) is to limit myself to one city.