Maximum game, anyone?

[Marlos]

Hey can anyone tell me how to get a screenshot of my powergraph and approval rating, etc. so that I can submit them to the HOF when I am (finally) done?

 

[Zedd]

don't forget that happy people are a big boost to your score so the last few turns go max luxuries and celebrate your way to a high score.
BTW is there a pop limit? I end up bored when there isn't another civ to pick on so i never tried it.

 

[starlifter]

BTW is there a pop limit?

No, not per se. The Population stops reporting past 320,000,000, but in fact will increase just fine (you must add all cities manually past this). The theoretical max population is limited by 255*127*(pop of a size 127 city).

Just for fun, I won't state the answer, so that folks will have a mini-puzzle to solve.

Advanced Civers Only: The other mini-puzzle is to explain how you can have 255 cities (no pet), not yet reached victory condition, an no cheat mode or file/scenario editing. The "commonly" assumed max cities in an empire is 254, btw.

 

[starlifter]

Oooops, excuse me. I totally forgot to reply about the Scrennshot question. Personally, I use Hyper-SnapDX. Some people use Print Screen. There are a lot of decent screen capture programs .

http://www.tucows.com/

 

[duke o' york]

With regard to having 255 cities, that must be when the AI has just a settler left, but I'm not sure how they'd get one that would not die with their last city. Unless they got a NONE out of a hut with a wandering unit just before the city fell and the unit lost its support.

[edit]: This could be a lengthy edit, but hey. I don't want to be accused of spam-mongering.
It is something that I have never done, but what happens when you gift the AI a unit? Does the unit just appear in an AI city? What if the unit is out in the field? Thinking of the above, if I gifted the AI an engineer that was out improving my land and nowhere near his city, then would the engineer just change its allegiance and its status to NONE or would it instantly be transported into the AI city and certain death?

 

[ferenginar]

The population of a city sized 127 is 81,280,000: so if you had 255 such cities the total population would be 20,726,400,000.

appox 3 times current population of earth.

ferenginar

 

[Marlos]

Originally posted by starlifter
No, not per se. The Population stops reporting past 320,000,000, but in fact will increase just fine (you must add all cities manually past this).

Actually, starlifter, I remember another game that I played where the 320 million counter "re-set" and began counting at zero again. This occurred toward the end of the game, of course, when my 255 cities were maxing on population. I think that the counter crossed 1 billion and truncated the first digit. At the end of each turn, though, there was no report of my total ("the population of the fertile ___ empire totals ___").

Sadly, my hard drive crashed while I was in the 1980s or something, and the game is lost forever. I believe it was a Prince level game on a large world, seven civs. Since then, I backup periodically!

originally posted by feringinar
The population of a city sized 127 is 81,280,000: so if you had 255 such cities the total population would be 20,726,400,000.

You can't have 255 127-sized cities, can you? I mean, a 127-sized city is formed through food caravans, which would take from another city. Right?

 

[Chofritz]

Duke, even a NONE settler would die with the last city, what you have to do is to follow the AI's first settler with a unit so that he can never build a city, Settlers never builds cities if there is a military unit nearby as far as I know. With the zone of control you should be able to trap him and just fortify your military unit,

 

[Zedd]

I think the answer to our "mini quiz" is that if you play against one civ and defeat all his cities, yet the game is set to restart eliminated civ's. Then you take his city as your 255'th and he has to wonder arround with his settler not able to build.

 

[ferenginar]

Zed, the game only restarts a civ if there is space for it to start in.
If it started a new Civ regardless then you could never win by conquest with restart civ turned on.

Marlos, I'm not suggesting that it is possible to achieve 255 cities at 127 pop, all I did was calculate what that theoretical maximum population would be.

ferenginar

 

[starlifter]

Feringinar's got the 1st question, and Zedd's got the bonus. If restart is on, and a civ spawns with a settler to make a new city, yet they cannot found one, you can have them all. There is also another way, with respawn off. I won't keep the suspense... on rare occasions, you may find a civ that simply never gets the chance to found a city from the very start. I've seen this happen once, when game testing someting else. I was not playing a full game, but had his setter cornered in ancient times, and it turned out he had no city. If the game were to continue as a high score attempt (not the inclination nor the right map type for it anywahy), then the human could have had 255 cities.

originally posted by feringinar

The population of a city sized 127 is 81,280,000: so if you had 255 such cities the total population would be 20,726,400,000.

That's what I had in mind . Good Job!!

You can't have 255 127-sized cities, can you? I mean, a 127-sized city is formed through food caravans, which would take from another city. Right?

Unless you get lucky, you'll have to settle for 254 cities + 1 pet, but the size 127 city can be done via the FCT (food caravan trick). No one has made that attempt that I know of, unless the folks at Apolyton have. Shadowdale came within about 70% of max, as I recall. The game would be very very tedious, and take months of part-time play to complete, even using the speedy tricks (like naming cnventions) to hurry things along.... but in theory, could be done.

This occurred toward the end of the game, of course, when my 255 cities were maxing on population. I think that the counter crossed 1 billion and truncated the first digit. At the end of each turn, though, there was no report of my total ("the population of the fertile ___ empire totals ___")

Personally, I've been over 1 billion once... with Civ II MGE (5.4.0f, AKA Patch 3). I never had the rollover and powergraph problems that some have reported in high scoring games. There is a patch in the Downloads section that supposedly keeps track of Pop beyond 320,000,000, but I have not tried it before.

I have never even been to 320,000,000 with clasic or FW (well, I've never played those versions at all until this week, LOL).

 

[starlifter]

It is something that I have never done, but what happens when you gift the AI a unit? Does the unit just appear in an AI city? What if the unit is out in the field? Thinking of the above, if I gifted the AI an engineer that was out improving my land and nowhere near his city, then would the engineer just change its allegiance and its status to NONE or would it instantly be transported into the AI city and certain death?

What happens is the unit you choose is sent to the nearest AI city, and becomes a NONE for the AI empire. I have not gifted enough to know if it always goes to the nearest city, but I assume so. I have never seen an exception to the NONE rule. The unit definitely does not "reman in the field".... it is sent to an AI city --- the closest one, in my experience.

 

[starlifter]

by Marlos:

Any last-minute tips would be appreciated.

Be sure to kill off your engineers and grow. An engineer is worth at least one Pop point. Also, build Courthouses in every city. I'm sure you know about the trade benefits of Airports and Superhighways... and the resulting effect on happiness and score. Build 'em. You sound like you already know that all terrain except wheat and oasis should be grassland for a high score.....

BTW, anyone, what happens when the screen that shows when you hit Shift-T says that your discovering in -1 turns?

I have never seen that before. What version are you playing with?

 

[Marlos]

What is the trade benefit of an Airport? The Civilopedia doesn't mention one.

I believe that I have version 2.42 (I'm at work right now and the game is at home). Isn't that the most current?

 

[starlifter]

If both the source and destination cityies have an airport, you will gain a 50% Trade Route Bonus. Your trade route value will also be increased 50%.

e.g, If a delivery was 2,000 gold (typical late game, large map), then it would be 3,000 if both cities had an airport. If the trade route's "natural" value was 8 arrows, it would be 12 with airports.

2.42 is the most current version of the "classic" Civ 2, but there are also subsequently released games, most notabley Future Worlds 2.78, and Multiplayer Gold Edition, 5.4.0f (with patch 3).

2.42 is not out of date, but it can't read a MGE save, for instance. There are slight differences in gameplay, most notably the hostility of the AI in MGE. I am just playing with Civ 2 2.42 this week for the first time (I have always used MGE before). Others with more experience with the different versions could likely comment more...

 

[Marlos]

Originally posted by starlifter
2.42 is not out of date, but it can't read a MGE save, for instance.

I am playing Civ2 Classic, and I was going to download Cedric's patch and upgrade to MGE as soon as this game is done! It looks like it's a good thing that I am waiting until then!

Thank you, again, starlifter!

 

[Marlos]

Quick update for anyone still interested. I am at year 2002 (hmm, like today? ), have a score just over 11500, have 254 cities (1 pet American city, most of mine are capitalized), researching FT 151.

I am thankful that I am almost done!

 

[Zedd]

Cool Marlo..........How fast are your researching tech? I don't know what the limit is (if any) on future tech but you should be at 170 by end game right?

 

[duke o' york]

The limit on FTs is the same as the city limit IIRC, but once you get to that FT then it resets itself and you don't even get the points for all those you've researched before that. However, when you reach FT 160something, then the beakers go back to the start. So you start researching FT 161 or so at the same rate as you researched Alphabet for example. Starlifter might be able to help you with this when he gets back to the board as I'm uncertain on practically all the details here. Sorry.

 

[Marlos]

Originally posted by duke o' york
The limit on FTs is the same as the city limit IIRC, but once you get to that FT then it resets itself and you don't even get the points for all those you've researched before that. However, when you reach FT 160something, then the beakers go back to the start. So you start researching FT 161 or so at the same rate as you researched Alphabet for example.

I had read (in Nethog's Civ2 'game guide') that the FTs reset at 255, so I was trying to maximize without going over. Felt like I was playing "The Price is Right" or something.

Anyway, I get to FT 160 on my last turn before the SS lands, and all of a sudden I am just ripping through the FTs! As I'm sitting and hitting <enter> repeatedly, suddenly it occurs to me that I could go over and lose all of them! Fortunately, I stopped at FT 205! I had, Zedd, been earning about 1 FT per turn (give or take), but I think I researched 40 or so in the last turn!

My final score was 12344! [dance] I had a total population of 1.3 billion, about 1,500 military units and a rating of 493%! Time to submit! Thank you for all of your help and support!

On to MPGE and GOTM18!