Got a pretty new fancy mobile phone. The huge lump is pretty useless as a phone. Being bulky and eating up the battery in a day without really providing any features I need over what I had 15 years ago. So what to do with it? It runs dosbox, so I can play dos games when I have nothing else to do.. Hello Civilization I.. 
I really liked the addition of unit hitpoints in civ2 and cultural borders in civ3, but a bit undecided on all the new features in 4 and 5. But Civ1 is still fun, so thought I'd try to revitalize it.. Looked online here, but found the Civ1 info lacking, so thought I'd add a bit if someone else is interested.
Game goal
I love to optimize stuff, which makes a turn based game like civilization awesome. But to optimize I need a clear goal.
Just winning by conquest sounds boring. With luck, that can be done by using starting settler to pop a hut for cavalry, run around popping more huts and winning the game very early, and you don't actually need to build a single city. Of course you will to do better, but the game may end so early, and it's all up to having a map suitable for it, and luck popping huts and with initial combat.
Winning by having the best score sounds interesting in that you have to play the full amount of turns. However, due to the calculation, it seems that optimizing for the score would result in some boring play.
To avoiding having to define my own criteria for what to optimize, the earliest possible space victory seems to be a decent option. Needing to get a lot of techs, and some decent production cities.
Game settings
A randomized map adds a level of having to scout. However, comparing results from two different randomized maps gets very hard. Additionally, to optimize for a long term goal, you need to create a lot of cities, and naming your cities so you find them is hard. Using the earth map solves both of these. I can name cities after where they are located on earth to easily find them, and I can create other games with the same map to compare what looks best.
The AI isn't really a challenge, but play at Emperor level to at least give yourself some handicap.
Cheating
What is cheating? Optimizing is all about doing the smartest thing. A line has to be drawn as to what is cheating. I consider everything listed in the cheat page cheating. Especially everything that resorts to altering any game files and exploitation of bugs. In addition to what is listed in the cheat page, I define the following a cheat.
- Creating cities close to AI city to create a settler removing the city, to turn your settlers into homeless settlers with no upkeep cost. Working 2 forest tiles settlers can be made homeless in 10 turns.
I do not consider save/load cheating unless it causes a result that could not have happened without doing so. Why? You can of course get a lot of advantage creating better luck for yourself by saving and loading, but I allow it for the following reasons:
- It's too boring to check all the cities every turn to see if they will grow, finish production or similar next turn. So occasionally things go bad next turn because I forget something. Loading game instead of having to do lots of tedious micro management sounds much less painful without giving me an advantage.
- You can of course do better with luck. To do the best you need some good luck. Especially early luck is important. As I'm trying to play the optimal game, I'd have to restart the game instead of reloading if I had some utter bad luck destroying the game. Load/Saving to avoid some crucial bad luck seems superior. It's supposed to be enjoying anyhow.
First game
- First attempt, I'm trying to go for germans. They often get to start with two settlers due to the handicap. Likely because other civs starts close. I consider that just an advantage.
Early game strategy
- Build only settlers.
- Keep science at 100%. No buildings to pay upkeep for.
- Use first settler to build capitol.
- Use second settler to pop hut for cavalry.
- Use cavalry to get more homeless cavalry to have some units that can move around without penalty in republic/democracy.
- Pop huts for bonuses before AI does. Advanced civs for free city is the best one. Homeless cavalry very useful. Tech in our wanted tech path is also good. Should try to avoid techs we do not want yet to make those we want cheaper.
- Steal cities with cavalry, possible also with settler if defenseless.
- Beeline to Republic. Try to not acquire techs that do not lead to Republic, as they make it more expensive to get to Republic.
- Switch to Republic as soon as we can.
- Expand expand expand with the settlers you get and the found/stolen cities.
- Beeline to Trade and Religion so we can get JS Bach early to increase max city size.
State at 3000 BC:
- Got 18 cities, size 1 & 2. 4 stolen, 6 from huts, 8 from settlers.
- Have 5 settlers. One original homeless one. 4 homeless cavalry.
- Produced 11 settlers and one warrior (to defend against chinese attack my cavalry was too far away from. Warrior was disbanded after)
- Got a good presence in europe, mid africa and around india.
- Have researched 18 techs, one turn away from 19, including Republic/Democracy/Religion/Trade
- 7 cities started creating caravans for JS Bach.
- Have been republic for a while. Switched to democracy recently, as we found it in hut, and population is reasonably wide spread.
- Got some unwanted techs while beelining Republic. Was forced upon some techs stealing enemy civs, and some of the techs was not selectable when wanted so had to research something else while waiting.
- Starting opponents, Greece, Romans & India destroyed. Have waited to destroy China/Babylon for a chance to steal their only city. Restarted nation Mongol destroyed. Aztecs in america unseen.
Developing game strategy
- Build JS Bach.
- Beeline to Railroad as soon as possible.
- Get Genetic Engineering for Cure for Cancer.
- Keep expanding. Connect all cities with rails.
- Prepare for a We love the presiday day sale to increase population, once JS Bach and Cure for Cancer is present.
State at 2000 BC
- Got JS Bach soon after 3000 BC.
- Almost got enough caravans to complete Cure for Cancer.
- Railroads almost between all cities.
- Got 34 cities and 34 settlers now. Same 4 cavalry and 10 caravans.
- Did not manage to expand to the entire continent but have spread fairly wide at least.
- Beijing was in food poor territory so didn't seem like I could ever steal it. Destroyed it. Stole Babylon. No remaining civs on continent.
- Researching Electricity. Electronics will still follow for Hoover dam access.
Mid game strategy
- Complete cure for cancer.
- Use We love the president day to boost population.
- Get some cash to buy some temples/cathedrals.
- Take advantage of higher pop and railroads adding food surplus to get a lot of settlers and develop lands quickly.
- Research remaining tech needed.
State at 1000 BC
- All interesting techs researched.
- Could have founded Apollo Program at 1180, but found hoover dam instead to create production powerhouses first.
- Wasted money on Isaac Newton College.. Stupid.. Not did I need the tech bonus. Not do I have any libraries / universities anyhow yet. And I was forced to research obsoleting tech soon after to get to future tech anyhow.
- Built Seti Wonder to get free library in all cities. Put my tech speed to 1 turn, but was probably also waste as I don't need more techs, and teched way faster than needed anyhow.
- President sale held. Added settlers to boost all cities to size 3 as they seemed to have to be that to be included. Got all but one city to size 6-10. A lot to 10. Produced/Bought temples everywhere and cathedrals where I could afford. Most cities needing it have cathedrals now.
- Manufacturing plant produced/bought in my best production cities. Leaving me at least 4 production powerhouses.
Late game strategy
- See if I can complete a spaceship before Christ is born.
Result
- Finished space ship 680 BC. Was supposed to arrive in 22 years, but estimate was -658 years and it didn't work.
- Researched way too many techs I didn't need.
- Built stuff I didn't need to build.
- Had way more cities than needed to efficiently build spaceship.
Can probably shave quite a lot of time away from that..
Issue found:
- Not having built anything but temples/cathedrals in cities and a few wonders, list of stuff to build in city becomes too large, so I'm unable to pick what I want to produce. Only get a list of next/next. Have to build enough useless wonders to get few enough buildings left to build before I can start building spaceship. If only the silly AI had managed to build some more of those early wonders.
I really liked the addition of unit hitpoints in civ2 and cultural borders in civ3, but a bit undecided on all the new features in 4 and 5. But Civ1 is still fun, so thought I'd try to revitalize it.. Looked online here, but found the Civ1 info lacking, so thought I'd add a bit if someone else is interested.Game goal
I love to optimize stuff, which makes a turn based game like civilization awesome. But to optimize I need a clear goal.
Just winning by conquest sounds boring. With luck, that can be done by using starting settler to pop a hut for cavalry, run around popping more huts and winning the game very early, and you don't actually need to build a single city. Of course you will to do better, but the game may end so early, and it's all up to having a map suitable for it, and luck popping huts and with initial combat.
Winning by having the best score sounds interesting in that you have to play the full amount of turns. However, due to the calculation, it seems that optimizing for the score would result in some boring play.
To avoiding having to define my own criteria for what to optimize, the earliest possible space victory seems to be a decent option. Needing to get a lot of techs, and some decent production cities.
Game settings
A randomized map adds a level of having to scout. However, comparing results from two different randomized maps gets very hard. Additionally, to optimize for a long term goal, you need to create a lot of cities, and naming your cities so you find them is hard. Using the earth map solves both of these. I can name cities after where they are located on earth to easily find them, and I can create other games with the same map to compare what looks best.
The AI isn't really a challenge, but play at Emperor level to at least give yourself some handicap.
Cheating
What is cheating? Optimizing is all about doing the smartest thing. A line has to be drawn as to what is cheating. I consider everything listed in the cheat page cheating. Especially everything that resorts to altering any game files and exploitation of bugs. In addition to what is listed in the cheat page, I define the following a cheat.
- Creating cities close to AI city to create a settler removing the city, to turn your settlers into homeless settlers with no upkeep cost. Working 2 forest tiles settlers can be made homeless in 10 turns.
I do not consider save/load cheating unless it causes a result that could not have happened without doing so. Why? You can of course get a lot of advantage creating better luck for yourself by saving and loading, but I allow it for the following reasons:
- It's too boring to check all the cities every turn to see if they will grow, finish production or similar next turn. So occasionally things go bad next turn because I forget something. Loading game instead of having to do lots of tedious micro management sounds much less painful without giving me an advantage.
- You can of course do better with luck. To do the best you need some good luck. Especially early luck is important. As I'm trying to play the optimal game, I'd have to restart the game instead of reloading if I had some utter bad luck destroying the game. Load/Saving to avoid some crucial bad luck seems superior. It's supposed to be enjoying anyhow.
First game
- First attempt, I'm trying to go for germans. They often get to start with two settlers due to the handicap. Likely because other civs starts close. I consider that just an advantage.
Early game strategy
- Build only settlers.
- Keep science at 100%. No buildings to pay upkeep for.
- Use first settler to build capitol.
- Use second settler to pop hut for cavalry.
- Use cavalry to get more homeless cavalry to have some units that can move around without penalty in republic/democracy.
- Pop huts for bonuses before AI does. Advanced civs for free city is the best one. Homeless cavalry very useful. Tech in our wanted tech path is also good. Should try to avoid techs we do not want yet to make those we want cheaper.
- Steal cities with cavalry, possible also with settler if defenseless.
- Beeline to Republic. Try to not acquire techs that do not lead to Republic, as they make it more expensive to get to Republic.
- Switch to Republic as soon as we can.
- Expand expand expand with the settlers you get and the found/stolen cities.
- Beeline to Trade and Religion so we can get JS Bach early to increase max city size.
State at 3000 BC:
- Got 18 cities, size 1 & 2. 4 stolen, 6 from huts, 8 from settlers.
- Have 5 settlers. One original homeless one. 4 homeless cavalry.
- Produced 11 settlers and one warrior (to defend against chinese attack my cavalry was too far away from. Warrior was disbanded after)
- Got a good presence in europe, mid africa and around india.
- Have researched 18 techs, one turn away from 19, including Republic/Democracy/Religion/Trade
- 7 cities started creating caravans for JS Bach.
- Have been republic for a while. Switched to democracy recently, as we found it in hut, and population is reasonably wide spread.
- Got some unwanted techs while beelining Republic. Was forced upon some techs stealing enemy civs, and some of the techs was not selectable when wanted so had to research something else while waiting.
- Starting opponents, Greece, Romans & India destroyed. Have waited to destroy China/Babylon for a chance to steal their only city. Restarted nation Mongol destroyed. Aztecs in america unseen.
Developing game strategy
- Build JS Bach.
- Beeline to Railroad as soon as possible.
- Get Genetic Engineering for Cure for Cancer.
- Keep expanding. Connect all cities with rails.
- Prepare for a We love the presiday day sale to increase population, once JS Bach and Cure for Cancer is present.
State at 2000 BC
- Got JS Bach soon after 3000 BC.
- Almost got enough caravans to complete Cure for Cancer.
- Railroads almost between all cities.
- Got 34 cities and 34 settlers now. Same 4 cavalry and 10 caravans.
- Did not manage to expand to the entire continent but have spread fairly wide at least.
- Beijing was in food poor territory so didn't seem like I could ever steal it. Destroyed it. Stole Babylon. No remaining civs on continent.
- Researching Electricity. Electronics will still follow for Hoover dam access.
Mid game strategy
- Complete cure for cancer.
- Use We love the president day to boost population.
- Get some cash to buy some temples/cathedrals.
- Take advantage of higher pop and railroads adding food surplus to get a lot of settlers and develop lands quickly.
- Research remaining tech needed.
State at 1000 BC
- All interesting techs researched.
- Could have founded Apollo Program at 1180, but found hoover dam instead to create production powerhouses first.
- Wasted money on Isaac Newton College.. Stupid.. Not did I need the tech bonus. Not do I have any libraries / universities anyhow yet. And I was forced to research obsoleting tech soon after to get to future tech anyhow.
- Built Seti Wonder to get free library in all cities. Put my tech speed to 1 turn, but was probably also waste as I don't need more techs, and teched way faster than needed anyhow.
- President sale held. Added settlers to boost all cities to size 3 as they seemed to have to be that to be included. Got all but one city to size 6-10. A lot to 10. Produced/Bought temples everywhere and cathedrals where I could afford. Most cities needing it have cathedrals now.
- Manufacturing plant produced/bought in my best production cities. Leaving me at least 4 production powerhouses.
Late game strategy
- See if I can complete a spaceship before Christ is born.
Result
- Finished space ship 680 BC. Was supposed to arrive in 22 years, but estimate was -658 years and it didn't work.
- Researched way too many techs I didn't need.
- Built stuff I didn't need to build.
- Had way more cities than needed to efficiently build spaceship.
Can probably shave quite a lot of time away from that..
Issue found:
- Not having built anything but temples/cathedrals in cities and a few wonders, list of stuff to build in city becomes too large, so I'm unable to pick what I want to produce. Only get a list of next/next. Have to build enough useless wonders to get few enough buildings left to build before I can start building spaceship. If only the silly AI had managed to build some more of those early wonders.
(I should have written this first, my bad)
