Space ship help

[RedCoat1985]

I'm still pretty green with civ 2, I've been playing ToT, and I can never get further than the first part of the game, cos I can never get my space ship up in time. I can build space ship parts way before the game is over, but no matter how many I build, my ship always has 0 probability of success, and when it does finally get like 19% chance, I launch it, but the game is over before it gets there.

What am I doing wrong?

 

[ElephantU]

There are a few links to standard space ship layouts around, but for simplicity's sake I'll list the basic one most OCCs use:
15 structurals
3 engines
3 fuels
1 each hab, life support and solar power modules
(abbreviated 15-3-3-1-1-1).
If you have only one engine and one fuel it will still launch but your "probability of success" is less than 100%. This does not mean you crash, it just means some of the citizens in the hab module don't make it and you get less than 100 points per hab.

The way to do this without a layout chart is to decide how many Hab-LS-SP modules you can build first (they have to be the same number, so 1-1-1 goes up to 4-4-4). Then decide how fast the thing needs to get there and build paired Engine-Fuel components (1-1 up to 8-8). The fastest ship takes around 6 years, and launching a ship causes the game to shift to 1 year turns. Once those are in look at the line for Structurals and start adding them. Next to the number already built there will be a star (*) if you don't have enough. Try not to overbuild anything as it will tend to slow your ship down. I think the most Strucs you can build is something like 39, which you need if you have 4-4-4 of the modules.

 

[Mercator]

What does your civilization look like when you're in the end-game? How many cities do you typically have and how big are your cities? How many cities do you actually use to build space ship parts?

Space ship parts take a lot of shields, so you'd want as many cities as possible, with as high a shield production as possible.

 

[smokey the dog]

One of the best ways to speed up space ship production, especially for the larger modules, is to have several cities produce caravans, and send them to the cities you are building the modules in. If you are playing at the lower dificulty level, change to a wonder of the works, have the caravan add to the wonder, then switch back to building the module.

 

[PaulT]

One of the best ways to speed up space ship production, especially for the larger modules, is to have several cities produce caravans, and send them to the cities you are building the modules in. If you are playing at the lower dificulty level, change to a wonder of the works, have the caravan add to the wonder, then switch back to building the module.

Or, with power democracy, just buy.

Not that I've been able to get PD to work on a respectable difficulty level, but if you read some of Starlifters posts, you can make enough gold with shipchains and trade camels to sponsor pretty much whatever you want to do, and on prince and below even I can run a democracy which makes enough money to buy what I need.



Essential Starlifter:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=87937

... With trade properly developed, 5,000 gold and 60,000 science is a reasonable baseline to expect from your democracy in a very late, large map game, or about 25,000 gold and no science. Your freight should ALSO give you about 15,000 more gold and science each turn. You can rush buy entire navies/armies/air forces in one turn if you wish ... but most often, this money is mostly put back into perfecting the cities to make the empire economically/scientifically more powerful.

Anyway, once everything is set up, massive amounts of freight from all over the empire begin funneling their way onto a network of transports, and piling up in roaded (later, RR'd) fortresses just outside the TC's city radius. Several turns of deliveries will be accumulated, in case the deliveries of freight are interrupted for some reason, (usually war and/or a sneak attack). This will also give a cushion for emergency cash, if necessary, for bribing a juicy opportune city, for instance. ... I don't build 1,000 freight simultaneously, but 70 to 120 is what I have setting around ... lots in reserve to be used as necessary for RBs and PRBs, or spaceship parts. Typically, I consume about 5 to 9 freight per turn to get one advance from freight.

I rarely play spaceship games (I'm an EC whore) but learning to use democracy is best way to improve your score IMO.

 

[Ace]

rarely play spaceship games (I'm an EC whore) but learning to use democracy is best way to improve your score IMO.

Your right, but to take full advantage of the power democracy, you need to play a landing game and use the time available to max out your empire to build your score. You need to collect all the points you can, and that means reseaching FT 255 for the 1275 points, building (or capturing)all the wonders, playing raging hordes to get the plus 25 points for barbs, and playing at diety because that gives you the best multiplier from all the various difficulty levels for your score, as well as building as close to 254 cities as you can with as many happy citizens in each as you can manage, than when all your cities are as big they can get, land your SS for that last 400 points.

EC can be a fun way to play and is a good way to score high in the civ2 GOTMs, but, if you just want to get the best score you can in a non-GOTM game, EC is no good. You get no points for a fast finish, only bragging rights.

One of the biggest advantages of a large empire (75+ cities) linked by a good RR net is that you have enough cities to, literally, do everything at once. Some cities will be putting in improvements, others will be supplying freight, spies, and any combat units you need. And that RR net will let you move your units to where you need them, instantly. Another big advantage of the power democracy is that your cities and units are immune to bribes, while your freight deliveries will provide you with enough coins to gradually buy up AI cities while remaining pals with them.