Stopping the space ship

[zaphod2016]

Once another civilization has launched their space ship, is it possible to destroy it? Is it possible to cancel an enemies ship mid-flight? If so, how?

I've nuked those damn russians into a smoldering pit of global warming, but their ship is still scheduled to reach Alpha Centari 2 years before mine will. I don't have the force to conquer them completely, but I can capture a few cities. Is it still possible to win, or should I accept defeat and start a new game?

 

[Tenochtitlan]

There is hope. Don't give up too quick. From my experience, the only way to stop them is to invade their capital city.

 

[zaphod2016]

Update:

Capturing the enemies' capitol does indeed destroy the space ship, even once it is transit. Unfortunatley, this is a very temporary solution- the next turn those evil Russians had already built a handful of pieces for their next ship. Furthermore, they returned the favor by nuking and capturing my capitol, destroying my own space ship in the process.

This resulted in a very ugly WWIII. Any hope of a peaceful resolution was gone.

A few more questions:

1) Is it possible to destroy the second space ship?

2) How?

I ended up destroying the entire Russian civilization, but I never saw a second "Russian space program cancelled" message. I had no chance to rebuild my own ship because I was busy fighting WWIII.

In case anyone cares, here are some screen shots:

As you can see, I lost 1,970 points because the nukes created so much pollution.

More questions:

3) I earned a 1,044 "bonus score". Why? Is this my bonus for conquering everyone else?

4) It says I am "Emperor" of America, but I was in "King" mode. Is this a glitch? Is my version of civ1 corrupt? (Mac OS X running DOSBox).

5) After going "nuke crazy" I began to see red citizens in my cities, next to the "regular" unhappy citizens. What's the deal? Are they super-unhappy? Have they become radioactive?

And, in case anyone else is reading this, here are a few observations I have made:

1) Kill the mongols. A.S.A.P. If you let them survive into the modern age they will spread like a virus and mount increasingly aggresive sneak attacks. Luckily their tech sucked (if they had nukes I might have lost).

2) Using nukes and infantry, you can capture an entire enemy civilization in a few decades. However, this causes many problems. The pollution wrecks your score. The citizenry take to the streets in protest. My democracy collapsed into a far less lucrative monarchy, after which it was impossible to afford the upkeep on most of my city improvements. This resulted in two dozen "The mayor has fled" messages before each turn (very frusterating ).

3) It is possible to clean up pollution using settlers (hit "p" once on top of it) but it takes a few turns to complete the process, and in a warzone you will almost certainly lose the settlers to enemy fire before they finish cleaning.

4) Civ1 rules, and is highly addictive. I haven't gotten a full nights sleep since downloading this damn game. Beware! BEWARE!

Emperor mode, here I come!

 

[Osvaldo Manso]

5) After going "nuke crazy" I began to see red citizens in my cities, next to the "regular" unhappy citizens. What's the deal? Are they super-unhappy? Have they become radioactive?

I have never seen something like that. However, I rarely engage in a nuclear war. Also, I never read anything about this kind of red citizens (mutants?). If you kept the save file, I suggest you go back to the Kiev city screen and hit «view» to see how the city and their citizens look like.

As to the other questions:

1 and 2) The only way to suspend a space program is to capture the enemy's capitol. The capitol is the city that contains a Palace. If you already captured the capitol and another spaceship is built and released, there's nothing you can do to stop it, unless the enemy moves the capitol to another city, by building a new Palace. Ususally, you receive a message when this happens. I think that even by destroying the entire civilization, you can't stop the spaceship, if they did not build a new Palace.

3) I never payed much attention to the score, but I remember reading that you earn a 1000 points bonus for conquering the world before 2100 AD (in Chieftain level), 2080 AD (Warlord). 2060 AD (Prince), 2040 AD (King) and 2020 AD (Emperor).

4) I'm not sure but maybe it has something to do with your government type. When the game finished was it Despotism or Anarchy your government type?

 

[zaphod2016]

Behold, the radioactive citizens of my shattered empire:

If anyone knows more about them, I'd love to hear about it.

 

[Baudolino77]

I think you've got Version >= xxx.03:

"v3: Once again tried to fix the Advisory Bug, and failed again. Added some new pictures. Added "very unhappy people." Removed free barracks. No longer able to disband a population-1 city at Chieftain level by buying a settler. Transports no longer made people unhappy under a Democracy or Republic. Overall, the game became harder for veteran players. This version is harder to play than previous versions, mainly for people playing Despotic Conquest."

I am playing Version xxx.02, so i have never seen those guys. I have wanted to upgrade my DOS version to xxx.05 but where seems to be no patch for the german version.

I would be interested, which actions made people so unhappy? Is it the pollution? Is it because the city is starving?

 

[void]

Found these threads relating to very unhappy people:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=50455
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=181330

 

[zaphod2016]

Very interesting stuff. Thanks for the links & info.