spaceship in 1AD - a theoretical approach

[oedo]

from my knowledge the fastest AC lander in sologames was DaveV in about 1000AD. Paul, and meanwhile some other players succeeded in winning the one city challenge in (or even before) 1500AD. now the time is right for the ultimate challenge: building and launching a spaceship in 1AD, landing on AC in 20AD. settings will be 1x1x, deity, raging hordes.
it seems this challenge is too hard for only one player. but maybe it can be done in a cooperative multigame. up to seven players/civs can work it out altogether.

my strategical approach is based on at least three players who will fullfill different tasks:
player one (the researcher) will establish a science city as soon as possible, containing the one city wonders colossus, copernicus, shakespeare and newton. anyone with occ-experience can do this job.
player two (the ship builder) has to build at least 21 cities until 1AD. he will finally construct the necessary spaceship parts and launch the ship. additionally he should have one of the happiness wonders to make this task not too difficult.
player three (the coordinator) needs to establish embassies to all other civs as soon as possible. he can also do this by building marco polo and the united nations. this player has to watch out that no one wastes his ressources by researching a tech that is already researched by another player. he also will spread the techs that way, other players can skip ´unnecessary´ researches.

the challenge can be made much easier with the help of up to four additional players who especially will collect gold, help researching, produce caravans, establish trade routes etc...

well, this is the idea. who wants to be in?

[Matthew]

I've been thinking the same thing. It would be fun to try a multiplayer joint AC rush. But :

1.The earliest possible date for building Space ship components is 1 A.D. Therefore the earliest launch date possible is 20 A.D., and earliest landing possible is 25 A.D.

2. On 2x2x for 3 good players working together a 25 A.D. landing should be ridiculously easy. Better go with 1x1x on a large world.

[Matthew]

And yes, I want in. I should have MPG again by this weekend, if not sooner.

ahhhm, guys???

as far as I remember every turn takes 50 years at deity before 1 A.D.
and 20(?) later...

Or the amount of time between every turn changes after some events?

[oedo]

you´re welcome to participate Matthew. up to now arii, Ming and Xin Yu were also interested, so if we can be online at the same time (and that´s probably the hardest part of the challenge) we will be five now.

besides: I think it is possible to finish the spaceship in 1AD. for example a green player can rushbuild the ss-parts in 1AD while the white player is still moving or waiting. but I´m not sure about that.

I´d also recommend to try on a small map. one key is that all players meet each other as soon as possible in order to share techs. every player should have monarchy before 3000. another point is the larger the map the more beakers are generally required for researching. that´s why games on small maps are faster and we definetly need to be fast.

BuilderR: from 4000BC to 1000BC each turn takes 50 years, between 1000BC and 1AD it only takes 25 years/turn. all in all we will have 100 turns.

[Scouse Gits]

Good luck guys - I'd love to be in but don't think I'll be upto multiplayer speed in time.


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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

[rah]

I would be interested in giving it a try. Wed, Fri, or Sat nights usually work for me.

RAH

[vik]

I've been reading this with some interest. A couple of suggestions:

Don't use any AI (and I don't know if that is even an option for MP games).

Use 7 human players, rather than 4 or 5. Tom Demille has a lot of valid evidence for his hypothesis he posed earlier: "The less civs that are alive, the longer it takes to research the next tech." Thread in the archives somewhere, but it's not very old.

The problem with playing on a small map is that one guy has to have about 60 cities in order to build/buy all those SS parts in 1 AD.

On one of our "large" OCC maps, the one where Paul, Tom, and me reached all reached AC in the 1500's, the techs came very fast. It was a "Pencil-shaped" globe, and I wonder if the shape of the world makes a difference. Because I'm telling you, the tech advances were coming as if we were playing on a small map, but the map had the minimum Y coordinates and the maximum X coordinates.

So perhaps this offers the best of both worlds: fast tech advances, and room for one civ to comfortably have 60+ cities.

I hope someone, or each of you, keep some sort of a log or a record for the rest of us.

[jpk]

If you decide to play on a large multicontinent world consider the possiblity of building cities so that other players can bribe them. The idea is that if every player has cities scattered all over the world then once you get radio every player will be able to fly freight units half way arond the world to a city that needs that particular item. By bribing cities rather than sailing settlers you can avoid the lost food. If money is a problem the city can be put into disorder for a turn.

On maps that are 250x40 cylinders a freight unit that travels halfway around the world can easily be worth 2000 beakers and coins. This is for a domestic freight unit. The value for a delivery to a different civilization would be higher.

Since you will only have to fight off barbarians, every player should be able to build enough freight units to get a new advance just about every turn.

Good luck!

[jpk]

Rather than preassign tasks like science city builder perhaps it should be done dynamically.

If someone has a really fabulous location they can start on the science city. The standards for "really fabulous location" can be agreed to ahead of time. People who think they unlikely to have the best possible location for a science city should make a beeline for trade and Marco Polo so they can determine where the science city should be built. Once someone gets Marco Polo they poll the other players about their best science city sight and the best location gets the nod. Other players, who are probably building wonders, then veer off to other wonders.

If you have a player who is to be responsible for trade then perhaps that player should build Magellan and Leonardo so the ships are upgraded automatically.

Hopefully this message is worth $.02.

[Paul]

Airlifting Freight is not much of a priority in this kind of game because of the very short period between Radio and Space Flight.

I've read all this but youre talking about 100 turns!

lets say each player discovers a tech every 4 turns, since the beginning.(youll probably discover the later techs every turn but it will take you some time to discover the first techs before you have a decent science rate, so the average is ~4).

you'll need aproximately 50 techs which are neccessary to get the SS components,modules and structurals so 50/7=~7.
Each player will have to discover 7 techs.
28 turns.(and i can bet with you that it will take much more).

Sorry, I have to go i'll finish it later...

[Xin Yu]

One player will build a super science city on an island, and build food caravans to boost the population to 36. Whoever discover a small island first can do this.
Other players can be low-tech fortune hunters -- they will decline any chance of getting invention, navigation, and advanced flight. Let the SSC civ discover those techs and techs immediately following them. The advanced techs will then be given to other civs so that they can skip those three. Without discovering the three techs their research rate will be faster and their trade bonus will be multiplied. The caravans can all go to the super science city, which is on an island, belongs to another civ, and large.

[oedo]

I´m sure caravans will be extremely important, but I think on a large map, especially on a pencil-shaped map, they can´t make up with the large distances between the civs. even if one player builds marco polo as soon as possible, he most likely won´t be able to finish it before 2000BC. that´s too late IMO.
that´s why I´d prefer a small map (40x50) where all players can meet each other before 3000. I would appreciate if anyone creates such a map. it should have one occ location. thanks in advance.

I will save each turn so I will have a log of savefiles. and if I find the time I will also write a game log during the game. but maybe the chatlog will do too.

we are 6 players up to now(provided that everyone actually shows up to the game). in other words, there´s still one slot open. anyone...?

[oedo]

just saw your post Xin. the science city on an island is a great idea and now I wonder if we can even play on a purely random map. the occ-player needs to get contact to the continent quickly, but I´m sure this won´t be a problem since I count on a massive communication between us.
however we also need to find an agreement about some other rules. as I posted into the mp-forums, I want to outlaw any city sharings. I still wonder how we will handle caravan sharings. I have no experience with them at all.

[oedo]

...
[This message has been edited by oedo (edited July 25, 2000).]

[Matthew]

It's going to be a real pain in the butt getting a good SSC site. Frankly there just won't be time to look for one. We have 110 turns to get Space flight.

I think that we need to have different civs primarily responsible for science at different times. If we can get the SSC civ, with the SSC and perhaps 6 or 7 other good science cities at size 20 + by 700 A.D. or so
he could probably crank out a tech or 2 a turn, even without caravans. On a large world map in my 1455 A.D. landing I was able to get 1 tech a turn fairly regularly, albeit not consistently, just before Railroad and again after the Automobile. This was with about 1500 beakers or so. 1000 or so from the SSC. I think that this tech rate can be doubled with a better SSC site (obviously; we've all seen or heard of 1500 techs per turn from an SSC alone). But others need to concentrate on tech at earlier stages of the game.


This might be a plausible outline of an approach.

1. All players need to explore early to find each other ASAP. We can't afford to do a lot of tech duplicating. Only in this way can we get out of Monarchy fast enough. If Monarchy doesn't come along till 2100 B.C. it's all overn.

2. We need to know by 3800 B.C. where the SSC will be. Whoever is going to build it needs to concentrate primarily on building that city and secondarily on establishing 6 more good trade cities. No more than 7. We want him to be able to celebrate every city ASAP without benefit of HG. No time to build it. Perhaps he can build 6 cities and someone can give him city # 7 later, complete with Oracle. (Screw Theology) High tax rate at first to pump out those settlers for roads and irrigation, and build temples, harbors in Sea cities, Celebrate to size 8.

3. Early caravans to take advantage of 2x bonus for trade. Sombody may need to conjure up a lighthouse very early. Somebody else build some caravans real early. Somebody else boats. Afourth player needs to get some decent coastal cities to a decent size very early. Lighthouse and boats given to the player with Caravans to start shipping freight to the player with decent cities. In the meantime others are growing their cities and building Caravans. Once the decent trade routes availible to the first Caravan player are exausted, the second caravan player gets the boats and lighthouse. Meanwhile the SSC player is building his civ with a relatively low priority on research, getting money and techs from others.

Just a few ideas.

By the way. I have MPG again. When do we start?

[geofelt]

This could be a great challenge for just one player. Use the hotseat option and play all the civs in the best manner you can.

[Matthew]

This is a real pain in the butt having this thread in 2 places. Let's confine ourselves to responding only to the same thread in the multiplayer section. Any chance of closing this thread to avoid future confusion Ming?

[Ming]

No problem... your wish is my command

The discussion continues at: http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum2/HT...tml?date=17:42

Case Closed Here!

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Ming
CivII & Off-Topic Forum Moderator
Ming@Apolyton.net