ELG: A couple of things bugging me...

[Paradox]

Hi folks,

OK seeing as ive posted a number of threads already i guessed it was at least time to officially introduce myself on the CIV2 forums.

Without boring you too much ill just say that after an immense amount of digestion of material in the GL, posts, strategy guides from members too numerous to mention....and playing a couple of turns of CIV2 on Deity and a OCC 1899 landing on AC...hmm doesnt say much for the info ive digested again...i think im slowly starting to tget the tip of the whole ELG, SSC,OCC strategies altho i realise i have a long way to go b4 i get anywhere really commendable. But then again time is is the great equaliser....well i hope so anyway

Right now for the q's regarding ELG's and comparison games. These are still unclear either due to me misunderstanding or insufficient reading. Naughty!

1. Is using utilities like hutfinder,civplan,beakers,etc regarded as acceptable. After all surely most of this info is mathematically calculable hence why the opposition....

2. These ELG start save games: Surely if we all get the start games i can just go into cheat mode->reveal map and already i have a distinct advantage. How does one ensure no-one has peeked at the map b4 or whilst theyre playing? This could give those "unscrupulous" a distinct advantage as to terrain layout, specials,resources, AI civlization placement and activity!??

3.How come the landing dates are for spaceship launch. Surely one has to add the time to AC for true landing date. I noticed logs seem to have last entry as launch date????

4.Was exactly is caravan rehoming. Is this building a caravan and then sending it back to the city that built it to assist in rush-buying construction? or something else...??

OK that's enough for now.

Thanks again folks i have to say i feel quite at home with all the strategists, statisticians, warlords... budding or expert .

Fab game CIV2 is. I give the all time . Certainly wouldnt recommend it for those suffering from attention deficit disorder. Or would i as a cruel punishment

[Paradox]

Ooops sorry i lied..one more q albeit a little more superficial:

Which unit.gif files do you recommend. Or any realistic ones out there to download.The ones that come with MGE,2.42/2.78 arent gr8 IMO. Any recommendations besides building your own right now

[Smash]

1.Yes.No medals or cash awarded and as noted it can be done without a utility.

2.Yes you would have a big advantage.But what fun is that?..a certain amount of honor is assumed.

3.Not much interesting happens after launch generally speaking.Just shoring up of defenses.Landing dates are what counts.Which brings up another issue of the amount of game turns.Slower ships land "earlier" but in reality add more turns to the game total.


4.Building a caravan or freight from a small crappy city and then sending it into the big fat city.Click on the unit inside the city and select "support from this city".In effect you have your SSC with a limitless supply of commodities.

For graphics I would recommend HiRes2.5.A complete mod or just a graphics facelift.Available in d/ls collection or at Tim's site.http://www.geocities.com/yoohootim/hires.htm

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Paradox

1. Is using utilities like hutfinder,civplan,beakers,etc regarded as acceptable. After all surely most of this info is mathematically calculable hence why the opposition....

2. These ELG start save games: Surely if we all get the start games i can just go into cheat mode->reveal map and already i have a distinct advantage. How does one ensure no-one has peeked at the map b4 or whilst theyre playing? This could give those "unscrupulous" a distinct advantage as to terrain layout, specials,resources, AI civlization placement and activity!??

3.How come the landing dates are for spaceship launch. Surely one has to add the time to AC for true landing date. I noticed logs seem to have last entry as launch date????

4.Was exactly is caravan rehoming. Is this building a caravan and then sending it back to the city that built it to assist in rush-buying construction? or something else...??

1. All those aids are legal, although not all of us use them. Some of us have our doubts about aids that are against "the spirit of the game".

2. We can't ensure that nobody cheats. Even the no huts and no restarts rules are easy to evade. Most of us play because we enjoy it and we wouldn't enjoy it so much if we broke one of the rules to get an earlier landing.

3. I think most of the logs give a launch date and a landing date. I think the game saves are more interesting from the launch date since after launch the way the game is played changes completely. I think a save when fusion power is discovered would be even more instructive, but that would not give the arrival date.

4. I believe caravan rehoming is changing the "ownership" of a caravan to another city. eg building caravans in your helper cities and then changing them to your SSC so that the bonus is greater when delivered. This is a no no! Using caravans to rush build a wonder in their own city is fine.

RJM at Sleepers

[Paradox]

Thanks i shall return with more in due course of this I am assured....

[DrSpike]

Hehe no effort goes into stopping cheating, for the simple reason that most players participating are known to each other. This isn't really a contest (unless I win one - then it is ), but a way to enjoy civ more.

As you can see from the logs so far people have faced adverse situations and adapted to them.

As for rehoming all you need to know is not to do it......it is evil.

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by DrSpike
As for rehoming all you need to know is not to do it......it is evil.

I disagree with the last statement... except if you mean that it would be cheating to use it in ELCG.
solo wrote very clearly that it was forbidden = no doubt.

But samson and solo made use of rehoming in several record games, so did Xin Yu, ... and so do all players of GOTM at CFC, since it is allowed there.
I would say that rehoming is OK as long as you state that you use it, and as long as it is not forbidden by those who wrote the rule of the kind of game you are playing.

[La Fayette]

Dr Spike
I replied seriously because Paradox was asking seriously, but I didn't fail to notice your smilie .

[DrSpike]

Well we can discuss 'features' and 'exploits' for hours no doubt, but there is no doubt in my mind that caravan rehoming is an exploit and should be banned from any comparison game, whether it be an ELG or scenario. I am surprised they allow it in CF GOTM.

Of course there is a case for having an 'absolute' record where all possible exploits are allowed, just to see what is possible. Most of time however I would be happier if it wasn't possible to rehome caravans.

But agreed, it is doing it without acknowledging it that is the worse case.

[Elephant]

We did not disallow the Food Caravan Trick for ELCGs... or Airbases...

[Paradox]

Originally posted by Elephant
We did not disallow the Food Caravan Trick for ELCGs... or Airbases...

....

Could we have some concensus pls gentleman

At least now i know why ive been struggling to land in ELG's with decent dates with no rehoming, airbases or hut tipping

Nevertheless, it would be nice to know how a couple of the ELCG's e.g OCC#22 and 23 where played with or without these "mysterious" assistants

Now im really starting to wonder about the advice im getting here

[DrSpike]

I don't think anyone has used any of the exploits mentioned in the last few posts in EL games.

[Scouse Gits]

Rehoming freights is not really an issue now with the recent knowledge about trade and unblocking supply commodities in the SSC. In early landing games rehoming is NOT an option.

Paradox ... there is a consensus in the ELGs.

1) No benefits are allowed from huts.
2) No caravan rehoming.

Anything else is allowed.

I can't tell you about OCC games over 2 years ago, as I didn't play many of them. However, I do recall that the Airbase food trick was not permitted.

In OCC games there was no restriction about rehoming freight.

----------------

SG(2)

[solo]

Could that be because rehoming is harder to do with just one city?

[Paradox]

Somewhat impossible yes id say....unless Elephant has achieved what others have failed to do

Solo seeing as you did a lot of OCC'ing in the 'ol days can you clarify the legal do's and dont's for me? For the LAST time por favor?

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by La Fayette

I would say that rehoming is OK as long as you state that you use it, and as long as it is not forbidden by those who wrote the rule of the kind of game you are playing.

I go along with this. OK I know it's banned in comparison games, but in RL "rehoming" is pretty much what every large city does. I'd allow rehoming and ban black clicking, hutfinder and all other such black arts

Of course it's not practical do this, so I'll just do it in the privacy of my own study

RJM at Sleepers

[Elephant]

Originally posted by Paradox
Somewhat impossible yes id say....unless Elephant has achieved what others have failed to do

I thought we were discussing ELCGs, not OCCs. I think you meant SG(2).

No sense banning what you cannot possibly detect, such as black-clicking and hut/special pattern knowledge. It is no more a "black art" than using the Supply/Demand equations to predict changes in city commodities. Ban the obvious exploits that have major undue influence on the game, such as reloading, rehoming, unsinkable ships/planes and FCT.

If you want a pretty comprehensive list of game "exploits", check the "Tricks and Cheats" list by Starlifter over in CFC's GOTM forum.

[Elephant]

Originally posted by rjmatsleepers


but in RL "rehoming" is pretty much what every large city does.

I dont understand what you mean there...

[SCG]

Originally posted by solo
Could that be because rehoming is harder to do with just one city?

if you bribed an AI caravan or freight outside your sphere of influence, it of course would be a NON unit. And for me, that is the only time i would rehome a caravan or freight. Not sure what the overall consensus is on that particular loophole.

[solo]

Paradox,

The rules we went by in OCC games were all spelled out in Paul's guide. Later on, by consensus, we added a prohibition against building a settler before the city reaches size two. (One case when the city does survive when doing this is when its your only one).

SCG,

That's why I said hard to do. If there is a general rule against rehoming in effect like in the EL comparison games, it would have to apply to any AI caravans one bribes. In OCC, rehoming was not prohibited, so this was a possibble tactic in those games.

[Elephant]

I had not considered bribed caravans from another civ. Delivering them would give you minimal bonus and no trade route if they were NONE, right? Aside from another wonder-building option (a bad value unless they cost less than 200g, which I have never seen), they would seem to be of no use unless they were allowed to be rehomed to the city of your choice. The only place I have used this was in trying Smash's OCC Size 1 games.

[SCG]

Originally posted by Elephant
I had not considered bribed caravans from another civ. Delivering them would give you minimal bonus and no trade route if they were NONE, right? Aside from another wonder-building option (a bad value unless they cost less than 200g, which I have never seen), they would seem to be of no use unless they were allowed to be rehomed to the city of your choice. The only place I have used this was in trying Smash's OCC Size 1 games.

in the No-Science Succession game, I bribed a german caravan. Since i wasn't entirely sure on the policy for caravans bribed, i kept running the caravan off the roadon turns it was in reach of a city using settlers, diplomats, etc so that it wouldn't enter a city and i could bribe it when it was in the city limits of the best available city (it became homed in Bessemer - i didn't want to wait till i could force it to Arkwright which would have been about the only choice better than Bessemer)

the eventual bribe cost was 160 - here's a picture from the round before i purchaced it.

[Paradox]

Apologies Elephant...i did indeed mean SG2 and i now see it IS possible to rehome in a OCC......didnt make sense when it was mentioned as i thought SG2 was referring to your own caravans and couldnt figure how that was done...clearly he meant a exploiting bribed caravans. All cleared up

[Elephant]

Neat trick, SCG; I was thinking OCC, where I rarely find caravans heading to my own city, so bribing them elsewhere gives me a NONE to bring home. I really dont like other civs caravans screwing up my nice fat trade routes, but sometimes have to abide by the no-rehome rules and just force a mini-war to kill them off. Does rehoming that way change the Supply commodities list?

[SCG]

it won't affect supply lists directly, as its just like having a caravan built before the supply list changed. of course delivery is one of many triggers that causes supply lists to update so it could indirectly affect the lists. And if you get a commodity that isn't going to be produced by that city, if you deliver to an appropriately large city, it makes it tons easier to keep supply lists unblocked

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Elephant


I dont understand what you mean there...

I meant that in real life, large cities act as collection points for onward delivery of goods. Very few of the goods shipped from London in the 18th and 19th centuries were actualy grown or made there. As a result London benefited from all the additional employment, people, etc. (Although given the living conditions and mortality rate, I'm not sure benefited is quite the right word.)

RJM at Sleepers

[DrSpike]

Reality justifications for things like rehoming annoy me.......The primary focus must always be gameplay. In this case it is likely that rehoming was not intended to be allowed, and it removes the need to trade as skillfullly.

Hence rehoming.

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by DrSpike
The primary focus must always be gameplay. In this case it is likely that rehoming was not intended to be allowed, and it removes the need to trade as skillfullly.

It is likely that black clicking and artificial aids such as hutfinder were not intended to be allowed, and they remove the need to explore skillfully.

RJM at Sleepers

[Straybow]

Not the same really. Attempts to rehome a Caravan or Freight using the "h" key or via the Orders menu results in a popup reading, "You cannot change the home city of a trade unit." A clear indication of the designers' intent.

[SlowThinker]

I see a big difference between hutfinder and black clicking.

Black clicking is something extremely unnatural (and so I never do it).

HutFinder only helps you: You could do yourself all the computations that HutFinder does or after an extensive study of maps and seeds you could master them so that you don't need any HutFinder or seed pictures.

But I agree that Civ2 creators should do maps more fortuious. A part of the entertainment from exploration is lost.