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?

[SmartFart]

This is impossible. Even if 7 humans cooperate.
Now,maybe i am wrong but i dont think so.
Best wishes and keep us informed.

Launching 1AD,landing 20 Ad. That's one turn.
I am pretty sure game engine wouldn't make that possible.


<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by SmartFart (edited July 21, 2000).]</font>

[Ming]

Once you launch the space craft, the length of time for each turn becomes one year no matter when it is launched.

[Smash]

I don't think so.Not at deity.You're talking 75 turns.
Maybe on 2x production.I landed a 2x SS in 581AD once with little or no help from others.1x I just can't see it from a random start or any other for that matter.Course I thought OCC was impossible once....

[Aaron Burr]

I know that in SMAC, players have transcended (analogous to SS launch) in around 70 turns (by coordinating the research of their AI allies), so perhaps it could be done in Civ2 along the lines oedo suggests.

One person playing all 7 civs via hotseat might be able to orchestrate it better than several different players trying to cooperate/communicate.

[Xin Yu]

Modification: start building SS on 1AD, finish on 20AD and launch. Land on 1026.

[suas333]

May be possible with 7 players, but still unlikely.

[SmartFart]

Ming: In that case,i believe it could be done (with helluva luck from the huts). I've never tried earliest landing,but i would like to see if Oedo,Arii,You and Xin could make impossible possible.

Keep me informed,will ya?

------------------
No i ain't doing much,doing nothing means alot to me (AC/DC)

[Ming]

Nice cast of characters... but for something like this, you need Paul!

[oedo]

yeah, Paul would be a big help, and perhaps he catches the little bait in the strategy forums
but the cast looks excellent so far, so let´s send Jesus to space tomorrow!

concerning giving away cities, it shouldn´t be allowed. playing occ at 4x speed doesn´t really look challenging since I think/hope we will have democracy pretty soon.
but we should play an occ-map...

[arii]

My personal best is 1060 AD. I believe that with 3 players cooperating 1 AD is possible, especially given the expanssion rate of the really good players around, and the leapfrog of techs.
That would be actually a fun and a diferent type of game to try. It wouldn't take that long either.
Another way to look at that challenge would be earliest landing for a team of 3 player, deity raging horde + 4 AI. You would probably need some rule about giving away cities.

[DaveV]

An interesting concept. By the way, oedo, you gave me credit for arii's landing date. He was inspired to that feat by my best landing time, sometime in the 1500s as I recall.

If you want to recruit Paul in this effort, you'll probably have to set it up as a PBEM. Since everyone will be cooperating and the game would be relatively short, that might work.

[oedo]

playing hotseat is an excellent idea! I gave it a try and created a map with an occ location on it(2whales, silk, wine).
I played with 7 civs up to 1000BC. at this time I got democracy, physics, sanitation, economy, bridge building, feudalism and all their prerequisites. My science city was in a good shape. It was a size 12 city containing colossus, copernicus, shakespeare´s, a library, a market place and a university. also there were a temple and a collosseum in it ready for being sold. so it´s just a formality building sewer systems into it and grow the city to 21+ by WLT. it will have a research rate of 2 turns through the rest of the game then.
the other civs had 6-12 cities with a maximum size of 4. they recently started producing caravan armies. in some way, they´re struggling. but this is certainly inevitable, since it´s only 1000BC and most of the the gold they produced was transferd to the science city as soon as possible.
awesome game but not enough for winning the challenge yet.

but there´s still a lot of potential in it! using the diplomacy screen I had to give away many techs I didn´t want to. this is because in hotseat I always have to interact with the AI. when I traded techs I couldn´t just choose free. I´d say the leapfrog did hardly work, the AI is just too dumb.
it was also impossible for me to trade any unit between two civs and I only succeeded once in sharing maps.

I still think it is possible. with seven players in it can be done. four players? don´t know, maybe as well. but seven can more likely do it.

*yawn*

We really need to get civ III soon.

[oedo]

so we have Ming, Xin, rah, arii, Matthew and me showing interest for the game so far. I´d like to give it a try next saturday afternoon/evening. please post here or mail me if you willing and able to play at this time.
for further details I will contact you the coming days via mail or ICQ. I also will try to get a proper map until saturday.

[Kaak]

Ahem...??? not even a mention? I guess i haven't been playing enough recently =)

[Matthew]

I'll be there. I have MPG again.

[Carolus Rex]

Good luck, guys!

Looking forward to read about the game.

Carolus

[Ming]

As my normal bunch knows, I usually can't play on Saturday night until my family goes to sleep... which means much later than most people will want to start. I'll just have to see

[rah]

Kaak would be an excellent person to build enough cities to build the spaceship.

In all fairness almost all the people that were listed had responded to this thread or the one in the other forum. So I'm sure no slight was intended. (and you should post more often.)

I am usually available on Saturdays, around 7 central time till whenever. I have a cable connection and would be happy to host.

Welcome back Matthew.

We could use a little more discussion on what would be allowed in terms of cities, and units. Even though with this type of challange, anything short of trading cities every turn should be allowed.

RAH

[Paul]

I can now play MP, so if you need another player I would be willing to join. This type of game certainly appeals to my generally peaceful playing style in SP (especially OCC) games, so it certainly sounds good for my first MP game.

One of the advantages of working at a school is that I now have a 4-week summer vacation, so I would be able to play at almost any time.

[Ming]

BREAK OUT THE BAND! Paul has MP now!

YES... YES... YES...

You would be the perfect person to run the team on this one. Your OCC skills are really needed. It would seem like the best strategy would be to have one person take the lead, and have everybody else create cities, and just give them to him, keeping one or two cities for themselves so that they can have one building caravans, and then one trade city so paul would have somebody to trade with...

But even if this attempt doesn't work, I'm sure there are a few of us that would still love to play you in MP Paul

[arii]

You definitly have to put some restriction on trading cities. Imagine the SSC being passed around among 7 players. Tech rate= 3 tech/turns. I guess giving cities should be allowed as long as it is after your turn and after the recipient turn so as not to double the poutput of the city.
Another issue is the happy wonders. The SSC players need the HG and Shak Th. Should he keep his # of cities low so that he can celebrate the SSC? I think another player sould have mike and JSB to be able to grow his cities and have good trade cities. Should the rest stay in monarchy?
An interesting thing to do would be to pass mike and JSB to another player, let him grow his cities, then to another player, same thing. You could have a lot of size 12 cities around early in the game.
Will be on vaccation for two weeks, so I won't be able to participate in that game.

[markusf]

The problem is having a sufficient production base from which to build a spaceship and to built infustructure to keep up your science rate. me and arii are taking a stab at it. with 2 players 0 AD is not possible, but 1000 AD is.

[Ming]

Heck... production isn't a problem if you have the money. All you really need is the number of cities necessary to crank the space ship in a turn or two

I suggest you to play the first game when you try to finish as earlier as possible, to learn.

And it will make a big difference if you'll play on a random map or on a specially created map or at least on a map you already saw. But this is your decision, IMHO for a fair game you should play on a random map.

BuiderR

[rah]

Paul, I tend to disagree, with all the happiness wonders, the 10% lux loss should easily be offset all the extra beakers that the other cities will contribute. And think about all the caravans that can be produced. Just having enough cities to crank the ship in one turn should be necessary.

Random map for sure.

But thinking about using see all human starting postions. This would allow contact early for tech leap-frog. Monarchy could be had real early, if not given to the host at the start

M&A, keep us appraised so we can avoid any pitfalls that you encounter.

I am starting to get optimistic about this one.

Who wants to try saturday evening?

RAH

Paul, love to have you coordinate the tech effort. I don't have the path memorized

I also see every civ but the master civ with two cities. One trade city. and one caravan/settler cranker. The master civ would probably easily have 80 cities by the year 0.

[rah]

Paul, I tend to disagree, with all the happiness wonders, the 10% lux loss should easily be offset all the extra beakers that the other cities will contribute. And think about all the caravans that can be produced. Just having enough cities to crank the ship in one turn should be necessary.

Random map for sure.

But thinking about using see all human starting postions. This would allow contact early for tech leap-frog. Monarchy could be had real early, if not given to the host at the start

M&A, keep us appraised so we can avoid any pitfalls that you encounter.

I am starting to get optimistic about this one.

Who wants to try saturday evening?

RAH

Paul, love to have you coordinate the tech effort. I don't have the path memorized

I also see every civ but the master civ with two cities. One trade city. and one caravan/settler cranker. The master civ would probably easily have 80 cities by the year 0.

[Paul]

I would prefer to see a more even distribution of cities. Like ten or so per civ. If all or most of them crank out caravans you might be able to deliver enough to get about one advance per turn per civ. If one player has 80 cities cranking out caravans he would just waste most of the beaker bonus. One civ should be designated as the spaceship builder and all the other players should give him most of their cities after the discovery of Space Flight. That way this player could then build the ship in one turn.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Paul (edited July 26, 2000).]</font>

[Xin Yu]

Paul: if cities can be traded among civs then a city can build 6 SS components before the end of turn.