Smsh's 2 whale/2 gold OCC comparison game

[valmont]

Game 4 is a bust.

I can't figure out how to deal with the Aztecs. Once I've built up my treasury they always demand 1000 gold. Of course I refuse and they declare war. I have to build archers, then riflemen, and if I don't detour to communism -> espionage, they just take all the tech and beat me to AC.

Do you build Hoover Dam or a plain old power plant?

Smash, which version of Civ2 are you playing?
[This message has been edited by valmont (edited November 02, 1999).]

[Paul]

If you are low on money in the endgame that may be because you are giving hundreds of gold to the AIs. The point of these alliances is that the AI pays you, not the other way round.

One way to save money on spaceship building is to disband a caravan, buy a structural and then switch to a component. You will have 80 shields in the box and produce the other 80 to save 320 gold per component or 1920 gold total. I first read this in an other thread some months ago; unfortunately I don't remember who said it.

[gambler]

Second attempt and Space Flight in 1640.
Unfortunately I have less than 200 gold
and I produce only 54 shields,
so I won't be able to build my spaceship in a short time.

[valmont]

Game 5: finally landed in 19th century! 1881
This time I used Mac version 1.0 and I think it makes a big difference. I got all the tribute I needed and then some; and neither the Aztec nor French civs gave me big hassles. In spite of the slower science I think this version is MUCH easier than MGE.

My worst problem: late in the game the French sneak attacked me & I couldn't get any freight through.

Are you making up for the slow science with caravans? I guess I'm not building enough of 'em.

Ay, what was I doing building Hoover Dam? Guess I thought it was 4 whales.

Granary did help, in a subtle way: While I was researching sanitation, the food box filled. If I hadn't had the granary it would have gone empty. This helped much later, when pollution was giving me occasional starvation. Insurance against losing engineers. Didn't really help early in the game. Not sure it's worth it.

[Paul]

I tried the game again and this time I landed in 1765. I wrote down some important dates in my game; if you also want to land well into the 1700s this will help you to see how far in front or behind you are.

2650 BC Gov: Monarchy
2200 BC Colossus
825 BC Gov: Republic
525 BC Copernicus
175 BC Shakespeare
60 AD Gov: Democracy
160 AD Newton
460 AD Refrigeration
720 AD Darwin; Automobile
1120 AD Computers
1400 AD Space Flight
1750 AD Launch
1765 AD Alpha Centauri

[Dino the Dinosore]

I landed in 1908, my personal best for OCC. Can't imagine how people do it over 100 years earlier, I guess Im just slow. One thing I did different this time is skip HG because I got Medicine as an early available tech, so i went for Shake's and early Republic. Aztecs wiped out French early and blocked my way to anyone else. Although always well-disposed to me the Aztecs would not agree to ally, (would share maps even), so I had no source of gifts as I usaully do. Only when I got UN really late was I able to get anything, and then it wasn't much (Americans had lost 2 cities to Barbs, who had also wiped out Romans and had a large 3 city empire - biggest barb empire I've ever seen).
Another funny story - early middle game a barb trireme appeared just north of my city and I sent my dip over there to try and bribe it because I really needed some naval transport. But when I got there and tried, it's got units on board so I can't bribe it. The ship just went back and forth between 2 squares while I shadowed it with my dip until I finally got tired and gave up. And that damned ship kept going back and forth between the same 2 squares until almost the end of the game! Must have been over a hundred turns. Finally just 2 turns before my spaceship lands it moves west and dumps some barbs on the Aztecs.

Tried out this save last night and landed in 1859, 2 turns earlier than in Paul's Island OCC save.

I was left pretty much to myself by the AI, given their remote starting locations and the Aztecs' surprisingly expansive approach. They knocked off the French really early and the Carthaginians later on.

I tried to ally with the Aztecs a couple of times, but they were very reluctant, to say the least. Allied with the Americans instead, not that they were much help though.

It seems the starting locations of the AI's, so far away from the human player, is a little too twisted to have happened on a randomly generated map, but what do I know?

It was lots of fun playing it anyway, and for the first time, I went on a crusade after the launch and wiped out the Americans and Romans alltogether. What a relief after all that beakercounting and incremental rushbuying!

I highly recommend this post-launch rampage to anyone. Kind of a brush-up course in pre-OCC civing.

BTW, whatever happened to Carolus' proposed challenge of a combined OCC and world conquest game. Did anyone try out the score scheme?

After the game ended, I spent half a minute gazing (out of old habit) at the WHITE powergraph in disbelief: Funny, I didn't remember having such a hard time around 1500 A.D....

So who else plays OCC these days?