From: drazil@qiclab.scn.rain.com (Devin Ben-Hur)
Newsgroups: rec.games.misc
Subject: Re: Civilization Tournament
Date: 1 Sep 92 02:06:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: qiclab.1992Sep1.020658.12438
Organization: Are you kidding?


Here's some clarification on the Civilization tournament.

You may pick any name you want, but if you want a civ name other than
Romans, it must be a name not used normally in the game.  The generated
game uses Romans as the civ, and there's no problem editing the name,
but if you chose to be the Zulus and the real Shaka shows up it'll be
mighty confusing.

The "movement tricks" mentioned in my original post are tricks that use
anomalies in the Sentry command to extend the number of moves a unit
can make in a given turn.  If you don't know these tricks already,
experiment and discover them for yourself.  The tournament rules allow
the exploitation of movement tricks.

The "switch-inventory tricks" involve switching the inventory selection
in the city production box to allow one to build things more quickly or
cheaply.  These tricks are also permitted.

The "money cheat" involves editing a saved data file to put lots of
money in your treasury without having earned it.  There is a program
out there which will do this, though all it requires is a binary file
editor and some experimentation.  This cheat is not allowed.

The "debug-mode cheat" involves using certain obscure key sequences to
enable debug modes in the game.  The best known is the Alt-5-6 sequence
which enables a full world map and player control of enemy cities.
There is another which scrambles the characteristics of the enemy
leaders.  These cheats are not allowed.  

The basic rule involving tricks and cheats is that game-play anomalies
resulting from normal actions that don't involve leaving the game are
permitted.  Tricks and cheats requiring the player to operate outside
the game (save & reload, data/save file editing), or that drastically
change the nature of the game (debug modes) are disallowed.  Of course,
you're all on the honor system :)

There were some changes to the game with v.03, so v.03 or later is
required so that all contestants compete on equal terms.  Some of the
significant changes were modifications in the unhappiness formulas,
requiring >3size cities to make specialists, and changing transports so
they don't make frowny faces under the representative governments.

civv03.zip and civv04.zip are available via ftp from
wuarchive.wustl.edu in directory pub/MSDOS_UPLOADS.  They are also
downloadable from the Microprose BBS at 301/785-1841 (v.32).  For those
BBS participants who are getting their initial game files via floppy, I
will include these version updates on the disk.

I've had various suggestions which I'll address:

1) Don't found the first city, just move the initial settler one space
before saving.

  It can be detrimental to not get your first city founded right away.
Rather than penalize everyone with a wasted initial turn, I'll found
the city.  The tournament game has been generated and I've picked a
scenario where you start the game with two settlers instead of one, so
everyone gets to start with a free extra settler.  I hope this
compensates anyone who might be unhappy with the initial city placement
(which isn't spectacular, but is by no means poor).

2) It may be tricky saving the game just before the end.

  So pay attention.  If you're getting close to victory, be careful and
make sure you have the end-of-turn option enabled.

3) Use EARTH and then everyone doesn't have to pick up the initial save
game file.

  Well, the terrain would be the same, but the opponents and their
initial positions would be different for each player.  I have generated
a random map so as to preserve some of the element of discovery which
you don't really get when playing Earth.  I have explored the
tournament map sufficiently to determine that you're starting on a
moderate sized continent and have at least one enemy sharing your land
mass.


I will begin distributing the game file to participants this week
(first week of Sept'92).  The deadline for returning saved games to me
will be midnight Saturday October 3, 1992.

Participants may enter as many times as they wish and may play at more
than one level if they wish.  You may submit entries for more than one
goal if you like (the goals are High Score, Earliest Conquest, Earliest
Space Colony).  You may save the game, of course, so it may be played in
more than one sitting, but you may not use intermediate saved game
states to restart the game.  If things go badly, please try again from
the initial state, not from the turn before the barbarians captured
your capitol.

The initial game state will be distributed as the files CIVTOURN.SVE
and CIVTOURN.MAP.  To begin playing you must copy these files to
CIVILx.SVE and CIVILx.MAP where "x" is a digit 0-3 corresponding to the
1st through 4th save slots.  Then you can load the game from that slot
as you normally would.

I will upload a file civtourn.zip to wuarchive.wustl.edu which will
contain the generic start files (Ceaser of Rome) for all play levels
for anyone who has ftp and doesn't desire a custom name.

Unless there are strenuous objections, I will be competing in the King
and/or Emperor levels myself.  Let me know if you think this is unfair.

-- 
Devin Ben-Hur        [drazil@qiclab.scn.rain.com]
"Your civilization makes us laugh..."