PBEM TIPS

[McMonkey]

I was bored at work today so I wrote this guide. We seem to have a few new members at the moment which is a really good thing. I just wanted to make sure everyone knew all the techniques. I know that despite being a Civ2 player for more than ten years before I started here I was ignorant of a few of these methods and had to learn! Sorry it is only in English.

PBEM TIPS:

Trade is vital in most multiplayer games. Not only do you get a cash payoff and extra trade arrows in the city that sent the trade, you also get a science beaker boost that corresponds to the cash payoff. It is possible to get a technology per turn if you deliver a few high payoff trade deliveries. For example in Imperialism 1870 two to three trade deliveries at 2000 gold per turn (usually for demanded goods) will fill up the science research bar and you will get a new tech the following turn.

Obviously the payoff is better if the city you are delivering the trade goods too demands them. Some large cities will give a good payoff even if they don't demand the goods. Good examples would New York or London, especially if you are trading with them from another continent and from a long distance. If a city has the Colossus wonder it will have a higher number of trade arrows and will be a better destination. Before starting a new scenario I usually take a quick look at the whole map and make a note of the cities with high trade arrow production.

Start mass producing trade units and sea transports as soon as possible and try and ship them to high trade cities as soon as you can. Disband units if you have to, you will soon make more than enough money to replace them once a steady flow of trade is established. You may want to starve your population to make citizens into tax collectors to get more cash to build traders. Sell off any un-necessary city improvements to get cash. You can always rebuild them later on.

The Superhighways improvement (or whatever it is called in the scenario) will greatly increase your trade payoffs. Try to build them as soon as possible. Obviously Republics and Democracies will produce more trade, but you can also boost your trade arrow output in cities that are celebrating "We love the Ruler" day when operating under a Monarchy, Communism or Fundamentalism. Any celebrating city will produce trade arrows as if it is a Republic. When you are ready to send a trade unit into its destination city it is well worth maximizing the trade arrows in its home city, if only temporarily.

If you are trading extensively you may want to alter the tax/science/luxury rate to maximize taxes and luxuries to help your cities celebrate whilst reducing your science to 0%. This is OK as you can get your advances through trade payoffs. If you have your science rate set to 0% make sure you have one science specialist in one of your cities. The small amount of science beakers they produce will be enough to tip the scales and give the new technology on the following turn.

In most scenarios you will need to trade extensively to keep up with the other Civs. Protecting your trade routes will be essential. A blockade cutting trade can be even more effective than open warfare as it slows science research and denies cash which will be needed to rush build units!

As well as the science benefits of trading there is the issue of production. Even if your cities have poor shield outputs you can keep up in production by spending your trade revenues on units. The way to make the most of your money is to use what's called the 'Incremental rush building' technique. For example, you have decided to build a Battleship which costs a 160 shields. Don't rush build it outright! Instead pick the cheapest unit available. Pay for it then change to the next cheapest unit. Each 10 shield row will cost 25 gold. Two rows will cost 60 gold and so on. Keep repeating this process until you get to the Battleship and you will find you have spent a fraction of the gold you would have if you had brought it outright. This technique will be even more efficient if you start with some shields in the production box. Starting with none will make it much more expensive to build the first unit unless it only costs 10 shields. Obviously this technique is not as cost effective as just letting the box fill up naturally, but it is much quicker. Very few cities will have enough shield output to produce a new unit every turn, but by trading and rush building with the revenue even the smallest, weakest city can!

Controlling a city with a large trade arrow output may not seem particularly beneficial at first glance. Once it has sent out its three traders it will only be able to produce new ones once in a while. The other Civs will be reaping the benefits of sending their traders to your city while you get nothing. However there are ways to exploit its trade potential:

Number one would be to charge a toll, say 20%, for every caravan that another Civ sends to the city. If it has a large payoff you will get a good cut of the profits (EG 2000 gold payoff at 20% = 400 gold toll). It will still be worthwhile for the other Civs to send traders as in addition to the 80% cash they keep they will also get the trade beakers. If the cash payout is 2000 gold the beakers will fill between a third and a half of the science progress bar!

Number two is the influence you will gain from controlling such a desirable trade destination. Other nations will be careful not to offend you and risk having their trade embargoed. This can give you a huge amount of diplomatic leverage. Don't push either advantage too far though as there will always be other markets to send trade to and you could end up isolated.

[Ingvar]

Good reading, this certainly is useful.

[McMonkey]

I'm glad it helps. I have never been one play early landing or conquest games of the original Civ2 game. I like to drag it out and make up my own little campaigns as I go along. Therefore trading was never so vital when playing the AI. It was only when I started playing multiplayer that I really learned (or was told) the finer points of the game.

[cupcoffee]

Another thing to keep in mind, even though it's not always applicable to all scenarios, is that certain technologies reduces the pay off you get from caravans. In vanilla civ 2 it's Flight, Navigation, Invention and Railroads, so unless they're bottleneck techs, researching them later might be a good idea.

[McMonkey]

Good point!

[Historical Atze]

I've added it to the General Info Thread. We should somewhen elaborate on this and add more generally useful information on PBEM-playing. Good work .

[McMonkey]

Cool, thanks.

I remember how much I have learned since starting playing here thanks to Atze, Sephiroth and others. I also based this guide on Eivind's one at Apolyton. I just thought I would pass on the love

What other stuff could we cover? Also, it might be worth translating it into German if that's not too much hassle?

[Cobra]

Some explanation how you can optimize your trade.

In most PBEMs its very important to research as fast as you can the techs which give you an advance in weapon production.
If you have already trade, your goal is to build as many merchants (=caravan) and as fast as possible. Each city can have 3 trade routes. In most city you can´t build merchants any more if 3 trade routes exist (besides food caravans). If your city is a target from a foreign merchant, one trade route is established and you still can build only 2 merchants.
You should have 3 merchants built before foreign merchants arrive at your cities.
Now you have enough merchants, but whereto send?
When a merchant arrives, you get a one time bonus payment beside of the permanent trade. You get the bonus payment in Gold and the same amount in beekers for your research.
As found out by Robert Lancaster the formula to calculate this bonus (modified by me for a easier handling):
Payment/beekers = ( ( distance + 10 ) x ( trade of both cities ) ) / 48
Distance = number of squares between the home citie and the target city. Thereby count diagonal as long as possible. Then the remaining horizontal or vertical squares count as 1.5
trade of both cities = actual trade city 1 + actual trade city 2 without results of existing trade routes and corruption. So if you optimize your city management before you install the trade route you get better results.
Example: Home city of the merchant is London with trade = 21, located at (40;62), target City is Paris, with trade = 15, located at (76;82).
Distance = 32 (20 squares diagonal + 8 horizontal *1.5 )
Basis payment = (32+10)* (21+15)/48 = 42*0,75= 31,5
This basis payment is multiplied by following cumulative modifiers:
Target city is a foreign city *2
In the first 200 turns *2
Freight instead of caravan *1,5
Cities connected by road *1,5 (only first and last 2 squares of optimal route necessary)
Cities connected by rail *1,5
Cities on different continents *2
Airports in both cities *1,5
Superhighways in home city *1,5 (or however it is named in the PBEM)

For our example the modifiers in bold apply.
We multiply the basis payment with the modifiers: 32 * 2 * 2 * 1,5 * 2 = 32*12 = 384
So you will get for this merchant 384 Gold and 384 beekers. But this is not all!
If the target city demands the good, you will get much more. In each PBEM the goods have different names, but there are always 16 goods. Now lets have a look at them as seen when pressing F5 then "Supply and Demand".

goods.JPG

The position of the good is very important. The row on the left side are position 1-8, the goods on the right side 9-16. The demanded goods at positions 1,2,3,5,7 and 8 get an additional 100% for a total of 768. The demanded goods at positions 4,6,9,11 get an additional 150% for a total of 960. The demanded goods at positions 10,12,13 and 14 get an additional 200% for a total of 1152. The demanded goods at positions 15 gets an additional 250% for a total of 1344 and the demanded goods at position 16 gets an additional 300 % for a total of 1536.
You see the range for a merchant from London to Paris in this example is from 384 to 1536 Gold and beekers.
More trade in the cities and larger distance will booth your benefits. But there is a limit. You can´t get more than 2/3 of beekers (+ Gold) as you need for the next tech to research!
Make sure that you don´t have scientists in your cities and Press Shift+T, set your Science Rate to 0% and you get the following information above: Discoveries: XXXX turns. This shows you how many beekers you need for the next tech. This XXXX is par example 1000. Now you know that it is impossible to get more than 667 Gold and beekers for a merchant (2/3 of needed beekers).

[Ingvar]

Excellent work!

So much information here I never knew about, thanks for this!

I for one just recently realized the importance of trade, in at least one of my games I am way behind almost all the other players because I did not trade nearly as much as they did!

[Alcibaides]

Thanks for that Cobra,

I am learning a lot. There are some things that I did not understand though.

In your example you applied both the 'Cities connected by road' and 'Cities on different continents' bonuses. But if the cities are on different continents, how can they be connected by a road?

What did you mean by "only first and last 2 squares of optimal route necessary"?

[Alcibaides]

Each city can have 3 trade routes. In most city you can´t build merchants any more if 3 trade routes exist (besides food caravans).

Also the hides commodity can be built as many times as you want. So if you have a city that supplies hides this is very valuable.

Of course it is not always called "hides" in every scenario. I think it is Dye in Aeternas Civitas.....

[Ingvar]

One thing I have noticed is that sometimes the Civilopedia claims terrain will not recieve trade bonus from having road, but it still does recive the bonus.
Anyone know the reason for this?
Same with Civilopedia claiming terrain can be mined.

[Radyserb]

One thing I have noticed is that sometimes the Civilopedia claims terrain will not recieve trade bonus from having road, but it still does recive the bonus.
Anyone know the reason for this?

I think, there is on every terrain a bonus on existing trade arrows (like on rivers or on gems or Gold ressources in normal civ). But if there are no trade arrows as terrain output, the roads create only on some terrains trade output (grassland, desert, plains).

Same with Civilopedia claiming terrain can be mined.

The effect by mining only comes into effect, if the not-mined terrain output is at least 1 shield. On glacier isn't mining possible.