Sid Meier's Civilization Space Race to Alpha Centauri Speedrun in

Taking 10.000 Kittens to Space, now in under 13 minutes.
Run starts at 1:19
I'm still not sure why the computer didn't expand much, might have been just lucky that they built their first cities in positions where they can't grow well. I would love to hear any feedback if anyone figures out if there's some RNG manipulation involved making this happen more reliably as computers add a lot of lag to the game, especially since the speedrun category is being locked to 3000 cycles on dosbox.
Common questions:
- Win condition of this category is to win the game as fast as possible via sending a spaceship to Alpha Centauri
- It's not important how early as in the year I send the rocket to space. However, I try to not be too fast, because the years increment by 5 pre-1750 in this version (1850 after 474.3 patch) and the smallest spacecraft design needs 26 years to fly. You can build more ship to work around this, unlikely effecting this kind of speedrun
- I run on game version 474.1. It has slight advantages to the 474.3 patch.
- Settler winning against barbarians? In selected difficulty, barbarians do 0.25x multiplier to damage and settlers have 1. Good chance for my settler to win. And yeah, this has ruined runs before.
- I hope to see more Civilization 1 on KZbin. Especially on real hardware. And especially all the non-MS-DOS versions!

[@timothymclean]

The great civilizations of history: The French, the Zulus, and the Kittens.

[@entropop]

This is great. 10,000 Kitten Colonists :-)

[@DerBeinmann]

😊🥰🐈

[@a1m598]

I thought it was kinda crazy how you left only one Phalanx guarding that Megatropolis the whole time. Great work though!

[@Jennifer-pk4wq]

Thanks! In easiest difficulty, barbarians have 1/4th attack strength. Barbarians destroying your city *can* happen, but it does not happen often. Sometimes a whole horde of barbarians appear (usually after discovering gunpowder). Best defense against stronger units are diplomats. Just bribe them and they're yours. Works against enemy AI too

[@UWRZoneTheCurrent]

@@Jennifer-pk4wq Seems like the real challenge is NOT to take over the world :)

[@timixretroplays]

I loved the settler casually defending against the musketeer. Go away, man, I'm busy building a railroad here. Edit: And *then* the two knights while cleaning up pollution. Those were some badass civil servants.

[@elfo7]

I have been playing this game since I was a child and I just learned you can rename your faction... lol

[@JennyFluff]

To be fair, the game never points out that you can do that. Neither does the manual!

[@sarysa]

So a bunch of red warriors stubbed their toes walking into buildings, got beat up by Settlers, and then Rome won the space race. Early civ is weird.

[@user-ml2dt7sd3o]

kittens are so powerful that they invented the first computers in 1800

[@vicnaum]

I loved how in 1565 AD Refining was chosen instead of Religion, Monarchy or Communism

[@atempestrages5059]

We all know how this turned out... "Don't go...the drones need you."

[@nathangamble125]

They look up to you!

[@tjlomin1466]

This was my favorite one...

[@danjbundrick]

I for one welcome our Kitten overlords.

[@colebendall]

Me: Rome wasn’t built in a day 12 minutes later Me: never mind

[@troels4554]

Lol.... hillarious and awesome at the same time.

[@gctzx]

This was very cool. It has inspired me to fire up the Amiga emulator and have a try at this! Besides conquering the world, one of my most memorable moments in Civilization was fortifying a a one square mountain choke point, filling it with defensive units and watching Uncle Joe Stalin send Russian human waves against it for a thousand years. 🤣

[@JennyFluff]

I need to try the other ports. The SNES port seems weird, I think the Atari one plays like the MS-DOS one?

[@skybuck2000]

Hell funny ! Gotta try this out sometime ! Hihi.. me getting better with the tech as well... hmmm...

[@aarnijarvelainen8499]

I wonder what would be the earliest possible turn to get the science ending.

[@JennyFluff]

Unsure about the exact date; with the minimal rocket you want to arrived past 1750 (in version 474.1/2, 475.1) or 1850 in (v. 474.3-474.5). The win condition checks if year == arrival year. You will softlock the game if your travel time is 26 years and the game year increments by 5 per turn before the mentioned dates.

[@DerBeinmann]

Nice 😊🥰👍👍😉

[@Bahtijaro]

Nice run. U should try spacerace with least amount of turns now. Would like to see how early its possible to finish the game without conquest

[@JennyFluff]

So, there's a problem I came across one of my earlier runs. If you launch the spacecraft before the time counts with one year per turn (this is 1850 in version 474.01 and 1750 in version 474.03+) you softlock the game launching the spacecraft too early. So I did a run playing with the patched version and launched the spacecraft in 1670. It said that that it would arrive in 1696. Problem was: There was no 1696. Years counted by 5 year intervals. There was 1695, then 1700. The end cinematic never played. After being confused by this, I checked on the spacecraft screen... it showed as "landed", but I never won the game.

[@ElvisAlilu]

@@JennyFluff is it possible to count spacecraft travel years to arrive in countable years to avoid the bug?

[@JennyFluff]

@@ElvisAlilu You could possibly try building a ship with more parts to adjust travel time. But building more parts means it takes more IRL time. Note that building space ship parts means a bunch of screen transitions that are slow, plus in the spaceship screen you don't see your current year (so you have to remember it).

[@intj_gaming]

How about we ignore IRL time anyway

[@512k]

@@JennyFluff Just did it today with 4 propulsions, and some more additionnals structurals the travel times was 10.3 years (mass 8500t). Successfull landing/ending in 1310, no bug. 1 turns is 10years. (atari st version)

[@marcdc6809]

I replayed the game a year or two ago... Emperor as the Russians on earth map with exploitation of all possible bugs, and save/reload to obtain best possible outcome of villages, even then I still found a better strategy after all these years, one city next to black sea that gets all possible science buffs. favourite bugs... building every improvement in 1 turn with 'end of turn' and then reclicking on every settler until finished... also building railroads on sea-squares... getting as fast as possible to republic, every city builds only caravans or settlers, and then one city gathers the caravans and builds an improvement, that's by building first a wonder, then help building wonder, then switch back to the building, or build the wonder, also an option. of course save/reload allows you to defend all of the europe, asia and africa with only 3 phalanx... advantage of building caravans is that you don't get fi 20 mfg plants after 50 turns, but the first one after 5 turns, and that one can then already start producing more, giving you already a lot of extra production by turn 50...

[@Jennifer-pk4wq]

oh yeah good old game exploits! I've considered the "build improvement stuff in one turn" as well as "build railroad on water" but clicking and managing the settler is just not viable for this category. Same with trade caravans. In this near perfect run, the AI didn't expand at all and that's what you want (I think you can send it to your other cities as well; but just managing and building 2 or more cities will easily add 3-5+ minutes to the speedrun. And then there's this bug that you cannot be too quick to be to space. If you launch before 1750 (iirc 1850 in later versions of civ1), time will advance in 5 year intervals and your ship needs 26 years to arrive and it arrives in-between causing the end cinematic never to trigger.

[@marcdc6809]

@@Jennifer-pk4wq I see, this here was a speedrun, a scenario I also like is Emperor/Russians/Earth/7 players, and the Zulu's in the game, that always ends in war from early on, and then basically you need to be a bit crafty. It happens also to lose big time. Another weird strategy: you can basically spam ennemi territory with diplomats... it's a bit funny to imagine how two diplomats at three squares from each other manage to halt any army, but there you have it... the diplomats can end up starving the ennemi civ.

[@akexkdffakdkwicdfkkdkk7343]

SIHA: LOL.

[@henrybierman8431]

How did you get the city with only nine population producing what looks like thirty to fifry science and twenty gold

[@Jennifer-pk4wq]

The rivers generate a lot of money and science, especially after switching to Republic

[@ComradeAart]

Republic, road and rivers. Commerce to the max

[@scfan7231]

Why did you not build a Factory? And why not build settlers to improve tiles, even after Republic?

[@JennyFluff]

I usually don't go with factory if my production is high enough. You have to count in the time selecting the city/dealing with the city menu, waiting for it to be built (while you are not building important things, which at late stage is a lot at once. Heck, if I could build a factory in ancient times, that would be a must have) - and then, the factory produces more pollution. If pollution lands at the wrong spots, you can loose too much food production (famine is bad, most of the time a run-ender) or industry production and have to deal with the settlers (move them to and remove pollution). This all costs time. Same problem with settlers for improving tiles. I am not a TASbot, cycling between units takes time - hitting a key to end the turn is cheap in terms of time.

[@scfan7231]

@@JennyFluff Whoa. You put a lot of thought into this speedrun. I want to try that as well...

[@JennyFluff]

@@scfan7231 go ahead! And check out my 8 minute run of this game with the new dosbox speed rules

[@eggchin9721]

What's your favorite civ game

[@JennyFluff]

Civ1 is close to my heart being my first game alike. Civ4 with Beyond the Sword is probably my favorite one.

[@eggchin9721]

@@JennyFluff nice

[@heltok]

Should have increased science earlier

[@JennyFluff]

possibly? I didn't anticipate being in such a good spot at the beginning of the run. Watching it I see a bunch of optimization strategies (like settling one tile to the left) but I can't learn too much out of it. There's a lot of randomness to civ 1, like the bug where the enemy doesn't expand (that happened here).

[@tobiaspotocek1837]

@@JennyFluff Regarding randomness, one way to avoid it is to choose Earth. Then if you go with I believe 4 civs and play as Aztecs, you'll have the whole American continent just for yourself until very late in the game. There is one spot in the middle of North America where two rivers meet. If you build a city there, it can reach what I believe is the max possible population, as there are only food providing tiles. I'm sure there are spots on the continent that would work really great for this speedrun :)

[@scfan7231]

@@tobiaspotocek1837 Zulu have a great starting area, too. But with American and only 3 Civs, chances that you are alone are likely massive.

[@ldfnhblwfnm]

Если бы он не 2 цивилизации поставил, то с такой тактикой его бы уничтожили. Да и вызывают вопросы его неубиваемые варварами юниты.

[@sirnimek2565]

Something is wrong here. Your Settlers won twice when attacked by barbarians. Game code was probably tweaked

[@Jennifer-pk4wq]

Settlers have a defense strength of 1 and barbarians have a 0.25x multiplier in strength in chieftan difficulty.