Welcome to the Civilization FAQ. Minor update - 11th January, 1994
For those with limited newsreaders, the FAQ can be obtained from
ftp.uwp.edu:/pub/games/romulus/hints/civ.faq
It has been brought to my attention that most newsreaders have a way to
quickly hop from section to section in a digest, by skipping between
Subject: lines. Therefore, each section has been formatted like
Subject: 1) How can I tell which version of Civ I have?
and
Subject: 2) Which is the best version of Civ?
and so on. For example, rn uses ^G to hop from Subject: line to Subject:
line; GNUS uses ^C^N and ^C^P, and so on. Very useful.
Before I get into the nitty-gritty of the game, I would like to thank
personally a few people without whose help this FAQ would not be
possible. In no particular order:
Albion Mark Lilback
Devin Ben-Hur Matt Malone
Ron Bense Skip Meister
Ralph Betza Bob O'Bob
David Gosselin James Ollinger
Bryce Harrington Mark Steer
Robert Johnson Garth Sweet
Roger Kemp Earnest To
Special thanks are due to Maurice Schekkerman and Elliott Kleinrock,
who sent me a large number of posts they had collected before I began
compiling this FAQ.
Note: Elliott sent me the most comprehensive collection of tips I've
yet seen, and much of the information that has been credited to "Rome
on 640K" was sent by him. I have yet to see this book, but it is on
order at my local bookstore, and I look forward to reading it as much
as I look forward to having time to play Civilization, instead of
compiling the FAQ. :) If you don't have a copy of "Rome on 640K" yet
(see below)---why?
If I've left anybody out of the credits, I am terribly sorry; I do
appreciate all the stuff that has been sent in, and if I've made any
omissions, please let me know.
If you have any questions, comments, criticisms or tips, I'd like to
hear about them. I can be reached at djh@wcl.bham.ac.uk [Dave].
What is Civilization? Civ is a computer game published by MicroProse, and
is available for the PC and Mac. However, having said that, to me it's not
so much of a game as a way of life. Just ask anyone who has played
it. The aim of the game is to take a tribe, settle them, and try to create
a civilization. Along the way you develop new sciences, meet other tribes
(some warlike, some not), and visit new continents, all for the aim of
trying to get into space, and/or to be the dominant civilization.
A lot of the information in this document is designed to give not only the
new player an insight into the game, showing the various strategies and
tricks, but to also provide the experienced player with information on how
to make his civilization stronger with the aim of getting a higher score.
In compiling the FAQ, I have both discovered features which have not only
improved my understanding of the game, but have made the game even more fun
to play.
I will now proceed...
Note: A : in the left-hand column denotes alteration, and a + denotes new.
Section A: General Information
1) How can I tell which version of Civ I have?
2) Which is the best version of Civ?
3) What is the Advisory Bug?
4) What is the Undefended City Bug?
5) What is the Civ score Bug?
6) What is the Bomber Bug?
7) What is the Date Line Bug?
8) What is the Ghost Civilization Bug?
9) What is the Tale of One City Bug?
10) Where is the map editor?
: 11) Where can I get an updated version?
: 12) What if I don't have FTP access?
Section B: Cities
1) How do I make a city?
2) How do I make my city grow?
3) Should I have many cities or just a few?
4) Is there a limit to the size of my city?
5) How do you keep a city from getting unhappy?
6) How do I make an Elvis (or Taxman, or Scientist)?
7) How much money does a Taxman collect?
8) How many light bulbs does a Scientist create?
9) What is the difference between subvert a city and revolt?
10) Which is the best government type?
11) How does the computer cheat?
12) What is the highest population for a single city?
13) Why do I appear to get unhappy citizens for free?
14) Should I sell obsolete improvements?
15) What power plants are the best, and when can I build them?
16) What is the maximum number of happy people in a city?
17) What is most important in developing the assets of a city?
Section C: Different game strategies
1) a) General strategies.
b) Despotic Conquest.
c) Democratic Ostrich.
d) Flexible Evolution.
e) Republic.
f) Pyramid.
g) High Tech.
h) Rich.
i) Mercenary.
j) Balanced.
k) Peaceful.
l) High Tech Conquest.
m) Hide in a Corner.
n) Archipelago.
o) Diploblitz.
p) Trading Cities.
q) Take No Prisoners.
r) The Helping Hand.
s) The Rock.
t) Replay.
u) Go see them or they will come see you.
v) Pillage to the Max.
w) Take the Best, Discard the Rest.
2) Colossal City Strategy.
3) President's Day Sale.
4) What is the best way to take an enemy city?
5) What are the best wonders to build?
Section D: Tips and information
1) Final score.
2) Light bulb formula.
3) Money-saving tips.
4) Military advice.
5) Miscellaneous tricks and tips.
6) The Canal trick.
7) Railroads at sea.
8) Interaction with the various civilizations.
9) The pattern of special resource squares.
10) Defence and attack queries.
11) Appearance of new civilizations.
12) How do you calculate pollution?
13) How is the trade route income calculated?
14) How is the trade bonus calculated?
15) Any other trade information?
16) How is global warming calculated?
17) How is corruption calculated?
Section E: Cheats
1) The Shift-56 cheat.
2) The Movement cheat.
3) The Settler cheat.
4) Ship movement cheat.
5) The Shipping Lanes cheat.
6) The Unloading ships cheat.
7) The Save game cheat.
8) The Settler movement cheat.
9) The Spaceship cheat!
10) The Settler/Railroad at sea cheat(?)
11) Hacking the .SVE file.
: 12) Is there an easier way to hack the .SVE files?
Section F: The future
1) Will there be a Civ II?
2) Civilization-Like Games.
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G E N E R A L
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Subject: 1) How can I tell which version of Civ I have?
--------------------------------------------------------
When you run Civ it asks various setup questions. The version number is on
these screens. The number is 474 plus an increment, so v5 is shown
as 474.05. If you have an older version, you can get the latest version by
anonymous FTP from some of the big game sources such as ftp.uwp.edu.
Note: Version numbers may be 475.X or 474.X, with the only difference
being the distribution media.
Subject: 2) Which is the best version of Civ?
----------------------------------------------
There has been much debate on Usenet about the various pros and cons of the
different versions. The only two versions worth considering are 474.01 and
474.05 (versions 1 and 5). The easiest of the two is v1. If you are playing
with v5, and not having much luck, revert back to v1. This is also the
version that allows the Shift-56 Cheat, which can be a good way of learning
the ins and outs of the game. However, if you like a challenge, then v5 is
really the only one to play. A further impetus to upgrade is that v5 contains
far less bugs. If you do get the latest version, the chances that the game
will not crash are far greater :) . The biggest problem with v1 is the
Instant Advice bug, which is better known as the "Advisory Bug". This can be
temporarily avoided by turning Instant advice off.
The following version information was compiled with the help of MicroProse:
v1: The original game.
v2: This version attempted---and failed---to fix the Advisory Bug. It did
fix the Score Bug, and removed the Shift-56 Cheat.
v3: Once again tried to fix the Advisory Bug, and failed again. Added some
new pictures. Added "very unhappy people." Removed free barracks. No
longer able to disband a population-1 city at Chieftain level by buying
a settler. Transports no longer made people unhappy under a Democracy
or Republic. Overall, the game became harder for veteran players. This
version is harder to play than previous versions, mainly for people
playing Despotic Conquest.
v4: No changes; just converted for HD disks.
v5: The most recent failed attempt to repair the Advisory Bug.
Note: There is no other difference between v3 and v5.
For those who want more information about Civilization, there is a book
called "Sid Meier's Civilization, or Rome on 640K a Day," by Johnny
Wilson and Alan Emrich (ISBN 1-55958-191-3, US$18.95). If your
bookstore doesn't have it, tell them to contact St Martin's Press, 175
Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010, (212) 674-5151. This is a highly
recommended book.
Subject: 3) What is the Advisory Bug?
--------------------------------------
I have never met this bug, but it is known by MicroProse, and has been
reported by a number of sources.
If you leave the "Advisors" option on, then if the Domestic or Military
advisors can't think of anything to suggest, the program dies. This
will happen if your city has pretty much everything it needs or could
build.
---Adam Ginsberg
Subject: 4) What is the Undefended City Bug?
---------------------------------------------
Occasionally, when I have a lot of cities (around 50), I have one city that
shows up as undefended in the map display (no dark border) but in the city
display, shows fortified units inside. I usually take all of the units out
and then all back in to correct the situation. Sometimes I get the "Romans
plunder ..." message when I re-enter such a city and the population
decreases by one. If a computer civilization attacks a city that is shown to
be undefended, they capture it despite the fact that units are present in it.
This has been detected in both v4 and v5.
Subject: 5) What is the Civ score Bug?
---------------------------------------
Originally I thought this was connected with the advisory bug, but it
turns out that it is something completely different.
Bob O'Bob points out that every time he looks at "Civilization Score"
that he gets scrambled oceans, or extra land at the North Pole, and
that if he tries to move there, the screen goes crazy. As a result,
he's learned not to look at the Civilization Score anymore, because
once the screen loops out, the save files become corrupted
unrecoverably. He suggests that if you must see your Civilization
Score that you do a save *first*, and a restart afterward.
He also points out that you can see the corruption in the small map:
some of the people from the score screen remain on the map, and he
believes that this is what screws up the .MAP file. Occasionally,
there's lots of new grassland around the North Pole, and even some
"mystery houses." Finally, he points out that you can go get the 50 coin
prizes, if you care to go to the trouble, but that your system may not
be as forgiving as his is.
This problem occurs when your population increases over some number of
millions, and the full width of the screen is used. They then get written
into that portion of the map screen for some oddball reason. There is an
advantage or two to gotten from doing this, although the game becomes a
pain to play. Some of the grassland created becomes a mystery terrain type,
with 112 food production (113 with irrigation, if you ever get that
finished, plus 50% with railroads), 105 production (+50% with railroad) and
99 trade (+50% with railroads). It takes forever to build roads/railroads
on these squares, and I went back to an old save game where I didn't have
this city, as the game developed too many problems to be playable, for me,
at the time, although I should be able to have a city size of 1764 (roughly
55 size classes per square, as 2 food is required per size).
Note: your pollution would be impossible to deal with even two of these
squares being utilized, as each produces 99 resources.
---Ron Bense
Subject: 6) The Bomber Bug
---------------------------
This bug has been reported recently. It appears in v1 and 5.
When a bomber has finished its turn, if you try to reactivate it, it
will be destroyed.
Subject: 7) The Date Line Bug
------------------------------
You cannot fly all the way around the world. There is a seam that extends
from pole to pole. You can spot this seam by looking at the world map and
seeing where there is no land in a band from pole to pole. On Earth, if
you build a city in Brisbane Aust, you see a funny land type on the right
side of the city display. Anyway, if you try and fly a plane across this
seam, it goes on a psycho goto away from the seam.
---Matt Malone
Subject: 8) The Ghost Civilization Bug
---------------------------------------
If you destroy a civilization BEFORE it builds its first city, you will
not be able to conquer the world. It seems that you need to destroy the
civilizations capital for the computer to register its death. This bug
occurs even if it is a computer controlled civilization that kills the
settler.
Subject: 9) The Tale of One City Bug
-------------------------------------
I found yet another bug in Civilization: when I captured Babylon, the
Babylonian capital, I got the message: "Due to the fall of their capital,
the Babylonian Empire splits in a civil war. The country divides into loyal
(Babylonian) and rebel (American) factions." (or a message like that, you
get the picture...)
Unfortunately, Babylon was the only city they had left, and the game
locked... (I suppose the computer can't divide 0 by 2).
---Boudewijn
Subject: 10) Where is the map editor?
--------------------------------------
There is now available a form of map editor that can be used from inside the
game. It is written by Holger Eichmann, and although a little awkward to
use, it certainly appears to do the job. The file is called civmap21.zip
and can be obtained from wuarchive in the uploads directory.
The following is quoted from Holgers distribution archive to give an idea of
its complexity:
Here it is, version 2.1 of my Civilization Map Editor! Due to version
1.0 having some bugs and because this week my time is very limited, I want
to ask you to test it a little bit. When you try it, please send me a
short mail stating whether or not it works (like: 'civ version 1: it runs'
or 'version 5: nothing happens' or gladly something more detailed).
How to start it?
First you have to change the following bytes in your civ.exe file e.g. by
using a file editor (don't forget to make a security copy of your file
before you do it):
version 1 + 2(?): E9 54 00 B8 32 00 -> E9 54 00 CD F1 90
version 3 + 4: 02 75 53 B8 32 00 -> 02 75 53 CD F1 90
version 5: E9 59 00 B8 32 00 -> E9 59 00 CD F1 90
all versions: 3B C1 75 BB B8 01 00 -> CD F2 90 90 90 90 90
(You can get the version number of the civ.exe file by starting it. When
you are asked for your graphics and sound in the top window you will find
a 474 followed by the version number (e.g. 474.05 for version 5)).
After that you only have to start civ_map2.exe before starting civ.exe
(you have to make the changes first, because you have to insert an int $F1
and $F2 call into the civ.exe file). While playing you can switch the
editor on/off by pressing the print screen key.
You get the editor for a map field, when you right click on that field
with your mouse. For further informations see the .inf file of version 1.
---Holger Eichmann
Subject: 11) Where can I get an updated version?
-------------------------------------------------
MicroProse does not charge for their updates.
(LD charges not included :)) You can call their BBS at 410-785-1841 and
download the latest versions of Civ and their other titles as well...
It is also available at
ftp.uwp.edu:/pub/games/romulus/misc/civv05.zip.
Subject: 12) What if I don't have FTP access?
----------------------------------------------
For those of you that do not have access to FTP, it is possible to obtain
both the FAQ and the upgrade via E-mail. This can be done using an ftpmail
server.
TO: FTPMAIL@DECWRL.DEC.COM
*no subject*
..... body of letter .....
reply you@your.own.address
connect ftp.uwp.edu
binary
uuencode
cd /pub/games/romulus/misc
get civv05.zip
quit
You will then receive a number of mails numbered from 1 to n. All you need
to do now is run them through a uudecoder.
For downloading the latest FAQ, you should send a request to my mail
server with the following subject:
Civ FAQ please
My address is DJH@WCL.BHAM.AC.UK
The subject field is important as you will not receive the FAQ without it!
Also, remember that the FAQ is large and some gateways object to mail larger
than 64K. If you do not receive a FAQ within three days (to cover weekends)
then contact me with a different subject.
Simple, really!
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C I T I E S
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Subject: 1) How do I make a city?
---------------------------------
Apart from RTFM (Read The Flaming Manual), take a settler unit and find a
suitable place to build a city. (It is my opinion that you should always
look around your continent before building a city, especially at the
beginning where you are very vulnerable.) When you have found the site of
your city press the "B" key to build the city.
Note: Improve the land prior to building your city, as you will not be
able to do this later on in the game. Remember that cities automatically
build a road and irrigation, but you can still add a railroad, and this will
avoid losing 1/3 movement when taking a piece through a city.
Subject: 2) How do I make my city grow?
----------------------------------------
The only way to make a city grow in terms of population is to feed it. The
best way to feed a city is to provide squares with as much wheat as possible
in them. The best way to do this is to irrigate and build roads in the
squares and then change to a republic/democracy. Your cities will have an
explosion in population. Remember you can change you government to suit your
needs. So after you change to republic/democracy you can change back,
although it is not really worth it unless you want to have a military
campaign.
Although a city may be shown as size-2, this does not mean that the
population is twice that of a size-1. The way the population is calculated
is as follows:
Each size adds the new size times 10,000 to the population.
1 -> 2 yields 10,000 + (2 * 10,000) = 30,000.
A size 29 -> 30 yields 4,350,000 + (30 * 10,000) = 4,650,000.
It takes two food units to increase a city by one.
size * (size + 1)
Real population = ----------------- * 10000
2
Having said this, the actual population is not important in the final score
calculation. The important factor is the city size. Each size increase
adds one citizen to the city screen. A size-14 city will have 14 citizens.
Each citizen is worth one point, with the exception of happy citizens which
are worth two points. With this in mind, it pays to increase the luxury tax
to 100 percent the turn prior to completing the game. This should turn any
content citizens to happy, and possibly a few unhappy to happy as well.
Subject: 3) Should I have many cities or just a few?
-----------------------------------------------------
I think the general view is MORE, MORE, MORE !!!
I never play with more than about 30 cities as it gets boring trying to
look after them all, but some people just love 70+, and one person has
mentioned having over 250 (which must be an exaggeration, since the
savefile only has space for around 126 cities).
Here are a few comments from others:
More!! My normal strategy is to build as many cities as possible before
attacking anyone not in my immediate vicinity. When you have 60+ cities,
it's very hard not to win the game. (I also stay in despotism and build
cities 1 square apart from each other, just so they are production centres
for military units when I do go to war. Until then, I just build settlers.)
---Mark Lilback
More. A lot of cities close together are easier to defend, since you can
move attack units quickly between them to whichever cities are in trouble.
Second, more cities mean greater population growth, which tends to be
critical in Civ. Greater population = more of everything + higher score.
Spin off as many cities as you can early in the game, and then "perfect"
them later on.
---James Ollinger
More, the more the merrier. With more cities you can get more of
everything: resource, population, tax, science... Oh yeah, pollution and
unhappy people too. But the advantages certainly offset the disadvantages.
---David Gosselin
Subject: 4) Is there a limit to the size of my city?
-----------------------------------------------------
If you look at the window around the city it seems that the maximum size a
city can attain is only about 15-20. However this is a mistake as you can
improve the land extensively. So how do you make LARGE (around 40) cities:
Food production is the primary problem, although if you're in a democracy
and have "we love..." days, your food production is really unimportant,
providing there is enough to make them grow.
Pollution does become a problem as your city grows, and the following
things have a known impact:
Mass Transit (needed at about size 20)
Recycling Centre (needed at about size 30)
Nuclear plant (needed around size 28-30)
A nuclear plant increases production, yet decreases pollution. I've had a
city size-30 that had six smokestacks (60 tons) of pollution being produced
and minimal production (about 20-30 shields). I built the nuclear plant, and
the pollution vanished. Obviously it is a real pain building a nuclear
power plant in each city. An alternative (which will affect all your cities
on that continent) is to build Hoover's Dam instead. It has the same effect
as the nuclear Plant, but it acts on all cities on the continent, doesn't
have the risk of meltdown (before Fusion) and can be built at an earlier
stage (requires Electronics) A final method of building big cities is to remove
the most hostile opposition. Taking the Zulus is sometimes a good strategy,
since it removes the most militaristic civilization from the planet.
Another thing to mention here is to "terraform" all land into food
production when you get large cities and pollution is a problem. This takes
time, unless you use the settler cheat, but can significantly increase your
city sizes. Irrigate hills, plains, and jungles (twice), mine jungles with
gems and plains with horses. (*Don't* irrigate jungles+gems or swamp+oil
as it destroys the special square - you end up with plain old grassland).
The best producer of food is desert+oasis which gives 6 food units
(irrigation+railroad). If by some fluke you managed to get a city
completely surrounded by oasis, its maximum size would be (6*21)/2=63.
Not very likely though, unless someone figures out the map editor.
Subject: 5) How do you keep a city from getting unhappy?
---------------------------------------------------------
When playing Republic or Democracy it can be very difficult keeping cities
from revolt. The obvious things to do are to build temples and coliseums,
but these cost to build and are a steady drain on finances. Another way is
to create some entertainers, but the loss in trade (from the unused square)
can make things even worse. Here are a few tips from various sources:
Raise your luxury rate and build wonders. If you go into republic or
democracy, you should have at least a 20% luxury rate. The increased trade
values makes up for the loss of raising the luxury rate.
---Mark Lilback
It can be tough. Look at how many military units are away from the city
(shown on a panel on the left side of the screen. All military units that
are away from the city have little black sad faces on them) and try and
reduce that number. If your units are garrisoning another city, make those
change their home city (with the H command) to wherever they're located.
Units that are in action will have to be dealt with differently. Try and
get one or two units from each city so that all the cities have one or two
units out--it spreads the burden around evenly. Also try and buy (bribes)
as many enemy units as you can. When you buy an enemy unit and you aren't
close to one of your own cities, that unit will have a "NONE" home city.
You can field a decent army of units that won't create any unhappiness this
way... Also make sure to get the WOWs that make people happy--WOMEN'S
SUFFRAGE and J.S.BACH'S CATHEDRAL are the best.
---James Ollinger
Well, set luxury rate higher, send out as many caravans as possible to
*large* enemy cities overseas and establish trade routes. If the other
civilization is also under Republic/Democratic, 3 trade routes can get you
close to 30 trades (only happened to me once). With more trade routes you
can also put some luxury back to science. WoW are important too, Bach is a
must especially on large continents, Woman's Suffrage is even more
important, especially if you want to fight a war under Republic or
Democracy. And, primarily use diplomats as your attacking force, buying
enemy cities really pays off since you will get defending units right away
and city improvements.
---David Gosselin
Note: Bombers and nuclear units create unhappiness in their home city just
by existing.
Finally, remember that when playing Republic, the further your city is from
the capital, the higher the corruption rate. It can sometimes pay to build a
courthouse instead of a temple, or even to move your palace to a more
centralised position.
Subject: 6) How do I make an Elvis (or Taxman, or Scientist)?
--------------------------------------------------------------
To make an Elvis (formally known as an "entertainer") look at the city
portion of your city screen and click the mouse on one of the squares around
your city which you are currently using/drawing-resources-from. The little
wheat/shield symbols will disappear from that square and suddenly you have an
Elvis in the top left hand corner. This probably made a person happy (turned
them light blue) or got rid of an unhappy person. This is also how you change
the squares that you are currently using. Turn a square that you are using
into an Elvis and then click on another empty square to get rid of the Elvis
and make use of the resources in that formerly-empty square.
To make a Taxman or Scientist, make an Elvis and then move the mouse up to
the Elvis symbol and click on him. He then turns into a Scientist. Click on
him again and he turns into a tax collector. Once more and he's an Elvis
again.
For those using the keyboard:
On the city screen press P. This brings up a flashing box which can be
moved around the city portion. Select one of the squares that is currently
in use and press return. This will remove the items from that square and
create an Elvis. Then press 1 for the first specialist up to 8 for the
last. Repeated presses of that digit1 will turn the icon through the three
types of specialist. To return the resource to the city portion just select
an empty square and press return.
Subject: 7) How much money does a Taxman collect?
--------------------------------------------------
A tax collector collects 2 coins (3 if city has marketplace; 4 if city has a
bank)
Subject: 8) How many light bulbs does a Scientist create?
----------------------------------------------------------
Each Scientist you make in a city adds 2 light bulbs to your total count. If
the city making them has a library they're worth 3, (4 with university too)
But if the square you are abandoning by making the specialist had 3 trade
arrows (ocean) I don't think you come out ahead. [Roger Kemp]
Subject: 9) What is the difference between subvert a city and revolt?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If you cause an enemy city to revolt, you lose some of its units, some of
its improvements and have an unhappy populace. However, if you subvert it
you keep all the installations and all of the military units, and the city
tends to stay happy. Also, causing a city to revolt tends to break any peace
treaties whereas subvert doesn't.
Also, subversion is only available when a peace treaty exists. It costs
twice as much as a revolt.
Tip: Bankrupt an enemy civilization to make its cities cheaper to "incite
revolt": Choose an enemy city that is remote and not well defended (no city
walls). Pound the city just enough each turn to leave it undefended. The
enemy civilization will buy a defensive unit every turn at 120 or 210 coins
per turn to keep it defended. A city of 10 to start with can cost them 1400
or more to keep you from getting. Always take the city at 2 so that you can
sell the improvements. Not many civilizations can maintain this outlay of
cash and I have yet to see one that will just let you take the city to save
the money. After this is done a couple of times their well defended cities
are much cheaper to "incite revolt".
Subject: 10) Which is the best government type?
------------------------------------------------
This really depends on your strategy.
For a detailed look at the different pros and cons, look at the strategy
section. However, there are two main options. If you are playing a military
game, with the aim of destroying the competition as soon as possible, then
stick with despotism. Although resources are generated slower, your armies
do not use them up as fast. This means that one city can generate huge
armies without much penalty. Any other strategy really requires Democracy.
This government helps to increase trade, which in turn increases science and
money. The only problem is that each military unit away from home causes
two unhappy people, and if a city revolts twice in succession, you have
anarchy for about 6 turns. Republic is a useful government if you have a
compact productive island. If your capital is located somewhere near the
centre of the island or in your best knowledge town then corruption is not
too much of a problem. Once you develop Women's Suffrage, being in a
republic is like having a license to kill. In this government you still get
the growth and trade advantages that democracy gets. Most importantly you
can still celebrate We-Love... The knowledge advances don't come quite as
fast as democracy but you still get armor quick enough that you can go take
over the rest of the world.
Despotism: -1 to food, resources, and trade. You get the highest
corruption rate. But you get 1 food requirement for settler support, and
free military support. You also get content citizens with military
presence, and the senate won't force you into a peace treaty or deny you
first strike capability.
Anarchy: Although the corruption rate is a little lower, you will suffer
no taxes being collected, no light bulbs generated and maintenance costs
are not paid.
Monarchy: No modifier to food, resources, or trade (which means it's a +1
if you're moving up from anarchy or despotism). Corruption is lower than
anarchy. Military support is 1 shield per unit. 2 food units for each
settler unit.
Communism: Same as Monarchy, but the corruption level is "flattened."
Normally corruption rises as the distance to the capitol increases, so in
large empires, you can go to communism and have it all averaged out.
Everyone gets the same level of corruption no matter what. This is great
if you've got the palace in the center of the map and most of the empire
is out on the fringe.
Republic: The senate now gets veto power and can force you into a peace
treaty if the opponent offers one (just refuse to parlay). There is no
modifier for food or resources. Trade resources are +1. Corruption is
lower than Monarchy. Military support is 1 shield per unit and an
unhappiness for every unit that's away from home. 2 food units for
settlers.
Democracy: Same as republic, but two sad faces (even more unhappiness)
for units away from home, but 0 corruption. In a democracy--more than a
turn or two of civil unrest throws you into anarchy.
Subject: 11) How does the computer cheat?
------------------------------------------
The computer is known to cheat in a number of ways.
a) Computer triremes are allowed to move as sails. This means that they
don't sink when out at sea.
b) Wonders are built randomly, whenever the computer feels like it.
c) Improvements (at Emperor level) for the computer are at 1/3 normal cost.
d) Technologies are achieved at silly rates with only a couple of cities.
e) Cities that are suffering civil disorder do not have production
penalties.
f) Caravans are *teleported* to remote cities immediately.
g) [Computer opponents make contact with any piece, not just diplomats.]
Actually, it appears that diplomats are allowed to teleport to wherever
the computer has a piece. This means that if the computer has a
military piece stationed next to one of your cities, the computer can
teleport a diplomat to that square and steal a technology!
h) The computer sometimes builds multiple cities before its first settler
is created. (However, when playing the Russians, human players sometimes
get two settlers!)
i) Also, production in cities at emperor level continues, even if the city
is shy the necessary resources to maintain what it has.
There are probably more, but these few show how difficult it can be to beat
the computer. It is also a good excuse for some to use the various *human*
cheats without feel guilty.
Subject: 12) What is the highest population for a single city?
---------------------------------------------------------------
In theory 63, but in practise there are reports of cities between 39 - 44.
For the 63 monster you would need all squares to be irrigated, railroaded
oasis. Each of these squares would give off 6 wheat icons!! Not likely
without cheating, so here are some other comments.
Size 44. To get enough food to support a monster like this, you need to be
positioned in an area where all of the surrounding squares are either
Grassland or River. They should all be irrigated and Railroaded. Cities
like this look nice, but are really quite useless towards the end, since
there is nothing left for them to build, requiring a switch to build/sell
SDI defenses. (Does ANYBODY use these?)
Only the first 8 specialists do anything for you; the others look like
Taxmen but produce no money. Therefore, a city of size 29 is no better than
a city of size 28, except for the final score; and except that you can also
use such a city to spin off settlers, bring the population back down to 28,
and use the settlers to build new cities, all the while keeping the city
"maxxed out".
If you change byte 10 (0x0a) of the save file to a 7, you'll be
playing at a difficulty level 3 steps harder than Emperor. There is
a little bug at this level, and computer-owned cities grow
limitlessly. I [Ralph Betza] once owned a city with a population of 110,
which I bought from the Chinese. Starvation followed, of course...
---Ralph Betza
Subject: 13) Why do I appear to get unhappy citizens for free?
---------------------------------------------------------------
A post from Jas (jpacker) states:
As I understand it, the number of happy citizens per city that you get for
free, as it were, is based upon the level you play at (6 free content ones
at Chieftain, 2 at Emperor). After that size is reached, any people over
that number are automatically unhappy, unless appeased by a temple
cathedral, coliseum, or other improvement that fixes unhappy folk (like
some wonders). Another thing that makes unhappy people content in any
government but Republic or Democracy, is martial law. One person is made
happy for each military unit you have sitting in the city, keeping the
peace.
Subject: 14) Should I sell obsolete improvements?
--------------------------------------------------
In theory, the answer to this is yes, but in reality it depends on which
improvement you are referring to. People have mentioned that you should
sell libraries once you have universities. DON'T!. They still add to
your light bulb supply, as do marketplaces with banks. The only safe
ones to sell are factories after manufacturing plants, and all varieties
of power plants after building the Hoover Dam. The latter only affects
cities on the same continent as the dam.
Subject: 15) What power plants are the best, and when can I build them?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This mainly depends on the position of your city, and the order you
discover the various technologies. The first you will be able to build
is the power plant. This increases production, but also pollution. You
will need to discover the steam engine to build these.
As soon as you discover electronics you will be able to build hydroplants
in all cities next to rivers or ocean. These give the same increase in
production as power plants, but actually help to reduce pollution.
Remember that you will also be able to build the Hoover dam, which will
give hydropower to all cities on the same continent.
When you discover nuclear fission you will be able to build nuclear power
stations. These, like hydro, will reduce pollution. However, until you
discover nuclear fusion, there is a danger of meltdown.
Once you have discovered fusion, the only difference between nuclear and
hydro is the maintenance cost; hydrocosts four coins, and nuclear only two
coins. Nuclear are also cheaper to build; 160 shields against 240 for hydro.
Lastly, remember that you have to sell one type before building another.
Subject: 16) What is the maximum number of happy people in a city?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
A friend of mine noted that you cannot get more than 11 happy people in a
city no matter how high you set the luxuries. This means that We-Love-the
President will only happen until the city hits size 23. However, if you
build cure for cancer you get a twelfth happy person, the city hits size 25
and then a 13th person is now happy. After this point the city will
continue to celebrate [and grow] until it runs out of food (a new happy is
made every two steps). I haven't rigorously tested this hypothesis but it
was true in the last game I played.
---Roger Kemp
Subject: 17) What is most important in developing the assets of a city?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've found that roads and irrigation are most important. Roads not only
give you trade, but they make your units move faster, which makes it easier
to amass firepower between cities for a common defence against invasions.
In other words, if one city looks like it will be attacked, it is far easier
to bring out the knights/catapults/cannon/armor/whatever to the city's
defence if there is a good network of roads. I also give higher priority to
irrigation. Irrigation means wheat, which means population. Population
increases trade, coins, and light bulbs. A city with a lot of mines and no
population will watch those mines go unused. But a city with a lot of wheat
production grows fast. Generally, I find it best when a city has maybe one
or two forest squares, one or two mining areas, and the rest are irrigated.
And everything has a road/railroad on it.
**************************************************************************
D I F F E R E N T G A M E S T R A T E G I E S
**************************************************************************
Part of this next section is being compiled from a *single* post from
Ralph Betza. Although many people have mentioned one or two strategies,
Ralph really does cover a lot!
Subject: a) General strategies
In the middle-early days, say after you have started 4 or 5 good cities, in
order to keep science at 100% and still have money, build a few cities in
resource-rich and food-poor places, and have them build and sell barracks.
Don't waste that oil square down in the tundra, Build a tiny city! This
kind of city should have a stable population of 1 or 2.
Later on, don't forget to build the SETI Program. Everybody always mentions
the other important Wonders (Women's Suffrage, Bach's Cathedral, the Hoover
Dam) but SETI is just as important at the stage of the game where it becomes
possible.
Subject: b) Despotic Conquest
Maximum city size is 6 at Emperor level. Build many cities, build no
improvements except barracks. A possible exception to this rule is to build
a few libraries near the palace. Another exception: Cities of 5 or more that
aren't near the front line may be better off with a temple instead of 2
phalanxes.
Begin with your science at 100%; develop bronze, wheel, iron, math, writing,
navigation, magnetism (optional), then stop and set taxes to 100%,
and science 0%. You now have all the tech you'll ever need, so don't waste
money on research. (And be sure not to develop gunpowder!)
Build lots of phalanxes, chariots, legions, catapults, ships, settlers, and
diplomats. Let me clarify that: by "lots of ...", I mean "infinite numbers
of them". A dozen ships might be enough, but you can never have too many
chariots.
Use the "goto" command to simplify moving them around. Attack at all times.
Build no Wonders, build no caravans; never stop building spears and swords,
and never stop using them. Ignore all treaties and entreaties, but make
peace whenever possible (peace might protect your units from attack until
you break the treaty; and you just might collect some tribute). Don't
worry about your losses, just keep attacking; a bloodless turn is a waste
of time.
When you capture a city, sell all its improvements and starve the city down
to a manageable size.
When you invade by ship, build cities on the new landmass. If they survive,
the military units they build will be helpful. If not, so what? You have
more where they came from!
Best result: I beat twelve other civilizations, and conquered the world by
900BC (I finished the game in one evening, without staying up late!). If
the last reincarnation hadn't been in such an inconvenient place, I would
have done it in 1200BC. Most of the time, however, conquest is complete by
400BC.
You can always play Despotic Conquest, regardless of the world you find
yourself starting with, and you can always win without using any of the many
ways to cheat. When you choose any other strategy, you are deliberately
risking a loss in order to make the game more interesting. Winning the same
way all the time is boring. If you don't lose sometimes, you are doing
something wrong.
Note: halvorsen@nbivax.nbi.dk does it differently, and conquers the world
later but with higher scores. He likes to go with Monarchy, Hanging
gardens, and no barracks. You can probably find a different way to do it...
Subject: c) Democratic Ostrich
You find yourself alone on a landmass large enough to support 5 or more
max-sized cities, with decent city sites. Build them, and start making
roads and irrigation. Try to keep all cities at roughly the same stage of
development.
Research bronze, democracy; become democratic. Build Bach's Cathedral!!!
Now you can have one military unit outside each city. Research Steam
Engine; patrol your shores with ironclads. After railroads, it gets easy.
You can choose to build a spaceship or to go out with transports plus
battleships and conquer everybody.
Most important trick: every so often, boost luxuries way up high for a few
turns, and make your cities grow ("Presidents' Day Sale"). You don't need
granaries because of this, and the occasional famine is easily repaired.
Finances: You will have many city improvements to pay maintenance on. You
have to take some taxes in cash. Libraries, universities, markets, banks,
all are important. Stockpile caravans when in doubt.
Once you build Suffrage, things get really easy.
Note: Monarchy is often a useful intermediate stage.
Subject: d) Flexible Evolution
You find yourself with neighbours, on a landmass of unknown size. Play as in
Despotic Conquest, but build your cities farther apart, so you can change
over to democracy if you want to.
After you get the continent to yourself, consider how many military units
you have left, the state of your cities, and how far advanced your
technology is compared to the date. You may be forced to continue with
Despotic Conquest; or you may be able to change to monarchy and then
democracy if you prefer. The mechanics of the change are interesting, so I
choose democracy when there is any doubt -- at the risk of losing, of
course!
Subject: e) Republic
There are several things about Republic that make it an interesting
alternative to Democracy; and you can develop the Republic much sooner than
Democracy.
First of all, civil disorder won't make the government fail. All you lose
is the output from the city that's in disorder. You can use a disorderly
city to support a small army in the field...
Secondly, military unhappiness is less. You can have one unit out without
disorder, even before you build Bach, just by making one Elvis. If this
stabilizes the city's population, just make that city a barracks-factory.
Third, once you build Suffrage, military units cause NO unhappiness. You
can enjoy a high-tech Republican Conquest! You might not get a great score,
because it's likely to be after 2000AD. when you finally conquer the
world, but it's fun...
Fourth, if your empire is geographically small, so that everything is near
the palace, you get just as much trade with the Republic as you could with
Democracy.
Subject: f) Pyramid
You just captured the Pyramids! If you're in Monarchy, quickly change to
Communism. The only thing that changes is that you have less corruption. In
the long run, communism doesn't give you enough trade to support all the
city improvements, and you have to change again.
What else are the Pyramids good for? Perhaps you'd like to go democratic,
but haven't developed it.
In theory, you should be able to take advantage of the Pyramids by changing
governments often, to suit changing circumstances. I haven't been able to
make this happen yet.
Subject: g) High Tech
In the Republic or in the Democratic Ostrich, keep your treasury small and
science high. The goal is advances every turn, and see how early you can
launch the spaceship. You'd like the game to be peaceful...
The problem with this is that I have read that launching the spaceship
before time runs at one year per turn is risky; if the spaceship lands
"between turns", it is effectively lost. Therefore, I always wind up
waiting around until 1750 (or is it 1850 ?) when the time-scale changes
the last time.
Subject: h) Rich
In any form of government, keep science at a minimum. If Ostrich, use cash
to help build cathedrals and factories in the resource-poor cities. If
Conquest, use the cash to subvert enemy cities.
Subject: i) Mercenary
While playing Rich, try to buy as many enemy units as possible so you can
have a whole army owned by NONE.
Subject: j) Balanced
Advances every 6 to 8 turns are all you really need. After you build SETI,
you can get advances every 2 turns with no trouble. Keep your taxes and
science balanced.
In the Ostrich, the difference between Rich, Balanced, and High-Tech might
be just a matter of 10 per cent.
Subject: k) Peaceful
Try to get through the whole game without fighting a war.
I managed this in only one game, where I cheated, edited the save file from
3980BC, and started out with a huge London that had population 49, all
improvements, all Wonders, a few extra settlers owned by NONE, two
battleships from NONE, 4000 coins, and every technology I wanted to have. I
pumped out diplomats by the score, played Mercenary to the hilt, and kept
all 6 other civilizations at one tiny city each for the whole game. They
never even met each other, so *nobody* fought any wars! Except for the
barbarians, it was a completely bloodless game.
I've tried very hard to have a peaceful game without cheating, and I'll try
again; but they always sneak-attack me, or make unreasonable demands.
The only way to stop them is to intimidate them, it seems; so things never
get peaceful until I'm so strong that the computer civilizations are afraid.
Subject: l) High-Tech Conquest
High-tech war involves larger numbers of stronger units than you use in
Despotic Conquest, and can get quite interesting. Usually, I run these wars
half-heartedly, but one time I was bombing the Romans with half my cities
and lackadaisically building a spaceship with a few others, and the
Babylonians built a small ship and launched it! I had 17 years to take
Babylon, with no forces near it, and it wasn't even on the coast! I
succeeded with the last-minute help of a nuke (build manhattan project,
next turn buy the nuke in a captured Babylonian city, next turn boom! and
walk in, just in time), but it was hectic.
Another time, a Babylonian battleship got me really mad, so I changed the
production of all my cities to nukes, and nuked them repeatedly, an average
of 5 explosions per turn for 20 or more turns; 6 cycles of global warming!
I finally managed to destroy all 8 of their cities without capturing any --
nuke the same city several times in one turn to get its population down to
1, then run in with a Mech Infantry unit. I got a lousy score, thanks to
all the pollution.
In order to get into these situations, you have to leave the enemy alone.
Several of the computer civilizations will develop high tech, but they are
all weak at the beginning of the game. Choosing 6 civilizations seems to
help, as well; both the Indians and the Mongols seem to be stuck on
Conquest -- if you put the Mongols and Babylonians on the same landmass in
4000BC, the Mongols win every time. I often choose 6 and play pink in order
to have the best chance of getting a high-tech opponent.
The Romans always get high tech, but never build enough cities or enough
units; the Babylonians seem to be consistently the most interesting. The
light blues rarely survive into the A.D. years, so the yellows are the
second most interesting opponent.
Subject: m) Hide in a Corner
Once in a while, instead of trying to build as many cities as possible as
quickly as possible at the start of the game, try sticking to one or two
cities for the first 1000-1500-2000 years. Not until you have reasonably
powerful cities do you send out an expedition, either a colonization
expedition with two settlers plus a few phalanxes and legions, or an army
of conquest, at least 4 chariots with more to come, plus a settler to build
a military road.
This strategy is indicated when your first explorer finds that you are
stuck in a lousy corner of what looks like it might be a large land mass,
and there are no decent city sites near you.
One advantage of waiting is that the enemy cities can grow large enough to
be really worth capturing, and might contain a few WOWs.
I had this work out well just recently. My first explorer went a long,
winding way and saw a road; I pulled it back, and it seems that nobody
noticed my visit. The Romans and Zulus wiped everybody else out and lined
up against each other; the distance was so great that my first wave of
chariots took 200 years to arrive, but thanks to the two settlers building
a road, the second wave was right behind. Because all their military units
were out in the field facing each other down, their cities were lightly
defended. What a surprise when my hosts swept down upon them! Zimbabwe and
Caesarea (each of which was larger than both my cities put together) were
mine at the first stroke, and their vast armies in the field vanished. Rome
held out for hundreds of years after the rest, but after it fell, I had
more than a dozen good-sized captured cities, decent technology due to
captures, and despite having waited 1500 years before beginning the
conquest, I was still on track to go Democratic with my captured Pyramids
and bulging treasury. The rest was boring...
Subject: n) Archipelago
You find yourself alone on a small island with room for only 1 or 2
cities...
Actually, I have done the Ostrich with just 2 cities; but they were
resource-rich city sites. The disadvantage of islands is that two important
Wonders work only on cities on one landmass.
If you get a foothold on a major landmass, you can just convert to one of
the other plans; but if the first thing you find is another island, you're
in for it. After 3 or 4 islands, you might as well deliberately avoid the
mainland and instead scout out as many small chunks as you can find, just
to make things interesting.
So far, every time I have customized for small land mass, I wound up on the
biggest chunk around, with neighbours. Maybe the game deliberately avoids
putting you on places that are too small.
Subject: o) Diploblitz
After Ostriching for a while, you eventually become very rich. Your
treasury doesn't collect interest, so you might as well use it.
If you just land a few diplomats, the enemy may sneak attack and kill them
all; so what I do is fill up 3 or more transports with diplomats and land
them all at once. You can usually unload 5 diplomats per turn per transport
without stacking them; bribe any units that happen to be standing on the
shore. If you unload 15 diplomats in one turn, at least some will survive!
As the first wave moves inland, the second is unloaded. The first wave buys
any military unit it sees, and of course subverts any city it can. The
transports go back for more diplomats. You can conquer a whole civilization
this way, in just two or three turns; which is fun to watch on the replay!
If you don't have enough cash to buy a city, industrial sabotage is nice.
Doing it just once per turn is almost useless, though; the computer can buy
back whatever you destroy. The right way to do it is to hit one city with 6
or 8 diplomats in one turn -- when the cathedral, bank, city walls, and
factory are all gone in one turn, what's poor Caesar to do?
In short, the idea of the diploblitz is not to use diplomats by ones or
twos, but by bucketloads.
Subject: p) Trading Cities
You find yourself woefully behind in technology. The enemy is spreading out
over a large continent.
Scout around the edges and find a small city you can afford to buy. Post a
bunch of diplomats nearby. Steal a tech and buy the city, thereby gaining
two advances. Now make the population into Taxmen, sell the improvements,
and leave the city undefended. When the enemy takes it back, steal another
tech and buy the city again! It will be cheaper to buy it this time -- you
sold all the improvements and the population is smaller.
Repeat as needed until the city is completely destroyed. Find another small
city and do it again.
Subject: q) Take No Prisoners
Your homeland is full of big, beautiful cities. Your army has overrun the
enemy but you don't feel like managing any of the crappy cities the
computer built.
After you kill the last defender, don't take the city! If the computer has
any money left, it will make a new defender, which you can also kill -- it
won't be fortified, after all.
Hit the city with a Diploblitz and keep it empty. Eventually, you may get
it down to a population of 1, and can then simply destroy it. Otherwise,
maybe some barbarians will come along...
Here's an interesting goal: try to get a whole enemy civilization into this
state! If its treasury is empty and every city is in disorder, can it ever
recover?
If an entire civilization is in disorder yes it can recover. I have seen
it happen in enemy civilizations of 3-5 cities near the brink of falling.
It happened to me once. Following an attack ALL of my cities were in
disorder, I was poor but not being attacked immediately. After several
turns in this state, I started getting messages "Antioch builds temple"
etc. I checked the cities, they were in disorder but they were building.
I recovered after a bit of this and going luxuries 100%.
---[Matt Malone]
Subject: r) The Helping Hand
You have lots of bombers or battleships handy, but no ground units nearby;
besides, you don't feel like dealing with any new cities.
If a different enemy civilization has a unit near the city, or if
barbarians are on the way, just kill all the defenders and watch what
happens. You can weaken the strongest enemy this way.
By the way, the enemy civilization that takes over the empty city will *not*
feel any sense of gratitude.
Subject: s) The Rock
Sometimes you can throw a monkey wrench into an enemy civilization and take
it completely out of the game by posting one lousy phalanx on top of a
mountain. This only works at an early stage of the game, and the victim
must have no open land for expansion -- either on an island, or blocked
into a corner.
Instead of building triremes and settlers, and instead of advancing
quietly, the enemy civilization builds lots of cavalry and legions and
chariots, surrounds the rock, and keeps moving its units around. It's fun to
watch them riding around your mountain, brandishing their swords, waving
torches, and shouting imprecations.
Eventually they sneak attack, and lose dozens of units. Then they make
outrageous demands, tell you to prepare for war, ride around and shout, and
eventually attack and lose more units. By the time they destroy that
phalanx, you're ready to put a rifleman up there, and they're still
undeveloped!
This depends on the leader's personality; it works against the Russians and
the French, but not against the Romans or Chinese.
Of course, to ensure against losses, you want to scout around their coast
and find as many rocks as possible, because if they manage to get rid of
all your outposts, they'll start behaving reasonably again, but one phalanx
on a mountain top is all you really need to make it work!
Subject: t) Replay
Always make a save file in 3980 B.C.; as soon as you finish the game,
consider starting over in the same world but following a completely
different strategy.
In the replay, you have the advantage of knowing more or less what the
world looks like, which spoils things a bit; but in compensation, you have
the chance to change history.
A diskette full of old 3980 B.C. save files is nice to have, especially if
it contains interesting worlds. After a while, you don't remember much
about the world, and can replay without spoiling the mystery of discovering
the unknown. When you get an interesting world, you may also want to share
it with someone.
Note: you need both the CIVIL?.SVE and CIVIL?.MAP file!
Here are a few from Matt Malone:
Subject: u) Go See Them or They Will Come See You
A variant of "The Rock" strategy, the "Go See Them or They Will Come See
You" strategy is ideal when another civilization is much stronger than you
are. If you are defensively weak and cannot mount a reasonably good attack
against them, send an occupation force. I have found that for all
civilizations, if there is an active enemy unit (not just fortified)
reasonably close to a city then that city will not send out ships to find
you. The main objective is to keep a presence but if some pillaging can be
done with minimal risk I have my occupation force do that. A civilization
of ten cities on an island may require three such presences, scattered,
preferably on mountain tops, to keep them at home. This does not necessarily
cripple the civilization in the same way as The Rock does but it keeps them
at home and gives you some breathing space.
Subject: v) Pillage to the Max.
When I am in a weak position relative to a computer civilization and the
seas are still relatively safe, I conquer their weakest city, take their
best defensive technology, i.e., conscription for riflemen. I build a mess
of rifleman and go pillage all of their improvements concentrating first on
irrigation. The shift of land usage from production to food necessary in
their cities slows their production of military units and usually starts to
starve them for cities > 8. This hobbles them and gives you time to catch
up. At first the losses of units will be high but once pillaged to the max,
even the most powerful civilization is a pussycat. Their cities will be well
defended so I don't recommend attacking them directly until you have
stronger attack units present and the walls are down. Bucket-loads of
diplomats used for sabotage is a good intermediate step.
Subject: w) Take the Best, Discard the Rest
When you are way behind but have a strong production potential take the
following technologies (in about this order):
trade: to make caravans to use as currency through the WOW ==> battleship
production change
conscription: rifleman are so cheap and hard to kill that I sometimes let
an enemy battleship attack a walled city with riflemen as my
cheapest way to destroy the ship.
steel: battleships, and never waste your time building a non-veteran
battleship.
railroad: to increase the output of mines, increase the food output on
some squares to allow a shift to utilize more mines or forests.
industrialization: transports. Factory: Only where you have a large
production capability and they will pay you back fast for the
shields lost from attack units in building the factory.
mass production: submarines - make them veterans too - a pack of properly
spaced submarines are a great defense esp with the Mag. Exp.
wonder.
advanced flight: bombers + aircraft carriers - more use when you are
chasing down the last and mopping up the last well defended inland
cities in a declining but rich civilization that are too expensive
to incite a revolt in.
flight: take this one only after you have problems with your bombers
being lost to other civilizations or them hitting you big time with
bombers - sometimes I don't have that problem - or if you have
everything else you need. Good recon and bomber elimination. Also
useful in maintaining a pillaged to the max state - great against
settlers.
rocketry+fission: nucs: If you nuke them, they will nuke you if they have
them. I have never been nuked unless I nuke a civilization that has
already built a nuke. I hear the Russians and Americans may not
hold to this pattern.
Assuming the sea is not safe enough for bucketloads of diplomats to have
any reasonable chance of making it to the enemy civilization (without
cheating), use battleships to pound the weakest coastal cities and take them
over with a sail of riflemen. Turn the cities into cash: Sell improvements
that aid happiness and change the population to Taxmen. Sell other
improvements. Sell banks and marketplaces last. Sell city walls when the
population of the city = the number of units you have defending the city.
Let the enemy destroy the city. Leave them with nothing to take back. Repeat
for all coastal cities until the sea is safer. By this time you have a large
treasury, and inciting revolt is easy. Choose large cities, incite revolt,
and turn them into cash. You should get enough to incite another revolt in
a few turns. Advanced civilization falls. Reason: they usually do not have
railroads between cities to reinforce whatever city is being attacked.
Suggestion: make sure all of your cities are linked by railways. Fortify
units on mountain top rail passes to prevent a city from being cut off too
easily and to prevent the enemy units from sweeping your civilization
through your own rails should one of your cities fall. Nothing like enemy
armor on your rails to ruin your day.
Subject: 2) Colossal City Strategy
-----------------------------------
I have deliberately kept this separate from the other strategy section as
it really is a game apart.
The long-awaited Colossal City strategy is not a strategy. Instead, it's
just a simple trick that makes any high-tech strategy work much better.
It's this simple: build the Colossus and Copernicus' Observatory in the
same city.
Of course, you want that city to be your capital, so that there's no
corruption; of course, you want it to grow big and have a university and
lots of nice trade routes.
Of course, you want to build the Colossus as soon as possible.
( I have done it by 2800 BC without cheating! Lucky villages and
( ransom from barbarian leaders did the job. Building it with
( caravans alone, 2300 BC is good; and perhaps the resources you
( invested building it so early would have been better spent
( making more settlers and more cities...)
Therefore, you want to develop trade as soon as possible.
Note: since the computer cheats in building its Wonders, if someone else
builds the Colossus first it's not unreasonable to use the save-game cheat
to stop them.
Combining the Ostrich strategy with the Colossal City makes it possible to
reach future tech before 1 AD without cheating; if you have a gold mine
and swamp+oil in the Colossal City's zone of influence, that's all (almost
all) the good luck you need.
Building these two Wonders, and building a Cathedral and University in one
city while the others are small, is hard to do unless there are a few
resource-rich cities near the Colossal City.
In fact, this does force a Colossal Strategy for the early part of the
game. Build as many cities as possible; the outer ones fight wars and
build more cities, while the inner ones just build caravans. All but one
of the cities stays small; the Colossal City must grow, grow, grow, so it
needs a temple and a granary and a library and a university and a
cathedral. The division of labor, with different cities doing different
things, makes it interesting.
Customizing for "Large Land Mass" is helpful.
To reach Future Tech by 1 AD, go to democracy as soon as possible, and set
luxuries to 30%, taxes 30%, science 40%; research will slow down for a few
years, but you'll collect a lot of money with which you can build
cathedrals, marketplaces, banks, aqueducts, and so on, and very soon
you'll be up to "advances: 1 turns". 30% luxuries is just enough to keep
everybody happy all the time, and to cause occasional "we love the
president" days, in cities that complete their markets and banks and get
trade routes.
To play a strategy that wouldn't work without the Colossal City, stay in
Despotism until you build Suffrage and then go to Republic -- you'll only
be up to Automobile or so by 1 AD, and your scraggly little cities will
have trouble building those expensive armor units, but you'll have fun
winning. Keep building caravans, keep science at 100% as long as possible,
make factories in a few cities (using the caravans to do so), and pay the
rent by building and selling city walls, and by sacking enemy cities. You
may *need* to follow this plan if you have a land war against a tough
opponent on a huge continent. This plan is fun because you don't have to
go into a shell (like the Ostrich), and you don't have to concentrate
single-mindedly on military affairs (as in Conquest); instead, you get to
do a little bit of everything.
---Ralph Betza
Subject: 3) President's Day Sale
---------------------------------
This is another posting from Ralph Betza that was forwarded to me. As usual
it makes for interesting reading.
PROLOGUE
========
Someone else wrote that Civ "is all about trade". For a while, I was ready
to argue that it's all about resources. Now I think it's all about timing.
The big timing thing is to time the growth of your infrastructure so that
it matches the growth of your population.
If the population outgrows the infrastructure, you get civil disorder; if
the infrastructure outgrows the population, the maintenance drains your
treasury.
If your land is rich in resources, the infrastructure grows faster than
the population, but if it is resource-poor, the population grows faster.
It is also a good idea to time the growth of your core homeland cities so
that all are at about the same level; you do this by making the settlers
you need from the larger cities to bring them down to the level of the
smaller cities. What you gain by this will be discussed later.
If you are rich in resources, you want to time your research so that you
always have a WOW to work on (or you can just build lots of caravans and
leave them parked around the countryside). If you are poor in resources,
you have to "BUY" the completion of as many improvements as possible, and
time these purchases effectively.
PRESIDENT'S DAY SALE!!
======================
President's Day Sale: as a democracy, set the luxury rate as high as
possible for a few turns and make your cities grow quickly. "For a few
turns" is important -- you have to know when to stop.
The well-timed President's Day sale, I think, is the key to winning with
democracy. Many people have posted complaints about running out of money.
Many have posted complaints about falling behind in technology. I say they
failed to hold President's Day Sales, and that's why they got into
trouble.
Many posts have referred to this as a way to run up the score at the end
of the game. I find this to be much more important at an earlier stage:
By the time you get to democracy, you probably already have temples,
marketplaces, and libraries. You now need to make settlers and adjust
production to squares rich in resources or trade but weak in food, in
order to slow down the population growth. You have to build Bach, and a
cathedral in each city, before you can let the population grow.
For example, before you discover religion, you have a maximum city size of
4 (at Emperor level, and presuming you don't want to make any Elvises or
allocate taxes to luxuries; also presuming you don't feel like building a
Colosseum before building a Cathedral).
Once you discover religion, of course you get all your cities working to
build caravans and help build Bach; the minute you build it, your maximum
city size becomes 6.
The minute you build Bach, you set all your cities to building cathedrals.
When they finish, the maximum city size will be 10.
Don't wait for the cathedrals to be finished! Now is the time! Running a
President's Day Sale for 6 turns is a *very* *important* strategical move.
The way to do this is, first of all, look at every city and adjust its
production squares so you get as much trade as possible, plus a small food
and resource surplus; then set the luxury rate to 40 per cent and consult
your attitude advisor. Perhaps you can get away with as little as 30 per
cent luxuries; perhaps you need sixty percent. If one city is less happy
than the others, maybe you can use an Elvis there. Once it's all set up,
change the rest of your taxes to cash -- you will need to buy some
cathedrals. Make sure you have the "end of turn" option set! Next turn, do
it all over again: check every city, because you don't want the
celebration to be cancelled in even one city! This is a lot of work, but
the sale will only run for a few turns, so it's okay. During the sale, you
will have to buy the cathedral for your biggest city, and the next
biggest; when you start to run out of money, cut the sale short.
The right time to start the sale is a problem. The sooner the better is
the general rule, but starting too early means that not all the cities
will have cathedrals yet at the end of the sale (because you run out of
money to buy them).
You have to stop when your populations get to 10, because you don't have
colossea or aqueducts yet. You might need to keep 20% luxuries for a while
if some of the cities haven't finished their cathedrals and you can't
afford to buy them yet; but the goal is to get luxuries back down to 0.
By the end of the sale, your population has just about doubled, and so has
your total amount of trade; you must pay for more maintenance now, because
of the new cathedrals, but you can do so with a smaller percentage of the
total than you could before the sale; and you can allocate a higher
percentage of a larger total to science.
The importance of this was demonstrated to me by a recent game where I
forgot to do it. It was at Emperor level with all cheating strictly
forbidden, and I was stuck on a small piece of land with lots of tundra
and mountains; four cities was all I had room for. I had neighbors in the
early days, and by the time I got rid of them, built my four cities,
developed democracy, and built Bach, it was 1 A.D. I played up to about
1300 A.D. and hardly advanced at all -- railroads still far away, a few
scraggly colonies on other islands, populations in the core cities barely
up to 10. Overnight, I realized what I had done wrong, and went rooting
through the autosaved files to see if there was a point in history where
I could correct it; how lucky that 1 A.D. was just perfect!
I started over from there, ran a sale right away, and about a thousand
years later on I ran another sale for the benefit of my colonies.
What a difference! By the same date, circa 1300AD, I had four thriving
cities with populations from 17 to 20, two nice colonies with populations
of 10 and ready to expand, railroads being built around all the cities,
banks and universities and factories in all the core cities, a battleship
half finished, a healthy treasury, with the Suffrage and Darwin WOWs
already built. Instead of being a second-rate nation, I was the leading
civilization on the globe -- and all because of President's Day!
The Romans had railroads and a few ironclads, but no factories
or battleships; the French had riflemen, but none of the rest;
the other civilizations were still coming around in rowboats.
In other games, I had waited until I got railroads to hold the first
PrezDay; but normally I have more than four cities! Because I had stronger
starting positions the other times, I never realized just how powerful
PrezDay is. With a decent (or good) starting position, I expect to be at
least 500 (or 1000) years ahead of where I was in this game, and that
would allow me to win even with a belated use of the President's Day sale;
now I'm looking forward to seeing how far I can get with a well-timed one
after a good start!
SYNTHESIS
=========
Note that running a good Pres Day Sale requires you to manage your cities
so that as many as possible are at the same stage of development at the
same time, because the most effective time to do it is just when the
infrastructure outpaces the population.
Therefore the two themes of timing and PrezDay are strongly related after
all!
You have little control over how fast you can build the infrastructure;
all you can do is build as quickly as possible and choose the order in
which things should be built.
Population growth, on the other hand, is the thing you *can* control; and
so timing is a matter of slowing down the population growth at some points
and speeding it up at others.
---Ralph Betza
Subject: 3) What is the best way of taking an enemy city?
----------------------------------------------------------
Surefire way for musket/cannon-level cities with city walls:
1. Build lots of cannon, diplomats (4-6), and settlers (2-3).
2. Move a veteran musketeer adjacent to the city to take and fortify.
3. Move a settler to the musketeer and build a fort around him.
4. Use other settlers to build a road to the musketeer, if necessary.
5. Stockpile several cannon and diplomats in the fort.
6. When you are ready, have the diplomats sabotage the city walls, if
any (it may take several tries).
7. Bombard the city with the cannon until it is yours.
8. Move the Musketeer into the city to take possession and be its first
guard.
I personally believe the best way to take a city is with a diplomat, by
subverting the city. Just keep all military units for defensive purposes.
Then once the city has been bought then build (buy) a diplomat as the first
thing you make.
Subject: 4) What are the best Wonders to build?
------------------------------------------------
Miscellaneous notes from "Rome on 640K a Day"
The Colossus of Rhodes
Function: One additional arrow of trade is created in every City Map square
which already generates an arrow.
Notes: Wonders don't come cheaper that this. Combine the Colossus and a
representative government and one can watch the coins pour into
the coffers. Electricity is far enough away to make the Colossus
a good investment if built early on.
The Oracle
Function: Doubles the effect of Temple improvements.
Notes: One of the better ancient wonders, the Oracle can often avert a
player's need for costly Colosseums until Cathedrals can be
built. Consequently, the Oracle is a good sacrifice.
The Pyramids
Function: The owner may change governments without passing through Anarchy
and may choose from any of the 5 government types, even if yet
undiscovered.
Notes: The greatest ancient wonder, the Pyramids have the longest life
and much to offer. Being able to switch between wartime and
peacetime governments with the ease of drawing and holstering a
pistol is an incredible advantage.
Copernicus' Observatory
Function: Doubles the light bulb production in the city after all
adjustments for Libraries, Universities, and Einsteins.
Notes: One of the less expensive medieval wonders, Copernicus'
Observatory is also one of the quickest to become obsolete
because of the desirability of the Automobile advance. For
smaller empires or those with a single trading city, this
wonder can reap considerable rewards.
Add. Note: Does not seem to become obsolete when Automobile discovered !?!
Isaac Newton's College
Function: Increase light bulb production of all Libraries and Universities
from 50% each to 83% each (for a total of 166% when both exist).
Notes: This snazzy little number is perfect for the empire with many
cities, producing many light bulbs. The broad increase in light
bulb production lasts for quite a while although eventually what
goes up must come down.
Shakespeare's Theatre
Function: All unhappy citizens in the city stay content.
Notes: Shakespeare's Theatre creates a unique (though brief) opportunity
under a representative government to both increase the population
of a city by creating Elvii there and having several "We Love the
President" days, and also to send a massive army from the city
off to war.
Hoover Dam
Function: The Hoover Dam is equivalent to having a hydro Plant in every
city on the continent, increasing production and reducing
pollution.
Notes: The number 2 "must have" wonder, especially if one is situated on
a large chunk of land.
SETI Program
Function: Increases light bulb production in all cities by 50% after all
adjustments for Libraries, Universities, and Einsteins.
Notes: Possession of this wonder might make pursuing Futuristic Advances
more worthwhile than "going hedonistic" once all advances have
been made.
Women's Suffrage
Function: In a representative government, one less unhappy person is
generated when an air unit is built or other military units leave
their home city.
Notes: By far the best wonder of the world to have. Reducing the
greatest obstacle to military expansion under the highly
productive representative governments, this wonder is the
equivalent of Thor's Hammer or Zeus' Bolt.
**************************************************************************
T I P S A N D I N F O
**************************************************************************
Subject: 1) Final score
------------------------
There are many factors to the end score, but the main bonuses are
described below (courtesy Roger Kemp):
There are two different ways that percentages are calculated:
a) If you take over the world, your score is determined SOLELY by the date
in which you finish. Wonders, pollution, population etc. have no effect on
the score. I believe the exact formula is something like: you get 1000
points for taking over the world by year 2000 and you get an extra 2 points
for each turn (not year) in advance of the year 2000 if you finish the game
early. Take this score and divide by 10 to get your percentage. This means
that the maximum reasonable score you could get (taking over the whole world
around 2000BC) is somewhere around 180%. There is also some sort of
reduction modifier if you start with less than seven initial civilizations.
Note that if you play on a lower level your final percentage is also
multiplied by 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, or 0.8 depending on whether you play chieftain,
level, prince level, etc.
b) If you launch into space (I don't know why anyone would bother playing
the game and pursue this course 8-) you can get those 300% scores that
people brag about. You'd just have to kill off all but one enemy city and
keep peace while you filled the world with people. What a boring game 8-)
Finally remember if you can't be touched, try and develop as many future
techs as possible since they add 5 to your score at the end.
Subject: 2) Lightbulb formula
------------------------------
Here's the formula from "Rome on 640K a Day":
LightBulbs = PreviousAdvances * DifficultyModifier * TimeModifier
DifficultyModifier =
6, Chief
8, Warlord
10, Prince
12, King
14, Emperor
TimeModifier = 1 if Year <= 0AD, or, 2 if Year > 0AD
In addition, the first advance always requires at least 10 lightbulbs
regardless of difficulty level.
Subject: 3) Money-saving tips
------------------------------
a) If you have a city that has built all that it needs, build an unwanted
structure such as city walls, temple, SDI defence, etc. Once it is
completed, sell it and rebuild.
b) Do not keep improvements that are not necessary. If your population is
very happy, sell colosseums and temples. Colosseums alone cost 4 coins
a turn. If there is no military threat, sell off barracks and city
walls.
c) If you are relocating the palace you should sell off the old one.
Otherwise the original one will disappear on completion. Remember that
without a palace, corruption will rise.
d) Just before you complete your research of gunpowder and combustion,
remember to sell your barracks. Any existing ones will become redundant
straight after, so you may as well make a few gold coins.
e) Switching to Nuclear power (after Fusion makes it safe) from hydro or
Power Plants, will save 2 gold coins per turn. Also remember to sell
off any power sources on the same continent as your Hoover Dam.
f) The purchase cost of Wonders is 4 coins per shield, so if you wish to
purchase one quickly, it definately pays to buy something small to
start off the shields.
Subject: 4) Military advice
----------------------------
a) Timing if very important in battles, so use the WAIT command frequently.
Always move the fastest, best defending units first to make sure that
the coast is clear. This way, knights, for example, will find
undiscovered enemy units instead of catapults. (The knights can move
back whereas the catapults will be open for attack).
b) Never stack units! Unlike standard wargames, stacked units do not
combine their defence points. If one unit is destroyed, all units are
destroyed.
There is one exception to this rule: when the units are stacked within
a fortress (built by a settler). These units will be destroyed one
at a time, so they last a lot longer than normal, especially if you
build the fortress on a mountain!
c) Don't forget to upgrade your defending pieces. There is nothing worse
than find one of your cities defended by militia surrounded by enemy
armor!
d) Remember that veteran units are 50% stronger on attack/defence.
Because of this, it obviously makes more sense to use veteran troops
whenever possible. There are two ways to create these troops. First,
have an untrained unit survive a battle (in which case it has a 50%
chance of being awarded with veteran status). The second is to build
one in a city that has a barracks. This is the safer option.
e) Use an overall strategy of fortifying high defence pieces and using high
attack pieces as sentries. Remember: in a coastal city, if you
build a boat, any sentried pieces will climb aboard as it sails away.
This will often leave the city undefended!
f) City walls are useful for many things. Not only do they multiply
defence values by 3, they also protect the population of the city (there
is no population decrease after enemy attacks).
g) You can use a bomber to protect a vulnerable city by parking it in the
air outside the city. It appears that when moving it's pieces the
computer moves them in a set order (probably the order in which they
were built). This often means that it moves half of its ground units
(which can't get past your bomber) before finally bringing out a fighter
to kill the bomber (if it ever does actually attack the bomber). This
can give you time to fortify the city.
h) When you are at advanced technology levels and attacking cities, have
two bombers that alternate turns in sitting above your attacking force.
The enemy can only attack you with fighters because there is an air unit
in the square and attack 4 vs defence 13 for a fortified, veteran mech.
inf is a good bet, besides fighters are very expensive.
i) In a sea warfare game, consider using nukes on enemy battleships and
carriers at sea because there is no pollution. In addition, computer
civilizations usually send out other units with such a major unit and a
nuke can usually destroy 2 extra enemy units. With the Magellan's
Expedition, an old sail or submarine has enough movement to be
efficiently used as bait to draw the enemy group closer together so
more can be destroyed at once.
j) Most units can't move from the zone of control of an enemy piece into
another square in an opposing zone of control, unless you already have a
piece in the target square. Planes, diplomats and caravans are
exceptions to this, but they DO count as a piece in that square. This
allows you to walk around enemy armies: send the diplomat forward one
square, move the real troops into the square, advance the diplomat
again ...
k) Finally, remember that it is quite easy to save the game before a major
battle---if you lose, reload !
Subject: 5) Miscellaneous tricks and tips
------------------------------------------
Here are few tips and tricks that I have collected from Usenet over the
last few months.
a) Structures (temples etc.) are cheaper than units that move (i.e.,
military, settlers...) If you want to buy a quick rifleman to defend a
town it's much cheaper to select a temple, buy it and then change back
to a rifleman. The added cost for military units is based on the
following formula (from "Rome on 640k a Day"):
cost = (ms * 2) + (ms * ms/20)
where ms is "missing shields"
Note: Remember, as stated in the manual; improvements cost two coins
per missing shield (*OR FOUR* if no shields are currently in the
Production box) Usually, just wait a turn to get a couple of shields,
then buy. If absolutely necessary, buy the cheapest unit/improvement
available to get some production, then switch to your final goal and
buy it.
b) You can use caravans to build things other than wonders. When you take
over an enemy city you usually need a cathedral or walls or something
of the sort so I throw a few caravans in the transport with my armors.
When I take over the city I switch what it's building over to a wonder,
contribute the caravans to the wonder and switch it back to the
cathedral. You can use this on your own cities as well. If you have a
fabulous production town and want to kick start the other cities, build
caravans and throw them into the other cities wonders and switch them
to whatever you want. I build a lot of factories this way. Building
caravans is like putting money in the bank.
c) Once you have railroads take a settler into a transport onto one of the
fish squares that is being used and activate the settler. Press "r" on
the settler for making a road (on water!!) and then "r" again for a
railroad. You now have a railroad on the fish which gives you the
increased production and trade that railroads normally give.
Unfortunately you can't walk pieces onto the square as if it were a
bridge. This trick works for normal sea squares, increasing trade
production.
d) I've noticed that if you attack a city with 4 defenders, this doesn't
seem to enter after the first three have been defeated. (Does the
computer take some sort of morale into account? I've not seen it
documented anywhere, but once they lose two or three units, the rest
seem to loose disproportionately, even if they're all the same type of
unit, and they have barracks [i.e., all are vets]).
e) To get size 40+ cities, play in the Americas: there are two sites
which have maximum grasslands production!
f) Build the UN. Then build diplomats and artillery. Change government to
Communist. Roll your artillery up to an enemy city. Make peace with
your diplomat. (Because of the UN, they have to agree.) Next turn, take
the city, roll your artillery up to the next city, and make peace
again. This works for a while, but I always find that when I am too
much more powerful than the other civilizations, they always break
their treaties. This tactic works with the Great wall and catapults as
well.
g) When you're a Repubublic or Democracy and you meet a new civilization
that you wish to destroy, don't talk to their emissaries. If you do,
your council will force a treaty.
Subject: 6) The Canal trick
----------------------------
This is an excellent idea received from Matt Malone.
a) Build a city on an isthmus. Enter ships from one side, leave from the
other. Instant canal. Similarly a chain of cities for longer canals.
Also good for access to inland seas.
b) Build a walled city on a mountain as the gateway from an inland sea to
the ocean (veteran. riflemen defense = 5*1.5*3*3 > 63). It provides a
bay that is impervious to enemy ships and several city sites that are
"coastal" - i.e., able to build ships - while not being subject to sea
attacks until the gateway city falls.
c) Land a settler and build a city between an enemy city that is not
coastal and the ocean to create a canal to allow a battleship to pound
the enemy city directly. If your canal city is walled the effective
defense with a veteran battleship is 12*1.5*3 = 54! Good odds in any
attack except against bombers.
Subject: 7) Railroads at sea
-----------------------------
It is perfectly possible to build a railroad on water. To do so, first
load a settler into a floating vessel. Then move the vessel to the place
you wish to build the railroad. Wake the settler and make him build a
road. When this is completed build the railroad. Simple really!
The main advantage is the increased trade and food that can be gained
from a railroad enhanced square (+1 trade for ocean, +1 trade & food for
ocean/fish). It is also possible to use these railroads as a bridge. All
that is necessary is that each square also contains a vessel. Should you
move the vessel, this has the effect of breaking the bridge. Pieces will
only be able to cross where the railroad crosses a vessel. The exception
to this is vessels!
Subject: 8) Interaction with the various civilizations.
--------------------------------------------------------
There was a discussion recently concerning the pros and cons of the various
computer controlled civilizations. Here is a brief summary of some of the
points made.
8a) Which civilization should I choose to play ?
------------------------------------------------
This depends on your game strategy. If you play Earth and intend to
concentrate on technology, then either the Aztecs or the Americans are
a good choice. This will usually give you a whole continent to yourself,
(once you've destroyed the other one) and will leave all of the more
militaristic opponents to fight it out between themselves. If you just
want to conquer as quick as possible then it pays to remove civilizations
such as the Zulus, Greeks, and Russians. One way to remove the Zulus (for
example) is to play the Zulus. This works fine except when playing Earth.
The Zulus always start in Africa, which doesn't have much in the way of good
building areas. Another way to remove the Zulus is to play the Egyptians.
Because they are both "Greens" you will never have both in the same game.
Another thing to remember when playing Earth is that, if you play any
civilization other than the Americans or Aztecs, the Aztecs will always be
the most technically advanced civilization. While you are fighting to stay
alive, the Aztecs will remove the Americans and concentrate on technology.
To avoid this you can be the Egyptians (Yellow). One other thing to
remember is that the Russians tend to start with two settlers. This can be
a real help at the start of a game.
When starting a game, consider what your strategy is likely to be. Remember
what the various civilizations colours are, and remember that on Earth each
civilization starts at its historical capital.
8b) Should I consider who I trade technologies with ?
-----------------------------------------------------
Most definitely ! You don't want to give the wheel to the Zulus now, do
you ?
Another thing to consider early on is whether or not to trade technologies
with a particular enemy. I always develop the wheel first and then pursue
purely "brainy" advances (writing, literacy etc.). If I meet up with
Mongols, Zulus or Russians I don't trade with them unless I have a couple
of chariots built and am ready to kill them in the next few turns anyways.
At the other end I will quite willingly trade with the Babylonians,
Egyptians, Americans, and to a lesser extent Romans and Chinese because
they will take developmental technologies like Alphabet, Writing,
C-Burial, Code-of-Laws before the wheel.
---Roger Kemp
Subject: 9) The pattern of special resource squares.
-----------------------------------------------------
It appears that there is a pattern to the way resources are placed on the
map---those special squares such as fish, gold, oil, etc. Once again I
will hand the subject over to Ralph Betza.
The algorithm used for putting special resources on the map is such
that wherever you see a special square, there is likely to be
another one a long-Knight's jump to the northeast -- that's 3
squares North and one square East -- and to the southwest.
Fairly often, there are two strings of special squares, a
long-Knight's move apart, giving:
. . . S . . .
. . . . . . S
. . . . . . .
. . S . . . .
. . . . . S .
. . . C . . .
. S . . . . .
. . . . S . .
. . . . . . .
S . . . . . .
. . . S . . .
If you build a city at C, it can use four special squares at S!
[some deleted]
According to this analysis, when you see a forest square with game,
or a plains square with horses, or a swamp with gems, or oil or gold
or fishies, and the next square in the pattern (a long-Knight's jump
away) is a grassland square with no resources,
Mine That Square!
More than half the time, when the trees grow, you see a little
orange beastie on the square.
In order to get a feel for the pattern, look at a screenful of ocean
and see where the little fishes are. You will see that the pattern
is imperfect, and that is why mining the grassland square doesn't
always work.
So far, I have only made this trick work with grassland squares.
I would *love* to be able to make gold mines appear this way; or
even coal.
---Ralph Betza
Subject: 10) Defence and attack queries
----------------------------------------
This collection of tips has been compiled by Mark Steer.
a) How does the computer decide combat results?
The computer "pulls a piece of paper out of a hat" in the sense that there
are as many bits of paper marked with "Attacker wins" in the hat as the
attackers strength. Also there are as many pieces of paper marked with
"Defender Wins" in the hat as the defenders strength. So in theory a
trireme can defeat a battleship, but the odds are 12-1 against.
b) How do I work out my attackers strength?
Attacking strength = Attacking force * 1.5(veteran)* road MP's/3,
where Attacking force = 1 for militia, 4 for a knight etc.
The strength of attacking Barbarians is reduced on the lower levels.
c) How do I work out my defensive strength?
Defensive strength = Defensive force * 1.5(veteran)* terrain bonus * one of
the following, 1.5 (fortified), 2 (fortress sq), 3 (city walls).
city wall bonus is disregarded by bombers and artillery, battleships behind
city walls do receive *3 bonus.
i.e., So, a veteran battleship, in a city behind walls = 12 * 1.5 * 3 = 54
Remember: a veteran is caused by a unit that has survived one battle, or a
unit that was built in a city containing a barracks.
d) What are the terrain bonuses?
Forrest/Game 50% Mountains/Gold 200%
Hills/Coal 100% River 50%
Jungle/Gems 50% Swamp/Oil 50%
i.e., So, a veteran rifleman on a mountain, in a
fortress = 5 * 1.5 * 2 * 2 = 30 - enough to see off most invaders
e) Any other defensive hints?
Put a settler on a ship, move it to an inlet you want defended, tell the
settler to build a fortress. Each time the ship wants to move press space.
Hey Presto a fortress at sea just right for a battleship!
Bob O'Bobs stab at a _real_ algorithm:
A few new terms:
V : if unit is Veteran, V=1.5; else V=1.0
M : if unit has at least one full movement point, M=1.0;
else if unit has 0.2 (2/3), M=2/3; else M=1/3
T : terrain defense bonus, (in %/100+1)
50% bonus, T=1.5
100% bonus, T=2.0
200% bonus, T=3.0
F1: if defender is fortified, F1=1.5; else F1=1.0
F2: if defender is in Fortress, F2=2.0; else F2=1.0
F3: if defender is behind City Walls
and defender is not an Air unit
and attacker is not Bomber
and attacker is not Artillery
then F3=3.0; else F3=1.0
AS = AF * V * M
DS = DF * V * T * max(F1, F2, F3)
---Bob O'Bob
Subject: 11) Appearance of new civilizations.
----------------------------------------------
As you have no doubt noted, dead rivals have a way of rising from the
ashes. There are a few important things you should know about these
resurrections. Before 0 AD the "twin cousin" of a vanquished civilization
will appear anywhere not in immediate proximity to an existing city. After
0 AD these civilizations will only reappear on unsettled continents, and
after 1750 no new civilizations will appear at all. New Civilizations are
not "born stupid". Each technology that the human player possess will have
a 50% chance of becoming a starting technology for the reemerging
civilization. They will still be behind in the tech race, but not as badly
as if they had to reinvent The Wheel.
---'Rome on 640k a day'
Subject: 12) How do you calculate pollution?
---------------------------------------------
The book "Rome on 640K a Day" gives the formula for
calculating the probability of pollution around a city each turn.
According to the book:
Each city has a "tolerance" for 20 Smokestack Points per turn. Each point
generated beyond that become a smokestack on the city display, representing
a 1% chance per turn that a square around the city will become polluted.
Smokestack Points = Industrial Pollution + Pop. Pollution
Industrial Pollution = # of shields generated by city.
Divide by 2 if city has hydro or nuclear Plant; OR
Divide by 3 if city has a Recycling Center.
Population Pollution = City Size * Pollution Modifier.
Pollution Modifiers = 0.25 with Industrialization;
0.50 with Automobile;
0.75 with Mass Production;
1.00 with Plastics;
0.00 with Mass Transit.
Note: Mass Transit eliminates Population Pollution.
Subject: 13) How is the trade route income calculated?
-------------------------------------------------------
The manual states that the trade income between two cities is affected by
the distance between them. This is not true! The distance is only used
for calculating the Trade Bonus. The following is from Rome on 640k a day:
Additional Trade = (Trade Source + Trade Dest + 4) / 8
Additional Trade = the number of trade arrows added to a city's current
arrow production as the result of a trade route.
Trade Source = # of Arrows in the Source city.
Trade Dest = # of Arrows in Destination city
Additional Trade is halved if both cities are from the same civilization.
Subject: 14) How is the trade bonus calculated?
------------------------------------------------
Bonus = (Distance +10) * (TSource + TDest) / 24
*.5 if both are on same continent.
*.5 if both are same civilization (player)
*.66 if you have railroads
*.66 if you have flight
(these can *all* be applied, too, if all are true, leaving less than 11%)
Subject: 15) Any other trade information?
------------------------------------------
In the lifetime of cities, total trade can go up and down. If one of your
cities has a route with a city that's turned into a loser, sending a fourth
caravan somewhere useful will cause the worst of the four to be dropped.
Remember, you can "H" a caravan to give it a new home, if your city's busy
building something else.
Subject: 16) How is global warming calculated?
-----------------------------------------------
Eight pollution square are enough to trigger the 1st bout of global warming.
After that, each additional bout requires two more polluted squares than the
previous.
Note: these are the number of polluted squares visible to the player. Thus,
out of sight, out of formula.
Sun Icon Colour # of Visible Polluted Squares
-------------------------------------------------
Dark Red 0-1
Light Red 2-3
Yellow 4-5
White 6+
Subject: 17) How is corruption calculated?
-------------------------------------------
Corruption = (Total Trade * Distance * 3) / (10 * Govt)
Corruption is halved if a Courthouse or Palace is present.
Distance = City's distance from capital city. Under
Communism distance is always equal to 10 squares. With no palace,
distance is always equal to 32.
Govt = Government modifier; Despotism = 8; Anarchy = 12; Monarchy = 16;
Communism = 20; Republic = 24; Democracy = 0.
***************************************************************************
C H E A T S
***************************************************************************
There are lots of ways to cheat, but most of them make the game less
interesting. The one exception is editing the save file. I play most games
honestly, and don't edit the save file just for the sake of winning;
sometimes I edit the save file in order to create unusual and interesting
situations.
(I try never to cheat at all, but occasionally can't resist using the
fast-settler.)
Editing the save file just to give yourself huge amounts of cash is boring.
Be creative! Give the Romans a battleship in 3980 BC and see if you can
still beat them! Try playing difficulty level 5, which is worse than
Emperor, but start yourself with extra advantages to make up for it. Edit
the unit definitions and play with different kinds of military units. Be
the barbarians.
At difficulty level 6, you have no contented citizens at all, even when your
city size is 1 (one!). The computer does not labor under such a disadvantage;
its unhappiness is still Prince level, I think. The computer builds a militia
with about 3 or 4 resources. You need a lot of extra advantages to win at
difficulty level 6.
To play at difficulty level 6, you must change the tenth byte of the save file
to a 6. There is always a chance that the game will crash when you save,
because the difficulty level is used to index the strings "Chieftain.
"Emperor". So far I never had a crash.
To play the barbarians, change byte 2 to a zero. If there are no barbarian
units, you get a "Centuries Later..." ending; this means you need to give
yourself a Barbarian settler, by writing, at offset 0x26c0 of the file,
00XX YY00 0300 ff00 ff00 ffff
where XX and YY are the latitude and longitude; try 2020 as a start.
I described above a game where I edited the save file to give myself an
incredible advantage, and then set myself an unusual goal in addition to
the normal goal of just winning.
Another time recently, I was getting too many barbarians. I was handling
them easily, but got tired of them. I don't like the barbarians, and I wish
Civ had an option to turn them off. I saved, quit, and deleted all the
barbarian units! I got a 400 year breathing space out of that...
The most famous ("infamous") known cheats are:
Subject: 1) The Shift-56 cheat
-------------------------------
Note: The cheat only requires %^ (shift 56).
This is the Shift-56 (sometimes shift 1 to 8) cheat, only available in
v1.0. It was the player-test mode for Microprose play testers.
Refresh the map after pressing Shift 1-8 (by moving the cursor or pressing
t twice) and you will see the map of the whole world. You can click on the
cities of other players and unfortify their troops and sell their city
improvements
F7 will show you the development profile of each civilization, showing you
all their advances and allowing you to see if they have a vendetta against
you.
F8 shows you the powergraph and allows you to see a replay up to that point.
F9 shows numbers representing the attack points, defense points, and 3 of
the cities the computer uses to calculate battle, on each continent (along
with giving the size of each continent in land squares.
F10 shows a complete world map.
The other function keys sometimes do their normal functions, but they mess
up the display a lot of the time. Just a word of warning.
Subject: 2) The Movement Cheat
-------------------------------
Any piece that sentries in a town before the end of its movement can be
unsentried and REGAINS ITS FULL MOVEMENT for the turn. What this means is
that if you have roads linking your cities together and a chariot in a city
on one side of your continent, you can move it all the way to the other
side of the continent in one turn. All you do is sentry it in each city
along the way (as long as each city is <=5 squares away). In fact if you
have some invaders to kill, you can kill one, sentry it in a nearby city,
unsentry it, kill the second, move into the city again all in one turn.
This is how I defend 10 cities with 4 chariots
Subject: 3) The Settler Cheat
------------------------------
(Spoils the game) Most settler functions take from 2 to 12 turns to
accomplish. Any of them can be accomplished in one turn by putting the
settler a square, pressing R or M or I or whatever, clicking on the settler
to make it blink again (which seemingly aborts the function) and pressing R
again. Keep repeating this process until the road or irrigation is
finished. If you turn on the End-of-Turn feature, this helps you perform the
desired function in one turn. Otherwise you could just keep some nearby
piece blinking so that the turn doesn't end before you've milked the cheat
for all it's worth. Irrigating swamp takes 10 or 11 turns so this cheat is
real handy.
Subject: 4a) Ship Movement Cheat
---------------------------------
With two ships (Sail, Frigate and Transport) you can move anywhere in the
world, provided you have one ground unit aboard. The process is to move one
ship (needs to be able to take one unit) until it has one MP, place it in
sentry mode, move the next ship (the one with at least one unit in it) next
to it and "unload" the unit into the sentry mode ship. Then place the just
unloaded ship (with most likely 1 MP) into sentry mode and repeat with the
ship just loaded (It will have its normal MP restored, wonders are not
included). Repeat this process until you get where you want to go. (Note:
sometimes the computer will flash "end of turn" after placing a ship into
sentry mode, even though you just transferred a unit and the other ship
should be active. Just click onto the supposedly active ship, hit a
key/button, and the ship should become fully active again. I've also
noticed what appears to be a glitch after doing this for a while in one
turn. It seems the computer knows you're doing something not quite right,
or the programming is straining with the large number of moves.
Note: Apparently, this cheat *does* work with triremes, provided you do not
sentry them away from land.
Subject: 4b) Ship Movement Cheat
---------------------------------
This sub-section is a contribution from Bob O'Bob and when combined with the
settler cheat makes the game almost impossible to lose!
(and you thought the settler cheat spoiled the game...)
ALL ships can have unlimited movement. This includes having a battleship
bombard a city an unlimited number of times, or until it loses ;-).
This is really based on the original ship movement cheat, but is so much
more powerful, and in a way so much simpler to implement, that I'm
surprised it has not been written up before. In use, it is very similar to
the movement cheat of sentrying units in towns. If any ship is sentried
before its movement points (MPs) are used up, it can be awakened by any
ship that can respond to the "U"nload command on the same square. The
sentried ship(s) will wake up with full MPs (not counting WoW extras). The
simplest form of this will allow you to map the whole ocean with only two
sails. Starting on the same square, move one until it has only one MP
left, then sentry it. Move the other to the same square and unload it.
Sentry the second, and unload the first. Now, both have full MPs again!
Or, for a real thrill, make a convoy out of a battleship and two
transports. Two transports are needed to wake each other up, because the
battleship does not react to the unload command. The transports can be
*completely* full, too, another advantage over the earlier ship movement
cheat. One "convoy" like this, with the liberal application of the
save-game cheat, can wipe out all enemy units on coastal squares or in
coastal cities - in a single turn. Like the settler cheat, actually doing
this can get boring, both in terms of how many motions it takes and in how
easy things get.
Warnings: do not "U"nload a ship on a square where a bomber has ended its
turn without a carrier or city underneath it. This may cause the bomber
to run out of fuel. When stacking large numbers of units (including cargo)
to be awakened by a single ship "U"nloading, there may be a maximum number
of units awakened by a single "U" command (it appears to be 8) and you
might have to "U" more than once to get them all. Remember, the last
ship arriving still has to sentry and be awakened to keep a whole convoy
together.
I'm still looking for a method of giving air units unlimited life, and
yes, a carrier *can* wake up a battleship.
Note: _once_, while working with five sails and fifteen "cargo" units,
I managed to have a caravan unit out on the ocean, alone, blinking.
I was so surprised that I forgot to make a save file. If I _could_
duplicate this, I would tell you how, and what it's good for. If anyone
sees such an occurrance, *make a save file* and let me know!
---Bob O'Bob
Subject: 5) The Shipping Lanes Cheat
-------------------------------------
You can make enough transport-type ships, string them along in a convoy,
just enough spaces apart that you use up the full MP of each one, and start
from one shore, move the ship on top of the next, use that ship to go to
the next... and your troops will move with the active ship, provided it can
carry them all.
Note: If you string along enough ships to make a complete circle, with ships
moving each way between each pair of ports, you can move one ship-load each
way, each turn.
Subject: 6) The Unloading Ships Cheat
--------------------------------------
This one is when you wish to unload units in a city. Dock the ship, and go
into the city description screen (click on city) and then click on the
units in sentry mode you just delivered. They will then have full MP
restored, and you can continue to move them normally at this point. (With
Railroad (RR), this cheat allows for faster deployment across continents
between your cities and/or ships.) Note that a unit can have several full
moves in one turn this way.
Subject: 7) The Save Game Cheat
--------------------------------
Apart from the obvious reasons for saving regularly. It is well known that
the computer cheats when it comes to World Wonders. They appear to be
awarded randomly to any city the computer likes. If one gets awarded, it is
possible to go back to your last save, and the chances are that it won't be
awarded again for a while.
Another use for the save option is when you are having problems attacking
your enemies because of an uncooperative senate.
1. Have a revolution
2. Attack whoever you wish
3. Save the game
4. Reload it
5. You will be prompted for the type of government you require
Thanks to Evan for that one.
Subject: 8) The Settler Movement Cheat
---------------------------------------
Move the settler 2 squares along a road, then tell it to do something. Now
wake it up and move it another two squares. This means you can move a
settler a minimum of 13 squares along a road before the development of
railroad. If you move them along a mountain range where it takes a long
time to build mines, or across swamp you can move about 19 squares in one
turn (tell the settlers to mine the mountain/hill or clear the swamp).
Subject: 9) The Spaceship Cheat!
---------------------------------
Not too sure if this is a cheat or a bug, but I thought I would include it
anyway. Pointed out to me by Don Davis (nod sivad).
It is possible to launch a spaceship with 0% chance of success. All it
needs is a habitation module and a connected engine. I've never lost any
of these ships. This has saved my butt a couple of times when engaged
in a space race. I call this a cheat because the 100% success rate must
be due to a bug.
Subject: 10) The Settler/Railroad at Sea Cheat
-----------------------------------------------
Unload the settler and build, now wake the settler up and build until the
road/railroad is built. Now move the transport one square and unload the
settler - now you can get more production out of this busy little settler.
If you have enough transports you could theoretically railroad every sea
sector with only one settler.
---mperry
Here's how to do it:
Have a settler in a ship.
Command the ship to "U"nload.
Command the settler to "R"oad.
Click on the ship. (I'm assuming you have a mouse)
Click on the settler's icon in the pop-up, "waking up" the settler
Press some key or click elsewhere to clear the pop-up (I press "R")
Go back to the step of commanding the settler to "R"oad.
Once the settler completes a phase (road or rail) the ship underneath
it must move once, to make it willing to start again.
I find it best to use *two* settlers; for each sea square one builds
the road, the other builds the rail; then move the ship. With two ships
and a ship movement cheat (q.v.) there is no theoretical limit to how
much of the ocean can be railroaded in a single turn
---Bob O'Bob
Subject: 11) Hacking the .SVE file
-----------------------------------
An amusing and informative post for those that wish to hack the .SVE files
themselves. Remember, there are easier ways to do this !?!
=====
CIVILIZATION - What a great game! :)
Want to go back in time?
Want to play a different civilization?
Want to make the game easier or harder without starting over?
Want to give civilizations more appropriate names?
Want to really speed up scientific research?
Want to give yourself (or another civilization) lots of cash?
Want to reduce the number of civilizations in your current game?
Or increase it?
Want to play with a couple of friends?
Want to change the computer players' tax/science/luxuries ratio's?
Or your own?
Here's how to do it:
First off, a few helpful hints:
1) use a HEX editor (BEAV, available on the net is a good choice)
2) always remember that ALL numbers in the game are represented by
2 byte LSB,MSB format numbers in the .SVE files. (At least,
this seems to be the case. :)
3) most numbers have an upper limit, either game imposed or
compiler imposed. For instance, you can't have more than 32000
in cash - that's game imposed. Even if you could have more
than 32000, you couldn't have more than 32767 because 1 bit of
the 16 bits used for each number is used to indicate that the
number is negative - this is compiler imposed.
4) make backups of your .SVE files before changing them.
Ok, here's the format for each question:
(question)
(byte start address in HEX to change in .SVE file,length in decimal)
(valid range in decimal if known)
(explanatory text)
And here are the questions again:
Want to go back in time?
8,2
before 4000BC has worked, after 2200AD may also work
Changing the current year allows you to play the game forever and
achieve phenomenal scores.
Want to play a different civilization?
2,2
the range is 1-7. choosing 0 would make you the barbarians.
Now you can change to whatever civilization is winning at the
moment or simply see what each one of them can see. This does
screw up the little map on your main screen, but you can live with
it. :)
NOTE: This number is very important for other questions. For any
question that applies to multiple civilizations (more cash, more
lightbulbs for science, etc) you need to multiple this number by
the number of bytes used for each civilization's set of values, and
add it to the byte start address.
Want to make the game easier or harder without starting over?
A,2
the range is 0-4.
This is the difficulty rating. A 0 is for Chieftain and a 4 is for
Emperor. I haven't tested anything above 4, I shudder to think
what the game might do, considering how badly it cheats on 4.
Want to give civilizations more appropriate names?
This one is special, because it really encompasses three similar
areas.
10, 14 - This is for the Leaders' names
80, 12 - This is for the PLURAL spelling of the civilization name
E0, 11 - This is for the singular spelling of the civilization
name
Any character you like, plus the following special ones:
# = Stick figure
$ = coin
^ = check mark
{ = wheat stalk
} = trade arrows
\ = diamond
| = shield
~ = light bulb
_ = sun
If the new name is shorter than the allowed space, the next byte at
the end of the name should be a 0 (this prevents junk remaining
from the previous name from showing up).
Want to really speed up scientific research?
148, 2
0-lots :)
This figure must NEVER exceed the amount required for the next
advance. If it does, you'll never get the next advance. The
amount required for the next advance is based on the difficulty
level (0-4), and how many advances you already have (invented,
stolen, or found makes no difference :). The number of lightbulbs
needed for each new advance is:
(difficulty level+3)*2*(# of advances you already have).
NOTE: In the beginning advances are slightly harder at the low
difficulty levels (weird, huh?) AND after 0 AD the number doubles
(i.e., add a *2 to the equation above).
Want to give yourself (or another civilization) lots of cash?
138, 2
-32000 (or so) to +32000
Don't make this number a negative - you'll lose EVERYTHING.
This number won't go above 32000, so spend money if you start to
get close to it.
Want to reduce the number of civilizations in your current game?
Or increase it?
93BC, 2
0-6
The range is only 0-6 because the Barbarians always exist, and
there can only be 7 civilizations. If you drop this number down
to 0, the computer will probably ignore all the civilizations
except yours and the barbarians.
Want to play with a couple of friends?
By playing with the number of civilizations, and changing the
player civilization number, you should be able to play a
multi-player game.
NOTE: Due to the required save, edit, and reload steps
such a game will take a LONG time to play.
Want to change the computer players' tax/science/luxuries ratio's?
Or your own?
0738, 2 - This is the tax rate
8BB4, 2 - This is the science rate
0-10 combined total
The ratios are determined in the following order: tax, science,
luxury. Taxes are checked first, and the value is subtracted from
10. Then science is subtracted from the new value. The resulting
value is placed in Luxuries. NOTE: Taxes are generated first, so
if you set taxes at or above 10, science and luxuries gain NOTHING
no matter what the numbers show. This can be verified by hitting
the F5 key.
Brought to you by Charlemagne, Emperor of the World (several times over :)
also known as: Charles_K_Hughes@cup.portal.com
=====
Subject: 12) Is there an easier way to hack the .SVE files?
------------------------------------------------------------
Yes! There is an excellent program called civedit3.zip. It is available
at ftp.uwp.edu in directory pub/games/romulus/misc. See GENERAL section 9)
for details of obtaining it.
***************************************************************************
T H E F U T U R E
***************************************************************************
Subject: 1) Will there be a Civ II?
------------------------------------
MicroProse has no plans at the moment to produce a sequel to Civilization.
However with so much interest on the Net and If people push and hassle them
enough, who knows..?
Note: After a recent communication with MicroProse I was informed that they
will be converting Civ to work under Windows. This will include high
resolution graphics and "probably" a few enhancements and additions! The
person I spoke with said it would "probably" be more of a rewrite than a
conversion. Maybe they will finally fix the Advisory Bug after all ;)
Further Note: Civ for Windows has now been released, but details are only
coming in slowly. It appears to be a complete conversion and not a rewrite
as suggested before. There have also been a number of complains about the
overall speed of the game, and the fact that you now require 2-4 meg of
memory instead if 640K.
Subject: 2) Civilization-Like Games.
-------------------------------------
A post from Bryce Harrington that I felt should be included in the FAQ. I
expect that it will be added to in future editions.
"I loved Civilization. What other games are out there that are similar
to it?"
I have not yet seen a game that I like better than Civilization. There
are not many that "clone" it, but there are many that are similar to
it in some ways. Here is a list of games and some short comments on
them. [If anyone has additions/corrections, PLEASE include them]
Railroad Tycoon: Operate a railroad. Pre-Civilization Microprose Game.
SimCity: Great simulation of the development of a city. It is a
*Simulation* game - no opponents, no "winning". You must
build a city up by zoning land, setting budgets, repairing
damage from disasters, fighting crime, pollution, etc. If
you love developing your civilization and hate having to
compete with other civilizations, you'd enjoy this game.
SimEarth: Play God with planet Earth.
Populus: Play God against another civilization. Cause earthquakes,
raise land from the sea. Haven't played it, though.
Empire Deluxe:
Risk: Many versions of it exist for the computer. Much simpler
than Civilization, but worth trying out. The board game
version was more popular than the board game version of
Civilization. If Civilization gives you a headache,
try this.
Castles: Play the leader of a medieval king building castles and
fighting off the Celts. Good with graphics, you actually
watch little men with hammers and saws building away. You
determine the number of men working on the different
sections of the castle. Celts may attack before you
finish, so keep some soldiers ready. Has limited but
interesting plotlines that you are able to manipulate
by making decisions:
" What do you do:
1. Apologize and give 100 pounds tribute to Celts
2. Promise to make amends, but do nothing.
3. Send Celtic messenger's head back on a platter."
If you like watching your civilization grow, but prefer
combat and diplomacy, you'd like Castles.
Spaceward Ho!: I hear it is like Civilization in space. Control
production of planets in you federation.
The following is from Eric R:
-----
Basically, start on a planet ideal for you. Build ships
to explore+colonize nearby worlds. Terraform to make the
planets habitable + mine to get metal to build more
ships. Research six different areas of technology to get
faster, longer range, more powerful ships which take less
metal to build. A variety of human and computer
opponents are trying to do the same thing. (Although
their idea of an ideal planet is different from yours.)
Size and shape of galaxy are customizable. Computer
opponents get advantages to make up for AI, although I
find the AI to be pretty good overall. The Mac version
networks in seconds: don't know how good the PC will be.
There's a lot of humor in the game: sending a ship to a
planet causes the computer to say "YAHH!", many other
sound effects are similar. The ships you design during
the game play often have very funny pictures. (My
favorite looks like a skull+ribcage with a V-8 motor in
the back.)
I'm not sure how the Windows version compares rulewise:
the Mac version just underwent a major upgrade to add
alliances, improved shipbuilding finances, better
messaging between players, etc.
Overall, I love it. Be forewarned: getting this game
while still interested in Civ may end in ruined career,
marriage, etc...
-----
Buzz Aldrin's
Race into Space: Haven't played it, but looks like you can control the
production/distribution of resources into a space program.
Realms
of Conquest: Very similar to Castles, but has cities which you can
control production in (build city walls, expand city,
improve health, train army, etc). You use your cities
to build an army, then direct it to go to an enemy city
and besiege it until it surrenders. Your armies can fight
the enemies' armies on battle fields in real time and in
3D overview. If you prefer the combat in Civilization and
don't like spending the time constructing stuff, making
trade routes, getting advances, etc, then you might like
this game.
That's really about it. Again if there are any comments, criticisms or bits
I have left out, give me an email at:
djh@wcl.bham.ac.uk or
Thanks for reading and have fun. :)
