Welcome to the CIV FAQ.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the game, we would like to thank
personally a few people who without their help, this FAQ would not be
possible. In No particular order:-
Garth Sweet, Roger Kemp, Bryce Harrington, Earnest To,
Ralph Betza (FM), skipmeister (laus@midway) and Ronald Bense.
James Ollinger, Mark Lilback, David Gosselin, Devin Ben-Hur,
Matt Malone, Bob O'Bob and Albion.
A special thanks is due to Maurice Schekkerman for sending us a large
collection of posts that he had collected before we started searching. If
we have left anybody out, we are terribly sorry, but we really appreciate
all the stuff that has been given.
This is NOT the definative version, but more of a preview of what we would
like the FAQ to be. We do not take credit for the information contained
here, as all we have done is collect it together into one document. If you
have any questions, comments, criticisms, or tips please post them to us at
stanworthdjh@bham.ac.uk [Dave] or aev@dcs.kcl.ac.uk [Alex]
What is civilization. I consider it more than a game, it is more 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 and create a civilization from them. Along the
way you develop new sciences, meet other tribes (some warlike, some not),
visit new continents all for the aim of trying to get into space, and/or be
the dominant civilization.
A lot of the information in the FAQ is design 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, we have both found numerous new things that have enabled
us to really enjoy the game further and tell us EXACTLY what a certain city
improvement or wonder does.
Note: A # in the lefthand column denotes alteration, and a * denotes new.
We will Now proceed....
A GENERAL
1) How can I tell which version I have ?
# 2) Which is the best version of CIV ?
3) What is the advisory bug ?
* 4) The undefended city bug.
* 5) The scrambled land bug.
* 6) Where is the map editor ?
* 7) Where can I get an updated version ?
8) Which is the best Govt type
B CITIES
# 1) How do I make a city?
# 2) How do I make my city grow?
# 3) More cities or less ?
# 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 (Taxman or Scientist) ?
7) How much money does a taxman collect ?
8) How many lightbulbs does a scientist create ?
# 9) What is the difference between subvert a city and revolt ?
# 10) How does the computer cheat ?
11) How do you calculate pollution ?
# 12) What is the highest population for a single city ?
* 13) Unhappy citizens for free ?
C DIFFERENT GAME STRATEGIES
1) In general
Despotic Conquest
Democratic Ostrich
Flexible Evolution
Republic
Pyramid
High Tech
Rich
Balanced
Peaceful
High Tech Conquest
Hide in a Corner
Archipelago
Diploblitz
Trading Cities
# Take No Prisoners
The Helping Hand
The Rock
Replay
* Go see them or they will come see you
* Pillage to the Max
* Take the best, discard the rest
2) Colossal City Strategy
3) What is the best way to take an enemy city
4) What are the best wonders to build
# 5) Final score
6) Lightbulb formula
# 7) Misc. tricks and tips
* 8) The Canal trick.
D CHEATS
# 1) Shift 5-6 cheat
2) Movement cheat
3) Settler cheat
# 4) Ship movement cheat
5) Convoy cheat
6) Unloading ships cheat
7) Save game cheat
8) Settler movement cheat
* 9) Spaceship cheat !
E THE FUTURE
1) Will there be a CIV II?
2) What would people want in it?
***************************************************************************
G E N E R A L
***************************************************************************
1) How can I tell which version 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 version 5 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 wuarchive.wustl.edu.
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
475.05 (versions 1 & 5). The easiest of the two is version 1. If you are
playing with version 5, and not having much luck, revert back to version 1.
This is also the version that allows the "shift 56 cheat", that can be a
good way of learning the ins and outs of the game. Originialy it was the
Beta copy for the playtesters and they didn't remove the cheat. However, if
you like a challenge, then ver. 5 is really the only one to play. A further
impetus to buy the game is that version 5 contains far less bugs. If you do
get the latest version, the chances that the game will not crash are far
greater. :) . The big problem is the Instant Advice. This is known as
"advisory bug". Fixed (?) in one of the latest versions of CIV. Can be
temporary avoided by turning advisory off. Get the latest update of CIV. On
almost all msdos anonymous servers.
---
Version 1 : Came with the game.
Version 2 : Attempted to fix the Advisor bug. Fixed the tundra bug.
Fixed the Civ score bug. Removed %^ cheat.
Version 3 : Attempted again to remove the Advisor bug. Added some
new pics and Very Unhappy people. Removed disbanding
a city by buying a settler at 1 population (Chieftan).
Transports do not make people unhappy for democ. and repub.
Version 4 : No bug fixes, just made the game harder for veterin
players.
Version 5 : Finaly fixed the Advisor bug (They think). Version 5 does
not include version 4, but does include all other fixes
in other versions.
---[Albion]
If the above is correct then those people moaning about Ver.5 being too
hard are getting confused with Ver.4
If you need further Advice or information about the game, there is a book
called 'Rome on 640k a day'.
===========================================================================
Wilson, Johnny L.
Sid Meier's Civilization, or Rome on 640K a day
/ by Johnny Wilson and Alan Emrich.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-55958-191-3:$18.95
1. Computer games. I. Emrich, Alan. II. Title
GV1469.15.W55 1992
793.93'2-dc20
91-42148
CIP
Quantity discounts are available from the publisher, Prima Publishing,
P.O.Box 1260 CIV, Rocklin, CA 95677; telephone (916)786-0449, On your
letterhead include information concerning the intended use of the books and
the number of books you wish to purchase.
U.S. Bookstores and Libraries: Please submit all orders to St. Martin's
Press, 175 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10010; telephone (212)674-5151.
===========================================================================
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. Supposedly fixed by version 5.
-----
If you leave the "Advisors" option on, then if the Domestic or Military
advisiors can't think of anything to suggest, the program dies. This will
happen if your city pretty much has everything in needs or could build.
-----[Adam Ginsberg]
4) The undefended city bug
--------------------------
Sometimes when I have a lot of cities (50) I have one city that shows
itself as being undefended in the map display (no dark border) but in the
city display shows units fortified inside. I usually take all of the units
out and then all back in to correct the situation. Sometimes I have gotten
the 'Romans plunder .....' message when I re-enter such a city and the
population decreases by one. If a computer civ attacks a city that is shown
to be undefended they take it despite the fact that units are present in it.
This has been detected in both Ver.4 and Ver.5
5) The scrambled land bug.
--------------------------
Originally I thought this was connected with the advisory bug, but it
turns out that it is something completely different.
-----
Scrambled oceans? Extra "land" at the north pole? Screen goes crazy if you
try to move a unit there?
I have this *every* time I look at the "Civilization Score" So I don't do
that any more. The problem, once it occurs, corrupts the save files as
well, so there's no recovery. If you *must* see your "Score" then do a save
_first_ and restart _after_
You can see the corruption in the small map - some of the "people" from the
score screen get left drawn on the map, and apparrently they distort the
.map file as well. Often, there's lots of new grassland around the north
pole, and even some "mystery" houses. You can, in fact, go get the $50
prizes, if you care to go to the trouble. Or maybe my system's more
forgiving than most.
-----[Bob O'Bob]
-----
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 forvever 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 with even two of these squares being utilized, as
each produces 99 resources.
-----[Ron Bense]
6) Where is the map editor ?
----------------------------
Sorry folks, but at the time of writing this, I don't believe one exists.
According to Tom Kimball (who probably knows more about the save files than
Microprose) the .map file is either compressed or encrypted. So if
someone can work out a way to de-whatever and re-whatever, we might get
somewhere.
7) 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...
8) Which is the best Govt type ?
--------------------------------
This really does depend 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 competion as soon as possible, then
stick with despotism. Although resources are generated slower, your armies
do not take them up as fast. This means that one city can generate huge
armies without much penalty. Any other strategy really requires Diplomacy.
This govt 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
center of the island or in your best knowledge town the 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.
***************************************************************************
C I T I E S
***************************************************************************
1) How do I make a City?
------------------------
Apart from RTFM, 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 begining 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 in the game. For example, plains will give you one
Food and one Resource. If you irrigate that square will give you two food,
one resource and one trade. Also remember that cities automatically build a
road, but you can still add a railroad, and this will avoid losing 1/3
movement when taking a piece through a city.
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 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 the republic/democracy you can change back, although it
is not really worth it unless you want to have a military campaign.
Note: 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. This is important when you are maximizing scores, as
the sheer number of people is important. You may want to decimate a size 25
city so that three neighboring size 26+ cities can grow to size 30+. The
gain wil far more than offset the loss. It takes two food units to increase
a city by one.
3) More cities or less ?
------------------------
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 !?! Here are a few comments from others.
Note: The mention above of 'over 250' must have been an exaggeration, as
the save file only has space for 126(ish).
a) Mark Lilback
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 centers
for military units when I do go to war. Until then, I just build settlers.)
b) James Ollinger
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.
c) David Gosselin
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.
4) Is there a limit to the size a city can be created?
-----------------------------------------------------
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 it is a BIG mistake to assume
this. So how does one 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, as
long as 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 (at about size twenty)
Recycling Center (Needed at about size 30)
Nuclear Plant (Needed around size 28-30)
It's funny, but a Nuclear plant increases production, yet decreases
pollution. I've had a city size 30 that had 6 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 powerplant 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 (req. 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.
What is most important in developing the assets of a city - irrigate, build
roads, trade, mine, ?? What else can you do to a sqaure other than mine or
irrigate?
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 defense 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
defense 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 lightbulbs. 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.
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:
1)Mark Lilback
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.
2) James Ollinger
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
SUFFERAGE and J.S.BACH'S CATHEDRAL are the best.
3) David Gosselin
Well, set luxury rate higher, send out as many canavans 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 diplomas as your attacking force, buying
enemy cities really pays off since you will get defending units right away
and with city improvements.
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.
6) How do I make an Elvis (Taxman or Scientist) ?
-------------------------------------------------
RTFM !!!
To make an Elvis (entertainer) look at the city portion of your city screen
and click the mouse on one the squares around your city which you are
currently using/drawing-resources-from. The little wheat/shield symbols
dissapear 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 tax man 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 the 1 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.
7) How much money does a taxman collect ?
-----------------------------------------
A tax collector collects $2 (3 if city has marketplace; 4 if city has a
bank)
8) How many lightbulbs does a scientist create ?
------------------------------------------------
Each scientist you make in a city adds 2 lightbulbs 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]
9) What is the difference between subvert a city and revolt ?
-------------------------------------------------------------
If you revolt an enemy city, you loose 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, revolt tends to break any peace treaties where
as subvert doesn't.
Also, subvert is only available when a peace treaty exists. It costs
twice as much as a revolt.
Tip: Bankrupt an enemy civ to make its cities cheaper to 'insight 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 civ
will buy a defensive unit every turn at 120 or 210 gold 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 civs 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 'insight revolt'.
10) 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.
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.
11) How do you calculate pollution ?
-----------------------------------
The book "Civilization - or 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 (SP) per turn. The
SP are a sum of industrial pollution (IP) and population pollution (PP).
SP=IP+PP
IP= (# of shields generated by city)
Divide IP by 2 with Hydro or Nuke plant OR (XOR) divide by 3 w/ Recycling
Center
PP = (population of city)*(technology multiplier)
(tech. mult.) = .25 (w/ Industrialization), .50 (W/ Automobile)
.75 (w/ Mass Production), 1.0 (w/ Plastics)
The bottom line for all this is Build Hoover's Dam before anyone else does and
your pollution problems will be manageable. [Roger Kemp]
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...
Note: Remember that a city going from size 43 -> 44 will add much more to
the final score than a city going from 28 -> 29.
13) 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 Cheiftan, 2 at Emperor). After that size is reached, any people over
that number are automatically unhappy, unless apeased by a temple
cathedral, collesium, 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.
***************************************************************************
D I F F E R E N T G A M E S T R A T E G I E S
***************************************************************************
This next section is being compiled using a *single* post from Ralph Betza.
Although many people have mentioned one or two strategies Ralph really does
cover the lot!
[QUOTE]
a) In general
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 ( suffrage, Bach, Hoover ) but SETI is just as
important at the stage of the game where it becomes possible.
b) Despotic Conquest
Maximum city size is 6 at Emperor level. Build many cities, build no
improvements except barracks; possible exception: 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 science 100%; develop bronze, wheel, iron, math, writing,
navigation, magnetism (optional), then stop and set taxes 100%, 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: beat 12 other civilizations, world conquest 900 B.C.; ( I
finished the game in one evening! Without staying up late! ) if the last
reincarnation hadn't been in such an inconvenient place, would have been
1200 B.C. Usual result: circa 400 B.C.
You can always play Despotic Conquest, regardless of the world you find
yourself starting with, and always can win without using any of the mant
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, in message
<1992Nov27.115044.1089@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...
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 impovements 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.
d) Flexible Evolution
You find yourself with neighbors, 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!
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 2000 A.D. 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.
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.
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.
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.
i) Mercenary
While playing Rich, try to buy as many enemy units as possible so you can
have a whole army owned by NONE.
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.
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
3980 BC, 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 cash, 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 civs are afraid.
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.
m) Hide in a Corner
Once in a while, instead of trying to build as many cities as possible as
quickly as posible 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...
m) 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 neighbors. Maybe the game deliberately avoids
putting you on places that are too small.
n) 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.
o) 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.
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 civ is in disorder yes it can recover. I have seen it happen
in enemy civs 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]
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 civ that takes over the empty city will *not* feel
any sense of gratitude.
s) The Rock
Sometimes you can throw a monkey wrench into an enemy civ 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 civ 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 mountaintop is all you really need to make it work!
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!
[UNQUOTE]
Here are a few from Matt Malone:
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 you are in a weak position relative to another
civ. If you are defensively weak but and cannot mount a reasonably good
attack against them, I send an occupation force. I have found that for all
civs, 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 civ 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 civ in
the same way as 'the rock' does but it keeps them at home and gives you
some breathing space.
v) Pillage to the Max
When I am in a weak position relative to a computer civ and the seas are
still relatively safe, I conquer their weakest city, take their best
defensive technology, ie 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 civ 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.
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 civ 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 civs 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+fisson: nucs: If you nuc them, they will nuc you if they have
them. I have never been nuc'd unless I nuc a civ that has already
built a nuc. I hear the Russians and Americans may not hold to
this pattern.
Assuming the sea is not safe enough for bucket-loads of diplomats to have
any reasonable chance of making it to the enemy civ (without cheating), use
battleships to pound the weakest costal 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 'insight revolt' is easy. Chose large cities, 'insight revolt'
and turn them into cash. You should get enough to insight another revolt in
a few turns. Advanced civ 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 civ through your own
rails should one of your cities fall. Nothing like enemy armor on your
rails to ruin your day.
2) Colossal City Strategy
--------------------------
I have deliberately kept this separate from the other strategy section as
it really is a game apart. Once again I hand the subject over to Ralph
Betza:
[QUOTE]
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
a swamp 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, acqueducts, 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
singlemindedly on military affairs ( as in Conquest ); instead, you get to
do a little bit of everything.
[UNQUOTE]
3) What is the best way of taking an enemy city?
------------------------------------------------
Sure fire way for musket/cannon level cities with city walls:
1. Build lots of cannon, diplomats (4-6), and settlers (2-3).
2. Move a vetran 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 posession 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.
4) What are the best wonders to build?
--------------------------------------
I like the Pyramids. I build them as soon as possible, and build no other
ancient wonders. Then I switch to communism. You get the higher production
of monarchy, and corruption is significantly reduced, but you also don't
have to worry about unhappy units from units outside the home city. Also,
you can instantly change to any other government type (even democracy)
without any anarchy in between.
I also like Shakespear's Theatre. Build it in you highest producing city
with lots of capability for supporting units. Don't waste effort building
cathedrals or collesiums in the city. Once the wonder is built, station as
many units as possible out of that city, and switch to democracy. You will
get all the benefits of democracy without the pains of having too many
unhappy people. Build this city up with resource increasing items like
power plants, etc. I conducted an entire war this way, with no problem. I
had 20-30 units stationed out of this city!
Bach's wonder is the best if you have a lot of land on one continent and a
lot of cities. You get two unhappy people made happy. Pretty good!
Another good one, as I'm sure you've heard, is Women's Sufferage. It
reduces the number of unhappy people caused by out-of-city units by one.
Great if you have republic.
To remove the problem of pollution, it is best to build hoover dam as soon
as possible.
5) 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 resonable 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 .2, .4, .6, or .8 depending on whether you play chieftan,
prince 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.
6) Lightbulb formula
---------------------
Here's the formula from _Sid Meier's Civilization, Or 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, 2, if Year > 0AD
In addition the first advance always requires at least 10 lightbulbs
regardless of difficulty level.
7) Misc. 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 (ie.
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. I use this regularly in the beginning because the third person in
a city (on emperor level) is pissed so I switch over to a barracks (same
number of shields as a settler) buy it and immediately switch it back to
settlers.
Note: Also, structures cost twice as much to buy if you have no production
yet gone into them. 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) 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.
d) 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.
e) Apparantly, units are stronger if they haven't moved before an attack.
Take an armor, move it next to another unit, and then attack. It seems,
from my experience, like some penalty is assessed from attacking "on the
move". I've experienced much greater losses doing this (something like 5:1)
then moving next to the piece, waiting a turn, and then attacking. I've
also 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 moral into account? I've not seen it documented anywhere, but
once they lose two or three units, the rest seem to loose
disproportianately, even if they're all the same type of unit, and they
have barracks [ie all are vets])
f) Stack units in forts that have been created by settlers, and if you lose
a battle you only lose one unit.
g) 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.
Note: Don't take this tip at face value. It works for me, but others have
said differently - so beware!
h) In a sea warfare game, consider using nucs on enemy battleships and
carriers at sea because there is no polution. In addition, computer civs
usually send out other units with such a major unit and a nuc can usually
destroy 2 extra enemy units. With the Mag. Expd. WOW, 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.
i) To get size 40+ cities, play in the Americas, there are 2 sites for max
grasslands production here!
j) Build the UN. Then build diplomats and artillary. Change government to
communist. Roll your artillary 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 artillary 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.
k) 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 ...
l) When you are Repub. or Democ. and you meet a new civ that you wish to
destroy, don't talk to their emissaries. If you do, your council will
force a treaty.
8) The Canal trick.
-------------------
This is an excellent idea received from Matt Malone.
- 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.
- Build a walled city on a mountain as the gateway from an inland sea to
the ocean (vet. 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' - ie
able to build ships - while not being subject to sea attacks until the
gateway city falls.
- 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 batteship to pound the enemy
city directly. If your canal city is walled the effective defense with a
vet. battleship is 12*1.5*3 = 54! Good odds in any attack except against
bombers.
***************************************************************************
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 "Chieftan"..."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:-
1) shift 56 cheat
-------------------
Note: The cheat only requires %^ (shift 56).
This is the shift 1-8 (sometimes shift 56) cheat, only available in
version 1.0. It was the player-test mode for Microprose playtesters.
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 civ, showing you all their
advances and allowing you to see if thhey 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 contient (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 diplay a lot of the time. Just a word of warning.
2) 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
3) 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 put 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.
4) 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 transfered 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.
5) Convoy 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.
6) 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.
7) 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.
8) 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).
9) 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.
As a final word to cheating, there are a number of utilities available from
FTP sites that allow you to completely customize your civilization.
***************************************************************************
T H E F U T U R E
***************************************************************************
Microprose have 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...
As I see it, we could have either Civilization version II, which would be
the current game plus important improvements, possibly using the same save
files, or we could have "Civ II", a whole new game written from scratch as
a sequel to CIV. In other words, I would call the current game "Civ I,
version I".
There are two areas of improvement. The first is that of the system itself.
The second is improvements to the game, (i.e. more wonders, better units
etc.). There is No real order to this, rather it was who sent mail first,
got his/her stuff incorporated first.
1. The System
-------------
Improve the user interface. When I hit F4 or F1 or F5 and get a list of
cities, I should be able to go to any city by clicking on its line. When
I'm looking at a city, I should be able to go to any of its units by
clicking on it with the "other button" -- leave the city and center on the
unit. When I click on a unit, if I click the "other button" (OB) on the box
that appears, I should go to that unit's city. When I hit F10 and get a
worldmap, I should be able to go anywhere in the world by clicking. When I
list the wonders of the world, I should be able to go to any city on it,
that I know about, by clicking. When I do demographics, I should be able to
go to a city with smokestacks by clicking on pollution. There should be a
menu/keyboard command to find polluted squares!!!!!!!
Fix the dratted "goto" command. Make it find the most efficient route, as
Perfect General does. The only reason the current version needs the magic
caravans and unsinking triremes is because "goto" doesn't work.
Give it the ability to play a bit more sensibly. I'm not asking for a
really good AI, just not quite so stupid. A really good AI would probably
be too difficult to do.
Provide a startup option for a fast game: everybody gets several settlers
and has many technologies. Kind of like the fast form of Monopoly, where
you deal out the deeds instead of buying the properties.
Provide an "undo" command, for when you hit the wrong key.
Provide an option NOT to go to the next unit! The next unit would blink and
be activated, but the viewpoint wouldn't shift until you hit "C". Reason: I
want to do more stuff in the area where I just moved, like unfortify a
phalanx to move it into the city I just conquered, for example.
How about a "no barbarians" option?
The save-game cheat is tedious. Provide a "load game" command so that I can
study my old save files ( maybe the map editor should be used for this )
and prevent the save-game cheat by subtracting 10 points from the score
whenever the game is manually saved in a turn not divisible by 5, and
prompting "You can save now" whenever saving is "free".
2) The GAME
-----------
Diplomacy is such a loss in the current version. Needs more negotiation
options ("We *demand* tribute"; "You're asking for too much"; "Here's a
free technology for you"; "declare war"), plus the ability to "train" a
computer civ (like you train your dog in Hack) to be permanently
well-disposed towards you.
Units away from home shouldn't start to cause unhappiness until they've
been gone for a move or so; and they shouldn't cause unhappiness if they're
still right near the city. And, it's a little bit ghoulish how if you lose
a battle, all the brothers and mothers of the boys who got killed celebrate
because they're not away from home anymore! Victories, not losses, should
cause greater happiness! Perhaps there's no room in the current save file
for the info you'd need.
Allow more cities and units. Grab a section of the save file, the units
table from a dead color, and use it as an extension area.
Advanced ships are too darned slow. They should be faster, and air
transport should be available. (You can provide for both of these things by
editing the unit definitions in the current save file.)
Allies can carry each others' forces in ships, for example, or use a
railroad passing thru each others' territory, or move freely around each
others' forces.
Even in a democracy, pieces should be able to patrol right next to the city
or maybe two hexes away even without causing unrest.
This idea is more reasonable. In addition, I suggest the military units
(except settlers, caravans, diplomats) should be well supplied, i.e., a
supply line should be able to reach such units. I was once playing a game
where certain enemies units surrounded by my legions completely, but they
still can stand for serveral ten year, which should be impossible in
practice since all their supply lines should have been cut. Also, more
kinds should be added, esp. for land and air units in the modern age:
Land: engineers, scouts (to check enemy units' damages, etc.),
headqarters (so the armies belonging to it will surrender
or reduce in combat value, when the hq is destroyed),
supply troops, red cross, etc.
Air: air transport (for airborne warfare and supply),
satellite (for increasing trade, enemy informations, or
even the star war project against the nuclears),
space shuttle (for carrying satellites), and so on.
Spies, divide Diplomats into Spies and Diplomats.
Sentries/Explorers, little units whom are easy to produce,
have 0 offense,0 defense, but 2 movement. Useful for exploring
or leaving in the far reaches to alert you of invaders.
I also suggest the addition of space lab (for increasing light bulbs),
space factory (for increasing shields) as city improvements. Satellite
should be able to increase happiness by providing more informations and
entertainments through TV to the people.
Forts are a good thing in the current game; more kinds of non-city
structures would be nice, but I can't think what they might be. Boundary
markers? Customs stations? How about an aqueduct? -- instead of irrigating
all the squares between here and there, you build a pipeline, much cheaper.
An oil pipeline -- extending the city's reach. An airport, so planes could
land without a city. None of these seem like really great ideas.
Different countries should have different commodities. For instance, the
Chinese should have silk, porcelain, while the others do not have. Also,
these commodities should have some function. For example, silk and
porcelain can increase happiness, and you need to give money to certain
Chinese cities to obtain them through caravans (or merchants). Actually, I
don't like money and happiness are increased through simply increasing the
arrows as present. More complicated economic system instead of the 'arrows'
will make the game more interesting. Different kinds of food should be
produced in different cities so trading between cities through the new
economic system will be enhanced.
How about *prospecting* and *drilling* for oil? The obvious oilfields that
you see in the early days get used up; you need to find and develop new
ones. Likewise gold and coal, of course.
More terran types, more kinds of special squares.
As tech increases, you can replace Caravan made routes with Airline routes,
fly the plane to the enemy city a just like Caravan's you get a
self-maintained invisible airline route. But it makes you more money.
Have more ifra-structure, your country is pretty much a collection of stand
alone cites, if you could get some way of joing cities in some way, through
inter-coutry trade routes perhaps. IE you can have food moved from
prosperous cities to lesser cities. Truck or Train routes with roads/rails
perhaps, only not soo complex as to overshadow the rest of the game.
More useful stuff to build, by 1 AD I'm usually down to making barracks and
selling them because there's nothing better to do.
Instead of just mines/farms around cities, perhaps have suburbs that would
increase happiness (for free) or research centers, etc.
Spies, divide Diplomats into Spies and Diplomats.
Sentries/Explorers, little units whom are easy to produce, have 0 offense 0
defense, but 2 movement. Useful for exploring or leaving in the far reaches
to alert you of invaders.
Power chart should be available all the time :-)
3) More civilization advances
-----------------------------
1. Calendar, requires astronomy and writing
increases the yield of foods once developed.
2. Paper, requires invention increases the effect of library and
university greatly
3. Printing, requires invention increases the effect of library and
university even more greatly, allows the building of
bookstore (new city improvement which increases happiness
in the city)
4. Modern Communication System, requires electronics allows the
building of TV station (new city improvement which
increases happiness in the city), allow building of radar
station which increase the intelligence.
5. The addition of space lab (for increasing light bulbs), space
factory (for increasing shields) as city improvements.
6. Satellite should be able to increase happiness by providing more
informations and entertainments through TV to the people.
7. As tech increases, you can replace Caravan made routes with
Airline routes, fly the plane to the enemy city a just
like Caravan's you get a self-maintained invisible airline
route, But it makes you more money.
3) The Extras
-------------
1. Provide a map editor, like Populous has, and more choices on the
world-customization menu. If worried about people faking high scores by
editing their games, put a byte or bit in the save file that says "game was
edited, not eligible for hall of fame", and a checksum to make tampering
harder. If you just *look* at a world, because this is like doing the
shift-56 cheat!, but nothing can be done about that -- if you set the
"ineligible" bit in the save file, that proves nothing: there could be
another copy of the save file!
That's Really about it. Again if there are any comments, criticisms or bits
we have left out, give us an email at:-
aev@dcs.kcl.ac.uk or
STANWORTHDJH@bham.ac.uk
Thanks for reading and have fun :)
