🚀 go-pugleaf

My mail bounced and I couldn't figure out a way for it to work.  This is
for the guy at Honeywell who wrote me today....


Date: Thu, 14 May 92 19:35:51 -0500
From: David Vessell <dave>
Message-Id: <920515003...@bradley.bradley.edu>
To: 15.566.dnet!dic...@fishery.honeywell.com (I'm just a Happy Engineer!)
In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 14 May 92 15:52:55 -0600
Subject: Re: Civilization

Hello....

Well, here's my basic strategy.  It gets me up to Prince level, though 
once there it's been shaky as of late.

First, turn on Instant Advice before you do anything.  It defaults 
to that on Chieftain level, but you have to select it under Options 
on the other levels (but you probably knew that anyway).

Resist the temptation to build your first city right off the bat. 
 Wait until the instant advice tells you it's a good site.  It's 
not usually wrong.

Once you have your first city founded, build one militia unit and 
use it to scout the surrounding area.  Don't go too far out or barbarians 
will harass you.  Technologywise, go after bronze working and pottery 
in that order.  After you build your one militia, start building 
a barracks.  If you get taken over in the mean time, you haven't 
lost much time.  Once your barracks are done, build phalanx units 
(2 is good, 3 will cost a production unit).  After that, build two 
settler units.  Use one to develop around your city, and the other 
to start a new city.  Then build a granary and a library.  I also 
go for the Great Library off the bat, and it can really help keep 
you in the game on the higher skill levels.  Anyway, use that pattern 
for your first 4-5 cities.  If another civilization is real close 
to you, after getting the Great Library, make a beeline for mathematics 
and take them out with catepults.  If you don't they'll be a constant 
source of grief later on.

It's important to be picky on city sites.  A good city site will 
have access to water, flatlands to irrigate, and hills nearby.  Try 
to be close to livestock symbols too.  The important thing is to 
have a good base for production units.  Try not to put cities too 
close together or they'll end up competing for resources.  Another 
good land unit to watch for are grasslands with the little circles 
in the middle; they'll produce production as well as food.

Don't be in a big hurry to change government to Monarchy until your 
production is pretty sizable.  I normally don't change governments 
until around 1400-1500, a little sooner if I happen to be in a resource 
rich area.  If you change too soon your production won't be able 
to keep pace with paying for military units and settlers.


More good things to build early:  temples, libraries, and marketplaces. 
 The key is to generate production.  Use your settlers strategically. 
Look for where people are being put and irrigate those places first. 
The computer does a fairly good job of placing people in good areas. 
 The exception to that is if you start a city and the first people 
end up in a place that doesn't produce any knowledge units.  If that 
happens, move the people to shoreline areas.

The first two wonders I go for are the Great Library and Copernicus's 
Observatory.  The Great Library isn't useful for long, but if competition 
is fierce it can keep you in the game.  I then normally aim for Magellan's 
Expedition, since that will speed up your seacrafts considerably. 
When the Great Library gets cancelled by the discovery of university, 
go for university and then theory of gravity and build Newton's College.

I don't bother with other wonders much until the medieval wonders 
roll around.  Magellan's expedition and Bach's Cathedral are good 
because they don't expire.  

Take some care in keeping your people happy, since civil unrest stops 
all production, and you can find yourself in last place real quick. 
If you start running into real problems, go for religion quick.

Knowledge is power in this game.  The more knowledge you have, the 
more things you can build.  Build libraries in all your cities pretty 
shortly after building granaries.  Use settlers for development, 
but don't develop too much area around a city until you need it.

If you have a civilization nearby that's progressing fast in technology 
but not particularly powerful, you can gear up for war, take a couple 
cities, and claim some needed technologies.  I use this a lot to 
get automobile quicker on the higher skill levels.

There's no real need to get rid of your phalanx too soon.  I normally 
use then until I get conscription and upgrade my defences then.  

If you build libraries early and get Copernicus's Observatory, you 
can coast on that for awhile.  Take great care in cultivating your 
production, since that seems to be your problem.  Don't waste your 
time on becoming a republic unless you're fairly isolated and don't 
need to keep military units on the horizon.  Remember too that ships 
are considered military, and their departure to establish trade routes 
can skew the balance of unhappy people.  Speaking of which, trade 
routes are very important as well.  Try to establish at least two 
routes for each city, and three for your biggest cities.  Use the 
top 5 cities of the world screen as your guide and attempt to establish 
routes with them.

Well, I hope there's some stuff here you can use.  Let me know how 
it works out.


-- 
=========*davE*.....making the world safe for intelligent dance music.=========
--(David Vessell)--(Bradley University Computing Services)-(da...@bradley.edu)--