🚀 go-pugleaf

I'm still finetuning my strategy, but since I am three years from
landing a space ship at Emperor level, I will post my general approach.

At the very start, build a city within your first three moves.  Then militia
for local exploration (to find the next city site), barracks, then phalax
for defense, then a marketplace, then a settler.  Do not build a granary
until you have the population well under control, otherwise it will grow too
fast to keep control.  Build roads in good squares around the first city on
the way to your already selected second city site.  Each city site needs
potential food, trade, and production.  Some river squares give all three,
resource squares are a big win, but usually you need develop some plains,
hills or grassland squares.  I could write pages just on site selection.
cities 4-5 squares apart is ideal.  Having roads between
cities allows a few chariots to protect all your cities if they are
carefully placed.  Go for mostly knowledge early.

Next, realize that the Pyramids Great Wonder allows all forms of government,
even those not yet researched.  Try to get that as soon as you can afford
it.  Don't change from despotism until you have 4-6 viable cities with
defendable borders.  Each city should have at least a temple and marketplace
and a couple of roads or river squares for trade, and every troop should be
in its home city before you attempt to change.  Then go straight to
democracy.  Your cash flow and food should increase dramatically.  Keep just
enough troops for defense and local counter attack.  Chariots work well on
roads as they can leave a city, attack an intruder and return to the city in
a single move.  A catapult is for final defense when the enemy is next to
the city.  One phalanx should be in every city.  Be sure every city has at
least one settler, and develop as much as possible.  Put 20-30% of your
revenue into luxuries, and build temples, colossums, and catherals.  If you
manage the trade and entertainers properly, cities will declare President's
day, and population will explode, which will provide more than enough
revenue to make up for the luxuries.  Put some into knowledge and build a
cash reserve so you can buy miltary units when others expand to threaten
you.  Also be prepared to buy time by paying tribute, but don't expect too
much time.  Be careful not to talk to an enemy who you want to crush.  The
senate will prevent you from attacking if he does not demand tribute.  Aim
for railroads as soon as possible if you are on a single land mass.  Connect
your cities quickly, then put railroads everywhere you have population.
Boost your settlers to two per city.  Railroads add one food or one
production or one trade, depending on the type of square it is in.  A fully
developed city can easily exceed 20 in population units.  All cities need
markets and temples, but after that, let each city specialize to some
degree.  Up to three Caravans are good when you can afford them.  Cities
with high trade benefit from a bank and really show good results from
libraries, etc.  High production is good for barracks, max
temple/collossem/cathedral, then your best military units which can be sent
elsewhere and change their home.  Really high production can be used for
building wonders.  Use your cash to rush production for cities with low
production but high food or trade so they can grow.  Don't have all cities
working on long term projects at the same time, as you need some to adapt to
sudden invasions.  Learn all the ways to use diplomats as they do not cause
home unhappiness.  When you don't have urgent needs, a few extra diplomats
can be handy.  Inciting revolts can sometimes the cheapest way to win a war.
Stealing technology can be the only way to catch up sometimes.  In a couple
of games, I only survived because I was able to steal Automobile and build
Tanks.  Even then, the others sent off spaceships in the 1850's.

>Don't bother with the instant advice, it's usually irrelevant.
I found it helpful at first, especially for reminding me to build a caravan
or something similar, but the instant advice has no understanding of
coordinated city strategy, so I don't use it anymore.

>It's absolutely imperitive that you are the first to achieve industialization.
>It gives Woman's Suffrage Wonder, which is extremely important, allowing one
>to wage war while a republic.  Democracy isn't important until you start
>polluting.
I agree Woman's Suffrage is really important in this strategy.  Democrary
is much more lucrative and helps build your population as compared to
republic.  Also, corruption goes away totally in democrary, so no
courthouses are needed.

I could go on and on, but I find most of the fun is in taking a general
approach and seeing how to adapt it to the specific conditions of each
game.  There is a book out which provides lots of advice, but I have only
glanced through a friend's copy, so I can't give it a proper review.

At Emperor level, a number of strategies which work at lower levels fail.
In particular, Knowledge comes cheaper to your opponents than to you.  So
unless you have a really dominant cash flow to buy knowledge with, they
will get ahead of you.  You must be very selective in what you go for and
when, and look for opportunities to gain critial knowledge.  Embassies
allow you to know who gets what when.  If you lose a city, try to recover
it asap, before it can be reenforced.  In every Emperor level game I have
played, I have had to face nuclear weapons, so have settlers on hand for
post nuclear pollution control.

In my current game, I had several good breaks early, including starting with
two settlers (other civilizations near) and finding an advanced civilization
before I built a city, so I kept my two initial settlers for no cost
throughout the game.  Even so, I only got 4 discoverys from the Great
Library before someone else got universities, and could barely keep up
with my leading opponent's technology, even though they only had 4 cities.

As it seems that I am the only Civilization rookie, I guess it is up to me
to try everyone's strategies and report on which on works the best...

And I am anxious to try.

BTW, is there anyway to skip the introduction when you start a new game?  I
have tried everything.  If I give it enough clicks on the mouse, sooner or
later it will go on to the game, but at different times always...

Bill

------------------------------------

Standard disclaimers apply

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dic...@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Bill Dickey) writes:

>BTW, is there anyway to skip the introduction when you start a new game?  I
>have tried everything.  If I give it enough clicks on the mouse, sooner or
>later it will go on to the game, but at different times always...

You can skip out of both the intro screens and the earth creation sequence
by hitting the space bar.  On the latter, it ends after the first scene
generally, unless you do something funky with the planet customization, in
which case it might go a little into the second, but not much so.


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

Well, ignore my first strategy posting.  I guess there was a reason I only
got to the Prince level....

I'd like to reiterate some of the e-mail information I've been getting.
Much of it has already been mentioned.

Pyramids....I seriously underestimated their usefulness, though it's
generally not a good idea to switch to republic or democracy until your
cities can support the added load on your production.  Go too soon and your
smaller cities will bog down.

Diplomats....useful if you have a lot of cash, especially when faced with a
war enemy that has you outgunned and outtechnologied.  At the very minimum,
you should establish embassies with all existing countries to keep tabs on
their development.  In one game I successfully thwarted an invasion by
simply buying them off as they came in.  Sometimes it doesn't work, though,
and I'm not sure of the reason, whether having two units on a square makes
them resistant to bribery or maybe that veterans can't be bribed.  Any
clues?

Wars....do them quick and decisive.  If you're occupying a continent with a
couple other countries, unless they're close to you you'll end up chasing
them all over creation and wasting valuable time that can be spent on
development.  It's better to get your own yard whipped into shape.  If you
handle your science and economy right, you'll have no problem kicking ass
later.  One other thing....keep your people happy, and make sure to get
wonders that work to that end, especially Women's Suffrage.  Without that
you'll have a rough time waging war as a democracy or find it impossible.
If you think you'll have a problem, make sure your treasury is full 'cause
you'll need it.  Dropping down to monarchy or communism will mark a quantum
leap down in production, and unless you like building all your nice
improvements over again, you'll be severely handicapped when the war ends.
A word about nukes....I don't like 'em (the pacifist in me shines through
=-) but sometimes that's the only way to take a city, especially if you're
battling fortified armoured personnel carriers and your firepower is being
successfully thwarted.  Nukes can be launced from carriers too.  I've had
limited success with bombers, but some folks love 'em.  My most successful wars
have had a lot of previous planning.   If you have the production, send a
half dozen battleships, a half-dozen transports filled with veteran armour,
and unload them all at once, in an area that's not already crawling with
enemy units if possible.  After unloading, manouevre your battleships to
points just off of coastal cities you plan to take.  They pack a lot of
firepower and can whittle a city's defences down to size so you don't waste
nine tanks to take out one APC.  In short, do it fast, short, and in a big
way.

The night is still young, so off I go into battle again!

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

In <1992May15.2...@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com> dic...@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Bill Dickey) writes:


>BTW, is there anyway to skip the introduction when you start a new game?  I
>have tried everything. 

Give up the clicking, it's useless and only wears out yr mouse. During this 
lengthy sequence it's building yr world, and that takes time so you can't 
rush it. I always use this time to make some food and select the CDs b4 
settling down for a long sesh...

ZZ
--
----
-Daniel Bucher uly...@mcl.mcl.ucsb.edu  wyizderzomenymororzizazizdenderizorziz?

In article <ulysses.706069940@mcl> uly...@mcl.mcl.ucsb.edu (Euathlus Smithii) writes:
>In <1992May15.2...@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com> dic...@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Bill Dickey) writes:
>
>
>>BTW, is there anyway to skip the introduction when you start a new game?  I
>>have tried everything. 
>
>Give up the clicking, it's useless and only wears out yr mouse. During this 
>lengthy sequence it's building yr world, and that takes time so you can't 
>rush it. I always use this time to make some food and select the CDs b4 
>settling down for a long sesh...
>
>ZZ
>--
>----
>-Daniel Bucher uly...@mcl.mcl.ucsb.edu  wyizderzomenymororzizazizdenderizorziz?

Actually you can skip that, by pressing ESC (doesn't have to be ESC) in this way:

Just before the intro text fade out press any key. 
don't buzz keyboard too many times tho.

hope this help to start your The Great Civilization faster.

--- Leo

In <1992May15.1...@cognos.com> thom...@cognos.com (Paul Thompson) writes:

>Okay, someone posted some nonsense awhile back about strategies for civilization

Lord, but it's hard to be humble...



							Steve

I began implementing some of the civilization strategies listed here, and
improved the level of my game by leaps and bounds.  I had been trying to 
develop my cities too quickly instead of only concentrating on the areas that
were under production.  I am still have trouble with civil disorder in my
larger cities tho'.  How much should one spend on luxuries to keep there 
cities reasonable happy?

I am also being penalized big time for pollution, even tho' I have two or 
three settlers that do nothing but clean up.  Is it because I NUKED the 
Greeks three times?

I have also noticed postings about a CIV upgrade.  Is it an upgrade for this
civilization game?  If so, what is it and where do I find it?


Bill

--------------------------

Standard Disclaimers apply

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In <1992May15.2...@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com> dic...@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Bill Dickey) writes:

>BTW, is there anyway to skip the introduction when you start a new game?  I
>have tried everything.  If I give it enough clicks on the mouse, sooner or
>later it will go on to the game, but at different times always...
   Hitting a key will usually get you out of the introduction. The lag is 
because Civ is loading in the regular game, or is creating a new one. The
lag in creating a new world is considerably longer than just starting off
on the earth. (But hey, no biggie with my 486!:> 

	 Frnk! :>  (Sorry for the gloat :>
--
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