Toolkit for Civilization 2/Walnut Creek CDROM - Toolkit for Civilization II.iso/tips/civstrat.doc

Text File | 1996-07-30 | 18.4 KB | 289 lines

Civilization Strategies

by Mike DelPrete
4/25/96


CONTENTS

I. Starting Strategies
II. World Conquest
III. Space Race (coming soon)
IV. Diplomacy (coming soon)

I. Starting Strategies

In this section, we will discuss good strategies for the beginning half of the
game.  First off, you must decide what your method of play will be.  Generally
there are two types, world conquest and the long term space race.  The first,
of course, is where you gear your entire economy toward eliminating the
opposing players as quickly as possible.  The second is where you build up a
sound infrastructure and deal diplomatically with the other players until you
can launch a spaceship, hopefully before they do.  Each of these particular
strategies will be discuss later in detail.

When you start out, the first thing you should do is to check if you have one
or two settlers.  In some rare cases games will be started with one
civilization having a pair of settlers instead of just one.  If you have two
you are very, very lucky.  No matter what you start with though, you must
first decide where to settle.  It is a good idea to build your first city on a
river or on the sea.  This will give you a boost to trade at the beginning
since rivers act as roads for trade purposes.  If you build your first city on
the sea, this will guarantee you a port from with to launch ships to go
explore the remainder of the world, or just explore the small landlocked lake
that it really is.  Whatever the case may be, keep an eye out for bonus
squares on the map near your first city.  The most valuable your first city
are the whale, the pheasant, or the corn.  The first two will give you an
ample supply of food and resources, and the corn will yield more food than
normal, especially when you irrigate it.  So, in conclusion, if you can locate
your first city near or on a river, on the sea, or near a bonus square, do it,
but do not spend more than three turns doing so!  You need to get your city up
and running so you can pump out more units to explore and settle.

If you have a second settler unit, treat it like it was your first.  Pick a
direction to move in, rivers often make a good choice since they act as roads,
and move a bit away from your city until you come across a good city location.
Of your first two cities, at least one should be on the sea, and at least one
should either be on a river or near a bonus square.

Well, your first city is now founded, and you find yourself wondering what to
build.  Either that or you are making some warriors because you have played
before and have some clue as what to do.  If you haven't figured it out yet
people, produce a unit of warriors first and then send them out to explore.
Do not send them in only one direction though, like just moving up every turn.
Have them zigzag so as to explore the most territory for possible city sites.
If you encounter a hut, you must make a decision.  It could either be money, a
unit to join you, settlers, a new city, technolgy, or barbarians.  Usually at
this point in the game, it will either be a new city or some unit to join you.
But remember that the possibility still exists for it to be a group of
barbarians that will destroy your unit and sack your city.  If it is the
later, you can always load up the auto save of your game and try again.  But
anyway, if it is a new city, you are very lucky indeed.  What is under these
huts can shape the development of the game ahead, since if you uncover two or
three new cities it will give you a huge boost to trade, production, and unit
production.  But back to the first city.  After you make two units of
warriors, you should shift to one of three things.  If for some reason there
is already a good defensive unit in your city (bonus hut gave you and archer),
then go ahead and make a settler.  If you have bronze working, make a phalanx,
and providing you have enough money try to buy it half way through.  If you
don't have bronze working, which may very well be the case, then make another
warrior to garrison your first city.  For the last two cases, after you make
the unit, fortify it and start making settlers.

We will take a little detour here to quickly discuss tax, science, and luxury
rates for the beginning game.  You should go under the Kingdom menu and then
Adjust Tax Rate.  You can play around with the figures a bit, but the desired
result would be where you are making a few coins each turn and the rest go to
science.  If you are playing on a hard level, you may later on want to
increase luxury a bit to keep you citizens happy.  Make sure you adjust this
early, since if you are getting a lot of trade arrows at the start you will be
making more money than you need to be and which science could greatly benefit
from.  Make sure you check this menu often, and definitely after a change of
government or construction of a wonder that will affect it (Colossus, Adam
Smith's Trading Company, Isaac Newton's College, etc.)

All right, back to the game.  You should now have your first city (possible
more if you had luck on your side) and a settler unit ready to settle.  Send
your settler out to a good location for a city, again following the hints
above for city placement.  You want it in a location where it will grow
quickly, not where it will take settlers a dozen turns to develop the mines
and irrigate the plains near it.  At this point no settlers can be spared for
land development yet; you need more cities.

Well, now that you have your first two cities, it gets harder to give god
advice.  It all depends on whether you are on an island, a huge continent with
other civilizations, or don't even know yet.  If you have come in contact with
other civilizations and you have decided to eliminate them, you should start
building good defensive units (phalanx or archer) and fortifying them in good
defensive locations between your civilizations.  After this border is
established, you can then start to produce more offensive units at your
discretion and attack when you feel ready.  It is a good idea though to try to
destroy the enemy quickly, especially at this early in the game, so you can
get back to building up your civilization.

If you find you are on an island all alone, you can pretty much give up an
idea of fast global conquest.  If your island is very small (only capable of
sustaining up to three or four good sized cities) you should get map making
and triremes as fast as possible.  Once you have a ship, get a settler on it
as soon as you can, along with an escort or explorer.  Send it around your
island looking for land, and once you find some get your units on land
quickly.  Then send your trireme around this newly discovered land mass to get
a better idea of what to expect.  Have your settler build a city quickly, and
send you unit or explorer around to scout the nearby land area.  Get your ship
back to port and loaded with either a settler or another military unit,
preferably both.  Then send your ship to your new found land mass, and drop
the settler off to found a new city.  This new city should be on the sea if
the other one wasn't, and remember to look for rivers.  These new cities
should start the entire routine over again; building warriors or explorers,
then settlers to found new cities.  A good method for expansion that I used
was that after a city was founded, I build a phalanx, then a settler (to go
found a new city), then a granary or temple (this was on emperor level), then
another settler to settle the lands around the city.  After this I started to
build what the city needed, such as a granary, marketplace, etc., and the
occasional military unit of needed.

On to governments.  It is very important to switch to a Monarchy as soon as
possible.  It is just so much better than Despotism, and if you can get
settlers to irrigate just a few squares around the city growth will be much
faster.  After Monarchy, government type depends on what you want to
accomplish.  The next logical step, unless you are engaged in a huge war, is
to advance to a Republic.  This will double all of your trade, thus giving you
a lot of money and faster scientific progress, as well as making more people
happy with luxuries.  This is where you face a problem though, the next
government (although it is possible to stay with Republic), either
Fundamentalism or Democracy.  Personally, I love Fundamentalism, since you
don't have to worry about keeping people happy (which is a big relief on the
harder levels) and unit maintenance is non-existent until the eleventh unit.
Of course scientific progress is cut in half, so this government is best
suited for someone who wants to conquer the world.  Democracy though is a good
choice for someone who is aiming to win the space race.  It has the benefits
of increased trade as well as giving you the chance to successfully wage war
against an enemy.  These are just the two extremes of government, and
depending on your style of play and goals in the game, your ideal government
will vary.  I suggest trying each government for a while at least once, and
just seeing how it works out.

One last thing I have to mention that is very important here: Wonders.  In the
early stages of the game, committing a city to complete the right wonder can
be a huge boon to your civilization.  Basically, what you have to choose from
are the Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens, the Colossus, the Lighthouse, the Great
Library, the Oracle, and the Great Wall.  If you are in a real "conquer the
world" type game, the Great Wall will probably help you the most, that is only
if you want to commit the time to building it instead of those extra
catapults.  Personally I used to think the Colossus is great, since it doubles
trade in the city it is built.  That is really good for more money and
science, but it doesn't affect your entire empire.  The Lighthouse isn't
really worth the effort, unless you have nothing better to do.  There are
other Wonders you could build, such as the Great Library.  This is good if you
are behind the other civilizations technologically, or if you want to set your
science rate real low and make tons of money.  This is possible mainly because
if two computer civilizations are allied, they will usually trade technology
often.  This will leave you the victor by getting both of their technologies
for free.  The Pyramids are good, since if saves you the time of building a
granary in each of your cities.  It is worth it if you can spare a city to
build it, and your strategy is expansion, not war.  The Hanging Gardens are
good, but will only prolong the inevitable unrest that will sweep over your
cities on the harder levels.  If you can't get the Oracle, then go for the
Hanging Gardens.  Finally, the Oracle is probably the best early wonder you
can build, especially on the harder levels.  Combined with a temple and
mysticism, you can make four unhappy citizens in each city content.  This
saves a lot of trouble when you can't build a colosseum, cathedral, or
Michelangelo's Chapel yet.  So, in conclusion, go for the Oracle if you like
to play on a hard level and don't want to deal with unrest in your cities, but
on easier levels the wonder you want will have to depend on your style of
play.

Well, hopefully this past section has given you some idea how to get your
civilization off on the right foot.  These first few thousand years are the
most important, and what you do then will affect how the game plays itself out
in the future.

II. World Conquest

This section will deal with good hints for successful world domination in
Civilization II.  Remember, these are only one persons view on how to do this,
and they are by no means perfect or the only way to go about it.  The best
method is to experiment yourself, and to do what you feel is right.  This
section is only here to give you some ideas and pointers, and how veteran
Civilization players would go about it.

The most important thing to remember when attempting this is speed.  Once you
decide to conquer the world, you must commit everything to it and do it as
fast as possible. Speed as two advantages.  First, the faster you defeat
everyone, the higher a score you will get.  Believe me, you get a lot more
points when the world is yours at 1500 BC then at 1990 AD.  The other
advantage is the faster you assault a city or attack a civilization, the less
time they have to build up forces to counter-attack or defend.  If you can
take a city in one swift blow the benefits are greater than if it were long
siege.

Basically, I think there are two basic methods of world domination.  The first
is the obvious one of supreme military power and just rampaging over enemy
cities.  The second is a little more subtle, and consist of subverting enemy
cities one by one.  Both can work just as well as the other, although the
second method cannot be done until your civilization has large cash reserves,
usually only in the later half of the game.

In the first method, the goal is to build up a strong enough military to
defeat all opposing players.  Unless you have a huge empire and can afford the
expense, you should only concentrate on one, maybe two, fronts at once.  In
other words, don't declare war on everyone at the same time, that would be
suicidal.  Take them out one at a time, then move on to the next.  It is a lot
easier than facing a united world against you.

One quick note: When you destroy a civilization, another one will pop up
somewhere in the world.  That means that you should move quickly to find were
the new one has spawned.  It is a whole lot easier to destroy a civilization
in its infancy than when it has a moderate amount power.

First you should pick a neighbor that you don't want around any longer.  It
should be the closest if possible, with a land route to their empire.  If
there are several civilizations an equal distance from you, you should either
pick the weakest or strongest, depending on how you are doing.  If you defeat
the weakest one first, you will get more cities to make units and eliminate a
foe later on the game, but at the same time the strongest enemy just got
stronger, and they could attack you at any moment.  If you defeat the
strongest enemy first, then that is all over and it is downhill from there.
With your economy all geared up for a tough war with a formidable opponent,
you should be able to take out the remaining civilizations rather easily.
Usually though, it works out that your civilization will attack the closest
foe, which is usually just one civilization.  No matter what the case is
though, these are good points that you should consider before going on a war.

After you pick your target, start building up an offensive force to attack
with.  If you have diplomats available, build them to.  Even if you can't
afford to bribe units or cities, sabotaging units and destroying city
improvement (city walls) will prove to be invaluable.  Send a good defensive
unit toward your border with the enemy civilization and fortify him in a good
defensive location.  This will keep hi units away from your home turf an act
as a staging point for attacks into his territory.  After you get a good sized
force (it will vary on your empire size and his), move it around your staging
point.  Now you must deal with them diplomatically.  Talk to them if you can,
and try to get them to break any treaties of cease-fires you have.  Try
demanding tribute, that usually works well.  If it comes to it though, you may
just have to declare war on him and face the loss in reputation.  Another good
method to declare war on them with minimal consequences is to talk to a third
party civilization that doesn't like your enemy very much.  If you can get
them to ask you to attack the civilization, then go for it.  Try as hard as
you can to get another civilization to help in your attack, and ally with them
if it is favorable to you.

Now to the attack.  Send you diplomats in first, scouting the territory for
you slower units behind.  Send cavalry or other fast moving units first also.
Try to get an idea where the enemy cities are, where their units are, and how
their road system is laid out.  When you get to a city you want, you can do
one of many things.  First, you can just brute force attack it.  This works
best if it doesn't have city walls or you know the defending unit is very
weak.  The other option is to lay siege to the city.  This consists of
fortifying your units around the city in good squares and destroying the
roads, mines, and irrigation in the other ones.  This could starve the city
down a bit, but is usually only used to wait while stronger units are brought
up to attack directly.  When this strategy is used on the harder levels, the
enemy city will be able to still make units faster than you (they cheat), and
you will end up making the city stronger than it originally was.  The best
method for attack is to send a diplomat in to destroy the city walls (if first
you don't succeed, try, try, again), then attack with your good offensive
units (catapult or legion).  If you have the money and you really don't fell
like fighting for another city, just send a diplomat in and bribe the city to
revolt.  This method works especially well if you control the enemy capital or
if it has none, since that lowers the bribe price significantly.

There isn't much else to add here for the attack, just that you should never
let up making units, and making faster ways to get them to the front (ships or
roads).  Make sure you have a settler making roads that keeps moving into
enemy territory after you crusading force since this will help in rapid troop
movement to help the war.  This probably only applies to longer wars, since
the short, earlier ones don't really last that long.

Eventually you will face the task of fighting an enemy that is overseas.  What
to do in this case, if it is still early in the game, is to produce a few
ships and load them up with good offensive units.  Just land them near the
city and attack.  Most likely you surprised them, and took the city.  With
this city you can ship more units in, and proceed to take the empire by the
conventional means discussed above.  If you have time on your hands in the
game, and want to play it safe, you could send diplomats and explorers over to
scout around and choose an ideal city to attack.  Or you could get a diplomat
to bribe the city and avoid the battle all together.  There are many ways to
do it, so again experimentation is the best advice.