My favourite strategy is KILLING EVERYBODY!!!!! I usually use bloodlust, and send my bloodthirsty soldiers to their homeland to burn down their cities!!!!!! SOmetimes i use my spy tho.

tell me your favourite strategy!

I usually go under Fundamentalism and use Diplomats to kill everyone *****mumbles stupid Democracy***********

Compared to my new comrade, Mr. Lenin, I must be a pacifist.

Personally, I like to play with as little war as possible. Call it "The Art of Not War" (which can be just as tough as war, if not tougher, I'd say). Lots of good diplomacy ... that means knowing when to back off.

For some odd reason, I'm allergic to black spaces, so one of my favourite parts of the game is exploring the terrain. I'm a control freak: I want to know everything, and I want to know it first. Plus, I love things that are free, so while I'm out there erasing all those nasty, nasty black spaces, I'm opening all the huts (they're like little surprise presents all for me), getting to most of them first (esp. at the poles) and getting all the benefits. When I've completely covered/discovered the world and all the huts, a major phase of the game has ended for me.

Meanwhile, back at the homestead, I've picked out the perfect, oceanfront property for my first city, and I'm generating more Settlers and protecting new cities with my free units. I'm also going for the Triemrememreie ASAP, because I can explore more faster along the coast line and drop in a unit or 2 for more exploration.

Since I'm probably exploring more terrain than the AI, I try to place my cities quickly & strategically relative to them, so the other civs don't encroach on my self-proclaimed, overall territory, to which I feel I am entitled. I also try to build a very dense area from the inside out. I just hate it when they get in there and found a city between my other cities. Makes it very hard to Not War with them.

I suppose my favourite goal is the spaceship method, but I've never completed it yet. I usually start a new game sometime after the Industrial age so I can do more exploring & city placement in a totally new land again. (see also the Civ2 Problems/Help forum - my first post) But this time I'm almost done a game (building ship for 1st time)!

Of course, if I was playing at Deity level with 7 civs, I probably wouldn't have that kind of startup leisure time, and war would probably be inevitable. But that will come later. I haven't finished d^@king around with the lower levels yet. (job, wife, 2 kids, no time)

You asked. I answered.
Spiff

[This message has been edited by SpacemanSpiff (edited January 01, 2001).]

"I just hate it when they get in there and found a city between my other cities. Makes it very hard to Not War with them." - Sounds so familiar, recently I've gone from being a prefectionist (who insists on getting every city perfect before doing anything else) to an expansionist, I'm finding myself beating the crap out of the AI, because of this, they make diplomacy hard (the AI really hates Civ #1, I always have my reputation on "spotless", and I'm usually arent that agressive, but still, they are always making pacts and alliances against me to "to
contain [my] aggression". AGGRESSION!?! FOR DOING NOTHING BUT DEFEND MY OWN LAND! **** THEM! **** THEM RIGHT IN THE EAR! Hrmm, OK i've calmed down now).

It's actually not much of a problem tho, now when they put in a city that's in my way, I will send in the catapults/crusaders/cannons/artillery/howister's with glee, as I have no alliances, peace treaties or cease fire's to worry about. Infact, I find myself diliberately building cities right next to their's, just to get them back for all that torment.

the way I see it there are 3 kinds of allances
1.two countrys joining together against a commen threat!
2.a very strong country forcing a weakling to ally for fear it might get destroyed!
3.two strong countrys that ally because war would mean the destrution of both!

the problem with the AI is that there alliances are always the first type and the common enemy is you!
you can never get a AI to ally with you to protect themselfs so the second does not apply to civ!
and the last one is not possible because the AI doesent seem to care if they destroy themselfs!


------------------
The people in my cool book
1.Thunderfall
2.Stellar
3.SunTzu
4.Blitz
5.Håkan
6.Warlord56
7.scorch
8.vladmir_illych_lenin

I'm with Fuzz on that one. There I am, constructing a beautiful little empire (on waterfront property http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/smile.gif ) when some snobby AI tribe shows up a sticks a useless city in the midst of my territory.

What would happen if I did something like that?

WE ARE DISPLEASED THAT YOU CONTINUE TO BEFOUL LANDS THAT ARE RIGHTFULLLY OURS. WE SHALL REFRAIN FROM DRIVING YOU FROM THIS CONTINENT IN EXCHANGE FOR 8,000,000 GOLD.

Then they'd sign all these meaningless alliances and call all their little groupie friends to come and attack me.

So in the end I'm stuck with a stupid little city that I didn't want in the first place, sucking up resources from other ones. I leave it undefended for the barbarians, but the other tribe just comes back, takes it, and some of my tech/gold.

My current strategy consists of several phases. 1.Establish territory 2.improve terrain for all 3.trade tech like crazy. 4.Defend myself 5. Get ahead in tech. 6. Beat the living snot out of my opponents with superior units.

As a rule I avoid fighting until around 1500.

------------------
Consider a career in Hippo Breeding.

C of H: I like your phases. I do 1 & 2, but I have a question about this trading tech thing.

So far, I've given other civs as little from me as possible. I trade when they ask so they like me and we don't fight. I usually get ahead in the tech by focusing A LOT on sci and not giving away much. But after reading this site, I notice many folks trade tech regularly. I trust the sages more experienced than me, but I don't understand it. Why is this more advantageous than withholding and getting ahead earlier?

Then I just fortify my tight empire, continue improving and go space race on them.

Spiff http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/scan.gif

I'm a perfectionist and a militaristic person. I usually only have about 20 cities, but I make each of them perfect. Each city has the following characteristics:

-Over 35 citizens (its possible! my largest city had 44 citizens!)
-Every single improvement to date.
-Every single tile is improved to their fullest.

After that, I am capable of starting a war of massive porportions, and I spend about 10 turns organizing a huge armed forces (note that by now, I'm centuries ahead of all the other civs, I am earning about 2,000 gold per turn, 4 turns per tech under FUNDAMENTALISM, and have about 32,345 gold.

I send my massive forces and conquer each civ, one by one. City after city fall into my hands. What I do with the enemy cities (some of them are almost half my average city size!), is first, a build/buy mechanized infantry in it, then, I put all the workers on the tiles that produce the most production. I buy all the production improvements and buy the solar plant (removes pollution from prodution). Then I set it to produce capitalism. Note that on average, every enemy city I capture that goes through that process gives me about 70 gold per turn! And the each enemy has dozens of cities!

Note on alliance: It's hard not to lose your temper on alliances. They always come up to you and say "We request xxyy". I usually say no, because xxyy is usually an important tech such as gunpowder, or money. Then they say "We grow tired of this alliance! Begone from our land at once!" WHAT!?!? I wish I could go up to them and say "You know what Hammurabi, I don't like yo attitude!"

haahah, spacemanspiff, u funny person, love tha C of H thinky.
u r added to myh coolz book.]
did u getur name from Calvin and Hobbes. calvin is also in my cool book.

my cool book.
VanillaCube
Vladmir
Thunderfall
C of H
Spaceman Spiff
Calvin (and maybe Hobbes)

Originally posted by vladmir_illych_lenin:
I'm a perfectionist ...


ME TOO!!!!! I'm just not militaristic. I focus more on defense units and let attackers kill themselves on me. Of course, I have requisite attack units, mostly to capture the barbarian leader and get the extra gold! (I play barbarian hoards.)

By the way, Vlad, I LOVE your maniacal plans! Very well organized and methodical! Good thing you don't work for Slobo Milosovic in the real world or we'd all be in trouble. Though I'm not war like (yet), I'm very impressed!

Originally posted by vladmir_illych_lenin:
Note on alliance: It's hard not to lose your temper on alliances. They always come up to you and say "We request xxyy". I usually say no, because xxyy is usually an important tech such as gunpowder, or money. Then they say "We grow tired of this alliance! Begone from our land at once!" WHAT!?!? I wish I could go up to them and say "You know what Hammurabi, I don't like yo attitude!"

When they ask for a tech I don't want them to have, the 2nd choice is usually not as bad, so I give them that. I've never had a foreign emissary be offended by that. After the first time I do that they usually offer me an embassy and I don't need to waste a Diplomat or wait to get the Wonder for it.

But I understand about getting PO-ed at their "tude" sometimes.

Spiff <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/scan.gif" border=0>

[This message has been edited by SpacemanSpiff (edited January 02, 2001).]

Originally posted by scorch:
haahah, spacemanspiff, u funny person, love tha C of H thinky.
u r added to myh coolz book.]
did u getur name from Calvin and Hobbes. calvin is also in my cool book.


Look! We made it into someone's Cool Book!

That's ... well .... cool! .... yeah ... that's it ... COOL!

Thanks a centron, Scorch! And, yes, in real life, I'm just plain old little Calvin. But Hobbes keeps bumping me off the website to play Civilization! That makes me mad! http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/mad.gif We usually fight after that. I think he changes my Civ config files to screw with me sometimes, but I haven't proven it yet.

"NO, REALLY, I MEANT TO OFFER A TREATY!!! ARGH!!"

Spiff http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/scan.gif

http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/eek.gif Look, C! We made it somewhere else, too! Now we can work different parts of the land (site) to up our star production.

BTW Vlad, what does a star at the end of one's name mean?

And thanks for the rating!

Spiff http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/scan.gif

Hey Spiff, you were wondering why some of us trade a lot of tech? I used to be really stingy about that, but then I figured, screw it:The more tech I have, the better Improvements/units I can build. I don't mind giving the AI tech (it doesn't really know how to use it anyway http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/smile.gif

If I can avoid it, I don't give them militaristic tech. Offer them garbage like Trade, Mysticism, Recycling, Theology, Future Tech 1...

Hey, I made some Cool books.Should I put it on my resume? Of course! That's the kind of stuff CEO's are looking for these days.

The Alliance thing really gets me frusterated. If we're both strong, advanced nations, then why would they want to break our alliance? Similarly, if I am super strong they always ask for things! Why? You think they'd be sucking up like crazy because I am the top tribe and they are protected by me.

Their thinking goes something like this: Huh, maybe me need robotics. huh, huh. Shaka go to Cunobelin of Celts, dee-manduh robotics. Shaka bring fire. Shaka bring toilet paper leeaves for long walk. Celts give me robotics I make howitzers and break alliance and kill them! Huh, huh, uh. If no me give robotics, me break alliance anyway. Me say "Begone from my territory at once." Zulu nation need no help from dum dum Celties.Huh, uh. Me very happy,yes yes, me very smart. ME IS SO SMART, Ess, Emm, Arr, Tee. ME IS SO SMART, Ess, Emm, Arr, Tee. He heh heh. Oh man, where is leaves when you need thems?


------------------
Answer me these questions three: How long was the 7 years war?

What Louis came after Louis the 3rd?

How many metric gallons in a furlong?

The Trick on Trading with the AI's

If you have contact with enough civilizations you can almost come out ahead on trading techs, just do all the trading & cross-swapping you can on any one turn. Sure you don't want to give your neighbors anything that they can hurt you with, but you can certainly trade with THEIR neighbors. What is fun is going to war against someone that you have just done a lot of trading with, before they can really use it, so you catch them building structures instead of armies.

Using this method, you always come out ahead. The only down-side is that it takes longer to get the next advance.

Good advice, guys. And, Dog, I see what you mean about the science drawback ... if you get so many advances so quickly, the discoveries take longer and you probably don't have the science output to keep pace with that yet.

And CoH, you are hysterical. http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/rotfl.gif
(can I call you "C", and various other things, for short?)

And we seem to be hitting the Cool Books at the same times! Like Abbott & Costello! Let me update that .... like Felix & Oscar! No, no, no ... like Bert & Ernie! Yeah! Like Regis & ..... Regis .... yeah!

(read this in that deep voice of the guy who does all the movie trailers on TV):
But we haven't yet made the list of the trendsetter ... the one responsible for inventing the Cool Book .... for bringing it into being and making Cool Books cool to talk about .... (now in a Robin Williams doing Genie from Alladin voice) let's have a big, warm Civilization II welcome toooooooo VanillaCube! *start the music*

And that's no disrespect to anyone else who named us in your cool books ... those who did are already in my Cool Book (+ others) ... no matter who's Cool Book we're in, I think I can say C & I both appreciate it!

I have to go find some leaves now.
Spiff http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/scan.gif

To answer the Hippo-man's questions:
- 100
- 14th (XIV)
- 12
But who's buried in Grant's tomb?
And why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?

Well, I couldn't stump everyone, could I?

Bert and Ernie? Cool, but how about 'Calvin and Hobbes?' They're pretty cool too.

------------------
Answer me these questions three: How long was the 7 years war?

What Louis came after Louis the 3rd?

How many metric gallons in a furlong?

I DIDN'T EVEN THINK OF THEM!
http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/redface.gif
I really DO need a DUH smiley!

But now you've revealed to the world my true identity! And you can't be Hobbes ... he's right here with me.

Any other good ones?

Spiff http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/scan.gif
(Calvin)

PS - I've seen a RadHobbes pouncing around this site somewhere, too!

Yeah, there was a RadHobbes. Perhaps he's decided to lurk for a little while. That'll P.O. vlad IL

------------------
Hhheeeeeeeyyyyook dodo,doddodo, dooooo, heyak! heeeeeyyyyyhheyssshhho

Originally posted by Cunobelin Of Hippo:
Hhheeeeeeeyyyyook dodo,doddodo, dooooo, heyak! heeeeeyyyyyhheyssshhho


What the HECK is this, C?

Re: Vlad ... sure will ...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/scan.gif

Well, I had that song with the old dude and those yappy little kids chanting stuck in my head. This is the first few bars as I remember it, with some heeeyyya ing and some flute (do do, dododo, doooo) ing in it.

------------------
Hhheeeeeeeyyyyook dodo,doddodo, dooooo, heyak! heeeeeyyyyyhheyssshhho

This just in!

------------------
people in my cool book:
***Stellar Converter
***vanillacube
**scorch
**SunTzu
*Hakan*
*Lefty Scaevola*
*C of Hippo
*SpacemanSpiff

People in my uncool book:
lurkers

Legend:
3 stars: Cool Cool
2 star: Cool
1 star: Regular Cool
nothing: wuss/wimp/lurker

Go to the "music in civ" thread. You find a lot of Heeyyaoh in it!. I don't get pi$$ed off at people lurking. THey're just in my uncool book.

------------------
people in my cool book:
***Stellar Converter
***vanillacube
**scorch
**SunTzu
*Hakan*
*Lefty Scaevola*
*C of Hippo
*SpacemanSpiff

People in my uncool book:
lurkers
Austin the Great
Slowwhand

Legend:
3 stars: Cool Cool
2 star: Cool
1 star: Regular Cool
nothing: wuss/wimp/lurker

Oh yeah, i managed to find the time to write down the entire lyrics for the song "New World"

Hahoo!
"rattles" Dooodooooodooodoodooooo
Dooooodooooodoodoooooo "drums"
DoooDoooooDoodooooodooooooodoodoooooo "drums and rattles"
Doooo doo "drums and rattles in background" dodoo
Ho...Ha! Ho!
Doooodooo Doo Doo DOoooooDooo Ahho! Dododoodooooo "rattles" "drums"

(chorus)

(high screech)Heeeyyyha!
Hey Ha ho hey ho ha!
(high screech)Heeeyyyha!
Hey Ha ho hey!
Dooooo"drums"doodoooo"rattles"
(high screech)Heeeyyyha!
Hey Ha ho hey ho ha!
(high screech)Heeeyyyha!
Hey Ha ho hey!

Dooodoooodododoooododoooodododoooo
Hey!
Doodoodooo
Dododooooooooodooooodooooooodoooooo
"rattle and drums in the background"
DoodooodoooooDodooodooo"rattles"
Heyha!
(solo) Heyhaawayhaaahaaawayaaweaaaho.
Weeyha!
Weeyha!
Dooododododo!
Dooododododo!
Dooododododo!
Dooododododo!
(bird chirpping)
Dodo!




[This message has been edited by vladmir_illych_lenin (edited January 03, 2001).]

Ahh! My eyes! It burns! What have I done to deserve this?

Oh yeah, wrote some stupid line in my signature.

------------------
Consider a career in Hippo Taming.

Haha!

My strategy is to build up before exploring. Then I explore and attack. I try to get fundamentalism so I won't have to worry about the citizens.

How do you get them to give you money? They just declare war on me or say "ha we ignore your feeble threats"...even though I'm like 50 times more powerful than they are.

Demand money from the civs that are under icy stat. If they don't have much money, they'll say "we igonore, blah". Usually weak civilizations will give you a nice round, large number, like if they have 207 gold, they'll give you 200. More powerful civs will give you half of their money. Another useful way of "persuading" them to give you money is:

Step 1: Keep demanding money, and eventually they'll declare war.

Step 2: Conquer a city or twol

Step 3: When they ask for peace, say no.

Step 4: They'll offer you x amount of gold, say yes. Usually, the more damage you do, the more money they're willing to offer. Sometimes they'll say "we'lll offer you all our gold and knowledge if you let us live in peace"

Anyways, after that, let them off the hook for awhile, but when they have over a couple hundred gold, start demanding again!

15-20 cities vladmir? When I'm in my 'perfect than destroy' mode I rarely have ten cities until I begin conquesting. What level of difficulty is that at?

Fundamentalism rules. Build dips/spies and take just take their tech.

------------------
Consider a career in Hippo Taming.

Yeah, that's kind of what I do. Some people try to get as many cities as possible, and have many small, just cities, which, instead of boosting the economy, drags it down because you have to build more and more things. I usually just claim a certain amount of territory, and build about 15-20 cities in them. Then I make them perfect, and even though I have less than the computers' cities, my economy is better. After I get each city perfect, I start to attack the other civs.

King. I usually play on King. Yeah your right, the higher the level, the less cities you can have. On emperor, I have 15, and I'm not good enough to play on deity.

I like to perfect my cities too. But I hate leaving other civ's alone for too long, because if they're untouched then they can spend too much time building their techs and getting advanced units.

One nice trick I've found is to map out their territory and find one of their outer cities. Especially one that's on a peninsula or separated by lots of good defense terrain (hills/mountains). Then I bribe the city and fortify it. Then I fortify the area so they can't get to it with their spies to steal techs. If you have a really good defensible spot the AI will spend a ton of units and a ton of its economy throwing wave after wave of suicide units against your well-fortified guys. Because the AI is so stupid it never figures out to try to go around your defenses. His economy suffers because he's spending so much time attacking you and his tech suffers too. Meanwhile you've barely spent any time taking over the city and you can practically leave it alone. All the while on the home front you perfect your cities with their 10++ populations and "we love" celebrations and their ****
Clark Rockin New Years specials and their MTV and their bottled water and...oh that's enough.

nah, that's not what i do. I just keep demanding tribute when not in democracy/republic, and they keep giving me all their money!

I've never been very good at conquering the world. After being at war for long enough, I usually get tired of fighting. But my tech is always way up there, so I usually end up just sending off a spaceship and winning that way, just to make sure no one else does or because I realize there isn't enough time left to conquer everyone else anyway. I've reached Alpha Centauri more times than I care to count, but the number of times I've actually conquered the whole world (in a standard game, not counting scenarios) could be reckoned on a single hand. ^_^;;

what i usally do,
is have a generally peace ful world in the early times, taking advantage of the little civs, so usuaaly by the modern times i have killed 2-3,
then when everylthing is peaceful, i change to Democracy,
put luxerys on 50,
my city grow big,
and i get all my cit ys good as, then by then, i am getting about 300 gold a turn, and discoverys every 3.
edit all the terrain so i am making a max production without pollution,
get automobile, freak out, coz get heaps of pollution,
then get mass production,
buy al lmy citys mass trasint,
sigh coz i can now have much higher producution.
edit all the terrain again.
then i get recycling center etc in myh citys
then change to fundamentism
have a whole lotta tax collectors
get about 3000 a turn
get heaps of tanks,
obliterate 1 civ at a time