Brand New Grandma to this type of game. Help, Please?

scloopy

Lost One
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Sep 14, 2003
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My Grandson gave me Civilization Test of Time yesterday. He thought I would like it since if like games like Shivers and Shivers II. After printing the manual on the disk. I can not find a representation of the different people I keep moving around. I have a city and it has been suggested that I get some settlers to build another city, but I can find no way to order anything done; roads, ships or cities. This game looks interesting, but I must be a little slow.:lol: If anyone can help. I would appreciate it.:)
 
it is slow, However it is horribly addictive. I know it is really long, but reading the WHOLE manual is helpful. My early game is very simple...build as many settlers as you can and found as many cities with them as you can. The more cities you have, the faster everything else happens. When I was new to the game, I would build a few cities, develop them and then try to grow. Don't do that. Yo get hammered by the computer oppoonents. It also helps to use a relativly small amount of civ's(3 or 4) at first. This will allow you to really develop your own civ before meeting the computer opponents. You will be able to learn the in's and outs of city development and civ development this way. Also, don't let the game, or some of the threads on this forum intimidate you. You can go as crazy over this game as you want to. if you like, keep it at a low level, and play for fun. Me, after 5 years, I've gotten very obsessed at trying to get every little extra. Before finding this site, I was content to enjoy myself. Now, I feel like I MUST dominate the board at all times. This site is truly great, but as I said, don't let it intimidate you. The game can be as simple or as complex as you make it. Welcome to the game, and the site.
 
I evidently have according to the game lots of different types of people but I can not figure out which ones are settlers in order to tell them to build another city.
 
Let's assume that you are playing at the chieftan level withthe "advice" on. You have a city, so you know that Settlers can do things like build cities. Your city makes 'things' -- a barracks (or possibly temples or other buildings depending upon your research.), or units such as a warrior or another Settler.

At the start, I'd recommend having you settler build a city wihin a turn or two (preferably on grass, on a river & grass would be especially nice, having the funny "special icons" -- like whales, wine or wheat -- within a space or two would also be especially nice,

With your city, build a warrior or two -- one to go out & search, and have the second stay home ("fortifY") for the civle defense -- just in case. Then when the second warrior is flashing in your city (it is built) douoble click on the city to open up the scene to let you look inside & see what to do -- select a settler (instead of a third warrior). After anumber of turns, it will be flashing -- move him out about three spaces & order it to build a city.

Repeat a few times until you have about four to six cities -- then create a few settlers to build roads to connect your cities together.

Also by this time you should have research going on that lets you build improved units or interesting structures (like temples, markets, libraries, and maybe even a Wonder.)

In fact you might want to improve your searchers with horsemen or diplomats to see what the rest of the world looks like.

(Lesson 2 to be added after the 'homework is completed'.)
:D
 
OK, I think I've Got it. I was trying to do things too soon I think.
First I shall read all the manual then I shall do my home work, try again and let you know.
Thanks much
 
Assuming you do not have a special scenario installed for Civ:TOT, you may just be struggling with seeing what your units are and what your city is doing. On the right side of the screen should be a bar that lists what it is that is blinking on the screen: a unit, a terrain tile, or a city. It should give the "type" (Warrior, Settler, Caravan) and some other details like location, Veteran status, and supporting city. Each unit has a shield that tells you its color, which equals which civ it belongs to, and its "damage status", from a full bar of green to a black bar (nearly dead). When you start the game in 4000BC you are told what your civ name is, and your first unit is blinking. Notice the color of the shield: that is "your color". Other civs will have different colors, and Barbarians are always Red.

When you have a Settler you can make him into a city by choosing Build City from the menu or by typing B when he is blinking. This brings up the City Status screen, which you can see again by single or double clicking on the city at any time during your "turn". This screen tells you how many "citizens" (="workers") you have in the city, whether they are happy or unhappy, what terrain tiles they are working, and what the city is producing. To produce another Settler you hit the Change button in the middle of the right column and select Settler from the list. A city cannot produce a settler unless it has more than one citizen (exception: only city), and a city grows more citizens by filling the Surplus Food box in the upper right corner or by "celebrating" in Republic or Democracy (skip the second for now; it is tricky to get right when you are just learning). So make sure your workers are working terrain tiles that give surplus food as well as productions shields and trade arrows.

All of this is documented in parts in the manual, as well as in the pull-down menus called "Civopedia". Best way to learn I found was following the Tutorial several times through, then trying to keep going on your own. Load the game "TUTORIAL.SAV" and follow the manual's instructions. Then read some more and come back here with questions.

ByTheWay, welcome to CFC! I hope you are not in the middle of your first tutorial game when Isabel hits!
 
Oh, thank you, thank you. I have been trying to figure out what those little green bars were above the characters on my screen. One of mine has a "G" on it. I have lots of characters and surplus food. It keeps blinking at me that the turn is over and to hit enter. The only thing that seems to happen when I hit enter is the year number changes. I shall start the tutorial and maybe that will help. People here are helpful and I am thankful. We are watching Isabel closely but it looks now like it shall be north of us. Of course, I went to bed happy one year celebrating that a hurricane did not get us and awoke to find it got my daughters house in Hicory, NC.
 
I hope you're able to avoid it, can't imagine how it'd be to live in a place where you have to be afraid of natural disasters as these. The worst we get is temperatures down to -40C and occasional snowstorms, but they aren't really disastrous.:(

If the 'G' is on the shield, it means you have ordered it to go to a certain square, and if you right click on the unit, the coordinates of the square will show in the status window. If you want to move it manually, you can left-click the unit, which will either lead to it start blinking immediately so you can move it, or that it will start blinking next turn and you'll be able to move it then.
 
Thanks much, I am slowly figuring out (with lots of help) what things stand for. I have a feeling that this game can get a person hooked really easy.
 
Early in the game there can be several consecutive turns where you just hit <Enter> and nothing is happening; continue to check your city status screens, and watch especially when the Surplus Food box fills up and a new citizen/worker is added. There are tricks to "speeding up" production of units or city improvements by "RushBuying" with gold, but it is too early for you to have much gold or understand the tradeoffs involved. Get in the habit early of checking several screens before you hit <Enter> to end your turn:
- F1, the City Summary screen (one line per city), check the current production;
- F3, Foreign Minister, check the other civs attitudes (early on, no other civs...);
- F4, Attitude Advisor, check for any city that has too many unhappy citizens (will go into disorder next turn unless something is about to be produced like Temple, Colosseum, etc), and
- F6, Science Advisor, check if you are close to getting the next tech, rearranging some production to increase trade might make it happen sooner.

Read the Manual or the Civopedia for each of the units you can currently build (usually at the start it is just Settler, Warrior, and Barracks, but if you have "starting techs" you will have a few more on the list). Then take a look at the Technology Tree; from the starting techs you can only research something that you have the pre-requisites for, so if you want to get to Monarchy you have to research Ceremonial Burial (a starting option) and Code of Laws, which requires you research Alphabet first. Every "round" of research choices one third of the techs will not appear on the list; just choose something else you think will be helpful and what you want should appear the next round, if you have the pre-reqs. You can use the <Help> button on the research choices box to find out what you need to get to something (it is like the hyperlinks on a web page, where you can click a pre-req tech to see what it's pre-reqs are), or switch to the Wonders or Units lists by clicking their names in the upper part of the Help screen.
 
Most units have a limited number of Order you can give them; Settlers (and later their replacements, Engineers) and Diplomats/Spies have much more. For any unit that is blinking you can click the Orders menu from the top bar and it will list the things you can do with each unit. If you have the Game Option for "Move Units With Mouse" checked you can hold your mouse over the blinking unit and move it toward where you want the unit to go, when the pointer turns into a black arrow in the direction you want you just leftclick once and the unit will move into that tile. If you want to assign a unit to GoTo a tile further away than the next one you can put the pointer on the destination tile and leftclick-hold once over the tile until the pointer turns into a black hooked arrow with the word Go, then release and the game engine will try to figure out the best way to get to that tile (sometimes it does things like move sideways to get on Roads or Rivers or Rail lines). Some functions have single character commands, like B to Build a city, I to Irrigate land, R to build a Road (or a Rail line if the Road is already there), F to build a Fort on the tile (all of these are Settler/Engineer commands). To attack an enemy's unit or city you just move into their tile; you will see some flashes back and forth, one or both of the "strength bars" will slide down to black, and only one of you will be left standing (or you will take their city). When you attack a city that has no walls it will decrease by one citizen each time you beat one of their defenders, so if it is only size one it will disappear if you win. There is a little flagpole on the city; if the flag drops, the last defender in the city is gone and you can "walk in" and take it.
 
It seems a little strange that Ceremonial Burial is an important part of improvement to what you can and can not do. I spend a lot of time reading now. I did not realize how complicated the game is, but I am having fun. By the way do I always need to move someone just because they are blinking? If I want them where they are to guard a city or something is it OK to just skip their turn?
 
You don't always have to move them. You can press the Space bar to skip the turn. You can also press "S" to Sentry the unit, which means that it will not be called to move again until you decide to activate it. You can also press "F" to fortify the unit. Fortifying a unit is like Sentying it, only that unit gets a defense bonus once it is fully fortified.

Now, to awaken/reactivate units:

1. If the unit is not in a city and is the only unit on that square, just click it once.

2. If it is stacked with another unit, click on the square, then find the unit that is sentried or fortified in the list that appears. Double-click on that unit in the list.

3. If the unit is in a city, open the City Display for the city the unit is in. Click on the unit you want to activate. A list of choices will come up. Select the choice you want (usually Activate Unit and Close City Screen), then click on OK or hit Enter.

If you want to move a unit later that turn, but not right when it is flashing, press the W ("Wait" order) key. You will then be allowed to move your other units and come back to the unit you ordered to wait.

If you don't want to cycle through every unit, or if you want to move a unit that is not flashing, click on it. If you are redirected to another unit, it means that the unit you selected has already moved.
 
I fortified one of my units (Phalanx) and now people keep coming from nowhere and fighting with them. So far they are still alive, but I can not figure out where the people are coming from. Oh well, it is back to the book. My Grandson thinks this is funny.
 
You are probably near another civ's city, or on a "chokepoint" in the terrain where they have to pass to get to you. Note also that Fortifying yourself on different terrain gives you defensive bonuses; Mountain is the best, followed by Hills, followed by anything else rough (Forest, Jungle, Swamp, etc), followed by no bonuses for anything flat: Grass, Plains, Desert or Tundra. A Rivered tile gets a bonus too, so Rivered Grass is a decent place to build a city (and you get an instant Bridge and an extra Trade arrow).

If the shield on the people "coming from nowhere" is red, they are Barbarians and you cannot talk to them. If it is another color, you can talk to their leader using the F3 Foreign Minister menu. The other civ's leaders are often very "bellicose"; consider it like talking to the North Korean leader (if you follow the news), just swallow a little pride and decide whether you fundamentally want to make peace or wipe him/her out. Sometimes they demand a technology from you before they offer peace, and sometimes you have to "bribe" them with gifts (technology is the easiest and cheapest) to improve their "attitude" toward you before they will accept a cease fire or a peace. This is all in the manual in the section on Diplomacy and Combat. There are some techs that are more "pacifying" than others, such as giving them Republic or Literacy, but some more militaristic civs dont appreciate those gifts as much as others (extremes: the Mongols are the most militaristic; the Babylonians are the most pacific).

You can "push back the blackness" by exploring, but when you come in contact with another civ's units or cities you can be "pinned" by your inability to move around them. Units that have two moves are better as explorers than units that have one move, but often at the beginning you have no choice. The good news is that the game usually spreads civs around the map, so there is often no close-by neighbor to deal with early on. Using a Large map increases those distances significantly.
 
I am on a chokepoint and it seems I can talk with them they are just sort of agressive. This is weird, I read, play, ask and then start reading again. By the time I get this down I will know lots of stuff about lots of things. It is back to the book. Thanks
 
Originally posted by Old n Slow
Then when the second warrior is flashing in your city (it is built) douoble click on the city to open up the scene to let you look inside & see what to do -- select a settler (instead of a third warrior). After anumber of turns, it will be flashing -- move him out about three spaces & order it to build a city.

The one thing I would change here is that a settler has to be a minimum of 4 spaces between cities instead of 3 or 4 to avoid overlapping jurisdictions. When you have squares being "shared," one side will win and one side will lose.

Example from a game I just won: I conquered one city in the Roman empire that was constantly sitting at Hunger 2, even after I'd flushed out all the Partisans and consolidated my hold in the region. The reason? It had 5 squares being shared with neighboring cities, and they were winning the resource toss. Even sending food Freights couldn't keep up with the demand.

So (to scloopy), make sure you learn the shape of your city boundaries, and place your Settlers and Engineers appropriately to avoid boundary overlap. (There is a talk in the Manual about that, by the way.) Straight-line situations are no problem; as I said above, leave 4 open squares between city centers. On the diagonal (points instead of flat sides), it's a little more tricky, but experimentation and experience will teach you how to shoehorn them in.

:egypt:
 
Originally posted by scloopy
Thanks much, I am slowly figuring out (with lots of help) what things stand for. I have a feeling that this game can get a person hooked really easy.

:rotfl: That is the understatement of the month! In really bad cases, you'll forget the dishes, your laundry, your cat; you'll be plotting strategy while listening to the minister at church.

There's probably been a "You Know You've Been Playing Too Much Civilization When" thread done somewhere....

:egypt:
 
Originally posted by scloopy
I am on a chokepoint and it seems I can talk with them they are just sort of agressive. This is weird, I read, play, ask and then start reading again. By the time I get this down I will know lots of stuff about lots of things. It is back to the book. Thanks

:undecide: Your mileage may vary (YMMV), but my experience says the Purple civs are the most aggressive (the Mongols being the worst). They seem to go for you because you have the effrontery to breathe the same air they do (figuratively speaking, of course :lol: ). There are other aggressives, though. The Foreign Advisor (F3) will give you some information on that when you open embassies with them; touch F3, choose who you're interested in and click on "Check Intelligence."

:egypt:
 
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