are my tactics flawed?

[BaconLad]

hi,

i tend to transform entire continents into farmed grassland for the growth of my population, is this a wise tactic? ive always played this way. does it affect my cities trading/scientific output potential?
say for example i have a swamp tile with spice on it, in my city radius. how do i make the most of that tile? in the past ive just transformed it into grassland. the reasoning behind this is...
- the higher the population, the higher the citys science output?
but im not convinced of this anymore.

ive just been introduced to ssc's - a massive help in the science race.

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

thank you!!!

 

[Celvin]

I generally keep every special resource(not counting special resources gained from trees) available to the city, and make grasslands of everything but hills.

The special resources are mostly good for trade in my opinion.

Population is one way to increase your science input. The other key factor is trade. There are enough guides out there that point out how you increase the trade output of your city, so I'm not going to explain it here.

 

[Magic_gorter]

To max you're science input depends mostly on the available arrows. If there is a special with lot's of arrows (like a whale) it's good. Mayby with transforming such a tile it can be better (somewhere in this forum it will be mentioned, but I don't know what happens after transforming specials because I don't do that often). Getting more food, means getting more people...and more trade....but all depends on the tile they will be working on. The other part of getting much science is trade....getting as much trade to get all those beakers in one turn is a huge boost to science. Combining those two will boost you're science to get multiple techs per turn. But as Celvin mentioned there is more info on this forum about trade and getting more science input... You can best look for info about power democracy...it contains lots of info about trade and science.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

You should also take into consideration the opportunity cost of transforming your empire into grassland. Those engineers could very well be employed in building new cities in uninhabited areas and in improving those new cities. Irrigating the terrain around a new city can give you additional food for much less time than transforming terrain into grassland. If, however, you have no where you can practically expand to, your expedient might be useful. On the other hand, you should probably make preperations to expand your empire through conquest if such a situation occures.

 

[BaconLad]

You should also take into consideration the opportunity cost of transforming your empire into grassland. Those engineers could very well be employed in building new cities in uninhabited areas and in improving those new cities.

the bulk of my land transforming is done with what i call the "slave trade tactic" basicly non suported settlers/engineers that i have bribed from neighbouring tribes. so i can concentrate on building settlers purely for expansion, as opposed to improvment. when you have supported settlers/engineers, it can be a drain on resources. i use this tactic everytime i play, and i NEVER LOSE. having said that tho, i have no idea how this tactic would fair against human players (i have the playstation version of civ2) - no online feature...

 

[Prof. Garfield]

It is always better to build cities with supported settlers/engineers over non supported ones, but that is no reason not to build a city in a good spot if all you have is a non unit. A city can, in almost all circumstances, support at least one engineer and have resources left over, so this diminishes the value of NONE units (which are also very expensive to bribe). Also, you can move your None units to the newer parts of your empire to improve the land there while building cities with supported units.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

In general transforming specials is a bad idea. Transforming Spice into grassland is a terrible idea. Spice gives you 3 foods and 4 arrows as is. Grassland by comparison gives you 2 foods and possibly one shield. After double irrigation, grassland gives you 4 foods but the extra food and the possible extra shield are not worth the 4 extra arrows coming from Spice. (Both grassland and Spice can be roaded to increase the number of arrows by one.)

 

[Ace]

Ali is correct. Spice is good. Do you have a jewel case game as opposed to the original boxed version? In the boxed version, there is a terrain chart (you can also check specials in the civilopedia) which lists all the specials and what they provide, as well as the effects of irrigation, mining, and transforming on them.

 

[BaconLad]

Ali is correct. Spice is good. Do you have a jewel case game as opposed to the original boxed version? In the boxed version, there is a terrain chart (you can also check specials in the civilopedia) which lists all the specials and what they provide, as well as the effects of irrigation, mining, and transforming on them.

no, i have the playstation version, ive had it for 10 years and have since lost the manuel, and the tech chart........ everything ive learnt ive had to figure out myself, im still learning new things everytime i play.

i dont have a clue how to really utilise the special resource tiles. i loaded up a game today and tryd out a few ideas. all i managed to find was that silk is good for trade arrows, and can be transformd into plains for wheat.
is there an online guide for all the tile types and there uses, and the effects of settler/engineer transformation??? any links would be greatly apreciated. thank you!!!

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Most of the info you need is in Civilopedia (Choose Terrain Types).

 

[BaconLad]

Most of the info you need is in Civilopedia (Choose Terrain Types).

thanks, i should of checked that... i dont think of the obvious sometimes.