Help please.

[kevin2350]

As a very new player:
How can I suspend the constructing of units? While I am busy in one part, all the cities continue to build units, even if I do not need them and I might finish up with 10 cannons before I notice. Even then, they don't stop.
also, what is a strategy for curing food shortages? If I run caravans of food wil it reduce the food in the supplying city?

 

[funxus]

When the city has built a unit, it will start blinking on the city. That's when you click on the city to look at, and if necessary, adjust the production. Make it your habit to always take a closer look on a city with a blinking unit, either it has just produced it, or there's a hostile unit next to it that has waken a sleeping unit in your city. You know how to change production, right? Click on city, and click on the "Change"-button...

Unless you change the terrain of the city, a city is unlikely to grow itself to a food shortage, it will stop growing before that. Your problem with food shortages is probably that you build settlers/engineers in cities that cannot support them, or you build to many of them. If the city's growth is stunted by an engineer or settler, make sure you use it to either irrigate, found a new city or rehome it in another city. Different governments will also require different amounts of food for each settler. You can see how much food your units require in each city screen.

About food caravans, I suggestion is that you generally shouldn't use themfor their actual purpose. You lose one food in the source city, and gain one in the destination. There's no profit in that.

 

[Ace]

In the long haul, every city will run out of food. Once you change to Republic or Democracy and start celebrating your cities, it does not take long until the cities are maxed out on food. The only ways to increase food supply is: irrigate, get refrigeration and irrigate a second time to farmland, and to transform land to better food producing land. I.e., transform a desert hex to a plains hex or a forest hex to a grasslands hex.

Food Caravans usually don't help. They only "borrow from Peter to pay Paul". (They do fill one half of the food box) They are usefull in situations where a city has low food producing land, such as a city with plains, desert and mountains with gold or iron. This kind of city has great trade and shield production, but does not have enough food to grow large enough to use the specials. By running in a food caravan or two from cities with plenty of food, you can make this type of city a powerhouse.

For more info on using food caravans, check the threads for the food caravan trick (FCT).

There is also another way food caravans can help your food supply. In the late game, some cities may exhaust the food in their food box. This happens when a city has maxed out and has a minus one food supply. eventually this negative food supply will exhaust the city's food supply. By running in a food freight, you refill half the food box and stave off starvation.

There is some good info on this subject in the war academy section.

 

[ElephantU]

Two city improvements to also think about for helping with food shortage: the Harbor will double the food taken from an ocean tile, and the SuperMarket will allow double-irrigating land tiles to produce extra food. The Granary does not add food, it just prevents the emptying of the food box when you grow by one citizen.

I make it a habit to check the status of every city every turn, using the F1 City Summary screen. There is a very old adage in Civ: "When you have nothing else to build, build a caravan or freight". They do not cost any maintenence, and they can be "cashed in" for gold and beakers (if they are a "commodity", rather than food) or progress in building Wonders and SpaceShip parts. There is a way in the late game to switch your building to Capitalization so that shields get turned into gold, but that is not very cost-effective if you could be building commodity freights instead, or just food freights for unbuilt Wonders. But a better strategy is to think out a general plan for each city you have and follow a long-term building plan. Some cities with a bit of excess food could become Settler/Engineer builders (the new units are then rehomed or used to create new cities); other cities may become supporting homes for military units.

 

[Dark Ascendant]

If you want to stop making units, keep tabs on cities' productions. If you don't want to build anything, switch to Capitalization. I recommend stockpiling caravans for trade or wonders instead though.

 

[kevin2350]

thanks for the above.
My main problem is still that, when I have constructed all the city improvements available, the cities keep churning out military units and I have to keep getting rid of them with a loss of resources.
If I capitalize will that stop all production of units?
what if I need more later on?

 

[funxus]

As previously mentioned, "When you have nothing else to build, build a caravan or freight"... Either for delivery of commodity, or for wonder-building.

When you capitalize, i.e. choose to build the item in the production list called capitalization, your city will, instead of shields (i.e. no production), produce an equally large amount of gold. If you don't want capitalization anymore, you can easily switch it to something else.

 

[ElephantU]

Capitalization is not a great deal - you get one gold per shield, but if you use it to buy shields in another city the best you can do is two gold per shield. But as you mention if you have nothing else you need or want to build (and I certainly hope you have not built ALL the city improvements available - about half of them are probably unnecessary), AND have no further use for freights for Wonder building, trade routes, or SpaceShip parts, then it makes sense to switch to Capitalization. It seems though that your empire is beyond the point at which you should have won the game - what are you waiting for?

Yes, you can switch back to other production in the future - in fact, there is some rumor that if you switch to Cap from Wonder building, when you switch back the number of shields accumulated is intact. Have not seen that myself as I usually win or quit before I have a city that has nothing else to build...

 

[kevin2350]

Won the Game!!!
You must be joking!
I still am in the peasant category when the time is up.
I get to having aircraft but that is it.
spend most of my time chasing unwanted units.

 

[funxus]

Try focusing more on science then.

Check out the concept of SSC in the Civ 2 War Academy (link from main page), and start trading more with caravans to gain more science (You get the same amount of science from each delivery as you get gold).

 

[kevin2350]

I finally saw how the game ended. Not that I won, I just kept playing after I was named the "unready" and finished the space craft.
I do have two queries. When the siruation becomes nuclear; how is it that my nuclear rockets are intercepted by the combined SDI and SAM in the opposition cities whereas with the same combination in my cities the rockets always get through.
The second; what do the numbers in brackets with Capitalization stand for?
And one irritant. I cannot get face to face with a computer unit yet they get right in the face of my units.

 

[x22]

If you have SDI Defense built in a city, 3 square radius around that city is protected against nuclear missilles. It always worked for me. Check if the SDI defense is in the attacked city. You don't need SAM battery against nuclear missilles.

SDI Defense does not work against spy's 'plant nuclear device' action.

 

[Hydro1974]

If you are having problems winning the game, it might be because you are fostering an unbalanced society. Discoveries, wonders, money and war must all be used to defeat the other civilizations. When all else fails I just go on the offensive - I'm always building naval units as soon as I get a trieme. Take ground units, settlers, attacking naval units and some diplomats/spies. Once you get a good foothold on a new continent, get to work pushing the other society right out. The basic rule of thumb is the player with the most cities wins.

 

[la fayette]

About food caravans, I suggestion is that you generally shouldn't use themfor their actual purpose. You lose one food in the source city, and gain one in the destination. There's no profit in that.

Sorry, this is not the way it works

When you send a food caravan from one city to another, you lose 1 food/turn in the source city and you get a half foodbox in the destination city.
This can be very useful, for example when running a "high trade" or "high shield" city with a huge food deficit (you just send a food caravan once in a while to avoid food starvation ).

 

[Ace]

Sorry, this is not the way it works

When you send a food caravan from one city to another, you lose 1 food/turn in the source city and you get a half foodbox in the destination city.
This can be very useful, for example when running a "high trade" or "high shield" city with a huge food deficit (you just send a food caravan once in a while to avoid food starvation ).

Wrong! It works both ways. You not only get half your foodbox filled, but you also get a plus one food added to the city's food production. The only drawback to doing this is that you lose a trade route that should be generating "arrows".
An excellent use of food routes (not FCT) is in the case of a city located in a terrible food location, but with lots of resources such as gold and iron in mountain hexes. Such a city probably will not supply enough food of its own to prosper and grow, but a couple of food routes to it can make it useful.

 

[ElephantU]

Sounds like a better plan would be a 5-stack of Engineers doing terrain transformation...

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Ace, I believe that if you already have 3 trade routes it will not replace an existing route, it will fill half the box and do no more.

 

[la fayette]

Wrong! It works both ways. You not only get half your foodbox filled, but you also get a plus one food added to the city's food production. .

You are perfectly right

 

[Ace]

Ace, I believe that if you already have 3 trade routes it will not replace an existing route, it will fill half the box and do no more.

No. If you have 3 good trade routes and you run in a food caravan, you will lose one of the trade routes and have a food route for #3.

 

[Ace]

Sounds like a better plan would be a 5-stack of Engineers doing terrain transformation...

Well, yes, BUT when its 1500bc and you barely have trade, its kinda hard to put together a 5-stack of Engineers! Later in the game, when Engineers are available, its the way to go.