How to Stop Building?

[Qualic]

Hello,

Just picked up CivII and am trying to learn...8 hours in so far and just starting to get hang of it. Rather addictive game, isn't it?

One thing that's really bugging me is that I can't figure out how to make a city stop the production que. Since everything built, units or other, require a maintenence cost, there reaches a point when I want some cities to just stop making things they can't afford to support.

Frustrating that something this simple isn't obvious, but I've read the manual to no avail. There's some obtuse reference to "capitalization", but no details. Regardless, I don't even necessarily want to "capitalize"...I just want them to knock off making things for awhile...

TIA,

Q

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

You can't really stop the city from producing by clicking a button or checking a box.

What you can do it produce things that don't require support like diplomats or caravans (you'll find later that you'll want to produce caravans a lot more).

Or, you can change your workers around so that your city has no extra shields to be able to produce anything.

Or, you can start a city improvement, then switch it to a unit, thus losing half the accumulated shields, and just keep switching between units and city improvements every so often to keep dropping the number of shields you have in the production box.

Capitilization is a 'city improvement' that allows the city to generate gold for each shield it normally would be putting towards building.

But, you'll find that you never really want to 'not build anything'.

 

[Qualic]

hmmm...so I guess that means that there's no actual "build cost" (like in AOE), but only a maintenence cost?

I suppose then that its the cumulative maintenence costs that are getting me after awhile...start out fine, then one day the treasury starts going down to nothing.

Thanks for the advice...back to the manual I go to brush up on "maintenence"...

Oh, if you wouldn't mind, how the heck do I build a bridge? I reasearched it, but can't find anyone who'll actually build it. I'm stuck on an island and would like to establish a land-link to a neighboring island that's only a "block" away...

TIA,

Q

 

[Smash]

You can't build a bridge.Not really.Bridge Buiilding just allows you to build roads across river tiles with settlers/engineers.You'll need a boat to cross

Ancient civ proverb:
When you can't think of anything to build,build some caravans.When you think you have enough,build some more.

I spose you know caravans can contribute towards wonders of the world but I suspect you havn't discovered the power of trade yet.I'll leave it hanging there ..start sending those camels out....

You can also just build something cheap like barracks and just keep selling them off.A "poor man's capitolization".
Capitolization will appear in the build menu after discovery of The Corporation technology.
Also the Adam Smith's Trading Company wonder of the world will pay all maintanence costs for improvements that cost 1 gold per turn upkeep.Economics technology allows it's construction.

 

[ElephantU]

Clarification: You cannot build a bridge across an ocean tile. The Bridge Building tech lets you build bridges across rivers (you need Iron and Construction techs too), but before you get that you can always build a city at the spot you need a bridge.

Try to think through the improvements you build in your cities more carefully. You are probably building some that dont give benefit but just suck up maintenence, like building a StockExchange in a city with few Trade Arrows to turn into gold. In general try to get each city to support its own maintenence costs, unless one is awash in Trade and another in Shields so you can have one "pay for" the other. You can often sell off early improvements later on, like selling the Sewers if you dont think you will grow any larger, or selling the PowerPlant when you build the SolarPlant.

I second (or is it "third"?) the suggestion to concentrate on building caravans. They can be "cashed in" for trade bonuses, Wonders, or SpaceShip parts.

BTW, Welcome to CFC! Join the GOTM or the Democracy game, or at least read the discussions and logs, to learn a lot of Civ fast!

 

[funxus]

Unless you're the king of the world, just not having any goals, try to build units to kill an enemy, or focus on trade, as the others have said, to develop techs faster. If you are the king of the world, you maybe should consider advancing a level since you're current level seems too easy for you.

 

[Qualic]

Yes, that's it, this game is just too darn easy! lol...

 

[Qualic]

btw, I'm playing my first game at "Prince" level. I'm not getting militarily wiped out, but fair to say nobody seems to like me and I'm getting beat out to most of the building accomplishments.

Plus, aside from once early on, my civilization keeps being referred to as "pathetic" or "hopeless".

Now I'm just building my first factory (on par or ahead of rivals I think) and just getting a hang of generating a decent revenue stream. Question is, do I stand a chance at coming back, or should I start over?

TIA,

Q

 

[Old n Slow]

If you’re pathetic or hopeless, then you have fewer cities and units than other civs. You may want to change your government to a republic or democracy and toggle the luxuries up a bit for a while -- and gain some size to your existing cities. Send some boats out with settlers/engineers and found a few new cities on islands and distant lands.

Having fewer units is not THAT big a deal -- after all, the ai civs often keep old obsolete units hanging around. But the basic military thoughts still apply -- make sure that you have defensible borders, and when war happens, unit quality and terrain both can make a difference.

You may have to go to war, but it would be easier if you have the resources and tech to back it up -- check out the tech tree & plan accordingly.

 

[Smash]

You wanna catch up?..then start sending caravans.
Each caravan delivered brings you amount of gold.There are numerous multipliers like whether the commodity is demanded or not,distance,different landmass etc.Not real impiortant right now.\In addition to the one time cash bonus,you also get a one time science bonus.You'll get an equal number of beakers as the gold.So a 500 gold payoff caravan also gives 500 science beakers towards the next advance.You can zoom thru the tech tree delivering camels/freights.This makes it possible to get a tanks vs pikemen situation..no contest.
You also get trade routes which add trade arrows to the city for the rest of the game.(advanced concept)

You may have noticed when clicking on a foriegn city it will show a pop up of what that city demands.In your cities you see a "supplys" and "demands" list of 3 commodities after discovering the TRADE tech

You are doing better than I did in my first game.Got hammered on cheiftain.There is much to learn and lots more to play.Would you beleive the game can be won at deity level with 1,and only ever 1,city?..its true.
Once you get better at the game there are 1000s of scenarios based on this and that and then there is multiplayer.The king of civs is Civ2 multiplay.Just a blast and very tense.

WARNING!!!!..if you get hooked on Civ,your life will never be the same.The "one more turn" syndrome is most common.1 more turn usually turns into 4am
You may also begin to demand tribute from your neighbors and what not

 

[Qualic]

lol...actually, it's 4:15 am right now. I've been at this for nearly 12 hours straight...maybe I better take tomorrow off...

...you know how behind you can get building railroads and all...

Q

 

[Qualic]

But two more questions before I call it a night:

1) How can you eliminate a city? I conquered two little cities that the Russians sneaked inbetween my other ones, with overlapping tiles. I've tried starving them out, but no avail...

2) How do you keep track of trade routes? Manual says only 3 per city, but I can't recall who went where. Would the 4th caravan just replace the first one?

Thanks,

Q

 

[funxus]

The best way to eliminate a city is to build settlers in it and starve it out. Once your city is down to size 1, just rush buy a settler in it and you will get a question whether you want to delay settler production or disband the city. First make sure that you don't have any units supported in the city as these will also be disbanded. After the city is disbanded, you will get a new settler on the same spot that is supported by the closest city.

Once you discover the tech trade, you will notice that there is some new text (color orange) at the middle bottom of a city's city screen, just below where it says which units are in the city. This orange text shows supply and demand. So all commodities that is not in brackets is either supplied or demanded by your city. Once you deliver a caravan/freight a new line will show up below the text, which represents a trade route. The line contains info on where the route goes, how much trade you gain from it and what commodity is traded. You can have a max of three routes/lines, and new caravan deliveries will start to replace the less profitable routes.

 

[JJJ]

Another important strategy, esp. on lower levels, is to build a Super Science City (SSC). Basically, you build all the trade/science wonders (colossus, isaac, cope's) and improvements (library, univ, superhighways, etc) in one city that has a lot of trade. IE, this city should have trade specials, or rivers, or both. You can find more about it elsewhere on this site.