New Game & New Questions...

[Qualic]

Well, I decided to scrap my first game...the number of things I would've done differently had I known better kept adding up too much. I think it was my spagetti looking railroad system that finally pushed me over the edge...

Doing far better this time round, using caravans to get most all of the wonders so far...thanks for the tip. And my favorite part of this game is that I wiped out the French capital right off the bat and have had them pinned into a tiny penninsula where they've been stagnant through ad1200. I'm sure they've been trying to figure out a way around the game code that'll allow them to surrender...

One oddity that happened is one of their warrior's managed to take out two of my phalanx (both were standing on mountains, different tiles)...and warrior was barely wounded. And in my first game, I found that English cruisers could absolutely crush mine every time...some vets, others not. Which leads me to wonder if certain countries enjoy special unit bonuses, like in AOE...? Haven't run accross that in the manual though...

Second question is, what's a good way to defend coastline...not only against assault, but to keep even friendly countries from slipping in and building a city in an inconvenient location? Posting units everywhere is costly in terms of support, and seems to wreak havok when I switch to Democracy.

And finally, in your civilization score, what does (barbarians -50) mean?

Thanks,

Q

ps- I'm finding the "1000 ways you've played too much" tread hilarious!

 

[Qualic]

I've been reasearching pretty fast this game and have come accross something I don't understand. Whenever you complete a reasearch, that screen pops up where you select the next topic...

And I only had 3 options, which seemed odd given how far along I am. I started using the help button and found that indeed there were a couple topics which said "can research", yet they weren't available in the list you get to pick from.

I thought maybe I could force the issue by using the auto-reasearch to focus on something ahead of what I wanted, but then it told me there was nothing available to research in that direction.

If you've met the pre-req's for something, what would prevent it from showing as an option???

Thanks,

Q

 

[Hawkster]

A couple of answers (before the experts come along...)

The different civs don't get special bonuses -all are the same - sounds like you've had a run of bad luck with the random number generator - it happens sometimes - sometimes it happens the other way.

Defending coastlines is tricky - as you say trying to station a lot of units just costs too much - the way I usually use is to have some fast units - eg horse units and roads to be able to get them to the landing site quicky to surround and trespassers. Plus a few old units just to block specific sites. A few diplomats or spies are useful to as you can then bribe the landing units and make them yours.


The research things is normal - at certain stages you can only select from a limited number of techs - eeven though in theory you should be able to research many more - I can't remember why but I expect someone more knowledgeable than me will be along in due course to explain all.

 

[Terrapin]

Still no experts, so I'll chime in...just like the sound of my own keyboard, I guess...

Coastal defense is tough. Hawkster's suggestion is good. It works really well once you develope flight, since your fighter planes can cover a lot of coastline. Another thing you can do, is guard critical areas of coastline with non-military units which do not require support (camels/frieght, dips/spys and I suppose explorers). These units do not cause unhappiness. That these units are weak makes no difference, since only marines can make an amphibious assault. The ai is too stupid to use a warship to clear a tile then land on it. But the best thing to do, is to sign peace treaties with other ai's as opposed to mere ceasefire. Then you can demand that their units leave your territory.

Barbarians: -50. One of the game settings is barbarian level. You have your game set to "villages only" which means no random barbarians appear on unsettled regions of the map. This lowest setting and it deducts 50 points from your score. The highest level, raging hordes adds 50 points to your score. In the great scheme of things, a 100 point swing is negligible and playing without random barbarians is probably a good idea at first. Nothing is more frustrating than losing one of your first two or three cities to the barbs! The real "bounce" you get from setting higher barb levels is that you get gold for capturing the barb leaders, more gold for higher barb settings, up to 150g at raging hordes.

Early on, the barbs are dangerous. They pop out of the ground in unsettled areas. They usually appear as archers and horsemen, which can make mincemeat of warriors. However, as the game progresses, two things happen: You settle most of the land on your home continent(s), which means the barbs cannot arise near your cities. Also, the barbs get better techs, but only slowly. Starting with polytheism (elephants), mathematics (catapults) and feudalism (pikemen) you will usually have superior units. Once you have the better units and have secured your realm, you can look for barb uprisings and deliberately hunt them down, capture their leaders and cash them in. The hunters become the hunted!

 

[ElephantU]

Barbs at Raging Hordes only adds 25 points, but the extra gold for "capturing" Barb Leaders is the main advantage. Once you learn the Barb patterns you can set up "Barb zones" where you bribe away the military units and capture the Leaders repeatedly.

Warriors are not toast for early Barb Horse or Archer if they are fortified on decent terrain. If your first city is on a river that is usually enough to hold them off. If you mean to capture Leaders you have to survive the accompanying unit's attack, so you'll need a Phalanx or Archer fortified on a Hill or Mountain if possible. Barbs cannot pop out of terrain covered by a city radius or terrain that is Roaded (denotes some sort of "civilization"). Barb ships (Pirates) pop up every 16 turns somewhere at sea and head for a preselected landing spot. If one of them is "trapped" by odd terrain on its way somewhere else it will stick there for centuries, preventing new ones from spawning. When you bribe a Barb unit it will take support from your nearest city, unless another civs city is closer, in which case it becomes an unsupported unit. Those are the best kind. Some players send out early ships with just a Diplomat and a Horse to hunt for Barb units far from home. Once they are yours just leave them behind for future collection and return to homeland.

As other players discover particular techs Barb units will improve. There is a whole White Paper on Barb units in one of the scenario developer forums either here at CFC or over at Apolyton.Net. Terrapins list is a good start, and applies to Huts as well. Add in Chariots (Wheel) and Knights (Chivalry), and later Dragoons, Muskets, Rifles and Calvary. Once the first player discovers Mobile Warfare the Barb Pirates stop coming, and Barbs never seem to get Armor, Howitzer or MechInf. When you play at higher Barb Levels the number of units that spawn together can increase drastically: I had a spawn once near a One City game which reached 20 units before I killed off the unit guarding the spawning ground! At that stage it was making 3-4 Rifles and Artillerys each turn!

Once you get the hang of a particular level, whether Difficulty or Barb setting, play one or two more games to make sure, then increase the level by one. Each level is more challenging, but jumping straight to Deity/Raging Hordes is a sure bet for humiliation (I've been there!). The Barbs will come more quickly at higher levels, in greater numbers as the game progresses, and will spring up in spots closer to your civ (At Raging I had a ship pop up right next to my Super Science City once!). As the Difficulty level increases you will have less content citizens in each city before the first new one is unhappy, so you have to pay more attention to happiness. Also the other civs get better at research and building things, and a bit more aggressive.

 

[ElephantU]

On your other questions:

To my knowledge, no civ enjoys any special bonus, although there was some debate over at Apolyton.Net whether there is a Sneak Attack bonus or an AI vs Human bonus. When you get to the modern era the higher Hit Points and Damage Points can add up fast; a Cruiser has 3 and 2 respectively. Vet status adds a lot to modern units, so pursue that vigorously. Get Amphib just for the Ports and pour out the ships. Vet Battleships are so powerful as to be almost invincible. The AI seems to store up piles of Cruise Missiles to try to take them out, but if you stack a Vet AEGIS with it you will swat them like flies. Beware the happiness issues of large armies or navies in Republic or Democracy, though.

Another civ will not build a city in a tile that is within any of your cities radius, so sprinkle cities along your coast early and garrison them adequately. This pays later when you want a decent navy. Connect them by Roads and Rails (inland, though, so the AI cannot get on them just by landing on them) for quick reinforcement. Keep a few faster movers around (especially Vet ones) for unexpected landings (dont forget paratroopers!). Keep a few ships offshore to at least notice friendly ships going by. The other thing they can do to you at higher levels is visit one of your coastline cities and steal a tech with a Diplomat aboard a Trireme, or try to bribe your city away. Only Democracy is immune to bribery.

Regarding research, there is a pattern to the techs that are not available each time you complete something. The tech list is grouped into three categories, and each round one category is "hidden", except for the top item. There are a few older threads at CFC and Apolyton.Net that explain this. I use the utility CIV2PLAN to show me the upcoming lists so I can plan ahead. Each time you get a tech, whether from research, trade, taking a city or huts, you get a new list so if you know something you really need is not on the next list try trading the AI for an extra tech to jump to the following list. Beware, though, that tech "costs" in beakers go up each time you add a tech, and they go up steeply between numbers 18 and 22 or so. There is a couple threads in the Great Library over at Apolyton.Net that explain all this.

Oh yeah: if the game is a "Scenario" (you can tell from the score page F9) there is no tech "hiding". GOTM 31 is a great example of this (and very worthy of play!).

 

[Qualic]

Thanks for the detailes answers guys...just took off work early because I could'nt wait to get home and play I hope I don't go outta business because of this game! lol

ElephantU, you said "other civ will not build a city in a tile that is within any of your cities radius". But they will build close enough that there can be a tile or two overlap...had it happen a few times. Which is really frustrating because it can take that tile outta production...is there anything to do about this short of wiping out other city and starving them outta existance? Right now the Souix have taken a nice oil mine out of production, but I don't want to piss'em off just yet...

Also, I believe it was you in another thread that said something about "Airport Magic", referring to some sorta resource bonus if built on a tile. But I couldn't figure out where this info is...someone mentioned something about "page 5" of something...

Thanks again!

Q

 

[Terrapin]

The only thing you can do about another civ's city "sharing" your tiles is put a military unit on that square so the other civ cannot work it. Then you can place one of your citizens on the tile (I thinK) and the ai civ will not be able to work it so long as you do not move that worker (worth the effort for oil, you bet).... You can use a dip/spy to buy enemy cities (brings any units that city supports to your side, too). Me, I would get rid of those pesky Souix. If you do not, you must surround that city, so it does not send out still more settlers, or you will be speaking Souix before you know it!

Airport trick: Build an airport on a hill. It gives you the extra food as per irrigation, the exta shields as per mining and railroad. If it is a wine hill or one with a river through it, you will get the trade bonuses for roads and superhighways. Normally, you cannot both irrigate and mine a hill. If you have a mine, for instance, then irrigate, the mine disappears. For purposes of GOTM and other 'social' games, this trick is considered cheating.

 

[Old n Slow]

I think that Elephant U & others answered most/all of your questions. Two additional thoughts -- I tend to build along the coasts -- maybe 90% of my cities are ports -- and this seems to deter "friendly landings". Additionally, the ai settlers will not found a city next to one of your units. So chase the settler with a dip & then after a bit buy 'im.

 

[Hookah]

I'm new at civ 2 so I do chieftan/sands of the sea(raging hordes+1)

 

[Archer 007]

Originally posted by Hookah
I'm new at civ 2 so I do chieftan/sands of the sea(raging hordes+1)

Never heard of Sands of the Sea. What is it?

 

[ElephantU]

Originally posted by Old n Slow
Additionally, the ai settlers will not found a city next to one of your units. So chase the settler with a dip & then after a bit buy 'im.

Just learned again the exception to this: if you are Allied the AI can and will build a city right next to a fully occupied fort of mine. Otherwise, though, I agree that "chasing" the settler with a Mil unit will keep it from founding a city. Just dont let it get away...

 

[Hookah]

Originally posted by archer_007


Never heard of Sands of the Sea. What is it?

you can mod the game.txt to add a higher barb level after raging hordes

 

[Qualic]

I've tried the airport on a hill trick in 3 places, but unfortunately there hasn't been any resource improvement at all...hill still produces 1 food and that's it.

Am I missing something?

Q

 

[Qualic]

Also, what is the best units to put in areas that are prone to fighter attacks? In the course of several rounds, I' ve watched a single fighter wipe out two tanks + rifleman (in 1 turn), 3 helicopters in 1 turn, and a fortified howitzer in my city.

I'm actually pretty convinced the computer cheats, as I've watched these and other one sided battles, yet when I put fighters out, I watch single riflemen take'em down, partisans destroying my tanks without it being close, and one marine wipe out two attacking howitzers. Rather annoying I must say...

Q

 

[Smash]

What you may be missing on the airbase food production is a supermarket in the city.Refrigeration tech opens that improvement and settler/engineer ability.

Fighters are best defended with other fighters.Once you have Rocketry you can build SAM systems in cities and then fighters are no threat at all..Its best not to leave too many units out in the open when aircraft are a threat.

Partisans can and will take out tanks but the other results are not the norm but within possible outcomes.In war,veteran status makes all the difference.Barracks,port facility and airports are quite valuable to the war monger.

 

[ElephantU]

And Barracks have to be rebuilt after Gunpowder and Mobile Warfare.

If you see a great attacking unit, its probably a Vet. Bribe it.

 

[Archer 007]

Originally posted by Hookah

you can mod the game.txt to add a higher barb level after raging hordes

I know that, i've just never heard it called Sands of the Sea .
Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Archer 007]

Originally posted by Smash
Barracks,port facility and airports are quite valuable to the war monger.

Agreed! However, they are quite valuable whatever your play style if you want a good vet defense

 

[ElephantU]

When I am shooting for earliest spaceship I ignore them till after launch. With wise tech gifting I have even landed with all civs still Enthusiastic toward me. Classic/2.4.2, of course.

Airport may have a value to inflating Trade Routes between cities. The definitive Trade Route thread is yet to be written...