New here, a few questions...

[Juputoru]

I've recently made the jump from Cheiftain to Warlord level, and was wondering...

1)How do you add new city names to the list that the suggested names for new cities come from? I'm getting bored of seeing the same names over and over...

2)How do you get yourself un-supreme without compremizing your victory? I'm a little tired of having the AI form alliences to "contain my aggression"(which is weird, since beyond 1 or 2 defenders in a city, I have pretty much no military), hating my guts no matter what I do(I play the Classic(or whatever you call the version that has less agggressive AI) version, BTW), and having more militaristic civs sneak attack me. (after...2...games like that. I suppose I have little hope for higher levels at the moment? ) Plus I'm wondering what the non-supreme experiance is like.

3)Since I've been a bit too...peaceful...to fight things beyond getting rid of barbs and defending myself when other civs attack(I've only won by spaceship so far), I really don't know how to wage war well, beyond "Make good units. Have them kill opposing units. Use Spies/Dips to bribe some stuff, mostly cities." But with the AI being more...hostile, I'd like to get better than that.

4)...why is the only search here a Google search?

 

[Prof. Garfield]

1: Go into the civilization file and find the notepad file City. Open it and eddit there.

2: You don't. Supremecy is affected by your population and your techs. The only way to get unsupreme is to have another civ become more populous or smarter than you. The way to deal with it is to adequetly defend yourself against threats and to kick units out of your city radii. I find that at that stage I will be more comfortable at war than at peace, so I normaly try to keep the war going. You will always be at war with the other civs in the late game if you are supreem, or wating for them to sneek attack.
3: I'm not much of a specialist at war myself, but my advice is attack with more than you should need to defete your enemy whenever possible. I wage war in the late game, so I use howitizers and mech infantry, sometimes with a navel bombardment, stelth fighters and the occasional tank. I also subvert a lot when I am at peace.

Incidentaly, what government type do you play?

 

[ElephantU]

Welcome to CFC, Juputoru! Don't stay on any one difficulty level too long...

Suggestion for (2): Check out One City Challenge... rather than Supreme, you are often Pathetic! The goal is to be first to AC with only one city at any time. The only time you can reload the game is if a hut gives you an Advanced Tribe (2nd city). Your One City must be a super-SSC. But rarely are you Supreme...

For (3), it's more a matter of experience that anything else. Planning helps, and recon - if you've got Spies they are the best. If you have learned the power of representative governments you need to learn how to make your wars as short as possible, to avoid Senate meddling. Of course, the "sneak attacks" do help lower the Senator's resistance (wish that worked with Kerry!). A few tricks to read up on are Precharged Engineers (for instant railroads, airbases and forts), the Beachhead City, suppressing partisans, nuke and paradrop, Dips vs Walls, Super Ironclads, the Horseman's Gambit, avoiding ZOC, and as much of the Marquis' Complete Combat Guide as you can stay awake for.

Re (4), the site search wasn't very reliable anyway so don't complain...

 

[Terrapin]

1. See the Prof, above

2. See Prof, again. I would point out that if you are playing multi-player gold addition, the AIs will be more hostile than in CivII Classic (aka version 2.42). You can get a 2.42 patch here:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ2downloads.shtml

Playing 2.42 will allow you to do more diplomacy and maintain alliances longer, but the AIs will still inevitably turn on you.

3. I am pretty much in the same boat. So far, what has helped me is building Marco Polo's Embassy and trading for maps early. Knowing where everyone is makes trade and conquest both easier. If you do not do it already, learn how to manage ship chains. These expedite both trade and conquest. Also, try playing on smaller maps, if you are not already playing on small ones. For obvious reasons, it is easier to conquer a smaller world.

 

[Terrapin]

Hey, 'Phant, you're stepping on my lines again, brother. For a borderless world, an awful lot of what makes it onto these boards originates in Philly, huh?

 

[Juputoru]

Incidentaly, what government type do you play?

The moment I get Democracy, I almost always stay there for the rest of the game.

Anyway, I just BARELY beat the AI to Alpha Centauri in my current game(They arrived ONE year after I did. Quite a scare...), but I kept playing in order to get some practice in crushing other civs(in this case the Americans. And I changed to Fundimentalism once I got it, to get rid of unhappiness, and since the only techs left were Future Techs.). I'm not making much progress, I've completly destroyed 2 cities(one of which the Americans built RIGHT NEAR one of my cities. So annoying...), and captured 3 after about 15 turns of war. There's at least 10 cities left. At least I'm getting the hang of war.

I also made an odd observation that after I allied with the Aztecs to help me beat the the Americans(who the Aztecs were also at war with. Ironically enough, they had previously signed 2 pacts at different points in time to "contain my aggression", but the Americans randomly attacked the Aztecs after a few turns of me being at war with them. Hmm...), they suddenly went from being consistantly Uncooperative to being Worshipful. That's supposed to happen, right?

 

[The Mass Leader]

Well... since you´re relatively new to the game and CFC, I will give you a few simple tips about war in Civ 2:

THE ART OF DECEPTION
As in Sun Tzu´s Art of War, the principles of deception are worth in Civ2. When you fight a war against any AI player in Civ2, the AI usually sends it´s units to a single battle front. After a few turns, all units produced by the enemy civ will be going to the battle front. It is stupid to face the enemy and try to push his forces back to his borders. You must, of course, avoid that those forces enter YOUR country. But at the same time, you must send some units around the enemy borders - you send them by sea or just accross an empty piece of land. And then, you make those troops attack your enemy´s weak cities in the opposite side. Example: you are fighting your enemy in his western borders. Send a ship full of units and disembark them near a small enemy city in his eastern coast. His entire army will be located in the west, and he will lose some battles in the east. Then he will divide his forces. It will probably smash your eastern forces. But then, while his army was fighting in the east, you crushed him in the west. Send a boat with units to his north coast. And so on. He will divide his armies to fight in many fronts, and will eventually be unable to defend correctly one of them.

CALL YOUR FRIENDS
If you have any allies, please call them. The art of deception is all bout making your enemy fight in more than one battle front. If you hae an ally, he will do the work of dividing enemies´ attention.

STRONG POINTS
If you do not know how to keep your borders safe... welll: build fortresses in mountain or hill squares. Then fortify a few defensive units in those places. The enemies will take a long long time until they cross those lines. And, during this long time, you can build an army, apply the art of deception, and crush the enemy.

 

[Mysty9]

Hi, I'm also new here and thought I'd add my question onto the end of this one rather than start a new thread.

I love Civ2 but I'm pretty novice. I get really frustrated because the manner in which the units move means I can't get around properly. I started a new game just before in which I got stuck in about a 20*20 area because the gap out was too small. It's soooo annoying and I'm sure there must be some way to get around this. I can't seem to find anything to help so I hope someone here can!

 

[la fayette]

I get really frustrated because the manner in which the units move means I can't get around properly.
I can't seem to find anything to help so I hope someone here can!

Welcome, Mysty9!
I'm fairly sure 'someone' ( = several experienced players ) can help you here.
But I am not sure at all I have understood your problem ( = getting around properly ).

Here are some tips about getting around:
1) On land
Your main tool is named 'road' (and RR later on). A road makes your units move 3 times faster. This means that if you build a civ with 4-5 cities, each of them 3 squares away from your capital, you can defend the whole civ with 1 horseman stationed in the capital (first move of the horseman = move to city, second move = kill).
Don't build roads too soon: in the very early game, it is more important to create 4-5 cities. But right after that, link your cities with roads: it will be very useful, both for defence and trade.

2) At sea
If you play on an island map: build the Lighthouse (and Magellan later on).
Naval units owned by the AI can cross the oceans without any problem, but your own triremes will sink miserably if you try to do the same without the Lighthouse. The wonder looks costly but, believe me, it's worth the price!

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I think I had a similar problem when I first started playing civ. Because the grid is slanted, you need to use the number pad to move around, not just the four arow keys. Another way to do it is to use the mouse to "GO TO" the spot you want that is adjacent.

 

[Mysty9]

Yes that's what I mean, the grid being slanted!
That works, I have to play around and find which keys because I'm on a laptop but it looks like it's my page up/down keys etc.
THANKS! Wow I'm so happy now. Looks like I'm going to have to sit up all night playing now...hehehe.

 

[harperbruce]

Yo!

The War Academy is invaluable, both for colonizers and warmongers.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ2strategy1.shtml

I especially recommend Sun Tzu Condensed, and Fischer's paper on "Fire! Waging War in Civ2."

Also an excellent resource: the epic thread started by scloopy, entitled "Brand new grandma...." She started off with Test of Time, but later converted to Classic 2.4.2 and MPG. I learned a lot from that thread even as I contributed to it. Be prepared for 27 pages of reading, but you, too, shall profit.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=64002