Newbie help!

[Alexander e Grt]

Hello all.
I'm new at this forum and i certainly hope you guys out there can share some tips with me about civilization II gameplay and make me a better player.

First thing i like to know is whether to concentrate on building most of the city improvments or cranking out military units if your interest lies in crushing your opponents the military way. What i usually do is to build those improvements that allow me to wage a war while keeping citizens happy and those that increase tax and science output, since these are necessities in keeping your empire running smoothly.

Another thing is whether we should continue building cities as the game progresses on or to build around 15 cities that would be known as your 'base' and then concentrate only on those 15 cities? So far, this way of approach has been able to keep me intact on the Prince level but i'm not satisfied with it since i'm barely ahead in the technology race. This way, i'll definite lose out in higher levels. Any suggestions?

 

[Ace]

Welcome to CFC. You have the right idea. Just keep building cities and expanding your empire. There are lots of good tips in the war acadamy section here.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Hello all.
First thing i like to know is whether to concentrate on building most of the city improvments or cranking out military units if your interest lies in crushing your opponents the military way.

Actually, while the answer varies based on your situation and objetives, you will find that more often than not, the answer is closer to "Neither"

The key to success lies in building improvements when they can help you, and building many non-military units, as these are among the most powerful units in the game. There is certainly a time and place for military units, but a common mistake is to focus too much on military and not enough on growth and economic development.

As you already hinted at, the settler/engineer is crucial, especially in the early game. the faster you can expand and create more cities, the more territory you claim, the more resources you have at your disposal. You push your borders away from your core cities. These units also help improve trade (roads), defense (again by roads and RR that allow miltary units to quickly respond to a threat over longer distances), and other benefits.

The caravan/freight is a unit you should learn to know and love. They can be used to speed wonder development tremendously, using the resources from many cities to complete a single wonder. But most importantly they allow trade. Trading provides a two-pronged benefit. First, the ongoing trade route improves the trade of your cities - often this extra trade can mean the difference between order and disorder, or celebrating and not celebrating (WLT*Ds). It also provides extra science and tax revenue on on ongoing basis. At first the amounts seem small, but the routes grow along with your cities and are well worth the investment. Second, you get a one-time bonus payment when delivering trade. Many factors go into this bonus, particularly delivering demanded goods, to a foreign country, to a different continent and/or over a long distance. The beauty of this bonus payment is that in addition to the gold value of the bonus, you get an equal amount of science beakers. Many advanced players focus a majority of their effort on delivering many trade goods to reap these bonus payouts, fueling a rapid scientific advancement.

For city improvements the key is not to just build a lot of them, it's to build the ones that help you. Focus on just enough improvements to get you happy and growing. Put your improvements where they will help the most - a bank in a city with high trade will get you more than one in a low-trade city. Focus on wonders that have a powerful effect - among the more heavily favored are wide-ranging happiness wonders such as michaelangelo, and bach along with the SSC (super-science city) ones like Copernicus, Newton, Colossus, and Shakespeare's theatre.

Go read some of the succession games and GOTM logs to see how other people play. Then when you think you've got the basics down, go read about Power Democracies and Early Landing Strategies and be totally blown away!

 

[A+ombomb]

The key to success lies in building improvements when they can help you

Furthermore, not just when they can help you, but when they help you more than building something else. Improvements pretty much always help you, thats why they are called improvements after all, but you have to weigh the cost of how long an improvement takes to build and what you could potentially have in its place. Caravans are pretty much always a better investment than improvements, especially for GOTM games, so try to concentrate on that first. You can smuggle in trade even at war from the sea, or you can internal trade if nothing else. Even if you are in a huge war, its still very useful to continue making caravans - if you can land 125~ gold out of it from the initial delivery, you can afford to rush build it and gain some free research on the side.

 

[Tanstaafl]

The use of Caravans other than for rush building Wonders is something I learned in forums here and it a very useful tool. Many of the ideas in these forums are great but I had to first make up my mind which way was I going for the win. Conquest, spaceship, a single city, early landing, being very diplomatic/allied and frequently asking for free gold or just going my own way and leaving the rest of the world alone.
Each type of plan for victory has its own good ideas and bad ideas.
But what ever way you go, playing Civ II is good.

 

[mardukes]

The early landing strategy suggests the limits:
4 cities; monarch 6; republic 8; democracy 10

This is somewhat contradictory to the grow & expand doctrine.

What is the key to leaping from an advance every three turns to one per turn?

I'm trying to get that first diety win and, I swear, 3 of the last 4 games that got that far, my spaceship was 10 years from landing and an AI (probably rush buying) produced a dozen spaceship parts and launched a 9-year spaceship on me. How fast do you have to advance to advance faster than the AI?

 

[Prof. Garfield]

What is the key to leaping from an advance every three turns to one per turn

Trade. With 10% sci I can usualy get an advance per turn, because of the trade. Because I don't like "wasting" caravans by delivering when I won't get sci, I like to keep 10% to ensure that I will get the advance, insted of an einstine. If you want advice on early landing, you would wan't to ask someone else, though.

 

[Alexander e Grt]

I had no idea trading could bring in so much benefits. I only thought there were the initial bonuses and those extra trade arrows, that's all, and since there aren't exactly a lot of extra trade arrows early in the game, usually i couldn't be bothers to produce caravans.
Is that how some players manage to obtain all the technological advances by 1000AD? My best efforts to date has only manage that by 1800sAD and that's VERY far off the mark.

 

[DSN]

Another thing is whether we should continue building cities as the game progresses on or to build around 15 cities that would be known as your 'base' and then concentrate only on those 15 cities? So far, this way of approach has been able to keep me intact on the Prince level but i'm not satisfied with it since i'm barely ahead in the technology race. This way, i'll definite lose out in higher levels.

Personally I build 12-15 cities, depending on space and concentrate on them, as you can go and conquer more cities when you need them. It is better to have 15 cities of size 13 before you get sanitation that 25 with only a few of size 13. The bigger a city the more production and trade. Ofcourse it is better still to have 25 cities of size 13, but that is very difficult, atleast for me.

I also find myself being technologically backward on deity, but that can be remidied by building Great Library and Marco Polo (so you can exchange technology), also you can steal advances and then swap them with another civ.

I tend to explore all the land possible to find any useful huts or other civs to talk with.

 

[geofelt]

Early on, try to determine it you plan to win by spaceship or by conquest.
Both plans benefit from a super city whidh is usually the city you found first. Pick a place with some trade features(rivers or specials) and some shield potential(hills,forest,specials)
For spaceship, expand only to defensible borders, perhaps a dozen cities surrounding your super city. A medium sized island is wonderful. Build up your production capacity and stockpile caravan/freight units so you can use them to build spaceship parts in one turn each at the end of the game. In the end, it is a production race more than a science race. The AI WILL attack you and steal spaceship techs once you start building, so be prepared to defend.
For conquest, expand and build many cities. This gives you gold. Be nice at first and give what you must to trade maps so you can generally locate them. Make a plan on how to reach them. Get started early with conquest by bribing your nearest competitors. Build sun-tzu; It makes no sense to fight with non-vet units. Use military only when you have an advantage. Do not capture the last city of a civ until after 1750 or it will reappear elsewhere and be a pain to find.(or turn off the option)

 

[PHSikes]

along with these hints, read the FAQ's...I did and it helped. The problem with me is I get too involved in a particular detail of the game and all of a sudden I'm like...I need more settlers NOW...

 

[DSN]

As I've said, I place more stress on having several (in the early teens) big cities rather than dozens that are less then pop 5. If you do need a city in a paticular place, just build it, you shouldn't stop at 15 and never build more if you need them. You should be flexible with these things. Obviously locate cities well. No point in building one in a dessert of the middle of a mountain range (plains or grassland with a few hills and a river and sea and resources are a good combination).