Polar Strategies
You've all noticed the ice shelves at the far north and south of random Civ maps made of glacier and some tundra. Are they just there as a boundary, or can you use them? You'll also notice that there are occasional special resource tiles at the poles, like ivory, musk ox, furs and oil. What would be the point of their being there unless you could use them? Or do you think they're just decoration?
My experience is that you can use the poles for three main things:
· Linking continents
· Colonisation (boost your score!)
· Controlling polar sea lanes (not considered here)
You can often combine these three things.
<u>The "Ice Bridge" or the "Transpolar Railroad"</u>
If during your exploration, either by sea or on foot, you find your continent linked to another via a polar region, why not use it either to invade that continent or to supply it after you've invaded? If you have Railroad, you probably have Explosives and therefore engineers and they are the best for getting the job done quickly. If you do this, you probably want to fortify the route somehow, so why not build one or more cities on the ice? Read on
<u>Colonisation</u>
Why colonise the poles? After all you can't grow a big city there. There are two reasons:
· To guard a transpolar railroad
· To boost your score
There are times, especially on a small or medium map (less often on a large map) when you have conquered the world and you're working on building a really high score. You know Civ will let you build up to 255 cities and no more, but you can't find enough city sites. Solution: colonise the poles!
On a medium map the polar regions are 50 tiles long each. On a large map they are 75 tiles long. Assuming that you have ice, very little tundra, and no special resources (the worst case, usually bettered in practice), your only food comes from the sea and your highest score comes from using as many sea tiles as possible.
The strategy is to colonise every two tiles and grow each city to size 6. This makes maximum use of the sea. Size 6 is handy since you don't need an aqueduct and the population is easy to keep happy. On a medium map this gives you a potential extra 600 points! (On a large map it gives you nearly 900 points.)
Even an isolated city can be worth it. On ice it will grow to size 9, and with tundra you can get an extra population point, more if you find an outcrop or special resources.
<u>How to build an ice city</u>
If you drop a settler or engineer on the ice shelf and tell him to build a city he'll die of starvation. You can stop this in two ways:
· Have a food caravan ready to enter the new city immediately
· Have an extra settler/engineer on hand and a bit of cash.
I do not recommend the food caravan approach. It's an unnecessary drain on another city. Instead, this is what you should do:
· Build city with first settler/engineer
· Add second settler/engineer to same city (with build)
· Rush build a harbour
· The next turn one settler will die of starvation but when the harbour becomes active the remaining one will survive.
· Grow the city ("we love" days) until all the sea squares are used
<u>Tundra cities</u>
When you build a city, Civ looks at your terrain. If it produces no shields (like on ice) you get one by magic for your city square. And Civ pre-irrigates your city square. The effect of this is that tundra, which normally produces just one food, produces two in a city square. This means that you only need one settler to build a tundra polar city - it will always survive - and a harbour will allow for growth.
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"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage" - Anais Nin
You've all noticed the ice shelves at the far north and south of random Civ maps made of glacier and some tundra. Are they just there as a boundary, or can you use them? You'll also notice that there are occasional special resource tiles at the poles, like ivory, musk ox, furs and oil. What would be the point of their being there unless you could use them? Or do you think they're just decoration?
My experience is that you can use the poles for three main things:
· Linking continents
· Colonisation (boost your score!)
· Controlling polar sea lanes (not considered here)
You can often combine these three things.
<u>The "Ice Bridge" or the "Transpolar Railroad"</u>
If during your exploration, either by sea or on foot, you find your continent linked to another via a polar region, why not use it either to invade that continent or to supply it after you've invaded? If you have Railroad, you probably have Explosives and therefore engineers and they are the best for getting the job done quickly. If you do this, you probably want to fortify the route somehow, so why not build one or more cities on the ice? Read on
<u>Colonisation</u>
Why colonise the poles? After all you can't grow a big city there. There are two reasons:
· To guard a transpolar railroad
· To boost your score
There are times, especially on a small or medium map (less often on a large map) when you have conquered the world and you're working on building a really high score. You know Civ will let you build up to 255 cities and no more, but you can't find enough city sites. Solution: colonise the poles!
On a medium map the polar regions are 50 tiles long each. On a large map they are 75 tiles long. Assuming that you have ice, very little tundra, and no special resources (the worst case, usually bettered in practice), your only food comes from the sea and your highest score comes from using as many sea tiles as possible.
The strategy is to colonise every two tiles and grow each city to size 6. This makes maximum use of the sea. Size 6 is handy since you don't need an aqueduct and the population is easy to keep happy. On a medium map this gives you a potential extra 600 points! (On a large map it gives you nearly 900 points.)
Even an isolated city can be worth it. On ice it will grow to size 9, and with tundra you can get an extra population point, more if you find an outcrop or special resources.
<u>How to build an ice city</u>
If you drop a settler or engineer on the ice shelf and tell him to build a city he'll die of starvation. You can stop this in two ways:
· Have a food caravan ready to enter the new city immediately
· Have an extra settler/engineer on hand and a bit of cash.
I do not recommend the food caravan approach. It's an unnecessary drain on another city. Instead, this is what you should do:
· Build city with first settler/engineer
· Add second settler/engineer to same city (with build)
· Rush build a harbour
· The next turn one settler will die of starvation but when the harbour becomes active the remaining one will survive.
· Grow the city ("we love" days) until all the sea squares are used
<u>Tundra cities</u>
When you build a city, Civ looks at your terrain. If it produces no shields (like on ice) you get one by magic for your city square. And Civ pre-irrigates your city square. The effect of this is that tundra, which normally produces just one food, produces two in a city square. This means that you only need one settler to build a tundra polar city - it will always survive - and a harbour will allow for growth.
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"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage" - Anais Nin
