what should i do with terrain?

[johnnymiller]

What are the best terrain types to aim for? I irrigate grassland and plains. I mine hills and I try to engineer all the other terrain types to grassland/plains (except mountains which I change to hills). Is this the most efficient way to go about things? Thanks all.

 

[Marlos]

Welcome to CFC!

It sounds like you have the right idea. You can also transform some specials to be other specials (spice can be 'mined' into silk) as well!

Personally, I try to change my specials into wheat, silk, buffalo, and wine. Iron and coal are also good as they are!

If a large population is your goal, change everything to grassland or plains.

 

[johnnymiller]

Thanks Marlos,
Am I right in saying that your final score is based on 3 factors, one of which is population? i.e. the greater the population, the greater the score.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

If played right, population will be the huge majority of your score. There are also wonders, spaceship, pollution, barbarian level, and peace bonus that can affect your score. If you conquer the world, an early conquest bonus can also apply.

 

[ElephantU]

Terrain is a primary way you adjust the Food/Trade/Shields production of your cities, aside from adding more citizens. But then, you need more food to support more citizens, so it is Catch-22. You can also play with terrain to maximize different kinds of production at different times in the game: food and trade early on to grow your cities and speed research, shields later for building wonders or spaceship parts. Some people try to max their cities out with as many citizens as they can keep happy, then turn as much terrain as they can spare from food production into shields terrain (forests or hills). In terms of efficiency, it is all in the terrain you are given at the start and how the game goes. If you are stuck on one of the poles you have a lot of work to do. If you are behind in techs you should be looking for trade specials and building a SuperScienceCity. If you are on an island you should be planting your cities along the coast and researching Seafaring (for Harbors).

There is also a trick to know about special terrain: it falls into two "classes", call them Whale-class and Fish-class. You can see it for yourself by starting MapEditor with a blank ocean map and drawing some different terrain tiles over the Whale and Fish specials: you get new terrain specials for every land tile except Grass. There are also rules for what you can mine or irrigate into other kinds of terrain (like irrigating Forest into Plains) and another set of rules for "transforming" terrain with Engineers. Here is a WordPad/MSWord DOC that puts the special kinds into three columns, and lists how long it takes to change each (in "Settler-Turns"; Engineers take half the time):

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/terrain.zip

 

[el_kalkylus]

I have heard some people use terrain to locate other civilizations. How do you do this? (besides looking if there are irrigations, mines, roads etc nearby.)

 

[Marlos]

I think that you will have to be more specific, el_kalkylus. How else could someone possibly know where a civ is other than how you mentioned?

 

[funxus]

I've heard about it too. Using the demographics you can, with an embassy, see other nations info. If you also know how a map is made in civ2 you can see in what part of the world the civ might be. i.e. the terrain is different at the equator than close to the poles. I have never used it, because I don't know how to do it, but apparently it's possible. A big population needs a lot of grassland, and if you know where to find a lot of grassland, you know where to look for the civ.

 

[el_kalkylus]

I just heard that you could use the terrain coordinates to locate islands. Water has a coordinate 1, while islands/continents have number 2 to total number of islands. So a black square could show if it is a new land or water without having to explore it.

I also just found out that you can use units to look if what city is close to it. Go to the units home-town and right click on the unit. You will then see what city it's close to. This is a good way to find other civilizations.

 

[funxus]

You can also click all the squares on a map to find out where all the cities are. When you click the map, it will center on the square you clicked, unless it contains a city. It's a bit hard work though

 

[Marlos]

Yes, you can locate a city that has a wonder in it using the 'locate city' command, even if you haven't physically found that city yet. The map will be centered on that city in the black.

 

[el_kalkylus]

Thanks

 

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by funxus
I've heard about it too. Using the demographics you can, with an embassy, see other nations info. If you also know how a map is made in civ2 you can see in what part of the world the civ might be. i.e. the terrain is different at the equator than close to the poles. I have never used it, because I don't know how to do it, but apparently it's possible. A big population needs a lot of grassland, and if you know where to find a lot of grassland, you know where to look for the civ.

I doubt that this will work very well as a single-player feature because it was originally developed for MP with two players, although if you were prepared to spend longer on it it may work for more.
The basic idea is to switch the squares your city is working while you both only have single cities. You then try to get as many shields as possible and check whether you are first or second for production in the demographics. By moving your worked tile in the city screen and checking the demographics each time you will ber able to work out how many shields the other city is producing. Doing the same for trade and food should tell you what the other person's city produces each turn and you can calculate what specials they have and whereabouts on the map these specials are likely to occur. It won't give a precise location, only a latitude, but can help you with exploration for early contact and maybe conquest in a few turns!

Apologies to the person who discovered this feature but I have forgotten your name. A search of this forum ought to yield a much better explanation of this trick than mine though, and a credit for whoever came up with this.

 

[funxus]

Wow, that's an awfully lot of work I believe, I'd never even bother at all. Still if it can help you