Contents

• Getting Started -- The Early Game
• The Middle Game
• The Late Period -- Civ Goes Modern
• The End Game
• Did ya know?
• Special Cities: The Science City and the Production City
• Wonders of the World
• Civilization II Governments Compared
• Civilization II Data Tables and notes
• Extending and Customizing Civilization II
• Civ 2 Leader Characteristics Table from rules.txt
• Civ 2 Advances Definition Table from rules.txt
• City Improvements Table from rules.txt
• Units table from rules.txt
• Terrain table from rules.txt
• Basic Terrain Squares
• Terrain table from rules.txt
• Special Terrain Icons
• The “Wish List”
• Civ2 Maps and Map Editor
• Other Resources

Getting Started -- The Early Game

My early game strategy concentrates on getting my first city off to a good start and then a rush to expand rapidly. That means I want to get several other cities started quickly, explore my surroundings, found my Science City and grab a few key Wonders of the World. In this time period, I am typically aggressively expansionist and militarily ruthless, especially if I encounter neighbors like me!

The three keys to success in this time period: expand, expand, expand.

Your First City

There you are--a settler or two, a little bit of the map visible. Need to build that first city, but where? The best choice for your first city is a non-dimpled (no shield) grassland square. Since you automatically get a road, irrigation and a resource in the city square, building on a grassland square maximizes your food production and doesn’t waste a resource. Second choice is either a plains square since it saves you from having to irrigate the square to make it useful, or a dimpled grassland square since although it wastes a resource, it does maximize your food production. Starting on a site with wheat or buffalo can be a huge head start, and including one or more special resources like whales, fish, buffalo, wheat, silk or pheasant within the city’s radius is highly advantageous as well.

Near or on a river is nearly always good spot to found a city, especially the first one. Rivers increase the trade available, provide a ready source of water for irrigation and speed transportation along them. Plus, cities founded on river squares avoid the need to acquire bridge-building to get a road across the river.

If there is no river nearby, try to maximize the available dimpled grasslands. Plains squares are also nice, but you’ll need to irrigate them before they will produce more food than it costs to work them. Founding a city in an area entirely of plains is sometimes necessary but poses both short and long term problems. In the short run, you’ll have to irrigate to get the city to grow at all, but to irrigate you’ll have to have a settler/engineer--which the city won’t have the extra food to support. Long term food production is also a problem and it will rapidly reach a maximum supportable size which will require the late period advance of Refrigeration (to build Supermarket to exploit the farmland your engineers will have to create) to exceed.

If I’m lucky enough to find a “hut” immediately nearby, I will go trigger it right away. Be sure to save just before you move onto it! I want either another settler (wandering nomad) or a fast unit (horseman, chariot or elephant). I’ll do a game reload with any other result (exception: if given “Monarchy” as an advance I’ll keep that!) By triggering the hut before building the first city, the unit has “none” for a home and will never have any support cost. If its a settler, I’ll usually keep it and immediately put it to use making improvements, especially roads. If I got a fast military unit, then it goes exploring looking for rival civs and more huts.

In any case, don't take more than a few turns finding a spot. Every turn you spend wandering in search of a location, your rivals are collecting taxes, building things, and looking for you!

What to Research?

Shortly after founding your first city, you’ll offered some choices for a technological advance to research. Which path to take in research is a difficult question. Compared to Civ 1, the Civ2 technology tree is much larger and better thought-out to make almost all of the advances useful and necessary. Personally, I want to get Bronze Working right away for phalanxes, and Horseback Riding for horsemen. Next priority is to get Monarchy which needs Code of Laws and Ceremonial Burial. I also want to get Trade as quickly as possible to produce caravans, so that means the Currency-Code of Laws-Writing group. If you’re going after the Great Library (see Wonders below) then you need Literacy. I also want the Wheel soon, both for chariots and because it leads to Invention.

In fact, my most important medium term research goal is Invention. Needed for Gunpowder and Railroads, even more importantly, it allows building Leonardo’s Workshop Wonder (below).

Although Railroads are no longer the overwhelming advantage they were in Civ 1, they are still very important. As in Civ 1, they cut your defense costs enormously because you need fewer units since you can shuttle a small, powerful army anywhere along your rail net in one turn. Second, any square with a railroad gets a 50% bonus (rounded down) to resource production. Unlike Civ 1, there’s no impact on food or trade, so early on this will only benefit special squares (pheasant, buffalo, and mines) and forests but even limited this way, Railroad is important.

Gunpowder is now also a major goal. The radical changes in Civ 2’s combat system have made this the major advance that it should be. Musketeers are now powerful units that will consistently and routinely defeat their pre-gunpowder opponents. Fortified in a city with walls or in a fortress, they are almost invulnerable to pre-gunpowder units. On offense, an early industrial-era force of musketeers and ironclads can wreak havoc on a medieval or ancient society.

Expansion in Ancient Period

Early in the game, cities should stay small to get the maximum benefit from a small population, to keep costs down and generate settlers for expansion. Aggressive expansion with new cities is vital to firmly “claim” as much land as possible. Lining a coast with cities so their production radii just touch or overlap a bit will prevent later encroachment by “friendly” rivals. Likewise, in a large land mass, creating a ring of interlocking cities will isolate the area from other civs and let you then develop it without having to worry about another civ moving in. A key part of this process is finding natural choke points in the land mass where you can lock out the other civs with a city or two. In most areas you shouldn’t rely on units for this function for very long--the computer civs will move a settler right up to your unit, found a city and then demand you move your units out of their territory (or break the treaty)! Sneaky and nasty, but effective--and a technique you can use, too. Do whatever you have to do to stake out a large territory now, because it will never get easier. But when founding these new cities keep in mind that eventually your expansion will stop. Sooner or later you will run into another civilization, or fill up your starting continent. With that in mind, you should found cities to minimize overlap when they reach their maximum growth.

Once your first city is built, the first thing to do is to build a warrior (phalanx or archer if you have the option) to first explore the immediate countryside and then defend the city. Warriors are the cheapest and quickest units you can build and what we need is a quick unit to get some exploring done right away. You need to know where to build your next city, locate any nearby rivals and trigger any close by “goodie huts” for military units, advances, or added cities.

Next priority is to defend that first city. Either build another unit, or if you got a military unit from a hut, bring the Warrior home and let the new unit explore. Now build a settler which makes a road or two to boost your trade and then it founds a new city.

Each time you build a new city, you should immediately assign or build a unit to defend it. Even “friendly” civilizations will take an undefended city, and even warlike civilizations will talk before attacking a defended city. New cities near the edges of your empire are the most vulnerable to barbarian attack, so don't leave any frontier city undefended for long. As soon as the first settler is built in each city, add a Chariot or Elephant (Horseman if you don’t have either of those available) as a second military unit. That will strengthen the defense somewhat, but more importantly, will give you an ability to chase and capture barbarian leaders for the ransom money and destroy offensive units like chariots or catapults before they can attack your city.

Once you have a second city, one of them should produce a settler and then begin building Wonders. At lower difficulty levels this can be delayed a bit, but at King or higher, failure to start now can result in missing a key early wonder (see section on Wonders below). The city for early Wonder projects should have a good supply of irrigated plains or grassland squares with resources and one or two squares should be forested or hills. If we’re going to build Wonders here, then resource production would seem to be what you’d want to maximize and that is indeed important. However, since my first long-range goal is to set the stage for Science City (below), I’ll be looking to maximize the trade available even at the cost of resources--so, river squares and roads are vital. Sending in Caravans can compensate for a less-than-ideal resource situation, but lots of trade arrows are this city’s real key to long-term success. And don’t forget that the city that’s building Wonders will need another military unit or two to keep order and ensure its defense. Build them elsewhere and then “home” them there once you’ve moved them into the Science City.

Initially, you don't need to spend resources to improve any of your cities. While a granary or a temple may seem like a good idea, they cost money for upkeep and they're not needed right away. Money not spent on upkeep can be used many other ways, so be sure you can afford to pay for the upkeep on the improvements before you build them. Barracks may seem like a good idea and for some players, they are. However, they absorb shields I prefer to use in Caravans and they become obsolete and have to be rebuilt. If you feel like you need Barracks, I’d recommend getting the Sun Tzu’s War Academy Wonder instead.

During the early and middle parts of the game, every new city should follow the same pattern. Build or assign a unit to guard it. Produce a settler who accomplishes a few improvements and then founds another city. In the meantime, the city produces a second unit (preferably a mounted unit for speed) and then shifts to turning out Caravans for trade routes and Wonders. When its settler founds a new city, it should replace it and then return to building Caravans. However, once the city has grown to size 4-7 (depends on number of cities and level of difficulty), a Temple becomes a necessity to keep the populace content.

Your First Government

At the start of the game your government is Despotism. Normally that will be the only government type you have available, and it will have to do at first. But its major limitation is food production because grasslands do not benefit from irrigation under Despotism. The impact of this one fact is far-reaching. Every citizen in a city requires two food and any extra food is stored away. Accumulate enough in storage and your city grows by one citizen. If your city is to continue growing, you need at least one more food than you need to feed your citizens which means that generally speaking the only “extra” food will come from the city square itself while in Despotism. Secondarily, its high level of corruption and waste means that the size of your empire can soon become a case of diminishing returns.

So, as soon as possible you want to switch to Monarchy. Under Monarchy you can grow and expand much faster. However, even if they become available quickly, I would not recommend switching to the later government forms until your initial rush for expansion is complete or nearly so. (Governments are discussed in a later section.)

The Ancient Wonders of the World

See the table at the end of this document. Like your choices of which technological advances to pursue, there’s no one, easy answer to which WoWs you should build. My choices are driven first by what I have the prerequisite advances for, second by what I need for the Science City and third by what I want to keep out my rival’s hands. Typically that means I go for Colossus first, with either the Great Wall or the Great Library next. If I can get it before they do, I like to get the Oracle at any level, but its almost a necessity at Emperor or Deity level. However, I often can’t get it because I have to use the resources to grab one or more of the Medieval Wonders before I lose them to an opponent.

Roads and Irrigation in the Ancient Period

It's likely that you will need to irrigate squares early in the game especially once you can switch to Monarchy. But, you can only irrigate a square that has an adjacent source of water. Initially, this means squares adjacent to an ocean, lake (inland ocean square) or river square. However, irrigated squares also count as a source of water, so you can steadily irrigate inland. So, if I find a large area of plains with no nearby source of water, I will generally leave most or all of it alone until later in the game when I can afford to spend the time irrigating my way into it. Note that once established, it is not necessary to maintain the chain of irrigated squares. If, for example, you irrigate a hill, irrigate an adjacent plains square, and then change the hill into a mine, you will not lose the irrigation in the plains square. Irrigation adds one to the food in a square. This means that a plains square will now produce two food which makes them useful. However, under Despotism, irrigation has no effect on food production in grassland squares which is the most important reason you want to switch to Monarchy as soon as possible.

While the movement benefit of roads is important, the economic benefit (trade) is even more so. Roads add one trade to a grassland or plains square. Initially, roads and rivers will be the primary source of trade for most cities. The basic square under Despotism produces two food, one resource, and two trade. To achieve this, a dimpled grassland needs only a road, and a plains square needs irrigation and a road. In addition to the monetary (tax) benefit, increasing your trade will also increase your science research production, so be sure to add roads to every square that can benefit from it.

Early Warfare

The changes in Civ 2 have made most of the early military units useful now. To defend your cities you want pikemen, but the phalanxes will do until you get the necessary advance. For offensive operations you’ll want elephants, but chariots will have to do if you don’t have the needed advance. Archers are a compromise unit, reasonably good both offensively and defensively, and often available early. However, I tend to avoid them because they’re more expensive than phalanxes for defense and too slow for an effective offense. Horsemen aren’t adequate as combat units, but they’re inexpensive and make good scouts. When available, legions have good firepower, but like archers, their slowness limits their usefulness in most offensive operations.

As in Civ 1, many early units have a very low defense strength (one), so often the side that attacks first will win. Chariots, elephants and horsemen move two spaces each turn, so they can advance and attack. Other units must move adjacent to the enemy first, which means the enemy can attack first and likely win. Despite this, the defender often has the advantage. Hills double defense strength, and mountains triple it. A fortified phalanx on a hill has a defense strength which is enough to defeat a chariot's attack most of the time. Even in grassland, a group of fortified phalanxes is strong enough to at least slow an attacking force down dramatically. With their increased defensive abilities against mounted attack, pikemen are particularly good as defensive units. With their higher attack factor and not being “mounted units,” catapults are the best method for attacking positions like this, though their slowness makes them vulnerable to a preemptive attack by the mounted troops unless stacked with a pikemen.

Early offensive operations can be effectively conducted by capitalizing on this defensive advantage. Taking control of an area can be done by moving units into unoccupied squares, fortifying the position and letting your opponent attack. He will often lose or at least weaken several units this way--to the point that your counterattack will then succeed easily.

It's important to note that units stacked together outside a city or fortress only defend as well as the single, best defensive unit in the stack. If that unit loses, the entire stack will be destroyed. Sometimes it's worthwhile to stack a defensive unit such as a pikeman with an offensive unit such as a catapult or a chariot, but it's usually a bad idea to stack more units than that -- but watch for cases when your opponents make that mistake and be sure to capitalize on it.

Advantages of Small and Large Cities

As you play Civ 2, you’ll find that both small and large cities have their advantages. However, in the early centuries, small cities have several powerful advantages. The most important of these is the free use of the city square. A size ten city can work eleven squares, including the city square. Ten size one cities can work twenty squares, one for each citizen and one for each city square.

Small cities grow faster under Despotism and Monarchy. The amount of food needed to generate a new citizen depends on the size of the city and whether a granary is present. Even more importantly, large cities require expensive improvements to keep the populace content. Once a city grows past a certain size, every new citizen is unhappy instead of content (depends on difficulty level, and total number of cities you’ve built). The bottom line is that in the early game the advantage is on lots of small cities. With the Science City and Production City (below) as major exceptions, I manage most of my early cities to keep them in the 3-6 range by generating settlers from them so I can expand rapidly.

However, larger cities do have definite advantages as well. While smaller cities can work the land with fewer citizens, larger cities can get more from that work. City improvements can multiply the effective trade and resource production of the land. These improvements are impractical for small cities, since they cost more to maintain than they produce unless the city is large. Larger cities can also absorb more unhappy citizens without going into civil disorder. This can be crucial to waging war in a Democracy or a Republic.

Diplomacy

Early in the game its almost always worthwhile to talk to an emissary from another civilization. But be cautious about establishing “permanent” treaties with the other civs if you don’t really intend to keep the peace with them. The personality of the other civ has a lot to do with who you ought to consider making treaties with, but unless you want to be at war with everyone and have no one willing to make peace, be careful about breaking treaties or violating a cease-fire.

Early on, almost all civilizations are willing to make peace, even if they make threats first. On the other hand, demands for tribute will get less results if you've already accepted a peace treaty. If you really wish to demand tribute and don't mind being at war, refuse the offer of peace. If the other civilization is truly afraid of you, they will offer money, civilization advances, or both in exchange for peace.

Also be careful about trading technologies. I’m very reluctant to give most neighbors much of anything, unless I suspect he has several things I want and I’m already planning to conquer him soon. In that case, I know I’ll get an advance for every city of his I take, but if he only has one city and three advances, then I need to trade for two of them first. If I find one of the non-aggressive, perfectionists civs as a neighbor, then I’m likely to trade with him because he’ll primarily want the non-military advances that I’m more willing to give up.

The Middle Game

The time period of the game I characterize as the “middle game” is roughly the medieval period up through the early industrial advances.

Its decision time. While you can change your mind later, some basic choices have to be made about long term strategy which will largely determine your tactics for this time period. The most fundamental choice is whether to pursue a path of conquest, or one that ends in a late game space race. Secondarily, you need to choose between an expansionist or isolationist strategy. Although I’ll comment on a few of the differences, I’m going to concentrate on maximizing your score and that means a long game, expanding for maximum population, and ending the game with the successful founding of your Alpha Centauri colony.

Based on this, my middle game objectives are to find all my rivals and to begin to control them, continue my expansion, develop my Production City and achieve a significant technological lead on the computer players. If I can find a suitable civ, I will cultivate one of the computer players as a trading partner and ally--ideally, a smaller civ with a civilized/rational leader. The others need to be watched carefully and the aggressive ones may have to become part of my expanding empire--whether they like it or not.

For most of this time period I’ll remain in Monarchy, however, I normally switch to Communism or Republic sometime in this period to prepare for the difficult move to Democracy.

The Question of Government

By this time you should have a choice of at least a few governments and choosing between them is an interesting question. Each has advantages and disadvantages, and I’m not sure there is any such thing as the “best.” There’s a table comparing the various governments at the end of this paper. I find I spend the majority of this period in Monarchy, although I’ve successfully used Communism, especially if my empire has gotten geographically large since it dramatically reduces the loss of trade arrows due to corruption. Others report liking Fundamentalism, especially if you intend a game of conquest. But since my overall goal is usually to win via the Space Race, the penalty to science is too steep for me to stay in this government very long. I’ve used Republic, too, and it is even more productive than either Monarchy or Communism, but the Senate’s interference can be a problem, its more difficult to keep everyone happy and the loss of the no-support-cost units makes fielding a good sized military force difficult since my cities are numerous, but still fairly small. These latter problems are compounded in Democracy and unless I can get several WoWs very early, I find Democracy impractical at this point.

Cities Big and Small

Early in the game I actively discouraged cities from growing large by producing lots of settlers. In this period that is likely to change because I may run out of room to expand and at least some of the cities now need to grow larger for their greater production potential. Frequently I end up with a core of older cities which I encourage to grow while the others continue to spawn settlers/engineers to fill up whatever territory still remains unclaimed.

Encouraging your cities to grow primarily means irrigation, especially for grassland squares. Some forest squares can be irrigated, but since they become plains squares, they cannot be as productive as grasslands, so the grasslands come first. Swamps and jungle should also be selectively irrigated to convert them to more productive use. However large areas of swamp or jungle will take a lot of time to make productive, so they’re best left alone until you have no other territory to develop and have engineers who can do the job quicker.

Earlier almost all my caravans went to building WoWs, now I will use some of them to establish lucrative trade routes between large cities, preferably on other continents, or even better with other civilizations.

Civic improvements are now becoming necessary. Temples will be needed to keep the populace happy and marketplaces are appropriate for most cities to increase your trade (and therefore the science output). Libraries are appropriate in cities already generating 8-10 “beakers”. You should already have a library in your Science City, add a University as soon as allowed. With those and a typical city of size 8-12, you should be seeing advances every 5-9 turns, perhaps even quicker. If you bypassed the Pyramids earlier, then granaries will dramatically speed your cities growth--perhaps so much so that unhappiness becomes a problem. In fact, unhappiness now starts becoming a major issue especially if you’re playing at Emperor or Deity level. Unhappiness is triggered not only by growth within a city, but once you’ve built a large number of cities (the number is dependent on difficulty level), then every new citizen added starts as unhappy. Michelanglo’s Chapel is, therefore, a critically important WoW as is Bach’s Cathedral. At Emperor or Deity you’ll need to add more improvements (coliseum, bank, etc.) to keep most everyone happy. Cathedrals will be a necessity if you weren’t able to grab Michelanglo’s Chapel.

On the economic side of things, all these civic improvements will bust your tax budget if you’re not careful. Be careful to keep your upkeep expenses within the income your taxes are generating--here again, those trade routes and marketplaces are important because of the tax income they can generate. I consider Adam Smith’s Trading Co. a critical WoW in this period because it removes the upkeep costs for all those temples, marketplaces, and granaries. With the Trading Co. in place I can keep my taxes low, science rate high and still be generating a reasonable income every turn.

Expansion in the Middle Game

Although your rate of expansion may have slowed by now, you still need to be adding new cities at a steady pace. Look for holes in the territory that you claimed early in the game and fill them in. Your exploration may turn up small land masses suitable for one or two cities--grab them now as jump-off points and forward observation posts. You may also want them as way-points for the aircraft that you’ll be developing and deploying later.

Of course, you can also use conquest to expand. This can be very attractive now since absorbing a rival’s area and cities will give a huge and almost instant boost. However, diverting the resources to first producing military units and then conducting a protracted war can make this a tough choice. For me, it comes down to exploiting opportunities as they present themselves. I will provoke a war over an area of land I particularly want, or as a way to keep a rival from becoming dangerously large, but I want to avoid large, protracted wars if I can. Instead, I look for opportunities to nibble away at the other civs--a quick acquisition by force or a cheap “buy out” by diplomat. This is needed not just to sustain your own growth, but also to put the brakes on rivals who are uncomfortably powerful.

Middle Game Diplomacy

To further my goals for the period, I will use diplomacy to establish and keep good relations with one or two friendly rival civs. If your keep your reputation good, you should be able to keep the peace with them for a very long time. Eventually, even the best of them will be jealous enough to start a war, but for now you can probably keep at least one of them friendly.

By now, you may well have enough cash to exploit another way to use your diplomats--inciting revolts in selected cities of your rivals. Doing so furthers two goals at once--expands your empire and curbs theirs. It gets you an intact city boosting your trade/science/production while decreasing theirs by the same amount. I’ve used it to thwart a rival who had the audacity to found a city on “my” continent or “my area” of a shared continent. I’ve also used it to grab isolated cities of an opponent--that nice little island well away from the rest of his empire, perhaps? By inciting smaller cities and/or ones that are some distance from his capital, the price is much reduced, often to the point where its cheaper to buy the city than to produce the units, go to war, and take it. Another way to reduce the price is to use diplomats/spies to sabotage one or more of his “happiness” improvements-Cathedrals or Coliseums are nice targets. Once the city becomes disrupted, the price of a revolt is decreased by 50%.

Otherwise my Diplomatic approach is simply to further my goals. If I need to be at war with someone, then I can use diplomacy to provoke it or get a cease-fire when I need a rest. I’ll try not to damage my reputation too much but breaking a treaty or a cease-fire may be a strategic necessity somewhere in this time.

Medieval & Early Industrial-Period Warfare

The key issue here is simply that you need to be the first civilization to get gunpowder, metallurgy and steam power. Unlike Civ 1, a force of musketeers and cannons on land and ironclads at sea will be more impeded by the speed at which they can move than the iron age forces that are all that should be opposing them. Your advantage may not last long, but while it lasts, its powerful--so exploit it. Depending on who your neighbor(s) turn out to be, this is a good time to consider taking over the rest of your continent if you’ve not already done so. However, I like to keep one or two computer players alive and well in this period, the non-aggressive, perfectionist and/or rational types. Mainly that’s so I’ll have a prosperous civ to set up lucrative trade routes with, and it also allows me to concentrate on controlling or eliminating the others.

On land, only a walled city containing multiple knights or legions will resist your attack sufficiently to be a serious obstacle. If you need such a city badly enough it will still fall, but it may well prove a costly, lengthy process. Moving lots of musketeers up and fortifying them will give you a base on which to lay siege and enable you to move the otherwise vulnerable cannons (catapults will do if you don’t have cannon yet) into range. If you occupy most or all the resource-producing squares for the city he will be forced to attack or lose some or all of the units supported by the city. And by attacking, he loses the benefits of the walls, so your musketeers may be damaged by his attacks, but he’s unlikely to be able to destroy enough of them to lift the siege. Weakened by the attacks, he becomes even more vulnerable to your counterattack and the city falls. Of course, the real problem is that this takes time, lots of it, so this city had better be really important. Otherwise, isolate it and go on.

At sea, you now have a unit with enough firepower to make a port without city walls immediately vulnerable. A couple of veteran ironclads and a couple caravels or galleons with veteran musketeers and crusaders/dragoons will make quick work of most port cities.

One caveat. Don’t forget that metallurgy will make the Great Wall WoW obsolete and that means all those nice, protective city walls will go down as soon as the discovery is made. Not a good idea to have an enemy or a horde of barbarians just outside the city when the walls go down. This will make the mayor very peeved with you . So, either make sure you’ve built city walls in the vulnerable cities or delay metallurgy until its safe.

Another critical item in this period is Leonardo’s Workshop. Since it instantly updates all your units as you get new capabilities, you not only need to have it, you also must not allow it in a rivals hands!

The Late Period -- Civ Goes Modern

This period is the most difficult to provide useful comments on, both because there’s so much to comment on and because so much depends on how the game has gone until this point. You may find yourself in the fortunate circumstance of being the only significant power left, or you may find yourself up against a major power with weapons as advanced as yours or about to build a spaceship in competition with yours. The comments below are, therefore, fairly general in nature and “...your mileage may vary.”

The Question of Government

In my mind, the question of which government to choose finally gets easy--if I’m in an extended war, then its Fundamentalism, if not, then I’m in a Democracy. The science/trade/production advantages of Democracy are overwhelming, but controlling the populace is difficult if you’re going to have to have a significant army in the field (see however the Production City). And even with the UN WoW, staying at war is difficult because of the interference by the Senate. So, my approach is to switch to Democracy as soon as I have JS Bach’s Cathedral and Women’s Suffrage. Normally I’ll also wait until I have Statue of Liberty to avoid the 4-turn period of anarchy between governments. After that, I’ll trigger a revolt if I just need a turn to conduct a quick attack and then reinstate democracy. If I expect a major war, a switch to Fundamentalism is in order. The ten units per city with no support costs will allow for a rapid build up. No unhappiness means not worrying about moving massive forces out of your cities. And the tithes generated mean a large income that can be spent buying units and inciting cities to revolt (unless your opponent stays in a democracy). However, staying in Fundamentalism is dangerous if you have a technological rival or an opponent whose technology is nearly equal to yours. His science rate will stay high while yours drops with the 50% penalty. Over time, this can become a serious problem, so as soon as the war is successfully over, I want to switch back to Democracy.

In any case, once whenever you make the switch to Democracy you need to reset your tax/science/luxury rates so that you generate a nice income, have advances every 1-3 turns and a luxury rate of 20-30%. With that you should generate a quick series of “We Love the____” days which will cause your population to explode. You also need to check the Attitude Advisor. Any city with one or more unhappy faces should be checked to see what the cause is. You may not be able to cure them all, but you don’t want any nasty surprises later. If things are peaceful, you may be able to move some units into cities to avoid the unhappiness. And for the long term, if you’ve not already done so, now would be a good time to start setting up defensive fortresses on the perimeter of your empire--to defend it and serve as an “early warning network.” Remember that units inside fortresses that are within 3 squares of any friendly city don’t create unhappiness.

Late Period Wonders

See the table below also. The bad news is that you really need nearly all the late industrial era and modern period WoWs. The good news is that you may be able to get them because there’s a reasonable chance you’ve gotten far enough ahead to beat your rivals to those you need. The really critical ones are Hoover Dam and Women’s Suffrage. If you’re going to try to fight a war while in Democracy, the you also need to put the UN on your “must have” list as well. I consider Woman’s Suffrage a prerequisite to switching to Democracy, so that’s the first of all the modern WoW’s I go after. The huge boost to production and reduction in pollution that results from Hoover Dam makes it a critical item as well.

Civic Improvements and Rise of the Skyscraper

By now, your large cities are probably fighting three problems--citizen unhappiness, pollution and food supply. Each problem can be controlled with some group of improvements and eventually you’ll need them nearly all of them. Which ones are needed at any one time is simply a matter of reacting to the need, or even better, anticipating it. For example, adding sewers will allow your cities to expand beyond size 12 but you might need a supermarket or harbor to have the food to fuel the growth and you may need mass transit to control the resulting pollution.

If you have significant military rivals, don’t neglect things like coastal fortresses and city walls in ports and border towns if you don’t already have them. If they have advanced technology, consider SAM batteries.

Transportation can now be rapid and convenient. At least one city on every continent should build an airport and, of course, all cities on each land mass should have railroads interconnecting them. With that combination, you can move units anywhere you control essentially instantly.

Expansion in the Late Game

Generally I find that my expansion through founding new cities slows dramatically late in the game for a variety of reasons. For one thing, I’m concentrating on growth within my cities and using my production for all those city improvements and not for making settlers/engineers. Also, there’s normally little open land left on the map at this point, and even if I find some, my engineers are busy making lots of improvements to terrain rather than founding new cities. However, I will found a few new cities in attractive locations that I’ve not used before or just recently found.

The alternative method of expansion is to seize some or all of your opponents’ territory and cities. The degree to which this is possible depends on just how dominant you are militarily and technologically. At the one extreme, I’ve found it often possible to reduce my opponents to a single civilization with one city which I tightly surround with fortresses and units. At the other extreme, I’ve also found myself fighting a major war with one rival while racing against another to get the spaceship built and launched. The first situation will result in great scores, but the latter will result in great games!

Late Game Diplomacy

My goal now is to become the dominate player on the map and the use of spies and diplomacy is important. Generally I’ll avoid “entangling alliances” now, but I’ll choose carefully who I’ll go to war with--not because they’re a threat but because I can’t count on staying at war for long unless I switch to Fundamentalism.

Late Industrial-Period and Modern Warfare

Warfare at this point can be almost non-existent or you can have an on-going, global war that makes the real World Wars look puny in comparison. If you’re playing a game below King level, especially on a small map, you probably don’t have any opponents who are a real threat militarily. But at King level and higher, and often on large maps at any level, you may well find yourself with an opponent who has military technology nearly equal to yours.

The big difficulty in this time period is sustaining a large military force in the field while still in a Democracy. As discussed above, one solution is to switch to Fundamentalism--a great idea if you anticipate the need for a massive buildup and an extended war. However, the 50% loss in science production makes this an option I’ll employ only if I’m well ahead technologically and won’t need the research to make building the spaceship possible. The other obvious way is to stay in Democracy and simply gather 1-2 units from each city so that no one city is driven into disruption by the unhappiness. However, this costs 1-2 shields for support in each of your cities and not all of them may be able to afford the loss of shields.

Another alternative is the Production City which really comes into its glory in this time period. By maximizing the shield production in this city and placing the Shakespeare’s Theater WoW in it, you can make it the home for most, if not all, of your entire force. This is especially advantageous for bombers and missile units because it avoids trouble from the unhappiness that such units will always generate otherwise.

A third alternative is to use hordes of Spies to do your conquest by inciting revolts. But this won’t work against a rival who is also in a Democracy.

In the modern period you’ll have a bewildering variety of units available and its not easy picking which ones you need. Like Civ1, battleships are a dominant force in the first part of this period. A Veteran Battleship combined with a transport load of some combination of riflemen, paratroopers, marines and armor can take virtually any port city on the map. At least that’s true if your opponent lacks battleships, bombers and cruise missiles. When they become available, bombers are extremely effective for taking non-port cities. With a few bombers to knock out the defenders, the land forces will have little trouble taking most cities. And since the bombers and howitzers can ignore city walls, these cities are now vulnerable. Armor is useful throughout the remainder of the game with its good combination of speed and firepower. When available, Mech. Infantry units are the best defensive units both at home and away. Paratroopers, marines and howitzers are specialized units that I only build if I have a particular need for them.

Like the real world, a few carrier battle groups can effectively control the Civ 2 seas. Built around a carrier loaded with a mix of bombers and fighters, you want to include a sub or two (loaded with cruise missiles and/or nuclear missiles!), a battleship and several AEGIS cruisers (cruisers/destroyers will do until you can build the AEGIS units). The computer player will employ such groups as well, but he doesn’t do a good job coordinating his units and employing their special abilities. And he has the habit of stacking too many ships together--remember nukes generate no pollution at sea, so they’re just the thing to take out that carrier and 3 cruisers the AI will stack together!

Go Nuclear, or Not?

Speaking of nukes, the Manhattan Project is the one WoW you might want to actively avoid. If you get it, then any player with the technology can, and will, deploy nuclear weapons. Once the genie is released you can’t control it. And the computer players will show no more reluctance in nuking your cities than they do sending musketeers against your armor units. If you can avoid having nuclear weapons appear in the game at all it will probably be to your advantage. However, if you’re certain that they’re going to get them, then make sure you produce them too--they seem slightly less likely to use them if you also have some. But just in case, start building SDI everywhere.

The one really useful way to employ nuclear weapons is at sea. Carriers, and submarines especially, are very useful ways to control the seas when loaded with a few nuclear missiles. Used on a rival’s ships, they will destroy his navy while generating none of the pollution that will quickly become a problem if used on land.

The End Game

Okay, you’ve survived and perhaps become dominant--or maybe not dominant but at least you’ve survived. Now how to end the game and win?

Basically there are two ways to win of course--either eliminate all the other civs or be the first to successfully get the spaceship to Alpha Centauri. If you can take the time and wish to expend the effort in maximizing your score, then you’ll want to:

• Eliminate all other civs except for one city of one other player. It should not be a port, have no WoWs, and it should be surrounded by fortresses containing mechanized infantry.
• Fill the map to the maximum extent possible with cities and transform most terrain for maximum food production.
• Build all WoWs needed or not.
• Keep the population as happy as possible.
• Build the largest allowed spaceship, but wait to launch it so that it will arrive within the last few turns (or just before an opponent’s spaceship).
• Pump up your science production so you’re getting a “future tech” advance every turn.

If you’ve gotten here but there’s another civ also building a spaceship, then you have to get there first. Offensively, that means you have to slow him down. Disrupt his production of components with spies, snatch a few cities away, whatever it takes. You can go after his capital which might destroy his spaceship, but if he has the 1,000 in cash to pay for it, he can relocate his capital and barely miss a beat. Defensively you need to build the spacecraft components quickly--every city not producing components should send caravans to those that are. Disband the caravans--you lose 50% of the shields, but its better than nothing. Also disband any military units you know you won’t need, especially in the cities producing components--that frees up the support cost shields and adds 50% of their shield value when disbanded. Finally, if you have to, maximize the engines and fuel on your ship (make sure you have fusion power for that bonus) while leaving everything else at the minimum--that could mean that your ship will be faster than his and get there first even if you launch second.

Then just sit back and enjoy the end-of-game sequence and pat yourself on the back for the new high score--until the next game that is !

Did ya know?...

This section is a collection of tidbits of information about Civ2 that don’t fit anywhere else but are too cool to leave out!

1. You know you can use a Diplomat/Spy to examine a city. Did you know that if you click on the “rename” button that it will let you rename the city even though it doesn’t belong to you? There’s a lot of obvious and impolite things you can name them, but my favorite is the guy who says he renames his target “next”.
2. If you need to edit a map in “cheat” mode to set up a scenario, you know that shift+F8 will let you modify the terrain. Undocumented, but handy is control+shift+F8 which will copy the last terrain change to the square the cursor is currently on.
3. Nuclear deterrence works in Civ 2? You can reduce the chances of another civ using their nukes on you by possessing some yourself, but not using them. If another civ has them but you don’t, or if you ever use them, then all the AI civs become much more likely to use them.
4. You probably know that the “fast settler” bug/feature in Civ 1 got fixed. But have you noticed that if you interrupt a settler/engineer in the middle of a task and send him off to do something else, he doesn’t lose the accumulated turns of effort? Works well to clear pollution quickly if you need to by simply interrupting an engineer in the middle of a long irrigation or a terrain transformation project.
5. In versions of Civ2 before 1.11, there’s a bug in Civ2’s handling of fighters. At any point during the move of a fighter you can issue the “fortify” command and it will do so! It will then sit in that very spot forever and, even better, when you reactivate the unit, it will have its full movement points.
6. Don’t sweat the supply and demand issues. Although the game will indicate which cities demand a specific trade commodity, any city will create a trade route for any commodity and the number of trade arrows created by the route has nothing to do with whether there was a demand or not. Demand will strongly influence the initial bonus given, but its of much greater impact to choose your trade routes to generate lots of trade arrows regardless of the demand indicators. In the long run, you’re better off to simply ignore which cities demand something entirely—the real factor to look for in maximizing trade is city size on both ends (actually its trade arrows, but size is easier to judge.

Special Cities: The Science City and the Production City

In Civ 1 a technique that worked very, very well was to build the “Knowledge City”. This combined the Colossus and Copernicus’ Observatory Wonders in one city which would then generate tremendous trade and science rates. Basically, this still works in Civ 2 although the effects are somewhat toned down unless you also add in some of the new Wonders. However, the new Wonders also leave an opportunity to build another specialized city, the Production City. In both cases, you will optimize the city site, its improvements and the Wonders built in them to maximize the production of “beakers” in one case and “shields” in the other. In ideal circumstances its possible to have one city out-producing ten to twenty other typical cities, thus giving a tremendous boost to your civilization.

Science City

The objective here is to maximize the science output. Since science production is related to trade, this also means maximizing the trade arrows in the city. To do so, you need to:

Early game:

1. Pick a city with an good site. Anything that increases trade arrows is good--an ocean port with fish or whales, forest with silk, mountain with gold, jungle with gems, etc. Avoid sites with multiple hills or mountains unless they contain a food/trade special (grapes or gold are great tho’). Quickly add roads to every square that will benefit. Since you’re going to want to make this a large city (large city means more trade arrows), you also need lots of food--grasslands and the ocean specials. To a certain extent you want shields, but beyond the need to support a settler and a few defensive units, that’s secondary once we have Trade. Then we can ship Caravans/Freights in from everywhere to generate the shields when we need them. You’re unlikely to find a ideal site in the first couple cities, so some compromises will be needed, but keep these guidelines in mind.
2. Build Colossus (adds 1 trade arrow to every square already having one or more).
3. Build Copernicus’ Observatory (50% increase in science production).
4. Build a library (another 50% increase in science production).
5. Set up 3 trade routes with the largest cities that you can find. (Remember: the commodity traded influences the initial bonus but not the number of trade arrows.)

Middle game:

1. Build a university (another 50% increase in science production).
2. Build Isaac Newton’s College (doubles the science production).

Late game:

1. Build the superhighway improvement (Replaces the Colossus WoW.)
2. Build SETI Wonder anywhere (adds 50% to science production of all cities).

By the late game period it is not uncommon for the Science City, alone, to generate in excess of 300 “beakers” per turn, and an advance on every turn.

Production City

Like the Science City above, your goal is to maximize the output of a single commodity, only now its shields. Doing so means:

Early game:

1. Pick a good site for the city. Now we’re looking for anything that will boost shield production. At least one coal, oil or iron ore site is really needed, although you can get by with a site that combines several hills or a hill and several forest squares. You’ll often end up with an inland site, but a production city that’s also a port is a powerful advantage later since you can ‘home’ your naval units there. Food is a second concern since early on we want it to be self-sufficient. Later we can use surplus food from other cities to support this one, but at first, enough excess food will be needed to support those citizens working in the mines.
2. Mine one or two hills around the city and irrigate the grasslands to support the miners.

Middle game:

1. Build King Richard’s Crusade (adds 1 shield to any square already producing one).
2. Mine any remaining hills or mountains.
3. Add railroads to all squares with mines or forests (50% shield increase per square).
4. Build a factory here (50% increase in shield production).
5. Build pollution control improvements when available!

Late game:

1. Build Hoover dam somewhere (50% increase in all cities, reduced pollution).
2. Build manufacturing plant here.
3. Build Shakespeare’s Theater here. (No unhappy citizens, so home most or all your field army here!).
4. Build a solar plant here.
5. Build offshore platform here if ocean squares available (1 shield per ocean square).

Under good conditions, the cumulative impact of this effort will be huge--you can often build any unit, any improvement, or any spaceship segment in a single turn and/or you can field a large military force all supported from one city. Put Shakespeare’s Theater in such a city and a Democracy can field a good sized army with no unhappiness.

Wonders of the World

The following tables are my assessment of the various Wonders of the World in Civ II. Any evaluation of them is likely to be controversial and there is no one “right” answer possible. The “best” ones are those that serve your style of play and your goals best. Your own expansionist vs. perfectionist, and war vs. peace choices are strong influences on what’s best. In addition, several of them are sensitive to the level at which you are playing--how many unhappy citizens you’ll have to deal with. In a few cases, the priority of later Wonders is influenced by whether you got an earlier one or not (for example, if I missed Michelangelo’s Chapel, Bach’s Cathedral will certainly be content.php/493-Civ2-Player-s-guide-and-Strategy-Idea#1 on my list later).

While influenced by the thoughts and opinions of others, the comments below ultimately reflect my style of play and my normal objectives and, “Your mileage may vary.”

In general, these comments reflect an aggressive, but not necessarily militaristic style of play with an overall goal of maximizing my score by creating a large, prosperous civilization and ending the game very late with the spaceship.

A final note: don’t overlook the fact that you can sometimes recover from not getting a key Wonder by capturing it. And since Wonders add to your score, to maximize your point total you will want to control as many of them as possible at the end of the game.

Ancient Era

Medieval Era

Industrial Era

Modern Era

Civilization II Governments Compared

Notes:

1. Republic and Democracy: Units in a fortress within 3 squares of city do not cause unhappiness.
2. Democracy: each missile, helicopter, or bomber unit causes 2 unhappy citizens regardless of where placed on map.
3. Fundamentalism: Documentation is wrong. Cities do not generate any waste or corruption.

Civilization II Data Tables and notes

The following pages contain information extracted from the text files (.txt) which are distributed with Civilization II. This information is copyright Spectrum HoloByte/MicroProse Inc.

The tables here are by no means all of the information contained in these text files. I have extracted portions of those files and reformatted them into table form for ease of use. In some cases, I have added explanatory notes to clarify the purpose of the information. Please keep in mind that these tables are based on a particular version of the game (1.11). If you have a version other than that, it is possible that your game might not match these tables in a few cases.

Extending and Customizing Civilization II

Although a concept that was pioneered in MPS’ game ColonizationÔ, (which also had Brian Reynolds as the designer) Civ2 presents you with an even larger opportunity for changing the game to suit yourself. Virtually every important game parameter is contained in a set of text files which are loaded when the game or game save starts. This section shows, in table form, most of the important parameters as found in the version 1.11 update.

Because the game parameters referred to here are all contained in pure ASCII text files, any item here can be altered by you with a simple text editor. However, proceed with caution and make a backup copy of the files before you edit them! Although it is both easy and fun to make changes to these files, it is also very easy to edit these files and cause the program to be unable to run at all or crash in “interesting” ways. If you edit these files and something doesn’t work do NOT expect MicroProse to be able to fix it or provide support for making file changes.

Finally, just remember that if you edit these files, you’re no longer playing the same game, so all comparisons of scores become invalid.

Civ 2 Leader Characteristics Table from rules.txt.

Notes: City Styles: B=Bronze Age, M=Midieval, E=Far East, C=Classical

Attack Column Values: A-Aggressive, R=Rational

Expansion Column Values: E=Expansionist, P=Perfectionist

Civilized Column Values: C=Civilized, M=Militaristic

“-” indicates the leader is neutral on this characteristic.

Only one civ from each color set may appear at any one time

Civ 2 Advances Definition Table from rules.txt

Civ 2 Advances Table Notes

AI Value = Basic value at which computer players view this advance (used in determining which discovery to pursue, which to acquire during exchanges, and value of gift during diplomacy).

Modifier = Modifier to AI value based on the "civilized" aspect of a leader's personality. Positive values increase value for civilized leaders, decrease it for militaristic. Negative values vice versa.

Preq1, Preq2 = Prerequisite advances required for this one

Epoch = historical period

• 0 = Ancient
• 1 = Renaissance
• 2 = Industrial Revolution
• 3 = Modern

Category = Knowledge category

• 0 = Military
• 1 = Economic
• 2 = Social
• 3 = Academic
• 4 = Applied

Special Note: Plumbing is listed in the table but the “no” in the prerequisite column prevents it from appearing in the default game. Can be treated as another “spare” slot for editing the game.

City Improvements Table from rules.txt.

Notes:

Cost valueX10 is how many
shields are required to build.

Upkeep is gold cost per turn
required to maintain it.

Preq Adv. is the abbreviation for the advance
(see that table) required to
have this improvement
available.

Units table from rules.txt

Units table from rules.txt

Notes and key:

Made Obsolete Abbreviation for Civ 2 advance which renders unit obsolete.

Moves Movement rate (spaces per turn)

Range content.php/493-Civ2-Player-s-guide-and-Strategy-Idea# of turns fuel carried (0 for non-air units)

Domain Movement domain of unit

• 0 = Ground
• 1 = Air
• 2 = Sea

Att Attack factor (chance to score hit attacking)

Def Defense factor (chance to score hit defending)

Hit Hit points (damage x10 which can be taken before elimination)

Firepower content.php/493-Civ2-Player-s-guide-and-Strategy-Idea# damage points caused per hit scored on enemy.

Cost Cost (content.php/493-Civ2-Player-s-guide-and-Strategy-Idea# of shield rows, usually of 10 shields each)

Hold content.php/493-Civ2-Player-s-guide-and-Strategy-Idea# of holds on ship (for carrying units)

Role AI role (Generally affects the way in which computer players use the unit,

but roles >5 will actually affect abilities of the unit)

• 0 Attack
• 1 Defend
• 2 Naval Superiority
• 3 Air Superiority
• 4 Sea Transport
• 5 Settle
• 6 Diplomacy
• 7 Trade

Preq Abbreviation for prerequisite advance

Note: The last three table entries are unused in the default game and are available for player devised additions.

Terrain table from rules.txt

Basic Terrain Squares

Move Cost in movement points per square for a unit to move thru.

Defense Multiply by 50% for % of normal combat factor defended at. (3 x 50% = 150%, a strength 2 unit defends at 3).

Shield/Food/Trade Shield/Food/Trade units generated in a square of this terrain

Irrigate/Mine Yes, no (allowed or not), and if changed by irrigating, the type of terrain that results

Transform Terrain type engineers can transform to

Bonus Extra production from that change

Turns content.php/493-Civ2-Player-s-guide-and-Strategy-Idea# turns for settler to make change

AI Minimum govt level necessary for computer player to want to irrigate/mine

• 0 Never
• 1 Despotism
• 2 Monarchy
• 3 Communism
• 4 Fundamentalism
• 5 Republic
• 6 Democracy

Terrain table from rules.txt

Special Terrain Icons

Note: Game is an entry in this table. It was intended as a special that would appear in Grassland, but does not appear in the game as actually marketed.