Original Author:
Mike Laplaunte

Hi. I have been somewhat obsessed with Civilization 2 since the time that I bought it.
My current best score is 197% (one hundred ninety seven percent) on Emperor level with 7 civilizations.

Not everyone plays a game the same way. The path to victory can be different for each person. Here is one that worked for me:

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The main objective of exploring at this level is to find other civilizations and, villages (the little huts). These little huts will provide you with more units to explore with and, more importantly, technology. This is very important early in the game as it allows you to get a jump on your opponents military units. There has been many a game where I have discovered Archers early on and then staged an attack on another civilization just using them. Always use your explorers to find other civilizations, do not try to colonize a large number of islands or continents, the computer players will see you as a threat and attack you early.

If you are on an island and you have no other civilizations with you, start over. You will not have an easy time otherwise (with this strategy). The only exception is if you are on a large island. In this case, simply concentrate on dominating the entire island at first - then head directly for seafaring. Once you have reached seafaring, take a ship with a defense unit and a settler and build a city on an enemy continent. Then, pick the plan up from there. It is a little more time consuming and may cost you some colonists on your spaceship at the end.

Build your cities initially on coasts or rivers. Rivers are better because later in the game they are less vulnerable to attack (no marine landings!). As the game progresses, build further inland. Make certain that your cities domains do not overlap. If there is an enemy city that overlaps yours, either destroy it, or continually build settlers/engineers from it until it vanishes. (Unless of course it has a Wonder in it). Always build at least one road between your cities. This will increase trade in your city and subsequently your gold. Remember that rivers count as roads for trade and movement - wherever possible build your cities in the middle of the river, not at either end.

Technology development is probably the least important thing you will do. You will probably only have to do it three times a game, once at the beginning, to get to Crusaders before anyone else, once to get to the Fundamentalist government, near the middle of the game and then at the end, once everyone else is destroyed so that you can launch your space ship. Do not waste valuable resources developing technology that you can steal from someone else. Use your diplomats and spies to ensure that your technology is up to date.

Create wonders: Great Library, Leonardo's Workshop, King Richards Crusade, Sun Tsz War Acadamy, J.S. Bach Cathedral, Adam Smith’s Trading Company, Hoover Dam. Which Wonders are the most useful has been a question of some debate. These are the Wonders that I find most useful for this approach to the game. My personal philosophy about is Wonders is to go for the ones that do not expire - but each to his/her own. I will list each Wonder and what I think about them for each level of play.

Wonder Tip!!: Simply because a wonder has been completed (either by you or someone else) does not mean that you can't keep producing it. The computer will continue to tell you that it has already been completed, but keep producing it anyway. The benefit of this is simple - if there are no other wonders to create (or at least, none that you wish to create) you continue to gather shields for a wonder. When one becomes available, you can switch to producing that wonder without the 50% penalty. Most often this means that the turn after a wonder becomes available, you will build it. In this way you can beat the computer to the important wonders.

Bear in mind that these ratings apply to the strategy that I have outlined. If you plan to be peaceful or use another strategy, the Wonders may be more useful to you then they are to me.

NEVER sign a permanent alliance with a society you intend to later kill. Getting out of it is not easy or timely. (Since I usually kill everyone, I find it best not to sign a permanent treaty with anyone). Always establish an embassy in an enemy country. This will allow you to determine if you are aware of the location of all their cities as well as measure resources and what opposition you are likely to encounter. Many people will suggest that you try to get your enemies to fight amongst themselves. I do not recommend this strategy. If they do this, they will be pouring resources into something other than science. Since you are depending, not only on them to invent the science, but to trade it so that the Great Library will give you a copy, having them fight is self-defeating. Additionally, once the Great Library expires, if your enemies abroad are giving science to the civilization that you are currently fighting, you are steal it directly from them and not incur the wrath of the civilization that originally invented it.

Defending: Ideally, enemy units should never be allowed to attack your cities. With careful planning an preparation, you can accomplish exactly that. Defense is divided into two types - pre railroad and post railroad.

First, Pre Railroad: The only cities you have to worry about are the ones that border your enemy. Ensure that each of these cities have a unit that can see two squares away in them. Since they border your enemy, there is a very good chance that they will not have a road on them. Since no unit can move more than two squares at any one time, your unit with a vision of two will spot enemy units before they can become a threat. In addition to this spotting unit, place two attack units that can move two squares into the city. These units will be able to destroy any computer unit that approaches your city, before it gets a chance to attack. Sometimes the computer will put two units, one right after the other. Since you have two units as well, you will be able to destroy both units. Using this strategy, it is vitally important that there are no fortresses within two squares of your city. If there is, the units could pile into that spot and you would be forced to take them out one at a time, which, you may not be able to do. If you wish, you can create a fortress just outside your city and place your attack units and spotter there (in order to see the enemy sooner), but be forewarned, if you lose that fortress you will most certainly lose the city.

Post Railroad: At this point you are more vulnerable. Computer units can approach your cities without using movement units. The trick here is to stop them before they get to your city. To do this, you will have to have strong defensive units outside the city and strong attack units inside. Immediately outside your city, you should have placed fortresses. In those fortresses, place your defensive units. The computer cannot pass these units without fighting them first. This allows you to defend the city without taking damage to the city itself. Once the computer has attacked your defensive locations, hopefully he will have used a large number of the attack units it has. At this point, use your attack units to mop up any remaining computer attack units.

Notice that I do not mention city walls anywhere. I do not mention them because as I said earlier, if the computer is attacking your city, you have already lost. The useful defense units are: Phalanx, Musketeers, Alpine Troops, Marines. Other units are not useful for defense.

Attacking: Attacking should be done almost exclusively by units who get two moves per turn. Again, we divide into pre and post railroad forms.

Pre Railroad: Move units so that there is one space (Plains or Grasslands) between your unit and the city. Never stack units unless you absolutely have to. If you have sufficient units, place one unit on the square that is directly in-between your other attack units and the city. This will force the computer to waste at least one attack on a single unit square. Then, only if the computer has additional attack units will they be able to attack your other units. Once it is your turn, use one move to approach the city and use the other move to attack. This way the computer cannot easily attack your units before you reach the city. If at all possible, build a road that leads up to the city that you are attacking and build a fortress in a spot that is one space away from the city. More often than not, this is very difficult, if not impossible.

Post Railroad: Since there is no penalty for using the railroad to approach a city, the temptation is to use both attacks to attack the city. This is a mistake. Instead, ensure that you have enough units to attack with using only one attack each. If your units attack and take the city, or fail to take the city assuming that they have only used one movement point each - any undamaged units will still have a move left to them. Use this move to move the units inside the newly captured city, or retreat to one of your cities. If you use both attacks, whether you take the city or not, those units will be stuck in their current positions. Usually they will be damaged and in a stack - easy pickings for an attack unit from the computer on its next turn.

Make sure that you use spies to their best advantage. The thing that makes attacking a city the most difficult are the city walls. If you can get these out of the way, you will be able to get in with a minimum of fuss. Use a spy to attempt industrial sabotage. Choose a specific target of city walls. The computer will warn you that this is very difficult. I have found my success rate to be about 60%. Since spies are cheap, I keep a large number of them on tap for just this purpose. The other use for spies is to Incite revolts. This allows you to take over a town and use the existing troops for your next attack (see Ghengis Khan - 1300). Additionally, this does not wear your attack units down in taking the city. Bear in mind that once you start inciting revolts, the computer will switch to Democracy, so, I find that the best strategy is to save your money and incite several cities at once. Usually you can get from 6 - 10 of the computer’s cities in this way before he switches over. Make sure that you are aware of what you are up against in a city before you attack. Use a spy to investigate the city. There is no point in attacking a city that has 5 defenders if you only have 4 attack units.

Use multiple attack units as mop up units. Once you have brought the howitzers in, you will find that a city has multiple units that have been weakened by your attacks. This is a good time to bring in a unit with a lower attack rating, but lots of moves. These include all naval attack vessels, fighters (not bombers) and tanks. Use these units to kill the remaining units rather than waste valuable moves from more effective attack units.

You should treat attacking a coastal city the same as attacking a city in pre railroad. Find a grassland square and bring your transport next to it. Move your two attack units onto the grassland or plains square. They will still have a single attack left. Use this attack to hit the city. Alternately, if possible, incite a revolt in a smaller coastal city. This way, if the civilization has railroads, you can bring your transport into the newly acquired city and they will have both attacks left. Never stage an amphibious assault with marines, they are not good attackers and usually die in the attempt.

Naval Battles: Most of your warring will be done on land, however, there will be times where you need to take control of the waters. This is not difficult to do, simply by out producing your enemy, you can gain control of the seas. This is a mistake. Water superiority is not useful. There will be a very brief period of time that you will need to use the seas, while you are moving your initial attack units to an enemy civilization. During this time, build escort ships. A large number of inexpensive ships will do the trick. The computer will usually attack these ships instead of your transport ships. For that reason, do not stack the transport ships on top of your attack ships. Usually you can send a group of 5 escorts for every transport. You should be able to reach your destination in 4 turns of movement. By the time you arrive, your escort will be badly beaten, but your transports will be intact.

Air Battles: Unlike real war, in Civilization, air superiority is not valuable. Bombers are far too susceptible to attack to be useful and even if they weren’t, they do not make good attack units. Fighters are handy for dispatching damaged enemy units or attacking units that are in difficult places to reach. Airports on the other hand are useful. Use these in place of ships to get units overseas quickly. Occasionally you will be warned that an enemy plane is in the way. I have had about 75% success by telling the computer to go ahead and send the unit.

Useful units for attacking are: Crusaders and Howitzers. Less useful units include Tanks and Elephants.

Once you have destroyed all your other enemies (except one city of one enemy), you will want to start building your space ship. You may have already started even before killing everyone, but likely you won’t have gotten very far yet, having put most of your resources into the war. Now is the time that your money counts most. Use it in one of two ways. If you are still waiting on technology to allow you to build parts, use it to support your kingdom while you switch to 80% science, 20% taxes. Do not change government to Democracy, you will cause revolts in most of your cities. By now you have so many citizens and helpful science contributing wonders that you will be seeing discoveries about every 4 turns or so. Switching to Democracy may switch you to every 2 turns, but more than likely you will lose that much time just getting your cities under control.

Once you have invented the technology that you need, use your money to buy spaceship parts. My rule is that once a city has produced half of the part, I buy the rest. You can set rules according to your cash flow. Since you no longer have a war to worry about, don’t be afraid to disband military units to assist in your efforts.

To get the full 400 points for the ship, you should load it with 4 habitation modules. This means that you will have to load the ship to the gills to get it there in any decent time. The largest ship you can make consists of:39 structural, 8 propulsion, 8 fuel, 4 habitation, 4 life support, 4 solar panels. This ship will take 11.7 years to arrive. You can build a smaller, lighter ship with fewer people. The fastest ship I have built arrived in 7.4 years. Try to avoid this since you will not have as many people on it and therefore not reap the extra points that a large ship will give you.

Do not launch your ship until you are one year minus travel time away from 2020. This will allow you to make city improvements and gain population right till the end. During this time, set your cities to autobuild by the domestic adviser.

Once your ship is built, change your taxes to maximum luxury. This will cause your population to grow faster as you get “We love the Priest” days happening.

Well, that is about it. Using this method has brought me a great deal of success in this game. It does take some time to learn how to use this method - many hours were spent working out the finer details of it. Please note that I have not included times in my phases above. This is deliberate. Each person will find how long each phase takes for him or her. You should attempt to have the world dominated by the year 1985 or earlier. Any later and you will likely not be able to build your spaceship and get it fully populated in time.