Global Warming help

[thegreatbuddha]

I usually just build the Hoover Dam when I get that advance, so I didn't know about Hydros only being available near rivers (rivers only? or any water square?).

Which begs the question, does the Hoover Dam indeed count as a hydro plant in all cities, or in all cities that would otherwise be a valid target for a hydro plant?

[Elephant]

Hoover counts as a Hydro plant in all cities that have Factory, whether or not they are adjacent to rivers. Lakes or Ocean don't count.

Monk, did you test building Hydro in a city without river but immediately adjacent to a Mountain (not just "in city radius")? I thought I remembered some way to use a Mountain for that.

Hydro and Nuke plants reduce pollution 50%; Solar reduces it 100% (at least, the shield component). I also thought that you got one turn to correct disorder before the Nuke plant blows up? Someone correct me on that.

[Bloody Monk]

Originally posted by Elephant
Hoover counts as a Hydro plant in all cities that have Factory, whether or not they are adjacent to rivers. Lakes or Ocean don't count.

Monk, did you test building Hydro in a city without river but immediately adjacent to a Mountain (not just "in city radius")? I thought I remembered some way to use a Mountain for that.

Hydro and Nuke plants reduce pollution 50%; Solar reduces it 100% (at least, the shield component). I also thought that you got one turn to correct disorder before the Nuke plant blows up? Someone correct me on that.

Yes, your memory about Mountains is in the ballpark. I tested hills and mountain, both in the radius and next to the city, as well as building on a hill, and on a mountain. Only in the case where you built your city on a mountain are you offered the choice of Hydro Plant after you build a Factory. This might come about if you build on Gold but that city would be unlikely to grow very large.

Building on a mountain is such an odd case that I wonder if you might be cross referencing Uranium Supply in your memory. I believe there is a relation among those factors, ie...if you build next to a mountain there is an increased chance of having your city supply Uranium. solo would know better about those details.

As to Nuke Plant dynamics, I haven't a clue. Never built one. Having one blow up on you would be a real disappointment.

Monk

[Peaster]

It is a pleasure to see TGB discovering Civ2, and BM sharing his notes! I rarely play the modern era, and can't add any ideas, but this thread should be useful in playing GOTM 60 at CFC.

[Elephant]

Originally posted by Bloody Monk

Only in the case where you built your city on a mountain are you offered the choice of Hydro Plant after you build a Factory. This might come about if you build on Gold but that city would be unlikely to grow very large.

Ah, that was it. I tried out several of the Size1 OCC games, where you build a one-citizen city on a Gold mountain and work an ocean or rivered tile to keep the city from growing. Not that power plants were all that useful with so few shields, but if the gold was flowing well I'd consider it. Thanks for checking that out.

[duke o' york]

Save lots of cash to finish Mass Transits in all your large cities on the turn you finish Mass Production, because Automobile will give a lot of population pollution in large cities, and this can be totally eliminated by the Mass Transit improvement.
Then all you have to worry about is the production pollution.
As has been said, the Hoover Dam is the best way to control this, and I will build very few factories until it is in place (pile those food caravans up until you can build it in a single turn in a city unlikely to be captured). I don't ever bother with KRC, because I don't think it is a particularly useful wonder, as my usual tech path negates it so quickly. The caravans and shields can be saved for something far more useful, and with a far longer lifespan. It's the same time frame as Cope's, Isaac's, Billy's and Mike's, which have far more worth for my style of game.
So get the Dam, then get lots of factories, and you'll only require recycling centres and solar plants in the highest production cities, and even then only a few out of your empire.
Which by the way, will stand the test of time!

[thegreatbuddha]

Thanks for all the info so far.

I just hope I can get caught up to speed on everything so I might be able to contribute to the forums as an equal, instead of mooching off the hivemind, so to speak.

But, while I'm asking anyway, I have another question

In the early game, I generally start my first city, build a warrior, then start popping out settlers. My question is this: Is it better to use those settlers to immediately found several new cities, or is it better to only build one or 2 for city improvement of my capitol, and then focus on military builldup for a few turns?

I'm inclined to believe the better option is building a "mini-empire" of 6-10 cities and then focusing on city development, but I'd like to know if perhaps building up one city as much as possible would be more beneficial than several less-established cities. I think it might serve a better purpose in one of these early conquest games I've heard of, but I'm not the expert, hence I'm here...

TIA

[Bloody Monk]

Today, with La Fayette on the mind, your question brings to mind his "Three Arrows Strategy". The great benifit from building more cities is the increase in total trade arrows which increases total science. This will get you to Monarchy faster, which should be your first goal.

So, by all means, build more cities; and try to locate them close by (to keep corruption down) and on a site that will generate three or more trade arrows. After you get Monarchy, building settlers into the Capital or SSC can be considered.

Good luck,
Monk

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Bloody Monk
Today, with La Fayette on the mind, your question brings to mind his "Three Arrows Strategy". The great benifit from building more cities is the increase in total trade arrows which increases total science. This will get you to Monarchy faster, which should be your first goal.

So, by all means, build more cities; and try to locate them close by (to keep corruption down) and on a site that will generate three or more trade arrows. After you get Monarchy, building settlers into the Capital or SSC can be considered.

Good luck,
Monk

Go for LF's three arrows if you can, but IMO opinion, even without any three arrow sites you should build 4 cities before you build any infrastructure.

I build settlers in all my cities which I switch to vans when I discover trade. This usually gives me 4 working settlers. Depending on the rate of my research, I may add another city if I build a settler too early.

By the time I reach trade I like to have my cities connected by road so that I can move the vans quickly to build my first 2 wonders - MPE and Colossus.

I like to hold my city size steady during this phase in order to get 5 shields without the need for temples or a second military unit.

Once I have Colossus, I put down roads to obtain the extra trade arrow from all the tiles I'm working or will be working when I make a van delivery. By this time I like to get my intended SSC celebrating.

As I move into republic. all my settlers concentrate on improving the land around my SSC to maximise growth in the WLTK expansion. If I'm confident that I have enough food around the SSC and it won't end the celebration, I add a settler into my SSC - if possible the one that it supports. Only at this point do I start to improve the land around my other cities to allow them to grow with the help of a temple - hopefully I've managed to obtain mysticism from one of the AI civs.

This may not be the best approach, but it works for me.

RJM at Sleeper's

[Bloody Monk]

@ rjm
That's good advice, rjm...but think on this.

If you delay Colossus and build the Gardens first (in your SSC) several interesting things happen. You will usually have about the same number of trade arrows, your future SSC will automatically celebrate as soon as it is size three, and you delay the need for temples in ALL your cities at a time when gold is dear.

So many interesting ways to play!!
Monk

[thegreatbuddha]

Cool.

That confirmed what I thought was the best approach, but now I have 5 more questions, based on yall's response.

1. My first wonder to build tends to be the pyramids, just so I don't have to worry quite so much about city shrinkage due to settlers. Is this suboptimal, or is it a valid tacic before building collossus/MPE?

2. What are the benefits of Republic over Monarchy? I normally shy away from Republic, and go straight from Monarchy to Democracy, since Republic marks the beginning of the dreaded "action overruled by the senate" message.

3. What's WLTK? (read: n00bage )

4. I started a game today on prince difficulty. I played as the Americans, and started with knowledgeof Irrigation, Roads, Mining, Alphabet, Code of Laws, adn Ceremonial Burial. I had switched to Monarchy by the time my first city reached size 2. Is the extra technology random, or is there any way to control what you get at the beginning without resorting to cheating?

5. Does anyone else play with the sound off? I tend to play with either Frank Sinatra or Metallica in the background. The default music gets a bit repetitive for me

P.S. I won by conquest in ~1200ad. I'd like to think the instant monarchy had something to do with that, but either way, its a new personal record.

[thegreatbuddha]

Okay, one more question.

Every time I get the message "We Love the XXX celebrated in XXX", I get a message about that holiday being cancelled on my next turn. Is there anything I can do about that, or is it just how the game goes?

[Scouse Gits]

You have answered your own question - WLKD is 'We love the King day' and occurs when a city of size 3 or more has no unhappy people and at least as many happy people as content ones. This is a desired state as it effectively raises the government level of that city by one level Despot to Monarchy and Monarchy to representative in terms of the yield from the workers in the fields. When you have a representative government and at least one sheaf of food surplus the city will (subject to the normal constraints of Aqueduct and Sewage system) immediately grow in population and, unless you have taken steps to ensure that celebration continues promptly cease to celebrate. WLTK is one of the most powerful 'tricks of the trade' and in my opinion makes the HG a far more powerful WoW than the Pyramids - It is a tremendous boost to the early Monarchy to have a celebrating capital city.

Hence my personal starting strategy - capital produces three warriors and switches to a WoW (to be the HG once Pottery is discovered) all other cities make a warrior and then switch to permanent Settler production until such time as Trade is discovered - this is a large empire strategy.

Enjoy, Stu

[Scouse Gits]

Oh - and the starting techs - you get more (upto a maximum of eight in addition to irrigation and road making) depending on how 'bad' the system thinks your starting position is - this incidentally does NOT correspond to what human players think of these starting positions. Certain civs have a slight propensity towards 'historical' techs so for example the Chinese are more likely to start with Masonry (GW), but this is a secondary effect.

Stu

[Grigor]

Oh boy, an opening trategy thread!

The most important early game discipline is avoiding road building for transportation until the discovery of Trade. This is a harder rule to live by than it seems at first blush. There are situtions which demand a road, usually because of poor arrow availabilty, but they are rare. Plopping that second city down early is nearly always better than developing the capitol, plus it allows for the possibility of getting Nomads from huts.