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A CIVILIZATION Walkthrough
by Wayne S. Freeze
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the staff or administration of Apolyton CS.
About a year ago, I bought a sound card/CD-ROM drive package. It came with a number of software packages including several games. I tried each of those games in turn for a few minutes and decided while they were somewhat interesting, I might have been better off buying a CD-ROM drive, without the software.
A few months later, I was bored and didn't have anything to do (except for mowing the lawn, changing the oil in the car, painting the house or something like that) and decided to dust off one of those old games. It was early on a Saturday morning when I started playing. The first few minutes of the game dragged by. I kept thinking: "This game is dumb. It's stupid. It's boring." Then my wife asked me what I wanted for dinner. Somehow while playing this game, I lost a day of my life. It wasn't the last.
The name of the game is SID MEIER'S CIVILIZATION. Over the next month or so, I bought first one and then another book to gain some insight on the game and to for some strategy tips. I found the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document on Usenet, and found some utilities and other sorts of information from several anonymous FTP sites. My wife also became hooked (thank god we had two computers) and spent uncounted hours playing the game. While I don't claim to be an expert on this game, I developed a strategy that would let me consistently conquer the world or colonize the nearest star.
To simplify the presentation of this strategy, I have broken it into eight different ages: The Bronze Age, The Gunpowder Age, The Age of Trade, The Age of Banking and Commerce, The Automotive Age, The Age of Flight, The Space Age and The Future Age. During each age, the primary focus is to achieve a relatively specific set of goals. The goals are usually defined in terms of acquiring either the ability to build a specific type of unit, wonder or technology advance, or taking a specific course of action, such as exploring or waging war.
As I write this article, I am playing a game using this strategy. Each age is presented as a series of times and dates. The time and date listed is the total time spent playing the game with the game's date at that time. The events and discussions included are based on the actual game I'm playing. Since this game will take a long (and I do mean long) time to play, giving a step by step walkthrough is impractical. Even if it were practical, many of the events that happen in this game are randomly generated, therefore it is impossible to play two identical games. Don't read this article and expect to win every game simply by following the strategy listed here. Consider this strategy a high level plan with many details to be filled in as the game progresses. Reading and understanding the manual is a necessity and from time to time I'll point out specific topics that you may want to review. You may also wish to study some of the other references listed at the end of this article. While this strategy has worked for me, it is not the ultimate strategy for this game. It won't generate a record number of points and won't let you conquer the world in the shortest amount of time. It will however let you successfully complete the game and have a lot of fun while doing it.
Continue reading here.
by Wayne S. Freeze
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the staff or administration of Apolyton CS.
About a year ago, I bought a sound card/CD-ROM drive package. It came with a number of software packages including several games. I tried each of those games in turn for a few minutes and decided while they were somewhat interesting, I might have been better off buying a CD-ROM drive, without the software.
A few months later, I was bored and didn't have anything to do (except for mowing the lawn, changing the oil in the car, painting the house or something like that) and decided to dust off one of those old games. It was early on a Saturday morning when I started playing. The first few minutes of the game dragged by. I kept thinking: "This game is dumb. It's stupid. It's boring." Then my wife asked me what I wanted for dinner. Somehow while playing this game, I lost a day of my life. It wasn't the last.
The name of the game is SID MEIER'S CIVILIZATION. Over the next month or so, I bought first one and then another book to gain some insight on the game and to for some strategy tips. I found the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document on Usenet, and found some utilities and other sorts of information from several anonymous FTP sites. My wife also became hooked (thank god we had two computers) and spent uncounted hours playing the game. While I don't claim to be an expert on this game, I developed a strategy that would let me consistently conquer the world or colonize the nearest star.
To simplify the presentation of this strategy, I have broken it into eight different ages: The Bronze Age, The Gunpowder Age, The Age of Trade, The Age of Banking and Commerce, The Automotive Age, The Age of Flight, The Space Age and The Future Age. During each age, the primary focus is to achieve a relatively specific set of goals. The goals are usually defined in terms of acquiring either the ability to build a specific type of unit, wonder or technology advance, or taking a specific course of action, such as exploring or waging war.
As I write this article, I am playing a game using this strategy. Each age is presented as a series of times and dates. The time and date listed is the total time spent playing the game with the game's date at that time. The events and discussions included are based on the actual game I'm playing. Since this game will take a long (and I do mean long) time to play, giving a step by step walkthrough is impractical. Even if it were practical, many of the events that happen in this game are randomly generated, therefore it is impossible to play two identical games. Don't read this article and expect to win every game simply by following the strategy listed here. Consider this strategy a high level plan with many details to be filled in as the game progresses. Reading and understanding the manual is a necessity and from time to time I'll point out specific topics that you may want to review. You may also wish to study some of the other references listed at the end of this article. While this strategy has worked for me, it is not the ultimate strategy for this game. It won't generate a record number of points and won't let you conquer the world in the shortest amount of time. It will however let you successfully complete the game and have a lot of fun while doing it.
Continue reading here.