civ 2 techniques

[geofelt]

Would anyone care to post some good techniques for playing civ2?
For instance, I am apt to forget to return to a city to take some action, so I activate a unit before I leave the city screen. Later, an active unit in a city is a trigger to open the city where I remember what I wanted to do.
I habitually build a road before irrigating, unless I need the food immediately. This lets me retreat faster If I need to. Is the reverse better?
Is there a good way to partially rush build caravans? It seems like a lot of pointer clicks.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Roads before irrigation - seems like a good idea, especially in the early game; the extra trade is needed. However, if you want to convert forest, jungle, or swamp to roaded plains/grass, I believe it is faster to clear the terrain before building the road. The exception is the situation where you will use multiple settlers or engineers to do the job - in that case, building the road first will facilitate rotating the workers on and off the terrain.

In terms of rushing caravans, can't help you there.

I tend to rearrange workers more now - if the city only needs one sheaf to grow, I may put the excess workers out to sea to grab some extra trade, or on forest to pick up an extra shield or 2.

[Scouse Gits]

Incremental rush buying of Caravans goes like this:

Say your city produces 5 Shields
After turn 1 there will be 5 shields in the box. Change the build order to Warrior and complete for 11 gold. Then change back to a caravan.

After turn two complete the second line by building a horseman. Buy this for 11 gold and revert to a caravan.

After turn 3 - fill in the third line of shields with a diplomat same as before - back to a caravan.

After turn 4 - repeat the process by completing a Settler then changing back to a caravan.

Leave alone for the next two turns and out pops a camel. Production time 6 turns. Cost = 44 gold.

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SG(2)

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
Incremental rush buying of Caravans goes like this:

SG(2)

Summarized perfectly - the one thing I would add is that if you want to make the most of your shield production on a shoestring budget, try to finish a 'line' of production where it would leave the city in a position to complete the caravan with minimal shield wastage.

e.g. If you have a city with a shield surplus of 7 shields/turn, the city will take 8 turns (8x7) to build a Caravan, and will waste 6 shields, as only 50 are needed.

If you don't have enough cash to rushbuild line by line, it can be very worthwhile to wait until 4 turns have passed, and 28 shields are in the box. Change production to diplomat/spy, and rushbuy 2 shields (to 30) and then change production back to Caravan. This way, the Caravan will be built in 7 turns, not 8, and only 1 shield will be wasted.

This trick becomes more important if the city has, say, production of 14-16 or 20-24 shields, the wasted shields can get very significant at that point.

[Elephant]

Good Habits for Civ (semi-exhaustive version):

1. Before doing anything, hit F5 to check how many beakers were produced in the last turn. Keep a record of the running total. Dont forget caravan deliveries too. Calculate how many beakers to the next tech.
2. Next hit F4 to see if any cities are in trouble.
3. Next hit F3 to see how you stand with the other civs. Negotiate before moving if possible, in case you tick someone off.
4. Check the map for close-by enemies or barbs. Dont forget those far-off cities.
5. Stop to think through movements, production, and research. Are you close to getting a tech? Ready to start a war? About to have enough caravans to one-turn a Wonder? These and others may influence how you move your units, which is your next step.
6. Move your units. Remember your short and long term plans. Beware of moves that might put a city in disorder, like moving out a unit that was imposing martial law in Desp/Mon, or moving a second unit away from home in Rep/Dem. Move explorers and Hut-visitors first, as they may run into trouble or meet a new civ and require other units to assist.
7. Recheck your cities with F4, making adjustments with Entertainers if necessary.
8. Adjust your cities workers, balancing trade, food growth, and shield production.
9. RushBuy critical items first, others if you have the cash. Keep a small cash reserve.
10. Recheck.

(this is why moves take me so long...)

[Straybow]

I thought F5 tells you gold and beakers you get this turn, since resources are collected before production or growth are tallied.

/me grumbles about searching the GL

/me remembers to tell geofelt about GL

Go to Civ2-Strategy forum and check out the Great Library of accumulated Civ2 wisdom.

[ottok]

My think is ... that... FARM!

[DaveV]

Re: civ 2 techniques

Originally posted by geofelt
Is there a good way to partially rush build caravans? It seems like a lot of pointer clicks.

I use the keyboard instead of the mouse. Hit "C" for change production, "W" for warrior, "B" for buy, up arrow, ENTER, "C" for change again, "H" for horsemen, etc. I've done it so many times it's just automatic. Later in the game, when I would have to hit the "C" key multiple times to cycle through chariots, catapults, and caravels before reaching caravans, I instead press "D", then "C". Another trick is to use page up or home to move the cursor to the top of the list.

Edit: after experienced players said they don't use this, I fired up the game and ran through the procedure for a sanity check. I made a mistake on the confirmation sequence (I told you it had become automatic), but it works as (now) stated.

[rah]

Hmmm, never used the keys for that, I may have to try it.

RAH
SO used to clicking. *sigh*

[Elephant]

F5 will show you how many beakers were JUST produced, which may be different from what it said at the end of your previous turn if any cities grew or lost citizens due to production of settlers. You have to record it at the beginning of your turn before you move any workers to different tiles. I probably should have said to add caravan contributions at the END of the turn, which could be enough to trigger a tech at the BEGINNING of your NEXT turn during the city processing.

The thread on city processing order is here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49202

DaveV: Thanks for the reminder about keyboard shortcuts. I'd forgotten those, and was starting to get wrist & finger cramps from all the PRBing.

[sirsnuggles]

After establishing trade via a caravan, simply press f6 to find out where your current status on science progress stands (caravans cause an immediate jump in this status bar; you can see it go up multiple times in one turn, that is, each time you use a caravan).

[Scouse Gits]

If you want perfect accuracy about the number of beakers in F6 download SlowThinker's counter. Go to Great Library and from there you will find a link.

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SG(2)

[War4ever]

Originally posted by rah
Hmmm, never used the keys for that, I may have to try it.

RAH
SO used to clicking. *sigh*

i am in the same boat......but my girlfriend uses the keyboard.....

she just doesn't check her cities enough, i can no longer play with her. its too painfull

[My Wife Hates CIV]

destroy any civ you want... just built enough spies to destroy the water supply of each city. The spy may be capture but the mission never fails. it almost ruins the game. i built some 200 spies and destroyed a dozen cities in one turn. they are cheap and no movement rules. wipe out a civ no matter what their tech level is. it really takes no time to built that many. the AI - in no way - can defend from this.

[rah]

It's not like the AI's are going to hate you any more than they already to by that point.