Beginner's guide to Diety.

[jpk]

RAH, I usually play on a wet world. This yields more grasslands so some of the specials are hidden. Also I find that four special locations are often ill-suited for cities. For example, oceans (really hard to build a city on an ocean square) or mountains. Perhaps that is a peculiarity for 10,000 square maps.

Generally I hunt for a city location until about 3500 BC. By that time I usually know where I want my first two cities and the best location is settled first.

[rah]

jpk, Ahhhh. I see.
But in MP, If I can drop on gold. (especially on a small map) I can be in Monarchy by 3000. (unless I get warrior code and horse from huts) and the extra settlers that I can spew out because of the extra production from monarchy more than ofsets the less than perfect capital. And by then, I've uncovered more land and can determine a real tits, science city location. If I'm the first into monarchy, 9 out of 10 times, I'll be the the first to philo.

In SP, I probably would do what you're doing. A quick start is not required.

RAH

[Smash]

Rememeber Rah these SP games are all single production.You can build anywhere pretty much in 2x.1x sites are different and it can be annoying searching after you have gotten used to 2x.You don't really want your first city/cities on forests,hills or mountains in 1x.Not to start anyhow.

[Civ-wrecked]

patriot,
It's very cheap to buy back your city from the barbs. However, if you plan to go to Republic, and if the lost city is not a big city then you should camp a few diplos around that barb city and get NONE units for super cheap price. In many games, I have the entire empire defended by NONE unit under Republic/Democracy.
1/ I seldomly build city walls even though in Republic most of my cities are defended by a single unit. Against the barbs, they almost always give you a few turns to buy a city wall before it attacks. Against the AI, you should select and build a city nearest to the AI and on good defensive terrain as a target for them to attack. They would spend the next few thousand years alternating between killing themselves attacking that city and giving you tribute for the ceasefire.
2/ A good time to switch to Republic for me is any one of these conditions:
- getting MC to control happiness. Nowadays I think that this is a little too late to switch.
- cities are ready to build caravans for trading (instead of WoW building).
- having nice AI neighbours who probably won't attack for a while .

[geofelt]

A few thoughts:
I like to found the first city in a field of rivers. The potential is there for a good science city which is easier if it is the capitol. If there are some specials, then so much the better.
If I found a city on terrain with a defensive bonus like a river, then my defender is a phalanx. If not, then I defend with a horseman or other unit that can attack first.

[rah]

Smash I agree, that is why I said in SP I would probably do what he suggested.

But having said that, If there is a river dot square within reach of the gold, I would still build on the gold in a 1x1x game. Getting to monarchy is even more critical in 1x1x games to get the free support for three units and you can get away with weaker defense if your city is on a mountain.
And in 1x1x about the only way you can take advantage of gold early is to build on it so at least you get the one food for it.


RAH
And I did play 1x1x the no city challange recently and you're right, it was hard to get used to 1x1x again. But since I couldn't build a city, i was never tempted to build on a forest, hill or mountain.
But thanks for letting me clarify it.

[Fallen Angel Lord]

Well, actually go OCC is the easiest way. City by the sea, farms and railroad.

Wonders:

HG
Shakespear theatre(must)
Chapel
Catedral
superhighways
colossus
obseratory
newton's college
library
unveristiy
SETI

You should be able to win easily

OH yeah, don't forget City Walls?

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The Drunken Pub

"The seeds of evil are the the same seeds of greatness so be evil and be great."

[Johannes Rebel]

Try 'Accelerated startup (2000 B.C.)' and continue to start new games until you get monarchy from start. That happens in about 5-10% of all new games starting in 2000 B.C.

[jpk]

Johannes Rebel:

Sure accelerated start may give you Monarchy from the start but I find the city sites are so bad I just can not tolerate it.

[rah]

Yeah, we tried it once in MP to see if it would speed up the game. hahahahhaha

Never again. Besides the city locations really sucking, the different civs started with different numbers of cities, units, techs etc, which were nowhere near even.

RAH

[Civ-wrecked]

A few days ago, I was given a regular-start game with Monarchy. The location was great too. "All right!!", I said and then jumped into the game, hoping to beat my AC landing record. A few turns after building a city, I noticed that it still had the Despotism production, not Monarchy production. Of course, since I already HAD Monarchy I could no longer research it ! So I quitted about 10 turns into the game . Apparently a bug.

[Paul]

Of course the game always starts you in despotism. So if you get monarchy as a starting advance you should immediately revolt to switch your government to monarchy. I assume you forgot to do that?

[SCG]

I finally figured out why I never noticed the 3 numbers before (where the 3rd # is the continent number). In the older versions (before 2.42), it doesn't exits In other words, the bug was introduced by one of the patches along the way.

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As your elected chieftain, I pledge to expand our tribe's power and influence so that we may become rulers of the region, and I, your warlord.

*sounds of applause and cheers*
*chants of SCG! SCG! SCG!*

[Ming]

That's right Paul... Rah and I have been doing that Nomad challange thing, and he "reminded" me that you can go into revolt even if you don't have a city yet. I had gotten Monarchy from a hut, but didn't revolt until I laid down my first city... DUH!!!!

And count me as another one that doesn't like the advanced starts... the AI just has NO clue what a good city location is

[Carolus Rex]

SCG,

I noticed that too! After installing Civ II on my laptop (no 2.42 patch yet) I wanted to explore the continent I was on in a game. No numbers!

Which leads me to believe that the designers wanted it to work that way??? It's an intended feature to make exploring a little easier???

Carolus