CtP n00b Seeks Help, Strategies, Tips

[mrmitchell]

Hello, friends. I know this forum isn't very active, so I won't get a tremendous rush of response without shouting at all the CtPers that happen to use Poly's IRC server, but I've a few questions to ask anyway.

I've played Civ3 for a while, and ask:

1) How do I need to change my strategies from Civ3? I.e. to incorporate new (old, technically) concepts like Public Works, new units like Slavers, new wonders like AI Entities (that is a wonder IIRC?), new Governments like Virtual Democracy, etc.

2) Is there any place aside from the "Great Library" thingymadoodad (I suppose the equivelant of the Civilopedia or Civpedia or whatever it's called) where I can learn the lowdown on units/improvements/etc., and more importantly, how to use them?

3) Is Civ3 even relevant to this game's strategies? (I feel I'm going to recieve a biased answer on this one...)

4) I notice that CtP runs from 4000BC to 3000AD. What are the new turn-lengths (i.e. years per turn), etc., and how far will I usually go before winning?

5) Is CtP worth it? (Like asking a used car salesman if the car is a good buy....) I bagged it for $1.25 at Software Etc. (Already marked down to $4.99 with a 75% discount.) I mean, since it seems to aside from PW, additional units/etc., terribly more complicated interface, and so on, to be somewhat similiar to Civ3. (Got the feeling I'm asking for flames by comparing CtP to Civ3 )

Could Activision (or whoever made it) have came up with a more complex interface and unit structure and stuff? One of the reasons I like Civ3 is that it, at least for me, was easy to learn about (but still a challenging game, mind you.) However, and most of this is probably because I'm just a CtP n00b, CtP seems to have a lot higher learning curve.

I guess basically I'm asking for links to old established strategy threads. But could you try to answer my questions here too?

-mrmitchell
CtP n00b

P.S. Maybe someone can kick some life into this old, almost-dead forum.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

[Nimrod]

I havnt played too much of Civ3, only a download from kazaa that crashed so much it was basically usless. So where to begin...

1. Slavers are great if your opponent has settlers wandering around without an attitional unit guarding them, or if you stack them with attackers or defenders. Slaves will eat half as much, if your rations are set at 12 they eat 7.5, and cost no gold. This makes excellent cheap labor for your cities early in the game.
On the subject of governments, it is best to go for Theocracy, monarchy sucks, in the beginning. When you reach Democracy, Facism, and Communism, it all depends on your style of play. Democracy will give you more science and gold. Communism will give more production power. And Facism as those excellent attacking units call Facist, a 16 attack will slaughter even the machine gunner with his 8 defense on the open feild. Corporate Republic, Technocracy, and Virtual Democracy are your late advances. CP is the money maker, I usually stick with it till the end of the game. Techno has the best production, and I have never used Virtual Demo.
Wonders, never build the AI Entity. Labrynth and stonehenge are good early wonders. Sphinx will reduce military cost by 75%. But these tend to obsolete quickly. Edison's Lab, London Exchange, Internet(if you are behind in tech), Genome Project, and Glob Sat are all excellent wonders to have in the middle of the game. Sensorium, Nanopedia, Gaia Controller, Wormhole Sensor(if going for science victory), Immunity Chip, and National Shield are all great late-middle to late game wonders.
2. The Great Library is just like the civilopedia, except it doesnt list maintance for units or buildings, nor will it let you know when units go obsolete.

3. Refer to my intro.

4. Never paid attenion to the time scale. I usually have a noticable victory by 1500's BCE, the AI is a load of crap.

5. Personally I think it is. Especially if you bought it for $1.25.

If you want alot of tips, tricks, and stratagies from the pros, look for the Multiplayer Stratagy Guide in the CTP-Multiplaying forum.

[MrBaggins]

Re: CtP n00b Seeks Help, Strategies, Tips

Firstly... the Activision team got some stuff wrong, and some stuff right;

Game balance was a bit out of whack essentially, although the game includes some of the seriously coolest stuff... like space cities and space bombers, which I miss like hell in CtP2. The thing that they did that was absolutely wonderful is make the game incredibly easy to modify.

A lot of very smart people did a *HELL* of a lot of game balancing and repetitive testing, to get to what is... one of the best balanced civ games of any era.

You should look at THIS thread to find the 'suggested' mods to install... and the order thereof. READ THE INCLUDED FAQS. They did a TON of work... including newly designed tech trees... to print out/look at.

In terms of public works... they are unlike workers in Civ3. You select a percentage of your production, which is taken from what would be your shield production in Civ3, for a 'pool' of public works. Those public works can be used for tile improvements.

There is no 'right answer' as to how and when you should change the proportion of PW. You don't want to start too early, when you are producing relatively little and would be better served by producing settlers and defensive units at full values. Later you may wish to increase PW to between 10% and 70%... say... Pay close attention to when you can produce new tile improvements in the GL. Tile improvements are always useful regardless of government, moreso in the squares adjacent to the city.

Slavery is one of *the* big things in CtP... its very powerful. If you stack a slaver with a military unit, a defeated army will become a slave in a nearby city. You should pay close attention to keeping a large enough garrison in your cities to keep the slaves in check, and avoid slave revolts. Slavers are invisible on their own and can slave from enemy cities. Cities with city wall improvements are protected. The AI will use slavers, so be careful. There are many more forms of unconventional warfare in CtP than Civ3... you should at least be aware of it. Slavers, lawyers, cyberspies and the Ectopia units are the most powerful of these.

CtP is just pretty different from Civ3, however, if you can play and do well in one, then you can use much of the experience in the other. Civ3 in so many ways is more advanced... yet, in others is lagging behind. The Ctp stacking system already has combined arms, including flanking units and ranged units... and separate sea and land bombards and so on and so on... etc etc...

There aren't the GA's and UU's in CtP... or special resources... and don't expect techs from 'surrendering' civs.

Space cities, however, rock... and there is nothing like bombing your opponent into the stone age, with space bombers hurling rocks down onto the planet. The ectopia terrorist can also purge an entire city... like an anti nuke... very cool indeed.

Turns start at 50 years and get shorter as you get later in the game... I don't recall off the top of my head


CtP1 and the free mods by the Apolytonians is worth $50, and is a steal for a couple of bucks... as good as any game for a few months of solid play... perhaps longer if you want to PBEM... which there is a thriving community... or develop scenarios... as well...

There is a bit of a learning curve. Its just not Civ. It is however, worth the persistance...

MrBaggins

[Frozzy]

Thats a steal at $1.25

Not much to add to the others as far as no. 1 goes..

2) The GL is like the civilopaedia... except it doesn't give all the info...

3) CtP is different to Civ 3... especially with stacked combat. Play a few single player games at first, then tell us your opinions.

4) Turn lengths start at 50 years, go down to 10 around 0 AD, then 5around 1000AD, then 3 around 1500AD then 2 around 1800AD. (IIRC, could be different. Click on the year to get the amount of turns played)

5) Why ask us that Play a few games and tell us what you think

And what are you doing here? Play dammit!!!

[Nimrod]

He must be cause he hasnt posted for several hours Frozzy

[MrBaggins]

on a slight tangent... do you collect civgroups like scout proficiency badges, or something, Frozzy??

[Frozzy]

I don't understand MrBaggins... I'm just part of a lot of civgroups thats all.

[TheBirdMan]

Try these links.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37962&highlight=strategy

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=65442&highlight=strategy

And there are more small threads with specific subjects: Use the searchengine and use the keyword Strategy.

Good luck

[Martin Gühmann]

Re: CtP n00b Seeks Help, Strategies, Tips

Originally posted by mrmitchell
(Got the feeling I'm asking for flames by comparing CtP to Civ3 )

That is always a danger, implecit or explicit.

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Could Activision (or whoever made it) have came up with a more complex interface and unit structure and stuff? One of the reasons I like Civ3 is that it, at least for me, was easy to learn about (but still a challenging game, mind you.) However, and most of this is probably because I'm just a CtP n00b, CtP seems to have a lot higher learning curve.

As CTP1 was released there was only Civ2 no Civ3. I played Civ2 to death, ok I have to admit I made it easy for me with a premade map so I ended everytime with more then 200 cities, oh and of course with more then 200 settler like units for terrain improving.

If you have 200 cities to manage you see very fast were the weaks points of an interface are. In CTP1 you have the messages stored at the right side of the screen, so that you are able to read them when you want and not are forced to go to a city when the build item is finished, if you used your gold for rush building the last turn then you will get a lot of these messages, espeacily you used the rush buy button in half of your 250 cities. In the end I disabled all these messages with the effect that my old 486er needed half an hour to go through all of my cities.

In CTP1 all the messages have buttons so you can just delete them with a right click if the icon indicates that the message is not important like celebrations or a unit was build but the build queue is not empty.

Yeah build queues make also life a lot easier, just fill it and leave the city alone.

PW a much better concept than settlers or workers, because you can have a lot of them and all of them need orders in Civ2 you have to give them per hand. I don't know how they solved the problem in Civ3 with the worker automization, but I saw some problems with the auto movements like entering foreign territory and I see a problem with building the wrong thing.

If you needed to open the city screen every turn 200 times at least and you realized that it needed some time to open then you whish to get rid of it, like it was done in CTP1. Well the interface needs some improvement and the CTP2 solution to give parts of the city screen back wasn't the ideal solution, either.

But you bought CTP1 for $1.25 so give it a trial, it has a more powerful interface, the special units, the tech tree doen't end in the past to be precise in the middle of the last century, even if CTP2 is more moddable CTP1 one has also great mod potential, you aren't limited to the stuff that was given to you by the programmers with a rather unfinished editor (IIRC). But first learn the game, really. Sure it is not perfect and you might miss something from the Civ series, but it has to offer some wonderfull things that was ignored due to CTP2, but actual they missed the success of CTP1 otherwise they wouldn't started a sequel.

And finally install the patch 1.2 and the hack patch you find here. The hack patch solved my reload problem.

-Martin

[mrmitchell]

Thanks for all the help.