Do Civ II strategies work in Ctp?

[MacUser]

Looking through the old threads (BTW, howcome there are so few NEW threads...), I found some comments on ICS and other older Civ strategies. Is CtP such a fundamentally different game that old strategies don't work? In Civ II I build lots of road it increase Trade Arrows. That doesn't seem practical or possible in CtP due to PW costs. Any tips on increasing the general trade/happiness of cities?

Also, it doesn't look like Caravans work the same way and can't be used to help build Wonders. Other that disbanding units in city (a rather costly way to help) is there a way to speed up the rate of wonder building?

Finally, are there "challenge" games in CtP like the One City Challenge (OCC)? I've been playing OCC in Civ lately for the quick game.

I really haven't devoted much time to CtP yet since I just got it, but it seems MUCH less intuitive and difficult to manipulate than Civ II.

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"And now for something completely different..."
- John Cleese

[Hoplite]

Hello,
I can give you some tips for how things are different in Ctp. When I first played Ctp when it came out I didn't like it very and was very frustrated by the controls. But now after a year I started playing again and I really like it a lot. Though there are quite a few important that aren't well described in the documentation Ctp is a lot like civ2.
One difference is the way your terraform and build tile improvements using a percentage of production instead of a settler/engineer. I actually prefer this system of the civ2 now. In ctp roads don't give you any additional resources so they really aren't too necassary unless you are at war and need to group units together in a short time. Another use for roads is to build them in mountains so your mounted and wheeled units can cross mountain ranges. To generate trade you really need to have a coastal and/or river city as each water square give you 5 gold as well as 5-10 food/shields. I always try to research shipbuilding to get nets once I've built my initial buildings like granaries and marketplaces. Ocean faring is one of the earlier rennaissance advances and it gives you fisheries which are a huge +15 food. Usually my best cities are ones that have the most water. One important advance to get for building tile improvements is engineering as it will allow you to dedicate your older and already built up city's production to tile improvements so you can set Publics Works to 0% so your new cities can build more effectively.
Though I haven't played with caravans much myself their only purpose is to establish a trade route. They aren't actual units like in civ2 so you can't disband to help wonders.
To build wonders more quickly in the early game I like to pick one city as a wonder building city. Usually one that has a lot of forest squares or rivers. I don't build settlers at this city and try to make it grow as large as possible before maximizing it for production. A good size 7-8 city in forests can easily build any ancient wonder in 7-14 turns.
One thing that I didn't utilize in Ctp until I started playing it again is the wages/workday/rations tabs. These are very important as you will need to adjust them to maximize whatever you are tyring to acomplish at the time. In the early game I always set my rations to 5 (the lowest) to increase growth. This can usually be easily done just by itself as your cities are small and the unhappiness caused by this won't be enough to cause riots yet. Later on you will have to lower the workday to offset the decreased rations when cities start to become unhappy. Each change in the sliders bars results in a 25% increase decrease in that area. So when you are trying to maximize research to get that essential advance set wages to lowest and decrease workday or rations to offset the change. Gold is more important for science in the early game than any of the science modifiers are so always build a marketplace before academy if you want to increase science. The science buildings only work when you have scientists in the city so you have to maximize a city for science which means not much growth or production can be accomplished during that time. Basically you always want to be adjusting the maximize city buttons and wages/workday/rations to maximize for growth first to get larger cities then production to get the city improvements/public works and then finally science or gold once your cities are larger and have more infastructure.
One thing I noticed with the controls is that Ctp, unlike civ2, is a lot easier to control with just the mouse. You have to make sure that you always right click to deselect the current unit or you will have your men running around all over places you don't want them to be.
There is a OCC map and scenario pack in the downloads section though I haven't tried it yet. Was wondering what OCC stood for.
Ctp can be a lot of fun once you get used to the changes. I think a lot of things are better than civ2 or can be with the all the patches installed. Hope this helps to get you started.
-Hoplite