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Advanced City Concepts
National Manager
Many great leaders have found that ruling a vast empire can be challenging from a logistical perspective. As you develop more cities over the map, you may find it difficult to keep up with them. The National Manager screen is designed to enable you to help you manage all your cities at once.
There are two tabs within the National Manager-Resources and Status. From the Resources tab you can view and sort your cities by name, population, happiness, production points, food, gold, science, pollution, and crime rate. From the Status screen you can view and sort by mayor and mayor’s priority, what they’re building, and how many turns to complete the item. From here you can also group cities to manage multiple Build Queues at the same time.
Resources Tab
Under the Resources tab you will find several columns. Clicking on the column headers will enable you to sort your list of cities by that category. The first click will sort in ascending order, the second in descending order. The higher the number in the column, the more of that item the city is producing. The columns are as follows:
- City Name This is the name of your city
- Population This is the size of your city in tens of thousands of people (1 per 10,000).
- Happiness This is the percentage of happy citizens in the city (as opposed to content or unhappy).
- Food This is how much food is being produced to feed the citizens. You’ll want at least the amount of your rations times the number of citizens to ensure that no one starves.
- Production This represents how many production points that city has. The higher this number, the faster the city will be able to complete items in the build queue.
- Gold This is the amount of gold this city is adding to your treasury.
- Science This is the number of science points this city is contributing toward the discovery of new advances.
- Pollution This shows how many pollution points this city is generating. The higher this number, the greater the risk of destroying the land around the city.
- Crime his is the crime rate of this city.
Status Tab
Similar to the Resources Tab, there are additional columns under the Status Tab. However, these columns focus more on your cities’ objectives and what they are building. You can see at a glance what your empire is building, and you have the power to adjust the build queues of multiple cities at a time.
As you know, assigning a Mayor to a city will automate production within the city. You can set the Mayor to focus on a specific task (Growth, Defense, Offense, etc.) and your queue will automatically be filled with the most necessary items first. From the Status Tab you can highlight several cities and assign a Mayor to all of them at once, change the goals, or disable the Mayors entirely.
Similarly, you can view what it will
cost to Rush Buy the items being built by more than one city. Simply
highlight the cities and the total cost is shown next to the Rush Buy
Button. If you have enough money, the Rush Buy Button will be active,
allowing you to purchase all those items at once.
Working With Multiple Build Queues
You can also add to or change the build queues in multiple cities at once. Highlight several cities and click the Build Queue Button at the bottom of the window. This will take you to a screen similar to the city Build Manager, with a few important differences. The names of all the cities you are adjusting are listed in the top left of the window. At the bottom right of the window are a few new buttons: Insert, Append, and Overwrite.
Looking over the list of buildings you may find some that look familiar. If one of your grouped cities has already built a shrine, for example, but the other cities haven’t, the shrine will be listed as available to build. The city that has already built the shrine will not build another one, but will go on to the next item in its queue.
Adding items to the queue is done exactly the same as with individual City Queues. You can double-click on Units, Buildings, or Wonders, or you can press the Add or Insert Buttons to adjust the queue. However, nothing will actually change for the cities until you decide what to do with this new queue, using the following buttons on the bottom right of the window.
- Insert: This will insert the new queue in front of any previous queues in any selected cities. If you insert, the new items will be built before any previously listed in an individual city’s queue. For example, if you group three cities building a granary and insert a shrine, the shrine will build before the granary in all three queues.
- Append: Hitting append will place the new items at the end of any pre-existing build queue. For example, if you group three cities building a granary and append a shrine, a shrine will be built in each city after its granary is complete.
- Overwrite: This will replace any items that had been in each city’s queue with the items in the new queue, removing the previous queues entirely.
Creating Custom Queues
Call to Power II allows you to save your build queues for reuse in other cities. For example, if you find yourself always building a warrior, then a granary, then a shrine in a new city, you should create a Custom Queue.
Doing this is as easy as setting up your first build queue. The first step is going into the Build Manager for any city. Press the Create Custom Queue Button at the bottom of the window.
Set the list of items you want to save as a reusable queue. Once you’re done, press the Save Queue Button at the bottom of the screen. You will be prompted to give your Custom Queue a name. Once you’ve decided, press OK to save it.
Any time you wish to load that queue,
simply press the Load Button from the Build Manager of any city. This
will replace any previous queue within a given city.
Pollution
Even the earliest civilizations had to contend with the problem of pollution. As early human tribes abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and settled, they had to deal with the accumulated detritus of their daily living. As civilizations evolved and as industry and manufacturing became more complex, cities began creating more pollution. By the end of the Industrial Revolution, people began to see pollution affecting the environment, including air quality, water quality, and the cleanliness of cities. Modern age urban planners began to implement systems to minimize pollution, but it was often barely enough to stem the rising tide of industrial and urban waste. As a leader of a great nation, you must come to terms with not only the pollution your cities create, but also the effects of pollution on the world as a whole. Will you maximize production and growth at the expense of the environment, or will you tug on the reins of runaway industry and keep them in check? Will you lead the world in heeding the call for global pollution reduction, or will you be forced to watch in horror as ocean levels rise and destroy your cities? This section provides what you need to know about the pollution system in Call to Power II. Read this section carefully. The lives of your citizens hang in the balance.
Causes of Pollution in Cities
Production: One of the main factors that cause pollution is production. Each city extracts production resources from the surrounding terrain and uses it to build items and pay for public works. Certain tile improvements, such as mines, and city improvements like factories and oil refineries increase the total production output of a city. The more production a city creates, the more pollution it creates. Production-related pollution represents smoke, soot, and airborne contaminants; agricultural and industrial runoff’ chemical and hazardous waste; and the various by-products of industry.
Population: The other main factor that contributes to pollution is the population of your cities. As cities become more populous, solid waste products, including organic and inorganic waste, accumulate in city streets, sewers, and landfills. As cities become more advanced and complex, and as commerce and services increase, people tend to create more waste per person than less advanced societies. Therefore, cities with greater populations create more pollution than less populous ones.
Nuclear Warfare: The only other things that can create pollution in Call to Power II are nuclear weapons. Whether by launching a nuke unit or using a spy to plant a nuke in a city, the explosion devastates the area surrounding a city, reducing much of it to dead tiles. Nuclear weapons also contribute to global pollution, hastening the global warming process. All players should consider the far-reaching implications of nuclear war before they choose to wage it. A full-scale nuclear war could potentially create an ecological catastrophe.
Local Pollution Disasters and Dead Tiles
The most common form of pollution disasters occurs when cities create sustained levels of toxic pollution. The effect on the environment is so devastating, the terrain surrounding the city runs the risk of being poisoned and rendered unusable. The resulting "dead tile" creates no food, production, or commerce. Tile improvements are destroyed when tiles become dead as well. Once you discover the Conservation advance, you can "clean up" dead tiles by terraforming them back to their original state. After terraforming the tile, you are able to extract resources and build tile improvements on it again. If a tile had a trade good on it before being rendered a dead tile, however, the good will be forever lost, even after the tile is restored.
Causes of Global Pollution
Your empire-wide pollution level reflects the sum of your cities' pollution output. Therefore, the global pollution level is the amalgamation of each empire's pollution level. Although you must strive to curb your city pollution levels, it behooves you to monitor global pollution levels as well. But, because you are but one nation in a world community, sometimes even your best efforts at curbing your own pollution may not be enough to counter the high levels of pollution wrought by another nation.
Global Pollution Disasters
Global Warming
The earth's atmosphere is comprised of a complex system of airborne chemicals that help maintain the general range of air temperature throughout the world. As the world entered the modern age, the impact of human society, particularly industry and transportation, dramatically increased the emissions of several chemical by-products, known collectively as "greenhouse" gases, into the atmosphere. The main greenhouse gas released from anthropogenic activities is carbon dioxide, which helps keep the planet warm. Unfortunately, high concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused an increase in the mean temperature of the earth over the last half of the twentieth century. This troubling phenomenon is known as global warming. Besides wreaking havoc on the earth's climate and ecosystems, the main threat of global warming is the buildup of carbon dioxide that traps heat within the atmosphere. This behavior, reminiscent of a greenhouse, contributed to the melting of polar ice caps and glaciers worldwide, causing the ocean levels to rise. The threat of global warming manifests itself as rising ocean levels in Call to Power II. If pollution levels reach a certain point across the world, each body of land will lose one tile of land on every side. Coastal cities will be decimated, thousands of people will die and the available area of land will be forever reduced.
Ozone Depletion
The ozone layer is a region of the Earth's upper atmosphere that contains high concentrations of O3, an oxygen compound formed from oxygen molecules disassociated by shortwave solar ultraviolet radiation. It is vital to the survival of plants and animals on the surface of the earth, as it blocks almost all of the harmful ultraviolet radiation from injuring or killing surface life. Although ozone levels naturally fluctuate over the course of time, certain by-products of modern industry, most notably chlorofluorocarbons and halons, vastly increase the rate at which ozone is depleted. As pollution in Call to Power II represents not only solid but airborne pollution, high levels of global pollution contribute to ozone depletion. This increases the number of harmful ultraviolet radiation that penetrates the atmosphere, and, at a certain point, begins to have an affect on life on the surface. If pollution levels remain high worldwide, every land tile on the map runs the risk of being turned into a dead tile. This is in addition to any effects global warming may have on pollution. Continued abuse of the ecology will slowly render the land unusable, making it more difficult to sustain life.
Pollution Indicators
Global Pollution Display: In the upper right hand corner of the main screen, there is a series of four boxes. The box farthest to the right, with the icon of a factory belching smoke, indicates the global pollution level. As mentioned before, the global pollution level is the aggregate of all the pollution on the map. You would be wise to monitor the progress of global pollution. It can inform your decisions on when to take action with other nations who are creating significant amounts of pollution and it can warn you of pollution disasters looming on the horizon.
The Intelligence Screen: You can find out how much pollution other nations are creating by consulting the Intelligence screen in the Diplomacy Manager screen.
Open the Diplomacy Manager screen by clicking on the Diplomacy Button on the right side of the Helm. Select the nation you would like information on by clicking their entry in the list of nations. Now click the Intelligence Button at the bottom of the Diplomacy Manager screen. The Domestic tab contains a numeral indicating the empire-wide pollution level for that nation. This information will be helpful in determining which nation is creating the most pollution, and may help you decide which nation to request a pollution reduction pact from.
The City Manager screen: Within the City Manager screen, there are five separate tabs that provide you with information about the various aspects and qualities of your city. Click the Status tab to see how much pollution your city is creating. You can cycle through your cities by clicking the arrow keys on either side of the city name display to successively view each city's pollution levels. In the pollution display, you can find out not only what is causing citywide pollution but what, if anything, is helping to reduce it.
Solutions
The most effective way of managing pollution is to avoid creating it the first place. Cities with a large amount of industrial production tend to pollute the most. Also, cities with the most people create a lot of pollution as well. Although early in the game, pollution levels are usually benign, as you approach the end of the Renaissance Age and the beginning of the Modern Age, pollution starts to become a problem.
Improvements and Wonders: Fortunately, pollution can be contained by certain city improvements such as the Recycling Plant and the Matter Decompiler that reduce pollution associated with production. The Public Transportation and Eco-Transit improvements also eliminate pollution based on population level. The Central Matter Decompiler, a wonder of the world, can significantly reduce pollution across your empire.
Adjusting Your Production Levels: As a
last resort, you can divert workers in highly productive cities away
from production by assigning them as entertainers, farmers, scientists,
or merchants. This will force the workers to focus less on production
and more on happiness, food, science, or commerce. This is advised only
if production levels are unusually high, pollution is increasing, and
you lack any other recourse (such as the improvements and wonders
listed above) to mitigate pollution.
Unit Concepts
Units are a key element in the game. Unlike the cities that produce them, they are mobile, and are the means by which you accomplish many of your goals. Units can defend your cities, initiate diplomacy, scout for invaders, explore uncharted waters, and attack your enemies. They can fly across continents, transport other units across wide oceans, and even destroy an entire city in a single attack. As your empire advances through the ages, your scientific and cultural achievements will make powerful units available to you.
This section will instruct you in everything needed to build, manage, and use units in the game. Everything from attributes and movement, to special rules and conditions are included in this section. For a detailed list of all units, consult the unit list on the back of the Technology Tree poster.
What Do Units Look Like?
Whereas cities look like small collections of buildings on the map, units look like humans and vehicles. Each unit has a small health bar and a flag next to it. All units attack and defend as ordered until their health is depleted. The color of the flag indicates the nationality of the unit. Your units will always have a blue flag. If the flag has a number on it, then other units are sharing the tile (the number of units indicates how many). If the unit has a star below the number, then some of those units are formed into an Army. If the unit has a badge below the flag, then the unit is a Veteran.
How Do I Build Units?
Each new unit is enabled by the discovery of an Advance. As you gain Advances, more and more units become available for construction.
In order to build a unit, you must select and insert it into the build queue of one of your cities. Access the Build Queue in one of the following ways:
- Click the City Tab on the Control Panel. Then click the picture of the item that is being built. This will open the Build Manager.
- Select the City Manager screen from the Helm on the Control Panel. When that screen appears, click the Build Button.
Once you are in the Build Manager, click the Unit Button to see the list of available units. To add the unit to the Build Queue, select the unit name in the list and click the Add Button. You can also double-click the unit name. If you would like to build the unit immediately, select the unit in the build queue and click the Move Up Button to move it to the top of the queue. Close the Build Manager to return to the game. If you would like to add a new item to the top of the build queue, select the first item in the current build queue and use the Insert Button to insert the unit you wish to build ahead of it.
Like any other build item, a unit will take a certain number of turns to build. Once it is built, the unit appears in your city, ready to do your bidding.
Unit Combat Characteristics
All Units have the following attributes. The differences in the values for each unit are what make them unique.
Attack: The attack rating represents the unit’s probability of successful attack. They higher the attack rating, the greater the chance the unit will hit its target.
Ranged Attack: This represents the probability of a ranged attack. Not all units have ranged attack capability. See the section on Combat, on page 50, for more information on the progression of combat.
Defense: This represents the unit’s ability to avoid being hit. The higher the rating, the easier it is for the unit to avoid or deflect attacks.
Armor: The armor rating indicates the unit’s ability to withstand a successful attack. The higher the rating, the less damage a unit takes when attacked.
Strength: This represents the amount of damage a unit inflicts with each successful attack. The higher the number, the greater the damage.
Vision: Each unit has a range of vision that is equal to at least one tile in every direction. Some units have greater vision ranges. Vision enables a unit, and therefore you, to see everything within their range, including terrain, tile improvements, cities, and other units. As a unit moves it reveals whatever is surrounding it. Stealth units do not appear in the vision range of ordinary units. See below for more information on stealth units and the rules governing stealth unit visibility.
Cost: A unit’s cost is measured by the amount of production it takes to build the unit. Cities that have high levels of production will build units faster than less productive cities. Generally, the more powerful the unit, the more production it will take to build it.
Health: The health of a unit is represented by a colored bar that appears over the flag next to the unit itself. Green indicates good health. Yellow indicates some damage. Red indicates severe damage. Each time a unit is successfully attacked, its health is reduced accordingly and the color and length of the health bar changes to reflect it. If the damage from an attack exceeds the unit’s health, the unit dies.
When Units Become Obsolete
As your empire progresses through the ages, your units will become obsolete. This means that you will no longer be able to build that unit type. If the discovery of an advance renders a unit obsolete, there will be a new unit available to take its place. If you have existing units that become obsolete, they will not disappear. You will simply be unable to build them again.
For example, when you discover the Neural Interface advance, you are able to build the Cyber Ninja unit. The Spy unit becomes obsolete, but the Cyber Ninja does everything the Spy does more effectively. The discovery of Fusion enables you to build very powerful Fusion Tanks, which replace standard Tanks. Although your existing Tanks remain in play, you no longer have the option to build Tanks in the build queue.
See the list of Advances on your Technology Tree poster or consult the Great Library for more information on advances and their benefits.
Special Units
Government-specific Units
A handful of units are only available with specific types of governments:
Cleric: Can be built by a Theocracy.
Fascist: Can be built by a Fascist empire.
Eco-Terrorist: Can be built by an Ecotopia.
Eco-Ranger: Can be built by an Ecotopia.
Important Note: Any government-specific units that you have will disband if you change your government type. For example: A Theocracy that switches to Republic loses any Cleric units that exist.
Flanking Units
Flanking units have special combat abilities that make them welcome additions to any fighting force. Whereas offensive and defensive units ordinarily attack only the enemies directly in front of them on the battlefield, flanking units can "gang up" on other units to their right or left and attack concurrently with other units.
For example, an army of three warriors attacks an enemy hoplite. Only one of those warriors actually engages the hoplite in combat until either one is destroyed. The other two warriors do not attack, nor are they subject to counterattack. If the attacking warrior is destroyed, the next warrior engages the hoplite, until either the warrior, or the hoplite, are destroyed.
However, if three knights attack a hoplite, all three knights attack the hoplite simultaneously. One of the knights attacks the hoplite directly, while the other two knights "flank" the hoplite. The hoplite stands a considerably smaller chance of success in this scenario.
Flanking units include cavalry, fusion tanks, knights, and tanks. When added to an army, they are very effective.
Special Forces Units
There are a few units that fall under the category of Special Forces. They are always "at war" and, therefore, require full military support costs at all times. Special Forces units include the knight and the samurai units.
Stealth Units
Stealth units are a special class of unit. They are invisible to cities and most standard units, but can be seen by other stealth units. They each have at least one attack, the effects of which are anything but invisible.
If a stealth unit attacks one of your cities or units, you will be notified of the effects. If an attack is unsuccessful, the target city automatically becomes wary of stealth attacks. You will know a city is wary by an eyeball icon over the city. If a city is wary, there is an extremely small chance of a successful stealth attack. There are several stealth units in Call to Power II, including slavers, abolitionists, spies, and clerics. Consult the Units section of the Great Library for more information on stealth units.
Ranged Attacking Units
Some units specialize in fighting from a distance. For example, the catapult, artillery, and Archer can all be devastating attackers. All of these units trade off defensive capabilities and are usually at a disadvantage when attempting to fight a non-ranged attacker. It is best to combine ranged attackers with non-ranged attackers to maximize results. Ranged attackers include the archer, cannon, and artillery units, among others.
Veterans
All units that survive a battle are eligible for veteran status. Due to their experience on the battlefield, veteran units are better equipped for combat, and enjoy a bonus to their attack rating. Units retain their veteran status until they die or are disbanded.
Unit Movement Characteristics
Movement Points
Movement points determine a unit’s mobility. Units with higher movement points can travel farther in a single turn. Each terrain tile has a movement point "cost" that represents the difficulty associated with travel on that terrain. Roads, railroads, and maglevs are tile improvements that reduce the terrain’s movement cost.
Land Units
Most land-based units can travel on any land tile, including rivers. They cannot move onto beach or ocean tiles. You can, however, load them into naval or air transport units in order to get them across water.
Mountainous terrain restrictions
Mounted units such as knights, and vehicles such as tanks, cannot travel on mountains without using roads or railroads. You will know whether a unit is forbidden from moving on a tile when the drag-and-drop line turns red.
Naval Units
Naval units cannot move onto land tiles or travel on river tiles. They can, however, move onto beach tiles and into coastal cities, and onto any ocean tile. Ocean tiles each have the same movement point restrictions. In other words, it does not take any longer to move on deep water than it does on shallow water.
Deep Water Limits
Early naval units like the coracle cannot venture into deep waters. If a unit with this limitation tries to enter a deep-water tile, it will be prevented.
Air Units
Air units can move over any tile without terrain-based movement restrictions. Accordingly, they do not get movement bonuses from roads, railroads, and maglevs.
Refueling
Air units must periodically refuel at an airbase, city, or aircraft carrier. If an air unit runs out of fuel before it lands at a suitable location for refueling, it will crash. You can see the amount of fuel in the Unit tab (next to the health bar and below the unit stats).
Military Support Costs and Military Readiness
Each unit you build has a cost in production associated with military support. You can reduce the military support cost by altering the military readiness of your forces. This will save your empire valuable production in keeping up a military, especially in times where a full military is not necessary. Keep in mind that units without full support costs will suffer a health reduction for as long as the lower readiness is in effect.
Military Readiness is set in the Unit Manager screen and represents the cost of maintaining a war machine. It takes time for a change in this setting to take effect. For example, it will take ten turns to move your military from peace to war, so you will need to prepare in advance before committing your forces to a lengthy campaign. If you find your neighbors acting in a provocative manner, invading your territory, building up their own military forces, or declaring war on you or your allies, you would be well served to increase your readiness in time. However, standing down a readiness level takes effect immediately.
At War: This is the default setting in for military readiness. It indicates that your units are fully trained and equipped for battle at all times. When at war, the military support costs are at their highest.
On Alert: With this setting, military support costs are reduced by a certain percentage, and the health of your units is decreased accordingly.
At Peace: There is little need for a military during peaceful times, and this setting reflects a minimal level of support. This setting keeps military support costs as low as possible, but unit health suffers dramatically.
To restore your units’ health to full strength, you can return your military readiness to At War status.
Unit Orders
Standard Orders
Move
Each turn you will have the opportunity to move each of your units. You can move your units in one of four ways. The first way is to click the unit and drag to the location you’d like the unit to move to. While you hold the left mouse button, you will see a colored line extending out from your unit’s position. This colored line indicates whether your unit is able to move to that location. A green line means that the unit is able to move onto the tile. If you drag to a location that would require more movement points than your unit has, the line will turn yellow. A red line means your unit cannot move onto that tile. You may see numbers along the line. These numbers indicated how many turns it will take to move to that location.
When you have picked your desired location, release the mouse button and, provided it has enough movement points, the unit will move to that location. If the unit cannot make it to that location in the turn, it will continue on its path at the end of each turn until it reaches its destination. In this way, you may send units across great distances with a single action.
The second way to move is to right-click on the unit and select Move from the pop-up menu. A colored line will extend from your unit as above. Once you choose a location, click the mouse button again. The unit will move to the desired location.
The third way is to click on the Move icon in the Unit tab. A colored line will extend from your unit as above. Once you choose a location, click the mouse button again. The unit will move to the desired location.
The fourth way is to move the unit one space at a time with the number keypad. You can move a unit one square in any of the eight directions by pressing the corresponding key surrounding the number 5 key.
Units will immediately move as far as their movement points allow as soon as you give them a move order. Once a unit is in motion, it cannot be stopped. However, if it has several more turns to reach its destination, you can cancel the rest of the move order by right clicking the unit and selecting Clear Orders or Sentinel from the context menu. You can select units with pre-existing move orders to view their paths, which will appear in gray.
Attack
This command instructs the unit to assault another unit or city. Moving your unit onto another tile occupied by an enemy unit or city implicitly gives the attack command.
Fortify
This command instructs the unit to set up a defensive position. Once a unit is fortified (a small wall around the unit indicates that the unit is fortified) it enjoys an additional defense bonus above and beyond any defense bonus given by the terrain. The fortification process takes a few turns to complete.
Sentinel
This command instructs a unit to wait until an enemy unit is in sight. The unit is grayed out and remains so until the unit is attacked or an enemy unit comes within visual range of the unit. The player can also wake the unit by clicking on it.
Disband
This command removes the unit from the game. If you disband a unit inside a city that is constructing another unit, a small percentage of the disbanded unit’s total production cost will provide a boost to the current build queue. If the unit is disbanded in the field, or there is not a unit being built in the build queue of the city, the unit simply disappears.
Special Orders
Advertise
Commands a corporate branch to advertise in a foreign city. Successful attacks extract gold from cities.
Aid Uprising
Commands an abolitionist to aid an uprising in a foreign city that contains slaves. If the attack is successful, the slaves will revolt, declaring themselves a new empire.
Board Transport
Commands units to board a transport unit.
Bombard
Commands a unit with bombard capability to attack units or cities in an adjacent tile. The attack is less accurate than standard attacks, but there is no danger of counterattack. Bombard attacks against cities can damage units within the cities and reduce population as well.
Conduct Hit
Commands an eco-terrorist to assassinate a public figure in a city. Success brings a sharp reduction in happiness in the target city for several turns.
Convert City
Commands a cleric or televangelist to attempt to convert a foreign city to your religion. Successful attacks bring in a small amount of cash for your empire.
Enslave
Commands a slaver unit to go on a slave raid. Slavers can capture individual settler units and can attack cities. When successful, the settler is captured (or the city population is reduced by one) and the slaver's nation gets a new slave to put to work in a city.
Establish Embassy
Commands a diplomat or empathic diplomat to establish an embassy in a foreign city. This enables high-level diplomatic relations. This can only be done once per foreign empire.
Expel Unit
Commands any military unit to remove another empire’s unit from your lands without negatively affecting diplomatic regard. It is an alternative to attacking stealth and non-military units that are in your territory without sparking a conflict.
Faith Healing
Commands a televangelist to put on a faith healing event. If successful, the attack brings profits to your empire.
File Injunction
Commands a lawyer to halt all production in a city for one turn. If successful, the target city loses all production for one turn.
Franchise
Commands a corporate branch to attempt to establish a franchise in a foreign city. If successful, the franchise extracts a percentage of the production from that city and gives it to the attacking empire.
Free Slaves
Commands an abolitionist to attempt to free slaves in a foreign city. If successful, it frees one slave from the target city and converts it to a citizen in the nearest friendly city.
Incite Revolution
Commands a spy or cyber ninja to infiltrate an enemy city and incite the citizens to revolt. If the attack is successful, the city forms a new empire.
Infect City
Commands an infector to release a bio-weapons attack on an enemy city. Although this attack does not kill people, it makes a large percentage of the populace extremely ill, rendering them unhappy and unable to work.
Launch
Commands a space plane to perform a sub-orbital launch, transporting cargo to any friendly city within four turns.
Nanite Cleansing
Commands an eco-ranger to self-destruct, releasing a powerful nanite bomb. The attack totally annihilates any trace of humanity in the target area, including cities, units and tile improvements.
This attack constitutes an atrocity.
Nano-Attack
Commands an eco-terrorist to release a nanite bomb in a city. Successful attacks have a small chance of destroying every improvement in a city.
Pillage
Commands a unit to destroy the tile improvements on a tile.
Pirate
Commands a unit to hijack a trade route and steal the profits for one turn. This attack does not destroy the trade route.
Plague
Commands an infector to release a highly contagious, extremely lethal super-virus into the air. The target city’s population is decreased significantly.
Plant Nuke
Commands a spy or cyber ninja to attempt detonating a small nuclear device in an enemy city. If the attack is successful, the nuke detonates, destroying the target city and all tile improvements within three tiles of the city.
Reform City
Commands a unit to reform a friendly city that has fallen prey to a cleric or televangelist’s conversion. The city is unhappy for one turn as a result of the reformation.
Sell Indulgences
Orders clerics to attempt to sell official favors and religious pardons in enemy cities. When successful, it makes the target city happy, and generates cash for your empire.
Settle
Commands one of the three settler units in the game-the settler, urban planner and sea engineer-to create a city.
Soothsay
Commands a cleric or televangelist to attempt to preach doom and damnation for the people of the target city. When successful, it sends people into a panic, and happiness takes a sharp dive for a turn.
Spy
Commands a spy or cyber ninja to attempt to acquire information about the target city. When successful, it reveals crucial details about the production, gold, military, and improvements of the targeted city.
Steal technology
Commands a spy or cyber ninja to attempt to steal an advance from a rival empire. If successful, the attacker gains the advance immediately, including any new building options.
Sue
Commands a lawyer to either rid friendly cities of enemy franchises or destroy other lawyers or corporate branches.
Unload
Commands a transport unit to unload units from its cargo hold.
Armies and Army Manager
In Call To Power II you have the ability to group your units into armies. Army management-the creation and implementation of effective armies-is crucial to your success as a military leader. Once units are grouped into armies, they move together, attack together, and defend together. A proper blend of offensive, defensive, flanking, and even special units can make a considerable difference in the overall effectiveness of armies.
Armies can be no more than twelve units strong. To create an army, move several units onto a single tile. You can access the Army Manager in the following ways:
- Double-click the stack of units.
- Right-click the stack of units and select Army Manager.
Combat
Most of the units available to you in Call to Power II are present for a single purpose: combat. Whether defending your cities from invaders, running intruders off your territory, or setting out to conquer a rival empire, you will use countless units to achieve your goals.
The Battle View
When one of your units attacks or is attacked, the battle view automatically appears. The battle view shows all of the units involved in the combat, with attacking forces on the left and defending forces on the right. It divides forces into offensive, defensive, ranged, and flanking units to maximize the abilities of each.
Offensive units are always at the front and in the center of the battle, with defensive units close by. Ranged attack units position themselves in the back, and flanking units occupy the sides. Offensive and defensive units always attack the opposing unit directly in front of them. Ranged units attack the offensive units in their "column." Flanking units attack the center-most opposing offensive units. In this way, flanking units substantially increase the attack power of an army. As units die, other units fill their place from the sides. Offensive and defensive units fill the center ranks. When they are all defeated, flanking units and ranged units take to the front lines and fight to the bitter end. The more flanking and ranged units you have in an army the more attack power you have per round of combat. However, too many of these units may prove to be a weakness, as their direct offensive and defensive capabilities are often less than standard offensive and defensive units. Armies with a mix of offensive, defensive, ranged, and flanking units are the best forces to muster. They fight with coordination and balance each other's strengths and weaknesses, making for an effective fighting force.
Combat is resolved using several formulas that take into account the attack, defense, armor, ranged attack, strength, and health ratings of each unit. Call To Power II automatically factors in terrain, tile improvement, and city defense bonuses. Combat continues in rounds until one side defeats the other or the attacker retreats.
Tactical Retreat
If the battle looks grim, the attacker always has the opportunity to retreat from the fight. The defending armies cannot. To retreat, simply press the Retreat Button from within the battle view. As your armies run away, each unit on the defending side will get a free shot.