Welcome to part 2 of this series about how to play SID MEIER'S CIVILIZATION. In the first part, I outlined the overall strategy and broke it into 8 pieces, called ages, presented the first three ages: The Bronze Age, The Gunpowder Age and the Age of Trade. In this part, I will cover the Age of Universities and Banking, and the Automotive Age. In part 3 of this series, I'll cover the remaining ages: the Age of Flight, the Space Age, and the Future Age. Due to a technical glitch, the actual article that published last time included my rough notes for the ages beyond the Age of Trade. Please ignore anything after this point, because some information may be inaccurate. This article picks up where the first one should have ended.
It took about two hours to reach the end of the Age of Trade. We were at 860 B.C. with nearly a million people and had made such useful discoveries as Gunpowder and Railroads. We had also explored both North and South America. During the next two ages, we are going to prepare ourselves for war. We're going to focus on building the infrastructure necessary to defend ourselves and providing the tools necessary to successfully defeat everyone else on Earth. To do this, we need to increase the number of cities that are capable of supporting the war effort and maintain the American's technological edge over the rest of the world. Rather than continue talking, its time to load the latest saved game and continue onward.
Time: 02:16 - 860 BC
This will be a relatively short age in terms of the number of discoveries made, especially considering those nice ancient civilizations gave me The Republic and Banking in the previous age. This age is a bridge from the Age of Trade to the Automotive Age. These discoveries are used primarily to support discoveries in future ages and to help make future citizens happy or content.
The first discovery that you should be working on is Philosophy. Like some other discoveries, this one has no direct value. It is discovered merely to gain other more important discoveries such as University and Religion.
After discovering Philosophy, focus your efforts on University and then Religion. University permits building the city improvement, University, which helps increase knowledge production within a city. Religion permits building the city improvement, Cathedral, which is important if a city is to grow beyond level 10. It also permits building J.S. Bach and Michelangelo's Chapel Wonders of the World.
The Republic is the first discovery that permits us to change to a more advanced government. We're not going to bother changing governments at this stage of the game, but we now have the option in the future. The final discovery for this age is Banking. This permits us to build a Bank in each city and permits us to discover Industrialization, the first step towards building the automobile.
Time: 02:19 - 840 BC
One of the Settler units has been working its way to South America. I'm going to build a new city just inside the main part of the continent to act as a gateway between North and South America.
Time: 02:30 - 740 BC
An advisor just popped up and told me that there was a food shortage in Detroit and one of their settler units was lost. This is a good time to discuss how cities interact with the units they create.
Click on a city to show the city display. This display contains a lot of useful information. Boxes on the screen include: the City Map, the City Resources Window, the Population Roster, the Food Storage Box, the Production Box, the Improvements Roster, the Home City Roster, and the Information Window.
Look in the box called the Home City Roster. This box lists all units that are supported by this city, no matter where they are. Notice how the Settler units have a food resource next to their picture. This means the city must provide one unit of food to support that unit per turn. With a type of government higher than Despot, each military unit will cost some number of shields to operate. What happened with the Settlers from Detroit was the city was not raising enough food to support their population, plus the three Settler units. Obviously the game corrected the immediate problem (i.e., it killed off the settlers).
As part of a periodic review of each city, you should insure that the city is producing enough food to support the units. But what happens if the city is not producing enough resources. First, for a Settler unit, you could always build a new city. When this happens, the Settler unit becomes a new city and no longer requires the support of the first city. Second, for military units, you could send them to another city and use the "home" command. This will reassign the unit to the city in which they are standing. The third and last option is to adjust resource production within the city.
Adjusting resource production is done by looking at the City Map display in the center of the screen, and moving resource production from one square on the map to another. Those squares that are not currently being worked and are available for use have nothing on them. Squares that are in use by another city are marked with a red border. To move resources, click on an occupied square to remove them and click again on an unoccupied square to place them back. Since a city can allocate resources up to three squares away, it is important to locate cities far enough apart so the squares available for resource production don't overlap.
Obviously the goal is to choose the squares that maximize the production of resources. The default algorithms the computer uses as a city grows are fairly good. However, there may be times when you wish to increase production of one type of resource over another. By looking at the City Resources Window, you can determine what the city's minimum requirements for each resource are. You may want to take a few moments to check out the City Display section in the manual.
Time: 02:37 - 460 BC
Wow! I just reached my goal of one million citizens, exactly 460 years early. Actually, with a little work, I guess I could have reached this goal at 1,000 BC. However, I wanted to begin building my infrastructure in North America to support future growth rather than short term growth.
Reviewing my cities, I noticed that a number of them were starting to get big (around level 4 or 5), yet they're not growing fast enough to justify building a Temple yet. They've already got at lease one Settler unit that requires food improving the land around the city. What I'm going to do here is start building a Temple. If the size of the city when the Temple is finished doesn't justify having a Temple, then I'll sell the Temple. This will allow me to lower the tax rate and redirect those resources towards science. For now I'll choose 80% science and 20%, taxes and I'll change it to 90% science when the treasury is nice and fat.
Time: 02:42 - 400 BC
I've finished discovering Religion. Since I already have The Republic and Banking, this age has drawn to a close. I have selected Industrialization as my next discovery, saved my game and assessed the situation.
I am now up to ten cities, with a total population of 1,020,000 people. Washington is now at level 6. Two more cities are at level 5, three are at level 4, three are at level 3, and 1 is a level 2. Washington is working on my first Wonder of the World, Copernicus Observatory. The other cities combined have a total of three Marketplaces, three Temples, 2 Caravans and 1 Granary under construction.
There are 11 active Settler units improving the land and building roads in North America. I have three Caravan units on their way to Tenochtitlan. Two fortified Phalanx units are stationed between North and South America. There railroad tracks between 5 of the cities, while most of the rest of the cities have roads connecting them together.
The treasury now has 149 shields, while the tax rate is set to 10% taxes, 90% science, and 0% luxuries. Retirement yielded a score of 44 and a rating of 0%.
Time: 02:50 - 400 BC
This is a rather long age compared to the rest. Eleven discoveries need to be made, with the ultimate goal of getting the Automobile. These are the last critical discoveries we'll need before we go to war.
The discovery of Industrialization is already under way, which will be followed by the research of Metallurgy. This permits the discovery of Steel. These three discoveries allow a city to build several new units. The most important of these units are the Transport and the Battleship. The Transport (0-3-4) will be useful to carry settlers and assorted military units across the ocean to other continents. The Battleship (12- 18-4) is a good exploration vessel and great offensive weapon.
After the discovery of Steel, comes Medicine, Chemistry, Explosives and Conscription. These discoveries permit Riflemen (3-5-1), which replace Musketeers as the primary city defender.
Finally, The Corporation, Refining and Combustion permit the discovery of the Automobile. Discovering the Automobile allows you to build the best offensive weapon in the game, Armor (10-5-3). This has good defensive capabilities and relatively strong offensive capabilities. It can move quickly with or without roads. This is the land based counterpart to the Battleship.
After the discovery of the Automobile is complete, begin researching Flight to start the Age of Flight.
Time: 02:58 - 340 BC
The barbarians show up. These folks are a general annoyance. They attack your settlers and your military units without reason, however they prefer to attack and capture one of your cities. A well defended city is usually immune to their attacks (at least at the Chieftain level). However it is usually a good idea for you to attack and destroy them before they attack you first. Also capturing their leader is worth 100 shields, so it may be worth your while to keep some chariots around to attack them as they pop up.
Time: 03:02 - 260 BC
One trick that is useful when building a wonder is to have other cities send Caravans to the city building the wonder. When the Caravan arrives at the city, the computer gives you a choice of "Do you want to keep moving?", "Do you want to establish a trade route?" or "Do you want to help build the Wonder?". By choosing the last option, the trade route contributes its revenue to building the wonder. This helps build the wonder much faster than with the city's resources alone. An often used trick is to build a wonder and use Caravans to contribute towards building it. Then you can build something more desirable, such as a Battleship, when you have saved up enough resources.
Time: 03:08 - 60 BC
Steel has been discovered. Time to build a Battleship. Washington is nearly ready to build Magellan's Expedition which increases sea movements by one square per turn. Unlike many wonders, the power of this one never expires. I'll wait until that Wonder is finished then start building a new Wonder and use the Caravan trick to hold funds for a Battleship.
Time: 03:32 - 300 AD
A long time has passed since the last entry. As a civilization expands, more time is required to do the mundane things such as build roads and railroads and irrigate land around cities. I've also been building a lot of Caravans with about half going into South America and the rest going to Washington to help build the Wonder. Of course since I now have enough funds to build a Battleship, I'll build that first then switch back to building the Wonder.
Time: 03:55 - 700 AD
Another large block of time was spent doing mundane things, such as making new discoveries, monitoring my cities resources and building Battleships. I now have a total of four Battleships with one more under construction. Three are in the Atlantic Ocean and one is in the Pacific Ocean. I'm using them to explore around the edges of all land masses. This will help mark the civilizations near the shore and determine where the best place is to begin colonizing. I'll then use the Transport to carry some Settlers, Caravans, and defensive troupes to establish a foothold in the new world.
Washington is now a level 10 city and civil disorder has broken out. This means that I have unhappy people in that city. To correct this problem I need to do two things. First, as an immediate temporary solution I'll remove the resources from the squares on the city map until I have no more unhappy people. As I remove the resource production from a square, the one person in the Population Roster is changed into an entertainer (sometimes referred to as Elvis or Elvii - look at their picture). Each entertainer acts like two trade symbols that are used for Luxuries. In this situation, three Elvii were required to remove the unhappy people. Second, I'll start building a Cathedral. This also makes unhappy people content. When the Cathedral is finished, I'll put the resources back on the City Map and turn the Elvii back into content people.
Time: 04:05 - 940 AD
I've chosen Southern Europe/Northern Africa to start new colonies in the new world. I've established two new cities and I'm bringing Transport loads of Caravans and Settlers to assist in exploration. I did make one slight mistake. I didn't defend one of the cities well enough and it was captured by the Zulus. They took some money, which wasn't that bad, however they took Gunpowder, which means that they can now build Musketeers. I've just discovered Conscription, which means that I can start building Riflemen, but the Zulu's gain of gunpowder will hurt later.
I was also attacked by the Russians. That one I didn't lose and while I was at war with them, I took the city of Orleans. (The Russians had previously taken it from the French). I got some money for the Treasury and the advancement of Horseback Riding. How useful...
Time: 05:36 - 1,520 AD
Due to some incredible research I've just gotten Combustion and have started those bright and brainy scientists on the Automobile. This will be the last discovery I need before it's time to wage war on the rest of the world.
Most of the oceans have been explored by the Battleships. The Americans now have Paris, which I captured from the Russians. While I didn't get much money and no new discoveries, I did get a nice surprise: I got the Lighthouse Wonder of the World.
Time: 05:50 - 1,580 AD
The Automobile is here. I'm going to select Flight and retire. The American Civilization now has a total of 23 cities. One is at level 14 (Washington DC), one is at level 11, three are at level 9, one is at level 8, one is at level 7, three are at level 6 and 13 are at level 5 or below. Five of the cities are in Europe, one is in Africa, seven are in South America and ten are in North America. All cities in North and South America are linked by railroads, including the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. I also have two Wonders: the Lighthouse and Magellan's Expedition.
The treasury has 233 shields, and the tax rate is 30% taxes, 70% science and 0% luxuries. (This will change shortly.) There are nine Settler units roaming around the countryside improving the land and building roads. Five Phalanx units are still defending cities. (These should be replaced with Riflemen as soon as I get around to it.) There are ten Musketeers and eleven Riflemen either defending cities or waiting for transport to the new world.
I had built five Battleships, but I lost one while attacking a city in Europe. The other four are on duty in critical places in Europe. The Transport is shuttling back and forth between Washington and Europe. (I'm using Washington as a staging area for the Transport). All of the ocean has been explored and any landmass reachable from the shoreline from a Battleship.