Your Strategies

Describe how you play the game!

Note: I played far to much Civ 2 and could beat in on Diety. I'm in the process of clobbering the AI on Impossible (will need to up the time the AI gets to make its moves in ). The farthest I've played is to get adv. naval tactics (battleships) since my first few games were on easier difficulty levels with resulted in me getting way ahead an quitting early.


-start near a goody hut that gives you a free settler/city
-turn PW down to zero and crank out settlers until you get to 10 or run out of space.
-get archers, phalanxes, and slavers (in that order).
-build up a twelve-stack ASAP and get city wall in your cities (helps keep out pesky slavers).
-once you have the twelve-stack build turn PW and keep it in the 20-30 range. I do PW on the area right around my cities right. Then go back and do areas two squares away from the cities that need it. Then go redo areas with nicer PWs in the same order as above and put the nicer PWs in empty areas.
-Have your twelve-stack go and attack the nearest enemey (why is it always the Americans) and try to kill them off as fast as possible.
-Meanwhile back in your cities alternate between building units and building improvements. I don't build settlers after the beginning rush.
-Keep on doing this unit/improvement alternation throughout the game, it should keep your military big enough to keep on expanding at a good pace (I'm always at war pretty much).
-Make a beeline for phalanxes catapuls and monarchy (I go tyranny -> monarchy -> fascism -> communism).
-As far as specialists go I generally build enough improvements to keep from using many entertainers. I never have more than 18 workers, I always just make any excess scientists (note to self: pack cities tighter you never use the third "ring" of land outside the cities).
-Its not necessarily to let the AI live (for a while) after taking a few of their cities. Its a pain to track the last ones and they tend to like me for letting them live . Also lets you move on to the next AI and keeps them all beat down to size.
-For my military units I keep a relatively even mix of infantry and bombarding units. I err on the side of bombarding units since having a stack of mostly bombarding units that just bombards along with well-mixed stack really works wonders

The good:
-you get WAY ahead on economy
-you slowly conquer the world since the AIs too dumb to stop you.

The bad:
-You're always a bit behind on tech (stole two tech with spies but have been too lazy to set up.
-You don't get many of the early wonders.

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Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
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[rwz]

Not too deep but here's what works for me:
On hard, found your city and start buiding warriors, nothing else. Explore around getting other units and citys from Ruins. Bump into another Civ ( Always the Americans! ). Concentrate units, attack, destroy, conquor city then move on to the next fat American city. Research ballistics, get Archers, then research Monarchy. Americans plead for peace, trade them a cease fire for their map, then attack them again. Wipe them out, you want their citys. All citys building either warriors, or Archers on a 2 to 3 ratio. Bump into some one else...repeat above. Only fight one Civ at a time. After Monarchy go for gunpowder, cannon making then rail road. You may then have to improve your goverment due to the number of citys (nearly all except the original conquored ).
In my last game I never terra formed ( okay only a couple of farms ) except for building roads, forts ( so I could build more roads ) and rail roads, always toward the enemy.
In SMAC I always ending up sooner or later (mostly sooner) in a war with every one at the same time. In CTP2 in maybe the 8 games Ive played the other Civs stand by and watch you exterminate them one by one. So its easy to concentrate all your forces on one victim, one city at a time.

[Mannamagnus]

Doesn't sound like much fun. Would either of you recommend this game to a hardcore civ(1+2)and smac player who never got into the "just one more turn mood" with CtP?

For some reason I'm getting the "one more turn" mood FAR more in CTP II than in CTP, its definately a better game its just that the AI's pitiful.

[MrFun]

Here is my initial strategy before I get into the next phase of my strategy.

Settle first city within four moves at best location.

Build one Warrior for exploration.

Next, build two Hoplites in a row for defense.

Third, build a new Settler for expansion.

Then my first city improvement - the Granary.

After that, I work on my first Wonder, which is usually the Great Wall (must have for me) or Ramayama.

[rwz]

I'm having fun with the game. Has it enslaved me like Civ2 or SMAC? NO way! But I've been playing SMAC since its release and I wanted something else to try. I never got CTP1 after reading the newsgroups trash it. This fall I was thinking of getting Zeus or RFTS when I stumbled on a reference to the soon to be released CTP2. After reading about the game on Apolyton I decided to get it the day it came out. I haven't had any problems except for one crash. I only have two concerns. I just don't see the AI attacking like Miriam, Santiago or Yang did and the manual is not very in depth.
For a plus I do really enjoy watching the battle screen!
My strategy outlined above is really pathetic and would not of sufficed on THINKER level in SMAC unless you got really lucky


"Mannamagnus wrote:
Doesn't sound like much fun. Would either of you recommend this game to a hardcore civ(1+2)and smac player who never got into the "just one more turn mood" with CtP?"

[Dragonfly]

Only the beginning of my games are the same. One warrior to explore, 1 Hoplite to garrison, another warrior to explore, then I start on Settler.

If I meet no-one, I build my own settlers and take all the land I found. If I meet someone, I rush my units over and take him out.

I set my Science Goal to Monarchy, to get those first 20 cities. Then, I become Mr. Rogers, until I can have 35 cities. By then I will have scouted out everything on the map, and I choose my next target carefully. One of the AI's will have 15 plump juicy cities for me, so I go take them.

After that, it's all situational. If everyone hates me, it's a total war game. If they are neutral, I start negotiations towards a Diplomatic Victory. Or, if they stay neutral, and won't open negotiations, I freeze them out, out-science them, and Franchise all their cities, and win the Science victory.

[Mannamagnus]

Thank you Dave and RWZ for your replies.
I'm not convinced yet that I should buy the game.
Maybe I'll just wait until the game drops in price so I can get the game and a decent strategy guide at the same cost as the game is now. (my way of protesting against the flimsy manual )