Can we have a thread for the Sid Meier Civilization games?

xp Using nukes tends to be more trouble than it's worth, anyway.

http://www.freeciv.org/index.php/Freeciv

-- g e o f f (gffcnn...), June 27th, 2005.

Agreed, but Civ III does go a long way toward incorporating more diplomacy, culture, economics etc., and it's much easier to win peacefully. Still, it has an "end game" in mind, and anyway, I find it more fun to just play all-out war.

http://www.civfanatics.com

1) On every turn with an odd-numbered-year, focus each city of 6 or more on food.

2) When two or more civilizations offer you chivalry, trade them wines

3) Rush-build catapults in your capital, which you should then move to your second-largest city, which should be building Pyramids, and disband them.

4) Claim as much forest as you can and build fortresses on all of it.

5) Research Music Theory ASAP

Civ 3's worth it but only with the Conquests expansion that adds loads to the basic game as well as the entertaining Conquests themselves. The world maps are fun to play on too. I find that being an Industrial Civ is a must for the quicker worker actions - I tend to play Ottomans as they're Industrial/Scientific with their special unit coming at the right time.

The way to become "good" at the game is to look when cities are at either size 6 or 12 and haven't got what they need to get bigger - take that excess food and turn it into Scientists. Also do this when Cities start getting over size 15 or so. In Civ 2 you could also swap food caravans between 2 cities and have them grow by 1 per turn.

A nice Civ 3 trick is to race to Horseback Riding, build 3, move them together. You'll walk over enemy cities save for capitals easily (just disband the cities when you get them and then build anew to your own liking). It puts you a bit behind on Science but the lebensraum is useful and can give you a big territorial advantage.

My best luck in Civ 3 so far has been with Persia -- the Immortal unit is by far the best ancient unit and allows you to dominate that era. Build four or five cities, research iron working as soon as possible, and secure as much of it as you can (hopefully also keeping it out of enemy hands). Then, overrun the continent.

Ottomans are good too if you want to do a big military rush later in the game -- get to Military Tradition as soon as possible and build sipais. They're like cavalry but much stronger, and nothing else on their level comes about in the game for a while.

As far as winning "peacefully," I kind of want to try it now without using any absurd tricks. My guess is that it would be a matter of strategic city placement, resources, culture, and diplomacy, but also having a strong enough military ready in case anyone attacks.

It only becomes a problem where this civ actively seeks to rival you in territorial expansion. In this case, an all-or-nothing gamble war against this civ might be the most macho and therefore appropriate action

But anyway, I'm able to win at Monarch, and here are some general rules I've found important

1) Expand quickly by focusing on settlers, workers, and warriors to scout the continent early in the game.

2) Control resources, especially iron and horses. As soon as these show up on the map near you, try to build cities near them.

3) If you have a good early unique unit, like the legion or the immortal, use it aggressively when you get it -- this is your big chance to expand.

4) When fighting wars, use large groupings of troops and move them together. The AI, for some reason, doesn't do this.

5) Don't build wonders. Conquer them. Otherwise you're wasting time and production.

6) Build culture/improvements in border cities -- you'll expand your borders and you might even get one of theirs to flip.

7) In war, if you're deadlocked, try to take out their resources. Pillage the iron. Pillage the roads that connect cities. Now they can't build the units they need to fight you.

1) Really want a wonder? Don't start building it once you've got the right advance - start building another one a long time beforehand and switch to it when you can build it

2) Look for cities that aren't growing and irrigate or build harbours in them to make them keep on growing

3) When you're sending your settlers out at the start send at least one of the first 3 or 4 wandering until you find a resource and build there

4) Overlapping city squares are fine - just not too much

5) If someone goes to war with you and it's midgame or later - sign mutual protection pacts with other nations - they'll get involved and it'll be hard on them.

6) Don't have too much money stored up - you can get troops through conscription later on if you need them. Spend the money on your low-production cities - but only after they've been building something for a few turns as it is a lot better value for money than buying them from scratch for some reason.

7) Don't be afraid to give things away for free - if you get too far ahead then you'll stagnate as you've no-one to trade advances with. Hand pick a couple of Civs who are miles away from you and trade advances back and forth with them (trade embargos with your neighbours help here)

8) Name all your cities really silly things.

I also like to call my civ the Fighting Jews.

is there a tangible benefit to going republic? or republic->democracy (besides increasesd worker efficiency)?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19922

Republic has the same distance corruption as Monarchy but a slightly better optimal city number. Perhaps the corruption only seems to get worse because the trade bonus increases the total trade resulting in a greater number of lost trade.

Corruption really sucks in CivIII, especially the smaller maps. I sometimes play small maps modded so that I will have more than four productive cities.

I tend to race to Republic for reasons I can't remember. Racing to one of the Government styles at the start is good as people will trade all the other advances for them when you've got them. I think Republic has more useful stuff on the way to it than Monarchy. Also you tend to get Great Leaders from getting to an advance first thats on the way - which you can use to rush build a Wonder from scratch in one of your border cities or better still hold him back until much later when there's a wonder you really, really want. He can build it from scratch in one turn.

When you're happy with your Civ size - Build the Forbidden Palace in the city furthest away from your capital. It acts as a second Capital so corruption in its neighbouring cities reduces drastically.

Problems with culture early on? - Libraries take half the time to build as temples and add culture. Do them first and only Temples next if the Library has had no effect on your border size. If your border has expanded enough due to the Library build a Courthouse next to get that pesky corruption down.

Important trading advances rule - if you trade an advance with 1, trade it with all of them on the same turn even if it means giving it away, as the first Civ you trade it with can then trade it to the others and so on. You might only get 20 gold for it but its better than nothing. If they offer Gold per Turn jump at the chance as I find this tends to cripple them.

If you're far better than your neighbours come the Middle Ages or later, don't dispose of the little, crappy Civ's near you - if they're small you can get rid of them anytime - wait until a Strategic Resource appears in their land. In the meantime kingmake them. If they border a more powerful Civ give them a load of money, units and advances and let them fight the war for you - declare war on the larger Civ and then do nothing but consolidate your border. It'll damage the health of the bigger Civ without you getting involved.

Want to punk some bitch Civ next to you but don't want to have to govern their filthy infidel land? Don't take their Cities, PILLAGE THEM BACK TO THE STONEAGE. Remove every road and irrigated square until their citizens succumb to hunger and plague and their City sizes start dropping back to 3 or below. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Hitler was a wuss.

The best part of Civ is having conversations about what Civ 50 will be like - "Right click to view a 1 hour documentary in the style of The History Channel regarding your recent War with The Persians", "Click here to take part in a Question Time style debate show about your new Trade Embargo with the French", "Press F2 for a list of Racist Jokes and Regional Accents from your Civ" etc.

Civilisation 4

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/2883/kingxy7.png

(exp.pack is out in the next week)

It's out right now here (UK), am just about to install it. There was a huge compendium type thing in the shop for 20 quid too, with every single Civ game and expansion (apart from the two for Civ IV), which I'm tempted by now.

I played Civ 4 for a few hours recently. It seems like the game goes too fast -- I was trying to get a few cities going and the tech advancements were just flying by. Maybe it's better on higher difficulty levels.

So Firaxis will be releasing a version of the game for next-gen consoles. And what's the best way to get console owners to pay attention to your deep & complex games?

Do you even need to ask?

Man Plays Civilisation II For 10 Years, World Disintegrates into 'Nightmare Of Suffering'

What will the world be like in 2000 years?

According to one visionary using a computer simulation, the distant future will be a "hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation", largely uninhabitable, flooded and beset by in-fighting, nuclear war and periodic annihilation.

Admittedly this "simulation" isn't anything complex... In fact it's Civilisation 2, an infamous turn-based strategy game - which one Reddit user revealed on Tuesday he has been playing for more than 10 years.

The Civilisation series allows users to make nations, develop new technology and battle for territory and the hearts and minds of computer citizens.

The chap in question, named Lycerius, told Reddit that he's been playing the same game of Civ II in fits and spurts for over a decade.

"I thought that it might be interesting to see just how far into the future I could get and see what the ramifications would be," he said.

The game world is now approaching the year 4000AD and, Lycerius explains, is dominated by just three remaining super powers "each competing for the scant resources left on the planet after dozens of nuclear wars have rendered vast swaths of the world uninhabitable wastelands".

In Lycerius's world, the polar ice caps have melted 20 times due to nuclear wars and all of the big cities have crumbled.

"Roughly 90% of the worlds population (at it's peak 2000 years ago) has died either from nuclear annihilation or famine caused by the global warming that has left absolutely zero arable land to farm," he said.

All of the three powers left - the Celts, the Vikings and the Americans -have been engaged constant war for about 1700 years, he said.

He added that he wanted to stay a democracy but was beset by internal politics which forced him to create a communist state.

"I was forced to do away with democracy roughly a thousand years ago because it was endangering my empire. But of course the people hate me now and every few years since then, there are massive guerrilla uprisings in the heart of my empire that I have to deal with which saps resources from the war effort."

"Peace seems to be impossible. Every time a cease fire is signed, the Vikings will surprise attack me or the Americans the very next turn, often with nuclear weapons," he said.

According to the intrepid gamer, the military stalemate is so tight and balanced that no other action is possible except the construction of more tanks.

"This also means that cities are not only tiny towns full of starving people, but that you can never improve the city. "So you want a granary so you can eat? Sorry; I have to build another tank instead. Maybe next time."

Lycerius says that he wants to rebuild his game world - but in an echo of actual international politics "he isn't sure how".

"My goal for the next few years is to try and end the war and thus use the engineers to clear swamps and fallout so that farming may resume. I want to rebuild the world. But I'm not sure how. If any of you old Civ II players have any advice, I'm listening."

Reddit's users immediately took to the tale - with many pointing out the similarities to George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984:

"The parallels to 1984 are oddly chilling," one wrote. "Apparently George Orwell was a time traveler, and spent all his time in the future playing Civ II."

alpha centauri is kind of the best strategy game

the terraforming alone is a game

Anyone playing Beyond Earth?

was thinking about getting it at some point, is it any good?

How much do you like vanilla Civ 5 with better espionage but a helluva lot less flavor or distinction?

Put in other words, you know how they said they were making something different from Alpha Centauri? They _really_ weren't lying

I haven't played Beyond Earth (never played Alpha Centauri either) - noticed that it was on sale in the app store and was debating pulling the trigger on it.

I actually got into Civ 5 again with the Brave New World expansion but even after the 8th or 9th time through I was pretty meh

They scraped out much of the expansion functionality, and as much faction distinctiveness as possible.

This review from Three Moves Ahead pretty much summarizes all the bits, both good & bad:

https://www.idlethumbs.net/3ma/episodes/a-sterile-future

i put in my time but civ5 sucked, this will suck, alpha centauri is permanently $6 on gog

(put in my time on civ5 i mean. haven't played beyond earth.)