01-10-2001 00:46									#1
	Which part of a game do you find the hardest? Increase Your PM Length

I find the very beginning of the game the hardest part of all. Everything you do here determines your future. Any mistake you make will be magnified a thousandfold. For example, if you build a city several turns later than you should have, you're going to lag behind in science, your enemy will get better weapons, you're going to have a hard time defeating him, other nations will get ahead in economy and science, get wonders and weapons before you do, and your existence will be a miserable one.

Which part of the game is the hardest for you?

	03-10-2001 06:02									#2
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

The future is the hardest era. At the beginning, all you have to worry about is some marauder marching across the land. Easy enough to defeat: capture the whole continent (or just post guards of cheap units if the continent is too large).

Later, navies are added to the equation. So in addition to defending your boarders, you have to build expensive ships to keep watch of your coasts, since you never know where the AI will strike next. Also, naval bombardment becomes a problem to deal with.

In the modern era, besides land and sea battles, air raids become a problem. Specialized anti-air SAMs must be built (which are weak to ground and naval forces by the way) to deal with them, or else build expensive aircraft.

By the time you reach the Genetic age, you have land defenses, sea defenses, bombardment defenses, and air defenses running all over the world. Add to all this, space, with its cities and Space Bombers! Yet another category to defend yourself against. Even when you spend most of the game attacking, these five areas of offense must all be accounted for.

Finally, all the different Spys and Terror units must be dealt with. Six different areas to contend for your production. Wonderful.

	05-10-2001 04:48									#3
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

It's really all very simple once you get some good weaponry. For some reason, I never had these problems. I suppose the AIs are terrified of me. Not only can I tell how they will declare war and attack, but I can also predict their diplomatic requests and future plans. I've never been bombed or nuked. The enemy has never reached the dominance required to start terrorizing someone.

Don't ever defend. Attack. Forget about everything else, and churn out a super-army. Then all your problems are over. Until you get too many cities....

(If I sound arrogant, sorry. I just can't stand the thought of these stupid AIs molesting a human.)

	05-10-2001 05:21									#4
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Like dictatress says I normaly don't have that problem. I run for the lab and internet and the game is all over. I usally take out or beat up the closes civ to me to get my city count up fast. the first part of the game is most challeging after that I rule the world.

	05-10-2001 15:12									#5
	To Dictatress Tired of ads?

What level are you playing on? Either you are supremely gifted, or you are playing on an easy level.

I have found that on Deity level, unless you are lucky at the beginning (i.e. nice piece of land, plenty of advance laden ruins, and no agressive AIs to begin with), you are really going to struggle.

I find you have to wait until you get a significant military advance like cannons or fascism, then pick off the strongest AI you think you can defeat. From here, despite being behind in tech, you can usually go on to win.

The problem on Deity level is that it is very hard to win by bloodlust, since one or other AI will complete ALP by the time you have got around to wiping them all out. This means you have to have fairly advanced tech yourself so that you can do ALP.

On another note, the AI is a poor opponent in terms of its cunning. I have never been bombed or nuked. AI's attacks are very linear, and it doesn't do any of the obvious things (like space plane 9 fusion tanks adjacent to opponent capital to take next round).

Thoughts?

	05-10-2001 15:15									#6
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

One more thing: has anyone ever had a sophisticated space based game?

I always find that by the time space is a factor, bloolust or ALP usually follow fairly swiftly. There is rarely time to build many space cities. I think this is a weakness with the programming. The Wormhole probe should come later on the Tech tree so that space colonisation becomes a factor first. Then you could have some fun trying to protect the wormhole from other civs.

	05-10-2001 17:30									#7
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I concur with Dictatress. The beginning is very tough. If you can survive the first 100 turns then I find that things begin to even out. After reaching the very beginning of the modern age I find that I have an adequate and modern army to repel any aggressor. Once I reach the point of having a fleet of tanks and artillery it's all downhill for the ai.

However playing MP is the real challenge. There are so many good gamers out there that I find myself getting decimated towards the middle game. Need more practice against human players!

	05-10-2001 18:49									#8
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

I have had a fun game which became fairly space-based towards the end against another human hotseat (just the two of us, no AIs). It was not on the noraml rules, though, it was on my Mars scenario (which is really a mod...). We never attacked one another (2 players on a gigantic map really don't have to, and it's impossible to attack your opponents with any element of surprise on hotseat since they're looking over your shoulder), but we had great fun racing to wonders and advances. I got to space first, and as a result I was able to build more wonders with gold instead of production and after I built 5 or 6 in a row my opponent resigned. My powergraph went from about 10% ahead of his to twice as much as his in a few turns .

But we never used space bombers or swarms (or their equivalents in my scenario, anyway) so I can't tell you what extended space combat against a human is like.

I'd advise you play gigantic max water against another human on bloodlust if you want to see an extensive space-based (and probably sea-based) game. You might want to add a truce until the research of advanced composites or something like that too... Generally the fewer players you have the more likely you'll be evenly matched in technology for longer.

	06-10-2001 13:08									#9
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Beginning! Its quite challenging and small things do multiply. Thats why I build as many cities as possible. After I discover things like Cannon making I Finally build some good defences in my Chunky prod-cities and go for explosives. when I finally get that, I rebuild Defence and move out all my cannons and musks, and the enemy is dead. I capture an average of 10 cities each time im at war. Once my ally got to winning the game by science(1 turn away) so I had to drag out a nuke from the nearest plane and bomb the capitol. then make a paradrop . Even though its only a computer, I dont like turning on him. Id rather do it to a human, because we are more *******s than machines which never do anything wrong. But u guess thats the only way to win, and if you are not able to do it... (deity lev) then u should keep learning how to play.
Anyway, the modern era is really easy because you basically overbuild everything and you have So much production, you don't know where to put it all. I usually put PW to zero and get one city on Infrastructure and produce mighty 3000+ prod every turn just to click some blank spaces which I might have missed on last round of PW.

	09-10-2001 01:23									#10
	to alanlyons Increase the size of your Attachments

I'm playing on Deity level. Nah, I wouldn't call myself "supremely gifted." Terrain you start on is EXTREMELY important. I generally require something like forests, hills, and mountains. I certainly don't win every game I start. I love ruins, but I find them frequently annoying. Just think: you have one city, and here 10 mercenary units join you! It's a pity to disband them, but they eat all your production (actually my soldiers eat some food too). Aggressive AIs are not a threat at all. Don't talk to those that hate you. They usually agree to leave on demand. If they do declare war, they take such a long time to build an army, that they get tired of war and accept a peace treaty.

The way I survive is: I have a detailed plan with clear objectives. There are two wonders I must have: the Sphinx and the Philosopher's Stone. I build 3 well-developed cities and crank out a samurai & archer army when I'm able. Then I defeat a neighbor. That puts me on top of the power graph, and once I stabilize the economy, it's a clear shot. I get tanks and good stuff like that, build an army, and conquer the world.

	09-10-2001 17:52									#11
	To Dictatress Get a bigger avatar today!

thats an interesting strategy
I dont usually go to war until I do have Tanks I just build... and build... and build... until I run out of improvements, then I build armies and go forth!

	09-10-2001 18:23									#12
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Hi TRK

My tactics are a little different. Firstly go for Theocracy, then keep this until corporate republic. There are just a couple of wonders i really like, maybe ramayana is okay, but I must have Galileo's and London Exchange. If I am in a great location then I will go for wonders.

As to play, I used to be like TRK and keep building improvements. Then I saw a post by Faded Glory formerly Saddam (in Swissy 2 ctp/multiplayer thread) and I could see the logic. Firstly forget happiness improvements (use the sliders) secondly don't bother with research improvements (except in cities using scientists). The extra cash generated is more of a boost to science. Concentrate on trade routes and protection for them.

In a waterworld try to get Ships of the Line (SoL) ASAP then submarines. Many people in multiplayer taught me this. On dry land knights are the early tank equivalent. An army of 7 knights and a couple of mounted archers are very fast and powerful. Then when tanks are available I do the same as TRK, and kick some serious ass.

	10-10-2001 06:31									#13
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Some days ago I'd have said I must have the London Exchange, but not anymore. In my current game I missed the London Exchange (ooh I'm embarrassed), but I'm NOT pulling out. I have tanks, and therefore I have everything. Nobody will escape! hahahahahaha!

In my first successful CTP game I used to build all available city improvements first, and units only after that. Now I realize that's a waste of time. As long as I have enough to keep up the economy, I can live off conquered cities. And besides, some city improvements are unnecessary. For example, why build a movie palace if your war discontent hardly ever goes above .3? And remember: while you're building, your enemies are building too...

	10-10-2001 13:52									#14
	Re: to alanlyons Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Dictatres.

Thanks for the reply.

Agree with your tactic re: Samurais and Archers. Provided enemy does not have cannons, works very well. Question for you: Have you found a way to make the AIs behave more reasonably? I've tried all kinds of crap. Make embassy, butter up, gifts of gold etc, early in the game in order to move on to swapping tech to make up for early tech deficit. However, computer almost never responds. And I am talking about reasonable exchanges as well.

If anyone knows how to induce the AI to co-operate more, please tell me.

quote: Originally posted by Dictatress I'm playing on Deity level. Nah, I wouldn't call myself "supremely gifted." Terrain you start on is EXTREMELY important. I generally require something like forests, hills, and mountains. I certainly don't win every game I start. I love ruins, but I find them frequently annoying. Just think: you have one city, and here 10 mercenary units join you! It's a pity to disband them, but they eat all your production (actually my soldiers eat some food too). Aggressive AIs are not a threat at all. Don't talk to those that hate you. They usually agree to leave on demand. If they do declare war, they take such a long time to build an army, that they get tired of war and accept a peace treaty. The way I survive is: I have a detailed plan with clear objectives. There are two wonders I must have: the Sphinx and the Philosopher's Stone. I build 3 well-developed cities and crank out a samurai & archer army when I'm able. Then I defeat a neighbor. That puts me on top of the power graph, and once I stabilize the economy, it's a clear shot. I get tanks and good stuff like that, build an army, and conquer the world.

	11-10-2001 07:19									#15
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alanlyons:
I typically play on King or Emperor. I've found that the AI nations will each individually hate you, love you, or are neutral to you (yet even these fluctuate during a game -- see below). All you can do is make them more of what they currently are. If you want to trade Tech, give gifts to the AI (or wait -- they'll get there eventually) until they are happy with you. Then you can start to trade Tech with them (maps too, if you like that sort of thing).

In regards to the AI's fluctuating feelings about you, I've had nations who hated me for years, suddenly start becomming neutral towards me (yet I did nothing to them). Usually, these would inevitably fall back to hatred again, but, for a while they're neutral.

I've seen other allies (even those with permanents alliances with me!) fall from love (where they've been for years) to hate and stay there, but they can't do anything because of the alliance! Again, I had done nothing to them -- I wasn't even wandering on their lands or pirating them!

These moods the AI gets into seem fairly rigid while they last -- your gifts make almost no difference.

	11-10-2001 09:30									#16
	Wonders Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

I never needed the london exchange, its a waste of time and it only saves me 5-10% of my economy AT MOST.
the only wonders that r useful are:
Stonehenge, Labyrinth, chichen itza, East india, globesat, hollywood, Eddie's lab (inet sux cos I have most advances anyway), National shield, and all the happiness wonders.
and by the way, Dictatress:: yes some improvements are unnecessary, but they do help a lil and they R worth it when they only take 1 turn of your time to build

	12-10-2001 06:44									#17
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

A revision of my statement about the London Exchange: don't build it. Try to live without it, and eventually you'll thank heaven for it. I now have a stable economy, I'm advancing rapidly on all fronts, and my people love me. Previously, I would have a sudden deficit of 6000 gold per turn when robotics was discovered. Now at least I know I won't have an economic cave-in like that.

Now to alanlyons:
the key to civ regard is trading advances. In the beginning, don't talk to hostile civs, or you'll provoke them. Only ask them to leave when they begin amassing troops. Sign alliances ASAP, while the AIs are still friendly and trusting. Build the Philosopher's Stone and exchange for all advances you don't know. The Forbidden City is an excellent asset, but you can do without it. As civs begin to love you, ask them for an alliance. However, you have to wait for about 7 turns before asking for an alliance again. If you jump on them with a ton of requests, you'll just annoy them. Continue exchanging advances throughout the game and don't be aggressive. That keeps them pretty stable. I also shower them with advances in the modern age to make them worthy enemies.
A note on the shifting regard. I've checked the intelligence on such occassions, and found that a shifted regard means that the civ has started a friendship with your enemy. Or, of course, that it has ended a friendship with your enemy.

Also a safety note: don't exchange maps with anyone more than once, even if it's your most trusted ally. If they ask to exchange maps again, it means they want to attack you.

	12-10-2001 10:31									#18
	wonders Put an end to popups!

Dictatress, if you played whilst keeping an eye on discoveries then you should not be left with a hole after robotics. The simple fact is that having wonders such as Labyrinth and London exchange means that you have to plan for the future. But you also say that you were faced with a 6000 gold deficit per turn, this shows just how much money it was saving you. It can equate to savings of circa 150-200 gold per city. If you have over forty cities this is quite substantial.

In my present game, as the Russians, This is the maintenance cost of one city.
granary 1
city wall 3
market 5
aquaduct 3
bank 10
mill 10
factory 20
oil ref 20
drug store 10
nuclear plant 45
recycling plant 5
incubation center 25
TOTAL 157

This is only a size 10 city. Savings of 157 per turn for this city alone. I have 44 cities in total. I have loads of trade routes and I am now far ahead of the AI. So use your surplus wisely and there will be no economic cave in.

TRK, now to your wonder list.
(Ancient)Stonehenge is okay. labyrinth is okay but you are left with the same problem as LE once age of reason is discovered, trade routes just disappear. Be prepared. Chichen itza is good and it finishes late. (Mass Prod) Philosphers stone is okay. I am just wary of having too many wonders that all disappear at the age of reason.

(renaissance) East India is only good in a water world. But from your posts I can see that this is the kind of game that you enjoy. I really think that you should look also to Galileos for your science city. With extra scientists and all the science improvements it can bring discoveries down significantly. Also LE as previously mentioned.

(modern) Edisons Lab is good. Hollywood is good, once complete you must gift the mass media tech to all the AI, creates good will and lots of TVs. Globesat is okay but not totally necessary.

(genetic) National shield is good but expensive. As to internet I agree with you, I am usually well ahead in tech when it arrives.

For me at the beginning of the game I am too busy building up armies and production to really go for wonders. The main things are growth, and trade. Knights for land games and Ships of the Line for waterworlds and head onto victory. Very important to keep slavers in cities and with big armies. Every battle you have should produce a slave, great for growth. Samurai and mounted archer army with a slaver is both fast and efficient, most lone barbs can be caught and enslaved.

I really must get into Wes's med mod again for a real AI challenge.

Dictatress you say that 16 civs gigantic is a challenge, I must also try that too.

	12-10-2001 17:17									#19
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

The moral of your story about the London exchange is not 'don't build it'; it's 'do build it but don't RELY on it'. Think how much money your stable economy would have earnt you without the maintainance...

If you're worried about other civs catching up then maybe you should build the internet anyway just to stop them, but probably not. It's certainly not as good as Edison's Lab if you're in the lead, but it will in fact be better than Edison's if you're behind since Edison's will only give you techs that you've already partly researched.

	12-10-2001 18:17									#20
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

I've been caught out a couple of times depending on wonders. First time I had LE go redundant, my gold deficit was so severe I lost the game.

You just have to be aware of the shelf life of a wonder and make sure you begin to compensate in good time for its obselecence.

I find the national shield is just brilliant. Though again you have to be careful to make sure the city it is located in is impregnable. If someone takes that city, you can be in big trouble because of course, it immediately gives him shields on all his cities!

Is it a bug in my game, or does GlobeSat do nothing at all?

Also, I have found that deficit to the AI early in the game makes it impossible to build any of the early wonders. Exception to this is when you can perfect slaving to produce one large city early in the game. This city then has enough production to build all the wonders.

My favourites are LE, Contraception (especially in a polluting & nuking game), Edisons, Sphinx if you can get it, National Shield, Sensorium, and Nanopedia. I also like Eden project later on if conditions suit. Actually question on that, if the 3 biggest polluting cities happen to be your own, do you get nuked as well?

	12-10-2001 20:26									#21
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

The globesat certainly reveals the whole map to me, and my friend has told me about losing his own cities due to the Eden Project, but I've never built it before the Gaia Controller so I wouldn't know...

	12-10-2001 23:15									#22
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

In the original version of CtP, the GlobeSat just gives you worldwide radar coverage. That means that all units (even stealth units) show up on your "mini map".

The problem is, the mini map is close to useless, because you can't zoom in, and the pixels are too small to determine where units actually are, unless you're playing on a 30x20 world or something.

So in the first or second patch, Activision added an additional power to the GlobeSat: it illuminates the whole world. (This illumination isn't permanent -- anything you didn't actually explore before building the GlobeSat becomes dark again once the GlobeSat is made obsolete. Exploring it while the GlobeSat is active won't help.)

If you're playing on a small enough world, that radar coverage can actually be useful. I've located stealth units thanks to it once or twice.

	13-10-2001 00:16									#23
	Got spare money?

Well I can't figure out why CTP is so easy even on Deity Mode. I have been playing a World Map with 6 AI's and I easily beat them. I rarely even attack. I just build and build. By the Time I get a few cities built, I am leaving them in the dust just by advances alone.

It sounds like something is wrong for it to be so easy. Is ther any way to make it harder. It just seems like all the AI players do is attack each other and never advance their technology.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

	13-10-2001 05:12									#24
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I don't worrie about early wonders unless I got super good land and big cities fast the fist I go after is confucius academy. so I don't lose happinuss when I take out my neighbors. I want the Hagia Sophia, then science wonders. I want the lab and I try to get the internet to keep AI from getting it. National Shield and stare ladder, Gaia Controler.

Prohbited, Try the med Mod if the stock game is so easy for you. Or maybe it is your map. I know when I play with world map the set up was always the same so knew where AI's were. You might try going down to standers map with 8 AIs and barb's on roving hords.

You guys that rave about tanks, I have never had much luck with them. I prefer marines and artillery with 9 intercepters doing the main fighting. Take you jets in claer the city then drop a paratrooper into the city. I can take a large number of cities and never loose a unit this way.

	19-10-2001 02:20									#25
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[QUOTE] Originally posted by Prohibited
Well I can't figure out why CTP is so easy even on Deity Mode. I have been playing a World Map with 6 AI's and I easily beat them. I rarely even attack. I just build and build. By the Time I get a few cities built, I am leaving them in the dust just by advances alone.

here's something to try: CTP supports up to 32 civs, remember? try 16, 24 or 32... You'll find the challenge is quite different. Here's how:

in your ctp_program/ctp directory, find the userprofile.txt, and change the first line to match the number of civs you want + 1 for the barbarians (so 24 civs = 25, etc). note that once you make that number greater than 9, the game will probably crash if you try changing the number of civs from within the game.

Cheers,
Narmox

	20-10-2001 04:56									#26
	Suffering from ads?

I've tried making my game support 32 civs, but it has only enough colors for 16. When I tried to create more colors, it kept giving me an error message. I experimented and found that it was the new color line that caused the error.
This makes me upset...................I'll go nuke the rebels......

	20-10-2001 07:37									#27
	Got spare money?

hmm.. Ill try playing 16 civs as soon as I finished my modpack test, but I think that itll actually be easyer to conquer because the civs won't be all as far from me
I can just imagine myself getting 4 cities in a diamond-like shape, 4 sq apart from each other, then sending slaves to all sides. and after this I should be able to build humungous armies fast and capture cities one by one each turn from 500AD or so

And by the way: sorry for the mislead, some ppl were right, since I play with beginning turns at 25 years each instead of 50, I get to expand my civ a little sooner. If Im on good land its turn 100-120 where I have a dozen cities all size 5+. And if you think that maybe I play with my modpack and make it easy for myself: WRONG I made the civ tech tree about 100 times more expensive on average (first techs being 5-10*) even though the gold is now twice larger in volume.

Units cost less but are more expensive to keep, therefore more units and more costly makes unit support go up by dozens of % on WAR.

anyway: 1000BC on my scale would be about 1000AD on everyone elses scale. sorry

	20-10-2001 16:16									#28
	hard game Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I have just about finished a game 16 civs using wes's mod pack huge map. I played as osama of the Phoenicians. settings were deity raging hoardes. At first I was by far the weakest, with the lowest tech but by 1290 ad I finally overhauled the assyrians to become top dog.

At the start as soon as I had the tech I built a huge bunch of horse archers and then surprised the portuguese, took all of their cities. Kept building up my cities by chasing down all the barbs and creating slaves. Every army had a slaver, essential for growth.

Then my next nearest neighbor, the Americans attacked for no apparent reason. I was quite happy 'cos then I could kick all the yanks off my land. They were left with a couple of cities on small islands.

I had to constantly be moving the sliders, sometimes I would up the gold and production when I was trying to get wonders built. Then lower them for discovering certain advances a little quicker. Early on I went for happiness wonders, so that I did not need to build any happiness improvements. But I did build both temples and theaters, their maintenance is so cheap. I did not build a single science improvement.

As soon as i had spies they were sent to scotland, which had 9 more science discoveries than myself. By the time the gold was rolling in science discoveries were pretty quick, every couple of turns. I built lots of mines and the production improvements in every city as soon as tech discovered. But I created a problem that my cities were producing too quickly so I had to slow down production so my army could be kept to a reasonable size, and not be a drain on finance.

I always kept at least two cities, with mega production, just producing wonders. As soon as production techs (forge, mill etc etc)were discovered these would be bought asap in these cities. Sometimes I had to slow down production if the wonder would be completed before another wonder advance was discovered. This ensured that any production would not be wasted. But once I did miscalculate, and had to buy an unwanted cathedral, this was the next most expensive thing.

In the medmod london exchange is not so powerful, only improvements with maintenance of 6 or less per turn would be free. But I still bought it anyway, just to deprive any AI.

To cut a long story short I was so far ahead by 1850 that it became boring.

On another topic I did read once about changing a file that would ensure that I would always start in the worst position, can anyone help me on this. It may make the game a little more challenging.(I hate to say this 'cos it sounds so conceited)

Well the truth is that though I can now defeat AI in single player, multiplayer is still difficult for me. I am sure that some of the people that I play cheat, but I don't really know any cheats except the granary for settler cheat. The only prob with multiplayer is that it takes so long to play, some players are really slow. And here in thailand my connection sometimes gets cut. Anyway I rarely win a multiplyer game but it is much more fun. I like chatting during games, you then can know you are playing real people.

	20-10-2001 16:35									#29
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

In DiffDB.txt there's a line under each difficulty level which reads
HUMAN_START_LOCATION 0
I would guess that this means give the human player the zeroth start location in order of best-to-worst. If you increased this you may get a worse location, but you probably don't want to increase it to a number greater than one less than the number of players in the game. eg. in a 16-player game the 15th location is probably the last.

Experiment with it a bit and see what happens.

If you like I could easily rig a copy of DiffDB.txt for you so that you could play on harder difficulty levels. In fact, I'll go do that now.

	20-10-2001 17:11									#30
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

If you are the best gameplayer ever lived, you have completely no problems playing the game, because you can always see all troubles before it happents. This strategy came from China and I can say that it is best.

But we all are not perfect, so THE MOST DIFFIcult part of the game is that part were you can not handle the situation, and this part is uniqe for everybody!!!