17-07-2000 13:40									#1
	My civ2 strategies don't help in CTP Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Well, I started playing CTP again just to have something to do...I 've always been a big civ2 fan and I was getting burnt out on SMAC. I've really been enjoying it, and I can hardly believe I absolutely hated this game when it first came out. (all the bugs before the patch really screwed up my system.) Thought I'd share a few of my strategy thoughts with you.

First of all, I found out quickly that myu old Civ2 strategy of kill the first civ I meet isn't going to work. Well, it could I suppose on a smaller map, but I don't like small maps. (I didn't play Civ2 on small maps either) In CTP by the time I actually discover an enemy civ on the same land mass as myself they've had time to at least create a decent defense. Its often not worth it to start cranking out phalanxes to try and destroy them early in the game. Besides thats what slavers are for. I've noticed that even though you'll get "neighborly greetings" from the AI neighbor, they still send slavers at you. Early domination is hard to achieve...its better to concentrate on grabbing land and using slavers and clerics to undermine your rivals.

CLERICS, SLAVERS & SUCH I've seen a lot of comments from people that hate the stealth units. I personally love the clerics and the slavers. If you can hit a rival civilization with a few clerics early on before they have the gold to reform the cities you can really hobble them. Slavers are great if you can position them in places to grab unwary settlers. But i've learned the hard way that if you don't want to build slavers you should at least build clerics so you can spot the enemy slavers!

Remember the good ol' days in Civ2 when you a spy (or diplomat) was insanely powerful? With enough gold you could buy an enemy city away from them. Hell, you can even do that in SMAC with a probe team. CTP's spies are, well, almost useless. My spies seem to get caught and hung a LOT more than they succeed in subverting a city and I don't get the damn city anyway if they succeed. Its a useful power and I guess the chances of success have to be low or the spy would be too powerful. But I don't have much use for them except to guard from other spies. (at least until the agencywonder) Yeah, they can spy on an enemy city, but so can a diplomat.

The invisible units I think people hate the most are the lawyers, televangelists and corporate branches. I only hate them when they're used against me. The annoying thing is it costs money to undo the damage they do and I'm forced to build them myself in order to stop enemy civs from using them on me. Frustrating. Lawyers halting production is kinda cool, but whats the point? It costs gold to do it, it only lasts for one turn and I usually don't know what city the rival is building anything important in! (As I said spies tend to get caught when they fail.)

DIPLOMACY & WAR- Yeesh. I hate the diplomacy because most times I make a lot of enemies. In one game I played recently the Zulus hated my guts, even though I had done nothing to them. I tried to make peace but they took my gold (I HAVE TO GIVE THEM GOLD FOR A STINKING TREATY?!!) ignored my stop trespassing requests, and pirated my trade routes. (So did the canadians, but the canucks were so weak I just sunk all of their lousy trimemes.) To make it worse, the zulus told me that further requests to stop trespassing would only bring me grief. Huh? Well, why should I bother even making a treaty? Nothing I do short of war is going to make them stop. Unfortunately that means I have to bulk up my military and I can't stand down since an attack could happen at any moment. Grrrr. I suppose I'd be less upset about the diplomacy if it was a little more refined. Why do the zulus hate me? I dunno.We're almost equal in power and there were other civs rivalling us. Do civs hate you if you outstrip them in tech? Well, I gave the canadians tech to smooth things other but they always...always hated me. Since the diplomacy wasn't improving I stopped giving them gold and tech. I'm only fueling their war effort against me.

Piracy is my big gripe. If a civ agrees to not pirate my trade for x amount of turns it should be impossible for them to do it or they should suffer some kind of penalty for breaking their word. If I break a piracy treaty the world frowns on me, but what does the AI have to lose? Nothing! And Piracy isn't an act of war so I have to start a war by attacking the ships or units that pirate! Piracy should be an act of war and carry some kind of penalty, since it costs the player not only profits lost but the production it took to build the caravan. (if you don't have the labyrinth wonder) I hope theres a mod that fixes that when I finally get around to downloading them.

WONDERS In Civ2 I built wonders sometimes just to see the little movie. Some of the wonders in CTP are useless, depending on what kind of player you are, but the movies are mostly too short and not very interesting. Um...why does the sphinx give me military support? I mean, if they wanted an ancient wonder with that power why not, I don't know, The Trojan Horse, or something that actually has to do with war? The Labyrinth I really don't get. I mean its a cool wonder to have if you do a lot of trading, but they could have just called it The Great Marketplace or the Pharos Lighthouse and made a better little movie for it too. I won't even go into the Chichen Itza or the Ramayana. (Stonehenge I kind of get)Speaking of Wonders the king daddy of all Civ2 wonders was probably Leonardo's Workshop. Now, I miss that one. I don't begrudge CTP for not having one like it but damn it they ought to have some way to upgrade at least some of your troops. Once gunpowder is invented most of you're older units go out the window. Unless you discover it first you'd better start replacing guys because the AI will certainly send musketeers, cannons and Cavalry against your phalanxes and legions.

Well, those are just my rambling thoughts on things. I've had to reevaluate a lot of my playing moves because I'm used to Civ2 and you can't play CTP like Civ2. Any comments you experts have would be appreciated. I'm sure i'll learn something.

D4

	17-07-2000 18:39									#2
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

concerning the do not trespass issue, with the Med Mods and i THINK CD's Mod, the AI won't agree to the do not trespass no matter what they think of you. since i installed the Med Mods that is the one thing that has never worked but given what Med Mod does for the game, i don't mind it one bit. i think i asked WesW about this and he said it had something to do with how they were tweaking the AI...it was either give up on trespassing treaties or the AI improvements won't work at all.

i personally only build enough lawyers to protect my civ or at least kill off the franchise/lawyers that get sent against me. i do tend to build the franchise and blimp thingies by the ton because they really do help. spies in this game are a rather weak as compared to their counterparts in Civ2. i do miss their ability to sabotage things though i don't worry to much about "buying" enemy cities.

	18-07-2000 06:49									#3
	Inflate your Upload Space

The best thing you'd better do with the first civ you find is slaving him to hell with a 2 knights, 1 horse archer and a slaver, or whatever combo, just make sure you have that slaver in it and you'd better have 2 melee units and 1 (or more) ranged unit.

The Sphinx is a wonder that the Egyptians built to demonstrate their power, no?