# Game Strategy

Welcome to the Glyph Web Civ2 Strategy Guide. We've tried to include as many tactics and tricks here as we can think of - we hope you find them useful. We'll be expanding the Guide as we come up with more suggestions, or we discover new ways of playing. If you have a favourite strategy that we haven't mentioned here, then why not mail us and let us know? If we include it in the Guide, we'll be sure to give you due credit.

The Golden Rule
What is the most important commodity in a game of Civilization? Technology? Trade? Military strength? All these are vital, of course, but the Golden Rule of Civilization is:

“Populate to Accumulate”

Your overriding concern should always be expansion, whether by building and developing cities of your own, or 'borrowing' them from other civilizations. Population underpins all the other aspects of the game. Trade, science, production, taxes, luxuries all depend on a well peopled empire. Incidentally, a handy side-effect of rampant expansion is that, not only does it build your civilization's capacity, but it also limits the number of productive city sites available to your foes.

Starting a Game
At the beginning of any game, you have two basic priorities; to settle a small number of cities that will act as the core of your growing civilization, and to explore the surrounding terrain. We've covered city building and development in excruciating detail in the 'City Management' section below. In this section, we'll take a look at exploration.

The value of exploration is often overlooked. Many players prefer to get their civilization on its feet first, and leave investigation of the surrounding terrain until they have at least two or three thriving cities in place. Sheer folly! Send out mobile units (chariots or horsemen, early in the game) as soon as you can, and explore for all you are worth. Why?

Defence: you don't get any extra points for knowing where the Celtic capital is, but it makes it a great deal easier to defend yourself against them when they attack. And they will attack.

Strategy: a solid defensive position relies on a knowledge of terrain. If you spot an easily defended mountain range or isthmus before the enemy, you can fortify it first. See the 'Playing for Conquest' section below for more on this topic.

Attack: how can you defeat a rival civilization if you don't know where it is?

Villages: especially early in the game, villages can be a vital weapon in your race to expand. A good proportion of them contain wandering nomads (i.e. free settlers) or advanced tribes (i.e. free cities). The longer you leave it before discovering these villages, the more chance they will have been snapped up by the opposition.

Expansion: you need to find as many promising city sites as possible, to make the most of all the cities you are going to build.

City Management
There are no hard and fast rules about the ideal location for city-building. A combination of grassland with one or two hills is the ideal, especially if the site lies on or near a river. If there are special terrain features nearby (such as gold or oil), make the most of them - try to choose a site that incorporates more than one of these special features if you possibly can. A useful trick when selecting a city site is to turn the grid feature on (control-G). This lets you see exactly what will lie within the city's radius, and what will be out of reach from its inhabitants.

Whatever you do, don't build your cities too close together. If you have terrain squares that are shared between two cities, only one of these will be able to take advantage of them. This loses you valuable resources.

If you build a city in a potentially vulnerable location (on the borders of your lands, say, or your only outpost on a new continent) aim to build it on a mountain, or at least a hill. These terrain types, especially mountains, give a very significant defensive advantage. A walled and well-defended city on a mountaintop is virtually impregnable.

Expansion is vital, but after the first few turns it quickly becomes dangerous. A shiny new undefended city represents rich pickings for any passing rival, so be sure to plan carefully before you start laying foundations. Once you have decided where your city is to be built, send your settlers to that point, but don't build anything. Instead, have them develop some of the squares around the location of the new city, by irrigating them and building roads. When the city is founded, this will help it grow quickly enough to defend itself without having to produce new settlers of its own. While your settlers are busy, have another city produce at least one good defensive unit (this will probably be a phalanx early in the game), and send that unit to guard the location of the new city (place in on the new city's square and fortify it). When the settlers have developed two or three squares, move them over the guarding unit(s), and press B. You now have a busy, expanding and well-defended city. Finally, open the city window and change the guard's home city (which will be the one were they were built) to the new city. This helps spread the cost of unit support. Most new cities will be set to build another defensive unit by default - you already have defenders in place, though, so change this to create more settlers to develop the city even further, or city walls if you are in a particularly dangerous location.

To lose a even one city to a rival is disastrous; you lose part of your all-important population, and part of your technological advantage is whittled away. Defend your cities well. You really need at least two of the best defensive units available fortified in each city at all times. Initially, these will be phalanxes, but you should make sure that you upgrade your city defences as new units become available. Leonardo's Workshop can be invaluable in maintaining a defensive superiority, as it automatically upgrades your defences for you. You should also build city walls around every city as soon as feasible.

Apart from defence, your priority is to build up the city's population as quickly as possible. Cities don't generally make a significant contribution to your empire until their populace reaches the five or six mark. The main ways of getting them to this point are the development of the land around your city, and the construction of a granary to accelerate population growth.

To sum up, you'd typically want to follow this sequence of actions when constructing a new city:

1. Build sufficient strong defenders (two at least) to keep the city safe from harm.
2. Build a Granary to accelerate population growth.
3. Build Settlers to develop the land around the city.
4. Build City Walls.

This should give you a relatively safe, well-developed city which you can then develop to your particular needs. Building Barracks at an early stage of development is also recommended - this provides veteran defenders (making your city even safer) and provides potential for a truly impressive military force later in the game, should you need it.

It's a good idea to avoid the 'auto-settlers' function; your cities will develop more quickly if you keep direct control over your settlers. In 'auto-settlers' mode, Settlers units tend to get 'bored' with irrigation and mining, and wander off of their own accord to build roads in obscure places. You don't want to be building roads to other cities until you've got at least the eight squares immediately surrounding a city irrigated or mined and covered with roads themselves.

As you develop nearby squares, keep an eye on the city-dweller's activities. Irrigation, mining and road-building significantly affect the productivity of terrain squares around a city, but the population won't move in to take advantage of this unless you tell them to. Make sure that a city's population is making the best use of the land available at all times.

As many of your city's denizens should be working the land as possible at any given time. Sometimes, you have no choice but to convert them to entertainers, but the more quickly you can build a Temple or Colosseum, freeing them to return to work, the better. Tax collectors and scientists are rarely of significant use until a city is truly gigantic - you should be able to replicate their abilities through judicious use of government types.

Cities are important, but every empire also needs its infrastructure. As soon as you can, you should build roads (and railroads, where possible) from city to city, creating a web of easy transport routes throughout your domain. This not only allows you to get units from one place to another quickly (to defend against unexpected attacks, for example, or prepare for an offensive of your own), but a proliferation of roadways has the added bonus of pushing up your levels of trade.

Once you've built the necessities for a city, don't build more improvements unless you need them. An aqueduct in a size 4 city, or a Temple in a city with no discontent citizens is just a waste of support costs. If the city has everything it needs, set it to building Caravans. Once in place, you can either use these to set up lucrative trade routes with other civilizations, or you can cash them in to produce Wonders or other large city improvements quickly. To 'cash in a camel', move it onto the city that it building the item and question, and choose Help Build Wonder when given the choice (or simply Disband it if you're building a city improvement). Half its building cost (50 shields) is immediately transferred to the production in that city.

Ten Key Technologies
The choice of the most important technological goals in the game is largely dependent on the style of game you are playing, and your particular circumstances. Here are ten technologies that we've found particularly potent, in strict alphabetical order:

Democracy: Once you discover democracy, you can switch to that type of government, which has many advantages. The most important of these is the hugely increased rate of science output, and the elimination of corruption. Democracies suffer, however, from being almost impossible to maintain when you wage active war - see the 'Playing for Conquest' section below for some hints about dealing with this problem. Incidentally, working towards discovering democracy from the beginning of the game has the advantage of quickly providing you with Monarchy, Invention and Gunpowder.

Explosives: A prime advantage of Explosives is the provision of the splendid Engineers unit. With this in place you can enhance your cities and build your infrastructure much more quickly than with mere Settlers. Explosives is also an important technology on the road to the more potent military units in the game.

Gunpowder: This is the significant military technology; if you are playing to conquer the world, you need to develop Gunpowder as soon as possible. Even if you're playing a space-race game, this still a useful technology to possess for the defensive advantages of the Musketeers it allows. There is a fifteen-step optimum route to Gunpowder, a route well worth taking if you are playing aggressively: Masonry - Bronze Working - Warrior Code - Horseback Riding - Iron Working - Alphabet - Currency - Construction - Code of Laws - Writing - Literacy - The Wheel - Engineering - Invention - Gunpowder. You may be able to miss some of the earlier steps, depending on the technologies with which your civilization starts the game.

Fundamentalism: For aggressive players, fundamentalism is absolutely essential. This is a government system designed for all-out warfare, and it does its job wonderfully - all citizens are happy all the time, support costs are negligible, and the extra tithes you receive make you rich quickly. The downside, of course, is that science tends to languish under this type of government. You'll find hints to help get over this hurdle in the 'Playing for Conquest' section below.

Magnetism: This advance doesn't often appear in lists of crucial technologies, but it is greatly underrated. In itself, it paves the way to control of the oceans, providing not one but two strong naval units, the Galleon and the Frigate. Gaining these units first, especially on a watery planet, can mean the difference between winning and losing. Magnetism is also important in that it is the first step towards modern scientific technologies.

Metallurgy: Possessing Cannon units before another civilization can make a real difference in your fortunes. Their attack strength of 8 is immense in comparison with the units your opponents will have in the field, and aggressive expansion of your empire becomes a relatively simple thing to achieve. Metallurgy is also an important stepping stone on the road to many modern technologies.

Monarchy: The longer you remain a despot, the greater an advantage your opponents will have. Monarchy represents the first useful government type that you will come across in most games - once you have it, you should immediately switch to that type of government.

Radio: Not only does Radio lead on to the wonderful Advanced Flight (giving you Bomber units, essential for both attack and exploration) but it brings with it the very significant city improvement of the Airport. With a well-developed railroad structure and strategically placed airports on all the continents you own, you can move units almost anywhere in the world instantly.

Railroad: This is probably the most useful civilization advance in the entire game. At one stroke, you receive two huge advantages; your Settlers and Engineers can build railroads, and your cities can construct Darwin's Voyage. Not only do railroads increase trade (and hence science) when built in squares controlled by a city, they also allow you to move your units any distance in a single turn. Once you have the Railroad advance, put your Settlers to work immediately laying lines around and between your cities.

Sanitation: Finally, Sanitation may seem an odd addition to a list of key technologies. Its big boon is that it allows you to build Sewer Systems in your cities, removing the population limit of 12, and allowing their production, trade, luxuries and science to skyrocket.

Ten Key Wonders
Of all the Wonders of the World, there are two that are indispensable. You should divert your energies to building them as soon as you have the required advance. They are the Great Library and Leonardo's Workshop.

The Great Library (requires Literacy, costs 300 shields, cancelled by Electricity) gives you any civilization advance already discovered by two other civilizations. This means that your science output is increased exponentially; all your opponents are effectively acting as allies in technology development. Each time two rivals agree to exchange knowledge, for example, you automatically gain the advances they trade with each other.

Leonardo's Workshop (requires Invention, costs 400 shields, cancelled by the Automobile) is another technology-based Wonder. As you acquire more advances, it automatically upgrades all your units to the most powerful possible with your present knowledge. Settlers become Engineers, for example, as soon as you discover Explosives, and Phalanxes are upgraded progressively to Musketeers and then Riflemen with no intervention on your part. This ensures that your forces are always bang up to date at no extra cost.

Among the other Wonders, usefulness varies according your style of play. We have listed our eight favourites here, in alphabetical order, but there are others that different players might recommend for inclusion in this list - see 'Readers' Favourite Wonders' below for some of these.

The Apollo Programme (requires Space Flight, costs 600 shields, never cancelled) will be needed if you intend to take part in the space race - it allows you to build the component parts of your spacecraft. Its real advantage, though, is the photographs that astronauts bring back from space, instantaneously showing you the whole world, and the locations of all your enemies' cities. No more desperate hunting for the last Mongol city!

Darwin's Voyage (requires Railroad, costs 400 shields, never cancelled) gives you the advance you are currently researching instantly, and a further free technology as well. Carefully used, this can give a real boost to your development programme. When building Darwin's Voyage, timing is important - it gives you a greater advantage if you build it immediately after starting research into an advance, because you get more 'free' research for your money. You can control the timing of construction by preparing eight Caravan units in advance, and using them to Help Build Wonder in the appropriate city when you want the Voyage to appear (see under 'City Management', above).

Magellan's Expedition (requires Navigation, costs 400 shields, never cancelled) is an important advance on watery worlds, and a big help to naval exploration. By increasing the movement rates of all ocean-going units by two, it helps you to discover the shape of the world (and the locations of your opponents) much more quickly, and to convey your troops there for a visit.

Marco Polo's Embassy (requires Trade, costs 200 shields, cancelled by Communism) is one of the cheapest Wonders, but also one of the most useful. By acting as an embassy with all other civilizations, it gives you a valuable insight into your comparative position, and a view of their tactical weaknesses. With the embassy in place, for example, you can instantly size up the forces available to a potential enemy, or their present level of scientific development.

The Oracle (requires Mysticism, costs 300 shields, cancelled by Theology) doubles the effects of your Temples, making your population happier and less prone to rioting. This is one of a group of Wonders (including the Hanging Gardens, J.S. Bach's Cathedral and Michelangelo's Chapel) that improve the morale of your population, and hence their productivity. Wonders of this kind are especially important when playing the game at higher levels.

SETI Programme (requires Computers, costs 600 shields, never cancelled) doubles the science output of all your cities. In the deadlocked struggle that often arises near the end of a game, this sudden boost to your scientific efforts can often be decisive.

The Statue of Liberty (requires Democracy, costs 400 shields, never cancelled) eliminates the period of anarchy that normally occurs when you change governments, allowing you to switch instantly back and forth from one government type to another. Even better than this, however, it effectively acts as a set of free civilization advances, allowing you to change to any available government type, whether you have discovered the appropriate advance or not.

The United Nations (requires Communism, costs 600 shields, never cancelled) is one of the most impressive Wonders in the entire game, especially if you're playing to win the space race. The cluster of advantages it brings with it, and the fact that it is never cancelled by any civilization advance, makes it almost essential. Like Marco Polo's Embassy, which it effectively replaces, the United Nations gives you intelligence on all your opponents. More than this, it forces them to offer peace (or at least a cease-fire) in any negotiations, meaning that you can temporarily stop any nation, now matter how powerful, from attacking you. It also brings with it the 'peace-keeping' function - even Democracies can now indulge in unprovoked warfare 50% of the time (the other limitations of this government type often make this impractical, though).

Playing for Conquest
It may be a sad commentary on the human condition, but Civilization II is at its most satisfying when putting your enemies to the sword and burning their cities to the ground. This section contains a few tips and ideas to help you in your plundering and pillaging efforts.

Unit Doubling: Most of the really strong land-based attacking units in Civ2 (Catapults, Cannons, Artillery and Howitzers being the prime examples) are very weak defensively. There's no more dispiriting experience than moving ten Catapults up to your enemy's capital, only to have them all destroyed by the city's defenders before even a single shot is fired. You can circumvent this problem by doubling up your forces. For example, if you keep a phalanx in the same square as a catapult at all times, you effectively create a new unit with a defensive strength of 2 (from the phalanx) and an attacking strength of 6 (from the catapult). Now you can move your 'double' unit right up to the city in relative safety. Once you've breached the walls and captured the city, the defensive units (the phalanx, in this case) can be used to protect the new addition to your domains.

Settlers as Military Units: There's more to warfare than just attack and defence. You often also need to build things. A very useful trick when investing an enemy city, for example, is to build a railroad all the way to its gates; this allows you to move your units into place with no loss of movement points - you can build them, transport them to their destination and attack the city in a single turn. The use of forts when attacking enemies is also recommended - a fort placed right against an enemy's city, especially on a hill or mountain, is an exceptional base for attack. Remember that your Settlers and Engineers are especially vulnerable to attack, so keep them 'doubled' with a strong defensive unit while building in enemy territory.

Siege Mentality: Military construction really comes into its own when faced with a large, heavily defended city belonging to a potent rival. If you use your Settlers or Engineers to build a fort at each corner of the city, effectively surrounding it, you gain two major advantages. First, you can move your attacking units into position with relatively little trouble from the city's inhabitants, especially if you make sure that each fort contains at least one good defensive unit. Second, you prevent the enemy from reinforcing the city; enemy troops cannot join the city's defenders until they have destroyed all the units in at least one of your forts.

Settling In: As soon as you capture a city, you'll obviously need to defend it to prevent recapture. When your defensive units are in place, it's a good idea to immediately change their home city to the place they will be defending (e.g. when a Phalanx unit reaches its new posting, press 'H' first to set the home city, then 'F' to fortify and defend it). This prevents undue strain (in terms of unit support costs) on your existing cities.

Bridgeheads Once you're established on a continent, conquering your neighbours is usually not too difficult. While you're establishing yourself on your own continent, of course, your rival civilizations are doing the same on their own landmasses - by about the middle of an average game, you'll find most continents have been turned into veritable fortresses by the civilizations that 'own' them.

Transporting troops to and from other continents is a tiresome business, especially if you don't yet have Transport units. A better solution is to send a single ship with Settlers, defenders (e.g. Musketeers) and one or more food Caravans. Use these to build and defend a new city on the target continent. As soon as your city has a granary in place, move the Caravan in to feed the population. You should quickly have a thriving and well-defended city in place that you can use as a bridgehead on the new continent.

Maintaining a Defensible Perimeter: Your enemies can't attack your cities if they can't get to them. As a military commander, it is your responsibility to construct and maintain a defensible perimeter - a line of defence around your civilization that will be difficult (and ideally impossible) for your enemies to breach. In history, almost any significant natural obstacle was used for this purpose, from a wide river to a mountain range. In Civ2, though, there are fewer options available.

The most obvious natural barrier is the ocean. The limits of primitive sailing craft mean that naval assaults are effectively limited to small raiding parties until quite late in the game (unless, of course, your enemy succeeds in constructing a bridgehead city on your continent, an event that you should struggle to prevent at all costs). Isthmuses or necks of land between two larger land masses are relatively common in the game (Central America is a good example from the real world). Building strategically placed forts or cities on these makes them impassable to enemy troops.

In extreme cases, the 'Hadrian's Wall' tactic can be productive, if a little time-consuming to construct. A Wall is made up of a line of forts one square apart from each other, stretching from one side of a continent to the other, each manned by at least one strong defensive unit. By building cities intermittently along the wall (just as Hadrian did), you can maintain this defensive barrier even while operating as a democracy.

The Government Paradox: As a warrior ruler, it is crucial that you keep your military technology up to date at all times, and you'll also need to produce plenty of strong military units. These needs are best served by democracy. A democratic government, though, makes it almost impossible to actually use all this hardware. The optimum form of government for prolonged war is fundamentalism, but under a regime of this kind, technological development comes to an almost complete stop. There are two ways out of this dilemma.

If you have the Statue of Liberty, you can switch freely from one government type to the other (even if you haven't yet discovered the Fundamentalism advance). This means that you can spend fifty years developing, say, a Howitzer unit, and arming yourself with these weapons. You can then switch overnight to Fundamentalism, conquer a few enemy cities, then comfortably switch back to Democracy, and so on.

If you don't have the Statue, you'll need to be a little more 'creative' in your approach. Once you've set your sights on an enemy city, build roads or railroads up to its front gate. Build up your forces in a nearby city of your own, and then start a revolution. You now have seven turns of anarchy in which to move your units into place and capture the enemy city without interference from the senate. When the revolution is over, just switch back to democracy to gain all the advantages of that government type.

Hit-and-Run Tactics: Capturing large, well-defended enemy cities is often helped by hit-and-run tactics. These involve attacking the city with units that can't be normally be counter-attacked by the city's defenders. For example, attacking a coastal city with a battleship, or using a bomber unit. Once, say, your battleship has destroyed the city's defences, you can trundle in your land-based troops without any difficulty whatsoever.

We Are Sailing: Wherever possible, keep your ships at sea. Ships in port are vulnerable to enemy attacks, and are also failing to perform any useful function. At the least, your ships should be patrolling your coastlines to prevent enemy bridgeheads (see above) or out exploring the world. At best, they should be actively harrying enemy convoys and battering enemy cities. Even if you have no prospect of immediately capturing an enemy city, it is still often worth making sea-based attacks to decrease the total military capabilities of your rival.

Saving Grace: Don't be afraid of the Save key! Before you do anything potentially dangerous (attacking an enemy city, say, or investigating a potentially barbarian-infested village) press control-S. Some hardened players regard this as 'cheating', but it only makes sense to save often anyway, so why not do it at a strategically valuable moment? Civilization is a hard enough game at the best of times, so take advantage of every little advantage you have!

Winning the Space Race
If you're playing to be first to land on Alpha Centauri, a slightly different approach is needed. You still need to increase your population as rapidly as possible, because more people means more science, and science is the key to this playing style. You don't need to spend resources on military might, however, allowing you to concentrate on scientific improvements and Wonders, such as Libraries or Isaac Newton's College.

The optimum government type for space racing is Democracy. You should gain this advantage as quickly as possible; once your government is a democracy, you won't normally need to change this throughout the game. The 'Goal' key on the advances menu is a useful tool in this type of game - once you have democracy, aim directly for the spaceship component advances. These are Space Flight (for the Spaceship Structural), Plastics (for the Spaceship Component) and Superconductor (for Spaceship Module). Once you are able to build a spaceship section, start immediately - remember that you'll need to build the Apollo Program before any of the three types become available.

As a rule of thumb, it's a good idea to assign your less productive cities to building structural components (which cost fewer shields), and your more productive cities to the more expensive components and modules.

Readers' Favourite Wonders
One of our readers, Jeremy Marshall, suggested a top ten list of Wonders to us. We liked the idea so much that we've given it a section of its own here on the Strategy page. Why not drop us a line and let us know your favourite Wonders? There don't have to be ten of them - just tell us your top three or even your single favourite if you prefer - and we'll build them into this list.

Since we put the Top Ten list in place, we've had a few people asking about Wonders not shown in the ten favourites, so we've expanded this section to show all the Wonders in Civ2, in descending order of popularity.

| Wonder | Points
1. | Leonardo's Workshop | 215
2. | The Great Library | 177
3. | Michelangelo's Chapel | 102
4. | The Pyramids | 82
5. | Hoover Dam | 78
6. | United Nations | 70
7. | SETI Program | 62
8. | Adam Smith's Trading Co. | 59
9. | J.S. Bach's Cathedral | 45
10. | The Great Wall | 39
11. | Women's Suffrage | 36
12. | The Colossus | 34
13. | Shakespeare's Theatre | 31
14. | Darwin's Voyage | 28
15. | Cure for Cancer | 27
16. | Magellan's Expedition | 26
17. | Isaac Newton's College | 25
18. | Manhattan Project | 24
19. | Apollo Program | 23
20. | Marco Polo's Embassy | 21
21. | King Richard's Crusade | 19
22. | The Oracle | 15
23. | Copernicus' Observatory | 14
=24. | The Hanging Gardens | 9
=24. | Sun Tzu's War Academy | 9
26. | Statue of Liberty | 7
27. | The Eiffel Tower | 0
28. | The Lighthouse | -1

How do we work out the points? If you send us ten Wonders, we give the first in your list ten points, then next nine points, then eight, seven, six and so on down to one point for the last on the list. If you send us fewer than ten Wonders, then we still start at ten points, and give one less point to each further down the list.

If we receive a vote against a Wonder (which has only happened twice), we simply subtract one from its total. That's why the Lighthouse has -1 points!

Readers Write
This section contains even more tips sent to us by readers of this page. If you have a strategy, we'd love to hear from you - mail us your idea, along with your name and where you're from (country or state), and we'll add your comments. We can't guarantee that we'll publish every suggestion we receive, but we'll include as many as we can.

| If you ask your allies (or your friends) to declare war on an enemy, and pay what they ask, a permanent grudge between the two countries will form. If you do this, they will wage all out war on each other, making it hard for them to become friends and attack you, or even trade technologies. This is very effective in a space race scenario because they will be too busy attacking each other to attack you.
- Jeff Cash
| My solution to most problems is demand tribute and nuke them and their mud huts. - Ivan L. Leigh
| I've found that while in the race for space, especially after discovering Space Flight, all other nations become hell-bent on stealing my space-related technologies. Even if I have the U.N. Wonder, they'll attack a city, capture it, get my space technology, and "make peace." This repeats with every new space-related technology I discover. So I came to the conclusion that eventually (within a few turns) each nation will have a space program. My solution is to avoid losing cities - give them what they want but stay at least one technology ahead and concentrate on building your spaceship. If another nation appears to be beating you on their space ship construction - nuke their capital city and capture it - thus destroying their progress.
- Mark McComb
| If you are behind on technologies, go to war with a high-tech civilization that has lots of railroads. This will allow you to quickly move your troops into their territory and get their technologies. - Clint Barker
| Espionage can never be overlooked. If you are a wealthy nation (if you're not then become a democracy or fundamentalist society to build up money) then you can use diplomats or spies to buy enemy cities. If you subvert the city you can remain as a democracy and not start a war. Also if you are a fundamentalist use spies to steal technology from neighbouring civilisations. Thus spies allow a nation to expand without causing conflict.
- Nick Llewellyn-Jones
| Set your allies against your enemies and your enemies against your allies. Let them crush each other and then you can finish them off and take all the spoils. - Daniel Caruana
| I've found it advantageous to build, if possible, all those Wonders that "act as a <your improvement here> in every city". Not only does this eliminate the need to build those improvements, it also does away with the maintenance costs! The two best, I think, in this are the Pyramids (need the population) and Hoover Dam (gotta love that production boost). With these two, most strategies are pretty easy to accomplish.
- Kevin Moon
| I find that the easiest way to conquer the world is, even if you've got tech level advantage, to wait until you've got stealth... then change to fundamentalism, have every city make stealth bombers and paratroopers...then attack! Then paratroopers can easily keep up with the bombers attack wave and the comp. isn't very effective in setting up SAM sites and Stealth fighters... even when it does...if you've got significant resource cities, you can overwhelm enemy rivals with sheer numbers...the attack force is swift and effective!
- Anonymous
| Well, my fave strategy is VERY rapid expansion in the beginning. In the beginning, look for a good site BUT do NOT take more than 3 turns to do so. Build on a grassland with shields and preferably a river for best effect. Once that is done, just build a Warriors or a Phalanx. After that, (THIS IS THE CRUCIAL PART!) build another settler. Once that is done, switch to building a chariot or horsemen for rapid exploration. With your new settler, found another city CLOSE to the capital, but don't overlap. Just close enough. Build another defensive unit and build another settler. Repeat this for 5 or 6 cities. After building enough chariots, go and explore and KILL (I love this part! :->) other civs and DEMAND tributes or you'll kick their rulers' butts black... after all this, build a few wonders. The Colossus is the FIRST wonder that MUST ABSOLUTELY be built. This will really kick up the dough. Then do what you must, for the rest is easy! But I forgot one more thing... set taxes to 0% or 30% in the beginning... and see your tanks squash a thousand warriors even in the King level! AS for Emperor, well, use diplomats to survive and steal techs! Highest scores possible? More than 1500 points in CIV I AND II! Yeah!
- Yeu Ann
| When it's late in the game and you are hell bent on world conquest, or so far behind technologically that there is no hope of winning, nukes are your holy grail. First, amass a huge arsenal of nukes, a few tanks, and hoards of engineers. Next, nuke all the cities and military units on the targeted continent. Then land your tanks and sprint from one city to the next and start them on creating defensive units. You don't want any rivals paratrooping into your new prizes. Then flood the continent with engineers to start the clean up. This will minimize the number of points lost to pollution at game's end. Also haste is needed to avoid having the ice caps melt. In three or four years, after the clean up is completed and your arsenal is rebuilt, move on the the next continent and do it again. Sure, genocide on a planetary scale is not politically correct, but it is just a game, and there is no reason to be a good loser.
- M. Tyler Williams
| My favourite strategy is: 1. Make two cities in the beginning. 2. Give those two cities a barracks and a granary. 3. Make at least two horsemen, and explore with them. 4. Go and explore and try to get the most powerful civilization to be allies with you and declare war on the weaker ones. While you are doing that you should be making massive armies in your two cities. 5. If you made war, send your troops to your enemy's closest city. Take it over and start these five steps over from there. Be sure to make Leonardo's Workshop A.S.A.P.
- Field Howard
| When you have stealth and do not want anybody penetrating your sea lanes, double or triple up, stealth bomber, aegis cruiser, and a battleship or sub. These set ups are almost impervious to attack because the bomber prevents ship attacks, and the aegis cruiser kicks against any stealth fighter. The battleship or sub allows you to attack anything that comes near. A solid line of this setup is impenetrable, but takes alot of time shuttling your bombers back and forth (they can only hang out for a turn).
- Anon.

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