EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT CIVILIZATION BUT
WERE AFRAID TO ASK
INTRODUCTION 3
A CIVILIZATION OVERVIEW FOR THE NEW PLAYER 4
CIVILIZATION IN ITS SIMPLEST TERMS: 4
A ROAD MAP TO VICTORY: 5
THE BENCHMARK OF PROGRESS 6
MARS OR THE STARS? 6
TRY BEFORE YOU FLY: 7
SUMMARY OF PRECEPTS 8
CIVILIZATION STRATEGIES 9
MAXIMIZING TRADE 9
MONEY MATTERS 10
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH 11
HAPPINESS AND CIVIL DISORDER 11
VARIANT STRATEGIES 12
THE MONGOL STRATEGY: AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH
TO WORLD CONQUEST 12
SELL THE PALACE 13
CIVILIZATION TRICKS 15
NEW BRAINS FOR OLD LEADERS 15
SWAPPING PRODUCTION 15
REVERSING COMBAT RESULTS 16
SPEEDY SETTLERS 16
SUPER SPEEDY SETTLERS 16
SETTLER MOVEMENT REFRESH 17
MOBILE UNIT REFRESH 17
BOMBERS FOREVER! 18
OCEAN BRIDGES 18
GLOBAL WARMING 19
CIVILIZATION CHEATS 21
DEBUG MODE 21
UNLIMITED MONEY 21
HEX-ING OPPONENTS 21
COMPUTER CHEATS 24
KNOWN CHEATS 24
COMPUTER CHEAT RUMORS 24
CIVILIZATION BUGS 26
ADVISOR BUG 26
POPULATION BUG 26
TOO MANY UNITS 26
POLLUTION BUG 27
NEVER-ENDING GAME 27
NEVER-ENDING GAME PART II 27
THE PHANTOM REVOLT 28
RUBBER INTERNATIONAL DATELINE 28
BOMBER BUG 28
FORGETFUL TRANSPORTS 28
REVISION HISTORY 30
VERSION 1 30
VERSION 2 32
VERSION 3 32
VERSION 4 33
VERSION 5 33
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL 34
ROME ON 640K A DAY 34
CIVEDX 34
CONTRIBUTORS 35
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the Civilization FAQ (Frequently Asked
Questions). I decided to compile this document after
answering many, many questions players had about Sid Mier's
Civilization. I also noticed that even experienced players
(myself included) did not know the same tricks and tips! I
put out a call to other great players of Civilization and
began to compile what you're reading now. Hopefully it will
answer most of the questions you may have about Civilization
and give you some ideas to improve your play.
Civilization by Sid Mier is a computer game that takes you
from the dim early age of history up past our era to
colonization of Alpha Centauri. You do this by macro and
micro-managing your civilization and cities. (For a more
detailed overview, please see the following excellent primer
by Redmond Simonsen.)
There is a board game of the same name by Avalon Hill, and
although an ad for it is included in the computer
Civilization, and it has been said that Sid and the design
team played Civilization, and there are certain
similarities; I have not been able to pin down a "Yes,
that's what we based it on." from MicroProse. The board
game is much more limited in scope. It only encompasses the
time between 4000 and 250 BC, and is limited to an area
between the Middle East, the north coast of Africa, the
eastern part of France, and the southern to mid parts of
Europe. Also, although combat is possible (and does happen)
the game is really won or lost in trade. You collect
tradables and trade with other players trying to get the
advantage. Some treachery and deceit is possible and even
necessary to win. I highly recommend it if you have 5-8
friends to scrape together (and won't hold grudges longer
than a day or so).
When the computer game Civilization came out, I said "I must
have this!" and bought it. I was surprised to find it so
different. However, it soon had me in it's grips. (If
you've played it, you'll most likely be familiar with the
feeling of looking up and seeing it's already 3 am on
Tuesday, and saying " I can live with 2 hours of sleep; 1
more turn...")
Having played the game since its release (and shelving many
other fine games in the mean time) I can see Civilization's
long lasting appeal. I hope therefore that if you don't
play it, you be warned of its appeal, and if you do play it,
the wisdom collected within will allow you to smite the
"Damn Russians" a little faster.
Erik Johnson
October 6, 1993
A CIVILIZATION OVERVIEW FOR THE NEW PLAYER
by Redmond A. Simonsen
At first glance, Civilization seems so simple, one is
tempted to just jump right in without a thought and play
almost without reading the documentation. While this can be
done, much motion and time will be wasted chasing down blind
alleys and perhaps relying overmuch on the game's built in
"advisors" (the advice from whom is rather suspect in
quality). So, new players may find it useful to keep in mind
the following background information and suggested
operational principles.
CIVILIZATION IN ITS SIMPLEST TERMS:
At its heart, Civilization is tool-creating and territory-
acquiring pseudo-simulation. The player uses the economy he
builds (via city-creation and growth) to produce mobile
units to acquire new technology and territory and to found
new cities. Arrayed against him are a varying number of
computer-driven opponents who are engaged in basically the
same pursuit. The player wins the game either by eliminating
all opponents via military conquest or by being the first
civilization to land a spaceship on a planet circling Alpha
Centauri. The magnitude of one's victory is dependent mostly
upon the speed of conquest or size and grandeur of one's
civilization upon reaching the stars.
Each Civilization city exists as an almost totally
independent entity --a city-state amongst fellow city
states. Only the treasury and total research points
generated (a by-product of trade) are shared amongst the
player's cities. Food, resources, and other economic inputs
and outputs are specific to the creating/using city.
Military units are mobile and may be used collectively but
they are dependent to some extent on their base city.
The central economic INPUT for a city is TRADE. Trade is
indicated on the city manager screen by the little gold back-
and-forth arrows. Each back-and-forth arrow set indicates
one Trade Point generated by that city. If the arrows are
blackened, that indicates that potential trade is lost to
the city via "corruption." Trade is generated by some types
of city squares and by established "trade routes" with other
cities by driving a Caravan (camel) unit to them.
Essentially, the more net trade points a city is generating,
the better off it will be and the better off the player's
economy will be.
Trade can be considered an economic input that generates a
mix of three economic OUTPUTS: luxuries, science, and tax
revenue. The exact mix of outputs is controlled by the
player as he changes the luxuries or tax settings via the
game menus. The optimum mix of outputs varies as the game
progresses and the player must be attentive to the effects
of the settings as his nation changes.
Although it is important that one's cities be capable of
healthy amounts of production (the little shield symbols),
one should never generally emphasize raw production output
in preference to the trade potential of a given city site.
The new player may neglect trade in favor of production
inasmuch as the benefits of production are immediate and
obvious (those new military units roll out nice and
quickly). To do so consistently is to lose the game
consistently. If production will first serve trade, then
trade will ultimately serve production.
A ROAD MAP TO VICTORY:
Civilization is a game that rewards aggression and
territoriality. For all its window dressing of peace
treaties and anti-militarism, the game is basically a
wargame with a prominent economic basis. The economy serves
the engine of war and territorial growth. If the player is
to have the necessary large and rich cities required for
victory, he must control territory to the exclusion of
competing computer players --even if those computer players
are nominally peaceful. There is really only one way to
control territory in the game: military force. Although the
player may have peace treaties with various computer
entities at one time or another, inevitably the computer
players will break these treaties and attack the human
player without provocation.
In order to gain military superiority, one must gain
*technological* superiority over the computer players.
Without a coherent program, this is not easily done.
Especially in the upper difficulty levels of the game, the
computer players are afforded growth advantages over the
human player. To compensate for these advantages, the human
player must, in the early stages of the game, build a
central "Science City" within which he concentrates his
efforts to generate maximum trade points which output
science research points.
The Player should aim to have at least three or four
established cities before the turn of the first millennium
(3000 BC). This is a demanding goal but not impossible. One
of these cities is nominated the Science City (usually the
second city one builds --the second city choice should be
deliberate and carefully calculated to produce maximum trade
points when grown to size). In the Science City, the player
should strive to build the Colossus Wonder and the
Copernicus Observatory Wonder as early as feasible.
Additionally, a library, marketplace, university and bank
should all be built in this same city. Also, the Science
City should be the first of the player's cities to create
trade routes. The other cities should build the Caravans for
the Science City; bring them to the Science City; and then
cause them to originate from the Science City by using the
"H" key to change the Caravan unit's home. The Science City
should concentrate on building the trade/science enhancing
Wonders of the World.
The player's early military goal is to clear his own island
continent of competing computer-driven civilizations. If the
continent one is on is very large, this may not be feasible.
At the very least, the player should attempt to secure an
easily defensible area capable of supporting about six or
more cities without overlap. Smaller island continents can
be readily cleared. The computer players do not really play
a sophisticated military game --they rely mostly on their
production advantages and resultant mass to wear out the
human player's forces.
Upon creation of the Science City the player should dedicate
his efforts to research as much as feasible. Sometimes by
happy accident, one acquires cash by means other than
taxation. This cash should mostly be used to minimize the
necessity for taxation. Until the player develops and
installs a Democracy as his government form, he should
remain in Despotic government form to minimize overhead. In
despotism, one should build only minimal city improvements,
if any, to keep tax requirements low and research high.
Incidentally, the rule of thumb is to always parlay with
other civilization when in Despotism; and never parlay when
in Democracy.
THE BENCHMARK OF PROGRESS
The key technology that the player should work towards is
Railroads. While this may seem odd at first glance, the
production enhancing power of rail squares is so great that
if one achieves Railroads substantially before the computer
players, one has the game "in the bag." Concomitant to the
Railroad advance should be the achievement of Democracy and
the conversion to such. While this will at first be
militarily limiting, the player will find that the
production advantage afforded by Democracy soon compensates.
When one has a decent set of cities and a big Science City
operating under a democracy with a substantial rail net, one
will find that technology advances are coming at a rate of
one every two or three turns. This can mean that the player
will be operating carrier borne Bomber groups while the
computer players are still limping along with Knights and
Sail units. Having such a sharp technological edge will mean
the human player can totally dominate the computer players
even though the computer players have many built in
advantages and cheats (for example, they don't have to spend
any resources to build Wonders of the World).
After achieving Railroads, the player should soon acquire
the Industrialization Advance and start to immediately build
factories in his main cities. The first factory to be
completed should help complete the other factories by
building Caravans and sending them to the other cities to be
switched into their production using the Caravan/Wonder
swapping technique [see the Civilization Tricks section of
this document]. This will rapidly produce a network of
cities tied together with rails and roaring with production.
This production can be used to overwhelm the computer
players.
MARS OR THE STARS?
The game offers two ways to win: complete military conquest
of every enemy city on the planet (the "Mars, God of War"
option) or the launching and landing of a starship to Alpha
Centauri (the "Stars" option). Each option requires the same
sort of strong and extensive economy to be built FIRST. Upon
the creation of this economy, the player can take either
option with good chance of success.
Conquering the world with a democratic government will
require the building of various Wonders of the World of the
type that increase "happiness" since military adventurism
produces unrest in democracies. With a vigorous economy,
this is very do-able and the player can launch large foreign
campaigns and still compensate for the Unhappy faces in his
cities. The Wonders needed are Women's Suffrage, J.S.Bach's
Cathedral, and the Cure for Cancer.
The units with which to conquer the world are Diplomats,
Settlers, Battleships, Armor, Mechanized Infantry, and
Bombers. Note that Diplomats can be used aggressively with
very good effect --they are not merely agents of diplomacy.
They can snoop around the interior of enemy continents;
sabotage public works in cities; and (if one has the money
to do so) literally bribe whole cities over to the human
player's side. Sometimes a walled city that might take the
sacrifice of several expensive military units to conquer
over many turns of play, can be conquered in a stroke of
bribery by a well-heeled little Diplomat. Diplomats can also
infiltrate adjacent enemy squares and provide (by their
presence) a pathway for following combat units.
A player might not think to take along a few Settler units
on a military campaign and he would be mistaken to so omit
them. Settlers do double duty as Combat Engineers. In fact
it would have been better nomenclature to call them
"Pioneers" rather than "Settlers" (the term "Pioneers" is
used to denote combat engineers in European usage). A
crucial road linkage or fort can be built on the spot to
facilitate a campaign. When enemy cities are taken, there is
often Settler work to be done in building up the adjacent
terrain and tying in the newly acquired sites to the
national road net.
Battleships can sweep the coast lines of enemy continents
and empty coastal cities via shore bombardment. If the enemy
cities are not walled and the defending units are Phalanxes
or less, the bombarding Battleship should have little
trouble in emptying such a city of defenders in a single
turn of repeated bombardment. Once a coastal city is empty,
a transport with one or two ground units can directly land
units in the empty city and take it in the same turn. This
seaborne blitzkrieg can devastate a computer driven
civilization in a matter of a few turns.
Bombers can do the same city-emptying work as Battleships
but one needs more of them to do so since each Bomber can
make only one attack every other turn. Because of their
laggardliness, Bombers must be used in masses to be
effective on the assault. One should concentrate five or
more Bombers against a single city to empty and occupy it
with ground forces in one turn. Bombers are very effective
against walled cities since they ignore the defensive effect
of walls. Given that the player should achieve Advanced
Flight before his enemies do, he will have automatic air
superiority that will permit all sorts of interesting uses
of Bombers as blocking forces, untouchable by the computer
players.
Armor and Mechanized Infantry have powerful attack strengths
but their real advantage lies in the speed with which they
can be moved. One should not use them as mere bludgeons. The
computer players are inept at true maneuver. An astute human
player can pin and drive around computer forces with ease.
Armor with Diplomats opening a path can drive through any
little gap in the enemy line.
The best ground unit for assault usually is attained too
late in the game to participate in the action very much --
Artillery. This requires the Robotics Advance, which if the
player is "on schedule" in his build-to-conquer program,
will be obtained after a lot of the world has already
fallen.
The Starship game is somewhat less interesting than military
conquest although some combination of the two activities is
possible (one can conquer the world down to a single
remaining enemy city and then go to the stars at a leisurely
pace). If the player chooses to literally "race" the
computer players to the stars, then he must pour on the
technological advances beyond Rails and Industrialization
and fight mostly defensive and spoiling actions against the
computer players.
TRY BEFORE YOU FLY:
Documentation and these notes in hand, the best way to learn
the game is to play, of course. It is suggested that the
player learn at Warlord or Prince level. The game should be
saved frequently (to a ram disk for speed) and re-loaded if
a disastrous mistake is made. This way the player can
rapidly correct his mistakes and see the results of
different approaches to the same situation in the same game.
Once the player has experienced all the many aspects of the
game, he can move up to King and Emperor levels. One should
be aware that the computer players have significant
production and growth advantages at Emperor level that will
be a strain to deal with if not totally adept at the game.
The player will know that he has achieved some degree of
mastery if he frequently finds himself achieving Railroads
before the year 1 AD. Although this may seem incredible
progress to the new player, it really is very possible given
decent play and average luck.
The good thing about Civilization as a game is that it can
be played repeatedly without wearing thin. Unlike most
computer games, Civilization has "legs" and can provide many
hours of enjoyment in many playings. A certain amount of
planfulness and patience is required as well as a
willingness to experiment and try new strategies and
tactics. The player should keep in mind that Civilization
has its own internal logic which many times does not line up
with one's real-world expectations --for example, few real-
world Cathedrals can be converted into Battleships midway in
construction. Although it bears a superficial resemblance to
a classic "simulation game," Civilization is anything but a
simulation. It should be thought of as a rich and elaborate
software toy world within which interesting fanciful
campaigns can be conducted for imaginary glory. Thus one
should always question one's assumptions about what is
possible and what is not within the toy-world. Reality does
not necessarily apply. The player should examine the
behavior of the software objects irrespective of the real-
world labels assigned to them by the game. Only then can the
player explore all the possibilities and sometimes wacky fun
of the game.
SUMMARY OF PRECEPTS
a.Maximizing trade is central to optimum play. Roads,
Rails, and Trade routes should be established.
b.Research can be accelerated by concentrating early on
building a "Science City" containing the Colossus and
Copernicus Wonders.
c.Railroads are the key advance to achieve --one should
study the advances chart on the inside back cover of the
manual.
d.Government transition should be from Despotism to
Democracy (and no relapse to any other form once
Democracy is achieved).
e.World conquest can be launched from a base of strong
cities with large populations supporting productive
factories. Happiness Wonders must be built to insulate
the civilization from unrest.
f.A space race victory plan has many of the same
requirements as world conquest except for a lesser need
for "happiness" Wonders.
g.Each unit and element in the game should be examined and
used on the basis of its actual behavior in the game, not
upon its ostensible capabilities and USAGE in the real
world. The game is not a simulation, though it
superficially resembles one.
h.The game should be learned at middle level play
difficulty and the same game can be saved and reloaded to
study mistakes and alternatives.
CIVILIZATION STRATEGIES
The following section give tips on how to best manage
portions of Civilization. Any winning strategy is actually
a blend of elements found below. You must know each facet
of Civilization before you can make a judgment of what is
the best course of action for you. Some players prefer to
win militarily, some prefer to run the space race, some
prefer to buy out other civilizations, it's all up to you.
MAXIMIZING TRADE
The key to a successful civilization is trade. Scientific
advancement, population happiness and cash flow are all
directly dependent on trade. Indirectly, trade affects
military success and city improvement production. Trade
generates cash, research and happiness(luxuries). Cash
helps you build units and improvements, allows you to bribe
enemy units and cities and provides the infrastructure
necessary to maintain city improvements. Research allows
you to develop better units and improvements. Happiness
allows your cities to continue to grow without the adverse
effects of rebellion. Without these critical aspects, your
civilization will soon fail.
Trade is generated from the squares around your city. It is
critical that you improve the surrounding terrain to
maximize the amount of trade coming in. Further, you should
build improvements and wonders that give bonuses to trade.
Don't overlook trade routes. They can be a very large
addition to your trade.
Roads, rivers, gold and gem squares all generate trade.
Railroads give a benefit in the trade already coming in.
Build roads then railroads on all squares that have
grasslands or plains. You can even build railroads on sea
squares to give you a very big boost in trade. See the
tricks section of this document for details.
City improvements that increase trade benefits directly are
the Marketplace and Bank The Library and University
increase trade indirectly (by increasing light bulbs). See
the section on Money Matters for the logic in when to build
these improvements.
In addition to improvements, certain Wonders or the World
(WOWs) help tremendously. In the early stages of the game,
the Colossus can be an excellent way to generate a lot of
trade in a city. Make sure you build it in the city that
has the most potential for trade (i.e. lots of river or sea,
roads, gem, or gold squares are a big bonus). The
scientific wonders also help to maximize research. These
are Copernicus' Observatory and the SETI wonder. Another
WOW is sometimes overlooked but can also be very helpful
indirectly. The Pyramids allow a civilization to change
government types without the bout of anarchy and even if
that type of government has not been developed. Therefore,
one can switch to Democracy very early and shoot ahead in
money and research.
Speaking of governments, remember that trade is maximized in
Democracy. There is an extra trade unit generated per
square, plus there is no corruption -- a big eater of trade.
Republics are next best. They also generate the trade
bonus, but are subject to corruption. Communism isn't bad,
since corruption is flattened out, but you do not get the
trade bonus. Monarchy and Despotism are the worst as there
is no trade benefit.
A quick way to improve trade is with caravans. By
establishing trade routes, not only do you get an immediate
coin bonus, but a number of trade units extra are generated
in the originating city. The extra trade generated
increases with distance, being on a different continent, and
whether the city is yours or not. The best routes are to
distant cities on other continents belonging to other
civilizations.
MONEY MATTERS
Coins are deposited into your treasury based on the amount
of trade a city generates and your tax rate. If a city is
producing 10 trade units and your taxes are 40%, 4 coins
will be generated in that city per turn. Therefore, coin
production is directly affected by trade. The best way to
produce more coins is to maximize trade. See the Maximizing
Trade section for more details.
Extra coins can be generated by taking people from working
the land and creating taxmen. However, if you remove the
population from a trade generating square, you are only
breaking even, as you lose the trade for that square. This
is really only a quick fix.
A sure way to get more coins is to hike your tax rate. Of
course, this leaves less trade available for research and
luxuries; you will need to determine the best tax rate for
your situation.
City improvements are a good long-term solution for
generating coins. However, there is a logic to when to
build these improvements so they are not counter-productive.
Pete Philips now explains.
To make the math simple, assume you have only one
city, it has no structures in it so your taxes are
0%, and you've just discovered currency and are
considering building a marketplace to boost the
trade by 50%. If the city's earning $1, then a
marketplace will still only let it earn $1, since
the game doesn't handle cents and won't give you
$1.50 per turn. With the maintenance cost of $1,
your taxes will have to be 100%, and all research
will halt some improvement. If the city's earning
$2, then a marketplace will boost it to $3 minus the
$1 maintenance equals $2, so you've wasted your time
building it. $3+50%=$4-$1=$3 and you still break
even. Only when a city's earning $4 will you
actually turn a profit from building a marketplace.
The same calculation holds true for a library that
also costs $1 to maintain.
These are the structures that improve the economy
and what a city must be earning for them to turn a
profit: Marketplace, $4; Library, $4; Bank, $8;
University, $8; Courthouse, if losses to corruption
are $4 or more; Aqueduct, if building it will allow
a city to work additional squares that combined will
earn at least $3.
It's also important to build the revenue producer
(marketplace/bank) before the corresponding research
producer (library/university) so that the former
will help pay for the latter. --PP
Obviously, the Colossus will generate more coins by
producing more trade. There is no WOW that directly affects
coins produced.
If you need to speed build improvements, you can cut your
costs by invoice switching. See the Swapping Production
section in Civilization Tricks for more details.
Coins can also be had by demanding a tribute from other
civilizations when negotiating, capturing enemy cities,
capturing barbarian leaders and from the little huts if you
find mineral deposits.
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
The only sure way to dominate the other civilizations is to
out-strip them technologically. Light bulb production
(research) is directly affected by your research rate and
taken from trade. Therefore trade directly influences
scientific advancement. Your research 'budget' is set with
the research rate. If you are generating 10 trade, and your
research rate is 40% then 4 light bulbs are produced every
turn.
Light bulb production is enhanced by Einstiens, Libraries,
Universities, and several WOWs.
Converting workers to Einstiens by taking them from working
the land is a quick fix solution. You can really get a jump
on research by converting every worker you can to an
Einstein, but your cities will suffer serious setbacks due
to lack of other resources.
Libraries and Universities are a better long-term solution
to creating more light bulbs. These solutions do require
money, however. See the section on Money Matters for some
guides as to when these city improvements become cost
effective.
Certain WOWs give you a great boost in light bulb
production. Early on, the Colossus is excellent to
indirectly increase light bulb production through increased
trade. Combine this with Copernicus's Observatory and you
have a lean mean light bulb machine! Isaac Newton's
College, and the CETI Wonder also really help light bulb
production, but Isaac Newton's College is fairly short lived
to be greatly useful and the CETI Wonder comes when you are
almost done with research anyway. Darwin's Voyage is a good
wonder to build to get a quick jump in technology, but it
may be easier (and faster) to just research the stuff the
hard way. If you do build Darwin's Voyage, be sure to turn
off your research (or time it just right) since Darwin's
Voyage completes whatever you're working on even if there's
only one light bulb left until completion.
HAPPINESS AND CIVIL DISORDER
Maintaining a happy civilization is important. A few poorly
timed civil disorders can bring any strategy to a screeching
halt. In Democracy (the most productive government of the
game) a string of disorders can even collapse your
government.
Citizen's happiness is directly affected by trade. The more
trade, the more resources you have to put into a luxury
rate. The luxury rate is an easy way to bring peace
throughout the land, as it affects all cities, but there are
easier ways to make your people happy than to take away
money or research.
You can improve the happiness by using the military,
entertainers (Elvis or Elvi for multiple), Temples,
Coliseums, Cathedrals, or certain WOWs.
Under Despotic, Monarchist, and Communist governments, you
can park military units in a city and force order in a
'martial law' situation. This isn't great for a number of
reasons, but may fit your strategy. First off, the
governments where that is usable are not the most efficient
in the world. And under anything but Despotism, the units
will require an allowance that will take away from your
city's production. Also, if you ever want to mobilize those
forces, the city will go into civil disorder when they
leave.
Elvi are another short term solution (but often a very
practical interim solution to more long term solutions).
The drawback is that you have to take workers off the land
and thereby reduce a city's productivity. Sometimes it is
all you can do to keep order in a city while building an
improvement or WOW.
Temples, Coliseums, and Cathedrals all improve happiness
directly. Marketplaces and Banks effect happiness
indirectly by increasing trade in the city and thereby
increasing the luxuries produced. You must have at least
some trade going into luxuries before they will help,
though. The problem with these improvements is that they
tend to be expensive to build and maintain, but are
absolutely required for playing effectively at the higher
game levels.
Some of the best WOWs are happiness related. The Colossus
will improve trade and therefore luxuries if you have any
allocated. The Hanging Gardens are a good choice as they
give you a happy person in every city. The Oracle is an
excellent choice, but only if the majority of your cities
have Temples. The Pyramids are good and bad indirectly as
they allow you to switch between governments easily to
increase trade, but the higher forms of government make
military actions difficult while maintaining popular
support. JS Bach's Cathedral is probably only second best
to the Women's Suffrage wonder. It is the modern version of
the Hanging Gardens, but it never is canceled out. Women's
Suffrage is vital if you want to have any type of military
power at the higher forms of government. Shakespeare's
Theater is good in problem cities but it get obsolete almost
before you can build it. The Cure For Cancer is excellent
when combined with JS Bach's Cathedral, but it does come
late in the game.
VARIANT STRATEGIES
THE MONGOL STRATEGY: AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO WORLD
CONQUEST
The high-tech victory plan discussed in this guide provides,
we feel, the most interesting course of play and one which
permits the gamer to explore all of the game's features and
functions. There is, however, a primitive but effective
route to military victory which is often referred to as the
"Mongol Strategy" (since it results in a game in which the
player's forces behave much as did the historical Mongol
Horde.
The Mongol Strategy stipulates the following:
1.The player's civilization remains in Despotic Government
for the entire game.
2.Many closely spaced (10 or 12 cities, two or three
squares apart) cities are built, each of which remain
fairly small during the entire game. They should be
closely spaced and centered around the capital city (the
one with the Palace) to minimize corruption.
3.100% science is pursued until the player has attained the
Wheel and Navigation. Thereafter the player may tax
heavily or continue to progress scientifically if plunder
from conquered cities is sufficient to meet financial
needs.
4.The force structure of the expeditionary army is mostly
Chariot units, Sailboats, and perhaps some Catapults.
5.Cheap Militia units are built in the home cities to
"police" unhappiness (up to three units).
6.No improvements are built other than Temples and a few
strategic Barracks to produce Veteran Chariot units.
Building Wonders is optional; Colossus and Copernicus in
the capital city is still advantageous for the required
science but is not required.
7.When cities are conquered, they are looted (and sometimes
reduced to zero population if convenient since as the
number of cities under the player's control increases, so
does the prospect for unhappy citizens.). Local garrisons
are built in place and the high-quality Chariot force is
permitted to move on to the next target.
8.Enemy civilizations are usually conquered one at a time;
the main Chariot army is kept together to maintain mass
and momentum (the better to quickly conquer the entire
civilization).
9.In world conquest, the only thing that counts towards
one's score is how early one completes the game. Speed of
advance is therefore paramount. The player should launch
his expeditionary force as soon as he has sufficient mass
to overrun a typical computer civilization at Emperor
level. When two or three sailboats-full of Chariots are
ready, with more such production imminent, the campaign
can begin. This can be possible fairly early in the game.
10. It is readily possible to complete world conquest
(at Emperor level) before 1000 BC. This may seem unlikely
to new players but it is indeed attainable. Conquest
before 1 AD is even more likely. However, if one "misses
the window of opportunity", it will become increasingly
difficult for the primitive expeditionary force to
prevail against the rapidly growing computer
civilizations, particularly as they raise City Walls
around their more developed cities.
11. Each time a civilization falls (before 1 AD), the
game system will create a brand new civilization of the
same color until all possible new identities have been
exhausted. These freshly minted civilizations start out
with one city and can be hard to locate in the end-game.
The player may have to search once again those continents
which were empty when first examined.
RE-CIVILIZING THE GAME:
When the player has conquered all but the last remaining
city of the last remaining computer-controlled civilization,
he may choose to simply contain that city and switch over to
a game of technical progress and economy building, geared
towards launching the Starship. The best way to guard the
last enemy city is to build one's own city right next to it
and garrison it with some strong units. Once the enemy city
has been starved down to a small size and most of its
surrounding territory has been dominated by the player's
units and production squares, then a peace can be arranged
and the enemy city will likely never be a source of trouble
again.
--RS
SELL THE PALACE
Wouldn't it be nice to start your civilization with three or
four settlers instead of one? This gives you an immediate
advantage against your neighbor civilizations, and a
considerable speed-up of scientific research in the long
term.
How can it be done? When you convert your first settler into
your first city, your civilization gets an important gift:
your palace, which makes this city your capital. Let's say
this happens at 4000 BC. Set taxes to zero and end your
turn.
In 3980 BC, only one turn later, your city has produced one
or two shields (it would be a rather bad idea to build your
first city in a location where it cannot build shields). Now
the time has come to SELL YOUR PALACE. This gives you a
treasure of $200 immediately (don't ask me who will buy your
palace at this prehistoric time). Change production to
BARRACKS. Buy the barracks. This will cost you about $76 or
$78. Change production once again, still in the same turn,
to SETTLERS. End your turn.
In 3960 BC, a settler is produced. Normally, when you
produce a settler in a size one city, the city disappears.
But if you only have one city, the settler is produced and
the city is still there, having still a population of one.
(It's due to this fact that you can call this strategy a
cheat, because I think it was not intended by Sid that you
can multiply your settlers this way in the first turns.)
Move this settler away from your home city and end your
turn.
In 3940 BC, your city again has produced one or two shields.
Again, change production to barracks, buy the barracks, and
change production back to settlers. This gives you another
settler in 3920 BC. After that, you either can look for two
suitable sites for the two settlers to found new cities, or
you can send the settlers away to look for those little huts
- if you find $50 in one of the next turns, you can buy even
another settler in the same way. If you do this, however,
you have to found your next cities rather soon, because your
home city cannot feed three settlers for a very long time.
How to continue this game: The loss of your palace affects
your progress severely, of course. Without the palace, in
every city, every trade point but one will be consumed by
corruption. This is partially compensated by the greater
number of cities you will have. But actually you have to
install a democratic government as soon as possible in order
to abolish corruption totally. (In my opinion, democracy
should be achieved as early as possible anyway, and kept for
the rest of the game. But that's another story.)
So this is how to continue: BUILD MORE SETTLERS. Don't build
any city improvements, don't bother about irrigation or
mines, build only very few military units, and FOUND MORE
AND MORE CITIES. Keep city population below three in order
to avoid unrest. Don't raise taxes and don't produce
luxuries. Your goals in scientific research must be first
masonry, then trade. As soon as you discover masonry, make
one city produce as many shields as possible and let it
build the PYRAMIDS. As soon as you discover trade, let your
other cities produce some caravans in order to finish the
pyramids earlier. When you can see that the pyramids will be
completed soon, make all military units return home. When
the pyramids are built and all military units are in their
home cities, change government to democracy and set off for
a knock-out boom of scientific research.
There are many means to optimize this strategy or to
optimize the scientific output even without selling the
palace. It is possible to complete all scientific research
before 1 AD. But try it for yourself. Have fun. --KVS
CIVILIZATION TRICKS
NEW BRAINS FOR OLD LEADERS
Many players don't realize that you can scramble the
leadership attributes of foreign leaders by pressing ALT+R.
This has the effect of randomizing the attributes that are
found in the Intelligence Report (i.e.: Civilized,
Perfectionist, Expasionistic, etc.). Each attribute
determines how aggressive the computer civ acts. The
Mongols could turn out to be pussycats after this kind of
change. A civ's behavior is still influenced by many other
things as well, like your relative power, past actions, etc.
Keep in mind that your enemy civs could all get much nastier
as well as nicer; it's a double edged sword.
It can be fun to do this every 500-1000 years just to keep
yourself on your toes and guessing how the other civs will
behave. --EJ
SWAPPING PRODUCTION
Anything being produced by a city can be speed built by
paying coins out of your treasury to make up for the shield
cost. You can use this to your advantage however, by
swapping production. That is, speed build one item, and
then switch production to something else. Why would you
want to do this? Well, for one thing, military units and
city improvements have different costs to speed build. It
is more expensive to speed build a military unit than an
improvement. Also, you can only use caravans to add shields
to Wonder production, but if you switch, you can add their
production costs to other things as well. Here's how.
Cheaper Military, Settlers, and Wonders
Military units cost twice as much to rush as city
improvements. If you want to rush a military unit, you
should switch to a city improvement of similar shield cost
(i.e.: barracks for a phalanx) and rush the city
improvement. Before you get out of the city screen, switch
production to a phalanx and you have just built a phalanx
much cheaper than if you had rushed it without switching.
If you want to rush a unit and there is no shields in your
production box, you should speed build the cheapest item and
them switch production to an improvement and then switch to
the unit. This is because that items are four times the
normal amount when you rush something and have production
started. For example if you want to speed build a
battleship, first buy something really cheap (barracks).
Then speed build something with equivalent cost of the
battleship (cathedral). then switch to the battle ship.
It'd be a lot cheaper to wait for a turn and get some
shields first, however.
Caravans to build improvements
If you want to build a city improvement that takes a lot of
shields to build, and other cities nearby have production to
spare, you can make caravans help you build a city
improvement instead of a Wonder. Look at your city build
list. Find a Wonder that is close in cost to the
improvement you want (i.e.: Pyramids to Palace). Set the
city to build that Wonder. Build caravans in other cities
and move them into the target city, selecting Help Build
Wonder when prompted. Go look at your city display. Your
Wonder is closer to being built. Compare the turns until
completion to the improvement you really want to have. When
they are close (give or take a few turns), switch to the
improvement. Don't waste production by completing the
Wonder -- most improvements don't require as many shields as
Wonders.
You can use this method to build long production military
units as well, but it's best that the caravan be next to the
city right away. Otherwise the unit may be almost done by
the time the caravan gets to the city. --EJ
REVERSING COMBAT RESULTS
Nothing can be more frustrating than having a phalanx shoot
down your new squadron of Stealth Bombers. Or having that
enemy trireme sink your battleship fleet. There has been
much discussion about this kind of combat result, and there
is more you can do than rationalize it. Admittedly,
although weird things do happen in war, it becomes obvious
that the combat in Civilization does not fully take into
account the advantages of vastly superior technology. There
are a couple of things you can do about it.
The easiest thing to do is save the game every turn at the
higher levels or during a war and quit and restore if
something really stupid happens (like a militia shooting
down 2 squadrons of bombers). This is a pain, but can
reverse ludicrous combat results.
Another thing you can do is to use the CIVEDX Civilization
Editor to give exponentially higher combat strengths to the
military units. (i.e. armor is four times as powerful than
musketeers which are four times as powerful as phalanxes,
etc.) This tends to reduce the chances of outrageous
results, but does not eliminate them. (See the section
about the CIVEDX in the Supplementary Material section of
this document.)
--EJ
SPEEDY SETTLERS
Any Settler unit can be caused to finish any task in a
single turn simply by repetitively re-tasking it using the
mouse. For example: a Settler is started on a four-turn
Irrigation task by typing "I" when the unit is active. The
Settler is then selected with the mouse; its identity box
appears; one clicks on the icon of the Settler, thus
interrupting it in its task and re-activating it. Type "I"
again. Repeat the procedure until selecting the unit no
longer re-activates it. The task is completed in one turn.
The effect of this anomaly is tremendous. It multiplies the
effectiveness of your Settler units by at least a factor of
four. Using multiple Settlers, you can Irrigate, Build
Roads, and Build Railroads in the same square in one turn.
The productivity of the Speedy Settler almost completely
negates any productivity advantage of the computer players
at Emperor level. --RAS
SUPER SPEEDY SETTLERS
There is also the possibility of Super Speedy Settlers: this
technique not only lets you complete a task in one turn, it
lets you use the Settler TWICE (or more) in one turn. How is
this possible?
One of the tasks must be "create road [or rail or fort]
at sea"
Second task can either be a repeat of Sea-Roading or any
land based task.
To do three tasks, only the last can be land based and
you will need one transport unit for each task to be
done.
Procedure
a. Settler (or Settlers) can either start turn at Sea or
drive onto ship from a direct road/rail connection to a
Sea Square. This permits using the Settler at sea in the
same turn.
b. Perform Sea Road/Rail or Fort task.
c. Sail into nearby port that is on a road net.
d. Open Port City screen and click on Settler to wake it
up.
e. Settler is available with its full movement allowance.
Discussion
Why is this so worthwhile? Well, it is highly desirable to
make Sea/Rail squares on "fish" squares. But it is also very
"good" to have ALL city-sea squares be rail squares for the
very nice trade bonus it gives you. This we all basically
know and it is discussed in ROME ON 640k A DAY. But since
Settlers have heavy demands on their time, one usually
doesn't get around to doing this in all cases. Now, you can
have your trade and eat it, too, by using this two-phase
technique. The same Settler can create road/rail squares and
then "come home" and take care of his landside business, all
in the same turn. --RAS
SETTLER MOVEMENT REFRESH
Settlers can be moved long distances on a road net by
tasking them and re-selecting them as they near exhaustion
of their movement allowance. While the Settler is still on
the road with at least some movement left, set it to a task.
Then use the mouse to select it and re-activate it. It now
has a full movement allowance. Caution: The Settler retains
the partially completed task and if you do this too often on
your way to Cleveland, you may inadvertently finish
irrigating a square on the way. This technique can also be
used in combination with the Mobile Unit Refresh technique
to move Settlers anywhere on the road net. --RAS
MOBILE UNIT REFRESH
Any mobile land unit can, if it has some movement left after
an attack, be restored to full movement allowance over and
over again in the same turn. Put the unit in a city; type
"S" to put it on Sentry duty; select the unit again with the
mouse. The unit will "wake up" from Sentry duty with its
full movement allowance. Using this technique, I've
destroyed dozens of enemy units with one motorized artillery
unit in a single turn. One can also use this technique to
move a unit long distances on a road network (simply by
refreshing the movement allowance at every city way-point).
This technique permits you to maintain only a small, very
efficient mobile force to defend large areas, thus your
productivity can be spent on building improvements rather
than a huge army. The Mobile Unit Refresh also works for sea
units *if* they start their turn in the city and stay in the
city. Thus a single battleship can easily fight off every
adjacent besieger and still have a full movement allowance
left to sortie out and destroy some enemy sea unit. --RAS
BOMBERS FOREVER!
(or How to Keep 'Em Flying Without Even Trying)
Many players may not realize it but you do NOT have to fly
bombers back to base on the second turn if you want to leave
them on an INTERDICTION mission (like blocking an isthmus or
a road). You can leave the bomber unit in the "air"
indefinitely if you put it on "sentry duty" with the S key
on the outbound turn of it's two turn sortie. Fly the bomber
to where you want it; hit the S key; the bombers are gifted
with invisible KC135's to mid-air refuel them for as long as
you want.
So what good is this a new player might ask? If you have
bombers and the enemy doesn't you can block him out of a
specific approach with impunity (given he has no fighters to
shoot down the bombers). You can even use the bombers to
make invulnerable some land unit position.
Warning
If you put the bomber on sentry on the INBOUND leg, it will
crash as soon as you wake it up (but it will stay in the air
until you do so you might consider doing it to reach the
mouth of some distant bay to block enemy shipping or
whatever). --RAS
OCEAN BRIDGES
CIV players, now you can have what you always wanted--
bridges on the ocean to connect those oh-so-close-yet-so-far
continents to your home continent. How is this possible? Use
the Simonsen Sea Span System:
1.You need Railroads and Industrialization (for the
Transports).
2.Select the two landside squares you want to connect and
then build railroads on them.
3.Create a dedicated Transport unit for each of the sea
squares you'll be spanning.
4.Use Settlers on a transport to build a Rail line in every
sea square (you can use my Speedy Settler technique to
get this job done six times as fast as normal).
5.Now build a terminal City on each landside end of the
Sea/Rail line. It is important to build the Cities *on*
the Rail Squares *after* you've created the Rail Squares.
6.Leave a Transport on each Sea/Rail square (usually this
will mean one or two dedicated Transports).
Now you can drive a unit from one terminal city to the other
in one turn. When the unit arrives on the far side of the
Sea Span, it'll be "ghosted" as if on Sentry duty in the
city --open the city screen and wake it up with the mouse.
You'll find it has its FULL movement allowance available.
Don't be alarmed when the Transport unit seems to vanish
when you drive onto to it. Keep going but be careful when
you reach the terminus --you don't want to accidentally
begin to move a Transport.
Why is this system better than just shuttling back and forth
between two close ports, you might ask?
Unlimited capacity --you can move dozens of units over
your bridge in a single turn.
TWO WAY traffic using the same transports in the same
turn. Since the transports themselves NEVER move, they
never enter port and use up their movement allowance.
Convenience: you don't have to manage the logistics of
moving Transports back and forth.
Economy: one Transport filling a single Sea Square
between terminal Cities provides the effect of two or
more transports supporting two way traffic using
conventional movement.
Speed Over Distance: if you bridge more squares than the
range of a single Transport (say six squares), you can
put unlimited units across the ocean in a single turn, in
either direction and have all available with full
movement on either side of the sea. This permits
tremendous efficiencies with high-value units such as
Armor and Artillery.
Notes
To visualize this system, think of the Transports as the
"pontoons" on a Railroad bridge. They are never moved; just
tap the space bar when they blink on for movement. If you
are near a "war zone" you might want to build Forts around
each Transport for protection and station a Cruiser or
Battleship to protect your strategic bridge. --RAS
GLOBAL WARMING
This loophole strategy, to the best of my knowledge, allows
you to obtain the highest score possible on any given map.
The strategy relies on a loophole in the global warming
routines of the game.
With each bout of global warming that occurs, approximately
20-25% of the "flat" land in the world, excluding rivers, is
converted to a terrain type that is slightly less valuable
than what was there before: Grasslands become plains, plains
become deserts, and deserts become swamps. This is intended
as a punishment for letting the environment get heavily
polluted, since less food will be produced throughout your
empire, which means a smaller final population can be
achieved, which results in a lower score.
What the game designers never considered, however, was that
some idiot would come along and try to find out just how bad
global warming can get. It turns out that it's actually
pretty good.
If you let global warming keep happening, eventually there's
no grassland left, then the plains disappear and there's
only desert and swamp. Finally, after 12-15 bouts of global
warming, the computer has no choice but to turn everything
into swamps. Swamps can be converted into grasslands,
however, and grasslands produce more food than anything but
the rare oasis. So, if you now clean up the pollution, turn
all the swamps into grassland, and plant cities all over,
your empire will support an enormous population. That huge
population will give you more points than anything else.
First of all, you must play using version 3 or greater,
because no earlier version will handle the massive
population you'll eventually have without locking up.
Next, start the game by selecting "Customize World" from the
start-up menu so that you can select a large land mass. The
rest of the options are irrelevant, except climate. Do not
select a cold climate as this will create excess tundra that
will not be converted by global warming.
Next conquer the world by the earliest date you can manage
using whichever strategy works best for you. Your goal is
to destroy all but one enemy civilization, pound the one
remaining civilization down to one city, surround it
completely with mech. infantry to prevent the enemy from
taking back any territory, and sign a peace treaty.
The enemy city you let survive must be carefully chosen.
Since all of the flatland will be converted to swamp, which
only produces one food, that city will starve to death and
disappear during the global warming if it does not have a
river within 2 squares of it (rivers aren't affected by
global warming). That'll end your game with an abysmal
score. Ideally the city should actually be sitting on a
river square.
Of course, you must carefully choose where you get those
mech. infantries from for the same reason. They should come
from cities of yours that are working river and mine
squares. The rest of your cities will be unable to support
any military units, and may even starve completely.
Any wonders you build during the game should be built in
river-cities so that they don't disappear. If wonder-cities
you capture don't have access to a river, you will probably
have to add a settler to them each turn for a while to
prevent them from disappearing. This can be managed by
keeping your river cities in "We love the whatever day" and
building a settler each turn. --PP
CIVILIZATION CHEATS
DEBUG MODE
The debug keys are only available in version 1 of
Civilization. You access them by holding down shift and
hitting 5 then 6. A number of new keys are then available
and are described below.
UNLIMITED MONEY
There are many little utilities that can be found on
Compuserve's GAMERS forum in the War/Strategy Games library
that will give you all the money you want. You can also
hack the save game file as listed in the next section. --EJ
HEX-ING OPPONENTS
Want to go back in time?
Want to play a different civilization?
Want to make the game easier or harder without starting
over?
Want to give civilizations more appropriate names?
Want to really speed up scientific research?
Want to give yourself (or another civilization) lots of
cash?
Want to reduce the number of civs in your current game?
Or increase it?
Want to play with a couple of friends?
Want to change the computer players' tax/science/luxuries
ratio's?
Or your own?
Here's how to do it:
First off, a few helpful hints:
1. Use a HEX editor (BEAV, available on the net is a good
choice)
2. Always remember that ALL numbers in the game are
represented by 2 byte LSB,MSB format numbers in the .SVE
files. (At least, this seems to be the case. :)
3. Most numbers have an upper limit, either game imposed or
compiler imposed. For instance, you can't have more
than 32000 in cash -- that's game imposed. Even if you
could have more than 32000, you couldn't have more than
32767 because 1 bit of
4. The 16 bits used for each number is used to indicate
that if it is negative -- this is compiler imposed.
5. Make backups of your .SVE files before changing them.
OK, here's the format for each question:
(question)
(byte start address in HEX to change in .SVE
file,length in decimal)
(valid range in decimal if known)
(explanatory text)
And here are the questions again:
Want to go back in time?
8,2
before 4000 BC has worked, after 2200 AD may also work
Changing the current year allows you to play the game
forever and achieve phenomenal scores.
Want to play a different civilization?
2,2
the range is 1-7. Choosing 0 would make you the
barbarians.
Now you can change to whatever civ is winning at the
moment or simply see what each one of them can see.
This does screw up the little map on your main screen,
but you can live with it. :) NOTE: This number is very
important for other questions. For any question that
applies to multiple civilizations (more cash, more
light bulbs for science, etc.) you need to multiple
this number by the number of bytes used for each civ's
set of values, and add it to the byte start address.
Want to make the game easier or harder without starting
over?
A,2
The range is 0-4.
This is the difficulty rating. A 0 is for Chieftain
and a 4 is for Emperor. I haven't tested anything
above 4, I shudder to think what the game might do,
considering how badly it cheats on 4.
Want to give civilizations more appropriate names?
This one is special, because it really encompasses
three similar areas.
10, 14 - This is for the Leaders' names
80, 12 - This is for the PLURAL spelling of the civ
name
E0, 11 - This is for the singular spelling of the civ
name
Any character you like, plus the following special
ones:
# = Stick figure
$ = coin
^ = check mark
{ = wheat stalk
} = trade arrows
\ = diamond
| = shield
~ = light bulb
_ = sun
If the new name is shorter than the allowed space, the
next byte at the end of the name should be a 0 (this
prevents junk remaining from the previous name from
showing up).
Want to really speed up scientific research?
148, 2
0-lots :)
This figure must NEVER exceed the amount required for
the next advance. If it does, you'll never get the
next advance. The amount required for the next advance
is based on the difficulty level (0-4), and how many
advances you already have (invented, stolen, or found
makes no difference :). The number of light bulbs
needed for each new advance is:(difficulty
level+3)*2*(# of advances you already have). NOTE: In
the beginning advances are slightly harder at the low
difficulty levels (weird, huh?) AND after 0 AD the
number doubles (i.e., add a *2 to the equation above).
Want to give yourself (or another civilization) lots of
cash?
138, 2
-32000 (or so) to +32000
Don't make this number a negative - you'll lose EVERYTHING.
This number won't go above 32000, so spend money if you
start to get close to it.
Want to reduce the number of civs in your current game?
Or increase it?
93 BC, 2
0-6
The range is only 0-6 because the Barbarians always exist,
and there can only be 7 civilizations. If you drop
this number down to 0, the computer will probably
ignore all the civilizations except yours and the
barbarians.
Want to play with a couple of friends?
By playing with the number of civs, and changing the player
civilization number, you should be able to play a multi-
player game. NOTE: Due to the required save, edit, and
reload steps such a game will take a LONG time to play.
Want to change the computer players' tax/science/luxuries
ratio's?
Or your own?
0738, 2 - This is the tax rate
8BB4, 2 - This is the science rate
0-10 combined total
The ratios are determined in the following order: tax,
science, luxury. Taxes are checked first, and the
value is subtracted from 10. Then science is
subtracted from the new value. The resulting value is
placed in Luxuries. NOTE: Taxes are generated first,
so if you set taxes at or above 10, science and
luxuries gain NOTHING no matter what the numbers show.
This can be verified by hitting the F5 key.
--CKH
COMPUTER CHEATS
KNOWN CHEATS
The computer is known to cheat in a number of ways. These
are things the computer is allowed to do that the human
player is not. There have been some speculation on others,
but these will be listed after the know cheats.
The computer triremes do not have to end their turn next
to land. They never sink due to being out at sea. This
is made obvious by encountering them there and following
them for a while.
The computer gets free WOWs. It does not seem to even
have a city ever allocating shields nor does it pay for
them They seem to be 'handed out' randomly. The higher
the difficulty level, the more are handed out. This can
be proved by saving a game every turn. When the computer
builds a WOW, quit and restore the save. The civ that
builds the wonder now doesn't. If there was really
production allocated it would always build it after a
save.
Improvements at the Emperor level are 1/3 off for the
computer civilizations. This is a function of the
difficulty level.
The computer never needs to build a caravan. Sometimes
one can be seen being built, but once it is, it
automatically generates a trade route. You will never
see an enemy caravan unit in the game.
The computer does not need diplomats nor does it have to
be next to a city to meet with you. This is
understandable, as if it needed diplomats to do this,
you'd almost never get to meet with them. (On a side
note, the computer DOES build diplomats and will
occasionally use them to steal technology from you.)
The computer will sometimes start out with an extra unit
or two. By using the Debug mode I have seen a
civilization start with a cavalry that there is no way it
could have rightly acquired or built.
The computer civs always know where other cities are on
the same continent without exploring. Again, in Debug
mode, I have seen units make bee-lines for other cities
that they have not even been within 10 squares of.
--EJ
COMPUTER CHEAT RUMORS
There are a number of ways the computer is suspected to
cheat, but at the time of this writing, they could not be
confirmed or denied.
Computer technology advances are achieved at high rates
with only a couple of cities.
Computer cities in revolt to not have production halted.
The computer sometimes builds multiple cities before its
first settler is created.
Production in cities at emperor level continues, even if
the city is shy the necessary resources to maintain what
it has.
The computer will tend to pull ludicrous combat results
out of its hat, especially when a city is about to fall
(yours or its) and doubly so when the computer's capital
is threatened. Things like phalanxes killing bombers or
artillery is conveniently more likely when the computer
has a lot at stake.
--EJ
The computer appears to be able to respond to a nuclear
attack with nukes they did not previously possess and
were not building;
The computer's nukes do not appear to have any range
limitation.
Computer cities appear to be able to acquire defensive
units without building, e.g., two units appear the turn
after all units destroyed, with none being built and none
close enough to move in. I've only observed this once,
and it was the capital city (after nuke attack).
--RF
CIVILIZATION BUGS
There is a long history of bugs found in Civilization. Some
are relatively benign, but most will really ruin your day if
you haven't saved for a while. MicroProse has released 4
revisions in all, fixing a lot of them, but a few remain
unsquashed. Each bug is listed with a description, a work
around if known and that versions it affects.
[You can determine what version of Civilization you have by
looking at the intro screen. There should be a version
number 472.xx where xx is the version number. So, 472.03
would be version 3 of Civilization.] --EJ
ADVISOR BUG
There is an option to have your various government advisors
pop up and suggest something for you to build whenever a
city completes construction of an item. When playing on the
Chieftain difficulty level, this option is on by default.
Once a city has built all the structures it can use
(excluding wonders) and when the city has what the advisors
think is enough military units, (they don't have anything to
say, in other words) the game locks up. This bug exists in
all current versions of Civilization (1-5). This bug is
easily avoided by selecting "Options" from the "Game" menu
and turning "Instant Advice" off, or by not playing on
Chieftain level.
This bug affects all versions. (Version 5 was supposed to
fix this bug, but didn't so version 5 is identical 4 in all
other respects.) --PP
POPULATION BUG
Various bugs appear as your total population grows larger
and larger. The bugs remain in effect even if your
population shrinks again.
Up to about 20 million, there's no problem. Somewhere above
20 million, use of the "Display Civilization Score" option
from the "World" menu will destroy a portion of the northern
edge of the map and the game will become unstable. This
also occurs when the score display occurs automatically when
your spaceship lands on Alpha Centauri, making continued
play unstable.
Somewhere above 40 million, starting a revolution may
lock up the game.
Somewhere above 60 million, the game will lock up when
your spaceship lands, denying you a score.
There are no work-arounds for this bug other than limiting
population growth, or switching to version 3 or higher.
This bug was fixed as of version 3. --PP
TOO MANY UNITS
If the maximum unit limit of 128 is reached, an advisor will
pop up to inform you that no more military units can be
built. If units aren't disbanded and this situation is
allowed to continue, the game will eventually lock up. The
same thing will occur if an opponent acquires too many
units.
Controlling your own unit count is easy, but knowing how
many units an opponent has can be difficult. At Warlord
level or below, this information is available from the
"Intelligence Report" on the "Advisors" menu if you've
established embassies with all opposing civs. If an
opponent is getting close to the 128 unit limit, you must
declare war and destroy a few for him. Above warlord level,
the only solution is to pound all opponents into
punificence.
This bug was supposedly fixed as of version 3, but there are
still problems. When the limit is reached by any civ,
several of that civ's units will be disbanded at random.
Several people report still experiencing lock-ups, in spite
of the fix. --PP
POLLUTION BUG
This bug occurs when you reach future technology 60.
Several squares of pollution will occur randomly with each
turn, regardless of the production capacity of cities and
the presence of recycling centers or mass transits. Within
just a few turns the problem will become much more than your
settlers can handle and wave after wave of global warming
will occur.
This problem occurs when the technology level counters
internal to the game, overflow into the pollution counters.
There is a work-around.
[Insert solution here]
This bug exists in all versions.--PP
NEVER-ENDING GAME
When you destroy a civilization, the founding settler of the
other civilization of the same color will pop up randomly on
some unpopulated area of the map. For example, when you
destroy the last Zulu city, a Babylonian settler will pop up
somewhere ready to found the Babylonian capital. Although
the area will be unpopulated, it is possible that some of
your military units, another opponent's units, or barbarian
units may be nearby. If anyone destroys this settler before
it founds the capital city, then the game will never
recognize that civilization has been destroyed, and you'll
never get credit for conquering the world. The only way to
end the game and obtain a score will be to build the
spaceship.
If you're the one who finds this founding settler, the bug
can be worked around by waiting for the settler to found his
capital then destroying the city, but there's no way of
preventing it if an opponent finds him other than upgrading
to version 3 or above.
This bug was fixed as of version 3. --PP
NEVER-ENDING GAME PART II
A spaceship launched before game turns start equaling 1 year
will never be recognized as having landed if the year in
which it would land doesn't fall on a game turn.
Waiting until the year 1850 before launching your ship is
the easiest solution, but it reduces your score[?]. To
launch earlier, ensure that the spaceship's flight-time is
divisible by the number of years currently being ticked off
with each game turn.
This bug exists in all versions. --PP
THE PHANTOM REVOLT
Very rarely, you may lose control of one of your cities that
has been captured from an enemy civilization. It remains
your civilization's color; the only way to tell if this
occurs is if you try to click on it to change something, or
you notice the city no longer has the thick border that a
city with defensive units should have, or you move a
military unit into the city. If you try to click on the
city, nothing will happen (you don't get the city screen) or
if you move a military unit in (even if you have units
garrisoned inside the city) the city capture screen will
appear as if you captured an enemy city. The city can
phantom revolt again at a later time. This bug is reported
to affect only cities that were taken with a diplomat
inciting a revolt.
Microprose has admitted this is a bug, but has no work-
around. A possible work-around may be to garrison more than
one military unit in the city. I did this once and the city
never gave me a problem again. There is no way to tell if a
city will do this the first time, however. Another solution
is to park a military unit (even a militia) outside the city
and re-take it over when you notice you haven't heard from
that city in a while.
This bug affects all versions. --EJ
RUBBER INTERNATIONAL DATELINE
On any world, whether generated or Earth, there is a
nebulous boundary where the edges of the map wrap together.
(Imagine the map as a rectangular surface and join the east
and west borders.) On random maps, there is generally no or
little land running for a whole north-south section. On
Earth, this corresponds to the international dateline. It's
not easy to know where it is on a generated map until this
bug shows up.
What happens is that a unit that is given a GO order that
crosses this line, will bounce off it and go in a random
direction, generally either north, or out over an ocean. I
have only seen this happen to ships and flying units. For
ships, this is only a minor annoyance, but for a bomber or
fighter, it will cause them to crash (even if the bomber is
on its first leg of the flight -- reactivating it will crash
it).
You can avoid this by, once discovering it, manually sending
units across the boundary. There seems to be no way of
knowing if it will occur or not.
This affects all versions. --EJ
BOMBER BUG
[Insert Redmond's bomber stacking bug here]
FORGETFUL TRANSPORTS
If a transport on GO orders is flown over by a bomber on GO
orders, the transport 'forgets' its destination and drops
the GO orders. This is not normally a big deal as it can be
rare, but on Earth, shipping units to Europe from North
America while bombers fly over can be a pain. The bombers
tend to fly over the transports due to the placement of
cities.
There is no work around other than to fly your bombers
manually, drive the transports manually, or re-issue the GO
order to the transports.
This bug affects all versions. --EJ
REVISION HISTORY
MicroProse was kind enough to supply revision histories to
me. Most of the information that follows is from Brian at
MPS customer support. Thanks Brian!
VERSION 1
Version 1 is the original version that came in the box. The
following additional features and corrections were added to
CIVILIZATION after the manual and technical supplement were
produced.
1.End Of Game: All games automatically end for scoring
purposes by a certain date, if they haven't ended sooner
for other reasons. Depending on your level of difficulty
selection, scoring ceases in the following years:
Chieftain - 2100 AD, Warlord - 2080 AD, Prince - 2060 AD,
King - 2040 AD, and Emperor - 2020 AD.
2.Advance After Combat: The reference in the manual on page
35 concerning the ability of victorious units to advance
is incorrect. Victorious units that have movement points
remaining after combat may continue to move normally.
3.Pillaging: The manual reference on page 36 to the Pillage
order is not entirely correct. Roads and railroads may be
pillaged. The first time a square is pillaged any
irrigation or mines present are destroyed. Further
pillage in the square destroys railroads, if present, and
then roads. For example, it takes three turns of
pillaging to remove all improvements from an irrigated
square containing a railroad.
4.King's Advisors: The advisors that appear behind rival
kings are intended to indicate the government of the
enemy civilization and its relative size. A king with
four advisors indicates that this civilization is one of
the largest in the world. A king with only one advisor
indicates a very small civilization. The dress of the
advisors indicates the civilization's type of government,
as follows. A government in Anarchy is represented by the
advisors of Despotism.
Mongols -- Ancient Despotism
Egyptians -- Ancient Monarchy
Greeks -- Ancient Republic/Democracy
Hoodlums -- Modern Despotism
English -- Modern Monarchy
Soviets -- Communism
Americans -- Modern Republic/Democracy
5.Undo Build City: If you accidentally press the B key
while moving a Settler unit and thereby build a city,
press the ESCAPE key to undo that command. The city is
not founded.
6.Saved Game Limits: Each saved game takes up about 50k of
space. Ten saved games on your hard drive will take up
about 500k. If saving to floppy disks, you must use a
high density disk to hold the maximum number of games.
Alternatively, turn off the AUTOSAVE option from the Game
menu. In this case, games are only saved when you wish,
and only four games are saved per disk.
7.Credits Screen Shortcut Keys: While the credits screens
are being displayed, you may press shortcut keys to
immediately choose which type of game you wish to play.
Press one of the following keys to immediately start the
correct game.
New Game: N key
Load Saved Game: L key
Earth: E key
Custom World: C key
Any other key takes you to the game choice menu.
8.If you select Start New Game, EARTH, or Custom World, the
computer will create a new world. During this time the
Evolution sequence will be displayed (In the beginning
...). If you press a key during the Evolution sequence,
the sequence will be terminated AS SOON AS THE NEW WORLD
HAS BEEN COMPLETED. This may take some time, especially
on slower computers.
9.Civilization Advances Chart: The advances chart on the
back page of the manual contains one error. For the
advance SPACE FLIGHT, the correct prerequisites are
COMPUTERS and ROCKETRY.
10. Power Plant Clarifications: All three types of power
plant increase the base resource production of a city by
50%, before the effects of a Factory or Manufacturing
Plant are considered. Hydro Plants may only be built in
cities adjacent to River or Mountain squares, not Hills.
11. Women's Suffrage Correction: This Wonder of the
World becomes available with the advance of
Industrialization, as shown on the Civilization Advances
Chart, not Mass Production, as mentioned in the manual on
page 87.
12. Frederick the Great (Germans): After the manual was
printed, Frederick the Great and the German civilization
were substituted for Sulayman and the Turks. The
following bibliographical notes describe Frederick.
"Frederick William II, known as The Great,
ruled Prussia for nearly fifty years.
Displaying unexpected qualities as a leader
and decision maker, he became one of the
great generals of history and made Prussia
the dominant military power of Europe. He
also promoted important reforms at home,
patronized the arts, and was a champion of
religious liberty. He was considered the
epitome of the enlightened monarch and
warrior king."
13. GoTo using the Mouse: to move the active unit to an
adjacent square, click on that square with the RIGHT
Mouse Button. For long distance moves, select GoTo from
the Orders menu and click the LMB on the destination
square. Note also that units using the long distance GoTo
command use the Road movement rate even when traveling on
railroads.
14. To access additional city improvements on the City
Status Screen when using the keyboard only interface
press Shift-M ("More").
15. You may place your city in an automatic improvement
construction mode by pressing the RMB on the 'Change'
button on the City Status Screen (press shift-A in
keyboard only mode). Your domestic advisor will now
automatically select which improvements to build in this
city.
16. An additional benefit of the Apollo Program is the
ability to see the location of all cities in the world.
17. Futuristic Technologies are worth 5 points towards
you civilization score, not 10 as noted in the manual.
18. A white bar will appear above your castle indicating
consecutive years of World Peace after the year 1. Each
turn is worth 3 points towards your civilization score.
19. If you experience erratic mouse operation in the
middle of the game, press Alt-M to reset the mouse
driver.
20. The FIGHTER unit has been modified to an attack
strength of 4 and a defense strength of 2.
21. If you have a high-density 3.5" floppy drive and no
hard disk you may copy disks 1 and 2 to one floppy and
disks 3 and 4 to another. This will reduce the amount of
disk swapping while playing. The program automatically
recognized this configuration and will prompt only for
Disk 1 or Disk 2.
22. If playing on a laptop computer with a black and
white screen, select EGA graphics for maximum contrast.
23. Be sure to use just the mouse or just the keyboard
when making menu selections. Do not move the menu
highlight with the keyboard and then press the mouse
button to enter your choice; when the mouse button is
pressed the position of the mouse pointer determines the
choice, not the location of the highlight.
VERSION 2
Version 2 was supposed to fix the Advisor Bug, but it
didn't. It did remove the Debug keys though, so it is
different from version 1.
VERSION 3
Version 3 introduced several important changes that affect
game play.
Cities must have a population base of five or more to
support taxman or scientist specialists.
Under a Despotic government, citizen unhappiness will
increase with the number of cities you control. This may
lead to 'very unhappy' citizens, (recognizable by their
red shirts) who must first be converted to normal unhappy
citizens before then can become contented. This effect
occurs to a lesser degree under other government types.
A maximum of 3 units per city may be used to impose
martial law. (I.e. Convert unhappy citizens to content
citizens.)
Cities may be renamed at any time. Click on the RENAME
box or press the 'r' key on the city status screen.
Transport units no longer count against city unhappiness
under Republic/Democracy.
The maintenance cost of Barracks has been changed to
1/2/3 coins at the Prince and King difficulty levels, and
2/3/4 coins at the Emperor level.
VERSION 4
Version 4 is the high-density disk edition of version 3. It
is identical in all other respects.
VERSION 5
Version 5 was supposed to fix the Advisor Bug again, but it
didn't. There is no difference between version 5 and 3 in
playability.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
ROME ON 640K A DAY
CIVEDX
CONTRIBUTORS
PP Pete Phillips
[70446,1431]
KVS Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Kiel, Germany
[100064,665]
RAS Redmond Simonsen
[75300,3665]
EJ Erik Johnson
[76620,2473]
CKH Charles K. Hughes
[Charles_K_Hughes@cup.portal.com]
RF Ron Forman
[72167,662]
