From: lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA (Michael Lewchuk)
Subject: Re: Civilization
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 15:10:55 GMT

justin@mik.uky.edu (Justin Sullivan) writes:
>Neil Williams writes
>> A sort of cheat is to start cities building a wonder.  Then when the
>> Apollo program has been built, switch them over to building SS modules.
>> They'll already have lots of resources built up, so they can spit
>> out modules the next turn or two.
>Well, that brings me to a question after all this reading..
>If I start to build a WW (for instance), and I have put 100 shields into it,  
>THEN say I want to switch to something that only needs 50 shields. Isn't the  
>rest just wasted? If not, how do I utilize it? I have trouble with this, I  
>can't find any reference to it in the manual.

I don't think they can spit modules out "for the next turn or two".  Perhaps
the next turn, but not 2 turns unless they have LOTS of resources, plus
a MFG plant, railroads, & power plant.  My mega-cities in the early levels
build pieces at a rate of 2, 3, and 6 (I think) turns each.

In any case, I've accidentally left production on wonders in some cities,
and then switched to something else.  No, shields do not carry over.  If
you're over the max. production for an item, it gets built NEXT turn and
your shields get set to 0.

By the way, this is an excellent thing to do if you want to build a wonder
that's not technologically available yet, like Apollo or SETI or something.
Switch to producing another wonder, then when the item becomes available,
switch to it.

Civ tip:
Have a population you just can't conquer in your Democracy?  Tired of them
making peace with you?  You can do 2 things:
1.  Make sure you refuse diplomatic action by them, which will maintain
    WAR status
2.  If you have the Pyramids, or don't mind a few turns in Anarchy, declare
    a Revolution and attack.  Pyramids will allow you to become a Democracy
    (or republic, whatever) next turn.

Second Civ thing for you to try:
Life in a democracy making maintaining that siege difficult?  Try building
cities next to his city, and buying City Walls.  You don't have to maintain
siege forces on squares YOUR CITIES control, so you can just send your
armies into those cities (once they grow a bit to produce enough resources
to maintain your armies).  Plus, City Walls give you that 3x defense bonus.
Rather nice, if you ask me.

A few things I'd like to ask you net.civvers out there:

I've found that Communism isn't an advance, really.  It cancels some very
good wonders (Pyramids & Michelangelo's Chapel), so when Communism becomes
the only advance, I switch to 0 science, which allows LOTS of cash and
happiness in my democracy (We Love the President in most or all cities).
For me, it's too bad you can't bypass some achievements (like "oh, our
society never discovered communism").

Also, I don't build the Manhattan Project.  I figure if a civ wants to use
nukes, let HIM build the wonder.  Even at the beginning levels (when civs
usually don't have a hope of achieving nuke-tech), I build SDI as soon as
my cities have no other improvements to build (my cities usually have all
improvements except courthouse in Democracy).

One question: I was having a hard time on Warlord level.  When I encountered the
Greeks or Zulus, (I play Romans), they usually had LOTS and LOTS of cities
and pretty good technology (initially more advanced than me, and later on
roughly as advanced as me).  Is the way to win these levels just to stick
it out to the end of the game?  This is my strategy:
1.  Build first city somewhere
2.  Build phalanx/militia to defend city
3.  Build settlers to improve terrain
4.  Build chariots to explore continent
5.  Build city improvements, and military units as necessary
6.  Colonize continent
7.  When Railroads become availble, build LOTS of settlers to railroad
    everything in sight.
Generally my tech starts out at 0.0.10 and goes to roughly 0.3.7 as I
build improvements which need financing, and I adjust to 7.3.0 when I
need a boost in city population (and I have Republic or Democracy).  Here's
a rather interesting question: WHY DO I HAVE SUCH A HARD TIME WINNING
AGAINST THOSE $#!!! GREEKS AND ZULUS?!?!  In my most recent game, I managed
to wipe out the Greeks and Aztecs early on, saving me the trouble of fighting
them later.  As far as I can tell, Greeks are the most dangerous civ I've
seen if given room for expansion.  Zulus are warriors but little else.  You
can usually defeat them in the higher techs (battleship vs. sail, armor and
artillery vs. chariots, catapults, horsemen, and phalanxes).  I've found that
the Americans are a pain if you're middle-tech, but the Americans are usually
a bit behind in tech and don't pose an incredibly serious threat.  In this
last game, I captured 2 of their cities and bought out 2 more, and am moving
in on the last one with a diplomat.

Civ amusements:  I was having a fun time going 80%-tax on a Civ Warlord level
game.  Greeks sent in a battleship.   I bought it.  Greeks sent in an army
and transport.  I killed the army and bought the transport.  May not have been
efficient, but it was humorous.

					Michael Lewchuk
					lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA