From: d89magni@odalix.ida.liu.se (Magnus Nilsson)
Subject: Re: Civilisation-want to learn how to play properly...
Organization: CIS Dept, Univ of Linkoping, Sweden
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 15:08:03 GMT

bakerj@gtephx.UUCP (Jon Baker) writes:

>In article <1992Jul14.004816.2326@cs.aukuni.ac.nz>, adem1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (Adam Edward         Demeter        ) writes:
>> Since then, it has become a bit of a wargame, so if any of you have ideas or
>> tips that would stop the game degenerating into this then please help out.

>It seems that some groups just prefer to play a military-style Civ.
>In the group I played with, it was counterproductive for a nation to
>mobilize itself and waste all its resources attacking others.  A
>player who spent all his time and resources on militarism was
>generally found himself falling behind on the AST.  Remember, the
>point is not to wipe out your opponents, but to advance yourself
>on the AST.

>If you have a group of players who can think of no
>productive way to advance themselves other than to beat everyone
>else back, I'd say you've got some serious inferiority complexes there.
>Rec.games.board may not help, but psychoanalysis might.

>Seriously, try avoiding the militarism yourself - keep up a defensible
>border, but don't waste time and tokens on things metallurgy, convoys
>of invading armies, and the like.  Acquire the advanced civ cards
>(philosophy, etc), and keep plowing along on the AST.  You may find
>this style of play wins more often than obsessive militarism.  If
>every other player is beating up on you, then there's really no chance
>you'll win anyway.  But if you find yourself sliding through to
>victory with this style, other players may adopt it.

>J.Baker
>enuucp!gtephx!bakerj

Last when we played Adv Civ, I managed to do quite well, The first civ-card
I bought was the by you so much hated metallurgy! And why did I go and purhase
such an idiotic card?
Well, I suddenly saw Asia and Crete getting astronomy, leaving my coasts
very vunerable to their moves, therefore I bought it as a precaution.
Later, when i was stronger, this helped me to start beating on them.
The situation that developed was that I had 9 cities in Africa while the
others competed for the spaces along the northcoast of the med (6 players,
I was Egypt) and I used raiding the others cities as an extra income and a way
of keeping them down, something which was needed since when I had started on
such actions, they would attack me as soon as they got the chance.
Then came the time when they would get the chance to strike back. So what did
I do? I bought military, thus giving me the chance to move last and react
to any attacks. This was as the situation had developed a highly profitable
trade, making it possible for me to choose my target every turn for the
rest of the game, without anyone having a chance to stop me.
As it was, I ended up with two calamities one turn, and among them, the only
calamity that really could stop me from winning, civil war, me having
militarism, I was extra vunerable to this card.
Apart from this, had I survived one more turn before the civil war came,
my strategy of bying metallurgy and militarism as soon as i could
would have won me the game!

So don't be so negative about military, used right it can prove to
be a very useful strategy in Adv Civ. Also, it provided me with a fun game
where something happened all the time :)

magnus.