Feel like giving up and starting all over again? Andrew Wright shows you how to build a civilisation from the ground up
There are only three ways to win at Civilization: Call To Power: you can conquer the entire world using your military genius, lead the first civilisation in the race to synthesise an alien life form, or play out the full 7000 years of the game and go for the highest score. However, you don't have to decide which route to take right away, as the strategies and tactics are broadly the same in each case.
You kick off with a settler, nine squares of visible terrain and a big black curtain covering the rest of the planet surface. Before you even touch anything, look at your 'radar' map in the lower-left corner. If you specified an earth-type world in the starting options, you can expect ice in the polar regions so if you happen to be sited close to the top or bottom of the map, head the other way for the more fertile land.
Look at the square you're already in - will it make a reasonable city? If it's a food-producing square such as grassland and, even better, on a river, then build straight away. Ideally, you want two mountain squares and two forest or jungle squares inside the city radius. If you haven't, move two or three squares in a diagonal direction (or up or down the river, if there is one) and see if things improve. Don't dally long though, even on a big apparently empty map. If you slip behind your opponents in technology or growth, the next 7000 years or 350 turns will be a real struggle.
It's not ideal but you can't spend more than three turns exploring or you'll risk getting behind...
DEFENCE COUNSEL
With your first city's foundations laid, the next step is a defensive unit, either a warrior or a phalanx, fortified in the city square. Next comes a unit for exploring, either a cheap and cheerful warrior or a horse archer. The latter are handy if the terrain is flat and open, but a complete waste of time in mountainous areas. Look around your continent methodically, moving diagonally where possible, because that way you uncover five squares a turn as opposed to three. Investigating ancient ruins close to your city is a bit risky unless your city is defended, but it can be worthwhile, especially if you grab a new advance.
If all is clear so far, aim for a second city. From now on, your moves are going to depend on what happens around you. If there's no sign of the opposition, start churning out more settlers. Aim to have round about six to ten strong cities rather than 30-40 weakish ones. It's not wise to build them too close together - if they overlap, one of them will have fewer resources to harvest.
On the other hand, if you're setting up one or two cities as specialist centres (see Combat Crisis? panel on page XXX) then it's not important. Keep them in a group so that aren't too far from the capital. If you have to build on a less than ideal spot to achieve 'shape', don't worry. As you grow, try and keep your empire as rounded as possible - if you allow it to string out too far, you'll suffer from added unhappiness and awkward communications problems, at least until you get a railroad.
ECONOMY MODEL
With building and exploration under way, the next 2000 years should ideally be devoted to growth and to do that, you've got to get to grips with your economy. The first problem is whether or not you should invest in public works. Most cities will happily reach double-figure populations without any tile improvements at all. Farms and nets don't add a lot, frankly, but mines are useful in mountains as they increase gold as well as production and pay for themselves quickly. Two essential city improvements are the granary and the city wall, although the latter may be unnecessary if your city is well defended by military units or built on a mountain.
With two cities, switch PW to 10-20 per cent, purely to build roads to connect the cities later on. Roads reduce unhappiness and speed up reinforcements in the case of attack. However, if the general terrain is poor, consider increasing PW a little earlier.
Trade is essential. It's easy to underestimate its value but it does bring in significant gold, which can always be converted to production or science if needed. Aim to get at least one trade monopoly early in the game - this should ensure you don't run out of readies.
One of your biggest problems will be unhappiness and the best way to combat it is through research. You'll also find that city improvements like temples, theatres and coliseums, plus wonders like Confucius Academy, all ease the situation. You can also take direct action in an emergency - if you're producing lots of gold, an increase in wages is a cheap way to cheer up the masses.
WARRING UP SESSION
Starting a big war in the early stages of the game will only cause you grief. While you turn production over to the military, other civilisations will be researching themselves daft and accumulating cash. Not only that, but also any aggression is remembered by other civilisations, making it harder to deal with them later.
If you must wade in for whatever reason, try and get the enemy to declare war first by goading them and making excessive demands. That way your own reputation is untarnished. Also, try and fight a Nato-style war with limited objectives and stop when you've achieved them. If you're offered peace, take it, unless the civilisation in question is clearly going down the pan.
Only the advent of gunpowder gives you units that are really good enough to strike hard and defend themselves in return. Don't be fooled by the apparent power of knights - musketeers and cannon are far superior. They make a powerful combination, especially when used with cavalry to pin down the enemy.
Air units are good for bombardment and recon but shouldn't get involved with ground troops as they will take damage especially against multiple units. Naval power can be crucial, especially on a water-logged map. While you will eventually be able to colonise the sea bed, the technology comes very late in the game.
Strategic surprise is essential, whether you're playing against a human or an AI, because it takes up to ten turns to switch from peace to a war footing, and hopefully you'll catch the enemy's units at half strength. Tactical surprise is also worth a try - if you land your forces from ships, a computer player doesn't react until they disembark.
The same principles of war that work in the real world work in Call To Power. To win, you need to concentrate overwhelming firepower at a single point. But before you do, do anything you can to get the odds in your favour: weaken cities by surrounding them and preventing reinforcement; remove improvements like city walls if you can, or incite riots. Then bombard the city with as many units as you can muster - cannons, ships of the line, tanks, artillery. Keep the bombarding units in their own stacks with a couple of other units to defend them. Spend no more than one or two turns in bombardment, or the enemy will build extra defences. Finally, attack with five close combat units and four ranged units and hope for the best.
COMBAT CRISIS?
To get to grips with Call To Power you must understand the combat system. The trouble is, the more you learn, the less you like it
In a stand-up fight between two units, each takes it in turn to 'hit' the other. The hit chance is a unit's assault rating divided by the sum of its assault rating and the defender's defence rating. Let's say a knight with an assault rating of 3 attacks a phalanx with defence 2 without any terrain modifiers. The knight has a 3/(3+2) or 60 per cent chance of hitting the phalanx. If it succeeds, it does one hit point of damage; if it fails, it takes one hit point of damage. The phalanx then strikes back with a 1/(1+2) or 33 per cent chance of a hit. Again, if it succeeds it does a hit point of damage, or loses one if it fails. The process is repeated until one unit is destroyed.
In the original game mechanics, like Civilization II, the amount of damage done depended on a variable known as firepower, but here this appears to have been bypassed, and all units, no matter how powerful, do one point of damage per hit. Likewise, all units have just ten hit points for some equally obscure reason. It may be a 'feature' of the game or it may be fixed in the next patch... If you really can't wait, there's a text file on your hard disc in the Call To Power\ctp_data\default\gamedata\ folder. You can edit UNITS.TXT with Wordpad and alter the hit point values - just remember to make a back-up copy first!
While our hypothetical knight will beat the phalanx most of the time, it should be clear that if you add another phalanx or a defensive bonus, the task won't be anything like as easy. But what happens when a modern tank attacks a phalanx? In earlier versions of Civ, the tank would win hands down. In CTP it could easily lose, especially against two phalanxes.
Any scrap in CTP is potentially dangerous to the attacker - modern interceptors can be brought down by a pair of phalanxes and a fusion tank wiped out by a combination of pikemen and archers. In fact any defending ranged unit - such as a humble archer - can damage almost any other unit. Against two medieval cannons and a musketeer fortified in a city, you'll need to use at least six tanks or comparable infantry units to win.
This has two main effects on gameplay. Firstly, war is doubly expensive, as you need numerical as well as qualitative superiority. Secondly, civilisations that have fallen behind in technology can still defend themselves.
The key to attacking in CTP is bombardment. In true Nato style, you should pound enemy cities and strongpoints before you attack on the ground. Cannons and ships of the line are your first bombardment weapons and should arrive in the renaissance era. If the enemy is still too strong, move into the modern age and go flat out to develop steel to give you battleships against coastal cities, and oil refining and explosives to give you artillery. No city can stand bombardment for long. Once you've ground down the defences, move in with your land forces.
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
One strategy that worked well in earlier versions of Civilization, and which appears to work just as well in CTP, is the specialist city
If a city has more than its fair share of high-production squares like mountains and forests, it can be turned over entirely to production or gold. Grow the city in the normal way until it gets to 8 or 9 population, and then use the Max tab to maximise production, science or gold.
Next, build city and tile improvements that boost your output even further. In the case of production cities, this means things like a factory, mill, nuclear plant and oil refinery, each of which will 'up' production by 50 per cent or more. Science cities should add an academy, publishing house, university or computer centre.
Here, Swansea (population 9) has maximised its production and can produce a legion or an archer every turn. If you're going to war, you need at least one city like this.
The same city producing maximum science. Just enough food is produced to keep the population happy, while the remaining four workers have all become scientists. If you want to catch up or overtake your opponents, or go all out for a key advance like gunpowder, this is the way to do it.
Ten top tips
1. Don't forget that you need to be able to see other civilisations' cities before you can trade with them, so use the 'exchange maps' option as often as you can. This in itself can be a diplomatic challenge as civilisations that don't like you won't do the swap.
2. Don't switch production of units or improvements unless you really need to - you'll incur at least a 25 per cent penalty.
3. Keep an eye on what the other players are building. If a message appears to say someone has almost completed the wonder that you're still building - and you can't afford to rush-build it - switch production immediately or you'll lose the lot.
4. There's no harm in selling off some improvements to raise cash. Cathedrals should be sold off under Communism, for example, as they're expensive to maintain.
5. Don't forget to use the 'expel' attack against special units like slavers, abolitionists or eco-terrorists rather than killing them as you'll suffer no diplomatic penalty.
6. Force enemy workers to leave the most productive tiles around their cities by stationing your units there.
7. Veterans (extra 50 per cent attack and defence) are very important, so don't disband them even if they're obsolete. A veteran legion attacks and defends like pikemen.
8. Build diplomats and other special units like spies to keep an eye on your friends and enemies and defend against special attacks.
9. Build clerics and spies to constantly try and weaken the enemy before you attack by destroying improvements and instigating revolt. They might get angry but your reputation won't suffer.
10. When you're at war in the early part of the game, include a slaver in each combat stack. If you win, he'll grab some slaves from the defeated troops.
BRING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT!
The CTP wall chart, included with the game, shows the relative strengths of each of the 12 forms of government, but this table shows three important modifiers used in internal calculations. Maximum science is the most gold that can be converted each turn to scientific research. The knowledge coefficient is applied to your total science production from scientists, gold, wonders etc, and the production coefficient is applied to total production from all sources before deductions for support, crime etc.
Once it has been researched, monarchy is invariably the first change-over, although theocracy, which comes along shortly afterwards, is handy if you plan to use clerics or need to fight them off. Next comes the republic, followed by democracy, communism and fascism. To maximise growth and prepare for war, communism works well, especially for large, spread-out empires. Fascism is similar but causes less discontent. If you're aiming for a peaceful win you need a high-end government, but playing at lower difficulty levels you should be able to win any game with a combination of communism and monarchy/theocracy.
