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#161 KNOW YOUR ENEMY A description of the most common "types" of civ players #160 JUST A LITTLE THOUGHT ABOUT CIV A smac lover does his duty as a user of Apolyton and writes for the Column :) #159 CIVILIZATION II VERSUS CTP2, TOT, ALPHA CENTAURI, ETC... A really "old" civer returns to remind of one of the most important parts of civ games: creation #158 THREE POLLS FOR CIV THREE MarkG comments on the currently running civ3 polls #157 CIV3 MEETS CHAMPIONSHIP MANAGER! MarkG is combining two of his favorite games and creates a monster COLUMN ARCHIVE

Playing the Civilization you are always use some kind if strategy, even if you are new civer and don't understand this. But in some strategy concepts, which work in real world, will never work in Civilization.

When I was starting to play Civilization, I liked to play for the Germans, build a lot of tanks and bombers and crush the Russian Communist Empire. Later I found some books of German generals about the war on east front. Reading this books I found first great "mistake" in Civilization.

1. You cannot "trade space for time" in usual meaning of this concept. Let us take the History example of First World War. By the Shliffen Plan Germany must knock down France concentrating most of the troops on the right flank of west front. In this time if Russia will go on the offensive, Shliffen was ready to give up the Eastern Prussia to Russian. While Russian would fight in Eastern Prussia, France will be defeated. Then all German army can strike Russians. This plan was perfect, but was not well executed in reality. But, the main idea was concentrating almost all troops on French Front. Try to do it in Civilization II World war I scenario. If you will play against Human, he will quickly build the railroad to Eastern Prussia or Galicia, and then nothing can stop Russian strike. Because he can move his units by the railway at any length. The same thing happens if you are trying to stop Russian Counteroffensive under Stalingrad in WW2.

The only way of using "trade space for time" concept is a lot of cheap units. When you put them on the enemy way, he must spend his unit moves for killing them. But this kind of game is possible only in scenarios like 2194 days of War. In other words you can never build some much cheap units, because it is better to build one good unit (tank) then 5 cheap (warrior). Thank god, in CTP railroad is just a faster way of moving units.

2. Trade concept in Civilization. As for me there are no good trade concept in any version of Civilization. The only strategy game with real trade concept is Capitalism. Let us go back to WW2. When you are playing the Germans in any WW2 scenario, you got a lot of submarines in the Atlantic. But what can you order them? Allies got almost no traffic in the Atlantic. You got nothing to do! In history England was on the edge of defeat, because English economic depends mostly on import. In Civilization even if you will destroy all of Caravans and freights England will not really suffer. If you will be lucky you can send to bottom a couple transports with units, but the real D-Day (of any human American player) will be guarded by a lot of destroyers. So, playing German in WW2 you do not really need so many submarines. I can suggest one way of solving this problem. This is increasing the cost of all city improvements, making the income smaller then cost of all improvements. This will make the English and others to t ade with caravans at any cost.

The other thing is for playing Japanese the same scenario. In History, after Pearl Harbor Japan moved forces to Indonesia, because Japan needed the oil fields of Holland colonies in Indonesia (Fuel for navy). Second task, to cut the Birma trail (Army task) to stop weapon shipment to Chinese government from USA and England. In any WW2 you do not have to perform this task, so after Pearl Harbor you can make a landing on the American Continent which was impossible (due to supply problems) in real History. In "East Wind" scenario all cities in Indonesia are Objectives. This corrects the problem making these cities the political goal, but in History it was the Military and Economic goal.

The trade concept in CTP2 not so good for the same reasons. I have played a couple big games with two of my friends and I don't really see the difference between the nation, which trades a lot, and nation, which has no trade at all.

3. The third big Bug in Civilization II is bomber unit. Everybody knows that if you place bomber on the top of the other unit, then only fighters can attack this point. Try to place bomber over Superbattleship in the 2194 days of war. No Human can produce so much fighter to kill this double. Using this tactic you can stop the German offensive in any kind if WW2 scenarios, because Europe is too small and can be bordered (on the land) by fortified tanks + bombers.

There are some more small Strategy "Bugs" in Civilization, but it is enough for first time.

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About the author: I play Civilization since 1994 or even earlier. I read a lot of books about Strategy and Military History. Actually I spent all my free time on this. I like to discuss military operations, tactic and strategy. Most interesting period for me is XX century, but other periods I like too.

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