hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr3910.txt

Episode: 3910
Title: HPR3910: Playing Civilization II
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3910/hpr3910.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 07:50:52

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,910 for Friday the 28th of July 2023.
Today's show is entitled, Playing Civilization 2.
It is part of the series' computer strategy games.
It is hosted by Ahuka and is about 16 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, Some Hints for Playing Civilization 2.
Hello, this is Ahuka for Hacker Public Radio.
And I am excited to welcome you to another episode in the series I'm doing on gaming
strategy gaming.
And in this I'm going to return to Civilization 2 and I want to give just some hints about
gaming.
Now, this is not a full-fledged strategy guide.
There is one on the Civilization Wiki, there's a link in the show notes for that.
So if you really want to get into what you can, but these are just some general suggestions
on things that will make you more successful.
First, keeping your cities happy is very important.
If you don't do this, they can go into unrest.
The mayor will flee in panic, and if you don't correct it right away, your government
will fall.
Now this happiness issue is in all of the civ games, though the mechanics may change depending
on the version.
Now in the early stages, you want to build a temple in each city.
And once you research monotheism, I would recommend building Michelangelo's Chapel, which
gives you a cathedral in every city, which is a very handy thing to have.
Now the thing about cathedrals that makes them valuable is that a cathedral in a city
will take three unhappy citizens and make them content.
Now, if you can't build this wonder, you would have to build a cathedral in each city
to get the same effect.
You can also increase happiness by increasing the funding for luxuries or by turning some
of your citizens into entertainers.
Entertainers are a good short term solution, but they reduce your food, production, and
trade because they are not working tiles.
So I would consider them temporary.
Now the last way to manage this is to keep your cities very small, because as they grow,
the added citizens are likely to be unhappy, subject to, of course, the above modifications
that you can do.
Now this happens more quickly as you go to higher difficulty levels.
At the lowest level, which is chieftain, you can have six citizens before this kicks in.
While at the highest level, which is deity, you only get one happy citizen when you found
a city.
So learning to manage this is very important.
For a fuller discussion, the civilization wiki, as a good article, again link in the show
notes.
Now, the next thing you consider is the wonders of the world.
I find them more significant in Civ 2 than in the original in terms of their impact on
the game.
There are some that I always try to get, first is the pyramids, which is unlocked when
you discover masonry.
It counts as a granary in each of your cities, and granaries help you grow your population
faster.
This matters for the kind of victory you are going after, since there is a strategy to
keep city sizes low, settle a lot of them, and pump out units for a conquest victory.
But if you are going for a science victory, large populations are very helpful here.
And the pyramids never expire, so you get this benefit all the way through the game.
Another early wonder worth getting, if you can, is the great library.
This grants you knowledge of any technology or science advance that two other civs have
discovered.
For a science victory, this is particularly important.
I often get it not because I need help from my science, but because it will keep it away
from the others.
If I am going for a science victory, I will probably be the leading researcher.
But I don't want anyone else getting the advantage of all of my hard work, and getting the
great library slows down the opposition.
Now there are two things to keep in mind if you are making wonders part of your strategy.
First is you can use caravans to add production to a wonder, and that means researching
trade should be a priority since that unlocks the ability to build caravans.
And you should also be building caravans to create trade routes.
You should aim to get three trade routes in every city, and the earlier the better since
the revenue goes up, the longer the routes are active.
This can lead to a very healthy treasury.
And as we mentioned previously, Sid Meyer has said that money is the key to this game.
In the case of Wonders, in Civ 2 only, you get a warning when an opponent is about to
complete a wonder the next turn.
If it's when you are interested in, and you have enough money, you can buy it.
Now generally this would happen when you have already built a fair portion of it since
the cost goes down when there is less left to build, but having the money on hand gives
you flexibility.
Now some other wonders I like to get when I can include Michelangelo's chapel as we
discussed previously, which never expires.
Then there's Magellan's expedition, which gives your ships two extra movement points,
and all new ships are veteran when built, that also never expires.
Leonardo's workshop will automatically upgrade all of your units.
It does expire when automobile is researched, but by that point there aren't a lot more
unit advances anyway.
Adam Smith's trading company pays all of the maintenance charges on buildings that require
one gold maintenance per turn, and that's most of them, so it's a big boost to your treasury.
And finally, the Hoover Dam counts as a hydro plant in all cities on the same continent.
Now all wonders have some benefits, so I have highlighted the ones I find I go for the
most often.
And you will never get everything you want.
But if you have a large treasury and can build lots of caravans, you'll get more than
your share, and it can help you to snowball.
Now the easiest way I found to win this game is to build wide, in other words to build
lots of cities.
Cities are still the basic entities in Civ 2, as in Civ 1.
And it is cities that support your military units and let you build buildings and wonders.
The opposite approach is to build tall, in other words, build just a few cities that
are highly developed.
And the ultimate in this approach is what is called the One City Challenge.
Now this is very difficult, since the idea is to win with just one city, and people
have done this in every version of Civ.
But you have to be a real expert to pull this off.
So for a beginner, I would say building wide is the suggested approach.
Now I will frequently make an early gamble and settle three cities before I build my
first real military unit.
You can usually get away with this on a standard map, since no other player is that close,
and barbarians are not active right away.
And if you do get wiped out right away, just restart, or start a new game.
Now I usually do a save right on the first turn in case I need to start over.
You always start with the knowledge of how to build militia units, but sometimes you
already know bronze working with let you build the phalanx, the best early game defensive
unit.
But the first technology I usually go for is horseback riding.
This is because the horseman unit travels faster than units on foot, and that means I can
do exploring.
Exploring is important for several reasons.
First, you want to find out who you nearby opponents are.
Second, you want to scout out locations for new cities.
Third, you want to explore the goody-huts on the map.
They are the best source of gold early in the game, frequently giving you 50 gold when
you explore them.
They can also give you knowledge of a technology, which saves you time on researching it, and
occasionally you will find an advanced tribe that will join your civ as a city.
But if you're unlucky, you will awaken a horde of barbarians, which usually means the
death of your exploring unit.
Now, there are two ways to win in Civ 2, just as in Civ 1, conquest or science.
To gain a conquest victory, you need to wipe out all of your opponents.
But to do that, you need to keep up with science since that's how you improve your military.
In the early game, the best defense is phalanx behind city walls, and the best offense is
Legion, chariot, or elephant.
Now, a couple of fortified phalanx units behind city walls will generally withstand two
of the offensive units.
So a conquest victory generally means you need to build lots of offensive units, and that
means lots of cities.
And some of those cities probably need to focus on science at any given time, or you may
find your ancient chariots going up against medieval pikemen.
Now, you can build barracks in your cities, and that will make the units you build in them
veteran, which gives them a 50% bonus in battle.
But as in Civ 1, barracks become obsolete twice.
That's when you research gunpowder, and the second time when you research the automobile.
But Civ 2 is kinder, in that the game automatically sells the obsolete barracks for you, and puts
the money in your treasury.
Now if you're in the medieval period, pikemen are the best defensive unit, and knights and
crusaders are the best offensive units.
But as before, two veteran pikemen behind city walls will withstand any two comparable
offensive units.
Now, after gunpowder, you get musketmen, which are the best defensive units, and cannon,
which are the best offensive units.
And then as you research further, it ratchets up to cavalry, as an offensive unit, riflemen
is a defensive unit.
And then with the automobile, you unlock armor, one of the best offensive units, and a bit
later mechanized infantry, the top defensive unit.
So you need to keep up with science, or you will find your units are outmatched on the
battlefield.
And knowing that two good defensive units behind city walls will usually beat two good offensive
units of comparable power, you'll see that you need to build a lot of units if you plan
to go conquering.
Now for a science victory, the ultimate aim is to land a spaceship full of colonists
at Alpha Centauri before anyone else does, but that does not mean you can neglect your
military.
You need to at least have a strong enough military to either deter or punish aggression from
your opponents.
And one wrinkle is that if your capital is captured before you have landed at Alpha Centauri,
it wipes out your spaceship.
And that can be as simple as firing a nuclear ICBM, which is unlocked by building the Manhattan
Project Wonder.
Send that to your capital then send in paratroops to occupy the city.
Getting a lot of science involves building libraries, universities, and research labs.
In addition, some wonders add to science.
The first is the great library mentioned earlier.
Now two of them, Copernicus's Observatory and Isaac Newton's College, only affect the
city where they are built.
So if you are going for a science victory, you'll get the optimal results if you designate
one city as your primary science city, and if you can build both of them in that city.
A Darwin's voyage gives you two free advances, and the city program gives you a free research
lab in each city.
Other that you can create specialists.
Note that you can create a specialist by clicking on a tile that is being worked in the city
screen.
That removes the person from your labor pool, in terms of an entertainer who sort of looks
like Elvis.
And then if you click on the Elvis figure, you can get a scientist who looks like Einstein,
and one more click will give you a tax collector.
Finally, you need to pay attention to productivity.
You should develop each tile in your cities as much as possible.
Roads, and later railroads, not only facilitate movement, but also increase the trade generated
on the tile, adding to your revenue.
Hills and mountains can be mined, which adds to your production capacity.
In irrigation, later, if you research additional technology, farms, add to your food output and
help grow your population.
Counting the city itself, each city can work 21 tiles, and that means you have to get to
a population of at least 21 to maximize your output from a city.
And you increase population by increasing food production.
It takes a long time to get cities that large, of course.
So if early on you have a city of size 5, you're doing pretty good.
Now as for general production, displayed as shields, mines increase this if they are
worked, and forests do as well if they are worked.
Later on you can build a factory, and then with further technology, a manufacturing plant,
to increase this more.
The city is important for all games.
If you're going for conquest, it means you can pump out units faster and overwhelm your
opponents.
For a science victory, it can mean building your libraries, universities, and research labs
faster.
And for getting those juicy wonders, high productivity cities can only do them faster,
but other cities can pump out caravans that you can use to build them even faster.
The power plant will also help with this.
But power plants generate pollution, which will show up as a blotch on the tile.
Settlers, and later on when you get the right technology engineers, can clean this up,
but it takes a few turns.
And until it is cleaned up, it reduces output on the tile.
And you can reduce the pollution by building mass transit, a recycling center, and finally
a solar plant.
And hydro plants give you power without adding the pollution in any way.
One reason why the Hoover Dam wonder is so powerful.
Now nuclear plants not generate normal pollution, but there is the chance of a meltdown event
which generates its own kind of pollution.
So this is the basics for Civ2.
So I also want to discuss Civ2 test of time, which is a variant that came out later.
And so that will be the next article.
But this is Ahuka for Hacker Public Radio signing off and encouraging you as always to support
free software.
Bye bye.
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