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Building the Capital
Well, it's time to start playing. The first thing we want to do is to build the capital. We want to build it as soon as possible and at the same time on a place, surrounded with resources the city will use. My Settlers was placed at such position (S indicates Settlers):
The position my Settlers were put in is pretty
good. It is surrounded by grassland, grassland with shields (green dots), a lake, plains,
swamp and river (right click terrain in your game to find out which type it is). Grassland
is good for food, grassland with shield also for production, river for trade and forest
for production as well. I'm going to move my Settlers one square towards east on
the square with a shield (the green dot) and build Moscow there.
Task number one: Try to find a similar place for your capital as quickly (in two or three turns) as possible.
Press b or choose Build New City from Orders menu to build your capital. Only Settlers can build cities for now. When the city is built, a city screen will open. The city screen is sort of control panel for the city.
Setting Production in a City
Of course, we don't want our cities, especially the capital, to fall in hands of our enemies. So we need to build defenses for it.
Task 2: Click "Change" button and select Phalanx from the list of units and city improvements.
Important note: The prerequisite for Phalanx is Bronze Working. If you haven't been given the knowledge of it at the beginning of the game, you will have to discover it first. In that case, select Warriors from list of units.
My Phalanx will be produced in 10 turns. Since I only got one unit of Settlers at the beginning, there is nothing I can do except wait until Phalanx are built. If you were given an additional unit of Settlers, find another suitable spot and build your second city.
City Display
You may have noticed certain small icons in City Screen:
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| Food | Production | Science | Trade | Taxes |
Select Game Concepts from Civilopedia to find out more about them and get familiar with City Display. Try the buttons (Info, Happy...) and see what they're for.
Research
While we're waiting for Phalanx to be built, we are going to select a civilization advance to research. When the screen asking you what do you want to research next pops up, it's time to choose.
Since Despotism (current government system) is not suitable for us (remember - we want to be the most enlightened empire of all), we want to discover a new, more appropriate form of government. We'll settle for Monarchy. The prerequisites for Monarchy are Code of Law and Ceremonial Burial. In order to discover Code of Law, we need to discover Alphabet first.
Important note: If you were not given the secrets of Bronze Working at the beginning of the game, discover it first. Remember, we need Bronze Working to build Phalanx.
Next task: Discover the secrets of Monarchy (first Alphabet, then Code of Law and Ceremonial Burial).
After Monarchy it is usually OK to discover Pottery, Masonry. These two advances will allow us to construct wonders of Pyramids and Hanging Gardens later (or at least one of them). Try to discover Philosophy as soon as possible as well - if you discover Philosophy first, you will be granted another civilization advance.
Colonizing World
When Phalanx are built, continue building cities. Build Settlers in Moscow and find a suitable place for new city. Build the city, produce Phalanx in it and then Settlers. Continue to do so in most of your cities until you have a dozen cities or so (it takes a long time to build that many cities, so check out sections below to find out what else to do at this time).
Should you ran across another civilization, make peace with them if you can (except if you're sure you can destroy it immediately) and try to exchange knowledge and maps.
The Revolution
When you discover Monarchy, a dialog will appear asking you if you want to begin revolution to overthrow the Russian Despotism. Choose Begin Revolution and select Monarchy when available (there may be a short period of anarchy).
When your system changes from Anarchy to Monarchy, change tax rate
as following:
Taxes: 30%
Science: 70%
Luxuries: 0%
When you have at least the secrets of Alphabet, Ceremonial Burial, Code of Law, Monarchy, Masonry and Pottery, go for The Republic and begin revolution when you discover it. Or you might want to discover Trade first to gain the ability of producing Caravans and establish trade routes with other civilizations. Caravans can also help you build wonders.
First Wonder
When you have, let's say 7 or 8 cities, go to the city that generates the most production shields per turn. Set its production to Pyramids or Hanging Gardens. While Pyramids provide Granary (cities grow faster) in every single one of your cities, Hanging Gardens increase happiness among your people. Check the wonders page or Civilopedia for more information. Some of your other cities should be now producing Caravans that can help building wonders (you have to discover Trade first).
Irrigation, Mining and Roads
So far, we haven't built any of it. It's about time we got started. Irrigation, Mining and Roads increase city's resources and are built by Settlers. Roads also increase unit movement rate by 300 percent. Each city should produce its own Settlers that would take care of irrigation, mining and rounds around the city. This is a lengthy process, so don't expect to have them built soon.
The Republic
My game is kind of slow here, it's already year 0 and we're finally a republic. The republic is a bit different form of government than monarchy, especially when concerning happiness of your people. The chances of revolting are dramatically increased with republic. To reduce these chances, try to build Hanging Gardens wonder and then a Temple in each of your cities.
Unhappiness in Republic is also caused by military units. Each unit beyond the first unit that is not in a friendly city, causes one citizen in unit's home city to be unhappy. This can be reduced (much later, however) by building Police Stations or Women's Suffrage wonder. In addition, under republic each unit costs one shield per turn and Settlers eat two units of food per turn (therefore try to build irrigation as soon as possible).
If you read all that, you might began to wonder what the gains of republic are then. Well, trade is dramatically increased and being the case we spend most of the revenue we get from trade for science (up to 80 percent under republic!), our scientists will discover new technology faster - moving us closer to our goal - becoming sufficiently advanced to conquer the world without much trouble.
Important: If there is a civil disorder in the same city two turns in a row, the government under republic or democracy will be overthrown. The result will be a period of anarchy before order can be restored.
So try to keep your people content (build wonders, temples, coliseums etc.). If you're still having problems, raise your luxury rate to 10 percent.
Otherwise (should you experience not many civil disorders), try to keep the science rate as high as possible.
Go for Democracy after you discover secrets of The Republic.
Buildings
In my opinion, the first buildings you should build are Marketplace, Library and Temple (not necessarily in that order). Also Granary if somebody beat you to constructing Pyramids. Marketplace increases tax output, Library science output and Temple helps you keep your citizens content.
Wonders
The most important wonders of this era are:
| Pyramids | Count as Granary in every friendly city. |
| Hanging Gardens | Make 3 content citizens happy in the city where built and one content citizen happy in every other friendly city. |
| Great Library | Civilization that builds it receives every civilization advance already discovered by two other civilizations. |
| Great Wall | Provides City Walls for every friendly city and doubles combat strength against barbarians. Enemy civilizations must offer peace during negotiations. |
| Marco Polo's Embassy | Automatically establishes an embassy with every rival civilization. |
Try to build as many of these wonders as you can. I constructed Pyramids and Hanging Gardens so far. Great Library is in production, but I'm considering change to Great Wall since I'm having a bit trouble with the Carthaginians.
Foreign Affairs
As we said before, it's best to leave peacefully with your
neighbors. For now. But if you experience trouble, try following: - build additional unit
of Phalanx in every city
- if you can, build Great Wall, otherwise City Walls in every city.
- build a few offensive units (Legion, Chariot/Elephant) and try to take over one
of the troublemaker's cities. If you succeed, you will probably be offered peace during
negotiations.
Foreign Affairs paragraph concludes this part of tutorial.
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Sid Meier's Civilization II (C) Microprose
