BMK                                                            BMK

The Bitmap Kid Presents...
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                          THE ULTIMATE CIVILISATION PLAYER'S GUIDE
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                     Chapter Two  -  Gaining power

1 - Spreading your roots.
By now you should have a very strong capital indeed. Once I've
fortified a city with four or five Phalanx and a city wall, it
seems that whatever the roges throw at it I'm not damaged at all
and they end up killing themselves!! If, on the other hand,
your city doesn't seem to be growing much at all after a lot of
waiting, then you're doing something wrong. The classic cause for
this is building a city that isn't next to water, another is
having too many units floating about too soon. If you're still
struggling with a city marked '1' or '2' after quite some time,
then either fix the problem or start again.

Your capital should be thriving by now, and because you prepared
all the city squares before, you won't have to worry about it
again. The next thing you should do is send your settlers on a
walkabout. Explore the lands around your city for several squares,
look out for a good position to build your second city. Ideally,
you'll want it just out of range from your capital, eg work out
how far a city's squares spread and build the city (in a good
spot, remember) that many squares, doubled, from your capital.
Example (inaccurate):

          ##           <---- Capital City
          11           <---- Capital City land
          11           <---- Capital City land
          11           <---- Capital City furthest reach of land
          22           <---- Second City furthest reach of land
          22           <---- Second City land

          22           <---- Second City land
          ##           <---- Ideal place for second city if good
                             spot


Once you've found the spot you want - make sure it's next to water
etc remember! - build a road from the capital to that square, (you
may want to build a fortress to show where the city's area splits)
and irrigate a square or two around where you are going to put
your city. Once you've done that you can go to your chosen site
and press 'B'.

Once the city is founded you can go about building it up as you
did your capital, settlers, irrigation, roads, temple, walls,
defence.... And soon it too should start growing and the expansion
part of the game can start again....

Of course, a city doesn't HAVE to be right next to another, but it
does help not to have them too far away from each other because
they can help each other out if there are any problems.

2 - Governments.
The government you want to aim for is Democracy. In a democracy
your bank balance soars, advances speed up and corruption
disappears. The disadvantages are that you can't move most units
around too well because the people become unhappy if a unit is out
of its home city. This makes it a bummer to fight wars or even
carry out basic land work, so you may only like to switch to
Democracy a lot later in the game. Another problem is that you
won't be able to break a treaty, a problem for me since I break
treaties all the time!! But if you really get annoyed at being so
restricted then you can always switch governments for a while. The
standard, initial, government is very good though, and I only ever
use that and Democracy in my games.

3 - Wonders of the World.
I can say little on wonders of the world - everything about them
is explained in the manual. Choose one that you think looks
helpful and, at the right time, build it. I like to build my
wonders when my city has little else to do, and so keep it
occupied, but if you want of course you can build one - or more -
at any reasonable time.

4 - Revolting People. (And no I don't mean JJ. In this case.)
At almost any cost you don't want people to revolt for the endless
problems it can cause. The most common is lack of buildings in
a city like Temples etc. Another common problem is units away from
home in a Democracy or any other happiness-affecting problem. To
cure the problem, you can either build something appropriate,
return a unit home or disband it, make a few people entertainers,
or build (for the long term) a attitude-affecting wonder.


That's all for this issue, I'm afraid (yippee, cries a reader) -
look out for the next edition of this (great, wonderful,
amazing...) Civilisation guide in which I'll reveal all about
other civilisations and lots more ... See ya!

BMK                                                            BMK