Welcome to Civ2. As you go up in levels early city growth becomes more and more difficult to deal with. I tend to build few if any improvements in the early game, preferring instead to expand with many tiny cities, so my comments will be pretty biased.

Graneries (and even the Pyramids) can be a liability in the early game due to the unhappiness large cities bring. The only place I'll build a granery is in my Super Science City (SSC) since I want it to grow large and am willing to buy it stuff to keep it happy. The rest of my cities languish granery-free.

In Civ2 deity combatting unhappiness and corruption is a challenge for this strategy. If it is being successful you can expect to reach the point where the first two citizens are double unhappies. But the game provides the needful means to overcome this. Trade is very important.

The real challenge for that strat is finding ways to hit all the A1 civs hard enough while devoting most of your production to development and continued expansion.

But, say, you pursue a different strategy, say early republic. Now you will plan to get the growth you want from WLT-Ds. Granaries are rarely now going to be of any real help for a long time.

And if you ICS (that is build an infinite number of cities each of which pumps out settlers, caravans and combat units staying at size two with no improvements) I am sure you never build them at all.

There are three special cases which I believe apply in all strats bar ICS. The first is the early city with one or more grain specials. This city can pump out the settlers you need for your early expansion and a granary will help it to do so with maximum efficiency. It's a bit like having one suitable city build a barracks so that your defenders/offensive units are all vets.

The second case comes late in fully developed cities. It is worth keeping their (by now very large) food box reasonably full because, in all likelihood they will grow (through WLT-Ds)to a point where the city does not fully sustain its population. With a large, half full foodbox decreasing by just one or two wheatsheaves a turn it will take longer than the game lasts for this city to reach starvation point. Without a late granary, though, it may well reach that point. Which doesn't matter a right lot but the cost of the late granary seems to me well off set by keeping a specialist or two at work for the last twenty or thirty turns.

The third case also arises late. If you are like me, you like to go on planting cities right through the game. I love to grow all those late cities rapidly (and I usually have nearly unlimited funds with which to do it). So my first improvement is a rushed granary - to help the city get to size three quickly. My second improvement is a courthouse (for the extra happy face in democracy). That makes the city celebrate as soon as it reaches size three. If I now rush harbours followed by all the happy improvements (marketplace, bank, stock exchange, superhighways) I can keep these late cities celebrating and growing apace.

* you have let someone else build the Pyramids first
[and can not easily capture the Pyramids' city]

My favorite strategy is to build very few cities (8-10) and make the VERY quickly collosally HUGE in population, economy and trade. I am a hopeless perfectionist.

This strategy has never failed me.

The only exception to this rule is when I play Deity or go to conquer the world (very rarely because it bores me).

I love the pyramids..... i know it bs as far as the powergraph goes....after all pop is way overated......

However..... fast growth does lead to more workers which means more shields and more trade...... Most use WLT*D to grow..... its quick and done right its efficient. Add the pyramids to this and your cooking.

Last night i wandered till 3250 in an MP game which gernerally means a quick death..... one guy had a size 3 and a 2 on the top five and the other guy had two size 2 cities.... end of the game i was first in population. I had crap land...hills and plains mainly and had i icsed they would have been in trouble.... but thats another story based on hindsight etc....

I had only one wonder and not as much science as the others but i was holding my own.... i wasn't a monarchy until 1850 bc..... so screw happy wonders.... i firmly believe they only make it easier to win .... learning to play without them as i have done so many times now i feel as though i am a better player.

I am a multiplayer at Deity level.

quote: Originally posted by ajli@home on 04-29-2001 02:31 AM Granaries are incredibly important if you want to crank out 5 villies at the speed of 3. Build them at the first 2 cities that you found. Make sure to build lots of garrisons (crappy warriors) to keep the peace. I never build temples until at least the discovery of philosophy. Until then, make sure you build enough villies to decrease growth and enough warriors to control the pop.

Two countries separated by a common language - - what the hell is a 'villy'???????????????????????

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Scouse Git[1] -- git1@scousers.net