EPISTLES

Strategy Tips from Hocus

December 10, 2001

Cities produce military units that are ranked as "Regular". Barracks raise the experience level of any military unit in the city it is built in to "Veteran". Upon attaining Veteran, a previously Regular unit gains an extra unit of health, meaning it now has four, up from three. This makes Barracks extremely effective, as it means it gives a 33% hit point boost to all units found inside that city. Therefore, the optimal amount of units to have garrisoned in a city at one time are groups of three, as it effectively means another unit, from all the hit point bonuses.

Early on, if there are a number of Civilisations on a small island with you, or if you have Barbarians set to a high level, there can often be a problem with quickly and safely expanding. To counter this, use your city that is strongest in shield production at the time, (usually your capital) to make units for the newly built cities, ensuring that they have at least one token defensive unit protecting them.

If at all possible, try to build your cities on hills. Hills confer a 50% defensive bonus, which is 25% more than any other unmodified tile in the game, with the exception of mountains, which you can't build cities on anyway.

You can never have enough defence for your cities. Even on lower difficulties, this game seems to be heavily skewed towards the AI, in that while it can be quite difficult to capture one of its cities, it seems to have no troubles whatsover beating your three veteran, fortified, walled, city built on a hill Spearmen with two regular Horsemen.

Early on in the game, if you must build near excessive amounts of jungle, hills and mountains, don't throw your hands up in despair just yet. If there is a large amount of these types of terrain between you and an enemy civilization, (rather than say grasslands with roads on them) it tends to severely hamper their offensive movements, in that it gives you time to produce/hurry some new defensive units and heal your existing ones. The only problem with this is that it works both ways.

- Hocus

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