Civilization Stage



Following the Tribal stage is the Civilization phase. In the Civilization phase, players focus on the interactions, peaceful or violent, between their civilization and other civilizations on their homeworld. The main objective is to collect the gas spice geysers located around the planet, and prevent the enemy from accessing any themselves. The entrance into space marks the beginning of the Space stage, but not necessarily the end of control on the Civilization phase.

Like in Tribal stage other civilizations can be dealt peacefully or by war. The main resource of the Civilization phase is spice that can be gathered from nodes on land or sea. Controlling as many spice nodes as possible gives an advantage. There is a diplomatic system in the Civilization phase, that looks very similar to Sid Meier's Civilization diplomatic system.

Each civilization can build three types of vehicles: tanks, planes or ships. They differ by graphic appearance and three attributes: speed, firepower and stamina. Making one attribute stronger in the Vehicle Editor means that other attributes will be weaker, i.e., if you put many guns on tank, you'll make it more vulnerable and slower. If you add some powerful engine after that, firepower will be weaker. This is made for balance considerations.

There are different types of buildings in cities:


 * Defense Turrets attack enemies at sight.


 * Houses make the population increase, and allow you to make more vehicles.


 * Entertainment Centers make population more happy and loyal.


 * Factories help effectively gather spice from controlled nodes but cause unrest in city.

In Civilization phase and Tribe stage players can't edit their creatures anymore, but can add different accessories like hats, pauldrons, masks etc.

Check out the list of Civilization phase stubs if you're looking to add something.

Civilization Stage Achievements

 * Adamantium Civilization - Finish the Civilization stage on Hard difficulty.


 * Economist - Finish the Civilization stage with more than 8 economic cities.


 * Fear of Flying - Complete the Civilization stage without ever buying an aircraft.


 * Ghetto Blaster - Make 10 Anthems.


 * Military Strongman - Finish the Civilization stage with more than 8 military cities.


 * Missionary - Finish the Civilization stage with more than 8 religious cities.


 * Relentless - Complete the Civilization stage 10 times.


 * Rolling Thunder - Complete the Civilization stage in less than an hour.


 * Spice Hoarder - Control every spice node on the planet simultaneously.


 * Starman - Conquer all the other cities in the Civilization stage and launch your first space vessel.

Strategies for Hard Difficulty
The Civilization stage on Hard is quite difficult. A good approach is to use a mixed economic/religious or economic/military strategy. The reason for this is that in Hard mode the relationship penalties for being a large nation, or having your borders too close are very big. This makes it difficult to improve your relationship enough to start trading, and if you can't trade its impossible to win economically. On the other hand, cities are much more difficult to capture in Hard mode, so if a city is willing to trade with you an economic takeover is the safest method. A decent strategic outline is the following:


 * Start as an economic city. At the start of the level do two things. First, buy another vehicle or two and send them out to get the closest spice nodes. The other cities appear so quickly that its not worth it to try for more than 2 or 3. Second, contact and compliment all of the closest cities so that you don't get attacked right away.


 * Next, find the closest friendly religious or military city and do what it takes to get a trade route going. You may need to give some money as a gift. Once their city is available for purchase, buy it and don't change its type. Its probably going to cost more than 4000 Sporebucks. At some point, someone is going to demand that you stop trading and you should turn them down, of course. If there is a choice between Military and Religious, choose Military since they have the strongest fighters.


 * At this point, several things can happen. If the nation you first started trading with has captured another city, then use your good relationship with that nation to start a trade route. Otherwise, there may be other cities near by which are close enough to trade with. In any case you should be trying to buy another city, if possible. Economic cities should given a low priority. They cannot harm you unless you accept their trade proposals. Their main danger is that if you don't take them over an enemy will. Always keep your economic fleet centered on one or two cities and remember that they will cost more than in Easy or Normal Mode. Once you buy a city always keep it as a Military or Religious.


 * Once the Civilization stage enters its middle phase its likely that there will be an emerging enemy power, which we will call Green. Because of the penalties mentioned earlier it will be very difficult/impossible to trade with Green. At this point, you should ramp up production of your military/religious vehicles and attempt to take over Green cities by force. Remember that the number of religious/military vehicles you have is determined by the number of Houses in religious/military cities. So, put more Houses in your religious/military cities and more Factories in your economic ones. Your fleet should be divided into two main parts: 1. The smaller one should be a mobile defensive group to help protect whichever town Green is attacking. 2. The larger one should be used for attacking Green's cities. Be aware that it takes a lot of firepower to capture a city in Hard mode. Time is of the essence, so try and take over cities quickly, using your cell/creature/tribal abilities when appropriate. When you capture a city, change it to religious/military, whichever you've been using.
 * Take your time when mapping your city. It may take a while, but it really is worth it in the long run.


 * Remember that Factories are more productive when linked to Houses and the City Hall, but they lower happiness and cancel Entertainment buildings when linked. Entertainment buildings are more effective when linked to City Hall and Houses. In short, blue and green lines are good, while red lines are bad.


 * In the middle/late stages of the game, the Green Menace will be so pervasive that hopefully you will be in good/neutral standing with the other cities. Remember to keep your economic fleet busy, but buying cities should be your second priority and in the later phase there won't be any cities to buy.


 * In the last phase of the Civilization stage, if your fleet is strong enough, you may be able to finish by conquering Green. However, Green will build up a massive army and will be giving the hurt out in buckets. The easiest way to win is to get to six/seven cities, switch over to pure defense, and save up for the Global Buyout superweapon. With any luck, you will save up enough to purchase the planet before Green knocks you back down to fewer than 6 cities.


 * An alternate strategy would be one I call "I love you all ... please don't kill me!": You start as an economic city, and at the beginning just capture a spice node or two. Then, focus on building up your city to ramp up spice production. If you are ever told to pay off a nation, do it. Eventually, two superpowers will likely emerge. Side heavily with one and make sure they win. You will have a very high relation with them, can buy 3 of their cities, then they will offer to merge with you. Surprisingly, you may be able to do this within an hour.


 * Also, a useful exploit during Civilization stage is that you can instantly switch the attributes of your vehicles whenever you want. For example, during the start of the game, you can focus your vehicles entirely on speed, and use that to rapidly seize a lot of spice geysers and tribal villages. If you are attacking a defenseless city, you can orient your vehicles entirely toward religious/military power to rapidly take the city - after all, they won't be moving, and they aren't being attacked. In the event that enemy vehicles show up, you can just switch them to a mixture of religious/military power and health, then switch them back once the threat is past. Taking advantage of this can give you a nice head start in the early game, and really speed up city takeover.


 * Finally, before advancing to Space Stage, make sure all your cities have an optimal building layout and all their Turrets. This way, you don't have to spend money later on building them, and since you start with 100k Sporebucks in the Space Stage no matter what, well, it speaks for itself. It may be worth building nothing but Houses since these are the most expensive and you can make money from replacing them with Factories or Entertainment.

=See Also=
 * Civilization Phase Images
 * Being Invaded