OverviewUser interface
Introduction
Starting C-EvoCity management
C-Evo's user interface
Saving and loading games
Map viewing options
City managementTechnology
City manipulation
Improving terrain
Building new towns
Improving a town
City population
TechnologyNavy and other units
Setting Tax and Research Percentages
Increasing technology research
Changing government type
Building and using shipsFinal notes
Building better ships
Winning the GameAppendix
Final Comments
Appendix
Diplomacy
Conscripts
Science and resources
This document is a guide on playing the excellent tiny free game C-Evo for someone who has never played any of the games in the famous Civilization series. The purpose of this document is to allow someone who has never played any Civilization game before to become familiar enough to be able to build a spaceship and win the game at the easiest level of play in C-Evo 1.1.1 (Beginner).
This document will not cover situations when there are other nations on the map, such as alliances and war.
The Civilization series of games are a series of games which combine city building, society expansion and creation with traditional war gaming aspects. In the Civilization games, strategy consists of several facets:
Once C-Evo is installed on your computer, start up the game. The game runs in full-screen mode at the resolution you have set your monitor at. On this screen, one can see a big version of C-Evo's logo in the upper right-hand side of the screen, along with a window in the lower left part that allows one to select how to start a game. There is, in this window, three tabs and two buttons marked "?" and "X". The "X" button exits C-Evo and returns to the desktop; if you wish to go to another running application without quitting C-Evo, it is possible to hit Alt+Tab (in Windows XP, you will need to have at least one other program running when you start C-Evo to do this).
The "?" button gives you help on the parameters you can choose to start C-Evo. The "Map" tab allows you to choose how big the map is; it is also possible to download and play maps, which would be in this menu, as well as making your own map. The most important option here is the size of the map; C-Evo lets you choose one of six sizes of random maps, ranging in size from fairly small to epic-size huge maps.
While it is possible to play a handmade map with C-Evo, the majority of games are played with random maps: When the game is started, the computer makes a map that resembles the Earth. Each game has a different looking map; no two games are the same as a result. Every game allows you to explore a new world.
Civilization games are very long games; even a game played with the smallest map (35%) can easily last several hours. Combine with C-Evo's very addictive gameplay, it is recommended to not start a game unless you know you will be free for a few hours.
In C-Evo parlance, a game is called a "book"; to start a game, do the following:
After the game starts, you will see a screen with a message saying your civilization is leaving the stone age. The C-Evo game choose an initial location for your first city. You start the game with just a single city, as well as a single "settler" who can either improve the land around your city or form his own new city.
Once a game is started, we are in C-Evo's user interface, which can be very confusing at first, but soon becomes simple to use.
In the upper left hand corner of the screen is a small version of the C-Evo logo. This allows you to open up the manual, change user-interface options (whether there is sound, etc.), cheat in various ways (see the entire world) via the "Manipulation" item (we will not do this), allow experienced players to automate some tasks via "Micro management", open up C-Evo's website (this is a good way of starting up a second application so you can Alt+Tab out of C-Evo in Windows XP), and save the game by "closing" the book.
C-Evo, unlike other games, doesn't have a "Save game" option; a game is saved by closing the game in progress. When you close a game, it will ask you if you want to save the game. Click on "Yes" to save the game.
Once a game is saved, it can be reloaded again by restarting C-Evo, choosing the "Earlier books" tab, and choosing the game you just saved. Multiple games can be saved; games are sorted by the time a game was saved, with newer games lower in the list. If this is the first time you have played C-Evo, the game you just saved will have the name "Book 1". If you or someone else has played a game of C-Evo before, the game you just saved will be the game at the bottom of the list of saved games. To open a saved game, select the game on the left side of the box then hit the box marked "open".
If you don't like how a game has progressed, you can load a save game at any point in the past. To do this, select the "book" (saved game) you wish to roll back the clock on. Next, below the mini-map icon, and above the "open" button, there is a display of the year (in game time) when the game is saved. It is possible to change the year to continue playing again by either clicking on the arrows to the right of the year, or sliding the long black bar immediately below the year.
In the lower left corner of the screen there is a, at this point, largely black rectangle with a small blue or green area. This is a mini-map; this lets you see the entire world at a glance. Below this mini-map are some options that affect how you view the world; the most useful of these options are the ones that allow you to see political borders (you can not cross these borders if you have a peace treaty with another player) and the one that allows you to see the isometric grid C-Evo uses.
Since we are playing without any opponents, the option to see political borders will only allow us to see our own borders. To enable this button, click on the third box from the left below the mini-map. The grid can be turned on by clicking on the sixth box from the left below the mini-map (the second box from the right).
While these options are below the mini-map, these options for the most part affect how we view the main map that takes up most of the screen real estate on the screen.
The main map does not show the entire world; it only shows a part of the world. One can change what part of the world one sees by left-clicking on the main map; the point you click will become the center of the main map window. It is also possible to change one's viewpoint by left-clicking on the mini-map, or by enabling scrolling in the options in the top left menu.
In the Civilization games, a city generates three kinds of resources:
More information about these resources is available in the excellent manual C-Evo comes with.
A city gets these three resources from the land around the city. A given city can get land from any resource two tiles or closer from the city. Here is a figure of the squares a city gets resources from:
. # # # . # # # # # # # X # # # # # # # . # # # .
Here, "X" is the location of the city, the squares marked # are squares a city can get resources from, and the four "." squares in the corners are too far away from the city to get resources.
One interesting quirk is that, regardless of technology level, it is not possible for a given city to get resources beyond these 20 squares. While it would make sense for a modern culture to be able to use freight to move resources from distant farmlands to cities to feed the population or generate trade, C-Evo doesn't have this to keep the rules relatively simple.
The amount of resources one can get from a given square depends on several factors:
An undeveloped square offers the following amount of resources (sorted by the amount of food the square offers) at the beginning of the game:
Desert: 0 food 1 shield 1 trade Arctic: 0 food 1 shield 0 trade Mountains: 0 food 1 shield 0 trade Prairie: 1 food 1 shield 1 trade Hills: 1 food 0 shields 0 trade Hills with grapes (wine): 1 food 0 shields 4 trade Swamp: 1 food 0 shields 1 trade Tundra: 1 food 0 shields 1 trade Tundra with gold: 1 food 0 shields 6 trade Coast (light ocean): 1 food 0 shields 3 trade Forest: 1 food 2 shields 1 trade Jungle: 1 food 2 shields 1 trade Plains: 2 food 1 shield 1 trade Grassland: 3 food 0 shields 1 trade Prairie with wheat: 3 food 1 shield 1 trade Forest with deer (game): 3 food 2 shields 1 trade Jungle with banana (fruit): 3 food 2 shields 1 trade Arctic with ivory (seal): 3 food 1 shield 4 trade Desert with oasis (palm): 3 food 1 shield 1 trade Coast with fish: 5 food 0 shield 3 trade
For a city to survive, it must have at least 4 food resources, including the food resources available in the square where the city is located. A city must have a population of at least 2, and every unit of population needs two food resources; a city with a population of 10, for example, needs 20 food resources. Cities without enough food have famines and decrease in population; cities with excess food have surpluses, which result in the city growing.
This means that, for a city to survive, it is ideally on a square that offers 2 food or more, and close to another square that offers 2 or more food.
To manage a city, left-click on the city. A window will pop open with the following information:
The only information we will concern ourselves with now is which squares the city uses to get resources. We will work on improving these squares.
The unit used for improving terrain is the settler (later on in the game there are other units that can improve terrain, but the settler is the only available one at the start of the game). A settler actually has two jobs: Building new cities and improving terrain around a city. A settler can improve terrain a few ways:
These improvements are done by moving the settler to the square we wish to improve, then pushing the button near the bottom of the screen that looks like a "T" to open up the terrain improvement menu. To move the settler (or any other unit):
Irrigation is more useful than making mines near the beginning of the game, especially on plains and grassland squares.
In addition to irrigating terrain and building roads and mines, settlers can also build new towns. It is important to build a town that is a little distant from other towns and cities so the town has its own resources. Only a single town or city can use a given resource square; if two cities are too close to each other, each city has fewer resource squares available.
To build a new town, a settler needs to find a place which has enough food to support the town's population. While a settler can build a town in a place without enough food, the town will quickly die of famine and disappear.
Ideally, a city should be built on a plains or grassland tile, and be within two squares of another plains or grassland tile. If this is not possible, it will be necessary to irrigate land around the site before establishing the new town.
A town can only be built on a grassland, plains, prairie, hills, or tundra square.
To build a new town:
It takes a few turns to construct the town (this is done to minimize the advantages of building a lot of small towns instead of a few cities). When a town is built, the square the town is on is fully irrigated to increase the food available to the town's population.
Once a town is built, the first thing you will want to build is a town hall. If you have the "code of laws" advance, build a courthouse instead. Another improvement worth building is a granary to increase the town's population growth (pottery needed). If you are playing against other players, either computer or human, and are in hostile territory, it might make more sense to build a military unit to defend your town, but this tutorial only covers playing a map without any other players.
The reason it is so important to build a town hall is because a new town will not contribute to your nation's research or tax until it has this building (or a courthouse if one has the "code of laws" advance). In the "city manipulation" section above, it describes in detail where the button to change what a town builds is; for a newly built city, this button looks like a treasure chest with a red background. Click on this button and you will see a list of units you can build or improvements you can make. As the game progresses and more units and improvements become available to you, to stop things from being unwieldy, the possible things you can build in a city are divided in to:
The buildings are accessed by pressing on the button that looks like a little house; the units are accessed by pressing on the button next to the little house that looks like a man holding a spear; the wonders are accessed by pressing on the button that looks like a triangle pointing upwards.
To get more information on what a given building or unit does, move the mouse pointer over the unit/improvement in question, and hold down the "shift" key while left clicking on your mouse; the relevant page from the C-Evo manual will come up.
Some city improvements are "state improvements" -- improvements that a given player can only have one of, but each nation can have their own state improvement. The first state improvement in the list of city improvements listed is always the palace; since it's your nation's capital, you start the game with your first city having this improvement. All units above the palace are not state improvements; all units below the palace are state improvements.
If a city has enough food, its population will steadily increase. A city can have a population up to 30; a city without an aqueduct can only have a population of 8. A city with an aqueduct can only have a population of 12 until the city has a sewer system. You need the construction technology to build the aqueduct and the sanitation technology to build a sewer system.
As the population of a city increases, there will be more workers working on more squares; the more population a given town has, the more food the city gathers and uses, the more quickly the city can create units or city improvements, and the more tax money and/or research the city contributes to your nation.
As a town becomes a city, there is more crime and unrest in the city. It is important to keep this unrest under control; a city that experiences civil disorder does not build any units nor contribute trade to your nation. C-Evo for the most part automatically handles this; when there is danger of there being civil unrest, some of the population, instead of working around the city and gathering resources, polices the city so it doesn't fall in to civil disorder.
There are other ways of managing unrest. Unrest can be decreased by increasing the wealth of a society (details below). Some city improvements also lower civil unrest: The temple, the cathedral, the stadium state improvement, and all wonders.
Civilization games cover the history of humanity from the end of the stone age up until the space age. To implement this, each nation makes discoveries which improve their technology. This research is controlled by each player; after your first turn ends, it will ask, at the beginning of your second turn what you wish to research.
This window shows a handful of choices. It also has, in the upper left hand corner, a button that looks like a target or bull's eye. Pressing this button causes the number of technologies visible to greatly increase; you can now choose to direct your research towards a technology not immediately visible.
A number of technologies need other technologies developed first. The way technologies are dependent on each other is called a "tech tree" and is a very common feature of video games (not only do all of the Civilization games have tech trees, but also games like People's Tactics, Age of Empires and Starcraft also have tech trees).
For example, here is the tech tree to develop Monarchy:
After clicking on the target button, scrolling down to select monarchy, and selecting the advance monarchy, the list of advances will become much shorter and the box will ask what you wish to research, with the caption "Focus: Monarchy" and a list of all available advances that are available prerequisites for Monarchy. You can either choose one of the technologies that brings you closer to having Monarchy, or click on the target-shaped button to change your research focus.
To find out what a given technology advance offers, hold the the shift key on your keyboard and left-click on the name of the technology in question; the manual page describing the technology will appear.
Some important early technologies to develop are "The wheel" (allows roads to increase research), "Monarchy" (lowers corruption, increases research), and, on maps with a lot of ocean, "Map Making" (allows longboats to explore the sea).
Setting Tax and Research Percentages
At the beginning of the game, 30% of one's trade pays taxes (adds money to the nation's treasury that the nation needs to run and can be used to speed up unit production), and 70% of one's trade is devoted to researching new technologies. This percentage can be adjusted:
Unless you are at war with another nation and need to build a military, adjust this number to have the lowest possible tax rate that doesn't result in the nation losing money every turn. At the top of the screen, you can see an icon of a treasure chest; next to this chest, the top line shows how much money your nation currently has and the line below it shows how much money the nation is getting or losing every turn.
It is also possible, in this window, to give your society wealth. This, in addition to contributing money to your society's treasury (but not as much as taxes), decreases civil unrest and increases happiness in your cities.
Increasing technology research
Every time your nation discovers a new technology, the next technology needs more "bulbs" (research points) to discover. Getting more bulbs is a matter of:
To change the government type you have to do the following:
Information about the various government types is available in the online manual; click on the C-evo logo in the upper left corner of your C-evo screen, select manual (or hit the "F1" key to get at the manual), scroll down the manual, and click on "government forms". The manual does not make the effects of each government type completely clear:
The first naval unit that becomes available in C-Evo is a longboat. This is a slow-moving boat that can not attack and can transport two units. The "map making" technology makes this boat available.
Longboats can only be built in cities next to a body of water. To build a longboat:
It will take a couple of turns to build a longboat. Once the longboat is built, it can be used to:
Note that longboats are civil units that can not attack other boats.
To use a longboat as a transport:
To unload a unit from a ship:
Note that a longboat can only hold two units; if you try to load more units on the the ship, you will get a "The transport is fully loaded" message and be unable to load the unit.
Also note that longboats can not sail over deep water; only shallow coastland.
It is desirable to have ships that can sail the seas faster than longboats, that can sail over the deep ocean, that can hold more than two units, and that can attack. All of these features require "military research" to develop; some of these features (transporting more units, sailing over the high seas) need certain technologies more advanced than map making.
To create new types of ships, your nation needs to invest research and development in to a new ship design. To do this:
Military research can be used to design new ships, land-based, and air-based units, depending on the technologies available. While the majority of this is geared towards making units that can fight wars, this can also be used to make transports more capable than longboats.
Unlike other games in the Civilization franchise, new units have to be designed and researched; you set the balance between cost, strength, and speed for a given unit.
To win a game of C-evo, you need to build a spaceship that can go to Alpha Centauri. Doing this requires a combination of developing a large number of technologies, building cities near certain rare resources that are only visible late in the game, and building certain buildings and spaceship structures. The manual briefly describes what needs to be done in the section entitled "Winning the Game". To see this section:
A lot of other information about C-Evo is available in the manual.
This HOWTO is not designed to describe all of the things that can be done in C-Evo. It is designed to provide basic information about playing C-Evo geared for someone who has never played this kind of game before. I hope this manual has given you enough information to feel comfortable enough playing C-Evo and use its manual, even if you have never played a Civilization game before.
If you have any questions about anything or feel this manual doesn't cover something in enough detail (or clearly enough), please bring up your concern at the C-Evo forum:
While the following information is not needed to win the game with no other nations, this information is useful for finding and using features in the game that may otherwise be difficult to find.
The window that allows you to make or break treaties with other players is accessed thusly:
Conscripts are a special type of unit. Their main advantage is that they cost less than normal military units. Their main disadvantage is that, unlike normal units, they use food resources.
Some basic points:
Certain special resources are only visible once the "Science" technology becomes available:
Prairie with bauxite: 1 food 3 shields 1 trade Forest with bubble (mineral) 1 food 2 shields 4 trade Jungle with black ebony 1 food 2 shields 4 trade Hills with coal 1 food 2 shields 0 trade Mountains with diamonds 0 food 1 shield 7 trade Swamp with peat 1 food 4 shields 1 trade Tundra with gas 1 food 4 shields 1 trade Desert with oil 0 food 3 shields 1 trade Coast with manganese 1 food 5 shields 3 trade