questions, AI don't need food?

[dgrimes]

I have picked up Civ3 again and started playing but...

how do my AI opponents keep thier population stable with lands having 1 or no food production showing while I need 2 food production per land to support each of my guys little happy heads? example, my opponents have cities surrounded by mountains holding 6 (100,000?) citizens. When I capture this city, or build one of my own, I can't product more than 2 (100,000?) citizens without the new ones starving!

also, I never seem to get the option to ask AI's if they want to join me in an alliance. Do I have to form an embassy after gaining writing and...?

also, I see a mention of Zeus in the tornaments. Is this option aquired in an expansion pack or just available online?

thanks if you help.
-dbg

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by dgrimes
I have picked up Civ3 again and started playing but...

how do my AI opponents keep thier population stable with lands having 1 or no food production showing while I need 2 food production per land to support each of my guys little happy heads? example, my opponents have cities surrounded by mountains holding 6 (100,000?) citizens. When I capture this city, or build one of my own, I can't product more than 2 (100,000?) citizens without the new ones starving!


also, I see a mention of Zeus in the tornaments. Is this option aquired in an expansion pack or just available online?

Zeus comes with C3C addon. It is available in epic games, but requires Ivory to be contructed.

Civs with Ag trait (mayan for one) get a food bonus in the capitol and on certain tiles. If they are not in despotism they will not lose the extra food genrated by a given square.

Otherwise the only way to increase food from a tile is to irrigate, until Steam.

[Snotty]

example, my opponents have cities surrounded by mountains holding 6 (100,000?) citizens. When I capture this city, or build one of my own, I can't product more than 2 (100,000?) citizens without the new ones starving!

Your problem may be that you have not increased the borders of your newly built/captured cities, so your citizens can only work the tiles directly surrounding your city. You need to build a culture generating building so you can take advantage of your cities potential 20 tiles. A save or a screenshot would help.

You need to build embassies to get military alliances. When you have discovered writing the letter E will appear in the bottom right of the screen so you can get to the espionage screen, and so create an embassy. You then need to go to that civ in the diplomacy menu (D, above the E). The alliances should appear in the diplomacy options. The little E button is only there from the PTW expansion and above I think. I think before that you had to right click on your capital to build an embassy

You can build the statue of zeus if you have discovered mathematics and have the ivory luxury connected. Check it out in the civilopedia, its a really good wonder. This is only in the C3C expansion.

edit:clarifying version info