The CIV3 FAQ: COMMON QUESTIONS/COMPLAINTS/ARGUMENTS and their ANSWERS

[CivGeneral]

Q: Is the Fraxis team fixing the Sealth Bomber and Jet Bomber Attack Animations (See Strange Flickerings in Jet Fighter and Stealth Bomber Attack Animations ) I was wondering If they are fixing this for the upcoming patch.

A: For now there is this third party fix. over at Unit Replacement: Jet Fighter (Cleaned Up version) . I am not sure what the new pactch would contain.

[jshelr]

Is A Population Requirement Present for a Domination Win?

Q: There is a little confusion about whether there is a population requirement for domination as well as land area requirement. Both the manual and MapStat
seem to say there is a pop requirement. But the info available during the game does not mention it. We had a tourney result that was a close call and would just like to know for future reverence. Thanks

A: Yes, you have to have percentage domination in both land area and population to win a domination victory. It didn't make it into the manual because it was a late addition. I thought it was listed in the Civilopedia,
though....I'll have to look into that.

Thanks,

Barry Caudill
QA Manager
Firaxis Games

[CivGeneral]

Q: Can an Artillery unit (Unit with no attack and defece values but contains a Bombard Attack, range and RoF and has bombard enabled) create/cause a Golden Aage to happen.

A:In fact you can make an artillery cause a golder era to happen and have its ranking go up to elite. All you need is an editor and enable the Leatal Land/sea Bombardment enabled and has set to triger Golden Age. When a unit bombards a unit and kills a unit then it trigers a Golden Age. The key, Have an Artillery unit kill a unit.

[Mad Dog]

Originally posted by Civfan01
Q: Can an Artillery unit ... create/cause a Golden Age to happen.

A. The key, Have an Artillery unit kill a unit.

Which, of course, can't happen without hacking the game settings. This is stupid. I've just played my first full game of CivIII and I don't believe how awful the combat engine is .
I had a large assembly of riflemen and cavalry (all veteran or better), with artillery support, surrounding my enemy's capital. My artillery shells were crashing around the heads of the single conscript rifleman unit in the city, which should have had them wimpering in their foxholes. Nope. And with their fortified bonus (even without the city walls and barracks, which succumbed to my bombardment), they saw off any units I was foolish enough to attack them with . One of the design team should spend some time playing Combat Mission to learn the value of suppressive fire.
This "can't kill with bombard" is absurd - though France's inability to kill my ironclads with repeated bombing runs worked in my favour. Someone should tell Coastal Command with their Sunderlands and Catalinas that they can't take out shipping. Or Bomber Command, with the Tirpitz .
Oh, and don't get me started on the absurd over-emphasis on corruption...

I have downloaded the 1.29 patch but not yet played it - does it affect any of the above behaviours?

[BigFurryMonster]

Originally posted by dengidavai
Question on defecting cities.

After the first stage of the initial land grab, the AI annoyingly starts founding cities on every little peninsula and spit of land, with the result that enemy cities sprout within two or three squares of my border cities. As the game progresses, these little bastard cities inevitably defect to my civilization. When that happens the game gives you to choices: either "good, install new governor" or "rebuff the rebels." Installing a new governor and accepting this new city expands your borders, but results in two cities (the defecting city and your own adjacent border city) with stunted growth potential. I assume that rebuffing the rebels causes the defecting city to remain part of its original enemy civilization (actually I've never tried this option so I could be wrong). This is not an attractive option because the enemy city remains a security threat and potential launchpad for an attack. Besides, for strictly esthetic reasons I don't like having an alien pimple on the butt of my glorious civilization. What I'd really like to do is just raze the defecting city to get it out of the way and give my border cities room to grow.

Does anyone know if there's a way to do this without having to declare war and raze the defecting city that way? Alternatively, if I accept the city into my civilization, is there a way of starving it to death by, for example, turning all the citizens into entertainers, so that the city just zaps out of the space-time continuum, leaving you room to grow?

Thanks for your input

Q: Is there a way to get rid of a city?
A: Yes - use the 'Abandon City' option (right-click on a city)

[BigFurryMonster]

Originally posted by bassman
Q. I thought I read a thread somewhere that stated you could save and reload city building queues, but I haven't figured out how to do this. Am I daft, or just confused?

Q: How do I save and load build queues?
A: In the city screen, use shift-Q to save and Q to load a queue

[BigFurryMonster]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
I've completely eliminated the Japanese civilization in my current game. I've checked to make certain that there are no more Japanese cities or units. Japan refuses to die thaough, and is still at war with me. Eventually the war weariness will get me. I consider the game ruined and unplayable. I tried to get advice from Infogames, but you know what happened to that I'm sure.

This happened to me once. It turned out that there was still one boat with a settler on it left roaming the seas. As soon as some land became 'free' due to the destruction of a city, this settler came ashore and founded a new city..!

Q: When is a Civ eliminated?
A: When all its cities and units have been destroyed

[Eir]

Originally posted by Mad Dog


I don't believe how awful the combat engine is

I have downloaded the 1.29 patch but not yet played it - does it affect any of the above behaviours?

I have played 1.29f - neither the corruption problems nor the combat engine have been improved. Call To Power did a MUCH better job with combat. They allow unit stacking so you can actually build diversified armies. This meant no 'phalanx killing battleship' problems that Civ continues to suffer from.

Q: why do AI civilizations expend all of their energy trying to destroy the human player?

A: because they are meant to annoy you, not to simulate actual rival civilizations.

[MagnusMarcus]

First things first....
This game is the greatest. I think the developers did an outstanding job with this game. All the nay-sayers can go code a game themselves. With that out of the way there is one thing that disturbed me.... I had, in a recent game, 16 brave marines preparing to spearhead an assault on another continent. Basically I planned on bombing a city and then assaulting with the marines from the sea. And then following up with 4 transports of tanks which could then unload from the city I had just taken and continue to move and assault the enemy. Through careful planning I also had available two "Armys". I thought it would be excellent to put together two armys of marines to minimize casualties. Imagine my dismay when I went to assault the enemy and found out that the Marine "Armys" had forgotten how to attack from the sea! The rest of the marines were able to secure the city but now I was left with two army's of marines which were tactically ineffective. So I guess my question is.....
Q.) Will there ever be a patch to allow Marine "Armys" to remember how to attack from the sea like all the other Brave Marines. Or are Marine Armies basically containers to house all the marines deemed cowards and failures?

[Beeblbrox]

Q. Corruption even with the patch is ridiculous, especially as I like to play max map size. I'd like to reduce it, but setting the slider to 0% seems not in the spirit of the game, and any other setting still ends up with some cities totally corrupt. Setting Optimal City Number to 1000 works but I have to have 500 cities before I can build the Forbidden Palace, which is a bit daft.

A. 1) Set your Optimal cities to 52, then 2) Set the Optimal City Number Percentage to 1000%. (Don't forget for both of these you will also have to select your relevant difficulty setting/mapsize from a drop down somewhere on that tab page)

This solution removes the Optimal City Number element from the corruption formula so you still get distance from Capital corruption and relevant governance corruption, but keeps the OCN low so you can still build the Forbidden Palace at a reasonable stage of the game, and capturing enemy cities will once again be worthwhile .

Oh for those interested the number of 52 is because there can only be 512 cities in a game, so 1000% 52 = 520, which will never be exceeded.

[alexman]

Q: I have a question about corruption...

A: Check out the corruption FAQ.

[alexman]

Edit: Removed corruption FAQ from here. It's too much of a pain to maintain everywhere.

[XOR]

... sorry, wrong thread...

[Belial]

Just wondering but do you ALWAYS have to go to the Civ Editor and configure a scenario in order to change your sims color? Right now Ive got if up for France but dont exactly want my men of war marching off in flowery lavender outfits.......Ive scoured the manual and see no other way, its a shame such mind-blowing simple option wasnt presented in the set up screens.

[Sovereign]

Belial, admit it! You're a female at heart!

Just kidding!


I think you can change your civ color in the editor. Its under Civilization, or Units, I don't remember which one. I'm sure you can find it somewhere in there.

Hope that helps.

[planetfall]

It's under civilization.

--PF

[rockerjedi]

Hello, first time post here so bear with me if its a silly question.

As an avid fan of Civ3 i was wondering why the
civilization strength "commercial" does not lead to
being able to build marketplaces or banks at half
cost, whereas this is the case for similar city
upgrades that are Religious, Scientific or
Militaristic. (eg marketplace always costs 100 whereas a library costs 80 or 40 if your civ is scientific)

I have the latest patch 1.29f installed.

This flaw means that having commercialism as a Civ
strength isnt of a huge amount of use and so playing
as England, France, India, Greece or Rome is not as
good as it should be, handicapping a third of the
races that you can choose from.

Are there any plans to correct this flaw in a patch?
or is there a mod i can download or something?

[Zero-Tau]

It's not a silly question.

As I recall, commercial does two things: First, the center square of cities above size 6 produce one more gold.
Second, it increases the "Optimal City Number" or OCN. Once your number of cities have reached OCN, all additional cities will experience much greater corruption. By increasing OCN, Commercial allows you to have a greater empire than other civs before getting hit by the extra corruption.
I can't remember whether the above also applies for waste. And if anything's wrong, please correct me.

[rockerjedi]

thanks for the response

Personally id be tempted to regard the decreased corruption benefit (through the OCN) as being equivalent to either having a greater chance of leader generation, free advances at new age or no period of anarchy when switching governments, which are side benefits of military, science & religious attributes. This being in addition to their discounts on buildings.

I just think it would make it fairer & more competitive for commercial civilizations to have the discounts on buildings also.

Perhaps also for industrious civs to have a discount on power plant type facilities?

[Redstar]

in the interfaces section of the faq: re stacking and moving the whole stack...it says:

"I'm tired of clicking on the "GoTo" command for my units and/or click/mouse-dragging the unit to it's destination.
When a unit is activated, place your mousepointer at the destination you want and hit the [G] key and left-click the mouse.
This works especially well for a stack of units you want to move to the same square. Put the pointer in the square you want all of the units to move then "[G]; Left-click" in quick succession for the entire stack."

May you please tell me what the difference is between the single move and the mass move.

i see G; left-click for both.

And ya, its been so long since i played that i forget how to move all the units at once.

*sheepish grin*

TIA

edit: ok finally got the ans on the e2025 board...

Ctrl-J is the command.

[HAND]

I just think it would make it fairer & more competitive for commercial civilizations to have the discounts on buildings also.

I agree, it seems strange not to. Scientific Civs get a free tech every age ASWELL as discounted science improvements. Militaristic Civs build barracks and walls faster too with the bonus of getting elite/GL units from battle which can rush a vital wonder. Religious Civs are very lucky with no anarchy, temples and Cathedrals very easy to build..

I'm not too impressed with reduced corruption after a certain number of cities built, because there is the assumption that you have the definite oppurtunity to grow to that size... I think having neighbours like the Germans and Zulus would differ with that assumption..

[Jacobin]

I just want to complain about the manic unbalancing between military units. My civilizations are usually the most advanced technologically so in combat it is tanks vs. spearmen a lot. What makes me angry is that the spearmen often defeat the tanks without taking a single hit. How is this possible? Why is it so unbalanced?

[Zealot]

Originally posted by Jacobin
I just want to complain about the manic unbalancing between military units. My civilizations are usually the most advanced technologically so in combat it is tanks vs. spearmen a lot. What makes me angry is that the spearmen often defeat the tanks without taking a single hit. How is this possible? Why is it so unbalanced?

Gosh Jacobin, those argumentations have been repeated thoroughly a year ago (to be more precise, as soon as the game came out)! Forget it, it will never be fixed in Civ 3!

[Jacobin]

I know but though I got the game three days after it came out, I only recently started playing it again and it really infuriates me.

[wheathin]

A: In fact, you CAN play Civ3!

If your computer has a videocard which can support 1024x768, you can play Civ3, even if your screen is smaller. You just get to see the middle 800X600 of it at a time, although you can slide over to the screen edges. To save time, make sure you print out a help file for your Civilopedia info, and always use "c" to recenter on the active unit.

[Vercingettyrex]

Apologies if these have been answered elsewhere.

Question about Cultural takeover of neighbouring cities.

Is this dependent on how happy my people are? If I push my luxury rates up does this increase the chance of neighbouring city defecting?

Question on warfare.

If I attack from higher ground, lets say from a mountain onto a plain, do I gain any benefits?

Question on Corruption (sorry....)

Do the corruption fixing buildings like Courthouse and Police improved corruption over time or is their effect constant from the point when they were built. Sorry to ask but I read something somewhere to this effect and I'm looking for clarification.

[alexman]

No, no, constant.

[Vercingettyrex]

Almost forgot another question.

Question about strategic resources.

If the terrain is changed in period x does that mean a resource which is due to appear in period x+ doesn't appear on that terrain? For instance Rubber is found in jungle terrain. If I clear jungle in AD1000 from a square then discover the industrial age process that allows Rubber, does that mean I have removed the chances of Rubber appearing in that square?

[alexman]

Rubber never disappears.
But if it did, you would.

[Vercingettyrex]

Thanks Alexman. All 4 questions answered.

I had a lot of jungle and spent a lot time clearing it and then I wondered if I was cutting my own throat! As it turned out I needn't have worried but at the time ...