Strange lights seen near my cities

Juggler_Bob · January 30, 2002, 01:21

Sometimes these strange purplish dust cloud things appear in terrain squares near my cities... Not usually within the city radius, but nearby. (Maybe I'll do a screen capture...)

They show up for a turn (or so?) and then they are gone. I can't make any unit interact with it, nor does it affect production in any way. Terrain info shows nothing out of the ordinary.

Got to be aliens

-Bob

Ironikinit · January 30, 2002, 01:29

Ding ding ding. You just asked the question everybody asks.

The strange lights are fireworks. The citizens are celebrating WLTK day. See your manual page 118.

notyoueither · January 30, 2002, 02:02

Naw. Ironikinit is from the Air Force.

It's aliens.

Salve

Ironikinit · January 30, 2002, 06:32

Pay no attention to the loony. The lights are really the planet Venus.

steelehc · January 30, 2002, 06:36

The lights are signal flares from enemy spies in your cities, signalling enemy attacks to be launched when your citizens are drunk because of celebrating WLTBD.

Steele

Pythagoras · January 30, 2002, 08:24

dont listen to them its the 'king of the day' in that city. They are fireworks.
.
.
.
or so Meier would have us believe...

macaskil · January 30, 2002, 10:37

Of course they are really UFOs piloted by Aliens from Alpha Centauri. If you build the "Roswell" wonder you get two free tech advances from the Aliens.

Blaupanzer · February 1, 2002, 12:46

Depends on the Age as to the cause.
Ancient -- The Gods
Medieval -- Witches
Industrial -- The Devil
Modern -- UFOs.
In all cases the citizens of the city below the cloud are bedazzled into producing less corruption.

solo · February 1, 2002, 14:25

I used to think they were clues to the locations of strategic resources, but now know that they are used by Iroquois spies to relay information about your city and civ back to their compatriots. A careful study of each puff may help you decipher if the smoke signals being used are recommending a sneak attack.

SanPellegrino · February 1, 2002, 14:29

I Like that one bout the Iroquois

but nobody mentioned the obvious: It's just smog from your crowded dirty cities

Kc7mxo · February 1, 2002, 14:40

ooooooh! pretty smog!

embermage · February 3, 2002, 13:19

wltk day! what bonuses does it have again?

Jaybe · February 3, 2002, 15:45

Quote:

Originally posted by embermage
wltk day! what bonuses does it have again?

Check out the last paragraph of the WLTKD section in the manual explains it. Page 119 in the US edition (last thing in chapter 11).

Thrawn05 · February 4, 2002, 13:51

Quote:

Originally posted by SanPellegrino
but nobody mentioned the obvious: It's just smog from your crowded dirty cities

Actually if you play as England. Your city is actually rolling thru the opening credits of Mel Brooks' Men in Tights. Everytime that movie plays they burn down the same village.

notyoueither · February 5, 2002, 04:42

Quote:

Originally posted by steelehc
your citizens are drunk because of celebrating WLTBD.

Steele

We Love the Beer Day? I'm movin there.

Salve

Thrawn05 · February 6, 2002, 13:31

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither

We Love the Beer Day? I'm movin there.

Salve

Naw, that's just when you play as Ireland

.

Everyone now:

We're gonna...
DRINK & FIGHT & DRINK & FIGHT & DRINK & FIGHT some more!!!
(proud fan of the "Three Trolls in a Baggie" band!)
Go download the the song A Dublin Lullaby!

ShuShu · February 6, 2002, 14:03

...

Quote:

Check out the last paragraph of the WLTKD section in the manual explains it. Page 119 in the US edition (last thing in chapter 11).

while I am a big fan of RTFM and Firaxis. I do wish Firaxis had put a little more effort into WTFM. Not the worthless 200 page horse pill mind you, save the printing costs, but there is no excuse for the Civilopedia to be so lame.

The last paragraph explains the benefit of 'Prolonged' WLTKD. (decreased corruption) I have yet to find a write-up as to the 'Government Specific' benefits hinted to on page 118.

Personally, I like the new corruption model. I like the concept of empire wide improvements that are not highly visible in each city. I like the concept that none of the problems can be completely elimainted by a magical building. But don't tell me a courthouse helps corruption, which it does, and then have the effect so small that it's impact is not visible in over half the cities that have one without telling me why. I think a lot of the whining going on is because people can't RTFM because there is no TFM to R

Ironikinit · February 6, 2002, 15:35

I almost hate to say it but one reason I like the Civ manuals, all of them including 3's, is that I've read the Europa Universalis manual. I think I took a permanent hit to my ability to express myself reading that useless Svedlish book.

ShuShu · February 6, 2002, 16:56

Most manuals you take with you for quick fixes when you can't play the game. Rather quickly, there is nothing new left to find with a re-reading. With the EU manual, well, shoot, I bet I can still find a bit of information or two that I have missed...

One distinction I'ld like to make... at least the information was there in the EU manual. It may have been hidden in some anectdote about the lives and loves of Jan Sobieski, but it was there, well, except for how the victory points were counted...

I loved the CIV 1 manual. But this latest rendition looks to me like they wrote it once they got the screen mockups completed and so worded everything so that they wouldn't have to change anything when they finally built the game and knew how it really worked.

I mean, I'm a consultant and I write my design docs the same way, but my online documentation is highly detailed and accurate.

Jaybe · February 6, 2002, 17:06

Quote:

Originally posted by ShuShu
while I am a big fan of RTFM and Firaxis. I do wish Firaxis had put a little more effort into WTFM. Not the worthless 200 page horse pill mind you, save the printing costs, but there is no excuse for the Civilopedia to be so lame.

The last paragraph explains the benefit of 'Prolonged' WLTKD. (decreased corruption) I have yet to find a write-up as to the 'Government Specific' benefits hinted to on page 118.

Personally, I like the new corruption model. I like the concept of empire wide improvements that are not highly visible in each city. I like the concept that none of the problems can be completely elimainted by a magical building. But don't tell me a courthouse helps corruption, which it does, and then have the effect so small that it's impact is not visible in over half the cities that have one without telling me why. I think a lot of the whining going on is because people can't RTFM because there is no TFM to R

[RTFM: Read The F'king Manual -- (I had to look that up)]
Actually, I preferred the idea of the printed manual to a PDF file, though the expensive printed manual was out of date in some areas when the game went gold, and especially after the v.1.16f patch.

Re corruption: Hey, they SAY 'minimal', 'problematic', 'rampant', etc. Isn't that good enough for you??

Overall, it is just obvious that Firaxis did not have a great 'Documentation Expert' on hand. OTH, it does take a lot of effort to document well how a computer application works, especially one as massive as Civ3. Also, how would you get 'specific' if the game was being tweaked until the last minute? It would be really nice if we could get some algorithms from Firaxis to see how many events are arrived at (e.g., corruption). Now, a PDF file of THAT could be exciting!

--
Meanwhile, those "strange lights seen near my cities" sometimes seem intermittent enough that I would prefer an indicator by each city in the Domestic Advisor screen. Please?

ShuShu · February 6, 2002, 17:19

... but just to be argumentative ...

Check out the MOO III website. I mean, I haven't been there since November, but uh, talk about details to drool about...

Here's hoping we get that geeks paradise pdf, minimal corruption and all, with the next patch...