Undocumented (or poorly documented) Game Features

Pythagoras · May 19, 2002, 15:53

Whatsup, Im back from my vacation from civ3 while in school-land. I cant remember some features that were included in patches but no longer in the readme for the newest patch.

1 What is the hotkey for the 'sentry' command?

2 How does stack movement work again?

and btw if anyone knows of any other undocumented/poorly documented functionality feel free to post them here, Id be interested.

Nostromo · May 19, 2002, 16:40

Check out the Civ III Reference file on the Civ III official site. Its a very useful PDF file.

http://www.civ3.com/tutorialsandhelp.cfm

Pythagoras · May 19, 2002, 17:35

Very cool. thanks!

Ethelred · May 19, 2002, 17:47

Quote:

1 What is the hotkey for the 'sentry' command?

Y and Shift Y

Y wakes a unit when either friendly or enemy units approach.

Shift Y wakes as unit only when enemy units approach.

That is in the readme under changes in 1.17f.

Quote:

2 How does stack movement work again?

With 1.21f:

Not very well. Activate a unit in a stack and hit the J key. That will give you a MOVE TO cursor. All units that are not fortified will move, even units that have allready moved will be given the MOVE TO command that they will try to execute with any remaining movement and even on the next turn. So watch out for that.

You will have to wake any fortified units you want to move. For some reason a few are livid over this despite the fact that nearly everyone wanted it to work that way. It was darned annoying to have your fortified units move with the rest of the stack and denude a city of all its defenses.

With 1.17f the fortified units moved otherwise the same except for a glitch with armies.

zulu9812 · May 19, 2002, 20:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Ethelred
All units that are not fortified will move, even units that have allready moved will be given the MOVE TO command that they will try to execute with any remaining movement and even on the next turn. So watch out for that.

You will have to wake any fortified units you want to move. For some reason a few are livid over this despite the fact that nearly everyone wanted it to work that way. It was darned annoying to have your fortified units move with the rest of the stack and denude a city of all its defenses.

Also, if you stack move a group a number of squares, and then try and stack move them before they reach their destination, you have to move each unit individually one square in order to cancel the previous command.

As far as ppl *****ing over stack moving fortified units, I think what people really wanted was a "Wake all" command, or "Wake all of this type".

Ethelred · May 19, 2002, 20:43

Quote:

you have to move each unit individually one square in order to cancel the previous command.

No you only need to activate them. Click on one and right click on the rest in the pop up menu. Works on automated workers as well.

Quote:

I think what people really wanted was a "Wake all" command, or "Wake all of this type".

Well that would start to make the make the interface a nightmare of complexity. Worse than it allready is.

What I said above does this allready. It does get confusing though when there are so many units in a stack that you can't see them all at once. Now that does get to be a pain.

It would help a lot if the pop up list of units wasn't so terribly chaotic in presentation.

benjdm · May 19, 2002, 23:31

Something I found out accidentally: you no longer have to hit shift - R to railroad, you can just hit R.

Pythagoras · May 19, 2002, 23:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Ethelred

Not very well. Activate a unit in a stack and hit the J key. That will give you a MOVE TO cursor. All units that are not fortified will move, even units that have allready moved will be given the MOVE TO command that they will try to execute with any remaining movement and even on the next turn. So watch out for that.

You will have to wake any fortified units you want to move. For some reason a few are livid over this despite the fact that nearly everyone wanted it to work that way. It was darned annoying to have your fortified units move with the rest of the stack and denude a city of all its defenses.

With 1.17f the fortified units moved otherwise the same except for a glitch with armies.

Will the stack be maintained? IE I want this rifleman and this cavalry to stay together as to get the rifleman's defense, will both go the rifleman's speed or will everyone just race, willy-nilly to the target location?

Ethelred · May 20, 2002, 00:12

Quote:

IE I want this rifleman and this cavalry to stay together as to get the rifleman's defense, will both go the rifleman's speed or will everyone just race, willy-nilly to the target location?

No. The J command is movement by unit type. Its not for moving a couple of units but for large groups. Say a stack of artillery that you are using to pound cities before you send in the infantry.

What I do it move the slowest type first. For instance if there was a group of four or five riflemen and four or five cavalry I would use the J key to move the riflemen and I would use the J key again to move the cavalry.

The is no command to create a army like group except to make an Army Unit with a Great Leader or the Military Academy and its a bad idea to mix units of different movement rates in an Army Unit. Mixing different types forces the Army Unit to move at the speed of the slowest unit in it. You lose blitz capability that way.

Pythagoras · May 20, 2002, 00:21

Quote:

No. The J command is movement by unit type. Its not for moving a couple of units but for large groups. Say a stack of artillery that you are using to pound cities before you send in the infantry.

What I do it move the slowest type first. For instance if there was a group of four or five riflemen and four or five cavalry I would use the J key to move the riflemen and I would use the J key again to move the cavalry.

The is no command to create a army like group except to make an Army Unit with a Great Leader or the Military Academy and its a bad idea to mix units of different movement rates in an Army Unit. Mixing different types forces the Army Unit to move at the speed of the slowest unit in it. You lose blitz capability that way.

Thats gay, considering how useless armies are... A hurried wonder is worth so much more.

Ethelred · May 20, 2002, 00:36

Armies are usefull IF you get enough leaders. I don't.

From what I have seen from posts by others if you play on a large or huge map there will be enough combat to have some spare leaders. I think they are much more usefull for wonders on standard maps except maybe for military civs. In that case an early army can be used to get the Heroic Epic and the Military Academy. The Military Academy is what really make Armies usefull.

Most of my games I don't get a leader till late in the game. I sometime use it to move the Palace.

Zylka · May 20, 2002, 01:03

totally pythag. And I like your avatar