CIV II questions

[ZWildstar]

Greetings Civites,

I, a diety (win by being more advanced) player of CIV II, held off buying CIV III for awhile waiting for reviews and what not, since it would be hard to improve CIV II and I played Sid's other bomb: Alpha Cent.

Well a guy at work who never played CIV I or II, kept going on and on about it. So CIVite that I am, said ok, I will buy it.

First day, started at Monarch level.....lost poorly in a few turns.
OK, Regent level, since alot has changed in game terms. LOST LOST LOST LOST LOST (got to industrial age twice).....shelved game to wait for PATCHES, wondering if any BETA testers are ever listened to?

Okay, downloaded last patch: Currently on brink of Modern Age at Regent level going to lose very soon. I own all wonders except War Acamdey, Pyramids, and Spakespears' thing.

QUESTIONS:

1) CIV III in the top 20 best selling games???? I don't take much heed of that list since Roller Coaster Tycoon is also on list and has not been supported for what 2 years? (Great Game BTW)

2) Does choosing a land mass/climate/age ever have a effect? I have NEVER gotten small islands, always continents.

3) Someone needs to work on the starting location deciding macro. I usually have to restart the game 10 times before I can start because I am starting in a mountain chain or middle of the desert. THEN restart again after exploring abit to find I am in the middle of HELL!

4) Why does the AI have to always start me with neighbors? I am down to 6 civs and I still get a neighbor 9 outa 10 times on HUGE maps. I should try only two civs on a huge map and see.

5) POLLUTION, nothing like needing a army of workers (usually 30). Sanitation should DO SOMETHING. All cities are above 20, might be my problem since I removed ALL but the city's two shields and I still had over 6 pollution value.

6) Does Hover Dam work? Did not help pollution one bit. I was already in high pollution range in most cities so building a factory was NOT a option.
SIDE NOTE: I did build a factory in a 4 shield city and when it increased the production it caused pollution. SO I destroyed factory and pollution level stayed????????? I have a 4 shield city making pollution now...sigh

7) DEMOCRACY: I "trick" that I use when I am aways ahead of everyone else in advancements is the trade them Democracy (usually get alot of GOOD stuff for it also). Since under democracy it is hard to support a army and go to war.
WELL, currently my whole world is a democracy and a war broke out. FIFTY+ (50+) troops came waltzing to my door the next turn after the war broke out. I am not a "Military" player so I don't know if I could have supported that army, but I know I would not be very advanced as the other players are. My spy network has their army over 150 units under democracy?????? PLus I try and trade with each CIV every few turns to make sure that no one is building a sizable coffer.....all civs were below 200 "gold" most of the time.

8) WAR WEARINESS: I joined the war 2 turns AFTER it started. My cities became VERY upset first. FORGOT TO MENTION, that I have WOMEN'S SUFFAGE wonder!!!!!!and pretty much ALL other wonders. Yes, 5 turns after war started and 3 turns after I joined the war, my people are upset.

9) Planes, USELESS. Need to fiddle with settings definitely. (The USofA is being defended by airplanes...someone most have hated the Air Force when he coded the planes) (CIV I and CIV II city defense: one highest defense ground unit, one or two fighters in each city)

10) HE SUNK MY BATTLESHIP: Ironclads sinking battleships...nuff said. (At least there are no Phanax to sink them :P ) I have lost two battleships so far to ironclads. Bombarment is USELESS, I believe only got to try it once against a city. (Fiddle required again, most likely) Ships can only attack ONE target per turn???? Come on, the Bismarck sunk dozens of ships per attack. One battleship should be enough to stop a convey of transports from deliving their cargo on my shores. Need to increase number of attacks to 6 again.

11) DESERTS/TUNDRA: no way to turn them into something useful????? Bring back engineers!

12) NO Irrigation of hills......China is going to be pissed when the CIV gods come a knocking.

13) Culture Flipping: I am okay with this because I am usually the most advanced CIV and their cities become mine.

14) ESPIONAGE: still up in the air on this one.....liked the spys/dipolmats

15) RESOURCES: Yipes! This was a good/bad added feature. You can see why our planet is always at war. STILL VERY BAD, that all AI civs can see ALL resources before they discover them. You can use this sorta to your advantage....if you see a town in the middle of the dersert or tundra, good chance a resource is going to appear.....subvert or kill them....hehe. But still a very unfair advantage. Can not be that hard to code a flag in that says can be seen or not.

16) Walls against bombardment. There is a reason why the Great Wall is useless after the discovery of gunpower, namely a 14" shell does not stop when it goes though a wall. Walls should have NO defense against bombardment and ESPECIALLY against Airplanes...sheesh.

Well back to my 6 tanks against 50+ riflemen (wish I was playing CIV II, one tank can kill all 50 in a stack - NOW there was something very stupid about the previous CIVs)

Peace and Love Beads........BAM!!!!! Ah, peace and quiet

[Jaybe]

A short ramble regarding some of your issues:

Civ3 IS NOT Civ2. Start at Chieftan or Warlord.

Are you playing with version 1.21f? There are some significant changes with all the patches and an older version may confuse some people's advice.
Power Plants (e.g., Hydro Plant/Hoover Dam) do not reduce pollution -- they just don't ADD any. You cannot get rid of ALL pollution, even with all the 'cleaner' improvements. Once you learn to play the game, it isn't that TERRIBLE to start near jungle (though definitely not preferred, either).

The combat system is different in Civ3 (like most everything). No Firepower, so 1/4 of the time a 4-attack ironclad will hit a 12-defense battleship. Numerical superiority is king. Takes 2+ attackers to get a transport and its escort.

The resource/luxury race is interesting. EVERYTHING is going to take experience to learn the nuances. Have fun!

[PhoenixPhlame73]

Civ3 is a great game, you just have to learn how to play it right!

I was just posting in a couple of other threads concerning some of these topics, check around the forums and you'll get a lot of info on how to win.

[Coracle]

What is the OBJECTIVE of Civ 3?

It is NOT just winning, or learning "how to win". That is part of it.

It should also be attempting to give at least the appearance of VERSIMILLLITUDE to history; in otherwords, make gameplay look like some replication of reality. When we have settlers being pewked up all over the board by the AI; when we have the illogic of Culture Flipping; non-historical unit and resource values; and various other factors, it fails in that regard.

Game play itself should be smooth and devoid of annoying exasperating little quirks and bugs. Civ 3 has been a minefield of such.

So a game should give an enjoyable SIMULATION of the real world, or at least, as stated, the appearance of such, and do so in an enjoyable manner. Civ 3 does not; Civ 2 did. It is NOT just about "learning how to win", or how to defeat Soren's Culture Flipping - a hare-brained idea that should not even be in the game at all.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Coracle
It should also be attempting to give at least the appearance of VERSIMILLLITUDE to history; in otherwords, make gameplay look like some replication of reality. When we have settlers being pewked up all over the board by the AI; when we have the illogic of Culture Flipping; non-historical unit and resource values; and various other factors, it fails in that regard.

Good for you, you can repeat yourself! Civ3 is not around to provide verisimilitude, it is a game vaguely based off real history. Non-historical is irrelavant... gameplay is 90% of what matters.

[Jethro83]

Its true that gameplay matters more than historical significance, but the gameplay would be better if the AI could slow down on their settler production just a little. That would perhaps give them the chance to build an internal infrastructure, and actually stand as a bigger threat. Wouldn't you enjoy beating an industrial and economic powerhouse than a bunch of underpopulated cities garrisoned by as many settlers as there are obsolete military units?

[ZWildstar]

I found one MAJOR mistype in my post, I am playing on WARLORD LEVEL not REGENT......sigh, you think I would have noticed something as big as that.
What is that quote from "Princess Bride"? "...I treat peasants as kings and kings as peasants..." Bah, regent, warlord

By the replies so far, I am thinking the only people left posting here are die hard Sid fans or something.

I was hoping for a few solutions and yes I know I need to tweak a few settings, but that will not fix complete game stoppers.

[notyoueither]

Z. It's difficult to address an experienced gamer who finds it difficult to beat Civ3 on Warlord. Sorry, but that's my reality.

[Dienstag]

Just so you know, ZWildstar, there's been a constant stream of threads and posts ever since CivIII came out that basically say, "It's not the same as CivII, my CivII strategies don't work, etc..." And, over time, the standard answer has become something like, "CivIII is NOT CivII, so deal with it, you moron." That's not to say that CivIII is perfect, it's just that - for all it's imperfections - coming at the game with skewed expectations just makes it that much less meaningful.

My responses to your QUESTIONS:

1) CIV III in the top 20 best selling games????

I think that's more of an indicator of marketing skill and brand loyalty than gameplay quality.

2) Does choosing a land mass/climate/age ever have a effect?

In my experience: Some, but not much

3) Someone needs to work on the starting location deciding macro. I usually have to restart the game 10 times before I can start because I am starting in a mountain chain or middle of the desert. THEN restart again after exploring abit to find I am in the middle of HELL!

This has been discussed a lot. Some now only play the difficult starting positions, saying anything else is too easy. In my current game (Monarch) I started in a vast jungle, and I've just about pulled even by the Modern age.

4) Why does the AI have to always start me with neighbors?

I've noticed that too...build city on first turn...two turns later English scout strolls by...London is 6 squares away...
If necessary, just wipe them out. On the other hand, being isolated is a great way to fall behind in tech. Basically, just do your best with what you get.

5) POLLUTION, nothing like needing a army of workers (usually 30). Sanitation should DO SOMETHING.

Pollution is not shield-related, but instead based on city improvements (and of course population). It's annoying, but manageable.

7) DEMOCRACY: ... My spy network has their army over 150 units under democracy??????

Support is just 1 gold per unit, so maybe they just bumped the tax rate up (extra 10% gold is pretty significant for a large-ish democracy). If you have banks in most cities, plus Wall Street, supporting a reasonable army is easy.

8) WAR WEARINESS: I joined the war 2 turns AFTER it started. My cities became VERY upset first. FORGOT TO MENTION, that I have WOMEN'S SUFFAGE wonder!!!!!!and pretty much ALL other wonders. Yes, 5 turns after war started and 3 turns after I joined the war, my people are upset.

If you leave luxury spending at 0% and have all your cities optomized for growth/production, then it doesn't take much to push them over the edge and go into disorder. Since war weariness increases every turn, you really have to stay on top of it. Having Women's Suffrage might decrease the rate at which you have to up your luxury spending, but it doesn't decrease the pain of having all your cities go into disorder when some weariness threshold is passed. Also, remember that your luxury trade with other civs may be disrupted by war.

9) Planes, USELESS.

Compared to ground units, they're not really cost-effective.

10) HE SUNK MY BATTLESHIP: Ironclads sinking battleships...nuff said.

Yeah, I don't like it either...earlier this evening I was relieved when my battleship sunk a galleon. Battleships are the best, just not by as much as you'd expect. Take that into consideration and you'll do better.

11) DESERTS/TUNDRA: no way to turn them into something useful????? Bring back engineers!

Grudgingly, I have to admit that this way is more reallistic, although I loved to terraform to optimization in CivII. But with railroads, these really aren't that bad in CivIII.

12) NO Irrigation of hills......China is going to be pissed when the CIV gods come a knocking.

Yes, the terrain model (like the rest of the game ) is in many ways shallower than in CivII. Some say that was a design decision, to make the AI look better. I do not approve. (but hey! you can mine grasslands!)

13) Culture Flipping: I am okay with this because I am usually the most advanced CIV and their cities become mine.

Even if the basic idea were valid (which I find debatable), this is poorly implemented. I say this, if for no other reason, becuase I just lost 30 panzers to 28 whiny Frenchmen, when Paris reverted during our war. THAT'S JUST WRONG.

14) ESPIONAGE: still up in the air on this one.....liked the spys/dipolmats

I haven't used those features much.

15) RESOURCES: Yipes!

AI cheating is unfortunate. Resources in general are a good feature, although there's plenty of room for improvement.

16) Walls against bombardment.

That's the least of my problems. Imagine the upgrades in city defenses/fortifications over the years, and imagine that's all abstracted into the city walls improvement. Could be better, yes, but I'm not complaining.


No, not all the posters these days are die-hard Sid fans, but most have had more than enough of people being shocked that this isn't CivII. To quote a wise green guy, "You must unlearn what you have learned." The things you think are game-stoppers may be just minor hiccups from a more experienced point of view.

And never take part in a land war in Asia.

[ZWildstar]

Dienstag, Thanks for the reply and I realized CIV III was not CIV II moments after starting the game.....main reason I shelved it.

As for the LUXURY %:

17) What am I doing wrong? I usually have to keep my luxury % at 20% constantly and 30% once my empire has grown (Oh, now there was the game that started it all, EMPIRE in CGA graphics on my ole 286).

Nevermind, shelving game again. It would be nice to beat it, but I have never gone to war and I have never went on offensive and I have always won.....I am not starting now.

When I have the option to either discover a new advancement ever 6 turns OR make 1500 gold per turn and I still can't win...there is something wrong.

Thanks for replies and enjoy your game........I knew I should have returned it but Micropose did so well fixing things......Ah...no more Microprose. Ba-bye

[Lucilla]

ZWildstar,
I think I can at least answer some of your questions.

7) DEMOCRACY
Democracy has different effects in Civ2/Civ3. Supporting units in Civ3 has the same costs, whether you are democratic or have a republic.
Going to war in a democracy is not as difficult as it was in Civ2, because you don't have to follow the senat's decisions (was it called that way in Civ2?). The only difference to republic in this aspect is the increased war waeriness.
As corruption and waste have the lowest rates under democracy, you have more money available to support units. Workers are 50% faster, so road building is faster and therefore you can have more trade/commerce.

8) WAR WEARINESS:
The effect you have might also be because:
- you loose your traded luxury resources when you are at war with that specific civ or
- when the trade route to other civs is blocked because you would have to cross the enemy's terrain to get your trade.

17) What am I doing wrong? I usually have to keep my luxury % at 20% constantly
I have to increase my luxury output only if I'm a republic or democracy and am involved in a long war.
You have to make sure though,
- that you have enough luxury resources - preferably on your own territory (see point 8)
- have market places to increase the effect of luxury resources drastically
- have temples, cathedrals, etc., together with the right wonders

Hope that helps a little bit and brings you back to Civ3.
I had problems winning my first games even on low difficulty level, because the strategies are so different from Civ2. Once you know them, you can enjoy playing on higher levels.

Cheers, Lucilla

[Lucilla]

One addition:

There's a really good reference sheet, that gives an excellent overview over governments and their effects, civ specific abilities, tech tree, wonders, improvements, units, etc.:

Civ3 Reference File

This overview helps a lot during the game.

[Franses]

In only now noticed that the techrate was changed as well as the calculation of the number of beakers needed. Looking deeper into this I noted my large custommaps the tech calculation seems to be the same as in the standard size map. The calculation in the tiny map is as I expected.

This bug may have to do with a similar bug posted earlier by Alexman. I copied his text below.

Optimal number of cities not working properly for custom maps

When you create a custom map of any size, the game uses the optimal number of cities for a standard-size map. This was not the case before 1.21.

So, playing on a tiny user-created map will have optimal cities = 16 instead of 12 if you don't change anything else.

[Franses]

How the hack did my post before this one end up here? I did not even see this thread before.

Mark? This post was meant to go to 1.12f bugs and that is where I replied.