(UNDER CONSTRUCTION)
Contents



* If you have not heard of a Great Leader
* How it all started
* Main section: Facts about leader creation
* Unresolved Issues
* Ideas for future changes in the game with repect to leaders
* Customization and file hacking


Special thanks to:



* Lt. Killer M. who believed me when almost everyone else didn't

* etj4Eagle

* TheNiceOne

* Palehorse76

* Mike B. Firaxis

It is possible to play CIV3 for thousands of years without a Great Leader appearing, so some of you may not have heard of a "Great Leader" yet.

Unfortunately, the game docs call the heads of state, Like Caesar, Cleopatra, etc. that you talk to in the diplomatic screen "leaders" but that is not what we are discussing in this thread. A "Great Leader" is a unit which may get created as a result of one of your elite units winning in combat. A "Great Leader" can go to a city and complete a city improvement, including a Wonder, in a single turn. It can also create an army unit but you must have 4 cities for every army you create . If it does either of these things, it gets "used up" and disappears from the game. Your opponenents, the computer civs, can also get a "Great Leader" via an elite unit victory.

If you do create a leader, be careful. They have no defense and can be killed. It would be a shame to wait for so long and then have your prize destroyed.

I read that the odds of an elite unit victory creating a leader was 1/16 (see Facts section). That seemed to be the case for the first 6 leaders. But after that, no matter how many elite victories I had, no leaders appeared. I had about 150 elite victories in a row without generating a leader.

Then a leader appeared. OK, I thought, maybe that was a game bug, and now everything is OK. But, unfortunately, after that I had almost 300 elite victories in a row and no leader appeared. If the odds of a leader appearing was really 1/16, then the odds of no leader appearing in 280 tries would be 1 chance in 70,000,000. Maybe sometimes the odds of creating a leader are zero, I thought, and I was right . For an explanation why the odds of creating a leader were zero, see "Main section: Facts about leader creation".

There are some situations in which the odds of your elite unit's victory creating a leader are zero:



* If you already have one
* If your elite unit has ever created a unit before. Before patch 1.29f this created problems for the human player because elites that had created a leader looked exactly like elites that had not. If you install patch 1.29, every elite that creates a leader will display a * to the right of its name. This allows you to increase the odds of generating a leader in 3 ways:

- First, you can use elites with the * (which can't create a leader) in "risky" attacks and save your "good" elites (which can create a leader) for "safer" attacks.

- Second, if most of your elites have a * you will know that you need to create new veteran units via barracks or combat or upgrade elite units with the * (upgrading elites this makes them veterans but they can create a leader again after they are promoted to elite via combat), and attack with veteran units to create elites. One effective way to create elites is to win twice with a veteran tank in the same turn. Winning with the same unit twice in the same turn always promotes the unit to the next level (regular->vet, or vet->elite).

- Third, you can put elite units with a * in armies, and keep the other elite units out of armies, since elites in armies can't create leaders.

* If your elite unit is in an army
* If your elite unit defeated a barbarian instead of a "normal" combat unit
* If your elite unit is not a ground unit. So naval units, and air units, even if they are elite, can not create Great Leaders. Think about it: If your elite battleship kills an enemy galley in the middle of the ocean, would the leader appear out in the middle of the ocean? Elite catapults, cannon, artillery, radar artillery: if you have changed the unit in the editor to have lethal bombard and it destroys a unit it can create a leader but if you do not have lethal bombard, land-based bombard units can not create a leader. Note that for these bombard units, the promotion level is invisible, so you have to remember the little message that says it was promoted to elite if you are curious.
* If your elite ground unit enters an undefended city and destroys/captures enemy naval units and artillery, and captures enemy workers, you won't get a leader unless you killed a ground unit (warrior, tank, etc.) in the same move.



If your elite unit has created a leader but then you upgrade that unit, it then becomes a veteran via the upgrade, and if it gets promoted to elite again, after the upgrade and promotion they can create a leader again.

Probabilities of creating a leader in an elite victory if none of the above restrictions apply




* If your elite is attacking and you do not have the Heroic Epic wonder, 1/16
* If your elite is attacking and you have the Heroic Epic wonder, 1/12
* If your elite is defending and you do not have the Heroic Epic wonder, 1/32
* If your elite is defending and you have the Heroic Epic wonder, 1/24



The militaristic civilization attribute does not affect the chance of getting a leader directly, but it gives you a better chance of your units being promoted to elite, so in an indirect way it has an affect.

The following numbers from Mike B. Firaxis:

Odds of promotion are based on whether the civ has the Militaristic trait or not and whether the victory was against barbarians or not. Basically, chances of promotion are halved for victories over Barbarians and doubled for Militaristic civs.

non-militaristic civ vs. non-barbarians:
conscript to regular: 1 in 2
regular to veteran: 1 in 4
veteran to elite: 1 in 8

non-militaristic civ vs. barbarians:
conscript to regular: 1 in 4
regular to veteran: 1 in 8
veteran to elite: 1 in 16

militaristic civ vs. non-barbarians:
conscript to regular: 1 in 1
regular to veteran: 1 in 2
veteran to elite: 1 in 4

militaristic civ vs. barbarians:
conscript to regular: 1 in 2
regular to veteran: 1 in 4
veteran to elite: 1 in 8

<<< end of quote from Mike B. >>>

In addition, if a unit wins more than 2 victories on a single turn (including both attack and defense), it always gets promoted multiple times (if promotion is possible -- obviously an elite cannot be promoted). If a unit wins 3 victories on a single turn it gets promoted 2 times, unless the 1st promotion made it elite or it was elite already. If a unit has 4 or more victories on a single turn (with non-modded units possible only on defense) it gets promoted 3 times unless the 1st or 2nd promotion makes it elite or unless it was already elite.

Example: my conscipt modern armor attacks and kills 2 barbs. The 1st attack yields no promotion, the 2nd attack promotes it to regular. I end my turn. 2 barbs attack the same unit and both die. The unit gets promoted twice more, to vet and then elite.



Some units, like tanks, can attack multiple times on one turn. Each of these attacks can promote the attacking unit or create a leader (if none of the restrictions above apply). So it is possible to start with a veteran tank that has not yet attacked, and on the 1st attack it gets promoted to elite and on the 2nd it creates a leader. This should not happen very often, though.

Lt. Killer M. suspects that the first leader you create in a game takes a lot longer than the others. I don't know if this is true. How many elite victories does it take you to create your first leader in a game?

I have heard a story about an elite marine attacking from a transport, the leader was created in the transport, and the leader floated around there for several turns before the player moved a transport to the same coast square, loaded the leader in the transport, and then moved the leader to land!

And here is proof (screenshot of the day#74):

http://www.civfanatics.com/sotd/sotd74.jpg

In the main section I stated that an elite unit can create onle one leader, and after that the probability is zero for that unit, no matter how many victories it gets. Before patch 1.29f, since elite units that have created leaders and will not be able to create one in the future looked exactly like elite unites that have not created leaders and can create one , it was very difficult to manage elite units. In patch 1.29f, thanks to Mike B. (and probably others), Firaxis changed an elite unit which had created a leader to display a * to the right of its name!

I believe that historical "Great Leaders" do not always arise from military triumphs, and so the current mechanism of generating leaders is not convincing. Indeed, Sid Meier wanted to have artists, scientists, etc. but somehow those leaders never made it into the shipped product.


(Ideas for changing the leader generating mechanism - UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

(Ideas for changing the capabilities of Great leaders- UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

I have tried to change a saved file so that the unit displays differently (so that I could visually determine if an elite unit had already created a leader) but the only thing I have accomplished so far is to make CIV3 crash when it tries to load the altered file.

Let none ignorant of hex editors enter here. I can use a hex editor to find the unit structures of a saved file and look at the "created leader" flag in that unit's structure. To find a unit structure and its "leader created" flag in a saved game:



* Copy your saved game to a different file so you won't corrupt your original save file
* Use the Gramphos saved game editor, version .92 or newer. Load the saved game copy in the editor and save it using the same tool. This will uncompress the file.
* Use the Gramphos unit filter to find the elite unit you are interested in. Write down the unit number, which is the number with the colon after it in the first field, and write down the coordinates of the unit (the 2 numbers under "position").
* Load the same file (uncompressed now) in a hex editor. Search for the ASCII string UNIT in the file. 8 bytes after the start of the UNIT string is the unit ID number (displays in hex of course so you want to convert the unit number from decimal to hex). If the ID number matches, that is your elite unit's record in the saved file. Look at the flags at offset 0x30 past the start of the UNIT string. If the flag 0x20 at that location is on, it has already created a leader. You could turn that flag OFF to make the unit capable of generating a leader again, but I just use it so I can determine which kind of elite unit it is. This is going to take a while when you have a lot of units in the game. A faster way is to find the coordinates (after you convert them to hex). The first coordinate is at 0x0c from the start of the UNIT string and the second coordinate is at offset 0x10. Be careful, though. The unit number is unique but there might be several units at the same location.



Warning: Firaxis can change these structures in any new patch. Use this information at your own risk.

To clarify:

I *think* that if I start Civ3 fresh and begin a new game, the first leader will take longer.
If I play for a while, then start a new game, it will appear at the normal ratios mentioned by sumthinelse.

Thanks Killer, I fixed the part about creating an army.

I noticed that you said *defending* elite units have a 50% less chance of making great leaders. Are you sure that it wasn't *fortified* elite units have the 50% less chance? Thought I heard that somewhere. :confused:

eg577: the wording comes from Mike B. @ Firaxis, so I guess *defending* is correct

What about artillery with lethal bombardment land active? I suspect it wouldn't, but didn't want to assume either way.

I may have an update on this later tonight.

Originally posted by kring
What about artillery with lethal bombardment land active? I suspect it wouldn't, but didn't want to assume either way.

I corrected the main section, which was incorrect before,

I was amazed when someone else pointed that out to me. I didn't think it was possible, but I don't do much with artillery to begin.

On a related subject...

You can easily tell how many units are in an army at a glance, even if it's not YOUR army. Just look at the flag or standard their general is carrying:
Era Symbol
Ancient Number of vertical stripes on the standard
Medieval Number of squares on the standard
Industrial Number of marks on the flag
Modern Number of diagonal stripes on the flag
The number of stripes, dots or squares corresponds to the number of units in the army.

:cooool:

Good thread sumthinelse!

I played many games before ever getting my first GL (great leader). And I am an aggressive player. :D

Usually, it takes knights and cavalry (as stated earlier) for non-militaristic civs. However, I have gotten GLs with swordsmen and even archers on rare occasions. I got one or two with warriors, and one with a spearman in defense.

There are ways to improve your odds...;)

I'm not going to give up my best secrets that easy, but I will say this:
Pick your fight. I reserve my elite units until I'm fairly sure they will win.

Good luck! :)

1.29f changes: In 1.29f, it is easy to see if an elite has created a leader. If it has created a leader, its name will have a * to the right. I apologize, I need to update this thread when I get a chance.....

I find the smaller the odds of success, the better the change of getting a leader.

When I play the Persians, running around with immortals, I get my first leaders with a few archers!

I also find certain events and buildings increase your change of producing a leader.

When desperate in the early game, I start my FB! That normally results in one.

There more strats, by they are mine...

thefrenchzulu: that is all just chance.

Originally posted by thefrenchzulu
I find the smaller the odds of success, the better the change of getting a leader.

When I play the Persians, running around with immortals, I get my first leaders with a few archers!

I also find certain events and buildings increase your change of producing a leader.

When desperate in the early game, I start my FB! That normally results in one.

There more strats, by they are mine...

I know that you are trying to help and you believe that these affect leader creation. However, a very competent and reliable Firaxis programmer has given us a summary of the factors that really do affect leader creation, and he did not mention any of these.

I once had a theory that attacking a Zulu Impi could never create a leader, but I was wrong about that.

Here is the classic cause-and-effect fallacy: You look out he window and the sidewalk is wet. You conclude that it must have rained. However, the real cause was that somebody turned on sprinklers to water the grass. It's easy to jump to conclusions about what causes what. I know I have done it.

This just comes into my mind. Sumthinelse> You may want to include the promotion probabilities here since it is very much related I think.

Getting many early leaders will swing a game completely towards a human player.

Your very reliable Fixaris programmer of course is going to give you the secret to leader creation.

I have play tested leader creation during different ages. It is really not just 1/16 chance. If you honestly believe it is, tough on you.


Ever wondered why you get multiple leader per turn when attacking with MA, especially on their third attack? Is that still just 1/12 chance? I don't think so.

Another example:

If you attack with a stack of swordsmen, one in the group might be promoted. If you should count which one, and let say it the fourth one. IF YOU should reload and the fourth one is now elite, chance are you now have a leader. Fine that's cheating, but prove that elite promotion=leader.

Promotion is easier to achieve when the battle is against you, e.g. you attack invantry with immortal. This might sound stupid, but I often do this for leaders. (Take on one hit point invantry and do lose some immortals. You do win after 2/3 attept. So much for the great battle system)

I also use losts of old units to pull AI counter cavalry attacks. They love to rather go for my elite swordsmen on the hill rather than my riffleman stack in the open. More leaders.


Bottom line there are more to it than just plain maths. I find some key building play a role, but you can take my word on it or read some strats I've posted on ALL CIV's forum...

Originally posted by thefrenchzulu


Ever wondered why you get multiple leader per turn when attacking with MA, especially on their third attack? Is that still just 1/12 chance? I don't think so.



Since my Thinkpad is down, I'm writing this on my old notebook computer, not big enough to play civ3. I will test this when I get my new computer next week. I will keep an open mind, but since you did not tell me how many times you tried this and how many times you created leaders, I don't know what to think yet.



Another example:

If you attack with a stack of swordsmen, one in the group might be promoted. If you should count which one, and let say it the fourth one. IF YOU should reload and the fourth one is now elite, chance are you now have a leader. Fine that's cheating, but prove that elite promotion=leader.



I'm not sure what you mean. Which unit in the stack creates the leader?



Promotion is easier to achieve when the battle is against you, e.g. you attack invantry with immortal. This might sound stupid, but I often do this for leaders. (Take on one hit point invantry and do lose some immortals. You do win after 2/3 attept. So much for the great battle system)



Again, you don't say how many times you tried this and how many leaders you got.



I also use losts of old units to pull AI counter cavalry attacks. They love to rather go for my elite swordsmen on the hill rather than my riffleman stack in the open. More leaders.



You are saying that when cavalry attacks your swordsman it is more likely to produce a leader than cavalry attacking a rifleman?
What percent of the time do you get leaders from the swordsman being attacked, and how many times have you tried this? What if another unit attacks your swordsman?

Originally posted by Qitai
This just comes into my mine. Sumthinelse> You may want to include the promotion probabilities here since it is very much related I think.

Good idea Qitia. I changed the main section to include promotion probabilities.

First my appologies for copy/pasting your thread. I'm new on this forum and haven't had the time to figuring out the quote/reply to functions.

I will keep an open mind, but since you did not tell me how many times you tried this and how many times you created leaders, I don't know what to think yet.

Sorry, I don't always keep detail stats like other players. An elite MA attacking and winning it's third battle per turn will nearly always result in a leader. I normally create armies immediately cause there are no wonders to rush at this stage. Have had three leader in one turn. (Two immediate armies) Have had numerous MA going from veteran to elite to leader creator in one attack turn.

If you attack with a stack of swordsmen, one in the group might be promoted. If you should count which one, and let say it the fourth one. IF YOU should reload and the fourth one is now elite, chance are you now have a leader. Fine that's cheating, but prove that elite promotion=leader


I'm not sure what you mean. Which unit in the stack creates the leader?

Will try to explain. If you attack a city with mulitple defenders, you attack with veteran units first. Let's say the fourth one gets promoted to elite.(It doesn't matter if you reload, the fourth one will always become elite.)

If reload and attack the fourth time with an elite unit (same as the previous units), you will get a leader. I have tried this a few times with 100% succes rate. Though this is cheating, I was actually play testing the militaristic attribute. It suppose to result in easier promotions, but I never get more leaders playing them??? Nothing else must be changed during the attack sequence, eg if you already have a leader and use it, you will get different results.


Promotion is easier to achieve when the battle is against you, e.g. you attack invantry with immortal. This might sound stupid, but I often do this for leaders. (Take on one hit point invantry and do lose some immortals. You do win after 2/3 attept. So much for the great battle system)

Again, you don't say how many times you tried this and how many leaders you got.

The invantry vs elite immortal, I normally get a leader from a succesful attack. I have created upto a hundred immortals in a game, so this is just a way of getting rid of them. Unfortunately I have no exact stats on this one, lets say 50% success.

You are saying that when cavalry attacks your swordsman it is more likely to produce a leader than cavalry attacking a rifleman?

I don't normally use this strat for leaders, but rather as a offensive strat. If you attack with cavalry, you don't want to lose to many to counter strikes. Moving obselete units in behind your cavalry, normally pulls the AI's counter cavalry attack. I do lose many of these units, but it pulls the AI cavalry into the open.


OK, these two are quite close and is all about unit disparity.

I want to stress that the bigger the unit disparity, the less your change on promotion. Less promotion, less leaders. That's why I do attack with archers early and not only immortals, unless of course I'm attacking the Greek.

This last part of unit disparity, have not been posted anywhere and it is difficult to put stats down.

I can say that I often play as the Persians and my Deity strat is 100% attack, using 30-40 early immortals! I have gone through games only getting my first leaders once I've killed musketmen. So I changed my strat and combine some archers into my offensive stacks. This results in many more early leaders!

If I find time one day, I'll actualy test this using the editor, like B.Speedy does. Should be an interesting posting...

You said nothing about my theory about certain building eg your FB increasing your chances. Must say this one is really difficult to test, but I have used it often for that first leader. (Might have posted this on a different forum?) Now this have not been discussed any where, but I do use it often. Sure the programmer of Firaxis didn't mention this one!


If you have a look at my GOTM10 posting, you will see that I had 4 leaders by 340AD. What I have not added is that I spend lots of money updating my World Map, once I've got it. Reason behind this is that it is cheap and the AI can see babarian huts. I used them for upgrading my horsemen so that I had numerous elite ones for attack. Think of it as training.
If I attacked with knights, rather than horsemen, I would have had easier battles, but less leaders!
(4 early leaders really wins you the game)

Originally posted by Lt. 'Killer' M.
To clarify:

I *think* that if I start Civ3 fresh and begin a new game, the first leader will take longer.
If I play for a while, then start a new game, it will appear at the normal ratios mentioned by sumthinelse.

Doubtful, though certainly possible. Here is an example of a Great Leader during the first major battle in the Ancient Age, Napoleon in 2710BC. Surprised the heck out of me! :)

Mon cher Napoléon
** SPOILER ** GOTM10 **
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30172

Killer said that he started CIV3.exe and immediately after that started a new game. Killer suspected that in such a game the odds of creating a leader would be lower. Why that would affect leaders, I would not know. This has not been proved or disproved.

I have never tried the new game thing to generated leaders, but have a comment on generating your first leader with an elite warrior. Considering that the jaquar warrior was fortified in a city, gave it various defense bonuses. The probability of winning the battle was thus against you, increasing your change of generating a leader. My unit/battle disparity theory...

Great posts, sumthinelse, thanks for writing them.

frenchzulu, I once had the idea that if I took an enemy capital with an elite unit, I was sure to get a leader. It happened in several of my games, but nobody else noticed it. As I kept playing, I realized it was coincidence.

One thing you mentioned has been reported by others. If you have the saved seed feature on and you attack with a vet which promotes to elite, then reload and instead attack with an elite, a leader appears. Now I don't know if that happens or not, but the cause could be that the program generates a number, and the same variable that determines unit promotion determines leader appearance. Since promotion to elite and leader appearance are both rare events... well, I'm sure you get the picture. Again, I don't know the facts on that, but if somebody wants to reload the next time they have a vet get promoted and they have an elite handy, they could clarify things a bit.

Ironikinit:
It seems to me that indeed the same number is used, but the threshold for a leader is higher (even with Heroic Epic). So sometimes you get a leader when reloading from a promotion fight, sometimes not.

It is the same number (if you have preserve random seed on), but as you noted, the probability is not as high so sometimes you will and sometimes you won't.

I produced a scenario with 4 groups of 6 Warriors, surrounded by 6-7 Warrior stacks. I then attacked with my Warriors, using militaristic and nonmilitaristic civs as my civ. I managed to get 2 or more leaders in each instance by doing so. I only attacked the AI Warriors that were on plains/grassland squares. I then immediately disbanded any leader so created since I was testing to see if Warriors could/could not produce Great Leaders. Therefore, my units were not at a significant disadvantage in attacking since the AI units were not fortified or any other bonus, other than the grassland/plains one.

Here is one of the games attached.

Hopefully, here is the bic file.

The threshold is higher and it doesn't always work. I just wondered about it. Would say it works 80% of the time.

I have another theory on leader creation. Without reloading. The question is: When do you attack with the elite unit? I prefer having a stack of elite mounted units. Elites seem to retreat more often.

My theory is based on something like a cycle (wave) It goes up and down. Lets say you attack with a stack and the you have an even contest, e.g horsmen vs spearmen. I find that if the first battle is succesful, taking no hits, it at some stage will go down and the come up again.I find if I attack with the my elite units at the start of an upward cycle (after losing an unit), I seem to generate a leader! Now this is pure theory and I have not tested it to death. Just a theory and it works for me. Anyone want to test it? I also apply to normal veteran battles...

Originally posted by thefrenchzulu
My theory is based on something like a cycle (wave) It goes up and down.

That is the classic gambler's fallacy. Assuming a random event, each event is independent of preceding events. If you flip five heads in a row, the next toss is still 50-50 (assuming the coin is true).

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/gamblers-fallacy.html

The human mind will impose patterns where none exist.

Originally posted by Zachriel

That is the classic gambler's fallacy. Assuming a random event, each event is independent of preceding events. If you flip five heads in a row, the next toss is still 50-50 (assuming the coin is true).


Mentioned that once that I don't have a masters in statistics, but had both calculus and statistics as minors.;)

If everything in Civ3 was completely random you could not lose a MA to a pike man. Basically no chance of him not taking a hit, but it happens. Regularly. As warmonger I except losses, knowing that it will not continuo. If it did, I would be playing AOE.

I have tested the wave theory a bit using the editor. Once I have had time to test sufficient battles, I will post the results! (At last got time to do testing, but battle with the flipping editor. Not as simple as AOE)

Originally posted by thefrenchzulu
I have never tried the new game thing to generated leaders, but have a comment on generating your first leader with an elite warrior. Considering that the jaquar warrior was fortified in a city, gave it various defense bonuses. The probability of winning the battle was thus against you, increasing your change of generating a leader. My unit/battle disparity theory...

If you saw a black cat and then you crashed your car, did the black cat cause the accident? Probably not, but some people remember a black cat (or some other symbolic thing) just before some unusual event happens and remember that occasion. They do not consider that people see black cats thousands of times without anything unusual happening.

Others will objectively study what factors are present at accidents. Intoxication, bad brakes, weather, etc.

I kept track of 138 victories in which elite chariots (attack factor 1) killed spearmen (defense factor 2). There were 8 leaders produced. 128/8=1/16, so this is pretty close to what the expected results would be. Now 138 trials will not give an exact number to determine the real probability of a leader, but I think you need to submit some actual statistics to back up your theory that weaker units attacking stronger units are more likely to produce leaders than the probabilities (1/16 without epic, 1/12 with epic when attacking ) in Mike B.'s post.

Perception is a big issue. In my games, the AI has been having more wars, with each other as well as me since 1.29f patch came out. In other people's games, it's the opposite.

My point being, that while one person could come up with a string supporting the weak units theory, others could just as easily show it was strong units attacking causing the GL. Would this validate either theory? No. It would just show the limited experiences of the person(s) playing. By that, I meant the experience would be limited to the experiences of the specific players, and not something else. I have played a large number of games, mainly testing mods I have been making, but also to watch the AI behavior in unmodded games. How better to defeat the enemy than to study their tactics? Still, my limited experiences involve just my playing, which can have different results than other players.

test

Excellent work on this thread :goodjob:

Thanks. I need to make a graphic table to make it easier to read.

If there is something I have not covered, or not explained clearly, I welcome questions and comments.

I am also considering a bombardment guide but I don't know enough about it yet.

Just a tip...

if you really really want a leader, just give up

then after a while you'll forget that u ever wanted a leader and i did that and i got 2 leaders in 1 turn while playing Vikings

so just give it a try

hope it workz 4 u:)

Originally posted by MusicLaunch
Just a tip...

if you really really want a leader, just give up

then after a while you'll forget that u ever wanted a leader and i did that and i got 2 leaders in 1 turn while playing Vikings

so just give it a try

hope it workz 4 u:)

I have gotten multiple leaders in 1 turn but I don't think it has anything to do with giving up and forgetting. But from a human point of view it may seem that way. If the civfanatics website goes down, and I forget about it and come back later it may be up again, but I don't think the fact that I "give up and forget about" causes the website to come back up. :)

Or maybe you are kidding ;)

Originally posted by sumthinelse


...Or maybe you are kidding ;)

No, I'm not kiddin'.

Originally posted by MusicLaunch
Just a tip...

if you really really want a leader, just give up

then after a while you'll forget that u ever wanted a leader and i did that and i got 2 leaders in 1 turn while playing Vikings

so just give it a try

hope it workz 4 u:)

I am have quite a few problems this week understanding things, how exactly do I give up and how does this give me a GL?

Originally posted by MusicLaunch


No, I'm not kiddin'.

Strange theories abound about great leaders. Do you think seeing a black cat might cause you to have an accident?

Originally posted by sumthinelse


Strange theories abound about great leaders. Do you think seeing a black cat might cause you to have an accident?


Black cats? utter nonsence, Whenever I want a GL I open an umbrella in the room

Here's a short cookbook for those who really want leades -- no magic

The odds are what they are (IMHO they should be lower for industrial & modern times), thus the odds can be turned by taking advantage AI shortcomings in military tactics.

The factory works best later in the game when you get better offensive unit, at least You shoud have some good offensive unit and enough cities You do not have to tie the military to cities.

1. choose a spot on the enemy attack path for the place of the factory, use a bate to lure the enmy to the spot if necessary.
2. Select ambush spot on hill or mountain nearby, build road and fortress.
3. Build barracs in city nearby for recovery.
4. When the war breaks AI will send stacks of offensive and defensive unit in a typical mix beeing 1 to 3. It will also send all kind of obsoleted units if it has not been in a war for a while.
5. Use artilly & fast unit to eliminate defender.
6 Use the elites on weak units only, when You get a GL, use it ASAP (and meanwhile use the factory to promote veterans).
7. Never leave elite unit to the unprotected (plains) square, leave the last enemy in stack if You do not have a fast unit.

The key to succes is to use the elite attackers most effective way, heal and repeat. Artillery support is a great help, have 2 artillery for each elite unit (I haven't used catapults, due to their low damage).

Tanks and MA are naturally the best, earlier You shuold use horses and swords.
If You have heroic epic, it only takes 6 elite tanks (attacking twice per turn) to get GL each turn (on the average).

Karl_t_great: Except for using a GL ASAP, which may not always be best, all good advice for single player (and against "less skillful" human players ;) ). I am more interested in multiplayer and still think some of your advice is valid in MP:

3. Build barracs in city nearby for recovery.
5. Use artilly & fast unit to eliminate defender.
6 Use the elites on weak units only, when You get a GL, use it ASAP (and meanwhile use the factory to promote veterans).
7. Never leave elite unit to the unprotected (plains) square, leave the last enemy in stack if You do not have a fast unit.

Are other Civ3 players who have loaded the 1.29f patch having problems hurrying Wonders with great leaders? Are there special commands to enable this?

Originally posted by notholo
Are other Civ3 players who have loaded the 1.29f patch having problems hurrying Wonders with great leaders? Are there special commands to enable this?

OK, you didn't really tell me much. Are you sure the leader is in the city and the wonder is being built in the city? Do you activate the leader and right click on the leader?

I haven't had this problem.

I've tried bringing great leaders to cities building both great and small wonders that have not already been constructed. I've tried to hurry the production, I've tried disbanding the leader in the city, and I've tried to activate the great leader into army mode, and THEN disbanding him in the city before loading any units on. I've even built the Military Academy, building an army from scratch, and THEN using him to hurry a great or small wonder.

In all cases, no wonder is hurried, and the computer sends a message that "X wonder cannot be hurried". I'm playing at the monarch level, and I've only applied the 1.29f patch and no prior patches. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Notholo, when you bring your GL into the city building the Wonder, do not go into the city view. Instead, look at the buttons at the bottom center of the screen (the ones for fortify, etc.) When a GL that has not yet been made into an army is in a city building a Wonder, there should be a button that appears that allows you to Hurry Production of the Wonder. Hover the mouse over these buttons (hold the cursor motionless for a few seconds) in order to find out what each button does.

There are also some quick reference sheets created by Nethog (IIRC) available here that will give you the key strokes for this command.

Using armies and disbanding won't work, nor will using the Hurry Production button next to the build queue in the City View.

Thanks for the info. I downloaded all of the official keystrokes from this site, and I tried all of them to no avail. It didn't occur to me that those cumbersome buttons on the bottom might do things that an official hotkey or command couldn't.

I'm sure others have found that the documentation that comes with Civ3 is wanting, especially on the nitty-gritty of leaders and armies, but also on corruption. Their tables suggesting that corruption is "nuisance" or "communal" in the Republic or Communist govts respectively is rathe disingenuous.

Just one more question; do the leaders that come out of the Military Academy work to hurry Great Wonders, or are they single purpose only?

No, those are armies. Armies are different from leaders: they can be created from leaders or made by the Military Academy, but they are not the same thing as a Great Leader. Once you change a GL into an army, it can no longer hurry a Wonder.

Here is a question. Is it possible to create a new leader unit in the editor such that you can build one whenever you wanted? I would hope not for balance's sake, but has anyone tried this?

Originally posted by DANGERBOY

Is it possible to create a new leader unit in the editor such that you can build one whenever you wanted? I would hope not for balance's sake, but has anyone tried this?

I think the leader unit is hard-coded so that it does not appear in a build queue, but you can check the "Build Army" or "Finish Improvements" for any units. So I think you could make bombers able to create armies and finish wonders -- or you could use the Add button under the Units tab to create a completely new unit that had all of the leaders abilties plus any others you wanted.

I think I did something like that once to create improvements quickly in a scenario. In PTW there is "Debug Mode" so you wouldn't need that for creating improvements.

You can create a Leader in the editor; Zippo has a tutorial on it.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9955

Basically, you have to change the Battle Created Unit to something else or none. Unfortunately, if you change it to another unit, then that unit becomes unbuildable.

3) Click the Edit button on the toolbar and select the Units tab.

4) Select Leader in the menu.

5) Change the Shield Cost field to something appropriate (I chose 40 in order to make it difficult to create leaders, otherwise you will have a ton of armies all over the place).

6) If you want, choose a Prerequisite (I chose Military Tradition).

7) You could also play with the Moves, Attack Str. & Defense Str. fields (the leader CAN attack, but there will be no animation). I left Attack and Defense at 0 because the only reason to have them is if you're out in the open and that's not really the purpose of the Leader, especially since you are building him in your town.

8) Now here comes the tricky part, and it's VERY important. You MUST go to the General Settings tab and change the Battle-Created Unit to something OTHER THAN Leader. For some reason, whatever unit you choose to be your Battle-Created Unit cannot be built in ANY cities (this included your competitors)! So choose whatever unit you don't want and you're done! OR, see below for a suggestion on how to set up a replacement Battle-Created Unit

Be warned, however, that the AI will build them, even at a high cost. They will also use them to rush Wonders occasionally. They will definitely use them to build Armies as well.

Originally posted by kring
You can create a Leader in the editor; Zippo has a tutorial on it.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9955

Basically, you have to change the Battle Created Unit to something else or none. Unfortunately, if you change it to another unit, then that unit becomes unbuildable.



Be warned, however, that the AI will build them, even at a high cost. They will also use them to rush Wonders occasionally. They will definitely use them to build Armies as well.

Interesting...

So basically you're saying that, in a sense, it's possible to sort of revert Civ3 Wonder building to the old Civ2 strategy of 'popping' a Wonder with Caravans parked in your city building the Wonder. Hmmm... makes me wonder about a mod I'm workin' on...

Originally posted by cavemanf16


Interesting...

So basically you're saying that, in a sense, it's possible to sort of revert Civ3 Wonder building to the old Civ2 strategy of 'popping' a Wonder with Caravans parked in your city building the Wonder. Hmmm... makes me wonder about a mod I'm workin' on...

I must be missing something. If you want something you can build that creates armies and finishes wonders, why don't you just either create a new unit with the flags "build armies" and "finish improvements" OR pick some unit nobody uses like explorer (whatever) and check the flags on that unit and then change the shield cost? :confused:

Originally posted by sumthinelse
Karl_t_great: Except for using a GL ASAP, which may not always be best, all good advice for single player (and against "less skillful" human players ;) ). I am more interested in multiplayer and still think some of your advice is valid in MP:
On MP you could team up with with another player and donate each other some obsolete units -- this is allmost an exploit. Havent' got PTW yet, so this is only speculation......

I think that 2 or 3 humans playing against against any number of AIs is almost a certain win for the humans if they cooperate. Of course, one way to look at that is "payback" for all the anti-human AI behaviour in SP.

:lol:

Originally posted by sumthinelse
Karl_t_great: Except for using a GL ASAP, which may not always be best, all good advice for single player (and against "less skillful" human players ;) ). I am more interested in multiplayer and still think some of your advice is valid in MP:

3. Build barracs in city nearby for recovery.
5. Use artilly & fast unit to eliminate defender.
6 Use the elites on weak units only, when You get a GL, use it ASAP (and meanwhile use the factory to promote veterans).
7. Never leave elite unit to the unprotected (plains) square, leave the last enemy in stack if You do not have a fast unit.

factorys upgrades vets to elites?! or am i misreading?

Originally posted by Captainkeyes23


factorys upgrades vets to elites?! or am i misreading?

I think he was using the word "factory" to mean a system for making GLs, not the city improvement.

hi,

I'm playing conquests as Japanese and having thiss issue:
First I got scientific leader and used him to hurry up a great wonder. Then after some turns, I had 2 militaristic GL, but none of them had the icon "hurry up".
I'm afraid, that the next militaristic GL will have the same issue. Does anybody knows why is this happening?
thanks.

In conquests only the scientific leader can hurry wonders.

thats correct...

that's strange.
I was playing one week ago as Persian, and I was able to hurry up production with militaristic leader. My oponents were Ottomans, Arabs and Zulu.
In current "japanese" conquest, my oponents were India and Koria, China is still in game :)

A military leader can hurry production, but not of Wonders. Only a scientific leader can hurry Wonders.

Welcome to CFC, by the way. But it's better to post questions in the main Creation and Customization forum rather than in a thread that no-one had posted on for two and a half years...

yo, thank you :)
I though, it would be better to post my question in a thread that is about GL's.
I use hurry up mode only for wonders (great and small), anything else could be bought.
So I'm pretty sure that I hurried up a wonder with a militaristic leader, but I'm not sure if it was great or small.

i usually roam the tutorials section, so i will read your post and try to answer it. Its better to post in the appropriate thread so others can use your question's anwers for aid.
Welcome!!! to the forums!!!!