I've played maybe 5 full games of Civ3 from beginning to end. I'd consider myself a good player because all my friends who play end up with empires that look more like computer empires and they play on easier settings then me. But I have on major problem and I think I'm justified in been irritated about this.

Communism doesn't work like it says it should in the Civlopedia.

Now this is fine of course if ur empire is about the size of Europe. But my strategy just doesn't work like that. Basically the only word that can be used to describe my strategy is expansionist. I start by making my empire as big as possible (not powerful just big). This way the computers never invade u because they are too scared of you. Then when I have tanks (and everyone else has riflemen I start military conquest.
The end result is an empire that goes from the size of Europe to the size of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Nth America & Sth America in less the ten turns. And because I usually do this well before the game has ended I leave a couple of empires around and concentrate on making my citizens more literate - healthier etc. so that I get a better end game score. But as we all know corruption is impossible to handle on a huge map.
Communism would be the perfect answer (and I don't want politics brought into this). According to the civlopedia corruption in Communist empires is at the same low rate across the empire. But in fact its the same as under democracy thusly removing ANY advantage of been Communist.
Is anyone else annoyed about this? Or do you think it would be unfair on those little empires.
Its just I'm sick of having to go thru city by city Hurrying improvements and disbanding military units built in my major cities. Maybe I'm complaining over something small but if I could just grasp that universal corruption my empire would be so much more literate, healthy, old etc.

btw - another criticism tho a lot less signifigant
why do the Germans get Panzers & Russia Cossacks
The Cossacks were a bunch of mercenary scum who were well and truly annihilated before Russia reached the peak of its power.
The Russians greatest unit ever in my opinion should have been the T34 (a vastly superior tank to the Panzerkampfwagen I, II, III or IV)
WW2 was won and lost by T34's & Panzers in that order ... Russian tanks were superior by far

Although no one can dispute the T34 was an excellent weapon, your casual assertion that Soviet armor was superior to the German "by far" is somewhat dubious. German Panthers and Tigers had their design flaws (underpowered, overweight gas-guzzlers) but they had good armor and a superb tank killing weapon in the 88 cannon. I'm not sure either would win the award for best all around tank of WW2, but they weren't grossly inferior to their Russian counterparts.

I'd also argue with your assertion that the war was won and lost by Russian and German tanks, respectfully. The reasons for the German defeat are many fold (see Richard Overy's excellent book on the subject, "Why the Allies Won"). On a strictly tactical level the Soviets eventually won big victories over the Germans, and their equipment played an important part, but so too did their superior numbers (the Russians could make more tanks faster than the Germans, and they could deploy them all on one front), good intelligence, quality leadership, skilled soldiers, and improved tactics. It also helped that Hitler made plenty of blunders; his "stand or die" orders during Operation Bagration in the summer of 1944 proved particularly disastrous for Army Group Center, which found itself repeatedly surrounded and cut off by the advancing Soviet armies.

As for why the Germans get Panzers as their uu, they were the first to group their tanks into armored spearheads and use them to swiftly and decisively defeat an enemy. That's what the uu represents: not the best tank, but the revolutionary German tactics. Poland, the Low Countries, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, and the British 8th Army in North Africa all felt the impact of the German tactics. So too did the Russians. Even with their superior tanks, the Soviets were repeatedly walloped in the summer of 1941, losing millions of men killed or captured, enormous swathes of territory, and an uncountable amount of equipment (artillery, tanks, rifles, ammunition, etc etc etc), before the winter weather and fresh divisions from Siberia saved Moscow. But in the summer of 1942 the German Panzers once again achieved major victories in the Crimea and the Caucasus, before being sucked into Stalingrad. Only in 1943, when the Soviets had not only good tanks but also the knowledge and experience to deploy them properly, did they manage to halt the German summer offensive dead in its tracks and then go on the attack themselves. In short, the Germans taught the world how to use the tank in battle, and the world eventually taught their teacher.

can't argue with any of your points except that you compared the T34 to the Tiger & Panther. The Panzer III & IV were compareable vehicles because they were light tanks around the same weight. But the Panther was about 10-15 tons heavier and the Tigers up to 30 tons heavier. I like to think both of those vehicles in the same class as the IS (Iosef Stalin). I'm sure u kno what these are.

Perhaps it is fair enough, faster tanks representing blitzkrieg not the actual speed or prowess of the tanks. But the T34 was a revolutionary design and if the Soviets had of been using tanks like the Churchill or Sherman then they would be speaking german now.

Mike - did u notice the problem with Communism?

senor

I've never experienced that problem with the Communist government type.

In my experience, with a large empire it does spread the corruption evenly across the empire i.e. ignoring distance from capital. The core cities often jump up in corruption - from 5-10% under demo to maybe 30% communist - but the outlying cities drop from the catastrophic 80%+ to a more reasonable 40% or so. I ascribe the difference to my core being better developed and happier, which helps even in Communist.

If you were expecting democracy-core-like corruption world-wide with communist you'll be disappointed. But I've swapped and had a distant city drop from 100 turns to the FP to 10 or so. (Which was the reason I swapped, really)

Can't help you with your communist problem (I've never used that form of government; I'm a democracy man), but I do wonder what version of the game you are playing. The original release had a good share of bugs, and this might be one of them. Check to make sure you're playing 1.29f.

I'm not sure the Sherman would have doomed the Soviets. Remember, they could churn out many more tanks than the Germans could, and against the tanks you described (Panzer Mark III and IV) the Sherman had a chance. Against Tigers and Panthers, the standard rule of thumb in the American army was 5:1, that is 5 Shermans to knock out one Tiger. I'm no expert on Soviet war industry, but I suppose it's possible they could have produced Shermans in that quantity, and God knows that they would have been willing to pay the human cost.

If the Germans had won, I don't think there would be many Russians left alive to speak German today....

no actually the standard rule of thumb was 13 Shermans to a Tiger and 5 to a Panther. The Russians produced 55,000 T34's but would have produced perhaps 2 thirds of that if they were using Shermans.
And thats a good point ... But the Germans set out to enslave the slavic people, not kill all of them. Besides the only country thats ever committed complete genocide is Australia.

In my version the corruption range is longer but not universal - out lying counties (with factories, manufacturing plants, courthouses etc. still get all but 1 production & trade) we're talking over 99% corruption - that can't be universal.

senor f

that sounds like something is wrong - you should not be getting corruption that bad in any 'normal' city with communism (cities in revolt etc will have no production, of course, but thats not what you have)

any chance you can post a save game? maybe we can see something freaky with it. what version of civ are you using (including patch level)

I was using original Civ3 off the disk - i think 1.07f or something but I just got 1.29 - haven't built a civ yet tho so I can't tell if the problem remains - so Communism in your version allows non-complete corruption in outlying cities? thats cool

Originally posted by senor freebie
no actually the standard rule of thumb was 13 Shermans to a Tiger and 5 to a Panther.

I've never read 13 Shermans to a Tiger. Where did you see that? Was it the Tiger or the Royal Tiger, aka King Tiger?

The Russians produced 55,000 T34's but would have produced perhaps 2 thirds of that if they were using Shermans.

I don't know about that. The Sherman was a tank that could be massed produced in incredible numbers (the U.S. made enough to supply its army, the British army and the Free French). In 1943 alone the U.S. built nearly 30,000 tanks! By comparison, the Soviets built about 24,000 that year, and the Germans 17,000. I should also mention the Sherman's versatility and adaptability. For example, the British Firefly was a Sherman with a 17lbs. gun, which gave it more tank killing power.

But the Germans set out to enslave the slavic people, not kill all of them. Besides the only country thats ever committed complete genocide is Australia.

That's true and a good point; Hitler liked to talk about turning Russia into Germany's version of British India. But the plans that the Nazis drew up in the event of victory were horrific and would have resulted in the deliberate starvation of millions of Russians, not to mention those that would have died from German reprisals or under the heel of slave labor. I would also hazard a guess that the extermination camps of Poland wouldn't have simply shut down once the Final Solution was complete. They were factories that processed human raw material, and once one source dried up it seems likely to me that they would have switched to another: the Poles, the Russians, and other sub-human untermenschen who weren't fit to live on a Nazi dominated planet. But this is just a theory of mine, and I do not have much evidence to back it up.

Don't know much about Australian history. Are you referring to the Aborigines? Sadly, genocide is not something that is confined to Nazi Germany. Native Americans throughout the Western Hemisphere, Africans in the Congo, Armenians in Turkey during WW1, Ukrainians under Stalin, Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda: you could argue that these are all examples of genocide.

I was referring to the Tasmanian Aborigines - the early Australian government and their colonial predecessors completely wiped them out. More Russian's & Ukranian's were killed in WW2 then Jews but this is not surprising as there was more to kill in the first place and they had nations from which to fight a war. Do you have any idea how many of the Soviets were killed in the death camps \ mobile gas chambers? was it a large proportion or were the majority of casualties victims of the war?

Originally posted by senor freebie More Russian's & Ukranian's were killed in WW2 then Jews but this is not surprising as there was more to kill in the first place and they had nations from which to fight a war.

Remember too that Europe had a pre-war Jewish population of around 9 million. About 6 million of these were killed in the Endlosung (Final Solution), or about 40% of the world Jewish population, so the raw numbers don't necessarily tell the whole story.

Do you have any idea how many of the Soviets were killed in the death camps \ mobile gas chambers? was it a large proportion or were the majority of casualties victims of the war?

The number usually quoted for Soviet deaths, both military and civilian, is 20 million. I do not know how many Jews/Gypsies/commissars (all subject to "special treatment") are a part of this number, but I'd guess that it would be between two to three million.

When the Germans invaded, they sent four mobile task groups, or Einsatzgruppen, to follow in their soldiers wake. The primary target of these SS death squads were Jews, but they also executed communist party officials and the Red Army's political commissars. For example, a German task group murdered approxamatley 34,000 Jews at Babi Yar, a ravine near Kiev, on September 29-30, 1941. In the end this method of mass shootings was judged "inefficient," prompting the Germans to establish the extermination camp system.

The gas vans were really a test program for the large scale extermination camps in Poland; I don't have exact figures, but my guess would be that relativley few people would have been killed in them (tens of thousands perhaps), and then mostly Jews. Some POWs did end up at Auschwitz, and in fact the Germans first tested the Zyklon B gas on a group Soviet prisoners. In retrospect they may have been the lucky ones, for the fate of Soviet POWs was not to be envied. The Germans took about 5.7 million Russians prisoner; 2.4 million came out alive, a 42% casualty rate.

So to sum up, you could probably attribute about 4 to 6 million Russian deaths to the German death squads and camp system. The remainder would have been casaulties of the wider war (battle deaths, starvation and disease, bombing raids, caught in crossfires, victim of reprisal killings, etc.)

migod u seem to know ur history I won't argue with u anymore so I make myself look stupid
umm ... just did some research and I found out that during the course of WW2 the Germans used over 1,000 T34's that they captured in the intitial months of the war (mainly). This is an indication of how disorganised the Soviets were and how highly the Germans regarded this tank.
I think most of my experience with them however is innaccurate because I learnt how to use a T34 in Battlefield 1942 a game that is doing the rounds these days. At first I would always play Germans to use the Tiger - then one day I found I all but dodge incoming shells with a T34.
By the way since we've drifted off the original topic a little - do you know anything about the modding community for Civ3? are they at all in need of 3D modellers? Here's why:
http://forums.bf42.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19134
http://forums.bf42.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6439&highlight=LCAC50
I just like to help out because I enjoy modelling and all I have to model at the moment is a Battletech figurine

Originally posted by senor freebie
migod u seem to know ur history

Thanks. I try. :D

Battlefield 1942 is on my "to get" list. All I need is some money first....

There's a bunch of people in the Civ3 community who are involved in creating new units, mods, maps, utility programs, etc. Take a look at the Creation and Customization (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=4) forums here at Civfanatics, or check out other Civ fan sites, such as Apolyton (http://apolyton.net/civ3/).

lol - double post
Battlefield 1942 is an awesome game when you get started but it gets boring after a while like all games. The best part about it is it allows full conversion mods like Half-life did. Tho they don't have the proper code there are some mods that surpass Battlefield 1942 by leaps and bounds. However all of Battlefield 1942 including mods has to be balanced for gameplays sakes - because you can't expect players to roll onto the battlefield in a T72 against an M1 Abrams.
Desert Combat is one of the best mods and the people who make it are extremely talented. It's based on the Desert Storm at the moment but it will cover other conflicts of the past and future decade.
Eve Of Destruction is also worth a look - they recreate battlefields of the Vietnam war so well the gameplay reflects the war in many ways.
Conflict in Somalia is pretty good tho not as near completion as the other mods. Its based on the events in Somalia in 1993 in particular that nasty incident where the Americans tried to kidnap Aidid.

Thanx for the links - best place for Battlefield 1942 info is
www.bf42.com
They host the Desert Combat & Eve of Destruction forums