All of my cities are in civil disorder.

I just installed Civ 3 complete I got from a humble bundle and all of my cities are in civil disorder. I'm used to the civ 4 way of worker just not working a tile, nut it appears if I get overpopulated the city shuts down completely.

Right now I can't do anything at all.I lost my army of 8 to a lone spearman elite. I had a few elite units my self, archers, spearmen, and warriors, and a lone catapault which seemed worthless as it always failed in every attack and did no damage.

I had to declare peace and now I am stuck bad. There isn't a single thing I can seemingly do. Everything is locked up.

Is there a way out? or is game over?

also, do I need to improve tiles for resources? or do they just get granted when I pop a zone around them?

MarkJohnson
"the city shuts down completely"

This happens, when the pop is unhappy. Look at the f1 screen and see the ratio of happy faces to unhappy faces. They have to be at least equal. If there are more happy than unhappy, all is fine.

Click or fly over the unhappy and they will give you some reason. You need to do things like increase lux slider, add a new lux to your resource box, make a happy structure.

Overcrowding will lead to unhappy pop, wars (depends on gov type). Losing troops and towns and many things. MP's can add content pop, in some gov types.

"Right now I can't do anything at all.I lost my army of 8 to a lone spearman elite. I had a few elite units my self, archers, spearmen, and warriors, and a lone catapault which seemed worthless as it always failed in every attack and did no damage."

Can happen. Cats often miss, attackers with low att values tend to lose to defenders. Defenders get bonus, when fortified, behind wall, on hills and attacking across rivers.

Hit points matter, a 2 HP attacker will die to a 4 HP unit more often, all things being equal.

"also, do I need to improve tiles for resources? or do they just get granted when I pop a zone around them?"

You need to have a road on them that is connected to the capitol for all towns to have access. Otherwise only the town that is connected has access. They also have to been in your borders, or have a colony.

MarkJohnson said:

I'm used to the civ 4 way of worker just not working a tile, nut it appears if I get overpopulated the city shuts down completely. [etc]

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That's not the Civ 4 way: happiness (which is your problem) works the same in Civ III as in Civ 4. Happiness is the key to keep playing. Just as in Civ 4 you need to have luxury resources connected, happiness buildings built etc. What's different in Civ III is that you can even connect resources outside your territory. Even with no army to speak of you can still connect resources. So, all is not lost.

MarkJohnson said:

I just installed Civ 3 complete I got from a humble bundle and all of my cities are in civil disorder. I'm used to the civ 4 way of worker just not working a tile, nut it appears if I get overpopulated the city shuts down completely.

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You can turn on city gouvernor and let him manage happiness. He will activate another entertainer whenever your population get's unhappy and effectively prevents cities from falling into civil disorder (to be honest one of my favourite additions for Civ III). Which is basically the same thing that happens in the streamlined Civ IV version of city unhappiness.

There is no point in playing, if you let the gov handle happiness. Try looking in a city of the ai at Sid level. You see jokers all over the place.

The AI manages its empire in a horrible fashion. The gov will do the same.

vmxa said:

The AI manages its empire in a horrible fashion. The gov will do the same.

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Well, we are not talking sid level here - and obviously compared to the OP's situation the gov right now would do a better job...
Also there's a subtle difference between letting gov assign entertainers and don't do anything about it - or to use it only to prevent cities falling into civil disorder and trying to keep use of entertainers as low as possible.

The ai manages town the same at all levels, I am just more familiar with sid. Well it mismanages to more accurate. If the level is warlord or chief, the born content of 3 and 4, makes it not an issue. But at those levels, why would you have disorder?

My point is do not let the ai manage, if that is too much work I would say this is the probably the wrong game.

vmxa said:

My point is do not let the ai manage, if that is too much work I would say this is the probably the wrong game.

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Well whatever. It never occured to you how surreal it sounds when newbees pop into the forum and say they have difficulties with this or that (cities falling into civil disorder for example) and someone says: "Let the AI help you untill you know the basics, until you know what's going on and what you're doing.", the sterotype super-expert 15-years-of-playing-Civ veteran pops in and and says "No, no, no, VERY bad advice, you NEVER automate workers, you NEVER use gov, it's SO bad and if you can't manage, this is no game for you". (Or the better alternative is: "Send me one of your savegame for analysis", and the write a fifteen-pager about how to avoid a single hammer-overflow through manually managing citizens) But it happens all the time, you can count on it... ; )

I have been playing CIV3 for about, omg, almost 20 yrs. What comes naturally to me while playing, to a new person, can be utterly confusing. I can remember when I first started CIV3, ALOT of the game confused the heck out of me, and the internet was virtually nonexistent. I did not have anywhere to go for help. Us veteran players of CIV, no matter what version should try to help new players as much as possible. Just my thoughts...

You need happiness then: Luxuries (from luxury resources found on the map connected to your cities.), Military police if your gov allows it, from the luxury slider (as opposed to cash or science). etc. You can also build temples, Colosseums (colossea?) and cathedrals and such.
There's also help in the civilopedia.

You can let the computer do the happiness (a governor) but that's not ideal, and if you really have much unhappiness, the AI will just take away tiles to hire clowns, then you don't have food either - so unless you find luxuries or a big pot of gold, the AI won't be able to help much either.

And yes, if you post a save game, I'll tell in detail (about 40 pages, no more) about what you did wrong.

STEINMAN1000 said:

I have been playing CIV3 for about, omg, almost 20 yrs. What comes naturally to me while playing, to a new person, can be utterly confusing. I can remember when I first started CIV3, ALOT of the game confused the heck out of me, and the internet was virtually nonexistent. I did not have anywhere to go for help. Us veteran players of CIV, no matter what version should try to help new players as much as possible. Just my thoughts...

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*12.5 years