Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Arjav Jain]

The so-called 'difficulty levels' are never achieved through the AI getting smarter. They're achieved by that |@#!"·ing scum of a cheat being given perks and you being given, say, more and more unhappy citizens.

Yeah I think you're right.

 

[justanick]

The fewer content citizens are somewhat minor. The greatest issue is costs for growth, production anf research. At Sid AI has to pay only 40% of what the human player needs to pay. At Deity it is 60%, at emperor 80% and 100% at regent. Regent is the so called standard difficulty as neither human nor AI cheat. Below that things are riggged in favour of the human. There AI has to pay 120% or even 200% of what you have to pay. On Chieftain you can even trigger more than one golden age.

That partly exlains my reluctance to give advise on your Chieftain game. Switch to Sid and i will be more than happy to oblige. Switching from Chieftain to Sid directlly is probably not the best idea, though. For starting to learn C3C it is probably best to play at Emperor. Given the dumbness of AI that is still fairly easy. Emperor is the highest difficulty at which AI receives no additional settlers at the start. The switch from Emperor to Demigod is the first severe increasement in difficulty. The second servere switch if from Deity to Sid.

For now i suggest you try your luck at emperor. Playing at lower settings may have adverse effects on your skills as even with many bad choices your can win at great easy. And as strange as it may sound for you right now you can make quite some mistakes on Deity and still win.

 

[Lanzelot]

On Chieftain you can even trigger more than one golden age.

Holy Cow!

 

[Lord AJ]

. On Chieftain you can even trigger more than one golden age.

Are you completely sure about that? This is the first time I've heard (rather read) something like this. I mean have u actually done or seen it yourself ? Also if it were so then why wouldn't people like SirPleb, Sandman, Ronald and others use this in their fastest Diplo victory attempts.

 

[Arjav Jain]

On Chieftain you can even trigger more than one golden age.

How???

 

[justanick]

I did not care to test it myself. I assume it is one via wonders and a second one via units.

Also if it were so then why wouldn't people like SirPleb, Sandman, Ronald and others use this in their fastest Diplo victory attempts.

Those victories are limited by 4 turns per tech. A second golden age would likely grant no advanage in terms of turns.

 

[Takhisis]

What? No, Scientific Ages, yes, but the limit for Golden Ages ias hard-coded as one per faction per game.

 

[Lord AJ]

I did not care to test it myself. I assume it is one via wonders and a second one via units.



Those victories are limited by 4 turns per tech. A second golden age would likely grant no advanage in terms of turns.

2 golden ages, 1 at the beginning of the middle ages and the other at the advent of IA can drastically reduce the amount of tweaking and the turns spent in settling science farms. I think I'll test it the next time I play on Chieftain. [emoji12]

 

[walletta]

Can some kind soul help me find 'the editor'? I play Civ III using Steam on a Windows platform. I am not familiar with Windows but I have found the folder containing 'everything' using this advice from Sergmazter:

Open your file explorer located on your bottom tab if you are on windows 7-8 and type in the game's address:

For steam users= C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization III Complete

For people with the disc= C:\Program Files (x86)\Atari\Sid Meier's Civilization III Complete

The address changes sometimes depending on the year product, but you get the idea? Look for something similar.

1- It will definitely be on C:\Program Files (x86), and all you will have to do is look in there for the right folder. It could be atari, activision, steam, or whatever else. Everything you need you will find once you locate that main folder.

But, while there is a guide on how to use the editor, of the editor itself I can see no sign. Can somebody help, hopefully at idiot's level?

 

[Lanzelot]

In the "... Complete" folder there should be a sub-folder named "Conquests" and in that folder there should be a file named "Civ3ConquestsEdit.exe". Just double-click it.

(I hope the Steam edition includes that?! We know by now that it does not include the executables needed for Civ3 vanilla and PtW... )

 

[Buttercup]

For now i suggest you try your luck at emperor. Playing at lower settings may have adverse effects on your skills as even with many bad choices your can win at great easy. And as strange as it may sound for you right now you can make quite some mistakes on Deity and still win.

This depends entirely on what your objectives with the game are to be honest. The biggest differences between the levels are simply a question of patience and personal objective.

If the game had a Sid+ level, then you'd be bleating on about that all the time and advising people not to bother with Sid level, because your motivation is to simply beat the best of what's available, and nothing more.

Most Civ players (though probably not most on the specialised forums) have a different simple agenda of just playing a fun fantasy empire building game where the AI is a comparative competitor rather than a tool to be jacked around for training purposes. They don't want to have to worry about every action in every turn, spending a whole hour per turn and micromanaging 150 workers and 33 pollution spots.

Because there's this other aspect of humanity which the more spock-like don't understand - that of the mild epilepsy-like and memory-draining screen hopping required to manage all the nooks and crannies the game could possibly have to offer. Most people just want to play "the game as it was meant to be played" - which is Regent level, and, for these people, there aren't any other difficulty levels other the training levels of Chieftan and Warlord and the expert levels of Monarch and Emperor for if they ever fancy a bit of masochistic 'hardcoring'.

The amount of people who 'relax' at After-Emperor is incredibly small and if the Hall of Fame didn't exist then barely anyone would bother. Because you have to start treating it like work rather than like play, even if, for you, work is play.

It's great that there's people out there who want to push the limits of the game to the max, the best of experts, but for the purposes of recommending the 'correct' level to base your play on, that would be Regent, as Regent is the only 'proper' level.

 

[walletta]

In the "... Complete" folder there should be a sub-folder named "Conquests" and in that folder there should be a file named "Civ3ConquestsEdit.exe". Just double-click it.

(I hope the Steam edition includes that?! We know by now that it does not include the executables needed for Civ3 vanilla and PtW... )

Thanks. I'll try that. Gee, I really love Windows. Not.

 

[justanick]

This depends entirely on what your objectives with the game are to be honest. The biggest differences between the levels are simply a question of patience and personal objective.

Sure, but then there is the question why advise is needed in the first place. For me the biggest difference is research costs. Below Sid 4 turns per tech is reached far too easy far too early. Any further improvement in research output goes essentialy into waste. That frustrates me.

If the game had a Sid+ level,

There is. You simply need to make it via the editor. That does not take long as Bamspeedy has proven. Playing at such levels however takes some time. Actually regular Sid usually proves to be challenge enough. For a more casual gameplay Deity is sufficiently easy. There is quite a portion of players how manage Deity at some ease. Becoming one of those players is a realistic goal. One should not be too afraid of losing, though. Winning usualy comes at the price of occasionally losing aswell. If it does not difficulty is too low.

 

[Lanzelot]

Most Civ players (though probably not most on the specialised forums) have a different simple agenda of just playing a fun fantasy empire building game where the AI is a comparative competitor rather than a tool to be jacked around for training purposes. They don't want to have to worry about every action in every turn, spending a whole hour per turn and micromanaging 150 workers and 33 pollution spots.

Because there's this other aspect of humanity which the more spock-like don't understand - that of the mild epilepsy-like and memory-draining screen hopping required to manage all the nooks and crannies the game could possibly have to offer. Most people just want to play "the game as it was meant to be played" - which is Regent level, and, for these people, there aren't any other difficulty levels other the training levels of Chieftan and Warlord and the expert levels of Monarch and Emperor for if they ever fancy a bit of masochistic 'hardcoring'.

Well, I guess people are "different". Let me give you an example: assume you are a chess grandmaster and the only opponents you ever get to play with are beginners who just barely know how to push the pieces. You win all your games, but it is no fun at all for you, because all you have to do is just "collect the pieces they are dropping left and right", so it does not give you any satisfaction, since it is no achievement at all. It's just boring.
But if you get another grandmaster as opponent, it's a real challenge. Now if you want to win, you have to think up some deep strategy, find some brilliant moves, calculate a 10 move deep winning combination, etc. It's a huge effort, but when you win, you feel great, because it's been a real achievement!

Same for civilization players like me or justanick: playing on Regent is so boring, because it is no challenge at all. You can play as stupidly as you want to - the outcome will never be in doubt. And what is the fun of playing a game, if you know right from the start that you're going win, no matter what you do.... It doesn't feel great, because it's no achievement. Nothing to feel proud about. When playing Deity/Sid, you will lose a game occasionally ("no risk, no fun"... ), but when you win, it feels great.

I accept, that there are people who just like to play around a bit, relax and have fun. That's fine, it's a free country. But you must also accept, that other people enjoy solving difficult intellectual challenges. I think it's not fair of you to call them spock-like, epileptic, masochistic or what not. Or do you also ridicule chess grandmasters who spend years studying all the fine nuances of chess strategy, because that is what they love to do? Or scientists who spend their life on trying to understand all the nooks and crannies of molecular biology, so they can eventually find a cure for Cancer, Ebola, AIDS, etc? Everybody is free to pursue their interests as they like it best. (As long as it doesn't interfere with the freedom of others.) No need to ridicule anybody.

Thanks. I'll try that. Gee, I really love Windows. Not.

Now, come on: Windows isn't that different from Mac, is it? After all, Microsoft copied was inspired by all the ideas of the Mac...

 

[Buttercup]

Well, I guess people are "different". Let me give you an example: assume you are a chess grandmaster and the only opponents you ever get to play with are beginners who just barely know how to push the pieces. You win all your games, but it is no fun at all for you, because all you have to do is just "collect the pieces they are dropping left and right", so it does not give you any satisfaction, since it is no achievement at all. It's just boring.
But if you get another grandmaster as opponent, it's a real challenge. Now if you want to win, you have to think up some deep strategy, find some brilliant moves, calculate a 10 move deep winning combination, etc. It's a huge effort, but when you win, you feel great, because it's been a real achievement!

Same for civilization players like me or justanick: playing on Regent is so boring, because it is no challenge at all. You can play as stupidly as you want to - the outcome will never be in doubt. And what is the fun of playing a game, if you know right from the start that you're going win, no matter what you do.... It doesn't feel great, because it's no achievement. Nothing to feel proud about. When playing Deity/Sid, you will lose a game occasionally ("no risk, no fun"... ), but when you win, it feels great.

I accept, that there are people who just like to play around a bit, relax and have fun. That's fine, it's a free country. But you must also accept, that other people enjoy solving difficult intellectual challenges. I think it's not fair of you to call them spock-like, epileptic, masochistic or what not. Or do you also ridicule chess grandmasters who spend years studying all the fine nuances of chess strategy, because that is what they love to do? Or scientists who spend their life on trying to understand all the nooks and crannies of molecular biology, so they can eventually find a cure for Cancer, Ebola, AIDS, etc? Everybody is free to pursue their interests as they like it best. (As long as it doesn't interfere with the freedom of others.) No need to ridicule anybody.

That's the thing, I'm not ridiculing anyone, it just sounds like that because there's a certain amount of natural ridicule in the mindset of someone who becomes a grandmaster and then expects to find new challenges.

There's also something called self-nerfing. Even the Hall of Fame applies self-nerfs in the form of accepting or rejecting obvious cheese mechanics and roflstomp exploits.

Further to that, there's almost unlimited modding abilities which enable you to almost completely make a completely different game, so, instead of raising the difficulty you can just change the rules.

On top of that, you could just choose to play on harder settings...

I'll never forget the time I had a huge argument with HoF fanatic Spponwood and then in a later thread he shows this screenshot from one of his high level HoF games - oh look, he's started right bang in the middle of a gigantic river complex surrounded by Grassland Corn and Cows, AI Agressiveness at minimum, no Barbarians etc etc etc...

How about starting on a small, isolated pure Tundra island with no freshwater on a Huge 5 billion map with 10 Agricultural and Scientific and Seafaring Civs all staring on big cow/river strewn islands, oh, and some raging Barbarians and AI Agressiveness set to maximum...

Yes, still 'winnable', but it's still offering you a completely different difficulty curve without changing levels...

To whit the point is, HoF fails mainly because it only sees one game option, to whit everyone just reloads until they have the optimum start, when, in reality, the small Tundra Island on Emperor is more 'interesting' for the concept of 'fame' than Grassland Cow River start number 4,798, regardless of leader moniker difficulty.

 

[Lanzelot]

Well, here we are on the same page. The HoF also isn't for me... Re-rolling (or even using a program that generates thousands of maps and checks them for enough cows) until you get the perfect starting conditions, is not my cup of tea. If I start a game, I finish it, even if it ends in a loss.
(But once I started a game, I still try to press the maximum out of the given start conditions by any means I have learned, including what you might call "cheese mechanics" or "roflstomp exploits"... BTW: what does "roflstomp" mean? Leo doesn't have it.)

 

[Buttercup]

BTW: what does "roflstomp" mean? Leo doesn't have it.)

It's a word to represent an image of a person who's just found an amazing exploit that enables them to auto-win everything, mainly originating from PvP tournaments where laughing at the loser is the privilege of the dominant winner. It's something that makes a game laughably easy, like modding in an axe of fire +10 at the beginning of an RPG so you can, laughing like a psycopath, roflstomp the Goblins. A combination of laughably easy and excessive force like a boot squashing an ant.

 

[templar_x]

great. this is the newbie questions thread. but i see buttercup on his old crusade... calling everyone obsessive who does not share his own obsession.
t_x

 

[Buttercup]

great. this is the newbie questions thread. but i see buttercup on his old crusade... calling everyone obsessive who does not share his own obsession.
t_x

Customise and control google chrome - find... - "obsessive" - 2 uses - templar_x and Buttercup quoting templar_x.

Try again...

 

[templar_x]

Controlling Google Chrome does not seem to be the correct solution then.

Try harder...