Some question for Civilization III

[shadowdefender]

Hello folks,
i have certain queries regarding Civilization III conquest game, few questions to name them, without clearing these things out i can't think of playing another CIV III game, like i have more cities compared to my opponent 7cities in total ,when i check the Histograph, i see my POWER is more, SCORE is somewhat equal, CULTURE is very weak compared to my opponent , i couldn't understand the victory status, also i have WEALTH selected in my que for all the cities and DOMESTIC ADVISOR shows the treasury is running low, what do i do to increase the treasury and win the game.
Without these things being cleared i don't know how to continue this game.
Please can someone suggest me something, please do not answer things not related to the questions its, just a waste of time and bandwith.

Any suggestion regarding the specific question is greatly welcomed.
The pictures are attached in a rar file, please see it.

 

[vmxa]

First is not a good idea to ask for help and then tell everyone what you don't want. It puts people off I would suspect.

Second a save is what would be useful to determine what is needed.

Third what is the level of the game as it impacts how things progress.

In the main, you do not want to be making wealth in any decent town. By decent I mean not totally corrupt. Income is increased when citizens are working tiles with a road. A river and other bonus items on a tile add gold, if worked.

The key is to get workers and improve all worked tiles asap. Check on each town to see that citizens are working on the best tiles. Often the gov will put a citizen on a tile that is not optimal.

The treasury will be depleted when towns build things they cannot supprt. When empires build units they do not use and cannot support. IOW build troops that are need or will be put to use.

Do not make lots of spears to sit in towns that will never be attack. Do not make lots of attackers, unless you are going to attack. Make enough attackers to deter the AI from attacking you.

What is normally done (wronly) is to build every structure that they can as soon as they can. This will usually cripple you, especially when you do not have workers getting tiles improved.

I would expect that you have too many towns that have temples and barracks and other things that they do not need or at least not right now. Libs in towns that have only 1 or 2 need beakers.
Happy structures, when the citizens are already content, without some of them.

C3C is really a conquest game. It can be played otherwise, but taking down your neighbor quickly is the fastest way to get control of things. You want to always be expanding. Once all free land is taken, you have to take form others.

 

[bigFRANK]

So you have more culture than your rivals but a bankrupt economy, time to sell some temples/coleseums/cathederals etc as they cost a lot to maintain. Also you need to improve the land around your towns to generate more coins and shields (which on wealth are turned into coins). Feudalism has a higher corruption level than some other forms of government it may be worth switching. That’s all that’s obvious from the screen grabs but things like markets and banks should improve your income if you’ve not already built them.

 

[shadowdefender]

Thank you for replying to my post, i never understood this game, and i really needed one game i could spend some time with. CIV III seemed perfect, but playing without knowing is only battle half won, i really wanted to understand the game, people love it so much , and i can't even understand to get the feel for it.
I'll definitely work on what you said and see how much i will cover. Will keep it posted.

vmxa i worked on the suggestion you provided and i noticed this time i got the Domestic Advisor screen again (For Treasury running low)but the duration at which the message it poped was substantially later.
I uploaded the save file for CIV III conquest and please see where i am making a mistake and where i need to work on it. Which area i need to work.

bigFRANK i will work on your suggestion as well. Any other suggestion would be great....

 

[anyoldguy]

I opened the "Rome Treasury Low.SAV" that you provided, and I think a big problem is that you have too many units.

In Civ 3, when a unit is built, it requires gold every turn as "upkeep" (this represents food, clothing, shelter, salaries, etc). Almost all governments will allow you not to pay this upkeep for some of your units based on how many towns, cities, or metropolises you have. Each town/city/metropolis will contribute a certain number of upkeep points to your military, effectively letting you pay upkeep by having more cities.

For example, your Roman empire is run under the government "feudalism." Feudalism gives you 5 upkeep points per town (a town has ≤6 population), 2 upkeep points per city (a city has 6—12 population), and 1 per metropolis (a metropolis has ≥13 population). This means that for every town you have, you will not need to pay income for 5 units, and for every city you have, you will not need to pay income for 2 units. You seem to have a great deal of cities and very few towns, so you should consider switching to a different government that would give you more support from each city. Additionally, feudalism forces you to pay 3 gold per turn to support each unit, while the other governments only need 1 or 2 gold per turn as support payments.

I'd also build more cities, that way your number of "free" units will be larger. Finally, you don't need that many units in each city. I generally leave 2 units at the most in each of my cities (unless I need more for the purposes of war). Those other units you have could be disbanded or sent out to explore and claim more territory.

I saw some great advice on the parts of vmxa and bigFRANK; take theirs into consideration as well

 

[CommandoBob]

Thank you for replying to my post, i never understood this game, and i really needed one game i could spend some time with.

Well, there are a lot of thinigs going on at any one time in the game and it easy to get overwhelmed by what is going on.

Generally, in order to win the game, regardless of your Victory Conditions, you have to be willing to beat up on your neighbors. And that means making sure your military is up to snuff, with veteran units and that you have more offensive land units than defensive ones, say roughly 2 offensive units for every defensive unit.

Your military is compared to the AI's military based on your attack factors of your units (x.x.x = Attack.Defense.Movement). If the AI sees you as weak they start to lean on you and demand gold and tech. Even when you are strong to them they will pester you with their stupid demands, but then you can safely ignore them (usually).

You also need a good supply of workers, at least one worker for every two cities. Ideally it will be one for each city. Workers help you connect your cities, connect luxuries and resources and build roads to your enemies, so that you can fight them easier and faster. Not having enough workers is a very common problem.

The trick with workers, especially early in the game, is to make sure that the tile they improve is being worked by a city. It doesn't do you any good to mine a bonus grassland, which raises it to making 2 shields per turn, if that tile is not being used by a city. You have just wasted worker turns and before 1000 BC or so that is not a good thing to do.

You make want to read and follow some of the Succession Games. These games are played by several people, each one who plays about 10 turns and then passes the game along to the next player. The players discuss things like the next tech to research, what government to use, who to fight next and things like that. This is a good way to see how the game is played and incorporate some of what they do into your own games.

Having said all this, one last word:




Welcome to the Forum!

 

[bigFRANK]

I opened the "Rome Treasury Low.SAV" that you provided, and I think a big problem is that you have too many units.

In Civ 3, when a unit is built, it requires gold every turn as "upkeep" (this represents food, clothing, shelter, salaries, etc). Almost all governments will allow you not to pay this upkeep for some of your units based on how many towns, cities, or metropolises you have. Each town/city/metropolis will contribute a certain number of upkeep points to your military, effectively letting you pay upkeep by having more cities.

I haven’t had chance to open up your saves yet but from what’s suggested here Fascism is probably your way forward (I know most folks don’t like it), mega military support, lower corruption, best military policing, no war weariness, doubles worker efficiency and still allows you to rush things along with the whip (instead of gold that you don’t have).

Mind if in 1792 you where still 8 or more turns away from Metallurgy there’s a chance you don’t yet have Nationalism and can't therefore find out about Fascism.... I should stop typing and open a save.

 

[Jivilov]

C3C is really a conquest game. It can be played otherwise, but taking down your neighbor quickly is the fastest way to get control of things. You want to always be expanding. Once all free land is taken, you have to take form others.

Quite right. That's the bottom line. To expand you must have a good military, and to have a good military you gotta have a good infrastructure. To have a good infrastructure you gotta have workers and know how to use them. That's the primary advantage humans have over the AI, especially at higher levels (Emperor +).

P.S. Disclaimer: I've never beaten the AI higher than Emperor, but there's plenty of people who have. Check out the "Stories and Tales" section (a tip of the hat to CommandoBob).

 

[bigFRANK]

Right I’ve had chance to open up your 1804 save and played it into the 1960’s; It wasn’t looking very good when I opened it, negative gold, still in the middle ages, luxuries and resources in short supply, still hadn’t met your neighbor and you where heading for a sure points defeat if you didn’t get rolled over before.

What I have done;
Explored – I used your ancient cavs for this, found and killed lots of barbarians and earned gold by doing this. I also found furs and horses whilst doing this so they where soon hooked up.
Settled – whenever possible I have cranked settlers out and have filled up most of your island, much better to have 50 cities all contributing a bit than the 7 cities you had.
Workers – 4 workers was never enough much of your land mass wasn’t productive, I have racked out workers and done my best to make all land useful.
Troops – You had way more than you could support and no gold to upgrade so I have culled most of your troops and only replaced them unit support has allowed.
Governance – Feudalism was costing you dearly with too many units supported by to few towns I switched out, your best bet for scientific research whilst maintaining an income was in a Republic. Republic has also allowed me to cash rush settlers in the first few turns.
Science – you seemed to have no target but where overspending whilst under achieving in science, with more cities producing more money and more population I have advanced into the Industrial age but I would have loved to have been able to spend more on science to reduce research turns.
Japan – I met with Japan shortly after making my first costal town and sending out galleys; we traded maps which cost me gold but from this I spied luxuries (wine, silk, spices and dyes) all of which I have built cities on, this has made the majority of my cities content without needing entertainers or money spending on entertainment.
Trade – not wanting the Japanese to attack us I have gone through several multi turn deals with them to keep them sweet, there is no doubt that in the 1830’s when we first met they had a significant production advantage. I bought gems from the Japanese and sold them furs along with technology transfers too.
Future – I am about finished with researching replaceable parts assuming I have rubber (I haven’t had saltpeter or coal so far (so lady luck should surely smile on me)) that will be a game changer in that I can build infantry (at this time Im working with Knights and a few Medieval Infantry). Otherwise my next research has to be nationalism for rifles. But the plan is to launch an offensive on the Japanese to take saltpeter (and allow my knights to upgrade) and with the other prong as more of a diversion. I can’t afford a long war so will sue for peace after 5 turns regardless of outcome (will even give the Japanese gold to end it) but right now I have 28units loaded in boats ready to go just as soon as I know about defending units for the town I will seed on the Saltpeter.

UPDATE
I invaded whilst playing the game last night, connected up the rubber I found in the jungle, took the town with SP (raised it and planted a settler so I could cash rush a barracks & a harbour), my knights took a beating from some Japanese Cavalry but held firm enough to get me to the next round. With some guerillas already landed and infantry on the way I landed on the other coast to deny horses, I was threatened with a counter attack by a few crusaders but killed these with knights and took the town and held it. Back at my first invasion site my knights now turned into cavalry I struck south capturing a town defended by just 2 spearmen. From the south now I opened up a third front with my little town that had been planted to take spices the 3 knights that had been upgraded to cavalry overran the neighboring town with no losses. Next I planted a town close to Kyoto to take gems for my empire as this didn’t get counter attacked I used the cavalry that was supporting this operation to hop over the mountains and attack and capture Kyoto. I then sued for peace, no cost either way.

I can now take Infantry and Cavalry battalions across the sea, land them in preparation for the elimination win in the new millennium, the Japanese are still ahead on points but the come back is all but complete and a late round knockout is on the cards.

I will post some screen shots possibly tomorrow.

 

[shadowdefender]

Thank you to all those who replied , i now know how to play this game, and my treasury is running solid and production of units at only specific time was vital to my understanding. Researching and building wonders also played a vital part in uncovering new or hidden resource in the continent or within city radius, having resources within your city radius added to happiness and production of new units. I understand that now, however thier are still few things i need to know like, is it really necessary to build Temple or Colleseum in every new city since it has already been build in the first capital city, although they would produce 3 content faces in every city who builds one. So building the same things on every new city would make it more effective and efficient or happy or is it different or waist of turn and shields.
Also please see this snapshot and can any one tell me is it alright,
The commerce part where the coins are in red colour, what does it mean, is it something.


Also i want to ask is, do you have many AI(4-5 AI) when you start to play a new game, i prefer having only 1 AI, that gives me ample time to scout and build city in place of your choosing, Building city is tough and building means giving thought to equal number of cities present. Having 1 AI is sufficient playing against 4-5 is too much tension and waiting for your turn.
Also which is the best CIV game you like, i have CIV III Gold Edition and Conquest and CIV IV and i don't like CIV IV that much, just want to know your likes and dislikes.

 

[anyoldguy]

Coliseums are both fairly expensive buildings to build and maintain in every city. Temples are useful for expanding your borders, and they allow for the construction of a cathedral, which is a really helpful improvement in keeping the people content in larger cities. I would advise against a coliseum in every city, but if some of them still aren't happy even with temples, cathedrals, and luxuries, then a coliseum might be a good idea.

The red shields and coins represent waste and corruption, respectively. What this means is that even though your city is gathering 7 total shields and 21 total coins from its surrounding terrain, 2 of those shields and 7 of those coins are not actually making their way into your production box or your income. This is mostly due to your city's distance from your capital, although other factors do play a role. You can read more about corruption here.

As for AI, I say to play with however many AI you like. If you prefer 1 AI to 5 AI, go ahead and play against 1! If you want to get more familiar with the game, though, I'd recommend playing with the default number of AI. It's your choice, though. Nobody says you have to play Civ a certain way

 

[Puppeteer]

Yes, the red items show what's lost to corruption and waste. The non-red ones show non-wasted/non-corrupted production after multipliers (which I note because I occasionally want to compare two cities' base production or to figure how advantageous another multiplier building will be). The capital city has no corruption or waste, but every other city has corruption and waste based mainly on its rank (nth-closest to capital) and distance from capital (or Forbidden Palace, whichever is closer), but there are a lot of other components affecting waste and corruption.

I usually play on a standard map against 7 AI's at Emperor level. The race to grow strong and manipulating the AI to work to my advantage are big elements of the game to me.

Are you automating your workers? San Francisco appears to be only about 33% corrupt and should be pulling in another 4 shields per turn (3 after waste) at its current size and growing. Irrigate those plains! And/or irrigate the flood plains and leverage the food by mining some plains.

And why are you still in Despotism in 1984 AD? In that screenshot--with tile improvements and citizen assignments as-is--you're missing out on 4 food per turn from the flood plains and sugar plain and two gold per turn from the ivory tile and sugar plain. Because in Despotism any tile that produces 3 or more of food, shields or gold produces one less.

 

[anyoldguy]

And why are you still in Despotism in 1984 AD?

I lol'd

 

[Puppeteer]

i prefer having only 1 AI

That reminded me of something I did a while back, a huge map with one opponent as a tongue-in-cheek response to the huge crowded map stories going on at the time.

That was actually 2005, and the posted game save files were apparently gone with a server crash a few years ago, but I was able to find the backup copies, put them online and updated their links in the thread.

I also started replaying the game from 4000BC through 1000BC which is as far as I made it in 2005 before wandering away. This time I stopped to pause at 1200 BC because something rather unexpected started happening in 1375 BC.

 

[shadowdefender]

This is another of the save file, i have 18 cities and in the year 2047 and only 3 turns left, i accidently deleted the other save file with more turns. After the game ended i noticed the AI had only 6 cities and i lost to him. I want to know is: their already were corruption in few of my cities and i did have courthouse and police station built on the way , temple was thier , Granary etc, please open the save file and please can anyone point what wrong i am doing, i had enough gold and the Researching part was fairly well, i was advance and powerful and wealthy in every way than the AI and yet i lost to him, and the game always ends at 2050 AD, is thier not a way to increase this to 3050 or 4050 AD.
What part of this do i need to understand more. Pheeew,,, i could play this game like no other, but some fundamental things i am not able to understand.
Can anyone suggest something specific.

The first image is of my own city where their is more corruption and the other is after performing an espionage of the rival AI. May be i should read more on corruption, its really crippling and Victory Condition and Culture.

 

[wuhjah]

You don't have a corruption problem. You have a growth problem.
Compare the irrigated tiles and the food in both pics. Don't you see your opponent has irrigated
so much more. As a result, Seoul has 13 people working to your 6 (with another 4 as entertainers.) Six workers cannot compete with thirteen.

Probably, instead of worrying too much about "corruption" as lost money, you could spend more time worrying about growth and keeping the people happy.

As well, I've never had 20,000 gold in all my life. It gets spent.

 

[Lanzelot]

Can anyone suggest something specific.

Well...

First of all: you lost because your opponent over the total of 6050 years (4000 BC to 2050 AD) accumulated more points than you:
Persia: 435 points
Netherlands: 322 points
(in the 2047 AD save)

And your opponent has more points, because he has more population (Persia 63% world population, Netherlands 36%) and more territory (Persia 38%, Netherlands 21%).

The question is: why did this happen?
The answer is: you need to work on the basics. Don't worry about advanced stuff like corruption at the moment. Your game has seriously gone wrong already 6000 years ago. Just consider:

• This is Chieftain, where the human player has a 100% bonus over the AI: if you need 20 food units for growing a town from size 1 to 2, the AI needs 40 food units! Where you need 60 blue shields to build a granary, the AI needs 120 shields! A technology that costs you 200 gold coins, will cost the AI 400 coins! Etc. etc.
• You had a very powerful start location: 4 cows, 2 wheat and lots of floodplain in the first ring!
• Now it is 2047 AD, and you are still in the Industrial Age, you have only 10 workers, you built no irrigations and nearly no mines, and no railroad yet! (All of these improvements increase your growth and production.) You know only about one third of the world map, still have ancient age and medieval age military units, nearly no marketplaces and you have lots of entertainers, who are not contributing to income and production...
• For 2047 AD this is a sad sight... I would say, with concentrated play, this start position can be won before 10 AD.

So what to do? Back to the basics! Build more workers and settlers early on and of course read Cracker's excellent introductory course on worker management:
Improving Your Opening Play Skills

It will probably take you several evenings to read (and understand!) all this, but afterwards your Civ3 skill level will be increased by a factor of 10!
Remember: the most important phase of the game is the first 40 to 50 turns. Either you get on an exponential growth rate during that time, or you don't. (In which case the game will be stagnant for possibly thousands of years, which is what apparently happened in your Netherlands game?!)

After the game ended i noticed the AI had only 6 cities and i lost to him.

This is not true: if you watch the replay at the end of the game (after 2050 AD), you will see that Persia had 43 cities compared to your 18 cities.

 

[shadowdefender]

Well...

The question is: why did this happen?
The answer is: you need to work on the basics. Don't worry about advanced stuff like corruption at the moment. Your game has seriously gone wrong already 6000 years ago. Just consider:

• This is Chieftain, where the human player has a 100% bonus over the AI: if you need 20 food units for growing a town from size 1 to 2, the AI needs 40 food units! Where you need 60 blue shields to build a granary, the AI needs 120 shields! A technology that costs you 200 gold coins, will cost the AI 400 coins! Etc. etc.
• You had a very powerful start location: 4 cows, 2 wheat and lots of floodplain in the first ring!
• Now it is 2047 AD, and you are still in the Industrial Age, you have only 10 workers, you built no irrigations and nearly no mines, and no railroad yet! (All of these improvements increase your growth and production.) You know only about one third of the world map, still have ancient age and medieval age military units, nearly no marketplaces and you have lots of entertainers, who are not contributing to income and production...
• For 2047 AD this is a sad sight... I would say, with concentrated play, this start position can be won before 10 AD.

So what to do? Back to the basics! Build more workers and settlers early on and of course read Cracker's excellent introductory course on worker management:

This is not true: if you watch the replay at the end of the game (after 2050 AD), you will see that Persia had 43 cities compared to your 18 cities.

I knew this game was something, it really is comprehensive, everything effecting in every small way, contibuting to something functional and productive, its nothing like Rise of Nation, Age of Empires or any freeform games i have ever played, but as of now, i enjoyed it thoroughly ( i mean CIV III game ), it really needs some fundamental understanding. OK ,,,, i will read every aspect of this Improving Your Opening Play Skills article and see where i missed where.
But i want to know is their no way of extending or ending the game beyond 2050 say 3050 or 4050 AD. ???

I'll double bet, Civ game is not famous or likeable for average joe's or first timers.
My bro had bought a CIV III Gold Edition box once but gave it to me, thinking i would be able to understand, and i too had the same problem so after a couple of years, he threw the game box on garbage bin saying its useless, luckily then i had made a backup copy of Gold edition , but i also have conquest edition. Now i am really engrossed in this game, i like it. But still lots to cover before fully understanding its basics.
Will holler back.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

I also enjoy the comprehensive nature of the game. To succeed you need to :
research, trade, war (or at least deter), maintian happiness, explore, build improvements, improve your land and perhaps even develop some culture.

I improved my playing when I started considering how I wanted to win. If I wanted a bloody conquest or domination, I want to ignore mkost culture, aim for a rapid research to cavalry, make barracks in the productive core cities. Simialr for domination, but using culture buildings to expand cultural borders to control more alnd is s vaibel strategy. If planning a spaceship victory, a strong industrial base and rapid research/tech trading stratey works. For diplomatic victrory, you ned to wipe out rivals early, before other AI's get to kmeet them and then mainatina frieedly relations. Cultrueal vioctory has a completely different style also!

 

[Lanzelot]

But i want to know is their no way of extending or ending the game beyond 2050 say 3050 or 4050 AD. ???

Yes there is: open the Editor, roll a new map ("Map -> Generate Map"), save it, and then go into the "Scenario Properties" section of that map. Here you can change lots of things, including the number of turns.


After you have saved the biq file again, you can start a game from it by going to "Civ Content" instead of "New Game" and selecting your biq file in the next screen.