Buttercup's Guide to Palace Building for Civilisation 3 Complete

[Buttercup]

Right, because I've seen you mention this in previous threads, I had been looking out for it. However, I never got the upgrade, but after this post I went back and started a quick game, but choosing the Zulu, because of the quick Impi for fast Barbarian hunting, and, low and behold, I got an upgrade for my first Barbarian Camp destroyed.

I sat there open mouthed for a few seconds and then it struck me. Perhaps it's a trait thing. The Zulu are Militaristic/Expansionist. So I started a quick game as the English, Commercial/Seafaring... and I got no upgrade for defeating my first Barbarian Camp.

So I'll add it to the list, but I do believe at this point that it only affects either Militaristic or Expansionist traits, I shall look into this this evening.

For all my previous tests none of my chosen civs had either of these traits - Persians, Carthaginians, Iroquois, to name the ones that immediately spring to my memory.

And this does raise some new avenues for investigation - trait affected upgrades.

Edit: Germany gets an upgrade, Russia does not, so it's just the Militaristic trait - do you always play with Militaristic tribes Kirejara?

 

[Kirejara]

Edit: Germany gets an upgrade, Russia does not, so it's just the Militaristic trait - do you always play with Militaristic tribes Kirejara?

No, I play mostly, but not exclusivly with Byzantines, Ottomans, Greek, Iroquois, Spanish, Russian, Korean, Japanese, Carthagian (all with unaltered traits).

So my focus is more or less on scientific and seafaring.

But I must admit, that I have not looked out for palace upgrades happening with all of them.

 

[Buttercup]

Added a new one. Like having all 8 Luxuries, you also get an upgrade for having all 8 resources - though this does, of course, require that you go all the way to the Modern Age...

 

[Buttercup]

I've started 2 games as Zululand today and neither has given me an upgrade for taking the first Barbarian Hut. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this... *holds up hands*

 

[Lanzelot]

Perhaps it's got something to do with the UU? If your UU takes out a barb camp for the first time, you get a palace upgrade?!

 

[Kirejara]

Perhaps it's got something to do with the UU? If your UU takes out a barb camp for the first time, you get a palace upgrade?

I do not think so. Most of the time my first barbarian camp is taken out by my standard of the shelf Warrior, Archer or Spearman, depending of who was scouting.

I am not even sure I have ever taken out my first barbarian camp with a UU.

 

[tjs282]

I've started 2 games as Zululand today and neither has given me an upgrade for taking the first Barbarian Hut. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this... *holds up hands*

Could the upgrade actually be a secondary result of you acquiring the standard 25g prize for destroying a barb-camp—if that 25g pushed your treasury over, say, 100g for the first time?

Or maybe the upgrade is actually for e.g. 'first successful barb-kill on offence', rather than 'first barb-camp destroyed'? Or maybe 'first promotion'—if your unit got promoted?

 

[Buttercup]

Could the upgrade actually be a secondary result of you acquiring the standard 25g prize for destroying a barb-camp—if that 25g pushed your treasury over, say, 100g for the first time?

Or maybe the upgrade is actually for e.g. 'first successful barb-kill on offence', rather than 'first barb-camp destroyed'? Or maybe 'first promotion'—if your unit got promoted?

None of the above I'm afraid. I'm quite well into the game atm with 15 upgrades and the only one that's still foxing me is the one on completion of a random Wonder, late Medieval era. I've noted down every single thing that changed between turns and I'm still at a loss about it, but feel the notes will eventually bare fruit. I haven't had anything for mass happiness either, the Capital's happiness is correct, I managed to intentionally trigger it, but I couldn't trigger any mass happiness upgrades. All other 14 upgrades have been completely by the book, there are no avenues for any of the things you mention, though I have found a few things to tweak in the OP later.

 

[Quintillus]

Maybe the barbarian camp one is if you destroy the first barbarian camp that anyone has destroyed? I could see that happening disproportionately with the Zulus, as well as perhaps with certain playstyles, but it would be compatible with it not always happening the first time the Zulu destroy a barbarian camp (maybe someone else did first that game).

You could probably test this by modifying conquests.biq to be in debug mode... though you'd have to un-read-only it first, and advisably make a backup.

Interesting that map size doesn't seem to have any effect. Though not altogether surprising as it would require extra coding to account for it if it did.

No, I don't have the seed from 4000 b.c., sorry. I tend to use one save for each game I play to reduce the amount of saved files I have. I have the current game, and that is it.

tjs282 does have a good point that it's possible to get the seed from any save game, which I hadn't remembered. So if it's not too much to ask, I'd be interested in that as well, even if it's just posting a save so someone else can find the seed. Despite the lack of iron, I'd still take all those cows!

 

[tjs282]

Maybe the barbarian camp one is if you destroy the first barbarian camp that anyone has destroyed? I could see that happening disproportionately with the Zulus, as well as perhaps with certain playstyles, but it would be compatible with it not always happening the first time the Zulu destroy a barbarian camp (maybe someone else did first that game).

To go barb-hunting as quickly as possible, the Aztecs or the Inca are probably an even better bet than the Zulu. Both those Civs can immediately build all-terrain A=1,M=2 units without needing to research any additional techs. Plus, Jags are cheaper than Impis; and the Inca always start with a ChasquiScout, regardless of who's playing them. So if either of them are in the game -- but especially the Aztecs, and especially at any levels where the AICivs start with (multiple) extra A/D units -- they'll almost certainly get a barb-camp kill before the Zulus do.

 

[Buttercup]

Quite a lot of changes to the OP today, with two new upgrades added, but two of my speculative ones removed.

Firstly, I built 5 Wonders in two cities and got an upgrade both times, but not in the third city where I built 5 Wonders. The Wonders can include the Forbidden Palace so may include Small Wonders. It could be a Capital +1 other city thing, or it might be any two cities, I'll have to check for that at some point.

Secondly, I discovered that my speculative "hook-up a Luxury or Resource" was most likely "attain a monopoly of a Luxury" as I conclusively discovered that having all the available examples of one single luxury in your trade window gives you an upgrade. I don't know if it's the same for Resources or not, or if it is it's classed as a separate upgrade. So I've changed a probably wrong speculative entry with a definite. Only works with your first Luxury monopoly.

Thirdly, I've removed the "Happiness in the wider empire" entry. Until I find conclusive proof I shall ignore this as I think it's likely that my 'mystery' upgrades which I assign to this are more likely the Luxury monopoly or the Random Wonder thing (see below).

Fourthly, The Random Wonder thing is now my most unknown upgrade, and I'm now wondering if it relates to trait-favoured Wonders for which the player has already had their Golden Age. My recent examples are:

Persians - Sistine Chapel
Zulu - Magellan's
Carthaginians - Leonardo's
Can't remember - Newton's (possibly unrelated, it was quite early in my testing)

Do any of these traits and Wonders match-up to this theory? Can someone link me to the info on trait-favoured Wonders?

 

[agonistes]

BC, you can open the editor and see which wonders have traits flagged. Look under "Improvements" if you haven't used the editor before.

 

[Buttercup]

Two more upgrades added today.

You do indeed get an upgrade for having your first complete monopoly of a Resource, same as with a Luxury.

Surprisingly, you get an upgrade for trading out a Luxury to another civ for the first time. Quite an odd one this, you don't get an upgrade for receiving your first traded Lux from another civ, but you get one for trading one out. You don't get an upgrade for trading a Resource out for the first time.

Thanks for the info on the editor.

 

[timerover51]

Buttercup, that is a very impressive amount of effort you have put in. I too an "Pro-Palace" and like the upgrades. I wonder if they would hold true for the Play the World scenarios that I work with, along with the basic version of the game. I might have to start taking notes on this. This would be a good back-up means of measuring student achievement next year in the computer game for my historical gaming class.

Also, have you ever played around with mixing Palace architecture types?

 

[Buttercup]

I don't have PTW or vanilla so I can't test those, but thanks for volunteering

I think I've got pretty much all the hard definites nailed down now and I can set my watch by nearly all of them. The only areas I'm still at a loss with are the occasional singular unexplained upgrade, which it seems to be probable to get once per game, where you can pinpoint the cause by careful use of last-turn saves, but then the exact same perameters don't work in the next game, some good examples being the Barbarian Huts, random Wonders, trading out a Luxury etc.

The only other area for unsurity would be very late game, as it's actually very difficult to get to end-game without a full Palace, so things like Space Parts, Future Technology, 15 or 20 Wonders, Nukes etc haven't been tested. Likewise I haven't tested every single option in the Espionage/Investigate etc options, but the usual actions here did nothing so I lacked motivation to try them all.

But just doing the usual everyday game routines, the list is pretty much defacto and would be indeed be very useful. I have mixed my Palaces a few times, but I normally just stick with their regular sets

 

[Buttercup]

I had a google today, to see if it's been picked up that this thread answers most of the questions on this topic.

When you type in "Civilisation 3 Palace"... it automatically gives you 4 options:

civilization 3 palace
civilization 3 palace improvements
civilization 3 palace upgrades
civilization 3 palace expansion

And I've checked the first 3 pages of results for each and this thread is nowhere to be seen. However, my earlier, randomly conversational but generally pointless thread "what's the aim of the Palace feature" does get first result attention.

So what's going on here? Is it just a bad thread title? Is it something to do with tags? Is someone behind the scenes actually wanting to keep this info secret? Is it a matter for paranoia or is it a matter of minor technical quirk?

I thought google was actually quite good at finding you the most relevant article for your subject? At least it normally is when I search for stuff...?

 

[walletta]

It would be truly awesome if someone were actually trying to keep info about palace upgrades a secret.

 

[wuhjah]

I found you by typing Civilisation 3 palace, but not by typing Civilization 3 palace. Also maybe Walleta's post pushing it to 20 replies made it competitive with other threads about the palace. Who knows?

 

[Buttercup]

It would be truly awesome if someone were actually trying to keep info about palace upgrades a secret.

I know, right, LOL.

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I found you by typing Civilisation 3 palace, but not by typing Civilization 3 palace. Also maybe Walleta's post pushing it to 20 replies made it competitive with other threads about the palace. Who knows?

Yes, I'm now getting it with both Civilization 3 palace upgrades and Civilisation 3 palace upgrades but nothing else.

It's so weird.

Civilization, civilisation, civilization, civilisation, civilization, civilisation,civilization, civilisation,civilization, civilisation,civilization, civilisation,civilization, civilisation, there, maybe that will help as well

 

[tjs282]

Just FYI. This was the first page of my search results: