C3X: EXE Mod including Bug Fixes, Stack Bombard, and Much More Release 25

[Ceithernach]

The AI can use airpower much more intelligently, but they still don't guard their bomber stack properly. Imagine a 20 bomber stack guarded 2 defenders in a border town.

I am feeling really called out here

 

[tjs282]

-the ability to designate some unit types as having zero support costs

This can already be done even in the basic Firaxis Editor.

-the ability to designate some unit types with higher support costs (e.g. 2 gold/turn, 10 gold/turn). There is an interaction here with "free unit support per city" that would have to be settled. I think the interaction should be that "free unit support per city" gets reinterpreted as "free support gold per city", and so may no longer fully cover expensive units
-the ability to designate some unit types as being limited in the total number of copies you can have built at one time

Pretty sure(?) that C3X already includes these functions.

I think it might also be possible to broadly/ crudely limit numbers of specific unit-types by giving them the 'Army' property (but the 'Offensive' strat rather than the 'Army' strat -- might need the QEditor for this?), zero transport capacity, and not necessarily any 'normal' Army abilities such as Blitz, Radar, etc. This should (theoretically!) limit the totals of all Army-flagged units according to the total number of towns you hold divided by the number of towns required per Army (set in the Editor, value must be >1).

unit promotion system:
-change the promotion chances for each promotion

-change the great leader chance and/or set the chance to be 0

These probabilities are hardcoded in the .exe, so would need to be patched in by C3X...

unit promotion system:
-remove some promotions (setting the chance to be 0)

...but this is also already programmable in the Firaxis Editor -- at least as applicable all units included in a .biq. IIRC it's under the 'General Settings' tab, using the "unit experience" box.

However, if you wanted different promotions available to different units, that would need to be patched in.

 

[Civinator]

That ### unit-promotion system in Civ 4 in my eyes started the decline of the civ series, as now the value of a unit can no longer be seen simply on the map by the graphics of that unit. It is wrong for an epic game with a scale of hundreds of years. There is no need for such a system in the epic game and there is nothing that can be achieved by promoting a unit in a Civ 4 style, that cannot be done by upgrading the unit to a new unit with its own graphics, avoiding the starting UI desaster. Additionally there is the thought: Why should the same kind of an infantry unit that is located in the same tile as another unit, that has a bonus in defending forests, not have learned from that unit under the same command how to defend a forest as well as that other unit during hundreds of years ??

And the next point is starting the information desaster in the civilopedia about units as it happened with Civ 4. In my eyes there is absolutely no need for such a chaos of information about the value of a unit as I demonstarted it some years ago by the example of the civilopedia information for a battleship in Civ 3 and in Civ 4. Here are two screenshots of the battleship Bismarck in the C3C mod CCM 2.50 and in the Civ 4 mod Realism Invictus:

CCM 2.50:

[

Civ 4:

Do you really think, the Civ 4 information about the battleship Bismarck in that Civ 4 mod is "a lot better at cleanly displaying game information and making it usable" ?

If such a feature would really be added to C3X, please let such a function disabled for the normal epic game.

 

[tjs282]

I was reading 'promotions' more in Civ3 terms of the ranks "Conscript - Reg - Vet - Elite"; sounded like @eg577 was asking if C3X could regulate how often units get up-ranked, and/or whether some ranks could be made unattainable to some units (e.g. "Cavalry can't get promoted to Elite").

I mean, if you want your units to get Civ4-type terrain-advantage (etc.) promotions, you might just as well play Civ4 (...oder?)

 

[Civinator]

I was reading 'promotions' more in Civ3 terms of the ranks "Conscript - Reg - Vet - Elite"; sounded like @eg577 was asking if C3X could regulate how often units get up-ranked, and/or whether some ranks could be made unattainable to some units (e.g. "Cavalry can't get promoted to Elite").

When I read the term unit promotion, I "see red" since Civ 4. What you mean is combat experience.

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

Civinator, your contempt for civ 4's wonky mechanics warms my cold heart.

 

[Civinator]

Civinator, your contempt for civ 4's wonky mechanics warms my cold heart.

 

[eg577]

I think it might also be possible to broadly/ crudely limit numbers of specific unit-types by giving them the 'Army' property (but the 'Offensive' strat rather than the 'Army' strat -- might need the QEditor for this?), zero transport capacity, and not necessarily any 'normal' Army abilities such as Blitz, Radar, etc. This should (theoretically!) limit the totals of all Army-flagged units according to the total number of towns you hold divided by the number of towns required per Army (set in the Editor, value must be >1).

That's a clever idea, I will have to test it.

Ok, I see I missed a lot of existing options. I'm de-rusting all my civ3 editing skills if you can't tell.

And yes, I only meant unit combat experience.

 

[Flintlock]

This is a delightful mod for civ3 and I'm impressed how much it expands modding possibilities. I'm designing a new custom mod which is primarily about creating different dynamics to combat & war. Would any of these be possible additions?

I'm glad you like it. These are all possible additions, it's just a question of how much work they'd require and what gets priority. For things like altering tile yields, I'd like to enable those changes through Lua rather than through the mod as it is right now. That's because right now the only way to configure those changes would be through the config INI, which is not flexible enough in my opinion. With Lua, the game could call out to a Lua script to get the yields for any given tile, which means you have maximum flexibility to write whatever rules you want affecting tile yields. Similarly for things like what buildings are kept on city capture.

-the ability to designate some unit types with higher support costs (e.g. 2 gold/turn, 10 gold/turn). There is an interaction here with "free unit support per city" that would have to be settled. I think the interaction should be that "free unit support per city" gets reinterpreted as "free support gold per city", and so may no longer fully cover expensive units
-the ability to designate some unit types as being limited in the total number of copies you can have built at one time

The first thing is already sort of possible in C3X, the catch is that the extra support cost must depend on each unit's shield cost. The config setting is named "extra_unit_maintenance_per_shields" and, for example, setting it to 100 means units that cost 100-199 shields cost double maintenance, 200-299 cost triple, and so on. The way it works under the hood is that more expensive units are counted 2, 3, etc. times for the purpose of maintenance so one unit's worth of free support from cities doesn't cancel them out completely. The problem with reinterpreting free city support as flat gold instead of number of units is that would be a big nerf to governments that charge 2+ gold per unit in maintenance.

That second thing is already in C3X with no catch. It's controlled by the config option called "unit_limits".

 

[MilsB]

Hello!
I have a problem with installing C3X 23 and C3X 24, in the sense that after I installed C3X 22, then C3X 23 and C3X 24 when I launched the game (C3C) the Continuous Bombardment (Stack bombing) did not appear... I viewed the C3C folder and, surprise C3X 22 was gone... I reinstalled C3X 22 but after that I can no longer install C3X 23 or C3X 24, receiving a message that "cannot find unmodded exe"!
The game is downloaded from GOG so... What's going on?

One more thing... if I execute the RUN command the game works very well from the start, if I launch the game (with C3X installed with the Install command) it takes some time until the game is smooth! Can something be done about this?

Thanks for the help!

 

[ajb]

Flintlock can provide a more detailed response -- but for a more immediate lay persons response:

• "Run" is temporarily running the EXE mod, your next instance of executing the Conquests EXE will result in base behaviors.
• "Install" will create a copy of the original conquest EXE and create a new conquest EXE which will run off of whatever EXE mod you most recently used.
  • There is no reason to "install" multiple versions of the EXE mod as once selecting "install" the updated Conquest.exe it will run off of that.

I suggest, simply use C3X 24, change the settings to what you like in the .ini and then select "install" wait until it says "mod successfully installed" or something similar and then play conquests like usual -- it will always be using the C3X 24 (save back up copies of the .ini file if you have several scenarios with different preferred settings).

Cheers

 

[Flintlock]

I have a problem with installing C3X 23 and C3X 24, in the sense that after I installed C3X 22, then C3X 23 and C3X 24 when I launched the game (C3C) the Continuous Bombardment (Stack bombing) did not appear... I viewed the C3C folder and, surprise C3X 22 was gone... I reinstalled C3X 22 but after that I can no longer install C3X 23 or C3X 24, receiving a message that "cannot find unmodded exe"!
The game is downloaded from GOG so... What's going on?

It's hard to say what's going on without knowing more about your setup. There's no reason why stack bombard should work in R22 but not later versions if they're properly installed. You can check which version of C3X you're running in-game by clicking the "C3X Info" button on the preferences screen, just in case you didn't know, that might be helpful somehow. When installing, the mod creates a backup of the original EXE named "Civ3Conquests-Unmodded.exe", and it looks for that when you install overtop of an existing C3X installation. Is that file there? If not, I don't know what could have happened to it.

One more thing... if I execute the RUN command the game works very well from the start, if I launch the game (with C3X installed with the Install command) it takes some time until the game is smooth! Can something be done about this?

Unfortunately not. This is a strange issue that's been around for years and used to affect me often. I haven't been able to figure out what causes it and don't even know where to start looking. In my case, it seems to have resolved itself at some point for some unknown reason. Hopefully you have the same luck.

 

[Predator145]

I'm not sure if I've asked this before but how does the AI assign value to a tech or a resource? I have the feeling that by creating more units and assigning them to a tech and having them require resources would inflate the cost of these techs and res.

But many of my units are merely there for flavor. Others are there to give me cheaper options to avoid shield waste. These units are weaker than their main game versions and the AI would never build them. Yet it seems they inflate the cost of techs and esp strategic resources. I can't seem to be ever be able to purchase any strat resources early to mid game with just gold because of this.

Right now we can perfume the AI's value on techs. Is there a way to do that with resources as well? Someone like me would greatly benefit from having the AI place less value on them to counter act the sheer number of units I've shoehorned into an epic game mod.

 

[MilsB]

Thank you very much, ajb and Flintlock, for the clarifications!
I'll check each step again and hope to find the error, I think I did something wrong during the installation... rushing ruins the job ...
Have a good day everyone!

 

[MilsB]

Thank you very much, ajb and Flintlock, for the clarifications!
I'll check each step again and hope to find the error, I think I did something wrong during the installation... rushing ruins the job ...
Have a good day everyone!

I came back with the result: For C3X 22 I didn't need to give it administrator rights, but for C3X 23 and C3X 24, I opened the Install file in Properties/Security/Edit, gave them Administrator rights and... it seems to have worked, they installed... the black MSDOS screen appeared for a second and that was it, without the successful installation message! Is this okay?
Regarding that Info C3X button... It shows me C3X 22...
Thank you once again for all the help!

 

[MilsB]

This is the message... The game is downloaded from GOG (I can show you my GOG account...) I installed C3X22, but C3X23 and 24... What... am I doing wrong or why is not working...

 

[Civinator]

MilsB, this problem you have with not identifying GOG v1.22 is all but new. Please have a look at this post:

Post in thread 'CCM3 Epic Mod'

Sep 19, 2025

As it seems you here still have a "very weak memory", I remember you that the moderators of CFC deleted a post of you and my reply about the source where you have downloaded Civ 3 Complete "for free". That site offers more than 170 partly still high prized games "for free" that never were give-aways at GOG - and this should give enough reason to reflect, if this is really the commercial site of GOG. Not every site, that has the letters gog in its name is GOG.

Your exe of Civ 3 Complete that you are still operating, is not recognized as a legal exe from GOG. You posted that problem some...

• Civinator

 

[MilsB]

MilsB, this problem you have with not identifying GOG v1.22 is all but new. Please have a look at this post:

Post in thread 'CCM3 Epic Mod'

Sep 19, 2025

As it seems you here still have a "very weak memory", I remember you that the moderators of CFC deleted a post of you and my reply about the source where you have downloaded Civ 3 Complete "for free". That site offers more than 170 partly still high prized games "for free" that never were give-aways at GOG - and this should give enough reason to reflect, if this is really the commercial site of GOG. Not every site, that has the letters gog in its name is GOG.

Your exe of Civ 3 Complete that you are still operating, is not recognized as a legal exe from GOG. You posted that problem some...

• Civinator

Below is the missing part of your message! It seems you are selected only a part of it.... Why did you do this? I don't know but its not right...

"Even if you now have bought Civ 3 Complete at the real GOG site (where it was in the last sales for 99 cents) it seems you are still operating the exe from that dubious site. No one but you can have a look what that exe from that dubious site really did with your pc, even if you now should have bought a version from the real GOG site. At least I would clean up all remants in the pc of that dubious version and not forget the virtual store if you are operating your pc with window versions including win 10.

So your posts are written very politly, this kind of always reappearing posts about always the same problem coming from playing with a very dubious exe, is annoying me extremely, as they have nothing to do with my mods and scenarios and the replies are consuming my precious time, that I can use better otherwise.

And to answer your new question: I use C3X v.23 without any problems."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And this is my answer:
"Civinator, I was open, I didn't hide the fact that I tried a game from a site that misled me, it can happen to anyone, I told the moderator that too! Of course I uninstalled that game but since then, I have these problems, with which I ended up annoying you, I'm sorry for that, I just wanted to find a solution!
By the way, I bought the game for 4.99 USD... that's how I found it on GOG!
You gave me a very good advice, I'm going to look for the artifacts from that crazy game and I hope they work after I reinstall the good game!
I also discovered three patches 1.22, 1.27 and 1.29 that were still installed in the WIN10 APP(!!!)... without the game being installed but I managed to get rid of those!
Thank you very much for your patience and advice, I hope I didn't upset you too much, but as I said I was just looking for a solution by asking you because I didn't know what else to do!
All the best, and good luck in completing the games you're working on!"

 

[MilsB]

Hi Flintlock, I'm going to clean my PC and then reinstall C3C and C3X. I hope it works!
I'll let you know if I succeeded, so that this topic can be closed. Anyway, it can remain as an indication for other users who are not very good at managing a computer or an operating program!
Thank you for your understanding, help and apologies if I bothered anyone!

 

[Civinator]

Below is the missing part of your message! It seems you are selected only a part of it.... Why did you do this? I don't know but its not right...

This is the way links to longer posts are working at CFC since some time. You have to click on it to expand it. I have nothing selected here and I think a value judgment of my post, while stating that you "don´t know" is not the best combination.