Civ Assist newb

[bbrady413]

So I just downloaded Civ Assist II. I've never used a Civ utility like this before. It seems interesting with a lot of info!

The question is, how do I use it? I mean, I know how to open it and look at the data, but how do you all use it to help in your game play? What are the most useful and applicable things to examine?

Currently playing the COTM with India.

Thanks!

 

[tjs282]

Speaking personally, I like to have it pop up the extra 'Alerts' box on every round.

I have most of the alerts checked in the Alerts tab, but I especially like to know when cities are about to grow/have just grown (helps with Settler-pump management) or about to riot (if this is a long list, it's a reminder to bang the LUX% up a notch or two that turn!), and production overrun warnings (for last-turn micromanagement/ build reassignment if necessary to avoid wasting lots of shields). I also like to know when deals are about to expire (especially peace treaties!) and when someone has something to sell, or lots of cash to buy my stuff.

Mostly I have the 'Trade options' Tab open as default, switching into 'Current Trades' when I want a reminder of exactly what's going to run out, and consulting 'Diplomacy' to tell me when someone becomes willing to negotiate if I'm anxious to end a war ASAP (although the Alerts box can also be set to do this).

Other than that, I find the 'Map' tab very useful for planning core city-placement, especially for Vanilla/PtW, where RCP is extremely beneficial (read 'pretty much essential'!) -- and it can also be set to show which tiles have already been forest-chopped for the 10s. And the Technology tab can be useful for estimating how many turns it will take to complete a beeline at your current science output, e.g. for fine-tuning Wonder/Ship prebuilds (in conjunction with the 'Production' tab which shows turns to complete said prebuilds), but I tend not to consult those as much as I probably ought to.

 

[walletta]

All of the above but just one thing - what's this about 'tabs'? I always have the little alert box floating on the screen where it always gets in the way of something. Is there a way to make it all disappear and just click on tabs? That would be useful. When oh when will they put this game on the Mac platform (maybe it's already there &#8230?

 

[Lord AJ]

This annoyed me in the beginning too but here's what I did : I moved that box to the top right corner of the screen and I click the o after I've read the important things. Anyways its much easier to use the function keys to access the advisors and save and load (which for me are the most commonly used options in preferences) cam also be performed using hotkeys. The only thing that's left is the civilopedia which IMO doesn't have to be referred to often once you have played the game for some time- A week or so in my case. This should solve your problem, I hope. Btw I'd like to say that the creator did a wonderful job with this utility. It has really helped make micromanagement less tedious.

 

[tjs282]

All of the above but just one thing - what's this about 'tabs'? I always have the little alert box floating on the screen where it always gets in the way of something. Is there a way to make it all disappear and just click on tabs? That would be useful.

Sorry, 'tabs' was the wrong word really -- should have said 'buttons' (i.e. in the CivAssist main window). Like Atishay Jain says, clicking on the 'O' in the Alerts-box will make it disappear -- but you can always get it back by Alt-Tabbing through the 'open applications' back to CivAssist. You can also adjust the CivAssist 'Options' (button on the main CAII window) that control what pops up and when -- e.g. (and if you haven't already) you might want to tick 'Minimise [CAII windows] while game is running'

Not that I really have this problem when I play Civ3 on my laptop, because I use dual monitors -- Civ3 on the main monitor, laptop screen for CAII and note-taking. (Getting the laptop to use the external monitor as the primary monitor is a bit of a fiddle, which I have to re-do anytime I disconnect the laptop to use it elsewhere -- Spoiler'd below -- but it only takes a couple of minutes).

Spoiler :

1. Connect laptop to external monitor
2. Boot up WinXP (still using it on the laptop)
3. Use laptop's 'Fn' button (plus the F4 key, on our laptop) to cycle through the display-modes to 'external monitor only'
4. Right-click on the Windows Desktop to bring up Properties -- go to the 'Settings' tab
5. Ensure that the external monitor is set as 'Primary monitor' and 'Apply'
6. Restart Windows
7. Right-click on Windows Desktop to bring up Properties -- go to the 'Settings' tab
8. Select inactive 'secondary' monitor (i.e. will now be the laptop screen), check the box 'Extend desktop to this monitor', and 'Apply'

I want to get a 2nd external monitor so that I can do the dual-screen trick when I play Civ3 on my shiny new box as well. At the moment I have everything on a single screen, and yes it is a bit irritating having to keep shifting the Alert-box around so that it's not covering up the gamescreen (and/or Alt-Tabbing back and forth between CAII and Civ3). But until that happy day, another idea -- which just occurred to me -- might be to keep the Alert-box in the bottom-central space (it can be re-sized to fit), between the minimap and the 'current unit' window, either on top of or instead of the Worker-/ Unit-action buttons (I mostly use the Hotkeys anyway). If you want to keep them visible, the Civ3 buttons can actually be moved to the righthand(?) margin (I think 'Backspace' toggles between the 2 positions?); if you're not fussed about seeing them, but don't like overlaps, they can be hidden instead ('Delete' to toggle on/off?)

When oh when will they put this game on the Mac platform (maybe it's already there &#8230?

Civ3 Vanilla is certainly available for Mac (although from what I've read on here, it may be incompatible with the newest/-er MacOS version(s)/ plug-ins, at least without some tweaking -- see the Mac-help subforum), but Conquests is unlikely ever to be ported. Most Mac-users on CFC seem to be running C3C either in a Windows partition(??? Possible on Macs ???), or through some kind of Windows-emulator. But don't ask me how that works...

 

[Arjav Jain]

You can even set it in the preferences to show it after every turn i.e. When you press the O button, it disappears / hides until something new takes place or at the end of the turn it reappears.