Civ3 game tools

[Sir_Lancelot]

It is made so many tools to Civ 3. Many of them seems to do the same thing. Please help me decide which is most useful for me?

I'm not into mods and special variants or rules. I play ordinary games only.

UTILITY PROGRAM LIBRARY. Some there to mention are:

Alternative Replay Viewer (by ainwood)

Calc for date-score things (by SirPleb)

Civ III Combat Calculator (by BomberEscort)

CRpSuite, playing aids & game analysis utils (by Dianthus)

Flip Calc (by anarres)

Trade Assist (by ainwood)


CivAssist II (by ainwood and some others) also seems good.


I'm not going to test all these, so I hope some of you can give me advice.
Which one will be best for my situation? Maybe it's not even on this list? Thanks

 

[Bartleby]

Of the ones on your list, I have used CRpSuite (can't live without it, MapStat is invaluable in-game and the Viewer is great for reviewing saves), CivAssist II (I find this most handy for tracking culture in games, but it does much more), and SirPleb's ScoreCalc (only useful if you're a Milker). One you didn't have on you list, but really changed the face of Civ for me, is Mapfinder by Moonsinger & Dianthus (it automatically restarts the game to find good starts; if you don't mind map-rigging, this is perfect).

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

What means "milker"?

 

[Ginger_Ale]

"To milk" a game means to play the game out to 2050, the last turn of the game, trying to gain as high of a score as possible by irrigating everything, growing your cities' population, and gaining lots of territory (just under the domination limit of 66% of the world). It's a popular tactic among the people playing the Hall of Fame games here at CFC.

 

[Furiey]

I use CRPsuite (MapStat is the general game utility in this suite) or CivAssist II (TradeAssist is the old version of CivAssist) a lot, both are utilites for running during a game and are excellent even just to save you time finding information (eg: who has what to trade). Best to try both, then decide which one you prefer.

The others are more for specific circumstances:

I used anarres FlipCalc before CRPsuite and CivAssist gave enough flipping information for general purposes, but only tend to use it now if I want to juggle a city individually.

Bomber Escorts combat calculator is useful, there's also a very simple on-site one here

If you're looking specifically at the probability of capturing cities, there's Offa's city capture simulator.

If you want to look at the micromanagement for a city, Offa has also posted a spreadsheet (Excel) for that. I have my own of these and continue to use that as I know what I've done in it, but Offa's is much tidier for someone else to use.

GreyFox's Techcalc can be useful for calculating research times.

Sir Pleb's turn/date/score thing is useful just to work out how many turns you've played and have lost track - useful for succession game logs.

Those are the one's I've ended up using, but CivAssist or MapStat are a good place to start and give so much information that you may not need some of the others anymore.

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

Thanks.

I don't care about the score. But for them who does, isn't it a huge bonus for winning early?

Also, I do not have Excel or any Office programmes.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Map Finder is great for hall of fame games, or games where you want to play a specific victory condition or variant. And I highly recommend the HOF games. My first deity victory (and only one to date) was a HOF space race game. I'm last on that board, but I have a deity victory!

 

[gmaharriet]

I use both the MapStat in Dianthus' CrpSuite and Ainwood's CivAssistII. Both programs give very similar information, but in VERY different formats, so I choose which one to use in different circumstances.

I find the MapStat info faster and easier to read, so it's the one I use most while playing. CivAssistII actually provides more info and tools, but it's harder to find what I'm looking for, so I use it for detailed specific info...especially for determining the world seed number and other game details. They're both great utilities.

I also use Moonsinger's MapFinder, just because I want at least a river in my starts and I hate jungles and marshes. This can be done by hand using "New Game" over and over, but MapStat does it automatically overnight while you're sleeping, saving only those maps that meet your requirements. The next day, there are many maps saved to choose from, ALL of which meet your basic requirements.

 

[TimBentley]

I don't care about the score. But for them who does, isn't it a huge bonus for winning early?

Yes, but milkers can get higher scores from population and territory milking out to 2050 than winning quickly. For example, the top 4 sid scores are from milking and the next 6 are from quick victories on tiny maps.

 

[Tomoyo]

I don't care about the score. But for them who does, isn't it a huge bonus for winning early?

There is a limited bonus for winning early (I believe it is 6,000 times a number depending on your difficulty level - 1 for chieftain, 2 for warlord, etc., and that is assuming you win at 4000BC), so some people want to get a higher score than what you would get from just an early victory.

EDIT: Cross-posted.

 

[The 777 Hoax]

CivAssist II is amazing. I recommend it.

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

world seed number

I have maybe read about that somewhere, but now I can't recall what it is.

Help?

 

[gmaharriet]

I have maybe read about that somewhere, but now I can't recall what it is.

Help?

Random maps are created using a "world seed" number between 00000001 and 99999999 and applying your settings for difficulty, map size, wetness, etc. You can re-create the same map in "New Game" if you know that 8-digit number and keep MOST of the settings the same.

For instance, you generate a map you really like at Monarch level, but decide you've improved enough to play it at Emperor. If you extract all the Monarch game settings, fill them in as before, but change the level to Emperor, you'll get the same game at a higher level.

You can do the same with a map generated for, say, the Iroquois and want to change the civ to the Celts at the same level. The important thing is to be able to extract the old settings that you want to keep. You can't change from continents to pangea, and you can't exchange a sea-faring civ for one that's not sea-faring.

CivAssist will extract all the specifics about the seed #, difficulty, opponents, barb settings, etc.

 

[Desertsnow]

Where can I get this MapStat thingy?

 

[gmaharriet]

Where can I get this MapStat thingy?

Here's a link to the last page of the thread for MapStat (page 35 of 35 ). I think the most current download is on the first page, but it's been revised and improved so many times that you probably won't want to read ALL 35 pages. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=52902&page=35

It's called CrpSuite and consists of several smaller utilities, of which MapStat is just one, and it's the only part I use. Some of the other utilities do things like help with Ring City Placement for vanilla and PTW. MapStat notifies you when a city will go into disorder the next turn, shows what the AI has available for trade in techs and lux, shows flip risks, and so much more.

 

[Bartleby]

Yes, but milkers can get higher scores from population and territory milking out to 2050 than winning quickly. For example, the top 4 sid scores are from milking and the next 6 are from quick victories on tiny maps.

To be more exact, on a large or huge map, you will be able to get a higher score by milking than by fast-finishing, while one a small or tiny map there isn't really enough territory to be able to do this. On a standard map, well, that's a difficult question to answer.

@Sir_Lancelot: If you think milking sounds boring, lemme tell you it most certainly is.

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

Some of the other utilities do things like help with Ring City Placement for vanilla and PTW.

What tool does that? It would save me much time.

 

[Bartleby]

CRpRings is part of CRpSuite, that'll do the Ring City Placement for you.

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

I can start using these utilities in the middle of an ongoing game?

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Of course!

You can just download these utilities, run them, and open your current save in them to get all the info they provide. I know both MapStat and CivAssist II load the newest autosave when you are playing a game, so the information will update automatically as you play a game.