First time player here (help!)

[mr.idontknow]

hey folks, just a few quick questions,

how can I see through the fog of war? because I know there must be a war going on but I never see any of it, I just had a game (on easiest) and you'd think by 2040 you'd be able to use a satellite to look at what thier up to.

am I supposed to build as much farms and mines as possible? do I fill up every square?

also, what's up with the limit of turns? I feel like I'm being rushed to do something, is there a way to play after the year 2050? because believe it or not I made it to the end without doing nothing but building up my empire and as it turns out it was all for nothing, kinda sucks.

that's it for now i appreciate it.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

how can I see through the fog of war? because I know there must be a war going on but I never see any of it, I just had a game (on easiest) and you'd think by 2040 you'd be able to use a satellite to look at what thier up to.

Don't think there's any way to negate FoW without having direct Line of Sight to the squares in question. IIRC, there's a tech (wonder?) in the Modern Age that reveals the whole map, but I don't know if it does away with FoW.

am I supposed to build as much farms and mines as possible? do I fill up every square?

Any tile that can be worked should have a (Rail)Road and a Farm or Mine.

also, what's up with the limit of turns? I feel like I'm being rushed to do something, is there a way to play after the year 2050? because believe it or not I made it to the end without doing nothing but building up my empire and as it turns out it was all for nothing, kinda sucks.

Er, you can keep playing after getting to the end - the game askes if you want to quit or keep playing. You just don't get any score recorded after 2050. However, if you're having problems with the time limit, you can extend the length of the game in the game options before you start - the standard game length is 540 turns, but it can be set to a max of 1000 turns.

 

[Ataxerxes]

hey folks, just a few quick questions,

how can I see through the fog of war? because I know there must be a war going on but I never see any of it, I just had a game (on easiest) and you'd think by 2040 you'd be able to use a satellite to look at what thier up to.

am I supposed to build as much farms and mines as possible? do I fill up every square?

also, what's up with the limit of turns? I feel like I'm being rushed to do something, is there a way to play after the year 2050? because believe it or not I made it to the end without doing nothing but building up my empire and as it turns out it was all for nothing, kinda sucks.

that's it for now i appreciate it.

Welcome to the forums!

The Tech Satellites reveals the world to you but that still won't show you the war. Long before 2040 you should have explored most of the world and met everybody no matter the map size so just go to the diplomacy advisor. If you click on the leader the red line will show you who he's at war with. In order to see the battles, you have to have line of sight.

As ChaosArbiter said, (rail)road and put a mine or farm on every square you are working. If you are working a bunch of unimproved squares you need more workers.

If you're bumping into the time limit, it sounds like you're either underexpanding or don't have enough workers. A couple of very basic questions, sorry if they're too basic - did you switch out of Despotism and are you trading with the AI's (any that are left, telling you how I play). If you would like advice, you can post a screenshot and save and people will be happy to advise you. However, too few workers and underexpansion are the classic new player problems.

Edit: If you check "Accelerated Production" when you start the game you build and research twice as fast. That would also help to give you enough time.

 

[marioh]

Regarding other civ wars, you would need to open an embassy with another civ to see their status with other civs (whether they're at war or peace with other civs, military alliances, MPP, ROP).

So let's say you want to find out if the Chinese are at war with the Japanese. You would need to open an embassy with either civ to see their diplomatic relations with other civs. So if you open an embassy with the Chinese, you will see if they are at war with not only Japan, but their status with all the other known civs.

Since you are a new player, i highly recommend the Civ3 War Academy:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy

There's quite a bit of information in there, but it will answer many of your questions (and some you didn't even think of yet) and should really help you with the learning curve of the game.

cheers !

 

[MysteryX]

Improve every square possible with road and mine or irrigation.

However, early in the game, you need to prioritize since you can't improve everything at once.

It doesn't do much good to improve more squares than you can have your town population working. If your town has 3 population, it is only working three squares, so you only need those three squares improved. (Of course, you may want to already be working on the 4th square in anticipation that population expanding to 4.)

There are benefits from having all of your towns connected by roads, such as faster unit movement between your towns, and sharing of resources between all your towns. So making sure all your towns are connected by roads should usually be a priority.

You have to balance between mining and irrigation based on what you want to do with your cities. You need to produce enough food to have your desired population. If you want the town to be producing something, the more shields the better. Though there is a limit to the number of shields you might need as well: If your city is has 5 shields of production, it will created a 20-shield unit in 4 turns; increasing the city production from 5 to 6 shields does not speed this up, it still takes 4 turns and the extra shields are wasted.

As to the turn limits, as you go up to the harder difficulty levels, you'll find victory conditions can be achieved quicker and quicker.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

Improve every square possible with road and mine or irrigation.

However, early in the game, you need to prioritize since you can't improve everything at once.

It doesn't do much good to improve more squares than you can have your town population working.

It doesn't do any good to improve tiles not being worked by your population in towns. My priority scheme is a balance(maybe slightly in favor of pop) of irrigation/mining your core cities and connectivity of all cities and resources. When your cities max out in population go back and max them out for mining. In my leisure I will optimize science and settler farms, and get dual access to all my towns/resources(to help with those pesky bombings.)


how can I see through the fog of war? because I know there must be a war going on but I never see any of it, I just had a game (on easiest) and you'd think by 2040 you'd be able to use a satellite to look at what thier up to.

I recently channeled a war between two AIs so that it happened in my territory, very entertaining and I think the AIs went at each other longer than in wars not visible. The only visibility of AI wars not in view is the F3 (unit summary screen?) If you have the Intelligence Agency and Spies in the warring nations it will tell you the current number of units so you can watch the turn to turn results.

 

[Raliuven]

It doesn't do any good to improve tiles not being worked by your population in towns. My priority scheme is a balance(maybe slightly in favor of pop) of irrigation/mining your core cities and connectivity of all cities and resources. When your cities max out in population go back and max them out for mining. In my leisure I will optimize science and settler farms, and get dual access to all my towns/resources(to help with those pesky bombings.)

This is misleading. In my world, improving a tile can mean roading it, or upgrading the land (mine/irrigation). Some may feel that these terms are distinct and different.

There are many reasons to improve a tile that is not being worked. MysteryX named a few. Roading a tile that you cannot work and may never work may still have value. You may also road your way out of your empire for faster delivery of troops or settlers to an area. It may also connect a luxury via a colony if you just can't pull it into your radius yet (note: colonies are not the best way of securing a resource, but they are necessary and useful on occassion).

In addition, you may improve a tile that is not currently being worked in anticipation that it will be worked by a citizen in the near future. The closer you can time the improvement to the citizen's work, the better. Planning ahead is important. Your empire is most productive when everyone is working on an improved tile.

Waste and corruption will impact the decisions on what to improve and when, but so will phyiscal barriers - crossing back and forth across a stream before engineering, etc.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Never automate workers, never let the governor manage your cities, always road worked tiles, and always work the best tiles.

 

[GamezRule]

Always work the best tiles to maximize their needs.

 

[The Professor]

Once you have researched Espionage and planted a spy with a nation, you have the option to "Steal War Plans." This isn't cheap, but it does allow you to see where all of a particular country's military is located. But as Marioh stated, if you just want to know which nations are at war, you just need to open an embassy with everyone.