Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

The latest FAQ thread can be found here. This thread is now closed.

____________________________________

[color=sea-green]This thread will be maintained by me on a weekly (+ or - ) basis.[/color]

Last update December 19

Please post questions as new posts, when they have been answered I will add Q&A into the relevant section(s) and the posts will then be deleted to keep this thread from growing endless!

Play the World users: Please check the Multiplayer and PTW section for differences between Civ3 and PTW. The FAQ ALWAYS refers to Civ3 unless stated otherwise, differences are ONLY listen in the PTW section!!!!!


Post 1: General Questions

Post 2: General Gameplay Questions

Post 3: Military and unit-related Questions

Post 4: Town & production management Questions

Post 5: Strategy Questions
(very brief overview and links to important threads)

Post 6: Diplomacy and Trade Questions

Post 7: Multiplayer Questions - what's different in PTW? What's new?

Post 8: Scenario Questions

Post 9: Technical Questionshttp://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=298793&t=1327#post300417

Post 10: Science and science-related Questions

Post 11: Acronymshttp://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=298793&t=1327#post300417

Post 12: How to use Forum Featureshttp://www.civfanatics.net/showthread.php?s=&postid=298793&t=1327#post300417


General Questions:

What is the latest patch version and where can I get it?

• The latest patch is v1.29f. You can get it (as well as all old patches) at http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3patches.shtml
• The latest patch includes all fixes in previous patches.
• On Thursday, July18, patch to version 1.291f was released 1 day early!!!!!
• for PTW, the lates patch is 1.14f

How do I take screenshots?

• Use the capture-function of a graphics program
  or
• Hit the 'Prt Scrn' button on your keyboard. Then open a graphics program such as Paint (you can use the windows key, then go to Programs....Accesories...Paint, this way you don't need to exit the game), then you 'paste' and there's the screenshot! Remember to reduce the image size a bit, or crop it, and save the file as .JPG.
• There are also lots of screenshot programs you can download at download.com.

What does GOTM stand for?

• GOTM stands for Game of the Month. It's the most popular (casual) contest in the Civ community.
• You can learn more about it here.

Is there a newsgroup for Civilization III?

• Yes, the newsgroup is at alt.games.civ3

Where can I download Civ3 scenarios?

• No scenarios are available at this time because Firaxis hasn't released an editor capable of building scenarios. One is promised to be released soon, probably as a free(?) download.

Multiplayer Questions
Multiplayer will probably released in fall or winter with the expansion pack (Civ3 XP). Check here for more.




Thanx to all who have contributed to the old FAQ thread!!!!!!!
Meneer Popken
bulletsponge
Libertarian
and many others

As soon as I find time, I`ll give credit to everyone at the appropriate place.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

General Gameplay Questions

Read the hotkey reference in the civilopedia or manual and read readme.txt from the civilization 3 directory to access some options that can't be accessed through menus or icons, like Railroad-to (ctrl-shift-R), upgrade all (shift-U), view clean terrain (ctrl-shift-M), etc. The Civ3 Reference section also contains some excellent reference files.

here`s the very nice IDSmokersKeyboardSpread.zip
(zipped Word-doc) that lists all otpions for all units with the appropriate hot-key.
Thank you very much IDSmoker!!!!!


and here's Nethogs "1-pager Civ 3 Tech Tree & Unit Summary

I have created a tech tree for Civ 3 with all 4 ages shown on a single 8.5"x11" page. I have also created a 1-page detailed unit summary. Both are available as native office files or pdf files on my web site at
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/pmm1/games/games.html"

I have taken a civs last town - and they are still there on the F4 screen I cannot kill them, they will not talk to me and my empire goes down in war weariness. What can I do?????

• The civ may have restarted somewhere
• The civ may have a settler on a ship somewhere.
• Either sign alliances against them and hope they get killed once they land or simply give them a city, move troops towards it to get them to talk, make peace.

What is Accelerated Production?

• see Town and Production Management Questions for a detailed answer.
• Doubled growth, production, and research for everyone.
  Thanx, Bamspeedy

Why is the Ai so sucky?????

• To quote ****** [forgot the nick - sorry!!!!!) My point here is, that games AI are not AI: Artificial Intelligence. They don't think, react would be a more appropriate term. They evaluate the environment (i.e. the current state of the game) and react to it. The quality of a game AI is then directly proportional to how accurate the AI model evaluate the state of the game and what decision it is supposed to make for each criteria.

What advantages do the AIs get on each level?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37490

What are 'culturally linked starting positions'?

• It means that civs in the same game will tend to start near civs that share the same culture grouping as themselves. (I.e., the Germans start near the French, and so on)
  this is straight from Dan @ Firaxis, so you better check twice before you doubt it! Thanx Dan!

How many units can I build off one iron resource.

• Resources disappear randomly, don't hold back on building units, it won't make resources disappear faster or slower.
• You can also stockpile troops and then upgrade for a traded for luxury - it is the same how much you pay for the lux since the AI doesn't take into account how many units you can upgrade....

I have the necessary tech, but the strategic resources is nowhere to be found!

• press shift+Ctrl+m to show the map without all units, towns and improvements - this will help finding the resources.
• the frequency of the resources is dependent on the number of civilizations, so if you have only 1 opponent, do not be surprised if you see 90% of the map and can't find iron - it may well be that the two or three iron are all in the black 10%!
• sometimes, reloading the game helps - there seems to be a graphics / map update glitch
• sometimes, the resources are in the craziest places, e.g. all 5 coal on one 7 tile island. look hard!
• you can contact the other civs via F4 and see if they have the resource to sell (even if they only have 1 it will show as e.g. Coal (0)), so - if they know the tech - you'll know where to look.

I can't build railroads. Why?

• Your capital needs to have access to Coal and Iron strategic resources.
• Sometimes, the map display is buggy. Often, saving and reloading helps here.

I irrigated my grassland, and it's still producing only 2 food. Is this a bug?

• In a despotism, production that is 3 or more gets cut down by one point. So if you have 2 food on a square you get both of it. If you then irrigate you have 3, which gets cut down by one so in the end you have 2 food.
• squares withe extra food or floodplains (that never have production and cannot be mined) do not loose the bonus even in despotism

Is there a turn limit on the game, regardless of what victory conditions you chose?

• Games will always stop recording score at 2050, no matter what type of game you are playing, but you can still continue playing after that.
• If no one has won by the year 2050 then the winner is determined by the sum of your score at the end of each time period. So, if you ended the game with 200 points at the end of the first time period, 300 the next then 400 then 1000 you'd have a final score of 200+300+400+1000/4 = 475.

How do I view Top 5 cities, wonders of the world, etc?

• The keys F7 through F12 show such things, just like in Civ2.

Corruption is way too high.

• To reduce corruption don't make too many cities, the game keeps corruption lower when you have upto 8 cities on a tiny map and upto 32 cities on a huge map, other maps are in between.
• Try to get your cities in We Love the Ruler mode, do this by trading for all luxuries, or increasing the luxuries rate in the domestic advisor.
• Corruption is modifiable in version 1.21f of the game through the editor in new games only.

The AI always gangs up on me.

• Beat the AI to alliances, and get some Mutual Protection Pacts (MPP) for yourself.
• Use the Foreign Advisor screen to see which A.I.s have MPP.

How many Golden Ages can I have throughout the game?

• One, and it lasts 20 turns.

Is there any way to change the year the game ends?

• For this you'll need to use one of the player-created save game editors.

How do I stop the AI from building and finishing its spaceship?

• The way to stop the AI from building and finishing its spaceship is by capturing its capital. In the process of capturing the capital the spaceship is destroyed and the AI has to start over.
  thanx God

How many turns from 4000 BC until 2050 AD?

• 540
  Thanks MuddyOne

Everyone keeps telling me I can edit the rules - how does this work?

• here's a short tutorial - thanx sumthinelse
  Let's assume you want to edit the rules in a "regular" game. There is something more complicated called a "scenario," which gives you more options but is more difficult to start on.
  
  Befroe you start, make a copy of the file civ3mod.bic, name it whatever you like. This will be the file you modify.
  Start the editor:
  Infogames main menu->Civ 3->Civ3edit
  Load the filename you gave to the copy of civ3mod.bic. Do not change civ3mod.bic, just copies of it!!!
  For example, if you want a warrior to move 100 squares, go to
  Rules->Edit Rules->Units->warrior.
  Then change his moves from 1 to 100. Then you have to save the file.
  Then start your game. Choose "Start Scenario (since 1.21 there's no difference between a scenario and a normal game, except that for a scenario you can choose with .bic will be used). Choose the file you jsut edited.
  There are lots of other things you can change, but you always have to change the file and save it before you start a game.

What is "preserve Random Seed"?

• The game uses a random number generator to determine the outcome of battles or occurence of culture flips. With this option on, the number will be saved in the game, so you will get the same result when you reload. if it is off, you will get different results when reloading
• a more detailed explaination by sumthinelse - thanx!
  The default behavior of the game is like this:
  
  You save the game. Then your swordsman attacks a spearman and dies. You can reload the saved game 100,000 times and retry the combat, but the swordsman will always die. The reason is that the random number generated after you reload will always be the same, because it's in the saved game file.
  
  If you turn off "remember random seed":
  
  You can reload and retry the attack, and the random number will be recalculated. So if you retry the attack, the swordsman will win sometimes and lose sometimes. Sometimes the swordsman will win and have no damage, sometimes will have only one hit point left.
  
  So one way of looking at it is if you want to "cheat." I can turn that option on and off using a hex editor on the saved game (not civ3edit). This is useful if I want to test if something is possible or if something happens every time. If a veteran tank unit wins twice on the same turn, it always gets promoted to elite. You can test that by turning the random seed option off and attacking 2 warriors several times

Will I loose a lot of culture if I move my Palace or a city falls?

• NO! Culture you have aquired will not be lost. Only the gain from the improvements you lost will not be there.
• It does matter if a city is taken though because old buildings (>1000 years) give more culture. So rebuilding them will give you slower culture growth then before.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Military and Unit-related Questions

see nethogs units summary 1-pager:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/pmm1/games/games.html

My strong units keep losing to weak AI units - WHY?????

• check the combat calculator:
  http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3combatcalc.html
  
  this will show you that a HP difference or a fortification bonus goes a very long way in changing the outcome probailities.

How does combat work?

• Each battle is divided into rounds.
• In each round, a random generated number is used to determine which unit looses 1 hitpoint. The result depends on the A (attack) value of the attacking unit, the D (defence) value of the defender and on defence boni (river, terrain, fortification and so on).
• The fight ends when one unit is out of HP and dies (exception: fast units fighting slow units can sometimes withdraw!)

I keep sending Fighters on Air Superiority missions - but I see no effect. How does AS work?

• Here's a post from cracker that pretty much sums up all that you need to know:
• I have personally observed Air Superiority fighters engage and shoot down bombers that have been attacking nearby road squares as well as naval units in nearby coastal and sea squares. The air superiority umbrella does provide some minimal chance of protection to assets located near a city or near an aircraft carrier.
  
• I am still uncertain about how the intercept engagement probability functions.
  
• Considerable experience has so far shown that when you have multiple fighters assigned to air superiority missions you can get multiple interceptions, but it appears that only one fighter attempts to intercept each bomber even if there are 10 or 20 air superiority fighters present in the defense.
  
• My observations are:
  
  1) The interception probability setting effects whether the Air superiority fighter will engage the incoming attacker. If an attacker is incoming and the AS fighter looses the coin toss and does not choose to engage, then the turn is over for the AS fighter and none of the subsequent bombers will be interecpeted by that AS fighter. If you have additional fighter then you have a chance at interception. I cannot say for absolutely certain but it appears that when they loose the interception coin toss and decide not to engage than that takes them out of the process for the rest of the turn.
  
  2) if you have 5 AS fighters in a city, then they only have a chance of intercepting the first five attackers, after the AS fighters are used up by doing nothing or attempting an intercept then the target is naked and you can just bomb away.
  
  3) if you have multiple AS fighters in multiple cities that overlap and then the enemy bombs a target that falls within more than one AS zone, you still will only get one chance at interception. (I believe, so far). I have had this occur with two cities and an aircraft carrier all providing AS fighter cover over contested territory and still have never seen notably improved interception rates.
  
  4) I have never observed an AS engagement after the third or fourth incoming attacker sent over an AI city.
  
  5) bombers sometimes survive interception but stealth bombers never survive in they loose the coin toss and get intercepted.
  
  6) I have never had a recon or rebase mission intercepted, so I think those missions do not trigger the interceptors even when the mission point is very clearly in the expected intercept range.
  
  7) interception success rate is not improved by having the AS fighters based in a city with an airport. I guess they are just as effective when taking off from the median of the local expressway.
  
  8) interception success rate is not improved by the discovery of the technology "Radar" even though you would think that would be the key variable.
  
  9) the probability of interception has nothing to do with the experience level of the interceptor, but this can effect if the attacker is successfully shot down because the hit points can be used up more easily on regular air units compared to their elite counterparts.
  
  10) even when a bomber is not successfully shot down and survives interception, I think the experience must shake up the crew so badly that they forget to to drop their bombs.
  
  11) AS interceptors will not engage attackers that fly through their AS zone and attack targets on the other side. I have verified this by sitting a carrier next to city that I knew had three fighters stationed in it and then used the bombers on the carrier to bomb the crap out connecting rail lines that were outside of the AS zone surrounding the city. Never had a fighter engage the bombers flying by, but when I bombed near the city the fighters then tried an occasional intercept.
  thanx, cracker!

Why do capturable units sometimes get destroyed and sometimes captured?

• You can only capture units when you have the appropriate technology to build them.

Upgrading all my units is a pain in the ***!

• When on of your units is selected press shift-U instead of U and all the units of the same type that can be upgraded will be upgraded.
• Must be in cities with barracks, resources must be available, gold must be available.
• If you are upgrading naval units, the city must have a harbor.
• Iyf you are upgrading air units they must be in a city with an airport.

How do I cancel a bombardment?

• Right-click on the unit that you had selected. The bombardment grid will disappear.

I have a leader - now how to turn him into an army?

• Bring him to a city. Click the icon that says 'build Army' or press 'b'. You need to have 4 cities per army!
• You cna now load units into the army by putting them on the same square (any saquare, not necessarily city) and pressing 'l'

Is there an easy way to tell how many units are in an army? Especially when it's in a large stack?

• You can easily tell how many units are in an army at a glance, even if it's not YOUR army. Just look at the flag their leader is carrying. In ancient times, the number of "dots" on the flag corresponds to the number of units in the army. In more modern times, the flag has diagonal stripes going from the corners to the center. In this case, the number of stripes indicates how many units are in the army, so that with if a player has the Pentagon and fills up an army completely, the flag will have an 'X' on it.Thanx Lucky Dragon!

How do I unload armies or change units in an army?

• You can't unload, change, or upgrade units in an army once it's formed, in versions 1.07f, 1.16f, and 1.21f of the game. In version 1.17f you can unload units from an army by using the stack movement command, "J". Being able to unload units is a bug in version 1.17f.

How often do Great Leaders appear?

see sumthinelses excellent thread on Great Leader here

• When your elite unit won a battle, there is 1/16 chance to become a GL. Heroic Epic changes this to 1/12.
• Contrary to popular belives, having the militaristic trait only increases the promotion ratio to 1/12, not the chance for a leader.
• No GL will appear from fighting Barbarians, only against another civs units.
• No Gl will appear from wins with an army.
• You can only have a maximum of one GL at a time.
• There are reported bugs of getting more than one GL at a time and getting armies from goody huts.
• An elite unit that has produced a leader cannot produce another one. It can get promoted again and then produce a leader again if it is upgraded. thanx sunthinelse

Can blitz-capableunits creat leaders on their 2nd attack?

• Yes. They can also do that if they were just promoted in the first combat.
  thanx Mike B @Firaxis

My automated workers keep changing my irrigation and mines. How do I stop that?

• Press shift-A to automate them instead of A, this way they will
  - won't destroy any existing improvements
  - won't plant forests
  - will do things like forest/jungle cutting
  - will build irrigations, mines (not sure what's the decision factor but it works fairly well, as most of my major cities are around size 25-30)
  - will build roads, railroads, although often without any sense(IE, they will not build railroads between cities FIRST, but rather they will build rails around one city, then around another and so on). They will build roads and rails outside your borders as well, if cities aren't connected.
  - will clean pollution (it's their priority task)
  - will connect any resources to existing road/railroad network as soon as they are discovered and inside your borders(that's great IMO, you don't have to bother with map scanning)
  - will generally avoid contact with any enemy forces(if auto worker sees enemy unit they will turn back)
  - will change mines to irrigation if that is needed to bring water to otherwise dry area!!

How exactly do you "heal" your troops?

• Whenever a unit stands still for a hole Turn, he will heal. If he is in a city WITH the Barracks, he will heal completely, but if the troop is healing in the field he will heal one point. Your unit can't heal in enemy territory, without the Battlefield medicine.

How do I destroy an enemy Colony?

• You just walk over it with an unit. Or build a city near the enemy colony. When the culutral radius expands over the colony, it is dispersed.

How do I upgrade a unit / Why can't I upgrade?

• In order to upgrade:
  - the unit must be in a city with Barracks
  - you must have to required technology and resource(s)
  - the town with the unit must be connected to the resource!
  - you must have sufficient money
  - the unit must be upgradable (depends on the mod you might use)

What are the odds of promotions?

• Odds of promotion are based on whether the civ has the Militaristic trait or not and whether the victory was against barbarians or not. Basically, chances of promotion are halved for victories over Barbarians and doubled for Militaristic civs.
  
  non-militaristic civ vs. non-barbarians:
  conscript to regular: 1 in 2
  regular to veteran: 1 in 4
  veteran to elite: 1 in 8
  
  non-militaristic civ vs. barbarians:
  conscript to regular: 1 in 4
  regular to veteran: 1 in 8
  veteran to elite: 1 in 16
  
  militaristic civ vs. non-barbarians:
  conscript to regular: 1 in 1
  regular to veteran: 1 in 2
  veteran to elite: 1 in 4
  
  militaristic civ vs. barbarians:
  conscript to regular: 1 in 2
  regular to veteran: 1 in 4
  veteran to elite: 1 in 8
  
  If a victorious unit fails to get promoted, it will always be promoted upon surviving any other battle in the same turn . This gives an obvious advantage to defenders as well as an incentive to use the same offensive units for additional battles whenever possible.
  Thanx again Mike.B@Firaxis

How many units do i need to suprpess a culture flip?

• the full formula (this is from Sorenson, who is responsible for this programming):
  
  P=[(F+T)*Cc*H*(Cte/Cty) - G]/D
  
  where:
  P = probability that it will flip this turn
  F = # foreignors, with resistors counting double
  T = # working tiles under foreign control
  Cc = 2 if foreign civ has more local culture than you, 1 otherwise
  H = .5 for WLTKD, 2 for disorder, 1 otherwise
  Cte = Total culture of the foreign civ
  Cty = Total culture of your civ
  G = # garrison units
  D = factor based on relative distance to capitals
  
  Now reorganizing this gives the required garrison as:
  G = (F+T)*Cc*H*(Cte/Cty)
  
  As you can see there is a nice set of extra factors there. Now when you take a city Cc is likely to be 2 for a long while. And then there is the culture ratio. And this is a true ratio so it could be 1.1:1, 2:1, 5:1 depending on how much culture each of you has
  
  The national culture factor is probably the reason why some seem to have no problem with culture flips and others do. Since if you have strong national culture, this value might be approaching 1/2, which can keep the garrison down at a 1:1 ratio. However, if conversley the AI civ in question has double your culture, you are going to need 4 units for every foreignor and tile to prevent a flip.
  Thank you, etj4Eagle !!!

Razing cities lowers my reputation - but what about taking, then abandoning?

• Here's a little clarification from MikeB_Firaxis about this issue:
  
  quote:If you abandon a city that recently belonged to another civ, you get the same reputation as if you had razed the city when you captured it.
  
  Note that "recently belonged to another civ" refers to the civ who has the most citizens in the city. So if you raze a size 4 city from 3 of the citizens are Egyptian, it will affect your reputation as though you razed an Egyptian city. If you wait until 2 of those citizens are assimilated into your culture and only 1 Egyptian citizen remains, it will act like it is your own city and will not incur any diplomatic penalty.
  thanx TF for digging this up
  

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Town & Production Management Questions

Whqat is WLTKD / the fireworks over my city?

• Fireworks mean the city is in WLTKD
• WLTKD means 'We love the (King)'-day
• To have WLTKD in a city, the following must be true:
  * The city must have size of at least 6
  * The city cannot be shrinking (i.e., it must produce at least twice as much food as its size)
  * There cannot be any unhappy citizens or resistors.
  * The number of happy citizens must be equal to or greater than the number of content/specialist citizens (i.e. at least half of the citizens).
  
  So a sixe 6 city will be in WLTKD with 3 happy and 3 content/specialist citizens as long as it produces at least 12 food.
  Thanx, TheNiceOne!
• WLTKD gives lower corruption

Why doesn't my city grow past size 6 or 12?

• Cities either need access to a river or need an aqueduct (needs Construction) to grow beyond size 6. To grow beyond size 12 you need to invent Sanitation and build hospitals.

How much food and production does a city square give? And how do rivers and so on affect it?

• The center tile:
• Produces exactly two food for all terrain.
• Uses terrain shield production, but has a one-shield-minimum.
• Uses terrain commerce production. Includes road commerce bonus, if appicable to the terrain. Capital produces four commerce minimum (new to 1.21f, and subject to government penalty).
• If size 7+, produces one extra shield and one extra commerce.
• If size 13+, produces yet another shield and another commerce. On top of that, but only for this size, commercial civs produce an extra commerce, and Industrious produce an extra shield.
• Despotism/Anarchy tile penalty applies as for any other tile.
  
  this info from alexman on Apolyton - thanx, alexman
  
• since you cannot build mines on city squares or irrigate them it usually is not a good idea to settle on bonus or strategic resources.

How do I disband a city?

• There are two ways. The NEW way: Right click on a city and choose "Abandon City" from the menu (requires patch v1.21 or higher).
• The OLD way: Starve the city (by changing the citizens into entertainers) and keep producing workers or settlers.

What do the numbers and icons by my cities mean?

• The large number on the left shows the size of the city (red if the city is decreasing in size, yellow if it stays the same, white if it's growing
• The top number indicates how many turns are left before the city will grow.
• The bottom number indicates how many turns are left before the current building or unit is built.
• An anchor indicates there is a harbor in the city.
• An airplane indicates there is an an airport in the city.
• Black smoke means the city is in disorder.
• Fireworks mean the city has a We Love The [ruler] Day.

How do I get out of Mobilization economy?

• End a war to get out of it (any one will do), if you enabled it during peace time you will have to start a war to get out of it.

Why can't I build my wonder?

• You might be building it in another city already. You can only build one of the same wonder at a time.
• You rush-built your current building and you're trying to switch. To force people to build a wonder completely you can't do any type of rush-building, not paying for it, not clearing forests, not disbanding units, not even if you rush somehting and then try to switch.
• You don't have the required items yet, some wonders like SDI Defense require 5 Sam Sites in your cities.
• The Wonder might require access to fresh water (small lake or river) or sea water (costal squares) to be built.

How do I use the production queue?

• Shift-Click - Add to production queue.
• Shift-Q - Save production queue as default.
• Q - Load production queue with default.
• Shift-Del - Removes all items from the queue.
• Click-Del - Removes the item clicked.

How do I turn on/off the city governors?

• Rightclick on your city and select contact governer to change options.
  Carefull, they sometimes are buggy - perhaps you have to reload the game for the changes to come into effect!

Can I rush the production of a Wonder with an Army?

• No, only with a Leader, which is the unit you build armies with.

After I build a Solar Plant I notice no difference in Production.

• That's because you have another Power Plant that already produces 50% production. The positive thing with Solar Plant is that it doesn't produce any Pollution.

What does the small anchor just above the size-number and left of the city-name mean???

• It means the town has a harbor in it. This is displayed that way so you can also see it for foreign cities, since harbor play an important role in trade.

Does the city being filled with foreign citizens increase corruption? Should I try to water down the gene pool with my citizens?

• Cities with foreigners are more prone to corruption, but mainly because they generally are not as happy as cities with only your population. This is especially true if you are at war with their motherland.
• The gene pool automatically gets watered down through time, you can speed it up by adding settlers or workers to a city (if you use workers, make sure that they are ones you made, not captured ones...captured workers will add a population point of their original nationality). Over time, you will assimilate the foreigners into your population.

How do I keep the city from changing production to obsolete units when something is completed?

• Use the 'Always start last built unit' option from the prefrences menu. If you didn`t build a unit before, you`ll have to live with it.
  Also, use the production queue (see above).
• A nice way to quickly check all cities and change their production if you don´t like it is pressing 'z' to zoom out, then Shift-rightclick the city you want to change. A production list will pop up. This is way faster than using the normal F1 city list, but be carefull not to miss one!

My cities keep flipping to the AI - what can I do?

• Build more cultural buildings (Temples, Libraries etc.
• Keep more (a lot!!!) troops in the cities

What is Accelerated Production?

• What it does is double growth, production, and research for everyone. For example, at the start you only need 10 food to get another population point instead of 20, and only 5 shields to build a warrior instead of 10. This speeds up the game tremendously. However, it is a little off-balance since worker speed and unit movements are still the same. So even if you are industrious, your population grows alot faster than your workers can keep up with the terrain improvements.
  
• With accelerated production, if you play at chieftain, then the AI will be building/growing at the normal human's pace (without accelerated production, or what your used to playing in previous patches), but the human would be building/growing at a pace higher than Deity. Thanx, Bamspeedy (and thanx to TF for pointing this out to me)

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Strategy Questions

Check out the WAR ACADEMY - it teaches all you will ever need to know about waging war


Please check the Strategy Forum; here I will collect the most frequently asked Questions only!!!!!

I am pathetic - what do i have to do to win?

• Expand, expand, expand!
• Trade, trade, trade
• Be sure not to throw money out the window by researching expensive techs
• Be trustworthy (keep your deals) - makes trading alot better.

What can I do about corruption and waste? It is ridiculously high!

• see here for an excellent explanaiton of how it works and what you can do: corruption thread
  thanx for the analysis, alexman

The AI keeps attacking because I have a weak military - but they only have outdated units!

• the AI counts units pretty good since 1.29f. If your advisor says you are weak, they know they are stronger - and AIs are bullies....... build up your military!!!!!!
• surprisingly, some 'cheap' units proove very effective in combat if used correctly, e.g. longbowmen. Start thinking of hoards of longbowmen + Musketmen instead of the expensive Knights!

What can I do on higher levels to counter the AI advantages?

• try ICS (Infinite City Sprawl) - placing cities as close as possible to get a lot of production out of your land in the ancient ear.
• Early Wars!
• Do not try to do your own research, instead buy tech or extort them out of AIs

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Diplomacy and Trade Questions

How to establish embassies?

• Double click the star next to your own capital to establish embassies.

How do I access the advanced espionage missions?

• Click the pentagon next to the city you built the Intelligence Agency in. Once you have planted a spy use the Pentagon icon near the enemy city you infiltrated to execute missions.
  or
• once you have a spy you can press the e button on the right of the lower right hand box (where the active unit is viewed) and then select the civ you want to execute the mission in
  thanx, graeme the mad!

How do I change/stop trades after 20 turns?

• In the trading dialog click "Active" at the bottom of the screen to view active trades. If a trade is preceded by a number that means how many turns are still left. Press "New" to return to new trades.
• ROPs, MPPs, embargoes and Alliencesare a sort of trade cancelled the same way!!!!!!!!!

how do i see diplo-relation between several other civs?

• Hold down the shift key and click them all

How do I view the other 8 civs on the foreign advisor screen in a 16 player game?

• Shift-rightclick on a portait to change it to another civ. There still is a maximum of 8 portaits at any time

The AI always gangs up on me.

• Beat the AI to alliances, and get some Mutual Protection Pacts (MPP) for yourself.
• Use the Foreign Advisor screen to see which A.I.s have MPP.
• The AI can smell blood in the water - i.e. they think: Oh, he's at war with many so if i go in I can beat him easily!' Try to avoid that, getting allies will keep third parties out of the war, too, by detering them!

What does the yellow dot next to a leader mean in the foreign advisor screen?

• It means you have an embassy with that civ.

Why is the AI so reluctant to trade luxuries, even if I offer three for one?

• The AI values trades with the human based on the ratio set in the editor for the level. Supposedly, Regent is equal, but that isn't true: here, the level is set at 130%. So, to the AI an AI offer is worth 130% of the same thing offered by a human.
• The AI values luxuries according to the number of happy faces they generate. Thus, with marketplaces or more towns, a luxury is worth a lot more. Also, with Marketplaces, the more Luxuries you already have, the bigger your bonus. E.g.: you already have 7 lux, the AI has 1. An additionaly Lux for you is 4 happy faces per city with a Marketplace, for the AI it is worth only 1. Thus, the AI will ask for 4:1 if you ahve the same number of cities.
• The AI 'knows' if you can use the additional Luxury. If you have lots of cities in WLTKD at size 12 and Hospitals are more than 20 turns away, the AI will be more agreeable to Luxury trades since the additionla Luxuries will help you less than when you have riot everywhere. This can be used to buy 'useless' Luxuries and then just keep the trade going (which is easy since the AI will be in a better mood towards you because of the existing trade)
  Thanx TheNiceOne for detailing this

How do I call a UN vote?

• Not. There will be a vote (unless you decide not to have one) when you build the UN, then you will be asked again after a certain number of turns (20 I think).

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Multiplayer, PBEM and other Play the World Questions

Online games are extremely slow and crash all the time - what's wrong????

• lots is wrong, but Firaxis has promised to fix everything in the next patch that seems to be in beta atm.

What is the latest PTW patch?

• version 1.04f is the currently latest patch. Without it, too much doesn't work so you better download it

What is different from Civ3 in PTW?

• stack movement now come sin two versions: 'j' will move all active units in that square, 'Shift-j' will move all units in that square of the selected type (as 'j' does in Civ3!)
• for differences in units, see Nethogs excellent unit summary: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/pmm1/games/games.html
  Thanx again, nethog!
• In PTW, Expansionist civs can get cities from goody huts fairly frequently. (There are some rare circumstances where other civs can get a city from a goody hut -- as there were in Civ3.). thanx Mike B. FIRAXIS
• Worker are far more expensive to buy from the AI making it harder to cripple AIs by buying up their workforce in the early years.
• There are rumors that technologies are more expensive while the luxury deals are fairer.

Why can't I see the new buttons for workers?

• There's an option in the preferences called 'show advanced options' or so - turn it on!

How does Simultaneous move (Si-move) and Turnless move work?

• From Mike B FIRAXIS:
• In Si-Move, everyone moves at the same time but you have to wait until everyone moves before you can move again. The turn ends when all players have finished moving or when the turn timer completes. At that point, all upkeep and AI turns take place. Thus, you can potentially lose and re-capture a city on the same turn, depending on when you move your units.
  
• You can set a turn time limit for Si-Move, Turn-Based, and Turnless but it is optional . The turn timer is configurable (slow, normal, fast) but is based on the number of units and cities on the map (so you will get more time for your turn as the game progresses).
  
• Turnless is much closer to (though not quite) real-time. There are no turns. All players move at the same time. When a unit is moved, it cannot be moved again for a short period of time. Once a city is built, it begins to produce and performs upkeep every few seconds. Thus you will get cities producing at different times and units moving at different times.
  Thanx Mike!!!

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Scenario Questions

How can I assign starting location in the editor?

• open the file you want to change. in this example, i want to assign the jungle tile to Rome:
  
  
  
• right-click the tile:
  
  
• choose properties.
  
  
• check starting location, then click OK
  
  
• right click again, choose reassign
  
  
• choose the civ or random, then click OK
  
• done!

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Technical Questions

See also the Civ3 Technical Support Forum - This is not the thread to ask tech support questions....please follow this link to ask new questions. Thank you!


Miscellaneous game-doesn't-start-problems.

• Unload all programs running in the background by rightclicking and closing all the icons near the clock and use ctrl-alt-del to stop other unused programs.
• Update mother board, video card and/or sound card drivers.

I get a divide by zero error in the game.

• If you have over 255 fonts this can occur, reduce your fonts to less than 255.

The text in the game is exceptionally large and doesn't fit in dialog boxes.

• Try removing the Lucida Sans font from your windows\fonts directory.

The screen goes black or says Out of sync after the intro video.

• This is caused because you don't have the right driver installed for your monitor, find it and install it. If you're unable to do this you can find more difficult solutions on the problems forum.
  • 
    Scrolling is terribly slow and I'm using a NVidia video card and Windows 2000 or XP.
    • Either change your driver to the windows default one
      or
    • put hardware acceleration down to one notch from the lowest in the windows advanced display properties, however this will cause the next problem mentioned.
    The screen goes black after the splash screen and doesn't do anything anymore.
    • The intro video can't be played. Delete or rename the movie files, they are in your Civ3 directory below Art\Movies\
    The splash screen shows and the game stops or gives an error in ~DF394B.TMP
    . This is an error in the copy protection, try running the game with a different cdrom drive or remove the Safedisc copyprotection (this is illegal in USA and some other countries though). Contact Infogrames through their technical support and they can give you a legal copy of the .exe file without the Safedisc protect if you prove that you purchased the game.
    
    My foreign advisor shows too few enemy faces.
    . In your previous game you played with less enemies, a possible solution seems to be to delete the savegames from your previous game.
    . If you play with more than 7 enemies you have to shift-rightclick on faces to change to one of the others.
    
    I tried changing the resolution as written in the readme.txt, but it doesn't work?
    . You can put the line "KeepRes=1" in the Civilization3.ini file. and then change your desktop resolution.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Science and science-related questions

Does research get cheaper the more Civs know the tech in questions already?

• for the exact tech formula and a simpler, easier to remember approximation, go here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29485 thanx, mydisease, who spent countless hours on this!

People talk about using Scouts for science- what do they mean?

• If you are playing an expansionist civilization, you can enter goody huts at no risk of getting barbarians out of it, and with a high chance of finding atechnologies in them. So on large maps, you can simply crank out a few Scouts, send them on auto-explore (press 'e') and set research to zero. That way, you can easily accumulate enough money and get many of the ancient techs to be the absolute leader in tech and in culture once you get Monarchy or Republic - simply buy lots of Temples and Libraries with the money you earned! Or use it for military upgrades

People talk about using one scientist and minimum science - what do they mean?

• minimum science means researching at the lowest rate that will gte a tech. Usually, this is 10%.
• If a city is hopelessly corrupt, it will usually give 1 Gold and that's it. Turning a citizen into a scientist makes him give 1 beaker for science - regardless of corruption.
• Instead of setting 10% for min science, you can alos use a single entertainer for it.

Often, when i have 1 turn left to find a tech, I cans set the rate lower and get more money. Is this adviasable?

• Definately! Beakers that are NOT needed for the science you research get lost! So grab the bucks (but Do remember to turn science back up afterwards)

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Acronyms

Here's an alphabetical list of common abbreviations:

AFAIK - As far as I know
ADM or ADM values - Attack, Defence, Movement values of units
Bach - J. S. Bachs cathedral
CF - Culture Flipping - when a city changes allegience due to cultural superiority
FP - Forbidden Palace
GL - Great Leader
ICS - Infinite City Sprawl - building cities as close as possible
TGL - The Great Library
IW - Iron Works small Wonder
TOE- Theory of Evolution Wonder
US - Universal Suffrage
WLTKD or WLT D - 'We love the King'-Day celebration
WTH - What the F***

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

How to use Forum Features

How does all that and so on stuff work?[/b]

check this: [url]http://forums.civfanatics.com/misc.php?s=&action=bbcode[/url]


[b]How do I upload files to CFC via the Easy Upload feature?[/b]
[list][*]At the bottom of each page there is a link to the upload feature:

[img]http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/upload2.jpg

[*]clicking this will give you the following window:

simply click on 'browse' (where it says 'Durchsuchen' in the screenshot), find the file you want to upload on your PC. You can upload up to three files at a time. Allowed file types are:
[*]*.zip[*]*.jpg[*]*.sav[*]*.gif[*]*.txt[*]*.pcx[*]*.jpeg[*]*.ace[*]*.net

The file size limit for this easy upload is 3 MB. If your file is bigger than 3 MB, you can split it into smaller files. If a file with the same file name already exists, your file will be renamed. Example: If you want to upload a file call civ.jpeg and the file already exists, your file will be renamed to civ1.jpeg
[/list]

How do I link to uploaded files?

• simply type in your post: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/filename.ext

How can I post several pictures in one post?

You have to upload the pictures to the File Server via the easy upload feature. Then you have to place links to them into your post.

There are two different ways to do so:

If you use the 'Reply To' button or are posting a new thread, you can click the 'IMG' button over the messge window, then simply type: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/filename.ext into the pop-up window. note that the link will be placed at the end of all text you already typed, maybe you will have to cut and paste it to the proper location.

If you are using the Quick Reply window, you cannot access the 'IMG' button. Instead, type: [img#]http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/fielaname.ext[/#img]l
without the #s.
If you have several images, it is easier to copy and paste the line, then change the filename rather than typing it all out again and again.

 

[Amask]

Is there a limit of how many leaders you can get (not the maximum leaders you can have at a time). In the editor different civs have different number of names for leaders. Is the number of names also the number of leaders you can receive throughout the game?

 

[kring]

AFAIK, there is no limit to the number of leaders you can have during the game; I have cycled through the list in one game I played.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

no limit whatsoever. Most I've ever had was over 25 (I started counting after I rushed 5 wonders in two turns, so I don't remember exactly how many leaders I had before that, but I counted 27) - huge map, lotsa wars

 

[BrianL03]

Okay, whenever I try to play the Huge Earth map "scenario" included with the game, I always start out on the same position, I think in South America, right next to a barbarian encampment. Is there any way that I can just play on a random place on the map rather than always next to that encampment?

 

[kring]

You may to check and see if the map is set up to have Player 1 (which is the human player, in other words, us) start there. If so, then just change it a regular starting location.

 

[Evincar]

Hey Killer, I think the military advisor no longer thinks in sheer numbers, but in combined combat power, so you've got to change something in the #5

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Evincar: yes I have to. I was trying to do some tests, but got distracted and never finished...

 

[BrianL03]

Kring, I did as you said, the starting location isn't set for anyone at all. I'm playing Romans on Warlord (for some reason, I'm not able to even compete on a higher scale ^_^;; ), and loading the Earth (Huge) map that came with the game. I always start out just a few squares NW of the present day site of Buenos Aires (sp?), and from the looks of the map, there isn't a starting location there. I've tried playing it with both 7 enemies and 15, but to no avail... always the same spot.