Frequently Asked Questions

[theobaldus]

Couple of questions:

1. Can I entirly switch off to watch my enemies movment (sometimes takes up to two minutes without animation!)?

2.Is there a way to upragde units without them all jumping out of fortification?

 

[Huanie]

Hi,

So I know CIV 3 has all these cool animations, like workers shoveling and stuff...I can't seem to be able to turn off the worker animation while my other units move...it's annoying because for example, my calvary would move 1 step and pause for a half a second for it to update the current worker movement, then respond to my other commands after that...I've tried Ctrl-P to bring up preferences, and fiddled around with animation, but there doesn't seem to be any "NO UNIT ANIMATION" button. Maybe I just didn't look hard enuf then ;-)

Thanks.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

You can't turn off unit animations, but you can hold the shift key to speed them up.

 

[WUM]

Yes, there is.

before you start a game, don´t choose 'start new game' or 'load game' but choose preferences or whatever it´s called. You can select whether you want to see enemy-animations, automated units-animation and/or your own units-animations.

However it´s not possible to select something so you don´t have to watch all the stupid movements of AI in far away-territory...

 

[OneInTen]

Another bug I've noticed is that for civilizations that have a special unit, it's not possible to upgrade your existing troops to this unit.

For example, France has Musketeers, which are improved Musket Men. Normally it's possible to upgrade pikemen to musket men, however the French can not upgrade their pikemen to musket men (although the can build new musket men).

One the French gain the ability to build rifle men, they can upgrade the pikemen to rifle men, bypassing their special unit.

This bug is quite annoying as it actually makes having a special unit a disadvantage in many circumstances!

 

[firebead]

Regarding the possibility of Great Leader (GL) appearence:
The factors known so far:
When your elite unit won a battle, there is 1/16 chance to become a GL;
If Heroic small wonder exist, then 1/12.
Does a "militaristic" civ improve that ratio? In civpedia, it says will increase the chance producing a GL, but no quantative #.
Does the battle against barbarian produce GL, or only against another civ?
Does the difficulty level affects the chance of getting a GL?
Is the a Max # of GL you can get each game? Map size/city # matters?

I am playing a game using Chinese (militaristic) @ Emperor level; by 1000AD, I had only 3 GLs though I constantly at war with other civs.

I hope someone can eventually clear all the myths around the GL.

By the way, I think using GL to create an army is a waste of skin, unless it's allowed to unload the units later or at least allow upgrades.

 

[joespaniel]

It almost guaranteed no GL will appear from fighting Barbarians, only another civs units.

A victorious army is a necessary requirement to build some wonders, so a GL is needed to create that first army, and so on. If thats in your plans.

I also am interested to know if a militaristic civ has a better chance, or worse, to get GLs from elite unit victories. Its probably the same though.

 

[SRN]

How do i transport my rescources from one continent to another? I just captured a Zulu city to get rubber, but the only oil i got is on another island.

 

[WUM]

build an harbor in cities on both continents/island. Be sure there is a seeroute which you can safely cross.

 

[SRN]

How do i figure out how long a city can stay close to another civs culturel unfluence. As i said before i have captured two citys quickly, but they are both completely surrounded by enemy culture.

 

[Muzexia]

I'm surprised there has been an explanation of the numbers found at cities, yet no explanation of the numbers on units. Care to explain?

 

[magnifico]

Playing as the romans on cheiftan I ran into this problem:

Around the time I started producing Infantry like a mad man, before I discovered Transports, I was unable to create a vessel that could transport my men to protect a colony on another continent.

I had Frigates, Privateers, and Galleys. Is this a black hole? I wish it never made my simple Trirermes(?) obsolete.. I had to keep sending Galleys to the colony and disband them for shields to speed up their own production.

Eventhough, with 3 units of Infantry in a walled city, the Chinese were able to beat them out and Raze the city in 3 rounds with Knights.

 

[Sirigor82]

I had CIV II and I knew everything in that game... I was practically a veteran, but either I don'tunderstand something in CIV III or it just works differently here. My Q is: How excatly do marketplaces, libraries and similar improvements that are supposed to increase commerce, sci or productivity by 50% work?
It seems quite unclear to me. In CIV II I was able to calculate everything, but here it is very ambigious, bcecause it doesn't follow the formula. Please clarify this for me. Thanks!

 

[flatlander22]

Hey,

I just bought CivIII last night, and already am I not impressed. Apart from the fact that I can't play online and all the little bugs, I seem to be having a little trouble with my sound. I'm not 100% sure if the music is supposed to be like this, but it plays like the CD is skipping all the time. It is really annoying. Is it supposed to be like this?

 

[tarquin]

My main gripes so far are with the interface.
It LOOKS very clean, but I don't find it terribly functional. My guess is that they found a lot of n00bs were scared off by all the buttons in Alpha-C, so they simplified.

anyway: in the City view, after clicking on the picture of the unit/improvement to get the list of possible things to build -- how do I get help on those items?
I can't believe they'd have left this out, but I've tried pretty much every key or click I can think of!

 

[jaran]

So if I'm understanding right, I can't disband an army, and I can't upgrade the units in that army?

bleh.

So I have a hero running around with his 3 knights, and the computers units of calvary can toast him without breaking a sweat...

or do I need to have enough gold to ungrade all 3 units in an army at once?

Also, I couldn't figure out how to form an army in my city with a military acadamy in it. I had enough cities to qualify for another army, but I never got a "create army" icon, and couldn't find any mention in the manual of how to do it at the city with the academy.

Sorry if this is common knowledge, I'm new, and I looked around for it, but couldn't find any info.

 

[Parthicus]

Hi,

jaran:
No, you can't upgrade units in an army, you can't unload them or anything. Once they are loaded, they will remain there until the army is destroyed. So use them while you can )

After you build the Military Academy, you should be able to build an Army just as you can build a unit, but only in the City where you built Military Academy.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Parthicus

 

[Parthicus]

Another question, sorry if this is well-knows:
Is there a comprehensive list where all the knows bugs are listed? ( and ONLY the bugs, not suggestions or disapproval of certain rules)

It occured to me that you can actually transport only one unit FROM an airport per turn, but the number of units that can be transported TO an airport seems unlimited. Which pretty much contradicts the manual. It means once I have one city on another continent, I can fly my whole army there!

And it seems that I can rebase my planes anywhere, with no distance restrictions, which also doesn't look right..

cheers,
Parthicus

 

[dirizhabel]

Sorry if I seem dumb as questions of this kind have been asked a number of times before, but I still can't get it... The problem is that my cities switch to producing some dumb military units like Pikemen after they complete what I oredered them to produce. It's okay if they decide what to do once a building or an obsolete unit has been produced and there's no way it can be repeated. But I just want TANKS. And I order them to build TANKS. And every time once they make TANKS they switch to PIKEMEN... This is sooo annoying... Played with the governor screens (turned everything to NEVER) to no effect. Can you please show me the EXACT algorithm to end this nightmare, preferrably for all the cities at once?

 

[Nausty]

I have a ? is it possible to put settlers and other characters on the galley and all the other ships?