Help a Newbie Out!

[DannyMac]

Ok, I enjoyed Civ II so much, that I grabbed Civ 3 this weekend for my 10.2 machine
Like I did on my Civ 2 game, I started a game as americans under the chieftain difficulty level and set the game wins after you kill everyone, think it was called conquest or something. So it puts me on a continent with the Aztecs and Greeks and they are owning me, which is suprising because I'm very used to chieftain being almost a newbie tutorial because in Civ 2, I very quickly become the richest, tech advancd, and powerful nation, here the greeks are constantly sending down horsemen and warriors and just trashing me, plus it isn't very fair, how is a warrior icing veteran spearmen in cities with walls, and sustaining no damage? plus everytime I get a new tech advance, aztecs are all over me forcing to give it up, if I don't they just send waves, and waves of troops down and take me out, as you can see I have had to reload, and we are talking about the first 100 turns of the game here! So, I have some questions that hopefully someone can answer, and I apologize for the extreme newbiness of them
1. is there a way to "stack" a group of units so they all move/attack as one?
2. anyone else disapointed with there being no cheat menu? Anybody have any hex edits or saved game editor's that will allow me to give myself money or tech advances? I have the game editor but it doesn't seem to have any options for that, if someone can send me a webpage showing how to use a hex editor on a saved game or whatever that would be extremely awesome!

Thanks folks
Dan

 

[senecasax]

Originally posted by DannyMac
here the greeks are constantly sending down horsemen and warriors and just trashing me, plus it isn't very fair, how is a warrior icing veteran spearmen in cities with walls, and sustaining no damage?

I would highly advise reading the excellent starting strategy material on this website. Go to the main forum page and select the strategy sections on the left. Remember - you need 2 citizens to make a setter now, so starts really have changed

1. is there a way to "stack" a group of units so they all move/attack as one?

To move a bunch of the same units together, press the 'J' key, and then click where you want them to go. Armies (which you get by getting a great leader from an elite unit winning a combat) will allow you to put three units into it and attack with all of them at once - you just get lots more HP, which gives you a better shot at winning battles.

2. anyone else disapointed with there being no cheat menu? Anybody have any hex edits or saved game editor's that will allow me to give myself money or tech advances? I have the game editor but it doesn't seem to have any options for that, if someone can send me a webpage showing how to use a hex editor on a saved game or whatever that would be extremely awesome!

I'm working on a save game editor, which will allow you to change the rules of the game. As for giving you money etc, i'm still learning the file format. Hopefully a new version of iEditCiv (my little program) will do that, but it's still in the design concept stages.

Welcome to the boards!

 

[DannyMac]

cool, thanks for the tips
is getting a great leader random? because I started a new game, and am already doing better
I have one particular warrior with balls of steel, he's my terminator and has been upgraded to elite and has been holding his own against barbarians
he's down to 3 bars of health and im working him back to a city for heals, I take it no regen rate in wilderness?
here's hoping you get that saved game editor puzzled out, i'm sure you will be a hero to lots of people if you create something like that and another tip of the hat for being on our side Mac user's need all the help we can get

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Originally posted by DannyMac
cool, thanks for the tips
is getting a great leader random?

Yep, 1/16 chance, 1/12 after building the Heroic Epic.

I take it no regen rate in wilderness?

Yes, they do regen in wilderness. 1 HP per turn, you just gotta skip the turn, or fortify them until they heal. They cannot heal in an enemy civs territory, though, until you build battlefield medicine.

 

[DannyMac]

I try creating a scenario with the Civedit program and when I go to load scenario it says that its not compatible my vesion of the game, anyone else get this, or am i Using the civeditor wrong?

 

[ejday]

Originally posted by DannyMac
I try creating a scenario with the Civedit program and when I go to load scenario it says that its not compatible my vesion of the game, anyone else get this, or am i Using the civeditor wrong?

Well, you can't create full-fledged scenarios while the game and editor are at 1.21. What you can create are the ".bic" files. ".bic"s contain the default rules that Civ3 will use for a game-generated map. A ".bic" file may also have a map attached to it, and may not necessarily have any rules -- and it will use the default .bic in that case. Under such a circumstance, you could alter the player properties and give the human extra cash as a training aid or gift from the Gods or whatever.
.bics with maps have also have non-specific player starting locations. You can then custom tweak the geography around particular starting areas to better suit the scenario you had in mind. One note: when they say "player", they mean all the civs that will be on the map, including the human player (the top of the list).

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Btw; did you download the latest patch for the Mac?
http://www.civfanatics.net/files/civ3/pafiledb.php?action=download&id=34

 

[jbouklas]

I had the same problems when I bought Civ3. The AI cheats, plain and simple. It builds a ton of units in an incredibly short amount of time. Actually, I think the creator of the AI talked about how Civ3 cheats in order to compete with human players. You can probably find the article off of Slashdot. It's much different than Civ2. It's a very different game. You have to get used to it.

-Jim

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Well, the cheating of the AI has been discussed many times over. On lower levels, and up to regent, it doesn't cheat in terms of production/battles/etc, it just seems to know the map and have trade advantages.

Only on Monarch and above does the AI get a production advantage. They get reduced costs on everything, and also start out with free units.

Either way, yes, it is so that they can give the human player a challenge on the higher levels.

 

[DannyMac]

. What you can create are the ".bic" files. ".bic"s contain the default rules that Civ3 will use for a game-generated map. A ".bic" file may also have a map attached to it, and may not necessarily have any rules -- and it will use the default .bic in that case. Under such a circumstance, you could alter the player properties and give the human extra cash as a training aid or gift from the Gods or whatever.

ok so run me thru how to start a game using the .bic that it creates. I = dumbass. But let me rant a moment, I understand that Civ 3 yanked the cheats, but why? Because of the multi-player part of the game? I thought the server handled all of that. Let me be frank, I think in every civ player or at least me, there is that sadistic God complex where you like to rule the world. I know I get sadistic pleasure in launching carrier after carrier of nukes into my most hated enemy's capital, or surrounding every piece of my last rival's city with troops, leaving one free space for him to work on, chuckling as his city dwindles into chaos, him throwing freshly made units at me every turn round he can, until his rioting city sits there silent, as the AI finally surrenders, and dies silently. I like having bombers and dropping them on countries that have discovered the miracle of Iron, mwa hahaha. Cheating is good, and fun, and why take it from the people that want it? I paid my money like everyone else, why take a feature out, that I enjoyed in the last version? Man to be able to have the fun I do with Civ 2, with the graphics of Civ 3. Thats why I eagerly laid my cash down. Call me a loser or whatever, but I play the game for the enjoyment I get out of it, and take no pride in being the elite or proud of the civilization that I have created. I like to play, cheat, kill and destroy. Why hast thou robbed me Sid Mier? WhY?!!!!!!

 

[ejday]

Originally posted by DannyMac
I play the game for the enjoyment I get out of it, and take no pride in being the elite or proud of the civilization that I have created. I like to play, cheat, kill and destroy. Why hast thou robbed me Sid Mier? WhY?!!!!!!

Well, you're not alone. A lot of folk play for the same reason, an entertaining release instead of the chance for set-piece strategy, sometimes myself included. I don't know if Sid and the gang knew how many people there are like this, but they had to balance the mechanics of the game versus what the fanatical following was clamoring versus [the hard part] the machines the game was intended to run on. Down the road, they knew there would be an editor. While it wasn't an intergral experiece, once up to speed, it would provide the level of flexibility you were looking for. Unfortunately, the platform we play on is two steps behind (and we aren't a big enough market component to warrant keeping us in parity. It sucks, perhaps, but that's business).

That's why.

NOTE: FWIW, my sister was a Civ2 fanatic with same playing style as you. Actually, she may have bordered closer to CivSociopath than CivFanatic, but what the heck.

 

[DannyMac]

Hey, don't know if I should create a new thread for this or not, but does anyone know of a walkthru for creating a new map using civedit? When creating a map, I usually just let it generate a map, and then make the changes I want to it, when I do, I notice that it has multiple tags on it called player start, how do I specify who starts where? also how do I add resources like uranium?