brand new player, Civ3 or (any other strategy), addicted and now stuck in my first game at Chieftan. Glad I found this website, interesting reading on things I can't do and am still not ready to think about yet. Anyway - I started a quickstart game (not sure if that is affecting my gameplay) as Romans. I quickly built cities, got to iron working, produced lots of legionaries and wiped out the egyptians. As it turned out, the Egyptions were the only other CIV on the land. It is now 900ad, I am still Despotism and have "wasted 500 years" building stuff and circling my island with 3 galleys. QUESTIONS: (1) How do I get to the middle ages (does it help I'm 10 turns from "Republic") and their technologies? (2) How do I get my galleys to go away from the shoreline? (3) Anything else I should consider to expand the "world" or should I start over? (4) Is the quickstart game affecting the possible outcomes.
help for civ3 newbie on island
- Thread starter jtdog
- Start date
Welcome to CFC and to Civ 3, jtdog!
Most of your questions can be answered in the Quick Answers/Newbie Questions thread, but since you've put so many in one post, I'll try to answer what I can:
Most of your questions can be answered in the Quick Answers/Newbie Questions thread, but since you've put so many in one post, I'll try to answer what I can:
Don't feel bad about wasting 500 years. I did the same thing, circling a continent for centuries before accidentally sending a galley out into open water.
Look at the tech tree. See the little circle with a slash next to some technologies? If it has that, it's an optional tech. Advance to the next age by learning all techs without it -- they're not optional. Republic is an optional tech, but very handy to have.
Use the arrow keys. Your galley can go out into open water, but there's a danger of them sinking. They're commonly called suicide galleys and frequently used to make contact with faraway civs.
I'm not sure what you're asking here. You can either send some suicide galleys out to make contact, or develop your empire on your island until you develop technologies that will allow you to make the crossing.
Outcomes of what?
Jokeslayer
Dedicated
No. What quickstart does is to start a new game with the same settings (tribe, land type, difficulty etc.) as the last one you played. It's the same as a regular epic game started through the "New Game" option.
To adavance from one age to the next, you have to research all the non-optional techs. The non optional techs in the Ancient Age are Monarchy and Republic. If you've researched all the others, clicking the button at the bottom of the screen that takes you to the next age should allow you to research techs from the Middle Ages. if you haven't researched all of them, then you can't do that yet.
Welcome to CivFanatics!
thank Aabraxan. My quickstart question pertains to whether a game started with the "quickstart" button would be less complete than the "start new game" button. In other words, by playing quickstart its really only a simplified game. Also you did answer my question (3). The only other idea i've read was to send units to the top of coastal mountains.
MAS
Deity
The quickstart option just skips the proses of choosing game and map setting, instead using the last ones you've used. It is exactly the same as using the new game option and choosing the same options you've used last time.
If you are talking about "busting the black", or "fog busting" as its often called on this site. Or the official term: "exposing unexplored map tiles"
Standing on a mountain doesn't help for sea tiles, you can already look 2 tiles into open water anyway.
At the end of the industrial age, you'll be able to build fighters, and you an use those on missions to expose tiles.
If you reach the end of the modern tech tree, you'll get satellites and they will expose the entire map for you.
But other than that, you'll just have to send some type of sea unit to bust the black.
If you are talking about "busting the black", or "fog busting" as its often called on this site. Or the official term: "exposing unexplored map tiles"
Standing on a mountain doesn't help for sea tiles, you can already look 2 tiles into open water anyway.
At the end of the industrial age, you'll be able to build fighters, and you an use those on missions to expose tiles.
If you reach the end of the modern tech tree, you'll get satellites and they will expose the entire map for you.
But other than that, you'll just have to send some type of sea unit to bust the black.
timerover51
Deity
Welcome to Civilization 3 and the Forums, Jtdog. I trust that you will find them informative and enjoyable. As you are at 900 AD and still in the Ancient Age, you might want to check how much you are putting into research, as even taking 40 turns per advance to research, you should be at least to the Middle Ages by now. Click on the advisors button and go to your Domestic Advisor, the top one. Check to see how much you are investing in science research. You may need to increase that to speed up your advance.
Once you get to the Middle Ages, head straight for Astronomy, and get caravels for exploration. Also, build the Great Lighthouse to get your galleys safe sea travel, and then start sending them out. A quick way of checking on how many others civs there are in the game is to click on the V button on your info box in the lower right corner of your screen. Also, hitting F7 will tell you if any Wonders have been built by anyone.
Sweetchuck
King
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2006
- Messages
- 649
All you need now is a volleyball named Wilson.
Maybe put a save of this game on the back burner for later and start a new game on a pangea land setting.
Newbie asks about deficit spending impact
Forgive the litany of questions – but the game is too addictive and your past responses have been addictively helpful. Still in my first CIV3 game ever (actually trying two different games at same time), after the above 500 years of circling my island (after wiping out Egyptians and creating much boredom in my game), the people on this forum assisted me into the middle ages. Now I’m advancing via science spending and terrible deficit spending (much like our modern world). I am negative every turn (-50 to -80), have no gold in treasury and unlikely to get any due to too much corruption and too many units (I’m in a Republic.) I have read corruption advice here.
Questions:
Is there any negative repercussion for running a deficit spending campaign? So far I’ve only seen that I can’t afford to buy technologies in trade or pay for an embassy.
Is it common or situations recommended to have cities just produce wealth or am I wasting production resources?
When would you recommend disbanding units (never according to my military advisor). I don’t have any gold and was going to get rid of warriors (now with knights, musketman and legionaries)?
Is there ever a good reason to disband a city to reduce corruption or is that short-sighted?
Forgive the litany of questions – but the game is too addictive and your past responses have been addictively helpful. Still in my first CIV3 game ever (actually trying two different games at same time), after the above 500 years of circling my island (after wiping out Egyptians and creating much boredom in my game), the people on this forum assisted me into the middle ages. Now I’m advancing via science spending and terrible deficit spending (much like our modern world). I am negative every turn (-50 to -80), have no gold in treasury and unlikely to get any due to too much corruption and too many units (I’m in a Republic.) I have read corruption advice here.
Questions:
Is there any negative repercussion for running a deficit spending campaign? So far I’ve only seen that I can’t afford to buy technologies in trade or pay for an embassy.
Is it common or situations recommended to have cities just produce wealth or am I wasting production resources?
When would you recommend disbanding units (never according to my military advisor). I don’t have any gold and was going to get rid of warriors (now with knights, musketman and legionaries)?
Is there ever a good reason to disband a city to reduce corruption or is that short-sighted?
Jokeslayer
Dedicated
1: At Chieftain, I don't think there is, beyond what you've mentioned and not being able to pay to rush improvements. However, at higher levels you'll be forced to disband military units in this situation.
2: Sometimes Wealth is ok. Depends what else you could be building. if you have a large empire with a large military, you probably can't build much other than wealth in the highly corrupt areas.
3: Disband units when you don't need them. So if they're very obsolete and you have plenty of modern ones (sometimes its worth upgrading them instead) or if you're over your support limit and not under threat. I wouldn't bother disbanding if you're under your support limit. Also remember that disbanding a unit in a city adds shields to whatever is being built there (as long as it isn't a wonder), so consider moving them all to the same city and doing it there. I think you get 1/5 of the build price back.
4: I don't think so. Turning it into a specialist farm is probably better as I don't think one city either way makes much difference, and if you have a lot of cities you can get good money from specialists (assuming Conquests, not so true for Vanilla)
You're in good company. This place isn't CivFanatics for nothing.
I think Jokeslayer's right. At Chieftain, there's no penalty for running a negative treasury balance. Above that, units and improvements get disbanded if you fall below zero.
OTOH, running a negative gold per turn is a whole different ballgame, as long as there's something in your coffers. There's no penalty and it's very frequently used. If you find yourself with a stockpile of cash, you can use negative gpt to get to the next tech faster. Common scenario: (1) Research a monopoly tech; (2) Sell the aforementioned monopoly tech for a whole pile o' gold; (3) Burn through that pile o' gold with negative gpt, shooting for another monopoly tech; (4) rinse and repeat.
There's a time and place to build wealth, but it's usually fairly late in the game with cities that are so corrupt that they can't build much else. If you're building wealth in your core in the early game, there's a problem somewhere.
See Jokeslayer's answer . . . though I thought you got 1/4 of the shields back.
Not in the standard game. There might be a reason if you were playing a special variant, but that's a different question. Otherwise, don't disband. Turn it into a specialist farm.
All you need now is a volleyball named Wilson.
Maybe put a save of this game on the back burner for later and start a new game on a pangea land setting.
Sweetchuck, I can't tell you how much I felt like I needed a "Wilson" during that time. I tried unsuccessfully to turn my captured Eqyptian workers back into Eqypt, so my hoards of Legionaries would have something to look at.
I'm now in 1600AD and it seems every CIV is at war with me. I tried to befriend the English, and all they did was build two cities on my island, never approve any trades and then declared war on me when one of my units (on a 5 turn automated move) went through their city borders (only because they put a city in the middle of a main thoroughfare). Even the Iroquois, who were very nice in communications and I gave (without anything in return because I felt I needed at least one ally) territory map and gold on different turns, eventually joined the English and Chinese and starting attacking me (the French and Aztecs have been attacking from the very beginning). Next game I think I'll test a diplomatic strategy!
Question: given my current status - and so far other than isolation frustration - I feel very comfortable with my enormous military that has crushed every CIV landing (including the turncoat English) on my island. Is there anyway to reverse the situation and develop real alliances or should I finish this game with the mindset that I will need to dominate militarily until the end?? I'm willing to test ideas.
Question 2: My catapults that I have protecting my harbors no longer seem to have any impact when firing on CIV ships. Early on they would cause hit damage and assist my galleys prior to attack, but the last 6-8 shots have all said "bombardment failed." Is this just chance or has the defense shielding of these CIV caravels somehow changed with time or a technology I can't seem to identify. I am now building costal fortresses and cannons - is this a good use of resources?
Jokeslayer
Dedicated
It really would be best if you could post a save as your questions are getting pretty specific.
The AI is awful at attacking across the ocean. You can get proper alliances quite easily if you have an advantage to offer, like large sums of gold or a decent tech. If you balance the choice properly, they can be very helpful. But if you pick an ally too weak, the enemy might overrun them and get stronger. Too strong an ally and they might overrun the enemy before you get there, leaving you with a brand new problem.
Partly chance, partly that caravels have better defence than galleys. Cannons are a good idea, but I think coastal fortresses are not since cannons can do much the same job and they can move around.
The AI is awful at attacking across the ocean. You can get proper alliances quite easily if you have an advantage to offer, like large sums of gold or a decent tech. If you balance the choice properly, they can be very helpful. But if you pick an ally too weak, the enemy might overrun them and get stronger. Too strong an ally and they might overrun the enemy before you get there, leaving you with a brand new problem.
Partly chance, partly that caravels have better defence than galleys. Cannons are a good idea, but I think coastal fortresses are not since cannons can do much the same job and they can move around.
I'm not too proud to ask, so here it goes.. how do you post a save?
Jokeslayer
Dedicated
When you click post reply, somewhere below the reply window should be a button labelled Manage Attachments. Use that to upload the save file. It's also worth noting that if you don't have the latest patch/version, I don't think anyone else can play the save (assuming they do have the latest patch). I'm not sure how you check that though.
MAS
Deity
You don't have to play the game that way. But keep in mind that:
#1 Aggressive conquest, if done well, has a very large return of investment, it can become addicting, once you get the hang of it.
#2 At low levels, the AI is at such a disadvantage, that its faster to do everything yourself. They can't help you with research because you can out-research all of them single handedly. You can develop land faster than they do, and you can easily take on all of them at once by yourself. Using any kind of alliance becomes pretty pointless that way.
At higher levels, it is more meaningful to take the diplomatic landscape into account. Still, you shouldn't expect the AI to help you with defeating a common enemy directly. (though they sometimes do help that way, they often don't) Compare it with RL in this way: The US forms a broad alliance against a small nation, but it does 90% of the fighting, their allies help here and there or send symbolic amounts of troops. Still, they form the broad alliance, because they a re better off with it than without.
Both: Every instance of combat is chance based, but there is a probability ratio involved. You'll hit less often if the target unit has more defense. and you'll hit more often if your unit has a higher bombard value.
That said, 6 to 8 shots is an extremely small sample. If you are playing at SID level or Deity, and you are bombarding 500 units in one turn, you can easily get streaks of 50 misses followed by streaks of 50 hits.
It depends, do you need more bombard units or do you have enough for now? I can't say without knowing exact situation you are in.
I'll tell you this though: The coastal fortress is about as close as you can get to the most useless structure in the game. I think its save to say its never useful. With everything else "it depends," but I make an exception for the coastal fortress.
Also: You can upgrade your catapults to canons. Maybe you should consider lowering your SCI slider for a few turns, collect some gold, and upgrade them, instead of replacing them by building new ones?
marceagleye
Underground Economist
jtdog one of my very first games on cheiftain level I had this same exact game. I wiped out Cleo to the tune of about twelve cities worth, plus two of my own I had to recapture when she snuck me. Later on I did manage to build the Great Lighthouse and explore the world (on Ocean squares-this early version of Civ3 had many flaws) but I made no friends because I didn't know about embassies or much of anything else. I decided I didn't need any friends.
I stayed technologically ahead for quite awhile, but eventually the whole world was at war against me, and before I realized it, I was behind in science, too because I wasn't trading any techs like the AI was. I did manage to capture a few small islands but I could only hold one that was just two turns away from the mainland by galleon. I tried to hold on as long as I could but when the number of enemy warships bombarding my coast reached the century mark, I quit the game.
I had so many units I tried keeping one fortified on every coastal tile so the unit would take the damage instead of the tile, but that didn't even work because they would bombard the unit down to one hit point then still destroy the tile.
Sometimes war mongering is the way to go but in this situation you should be diplomatic.
I stayed technologically ahead for quite awhile, but eventually the whole world was at war against me, and before I realized it, I was behind in science, too because I wasn't trading any techs like the AI was. I did manage to capture a few small islands but I could only hold one that was just two turns away from the mainland by galleon. I tried to hold on as long as I could but when the number of enemy warships bombarding my coast reached the century mark, I quit the game.
I had so many units I tried keeping one fortified on every coastal tile so the unit would take the damage instead of the tile, but that didn't even work because they would bombard the unit down to one hit point then still destroy the tile.
Sometimes war mongering is the way to go but in this situation you should be diplomatic.
Caveat: It's been ages since I built a coastal fortress and I never built many to start with, so if anyone knows differently than what I'm about to post, please speak up.
From what I've read, they simply do not work. They don't bombard passing ships like they are supposed to, IIRC. I recently read a post in which it was indicated that they do provide a defensive bonus to ships docked in the city, but I can't verify that myself.
