Need general help!

[SinkingJar]

I played Civilization 1 WAY back in the early '90s, bought the 2nd but never played it and just bought the 3rd today.

I don't understand resource squares. Sounds basic but from my years playing Civ 1, all I did was build up militarily. That was it! I still want to do that but I need to better understand how to harvest resource squares.

For example: horses. I see the horse icon about 3-4 tiles from my capital city - HOW do I "obtain" the horse?? I tried building a road to it but that didn't seem to accomplish anything. Do I have to build a city right on top of it?

Can anyone list some general info on resource gathering and economic management? I'm sure other newbies like me could use the help as well.

Sink

 

[Rife]

Well, I can't be TOO much help as I just got my ass kicked by
the Aztecs in Warlord level , but resources are brand new
to Civ III. There are 3 ways to get them


1. Inside city radius with a road connected to it.
2. A colony created by a worker (note, I have not done this yet
but that is a good option if you only want the resource and have
spare workers as they are cheaper)
3. Trade extra resources you have with another civ you have
made contact with. This is available on the diplomacy screen.
Note:if the resourse you want is more valuable than the one
you are offering or they just don't like you then you may need
to add in a gold or two per turn to the deal, but they will
always go for it if you offer enough.

Hope that helps some.

 

[miradus]

Resources (both strategic and luxury) need to be within your borders to be taken advantage of, unless you build a colony. Either way, they need to be connected to your cities by a road, and you need an interconnecting network of roads between all your cities otherwise you're not utilizing the resource. Later you'll find yourself using the harbor and airport to take advantage of that.

Some resources you can't spot until you build the proper tech. It's very frustrating to realize that you don't have any rubber or oil within your boundaries. I stake a claim on likely territory for them to be found early just to increase my chances of getting them later on.

You'll find yourself going to war over resources quite often. It's much more true to life than previous Civs.

 

[Rife]

Yeah, first game I played all the way through I went all game
with no rubber and was at war with the only civ that had some
I could get. I never did get any rubber all game. So, needless
to say I had to use a lot of ships and a huge air force. I almost
won that game (warlord also) but time ran out just before I got
the last three components built on the spaceship.

 

[SinkingJar]

I'm playing on Warlord too. This game is much more trade oriented than I would have ever envisioned! I guess I get a little trigger happy seeing these civs pound city after city all over the map while I'm going about my merry 'ole pace. Is the key to keep making settlers and keep building cities? Maybe I need to do that. I'm at about 750b.c. on my first game (Warlord) as the Iroquois and I have 5 cities. The Americans (we're on the same landmass and vying for territory constantly) are pumping out massive amounts of cities - it's sick!

 

[Rife]

I have yet to decide if it is better to build or take cities. The
main problem with taking cities is that they are not native and
may not stay around for very long, but building cities can
really hold back your development a lot as cities seem to grow
slow, but steady with the lack of settler support, but the
2 penalty for making one and no easy raising pop through
celebrating.

One conclusion I have come to though is that in this game
I think even more so than the last the number of cities/size
is a main determinator of your odds to get any type of win so
I am trying now to figure out the best way to get those cities
hehe.

I have actually been playing all levels and really, Diety isn't all
that much noticably harder than warlord. No where near like
in Civ II. I am not saying it isn't harder but the change is not
even close to as dramatic.