Newbie Questions - Ask here and get Answers!

[Turner]

The best defender is going to be your lead defender. The computer also takes into consideration hit points as well as defensive score. So if you have an elite Calvary, it will probably defend if it's sharing a square with a veteran pikeman. Kinda of annoying, but it looks at the overall strength. It would be nice to define a defense order, but I'm not sure that's possible with the game. Or how hard it would be to implement.

 

[WillJ]

1. What is the gold-per-shield ratio when rushing with money, and what is the citizen-per-shield ratio when pop rushing?

2. When you clear a forest that is in the city limits of two different cities, where do the shields go to? I'm assuming it goes to the closest city, but what if they're equally apart? Do they go to the city that is using that square? What if neither is using that square? Does it depend on how many shields are left in the cities?

3. (similar to #2) If you disband a unit in the city limits of two cities, which city does it go to? If it goes to the closest one, what if the unit is equally far away from both cities?

4. I've noticed that when building a unit in a city, and you discover the advance that allows you to build the upgraded version of that unit, sometimes it "advances" its production, and sometimes it doesn't. In my current game I was building riflemen in some of my cities, I discovered replaceable parts, and none of the cities switched to building infantry. Do I have to switch them manually in this case? Or will it get to the point where it would normally finish producing the riflemen, and then switch to infantry?

Edit: And I used to know all of these, but my oh my how everything exits the brain at one time or another.

Edit2: Make that 5 questions:

5. Does anyone know the average success rates (%'s) of the bombard units? Or at least artillery (the one I'm worried about right now). I guess with knowing just one unit I could figure out the rest, assuming the bombard strength unit that they use is constant. (For example, a bombard strength of 4 is half as good as 8.)

 

[pdescobar]

Let's see how almost completely unhelpful I can be

Originally posted by WillJ
1. What is the gold-per-shield ratio when rushing with money, and what is the citizen-per-shield ratio when pop rushing?

4 gold = 1 shield and 1 citizen = 20 shield. These are doubled if there are no current shields; I rarely pop-rush so there might be some other details there (aside from the unhappiness). Both of these values are defined in the General settings tab of the editor

2. When you clear a forest that is in the city limits of two different cities, where do the shields go to? I'm assuming it goes to the closest city, but what if they're equally apart? Do they go to the city that is using that square? What if neither is using that square? Does it depend on how many shields are left in the cities?

In my experience, the game reads your mind and picks the one you don't want In other words I don't know and never tried testing it.

3. (similar to #2) If you disband a unit in the city limits of two cities, which city does it go to? If it goes to the closest one, what if the unit is equally far away from both cities?

I always thought you had to disband the unit in the city square itself to get shields from it....

4. I've noticed that when building a unit in a city, and you discover the advance that allows you to build the upgraded version of that unit, sometimes it "advances" its production, and sometimes it doesn't. In my current game I was building riflemen in some of my cities, I discovered replaceable parts, and none of the cities switched to building infantry. Do I have to switch them manually in this case? Or will it get to the point where it would normally finish producing the riflemen, and then switch to infantry?

Switch them manually. If you don't get an auto-switch and are using the "always build previous unit" option, after they build it gets switched to wealth, at least for me. I wish I knew why sometimes they get auto-upgraded and sometimes they don't (aside from the obvious situation when you don't have the resources for the newer unit.)

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by WillJ

2. When you clear a forest that is in the city limits of two different cities, where do the shields go to? I'm assuming it goes to the closest city, but what if they're equally apart? Do they go to the city that is using that square? What if neither is using that square? Does it depend on how many shields are left in the cities?

Cracker (IIRC) has a splendid article in the War Academy on everything you ever wanted to know about forestry in Civ3. The answers are all there I believe.

 

[marceagleye]

Where is the war academy? I can't find it.

 

[Grille]

Cracker's "Forestry Operations" is here.
A link to the War Academy is on the main CFC page, look out for the civ3 section on the left.

 

[WillJ]

Originally posted by AlanH
Cracker (IIRC) has a splendid article in the War Academy on everything you ever wanted to know about forestry in Civ3. The answers are all there I believe.

Okay, thanks, found it:

"When two or more towns can overlap the same square of forest, the harvest bonus will go to the town that is working the forest square at the moment the forest is harvested. You can micromanage the benefit target by allowing the citizens of the towns to work on the best choices of the available terrain squares up until the last turn before a square of forest is scheduled to be harvested. Then open the city display screens to manually reassign citizens and specialists to make sure that a citizen from the desired town is assigned to work in the forest that will be harvested. If no citizen from any nearby town is assigned to work in the forest at the time it will be harvested, then the bonus will go to the town whose center square is nearest to the harvested square. The image above is an example of a case where you do not know where the production bonus will go unless you intervene to make certain it is applied to meet the needs of your cities."

Summary: It goes to the town that is working the square. If none are working the square, it goes to the closest one. If none are working the square and both are the same distance from the sqauare, it is done at random.

So number one has been answered (thanks pdescobar ) and number two has been answered (thanks AlanH and cracker ). As for number three, maybe you're right about that, PD. But I thought that's not the case. Maybe I'm wrong (I'll find out next time I play). And as for #4, I'll take your advice and switch it manually.

#5 is still unanswered: Does anyone know the average success rates (%'s) of the bombard units? Or at least artillery (the one I'm worried about right now). I guess with knowing just one unit I could figure out the rest, assuming the bombard strength unit that they use is constant. (For example, a bombard strength of 4 is half as good as 8.)

 

[Don Uittone]

I'm from Europe so my Civ3 must be Europen version.BUT,there's no UK 1.29 patch! There's only US and Italy,France,Germany...I want english language Europe compatible 1.29 patch.But there isn't one?

 

[MadScot]

Originally posted by WillJ
#5 is still unanswered: Does anyone know the average success rates (%'s) of the bombard units? Or at least artillery (the one I'm worried about right now). I guess with knowing just one unit I could figure out the rest, assuming the bombard strength unit that they use is constant. (For example, a bombard strength of 4 is half as good as 8.)

OK, I'll have a got at that one....

Using any of the indirect fire units against a unit works just like regular combat, except that you only get as many 'rounds' as you have RoF for the firing unit, and the defender is the only unit to take hits.

So, cannon, bombard strength 8, RoF1, fires at musketman in the open, unfortified.

8 vs 4*1.1 : 8 vs 4.4 odds

So you should hit about 60% of the time (8/12.4, in fact)

Artillery in the same case would be 12 vs 4.4 and have 2 shots. So you'd have two independent 75% or so chances to knock off a hit point.

Always remembering there is 0% to take the last hit point unless the units have been given 'lethal bombard' capability.

Against improvements and cities its a bit more complex. I vaguely recall one of the more investigative members of the site doing a detailed check, and IIRC the odds kept moving around with each patch.

Attacking a tile improvement: there must be no units on the tile IIRC and the improvement is assigned a notional defensive value, which I can't find.

Attacking a city the attack is randomly chosen against citizens, defensive units of buildings. Citizens and buildings have a notional defense of 16. Even with multiple RoFs I've never taken out 2 citizens or two buildings in one shot, so one seems to be a per-fire limit there.

I believe it was determined that the odds were roughly 1:1:1 for the three target types, but that has changed with patches - it was 1:1:2 at one point I think. Even if there are no buildings left, you still have a chance of "targeting buildings" which then wastes the shot. Similarly, I don't believe you can kill the last citizen, so that can waste shots too.

I think TheNiceOne did the investigation, but that's a guess from hazy memory

 

[Naval Freak]

Excuse me, but should we have a new Newbie Questions? I mean really, 66 pages, that's way too much.

Please think about it.

 

[anarres]

Naval Freak,

This thread is to ask gameplay questions and get advice. The idea is to just ask, you don't have to look through the previous questions and answers. Do check the FAQ though (also in GD), as that is indexed and has a lot of info in.

You don't have to new to CFC or Civ to ask a newbie question, we all have something we want answered quick sometimes, and this is the place

 

[The Great Apple]

Nobody appears to have noticed my questions on the last page, so I hope nobody minds if I post them again

1: Do you suffer a rep hit if the civ your giving GPT (or a luxury) to gets wiped out?

2: What if you had a 20 turn treaty (such as in renegotiate peace?)

 

[MadScot]

no problems Great Apple

1: yes. Whether you did it, they did, whoever. If any kind of long term deal you make is nullified for basically any reason, it is your fault.

2: I don't think the peace treaty itself would be a problem. But if there was any trade attached to the treaty e.g. gpt tribute, then you do get a hit.

 

[The Great Apple]

Yeah, but there are two kinds of peace treaty, the normal kind you can negotiate on, and the enforced ones (such as at the end of a war, or a renegotionation where they pay you in cash) This kind of peace treaty lasts for the 20 turns, and I believe you take a rep hit for declaring war within these 20 turns... (it has a counter)

 

[MadScot]

I agree, but I think even the 20 turn peace treaty type would not, of itself, cause a rep hit.

Because a peace deal isn't really a trade, it's a description of the state between your countries. While you would not have a peace treaty any more, nor would you be at war. I think it's declaring war that causes the rep hit during a 20 turn peace period, not the absence of the peace deal.

I've certainly never noticed my rep damaged in that way. But someone else may know - I'm speculating.

 

[The Great Apple]

Ok, thanks, I would have speculated the same way, but your reasoning seems sound

 

[Zabba149]

How many units does it take to prevent a city from being culture flipped? And do those units have to be military units or can they be anything like scouts, workers, etc. ?

Follow up: Does the chance of being culture flipped decrease by having more units in a city?

 

[MadScot]

Originally posted by Zabba149
How many units does it take to prevent a city from being culture flipped? And do those units have to be military units or can they be anything like scouts, workers, etc. ?

Follow up: Does the chance of being culture flipped decrease by having more units in a city?

A very emotive subject, Culture Flipping.

Take a look in the FAQ Thread, there's a section which guves the formula to work out the "safe garrison". It can be a VERY large number - 4 times the number of citizens is very possible. They have to be real combat units, as far as I know.

More units (below the magic safe number) does decrease the chance of a flip. But it makes the flip worse, since all the units will die.

If you need 20 units to be 'safe', don't put 19 in the city and hope. Keep them outside and butcher the rebels if they flip.

edit: try "Culture Flip" in the search terms, and "etj4eagle" in the username field for searches. That should give you a pile of hits. (etj4eagle was one of the lead uncoverers of the CF formula, so you'll tend to get answers, not questions, if you include that username.

 

[anarres]

Zabba,

Check my FlipCalc to find out percentages.

The only factors involved are:

- Foreign nationals
- Tiles under AI infulence (only the civ in question)
- 'Local Culture' (if you or the other civ have built more culture in that city)
- WLTKD or rioting
- The ratio of your relative cultures (2.5 to 1 for example)
- The number oif garrisoned units
- The relative distance between your capitals. (Here NW-SE and NE-SW are used as axis of measure)

Nothing else matters. In the FlipCalc link (first post) is a copy of the FAQ info on the matter, including the formula my calc uses.

 

[WillJ]

Okay, thanks MadScot. I didn't know that bombardment depended on unit strength. It's kinda unrealistic, IMO. Why would it be harder to bombard riflemen than pikemen, for example? It's not like the riflemen are gonna shoot down the artillery shots coming down on them.