Newbie Questions - Ask here and get Answers!

[general_kill]

-Portmac, it depend on what level u are playing on. If u are on regent or above I suggest starting over since u generally spent at least 4 extra turns (with industrial trait in democracy) on every tile. This will add up and u will be dragging behind.

if u are playing regent and below i suggest spending time clearing the jungle as a challenge and after u've cleared the jungle u will have crisp clean grassland.

 

[Portmac]

Thanks General_kill.
I have only just started playing recently and am playing on the lowest level

 

[Mercade]

Originally posted by MadScot
Sudden flash of lunatic inspiration....
if I bombarded my Palace and FP city, do I have any chance of getting one of those two to be destroyed. (Yes, they are both in the same city; don't ask )

Lunatic inspiration for sure. I wonder if you even can bomb your own cities, but that's another matter. If you bomb your own Forbidden Palace (or simply disband it) you cannot build it again. You can always build your palace in another city if you want to move it, so you don't have to destruct your old palace for that first.

 

[platty]

Help me understand what's going on here. I know that ROP and other diplomatic agreements are for 20 turns. But they don't actually seem to expire. Is it just that the foreign civ. likes it so they haven't cancelled it? Can I cancel it after the 20 turns without a problem or does it auto-renew and I have to cancel it on the 20th turn?

I want to cancel the ROP with the Germans - they don't know it yet but they are about to get wiped off my continent but I don't want my reputation to suffer too badly!

 

[Renata]

Originally posted by Mercade
Lunatic inspiration for sure. I wonder if you even can bomb your own cities, but that's another matter. If you bomb your own Forbidden Palace (or simply disband it) you cannot build it again. You can always build your palace in another city if you want to move it, so you don't have to destruct your old palace for that first.

You most certainly can bombard your own cities - I accidentally nuked one of mine once, and it worked just fine.

As to the question itself, I wouldn't think you could destroy either palace or forbidden palace by bombardment. I do a lot of bombardment, myself, and have never targetted a wonder of any sort or the palace. I suggest to do what Mercade says - simply start building the palace elsewhere (it's always a build option in any non-capitol city). Since it's expensive, it might be a good idea to go to war to try to get a leader to rush it.

And one correction: small wonders, such as the Forbidden Palace, *can* be rebuilt if the cities they are in are captured or destroyed by another civ.

Renata

 

[Renata]

Originally posted by platty
Help me understand what's going on here. I know that ROP and other diplomatic agreements are for 20 turns. But they don't actually seem to expire. Is it just that the foreign civ. likes it so they haven't cancelled it? Can I cancel it after the 20 turns without a problem or does it auto-renew and I have to cancel it on the 20th turn?

I want to cancel the ROP with the Germans - they don't know it yet but they are about to get wiped off my continent but I don't want my reputation to suffer too badly!

Diplomatic agreements are often allowed to continue by the AI until the AI decides they don't want it anymore for some reason. (Some trades, such as lux for lux, or gpt for lux, might be indefinitely extended in this way as well.) As long as the initial 20 turns has run out, there is no reputation penalty for cancelling any of these. Simply bring up negotiations with the civ in question and click on the link for 'active deals'. Highlight the one you wish to cancel - it should disappear from the screen, and you're all set. Just watch out that there's no number in parentheses next to that deal - that means your 20 turns are *not* up yet!

Renata

 

[Renata]

Originally posted by general_kill
How do u earn more money per turn? Like to hear how people improve their economy.

In rough order of importance:

- more roads
- more population
- different government (republic and democracy give almost double the gross income as monarchy or communism, and less corruption to boot)
- more marketplaces, banks and stock exchanges (the last is PTW only)
- more courthouses/police stations in semi-corrupt towns and cities
- more harbors (in order to be able to work more high-commerce coast tiles)
- less military
- less unnecessary improvements (don't build a cathedral in a town that's already celebrating WLTKD, for example, or a hospital in a town that'll never get above size 12)

There's also a few tricks you can try to give a small boost to income. In your fully-corrupt towns (those producing only 1 shield/1 commerce per turn), sell off nearly *all* your improvements, irrigate and railroad everything, turn any excess population into taxmen, and set the city to produce 'wealth'. Since taxmen are not affected by corruption, you can often turn a nice profit if you have a lot of this type of town. Another thing which can help is, on the last turn of research of any tech, take a look at the science slider in F1. Very often you can reduce the science (thus boosting income) for that turn while still getting your next tech the next turn. Since excess beakers are wasted (they don't carry over to the next tech) you don't lose anything by doing this, and the cash boost can really add up over time.

*edit* forgot one thing, although it applies much more at the higher levels than the lower since the AI has so much more cash to spend at higher levels: Trade! You can get oodles of cash for your techs, luxuries and strategic resources.

Renata

 

[Grille]

respawned civ:
Are attitudes/rep hits "nullified" through respawn?

 

[alamo]

I don't think so - you're still at war after taking the last city.

About deals: In PTW you can set auto-renegotiate preference that will review all your MA/ROP and per-turn trade deals after they run 20 turns. You can just accept and continue the deal. However, be advised that attempting to renegotiate can kill the deal.

 

[Grille]

Thanks

 

[barron of ideas]

Renata has coverd the ground but there is also an option to sell your maps, if you can stand it, every turn for (probably 1 gold per sale unless you are doing a lot of exploring--which is a good reason to do some exploring). The inital sale can be very financially rewarding, when you know parts of the map the other players don't. There are however reasons you don't want the other players to know of parts of your empire you haven't settled yet, so time you initial map sales carefully. Unless you want a lot of enemy settlers picking out the sweet spots.

 

[general_kill]

There are however reasons you don't want the other players to know of parts of your empire you haven't settled yet, so time you initial map sales carefully. Unless you want a lot of enemy settlers picking out the sweet spots.

Barron of Ideas, the AI already know everything on the map including every last detail of ur cities so there's no point to saving ur world maps. Also, if u just met a civ and they are causious towards u, a nice gift would be ur world map. Once they are polite towards u they will give more gold every turn from ur world map

 

[felagund]

Hi. I am only a newbie playing my second game of Civ 3. I am with 2 other civs on a continent separated from the rest of the world. I have been meaning to contact other civs but for the moment I only have galleys which can't seem to travel away from coastline sqaures. Or that was what I thought until just recently when a Russian galley (Russia are not on my continent) appeared along my coastline and unloaded a settler. How did the Russian galley manage to travel across sea and ocean squares when my galleys cannot? I thought you had to upgrade to at least caravels or galleans before you could travel long distances across the ocean. What am I missing?

 

[Shabbaman]

You can travel over ocean tiles, you just have to move the galley there manually (with the arrow keys).
btw, maybe the russians have build the great lighthouse. This gives their galleys +1 movement, and that might allow them to traverse a sea gap, while you cannot.

 

[Hurricane]

Even galleys can safely move over Sea tiles as soon as you get Astronomy, an ocean tiles when you get either Magnetism or Navigation. So maybe the Russians knew those techs, or maybe the had the Great Lighthouse, like Shabbaman said.

 

[sealman]

or maybe they braved the wild oceans and survived.

 

[anarres]

Originally posted by sealman
or maybe they braved the wild oceans and survived.

The AI doesn't use suicide galleys.

 

[Padma]

Originally posted by general_kill
Barron of Ideas, the AI already know everything on the map including every last detail of ur cities so there's no point to saving ur world maps. Also, if u just met a civ and they are causious towards u, a nice gift would be ur world map. Once they are polite towards u they will give more gold every turn from ur world map

Yes, they know the map, but they are programmed to *act* like they don't know it. (With a few known exceptions.) They won't send settlers to places they could have no *knowledge* of. They will give you gold (or equivalent) for your World Map, if it contains areas they don't *know* yet. So there is some utility in witholding World Maps at times.

For myself, I never make a *gift* of my WM. I will gift my Territory Map, but my WM is always sold/traded on my terms.

 

[tao]

Originally posted by general_kill
How do u earn more money per turn? Like to hear how people improve their economy.

Renata et al already covered most of it. I can only make it more complete:

If your territory is bigger than that of another civ, you get some gpt for a ROP. Even if the other civ is on another continent. And it will improve relations, possibly giving you better deals in the future.

It was already suggested, that map trading gives a small (but steady) surplus. When you do a big deal (tech, resource, etc.) always try to get the wm, but don't give yours. Next turn, your map is more valuable to this civ.

Have some ships ready to explore uncharted water after navigation/magnetism to make your map more valuable.

The fine art of micromanaging your cities will give you some added profit nearly each turn, if you want to spend the time. Switch citizens to maximize commerce without delaying production.

In later Ages (Industrial, Modern) you can rake in tremendous amounts of money, if you can reduce luxuries to 0% (as low as possible) while still having wltkd. Go get luxuries! Go get happiness wonders! Happiness city improvements!

 

[pdescobar]

Originally posted by Padma
Yes, they know the map, but they are programmed to *act* like they don't know it. (With a few known exceptions.) They won't send settlers to places they could have no *knowledge* of. They will give you gold (or equivalent) for your World Map, if it contains areas they don't *know* yet. So there is some utility in witholding World Maps at times.

I disagree with the part I have highlighted in blue. I have often seen an AI send settlers into my territory toward a far corner that I know for a fact noone other than myself has seen. Additionally, I have often seen them load up a boat and beeline toward a previously unreachable island as soon as they learn Astronomy/Navigation when they obviously don't have that island on their map. While certain parts of the AI may be blind to the map, my experience is that the part of the AI which directs settlers where to go does not suffer this handicap.

That said, the advice on timing the selling/trade of world maps is still good. If you can trade a large portion of the map which the AI hasn't seen yet, you can get a nice return, so withholding it until someone can pay a high enough price (or until you are forced to by the presence of an AI unit nearby which will soon explore that area) is a strategy I've employed alot. Also, if you sell/trade it to one AI and that AI has the ability to trade maps with other AIs, do the trading on your turn and sell it yourself to all the others. Why let them profit from your explorations?

There is almost always some value in trading maps even if the AI generally knows the underlying terrain. I've never seen any strategic advantage to witholding maps because of this (i.e. you can't keep nice city spots hidden), but I have seen economic advantages in that proper timing can get you a lot more in return than simply agreeing every time the AI asks you to trade maps.