Newbie Questions - ask here!

[cromagnon]

Lucy,
If you have roads that eventually lead to another civilization's capital, or you have a sea trade route (via harbor) to another civilization's city, you can trade with them. See the Trade Advisor (F2) to see with whom you can trade.

Next, you need things to trade: Resources or luxuries. If you have extra ones of these things (e.g. two spices attached to your trade network), you can trade them with other civs via the diplomacy screen. Note that for a resource to be 'yours,' it needs to be within your cultural boundary and connected by a road to your capital. Or you have a colony on the resource/luxury connected by road to your capital.

 

[satchel]

Lucy,

If you click on the little "D" at the lower right hand corner of your screen, you will get to choose which of the other civs (that you know of) you would like to speak with. Alternatively, go to the foreign advisor screen and double-click on the leader you want to talk with.

Then, when you are in the diplomacy screen talking to another leader, you may choose from the right side the luxuries, resources, or techs you want to offer, and choose from the left side the things you want in return. That is how you arrange trades with the other civilizations.

Also, to increase your gold, make sure that you are building roads on every tile that your population is working around your cities. And use the sliders in the domestic advisor screen to adjust your relative rates of science and luxuries - whatever is left over goes into your treasury.

You might find it helpful to read some of the manual that came with your game, to gain facility with these and other basic game concepts. Once you understand the vocabulary you will learn a lot by reading and asking questions on these boards.

 

[redhulkz]

how many times of golden age can a civ get?

 

[Eklektikos]

redhulkz: The player gets a maximum of one golden age per game. Same for the AI civs.

 

[Raijer]

I'm playing a game as the Egyptians, and they have a "prefered government" listed as being despotism, and a "shunned government" listed as republic. Does this have anything to do with my choice of government, or have an effect on the choice of governments I make, or is it simply an attribute assigned only to the AI?

 

[Shabbaman]

Originally posted by Raijer
I'm playing a game as the Egyptians, and they have a "prefered government" listed as being despotism, and a "shunned government" listed as republic. Does this have anything to do with my choice of government, or have an effect on the choice of governments I make, or is it simply an attribute assigned only to the AI?

This means that the (diplomatic) stance of an Egyptian AI would me better against a civ in despotism and worse against a civ in republic.
In your case, it doesn't matter.

 

[warmonger]

I have a silly question relating to the cultural expansion of a city and a civ's borders.

Once all of your core cities are joined by culture so that your borders are a constant line - what happens to the line when one of your inner cities expands it's cultural influence?

Does it :

(a) get lost amongst the culture of all cities;
(b) help to push the external border further into free space but not exert pressure against another civ's border; or
(c) both pushes the border into free space and pushes against a neighbouring civ if appropriate; or
(d) some other possibilitiy that my newbee brain can't foresee?

If the answer is (a) or (b) is there any point in adding massive culture to your inner cities (assuming I'm not trying for a cultural victory)? Should I concentrate on buliding culture on my border cities and leave the inner ones to produce military stuff once another civ is bumping up against me?

Any thoughts anyone?

 

[satchel]

If I understand your question, warmonger, then the closest answer is (a) - increased culture in a central city won't push the borders that you can see any further out if your borders already extend beyond the culture radius of that particular city.

But any culture improvements you build will continue to boost the total culture of your civ, not just the local culture of that city. (Not to mention the other benefits you get from your improvements.) Boosting your civ's total culture is useful for staving off culture flipping and boosting the AI's opinion of you. So having a high total culture has its values even if you aren't going for a cultural victory. And building universities, cathedrals, and the like in those core cities shouldn't take up more than a few turns anyhow.

 

[The Mad Swede]

I have one question that has probably been asked somewhere before, but who has the time to look for that?

Are Copernicus's and Newton's accumulative to the science output of a city, i.e. if you build both in a city, does it get a 400% science boost? Or 200%?

My feeble research suggested that building Newtons in a city where you already have Copernicus (or the other way round) does not give ANY increase in science output.

Please confirm/reject, anyone.

 

[MediGuy]

I'm playing a game (obviously -_-) on large with max civs. I don't have any coal. Can I successfully win the game w/o coal for factories, railroads, etc.?

 

[MadScot]

Originally posted by The Mad Swede
I have one question that has probably been asked somewhere before, but who has the time to look for that?

Are Copernicus's and Newton's accumulative to the science output of a city, i.e. if you build both in a city, does it get a 400% science boost? Or 200%?

My feeble research suggested that building Newtons in a city where you already have Copernicus (or the other way round) does not give ANY increase in science output.

Please confirm/reject, anyone.

From what I recall of games where I got both in the same city, it is cumulative - but I have not done any checking to confirm that.

I think that the increases are additive though, not multiplicative. So although the manual and civpedia often use phrases like "doubles output" in a careless fashion, they actually mean "increases by 100%" so rather than two wonders both "doubling output" which would give you four times the initial amount, or an increase of 300%, what i believe happens is that the two "+100% outputs" are added to give "+200%" or a result of 3 times what you started with.

This is a general comment on the carelessness with which the manual was written, and applies not only to imprvements but also to combat values - and it worries me that the manual is written with such disregard. I hope it's only a manual problem, and not indicative of lack of clarity in the design stages.

 

[redhulkz]

i'm v1.29f

with precision bombing, can we specific choose which improvement to bomb?

in PTW, can u do that?

 

[lucidity]

I've been playing the Civ series for as long as I can remember, but am relatively new to Civ 3 - my question is how do stacks work, and how do I make a stack? I am using vanilla Civ 3

 

[Shabbaman]

Originally posted by lucidity
I've been playing the Civ series for as long as I can remember, but am relatively new to Civ 3 - my question is how do stacks work, and how do I make a stack? I am using vanilla Civ 3

A stack is nothing more than a lot of units on the same tile. This gives as a bonus that the strongest unit will defend the stack, especially usefull if you mix offensive with defensive units.

If you select a unit and press the j key, all units of the same kind will move with it.
With ptw, there are more stack options.

@redhulkz: I don't know, but I doubt it. I believe that you can choose to attack buildings instead of a random bombardment.

 

[lucidity]

thanks shabbaman, glad to have that cleared up

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by MediGuy
I'm playing a game (obviously -_-) on large with max civs. I don't have any coal. Can I successfully win the game w/o coal for factories, railroads, etc.?

Someone must have coal - so buy it or take it!

 

[JonathanValjean]

Originally posted by redhulkz
i'm v1.29f

with precision bombing, can we specific choose which improvement to bomb?

in PTW, can u do that?

Yes on both counts.

 

[dariusII]

Hello everyone


I have a few questions:

1) On the info box in the main screen, there are 3 numbers beside the type of government you currently have. For example, " Democracy 4.5.1".
- What do these refer to? I deduce that the "1" indicates the entertainment level (10%) & the "5" shows the # of turns left to research the current tech. But what about the "4"?

2) How do you cancel trade agreements peacefully after the 20 turns lapse? I only get notices if the AI civ wants to cancel or renegotiate, but I can't figure out how to do it myself peacefully. Can somebody show me the way?

3) A recent game I played got me thinking about the UN victory option. I played as the Celts & knocked off Russia, Germany & France to take complete control of my continent. (I was tired of the AI civs always ganging up on me in previous games, this time it was my turn to kick some butt!)
But what if Shaka or Hammurabi had done the same on their continent? So there's just 2 civs left each with there own continent. Assuming that the UN victory route was enabled, what would happen when 1 of us built the UN? Theoretically, could there still be a vote taken?

Things that make me go hmmm.

Thanks.

 

[Arvedui]

Originally posted by dariusII
Hello everyone


I have a few questions:

1) On the info box in the main screen, there are 3 numbers beside the type of government you currently have. For example, " Democracy 4.5.1".
- What do these refer to? I deduce that the "1" indicates the entertainment level (10%) & the "5" shows the # of turns left to research the current tech. But what about the "4"?

2) How do you cancel trade agreements peacefully after the 20 turns lapse? I only get notices if the AI civ wants to cancel or renegotiate, but I can't figure out how to do it myself peacefully. Can somebody show me the way?

3) A recent game I played got me thinking about the UN victory option. I played as the Celts & knocked off Russia, Germany & France to take complete control of my continent. (I was tired of the AI civs always ganging up on me in previous games, this time it was my turn to kick some butt!)
But what if Shaka or Hammurabi had done the same on their continent? So there's just 2 civs left each with there own continent. Assuming that the UN victory route was enabled, what would happen when 1 of us built the UN? Theoretically, could there still be a vote taken?

Things that make me go hmmm.

Thanks.

1) You are right about the last number, it indicates the luxury rate. The first number is the percentage of trade that goes to your treasury as gold and the middle number is not the number of turns for advance, but the percentage set to science.

2) Call the AI on the diplomacy screen. Say that you wish to propose a deal. At the bottom of the screen there will be a button called active. When you click it you will see the current deals that you have with this civilization. If there is an agreement and the 20 turns haven't passed yet, there will be a number showing how many turns for the period of 20 turns to be over. If, on the other hand, the 20 turns have already passed, there will be no number and if you just click the deal it will be undone.

3) I don't know about this one. Your question got me wondering about what would happen.

And welcome to Civfanatics!

 

[Arvedui]

How do I use the extra units (dinosaur, japan, ww2) in the PTW Editor? I tried copying them from the Extra folder into the art/units folder but when I go to the editor these extra units aren't listed. Help anyone? Please? Thanks.