Newbie Questions

[Rodzilla]

I have a couple of questions. I recently got the Civ 3 Gold Edition and am stuck on a couple of points:

1. The year is 1926. Many of the othe nations possess aluminum, but nobody wants to trade it. I've tried diplomacy with all of the countries and although they can and will trade luxury items, aluminum is a no go. Sadly, there is no aluminum in my empire. This means Space victory is impossible.

2. I was the first to research United Nations. I have more points than any other country. I have accepted every demand made to me. Still, when it's time for a vote, only Rome (my neighbor to the north) will vote for me. I've never been in any combat situation and have harbors and airports for trading.

3. There is a lot of pollution. Most cities have hydro plants, mass transportation, etc. I've got lots of workers scurrying around cleaning up the mess. Is that typical? My capital city has both a coal and a hydro plant. Is that possible? Can I get rid of the coal plant?

 

[ainwood]

Hi, Welcome to CFC!

1.) You can invade for it!

The AI generally takes note of how much gold you are making per-turn when evaluating trades. Try dropping your research rates down a bit to make a nice surplus, and try offering the AI lots of gold per turn for aluminium (it might cost you >100 GPT!)

2.) You need to keep the AI happy by trading with them lots, or gifting them stuff. Have a look in the startegy articales section for ideas (including an article by (Bamspeedy?) about 'AI attitude exposed'.

3.) yes, it is normal. You only need one power plant per city => sell the coal plant. Right click on it and choose 'sell'. Whilst you're looking in the strategy articles section, check out one called something like 'all you ever wanted to know about power plants but were afraid to ask'.

 

[Rodzilla]

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll give those suggestions a try. I bought Civilization III Gold. Is there any difference between that and buying Civilization III and the Play the World expansion (other than packaging)? The reason I ask is because looking at the directory structure it seems like it's basically just installing both (and it even uses the "PTW" naming convention). I was just wondering if there are new features, bug fixes, etc.

BTW, you're getting close to 6000 posts!!

 

[Turner]

Nope, no difference other than the packaging.

And this will get your goat: When you buy Conquests (a must, IMO) it comes with PTW too.... (And yes, I've bought all three, seperately)

 

[Dell19]

I was sensible and brought Civ3 and C3C...

 

[bingen]

1. If the AI does not have any surplus aluminum they will not trade. The number besides the aluminum in the trade screen show how many extra they have, a 0 indicates that they have only enough for themselves. If they have extra it is only a question of having enough to offer for it.

 

[alamo]

Sounds like time for a WW!

Make some MPP's against your UN opponent and declare war.

 

[dmanakho]

Sounds like time for a WW!

Make some MPP's against your UN opponent and declare war.

Actually be very careful with MPPs... They can backfire easily.
Only make them when 100 percent sure

 

[Jason Fliegel]

Another possibility for the aluminum -- if you have the tech for aluminum, you will see all the aluminum on the map that is not unexplored or clouded by the fog of war. This is true even if the aluminum is in the AI's territory and (here's the important part) the AI has not yet discovered the required tech. In these instances, the AI will not be able to trade the aluminum until the AI discovers/acquires the necessary tech.

Here's a way you can kill 4 birds with one stone. If the biggest nation has aluminum, use alliances and Mutual Protection Pacts to get everyone to go to war with that nation. This has a few effects:
1) You get the aluminum.
2) You increase your territory, bringing you closer to a domination victory
3) You weaken your biggest rival.
4) The next time the U.N. election comes up, the other AIs are more likely to vote for you, since your are their ally in a war against the other U.N. candidate. Be careful, though: if you weaken the other guy too much, he'll drop out of the running for the Secretary General and you'll be up against an entirely different AI -- a different AI that may be more popular than you. To guard against this, you may want to start making gifts to some of the more backwards nations (assuming there are any). A couple of well-placed "Accept Sanitation and Industrialization as a token of my friendship" trades and you'll have some loyal vassal states.

 

[dmanakho]

4) The next time the U.N. election comes up, the other AIs are more likely to vote for you, since your are their ally in a war against the other U.N. candidate. Be careful, though: if you weaken the other guy too much, he'll drop out of the running for the Secretary General and you'll be up against an entirely different AI -- a different AI that may be more popular than you. To guard against this, you may want to start making gifts to some of the more backwards nations (assuming there are any). A couple of well-placed "Accept Sanitation and Industrialization as a token of my friendship" trades and you'll have some loyal vassal states.

Best guard in this situation is to make sure you are the one who builds UN wonder first. This way you can control whether election happens or not. So even in case if you are not popular you can always ignore that election for may be till better times come.