Post short tips here!

[Butters]

So, you have the one source of oil on the map, and are in process of waging a war against the evil Indians. However, you source of oil dries up, and so does your war machine. What to do?

Load the auto save game from the turn before. The resource disappearence is totally random (not like the fights, if you lose a fight in a turn, you will always lose the fight no matter how many times you load the game, at least I have never seen a difference after many loads). This way you get your resource back, and the war continues.

This is a little bit of a cheat, but I feel it is warrented based on how scarce they made the resources. I've played whole games without ever getting coal. (There was only two instances in the game, and the others didn't give them up). It sucks when you can't build any of the cool units.

 

[tetley]

I have a better, non-cheat way to handle the lone oil source: never END THE TURN with the lone oil connected to a road. If you have no road, no depletion. What you do is build a road, start building all your tanks & planes, and then immediately pillage/bombard it. Use the oil during the turn, but never let it sit between turns roaded up. On desert squares in Democracy I think this takes all of one regular Worker to do--a cheap price to pay, for the insurance. This also lets you build Galleons and then upgrade to Transports, which is cheaper in shields. That's a transport a turn, in many cases.

 

[Ronald]

To keep a newly conquered city, change all citizens into entertainers

 

[cutiestar]

I think making all the pop that aren't resisting into entertainers doesn't necessarily work, it just helps to kill off the native citizens to make it easier to keep, lol

Has anyone tried building their first city where they start as most of us do, or atleast within a square, then finding a decent area and concentrating their empire away from the palace in a more suitable land area, and giving away your palace city to another civ?

would that mean your second city , the one in the middle of your lovely new empire becomes your new palace?? no forbidden palace required for a while??

I would test it, but playing my GOTM right now,

Ii think it must work unless you aren't allowed to trade your palace city, ofcourse before you trade it you use it for rushing as much as possible while you build up your other area.

 

[Ronald]

I don't know how the computer calculates if a conquered city deflects back to the original civ, but I nocticed, that whenever I take a large city and forget to change the citizen into entertainers, I loose the city within the next one ore two rounds. After reloading and changing the citizens into entertainers I could always keep the city.

 

[JayKay]

Originally posted by cutiestar
I think it must work unless you aren't allowed to trade your palace city

I think that's correct! You can't trade your capital!
_________________________________________________

Portugal
Nation of: Magellan's (from Magellan's Expedition);
Vasco da Gama (Discoverer of the Maritime path to India);
and Pedro Álvares Cabral (Discoverer of Brazil in 1500)

 

[Witchfinder]

You can seriously enhance your enjoyment of Civ III by watching the battle scenes from "Gladiator" or "Spartacus", or the chariot race from "Ben Hur" before you start playing. Especially if you play as Rome!

 

[Witchfinder]

1) Oh yeah, almost forgot... If you have a city with good production, and you're waiting for technology to build a specific wonder or improvement, start building a palace to store up shields and then switch when the technology becomes available. You can only do this with one city at a time, but it's still useful.

EDIT: Oops, someone already mentioned this one.

2) If you have a high science rate, wait until the tech you are currently researching only has one turn left before discovery. Now go to your domestic adviser and reduce your science rate, while keeping an eye on the number of turns to discovery. Set your science rate at the lowest possible while ensuring it will still only take 1 more turn to discover.

Often you'll be able to get a 1 turn income bonus of 200 or more gold, while getting the same result. Then simply bump your science rate back up after you've discovered the technology.

 

[Witchfinder]

And another one - if you are building, or have queued a unit that requires, say, iron and then your iron source runs out, the unit will remain in production. So, if you have a resource deal with another civ which is about to run out, start production on any units you think you'll be needing in the future.

 

[alhadi]

Captured workers costs no gold per turn, but take up twice as much time as your own workers. This might not seem much of a problem if you are going to irrigate, which last 4 turns for workers, 8 trns for captured, but can cost a problem if your try to clear jungle 12 turns for worker, 24 for captured.

 

[tetley]

Have you noticed that small towns grow population quicker than large cities? Apparently pop 1-6 towns require 10 food boxes to grow, 7-12 require 20 food, and 13+ need 40. I could be wrong, though--I just know small towns grow MUCH quicker.

Anyway, settle a small town in a food-rich area and farm out workers, and then go populate the big cities. You're basically trading 10 shields for 30 food--not a bad deal, if you ask me. You quickly make the shields back when the new guy in town starts working 10 turns earlier than he otherwise would have.

In the meantime, mine those big cities instead of irrigate them--beat those AI bastards to the Wonders! Shoot for a mild food surplus--not so much to grow, but to pad you against starvation in case your people get suddenly unhappy or pollution strikes.



Short Tip #2: In Democracy, non-Industrious, one Worker + one foreign Worker irrigates one square. 3 regulars + 1 foreign clears a forest. It's a good idea to use those "half-workers" to their full advantage, instead of wasting 2 workers irrigating something.

 

[Håkon]

I may be really stupid, but I have found that Mutual Protection Pacts with an opponent often is a good idea. When the world is allying (I'm only up to Warlord level, it might be different on higher levels), say about forty percent is allied, it's a good idea to throw yourself in. You don't need to be allied with everyone (logically), but you can ally with the weakest partner, thereby getting a domino effect when things start to go wrong.

I learnt this lesson tragically when I played the Greeks once. I was the scientific leader of the world, had taken part in a successful conquest of Rome a hundred and fifty years ago, was nearing the completion of the technologies - when Germany attacked out of the blue. Russia signed a military alliance, and many other countries followed, and as I'm no warmonger (I usually only have one or two units in my cities, in this case Riflemen because I upgraded during World War I, the destruction of the Romans), I just quitted the whole game because I never reached the heights of the 1960's and 1970's,

 

[cutiestar]

the only problem with MMP is that if they go to war, then you go to war with them, so if you are MMP with Aztecs, you better get your army built, as Aztecs will go to war often, and you have to help them.

 

[menelaus]

To keep a city from going into civil disorder, or out of WLTK day at the beginning of the turn, do this.

When the first city pops up at the start of the turn announcing a finished improvement/unit, select the "go to city" option. Then, WITHOUT EXITING, use the arrows to monitor all of your cities! Adjust if there are too many unhappy faces. WHen you've cycled through all of them, exit. Then go on ahead with the rest of the finished improvement announcements.

The only time this doesn't work is when the disorder announcement comes up before a finished improvement announcement. Even still, this will probably mean only one or two escaped your grasp.

 

[The Splang]

If your playing a Small-landmass Archipeligo, find a nation who's capital is on a real small/unproductive island. Then find the continent they colonized. Theres a huge chance that that island is protected very lightly (no, I dont know why) For example, in my game Rome had its capital and 2 cities on a tiny landmass. Then it had 12~ cities on its second continent. I invaded him with Cavalry/Riflemen/cannons and had to fight his LEGIONS! However it turned out he was more advanced than me...

 

[Twicken Systed]

If you are trading resources or luxuries try and trade more than one at a time. For instance, if you have Silk and Incense available to trade to another Civ don't make two separate deals but package them together. You might get 10 gold per turn for each one but together you might get 25 gold per turn.

 

[Jimmicus]

If you have an industrious civ in democracy, two of your workers can build a fortress improvement instantly on grassland or plains.
Add some artillery and cavalry to them and you can defeat a much larger force with few or no casualties.

I recently stopped a large Persian invasion force (20+ cavalry) in it's tracks by building five fortresses in one turn along the length of a river and then stocking them with one infantry each. The computer deecided not to even bother attacking and sued for peace a few turns later.

Also I have noticed that even units with 1 move point will shoot at passing attackers if they are fortified in a fortress. Useful for wearing down units by placing a stocked fortress on a main supply road.

 

[perryrutherford]

1. I've never seen a battle with barbarians produce a great leader.
2. You didn't use your first great leader to hurry your Heroic Epic, you used your first great leader to build an army... It is not possible to use the first GL to hurry an Army an Heroic Epic, Military Academy, or Pentagon.
3. My own personal 4AM halucination is that battles that elite units *barely* win are most lilkly to give GL.

 

[Fierro1816]

If posible, NEVER betray alliances (negociating peace before the 20 turns). The Ai WILL turn *****y... new deals will demand LOTS of concessions.

 

[mighty J]

build lots of workers early, they cost 1 gold a turn, but they can make up for that by building just one road. They can also then they can still make mines and irrigate. When there's not much work left, they can just go back and rejoin the city. You really don't mine the loss os a population point early either because you need the aquaduct anyways. And before your religious buildings are built, the extra citizen will be unhappy. The cities will build those essential temples and aquaduct faster if there is a mine. The only disadvantage of workers, is that they can be caputred.