questions from a newbie

[civ3n00bie]

hi,


I got my civ3 game awhile back and i reallllllllllllly suck at it....I got some questions for you guy.

1. What does it mean when your treasury is dangerously low...and how do you fix it?
2. how do you get rid of civil uprising?
3. How come i am always last in technology?
4. How come i never make it past the Middle Ages?
5. How do you get technologically advanced fast?
6. HOw do you build roads faster?
7. I am downloading the 116f patch is it worth it?
8. are there any codes for civ3?
9. I always lose when i fight even when i have a better army then the other person.....how do i win in combat?
10. Anything else i should know tell me....

Thanks in advancded....bow down to the n00bie

 

[simwiz2]

1. It means you are going to run out of money in a few turns - decrease the science rate, disband some units (democracy or republic usually), and build roads EVERYWHERE in your city radiuses ASAP.
2. Build a road to luxury resources in your territory, and/or increase the luxury rate. Entertainers also help
3. Build libraries and universities ASAP, and keep the science rate as high as you can afford.
4. Dont get the big civs angry at you
5. Same as 3
6. Be an industrous civ, get more than 1 worker to a tile, and/or discover replaceable parts. EDIT: or be a democracy
7. Yes, it fixes fighters and some other things
8. cheat codes? no
9. The thing to realize about civ3, however unrealistic it is, is that #'s are a LOT more important than tech (6 frigates could beat a battleship easily ) So you have to always attack in force, know your objectives beforehand and avoid attacking across rivers if possible. terrain is very important now.

 

[Buecephalus]

1. your treasury is low? click on the advisor button in the top left hand corner of the game screen. It should open to your domestic advisor, if it doesn't, click on the lady at the top left of the screen. This brings up the domestic screen. On the top right is a box that says science, luxury and has sliding scales. If you're losing money then you probably need to either reduce your science rate or your luxury rate. This screen also shows how much your empire makes and spends every turn. Finding the right balance is tough. One thing you MUST do is build roads on every piece of land that you control, roads increase commerce and therefore increase the money in the bank.

2. If your city is in disorder you should click on that city and turn one of its workers into entertainers. To do this, you simply click on a tile that is being worked (a tile that has food, commerce or shield icons floating above it) when the icons disappear you've created an entertainer which you will see on the line that shows the people's faces who work in that city. If many of your cities are in disorder you should raise the luxury rate on your domestic advisor screen. Often, if you've been at war for a while all of your cities suffer from "war weariness" and will all fall into disorder. You should make peace w/ the civ you are fighting, at least for a couple of turns.

3. Your research rate is too low. Again, look on the domestic advisor screen, what percentage of your money is going to research? If it's too low you'll always be behind. Roads play a big part in research as well, the more commerce you generate the higher you can set your science rate.

4. Do you mean you always lose in the Middle Ages? That's also a reflection of how advanced your civ is. Are you losing a cultural victory? a conquest? The solution to your losing depends on how you lose.

5. See #3 above.

6. to build roads quickly you should double, triple or quadruple the number of workers building roads on a single tile. As you become more advanced the workers can do more work as individuals until the Modern age when one worker can make a road in one turn.

7. I think it's worth it to eliminate some of the corruption and to change offensive and defensive values on some of the units.

8. No codes, no cheat mode.

9. When you build armies make sure your units are created in cities that have barracks. Barracks create veteran units that have higher hit points. Also pay attention to what you are attacking and where. Attacking spearmen fortified in a city can be tough. Don't use horsemen, or warriors. Use swordsmen, and other units with high attack values. Guard your cities with tough defenders, spearmen, pikemen, riflemen, etc. Guarding a city with archers is only going to get your city pillaged.

10. Explore the strategy and tip threads on this website, there are dozens and dozens of great tips and advice here.


"do or do not, there is no try."

 

[sebanaj]

9. The thing to realize about civ3, however unrealistic it is, is that #'s are a LOT more important than tech (6 frigates could beat a battleship easily ) So you have to always attack in force, know your objectives beforehand and avoid attacking across rivers if possible. terrain is very important now. ROFLMAO

 

[sebanaj]

so we could sink the Bismark with 4 frigates?

 

[Black Fluffy Lion]

general simple tips-

1. expand fast, early on.

2. trade with other civs to get money and techs.

3. pick a religious civ to build temples cheaply, making your people happy and helping your culture.

4. the higher culture you have the more civs respect you. See the foreign advisor when in diplomacy (top right of screen) to see how your culture is compared to theirs.

5. build a big army, it'll put other civs off attacking

Hope these help

 

[Furry Spatula]

here i'll answer a few,

1) it means your gold reserves are low, you need to increase them buy increasing taxes, meaning in the domestic advisor you need to lower science and luxury.

2)civil dissorders occure when you have more unhappy people than happy. So if you have a city with no temple after a certain number an unhappy citizen comes, this number is dependant on the difficulty you are playing on i cant remember them sorry. also sticking 2 units in a city will make to unhappy people content. you can also pull one person away from the plot he or she is working on and turn him or her into an entertainer. THe easiest way to do this is to go into the city screen and click on the city. it will arange your citizens so they will be as productive and happy as possible.

3) well you need to get more cash. this is a hard question to answer. going into the strategy forum and asking there will help. Its a realy complex thing.

4) thats dependant on many reasons, its sort of hard to answer, just try to keep people happy, dont go war happy. ALso you do need an armed force, if you dotn have one other civs will like to declare war on you

5) well you need to get lots of cash so you can pump up your science rating

6) 2 ways
1 - choose a civ with industrial as one of its traits, it will improve land in half the time as a civ without it
2 - get more than one worker working on the improvement. THe more workers the faster it is competed, the opposite of unions .

7) i'd say yes. It does make cultural flips happen more often apparently, but i haven't noticed it that much, also it does fix bugs such as air superiority in the modern times

8) Nope, no cheat mode, but if you go to one of the forums you can find trainers that will help you cheat

9) well its pretty random, you just need to make sure you have numbers. there are lots of strategies in the strategy forum

good luck, hope you stop sucking as you put it. But read the strategy forum, there are good tips there, you pretty much need to unlearn your civ1 and 2 techniques and then learn civ 3 strategies. For me that was easy as i sucked at civ 2

 

[Ripley]

There's a forum here for "strategy and tips", plus another one for "strategy articles".

They are well worth reading as they cover many area's that can/do confuse people starting out with Civ3. They worked for me at least.

 

[civ3n00bie]

thanks alot you guys!!!!!! you will be seeing alot more of me asking stupid questions just like these for Instance......Are there any differences between the different civilizations? Also jsut thought i would say those modpacks are cooolll gonna have to test some out .

 

[Furry Spatula]

yes the civilizations are a lot more important in figureing out strategy now. BUt if you read the strategy articles and forum you will see a lot of this explained.

its a bit more complex than it was in civ2

 

[Bamspeedy]

1. It means you are running a deficit (losing money), or very low on money. At the start of the game, have your worker building roads, especially on the tiles that you know your citizens will be working on. Roads add money. You can also go to the Domestic Advisor and at the top you can adjust how much you spend towards science, happiness, with the rest going to your treasury. Military units and city improvements cost you money so you'll need to have a good population to support these. Build more cities (and make them profitable), as the cities grow, you'll make more money. Sending out a few warriors to hunt for barbarian camps will net some money as well.

2. Civil uprising is caused by unhappiness. You can quell this by:
a. Accessing luxuries (if it's in your territory connect the resource to your city via a road), or use a worker and create a colony on the resource (connected by a road to your capital) if its in nuetral territory.
b. Building City improvements (temples, etc.)
c. Budget more for happiness in the domestic advisor screen
d. Make some of the citizens entertainers

3. Invest more in science, and build city improvements (libraries, etc.). Having more cities also improves your overall science output. Trading for technologies is another option, the AI does it all the time amongst themselves.

4. Don't know about this one without more information. Why not? Run out of time, or does the AI kill you?

5. My tactic is to expand real fast (have some fast growing cities produce nothing but settlers), and just have enough military units to defend yourself. After you have expanded as far as you want to, then start improving the cities by building all the improvements. After I have probably about 6 cities (on a HUGE map) I have my capital (hopefully one built on a river, so I get a free aquaduct, and with enough resources to put out real good production), building all the wonders, starting with the Pyramids.

The easiest way to breeze your way through the ancient techs is (if your playing with no barbarians) is to play an expansionist civ and send a few scouts exploring (hit the e key to do it automatically). On auto-explore they have an unusually knack for finding goody huts and net you alot of free techs.

6. If you play an industrious civ the workers build faster ( I like America, both industrious and expansionist). Workers also build faster under Democracy, and also once you discover Replacable Parts. Otherwise there is no way to build faster, other than to simply have more of them.

7. Don't know about this one, I'm gonna go try it now. What I would do is copy your cizilization folder and save a copy somewhere else on your computer (I left mine on the desktop). That way if you have problems you can just move the copy of the original version back and delete the patched version.

8. No codes other than the Civ3 editor (which you can find in Civ3folder), however some (rule) changes you make can cause the game to crash.

9. Some randomness is figured into the battles. Some terrain offers defensive bonuses. Some units are better in attack than defense, use accordingly. The AI likes to outnumber you, so their inferior units have a chance against stronger units. Also consider where your units are and if they are strategically placed. Cannons, artillery, etc. are good for softening up your enemy before attacking (make sure they are escorted by a good unit, or you'll lose them). Attack from more than one side (if possible), or get others to join you as allies (especially if they are neighbors of your enemy).

10. Just read alot of threads here (better ones for you would be in the Strategy and Tips Forum).

 

[Bamspeedy]

Man, you guys are fast! When I first starting typing my response, there wasn't any other responses. I must be a slow typer.

I guess it also doesn't help I was eating a pizza while typing:crazyeyes

 

[Buecephalus]

LOL bamspeedy,

and yes, check out the Civilizations thread on this forum for a deeper discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of each civ.
My personal favs:
for a cultural victory: Babylonians, Greeks
for a conquest victory: Chinese, Japanese, Aztecs, Romans
Space Race: Greeks, Americans, Romans
Diplomatic: Greeks, Babylonians, Indians


"do or do not, there is no try."

 

[jc011]

Industrious civs help your workers work faster, also, depending on the government type, the workers work at different rates, after you discover replacable parts, 2 workers instead of 4 workers, can produce a railroad in a single turn, but you probably haven't got that far yet....just trade a lot with other civs, keep your science rate as high as possible without losing money, and i always try to get to monarchy as fast as possible since there you can decrease the number of turns it takes to get a tech....choose a scientific civ if you are having troubles, scientific civs can build scientific improvements faster, such as libraries, universities.

Good Luck!

 

[Ironstone]

Originally posted by Ripley
There's a forum here for "strategy and tips", plus another one for "strategy articles".

They are well worth reading as they cover many area's that can/do confuse people starting out with Civ3. They worked for me at least.

Ripley is dead right. This forum has been going for weeks now and a huge amount of useful stuff has already been posted. The trick is to try and find it, which isn't always easy, even using the search engine.

The strategy and tips section has a wealth of stuff if you dig back through the previous pages. One of the crucial elements seems to be understanding how to get a good sold start and there have been several threads on that. Look for stuff about mining and irrigating, city planning, early expansion etc. There are also some great downloads on the main site (Look for a package of stuff to print out by someone with a name like LoneWolf5050 - was it under "Reference"? - sorry can't remember the details).

Oh, and don't feel shy about playing on Chieftain level for a while until you get the feel for the game - it slows down the natural tendency for the AIU to expand quickly.

Good luck - there are some tricky aspects to the game, and a lot to get the hang of at the start, but most of us think it's worth the initial confusion!

 

[civ3n00bie]

i started a new game and followed your tips....I built roads on almost every square in my game...Also i built roads to other civilizatoins for trade.....Anyways My treasury is dangerously low and i keep building roads and getting new resources but my amout of gold never goes up it just says at -5 any suggestions?

 

[Bamspeedy]

civ3n00bie wrote-
i started a new game and followed your tips....I built roads on almost every square in my game...Also i built roads to other civilizatoins for trade.....Anyways My treasury is dangerously low and i keep building roads and getting new resources but my amout of gold never goes up it just says at -5 any suggestions?
________

1. How many cities do you have?
2. How big are they? If built in a bad location and only has enough food to support 2 people, then it will probably lose money.
3. How many military units (and workers) do you have? It costs money to support your units.
4. How much money are you spending on Science and Happiness?
5. The resources (Luxuries) don't actually make you money initially. Unless it is on a tile one of your citizens is working then it might give you a bonus of food, shields, or gold. Luxuries are more for keeping your citizens happy. If you have extra (more than one of the same) luxuries you can trade them for gold. Very early in the game I don't bother building a road to another civ, since they wouldn't have a whole lot to offer anyways. Let them build some of the roads by their territory first, so your worker can concentrate more on your own infrastructure. Build some mines to increase production, and irrigate other tiles to allow your cities to grow more.

Lastly, when you play the game in the upper left hand of the screen you will see 3 icons. Click on the middle one and that will take you to the civlopedia. That is a tremendous source of information on units, governments, game concepts, resources, etc.