Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Jokeslayer]

How do you make cities in the desert grow larger than size 2? How do you make production better?

You'll need to irrigate the tiles with your workers. There will need to be a source of fresh water next to the tile you're irrigating (either a river, a small lake or another irrigated square). In the early game, it might be a lot of work to do all that, so try to avoid desert cities early on.

Making production better would involve building mines with your workers. Desert tiles are usually better irrigated (IMO)

 

[Jokeslayer]

Is there a way to keep the city governor from doing anything, in any city? I turned all the settings to No/Never in All Cities, but is there anything else I can do?

 

[Aabraxan]

Set the governor to "Emphasize production." Shields are counted after growth, so that any time a city grows, the governor will assign the new citizen to a high shield tile and you'll get those shields on the same interturn.

Edit: It won't keep the governor from doing anything, but it's helpful nonetheless.

 

[MAS]

How do you make cities in the desert grow larger than size 2? How do you make production better?

A desert tile will give 0 food when worked, irrigation adds 1 to that.
At size 2, 2 citizens will be working 2 irrigated tiles. So the food produced in that city is 1 from citizen1, 1 from citizen2, and 2 from the city center, 1+1+2=4 food in total! each citizen eats 2 food, so those 2 citizens eat 4 food. leaving only 0 surplus food, thus the food bin will never fill.

To make the city grow, you will have to put the citizens to work on tiles that produce more than 1 food.

If all tiles around the city that the city can work are desert tiles (or worse) you will have to wait till you get steam power, then you can rail, and rail + irrigation is +2 food. Each tile will then give 2 food and one shield, allowing 1 citizen per worked tile, plus one for the city center.

An alternative is to place cities in dessert area very close to each other, like city-tile-city-tile-city. Then leave them at size 1 by turning its first citizen into a specialist. This way you will get more out of the desert area before steam.

 

[ecuwins]

Desert sux unless you have some post depostism grassland around to irrigate. I have heard C3C's Agriculture trait ups the food in an irrigated desert tile to two -- now that is pretty nice.

 

[EMan]

...I have heard C3C's Agriculture trait ups the food in an irrigated desert tile to two -- now that is pretty nice.

Correct..........Go Mayan for Highest Scores!

 

[Jokeslayer]

Set the governor to "Emphasize production." Shields are counted after growth, so that any time a city grows, the governor will assign the new citizen to a high shield tile and you'll get those shields on the same interturn.

Edit: It won't keep the governor from doing anything, but it's helpful nonetheless.

Most of what I want is for the governor to leave my specialists alone. They seem fine until the city grows, and then they start thinking they know better than me.

 

[gmaharriet]

Most of what I want is for the governor to leave my specialists alone. They seem fine until the city grows, and then they start thinking they know better than me.

Setting the Governor to "emphasize production" is absolutely essential to creating a settler factory, which allows rapid expansion of your empire. I'd strongly recommend it.

 

[jackdubl]

I know there are some mods or something that redo the graphics for strategic and luxury resources on civ3, I see the them all over on other people's screenshots. But I can't find them. Does anyone know where I can get then from?

 

[TheOverseer714]

Getting back to razing, at what point does razing no longer yield slaves? I have razed a bunch of cities in some games and then stopped getting slaves, which bummed me out. I do like to get something out of it, besides destroying enemies.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

I seem to not be able to establish an embassy. I'm playing a game in Civ3 Complete in Conquest rules (playing the Celts), random map. I have writing and I've tried Ctrl-E in the game screen, I've looked at the city screen for my capital and don't see a way to set ip an embassy. I have diplomatic agreements as a deal option when talking to rival civs.

In an early attempt to mod, I made a civ that started with writing, and couldn't make embassies also. That was the last game I played before starting this one. Is it possible I've messed up subsequent games?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Aceman101]

You should be able to click on the little E symbol at the bottom right hand corner of the screen. When you click on it, it should take you to the espionage screen. I'm not sure if Ctrl-E does the same thing. In the espionage screen you have to click on a leader and then to the right there's a button that says build embassy or something. Click on that and then there's a button on the bottom right hand corner of the screen that says confirm, click on it.

You also need to have a bit of gold, 100 should be enough.

 

[Aceman101]

Getting back to razing, at what point does razing no longer yield slaves? I have razed a bunch of cities in some games and then stopped getting slaves, which bummed me out. I do like to get something out of it, besides destroying enemies.

Maybe you reached the unit limit. If you had well over 1000 units then, you probably reached it.

I know there are some mods or something that redo the graphics for strategic and luxury resources on civ3, I see the them all over on other people's screenshots. But I can't find them. Does anyone know where I can get then from?

There are a few ways. You can check in the Graphics Modpacks section, or just click on the download button on the top of the screen.

 

[Bartleby]

I think there's a random element to getting slaves; sometimes you get them, sometimes you don't.

 

[Jokeslayer]

Setting the Governor to "emphasize production" is absolutely essential to creating a settler factory, which allows rapid expansion of your empire. I'd strongly recommend it.

OK thanks. But in the late game, when you don't need any more settlers and just want those super-corrupt cities to not be messed around with when they grow.

 

[Bartleby]

You can't completely turn off the govenors. As I understand it, the default setting is "emphasise production" which means that when a new citizen is born, he or she will be set to work the most shield productive tile. You can tell the govenor to emphasise commerce or food, with predictable results.
Whetever the setting, the already assigned citizens should not move, unless:
a) the govenor is managing the moods and/or production (they might change around then)
b) if the cultural borders expand for the first time (in this case they will all be reassigned; a major pain if you build the internet).
Note that if a city expands for the first time and grows at the same time, the new citizen may be assigned as an entertainer if they'd otherwise be unhappy.

edit: another thing, if the population shrinks (e.g. by starvation/bombardment) all the citizens will be reassigned.

 

[Jokeslayer]

Cool. Thanks for the explanation, Bartleby

 

[splunge the 2nd]

You should be able to click on the little E symbol at the bottom right hand corner of the screen. When you click on it, it should take you to the espionage screen. I'm not sure if Ctrl-E does the same thing. In the espionage screen you have to click on a leader and then to the right there's a button that says build embassy or something. Click on that and then there's a button on the bottom right hand corner of the screen that says confirm, click on it.

You also need to have a bit of gold, 100 should be enough.

Thanks Aceman. Do you know whether the E appears if I don't have the cash?

 

[Aabraxan]

The E should appear regardless of your cash situation, but when you get to the Espionage screen, anything that you can't afford will be greyed out.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

Oy! Must be a bug, or I messed it up with my new civ. Any suggestions? Is there a bug/problems forum?