Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[ThinkTank]

The time between turns has nothing to do with the processor or RAM, and it is the game itself (i think).

You're partly right and partly wrong. AFAIK, the engine needs to calculate trade routes and that calculation is the primary suspect for the IBT delays. So in that respect it is the game. However, the processor and/or RAM will determine how long that calculation takes. For example, in an SG I am currently playing, the IBT takes about 20 seconds on my PC, but 20 minutes for some of my teammates.

 

[Bartleby]

Anyone know exactly what causes the global warming light to come on?

 

[LoboKhan]

I finally got Civ3 Complete last night after being a long-time Civ2 die hard. I started as the Mongols on a tiny world, vs. Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans (if that matters) and I cannot get my workers to irrigate. The grassland tiles are bordering the water, I can build roads and mine the tile, but irrigation is not even shown as an option.

If someone could tell me what I'm doing wrong or if this is a known bug that can be fixed with a quick patch I'd appreciate it. I've looked arounf this site very briefly for an answer but haven't stumbled across it let.

 

[The Professor]

If I remember correctly, in Civ 2, you could irrigate with salt water. In Civ III, you can only irrigate with fresh water--from lakes and rivers. A lake is defined as a body of water with less than 22 squares. Anything larger than that is an inland sea.

Oh, and welcome to the forums! I loved Civ 2, but it stopped being a challenge. I've only played Civ III for a year now, and it is definitely still a challenge for me.

 

[Aabraxan]

Also, if you can see a little water, but can't tell if it's fresh or salt, right-click the water tile. Salt water yields 1 food, fresh yields 2.

 

[LoboKhan]

Thanks guys, I'm pretty sure the water I was trying to use was from an ocean. I'll try using the river tonight.

 

[vmxa]

Note you probably do not want to irrigate grassland while in despotism.

 

[EMan]

Unless the tile has on it a resource such as a cow, wheat or wine.
Floodplain tiles are always good tiles to irrigate for more food, even under despotism.

 

[vmxa]

Floodplains are not grassland either. Grassland is just that, no bonus, else it would be bonus grassland or such cow or whatever.

 

[EMan]

Similarly, LoboKhan didn't ask whether or not he should irrigate grassland under despotism..........but you gave him the tip anyway.

My guess is that novice Civ 3 players appreciate tips like the ones you and I gave him.

 

[Padma]

Which computer spec positively effects the performance of CivIII on your computer more: RAM, or processor speed?

definitely RAM, because if there are numerous units scattered and your memory isn't great, It can result in slower performance.

Heres some advice:

Processor powers Quality
RAM powers Quanity

The time between turns has nothing to do with the processor or RAM, and it is the game itself (i think).

I'm sorry to be a cross-poster but I wanted to make sure I hit the Civ III and Civ IV people!

I want to get a new computer and want to make sure it's totally compatible and can run Civ III/IV at blazing speeds... I get so bummed with the wait time in between turns and the load time towards the end of the game. What should I go really high end on? Just memory and processor or should I also do a high end video card?

If I can get a local shop to build it for me, I was thinking 3Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo E6850, 4G Ram, and a GeForce 8800GT 512MB. Should that be fine for both Civ III and Civ IV?

TIA!

You're partly right and partly wrong. AFAIK, the engine needs to calculate trade routes and that calculation is the primary suspect for the IBT delays. So in that respect it is the game. However, the processor and/or RAM will determine how long that calculation takes. For example, in an SG I am currently playing, the IBT takes about 20 seconds on my PC, but 20 minutes for some of my teammates.

I think it has been shown that the key factor in Civ3 is the L2 cache. Larger/faster makes the IBT go faster.

 

[CEO Daedalus]

Anyone know exactly what causes the global warming light to come on?

Want that to happen, build lots of factories and coal plants, and don't build metros and recycling plants.

This actually happened to me once.

 

[sercer88]

I think it has been shown that the key factor in Civ3 is the L2 cache. Larger/faster makes the IBT go faster.

Ok....um, what if I wanted to maximize my own computer's performance. My computer does not have an L2 cache...but I can either make my processor go at a lower speed for more RAM, or keep it at a high speed for not as good (but still ok) RAM.

i.e. I can make my computer run at either of the following:
1.3 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM...and
1.8 GHz processor, 512 MB RAM...or something like that.

Which of the two would make Civ III run faster IBT's (for large scenarios...esp TCW!)

 

[MAS]

The L2 Cash is printed on the CPU chip. In other words, check the specifications of the Central processor...

Civ3 uses very little RAM.

The biggest slowdowns in civ, are on large maps with lots of civ and lots of cities. Because the number of possible trade routes increases exponentially every time if the map/no# cities/no# civ becomes even a bit larger.
Each time you plant a city/raze a city, enter new turn, the computer needs to re-calculate all of them.
The process of finding routes over a map is an inherently time-consuming job, the most efficient algorithms for this problem where already conceived in ancient computer history. Although I've heard that the coding of Civ3 isn't as efficient as it could be, even if this problem would be fixed, you end up with the slow downs anyway, they'll only become a bit shorter. (would still be an improvement though)

The only way to really speed up this process in the end is to simply get a faster CPU.

(cash acts like a kind of RAM that is very close to the core, speeding up the processes that require wring to and reading from memory a lot. Its obvious this will also be a good way to speed up the process)

 

[Bartleby]

Anyone know exactly what causes the global warming light to come on?

Want that to happen, build lots of factories and coal plants, and don't build metros and recycling plants.

This actually happened to me once.

Thanks for the input.

What I really want to know is the exact moment when it first lights up; is it the first civ to a specific tech, the first factory built, or what?


edit: to add a further question;

If you have a stack containing loaded and unloaded galleons, is it predictable which will be attacked?

 

[LoboKhan]

Similarly, LoboKhan didn't ask whether or not he should irrigate grassland under despotism..........but you gave him the tip anyway.

My guess is that novice Civ 3 players appreciate tips like the ones you and I gave him.

I do appreciate the tips, the specific situation I had though was a city surrounded by plains, and could not manage to grow past size 4 because I could not get a food surplus by working the city radius with 4 citizens.

What I eventually had to do was clear 3 tiles of swamp/marsh and irrigate a total of 7 tiles to get to my plains.

Ironically enough, I've been reading the instruction book here at work during my lunch and breaks, and playing the game when home, and today I came to the changes between Civ 2 and Civ 3 section as saw that you cannot irrigate from salt water until you discover electricity.

 

[EMan]

You probably already know this, but you can always irrigate tiles adjacent to irrigated tiles.......and also those tiles adjacent to city center tiles that are adjacent to irrigated tiles or fresh water.

 

[The Professor]

Hey LoboKhan,
One more big change from Civ 2 to Civ III is that in Civ 2, Democracy was almost always the best government, unless you were in a big-time war. My first couple games of Civ III, I switched to Democracy as soon as I could, just out of habit. But I soon discovered that A) anarchy can take (seemingly) forever at that point in the game and B) the difference in corruption really isn't worth it.
Since then, I've learned to pretty much stick with republic, which comes early when your anarchy periods are likely to be shorter.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

Thanks for the input.

What I really want to know is the exact moment when it first lights up; is it the first civ to a specific tech, the first factory built, or what?


edit: to add a further question;

If you have a stack containing loaded and unloaded galleons, is it predictable which will be attacked?

The first pollution icon in any city will cause the global warming sun to come on. Pollution icons are caused by population 13 and above and by certain buildings.

The only way to know which galleon will defend is if one of them is a veteran and the rest regulars. In which case the veteran will defend first. The rest are random i think.

 

[EMan]

I haven't checked this out (lately) but if you "fortify" the galleons with units on board, will the "unfortified" galleons be attacked first? (Assuming they are all Regular or all Veteran.)

Seems like I tried this a few years ago and was able to "escort" my unit-carrying ships..........But, I could be dreaming this!