Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Takhisis]

Yes, yes, but there's always tomorrow -and as my trade is translation, I always prefer originals. Screw the competition! Wait, that's a civ phrase, but addled gamers might occasionally have a point.

No, it doesn't. Only if in the meantime you obtain a new tech (by research or by trade), as already pointed out by justanick. The tech doesn't need to have anything to do with the units. Just the fact that a new tech was aquired seems to cause the game to trigger an algorithm that goes through all city buildlists and checks whether all units currently under production are still "up-to-date".

What if the tech is obtained with the Great Library or another such wonder?

 

[justanick]

What if the tech is obtained with the Great Library or another such wonder?

This is the same. Huts, GL and ToE count as researching a tech, the later can even give a SGL.

Espionage will work aswell, the thing really is only obtaining a tech, not how it happens.

 

[Takhisis]

This is Civ 3, so one should always ask.

 

[Lanzelot]

This is Civ 3, so one should always ask.

You mean because there is no logic behind anything, and everything is possible in software developed by Firaxis? Yeah, right... See for example here:

...snip...

Small Wonders

• The Battlefield Medicine can not be completed, if the number of hospitals in your empire falls below 5.
• The Wall Street can not be completed, if the number of stock exchanges in your empire falls below 5.
• The Strategic Missile Defense (SDI) can be completed, even if the number of SAM missile batteries in your empire falls below 5.

...snip...

 

[agonistes]

Grrr you remind me that I've been postponing learning German for the past three years grrr

Great! What's your email? Next time I'm called a procrastinator, I'm sending the complainer your way. Dishes be damned!

 

[Takhisis]

You could take up Olympic-style shooting and that way you'd solve the problem of having dirty dishes. You would have to buy new crockery every week, though.

 

[r16]

"The Battlefield Medicine can not be completed, if the number of hospitals in your empire falls below 5."

your magical mana falls below required level

"The Wall Street can not be completed, if the number of stock exchanges in your empire falls below 5."

you don't have enough robber barons left and those who remain will not even talk to each other

"The Strategic Missile Defense (SDI) can be completed, even if the number of SAM missile batteries in your empire falls below 5."

your CDs to the secrets of aerobics and missile defence have survived


and totally unrelated to CivIII . Was about to buy an external disk , seems they have just decided to forgo 1 Terabyte types and selling 2 TBs . Means kinda ı have money to burn . Is Beyond Earth a standalone game , do ı have to buy Civ 5 for that ? 'Cause Civ III is the Civ and stuff ...

 

[tjs282]

...and totally unrelated to CivIII . Was about to buy an external disk , seems they have just decided to forgo 1 Terabyte types and selling 2 TBs . Means kinda ı have money to burn . Is Beyond Earth a standalone game , do ı have to buy Civ 5 for that ?

Standalone, AFAIK. Kind of like what SMAC was to CivII (except not as much of an improvement).

(Note to self: really should give SMAC another chance -- wonder if I can get my CD-based version to install under Win 8.1...?).

But why not just wait for Civ 6...?

 

[Takhisis]

Oi! Civ six? Bloody hell?

 

[r16]

what's Civ 6 ? Civ is either I or III . Despite my nephew has or had Civ 5 and he was enjoying it greatly . And the thing is the CDs of the Beyond Earth and its expansion pack are about 20$ each , that's about 2 months of "savings" for me when bought together . Beyond Earth was about 60$ just a month ago . And naturally if ı wait for 10 , they will just go off the shelves eternally .

so ı guess this BE thing might played as a glorious MOO or something without diluting my Civ experience , hopefully without keeping the CD or DVD in the computer always ? ( Lesser the number of things operated , lesser the chance of a breakdown afterall .)

 

[r16]

so yours idiotly goes and buys the stuff . Noticing that it requires web connection for Steam on the way home . No problem , being an idiot just will see what happens . And yes , while it loads C++ something Distributable 2012 it's really searching all .exe files , isn't it ? No web connection , no Steam authentication , no loading . Fair enough . But it cuts abruptly and doesn't remove the loaded stuff ? ı would have re-loaded the settings of a previous date but was blinded by the possibility of using Steph's editor . And when re-started next day , ah trouble . And stuff . Finally ended up with losing a couple of icons . How do you get "clean versions" of Documents and My Computer without the short-cut arrow ? How did my scenarios and saves survived is an academic issue .

I am going to do something to Steam.

and of course Civ III Plus will not have anything of the sort . Have never shared the US Goverment's thing about air-tight computers but whatever replaces Steam shall have the kindness of removing loaded software in case of a stop and will ask for the web connection before loading anything .

 

[Simpson17866]

Since I'm starting to give more thought to a straight-warmongering play-style than I ever used to

1) how many people are lost under Fascist governments automatically

2) If I sacrifice population in captured cities to rush something, then send Settlers to pump the cities with my own people, will the forced labour unhappiness also apply to the people I just added, or only the people who were already there?

 

[templar_x]

re 1), a straight-warmongering play-style won´t ever let you get so far that changing government for a 2nd time will ever become reasonable...
of course it depends on a lot of factors, but very often it is absolutely appropriate to win militarily and never reach the Middle Ages.
t_x

 

[tjs282]

Since I'm starting to give more thought to a straight-warmongering play-style than I ever used to

1) how many people are lost under Fascist governments automatically

Bearing in mind that I've never used Fascism myself* -- just watched AICivs self-destruct under it -- I do know that the citizen losses depend on settlement-size: I believe it's 1 citizen lost if Pop2-6**, 2 citizens lost if Pop7-12, and 3 citizens lost if >Pop12.

*Provided you can grow your cities into Metros and use most/ all the BFC tiles, and you can safely absorb another gov-switch at that late stage in the game, then Communism is a much better gov-choice for warmongering than Fascism. But you don't really need either of them -- warmongering under Republic is still quite feasible in the late game, even on Large/Huge maps (and on Tiny/Small maps, you can win a Dom/Conq vic (long) before you reach Communism).
**I don't think you lose a citizen from Pop1 towns and thus auto-raze them, but as I say, I've never tried...

2) If I sacrifice population in captured cities to rush something, then send Settlers to pump the cities with my own people, will the forced labour unhappiness also apply to the people I just added, or only the people who were already there?

I would assume that the unhappiness would carry over to your own newly settled citizens, similar to the way that when you abandon an unhappy town, (whip/draft) unhappiness 'migrates' to your nearest intact town.

 

[justanick]

1) how many people are lost under Fascist governments automatically

3 for metropolises, 2 for cities and 1 for towns. Arguably size 1 cities will not lose population, but never tested that either.

2) If I sacrifice population in captured cities to rush something, then send Settlers to pump the cities with my own people, will the forced labour unhappiness also apply to the people I just added, or only the people who were already there?

Unhappyness is not an attribute of citizens, it is an attribute of a city and if somehow you abandon the city it will even switch to a another city of you.

You gain 1 unhappy face for each killed citizen and while having whipping unhappness you lose 1 unhappy face from whipping every 20 turns, the fist one after 20 turns.

For drafting unhappyness the same is true, but the 2 counters are seperate. So by combing them you can lose a total of 2 unhappy faces in a total of 20 turns. Disbanding riflemen gives you 20 shields, better drafted units even more.

Usually you are best off to do neither whipping nor drafting, but exceptions do exist.

 

[Simpson17866]

re 1), a straight-warmongering play-style won´t ever let you get so far that changing government for a 2nd time will ever become reasonable...
of course it depends on a lot of factors, but very often it is absolutely appropriate to win militarily and never reach the Middle Ages.
t_x

Oh wow.

Bearing in mind that I've never used Fascism myself* -- just watched AICivs self-destruct under it -- I do know that the citizen losses depend on settlement-size: I believe it's 1 citizen lost if Pop2-6**, 2 citizens lost if Pop7-12, and 3 citizens lost if >Pop12.

*Provided you can grow your cities into Metros and use most/ all the BFC tiles, and you can safely absorb another gov-switch at that late stage in the game, then Communism is a much better gov-choice for warmongering than Fascism. But you don't really need either of them -- warmongering under Republic is still quite feasible in the late game, even on Large/Huge maps (and on Tiny/Small maps, you can win a Dom/Conq vic (long) before you reach Communism).
**I don't think you lose a citizen from Pop1 towns and thus auto-raze them, but as I say, I've never tried...
I would assume that the unhappiness would carry over to your own newly settled citizens, similar to the way that when you abandon an unhappy town, (whip/draft) unhappiness 'migrates' to your nearest intact town.

3 for metropolises, 2 for cities and 1 for towns. Arguably size 1 cities will not lose population, but never tested that either.



Unhappyness is not an attribute of citizens, it is an attribute of a city and if somehow you abandon the city it will even switch to a another city of you.

You gain 1 unhappy face for each killed citizen and while having whipping unhappness you lose 1 unhappy face from whipping every 20 turns, the fist one after 20 turns.

For drafting unhappyness the same is true, but the 2 counters are seperate. So by combing them you can lose a total of 2 unhappy faces in a total of 20 turns. Disbanding riflemen gives you 20 shields, better drafted units even more.

Usually you are best off to do neither whipping nor drafting, but exceptions do exist.

Very good to know. Thank you

 

[vorlon_mi]

Just to clarify and reinforce their point -- later in the game, a change in governments gives you a longer period of anarchy than early in the game. Switching from (say) Monarchy into Fascism could require 7, 8 turns or more where you make no new military units or no scientific research.

The question you ask yourself is: is the new government that much better for my empire, that I'm willing to endure the anarchy?

 

[justanick]

Just to clarify and reinforce their point -- later in the game, a change in governments gives you a longer period of anarchy than early in the game.

It depends on the size of your empire. Once have are certain amount of cities a anarchy will last 5 to 9 turns. Chances are that this maximum is reached by the time you first switch governments. Before the maximum interval is reached the anarchy period is in the interval of 4 to 8 turns or even 3 to 7 turns for small empires. Religious civs always have 2 turns of anarchy, that is even true for AIs that would otherwise enjoy shorter anarchy periods like no anarchy at all at Sid.

The main argument against switching governments is the long anarchy period, but the first switch happens away from the rather poor government of despotism and is thus worth the effort. A second switch however will hardly pay off in time before you would have won without switching a second time.

 

[Takhisis]

Yep, it's best to go for Republic or Monarchy and then move straight to Democracy, in my experience, than changing to Feudalism on the way.

 

[Lanzelot]

Religious civs always have 2 turns of anarchy, that is even true for AIs that would otherwise enjoy shorter anarchy periods like no anarchy at all at Sid.

I didn't know this. Sounds like another bone-headed bug by the Firaxis AI-programmers...

Yep, it's best to go for Republic or Monarchy and then move straight to Democracy, in my experience, than changing to Feudalism on the way.

Democracy is a waste of time in my experience:
a) It requires you to research two optional and useless techs. The Beakers can better be invested into something more useful (like Military Tradition... or getting faster to Steam Power)
b) It is even worse than Republic (higher unit upkeep and higher war weariness).
So why invest so many beakers into two unnecessary techs and then suffer through possibly 9 turns of anarchy, only to end up in a government that is worse than the one you already have? Just switch to Republic in the early ancient age and then stick with it for the rest of the game.

On Huge maps it may actually be worth it to switch to Communism later in the game. But I don't play Huge maps, so I'm not sure about it. Depends on whether you are able to achieve 4-turn research under Republic or not. If you can, the lost turns during anarchy can never be made up for, and if not, it may actually be worth taking the switch into consideration.