Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[tjs282]

Question: If I re-build the Palace in a city where the Forbidden Palace exists can I rebuild the FP in another location?

No, because the FP is a Small Wonder, but the Palace is an Improvement (albeit forced to be unique by the Editor-flag 'Center of Empire'), so the Palace does not automatically replace the FP (this mechanic only applies to the 4 power-plant types, which have the Editor-flag 'Replaces all improvements with this flag checked').

And while you can do it the other way round, building your FP in the Palace-town (pretty sure I've seen AI-Civs do this!), and then re-building your Palace elsewhere (which the AI-Civs won't do!), I would imagine it's only rarely worth doing.

EDIT: Deleted the above in response to @CKS's post below, so the next paragraph is also largely irrelevant (and hence Spoiler'd). I can therefore only assume that if/when I did ever see an AI-town containing both Palace+FP (playing Civ3 for nearly 10 years now, so my memories of past games get hazier with time ), it was most likely the result of an inadvertent Palace-jump, rather than AI-stupidity (unless this was actually 'allowed' in Vanilla — which I played for 4 of those 10 years — in which case, I can well imagine the AI doing it!).

Spoiler Follow-on error... :

At least in C3C, where the primary short- to medium-term benefit of the FP is near-zero corruption in the FP-town, building your FP in the Capital, which already has zero corruption, 'wastes' that benefit. (You do also get a small corruption-reduction in your other core-towns — up to Rank=N_opt, I think? — but this is not as effective as in Vanilla/PtW). Also, if you've built your FP in your capital, you won't be able to use the capital-abandonment-forcing-Palace-jump trick/exploit (which would destroy your FP as well as your Palace!), so moving the Palace will require you to invest at least 300 shields, and most likely more than that (or a GL), which could be much more usefully invested into something else.

In Vanilla/PtW, where the FP acts as a genuine second capital, decorrupting all its adjacent towns as well, a relatively early Palace-move may more frequently be worthwhile — but it would still be better to build your FP in a town adjacent to your capital first (to get/keep the lowered corruption in your 'original' core-towns), and then move the Palace.

Or once the FP is built it cannot be rebuilt?

Well, sorta: it's true that as with all (Small) Wonders, you can only build the FP once, and once it's built, you can't sell it off (unlike all Improvements — except the Palace, Aqueducts and Hospitals). But just as @EMan suggests, losing (control of) your FP-town, by allowing it to be captured, (Settler-)abandoning it, or gifting it away* (the latter only possible if you didn't build your FP in your capital!) will indeed destroy your FP. And then yes, you can rebuild it elsewhere. This is just like if you lose your Apollo Program-town, you can rebuild the AP in another town (and indeed must do, if you want to [continue to] produce Spaceship-parts).

Again, though, since the FP doesn't provide a 'second capital' in C3C, there would likely be little benefit in your doing this, and for much the same reasons. Not only would you lose one of your most productive towns, corruption/waste in all your remaining (core-)towns would also increase until the FP was rebuilt — and again, the 200 shields (or GL) you'd need to do that (not to mention the shields/gold needed to replace all the other lost FP-town buildings*) could almost certainly be better spent on something else.

*

Spoiler If you really feel compelled to do so... :

Gifting the FP-town and then recapturing it might preserve some of your building-investments, but you'd have to rebuild all the Culture-producers at minimum — so you'd be better off selling those before gifting. Also, unless you're playing below Regent-level (i.e. where Culture-flips might actually happen in your favour!), recapturing that town will almost certainly require a war with the AI-Civ you gifted it to, so you don't want them holding it long enough to put too many inconveniences in there (like extra defenders, or their citizens, or Culture-buildings). So to keep your (trade-)reputation intact, you shouldn't gift the town while you still have a substantial fraction left of the 'obligatory' turns on a Peace Treaty: ideally, gift just before the 20T ends, and recapture just afterwards.

 

[strongreaction]

No, because the FP is a Small Wonder, but the Palace is an Improvement (albeit forced to be unique by the Editor-flag 'Center of Empire'), so the Palace does not automatically replace the FP (this mechanic only applies to the 4 power-plant types, which have the Editor-flag 'Replaces all improvements with this flag checked').

And while you can do it the other way round, building your FP in the Palace-town (pretty sure I've seen AI-Civs do this!), and then re-building your Palace elsewhere (which the AI-Civs won't do!), I would imagine it's only rarely worth doing...

Wow what a thorough reply, I really appreciate it. Apologies for not mentioning which version (Conquests, difficulty: monarch).

I originally wanted to move it because the shield production at the capital is anemic and the FP location has great shield production. I usually try to put my Wonders in the capital and I aim for a cultural victory. That's partially the reason why I wanted to move the Palace.

Also, the FP location is actually a more central/useful location than the original palace. Had I moved the capital to the current FP location the original capital was close enough to benefit from the new palace location. Then later on in the game I could build the FP in a location that is beneficial to my far flung cities. That was the plan if the FP ceases to exist where the palace exists, but that question has been answered. Moreover, I was just curious about the mechanics of the game. You more than answered my and question. And no I did not move the capital.

 

[Takhisis]

If you can't get a definitive answer here, I'd suggest you run a simple test: Copy your .SAV file; delete the city; see if you have the option to build the FP in another city.

This would suggest he doesn't know how to autosave.

 

[CKS]

You cannot build the FP in the same city as the palace. It doesn't show up on the available builds. (At least in PTW and Conquests; I've never played vanilla.)

If you accidentally lose your capital, there is a pretty good chance that the palace will move to the FP city, as it is likely to be big and central. You cannot then move the FP to somewhere else, as tjs282 explains above. (If you are abandoning your capital intentionally, presumably you know how to make sure the palace goes where you want it to go.)

In a 20k game, if the 20k city is not the capital, you might intentionally move the palace to the 20k city (once you don't need the palace prebuild any more) to get that extra cpt. I have abandoned my capital to knock a turn off my finish date this way. (Unfortunately I have also accidentally built the palace because I forgot to change over my build or because I have lost the beakers necessary to learn the tech for my new wonder on the last turn before completing the palace.)

Question:
I've started playing around with communism in PTW for huge 100k games. With 100s of cities, corruption is horrible everywhere, and courthouses don't help. Does anyone know if having the palace and forbidden palace in the same city would reduce corruption enough to give me one productive town? I'm not familiar enough with PTW corruption or communism to make a reasonable guess, and I won't have time to test it out until I finish the COTM, by which time I'll have forgotten all about my great idea.

 

[Bork of Boletaria]

Hi all, hoping someone can point me in the right direction!

A friend and I have been trying to play Civ3 online (steam version) but are getting stuck on the set up screen. The second player can join the lobby and chat there, but then on the following game set up screen they never connect. Chat doesn't show up, and they can't select a civ or any other option. The host cannot see them listed in the game, but still has the kick option. When the host clicks ready the empty player spot for the 2nd player just says "connecting".

Been trying to trouble shoot it on my own, but it's hard to find any answers for the steam version of the game. Most of what I've seen is referencing the now defunct gameranger hosting. I'm wondering if it's related to port forwarding but I'm hoping that's not the case. I've forwarded all the appropriate ports on my end just in case as I'm the host. I've never come across a game that needed the connecting party to forward ports as well, but could that be the case here? Unfortunately my friend is living in a dorm type situation so he's not using his own router, meaning he can't go in and edit the port forwarding settings.

Is there something else this could be caused by?

Edit: Related question, is the max players in multiplayer restricted to 8? A quick search makes it seem like that's the case sadly, but figured I'd ask here anyway.

Unrelated question: Can anyone link to a guide about swapping in the Austrian civ for the steam version of civ 3? I can't find a concise guide myself, so I'm not sure exactly what files need to be edited.

 

[catalin72]

Hi all, hoping someone can point me in the right direction!

A friend and I have been trying to play Civ3 online (steam version) but are getting stuck on the set up screen. The second player can join the lobby and chat there, but then on the following game set up screen they never connect. Chat doesn't show up, and they can't select a civ or any other option. The host cannot see them listed in the game, but still has the kick option. When the host clicks ready the empty player spot for the 2nd player just says "connecting".

Been trying to trouble shoot it on my own, but it's hard to find any answers for the steam version of the game. Most of what I've seen is referencing the now defunct gameranger hosting. I'm wondering if it's related to port forwarding but I'm hoping that's not the case. I've forwarded all the appropriate ports on my end just in case as I'm the host. I've never come across a game that needed the connecting party to forward ports as well, but could that be the case here? Unfortunately my friend is living in a dorm type situation so he's not using his own router, meaning he can't go in and edit the port forwarding settings.

Is there something else this could be caused by?

Edit: Related question, is the max players in multiplayer restricted to 8? A quick search makes it seem like that's the case sadly, but figured I'd ask here anyway.

Unrelated question: Can anyone link to a guide about swapping in the Austrian civ for the steam version of civ 3? I can't find a concise guide myself, so I'm not sure exactly what files need to be edited.

GameRanger is still alive,I use it.About connection problems,many times router is the cause.If your friend uses a router of other person,that router can have settings(firewall or else) closing external connections without administrator's consent. If you have other version,not Steam,try GameRanger or Hamachi,I had in Steam like many others lag in game,it is a known problem of Steam multiplayer games.

 

[Civinator]

Edit: Related question, is the max players in multiplayer restricted to 8? A quick search makes it seem like that's the case sadly, but figured I'd ask here anyway.

Sima Qian created a multiplayer tool to play Civ 3 with up to 31 players. You can find it here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/multiplayer-tool-play-scenarios-up-to-31-players.456432/

 

[Bork of Boletaria]

GameRanger is still alive,I use it.About connection problems,many times router is the cause.If your friend uses a router of other person,that router can have settings(firewall or else) closing external connections without administrator's consent. If you have other version,not Steam,try GameRanger or Hamachi,I had in Steam like many others lag in game,it is a known problem of Steam multiplayer games.

Oh wow, didn't know! Figured it was only steam now. My question with the router settings though is why would it only be blocking Civ3? We play plenty of other games together with no issue, I have a feeling you're right though as I don't really see what else it would be. Thanks for the help.

Sima Qian created a multiplayer tool to play Civ 3 with up to 31 players. You can find it here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/multiplayer-tool-play-scenarios-up-to-31-players.456432/

Thanks, I'll have to check it out!

 

[Takhisis]

Question:
I've started playing around with communism in PTW for huge 100k games. With 100s of cities, corruption is horrible everywhere, and courthouses don't help. Does anyone know if having the palace and forbidden palace in the same city would reduce corruption enough to give me one productive town? I'm not familiar enough with PTW corruption or communism to make a reasonable guess, and I won't have time to test it out until I finish the COTM, by which time I'll have forgotten all about my great idea.

Remember that in PTW you also have the Secret Police HQ and you can switch out of Communism and retain the SW's benefits, which you cannot do in Conquests.

 

[CKS]

I need to be in communism to pop-rush, though.

Also, I've never built it, but I thought that the secret police HQ wasn't in PTW, only Conquests.

In any case, having the palace or forbidden palace doesn't help enough with the overwhelming corruption caused by 300 cities. I've made some progress on the COTM, so maybe I'll remember this for long enough to test it.

 

[Takhisis]

Pop-rush? You murderous bastard! Be a man and plunder your enemies' treasury to fund your public as any self-respecting absolute monarch would do, dang it!

 

[CKS]

But on lower levels (where my PTW strategy seems to work), my enemies have no treasury! The best I can hope for is to use their excess population points to construct my libraries and temples.

(At monarch on huge maps I'm struggling to get to communism fast enough to make communism pop-rushing and a lower 100k culture limit competitive with Conquests' 160k limit plus ToA, Feudalism pop-rushing, and agricultural civs. At regent and below, it works pretty well.)

 

[strongreaction]

OK, I am in the Industrial Age and the Russians have Replaceable Parts; they have access to infantry & artillery provided they have rubber. I can see their unit count via espionage and they have two artillery units, 76 riflemen and 0 infantry. How did they get the arty? No other nation has Replaceable Parts except me. Other nations have the rubber resource in their territory, but only one source each and they have still yet to "discover" it. The only scenario I can see them/Russians getting rubber is through trade. I guess there is a question somewhere in here.

Can/will the AI trade a resource to another civ even if it leaves them without the resource? And could they trade a resource even if they don't have the corresponding tech that reveals it?

Not a game breaker just a curiosity.

 

[tjs282]

Rubber isn't needed to build Artillery.

To answer your other questions, an AI-Civ will never deliberately trade away its last instance of ResourceX, but it will trade its second-last instance. So if the last one then gets unhooked, it loses ResourceX until one of its ResourceX-export-deals ends (one way or another).

And no, if the AI can't 'see' a resource, it can't trade it. So if you want their Uranium, you'll have to get them to Fission (or roll over them).

 

[CKS]

Does anyone know if having the palace and forbidden palace in the same city would reduce corruption enough to give me one productive town?

It does not appear to help. The good news is, while testing I realized that Communism has military police. I have no idea why I didn't catch that before.

 

[That Retro Guy]

Long time no see, fellow C3Cers. I used to be Experiment 626 on this forum, but I've been away from it for almost 10 years or so now.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Long time no see, fellow C3Cers. I used to be Experiment 626 on this forum, but I've been away from it for almost 10 years or so now.

Welcome back!

 

[That Retro Guy]

Thanks, vorlon_mi, or should I say, citizen vorlon_mi. I remember putting your name in the story of Experiment 626's Solo TDG way back when. It's a pity that none of the pics are available now that PhotoBucket went all screwy.

 

[Takhisis]

Have you tried to reclaim your account?

 

[That Retro Guy]

Nope . . . Experiment 626 is a bit dated now, don't you think? I just thought that it would be better to start anew.