Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

You'd have a better postcount. ;)
 
Yeah, I know, but I'm not too worried about a post count.

Question: I know that under Despotism, I'm supposed to Irrigate Brown, Mine Green, and build roads on every square, but once I get to Republic, am I supposed to go back to all of my cities and Irrigate Green and Mine Brown, or leave things as they are?

Another question: Where is the default save game directory for Civ III Complete? I got a bunch of crap games in there that I'll never play again. It would be good to clean it out, but I'll be darned if I can find it.
 
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Question: I know that under Despotism, I'm supposed to Irrigate Brown, Mine Green, and build roads on every square, but once I get to Republic, am I supposed to go back to all of my cities and Irrigate Green and Mine Brown, or leave things as they are?
It's generally best to leave things mostly as they are, although it might be worth irrigating at least the shield-Grassland tiles, for faster growth to Pop12. But if you haven't had your Golden Age yet (and are likely to get it soon), don't convert mines to irrigation on non-shield Grass: doing that will lose that 1-shield output from the mine, which means the tile won't produce an extra shield during the GA.

Spoiler Worked examples -- math-phobes need not apply... :
Imagine a Pop6 town working 6 mined Grassland tiles, 3 of which are shield-Grass. All tiles (including the town-tile) give 2 food per turn (FPT) = 14 FPT: 6 citizens need 12 FPT, so you're getting +2 FPT net, and your town will need 10 turns to grow from Pop6 to Pop7 (assuming you have freshwater, or have built an Aqueduct). It will also produce 1 (from the city) + 6 (from the mined shield-Grass) + 3 (from the mined non-shield Grass) = 10 shields per turn (SPT).

If you continue as before (i.e. only mining), a GA will add 1 SPT per worked tile, giving you at least 16 SPT at Pop6 (I can't remember offhand if the town-tile gives an extra shield during the GA as well: if so, it's 17 SPT) with 2 additional SPT for each new tile mined and worked — but the town will still only harvest +2 FPT net (i.e. without a Granary, it will now take 20 turns to gain each new citizen between Pop7 and Pop12).

With the initial 3 shield-Grass mines converted to irrigation (3 FPT + 1 SPT) and the non-shield Grass mines left alone (2 FPT + 1 SPT), the town will now produce 1 + 3*1 + 3*1 = 7 SPT at Pop6, which a GA will increase by 6*1 (or 7*1) SPT to 13 (or 14) SPT — but it will harvest +5FPT net (i.e. growth every 8 turns — or less, if >3 Grass-tiles are irrigated — from Pop7 to Pop12).

Conversely, with the intial 3 non-shield Grass mines converted to irrigation (3 FPT + 0 SPT) and the shield-Grass left alone (2 FPT + 2 SPT), the town will still harvest that +5FPT net, and produce 1 + 3*2 + 3*0 = 7 SPT, but a GA will only increase that by 3*1 (or 4*1) SPT to 10 (or 11) SPT.

Of course, once your town reaches Pop12, there's little point having a net food excess before Sanition (=Hospitals), so any Grass-irrigation could be converted back to mines again — and 2 non-shield Grassland (or Plains) could even be Forested, for 0 FPT net, but 1 + 6*2 + 4*1 + 2*2 = 21 SPT — a GA at that point would turn that into 33 (or 34, or possibly even 35) SPT!
Another question: Where is the default save game directory for Civ III Complete? I got a bunch of crap games in there that I'll never play again. It would be good to clean it out, but I'll be darned if I can find it.
For a standard PC-based installation, your savegames should be in <DRIVE>:...\Civilization 3\Conquests\Saves\. If that's not helpful, and assuming that you haven't messed with Civ's automatically generated savefile-names, you can also just ask Windows-ExploderExplorer to search for all files called '*BC.sav' and/or '*AD.sav'.

Spoiler Rambling off the point :
And having located your ...\Saves folder, if you go up one level in the tree (<DRIVE>:...\Civilization 3\Conquests\), you can find your conquests.ini file. If you open that file up in a text-editor, and add the line 'WindowsFileBox=1' to it, you should get a normal Windows-Explorer window to open when you want to load or save a game. Then you can also delete old/unwanted savefiles directly.

Another potentially useful conquests.ini file tweak (e.g. if you like reloading to try doing things differently — or if you're playing the Games of the Month!) is to increase the number of Autosaves (default is 5) kept in the ...\Saves\Auto\ folder: add the line "Max Autosaves = XX" where 'XX' is the number of files to be retained.
 
Yeah, I know, but I'm not too worried about a post count.

Question: I know that under Despotism, I'm supposed to Irrigate Brown, Mine Green, and build roads on every square, but once I get to Republic, am I supposed to go back to all of my cities and Irrigate Green and Mine Brown, or leave things as they are?

Another question: Where is the default save game directory for Civ III Complete? I got a bunch of crap games in there that I'll never play again. It would be good to clean it out, but I'll be darned if I can find it.
Directory for Steam version Civ III or any other version? If is non Steam,follow the path shown up by tjs282,if is Steam version: Program Files-Steam-steamapps-common-Sid Meier's Civilization III ....-Conquests-Saves
 
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Remember that it's Civilization III\Conquests\Saves, NOT Civilization III\Saves
 
No matter what I do, I can't find the save directory. When in-game, I go to load a savegame, but instead I hit the 'up' icon on the window and try to find the filepath that way. The Saves folder doesn't show up when I follow the filepath. I don't know.

So I fixed it by buying C3C off of GoG for $5.99, uninstalled the CD-ROM game, and downloaded the game through GoG Galaxy. Now I can play the game without the CD, and all of those garbage saves are gone. Hurray!
 
The latest version of Windows I've used for Civ III is XP, so I wouldn't know about that.
What OS are you using, Retro Guy?
 
I'm using Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit + Service Pack 1. Like I said, I downloaded the game through GoG, so I can delete old savegame files as I need to.
 
So, I've downloaded C3C from GoG, but I noticed that it doesn't looked to be fully patched. My CD-ROM says version 1.22f . . . The GoG says that it's version 1.22. I have looked without success to find the patch. During Game Setup, on the Victory Conditions screen, there is no clicky for 'Civ Specific Abilities'. In fact, those words don't appear anywhere on the screen.

Could someone please tell me where I can find the patch to version 1.22f? Thanks! :goodjob:
 
During Game Setup, on the Victory Conditions screen, there is no clicky for 'Civ Specific Abilities'. In fact, those words don't appear anywhere on the screen.
Was/Is that possible in 1.22f? AFAIK, the Civ-traits can't be turned off for the epic game...

However, Civ3Complete does also include a mod which turns off Civ-traits: it's called (strangely enough!) "No Civ Traits.biq", and you should be able to find it via the 'Civ Content' option on the welcome-screen. (There is also one called 'No Unique Units.biq' -- 3 guesses what that one does...?)
But in your case it is quite unlikely that your version of Conquests is not 1.22 already.
I agree. Highly unlikely. GoG supplies Civ3Complete, which is already fully patched.

And AFAIK those patches from Justanick's link were/are for the CD-based version, to update from Conquests v.1.15. Therefore, if you apply them to a DL-version, you will likely break your installation: at best, the game may start asking you to insert the CD to play, or it may simply not work at all, since most C3C CD-versions use(d) the secdrv.sys copy-protection technology, which has long since been disabled, on all Windows versions after WinXP.
 
OK. I re-installed the CD-ROM Civ 3 Complete, the version is shown as 1.22, not 1.22f, and 'Allow Civ-Specific Abilities' is nowhere to be seen. I would have sworn it was. In the HoF settings, it's listed as 'Allowed', so I thought that it was an option to turn on and/or off. My fault. The Save Folder doesn't appear either. I'm going to un-install the CD-ROM game, and re-download through GoG Galaxy, so the Save folder appears allowing me to clean it out as needed.

Sorry about causing the confusion. My brain isn't what it used to be . . . Heck, let's be honest: It never was! :crazyeye:
 
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OK. I re-installed the CD-ROM Civ 3 Complete, the version is shown as 1.22, not 1.22f, and 'Allow Civ-Specific Abilities' is nowhere to be seen. I would have sworn it was. In the HoF settings, it's listed as 'Allowed', so I thought that it was an option to turn on and/or off. My fault. The Save Folder doesn't appear either. I'm going un-install the CD-ROM game, and re-download through GoG Galaxy, so the Save folder appears allowing me to clean it out as needed.

Sorry about causing the confusion. My brain isn't what it used to be . . . Heck, let's be honest: It never was! :crazyeye:
There is a 'no civ traits' conquest file. I think that's what you mean.
I have played it once, it's quite boring, which made me go another route and make the civs even more diverse.
 
'Allow Civ-Specific Abilities' is nowhere to be seen. I would have sworn it was...My brain isn't what it used to be . . . Heck, let's be honest: It never was! :crazyeye:

That Retro Guy, your brain is in better condition as you are thinking about it. :)

Civ 3 Vanilla has this option, and if I remember well, even Civ 3 PtW had this option. Only for C3C it was cut out. I attache a screenshot of Civ 3 Vanilla, done with the GoG version. GoG Galaxy is not needed for starting Civ 3 Vanilla.

civ-3-vanilla-jpg.490365
 

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THANK you! :goodjob: I knew that I had seen it someplace before, but didn't realize that it doesn't appear on C3C.

You're the best! (And please, call me Retro). :D

Also, what is the desired size for an avatar? The page says 200 pixels x 200 pixels is ideal, but when I try it, the left and right sides of the picture are cut off.
 
Civ 3 Vanilla has this option, and if I remember well, even Civ 3 PtW had this option. Only for C3C it was cut out. I attache a screenshot of Civ 3 Vanilla, done with the GoG version.
Oh wow — I'd completely forgotten about that! (Shows how long it's been since I last played Vanilla!).
GoG Galaxy is not needed for starting Civ 3 Vanilla.
And GoG (now) provides a working version of Vanilla (on modern systems?) as well?!? I did not know that, either. My GamersGate DL-version of Vanilla got disabled (on Win8.1) by the secdrv.sys shutdown (it still works on my old WinXP laptop!), so I had to use the PCGames patchpaket to fix it. (And the GG/Steam-install didn't include a PtW Civilization3X.exe, either — does GoG, now?).

Hmmm... I already re-bought C3C from GoG a while ago (mainly to get Civ IV and SMAC at a discount, but also hoping that it included PtW). So if they've updateed their install-package, I'd be seriously inclined to retire the GG C3C-install, and (re)install from GoG instead. (The only thing that's putting me off, is that shifting all my Mods across is going to be a royal pain...)
 
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tjs282, I can start Civ3 Vanilla of the GoG-version by simply clicking on the Civ 3 Vanilla exe. At present I have three different installations of Civ 3 on my pc (GoG, Civ III Complete install with Civ Chronicles CD and a German version of Civ III Complete). May be here occured some influences from other installations. It could be, that I have treated the Civ 3 Vanilla exe of my Civ III Complete CD installation with the No-CD patch, that holds a working version for the Civ 3 Vanilla exe and this even influences the GoG Civ 3 Vanilla exe.

GoG doesn´t have a special version of PtW. I can start it with my Civ III Chronicles CD. It was you, who hinted me to the fact, that this official compilation is not suffering from the secdrv.sys shutdown. :)

So I think it is not worth that you reinstall all with the problems you have described.
 
Also, what is the desired size for an avatar? The page says 200 pixels x 200 pixels is ideal, but when I try it, the left and right sides of the picture are cut off.

I thought that size would be 70x70 (my Avatar is only 67x70) but these are bureaucratic problems, where other know much more than me.
 
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