Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[tjs282]

Does anyone know what gives?

The Coastal Fortress's free-shot is like the 'Zone of Control' ability that e.g. Cavs and Armies have. That is, in order to get shot at, a ship has to pass from one (Coast) tile next to the CF-town, to another (Coast) tile next to the CF-town.

However, the AI 'knows' this, and it also 'knows' where CFs have been built, so it will tend to move its ships past those towns in Sea tiles instead (by the time CFs are available to build -- post-Gunpowder -- Astro is usually known as well, so Sea tiles are safe). The only situation where a free-shot will be fired reliably at every passing enemy ship, is if the CF-town is covering a strait 1 tile wide and 2 or more tiles long. And even then, the shot won't always hit.

So CFs should not be built in the expectation of doing free-shot damage to passing ships. But (AFAIK) they do encourage the AI to avoid those towns (just as the AI will avoid sending Bombers against towns equipped with a SAM-battery); or alternatively, they do protect docked ships from naval bombardment, i.e. the enemy ships have to destroy the CF, before they can hit the ships behind it (like bombard-units have to knock down town-Walls, before land-unit garrisons will start taking bombardment damage).

Whether the CF is worth the shields and maintenance-cost though, is very situational -- e.g. maybe if you've got a large Privateer fleet based overseas, you might want a CF in your pirates' paradise...

 

[r16]

a thing good to learn , now that ı always thought it was not working . And anyhow they always attack my harbours ı have captured from the AI and so have coastal fortress built already and destroy it in one shot .

 

[Theov]

The ai builds them and for the human player the CF isnt worth the build.
It was the only building I removed in my mod.
You could add the effect of pritection to another building...

 

[RobS]

Thanks, tjs282, for the extensive answer.

I didn't know about enemy bombers avoiding cities with SAMs, or about arty versus walls. Good stuff to know. I did often wonder why SAMs rarely shot down any bombers when they did attack. Do you know whether Mobile SAMs work the same way? Does more than one Mobile SAM in a city add to the enemy attack discouragement? Do Mobile SAMs discourage bombing attacks against units in the same hex?

 

[RobS]

Another quick question: Is there a list of remaining game bugs?

Up until now, I thought the game was bug-free, aside from a couple of inconsequential graphics bugs, but I read a post the other day about the Great Wall being able to be destroyed by bombardment, which I don't think is supposed to happen.

 

[tjs282]

I did often wonder why SAMs rarely shot down any bombers when they did attack.

AFAIK, when an aircraft bombs a town with a SAM battery (talking about the building here, not Mobile SAM units), the game runs a serially-dependent routine, with randomly determined outcomes at each stage, weighted based on relative stats:
(1) Is the aircraft detected? If yes, goto (2)
(2) Does the SAM fire? If yes, the bombing-run fails: goto (3)
(3) Does the missile hit? If yes, only then will you actually see a 'result' of the plane being shot down
But as I say, (I get the distinct impression that) if the AI has an otherwise equal choice between bombing a SAM'd city, and a non-SAM'd city, it will be more likely to go after the non-SAM'd city in the first place.

Do you know whether Mobile SAMs work the same way? Does more than one Mobile SAM in a city add to the enemy attack discouragement?

As I understand it, when an aircraft does a bombing-run against a tile guarded by AA-units (Flaks or SAMs -- or Destroyers, I guess, though I'm not sure if they can fire while in port), up to 4 AA-units may fire in response, and each Flak/SAM can (theoretically) fire at every plane that attacks (unlike Fighters, which can only sortie once per (inter)turn) -- which in turn suggests that putting more than 4 AA-units on any given tile is overkill.

Do Mobile SAMs discourage bombing attacks against units in the same hex?

I''m pretty sure that AA-units are useful as deterrents.

Spoiler For example, in my current game... :

The Dutch (on my continent) ran away pretty early on, killing off the Americans and Babs, and Willy learned Flight (long) before I did. And although the Civ3-AI will tend not to attack fully-healthy Armies head-on, it will bomb them -- to redline/death if it can. So Willy duly built multiple Bombers, and duly used them, over the course of multiple turns, to kill outright several of my far-flung Cav-Armies (all with 17-18 HP).

By the time I learned Flight myself, I only had 2 Cav-Armies left (out of 4 or 5 originally), but once I'd built (and airlifted) some Flaks (and Fighters) overseas (I used a Worker(Foreign) to build an Airfield in former Sumeria and another in former Germany), and garrisoned those AA-units on the same tile as an Army(s), Willy stopped targeting them. I'm pretty sure that he still had the capability of bombing/killing them, if he'd 'wanted' to. But he apparently didn't want to.

(Admittedly, I did also destroy some Dutch Bombers during town-captures, but I saw far fewer planes explode in total, than I had previously seen attacking my Armies over the course of a single interturn).

I now have Tank-Armies. During the most recent round of hostilities, these were garrisoned in/near a semi-chokepoint-city, which had 6-8 Flaks and 3 Fighters in it (and also Tanks, and Arty, and Infantries, and on a Hill at Pop12). Any time an Army was (left) out in the open, I stationed 1-2 Flaks under it. And again, Willy never sent any Bombers anywhere near that town, or those Armies -- and all his Tanks/ Modern Armor/ MechInf/ TOWInf also tried to bypass that town in favour of the almost-ungarrisoned towns beyond it.

Though the flood of Dutch units was too great for me to make any progress into former America/Babylon, my gunners (and Bombers and Tanks) got lots of target-practice...

 

[Civinator]

... in addition to the concept of air defense:

You can read more about the details of alexman´s formula here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/air-combat.125337/#post-3004362

 

[Takhisis]

So CFs should not be built in the expectation of doing free-shot damage to passing ships. But (AFAIK) they do encourage the AI to avoid those towns (just as the AI will avoid sending Bombers against towns equipped with a SAM-battery); or alternatively, they do protect docked ships from naval bombardment, i.e. the enemy ships have to destroy the CF, before they can hit the ships behind it (like bombard-units have to knock down town-Walls, before land-unit garriosons will start taking bombardment damage).

In a city at the end of a bay, if the settlement is placed in the correct position, this might help when intercepting enemy troop-carrying transports.

 

[Donny Brook]

If you pop a hut and discover Philosophy, it automatically gives you the tech you're currently researching as your freebie. You don't get to choose. Does the Theory of Evolution wonder work the same way?

 

[Takhisis]

Yes. If you time it right you can finish a tech right in time to then skip ahead, but if you don't (e.g. other civs are chasing you and you don't want to risk it, or you want to change governments, or switch to a mobilised economy or whatever) then whatever you're researching right now will be completed and then you get to choose the next tech.

Of course, if you know that you'll be finishing ahead (a bit of judicious espionage always helps) you can do what a real-life politician would do: skimp on your research budget, wait for a miracle solution to catapult you ahead and use the money ‘saved’ to splurge on entertaining the people or subsidising industry.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Yes. I try to time it so that I finish research on a tech on the turn before I complete Theory of Evolution, and choose the next tech to be one of my freebies. As Takhisis wrote, this often means slowing down research on the current tech to finish exactly where I want it. It would be frustrating to have 1 or 2 turns left on a tech when the ToE completes.

 

[justanick]

Yes. I try to time it so that I finish research on a tech on the turn before I complete Theory of Evolution,

It suffices for it to be the same turn. In that case of course you need a prebuild like the palace. Also upon finishing the tech you need switch to the bigger picture, from there to F1 and from there to the city to change the prebuild to ToE to finish just in time.

This kind of just in time production can be helpful. For optimal results one needs to plan ahead well. Being disturbed by say pollution is inconvenient but of course acceptable because the higher output reached from tolerating some sources of pullution increases production by a significant margin.

 

[JR still a newbie]

Hope this is the right forum to ask... I have "Civ 3 complete". I usually play vanilla, Regent or Monarch, but played the Mesopotamia scenario ONE TIME and now every game I start, a civ is defeated with the loss of a single city. Therefore, all the AI's focus on stacking their cities with defensive units, even if they keep the population at 1.. It is bizarre. Is there a "preference" box that controls this? It basically makes the AI stupider than normal... not as much fun... Thanks everyone!

 

[Civinator]

Hope this is the right forum to ask... I have "Civ 3 complete". I usually play vanilla, Regent or Monarch, but played the Mesopotamia scenario ONE TIME and now every game I start, a civ is defeated with the loss of a single city. Therefore, all the AI's focus on stacking their cities with defensive units, even if they keep the population at 1.. It is bizarre. Is there a "preference" box that controls this? It basically makes the AI stupider than normal... not as much fun... Thanks everyone!

JR still a newbie, welcome at CFC!

It seems you have activated the "Elimination" option in the starting menue of C3C. Simply disable it by klicking on it when starting a game (so that this box
isn´t blue any longer). This (and some other short game options) were introduced to C3C, so they shouldn´t influence any of your games played with the Civ 3 Vanilla version of Civ 3 Complete.

 

[Takhisis]

Yes. Civ3 keeps the conditions of the last game you launched.
There's also the highly useful ‘Default Rules’ button that resets the ruleset to -you guessed it- the defaults.

 

[EMan]

With CRpMapStat open in the Culture Tab: Can't get the "Jump To Tile" feature to work when right-clicking on a city. Will only jump to my Capital City. I'm sure this feature has worked before. Any thoughts?

 

[CKS]

Nope, but I'm feeling stupid right now, because I've somehow never noticed this feature. I'll have to try it out.
Edit: Having tried it out, it works for me.

 

[EMan]

Subject: Civ III's Finest: Policemen (Specialist Citizens).
What determines when a Policeman in your City screen can produce a Blue Shield? (In most of my 511 cities, a Policeman makes no difference!)
However, in the 2 attachments, you can see the difference a Policeman makes to the production of a Settler.

 

[r16]

it could be something about the distance to the capital city . My current game the cities close to the palace produce more shields in civilian construction with a police instead of an engineer .

and as settler is an Unit , it's only natural that the police would putperform anything . Also lovely that he more than earns his upkeep , one minus gold but more commerce .

 

[justanick]

Subject: Civ III's Finest: Policemen (Specialist Citizens).
What determines when a Policeman in your City screen can produce a Blue Shield?

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/everything-about-corruption-c3c-edition.76619/

Assuming there is still a corrupted base shield and a corrupted base commerce, than a policemen will always make 1 corrupted base shield and 1 corrupted base commerce uncorrupted.

There are 2 catches.

1. Maximum corruption applies after policemen. So if corruption is (significantly) higher than maximum corruption, then a policemen has no apparent effect because the effect remaining after maximum corruption has been applied nets to zero.

2. Any boni by factories, market places etc. apply only to those base shields and that base commerce, that remain after corruption.


In communism corruption is almost ever lower than maximum corruption, thus policemen are always fully effective. That is until you run out of corrupted base shields or corrupted base commerce, which ever comes first. If a policeman can only reduce one of them, then he is probably not worth his pay as engineers or scientists net a better effect.