Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[RobS]

May be this was the only city in range of nukes for those civs ? Here it must be taken into account, that the AI cannot move nukes properly. Another reason could be, that those AI civs haven´t yet discovered other cities of your civ.

Neither one of those is likely. In fact, they are near impossible, if not so.
I'm pretty sure they both had ICBM's, which can hit anywhere in the world. Also, the island-city was part of an archipelago, and I had two other cities on nearby islands about 5-6 squares away, so even if the nukes were submarine-based, it's highly unlikely that these other cities would not have been in range.
As for that island-city being the only one visible to my opponents, that is simply impossible. For starters, this was in the end-game, long after world maps had been traded many times. Also, Russia was right next to my Civ and had done air strikes of some of my other cities long before this happened. France was further away, but had also air attacked one or two of my other cities prior to this.

I'm pretty sure I've seen this type of AI behavior in the past, but never to this extreme extent. Been playing this game for 20 years now. Not really important in the overall scheme of things, since I won the game handily, but just a curiosity.

Maybe the only other thing worth mentioning is that this island-city was the last Capital of the Spanish (not Madrid), after they had lost all of the rest of their territory to the Russians earlier in the game.
As I'm wont to do, I later took the city myself. Having thought about this, I'd forgotten that I earlier took the city from the Spanish, not from the Russians, eliminating the former from the game. Then later, in a war with Russia, they nuked the bejesus out of it. And then the French later did too.
I dunno, maybe the AI was angry that I had taken the final Spanish city? Sometimes things happen in this game that almost make the AI seem sentient.

Okay, one other thing. At the time this happened, I had just passed the Russians in the overall score of the game. I had started the war against Russia too.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Is there any advantage or disadvantage to playing or not playing on Accelerated Production? I've always wondered about this, having always played with it turned on.

Also, I want to start my current game over (Vikings/Monarch/Standard/Arch) before I get much deeper into it so I can not try building a Wonder too early before I've got enough territory. Is there a way to turn AP off for an ongoing game (I've got the Autosave for 4000BC), or should I just start the game over?

 

[jarred!]

Is there any advantage or disadvantage to playing or not playing on Accelerated Production? I've always wondered about this, having always played with it turned on.

Also, I want to start my current game over (Vikings/Monarch/Standard/Arch) before I get much deeper into it so I can not try building a Wonder too early before I've got enough territory. Is there a way to turn AP off for an ongoing game (I've got the Autosave for 4000BC), or should I just start the game over?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you ask this question about accelerated production, or someone notices you have it on and suggests you turn it off every time you ask for assistance. Again, I'll suggest never using it again in single-player.

@tjs282 is really helpful, here's a few things he's said before:

EDIT to above, after re-opening Civ3 and looking into one of your towns:

Why (on Earth) do you have Accelerated Production switched on?!?

This mode is meant to be used for Multiplayer games, to keep them shorter, but is very unbalanced -- arguably game-breakingly so -- for solo-games. It also messes up the GUI (e.g. the city-screen does not display harvests/deficits properly), and can instill very poor city-placement and terrain-improvement habits (because you don't need to be nearly as efficient at extracting shields/ commerce to build/ research things).

Sure, you get to research/build everything quicker, but so does the AI, so AP doesn't help you.

To add to what I (and @justanick and @Samson) have already said, I am also wondering if you are still routinely using Accelerated Production in your games?

(As I've noted before) This mode is intended primarily for multiplayer games, but it can/will be unbalancing in single-player, mainly because (AFAIK) the Worker-turns required to complete any job are not halved in parallel with the doubled growth-rates that AP allows, i.e. your towns will tend to grow (much) faster than the tiles they are working can be fully improved.

Of course, if your start consists of Floodplains/Grassland (so a road is the only tile-improvement you 'need' to maintain a net +2 fpt for continued growth) this isn't a major problem, but for any other terrains (e.g. for towns on Plains, which also require irrigation) this will have knock-on effects across the board/game.

Maybe you overlooked this...?
Also, based on what I've seen of your games (specifically that Mongolian Pangaea Regent (or Monarch?) game that @CKS and I both played out a while back), and perhaps because of the above Worker-turn mismatch, using AP seemed to have taught you poor tile-improvement habits — too much irrigation, too few mines — at least, compared to those habits required to win non-AP/ higher-level games.

Edited to correct error, and allow for the possibility for improvement

Maybe @Quintillus editor or @Steph editor can extract a map from a .sav and let you change the rules, but I don't think you can change the rules of a game in progress with the base-game and editor.

Neither one of those is likely. In fact, they are near impossible, if not so.
I'm pretty sure they both had ICBM's, which can hit anywhere in the world. Also, the island-city was part of an archipelago, and I had two other cities on nearby islands about 5-6 squares away, so even if the nukes were submarine-based, it's highly unlikely that these other cities would not have been in range.
As for that island-city being the only one visible to my opponents, that is simply impossible. For starters, this was in the end-game, long after world maps had been traded many times. Also, Russia was right next to my Civ and had done air strikes of some of my other cities long before this happened. France was further away, but had also air attacked one or two of my other cities prior to this.

I'm pretty sure I've seen this type of AI behavior in the past, but never to this extreme extent. Been playing this game for 20 years now. Not really important in the overall scheme of things, since I won the game handily, but just a curiosity.

Maybe the only other thing worth mentioning is that this island-city was the last Capital of the Spanish (not Madrid), after they had lost all of the rest of their territory to the Russians earlier in the game.
As I'm wont to do, I later took the city myself. Having thought about this, I'd forgotten that I earlier took the city from the Spanish, not from the Russians, eliminating the former from the game. Then later, in a war with Russia, they nuked the bejesus out of it. And then the French later did too.
I dunno, maybe the AI was angry that I had taken the final Spanish city? Sometimes things happen in this game that almost make the AI seem sentient. [IMG alt=""]https://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif[/IMG]

Okay, one other thing. At the time this happened, I had just passed the Russians in the overall score of the game. I had started the war against Russia too.

Pretty neat to be nuked so much, my games generally end early enough that nuclear wars don't happen. Neither civ needed that Al source since they were using nukes... Seems like really strange logic since by the last few nukes there was probably little effect besides global warming

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you ask this question about accelerated production, or someone notices you have it on and suggests you turn it off every time you ask for assistance. Again, I'll suggest never using it again in single-player.

Yeah, I know it's come up before. I also haven't played in something like 9 months & so I forgot everything about this issue when I started the current game. As to the game in progress, since I was considering restarting anyway I'll just do that with AP turned it off. Thanks.

ETA: I remember to turn it off this time - and started near tundra.

 

[Takhisis]

Starting near tundra means you have your uranium, oil and aluminium already settled. Go and conquer the other resources from under the AI's arse!

 

[RobS]

Pretty neat to be nuked so much, my games generally end early enough that nuclear wars don't happen. Neither civ needed that Al source since they were using nukes... Seems like really strange logic since by the last few nukes there was probably little effect besides global warming

Thanks, first of all, for reading my lengthy crap.
I've been in the habit lately of stretching the length of my games by 60 turns, to an even 600, but I will stop doing that because it just drags out too long. But even with standard length games I frequently get into nuke wars - they're fun, after all. By the end of the game that I've been describing, there weren't many forests left because of global warming, despite my vast armies of slave laborers on fallout cleanup and tree-planting duties.
Aside from the nuke wars, it's funny how a game that was made 20 years ago put such an emphasis on unproven theories that were "popular" at the time.

 

[RobS]

Yeah, I know it's come up before. I also haven't played in something like 9 months & so I forgot everything about this issue when I started the current game. As to the game in progress, since I was considering restarting anyway I'll just do that with AP turned it off. Thanks.

ETA: I remember to turn it off this time - and started near tundra.

I think it will seem like an entirely new game to you - have fun.

Starting near tundra means you have your uranium, oil and aluminium already settled. Go and conquer the other resources from under the AI's arse!

If I see any white terrain near my starting location, it typically means a restart for me. I can't stand the stuff. Yeah, I have my likes and dislikes.

(And I'll properly figure out this multi-quoting thing eventually.)

 

[WeirdoJoker]

I think it will seem like an entirely new game to you - have fun.

It might. I used to play Vanilla way back when (before Windows killed the disk-based game for me) & IIRC it didn't have AP, so it should be like the old days. Truthfully, though, I never noticed much difference anyway, so we'll see how this one goes.

If I see any white terrain near my starting location, it typically means a restart for me. I can't stand the stuff. Yeah, I have my likes and dislikes.

I did that once as Russia when all I had was tundra & the occasional forest. But in this case I'm hoping it doesn't matter, because as Takhisis said I'll have late game resources available, and I've always hated not having any of those; and besides, I'm making a beeline for Berserkers so the conquest can commence. Been a long time since I've attempted a military game (no particular reason) & I'm out of practice, so it'll be interesting to be sure. When time permits, anyway.

 

[Takhisis]

If I see any white terrain near my starting location, it typically means a restart for me. I can't stand the stuff. Yeah, I have my likes and dislikes.

(And I'll properly figure out this multi-quoting thing eventually.)

That's alright. This has gotten me thinking that maybe in user-made civ3 there should be some civs more friendly to some biomes. I.e. Inuits or Yakuts could thrive on tundra/taiga, Arabs on steppes and so on.

But, anyway, some tundra nearby but not at the core can be helpful.

 

[RobS]

That's alright. This has gotten me thinking that maybe in user-made civ3 there should be some civs more friendly to some biomes. I.e. Inuits or Yakuts could thrive on tundra/taiga, Arabs on steppes and so on.

But, anyway, some tundra nearby but not at the core can be helpful.

One of the primary things that irritate me about tundra is that you actually end up with cities closer together than with other terrain, at least along the coasts. And along a coast, most of them can grow to 12 or beyond, which is unrealistic.
Oh well, I take many things in this game with a huge grain of salt, of course, and it's why I want to get more into board wargames via Vassal, but I'm too damn lazy to learn rules.

 

[tjs282]

That's alright. This has gotten me thinking that maybe in user-made civ3 there should be some civs more friendly to some biomes. I.e. Inuits or Yakuts could thrive on tundra/taiga, Arabs on steppes and so on.

One of the primary things that irritate me about tundra is that you actually end up with cities closer together than with other terrain, at least along the coasts. And along a coast, most of them can grow to 12 or beyond, which is unrealistic.

Or just do what I did, and make Tundra non-Settleable and non-(re)Forestable (and move-cost 2; ignored by Cossacks)

(I also made Desert non-Irrigable, non-Settle-able and move cost 2; the latter also applying to Floodplains, but ignored by Ansar Warriors)

Doesn't stop the AI planting on single tiles of Settle-able terrain surrounded by inhospitable terrains, of course, but does at least limit that tendency — not to mention the human's ability to spam Pop1 CrapTowns^TM into those areas

 

[RobS]

Or just do what I did, and make Tundra non-Settleable and non-(re)Forestable (and move-cost 2; ignored by Cossacks)

(I also made Desert non-Irrigable, non-Settle-able and move cost 2; the latter also applying to Floodplains, but ignored by Ansar Warriors)

Doesn't stop the AI planting on single tiles of Settle-able terrain surrounded by inhospitable terrains, of course, but does at least limit that tendency — not to mention the human's ability to spam Pop1 CrapTowns(TM) into those areas

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not into modding this game. I'm set in my ways and it's just a reasonably fun time waster.

 

[Takhisis]

You don't have to mod the game yourself if you can download mods made by others.

 

[Believe82]

I just reinstalled my copy of CIV 3 on a new pc straight from Steam, and just realized that I am not allowed to play any other civ but barbarians when playing the Fall of Rome Scenario in conquests.
If I remember correctly there was an option of playing either Rome and also the Persians. Am I wrong? Was this removed on an update?

 

[Takhisis]

Just edit the scenario file manually with the editor so that the factions are playable. Also, are you sure that the game doesn't allow you to play as the Persians?

 

[Believe82]

This is my starting screen for that scenario..
When I go to the editor the Persians dont even appear for this scenario to play

 

[Lanzelot]

Yes, this has always been that way. You need to mod the .biq in order to make the other nations human playable. (But better make a copy, than modding the original, because I think the modded version will no longer be eligible for the Hall of Fame.)

the Persians dont even appear for this scenario to play

The Persians are already playable. They are called "Sassanids" in this scenario.

 

[need my speed]

Points to Firaxis for recognising the Dutch have a better claim to being descendant from the Franks than the French.

 

[Believe82]

Yes, this has always been that way. You need to mod the .biq in order to make the other nations human playable. (But better make a copy, than modding the original, because I think the modded version will no longer be eligible for the Hall of Fame.)

The Persians are already playable. They are called "Sassanids" in this scenario.

Ty. That is not nice. As I was going for a easy way to get this one on the scoreboard. This is a hard one to win cause of the turn limit. I knew I had played roman before. Probably on a mod version.

 

[Lanzelot]

Yes, this was (so far) indeed one of the difficult ones. I'm currently playing the nine Conquests and played Fall of Rome twice, before scoring a win. If you want to read a bit of strategy advice, what worked for me and what didn't, I can recommend my current story:

The Nine Conquests