Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[WeirdoJoker]

Is there a list of relative aggression levels for all the Civs? The manuals that accompany "Complete" show it for the new Civs starting with PTW, but not the original ones from Vanilla.

 

[tjs282]

Is there a list of relative aggression levels for all the Civs? The manuals that accompany "Complete" show it for the new Civs starting with PTW, but not the original ones from Vanilla.

Not sure about the manuals, but I found this in the Civ3 section:

Civilization III: Civilizations - CivFanatics

Quick Links Click a leader portrait below to access the detailed intelligence report for that particular civilization. Conquests (C3C) Civilizations: Play the World (PTW) Civilizations: Original Civilizations:

www.civfanatics.com

It's a bit tedious in that you have to open each Civ-page individually to see their traits and aggression-rating.

Also, although much of the information seems to have been copied directly from the Civilopedias (or the .bic/ .bix/ .biq), it looks like it might have been added to CivFanatics incrementally as each version came out, and does not appear to have been updated for Conquests (e.g. England was made Sea + Comm in Conquests, but their page still shows the Vanilla/PtW attributes of Exp + Comm; similarly, the Celts were added in PtW as Mil + Rel, but became Rel + Agri in Conquests).

So the Vanilla/PtW Civs are likely also still showing their original aggression ratings — and I don't know if any of those were changed in the expansion(s).

 

[Takhisis]

Ok, never seen this one before ... I used the LUX slider (pre-Marketplace), which affected one of my towns just enough - but it switched back when I raised the SCI slider, it moved it back without changing the LUX%. I.e., the SCI% affected mood. Why would that happen?

Since all of them have to add up to 100% no matter what, if you raise SCI you might force the game to automatically lower LUX.

E.g. you have 20% LUX and then raise SCI to 90%, then the game will automatically lower LUX to 10% to compensate.

Is there a list of relative aggression levels for all the Civs? The manuals that accompany "Complete" show it for the new Civs starting with PTW, but not the original ones from Vanilla.

I know that Gandhi's India is programmed to go insanely aggressive in the late epic game i.e. in the fourth age when it has nuclear bombs, tanks (or, more likely, stacked cavalry) and bombers. This is easily countered by having good culture and planting the extra tiles with forests and barricades.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Since all of them have to add up to 100% no matter what, if you raise SCI you might force the game to automatically lower LUX.

E.g. you have 20% LUX and then raise SCI to 90%, then the game will automatically lower LUX to 10% to compensate.

Right, that I know. But my situation was that LUX was 10% and SCI was 80%, so when I raised SCI to 90% LUX stayed the same - but it affected citizen mood in one city (I think it was just one), anyway.

I know that Gandhi's India is programmed to go insanely aggressive in the late epic game i.e. in the fourth age when it has nuclear bombs, tanks (or, more likely, stacked cavalry) and bombers.

I've experienced that ... kind of bizarre, but at least I don't have to worry about India in my current game of Monarch/Large Map/Persians.

 

[Takhisis]

Right, that I know. But my situation was that LUX was 10% and SCI was 80%, so when I raised SCI to 90% LUX stayed the same - but it affected citizen mood in one city (I think it was just one), anyway.

Then that, in particular, is due to rounding, yes.

 

[Theov]

Does anyone here know if anyone has ever documented a full game of Civ III where they deliberately restricted themselves to the large strategic decisions (e.g. city-placements, unit-deployments, slider-settings, who to trade with, who to fight), but turned over all micromanagement to the game-AI (e.g. taking all their advisors' advice with respect to build-projects, research-targets, tile-assignments, automating Workers, etc.)?

If so, can you remember who did it?

(Or suggest some good key-words for a site-search? Because apart from this game, which wasn't finished, my searches of Stories & Tales came up empty)

If not, given a random-everything-except-map-size start, at what difficulty-level do you think you might still have a >50% probability of winning such a game (allowing any and all exploits that you are in the habit of using)?

(For myself I'm thinking maybe Monarch — but only if I rolled one of the "good" Civs with useful traits and/or a strong UU!)

Wouldnt you still manually be fighting the battles?
That would give a major advantage on itself.

 

[Takhisis]

Imagine just automating a stack of knights and declaring war on an AI, then watching your units just roam about the place and attack only at the worst place possible at the AI's command.

 

[tjs282]

As the human player, it's not possible to automate mil-units (AFAIK?), beyond setting them to 'Explore', or assemble at a Rally Point. So yes, the idea was that those would be under direct control.

Just out of curiosity I tried this the other night. Rolled the Romans on Monarch, and the governor of Rome (on a River, lots of Grassland) just flat refused to build any Settlers.

Lots of Warriors, then Spears and Archers at about a 2:1 ratio (because of course, what a Militaristic Civ needs is Defensive units...), but no Settlers. Rome got all the way to Pop6, I was cutting SCI% to avoid going broke from unit-support (started a war with Japan just to bleed off the excess!), and then the Governator decided that what Rome really needed was ... a Granary!

Not sure if this was something to do with the @Flintlock patch, but the nearby AI Civs were all happily spawning new towns, so I'm guessing not. So I quit that game.

 

[Arexander]

The governor won't build settlers by default, you can see the limitations in the 'Contact Governor' screen in the Production tab. Same with Workers. Everything else is 'Sometimes', so I guess it's kind of a roll of a dice on what they build.

 

[tjs282]

The governor won't build settlers by default, you can see the limitations in the 'Contact Governor' screen in the Production tab. Same with Workers. Everything else is 'Sometimes', so I guess it's kind of a roll of a dice on what they build.

Wow, Today I Learned...

That is yet another bizarre choice by Firaxis. I did actually go into the Governor screen when I realised (after the 4th Warrior) that I'd got "Always build last unit" switched on in my Preferences. But all I switched off was the Small Wonders, it didn't even occur to me to look at the top of that list!

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Playing Persia/Monarch/Large map. Currently in Monarchy, because I missed the Republic slingshot & couldn't trade for it (though now I can) and needed to get out of Despotism. My thinking is to trade Monarchy & Literature for Republic, then switch to Republic for when I'm not at war, then perhaps switching back to Monarchy if/when I DoW Carthage.

Normally what I have done is just to get Republic (ignoring all other govs entirely), switch to that, and stay there for the game, but I'm wondering if switching might be better. Not sure what to think yet. Ideas?

 

[vorlon_mi]

The anarchy that your empire goes through when you switch governments scales (roughly) with your empire size. A 12-city empire will have longer anarchy than 3 or 5 cities. So, if you're going to switch to Republic, doing it soon and during peacetime is a good plan.

I've grown so accustomed to (addicted to?) the increased economic power of Republic that it's hard for me to consider staying in Monarchy long-term. Whether you can achieve your desired victory condition in Monarchy -- at Monarch difficulty -- is out of my expertise. With a Large map, you will have some room to expand but so will the AI. Rolling through one of your neighbors sooner, rather than later, would be advisable. Taking advantage of your UU sooner is better than later, to secure luxuries and stable sources of iron and saltpeter.

Even though I personally would try to switch to Republic soon, you'll want to look at the map and your goals. Do you have any grumpy and/or aggressive neighbors? Are they currently at war with anyone else? Are there resources just over the border that you will need, and how soon?

 

[Takhisis]

Add to the above goals: is there any major public works project that might be derailed by your switching to anarchy, such as a road to a resource or a wonder -big or small- which you might be about to finish building?

 

[WeirdoJoker]

The anarchy that your empire goes through when you switch governments scales (roughly) with your empire size. A 12-city empire will have longer anarchy than 3 or 5 cities. So, if you're going to switch to Republic, doing it soon and during peacetime is a good plan.

Thanks. I did not know that, having not often changed governments ... usually just get Republic & sit there, just couldn't do it this time.

I've grown so accustomed to (addicted to?) the increased economic power of Republic that it's hard for me to consider staying in Monarchy long-term.

That's part of my thinking, too. I'm not having too hard a time with money, but could almost certainly research faster with Republic. I seem to be crawling under Monarchy (which is still better than Despotism, at least).

Whether you can achieve your desired victory condition in Monarchy -- at Monarch difficulty -- is out of my expertise. With a Large map, you will have some room to expand but so will the AI. Rolling through one of your neighbors sooner, rather than later, would be advisable. Taking advantage of your UU sooner is better than later, to secure luxuries and stable sources of iron and saltpeter.

Even though I personally would try to switch to Republic soon, you'll want to look at the map and your goals. Do you have any grumpy and/or aggressive neighbors? Are they currently at war with anyone else? Are there resources just over the border that you will need, and how soon?

Hm. Carthage (no one else) shares my continent. I need to secure a source of iron elsewhere, and then DoW Carthage to take theirs away - if I can succeed, as we're kind of matched up militarily. If I'm not mistaken, the Immortal has a slight edge over the Numidian Mercenary?

 

[tjs282]

If I'm not mistaken, the Immortal has a slight edge over the Numidian Mercenary?

It's A=4 against D=3, so will have a little advantage when attacking on open ground. But for attacking Hanni's towns you're going to want a substantial stack of Cats/Trebs along with your Immortals -- or they will will swiftly discover that they are, in fact, exceedingly mortal.

(But if you can build Immortals, you must already have Iron available...?)

 

[Takhisis]

Or just declare war on Carthage and bait them into fighting on your own terms, i.e. ideally your troops would be on high/wooded ground and your enemies on clear, flat ground and they would attack you across a river first (with archers and catapults blasting them) and only then would you mop up their now-weakened troops.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

It's A=4 against D=3, so will have a little advantage when attacking on open ground. But for attacking Hanni's towns you're going to want a substantial stack of Cats/Trebs along with your Immortals -- or they will will swiftly discover that they are, in fact, exceedingly mortal.

Yep, there's always a catch.

(But if you can build Immortals, you must already have Iron available...?)

Currently buying it from Carthage...

 

[justanick]

Playing Persia/Monarch/Large map. Currently in Monarchy, because I missed the Republic slingshot & couldn't trade for it (though now I can) and needed to get out of Despotism. My thinking is to trade Monarchy & Literature for Republic, then switch to Republic for when I'm not at war, then perhaps switching back to Monarchy if/when I DoW Carthage.

Normally what I have done is just to get Republic (ignoring all other govs entirely), switch to that, and stay there for the game, but I'm wondering if switching might be better. Not sure what to think yet. Ideas?

The key about switching governments is to not switch governments. Anarchy is just too painfully expensive. It takes long to redeem the cost of the first anarchy from leaving despotism, but each additional anarchy usually takes too long to recover the costs.

In your case a one time switch to republic may be worth it because you made the mistake to switch to monarchy. But the proper course of action would have been not to switch to monarchy. The proper course of action would have been to endure a few more turns of despotism in order to switch to republic as the one true god government in C3C.

 

[Takhisis]

Indeed. Republic is your infinity minus one sword.

 

[Fergei]

I took 6 cities off Portugal in the early game, but they are still stronger than me. I filled these cities with my workers to make them majority Mongol. Our culture level is almost identical on the graph but two of my six conquests have flipped back to him hours later, and although they were on the border with him they weren't in vulnerable positions for a flip. If I can somehow focus all my efforts on culture is there any hope of these majority Mongol cities might flip back to me at some point? He has been in a game long war and doesn't have much culture.