Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Takhisis]

Also, at larger maps you'll have more cities at a greater distance from the capital.

 

[justanick]

Also, at larger maps you'll have more cities at a greater distance from the capital.

That does not matter. At larger maps distance corruption tends to be lower.

Everything about Corruption: C3C edition

This is a guide about how corruption works in Conquests. It's slightly different than how it used to work in PTW and vanilla Civ3. The information that follows was discovered by extensive testing and contributions by numerous members of the Civ3 community, including Aeson, DaviddesJ, Nor Me...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[Takhisis]

What i am reading in that thread is that the optimal number of cities is proportional to map size, but not the distance…?

 

[justanick]

What i am reading in that thread is that the optimal number of cities is proportional to map size, but not the distance…?

Distance corruption is proportional to 1/(MapW+MapH). So at huge(160x160) distance corruptopn is half as big as on small(80x80). If you cover a circle with twice the radius you do cover four times the area. A lower average distance corruption is to be expected.

Rank corruption for R < Nopt is proportional to 1/OCN. OCN is 14 at tiny, 17 at small, 20 at standard, 28 at large and 36 at huge.

So large maps have both twice the OCN and twice the tech costs of tiny maps. They do however offer 2.8167 times the amount of tiles. Therefore i should adjust my earlier statement. At larger maps a slightly smaller percentage of the total area is needed to achieve the same amount of turns per techs as on smaller maps. But this does not account for tourist attractions and other effects of wonders. So in the end it is roughly the same.

It does however take longer to take the same percentage of area. Also it is to be expected that a larger amount of AIs leads to a smaller percentange of area for each remaining AI. Hence AI research will be slowed down a bit.

Larger maps are arguably easier for the human player. They do however require more effort as the total amount of cities required for either domination or just being highly competitive in research will be much higher.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Question about workers: If you obtain workers (whether captured or purchased) from an AI civ, can you use those to bump your own cities' populations? I know it doesn't sound like the best idea in the world (and I probably would not do it), but I'm just curious if anyone knows if it's possible. (Just reading articles & thinking of stuff.)

 

[EMan]

Yes, you can add any worker to any of your cities, as long as city growth is permitted.
Pro: A captured/purchased worker may not work as hard as one of yours, so it is a better choice for adding to a city.
Con: If the captured worker is from an existing AI civ, the chances of the city flipping will be increased. If the AI civ has been eliminated, you don't have to worry about an increase in flip chance.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Another question pertinent to my last game (Russia/Monarch/Large/Continents): what to do with scouts once I have the whole land map? Only thing I could think of was to disband for the shield value.

 

[Theov]

Question about workers: If you obtain workers (whether captured or purchased) from an AI civ, can you use those to bump your own cities' populations? I know it doesn't sound like the best idea in the world (and I probably would not do it), but I'm just curious if anyone knows if it's possible. (Just reading articles & thinking of stuff.)

Yes, but it generally not the best idea because these slaves dont cost maintenance or count against the unit cap. So, it is better to keep them around for tile improvement.

 

[Theov]

Another question pertinent to my last game (Russia/Monarch/Large/Continents): what to do with scouts once I have the whole land map? Only thing I could think of was to disband for the shield value.

- Put them on a ship to another continent?
- put them on a mountain to prevent barbarian spawning / enemy scouting.
- put them on a spot where you want to build a city, and so the ai cant.

Bc they are quite useless after exploration is done, I modded them so they can build resource colonies.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Bc they are quite useless after exploration is done, I modded them so they can build resource colonies.

Cool idea. I don't do mods (and don't know how anyway), but I would consider trying that one just to avoid the units becoming totally obsolete.

 

[Theov]

Cool idea. I don't do mods (and don't know how anyway), but I would consider trying that one just to avoid the units becoming totally obsolete.

It is something I only recently did, so I dont know yet if the AI actually uses this feature.
I will test it out further this evening.

In the editor, all you have to do is go to the units tab, find the scout unit and click the "build colonies" checkmark.
IIRC that's all.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

It is something I only recently did, so I dont know yet if the AI actually uses this feature.
I will test it out further this evening.

In the editor, all you have to do is go to the units tab, find the scout unit and click the "build colonies" checkmark.
IIRC that's all.

Ok, I made a new .biq file with a change (actually picked "join city" instead of "build colony"). How do I run it instead of the default?

 

[r16]

you can have scouts both join a city and make a colony . Though there is something wrong with the usual editor and the AI will not use the "improved" scouts . Rename your .biq into something like "colony scouts" , place it into the folder of scensrios and pick it while starting a new game , choosing it like any other scenario . Do you always play the standard game or do you have any mods or scenarios added ? Always keep the originals of biqs you have modified , might want to get back to them .

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Rename your .biq into something like "colony scouts" , place it into the folder of scensrios and pick it while starting a new game , choosing it like any other scenario.

Ok, I think I've figured out how that works. Thanks.

Do you always play the standard game or do you have any mods or scenarios added ? Always keep the originals of biqs you have modified , might want to get back to them .

I've always played the standard game & have never added a mod or scenario. Going to try now (since I can't sleep anyway).

 

[Theov]

Ok, I made a new .biq file with a change (actually picked "join city" instead of "build colony"). How do I run it instead of the default?

Rename the biq and put it in the scenarios folder. Then instead of "new game" you select "scenarios" in the main menu.

But beware. Once you start modding, you'll get drawn deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Rename the biq and put it in the scenarios folder. Then instead of "new game" you select "scenarios" in the main menu.

Yep, got it working. Testing by playing Russia/Monarch/Small/Continents.

But beware. Once you start modding, you'll get drawn deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole.

I know ... lol. Hopefully I won't disappear too much into it.

 

[tjs282]

It is something I only recently did, so I dont know yet if the AI actually uses this feature.

AFAIK, the AI won't carry out any Worker-actions if the unit doesn't have the "Terraform" AI strat -- which you can only give it (in the Firaxis Editor) if all the Worker-actions are checked for that unit.

@WeirdoJoker: Even after the map is fully explored, in the event that you get surprise-attacked by a neighbour, upgrading your Scouts to Explorers (10 shields --> 20 shields = 30g) can make them useful (again) for finding/ pillaging that AI's unguarded Resource/Lux tiles. With M=2 and All Terrain As Roads, Explorers can reach and pillage any tile up to 5 tiles into the AI's territory within a single turn (though they will almost certainly then be killed over the following interturn).

Of course, when Explorers are so cheap to build from scratch, whether it's actually worth keeping (and paying maintenance on) your Scouts in between finishing exploring your landmass, and learning Astronomy, is a question that would have to be decided based on your game's current circumstances.

The Spanish Conquistador is also brutal for pillaging, if you can make an Army of them. With the Army's free pillaging, bonus move-point (i.e. M=3 for a Conq-Army) and ATAR, they can pillage up to 9 tiles within a single turn. That said, it's almost never worth upgrading Scouts to Conqs (10 shields --> 70 shields = 180 gold per capita).

 

[WeirdoJoker]

@WeirdoJoker: Even after the map is fully explored, in the event that you get surprise-attacked by a neighbour, upgrading your Scouts to Explorers (10 shields --> 20 shields = 30g) can make them useful (again) for finding/ pillaging that AI's unguarded Resource/Lux tiles. With M=2 and All Terrain As Roads, Explorers can reach and pillage any tile up to 5 tiles into the AI's territory within a single turn (though they will almost certainly then be killed over the following interturn).

Of course, when Explorers are so cheap to build from scratch, whether it's actually worth keeping (and paying maintenance on) your Scouts in between finishing exploring your landmass, and learning Astronomy, is a question that would have to be decided based on your game's current circumstances.

The Spanish Conquistador is also brutal for pillaging, if you can make an Army of them. With the Army's free pillaging, bonus move-point (i.e. M=3 for a Conq-Army) and ATAR, they can pillage up to 9 tiles within a single turn. That said, it's almost never worth upgrading Scouts to Conqs (10 shields --> 70 shields = 180 gold per capita).

Looks like I could still use the Scouts to "Join City," then build Explorers/Conquistadors from scratch, and that this might be a better use than upgrading the Scouts. I'm testing some stuff out on a game I probably won't finish (the new Russia game) for that purpose & might now start a Spain game for that as well.

 

[tjs282]

I may be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure that if a unit doesn't have an associated pop-cost, then 'joining' it to a town won't actually increase the town's population?

If that's the case, then it would be 'better' to just disband obsolete Scouts. That way you'd at least get some shields back.

To add to the Scout-modding-ideas pile, I made my Scouts maintenance-free, ignore all terrain move-costs, Invisible (Workers and Scouts can "Detect Invisible" units), and Hidden Nationality, but I took away their ability to pillage (as I did for all the generic Ancient units and most Ancient UUs).

Scouts and Explorers also both got D=1 (and -1 HP) to give them a small chance to escape from Barbs (but also to prevent the human from using RoP-exploits like "Scout Resource-denial" so easily).

Chasquis didn't get HN, but can now train new Scouts (which can then upgrade to Chasquis).

I took Conqs out of the Scout-upgrade chain (they have to be built from scratch, but upgrade to Cavs), but since Spain needs Horses for Conqs, I made Explorers buildable by Spain as well.

 

[Takhisis]

I modded [scouts] so they can build resource colonies.

Ooooh, this is awesome, actually. Such a simple and elegant solution. It makes expansionist civs a tad stronger because they can establish colonies more quickly.

This makes me wonder: how does the AI react if we give its settlers the ability to morph and even up the score build colonies? The AI always seems to just build up settlers just in case.