Quick Answers

[bronk]

I'm playing Ancient Mediterranian and I've discovered Copper Working - which allows me to upgrade my Warriors to Axemen.

The problem is that I can do this only in my capital, although all my cities are connected with copper.

???

 

[thetrooper]

I am not familiar with Ancient Mediterranian, but I think you need barracks to upgrade.

Welcome to CFC by the way!

 

[bronk]

I doubt it's that - I can't build barracks until i get a 3rd age advance.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

 

[Smellincoffee]

In that case, it's likely you can't upgrade your troops (except in the capital) until you get that third age advance. Are there any military small improvements along the way?

 

[Tomoyo]

Rome has a wonder that acts as a Sun Tzu's. That, and your palace acts as a barracks. If you're close to Rome, you can capture their wonder.

 

[Sandman2012]

What are the various handicaps and advantages the AI has for the different difficulty levels in C3C?

 

[bronk]

He starts with more units (military, + workers on emperor, + settler on deity), cheaper support, shorter anarchy periods etc.

Check the editor for details.

 

[denyd]

I think this is what you're looking for:

AI warfare unit bonuses: At Monarch and above, the AI civs get extra offensive and defensive units when they start the game. These are the best units that the Civ could build at that time; usually these will be normal units (warrior, with archer or spearman if the civ knows the appropriate tech.) These can be unique units if those can be created at the start of a game by that civ.

AI non-military unit bonuses: The AI gets an extra settler at Deity level, and either one or two extra workers at the top two levels, respectively. (Note that if you look this up in the Civ3XEdit, the help file there helpfully has the actual unit type reversed.) In my view, the extra settler is one of the greatest bonuses the AI has at the Deity difficulty level. This gives the AI a huge jump at the start of the game, where a lot of games are decided.

AI unit support bonuses: This gives the AI civs the ability to have a lot of units without paying for them. At Deity level it's 16 free units to start and 4 extra for each city it has. A large percentage of the time the AI never even has upkeep costs at this level, even once it's a great sprawling Democracy.

AI government turns in anarchy: The AI gets no bonus for the lower three difficulty levels, and has to stay in anarchy just as long as a player would. At the higher difficulty levels it gets a nice bonus; at Deity level the max turns an AI civ stays in anarchy is 2, almost as good as being Religious.

AI cost factor: This determines the cost factor for AI growth, shields and research. The cost factor for players is always 10; the lowest difficulty levels give a bonus to the player, while the top three difficulty levels give a decided bonus to the AI.

AI to AI trade rate: The AI thinks it is getting "better deals" from other AI civs than it would from you, on every difficulty level. If you're playing a Regent game and one AI civ wants something from another AI civ that would normally cost 130, the first civ only has to be able to pay 100 to get it. In the words of the editor, "This rate directly affects the frequency and aggressiveness with which AI civs trade amongst themselves."

AI and player factors: These aren't factors where the AI can get a bonus, but they're on the same screen and deal with difficulty levels so I included them. It's all pretty basic stuff, although the last one is interesting, which determines how many cities you can make before you hit the higher corruption level. Higher difficulty levels lower this number, which is based on the optimal number of cities per world size which is also listed. In short, you have to make do with fewer cities on the higher difficulty levels unless you want to deal with more corruption. This is true for both the AI civs and for players; the number of cities that can be built before corruption kicks in is also raised (by 25% post-1.29, I believe) for civs which are Commercial.

The AI bonuses are quite strong at the higher difficulty levels, apart from the other ones mentioned elsewhere (knowing where all the units are, knowing where all current and future resources will be, etc.) The fun, of course, comes in beating it even with all these bonuses. Perhaps in the next rendition (or more likely by Civ X) we can play against an AI that is adaptive enough it won't need all these bonuses to beat humans.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Just explaining the things in the editor:

(To get to this page, open the editor, click Scenarios menu, then Custom Rules, say yes to the warning, then Rules -> Edit Rules, and the Difficulty Levels tab).

Cost Factor: How many shields it takes the AI to build a 10-shield project. On Chieftan it's 20, meaning it takes them twice as long to build something/research something, etc, than you. (Human cost factor is always 10.) On Monarch, it's 9, meaning projects are 9/10 of what they are for you (tech costs are lower too).

Max. Government Transition Time: Max number of turns it will have for anarchy. (0 means a normal anarchy). The higher the level, the less time the AI will spend in anarchy.

AI to AI trade rate: Simply, the higher the value, the more they'll trade between themselves. If this rate is 140, it'll treat an AI offer of 100 gold as 140 gold (but it'll actually receive 100). It gives cheaper discounts to other AIs.

# of Defensive / Offensive units: The number of units they get of each type. It will be all warriors unless an AI knows Bronze Working (Spearman for defense) or Warrior Code (Archers for offense) at the start of the game. Germany starts with no warriors, as it knows both those techs.

Number of start unit type 1 / 2: The number of ADDITIONAL starting units an AI gets. By default, they are settler for type 1, and worker for type 2 (you can change what the start unit type 1/2 are under the General Settings tab).

Num. of citizens born content: The number of citizens that will be content in your city before they start being unhappy and you need to use luxury tax/Military Police/luxuries, etc to quell them.

Num. citizens quelled by military: (1 for every difficulty level). Leave it at this, it means that one unit quells 1 citizen per turn in your cities.

Attack bonus vs. barbarians: This is a percent. On Chieftan you get 800% attack bonus meaning you and the AI have a way better chance against barbarians. A 3/3 Barbarian Warrior (1 attack) would be up against a 3/3 Human Warrior (treated like 8 attack! ).

Percentage of optimal cities: What percentage of the optimal city number on the World Sizes tab is actually the optimal number before heavy corruption.

Corruption: This is 100% on all levels. It means that corruption affects all cities normally as it current does in Civ3. Higher and you get less corruption, lower and you get more.

Hope this helps!

edit: Crosspost with denyd. He has a nice table showing it.

 

[Sandman2012]

Thanks, guys. That's exactly the info I was looking for, though I don't know if I get it all (explanations are fine - it's just a lot to absorb at once).

It seems Regent is the first level where the Human and AI are pretty equal? My play style is stuck at Regent right now and I'm trying to learn new strategies to move up in levels. It's been a challenge so far. I'm reading the War Academy articles and incorporating the ideas into my game.

Thanks again, guys.

 

[jackbnimble]

Three quick questions:

1. How do I abandon my capitol? The advisor kept telling me it would be done in 1 turn but it never occurred after 3 turns.

2. What exactly are granaries for? What do they do practically? I've heard they help your city grow faster; what does this mean practically? More commerce? More shields?

3. What strategy is best for a rush? Skip granaries? Skip Temples?

 

[TimBentley]

1. I assume you mean by building a worker or settler. You build the worker at size 1 or the settler at size 2 and (this is probably what you're asking for) make sure you do not have a food surplus.
You could right-click it to abandon it, if I misunderstood you.

2. Granaries reduce the amount of food to grow by half, thus halving time to grow and therefore doubling growth.

3. I would definitely skip temples. You'll still want cities quickly, so a granary in your settler factory would still help.

 

[jackbnimble]

Thanks for answering. I'm confused about your answer to question 1. In order to "kill myself" I wanted to abandon my capital city, which was my last city. This apparently could not be done even though the advisor promised it in 1 turn. I've abandoned many other cities, so I know what to expect.

Is it not possible to abandon your capital city?

 

[Dianthus]

Is it not possible to abandon your capital city?

I think I remember reading that you can abandon your capital if you've got a settler. I haven't tried this myself though, and the memory is starting to go. Give it a try!

 

[jackbnimble]

I did try to abandon my capital with a settler prebuilt and offsite. I was playing a MP game on the internet. I didn't want my last city to be captured, so I attempted to abandon it whilst my covert settler was off to a new location.

Maybe someone can setup a quick SP game and attempt to abandon their capital city.

 

[riskplayer]

(To get to this page, open the editor, click Scenarios menu, then Custom Rules, say yes to the warning, then Rules -> Edit Rules, and the Difficulty Levels tab).


Where do I find the editor? I looked when you mentioned it before but I can't find any edit button. I'd like to delete my old saved games and think I remember you saying it's done from the editor but haven't found the option.

 

[Tomoyo]

To delete old save games, just go into Windows Explorer and go to Infogrames --> Civilization --> (Conquests/PTW) --> Saves and delete your files.

The editor can be found in the same folder as the start-up file.

 

[Saltylicious]

For a little while now I've been making my own little sceanario, for myself and maybe a friend of mine to enjoy, and it was going fine.

The other day, while attempting to test my sceanario, the game decided it didn't want to load it. It would let me pick my civilization, after clicking "ready" or "start" or whatever it's called, it would then start to configure the map and then the AI. When it tried to load the AI for Player 7, the game would just freeze. I haven't been able to figure out why, I tried deleting Player 7, but then it started freezing on Player 9. After deleting Player 9 it would start freezing on Player 14...Eventually I deleted all the ones that were freezing, six in all, and tried to load the sceanario again.

Can you guess what it did? It froze while configuring Player 7...I didn't even have a Player 7...

I don't know if this has happened to anyone else, but if it has, would someone be able to help me out?

 

[GorfTheWanderer]

Hello all... Quick question.... I was recently playing a game trying out the advice I kept reading and didn't believe about city spacing... I was used to OCP... did great for me until Regent level.... I started with Greeks and decided to try republic then democ. I switched to Deocratic and (thinking I was going to have less coruption) was suprised when the coruption in most of my outlying cities went up. (some of them all the way up)... I thought Democratic had less problems with coruption. Am I wrong thinking that Democratic govt is not subject to less coruption and their only real bonus in C3C is the 150% worker effic?

>>> Common sense isn't very common anymore....

 

[Turner]

It's supposed to, yes. Can you post a before save? We (well, not me, I'm at work) can look at it then and let you know.