Some Noobs questions

[Elponitnatsnoc]

Before i get flooded with "welcome to CFC" replies, i want to ask a few noobs questions. I got Civ 3 as a birthday present a few years ago and i found it different from civ 2 (in civ 2, i got mass helicopters and dominated on deity). Now i find Warlord very difficult... not to win necessarily, I can easily win a diplomatic or a space race. However, whenever i declare war, everyone gets mad at me and allies and against me and i die. Anyway... a few questions

1. What does "war-time" mobilization mean?
2. How do you micromanage cities to produce better? I always gave a few awesome cities who churn out wonders in 20 or so turns but i also have horrible cities which take like 80 turns to build a courthouse?
3. Infantry seem to suck... One of my elite ones lost to a longbow. They always lose to tanks and beat cavalry about half the time. A rifle of mine lost to a warrior once...
4. I don't understand how certain civs are better than others.
5. When can you trade communications?
6. My cities randomly go into civil disorder when they get too big and in order to fix them, they end up starving and stinking. Turning up the lux is too much gold and i dont want to stop my science research because i rarely finish a game before 2050 anyway.... I guess another question is how to tech correctly. My earliest space victory was in 1988.
7. Why are the Hittites in the game? Iv barely heard of them. I think the Sioux would be a better choice... or Mexico or Canada (ok not Canada)

Thank you and I think this forum is very good... on par with some other non-civ ones i post on.

General forum questions:

1. Is swearing allowed?
2. Can one get banned or warned and how can this happen?
3. How to i download and play scenarios cause some look awesome!

 

[Tomoyo]

1) All cities producing military stuff produce one extra shield for each tile producing a shields
2) That has nothing to do with micromanaging. The horrible cities are the ones far from your capital so they suffer from corruption.
3) No, they don't. If you manage to get them into good foritfications, they are pretty good.
4) They aren't.
5) Writing
6) Roads
7) You've barely heard of the Hittites? They were only the inventors of advanced metal working!

1. I'm not sure. There was a movement against it a few months ago
2. Yes, if you break the forum rules
3. Clicky, putty in Scenario foldery, load.

 

[Zakharov]

1. Mobilization lets each worked tile produce an extra shield, but only military units and buildings can be produced. It can only be switched off when peace is signed.

2. That's just the nature of the corruption model. You will have a core of productive cities plus some corrupt fringe cities. What version (and patch number) are you playing? The corruption model has imo been greatly improved in the latest versions.

3. I find that infantry are very strong before tanks are discovered. Did you lose one on defence or attack? Was it injured? If defending, was it fortified? These things all contribute to the combat system.

4. In what way? Better as in people's opinion? Or better as in why should one AI develop better than another?

5. In vanilla/PTW when you discover writing. In C3C when you discover printing press.

6. Download Dianthus' CrpSuite from the Utility section of these forums. It warns you when cities grow, among other things. It improved my game immeasureably.

7. Not really sure on this one. The Hittites were a major civ in the middle east in ancient times. The Sioux on the other hand were a nomadic tribe and never had a vast empire of cities.

As for your general questions:

1. No. There is an autofilter but that is no reason to try to get around it.
2. The moderators will soon let you know if you have overstepped the mark.
3. Go to the scenario section of this forum. The downloads should be in the individual threads.

Edit: Cross posted

 

[Elponitnatsnoc]

Ok thanks. Btw. The infantry were in cities, garrisoned and at full health. They were vets.

 

[Tomoyo]

Losing one won't kill you. Overall, Infantry are very good before Tanks come. When tanks come, then Infantry start getting killed a lot, but Mech Infantry is right around the corner.

 

[h4ppy]

About the Hittites, for some reason American's (and maybe others) don't find out about them until colledge/A.P. courses. I'm not sure why, we all my history classes seemed to do was cover mindless stuff about Egypt, every year.

 

[Willem]

However, whenever i declare war, everyone gets mad at me and allies and against me and i die.

The point is to make alliances yourself before your enemy has a chance to get the other civs on their side. Diplomacy is more important in Civ 3 than in 2.

2. How do you micromanage cities to produce better? I always gave a few awesome cities who churn out wonders in 20 or so turns but i also have horrible cities which take like 80 turns to build a courthouse?

That's the nature of the corruption system, the further away a city is from your Palace. the worst it gets. If it's to far, there's not much you can do about it, even Courthouses and Police Stations don't help. The only way to get them to produce anything in a short time is to buy whatever it is you want them to have.

They always lose to tanks and beat cavalry about half the time.

It's not surprising that they lose to Tanks, since the Tank's attack value is higher than their defence. You just have to make sure that you have enough of them to hold onto their position. It's not like Civ 2 where you could defend a city with just a few units, you have to stack them up alot more. As for the other units, sometimes they get lucky. Just think of Sitting Bull beating the crap out of Custer's better armed forces, or the Viet Cong trouncing the US Army. Sometimes the underdog does win.

4. I don't understand how certain civs are better than others.

They aren't. Some just have different strengths than others, but these all balance out.

5. When can you trade communications?

That depends on what version you're playing. In Conquests it's Printing Press, the other versions it's much earlier though I forget when right now.

6. My cities randomly go into civil disorder when they get too big and in order to fix them, they end up starving and stinking. Turning up the lux is too much gold and i dont want to stop my science research because i rarely finish a game before 2050 anyway....

Build happiness buildings like Temple, Coloseum etc., build roads or colonies to Luxury resources. If you have three of them or more, build a Marketplace. Build Roads in all the squares being worked in your city.

7. Why are the Hittites in the game? Iv barely heard of them.

They were the ones that began the Iron Age. I'd say that qualifies them to be in the game.

I think the Sioux would be a better choice... or Mexico or Canada (ok not Canada)

Yeah, and what's wrong with Canada?

Of course a Canadian civ in the game would be at a serious disadvantage since we wouldn't be allowed to have a military.

 

[braclayrab]

American's don't learn anything about history. I personally took 8 years of early american history and one year of world history. I learned a lot of the small amount of history that I know from myself.

 

[Billy Yank]

Just think of Sitting Bull beating the crap out of Custer's better armed forces, or the Viet Cong trouncing the US Army. Sometimes the underdog does win.

Just picking a couple of nits here.

1. The 7th Cavalry were armed with single-shot Springfields, the Sioux were using Winchester repeaters. Custer was outnumbered and outgunned.

2. The Viet Cong never won a military victory against US forces. After Tet, they weren't able put any unit in the field larger than a platoon. The war was lost on the political and public reaction fronts.

 

[Willem]

Just picking a couple of nits here.

1. The 7th Cavalry were armed with single-shot Springfields, the Sioux were using Winchester repeaters. Custer was outnumbered and outgunned.

Don't know the details of that campaign so maybe it's a bad example.

2. The Viet Cong never won a military victory against US forces. After Tet, they weren't able put any unit in the field larger than a platoon. The war was lost on the political and public reaction fronts.

They may not have won any pitched battles, but they won plenty of skirmishes. That was their tactic, more hit and run than military campaign, and they were fairly good at it. You don't necessarily need superior firepower to win a fight, tactics are more important.

 

[Chieftess]

About the Hittites, for some reason American's (and maybe others) don't find out about them until colledge/A.P. courses. I'm not sure why, we all my history classes seemed to do was cover mindless stuff about Egypt, every year.

I didn't hear of them until I played AoE a few years back. Even then I thought Microsoft just stick a minor civ in for gameplay.

 

[Tomoyo]

Is that... Chieftess? Sorry... I thought you were punkbass... When you're nostalgic, we new'uns get really confused.

I heard of the Hittities when I was in fifth grade, because they were in our textbook.

 

[Alpha Draconis1]

The point is to make alliances yourself before your enemy has a chance to get the other civs on their side. Diplomacy is more important in Civ 3 than in 2.

This cannot be stressed enough, especially in a pitched game with twelve civs on the same continent.

For example, I once got into a war against the Iroquois because of a mutual protection pact with Japan and Babylon. Almost immidiately, the Iroquois formed an alliance with Greece and Germany against us. Not to be outdone, China declared war on both the Iroquois, and me. (China had no allies, and only one city at the end of the war. Go figure.) Since I didn't want to be piled upon, I bribed the Americans, Egyptians, Romans, and Russians to fight against the Iroquois too. In twenty-three turns, I also managed to get Greece to defect to my side.

The war started in 1635 and ended for me in 1814. Even against my Riflemen, and the Japanese Samurai, the Iroquois' Mounted Warriors and Knights still held their own, and lost only one city. By contrast, Rome was wiped out, I had to reconqer three fringe cities, and the Chinese and Babylonians were reduced to one city each. By 1850, the Americans, Iroquois, Germans, Greeks and Russians were still going at it.

Moral of the story: When any war starts between really big civs, buy your allies first, preferably on the first turn. Giving up a tech, or some gold, is nothing to losing a war against multiple AIs.

 

[Grille]

7. Why are the Hittites in the game? Iv barely heard of them. I think the Sioux would be a better choice... or Mexico or Canada (ok not Canada)

Hittite AI is much too often pure evil. Even Ghandi's regular backstabbings appear to be heavenly gifts in comparison.
Thus, you would curse at Hittite loud and often. Maybe you even carry over that image into R/L; say, you got a flat tyre and in the cause of venting off, you just blame it as another cunning Hittite trick (guessing here that Hittite loved gaining control over cities or totally different stuff which goes with the name of Tyre).
But chances are almost nobody identifies with the Hittites, so you can rant w/o insulting anyone. Saves you from being not political correct.
Hope this seriously helps.

(And if not - there's always the editor)

 

[rajwhitehall]

....Moral of the story: When any war starts between really big civs, buy your allies first, preferably on the first turn. Giving up a tech, or some gold, is nothing to losing a war against multiple AIs.

Good advice. I am often too stingy about important deals. But it can be devastating to lose one city let alone several, when such an alliance could have prevented it. On my behalf though, the AI will seldom agree to anything that involves them in a war in the early stages of a game, even when I have polite relations and no bad karma.

 

[Willem]

On my behalf though, the AI will seldom agree to anything that involves them in a war in the early stages of a game, even when I have polite relations and no bad karma.

That's not my experience. Sometimes I don't even have to offer them anything, they're more than happy to kick some butt. Usually though a free tech or a little bit of cash will do the trick. I very rarely have any civ refuse me.

Just try asking them what it would take for an Alliance, instead of making offers, then agree to their terms.

 

[Zakharov]

It should also be noted that it is easier to get an alliance if you are already at war with the target civ.