Today I Learned (about Civ3)

[Lanzelot]

I also have the impression in my games (Emperor - Deity level) that Persia is usually doing pretty well, while India is doing poorly. Not enough experience with China though.
And of course, agricultural AIs tend to do better than non-agri ones.

 

[justanick]

Since AI does usually not use enough workers industrious is a strong trait for AI. The Maya are also agricultural and are set to build workers often. Therefore by this logic they should perform well.

 

[Quintillus]

TLDR: Temple of Artemis temples don't double culture after 1000 year, but regular ones built prior to ToA do - though CivAssist II doesn't show this.

Quoting an investigation by Ruin that answered a question I'd never known the answer to about culture-doubling when Artemis (and presumably other, modded wonders) provide culture-producing buildings.

 

[Ruin]

TIL (actually a couple weeks ago) that if you go bankrupt as a result of accepting a rival civ's demand (say I have 5 gold and -3 GPT and Germany demands 4 gold interturn), it doesn't disband unit/building like usual. Instead you get a popup that says something like "We really need to balance our budget better". All those wars I fought for no reason because I was afraid of my stuff being reposessed... (source: finally giving in)

Edited to add another thing: The "Disable Population Limit Warning" box has nothing to do with whether you can settler/worker disband a city, but rather the popup about building aqueducts. The reason disbanding wasn't working for me and it would just hang on 1 turn to go was because the city had food in the box. (source: someone's succession game, probably @tjs282 enlightening a noob)

 

[tjs282]

All those wars I fought for no reason because I was afraid of my stuff being reposessed... (source: finally giving in)

If you get an interturn demand like that, then before you pay the tribute, you can actually click on the Foreign Advisor's face to get back to the F4 screen, and from there click on the Domestic Advisor to go to the F1 screen, and adjust your budget already (which helps -- me! -- to avoid the situation of accidentally forgetting to do it at end-of-turn, and then going broke on the next interturn).

the popup about building aqueducts.

...and also Hospitals.

 

[Fergei]

I let myself be threatened into bankruptcy all the time and never noticed it was only on those occasions I didn't lose a unit or building. I thought it was randimised. Clearly I'm not observant.

 

[vmxa]

Today I learned that the Napoleon scenario starts the capitol with a courthouse, why?

 

[Ruin]

Today I learned that the Napoleon scenario starts the capitol with a courthouse, why?

In the courthouse, the ruler's representatives listened to the grievances of the people and defined and enforced the laws that governed social interaction. This reduced crime, and thereby kept the local population productive.

 

[Fergei]

I always figured a courthouse and police station should make at least as many people happy as a temple and that a Cathedral should make less people happy/contenr than it does. Must. Stop. Tinkering!

 

[Ruin]

I always figured a courthouse and police station should make at least as many people happy as a temple and that a Cathedral should make less people happy/contenr than it does.

Not a big fan of going to church either, but I'm glad you enjoy yourself in courthouses and police stations

 

[vmxa]

In reality a courthouse can have any number of functions, but this is C3C and it has only two. 1. reduce corruption 2. maybe propaganda, #2 is a bit nebulous. Since the capitol has no corruption, it really is not going to need a CH. It just
struck me funny.

 

[justanick]

2. maybe propaganda, #2 is a bit nebulous.

If you seek more clarity, you can find it here: https://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/game-mechanics/a-study-of-espionage-missions/

 

[Ruin]

In reality a courthouse can have any number of functions, but this is C3C and it has only two. 1. reduce corruption 2. maybe propaganda, #2 is a bit nebulous. Since the capitol has no corruption, it really is not going to need a CH. It just
struck me funny.

I just decided to be a smart-ass and quote the Civpedia to you.

Srs though, I'm curious how many times have you been propagandized, and has it ever actually done anything significant?

 

[timerover51]

I have the courthouse reducing corruption and making 2 citizens in the city happy, along with resisting propaganda.

 

[tjs282]

There are a whole bunch of "useless" buildings preplaced in the Napoleonic Conquest.

For example, in addition to the Courthouses in the capitals, several towns apparently* adjacent to rivers are nonetheless also in possession of Aqueducts, which -- unlike the Courthouses -- can't be sold off to put more gold in my coffers and save on maintenance.

*Drawing rivers onto a predesigned map, so that they form a continuous line exactly where you want them to go, can be ... problematic, so it is possible that those towns aren't actually next to a stretch of river, and thus the 'Ducts are needed for town-growth. But I never dug into that .biq to check.

 

[timerover51]

I learned that the rate setting for governments in the editor does not control how much a citizen can produce, but rather controls the science and luxury setting bar. That is something I definitely did not know.

 

[Ruin]

Speaking of governments, one thing I still don't know is the difference between the different corruption/waste levels. Obviously Minimal is good and Catastrophic is real bad. But is Problematic better or worse than Nuisance? I'm guessing better because I've never gotten arrested for being a Public Problematic. And what about Rampant? (I have never been arrested for being Publicly Rampant and hopefully no one else on this forum has either). If you have Rampant rats in your house, wouldn't they be both Problematic and a Nuisance, not to mention Communal (unless you live alone)?

 

[Quintillus]

Speaking of governments, one thing I still don't know is the difference between the different corruption/waste levels. Obviously Minimal is good and Catastrophic is real bad. But is Problematic better or worse than Nuisance? I'm guessing better because I've never gotten arrested for being a Public Problematic. And what about Rampant? (I have never been arrested for being Publicly Rampant and hopefully no one else on this forum has either). If you have Rampant rats in your house, wouldn't they be both Problematic and a Nuisance, not to mention Communal (unless you live alone)?

The technical details (for Conquests) are at this page. I don't pretend to have fully analyzed the formula, but the order is, from worst to best:

Catastrophic < Rampant < Problematic < Nuisance < Minimal

Although the difference between Problematic and Nuisance is often described as being Minimal.

(Communal being different altogether, and thus ranking differently depending on the situation)

The way I look at the terminology is, how much would something bother me? Let's take a lightbulb as an example. Currently, one of the Christmas lights in my apartment will occasionally turn off and turn back on; the rest of the strand is okay. This problem is of Minimal importance. It's not perfect but I'm not going to bother doing anything about it because 96% of the string is working just fine and that bulb works half the time.

If the whole strand were turning off occasionally after several hours, and I had to replace a fuse to get them to turn back on, it would be Nuisance status. This happened in the past when I daisy-chained too many incandescent strands. Eventually I fixed the root problem and ran another extension cord so I could daisy-chain fewer strands, but for a while I just played the whack-a-mole game of replacing fuses on occasion.

I have had cases where a bulb would occasionally get extremely bright, far more so than it should, and then go dark, and repeat the cycle at a short interval. This is Problematic; not only is the way-too-bright light highly distracting, I'm concerned it could be a fire hazard, and thinking it probably should be blowing a fuse even though it isn't. Strands that start doing this get decommissioned and replaced.

Rampant would be like a flourescent light that's flickering rapidly. I saw one of those at a JC Penney last month, and I was tempted to file a maintenance report right away even though I didn't work there and had no obligation to do so. It would have driven me crazy if I'd lingered under it long enough.

Catastrophic would be the power has gone out and nothing's working.

So that's my lightbulb index of Civ3 corruption terminology. I agree though, Problematic versus Nuisance in particular is not obvious as to which one is worse.

(This also makes me wonder, is it any clearer in the translated versions of Civ3? Does the German version have clearer terminology?)

 

[Ruin]

So that's my lightbulb index of Civ3 corruption terminology.

I'm having a hard time following your analogy can you do something more relatable to the average person like strands of rats

 

[Quintillus]

I'm having a hard time following your analogy can you do something more relatable to the average person like strands of rats

Hmm... what about spiders?

Minimal is there's one spider who lives in the corner and helps keep other bugs under control. You rarely notice the spider.

Nuisance is a spider keeps building new webs that you brush against the web as you walk by, but it isn't worth hunting down the spider.

Problematic is spiders dropping down from the ceiling onto your head and startling you several times per week. Something like this happened at a hotel I stayed at once; it did not receive a positive review.

Rampant is going down into your grandfather's poorly illuminated basement that no one has entered in years and there are cobwebs all over the place, some of which include living spiders.

Catastrophic is like rampant, but so bad that you hire an exterminator to take out the spiders before you dare venture down into the basement.