very basic couple of questions!

[lockyer_is_god]

can't find the newby thread sorry. anyway about to start playing civ 3 for the first time and have a couple of q's. there's no manual with the game so i'm just looking to have some sort of basic knowledge when i start. ta.


what is a good level to start on? i don't want a really easy game where i can do whatever i want and win. but i don't want something where i'll fall behind the AI really quickly or get hammered in every battle i go into.

what are the 1st things i should be doing when starting? apart from exploring of course and looking to make allies. in terms of builing cities, roads, how to get food, developing technology and armies etc? how do i do it all? is it all explained as the game progresses?

 

[Tomoyo]

1. Chieftain. You can do almost whatever you want and win. Somewhat true for Warlord, but if you're a newbie to the Civ series, Chieftain is better.

2. Expand, expand, expand. That's the most important thing in the beginning. Food is key. More food = more population = more settlers.

Welcome to CFC!

 

[Ginger_Ale]

1. I beg to differ with Tomoyo. I started out on Chieftain - big mistake! I got many bad habits. Warlord or Regent would be suitable. Good for beginners.

2. The first thing: do NOT automate workers or use the governors. However tireless it may seem, control your workers by hand. Irrigating grassland in Despotism (where anything producing 3 or more food/shields/gold will produce 1 less) has no effect. Try to check your other civs every few turns to see if there are new trades to make. Roads are very key to increasing commerce. A worker or two per city is a very good idea. Barracks produce Veteran units instead of Regular, so they help if a war is brewing, but yes, the more cities you have, the better off you'll be.

A good place to learn strategies is in the War Academy (especially cracker's Opening Moves article) and the Succession Game Forum, where people keep turn-by-turn logs of a game as a team.

PS: If you start a story in the Stories & Tales forum and upload a save and/or screenshots of your first game, we can help you out even more with some tips.

Good luck, and welcome to CFC.

 

[YNCS]

Even though it's the easiest level, play at Chieftain until you have a reasonable feel for the game.

There are some things you need to know about this game.

1. You need resources to build things. For instance, you may have discovered steam engine, which lets you build railroad, but if you don't have access to both iron and coal, you're not building any railroads.
2. You need to learn technologies. You can either research them yourself or you can get them from AI civs. If all you know is how to build warriors and spearmen and the AI can build knights, you gonna die unless the RNG [Random Number Generator] really smiles on you.
3. You have to keep the population reasonably happy. If one of your cities goes into disorder, it stops building things. If it's in disorder for more than one turn, the rioters may destroy improvements. So you need to keep your citizens happy.
4. You can only build one thing in a city at a time. So if your capital is building a library and the population becomes unhappy, you can switch your build to a temple, but you can't build a temple and a library simultaneously in the same city.
5. Ever so often you'll discover barbarians. These folks will kill your settlers and your workers if given the least opportunity. If you find a barbarian, kill him. If you find a barbarian camp, kill the barbarian(s) in the camp and then overrun the camp (you'll get 25 gold from looting the camp). If the barbarians are approaching your cities, make sure there's a defender in the city or else your city will be looted.

Look at some of the seccession games elsewhere in this website. You'll see the players making decisions about their play and explaining why they made those particular decisions.

Finally, don't be afraid to make mistakes. We were all noobs at one time.

 

[wilbill]

there's no manual with the game so i'm just looking to have some sort of basic knowledge when i start.

Check your disk. Most, if not all versions, come with the manual in a .pdf file that can be printed. Just don't expect the manual to explain everything or to be completely correct.

 

[Tomoyo]

1. I beg to differ with Tomoyo. I started out on Chieftain - big mistake! I got many bad habits. Warlord or Regent would be suitable. Good for beginners.

I was assuming a complete newbie. I know someone who can't even win on Chieftain with cheating. When I started, I went to Chieftain. Took me forever to get to Warlord.

 

[tR1cKy]

If he's already used to turn-based games he can easily start on Warlord.
Else, chieftain.

 

[CoolioVonHoolio]

I was assuming a complete newbie. I know someone who can't even win on Chieftain with cheating. When I started, I went to Chieftain. Took me forever to get to Warlord

What level do you play on now tomoyo? i started on chieftain too but up until a like last month i still played on cheiftain (occasionally playing on warlord) but ever since ive been reading stuff on this site within 3-4 weeks i was on regent and then about 2 weeks ago i switched to monarch!!!

 

[Tomoyo]

What level do you play on now tomoyo? i started on chieftain too but up until a like last month i still played on cheiftain (occasionally playing on warlord) but ever since ive been reading stuff on this site within 3-4 weeks i was on regent and then about 2 weeks ago i switched to monarch!!!

I play on anything from Monarch to Sid. I can win on Deity, fairly comfortable on DemiGod, never won on Sid.

 

[BasketCase]

I agree with Ginger Ale--you can pick up bad habits if you start off too easy. Wonder Addiction being one of those.

Having played Civ 1 from its release date right up to about a year ago, and finding the mechanics in Civ3 very similar, I started on Regent level.

Important things: at the very start, it's important to explore, build roads, and build settlers. Do lots of these three things. Then do them some more.

Don't build everything in every city; you can have one or two cities build a barracks and churn out troops. A city that's only producing one research point isn't going to benefit from a library, so don't build one there.

Wonder Addiction and Build Everything addiction have got to be the two biggest problems in this game. Resist the urge.

 

[lockyer_is_god]

thanks for all the replies lads it's helped me out big time.

I started as the English and got absolutely belted in my 1st game! not used to any sort of games let alone PC strategy!

Anyway i've started a new game, which looks promising. technology seems to be coming along much faster for some reason, and i've resisted the temptation to take on the Japanese empire with only 2 archers.

however i just have a few q's relating back to things that happened in my 1st game and things i'm still not too sure about...

1.) what happens if ur town is starving? how do you get them food?

2.) if your town has smoke coming out of it (can't remember what they call it, think it may be "revolting") what do you do? i tried to put workers in there but they wouldn't go into the city.

3.) how do you request to speak to the other AI civs? i talk to them and we're mates and all (although it's the french so i'll watch my back) but i want to be able to talk to them to ask them to side with me to take on another civ etc? how do i do that?

4.) basically how do you keep a town happy? apart from maintaining a food supply, which will hopefully be answered as a result of a previous question, also should you put workers in there permamently, does it speed up the production of troops, settlers, building etc?


no doubt more to come! thanks again for all your help

 

[vmxa]

lockyer_is_god

"1.) what happens if ur town is starving? how do you get them food?"

If you do not want them to starve you need to look at the city to see where the citizens are working. If you find some working on tiles that yield less than 1 food, move them to 2 food or more tiles. If none are available you have to irrigate a tile. Later you may need to rail a food tile to get more food.

"2.) if your town has smoke coming out of it (can't remember what they call it, think it may be "revolting") what do you do? i tried to put workers in there but they wouldn't go into the city."

They are in disorder or even civil unrest. The difference is disorder you lose production, unrest they can destroy things. You have a number of things to try. If you are in a form of government that allows MP's, you could add one, if you are under the limit.
Otherwise you have to change a citizen to a specialist and it may have to be an entertainer. The other choices are increase the lux slider or add another lux or build a happy structure (temples and such).

"3.) how do you request to speak to the other AI civs? i talk to them and we're mates and all (although it's the french so i'll watch my back) but i want to be able to talk to them to ask them to side with me to take on another civ etc? how do i do that?"
You need to have Printing Press to trade comm with othr civs and they need it. You need to have an embassy to make alliances. Map Makling for RoP and Nationalism for MPP and embargo.

"4.) basically how do you keep a town happy? apart from maintaining a food supply, which will hopefully be answered as a result of a previous question, also should you put workers in there permamently, does it speed up the production of troops, settlers, building etc? "

Well we covered happy stuff, I am not sure what you mean by putting workers in there? Workers added to a town, increase the pop. This can cause you to go over the balance between happy pop and unhappy. They must be at least equal or you have more happy than unhappy.

Increasing the pop does tend to increase the production as you now have one more tile worked, unless you trigger disorder.

So the best thing is to grow the city and improve all tiles that are being worked. Best to have them mined, unless you need more food in general. In detail it would take a long time to cover all the sutble things and variants.


no doubt more to come! thanks again for all your help [/QUOTE]

 

[citizen001]

Darren Lockyer is not god.
Anyway, if you're a new to this game don't use governors. Single biggest mistake of new players.

 

[Brain]

Darren Lockyer is not god.
Anyway, if you're a new to this game don't use governors. Single biggest mistake of new players.

Why do people keep saying this? I think putting everything on automatic helps you concentrate on more important stuff when just learning. When I was playing Chieftain I had everything automated. Once I got comfortable with the game I started giving orders myself. Now, after 3 months weekend-only I'm playing at Emperor level, so I don't think the "bad habit" arguments mean anything at all.

 

[Darkness]

Why do people keep saying this? I think putting everything on automatic helps you concentrate on more important stuff when just learning. When I was playing Chieftain I had everything automated. Once I got comfortable with the game I started giving orders myself. Now, after 3 months weekend-only I'm playing at Emperor level, so I don't think the "bad habit" arguments mean anything at all.

Because the governor and automated workers are controlled by your PC, which makes them the same as the AI's governers and workers, which means it gets messed up.
Don't automate workers and don't use governors! With a bit of logical thought and concentration you can do everything much better by yourself!

 

[Tomoyo]

Personally, I don't think governors are that bad (although I hate them), but the workers, never automate them.

 

[Brain]

Because the governor and automated workers are controlled by your PC, which makes them the same as the AI's governers and workers, which means it gets messed up.
Don't automate workers and don't use governors! With a bit of logical thought and concentration you can do everything much better by yourself!

You missed my point completely. I DON'T automate anything anymore, but when I was learning I found it very helpful. I learned overall empire-level planning before learning to micro-manage. I think the main goal of governors and automated workers is not to win the game but to TEACH the game, and based on my personal experience they do a pretty good job at that.

 

[Turner]

Agree with Brain. Using automation at first helps the new player understand bigger, simpler game concepts. When those are mastered, one can focus on learning how to micromanage and get the extra boost out of doing things yourself.

Baby steps.

 

[Darkness]

Agree with Brain. Using automation at first helps the new player understand bigger, simpler game concepts. When those are mastered, one can focus on learning how to micromanage and get the extra boost out of doing things yourself.

Baby steps.

I don't have the patience for that...
I just dive in and mess up horribly a couple of times, then I figure it out and improve my gameplay.
Which works fine for me. Instead of being completely hopeless, I am now merely a mediocre player...

I guess it's just a difference in approach to the game.

@Brain: Yes, I did miss your point completely. That tends to happen to me a lot

 

[Zelda's Man]

Personally, I don't think governors are that bad (although I hate them), but the workers, never automate them.

I agree with Tomoyo. When learning the game, there are much more important things to focus on rather than checking to see if people are happy every turn. Use governors for happiness and to focus on food on the Cheiftan and Warlord levels. To go any higher, I recommend understanding the balance of production, growth, income, specialists, and the luxury and research sliders.

The computer does really dumb things with the workers that even a novice wouldn't do, so I recommend controlling them yourself. There is a general rule to irrigate brown tiles and mine green ones when in despotism that works great for beginners until you understand things better.

This site took me from Cheiftan to Emporer in just a few months. Just keep practicing and keep asking questions.