09-07-2004 09:53									#1
	Too many cities? Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

It's been awhile since I have been able to get back into Civ III, especially "Conquests". I've run into what I hope is a new change, though I'm not sure if it was not implemented in PTW and I just hadn't run into it while playing that version.

I'm playing a "Conquests" game at Emperor level, current only at Despotism govt. level, and have 11 cities being developed. Whenever I try to start another new city I get a message box "Too many cities". I am hopeful this is a despotism limit change, even though it is affecting me at the moment. Anybody else ever run into this limit before?

	09-07-2004 10:45									#2
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Are you WAY behind?!

The only reference to "Too many cities" is that 512 cities have already been built on the map (by all civs, combined). There is no limit to number of cities based on government, as in the Call to Power series.

	09-07-2004 10:58									#3
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Darn! I didn't know there was a total cities limit of 512. Are you sure? I had modified the the starting Civs to allow for all 31 and also adjusted the map size to maximum dimensions of 362 x 362, and deleted ICBMs, but retained Tactical Nukes. I wanted a Conquest game, not a Nuke fest. Sounds like back to the drawing board for my modifications. Oh, Well, I needed to get reaquainted with the interface/rules anyhow. Thanks for the reply.

	09-07-2004 11:08									#4
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31 civs and 362 map. yep sounds like you have 512 cities.

	09-07-2004 14:13									#5
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Seems like a ridiculous limitation "512", when you can adjust the total AI Civs to 31 and the map size to 362 X 362. Can't wait for Civ IV. Maybe it will be less limiting.

My original thought was that there was a limitation placed on being in Despotic govt., which if I recall a while back was one of the possible fixes that was being considered for limiting "pop-rushing".

	09-07-2004 15:27									#6
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Sound like you need to conquer and raze a few

	09-07-2004 21:31									#7
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Another way to avoid the 512 city limitation is to not allow cities on yucky terrain types.
No cities on Tundra, Desert, Jungle, (even forests!).

Increase the chop time of forests, increase the Clear Wetlands time or even delay it until steam power.

	09-07-2004 21:44									#8
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Limit settlers! Thanks to the editor there are lots of ways to do this.

	10-07-2004 04:59									#9
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Limit Settlers? Now that sounds intriquing. I've been studying the editor for a while but how does one go about limiting settlers? In what way?

	10-07-2004 05:30									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Gray_Lensman Seems like a ridiculous limitation "512", when you can adjust the total AI Civs to 31 and the map size to 362 X 362. Can't wait for Civ IV. Maybe it will be less limiting. My original thought was that there was a limitation placed on being in Despotic govt., which if I recall a while back was one of the possible fixes that was being considered for limiting "pop-rushing".

They may not increase it in Civ4 either. Imagine that 362 map with 1200 cities and 31 civs. It would be a real system killer.

It already is with 512. Not that many people want the game to be bigger, most do not even like huge maps at 160.

	10-07-2004 05:42									#11
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That's probably true.

I'd say the best solution is to limit building in tundra and desert.

	10-07-2004 05:54									#12
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My thoughts are to leave the Tundra and Desert city capability alone. (After all there are numerous cities in the world founded in Tundra and Desert (Tripoli in Libya being an example of the former)

However, preventing cities from being built in forests/jungle terrain sounds interesting because you could give the settler unit the added capability of clearing the forest/jungle area like a worker unit, possibly at a reduced work rate since it's not a pure worker unit.

	10-07-2004 06:03									#13
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the AI not only tries to figure out where the best place for a city is, they will also build cities to grab land. This means they will build cities .... everywhere!!

So what i did was lower the number of culture points required to expand the boarders significantely. So now you got rapid boarder expansions (i think i set it to 5, instead of 10), and the AI doesn't put down a city everywhere. Infact, they spread out quite nicely, like i do.

	10-07-2004 06:39									#14
	Put an end to popups!

I've gone the other way with culture expansion. I left the expansion factor alone and reduced culture generation of 2+ generators by 1, 6+ generators by 2.

Oh, and re building too many cities: It happens much slower if settlers cost 120 shields and 3-population (or more)!

	10-07-2004 11:58									#15
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Settler production:

Not until nine techs up the tree, with no tech trading enabled and two or three techs possible early start.

When available for build, cost 200, pop 4.

Otherwise, each AI begins with 8 settlers ( human six ). One small wonder can be built early on that spits settlers out every 7 turns. Most AI’s do this.

Now for contrast, two of the units that are provided at start in limited quantities enslave ‘settlers’ via battles. These two units cannot be built however until later, though not to much later and then staggered.

This creates random and cyclic growth that does not overwhelm the game.

Fast start, but a slow grind for good long while, growth happens sure enough but not ever hog wild and never with a sense of settler pollution.

Cities can be founded anywhere including mountains, volcanoes etc.

I really like these boards, there are just so many good ideas cooking about, and I get them here all the time.

So I am off to mess with culture generation, that angle sounds intriguing !!

	11-07-2004 10:19									#16
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Okay, I've created a new Civ advancement "Emigration", and set it up as a prerequisite for producing settlers, the next thing I did was adjust the number of starting type 1 units (settlers) for the AI civs. However where does someone adjust the starting units for the Human player chosen Civ?

	11-07-2004 21:48									#17
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Scenario Tab in Editor, enable, (tick) the following, Custom Player Data, Custom Map, Custom Rules. Then Alt+Enter.

Next Players Tab; Player 1 (center top ), Human Player ticked to right.
Go to Unit window (it will be default Settler) underneath choose How Many.

Have Fun !!

Oh and save out of course, as well note all the 'other' editor goodies located here !

	12-07-2004 02:22									#18
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Antrine:

Do you have to pre-generate a map first? Before saving that is? It seems to me, to only work without a start locations error, if you pre-generate a map before saving. This is not too big a deal, but the general map is then viewable in the Conquests folder, when you select it, which takes away from a truly random/hidden 31 player scenario.

	12-07-2004 04:51									#19
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No. Maybe polluted somehow. Pull up another blank generic in the Editor, import the rules only that you modified and save as something else. Maybe this will straighten that out.

	13-07-2004 04:16									#20
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Antrine:

Earlier you mentioned that you had turned off tech trading also. I was under the impression that the only thing affected by turning off tech trading was between the human player(s) and the AIs, ie., tech trading still occurs between the AI Civs. Can anyone verify which way this feature works?

	13-07-2004 06:28									#21
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Well, 'no tech trading' hampers ALL players. However, there is still a loop-hole for the human player, sneaky little weasles they can be!!

STEAL the tech! Turn off the seed preservation in the scenario folder main tab or available at start-up. Then you can re-load until stealing pays off. It took my a few times to get by doing this.

Also there is something else that affects AI tech trading found on the Difficulty Tab. I know this affects tradable techs. However, AI stealing them, I have now knowledge, nor have seen it.

	13-07-2004 21:22									#22
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quote: Originally posted by Antrine Then you can re-load until stealing pays off. It took my a few times to get by doing this.

Well may you blush, Antrine. That's an exploit. "Let the cards fall where they may".

	13-07-2004 23:01									#23
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Duly noted... I now proudly leave the 'preserve seed' ON.

	14-07-2004 06:03									#24
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I'm very tempted to mess around with the editor now.

But can you mess around with any text files instead of the editor? I don't like playing as scenarios. I want to play as a normal game.

And I will defeinately back up any files.

	14-07-2004 07:40									#25
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As I understand this game culture here, a scenario is defined as using a pre-made map and further with pre-designated starting locations and maybe even units/cities already posted on said map.

So here is the layering.

Rules
Rules/Scenario Preferences
Pre-made map
With/without starting positions designated, whole cities replete with improvements all maybe populated with units, with or without alliances.

Now, you can play on a random generated map with no designated starting positions and still,
A. Rework or mod the Rules et al in the editor
B. Rework and tweak the scenario parameters

This is a MOD, not yet an scenario. When you load it, there is yet no map and it will be generated as per usual.

An scenario has different levels of modding, however what is common to all is a pre-made map.

Upon this pre-made map you can, leave all else blank and proceed to generate a new game only knowing the map, but not any starting places and there not being any units or cities pre-built thereon.

My favorite set-up is thus; Edited Rules/Scenario, this as my own mod, second a pre-built map, overlaid with a pre-built road grid and some tile improvements. Third, thirty-three carefully chosen starting positions, the map is large (200 by 275) with only eleven civs.

So I hit random civ at start-up and the game places all eleven of us randomly in eleven of the thirty-three starting slots. This gives essentially, a different game each time on the same map. Each time I am a different civ, starting on one of the thirty-three starting places with neighbors near and far, all laid out differently each time.

In all the above you can add units, techs, buildings, morph the tech tree and amend the text files accordantly (by all means back up) and when done correctly (as per syntax) everythings works as above.

With the above scenario I have some 60 start-up units for each AI and the human player. But the play is shuffled by the starting sequence. Also I could 'import the rules and scenario settings' and load up as Mod with no map, and start-up on a randomly generated map. I sometimes do this.

Last edited by Antrine on 14-07-2004 at 07:45

	19-07-2004 07:22									#26
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quote: Originally posted by MattPilot the AI not only tries to figure out where the best place for a city is, they will also build cities to grab land. This means they will build cities .... everywhere!! So what i did was lower the number of culture points required to expand the boarders significantely. So now you got rapid boarder expansions (i think i set it to 5, instead of 10), and the AI doesn't put down a city everywhere. Infact, they spread out quite nicely, like i do.

In addition to that, I doubled the culture output of all culture-producing buildings, and added culture to a few: barracks, harbor, and marketplace have a point each, and courthouse gives two. It dosen't take much to justify it from a "realism" standpoint, either.

This has the added benefit of AI military civs not being quite the cultural deserts they usually are.

	19-07-2004 11:09									#27
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And makes War-time mobilization very powerful.
(since you can get culture in captured citites by building barracks)

	19-07-2004 20:38									#28
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I hadn't considered that, since I never use it, but how powerful can a single point be, given that four (or eight, with age) point temples and six (or twelve, with age) point libraries will abound?

One reason I doubled everything else before tacking on points was to keep their impact low, while helping out the early spacing.

It's also great in that there's no way you'll capture a city with an intact barracks, harbor, or airport.

	19-07-2004 20:38									#29
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I hadn't considered that, since I never use it, but how powerful can a single point be, given that four (or eight, with age) point temples and six (or twelve, with age) point libraries will abound?

One reason I doubled everything else before tacking on points was to keep their impact low, while helping out the early spacing.

It's also great in that there's no way you'll capture a city with an intact barracks, harbor, or airport.

	19-07-2004 20:41									#30
	Full PM-box? Change here!

BTW, not upping max cities to 1,024 when you can play with 31 civs at once is criminal.