17-01-2005 02:31									#31
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 Speaking of wars and combat, in civ3 superior units do not always win a fight. Attack a def of 1 with an attack of 2 and you may lose. In fact it could have a greater gap and still lose, although it is less common as the difference grows. No more of the build a wall and still one good unit in the city and forget it ala civ2. Even if you unit is say an infantry vet and they attack with ancient units, they will send enough to finally at times.

OMG, are you saying the inane 'mob of spearmen annihilate the army of MBTs' problem not only remains in c3c, but has actually gotten even worse??

	17-01-2005 02:33									#32
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In practical terms do I need to wage relentless wars and get some leaders out of them if I ever plan on rushing wonders? The civpedia says that there are supposed to be occasional 'scientific leaders' who could do that job which can appear when my civ is first to learn a new tech but I have been first to learn dozens of techs now and I have yet to see a single 'scientific leader' or any indeed see any leader of any sort whatsoever at all.

There has got to be a better way to get wonders.

	17-01-2005 02:39									#33
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Is there anyway to encourage trades of resources and luxeries with the AI civs? So far it has been insane. Two of the AI civs have spare luxeries that I don't have and both are experiencing internmitent revolts in major cities and yet both refuse to accept any trade of luxeries with me unless I sweeten the deal by given them over 1000 gold and 3 techs each in addition to my own luxeries! wth? They need the luxery goods far more than I do and yet they refuse to trade on even terms? It doesn't make the slighest shred of sense.

There must be some additional steps needed to encourage simple mutually beneficial trades. But damned I can figure out what they are.

	17-01-2005 02:58									#34
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Have you broken any deals before?

	17-01-2005 03:03									#35
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quote: Originally posted by Geronimo In practical terms do I need to wage relentless wars and get some leaders out of them if I ever plan on rushing wonders? The civpedia says that there are supposed to be occasional 'scientific leaders' who could do that job which can appear when my civ is first to learn a new tech but I have been first to learn dozens of techs now and I have yet to see a single 'scientific leader' or any indeed see any leader of any sort whatsoever at all. There has got to be a better way to get wonders.

There are now two types of Great Leaders:

Scientific - Can rush GWs or SWs. Can also (supposedly) speed up research overall, but I don't think anybody uses them that way. And yes, they are damn rare... In general, I think most experienced players favor pre-builds for GWs, and also tricks liking bulking up a given GW city via joining Workers.

Military - Cannot rush GWs. They can, however, rush SWs and regular buildings. Most importantly, however, they can create ARMIES, which are insanely great, and in C3C, insanely powerful. MGLs are created via elite land units winning battle.

	17-01-2005 03:05									#36
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quote: Originally posted by Geronimo ... simple mutually beneficial trades...

That's your problem right there. If the amount of happiness that will be generated in *your* civilization greatly exceeds that of the AI's, they will want loads of other recompense above and beyond a simple 1:1 lux trade.

	17-01-2005 03:33									#37
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One thing I haven't seen mentioned is Zone of Control. In all versions of CivIII, a unit with ZOC no longer blocks another unit from moving inside its ZOC. Now, a unit can move anywhere you like, but passing a ZOC unit means that unit takes a potshot at the passing unit that may or may not cost you a hitpoint. Hope that made sense.

	17-01-2005 03:40									#38
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quote: Originally posted by Geronimo In practical terms do I need to wage relentless wars and get some leaders out of them if I ever plan on rushing wonders? The civpedia says that there are supposed to be occasional 'scientific leaders' who could do that job which can appear when my civ is first to learn a new tech but I have been first to learn dozens of techs now and I have yet to see a single 'scientific leader' or any indeed see any leader of any sort whatsoever at all. There has got to be a better way to get wonders.

Wars/combat can only lead to Military Great Leaders. They cannot rush great wonders, only small wonders and some structures and units. This includes Armies.

SGL's are someting like 5 and 6%, so gettign 20 techs first is only going to mean you have a shot. Getting say 10 in a game still is only 10 tries at a 1 in 20 target.

So your best shot at a great wonders is to build it from scratch with a prebuild.

SGL are not a given so don't count on them. MGL's require combat with your elite winning and are not hard to get if you have enough of those fights. Just take care of your elites and get them into fights they are pretty sure to win and you will get a leader in no time.

	17-01-2005 03:48									#39
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quote: Originally posted by Geronimo Is there anyway to encourage trades of resources and luxeries with the AI civs? So far it has been insane. Two of the AI civs have spare luxeries that I don't have and both are experiencing internmitent revolts in major cities and yet both refuse to accept any trade of luxeries with me unless I sweeten the deal by given them over 1000 gold and 3 techs each in addition to my own luxeries! wth? They need the luxery goods far more than I do and yet they refuse to trade on even terms? It doesn't make the slighest shred of sense. There must be some additional steps needed to encourage simple mutually beneficial trades. But damned I can figure out what they are.

Like T said, they know the additional lux is going to do a lot for you and the one you offer them will not do nearly that much, so they want more for theirs, that makes sense to me.

Think of baseball cards and you need only two for the whole collection and I know this. I have one of the two and I need 100 and you offer me a most common card straight up. Would I be willing to make that deal, no. That card is not all that important to me or you, but my offer to you is very important to you.

This is the case in CivIII as the marketplace make lux do multiple happy faces as you have more and more of them. So that 7th and 8th luxs are huge boost to a large empire with the other 6 luxs already.

The 2nd or 3rd lux you offer them, is not nearly so useful and they may not even have markets in most of their cities to take advantage of the trade.

Just note that the advisor is going to give you a good ballpark on what they will accept in a trade. If it is techs and cash and the lux, you will not move them very much from that position.

	17-01-2005 06:12									#40
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so pre-build simply consists of building something big and hopefully having the tech for the weonder before you finish it and then switching over? doesn't sound like it will really rush the wonder at all, in the sense that the wonder won't really get done faster instead your just starting to build it before the tecyh is quite there.

	17-01-2005 06:16									#41
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yes, but pre-building a wonder is vital in the higher levels of difficulty, otherwise it will be damn hard for you to get a chance against the AI... unless, of course, you have a SGL or you conquer the city with the wonder...

	17-01-2005 08:46									#42
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quote: Originally posted by Geronimo In practical terms do I need to wage relentless wars and get some leaders out of them if I ever plan on rushing wonders? The civpedia says that there are supposed to be occasional 'scientific leaders' who could do that job which can appear when my civ is first to learn a new tech but I have been first to learn dozens of techs now and I have yet to see a single 'scientific leader' or any indeed see any leader of any sort whatsoever at all. There has got to be a better way to get wonders.

Sorry, but there's little opportunity to rush Wonders, you're going to have to build them. In fact, the only way is with a Scientific Leader, which as you've already noticed, you don't get very often. Military GLs can only build Armies and rush Small Wonders, as well normal improvements.

	17-01-2005 09:18									#43
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To clarify a few things:

Inferior units do win more often than in Civ 2, but it's not really that bad. You'll see a lot of complaints about it here (and on other sites). Just make sure your forces are strong enough and backed-up with arty and you won't have to worry about the occasional loss of a tank to a spearman.

Zone of Control rules have changed as Solomwi has stated. However, not all units have ZoC. Check the civilopedia to see which units have it. I think it's under "Game Concepts". One more thing, any unit inside of a fortress automatically gains ZoC.

Another thing that affects trade costs is the relative size of your civ when compared to the size of your trading partner. If your civ is larger, the other civ will demand more from you. When making deals, I don't think the other civ takes into account the fact that you could kick its ass.

Lastly, when building wonders, make sure you build them in your most productive core cities. When you select a city, make sure you maximize production in that city by building mines while leaving enough irrigated tiles to keep your population fed. Sometimes you may want to join workers to your wonder-building city to maximize that city's population (be careful about unhappiness due to overcrowding).

	17-01-2005 11:50									#44
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MINE MINE MINE!!!!

	17-01-2005 21:16									#45
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Another point not mentioned much: trade. At lower levels, you can out research the AI without too much trouble. Once you get to Monarch or even Regent, you can no longer be the first to discover every tech. What you need to get used to doing is trading techs. This was anathema in Civ2 of course but it is absolute vital in Civ3. In Civ2 there was a penalty for having tech. Each tech made the next tech more expensive. Not so in Civ3, so trade trade trade!

The correct way to do this is to contact as many civs as possible asap and then trade any newly discovered tech to each and every civ possible. That way you get something like 3 techs for the research price of 1. If you don't trade, the AIs will trade amongst themselves and you'll be left out of the dealing and behind. Always trade on your turn, never at during the AI's turn. Don't give them the oppurtunity to trade the tech you just discovered.

Last edited by gunkulator on 17-01-2005 at 23:27

	18-01-2005 03:01									#46
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Whlie we are on the topic Id like to ask a question about pre-building.

Ive had certian situations in which I havent taken the time to figure out. Lets say you are 1 turn away from finishing a Bank build, normally you would be able to switch to a GW, but instead you pay 50gp and finish it off, then you switch it to a GW, it wont let you now will it? You have to let the resources come in by themselves, no paying and then switching... am I missing anything else? If thats not the reason why Im not able to switch to a GW sometimes, please enlighten me.

PS: Does anyone know the chances of firing and hitting on a ZoC shot?

	18-01-2005 03:24									#47
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quote: Lets say you are 1 turn away from finishing a Bank build, normally you would be able to switch to a GW, but instead you pay 50gp and finish it off, then you switch it to a GW, it wont let you now will it? You have to let the resources come in by themselves, no paying and then switching... am I missing anything else? If thats not the reason why Im not able to switch to a GW sometimes, please enlighten me.

Correct. The same thing is true of getting shields from a forest chop. If you are building the bank and chop a forest, you will not be able to switch over to a wonder. Ideally, the game should just deduct the forest chop shields, but it doesn't work that way.

...

I don't know the ZoC odds, no.

...

Geronimo:

If the randomness of the combat is getting you down, I highly recommend building some bombard units (catapult/trebuchet/cannon/artillery) and using them to soften up the opposition prior to doing battle. That, and make sure your units are veterans (build barracks!). Those two things will cut down on whacky results somewhat. If it STILL irritates you but you otherwise enjoy the game, you can go the route of modding the game. The most common mod of this nature is to double the hitpoints of all units. This reduces the likelyhood of losing a superior unit to and obselete one.

-Arrian

	18-01-2005 03:27									#48
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I thought you couldn't switch production at all once you hurry a build but I haven't checked recently.

To prebuild a wonder you can't have any shields generated by disbanding a unit or chopping a forest. The wonder option will be grayed out.

Another note. Some wonders have special requirements. You can only build the Lighthouse in a coastal city. State of Zeus requires Ivory. Hoover Dam city must have a river in its radius. There's more so check the civilopedia.

	18-01-2005 03:32									#49
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You can switch between normal builds just fine. In fact, there is a whole technique termed "shortrushing" that is used to avoid shield wasteage and/or speed up builds. Have 30 shields accumulated in a 50-shield build, producing 10 shields/turn, but need it next turn? Switch to a 40-shield build, rush, switch back to 50-shield build. And so on and so forth. It can get very complex when you combine that with workforce adjustment (with tight city spacing).

-Arrian

	18-01-2005 04:07									#50
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In civ2 I grew used to zero corruption from democracy empires. In civ3 otoh I am noticing that nothing seems to work to keep corruption below 50% in less than half of my cities! I had thought the forbidden palace would make a big difference but even in the city where I built it something like 10% of its income under democracy is lost to corruption!

What is the best strategy to reduce corruption?

	18-01-2005 05:34									#51
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian You can switch between normal builds just fine. In fact, there is a whole technique termed "shortrushing" that is used to avoid shield wasteage and/or speed up builds. Have 30 shields accumulated in a 50-shield build, producing 10 shields/turn, but need it next turn? Switch to a 40-shield build, rush, switch back to 50-shield build. And so on and so forth. It can get very complex when you combine that with workforce adjustment (with tight city spacing). -Arrian

* Theseus snickers, just like Vizzini in 'The Princess Bride'. "I'll tell you later."

	18-01-2005 06:30									#52
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If your empire is too large, think of the conquered provinces as just holding the space and providiing luxaries & resources and denying them to your oppoents.

Always be thinking in terms of net shield production and net commerce.

I'm naturally a builder, Court Houses go up very fast in the 30% to 70% shield corruption zone upon discovery of Court Houses. Helped along by rushing after leaving Depostism in that new zone. (Leaving Despotism for a more advanced govt significantly reduces corruption & waste.)

The next thing is WLTPD. This will require 5+ luxaries, plus a Temple and Market Place for the smaller cities eligbile, with wonders and/or Cathedrials as the city grows.

The last things that are adviable are Police Men & Police Stations. Each police man will restore one lost shield + one lost commerce, this is before city multiplers.

Police Stations act as a second Court House.

What I do every time I finish a build is check what would produce more when complete between corruption reducer, tax enhancement, and science producer. This depends upon the ratio of gross commerce to lost commerce and the anticipated science slider setting.

About 10% commerce lost in the FP city is about normal. Such a city would benifit from additional corruption fighters, but not as much as building a university if running 50%+ science.

quote: Originally posted by Geronimo In civ2 I grew used to zero corruption from democracy empires. In civ3 otoh I am noticing that nothing seems to work to keep corruption below 50% in less than half of my cities! I had thought the forbidden palace would make a big difference but even in the city where I built it something like 10% of its income under democracy is lost to corruption! What is the best strategy to reduce corruption?

	18-01-2005 07:40									#53
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quote: Originally posted by Theseus * Theseus snickers, just like Vizzini in 'The Princess Bride'. "I'll tell you later."

"Inconceivable!"

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

	18-01-2005 08:03									#54
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In addition to policemen, another specialist that was added in Conquests was the civil engineer. The civil engineer is quite helpful when it comes to speeding-up production of improvements (and wonders) in highly corrupt cities. What they do is add two shields to the production of their city. You can get civil engineers after researching an industrial age tech (that I can't remember at the moment). One note however, they don't add shields (or anything else) when the city is building units.

	18-01-2005 09:59									#55
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"You killed my production... prepare to die."



(sorry, but pb2000 and I are having a PB fest)

	18-01-2005 22:14									#56
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quote: Originally posted by Geronimo In civ2 I grew used to zero corruption from democracy empires. In civ3 otoh I am noticing that nothing seems to work to keep corruption below 50% in less than half of my cities! I had thought the forbidden palace would make a big difference but even in the city where I built it something like 10% of its income under democracy is lost to corruption! What is the best strategy to reduce corruption?

There comes a time when there's nothing you can do about it. The further away your cities get from your Palace, the worse it will be.

You might consider moving your capital to a more central location though.

	18-01-2005 22:27									#57
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When I'm building a huge empire on the way to domination, I normally switch governments to Communism once it becomes available. It's not as good for research as Republic or Democracy, and the anarchy of the transition is a bit of a pain. But it's better for production, and it gives me the feeling of having my entire civ be productive instead of having a lot of the conquered land feel almost useless. (I might note, however, that I rarely research Communism myself. I usually wait until I can trade with one of the AIs for it on favorable terms.)

	18-01-2005 22:33									#58
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Generally it's not worthwhile to relocate the palace by then. It would increase corruption in the best built up cities.

quote: Originally posted by Willem There comes a time when there's nothing you can do about it. The further away your cities get from your Palace, the worse it will be. You might consider moving your capital to a more central location though.

	18-01-2005 22:36									#59
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I'd have big enough tech leads to have to reserach Communism myself just for the Police Station.

(While ToE is being built, already had Replacable Parts and Sanitation, and the Corporation.)

quote: Originally posted by nbarclay When I'm building a huge empire on the way to domination, I normally switch governments to Communism once it becomes available. It's not as good for research as Republic or Democracy, and the anarchy of the transition is a bit of a pain. But it's better for production, and it gives me the feeling of having my entire civ be productive instead of having a lot of the conquered land feel almost useless. (I might note, however, that I rarely research Communism myself. I usually wait until I can trade with one of the AIs for it on favorable terms.)

	18-01-2005 23:43									#60
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay When I'm building a huge empire on the way to domination, I normally switch governments to Communism once it becomes available. It's not as good for research as Republic or Democracy, and the anarchy of the transition is a bit of a pain. But it's better for production, and it gives me the feeling of having my entire civ be productive instead of having a lot of the conquered land feel almost useless. (I might note, however, that I rarely research Communism myself. I usually wait until I can trade with one of the AIs for it on favorable terms.)

Bolded part mine. And that, ultimately, is why I will endure anarchy to switch over to communism.

Playing on Monarch as I do, I often have a large tech lead by that point, and will do a fair amount of research while still using republic before switching (not to mention building police stations, rushbuilding other stuff to use up any treasury I have, and prebuilding the SPHQ or generating and holding a MGL for that purpose). A well-developed, large empire with a FP + SPHQ can equal and even surpass republic in terms of research output. It's just that once you hit that point, you're teetering on the brink of domination victory. I like to teeter for a while, basking in the glory of my nearly corruption-free empire.

As for the early game:

1) connect your cities via roads/harbors. There is actually an added corruption hit for unconnected cities.
2) prioritize courthouses.
3) get a FP up quickly
4) try to place the FP in a spot where it will provide a corruption boost to several other cities (this is a tricky balance with #2).
5) work on getting cities into "We Love the ___ Day" by building improvements & wonders, trading for or conquering luxuries, and using the luxury spending slider. WLT_D will result in a noticeable drop in shield waste (but will not help commerce corruption).

-Arrian