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#209 THE CURSE OF CIVILIZATION The full feature of Jonathan Speelman on his experience with Civ and his meeting with Sid Meier and Soren Johnson #208 LOST CIVILIZATION Duckman expects more from the future civ3 #207 A BOLD STEP FORWARD INTO THE PAST It's never to early to start discussing Civ4, Ron argues #206 WALL STREET GAMES ONLINE GP would like to live in a branching virtual world. This could be his big chance #205 CIV3`S NOT SO GREAT LEAP FORWARD Civ III's "Great Leap Forward" isn't as great or as forward as Dr Nemo hoped. By.... Dr Nemo #204 TALKING WITH SID AND SOREN Small civ3 details shared by the big heads of the development team. By Jonathan Speelman COLUMN ARCHIVE

After playing Civilisation III at Regent level you may like to try changing the rules to give the game a fresh feel. Here are a few suggestions which give an interesting twist on the game.

Open civ3edit. Click File => Open => (up one directory) => civ3mod.bic
This will allow you to edit the default rules of the game. You should consider taking a backup of this file.

FASTER START
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To allow small cities to grow faster, increase the usefulness of the Walls improvement.

Select Edit => Improvements and Wonders => Walls
Cost: 3
Maintenance: 1 (The per turn cost)
Culture: 1 (The per turn culture)
Production: 2 (Increases the production of the city)
Note: walls can only be built in cities of 6 or less.

FASTER WORKERS
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Increasing the movement of workers will allow them to get to where they are needed faster. These changes mean workers take longer to build but are less annoying to manage.

Open Units => Worker
Shield Cost: 2
Moves: 2

IMPROVED WEALTH
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Wealth needs to be more useful if it is worth using.

Open General Settings
Shield Cost per Gold: 2

RENEWABLE FORESTS
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Building forests for plantations is almost worth it if the shield value is increased.
Note: This does not contribute to wonders.

Open General Settings
Forest Value in Shields: 50

TOUGHER BARBARIANS
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Tougher barbarians are still easy to kill. These look better.

Open General Settings
Basic Barbarian: Impi
Advanced Barbarian: Horseman.
Barbarian Sea Unit: Privateer.

TOUGHER ELITE UNITS
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Elite units should be tougher than veteran units.

Open Combat Experience => Elite
Base Hit Points: 6

Note: an elite(6) warrior attacking a regular spearman will often loose.

TOUGHER START
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If all this makes the game too easy, you can make the game a little harder by giving the AI a head start. This advantage diminishes as the game progresses.

Open Difficulty Levels => Warlord/Regent
Number of defensive land units: 1

EASIER/HARDER GAME
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The simplest way to tune the difficultly of the game is to change the AI's Cost factor. This determines how fast the AIs operate.

Open Difficulty Levels => Warlord/Regent
Cost factor : 8 (madness), 10 (harder), 12 (not hard), 14 (easier), 16 (very easy)
You can set the odd values as well

SUGGESTION
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A suggestion to the developers of Civ III would be to adjust the cost factor for AI players with a low score. The Cost Factor could be Base * (P + S) / (2 * S) where P is the player's score and S is the AI's score. This would only be used for AI players with a score lower than the players.

This would have a number of effects;
- AI who have never done well may have a cost factor as low as half normal.
- AI players who's glory days are over would not benefit as much as they have a high score, even though they may be doing badly at present.
- AI players who have a higher score are not effected.
- Players who have a good start do not become a run away success. Otherwise, if you can get big enough, early enough, then the result is never in doubt.

There would be some advantage staying small and growing quickly near the end.

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About the author: Recently moved to the UK from Australia. Batteries not included

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