Recc'd Mods for Vanilla Civ III

[Tampa_Gamer]

Hello,

I recently unearthed my Civ III (plain vanilla with the latest patch applied) and have just started a game (well actually about an hour into it). However, I had forgotten about some of the mods (especially necessary graphic ones like the mood smiles for the workers) and others that I used when I was playing this game a lot. Would some kind soul please recc'd to me the "must have" mods for this version (I am not into all kinds of new techs, etc. but am interested in unofficial fixes) and if possible, please let me know which ones can be applied at any time during a game, and those which should only be applied before starting a new one.

Thanks in advance.
Tampa_Gamer

[joncnunn]

Well common mods for vanilla 1.29 were:

1. Double Hit Points due to Vanilla combat being somewhat more random than Conquests resulting in too many Spearmen beating a Tank.

2. AU vanilla mod [Many of the same things in the AU conquests mod]

3. Some people like to mod in buildings / races from PTW/Conquests that are not found in Vanilla.

[Tampa_Gamer]

Thanks. How about graphics mods -> I saw some, but it looks like they are for the expansion sets. Are they generally backwards compatible?

[Theseus]

TG: I don't think the newer mods are backwards compatible. Here is a link to a vanilla mod that I liked though:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41321

[Grim Legacy]

Was there ever some kind of generally-approved mod that disables the odd option of building ancient-era units in the modern age (e.g. swordsman next to modern armor)? I encountered this 'feature' recently and found it annoying.

[vmxa1]

This should not happen, unless they are lacking resources or have been reduced to a few cities.

[Theseus]

A good reason to move on to C3C, btw... by fixing the upgrade paths, this is no longer a problem.

[joncnunn]

In Vanilla, I just had swordmen & longbowmen upgrade to Inf.

Several people actually added a Guerrlia like unit for swordmen to upgrade to.

If I'm having unit support problems in the middle ages though,

These warriors he said, are the first thing to go! (Must they really go?)
And now, I will disband the disband the MIs!

Originally posted by Grim Legacy
Was there ever some kind of generally-approved mod that disables the odd option of building ancient-era units in the modern age (e.g. swordsman next to modern armor)? I encountered this 'feature' recently and found it annoying.

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by vmxa1
This should not happen, unless they are lacking resources or have been reduced to a few cities.

Mysteriously, it does happen: I have the option to build a longbowman with all the resources and techs for the modern stuff (which are also listed in the build menu).

I figured the no-upgrade on these ancient units were a probable cause for the problem. It just struck me as very odd that Firaxis has not corrected it after all this time, especially when the infantry upgrade is all that is needed...

[vmxa1]

Well you should be able to build LB in a game where the LB is the end of the line for that unit. Any unit that has no upgrade path will be available as long as you have the tech and resources.

In C3C ancient standard units all have upgrade paths till modern age. Of course any UU is available regardless of upgrades as long as you have not had your GA.

So the only units not upgraded are AC and middle age Crusaders. Well not explorers either, a special cat I never build.

[joncnunn]

Allowing the upgarding Ancient Calvary to Calvary would make Zeus way too powerful in the hands of a human.

Allowing Crusaders to upgrade to Guerrlias wouldn't be too bad.

Has anybody ever found a use in Civ III for the Explorer unit other than resource denial exploit and pillaging? By the time it arrives, most unexplored land tiles can be fully explored by landing an obsolete warrior just as quickly.

[Grim Legacy]

It must have one of the designers' objectives to carry over at least one useless unit from Civ2 to Civ3.

[vmxa1]

They could make great pillagers, but I have not built them to use for just pillaging. I mean armies do it better.

[Theseus]

In one of the AU games I did some *obscene* pillaging with Explorers... other than that though, they do seem pretty useless.

[joncnunn]

I thought the AU mod removed pillaging ability from Explorers?
(Because humans were pillaging with them and the AI wouldn't)

Originally posted by Theseus
In one of the AU games I did some *obscene* pillaging with Explorers... other than that though, they do seem pretty useless.