Geronimo Finally buys CivIII

[vmxa1]

Arrain you would really hate Sid. I have cities that I do not even build anything, but a temple and an aqua. The aqua is just to get the extra support. No libs, no cath, usually no markets for corrupt cities.

Sometimes, current game, I just stay in Monarchy the whole game and do zero research after the ancient era. Instead of the brink of domination, it is the brink of disaster and the threat of a cultural loss.

[gunkulator]

vmxa1, you just described why I don't bother with anything above Emporer, excepting a few DG forays every now and then. What you described sorta sounds like civ, but it doesn't resemble civ in any sense that I think of it. Tightly packed, small, crappy cities for most of the game is not my idea of an enjoyable game. YMMV of course.

[vmxa1]

This is often so, but just different than say an emperor game where you are soon lording over the AI. Once you learn what to expect from either game, you just determine if you can enjoy it or not.

I like the sweating of early attempts at invasions, especially when they start to send 3 or 4 caravels filled at you in waves. If you get past that, then you turtle till you can invade someone.

Then you have the fun of seeing if you were able to bring enough to hold on. I like the first invasion attempt by me, but the rest are not so enjoyable. Afer that it gets tedious, but all the other ones do at the point where you are starting to get the upper hand.

At least here, I am still not a lock to win, only to survive. But I will toss in an easier game from time to time.

[Theseus]

Introducing...

The AV Meter


[Ultimate Power(tm)] <---------> ["I Will Survive"]

[Arrian]

Arrain you would really hate Sid.

Yes, yes I would. I've never tried it. In fact, I've never seriously attempted anything above Emperor.

Emperor I can do (and do well), but in order to achieve my goals, I would need to concentrate/micromanage more than is typically fun for me.

But yeah, my approach is very different from yours in that I don't have fun by playing games where a reasonable goal is survival, or even "just win, baby."

-Arrian

[Shr3dZ]

Ahhh so its no wonder I didnt quite understand why sometimes I wasnt able to switch to a GW. So the 3 main factors to not being able ot switch would be:

• Paying for resources (ie. hurrying production)
• Chopped forest
• Disbanded units

Thx for clearing that up.

Someone mentioned the Hoover Dam out there and it reminded me to ask a question about it:

When you build it, all cities get a Hydro Plant. But one of the requirements to getting a HP is that you have to have a fresh water source, correct? So what happens to all those cities that havent got one, do they get one anyways? And also you dont receive the benefits of the Hoover Dam if your cities dont have a Factory in them yet right?

TIA~

[Theseus]

1. Yep, all cities get an HP...cool, eh?

2. Doesn't mean jack unless there's a Factory.

[Solomwi]

Heh, I've gotten so used to having Hoover before I get Industrialization, even (typically starting a Hoover prebuild around the same time as my ToE prebuild, and try to time it to get them done in the same turn), and therefore considering a factory to double production, that I spent a few minutes puzzled in my current game when factories were only giving 50% more shields.

Wow, long sentence.

[Geronimo]

I wonder why the game makers decided that corruption had to be so much higher in c3 than in the earlier versions of civ? it certainly doesnt add any realism, it takes away realism in fact. And I can't imagine they think it's more fun this way!

[Geronimo]

My current frustration involves epionage. i don't miss the diplomat or spy units in the least but the new system just doesn't seem to be working.

The biggest disppointment in the game so far had to have been when I completed the espionage small wonder. I immediently went to the espionage screen and amlmost everything there was grayed out, including propaganda which I had hoped to use to buy a small festering eye sore of a size 1 city that the AI managed to sneak in near my forbiden palace city.

Reading the description for propaganda it says that it can be used in the city where my spy is located. However, when I try to plant a spy none of the cities in the list are selectable. instead I just gives me an option to execute the order and the spy always end up planted in the enemy capitol after which the option to plant spies is grayed out.

Does this mean propaganda efforts can only be directed at the enemy capitol? That doesn't seem to be any use whatsoever. Is propaganda only useable under other government types? I wonder where they got the impression that democracies don't engage in propaganda?

I think I'm at a dead end with respect to this aspect of the game.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Solomwi
Heh, I've gotten so used to having Hoover before I get Industrialization, even (typically starting a Hoover prebuild around the same time as my ToE prebuild, and try to time it to get them done in the same turn), and therefore considering a factory to double production, that I spent a few minutes puzzled in my current game when factories were only giving 50% more shields.

Wow, long sentence.

but hoover dam still only effects one land mass right? And it seems the freshwater has to be a river. My home continenet had no rivers and a single lake square adjacent to my capitol city square and I've been completey unable to build HD there.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Geronimo
but hoover dam still only effects one land mass right? And it seems the freshwater has to be a river. My home continenet had no rivers and a single lake square adjacent to my capitol city square and I've been completey unable to build HD there.

Yes, that sucks. One getted used to the whims of the RNG map generator I guess... I think of it terms of Jared Diamond's 'GG&S' hypotheses: The equivalent being, "Too bad, you didn't get good animals!"

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Geronimo
I wonder why the game makers decided that corruption had to be so much higher in c3 than in the earlier versions of civ? it certainly doesnt add any realism, it takes away realism in fact. And I can't imagine they think it's more fun this way!

The reason for the higher corruption is to counteract the phenomenon of, "If your civ is twice as big as someone else's, it's twice as powerful as someone else's." In and of itself, the higher corruption is no fun at all. But in the bigger picture, the higher corruption makes it a lot harder to run away with the game by a huge margin. So even though I find it annoying, I think the game is better off with it than it would be without it.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Geronimo

Reading the description for propaganda it says that it can be used in the city where my spy is located. However, when I try to plant a spy none of the cities in the list are selectable. instead I just gives me an option to execute the order and the spy always end up planted in the enemy capitol after which the option to plant spies is grayed out.

All that's needed is one spy for the entire civ. You should be able to use that spy to initiate propaganda (or conduct other missions) against any city once the spy is planted unless the enemy is in Democracy (which is immunte to propaganda). Unfortunatelly, espionage activities are so expensive that they are generally not considered cost-effective. And they have a nasty tendency to spark wars when they fail, at least if relations with the other civ were already bad. I've gotten to a point where I rarely even try to plant spies unless I want a war (or at least don't mind fighting one). Ironically, my main use of espionage is to try to get a civ that I want to fight to declare war on me instead of me attacking the other civ. (I don't know whether you've noticed yet, but a civ that gets attacked gets a happiness boost for however long the war lasts or until war weariness eats it away.)

I wonder where they got the impression that democracies don't engage in propaganda?

The rule is not that Democracies don't use propaganda, but that propaganda cannot work against them.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Geronimo

but hoover dam still only effects one land mass right? And it seems the freshwater has to be a river. My home continenet had no rivers and a single lake square adjacent to my capitol city square and I've been completey unable to build HD there.

Right. If you check the Civilopedia entry on Hoover, it specifies a river, not just fresh water. (In contrast, nuclear plants can use any source of fresh water.) And yes, Hoover only affects the land mass it's built on (another fact specified in the Civilopedia).