Geronimo Finally buys CivIII

[joncnunn]

There's also an online document that covers the editor.

Be advised that there are some changes you can make that the AI can't handle at all, and others that wouldn't affect the AI and would only affect the humans.

[nbarclay]

I think if I wanted an earlier government with communal corruption, I'd change Feudalism's corruption model to communal and maybe change its unit support mechanism to something less unconventional. Since Feudalism has war weariness and would have less free support, the later change to Communism (under whatever name it ends up with) would still be worthwhile. And the balance between the redefined Feudalism and Republic shouldn't present any worse issues than the balance between Communism and Democracy.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Geronimo


well at least the corruption insanity can be toned down with editing. I wonder if corruption editing will tend to change the relative balance of the various government types or if it will leave such balancing exactly as it is with default settings. I'd imagine that some governments are more severely stunted by the default corruption levels than others even though I've only really played despotism, republic, and democracy in my only game to date.

If you're going to do some modding in order to control corruption, a better approach would be to add new improvements in order to combat it, like a second layer for Courthouses, a Prison for example. You can also add more Forbidden Palace type buildings. Something like a Supreme court for instance.

Overall,I like the corruption model in the game, I just think they should have included more ways to reduce it.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Geronimo


That only helps to a degree. Weak player civs in the past games used to be vey difficult to keep at peace with the AI neighbors.

Unfortunately if you build enough of your own cities and colonise enough resources the corruption problem becomes pretty much exactly as bad as if you counquered those territories,

A small empire doesn't necessarily mean a weak one. Since you're primarily relying on your core cities, you can have a military just as powerful as a civ twice your size.

[Arrian]

And a lot of times "useless" far-flung cities really aren't useless at all. Most of the time I build or capture them for a purpose: resources or luxuries. That alone makes them valueable as all hell, even if they're a max corruption. That's what rush-buying is for.

-Arrian

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Geronimo
That only helps to a degree. Weak player civs in the past games used to be vey difficult to keep at peace with the AI neighbors.

Unfortunately if you build enough of your own cities and colonise enough resources the corruption problem becomes pretty much exactly as bad as if you counquered those territories,

With trading (technology, resources, luxuries, maps), and peace (Embassies, Right of Passage agreements), you can play quite peacefully without too much trouble. And I mean staying quite small.

In Civ3 the AI no longer has "kill the player at all costs" programmed in, so you can often stay out of most conflicts. One thing you will need is a defensive force, because some AIs simply can't be talked to (high AI aggression setting).

But it can be done. As an example, take a look at AU 505. We were prohibited from attacking any civ, until in Fascism. This basically forced the players to stay at peace for a large part of the game. And corruption was never an issue for the small empire. Of course then we used Fascism, and went to war, but it was far from necessary to win the game.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=126050

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=126044

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=126045

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=126046

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=126047

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=126048

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=126049

[Grim Legacy]

Under Republic or Democracy you can still spend cash to rush-build courthouses and police station in far-away corrupt cities. I found that with those constructed, these cities do become manageable, especially when their radius terrain is cultivated.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Solomwi
Geronimo, just create your mod, and don't generate a map in the editor. Then you can play it on new random maps all you like. Heck, after entering the extended cities lists, I renamed mine "conquests.biq" (after backing up the original, of course), so now every time I start a new game normally, I get the changes I made.

i was going to do this but ran into a few wrinkles.

First, if i use the editor and save the results when the map is just one huge ocean with polar ice caps, it will generate a random map when I try to play using that file?

How do I load 'conquests.big' so that I can edit it? so far it only wants to let me load files that have the ".bic" extension and there is only one of those to be found.

Do I use the editor for any and all changes, such as renaming 'communism' 'federal republic'?

And, how can I tell which changes are likely to cause the game to crash?

[Dis]

iirc the bic files were from the civ3 vanilla editor. You have to use the editor in the conquests folder. one modifies biq files, the other is bic. I can't remember which is which though.

[vmxa1]

Bic for vanilla, bix for PTW and Biq for C3C. Each need their own editor.

[Geronimo]

I guess it's impossible to predict in advance if a modification will be prone to causing game crashes?

I guess there are just two changes I have my heart set on now. Adding in 'federal republic' as a brand new government type either enabled through it's own tech or enabled with an existing telecommunications related tech is the first. The second is doubling the hps of all units so that the spearman kills tank nonsense is somewhat less likely to occur.

Are iether of these easy to do? I have a bd feeling the only way to double the hit points of all units is to eidt each individual unit one by one. yuck! i hope there is an easier way.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Geronimo
I guess it's impossible to predict in advance if a modification will be prone to causing game crashes?

I guess there are just two changes I have my heart set on now. Adding in 'federal republic' as a brand new government type either enabled through it's own tech or enabled with an existing telecommunications related tech is the first. The second is doubling the hps of all units so that the spearman kills tank nonsense is somewhat less likely to occur.

Are iether of these easy to do? I have a bd feeling the only way to double the hit points of all units is to eidt each individual unit one by one. yuck! i hope there is an easier way.

nope, easier than that.

You can just edit the hitpoint values of conscript, regular, veteran, and elite units. That's just 4 numbers you have to change .

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Geronimo


i was going to do this but ran into a few wrinkles.

First, if i use the editor and save the results when the map is just one huge ocean with polar ice caps, it will generate a random map when I try to play using that file?

Yes, it will.

How do I load 'conquests.big' so that I can edit it? so far it only wants to let me load files that have the ".bic" extension and there is only one of those to be found.

The biq/bic part's been answered, but you don't want to load the main file (e.g., conquests.biq), as they're read-only. Copy it to another folder to back it up, then rename it something like conquests1.biq (which also serves as its own backup). Now just create your mod in an unnamed file, as you would anyway, and after you save and name it, all you have to do is go back and change the name to conquests.biq.

Do I use the editor for any and all changes, such as renaming 'communism' 'federal republic'?

Yes.

And, how can I tell which changes are likely to cause the game to crash?

Play them out.

[Theseus]

Civ3 seems pretty stable... I've never heard much about editor changes causing crashes.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Theseus
Civ3 seems pretty stable... I've never heard much about editor changes causing crashes.

I've never had any problems.

Long as you don't do anything crazy. Like putting values to really large numbers.