Limitations

[miklos]

I would like to customize my civ 3 game but I was wondering how many civs, resources, buildings, units,wonders,leader heads,etc., the game would realistically accomodate.

[Mad Bomber]

depends on your pc resources (mainly RAM, video card, and Processor)
the version you have (CIV3, PTW,or Conquests)
and your ability to customize

If you have Conquests (CIV3:Complete is all three packaged together) then you could have up to 31 different civs without customization of the game. Map size can be up to 250x250 but you better have a decent machine (1gb of Ram, 2.0 GHTZ processor) to try that.

Resources are determined by ratios of civs and resource types. Ratios of Resources may be changed using the editor.

[Quintillus]

If you have Conquests (CIV3:Complete is all three packaged together) then you could have up to 31 different civs without customization of the game. Map size can be up to 250x250 but you better have a decent machine (1gb of Ram, 2.0 GHTZ processor) to try that.

362x362 is the actual maximum in Conquests. But there's a limit of 512 cities (for all civilizations combined) as well, and you'll hit that with much smaller maps than 362x362, so unless you make some terrains un-settleable, you'll hit the 512 city limit at 225x225 or so (exact size will vary).

Realistically, you'll need a very powerful processor to get good in-between-turn times with very large maps. How many civilizations you have is a factor as well - the more civilizations and the larger the map, the longer the IBT turn times. With my 2.2 GHz Core 2 processor, it took 5.5-6 minutes at the highest (late 1870's AD) for a 180x180 map with 31 initial civilizations. That's equivalent to about 4 GHz if you have a Pentium 4. For reference, 160x160 is "Huge" in PTW and Conquests, and 180x180 is in Vanilla (they apparently realized it was too large for 2001 computers and toned it down in the expansions); Large is 130x130 in PTW and Conquests and 140x140 in Vanilla, and Standard is 100x100 in both.

There's limits on many other factors as well. Units are limited to, if I remember correctly, 2048 in Vanilla, 4096 in Play the World, and 8192 in Conquests. The limits to buildings, resources, and how many types of units they can be are limits of how many can be added in the editor, but I do not remember what those limits are (and the resource one is wonky). The leaderhead limit is the same as the 31 civilization limit (24 in PTW, 16 in Vanilla). As MadBoss said, your ability to customize will almost always be the limit here, although the unit limit may be hit in-game on huge maps, especially in pre-Conquests (though I've yet to hit it myself, I've read of others reaching it).

As for the hardware, once you meet the minimum memory and graphics cards requirements (1 GB with XP, perhaps 1.5 GB with Vista), the processor is the only thing that really matters. And as Civ3 (and Civ4 for that matter) cannot take advantage of multiple cores, going with a quad core processor won't help you. The fastest per-core processor you can buy will be best.

I've long thought there should be a repository of all the limits built into Civ3 - if I happen across some of the other ones again, I'll try to remember to update this post.