The CIV3 FAQ

[Jodo Kast]

Q & A

Q: The music sounds funny.
A: The music is a collection of many MP3s to provide background music. It's meant to give the game ambience without getting too annoying. Keep the volume to a 'background' volume as if you are actually listening to the music that is coming from your cities! The music changes over each era.

Q: Sorry, the music is too repetitive.
A: Turn off the Music under Options. You can play MP3s in the background with WinAmp (but you need a fast system).

Q: I want to listen to CDs but Civilization CD is in there.
A: Listen to your CDs on your stereo and let your computer do it's thing!

Q: Diety is impossible!
A: I think 'Diety' means 'God' so you should have all the powers you can think of. I restrict myself to unlimited funds, which allows me to keep up with the constant 1-turn military production of the 15 other Civs. Even then the game is very difficult, and fun!

Q: What's the patch like?
A: If the game is fine as it is, you don't need to patch it. They change too many rules in the patch for me, so I reverted back. The patch does make the game run faster.

Q: The resolution is limited to 1024x768.
A: Add Keepres=1 to the Civilization.ini file. Change your desktop resolution to the one you want and start Civilization 3. The only bug I see is with the city screen. All other screens look fine!

Q: The Editor seems crippled!
A: The Editor is set to use Default Rules by.. default! Click on the menu to turn off Default Rules. Now you can edit everything from advances to civs to improvements to units.

Q: There is pollution everywhere!
A: In the Editor, add a checkbox to 'Decrease Pop/Bld Pollution' for most improvements. Pollution adds only frustration to my games so I eliminate it this way. The enemy Civs aren't hindered by pollution this way so be careful.

Q: What mod packs do you recommend?
A: I use the Wonder background and replacement pics to tell me when it expires, etc w/o going to the Civilopedia. The PopMoodbadges are good so you can tell if you have unhappy people. Everything else works great!

[Padma]

to mankind

4. can i set a national border's ? (not city borders,) i swa the egytians with strange border... dont have an idea what was it...

A. Your civ's border is the sum of the cities' borders. Yes, they start out nice and symmetrical, and expand as you culture grows, up to the point they bump against another civ. You have no control over the shape, other than strategic placement of cities.

I have noticed some strange borders, myself. What I have observed is that if a city on the 'edge' is razed, tiles in its radius that are being worked by another city will not be 'lost', but tiles in another city's radius that the razed city's population is working WILL be 'lost'. This results in some rather strange-looking borders.

[Jaybe]

Re: to Mankind

Originally posted by Redstar
You ask for a deal..

then select (and expand) military agreements (from list of choices) and then select mutal protection.
You then offer what is necessary to get the deal accepted.

Once done..either will go to war if the other is attacked.

You can also do embargos and military alliance against some mean civ.

Once done..either will go to war if the other is attacked or bombarded within its borders.

[Redstar]

to Mankind

You ask for a deal..

then select (and expand) military agreements (from list of choices) and then select mutal protection.
You then offer what is necessary to get the deal accepted.

Once done..either will go to war if the other is attacked.

You can also do embargos and military alliance against some mean civ.

[Mankind]

Originally posted by adaMada

I have no clue what you mean about national boarders/diplomicy being restricting... can you clarify?

well, borders of state, there are any in civ3?

diplomacy, restricting .... it's different than civ2's...
i can declare a war, i can say "bye" and i can "ask for deal" but i don't know how to ask for an aliance in that "ask for deal" menu ,
i don't if in civ3 i can pay other civ to atack some other civs...

it is so much more different......

[adaMada]

Originally posted by Mankind
I got civ3!!!!! (...)

1. sorry for stupid questions
2. yes i have civ manual but at home
3. Excuse me if that question and answer is in this faq, i don't have time now for reading the hole thing

3.

luxury - 0
tax - 5
science - 5

i want to change it to science - 9 , where? how?

4. can i set a national border's ? (not city borders,) i swa the egytians with strange border... dont have an idea what was it...

why diplomacy is so restricting? i mean.... in civ2 when civ reached me , imydiataly was an audience... now.... not

and... sorry for spelling errors.....

Q: How do I change the luxury/tax/science rate?
A: See the "Domestic Advisor" screen.

I have no clue what you mean about national boarders/diplomicy being restricting... can you clarify?

-- adaMada

[Mankind]

I got civ3!!!!! (...)

1. sorry for stupid questions
2. yes i have civ manual but at home
3. Excuse me if that question and answer is in this faq, i don't have time now for reading the hole thing

3.

luxury - 0
tax - 5
science - 5

i want to change it to science - 9 , where? how?

4. can i set a national border's ? (not city borders,) i swa the egytians with strange border... dont have an idea what was it...

why diplomacy is so restricting? i mean.... in civ2 when civ reached me , imydiataly was an audience... now.... not

and... sorry for spelling errors.....

[gamma]

Alluding to another thread:

Q: How can I cut off an enemy civ's strategic resource supply?
A: This can be difficult to accomplish, and worth the risk at the same time. If the civ is getting this resource from a colony, find the colony and destroy it. If it's inside the civ's borders, find the resource and pillage any rails and roads in that square, then plant a high-defense unit or two on that square to keep the civ from rebuilding the road. Make sure you get all of the resources; pillaging one oil square out of two won't do any good. If the resource is under a city, pillage all roads around that city, or take the city.

Once that resource is cut off, it may still be possible for the civ to get it via foreign trade. In this case, the civ's capital becomes the "resource square". To cut this off, you have many options. The military solution is to pillage all roads around the capital. Don't take the capital, obviously, since it'll then move somewhere else. If the capital has a harbor, send enough units to blockade it. If it has an airport, bombard it until it's destroyed, or just let the capital be the only city that can use the resource (good luck with that if you have it surrounded). Diplomatically, you can use a spy to destroy the city's airport. Or simply ask all other civs with that resource to engage in a trade embargo. (You'll need the Nationality tech(?) to do this.)

[gamma]

Huuuuuuge list. I was brainstorming as I read the thread. This is everything I hadn't seen up to now:


Q: What is REXing?
A: REX stands for Rapid Expansion, a popular strategy in the early part of a Civ game. The idea is to build as many cities as possible, as quickly as possible, at the expense of improving cities. Existing cities do nothing but build settlers and workers; workers do nothing but build roads.

REX is even more important in Civ3, due to strategic resources. The more land you cover, the more likely you will have strategic resources within your territory.

Q: What is pop-rushing?
A: In Civ3, the despotic and communist governments allow you to rush building projects by sacrificing citizens rather than by paying gold. Hence, "population sacrifice rushing", or pop-rushing.

Pop-rushing is very viable in Civ3, since corruption is much worse in outlying cities [pre-patch; communism might be better now]. 99/100 shields might be lost due to corruption in a remote city, but that city's food production is still full; so, food becomes the driving force behind building in that city.

Corruption aside, pop-rushing has proven to be a very useful method for REXing, possibly as formidable as ICS was in Civ2.


Q: Can I upgrade units in my army?
A: No. Once they're in, they're final. You can unload units from an army if you make a mistake, but only if that army hasn't left the city. It might be possible to fight a close battle in which some but not all of the units in your army die, and then replace them, but this is unverified.

Q: If I build an army, can I move it to another city before loading units into it?
A: Yes.

Q: If I build an army, use it, and then build the Pentagon, can I add a fourth unit to it?
A: Yes; all you have to do is move the army into one of your cities.


Q: Do fresh water squares exist? All I see are coastal squares.
A: Apparently, any body of water with nothing but coastal squares in it is considered fresh. The squares still say "coastal", but you'll notice each of them provides two food, rather than one for a normal coastal square.

Q: I just saw a civ with an irrigated square with no water next to it, and before electricity! How is this possible?
A: Two ways. The AI might have irrigated a line of squares up to that one, then mined over the intervening squares. The second way is to note that a city square is considered irrigated if there is water or an irrigated square next to it. If the square just east of a city has fresh water, then you can irrigate the square just west of the city.


Q: No matter how high I set my research rate, I can't discover new techs in any faster than 4 turns, or any slower than 32 turns [40 post-patch]. What's going on?
A: These are deliberate caps, meant to keep a civ from running away with the game by getting ridiculously high research production. Note that you can get techs faster in certain situations. Namely, the more civs discover a certain tech, the cheaper that tech becomes, and the 4-turn cap goes away.


Q: Why can't I destroy units with bombardment?
A: This is a deliberate feature, meant to keep any civ from conquering another with nothing but no-risk bombardment. Sooner or later you have to send a unit in there and slug it out.


[Updating Skanky Burns' entry]
Q: How do I perform advanced espionage missions? They aren't available when I click my capital's star icon.
A: You need to build the Intelligence Agency first. The city that built it will have an upside-down pentagon icon where the star is on your capital city. Click that to access advanced missions.

Enemy capital cities will also have this upside-down pentagon icon. You can click that to perform advanced missions against that civ.


Q: How do I get leaders?
A: Several factors help. Use only elite units as much as possible when fighting. Use them for defense as well. If they're damaged, take them off the front and repair them, and use your veteran units to make them elite. Militaristic civs have a greater chance of getting elite units, and might also have a greater chance of getting leaders from elites [unverified]. Build the Heroic Epic as soon as you can. Finally, it might be possible to capture another civ's leader, if you're lucky enough to be around when they get one.


Q: Why is corruption so high?
A: Many factors. The two biggest are apparently (a) distance from your palace or forbidden palace, and (b) total number of cities under your control. For each of the five map sizes, there is an "optimal" number of cities. This optimal number appears to be always twice that needed for you to be able to build the forbidden palace. If you have more cities than that, the remotest ones will apparently suffer debilitating corruption - even 100-shield cities will lose all but one shield. Likewise for commerce.

Q: How can I counter this corruption?
A: Many ways.
1. Build the Forbidden Palace if you haven't already.
2. Switch to a nicer government if possible. Democracy helps.
3. Build a courthouse.
4. Build a police station [post-patch].
5. Get that city to celebrate WLTKD. Do this by:
5a. Getting more luxuries via trade or conquest.
5b. Building a marketplace to increase the effect of luxuries.
5c. Increasing spending on entertainment.
5d. Eliminating unhappy citizens via city improvements, etc.
6. Have fewer cities.
7. Change the optimal city number using the editor.


Q: Why can't I build Wonder X in my city? It's greyed out in the pop-up.
A: See if it's still greyed out if you hold down the Shift key. If it's not, it means you can build it later, but not until you finish your current project. This is because your current project has "dirty" shields obtained by (a) forced labor, (b) shields from forests, (c) disbanded units.

If it's still greyed out, that means it's either (a) already in your build queue, or (b) one of your other cities is working on it, or has it in its queue(?). Hunt around until you find it.


Q: How can I get a fully-improved city with an odd number of food to stop going through annoying periods of growth/starvation?
A: One way, if you can put up with the effort, is to build a worker in that city whenever it pops. Another way is to go to an irrigated square worked by that city (make one if none exists), and pillage the railroad, leaving the road. That square will now produce one less food.


Q: How can I see other civs in the Foreign Advisor screen?
A: Hold down Shift and right-click in any of the circles other than your own. A pop-up will let you select a different civ to view. You can only see eight at any one time.


Q: How is this one coastal square producing one extra commerce??
A: Very rarely, a river will meet with a bend in the coastline. Rather than stopping there, the river will turn away from the bend and dump somewhere else. The coastal square in that bend qualifies for the extra commerce from bordering a river. (Coastal squares at river mouths don't get this bonus.)

[Seth]

How does draft work?

Q: Could someone provide an explanation for how citizens may be conscripted? I know from the manual and the pedia how governments affect the number that may be drafted and the resulting unhappiness. What I don't get is the rules for when citizens may be drafted. Does a city need to be above some minimum size? Do resistors or other unhappiness factors make draft impossible? Are there any messages that a draft has occurred or failed?

The reason that I ask: In my third game, I try the draft for the first time. Post patch. Sometimes draft button is present, sometimes not. When I press button, nothing happens. Under Democracy, no conscripts ever appear. However, under Communism, draft results in conscripts in large cities on my original continent, but never in smaller, conquered cities. Even when draft works, no changes are apparent until I close city view and then re-open.

Is this feature buggy, or do I just not know how to use it?

TIA

Peace

[Pythagoras]

Q Do huge-map games have more turns than tiny-map games? How are the extra turns distributer?

Q I keep capturing a major enemy city. A few turns after I capture it, it rebels and goes back to its old civ. What strategys can I use to stop this? Does adding more occuptation forces and assimilating foreign nationals faster affect this?

(my bad shaky-burns )

[Hurry]

So might one conclude you can only have 1 leader at a time?

This is under some debate at the moment. Some players suggest that you can have several leaders at the same time.

Check out this thread (a few observations on leader generation):
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=36623

[Redstar]

can u have more than 1 leader at a time...

"A Great Leader occurs approximately 1 in 16 times when an Elite unit wins a battle. "

I have had 1 leader for about 40 years now.
during this time i have had countless battles using elite troops and have not seen a leader.
(it only takes 2 successful engagements to become an elite unit)

So might one conclude you can only have 1 leader at a time?

[geoffbland]

Maybe one for the FAQ...

Q I have a 17/20/22" monitor and why can't I play at a higher resolution like in Civ2?
A You can - read the read.me file and it explains the following;
- KeepRes=1 - When set to 1, your desktop resolution will be what the game uses. 1024x768 screens will be centered, but you will be able to see much more of the map on one screen.
- Video Mode=1792 / Video Mode=1600 / Video Mode=1280 / Video Mode=1152 - Force screen resolution to one of these settings.

[Skanky Burns]

Q: Engineers were in Civ 2, but now it seems im stuck with those Skanky workers. Why??

A: After discovering Replacable Parts, your workers will now work twice as fast. Your captured workers will also work twice as fast as before, but still at half the speed compared to your built workers. This eliminates the need to re-build your entire worker force

Q: Im power-hungry. I want to increase the speed of my workers even more. How can I??

A: If you change government to Democracy, one of its bonuses is that worker work 50% faster.