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!

[Pythagoras]

Re: wow, that game is NEW...

Q How close together/far apart should I build my citys
A There are several things to consider when spacing apart citys:

First defense, In SMAC and Civ2 I got into the habit of building cities close together. By close I mean Id build cities so that the city itself was just outside the city radius of another city. This way I could very easily defend against anything that was to come along. In one turn w/ roads I could get units from a neighborig city to a city who much needed defending. Also having a "dense" territorial map makes conquest for the enemy take a while. If each city has adequate defense, rolling over city after city can be costly even to an AI that uses swarm tactics.

Second cost, the downside to building citys close together is the cost and waste. If you tend to have at least 2 defenders a city + typical improvements, the cost for doing this for more citys, packed together, is much higher than if there were fewer citys. Also in Civ games more cities yields more corruption and waste.

Anyone else care to elaborate feel free.

[Pythagoras]

Though I am a hardcore Civ fan if civ four is this bad i will not buy another civ game again...Though the errors on civ III are fixable there are many areas that they could have done better at.. examples:

Q: Why not use some of the ideas from Alpha Centauri

A: Probably because Sid Meier, not Brian Reynolds designed the game.

. How about two discs: one for the editor and the other for the game.

A: I dont think the editor does or would ever need another disk.

Q: where did the cheat option go? sometimes its fun just to be god you know.

A: I agree, but believe me a lot seems to be in the works.

Q: Bring Fuedlism back

A: If you mean the technology, its already in there. If you mean 'vassalization' ala SMAC its sort of in there. If you have a weak neighbor demand a bunch of stuff from him, yearly tribute etc and he'll comply...

Q: If adding more things would require a larger install and a more discs..i am sure others will agree with me and say that is ok...I rather have a full package than one not completely full.

Anyhow, I still cant believe this game cost so much for so many problems...They have burnproof for cd-writers how about a crashproof game.

A: I dont agree. First the game is being developed for every windows platform, that in and of itself is a chore. Second I have seen games in much worse condition on release. Ive only seen minimal bugs in Civ 3 with only one or two features not working. Third Ive seen many a firaxian post here so Im sure they can try to address your issue.

[Jaybe]

Re: wow, that game is NEW...

Originally posted by Mankind
hello, anyone here? anyone care?

Alright, I'll bite.
The reasons no-one is responding is that your questions are SO basic that to anyone who has played this game or Civ2 for any length of time doesn't KNOW how to answer -- it is so second nature by now!
A) READ the bleepin' MANUAL!!

Q) Rioting City?
A) Go to the city screen by double-clicking on the city on the main map and then click on one of the squares being worked (has food/shields/coins icons on them). This produces an Entertainer. Create enough Entertainers so that your Unhappy citizens do not outnumber your Happy citizens.

Q) How to make a tax-guy or scientist?
A) While on the city screen, make an Entertainer. Click on the Entertainer and it (he/she) changes to a Tax Collector. Click on the Tax Collector and it becomes a Scientist.

Q) ... and my civ is in 3rd place, how make it 1st? i must build more town's?
A) Depends. Get more experience in the game. More Towns/Cities/Metropolises helps, but too many can be a burden. It's all a matter of the right mix of cities, workers, combat units, real estate, city improvements, and wonders (great and small). And it changes, every game. Basically, I will start the game trailing some AI civs, but will gain on them and surpass them later in the game. Patience, Obi Wan.

Q) but i can't build town's close to each other........ is it bad when borders from one city meet border's from the other city? or maybe if one city is close to another (eg. 4 squares) is it ok, or no?
A) Only one city can use a square. If both cities were to grow to metropolis (greater than 12) size, then they might end up competing for squares to work. For this reason, most players build most of their cities spaced to allow full growth. I suggest you try it both ways in the same game to experience it.

Q) can 2 towns have one 1-common-colony ? or maybe 1 colony can be used by only 1 city?
A) The resource of a colony provides a whole civilization with that resource, either the owning civ, or another civ that it is traded to. Once a colony is within your own culture border, it is no longer a colony (the colony itself will disappear). As long as you have a road to the resource, cities connected to it (by road, harbor or airport combination) will have access to it. If it is traded to another civ, cities connected to their Capital City get it.

[Pythagoras]

Originally posted by Mankind


hello, anyone here? anyone care?

Q How do I make people happy?

(Please correct me here I may get some details wrong, but the gist of what I say is true)

I will edit to correct accordingly.

(a) Build roads connecting your citys to luxuries. One luxury will make each city in the civ have 1 extra happy person (content->happy).

(b) Build temples/cathedrals/colloseums/police stations. A temple will cause one unhappy person to go to being content. A colloseum 2, and a cathedral 4. I do not recall the exact effect of police stations. In previous games they reduced war weariness.

(c) Build wonders that either increase the effectiveness of improvements in B or produce happy/content people.

These include: The Oracle, Hanging Gardens, Sistine Chapel, JS Bach's Cathedral, Cure For Cancer.

(d) Make entertainers. Simply enter the city screen and click on a tile being worked on by a worker. That worker now no longer works the land but works for you as a specialist. By default he is an entertainer, this will make one unhappy person content.

(e) Raise the luxury rate. In the domestic advisors screen and allocate a percentage of your budget to luxurys. This will convert commerce in a given city to luxurys if (I believe) that city has a marketplace. A certain number of luxurys (2?) in a city produces 1 happy citizen.

[typongtive]

3. How about two discs: one for the editor and the other for the game.

I dont think the editor does or would ever need another disk.

I should have been more clear, Though i agree the editor wouldnt need a full disc..it would leave more room for other things.

I had the same problem with Civ2 Gold and they fixed all the issues within the first patch. Maybe I expect too much from such a great company...

I do agree with the windows platform issue of designing a game for it and the challenges it causes..Damn Microsoft

[Gramphos]

Q: I there any way to make a map flat?
A: Yes, it can be done with Civ3CopyTool.

Q: Where can I find this tool?
A: Right here at Apolyon, in the files forum.

Q: Why is there no such option in the Editor?
A: I don't know. It might not have been tested enough.

[Marla]

Gramphos, you are definitly a genius !
Thanx again ! I'll be able to make flat maps! I'm so happy !

Q: Is there a way with the editor to make impossible to build a city on a specified terrain, like tundra or desert ?

That's because on the map I've created, the AI wastes his time to build cities in Siberia, Greenland and Northern Canada instead of doing useful things.
That makes the game a lot slower because it has a lot of useless cities to manage. Moreover, the AI doesn't want to declare war since it can still found cities !

Example: I wanted to make a map of the mediterranean sea, but that means large deserts if I want to get the full sea. I know carthagenese will colonize the whole desert instead of declaring war to Rome like in reality, and then Carthagene will remain a small useless civilization with small cities that produce nothing.

Moreover, it will finally make of colonies something useful cause it would be the only way to get ressources in tundra and desert.

As I think it's not possible to change that in the editor, I would like Firaxis or a programmer to make that possible, just to improve our game experience.

Thank you.
and thanx again Gramphos, you're the best

[aschatz]

OK, some questions. They may have been answered here, but I'm not sure.

1) I've noticed in my first two games (at a middle level) that the other civs seem to start much closer to you than in Civ2, and they seem to expand much faster than in Civ2. True?

2) It seems that strategic resources are really, really rare, making random map placement the most important thing in the game, not strategy. True?

3) When you defeat an enemy city, do you still steal a tech improvement like in Civ2?

Aaron

[adaMada]

Q: Do AI civs really expand that much faster than Civ 2? -- Paraphrase of Aaron
A: Yes, really .

Q: It seems that (in my games) strategic resources are very very rare -- is this true? -- Paraphrase of Aaron
A: There are (supposedly) one Strategic Resource per civ on the map -- however, they are not placed with any respect to the various civ's starting locations. In other words, if you have an eight civ game, there will be eight horse resources somewhere on the map, but that doesn't mean they're not all controlled by the same Civ.

Q: When you defeat an enemy city, do you still steal a tech improvement like in Civ2? -- Aaron
A: Short answer for once: No.

-- adaMada

[Dane]

Q: What do the appearance ratio and disappearance probability boxes mean in the natural resource editor?

Will, for example, a disappearance probabilty of 100 mean that it will disappeare more or less than a disappearance probablity of 400?

[AustralianJeremy]

Weirdness - the Zulus finished their spaceship the other day but didn't launch it; so I won the next turn when I finished mine.

Q: Why?!

[Skanky Burns]

Q: My people are unhappy, the ungrateful scum. How do i find out why?

A: Find a city with unhappy people, and double-click an unhappy person to find out the reason why they are unhappy.

Q: What do the different reasons mean, and how can i stop them.

A: (Half from Half-Lotus )
"Stop the aggression against our mother country!"
This happens when you have foriegn nationals in your cities, and are at war with their country of origin.
To stop this, make peace with the civilization these people were from.

"We cannot forget the cruel oppression you bore down upon us!" This unhappiness from pop-rushing.
Only time will make this one go away. 20 turns per pop-rush, although its not determined exactly what happens if you pop-rush more than once.

"Hell no, we wont go!"
Drafting.
Again, just waiting is the only way to make this go away.

"It is way too crowded"
The cities population is above a certain limit (depending on difficulty level).
AFAIK no. There is a set amount of content people per city, and once the population goes over that amount, each new person is unhappy. On Deity it is 2 people, on other levels you get more content people before unhappiness kicks in. I dont think its related to number of cities at all.

"Give peace a chance"
Indicates war weariness.
To stop this, either change gov to Despotism, Monarchy or Communism. Or make peace with each and every civ you are at war with.
To reduce the effects of war weariness, build police stations and/or the Womens Suffrage.

EDIT: Found where i had posted this before, and added it now

Merry Christmas All!!!

[Skanky Burns]

Q: My people are unhappy because "Its too crowded". How do i give them more room??

A: You dont. You just make them happy/content with what they have got.

Q: So, how do you stop them from being unhappy??

A:
1: Build a temple, colloseum and cathedral in the city. Each reduces the number of unhappy people.

2: Get luxuries, the more the merrier. Up to 8 luxuries can be enjoyed by the city, making people happy.

3: If you have over 2 luxuries, build a marketplace. It will increase the amount of "happy faces" your luxuries generate. See below.

4: Make some of your population specialists, particularly entertainers. This will help make your population happy/content.

5: As a final resort (IMO), increase your luxury spending just under the science spending slider.

Chart of total "Happy Faces" produced by luxuries in a city with a marketplace.
1 luxury - 1 happy face
2 luxuries - 2 happy faces
3 luxuries - 4 happy faces
4 luxuries - 6 happy faces
5 luxuries - 9 happy faces
6 luxuries - 12 happy faces
7 luxuries - 16 happy faces
8 luxuries - 20 happy faces

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
...
Q: What do the different [Unhappiness] reasons mean, and how can i stop them.

A: (Half from Half-Lotus )
...
"We cannot forget the cruel oppression you bore down upon us!" This unhappiness from pop-rushing.
Only time will make this one go away. 20 turns per pop-rush, although its not determined exactly what happens if you pop-rush more than once.

"Hell no, we wont go!"
Drafting.
Again, just waiting is the only way to make this go away.

The "cruel oppression" can also be caused by your conquering the city, especially if it resulted in the deaths of many of its inhabitants.

"Hell no, we won't go!" can happen even if YOU didn't do any Drafting (could be from previous owner's drafting, and the poor blokes are still suffering from it after you take the city).