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ok, after too much time here is my solution, tested and balanced well (I think) for using huge maps without too extensive corruption by distance.
Some more changes are in.
Downloadable here: Civ3-Corruption-Solution-10.zip
Contents
--------
1) list of files here
2) what to do 1st
3) The map "180x180-15-map.bic"
4) changed settings in civ3mod.bic
5) Comments, explanations and more suggestions, if you like to create a new map
6) How to set the right starting places in the map here by using the Civ3Breed trool
7) Credits
1) Files List
-------------
180x180-15-map.bic
civ3mod.bic
civilopedia.txt
pediaicons.txt
buildings-new.zip
CIV3BREED-4.6.zip
terrain new.zip
wonderinfo.zip
2) What to do 1st
-----------------
1. save the your original files civ3mod.bic, civilopedia.txt, pediaicons.txt, buildings-large.pcx, buildings-small.pcx
2. copy '180x180-15-map.bic' to the directory where the other maps are (/Scenarios)
3. copy civ3mod.bic over the original file (Civ3 main directory)
4. copy civilopedia.txt into /Text over the original file (/Text directory)
5. copy pediaicons.txt into /Text over the original file (/Text directory)
6. extract buildings-new.zip and copy the both files to \Art\City Screen
7. extract CIV3BREED-4.6.zip to an empty folder
8. extract terrain new.zip to an empty folder (if you like to use they, copy they to \Art\Terrain, I like these more than the original, but they are not necessary to use for this pack)
9) extract terrain new.zip to an empty folder and read the text file delivered with
3) The map "180x180-15-map.bic"
----------------------------------
I removed *all* goody huts. This will force more to trade and reduce the random factor.
15 starting places corresponding with the historical situation 5000 years ago.
Means, no Americans, no France (or no Germans, as you like), but a race in Australia. (if you don't like it then play with 14 instead 15 only.)
But if you use the Civ3Breed tool to set the correct starting places for all races, this is unimportant anyway as you set the starting places with
Civ3Breed then.
I tried to place the resources there, where they had been 5000 years ago in fact. Means (i.e.) Egypt had 1 wine in an oasa that time, Wheat was unknown, except
in Egypt, Babylon and Persia and West Europe, Horses not had been on American continent, but cattle a lot in North America. Asia got some Wheat instead of Rice, that we don't have as landmark.
In Europe there wasn't a difference between French and German as races that time before Caesar, so I took away one European "race" (if you like to use the frenach, take they instead the Germans, but using both north of Aples isn't a good idea with that map.)
"Coast" I made 1 field only far from land, "Sea" also 1 field only far from coast, all other is ocean, corresponding with the different settings in the rules bic file.
So "Coast" gives NO fish, relative little food only, main fisch is in Sea and in Ocean.
Corresponding with the new rules I made, this will stop AI building lot of cities at coast very early, as the food advantage a costal city will not get before the city influence is up to 2 fields distance.
Game now on hills also, they (and the horses) are also delivery food, shield and commerce.
In history the main resources had been fish and game, later wheat and rice and beans. (see rules explanations)
4) rules changed in civ3mod.bic
-------------------------------
The new standard rules, to use either with a random map or withthe map hereby.
Changes I made:
A workaround to fix the terrible corruption by distance problem and some other misbalanced AI settings.
-
Original text of Civilopedia / Corruption and Waste / Solutions:
[...]
Being attached to your capital via road, harbour, or airport also reduces corruption and waste.
[...]
However, that doesn't work in the original game settings.
-
Take at apolyton.net the hacked civ3edit with wich you also have the "add" and "delete" tabs and change the Rules:
(The settings below seems to be the best solution, after more than 50 hrs testing)
-
below changed settings for Terrain:
(Tile Values / Terraform Bonus / Possible Resources)
Desert
Food 0, Shields 0, Commerce 0
Irrigation 0, Mining 0, Road 1
Salpeter, Oil, Gems, Gold
-
Plains
Food 2, Shields 1, Comerce 0
Irrigation 1, Mining 1, Road 1
Horses, Coal, Oil, Aluminium, Wines, Ivory, Cattle, Wheat
-
Grassland
Food 3, Shields 0, Commerce 0
Irrigation 1, Mining 1, Commerce 1
Horses, Oil, Cattle, Wheat
-
Tundra
Food 0, Shields 0, Commerce 0
Irrigation 1, Mining 1, Road 1
Horses, Iron, Salpeter, Coal, Oil, Uranium, Gems, Gold
-
Flood Plain
4 Food, 0 Shields, 0 Commerce
Irrigation 0, Mining 0, Road 1
Cattle
-
Hills
1 Food, 1 Shield, 0 Commerce
Irrigation 1, Mining 2, Road 1
Iron, Salpeter, Coal, Aluminium, Uranium, Wines, Dyes, Incense, Spices, Game, Gold
-
Mountains
Food 0, Shields 1, Commerce 0
Irrigation 0, Mining 2, Commerce 1
Iron, Salpeter, Uranium, Gems, Gold
-
Forest
Food 1, Shields 2, Commerce 0
Irrigation 0, Mining 0, Road 1
Furs, Silks, Game
-
Jungle
Food 1, Shields 0, Commerce 0
Irrigation 0, Mining 0, Road 1
Coal, Rubber, Dyes, Spices, Silks, Gems
-
Coast
Food 1, Shields 0, Commerce 1
Irrigation 0, Mining 0, Road 0
none
-
Sea
Food 2, Shields 0, Commerce 1
Irrigation 0, Mining 0, Road 0
Whales, Fish
-
Ocean
Food 2, Shields 0, Commerce 0
Irrigation 0, Mining 0, Road 0
Whales, Fish
-------------
below changed settings for Natural Resources:
Horses
Food 1, Shields 1, Commerce 1
Type: Strategic Resource
Appearance Ratio: 160
Disappearance Ratio: 0
-
Iron
Food 0, Shields 1, Commerce 1
Type: Strategic Resource
Appearance Ratio: 160
Disappearance Ratio: 600
-
Salpeter
Food 0, Shields 0, Commerce 1
Type: Strategic Resource
Appearance Ratio: 120
Disappearance Ratio: 600
-
Oil
Food 0, Shields 1, Commerce 2
Type: Strategic Resource
Appearance Ratio: 120
Disappearance Ratio: 500
-
Game
Food 1, Shields 1, Commerce 1
Type: Bonus Resource
--------------
below changed settings for General Settings (Difficulty Regent, the other are similar):
Food and Gold
Food Consumption/Citizen: 3
Starting Treasury: 12
-------------
below changed settings for Difficulty Settings:
percentage of optimal cities for all levels: 100
-------------
below changed settings for World Sizes (Huge):
Optimal Numbers of Cities (Corruption): 250
Tech Rate: 300
-------------
below changed settings for Units:
Settler
Shield Costs: 9
Pop Cost: 3
Air Transport: yes
Worker
Air Transport: yes
Explorer
Air Transport: yes
-------------
below changes I made for Improvements or Wonder:
Barracks: Reduces Corruption
Marketplace: Culture 1
Courthouse: Culture 1
Hospital: Culture 1
Harbor: Culture 1, Reduces Corruption
Airport: Culture 1, Reduces Corruption
Police Station: Cost 5, Maintenance 4
--------------
New integrated Small Wonders
That 5 new State Palasts do NOT give a culture point!
State_Palast_I
Civilopedia Entry: BLDG_State_Palast_I
Category: Sm. Wonder
Cost 5, Maintenance 20
Required Advance: Printing Press
Other Characteristics: Militaristic, Industrious, Expansionist, Commercial
Small Wonders: Reduces Corruption
State_Palast_II
Civilopedia Entry: BLDG_State_Palast_II
Category: Sm. Wonder
Cost 5, Maintenance 20
Required Advance: Education
Other Characteristics: Militaristic, Industrious, Expansionist, Commercial
Small Wonders: Reduces Corruption
State_Palast_III
Civilopedia Entry: BLDG_State_Palast_III
Category: Sm. Wonder
Cost 5, Maintenance 20
Required Advance: Democracy
Other Characteristics: Militaristic, Industrious, Expansionist, Commercial
Small Wonders: Reduces Corruption
State_Palast_IV
Civilopedia Entry: BLDG_State_Palast_IV
Category: Sm. Wonder
Cost 5, Maintenance 20
Required Advance: Industrialisation
Other Characteristics: Militaristic, Industrious, Expansionist, Commercial
Small Wonders: Reduces Corruption
State_Palast_V
Civilopedia Entry: BLDG_State_Palast_V
Category: Sm. Wonder
Cost 5, Maintenance 20
Required Advance: Radio
Other Characteristics: Militaristic, Industrious, Expansionist, Commercial
Small Wonders: Reduces Corruption
With 5 reginal governments it should be able to play a map of terra with its 5 continents on a huge or bigger map. The corruption still happens, if the distance to the palace is more than 10-15 fields the corruption goes up to more than 70%, the wonders have a decreasing influence distance of around 15 fields only. The huge map has a size of 180x180, so you have to plan very carefully where you will set these 5 governments.
If you feel the building cost of 5 and/or the maintenance of 30 is bad balanced, change it. These the best balancements I found within the short testing time. To wait 25 turns on a far distance city to build a government already is a lot, but a realistic and still akceptable time, but 200 turns or more as in original rules makes all worthless with a huge map.
5) Comments, explanations to that I have done here, and more suggestions
---------------------------------------------------
With my system (Pentium III, 800 MHz, 256 MB Ram) the huge map file format the maximum is possible to play.
Bigger maps not only run too slow very soon, but also by a bug in the Civ3 Exe it crashes as soon as the Sav file will grow up to more than 8043 KB, and that happens with 16 factions around 1900 AC
Anyway, so with 15 factions it's really slow later, the AI needs around 6-10 min per turn if a war happens between AI factions in modern time.
This also a reason was why I decreased the AI's setteling.
For me the main problem and most time reason to become frustrated, the corruption by distance problem is. Cities being more far than 20 fields from the palace are worthless, as independent what you build there (courthouse, police) you always get one, maximal 2 shields only and so you can't build there anything. Terrible if you like to play a game on a huge terran map without space racing victory.
The other point disturbing me a lot is, that the AI always one activity has extensive, no more strategic calculation (more stupid than in CIv2 or SMAC, wondering what the programmers had learned within the past years): setteling everywhere, independent what place.
This slows the game and makes it unnecessary difficult to play on a huge map, if the AI settles in North Ice Sea and in Tundra and on Sahara and so on. From my viw the fun is reduced if I play against an AI that only can settle and settle and settle.
So I changed the costs for building a settler and changed the food and resources you get on Desert and Tundra. To balance it I add the ability to irrigate a hill, reduced food and removed Fish in "Coast", but set it more to "Sea".
Horses and Game now give food and shield and commerce, as they had been the important resources on land in history (Leather, bones, meat). But on map they only are there, where they had been 5000 years ago. And there they have so much, that the AI is able to trade it. If there is one horse only, it never will be used for trading, it's not a surplus then.
Don't set fish only 1 field far from land in "Coast", the AI then builds a lot of stupid cities. Check the map that fish is 2 fields far from a possible building place. Means, a city can use it not before it has build an cultural improvement to expand its cultural distance from 1 to 2 fields. And in reality, the most fish is in sea and far from a coast, not nearby. You never get so much fish in an inland sea or at coast like in the offshore sea or the ocean.
Set lot of Game in forest or on hills, as the requirement for a citizen now is 3 food, and Gems and forest had been much more in history than today. (i.e. Spain: In history that all was forest, the todays situation of dry land without big forest is the result of extensive forest cutting to build the Armada in 13 - 15 Century. Same for England. Or West Europe. (Similar with the problem of today's firework in the Amazonas Jungle) So on this map *much more* forest and Game must be than it is today!
Remember that the original resources for us humans had been Fish and Game (Fish until today a main food resource for us is). All other (cattle, wheat had distributed later with the industrialisation and science as a main resource for food.
So on a map which should be similar to such starting conditions as they had been 5000 years ago, there hasn't to be a lot of wheat, but in some reagons lot of cattle (Bisons).
I carefully set always ocean where it was possible 3 fields far from land. So the land borders now are
coast = 1 + Sea = 1, up from 3 = Ocean. This stops the AI to travel over the ocean between Africa and South America.
The result of these new settings will be, that the AI no longer makes so much worthless cities allover the coast and not in the Sahara and not in the iceland tundra.
All is slown until Government is minimum changed to Kingdom and the food production is increased. The AI now will take more efficient city places and over all create not so much settlers for stupid places.
If one (like me) prefers games without space racing victory on huge maps, this settings will drop the frustration a lot.
6) How to set the right starting locations
------------------------------------------
in this package I included the Civ3Breed tool with its file "map.c3b" that I made for this map here.
The starting locations for all civs are ok, however:
- I used 15 civs only, as Germans *and* France in Europe will be too close together and it will not work so.
Furthermore, historical bevore Caesar there had not been such a difference between France and Germans as civilisations, both not yet existed as such. So, if you don't like the German, you make take for the same starting place the French instead.
But don't use both with that map. It will not work right. So in the starting screen I start with 15 races only, instead 16.
- I set the Americans to Australia (US playder, don't cry!). The Americans not an original race are, and if you like to play on that map with a historical effect, then the Americans as 3rd race in America are wrong.
I set they to Australia as I original intendet to create a new race for the historical original Australian instead, but I've no time to do such and so the Americans in Australia only a "place blocker" are. If you don't like to play with that setting, simple don't select the Americans in the start screen and play with 14 instead 15 civilisations. Don't change the map.c3b file in that case!
So, if you start a game with the map here, call Civ3, select Scenario, call that map, let all unchanged (except you like not the Amircans being in Australia, then click they off, and except you like to play with French intead Germans, then select French there instead), then start it and DO NOTHING in the 1st turn, only save the 1st turn then at once.
Exit the game, rename the just saved sav file DOS-like (no space in the name allowed) and call the civ3breed.exe, type in the name of the sav you made just before, type in the name of the map.c3b file, type in what result you like.
Then copy the generated sav to /Saves, call the Civ3 new and select continue game.
7) Credits
-------
Thanks to icedan@myrealbox.com for his new irrigation pcx
Thanks to Satya for his huge world map which I could use as base to creaty my version
Thanks to unknown for his new versions of Mountains.pcx and xhills.pcx
Thanks to Mortioso for his CIV3BREED
Thanks to adisciascio@hotmail.com for his new wonderinfo pcx package
Thanks to Gramphos for his Civ3CopyTool
Thanks to donarumo for his hack of Civ3Editor
Some more changes are in.
Downloadable here: Civ3-Corruption-Solution-10.zip
Contents
--------
1) list of files here
2) what to do 1st
3) The map "180x180-15-map.bic"
4) changed settings in civ3mod.bic
5) Comments, explanations and more suggestions, if you like to create a new map
6) How to set the right starting places in the map here by using the Civ3Breed trool
7) Credits
1) Files List
-------------
180x180-15-map.bic
civ3mod.bic
civilopedia.txt
pediaicons.txt
buildings-new.zip
CIV3BREED-4.6.zip
terrain new.zip
wonderinfo.zip
2) What to do 1st
-----------------
1. save the your original files civ3mod.bic, civilopedia.txt, pediaicons.txt, buildings-large.pcx, buildings-small.pcx
2. copy '180x180-15-map.bic' to the directory where the other maps are (/Scenarios)
3. copy civ3mod.bic over the original file (Civ3 main directory)
4. copy civilopedia.txt into /Text over the original file (/Text directory)
5. copy pediaicons.txt into /Text over the original file (/Text directory)
6. extract buildings-new.zip and copy the both files to \Art\City Screen
7. extract CIV3BREED-4.6.zip to an empty folder
8. extract terrain new.zip to an empty folder (if you like to use they, copy they to \Art\Terrain, I like these more than the original, but they are not necessary to use for this pack)
9) extract terrain new.zip to an empty folder and read the text file delivered with
3) The map "180x180-15-map.bic"
----------------------------------
I removed *all* goody huts. This will force more to trade and reduce the random factor.
15 starting places corresponding with the historical situation 5000 years ago.
Means, no Americans, no France (or no Germans, as you like), but a race in Australia. (if you don't like it then play with 14 instead 15 only.)
But if you use the Civ3Breed tool to set the correct starting places for all races, this is unimportant anyway as you set the starting places with
Civ3Breed then.
I tried to place the resources there, where they had been 5000 years ago in fact. Means (i.e.) Egypt had 1 wine in an oasa that time, Wheat was unknown, except
in Egypt, Babylon and Persia and West Europe, Horses not had been on American continent, but cattle a lot in North America. Asia got some Wheat instead of Rice, that we don't have as landmark.
In Europe there wasn't a difference between French and German as races that time before Caesar, so I took away one European "race" (if you like to use the frenach, take they instead the Germans, but using both north of Aples isn't a good idea with that map.)
"Coast" I made 1 field only far from land, "Sea" also 1 field only far from coast, all other is ocean, corresponding with the different settings in the rules bic file.
So "Coast" gives NO fish, relative little food only, main fisch is in Sea and in Ocean.
Corresponding with the new rules I made, this will stop AI building lot of cities at coast very early, as the food advantage a costal city will not get before the city influence is up to 2 fields distance.
Game now on hills also, they (and the horses) are also delivery food, shield and commerce.
In history the main resources had been fish and game, later wheat and rice and beans. (see rules explanations)
4) rules changed in civ3mod.bic
-------------------------------
The new standard rules, to use either with a random map or withthe map hereby.
Changes I made:
A workaround to fix the terrible corruption by distance problem and some other misbalanced AI settings.
-
Original text of Civilopedia / Corruption and Waste / Solutions:
[...]
Being attached to your capital via road, harbour, or airport also reduces corruption and waste.
[...]
However, that doesn't work in the original game settings.
-
Take at apolyton.net the hacked civ3edit with wich you also have the "add" and "delete" tabs and change the Rules:
(The settings below seems to be the best solution, after more than 50 hrs testing)
-
below changed settings for Terrain:
(Tile Values / Terraform Bonus / Possible Resources)
Desert
Food 0, Shields 0, Commerce 0
Irrigation 0, Mining 0, Road 1
Salpeter, Oil, Gems, Gold
-
Plains
Food 2, Shields 1, Comerce 0
Irrigation 1, Mining 1, Road 1
Horses, Coal, Oil, Aluminium, Wines, Ivory, Cattle, Wheat
-
Grassland
Food 3, Shields 0, Commerce 0
Irrigation 1, Mining 1, Commerce 1
Horses, Oil, Cattle, Wheat
-
Tundra
Food 0, Shields 0, Commerce 0
Irrigation 1, Mining 1, Road 1
Horses, Iron, Salpeter, Coal, Oil, Uranium, Gems, Gold
-
Flood Plain
4 Food, 0 Shields, 0 Commerce
Irrigation 0, Mining 0, Road 1
Cattle
-
Hills
1 Food, 1 Shield, 0 Commerce
Irrigation 1, Mining 2, Road 1
Iron, Salpeter, Coal, Aluminium, Uranium, Wines, Dyes, Incense, Spices, Game, Gold
-
Mountains
Food 0, Shields 1, Commerce 0
Irrigation 0, Mining 2, Commerce 1
Iron, Salpeter, Uranium, Gems, Gold
-
Forest
Food 1, Shields 2, Commerce 0
Irrigation 0, Mining 0, Road 1
Furs, Silks, Game
-
Jungle
Food 1, Shields 0, Commerce 0
Irrigation 0, Mining 0, Road 1
Coal, Rubber, Dyes, Spices, Silks, Gems
-
Coast
Food 1, Shields 0, Commerce 1
Irrigation 0, Mining 0, Road 0
none
-
Sea
Food 2, Shields 0, Commerce 1
Irrigation 0, Mining 0, Road 0
Whales, Fish
-
Ocean
Food 2, Shields 0, Commerce 0
Irrigation 0, Mining 0, Road 0
Whales, Fish
-------------
below changed settings for Natural Resources:
Horses
Food 1, Shields 1, Commerce 1
Type: Strategic Resource
Appearance Ratio: 160
Disappearance Ratio: 0
-
Iron
Food 0, Shields 1, Commerce 1
Type: Strategic Resource
Appearance Ratio: 160
Disappearance Ratio: 600
-
Salpeter
Food 0, Shields 0, Commerce 1
Type: Strategic Resource
Appearance Ratio: 120
Disappearance Ratio: 600
-
Oil
Food 0, Shields 1, Commerce 2
Type: Strategic Resource
Appearance Ratio: 120
Disappearance Ratio: 500
-
Game
Food 1, Shields 1, Commerce 1
Type: Bonus Resource
--------------
below changed settings for General Settings (Difficulty Regent, the other are similar):
Food and Gold
Food Consumption/Citizen: 3
Starting Treasury: 12
-------------
below changed settings for Difficulty Settings:
percentage of optimal cities for all levels: 100
-------------
below changed settings for World Sizes (Huge):
Optimal Numbers of Cities (Corruption): 250
Tech Rate: 300
-------------
below changed settings for Units:
Settler
Shield Costs: 9
Pop Cost: 3
Air Transport: yes
Worker
Air Transport: yes
Explorer
Air Transport: yes
-------------
below changes I made for Improvements or Wonder:
Barracks: Reduces Corruption
Marketplace: Culture 1
Courthouse: Culture 1
Hospital: Culture 1
Harbor: Culture 1, Reduces Corruption
Airport: Culture 1, Reduces Corruption
Police Station: Cost 5, Maintenance 4
--------------
New integrated Small Wonders
That 5 new State Palasts do NOT give a culture point!
State_Palast_I
Civilopedia Entry: BLDG_State_Palast_I
Category: Sm. Wonder
Cost 5, Maintenance 20
Required Advance: Printing Press
Other Characteristics: Militaristic, Industrious, Expansionist, Commercial
Small Wonders: Reduces Corruption
State_Palast_II
Civilopedia Entry: BLDG_State_Palast_II
Category: Sm. Wonder
Cost 5, Maintenance 20
Required Advance: Education
Other Characteristics: Militaristic, Industrious, Expansionist, Commercial
Small Wonders: Reduces Corruption
State_Palast_III
Civilopedia Entry: BLDG_State_Palast_III
Category: Sm. Wonder
Cost 5, Maintenance 20
Required Advance: Democracy
Other Characteristics: Militaristic, Industrious, Expansionist, Commercial
Small Wonders: Reduces Corruption
State_Palast_IV
Civilopedia Entry: BLDG_State_Palast_IV
Category: Sm. Wonder
Cost 5, Maintenance 20
Required Advance: Industrialisation
Other Characteristics: Militaristic, Industrious, Expansionist, Commercial
Small Wonders: Reduces Corruption
State_Palast_V
Civilopedia Entry: BLDG_State_Palast_V
Category: Sm. Wonder
Cost 5, Maintenance 20
Required Advance: Radio
Other Characteristics: Militaristic, Industrious, Expansionist, Commercial
Small Wonders: Reduces Corruption
With 5 reginal governments it should be able to play a map of terra with its 5 continents on a huge or bigger map. The corruption still happens, if the distance to the palace is more than 10-15 fields the corruption goes up to more than 70%, the wonders have a decreasing influence distance of around 15 fields only. The huge map has a size of 180x180, so you have to plan very carefully where you will set these 5 governments.
If you feel the building cost of 5 and/or the maintenance of 30 is bad balanced, change it. These the best balancements I found within the short testing time. To wait 25 turns on a far distance city to build a government already is a lot, but a realistic and still akceptable time, but 200 turns or more as in original rules makes all worthless with a huge map.
5) Comments, explanations to that I have done here, and more suggestions
---------------------------------------------------
With my system (Pentium III, 800 MHz, 256 MB Ram) the huge map file format the maximum is possible to play.
Bigger maps not only run too slow very soon, but also by a bug in the Civ3 Exe it crashes as soon as the Sav file will grow up to more than 8043 KB, and that happens with 16 factions around 1900 AC
Anyway, so with 15 factions it's really slow later, the AI needs around 6-10 min per turn if a war happens between AI factions in modern time.
This also a reason was why I decreased the AI's setteling.
For me the main problem and most time reason to become frustrated, the corruption by distance problem is. Cities being more far than 20 fields from the palace are worthless, as independent what you build there (courthouse, police) you always get one, maximal 2 shields only and so you can't build there anything. Terrible if you like to play a game on a huge terran map without space racing victory.
The other point disturbing me a lot is, that the AI always one activity has extensive, no more strategic calculation (more stupid than in CIv2 or SMAC, wondering what the programmers had learned within the past years): setteling everywhere, independent what place.
This slows the game and makes it unnecessary difficult to play on a huge map, if the AI settles in North Ice Sea and in Tundra and on Sahara and so on. From my viw the fun is reduced if I play against an AI that only can settle and settle and settle.
So I changed the costs for building a settler and changed the food and resources you get on Desert and Tundra. To balance it I add the ability to irrigate a hill, reduced food and removed Fish in "Coast", but set it more to "Sea".
Horses and Game now give food and shield and commerce, as they had been the important resources on land in history (Leather, bones, meat). But on map they only are there, where they had been 5000 years ago. And there they have so much, that the AI is able to trade it. If there is one horse only, it never will be used for trading, it's not a surplus then.
Don't set fish only 1 field far from land in "Coast", the AI then builds a lot of stupid cities. Check the map that fish is 2 fields far from a possible building place. Means, a city can use it not before it has build an cultural improvement to expand its cultural distance from 1 to 2 fields. And in reality, the most fish is in sea and far from a coast, not nearby. You never get so much fish in an inland sea or at coast like in the offshore sea or the ocean.
Set lot of Game in forest or on hills, as the requirement for a citizen now is 3 food, and Gems and forest had been much more in history than today. (i.e. Spain: In history that all was forest, the todays situation of dry land without big forest is the result of extensive forest cutting to build the Armada in 13 - 15 Century. Same for England. Or West Europe. (Similar with the problem of today's firework in the Amazonas Jungle) So on this map *much more* forest and Game must be than it is today!
Remember that the original resources for us humans had been Fish and Game (Fish until today a main food resource for us is). All other (cattle, wheat had distributed later with the industrialisation and science as a main resource for food.
So on a map which should be similar to such starting conditions as they had been 5000 years ago, there hasn't to be a lot of wheat, but in some reagons lot of cattle (Bisons).
I carefully set always ocean where it was possible 3 fields far from land. So the land borders now are
coast = 1 + Sea = 1, up from 3 = Ocean. This stops the AI to travel over the ocean between Africa and South America.
The result of these new settings will be, that the AI no longer makes so much worthless cities allover the coast and not in the Sahara and not in the iceland tundra.
All is slown until Government is minimum changed to Kingdom and the food production is increased. The AI now will take more efficient city places and over all create not so much settlers for stupid places.
If one (like me) prefers games without space racing victory on huge maps, this settings will drop the frustration a lot.
6) How to set the right starting locations
------------------------------------------
in this package I included the Civ3Breed tool with its file "map.c3b" that I made for this map here.
The starting locations for all civs are ok, however:
- I used 15 civs only, as Germans *and* France in Europe will be too close together and it will not work so.
Furthermore, historical bevore Caesar there had not been such a difference between France and Germans as civilisations, both not yet existed as such. So, if you don't like the German, you make take for the same starting place the French instead.
But don't use both with that map. It will not work right. So in the starting screen I start with 15 races only, instead 16.
- I set the Americans to Australia (US playder, don't cry!). The Americans not an original race are, and if you like to play on that map with a historical effect, then the Americans as 3rd race in America are wrong.
I set they to Australia as I original intendet to create a new race for the historical original Australian instead, but I've no time to do such and so the Americans in Australia only a "place blocker" are. If you don't like to play with that setting, simple don't select the Americans in the start screen and play with 14 instead 15 civilisations. Don't change the map.c3b file in that case!
So, if you start a game with the map here, call Civ3, select Scenario, call that map, let all unchanged (except you like not the Amircans being in Australia, then click they off, and except you like to play with French intead Germans, then select French there instead), then start it and DO NOTHING in the 1st turn, only save the 1st turn then at once.
Exit the game, rename the just saved sav file DOS-like (no space in the name allowed) and call the civ3breed.exe, type in the name of the sav you made just before, type in the name of the map.c3b file, type in what result you like.
Then copy the generated sav to /Saves, call the Civ3 new and select continue game.
7) Credits
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Thanks to icedan@myrealbox.com for his new irrigation pcx
Thanks to Satya for his huge world map which I could use as base to creaty my version
Thanks to unknown for his new versions of Mountains.pcx and xhills.pcx
Thanks to Mortioso for his CIV3BREED
Thanks to adisciascio@hotmail.com for his new wonderinfo pcx package
Thanks to Gramphos for his Civ3CopyTool
Thanks to donarumo for his hack of Civ3Editor