What Can/Can't You do with this Civ3Edit thing?

[Chris M.]

I'm not someone who has ever gotten into writing mods or scenarios in past versions of Civ, but like many players I'm not finding Civ 3 completely to my liking (although overall I do like it and want to keep playing it). I've seen in several threads where Firaxis' response is to say "Well, if you don't like [fill in the blank], change it with the editor." I wasn't really interested in doing any editing, but having looked at the editor some I'm intrigued by the idea. I don't really want to write any scenarios, but my question is this:

Let's say that I want to make changes to the rules to slow down the advancement of technology, particularly early on, so that there's a longer Ancient Era (and along those lines, is there a way to edit the game so that you can control how many years each turn lasts?). Can I make some changes along those lines and save them in some kind of rules file that I can swap out with the default rules? Or if I want to go back to using the default rules will they come back simply by selecing the "use default rules" option? And does doing so simply wipe out your custom rules? What's the best way to proceed along these lines?

I find the whole editing/mod thing pretty daunting, and while I'm interested in exploring it, I don't really find it an acceptable "solution" for aspects of the game I find I don't like vs. previous versions of Civ. Oh well. Anyways, any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

--Chris M.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi There,

I should point out first that I don't have the game, but I've read a LOT of the posts on this forum.
From what I've read, you can set the minimum time required to get an advance as high as you like. Of course, this will be brought down according to how many research oriented improvements you have. Additionally, I have HEARD (might be incorrect) that you can set which techs are mandatory and which are optional. This way, if you make ALL ancient techs mandatory, then you can be stuck in ancient era for a long time (of course, ancient and modern ages have the highest ratio of mandatory techs).

With the hacked editor (Civ3copy tool) you can add up to 11 new techs and an absolute HOST of new improvements and extra terrain features, apparently you can also add up to 32 NEW UNITS!!!

Anyway, I hope this information is useful to you, and I hope I haven't given you any false info.

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker