Adding strategic depth to Civ 3

[Hrnac]

Having read all the discussion about how Civ 3 lacks strategy depth, I have been wondering if it is possible to add some back into the game. I have begun testing a few ancient age ideas and would like to get some input from the Civ 3 community.

Here are some ideas for discussion:

1. Increase the cost of settlers to 3 instead of 2. This is done to slow down the land grab at the beginning of the game and makes city placement a bit more important.

2. Remove starting techs for all Civs. This will force the player to decide what is important in the very beginning of the game. Does one go for Ceremonial burial and border expanding temples right away, does one make a bee line for map making if playing an island map, does one go for resource identifying techs to gain a resource advantage, etc. This appears to open up a few more important choices.

3. Add Copper, Wood and Stone as ancient age strategic resources. Copper (hills and mountains) appears with Bronze working, Wood (forest squares only) with map making and is a requirement for all ships, and Stone (hills and mountains) appears with masonry and is required for city walls, aqueducts, the Pyramids, The Great Wall and fortresses. This makes the decisions in item 2 more important. With slower empire expansion this might help to make colonies more important as some resources could be far away from cities.

4. Make construction a requirement for mining. This will add yet another decision when trying to decide what techs to research. I also only allow mining on hills and mountains. This will hopefully make mountain city locations spots more valuable.

5. Making cattle and wheat appear later in the ancient age or even in the early Middle Ages. I thin Velocyrix and a few others first authored this idea, but it is a good one and I would like to discuss it further.

6. Reworking the ancient tech tree to include several very valuable dead end lines and having 3 or 4 branches to a single age advancing tech. This would bring back some of the SMAC tech tree decisions and make the player backtrack and follow some of the dead end tech lines to get valuable techs, wonders or city improvements. This would also further increase the need to seek out goody huts and to trade for techs and resources.

Well this is the start of my ancient era discussion. I welcome all feedback and look forward to having more era discussions in the future. In the end, I hope to include all this info in a comprehensive mod for all to enjoy.

-Hrnac

[Optimizer]

Most of these ideas are good.

Tin would be a better strategic resource than copper. It was a very strategic commodity in the ancient world, because it was much rarer than copper. The tin deposit in Cornwall was one of the factors which made England a superpower.

Why should stone be a strategic resource? You can find stone everywhere!

I would like to have an Agronomy tech in the middle age which makes Wheat visible and allows forest planting.

[Hrnac]

Tell me more about Tin. What was it used for and how could it be implemented in Civ 3. I selected copper because it can also be a requirement for some of the modern weapons.

I selected stone as a strategic resource not because it is scarce, but because I wanted several items linked to it. Building an aqueduct now requires stone, which is very very important unless one wishes to never have cities grow beyond size 6. This alone makes it worthwhile. I also like being able to set the spawn and dissapear rates for it.

I am also using Vel's Animal Husbandry and Crop Rotation techs to spawn cattle and wheat respectively.

-Hrnac

[cassembler]

I think tin was used for a lot of kitchen like utencils such as cups and makeshift silverware (knives, etc).

But that's beside the point- the ancient era already is very good IMHO when compared to the industrial and modern ones...

As far as adding strategy to the game, well I think a good scenario editor will help imensely. Knowing the AI's strengths and weaknesses, along with the player's, custom maps and city placements could really create a good challenge.

As far as depth, well, a lot of stuff would have to be re-hard coded. Maybe a good tech tree overhaul, as well as unit tweaks, and a really good editor *that I have faith we will get eventually* will help in this department.

[Optimizer]

Well, a problem with Tin is that it isn't as important today. One can say that it was the crude oil of the bronze age - without tin, no bronze, and without bronze weapons and armour no victories.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I happen to agree with the idea of stone being a "Strategic resource". Sure stone of some description is available almost everywhere, but stone of the quality required to make some of the pre-construction age buildings (like pyramids, oracle or Stonehenge for example) would require stone like granite or marble, which is only really available in mountainous terrain!! In these terrains, however, it should appear 100% of the time, and have a very small disappearance ratio!!
In my mod suggestions, I actually had a woodworking advance (which allowed wood) and stone was available with Masonry!
As for the suggestion for making settlers worth 3 pop points, how about have 2 types of settlers. Early settlers which are available from the start (cost 3 pop) and another group of settlers that become available with Navigation, which only cost 2 pop points (settlers upgrade to these!) Also make early settlers a wheeled unit, and modern settlers foot units!
Lastly, I'm curious to know how you managed to tie mining to Construction! Actually, I'd tie it to engineering and move engineering back to the ancient age!!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker

[Hrnac]

To tie mining to construction, simply go into the editor and select the "worker jobs" tab. Select mine and pick construction as its prerequisite or any tech you desire. Hope this helps.

-Hrnac