Civ 3 Strategy guide is out!

[Andrew1999]

Originally posted by Leonidas
Andrew, how are holding up? You don't really require sleep, do you?

Three more questions:

1) How does blocade work?

2) How do borders function?

3) What are the eras, and what do you require to advance to each one?

Thanks

Hey, it's only 10:30. I imagine I'll get up tomorrow and have all these questions from people in Australia...

1. To blockade a city, you have to completely block off all routes to other Harbors they want to conect with. The best way to do this will often be to occupy every water tile next to the city with a unit. Although in a large civilization it would be pretty hard to cut off every single coastal city.

2. I think that's been pretty well covered elsewhere--basically they define the area where you can access resources and where you can exclude other civ's units.

3. The eras are Ancient, Medieval, Industrial and Modern. To advance you have to get most of the tech in the era. In the Ancient era you can skip Horseback Riding, Literature, Monarchy, and Republic. In the Medieval era you can skip Chivalry, Democracy, Economics, Free Artistry, Military Tradition, Music Theory, Navigation and Printing Press. In the Industrial Age you can skip Advanced Flight, Amphibious War, Communism, Espionage, Nationalism, and Sanitation.

[Elucidus]

EBWorld Shipped the guides

Got an email today (actually got it yesterday at 2:50, just hadn't checked it until now), they shipped the guide to me. So it should be here pretty quick. Sweet. Just thought anyone else who might have ordered it might want to know they are at least working on it.

[Xmudder]

Originally posted by Andrew1999
Water improvement is done like in Civ 2: Cities with harbors produce +1 food per water square and cities with offshore platforms produce +1 shield per ocean square.

Coast: 1/0/2
Desert: 0/1/0
Floodplain: 3/0/0
Forest: 1/2/0, 2 MP, +25% defense
Grassland: 2/0/0 or 2/1/0
Hills: 1/1/0, 2 MP, +50% defense
Jungle: 1/0/0, 3 MP, +25% defense
Mountains: 0/1/0, 3 MP, +100% defense
Ocean: 1/0/0
Plains 1/1/0
Sea: 1/0/1
Tundra: 1/0/0

Desert, Floodplain, Grassland and Plains can be irrigated for +1 food.
Desert, Grassland, Plains and Tundra can be mined for +1 shield.
Hills and Mountains can be mined for +2 shields.
All land types can have roads for +1 commerce (and movement bonus.)

No +1 commerce for flood plain? Flood Plains can't be mined, and never have shields? That contradicts a number of screenshots we've seen.

How much does it cost to build a Scout? 20? I know it takes 1 gold to maintain it.

[UKScud]

In the Industrial Age you can skip Advanced Flight, Amphibious War, Communism, Espionage, Nationalism, and Sanitation.

you can get to the modern age without having sanitation...

...blurgh!

Thanks for all the info so far. It's given us all lots to talk about.

How is your own game going? Have you driven the French into the sea and taken their saltpeter yet?

Can ya show us another screenshot, please?

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by VetteroX
little edit.... mech inf are 20, could have sworn I had seen 30 before. 20 is more reasonable. Still, thats 40 in a city, pretty rough stuff... hope you brought some radar arty/stealth bombers to crack that.

I also purchased the book today.

Here are some more defense modifiers (page 173):
Town (size < 7): +0% (that's what walls are for)
City (size 7 to 12): +50%
Metropolis (size > 12): +100%

City defended by Coastal Fortress: +50% (against naval units)
Fortress: +25%
Fortified unit: +50%
Forest or Jungle:* +25%
Hill:* +50%
Mountain:* +100%

*ALL other terrain (including Coast, Sea & Ocean) provides a 10% defender combat bonus (page 21). I see this as an elegant way of giving the defender a slight edge in an otherwise equal situation.

The following paragraph was already mentioned by andrew.
To take out a heavily defended city, lots of bombardment will surely help. Unless your unit has precision strike capability, your bombardment will "randomly hit units, improvements, fortresses, population, and so on -- anything that might be in the target area." (page 175)
What seems powerful to me is that bombardment units (other than catapults) appear to fire multiple times when you target something, so you'll be doing a lot of damage (unless they changed it all like they did with the battleship).

Also, Fast (retreat enabled) units are those that have 2-MP (not 3 as Andrew mis-stated). Units will retreat if they are against a 1-MP unit, when they are down to 1 Hit Point.

You regain 1 Hit Point per turn of resting in non-enemy territory, or anywhere if you have Battlefield Medicine (Small Wonder).

BTW, without using a leader, you will be creating ALL your armies at your Military Academy (Small Wonder) city.

Railroad (non-combat) note: Other than increasing commerce by one (along with roads), I could not find any mention of them in the whole book.

Until I get the game and find what is incorrect in the book, it looks like a great purchase.

[UKScud]

To take out a heavily defended city, lots of bombardment will surely help. Unless your unit has precision strike capability, your bombardment will "randomly hit units, improvements, fortresses, population, and so on -- anything that might be in the target area.

Can you write a little bit more about bombardment units?

Which units have 'random' bombardment?
Which units have 'specific' bombardment?

[Iman]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Civ 3 Strategy guide is out!

Originally posted by Andrew1999


There are a few things that wouldn't be in the manual/Civilopedia (like the chances of success for various spy missions) but most of it you can proabably live without. Or just wait for some poor sap to buy the guide and then spend all weekend transcribing it to a forum.

Dear Andrew,

Please say those thing which we're not gonna find in manual/civilopedia since i think they must be useful however tiny points.

Thanx

[Solver]

Yeah, well, read this whole thing, and brought me to one decision. I'll be playing my first game on Prince, as I don't want to have any bonuses over the AI, but don't want (still) to give it bonuses...

[korn469]

Ok guys, particularly Andrew1999, great job!

now i have a few questions

*Could you please list the stats of each government
*What is the unit spport forumula? does either population or cities add to the total number of armies you can support for free?
*Could you find all of the info possible on war penalties and list it?
*How about specific effects for each wonder?

thanks!

[old dog]

Interesting info!

Originally posted by Andrew1999
The Great Lighthouse (expires with Magnetism) and Magellan's Voyage add one movment to your naval units. Harbors produce veteran naval units in addition to producing more food from water squares and allowing trade.

Can this be true? Although Civ 3 is now up to three "depths" of water, the Lighthouse does NOT upgrade ships' ability to end a turn in deeper water?

Also, harbors produce veteran ships? This seems a bit cheap. I would expect the result to be that almost all ships are veteran. (On second thought, with the new "elite" level, maybe this will play out fine.)

Once again, thank you Andrew!

[albiedamned]

Originally posted by korn469
Ok guys, particularly Andrew1999, great job!

now i have a few questions

*Could you please list the stats of each government
*What is the unit spport forumula? does either population or cities add to the total number of armies you can support for free?
*Could you find all of the info possible on war penalties and list it?
*How about specific effects for each wonder?

thanks!

I can answer your unit support question based on BlueHooHoo's messages in the chat room yesterday. Monarchy and Communism can support 2 units for free per town, 4 per city, and 8 per metropolis. Any beyond those cost 1 per turn. I believe your cities are considered towns when they are below aqueduct size, cities when they are between aqueduct and hospital size, and metropolises when they go above hospital size.

Republics and Democracies cannot support any free units - they all cost 1 per turn. BlueHooHoo did not give the stats for Despotism or Anarchy.

By the way, the number of units you can support is determined for the civ as a whole. So you add up the amount supported by each city given the city's size to determie the total support. Inidividual units are not tied to cities. So a small (town-size) city could build 50 units, as long as other cities in your civ can support it or you have the gold to pay the excess.

[old dog]

One more question: Does the first civ to discover philosophy still get a free tech advance?

[BLackraven42]

Andrew, Great Job!!!

BTW: When playing on Cheiftan (That will be my first game just to get used to civ3) will the AI wait for for you to be able to start a wonder before it does? That took a lot of the fun out of civ2.

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Jaybe

I also purchased the book today.

Here are some more defense modifiers (page 173):
Town (size < 7): +0% (that's what walls are for)
City (size 7 to 12): +50%
Metropolis (size > 12): +100%

City defended by Coastal Fortress: +50% (against naval units)
Fortress: +25%
Fortified unit: +50%
Forest or Jungle:* +25%
Hill:* +50%
Mountain:* +100%

*ALL other terrain (including Coast, Sea & Ocean) provides a 10% defender combat bonus (page 21). I see this as an elegant way of giving the defender a slight edge in an otherwise equal situation.

Reading this I can only conclude that Civ3 is even more slanted towards the defender than the attacker. Take note that the quote doesn't say anything about the experience levels of troops. It seems a couple of Phalanxes on a hilltop will still be able to keep an entire army at bay. Could someone explain how the exp level of units factor into the defense bonus?

[albiedamned]

Originally posted by CapTVK

Reading this I can only conclude that Civ3 is even more slanted towards the defender than the attacker. Take note that the quote doesn't say anything about the experience levels of troops. It seems a couple of Phalanxes on a hilltop will still be able to keep an entire army at bay. Could someone explain how the exp level of units factor into the defense bonus?

Phalanxes have been replaced by spearmen in Civ3, but they're the same rating (1/2/1). Regular units have 3 hit points, veteran units have 4, and elite units have 5. Conscripts and units found in goodie huts have 2 hit points.

So a fortified spearmen (phalanx) in a fortress on a mountain would have a +175% defense bonus, and would defend at 5.5 This unit would be able to survive against anything from the ancient era, as it should. In the middle ages, it might start taking some damage. Cavalry, which comes at the end of the middle ages, would probably be able to defeat it (depending on relative experience levels of course). Any modern unit would pummel it. So I think this is fairly realistic.