Civ3: Interface - easily missed tips

[adaMada]

Originally posted by Peterk
This one's probably known to everyone but I didn't catch it after reading the manual and discovered it by chance.

If you get approached by another Civ and you say you'll meet with him you get asked a question and have to accept or decline. A lot of times I wished I could get away from the dialog and check some info first before answering. Just click on the foreign advisor's head and you'll get full access to all advisors.

Cool.

Didn't know this. Very very cool .

-- adaMada

[HugoHillbilly]

Originally posted by Blunderdog
I'm at work, so if this is in the manual, shoot me. Is there any way to find out when your trade agreements end? Or when you can end them without starting a war?

Open up a diplomatic session with a the Civ your trading with, make a deal with them, at the bottom of the trading table it will say NEW and ACTIVE. Click on active. All your agreements are shown and if there is a number in parenthesis that is how long before it can peacefully expire. Wish there was an easier way, however.

If you wish to plant spies without the hotkeys, there is an Icon on the city that built the intelligence agency (similar to your capital icon). Double click this (as you would to establish embassies) to plant spies.

[HugoHillbilly]

LOL oops sorry, didnt realize there was 3 pages to this thread, my above post is redundant as is was answered way earlier. Sorry!

[geofelt]

1. Would it be possible to produce a download file that could be printed out and kept as a reference to the various commands?
2. Is there come display that gives you a list of cities in trouble?
3. Is there a way to disable the palace construction displays? I don't need the interruptions.

[KMadeleine]

How to skip a turn

I didn't see this in the manual or the guide. If you want to skip the rest of the unit movements in your turn, click on the little oval in the upper left corner of the info box that shows the active unit.

[henry296]

Another quick tip

As your worker is moving, you can give it another command. For example, you want to move a worker 3 tiles and then irrigate. While he is moving press I. This works great when adding railroads or clean pollution.

Todd

[kent-jo]

Here is a list of all tips in THIS tread

Civ3: Interface - easily missed tips
General Interface:

Ctrl-C: accesses the civlopedia.
Ctrl-P: accesses the preferences screen.

Shift-mousewheel: scroll left and right.

Shift-rightclick on a city: change production.
G on the city screen: will open the governers menu.

Right click on a city/stack of units/transport then shift left click on as many sleeping units as you want to wake - much faster than doing them one by one.

Push delete on a queue item to delete it. Shift delete to clear the queue. Shift Q to save it. Q to load it. Queues are set by holding shift when you click on an item.

Double clicking on the Star on your capital will open the Establish Embassy menu, once you have Writing (real intuitive...) Also used for embassy missions in a city with the intelligence agency. Communists have superior spies.



Shift-L: pops up the locate city window.

Ctrl-G: toggles the grid.

F7: Wonders of the World.
F8: Histograph.
F9: Palace.
F10: Space Shuttle.
F11: Demographic statistics, Also has the top five cities.



Advisors:

F1-6 for your advisors. Use these. A lot. If there's something you want to do to manage your empire at large, it's probably here. F1 and F3 are your friends. F2 and F4 are tied together. F6 is mostly for reference. F5 is purely for reference.

F1: Domestic Advisor
Right clicking on production on the domestic advisor will let you change it directly. Left clicking on cities will enter them. When you exit, you'll be back at this advisor. You can quickly identify and change production here. If you need to know the best commerce or industry city at a glance, it's here as well. Left click on the various icons (production, maintenence, etc) to sort and reverse sort the list. All costs and incomes are evaluated here, and this is where you change governments or war mobilization.

F2: Trade Advisor
Trade goods can be instantly evaluated, and you can see what other civilizations have to offer you.

F3: Military Advisor
Military units can be upgraded, disbanded, activated from the military advisor. You can also view all units by city to instantly assess weak defensive areas, or by unit, to evaluate your overall military and quickly make broad decisions. Use these, I mean it. Seriously Between these, Zoom, Locate city, the easy Goto commands, you should have NO problems managing your empire as it gets larger. From the view by City screen, left clicking on a city will enter it. From the view by unit screen, left clicking will zoom to the unit, right clicking will give you orders.

You can also identify your captured workers here, and evaluate the strength of any enemy you are at war with. Finally, don't miss the 'units supported' box here, this is the fastest way to check how many units you can support free of charge, and how many you have total.

F4: Foreign Advisor:
Double click on a civ to get info. Use this to plan out your diplomatic alliances against rival civs, or to get advance warning of alliances in place, so you don't find yourself in a 3-1 situation.

F5: Culturual Advisor:
One of the less useful advisors, not much manipulatable data here, but you can get info on the culture value of old structures, giving you an idea of the importance of age with culture. Either you're going to use culture, or you're going to have it used against you.

F6: Science Advisor:
Don't forget you can set a long term goal by clicking down the tree. Early on, you'll probably want to choose one at a time based on what your empire needs, but later, you can go two or three down the line occasionally to save yourself the bother.

Worker Specific Goodies:

Ctrl-R: builds a road to a destination.

Ctrl-Shift-R: builds a railroad to a destination.

Ctrl-N: builds a road network throughout your empire to all resources.

Ctrl-B: with a worker builds a road to a destination and builds a colony there.

Ctrl-I: builds Irrigation from a source to a city.

Shift-I improves closest city.

A: automate settler

Shift-A is *ok*, it only does untouched terrain. Use this if you know the boundries of your empire well and you don't mind losing fine control at the potential cost of 1 gold.

Shift-F: to clear all forests.

Shift-J: to clear all jungles.

Shift-C: to clear all pollution. This can be handy if pollution is a regular problem for you, and you've got a good rail network.

Unit Specific Goodies:

C: centers on the currently selected unit, as will clicking on the unit box itself.


Fortifying a damaged unit will reactivate it once fully healed.

General Tips:

Units gain +1 sight range on top of hills or mountains. Mountains block line of sight.

Rivers give +1 commerce to all adjacent squares.

Flood plains look similar to rivers - they have extra green on the shore. Don't miss them.

Access to fresh water (rivers or lakes) is required to irrigate, but remember you can build a long chain of irrigation through your empire from even one source.

Cities do not need an aqueduct if they are built by fresh water.

Ctrl-B to road to and then build colony.

Resources can expire. New resources can pop up. There are ALWAYS enough resources for all civs.

Many diplomatic tools cannot be used until you have acquired writing. Other advances give other diplomatic options. (Ctrl-C)

Completing a project with the whip under Despotism or Communism kills citizens and creates an unhappy citizen for 20 turns.

Shift-N: Instruct a worker to build a network of roads connecting all your cities and all resources within your border.

CTRL-E: Establish Embassies

CTRL-SHIFT-E: Plant Spy

SHIFT-E: Conduct Espionage

ctrl-shift-G: Gives a list of cities that you can select for the unit to go to.
New Command For Units!

When you have a Military or any other unit selected that can move of its own free will..
E: To have it explore all black area's, works for military and sea units, Trimeirs /sp? will stay close to the land and not get themself automatically killed by traveling to far off coast*

ctrl-M: Changes your mobilitzation...whatever that is...I havnt got it to work but its in the manual
Ctrl-G to revolt. Shift-U (or was that Ctrl-U?) when a unit is active to upgrade all similar units. It's shift-U for all units, u for an individual unit



Just right click on this post and "select all" and then right click again and "copy" or "print"

All i want is alitel "thank you Kent"

[adaMada]

thank you kent .

-- adaMada

[Lemming]

Re: Here is a list of all tips in THIS tread

Originally posted by kent-jo

Worker Specific Goodies:

Ctrl-N: builds a road network throughout your empire to all resources.

Shift-N: Instruct a worker to build a network of roads connecting all your cities and all resources within your border.

hm, im confused here...the manual doesnt mention Shift-N, just Ctrl-N. So does it exist? Is it any different? and whats the difference exactly?

Shift-C: to clear all pollution. This can be handy if pollution is a regular problem for you, and you've got a good rail network.

thats wrong as pointed out before. its Shift-P for clearing all pollution.