Questions from a newbie - long

[wisdave]

Hi, folks. I've stopped here only a few times, all in the past several days. Some folks in the chatroom answered my initial question and helped get my current game back on track.

I've been playing the game on an almost daily basis since Christmas. (Thanks to my son for the great gift.) I've successfully completed a number of games in that time, but as soon as one is done, I've thought up a new scenario I just have to try.

My current game was bogged down due to corruption, when I read threads yesterday about the editor. I didn't even know it came with one. Anyway, I edited the preferred number of cities on a large map from 24 to 100, and, WHAM! I'm off and running again.

Now the questions:

1. I never liked to take advantage of cheat codes in other games unless it was just a quick run through to see the reward graphic at the end of a game. I convinced myself that the change I made last night wasn't really cheating as the rule applies to the AI players also. Do you agree?

2. What other types of changes have you made that made your games more enjoyable? I was afraid to change units, wonders, terrain, etc until I better understood what I was changing. The corruption model was pretty easy to see right away.

3. OK, feel free to start piling on me here. I have never applied any patches to my original game. I didn't even know they existed until I stumbled onto this board. I don't follow the gaming industry closely, and don't read the magazines. As it is, I hardly have time for my Civ addiction. I am running version 1.07, I believe. (Writing from work). Should I apply the patches? A few major reasons why? Can you point me to a thread that explains the previous patches (I saw today's)? Do I need to apply them in a sequential fashion? I saw a reference in a post somewhere about the elimination of "God mode". Can someone explain what that is?

If you're still reading by this point, thanks in advance for any help you can provide. If I can ever add to a discussion in the future, I certainly will, now that I know this place exists. It was kinda' cool reading here. Quite a few of the tips and hints I had discovered myself - the hard way. However, I also picked up a lot of new ideas, and now have to plan to squander many more hours on new scenarios I have to try.

[Theseus]

Most definitely install the up-to-date patch. Right now it's 1.21, but I would wait until Friday for 1.29.

You don;t need to install them sequentially.

The search function on Apolyton works pretty well... search for 1.21f in the title.

Welcome to further addiction.

[Carver]

re: God Mode

Once upon a time, if you saved any game with the letters "multi" (lower case in that order) in the file name after reloading you could: see the whole map, see all units, see what enemy civs were producing, change enemy production, see all resources (even ones you hadn't the tech for yet) and probably a few other things I'm leaving out.

Wlecome to the forum.

[Carver]

Actually, since you're unpatched God Mode should still work for you.

[vondrack]

You should definitely apply the latest patch, 1.21f, or better yet - as suggested before - wait until Friday and use 1.29f. You will be surprised how much Firaxis changed based on the players' feedback (including the corruption that you dislike so much - it was the same for me, 1.07f was really tough). I guess the reasonable corruption adjustment should be enough for you to go for the patch. But there are lots of other improvements made to the game. I dare to say that Civ3 in its 1.21f incarnation is a lot different from the factory release.

I also suggest scanning the forums for threads focused on the things introduced by the patches, as not knowing what was fixed/changed/added/removed might easily make you think something is wrong...

Welcome aboard!

[Arrian]

By 1.21 the corruption issue was fixed (in my opinion). It's manageable now. It still will hamper you (and the AI), as it should. The game was designed that way. But it's no longer crippling.

I agree with Theseus, wait until friday and download the 1.29 patch. Play it, come here and ask questions, and then modify it if you don't like it.

-Arrian

[RedBird]

Re: Questions from a newbie - long

Originally posted by wisdave
My current game was bogged down due to corruption, when I read threads yesterday about the editor. I didn't even know it came with one. Anyway, I edited the preferred number of cities on a large map from 24 to 100, and, WHAM! I'm off and running again.

Changing the civ3mod.bic file only applies to new games. I don't believe there is a way to modify an existing game. (at least according to a post I saw when I was trying to figure out why the changes I'd made were not showing up).

BTW, as to rationalizing if it's cheating or not, the way I look at it is you're just playing a different version of the game: one where corruption plays a smaller role.

Edit: Mod changes will not apply to existing games but the patches will. To be honest though, for all that everyone was talking about the patches reducing corruption I didn't find them to be all that effective. If you're playing on a large map, and you establish a city on a distant continent you'll still have so much corruption that you won't be able to build anything in that city.

And back to the rationalization issue, IMO, this corruption business is stupid and unrealistic. It's like saying that Hong Kong was able to produce nothing since it was so far away from the British capital. In fact HK is a massive and bustling metropolis. For that reason I don't like playing with these corruption rules. I just found a post suggesting modding all city improvements so they reduce corruption. I'll be doing that for my next game (not sure if it really works though).

[wisdave]

Just got home from work. Thanks for all of the replies, and the welcome aboards! I appreciate it. BTW, modifying the .bic file does modify your current game, at least in my unpatched version.

I had a little trouble trying to find a description of the changes in 1.21f. The search led me to a news page, but I still haven't found the Firaxis thread detailing the changes. I'll look again this weekend when I have a little time. I think I'll download the newest patch and give it a whirl. If I don't like it, I can always re-install the original.

Again, thanks for the help. This forum is a lot more friendly than the other few boards I frequent. Maybe the difference is that the other boards are sports oriented. Lots of competition there. vbg

[SpencerH]

1.07 has too many bugs, I guess you havent noticed that your fighters dont work. Install 1.29 on friday. The game has progessively improved through each patch. This one will include a few tweaks and an improved editor that we dont have to hack (so much). Practice your skills and prepare for PtW (human players).

Time to change my flag..

[RedBird]

Originally posted by wisdave
modifying the .bic file does modify your current game, at least in my unpatched version.

I just asked this question to the general forum directly. It looks like 1.21f changed it so that civ3mod.bic changes only affect new games. Here's the thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56141

Not sure what will happen to your changes once you patch.

I had a little trouble trying to find a description of the changes in 1.21f. The search led me to a news page, but I still haven't found the Firaxis thread detailing the changes.

http://www.civ3.com/patches.cfm

[Willem]

Re: Questions from a newbie - long

Originally posted by wisdave

2. What other types of changes have you made that made your games more enjoyable? I was afraid to change units, wonders, terrain, etc until I better understood what I was changing. The corruption model was pretty easy to see right away.

One thing you can do that will really liven up your game is add a land unit with a hidden nationality, like a land based Privateer. The AI uses them quite well, sometimes to well, and it makes things much more interesting when peace breaks out. It also gives you a tool in order to contain the AI expansion. This is something Firaxis is thinking of including in Play the World expansion.

There's a bit of a learning curve to adding units, but if you go to Creation and read up on the tutorial at the top, by Plutarck, it shouldn't take you to long to figure it out. And there's always someone willing to answer questions over there.

[RedBird]

Re: Re: Questions from a newbie - long

Originally posted by Willem
There's a bit of a learning curve to adding units, but if you go to Creation and read up on the tutorial at the top, by Plutarck, it shouldn't take you to long to figure it out. And there's always someone willing to answer questions over there.

I suspect adding units will be easier after Friday. I was about to start reading the posts on adding units, but it looks like lots of new stuff regarding this will be in the 1.29 patch. I'd suggest waiting (at least I'm going to).

[Harovan]

I advise you not to increase the "Optimal number of cities" to a large value, even though you may fight corruption this way. The AI continues to build cities, until this number is nearly reached. Now imagine, on a large map 11 AIs try to build 100 cities each, which is impossible, since the maximal # of cities is 512. This results in LOTS of wandering settlers, the so called settler diarrhea, which some posters here *cough* remind us twice a day.

Better leave the value like it is, or increase it only slightly.

[Arrian]

Sir Ralph is right about that. Plus, you are not allowed to build the Forbidden Palace until you have 1/2 of the optimal # of cities. Put the number too high, and you never get to build it.

If you're going to mod it, raise it just a bit and maybe add another Forbidden Palace-like small wonder... and lower the shield cost if you can (dunno, haven't messed with the editor much).

-Arrian

[Willem]

Re: Re: Re: Questions from a newbie - long

Originally posted by RedBird


I suspect adding units will be easier after Friday. I was about to start reading the posts on adding units, but it looks like lots of new stuff regarding this will be in the 1.29 patch. I'd suggest waiting (at least I'm going to).

I suspect there's still going to be some things that have to be done manually, or through a program like MultiTool. I don't think they've really changed much, by the sounds of it. They're just revealing the Add/Delete buttons, everything else will probably be the same.