Civ3 newbie problems

[Pandemoniak]

I just started plaing a game of civ3 with a decent difficulty (aka prince), and faced many problems. As you can see on the left of this message, I play SMAC more often, and so maybe there's big differences in the game play that I didnt figured out.
I hope you guys can help me out a little with that.

1. Expansionism is very difficult, since when I dont have enough food, it asks me to delay production/abandon city/zoom city, instead of just let the city starve for a while. Thus, I've been stuck at the very beginning of the game with two cities and being unable to create any settler.

2. Is there any possibility or anything to do when your starting location is far away of irrigable water (lake/rivers).

Im back to the game and let you know about further misunderstandings/nonsense

[DeepO]

welcome to the board... hrmm.. make that welcome to the game

1.the solution is that you only build settlers when you have enough food in it. If you are paying at regent level (prince is only mentioned in the manual, IIRC), make sure all of your citizens are working, and not partying around as entertainers. If you don't have any luxuries connected to your cities, you will need to set the lux rate a bit higher, not spending all your income on tech. Further, either put your governor on for manage moods, or set the workers in the city view to food producing tiles yourself. Of course, you need a bit of food for this, so when starting to learn the game, forget about those desert starts, just hit Shift+Ctrl+Q to restart.

2. hit Shift+Ctrl+Q until you're happy with your start. A river or lake is not really necessary, but it sure can make civ-life easier.

DeepO

[vondrack]

Re: Civ3 newbie problems

Originally posted by Pandemoniak
1. Expansionism is very difficult, since when I dont have enough food, it asks me to delay production/abandon city/zoom city, instead of just let the city starve for a while. Thus, I've been stuck at the very beginning of the game with two cities and being unable to create any settler.

What the game tells you does not mean you've got food not enough. To create a settler, you sort of "consume" two citizens in the process (aside from the shields needed to actually produce it). Thus, only a city of size 3 or more can create a settler without not losing all of its population - cities with population 1 or 2 would be disbanded if allowed to finish a settler prior to reaching size 3. The opening "gambit" for most games is like warrior-warrior-settler or warrior-spearman-settler (if possible) or something like that. You need to let your cities grow a bit first, before creating new settlers and expanding.

Originally posted by Pandemoniak
2. Is there any possibility or anything to do when your starting location is far away of irrigable water (lake/rivers).

Ctrl-Shift-Q (Quit). Restart.

But seriously, no fresh water inside your first city radius is nothing that would hamper you forever... Try playing it out and you will find out that although founding your first city on a river bank is nice, it is not a must.

Edit: Ahhh... DeepO was quicker... However, my first point may still be on topic and the second one makes our opinions even more credible... so I will not delete the post...

[Pandemoniak]

Thanx for your answers. Something else, now.
How come other civilizationsask for nonsense trades ?
Like they give me 1 technology, and I gotta give them my world map, and 2 technologies.
Or they supply me with one luxury ressource, and I have to supply them with two luxuries and give them a technology.
Or sometimes when I make an offer 1 technology for one technology, the advisor says hte civ would probably feel insulted.

I assume it doesnt depend on their like/dislike about me, since they most of time are polite -even tho their offers are VERY insulting.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Pandemoniak
Thanx for your answers. Something else, now.
How come other civilizationsask for nonsense trades ?
Like they give me 1 technology, and I gotta give them my world map, and 2 technologies.
Or they supply me with one luxury ressource, and I have to supply them with two luxuries and give them a technology.
Or sometimes when I make an offer 1 technology for one technology, the advisor says hte civ would probably feel insulted.

I assume it doesnt depend on their like/dislike about me, since they most of time are polite -even tho their offers are VERY insulting.

Well, feel free to start being furious with them...

Look, there is no reason that the AI should offer you only fine trades. It is rather difficult to correctly value technologies... Is Alphabet and Bronze Working worth Writing? Maybe... it depends... but just saying that swapping tech 2 for 1 is unfair is not ok.

You are never bound to accept their proposal. If you don't like it, tell them you're not interested. I sometimes happily trade three of my luxuries for one of theirs. It sometimes IS a good deal - both for me and them. Just play a bit longer and you will realize that the AI is not so unreasonable about trading. Sure it sometimes behaves oddly, but who knows why... humans sometimes behave oddly, too...

And BTW - it does matter if you are on good terms with the other civ or not. Also, many trade deals can be bargained about (usually those initiated by the AI) - just try increasing your profit and you will see (by watching your Trade Advisor) if it's still acceptable...

[Sabre2th]

With things like luxuries, the value is determined by the total usefulness of what you're trading. Luxuries, for example, by the number of happy faces they will provide.

[DeepO]

Most trades are influenced by relative size, and not by how well your mutual understanding is. If you are double the size of the AI civ, you will need to offer roughly double the amount of luxuries for his. This also works the other way around: if you are smaller then him, you will get more profitable deals what lux is concerned.

Tech trades are valued not only on their importance (literacy is more important than the weel), but also by how many civs already have the tech. If you are the first to get a tech, you will get a much higher price the first time you sell it, instead of being the second last to get it and sell it to the last. Additional things are whether it will give you unfinished wonders and governments. The good trades, from a human perspective, are trading the military ones (like chivalry) for your wonder ones (e.g. theology), you will most of the times get a good offer. But still it will depend on how many already have the tech.

If a civ offers you something, it is rarely a good idea to offer them a tech, or your world map. In the same AI turn, he will trade it around to all he knows, and gets additional advantage out of it. If, however, you wait and take the initiative in the next turn, you get the chance of trading a tech or your map to all you know. This will profit you more.

One important note, however, if a civ asks for an audience, always accept. If they ask for a trade, always ask to renegotiate the deal, and give them something (e.g. 1 gold). If they have to leave empty handed, it will annoy them.

DeepO