The First Cheat-Strategies For Civ III: PtW

[star mouse]

Exploit - Swapping cities reduces unhappiness

Exploit: When a city changes hands, the unhappiness generated by pop-rushing and drafting is halved. Two players could swap the same city three or four times to reduce rampant misery to a manageable level.

Fix: Have 1 unhappiness variable for each civ. When a city swaps back, the unhappiness for the original civ is restored, as if the civ never changed hands.

When adding unhappiness caused by drafting or pop-rushing, add 1 "unhappiness" to the variable for the current civ, and 1/2 "unhappiness" for all the others.

[gentleriser]

Originally posted by XarXo
Yes, "Building Pact" can't be seen as a cheat. I believe that I missed the thread title. It should be: "Interesting Strategies".

Not a cheat, but a worthwhile addition to the game, and something that should be added to the AI in even a regular game: you can make deals for alliances, luxuries etc, but why not services?

Suppose I discover Steam Engine long before everyone else. I'd hate to give that technology to AI civs too soon. But perhaps I could offer in negotiations something like: "You pay 12 gold/turn for 20 turns (or whatever other cost) and I connect your city A to city B, pledging X number of workers to the project."
Presto, they get a railroad, I get my workers back when its done.

[Reptilicus]

Instead of everyone doing everything on their turn, each turn is divided into two "phases." First is the domestic, where all players can set all building prod., move all workers within borders, set treaties, and so on simultaneously. All shields, luxuries, etc., are added at the end of the phase. The second phase is military, where it goes turn to turn and only military units and workers outside of borders can move.

Hopefully this could solve many problems, mainly luxury sharing and the like.

[sprucemoose3311]

Good old debates are fun

I think the Hebrews should have been one of the original civs in civ3. They helped shape early history. The Hebrew culture is responsible for helping in the creation of the Quran (which started circulating around 625 AD; it was part culture; part reaction to Hebrews; heavily influenced by Hebrew scripture) and Christianity.

Their ruler could be solomon (Built great temples, falsly credited with scipture found in Bible) or David (first great ruler, even if he didnt build great cities as archeological evidence- which means fragments of pottery- suggests) Both rulers enjoyed rule over roughly the same area.

they could be religious and expansionist/militaristic

One more note: the Hebrew culture has outlasted most other cultures in the world. They may possibly be the most infuential culture in the world (next to the Greeks).

[sprucemoose3311]

one other thing about the Hebrews, they ruled over egypt for a short while, the Hyksos (i think i spelled it right) ruled over Egypt at the time of joseph. at the end of their reign, the Jews numbers were extremely high. The hebrews were gaining wealth and stregnth. The new pharoahs were afraid of the power they commanded so they imposed strict laws on Hebrews. The Hebrews were never slaves.

Also, Alexander the Great brought 10,000 Jews to live in Alexandria. Alexandria helped make Northern Africa the center of Judaism and Christianity especially.


Its funny im not religious at all and i know more than most people who go to church, oh well whatever.

[Lucilla]

sprucemoose3311,

I think this is the wrong thread for this discussion....

[OPD]

backstabbing wont be that much of a problem as after only a few games they would have a permanent reputation as a backstabber however buddies of-line or in chat rooms may work together from the start everytime they play

[bad0cat]

I HAVE RETURNED TO THE APOLYTON BOARDS!
(....crickets chirping....)


OK, seriously -

Backstabbing

Who would want to play a game without it? My god that would be more boring than a "This Old House" marathon.

Here are my biggest multiplayer concerns:


1) Game has got to be simplified enough on the micromangament side so that each game doesn't last 14 years but they can't over simplify it because then you have SimWarcraft (yes, yes this has nothing to do with strategy or cheats but I thought I'd throw it in anyhoo)

2) Unit trading MUST be integrated. I can't over-emphasize how important this is.

3) If at all possible, I would like to see Firaxis do something about the old "save game, quit, open game in editor" trick which was so widely abused in CTP and CTPII multiplayer. (I'm not entirely sure you can open a saved CIVIII game with an editor like you could in CTP...can you?)

4) For multiplayer, I think nukes need to be reworked as far as effects, cost, and functionality. I can already see this scenario playing out way too often:

-build butt loads of ICBMS

-rush tech to Intergrated Defense

-without warning launch a full scale strike on the same
turn you complete SDI wonder (use a leader to rush
build if possible), thus taking out your closest
opponent (or closest 2....or 3)

-procede with ease to the space race victory

Sure this would mean a nasty reprisal from your opponents but you've got SDI so you would come out on top 99% of the time.

Don't get me wrong - I love the nuclear aspect of CIV but this seems like a can't-lose strategy in multiplayer that virtually everyone will end up trying for. Thoughts?


Alright, that's enough for now.

[XarXo]

In this Nuclear Strategy something important rised. The problem that the AI "thinks" that the planet where the game occurs is "its" planet. So a nuclear war really "affects it". But a human player is totally cold with this, this is the GREAT mistake.

[Dinner]

I see little Firaxis can do to prevent what bad0cat described. Maybe they could make SDI less effective by giving it a percent chance to shoot down an incoming missle but even that will not end the use of pre-imptive nuclear strikes. Realistically the only thing a target can do is spread his units out as widely as possible so that all of them don't get destroyed in the first attack.

Since we're alreay on the topic of nukes I'd like to bring up the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD). In CTP2 you could have your nukes pretargeted at your enemies cities so that if he nukes you on his turn you still get to fire off your missles at him. A similiar MAD function in Civ3 would prompt a more realistic use of nukes.

[bad0cat]

In this Nuclear Strategy something important rised. The problem that the AI "thinks" that the planet where the game occurs is "its" planet. So a nuclear war really "affects it". But a human player is totally cold with this, this is the GREAT mistake.

I am not sure what you mean... are you saying that nukes are good the way they are right now?

If so, I would have to disagree. I think there needs to be some more catastrophic events if there is a global exchange of nukes. Right now its just a handful of poluted tiles and some limited climate changing.

A more realistic affect would be a "nuclear winter" type chain of events where massive amounts of the world map are turned to tundra and polution occurs on an equally global scale, then this is later followed by some receding shorelines (and thus, sinking cities).

That would force humans to think more long-term when it comes to using nukes in MP. Right now nukes seem like a perfecetly viable military option - I wouldn't even think twice about using them in a MP game, ESPECIALLy if I thought I could build the SDI wonder before anyone else.

[bad0cat]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I see little Firaxis can do to prevent what bad0cat described. Maybe they could make SDI less effective by giving it a percent chance to shoot down an incoming missle but even that will not end the use of pre-imptive nuclear strikes. Realistically the only thing a target can do is spread his units out as widely as possible so that all of them don't get destroyed in the first attack.

Since we're alreay on the topic of nukes I'd like to bring up the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD). In CTP2 you could have your nukes pretargeted at your enemies cities so that if he nukes you on his turn you still get to fire off your missles at him. A similiar MAD function in Civ3 would prompt a more realistic use of nukes.

Exactly right. The ability to pre-target should be added and I think large scale exchanges of nukes should result in catastrophic polution/climate change for the *entire world* This would make nukes a serious issue in the late game, as it should be.

[XarXo]

Originally posted by bad0cat


I am not sure what you mean... are you saying that nukes are good the way they are right now?

If so, I would have to disagree. I think there needs to be some more catastrophic events if there is a global exchange of nukes. Right now its just a handful of poluted tiles and some limited climate changing.

A more realistic affect would be a "nuclear winter" type chain of events where massive amounts of the world map are turned to tundra and polution occurs on an equally global scale, then this is later followed by some receding shorelines (and thus, sinking cities).

That would force humans to think more long-term when it comes to using nukes in MP. Right now nukes seem like a perfecetly viable military option - I wouldn't even think twice about using them in a MP game, ESPECIALLy if I thought I could build the SDI wonder before anyone else.

That's is. For a human player use nukes doesn't matter, is only a game, but AI has a programation that says "your planet will disappear, be careful, don't use them". The solution for this is that the AI player *must* use nuclear weapons when a human player does it. As cold as a human one. But well, this should be in the personality of each leader (militaristic: nuke'm all! religious: nuke'm all, in the name of God )...

[bad0cat]

Originally posted by XarXo


(militaristic: nuke'm all! religious: nuke'm all, in the name of God )...

[noxianyork]

Geographic affinity

How about giving players the option of starting near one another? Like on the same continent or being geographically clustered.

noxian