New traits/governments in C3C?

[Zevico]

I have a few questions on C3C strategy wise before I buy it...
I have heard of some new traits in C3C--Agricultural, Seafaring, are two (any others). Question is, what benefit, exactly, do they bring, both directly and indirectly?
As well, what are the new government's pros and cons, both direct and indirect?
Has the republic government remained as powerful as before? Has Firaxis compensated for its double cost military for Republic governments in some way?
What other thoughts do you C3C players have out there on the expansion set's new gizmos and gadgets, both good and bad?

[Snotty]

Most of your questions can be answered by looking in this thread in the conquests forum http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=95446 .

[nbarclay]

In Conquests, Republic provides one free unit upkeep for towns (size <= 6) and three for cities. Thus, with a small enough military (including the civ's worker force) Republic can actually be stronger economically in Conquests than it was before. As the military gets bigger, the balance of advantage starts to shift away from Republic. I can't address what it's like to play under the new governments because so far, I haven't been in a situation where I needed them.

Agricultural can be either so-so or a somewhat unbalancing uber-trait, depending on the starting position. Agricultural provides three main advantages. (1) The city tile generates an extra food. With fresh water (a river or lake), the extra food is available even with the Despotism penalty; otherwise it is not. With lots of rivers and/or lakes, Agricultural civs are fantastic REXers, and growth after changing out of Despotism is always a bit better than for other traits. Also, being able to work an extra 1-food tile can come in handy. (2) Aqueducts cost half as much, making it a little cheaper to grow cities past size 6. (3) Irrigated deserts produce two food instead of one, making large desert cities practical long before railroads. (Flood plains in the middle of a desert aren't the nightmare start for Agricultural civs that they are for others.)

Seafaring civs are great for early intercontinental contact on Continents maps. They get an extra movement point and their ships are only half as likely to sink, so suicide galleys and even carracks (a new type of ship available at the beginning of the game, with two base movement and no transport capacity) are a lot more practical. Half-price harbors and an extra gold for each coastal city provide additional advantages.

Right now there are some very serious bugs in Conquests: gold per turn deals end up magically creating twice the gold they're supposed to, and the Forbidden Palace is a victim of serious sabotage. But even witht the bugs, playing with Conquests' new features can be interesting, and once the bugs are fixed, it will be fantastic.

[Zevico]

Thank you nbarclay for your response, and Snotty for your link (I had looked all over for something in C3C like this but I just couldn't find it for some reason--don't know why I didn't notice this).

[justjake73]

the Forbidden Palace is a victim of serious sabotage

What does this mean?

[nbarclay]

In previous versions of Civ 3, the palace and forbidden palace could in essence provide a civ with two cores. In Conquests, trying to set up a second core results in increased corruption in outlying cities in the original core. Of course the fact that the two cores often overlap complicates the issue.

There's a whole thread on corruption bugs (at least we regard them as bugs) in Conquests here. In my first Conquests game, my vast empire was having ridiculous production problems, and that thread clued me in on what's going on (at least as best it's currently understood).

Nathan