I've had Civ III sitting in the box for almost a year now till a got a computer big enough to run it. After getting a new computer a couple of weeks ago, I installed Civ III last night (no patch yet) and took it for a spin.
I played my usual Civ II settings: Deity, Continents, 4bil, max size board, max water, max barbs, max number of civs. I got off to a rather poor start as the Greeks (scientific, commercial) on a 6x20 continent which was about half desert and half plains. Nevertheless by about 1600bc I managed to scratch out three or four respectable cities and was moderately advanced.
In the process of exploring I knocked over a couple of barb huts, but a couple of well-placed hoplytes and veteran or elite units were able to deal with the occupants in the usual Civ II manner. Cities were reasonable well defended by Civ II standards, with one or two fortified hoplytes each, some of them veterans.
At this point the roof fell in. I was subjected to a "massive" barbarian attack which consisted of 25 conscript horse units from each of three directions simultaneously. (Scythians, Etruscans, and Minoans IIRC) Thats 75 #$%&*@$ units at once!!!! As horse after horse materialized from the same square, my first reaction was that the program must have hung. As they began to materialize from two other squares I realized I was maximum toast the minute they hit the road system. It was as if the entire population of the known world turned into barbarians and landed on my sorry-ass piece of sand at the same time.
What is going on here? Are these in fact barbarians, or something else? (as if it matters to the result) Where did they come from? How do you deal with them? Since I don't see the Etruscans on the list of civs, I presume they are not another civ. In two of the three cases the horse units appear to come from what looks like a small encampment; not a hut, but not quite a city. Are these huts, cities, units, or what? In one case I got rid of such an encampment after inducing the unit inside to attack me, and lose. Are there other ways to deal with this? Can encampments be absorbed into your civilization by culture?
I played my usual Civ II settings: Deity, Continents, 4bil, max size board, max water, max barbs, max number of civs. I got off to a rather poor start as the Greeks (scientific, commercial) on a 6x20 continent which was about half desert and half plains. Nevertheless by about 1600bc I managed to scratch out three or four respectable cities and was moderately advanced.
In the process of exploring I knocked over a couple of barb huts, but a couple of well-placed hoplytes and veteran or elite units were able to deal with the occupants in the usual Civ II manner. Cities were reasonable well defended by Civ II standards, with one or two fortified hoplytes each, some of them veterans.
At this point the roof fell in. I was subjected to a "massive" barbarian attack which consisted of 25 conscript horse units from each of three directions simultaneously. (Scythians, Etruscans, and Minoans IIRC) Thats 75 #$%&*@$ units at once!!!! As horse after horse materialized from the same square, my first reaction was that the program must have hung. As they began to materialize from two other squares I realized I was maximum toast the minute they hit the road system. It was as if the entire population of the known world turned into barbarians and landed on my sorry-ass piece of sand at the same time.
What is going on here? Are these in fact barbarians, or something else? (as if it matters to the result) Where did they come from? How do you deal with them? Since I don't see the Etruscans on the list of civs, I presume they are not another civ. In two of the three cases the horse units appear to come from what looks like a small encampment; not a hut, but not quite a city. Are these huts, cities, units, or what? In one case I got rid of such an encampment after inducing the unit inside to attack me, and lose. Are there other ways to deal with this? Can encampments be absorbed into your civilization by culture?
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