Talk:Civilization III

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Contents

[edit] Accuracy

On the table of starting advances, it states that the Romans start with "Masonry" and "Warrior Code." This is not correct. I always play as the Romans and they start with Warrior Code and one other advance, though I'm not sure what it is (I know it's not Masonry--I always have to research it). It may be "Alphabet," but someone else may want to verify. Since these are listed as Persia's starting advances, someone may want to verify the accuracy of the others. I can do it later today if no one else checks it. —Frecklefoot 14:45, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Fan Reaction section

The new section seems a bit over the top to me. I played the game for a while and never had to wait 30 minutes for a turn, although 4 minutes are still pretty much.. There should be a section about criticism, but it shouldn't be that devastating in my opinion. --Conti|✉ 17:07, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I played the game right off the shelf and didn't need the patch for several months. I've never experienced a 30 minute turn, though turns do get longer further into the game. — Frecklefoot | Talk 17:47, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)
There, tried to NPOV it a bit. I even heaped some praise on it, but it seemed fitting given how popular the game is. The previous version sounded like it was written by a bitter use. I play the game all the time and never had his/her experience. Edit as you please. — Frecklefoot | Talk 18:01, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)
If players are on a huge map with a slow computer (<700 Mhz, for example), turns can and will take that long. Doesn't mean that devastatingly harsh criticism is in order, but the slow reaciton time *can* happen. :) Krupo 04:05, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)
I've had 30 minute turns before on standard-size maps deep in the Industrial Age. Four minutes is BELOW average for my turn length...do you automate all your stuff? I've talked to expert players that can sometimes take one to two hours in the Industrial Age, because they pay attention to every detail of their empire.
errr.. they are talking about the AI turn not your own turn. Mathmo Talk 02:51, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I play on the biggest map possible, most AIs possible with a Athlon 1600+. Later into the game I have to wait 2 minutes minimum on the AI.--Can Not 23:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Call to Power

What exactly does Civ3 borrow from CtP?

I think that the different "ages"/"epochs" Bogdan | Talk 09:48, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Corruption

From the article: "Corruption is a new feature that was added to Civilization 3." This is not true, I am fairly sure that Civ II also had corruption. -- FirstPrinciples 18:11, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Well, be bold in editing and change it. :-) Anyone else know about the info? I think the corruption is more severe in Civ III... — Frecklefoot | Talk 18:27, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)
Much more severe. In civ II, your core cities produce lots of trade and the outer cities produce less trade. In civ III, your core cities produce lots of trade/production, but outer cities have almost no trade/production; they usually cannot even pay for the maintenence of their own buildings... That makes much more dificult to 'conquer' the world because conquering new cities does not rise your economic power. (or at least not by a signifiant amount) -- however conquering cities gives you to eventual resources/luxury resources in the neighbourhood.
Also, in civ II, a large democracy has practically no corruption. In civ III, a large democracy loses *most* of its production and trade to corruption and waste. Bogdan | Talk 18:40, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Even so, it's not a new feature to Civ III. (I didn't edit the article because I wasn't 100% sure.) -- FirstPrinciples 00:41, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)
OK, now I've updated the corruption section. -- FirstPrinciples 01:03, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)
The current edition is wrong on this, too. Waste did exist in Civ2. --tyomitch 15:41, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Waste/corruption existed in Civ 1. 70.17.137.112 (talk) 23:05, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

OK it states on the page and in the manual that communism spreads corruption equally amoung all cities. This is patently not true - in communism just like all other systems, as soon as you go about a screen from your capital shield production is falling off towards zero. Unlike democracy, communisms can to some extent mitigate these events using their 'special' methods of hurrying [:)] production, but they still feel lots of corruption! Anyone else noticed this too?

With the latest patch, all cities should have the same corruption (or less with a courthouse or police station). Only in Conquests will the capital have zero corruption, before that it suffered the same corruption as the rest of the cities. TimBentley (talk) 21:51, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Greatest Selling edits

Added "one of" to sidestep the issue of whether or not the Sims is in the same category. Can the issue go to rest now? Krupo 03:19, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Shields

The article mentions shields: "Corruption limits the utility of both shields and gold in the city that it affects." Gold as a resource has been explained, but shields have not. Could someone please add what they are for? -- Ec5618 10:21, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

The sheer size of this article now scares me. I remember way back when it was a tiny little stub (* sniff *). So, I'll explain it here for you and let someone else add a description in the article. Shields represent a city's production. Each city produces a different number, the bigger ones usually produce more. "Shields" are used to produce units or structures in a city. For example, a spearman may take 20 shields and a temple may require 50 (I made up these numbers).
There can be two types of shields in a city: blue and red. The blue ones represent actual production and are the only ones that contribute to building elements (such as structures or units). Red shields represent the production lost to corruption. This is a bid problem in CivIII, a lot of people think the corruption is way too harsh. In general, the further a city is from the capital, the greater the corruption will be. It is not uncommon for far-flung cities to have red shields which far outnumber the blue. There are things that can be done to curb corruption (a little), but it's always a problem.
Shields are incredibly pliable. A city may take 20 or more turns to produce a Wonder requiring 2000 shields, and at the last minute can change it into something else. For example, a city may spend 200 years building the Colossus. One turn before it is completed, they can change it into the Great Library instead. Nothing this pliable occurs in the real world, in my experience. :-)
Anyway, I hope that helped. This description applies to all versions of Civilization, not just CivIII. — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:59, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reorganization and rewrite

I am planning on making some major expansions to the article and to completely re-organize the article. I want to bring this article to one of the best standards for any computer game article on Wikipedia. If you have any objections to what I do, you can tell me on my talk page. I also can't do this huge re-write on my own. My main goal is to make it so it doesn't focus around what's new or changed from Civilization II. The article leaves out the majority of what was still around in Civilization II, and only really talks about what's new. I want to change that, and also make it a very authoritative source of information on the game. Any objections? bob rulz 03:56, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)

It seems to be a great idea. My impression from www.civfanatics.com is that very few players still play CIV 1 or 2 and (if they ever had) and that on the other hand many of us have not yet been attracted by the new CIV 4. It means that for many of us CIV 3 with the inclusion of the expansion pack Conquests simply is identical to Civilisation.

The article, as it is now is fine, but a section on diplomacy would be needed to give a fair presentation of the game. I admit that it is complex subject since so may aspects should be included:

Trade of resources and luxury goods

Trade of technologies

Military alliances, peace treaties and protection pacts

Right of passage agreements

The aspects of per turn deals versus lump sum payments

Problems of broken deals

Have I mentioned everything? Most likely not. Somebody (myself?) could make a try and the others could then assist. (Karstenl 19:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)).

[edit] Removed Review

"Magazines, reviewers, and strategy game fans consistently hail Civilization III as one of the best strategy games ever made. Rich in accurate historical, diplomatic, military and socioeconomic elements, Civilization III is as educational as it is entertaining. It features an in-game encyclopedia (the 'Civilopedia'), and is often utilized as a supplemental learning tool in high school and college history classes. The entire Civilization series (including the first two versions) is one of the best-selling strategy game series of all time" I removed this part of the "Reception" section because a lot of it doesn't seem relevant to how Civilization 3 was recieved, and it seemed to have a bias in favour of the game (For example, not all strategy game fans hail Civilization 3). Some of the information can be integrated, but I'm not sure how to go about this, so I'll leave it to someone more capable. 67.161.208.117 04:29, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Other civs

On ceartain scenarios the game offers they have additional civilizations,(Hungarians,Israelites,etc.) Should these be added. 12.220.47.145 19:08, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, they shouldn't. They're not playable in an average game, so somebody just skimming the article may be misled into thinking that they are able to play those civilizations. And by certain scenarios do you mean player-made scenarios or the Conquests in the expansion? I assume you mean the Conquests. In that case, they may be added to the Civilization III Conquests page when it has more content. bob rulz 03:02, Jun 27, 2005 (UTC)
No I mean Civ. III Play the World. The game comes with Scenarios which include other civs, not ones that I've created. 12.220.47.145 28 June 2005 16:31 (UTC)

[edit] Elvis putnam

Should we add something about Elvis Putnam, if anybody has info about it or who he is?

[edit] Technology List

I see than an anon has gone in and is constructing a comprehensive technology list for Civilization III. That's great and all, but it will completely clutter the page, plus it might be considered fancruft by some. If we're going to create this list, perhaps transfer it to List of technologies in Civilization III or List of Civilization III technologies? Putting all of that into this article would be ridiculous, and perhaps cut down on the length of each one too, and maybe even organize it into a more compact list somehow? bob rulz 01:28, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

You are correct, the list needs to be moved. Maybe the technologies should just be listed in a table with the units and other improvements you gain by the technology? The current wordy explanations are nice and such but do not really bring any extra value that couldn't be read from the main article (such as pottery or masonry). --ZeroOne 09:01, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
I went ahead and started List of Technologies in Civilization III by copying what we had in the Civ3 article and adding an introduction. Once it's satisfactory, we could go ahead and delete it from the main article and replace it with the link. I very much agree that the explanations sort of defeat the purpose of the main articles, but they could be made useful by briefly summarizing the impact on the game (e.g. "Researching Satellites allows the production of ICBMs, the most destructive unit in the game.")

[edit] You say you want a Revolution

How about we add how the question 'you say you want a revolution' and its two choices 'no, you can count me out' and 'yes, its going to be alright' are all a reference to the Beatles song 'revolution'? -- Theycallmemorty 18:25, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

It could be, and probably is, there are a lot of cultural refrences in all the Civilization Games (often to Elvis). So while it may be a refrence to the Beatles it can't be completly comfirmed and isn't the exactly the most important piece of information. but nice observation :) Thrawst 20:28, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

As of Mar. 2007 this is included, and I think it should stay. It's pretty much a direct quote of the song, and is very familiar to many people. 216.93.94.97 11:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

It's gone now, but I'm going to put it back in. Rundar (talk) 07:45, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Austria?

Could someone elaborate on why this is listed? Was it some promotional bonus that only certain people got with their game? Or is it just a reference to the Austria civ in the Napoleonic Europe conquest? If that is the case then it should be removed, because there were many other conquest-unique civs - the Magyars, the Burgundians, the Kingdom of Naples, the Goths, etc. 22:57, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

RESPONSE: Well, just as the Incans and Arabs are obvious to spot in Civ II programming, the Austrians are fully playable in Civ III, just hidden in the programming and having a current civ be replaced by them ala the two aformentioned ones-not just a promotion or civ in the Napoleonic Europe scenario. Since civilizations get a lot more differences and aspects than city names or color, though, I've added in them in to the table anyways.


[edit] Civilopedia and College

Does anyone actually have proof that real schools were using the civopedia in courses? It wouldn't surprise me if some students may have tried to use it in lieu of real research. Anyone have any problems if I delete that little blurb? Voyager3 03:08, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] help

About a year ago my younger brother was looking at a list of programs-components and whatnot(in the game folder on the computer) and he found the uninstall component for the game(I found out about this later)and proceeded to delete it and I will quote him. Quote "we were are never going to delete the game so I thought why not delete the delete thing for the game" unquote. needless to say I can not play the game or delete it and I have tried re-installing it but that did not work so now I am desperate and open to any help.216.211.102.82 10:50, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Colours in civilization table

Does this article really need all of those colours in the civilization tables? It is distracting and ugly. I think the information can be better presented as normal black on white. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 00:24, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree - with so many background colours it's also hard to get good contrast between text and background in every row. I suggest just 2 background colours, both fairly pale (e.g. white and pale yellow), which alternate - this technique is often used for presenting tables on Web pages.Philcha 09:15, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
The point of all the different colors is that the background color is the civilization's color in-game. -Violask81976 01:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Reception" section needs references

For most of the article I'm happy to accept that the game manual is the ultimate authority. But we need evidence that critics and players reacted as described in the article, and preferably evidence about whether add-ons and patches changed players' feelings about the game.Philcha 09:18, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bonus Resources

I understand that to get the benefits of a bonus resource, you irrigate or mine the square the resource is in. But how do you do that for fishes and whales? As they are in the water, I don't see how one can get a worker onto a sea or ocean square to irrigate or mine it. How does one then reap the benefits of these resources? (Iuio 23:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC))

All you need to do to reap bonus benefits is have a citizen work a tile as usual. There's no irrigation or mining required.--68.22.78.109 (talk) 19:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] trivia cleanup

The trivia section has been cleaned up a little bit but could be better integrated into th article. Some of the pop culture references have been left out (there were just so many of them, I don't think they're all necessary since the information is easily available at the website given in the citation.) One interesting bit of info that I'd like to integrate back in is the following:

"The menu screen and the opening cinematic for the original version is based on the Tower of Babel painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder."

Does anyone know anymore about this? Why was the painting chosen. How did they go about doing it? etc. Maybe we can throw in a section about packaging and art. Sbacle 15:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clean up and change of POV

Did a lot of copy edit clean up that was begging to be done. Also changed the POV of a lot of the article. Since the game mechanics and rules apply to all civilizations (player and AI), it makes more sense to have the article written from the perspective of the civilization as opposed to individual players. Also pulled some references to mechanics from the expansions; those belong more in their own article then here.Dp76764 (talk) 01:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Civ Table

I think the background colors of the civilization table make most of the text and links difficult to read, and just make the table plain ugly. Per an above discussion, it appears that some other people have a problem with the colors as well.
For ease of reading, I had an idea to make just one cell for each civ contain its color and the rest use a white background. I would be willing to redo the entire table in this fashion, but would like some feedback first. Please check out the example below and tell me if you would approve of the new table design:

New design juxtaposed with the old

Thank you. --Jimmyl008 (talk) 19:37, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Looks good in the proposed style. Not even sure how critical knowing what the colors are is, but the other Civ articles list them too, so why not. Dp76764 (talk) 00:58, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Done.--Jimmyl008 (talk) 06:05, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Change or add to the genre?

I like the city building game and RTS genre, and I was looking over a page on Wikipedia that showed a bunch of city building games along with city building RTS hybrids, hoping to find a good hybrid game to play. And noticed Civ 3 wasn't on it. I looked up Civ 3 and it wasn't put as a Hybrid under genre either.

Wouldn't it fall under this category too?

(the page I was talking about is here : Popular city building games) --Chrisp6825 (talk) 02:29, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

You mean CivCity: Rome ?? --Force Id (talk) 04:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Seed

When starting a new game, It has something at the top of the screen that says "Seed Number:" and you can type something in, what is that? 24.167.218.152 (talk) 21:55, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The seed number is essentially the "code" that determines what the map will be like and how the RNG (random number generator) will work. bob rulz (talk) 05:12, 27 March 2008 (UTC)