News Archive: October 2001

UPDATE: More than 32 high quality screenshots have been posted so far!

It speaks volumes that the most significant complaints specific to Civilization III are minor interface issues. Civ III represents solid design coupled with careful execution at its level best. Between its streamlined gameplay and unparalleled pedigree, Civilization III can open strategy gaming to a wider audience and kick off the sort of renaissance that role-playing games enjoyed after the release of Baldur's Gate. We can only hope. And even if it doesn't, well...we'll always have Civilization III.

Civ III perfectly captures the epic sweep of the previous games but adds a few new features that make the game much more convenient and much more balanced..... Civilization III is a worthy heir for the franchise and a definite must have for any strategy gamer who doesn't want us to make fun of them.

The tin is gorgeous - bas relief is magnificent. The fold-out tech tree is nice, but nothing to get upset about not having. It IS functional in size (small enough to consult). I haven't viewed the videos (both on a second CD). The missive from Sid Meier and Jeff Briggs was nice. In short, the best thing about the Civ III LE is the box. Really really cool.

On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Second World War in the Pacific was begun with an attack by Japanese naval aviation against the American held island of Oahu, Hawaii and its main port, Pearl Harbor. Within hours of this dawn attack, a meticulously planned campaign was launched against key American and British Commonwealth forces in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaya and China, the ultimate goal of which was Japanese control of eastern Asia and the western Pacific, including the priceless natural resources of the Dutch East Indies (modern day Indonesia). The Japanese government believed that once these regions were firmly under their control, the Allies, and especially the United States, would sue for peace rather than fight a bloody war in distant lands. The Japanese however, did not anticipate the angry backlash which arose as a result of their use of force at Pearl Harbor, and a negotiated settlement of the type envisioned in 1941 became impossible. In the end, a grimly determined Allied coalition fought its way back across the Pacific, island by island, until the twin spectres of nuclear bombardment over Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced Imperial intervention and the end of war.

This scenario is 3.15 MB and requires FW or Civ2 Gold to play.

Combat becomes exceedingly lethal in the Modern Era. Nuclear submarines enabled by Fusion and Tactical Nuclear Missiles enabled by Space Flight create a pretty potent one-two punch. These vessels are invisible except to other submarines and AEGIS Cruisers, so you can safely moor them off the shore of your rival. While they can only carry one missile at a time, a small wolf pack of four submarines can absolutely decimate important enemy cities. ICBMs are even more devastating. Enabled by Satellites, they can deliver a nuclear payload to any location on the globe.

Apolyton: Do the number of civilizations in the game affect the AI? Will the AI give you more trouble with 6 civilizations than with 16?
Soren Johnson: The number of civilizations in a game definitely affects AI behavior. However, this fact does not necessarily mean that the AI's on a world with fewer civs will be more aggressive. The AI adapts to its environment, and the number of civilizations in the world is simply one of the many factors used for decision-making. For example, if a game was started on a Huge map with only 6 civs, the AI might emphasize expansion to take advantage of the extra space available.

• System requirement change: 400 MB free hard drive space instead of 100 MB.
• When you are at war with another Civ, your embassy in their capitol is automatically closed, and you will be unable to investigate city or steal technology. However, you can still conduct other espionage missions (sabotage, propaganda, steal world map, steal plans, expose enemy spy) as long as your spy is not caught.
• Conscripted units have only 2 hit points. Conscript units can be received when exploring barbarian villages ("Goody huts"), and are also produced when you use the draft to produce soldiers.
• Drafting: Once your Civ has discovered Nationalism, the draft becomes available. Drafting citizens effectively converts a population point into a military unit. Depending on your level of scientific development, that unit will range from a Spearman to an Infantryman. Government types directly affect how many citizens from each city can be drafted per turn; Republic and Democracy can draft 1 citizen per turn, while Depotism, Monarchy, and Communism can draft 2 citizens per turn. Civilizations in Anarchy cannot draft citizens. Drafting is very unpopular with your citizens, and each use of the draft will make one citizen in your city unhappy for twenty turns.
• The "Dan Quayle" screen of the original Civilization is back. After winning, losing, or retiring from a game, you will be ranked and given an appropriate title that suits your accomplishments.
• Only ground, non-artillery combat units may join an army.
• The effect of Mobilization is changed. Instead of halving the maintenance cost of military improvements and doubling the maintenance cost of non-military improvements, mobilization now allows all cities building a military unit to produce one extra shield in every square that is already producing at least one. A mobilized Civ may only build military units and military city improvements, and may not build peacetime improvements.

The Samurai is an upgraded version of the knight. Like the knight, it requires iron to build, but it does not require horses as the knight does. The Samurai has an additional defensive point, making it a powerful all-purpose unit which is equally suited for both assault and defense roles.

                  Attack   Defense   Move  
Standard Knight     4        3        2 
Japanese Samurai    4        4        2 

Check out this unusual (and interesting) scenario while you wait for Civ3!

• Dawn of Civilization
• Ceremonial Burial
• Palace: #1 #2 #3 #4
• Our sages need diection
• Main Civilopedia screen
• Resistance is futile
• Domestic Advisor
• Military Advisor
• Foreign Advisor
• Cultural Advisor
• Initial spaceship screen
• City View Screen
• Boston

... There is so much here that is different, within the overall paradigm, that I'm finding it to be an order of magnitude more entertaining than Civ II. Culture, and national borders, make a HUGE difference for me. The entire international relations dynamic is changed. In Civ/Civ II, at the end of the game frequently there were only two or three civilizations left, whereas in Civ III it's not uncommon to reach the 21st century with all of the starting civs still going at some level. The AI civs fight each other regularly, and cooperate with you when it suits them. Diplomacy is much more rational, with many more options, so you can actually have an idea of what doing X to Y will affect. ...

• The Ancient Era's catapults were fairly effective smashing town walls, but were next to useless on the battlefield. Cannons are very effective in both shaking a city to the ground and blunting mass attacks against your territory.
• Helicopters can be loaded up like naval transports and then airdrop their units to any tile within their operational range.
• Hospitals, a new city improvement, permits unlimited growth--as long as you have the food.
• The Great Libray gives your civilization any civilization advance already discovered by 2 other known civs for free.
• Hoover Dam bestows the relatively clean Hydro Plants continent wide.
• Theory of Evolution gives 2 free techs, same effect as Darwin's Voyage in Civ2.
• The Art of War cuts maintenance cost (of units).
• Women's Suffrage is renamed to Universal Suffrage.
• Spaceship info: In order to accomplish a Space Race victory, you need to focus on securing the advances needed to acquire the ten components for building the spaceship. The first advance is Space Flight, which allows for the Cockpit, Docking Bar, and Engine. Next, the Synthetic Fiber advance enables the Exterior Casing, Stasis Chamber, and Storage components. The Superconductor advance bestows the Fuel Cells and Life Support parts. Finally, the Laser advance allows for the Planetary Party Lounge, and the Satellite advance bestows the Thrusters. In addition, you'll need to enable Rocketry for Aluminum and Fission for Uranium, since they are the two strategic resources that are required to construct the spaceship parts. As you can tell from this recipe, the Spaceship is a massive undertaking.
• The Privateer is a weakened Frigate that can attack another nation's ships without triggering war.
• The option for spies to spread disease (i.e. poison water supply) in enemy towns has been removed.

PS: Make sure you visit this discussion thread for some BIG surprises. :)

What's new:

• Certain units and units in fortresses can take opportunity fire on passing enemy units.
• Once you discover electricity you can irrigate anywhere.
• Cities built next to rivers don't need aqueduct to grow beyond a certain size.
• Mountains and jungles are off limits to wheeled units unless they are traveling on a road.
• You can no longer run around buying up enemy cities. Instead you'll have to trade with your rivals to gain control of their cities. The AIs set a pretty high price on their own cities.
• You can only trade with rival civilizations if your capital is connected to theirs by a road (or harbor or airport).
• Once a wonder is built somewhere in the world you must change the production orders of any other city that's building that same wonder. (i.e. Can't have four cities still building Bach's Cathedral after it's been completed)
• Leaders are sometimes created after an elite unit of yours achieves a victory. The leaders are all specific to your civilization (the Romans get Trajan or Hadrian while the Americans get Washington). They only come up about four times in a game.
• You can still zoom in or zoom out the map!
• Trade Blockade: Two cities are not connected if the only road or railroad that connects them passes thru enemy territory, or if a harbor is blockaded by enemy naval forces.
• You can wake, disband, or upgrade a unit right from the military advisor screen.
• You can capture barbarians and make them your workers.

PC.IGN promised to post an official review of Civ3 early next week!

Thanks to Stuie for this news tip.

The forum has served as a fun hangout for all who enter and share the common interest in the concept of Civilization. Some said the forum is just as addicted as the game itself... I invite you to join our thriving community if you haven't already and see it for yourself :)

Click the links below to join the birthday celebrations in the forum!

This move couldn't have come at a better time: tomorrow is the 1 year anniversary of our forum! Our sincere thanks to Telefragged for this wonderful birthday gift.

NOTE: Depending on your ISP, some of you may not be able to access the forum for a few days because of DNS lag.

Thanks to Sodak for compiling this excellent guide.

It was more than obvious that Firaxis has taken on board criticisms from Civ II and implemented them to create a truly sublime and totally immersive gaming experience.
....
In many respects it's still the same game as it's still complex and challenging, but it's managed to lose some of its anally retentive qualities, while retaining all of its charm and addictiveness.
....
As I gazed down on my gargantuan capital city from the superb new bird's-eye view, I couldn't help but feel that Civ III will be a huge hit.

In Civilization III, the Zulu are considered a Militaristic and Expansionistic civilization, therefore, they start with Warrior Code and Pottery, and have significant bonuses to military pursuits and exploratory activities. Their special unit, the Impi, is an upgraded version of the spearman. It requires no resources to build, and allows the Zulus to quickly build a strong, mobile defense force.

                 Attack   Defense   Move  
Standard Spearman   1        2        1 
Zulu Impi           1        2        2 

You can learn more about the Zulus here. This week of the Zulus is turning out to be a very good week for Civilization III... Thanks Dan for this big update!

• Complete coverage of all civilization advances
• Tips for building and controlling your armies
• Essential strategy for diplomacy, politics, and commerce
• How to use Great Leaders
• Tactics for understanding and developing the new Culture element
• Advice for immersive single-player gaming
• Detailed information on the game editor

• Movie#1: The Romans start a new civilization and encounter the Americans early in the game. (8 MB)
• Movie#2: A young Roman society expands its influence and research. (7 MB)
• Movie#3: Survey the Roman lands and watch a deal with Gandhi. (10 MB)
• Movie#4: Roman cities encircle the Indian culture to the north. (10.2 MB)

Here is a list of new info from the preview:

• Settlers and workers also no longer require food support and are simply supported like normal units. Settlers captured by the enemy become two worker units to reflect the concept of nationality.
• The Manhattan Project can't be built without a source of uranium.
• All the luxury resources: incense, dye, wine, fur, spice, silk, ivory, and diamonds.
• The concept of firepower has been eliminated and replaced with a simple system based on attack, defense, and hit points. Regular units have three hit points, veteran units have four, and elite units have five. Each combat round has a chance of inflicting a single hit-point loss on a unit, which is simply a probability based on the relative attack and defense strengths of the combatants. If a unit has an attack factor of nine and attacks a unit with a defense factor of one, it has a 90 percent chance of inflicting a hit-point loss on it during that round.
• Zones of control have been eliminated, so movement is much more fluid.
• Related diplomatic changes include the need to pay money to establish embassies, as well as the elimination of diplomats and spies in favor of an intelligence agency improvement that enables spying activities.
• There are 10 small wonders and 24 great wonders. Wall Street, a small Wonder, lets you earn interest on your treasury balance each turn.
• Units no longer have home cities.
• A new concept called "war weariness" has replaced the home-city-based system. This takes into account several factors, such as having military units in enemy territory (as opposed to simply being away from their home city), the presence of enemy units in your own territory, and just engaging in battles. All of this makes going to war a much more serious event than it was in previous game in the series. The old Senate that interfered with decisions in republics and democracies has been eliminated, but the war weariness model takes government type into account and provides a similar constraint to decision-making in these societies.
• Civ3 no longer allow bribing of enemy units.

• A size 24 city building a Modern Armor!
• The yellow civ is in big trouble. Tanks are closing!
• This is the mighty battleship!
• First appearance of the Cavalry unit
• First appearance of the Archer unit on the main map
• The modern military advisor screen.
• The diplomatic screen. Take a look at the modern Catherine...
• Hard working workers
• Middle Eastern style Palace screen (might be an old screen)
• Elizabeth negotiating with the Zulus
• Trade advisor screen.. (might be an old screen)
• A city view screen (might be an old screen)
• A fully built spaceship!

• Andu Indorin's 2171 percent Deity game
• D&V's -117 percent Deity game (score is 14221)
• Manuel Gines's 1690 percent Deity game
• Mark Redmond's 1688 percent Deity game
• Claus Ankjaergaard's 1174 percent Deity game
• Antonio de Carvalho's 522 percent Deity game
• Master of Ceremonies's 517 percent Emperor game
• Enrico Scotti's 362 percent King game
• Brian Ashton's 279 percent King game
• Nerdman's 645 percent Prince game
• Paul Murphy's 312 percent Prince game
• Eric Criss's 301 percent Warlord game
• Kevin Klop's 400 percent Chieftain game
• Leonardo Aguayo's 373 percent Chieftain game
• Momare Magee's 268 percent Chieftain game

The first part of this special coverage is a 3-page long interview with Jeff Briggs and Sid Meier. The interview is geared toward the general public, so it doesn't contain much new Civ3 info. However, you will not be disappointed because GameSpot has added nine new screenshots taken from the final version of the game!

Following the Japanese victories at the Battle of the Coral Sea and Midway the United States Pacific Fleet withdrew to the US west coast to lick its wounds and rebuild. This exposed Australia to invasion from Japanese forces based in Midway.

Screenshots: Main Map 1 Main Map 2 Units

Before this scenario, Case has released two popular WWII related scenarios: Raging Horde and The Cruel Sea. Both of them are available for download in the Downloads Collection.

The editor screenshot is old. It looks basically the same but a lot of the terminology has been changed and some items have been added/removed. The Great Persons Mood Modifiers are not referring to the citizens. This was a concept we were toying with that has since been removed.

You can read the full article here.

Thanks to Stuie and King of Hearts for the news tip, and Apolyton for the Mike Breitkreutz comments.

Fight for Freedom is designed to be played as a hotseat scenario, with between 2-7 players. It utilizes a giga-map with custom units, wonders, city improvements, etc. The game is historically accurate and starts with the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The graphics of this scenario resemble other popular WWII scenarios such as Nemo's Red Front scenario. Four screenshots are provided below for your viewing pleasure: Screenshots: #1 #2 #3 #4

The first file added in this new wave of updates is John Valdez's new Star Trek: Generation modpack, John worked on this modpack for more than a year. The result is this stunning modpack which you may safely call the Ultimate Star Trek Modpack! In John words:

UPDATE: Good news! We have uploaded the MPEG format of the video to our server! You can download it here (Right click on the link and select "Save target as"). The file size is 22.3 MB.

Thanks to Graeme the Mad for the news tip.

• The New Scoring System
  "Being bigger late in the game" does not necessarily get you a higher score. Score is calculated as an average of your relative power throughout the entire game. Thus, if you were a small isolationist civ for the first half of the game, you can't just put on a good show for the last 50 turns and expect that will make up for it.
• The Histograph Screen
  "You can view the histo by score (an overall computed average, factoring in pretty much everything in the game), power (essentially military strength), or culture (self-explanatory)."
• Saving End-of-Game Replay?
  "Right now, that feature isn't in the game. I don't know if there are plans to make that happen or not. I have mentioned the idea to the team on a few occasions myself, so who knows."

UPDATE: Dan Magaha posted the following in our forum: "Officially speaking these screens are certainly not from the final version that is hitting stores at the end of the month. I would say they are at least a good couple of weeks old, but they're eons more representative of the final product than those other screens that popped up earlier in the week."

Thanks to The diplomat for the news tip and Dan for the clarification.

This sounds wonderful! Thanks to Bob Mayer for sharing his first Civ3 experience.

It was revealed several weeks ago that the Russian's special unit is the Cossacks, not MiG fighter. The Cossack is an upgraded version of the cavalry. Like cavalry, it requires both horses and saltpeter to build, but it also adds an additional point of defense to an already formidable set of combat statistics. With their high movement rates, deadly offensive capability, and solid defensive rating, the Cossack is a unit you don't want to tangle with.

Learn more about the Russians at Civ3.com

Electric Funstuff has done a number of game-related songs, including "Has Anybody Here Seen My Corpse?" (EverQuest), "Sim-Hilarities" (The Sims), and "I Long for Combat" (StarCraft).

Here they are:

1. COOL: Spaceship is launched!
2. FUNNY: The military advisor suggests using paper airplanes to attack the French! Is he insane!? This screen shows Civ3 allows 8 free units (i.e. no support needed) and the names of 4 Great Leaders: Crassus, Hadrian, Austin, and Nixon.
3. STRANGE: This Mongol screen is weird because it has both SMAC and Civ2 elements. This is probably how you add custom graphics for new civilizations you created in Civ3. Or it might just be an image directly from SMAC. I have no idea since I haven't played SMAC.
4. Similar to #3, except the Civ is Babylonians
5. Similar to #3, except the Civ is Greeks
6. Similar to #3, except the Civ is Vikings

UPDATE: Dan Magaha commented in our forum that these screenshots are outdated.

UPDATE: Dan Magaha pointed out in our forum that these screenshots are outdated: "As for the images you thought were from the movie, those were originally going to be used as backgrounds for the technology advisor screens (1 per era) but that was quite some time ago. We scrapped that idea because it didn't uphold the consistency of the interface that was used everywhere else."

• Cheating AI? "Chieftain is easier than it was in Civ II and Deity is now harder. Does the AI cheat? Yes, but sometimes in favor of the player! Below Prince level it cheats for the player, and above Prince level it cheats against the player. At Prince level there is no cheating."
• Deity Challenge: "Right now, no one at Firaxis can beat the AI at Deity level, though we certainly expect players to find ways to do so within a few months of the game being released."
• No Multiplayer: "We're working on multiplayer but we're not ready to make any announcements about how it will be implemented."
• Brian Reynolds' Departure: "Essentially, the entire Civ III team left when Brian Reynolds left to form Big Huge Games. Jeff wrote a new design doc after that, so we pretty much started over."

• $10 off $75. Code: AMZNSWEEPBBR expire on: 10-15
• $10 off $75. Code: AMZNDSVRCARD expire on: Unknown
• UPDATE: I figured out why the Visa coupon code doesn't work for some people. It's only for books, music, and DVD orders.
  $10 off $50 - Visa Users. Code: VSAREWARDDSS expire on: 10-31

This is almost like getting the Official Strategy Guide ($13.99) for free! Click the boxart images at the right panel or the text links below to pre-order Civ3 today!

• Pre-order Collector's Edition
• Pre-order Standard Edition
• Pre-order the Official Strategy Guide

The results of the 8th Game of the Month are now up. This time there was a record of 66 participants!

For the second time starlifter has won the GOTM, followed by Markone (2nd) and chofritz (3rd). Congratulations!

Also, starlifter has taken the lead in the Global Ranking, so the 'Shadowdale Dynasty' has ended. ;) He's still number one in the Hall of Fame though.

>> Results of the GOTM VIII
>> Game of the Month section

The special unit of the Iroquois is the Mounted Warrior, which is an upgraded version of the horseman. Like the horseman, it requires horses to build, but it has an additional attack point, making it one of the best mobile assault units of the early eras.

Had a close call... Yesterday, I received an official notice that Civilization III had gone gold. Two minutes after the e-mail, I received another asking me to hold off on posting, because it may not be true at the moment. Talk about a quick let down. The good news is that the game will hopefully be gold in a day or two and will ship on the 30th of this month. Nice treat for Halloween Day.

You can expect to hear official annoucement from Firaxis and Infogrames soon. If you haven't pre-order Civ3 yet, do it now!

Size 1 and 2 cities require 20 food to grow. You can see a size 1 city in the GameStar video and a size 2 city in the preorder video.

• If you want to disable Civ-specific units (CSU)'s triggering of Golden Ages, you can use the editor to turn the "Triggers Golden Age" flag off for all the CSU's.
• If you wanted a non-Civ-specific unit such as warrior to trigger a Golden Age, you could set that using the editor.
• Each wonder can be set to correspond to none, any or all of the six Civ-specific characteristics. If you went in and unchecked all of these for each wonder, it should effectively remove peaceful Golden Age triggers for wonder-building.

Here are the parameters for GOTM #9:

• Difficulty: EMPEROR
• Map: SMALL RANDOM MAP
• Number of Civlizations: 5
• Barbarian Activities: RAGING HORDES
• Civilization: AMERICANS
• Leader Name: LINCOLN
• Starting bonus: ALPHABET, CEREMONIAL BURIAL, 1 SETTLER, 2 GOODY HUTS!

• ZIP format(2.93 KB)
• SAV format(42 KB)

• Saved games are due November 2nd, 2001.
• Be sure to save at 0 AD, 1000 AD, and at the end of your game.
• Learn more about GOTM at http://www.civfanatics.com/civ2gotm.shtml