Civilization III: Screenshot of the Day

Screenshot of the Day #156: Swapping Units at Sea

Wednesday, July 14 2004

posted by Thunderfall at 18:50 | comments: 0

It was thanks to civfanatics that I spotted this. It’s the swap your units at sea cheat – justified. The screen print is before the swap took place (right to left). I’m playing as the Egyptians (randomly) on a random everything game. My start has not been the kindest and I’ve been searching for land for ages- as you can see. Well I found some right next to me after having circumnavigated the globe – the only problem, I ran out of settlers.

So having discovered more land I had two choices I could have risked running the passage and hoping that my Galleys’ would remain afloat in the ocean and not sink or I could have sent them around the world and probably lost the land.

Then it occurred to me that my Galleys’ can move four due to the lighthouse which is the only reason that this is going to work and a third solution was presented.

That’s a riskless solution indeed and I certainly wouldn’t consider it cheating.

Thanks to Kev Moonan for the screenshot.

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Monday, July 12 2004

Screenshot of the Day #155: Integrated Defense

posted by Thunderfall at 19:39 | comments: 4

This shot was from the first Conquests GOTM. I had a full era tech lead on the rest of the world and had just gotten steam power. I guess the giant steam engines rolling out of production gave my spearmen and swordsmen delusions of granduer. Either that or the heart stopping rate at which we were getting techs was making us think that the distant future was a mere few turns away.

Or perhaps the science advisor is from the future… 😉

Thanks to Chris Harber for the screenshot.

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Saturday, June 12 2004

Screenshot of the Day #154: Cattle Resource posted by Thunderfall on 00:27 \| comments: 14
Today’s SOTD would make a fine addition to the 1000 Clues You’ve Been Playing Civilization III Too Much list… I saw this photo in Yahoo news, and I could not help to think of a Civ3 1-square island with Cattle resource. Thanks to Alcot for the image. >> Previous SOTDs >> Submit a cool screenshot to SOTD

Wednesday, June 09 2004

Screenshot of the Day #153: Warring Allies

posted by Thunderfall at 00:00 | comments: 6

This is a strange screenshot I got in the Napoleonic Wars Conquest. Pay close attention to the connection between France and Denmark. They are both at war and involved in a locked alliance. France declared war on me while I had a Mutual Protection Pact with Denmark. I didn’t attack France, rather they attacked me, so Denmark, oddly enough, declared war on France.

Thanks to Joel Gaffney for the screenshot.

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Screenshot of the Day #152: Flying Warrior

Thursday, May 27 2004

posted by Thunderfall at 21:37 | comments: 15

I managed to hop a warrior across a channel by putting it in the middle of Mongol territory and waiting for the ‘ "Our mistake." ‘. Worked out great as I met the Egyptians years before I would have otherwise.

Screenshots: Before After

Why did it work? The Mongols happened to build Ulaanbaatar that very turn, making the closest space not in mongol territory across the channel.

This is kinda like the teleportation SOTD we posted a long time ago… Thanks to Travis555 for the screenshots.

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Sunday, May 16 2004

Screenshot of the Day #151: Chinese Silk posted by Thunderfall at 22:23 \| comments: 6
It seems Chinese silk is famous throughout the world not just for its elegance and beauty, but also for its quantity… I was playing Conquests with Respawn AI turned on and had just taken China out and saw they had respawned. When I talked to them I saw they apparently had 102 silk! Thanks to Dale BU for the screenshot. >> Previous SOTDs >> Submit a cool screenshot to SOTD

Friday, April 30 2004

Screenshot of the Day #150: War Chariots

posted by Thunderfall at 18:02 | comments: 16

I was playing a game a long time ago on warlord as Germany. I planted a spy in Egypt and stole their troop plans, and check out what I found! It was the same thing across the entire country.

Those war chariots look like in some kind of formation, especially when you look at the thumbnail…

NOTE: In case you haven’t noticed, you can post comments by clicking the "comments" link above each news post.

Thanks to SuperBeaverInc for the screenshot.

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Monday, April 26 2004

Screenshot of the Day #149: Double SGLs

posted by Thunderfall at 21:01 | comments: 7

I had just finished researching Philosophy and got my first Scientific Leader. Since I was first to get it, I got one free tech, so I chose Literature and immediately got another Leader. Two leaders so early in the game helped me destroy my enemies as I built the Pyramids and the Great Library on the next turn.

I received three other submissions similar to this one. Here is one submitted by Reno showing the SGL generation messages.

Thanks to hare and Reno for the screenshots.

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Monday, April 19 2004

Screenshot of the Day #148: Highway Robbery

posted by Thunderfall at 21:19 | comments: 11

This is how the AI likes to do business:

1. Get everything the player has and then break the treaty.
2. Don’t ask for anything that might be reasonable.

3. Trade your new science to other AI for a world map, but make sure to rip off the human.
4. If you have some luxuries in abundance, don’t deal with humans unless they will give you sciences and a hefty lump sum so you can break the treaty at your convenience.
5. Do not adjust your deal (with a human) to what others might pay for it.

Would any of you accept this great deal? Hidden in this deal are: 3 resources, 3 luxuries, and a few more sciences than would fit on this screen shot.

Only a fool would accept that deal. I wonder how the AI came up with those outrageous numbers…

Thanks to Johan for the screenshot.

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Screenshot of the Day #147: Catapult

Wednesday, April 14 2004

posted by Thunderfall at 23:18 | comments: 10

Think catapults are useless? Think again!

I don’t know if you’ve seen anything like that before, but my catapult just destroyed a Palace This is in Conquest 1.15.

Hope you enjoy this sceenshot. It’s been a looooong time since the last SOTD… I resumed posting because LOTS of people asked me about it. So if you have some interesting Civ3 screenshots, send them in! I can’t promise one SOTD everyday, but I’ll try to post one or two each week from now on.

Thanks to James Priscu for the screenshot.

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Monday, September 8, 2003

Screenshot of the Day #146: Weight Watchers

posted by Thunderfall at 10:09 PM

SOTD posting resumes with a very funny PTW diplomacy screenshot… (Hint: note the spelling ):

I guess his resolve to stay on the weight watchers diet was wavering and he felt he needed some support and encouragement.

Thanks to Shambolica for the screenshot.

Friday, August 22, 2003

Screenshot of the Day #145: Mac Civ3 Conquests

posted by Thunderfall at 8:18 PM

Sooo, we can expect a Mac port in……??

I heard that one of the new Civs are the Mac Users …apparently their default starting position is in the middle of a 20×20 desert with the new Fruit Resource (apple…), and they start the game with 89 Unhappy Citizens and 1 Worker (Brad)…

frunobulax first posted this funny "screenshot" about C3C three months ago, in the Civ3 Macintosh forum. Let’s hope Atari and MacSoft announce Civ3 Conquests for the Mac soon…

Screenshot of the Day #144: Wonderful Overthrow

Saturday, August 9

posted by Thunderfall at 4:43 PM

This was the first time I ever saw a city flipping to me which has control over a great wonder. And even an impressive one like the Pyramids. Rome had been in control of London since they crushed the English very early in the game and should have built a lot of culture. Tsingtao, by the way, has no wonder at all.

Now that’s a big WoW!!!

Thanks to Andy Theel for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #143: Steal Plans

Tuesday, August 5

posted by Thunderfall at 8:42 PM

Today’s SOTD is from a recent game I played. The screenshot is not really special or weird — it just shows the effect of a successful Steal Military Plans espionage mission (Steal plans allows you to see the location of all enemy units.) I have only used this option a few times.

This option would be very useful in multiplayer if it’s available early in the game…

Tuesday, July 29

Screenshot of the Day #142: Bias Election

posted by Thunderfall at 10:26 PM

Normally when you have an election there is always a second candidate based on population or land area.

I had destroyed all other civs except for an Indian settler on a boat. Therefore there was no second largest Civ and I was the only one on the ballot. Also, I was unable to place a spy in India because it thought there already was a spy there. I guess it must go by capital city or something.

Thanks to mjanzen for the screenshot.

Thursday, July 24

Screenshot of the Day #141: Bottlenecks

posted by Thunderfall at 9:16 PM

Here’s one where I was lucky enough to get two bottlenecks with which to lure them in with Privateers…

It would take quiet a few of those wooden privateers to destroy a steel battleship…

Thanks to Erik Larabie for the screenshot.

Wednesday, July 16

Screenshot of the Day #140: Happy Man

posted by Thunderfall at 10:55 PM

The only man in the city, I doubt it’s the Luxuries that making him grin.

Question: Any idea how they calculate the gender of each citizen ? 50/50 ?

Thanks to old_saint_joe for the screenshot.

Sunday, July 13

Screenshot of the Day #139: Cattle Bomber

posted by Thunderfall at 8:45 PM

For some reason my bomber has taken a real dislike to the local cattle and refuses to go back to base. The shot is from GOTM18.

Thanks to Strobe for the screenshot.

Monday, July 7

Screenshot of the Day #138: The Great Catherine

posted by Thunderfall at 9:41 PM

Surely Ragnar can’t be even slightly suggesting that the great Catherine of Russia is ugly!

Thanks to Jonny for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #137: Enter the Matrix

Saturday, July 5

posted by Thunderfall at 11:35 PM

My one year old was pushing keys and managed to get the civ game he was "playing" to look like this. Dont ask me how.

Thanks to Jay TheSilverCitadel for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #136: Persian Hordes

Saturday, June 28

posted by Thunderfall at 9:35 PM

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

This is my first Deity-level game. On my last turn, I captured a Persian city that covers a strategic chokepoint, with the intention of bottling the Persians up on their peninsula. This will shorten my defensive lines and shield my allies (the Zulu and the Germans) from the wrath of Xerxes…that is, assuming I can survive the onslaught of the Persian hordes that have just arrived on my doorstep. 🙂 Apparently, Xerxes wants that city back in the worst way.

Thanks to Brooke Wheeler for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #135: Mined Forest

Tuesday, June 24

posted by Thunderfall at 8:41 PM

Everyone knows you can’t mine a forest tile, right? Think again! Actually, I did this accidentally by setting one group of workers to plant a forest and another to mine that same tile. Coincidentally, they finished on the same turn and voila! A mined forest tile! alas, the tile still only produce one food and two shields… Darn.

This screenshot was also submitted in September 2002. Thanks to Nick Austin (aka Ex) for the screenshot.

Monday, June 23

Screenshot of the Day #134: Weird River

posted by Thunderfall at 9:54 PM

I was playing a random map with the Americans and I thought I got a great start with numerous rivers nearby, but as I progressed in the game I noticed something weird: one of my workers was able to cross a road over the river with 1/3th of a movement before the development of engeneering. Closer investigation of Washington revealed that parts of the nearby river on the right wasn’t giving extra commerce to nearby tiles, and both rivers (even the one one the left) could be crossed over roads at 1/3th movement point.

Guess that river dried up, or maybe my map generator should visit the newbie thread in the civ3 forum regarding the functions of rivers in civ3. 🙂

Note: This screenshot was submitted in September 2002. Thanks to Kemal for the screenshot.

Monday, June 16

Screenshot of the Day #133: The Smelly Germans

posted by Thunderfall at 8:41 PM

I was playing Germans and got this from the Greeks. I wonder between a German and Greek who smells worse…

Thanks to Liyun Niu for the screenshot.

Sunday, June 15

Screenshot of the Day #132: Buggy Tribe

posted by Thunderfall at 7:32 PM

The latest SotD’s, the American Worker and Visionary Galley, were subtle. This is more obvious: When I reloaded a saved game, the Buggy tribe had given me a map of their region, larger than anyone could hope for.

Thanks to ivory for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #131: The Catherine

Monday, June 9

posted by Thunderfall at 8:29 PM

I was playing DyP on regicide as the Celts. I had just destroyed the French, Germans, and English. When I opened up the foreign advisor screen, I got this. The all powerful "The Catherine"!

Thanks to Seth Adarion for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #130: Galley Vision

Wednesday, June 4

posted by Thunderfall at 4:10 PM

It is probably a well known fact that naval units can see 3 tiles when fortified, although only certain units can see more than 1 tile inland. I parked my galley next to a French island to wait for astronomy, and was surprised when my galley was able to see what was going on in the water on the other side!

Thanks to Daniel Mathias for the screenshot.

Sunday, June 1

Screenshot of the Day #129: American Worker

posted by Thunderfall at 0:24 AM

When I was checking my military advisor I noticed an American slave that looked… well not like a normal slave. Can some one give this guy a shovel?

Thanks to Bolan Longpants for the screenshot.

Sunday, May 25

Screenshot of the Day #128: Mining Town

posted by Thunderfall at 9:38 PM

What is that worker doing?
This isn’t a mining town!

Thanks to Curtis A. Robinson for the screenshot.

Wednesday, May 14

Screenshot of the Day #127: ‘Friend’ Zulu

posted by Thunderfall at 9:25 PM

I had just finished two long wars againts the Zulu and the Indians when I was preparing to invade China. Just before my invasion I decided to make China furious at me by repeatedly demanding a tribute. Then I noticed my advisor saying that the Chinese had betrayed our ‘friends’ the Zulu. Yeah that’s right advisor, our ‘friends’ the Zulu. The very ‘friends’ that we had eradicated from the face of the earth.

Thanks to Stefan Shetty for the screenshot.

Tuesday, May 13

Screenshot of the Day #126: The One

posted by Thunderfall at 4:34 PM

I was the only one with nukes and look what the military advisor told me…

Is nuke good or bad? That’s the question…

BTW, I did a search for "nuclear" in the PTW text folder and found this funny line in script.txt:

#OURNUKEFAILED
#advisor Military Angry
Our [expensive] nuclear missile was intercepted by their +#@! @+!# [SDI Defense!]

Has anyone seen the military advisor cursing like this?

Thanks to Andrea Visinoni for the screenshot.

Tuesday, April 29

Screenshot of the Day #125: Soccerball

posted by Thunderfall at 5:29 PM

Hmmm… All I did was demand their world map… That is completely uncalled for. And, Mr. Osman, I DO think this is a game. Yes. A game.

It’s nice to know that Osman’s favorite game is soccer…

Thanks to Rick Hannigan for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #124: Fog of War

Wednesday, April 23

posted by Thunderfall at 4:41 PM

I reloaded a multiplayer game after an Out-Of-Synch, and suddenly my entire empire was covered with fog of war! I could still move units and change build queues, but the fog stayed until the game ended 10 turns later.

Thanks to DaveMcw for the screenshot.

Thursday, April 17

Screenshot of the Day #123: Time Spent

posted by Thunderfall at 4:31 PM

Today’s screenshot is mainly for people who don’t have PTW, and people who have PTW but haven’t completed a game yet.

Many RPG games have a timer to record the amount of time you spend playing the game. For example, it took me about 120 (!) hours to complete Final Fantasy X. Now this timer feature is finally part of Civ…

I actually suggested this little feature to Firaxis.

Friday, April 11

Screenshot of the Day #122: Rich France!

posted by Thunderfall at 5:57 PM

The title of the previous SOTD is "Poor France!". Just to be fair to the French, here is a "Rich France!" screenshot…

The only victory condition enabled was Spaceship. Things were going pretty well, but I wasn’t researching 1 tech every 4 turns. However, I did get Superconductor first, and went to France to negotiate. I was expecting a wonderful deal, but nothing like that.

I love Joan. She’s so generous. Now I’m researching well and there’s still some money left.

Thanks to Pggar for the screenshot.

Wednesday, April 9

Screenshot of the Day #121: Poor France!

posted by Thunderfall at 10:08 PM

The ultimate blockade:

Just had to make sure Joan and her Scary/Immortal galleons could not escape from her retirement village and cause any injuries to those poor defenseless barbarian galleys.

Thanks to Cracker for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #120: Baghdad

Thursday, April 3

posted by Thunderfall at 11:24 PM

Ok, this is not a fancy screenshot, but I think it’s quite relevant to what’s going on in the real world. A culture flip is much better than military actions in my opinion.

Thanks to Sen Sui for the screenshot.

Monday, March 31

Screenshot of the Day #119: Embargo

posted by Thunderfall at 10:30 PM

The Carthaginians certainly have a unique way of asking for an embargo!

Thanks to BobTheTerrible for the screenshot.

Sunday, March 30

Screenshot of the Day #118: Confused AI

posted by Thunderfall at 5:02 PM

There are times when you don’t know what you are doing… The AI is no exception.

Stupid AI talking…
"Why have you come here?", ’cause you wanted to trade with me!

Thanks to MusicLaunch for the screenshot.

Monday, March 24

Screenshot of the Day #117: Shrinking Border

posted by Thunderfall at 10:57 PM

A friend and I were playing over his LAN. He captured the last British city that had culture in it. For some reason the culture radius didn’t decline until the next turn. When the borders shrank he got a message saying "Our borders have shrunk due to declining culture". I have never seen this and thought it was interesting.

Thanks to DogBoy for the screenshot.

Wednesday, March 19

Screenshot of the Day #116: Musketman

posted by Thunderfall at 6:13 PM

I thought this was quite funny. I decided to visit the military advisor screen to see how many units I could build with my current funds. It turns out he was "advising" me to build musketmen. This was normally a good idea, except for the fact that I couldn’t possibly build a unit that had been outdate by riflemen!

Thanks to Edward Jones for the screenshot.

Friday, March 14

Screenshot of the Day #115: Amphibious Tank

posted by Thunderfall at 5:28 PM

I was airlifting modern armor over to another continent and I think I moved one unit too fast. It ended up right next to the city in the water! I saved the game, reloaded and it was still there. It might fix itself when I end the turn.

Thanks to Terans6 for the screenshot.

Tuesday, March 11

Screenshot of the Day #114: Stormy Palace

posted by Thunderfall at 5:45 PM

I was playing Game of the Month #17, and while I was at war with the Egyptians, my citizens spontaneously decided to give me a palace upgrade. Despite the stormy weather (or wrath of an angry god), my brave citizens continued their work!

The graphic was not modified in any way. That was the way the sky looked when the "Upgrade Palace" screen appeared. Notice the palace still looks normal.

Thanks to Yoshimune for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #113: AI Cheating?

Monday, March 10

posted by Thunderfall at 11:22 PM

I was playing a game a few days ago and was barely in the middle ages, had a few tech lead but noticed something strange. The Carthaginians were irrigating without access to any fresh water (and I know they didn’t have electricity).

So finally we have evidence of the AI cheating!? Thanks to David Harvey for the screenshot.

Saturday, March 8

Screenshot of the Day #112: Worker Ants

posted by Thunderfall at 11:40 PM

I loaded in some multi units and I noticed the herds of red workers running around my cities. Bring your can of Raid!

Multi-figure units can be downloaded in the multi-figure units forum. Thanks to Fr8monkey for the screenshot.

Tuesday, March 4

Screenshot of the Day #111: Nuclear Meltdown

posted by Thunderfall at 10:47 PM

I thought it was fun to name an (ex) Russian city "Chernobyl" when I built a nuclear plant there. Apparently the city didn’t like my scorn and decided to repeat the history… >_<

Thanks to Karri Kahelin for the screenshot.

Sunday, March 2

Screenshot of the Day #110: Lots of Coal

posted by Thunderfall at 2:33 PM

This one is from hotseat when I gave coal to another player, then gave it again to make sure I had sent it. The result was 2 coal!

Thanks to Chieftess for the screenshot.

Thursday, February 27

Screenshot of the Day #109: This is funny

posted by Thunderfall at 11:57 PM

I was playing the game as the Egyptians, and a whileinto it, "El-Vis" said this weird statement.

I have the City List set so you can understand it, butit is very funny. ‘This’ is a city name for the Egyptians…

Another strange city name is the Carthaginian city of "lol". Thanks to Reddwarfian for the screenshot.

Monday, February 24

Screenshot of the Day #108: 1 + ? = 2

posted by Thunderfall at 10:07 PM

Well, if I see one shield, how do I produce two? This is a bug on the last turn of your GA. It still count the shields correctly, but doesn’t display them correctly.

Thanks to Lee A. Kendter for the screenshot.

Saturday, February 22

Screenshot of the Day #107: Surfing Swordman

posted by Thunderfall at 5:16 PM

Listen to the story of the surfing swordman…

I tried to separate units from an army as specified somewhere in civfanatics.com But one of my swordmen choosed to stay on the galley and surf as in the "Apocalypse Now" movie.

That’s a good way to intimidate your enemies! Thanks to SuperMurge for the screenshot.

Thursday, February 20

Screenshot of the Day #106: Overlap

posted by Thunderfall at 10:58 PM

I was at war with the Russians and decided to sign a peace treaty with them. They agreed and also gave me the city of Ise, which they had captured from the Japanese. Yet somehow, the city of Kursk was able to keep working a square that was right next to Ise – even though it was in my territory!

Thanks to toh6wy for the screenshot.

Tuesday, February 18

Screenshot of the Day #105: Carrot

posted by Thunderfall at 11:56 PM

I’ve read about this one, but I don’t think I’ve seen a screenshot of it yet. I guess we’ve kept him happy by doing all of our own research this game!

I must have received half a dozen Carrot IQ SOTD submissions… Thanks to Griselda for the screenshot.

Saturday, February 15

Screenshot of the Day #104: Invisible Sub

posted by Thunderfall at 4:44 PM

I’m not sure if this is a bug with the Mac version of Civ3, or just a screen refresh issue, but everytime my nuclear subs have fired their tactical nuke, they develop a cloaking device 🙂 It’s just a shame that the effect doesn’t last into the next turn !

Thanks to Frunobulax for the screenshot.

Wednesday, February 12

Screenshot of the Day #103: Warmongers

posted by Thunderfall at 10:39 PM

I was playing the scenario Kal-El’s earth map v 1.6 multiplayer with a friend. I had a look at the scenario settings, there are no changes to the rules of the game at all. Playing the Zulu who are militaristic and expansionistic, I noticed something rather odd; my cities seems to have 6 happy citizens, although I only have 3 luxuries and have 0 luxury rating set. There are 2 impis acting as military police (2 content faces), 1 temple (1 content) face and then the 3 luxuries. There is no market place or anything that could account for the 3 extra happy faces. Then I found out that being at war with the mongols and scandinavians actually made my people happier. I was not aware of this function either though, I wonder what triggers that…

I also have experienced similar things in my games. After war is declared some of my cities would start to celebrate "We love the King Day" the next turn. Thanks to Jackie Niebling for the screenshot.

Tuesday, February 11

Screenshot of the Day #102: Revolutionary

posted by Thunderfall at 1:00 AM

While playing an American game recently, I switched from Despotism to Monarchy. During the anarchy period between governments, a worker cut down a forest and added 10 shields to Los Angeles. Turns out this finished the city’s current production. I sent in this SOTD because I’d never seen the advisors refer to me as the “revolutionary” leader of an anarchic society before.

Whoa, look at all those irons! This is unreal!! Thanks to JD Jordan for the screenshot.

Wednesday, February 5

Screenshot of the Day #101: Berserk

posted by Thunderfall at 2:46 AM

After a long but fake war against the Vikings, they tried to offer me a peace deal. I tried to change the deal slightly, and after asking for acceptance, I got this message. I think this is one of the best Civ. responses I’ve ever seen.

It’s safe to say that some responses in diplomacy are Civ-specific… Thanks to JoshC for the screenshot.

Monday, February 3

Screenshot of the Day #100: Exclusive Editor Screenshots

posted by Thunderfall at 1:07 AM

This is our 100th SOTD, and we only have two really old desktop screenshots to show you: Mike Breitkreutz’s desktop when he was working on the editor in July 2001!

A screenshot of my desktop while working on the editor. I was going to post this at some point as an "exclusive editor screenshot" as a joke. 😉

Desktop #1 Desktop #2

I hope you are not too disappointed. Thanks to MikeB for these screenshots!

PS: If you missed any SOTD, you can see all of them in the SOTD section.

Sunday, February 2

Screenshot of the Day #99: A Connecting Principle

posted by Thunderfall at 2:07 AM

An old pre-Civ3 release screenshot. It shows some debugging features (minimap river highlighting, excessive grids) and programmer art. There’s probably some old/placeholder art in there too.

This screenshot is dated July 21, 2001 and is submitted by Mike Breitkreutz of Firaxis. I am just glad Firaxis changed the font! Thanks to MikeB for this special screenshot.

PS: The next SOTD will be our 100th SOTD!!! Stay tuned.

Screenshot of the Day #98: Civil War

Thursday, January 30

posted by Thunderfall at 0:59 AM

I had just traded with America for their world map and I found out that there was another India! I probably should have checked out how I setup the game. This was on v1.17.

This screenshot reminded me of the civil wars in Civ2… Too bad we can’t do that in Civ3. Thanks to greyghost for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #97: Poor Gweeto

Tuesday, January 28

posted by Thunderfall at 8:40 PM

The espionage mission was a sucess, but at what cost? (Once again we get to see an emotionally unstable advisor. Shouldn’t his mood be neutral?)

Thanks to Philippe Hollebeke for the screenshot.

Monday, January 27

Screenshot of the Day #96: Why wouldn’t they?

posted by Thunderfall at 10:11 PM

I made this offer to the Persians but "they would never accept such a deal" LOL!

I guess it’s because the AI doesn’t like to take advantage of you and wants everything to be perfectly fair.

Thanks to Cursed_Wolf for the screenshot.

Saturday, January 25

Screenshot of the Day #95: Hidden Dragon

posted by Thunderfall at 4:36 PM

I had an odd screenshot the other day playing Civ3. For some odd reason China, the most powerful nation in the game, "dissapeared" from the Advisor screens. I could only contact him by finding an enemy unit and talking through the unit. Anyway, I was throughly defeated, but at the end, China was left gloating under a "mist" of darkness. Maybe it’s some sort of bug or something…

This is probably a reference to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon…

Thanks to Vegeta Saiyan for the screenshot.

Wednesday, January 22

Screenshot of the Day #94: Barbarian Worker

posted by Thunderfall at 1:03 PM

The glorious Indian civilization ‘acquired’ help from the Barbarians…

Thanks to Alexey Grabovskyy for the screenshot.

Sunday, January 19

Screenshot of the Day #93: It Rhymes!

posted by Thunderfall at 0:40 AM

The Civ3 advisors never cease to amaze me…

"Babylon will always triumph, because Egypt is dumb", says the sad looking foreign advisor.

Thanks to Dave Tidy for the screenshot.

Saturday, January 18

Screenshot of the Day #92: Free Upgrade

posted by Thunderfall at 0:50 AM

As some people say, the best thing in life is free…

Thanks to Alex Ng for the screenshot.

EDIT: I showed MikeB of Firaxis this screenshot and he said this is not a bug. If the cost to build the unit >= the cost to build the upgraded unit, then the upgrade is free. Gallic Swordsman costs 50 shields to build while Medieval Infantry costs only 40. Thanks Mike for the info!

Friday, January 17

Screenshot of the Day #91: More Diplomacy

posted by Thunderfall at 1:10 AM

Here is yet another example to show that diplomacy in Civilization III is never dull…

Thanks to Bige1530 for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #90: Everlasting Peace

Monday, January 13

posted by Thunderfall at 0:51 AM

Chinese politics always seemed a little strange to me. I guess this is Firaxis’s way of showing it. I had another screenshot with two expired peace treaties and two expired right of passages, but I think this is a little more intriguing.

Thanks to Hygro for the screenshot.

Thursday, January 9

Screenshot of the Day #89: Stronger than who?

posted by Thunderfall at 12:42 PM

Today’s SOTD was submitted by LKendter:

Well if we know of no other civilizations, who exactly do we have a strong military against?

That’s a nice footprint map you have there, LK.

Wednesday, January 8

Screenshot of the Day #88: AIs Unite!

posted by Thunderfall at 10:19 PM

The computers must be allying against me. The Romans blocked me from taking the last Mongol city for what I did to them. The Vikings are hanging around too.

Thanks to Curtis Robinson for the screenshot.

Monday, January 6

Screenshot of the Day #87: Sleep is for the Weak

posted by Thunderfall at 3:49 PM

Civ3 PTW contains a few easter eggs that are triggered by specific time or dates. One such easter egg is the Elvis king unit that shows up when you set your computer’s date to Elvis’s birthday.

The other time-sensitive easter egg is "Sleep is for the Weak". When you play PTW into the wee hours, there is a chance that your advisor will tell you "Sleep is for the weak"! People have talked about this easter egg on the forum for a while now and we finally have a screenshot of that.

I found an interesting message from my science advisor tonight. Apparently, they were not getting much sleep as they built the game!

Thanks to Jason Crabtree for the screenshot.

Friday, January 3

Screenshot of the Day #86: Dead Paratroopers

posted by Thunderfall at 5:24 PM

I was playing in Play the World v. 1.14F and I was at war with the Indians. I landed my paratroopers at their territory, then I chose: "(P)illage Improvement".

…and those paratroopers transformed into "dogs" or "monkeys". Can someone explain why those units died? Thanks to Hawker for the screenshot.

PS: If you haven’t tried it yet, try airdrop a paratrooper into the ocean in the game and see what happens.

Screenshot of the Day #85: Shapeshifter

Thursday, January 2

posted by Thunderfall at 9:52 AM

I used the bug in Play the World v. 1.14F to unload my knights from an army and load in Sipahis instead. This works great, but the image of the units in the army keeps changing. First it was cavalry, but this one really had me rolling on the floor in laughter. The sounds and animation are all for the ironclad, but it moves on land just like any normal land unit.

That unload army bug is going to be fixed in the next PTW patch. Thanks to Brooke Wheeler for the screenshot.

Monday, December 30

Screenshot of the Day #84: Unfinished Business

posted by Thunderfall at 4:34 PM

I got this screenschot when playing a 2 vs 6 AI deity game with my brother. He had just finished off the Zulu, triggering an "out of synch" error on both our systems and warping us both back to the PTW main screen.

So while we were both cursing PTW’s multiplayer stability, and all contact with the game had been lost, my former foreign advisor, apparently not comfortable with leaving his tasks unfinished, somehow found a way to bridge the boundaries of space and time to deliver me this final message…. Very weird, I have no idea why PTW continues its calculations on a game and delivers the results of these calculations in the form of this pop-up while the game itself has already been terminated for some time.

Thanks to Kemal for the screenshot.

Friday, December 27

Screenshot of the Day #83: Barbarian Galley

posted by Thunderfall at 2:04 AM

In ancient times, you see barbarian triremes along the coast very often. But as time goes by, they eventually disappear from the face of the earth, except in today’s screenshot:

It’s 2034 AD. The Egyptians have been destroyed, with a bit of a nuclear war. Most cities were razed. I was moving settlers to establish cities and whoa! There’s a barbarian galley. The next turn the barbarian galley ambushed my transport.

Thanks to hbdragon for the screenshot.

Thursday, December 26

Screenshot of the Day #82: Angry Trade Advisor

posted by Thunderfall at 0:03 AM

Rumor has it that the Trade Advisor is never happy, and it seems to be true…

I can only guess it was one of the Firaxis people during some overtime crunching ^.^

If anyone has seen a happy Trade Advisor, take a screenshot and send it in! Thanks to shenryyr for the screenshot.

Wednesday, December 25

Screenshot of the Day #81: Money Grows on Trees

posted by Thunderfall at 10:17 PM

Non-PTW Civ3: After conquering France’s last city and realizing that she still had a settler somewhere to keep her alive, I wondered what Joan would offer for a peace treaty. To my surprise, with absolutely no cities left and 0 gold in her treasury (as evident from this diplomacy screen), she is willing to offer 65 gold per turn for peace. My question is: where are you going to get all that money Joanie?!?!

From trees, of course! Thanks to Sim_one for the screenshot.

Friday, December 20

Screenshot of the Day #80: Zealous Bomber

posted by Thunderfall at 6:09 PM

After a war with England, I had been recalling my forces when I noticed this anomaly. Seems that the plane didn’t like the city it was stationed in and decided to move one tile to the left.

The bomber apparently thinks war is not over yet and is preparing for more bombing runs. You can never blame a bomber for being overly zealous… Thanks to OS for the screenshot.

Thursday, December 19

Screenshot of the Day #79: -2 Turns

posted by Thunderfall at 8:14 PM

This is probably a bug. I had two workers on a square, one clearing a forest and another building a road. When the forest was cleared, I checked up on the worker building the road, and it said he would be done in -2 turns!

This is time travel in Civ3! Thanks to Jeff Yu for the screenshot.

Tuesday, December 17

Screenshot of the Day #78: Come Closer

posted by Thunderfall at 5:27 PM

I must have sent Agent Starling as my envoy. I went to discuss peace terms with the Carthaginians and Hannibal greets me with this line. I went on to win a Huge Map Diplomatic victory next turn. Should he be invited to my victory dinner at the UN?

The cities in the background don’t have the population numbers. Where did the people go? Thanks to MissingPersons for the screenshot.

Monday, December 16

Screenshot of the Day #77: News Anchor

posted by Thunderfall at 9:09 PM

I was playing as the Ottomans and was having a revolution from despotism to monarchy, and Istanbul went into civil disorder. Then, the domestic advisor said this in response, news anchor style.

The domestic advisor never ceases to amaze me. Thanks to toh6wy for the screenshot.

Saturday, December 14

Screenshot of the Day #76: What’s a Map?

posted by Thunderfall at 1:11 AM

Playing a short game as the Iroquois when the Americans make this brilliant offer. "Hey, wanna trade maps? Uugh, what’s a map again?"

Now that’s weird! I thought Map Making is a prerequisite for map trading… Thanks to Zeplin for the screenshot.

Friday, December 13

Screenshot of the Day #75: Peaceful War

posted by Thunderfall at 0:58 AM

While playing the Americans I got the Aztecs to agree to a military alliance against the germans. A while later I sued for peace and got it, the next turn the Aztecs did the same. Ever since it has still shown the military alliance even though all three of us are at peace with each other.

Thanks to Dragula Dragon for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #74: Floating Leader

Wednesday, December 11

posted by Thunderfall at 0:12 AM

This one could also go under bug reports! I got a leader from a berserk attack. The caravel was full, and when I move the caravel Eric the Blood axe was fortified in the ocean.

Thanks to Lee Kendter for the screenshot.

Tuesday, December 10

Screenshot of the Day #73: Goody Hut

posted by Thunderfall at 1:08 AM

As you may know, when you make a city with a goody hut in its radius, the hut is melt down automatically and you get the surprise open. But, here, Japan seems to have lazy settlers that don’t even visit the area !

Thanks to Boulboul Gadol for the screenshot.

Monday, December 9

Screenshot of the Day #72: ‘Our Workers’

posted by Thunderfall at 0:03 AM

The AI can be very nice sometimes…

OUR workers?? Only, notice those aren’t our workers. The Russians graciously sent them to link up the gems for us.

Thanks to Zur for the screenshot.

Sunday, December 8

Screenshot of the Day #71: Teleport

posted by Thunderfall at 2:03 AM

I was playing as the Americans on a huge map, and I sent my trireme out to explore, since land was at a premium on our continent. My trireme had just recently entered Iroquois territory, and, as usual, they wanted em out. So yeah, I agreed for my troops to be moved. But somehow, it ended up moving it to a new, yet undiscovered, continent, probably because that was the nearest unowned shore tile. Unfortunately, the continent was occupied by several other civs, slightly more technologically advanced, and much larger…

Thanks to Richard for the screenshot.

Thursday, December 5

Screenshot of the Day #70: Sword vs. Pen

posted by Thunderfall at 0:13 AM

It looks like the AI knows to "rename" a colony to something interesting to tease human players. At first sight this looks like an easter egg…

Playin a diety game and this message showed up next to the colony.

…but a closer look reveals that it’s likely because the labels.txt is messed up. Thanks to Tous for the screenshot.

Tuesday, December 3

Screenshot of the Day #69: Cloud Temple

posted by Thunderfall at 2:48 PM

If you play Heroes of Might and Maghic III, you know Cloud Temple is home of the mighty titans. We also have cloud temples in Civ3!

I was playing PTW online with 3 other people in a turnless game. I decided to check out my palace, but I didn’t want to spend too much time there because I would miss some turns. I just started clicking around real fast to make the palace appear and it messed up because the top was just floating there!

Thanks to Jake Williams for the screenshot.

Friday, November 29

Screenshot of the Day #68: Early Monarchy

posted by Thunderfall at 4:47 PM

I was playing PTW as the Americans with the mass regicide option on a huge map with 16 civs. I sent ALL my kings out exploring and produced 2 extra scouts. Got a settler from a hut and got to Monarchy at 3000 B.C.! By having the Alphabet tech as the tech you are ‘researching’, the techs from huts will go down the monarchy line pretty quickly allowing for a very early revolution. It looks like I had a perfect start, but I had to move my settler 2 moves to get to the river (and cattle).

Thanks to Bamspeedy for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #67: Capital-less

Wednesday, November 27

posted by Thunderfall at 3:07 PM

We may not know the exact conditions that trigger palace improvements, but we do know you don’t have to have a palace for the palace improvement message to come up.

This was from GOTM XII. I just let my capital get destroyed, and then my people decided to improve my palace. I didn’t have any cities (just a settler). I find it illogical.

Thanks to Michael York for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #66: Wonder-ful City

Monday, November 25

posted by Thunderfall at 10:51 AM

This screenshot shows a city with every single Great Wonder, Small Wonder and City Improvement available to you in Civilization III without the expansion. There are sixty-three altogether. However, I did have to do some tweaking to get all of them. For example, I had to make sure that building a solar plant would not replace a coal plant I already had installed. I also had to make sure I had four other cities, for some improvements that need five of one thing, such as Battlefield Medicine needing five hospitals. I even managed to get the United Nations without being elected, as well as the Forbidden Palace and a Palace. The only thing wrong with this is that the Palace blocks the entrance to the Forbidden Palace, the Pentagon is overlaping on top of Copernicus’ Observatory and, of course, it’s just a little bit to crowded!

There is an easy way to make a city like this: just use the editor to give a city everything. Thanks to Carlos for the screenshot.

Friday, November 22

Screenshot of the Day #65: Another Elvis Easter Egg

posted by Thunderfall at 4:53 PM

Another Elvis easter egg has been found! This one can appear on all the advisor screens and depends on the Civ you play. Hail to the Shogun and the King, baby!

Take a look at what the Domestic Advisor is saying. I knew there was a secret Elvis unit, but I’ve never seen this before. I didn’t know he was Japanese… 😉

If you are playing the German, the advisor probably will say "Hail to the Chancellor, baby!" instead. Thanks to toh6wy and Matrix for the screenshot.

Wednesday, November 20

Screenshot of the Day #64: Mostly Harmless

posted by Thunderfall at 5:33 PM

The AI doesn’t really know when is a good time to declare war:

This is from a generated map I was playing on Regent with the Mac 1.21 patch, as the Americans. It was the Industrial era, and I had been through several wars with a few countries, though none of those wars came to anything but lost units, as I have the oceans and the Indians as buffers. The French had started a few wars by refusing to remove their troops from my territory. When I asked them to cease and desist infringing on my territory with their workers, they declared war on me! Well, no problem, free workers for me. The French have got the bluster and bravery down pat, now all they need is some brains.

Thanks to Zach Piper for the screenshot.

Tuesday, November 19

Screenshot of the Day #63: Elvis & JAIMO Easter Eggs

posted by Thunderfall at 12:36 PM

The mystery of "The King" has been found!

Change the date on your PC to Jan 8th 2004 (someone’s birthday), and start a regicide game (or mass regicide for extra fun) and you will get a nice surprise.

Now for even more amusement, look in your "extras" folder and you will find a "mystery unit" that wasnt there before…"JAIMO!" 😉

Firaxis really knows how to hide easter eggs! The credit for this discovery goes to Miriya. Thanks to joespaniel for the screenshot.

Saturday, November 16

Screenshot of the Day #62: Debug Punishment

posted by Thunderfall at 11:17 AM

Play the World’s debug mode is kinda like the cheat mode in Civ2, although less powerful. It allows you to add units, money, shields and population. Technologies can also be researched instantly. Players who used PTW’s debug mode to cheat are punished severely by the game…

I was using the DEBUG mode to test out some new units. After seeing they all worked properly, I decided to abandon all of them, since I was done. I disbanded my settler, also. Conquest defeat at 4000 B.C. for -50,000 pts!! I guess they really penalize you if you can’t win in the ‘cheat mode’. 🙂 When it gets to the screen for the ‘historical ranking’, I don’t even get the ‘worthless’ title because the game crashes. Got any titles that are worse than worthless?

Thanks to Bryan Mathison for the screenshot.

>> View All SOTDs
>> Submit a cool screenshot to SOTD

Thursday, November 14

Screenshot of the Day #61: English x2

posted by Thunderfall at 0:01 AM

This came from a game I was playing on Marla Singer’s world map, using six civilizations (including myself) on regent level. Latest patch installed, and the game was not modified in any other than the way the map was changed and I have NEVER experienced anything like this.

While playing one day, after destroying the English (who were oddly in the place of the Indians, though I had not selected Indians for the game) I suddenly met up with….the English. But not the same English. This was an ENTIRELY different civilization with a different color and everything. The only thing that was the same was the fact it was the English. I even gave the English communications with the English. Here is a shot of my foreign advisor screen and of "The Most Powerful Nations of the World" thing (respectively.)

Thanks to Becka for the screenshot.

Wednesday, November 13

Screenshot of the Day #60: Wildfire

posted by Thunderfall at 1:25 AM

Anything can happen on a hot, sunny day. Look, some grasses and trees just caught fire!

I was playing another game as the Greeks, and was at war, but this time with China, Babylon, India and England (Destroyed). I captured many of the Indian cities, and they went into civil disorder and rioting.

I cleared the map (Ctrl+Shift+M) and this is what I saw!! Looks like they’ve set fire to more than just cities. (That might be an interesting idea for a disaster in CIV4!)

Thanks to JamesDS for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #59: Cloaking

Tuesday, November 12

posted by Thunderfall at 9:49 AM

In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Pegasus", Enterprise was able to pass thru an asteroid unscathed, thanks to a cloaking technology secretly developed by the Federation. The nuclear submarine in today’s screenshot appears to have the same cloaking capability…

It is a peninsula and when I ordered my nuclear submarine to go from one side of the peninsula to another it took a "shortcut" and went right through the island. About halfway thru the island it stopped, waited for a second and sunk, I was able to get a screenshot before it dived into the "wattery grassplains". This map does not have modified rules either.

Submitted by Alric. [This screenshot is found to be a fake.

]

Monday, November 11

Screenshot of the Day #58: The King in exile…

posted by Thunderfall at 3:42 PM

The "Respawn AI Civs" option doesn’t work well with the regicide mode:

Civ3 PTW game, normal rules plus regicide. After the Ottomans attacked me for the third time I’d had enough. I was pressing near his capital so he promptly nuked mine. The next turn I flung everything I had at his, and about 40 smoking hulks of modern armor and 20 mech inf later, I got the satisfaction of watching his king die. Except he didn’t. A new city popped up nearby, and the next turn another city.. both of which I destroyed again. Still no message about defeating the Ottomans, and my citizens are getting very war weary. I finally found him down at the south pole, going for a cold swim to relax from the pressures of office apparently. The destroyers can’t attack him, they can bombard but it does no damage. The marine can’t attack him either. I’d really like to hit him on the head with an ICBM, but that isn’t going to happen. He’s invincible, and he knows it too. He won’t give me anything for a peace treaty, and what’s this? I can assure you that he had neither of those techs when I took him out. I guess when you are stuck at the south pole you have nothing better to do than research.

Thanks to Leuf for the screenshot.

Friday, November 8

Screenshot of the Day #57: Occupied Territory

posted by Thunderfall at 3:01 AM

Today’s SOTD is THE definition of occupied territory. 😉

I can’t remember seeing any zoom screenshots in the SOTD, so here is one from GOTM12. You can use the z hotkey to zoom in and out from your map for a larger perspective.

Don’t try what this screenshot shows at home, because it does nothing to improve your game score and actually takes away your ability to farm barbarians and have some limited late game fun. I was bored and had way too much cash, so I decided to build as many Modern Armor units as possible and then just upholster the entire world map with tanks to see what it would look like. Remember that all these modern armor units (over 1300 of them) where actually built in the game and not just artificially created with a magic wand. In the last turn of the game, I completed over 80 new modern Armor units just to make sure I used up the shields and as much cash as possible.

This amazing screenshot was submitted by Cracker.

Thursday, November 7

Screenshot of the Day #56: Negative Production

posted by Thunderfall at 1:24 AM

I’ve seen many 1 shield production cities but never a city with negative production. This is really strange:

It says the city is producing -3 production. I know the city is far from the capitol, but this is pushing it.

Thanks to Curtis Robinson for the screenshot.

Tuesday, November 5

Screenshot of the Day #55: Pathfinding

posted by Thunderfall at 5:01 PM

Here is one showing the crazy routing my catapult would have to traverse just to move it two squares over onto a mountain (with a road). I got the catapult out of Ceasaraugusta over that mountain on the road, but it can’t go back the same way because there isn’t a road from the mountain to the squares north of it. If I sent it on this 22 turn journey through the Carthaginian’s land, I wonder if I would ever see it again.

Thanks to Marzipan for the screenshot.

Monday, November 4

Screenshot of the Day #54: Resource Depletion

posted by Thunderfall at 12:43 PM

I’m sure we’ve all seen a strategic resource get exhausted and then that same resource appears somewhere else in our territory a split second later. But I’ve never seen these idiots exhaust my iron and a split second later find iron in that same square. Well, I guess there is a first time for everything.

What a joke! Thanks to Yaniv for the screenshot.

Sunday, November 3

Screenshot of the Day #53: Thunderfall

posted by Thunderfall at 0:02 AM

I already consider Scandinavia (Vikings) a great Civ to play and now I like it even more, because one of their cities is named "Thunderfall"! Here is an in-game screenshot showing the wondrous City of Thunderfall and an editor screenshot showing the Viking city list.

Thanks to tcjsavannah for the in-game screenshot, King of Camelot for the editor screenshot, and of course a big thanks to FIRAXIS for this easter egg!

Saturday, November 2

Screenshot of the Day #52: Jerkses

posted by Thunderfall at 4:33 AM

Today’s SOTD is from GOTM11 and is actually 4 screenshots in one to show a diplomatic exchange with Xerxes, or Jerkses. There is a lot going on in the screenshot.

First, look at the upper right hand corner of the screen and see that Jerkses is trembling at the thought of our musketmen even though we have two elite infantrymen, two elite samurais, and two WWI style artillery pieces fortified on the chokepoint that restricts him to his lonely peninsula.

Second, you can look at the composite of four different screen shots in the center dialog boxes that summarize Jerkses great trading skills. First he tries to trade us the military tradition tech that is now virtually worthless to us plus he wants our whole treasury worth of cash. Yeah, right!!!

Then I ask Jerkses what he wants in trade for his world map, only to find to my surprise that he refuses to ask for anything and says the trade is not possible in two different ways. I can’t quite figure that one out because his map is virtually worthless and I was just offering to trade him some mere pittance to be nice. I then demand that Jerkses give me the map since it can’t possibly make him any more furious and what is he going to do to me anyway when I have Infantry and he is isolated onto a resource-less peninsula. He might spit at me and one of my infantry could be injured when he slips in the spit and hurts himself while falling down laughing. So the mighty Xerxes has to give me that map that he refused to let me buy even for cold hard cash.

Thanks to cracker for the submission.

Thursday, October 31

Screenshot of the Day #51: Brave Ruler

posted by Thunderfall at 1:44 AM

In the regicide mode, the king unit is a good scout unit because it can move two squares per turn and can disperse barbarian camps. Interestingly, it also follows the same promotion path as other units. In this game, my leader unit Mao first got promoted to veteran then to elite by attacking barbarians!

I made a little test scenario using the editor and found that it IS possible for king units to generate great leaders. This is funny because unlike other units, king unit represents a single individual. It’s weird to see Lincoln "produce" Washington.

Monday, October 28

Screenshot of the Day #50: Best Unit is…

posted by Thunderfall at 10:55 AM

I thought this was pretty amusing. I was playing on a large map, emperor difficulty as the greeks. The Japanese were on another continent, and are now at war with everyone… and their best unit is the worker. I know this is based on what units I’ve seen but it still was funny to see with them in the industrial ages.

The foreign advisor should be fired for giving misleading information. Use some common sense, for crying out loud! Thanks to Jonathan Day for the screenshot.

Saturday, October 26

Screenshot of the Day #49: Desert Iron

posted by Thunderfall at 0:00 AM

In an earlier SOTD, we saw global warming turned a coastal tile into desert and created a desert fish. In today’s SOTD, global warming turned a hill into desert. Is there anything global warming can not do?

After a large nuclear war, and all effected grasslands since converted to desert, I noticed something peculiar around my former French capital, Paris. Could it be? Is that Iron on that flood plain tile??? How can that be??? The before pic shows that the Iron used to be on the hills but somehow the hills got transformed. None of the other hills in the game changed. Must be a bug of somekind.

Thanks to Barry Adams for the screenshot.

Friday, October 25

Screenshot of the Day #48: Two Years Ago Today

posted by Thunderfall at 3:03 AM

October 2000 was a time when we were still posting those colorful poll results, when the Civ1 section on this site was launched, when the Civ2 Scenario Hall of Fame was opened… and most importantly, the CivFanatics forum was born two years ago today!

We have a special SOTD for this special day: a screenshot of the grand opening forum post taken by shabbaman.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the visitors for the continued support and all the staff members for their hard work. Keep on Civing everyone!

Wednesday, October 23

Screenshot of the Day #47: ‘Negative’ Attitude

posted by Thunderfall at 9:55 PM

As you can see, I had just discovered philosophy when my science advisor decided to show me what a ‘negative’ attitude can do to a person.

That’s one scary Sid Meier! Thanks to Zeplin for the screenshot.

Tuesday, October 22

Screenshot of the Day #46: Soldier for Life

posted by Thunderfall at 4:50 PM

This is kinda funny. The life expectancy is 20 years, however people serve in the military for an average of 27 years. Either they feed the people in the military better, or I have an army of ghosts.

It would be great if Firaxians can reveal how those stats on the F11 screen are calculated. Thanks to Texta for the screenshot.

Monday, October 21

Screenshot of the Day #45: Make more friends!

posted by Thunderfall at 9:36 AM

This screenshot is really simple but it always makes me laugh when it comes up. You spend an invigorating game disemboweling all your neighbors and then in the end when you have destroyed everyone, your gleeful foreign advisor pops up and tells you that you need to "Make more friends". Yeah, laughing boy that’s the ticket. Let’s travel to new and exotic places and meet new and exciting people and the kill them, too.

Thanks to Cracker for the screenshot.

Saturday, October 19

Screenshot of the Day #44: Yellow Roman Warrior

posted by Thunderfall at 7:38 PM

I was playing as the Romans, a game like any other else, with unmodded rules. My domestic advisor told me that Cumae had produced a warrior. Nothing strange at first but…look at the colour of the warrior!! it is yellow! Cumae just produced a Zulu warrior?? :D. Not really, the warrior was red as it should, but still, curious colour bug.

Thanks to Evincar for the screenshot.

Thursday, October 17

Screenshot of the Day #43: Crazy Science Advisor

posted by Thunderfall at 9:12 PM

I received three SOTD submissions about a science advisor bug that sometimes occurs at the beginning of a new era for a scientific Civ or when Theory of Evolution is completed. Here is one of the 3 screenshots:

I got this message when I chose to research Nationalism right after I had discovered Theory of Gravity, and because I was scientifc I got Nationalism for free. Just another sign that the advisors are little crazy sometimes.

Good news: I forwarded those screenshots to Firaxis a week ago and they told me this bug is fixed in Play the World. Thanks to Sim_One for the screenshot. The other two screenshots (#2 #3) were submitted by Godinex and Paalikles, by the way. Thanx.

Wednesday, October 16

Screenshot of the Day #42: Oil

posted by Thunderfall at 0:47 AM

Sometimes I wonder why the AIs bother to trade maps, when they already know the entire map at the beginning of the game…

Why would China settle on this island, Refining is far away in future. There are plenty better spots to settle. but they decided to settle on 100 percent icy island. Because they know oil will come. (Warlord level)

Oh well, at least the AIs pretend they don’t know the map and are willing to pay big bucks for your map. Thanks to Civddict for the submission.

Monday, October 14

Screenshot of the Day #41: We Surrender!

posted by Thunderfall at 0:44 AM

When the AI realize resistance is futile, they simply give up!

I was playing a game a few days ago and fighting a war w/ the Greeks and I’ve gotten them down to one city that’s been there for a while. When my troops gain sight of it, there is a spearman in it. On the next turn, when my troops are in striking distance, the city is abandoned and the Greeks just let me walk in and finish them off. I’ve never seen the computer surrender like this before. It really took all the joy out of victory.

It’s probably a smart thing to do… If you can’t win, the least you can do is annoy your enemy. Thanks to Myartar for the submission.

Sunday, October 13

Screenshot of the Day #40: Slave Trade

posted by Thunderfall at 0:07 AM

Don’t think slave trade only existed in the real world… In Civ3, you can also buy or sell slaves (i.e. workers). The workers just have to be in the capital city for them to show up on the bartering table. Slave workers are usually cheap — under 30 Gold per worker.

We all get the chance to buy a foreign worker on occasion. However, how many can buy SIX in one turn? Funny thing, they we 5 French and 1 Babylon worker. Did Germany just capture a large bunch?

Using slaves doesn’t seem to have any significant impact on happiness, even though the Civilopedia says citizens of Republics and Democracies don’t like the slaving of Workers. I usually buy as many slaves as possible in my games. Thanks to Lee Kendter for the submission.

Saturday, October 12

Screenshot of the Day #39: Monster Production

posted by Thunderfall at 3:12 AM

I normally don’t post SOTDs on weekends, but since I have about 2 weeks supply of SOTD-worthy screenshots, I think I can make an exception. Yesterday’s SOTD was about ghost, and today’s SOTD is about monsters. Halloween is really around the corner…

I think this is about the maximum production a city can have. It’s in war-time mobilization and GA. Iron Works, Manufacturing Plant, Nuclear Plant. I’d like to have such a city in my next (real) game 🙂

Please keep taking those cool screenshots and keep them coming! Thanks to NativeOne for the submission.

Friday, October 11

Screenshot of the Day #38: Ghost Culture

posted by Thunderfall at 0:01 AM

Today we present a paranormal phenomena first sighted by joespaniel. In this screenshot, the Americans were destroyed by the evil English, but part of their culture remained to haunt the English!

Upon making first contact with the English in occupied American territory, I aquired their world map. About 30 turns earlier, the advisor informed me that "The Americans have been destroyed!". Now I know by who. 😉 Then I noticed something weird. The former American cultural borders still appeared on the mini-map, even though they were gone! Ha! I’ve never seen that bug before.

Thanks to joespaniel for the screenshot.

Thursday, October 10

Screenshot of the Day #37: Utopia

posted by Thunderfall at 11:35 AM

In Civilization III, you can not only construct an empire that stands the test of time, but also a utopia!

Well the people in this civ live 99 years and their families have 21 children each… now thats a utopia!;)

I suppose some people would say this is hell with so many people on earth. Thanks to Philippe Hollebeke for the screenshot.

Wednesday, October 9

Screenshot of the Day #36: All Your Base

posted by Thunderfall at 3:31 AM

"In AD 2101. War was beginning. What happen? Somebody set us up the bomb. We get signal. What! Main screen turn on. It’s you!! How are you gentlemen. All your base are belong to us!"

The quote is from an old, poorly translated Japanese console game called Zero Wing. In recent years, "all your base are belong to us" spread like wildfire and has infiltrated the entire planet. Civilization III is no exception.

Many of you have probably seen this before, but of all the funny one liners in the game (You say you want a revolution?) this has to be the funniest. I was at war with Japan and was trying to talk peace and this is what I am greeted by…

Thanks to jaroslav for the screenshot.

Tuesday, October 8

Screenshot of the Day #35: Ancient Railroads

posted by Thunderfall at 2:10 PM

Theoretically, it’s possible to build a railroad network in the ancient era, without the Steam Engine tech and coal. You just need to raze lots of enemy cities and those cities need to be very close to each other.

I recently started a game where I am the Greeks, and I am up against the Egyptians, Germans, and Romans. The map size was set to Tiny since I have yet to play a map this small. Anyway, it is still the "Ancient Era" and, as you can see from the screenshot, I am researching Monarchy. I can assure you that no one else has Monarchy and everyone else is still in the Ancient Era. The Romans and the Egyptians are at war, and the Egyptians just razed a Roman city. The funny thing is that the city left a spot of railroads behind! This is very odd as railroads are two eras away, and although I’ve seen funnier SOTD, this one was quite surprising.

Thanks to Blesser for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #34: Free Electricity

Monday, October 7

posted by Thunderfall at 12:29 PM

Usually when you allocate nothing for research, you get "–" in the places that show how many turns it would take to research the current advance. In today’s screenshot, however, the research time is 1 turn even though science is decreased to zero percent.

I decreased the amount of resources to Science in order to get more money. And … I got Electricity free.

Thanks to DanBDD for the submission.

Screenshot of the Day #33: Clash of the Titans

Friday, October 4

posted by Thunderfall at 11:04 AM

Today’s screenshot is not as weird as other SOTDs but it’s still an interesting screenshot. You don’t get to see two armies fight to the death often in Civ3, especially if you are a builder. Also, you can take a sneak peek at the latest version of Warstorm’s watercolor terrain, which will be included in the PTW expansion pack.

Thanks to Warpstorm for the submission.

Thursday, October 3

Screenshot of the Day #32: Historians

posted by Thunderfall at 2:44 PM

So it is true that Civ3 historians write "Great" Books while they are drunk…

I began playing and as the Iroquois. I began exploring and found the Japanese. Ok.. that’s great, but a few turns later the ‘History of the World’ dialog appears. Well I mean….. I’ve nothing against the Japanese but….aaah! (at least I made it to the top of the list…)

Thanks to Shinyglasses for the submission.

Screenshot of the Day #31: Spy Captured

Wednesday, October 2

posted by Thunderfall at 2:03 PM

It’s well known that Civilization III advisors have some emotional problems. For example, sometimes the domestic advisor frowns when your citizens are happy. And in today’s screenshot, the foreign advisor is happy that your own spy got captured. They probably will rejoice when you fire them…

Thanks to RufRydyr for the screenshot.

Tuesday, October 1

Screenshot of the Day #30: Zero Pop City

posted by Thunderfall at 2:01 PM

Today’s screenshot reveals that building a new city is not as instantaneous as you think it is… For a split second the new city is size zero!

My system was getting bogged down enough to show the stuff normally unnoticed. thought this zero population city in the making would give everybody a chuckle. This stayed on for about 3 minutes so I grabbed it.

Thanks to Stanley Rexwinkle for the submission.

Monday, September 30

Screenshot of the Day #29: Unluckiest Scout

posted by Thunderfall at 1:52 PM

There is no doubt that the scout in today’s screenshot is the unluckiest scout in the history of Civilization…

While exploring with my scout early in a game I walked through a small peninsula (to see how much water there actually is). The next turn when I wanted to go back I was suddenly blocked by a barbarian camp which appeared at the opening. Two turns later the scout was killed.

The screenshot was submitted by Matrix and it was actually taken from Civ3 GOTM XII which will be posted tomorrow. Thanks Matrix for the submission.

Screenshot of the Day #28: Nuclear Party

Friday, September 27

posted by Thunderfall at 11:25 PM

Today’s screenshot is a perfect example of "You can nuke us, but you can never break our spirit!". The Iroquois deserve some respect for that…

Near the end of a rather short and easy war with the Iroquois, I was preparing to take Salamanca. I rolled my Modern Armour through the mess created by someone else’s nuke, and up to the gates of the town to watch their units get destroyed by my artillery. I was about to bombard them when I noticed the strangest thing. Fireworks! This city just got nuked and it’s citizens were happy??? WTF are they smoking? Radioactive Reefer?

Thanks to General Nuker for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #27: Barbarian Camp

Thursday, September 26

posted by Thunderfall at 11:32 PM

Barbarians in Civ3 have lots of things to do. Besides attacking your cities, they also steal money, sabotage your production, kill your workers, and pillage your roads. That’s why sometimes they are not home…

During a recent war with England, I had captured a few workers. On their way home, one of them ran into an undefended barbarian camp, something rare in itself. I tried to disperse the camp with the worker, but I was prevented from doing so, and got an interesting message. It called the camp a city, some akin to when barbarians could capture cities in CivII…

Thanks to Octavian X for the screenshot.

Wednesday, September 25

Screenshot of the Day #26: Let’s Trade!

posted by Thunderfall at 5:11 PM

Commercial civs such as England are so commercial-minded that they will trade with you even if they have nothing to trade!

Queen Elizabeth made me a deal that I could not refuse. This came after the Zulu sacked their capital. (I accepted, and nothing happened, fyi…)

Thanks to Ben deGonzague for the screenshot.

Tuesday, September 24

Screenshot of the Day #25: The Delete Key

posted by Thunderfall at 5:45 PM

There is nothing strange in today’s screenshot. I am just using it to demonstrate the effect of the Delete key in Civ3, which is probably new to some players. 🙂

Hitting the "Delete" key in Civ3 will hide all the menu boxes and buttons on the map. This includes the 3 buttons at top left, the minimap, and the info box at lower right. Hitting the Delete key again will make the interface re-appear. It’s pretty nifty.

Screenshot of the Day #24: Suicide

Monday, September 23

posted by Thunderfall at 2:01 AM

A while ago a forum poster reported that Joan of Arc said "I would rather burn in hell than give in to your demands!" during a diplomatic negotiation. In today’s SOTD Joan wants to commit suicide! She’s definitely obsessed with death!

In this game, I am Mao, benevolent leader of the Chinese people and all others who have sworn fealty to us over the centuries. We have just recently concluded our war with the Americans in which the French and Romans assisted us in repelling their unprovoked invasion into our Aztec holdings in the north. Our Persian neighbors have now taken up a rather hostile posture and it seems likely that the Chinese military will once again be called upon to bring peace to a violent world. We have just renegotiated our Mutual Protection Pact with France when Joan d’Arc’s response leaves me somewhat speechless, but none-the-less armed with an ally in the upcoming war.

Thanks to Hunt Davis for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #23: Hiding in the Dark

Saturday, September 21

posted by Thunderfall at 10:06 PM

Some male leaders in Civ3 are shy… very shy. Just look at today’s SOTD for proof!

Nothing out of the ordinary about this one. Lizzy, Cæsar, Hammurabi, Bismarck and Catherine all beaten. And it is a cultural victory. But wait! There are some black pictures. They both love me, but maybe they’re afraid to come forward and tell the world about their admiration. (The two hidden in the dark are Gandhi and Alex btw)

Thanks to Paalikles for the screenshot.

Friday, September 20

Screenshot of the Day #22: Saltpeter

posted by Thunderfall at 3:48 AM

The Civ3 map generator is pretty sophisticated and can generate a great world for you to play on in just seconds! But the best part is, when the map generator decides it doesn’t like you, it lets you know. 😉

I was looking for saltpeter, and I found it but I realized that there is no way to get it! Oh map generator, why do you mock me?

I recommend dropping of couple of nukes on that little island. 😀 Thanks to Curtis A Robinson for the submission.

Wednesday, September 18

Screenshot of the Day #21: Eye of the Magi

posted by Thunderfall at 10:31 AM

In Heroes of Might and Magic, there is a map structure called Hut of the Magi that let’s you see the areas surrounding the eyes of the magi in distant lands. Now we are going to show you the "eyes of the magi" in Civilization III… 😉

Look at my screenshot. I don’t know why some areas are visibile to me but I haven’t explored it yet (as you can see from the minimap). You can see an irrigated grassland but when I right click it, it said "no information available"! Surprisingly I can see units when they come to that area, and even make contact with their leader!

Thanks to Lau Frederick for the screenshot.

Tuesday, September 17

Screenshot of the Day #20: Irresistible

posted by Thunderfall at 12:39 PM

When your civilization has tons of culture, some citizens of other civilizations will find you simply impossible to resist and will join you even when your Civ is in complete chaos. Resistance is futile!

I was playing the Greeks, and I was in the middle of changing goverments, and even in anarchy they want to join me!!! lol

Thanks to AndyH for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #19: Go Away, Picnic Ants!

Monday, September 16

posted by Thunderfall at 3:24 PM

During diplomatic negotiations in Civ3, the witty AI leaders sometimes say very funny things. Today’s SOTD is just one of the many documented examples:

During a very long game as the Japanese (1st) without hardly any wars worth talking about China(2nd) who had a MPP with me and India (4th) declared war on the Iroquois (9th) for some strange reason. No One had ROP aggreements with me because apparently I invaided Greece under this agreement, although China was very happy with me helping them with there war against Iroquois and trade deals. So while moving my naval forces into position next of the northern cities of the Iroquois I had to pass through China’s sea (Yellow Sea in real life). This came up and I thought it was damn funny!

You can visit this 11-page long forum thread for lots of other funny things the AIs said during negotiation. Thanks to Overlag for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #18: Desert Fish Phenomenon

Sunday, September 15

posted by Thunderfall at 2:14 AM

In a previous SOTD, we showed a battleship stuck in the desert because global warming turned a coastal water tile to desert. Today’s second screenshot is kinda similar, except the unfortunate victim is a fish!

I wiped out all the opponents and used about 30 nukes on the last one, so the global warming went to crazy levels. Then everywhere started to turn to deserts and etc. Then, at an insignificant moment, I spotted something weird. A resource on grasslands that I have never seen before. Fish! Oh yeah the scientists had researched future tech 20 and they should have genetically modified fish to live on land, right? 😛 I think the water level went down so the shore fish decided to take a walk to the beach 😛 The screenshot is from a later phase, and the terrain turned to desert. Wow, desert fish! 🙂

We had pond fish, and now we have a desert fish phenomenon. What’s next? 😀 Thanks Vuralr for the screenshot.

Screenshot of the Day #17: Epic Battlefield

posted by Thunderfall at 2:09 AM

Today’s screenshot of the day illustrates the importance of having a strong military, even if you don’t plan to invade other civs. Without a strong military, your words and your borders don’t mean a thing! Other Civs will enter and leave your territories at will and you are too scare to demand them to leave your territory.

This is a classic screenshot of what it means to survive in a Deity game, in which the Persians and Chinese fight a war against one another with tons of units in my territory. For the curious, I should mention that I destroyed the Persians about 50 turns later. You can find the full story of this game on my website.

"Our words are backed with nuclear weapons" is the way you should conduct your diplomacy. 😉 Thanks Sullla for the screenshot.

Thursday, September 12

Screenshot of the Day #16: Zimbabwe Under Siege

posted by Thunderfall at 0:15 AM

In real life, you want to make as many friends and as few enemies as possible. Those who don’t quickly vanish from the face of the earth. It’s no different in Civ3.

A cooperative war is taking its course as Germany, England, Babylon and France (me) are punishing the Zulu. Of course it’s helpful to have a mutual protection pact with all "war-buddies". As you can see, we are able to inflict serious damage, and the war will end soon.

The lesson: It pays to listen to your foreign advisor and "make more friends"! Thanks Paalikles for the submission.

Screenshot of the Day #15: MPP

Tuesday, September 10

posted by Thunderfall at 1:52 AM

Today’s screenshot doesn’t look very interesting at first glance — you see a furious Lincoln offering mutual protection pact at the bartering table. Fortunately there is more to it and I’ll let ainwood explain:

Abe and I are the only ones left on the planet. He hates me, yet still wants a Mutual Protection Pact. Maybe he’s worried about aliens? Or barbarian tribes?

Pretty stupid, don’t you think? Thanks to ainwood for this screenshot.

Monday, September 9

Screenshot of the Day #14: Crazy Domestic

posted by Thunderfall at 2:17 AM

Warning: The gibberish of this domestic advisor might make you feel dizzy! If you are sure you want to see it, click here.

I was playing today and had just discovered democracy so while still in the science screen I quickly switch over and went into anarchy. Well I pressed enter and since I had just discovered democracy it ask if I wanted to change governments, I said yes and this is what came up, I thought it was quite hillarious.

Thanks to Gojkyfor this crazy screenshot. 🙂

Saturday, September 7

Screenshot of the Day #13: Glorious Barbarians

posted by Thunderfall at 1:16 PM

Historian Toynbee just published a great book titled "The Largest Nations of the World" in which he labeled the Barbarians "Glorious" and "Great"! He must have been drunk when he wrote it…

What in the wide world of sports is going on? I know I am at the very start of a 1-on1 game; but has anyone ever seen this in a "Great Book"?

Thanks to Fr8monkey for the screenshot.

Friday, September 6

Screenshot of the Day #12: George Bush

posted by Thunderfall at 10:04 AM

Today’s Screenshot of the Day was taken from a heavily modified Civ3 game, with new leaderheads, new city graphics, new terrains, new advisors, etc. It’s unlike anything you have seen before on SOTD!

I’ve modified my version of Civ 3 and sometimes the results of such can bring about some rather shocking stuff. Please have a gawk at this picture and I want to bring your attention to both the contents of the deal as well as the comment made by my advisor in the top right corner. It’s obvious that the americans have control of the Columbian area. Please enjoy this one. LOL

Thanks to unscratchedfoot for this hilarious screenshot.

PS: You can get new Civ3 graphics in the Graphics Modpacks forum.

Thursday, September 5

Screenshot of the Day #11: Spider Web

posted by Thunderfall at 1:05 PM

I really feel stupid now. I discovered today that you can see the diplomatic relations between all players in a Civ3 game at the same time by SHIFT+Click on all the portraits, and get a complicated spider web that looks like this one:

/sotd/sotd11.jpg

Do you know this trick? I can’t be the only one who didn’t know about it!

>> Read/Post Comments

Wednesday, September 4

Screenshot of the Day #10: Polar City

posted by Thunderfall at 5:31 PM

Screenshot of the Day continues with a weird-looking city view screen submitted by Bamspeedy. This is what you get when you build a city near the edge of the map:

I was playing the 180 X 180 World map for the DyP mod and I saw an island that was way up north of Russia, near the North Pole. Part of the city would be off the screen, so I went to go settle there and see what would happen. As you can see in the screenshot, it is all screwed up, but still works properly. I later settled on Antarctica and the screen wasn’t split like this, but you couldn’t micromanage the city as anytime you tried to, you would leave the city view and go back to the map screen.

BTW, do you know it’s not allowed to build cities on polar caps in Civ3, unlike in Civ2. I don’t think you can build a global railroad system there also. This is probably a good change, otherwise the AIs would waste lots of resource building a "Great Wall" on polar caps. 😉

Tuesday, September 3

Screenshot of the Day #9: Gift from Greece

posted by Thunderfall at 5:26 PM

In the forum, players often complain that the AI leaders in Civ3 are very greedy and ask an outrageous amount in exchange for a tech or a resource. Today’s SOTD will prove it’s not always the case — the AI can be very generous sometimes!

Gen was pleasantly surprised when his Greek friend Alexander "sold" him oil for a symbolic amount of 1 gold piece:

I played India (purple) and I was at war with Egypt (yellow). I DESPERATELY needed oil for my ships, tanks and aircraft (last two of these a bit later, as you can see I was still researching steel) so I supposed that Greek oil will be veeeery expensive. First, I asked Alex if he can sell me some and got expected reply which you can still see at the screenshot. Hell, there MUST be anything I could buy that liquid for, I thought! I tried 500 gold. "This deal will probably be acceptable". What? Not bad, really! 400? 300? 100? Of course. Wow! Last shot just for laugh: 1 gold. Answer the same. Unbelievable, they are giving extremely valuable strategic resource FOR FREE! I have never seen that behaviour before! Of course I bought it and used with great pleasure heheheh 🙂

Really unbelievable indeed. I hope the AI leaders in my game are this generous. 🙂 Thanks to Gen for this screenshot.

Monday, September 2

Screenshot of the Day #8: Pond Fish

posted by Thunderfall at 2:51 PM

The pond fish phenomenon is pretty famous in the Civ world. In Civ2, this term was used to describe barbarian triremes rising from a small lake (i.e. pond) and start attacking your city! It’s a spectacular sight! 😀

In Civ3, the "pond fish phenomenon" is a little different. Check out today’s Screenshot of the Day submitted by Octavian X:

The AI surprised me by landing two swordsmen next to a city with only a spearman. I also had a galley in the city, so I retreated it into the small body of water next to the city, so it wouldn’t be attacked by another galley, nor sunk in the sea, since I was sure they would capture the city. I though I would eventually recaputre the city. So you will imagine my surprise my when they razed the city, leaving my galley stuck in the pond.

If you have witnessed any other pond fish phenomenon in Civ3, please let me know.

Sunday, September 1

Screenshot of the Day #7: Anarchy Rulez!

posted by Thunderfall at 12:29 PM

Today’s screenshot was taken last night from a game I am playing. I already started a revolution to change the government from Despotism to Republic, and the anarchy is expected to end in 2 turns. Then the wonderful Great Library gave me the Monarchy advance during anarchy and created a very interesting situation… How often do you get to say "Anarchy Rulez!" in the game? 😉