Civilization 3 is a fairly easy game to edit, and someone has already made a modification to change the graphics for special resources and make them more visible. Here is a thread at the Apolyton forums about it. You can also find other neat stuff in that forum, like other modifications and new maps.
the game still hasn’t been released here in the UK. 
Allegedly Nov 16 - but you know how reliable those sort of dates are.
Well I suppose I will be well-informed before I even start my first game, thanks to all you nice people (cheering-up smilie)…
so carry on posting! 
I started a new game to try out the Japanese. Got a really weird map this time, went with the large archipelago and got an interconnected archipelago! I noticed that the Romans and Egyptians were leaving open spaces between their settlements to leave them room for expansion. I took advantage of this by sending settlers between those gaps to gain access to the resources there. I even agreed to a trade agreement with the Egyptians for furs when I was planning to take them for myself! Already had a settler on the way there when Cleopatra proposed the deal. After that settlement expanded its cultural influence, I had three sources of furs and one saltpeter!
Just to let you folks know, I just spent approximately $600 on upgrading my computer, one of the major reasons for which is to be able to play this game. And after my knew system gets here on Friday (hopefully) and I get it up and running, I will then have to go out and shell out another 50 bucks to buy the damn game. So who is a bigger Civ fanatic than I am?
[Sound of crickets chirping]
That’s what I thought :D. I played the original Civ back in '91. I played it endlessly. I played it when I should have been studying for finals, in fact I would play it at 3 am on mornings before them.
When I got my current system in '96, the first piece of software I got was Civ 2. I would estimate conservatively that I have played over a thousand games of that. Civ is my crack, more so even than this board, which is a shame as I have just recently been able to find the time to post here again.
But you can bet I will still be in this thread 
I have a 10 year old computer in my room just so i can play Civ 1. Thats the only thing i use it for.
OK, I bailed on the game wherein I was bitching about not finding any coal and started a new game …
In which there again wasn’t any freaking coal apparent.
Like Jeff described, the new game also took place on an interconnected archipelago, an odd occurence when you consider I opted for the HUGE map.
Anyway, I lucked out in that my starting point was about as far away from the other tribes as possible, and I was able to get a good jump on techs before I expanded so that I was in serious contact. The lack of coal and therefore railroads slowed me down considerably (particularly in terms of fighting pollution), but I persevered, even when my only source of oil turned out to be a tundra square about 40-odd spaces away from my closest city.
Anywhoo… I maintained good relations with everybody, particularly through a judicious use of bribes, even when the Iriquos and Zulus started a war through my territory (I had negotiated rights of passage with both nations). I avoided wars completely, and was starting to build my spaceship (this was the early 1800s), when I was abruptly informed that I had won a cultural victory.
That was all on Chieftan level. I’ve started a new game as the Greeks on the next level up. Hopefully I’ll find some coal this time (using Badtz Maru’s map edits to make the freaking stuff stick out.)
Sua
Just bought the strategy guide. I’ll let you know if it has any spiffy insights.
Justy in case I was not clear, I am not responsible for the map edits I linked to. The limits to my modification of Civ3 have been adjusting unit strengths and requirements (why does the Aegis Destroyer require uranium when it’s gas-turbine powered?).
Coal can be hard to spot. Make sure you have the appropriate tech advance that makes it visible.
Also, you can do a ctrl-shift-m to make resources easier to find.
The reason you find yourself with the same crowd in games where you choose the same Civ is that Firaxis clusters like cultures together. So if you take France, for example, you can expect to encounter the Germans and English fairly early on.
I just finished a marathon game. You’re right that it takes longer than the other Civs, mostly because there’s a lot more to do and think about. To really succeed, you have to pay close attention to what’s going on, not only in your own civilization, but in others as well. You have to plan a lot more, strategize better, and mobilize tactical resources more carefully than ever before.
In my game, I was France. I like the commercial and industrious combination. The commercial aspect leads to more gold and less corruption, and the industrious aspect means that workers produce like nobody’s business — building railroads in a single turn, lumberjacking in four turns, and so on.
The English were expanding on my northeast flank early in the middle ages, while Germany was choked off from my territory by a fortunate bottleneck of mountain terrain to my south. I always concentrate on Wonders because of their enormous point contributions. Now, in Civ3, they contribute to culture as well. Having built all the wonders available, I began to culturally assimilate the English cities. First one, then another, then yet another, until London was only a couple of tiles away from my border.
That’s when I decided that I probably could take England. My Forbidden Palace was over that way. And Liz was a bitch. She refused to trade anything with me, unless I parted with half my kingdom, and so I goaded her into a war. Soren has said that your people are more forgiving if war is declared on you than if you declare war. So, with that in mind, I sent a couple of workers to stroll around London. Sure enough, Elizabeth, no doubt already daunted by her peoples’ defections to me, requested an audience, and snarled that I must remove my “forces” from her territory. I just closed the window. (Clicked “That’s all, Elizabeth” or whatever.)
Next turn, she began blustering again. This time, she said that if I did not remove my forces, I should prepare for war. Well, I had already prepared for war, so I dismissed her again.
Wow, the sit hit the fan. Messages started popping up all over the place. “England declares war on France.” “England and Germany have signed a mututal protection pact.” “Germany declares war on France.” Woo-hoo! The war with England was fairly swift. London fell quickly. By the way, if you are an industrious Civ, one of the best uses of bombardment units is to cut off roads from the enemy capital. Bombard the tiles around the capital, not just the capital itself. That way, the enemy is cut off from its own resources and luxuries. Once you’ve taken the enemy city, your industrious workers can rebuild improvements very quickly.
The Germans were half-hearted, to say the least, about the war. They tried to cross once with a throw-away unit, a warrior, I think. But I had fortified that bottle-neck pretty well, and apparently they knew that. But once England was defeated, my culture began to sore. About that time, I completed Smith’s Trading Company and I entered a golden age. All my cities went into “We love the Saint” days, and production soared.
I marched into Germany, and took city after city with relative ease. The Germans had been concentrating on science, and had left their defenses rather weak. In a span of a few decades, I now had an empire that was triple its previous size on a large continent, and as a commercial Civ in a golden age, I had tolerable corruption.
Fortune smiled again as my southwest flank, now bordered by the Russians, was once again a bottleneck that I could easily defend. But Russia had expanded to nearly my size on its own, stretched all the way across the continent horizontally. Our middles were separated by an ocean, but our lands met up again on my southeast flank. And it wasn’t a bottleneck. It was a fairly wide expanse of mostly mountains and jungle. My intention had been to peacefully coexist with the Russians, but then suddenly it happened.
My lone source of oil dried up.
I looked around the map, and having traded territory maps with the Russians, I saw it. Just about three cities south of me, the Russians had a spot of oil. I had no choice. I had to have it. So, I began implementing a plan. By now I had infantry. (I had built a lot of spearmen early on, which upgrade over and over, all the way to mechanized infantry.) So I mobilized a phalanx of infantry, two per tile on each tile at my southeast border with Russia. My plan was to attack on the southwest front, but I knew that the much improved Civ AI would try to launch a counterattack.
So, once the southeast was fortified, I tried to goad Russia into a war, similar to how I had done with England. But dammit! The Russians liked me too much, and so I ended up just having to violate their trust. I marched in. They never even protested until I got right up to Slovograd, or whatever. Suddenly, Catherine petitioned me and abruptly demanded that I leave or declare war. So, I declared war. Dammit! I’d forgotten about our luxury trades, and so I lost my source of furs and spices. That meant that I had to spend time each turn away from the battle mollifying a bunch of pissed off French!
Anyway, part of my battle campaign strategy as Com-Ind is to bring plenty of workers along. They can build roads and railroads right under the feet of my soldiers! This helps make progress swift while still in neutral territory, or after freshly taking new ground. This campaign was more brutal than the ones against England and Germany. I suffered fairly heavy losses, as the Russians were better defended. And sure enough, they tried to launch a counterattack along their northeast flank, but it quickly petered out against my mountain entrenched soldiers.
Eventually, I cut a swath south and finally took the city that had the oil. That was all I wanted, and so I tried to sue for peace, but the Czarina wouldn’t even talk to me! She kept trying to retake the cities, and so I was forced into a long, prolonged war with a vast Russian empire. But long story short, I eventually took it all. Catherine contacted me as my troops surrounded Moscow. She offered me practically everything she had, including her last city in the extreme southwest tundra. For 3 gold, 1 gold per turn, and Bumfuckgrad, she was willing to re-establish our “old friendship”. I almost felt sorry for her. She had practically nothing to offer, but she offered everything she had. Reluctantly, I told her “no”, and took Moscow. Two turns later, I took the last city.
Good lord. I now had the whole continent. Yes, corruption was rampant in the far south. I got 1 shield per turn in even the largest cities there. So I quickly set about producing an army of lumberjacks. By now I had more than sixty cities!
Time passed, and I became really good friends with the Egyptians, who had a continent (though much smaller) of their own to my northeast, and the Persians, also with a small continent to my west. The three of us traded heavily. Meanwhile, the Iroquois and Aztecs were waging war on a continent to the east. Persia began wandering into my seas with their galleons. By now, I had surrounded my entire continent with battleships. I told the Persians to get out of my territory three turns in a row. Each time, they agreed, and then each time, they encroached again. Finally, I’d had enough, so when their little frigate dove into my territory again, lo and behold its turn ended right next to my battleship!
Click click (yes, dammit, proceed even if it means war!) click — KaBOOM. End of frigate. Xerxes is furious, and yet another war is on. I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to take any land on his continent, so I fight basically a defensive war that isn’t too difficult, owning to my superiority in strength. When he’s lucky enough to land a unit or two, they meet an immediate fate of death as my arsenals sweep back and forth on their railroads to take care of business.
It’s quiet for several turns, and suddenly “The Persians and the Iroquois sign a mutual protection pact!” “The Iroquois declare war on France!” They had by now defeated the Aztecs.
Oy vey. This I don’t need. I call upon Cleopatra, to whom I had given, for nothing in exchange, trinkets here and there all along. She was past polite with me. She was “gracious” toward me. She did not hesitate to align with me against the Persians and the Iroquois for practically nothing in return. So she fought the Iroquois to her south, and I made a circle-the-wagons manoeuvre with my battleships, going 'round and 'round Persia, blasting all the improvements around their cities along their narrow continent.
And then it happened. Dammit! My oil supply I’d taken from Russia dried up. And who should have oil now? Not Persia. Egypt and the Iroquois. Egypt had only one, and I had too much invested in them to turn them against me now. And they couldn’t quite yet “see” the oil to trade it. So I searched, and lo and behold found a patch of oil just outside the territory of the Iroquois. Making haste, I planted a colony there, but got no oil. What’s wrong? D’oh! I have no way to get it across the ocean, and the road there is tied to the Iroquois with whom I’m at war! (Though we had yet to fight an actual battle.)
Luck once again! Suddenly, “Egypt and Iroquois sign a peace treaty!” I contacted the Iroquois, made peace fairly easily, and suddenly the oil began to pour once again. I went on a feverish weapons build-up campaign. I wasn’t going to get caught short again. I built modern armor and mech infantry for every single one of my cities.
And then, after a few years of prosperity and peace, my oil dried up yet again! Shit! Are the French cursed with oil sickness or something? The Iroquois have oodles of it, so naturally I go after it. The battle portion of the war is brief. I take a coastal city with oil. No resistors! (Lucky.) I rush build a harbor, and I’m back in business. But the Iroquois won’t negotiate to end the war. They keep harrassing me with horsemen and knights against tanks, mech infantry, and radar artillary. And then the stupid Persians rejoined them, and I had war on two wide fronts. On the Iroquois front, I was surrounded by enemy territory.
And then, it happened. No, my oil didn’t run out. I completed the Manhattan Project. I had nukes. Man, those ICBMs are expensive. I put every worker I had on lumberjacking in Paris, and after two years, I had my first ICBM. I saved my game. I knew that world opinion would turn against me if I used it, but hell. This war business was starting to strain my people and my production.
I saved, and clicked the “End of Turn” button. Paris has built ICBM. Chartes has pollution. We love the Saint day ends in Lourdes. Nouveau Orleans builds thrusters. And then bang — out of the blue — the space ship comes up complete and ready to launch. And there’s no way out of it! You have to launch!
Dammit! Just when things have gotten interesting. So, I went through the screens (pretty neat movie plays), ended the game, and reloaded the previous turn, stopping production of the last spaceship component. Next turn, I got my ICBM (again!) and this time, I launched it. Target, the Persian capital.
Lordy! The poor city highlighted, the missle fell from the sky, there was a brilliant flash of light, and then the earth shook. The subwoofer rumbled as a mushroom cloud rose from the city. And then…
Devastation. The city was still there, and only ten percent of its population was killed. But it was hopelessly polluted. All improvements in its radius were wiped out. No roads. No mines. No irrigation. No defenders. Nothing. Its capital had been completely cut off from the rest of its continent. Wow. Those nukes are effective. Quickly, I checked my diplomacy screen. Yes! Cleopatra still adored me! She ought to. Off and on, I had given her gold, advances, and luxuries as outright gifts. Great.
I contacted Xerxes. He was ready to talk. We made peace. Apparently, he needed time to rebuild his capital now that war was suddenly problematic for him.
My mission now was clear. I needed another ICBM, this time for the Iroquois. Calling all lumberjacks! All the while, I had been improving my outpost across the ocean with a temple, a cathedral, a harbor (of course), and transporting more and more troops and workers to its shores. After two more turns, I have another ICBM. I click “Next Turn” and…
Dammit! “You win a cultural victory!”
I didn’t want a cultural victory. I now had a taste of thermonuclear war. I had ten cities producing ICBMs and I didn’t want it to end. So, I clicked through the screens. Cultural Victory (like Diplomatic Victory) is quite abrupt and has no movie. This time, I clicked to just continue the game without scoring, and spent several years nuking the vast Iroquois empire until it could no longer produce anything. I sent a wave of armor across it, destroying and razing city after city.
Oh well. It was really fun. During the course of the game, I fought five major wars, wiped out (and assimilated) three civilizations, and was on the doorstep of wiping out a third. In the meantime, I practically built Egypt with gifts. What that got me was easy and lucrative trades. Cleopatra would give me almost anything I asked for, incense, wines, whatever.
Mostly, though, the game was a learning experience. I wish I’d known earlier about lumberjacking, workers in battle campaigns, how to soften other leaders, and so forth. But anyway, I’m going to break now for at least the morning.
Badtz, I really enjoyed your stories. I think I saw you over at Apolyton. Good luck in your future games! And to all of you who are considering buying it, have fun!
I’m evidently the peaceful one here. 
At least until the interconnected archipelago. Everybody declared war against India and they had to go through some of my territory to get there. England asked me be to be an ally against India and I agreed. India had a source of gems I wanted and got tired of waiting for assimilation so I send a samurai and a horseman to wage war with the town that controlled the gems. The town had already changed hands a few times between India and the Romans and was down to one point of population. My horseman was turned back and the samurai had to wait until the next turn. During Rome’s turn, they had softened up the town’s defenses that the samurai had no problem taking it. I had my main cities producing samurais as fast as they could so I could wage war with India along with everyone else. Then India had to go and sue me for peace! After I captured only that one town! Maybe they knew what was coming or something. I can see I still need troops becuase those Romans are troublemakers. Caesar makes an occasional tribute demand from me, technology so far. Their troops also vastly outnumber ours; they’re the ones who started the war against India. I’m going to beef up my defenses just in case. It’s 1850 and we’re going to have railroads soon. Now if I could just find where the coal is…
Some more trivia on my never-ending war. I’m up around 1990 now, so I guess i’ve only got about 60 years/turns to go. I’m researching the environmental thread. In short, I’m the USA, communist, huge map, large continents. I completely cover one continent and one large island. Five other civs occupy another large continent. I’m sending transports full of teams to attack and take over resources occupied by the enemy on the arctic perimeters. I’ll set up towns and force a port so I can use these resources. I’ve split the enemy continent with a wide belt of captured cities linked by railroad. I have to defend every inch and have full scale wars going on three fronts against three different civs, with a fourth civ pounding with a cavalry force a small army of mine that got isolated from the main force by a range of mountains. I have a rescue plan with the main force, after it takes the Aztec capital that has a herd of elephant icons outside (an ivory resource? I haven’t bothered to check.) My little George Washington great leader has morphed into what looks like Patton. I’m pouring out military units and my goal is maximum territorial conquest. I raze all captured cities now, unless they have resources nearby.
I have to shut down and pack up. I’m going to paint ceilings and walls in my home office, and get new carpet installed… I’ll have to temporarily set up my computer elsewhere.
Wow, good luck Al! Sounds like an exciting game is getting more exciting as time goes by!
The first few times I played I just went for cultural victory. Like Libertarian I use the french. Id build roads everywhere and just non stop produce settlers to get as much ground as possible. I missed alot of territory that the civs would always build on and the towns would always turn to my control giving me most of the map.
Now I am trying the earth scenario on monarch difficulty. It doesen’t seem to hard as I started in America and have managed to destroy both the Russians and the Germans with the French. Though I tried to be peaceful first I managed to get Russia’s first base while it was undefended and then got swordsmen quickly which allowed me to kill the Russians and most of the Germans. I managed to get a leader Napoleon right before I destroyed the Russians with two elites. I now have an army of two elite and 1 veteran swordsmen that by itself took over about half of the German cities. With that and a few longbowmen I destroyed the Germans and am about to kill the English as well. After that I will have both north and south america.
Its really worth it to destroy the civilizations instead of letting them linger on. Once you destroy it all your resisting populations become content. Not to mention I chased the Russians for a while and they settled all of Canada for me.
After this I go onto Diety difficulty:)
I think I killed this thread:)
I tried another game as the egyptians and have found out that the option for the 15 or so people is not a good option. I tried it because I thought it might be harder, and it is pretty neat, but later on in the game turns were taking several minutes to process. It was also alot easier.
I have never had a city change sides back after I captured it, but I am big on culture - when I create or capture a city, the first thing I build is a temple, and in my technology progress I tend to prioritize religious development and technologies that lead to wonders that improve the effectiveness of my temples and cathedrals and technologies that lead to cultural improvements like libraries and universities. I too leave big spaces within my borders for the other civilizations to colonize, and the new cities are always absorbed quickly. I also like to build my wonders in border cities if at all possible to do feasibly, because they can generate so much culture. When I do take over cities militarily, I make my army wait in the newly conquered city until a temple is build and all the resistors have given up.
I’m still in an epic war, year 2005. I may have a shot at conquest of the planet with 45 years to go to 2050. every turn takes at least half an hour as I fight large wars on at least five major fronts on the largest map possible. It’s actually gruelling and boring at times as I control so many workers building railroads and cleaning up pollution. The damned Iroquois must have focused on culture because I lose a city back to them every now and then. I just can’t spare the forces to subdue their cities. Looks like it’ll have to be raze 'em flat from here on in. The Germans and Aztecs are putting up quite a fight and it’s depressing when a bowman takes out a tank. I feel kind of dirty for getting into such a brutal strategy - no shagging around with diplomacy, get the lead in military tech and take on everyone. Famine, city razing…all in a day’s work. Oh well, the future of the planet depends on it. If I let those inferior civilizations industrialize they’ll just pollute the planet, so I suppose it’s for the greater good.
I don’t think I’m cut out for real life politics.
I must have put 60+ hours into this one game. If this thread’s still alive when I finish I’ll mundanely and pointlessly report my results. It’s going to take one hell of a burst of military unit production to clear the planet. I’m just not wiping out enough cities per turn and I’ve got to start scattering units and settlers around the wastelands my hordes have passed through or they start churning out barbarians.
I got my 16 year-old niece hooked on this game when she came down for Thanksgiving. My brother is going to buy her a copy too. It’s actually remarkably accessible if you have an experienced player showing you the basics. She was doing quite fine on her own less than 30 minutes after taking over the controls, and only came to ask me questions occasionally (like ‘How do I get my settlers onto the galley?’).
Well, my game as the Japanese came to an end because of the forced retirement in 2050. Lo and behold, I won with the highest score! Yeah, it was only in the high 500s but it was a good 30 ahead of my nearest competitor. I’ve since started a new game as the industrious Babylonians this time. I didn’t feel like sharing my continent so this time I went into war mode ASAP. Produced bowmen to attack the two Zulu settlements, capturing one. My bowmen had little effect on their capital, so I found some iron and started producing Immortals and took both that capital and the Aztec capital that suddenly appeared on my southern shore. Produced a galley from my coastal town and found the Russians, who weren’t too pleased with my warlike nature. I didn’t feel like crossing the ocean to go to war, so I made friends with them. Good thing, too. Their continent has horses and gems close to its northeasern shore. I made one settlement near the horses and bulit a harbor, and will send another settler up near the three gem sources. With those footholds on the Russian continent, I might end up at war with them too.
I’ve been playing Civ3 for a couple of weeks. Excellent game play as expected. I can’t really add anything review-wise that Batz Maru hasn’t already covered (nicely done, Batz).
I have a graphics glitch, though.
On my PC, running Win98se, DirectX 8.1 with Rage Pro Turbo AGP (built-in)running at 1024x768, 24 bit color:
My fonts look like crap…all jagged even with “font smoothing” turned on. I have less than 275 fonts in my font folder, too.
In dialogs with other leaders, the response choices are offset to the very bottom of the screen. They don’t sit in the beige boxed area as they should. This makes it very difficult to select a proper response during negotiations. Other choices, such as “Clear Table” don’t even work.
So…I am in the process of re-installing to see if that will help. Anyone else have graphics display issues?