Top 7 Mistakes That New Players Make In Civ 3

1) 0:06 (Expanding too slow)
2) 2:17 (Using the wrong solutions to unhappiness)
3) 5:37 (Focusing too much on culture)
4) 7:30 (Losing money to unit support)
5) 8:33 (Units in useless spots)
6) 10:34 (Letting The AI run away with the game)
7) 12:21 (Not building enough workers)
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[@alexiswilliams4489]

I can't believe how recent this video is. I thought my brother & I were the only people left playing Civ 3!

[@wtxohnthao2612]

Civilization III is an iconic game. I still play it even though I have 4, 5 and 6.

[@wittiza2102]

I starten playing again last week, after playing civ 5 a bit, was very boring. Bought it when it came out and I sucked. Civ 5 still suck. I would rank them as civ 3, civ 2, civ 4, civ 5. Have not tried civ 6 yet and will probably not do it.

[@wtxohnthao2612]

@@wittiza2102 Civilization 6 is very cartoon like, even for me when I grew up watching cartoons and still watch Anime. So l wouldn't recommend if you hate ultra generic looking games. Animation resembles Rise of Kingdoms and Clash of Clans.

[@PhyrexJ]

@@wtxohnthao2612 I hate the fact that it feels really hard to oversee everything due to the graphics. It's all very crowded to me. Started playing Civ 3 once again

[@kylerowland1227]

You’re not alone.. played it as a kid.. trying to master it as an adult

[@WulfieZi]

Hey Suede. I know you probably aren't getting the most views or anything from making content about a game that's almost 20 years old, but I really do appreciate these guides. Civ 3 is one of my favorite games of all time, I've sunk thousands of hours into it, and I'm still learning tips from your channel. So thanks, really.

[@suedeciviii7142]

Thank you! It means a lot to me :). Trust me, this is way more reaction and attention than I ever thought I'd get when I made this channel, so it's well worth my effort. Especially since my content is kinda low effort hahah

[@jonshive5482]

@@suedeciviii7142 Indeed. Pleasantly surprising to see nearly 9,000 views.

[@jonshive5482]

@@suedeciviii7142 Indeed. Pleasantly surprising to see nearly 9,000 views. Keep on truckin'!

[@user-qp1jh5vm8m]

@@suedeciviii7142 Please bring civilization 3 back to the market?

[@unknownstranger6558]

people watching mangs playing Fire emblem 6 IRONMAN IRONMANGS (that game too 19-20 years old) so that fine!

[@bradenvester4308]

Not gonna lie... I was always hesitant to disband because the military advisors always looked so scared.

[@scrubfive9239]

Lol

[@josiahstankus4193]

lol me too! when i was younger I didn't do it because i didn't wanna make them sad

[@munsters2]

RE:Braden Vester. Come to find out much later that the other tribes don't like you when you disband their cities. Boo.

[@SCCGunny]

Nah no issue. If it's too outdated it's gone. Either to war or disbanded for shields.

[@timmccarthy872]

That military advisor is a douche though, by all means piss him off.

[@MarcoAntonio-tb4gx]

I played civ1 to 4 not played the other ones.. Still civ 3 is my favorite... Havent played in a while, but is really nice seeing theres people still playing this jewell

[@brjboyce]

Marco Antonio I’ve only played civ3. Just won my first game on emperor.

[@MarcoAntonio-tb4gx]

@@brjboyce congrats on that... 👍🏻

[@jonshive5482]

@@brjboyce Congratulations. Took me over 10 years before managing that myself.

[@brjboyce]

Jon Shive Yeah, it took me about 15 to do it. Before I started my emperor game, I read a bunch of posts on the civfanatics forum (including some from Suede). The forums helped a lot to say the least.

[@wittiza2102]

I remeber my first civ 2 game when i was 9-10 years. I remeber when i saw a fighter attack my knight...

[@ijustwanttotalk95]

I've been playing Civ 6 for awhile now with over 4000 hours logged and got bored. I decided to fire up Civ III (for which I had to buy an external cd drive for because I still have the original Complete Edition) and had a blast playing my most played game as a kid. I decided to look on KZbin and lo and behold there is a Civ III KZbinr with recent content! Absolutely amazing dude! Keep on trucking. Subbed.

[@suedeciviii7142]

I love hearing stories like this :)

[@ijustwanttotalk95]

@Hammerin' Hank Civ V wasn't very cartoonish at all but Civ VI is DEFINITELY cartoonish. However, I will say it is much more difficult than Civ III. I can fly through a Sid difficulty game in Civ III but Deity (Sid) in Civ VI is harder to manage. Especially on the late game. I play Civ III more casually but that's probably because I've played it since I was 7. That is just my opinion though. On another note, I still don't necessarily like the "playing wide" mechanic that's forced on me in Civ VI. Any attempt to use strats from Civ V and before are useless. I like all the Civ games except for the first one for some reason.

[@ijustwanttotalk95]

@Hammerin' Hank I know. It is crazy. My first game was Civ III then I moved to Civ II, then IV, then V. I think by that point when I tried the first game I just wasn't able to get into it. It's sad because many fans of the series love the game and I haven't played it more than two hours.

[@ZacharyS-br4vy]

Hey I did the same as you and for some reason it won’t let me save the game did you have this issue

[@justmythought7658]

You could've saved money by buying Civ III from Good Old Games instead of an external cd drive.

[@timothyinnocent3311]

Suede: "your supposed to listen to your advisors right? but no" Me: "the only advisor you need to listen to is," Domestic Advisor: "build more cities!" Me: "in most circumstances, this is true. Dang the domestic advisor knows what he's talking about!"

[@suedeciviii7142]

Ok I'm going to start using this line in my videos 😂

[@CommanderRedVega]

I like the intro but when I saw the corner and read "-37 Gold Per turn" followed by actively researching "Economics (7 Turns)" I just snorted and burst out laughing and said "You better rush that shit real quick". Lmao

[@SCCGunny]

Smith's trading is a must in every gameplay for me. Along with the great library and theory of evolution.

[@CWig_99]

In all civ games i sometimes struggle with expanding because I've played so much Civ 5 where playing Tall is much better than Wide. (Civ 5 i usually never make more than 4 cities, which that strat doesnt translate to other games well)

[@Oniwabanhammer]

Your content is really good. I hope you get to grow your channel in time, so keep it up!

[@tenpoll]

Civ 1 was my first introduction to the series. I have a vague memory of playing it on my parents IBM laptop with black and white screen. Later we got a desktop with colour screen and cd rom and I remember playing Civ 3 on that a lot. After that i did not get interested in the new Civ games at all. I am going to get Civ 3 again now catch some childhood fun.

[@craigrobbins2463]

It's amazing how quickly he's made my regent games so much easier just with simple understanding of the game mechanics.

[@geoffreylim7295]

dude this really help...i just picked up this game since this covid-19 happens.. i've been struggling to keep the AI is happy with me.

[@99oildrops]

Civ 3 is a blast! I picked it up on steam and have been playing it for the first time in like 12 years. Definitely hard at first but as long as you expand your land quickly and build a large military to defend it early in the game you'll be fine.

[@josephsaxe8410]

My only advice on this is to make sure you don't break deals with other Civs. If you have a military alliance make sure you don't end the war until at least after 20 turns. Same goes for if you're exchanging luxuries or "7 gold per turn". Don't attack that Civ if you have an open deal

[@joshuamcmillan6390]

I think it would be really cool to see a series where saves are critiqued, as long as people can handle the critique. Some people might view it as a personal attack when it's really just a game and there are optimal ways to play. I know I'm not the most optimized and it would be interesting to see where my play could improve. Nice vid!

[@suedeciviii7142]

That's actually what I asked for these saves for, and I tried to make that kind of video, but it din't work very well. It was kind of directionless nitpicking. I'm pretty unfocused, so I think a list like this makes works better. Feel free to send me your save files ([e-mail]). Especially files where you think the game is unwinnable.

[@joshuamcmillan6390]

@@suedeciviii7142 I'll be sure if I get any future saves that appear "unwinnable", I'll send it. CIv is one of those games where there are "average" saves, and then there are "head-scratching" saves. Saves that make you question every strategy in the book (even if there are general strategies regardless.)

[@suedeciviii7142]

@@joshuamcmillan6390 Yeah I've seen both sent to me. Usually the earlier in the game it is though, the more winnable it is. Even if they've like, lost half their empire. In this video, I found the Germany save (where they have 4 cities) to be more winnable than that Celt save where the guy let the Zulu run away with the game

[@DoodleNoodle26]

after having the game sit in my steam profile undownloaded for about a year i downloaded it on a whim. first civ game, "how hard could regent be?" i thought. got my ass beat for about 6 hours! your guides were the first i found that didn't just kind of go in and out my ears, really helpful and engaging content you got! hope to see your channel and the civ iii community grow!

[@StanLazaridis]

Hi Suede, this is both so interesting and entertaining. Playing CivIII now for 20 years, I appreciate a lot what you are doing here. And I'm still learning...

[@loganhollingsworth1675]

I'm so glad videos are still being made for this game, helps a ton thanks

[@billyhunter5670]

Thanks x1000 for your guides. Civ VI is sitting on my computer and I’ve been revisiting III since buying it on GOG. I appreciate the complexities that are hidden in the relatively simplistic, board game like setup.

[@sunnyboi3867]

I want to thank you for making these informational videos. I wish I had these when I first played and slowly fell in love with the game years ago. It would have saved so much headache.

[@rickyviviano1262]

Great video. I'm 23 and have been playing on and off (probably 1500+ hours) since i was 12. learned a lot. thanks man.

[@Frilleon]

Nice man I’m glad some younger people still appreciate how incredible Civ 3 is

[@zockerhoernchen]

Thanks for the tips. Currently preparing a Let's Play Project for my chan' and your guide(s) are really helpful. I remember back then, when we had to figure this stuff out on our own, or be reaaaally geeky about the (hidden) mechanics.

[@andreymitro]

Wow, your channel is really cool! (I’he just subscribed) I love this game.

[@actionhanz3420]

i was about to get into this game and after opening the manual i thought i should first check if there is an old youtube video about it. and here you are making videos about this 18 years after it's release. :D nice. thanks

[@JessicaHaug]

Liked and subscribed. This was a highly informative video

[@lukenoake6144]

This was crazy helpful to me. I was making most of these mistakes haha, keep doing what you're doing!

[@eunice09sujushi]

thank you so much for the tips! i recently just played this game. and i'm guilty at the part you said that player tends to do so much wonders. i just am a fan of them hahahaha but i'll restart right away now knowing this

[@Romitas]

Hey, just wanted to say huge thank you for these Civ 3 videos! I know this isn't probably the most popular or viewable topic, but from someone who never played Civ 3 before and just picked it up recently - these are priceless, very informative and very exciting to watch, and delivery is great, so clear and concise. So glad I discovered your channel, instant like and subscribe

[@suedeciviii7142]

Thank you! It means a lot to me. Let me know if there are any topics I haven't covered in a focused enough manner.

[@histiaeus]

I bought this game when I was in high school, but I haven't played for years. This inspired me to buy the game on Steam and start playing again. Thank you for all the great videos and advice! This is stuff I didn't figure out or even think about when I played. Can't wait for more late nights playing Civ3!

[@Psykoschlumpf]

Nice to see a stream about civ3. I was expecting you to deal with cities setting in order to optimize tiles (namely, placing them with 4 tiles between each). I almost screamed when i saw cities built 1 tile away from the coastline. My empires are often not very large but 95% tiles efficient (it's hard to manage corner tiles of an expanded city). Btw good job, +1 sub, and looking forward for your next stuff.

[@suedeciviii7142]

Yeah, I have an entire video on city placement so I decided not to include it here. But honestly the worst examples of city placement are ones like the Byzantine game I showed here. You'll notice like three cows that aren't in any city's range. That makes me cry a little. I personally recommend pretty tight spacing. Efficiency is inefficient. But there are pros and cons. With some placements (like one of the coast, or planting on wheat) there's just no upside.

[@Judge_Magister]

Civ 3 is still my favourite civ game of all time, the newer ones just dont have the same appeal to me.

[@CoqPwner]

I'm amazed there is such a thing as new people playing this game... Civ V and IV are still king, but I do come back to this one occasionally. It has a special place in my heart since it's the First Civ / Grand Strategy / 4x game I've ever played. I didn't even speak english back then and was utterly confused, but man did I have fun times.

[@danielabatabogdanov8586]

I usually build most wonders in 1 city that has very high production.. that doesn't stop me from expanding quickly but still gives me wonders.

[@arthursandomine5464]

Very good video!! Informative and to the point! Finally some fandom for civ3; the best civ game!

[@wleon4068]

I too appreciate great videos like this that concentrate on wonderful simulations like Civ 3. Long gone are the days when we were spoilt for choice. We had, back then, 'Empire Earth' 'Sim City, 'Medieval Total War', 'Rome': Total War',[which were realistic simulations of what it took to guide armies back then, 'City Skylines' [another great sim city type simulation. ] Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix'[which was a great realistic simulation of Formula One and what it takes to drive a Formula One car}, and many many more. Now, it's all android and iPhone apps and in-game purchases, which I absolutely hate with a passion. I love when designers bring the past to life with simulations like this one and the ones I've mentioned.

[@bytorbusch]

One of the reasons I love to play the Mayans is an overabundance of free workers. Didn't cost me anything to make them and doesn't cost me anything to maintain them.

[@spedersen]

Would love to get your thoughts on enslaved workers. Whenever I capture an enemy city I try to bleed it of all of its population and whenever I see another war on the map I try to buy out workers they might have camped in cities. In my view, a half worker for 120 gold or whatever is fully worth the price for a maintenance-free unit.

[@suedeciviii7142]

Enslaved workers are great. You don't pay maintenance on them. They're also good for colonies and airbases (if you don't have unit support problems), since despite being half as effective as normal workers, they make airbases just as easily. Yeah, I try to buy them whenever they're available.The AI won't offer them up voluntarily (even if you ask "what would you give me for magnetism" or whatever), so you gotta go out of your way to ask.

[@munsters2]

Wow, a great tip. I never thought about doing that.

[@jonshive5482]

A quick way to get 'em is simply destroy the city. You get a certain percentage of the total pop each time. Later--or sooner if you brought a "combat settler" with your attacking stack--you can settle a new one on or near the ruins (unless it's a lousy location without food or resources).

[@munsters2]

@@jonshive5482 Are you saying that if you capture and abandon an enemy city, some of its workers will become your workers? I don't remember that ever happening.

[@jonshive5482]

@@munsters2 Sure. You betcha. In a current game already destroyed at least a dozen cities (7 pop or over). Must have close to a hundred slaves by now; they really came in handy building railroads and now they're clearing pollution. Most original Workers have joined cities to save on unit support.

[@seanwhite1104]

Great video, thanks! And, like SO many others have said, I surprised that there are so many views and so many other comments as "I thought I was the only one still playing this game".

[@milocebatron5249]

Just... THANKS. I have not enough words to thank you properly.

[@user-xh8zy9pv5r]

Very good job!

[@thathandsomedevil0828]

Will definitely did through my old save games and send you some of my nightmare rage quit save maps. 😄

[@Neek0tine]

After ages of FPS, MMO and MOBA gaming, CIV3 is my first Strategy game and hooolyy shit isn't it huge.

[@MsSmellybob]

Civ 3 was the first civ after civ 2 on ps1 that I played on pc, and it was amazing. I played this in Iraq on down time, we would convoy to the green zone and if the pizza hut truck wasn't blow up that week, we would get pizza.

[@Kyavata]

Excellent advice! You have to understand what each improvement does. There's no reason to build a granary if the city isn't going to be used as a settler factory. YOU PAY 1 GOLD PER TURN FOR EACH IMPROVEMENT. You have to analyze whether a project will truly benefit your country. Your cities aren't going to grow very big in the beginning, and can't unless you are 1) on a river or 2) have an aquaduct. So there's no reason to improve more terrain (with a worker) than can be worked. Great game, thank you for this video, my entire family still plays this , it's simple enough for my kids and still fun enough for mom and dad. :)

[@suedeciviii7142]

Yeah I think maintenance is something people too often forget about. You don't need a barracks in every city. If you're spending most of the game at 90% tech 10% lux, you don't need banks. This stuff really adds up, and part of being good is knowing what you can skip.

[@arashahbandeh]

Many years ago I played my last game of civ 3 on diety. Took me months to finish. But I got Magnificent status. I’m surprised I pulled it off because at the time. I didn’t realize some of the things in this video. Now I’m ganna go and try them out.

[@joaofranco9366]

Great tips!

[@craigprichard6506]

subscribed thanks for the info love this game

[@williamlinington9166]

All valid points. I have all 6 versions of civ, on my PC, but mostly play CIV 3.

[@arturassinkevicius1414]

Very well done, thank you.

[@moshegembom5934]

Nice video, one comment though: low Culture can cause your border cities to switch sides.

[@Irades]

Thank you for making a civ III content

[@Deven_McKee]

One thing I learned to take advantage of when doing anything higher than chieftain: Civilizations will declare war on each other through military alliances for LITERAL chump change most of the time. You basically have massive mercenary armies at your disposal for one small lump sum of gold, with the small caveat that they keep what they capture. Nothing is more satisfying than having the big guy try to extort you, declare war on you, then get smote by you and his 3 neighbors after you pay them all of.

[@suedeciviii7142]

Yes! Absolutely. I think this meme sums it up well twitter.com/SuedeCivIII/status/1384907902083911682/photo/1

[@Deven_McKee]

@@suedeciviii7142 Ha! Perfect 👌

[@sirreepicheeprules7443]

I have a game where there are two huge continents and a few smaller ones. I've conquered most of the eastern continent but the Zulu took over ALL of the western continent. I tried making alliances with everyone else against the Zulu but the AI players never attack in force like I do and the Zulu easily overwhelm everything. i attempted a massive landing at the southern tip of the western continent with over 200 units backed by massive naval and air support. I managed to take two cities but the Zulu just brought everything south and overwhelmed my invasion force. I ended up sacrificing over half my air-force just to bomb their roads and railroads to slow down their reinforcements and still lost. I've given up trying to beat the Zulu, but other players on the map I've attacked and conquered one by one. My navy is powerful and I can easily handle the Zulu at sea and defensively in the air. I have decided to focus on conquering the rest of the world first since the Zulu don't seem interested in further expansion, they simply keep building their army on their continent. I realize now that my mistake was letting the zulu grow too strong and acted too late to stop them. I have already 'won' the game with space race victory but I really want to conquer everything.

[@munsters2]

In my experience the Zulu are not that hard to beat but they are always irritatingly looking for a fight. You lost your air force because of enemy air superiority and/or SAMs? Did you take artillary along? It's great for pillaging roads 2 spaces around city and whittling down approaching enemies.If they were coastal cities, then naval ships, especially battleships (with 2 range) can enter city and bombard approaching enemies. Another thing: if you had an army, it is very useful for pillaging everything on a tile (up to 4 tiles per turn). More ideas: If you have a superior naval force and enemy only has 1 strategic resource like iron or salt and it is on the coast, get trade embargos with other tribes and then bombard resource with your navy (and/or air force). Or send navy around the whole continent bombarding whole coast especially resources, hills and mountains which will take Zulu a long time to improve.

[@sirreepicheeprules7443]

@@munsters2 the real problem is the Zulu control an entire large continent, so they have all resources and roughly 150 cities pumping out troops. I ignored the western continent as I was busy conquering the east and the Zulu just took over. All techs are researched and the game is won with space race but I'm just not satisfied until I have 75% or more of the map. I brought some artillery, but my invasion force was mostly modern armor and like 30 or so much infantry for defense. Air power I had in my carriers offshore and it was a bloodbath, my computer freezes and skips slot of animation, I came back to find my army wiped out in 2 turns.

[@nickshapland9384]

I love that this channel exists, I’m getting destroyed

[@karsonpence6622]

awesome idea for the next vid, i’ll be sure to send a file

[@gamefreak203]

Do you have a video explaining what to build first and where? Would be awesome. Love the video's. This help me alot

[@suedeciviii7142]

It's too situational for a full video but check out this. kzbin.info/www/bejne/i6ewlZiZpNZqZpY

[@ericproudfo0t619]

Super helpful video thx

[@thathandsomedevil0828]

Dude, the point made at 11:07 is literally my problem in all turn based strategy games. Maybe it's a flaw in my personality, I always just adopt a live and let live mind set and let the ai get super strong and then bully me around. Am also doing this in the game Endless Space 2 where two of the AIs are massive empires, the only difference being that I am also quite formidable so they don't attack me when they demand tribute. I wish I could foster a dominant mindset also! D :

[@suedeciviii7142]

The good news is it's super easy to fix in civ 3. In Civ 3, civs will declare war on anyone, even their allies, if you pay them small amounts of money too. Like, 100 gold, or an outdated tech. The only trick is that you (or they) must already be at war with the civ you want to ally versus. When you see a strong AI on the other side of the map start a war, it's a good habit to declare war on the strong AI, and then ally with all the other civs on the map against them. You don't even need to fight, and because you don't fight, you don't accumulate any war weariness. This has the added benefit of forcing the AI into anarchy so that they can switch to wartime governments with bad commerce.

[@thathandsomedevil0828]

@@suedeciviii7142 Hahahahaha, nice tips my dude. You should be part of the generalship military cadre in real life with your ideas, will give these a go. That said, what's the best way to send you game saves for review and solution fixing? :)

[@suedeciviii7142]

@@thathandsomedevil0828 email. [e-mail]

[@thathandsomedevil0828]

@@suedeciviii7142 Now sent! Would be great to hear your treatise on the scenario, not my proudest campaign. ^^

[@anonviewerciv]

Perfectly applicable advice to later games too. Build out before you build up. Try not to work unimproved tiles. 6:36 Culture became more important in later games.

[@Troylifenumber5]

I uesd to play this religiously as a kid, like 8-9, and my older brother wouldnt would show me how it worked, i just wanted to make everyone happy 😅 getting back into it today, this time as an adult whi can't understand the game. Thanks for the tips

[@pabloraulpereyra4948]

Good video 👏👏👏👏

[@bangenyolwanjapra5109]

thx for the information

[@Spoonwood]

I think I agree on every point.

[@munsters2]

Some good ideas. Pretty good graphics and clearly spoken and organized speech. A little too fast switching between scenes and moving the pointer. Civ3; my favorite game. Too bad the creators never fixed the faults of the game, but I still play it.

[@Quantumironturtle]

If you're cutting on units deep inside your territory, watch out for early/mid game transport drops. The A.I. will land troops next to your least defended city, and before frigates it flat out isn't cost effective to try attacking ships, so killing them before they make the drop is wasteful. That said, you don't need more than two defenders, just enough that a lucky win won't lose the city.

[@suedeciviii7142]

By the time you're against galleons/transports you'll have rails. By the time you get rails, you can reinforce from anywhere in your empire. And you always have a turn to react. The ai will never coordinate their landings (at least not deliberately), so you'll rarely have to deal with more than 3 units before you get rails. That's why I said keep knights/cavs around. You can cover more cities. 5 knights should be able to cover 6 cities. Isolated island are an issue. You can however, line your coast with units/outposts to prevent landing. Losing a city that isn't your capital isn't disastrous. Losing your capital sucks because it moves your palace. Anything else, you can afford to take that loss. I'd encourage new or intermediate players to play more risky rather than more safely. If you play safely, you won't learn what risks you can afford to take.

[@Quantumironturtle]

@@suedeciviii7142 I did play riskily. Got bitten in the ass a couple times. Still, I'll try the cavalry trick, see if it works.

[@redseagaming7832]

Also if you build wonders and settlers at the same time you build a second City before you start building Wonders that way you have one city that's dedicated toward baking wonders and troops that way you can do your rapid expansion eventually you have so many workers that you need to automate them

[@suedeciviii7142]

Yeah if you're building wonders definitely make sure you're still building settlers out of other cities.

[@Daimo83]

Happily surprised somebody seriously plays this. I got both Civ 3 and Call to Power when they came out and prefer them to modern ones.

[@jasonbr7]

Thanks!!

[@borisalarcon7504]

Our civilization has made such tremendous advances in quality of life because of people like you, caring for all of us since 4000 BC, thank you man

[@nono4805]

It would be nice, if you posted on CFC a link to your what was wrong videos, with the saves attached. I think people over there would be interested in looking at the saves and the video. There are very few still people putting out C3C video.

[@jonshive5482]

Good video with lots of great advice for beginners. Wonderful to see attention paid to what many consider the best game (Conquests expansion is ne plus ultra) in the whole Civ series. Keep it up! BTW for wrist-slapping's sake your example of the happiness slider has research set to zero. At higher levels of research you'll be paying more, at later stages of the game much more than 1 gold per turn per each 10% increment on the happiness slider. Of course you know that but your viewers don't. Likewise you made passing mention of Republic government without talking about the Despotism penalty. Plus sound crapped out in a few places later on and sometimes you were talking really fast. But yeah, it's impossible to make a video doing full justice to Civ3 beginner mistakes in just over 15 minutes. It's a fascinating research project as well as a grand strategic wargame. Cheers!

[@suedeciviii7142]

You always pay 1 gold per happy face. If you pay 10 gold, you're getting 10 happy faces. (You do miss out on the multiplier from markets/libraries but we'll leave that aside). Of course, these 10 happy faces might not always be in the cities you want. But it's still a very powerful tool because it's so efficient. You just have to be precise in how you use it. I have a whole video on government so I didn't go into too much detail. But I find the biggest mistake new players make with respect to government is overpaying on unit support.

[@jonshive5482]

@@suedeciviii7142 You're right about 1 gold equals one happy face. Later on though there's more settlements ; each town or city works out the 10-whatever % on its own, adjusted for corruption as well as multipliers. The most relevant post is here: forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-lux-slider-and-happy-faces-are-calculated.95860/ Unit support was one of my own bugbears. Took years for the light to dawn. Too bad your videos weren't available then. Thanks again for making them!

[@butchmcporksaw]

For wonders I'd really only recommend the great library and the hanging gardens they will make expansion faster

[@munsters2]

I'd like to see you do a video on fortresses and barricades. I sometimes use them on 1 or 2 tiles to protect a resource or to keep enemies from attacking an adjacent city. One game I decided to experiment and built strings of them to protect certain areas; it was a disaster and I never repeated that. Problems: #1 They take a while to build. #2 You have to place defenders on them to guard them (wasteful). #3 If enemy takes over tile, enemy now gets the benefit of improved defense (if I recall correctly). If you don't immediately counterattack, enemy can pillage fortifications. If on hill or mountain, you lose many attackers. #4 If you want to move/use your defenders elsewhere and pillage your fortifications, you must pillage your improvements (road, railroad, mine) before you can pillage fortification (if I recall correctly), then rebuild your improvements. #5 Supposedly, a barricade prevents a multi-movement enemy from moving any farther. Not very useful since I usually build fortifications on hills or mountains for extra defense.

[@suedeciviii7142]

Someone's asked this before, I simply don't have enough to say on the topic. The AI is really dumb in single player so it's hard to "outplay" them with fortresses. At the same time, the AI isn't dumb enough that they'd attack into your fortress unless they think they are kinda likely to win. Fortresses have more interesting uses in multiplayer though. Oh, but they're totally worth putting at choke points. But generally in wars you should aim to be on the offensive. If you're not on the offensive, it's because you're in a position of weakness, so you should probably be guarding your cities instead. Also, a lot of newer players have sent me save files where they prioritize building fortresses over more useful improvements like roads and mines. You can actually see that in the first save file of this video. So be sure to finish all your other useful improvements before you build fortresses.

[@josiahferguson6194]

my thought on fortresses is that they are a decent thing to build after you have improved everything else and like are waiting for railroads to use them again so you don't want them to join the city. Other use for them is if you are trying to win with 1 city and you want to slow the AI from rushing you, (again mostly built in late game). For #2, if it is a tile you would be wanting to guard anyways (like AI will pillage etc.) then having a defender there isn't a problem. For #3 if you have bombard units and use them efficiently then the AI defese bonus isn't that important, you can be smart with it more than the AI will be. #4 I don't think it would ever be worth pillaging the fortification and other stuff under it, the worst that happens is the AI gets a unit entrenched on that 1 tile and you have to fight to get them off (few turns possible loss, vs pillaging is guaranteed loss of income/shields). #5 Yes barricade does stop multi-movement, which is useful on flat land where you are worried about fast enemy units coming in and hitting your backline cities.

[@munsters2]

@@josiahferguson6194 Thanks for your response and advice.. It's been a while since that game so I don't remember all the details. #1 I think my workers were pretty much done with other improvements and I just set up a straight line of fortresses to see what would happen and hoping the enemy(AI) would attack and lose a lot of units. I don't think he did attack here but did in other locations. #2 I think I needed to pull my defenders and send them to cities or other locations that were under attack. #3 I needed my bombardment units to defend other areas being attacked. #4 I don't recall if fortresses were inside city squares or outside. As I said, this was kind of an experiment for me to see how useful fortresses could be. It seemed like it would have been very costly in units if I had to keep losing offensive units everytime I tried to re-take my fortresses, so I figured if I can't constantly keep defense on them, better off to pillage fortresses and leave squares undefended. Starting out with my experiment, I did not know whether the enemy would get a defense bonus from my fortress. Also, I did not know I had to pillage all other improvements before the fortress can go. Two improvements I think they could have made in game: A fortress can only be used by the tribe that created it, similar to an airfield. (Unsure if it should remain there or disappear) If you pillage that square, the fortress goes first, the barricade second and other improvements go last.

[@alphamikeomega5728]

I clicked this thinking it wouldn't be of any use to a long-time player. Turns out I'd never actually done the maths regarding the happiness slider, so I very rarely used it, just copying my old play-style from when I was much younger.

[@21prswaggyp70]

Hi Suede, first of all thank you for all your videos explaining Civ3. Helped me a lot to understand the game quickly. Right now im facing the issue (Persian-Despotism) that as soon as there is one unhappy citizen in one city (there a 2 other happy citizen), i face a riot the next round in this city. Could you explain why this is happening? You mentioned in this video that you just have to watch that there are not more unhappy than happy citizen. Thank you and greetings from Germany.

[@suedeciviii7142]

There's 3 mood levels. Happy, content, and unhappy. The city riots is unhappy > happy. I'd bet in your case, the citizens aren't happy, they are content. So it riots because there are 0 happy citizens, 1 unhappy, and 1>0. That's my best bet given the information you've given me. If you send the save file to [e-mail] I can have a closer look. Cheers!

[@21prswaggyp70]

@@suedeciviii7142 thank you so much for your quick answer. Its exactly that. Did not recognize all 3 moods. But as i learned from you all it takes is a quick adjustment with the happiness-slider. :)

[@M..-yj8pg]

Thank you

[@themountainsleeps]

Civ 3 best Civ can't change my mind.

[@cecarter10]

love how you're Witcher Series named cities lol

[@jackochainsaw]

Culture can be fun in a very small map. It is fun to flip the AI because it never prioritised any culture in each city so over time the boundaries fall away slowly but surely.

[@aren6]

sick guide

[@Judge_Magister]

10:47 there is still a fine spot for a mediocre coastal city on that little peninsula.

[@amiza.thedude]

i remember playing this with my brother all day and everyday

[@brantnuttall]

I build loads of workers when I'm stuck at 6 population because until I've built the aqueduct, they're basically free.

[@KeinNiemand]

Almost Every lets play I watch of civ 3 (at least the ones playing on lower difficulty) falls for 2. and primariley use temples to fix happiness.

[@gazzgaspay4841]

2023 and Im still playing civ 3.

[@josephsaxe8410]

Hey Suede, when I play on Regent or higher my main difficulties are keeping up with the rest of AI in tech, even after having libraries, universities, and 50% tech investment. Any advice on how to keep up? (I also like playing on Pangea so it seems like AI trade with each other more frequently)

[@suedeciviii7142]

Yes. You should play as a republic. Here's why: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aZ_Pk2CVaLNrjas (If you do play as republic, and what you said is true, the only other cause would be the AI having many more cities than you).

[@josephsaxe8410]

@@suedeciviii7142 Sweet, thanks! I always went for The Republic as a kid and now I remember why.

[@anarmasimli]

Tip for new players: Take a look at city of Lugdunum in 15:00. If you build another city on south east of Lugdunum, your ships can gain access to the inner lake to the north of Lugdunum. In many maps, you can cut through continent via a city, or cities+lakes. It is like your Panama or Suez. Edit: Actually, in this particular case, the ships cannot gain access, because the south-east of Lungdunum is also a big lake, not an ocean, but in general the tip holds true.

[@suedeciviii7142]

C A N A L S

[@goepfert1992]

I am so bad at this game, now I understand better the expansion phase. Usually I get lager by the IA and I have to brute force my expansion on the mid game 😅

[@dethwind1239]

I played this game a lot when I was like 7-11 and my strategy became I would surround an area with cities that I could build multiple cities in if that makes sense. I’d pretty much make a big donut then fill it in that’s the only way young me could ever win

[@best7993]

i never see anybody talk about the fact that people put their cities wayyy to far apart, leave 2 spaces in between for ur main ring of cities then keep 3, this way i always have over 100 cities and no unit cost is ever a problem and u produce like a mad man.

[@suedeciviii7142]

Yeah, I talk about it a lot too hahah. New players space cities way too far apart. But I have a whole video on city placement so I decided not to put it in this list.

[@best7993]

ah i get ya, i just didnt look in the right place :)

[@best7993]

great to see videos about this game btw, ive played this game for about 12 years now and my hours are countless. People seem to not understand that this is the best civ game and its great to see an active community

[@munsters2]

RE:Mickey Blatter. At first I was spacing cities closer (border to border), but then I learned that you end up with a bunch of productive cities lumped together and if you want to expand out any further, all your new cities are corrupt and produce almost nothing. Now I usually leave 1-3 tiles between city borders so I can control more of the map without having so many corrupt cities (one of my biggest gripes with the game). Exceptions are made if I need to claim a resource, want to build on water, want to block an enemy or control a chokepoint. Sometimes I will place my first 2-5 cities a little closer to save on travel time and get a quicker start. The spaces between cities will become my territory when culture kicks in. In a conquest victory condition I will take into consideration where enemy cities are so that when I conquer them, they will better fit into my spacing plan.

[@LCInfantry]

Sick!!!

[@RoastedPheasant]

It is so bizarre to hear of people not having workers and not having improvements built. I always automate the workers and try to make workers whenever I hit the population cap.

[@metalmaster7789]

Fucken Zulu man, thank god Civ 6 improved and bestowed the zulus from their powers.

[@PumpkinMozie]

Tbh I always emphasize building wonders. I think it’s a good strategy because it ups your cultural influence a lot so when you border another country it’s pretty likely that the AI’s cities will switch allegiance to you. If you don’t build up that cultural influence then you’ll have the opposite: your cities will switch allegiance to the AI. So tbh I don’t really view the AI’s cities as a lost spot on the map.

[@suedeciviii7142]

You generally won't be building wonders in your border cities so the effect on culture flips is pretty much worthless. If you're particularly worried about a particular city flipping, just buy a temple or library in it. There is an effect of global culture on city flipping, but it's miniscule.

[@FINSuojeluskunta]

After playing 5 a lot and coming back, 3 is so different. A lot of the stuff you're supposed to do in 3 is exactly the opposite of what you're supposed to do in 5 (roads, expansion, buildings to focus on).

[@suedeciviii7142]

I did a stream playing Civ 5 and a lot of the people in the audience were cringing at how I played it.

[@cooldepot4378]

just curious, what is the reasoning behind the food and shield = 3 commerce?

[@suedeciviii7142]

I'm glad you asked! 1 shield = 1 food because mines and irrigation are interchangeable. Although surplus food is more scarce early on due to the despotism penalty. When you rush a building in republic/monarchy, you pay gold for shields at a 4 to 1 ratio (a little more, since there's usually a lot of overflow). You can rush whatever you want. But people generally rush somewhat sparingly. So it's safe to say that 4 gold is worth more than one shield. People gladly pay to upgrade at a 3 to 1 ratio (gold to shield). And that's invested into a unit you have little choice over. If we're talking about a general comparison between gold and shields in the city screen, then the shields are much more valuable, because you can spend them on whatever you want. In fact, people gladly pay hundreds of shields for Leonardo's workshop. Leo's allows you to convert gold to shields at a 1.5 to 1 ratio. So you'd have to be crazy to think shields and gold are of equal value. Wealth converts at a much lower ratio. But people (at least people who are good at the game) only build wealth when they have nothing else worth building. Whereas people will pay for upgrades/rushing even when they have other good options for spending their money. Like teching. Put another way: what would rather start with? 180 gold? Or 0 gold, and a granary?

[@100DollarHeadache]

13:02 - that one sentence has completely changed my view on Civ III. Later cities being outposts strangled by corruption was my least favorite part of the game.

[@suedeciviii7142]

Yes! commerce and shields corrupt, food does not. Workers (and later on settlers) are cheap in shields but require a lot of food.

[@100DollarHeadache]

It's still taking me a while to get used to rapid expansion and ICS, versus Civ IV's city maintenance doing a better job of constraining growth until the imperial core can support it.

[@suedeciviii7142]

While ICS is viable, even most high level play tends towards building cities 3-5 tiles apart, except when land is super scarce.@@100DollarHeadache

[@suedeciviii7142]

But yeah, the game rewards explosive growth, not measured growth@@100DollarHeadache

[@100DollarHeadache]

@@suedeciviii7142 Just got my first win on Regent. Wanted to make it cultural because that's my favorite of the ending screens. It boiled down to expanding by eliminating threats before another civ could snowball. I spent more time as a monarchy than I should have and fell far behind in tech, but became big enough to catch up. I think I have the hang of this now. I still prefer to have optimal city placement over tighter placement.

[@mwmoriarty]

I always tend to not have enough gold and after watching these tips realize some of the mistakes I am making. One thing I disagree with is moving the slider to increase happiness without counting the cost associated. It increases the cost for all cities, not just for the one rioting.

[@suedeciviii7142]

It does. That's the one downside of the happiness slider. It is incredibly efficient at what it does but you can only set one uniform rate across your nation. So choose that rate wisely! I did oversimplify in this example, by choosing a situation where a 10% happiness rate only affected my capital. But generally you're going to have happiness problems pretty evenly across your nation. It's rare that your unhappiness will be localized to specific cities. And if there are some imbalances and you don't like the waste, you can shuffle around your military police to minmax.

[@alexreyes2412]

Just wish you got the science they had when you captured their city’s like on gold edition. I can’t be the only one that remembers that

[@suedeciviii7142]

You're thinking of Civ 2, right?

[@SendNubes96]

My dad just died about 2 months ago and he really enjoyed this game, thank you for helping me learn.

[@suedeciviii7142]

No problem! What was his favourite civ to play?

[@SendNubes96]

@@suedeciviii7142 was a toss up between 3 and 4. He really enjoyed the unit controls and unit management when they were in stacks in 4, but preferred the graphics of three

[@suedeciviii7142]

@@SendNubes96 Civ 3's isometric perspective + pixel based art is absolutely wonderful.

[@suedeciviii7142]

@@SendNubes96 And weirdly the 3D art on the leaderheads has aged surprisingly well? Most 3D stuff from that era looks really bad, but Civ 3's leaders actually look nicer than the cartoony ones from 4 and 5 IMO.

[@SendNubes96]

@@suedeciviii7142 it's beautiful, I wouldn't mind seeing some minor upgrades but it's not a big deal. I just recently found a box of things my dad had in his closet and IIRC I found tech tree posters for civs 1-3 in like, nearly flawless condition. Would you happen to know where I can get an estimate on the value?

[@PelemusMcSoy]

I've been playing this game since it came out, and I am a peasant and can never play above Chieftain. Maybe if I try the expand rapidly tactic, I may actually have a chance of succeeding in Warlord...unless I get stuck on an island with the Aztecs again, then I should just give up and restart.

[@suedeciviii7142]

Good idea. Expanding navally can be tough. Maybe pick a pangea map.

[@GabrielLobatooo]

Its 2024, and this continues to be my favorite game, im playing now... hahha