Dear Civ III-team,

I really love Civ III, aswell as I loved the previous one. But I'm really concerned about a little problem I encountered. After I set the Mobilization option to 'Wartime', I couldn't set it back off. Please tell me (as soon as possible) how I should do so.

Thanks for the GREAT game,

Anthony (from Belgium)

Anthony,

Whenever you sign a peace treaty, your mobilization will automatically return to normalcy. If you're still at war with another Civ (and want to remain mobilized for war), you'll need to go to the domestic advisor and reselect wartime mobilization. Needless to say, if you switch to a wartime mobilization when you're not at war with anyone, you will actually need to declare war on another Civ and then sign a peace treaty to restore normalcy to your empire.

Hi,

Yes, I can't sleep. It says I could cancel a trade agreement after 20 turns, but I can't figure out how to do it. Thanks

Matt

Matt,

When you're in the diplomacy screen, you'll notice the words "New" and "Active" at the bottom of the screen. Normally, all diplomacy interactions take place on the "New" table, which is to say you're negotiating a new deal (with apologies to FDR). To cancel existing agreements, click the word "Active" and you should get a list of all the deals and trades that are active.

Any deal that can be canceled or renegotiated will be highlighted in blue when you mouse over it. Deals that cannot yet be canceled (because they have not yet been active for 20 turns) will be shown grayed out. You'll also notice the number in parenthesis to the left of some deals, which tells you how many more turns until this deal can be canceled.

Dear sirs,

I have a great leader from an Elite unit and I would like to create an army. How do I utilize the great leader to create an army unit?

Michael Weber

Michael,

To create an army, first you'll need to get that newly-arrived Great Leader to one of your cities. Once inside the city, you should have two new options available on your menu bar: Build Army and Hurry Improvement. Select "Build Army" and your Leader will be replaced with a new Army unit that you can load up with up to 3 units (you can put an additional unit in the army once you build the Pentagon).

Hi, Guys. Thanks for the truly great game. Quick questions. I've established an embassy, but I cannot follow the manual's instructions, which read, "double-click the embassy icon on your rival's capital city to open the menu". I do not see an "embassy icon". When I go to my Military Advisor, he knows nothing about my rival's army. I cannot investigate cities or steal technology. Have I misunderstood? What am I missing? Your learned insight greatly appreciated.

Carol Budinger
San Francisco

Carol,

The easiest way to establish an embassy is to click on the embassy icon of your capital city. The game will then present you with a list of civilizations to select which one you'd like to establish an embassy with.

	A capital city before the discovery of writing (no embassy icon)
	A capital city AFTER the discovery of writing (note the different icon -- this is the "embassy icon")
Clicking the embassy icon allows you to select a civilization to establish an embassy with.

What does the sun in the Info Box mean?

Steve

Steve,

The sun in the info box represents the current effects of global warming on the Earth (as a result of global pollution). Once the sun icon appears, it means there is sufficient pollution present to affect the terrain of the planet. Henceforth, as the effects of global warming get more significant, the sun icon will appear brighter and brighter.

Hi

First of all, I like to thank you for creating yet another masterpiece. I bought the game recently, and have played it everyday. I seem to have a lot of trouble building railroads!. Is there some necessary resource required in addition to steam power for building railroads?.

I would appreciate any help.

thanks,
T.J

T.J.,

You hit the railroad spike on the head: coal and iron are required to build railroads. And we're glad you're enjoying the game!

Hello,

I'm real excited about Civ 3, but was wondering what the odds were of Firaxis coming up with a patch that would update the color scheme to be more visible to those of us in the audience who are red/green (or otherwise) colorblind? A similar patch was done for SMAC and made the game much more playable for me. Hopefully the same improvement will be developed for Civ3.

Thanks,

Jim Jones

Jim,

Thanks for the feedback. We are incorporating a feature into the upcoming patch which should make it easier for persons with colorblindness to play the game. As always, we encourage you to use our feedback form to submit any suggestions you may have for how we can make the game easier on your eyes!

Hey Guys,

Am I missing something in this game? Once I'm beyond half a dozen cities, all the other cities have so much corruption their effective output is one shield and one gold. The courthouse doesn't give me any releif and changing governments doesn't help. I've been playing ever since CivI days and this just doesn't feel right. Do I have some technical problem, or is this the way you designed this version?

Thanks,

Dave

Thanks,

Jim Jones

Dave,

In Civ III, we certainly do handle corruption differently than in previous Civ games. We will probably tone its effects down somewhat for the first patch, but in the meantime, here is an excellent summary that Civ III Programmer and Co-Designer Soren Johnson made on Apolyton, explaining how corruption works in Civ III.



The way corruption works is one of the biggest changes from Civ2, so I am not surprised that people are having difficulties adjusting. Under this new system, you cannot control ever city in the world and expect them to still function. Thus, it takes a slightly different approach than Civ2 (or Civ1 or SMAC) required. Simply put, more cities is not always better.

There are two factors affecting corruption levels:

• distance from capital (like Civ2), and
• number of cities (unlike Civ2).

• moving your capital to a more optimal location
• building a Courthouse in the city
• building a Forbidden Palace near your corrupt cities
• switching to a less-corrupt government type
• being connected to your capital via road/harbor/airport
• putting your city in "We Love the King Day" (works for shields only...)

• lowering the difficulty level
• building a Courthouse in the city
• building a Forbidden Palace in any city
• playing a civilization with the Commercial bonus
• switching to a less-corrupt government type
• putting your city in "We Love the King Day" (works for shields only...)

• emphasize building a few great cities instead of a bunch of puny ones

• think about razing cities when you capture them (although be careful... you might create an enemy for the rest of the game...)