Useless Civs

[Centauri18]

There's no such thing as a useless civ. The different choices of civs means that with each one you have to modify your personal strategy a little, and with some you might have to rewrite it entirely.

[joncnunn]

The English UU is useless.
But the traight combos do have several Golden Age possibilities:

Want an Ultra Early GA without the war that those with ancient UUs get: Play as the English Build the Colosus and get the jump building addional early GWs.

Want a GA right after switching out of Despotism? If you play as the English you can build the Great Light House and speed up construction of Sistine's & your FP.

Want a GA in the middle late portion of the middle ages: If you play as the English, you can build Magellon's Voyage and speed up other late middle age wonders.

[Centauri18]

You just have to be willing to play differently as the English.

[sabrewolf]

at the CFC war academy and here in the strategy forum there are several comparisons by hardcore players. practicly everyone considers the english as the hardest civ. and in civ3 ships are just too unimportant (too slow; even on archipelagio maps hardly any sea fights take place; and last but not least: magnetism just comes a few turns before the ironclad (steam power))

ironically, the optimal world for the english is a gigantic pangea map with not too many enemies. like that you can easily get 2 settlers, most ancient advances and quite a few conscript warriors for popping other huts).

[TacticalGrace]

The stupid thing with the expansionist trait is that it tends to make those civs much more advanced in the early game. This seems at odds with the civs that have this trait: The English and the Russians who historically were actually quite backward technologically speaking relative to the mediterranean countries and china. The Americans who didn't exist till the 15th Century AD (at least) and the Zulu were still chucking spears in the 19th Century.

I think that expansionist should give cheap granaries and faster assimilation (of course the problem with granaries is the Pyramids...)

There should also be a Maritime trait which gives cheap harbours and maybe faster sea movement.

[sabrewolf]

expansionist just doubles the chance of getting something from the hut. non-expansionist get in iirc 50% of the cases barbarians. so if you pump out enough warriors or chariots, you can nearly pick up nearly as many advances.

but you're forgetting something: the represented english are the ones at their golden age. the time around lizzy the first (see UU). in those times, england ruled the world (the sun never goes down in the empire). the americans are those of the 2nd halt of last century. F15 as unit strengthens my claim. and the leader was chose because no post-WW2 leader would qualify to be the greatest leader...
and russians... well, they expanded extremely far.... from eastern europe right over the most east asia!

[VJ]

Both English and Americans do suck. Zulu aren't that great, either.

[Louis XXIV]

I have a simple idea to improve the English, while keeping its UU.

Completly re-do all ships:

Name Cost A D M T B R F

Galley 30 1.1.3 (2)
Frigate 60 4.3.4 (0) 6.1.2
Man-War 60 5.3.4 (0) 8.1.2
Privateer 60 3.1.3 
Caravel 40 1.2.3 (3)
Galleon 60 1.2.4 (4)
Ironclad 80 8.8.4 (0) 8.1.2
Transport 100 1.4.5 (8)
Destroyer 120 16.12.6 (0) 10.1.3
Submarine 100 15.4.3
Battleship 200 24.20.4 (0) 14.2.4
Aegis Cruiser 160 16.15.5 (0) 7.2.2

I basically changed the bombard ratings so Naval Superiority matters. The ship numbers were changed, but not as dramatically as the Bombard. If you look at the Man-O-War, it fires 20-something Cannons. Then why does it have a bombard of 3? I gave it equal to a cannon, and a higher rate of fire.

I'm sure the reason they made Naval bombard so weak was because they can't be attacked from land (unlike Artillery). But I think that should be incentive to build ships and control your Seas. The Brittish can do this very effectively with an increase in Attack and a Dramatic increase in Bombard.

One last thing. Move Ironclads to either Industrialization or Corporation (I saw this suggested somewhere, and thought it was a good idea). This will give a longer life Frigates and put Ironclads in a more accurate time period.

Let me know what you think.


As for your question, there are no useless Civs, all can be used effectively (The English and maybe the Americans just require some modifications to the game).

[HAND]

Yea good idea, Louis..You should put that idea in the Civ3-General-COMMON QUESTIONS/COMPLAINTS/ARGUMENTS and their ANSWERS thread....Firaxis might include it in a patch...Hopefully we might get a powerful English UU...