Strategy Guide Wiki - Civilization III

You will notice, during your playing of Civilization III, that you will encounter varying tribes and civilizations. Of course, you can declare peace or wage war upon them, depending on their strength. Trading is a massive factor in Civ3. One of the first things you should do is get all the world maps you can. Trade for technology too.

One thing to note when trading technology is that civilizations often trade amongst themselves. If you trade a certain technology to one tribe, more than likely others will soon have that knowledge. Therefore, if you trade a scientific advance to one tribe, trade it to them all. While you may not get much off some, if you leave it, you won't get anything. Trading science is a great way to get capital.

-- If you wish to avoid infuriating another Civ who has offered a shabby deal, instead give a counter-offer of a small amount of money as "a token of good will." This will result in a better attitude than a flat refusal.

Some things available to trade are:

Maps:

This will give the map of all the land you have discovered thus far as well as the positions of all of your units. Territorial Map gives the location of all your cities as well as your unit positions.

Gold:

You can trade gold in two ways: Per Turn, which gives a set amount of gold to the receiver every turn for twenty turns, or lump sum, which gives a single sum of gold to the receiver (the maximum amount of gold that can be traded is the total of your civilization's treasury).

Communications:

Communication to other tribes can be traded. This means that you don't have to bother going out to search for the new tribes, you can just trade the ability to speak with them.

Units:

Sometimes, units such as Workers can be traded. This will transport the enemy's worker to your capitol city under the title of, for example "English worker". Foreign workers are not as effective as national ones, bear in mind. They take twice as long to complete tasks.

Technology:

Trading Scientific Advances is a pretty big income for any civilization. There are two ways to participate in the field of science. The first way is to go all out for science and base all your income on the benefits of trading science to other civilizations. The second way is to spend nothing on science and get all your technology from trading your endless amount of gold in your treasury to other civilizations in exchange for knowledge. The second way is the riskier and you will never be ahead of any one else. Of course, you could just settle for a happy medium :P

Resources:

Resources are a larger part than ever in CivIII. You will need resources to build the strongest units and to build certain wonders and improvements. Some resources you will not find in your own territory and will have to trade (or wage war) for.

Luxuries:

Luxuries offer little aside from making your civilians happier. You will get much gold for trading them though.

Cities:

Trading cities is a good way to expand your empire. However, civilizations will only trade their cities if they are on the verge of getting being completely eliminated by an aggressor and are looking for a Peace Treaty. Aside from that, tribes will not trade cities.

Military Alliances:

Alliances are tough to strike up. Your best bet is to begin a war on a nation. If the war goes well, other nations will accept alliances easier against that nation. And so, you can get much of the world attacking a single nation.

Trade Embargoes:

Trade Embargoes work much the same as alliances in terms of how to get them only without the physical contact.

Mutual Protection Pacts:

Mutual protection pacts... A love/hate situation. They will have your civilization go to war on any aggressor that fucks with the pact-ed.


Last Update: June 6, 2006	Contributors: TimmyTheRabidTurtle