User Guide

reference includes entries describing all the units,improvements,governments,terrain,gen-
eral game concepts,and more—everything you could want to know about the Civiliza-
tion world.The entries are hyperlinked so you can jump from one to another with ease.
Interface Conventions
You play the Civilization III game using a combination of both mouse and keyboard.
Many people find that the shortcut keys significantly speed up their play.
Using a Mouse
Throughout the text,we assume that you understand basic mouse functions and terms,
like “click and drag.” Since not everybody knows these things, here are brief defini-
tions of how we use the most common terms:
• “Click” means to place the mouse pointer over an area of the screen and click
the left mouse button.
• “Right-click” is to click with the right mouse button.
• “Click and hold” means to hold down the mouse button.
• “Drag” is to hold a button down while moving the mouse.
• “Select” means to click on something.
• “Press (a button)” means to click on one of the onscreen buttons.
• “Scroll” is (1) to drag the button along a slider bar to see more information
than an onscreen box can hold, or (2) to place the mouse pointer at the edge
of the screen so that the map “scrolls” to show a different area.
The Map:The game uses an isometric grid.This means each terrain square (also called
a tile) is roughly diamond shaped,as if you are viewing it from an angle.Movement pro-
ceeds along the eight points of the compass (up, down, left, right, and the diagonals).
Some players have difficulty getting used to this view, finding it hard, for example, to
tell where a city’s radius begins and ends. If you have this problem, try using the Show
Map Grid option ([Ctrl]-[G]).This outlines each map square with a thin border.
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