Technologies

6:30 Civilization 3's tech tree is split into four eras, Ancient Times, the Middle Ages, the Industrial Age and Modern Times, and holds 82 named advances in the base game by our count of Prima's official strategy guide (Table 6-2, pp. 82-86). Research cannot run ahead across eras: to enter the next era you must learn every advance of the current one except a short list of optional advances, per the 2001 manual (pp. 94-95). GameSpot's 2001 review described research passing "through a series of choke points" between the ages (GameSpot, Oct 30, 2001). Advances unlock units, city improvements, Wonders, Governments and new diplomatic and terrain abilities, and after the last of them, Future Technology adds to your final score.

Quick facts

How research works

5:16 Research is paid for with commerce. Each city turns a share of its commerce into science at the rate you set on the Domestic Advisor's screen, and every new advance costs more science than the one before, per the Complete manual (p. 123). Prima adds that prices "jump" at each new age, and that the science rate can be set at most to 90 percent (Prima, pp. 77-78). Libraries, Universities and Research Labs each add 50% to a city's science, and Copernicus's Observatory, Newton's University and the SETI Program double it in their city (Prima, Table 6-1, p. 79). Scientists, the specialist citizens described on Cities, add research directly, and Prima notes that a city of any size can now have them.

The Science Advisor's screen draws the whole tree as a flowchart, era by era. Clicking a distant advance queues every advance needed to reach it, and Shift-clicking builds a queue of your own, per the Complete manual (pp. 123-124). Changing the advance being researched is allowed at any time, but "you lose all of their work" on the one abandoned, the manual warns: unlike Civilization 4, Civ 3 keeps no partial progress.

8:08 Advances also come without research. Contact with a minor tribe (a goody hut) can give one, other civilizations trade them at the bargaining table, and an embassy lets you try to steal one (Complete manual, pp. 122-123, 157-158). Scientific civilizations get a free advance at the start of each new era (p. 26); the Great Library gives any advance known to two other civilizations; Theory of Evolution grants two at once (p. 133). In Conquests, the first civilization to learn Philosophy gets a free advance, per Firaxis's Conquests wonder notes, and being first to an advance raises the chance of a Scientific Great Leader, who can boost a city's science for 20 turns (Complete manual, p. 105; see Great Leaders and Armies).

Every civilization starts the game with two of the basic Ancient advances, and which two depends on its traits: Alphabet for Commercial, Pottery for Expansionist, Masonry for Industrious, Warrior Code or The Wheel for Militaristic, Ceremonial Burial for Religious and Bronze Working for Scientific (Prima, pp. 13, 77).

Eras and optional advances

An era opens only when the previous one is done. The Complete manual's rule is that you must research "almost all" of an era's advances, the exceptions being the optional ones, which "frequently make construction of Great Wonders possible" (Complete manual, pp. 125-126). An optional advance skipped can still be researched later, after you have moved on to a later era, Prima notes (p. 87). Modern Times has no optional advances.

Source: 2001 manual, p. 95; Complete manual, pp. 125-126.

Conquests changed the tree. Its Industrial list adds two advances not in the base game, Fascism and Ironclads, and GameSpot's review said the expansion was "subtly reworking the technology tree" while tweaking many existing technologies (GameSpot, Nov 18, 2003). No source read prints the full Conquests tree or its count, so the tables below give the base game as Prima printed it in 2001; some prerequisites differ in Conquests.

Civilization 4 dropped the eras. Soren Johnson wrote in the Civilization 4 manual's afterword (p. 180) that the new tree left out "the distinct eras of Civ III, which often hemmed in the player"; see Civilization 3 vs 2 and 4.

Advances that change the rules

5:58 Some advances do more than unlock units and buildings. The Complete manual lists these special effects (pp. 126-128):

• Strategic resources appear on the map only with their advance: Iron with Iron Working, Horses with The Wheel, Saltpeter with Gunpowder, Coal with Steam Power, Oil with Refining, Rubber with Replaceable Parts, Aluminum with Rocketry and Uranium with Fission (Resources and Trade).
• Writing allows embassies, right of passage and military alliances; Navigation lets you trade maps, Printing Press lets you trade communications, and Nationalism allows mutual protection pacts, trade embargoes, mobilization and the draft (Diplomacy).
• Astronomy lets trade cross Sea squares and Magnetism Ocean squares.
• Construction lets Workers build Fortresses, Masonry Outposts, Flight Airfields; Engineering lets them plant forests and use road bonuses across rivers; Electricity lets them irrigate from any water; Steam Power brings railroads; Replaceable Parts doubles their work rate (Terrain and Workers).
• Satellites reveals the whole map.

Ancient Times

Ancient Times has 21 advances. Five of them (Alphabet, Bronze Working, Ceremonial Burial, Masonry, Pottery) plus Warrior Code and The Wheel need nothing first, which is where every civilization's two free advances come from.

Source: Prima's official strategy guide, Table 6-2, pp. 82-86 (base game, 2001); special effects from the Complete manual, pp. 126-128. Unique units such as the Impi and Immortals belong to one civilization each (Unique Units).

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages hold 22 advances, eight of them optional. Engineering, Feudalism and Monotheism open the era; Prima prints no prerequisites for them because the only requirement is finishing Ancient Times.

Source: Prima's official strategy guide, Table 6-2, pp. 82-86; Complete manual, pp. 126-128.

Industrial Age

The Industrial Age has 22 advances, six of them optional in the base game. Prima calls its tree "more like a web" (p. 101), so most advances must be learned before Modern Times opens. Nationalism, Steam Power and Medicine start the era.

Source: Prima's official strategy guide, Table 6-2, pp. 82-86; Complete manual, pp. 126-128. Conquests adds Fascism and Ironclads to this era.

Modern Times

Modern Times has 17 advances and none is optional. Computers, Ecology, Fission and Rocketry open it, and the last advances build the spaceship of the Space Race.

Source: Prima's official strategy guide, Table 6-2, pp. 82-86. Prima's advances table also lists the United Nations under Fission, while its wonder table gives Radio; see Wonders.

After Modern Times comes Future Technology. Each one researched adds to the final score, and another can then be started, per the Complete manual (p. 126).

Which advances to research first

0:00 Prima's guide gives era-by-era priorities rather than one best path (Prima, pp. 86-112):

• Ancient Times: Ceremonial Burial, for Temples, "should be high on your list", more so the higher the difficulty level; Writing is the most important of the second-tier advances, and Mysticism comes first only when you are racing for Monarchy; Map Making is a priority when your cities are separated by water.
• Middle Ages: Feudalism is the advance to pursue on entering the era, for Pikemen and Sun Tzu's Art of War, unless happiness is the problem, when Monotheism comes first; Theory of Gravity deserves priority on a peaceful path, before rivals build Newton's University.
• Industrial Age: Nationalism is "your best bet" on entering the era, for Riflemen, and Medicine and Sanitation follow, because a city cannot grow past size 12 without a Hospital; Steam Power looks most important but, Prima says, it is not; Electricity "should be fairly high" for irrigation from any water.
• Modern Times: Computers usually comes before Ecology, Fission is the least desirable of the four opening advances "in most cases", useful mainly to a warlike strategy, and Recycling matters when pollution is plaguing your cities.

These are Prima's recommendations for the base game. The Early Game Strategy and Space Race pages cover the paths in more detail.

Tech trading and the AI

6:14 Advances can be traded at the bargaining table like gold, maps or resources (Complete manual, pp. 163-165). Soren Johnson, Civ 3's co-designer, believes the game brought that table to 4X strategy games, per PC Gamer; he called it "one of the standout features of Civ 3" and also "a big mistake" (Designer Notes, Oct 8, 2021).

The trouble was the AI's trading. In a 2022 talk reported by PC Gamer, Johnson said players complained "that the AIs all started to have the same techs", because the computer leaders offered every new advance to "friends, rivals, even enemies", behaving like "a giant tech cartel" that sold advances cheaply (PC Gamer, Mar 24, 2022). On the player's side, he said, there was no reason not to add "one more gold piece" to a deal until the AI's maximum price was reached. His own verdict: "the AIs were just playing optimally; the problem was that the rules were bad" (Designer Notes, Oct 8, 2021). Diplomacy covers the rest of the table.

Frequently asked questions

How many techs are in Civ 3? Civilization 3's base game has 82 named advances by our count of Prima's official guide (Firaxis's own Civilization 4 comparison says 81), split into four eras, plus repeatable Future Technology. Conquests adds at least Fascism and Ironclads; no source read counts its full tree.

What are the eras in Civ 3? Civilization 3 has four eras: Ancient Times, the Middle Ages, the Industrial Age and Modern Times. You must learn every required advance of one era before you can research the next era's advances.

What are optional techs in Civ 3? In Civilization 3, optional advances are the ones you may skip and still enter the next era: 18 in the base game and 20 in Conquests, such as Monarchy, Republic, Democracy, Navigation, Sanitation and, in Conquests, Fascism and Ironclads.

Do you lose research when switching techs in Civ 3? Yes: in Civilization 3, changing the advance your scientists are working on loses all the research already put into it, per the Complete manual.

What is the best tech to research first in Civ 3? Civilization 3 has no single best first advance; Prima's official guide puts Ceremonial Burial (for Temples) and Writing high in Ancient Times, Feudalism first in the Middle Ages and Nationalism first in the Industrial Age.

Why does the AI have the same techs in Civ 3? In Civilization 3, the AI leaders trade advances freely with each other at the bargaining table, which co-designer Soren Johnson later compared to "a giant tech cartel" and called a mistake in the rules.

What does Future Technology do in Civ 3? In Civilization 3, each Future Technology researched after the last named advance adds to your final score, and it can be researched again and again.

Sources

• Sid Meier's Civilization III Complete manual (Steam-hosted PDF), Atari and Firaxis Games, 2005
• Civilization III manual, First Edition (archive.org copy), Infogrames and Firaxis Games, Sep 2001
• Sid Meier's Civilization III: Prima's Official Strategy Guide (archive.org copy), Prima Games (David Ellis), 2001
• The Wonders of Civ-Conquests (archived), Firaxis Games (Ed Piper), 2003
• Civilization III Review, GameSpot (Tom Chick), Oct 30, 2001
• Civilization III: Conquests Review, GameSpot (Jason Ocampo), Nov 18, 2003
• Civilization IV: compare features (archived), 2K Games and Firaxis Games, 2005
• Sid Meier's Civilization IV manual, "Afterwords by Soren Johnson", 2K Games and Firaxis Games, 2005
• Soren Johnson says Civ 3's bargaining table was a 'big mistake', PC Gamer (Tyler Wilde), Mar 24, 2022
• Old World Designer Notes #10: Diplomacy, Designer Notes (Soren Johnson), Oct 8, 2021
• How To Play Your First Game Of Civ 3, Suede, Feb 12, 2020 (video)
• The 12 most powerful techs in Civ 3, Suede, Dec 28, 2024 (video)
• Civ 3 Diplomacy Tutorial, Suede, Jun 10, 2019 (video)