One thing that often confuses people with InfoPath (and used to confuse me, too!) is the differences between rules and default values.
Rules fire when the field they are set on changes. It sounds to me like you have three different fields that probably need to have rules set on them to set your target field's value. Where are your rules & conditions currently? On the fields that have the "3 different values"? Or on the field who's value you are trying to change?