Why I may never play a CIV gm again after nearly 20 yrs

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by hoppy43000
for 200 yrs america rarely if ever entered a war unless it was attacked 1st

Revolutionary War? We started it.
War of 1812? We started it.
Civil War? Who the hell else could have started it?
WW1? we weren't *really* attacked, but i'll give it to you anyway.
WW2? yay!
Vietnam? We weren't attacked.
Korea? We weren't attacked.
The Gulf war? We weren't attacked.
War on Terrorism? We were attacked by barbarians of the modern world.

America averages a major war every 20 years, and it appears as though we started a bunch of them.

[Plotinus]

Robert Newman's recent stage show, splendidly entitled "From Caliban to the Taliban", apparently revolved in part around the fact that "Since 1798 the US has invaded at least one country in every year, except for 1892." Unfortunately I don't know off-hand what was happening in 1892...

[MattPilot]

there is a way to get a totally peaceful game.

Just edit the rules so there are no units that can attack. Of course, the AI will probably declare vendetta upon you, but what the hell is he going to do?


And i guess if you want territory that the AI already has, you'd have to either try to convert it with superior culture (if ya got that much time on your hands), or you could use the intelligence agency.

But i guess that would be a boring game.

[MattPilot]

Btw, to fix your biggest complaint of all Hoppy, why don't you edit the rules in such a way, that the starting locations are further apart?

Try the "World Size" Tab when editing the rules and notice a field called "Distance between civs". Change it to whatever for any map size, save to a new file, go to the scenario folder, open the 'rules file' you just created, and create a random map.

Looks like you rather want to complain for hours on the forum, rather than spend 5 minutes in the editor changing these simple things.

no matt im not so much Complaining as pointing things that i see as weaknesses C3C Seems thave set Civ in a direction that numerous others gms have THATS what i disagree with


for example there were numerous enhancemnts to ai aggressiveness more units, harder resources etc.. all these thiings making a warlike gm more of a necessity than a feature.

there were it seems no major changes in diplomacy.. simply they demand something you give in or they attack... hmm wheres the diplomatic solutions of things like economic sanctions or why is the AI still designed and set up so that a settler/warrior group is still allowed to wander thru your territory.. w2hen you walk into an AI civ your given a choice immediatelly move automatically out, or declare war.. when you ask a rival to move it takes 4-5 times asking them to leave by which time they are sometime on the otherside of your general terrotory , or again yoiu end up at war

m point being the AI diplomatic rules arent equally enforced with an AI civ as they are with a human.. It seems the ai is designed to deliberately designed to goad you into going to war

or perhaps there should be a way where if a settler/warrior unit is in your territory you can be allowed to "capture it" without creating all out war.. similar to how diplomats were expelled in previous versions thus allowing you to create a range of control rather than needing massive units and fortesses everywhere to blockade your entire border..

again my issues arent so much complaints as they are observations.. about changes that were claimed but were not implimented

even with xcurraghs in civ2 triremes were far superior and available sooner Id just like to see a civ 4 be a step fwd, whereas in many respects civ3/ptw/c3c seems to have gone backward in terms of the BASIC game design, another example is the inability of workers to eliminate mountains..

we now as a civ have thech to blow up or create entire mountains, create underwater bridges between britain and europe yet in the current gm roads irrigation etc are the main options for example the ai random generator creates a coast with whales 1-2 squares off the coast, and then a gruoping of mountan ranges 34 rows deep whats the point ? you cant settle on a mountain tile, lol and thus far you cant send a grup of worrker to terraform it down to hills so you can access the whales,.

what im saying is the random generation rules should be more intelligent, or we should be able to terraform any tile..

[Inverse Icarus]

there are sanctions in the form of embargoes.

the AI marches settlers through your lands because it needs land. if they are willing to go to war to claim that land over there, thats their problem.

the AI will make demands, and you can say no. if you have a formidable force (even just a defensive one) they'll back down.

you can play PEACEFULLY but you cant play WITH NO UNITS.

terraforming was horrible. making the whole world a grassland was stupid, and unbelieveable. we havent leveled the Andes, and havent seeded the Sahara. live with it.

currugahs are scouts. not transports. understand that and quit whining.

i concur that tunnels and canals would be good for a civ game, but they havent been implimented yet. i will conceed this point to you and in vite you into the Civ Future forum (down on the main forum lising) to duscuss canals with me.

the random map generator is suprisingly "intelligent". just because it doesnt have you a world of all grasslands doesn't mean it sucks.

[Antrine]

I agree completely that the random generator is sloppy and crude especially '34 rows deep' of mountains and every other terrain. How about a lot more sophistication here. Cut and paste would also be nice in map making. I like terra forming, however maybe with some fanfare of a newly designed tech and a mechanized worker, like unto modern engineers.

Underwater bridges is a nice touch. Canals would be fantastic! Instead of having to bridge bodies of water with cities only.

P.S. Hoppy have set the AI aggression to the lowest setting at start-up? I never have but do wonder how it works out.

[Antrine]

Uber, I do believe we are headed toward floating and underground cities and we are flatening mountains and hills every day. It is just that the Andes are still a tourist attraction
As well the Sahara used to be habitable, however I believe it was 'terra-formed' by ancient aliens into a desert.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Some terraforming would be nice, but it was way to unrealistic in civ2. Im used to the way it is in civ3 now and I can live with it.

Most of your complaints Hoppy can easily be remedied by changing the rules and leaving the map for the scenario file blank, as pointed out already.

I do agree with you about expulsions though, it would be nice to have some other course of action to take when a civ blatently keeps ignoring your requests for it leave, with out having to either go to war or just lump it.

If Ive got enough units I try to block their route and somtimes box them in so they get trapped in a useless spot. This does require lots of spare units though.

Maybe if you could capture them and demand ransom for their return, but thats civ4 stuff I suppose

[Kuciwalker]

the random map generator is suprisingly "intelligent". just because it doesnt have you a world of all grasslands doesn't mean it sucks.

Yeah, C3's map generator is INFINITELY better than C2's. C2's map generator was pathetic; it always gave those stupid squiggly continents.

Krux, Antrine in case you havent noticed we have in fact hollowed out mountains NORAD is completely inside a mountain i believe, hmm 75 yrs ago Florida was almost all swampland now the everglades are disappearing We were capable of hollowing out a mountain in hawaii for our Extra Gasoline Supply, We built Hoover Dam, Panama Canal we now inhabit many places on the planet now that were once uninhabitable

there are cities and towns built on mountains why not within the game.. hmm there are tunnell that stretch thru the pocono mountains that go for miles... even herein florida in the keys theres the 7 mile bridge .. im not saying make theese thingeasy to do, but that given the manpower ie 25 workers it should be able to be done over a period of time.. thousands of workers tore down stone quarries to build the pyramids..

not saying terraforming be rampant as in civ2 but some of it should be possible ie you may not be able to flatten an entire mountain range...but you should be able to terra form a single tile to make an area minimally habitable

[MattPilot]

putting cities on mountains would be great, but with a maximum population of 6. (a nice Inca trait 'could' be that this limit wouldn't apply).


I've never seen any mountain ranges that are 34 tiles deep. I've seen some huge ones, but they contained small hills & a few plains inbetween, which would make it possible to plopp down a city, its just the city wouldn't grow anywhere (which is realistic).

[Inverse Icarus]

there is a setting on maps (age) that determines how "clustered" terrain features are.

carving out sections of mountains for bases isn't the same as turning it into farmland. not in the slightest.

you can chop down jungles in civ3.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by hoppy43000
Krux, Antrine in case you havent noticed we have in fact hollowed out mountains NORAD is completely inside a mountain i believe, hmm 75 yrs ago Florida was almost all swampland now the everglades are disappearing We were capable of hollowing out a mountain in hawaii for our Extra Gasoline Supply, We built Hoover Dam, Panama Canal we now inhabit many places on the planet now that were once uninhabitable

there are cities and towns built on mountains why not within the game.. hmm there are tunnell that stretch thru the pocono mountains that go for miles... even herein florida in the keys theres the 7 mile bridge .. im not saying make theese thingeasy to do, but that given the manpower ie 25 workers it should be able to be done over a period of time.. thousands of workers tore down stone quarries to build the pyramids..

not saying terraforming be rampant as in civ2 but some of it should be possible ie you may not be able to flatten an entire mountain range...but you should be able to terra form a single tile to make an area minimally habitable

And if you haven't noticed, you CAN clear jungle, forest, and swamps in C3. And wrt mountains, that was ONE MOUNTAIN. We could never level all of the mountains in the area a tile represents.

[Inverse Icarus]

wrt = with regard to? :???:

[Barchan]

Originally posted by okblacke
Nearly 20 years? What were you playing in 1984? Empire?

Hey, now! Let's not drag Empire into this! It was, quite possibly, the greatest wargame of all time. It had a diversity of units, fairly simple rules, random map generation, and was multiplayer. As an added bonus, you could name your ships. Ah, the hours I frittered away playing Empire in glorious green and black....

Anyway, as someone who also frittered whole nights away (that's right, the sun came up...) playing the original CIV in college (it fit on a single 1.44 floppy, and no copy protection!), I would agree that the newer versions are much more challenging. It *was* easier under previous versions to simply "go it alone" and not interact with other civs. I can remember countless games of expanding and researching in total isolation until my tanks rolled over the primative civilizations of my distant neighbors. But no more! Under CivIII and its prodigy, you simply have to interact with other civs to have any chance of surviving, let alone winning. But such is the nature of life, isn't it? Things change; those who can adapt will prosper, and those who cannot will flounder. I, for one, appreciate the new challenge that different paradigms present me, even though it's different from the comfortable nostalgia of the past. But perhaps evolution isn't everyone's cup of tea, eh?

[Antrine]

Not to mount a *** for tat, I am already blissfully building cities on mountains every game as I 'modded' that. As well increasing what improved tiles produce and even some that remain unimproved. Basically seeing so many people polluting the landscape with mines is athetically pathetic. (I think) So no need though, just bump up basic shield output of the tiles in question and presto no need for the mines everywhere.

Also I bumped up catagory I to city size 9 and catagory II to city size 15 so early on everyone can have larger cities. So much is already in the editor and considering how impossible it is to make a single generic vanilla faced CIV that randomly generates something most people would find pleasing, let us rather bow down worship the GAME EDITOR.

Many thanks,
Festive gaming

[WarpStorm]

wrt = with respect to

[Plotinus]

[Mattpilot] I love the "no-attack" mod idea! Has anyone tried this? Could be very interesting indeed...

[MattPilot]

no - i like my war units

[steven8r]

Originally posted by hoppy43000
Krux, Antrine... We built Hoover Dam, Panama Canal...

You can build Hoover Dam in the game now w/o any modifications.

Right now, if you want canals, you have to put a city on a 1-tile-wide strip of land between bodies of water. Instant Canal!

Terracing could be a useful improvement for Mountains to give them some food value.

Steven

[okblacke]

Originally posted by Barchan
Hey, now! Let's not drag Empire into this! It was, quite possibly, the greatest wargame of all time. It had a diversity of units, fairly simple rules, random map generation, and was multiplayer. As an added bonus, you could name your ships. Ah, the hours I frittered away playing Empire in glorious green and black....

I think at the time I was playing "Ancient Art of War" in glorious, um, cyan, magenta and yellow.

I, for one, appreciate the new challenge that different paradigms present me, even though it's different from the comfortable nostalgia of the past. But perhaps evolution isn't everyone's cup of tea, eh?

Back when I was a boy you had to TYPE IN a game if you wanted to play it. Or, if you could part with $20-$30 pre-Reagan dollars (about $100 now?) you could get a game in a baggie with a couple of sheets of 8.5x11 paper for instructions, on a single 160K floppy, which you'd best make a copy of immediately (if it would let you) on a $2 diskette. If the game had an end, you could finish it in a couple of hours, probably. Replayability was fairly rare. (Though Broderbund had their Galactic Empire series and there was an all-but forgotten game called "Wilderness Campaign" which was a sort of precursor to "Heroes of Might and Magic". These were exceptions, and the mechanics were grossly simple by modern standards.)

But I digress.

Games change. Not always to suit our tastes. What cracks me up about Civ is the number of people who think if they don't like the game, the franchise has been totally ruined for everyone (even if they don't KNOW it)!

[ok]

actually blacke i remember back in the early to mid 70's when started , there was a text gm from 1 of the colleges you could play on the old ibm card reader machines...

it was very much like CIV may even have been its inspiration..

in text messages you ran a city were given choices . each choices you made affected the empire after time if city grew you had more cities ..

was basically civ but all text and abc multiple choice options

I actually love civ it is my all time fav.



heres a mod id like to see done anyone who wants to advse me on how to make the chgs in editor please feel free


ok my Perfect game would be a civ gm where each turn was just a yr.. and we actually had to play thru the entire history... sci advances came more slowly and more or less within their appropriate age... ie no tanks running around in 1700 ad

a very huge map with numerous civs, but all having a chance to expand, also trading tech should be more difficult so that just because you are on a continent with other civs doesnt mean you can easily trade techs to balance out say a civ stuck on an island

map should be large enough whre empires dont touch till later in gm .. ie with outposts you can see armies approaching and act accordingly.. not just have thenm appear in your back yard.. or so easily use right of passage to build a city inside your terrory or pass thru in 1 turn do to railroads

id like to have the time to play an extended game where all the techs and units can be built and used within the ages used for example we seem to hit the middle ages far to quickly... then the game bogs down in the 20th century... Id like to see more accurate diplomacy... and ways to "expell" warriors or settlers without causing war.


i want to start in 4000bc and play the gm yr by yr but some how not have airplanes flying aroound in 100 bc

[Kuciwalker]

Go into the editor yourself. It's easy to increase the tech costs. Oh, and the "years per turn" stuff is in the scenario properties window IIRC.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Must agree with one of the complaints:

random map generation too often provides too uneven and unfair starting positions and opportunities for the different civs in the game.

Ok, it's rather 'historically correct' since territory conditions do vary and it forces each civ to find an individual approach to build a civ that stands the test of time ...

But IMO Firaxis should have also provided a fair amount of available maps with rather equal starting opportunities.

How many MP players -where one of the goals is to compete with other human players and 'prove yourself to be an equal or even better civver'- haven't felt f***ed due to an impossible starting location in comparison to his rivals one?

Why do players themself have to do the effort to try to create a 'fair' map?

Remember, civ 3 vanilla included a world map, but never one with correct starting locations for the various civs, we had to wait for the community to have these ...

So I like civ a lot,

(BUT PLEASE REDUCE CORRUPTION AND HAVE THE FORBIDDEN PALACE FUNCTION AS BEFORE IN VANILLA AND PTW)

but hey, Firaxis, provide us a decent amount of fairly created maps, especially for MP purposes and SP fun.

Thx a lot


AJ

[Kuciwalker]

But IMO Firaxis should have also provided a fair amount of available maps with rather equal starting opportunities.

Jesse's working on it

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by skywalker

Quote:

But IMO Firaxis should have also provided a fair amount of available maps with rather equal starting opportunities.

Jesse's working on it

Hey, Civ3 is now more than 2 years on the markets IIRC ... so I guess we wont't get them untill CIV4

Nevertheless, come on Jesse, hurry up will you?

AJ

[Kuciwalker]

Actually, I believe it's scheduled for the next patch - special generation of MP maps for fairness.

AJ you pretty much summed it up...
my major quiestion complaint was WHY is the ai so unwilling or unable with vanilla generation, able to created a relatively fair game to play on the 1st try not the 500th if we play at a mid level difficulty ie regent all should be relatively equal ie sci dev prod speed . not withstanding other civs special traits.. great the arabs have scout but how is it by 1 ad they have middle age techs just because they are on a continent and get sciences rather than barbarians ?

whereas god forbid you are the romans almost every hut is barbarians thats fine but not when on 1st few turns you click a hut next to your 1st city and it puts 3 barbarians next to your only worker... the games set up so that barbarian colonies appear later why cant it be set so that none apear in say 1st 10 turns, give us a chance to see the map plant a city or 2

[Catt]

Originally posted by hoppy43000
whereas god forbid you are the romans almost every hut is barbarians thats fine but not when on 1st few turns you click a hut next to your 1st city and it puts 3 barbarians next to your only worker... the games set up so that barbarian colonies appear later why cant it be set so that none apear in say 1st 10 turns, give us a chance to see the map plant a city or 2

An alternative solution to the Roman barb problem is to not pop huts if a barbarian result would cause problems. Weigh the risks against the potential benefits, make your decision, and roll the dice. I'll almost never pop a hut close to my start point if I don't have a ready defender to protect my worker / city. Just pass it by and keep exploring. You can pop it later, or be prepared to pop it if an AI unit comes close.

Catt