My conquest problems

[keybounce]

Here's my problem list, primarily from Intro 1.

1. Civopedia needs "historical time" so we can track how good we are doing.

2. The idea of "bigger worlds = more expensive techs" is broken. At the beginning of the game, you'll start with one city, and get city 2 around 3200, 3 around 2500-2800, etc.

It takes a long time before you get more cities on a giant map than you will get on a standard map.

On the other hand, a tiny map will crowd out quicker.

Worse, some of the scenario's look like they give you the option of a race/culture that has a "single city, wonder/culture victory" -- such a race will not even get to the normal number of cities for the map (this may not be accurate, I'm assuming that those cultures cannot make new settlers.)

Proposal: Have a "per-age" multiplier -- as you get into later ages, you're expected to have more cities, and you are charged accordingly -- and you also have a size dependent max on the per-age multiplier.

Note that the multiplier might not be per age -- it might be per advance. The amount of the multiplier is based on "you're expected to have _n_ cities". The maximum "number of cities expected" is determined by the map size.

In fact, this seems to be the best way to handle it -- civ advances are tagged with "expected cities", there's a map from "expected cities" to "multiplier", and there's a map sized based (or a "single city culture" flag) "max expected cities".

Alternatively, this may need to be removed, or changed in scope. If I have a tiny map with 4 people, a standard map with 8 people, or a giant map with 16 people, I will still have about the same amount of area for my country without running into another country; I have about the same amount of space to create cities. With this thinking, the multiple isn't based on map size, but on percentage of map players in play.

Or, you might consider the factors to be "size of starting continent" and "number of players on starting continent". It's a LONG time before you get ships that can carry people to another continent (or even a nearby island) in the standard game.

Or, even if I have fewer players, since corruption causes major loss of production on distant cities even with government upgrades (at least as far as nusance corruption of Oliarchy), maybe the factor of cities to science isn't even relevant.

3. Civopedia say "need fresh water to grow beyond size 6".

In fact, you need a river, possibly an inland lake. Irrigation is fresh water and not sufficient.

4. Intro victory point map: You can get "we love the king" when you are in a golden age. But when that ends, so do the celebrations. I have cities with 6 happy and 1 content, surplus foods, no unhappy, etc. No parties.

Correction: It seems to take two turns of "eligible" before you get the parties.

Yet another correction: I'm now getting this reliably with size 6 cities, as per the rules, but before I was not.

5. Taking over a size 1 city destroys it; it does not give you a size one city of enemy citizens. Even though the 'What's changed' says otherwise.

Update: This has happened 4 out of 5 times. The 5th was the enemy capital, and I got that intact.

6. Please verify/determine: Does the "road to" worker order calculate the shortest travel path, or the shortest construction path? It may be faster to build a road around the mountains rather than through the mountains.

7. Goto displays improper graphics when the map is zoomed.
Specifically: Instead of drawing a line from the unit to the destination, it draws from the top of the screen down, and then to the destination.

8. Wanted: Some way to pause a timed multiplayer game.

9. More time per turn in timed. Realistically:
Each city that needs to be adjusted may need 10 seconds. The default govenors do only an OK job; they do not use specialists, nor do they keep a city happy enough to maintain "We love the king". The production items often need to be re-adjusted; even with altering the production item screen, the govenors still don't get it right. 10 seconds per city is a minimum.
Each unit that needs adjusting/ordering: Looking at the map, and deciding where to send that unit may take 3 seconds, easily, especially if the map needs to be scrolled, or zoomed (to get the big picture), or if the auto-pathing needs to be checked and/or re-adjusted. Although 3 seconds may seem long, especially when many units can be automated, in truth automating workers doesn't work -- there's no way to say "Auto-irragate", nor "auto-mine", nor "build commerce (roads). Only "No change", "this city", "Build trade", etc. Nor is there any way to say "Stop after three adjustments" -- tracking which workers can be given a new order is hard. Automating workers makes them "lost". Finally, there doesn't seem to be a way to keep the workers together to speed up improvements.
In addition, if you want to let all your automated units move first, so you can keep your "pre-planned plans" in mind, you have to use the "w" command on all your units until you've cycled everything once -- there is no "automate automated units" command. (See 10)
On this turn -- 2500 BC -- some of my automated units moving on road 6 spaces need almost 3 seconds just for moving the unit and doing the graphics. I think you default to 1 second per unit plus time per city and a base time. That's just not enough time.
The goverment level controls -- adjusting the f1 screen, watching the f6 tree, keeping track of the "Multiplayer simultaneous doesn't tell you when you've gotten a new tech -- not even a government tech. You can lose several turns on an unwanted tech before you've realized it" factor, etc, take time. That's easily 15 seconds, given that you need to test entertainment and science spending changes *EACH TURN* (no government-level govenors exist). And, since the controls do NOT respond properly in simultaneous timed turn modes, that takes longer to fight the controls.
Finally, negotiations -- trying to negotiate with someone takes time. That needs time added per attempted communication with another civilization.

I'd seriously like to see the base time raised to 10 per city + 3 per unit + 30 per negotiation + 15, per turn. Higher on slow speed.

And, I'd go farther. On non-simultanious turns, you can get some time during opponents turns to maintain cities, or negotiate. On simultanious turns, you don't. I'd like to see longer turn times in simultanious turn mode.

Consider: In a 4 person game, 1 minute per turn seperate turns takes 4 minutes per game turn. 2 minutes per turn simultanious takes 2 minutes per game turn. Even if it's not that large of a difference -- even a 50% time increase for simultaneous moves will allow simultaneous games to play faster, without turning it into an RTS mouse click fest.

Please note, the idea is to AVOID THE RTS TRAP. This is a game of strategy and planning, not a game of reaction speed. Use "fast" if you want reaction speed, or even better, an explicit "RTS Speed" setting. For "slow" speed, or even better, an explicit "Strategic thinking" speed setting, the time should be long enough that you can plan each piece's move, and not be rushed. If more than one player is running out of time, then the time length needs to be increased more. If only one player is running out of time, then that's probably not a problem (Unless you only have one live player :-).

PLEASE, test this with people who are NEW to civilization 3, on equipment that meets the minimum requirements (slow graphic speed and unit movement time, etc.). Your speed settings might be fine for people who know the game, who know the units and interactions, city build orders, etc.; it's too fast for beginners.

10: Unit order. Default unit movement order should have all units with preset orders moving LAST; currently they move interspersed with normal units. There needs to be a command for "Move all units with outstanding orders" to compliment this ordering.

11. The AI needs serious tuneup.

In science: There is a maximum rate of return for science investing; you cannot make a research in less than 4-6 turns (depending on the scenario). On regent level, which appears to be the point where the AI plays by the same rules that I play by, the AI still puts 100% of it's financial income into science.

For a specific example, look at the intro 1 - victory points scenario. I find that I can put my science spending at about 50% and get the fastest research times; that allows my treasury to grow. The AI's don't do this at all (their treasuries do not grow).

In expansion: In the same scenario, I started in the lower left corner. At 2500 BC, 75 turns into the game, the upper right person has not even found the goody hut just beyond their initial victory point location (I haven't gotten to that VP site yet, I'm about 7 turns away) [Side note: When I did get there (the VP spot), they had a city next to it]. Around 2800 BC, I found that the upper left person had gotten to their initial victory point location, but not to the second one (which I secured). I also found that the lower right starter never crossed the ocean into the right bonus grassland area. Actually, I just realized that I'm also about 7 turns from their initial victory point location -- around the place where the right side players should meet and fight -- with no sign of either of them. This is on normal agressiveness -- the computer does not do enough exploration/scouting, especially for a victory point victory game, where exploration and sending out military is critical. This isn't even a question of agressiveness -- attacking units, declaring war, etc.

[Ok, I met both of them at 2460 BC.]

Keep in mind that I was playing on "slow" speed, multiplayer, against only computer opponents until about 3100 BC, and not able to keep up with the clock. So I was handicapped, and the computer was still pathetic.

12. When a unit moves it's last movement point, and uncovers new area, the computer does not leave the screen on the newly exposed area long enough to see what it is before it will switch to the next unit.

Turning off auto-select unit isn't the answer -- that results in constant "Press enter for next turn" messages, not something like "5 units to move -- press 'n' for next unit". [I'm not even sure what the key for 'next unit' is -- the screen isn't readable. If I hover the mouse, it looks like either l (ell) or shift-l ("L"), but neither of them do it.]

13. If you have a timed peace treaty (during the 20 turns after declaring peace), the computer will not warn you that going to war will break the treaty.

When you declare a peace treaty, you are told "This will last until war is redeclared". No mention of a 20 turn minimum. I only found out about it when I looked at the foreign advisor's third screen and saw a turn count next to the peace treaty.

14. Right clicking on a terrain square does not tell you what that square produces. It tells you what it will produce given your government type.

For Despotism, that's significant. Being told that it produces "2" of something is very un-informative -- will it go to three if I improve it, or not? If I was told the RAW number, I would know that "3" meant I'd harvest 2 but could increase it to three.

15. When a tech increase is learned, you are asked "what do you want to learn?". If you select "Tell me the big picture", and then go into the civilopedia looking at the tech choices, when you leave the civilopedia your choice is made for you; you do not go back to the "What do you want to learn?" question. This is confusing.

16. For the civopedia, I'd like to see the up/down arrows, as well as the letter keys, permit scrolling through the list of items.

17. For accellerated production scenarios, trying to hurry production will calculate costs based on the un-accellerated price. Attempting to buy a court house in a brand new city which needs 40 shields tells me "320 gold" -- that's 4 gold/shield * 80 shields. (Side note: After one turn, the price went down to 156 -- the correct 4 gold/sheild * 39 shield.)

18. I'd like to do a "partial purchase" when hurrying. This is especially true in forced labor governments.
18b: I'd like to see automatic, or at least the choice of, "purchase all but the remaining turn's production".

19. If a worker can build a road in 1 turn, it becomes available immediately. This is good. I'd like something similar with produced items -- if a city's shield box is full at the end of the turn, the item is produced immediately, at the end of the turn. So a military unit that is purchased for full price is available immediately to defend the city, rather than waiting until the next turn, when the city has already been captured. Or, if I change to a weaker, cheaper unit that has a full box, that unit pops out now, and the next turn's production isn't wasted.

20. I want a way to ship food from one city (surplus) to another. Come on, isn't this a LONG time real world activity for at least 200-400 years?

21. On the advisors, right now the advice is given at random. I'd like a "next" and "previous" button, and a predictable cycle. For the foreign advisor, I'd like to specify "by country" or "by topic".

22. The first introductory scenario doesn't have a civilopedia entry for pollution. I get the warning in some size 5 cities, and not in other size 5, or even size 6 cities. I'd like to read "what causes it", "what prevents it", etc.

23. The civilopedia does not clarify that only ONE luxury of a type will improve a city's happy faces.

24. I'd like to move the civilopedia window, so I can (for example) look at my luxuries while reading their descriptions.

25. I'd like some way to tell which luxuries I do not have; even better, a clean map option for "Hide resources currently in trade network", so I can tell where I need to concentrate my exansion. Right now determining this is very time consuming, and I'd not possibly be able to do it in a timed game.

26. In the editor, if you are dragging around the minimap, going off the right edge of the minimap will atumatically jump the map to the left edge, rather than keeping the map on the right edge.

27. I'd like a way to adjust the editor's "clean map" -- a ctrl-shift-N equivalent.

28. It is too hard to see the terrain on the bottom of the map -- how about a way to remove the status info normally on the bottom (mini-map, unit orders, unit summary).

29. If a ship moves next to land on the end of it's turn, I'd like a chance to awaken the unit(s) on the ship. Right now the map will move to the next unit, taking me away from the waiting land unit. This is annoying; I often forget to move that land unit until the next turn.

30. Standard game needs an early naval transport, like the curragh of the introductory scenarios.

31. Time/Distance calculations for movement are broken moving a fast unit off a ship -- moving off a ship takes all of the unit's movement, while the calculations assume that it's just one unit of movement.

32. Default construction of units: If I'm producing 19 shields in a town, it is *STUPID* for a govenor to produce a 5 shield military waste unit. At least I can disband it for one shield, turning my 19 into 20 next turn.

33. Ok, I have a capital, with a courthouse, and a "we love the king day", AND monarchy.
I have 20 commerce, and 2 corruption. I've got 16 production, with no waste.

Please, modify the civilopedia. Stop saying that a capital eliminates corruption and waste.

(At 22 production, it has waste).

34. An interesting situation:
A city with 3 people, 2 are mine, one is a captured worker. I just went back to war against that country.
I "normally" have 1 content, and 2 unhappy people. This is odd -- I should have 2 content, and the third is unhappy. I have two natives. The "unhappyness reason" for this situation is 50% "Way too crowded", and 50% "Stop the agression against our mother country". This makes some sense -- normally in a 3 city one would complain "too crowded", and the foreigners would say "stop the fighting".

Now, play with the "who'se working, and who's a specialist" factor. I can get my two to be working, and the foreigners as specialists (tax or scientists). That gives me a native content, and a native unhappy; and a foreign specialist. Now the "unhappyness reason" is "stop the agression", not "too crowded".

The unhappy people are natives.

35. Wanted: (for custom scenarios) a way to differentiate between terrain that cannot be irragated, and terrain that can be irragated (to pass fresh water along) that does not improve the food of the land.

Forest is an example of "I should be able to run an irrigation ditch through here, to that dry land over there", even if it won't help the fruit trees produce more fruit.

Hmm ... That's an idea. Fruit, a bonus resource that appears in forests, that has a bonus to food production, and permits irrigation for additional food bonus. I don't think you can represent that in the current Civ3 :-).

36. I want a way for my land units attacking an enemy ship to capture it.

37. For new players, there is a very unpleasent aspect of multiplayer: a number of pop-ups are automatically supressed, even if you turn off "hide unnecessary popups in multiplayer".

At the very least, these include "Do you really want to stop the city govenor from managing this city?" and "Do you want to change governments now that you've researched something new?". Given the speed of multiplayer, I do not want to stop the govenor -- it's too expensive to do it by accident. Equally, if I get a new government, I probably DO want to switch.

38. Map grid enabled is not remembered in saved games, nor in any automatic preferences. Same for military advisor's view by unit type.

39. There is no way to seperate "Manage citizen moods" from "Manage citizen production". I almost always want the first; I often do NOT want the second. Unless I am deliberately putting excess people into entertainment to maintain "We love the king", I want auto-mood management. When I have two cities nearby, I often want to move production between the two cities, and need to manually manage production. Equally, if I want to move between grassland and forest (the difference between 4 production and 5 production, or 9/10, etc).

40. Even when "auto manage moods" is active, the computer will assign a person to entertainer when any specialist is OK; switching to a different specialist will "un-auto moods". I'd like to see the computer automatically assign people to scientist (and lower the science spending slider) until the fastest possible research time is reached; then the remaining spare specialists become tax collectors. Right now I have to do this manually (think timed multiplayer)

41. On the F1 city summary screen, the tooltip pop-up for specialist type does not update when you switch specialists.

42. On the cultural advisor, moving the mouse over the cities does not move the cross hair (clicking on the city name does). Equally, clicking on the city dots does NOT move the "active city" line.

43. On the cultural advisor, you cannot use the up/down arrows to move from city to city.

44. On the military advisor, you cannot use the up/down/left/right arrows to review the military; nor can you get "dots" for the known military units.

45, The science advisor will say "We lack the spending to keep up with research" even when you are researching at the fastest possible pace from specialists.

46. A city on the bottom of the map will not have a viewable "number of citizens/name" display. If it's an enemy city, you can never find out this info (or if you can, I've yet to figure out how).

[vmxa1]

Lots of stuff, I wish you would have broken it up in chunks so it would not be so hard to respond to.

"3. Civopedia say "need fresh water to grow beyond size 6".

In fact, you need a river, possibly an inland lake. Irrigation is fresh water and not sufficient."

True, but it only takes once to figure it out.

[vmxa1]

"5. Taking over a size 1 city destroys it; it does not give you a size one city of enemy citizens. Even though the 'What's changed' says otherwise."

If the city has enough culture to expand it can be captured at size 1. This is rare for the AI as it tends to not have temples that early.

[vmxa1]

"15. When a tech increase is learned, you are asked "what do you want to learn?". If you select "Tell me the big picture", and then go into the civilopedia looking at the tech choices, when you leave the civilopedia your choice is made for you; you do not go back to the "What do you want to learn?" question. This is confusing."

Right click on the tech in the science screen will give you the low down on what is does. So you do not have to go to the pedia.

Also there are ref guides availbe on the board that you can use.

But you are not alone, many have made this complaint.

[vmxa1]

"20. I want a way to ship food from one city (surplus) to another. Come on, isn't this a LONG time real world activity for at least 200-400 years?"

True, but the game needs to impose some conventons and this is one they have.

[vmxa1]

"25. I'd like some way to tell which luxuries I do not have; even better, a clean map option for "Hide resources currently in trade network", so I can tell where I need to concentrate my exansion. Right now determining this is very time consuming, and I'd not possibly be able to do it in a timed game."

There is an command to remove all the structures and show only the resources on the map. This is useful to see when one is under a city. Not sure if that is what you are looking for.

[keybounce]

For #5, taking over a size 1 city, I mean by military units.

When I saw (either the readme or the "changes from previous civ's") that you could now capture cities intact I was thinking that this made enemy cities very valuable.

Didn't work.

For "I want to see the resources not in my network": There are 8 luxury items in the normal game. If I have 4 of them in my trade network, I don't really care how many of those 4 are on the map. I'm far more interested in the other 4.

I'd like to hide the 4 luxuries that I do have. In fact, I'd like to hide all resources other than the 4 that I don't have, so I can quickly scan the map and see where I need to expand next.

(After all, with the distance effect of corruption, distant cities are only good for limiting expansion of the computer and getting happy faces.)

[vmxa1]

If you use a troop to capture a size one town it will auto raze, unless the city has made some culture. Once it has acumulated culture of (IIRC) 10, it will not be auto razed.

I am not talking about flipping the city. That is why the capitol does not raze, it has culture from the palace. The AI tends to not built temples in a new city, so it will often be a long time before it gets any culture. Often it will have reached size 2 by then.

[Plotinus]

Originally posted by keybounce

23. The civilopedia does not clarify that only ONE luxury of a type will improve a city's happy faces.

Come now, that one, at least, is in the manual. I hope you didn't try to learn how to play the game solely from the Civilopedia!

[steven8r]

28. It is too hard to see the terrain on the bottom of the map -- how about a way to remove the status info normally on the bottom (mini-map, unit orders, unit summary).

I believe that you can use the "Delete" key or the "Backspace" key to hide/move the MiniMap and InfoBox. I can't remember which key does what, but at least that's a place to start.

Steven

[keybounce]

No, I didn't try to learn just from the civopedia; I did a read-over of the manual. I have played Civ (long ago), civ2 (more recently), and civ2 multiplayer (briefly -- VERY, VERY BREIFLY). Haven't played since that time, actually. I read the manual more for "What's new", as well as

Oh god. I just realized -- I've read the Civ3 manual, and then used the C3C civilopedia.

[Jaybe]

10: Unit order. Default unit movement order should have all units with preset orders moving LAST; currently they move interspersed with normal units. There needs to be a command for "Move all units with outstanding orders" to compliment this ordering.

Absolutely disagree -- that would be no better than it currently is. I DO agree, however, that there should be some player command "execute previous orders now" so that movement, continuous bombardment, or other commands are done so you can coordinate with other forces.

(I don't use continuous bombardment anymore, because I would continuously be asked to order assault units before the artillery/bombers did their thing).

[AAHZ]

Originally posted by keybounce
3. Civopedia say "need fresh water to grow beyond size 6".

In fact, you need a river, possibly an inland lake. Irrigation is fresh water and not sufficient.

a lake wont help here. irrigation dosent help because irrigation is dug into canals and ditches, and waterways, in a codefined pattern around the crops. plus its not enough water to support a whole population. just the surrounding farmland.

Originally posted by keybounce
21. On the advisors, right now the advice is given at random. I'd like a "next" and "previous" button, and a predictable cycle. For the foreign advisor, I'd like to specify "by country" or "by topic".

for the foreign advisor pointing the mouse over a leaders head will cause the foreign advisor to say something about that civ. take the pointer off and repeat he will say something else. just keep pointing the mouse to different leaders to see the specs on their civs.