I have never bought Civ II. Oh sure, I've played it once or twice at a friend's house, but never bothered to buy it. I was contented to stick with Civ I, which was similar enough to make buying Civ II a waste of money for me (not to mention the fact that my computer couldn't run Civ II very well). I bought SMAC, and found that it was Civ I again, albeit a better Civ I, and I therefore thoroughly enjoyed the game. I will not be buying Civ III, in all likelihood, since it will probably be similar enough to SMAC to make its purchase frivolous. I'm on a tight budget and have to limit myself to two games a year or less.
So why post on these threads? To piss off Theben, mostly
. No seriously, I figure, if I help in any way to steer Civ III in a better direction, then maybe Sweep of Time (or whatever the next Civ game is) will produce a change great enough to justify my buying the game. So in essence, I agree with raingoon (and Coppola) that changes must be made in "baby steps", since Civ III will be an evolution of Civ II and not a completely different game, and I'm trying to help that evolution come along.
_BUT_, the way the threads are set up (or so it seems to me), Firaxis will never go from point A to point Z, but will be limited to a destination of point B or C. The reason is that the fundamental changes most of us want to see effected are being given to BR in bits and pieces, as "tweaks" and not as the fundamental changes we intended them to be, so that Firaxis is not seeing the point Z that we have in mind but only the point B that is reaching them. The solution to this? HAVE BR TALK TO US!!! HAVE FIRAXIS TALK TO US!!! If Firaxis says "Hey guys, we like your ideas, keep up the good work," what does that tell us? Nothing. But if Firaxis says "Hey guys, we've looked at your ideas, and Civ III will probably have such-and-such a change as per your request, but we're not going to put in this-and-that change because of blank," then we're getting somewhere! Because right then and there we've gone to Civ 2.1, and can then go to Civ 2.2 with additional suggestions, fundamental changes, and tweaks. This way, there might actually be a Civ III and not a Civ 1.3.
This was not meant as a personal attack on anybody whatsoever, since I don't know BR, anybody on the Firaxis design team, nor any of you well enough to even begin to form a character judgement. I'm just trying to make everybody happy for a little while, until Civ III is released and the you-know-what hits the fan.
Oh, and by the way, I can serve as a TM as need be, preferably on the threads I frequent most (Units, Combat, Social Engineering, and Terrain/TI's, although I'm ever flexible...). These are all taken, and God help those who have to manage them, but if any emergency should arise I can take up the slack--just send me an email.
