new review: # of playable civs revealed!!

The diplomat · June 7, 2001, 06:24

There is a new civ3 review at:
http://www.wargamer.com/e3-2001/

it reveals what many of you have been wanting to know for a long time now. It reveals the total number of civs in a single game...

Are you ready? Check out this quote:

"Civilization III will feature 16 civilizations out of the box and current plans are THAT ALL 16 WILL BE PLAYABLE ON THE SAME MAP, either as human multi-player opponents or quite adept Artificial Intelligence (AI)."

So, there you have it. Civ3 will allow 16 civs at the same time.
Rejoice!

Slax · June 7, 2001, 06:33

Wow! I don't believe it!

Rhuarc · June 7, 2001, 06:39

That is awesome!

Just remember that this doesn't seem like it is an official update from Firaxis. Although maybe Dan can verify or negate this comment for u. How about it Dan? After this last preview is it now safe to say that 16 civs will be available to play on the same map at the same time in either Single or Multi-player mode?

dainbramaged13 · June 7, 2001, 06:57

cha- CHINGGGGGG

YESSSSSSS

FINALLYYYY

WOHHOOOO

YEAH!!!!

ok im done now

Marquis de Sodaq · June 7, 2001, 08:35

Two words to sum it up:

WOO HOO!!!

If this is true, there could be oodles of fun in store. The grass will grow long, the snow will have to shovel itself, there's civin to do...

Henrik · June 7, 2001, 08:41

YES!!!!!!!!
THIS IS TO GOOD TO BE TRUE!!!!

Gramphos · June 7, 2001, 09:33

I hope this is true.
I'm not dreaming, am I?

The only thing I need to know now is if I may plug in another civ without replacing any of te existing. I don't care if I can play with all, or if there have to be me against 15 randomly selected civs.

uh Clem · June 7, 2001, 09:46

Quote:

Civilization III, which is being published by Hasbro Interactive under their new parent label of Infogrames

Infogrames????

There's something about this that sounds less than 100% authoritative.

Imran Siddiqui · June 7, 2001, 09:54

Posted a news item on it.

Thanks Diplomat.

And this is exactly what I was saying to not make assumptions before you know everything

.

Grumbold · June 7, 2001, 10:49

This is good news, assuming it is accurate (the review also mentions 16 advisors

) but it neglects to mention what happens when you create your own 17th civilisation. Do you have to overwrite one of the originals, pick any 16 or can you then choose to play with 17...?

Eli · June 7, 2001, 10:52

Another couple hundreds dollars...

SlowwHand · June 7, 2001, 10:59

You all unanimously like 16 Civs at one time?
Are you thinking from an SP perspective?
Personally, I don't think 16 human players will work well.

Imran Siddiqui · June 7, 2001, 11:08

Quote:

This is good news, assuming it is accurate (the review also mentions 16 advisors ) but it neglects to mention what happens when you create your own 17th civilisation. Do you have to overwrite one of the originals, pick any 16 or can you then choose to play with 17...?

Why do you think you HAVE to play with 16? Do you forget Civ2, where you had a choice?

Nikolai · June 7, 2001, 11:11

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
I can't find the preview!!! I't lost!!! WHERE IS IT???

.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ..........
nooooooooo........................................ ......

KrazyHorse · June 7, 2001, 11:13

Ha ha ha ha ha!
16 playable civs => No sleep for KrazyHorse!
The sixteen advisors thing is sorta weird; could be a typu (typa, typi, typo), but they're quite explicit about the 16 playable civs. What we need now is some confirmation from Firaxis. If you can hear me, Firaxis, and the above rumour isn't true, then you had better get off your a** and deny it before we get our hopes up. There's no one willing to spend less money than disappointed fans...

Grumbold · June 7, 2001, 11:15

It's helpfully listed on the sidebar under S for "Sid Meier's ..."

It caught me out for a minute too

Theben · June 7, 2001, 11:24

Exxcellent.

Slowhand, it's not like you'd HAVE to play with 16 humans in MP. Several of them could be AI, or just left out of the game.

Oh, and Imran, had Firaxis allowed for 16 civs in the beginning they would've told us so before things had gotten this far. Which goes to show what WE'VE been saying all along: to voice our opinions before it's too late.

Steve Clark · June 7, 2001, 14:53

Way too many, imo.

Even with a larger map, you can't fit 16 civs and their cultural areas without having all them bumping into each other. There would be less room to explore and to grow. And besides, with the civs in such close proximity, half of them would likely be eliminated early on and thus you are down to 6-7 again. Do you guys have any idea as to the impracticalities of having 16 civs on a map?!?

Give my 6 civs, located in their own part of the world and each with unique AI attributes than 16 civs.

Henrik · June 7, 2001, 14:57

Quote:

Way too many, imo.

Even with a larger map, you can't fit 16 civs and their cultural areas without having all them bumping into each other. There would be less room to explore and to grow. And besides, with the civs in such close proximity, half of them would likely be eliminated early on and thus you are down to 6-7 again. Do you guys have any idea as to the impracticalities of having 16 civs on a map?!?
Give my 6 civs, located in their own part of the world and each with unique AI attributes than 16 civs.

Remember civ 2?
When you start a new game the game asks you about how many civs you want to play whit...
You wont have toi play whit 16 civs.
Besides you havent gotten the foggiest idea of the size of a normal world map, do you?

Seeker · June 7, 2001, 14:57

KEW-EL

KrazyHorse · June 7, 2001, 15:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Steve Clark

Way too many, imo.

Even with a larger map, you can't fit 16 civs and their cultural areas without having all them bumping into each other. There would be less room to explore and to grow

You're joking, right? All there was in Civ II was room. When I would play on the big map size, there was no way for me to fill up a quarter of the available land area, even by 1900, unless I just went all-out to size 1 city building. Also, it will be much more fun to have to interact with other players (or the AI) while at the early stages, rather than the limitless expansion possible in Civ II. This will have the added bonus of reducing the power of set strategies like ICS. ICS only worked because it would take a while to locate other civs. If you have to defend your cities from the get-go, it becomes harder to just stretch out over a huge expanse.

Now territory will become valuable. Look at the modern world. Almost all of its fertile areas are filled with people. India can't just build settlers and expand its borders; Pakistan would probably object. My old CivII games would follow the same pattern: Rush to build forty or fifty cities and explore the map for the first 100 turns or so. Then, improve all my cities while pumping out wonder after wonder (Adam Smith, Michelangelo, J.S. Bach, Leonardo, Magellan, King Richard and Shakespeare would all appear virtually simultaneously). After this, I would still only have constant contact with 1 or 2 civs. Finally, I'd just mop up. If I made the map size too small, I would be hindered more by the other civs, but then it would be too easy to conquer them all.

dainbramaged13 · June 7, 2001, 15:47

WOW this is getting a lot of support. i hope it wasn't some kiind of typo or misunderstanding... then we (and firaxis) would be screwed.

Theben · June 7, 2001, 16:32

Quote:

Originally posted by dainbramaged13
WOW this is getting a lot of support. i hope it wasn't some kiind of typo or misunderstanding... then we (and firaxis) would be screwed.

All the review says is that "current plans" call for 16 civs at the same time. It may not pan out that way in the end, but I think it will.

Bohlen · June 7, 2001, 16:52

This is good news, although I do hope that we have some more map size options to work with. As stated above, the current large civ2 map would work well with 16 civs, but even bigger maps are needed. 16 civs on a gigamap world would be very nice.

Steve Clark · June 7, 2001, 18:33

Ok, let's figure this one out.

If a large map is 90 x 90, that would be 8100 tiles.

Half of them (hypothetically) would be ocean tiles, so you have about 4000 land tiles.

Each city consists of an average of 17 land tiles and 4 ocean tiles (some more, most less or no ocean tiles). This does not take into effect colonies or cultural area.

Let's say the average Civ has 12 cities.

16 civs with 12 cities each would take up about 3200 land tiles, about 80% of the land area just with cities. That may be accurate for Europe or eastern US, but not for the rest of the world.

Unless there's something wrong with the calculations, 7-9 advanced civs would fill up about half the land tiles and be more accurate (not to mention, more playable, imo) than 16. Playing with the 16 civs option may not be as fun as you think, giving less room or flexibility.

MarkG · June 7, 2001, 19:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Steve Clark

Way too many, imo.

Even with a larger map, you can't fit 16 civs and their cultural areas without having all them bumping into each other. ....

Give my 6 civs, located in their own part of the world and each with unique AI attributes than 16 civs.

good god, even in this case, there is someone who will complain.....

you want 6 civs, you will be able to play with 6 civs, as it has been since civ1!

good god........

any firaxians whowould like to confirm this pleeeeeeaaaaaassseeeee?

Jer8m8 · June 7, 2001, 20:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Steve Clark
If a large map is 90 x 90, that would be 8100 tiles.

Who says the map has to be 90 by 90??

ancient · June 7, 2001, 21:05

Something about this entire review doesnt seem right. Remember sometimes reporters, and such, will fill in the blanks.

java4me · June 7, 2001, 21:27

WOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LETS JUST HOPE THE REVIEW IS CORRECT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Steve Clark · June 7, 2001, 21:33

Some of you, including you Markos, forgot this well-reasoned argument...

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=4996

I'm willing to bet that after a few times, most of those that are blindly excited about playing with 16 AI civs will get tired of it and will look to playing against the 5-7 UNIQUE AI civs.