Civilization III preview in Finnish gaming magazine

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Gramphos
They must have improved the AI very mush to do that, or they have lowered the hardness of the levels (I hope not).

I´m quite sure that the AI will still get significant production and science bonuses at the higher levels.

Originally posted by Slax
In CIV II you could bump up your happiness for the last turns and improve your score.

In SMAC that wasn´t possible anymore. 1 citizen equaled 1 point. I really hope Firaxis adopts this in Civ3.

[Steve Clark]

Originally posted by Harlan
Regarding the AI having no cheats except on Diety. I remember when I first got Civ2, I saw an interview with Sid Meier where he proudly proclaimed that the AI didn't cheat at all, except when it came to Trireme movement. I remember it well, because of many times in later years I would curse their cheating ways and think about the sheer chutspah of making that statement. So beware of the hype on that point, the track record from the man himself isn't good.

And also that Brian said that he and the Microprose team doubt that Civ2 can be beaten at Deity, at least on a regular basis.

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by lockstep
I´m quite sure that the AI will still get significant production and science bonuses at the higher levels.

Maybe, but they will not know more then a human in there situation would know.

[yin26]

Harlan has spoken wisely. Amen.

[yin26]

By the way, if Civ3 ends up NOT being shipped with MP, we all know what that means: The game was rushed. Period. End of story. We'll need another 3 months to get what we should have gotten at the time of purchase. This will use up valuable time and patience, leaving us much less likely to get to the level of patching we had all hoped.

For now, I will choose to believe it is a bad rumor.

[Nenad]

Even if it's true that AI cheats only on deity level, it's all the same to me, cause I always play on that level (doesn't everybody?). And now, when I know for sure - almost officially - that AI cheats, I will cheat too, and my conscience will be calm and relaxed.

[LaRusso]

Nenade, pravi si heroj

[Mannamagnus]

People never thought a computer (read AI) would be good enough to beat the human worldchampion at chess. But it did.
It's been six years since the release of civ2 I think we should give Firaxis the benefit of the doubt and expect the AI to be a lot tougher.

[Tjoepie]

The most irritating thing I've come across in all civ games up to now , but probably allso the hardest to improve is the AI.

I usually never play single player , for that same reason.
But these TBS games take too long so I have no choice since I love them so much.

Anyway I would be very happy to finally see an "intelligent AI" !
And as said I'll gave Sid and Firaxis the benifit of hope!

Lets keep fingers crossed !

I'm allready finding it hard not to dream about Civ 3

[Urban Ranger]

I guess it depends on what "cheating" is.

Maybe he doesn't consider having extra info and bodacious bonuses as cheating

[Patriqvium]

Whoa, we are a news item now...

Anyway, I sent a message to the magazine's Finnish forum to see if they can give us some more accurate information regarding the hot topics discussed in this thread...

[Father Beast]

for Civilization, they said it was possible to beat the computer on emperor, but not consistently. This was proven to be absurd as lots of civ players started doing absurd things with the game.

for Civ2, They said they had Doug Kaufman plugging away at the game making sure it was possible to beat the computer on Deity. That seems absurd to me, as they had the example of ICS already, and the minor block they had on that did almost nothing to keep it from being used as a sure road to victory again.

so now (almost) we come to Civ3. It has yet to be seen if the current block on ICS will be effective in keeping people from taking that route. It does seem that the OCC will be even easier with the cultural victory scenario, although the use of resources will hamper that somewhat. Particularly since we won't know what resources are available where in ancient times.

The AI will initially be good, but will turn out to suck later on. I predict this with confidence. It is a fact. I believe that Team Firaxis is working hard on a good AI, but the nature of games of this depth makes it impossible to come up with counters to everything. we, the civ players, WILL come up with ways to play the designers never considered. Sooner or later, and most likely both sooner and later.
Especially with the new features. The AI will be particularly clueless about those.

The only answer is to have some way for the AI to be adjusted. To have some way for us vets to teach the AI new tricks. The Civ2 AI is pretty good, but can't compare to our experience. and especially our learning at the feet of such Civ giants as post on this site. Now, if the AI could learn at their feet.....

as for the AI not cheating, I'll believe that if it has been documented in a few years. I can't believe they won't know where I am at all times, like always.

[jsw363]

So I am wondering about the ethnic cleansing thing with the settlers. If I can choose who becomes a settler, then (if I am Russian) choose two pesky French unhappy people to become settlers? Then when they found a city do they become loyal Russians? Do they remain French?

And as for workers does the nationality of the workers matter? Can I use only French workers to build my mighty Russian Emipre? Will the colonies behave differently because they were founded by the French? Are they less efficient than my Russian workers? How does this all play out?

[dennis580]

It simply means Fireaxis doesn't consider Mulitplayer to be very important. Something I think the majoirty of the Civ fans would agree with.

[Kc7mxo]

I agree. I've played multiplayer civ once. and i was not really impressed. in all fairness i don't play the game much at all anymore though.

Someting interesting about slavery though, is that your state of government has nothign whatsoever to do with the people's like or dislike of the institution.

Rome used slavery thorughout its existence, and it was a republic.

The Confederacy was designed along very similiar lines to the US government, and the US government had allowed slavery for over a hundred years, and had the south not rebelled, probably would have allowed it to continue for decades.

Governments do not reflect the ethical beliefs of a coutnry.

And while I believe that democratic systems are simply the best availble, I do not paticularly like the way that they are shown to be so generalyl superior to everything else in the game. But, political bias is unavoidable. :-)

[yin26]

It simply means Fireaxis doesn't consider Mulitplayer to be very important. Something I think the majoirty of the Civ fans would agree with.

Are you familiar with the Civ2 MP debacle? Trust me...Firaxis wants to release this game with great MP but Infogrames is holding them to a deadline.

[Jarouik]

Originally posted by jsw363
So I am wondering about the ethnic cleansing thing with the settlers. If I can choose who becomes a settler, then (if I am Russian) choose two pesky French unhappy people to become settlers? Then when they found a city do they become loyal Russians? Do they remain French?

And as for workers does the nationality of the workers matter? Can I use only French workers to build my mighty Russian Emipre? Will the colonies behave differently because they were founded by the French? Are they less efficient than my Russian workers? How does this all play out?

I doubt that nationality would be modelled all that thoroughly in Civ3... I would say that the Pelit magazine only meant that if you build settlers or workers in a city with foreign nationals, the cost is automatically taken from the foreigner total. Directly translated, the only sentence in the article concerning this subject is as follows: "A player can, however, literally practice ethnic cleansing by transferring his own citizens to a conquered city and extraditing the original citizens into minorities in other cities as settlers." This does imply, however, that settlers built by conquered cities would somehow differ from other settlers once they are founding or joining a city, while I think they mentioned somewhere previously that citizens in any new cities you found are always your own, not foreign.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo
Someting interesting about slavery though, is that your state of government has nothign whatsoever to do with the people's like or dislike of the institution.

Governments do not reflect the ethical beliefs of a coutnry.

And while I believe that democratic systems are simply the best availble, I do not particularly like the way that they are shown to be so generaly superior to everything else in the game. But, political bias is unavoidable. :-)

It was my same doubt: also today some democracy/republic more or less tolerate some form of slavery.

Children labour, abuse of women/immigrate labour... we can consider them modern form of slavery, IMHO.

[jsw363]

Originally posted by Jarouik

"A player can, however, literally practice ethnic cleansing by transferring his own citizens to a conquered city and extraditing the original citizens into minorities in other cities as settlers." This does imply, however, that settlers built by conquered cities would somehow differ from other settlers once they are founding or joining a city, while I think they mentioned somewhere previously that citizens in any new cities you found are always your own, not foreign.

So does this mean that forced resettlement of minorities converts them into loyal citizens? Interesting....

Also, I agree that republics and democracies ARE less tolerant of slave labor than other governments. If you look at the outrage surrounding Nike and that Kathy Lee clothing in the US, you can see that people aren't so thrilled imagining ten year olds stitching their clothes in 16 hour work days for pennies.

[Rasbelin]

If Dan agrees, there's probably going to be a translation
of the article with Sid and Civ III on Apolyton on the weekend.

Don't ask me who's behind the idea...