CivIII is not sequel to CivII

[Sarxis]

You have to remember something: CivIII is really two generations removed from CivII. Alpha Centauri saw a great deal of development in the ideas that are contained in CIV. I have observed that many of the soon-to-be CivIII owners have never played SMAC, so a lot of the 'new features' and 'big evolutionary steps' in CivIII are really carry overs or somewhat modified features of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

And besides this, there have been three other CIV releases since CivII besides SMAC as well: CTP 1&2, and ToT. I am certain that these games have contributed, even if in very small ways, to the direction CivIII is heading, even if just to show 'what not to do' in a Civilizatioin game.

[drake]

Then why is it called civ3?

I don't know......everything I've heard leads me to believe the basic civ foundation will be used.

I expect some innovations and improvements, but we're going to see a genuine civ product. Not a knock off.....

So I'd guess I'd say that I disagree with you.

[Grumbold]

*Warning* Pessimistic content



What I regret about Civ III is that when Firaxis announced their objective to be making the best Civilization game ever, I expected them to be taking CtP I, II, MGE, ToT and SMAC into account. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the case. Anything that has not previously appeared in vanilla Civ I or II is heralded as an improvement while some very good facets of the other games have been ignored as if they never existed.

What we are getting certainly looks like its going to be better than original Civ II. Having played all those other games I expected a lot more from that statement of Firaxis than they have seemed willing to deliver. I will still be waiting for a future product to marry Civ III with the good features from the other games that got left out.

[Provost Harrison]

Well I would discount the CtP line as they were a radical departure from the civ/SMAC line, and in my opinion a failure, although can be studied as an example of what not to do in a civ game But this game is drawing from all it's predecessors; from civ, giving it the atmosphere and feel of simplicity this game had. From civ2 with much more advanced military combat and diplomacy, but improving further still on these. From col, with the trading of resources, altered for the game, and many of the ingenious improvements that were in SMAC. So in terms of game, yeah, it is the successor to Civ2, but there has been a lot of 'water under the bridge' since then, and a lot has been learnt since about what to do and what not to do. This should, and I am confident, will, result in the greatest civ game yet!

[Sarxis]

Originally posted by drake
Then why is it called civ3?

I don't know......everything I've heard leads me to believe the basic civ foundation will be used.

I expect some innovations and improvements, but we're going to see a genuine civ product. Not a knock off.....

So I'd guess I'd say that I disagree with you.

Well, I guess I can say that you didn't get my point.

The point is that CivIII isn't being released RIGHT after CivII. A lot of things have occurred in the CIV universe, and I think the time gap between CivII and CivIII is substantial. Yeah, in the strictest sense, CivIII is CivII's sequel. But its like what Star Wars Ep1: enough time has lapsed between the original series and the new stuff that everything has a different feel to it. Not necessarily for the worse, but the leap is big.

And Grumbold:

What I regret about Civ III is that when Firaxis announced their objective to be making the best Civilization game ever, I expected them to be taking CtP I, II, MGE, ToT and SMAC into account. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the case.

You couldn't be more wrong! A great deal of what was in CivIII's predecessors is included, or expounded upon.

And Provost: your comments is the essence of my point. CivIII has a lot more resources to draw from than just CivII, promising that this latest Sid Meier creation will be superb!

[aaglo]

Anunikoba - of course civ3 is a sequel for civ2 (IIRC the numbers are 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 0 ). The game has though had it bounces like a pingpongball... And congrats for the crown...

P.Harrison - Cyberdemon is awesome, emperor peguins are hilarious

[Provost Harrison]

Well exactly. When civ2 was made, they erred more on the side of cautious as it would be unknown what features would throw the gameplay totally out of whack. Now it is known how to do it better, stick with (perhaps make minor tweaks) to the major underlying game mechanics, but alter those things that are more peripheral but have potential, eg, trade, or introduce new concepts, eg, culture. It looks like they have figured out how to make a good sequel now (Civ2 was, it was a well needed update of civ, but was more conservative).

Yeah, so what if Civ3 is a conservative upgrade. CtP wasn't a conservative upgrade, and look what that was like

I can hardly wait

[drake]

Years don't change the fact that we're going to get basically the same game with some nice new bells and whistles. I expect a very similar look and feel. Don't you?

[Sarxis]

I do actually. There will be a lot of familiar things in CivIII, which is good.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Anunikoba
You couldn't be more wrong!

In my personal frame of reference I am absolutely correct. A lot of the concepts which IMO were superior in those games have not been included or improved upon in Civ III. Where some have been introduced they have been announced as all-new improvements as if no one had thought of them before. I accept that not all of these features were universally loved (Unit Workshop, anybody?) but I still perceive them as cuts because they are features which have previously been welcome parts of my Civ-style gaming experience which will be lacking in Civ III. If an idea is a good one, it should not be rejected because its origin came from a different source.

[Sarxis]

Originally posted by Grumbold
If an idea is a good one, it should not be rejected because its origin came from a different source.

I doubt that this is the reason these features were 'cut', as you put it. More likely, Firaxis felt that to retain the essence of CIV while also making improvements and innovations, certain things just would not fit into the mix. The Unit Workshop is a good example: this feature worked well in the futuristic SMAC, but really has no place in the more historical CivIII. But the Worker unit is a derivation of SMAC's Terraformer unit, and then some.

So even though a lot of 'good ideas' that are innapropriate for CivIII were cut, many others made it into the 'final cut'.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Anunikoba
The Unit Workshop is a good example: this feature worked well in the futuristic SMAC....

It did? I found it to be cumbersome and ultimately useless.

As far as Civ3 being the sequel to Civ2, anything that is new compared to Civ2 will be new to the majority of gamers that have played Civ games (that meaning "Civ games by Sid", none of that CTP crap); look at sales for Civ, Civ2 and SMAC and you will find that SMAC players are a very small minority of those familiar with Civ games. Thus, the new features are "new" to Civilization as most people know it.

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Well I would discount the CtP line as they were a radical departure from the civ/SMAC line, and in my opinion a failure, although can be studied as an example of what not to do in a civ game But this game is drawing from all it's predecessors; from civ, giving it the atmosphere and feel of simplicity this game had. From civ2 with much more advanced military combat and diplomacy, but improving further still on these. From col, with the trading of resources, altered for the game, and many of the ingenious improvements that were in SMAC. So in terms of game, yeah, it is the successor to Civ2, but there has been a lot of 'water under the bridge' since then, and a lot has been learnt since about what to do and what not to do. This should, and I am confident, will, result in the greatest civ game yet!

Hmm, so I guess resources that could actually be traded (with routes that could be pillaged), the ability to construct and use build queues for units and improvements, the ability to capture enemy units, the ability for some units to bombard other units & cities more than a a square away and stacked units in actual armies were completel failures?

I think not! Yet all of these ONLY came about in the CtP series and are now included (in a more limites fashion) in Civ3.

Unless you played CtP and looked at all the things they did right (IMHO), like more wonders, a LOT more techs and units, etc, you would say that Civ3 took nothing from these games when they, in fact, did.

Granted CtP had annoying issues, like the slaver's, lawyers, etc, but you can't say it was all bad. My hope is that Firaxis at least looked at what was innovative and worked in CtP (more than Civ fanatics might think) and incorporated them into Civ3. It looks as if they did implement some ideas, which is good.

Change is not bad, it is necessary to prevent stagnation and extinction, some folks need to learn that lesson. Anything that keeps Civ3 from simply being Civ2 with better graphics (as Civ2 was to Civ1) is a VAST improvement.

I played Civ for 2 years and was highly disappointed that Civ2 was the same game with different graphics and virtually little other improvements (other than game balance issues like unit hitpoints, etc). Civ3 sounds better than that (hopefully)

[Pembleton]

*censored*

[Sabre2th]

Originally posted by Pembleton


I know I probably shouldn't respond to this, but I can't help myself.

My response is a huge "WHO CARES?" and "What is your point"? Should they call the game Civilization 6?

I don't understand why you are posting this.

Man, talk about coming up with a pointless idea to spam up the board.

Don't forget about the pointless posts to spam up the thread.

Some of the threads in the forum are boring, irrelevant, or whatever, but there isn't much to talk about until civ3 comes out. If you don't like it don't read it.

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by Pembleton


I know I probably shouldn't respond to this, but I can't help myself.

My response is a huge "WHO CARES?" and "What is your point"? Should they call the game Civilization 6?

I don't understand why you are posting this.

Man, talk about coming up with a pointless idea to spam up the board.

Actually this could be a valid attempt to tell people not to expect Civ3 to be the same game as Civ2 with better graphics to forestall all the complaing that might insue.

Of course people will likely complain and whine when anything changes anyway so...

[Pembleton]

*spam*

[Deathwalker]

It is the sequal to Civ 2 Just becuase they are lessons learned in other games does not mean it's not a sequal. MOO3 uses lessons leanrt in other games beside MOO2 and it is still called a sequal to MOO2. So Civ 3 is the sequal

[Pembleton]

*unnecessary*

[Be Quicker]

Ozymandous:
I played Civ for 2 years and was highly disappointed that Civ2 was the same game with different graphics and virtually little other improvements (other than game balance issues like unit hitpoints, etc).

Wait a second. I disagree. Although Civ2 was clearly the same game as Civ in the sense that it was not a different game, Civ2 was IMHO opinion a very big step forward from Civ1. Much more balanced, much longer needed to play, much more actual necessary use for modern age development, need where previously there was none for changing governments, a complete new age (the industrial age), a better tech tree (no ridicilous short-cuts to computer for example), much more need to build wonders, more difficult (i.e. emperor in Civ I was easy, while in Civ II it was at least somewhat challenging) etc. Evidently you don't think so, but ok.

Now, with time is has become very evident that there is a need for such changes again, and I look forward to them. I personaly would already have been happy enough with only better path finding, building queues, and better automated engineers, on top of CivII. So I guess I am not so demanding.

[Sarxis]

Of course, I have to agree with this.

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by Anunikoba

Please leave.

I'm here to stay and you can't stop me.

[Grumbold]

Why do I get the feeling this is now devolving into a meaningless attempt at upping personal post counts?

[Grumbold]

upping personal post counts

[Grumbold]

Upping personal post counts

After all, Anikornikovatennisplayer has 90 more posts than me and is a king, which might somehow make his posts seem more important than my merely Princely ones

[Pembleton]

I just wanted to apologize for my harsh post. With further thought, perhaps this thread wasn't as useless as I thought. Sorry.

[Grumbold]

...and fresh from looking at that gamespy article that supported the "no multiplayer" announcement:

GameSpin: Were there any other games besides Civ that you looked to for inspiration when designing Civ III?

Johnson: Hmmm … not really, though we'd announce some idea and fans would say, "You got that from Call To Power, didn't you?" It would be my idea, but I never CTP.

I think this proves my point. At least some, if not all of the design team did not look at the Civ-like TBS genre to find the best features to incorporate. Some features have appeared that emulate ones we have seen before, simply because they are obvious improvements over the previous games. I suppose we could put all the blame on Activision. Firaxis would have found it much harder to ignore CtP's good bits had they been strong commercial successes.

[Sarxis]

I too wish to extend an apologetic hand. I get too defensive on message boards, which always leads to exchanges.

...Anikornikovatennisplayer...

What the hell are you talking about Grumbold?

But anyhow- let's try to keep this discussion on course now.
Again I state that CivIII is much more than just a sequel to CivII, but is the pinnacle of all that has been CIV up until now. Surely this is much more than a mere sequel?

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I think this proves my point. At least some, if not all of the design team did not look at the Civ-like TBS genre to find the best features to incorporate. Some features have appeared that emulate ones we have seen before, simply because they are obvious improvements over the previous games. I suppose we could put all the blame on Activision. Firaxis would have found it much harder to ignore CtP's good bits had they been strong commercial successes.

Well CTP1 was fairly successful, which is one reason why they made CTP2 in the first place.

I think Johnson wants to avoid any relation to the CTPs because basically they were pieces of ****.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Anunikoba
What the hell are you talking about Grumbold?

Every time i catch your board name out of the corner of my eye while working on something else I misread it as Anna Kournikova. Purely a sign of my one track mental processes and no slur intended


I believe both SMAC and post-mod CtP's are far superior to Civ II. The quantity of insults levelled at both CtP games are somewhat unjustified in my opinion. The developers were forced to release early and then reassigned onto other projects otherwise CtP2 could have become a truly polished game and allowed the efforts of the dedicated Mod makers to be devoted to other areas. I actually welcomed many of the ways in which CtP1 advanced from Civ2, particularly in the special units, army stacks and bombardment rules. CtP1 + MedMod is still my game of choice if playing any of the genre.