Civ3: Who's resolve is first to falter?

[drake]

He's slower in my experience because he has larger empires than the rest

Just razzing the ol' man

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by CapTVK
Oh no!


Ming and Rah were the first to go and now more falter. War4ever, AH and even Rasputin have fallen for Civ3's wicked charm.


Who's next to fall!?


I'm still holding out, but the temptation....OH THE TEMPTATION!!

I'm still with you Cap, don't give in! We all have to hold out together. Form a support group or something. Or perhaps get some help from War4ever or Markus to get a pirated copy so we don't ever give in to the temptation.

Sloww is holding out, Drake is holding out, so am I. We can do it. The Boycott stands!

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by OzzyKP


I'm still with you Cap, don't give in! We all have to hold out together. Form a support group or something. Or perhaps get some help from War4ever or Markus to get a pirated copy so we don't ever give in to the temptation.

Sloww is holding out, Drake is holding out, so am I. We can do it. The Boycott stands!

No need there to worry OzzyKP. My resolve was tested last week and I'm stronger for it.

I had Civ3 in my hands at a computer fair. I found it way too pricey and put it out of my mind. Civ3 is just a sequel with a lot of undelivered promises (lack of scenarios being a major one). Plus, having seen the handling of the german translation fan-mod by Infogrames with a cease-and-desist order past week I'm glad I didn't.

[War4ever]

i would never buy this game.....but you should get a pirate...you may like it ...... then you could justify buying it.... at least try it somewhere......i doubt the patch will make me buy a copy....

if mp ever comes out....highly unlikely ....maybe some more of us will splurge......

having beaten the game into the ground now...... there is no need to play it anymore...which is sad coming from a civ game made by Sid....

especially when civ1/2 game me more delight then i thought was possible from a video game.....

civ3 doesnt' seem like an empire building game to me....it feels like a cheap knockoff of the fabled civ series

[Rasputin]

actually i felt Civ 3 is more like an empire buidling game as you could avoid war and go for city development instead... in civ 2 i always had multiple wars with the damn AI !!! in civ 3 i have a game right now that is 1600AD and still no war !!!!

[Alexander's Horse]

I think you are being too hard on the game War, I really enjoyed my first game (which I just won). In fact, I'm going to keep going with it because I want to conquer the world.

The game has a lot features that I like. The biggest bonus is the smarter AI. I also like the new combat rules, particularly the fact you don't lose the whole stack if one unit dies. I like the slave worker concept and capturing artillery.

[Smash]

give it another week or so then see.
Its just average.

some good new ideas that would work well if only we could get them in civ2 somehow....

[Alexander's Horse]

I would say its above average. Not as good as civ II but better than CTP I/II.

I LOVE the slave worker concept. Its a dream come true for me to have my civ developed by captives I also Love capturing artillery, that's great.

[Bird]

As long as it's still challenging, I'll keep playing it. I like MP better, but let's face it, it's kind of hard to argue that Civ 3 is worse than Civ 2 single play. When was the last time you ever played a regular game of Civ 2? I haven't in probably 2 years or so. (OCC doesn't count.)

My goal is to win each way possible at deity. There are plenty of surprises for me still. For example, I told War4 on icq the other night that I finally had a game fully under control (monarchy level). I was first in population and land area. The Americans were 2nd, although not terribly far behind. They were also always 2 or 3 techs ahead of me, despite the fact that I was a scientific civ with all cities fully improved. No matter what I did, I couldn't catch up in techs, and b/c of that the only wonder I got was Oracle (BFD). It was clear that someone would build a spaceship before the game ended, and I wasn't sure whether I could catch up techwise to win that race or, alternatively, whether I would have to attack the Americans. So while I'm still on the fence, the Americans build United Nations. They take a vote and the first time it's a 2-2 tie with 2 abstentions. I'm at peace with everyone and start giving away techs to one of the abstainers and basically doing whatever anyone else asks. A few turns later, one of the ai civs eliminates the abstaining civ I've been so nice to, and a few turns later another vote happens. I lose 3-2. Game over. All my base are theirs.

So I play again last night as the Japanese. Get a not-so-good start, but at least am able to expand equally on both sides of my capital. I am never close to getting any early or mid-game wonder and am always behind in techs, but trade like crazy at all opportunities with all civs. Suck up to the leading civ who occasionally demands my world map and a few gold as tribute. Fought no wars at all. Finally get a wonder tech first and start building SETI, with fission on track to come in well before completion of SETI. Egyptians start building SETI the next turn, and I expect to lose it, but also to be able to switch to United Nations and not lose the shields. I lose SETI by 3 turns 9(surprise, surprise) and switch. Get UN and the first vote is a 2-2-1 tie. I suck up like crazy to the other civs and the next vote I win 4-1. I suppose the way to win diplomatically is to be a boot-licking chump.

[Steve Clark]

Originally posted by Bird
So I play again last night as the Japanese. Get a not-so-good start, but at least am able to expand equally on both sides of my capital. I am never close to getting any early or mid-game wonder and am always behind in techs, but trade like crazy at all opportunities with all civs. Suck up to the leading civ who occasionally demands my world map and a few gold as tribute. Fought no wars at all.

That is exactly how my current game is going (whenever I get back to it), only playing as the French. Everyone else has exactly the same number of techs with me consistently 3-4 behind. It's just that my tech rate is 18-32 while theirs is probably 5-9.

Except for war4 who's a peculiar civer , don't you (generally speaking) think that being behind is a refreshing change from Civ2?? Oh I get it now, if one doesn't win every game then there must be something with the game.

[Alexander's Horse]

I'm still playing first game

Its 2105 AD now

[Rasputin]

ok latest update from my game..

Got my first leader the other night. wonderful surprise, it then took me ages to figure out how to turn it into an army... eventuaslly i just pressed 'B' whilst in a city and that did it.

Then had to figure how to add units to the army, 'L' does that.!!!

Was able to use the Army to clear all of africa of all other civs excpet my ally the indians (the only civ to maintian friendship throught the gaem, must be because their main base is in America)

Had many battles now, cannons are better than catapults but still not fully effective IMHO, Cavalry is excellant offensive unit.

I reaaly enjoying the game now, with my culture expanding rapidly and with my war on the Babylonians and English and Persians going well I am gaining the WONDERS they built and getting a secure foothold in asia.

The Germans an I now share Asia and the germans have all of europe, the Persians control Russia. The Americans control England and all the islands between there and America and Canada too. Russians control North America . Indians control Central and south america.

Its very interesting, I have my main citys jsut building improvements now with just enough citys supplying units to my army as needed.

It is about 1800AD and stil lno clear winner in sight.

[CapTVK]

Well, one month has passed since Civ3 has been released. How's it holding up (patched patch included)?


In the meantime I'm holding out quite well thanks to EU and a stockpile of Civ3 scenarios

[Smash]

I am definitely having a love/hate relationship with 3.
There is some darn good stuff.There is some darn bad stuff.

The ancient era is pretty good.The modern era is sheer monotony.Even worse than late game civ2.Its very similiar to the last half of Red Front.You need to have large armies for serious kick butt action....next thing you know you are pushing 200+ units all over the map.Thank God,the go to is much better.
It is like RF alot.A struggle at the beginning.Slowly you gain in strength while fighting for survival.With luck or smallish maps you'll be ok but if not then things die out as you pull even and ahead in all areas.Then the tedious part starts....

The improved diplomacy is good at first but it becomes a pain just contacting every civ every turn.Why didn't they give us an embassy that actually shows something?...this would be a huge time saver.

I still give it a 7>7.5 of 10.Another half point is waitiing for the full editor.

[Alexander's Horse]

I didn't play civ III all weekend. That says something.

The thing I'm finding tedious at the end of the game is moving around all the units. Artillery and workers become a real pain in the arse. The fact that you can't use rail really slows down the blitzkrieg.

In Civ II SP I'd just attack the capitals and then bribe all the other AI cities in each AI civ. Game over in 5 or 10 turns. Then I'd leave one tiny landlocked city on an island somewhere, build the maximum spaceship and see how many points I could get with pop and future techs before the end of the game

Can't do that anymore. Have to wheel armies all over the map

[Nap Bonaparte]

I agree with both AH and Smash......the ancient part of the game is the best with all the exploration and discovery and the end game is very lonnnggggg and tedious. My addiction with CivI and CivII is 9 years and still counting. My addiction to CivIII was less than 30 days. I hate having to negotiate with the AI for techs.....Id really prefer stealing the techs with diplos. Come to think of it, I really miss the caravans and diplos. Id rather move 30 caravans/diplos around the map than 60-75 workers. Can you imagine Civ3 MP with 8 players moving 50 workers every turn. And then artillery units. And then all the other military units.
I havent touched Civ3 since I purchased EU2 2 weeks ago. The new Civ3 patch is supposed to fix the IFE and the Air Superiority bugs but I still dont know if the Civ3 modern era is worth the trouble.

[Steve Clark]

Something dawned on me this weekend as I was attempting to continue my second game. Because they listened to the wrong people who wanted the [stick in your favorite age] last longer, Firaxis made ALL of the ages last longer. The thought that struck me was that the Civ3 regular game is just like playing 4 Civ2 scenarios in a row. First you start out with an ancient age one (like Kull's), then onto a medieval one, then an industrial age one (like Civil War) and then finally playing a modern one like RF or SF. Each one by itself would be a handful but four of them back to back is too much. Because of my "pay attention to everything" each and every turn, I can see a single game taking 80+ hours whereas 25-30 would be my limit.

I knew all along that the regular would not interest me, esp. in comparison to scenarios (just like with Civ2). It seems to be even more true for Civ3. I am going to wait for the scenarios to play Civ3 again.

[Alexander's Horse]

I miss tech stealing too!

Slowing down scientific development wasn't the best way to make the ancient period last longer. They should have just added more turns to it (duh!)

[Steve Clark]

But we need to not be afraid of the civ3mod.bic file. It's no different than rules.txt, only infinitely more robust. Perhaps just a simple number change on the max # of turns to research or some other tweaks will produce a faster, more playable regular game? Can we experiment with this?

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Steve Clark
But we need to not be afraid of the civ3mod.bic file. It's no different than rules.txt, only infinitely more robust. Perhaps just a simple number change on the max # of turns to research or some other tweaks will produce a faster, more playable regular game? Can we experiment with this?

Steve,

The problem is that we will never agree on an improved ruleset because there's no basis to start from. Firaxis rushed the game without a properly balanced ruleset. The fact that Firaxis is still doing heavy tweaking inside the rules.txt is evidence of that.
Did the original Civ2 rules.txt need heavy tweaking? No, the fact that every Civ2-SP/MP player still plays with the standard rules is proof of that. The only time when the rules.txt are, or "should be", tweaked is in scenarios.

Which are sorely missing in Civ3

[Steve Clark]

But I don't think the Civ2 rules.txt defaults are any more "balanced" than the civ3mod.bic. This is evident in that we all think the AI is laughable in Civ2. At least in Civ3, we have much greater control over nearly everything. But you are right in that it would be hard to agree, I think that is the purpose. For example, some whiners cried bloody murder when they increased the max # turn to research from 32 to 40. What should it be? Do you really think that there is an ideal number? I don't know, that's why it's editable.

Let's say it's set at 23 or 24, some will say that it makes the game too easy but frustating because you can't keep up in building stuff, while others will complain about how slow it is. They came out with 32 initially based what they know about the game engine, then they bumped it to 40 when they saw many folks winning at the higher levels. I'm not saying that this one parameter is the key (it probably goes together with other 'tweaks').

But then again, I see your point. I saw what monkspider is doing with his Balancer mod and I have said that without rigorous testing, such things are foolish if they think it makes the game more 'balanced'. So while we didn't have to mess with the rules.txt in Civ2 for a regular or MP game, there wasn't much thing we could tweak anyways, as compared to what's available in Civ3.