First Impressions

[Ironwolf]

Spatzimaus, must be nice to play all night then all day. Guess I will end up taking a few days vacation from what I have heard here.

[Steve Clark]

I still don't understand folks' obsession with the world map and "realistic" locations and resources. That may be useful at first when learning the game but nearly all games (as evident with Civ2) will be played on RANDOM maps with RANDOM resources. That's where the replayability and challenge will occur, not in knowing the geography before hand (which is cheating in a way).

[LarryM]

Some brief impressions after 3 to 4 hours of play:
Gameplay is vastly different than Civ II (in a good way). The previews led me to believe that gameplay wouldn't be that different in the ancient era, that the differences would become more apparent later. So far, I haven't gotten out of the ancient era - and it still feels like a completely new game. Some specifics:

(1) The terrain is a little less friendly - more desert, more jungle, much more mountains.
(2) Shield production is much more affected by corruption.
(3) The fact that settlers cost two population points is largely (but not entirely) offset by (a) faster city population growth, and (b) no food support cost for settlers.
(4) Playing on a normal map with 8 civs is quite crowded. Of course, one can always play on a bigger map or with fewer civs.
(5) Getting monarchy takes a lot tougher - only 4 prerequisite techs (still more than Civ II, if I recall correctly), but one of the prerequites and monarchy itself are very expensive in terms of science points required.

[Green Giant]

This is kind of an important thing for me so if anyone who has played can answer it:
Does the diplomacy AI still make ridiculous demands?

[Comrade Tribune]

Thank You!

Originally posted by Spatzimaus
Also on my hemisphere were the Americans (started about where Seattle would be), Aztecs (amazingly enough, starting near Mexico City), and the Zulus (Argentina). Not wanting my Unique Unit to go to waste, I conquered all of them quickly; Spearmen and Impi are no match for elite Immortals. I've built every Wonder in the game (managed to beat the computer players to ALL of them! Luck, and the fact I have three times as many cities as anyone else), so I've got a massive advantage (they're using Bowmen, I'm about to upgrade to Modern Armor).

I must admit this scares me a little, because it sounds way too easy. Hope this is Chieftain or Warlord level?

[faded glory]

Aha

So here I was building roads like a tire spoke around the horse resource. And I didnt think about a colonists?

No wonder

[Ilkuul]

Originally posted by campmajor!
By the way, how good or bad is Chips & Bits concerning delivery times?

Not too good! I emailed them to ask how soon they'd be sending out the LE's (I'm in the UK), and they replied with a LOOONG set of excuses about how they concentrate on reliability rather than speed, etc. etc. They wouldn't commit to any definite delivery date. So I don't expect to receive my LE before next week at the earliest...

[El hidalgo]

Originally posted by Steve Clark
I still don't understand folks' obsession with the world map and "realistic" locations and resources. That may be useful at first when learning the game but nearly all games (as evident with Civ2) will be played on RANDOM maps with RANDOM resources. That's where the replayability and challenge will occur, not in knowing the geography before hand (which is cheating in a way).

I wouldn't call it an obsession. It's just something some of us like. I don't see why it wouldn't be an option, since it was in Civ 1 & 2. It just seems like such a no-brainer that Firaxis would continue this tradition; if they didn't I would be... annoyed. Like the pop-ups in Civ 2, it's an annoyance; not the end of the world, but something to tick me off just a little . I hope I can at least open up the map in the editor and place starting cities where I want them to be.

Thanks for the news (though bad) on the large map, Boris. In a way I prefer it when inferior maps are included; it gives me that much more incentive to do a better job myself.

[Steve Clark]

And that was my point, El. If one does not like the world map, you have three options:
1) live with it since it's not supposed to be cartographic realistic (due to the tile-based projection system);
2) play on a random map; or
3) make a more playable map yourself, or download one soon.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Green Giant
This is kind of an important thing for me so if anyone who has played can answer it:
Does the diplomacy AI still make ridiculous demands?

They will make steep demands, but you don't have to accept their terms and can mix-and-match a renegotiation. Also, refusing their offers didn't seem to lead to war. If you reject their offer, they will usually ask you to come up with a counter-offer. Only once did the Russians declare war for me refusing a demand, which was tribute because I was puny and they mighty. They have since learned the error of their ways...

[Deathray]

Am I the only one that didn't bother with Monarchy in Civ 2 then? I always just rushed straight for The Republic. You gotta love that government so early on, if you play it right you can end up so far ahead of the AI in science. Even on Deity I've had some quite funny instances like once I just discovered Industrialisation and then the next turn the Americans (backwards people them ;-)) discovered warrior code.

Anyway, that brings me onto an on topic point. Do the ages sort out the problems that existed with the tech tree? Namely being into the modern advances and not having discovered some of the starting ones...

[scientific civ]

Originally posted by Faboba


So THATS where my disk space went..... bye, bye JC Denton.....

I realise it won't take THAT long but with the autosave it will add on a little time every few turns.

I hope they do what Civ2 did with the file ancestry style back-up. That was a good idea.

I thougt SMAC had a great auto-save system. You could juxt pick the year you wanted to return to from a list. CivII had an irritating auto-save system. Sometimes your save was your previous turn, sometimes 6 turns back. And u didnt know which auto-save you had to load, so had had to check 2 auto-saves.
btw. deus ex was a really cool games wasnt it. i think i put it at no.2 on my best game ever list (with civ2 on top of course)

[El hidalgo]

Originally posted by Steve Clark
And that was my point, El. If one does not like the world map, you have three options:
1) live with it since it's not supposed to be cartographic realistic (due to the tile-based projection system);
2) play on a random map; or
3) make a more playable map yourself, or download one soon.

Yeah, but fundamentally it's not really the map that's the problem here, it's the fact (if it is a fact) that you can't start in the proper location, or indeed in any predetermined location, proper or not. OK, so Firaxis maybe didn't do a good job making maps; that's fine with me since I will make my own, and I enjoy doing so. But no matter who makes the maps, or how good or bad they are, I still want to be able to set starting locations. It's an aspect of the game that adds a little enjoyment for me, though I understand it's not a concern everyone shares. To each his own.

[Chowlett]

Originally posted by faded glory
Aha

So here I was building roads like a tire spoke around the horse resource. And I didnt think about a colonists?

No wonder

If the resource is in your borders, a colony won't help. If the resource is out of your borders, spaghetti junction won't help.

If it's in, just one road to the rest of your network. If it's out, a coloy and then that one road.

AFAIK - I haven't got the game, of course

[Green Giant]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


They will make steep demands, but you don't have to accept their terms and can mix-and-match a renegotiation. Also, refusing their offers didn't seem to lead to war. If you reject their offer, they will usually ask you to come up with a counter-offer. Only once did the Russians declare war for me refusing a demand, which was tribute because I was puny and they mighty. They have since learned the error of their ways...

That sounds great. In SMACX I hated being at war with everyone because they kept wanting some ridiculous amount of money or tech and i was vastly more powerful than they were. My worries are put aside, I can't wait till it arrives at my doorstep. :salivates:

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by El hidalgo


Yeah, but fundamentally it's not really the map that's the problem here, it's the fact (if it is a fact) that you can't start in the proper location, or indeed in any predetermined location, proper or not. OK, so Firaxis maybe didn't do a good job making maps; that's fine with me since I will make my own, and I enjoy doing so. But no matter who makes the maps, or how good or bad they are, I still want to be able to set starting locations. It's an aspect of the game that adds a little enjoyment for me, though I understand it's not a concern everyone shares. To each his own.

IMO, the included world maps are not good, but I don't care, because I've always found user-made maps to be much better. I'd rather Firaxis not waste resources on making maps and concentrate on the game itself.

When I opened the world map with an editor, it had starting locations indicated for some civs (not all of them). I saw nothing to indicate that you can't pick the locations. I imagine the civs others played weren't initially placed on the map. Simple editing should fix this.

Cheers.

[Ironwolf]

Please let everyone know what level you guys are playing at so that we can get a feel for how challenging the game is going to be.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ironwolf
Please let everyone know what level you guys are playing at so that we can get a feel for how challenging the game is going to be.

I've only played on Chieftan. Granted, I rarely played above Prince in Civ II, but I think I'm well enough versed in Civ strategy and tactics to say the AI is better.

[LarryM]

Originally posted by Ironwolf
Please let everyone know what level you guys are playing at so that we can get a feel for how challenging the game is going to be.

I'm playing on King (actually, they call it monarch now). I'm doing pretty well so far - its still fairly early in the game - but not kicking butt like I would be at King level in Civ II. I'm in second place, though everyone is closely bunched. I can't really evaluate the AI; no wars yet. I can say that the AI is very expansionistic.

I've played a ton of Civ, and I'm pretty good, winning consistantly at Diety. However, its all been single player; I rather suspect I'd get beaten pretty badly by the multi-player veterns out there.

[Pyrodrew]

Faboba:I refuse to live in a country that looks on the main map, like all there is is England, and a rather fat, bloated version of england to boot.

Boris:I haven't played on the World maps yet. I did take a look at the huge one in the editor, and was unimpressed. Yes, the British Isles were still small.

Sounds like we're getting conflicting reports.

Boris:When I fought the Russians, they would send in groups of 2-3 warriors and would avoid my horsemen and try and sneak behind my lines to get at my cities. They didn't throw themselves uselessly against stronger units (I actually did that more often! lol).

Love the German iron & your horse situation too.

markusf:its not that good

Would you mind elaborating??? I hate vague posts like this.

[ember]

I have had the game for about 4 hours now, and have to stop and study for my exam tonight
But A few things I noticed.
I stated on warlord, and I'm in 4th place. This was unheard of in civ 2. THe AI does seem to negotiate better, and doesn't run around with units in your area as much.
One annoying thing is that your upgrade path is disruped by your special unit. You can't seem to upgrade to it from regular units and can't upgrade it to better ones...

Also had some video driver probelms in Win2k, with my MX400, but worked in 98se. I'll have to try putting the original drivers back on.

Production is hard, very hard to get high production rates.
You do not need near as many workers as you did settlers in teh old ones, one for every 2 cities is more than enough with industrious.
Corruption is crippling.
I havn't fought a major war yet, so have yet to figure that part out.

[meriadoc]

I can say this much after playing Civ 3 for only a few hours - the "one-more-turn sundrome" is still alive and well.

[David Floyd]

Just a real quick question, then back to CivIIIing...

I started on each of the world maps, neither time getting historic starting locations. Anyone found a way to get historic starting locations, or is it impossible??

[Steve Clark]

I also heard from someone that when restarting a new game on the world map, you get placed in the exact same spot. Is this true?

[ToeTruck]

Anybody won yet? LOL

I got my copy this morning and have exactly 4 hour and 18 minutes of play time under my belt. It's way too early to form any substantive opinions, but I was struck by a couple of things:

1) Eye candy all the way. The main view is very pleasurable; the animation, terrain/city graphics, and music produce a very enjoyable game play environment. The differences in graphic quality between the main view and the "histogram" view, for example, indicate how rushed this product was, though.

2) The diplomacy options have been expanded significantly (and I think for the better), but I haven't played enough to know how "good" the AI is. That's *way* down the line.

3) The interface is manageable, but I already miss the "window container". I use a dual-monitor system so I'm used to expanding the play area across two screens. I probably shouldn't complain too much, but it pissed me off.

4) The advisors (one of the most annoying features of Civ2 in my opinion) have an increased role in Civ3. Maybe I'm wrong, but you can't get the info you want without dealing with the advisor avatar. No biggie, I guess, but it really annoys me that screen real estate is being wasted on avatars.

5) The system requirements are a dead-minimum. My home PC is a 350 MHz P2 and I think I barely get by. Can't play at work, though, can I?

6) I crashed on the first game I played, right after I clicked on "Start Game" in fact. No problems since then, but it was a bit unnerving.

Overall, I think it's a good addition to the Civ line even at the $45+ price tag. I'll probably still play Civ2 as well, but I look forward to the Civ3 challenges.

That's it.

- TT

[Comrade Tribune]

Thanks to all who took time to tell us of their experience.

[ElitePersian]

Originally posted by SonofDogbreath
PLayed about seven hours last night
1) no crashes
2) my system bogged down late in the game (p3 450, 256)

how slow did it get? did it get choppy whne you moved the mouse across the map? i have about the same setup as you do, and im concerned about this. and i dont think the geforce 2 gts 32MB will do much to accelerate this game.

[Grim Legacy]

Oooh aaaah I got the game! If only I had the time to play it... oh well I'll post here whenever I can.

[Mahdimael]

My first impressions:

I've played the game for about 2 hours now, and here's my thoughts so far.

1. Graphics are wonderful. Everything is bright and vibrant, and the units are easily distinguishable. My only complaint is that the horses on the map look somewhat similar to the "game (deer)" resource, though I suspect I just haven't played it enough yet.

2. Sound and music is very good, non-intrusive at all. After having a sound effect for everything, it's nice that certain events don't have loud annoying sounds (the cheering in civ2 was a killer).

3. The interface is very good, though it will take some getting used to. You have to keep a careful eye on your cities otherwise they seem to start producing strange things on their own. Whoever said that it was hard to distinguish the moods of the citizens hasn't played the version I have yet, apparently. Not only are happy, content and unhappy citizens spaced apart from each other, holding your mouse over them tells you what they are after about a second.
The scrolling is jerky, but it's due to the fact that the screen moves 5-6 tiles at a time.

4. Gameplay is tons of fun. I know I'm going to need some experience, because the barbarians were able to raid my cities fairly easily. The AI is very good..it attacks with multiple units and doesn't usually fall into traps (i.e. I move to a mountain and it attacks me).

5. I was particularly impressed with the retiring screens. There's so much information there, it's great.

6. Resources are well distributed, and I've had to make a colony once or twice to reach them.

7. The way the city's working squares work is strange. I'll have to read the manual on that, because it's very odd.

Overall, based on what I've seen so far, I would give the game a 9.8/10. It's highly polished and you can easily hop in without reading the manual. It's apparent to see that Civ2 strategies won't work here, and that proves that this is a whole new game.

I will make a late-game review later on, once I've reached the appropriate times

[David Floyd]

Personally I think the auto builders are decent...remember in this game you can afford to and in fact HAVE to produce many more military units...you can't just play passive defense or you will get cut off from your cities...tile improvements will be pillaged, your strategic minerals will be in trouble (and if you lose either your horses OR your iron in the early game, you're pretty ****ed, because you won't have chariots or more importantly swordsmen).

Barracks are also far more important, I've noticed so far...you're units START out 80% of the way to Elite, and if you are a militaristic civ such as the Deutsche, this means winning one, maybe two battles with each Veteran unit to have, basically, a monster unit with 5 hitpoints, and Elite Spearmen on defense are very tough.