first impressions and response to crazy Avault review

randomturn · October 31, 2001, 00:19

I've been playing this game without even a bathroom break for 12 hours.

It installs in less than 5 minutes and is totally stable as far as I can tell.

There is no problem scrolling at the end of the screen at all. (I don't know what kind of crack the Avault reviewer is smoking.) Go on, I dare you to try to find one.

I have encountered no unit balance weirdness. So far, every single unit that had the statistical edge has won the fight. Almost to a fault.

The AI does consistently seem to ask for more than it will return: e.g. "you give me your world map + Monarchy and you get my world map." The thing is, a lot of these deals end up being good for you anyway, so you end up taking them. I guess if you're neurotically hung up on "fairness" rather than winning it might get under your skin. It doesn't bother me because I'd rather the AI get its edge this way than by building Wonders in 2 or 3 turns.

I've had no problem with corruption despite a medium large empire. I have a nice tight empire with little or no dead space between my cities. Cities have lots of production and commerce and 0-2 points of corruption on average.

I've had no problem with war wariness so far. I've generally followed a peaceful builder style in this game, though I had one pretty long war early on against a neighbor.

The wonder screens are really weak. It seems to have been an executive decision by Firaxis to focus their time elsewhere. That whole "we found a solution that didn't jar you out of the game environment" is sounding like a PR real line. As a reward goes, the screens are very underwhelming: pretty much nothing to get excited about, in fact.

In conrast, the palace that your pleased citizens build you looks great -- so much better than the lame Civ2 throne room. You'll actually be kind of psyched to build it.

The map generation is as good as you've heard.

I personally think the graphics look great.

The sound is nice but low-key and repetitive. It's going to get old

If you're peaceful, you can easily play an entire game without getting a leader.

The build queues work fine.

The governor AI does seem to work. The cities are beginning to suggest things to build based on my selection habits and style of play. It also seems to be inferring like selection criteria; if you consistently build libraries, it will prompt you to build libraries and also universities when that technology allows it.

The only senario I've found has just been a map of earth. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

I've culturally gobbled up three cities so far, including one where the English came and dropped a settler on my shore and just built a city. I didn't have to lift a finger and it was very satisfying.

More later.

Transcend · October 31, 2001, 00:22

I agree that the AVault reviewer is a complete moron and has no idea about strategy games and also lacks basic problem solving skills.

Sarxis · October 31, 2001, 01:02

That's really too bad- I like Avault, but I won't even go read this review because of the impression I am getting of it from your comments.

Avault review:

CivIII:

Skanky Burns · October 31, 2001, 02:21

Thanks for the review, randomturn.

Good to hear a fair review from someone who knows what they are talking about

You even included fair criticism of Civ 3

Adm.Naismith · October 31, 2001, 06:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Anunikoba
That's really too bad- I like Avault, but I won't even go read this review because of the impression I am getting of it from your comments.

Uhh?

Can't you read and judge by yourself?
Are you afraid it could do any damage to your brain? Short on free time? Too lazy?

Randomturn, how can you suppose that someone noticing a slow scroll (and there are some, others than Avault Reviewers) is smoking crack?

It's only the usual mess with different PC platform / OS / DirectX / drivers, etc. that a good large beta test is more likely to largely address (but Firaxis missed, you know).

We saw some sad stories like this with SMAC (but I was lucky, regarding this compatibility issue) and SMACX (demo never worked stable for me, so I passed on it), not to mention others games, of course.

Still left is that "black magic" feeling about many games working flawlessy with a system that suddendly show "compatibility trouble) with Civ III, but that's another story.

raingoon · October 31, 2001, 06:58

Yeah, I've played two and a half games now and I don't know what scrolling problem he was talking about. The map moves around beautifully.

Draco aka Se7eN · October 31, 2001, 07:08

Quote:

Are you afraid it could do any damage to your brain? Short on free time? Too lazy?

I know that im not going to read it, and probably randomturns review just gives me a reason not to read it.

So im going to be honest, yes im afraid it will damage my brain, and i have plenty of free time but im extreamly lazy

PS. sounds to me like the avault guy needs to clean his mouse, or get a new one. Funny how faulty testing equipment can skew a review.

hey that rymes, skew a review.

Sava · October 31, 2001, 08:03

The Avault reviewer was obviously a civ newbie. Maybe for other civ newbies the article was helpful, I'll never know, and I don't care. He said that Civ 2 had bio terrorism. Come on.... CTP hello/???!!

If I were rating his review... out of 5... writer credibility, 1.

I'm going to have my Civ 3 in 4 or 5 hours.

BigRich · October 31, 2001, 08:11

[QUOTE] Originally posted by SoulAssassin
The Avault reviewer was obviously a civ newbie. Maybe for other civ newbies the article was helpful, I'll never know, and I don't care. He said that Civ 2 had bio terrorism. Come on.... CTP hello/???!!

I guess poisoning a city water supply would count as bio terrorism but yes it does sound as if he's muddled CTP with Civ2

Rich

Chowlett · October 31, 2001, 08:34

and SMAC with Civ2 - since when could you launch satellites in Civ2?

Oh and bioterrorism is in SMAC, in the form of Genetic warfare - so unless CTP could launch satellites, I reckon he was confusing with SMAC. Someone enlighten me?

BigRich · October 31, 2001, 08:37

Quote:

Originally posted by Chowlett
and SMAC with Civ2 - since when could you launch satellites in Civ2?

Oh and bioterrorism is in SMAC, in the form of Genetic warfare - so unless CTP could launch satellites, I reckon he was confusing with SMAC. Someone enlighten me?

Unless they mean the 'Apollo program gives you entire map' thing?

Thats about the only Civ2 feature I can think of that would equate to launching satellites.

Rich.

Sava · October 31, 2001, 08:40

[QUOTE] Originally posted by BigRich

Quote:

Originally posted by SoulAssassin
The Avault reviewer was obviously a civ newbie. Maybe for other civ newbies the article was helpful, I'll never know, and I don't care. He said that Civ 2 had bio terrorism. Come on.... CTP hello/???!!

I guess poisoning a city water supply would count as bio terrorism but yes it does sound as if he's muddled CTP with Civ2

Rich

Bio-terrorism is the use of a biological agent. Poison doesn't count. But I did forget about the poison part. I still think they should have included terrorism in the game.

Sava · October 31, 2001, 08:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Chowlett
and SMAC with Civ2 - since when could you launch satellites in Civ2?

Oh and bioterrorism is in SMAC, in the form of Genetic warfare - so unless CTP could launch satellites, I reckon he was confusing with SMAC. Someone enlighten me?

You're right. The thing I don't like is he included SMAC in the Civ series. IT WASN'T A CIV GAME.

Civ1 -> Civ 2 -> Civ 3 <-----Civ Series

SMAC, Colonization <-----Civ-like games outside the civ series

CTP, CTP2 <----Civ clones that had nothing to do with Sid Meier

All in all, this guy isn't going to win a pulitzer.... ever.

randomturn · October 31, 2001, 09:08

I actually had the same reaction as Draco: this guy must have some ind of problem with his mouse, because the scrolling is flawless and my system is no big deal, with an old video card

I can't read the guy's mind, what's up with that corruption? He must have had cities all over the place and stayed with monarchy well into the moden age. Or maybe even despotism/anarchy. For a city to have everything but one or two bars blackd out to corruption as he claims, that's pretty much the only way that can happen. And I think that tells you all you need to know about his familiarity with Civ.

Sava · October 31, 2001, 09:18

Quote:

Originally posted by randomturn
I actually had the same reaction as Draco: this guy must have some ind of problem with his mouse, because the scrolling is flawless and my system is no big deal, with an old video card

I can't read the guy's mind, what's up with that corruption? He must have had cities all over the place and stayed with monarchy well into the moden age. Or maybe even despotism/anarchy. For a city to have everything but one or two bars blackd out to corruption as he claims, that's pretty much the only way that can happen. And I think that tells you all you need to know about his familiarity with Civ.

He probably sold his palace off because he set his science rate to max.

Considering he is a newbie, it could have been any number of things. Stupidy is like a snowflake, it comes in an infinite number of forms.

Internet connection: 15 dollars a month
Civ 3: 45 dollars

Tearing apart a newbie review of Civ 3: Priceless

Jason Beaudoin · October 31, 2001, 09:44

You're right about that Avault reviewer. I think he may have had an earlier version because some of the things that he's been saying are untrue.

randomturn: what level did you play on?

FexFX · October 31, 2001, 11:40

Comment on the Scrolling issue in the Avault Review:
This is beyond the shadow of a doubt the result of using a less than cutting edge video card, OR a less than cutting edge system... My prime example for this is running a 1ghz machine with a Viper V770 Ultra (TNT2U based card). I have not seen the performance of Civ3 on this combo, however I can give you a long list of 2D games that do the ripple and tear dance across your screen as you scroll. A GeForce2 with all of these games smooths it out to the point where it slides like a piece of oiled glass.
Now interestingly this is NOT 100% the video card, because the same video card on a 500mhz Celeron will still ripple and tear on these same games! Another BIG factor is bus speed...
The real issue here is that there is no such thing as 2D accellerated video. With 3D there is accelleration, which allows for amazing feats like the 180fps I get in Quake III. But 2D has not changed fundamentally in the way it is handled in nearly 7 years! The last innovation was DirectDraw which goes back to the dawn of DirectX.
When scrolling a screen that is 1024x768@16bpp, you are moving roughly 3MB per cycle! The real downer on this is that 2D performance does not even benefit from the increase pipeline of AGP!
So when dealing with a 2D game at very high res expect to see that rip and tear! If only they had programmed Civ3 in D3D...Oh wait you still would have needed a 3D accellerator and a half way decent CPU...
The Fans demanded more than 256 colors and they got it. This is the result. At 256 colors the difficulty of moving around the same picture is LESS THAN HALF.
So Give Firaxis a break. If your screen tears, upgrade! Did you complain about Doom and Quake because they sucked in Software mode?
The ONLY thing Firaxis can be faulted for here(sorry Firaxis!) is not being flexible on the resolution! 800x600@16bpp would have been MUCH easier to drag!

Kyle · October 31, 2001, 11:47

I played for about an hour and a half last night. Very addicting and fun.

Haven't figured out how to use the queue yet. And the workers still display occassional stupidity. One went off well beyond my territory and built an irrigation tile improvement.

Oh and map scrolling is horrible. I have a 900 Mhz system, 256 MB of RAM and a 64 MB GeForce 2 video card. There shouldn't be a problem of that sort. Other than that, like I said, I had a lot of fun playing and had to drag myself away in order to get to bed.

FexFX · October 31, 2001, 12:00

Kyle,
In your motherboard BIOS, do you have AGP 4X turned on?
When you installed your VIA AGP patch, did you install it in TURBO mode or NORMAL mode?

I get my copy of Civ3 today...

randomturn · October 31, 2001, 12:07

Jason: prince. I'm going to play King or Emperor next, so if corruption/discontent increase much I will post here.

Kyle: when you're in the city screen and you set something in production, just keep adding other items while holding down the SHIFT key.

Kyle · October 31, 2001, 12:29

Quote:

Originally posted by FexFX
Kyle,
In your motherboard BIOS, do you have AGP 4X turned on?
When you installed your VIA AGP patch, did you install it in TURBO mode or NORMAL mode?

I get my copy of Civ3 today...

My motherboard only supports 2x AGP

And uh, what's this "VIA AGP patch?" Don't recall hearing about that.

randomturn: Thanks for the info.

FexFX · October 31, 2001, 12:56

Kyle,
What type of system do you have exactly?
a 900Mhz that only supports AGP 2X sounds odd to me...
What kind of processor?
What kind of Motherboard?
Do you know your Front Side Bus speed?
How about the CAS latency of your RAM?

The VIA AGP patch is for systems that have a VIA chipset. I foolishly assumed you were running an Athlon or T-Bird...I guess I am just tired, or have read too many posts, or am just Biased in favor of AMD at this point. (P4 was a huge dissapointment)

I do support for a living (not for Firaxis) and I like to help out as a hobby...

Boris Godunov · October 31, 2001, 13:14

Quote:

Originally posted by SoulAssassin

He probably sold his palace off because he set his science rate to max.

Considering he is a newbie, it could have been any number of things. Stupidy is like a snowflake, it comes in an infinite number of forms.

Internet connection: 15 dollars a month
Civ 3: 45 dollars

Tearing apart a newbie review of Civ 3: Priceless

More likely, he was referring to conquered cities. In my game, I seized an Egyptian city. I am in about 1500 AD, Monarchy as the Germans. The city is on another continent pretty far away. It is 100% useless except to keep my troops garrisoned. Corruption and waste is so high, I can only produce one shield a turn, and it's not connected to resources, so I can only build spearmen, which will take 20 turns. However, even that is problematic since the resisting Egyptians keep the city in disorder. So I'm shipping reinforcements over ASAP with a caravel. Fortunately, my defending units in the city are an Army and a cannon, so enemy attacks are being beaten easily. Unfortunately, the army only counts towards quelling civil disorder as one unit instead of three, so they don't help there.

Don't get me wrong--this is actually an intriguing aspect of the game. It has rendered world conquest all but impossible, which I suppose is realistic.

Cheers.

volcanohead · October 31, 2001, 13:21

Can you not use your army to rush-build a forbidden palace to offset the problems of corruption...?

Boris Godunov · October 31, 2001, 13:27

Quote:

Originally posted by volcanohead
Can you not use your army to rush-build a forbidden palace to offset the problems of corruption...?

Even if I did, aren't the effects of the FP limited to a certain area? I don't think it would effect a city on another continent at all.

Grumbold · October 31, 2001, 13:33

Quote:

Originally posted by randomturn
I actually had the same reaction as Draco: this guy must have some ind of problem with his mouse, because the scrolling is flawless and my system is no big deal, with an old video card

I think a few people need to go and read the support board. There IS an acknowledged problem with scrolling on certain PC's. What's more for some people there are even more serious bugs that make the game unplayable. The guy is not imagining it and there are already plans for a patch.

Quote:

Tearing apart a newbie review of Civ 3: Priceless

Tearing into someone who has had an honest go at writing a balanced review that is far more positive than negative, then finding some of what you tear into is true: Foolish.

volcanohead · October 31, 2001, 13:36

Quote:

Originally posted by Boris Godunov

Even if I did, aren't the effects of the FP limited to a certain area? I don't think it would effect a city on another continent at all.

My understanding is that the forbidden palace acts exactly like a normal palace, and would make your 'colonizing' city function OK... similar to your very first city. But the best would be to try it and see. Could be a fun strategy for moving into new continents if it works!!

One thing Boris, just as a question, I understand that 10 shields are produced when you perform the 'clear forest' action with one of your workers. Now, if you use the sma eworker to plant a forest and then cycle, perhaps this would help the struggling far-flung city... and any other place rich in workers and poor in resources.

Unfortunately I don't have the game yet, thanks to Infogames enlightened sales policies.

Asesino_Virtual · October 31, 2001, 13:43

Reading the players review seems to be that the AI behaves differently from game to game... wonderful!

Kyle · October 31, 2001, 14:58

Quote:

Originally posted by FexFX
Kyle,
What type of system do you have exactly?
a 900Mhz that only supports AGP 2X sounds odd to me...
What kind of processor?
What kind of Motherboard?
Do you know your Front Side Bus speed?
How about the CAS latency of your RAM?

The VIA AGP patch is for systems that have a VIA chipset. I foolishly assumed you were running an Athlon or T-Bird...I guess I am just tired, or have read too many posts, or am just Biased in favor of AMD at this point. (P4 was a huge dissapointment)

I do support for a living (not for Firaxis) and I like to help out as a hobby...

Oh, I do. Athlon, slot A. Gateway PC, if you're interested, here's the motherboard...

Jabil (Kadoka) AMD Motherboard

DanS · October 31, 2001, 15:25

Sigh!!!!

And I so much looked forward to beating up rt in an mp game.

Thanks for the review, rt. Do you

the game? I've held off so far out of protest for no MP...