Yin has Civ3!: Let the testing begin ...

yin26 · November 2, 2001, 06:42

[THIS SPACE RESERVED FOR A FULL REVIEW]

As King Pessimist, I feel I have to run the release version through the paces. So I will. And I will be fair ... if critical (as always). I *do* want to like the game, so I am approaching it with that mindset.

Now, I am still waiting for Korn's review before I say anything, since he will no doubt do a bang up job over the weekend. I'll be pretty busy myself, but I hope to put in a few hours of play tonight.

I will not come to any conclusions for a while, however.

BUT: To my European/Asian friends or to anybody wondering how big the pdf manual is: I have zipped it, and it now weighs in at 1.5MB.

In the meantime, I think every other thread has already answered any questions, so I'll just ramble here for a while and post a full review several days from now, depending on my work schedule. If there is anything in specific you would like me to test, I can try ... though the first few games I think I'll just be figuring out the interface, etc.

Grim Legacy · November 2, 2001, 07:11

LOL.

I thought you would wait until the bargain bin Gold Edition. Why am I not surprised?

yin26 · November 2, 2001, 07:19

Ah, yes, a good point:

I am currently playing a copy 'on loan' from my computer guy here in Korea. He owns a small shop near one of my bus stops, and he has seen me many times over the years.

He said:

"If you like the game, come back and buy it. Keep the disks a few weeks if you need."

So, total amount paid so far: $0

yin26 · November 2, 2001, 07:21

By the way, I've now had 3 fatal crashes. The first I figured was because I was running stuff in the background. But the last two give me this message:

"Unable to allocate draw buffer."

I am assuming this is the graphics card problem.

Not a good start.

Adm.Naismith · November 2, 2001, 07:27

Smart move, I have to talk to a friend of mine to see if anything like this can be arranged

(the borrow of game, not the crash

)

Take your time to write a fair review, or the tigers roaring around (hardcore believers fan) will eat you alive

yin26 · November 2, 2001, 07:55

Yeah, this guy is cool. He's let me do this before. I think he gets eval copies or something ...

Anyway: Just had my 4th hard crash. Total system lock-up. Same error message (actually, I'm assuming, since it wouldn't even display the error message). Now, to give you an idea of how fair I'm trying to be, I will try to sort this out. I've already freed up system resources, so that's not it.

Off to troubleshoot. So far:

Grim Legacy · November 2, 2001, 08:10

I have had one Civ3 crash so far. Had nothing running in the background. Win98SE did not crash with it, could restart the sys and resume.

Occured after loading a game.

Ecthy · November 2, 2001, 08:15

Thing is though, Yin, just that you were ranting beforehands doesn't make your opinion more important than that of others. Just imagine everyone would open a thread like this

Why not post in the threads that have been opened already, dedicated to the lower class

Zanzin · November 2, 2001, 08:43

Rofl, I couldn't believe that Yin had actually bought civ3!!! So when I saw that he'd got in load for free, it suddenly made a lot more sense.

I eagerly await your review yin!

yin26 · November 2, 2001, 08:48

Ecthelion: Feel free to ignore the thread, then. I have been criticized in the past for not playing a game (CtP in that case) and not giving a review. And as the President of the Pessimists' Club, I have to make a showing.

Zanzin: LOL Yes, I would not buy the game just yet. But if Korn's review looks good, I just might.

A few great little things I noticed about the game:

The end game replay looks awesome!
And so does the Historical Rating screen!

Both are quite funny and light-hearted. I saw them when I 'retired' from the tutorial. More on that later.

Anyway, as you can see, I hope I fixed the crash problem. I updated the driver on my Radeon DDR 32Mb ... seemed to work ... though I could have just been lucky.

Grim Legacy · November 2, 2001, 08:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Zanzin
Rofl, I couldn't believe that Yin had actually bought civ3!!! So when I saw that he'd got in load for free, it suddenly made a lot more sense.

Oh how quaint, I thought it just made his earlier claims regarding the purchase void. =]

Faboba · November 2, 2001, 08:59

You can rely on two things about Yin :

He's not an idiot
He will say exactly what he thinks, particularly if it will annoy a great many people

Don't suppose you could upload that 1.5 MB zipped version to a web server or something?

Jason Beaudoin · November 2, 2001, 09:03

Faboda: Didn't I take care of that for you?

BTW, I had my first crash last night, and as it happens, the save file was corrupted (I'm sending this to Firaxis).

But, mostly the game runs very, very well, and I have the exact same video card as Yin. Luckily for me, I updated my video drivers before getting the game.

yin26 · November 2, 2001, 09:06

Quote:

I updated my video drivers before getting the game.

Good man. It looks like you saved yourself some headache.

kittenOFchaos · November 2, 2001, 09:34

What system are you running it on Yin?

I'm sure we could probably work at at what specifications this game has no problems running:

I have a pentium 4, 1.6 Ghz, with 32 Mb graphics card and 512 MB ram and 40 GB hard disk.

My system is EXTREMELY stable...I feel that if civ3 crashes on my system that the game may have some issues here...roll on November the 8th.

Strange relationship you have with that computer dude yin

yin26 · November 2, 2001, 09:42

I'm on Win98, P3 850, 256 RAM, Radeon DDR 32Mb, 2 x 20 Gig Hds.

It seems the driver update worked. Looks like Radeon DDR 32Mb users will need to do that.

Well, the guy at that store has known me now 5 years. I buy nearly a game a month from him ... and he has seen me go from ZERO Korean language to now basically fluent. He showed me Civ3 and I said: "No. I'm waiting because I think I might not like it."

To which he said: "Try it out. If you like it, buy it."

Smart guy, actually.

yin26 · November 2, 2001, 09:57

Some cool things:

* You can preview the next piece for your palace. Nice touch.
* The AI expands like crazy! By 1050 BC, India (I am China) had 6 cities (that I could see) to my 2! This has already hemmed me in on my slice of land. I wonder, though: The AI *also* has lots of units up and running ... does the AI not get the ICS penalties or something?

Early game is fairly dull. With the AI eating up land so fast, though, there is an earlier sense of urgency building up, which is quite nice.

Graphics are better than I thought ... if still a bit underwhelming. People have mentioned wanting better zoom features. Would be nice.

Interface is intuitive. I haven't read a single page of the manual yet.

Overall has a 'smoothe' feel to it. Good work there.

One minor complaint: The font they used seems off. Don't know. The font just doesn't match the graphics ... nor does the overall city screen design seem particularly well laid out. I mean all the information is there and easy to understand, but it has a somewhat 'late beta' feel to it. Anyway, back to the game.

Ecthy · November 2, 2001, 09:57

Quote:

Originally posted by yin26
Ecthelion: Feel free to ignore the thread, then. I have been criticized in the past for not playing a game (CtP in that case) and not giving a review. And as the President of the Pessimists' Club, I have to make a showing.

Now that one I don't get. There are many people who don't play either CTP or CTP 2, they fon't get criticised. I suppose you just got criticised for being a smart ass in the relevant forums instead of keeping your mouth shut.

And where can I read the written confirmation you're the President of the Pessimists' Club?

Does this all mean the more you flame a game before it is released the better your reputation will be in the end? I don't think so, Yin.

yin26 · November 2, 2001, 09:59

First question: How long have you followed these forums?

volcanohead · November 2, 2001, 10:11

The interesting thing is Yin is being pretty positive about the game so far... Obviously early days as yet and he will find some poor points later.

From what I've seen on these boards over the last weeks (yes, I am a newbie, but a long-term thesis-destroying Civ 2 player) there seems to be very few objective people. I'd thought before that Yin was a little bit heavy on the negative before the game came out, but I do believe he'll give a critical and as objective as possible review... And if that turns out to be positive it suggests that the game is really very good.

I'm in Europe, waiting for delivery and so all news/views are of great interest.

Civ Dave · November 2, 2001, 10:18

yin: you can chang the font...

I'll show ya how later

yin26 · November 2, 2001, 10:22

Cool! Thanks, Dave.

volcanohead: Thanks for the objective few on my postings here.

I just traded maps with India. We share a small island (I suppose it's really a continent, but the scale makes it feel like an island). He has 9 cities to my 4! There's really no free land left.

This AI land grab can really put the hurt on you. I like it! I just wish I knew if the AI is doing this 'legally' or not. I'm on Regent level, which I think has no cheats for the AI.

Does anybody understand the amazing early AI game?

Jeje2 · November 2, 2001, 10:29

Yin, how could you betray the gang this soon?
Have you no selfrespect at all!!!
The masses ahve been behind you in there statements about not to Civ3 and then the master goes off Civing....

Expecting your review...

volcanohead: I personally will listen very carefully to Yin's review. He has written a couple of them earlier which I consider quite objective. (Of course you need some salt.

)

KrazyHorse · November 2, 2001, 10:42

"The game" kicks some serious ass. The mountains do look funny, etc., but the AI seems to be a whole lot smarter than it used to be. I still haven't finished my first game (some of us have mid-terms

), but I'm on freaking Chieftain (

), and while I'm winning fairly handily I just almost lost a freaking size 9 city to a horde of English knights. In addition, I'm in demo, and my pop is revolting cuz I've been at war for ~30 turns. I wasn't a bad Civ2 player (winning at Deity had become fairly easy/routine), but this seems to be a new ball game. The AI expands fast (giant world map, 16 civs, every corner filled) and I'm having trouble boosting research to less than 4 turns/discovery.

yin26 · November 2, 2001, 10:57

Jeje: Two things.

1) I am a recovering crack addict (with games, of course). I wouldn't BUY the crack ... but it was LOANED to me. C'mon. I'm human. Free play with Civ3?

2) Think of it this way: I'm just going into battle to scout the territory. Our team is still ready on standby, right? LOL

KH: Yes, the AI expansion is awesome ... if suspicious.

I will try to load this image locally to show you my problem here:

yin26 · November 2, 2001, 10:59

Yes, I am the light blue one ... and in big trouble. (...and love it...)

Complaint: India likes to run across my borders and even when they agree to withdraw troops, they take the looong way off my land.

incie · November 2, 2001, 11:31

I agree the AI's expansion rate is very suspicious, but I'm not sure I mind. I've managed to get ahead of them most times now. You basically just do an ICS until all the land is gone, then focus on building your cities.

What I DO mind is they seem to be able to field a much larger army than myself without serious hits to their income -- I'd like to know how they're pulling this one off.

By the way, if you wait until the AI units are fairly deep in your territory and then demand a withdrawl, the units will dissapear and be placed back in the AI's territory (assuming they agree to do it). If they're close to the border for some reason the computer will be free to move the units out himself, and of course he won't do it.

I've taken to fortifying units a few spaces inside my borders...if the AI wont back off when I tell him to, he gets whacked. Lots of fun with settlers, free slave labor.

Ozymandous · November 2, 2001, 11:47

Yin:

Retire and see how fast the AI spreads on the replay. I am playing on Regent (sp?) and have kept pace and even managed to box one Civ (English) into a corner.

From my limited experience so far the AI doesn't get help, at least on this level, more than the player can do.

Of course my build order for every new city was typically as follows:

1. Warrior
2. Settler
3. Walls (maybe spearman or archer)
4. Settler
5. Temple
6. etc

With every city pumping out at least two settlers I had no problem with the ability to spread, the only problem was finding a good spot for a city that wasn't jungle, hill or desert.

Hmm, I will say that from my experience the attacker definitely seems to have the advantage. I have seen numerous regular swordsmen killing elite, fortified (with walls in a city) spearmen.

Overall a fun game, and although the mountains do still seem strange when seen solo if you clump them together (roughly 25% of all my maps are mountains it seems) they look better.

Steve Clark · November 2, 2001, 11:56

Ozy: Sn00py made my wish come true, he has a new mountain graphics. Go to Civ3-Files.

kittenOFchaos · November 2, 2001, 12:07

I'm so glad Yin is enjoying himself...I'd get all angry that he could dislike civ3 because it couldn't POSSIBILY be true! THE GAME I've waited for must be good!

Hope your fun continues and we see a Yin at peace with the world.