Civ3 is Broken

[Zylka]

Originally posted by Dissident

Just because YOU don't like it doesn't mean it is broken for the rest of us. I have no problems with corruption. My culture works fine for me.

What if corruption and culture don't work according to description and purpose, smartass?

Edit: and what will you say when these aspects are fixed in a patch? Will you still insist that they weren't bugs, and therefore shouldn't have been "fixed"?

[LaRusso]

Originally posted by Zylka


What if corruption and culture don't work according to description and purpose, smartass?

Edit: and what will you say when these aspects are fixed in a patch? Will you still insist that they weren't bugs, and therefore shouldn't have been "fixed"?

listen, corruption can be thwarted by forbidden palace
there has to be a check on ICS and this one is pretty good.
CTPI and II were broken and dumb,straight from the start. this is a fun, engaging game. bugs will be fixed in a first patch, second will tackle some gameplay tweaks.
to the crowd praising civ2, just a couple of reminders:
-idiotic auto settlers
-useless aircraft carriers, empty transports
- caravans in infinite loop
- whole stacks eliminated by a single unit
- no borders
- paratroopers tactics way out of hand
- tank blitz - obliterating civs
- SEVERAL patches before bugs were erradicated and the game run smoothly.

[Rakki]

Originally posted by LaRusso


listen, corruption can be thwarted by forbidden palace
there has to be a check on ICS and this one is pretty good.
CTPI and II were broken and dumb,straight from the start. this is a fun, engaging game. bugs will be fixed in a first patch, second will tackle some gameplay tweaks.
to the crowd praising civ2, just a couple of reminders:
-idiotic auto settlers
-useless aircraft carriers, empty transports
- caravans in infinite loop
- whole stacks eliminated by a single unit
- no borders
- paratroopers tactics way out of hand
- tank blitz - obliterating civs
- SEVERAL patches before bugs were erradicated and the game run smoothly.

1. never use 'em. i might have over 200 engineers running but most of them will be converting a city's production radius to the proper mix of terrain types (4 hills with mines for production !) and AI doesn't terraform.

2. the loops stop

3. that's a bit of a nob, but if you want everyone to camp together... build a fort

4. no borders suck yes.

5. must be multi.

6. mmmph tanks

7. always ran okay on my system...

anyway, Civ 2 i felt was well balanced. i am not an ics player

[Tani]

i wasn't too fond of civ2, since the caravans' infinite loop drove me crazy, and in late game, my old computer would need more than a minute for the ai to run its turn after i have the whole map visible (by space tech of some kind, i forgot).

about corruption, the counter measure to ics is merely an arbitrary game mechanics that not just doesn't reflect or correspond to rl, but actually go against rl. it is important to stress that corruption is overdone because our conventional rl knowledge tell us that either this is totally foreign to reality, or our definition of an empire is an ignorant fantasy, along with the effect of law and order, and information travel to distance governance. for building forbidden palace, the city that really needs it is always also the city that doesn't build. why would anyone want the forbidden palace in a city that is not crippled by corruption already? it is more like a counter measure in mechanics to high corruption mechanics which was yet a counter mechanics to the ics mechanics that was being exploited in previous civ titles. actually, it eliminated ics by eliminating the simple act of expansion all together. funny enough, the ai now seems to favour the product of ics - rapid expansion - instead of worrying corruption and the lack of city development. it's as if the ai is made for the civ2 world.

i have only played ctp1 for a short time long time ago, but it wasn't that bad imo, and i liked how it shows you the trade route.

and i don't think people are saying civ2 is better, but rather civ3 didn't live up to expectation. civ3 should be, in all aspects, better than civ2.

but to address some of larusso's points:
- not all workers function is working currently
- air superiority doesn't work as of now and cruise missiles cannot be transported
- whole stack of infantries eliminated by a single pikeman
- ai doesn't respect border

albeit they weren't exactly the old problems, new ones from the new rules don't make it better.

i'm alright with people who find this corruption rate as no problem, as there are many ways to enjoy a game anyway. but defending firaxis against legitimate concerns with irrelevant praise (switching attention basically) in regard to topic is giving more credit to firaxis than it deserves.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by LaRusso


listen, corruption can be thwarted by forbidden palace
there has to be a check on ICS and this one is pretty good.
CTPI and II were broken and dumb,straight from the start. this is a fun, engaging game. bugs will be fixed in a first patch, second will tackle some gameplay tweaks.
to the crowd praising civ2, just a couple of reminders:
-idiotic auto settlers
-useless aircraft carriers, empty transports
- caravans in infinite loop
- whole stacks eliminated by a single unit
- no borders
- paratroopers tactics way out of hand
- tank blitz - obliterating civs
- SEVERAL patches before bugs were erradicated and the game run smoothly.

voice of wisdom

and civ II with all these bugs was still the best game ever for me

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by CyberGnu

The culture thing is out of control. The largest empire the Earth has ever seen was the Mongol. The mongolian contribution to culture is essentially non-existent...

The assimilation of cities does have some basis on history, but NOT BETWEEN EMPIRES. What often happened was primitive tribes joining a more advanced neighbour, a la british tribes joining the roman lifestyle, creating Romano-brits. But you never saw British cities suddenly deciding to join France due to the state of french literature...

Not to mention the reassimilation of cities. If I have crushed the defendors with even taking a casuality, I shouldn;t have to worry about the city reverting to the former owner because they like his lifestyle. Of course they'd like to go back... But I'm not about to let them.

You are actually mistaken on the quoted points. The Mongol empire was sizeable, yes, but they suffered from Civ3-esque mechanisms in full force.

First, their empire was really mainly 'steppe', land they used to move their cattle over so it could feed. They needed a lot of it because of the dry seazons. Several cities they took over from Indian and Chinese civilizations were razed with the purpose to let the lands revert to grassland.
Second, the Turco-Mongols (Mongols for short) didn't really build cities or establish any sort of sedentiary civilization. Rather they moved around in tents and on horseback, weapons in hand. Much like OCS in Civ.
Summary: the 'empire' was more of a large deserted area they controlled by moving armies through.

So what happened when they conquered a city/province of sedentary civilizations? At times, they settled in -like they did a few times in China. The funny thing is though: these mongol 'settlers' were *assimilated* in the Chinese culture. Their military prowess weakened, and in a matter of years, they were deposed. This mechanism has saved the Chinese civilization from being overrun by the Mongols.
The same happened in Persia. Note that it is the aggressor's conquests reverting.

So what happens in Civ3 to you happened to the Mongols in real history. Maybe culture does pay off?

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Grim Legacy
So what happens in Civ3 to you happened to the Mongols in real history. Maybe culture does pay off?

The problem with revolts is when huge armies are stationed inside. I'd have no problem with units occasionally assimilating or undergarrisoned towns revolting. Cities do not swallow up whole armies though. If they try they get butchered, pillaged and sometimes razed but they never swallow whole armies without a trace.

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by Grumbold


The problem with revolts is when huge armies are stationed inside. I'd have no problem with units occasionally assimilating or undergarrisoned towns revolting. Cities do not swallow up whole armies though. If they try they get butchered, pillaged and sometimes razed but they never swallow whole armies without a trace.

On the timescale of Civ, it *is not* unlikely. I tried to explain that the same thing happened to the Mongols. Their armies did not move out of China. They were there, they were assimilated. If a turn is 100 years, this army swallowing (though admittedly annoying hehehe) is not unrealistic.

An army of horseman is maybe 150 men. 8 horsemen are 1200 men... a smal number on the resident population...

[Grumbold]

A garrison that is twice the (insert number of units here) required just to maintain control is the only practical way of showing you wish to maintain a ruthless military grip. A game that does not take into consideration the number of troops and has 0% or 100% convert instantly and without warning, nothing in between, is working on a false premise. It doesn't matter how many men you personally think are in any one unit, be it a legion of 9,000 men or a century of 80 odd, in the same way that the city size is not on a linear scale to the number of residents.

The mongols that got absorbed into the Chinese culture did so once the massive army formations disbanded into groups of regional administrators spread out over a vast area, and over a very long period of time, and where they were a small percentage of the population they ruled. Like I said in my previous post, if occasional units disappeared you, as player/god, could decide if it was worth continuing to feed more units into the city to maintain control or just let them dwindle away. This is not the same as a dramatic instantaneous effect (which may represent 1 year or 20 years in the artificial Civ timer that allows people to walk 20x faster in modern times).

The feature is good, but there needs to be a way of preventing it happening if you are prepared to make the effort. The only way to show you are making the effort is by having an excessively large garrison. At present this just means you lose more units (and possibly the game) which is stupid.

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by Grumbold
A garrison that is twice the (insert number of units here) required just to maintain control is the only practical way of showing you wish to maintain a ruthless military grip. A game that does not take into consideration the number of troops and has 0% or 100% convert instantly and without warning, nothing in between, is working on a false premise. It doesn't matter how many men you personally think are in any one unit, be it a legion of 9,000 men or a century of 80 odd, in the same way that the city size is not on a linear scale to the number of residents.

The mongols that got absorbed into the Chinese culture did so once the massive army formations disbanded into groups of regional administrators spread out over a vast area, and over a very long period of time, and where they were a small percentage of the population they ruled. Like I said in my previous post, if occasional units disappeared you, as player/god, could decide if it was worth continuing to feed more units into the city to maintain control or just let them dwindle away. This is not the same as a dramatic instantaneous effect (which may represent 1 year or 20 years in the artificial Civ timer that allows people to walk 20x faster in modern times).

The feature is good, but there needs to be a way of preventing it happening if you are prepared to make the effort. The only way to show you are making the effort is by having an excessively large garrison. At present this just means you lose more units (and possibly the game) which is stupid.

Note that I only corrected the claim that it was unrealistic, and historically inaccurate.

I do agree on a *gameplay* level. There should be a warning, yes. Or you should be able to maintain the city, if you put in the required effort.

I can't complain though, my last conquest (Thebes) is mine... and starvation has resulted in a single Egyptian laborer, a content litlle lass. Level3 culture already... temples do wonders.

[Oldenbarnevelt]

Originally posted by fikrii
I have a question to fellow CIV players out there, why are Alphabet and Writing two separate advances? This has been a mistery to me since the days of CIV1? Just for gameplay reasons or what? I am sure if it's for gameplay reasons, they could easily make up something. It doesn't seem very realistic to me.

Both Writing and Alphabet are great inventions, and different enough to justify the existence of two separate advances. However, the order in which they appear (in Civ2 -- I don't know yet about Civ3) is of course completely wrong. Instead of making up a new advance to replace Writing, the order of Alphabet and Writing should be reversed!
Writing has probably been with us for tens of thousands of years. It can be defined as the recording or laying down of symbols, by carving, painting, writing in a narrow sense (pen & ink), etc. The cuneiform and Chinese scripts are both examples of sophisticated Writing systems (scripts), but of course they precede, and are very different from, the several alphabets.
Alphabet was a wonderful new and definitely distinct invention which immensely reduced the number of symbols needed, by linking the symbols, or letters, to sounds rather than meanings.
But again: you are right about Writing making no sense after the discovery of Alphabet.

[Zurai001]

Originally posted by Kaak
1. Culture

Okay, they introduced a culture system. Fine. Great even. However, I feel this system is broken. In my current game, I am destroying the competition culturally, as well as militarily. My culture value accounts for almost half of the histograph. However, I conquered a couple cities, from the french, who at this point have 3 or 4 remaining cities, compared to my 40+. These Particular cities, however, strongly garrisoned though they were, decided they admired the "culture" of the french (whose closest city at this point had fairly vast territory of 2 civs between) and diposed my governor.

Yes, but if you'll read either the civilopedia, or the manual, it states that foreign nationals greatly affects the chances of a city rejoining said nation. Also, when a city has resisters in it, there's a much, much higher chance of said city reverting to the original civ. The only 'problem' is that the message you get when this happens makes it sound like a peaceful cultural assimilation, rather than a violent coup to rejoin their previous rulers.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Grim Legacy
Note that I only corrected the claim that it was unrealistic, and historically inaccurate.

I do not agree with your "correction" because it pre-supposes activities that are not being undertaken, e.g. the army dispersing over a wide area, settling down and becoming administrators. We would need to take positive actions to move units out of the city or disband them to emulate this. It is historically inaccurate for a city to successfully revolt when the garrison level is sufficient to brutally repress the populace.

[Leonidas]

The reverting of cities back to their former cultures is bad enough; especially when they are on separate continents.

But it would be nice to have a warning about this - at least the domestic advisor should give you a warning. . .

It seems that just before I assimilate an AI city - it mysteriously seems to know this fact and starts to strip the city of population and units. I have seen this happen time and time again. . .

All these issues go to the heart of the fundamental problems in this game - it's called - playtest, playtest, playtest. . .

[kmj]

Kaak -

you are right that I was rude. I should not have called you foolish and implied that you had not fully thought about it. I apologize for being rude, as it was my overreaction to what I thought was an overreaction on your part.

See, you can call a bike with a flat tire broken, and certainly it is not very usable. If a bike has a broken odometer, you can also say it's broken, but it still works perfectly fine and does pretty much everything you want it to. Sure I'd like to see the "odometer fixed", but I can live without it and certainly wouldn't be enraged about it. I would simply say "oh, can you fix the odometer", not "you sold me a useless bike", which is the impression I got fom your thread. Sorry if the analogy isn't great. I guess the problems I see are along the lines of "my chain is squeaky and the odometer needs to be fixed", while you see it as "the seat is missing and the wheels are bent". So be it; difference of opinion. Hopefully, the patch will "fix" the game for you.


I do think the scenario crowd might failry consider the game broken... I certainly wasn't expecting to start out in africa when I played the world map as japan... (I think it was africa, didn't play long enough to fully verify)... and obviously the current incarnation is completely unsuitable for their purposes...

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by LaRusso
CTPI and II were broken and dumb,straight from the start.

A broken game is unlpayable from start to finish. I have played both quite thoroughly, and neither are broken, CtP was fine, CtP2 was merely unfinished.

[Iacca]

Actually, just because you can play a game start to finish does NOT mean it is NOT broken.

Webster's 20th Century Unabridged says:

Broken: 2. uneven; rough
4. utterly disjointed
6. interrupted; discontinous; incomplete

Some things we don't like about the game may be design choices, but MANY of the things are due to an incomplete or poorly tested design.

I have only played the game on REGENT (huge map, all civs, random everything) and have yet to beat it, due to having diplomatic victory checked. I would play Civ II on Diety level, and regent in Civ III seems comparable!! I seem to almost ALWAYS be last....but maybe I should see how I do with a Civ besides the Germans.

The fact that leaving diplomatic victory checked almost assures a diplomatic win (usually at the point where I'm just begining to say, "Things are getting really interesting!") for the AI is particularly vexing, as is the "capture 3 cities and one will depose you and destroy ALL units inside rule!

Some things work REALLY well! Artillery really doesn't have much of a chance in real life of wiping out a bunch of ground units, but it SHOULD be able to punch a BIG HOLE in the battleship and sink it! They should have distiguished between bombarding units that consist of a SINGLE entity, and one in which multiple entities exist!

Still, they really have greatly improved the way units work.