Civ3's Longetivity

Kaak · November 18, 2001, 16:41

Now that the novelty has kind of worn off, what do y'all think about the longetivity of civ3?

Simpleton · November 18, 2001, 21:42

I feel that Civ3 quite a bit better than Civ2 and moderately better than SMAC. I will stay on my harddrive for quite some time. Hopefully, with a patch or two most of my concerns about it will be rectified.

kittenOFchaos · November 18, 2001, 21:57

So many of you seem to have big demands on your hard-drives..."yeah, I think I'll keep it on my hard-drive for a while" OR "I don't this will be on my hard-drive for very long"...what are you doing with your hard-drives???

If you are filling it with mp3s burn cds for them (thus if the computer dies etc) as with so many things...

Either get a larger hard-disk, use the space better, have a cd write OR just sit back and marvel that you have so many games!

Venger · November 18, 2001, 22:08

The proof will be in the pudding, but with work, Civ3 has the potential to be superior to Civ2.

Venger

BigNick · November 18, 2001, 22:48

It's kind of hard to say without knowing what's going to be included in the (unannounced, but inevitable) expansion pack. SMAC was, in itself, an excellent game, but SMACX added an extra dimension to it. Civ2 was a great game, and didn't need much added to it (luckily, because the expansions added multiplayer and scenario tools, but left the game fundamentally unchanged).

One problem is that Civ3 is really high on the 'niggle factor'. There are lots of little things that get under your skin - information being difficult to locate; a less-transparent mechanism for things like unhappiness, trading and pollution; bombardments not being able to destroy units; the opacity of war-weariness; the inflexibility of production in regard to wonders; the lack of a decent scenario builder/editor; that I can't get my cities to tell me when they've finished a military unit; the way the endgame bogs down...

None of these is enough to sink a game by itself, and the other games had niggles of their own, but taken together these mean that I'm far less likely to bung Civ3 into my CD drive to while away a couple of hours than I would otherwise. In short, the challenge of the game is in exploiting (or minimising the costs inherent in) the detail rather than in the broader game. That was the problem of both the games in the CtP series, and IMHO the reason that franchise never took off.

I don't know where I'll stand on Civ3 for a few weeks yet, but as it stands at the moment I think I'll probably be back to SMACX until the expansion pack is out, and unless that offers something special I probably won't pick it up.

I guess that this is a natural progression - the more complex the model, the harder it is to balance everything. Thank the gods that they never went with the Command Point structure I remember hearing about in the developmental days. Maybe it's just that there's a "best" level of complexity for these sorts of games. If so, I fear for MoO3.

But then, never having tried to make a game like this, and lacking the much-promised Designers' Notes, I can't say why they made the decisions they did. It's just my A$0.03835 worth.

dainbramaged13 · November 19, 2001, 00:20

I hate these bullshit ppl who say 'with the proper work it COULD be better than civ2..."

I HATE YOU ALL!!! GRRR
how can u think that its not already 10x better than civ2!?!? it plainly is and youre just looking for things to complain about!

Venger · November 19, 2001, 02:15

Quote:

Originally posted by dainbramaged13
I hate these bullshit ppl who say 'with the proper work it COULD be better than civ2..."

And I hate fawning çocksucking lobotomites who would have been happy if the released game was a rebadged version of Windows Minesweeper.

Quote:

I HATE YOU ALL!!! GRRR
how can u think that its not already 10x better than civ2!?!?

Because it isn't? You know, I really liked "I Come In Peace", but I don't go apeshit when people say they don't like it...

Quote:

it plainly is and youre just looking for things to complain about!

Not much for using your frontal lobes are you...

Venger

Rasbelin · November 19, 2001, 02:47

With all the bugs, I'm a bit sceptic, but I suppose the game will survive and beat Civ II. It will just require that EP and bug fixes. So therefore I voted on the last option.

Pyrodrew · November 19, 2001, 03:13

Quote:

It's okay. I'll play if for a while, then go back to civ2 like always...
This is a truly great game, the equal of which has never been seen!

There is no vote between these 2???

TheBirdMan · November 19, 2001, 03:30

Quote:

what are you doing with your hard-drives

They are reformatting and reinstalling all over

Maybe there is stuff in this for a thread in the OT

Yoleus · November 19, 2001, 11:24

It is still too early to judge - the game is STILL new (you know, getting reviews, catfights in Poly, maybe patches and/or expansions) so let's wait.
With the proper patches, expansions, scenarios and tools it could be a good game! As it is now, it is neither meat nor fish.
One thing keeps popping in my mind: will we like to play it MP or is it just a bigger version of minesweeper? ("play it by yourself to kill the time" thing). I mean, would you like to wage war, make diplomacy and develop technologically and culturally with other umans as you do against the AI, or will you look for some "shortcut" strategies to win, actually dumping much of the "flesh" of the game? I mean, civIII is more like an "hystory opera" than a 4X game (as MoO3 promise to be a "space opera" game. And I am loving the work they are doing at Quicksilver up to now).

jones · November 19, 2001, 11:42

I started out in "wait and see" mode, but the more I play the more I'm edging towards "short longevity CTP rehash"

How about this:

[uptalk]
It could be great! Patch early and patch often!
[/uptalk]

Venger · November 19, 2001, 11:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Yoleus
It is still too early to judge - the game is STILL new (you know, getting reviews, catfights in Poly, maybe patches and/or expansions) so let's wait.

100% agree. If nothing changes, I'll maybe play it 4 or 5 times. If they make the needed improvements, it'll waste as much of my life as Civ2 did...

Venger

ColdWizard · November 19, 2001, 12:54

i like civ3, sure there are some things that could be fixed and i'll toss it aside to play civ2 MP

, but it has potential. add some scenario making tools, good MP and civ3 will live forever (or until civ4 comes out, whichever comes first)

Morganstern · November 19, 2001, 14:23

Your poll choices remind me of the highly politicized answers the MSNBC and CNN web sites often limit their poll choices to. There is a significant gap between your third and fourth answers - you can really like the game without either declaring it an instant classic, OR deciding you'll be going back to CIV 2 soon.

Zealot · November 19, 2001, 15:59

I'm still having hopes on a patch and on the expansion pack...

GodSpawn · November 19, 2001, 18:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Morganstern
There is a significant gap between your third and fourth answers - you can really like the game without either declaring it an instant classic, OR deciding you'll be going back to CIV 2 soon.

Very true. In fact, if you like Civ3 even a tiny bit more than Civ2, you're not going to go back to Civ2. I can imagine that a significant proportion of pollees would like Civ3 at least a little bit more - but there is nowhere in the poll for such people to vote.

But I don't think anyone's pretending that the poll isn't loaded...

kmj · November 19, 2001, 18:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Pyrodrew

There is no vote between these 2???

I second this. But I don't think Kaak actually wanted anyone to give a realistic positive vote anyway, given other threads of his that I've read.

Shaka II · November 19, 2001, 20:42

I think Civ III has the potential to surpass Civ II, it certainly has more sophisticated AI and has improved so much from Civ II. The cultural influence, resources/trade and military tactics are impressive. Remember moving all those workers and caravans all around? These workers for the most part know what to do!

I think a big distinction between Civ III (Civ II) and CTP or SMAC is that they have concentrated on fewer advances and city improvements, which can get tedious in those futuristic games. This and more concentration on ancient and middle ages periods will again (I hope) make Civ III a winner in the end.

A significant patch will certainly help.

marcuspeddle · November 19, 2001, 20:43

I'm on my second game now but still playing chieftan. I'm holding my own (finally) and I'm almost used to all the commands, concepts, and so on. I really like the game and I can't see myself ever going back to Civ2. I think the game will be more interesting once I move up to regent. That'll be my next game.