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Issues, Concerns and Confusion
Played Civ many, many moons ago and just got Civ3 about a week ago. I've found the game to be grossly frustrating. The following highlight my biggest concerns and perhaps I'm not approaching things in the proper way to overcome these issues.
1. Resources. My biggest current gripe. I play Tiny/Small maps and I think that might be an issue but frankly I never get resrouces- and I'm not alone all too often the civs I'm playing against won't get some crucial bit o' mineral either. In my last 3 games I've not had coal, saltpeter or oil. 2 of the 3 games I've had no iron. Specifically in my last game there was 1 iron deposit on the whole map. Optimists will say that makes it challenging. To me, the scarcity of resources ruins the game. Sans iron it is damn near impossible to wage an offensive war pre-gunpowder. Worse, if only one state has (for example) oil then everyone else is hosed since if they try and fight me for oil my tanks will crush their riflemen. Forget trading for strategic resoources. The aI'ed be stupid to do it- and it won't. Then again, neither will I. Have I issed some toggle for abundant/scarce resources?
2. AI diplomacy. Muggers treat me better. I tried to trade the Americans straight up 3 spices for 1 dye. Their response no. Instead they want my spices and 20 gold. Huh? I always see these deals, the machine won't do fair deals but totally one-sided deals my world map + 350 for their world map. The ai won't trade similar teks but alwys wants nationalism for the wheel.
3. Corruption. This is just freakin' killing me. I have cities that lose far more cash than they make and there appears to be no way to stop it. Then end was bulding marketpplaces and losing money becuase of the maintence while all the rest went to corruption. I've built courthouses (do these really do anything?) and the Forbidden Palace but the effect is negated if your empire is still large, plus the damn thing takes FORVER to build if you want it built in any city where it will do some good- ie ones far from the capital and hence new. Since it looks like corruption is relative, not absoluet the more I build the more lose so I can't progress out of corruption. Corruption is killing my research progress since I can't put all that much into science so I'm lagging behind the AI.
4. Wars. A corrollary to resources. It seems there is no reasonable cost/benefit in wars. In ye olde times it takes numerous archers to take a city from the AI but since those archers represent hundreds of years of build time lost to the city improvements I need I'm loathe to spend the effort. I want to fight very limited wars to counter the AI's insane "build it all and attack in waves" strategy (I assume the AI is broke all the time becuase of the maintenance on their 2 dozen archers) but you need so many guys that pre-industrialization even short wars are monuments to inefficiency (and yes I know historcially wars were wasteful, yada yada yada). Bombardment helps but the catpults are so fragile and you need so many to get much of an effect that barely seems worth it.
5. Build times. Myabe I have a rosey recall but it seems like things in ancient times take much, much longer to build. In particular, wonders seem to drag on for a long, long time- I don't recall finsihing the pyramids in 1000ad like I do now. Aslo, with wonders, I've been burned several times by the aI finishing a wonder when I have < 10 turns to build. This used to not be an issue since you could "overproduce" a wonder but now, in my last game, I lost 364 shields since I had no other wonders to shift to. Seems a very nasty penalty when you can shift shelds all over the place any other time and since you can no longer hurry wonders it mitgates my cash edge over the aI.
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