Registering my Disgust...

[habadacus]

Thanks Napalm,

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who find this 'feature' is ruining the fun of the game. I can't imagine what they were think to accomplish by this, or what it must do to the succesful empires of aggressive AIs. My concern with raising the # of optimal cities too high was that when you can build the Forbiden Palace is based of reaching half of the optimal city #. So if I start a new game with my mods, I woudn't be able to build it until way later in the game. But that's a small price to pay to be able to play the game in a satifactory way. I also don't mind dealing with some corruption and waste, but 1 shield in a metropolis is ridiculous. I was hoping I could get the effects of a civ able to control more cities effectively by raising the % of optimal cities. I don't have an acurrate count on my cities in my current game, and forgot what size I chose (Large, I think). But when I get home tonight I will try to see if I can find the "sweet spot". corruption dues to distance from the capitol makes a little sense to me, and add the fun challenge of optimizing palace/forbiden palace placement, but to cripple new cities "just because" is an strange thing to do in any empire building game and an outrage in Civ THE empire building game.

[napalm010]

Well that would explain why i havent been able to build forbidden palace yet. Havent had a chance to go figure it out yet. Thanks for the info.

I have 20 cities in standard map at the moment. No major need yet for forbidden palace. Corruption for outlying cities hovers around 20-30%. Thats with courthouse. But that corruption level seems reasonable to me so far.

Yes I too was disappointed by the 1 shield out of 16 shield cities also. It effectively kills making a large civ. It does make sense when trying to make the game more based toward culture/ tech win. Which seems to be the driving idea behind Civ3 in my opinion.

[Arrian]

Venger - I think you are overstating the ability of the CIV II AI *just a bit* Please don't take this the wrong way, as I have no intention of being offensive - I just disagree.

I love Civ II. I've played it (MGE) for years, and played my fair share of diety/huge map/7civs. At first (which is to say before I figured some things out) the AI did end up with Mech Inf/Stealth Bombers and stuff. Still, it was simply a matter of building 100-odd howitzers, making sure the RR system was set up, and attacking. The AI had no idea how to use the units it could build with ludicrous speed (not that the Civ III AI has much of a clue with modern units either).

Once I really got the hang of things, I was using howitzers on riflemen... or more often not using howitzers at all - spies were much more effective (capitol being the exception, of course). Why break a city when you can buy it intact? That being said... it was kinda easy. It was predictable. The thing was that the CIV II AI, particularly in MGE, ganged up on you when you got strong. The AI HATED you. This was really just a nuisance, though. And I, personally, found it annoying. I'd done nothing to them, and they were out for my blood. To put it another way, the AI was too dumb to give me a challenge, so it combined forces against me in the hope of overwhelming me... which failed, every time. I like this way better.

Nadexander brings up momentum, which I have noticed too. Once you hit a certain critical mass, it's pretty much over. But that was even more true in Civ II. At least now you may have to contend with not having uranium or something... it may give your late-game war some purpose. Besides, getting to that "critical mass" is pretty fun.

That being said, I do think there are points in the game that get tedious. I think there are some things that could be done about that, but I'm still trying to figure out the best way to go about it.

There was a lot of tedium in Civ II as well, though. Moving my 300+ engineers w/o a working goto command...*shudders in horror*

Yes, world conquest is tedious in Civ III. This happens to be where I agree with you. Once I have local access to all of the resouces, I have no reason whatsoever to keep fighting.
Cities I conquer will give no benifit at all (at least a 99% corrupt town with oil gave me the oil). Then again, I'm not a warmonger. The only reason I wiped out the opposition (aside from 1 city) in Civ II was the aforementioned AI hatred for the human player that basically forced you into it. In any event, I agree with some of what you say, but I think you've gotten a little bitter and have lost any objectivity. You haven't even played out 1 game to the end and you hate the game?

-Arrian

[Comrade Tribune]

In my very humble opinion, this entire thread is total nonsense.

Too tough for warmongers? About which CivIII are you speaking? The one serious problem with CivIII is it´s too easy for warmongers. Is everybody here a bloody beginner, or what? How about moving over to the Strategy section, Game of the Month November? People are conquering the world BC, because using the Despotic Conquest/Forced Labour strategy, you can overrun everybody in the Ancient/Early Medieval Era. Warmongers using Despotic Conquest consistently get the highest scores -towards 10.000-, so there is certainly something wrong with the game, but it has nothing to do with discouraging simple-minded warmongers.

I wish it would! Perhaps discouraging warmongers was the intention, but, as far as I can see, it doesn´t work.

[habadacus]

Comrade you're reading my original post all wrong. My complaint is not thats it's too hard to be a warmonger. I'm not interested in pop-rushing archers for an early victory. I was happily peaceful in my first (current) game until the Iroquis/Roman alliance decided to come after me. My complaint is that 2 ages later, depite building improvements that claim to reduce corruption, the cities that I took from those trouble-making Romans are STILL PRODUCING 1 LOUSY SHIELD. I've moved my palace closer, gave them luxuries, they love me, but there absolutley useless. That's what I'm frustrated about, and that's the point of this thread. I got my butt-kicked, came back against the odds, pressed the advantage I had gained, and am not being rewarded for it. There's so much map left that isn't mine that I don't understand how the game is supposed to progress other than turtleing, pressing next turn until I get enough culture or tech to win. What's the fun in that? I hope you now understand my point a little clearer, and after experimenting with the optimal city % tonight I will post my results tommorrow. Obviously I'm far from being the only one who finds 1 shield metropolises, despite courthouse/police station something of a let down in this game, be they warmongers or no.

[BigNick]

Note - this is a long and rambling post that, while written with my usual charm, good humour, insight and well-known modesty, ultimately goes nowhere. You may wish to skip it. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
We obviously can't design a game that pleases everyone simultaneously, but you have the tools necessary to radically alter the game if parts of it disagree with you.

Dan,

I don't want a game that pleases everyone simultaneously, I just want a game that pleases me.

What I think this comes down to is that people liked Civ2 and SMAC a lot. A whole lot. To levels that appear to have threatened the mental health of several of this thread's posters, in fact.

Civ3 came out. It wasn't a Civ2 upgrade, it was a partial remake, which in certain ways owed as much to CtP2 as it did to Civ2.

A lot of people wanted a Civ2 upgrade, and assumed that this would be it. Ignore the fact that Firaxis wasn't marketing it as such - it's common for games companies to say "it's not an upgrade" and for that to be mere marketing bumph. In short, it wasn't what the hard core was expecting, and they didn't like having their expectations upset.

Favourite strategies went by the wayside. The release seemed rushed - it was full of niggles and minor, but annoying bugs. The scenarios that people (and, again, especially the hard core who are likely to be vocal) had been playing and making for years - an eternity in computer game terms - were axed entirely, as was multiplayer.

People felt they had a right to these things. That their involvement in the game at a community level gave them a stake - a right to be catered to, and they weren't.

Then insult was added to this injury. The limited edition debacle (and it was a debacle). Infogrames' heavy-handed bungling of the German translation row. People who felt that their money gave them more of a right than they actually had felt that they were being mistreated. Hell, they still do.

In short, a lot of grief is coming out because people feel that they have more of an investment in the game than they have been shown to hold, and they don't like it. Maybe this was an error on FIraxis' part in that customer expectations weren't managed correctly. Maybe it was unavoidable. It's just the way things happened.

Where do I stand on this? Well, Civ3 just doesn't let me play the game the way I like to play it. Its lack of detailed information, the level of corruption, the end-of-turn waits on my underpowered PC, the little niggling factors all add up to say that Civ2 and SMACX are currently more enjoyable to me than Civ3. At the moment, at least. That's the way it goes. I'm not claiming that Firaxis owes me anything more than my $110 on the counter bought me (that Infogrames does for the LE is another matter). That's just the way it goes. If the niggles are fixed, so much the better, but I'm not going to hold a grudge against Firaxis for it (and, again, a grudge against Infogrames is another matter...)

That it seems easier to win culturally than it should be, or that the UN gives me a screaming case of the shiites? Personal taste. If I was writing a review of Civ3 I'd mark it down for them. If I think I can get them changed, I'll do what I can to do so. If that means editing, fine. If that means writing to Firaxis, I'll do it. If it's not done, though, that's the way it goes. If that means not buying another game I think may have similar problems, so be it. Those who demand an immediate fix, followed by a large cash settlement for pain and suffering are ultimately fooling themselves. If you don't like the elements of the game you can't fix, you'll ultimately have to accept that and move on. It may not be healthy for the franchise's future, and (let's face it) patching a bug after release is not a good solution - only the best available; while technical bugs are hard to pin down, software really should be free of these gameplay bugs before release - it's the way it works.

The ultimate judge of whether Civ3 was successful will be its box office. How many units it sold. Positive magazine reviews seem to say that it appeals to the casual civver more than it seems to do to the hard core and, so, it was apparently a success. Would I buy a Civ4 if it were out tomorrow? Probably not. In five years? Who knows? For me, CIV3 doesn't appear to have the long-term appeal of the others in the series, but I bought FIFA 2002 - a series which has been steadily declining in quality since 1997, too, so what do I know?

You can't please all of the people. I can only look at it from my perspective, and if I'm not the person that this game caters to it's unfortunate, but it's not going to bring armaggeddon down upon us. YMMV.

[gachnar]

Originally posted by BigNick
I don't want a game that pleases everyone simultaneously, I just want a game that pleases me.

And here we have summed up so many posts in one sentence.

me me me, I me me, I me, me.

Nevermind how Firaxis wants the game to be. I mean, they only made it. I have some big problems with some of da Vinci's work too, but I'm not going to say that he did it wrong.

But you dont want them to make a game they like, you want them to make a game to your specifications, because you are the only person who matters.

When you grow up, you'll find out that if you only care about yourself, thats all you'll have left to care about. Did you even think about what Firaxis wanted? So many people seem to think that Firaxis is only here to make the game of their dreams. God forbid that Firaxis has their own desires for the game.

How many games have you bought (or warez'ed) that you dont like? Do you demand that the game company return your money? Do you demand your money back when you dont like they food you ordered? Do you complain about everything that isn't just the way you want it?

[habadacus]

Originally posted by BigNick

Where do I stand on this? Well, Civ3 just doesn't let me play the game the way I like to play it. Its lack of detailed information, the level of corruption, the end-of-turn waits on my underpowered PC, the little niggling factors all add up to say that Civ2 and SMACX are currently more enjoyable to me than Civ3.

Well, said BigNick. It's been my experience that anything that said Sid Meier's on it was a solid product made for a dedicated somewhat hard-core gamer. Maybe not for a total grognard, but also not intended for armchair PC gamer newbies whose idea of a deep involving game is Unreal Tounament. But unfortunately the sun seems to be setting on those days as the clarion call of a "broader" gaming market's cash has lured even Firaxis into releasing a watered down "Casual Civ" (ack). However with regard to my original complaint I've found (tentatively) that by largely increasing the Optimal City % in the difficulty slider of the editor, resonable rates of corruption can be achived. Sure, frontier town still take a hit on commerce and production, but it's to a point which I can handle, and courthouses/police station do seem to have a notable effect on it, makiing them and your outlying cities not utterly useless. I'm testing it mid/late game now, I'm not sure how it will affect the relentless expansion of the AI when I start a new game, probably for the worse, but I can combat that good old fashioned way, with steel (or iron or bronze). I set the slider to 800% and so far so good. So give that a try if this corruption nonsense bugged you as much as its bugged me, and go build the massive empire of your dreams. (and allow your Jack-Booted mechanized infantry to urinate on the cultural buildings of your deposed enemies!)

[BigNick]

Originally posted by habadacus

It's been my experience that anything that said Sid Meier's on it was a solid product made for a dedicated somewhat hard-core gamer.

Actually, a friend I was speaking to last night gave me a pretty good analogy. He said that Civ3 is like American Beer - it's pretty similar to something good, but with only just enough difference to make it really nasty.

I'm not sure I agree with his vehemence, but I understand the sentiment. It's similar to the empire-building RTSs I love, but with just enough difference that I don't like to make it worse (to me) than something completely different would have been.

If the game had been marketed as CTP3, I probably would've considered it a good try. Because it's Civ, I'm bringing in expectations that the game was never really designed to try to meet.

I think this may be the case for others on the boards, too (Libertarian? Venger?). Naturally I'd love to see an upgraded version of the games I've enjoyed playing into the ground, and I'm hoping that patches will let Civ3 be that game, but I don't think it was ever designed to be what I wanted it to.

[Kolyana]

This game can never be the game we all want it to be ... not because our expectations are too high, but simply that too much has been hardcoded and isn't flexible enough.

If the current editor is anything to go by, we'll never have our scenarios, lush diplomacy and strong AI ... or most of our other desires ... without a semi-rewrite rather than a barrage of patches.

I *LOVED* the beer anology, it made perfect sense.

For me, 10 years on from Civ1, I had just hoped for considerably more ... rather than re-hashed old ideas, new graphics and a **** load of bugs.

[DaShi]

Interesting note about SMAC. There was a person who made modifications to the game that many agreed improved the fun and playability of the game. Strangely, after the next patch released by Firaxis this mod no longer worked, nor were any of its ideas used.

[rjpageuk]

I cant help thinking that some people here, Venger included, cant handle the fact that Civ3 is different to Civ2.

It requires new strategies, and a new way of thinking - is this a bad thing?

Your democracy fell when you were at war? What were you doing conducting a long term war in democracy anyhow?

Your far away cities are full of corruption? Why do you have far away cities? Why not just keep cities closer to your capitol?

Why are these so hard to understand?

To top it all off, you can completely take these out of the game if you wish using the editor. I personally believe them to be great additions, especially the corruption one. Having one civilisation completely rule all of the world is unrealistic, and unnecessary. Despite this, all you do is complain about them?

How about looking at Civ3 as a new game, one which requires new thinking, and certainly one that requires more than one game of before you can even attempt to fully do its new mechanisms justice?

[Kolyana]

I cant help thinking that some people here, Venger included, cant handle the fact that Civ3 is different to Civ2.

That's an extreme understatement.

Please, please, please ... read the threads and understand ... it's the sheer volume of bugs, the gross lack of playtesting, and the utter inflexibility of the game that people object to. And even that is an understatement.

I Like the game and I've played it consistently since getting it. It's occupied my every waking hour and caused me to stop sideline projects that I really should be spending more time on.

The only time Civ2 is mentioned is in the context of Civ2 having a nice feature people would like to see in Civ3.

There is no way my post can possibly cover all of the bases, so i suggest you look at the top of this forum and read the threads concerning bugs and wish lists ... very little mention of Civ2, lots of talk of bugs, heralded features that don't work and obvious functionality that somehow never made it into the final cut.

[Venger]

Originally posted by rjpageuk
I cant help thinking that some people here, Venger included, cant handle the fact that Civ3 is different to Civ2.

What an asinine statement. EVERY GAME I have is different from Civ2, except Civ2.

It requires new strategies, and a new way of thinking - is this a bad thing?

It depends on the strategies now doesn't it, and if "new way of thinking" means "don't pay any attention to that man behind the curtain", your point falls on it's face, as it should...

Your democracy fell when you were at war? What were you doing conducting a long term war in democracy anyhow?

Their envoys won't speak to me. Last time I checked, the last wars that were fought were all fought and won by democracy.

Your far away cities are full of corruption? Why do you have far away cities? Why not just keep cities closer to your capitol?

That's where the AI built them, and I don't have a "Move city closer to capital to deal with buggy inflexible unfun unrealistic corruption" button. Corruption is out of control. So much so they mentioned it as being in the patch. So are they also upset that Civ3 is not Civ2?

Why are these so hard to understand?

Because they make no sense? They make the game unenjoyable? They have no foundation in reason?

To top it all off, you can completely take these out of the game if you wish using the editor.

The game editor should be used to CUSTOMIZE the game not FIX it. And no, you cannot change a great deal of the things people have problems with in the editor. Have you edited a way to make planes able to sink ships? I thought not.

I personally believe them to be great additions, especially the corruption one. Having one civilisation completely rule all of the world is unrealistic, and unnecessary. Despite this, all you do is complain about them?

Enjoy Civ3 and it's training wheels for the weak player.

How about looking at Civ3 as a new game, one which requires new thinking, and certainly one that requires more than one game of before you can even attempt to fully do its new mechanisms justice?

The game, right now, is an unfinished mess of good ideas gone bad. It's NOT FUN - and this apologist "new thinking" line is a fallback used when you cannot logically justify the games inherent mechanical flaws.

Venger

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Kolyana
Please, please, please ... read the threads and understand ... it's the sheer volume of bugs, the gross lack of playtesting, and the utter inflexibility of the game that people object to. And even that is an understatement.

I think you put it very well. No one denies there are good ideas in CivIII, but:

Even though immortality is a nice idea, does that really serve as a justification for Dr. Frankenstein?

In both cases, it´s the details that give the trouble.

[Arrian]

I just wanted to point one thing out.

Venger: "It's NOT FUN..."

Now, though I often disagree with what you say, you generally state your opinions well, as opposed to the pure ranting and raving I've seen from so many others on both sides. However, please bear in mind one thing - it's NOT FUN for YOU. I, too, believe Civ III has flaws. Some of those flaws we agree on, some we don't, but I do enjoy the game. So much, in fact, that I haven't been getting nearly enough sleep since it came out. This does NOT make me a "weak player." It simply means that corruption, as presently implemented, is an annoyance to me, but a game-breaker for you (I use corruption as an example, though there are others). I hope the patch has removed the "annoyance" level for me.

I say "hope" b/c I don't have the damn patch yet. *throws modem out window*

-Arrian

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Arrian
I say "hope" b/c I don't have the damn patch yet. *throws modem out window*

Rest assured. The corruption-levels are more reasonable now. I think that they have got it just about right with this latest patch. In order to ease of the corruption even further, you can choose to open the CivMod editor and change the build-cost for that "Forbidden city" mini-wonder, from 300 to 200 shields.

As for your download-problems, you should install a download-manager that can resume deliberately or accidently interrupted downloads. Check out this website. I use FlashGet myself.

[Arrian]

Ralf,

My thanks to you sir. I'll grab that download thingamagiggy once I get home. Or I'll have my friend w/DSL burn it on a CD for me. Either way, thanks.

-Arrian

[Deornwulf]

Why is it that corruption must be used to limit the size of an empire? It seems to me to be a bit of fuzzy logic to think "we don't want to set a hard and fast limit to the number of cities a player can control so instead we'll make any cities beyond X to be useless."

There are far more creative ways to have accomplished the same goal. The type of government should have been the first limiting factor on the number of cities allowed. The government should also limit the distance at which cities can be controlled. (No more global empires established before the end of the ancient era. )

As far as corruption, players should be allowed more control over where the corruption occurs. Instead of the game establishing that city 17 will have uncontollable corruption because of when it was established and city 12 will have more corruption because of how far it is away from the capital, there need to be controls of some sort that would allow the player to focus on making a particular city more productive.

Perhaps a slider that would allow the player to fine tune the levels of corruption in particular cities would do the trick. A player would have to perhaps allow one city to suffer from rampant corruption in order to make another one more productive. It would have to be harder to reduce corruption in the larger cities than the smaller ones.

There also seems to be a fixation on the importance of a single landmass in the game. Corruption increases for cities on other landmasses and they don't get the nifty effects of many of the wonders. All this seems to do is increase the number of games played on pangea maps and punish the island kingdoms players.

This can lead to the middle and late game tedium as there is nothing new to do other than micro-manage 200+ workers on those huge maps. A possible way to break this would be to add something to increase the concept of colonization vs imperialism into the game. Perhaps cities need to go through more stages before becoming full members of the empire.

help me out guys, I think I'm on to something.

[Iconoclast]

Alexander, Napoleon, and Hitler?
What do all of these guys have in common?
THEY ALL LOST!!!
Arghh, you can play Civ 3 just like those guys, and you will lose. Just like in real life.
Their empires crumbled beneath them, mostly due to culture and corruption. Those two terms sound familiar?
Even Caesar just built on the success of others.
Get real, this game exactly follows historical trends, and if someone wants to play as a expansionistic militant, they should expect to lose.

[Arrian]

Deornwulf,

What you are talking about now are major, conceptual changes to the game. I'm not saying they aren't good ideas, but I sincerely doubt we will see them implemented in Civ III. Civ IV, however, is another matter.

I think it's highly unlikely that Firaxis is going to change the basic game design. Corruption was tweaked in the patch, but what you are talking about is completely changing the way it works.

However, what I would like to see (and they did incorporate some of this in the patch, with the police station thing) is the decrease of corruption with the advancement of your civilization. In particular, the "distance to capitol" corruption. As for # of cities corruption... well, I have yet to experience the patch, but pre-patch I do think the # of cities was too low. Still, in a very general way, it does make sense to me that the bigger your empire gets, the more difficult it is to rule effeciently. Therefore, I think the # of cities corruption should be in the game, just at a more reasonable level.

-Arrian

[Libertarian]

The unfortunate thing about how it all turned out is that corruption absolutely overwhelms all other attributes of the game. When tedium is piled on top of impotence, it's hard to have fun.

(edited for syntax)

[wotan321]

When tedium is piled on top of impotence, it's hard to have fun.

Unfortunately, the same can be said for the tone of way too many posts in these forums....sheesh.... we wanted Civ3, they gave us Civ3.....now you want Civ2 again.....

Updated game... updated rules... updated strategy.....

If players want Civ3 to be more like Civ2..... go back to playing Civ2 and begin posting on the Civ2 forums.

"Chess is too hard! Why can't I move my rook diagonally? That's not right! How can I move my rook diagonally?"

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Iconoclast
...and if someone wants to play as a expansionistic militant, they should expect to lose.

Only problem is they don´t. They win with Despotic Pop Rush.

[Arrian]

Comrade,

Well, in MP I'd say that's a major, game-breaking problem. For me, who doesn't play MP, it's not an issue. Why? I don't poprush like that. I use it only early on for temples, maybe granaries or libraries. In any case, 1-2 times per city MAXIMUM. I'm off to Republic as soon as I can. Using despotic poprush with "training camps" (as described by Vel) to conquer the world is, to ME, clearly an exploit. Further, to ME, it wouldn't be any fun. None at all.

-Arrian