How different would civ3 have been had Brian Reynolds stayed and developed it?

[Dis]

just curious what people think

better? worse? what features would be gone or included?

[yin26]

This one's easy:

It would have been a Big Huge Improvement!

[Jamison]

Agreed, Civ3 would have been ALOT more better if Brian stayed.

[ColdFever]

I think the computer controlled rulers would behave a little more "civilized" and would (as in SMAC) distinguish themselves by more attributes (ethics, morale, belief) than just aggressiveness.

I also think that people would have more options to tune their society and industry, following important human motives and values (philosophy/religion, political belief, ecology etc.)

Altogether I believe Brian would have given us a more "human" approach to build a civilization. Civ would have been less "chess-like", where you can predict and play the game purely by physical means. The gameplay would probably have been more surprising and demanding because IMHO Brian likes the " unpredictability" of the human nature.

[Libertarian]

I don't think he would have punished empire builders in the modern age by designing the game to place burdens and obstacles on them that are impossible to overcome. Yes, you can win as an empire builder, but it is about as much fun as sliding down a razor blade into a vat of alchohol.

[Skanky Burns]

He would have made it that once your empire reached a critical mass, every other AI would become hostile to you, refuse to trade, and declare war even if that move was suicidal for them.

Or to put it another way, Civ 3 would have been more like Civ 2 than Civ 1

[Ixander]

This question is not very constructive. Firaxis will have to find their own way now. When a driving force and visionary like BrianR leaves a company, filling the hiatus is bound to take time. You cannot blame Firaxis for that, it's just one of those things.

[WarpStorm]

It would have been real time. This was one of the issues that caused Sid Meier's Brian Reynolds to leave. The Civ3 team of the time (now BHG) really thought Civ should be real time so that they could do multi-player. This is kind of what they (BHG) are building. (They told me over lunch one day)

[Moraelin]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
He would have made it that once your empire reached a critical mass, every other AI would become hostile to you, refuse to trade, and declare war even if that move was suicidal for them.

As opposed to Civ 3, where as soon as I have half a dozen cities everyone starts being "annoyed" with me, and will demand only trades that are totally unreasonable. And they get insulted if I refuse to give them Gems AND 100 gold per turn AND the secret of Gunpowder in exchange for their Furs. And they attack me without any unltimatum or explanation why, even if they're 90 squares away from my border and it takes half the game for their spearmen to even reach me. (Roughly the equivalent of Northern Khorea declaring war on Spain. On land, not by sea. With non-motorized infantry.) And even if they still had space for expansion closer to home. And even if as a result of previous wars declared on me, I now have 3 times the cities they have, and mine are size 12, while theirs are at most size 4. Is that suicidal, or what?

Either way, truth be told, we'll never know what it would have looked like. I could venture a few ideas, but then he'd probably have better ideas than me any time. As I've said, guess we'll never know.

[Comrade Tribune]

Good question, Dissident! (Much better than whining about the whiners. )

Judging by CivII, I believe that Brian´s sequel would have been even more conservative, but way more solid. My guess:

-He would have fixed ICS this time.

-He would have added more buildings, techs, units and wonders, because it´s his style to throw the kitchen sink at us, and most -me included- like it.

-He would have improved the AI without making the game more simplistic.

The result wouldn´t have been revolutionary, but way better than the CivIII debacle.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Moraelin
As opposed to Civ 3, where as soon as I have half a dozen cities everyone starts being "annoyed" with me, and will demand only trades that are totally unreasonable...

Generally if you have a large military compared to the number of cities, the enemy wont declare war, will accept trades that benefit you more, and will generally lick your feet.

Although i have had a 2 city civ declare war on me 1000 years after i took their capital and another city.


My main reason for being pissed at Brian is because he wasted 7 months of development time. If he was going to leave, at the beginning of the project would have been a good idea. Imagine just how much more could have been done to Civ 3 if it was in development for another 7 months!!
That IMO is why Civ 3 was released as rough as it was.

[EnochF]

-He would have added more buildings, techs, units and wonders, because it's his style to throw the kitchen sink at us, and most -me included- like it.

Probably, yeah. I bought this game expecting the kitchen sink, and what I got was a toilet.

[David Murray]

But lots of the features he pioneered are already in Civilization 3. Trading communications, loaning gold, unique personalities, security council (UN) votes etc all came first in SMAC.

If Brian Reynolds had designed Civ3 he would have been proud and rightly so! (Although replacing social engineering with a simplistic five government model was a big mistake.)

[Smash]

no one can say for sure but I think it would not have been dumbed down the way it has.

This version has more stuff taken away than new stuff put in.Gotta feeling BR would have done the opposite for the most part.

[VetLegion]

yeah, right, mr. Brian Reynolds is a genous who would make civ3 appeal to all people.

Anyone knows the guy in person? I like his games, but he did not do one of them alone.

I think there is too much wild guessing going on here. What if he left because he wanted to make civ3 RTS? How good would he have done it in that case?

[Janus1978]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
It would have been real time. This was one of the issues that caused Sid Meier's Brian Reynolds to leave. The Civ3 team of the time (now BHG) really thought Civ should be real time so that they could do multi-player. This is kind of what they (BHG) are building. (They told me over lunch one day)

Do you mean in a Empire Earth kind of way? Or do you mean in a Europa Universalis kind of way?

[sophist]

Originally posted by David Murray
But lots of the features he pioneered are already in Civilization 3. Trading communications, loaning gold, unique personalities, security council (UN) votes etc all came first in SMAC.

If Brian Reynolds had designed Civ3 he would have been proud and rightly so! (Although replacing social engineering with a simplistic five government model was a big mistake.)

There was way more in SMAC that could have been put into Civ3 to make it better. For starters, the prototyping model is pretty cool and was pretty workable. Plus the unique map features were neat, though a bit predictable. And the government types were cooler. Atmospherically it was light years ahead.

SMAC was limited by the technology of its time (AI). If the same concepts were put together with civ3 today, we would have a much better game.

[Jaybe]

With Brian, the strengths of the game would have been different. Many people who are complaining about the game now would have loved it.

OTH, many people who love the game now would be MAD, UPSET & COMPLAINING!!

It's not the GAME people -- it's the PEOPLE! We all have different tastes ....

[John Paul Jones]

Ok then, simple answer: whats in SMAC/X thats missing in CIV ?

1. Stacked and grouped unit movement.
I really miss that highly configurable Assemble Group command.
And the AI can and does use it too.

2. Pseudo-3d landscape
I cant believe this progression wasn't made. It would have made the same revoloutionary leap that the isometric view made from civ1 to civ2. If someone could combine the landscape of say - Railroad Tycoon2 with Civ they'd be on to a winner.

3. Diplomacy
Options missing like co-ordinating battle plans , asking a warring party to make peace with another party, the U.N. council, etc.

4. The Design Workshop
It would be cool if i could build maybe horse-drawn settlers (Move:2) or a transport aeroplane , or how about a Privateer with the ability to capture other ships.

...and on and on ad nauseum

I'm not saying BR was responsible for all of these features Maybe he was right to make the move when he did. I think the major fault lies with outside publishers who see artists as some kind of widgets on their factory lines. There is one hell of a game waiting to be made - it will just take more time and effort , but "if you build it they will come"