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Old January 8, 2002, 16:09   #1
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This game is a great
toy for my dog. much better than a frisbee.
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Old January 8, 2002, 16:19   #2
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coffee table coaster — prevents unsightly rings.
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Old January 8, 2002, 16:29   #3
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If you created this thread to show off you implacable wit....well you've shown off your implacable lack of same.

If, on the other hand, you created it to waste time and bandwidth you've done a remarkably good job.

I am just disspointed someone with the intelligence of Libertarian bothered to even play with your sop.

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Old January 8, 2002, 16:30   #4
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yeah that second thing you said.
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Old January 8, 2002, 16:33   #5
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Now, Devin. If Dissident wants to play, who am I, a mere prince, to refuse him?
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Old January 8, 2002, 19:05   #6
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LOL! Interesting thread! Good title to boot!

And not to worry Prince Lib....nothing wrong with a bit of playin' anyhow!

Personally, I like the game, and am having a good time fiddling with it....but that's just the thing.

I'm "fiddling with it."

When SMAC came out, I skipped work and played for DAYS at a time. With Civ, I play some, take a break, and get back to it later.

Good game. Very good game, actually, but not immersive, for many of the reasons mentioned here.

For me, it goes something like this:

1). Discovery Phase - Awesome!! Excitement and adrenaline...VERY immersive beginning. All that black menacing shroud....you don't have many cities or units, so the turns fly by....one wrong move and it sets you back centuries. THAT's where the magic is.

2). Spankin' the neighbors - Awesome!!!! Ancient Era warfare rocks, and the AI can usually make a good showing....several times they've forced me to change plans in mid-stream by massing galleys and hitting some flank position. Frequently they'll fortify areas AND staff them well! It's wonderful.

3) Onward to the Middle Ages! - Excellent/Very Good. Solid gameplay. Still not soooo many cities and units that it's just insane, and there's lots of building up to be done....a few more neighbors to whack and so forth....

4) Mid-game warfare: UGH! By now, you've grown your Empire to its critical mass given the current corruption model. You've built all the essential stuff in your empire and are churning out units at a prodigious rate. You'd THINK this would be the grand, epic, absolute BEST part of the game, but it's not. This is where game play really starts to slow down, and the larger the map, the bigger the slowdown.

By now, your rivals have developed a sufficient cultural base that reversion is an issue, and even if the cities don't revert, they're stuck producing 1-shield per turn and scant money. Essentially, they're border bumpers and resource traps. Nothing more. Even so, capturing tooooo many of these cities will begin to degrade your production back home.

Also, by now, between captured workers and the home boys, you've got a scad of them, whether you intended to or no, and since the ARE costing you upkeep, you'd better damn well do something with them, so your turns start taking....longer....and LONGER....and l...o...n...g...e...r....until it's time to take a break from it all. (that's usually when I stop for the night).

5) Mop-Up: Decent. After giving the game a couple days rest, I'm ready to come back and finish it out. Suddenly, the tedium factor isn't as bad with some time away from the game, and I can generally bring the current spate of wars to a satisfactory conclusion fairly quickly and coast to victory from there.

The trouble is though, as follows:

1) Someone mentioned before that Sid was somewhat disappointed that warfare was such a huge part of the earlier iterations of this game, and it's CLEAR when looking at the game's design that GREAT PAINS went into making world conquest a very tough thing. Still possible....still doable, but tedius and difficult (as it should be....after all, no one's managed to do it here!).

2) (related to the above) Item one would be all well and good if there was something.....ANYTHING to do besides conquer and shuffle workers around the map. As it stands, you can build a few wonders (no movies, making them not terribly different than building your 52nd University....'cept they're more expensive of course), make some trade deals every 20 turns (which is kinda fun, or maybe it's just me), and if you really work at it, you can play puppet master with the weaker civs (I have found some enjoyment in that, but it's largely a passive affair....building up some, destroying others....all indirectly of course, cos I don't DARE build another city....(corruption).

Thing is....it doesn't have to BE like that! It'd be soooo easy to make little objectives for the player:

1) Lib sugessted earlier: On switching from Despotism to Monarchy - Ten turns consecutive with no pop-rushing and X happens.

2) Build X number of this type building and you get Y game effect (as opposed to being able to build another Minor Wonder, for which there is no movie, no fanfare).

3) With the slightest tweaking, a VAST ARRAY of diplomatic options could be made available.....selling units to the AI to really HELP your allies in war, coordinating attacks, a UN Council that DOES something besides end the game (with no movie), all sorts of stuff! It'd be....cool!

4) Great Artists that spring up with the acquisition of a certain number of culture points, or the building of some combination of builds/wonders + X number of turns of peace (same as great leaders, but without the ability to create armies)

I can think of dozens off the top of my head....and they're not tough things to weave into the fabric that's already there.

Let me be quick to say that I love Civ3. I think it's a great game that has a HUGE amount of potential.

Like anything tho....there are things that could stand improvement, and sadly, the things that need tweaking are the very things that keep the game in the "fiddling" category for me, rather than the immersive category.

But I have hope, and faith....

-=Vel=-
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Old January 8, 2002, 19:29   #7
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Quote:
Also, by now, between captured workers and the home boys, you've got a scad of them, whether you intended to or no, and since the ARE costing you upkeep, you'd better damn well do something with them, so your turns start taking....longer....and LONGER....and l...o...n...g...e...r....until it's time to take a break from it all. (that's usually when I stop for the night).
I don't understand. If these workers are a drain on your economy due to upkeep AND they are a royal pain in the arse to move around, why don't you use them to add to cities that need more pop or disband them for shields?

Am I missing something there?

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Old January 8, 2002, 19:57   #8
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Hey cutlerd! The short answer to your question is that I need 'em. Someone has got to do all the terraforming, after all. And in order to get anything noteworthy done, I need several.

Scads, in fact (though my definition of scads is far smaller than some folks, as I understand it).

I can live with no stacked movement OR automation routines that aren't so good, but since this game has both, I'm stuck with the option of moving them one by one by one

WHILE

Moving my armies out one....by one....by.....ONE

AND

arranging my fleets in the same fashion.

Of course, you're right. If there was something meaningful to do besides combat, some minor wonder that, once built would, according to the AI's book (for determining whether to attack you or no) caused each of my military units to count triple (something like a National Guard MW perhaps). Then I really COULD disband lots of my unwanted, largely unneeded (cept the AI will jump me like a ravenous dog) units and do something else.

-=Vel=-
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Old January 8, 2002, 20:45   #9
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I dont' mind moving military units one by one too much.

but like you said, it would be nice to do something besides warfare.

Warfare essentually is the game for me. I thrash everyone early and get bored mid to late game. If I don't thrash my opponents early I tend to lose.

what else can I do?
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Old January 9, 2002, 04:08   #10
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There is no opinion on the game that I respect more than yours, Vel. I almost envy your singular talent for expositing your views. When you take time out of your busy schedule to visit the General Forum and grace us with your insights, it is, in my opinion, a significant and satisfying event. Thank you.
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Old January 9, 2002, 08:02   #11
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as far as categorization goes, i feel it will most likely stay in the "fiddling" group no matter how many patches, addons or b/s that follows. i've been needing for myself a fully immersive experience for a while now and besides button pumping consoles, the pc gaming market has little to offer, and along comes civ3 but hardly does it muster anything more than its predecessor, what a shame ,, someone just shoot me or put me in cryogenic freeze until civ4 hits the shelf
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Old January 9, 2002, 13:13   #12
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Quote:
Originally posted by cutlerd
If you created this thread to show off you implacable wit....well you've shown off your implacable lack of same.

If, on the other hand, you created it to waste time and bandwidth you've done a remarkably good job.

I am just disspointed someone with the intelligence of Libertarian bothered to even play with your sop.

Devin
some people are just jealous that others have a since of humor. oh well, everybody is different, its what makes the world go around. And big words dont make you seem omniscient. But much to my chagrin (and others too i assume) they often make one seem aloof. Sometimes a plethora of large words is just too many.
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Old January 10, 2002, 01:37   #13
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Thanks Lib! That's high praise indeed, and it means a lot to me.

:: sigh:: I dunno. I guess at the crux of the matter is this:

It's not that I don't feel I got my money's worth out of Civ3, cos I DO! It's a good, solid game.

But the Civ-series has NEVER been about "not getting your money's worth." That was a foregone conclusion. The magic of the series lay in what was beyond simply "getting your money's worth," which is precisely why people are still rabbidly playing Civ2, FIVE YEARS after its release! Five years....when you consider that computer become obsolete every 18 months (taking most, if not all of the softwrare along with it), for a game to have a five year shelf life is.....amazing, and speaks volumes of the quality of the series.

Sadly, unless some major enhancements are forthcoming, Civ3 will not enjoy that kind of lifespan, I do not believe....and it could! My god but it could!

I don't know much about programming, but the ideas mentioned in my earlier post seem to me (an uninitiated newbie where programming is concerned) to be little more than a series of multi-variable if/then statements. The kinna stuff I used to do in the basic editor that came with dos 3.3. Granted, those piddly things I did were really simple, but it seems to me that the concept is the same (unless programming really has changed all that much from the days when I used to putz around with it).

IF your civ is at peace for 30 consecutive turns, IF you have built JS Bach's cathedral and have at least four cities producing 80+ culture per turn, then you get a 3% chance per turn (non cumulative) of generating a "Great Artist" for every turn of peace after the 30th.

Even a BASIC, really corn-ball scripting language to allow for in-game and user defined historical events (or conjectural historical events) to have a % chance of occuring if certain criterion were met....do you realize how AWESOME that would make the game?! Especially if many/most of those events revolved around cultural thresholds and peaceful activities! Since Sid himself bemoaned the fact that warfare was such a huge part of the game, why something like this was not included as a *viable alternative* to fighting is.....well....a mystery to me.

I'd be willing to bet an entire paycheck that if we started a thread asking for event ideas along those lines, within DAYS we'd have a hundred, if not more! With all the people who regularly read these forums, with all the outstanding ideas I've already seen here, there's not a doubt in my head!

Examples off the top of my head would be:

*If you prevent the destruction of an allied civ (one with whom you have a MPP in good standing) by forcing peace on his/her behalf (not currently possible with the diplomatic options as they are, but EASILY added...heck, the code is already out there from SMAC!) and gifting that civ at least 3 cities, you have X% chance per turn for the next 20 turns after peace is declared of being able to build a "peacekeeping forces" unit (colorless, to enable you to move into anyone's territory, but totally incapable of attacking cities).

* Most favored nation status (new diplo option) could be given to certain civs providing trade subsidies in exchange for....well, pretty much anything, including NOT building such things as Labor Camps (conjectural city improvement with a negative culture rating that enhances production).

* Or how 'bout creating Minor Wonders that perform some function individually, but when built in concert (in the same city), enable a new government type (rather than tying it to a tech, per se?)

All SORTS of possibilities that don't revolve around moving your 203rd tank batallion (one at a time, mind you) over to capture your 60th city, which you don't really want, cos it's only going to degrade your production --but of course, since you've already built every city improvement, what choice do you have? It's either attack anyway, or spend the last 300 years of the game clicking "end turn" So.....you attack anyway, or build the space ship at the start of the modern age to save yourself some clicking of the "end turn" button.

Okay.....all of that makes it sound like I don't like the game, so I should reiterate....I do! I really, truly do! The ancient era, middle ages, and parts of the industrial age are WONDERFUL! But because of the way the game is constructed, you wind up with a late game two-edged sword.

By the game's design, taking over the world is (while possible) a) Not much fun, and b) punishing, from a purist, empire-builder approach

BUT

Once you get to the Industrial age (all of two....TWO! city improvements there), there is NOTHING to do in the game except fight.....or, click on "end turn" until you get the techs to build the ship or the UN.

THAT's why the game breaks down.....and it could be fixed!

And I'm hopin' like crazy it will, cos I'd dearly love to call in sick for work and play for days on end like I used to do with SMAC!

So....my fingers and toes are firmly crossed.....hoping that when the dust settles, we'll have a Civ3 before us that's every bit as maddeningly addictive as the ones that came before it.

They've got a good base to proceed from.....a few nips, tucks, and nudges, and it'll be there....

-=Vel=-
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Old January 10, 2002, 06:43   #14
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Vel,

Yes, the seed of potential for a great game is there.

The problem with adapting extant code (such as from SMAC) to a different program (such as Civ3) is that, more often than not, there is enough hard code (i.e., code that is at best minimally maleable) in the old stuff that adapting it over becomes a wholesale rewrite. You know, old wine and new skins.

As a realist with a Melancholy temperament, I fear that adding such features as you list here will be technically problematic and economically unfeasible.

There is always the chance, of course, that Civ3 code was written along deliberate and well planned object modelling. But not likely. Especially when getting something out the door is more important than getting something right.

So, even what seems like a simple add in (such as the Great Artist) can encounter manifold obstacles. A hard coded interface, for example, would need a rewrite to accomodate the Artist. Hard coded AI functions would not recognize the new entity. And there is always the likelihood of generating unpredictable consequences that introduce whole new bugs and strange behaviors.

We cannot know for a certainty, of course, what sort of code Firaxis is dealing with, but all indications seem to point to great inflexibility. Why else would you be unable and unwilling to respond to thousands of fans who beg for certain specific features — other than that you don't know — because you fear that you might be unable to deliver on what you promise.

Two sorts of answers are a great comfort: (1) we most likely can do that, we'll check; and (2) we can't do that, sorry, it's impossible. More discomforting is "we don't know". That is a satsifactory answer for a brief time while they get departments together and examine the detail. But after weeks and months, there is waning interest, trust, and hope in it.

You've now been all but guaranteed a spot on the beta-testing team. I charge you to use your status for the good of the game and the community. We're counting on you, Vel.
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Old January 10, 2002, 08:30   #15
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I don't have a dog.

Hang on! I've been ripped off then!







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Old January 10, 2002, 08:53   #16
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Quote:
Originally posted by El Awrence
I don't have a dog.

Hang on! I've been ripped off then!








I have a cat, but no matter how slow I toss the cd my cat wont go after it until it hits the ground. My next door neighbor has been described as a dog, I wonder If I could get her to catch it if i toss it in the air.
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