What needs to be done to make this game great.

[Master2000]

Has someone mentioned Group movement? Yeah, that would be nice!

[CharlesUFarley]

Originally posted by Dissident
we'll include realistic and unrealistic changes. Just label them as such.


all my ideas are unrealistic for Firaxis to implement except the pollution and corruption options.

wonder movies. I don't care if I turn them off. I want the respect I deserve for building them

real advisors. gives life to the game. cartoon figures don't do this

fp/hp: just kidding...kind of

options to adjust pollution and corruption to our liking. We shouldn't be forced to endure pain in the ass features because the designers felt we needed the challenge.

get rid of the french

I think instead of everyone ranting off suggestions and ideas (which is good, don't get me wrong) Firaxis should just make a 'super editor' with the ability to customize everything you guys mentioned and more, that way we don't have to fight or debate over what should or shouldn't be in the game. Makes perfect sense to me, not too many people argued over Civ2 -- but then again we had a complete game with excellent customization tools.

Charles.

[macaskil]

GAME PLAY

End game can be slow and dull. Play some nice movies as you discover new techs, sign peace treaties, declare war, conquer or lose cities. Option to turn them off, of course! More rewards for modern era techs. Population and production should be going through the roof by 1950.

NEW CONCEPTS

Introduce trading in food; naval units to disrupt this trade. Could simply be made a strategic resource like coal. Game can be traded in this way now but only affects happiness, not population. I wonder whether this can be achieved by using the editor?

Internal market in food. Surplus food from one city diverted to city with shortage

Epidemics -

Domestic Advisor

"The Black Death has wiped out half your population!"

would arise after you start trading with other civs. Effects reduced with Hospitals; eliminated with Antibiotics/Vaccination. You can prevent this by being isolationist.

New civs can arise during game either

- your remote cities (those pesky 1 shield ones) can decide to declare independence and start their own civ. This can happen when the cities go into revolt. When one city does this the nearest cities can join them. To prevent this you have to make sure to keep them happy.

Ethnic loyalty made stronger. In reality conquered cities continue to have citizens whose loyalty is to the "old country" for centuries.

NEW IMPROVEMENTS

TV Station - increases happy faces

NEW TECHS

Artificial Fertilsers/Pesticides - increases all food by 1; causes pollution

Antiobiotics or Vaccination - stops epidemics

(perhaps a wonder so it's available to all - but then in real life vaccines cost money, ask South Africa)

These are required to model the enormous real world pop. increase

WONDERS

Bretton Woods Agreement - increases gold - for all civs though!

UNITED NATIONS

Presence of the UN should make war more difficult. Civs should be forced to negotiate.

I suppose a UN peacekeeping force would be going too far! You invade Babylon and a lot of blue-helmeted infantry arrive on the scene to separate the warring forces.

RESOURCES

Make depletion dependent on use

Have units such as tanks use resources when fighting/moving - many a WW2 battle was lost due to shortage of fuel. Same with railroads, coal plants - should use up coal per turn; only solar and hydro plants should have 0 resource cost per turn.

EXISTING UNITS

Some units/improvements should have alternative resource requirements

eg railroads - modern railroads don't need coal, they need oil or electricity - ie with (say) 5 power stations all your rails become electrified!

EXISTING IMPROVEMENTS

coal plants shouldn't be buildable without electricity

COMBAT

Bombers sink ships (though modern naval units should be able to shoot down planes)

Cities under siege for more than a number of turns, or subject to intense bombing, can surrender - not the same as a culture flip. Your units escape.

Combine stacks into single unit so we don't have to move 16 tanks one at a time.

NEW UNITS

Have a library of animations etc to allow players to create own units. Talented forum members could contribute; library could be on internet, charity donation (Red Cross?) required to download.

Make it easier to edit/create civilopedia entries for own units, techs

In short, CUSTOMISABILITY is the thing. If we don't like the game out of the box we should be able to tweak it. civedit is a good start but we need to be able to add new things more easily.

BTW it's a great game anyway. My wife is threatening divorce if I play it any more!

[Azrikam]

Have units such as tanks use resources when fighting/moving - many a WW2 battle was lost due to shortage of fuel. Same with railroads, coal plants - should use up coal per turn; only solar and hydro plants should have 0 resource cost per turn.

I like the idea of having resources as more tangible values. Imagine a huge war between Civ's, where 1 Civ hangs back, stockpiling oil, just waiting for the time to strike out at whoever loses.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Master2000
Has someone mentioned Group movement? Yeah, that would be nice!

Originally posted by yin26
Change the title to Civ 2.5 and release the True Civ3 sometime late this year?

How true I already came to the same conclusion, somewhere in the CTP1 forum. But the difference to is that I already came to the conclusion as Activion got the Civ licience the had the right to make Civ3 and thefore they made the Civ3_Project. Finally they called it Civilisation: Call To Power. And for me it was the real Civ3. And Activion made also an successor: Call To Power 2. So if the CivCTP the real Civ3 than CTP2 is the real Civ4.

Once you worked out all the bugs of CTP2 than you can maintain truely that CTP2 is the Real Civ4.

So Friraxis can make a lot of more Civ clones but I am shure they will never reach Civ3. So why should I downgrate if I already have this stuff:

Originally posted by Azrikam
-Speed the game up
-Fix crippling corruption
-No more Culture Flipping
-Bring back Wonder Movies
-Bring back Spies!
-Bring back Terraforming
-More Winnable Strategic Options
-Scenarios
-Scenario Editing Tools

Yeah the Real Civ4 is much faster than Civ2 in the late game, I remember that I had in the late game more than 200 settlers improving the world. That was a waste of time. And also the city management was timewasting. I bet this stuff won't be fixed in Civ2.5.

And they won't fix also the other stuff: -Hard drive space wasting savegames
-Hard drive space wasting outdated 8bit 255colors graphics
-No sclic like language
-To high system requirements for current computer systems

These problems are caused by using the obsolete Civ2 and can't be fixed if you don't rebuild the game from scratch.

-Martin

[Dry]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Completely new look at the combat model. Combined arms and combat resolution similar to MOO2. Allow option for either tactical resolution of combat or strategic ala the current combat resoution method.

[bombastic]
I had a dream.
I had a dream, that one day, PG2 and Civ2 could be started together;... could be played together... could be united as one great simulation game...
[/bombastic]
ehem..., sorry, I was ...errr, well dreaming.

Imagine.
Imagine there's no hundreds of units, no unit micromanagement, in front of us only armies. , well, not only, but let's say some armies.
Imagine, you can build these armies the same way as they are build now: produce units and just 'load' them in those armies, but with a higher limit. Let's say 16, 32 or 64 units to take round numbers.
Imagine combat between those armies are solved in separate window, poping up and then a PG2 style battlefield is shown, units are placed and combat is fought.
Imagine you could replay Thermopile, Hastings, Austerlitz, Waterloo.
Ordinary combats (against small garrisons f.i.) would still be solved the way they are now.
Of course, I don't ask a full PG2 implementation, but some simplified version of it.
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I am the only one?

[Worthingtons]

I love doing that myself

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Dry,

Exactly my same dream. I wrote essentially the same thing over in the SMAC forum wherein we were dreaming of SMAC2 (even less of a chance of that happening then the above mentioned ideas).

Creation of Divisional units, Corp units, and Armies. Each of these units are then customizable by a unique interface called .... get ready for it..... THE UNIT WORKSHOP tada!! This was the single most energizing feature of SMAC. I'ld dream of being able to customize my divisional units with Brigades of Cavalry, battalions of Arty, Regiments of grunts etc. Give the ability to upgrade the armies with best weapon practices and armor etc. (advent of gunpowder all your grunts can be outfitted as needed with muskets why are we stuck in that same old tired upgrade path that swordsmen can't own a rifle.


Ahhh well to dream a little dream.

Og

[Ironikinit]

That is a pretty cool idea, but I see two problems that need to be addressed, well, maybe three.

First, the PG2 maps were finite, there were only so many of them. Also (well, I only played PG but I'm guessing PG2 was the same way), the way enemy units were set up was done by the design team. The way Civ is, the set up would have to be either random or done by some sort of flow of questions and answers. I'm not saying it's impossible, that would probably be pretty easy really. It just seems unlikely that computer generated maps and deployment will match how good the battles were in the Panzer General series.

Tactical combat maps would add a lot of time onto an already notoriously long game. Typically in games where you have a choice of doing tactical combat or not, you were punished with heavier losses if you let the computer resolve the battle.

I'll skip the third possible problem because it was pretty much a matter of personal preference.

[paulmagusnet]

What is PG?

Anyway, I thinke the best and only way to make CIVIII a truely great game is to return your current copy for a refund.

While some worthwhile changes occured, such as the resources and air combat and some of the diplomatic options, the major effort appears to have been to make the game appeal to pre-teens.

Civ III should not be thought of as Civ 2.5, it in fact has devolved significantly to what should be thought of as Civ 1.8.

That being said:

- new unit: the pacifist, becomes completly inert during war and attempts to convince all other units and population to do likewise citing this as noble behavior.

[Ironikinit]

Panzer General.

And your idea for a unit, no offense, is the stupidest thing I ever heard.

[CharlesUFarley]

Originally posted by paulmagusnet
What is PG?

Anyway, I thinke the best and only way to make CIVIII a truely great game is to return your current copy for a refund.

Already done. And yes I agree with you, I think the only way to improve this game is to cause problems with sales -- hence refunding it if possible. That appears to be the only viable left option that will force them to make the changes. Otherwise they'll probably just cancel the civ-product line altogether -- and won't we just love them even more for that one.

Charles.

[CharlesUFarley]

Originally posted by Ironikinit
Panzer General.

And your idea for a unit, no offense, is the stupidest thing I ever heard.

Maybe it's stupid to you, but that's his opinion. Why don't you let people have thier opinions? Do you feel threatened by them?

Charles.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by paulmagusnet
Civ III should not be thought of as Civ 2.5, it in fact has devolved significantly to what should be thought of as Civ1.8.

Your hard jugding Civ"3" (and I thought to qualify it as Civ2.5 would be hard), but from the quote in my earlier post your opinion can be justified (year and you played this game therefore you should now it better).

Originally posted by paulmagusnet
Anyway, I thinke the best and only way to make CIVIII a truely great game is to return your current copy for a refund.

I couldn't agree more, fortunatly I have still the option to not buy the game. I will stay at CTP2 although the support of Activion does not exist, it has much potential, you can turn the AI into a huge problem for the human. But I am afraid that Firaxis has to pay for that lesson for that Activion already had to pay, when they try to clone again Civ and call it Civilization4.

-Martin

[ACooper]

Originally posted by CharlesUFarley


Already done. And yes I agree with you, I think the only way to improve this game is to cause problems with sales -- hence refunding it if possible. That appears to be the only viable left option that will force them to make the changes. Otherwise they'll probably just cancel the civ-product line altogether -- and won't we just love them even more for that one.

Charles.

If they lose money why would they fix it? As a customer who has returned the game your voice gets reduced to nothingness. You've already made your statement by returning it. Why would they bother trying to get you back?

[Zachriel]

Civ3 is a great game, and will get better with time. Sorry some of you are missing out on the early action. Hopefully, you rejoin us as the game develops.

Lighten up! Have some fun.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Zachriel
Civ3 is a great game, and will get better with time. Sorry some of you are missing out on the early action. Hopefully, you rejoin us as the game develops.

Rejoining

Hey you can't fix the main problems like obsolete and time wasting tile improving sytem or the time wasting building complete popup messages and replace them by a more efficient system like in CTP1/2. So I will not buy this game.

-Martin

[Harovan]

Originally posted by CharlesUFarley
Maybe it's stupid to you, but that's his opinion. Why don't you let people have thier opinions? Do you feel threatened by them?

Charles.

That's a good one ! Thank God you always let other people their opinion and never flame or insult them, if they say that they like the game.

Btw: I also still enjoy it to play, though I am aware that it has serious flaws.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Rejoining

Hey you can't fix the main problems like obsolete and time wasting tile improving sytem or the time wasting building complete popup messages and replace them by a more efficient system like in CTP1/2. So I will not buy this game.

-Martin

Just out of curiousity, how do you apparently "know" so much about Civ3 if you haven't bought the game?

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Hey you can't fix the main problems like obsolete and time wasting tile improving sytem or the time wasting building complete popup messages and replace them by a more efficient system like in CTP1/2.

Do you mean this system, that tells you that a city's queue is empty, after a whole turn production was wasted?

Btw: capturing workers is fun, and yes, I also play CTP2 now and then (though not CTP1 anymore)

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Zachriel
Just out of curiousity, how do you apparently "know" so much about Civ3 if you haven't bought the game?

Apolyton is the short answer. If you are here than you know that you have to improve your terrain with workers in Civ3. That is one or two steps backwards from CTP1/2. And that was the reason why I only played a demo of SMAC. I know that this system will end with 200 settlers/workers.

And it is easy to guess that they used the civ2 game engine. For example there were these 8bit 255 color graphics you can dowload them from Apolyton there was also someone who uploaded some of the Civ3 units so that we can convert them to CTP1/2. Than terrain and city graphics reminds me two much to Civ2 style, although you can just skip the pixels of the backgrounds that would achieve a reduction of graphics size. That was the way how they did it in CTP1/2. And than reports on a late game tedium even on high end computers sounds familiar from Civ2. Yeah I have to admit that I only saw one picture of an advisor that you lead (probably to a city because one building is complete). BTW empty build queues aren't a real problem in CTP2 just cycle with 'o' through all cities with empty build queues and you shouldn't have the problem. (No need ro open an message.)

I got another hint from an arthicle about Ci3 posted I think on ZDF-net or somewhere else. However I translated this arthicle into German:

The moment Firaxis inked the deal with Hasbro, Meier and his design team started playing Civ III. They replaced the art assets of Alpha Centauri (Firaxis' last big strategy title) with crude Civilization-style placeholders, and modified the rules to reflect their design decisions for this new game.

From this quote you can guess that they used the same game engine as they used in SMAC. And if they did it once why shouldn't do they it twice. From the 8bit 255 color graphics it is more probably that they used the Civ2 game engine. As CTP1 and SMAC were released very close together, and CTP1 has 24 bit 16 Million collor graphics. So it is very probably that they use the Civ2 game engine.

To get to know that Civ3 savegames waste a lot of hard drive just find a thread in the Civ3 forum in that Dan_Magata or what this name is stated that they don't care on harddrive space, because players have available hundret of gigabytes available nowadays.

Weak scenario editor just read the forum.
No slic like language in Civ3 just read one post in the CTP2 forum that made Peter Triggs.
Modding limitations read the posts.

And so I could go on and noone contradics. Oh and by the way I thought the intension of signatures is that people read them.

So my answer to the initial question of this thread is a rebuild of Civ3 from the cratch if you want real the greatest Civ3 that you ever got and will get. But no company has the interest to make such a game otherwise they wouldn't sell another game. Of course if you have the source code you could really turn this game into a great game but that is also true for CTP2. But in comnparision to CTP2 which must only be finished you need for Civ3 more work to get rid of this settler/worker tile improving system. Of course finally I can live with these inferior graphics if the game would offer more than CTP2 in its modded versions. That is also a difference to CTP2. The modding abilities of CTP2 are huge and that is the reason why this game is still alive. Of course there will be people who try to improve the game but there are less modding possibilities in Civ3 than in CTP2.

-Martin

[Death's Toe]

Originally posted by CharlesUFarley


I think instead of everyone ranting off suggestions and ideas (which is good, don't get me wrong) Firaxis should just make a 'super editor' with the ability to customize everything you guys mentioned and more, that way we don't have to fight or debate over what should or shouldn't be in the game. Makes perfect sense to me, not too many people argued over Civ2 -- but then again we had a complete game with excellent customization tools.

Charles.

I think this 'super-editor' already exists, its called C++. You can make any game you want with it.

[CharlesUFarley]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph




That's a good one ! Thank God you always let other people their opinion and never flame or insult them, if they say that they like the game.

Btw: I also still enjoy it to play, though I am aware that it has serious flaws.

I usually don't "flame" or "insult" someone unless they deny that the game has problems. And most of the time it's because they hijack my posts with insignificant ranting. And I never said I hated Civ3, I'm just severly let down by it's overall design. I'm also glad that you enjoy Civ3, I won't ever try to take that away from you or others in these forums. But it would seem that people are always trying to take away from me -- the criticism that I am entitled too. All in all everyone has valid points and issues, but a more important problem lives on the horizon -- how can we 'improve' this game with the cooperation of Firaxis -- at this point it almost seems like talking to a wall.

Any ideas?

Charles.

[CharlesUFarley]

Originally posted by Death's Toe
I think this 'super-editor' already exists, its called C++. You can make any game you want with it.

If we we're game designers (that means you too!) we surely wouldn't be in a game discussion forum relating to another companies products. You're just as guilty for being here as we are. So asside from a smartass remark -- do you have a better idea?

Charles.

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
And so I could go on and noone contradics. Oh and by the way I thought the intension of signatures is that people read them.

Well then! Allow me to be the first to contradict, since pretty much everything you said about Civ III was false.

Dan


P.S. my signature may be too much for the common reader to handle; exercise caution. I can't be held responsible if anyone decides to totally flip out and start cutting heads off.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
P.S. my signature may be too much for the common reader to handle; exercise caution. I can't be held responsible if anyone decides to totally flip out and start cutting heads off.

Well Dan, that may be too much to ask. I can sense that some are just on the edge, all they need is a nudge, such as you have provided, and flip... off go the heads.

Good thing this an on-line, not face to face, community.

Salve

BTW, could you get back to slaving away over the code? Sheesh, you think that people wanted to hear from you or something.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS P.S. my signature may be too much for the common reader to handle; exercise caution. I can't be held responsible if anyone decides to totally flip out and start cutting heads off.

*LOL*

Even worse is if you click "No" when first entering!! Arrgh!!

[Kevin Ar18]

I want a modern eara that is actually fun.

• Submarines that can take out ships.
• Mutually Assured Defense (cold war) with ICBMS, and it's resulting radiation effects.
• Biological weapons (take out population).
• Cruise missles that can actually take out units.
• Units that can intercept cruise missiles (such as what was used in the Gulf War to shoot down cruise missiles being shot at Israel).
• Nuclear Missiles that destroy all units.
• Airplanes that can actually kill things and you can actually move places.
• Airbases
• Give us some city structures that can actually get rid of pollution. Or better yet get rid of the pollution idea altogether or separate radition and regular polution as separate things -- aka regular pollution just decreases health perhaps and radiation must be cleaned up.

Other game concepts.

• Solid borders that are held by diplomacy or war not some stupid culture model.
• Units that can realistically fortify and keep a city from revolting (say 1 infantry unit).
• Some real diplomacy where you can actually make trustworthy alliances and win an victory with your ally.
• Get rid of the unprecedented and uncalled for level of corruption in cities.
• Realism! Realism!! Realism!!! (implemented in an enjoyable way)

Some things I wouldn't mind having

• Use real life pictures for wonders.
• Use pictures or movies of real people and voices.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by CharlesUFarley
I usually don't "flame" or "insult" someone unless they deny that the game has problems.

I once posted my opinion, that I enjoy the game knowing that it's not perfect, and that I have faith that the next patch will fix many problems. Your answer was "fanboy", "slap yourself" and worse. See what I'm talking about? The speed you are collecting enemies is amazing.

Originally posted by CharlesUFarley
And most of the time it's because they hijack my posts with insignificant ranting.

I see. Complaints are insignificant ranting. Approvals are intelligent and welcome.

Originally posted by CharlesUFarley
And I never said I hated Civ3...

I care less what you think about the game, as long as you leave others the right for their own opinion.

Originally posted by CharlesUFarley
But it would seem that people are always trying to take away from me -- the criticism that I am entitled too.

May be because others see in your critizism insignificant ranting? I admit, that both sides in this discussion act not very fair.

Originally posted by CharlesUFarley
All in all everyone has valid points and issues, but a more important problem lives on the horizon -- how can we 'improve' this game with the cooperation of Firaxis -- at this point it almost seems like talking to a wall.

I'm content with Firaxis' statement, that they work on a patch. We will see what it brings and what they will be able to improve. I'm sure my 3 main complaints "missing scenario editor", "missing MP mode" and "poor game interface" are at their schedule. So why should I cry everyday "Firaxis, where is the patch?" or "Firaxis, where is your statement what you are doing?" The patch will be right here, when it's ready.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
Well then! Allow me to be the first to contradict, since pretty much everything you said about Civ III was false.

Dan

So and what is in particular false that I said? So far you did not gave any arguments.

I downloaded some Civ3 graphics from this side:

I found cities and terrain on 8bit 255 colors graphics.

So Civ3 uses 8bit 255 colors graphics.

True or False, Dan?

I checked the size of your unit animations they have a size around 400 to 800 kb. That's one for you as CTP2 uses unit animations of the same size. But they 24bit 16 million color graphics.

About terrain improving: Civ3 uses units (workers) and not PW to develope the city terrain.

True or False, Dan?

I know what happend when you have 200 settlers on your map improving the terrain. It took very long to move all my units. One and a half hour to move all my units in Civ2. And than I had to wait 20 minutes on my 486er that it was finished to cycle through all my 250 cities. Note that was the the time with disabled pop up windows I had to fill the build queue over the city manager manually. My K6 233 needed for the same task 4 minutes but still too much as I got the message that I reached the maximum city limit Civ2 died for me.

So I can ask you do I have to click away a popup window if a city finished a building or unit?

Yes or No, Dan?

Here is a qoute from you from another thread:

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS in Apolyton CS Forums > Civilization III > Civ3-Creation > Utility for placing cities
The size of the savegame has very little connection to the efficiency of the coding. Savegames of many games (not just Civ III) are big because they load faster than if they were compressed

Since most users typically have hundreds of megs (if not gigs) to spare, speed is more of an issue than HD space.

So Firaxis cares on the harddrive space of the games.

True or False, Dan?

I reqoute this again, Dan:

The moment Firaxis inked the deal with Hasbro, Meier and his design team started playing Civ III. They replaced the art assets of Alpha Centauri (Firaxis' last big strategy title) with crude Civilization-style placeholders, and modified the rules to reflect their design decisions for this new game.

From this qoute I can guess:

Civ3 uses the SMAC game engine.

True or False, Dan?

From the graphics thing I can guess.

Civ3 uses the Civ2 game engine.

And here is another qoute from the same article:

The second guiding principle of Civilization III—the fun factor—governs the overall approach of the game. Instead of simply adding and building on top of Civilization II (1996), Firaxis decided to go back to the roots of the original. "We loved the accessibility of that first game. It was so easy to start playing." Meier explains. "Right from the beginning, all this cool stuff started happening."

So this another reason to judge Civ3 as Civ1.8. I don't ask you wheather this is true or false as this depends on opinion.

Another piont Civ3 textfiles are open so that you can add easily new terrain improvements, wonders, governments, units, city buildings, technologies, civs, goods, terrains, concepts, orders, AI strategies, AI personalities like in CTP.

True or False, Dan?

Can you mod Civ3 as you can mod CTP2.

Another statement. Civ3 contains a makro programming language that allows modders to implement new features, like a city capture option that allows the human player to wipe out a just conquered city. I guess this sound familiar. But there is a lot more possible: We saw an unit updater, an prisionars of war mod, wonder units, code that adds refugies to the game militia units just to give you some examples in CTP2. Civ3 contains something like slic.

True or False, Dan?

Actually I have the feeling that you just read the short quote from my post and not the earlier post here.

So you read my post entirely, Dan.

True or False, Dan?

Yes I know it is hard to convince me that Civ3 is a great game. But is very interesting that Firaxis does not own the Civ licence. The part of the article that I quoted above gave me the hint.

So Dan I can ask again: Firaxis owns the Civ licience.

True or False?

From your post you used an all quantor to judge my statements. And that can be easily fasified. Actual you just said that I am wrong, but not where and why of course you know a lot more things about Civ3 better than I. But I expect an explaination, to jugde your statement for a contratiction. So I must conclude that you did not contradict me.

-Martin