About to throw in the towel

bobbyd1947 · February 9, 2002, 18:06

Well, I hate to be the lone dissenter, but Civ 3 has been a big disappointment so far. The medium map just seems to be too small...on the supposedly easy Warlord level I just can't get enough cities established soon enough without being crowded and having to resort to warfare. Sorry, but if I wanted a war game I would have chosen Duke Nukem or some other adolescent fare. I'm only interested in scientific and cultural victories. I've had some success on the larger map, but the game runs excruciatingly slow....and don't tell me I need a faster computer...I've got a 600 Mhz iMac with 128 Megs of RAM and any game that requires more than that shouldn't be on the market. Is this just a Mac bug, or are others experiencing the same problems?

Todd Hawks · February 10, 2002, 03:10

Lone dissenter? LOL
Take a look at the General Forum.

Duke Nukem... wargame?????

About the speed problem: I dont have a Mac so I cannot comment an this but there are speed problems for some PC people as well.
What exactly is slow? Scrolling, AI computing,...?

Harovan · February 10, 2002, 10:56

I think you should not look up the General forum, but rather the Strategy forum. There are some good threads on how to play this game.

My recommendation:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=37122

DaXX · February 10, 2002, 12:04

if civIII is your first sid meiers game you will probably find it challenging... i started playing the civ series geez about 7 years ago? i dunno but right after the first civilization game came out. i was pretty young and had nothing else better to do so i played many many hours a day... along with other civ games, that gives me a whole lot of experience coming into CIV3... and i found civ3 challenging for months until i've gotten a hold of it...

my point.... this isn't Quake or DOOM it's a different class of game.... i would to a point term it to be a 'highbrow' game whereas the others are more of a lowbrow sort....

stick with CIV3 you will get a hold of it, or perhaps it just wasn't meant to be. i hear counterstrike is a good one, you may want to look it up

H Tower · February 10, 2002, 18:10

Quote:

Originally posted by bobbyd1947
Well, I hate to be the lone dissenter

are you smoking something?

marc420 · February 11, 2002, 22:35

I've already tossed the towel on this one. I just came back to see if there was any word on when the next patch might be out so I might try this turkey again. I'll give these bozos one last try with another patch.... assuming they are working on another patch, which they don't actually seem to be saying.

I've played Sid games since I discovered Civ 1. The game play might be ok on this one, but its hard to tell because the stupid game keeps crashing my computer. The only software I've loaded that can crash the whole XP operating system. BARRRRF! Not to mention I still can't believe they stripped multiplayer out of this release, so I can't try out the game system against anything but the Artificial Stupid.

I'm about to uninstall the whole turkey and go back to playing SMAC. Funny how it was written years before XP, but it runs fine. But the software that was written during the time when MS was releasing Beta versions of XP and info on XP crashes the whole operating system.

IF YOU HAVEN'T GIVEN FIRAXIS YOUR MONEY YET.....DON'T BUY THIS GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At least make them fix the turkey from its 'rush-it-out-the-door-to-snare-the-xmas-suckers' state its in now.

bobbyd1947 · February 12, 2002, 22:26

No, this isn't my first Civ game. I was pretty good at Civ2, and could win a science victory almost every time at the Emperor level. The problem isn't with my strategy; the problem is Civ3's sluggishness on the larger maps. I keep getting these "please wait" messages while the computer players make their moves, and it takes longer and longer the more units they build. There are plenty of other irritants too; when a city is in civil disorder, the message is so tiny it's easy to overlook it until the rioters destroy a temple; unless I fill in the queue the city starts building units I don't want or need; and most aggravating of all, I get no warning before other other civs build Wonders and no way to speed them up. It's easy for even the best player to waste dozens of shields.

As much as I hate to admit it, this games is shaping up as the biggest disappointment since Sim City 3000.

Quote:

Originally posted by DaXX
if civIII is your first sid meiers game you will probably find it challenging... i started playing the civ series geez about 7 years ago? i dunno but right after the first civilization game came out. i was pretty young and had nothing else better to do so i played many many hours a day... along with other civ games, that gives me a whole lot of experience coming into CIV3... and i found civ3 challenging for months until i've gotten a hold of it...

my point.... this isn't Quake or DOOM it's a different class of game.... i would to a point term it to be a 'highbrow' game whereas the others are more of a lowbrow sort....

stick with CIV3 you will get a hold of it, or perhaps it just wasn't meant to be. i hear counterstrike is a good one, you may want to look it up

Brianciv · March 2, 2002, 13:00

why is there no documentation on that the end of the game is 2050? After several games I get the message that the game terminates in 2050 and I have just got to the modern age and starting to progress. Consistently the other civilizations overtake mine, which I realize is my lack of skill to develop quickly and smartly, but for a beginner to get the feel and satisfaction from the game why is this limit of 2050 not moveable!

Brian

Todd Hawks · March 2, 2002, 16:06

You can continue to play after 2050 if you don't care about your score.

Or try Gramphos savegame editor... it supposedly can change the date of a savegame.

godinex · March 8, 2002, 11:25

I Have a G4 with 256 memory and a Atlhon 1.4 GHZ with 512RAM with a 64M video card and in the Giga and Huge Maps still Kaput (

)

Jaxu · March 8, 2002, 17:18

Quote:

Originally posted by bobbyd1947
There are plenty of other irritants too; when a city is in civil disorder, the message is so tiny it's easy to overlook it until the rioters destroy a temple; unless I fill in the queue the city starts building units I don't want or need; and most aggravating of all, I get no warning before other other civs build Wonders...

Those problems can be fixed in the options menu. I think that wonder thing requires embassies.

Encomium · March 8, 2002, 21:14

Quote:

Originally posted by bobbyd1947
Well, I hate to be the lone dissenter, but Civ 3 has been a big disappointment so far. . .

My friend, you are just one of legions of dissenters. The game has been ripped on the Aployton boards for months. You must be new here?

Qilue · March 12, 2002, 19:41

I'm running a p2-400 and I only like playing on huge maps. In late game, I click 'End turn' and go make a cup of tea, fold clothes, take garbage out, or any number of other activities while the turn is being processed. Most games usually take about a week.

Interestingly, the general level of tidiness where I live depends on whether it's early or late game.

Tuberski · March 12, 2002, 22:34

Quote:

Originally posted by Qilue
I'm running a p2-400 and I only like playing on huge maps. In late game, I click 'End turn' and go make a cup of tea, fold clothes, take garbage out, or any number of other activities while the turn is being processed. Most games usually take about a week.

Interestingly, the general level of tidiness where I live depends on whether it's early or late game.

Hear!Hear!

I can agree with that

SpencerH · March 14, 2002, 14:27

Quote:

I've got a 600 Mhz iMac with 128 Megs of RAM and any game that requires more than that shouldn't be on the market.

I dont play games on Macs anymore but I do use them as well as PC's at work (so you can judge the value of these comments for yourself). Your clock speed is good but you dont have a lot of RAM particularly when your system could be eating up a whole bunch. I'm not familiar with OS X but if its like earlier versions it'll be eating up well over 20 Mb of that RAM. You didnt mention which OS you're using, but if you're familiar with the extensions manager in the control panels you could try turning off most of the crap that most Mac users have running in there (last time I looked you could get descriptions of what it each one does on the apple site before you turn them off). Another thing that may be slowing you down is the "less than stellar" graphics cards that inhabit many Macs.

As for the strategy problems, keep playing. If this is your first of these games (CIV, CIV2, SMAC/SMACX) its worth the effort.