I guess I'm in a foul mood. The second patch was installed on friday, caused a crash on saturday. I play a heavily modified game that works fine w/o any patches (both have caused probs). What is the deal about mods and patches again?
Foul mood that I'm in, I noticed that the next patch that will probably cause the program to crash will fix the "can't sink a ship w/ a plane" idiocy. Just thinking about that started irritating me. For generally such a great game it sure feels like I'm playing a beta test version, or something programed by the fine folks at Microsoft that bring us windows.
Anyway, the more I play this game, the more lamebrained garbage keeps popping up. How is it possible that they tested this thing? I swear, sometimes it seems like not at all, or worse, testing was done, problems noted, and shoddy product knowingly released.
I read some comments about spearmen killing tanks. Never seen it yet, though can imagine it would be irritating. You gotta rationalize things like that, though. I mean what does a spearman unit in the modern age represent anyway, a bunch of spear toting primitives, or a small, poorly organized second line group of AK-47 toting thugs? At least thats how I see it. What I find more irritating is that the AI seems to cheat more at higher levels instead of play a better game. How many times have I run a thorough spy sweep, found nothing, attacked, then been faced with 30 - 40 primo attack units the next, issueing out of one of his frontline cities? How many games have I been forced to hard charge toward the Great Library because apparantly the AI loves tech trading fairly with itself, but not me?
Yeah, I know, whine whine, boo hoo. But am I the only one here noticing these things? What about the inability of the AI to form coalitions? This bugs me far more than the spearman vs. tank thing. You know, that part of the game where ally 1 declares war on ally 2, who is at war with enemy one, who allies with ally 1, and so on, ad nauseum. Sure its a game, but its supposed to be simulation something, and what, I don't know. I know my history pretty well, and despite some pretty cutthroat periods in early modern Europe, what precedent is there, for large, major powers behaving like this? None, above the level of petty feudal squabbles, and even most of those had more logic than the chaotic, irrational world dogfight cage matches that one witnesses in Civ III. It seems they could have taken a few clues from the nearly flawless and much quicker diplomatic situation of SMAC. At least there you could win a cooperative victory, ask someone to "call off your vendetta against my friend", and do so much quicker. And don't even get me started on that pathetic excuse for a "scenario editor".
I know, stop flaming, but jeez! A few more months of evaluation and playtesting might have made what is, I admit, a remarkable game, a true masterpiece instead of the cobbled together-promising-yet-dissapointing-product-of-lazy-genius that it is.