Zylka’s 95 theses on why Civilization 3 is an utter disappointment.

[Ming]

Originally posted by nato
It looks like he is contemplating about whether to ban the guy or not! Although I guess the old one looked like he was in the act of banning the guy...

Needless to say, the operative word in both is "ban"...

Can you guys PLEASE stay on topic... is that so hard!

[Ethelred]

Actually it is hard if the originator of the thread doesn't want to debate. So with nothing left to discuss of import we choose to pick on your avataar. Well I do anyway. Max is better.



Token item on Civ III courtesy of Ming's desire for on topic remarks.

Civ III needs avatars. I like France the civ and hate France the nation run by a teenage tart without the sense to undertstand that dead is forever.

I am so disappointed by the blatent indication that Civ III was rushed for Christmas that I will stop playing Civ III if my unreasonable demands are not met by sunrise.

[Zylka]

I'm currently writing you a response.

[Barchan]

Originally posted by Ethelred


I can't figure out if thats the original or the one from Flesh Gordon. The effects were better in the parody but no Ming is better than Max Von Sydow.'s.

Citing Flesh Gordon! Brilliant!!!

[Barchan]

Originally posted by Ethelred
The tanks may have been slowed down infantry. I am no expert on WWII but I am under the impression that German infantry wasn't in the habbit of climbing on the tanks like you see in films of US troops in WWII. And even that was when the tanks weren't in combat.

Well, they were, but not until after 1942/43. The Russians were the pioneers of "riding" as it was (uncreatively, IMHO) termed. Basically, infantry units would pile onto tanks and hitch a ride to the front and dismount once combat started. The Germans picked up the practice from the Russians.

Originally posted by Ethelred
The German Army wasn't as mechanized as the US was either. Still used horses for a lot of transport. Makes it hard to go fast for days on end or you would outrun the supplies.

True. The Germans did have some pretty nifty armored personnel carriers, but they were few and far between. The bulk of the German army traveled on foot, with horses doing the heavy pulling.

As an aside, I was reading the autobiography of a WWII Luftwaffe pilot. After the blitzkrieg through France, many farms were abandoned and the cows were left to wander the countryside, untended and unmilked. Cows cannot, obviously, milk themselves, and if they aren't milked their udders will swell, back up, begin to infect and the cows will die. Well, to alleviate this problem, the Germans flew in a Wehrmacht Milking Companie. No kidding, an entire company whose primary duty and skill was to milk cows. In many respects, for the Germans at least, WWII was no more advanced than the middle ages. Although their logistics were pretty much the same (march on foot and bring your cows for milk and food), they did manage to upgrade at least some of their pikemen to mechanized infantry.

[Ethelred]

I saw Flesh Gordon in the theater. It was that long ago. Several people from the special effects group went on to work at Industrial Light and Magic.

Token Civ III remark.

Civ III needs to have a Flesh Gordon Mod and the graphics are much too difficult for lazy people like me to deal with. I want obscene aircraft at my disposal. I need the 'Your Obsceneness' title to be implemented. I want to use Raping Robots to grind my enemies into sausage. I want the UU of the Power Pasties so I may run roughshod and barechested over my wimpering opponents.

They can leave out the One Eyed Candy Samples unit. I often eat while playing. Other units that would be in the game unfortunatly can not be discussed in a forum open to impressionable adolescents.

Considering what I just wrote, I also wish to point out that I did not complain about Zylka's avataar. I only questioned his alleged location vs. A. C. Cooper's former moniker.

[Zylka]

1 – Firaxis is responsible for not hiring enough people to get a quality product out for the deadline. It’s called running a business.This point is also a suitable intro summation for the disappointment. Did you not learn of that essay essential in high school?

2 - THERE WEREN’T MANY BUGS? Please repeat that again, everyone around here would love that kind of logic. HAHAHAHAHA Really man, you just said there weren’t many bugs, talk about brazenly defending the guilty. You’re either a slim minority who was happy with how bug riddled this game is, or you purchased the game no longer ago than your date joined at apolyton

3 - If you have no interest in multiplayer , you are a tiny minority who has trouble beating the ai

4 - I’m glad you agree for the most part. Sadly, you had to stretch some sort of disagreement out for arguments sake. A weak one, at that – People wanted scenarios, it was a step back from civ2. Stop arguing points from minority view, they are not valid

5 - They didn’t even include maps comparable to civ2. They put together some 20 minute projects (I’m serious, 20 minutes at the most) reminiscent of finishing a piece of crap term paper the hour before it’s due. Wake up, and stop supporting mediocrity repeatedly

6 - No, it’s an entirely new issue. I can see you accuse me of filler any time you have no defense. Classy

7 - Firaxis needs to learn how to apply windows dimensions universally. There has been a lot of heat over this, Mr. Minority. Where did I call anyone an idiot in this thread? Please direct me to evidence of this charge

8 - A case of lackluster effort after the product is sold, in the form of not hiring enough employees to finish quality patches quickly. This is a severe case of penny pinching, equally classy

9 - QUIT PLAYING ON HUGE MAPS? Why the hell do I need to stop playing a certain facet of the game because it doesn’t work properly?! I see you’ll say anything to defend the game, at this point it’s getting quite comical

10 - It is not a hyperbole, I’m a graphics artist, as is Sn00py, and we both agree the water is a sickly jade. Water is not jade in real life. Take a look at a picture of the ocean, or the real thing, if possible. Mountains are rarely brown red. I’m not saying they are not red, I’m saying they aren’t always red. Mountains in civ2 are always red. Talk about selective reading on your behalf. This is a matter of taste which falls solidly on my side, majority wise.

11 – As do you. It’s nice to see that if myself and so many others don’t like it, we can’t complain about it. I’m not trying to voice your opinions and tastes in this thread, remember? These are my thoughts, champ (again, as well as a huge portion of the other players). Universal taste is not an issue here. I must commend you on what a nice strawman you’ve built

12 – I don’t like it, as well as many others. We’re voicing our opinions, not claiming to voice yours. See a reoccurring theme, yet?

13 – Good on you for agreeing . Yes, it’s not a game killer, but when it and so many others add up, it’s a collective game killer.

14 – There is cleavage. Can someone post a screenshot of the early Joan for the nice man who hasn’t played the game?

15 – Taste. I’m not voicing your opinions. This seems a redundant response, tell me when you understand the concept. You think the trash cans are funny? I see, you were looking for a cheap comedy TBS

16 – Taste. It makes it look like command and conquer, hence the complaint. That was too easy to understand… I’m beginning to question your interpretation, my man. Oh wait, I see you “sort of kind of agree” now. Make up your mind, and stop stretching disagreement for the sake of argument

17 – You thought my old avatar was tacky? Do you like boys? Big difference between tacky and sexy, even bigger difference between a serious strategy game and a forum.

18 – What, I’m padding this by pointing out that they spent time on big selling screen shots rather than on gameplay itself? Perhaps you were one of the lemmings who bought the game “cuz the 3d grafix screenshots looked kewl”

19 – Yes, I just complained about the nukes. Short memory? I don’t have to make up my mind and choose between two animation shortcomings

20 – Yet another “taste’ argument which holds no merit whatsoever. You seem to be doing just fine padding a response

21 – Thank you. Sn00py is fixing this, hopefully we’ll both be happy on this point

22 – You can deal with too many in game failures. I have no patience for mediocrity. Again, seems like an issue of “taste” that you can pound out

23 – You like city reversions? It’s official, you’re in the hard minority group for this one

24 – If the AI gets a bonus, it is cheating

25 – The AI does it repeatedly. The AI is not based on the travels of Hannibal for every single game. Nice
example

26 – Oh, here I see actual insults, even though you’ve advertised yourself to be better than that. Good job mirroring my lunch break comment, you seem to do that often for lack of your own ideas. I am an example of what smart people want, I am an example of the many disappointed civ2 veterans. I really can’t wait to slaughter you in mp so you can move on to the next flavor of the month in miserable defeat. We’ll arrange that when it comes out, ok kiddo?

27 – Thanks, but I really don’t see why we should be expected to not play the large map. On a comical note, she looks exactly like my cousin… I hope I don’t act on flashback of irritation when I see her this summer

28 – I go two turns almost always, often the same turn the war is declared, as do so many others (do some research, read some threads – Oh wait, you’ve only been around these forums for a few weeks!). In addition, do you always mix up hyperbole with truth this often?

29 – I guess I can agree with that one. You’ve brought me down to 64 theses

30 – It could have been dealt with thousands of ways to a better outcome, but wasn’t. I’ll show you what I mean by these exploits when I’m kicking your carcass in an mp game

31 - I expect bombers to be able to destroy ships, and ships to have slight AA abilities in response. Note that I don’t want aa abilities which would completely counter any improved bomber abilities, it’s called fine tuning. This is not contradiction, this is pushing for reality. Mix those up, too?

32 – Strategically inept? Those who are inept want inequalities in resources to exploit, and this is easy to achieve with the pushover AI. Again, you’ll learn this in mp when it’s time to go up against the all mighty human mind

33 – The AI consistently builds obsolete units, and it makes the game a lame experience. That’s taste I guess. You prefer completely unrealistic modern warfare?

I’m glad you went to such lengths in responding, I should not have skipped over it in the first place. Sorry for the hostile tone, but I responded according to yours. I’ll finish the other half of my response tommorrow.

Zylka the benevolent

[notyoueither]

Whoever demanded it isn't popular.

Signed

A catholic

[Ethelred]

I may take this a bit at a time. Its easier to say tisn't than to deal with the details.

One overall point. That utter disapoint header. There is a great difference between somewhat disapointed and utterly disappointed. You actually seem to playing the game so either you are into self-flaggelation or you engaged in hyperbole. Based on your post I think its clear that you overstated that.

Now for the first part.

1 - I didn't take business classes in High School. I took science courses. Looks like you didn't take Game publishing 101.

Then again I was last in high school in 1969. Perhaps my memory is degenerating.

Infogrammes and Firaxis had a contract. The usual way in the games industry is that the publisher gives an advance and requires the developer to hit certain targets. When Brian Reynolds quit and took much of the team with him he not only set the game back an amount equal to the time his team had spent on it he also wrecked the budget. No one has said that Infogrammes made any allowances for this. They may have made some but they sure didn't change the deadline.

No amount of hiring could make up for that. Hiring twice as many people won't get the job done in half the time. It also makes coordination and consistency of style exceedingly difficult.

2 - There weren't many bugs. There I told the truth again.

I purchased the game the day it was released in the US. I started my first game the next day. I have occasionally been lurking on Apolyton since I discovered it and I think that was BEFORE Sid split off from Microprose. Well before Civ III was started anyway.

I didn't say there were no bugs. I said there weren't a lot. In particular there were few bugs the made the game impossible to complete. Your inablility to make it work with your "fancy machine" is no indication that all others have had the same problem.

Post your system specs. I may be able to help. I have managed to help one person anyway. He was using a ATI Rage chip and only thought he had the latest drivers. If its a portable though I doubt that I can help.

I suspect you are including design decisions that you do not approve of with the real bugs. It certainly has been popular on this site to do that.

3 - I am playing as a builder on Emperor so it is clear I am not having trouble with the AI. I am not interested in MP games that take weeks to play. I like it as an exploration and development game. I may be in the minority on this but I think I may indeed be in the majority. Not the majority of those here perhaps but of the actual buyers of the game. Which by the way leaves Yin out of the group I am talking about. I am glad he has found a different game that he is happy with.

By the way that sneer counts as a personal insult. Don't pretend that you didn't make any. I don't have a real problem with it especially since it is so obviously false but I just wanted to make it clear that you did indeed use insults.

4 - I will argue my position from any point I feel like. What I said was valid and you can not make it go away by guessing what the majority view is. You would have to run a random poll of Civ III purchasers to establish that my view is the minority. Till then don't make claims you can't support.

The problem with scenarios that the game can easily cease to be what I want. An exploration game. I only played Civ II on the world maps once for the small and once for the large. After that I wanted an unkown world to explore. I did not pretend that I was speaking for everyone. I will leave that sort of megalomania to you.

5 - No they didn't make maps of the quantity and quality of Civ II but I didn't claim they did. I took issue with your bogus claim of twenty minutes. You are seriously wrong on the time. How long did Marla spend on her map? How many hours? How many days? Fitting a low tile count map to the real world takes time. You can't just sit down and start hitting keys at random and the first try isn't going to work unless you are exceeding lucky.

Notice how large Marla had to go and its still an approximation and she even changed things for gameplay issues. A smaller map means more comprimises must be made and it takes time to decide what comprimises to make.

Wake up and lay off the hyperbole.

Unless its funny. Funny is good.

6 - It was covered under your scenario complaint. Scenarios require a better editor. You were padding.

I am not defending anything. I am critisizing your post point by point. I gather that constructive criticism is not something you are used to.

7 - Games normally take over the machine. Civ has always done that. It would be nice if they used more windows conventions but the fact is running a graphic game in a window slows it down. I do wish the had at least used the standard file interface but they are thinking like DOS programmers.

Nevertheless your specific complaint about Alt- Tab is not clumsy for me or many others. It doesn't crash the game either for anyone with their PC set up properly. I think you don't have a fancy system, I think you have a buggy one. Update your drivers or replace your memory.

Bad memory was crashing my system while playing Civ III for a while. It was crashing a lot of things. Got rid of the one old slow DIMM and have been up without a crash in Civ since.

Someone has allready pointed to your use of inflamatory words.

In number seven I said "newbie" not 'idiot' so stick with what I said instead of inventing.

It has become painfully apparent that, in frustration, the bulk of the logical critics of Civ 3 have left these newbie-infested forums unscathed for quite some time.

However you also

I don’t think the common idiot can decipher them as mountains, yet.

Implying that those that like it the way it is must be idiots.

little more radical/explosive oriented exciting for the market’s idiots.

Same thing.

8 - See point one. People have budgets and new hires take time to get up to speed. Especialy in something as specialized as game programming. Its not like programming yet another database.

9 - You are the one complaining about the speed. The game is working properly. Huge maps make things take MUCH longer. That is a fact of programming. Some algorithims have exponential increases in time and there is nothing that can be done except to throw a faster machine at the problem.

Yes your insistance on flogging your "fancy machine" with things that are beyond it is comical.

Again I am not defending the game here. I am tearing into your poorly constructed and much padded rant.

10 - It is hyberbole. You can call it jade if you want but it isn't. I do photo printing for a living. I have to tell small increments of color apart. Its not a sickly jade. Jade by the way comes in many colors blue included and I note the Chinese like the way jade looks like sea foam.

I don't need to look at a picture of the ocean. I live in Southern California and I used to sail. The ocean color is a dark greenish color near shore where there is a lot of life. Dark grey - blue where the water is deep. Bluish Cyan in the tropics where there is little life in the water.

It does seem to have a tad too much yellow in it though. I would print it with a minus one or two yellow. Thats ten or twenty percent depending on the machine.

In any case its hardly something to call utterly disapointing. They only had three water types to deal with the color had to be a compromize of some type.

Same for the mountains. They have to limit the number of tile types to something reasonable.

Again you speak for a majority without cause. You seem to think a majority consists of you and two others. And the other two don't count if they disagree with you.


End Part One

[Ethelred]

Part Two

11 - I didn't say your couldn't complain about it. I said your oppinion wasn't universal despite your efforts to paint it as such.

Speaking of strawmen, how is yours coming along?

I prefer Whicker Men myself. They burn longer.

12 - I see that you are beginning to get the point. The game is not an utter disapointment on your say so.

I note that this time around you are useing modifiers and limiters that weren't there in the original. My post was directed at you alone and at no one else. Your rant purpoted to speak for all. Its good that you are starting to make a few hedges.

13 - I am playing the game. Its not a game killer for me. If you are playing it didn't kill it for you either. I am sure it limits it though for many.

This one is a problem inherent in advancing game technology. Advanced graphics even of this limited an advancement makes things harder to change. This effect may have impinged upon Firaxis efforts regarding scenarios.

I think we may have covered 13 to death.

14 - Oh well at least this give me a reason to clear out my save game file again.

I don't call that cleavage. I don't call your former avatar voluptous either so maybe this is attributable to my preference for Sophia Loren types. Joan needs some support to get real cleavage there.

Men have that much cleavage. Well I did when I used to move furniture and I weighed 160 pounds. 18 pounds ago. Biggest pecs I ever had.

You can call that cleavage if you want. I won't.

Right now I have three instances of IE one of Outlook Express and explorer and the Civ III setup screen open. I guess XP is a lot better at handling that sort of abuse than then ME was.

Woulda crashed thought before I took out that 128 megs of ram two weeks ago.

15 - I am so glad you are beginning to discern that you aren't the arbiter of taste. Do keep working on that.

16 - I am covering ALL the points. Didn't want to leave any out. The point on this was you claimed UTTER DISAPOINTMENT.

17 - Another personal insult. Well I don't feel guilty then.

You old avatar isn't my type. My stated preference for Sophia should make that clear.

I think the loser screens are funny. I haven't seen them that often though. Maybe they are beginning to wear on you. Mostly I see the winner screens.


18 - Copy paste

Another personal insult. Well I don't feel guilty then.

More shots? There is only the intro and some stills. Once the models are done there isn't that much to extracting a still.

I suspect that opening screen was done early in the development. Could even be one of the few things left from Brian Reynolds. Before the panic button was pushed and time consuming cuts scenes got left out.

19 - You had a point about the the nukes but you are wrong about the ships. Animations should be exaggerated. Which is why the nukes could have used more work.

Battleships DO rock when firing a broadside. Even monsters like the Missouri much less light battleships like the Hood.

I wonder what the Yamato would have looked like with its 18 inch shells.

20 - The lack of merit was in YOUR taste arguement. I only pointed out what kind of arguement you were padding with.

I however was not padding my arguement. Try counting. 66 points by you mean 66 points to be covered one by one. No matter whether I agree or not. If it looks like padding when I reply it must have looked like padding when you made 66 of them.

21 - I think that one is covered enough.

22 - I wasn't dealing with a game failure. I am dealing with corruption and it isn't a failure. It does what is supposed to do.

I simply said it would be nice to have more ways to counteract it. Perhaps its your tactics that are the failure.

23 - If its official perhaps you can point me to the randomized poll of all Civ III players or purchasers. Till then its a bald unsupported assertion. I like it when cities flip to me. I make sure far more cities flip to me than go the other way.

Reversions are inherent in haveing cities flip to you. I take it then you want it too only go one way.

Bandwagon tactics won't get you anywhere. You don't actually have bandwagon or the polls to support the wagon. I don't follow the crowd like you seem to want me too. I do notice that you don't actually HAVE a crowd anyway.

24 - If the AI gets a bonus it gets a bonus. If the AI plays by different rules then THAT is cheating. Its called handicapping. No one has called handicapping cheating. Except for people that complain about computer games they can't beat.

Its a handicap which is not a cheat. I note that NO ONE has said the player is cheating on Chieftain or Warlord which makes it very clear this is mere griping and not that cheating is not involved.

Handicapping is normal in computer games. Some games have cheating as well. Civ III has handicaps.

25 - I think I made my point adequately. You were unable to show why anyone should expect the AI to be the Belisarious of computer games.

Hannibal just came out. I hadn't planned on that. If I had picked Belisarious or Alexander then I wouldn't have thought of that.

It would be nice if the AI was smarter. I am afraid the complaints would go up though and not down. A lot of the complaints come from people that thought they could win their first game on because they won Civ II on deity by REXing the AI.

The only way anyone has figured out how to handle REX is to counter REX and it won't be any different in MP.

26 - The heck I claimed to be above insults. I have made it clear I am good at flaming.

I just claim to be able to do it without actualy calling someone an idiot. I imply it.Though that wasn't very good flame I was working with what you said. Its hard to do a really good flame job without a witty or idiotic opponent. Sometimes I can manage it anyway but I think I would get banned real fast if I worked at here.

Witty is better by the way than idiotic. I have to do all the work with idiots. Its the guys in the middle that are hard to flame.

No I won't be playing you in MP. I thought I made it clear I don't want to play MP games that take weeks to finish. Sorry.

I will say I have only won one single game of Civilization the board game. But I had a major handicap. My brother played every game that I did and he has only lost once or twice. He stopped playing tournaments after he won six out of seven.

I don't play a warmonger game. So I would likely not do well in multiplayer except perhaps by diplomacy. Not talking about the UN. That thing is NEVER going to work in multiplayer.

Even if you could manage to win in MP it wouldn't change a word of this debate.

27 - I don't expect you to not play on a large map. I am suggesting that you would have a lot more fun if you stopped trying to play the game on large maps. Some people just aren't willing to change things for the better.

Perhaps your cousin should change her hairstyle. Maybe if you can get her to play the game with the Domestic Irritant enabled.

The Science Advisor needs some hair work in the modern age as well. He should avoid Burt Reynolds wigmaker though. Maybe Sean Connery's would help.

28 - Still mistaking my starting date for posting for my experience.

Like I said I have played Civ since it was a board game. Even tried the first computer version for a bit. Incanabula was the name. Stunk. Buggy, really buggy. Besided if you don't like the colors in this one you should have seen it in CGA six colors and only black and white weren't badly chosen. How IBM mangaged to just four colors ALL wrong I don't know. But they did it again with EGA and got 14 of the 16 to be the worst possible colors they could manage. They still had black and white OK.

If you get war weariness in two turns you have been in a lot of wars. Try kicking the blood spilling habit. Build a few improvements. Of course the game will take more turns but the turns will be shorter without moveing hundreds of units this way and that. My worst is four turns except for when I get pulled back into war on the same turn. Then the War Weariness comes back immediatly, not suprisingly.

Do you mix up hyperbole with truth so often? I know the difference.

29 - Done

30 - Dream on. Isn't going to happen. I have better things to do than teach you about multiplayer games.

Allright I haven't played any computer MP games. Just board games.

31 - I didn't mix anything up. If you seperate things that should dealt with together to pad out your points you are likely to be inconsistent.

32 - If you have all the resources without working for them they are worthless as a game element. I stand by what I said.

I have won without Iron early in a game. Got it later. That was on Regent I think. Maybe it was one of my early Monarch games. Would be hard on Emperor.

With humans of course trading for resources would be easier. Not harder. You might have and advantage but others would be there to trade with. Perhaps you have played with too few opponents. Two and even three player games are OK for war games but for trading games its not enough.

33 - I don't see the AI consistently building obsolete units. I do see them do it after I have ripped up their roads and stopped their access to strategic materials. Most of the time what you are seeing or at least what I am seeing is OLD units they haven't upgraded. The AI needs a higher priority on upgrading units.

Sorry for the hostile tone, but I responded according to yours.

Guess what I was doing.

Sometimes I do get carried away but that wasn't one of them.


Ethelred

The Armourer, not the Unready.

Didn't think about that twit when I came up with this name many years ago. Created the character for a Diplomacy variant and I wanted it to go with another character called Eusebious.

[civman2000]

I believe Zylka is being awfully arrogant in saying all of his opinions are the majority. FOr one thing, do you play a game for the graphics? As long as they're not obstructive, do they have to be perfect? You can change them if you're not satisfied, but I am. Another thing: I personally think to cultural flips may be one of the best things added in civ3. I have seen nothing that proves that anywhere close to a majority disagrees. I'm not saying I disagree with everything Zylka's saying, but he's just assuming everyone else agrees with him on everything.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by Ethelred
...
2 - There weren't many bugs. There I told the truth again.
...

I didn't say there were no bugs. I said there weren't a lot. In particular there were few bugs the made the game impossible to complete. Your inablility to make it work with your "fancy machine" is no indication that all others have had the same problem.

...

It depends on the definition of bugs. If you refer to game crashes/fatal errors, then the game is rather (crashes do happen from time to time) bugfree.

If you refer to some misbalanced game concepts (esp. air & naval units, tech race), then the game is full of bugs.
Prove: the need for many more patches + the thread concerning bugs is one of the largest to date and new posts keep on being posted ...

Mind you, it's not my intention to intervene into your sometimes interesting, but definitely amusing dialogues ...

Waiting for your second parts !
(and Zylka's new avatar of course )

AJ

[Ethelred]

If you refer to game crashes/fatal errors, then the game is rather (crashes do happen from time to time) bugfree.

Well that is what a bug IS.

If you refer to some misbalanced game concepts (esp. air & naval units, tech race), then the game is full of bugs.

Those are what bugs AREN'T. They are design decisions. You may not like them but they weren't bugs.

The UN for instance is a broken concept but its not a bug.

The failure of fighters to execute the Air Superiority command was a bug although it didn't make the game unplayable.

Please note that the patch thread has enormous redundency. How many of the posts deal with the settler on a ship bug for instance? Much of what is on it isn't bugs but design issues and they too have great deal of redundant posts. Especially after the first week or so as people stopped reading the whole thread before they posted their brand new bug that no one had seen before.

I read every post in it. Some are mine. Most of mine are how to deal with the persons problem.

and Zylka's new avatar of course

And I thought I wasn't getting out enough.


I try to be amusing. Especially when I am being nasty.

Roger Rabbit

Eddie Valiant
You mean you could've taken your hand out of that cuff at any time?


Roger Rabbit
Not at any time, Eddie, only when it was funny.


Words to post by.

[Tarquelne]

Pt1

1 – Firaxis is responsible for not hiring enough people to get a quality product out for the deadline.

#1 was about packaging.
Zylka, meet Firaxis. Zylka, meet Infogrammes. No, that's Firaxis - Infogrammes is over _there._

2- Bugs
Compared to the average PC game, no, there weren't that many bugs.
Games are often pretty buggy untill after the first patches. If you have a problem with that you have a problem with the PC game industry, not just Firaxis.

3 - If you have no interest in multiplayer , you are a tiny minority who has trouble beating the ai

Either you've got some evidence for that - like a random-participant poll, or you're hearing voices, or you're just guessing. Which is it?

Stop arguing points from minority view, they are not valid

What an interesting thing to say.

5 - They didn’t even include maps comparable to civ2

Yeah, the maps aren't very good. Important if you want to toss the "Exploration" 1/4 of the 4x formula. Let me guess: The vast majority demands maps, right? The game sucks without 'em?

6 - No, it’s an entirely new issue. I can see you accuse me of filler any time you have no defense. Classy

Its a new issue, but the same response holds. The editor is good enough to mod the game, but can't make scenarios. If you don't care much about scenarios then it isn't a big deal.

Personally, I think a lot of Civ2 vets. time would be better spent actually learning to play Civ3, rather than trying to make Civ3 scenarios, or moaning about not being able to make them.

I know I wouldn't want to play, say, a WWII scenario made by someone who didn't understand how to combat war weariness.

7 - Firaxis needs to learn how to apply windows dimensions universally. There has been a lot of heat over this, Mr. Minority.

It works on my computer. Concept: Maybe it works for most people. And games do have bugs, remember? Guess how many patches Civ2 had.

Where did I call anyone an idiot in this thread? Please direct me to evidence of this charge

Ok, so maybe you never used the word "idiot." You _are_ an idiot if you really don't think you've been insulting.

8 - A case of lackluster effort after the product is sold, in the form of not hiring enough employees to finish quality patches quickly. This is a severe case of penny pinching, equally classy

Not enough patches so far, huh? How many PC games have you played before? One.... two?

9 - QUIT PLAYING ON HUGE MAPS? Why the hell do I need to stop playing a certain facet of the game because it doesn’t work properly?!

Well.... because it doesn't work properly, of course. I believe Fir. said Huge maps were included only for those with the patientce to put up with the wait. You may not have noticed this, but there are several other map sizes available (most bigger than Civ2 maps, IIRC). You can also define your own map size.

10 - It is not a hyperbole, I’m a graphics artist, as is Sn00py, and we both agree the water is a sickly jade.

Well, if the two of you agree it _must_ be true.

11 – As do you. It’s nice to see that if myself and so many others don’t like it, we can’t complain about it. I’m not trying to voice your opinions and tastes in this thread, remember? These are my thoughts, champ

Then be more cautious about the language you use....

(again, as well as a huge portion of the other players).

... and the claims you make.

12 – I don’t like it, as well as many others. We’re voicing our opinions, not claiming to voice yours. See a reoccurring theme, yet?

Ok, you don't like it. So maybe "Civ3 is an utter disappointment to me and several others, I think many, even the majority." would be a better title for the thread, eh?

Graphics:

I'm not going to argue taste with the foppish connisewer of warm peaches and ripe cherries.

23 – You like city reversions? It’s official, you’re in the hard minority group for this one

Carefull! Your making it sound like city reversions might actually be a matter of like/dislike, not bad design/good design.

Players seem to have a tendancy to not "like" rules that often work to thier disadvantage. I think thats more a problem with the players, not the rules.

But yeah, I think the city reversion stuff needs some work, along with a number of other features. How many patches did SMAC get, anyway?
Maybe "Civ3, on release, is utterly disappointing compared to the final versions of Civ2 and SMAC."?

[Tarquelne]

Pt2

24 – If the AI gets a bonus, it is cheating

It gets bonuses, but it doesn't break rules. I consider that cheating too. Some don't. So what? You're "utterly disappointed" in the game because you and the programmer miscommunicated?

25 – The AI does it repeatedly.

AIs are generally clueless. A good AI minimizes this. A great AI lacks it. A poor AI is very clueless. By those standards I think Civ3 has a good AI. SMAC definetly had a poor AI. I'd call Civ2's AI poor, too.

26 – Oh, here I see actual insults, even though you’ve advertised yourself to be better than that.

Better at insults, yeah. A reading comprehension problem, Z? Comprehension in general, maybe?

Good job mirroring my lunch break comment, you seem to do that often for lack of your own ideas. I am an example of what smart people want,

As am I, as is, I assume, E. So what?

I am an example of the many disappointed civ2 veterans.

I still think the single greatest failing of Civ3 in the eyes of most of you disattisfied veterens is that its so different from Civ2. Not worse, just different.

I really can’t wait to slaughter you in mp so you can move on to the next flavor of the month in miserable defeat. We’ll arrange that when it comes out, ok kiddo?

Trial by combat? What a good idea! That's _sure_ to show who's right.

28 – I go two turns almost always, often the same turn the war is declared, as do so many others (do some research, read some threads –

When I have enough Luxuries I can have long wars has a democracy. Frankly, I think that you, and "so many others", just don't know how to cope with war weariness. The problem isn't the rules, its that you don't know how to use them.

30 – It could have been dealt with thousands of ways to a better outcome, but wasn’t.

Tell us about two.

I’ll show you what I mean by these exploits when I’m kicking your carcass in an mp game

Maybe you should just say "I don't follow your argument, and I'm a poor communicator. I'll have to just demonstrate my ideas in a game." Hmm?

31 - I expect bombers to be able to destroy ships, and ships to have slight AA abilities in response.

Ok, that's what you expect. Now how about talking about what'd be best for gameplay.

32 – Strategically inept? Those who are inept want inequalities in resources to exploit, and this is easy to achieve with the pushover AI.

Ok, so some of the inept people actually agree - for the wrong reasons - with the "ept" people.

Inqualities in resources are one of the best things about the game. It'll kill interest in a particular map if your starting position is too favorable, but actually needing to adapt ones strategy to the particular situation created by a map's resource distribution is a very "ept" thing to do. Ept.

33 – The AI consistently builds obsolete units, and it makes the game a lame experience. That’s taste I guess.

No, thats not taste, having lots of obsolte units around is one of the AI's failings. (Though I don't know if it actually _builds_ obsolete units.) So? AI's aren't perfect. The AI, if you play on higher difficulty levels, has some advantages to make up for it's poor upgrading.

You prefer completely unrealistic modern warfare?

I guess you're not a wargamer, Z. The Civ games have always had horribly unrealistic warfare.

Sorry for the hostile tone, but I responded according to yours.

I agree with E. - you were hostile first. Maybe not directly to E. But some of us don't appreciate what we see to be unjustified insults, no matter who the target is.

[civman2000]

We’re voicing our opinions, not claiming to voice yours

"We"??? It sounds like although you may not be voicing ethelred's opinion, but you're voicing the opinions of others without any proof that "they" agree. You are the minority, according to the most recent poll, "Is Civ III good?"

[Zylka]

Well given the equally hostile and insulting tones, I think one thing is sure. No matter how far we go back and forth with sordid little bltching, I will not convince you of my stance, nor will you convince me of yours. I have my supporters, and you have yours.

We have both put our takes on 65 points of the game out on the table. No matter how much we sugar coat our opinions with patronizing quips, in the end, the argument on each point remains the same.

Is this agreed?

[Zylka]

Originally posted by civman2000


"We"??? It sounds like although you may not be voicing ethelred's opinion, but you're voicing the opinions of others without any proof that "they" agree. You are the minority, according to the most recent poll, "Is Civ III good?"

I have left a good amount of civ3 gamers out of the whole, guilty as charged. In my opinion, the ones I have left out (to the end of majority assumptions) are the ones who

1- Know nothing about civ1 or 2
2- Are not looking for a timeless game, as most of the vets are. They will be gone shortly.

So in conclusion, most of my population takes are of players who want to stick around the longest, especially in multiplayer. The whole argument relates to the fact that I don't believe this game is (at current rate) a timeless one.

Fair?

[civman2000]

I happen to have played civ2 for about 3 years before civ3 came out. I played civ1 a couple times too. If you look closely at every part of the game, there really weren't that many changes from civ1 to civ2 (hp and fp, better diplomacy, a few more units and wonders, a pretty crummy way of making scenarios (before CiC and FW)...anything else??), nor are there any less from civ2 to civ3 (culture is completely new, as are UUs and CSAs, trade, espionage, diplomacy all with major improvements...). I would also say (though I do not claim to have any proof) that a large majority of civ3 players have also been civ2 players...

[Tarquelne]

Originally posted by Zylka
Well given the equally hostile and insulting tones, I think one thing is sure.

I'd be perfectly willing to cut the hostility if you do. I'd be very suprised if E. doesn't feel the same way.

No matter how far we go back and forth with sordid little bltching, I will not convince you of my stance, nor will you convince me of yours.

I'm perfectly willing to have my mind changed if I see an argument I accept, and I am willing to entertain new arguments. (Look to the "Lack of strategic depth" thread for proof of that, or maybe the "Multiple Resources" thread. (I didn't exactly change my mind in either, but I significantly modified my position.)

(I'm also curious to see if you do have any good counterarguments, of course.)

I have my supporters, and you have yours.

?? I pay attention to what you write, not how many people agree or disagree.

No matter how much we sugar coat our opinions with patronizing quips, in the end, the argument on each point remains the same.

Is this agreed?

???? For me, argument is there to try to arrive at agreement, which is (hopefully) where the truth is found. I never liked the "Lets agree to disagree." thing (except in matters of taste.) If you continue to write things I strongly disagree with I (and others) will continue to attempt to point out the errors or present alternative positions. You can, of course, respond or not, as you see fit.

However, if you simply wish to "vent" your discontent please do say so. (This has come up before - sometimes people just want to air thier frustrations/dislikes.)

I think imagine we'd all be able to actually agree on many things if you start qualifying your statements and making your assumptions explicit.
For example:

"50 - colonies are useless."

"Useless" is a rather extreme term. You use it quite a bit. Colonies clearly _do_ have thier uses. Untill you tone it down to something like "not as usefull as they should be." or "useless too much of the time." it's much more difficult to have a constructive discussion. You're putting the entire burden of presenting _your argumetns_ in a reasonable manner on those who disagree with you. Not a good way to have a discussion.

and

"as most of the vets are" + "especially in multiplayer"

Goes a long way toward your (rather offensive, IMO) harping on the importance of being in the "majority" and discounting "minority" opinions.
That's an assumption lying behind many (most, all?) of your statements that - now that its in the open - can be used to appropriately modify the whole discussion: "Zylka's 95 thesis on why Civ3 is an utter disappointment to people who LOVED Civ2 multiplayer and scenarios."
Seen in that light, I imagine an number of your arguments are improved.

[Zylka]

Ok. Remember that a lot of my "assumptions" (ie. colonies are useless) are left simply as that because they have been hammered over and over by other unhappy gamers. Pretty much every single point in there could have a full page essay justifying it, but I leave it at point blank because those essays have already been written repeatedly.

Keep in mind that those points are a vast summation of what I have read from other civ3 critics, they did not pop out of thin air.

[Zylka]

Originally posted by civman2000


"We"??? It sounds like although you may not be voicing ethelred's opinion, but you're voicing the opinions of others without any proof that "they" agree. You are the minority, according to the most recent poll, "Is Civ III good?"

Am I looking at the same poll? 38% say it's a good game.

The remaining say it's either flawed, average, or a disgrace. A flawed, average, or disgracefull game is not a good one. Care to follow that up?

[Tarquelne]

Originally posted by Zylka
Ok. Remember that a lot of my "assumptions" (ie. colonies are useless) are left simply as that because they have been hammered over and over by other unhappy gamers.

Short version: I think that's pretty lame. I do not wish to give offense, here. (I've done that enough elsewhere.) But, given my background, given my POV, given the way I approach discourse, it's lame.


Long version:
First, "colonies are useless" better not really be an assumption, and not an extreme or poorly-qualified statement.

Second, I simply don't believe that "colonies are useless" has been "hammered over and over". USELESS is absurd. I've seen plenty of criticizsm of colonies.... heck, I've engaged in it. But "useless" isn't a position I've seen succesfully defended. If you really think it's defensible you should defend it. If you don't agree with it, why state it? Do you really want us to assume that most of the list is simply parrotted opinions?

Third, if you're not simply "venting" I think you should feel obligated to put up some defense for what you write, or at least explicitly say (as you just have done) that you're not interested in defending your statements, and bow out of the conversation. However, that statement really ought to be made early - not 2 threads and 8 pages after your origional post.

[Tarquelne]

Originally posted by Zylka


Am I looking at the same poll? 38% say it's a good game.

The remaining say it's either flawed, average, or a disgrace. A flawed, average, or disgracefull game is not a good one. Care to follow that up?

Polls where the participants vollunteer to vote are simply bogus. (Unless your target population is those who vollunteer to vote, of course.) Esp. web form polls. That should be obvious.

[Zylka]

You haven't complimented any of my in depth explanations, just picked on a few which I hadn't specified. Thanks for coming out, better luck next time.

[Zylka]

Originally posted by Tarquelne


Short version: I think that's pretty lame. I do not wish to give offense, here. (I've done that enough elsewhere.) But, given my background, given my POV, given the way I approach discourse, it's lame.


Long version:
First, "colonies are useless" better not really be an assumption, and not an extreme or poorly-qualified statement.

Second, I simply don't believe that "colonies are useless" has been "hammered over and over". USELESS is absurd. I've seen plenty of criticizsm of colonies.... heck, I've engaged in it. But "useless" isn't a position I've seen succesfully defended. If you really think it's defensible you should defend it. If you don't agree with it, why state it? Do you really want us to assume that most of the list is simply parrotted opinions?

Third, if you're not simply "venting" I think you should feel obligated to put up some defense for what you write, or at least explicitly say (as you just have done) that you're not interested in defending your statements, and bow out of the conversation. However, that statement really ought to be made early - not 2 threads and 8 pages after your origional post.

The thread topic is 2500 words, I got a little bored filling in every point after I first outlined them. You haven't looked at what I have gone in depth on, just a few of the headers which I couldn't bare to specify since they're so painfully obvious. What the f*ck else do you expect from me? That's it. I tried to offer truce, but I'm tired of patronizing worthless newbies such as yourself.

Have fun defending this mediocre game to the every end, and have even more fun playing the retarded ai. If you're willing to ever play multiplayer, I'll be more than happy to cave your head in like a melon.

Regards,
Zylka

[Zylka]

Originally posted by Tarquelne


Polls where the participants vollunteer to vote are simply bogus. (Unless your target population is those who vollunteer to vote, of course.) Esp. web form polls. That should be obvious.

I was responding to someone who argued that the polls offered support for this being a good game, not giving you an opportunity to come out of left field and nitpick.

[civman2000]

I never said I disagreed with you on everything. Colonies are definitely 99% useless (though not completely). And about the poll, tarqueline is right, but in any case only about 20% rate it a disgrace like you or average. The "could've been" option still counts as at least "good," and can be turned into "great" with a few more patches...

[Zylka]

Please do, I enjoy people screaming that one or two points weren't specified, and ignoring the other 2490 f*cking words.

[Zylka]

Originally posted by civman2000
I never said I disagreed with you on everything. Colonies are definitely 99% useless (though not completely). And about the poll, tarqueline is right, but in any case only about 20% rate it a disgrace like you or average. The "could've been" option still counts as at least "good," and can be turned into "great" with a few more patches...

"Could have been" suggests "could have been good, but it wasn't". Does it get any simpler?