April 8, 2002, 17:19
|
#31
|
Chieftain
Local Time: 22:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 44
|
Quote:
|
Give an option to "skip" having to watch automated workers every turn.
|
I'm confused. Don't you have one of those? Animate our moves or something like that?
Unconditional surrender? In essence get the production of low corruption cities without increasing your own corruption? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose?
Wonder movies -- well I guess it is a good thing they put effort into movies and animations, then, but personally, after a few games, I would just as soon turn off all that in exchange for faster gameplay. The wonder splashes and age change screens are a great plenty / too much for my tastes already.
I agree that the game plays well as it is, but there are several things that would reduce the tedium without interfering with actual gameplay. I don't like corruption or war weariness, and I see why they don't fix the problem, but I can't come up with anything that works better, either, so I won't complain about them...
My Patch-Level Wish List
1. As for "stack movement", I would be ecstatic if they would just allow groupings like they have in the Age of Empires series -- Ctrl (number) to assign a group, then just (number) to select all those units, then implement the functions group wake, group fortify and group move, where the group moves to the limit of the slowest moving unit.
2. Another "nice to have" would be Ctrl-U for upgrade all units of this type in this city, for when you have quite a few obsolete units in a particular border town that will be under attack in a turn or two, but not enough gold to upgrade all those units country-wide.
3. Wake multiple units from the Military Advisor screen, when you can see wherever it was you left outdated units.
4. Population / tile value change summary screen. If I could just get a list of all the cities that either changed pop, and thus may need to have their laborers tweaked, and those cities who had a tile improve (or decline), then visit those cities in order, rather than periodically going through every stinking town to see if it can be done better...
5. Numeric summary happy/content/unhappy. Counting faces is just irritating, and prone to error, particularly after 12 pop, so I end up having to leave the governor in control of mood.
6. Mark a worker as "Finish what you are doing, then ask for orders." (for automated workers, I mean)
7. Numeric entry of gold into science, in lieu of slider bar.
8. Individual city science appropriation -- Super Science City has all its money going into research, Pig's Knuckle, Arkansas has no science expenditure.
9. Workers shouldn't cost pop. I would much rather have the AI have a gazillion workers than a gazillion Legion. Why further encourage warfare over building?
10. Quick list of city upgrades in domestic advisor. Glance down a list of checkmarks and see which cities don't have a bank, glance across at their income, and decide whether to build one. (Hint: This could fit inl that space where you currently show all the happy/content/unhappy faces (see #5))
11. Capitol cost -- Seems to me the intent is to prevent one from continually moving his capitol to take advantage of culture flipping. Of course, mostly this is done with leaders, so the cost is kind of immaterial, no? If one thinks increasing the cost helps somehow, maybe just increase the cost each time it is built, don't base it on how many cities you have. This solution makes it really tough for someone who started in a bad location. If you relocate early, it is cheaper, but the number of shields expended messes you up for life.
That's a great plenty, since not many read this far anyway.
|
|
|
|
April 8, 2002, 17:48
|
#32
|
Chieftain
Local Time: 16:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: St Louis, MO
Posts: 31
|
Quote:
|
I'm confused. Don't you have one of those? Animate our moves or something like that?
|
Ya, there is an "Animate our automatic moves" (or something like that) check box. It just turns off the ANIMATION for auto-moves, but still shows the actual moves. The game still focuses the screen on the unit that is moving. I really don't care what my worker is up to, as long as he's up to something.
Quote:
|
1. As for "stack movement", I would be ecstatic if they would just allow groupings like they have in the Age of Empires series -- Ctrl (number) to assign a group, then just (number) to select all those units, then implement the functions group wake, group fortify and group move, where the group moves to the limit of the slowest moving unit.
|
Exactly what I was looking for also -- you explained it better than I did.
--twistedx
|
|
|
|
April 9, 2002, 10:16
|
#33
|
Prince
Local Time: 18:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Posts: 978
|
Quote:
|
Originally posted by PerpetualNewbie
6. Mark a worker as "Finish what you are doing, then ask for orders." (for automated workers, I mean)
|
Do you mean give us the ability to say, "Ok, Mr. Worker, build mines here, here, and here, then a road from here to there, the make it a railroad, then clean up pollution here, here, and here?"
That would be nice.
I've also found that stacks of 6 workers are good.
|
|
|
|
April 9, 2002, 11:26
|
#34
|
Prince
Local Time: 23:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Antwerp (the pearl of Flanders) Belgium
Posts: 444
|
Don't simplify, please ...
Quote:
|
Originally posted by Deornwulf
...
Corruption is only a challenge to those unable to creatively use the editor to eliminate it from the game. ...
So, what do you think?
|
I think that none of us should be obliged to dive in an editor and correct the settings ourselves. As you seem to imply that you use the editor to reduce corruption, you acknowledge there is a corruption issue.
Sure, I've gotten used to it. Sure I can beat the game.
But that doesn't mean that the extreme corruption for far distant cities (you can't produce anything more than 1 !!!!) is reasonable/attractive in terms of gameplay.
Imagine all players playing different sorts of mods, patches and edited games. None of us would be talking about the same product, none of us could compare results/strategies etc...
Apolyton would become a Labyrinth (even more than today ).
I stick to the official and original version, I'm 100% that the big majority of civ3 players (even here on Apolyton) act alike.
Besides, what are you going to do whenever you'd decide to participate in a (future?) MP, tournament, ...
Not being used to the official version will greatly diminish your chances.
Final conclusion: not the people playing the official version have a 'problem' , the ones playing edited versions have. And that's cool for me, as long as those people don't go making statements such as 'mostly newbies ***** about CORRUPTION'.
That's simply too simplified!
AJ
|
|
|
|
April 9, 2002, 11:32
|
#35
|
Prince
Local Time: 23:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Antwerp (the pearl of Flanders) Belgium
Posts: 444
|
Quote:
|
Originally posted by watorrey
What is the first thing newbies ***** about? CORRUPTION!!! They don't want to use the editor. Heck... alot of them don't even know there is an editor.
Other than the spearman vs tank debate, what was the single biggest complaint when the game came out? Corruption!!!
|
Thank you for your kindness, but I DO know there's an editor.
(then again, I'm not a newbie in messing up civ AI's )
My reasons for not using it I've explained above.
But be reasonable, if:
Quote:
|
Originally posted by watorrey
Other than the spearman vs tank debate, what was the single biggest complaint when the game came out? Corruption!!!
|
is true, than there IS an issue (at least to too many players), isn't there?
AJ
Last edited by AJ Corp. The FAIR; April 9, 2002 at 11:39.
|
|
|
|
April 10, 2002, 13:08
|
#36
|
Warlord
Local Time: 22:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: In a state of wonderment
Posts: 126
|
Corruption
AJ - Yes, corruption is a problem. The game is broken when taken out of the box. I was just implying that I have severely tweaked my game to make it more enjoyable for me. But what did you think of my other suggestions to allow for control of empire size beyond that of corruption?
__________________
"Our lives are frittered away by detail....simplify, simplify."
|
|
|
|
April 10, 2002, 14:33
|
#37
|
Warlord
Local Time: 22:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Sep 2001
Posts: 107
|
Re: Corruption
Quote:
|
Originally posted by Deornwulf
AJ - Yes, corruption is a problem. The game is broken when taken out of the box. I was just implying that I have severely tweaked my game to make it more enjoyable for me. But what did you think of my other suggestions to allow for control of empire size beyond that of corruption?
|
Actually I think that corruption was a good idea, it shows the real world limits to growth that prevent the runaway snowball effect ala CivII.
Since you cannot simply mass howitzer rush your way to global domination because corruption will cripple you, you have to find subtler and IMHO far more realistic ways to global domination.
For example, completely overrunning an enemy Civ, and then having a bunch of 95% corrupt cities is less efficient than beating the crap out of the Civ, making peace, taking everything they've got, and then giving them back some of their cities.
Why? Because the AI civ won't have the corruption problem, it will be able to rebuild and get more money and techs. Twenty turns later you beat on them again.
Say you have three dye resources. You have two neighbouring Civs without dye. If you overrun them, who are you going to sell that dye to? In the long run having them around to sell dye to is a better return than having a bunch of one shield cities.
This is a hell of a lot more subtle than "mass howitzers, overrun target, buy barracks, mass more howitzers".
Real world example; Germany after WWII. The Allies beat the crap out of it. They didn't occupy it indefinetly, they eventually freed the Germans and allowed them to have their own nation, and now they are an important trading partner.
I think that the corruption element was one of the better gameplay introductions.
Austin
|
|
|
|
April 10, 2002, 15:48
|
#38
|
Prince
Local Time: 23:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Antwerp (the pearl of Flanders) Belgium
Posts: 444
|
Quote:
|
Originally posted by Deornwulf
...
Corruption is only a challenge to those unable to creatively use the editor to eliminate it from the game. I think it is a poor way to control the size of player empires to make the AI more competitive. Here are what I think would be better ways to control those large empires --
1) Random events based on the number of cities controlled. Give each city a chance for a random event. The more cities, the more chances. I would tie some of these events to improvements, giving incentives to players to build them all.
2) Limitations on number of cities and city distance from capital based on government. This might require some social engineering options but would make the game more interesting. Smaller empires could be allowed production bonuses reflecting a more focused approach to labor and resources.
3) More Resources, Resource Management and Resource Transit Times - I don't think wood has to be a resource but perhaps cities next to forests should be allowed to build timber mills, etc. There should also be a production penalty for the distance a resource is away from the city producing a thing requiring that resource. It makes no sense to me that one source of iron lets me produce swordsmen in all of my cities. Resources should only provide enough for a specific number of cities, not all of them.
So, what do you think?
|
Deornwulf,
1) random events that reduce corruption? -Yes!
2) could work out fine, but ... : in civ3 the government choices and differences are very limited. Wonder if Firaxis has improving/expanding governments on its list (they should though ).
3) resource management: I'm a micromanager as well, please no more micromanagement.
You're right about the resources should only provide for a specific number of cities IMO. It's more logical that cities with nearby resources have certain/eg these production bonuses instead of all cities.
Good idea, creates more strategic cities .
AJ
|
|
|
|
April 10, 2002, 16:12
|
#39
|
Prince
Local Time: 23:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Antwerp (the pearl of Flanders) Belgium
Posts: 444
|
Re: Re: Corruption
Quote:
|
Originally posted by Austin
Actually I think that corruption was a good idea, it shows the real world limits to growth that prevent the runaway snowball effect ala CivII.
Since you cannot simply mass howitzer rush your way to global domination because corruption will cripple you, you have to find subtler and IMHO far more realistic ways to global domination.
For example, completely overrunning an enemy Civ, and then having a bunch of 95% corrupt cities is less efficient than beating the crap out of the Civ, making peace, taking everything they've got, and then giving them back some of their cities.
Why? Because the AI civ won't have the corruption problem, it will be able to rebuild and get more money and techs. Twenty turns later you beat on them again.
Say you have three dye resources. You have two neighbouring Civs without dye. If you overrun them, who are you going to sell that dye to? In the long run having them around to sell dye to is a better return than having a bunch of one shield cities.
This is a hell of a lot more subtle than "mass howitzers, overrun target, buy barracks, mass more howitzers".
Real world example; Germany after WWII. The Allies beat the crap out of it. They didn't occupy it indefinetly, they eventually freed the Germans and allowed them to have their own nation, and now they are an important trading partner.
I think that the corruption element was one of the better gameplay introductions.
Austin
|
This post makes much sense to me.
Good reasoning .
I'll apply these 'policies' in my next games.
But, no other way, you will have to build substantially large on emperor to be competitive. This means defeating one big, or two smaller surrounding civs. There after, your strategy makes sense and provides a different approach to the corruption issue.
I still vote for the one more palace option though ... or allowing capturing functional enemy capitals to expand your empire meaningfully. (Of course the overpowered attack and conquer all civ2 aspect that you've mentioned would be back again ...)
AJ
|
|
|
|
April 10, 2002, 16:26
|
#40
|
Warlord
Local Time: 22:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Sep 2001
Posts: 107
|
Re: Re: Re: Corruption
Quote:
|
Originally posted by AJ Corp. The FAIR
This post makes much sense to me.
Good reasoning .
I'll apply these 'policies' in my next games.
But, no other way, you will have to build substantially large on emperor to be competitive. This means defeating one big, or two smaller surrounding civs. There after, your strategy makes sense and provides a different approach to the corruption issue.
|
This depends upon your map size and number of civs. If you are playing with 16 civs on a standard map you are going to have to totally absorb several neighbours. If you are playing with say 8 on a standard map you can easily get away with nibbling a few nice cities from each neighbour, and then using the repeated beat up method.
You know, some people have reported the "ghost" civ bug, where you totally eliminate a civ, and yet the civ still exists. I wonder if this isn't a bug but a feature. You could totally eliminate a civ, and at some future point give them some cities and bring them back as a junior trade partner.
Germany in 1945 would certainly count as a 'ghost' civ!
Quote:
|
I still vote for the one more palace option though ... or allowing capturing functional enemy capitals to expand your empire meaningfully. (Of course the overpowered attack and conquer all civ2 aspect that you've mentioned would be back again ...)
AJ
|
Yup that is the problem. The more you reduce corruption, the more it turns into mass howitzer rush time.
Civ III is supposed to be different than Civ II. If you want Civ II, play Civ II.
Austin
|
|
|
|
April 11, 2002, 12:50
|
#41
|
Warlord
Local Time: 22:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: In a state of wonderment
Posts: 126
|
Civ2 vs Civ3
I already got one, its vary nice............
But seriously, I don't want Civ3 to be just like Civ2. What I don't want is Civ2.4 which is what I feel I have right now. I can easily beat Civ3 using the same strategies I used in Civ2. Build lots of cities.........Nothing added to Civ3 makes me have to use another strategy.
__________________
"Our lives are frittered away by detail....simplify, simplify."
|
|
|
|
April 11, 2002, 14:28
|
#42
|
Warlord
Local Time: 22:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Sep 2001
Posts: 107
|
Re: Civ2 vs Civ3
Quote:
|
Originally posted by Deornwulf
I already got one, its vary nice............
But seriously, I don't want Civ3 to be just like Civ2. What I don't want is Civ2.4 which is what I feel I have right now. I can easily beat Civ3 using the same strategies I used in Civ2. Build lots of cities.........Nothing added to Civ3 makes me have to use another strategy.
|
I think that you can always beat just about any turn based strategy game with a rush strategy.
The one thing that I really wish CivIII had done that I can't think of how to do myself with the editor is getting rid of that square worked for free in all new cities.
If they did away with this then I think that would really kill ICS once and for all, as it would be more worthwile to expand an existing city than it would to found new ones.
Right now you are often far better off with 3 size 3 cities than with one size 9 city.
Austin
|
|
|
|
April 11, 2002, 15:29
|
#43
|
Chieftain
Local Time: 22:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 44
|
Get rid of the central tile? Wow. Unless you start with some bonus food resource, that city is dead. If the best tile you had was grassland, you sit at pop 1 until you change from Despotism, which would be sometime in the 1900s, I'm guessing. If you start on plains or desert, you are dead in a turn. Or were you planning on boosting the production of your other tiles in response?
|
|
|
|
April 11, 2002, 16:02
|
#44
|
Emperor
Local Time: 17:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Back in BAMA full time.
Posts: 4,502
|
Re:What exactly is wrong with civ3??
I've been thinking about this on and off for quite a while. What's missing from civ3 is the tension that drove a player to play one more turn. Focussing science to get to Leonardo's workshop first and upgrade old units for very cheap or Sistine chapel so that you could turn up science and still keep the masses happy. Science and wonders were important! You didnt NEED them to win in CIV2, but they helped offset the AI civ advantages.
In CIV3 its all kind of ho-hum. I can build whatever science then trade for the others. If I miss my "favorite" wonder, so what? The effects are not so profound, therefore their loss is not such a big deal.
I've tried mod-ing the heck out of the game and its still not there.
|
|
|
|
April 12, 2002, 09:32
|
#45
|
Warlord
Local Time: 22:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Sep 2001
Posts: 107
|
Quote:
|
Originally posted by PerpetualNewbie
Get rid of the central tile? Wow. Unless you start with some bonus food resource, that city is dead. If the best tile you had was grassland, you sit at pop 1 until you change from Despotism, which would be sometime in the 1900s, I'm guessing. If you start on plains or desert, you are dead in a turn. Or were you planning on boosting the production of your other tiles in response?
|
I was thinking of making some of the bonus things like wheat and cows a little more common. Early urbanization was a LOT more difficult historically than it ever is in this game. The effect that I'm going for is that in the beggining you have a lot fewer sites that make for good cities, so in the early game you cannot simply spew settler diarheea all over the place and ICS your way to victory.
This puts the emphasis more on having fewer cities in the early game and developing them better. It also actually makes colonies a hell of a lot more usefull and relevant to the game.
And yes restricting despotism in that fashion was deliberate. The big land grab part of the game should be at the end of the middle ages, not in 1800 B.C.
There should be large swaths of land that are'nt useable right away, but that start opening up for colonization mid game once your society is advanced enough.
I think I am going to start a new thread for this topic to see what everybody thinks. I would LOVE a way to mod this, but I have zero skills in that area.
Austin
|
|
|
|
April 12, 2002, 09:53
|
#46
|
Warlord
Local Time: 22:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Oct 2001
Posts: 143
|
A simple way of doing that would be to slowly decrease the output of the city center as the city become larger.
For example:
Size 1, the city square gets 2 food, 1 shield, 1 commerce.
Size 2, the city square gets 2 food, 0 shield, 1 commerce.
Size 3, the city square gets 1 food, 0 shield, 1 commerce.
Size 4, the city square gets 0 food, 0 shield, 1 commerce.
Or something like that.
I'm not convinced its necessary for game play, though. Larger cities already have things like unhappiness which keeps them from getting too productive, plus they need lots of improvements.
|
|
|
|
April 12, 2002, 10:05
|
#47
|
Emperor
Local Time: 22:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: of poor english grammar
Posts: 4,307
|
What's wrong with Civ3....welll, a lot of things but not more than anyother game....well almost. The most annoying things are:
-Unbeleivable wait time on huge maps
-Stupid AI trading
-Deity is not "Fun hard" it's more like "annoying hard"
-Too much useless units imo
-Not enough Civs
-Not enough leaders by Civs
-Boats need to move a lot more, I'm sorry but a Battleship doesn't take 100 years to cross an ocean.
And mosty annoying of ALL!!!!!
I get the "Data IO" and the "civilization3 has created an error" to much for a supposebly sellable game. It's really the worst thing ever. And I would like the editor to tell me if something is wrong with the changes I made instead of having the game crash in my face.
SPec.
__________________
-Never argue with an idiot; He will bring you down to his level and beat you with experience.
|
|
|
|
April 12, 2002, 22:01
|
#48
|
Prince
Local Time: 17:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 915
|
SETTLER DIARRHEA - BEWARE
Jezz, how did I forget THIS one?!?
The DIARRHEA OF SETTLERS FLOODING the map including your own territory.
I HATE IT with a PASSION! HATE it.
You leave one tile outside your border (in expectation of an imminent expansion of your own border there) and, sure enough, some damn galley with a settler appears and builds a town there. Worse, his borders FLIP OVER YOUR IMPROVEMENTS!! As his so-called "culture" expands they flip over more of your improvements including even occupied garrisons!!! And if you won't leave, YOU get labelled a warmonger forvever even by civs you won't encounter for another millennium!!
To prevent open tiles you have to start your towns too close together choking their eventual development, or leave warriors sitting there on those open tiles.
Even worse, if you raze a city (another farce) INSTANTLY every other civ knows about it (yet another AI cheat) and dispatches a settler/foot soldier pair there. I am convinced the AI GIVES the nearest military unit a free settler as there is no way they could get there as fast as they do with normal rates of building settlers.
As a corrollary to this you have WANDERING WORKERS who won't leave, or do only to reappear next turn. You attack them and you get labelled a warmonger forever by the dopey AI.
Hell, I've been labelled perfidious and untrustworthy by the AI for stuff I NEVER did!
I started a game recently as the Romans with the Chinese depositing stupid little towns like Chicken Pox all over the map (I had to take out the Aztecs and English first; maybe the Chinese will be next). One town of '5' is seven tiles from my capital which has the Sistine Chapel and Great Library - but the damn think won't flip to me.
Stop the SETTLER DIARRHEA and the WANDERING WORKERS.
BTW, the AI is so stupid it sends those settler/foot soldier teams to a razed city site. . . even when they are still at war with me!! I wiped out three of them in a row once before I got bored and quit the game. So much for 1.17.
Last edited by Coracle; April 12, 2002 at 22:38.
|
|
|
|
April 12, 2002, 22:24
|
#49
|
Deity
Local Time: 16:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: of naught
Posts: 21,300
|
Coracle. You should really try to breathe once in a while. It might improve your whole outlook on life.
__________________
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(") This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your signature to help him gain world domination.
|
|
|
|
April 12, 2002, 22:43
|
#50
|
Prince
Local Time: 17:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 915
|
Here's another one. . .
Units start repeating the last command you gave them and won't conclude so I can move on to the next unit. The game just sort of hangs there, and I have to either wait a long time, or try other crap such as going to other units' tasks to be able to move on.
THIS MAKES MODERN ERA GAMES UNPLAYABLE due to the number of units.
|
|
|
|
April 13, 2002, 00:53
|
#51
|
Emperor
Local Time: 17:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: The TOC is supposed to be classified guys...
Posts: 3,700
|
reason i stopped playing.
civ 3 fights tooth and nail against a civ switch program.
If you want to terriform iirc portions of the save file format have been released, and i can re post my stuff, incase you would like to make a program which will change all the worthless crap terrain into game winning grassland.
|
|
|
|
April 14, 2002, 00:30
|
#52
|
Warlord
Local Time: 17:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: New Jersey, USA
Posts: 116
|
"Units start repeating the last command you gave them and won't conclude so I can move on to the next unit. The game just sort of hangs there, and I have to either wait a long time, or try other crap such as going to other units' tasks to be able to move on."
That started happening to me a few days ago. Very irritating. And worse, if it happens to a worker for some reason it cant be fixed by clicking another unit, and i have to restart civ
__________________
The Civ3 world is one where stealth bombers are unable to sink galleons, Man-O-Wars are a powerful counter to battleships, and knights always come equipped with the AT-S2 Anti-Tank Sword.
The Simwiz2 Combat Mod Version 2.0 is available for download! See the changes here. You can download it from the CivFanatics Thread or the Apolyton Thread.
|
|
|
|
April 15, 2002, 07:04
|
#53
|
Warlord
Local Time: 22:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: drifting across the sands of time....
Posts: 242
|
Re: SETTLER DIARRHEA - BEWARE
Quote:
|
Originally posted by Coracle
The DIARRHEA OF SETTLERS FLOODING the map including your own territory.
|
By definition, though, if they can settle there it isn't your territory. For better or worse, CIV III does not acknowledge the Monroe Doctrine or the concept of Manifest Destiny. You either possess the territory (i.e. it's within your borders) or you don't. And if you don't own it, then it's mine for the taking.
Now, having said that, I agree with your sentiment. It's infuriating to try to create and maintain a well planned, carefully laid out nation when the AI keeps building cities in your way. But hey, that's life. Will it piss you off? Oh, I think so; just ask any Native American how *they* feel about it.
Sure, it's cheap and sleazy and flies in the face of "enlightened" growth and development, but it's also (in no small part) what made the United States the massive powerhouse it is today. Endless streams of settlers, "going West", spreading like a disease, building towns wherever there was open space and claiming resources that already "belonged" to someone else.
I do wish there was a "hey, now, that's my turf yer buildin' on" diplomatic option that could force the AI to declare war and settle or just move along, but it'd both be a major drag on playability (imagine a pop-up every time the AI tries to found a city) or be as arbitrary as the current border system (like a 3-tile (influence) zone from your current border).
A very nice fix, for strategic resources and luxuries at least, would be durable colonies (meaning they don't go *poof* when borders overlap them). Otherwise, aside from allowing players to draw their own borders on the map and post "Keep Out!" signs, that's just life. As they say: Suck it up, cupcake, and move on.
|
|
|
|
April 15, 2002, 11:32
|
#54
|
Warlord
Local Time: 22:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: In a state of wonderment
Posts: 126
|
I find the Settler Diarrhea a motivating factor in my game. I strive to find the other civs as fast as possible and then push my own settlers out to the farthest boundary I think I can get. I also dance my units with the AI to prevent it from sending settlers to places I want to settle. I've even created blockades with galleys to keep AI galleys out of my coastline. No attacks, no wars.
__________________
"Our lives are frittered away by detail....simplify, simplify."
|
|
|
|
April 15, 2002, 15:30
|
#55
|
Settler
Local Time: 22:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 1
|
I’ve played the following for far too much of my life! LOL!
Civ 1 (on Amiga 500+ & 1200)
Civ 2 (on PC – 486DX 33Mhz 8Mb)
Civ 3 (on PC - AMD k6-2 300Mhz 256Mb) - Runs ok BTW
So I guess you can say that I’m a fan. I bought Civ 3 around Christmas time and was keen to give it a whirl. Generally I have to say that I like Civ 3 and the things it improves on over previous versions are well worth having – Workers, Click & Drag interface, Advisor screen revamp etc etc.
However, I think that a few things really need tweaking before it’s a worthy successor to Civ 2. Reading these forums I see with interest that several others also have ‘issues’ with Civ 3. Here are mine for what they’re worth:
1. The ‘corruption’ element is set ridiculously high. Ok, the ‘Forbidden Palace’ will help your empire in one physical direction, but it can take 200 turns to build in extreme cases on the outskirts of empire - where it’s needed most (and if there’s no ‘great leader’ available to speed it along). Why not allow at least ONE more ‘Forbidden Palace’ to be built? That would help a hell of a lot and enable your empire to grow away from the capital city in more than one direction.
2. The lack of a terraforming ability is a real disappointment. Ok, it took a lot of time in Civ2, but was certainly doable with stacked units. With Civ 3, later in the game you generally have workers sat on their arses just waiting for pollution because everything else has been done. With terraforming you can flatten mountains, hills etc – great stuff. They should bring that in as a technology later in the game. Why not an Alpha Centauri style terraformer where you can make / destroy land bridges and create land from the sea.
3. I really detest the Civ 1 style ‘Cover every square with railroad to get the best from it’. This is two GIANT UGLY steps backward – a real hideous mess. Why didn’t they stick with the superior Civ 2 style of improved farmland (and Supermarket improvement). This looked a hell of a lot nicer and let’s face it was a bit more realistic than rail covering everything in sight.
4. The ridiculous ‘culture flipping’ – of course! A lot has been written about this already so I won’t repeat it. My policy is this. If I’m going to completely annihilate a target Civ and a captured city is in a good position (or has a wonder) I will keep it. Otherwise it’s ‘goodnight Vienna’ and I’ll wheel a settler in to its place. In my experience, if you don’t completely finish off the enemy Civ in a war, you run the risk of a city (actually it’s usually two at once) switching back and destroying your units inside.
5. You can’t sink enemy ships with land-based artillery. Why? You can give them a real bloody nose so why not have the ability to sink them. It’s the same with aircraft too isn’t it? Haven’t the developers heard of what happened at Pearl Harbour, Midway etc etc.?
6. A map made up of small islands is basically out of the equation in Civ3 because the wonders you build generally affect only cities on the same continent only. Again, Why? Ok, some of the wonders were supposed to be that way in Civ 2, but in my experience actually weren’t. Island Civs are usually more spread out, so the ‘corruption’ radius handicaps you as well. I used to prefer island settings in Civ2 because the sea gave you a degree of protection early on. Now, I pretty much have to play on a single large land mass and hit the ground running.
8. The AI keeps on making incursion into my territory despite repeated warnings from me. It's harder to form barriers from units now because enemy units can now slip past through any gaps.
9. Espionage. The spy who gives you other Civ’s military inventory is very useful, but has anyone had any success with any other activity. Apart from the military spy the counter intelligence thing has never once worked for me. Consequently, I’ve given up on espionage now and I usually forget it’s actually an option.
With some or all of these suggestions I think Civ 3 would truly kick ass.
As they say: Opinions are like *******s. Everybody's got one!
|
|
|
|
April 15, 2002, 22:26
|
#56
|
Chieftain
Local Time: 16:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 54
|
Diplomacy has changed little between Civ II and III.
There is still no way to cordinate war with allies. An alliance only mean the AI will declare war on anyone who attacks you. It doesn't ensure they'll help route a siege on one of your city. In fact it doesn't even insure they'll send any troops to help you at all. (especially if the AI is seperated by an ocean)
The AI still doesn't know when to give up or when it is seriously out matched.
The UN is still powerless (yes I know that is how it is in reality but I would like to see it have some limited abilities. Perhaps the ability to make certain actions such as razing cause the "razer's" reputation to decrease) and is even less useful than in Civ II. At least than it forced civs to offer peace treaty.
I can't help but seriously wonder if the developers spent too much money on those 3D leaders and ran out of money when it was time to upgrade diplomacy. Don't get me wrong. They look great but I'd rather have an improved diplomacy.
|
|
|
|
April 15, 2002, 23:34
|
#57
|
Emperor
Local Time: 08:41
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: You can be me when I'm gone
Posts: 3,640
|
Funny, it always seemed all right to me.
__________________
Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost.
|
|
|
|
April 16, 2002, 11:24
|
#58
|
Prince
Local Time: 23:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Antwerp (the pearl of Flanders) Belgium
Posts: 444
|
?? espionage city troops ??
Quote:
|
Originally posted by Shaka Wacker
...
9. Espionage. The spy who gives you other Civ’s military inventory is very useful, but has anyone had any success with any other activity. Apart from the military spy the counter intelligence thing has never once worked for me. Consequently, I’ve given up on espionage now and I usually forget it’s actually an option.
...
|
I agree to most of your remarks, albeit not the cultural flip aspect of the game, that I consider as an improvement (just needs some tweaking).
About the spying: I've heard some say that they can check out on the number of militaristic defenders in any enemy's city, but I only succeed in planting a spy and viewing the total army of the enemy (F3). The advisor keeps telling me to place spies to see troop locations, but I just can't do it, neither conduct other operations as clarified in the manual ...
How can you use the spy as suggested in the manual (sabotage, propaganda,) ? My manual doesn't mention and the interface provides not a single clue ...
AJ
|
|
|
|
April 16, 2002, 15:49
|
#59
|
Warlord
Local Time: 17:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Rochester, NY, USA
Posts: 131
|
Re: ?? espionage city troops ??
Quote:
|
Originally posted by AJ Corp. The FAIR
How can you use the spy as suggested in the manual (sabotage, propaganda,) ? My manual doesn't mention and the interface provides not a single clue ...
AJ
|
Once the spy is in place, use the espionage option by using the "E" button on the info box button list or "Shift-E". I think that clicking the star on the enemy capital may work also.
|
|
|
|
April 16, 2002, 20:56
|
#60
|
Prince
Local Time: 16:41
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Apr 1999
Location: numsquam
Posts: 683
|
No MAD (Mutual Assured Distruction) ...easily implimented by making it take 2 turns for ICBMs to hit target (one to launch and alert the recieving nation, and have opportunity to launch counter attack, the second turn for impact)
Can't put a cruise missile on ships! wtf is the point of it then? take it out of the game or make it to be used correctly!
Can't put Helicopters on carriers. It makes more sense to put a Helo on a carrier then a freaking huge B-52 bomber that would never make the runway even with a catapult system!
Quote:
|
8. The AI keeps on making incursion into my territory despite repeated warnings from me. It's harder to form barriers from units now because enemy units can now slip past through any gaps.
|
...just my gripes
|
|
|
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is On
|
|
|
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 18:41.
|
|