a veteran civ player's view on civ 3

[axis]

Hello Apolyton. I have had several names here on apolyton, and have been very active in the Test of Time forum for a while, before i had axis as my name. But enough about me, here are my 2 cents about civ 3.

First what an increadible game. Hats off to firaxis for giving us this game in the first place. Yeah the AI does some annoying things, but overall i can safely say that civ 3 is one of the most difficult games i have ever played in my life. All my former civ 1 and civ 2, AND SMAX strategies can be thrown right out the window. I get my a$$ kicked regularly on warlord level, ok, and i was a former diety player in civ 2 and a former trancendience player in SMAX. Personally i dont care how many of you have beat the game, ive beat the game myself, but the game is still a significant challenge. and here is why:

Rapid expansion: i know there are probabaly dozens of tactics to use to counter this, and damned if ive found one of them.

Culture: the thing that has made civ 3 more difficult than its predecessors is culture, culture, culture. So much for capturing all the ai's cities in less than 5 moves (and im talking about an ai that has a very large continent), as in civ 2. now you have to worry about cities bouncing back to their former owners hands. how do you counter it? raze the cities, but then ai expansion comes back into the picture to get all the open land.

ai backstabbing: well this is nothing new is it? it happened all the time in civ 2, and it happens all the time here. simply put you can not trust the ai, at all, in any situation.

the united nations: boy have they rammed us a new one on this one. will the ai ever vote for you? hasnt voted for me yet. i know you can turn it off, but that wouldn't be "proper" would it.

resources: so much for cranking out tanks by the hundreds. now you hafta have oil to do it. id say that adds to the challenge level wouldn't you?

for the sake of shortness i will stop there, but i think you get my point

so is there just one way to beat civ 3? of course not. like i said ive beat the game before. will i stick to that one strategy every single time i play because i think ive figured out the ai? probably not. i bet you the best civ 3 player in the world dosen't use just one strategy. so the challenge comes in when you develop strategies to counter those used by the ai, and those provided by the game.

lastly im not going to stop playing the game because its too hard. and if i find a strategy to beat the game, i will probably try another strategy the next time i play. because not only do i play to win, i play to have FUN. or have we all forgotton about that in our quest to become perfect civers?

[Coracle]

Sounds like you work for Firaxis what with that effusive post.

Civ III has been seriously criticized on the Civ Fanatics Forum - and RIPPED here at Apolyton - for months, ever since it came out.

It is generally regarded as a big disappointment among Civ 2 fans.


Since I do not feel like writing yet another post on this, below is a paste of another member's (Zykla, I think) negative comments about the game:

Software/Packaging

1 - The pathetically packaged “collectors edition” tin which sums up your entire operation. Anyone end up getting those designer notes? Anyone’s tech “poster” end up enlarging itself into an actual poster, or aligning its print to the paper? I do hope those biscuit tins are large enough to hold your customers shattered expectations.
2 - Bugs upon release. I won't specify the overly horrendous and inexcusable variety of the aforementioned, otherwise it would be Zylka’s 1,425 theses on why your programmers suck.
3 - Lack of multi-player upon release. Anyone in their right mind would have waited an extra few months for it to be included, but that doesn’t work with planned obsolescence, now does it?
4 - Lack of Scenarios. One of the many steps backwards in regards to civ2.
5 - “Maps” included. Seriously, those shouldn’t have taken more than 20 minutes to make, so you’re either lazy, or incompetent. I vouch for the former with a touch of the latter.
6 - Lack of editor upon release. Current editor is a sad consolation worthy of a swift kick to the gonads.
7 - Lack of windows format, or anything close to not being a pain in the as* for minimizing. Alt + tab makes for an incredibly messy scheme, often crashes the program, and does not work without another program already running.
8 - Patches. Not enough changes, not fast enough. Quite amusing how over half of the listed “changes” for each patch have consisted of fixing typos. Care to borrow my ms-word spell check, next time?
9 - Speed. Why is it so slow, even on a hotrod of a computer? Was an incredibly dated processing engine used for this game?


Graphics

10 - The water is jade, the mountains are red. What (other than reality) inspired you to choose such an unrealistic terrain palette? And no, fixes by the mod community don’t count in saving your collective as* (thank you, Sn00py).
11 - Mountains are way too obtrusive on the land’s layout. It does not look good, quite irritating in fact. Perhaps you should have made them even more unrealistically gigantic and thornlike, I don’t think the common idiot can decipher them as mountains, yet.
12 - Civ score caveman "animation". I won't even attempt to vent my frustration on the fact that an already flawed game had some of it's production diverted to that pile of sh*t.
13 - The 3-D advisors and Leaders are so lame. Again, I would rather you had just used static pictures, with the saved amount of work put towards the intrinsic side of the game. Then again, (neo)classical portraits of leaders don’t sell as well as goofy looking 3-D animations.
14 - Joan de Arc’s cleavage really sexed up civ. No really, you sexed it right up and into a filthy whore of half-wit humor.
15 - Modern resources look horrific. The sight of a tire for rubber, a neon-green slab for uranium, and a garbage can for aluminum literally makes the modern map look like a garbage dump.
16 - Firing of nuclear missiles was done in such a lame manner, it makes red alert look professional in comparison. OOH BOY LOOK DAR SCREEN IS SHAKING BOOM I R USE EXPLOSIFFS!
17 - The “loser” screen. Stupid, not at all well done, tacky.
18 - More shots of the “Evolution” Tower of Babel, please. That’s what we paid for, right?
19 - Why do all naval units have such a melodramatic firing animation? Battleships don’t violently rock back and forth with active turrets, they do weigh a good 50, 000 tons, after all. This may seem petty, but it’s yet another piece of crap decision to make the game a little more radical/explosive oriented exciting for the market’s idiots.
20 - Civ colors. Saints preserve us, an Easter-egg was not a good source for influence. Looks silly, mmk?
21 - Cities need a subtle, blending grid outwards. Current form looks like a clumsily dense mass of buildings sticking up out of nowhere, more of an outpost than anything.

Gameplay

22 - Corruption. It's not, nor has it ever been realistic. It was a pathetically obvious overlay fix for an unexpectedly high timeline speed. Next time, hire logistics programmers before you make such crucial decisions.
23 - Culture, and city reversions. Nice try implementing the abstract of immigration/emigration, it was done horribly. Whole cities do not leave and join empires, “individual” populations (by that I mean 1 city size) should have been the integer. Even a choice route bank specifying to what city(s) immigrant populations should add on would have worked better. Of course, the emigration would have worked on a non-choice level, deriving from cultural formulas according from city to city. See? Even I would have made a better logistics advisor than whoever you had. Problem is, I don’t associate with two-bit operations. No wait, my solutions are too difficult for a drooling moron to comprehend – that wouldn’t work for marketability!
24 - AI cheats. However, it does its job just fine – and anything short of a human must cheat to be challenging. The issue here is admitting it cheats, against what was previously implied, and the programmer’s ego.
25 - AI exploit issues. Tends to militarily expand in odd spaces past their periphery territories, often leaving huge power vacuum areas which are easy to pick off repeatedly throughout the game.
26 - Trade was a half noble/ half cowardly streamlining change. Smart people want more options and more manual control, that includes setting up individual routes from city to city, be it moving the caravan itself. A combination of the two would have been nice, but that would’ve taken more than an hour lunch break to come up with.
27 - Domestic nag. Kill, murder, destroy, gone.
28 - War weariness. Why is it that a celebrating democracy crumbles on the exact turn that some sh*t island nation half way across the globe declares war on it? I fully realize that you were bent on making warfare near useless in this game, but this is just absolutely unacceptable. Closer to real life next time, is that yet clear?
29 - Limited terra-forming is needed.
30 - ICS has become even more a horrible necessity than it was in civ2. REX compounds the problem. Players used to work like hell to secure that perfect setting for a city; a river running through it, a nice patch of grassland, rich resources within hinterland radius… now it just doesn’t matter. Filling up the map is an immediate necessity, and it doesn’t matter where you choose to settle. Huge mistake.
31 - Ships which should, do not have even minor AA abilities.
32 - Resources. Oh goody, my civ has a near infinite cluster of gems. The concept of strategic resources was a noble one, but poorly executed. No civilization should have the need (due to shortage of) a resource as widely available as aluminum. Horses as a strategic resource - seriously? Oil is understandable, yet this kind of limiting factor will wreak havoc on multi-player. You must add an option which turns strategic limitations off. Back to the basics, to give multi-playing equality of opportunity.
33 - Lack of unit obsolescence. This ties in to dependence on strategic resources, and should be dealt with accordingly for multiplayer
34 - Modern ships do not take 20 years to trek the globe, in parallel with soldiers who can travel a continent via rail instantly (realistic given the time frame). Modern naval units really should have been given a one move infinite range, followed by a 2 or 3 single square allowance, and the standard 1 attack move. I’m pretty much talking about giving modern ships a chess queen’s move, followed by the specifics necessary for combat.
35 - 89 technologies in civ2. 82 technologies in civ3. An increase was widely expected, but a decrease is just as good! Did the other 7 techs run off to join Snow White?
36 - Submarines are useless.
37 - Wonders are handed out on a near random basis, with great leaders and lack of ability to rush production. The only plus being that caravans were taken away in wonder production.
38 - Bombers are useless.
39 - Bombers can land on aircraft carriers. Next time you’re landing 50+ meters of wingspan on a quarter mile deck meant to hold fighters, tell me so that I might take a picture.
40 - Nuclear warfare was completely botched. An immediate counter launch chance upon initial launch system
should have been adopted, but that would have made things more realistic, right?
41 - Spying was completely botched. What suggestions would you like, seeing as how it’s irreparably screwed up?
42 - The tech tree. Simplified, and dumbed down with almost no real choice of direction. I’m beginning to wonder if the repeatedly aforementioned market range is that of the 8-12 year old developmentally disabled.
43 - Civ specific units. Yet another attempt to push this game over the not so fine line between classy and red-alert tacky. You’re lucky we can disable them.
44 - Privateers are useless.
45 - There are less governments than civ2. Unacceptable. It should have been expanded with the likes of democratic socialism, fascism, totalitarianism, whatever. Fundamentalism could have easily been dealt with to make for a more realistic model.
46 - Barbarians are absolute pushovers.
47 - All your base are belong to us? You say you want a revolution? How about grow the f*ck up. Lame cult classic sayings have absolutely no place in the game we were expecting.
48 - Armies are useless, especially in the modern era. Who in their right mind would give up a wonder for a useless army?
49 - Whoever decided that cruise missiles should have a range of 2 squares should receive an on-the-spot **** punching. A fitting follow up would be Jimmy’s suggestion to put them on a mental disability leave as soon as possible.
50 - Colonies are useless.
51 - Whoever decided that howitzer type artillery has a 2 square firing range deserves a swift elbow to the sternum. 155 mm canons are not capable of lobbing shells 500 mile distances. It is so bloody easy to exploit this, in rendering armored warfare near ineffective.
52 - The Iron Works is: A – rarely possible B – Useless, for the amount needed to build it.
53 - UN based victory??? Do I even need to pick on that one? Just who thought it up – seriously, which member of the team was it? Again, you’re lucky we can opt out. See a pattern here? Good players want MORE OPTIONS.
54 - Helicopters are useless.
55 - Unit hit points & firepower were brought back to a halfway point between civ 1 and 2. They should have logically been brought to a higher level than civ2; further specified so more accurate ratios could have been assigned according to unit type. Then the whole “my tank lost to a fehking spearman” complaint would have been less frequent, if not absent.
56 - Units can not use enemy roads. It’s fine enough that you can’t use enemy railroads, but roads??? Again, you’d like to render warfare in it’s entirety obsolete, I see. What’s the story here - are you a bunch of hippies, or what?
57 - A nuclear warhead halves a city’s population (point based) and infrastructure – whilst a warrior, a few hundred men with spears (or molotav cocktails, it’s irrelevant how you want to justify it), can destory EVERYTHING in an instant? Something is wrong here.
58 - Bombers can not sink ships
59 - Razing cities is a ridiculous option. It should only be an open choice to smaller cities, preferably 3 and under. A unit of a few thousand (or less) soldiers can not effectively murder and destroy an entire city of over a million people with them sitting idly by. It has not, does not, and will not happen - It’s just that simple.
60 - Bombers can not target specific improvements.
61 - Even less civs than number 2: too few to pick from. Redundant streamlining.
62 - “Random number generator” has been proven time and again to be completely out of whack.
63 - AI trades very poorly
64 – I want the two hours of my life which I spent writing this back.
65 - You have sold your souls to a ship of fools.

[axis]

thanks for the post. i think that needed to be said, what with all these people "ripping" the game and all.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Coracle
Sounds like you work for Firaxis what with that effusive post.

does this works backwords as well?

write positive stuf about civ3  =  get a job at firaxis

[notyoueither]

Counter rapid expansion with rapid expansion.

The UN. Build it yourself and say no to the vote. Or start bribing your opponents. I always leave diplomatic victory on. If I can't be first to build it AND if I can't get more civs to like me, then I feel I should lose that game.

On the topic of the UN, though. It can be very interesting to play diplomacy to arrange a win. Last game I decided I wanted to bail on I waited for the UN to be built. I spent the 20 turns prior to it coming out negotiating and arranging alliances so that I would isolate the other contender. When the vote was held, it was unanimous for me. I didn't have to resort to any *cheap* tactics like giving cities to AI's to make them like me. I waged a diplomatic war on the contender and won hands down.

Keep on civin.

[asleepathewheel]

Coracle:

don't you have anything better to do than to flame people about a game you don't like? Just because someone likes the game doesn't make them firaxis employees.

Maybe you're an ex-employee of Activision that is embarrased at the product that his company put out, and feels rage and jealousy that Civ3 is a much better game than Ctp and Ctp2 are. Is it jealousy Coracle? (or more likely, the frustration at the inability to adapt to the challenge of the AI).


You keep saying things like: It is generally regarded as a big disappointment among Civ 2 fans.

Can you prove this? Eh? 20 posters out of 100,000 purchasers does not equal "generally regarded"


PS. I think it is probably against forum etiquette to quote such a long post.

[rpodos]

nye:

I like your attitude. Forget the whining, and zero in on how to help axis out. I (still) haven't completed a game, but I already know from you and others to get the UN, if only to forestall the vote (There is NO WAY I will ever win the vote!). Thanks.

R

[Capt Dizle]

Sweet Choirboy please sing me that tune,
Though its true you are a buffoon,
We know you try real hard,
to be Sid's new best pard,
As you gulp his swill with a spoon.

[Cyclotron]

We have come to a new low when people actually repost mindless drivel like those "65 theses" and don't bother to back it up with their own opinion. Way to be a sounding board.

[Shadowlord]

And here's my opinions, written over the crap that other guy posted.

Software/Packaging

1 - I didn't buy the collector's edition. I did hear it was a waste of money, though.
2 - Bugs upon release. Does anyone think it possible that Infogrames may have forced Firaxis to release it then, and not let them wait?
3 - Lack of multi-player upon release. See #2.
4 - Lack of Scenarios. See #2.
5 - “Maps” included. See #2.
6 - Lack of editor upon release. See #2.
7 - Lack of windows format - Alt + tab works just fine, and has NEVER ONCE resulted in a crash. At worst, I have run out of memory from having too many programs open, resulting in IE screwing up, but that has nothing to do with anything more than your stupidity at trying to run 50 programs at the same time as a high-end game.
8 - Patches. Dude. They aren't supermen. They need time to code fixes, and to test them. And they've been trying to get them to us as fast as they can, but it still takes time to find bugs, code fixes, and test them!
9 - Speed. It runs just fine on my 850 MHz computer with 64 MB of ram. I don't know what you're complaining about.

Graphics

10 - "The water is jade, the mountains are red." The terrain doesn't bother me. It looks fine. (No, I am not 14. If you want to make assumptions and accuse me of being something I am not, go to hell.)
11 - "Mountains are way too obtrusive on the land’s layout." They have never once bothered me. What's your problem?
12 - "Civ score caveman animation". I'm sure that didn't take very long to do, and they probably did it to add a little "flavor" to the score screen. Although I would have liked seeing that I was better than Dan Quayle still. :P
13 - "The 3-D advisors and Leaders are so lame." They look fine to me, although the Civ II ones are a bit more easily recognizable.
14 - "Joan de Arc’s cleavage really sexed up civ." *rolls eyes*. In Civ II, one of the emissaries was nearly naked (Vikings, I think.). This is nothing new.
15 - "Modern resources look horrific." You DO want them to be recognizable, right? Or were you planning for rubber to look like the tree it comes from (I have no idea if rubber really comes from trees), and aluminum like rocks?
16 - "Firing of nuclear missiles was done in such a lame manner, it makes red alert look professional in comparison." F**k off.
17 - "The “loser” screen. Stupid, not at all well done, tacky. " - I just skip it. Not a big deal. Certainly not hard for them to code. Don't waste time taking potshots at the programmers for what the designers told them to put in the game.
18 - "More shots of the “Evolution” Tower of Babel, please. That’s what we paid for, right? "
19 - "Why do all naval units have such a melodramatic firing animation? Battleships don’t violently rock back and forth with active turrets, they do weigh a good 50, 000 tons, after all. This may seem petty, but it’s yet another piece of crap decision to make the game a little more radical/explosive oriented exciting for the market’s idiots." - WHY DO YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT SUCH MINOR THINGS. ARGH!! You're driving me nuts!
20 - "Civ colors." I should stop answering these before I lose my sanity. If you don't like them, CHANGE THEM. Oh wait, that's been done. WHY ARE YOU STILL COMPLAINING!
21 - "Cities need a subtle, blending grid outwards. Current form looks like a clumsily dense mass of buildings sticking up out of nowhere, more of an outpost than anything. " - Actually, I rather like how they expand beyond their 1 space. Looks better than Civ II.

Gameplay

22 - "Corruption. It's not, nor has it ever been realistic. It was a pathetically obvious overlay fix for an unexpectedly high timeline speed. Next time, hire logistics programmers before you make such crucial decisions. " - What? Communisms aren't universally corrupt? No, corruption is fairly accurate and works fine, possibly excepting the max-cities thing. Take the British Empire for example. They used to hold India, Australia, Canada, and a few more places. Those are all independant lands now. Why? Because the corruption there was high, and because the people wanted independence, right?
23 - "Culture, and city reversions." Considering that population in Civ is measured in the hundreds of thousands per population unit, you are being a moron to complain that they did not model individuals immigrating/emigrating to other nations. *rolls eyes*. There are such things as regions (represented by a city and its borders in Civ III) revolting to join other nations - Reference Texas, which used to be a part of Mexico until it declared its independance and then joined the USA.
24 - "AI cheats. However, it does its job just fine – and anything short of a human must cheat to be challenging. The issue here is admitting it cheats, against what was previously implied, and the programmer’s ego. " - Everyone knew it cheated before, too, and it was even stated in the Civ II manual. I just don't play on the higher difficulty levels. If you don't like it cheating, don't play on them either.
25 - "AI exploit issues. Tends to militarily expand in odd spaces past their periphery territories, often leaving huge power vacuum areas which are easy to pick off repeatedly throughout the game. " - This, I can agree with. They do some stupid things, one of which is sending settlers through my territory to found a city on the other side of it. WTF?
26 - "Trade was a half noble/ half cowardly streamlining change." - Methinks they were pressed for time, eh?
27 - "Domestic nag. Kill, murder, destroy, gone. " - Think about it. If there are people complaining, and I start shooting them, they stop complaining pretty quickily, don't they?
28 - "War weariness. Why is it that a celebrating democracy crumbles on the exact turn that some sh*t island nation half way across the globe declares war on it? I fully realize that you were bent on making warfare near useless in this game, but this is just absolutely unacceptable. Closer to real life next time, is that yet clear? " - I have never had my government crumble, or even suffer really adverse effects from war weariness under a democracy. Of course, I usually am only a democracy until I discover Communism, and I am a monarchy prior to being a democracy, so...
29 - "Limited terra-forming is needed. " - I don't think so. When's the last time IRL someone turned a hill into a plains? The most we can do is deforest and replant forests.
30 - "ICS has become even more a horrible necessity than it was in civ2. REX compounds the problem. Players used to work like hell to secure that perfect setting for a city; a river running through it, a nice patch of grassland, rich resources within hinterland radius… now it just doesn’t matter. Filling up the map is an immediate necessity, and it doesn’t matter where you choose to settle. Huge mistake. " What? What's ICS and REX? I'm sorry, I do just fine expanding and then smashing any AIs who get in my way.
31 - "Ships which should, do not have even minor AA abilities. " True.
32 - "Resources. Oh goody, my civ has a near infinite cluster of gems. The concept of strategic resources was a noble one, but poorly executed. No civilization should have the need (due to shortage of) a resource as widely available as aluminum. Horses as a strategic resource - seriously? Oil is understandable, yet this kind of limiting factor will wreak havoc on multi-player. You must add an option which turns strategic limitations off. Back to the basics, to give multi-playing equality of opportunity. " - Lack of time to complete this option? Maybe a cross between the Lords of Conquest horses model and the Civ III one. Say, you have a places where horses breed, and they will produce actual horses over time which you can use in your military.
33 - "Lack of unit obsolescence. This ties in to dependence on strategic resources, and should be dealt with accordingly for multiplayer " - .....
34 - "Modern ships do not take 20 years to trek the globe, in parallel with soldiers who can travel a continent via rail instantly (realistic given the time frame). Modern naval units really should have been given a one move infinite range, followed by a 2 or 3 single square allowance, and the standard 1 attack move. I’m pretty much talking about giving modern ships a chess queen’s move, followed by the specifics necessary for combat." - Stop and think a minute. If I could move my nuclear submarine from Hawaii to India in one turn and nuke them (just an example), what good would it do them to have AEGIS crusers patrolling looking for subs, or any other navy for that matter? Naval combat would be total crap if your suggestion went in!
35 - "89 technologies in civ2. 82 technologies in civ3. An increase was widely expected, but a decrease is just as good! Did the other 7 techs run off to join Snow White? " - *Sighs*. Yes, they did.
36 - "Submarines are useless." - The hell they are! I still have a decent chance of sinking a battleship with one, and they're good (nuclear subs anyhow) for ferrying tac nukes to enemy shores rather than spending the extra time on an ICBM.
37 - "Wonders are handed out on a near random basis" - What? No they aren't! Idiot... By removing the caravan stocking, they prevented one-turn-wonders, which WAS handing out wonders to whoever got the technology first!
38 - "Bombers are useless. " - Not entirely so.
39 - "Bombers can land on aircraft carriers. Next time you’re landing 50+ meters of wingspan on a quarter mile deck meant to hold fighters, tell me so that I might take a picture." - And if you couldn't land bombers on aircraft carriers.... There's no way to refuel in midflight. Plus there has to be only about 10% of the population that knows that bombers can't land on aircraft carriers IRL.
40 - "Nuclear warfare was completely botched. An immediate counter launch chance upon initial launch system
should have been adopted, but that would have made things more realistic, right?" - Only in case of ICBMs. A tac nuke would strike before a retaliatory launch could be initiated, meaning the destruction of any nukes in the area. This is one of the key components of nuclear warfare - If you know where their nukes are, you nuke those sites first. Of course, IRL the nations of the world took this possibility into account, and that's why there's nuclear submarines carrying nuclear missles (although they really carry 4 or 8 or so, I think. Not just one.) out at sea...
41 - "Spying was completely botched." - I've made my suggestions. Go see. Rather than complaining, why don't you make suggestions. Maybe they'd actually listen.
42 - "The tech tree. Simplified, and dumbed down with almost no real choice of direction." - I disagree here. I make a rush for cavalry, and it doesn't seem that I have to research all the wonder-technologies at the top of the tech chart. You're being overly... stupid.
43 - "Civ specific units." No, yet another attempt to improve it.
44 - "Privateers are useless." Actually yes.
45 - "There are less governments than civ2." I agree, perhaps it should have been expanded. But time is a factor.
46 - "Barbarians are absolute pushovers." - Mostly, yes.
47 - "All your base are belong to us? You say you want a revolution? How about grow the f*ck up. Lame cult classic sayings have absolutely no place in the game we were expecting." - Where did you see those? This explains your anger. I know if I saw AYBABTU in Civ III, I would be as mad as you.
48 - "Armies are useless, especially in the modern era. Who in their right mind would give up a wonder for a useless army? " - Not me. My armies seem to be less effective than my individual troops.
49 - "Whoever decided that cruise missiles should have a range of 2 squares should receive an on-the-spot **** punching." - They have a greater range than that, but it's still not enough. Cruise missles are designed to fly around the globe.. They should be like ICBMs in their range.
50 - "Colonies are useless. " - Not so. I need this iron, but it's out of my range, well, I'll build a colony and fortify some mech inf here. I fortify units on my resources anyways.
51 - "Whoever decided that howitzer type artillery has a 2 square firing range deserves a swift elbow to the sternum. 155 mm canons are not capable of lobbing shells 500 mile distances. It is so bloody easy to exploit this, in rendering armored warfare near ineffective." - You are abandoning game mechanics for realism.
52 - "The Iron Works is: A – rarely possible B – Useless, for the amount needed to build it." - Worked well when I got it.
53 - "UN based victory???." - Not everyone hates this. That's why it's optional.
54 - "Helicopters are useless. " - No comment, as I haven't used them.
55 - "Unit hit points & firepower were brought back to a halfway point between civ 1 and 2. They should have logically been brought to a higher level than civ2; further specified so more accurate ratios could have been assigned according to unit type. Then the whole “my tank lost to a fehking spearman” complaint would have been less frequent, if not absent. " - They didn't do bad on it. I've yet to see a spearman kill my tank unless the tank was seriously damaged already.
56 - "Units can not use enemy roads. It’s fine enough that you can’t use enemy railroads, but roads??? Again, you’d like to render warfare in it’s entirety obsolete, I see. What’s the story here - are you a bunch of hippies, or what?" - Methinks, if you stopped making baseless accusations, someone might actually listen to you.
57 - "A nuclear warhead halves a city’s population (point based) and infrastructure – whilst a warrior, a few hundred men with spears (or molotav cocktails, it’s irrelevant how you want to justify it), can destory EVERYTHING in an instant? Something is wrong here. " - Note that nukes do NOT wipe everything out when they go off IRL.
58 - "Bombers can not sink ships " - Would you like kamikazi options too?
59 - "Razing cities is a ridiculous option. It should only be an open choice to smaller cities, preferably 3 and under. A unit of a few thousand (or less) soldiers can not effectively murder and destroy an entire city of over a million people with them sitting idly by. It has not, does not, and will not happen - It’s just that simple." - I have yet to see a computer player do it, and I don't do it. Opt out.
60 - "Bombers can not target specific improvements." - What about stealth bombers?
61 - "Even less civs than number 2: too few to pick from." - Are you sure?

Redundant streamlining.
62 - "“Random number generator” has been proven time and again to be completely out of whack. " - If you say so. I think your computer just doesn't like you. I have this nice talent (I have no way to explain it), that when I'm playing Lords of Conquest on my Commodore 64/128 on High Chance against other players, I usually win my battles with 30% odds, in the enemy's favor, while other players battling against me with 60% odds, in their favor, usually lose. This only seems to work on the Commodore, for some reason. Wierd. Or it could be pure random chance that made that happen over and over. It IS possible, however unlikely.
63 - "AI trades very poorly" - It's not that bad actually.
64 – "I want the two hours of my life which I spent writing this back. " - You are an idiot.
65 - "You have sold your souls to a ship of fools. " - See #64. Use the dilbert principle. Idiots are promoted to the area where they can do the least harm - management. Of course, sometimes they still reach out and ruin something.

[Templar]

FWIW, I've seen AI players raze my cities, the bastards.

[monkspider]

This is one of the best posts I have seen in a while, well put Axis.
I definitely think that Civ III is the best game to come around in years. I am glad that it was so universally acclaimed, one or two Apolyton trolls not withstanding of course.

[Theseus]

I never saw this.

Shadowlord, MPP with me in MP, just for the shock value.

[Jethro83]

Civ III definitely has the potential to be one of the best all-time games. It still has a long way to go though.

But Civ III is definitely a good game, and worth the money I spent on it. No more, no less.

Why the whiners are attacking the game, I don't know. Its fine that they may be at odds with the game, I accept that they have such opinions, but the way they are still carrying on about it is just getting way too old. So come on whiners. Give it a rest.

[Akka]

Why the whiners are attacking the game, I don't know. Its fine that they may be at odds with the game, I accept that they have such opinions, but the way they are still carrying on about it is just getting way too old. So come on whiners. Give it a rest.

Part of it is that they expected not a "good game", but expected the true sequel of Civilization. If you use a famous title, you have to live up to the expectations it bring with it. That's the counterpart of the guaranteed good sales.
Second part comes probably from the itching that is caused by people which praise a game beyond its real value, and the need to react at such statements.

And the last part, that is probably the real one for our friend Coracle, is the need to troll

[Colonel Rhombus]

Sixty-five reasons why I'm a whiney little *****. Whoever originally wrote that load of rubbish probably looks like they've been sucking on a lemon for their entire lives.

The only things that pissed me off about Civ3 was the corruption and the simplified combat. Both have been addressed in subsequent patches. The bonus HP option and lethal bombard features have largely corrected the problem.

There really isn't very much to complain about.

[Jethro83]

Originally posted by Akka le Vil


Part of it is that they expected not a "good game", but expected the true sequel of Civilization. If you use a famous title, you have to live up to the expectations it bring with it. That's the counterpart of the guaranteed good sales.
Second part comes probably from the itching that is caused by people which praise a game beyond its real value, and the need to react at such statements.

Proof that pitching high expectations will only serve to get people worked up. They really didn't need to make such expectations. But I do agree that by slapping "Sid Meier's" in front of a game title creates the impression that it will be a masterpiece. With the patches that have and will come, it will be. I've seen so many games that were still unfinished out of the box, that are far worse than Civ III was out of the box (take Ultima Ascension for example. Even with the countless patches released, it was still a crock, and terrible end to 20 odd years of role-playing history). I guess I might have been desensitized to rushed Christmas releases of such minor proportions as Civ III because of incidents like Ultima Ascension (which was a major problem area).

And the last part, that is probably the real one for our friend Coracle, is the need to troll

Ah yes. In the earlier days, it might have made things more interesting, but when the same issue is being whined about repeatedly (eg. 'Soren's Culture Flipping Nonsense', etc.) it is, as I already said, getting too old and worn, creating no new argument.

[King of Rasslin]

It was a big disappointment for Civ 2 fans because they want to tech all the way to tanks before they attack Come on, the AI was so dumb in Civ 2 and there was no need for resources. You traded with caravans. You could use the AI's own roads and railroads against them. Seriously, Civ 3 is a (huge) step above Civ 2

But it was butchered compared to Alpha Centauri. They really dumbed it down, probably for the Civ 2 fanboys. Some people still complain that it's too hard or they can't tech up to tanks like they used to. Espionage was hurt, I will agree with that. But adding in culture, resources, and bombarding, it is truly an awesome game much, much, much bettter than Civ 2.

I don't want to talk about Alpha Centauri. It's depressing that such a great game was ignored by, well, the ignorant

The good news is that we don't have to worry about a sequel. AC is so good you don't need one! The AI is really dumb, but multiplayer was awesome. I mean, a planetary council to raise or lower sea levels. The random events. Elevation. Unique locations with random bonuses. Cooler goody huts (the Civ 3 villages are so boring it brings me to tears) and mind worms. Really cool terrain improvements (thermal boreholes) and ocean cities. A huge tech tree without useless techs (free artistry, anyone?)

Civ 3 is praised by me as a Civ 2 fan, but hated by me as an AC fan. I guess I would give it 3.75/5. It's good. It's great. But it isn't the greatest.

[Sava]

I was a Civ enthusiast, and I sometimes still play TOT. But Civ 3 is stupid. It is the same game except for a tech tree modification, the addition of culture, new graphics and sound, downgraded combat system, and a useless trade system. You'd think after 7 years or so, they could at least come up with some different and better improvements. This game should really be called Civ 2.5 If Civ 2:ToT had a sprite editor (to edit animated units) it would automatically be a superior game.

[MiloMilo]

Axis, good input. I have started to notice a trend between the posts that commend the game and those that condemn it. The whiners usually compare the game with civ2 and mention every detail that they were used to that has changed. The fact is that there were some radical changes made, maybe too radical. See, civ2 took a great formula (civ1) and added some goodies on top of it. So people loved it. They loved it even though it presented nothing really new, and had some very serious flaws (ai cheating instead of ai strategy, no borders, to easy to win without any depth of strategy, not enough victory conditions, etc.)

Now I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I understand some of Coracle's complaints. The is no proper scenario editor, there are (thus) no proper scenarios to play, and there are many facets of gameplay that a civ2er will not be used to.

What Coracle and others don't appreciate is that at its core, civ3 is a vastly superior game. Firaxis was pushed to release it too early, but look at it this way: instead of waiting six months for a game we wanted, we got the game early and Firaxis spent six months altering in response to fans' suggestions. The scenarios will come. The multiplayer will come (civ2 didn't ship with multiplayer either, if I recall, nor did civ1. Remember civ, then winciv, the civ2, the civ2multi, then civ2gold?). In time this game will easily eclipse its predecessor. And people like Coracle will eventually understand that they simply like civ2 better and go back to playing that.

[dunk]

Personally, I think anyone who buys collector's editions and complains about them is somewhat dim.

I mean the box tells you what's inside.

I have seen some good ones. Pool of Radiance actually came with a novel.

I don't know why, but I think some people had their hopes up way too high. And now they come here and whine like toddlers.

I have fun playing Civ III. I could care less if it was dumbed down from AC. I have both games and I play them both.

[King of Rasslin]

I'm with dunk999 here. I play both Civ 3 and AC but I like AC more. I really miss making my own custom units

I mean, in Alpha centauri, you could have an 8-1-2 defended by a 1-5-2. Combined arms was really much better in Alpha Centauri. Although I do commend Civ 3 for giving weaker units a chance. Sometimes you can't get iron or saltpeter. That shouldn't be a death sentence.

[Cyclotron]

I never played AC, but in my mind Civ3 was a worthy successor to both Civ1 and Civ2 (which I played with a vengeance). The improvements vastly, vastly outweigh the losses. As for comparing it to SMAC, I have no way to judge... but I do own CTP and let me tell you, that really dissapointed me. Sure, there were a few things that interested me, but I'm really glad Civ3 turned out so well in a genre with those mediocre games.

Civ3 is not perfect, but it is definitly woth the money I paid for it... I await PTW.

PS, sucks for the people who bought LE. I never buy an LE.

[rhenric557]

I keep seeing everywhere that people gripe about how slow the game is, yes it can get a bit bogged down towards the late end of the game but doesn't anyone remember how slow CIV 2 was when it came out.

[Cyclotron]

Sheesh, Civ3 has never bogged down for me... of course, this computer is brand new. Civ2 actually got to about 30 seconds per turn on really huge maps, but I generally didn't play on huge maps.

[Alex]

Been there, done that.