1.21 game play is better than readme suggests

planetfall · April 19, 2002, 12:06

Interesting to see the variance between expectations based on the readme and the actual game play. First impression is there is a lot that has been addressed and appears to work as expected. The only surprises so far have been the range of correction available.

Inadequate air craft editor option
Before talk about game play, my biggest outstanding issue is restricted range for aircraft. The players choices are EITHER still up to 8 tiles OR infinite. I don't want to play infinite but I do want the ability to coordinate air, sea and land forces.

Finally figured out why limited air range is so annoying:

early game {before roads, and rr}
land-- max speed 3 tiles
sea -- max speed 4 tiles
air -- na
Note the good match in unit range ability

middle game {roads but not rr}
land-- max speed 6 tiles
sea -- max speed 6 tiles
{if get navigation bonus}
air -- na
Still a good match in range ability

late game {roads & RR }
land-- max speed, entire continent
sea -- max speed 7 tiles
air -- max speed 8 tiles
Here is the problem area. Land units can go all over the place, fast, fast, fast. Sea still slower, would like to move speed of sea in this period up to 8 tiles. AESIS at 8 tiles makes good play. Air sucks. Land and sea move faster. This is way too unbalanced. Want to be able to range bombers to 12 tiles, and jets to 10 tiles {for 5 tile air superiority range}.

RFE-restrict air unit build menu
While talking about air, how about a RFE to be able to restrict building jets and stealth to cities that have airports. It doesn't make sense to me that a city of 3 citizens can build and base either a stealth, or jet.

Corruption
Opps, what's good. Surprising a lot. There are little surprises like suddenly seeing artillery in the governor menu. And then there are the options of dealing with corruption. After fighting corruption thru the previous versions, I find 50% corruption is way, way too low of a setting. Too many of distant cites have no shields lost when pumping out only 3-4 shields. Next game will set percentage higher.

AI tech trading was completely solved.
The adjustable values are cool for setting the trading rate to player preferences. {Don't know if tech devaluation has been addressed.} I may have to increase tech trading rate a bit to make the game more interesting. But at standard rates, noticed fewer beakers at startup and slower tech development thru the ancient era. Play is good, just takes a few more turns to get going.

Starting position
Fixed the problem of the AI always starting on the biggest continent and player never getting a big land mass. Nice surprise.

abandon city
The abandon city is cool, but I would reposition on the menu. I almost abandoned a city when I was simply trying to contact the governor.

invisible
Maybe this was there before, but did not see it. Great now subs won't be attacked by frigates.

Fantastic release timing
What could be more ideal? Patch released on Thurs night, first reactions on Friday, a weekend to put it to the test. How about making this a standard practice: Tuesday give us readme and Thursday give us the patch.

RFE-- better readme's
Suggestion if a little more time went into the readme's there would be fewer unpleasant surprised and player expectations would closer match patch abilities.

Spatzimaus · April 19, 2002, 13:18

There were a few things in here that I thought were REALLY good, that no one seems to have commented on. The big one for me was the sea movement.

Sea tiles can now have varying movement points.
This is HUGE. The problem is that boats are too slow in the early game, so it takes forever to explore (for example, you'll still have a Caravel out exploring while you're building Destroyers). But, increasing movement points across the board is bad, since once you can sail across ocean tiles, it trivializes sea assaults (boats sail from one port to another with no risk in between) and Coastal Fortresses become worthless.

The mod I'm testing now does this:
Double all sea unit movement points except subs; subs only have 50% more than before but get the "all tiles as roads" ability
Coast tiles take 1 movement point, Sea take 2, Ocean take 3.
The reason is, historically, boats that could sail across oceans still stopped at ports for supplies as often as possible, and the further from shore you go the tougher it is to provide logistical support for a fleet. Boats will now prefer to sail near shorelines, keeping them in range of shore-based artillery.
Subs would do badly near shore (too many shallows to dodge), but would be at their best in the deep ocean.

Any thoughts?

planetfall · April 19, 2002, 13:33

I don't find slow ship movement being any more of a hinderance than the hinderance of using workers or warriors instead of scouts or explorers.

BUT, I like the idea of slower movement by the shore and faster deep sea. I think it would help the game play. You are definitely right if all move fast, the AI will zip from port to port and you will have no opportunity to intercept.

Fitz · April 19, 2002, 13:41

The adjustable see square movement cost seemed like a huge change to me too. Be sure to let us know how it works and effects of games Spatz.

morb · April 19, 2002, 19:04

first, espionage is still an arm+leg affair and involves absolutely no strategy or skill. I would like to see the diplomat and spy units make a return. but of course that's not likely to happen because of the dreaded 'design decisions'. ufck.

secondly, besides all that, I'd like the ability to queue/modify a soundtrack playlist (or maybe I'm the only one who hasn't still turned it off?). plus the gameplay starts with the same exact track which ends up the one you keep hearing the most, that's really annoying. At the very least they could have put a decent list of maybe 8 to 10 tracks per age to break the monotony. mp3s a few more mp3s wouldn't take up that much more space (esp considering most of the space taken up by music on the CD is useless wave files). But whatever, that's what we get for a beta/rushed release, at least give us the ability to select the tracks if you're not going to release more of them.

Grrr · April 19, 2002, 20:19

Essentially, Civ3 should simply be able to read an M3U file.

I agree on the air unit modifiers that Planetfall suggests, but maybe a bit higher on full sized (255x255) maps.

Coracle · April 19, 2002, 20:50

Quote:

Originally posted by planetfall
Interesting to see the variance between expectations based on the readme and the actual game play. First impression is there is a lot that has been addressed and appears to work as expected. The only surprises so far have been the range of correction available.

Inadequate air craft editor option
Before talk about game play, my biggest outstanding issue is restricted range for aircraft. The players choices are EITHER still up to 8 tiles OR infinite. I don't want to play infinite but I do want the ability to coordinate air, sea and land forces.

Finally figured out why limited air range is so annoying:

early game {before roads, and rr}
land-- max speed 3 tiles
sea -- max speed 4 tiles
air -- na
Note the good match in unit range ability

middle game {roads but not rr}
land-- max speed 6 tiles
sea -- max speed 6 tiles
{if get navigation bonus}
air -- na
Still a good match in range ability

late game {roads & RR }
land-- max speed, entire continent
sea -- max speed 7 tiles
air -- max speed 8 tiles
Here is the problem area. Land units can go all over the place, fast, fast, fast. Sea still slower, would like to move speed of sea in this period up to 8 tiles. AESIS at 8 tiles makes good play. Air sucks. Land and sea move faster. This is way too unbalanced. Want to be able to range bombers to 12 tiles, and jets to 10 tiles {for 5 tile air superiority range}.

RFE-restrict air unit build menu
While talking about air, how about a RFE to be able to restrict building jets and stealth to cities that have airports. It doesn't make sense to me that a city of 3 citizens can build and base either a stealth, or jet.

Corruption
Opps, what's good. Surprising a lot. There are little surprises like suddenly seeing artillery in the governor menu. And then there are the options of dealing with corruption. After fighting corruption thru the previous versions, I find 50% corruption is way, way too low of a setting. Too many of distant cites have no shields lost when pumping out only 3-4 shields. Next game will set percentage higher.

AI tech trading was completely solved.
The adjustable values are cool for setting the trading rate to player preferences. {Don't know if tech devaluation has been addressed.} I may have to increase tech trading rate a bit to make the game more interesting. But at standard rates, noticed fewer beakers at startup and slower tech development thru the ancient era. Play is good, just takes a few more turns to get going.

Starting position
Fixed the problem of the AI always starting on the biggest continent and player never getting a big land mass. Nice surprise.

abandon city
The abandon city is cool, but I would reposition on the menu. I almost abandoned a city when I was simply trying to contact the governor.

invisible
Maybe this was there before, but did not see it. Great now subs won't be attacked by frigates.

Fantastic release timing
What could be more ideal? Patch released on Thurs night, first reactions on Friday, a weekend to put it to the test. How about making this a standard practice: Tuesday give us readme and Thursday give us the patch.

RFE-- better readme's
Suggestion if a little more time went into the readme's there would be fewer unpleasant surprised and player expectations would closer match patch abilities.

Apparently. abandoning a city gets you NOTHING!! No workers, no settlers. The entire population vanishes into space!!

What about anti-aircraft on ships?? Bombers can still attack ships withoiut being damaged! We need AA!

The "multi'.sav" cheat has been, sadly, killed by Firaxis.

Does the AI use artillery offensively in invasions now? I doubt it.

Roads MUST be usable to an invading force, unless pillaged. This decision by Firaxis is especially dumb.

Subs? Theyt are so useless I edited them, along with some other Useless Units, into something else. In that case, crossbowmen.

asleepathewheel · April 19, 2002, 21:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Coracle

Apparently. abandoning a city gets you NOTHING!! No workers, no settlers. The entire population vanishes into space!!

What do you want, the population in workers, or settlers? As has been stated before, this would just be used as a way to clear jungles in a handful of turns.

Quote:

Originally posted by Coracle We need AA!

I agree, you do need AA.

Quote:

Originally posted by Coracle
The "multi'.sav" cheat has been, sadly, killed by Firaxis.

I think this quote is particularly revealing of your personality.

Analyst Redux · April 20, 2002, 14:10

"AI tech trading was completely solved.
The adjustable values are cool for setting the trading rate to player preferences. {Don't know if tech devaluation has been addressed.} I may have to increase tech trading rate a bit to make the game more interesting. But at standard rates, noticed fewer beakers at startup and slower tech development thru the ancient era. Play is good, just takes a few more turns to get going."

Would you mind elaborating on how this is done, and what setting seems to work best for you so far?

I just installed the patch and started a new game (Monarch level) as the Greeks. Isolated on a small land mass with only the Romans for company until the AD years. I got the better of the Romans (of course) reducing them to a small, broke, civ inhabiting only plains and tundra sections of our landmass. I'd gotten ahead of them in tech, because they never had *any* gold or gpt to offer me for anything.

The Zulus buld the no-sinking wonder around 200 AD and their Galley shows up off the shores of our isle shortly thereafter. I talked to them *first*. They wanted 250 gold and up (plus worldmap) for civ contacts (actually, they told me I couldn't afford their asking price for Persia at all), and 300 gold +map+2gpt for any one of the three techs they had which I did not. I bought what I could afford and let the rest go.

Two turns later. The Romans had *all* contacts and techs from the Zulu. This same civ that couldn't afford to pay more than 10 gold to me for Monarchy suddenly came up with thousands of gold to pay the Zulu for all these goodies?

So apparently, gross tech-whoring is still the default after the patch. If there is a way to turn this AI-to-AI exploit off or tone it down, I'd *love* to know. Please, please, please. Thank-you.

Soren Johnson · April 20, 2002, 14:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Analyst Redux
"AI tech trading was completely solved.
The adjustable values are cool for setting the trading rate to player preferences. {Don't know if tech devaluation has been addressed.} I may have to increase tech trading rate a bit to make the game more interesting. But at standard rates, noticed fewer beakers at startup and slower tech development thru the ancient era. Play is good, just takes a few more turns to get going."

Would you mind elaborating on how this is done, and what setting seems to work best for you so far?

I just installed the patch and started a new game (Monarch level) as the Greeks. Isolated on a small land mass with only the Romans for company until the AD years. I got the better of the Romans (of course) reducing them to a small, broke, civ inhabiting only plains and tundra sections of our landmass. I'd gotten ahead of them in tech, because they never had *any* gold or gpt to offer me for anything.

The Zulus buld the no-sinking wonder around 200 AD and their Galley shows up off the shores of our isle shortly thereafter. I talked to them *first*. They wanted 250 gold and up (plus worldmap) for civ contacts (actually, they told me I couldn't afford their asking price for Persia at all), and 300 gold +map+2gpt for any one of the three techs they had which I did not. I bought what I could afford and let the rest go.

Two turns later. The Romans had *all* contacts and techs from the Zulu. This same civ that couldn't afford to pay more than 10 gold to me for Monarchy suddenly came up with thousands of gold to pay the Zulu for all these goodies?

So apparently, gross tech-whoring is still the default after the patch. If there is a way to turn this AI-to-AI exploit off or tone it down, I'd *love* to know. Please, please, please. Thank-you.

I would _love_ to see a saved game from just before you contacted the Zulus. Any chance?

notyoueither · April 20, 2002, 15:17

Pssst. Soren, how do you say 'multi' in the new Firaxian speak?

Soren Johnson · April 20, 2002, 15:31

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither
Pssst. Soren, how do you say 'multi' in the new Firaxian speak?

um, Microsoft Visual Studio...

IthacaMike · April 20, 2002, 16:39

Quote:

Originally posted by asleepathewheel

What do you want, the population in workers, or settlers? As has been stated before, this would just be used as a way to clear jungles in a handful of turns.

Half the city's population, rounded down, as workers. No settlers.

I think you should get something when you abandon a city

Mike

asleepathewheel · April 20, 2002, 16:59

Quote:

Originally posted by IthacaMike

Half the city's population, rounded down, as workers. No settlers.

I think you should get something when you abandon a city

Mike

I agree that there should be something that would balance the benefits and the negatives. I guess this should be an editor option. Abandon city gives however many of what.

Rust · April 20, 2002, 18:21

Is abandoning cities a good sound strategy, I've never bothered.

alva · April 20, 2002, 23:07

Quote:

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis

I would _love_ to see a saved game from just before you contacted the Zulus. Any chance?

eugh, sorry soren but in my first default 1.21 i had this prob too, it wasn't as bad as 1.17 but still... next game i am gonna adjust the slider somewhat

btw: no savegame, just deletd them all, sorry

Jaybe · April 21, 2002, 00:47

Quote:

Originally posted by alva848
...
btw: no savegame, just deletd them all, sorry

Still in the Recycle Bin??

alva · April 21, 2002, 00:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Jaybe

Still in the Recycle Bin??

nope, full delete, need a new hard drive, i mean what 40GIG in this age!!!!!!(ok, i have some divx, and my cdwr is caput

civ3 i have paid for ok

gnome · April 22, 2002, 01:03

Something I'm concerned I'm missing here.

Do we have to adjust the tech trading rate in the editor to cut down on the AI tech trading rate compared to 1.17f? Or do the default settings already include toning it down?

Furthermore, there seem to be instances of AI tech trading during the player's turn again. I do have a saved game of this, which I posted to another thread.

Soren Johnson · April 22, 2002, 01:11

Quote:

Originally posted by gnome
Something I'm concerned I'm missing here.

Do we have to adjust the tech trading rate in the editor to cut down on the AI tech trading rate compared to 1.17f? Or do the default settings already include toning it down?

Furthermore, there seem to be instances of AI tech trading during the player's turn again. I do have a saved game of this, which I posted to another thread.

It's already toned done via the default settings (the AI-to-AI tech trading rate was 200 in 1.17, now it ranges between 110 and 160 depending on difficulty level... plus the cost of techs has been increased significantly and tech devaluation has been reduced...)

The AI should never be trading during your turn. If you have proof otherwise, that would be a bug, and I would be happy to take a look at it.

Theseus · April 22, 2002, 01:32

Glad to see you here.

Kudos, period.

Dominae · April 22, 2002, 10:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis
It's already toned done via the default settings (the AI-to-AI tech trading rate was 200 in 1.17, now it ranges between 110 and 160 depending on difficulty level... plus the cost of techs has been increased significantly and tech devaluation has been reduced...)

This is precisely what many many players have been waiting to hear. Getting the details on this issue (as opposed to "AI tech trading reduced") is really going to quell pointless debates.

Hurray to Firaxis for fixing this problem. Time to build some Libraries before Industrialization!

Dominae

Alex · April 22, 2002, 12:30

Soren, thanks for the clarification.

lockstep · April 22, 2002, 13:11

Also thanks for the clarification, Soren. However, I'd still like to know the exact formula for tech devaluation in v1.21f. (Does it still depend on the number of active civs?)

Analyst Redux · April 22, 2002, 13:30

Quote:

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis

I would _love_ to see a saved game from just before you contacted the Zulus. Any chance?

Sorry, Soren, as I didn't anticipate that this would be of interest to Firaxis programmers, I didn't archive the record for posterity. I started and stopped several games in that session, using different civs in different situations. Since I considered these games experimental, and didn't intend to finish them, I went through the save folder and deleted everything (and, yes, I emptied the trash, too--habit).

I appreciate that you've made some adjustments, but my quick and dirty conclusion is that the effects of AI tech-trading and the relative trade values of tech and gold haven't changed enough to significantly alter game play. You shouldn't have too much difficulty replicating this kind of result, if you are truly concerned.

FWIW for me to say so, I didn't post to this thread to trash the product. This is simply what I experience in my games: AI-to-AI tech trading that makes my research efforts feel quite pointless. I understand that the workaround strategies are explore (to get civ contacts and devalue the map), generate gold and buy techs instead of researching them (which *really* devalues the game enjoyment for me, quite frankly) and check trade opportunities frequently (but this game already has enough rote/repetitive tasks to perform without adding do-a-round-of-diplomacy-with-every-civ-every-turn to the repetitive task list).

I posted to get input from others about how to customize factors in the game to rebalance trade so that tech research might become a meaningful game strategy again, since they seem to be saying that's possible now. BTW, folks, if someone has clearly answered my question, I missed it. Here's a helpful assumption for you: assume I've never opened the Civ Editor in my life (which I haven't until I read this thread) and haven't a clue how it works. Assume that all I want to do is fix this (if possible), save that fix, and try playing the game again.

Thank you for your support

gnome · April 22, 2002, 14:39

I'd just like to offer my thanks to Soren also, who found my other thread and posted a very useful reply. It turns out there is no out-of-turn trading, instead I just hadn't realized a nuance about tech trading.

Egyptian · April 22, 2002, 15:24

IMO, Firaxis did a great job in fixing the tech trading in 1.21. With 1.17, it was common to sell a tech to two civs, and then have the third and fourth civs offer me nothing but 1 gold for the tech. With 1.21, the price of tech seems to stay the same, and civs are not selling techs to each other as much. There are some civs who have more tech than me, and others that are still, three or four behind. THe other civs are now charging high prices for techs, but that's good, and way better than 1.17. THe outrageous trading has stopped!

HURRAY TO FIRAXIS FOR SOLVING THIS PROBLEM THAT MADE THE GAME A "ME AGAINST THE WORLD" ISSUE!

THANK YOU!

Conqueror · April 22, 2002, 17:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Egyptian

HURRAY TO FIRAXIS FOR SOLVING THIS PROBLEM THAT MADE THE GAME A "ME AGAINST THE WORLD" ISSUE!

THANK YOU!

True true, now i can play the game again after 2 months break, 1.17 was totally unplayable, but mmm 1.21 feels like heaven

nbarclay · April 22, 2002, 21:28

I'm one tech into the modern age in my first 1.21f game (Monarch level), and seven techs ahead of the AIs (in spite of starting on the small side of a 5/3 split in who starts on which continent). Here are some first impressions:

1) AIs are still quite willing to trade with each other, to a point where of the five surviving AIs, the only clear difference is that France is one tech behind. Still, it's been a turn or two since I traded Atomic Theory to the rest of the world (in my centennial tech-for-luxuries swap) and France hasn't gotten it yet, and the difference in size among the AIs isn't big enough for it to be obviously wrong for them to be fairly even in tech.

By the way, that evenness isn't all bad. When an AI that can't afford to pay gold for your tech or luxuries has something like Nationalism, Communism, or Espionage (none of which I normally research myself), it opens up the option of getting gold and luxuries from the wealthier AIs and then still getting the tech from a poor one.

2) I LIKE the way tech doesn't devalue as quickly. This last round of luxury purchases, I was able to use a single tech - Atomic Theory - to get two luxuries out of one AI and one each out of two others (although I think I had to throw in a luxury of my own to one that had probably already been doing some research). Timing as many tech-for-luxury deals as possible to expire at the same time (and making sure you renegotiate them during your turn instead of during the AIs' turns) definitely pays.

3) I was able to do well for myself starting putting gold into research early. I doubt that I would have tried as much as early without a decent amount of river around my starting position, but so far, so good.

Nathan