Amazon.com reviews and strategy....

Velociryx · July 25, 2002, 11:07

Just a quick note here....was on Amazon.com looking at customer reviews of Civ3...

Comments like - "can't win at the Chieftan level without reloading saved games and retaking your moves" and "can't fight a war without resources....this game's too hard!" Are they playing the same game, I wonder?

Perhaps they should head to Apolyton, and check out our body of strategy work....

-=Vel=-

Harovan · July 25, 2002, 11:18

Quote:

5 stars just because Sid Meier is back and runnin' the show, September 10, 2001
Reviewer: Matthew S, Tomich (see more about me) from Chapel Thrill, NC

This one is my favorite... is this fellow talking about SimGolf?

Velociryx · July 25, 2002, 11:20

I hadn't seen that one!

-=Vel=-
(SimGolf, anyone?)

PS: In all seriousness, there really were a number of reviews by gamers who clearly had not spent the first bit of time on any of the fansites....seems like they could certainly benefit from doing so....

Velociryx · July 25, 2002, 11:23

Here's a good one: "....The only way to win this game, or even compete, is to use the cheat strategies that give you unlimited money. They are listed on all the civ sites, but who wants to win this way. " (March 30, 2002 Reviewer: A gamer from Oneonta NY )

Ummm....yeah....

-=Vel=-

civ2yahoo · July 25, 2002, 12:23

I agree with the reviewers. civ3 is much more difficult than Civ2. When they said they were making the difficulty levels farther apart from one another they must have meant they are making them all harder.

Just to describe my latest chieftain game, the first one I might win before time runs out.

I set it to chieftain, random map settings, small size, normal barbarian activity. Playing as the Japanese.

I built a couple of cities on China's island after filling my island with cities. This was while my navy was still small. Then I built up my navy more and sent a ton of horseman to take the Chinese continent.

I quickly destroyed the cities I could see, and then gradually found the more distant chinese cities. After few more battles and lots of searching I destroyed the chinese, having taken three cities, the rest were too small by the end of fighting and had vanished.

I had contact with the Romans so I decided to gear up my navy and transport my hordes of horseman to the Roman continent (both china and roman continents were close to my island.)

By then I had catapults so I sent them along as well to try out this new bombardment thing. Land my tons of horses, only to find out the Romans have a ton of Pikemen. they must have had walls as well as I only managed to take one poorly defended Roman city, and as I didn't realize catapults could be captured, they managed to take both of mine and I pulled out what few horsemen I had left.

While all this was happening on the Roman continent, on the Chinese continent, I got a message about an uprising. This was on normal barbarian level, so I thought it wouldn't be too bad, since I'm used to Raging Hordes in Civ2. Heh.

The horde that followed of endless barbarian horses was worse and more intense than even the hex-edited ultra-high barbarian level in Civ2.\

By the time I managed to locate and guard steel on the chinese continent and connect it to my mainland so as to build the newly researched Samarai units, I had destroyed nearly 100 horsemen, losing workers and destroying several horsemen. It seems there's a lot more barbarians, which means more death of workers and more pillaging, but on attack they were pretty weak even against my warriors.

While I was fighting barbarian raiders, I converted my horsemen to Samarai, and began building lots more. Finally I massed my forces and managed to wipe out the Romans over several heated battles.

Then the Egyptians took my only city on this tiny island, which had me in panic because it was a great place to stage an invasion of my mainland from. Luckily that city culture flipped back to me the next turn.

So with luck, after a lot of hard fighting and twists and turns I might manage to win on Chieftain. I always figured twists and turns were for levels like King and Emperor.

Chieftain in Civ3 is about as hard to me as King on Civ2. You can win, but you will take heavy losses and have to regroup.

Lord Merciless · July 25, 2002, 13:47

Vel, have you posted any reviews about Civ3 yet?

I would give it a 4 star. My basic grudge against Civ3 is that it penalizes gamers for playing peacefully.

Carver · July 25, 2002, 13:56

civ2yahoo,

You'll be blasting through chieftain in no time, just do a good overnighter playing civ

. But you are right easy on Civ3 is not nearly as easy as on other games. You may have trouble biulding the spaceship on Cheiftain because the tech progression is rather slow, but winning by conquest/domination will be no problem.

FrustratedPoet · July 25, 2002, 14:09

yeah ... you just need to get used to the different tactics required.

I was stuck struggling on Chieftain for ages, but now I find Regent fairly easy.

civ2yahoo: part of your problem with that last game seemed to come from not having the iron resource you needed to build Samurai because it was on another continent. That was very unlucky and certainly won't happen every game, if you had been able to attack Rome with Samurai from the start it would have been easier.

quick tip: you mentioned that you spent a long time searching for Chinese cities. Well ... if you plan on going to war with a Civ and wiping them out then you should always buy their world map from them first ... exchange it for yours if you have to ... or give them non-military techs for it ... if you're gonna destroy them anyway then it won't matter.

Solver · July 25, 2002, 14:45

Somehow, I didn't struggle on Chieftain at all. I realized this isn't Civ 2, beaten Chieftain, beaten Warlord, got seriously stuck at Regent. Then I looked at my strategies and realized that, basically, I'm still using many of my Civ 2 strategies. Wiped them - and am now beating Regent.

And yes, it's a shame that many players don't give fansites a visist.

zulu9812 · July 25, 2002, 14:59

Acually, Regent is probably the easiest difficukty. Anything below that and you're struggling to get through the tech tree.

I loved that qoote about Sid Meier running the show...

A lot of the reviewers can't even have played the game, let alone visited the fansites! And a lot of the gripes can be solved by fiddling about with the editor (oo-err!). And there's the usual crap like "The AI cheats in combat!".

Catt · July 25, 2002, 16:37

Sadly, the vast majority of gamers will never visit the fansites. I'm not hardly a gamer at all (until I received Civ 3 as a Chirstmas gift) and didn't visit 'Poly until around March. The fansites are incredibly helpful in improving as a player and stimulating further interest in the game.

The following reviewer made some really good points and put a lot of thought into his critique, and clearly he played the game quite a bit, but I really liked this contrarian twist on why culture flipping is broken:

Quote:

The Culture Effect seems to have problems. In one game, even though I'd built 16 out of 24 Great Wonders and 7 out of 10 Small Wonder, and my Culture, at over 40,000, was almost 3 times that of any other player (according to the Histograph), I no longer took over cities right next to me.

Catt

Theseus · July 26, 2002, 11:06

Hah!!

Something's always broken...

Jawa Jocky · July 26, 2002, 11:30

I'm suprised these people have enough tech savy to actually post a review on Amazon.com. Here is an idea for a Amazon.com post.

This album sucks! I never even heard of Civ3 and I probably never will because, when I put the CD in my CD player it didn't even work. Those bastards at Friaxis Records better give me my money back

Solver · July 26, 2002, 13:23

Catt · July 26, 2002, 20:28

OK - so this really isn't a strategy thread . . .

I got stuck in a long afternoon meeting (on a Friday?) and was able to surf Amazon ("Hey, I need to buy my nephew a birthday present and I'm reading some reviews . . .") without causing problems and without being looked at too askance.

Truly a wealth of entertainment . . .

For instance, I didn't ever understand the true dangers of popping goody huts until this reviewer shared his / her insights:

Quote:

If you gain a scientific advance [from a goody hut] that provides your nation the ability to create military units that require a natural resource, the computer will never allow you these resources. If the player discovers the same advance on his own without the help of a "goodie hut" the computer will give the required natural resources. The result is that a "goodie hut" can be a permanent critical disaster for your civ, forcing you to chuck it all in and start over.

Among the "really easy to please for my $50 purchase crowd," this guy easily gets elected president:

Quote:

I gave it 2 stars because of the 2 redeeming qualitys:
1:The music
2:The Intro movie

Among the "game skills - development challenged" this poor guy may be among the top 5 (emphasis added):

Quote:

The AI placed me (Japan) right next to Zululand, the Romans, England, and the Americans. Every time I tried to initiate diplomacy the terms were so outrageously one-sided and imbalanced I had to ask: "Why even try???" I finally got to "Monarchy" level of government and was trying to get to the "Civalry" advance (needed so that I could get my special "Samurai" civilization-specific unit). My special game advisor was screaming at me to devote more effort to developing my science capacity but, I could scarcely devote more than 20% to this effort because I had to keep manufacturing units just to fend off the Barbarians, Zulus, Romans, English, and Americans. I had fail;ed to be the first to get even the most humble of "Wonders of the World."
My little fleet of "Galleys" (Tiremes in Civ I and II) finally met up withs Greek BATTLESHIP with the warning that I was about to be invaded if I didn't acceed to their impossible demands they would destroy me. I turned them down, only to be met in the next turn by a horde of aircraft carriers filled with fighters and bombers. I decided to quit and start over at an even lower level and eliminate Barbarians (except at the obligatory village level). That was six weeks ago. And, by the way--my most succseeful game!

With all due respect to differing player sensibilities and preferences, this really is an objectively unfair complaint:

Quote:

Civ. 3 is a [great] game, it provides real leaders, resources, and cool army units. The biggest let down is the system of "turns" that it uses. The "turns" slow gameplay and it's frustrating to have something being attacked and not being able to move a unit fast enough because it has to wait a turn. Despite of the aggravating turn system it's a good game and I recomend it.

This guy gets my personal "Always Find a Silver Lining" award:

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I'm not sorry I bought it, if only because of the graphics and its TREMENDOUSLY high "wife annoyance" value.

Finally, I'm not sure if this is also an objectively unfair complaint, or if it is just . . . sad:

Quote:

Fourth, I don't know how to delete those games I have saved!

Lest you think this an isolated problem, it is apparently widespread:

Quote:

10. I haven't yet found the way to delete a saved game file.

The Friday meeting turned out to be more productive and enjoyable than I had originally anticipated.

Theseus · July 27, 2002, 00:24

How did you keep from laughing out loud??

Catt · July 27, 2002, 01:45

I left the room to "use the restroom" about three times in the space of ninety minutes. All that late afternoon tea and soda, you know . . .

Lord Merciless · July 28, 2002, 12:32

It's sad that there are so many retards out there. I used to play Baldur's Gate 2, and found even more amusing comments like "How do I open the door X in the first Dungeon?".

Lord Merciless · July 28, 2002, 12:33

Has anyone of you posted reviews on Amazon?

The Pioneer · July 29, 2002, 07:23

I actually use with a lot of grain and salt the book reviews in amazon. Since I am in Germany and getting to an old good bookstore full of english books is not possible I use Amazon a lot. When I look for a book I read through some of the reviews, it's pretty easy to discard the pointless ones and get an idea of the more usefull ones. I've actually noticed that there is a big difference btwn the reviews in books and in games! I am thinking to write a review aboout a book that I am about to finish, myself but I am not sure if I should.

So long...

Coracle · July 29, 2002, 21:00

The Amazon.com reviews are no funnier than some others. They are likely more accurate than the glowing and effusive reviews in the Gaming World that praised a buggy and beta Civ 3 to the skies as soon as it first came out, that before even the first patch. Firaxis' flacks were busy. As for me, I am off to Amazon. Thanks for
the headsup!

Arrian · July 30, 2002, 12:25

Catt,

That's some funny stuff. That being said, I have a friend at work who has CivIII, and also has a family. He just can't devote the time I do to the game (I don't even want to guess at how many hours per week or month I play). So anyway, we were talking about the game recently, and he was explaining that he can do ok on warlord, but gets trashed on regent. So I started asking him if he did various little things... and we got around to talking about golden ages, whereupon I discovered:

Garry didn't know what triggers a golden age
Garry didn't know what exactly a golden age does
Garry thought you had many golden ages over the course of the game

When I asked him how he could fail to notice a golden age, which significantly boost shield & commerce output, he sorta shrugged and said "I don't pay attention to that stuff."

Translation: "I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just moving units around."

-Arrian

FrustratedPoet · July 30, 2002, 12:31

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
"I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just moving units around."

-Arrian

That sounds like me playing Warcraft 3.

Hell, it sounds like me playing Civ3, but we won't talk about that!

Theseus · July 30, 2002, 12:52

We should make a FAQ of the stuff that new players typically don;t know, as well as the basic stuff they should do when starting out.

candybo · August 4, 2002, 10:50

Two things: 1) I keep my save game file right on the desktop, POOF! 2) I understand the time/obligations thing... family, job, house to take care of, etc. My time here is during slow time at work. Down time at home is too precious (Gotta PLAY!) to visit.
On the other hand, I'm probably a more grounded, well-rounded person than I was when I could play 96 hours a day, all those years ago...

Vlad Antlerkov · August 17, 2002, 19:59

If you want submitted reviews that are hilarious for all the wrong reasons, then http://www.gamefaqs.com/ is a goldmine in that area.

Theseus · August 17, 2002, 20:14

Vlad,

The Exonian? Does that have to do with Phillips Exeter?

Zero-Tau · August 19, 2002, 09:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
Has anyone of you posted reviews on Amazon?

I haven't myself, but on amazon.com, I ran across this review which sounded strangely familiar...

Quote:

DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE HYPE!

This game is not like Civilization 2. It is very different and not for the better. The game is more tedious and boring, and A LOT LESS FUN, although they did slap on splashy graphics, as if I care.

The game when released was a beta unplaytested version filled with bugs and even typos. It has had to be patched FOUR TIMES by the company just to make it playable. If you don't take the time to get the patches from the company site it will really be bad.

Compared to Civ 2 it stinks. Much less fun. There is no longer a Cheat Mode; scenarios are poor; plus they have DUMBED DOWN the game for the 12 year olds and ignored History. They have idiotic concepts such as "Culture Flipping" where you can lose half your army if a city suddenlly decides to join another civilization because it has more "culture" (military strength doesn't count). It's ridiculous.

They made naval warfare very simplictic and simple-minded. And turned Espionage and trade into tedious abstractions. User interface is poor. The basic values for units and resources are silly and wrong.

Lots of things make this over-hyped game a bust - unless you're a kid who loves those graphics and doesn't care a thing about reality and history, and loves to micromanage a game hour after hour.

NO SALE. Civilization 2 was better and more fun.

Naw... must be my imagination...

And Vlad:

Quote:

If you want submitted reviews that are hilarious for all the wrong reasons, then http://www.gamefaqs.com/ is a goldmine in that area.

Just went looking for a Civ3 review on that site. Yup, you're right... some reviews are really hilarious. Also, I think I figured out why Civ3 gets so many bad reviews. Here's the list, with examples:

People who think that everything different than in Civ2 stinks:

Quote:

You can't help your super city build wonders by sendinding convoys to it! There ARE no convoys or freighters anymore.

People who don't read the manual:

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It takes about 5 minutes between turns to watch your own little intellectually challenged workers ALL run to the same area of pollution. I had 18 workers at one time, all set to automate. Every single one of the expensive morons would go to exactly the same spot to work on something, even though only one can work in a square at a time.

People who just wants something to complain about:

Quote:

It's ridiculous. In Civilization II, you sort of had a feeling that you were helping to bring one of earth's civilizations to greatness. Don't expect that here. No spies. Elephants are considered luxuries. Wining the game simply by having pyramids, walls, cathedralls, and theatres in one city. All this and more in- Civilization III- We're Too Cheap To Make A Subtitle!

Oh, and did I mention that all of the three quotes above are from the same review at GameFAQS? You can see the whole review here. It's quite funny.

Vlad Antlerkov · August 19, 2002, 14:37

Theseus:

Yes, it's the school newspaper.

Zero-Tau:

Amazing that some of those people evolved opposable thumbs.

Lord Merciless · August 19, 2002, 14:48

The game was unplayable before being patched. Myself, I started playing after 1.21 came out.

Otherwise, people whining about missing civ2 features belong to those narrow-minded crowds.

Of course, there are also tons of idiots who have no idea about what strategy means.

But the level displayed by the above reviewers came nowhere near the level displayed by some RPG reviewers. I used to play Baldur's Gate games, and was totally appalled by some posters's lack of intellect. I sometimes wonder whether these people have any problem solving skills at all.