Flaws of Civ 3 and possible solutions - very long post

[Solver]

Let me start by saying that I love Civ 3, and am looking forward to playing it vs. other humans in the expansion. Concepts such as new diplomacy, reworked trade and resource system and culture make me think that Civ 3 is the best game in the genre as of yet. However, any game might be improved, and Civ 3 has a fair number of flaws. I will here try to list things that are in my opinion to be listed as flaws. Also, I’ll speak about Civ 3 as it is, without any mods applied, and will try to give my ideas on how can these flaws be fixed, by modding the game or some more global changes to the game engine itself.

Also note that this post does in no way discuss the ups and downs of the Civ3Edit program.

Yesterday night I was pondering and thinking about how Ensemble Studios releases games. Their upcoming title, Age of Mythology, is now ready as a game for several months, so they could have released it in spring. However, ES decided that they need to make it sure the game is balanced, has no easy to use exploits or giant gaps. This is why they first has an internal test with 200 players, and are now doing a large beta test, by sending out the beta version of AoM to ten thousand gamers worldwide. I really appreciate this approach, for having some of the best players there are as testers will ensure that the game will have no unbalanced factions. To those who played the Age of Kings, may I remind the Teuton civilizations before the patch came out, that was banned from almost every game, due to their Town Center bonus.

Civ 3 is a pretty nicely balanced game. No civilization is unbalanced, no unit is unbalanced, after the patches, and there no longer seems to be such an amount of strategies that would net you a win in any situation. Disasters such as the Howitzer rush in Civ 2 are eliminated. So, some of the problems Civ 3 has or had are:

Before patch 1.21f – Corruption. While in previous civ games corruption remained an element to be dealt with, it could never ruin your empire as much as it did in Civ 3. It often made colonizing other landmasses a daunting waste of resources, as you would get a city that wouldn’t grow above two shields per turn, surely doesn’t look like something you want. The Forbidden Palace is a nice thing, but if you conquered another nation or two, you probably want the FP in their territory – where it would take like 80 turns to build. Does not seem quite fair. At the moment the corruption problem is pretty much fixed. I have increased the optimal number of cities to prevent corruption from going rampant too early, and have also used the corruption slider to lower the effects of it somewhat.

Before patch 1.17f – fast units. Let’s face it - the original Civ 3 and Civ 3 version 1.16f had one big unbalancing thing about it – the retreat effects of fast units. A fast unit fighting a slower unit would always retreat when having one hit point remaining, if the other unit had more than one hit point remaining. Needless to say, I then used to play my games as a race to Chivalry, where I could just keep building Knights and overrun anyone I wanted, with a pretty low number of units in my army, knowing I won’t be taking heavy casualties. Also, this was an issue in the Ancient Age, where Horsemen were much of a powerhouse – all in all, noone in the Ancient Age protects his cities with 5 units. And the Mounted Warrior also goes here – with a whopping attack of 3 and the ability to retreat, being Iroquois granted you conquest of any civilization there is nearby, even the Greeks. In the Industrial Age, Cavalry was very powerful, and so on – this was probably the biggest unbalance ever in Civ 3. Fixed by patch 1.17f through making retreat random.

Useless/badly designed units. Oh, I love this one. Now I’ll list all the useless units in Civ 3, giving reasons why are they useless.

Marine – as expensive as a Tank, this unit has an attack of 8. By the time you discover Amphibious War, everyone is certainly defending by Infantry (defense of 10), and the most advanced civs might have first Mech. Inf units entering service. Simply put, the Marines are not able to be much of a threat to cities, especially big ones, defended by such guns. You’re much better off building Tanks instead. Marines might be useful for backwards civs or civs lacking Rubber, and thus defending by Riflemen, but not more than that. I have made the Marine one of the best units in the game, by giving it attack of 12 and 2 extra hit points – so I’m oftentimes building the Marines for land combat, even when I have Tanks available. Actually, the Marine is now some sort of a Special Forces unit for me. I have successfully used the improved Marine for both fighting in the open, as well as amphibious assaults on cities protected with Infantry – just the way it was supposed to be. And the 2 extra hit points make the Marine hang there for the entire game.

Paratrooper – another unit which can potentially be very fun to play with, but didn’t get used at all. You would get Advanced Flight in the Modern Age, and I usually didn’t hurry to research it too much, so generally Mech. Inf were already around by the time I discovered Paratroopers. Paratrooper has a pretty short drop range, bad attack factors, and can’t move the turn it dropped. This means that, even if you manage to drop these guys on the enemy soil, the other player will just move a couple of Tanks during his turns to dispatch the threat. Even if your Paratrooper survived till the next turn, all it could actually do is pillaging improvements, for its combat value is low somewhat. In my mod, I’ve still not made the Paratrooper useful, but at least maybe not completely useless – attack and defense of 10, improved drop range, 2 extra hit points. Not exactly as useful as my Marines, but at least a viable choice in certain situations. Other solutions can include giving the Paratrooper the ability to move the turn it drops, or maybe giving it an unlimited drop range.

Helicopter – of the units mentioned thus far, by far the most useless. If the Marines can be used on inferior civs and Paratroopers for sitting on resources, I have completely failed to find a use for the Helicopter. Let’s look, it can transport one foot unit to anywhere within 6 squares of your city, and can not be landed on Aircraft Carriers. Most probably, 6 squares away from your city means no more than 2 squares deep in the enemy territory, is it really worth the hassle? Moreover, it can only transport foot units, but you’re certainly attacking with Tanks and Mech. Inf now. True, you probably have some Infantry around, but isn’t it better to send it by the land? The only possible situation of use for the Helicopter I can imagine is if you are attacking another landmass within 6 squares of your city, and you have a nice number of Helicopters – but even then it’s a pretty arguable alternative to the Transport ships – I think it’s better to build one Transport and use it, rather than build 8 Helicopters and be limited to foot units only. Fixes to this? Pretty tough… I’ve given the Helicopter range of 8, though I would want it to have somewhat around 10 or 12. Also, I allowed it to carry up to 4 units, this should make it useful in some situations, but even with these changes, I’ve used the Helicopter only once, more to see how it works and is it better than because I needed to. I think Helicopters should have the ability to land on Carries with their cargo, but then, the AI would have to be tweaked to be able to handle this – not easy thing to, either.

Explorer – not a completely useless unit, but certainly not what it’s supposed to be. It arrives at the end of the Middle Ages, and surely can not do much work exploring – you should know most or entire map already by now, since you’ve traveled a lot, and also have been into map trades with other civilizations. The Explorer can still be useful in a few situations, such as keeping him into territory of two other warring civilizations to monitor the events there, and know when and how to join the battle, but this use of the Explorer might be a good one in a pretty limited number of cases. And the Explorer is certainly no match to its Civ 2 counterpart that was often really used to explore the lands. Big changes would be needed to prevent you from knowing all the map by the time Explorer arrives, so maybe it should just be put earlier on the tech tree, where you can actually make use of this fellow.

Cruise Missile – does this sound familiar? I think this is the most commonly mentioned example of a useless unit. Cruise Missile can kill a unit by bombardment, but it will get lost anyway, and can only kill a unit if it’s already low somewhat on hit points. Having a short range, this one-hit weapon was rarely, if ever, used by human players. I have gone pretty far in modifying this unit. I let the Cruise Missile sometimes kill a unit at full health, gave the Battleship an ability to carry two of these, increased the attack range, and also gave the Missile the Precision Strike ability. Just look, in real life missiles are often used for targeting specific structures, why not in Civ3? What I currently got is a nice alternative for a few units, and I keep a few of these around for sinking ships or attacking stacks of units – who knows when the need comes?
Nukes – ahh the nukes. Let’s face it, the way they’re implemented is not the best possible way. Currently nukes are very expensive for what they do, and there’s also no real drawback to using them. I see it as a bad thing that you can never destroy a city with a nuke. Think real life, can a city survive after 3 or 4 nukes are dropped on it? Probably not. In Civ 3, nukes don’t even kill all the units in attacked square – they just have a chance of doing so. They’re only useful because they destroy tile improvement around the city, so nukes are nice to use on enemy capitol, to prevent trading, but generally, you’re usually supposed to use standard forces instead of nukes. I did all I could do – I just lowered the cost for the nuke, to make it worth building for its small effect. Other suggestions on improving nuclear weapons could be increasing the effect of nukes. By this I mean, ability to destroy cities, better blast radius, more damage to city infrastructure and such. Also, give nukes drawbacks. Other civs should start disliking you in case you are using nuclear weapons. Yes, they’re programmed to declare war on you in case nukes are used, but there’s one big problem with it – Nukes come in the modern age, and by then, all the wars are global, with every civ involved on either side. And so, your enemies can’t get worse, even if you nuke one of them, and your allies are always happy if you nuke a mutual foe. I don’t think it should be this way – there should be a chance that your allies will break the alliance or even shift sides if you use too much nuclear weapons. I have, however, used a fair number of nukes in a 3 on 3 war, and neither of my allies got upset – they both were happily taking the territory glowing in radioactive rain. Nukes cause too much pollution, you say? That’s rubbish. When I have been nuked, my army of workers cleared all the pollution in two turns. When the AI is nuked, it will either clear pollution itself, or other AIs/human that conquers the land will clear it a bit later. And even if the global worming affects a square or two within your land, it’s not much of a tragedy. Just think, all the previous civgames, CtP included, had nice effects of Global Warming – so, terrain could be affected globally, leading to worldwide starvation and production shortage, or water levels were just raising, submerging cities and, at times, whole landmasses. Then Global Warming disasters were something you really didn’t want to occur, most of the time, in Civ 3 it’s not much of a problem.

Nuclear submarines – while I’m speaking of nuclear weapons in general, let me throw the nuclear sub here, too. What we have is a more expensive version of the standard sub, which still isn’t much of a deal attack wise, and can only carry one Tactical nuke. As I showed above, the Tactical Nuke isn’t something you would die for, and the carry capacity of one isn’t too promising, especially taking in account that the sub can hardly be used to do anything else – it would probably lose to a Battleship if you tried to attack one. You would be better off building fair numbers of regular Submarines, if you want an underwater fleet, or just resort to the usual ships. I gave it an attack factor of 10, to give the nuke sub reasonable chance again modern ships, and a carry capacity of 4 tactical nukes. This, I believe, can be a threat. All in all, if I build and load just three of these, that’s 12 nukes, which can be a threat to another nation. However, as long as nukes in general don’t get fixed, the nuclear submarine will still remain a unit of average usefulness.

Stealth Fighter – this is a unit almost never built even by fans of airpower, such as myself. It can do everything the Stealth Bomber does, but does it worse – less chance of hitting, less damage inflicted if the hit takes place. While the Stealth Fighter is cheaper somewhat, it’s still better not to build it at all – those lower production cities for whom it matters can as well be building other stuff, and chances are high your civilization will benefit more from it. I’m pretty much lacking ideas on how to fix it. Maybe the Stealth Fighter should also be able to intercept, making it a universal plane, or have some other sort of a special ability. However, as I see it, the unit can just be removed from the game – I’d rather see the Gunship Helicopter instead of it.

Catapults and Cannons – this might be just mine opinion, but I think these two are useless. I do not naysay the idea of artillery bombardment, I actually find Artillery units quite useful due to their two square range, and will often build some to supplement my main attack force, but I will not be using Catapults and Cannons. Simply put, they are slow, so you need a unit to keep backwards to protect these. By the time they arrive to the target city, your main force is already there, and possibly should have already been striking. Especially during the Ancient Age, every unit and every city matters, so you’d rather get another Swordsman than a Catapult. Look, the Catapult will miss its target more often that not, and if even if it hits, not much damage is done – chances are high that the extra Swordsman could have done more, or even killed the defender. This stays true for the Cannon, where you’re actually better off using your Knights to attack the city – they can reach it faster, and do also hold a chance of retreating. As I see it, Cannons and Catapults are of use exclusively on defense, stacking them with other defensive units you got along the border or in cities. As I say, this doesn’t apply to Artillery and other modern bombarding units. Possible fixes to this include increasing strength of these units, so that you would have more of a motivation to build these.

This would pretty much conclude the section of useless units, I don’t think I missed out many, but I might well have forgotten something, you know how it is to write a long post such as this. Now a bit more of other problems with Civ 3, in a pretty random order, I just feel too lazy.

Age of sail – this one is just too short. With Galleons and Frigates arriving only at Magnetism, you’re getting Ironclads very soon. Steam Power is always my first technology in the Industrial Age, and, given that on many maps navy isn’t at all that important, Frigates never really come into play. Maybe the Ironclad should have its movement lowered, so that it wouldn’t make the Frigate obsolete, or also make the Ironclad a bit more expensive, to give the player an alternative cost-wise, too.

Reconnaissance missions – this air mission is just useless, and sometimes ridiculous. Say, you saw an enemy ship move into the fog of war and know where it is. You can’t see it, but your bomber can reach it. However, to be able to attack that ship you have to first fly a Reconnaissance mission to get in sight – pretty ridiculous, given there’s no armed reconnaissance – in real life, one plane doesn’t just fly around without attacking to let the attacking planes know where to drop their bombs.

Modern Age – the game doesn’t have four ages, it has three and a half. Simply put, as I reach the Modern Age, I get Computers, and then act along one of two scenarios. If everyone else loves me, I go for Fission, build UN, game over. If not, I go for Space Flight, and am then only researching spaceship technologies, while having my best cities produce the spaceship parts, which are cheap – I get them completed by the time the next tech arrives. This early victory is why, before I modified this, I haven’t build an AEGIS cruiser a single time – I haven’t actually discovered Stealth, Robotics, Genetics, etc. – victory just came too fast. I think the whole Modern Age needs a major remake from Firaxis, but what we can do with the Editor is resetting some of spaceship parts to later techs. Yes, it’s not realistic, but at least will make you research. Oh, and don’t forget to increase the cost for all the spaceship parts. I really hope Firaxis reworks the Modern Age in Play the World.

Armies – before the game was released, we supposed that armies are going to be powerhouses. It turned out that they’re not, and I will rarely build an Army with my Leader. Basically an Army is three units sharing hit points. So, you get a Cavalry with 15 Hit Points instead of 3 Cavalry with 5 Hit Points. How good is it? First, let me refer to situations where there are units with one movement point in an army, such as Infantry or my improved Marines, or early armies of Swordsmen. Three Elite Swordsmen can kill three units in one turn, and each will also have a chance of at least 1 in 16 of generating you a Leader. Sounds nice. An army of Elite Swordsmen can only kill one unit per turn. It will almost certainly kill that defender, but that’s only one unit beaten, and with a zero chance of generating another Leader. Think what you like better. Also, Armies do not come cheap. They come at the expense of a Leader, something I will often want to use for completing a Wonder. This is why I don’t build Armies in the Middle Ages- there are just too many Wonders to complete, and I’d rather use the Leader to get yet another of those. The Military Academy, though, can be quite useful, if you get it, with a productive city giving you an Army each 2-3 turns… under certain conditions, can be a neat bonus. Another huge drawback is impossibility to upgrade – if you built an army of Swordsmen, it will become useless in the Middle Ages. I would certainly like to see Armies improved – maybe give it the ability to attack several times a turn even with slow units in it, make them upgradeable, add something else, but make a pretty peaceful player such as myself wanting to acquire one. And warmongers aren’t dying for armies too much, either.

[Solver]

And since there's a 20 thousand character limit, here the ending goes:

_______________________



Leader generation – this is not a major problem, but I’ll try to combine this thought with another one. It generally forces you to warmonger, since civs who stay at war are given a nice advantage. They will probably see a fair amount of Leaders, that’s the key advantage. For a peaceful player, there’s no way to generate a leader. Also, let’s face the fact that Civ 3 forces us to fight in the Ancient Age – it has been proven that without a decent fight early on you can’t stay too strong for the rest of the game. Sometimes I would like to enjoy the pure builder approach, though. By the way, being forced to buy techs for a good part of the game at higher difficulty levels goes here, too. It has been discussed over and over, and the players seem to like the idea of being able to generate leaders through peaceful ways, like culture. I also think this is a nice idea, and would certainly add more choices to playing a builder’s game. As it is, the fair builder guy will still spend 15-20 turns on a Wonder, while a warmonger can get the Wonder instantly, using up yet another Leader he got.

Culture flips – I just can’t stay away from this. I like culture, I like flipping, I take it as another challenge, but I find it pretty ridiculous that units in a city that flipped get lost. They should, for instance, be sent out to your closest city that is at least 6 tiles away from the city that flipped, or be sent back to your capitol, or do something! It’s pretty illogical and sometimes not quite fun to see units just disappear in the air.


Now, I’m almost positive there was something else I would like to mention, but I don’t remember it at the moment, maybe I’ll update this someday. Just my thoughts, but if Firaxis hired players as testers, some of these problems would be non existent. I still love Civ 3, and still want PtW, but I believe that constructive criticism that I herein tried to provide helps the players and the developers.

[Solver]

The thread is already rated by a 5, and no replies? Though I saw the great Vel reading it .

[WarpStorm]

I feel your pain and have been fooling with mods to try to fix parts.

The Cruise Missile was easy to fix. I split it into two missiles, The Buzz Bomb and the Cruise Missile. The Buzz Bomb is exactly the Cruise Misslie that ships with the game. I made the Cruise Missile require Smart Weapons, it has long range high damage, and can be loaded onto Aegis Cruisers and Nuclear Subs. Obviously I had to change the Aegis Cruiser to use them (and only them). Anecdotally, the first time I tested this mod I was on the recieving end of a ship launched CM attack. The AI figured out what I wanted these to do.

Marines and paratroopers need some extra attack, to be worth the price. Like you said they can't displace Infantry.

A mod I've been playing with helps the issue of knowing the world map before explorers come about. Tie the ability to trade maps with the Navigation tech instead of Map Making (maybe in this case Map Making should be renamed boat making, but I'm lazy). This also has the side effect of increasing the Age of Sail a few turns because there is actually an incentive to go for Navigation.

In the games I've done with this, the map is pretty much unknown until the end of the Middle Ages when everyone trades their maps around.

I'm thinking of reordering the techs to make Navigation mandatory between Astronomy and Physics. I haven't tried it but I think this will help the Age of Sail even more. Maybe the English UU should be moved here.

I have to say that in my opinion the Modern era is too short. I haven't come up with a mod that works as good as the ending of Civ2, which often had Nuclear wars raging as Space Ships were on the way to Alpha Centauri. If I want a good late game war, I need to turn off Space Ship victory.

[Solver]

The Cruise Missile was easy to fix. I split it into two missiles, The Buzz Bomb and the Cruise Missile. The Buzz Bomb is exactly the Cruise Misslie that ships with the game. I made the Cruise Missile require Smart Weapons, it has long range high damage, and can be loaded onto Aegis Cruisers and Nuclear Subs. Obviously I had to change the Aegis Cruiser to use them (and only them). Anecdotally, the first time I tested this mod I was on the recieving end of a ship launched CM attack. The AI figured out what I wanted these to do.

Excellent one! Your Cruise Missiles seem to be much like mine, but I'm yet to see AI Battleships to attack with these.

Map trade ideas: nice and quite realsitic. All in all, in real world people only gained knowledge of most of the map by the end of Middle Ages.

As for Modern age... I guess everyone feels like it's too short. As I say, I just made it so that you can't complete the spaceship without researching all the Modern techs.

[WarpStorm]

Did you check the AI option of Missile Transport on the ships that can carry CMs? If you don't you can still use them, but the AI won't.

[zulu9812]

Originally posted by Solver
Helicopter – of the units mentioned thus far, by far the most useless.

If you tag Settler as a foot unit, Helicopters are great for transporting settlers through jungle terrain (or, indeed, any terrain) to drop them closer to their destination. Especially useful for jungle since it takes so long to build roads.

Explorer – not a completely useless unit, but certainly not what it’s supposed to be. It arrives at the end of the Middle Ages, and surely can not do much work exploring – you should know most or entire map already by now, since you’ve traveled a lot, and also have been into map trades with other civilizations. The Explorer can still be useful in a few situations, such as keeping him into territory of two other warring civilizations to monitor the events there, and know when and how to join the battle, but this use of the Explorer might be a good one in a pretty limited number of cases.

I find that the AI gets less bothered about you sending explorers and scouts through it's territory than with other units. Let's take an example: say there are two countries at war with each other, but you have mpps with both, and your on the far side, next to Allied Country 1, which is next to Allied Country 2. How do you stop them attacking you and dragging you into the war. If you don't want an rop, use explorers to go through Allied Country 1 and stop Allied Country 2 moving into it's territory. It's more useful with countries with small borders, or lots of mountains, but it is still useful

Cruise Missile – does this sound familiar? I think this is the most commonly mentioned example of a useless unit. Cruise Missile can kill a unit by bombardment, but it will get lost anyway, and can only kill a unit if it’s already low somewhat on hit points. Having a short range, this one-hit weapon was rarely, if ever, used by human players. I have gone pretty far in modifying this unit. I let the Cruise Missile sometimes kill a unit at full health, gave the Battleship an ability to carry two of these, increased the attack range, and also gave the Missile the Precision Strike ability.

Here's what I did with Cruise Missiles:

Unit: V-1
Cost: 6 shields
Type: Air
Bombard Str.: 10
Bombard ROF: 4
Flags: Immobile, Cruise Missile, Tactical Missile
Requires: Rocketry, Aluminium
Upgrades to: Cruise Missile

Unit: Cruise Missile
Cost: 12 shields
Type: Air
Bombard Str.: 16
Bombard ROF: 8
Flags: Immobile, Cruise Missile, Tactical Missile
Requires: Miniaturization, Aluminium

Nukes – ahh the nukes. Let’s face it, the way they’re implemented is not the best possible way. Currently nukes are very expensive for what they do, and there’s also no real drawback to using them. I see it as a bad thing that you can never destroy a city with a nuke. Think real life, can a city survive after 3 or 4 nukes are dropped on it? Probably not. In Civ 3, nukes don’t even kill all the units in attacked square – they just have a chance of doing so. They’re only useful because they destroy tile improvement around the city, so nukes are nice to use on enemy capitol, to prevent trading, but generally, you’re usually supposed to use standard forces instead of nukes.

I find Nukes to be excellent bombard weapons. As a rule, I prefer to capture cities rather than destroy them. The cost of ICBMs isn't really an issue since you should have cities that can produce in a few turns bu that stage ( well, maybe several, but you can just lower the cost). And modern armour possess the movement to keep out of the blast radius and then blitz when you're done nuking.

Nuclear submarines – while I’m speaking of nuclear weapons in general, let me throw the nuclear sub here, too. What we have is a more expensive version of the standard sub, which still isn’t much of a deal attack wise, and can only carry one Tactical nuke. As I showed above, the Tactical Nuke isn’t something you would die for

Again, an example of what I did:

Unit: Tactical Nuke
Type: Air

Unit: Nuclear Submarine
Type: Sea
Cost: 14 shields
A/D/M: 10/4/8 (doubled movement of all sea vessels)
Transport: 4
Flags: Transport Only Tactical Missiles, Transport Only Aircraft

In this way, nuke subs can carry missiles, but not planes. The missiles can rebase to subs - perhaps a bit too powerful, actually. And tactical nukes become dangerous because you can get them close to enemy cities in greater numbers.

[player1]

I've fixed some units problems without heavily modified rules and by trying to keep vanilla Civ3 flavor.

Click on link below.

[Solver]

Good response, Zulu . Some ideas are pretty nice.

Player1 - BTW, I hope that my mod doesn't change rules in a dramatic way, either.

WarpStorm - nope, didn't flag it , thanks for idea.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Solver
Let me start by saying that I love Civ 3...

The same for me (just to make clear which side of the barricade I stand... .

Originally posted by Solver
Useless/badly designed units.

Marine
Paratrooper
Helicopter
Explorer
Stealth Fighter

I agree. (© XarXo? )

Originally posted by Solver
Cruise Missile
Nuclear submarines
Nukes

I do use Cruise Missiles (the vanilla factory version) from time to time and find them just as useful as I would expect them to be... taking into consideration that your enemy has no chance to defend against them (Or does he? My knowledge of CM may be far from complete...).

I usually build a number of nuclear subs mostly for sentry service (you can see, while they cannot see that you see and from where you see) and to finish off enemy shipping battered by bombardment (naval or land-based). Nuclear subs are not very effective on their own, but they are pretty useful when used in conjuction with other units. The thing is that when you finish an enemy vessel off with a sub, it is not that important to be able to run away to avoid retaliation (which is often the case with surface vessels). Your odds to survive because of being invisible are pretty good.

Can't say anything about nukes, as I almost never use them (a matter of principle for me, I seldom even retaliate with nuclear weapons), but much of your criticism seem to be justified.

Originally posted by Solver
Catapults and Cannons – this might be just mine opinion, but I think these two are useless.

Now, this is something I will oppose rather fiercely. I do not use Cannons very much, AFAIK, but Catapults may easily be the key to one's victory in ancient times. In my last game, I waged a long, bloody war against Aztecs. What eventually turned out to be the decisive action of mine was moving a well defended stack of three (or four?) catapults onto a hill just next to Tenochtitlan. Those catapults almost alone granted me superiority in the war and certainly helped a lot in keeping the war on the enemy soil. Just about every enemy unit approaching "my" hill was battered down to 1-2hp and then finished with a swordsman (or even archer). Anything that came through to actually attack was again welcome with the catapult fire. Aztecs took very heavy losses and eventually lost the war completely (being destroyed). The thing was they could not let me stay where I was, since when my catapults had nothing to do, they were bombarding Aztec capital, melting its defenses, making it an easy pick for the growing stack of my swordsmen. And they were unable to force me out of that hill.

My opinion is that catapults may be very important and very useful in the ancients wars of attrition, if used properly. They are not for blitzkrieg stuff, but they come very handy when the war moves slowly for one reason or another.

Also, my catapults are hitting targets pretty often, I'd say they take the target down by 1hp 60%-70% of the time. Yes, a swordsman might do more damage, however he would perhaps also be damaged. And it would be likely that he would have to return back to my/neutral soil to recover, lest he wishes to risk his very life.

Originally posted by Solver
Age of sail – this one is just too short.

Yep, it is. It should either start earlier or end later... I, too, build almost no frigates - ironclads are always so close in the tech tree... One possible solution might be to make them come with Navigation instead of Magnetism. Magnetism would still be very important as it allows harbours be connected through ocean squares and prevents vessels from sinking in the ocean.

Originally posted by Solver
Reconnaissance missions – this air mission is just useless, and sometimes ridiculous. Say, you saw an enemy ship move into the fog of war and know where it is. You can’t see it, but your bomber can reach it. However, to be able to attack that ship you have to first fly a Reconnaissance mission to get in sight – pretty ridiculous, given there’s no armed reconnaissance – in real life, one plane doesn’t just fly around without attacking to let the attacking planes know where to drop their bombs.

Well, I am not sure if the reasoning here is correct. It may be a bit misleading to understand the whole thing in the game terms only. One tile is something like 100 square miles? You would probably have to fly a recon mission to find your target in the real world. I would suggest a little bit different solution: if I pick recon as my mission, the plane would have its range increased (it is not armed, weights less, therefore uses less fuel and has its range increased). I would also allow moving the plane tile by tile, to allow circular recon missions, not just fly-there-and-back ones. I would also add a "continuous" recon duty, allowing the plane to be assigned a route it would fly every turn until assigned a different task.

Originally posted by Solver
Modern Age – the game doesn’t have four ages, it has three and a half.... [snip] ...victory just came too fast.

I think the whole Modern Age needs a major remake from Firaxis, but what we can do with the Editor is resetting some of spaceship parts to later techs. Yes, it’s not realistic, but at least will make you research. Oh, and don’t forget to increase the cost for all the spaceship parts. I really hope Firaxis reworks the Modern Age in Play the World.

I definitely agree. Perhaps adding one or two more techs to the tree (at the level of Smart Weapons or even later) and attaching new spaceship parts to them... or at least attaching one new one to Robotics... The victory really comes too early. Inevitably.

Originally posted by Solver
Armies

For this one, I would not grant you my support. I find armies useful just enough, not being overpowered either... pretty well balanced, I'd say. They can be the key to victory, but you are not lost, if you have got none (consider the fact that you need at least one leader to be able to build armies - and the leader is a matter of luck). I use armies as nutcrackers - and they are great for this purpose. I believe that giving them more power would make them too powerful.

You've got my full support for changes in the flip mechanics (troops not vanishing).

I do agree that there should be a possibility to generate a leader in a peaceful way. I'd probably like the leaders to be redesigned significantly. I believe that being able to finish wonders with great leaders is simply too easy and is in fact a similar exploit like "buying" the wonders just a turn before the AI would finish them in Civ2. I would suggest toning the GLs down: let them either create an army, or be moved to a city. If in a city, they would have a similar effect on the city production (and happiness/commerce, maybe) as WLT_D or golden ages. This way, they would help finishing the wonder much earlier, but would not make it a piece of cake. To fine-tune this idea, leaders should die after spending X turns in a city, or X+something total (eternal leaders would be no fun). At the same time, I would allow having more than one leader at a time, but I would not add up their effects if stationed in the same city.

Well, that is just about it... My own criticism not mentioned in your post would be primarily about the naval warfare, especially the naval air warfare - but I have posted about this in another thread (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...36#post1158336), so I will not repeat it here.

I would also like to see the UN victory tweaked somehow, just that I have no idea how... so my criticism would not be constructive...

Anyway, fine post, Solver.

[Solver]

A fine post, vondrack! I'm now too tired to argue, but as far as Catapults go, I only see them useful in what is more a defensive war.

As for the UN victory... I have another post, half as long as this on this forum, which describes how I see UN could be modified and improved... you can see it, too.

[Solver]

And as for another point of you, Armies. They surely are balanced, but they can never be a key to victory, I think. Just humble opinion of a player about to move on Monarch, but Armies can not alone decide the war. You're not lost if you have none, and I outlined the expense of an army... you actually lose much when you create one.a

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Solver
A fine post, vondrack! I'm now too tired to argue, but as far as Catapults go, I only see them useful in what is more a defensive war.

Apparently, this is a result of different gameplay experience. However, what you call a defensive war might very well be what I call a war of attrition... Also, I have to admit that I hate taking losses - my tactics (especially in ancient times) is usually focused on taking as low losses as possible - and catapults battering enemy units down, making them easy picks for my own units, help me use this approach quite successfully. I also have such a foolish habit of not forgetting about building up my infrastructure even during wars. That's why I need to take as low losses as possible - if there is need for more and more new units, I do not have shields enough for all those improvements... I know that it is not the best strategy around... I have realized it many times... but then, I somehow tend to build and build... even if waging war...

Originally posted by Solver
And as for another point of you, Armies. They surely are balanced, but they can never be a key to victory, I think. Just humble opinion of a player about to move on Monarch, but Armies can not alone decide the war. You're not lost if you have none, and I outlined the expense of an army... you actually lose much when you create one.a

Perhaps I did not express myself accurately enough. An army can be the key to a breakpoint in the war - which may be cracking a well-defended enemy post without losses too heavy, for example.

I'd say that the fact that creating an army is "costly" is mostly a result of overpowering the leaders as far as finishing GWs goes... if you tone them down like I proposed, creating armies and using them to power up cities would probably become more even.

[Solver]

I can not agree with you that leaders are overpowered in relation to Wonders... it's not easy to get them, Leaders come at cost of a war.

As for the Ancient Wars - yeah, I also used to play like this, but then understood I'm better of actually taking those causalties.

Out of curiosity, what level do you play?

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Solver
I can not agree with you that leaders are overpowered in relation to Wonders... it's not easy to get them, Leaders come at cost of a war.

Well, ummm... yes, it is not easy. I know they were meant to give warmongers a bit of building chances. However, as I see it, they took even that last bit of advantage from the builders. Wage war... wage war... the more you do so, the higher the possibility to get leaders, the lower the need to actually have some infrastructure and be able to actually build a wonder the difficult way.

Originally posted by Solver
As for the Ancient Wars - yeah, I also used to play like this, but then understood I'm better of actually taking those causalties.

Out of curiosity, what level do you play?

Regent. Exclusively Regent, from the very beginning (yeah, I had some really hard time learning Civ3... ). Winning on Regent has become pretty easy for me only recently. I am still not very eager to move up a level tho, as I enjoy the game as it is on Regent... I may give Monarch a try when I have more time (too much work these days, I barely manage to follow the Apolyton forums... ).

[Solver]

Well, ummm... yes, it is not easy. I know they were meant to give warmongers a bit of building chances. However, as I see it, they took even that last bit of advantage from the builders. Wage war... wage war... the more you do so, the higher the possibility to get leaders, the lower the need to actually have some infrastructure and be able to actually build a wonder the difficult way.

Yeah... that's what I mentione towards the end of the post, saying that warmongers have advantages over builders, and there should be peaceful ways of Great Leader acquistion.

If you play Regent, you're probably around the same skill as me, currenlty . Over the recent two weeks I haven't had much time to play, now I'll be gone for a week, but I think I'll start a Monarch game once I beat Regent two more times. And starting on Monarch will probably also start with a few losses for me.

[whosurdaddy]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
Did you check the AI option of Missile Transport on the ships that can carry CMs? If you don't you can still use them, but the AI won't.

I have selected the ability to transport only tactical missle on these ships, but the Missle Transport Option is grayed out for some reason and I cant check it. And if I somehow manage to check that off, will the AI use these ships for only firing missles and not attacking (since naval power will no longer be checked off)???

[Solver]

Originally posted by whosurdaddy


I have selected the ability to transport only tactical missle on these ships, but the Missle Transport Option is grayed out for some reason and I cant check it. And if I somehow manage to check that off, will the AI use these ships for only firing missles and not attacking (since naval power will no longer be checked off)???

Are you sure your patches are current?

[whosurdaddy]

Originally posted by zulu9812

Again, an example of what I did:

Unit: Nuclear Submarine
Type: Sea
Cost: 14 shields
A/D/M: 10/4/8 (doubled movement of all sea vessels)
Transport: 4
Flags: Transport Only Tactical Missiles, Transport Only Cruise Missiles

Where did u find a flag for Transport only cruise missles??? All i see is a flag for transport only tactical missles.

[zulu9812]

sorry, it should read "Transport Only Tactical Missiles, Transport Only Aircraft". Oops, I'd better update my post...

[whosurdaddy]

Originally posted by Solver


Are you sure your patches are current?

Defnitely. Naval power is currently checked off, but the boxes for naval missle transport, naval carrier, and naval transport are all grayed out. If I uncheck naval power, the other boxes still dont become "check-able."

[whosurdaddy]

Originally posted by whosurdaddy


Defnitely. Naval power is currently checked off, but the boxes for naval missle transport, naval carrier, and naval transport are all grayed out. If I uncheck naval power, the other boxes still dont become "check-able."

Ok, I solved it, you also have to have the "unload"box checked off for the naval missle transport ability to be selected.

For the person who said they got this working, does the AI still use their ships in a combat role like they used to when "naval power was checked off" instead of "naval missle transport?" I'm worried that with "naval missle transport" option selected instead of the "naval power" option, the AI will only use the ships as floating missle launchers, instead of using them to escort transports and attack enemy ships like they used to.

[Solver]

I think if you select two boxes, it should go the right way.

[player1]

Originally posted by Solver
I think if you select two boxes, it should go the right way.

But,

Land units with both offense and defense flags use just one strtegy for thier whole lifetime selected when its buuilt.

Maybe same applies to ships?

[Solver]

Don't know, but I have now put Battleship to Sea Power and Missile Transport, will have to see if AI understands it. Soren?

[Chronus]

I think the useless helicopter unit scenario could be solved if they simply allowed helicopter units to move around OUTSIDE of cities (just like in Civ 2) . . . but with the additional ability to transport their respective cargo. Now your slow one movement units can get there more quickly . . . and surgical strikes may become a reality for the game. I would make their attack factor low, but defense fairly high to reflect a reasonable chance of moving troops behind enemy lines. Their movement, however, should maybe be brought to 3. Plunging 6 tiles into enemy territory seems ranther high IMOHO.

[Jaybe]

Well done, Solver.

My 2 cents worth on a couple of issues:

Cruise Missiles attack city defenders with no collateral damage. I like to stockpile several, especially for when there is a city/metro that I would like to take and keep, so I don't destroy its marketplace. No bombing or artillery allowed.

Stealth Fighter: I increased its bombard strength to 8 but left the Rate of Fire at 2.

Modern Age: I have delayed the space ship so Robotics (and Genetics) is required to finish it. Overall, I delayed 6 of the ten SS parts, two to Robotics. Now, perhaps I will get around to building the stealth air units.

Nuc sub: I gave it a 10/5/5.

[Jaybe]

Chronus, that helicopter idea is a saver!
Can we make them independent from cities in the editor?

[zulu9812]

Isnt is possible to have mobile aircraft?

[Solver]

Uncheck Immobile...