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Old September 4, 2002, 22:53   #1
Brutus66
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Still Stinks Out Loud
Well, I came back to give Civ3 another try, months after the last time I stopped playing after getting aggravated. I figured with a new patch, well, who knows.
Well, after one game, I am back to being aggravated again by so many things.
I was playing on Warlord- not a very tough skill level; I wasn't looking to get spanked.
My Civ was definitely one of the lesser developed ones, so there was nothing for the other nations to be envious of. And I behaved pretty well on the diplomatic front too- I stuck to my agreements and never betrayed anybody. But it wasn't even halfway through the game when everybody's attitude towards me was "furious", and that's pretty much where they stayed.
WHY??? Some of these countries I rarely even had contact with.
I remember the other nations getting mad in Civ2 if you started getting too far ahead of everybody, but that was definitely not the case here.
Here, if I bribed somebody, it might elevate their mood to merely "annoyed" for a while, but eventually I was back to being back in the doghouse.
My neighbors, Rome and Babylon, seemed to have no problems attacking me on a whim and then going on to form all kinds of deals and alliances later on. None of the other leaders seemed to mind when it was I getting the pipe.
There were some big conflicts- Babylon became huge and most of the other countries were frequently allied against them for self-preservation. The thing that really, really irked me was that my country and several others would be fighting the Babylonians simultaneously, and I would ask each of the other warring countries if they would like to form an alliance against Babylon. And each time the answer would be No. WHY??? they were ALREADY at war with the Babylonians!!!
And another thing that ticks me off is the ridiculous trading practices of the AI nations- just try to get a square deal ANYWHERE! Think you can trade ANYBODY one luxury item for another without having to throw in a map and some gold to sweeten the deal???
I have had it. I am done! I am just so sick of games that make up for dumb AI by letting it cheat like crazy.
Oh, and another thing. The war weariness business sucks big time. I have a democracy or republic and just start making headway against Hammarubi or whatever his name was, and voila- riots and revolts everywhere.
Hey Sid, I got some news for ya, it's not 1965 anymore, and every war isn't Viet Nam. Democracies don't automatically start rioting when the shooting starts. If they did, we wouldn't have made it against the damn Kaiser, much less Hitler.
And you can check your environmental messages at the door as well- boy am I sick of chasing pollution around the map!!!!
And last, why can I upgrade a spearman but not a swordsman unit? That makes no sense. Every warrior unit you make at the beginning of a game is going to eventually be good for nothing but the scrap pile, even if they distinguish themselves in battle and win their own unique name. You'll be able to upgrade 'em to swordsmen, but that's the end of the line.
Civ2 didn't infuriate me or puzzle me like this, and neither did either of the Call to Power games.
Oh well, at least they seemed to get the combat part pretty well fixed- didn't see any tank-killing spearmen this time out, and no nuclear subs got sank by frigates. Terrain seemed to give the appropriate modifiers- units in the hills did a good job whacking those in the plains.
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Old September 4, 2002, 23:06   #2
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Sorry you don't like the game. I'd suggest you not play anymore.
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Old September 4, 2002, 23:13   #3
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Pretty much all the things you've mentioned here have been bouncing around the forum since the dawn of this game; some of it is hardcoded and cannot be changed with a simple patch and other things can be modded.

Instead of giving up on the game, may I suggest looking around the forum and seeing what others have done to compensate for the short-falls of this game.
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Old September 5, 2002, 00:05   #4
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Brutus, you are right and actually, tubes is too. Scrap the mother.
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Old September 5, 2002, 00:18   #5
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Most of your complaints can be addressed by actively trading with the AI. I never have a problem making alliances and or seeing other civs smiling at me.

re Luxuries, they do job you. The higher your population is, the more they demand for the luxury you want. Kinda real world there.

The rest... oh, hell.

Buh bye!
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Old September 5, 2002, 00:51   #6
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Brutus,

If I understand, you lost, and are pissed.

Stick around... we'll help you get your revenge.
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Old September 5, 2002, 01:07   #7
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Brutus, before you complain more about the game being too hard, try to read this thread first:
Winning early: What do YOU do?

then this one:
"Must Read" threads for newer players / posters
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Old September 5, 2002, 01:32   #8
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The game is so easy on Warlord level. The other civs don't tend to all be furious when I play.

Maybe you should just PRACTICE a little more.
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Old September 5, 2002, 04:51   #9
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The AI is just doing what human players always do. In what way is that cheating. They can see that you are weak. Why bother letting you join their alliance? If I were playing in their place I'd do the same.

And on th subject of trade, you should try getting a square deal from me. You won't unless I'm desperate.

On the subject of riots, have you tried turning city governers on to control attitude? Have you set the luxuries rate to more than 0% ? This is what I do and I get on fine. How long have your wars been? If you are in a democracy and the war goes on for 100 or 200 years then people get pretty fed up with it. You comparison with WWII is therefore not a fair one: It only lasted 6 years. For the US it only lasted 4 years!

If you build up a good military and station them on your borders then
(1) You will be able to finish wars very quickly (in just a few turns) and war weariness won't be a problem
(2) everyone will be much more polite to you 'cos they fear you.

you can get further with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word.

On pollution: build a few more workers. Automate them by pressing shift-p and forget about the pollution.
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Old September 5, 2002, 05:27   #10
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*yawn* another one
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Old September 5, 2002, 06:27   #11
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Re: Still Stinks Out Loud
Quote:
Originally posted by Brutus66
My Civ was definitely one of the lesser developed ones, so there was nothing for the other nations to be envious of. And I behaved pretty well on the diplomatic front too- I stuck to my agreements and never betrayed anybody. But it wasn't even halfway through the game when everybody's attitude towards me was "furious", and that's pretty much where they stayed.
WHY??? Some of these countries I rarely even had contact with.
Face it. They don't like wimps.

Actually furious is more like an indication that they would like to attack you. It can mean that they think you are an easy mark. You obviously were.


Quote:
Here, if I bribed somebody, it might elevate their mood to merely "annoyed" for a while, but eventually I was back to being back in the doghouse.
You need to do a lot more than bribe them. They like alliances best of all. Bribes are small time stuff.

Quote:
My neighbors, Rome and Babylon, seemed to have no problems attacking me on a whim and then going on to form all kinds of deals and alliances later on. None of the other leaders seemed to mind when it was I getting the pipe.
Why should they mind it? One less opponent. Of course the game ends when you lose but the AI is playing to win anyway.


Quote:
And each time the answer would be No. WHY??? they were ALREADY at war with the Babylonians!!!
They don't trust you maybe. Maybe they want a bribe. Remember that if they allie with you against another nation they can't end the war on their own without harmeing their repution for twenty turns. I have learned not to end a war till the alliances time out and I can end them first.

Quote:
And another thing that ticks me off is the ridiculous trading practices of the AI nations- just try to get a square deal ANYWHERE! Think you can trade ANYBODY one luxury item for another without having to throw in a map and some gold to sweeten the deal???
Well part of it is the AI wants to get all the luxuries and when I have a monopoly on four of them the AI wants ALL my luxuries for the ones they have PLUS they want money if I am larger than they are. Luxuries mean a lot more to me than they do them in my present game. I have 52 cities on a standard map and I think the next most is less than twenty. I need the luxuries they don't. Its a sellers market. Till I finish off Englan anyway. Got one of the two luxuries I was getting form Liz when that over made up witch declare war on me. Stupid of her.

Quote:
I have had it. I am done! I am just so sick of games that make up for dumb AI by letting it cheat like crazy.
The AI has almost no cheats. In fact on Warlord its handicapped instead of you. The only known cheats involve the AI knowing things about the map without actually seeing the whole map. Handicaps don't count as cheating and in any case its the AI that was handicapped in that game.

Quote:
Oh, and another thing. The war weariness business sucks big time. I have a democracy or republic and just start making headway against Hammarubi or whatever his name was, and voila- riots and revolts everywhere.
I recommend The Republic. I never go for Democracy anymore. That realy cuts down on WW. In fact in my present game I have been at war with Japan for an extremely long time. Japan was forced to drop out of Democracy and has been communist for centuries.

It really helps if you win the battles and don't lose any cities by conquest. Culture flipping doesn't effect WW from what I can tell. I haven't had ANY WW in this long war because Japan hasn't been able to do anything to me. I don't have a reason to attack Japan myself as I allready have severe corruption with 50 plus cities and didn't want to execute a sea invasion just for maybe one luxury. England has two AND I hate Liz anyway so she is my favorite target.

Oh this is on Monarch not Warlord and all those things you are complaining about are worse on Monarch if you don't know how to deal with them.


Quote:
And you can check your environmental messages at the door as well- boy am I sick of chasing pollution around the map!!!!
Someone allready told you how to handle that. SHIFT-A does work extremely well.

Quote:
And last, why can I upgrade a spearman but not a swordsman unit? That makes no sense.
I don't know. I think its because the Swordsmen is the last offensive foot unit. All further foot units are much stonger on defense than offense.

However you can mod the game if you find this too much of a problem. I just build Horsies myself and only a few swordsmen and even then only if I get Iron before I get horses. I even did that in my last game with the Persions against the Romans. I had iron and Rome didn't though so I didn't have to deal with the dreaded Legions. Otherwise I would have built Imortals and then wished that I hadn't later.

Quote:
Every warrior unit you make at the beginning of a game is going to eventually be good for nothing but the scrap pile, even if they distinguish themselves in battle and win their own unique name. You'll be able to upgrade 'em to swordsmen, but that's the end of the line.
Well I did just get a Great Leader with and Elite Swordsmen when I had Infantrymen running around as well. I hit a cavalry unit to do that. Any non-elite obsolete units are often used to speed up improvements by disbanding them in cities that are still resisting. It realy helps get that temple built to expand a cities borders after I capture it.

Quote:
Civ2 didn't infuriate me or puzzle me like this, and neither did either of the Call to Power games.
How did you deal with the idea of Lawyers as a Unit? I bought the game but refused to install it when I saw them.

I can see that you are puzzled. Check out those links that Lord Merciless posted. You really should be able to blow away the AI on Warlord with the ideas on those links.

Quote:
Oh well, at least they seemed to get the combat part pretty well fixed- didn't see any tank-killing spearmen this time out, and no nuclear subs got sank by frigates.

There never were many tank killing spearmen. I have lost ONE tank to a spearman since the game came out and that was recent.

Quote:
Terrain seemed to give the appropriate modifiers- units in the hills did a good job whacking those in the plains.
Thats how you get the tank killing speamen. In a large city on a mountain with a tank attacking across a river a spearman gets a big defensive modifier.

That and the Advanced Spearmen with the Depleted Uranium Anti-Tank Sabot Spear with the Triangular Cross Section. Sure do wish they weren't only available to the AI in the Industrial Age. I just never have any Spearman hanging around then myself. Elite Swordsmen maybe.

Really just try the stuff in those links. And I recommend standard map sizes myself as flogging hundreds of cities and a thousand tanks can be a great way to get bored to death.
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Old September 5, 2002, 07:17   #12
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I personally have lots of spearmen around in the industrial age usually, I don't bother upgrading until the last minute. Not stupid enough to rely on them in combat though.
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Old September 5, 2002, 07:55   #13
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Old September 5, 2002, 08:28   #14
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Brutus66, don't give up so easily.

Practice more, try find some strategy guides (here on apolyton, or on civfanatics.com) and ask for specific help on the forums; you can post saved games, maps, etc, people will help you.

Regarding your diplomatic problems:
- the stronger your empire is (militarily and culturally, too) the more your enemies will respect you. The deal will be sweeter if the other civilization has a lower cultural value than yours.
- Dont bribe them too often, it is a sign of weakness. Do it only when you are in big trouble and you need an ally for a war.
- trading a lot (don't worry being a tough negociator!) will increase your reputation.
- One more thing: it is easier to trade and sign agreements with opponents from the same cultural "block" (european, middle-east, etc)

Really, read some strategy guides.
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Old September 5, 2002, 08:52   #15
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i'm sure it's always the same person with a different handle...

i mean, aside from a few variations on the choice words, the comments/critiques are identical...
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Old September 5, 2002, 09:40   #16
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Quote:
But it wasn't even halfway through the game when everybody's attitude towards me was "furious", and that's pretty much where they stayed.
WHY??? Some of these countries I rarely even had contact with.

One sure way to get on the bad side of the other Civs is to ignore them. They seem to get mad faster if you don't have an embassy with them. I'll give them 5 or 10 gold as a gift every so often just to keep them happy (if I want them that way)
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Old September 5, 2002, 12:54   #17
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Brutus66 , that is what happen to many of us when we first started to play. We played like it was Civ2 and that did not work, it was ugly. We read the forums, tried a few things and managed to improve. Some of the traits the game displays, still annoy me, but I ignore them and crush all civs. As you move up in levels, you reach a point where you need to adjust your style as some things that work on warlord do not work so well in deity. Each time a patch comes out I start at the bottom and work my way back up. This is not needed, but how else can I learn the new tweaks? I mean an unpatched civ3 is quite different from a 129f one. Besides, it gives me a new lease on the game. Good luck.
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Old September 5, 2002, 14:55   #18
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Old September 5, 2002, 19:22   #19
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Quote:
Originally posted by zulu9812
*yawn* another one
my thoughts exactly. civ3 has a lot of improvements over civ2, so get used to the things that are a little 'unrealistic' because there will always be them. also, try becoming a better player rather than crying about how other civs wont sign alliances with you.
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Old September 5, 2002, 20:11   #20
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Well, I suppose I got what I had expected in the way of replies. There were those that offered useful suggestions that I genuinely appreciate (like you, Ethelred, Lord Merciless, et al), and those who offered pithy remarks and felt that I was just sour grapes.
Oh, and the usual keen insight from ACooper. I'm told that he was raised by football hooligans, so I do forgive him.
But I wasn't really complaining about getting whomped; just expessing dissapointment with the mechanics of the game.
Like many, I thought Civ2, during it's heydey, was the greatest game there ever was. I can't say how much I looked forward to the third incarnation of the game.
I am not trying to convince anyone that there's nothing to like here- it certainly has some good facets. But for everything I like, there's something else that puzzles me ("what were the designers THINKING?"...like the non-upgradability of swordsmen for example) or annoys me (like pollution- give me an easy way to turn it off like Activision did, instead of diddling with the editor!!)
For the benefit of the die hard fan boys, I promise I won't go into how it was released half-fininshed, because I appreciate the fact that at least they are continually trying to fix what's wrong. Activision just put their product out there and pretty much said "that's it, like it or not".
Nor will I get into the fact that the Limited Edition was a blatant rip-off.
I won't go on about how we were originally promised multiplayer, only to have that feature withheld and sold to us in the expansion.
I do praise the designers for the editor, even if the original version sucked wind and the functionality only improved in a patch-by-patch, drip, drip, drip basis. At least I can do something about some of the things that really bug me.
My fondest wish is that the next game in the genre is made by somebody else with a fresh perspective and new ideas. I can't stand the idea that, someday in the future, I can see myself cleaning pollution in Civ IV and buying Civ IV Gold to get features that should have been in the original. Because it's gonna happen.
As a final thought, I submit that for every one of you that have hung around the forums and genuinely love the civ kind of game, at least as many other real fans of the genre have simply given up or moved on after being being shouted down with "if you don't like it, don't play it" every time they offered any criticism.
I think that one critic does more good for the game than one hundred sycophants ever could.
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Old September 5, 2002, 20:16   #21
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brutus66
I think that one critic does more good for the game than one hundred sycophants ever could.
Amen to that!
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Old September 5, 2002, 20:37   #22
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Well one critic that was making legitimate complaints.

Complaints about AI cheating where there is almost none is not helpful. Nor is claims of invicible units that only exist in the minds of players that don't understand odds.

There have been many legimate criticisms of Civ III. Many of those have been addressed in the patches. Most of them in fact.

Multiplayer wasn't promised. It was expected by fans but it was not promised although early on it was definitly mentioned. Long before the game came out it was clear that multiplayer would not be available. Most games have features in the wish list that never come to fruition.

Complaints that Civ II had multiplay are just plain bogus. Civ II did NOT have multiplay. There was an expansion that added it exactly like Play the World will.

Brutus, the majority of your complaints were gameplay issues that were due to you not haveing learned how to play the game. That plus the fact that you posted your complaint one day after a clearly clueless newbie did the same thing (his fourth post on Apolyton along with a horde of errors) led to many treating your post as yet more glass of whine. Your timing was bad.
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Old September 5, 2002, 21:43   #23
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brutus66
For the benefit of the die hard fan boys, I promise I won't go into how it was released half-fininshed, because I appreciate the fact that at least they are continually trying to fix what's wrong. Activision just put their product out there and pretty much said "that's it, like it or not".
Activision? Well, I'll assume you said Firaxis. In which case, I am puzzled... there have so far been 4 or 5 patches to the game, all with many new features, fixes, and improvements. This hardly smacks of a "take it or leave it" attitude. I can't quite see how it was put out half-finished, seeing as it was quite playable, but I hope you can see that clearly Firaxis cares something about the product. As for Infogrames, well... I think we can all agree they are the devil. But publishers don't provide game support; clearly the developer is very interested in making a playable and enjoyable game.

Quote:
Nor will I get into the fact that the Limited Edition was a blatant rip-off.
Like I said, Infogrames is evil. I don't know about you, but I stopped buying LEs long ago. If this was the first time you were ripped off on an LE, consider yourself lucky.

Quote:
I won't go on about how we were originally promised multiplayer, only to have that feature withheld and sold to us in the expansion.
"Promised multiplayer" seems to be a real rallying cry for many critics here, but I certainly was not promised that and I would be interested in seeing this promise. It's not that I assume you are wrong; I just have no evidence that you are right. Also, see the above note about Infogrames and think about how publishers like to rush projects...

Quote:
I submit that for every one of you that have hung around the forums and genuinely love the civ kind of game, at least as many other real fans of the genre have simply given up or moved on after being being shouted down with "if you don't like it, don't play it" every time they offered any criticism.
It's really more the way the criticism is offered. Critics here tend to be of the angry variety; certainly it is easy to fume when typing. Even so, it is unavoidable that anger begets anger and soon these type of threads turn into a flame war.

Quote:
I think that one critic does more good for the game than one hundred sycophants ever could.
I think you are wrong. First off, it smacks of ignorance to say that people are either completely supportive or completely against the game. I, for one, have voiced many opinions on how the game might be made better while still considering the game to be a really great one. Secondly, people who like the game still offer ideas for the next game. Look through the old lists and such for Civ3, and you will find a lot of suggestions in there, including many that were not put in Civ3, come from posters here that still like and think highly of the game.

What you fail to grasp is that liking a game does not mean that the game is perfect, infallable, and immune to criticism. I think that some critics here do absolutely nothing for the game, and the same could be said of some "fanboys," but to say that negativity is more helpful than positivity is reductionist, ridiculous, and utterly false.
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Old September 5, 2002, 22:03   #24
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Many of the biggest fans of Civ3, the so-called fanboys are also some of its biggest critics. I find that the guys at Firaxis listen better to rational well thought out reasoning than to rants. They've listened to many of the suggestions posted here and on other forums. They read these forums and post answers to questions here too. Mike, Jeff, Dan, Soren, and Speedy have all answered questions I've posted.

I like Civ3. Is it perfect? No. I would love to see some of the diplomatic options from SMAC and the editor is still missing a few important things (diplomatic settings and pre-explored areas are the two things I most would like to see, followed by an event system). I just think that constructive criticism is better than ranting and raving.
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Old September 5, 2002, 22:19   #25
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Re: Still Stinks Out Loud
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Originally posted by Brutus66
Hey Sid, I got some news for ya, it's not 1965 anymore, and every war isn't Viet Nam. Democracies don't automatically start rioting when the shooting starts. If they did, we wouldn't have made it against the damn Kaiser, much less Hitler.
In WWII, the U.S. was directly attacked by an Axis power. As in Civ3, there was a momentary burst of enthusiasm for the war, and the war was concluded rather quickly (less than four years). Vietnam, on the other hand, was a war in a foreign land, was not due to an attack on the U.S., and U.S. involvement lasted fully twice as long as in WWII. Even so, morale was reasonably high during most of the Vietnam War.
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Old September 5, 2002, 22:34   #26
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Originally posted by cyclotron7


Activision? Well, I'll assume you said Firaxis. In which case, I am puzzled... there have so far been 4 or 5 patches to the game, all with many new features, fixes, and improvements. This hardly smacks of a "take it or leave it" attitude. I can't quite see how it was put out half-finished, seeing as it was quite playable, but I hope you can see that clearly Firaxis cares something about the product. As for Infogrames, well... I think we can all agree they are the devil. But publishers don't provide game support; clearly the developer is very interested in making a playable and enjoyable game.
Activision released CTP, I think the wires got crossed somewhere.
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Old September 5, 2002, 23:16   #27
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I said Activision and I meant Activision. My intent was to give credit to Firaxis where it was due.
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Old September 5, 2002, 23:20   #28
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brutus66
I said Activision and I meant Activision. My intent was to give credit to Firaxis where it was due.

Not your wires his wires.
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Old September 5, 2002, 23:48   #29
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In WWII, the U.S. was directly attacked by an Axis power. As in Civ3, there was a momentary burst of enthusiasm for the war, and the war was concluded rather quickly (less than four years). Vietnam, on the other hand, was a war in a foreign land, was not due to an attack on the U.S., and U.S. involvement lasted fully twice as long as in WWII. Even so, morale was reasonably high during most of the Vietnam War
Disagree with you there.
WWII lasted several years longer for Britain, and throughout all the setbacks that lasted until the first victory at El Alemein, London never went into revolt.

When you say thay morale was reasonably high during Viet Nam, I have to assume you were in another country at the time.

To be honest, Civ3 by it's very nature does a lousy job with scaling world conflicts. In the four years of US involvement in WWII, the war progressed across North Africa, through the nation of Italy, then across the channel from the UK through the western European continent. In the Pacific theatre, the amount of territory covered was staggering in Civ3 terms. Can you imagine doing any of that in a few game turns? A few cities in a turn is good progress in game terms.

The scaling of the game has always been a problem for me. What does a tank unit represent? Is it an armored brigade? Or is it just a platoon of tanks? I guess it's the grognard in me that has to know this stuff- it's just too damn abstract.

And as to you, Mr Cylcotron:

Quote:
it smacks of ignorance to say that people are either completely supportive or completely against the game
I don't think I said that, but if I inferred it, it was accidental and I apologize if that's the way I came across. I just get revved when I read one line responses like "if you don't like it, go away."

A lot of folks took issue with the fact that I said multiplayer was promised.
Well, I can remember when the game was being developed, and they came out with these kind of claims. If it wasn't directly promised in writing, a lot of people besides me were somehow led to believe it was going to be included. Must have been mass hallucination, mob hysteria or something.
I knew when I bought the game that multiplayer was not included- I'm not claiming false advertising. They made it clear that MP was out by then. But I just can't help but wonder if it was a deliberate move on somebody's part to get us to buy the expansion: "Nah, don't worry about multiplayer- we'll just give 'em the Civ II Gold treatment. Worry about development of the single player game as a priority. Here, let's give those spearmen a little more power. The tanks are creaming 'em."
Maybe it was Infogrames rather than Firaxis.
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Old September 5, 2002, 23:53   #30
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Quote:
Originally posted by WarpStorm
Many of the biggest fans of Civ3, the so-called fanboys are also some of its biggest critics. I find that the guys at Firaxis listen better to rational well thought out reasoning than to rants.
I can vouch for that approach. Enjoy lethal bombardment.
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