quote: Originally posted by yin26 on 04-27-2001 09:43 PM Hmmm. All I can say is that there MUST be a viable defense, of course, otherwise the game is already ruined without question. But with a balanced defense available, this should be fine.

Huh? What would that viable defence be, Yin? In real life the US, Russia, Britain, Japan and France all have the tech to build ICBMs that can hit anything on the planet and no one has a defense. Does that mean life isn't worth living?

I know, I know -- there are minor civilizations in addition to those seven main civilizations. Well, whooopppeee!

I know, I know -- we cannot add too many civilizations in one game because that would strain the AI. So let's be reasonable then -- let's not set it at a mere 7, and not skyrocket the number up to 20.

I think Firaxis should seriously reconsider the maximum number of civilizations to CHOOSE from for every new game from 16 to 25, and set the maximum number of civilizations IN each game from 7 to at least 12.

But all the rest of it sounds great!

I'm especially jazzed about the way trade appears to be shaping up. Better than any model so far. What I really like are the notions that you need certain goods to build something, and that trade goods don't appear until you get the right technology. What a great idea! Things like coal or oil were nearly completely useless until people figured out what to do with them.

The whole culture concept sounds great, too. I'd love to find out more about that. Things like the Great Wall and Great Canal sound just too cool to be believed.

Downers: 7 civs max?!?!? What the hey? That is SO 1994 era- this is 2001! Can't they at least expand that for scenarios? What really worries me is the number 7, since that plus barbarians is 8, and that's one of those computer efficiency numbers, like 256. In Civ2, a max of 8 was deeply hard wired in the game, and impossible to change. That would be tragic if its the case in Civ3, that not only is it only 7, but there's absolutely no way to increase it.

I think we need a poll on that- how many people think 7 civs is not enough? Maybe there's still time to change that, if enough people speak out. Having only 16 different civs isn't such a big deal, since presumably people can add more. Its the hard wired limits that are the killers. One doesn't need 32 civs or whatever, but even a couple more would make a major difference for scenario making.

Other downer: I worry a bit about the army concept. First off, that it comes so late (with the exception of leaders). Maybe a better idea would be have it from the beginning, or close to, but leaders and later technologies allow one to increase the size of the army. For instance, in ancient times you could have an army of 4, but with a leader they could be a size of 8. The whole thing of having only one unit fight at a time, and if you win the entire opposing army dies, is a major flaw of Civ2 and shouldn't be repeated in the pre-nationalism phase of Civ3.

Secondly, the way armies are described, I don't see why one would need to have a balanced force. For instance, why use artillery, tanks and infantry- in the current situation you could just have a big pile of tanks. Artillery plus something else I can see needing, for the bombarding capability (good thing to steal from CTP, by the way). But what good would having a mix of infantry and armor be? The game would lose a lot if one could just have a favorite unit and churn it out in droves, instead of building well balanced forces.

I wonder what that circle around the unreadable city thats building pyramids is . i also like the little mousehole cave in the mountain .

Good news all the way! Well, nearly... The number of civs is too small! I'm not that conserned with only 7 civs at the same time (except for scenarios), but I would like to choose from a great number of civs! It was mentioned that there will be 16 civs in civ3. The following are in: Germans, Russians, Chinese, English, Zulus, Americans and Romans. Then there should be 9 more. The nine should be; Indians, Mongols, French, Persians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Aztecs (Mexicas), Greeks, Spanish. This means that the Celts, Vikings, Carthagians, Japanese and Siux are out! I don't think we're gonna see any new arrivals, except perhaps some minor civs (if these aren't the barbarian cities?).

I love the idea of minor/mayor wonders! I just hope that the minor ones is logical: Great canal, Internet, Great wall (ok, so there's only one, but there could be more...), manhattan project etc. I hope they will include Hollywood! I love the idea of building a "TV/Movie-monopoly" (well, as long as it lasts. It should be a minor wonder!).

The borders shown in the screenshots are probably this small because it is early in the game and there isn't too much culture around? I think that borders are the best thing about the new game anyway, so I will not be disappointed!

When it comes to the city-screen, it looks like they've just thrown in some buildings from different ages. Since there isn't any houses in the city, it looks fabricated. By the way; the stadium next to the colluseum is most likely a roman/greek stadium. The colluseum is really an arena... They had both in athens/rome!

I hope that the maps will look more like SMAC! The screenshots we've got so far seems too flat, don't you think? Well, that's my opinion... Love the idea of resources only appearing when you have an advance! This will make any piece of land interesting to colonize (perhaps there will be something useful there?).

So, we're getting special-units for each civ! Does this mean that you can't bribe those units? Will some civs be more useful in the early ages, and some in the modern times (early-Zulus, Modern-Americans)? Like everything else, though!

In some cases, obviously the Civ2 team started with a person they wanted to have a wonder about, and invented a fictious building to go along with it, for instance:

Copernicus' Observatory: He never had an observatory associated with him, and in fact bounced all over Europe, living in Italy, Germany, Poland, etc...

JS Bach's Cathedral: What is this supposed to be? Has anyone figured out what cathedral is associated with Bach?

Adam Smith's Trading Co.: Smith was an academic who wrote books, he never had a trading company.

Sun Tzu's War Academy: Again, no such thing. No one is even very sure what town he lived in or came from.

Isaac Newton's College: Is this supposed to be Cambridge? In no way is that "his" college, he's just one of many famous or non people who worked there.

Marco Polo's Embassy: He had some great journeys, but never anything remotely like an embassy. The world didn't even HAVE embassies in the 1300's! (though there were ambassadors)

With so many great real wonders to pick from, why use these wierd things again? I've got nothing against abstract wonders, but why make up fake buildings to go along with them? Civ2 had Women's Sufferage, not the Women's Sufferage Planning Room. And there's Darwin's Voyage, not The Building Darwin Wrote the Origin of Species In!

Why not rename these things to something slightly better, like Marco Polo's Journey, or Isaac Newton's Principia, or Sun Tzu's Art of War?

----

My other thought is regarding nuclear warfare, since it was stated there was some uncertainty concerning that. CTP also wanted to have nuclear war be something that was a passing phase rather than an endgame, but they went about it the wrong way. They made SDI come ridiculously early (you could get it before getting Nukes!), and 100% effective. Lame. 50+ years after Hiroshima, and uncounted billions in research, SDI is still way off from being reality, and no way will it ever be 100% effective.

Much better to do it like real life: have MAD (Mutually Assurred Destruction). Model some serious nuclear winter and radiation fallout, and using too many nukes becomes pretty suicidal. As CTP2 does, allow a country's ICBMs to be launched if that country is attacked, immediately, even though it isn't their turn yet. That's a serious deterrent, and very realistic. Finally, program the AIs so that, the more nukes in the game, the less likely they'll be to actually want to launch them.

This way, the first decade or so the first civ gets nukes, some may be used, but as time goes on it gets increasingly unlikely, just cos its so powerful. But still, there's always the chance some civ will get dumb or desperate, so you have to have them, just in case. Put SDI in its proper place, which is decades later, if it shows up at all.

You totally misunderstood. I'm talking about game balance here, not whether life is worth living or not for God's sake. Let me explain:

Imagine at a certain point in the game one side gets access to ICBMs. Great. He cranks them out in mass numbers and begins lobbing them across the world at the other guy's cities. If there's NO defense (now, I'm talking game balance here, Echinda), this game is over. In fact, this was SMAC. Sure, you could make a smaller map to ensure that you were putting pressure on early, blah blah blah. But that's forcing the player to correct a flaw in the game.

Now imagine BOTH players with the same tech and money lobbing missiles all damn day at each other. Fun, eh? Makes you want to fire up another session to enjoy all the deep strategy, right?

What I meant was this: Balance.

IF the missiles are HUGELY expensive, let's say, so that launching even ONE is a significant investment at all stages of the game, that's a start. Add to that HUGELY expensive Star Wars technology that allows a player on defense, say, to have a 50% chance of shooting down the missile...or having bunkers so that you lose no poplulation but just 1 or 2 improvements etc....THEN you can have some kind of balance and a game worth playing.

This could be like a Zergling or a Tower Rush. A strategy that cheaply narrows a path to victory to some hollow build pattern.

Now, again, if you want to add Europa Universalis kind of dimplomacy to this whereby the guy who launches these missiles without a Causa Bella gets ganged up on and embargoed, I'd be willing to see how that would play out.

quote: Originally posted by Harlan on 04-28-2001 04:36 AM I'm quite surprised to hear that all the Civ2 wonders will be back,

I like that. Many Civ-3 city-improvenments, wonders, units and techs should be similar with those in Civ-2. Differently tweaked and rearranged perhaps (like the updated Great wall wonder), but still similar. And many new ones, of course. The latter goes without saying.

quote: JS Bach's Cathedral: What is this supposed to be? Has anyone figured out what cathedral is associated with Bach?

The guy was religious and he only created church-music, as far as I know.

quote: Adam Smith's Trading Co.: Smith was an academic who wrote books, he never had a trading company.

quote: Sun Tzu's War Academy: Again, no such thing. No one is even very sure what town he lived in or came from.

quote: Isaac Newton's College: Is this supposed to be Cambridge? In no way is that "his" college, he's just one of many famous or non people who worked there.

quote: Marco Polo's Embassy: He had some great journeys, but never anything remotely like an embassy. The world didn't even HAVE embassies in the 1300's! (though there were ambassadors)

quote: Originally posted by yin26 on 04-28-2001 05:51 AM Now, again, if you want to add Europa Universalis kind of dimplomacy to this whereby the guy who launches these missiles without a Causa Bella gets ganged up on and embargoed, I'd be willing to see how that would play out.

Agree! The casus belli feature of EU, should definitly be implemented in Civ-3 as well. At least in early-modern and modern eras, and (of course) especially then using nuclear weapons.

quote: Originally posted by Depp on 04-28-2001 07:38 AM Well well, only 7 civs. This was like I expected I guess. But it still sucks, I love to have at least 10 civs. But I guess they won´t be able to change that now, what a bummer. They could at least have made it an unofficial feature, since some actually have the computer to run such a game. When I play SMAC im always pissed of that there is only 7 Civs, when you play a standrard map fine, but if you play a bigger map 7 civs give some great startinglocations and some really bad. With 12 civs you could get a much more even game on a big map.

This is indeed a major disapointment.

quote: And the scenariopeople must be furious...

Throughout my years of playing civ i havent even noticed this fact until the message got posted yesturday.

Anyways, i give my thanx and appreciation for our hero Snapcase, and good luck on civ-cant wait till the next topic.

PS: anybody wanna verse an Xpert??? send me an ICQ message.

Stadium: It looks like a modern stadium to me.

Borders: Expand with "culture" raitng.

City names: Way to thin, I agree. They're more visible in the magazine, but not visible enough.

quote: Originally posted by jglidewell on 04-27-2001 12:43 PM For anyone interested here is the response from PC Gameplay I got for availability in the US, 'If you live near the Canadian border, you can try Chapters'

Geez, like it was British North America.

Always good for us yanks to be reminded how much british influence remains in Canada.

LOTM

only 16 civ's to pick from doesn't bother me becuase i usually only play with germany, or america, and i alreay know that those will be in there. however, it must suck for those people in countries who didn't make the cut...i'm sorry. but, sicne there are civ unique units (YEAH!), i guess they can only have so many civs, or else there would be too many units.

quote: Starting Units: One Settler, One Worker.

quote: Number of Civilizations in one game: Still seven.

the way coastal fortress is now implimented really rocks!

armies/stacked units - since smac had this to some extent, and CTP did this nicely (one of the few things they got right) i am glad to get an "official" word on it.

hiding resources until you NEED them! that sounds very cool. it will definatley force negotiations until the rival nation refuses, in whcih case you bombard them to the stone age, just like in reality way cool!

man, this is DEFINATLEY going to be a one more turn, one more game feeling! --i gues smac left me doubting. nemo begs for firaxis' forgiveness

EXPANDING BORDERS! i was worried about the borders stopping at the city edges before. phew! what a relief.

Imo, the map view looks god-awful. An unplayable eyesore. I hope it´s not their last word.

Nationalism & Armies: Does that mean antiquity has no armies?

Civ-units: How about balance? Will Impis stand up to Panzer divisions?

quote: Originally posted by XMon on 04-28-2001 09:45 PM FYI for those who live in Florida or wherever else they have Borders bookstores...Borders carries that mag (saw it today) they just don't have the new issue yet. I did go to the back of the issue they had and it said "Next issue: In depth preview of Civ III."

Hooray for Borders!

Us Yanks have hope!

quote: Originally posted by Harlan on 04-28-2001 04:36 AM In some cases, obviously the Civ2 team started with a person they wanted to have a wonder about, and invented a fictious building to go along with it, for instance:

I think a great way for them to do this would be to build the actual people. Lets say that Shakespeare's theater confers a bonus of making no citizen in the city unhappy, but instead of building the theater you build the Bard himself. Much more realistic and then you can move him around like a unit to different cities. He could be captured or destroyed this way, just like a real person. Capturing could be like defecting, Albert Einstein was German but came to the US and gave us his benefits, same thing.

quote: Civ-units: How about balance? Will Impis stand up to Panzer divisions?

Do you think impis will survive long enough to meet panzers?

I will make up a hypothetical scenario on the fly to illustrate my point:

The Gandalf Wars - Gandalf succumbs to the temptation of the Ring, builds a mighty kingdom in the Shire, and prepares to wage war across Middle-Earth.

To make it fun and balanced I would need the following civs:
-Shire (Gandalf)
-Isengard (Saruman)
-Mordor (Sauron)
-Rhun (Pallando)
-Harad (Alatar)
-Gondor (Denethor)
-Rohan (Theoden)
-Dwarves (Dain II)
-Orcs (Azog?)
-Imladris (Elrond)
-Laurelindorenan (Galadriel)
-Grey Havens (some shipwright)
-Arnor (Elessar)
-Carrock (Beorn)

This adds up to fourteen civs and there are probably others that would be a good addition.