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#204 TALKING WITH SID AND SOREN Small civ3 details shared by the big heads of the development team. By Jonathan Speelman #203 CIVIII'S BIG MISTAKES A disheartened fan sends a letter of grave concern to Firaxis #202 CIVIII WILL DESTROY FREE WORLD As if Civ couldn't get any more addictive? It didn't #201 THE SQUEAKY WHEEL GETS THE GREASE It's a matter of fiction... or is it? #200 CIVIII: ICS EMBRACED The origins and future of "Infinite City Sleaze" #199 WHAT CIV IS NOT There's whole incredible world beyond our computers COLUMN ARCHIVE

    I admit it--I'm a Civ addict. This concept has been a great sinkhole of time and productivity, but is an excellent distraction from the low moments of life as well.

    Civ II is still the greatest of PC games. Before coming to Apolyton and discovering the moniker for it, I developed my own ICS strategy--mo' money, mo' trade, mo' power. Derived from my Civ I days I believed in the 'diplomatic offense' (aka the Microsoft Strategy--if you can beat them, buy them). Knowledge was power--I could snoop around other civs, know what's in them so I could prioritize, commit all sorts of heinous acts (buy city, buy unit, buy settlers that don't take food, buy buy buy, etc). Without that corps of spies, I feel a whole lot ignorant. While the trading table concept is a good one (much more flexible), the AI plays a crummy game of poker in that it tries to screw you over and rarely negotiates in reasonable faith (yeah, like it expects me to fork over 'flight' with an exchange of territory maps, and gets annoyed when I suggest an even-up deal).

    Civ III is a bit disorienting--try following the roads and tracks sometime. I like the new tech tree, the culture concepts with the boundaries, and the idea of resources. The unit graphics and battle encounters are excellent. The AI seems better (Civ II's AI had its brilliant moments, but most of the time it was random, thus weak). But now it grinds out settlers faster than I ever could--and I can't buy or steal them, or the workers either! I watched it stack 48 legionaries and move them in one turn (horrors of the Red Army and the Yellow Hordes, and you can't wipe them out with one good blow). The AI consistently tries to crowd you out with mere and sheer numbers. The Mongols in Civ II were notorious for that approach.

    But thus far it has been a disappointment. The catapults and cannons are near worthless as an offensive weapon (I can live with the zero defense value) though artillary is good, if you got LOTS of artillery pieces. So far my bombers, barraging battleships and fighters on bombing runs have a failure rate of >90%, and inflict minimal damage. Siege of enemy strongholds usually results in killing civilians (a 10 city reduced to 1) in trying than reduce that elite infantry unit(s) in it. I find that I can't Blitzkrieg anymore--cross into an enemy territory and the units are in the mud. How agonizing--usually I want to go straight to the capital city and take those Wonders away. So the bottom line--I have to plow through more itty-bitty cities, with less firepower, with slowed units, without good intelligence (the spy concept will bankrupt you quickly--try canvasing 20 cities you want to storm so to pick the good ones, and resign yourself that no other civ will have more than 100 ! gold in their treasury at any time, so much for reimbursement).

    There are aspects at the end of turns that the next turn seems pre-ordained. If I go into a hut, it's the same old thing (in Civ 2 I would find a new city; in Civ 3 it would be deserted or three barbarians--and no matter how many times I reload). If I reload a .sav game at the same point, any battle seems to come to the same conclusion with the winning unit having the same amount of damage. 10 out of 10 times; in Civ 2 you might repeat, but it didn't duplicate.

    I miss my Cabinet (they were hilarious to listen too--that was my first inkling that Civ II was really going to be fun). The Wonder movies were fabulous; this version you get to look at a model picture of a statue or a building. I like the governors concept (I seldom use it though), and for the workers, I would like to automate on one function--clean pollution (how about a priority list? 1. clean pollution, 2. build railroad, 3. mine on hill or mountain, not grassland); in the later stages, that is what I'm spending most of my turn time moving them around--automation usually means 'build road, then mine', even on irrigated land, right next to a pollution square. Trade is a more ambiguous function here--one of the great things of Freight/Caravan in Civ 2 was that if you got to a city in need, that was major dinero for the treasury, and that saved my keister on many occasions. I have found a defensive strategy that works--build a line of 'dragon's teeth' (fortifications) acros! s an isthmus or waist of a landmass, put some strong defensive units in them (no one messes with infantry) and that keeps encroaching civs out. In the previous Civs I rarely ever made fortifications--now I make them everywhere (like it or not). Interestingly, the enemy Civs don't make them like they used to.

    In Civ 2 one of the great advantages of Democracy is that it cut the waste and made the money (I worked exclusively in Democracy mode--I think the war-weariness concept is a good one to keep the Democrats like me from continuing war unnecessarily). Now, if I take cities on another continent or deep in enemy territory, the shield waste and corruption is horrifying (and shifting production squares do nothing to fix this). I wish I could make yet another Forbidden Palace, or have a Summer/Winter Capital to obviate this. (I often use the "Palace" option to stockpile shields when I'm trying to get the technology for a key Wonder--but the Palace costs more than most Wonders; in the previous Civs I never shifted my Capital; other than Brazil and West Germany, has it happened in the real world?).

    The Civ 2 city window was better for one huge reason, it was easier to scan, and on the 'build' option, I could open the window and press a letter (example 'm' for 'mass transit' and it would highlight mass transit). I had figured out Civ 2 key controls so I rarely had to work my mouse; in Civ 3 while I like the right click functions, this is a very mouse-heavy use game--not good if you've had tendonitis from excessive mousing.

    Civ 2 was a great advance over Civ 1, but Civ 3 did little advancing, a lot of tweaking, but if anything make the bombarding units a whole lot weaker, and took away much of the wonder in Wonders. SMAC I think was the worthier heir to the Civ 2 legacy (the tech tree, their illustration and quotes, and unit construction options were lights out upgrades). Civ is still fascinating, and I'm enjoying this challenge (seems more like handicaps than a real challenge--a better AI in Civ 2 would be really interesting in Emperor mode), but many of my old tactics in Civ 2 aren't able to work here. One thing is certain, things progress more slowly and it takes a lot longer to complete them.

    Let's hope that Civ 2 will still be the standard when Sid's think tank ponders Civ 4. Having some verbals and videos like in SMAC would be a good addition. And do the .sav files have to be 3+ MB in size?

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About the author: Despite playing Civ 1-2-3 for a decade at the cost of food, fun, sleep and relationships (and despite repetitive stress injuries), he still manages to hold a job and earn three degrees.

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