Civ4 should be more like Civ2 than Civ3

[Alexander's Horse]

I never really migrated to civ3. Many attempts but I always found civ2 the superior game.

Major beefs with civ 3:

The AI

No matter what you do some AI civs always seem to be ahead of you in techs etc.

Diplomacy

The AI civs are impossible to persuade to make certain trades, even where it would make sense for both civs.

Bribery and espionage

It is way too expensive. Also techs and maps don't fall into your hands through conquest. This makes the game unbalanced.

Armies and generals

Also far too expensive and hard to obtain - hey, its a game, this is supposed to be fun. Military academies take too long to build and aren't worth the effort. All combat should be based on building armies in civ 4. You already have the model to do that. Generals could be a force multiplier but they should also be easily obtainable. Maybe this was a play balance issue? I notice the AI hardly ever builds armies. Maybe have a new category of general called "heroe" which you gain trhough combat exploits?

Grouping troops and firing

I think the grouping feature is good but could be better if armies were more readily available and flexible. I really tire of firing 30 cannon individually and then moving them laboriously around the map - even with grouping the micro moving kills fun in the endgame.

Culture and borders

I turn it off. I can't see why when I have garrisoned a city it could possibly turn back to the other side and take my troops with it during a freakin invasion. That is plain silly. I have lost large forces, like 10 units, that way during invasions. The cultre concept is good but it badly needs finetuning in the interests of better gameplay.

Economic model and adviser screens not intuitive

When building your civ, it isn't clear in civ 3 that certain actions have certain effects. In civ 2 and 3, if you built certain items or tweaked the luxury rate you could immediately see the effect. This tweaking of settings and builds was one of the most fun parts of the game. In civ 3, its a very frustrating part. The adviser screens are practically useless and not intuitive - please improve this. If I change a setting or build something I want to see it's effect immediately. Also, bring back the global state screens for your civ, they were very useful.

Governments

Unlike civ1 and 2, civ3 governments do not seem to have clear enough differences or some are duds. feudalism and monarchy for example, why would you choose feudalism? I've never worked that out. Communism and fascism should be very different. Are they? I'm still not too sure. Republic and Democracy, not much difference. All the governments should be clearly different and have clear costs and benefits. Please fix this - and please, please, bring back fundy!!!!!!!

Many ways to win

It should not be the case in civ 4 that only one set of economic and government setting leads to victory. There should be many paths to glory. Again imo, civ1 and 2 did this much better than civ 3.

Accelerating endgame means accelerating fun

In both civ1 and 2, the endgame seemed to accelerate to an exciting finale. In civ3 the end game is an anti-climax and a morass of micro management. Back to the drawing board guys! We need to get that sense of excitement and gathering speed back into civ4. Also civ1 and 2 could be won in a few turns at the end, either by war or spaceship, even if you were behind right till the end. Is that possible in civ 3? I think not. I suggest in developing civ 4 you go back and play civ 1 and 2 to see what I mean.



The Strat Map

This must scroll in civ 4!!!! It is incredibly irrititating that it is a static map. Even civ1 had a strat map which recentred when you moved. This is very important not just military and exploration planning - but for map lovers like me exploring the world means moving the map around. If the strat map is the way it is because of the link in the adviser screens to unit location, then please break the link. Also the zoom feature is hopeless - only 2 settings? Puhlease!!!! Civ1 and 2 had multiple zoom settings and the whole screens could be moved around and resized - great!



I'm not anti-civ3, it has a lot of potential which can be brought out in civ4.

And it may be that I am just a bad civ3 player - but some of the things I mention above have nothing to do with skill.

I feel some responsibility for civ3 because many ideas I advocated in its development, like king figures and cities changing sides, were taken up, although not quite implemented the way I wanted.

But you know, civ2 is 10 years and I'd really like to move on!!!!! Its a tribute to civ2 however that I'm still enjoying it and learning today - even though I only MP it now.

[frekk]

Re: Civ4 should be more like Civ2 than Civ3

The AI

No matter what you do some AI civs always seem to be ahead of you in techs etc.

Once you get fairly decent, you should always be ahead of the AI by a long shot come mid-game or so. Probably your strategy didn't involve trading enough tech with the AI, and so you fell behind, but for me it is very rare to be behind the AI in tech except during the late Ancient and early Middle Ages eras.

Diplomacy

The AI civs are impossible to persuade to make certain trades, even where it would make sense for both civs.

Granted, this could be improved, however, overall, civ3 has much more interesting diplomacy than civ2.

Bribery and espionage

It is way too expensive. Also techs and maps don't fall into your hands through conquest. This makes the game unbalanced.

Techs falling into your hands through conquest actually makes the game VERY unbalanced, most ppl are glad they got rid of that. Espionage is definately too expensive though.

Armies and generals

Also far too expensive and hard to obtain - hey, its a game, this is supposed to be fun. Military academies take too long to build and aren't worth the effort. All combat should be based on building armies in civ 4. You already have the model to do that. Generals could be a force multiplier but they should also be easily obtainable. Maybe this was a play balance issue? I notice the AI hardly ever builds armies. Maybe have a new category of general called "heroe" which you gain trhough combat exploits?

The army system definately needs alot of work, but in general I like the principal and wouldn't want to go back to no armies at all.

Grouping troops and firing

I think the grouping feature is good but could be better if armies were more readily available and flexible. I really tire of firing 30 cannon individually and then moving them laboriously around the map - even with grouping the micro moving kills fun in the endgame.

Definately, some form of stacking needs to implemented.

Culture and borders

I turn it off. I can't see why when I have garrisoned a city it could possibly turn back to the other side and take my troops with it during a freakin invasion. That is plain silly. I have lost large forces, like 10 units, that way during invasions. The cultre concept is good but it badly needs finetuning in the interests of better gameplay.

Culture flipping will definately not be present in Civ4. That much has already been stated flat out.

Economic model and adviser screens not intuitive

Unlike civ1 and 2, civ3 governments do not seem to have clear enough differences or some are duds. feudalism and monarchy for example, why would you choose feudalism? I've never worked that out. Communism and fascism should be very different. Are they? I'm still not too sure. Republic and Democracy, not much difference. All the governments should be clearly different and have clear costs and benefits. Please fix this - and please, please, bring back fundy!!!!!!!

Feudalism is definately a dud, though it can be useful if you have no large cities.

Communism and fascism are vastly different ... communism is strictly for ultrahuge empires, not worth it otherwise. Fascism works for anyone. Republic and democracy are as different in civ3 as they are in 2 - the primary difference being it's easier to go to war and stay at war under a Republic. One thing I absolutely hated about civ2 Democracy was the Senate forcing you to make peace.

Also the zoom feature is hopeless - only 2 settings? Puhlease!!!! Civ1 and 2 had multiple zoom settings and the whole screens could be moved around and resized - great!

From what's been hinted already, zooming in civ4 will be better than in any previous version.

I'm surprised you haven't mentioned the #1 advantage civ2 had over civ3: ease of modding. Civ2's editor was much more comprehensive and you could do everything from within the editor, civ3 modding involves far more headache.

[Alexander's Horse]

Thanks Frekk - I'm no civ3 expert obviously.

[curtsibling]

Civ 4 should borrow the good elements from all versions...

[Alex]

Some things in Civ3 are definitely things I'd like to see in Civ4, though revamped and reworked. For instance, I could never come back to the caravan system in Civ2, but I think that the commerce system in Civ3 have to be improved in Civ4.

[Alexander's Horse]

Trade is another area where the effects in civ3 are in some ways are unclear. Its a bit too one off, too all or nothing, and you get locked in.

The virtue of the old system was the calculations were clear and thus the choices were interesting and seemed more important. The micro of moving caras was a pain though.

[JosefGiven]

Most of my gripes with Civ 3 were with its aesthetics. The GUI didn't have it; the graphics used in the civilopedia were awful; the incidental and interface sound effects similarly so. It was enough to reduce the game to the level where it was just another generic strategy game. Not Civ.

I liked the trade element of Civ 3. Made alliances a lot more worthwhile. A thumbs-up there.

Max the modability of the game! Some of the 'hard wiring' done in Civ 3 was frankly unnecessary.

As curtsibling said, why not take inspiration from the good elements from all three games?

[Excelsior84]

Re: Civ4 should be more like Civ2 than Civ3

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
The AI
No matter what you do some AI civs always seem to be ahead of you in techs etc.

Haven't observed this being a big problem, in my experience. However, IMO, tech trading in general is fubarred as a concept. I would prefer to do away with tech trading altogether and replace it with a more robust system for determing tech costs to various civs. Making techs which have been developed by other civs cost less is a good start, but, basically, I'd like to see the tech system from Europa Univeralis II (where tech cost is a function of your neighbors tech levels, the size of your country (larger countries have higher costs), and your society) implemented as part of a more robust social engineering system. This would make it harder for enormous countries to run away with the game and give small countries a chance to lead the world in tech.

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Diplomacy

The AI civs are impossible to persuade to make certain trades, even where it would make sense for both civs.

Diplomacy is annoying in certain respects, but in general superior to civ2. My main objection to is purely aesthetic: I hate looking at the silly 3d animated leader heads. For some reason, those things (and the stupid things they say!) seem to sap any seriousness I had about the game.

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Bribery and espionage

It is way too expensive. Also techs and maps don't fall into your hands through conquest. This makes the game unbalanced.

Yes, espionage is way too expensive. I agree maps should change hands due to conquest, but tech is unbalancing. I would support seeing a tech bonus from conquest, though, like +X research points, or whatever. Although, tying in with your points about late game civ2, I did enjoy being able to use tech conquest to save the day in the late game on occasion.

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Armies and generals

Also far too expensive and hard to obtain - hey, its a game, this is supposed to be fun. Military academies take too long to build and aren't worth the effort. All combat should be based on building armies in civ 4. You already have the model to do that. Generals could be a force multiplier but they should also be easily obtainable. Maybe this was a play balance issue? I notice the AI hardly ever builds armies. Maybe have a new category of general called "heroe" which you gain trhough combat exploits?

I dislike armies as implemented in Civ3. However, I do think there needs to be stacked combat like in CTP (however, without that stupid unit limit of 12...what the hell was up with that?!?).

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Culture and borders

I turn it off. I can't see why when I have garrisoned a city it could possibly turn back to the other side and take my troops with it during a freakin invasion. That is plain silly. I have lost large forces, like 10 units, that way during invasions. The cultre concept is good but it badly needs finetuning in the interests of better gameplay.

I agree, culture flipping is annoying. I like it only in so far as it lets me pick up the little 1 pop towns the AI plants in the tundra next to my civ without starting a war. Conquered cities should have a chance (based on city size) of spawing an (age-specific) guerilla unit (perhaps immediately engaging in combat), instead of flipping.

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Governments

Unlike civ1 and 2, civ3 governments do not seem to have clear enough differences or some are duds. feudalism and monarchy for example, why would you choose feudalism? I've never worked that out. Communism and fascism should be very different. Are they? I'm still not too sure. Republic and Democracy, not much difference. All the governments should be clearly different and have clear costs and benefits. Please fix this - and please, please, bring back fundy!!!!!!!

I don't have too much of a beef with Civ3's gov'ts, other than that anarchy is *too bloody long*.

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Accelerating endgame means accelerating fun

In both civ1 and 2, the endgame seemed to accelerate to an exciting finale. In civ3 the end game is an anti-climax and a morass of micro management. Back to the drawing board guys! We need to get that sense of excitement and gathering speed back into civ4. Also civ1 and 2 could be won in a few turns at the end, either by war or spaceship, even if you were behind right till the end. Is that possible in civ 3? I think not. I suggest in developing civ 4 you go back and play civ 1 and 2 to see what I mean.

I tend to agree, I always enjoyed the end-game of civ2, and rarely get to the end-game in civ3.

Also, I agree with whoever said that you missed modability. Civ3 is truly painful to edit, IMO. And I rather miss the days of graphics that even I could make look acceptable...easily! The simplicity of editing a transparent gif is hard to beat!

However, my biggest problem with civ3 is...it's too slow! Everything is too slow. The turns take too long, even in the early game, even on a fairly powerful processor. The menus feel sluggish. In the late game, even with animations turned off, units move annoyingly slowly. Maybe I'm just spoiled in expecting that everything I click on should respond within a tenth of a second, but it just makes the micro that much less tolerable...

On the other hand, civ3 does work in linux using WineX (Cedega, it's called now), so, that's the primary reason I'm currently playing civ3 instead of civ2 (civ2 won't even install in WineX, for some reason).

[Dracon II]

This might sound blasphemous... but I think there are some good ideas they can 'borrow' from CTP as well. And SMAC.

[drunk7daysaweek]

So is 4 worth getting? I agree, civ II is by far the best

[Alex]

Originally posted by Dracon II
This might sound blasphemous... but I think there are some good ideas they can 'borrow' from CTP as well. And SMAC.

I agree.

Especially wrt SMAC. But CTP has some cool ideas too.

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Dracon II
This might sound blasphemous... but I think there are some good ideas they can 'borrow' from CTP as well. And SMAC.

[JosefGiven]

Originally posted by Dracon II
This might sound blasphemous... but I think there are some good ideas they can 'borrow' from CTP as well. And SMAC.

What the hell; why not? A good idea's a good idea.

Sorting out which influences are right for Civ 4 is another matter, though. What have you got in mind?

[Jon Shafer]

I always find it humorous to hear people say how great certain changes making the game more like CTP/2 would be, and yet very few people bought or play it.

Originally posted by JosefGiven
Max the modability of the game! Some of the 'hard wiring' done in Civ 3 was frankly unnecessary.

Actually, frankly, it was necessary.

Civ 3's code was based off of SMAC, which was based off of Civ 2, which was based off of...

In other words, they were using old, recycled code. While not always a bad thing, doing so makes it harder to change things compared to how the original code works. This is especially true for allowing modding. It was a great chore to even get the Civ 3 editor up to speed. For those who remember the original Civ 3 editor, it was basically a map editor and not much else. Patch 1.29 allowed you to add players, units, etc. to make real scenarios. It's seen further changes since. The point is that the lack of moddability wasn't because they didn't think it was a priority, but because it would have taken far too much time relative to other things to impliment properly.

However, with Civ 4 that will be very much different. They're coding completely from scratch, and it's been announced that it will integrate the XML data-storage system and the Python programming language, which will give modders quite a bit of power and flexibility in creation projects. It will probably be the most moddable Civ game ever... except CTP2's released source code.

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Trip
I always find it humorous to hear people say how great certain changes making the game more like CTP/2 would be, and yet very few people bought or play it.

It's not like the game was one big stroke of genious, but some parts of it was not bad.