Scenarios

[Solver]

BTW, according to what I hear, the more casual players and the RTS fans are more likely to play scenarios. So while I have no doubt that they're not too popular, there's definitely a fair amount of people playing the scenarios.

[Dis]

I enjoyed civ3's scenarios expansion.

Some scenarios I really enjoyed, even if the AI wasn't good at it (I just played at a higher difficulty level). Age of Discovery is one such example. Middle ages was fun as well. And of course ww2 pacific. You simply can't have a scenario package without ww2 in it.

Age of Discovery was easily the best. there were so many civs that were fun to play.

And I admit, I really haven't delved into the civ3 core scenarios. But I plan on it. . But I'm still haven't a lot of fun with the earth map. And that's the crux of it. I don't care for the random map generator. I never have. The maps just don't seem realistic to me. And this is one reason why I do love scenarios. I love playing on realistic maps.

[Solver]

Scenarios != maps. It's one thing to play on a pre-generated map, like Earth, Europe or whatever else. Scenarios are a different thing - usually feature a different tech tree, units, objectives, and such.

[Virtual Alex]

I too love the earth map, unless you start on Greenland, Iceland, Japan, or Australia

Although I suppose it depends on the map, some allow you to coast hop to the mainland with a crappy boat.

[Prussia]

I personally like the scenarios, as since it is already laid out for you, you can get right to the conquering and ass-kicking, instead of the long, tedious build up. (Which is fun, but not if you aren't in the mood.)

I played almost all of the preset ones and am constantly downloading more, and I'm excited for Warlords purely because they even mentioned scenarios, which means they put some extra work into it to make them better.

[DrSpike]

Hmm, as I suspected some mixed answers here. It looks from our smallish sample like there probably is enough demand to include them.

However, I'm afraid I still have my cynicism that Civ games are really hard to do fulfilling x-packs for, and part of the reason for scenarios is they don't really know what to offer in an x-pack that builds on the core game without screwing it up.

[Solver]

Well, isn't that natural? Civ games obviously set a pretty high bar. Adding something really new to the core gameplay isn't easy. Hence, it's easier to be disappointed in an x-pack.

[DrSpike]

Which was my point.

[Prussia]

They aren't supposed to be a sequel, they are just the money-making way of redeeming the company for a couple of ideas that were initially left out, so essentially the expansions are just the company saying, "Now you are getting ALL of our ideas for the game."

[Adagio]

Originally posted by MasterDave
I vaguely remember a weird dinosaur scenario from Civ2

I remember a dino-mod for Civ2, where all units was changed into dinos and such... weird mod, but I kinda liked it... for a few games anyway




In Civ IV and Civ III I haven't played any other scenarios than the Earth Map (in Civ III). I prefer standard game on a random map

[Prussia]

Civ III mods were gross, PTW mods were actually fun, though.

[Dis]

just finished desert war as germany. Very easy. I wasn't sure what to expect, so I played one difficulty level below what I normally play. That was a mistake. Too easy.

The balancing is kind of weird. First of all I can't adjust the game speed (it's on normal), although I suppose I could go to custom scenario to do that. So I beat the game in less than 1 year. I performed most of my research in that time, and conquered all 3 objective cities myself (along with every single allied, British, and free french city). Although it shows me getting a score victory.

My score was 4 whole points. . I got Dan Quayle. I guess that is because I held 4 objective cities.

Does the British actually have a navy in this scenario? Where is it? The Italians and I had free reign of the med.

[LordShiva]

Scenarios

Civ2 scenarios were awesome, C3C's were pretty good too (Middle Ages, Age of Discovery, etc.). Civ4's vanilla scenarios weren't spectacular, which is why I hope Firaxis devoted enough resources for Warlords scenarios.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Solver


Thinking like this is a common mistake. Game development isn't a thing where you can say "if they didn't add X, there would be more time for Y". In the case of scenarios, the people creating them are normally not the same people who are working on the "core" gameplay.

Agreed. Scenarios can be created by people with little to no programming experience, and don't take much time. I'm sure it took less man-hours to create all the scenarios in Civ4 and it's expansion than it took to create and balance just one of the leaders.

[CarnalCanaan]

Originally posted by Virtual Alex
I loved Rise of Rome in Civ2, and I loved Rise of Rome and Fall of Rome in Civ3. Those are the only ones I every played, so chances are I probably like them all. I enjoy the veriety to the core rules.

Ugh. Those two frustrated me so much. They were the hardest of the Conquests scenarios. And Fall of Rome just irritated me. It was supposed to simulate the Great Migration but if a civ lost X cities it was destroyed -- including disbandment -- so the Vandals never left Poland and the Huns were stuck forever on the steppes.

I was really hoping they might try it again with Civ 4. I think they could do a better job.

I'm really looking forward to the "Conversion" scenario. I'm glad to see they're taking a calculated risk with religion in-game.