civ3 - the d20 system of computer strategy games?

[bigvic]

as a kid and young adult i probably played the ubiquitous dungeons and dragons game a bit too much, though loved alm,ost every moment. a few years ago they went and changed it all and i, who had invested SO MUCH $ in the previous incarnations, vowed to "give it up". eventually i was coaxed into checking it out by some friends and found a nearly flawless system, almost perfectly balanced, fine tuned, capable of delivering nearly anything i could imagine. they really raised the genre to a new level.

well, despite this, i find myself and friends less and less able to participate in that particular waste of time, though i am still quite capable of wasting plenty of time with my beloved civ3, walking bleary eyed into work many mornings as proof.

i think now i see the grand vision of sid and the firaxis team. although majorly miffed at first about a lot of glitches and poorly thought out aspects at first, i was nonetheless genuinely hooked, especially as the editor (the best part about the game imho) proved to be an effective tool in making the game "my game".

i am truly excited at the prospect of the latest addon. sure we were released a slightly "beta version" of the original game, sure the history behind it was a bit shoddy in a simplistic, popularized way, sure there were issues. But....now i think i understand. this is the ultimate god game system, to be, for quite some time, tweaked, added upon, modded, provided with new scenarios, and upgraded as the average computing power of the average schmuk's computer increases (probably the most important limiting factor in the equation). one of the things i am most excited abut is the promise of a better ai, (stack movement - maybe taking a page from the ctp series? - if so good), as well as more and more ease of modification as wellas more options.

best, it seems "they" have really been looking at such sites and forums as this and listening to what "we" have been saying. that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. i have flamed often about that which bothered me about the game, while still playing it, of course, but what i see looks so good - i have almost lost my cynicism.

a tentative "hail caesar" to sid and soren!

so what do you think? lets discus particulars. here are a few broad catagories:

ai improvements

moddablity

extras included

increased historical accuracy

????????

[Saint Marcus]

I want to be able to make scenarios

I tried it with PTW, but it was doomed from the start, since I couldn't edit diplomacy settings.

[bigvic]

yeah, modding in ptw left something to be desired. i'm really hoping they continue to improve the modding ability, but gues my first concern is improving the AI.

points of possible improvement -

1. ai use of land based artillery - i have such an unfair advantage over the poor ai in this area - i build a buttload of artillery, guard it with a good defensive force, throw in some assaulters and grind the ai civs into the dirt systematically. ai does not even bombard my besieging units from the safety of its city walls!
2. better unit mix/less kamikaze attacks by ai - seah, perhaps throwing an obsolete unit out there and tempting me to destroy it, leaving my own unit exposed is not so bad, but far too often i see the ai attack in piecemeal fashion, leaving valuable primo units at my mercy.
3. better amphibious invasions - ai should attack in force, with a good mix of units, a settler and perhaps a worker or 2, esp late in the game. settler plops down a port city, even if overstacking an area and uses it to support the invasion. better ai use of carriers would facilitate this in late game. they can always raze any too close cities they take later to relieve stacking pressure of cities.

well, got to go

[Elias]

Good points the AI always seems to just send a few units
in at completly diffrent areas of your teritory. It makes it way
too easy to defend aginst unless they are a massive super power with hunderds of armor. although i have seen mass army's of mine get wiped out when i was doing somthing similar to D-day.

[sabrewolf]

AI hasn't been changed, except to be able to deal with the new features.

fixed diplomacy settings:
only "locked alliance"
and "locked war"

iirc, it's only usable in the WWII scenario, but that would be a shame. i hope i read that article wrong

[statusperfect]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
AI hasn't been changed, except to be able to deal with the new features.

fixed diplomacy settings:
only "locked alliance"
and "locked war"

iirc, it's only usable in the WWII scenario, but that would be a shame. i hope i read that article wrong

it is supposed to handle naval units better too

[sabrewolf]

ok, true... thanks to the 2 new units (1 general one, 1 UU), they might have changed something somewhere...

[Elias]

yeah the AI never seems to use carriers very well.