Was FP Corruption Bug fixed?

[vmxa1]

NYE I think your post qualifies for the "you may be addictive if" thread.

[Kuciwalker]

Actually, they'll nerve staple us all.

"Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you."

[dexters]

Originally posted by notyoueither
No, then we riot.

Sir, Apolyton has lost all productivity, due to flaming and general complaints!
The people want patches, more expansions, and Civ4..
What shall we do?

* I'll deal with 'the freaks' of Apolyton, later
* Ahhh, give 'em a patch
* Start posting about Civ4

Where is the "raze the website" option?

[Andydog]

Well I'm also not entirely sure what Jesse was telling us about the FP.

If the FP is intended to reduce distance corruption AND rank corruption ("It is a bug that the FP doesn't provide a new set of city ranks"), then it begs the question: How powerful is this second core intended to be? The more powerful it will be, the more essential the FP will become and the land needed for the second core. If its going to be as powerful as it was in PTW then we're back to the days of the one and only viable strategy - build up your primary core, go to war, get a leader, build you FP hopefully before everyone else. If you didn't get your leader, then more war. War war war freaking war.

Please Jesse, lets keep the FP not so essential. Let us play some other strategies in what is shaping up to be a truly fantastic game.

Or, make the FP reduce corruption such that if you do build it close to your Capital, you aren't being penalised. By this I mean you'd add the reduction of corruption from your FP to the reduction of corruption from your Capital, so in effect you could have one 'supercore' of producers, should you not have the land for a separate secondary core. Say you only had 10 cities - you could still build your FP and then have a civ with zero corruption - 10 'supercities' capable of producing enough to beat off any aggressor, no matter how big.

I admit I'm more of a builder than a warmonger, but the truth is I do enjoy both. But what I don't like is having to warmonger to win. Civ should be a game with more depth, more strategic options, more ways to play. It shouldn't only be about war imho.

What does everyone think about this? Do you want a game where war is essential?

[Buckets]

Andydog: i agree 100%

[Kuciwalker]

I think something that could help the AI (and reduce annoyance for the player) make a go of it even with bad placement is to cap corruption at, say, 60%. Plus it would be a lot less annoying.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Andydog
If its going to be as powerful as it was in PTW then we're back to the days of the one and only viable strategy - build up your primary core, go to war, get a leader, build you FP hopefully before everyone else. If you didn't get your leader, then more war. War war war freaking war.

Please Jesse, lets keep the FP not so essential. Let us play some other strategies in what is shaping up to be a truly fantastic game.

[. . .]

But what I don't like is having to warmonger to win. Civ should be a game with more depth, more strategic options, more ways to play. It shouldn't only be about war imho.

What does everyone think about this? Do you want a game where war is essential?

I disagree that a strong FP means warfare is a required approach. It's often quite possible to expand into 2 decent cores and build an FP manually. War may offer many benefits in Civ 3, but I just don't think a strong case can be made that it is required. In certain positions or certain games, aggressive expansion may in fact be the way to go (may even be "required" in the sense that the game will be exceedingly difficult to compete effectively without it); but I fail to see how war was required in earlier versions employing the traditional "strong" FP.

Or, make the FP reduce corruption such that if you do build it close to your Capital, you aren't being penalised.

I don't think the player is being penalized if he chooses to build an FP within the original core. Sure, one may not be enjoying as much potential benefit as one could by making a different choice, but if choosing a less optimal play equates to penalization, then one is penalized numerous times throughout the game.

Catt

[Plotinus]

[Andydog] I agree completely. Catt is right to say there are times when building the cities for a second core does not require war - settling an uninhabited island, for example. But it is impossible to build the FP in such a place without a Great Leader of some kind, because if it's far enough away to be of any use then there's too much corruption to build it. So I support anything that makes the FP worthwhile closer to home, thereby making warfare a less overriding option.

[ducki]

Please Jesse, lets keep the FP not so essential. Let us play some other strategies in what is shaping up to be a truly fantastic game.

You can play with any strategy you like, including placing the FP close to home, like the AI.

There are so many different playstyles, so many options(at every difficulty level) that the player can make the game into anything they like, even before opening the editor.

I don't think a forced playstyle change is the way to go, especially when not everyone plays at the same level with the same settings. Sure, the AI places the FP poorly. So what? That's one of the advantages the human has over an AI with brutal bonuses at the higher levels.

The FP is not so essential, either. The bug proved that. You can still outplay, outwit, and outmicromanage the AI with or without it. I'd rather not see all players forced into an uninteresting FP-placement/build decision, which is what I think happens when you hamper it so that you might as well let the AI randomly pick a spot for you.

Keep the FP powerful, I say. Leave the players the interesting and strategic decision that comes about when you are totally stumped as to whether to put your second core on your own continent or on another or even on a largish island.

Keep it as it was. If the AI needs help, let's not help it by reducing the players strategic options.

That's my opinion, maybe I'm just being nostalgic.


Edit: @Plotinus - I'm all for a useful nearby FP, but I think reducing the strength of the faraway FP so that everyone just settles for building it close to home is the wrong way to go. Give it a close-to-home buff, not a far-from-home nerf. That would make the decision even more interesting and strategic, IMO.

[Buckets]

Interesting, Ducki says it's more strategic one way and Andydog says the other.

I think it should reduce and REDISTRIBUTE corruption, but not to be as powerful as before. By building the FP far away, you would create a new production core, but reduce your initial (palace) core. Now that would be interesting.

[Kuciwalker]

That's how it worked pre-patch.

[Aggie]

Originally posted by Buckets
Interesting, Ducki says it's more strategic one way and Andydog says the other.

I think it should reduce and REDISTRIBUTE corruption, but not to be as powerful as before. By building the FP far away, you would create a new production core, but reduce your initial (palace) core. Now that would be interesting.

That's what Conquest did prepatch basically. I actually did prefer that to the new way. It didn't devastate games and you had 2 reasonable powerful cores. The way it is now is so far off how we all played that it makes the game more difficult. The big problem with the original was the GPT bug and slightly less so the RCP "fix".

Andy, as Ducki said, its not always necessary to warmonger to get the second core. If you have large to huge worlds with 8 civs its very possible and even with 16 you often have a good deal of land if you get lucky.(say a choke point or two that let you expand)early in one direction and later in the other open area). Of course the more civs you have have the more chance of having less land and thus more the need to warmonger(of course tech trading among AI also increases this need at higer levels, nothing like a good vassal state).
I also must confess that generally I am a warmonger, though I have only won 2 games through domination. Usually I use war for security and increasing research base and usually win by Space Race victory.

Aggie

[monkeyman]

Originally posted by ducki

There's a lot of this sentiment, myself included.

The problem, as I see it, is it's awfully late in C3's lifecycle to go "fixing" something of this magnitude. If it really was a bug, why wasn't it patched in one of the many other patches to Vanilla or PtW?

That's really my main gripe. If you let it go this long, so as to become a "feature", it's a bit too late to "fix" it and call it a "bug".

Had it been changed before PtW, I doubt anyone would have had a problem, but how old is C3? Isn't that a bit long to wait for this sort of fix?

Civ4 guinea pigs, anyone? Just a theory, but perhaps they are testing out some rules changes for civ3.5, er, civ4. Blizzard did a similar thing w/ Starcraft, releasing a major patch, adding most significantly, computer allies enabling in SP and a replay feature. This was 2+ years after the original release. Both of these were implemented quite well in WarcraftIII, so their test release seemed to work quite well in the end.
edit: one could do a lot worse than to emulate Blizzard, SC & WCIII were TIGHT from day one. If only civ4 could be that polished...


--mm

[Capt Dizle]

Good God. The thought that they might use Civ3 as a stepping stone for Civ4 makes me sick on my stomach. The whole world want Civ2 and SMAC to form the basis for Civ3 and they threw the baby out with the bath water and gave us this birth defect called Civ3. Surely they will throw that puking pile of vomit out entirely and go back to Civ2 and SMAC and use those as a basis for Civ4. Or do something entirely new.

But for God's sake don't tell me that Civ4 is just going to be an expansion of this wretched worm ridden linear brain dead ordeal called Civ3.

[WarpStorm]

Well, JT, as the people who made Civ2 and SMAC left the franchise to make RTSs, I would say that it is safe to assume that those who made Civ3 will also make Civ4.

(I also heard a rumor that the BHG guys designed a lot of Civ3 before leaving).