Why I may never play a CIV gm again after nearly 20 yrs

[Barchan]

Originally posted by okblacke
Nearly 20 years? What were you playing in 1984? Empire?

Hey, now! Let's not drag Empire into this! It was, quite possibly, the greatest wargame of all time. It had a diversity of units, fairly simple rules, random map generation, and was multiplayer. As an added bonus, you could name your ships. Ah, the hours I frittered away playing Empire in glorious green and black....

Anyway, as someone who also frittered whole nights away (that's right, the sun came up...) playing the original CIV in college (it fit on a single 1.44 floppy, and no copy protection!), I would agree that the newer versions are much more challenging. It *was* easier under previous versions to simply "go it alone" and not interact with other civs. I can remember countless games of expanding and researching in total isolation until my tanks rolled over the primative civilizations of my distant neighbors. But no more! Under CivIII and its prodigy, you simply have to interact with other civs to have any chance of surviving, let alone winning. But such is the nature of life, isn't it? Things change; those who can adapt will prosper, and those who cannot will flounder. I, for one, appreciate the new challenge that different paradigms present me, even though it's different from the comfortable nostalgia of the past. But perhaps evolution isn't everyone's cup of tea, eh?

[Antrine]

Not to mount a *** for tat, I am already blissfully building cities on mountains every game as I 'modded' that. As well increasing what improved tiles produce and even some that remain unimproved. Basically seeing so many people polluting the landscape with mines is athetically pathetic. (I think) So no need though, just bump up basic shield output of the tiles in question and presto no need for the mines everywhere.

Also I bumped up catagory I to city size 9 and catagory II to city size 15 so early on everyone can have larger cities. So much is already in the editor and considering how impossible it is to make a single generic vanilla faced CIV that randomly generates something most people would find pleasing, let us rather bow down worship the GAME EDITOR.

Many thanks,
Festive gaming

[WarpStorm]

wrt = with respect to

[Plotinus]

[Mattpilot] I love the "no-attack" mod idea! Has anyone tried this? Could be very interesting indeed...

[MattPilot]

no - i like my war units

[steven8r]

Originally posted by hoppy43000
Krux, Antrine... We built Hoover Dam, Panama Canal...

You can build Hoover Dam in the game now w/o any modifications.

Right now, if you want canals, you have to put a city on a 1-tile-wide strip of land between bodies of water. Instant Canal!

Terracing could be a useful improvement for Mountains to give them some food value.

Steven

[okblacke]

Originally posted by Barchan
Hey, now! Let's not drag Empire into this! It was, quite possibly, the greatest wargame of all time. It had a diversity of units, fairly simple rules, random map generation, and was multiplayer. As an added bonus, you could name your ships. Ah, the hours I frittered away playing Empire in glorious green and black....

I think at the time I was playing "Ancient Art of War" in glorious, um, cyan, magenta and yellow.

I, for one, appreciate the new challenge that different paradigms present me, even though it's different from the comfortable nostalgia of the past. But perhaps evolution isn't everyone's cup of tea, eh?

Back when I was a boy you had to TYPE IN a game if you wanted to play it. Or, if you could part with $20-$30 pre-Reagan dollars (about $100 now?) you could get a game in a baggie with a couple of sheets of 8.5x11 paper for instructions, on a single 160K floppy, which you'd best make a copy of immediately (if it would let you) on a $2 diskette. If the game had an end, you could finish it in a couple of hours, probably. Replayability was fairly rare. (Though Broderbund had their Galactic Empire series and there was an all-but forgotten game called "Wilderness Campaign" which was a sort of precursor to "Heroes of Might and Magic". These were exceptions, and the mechanics were grossly simple by modern standards.)

But I digress.

Games change. Not always to suit our tastes. What cracks me up about Civ is the number of people who think if they don't like the game, the franchise has been totally ruined for everyone (even if they don't KNOW it)!

[ok]

[hoppy43000]

actually blacke i remember back in the early to mid 70's when started , there was a text gm from 1 of the colleges you could play on the old ibm card reader machines...

it was very much like CIV may even have been its inspiration..

in text messages you ran a city were given choices . each choices you made affected the empire after time if city grew you had more cities ..

was basically civ but all text and abc multiple choice options

I actually love civ it is my all time fav.



heres a mod id like to see done anyone who wants to advse me on how to make the chgs in editor please feel free


ok my Perfect game would be a civ gm where each turn was just a yr.. and we actually had to play thru the entire history... sci advances came more slowly and more or less within their appropriate age... ie no tanks running around in 1700 ad

a very huge map with numerous civs, but all having a chance to expand, also trading tech should be more difficult so that just because you are on a continent with other civs doesnt mean you can easily trade techs to balance out say a civ stuck on an island

map should be large enough whre empires dont touch till later in gm .. ie with outposts you can see armies approaching and act accordingly.. not just have thenm appear in your back yard.. or so easily use right of passage to build a city inside your terrory or pass thru in 1 turn do to railroads

id like to have the time to play an extended game where all the techs and units can be built and used within the ages used for example we seem to hit the middle ages far to quickly... then the game bogs down in the 20th century... Id like to see more accurate diplomacy... and ways to "expell" warriors or settlers without causing war.


i want to start in 4000bc and play the gm yr by yr but some how not have airplanes flying aroound in 100 bc

[Kuciwalker]

Go into the editor yourself. It's easy to increase the tech costs. Oh, and the "years per turn" stuff is in the scenario properties window IIRC.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Must agree with one of the complaints:

random map generation too often provides too uneven and unfair starting positions and opportunities for the different civs in the game.

Ok, it's rather 'historically correct' since territory conditions do vary and it forces each civ to find an individual approach to build a civ that stands the test of time ...

But IMO Firaxis should have also provided a fair amount of available maps with rather equal starting opportunities.

How many MP players -where one of the goals is to compete with other human players and 'prove yourself to be an equal or even better civver'- haven't felt f***ed due to an impossible starting location in comparison to his rivals one?

Why do players themself have to do the effort to try to create a 'fair' map?

Remember, civ 3 vanilla included a world map, but never one with correct starting locations for the various civs, we had to wait for the community to have these ...

So I like civ a lot,

(BUT PLEASE REDUCE CORRUPTION AND HAVE THE FORBIDDEN PALACE FUNCTION AS BEFORE IN VANILLA AND PTW)

but hey, Firaxis, provide us a decent amount of fairly created maps, especially for MP purposes and SP fun.

Thx a lot


AJ

[Kuciwalker]

But IMO Firaxis should have also provided a fair amount of available maps with rather equal starting opportunities.

Jesse's working on it

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by skywalker

But IMO Firaxis should have also provided a fair amount of available maps with rather equal starting opportunities.

Jesse's working on it

Hey, Civ3 is now more than 2 years on the markets IIRC ... so I guess we wont't get them untill CIV4

Nevertheless, come on Jesse, hurry up will you?

AJ

[Kuciwalker]

Actually, I believe it's scheduled for the next patch - special generation of MP maps for fairness.

[hoppy43000]

AJ you pretty much summed it up...
my major quiestion complaint was WHY is the ai so unwilling or unable with vanilla generation, able to created a relatively fair game to play on the 1st try not the 500th if we play at a mid level difficulty ie regent all should be relatively equal ie sci dev prod speed . not withstanding other civs special traits.. great the arabs have scout but how is it by 1 ad they have middle age techs just because they are on a continent and get sciences rather than barbarians ?

whereas god forbid you are the romans almost every hut is barbarians thats fine but not when on 1st few turns you click a hut next to your 1st city and it puts 3 barbarians next to your only worker... the games set up so that barbarian colonies appear later why cant it be set so that none apear in say 1st 10 turns, give us a chance to see the map plant a city or 2

[Catt]

Originally posted by hoppy43000
whereas god forbid you are the romans almost every hut is barbarians thats fine but not when on 1st few turns you click a hut next to your 1st city and it puts 3 barbarians next to your only worker... the games set up so that barbarian colonies appear later why cant it be set so that none apear in say 1st 10 turns, give us a chance to see the map plant a city or 2

An alternative solution to the Roman barb problem is to not pop huts if a barbarian result would cause problems. Weigh the risks against the potential benefits, make your decision, and roll the dice. I'll almost never pop a hut close to my start point if I don't have a ready defender to protect my worker / city. Just pass it by and keep exploring. You can pop it later, or be prepared to pop it if an AI unit comes close.

Catt