Civ 3 Integrity and Fun

[gaerdraug]

I'm somewhat new to this forum but I'm not at all new to Civ 1, 2 or 3. I would like to pose a question to veteran players. My practice when starting a new game is to save at 400 BC and then explore the area with my settler and worker. If I like the setting, I reload and play.

Also, once playing the game, whenever I am about to land on a "goodie" hut, I always save. If I then do not get a tech advance or some other favorable outcome, I reload, wait a few turns and try again.

My question: is it the experience of veteran players that such practices diminish the enjoyment of the game?

I normally play at the Monarch level and have great difficulty winning most of the time at that level. I want to increase my enjoyment of the game but do not want to have to play at the Regent level if I can avoid it.

[Dis]

to each their own.

It is discouraged here to reload before popping a hut. But we aren't going to crucify you over it.

I recently broke myself of that habit. barbs really aren't a serious threat in this game anyways (I worry more about mindworms coming from SMAC pods)

[Rhothaerill]

Re: Civ 3 Integrity and Fun

Originally posted by gaerdraug
I'm somewhat new to this forum but I'm not at all new to Civ 1, 2 or 3. I would like to pose a question to veteran players. My practice when starting a new game is to save at 400 BC and then explore the area with my settler and worker. If I like the setting, I reload and play.

Also, once playing the game, whenever I am about to land on a "goodie" hut, I always save. If I then do not get a tech advance or some other favorable outcome, I reload, wait a few turns and try again.

My question: is it the experience of veteran players that such practices diminish the enjoyment of the game?

I normally play at the Monarch level and have great difficulty winning most of the time at that level. I want to increase my enjoyment of the game but do not want to have to play at the Regent level if I can avoid it.

I used to do the same thing too. I don't do it anymore, because in my opinion it does reduce the enjoyment of the game. Some of the best games I ever played (at least the ones that stick in my mind the most) were games where I was at a disadvantage and came back to win the game.

If you want to explore other playing options I would suggest visiting the strategy forum and posting about how you usually play the game (with saves, screenshots, etc.). There are always people that would be happy to deconstruct your game and give help, pointers, etc. Another option is the Apolyton University Forum where many people play games and post about how they went about playing (called a During Action Report or DAR). Currently there are a whole bunch of 1 on 1 play-by-email games going on (all of them using the same starting map) so you can see how many different players would take the same start and run with it.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Dissident
to each their own.

It is discouraged here to reload before popping a hut. But we aren't going to crucify you over it.

I recently broke myself of that habit. barbs really aren't a serious threat in this game anyways (I worry more about mindworms coming from SMAC pods)

Play as Gians or whatever they were that can capture the worms.

Anyway I don't know if it does anything to ones enjoyment or not, but I would image it will hurt you learning to play optimally.

Also huts are very dangerous at the highest levels. This is why you see players leave them alone on Deity and even Demi (for a time). At sid, you often will play without huts to slow down the tech pace.

[conmcb25]

I used to do this a lot as well. But I dont anymore. Now I just b1tch about the RNG a lot

Listen to Rhoth. I have learned a lot from hanging around in those forums and playing the AU games. I would highly recommend it.

[Theseus]

I used to explore at 4000 BC as well... I'd always want to play with fantabulous starts. Broke the habit when I started hanging out here.

[Beta]

I'm with Rhoth and the others. The problem here is that if you get used to this form of play, and then want to get involved in PBEM multi-play, these sorts of things are strictly prohibited. You get one move - and one move only - and you are on your honour about it.

My advice is to play as is intended - if its arotten start - learn to overcome it - it will make you a better civ player - and as someone has already pointed out, do not discount the fun in playing from a less than optimal position. Makes victory that much sweeter.

I remember once back in '02; I was playing as India....

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by conmcb25
Listen to Rhoth.

Now if I could just get con to follow that advice when I tell him it wasn't me pirating his ships in the northern passage recently in our Age of Discovery PBEM.

[Solomwi]

Ditto the rest of these fine upstanding gentlemen.

I never had a problem with pre-exploring, because to me the most fun of the early game is finding out what your surroundings are like.

I used to save for goodie huts, but basically kicked myself and asked what fun that was. They're not tech scrolls lying there, so why should I expect a tech from every one? It's much more fun to a) decide whether or not it's worth popping, and b) finding a way to maximize what it gives me, good or bad (barbs? hmm, let's find a mountain and hope for promotion).

[Beta]

Originally posted by Rhothaerill


Now if I could just get con to follow that advice when I tell him it wasn't me pirating his ships in the northern passage recently in our Age of Discovery PBEM.

We need to talk.

Hey - this could become the Grand Passage trash talking thread.

(no - would not want to hi-jack what is a good subject to discuss.)

[bobbo008]

anyone who gets mad at you for doing anything in the game is an idiot. you play the game exactly how you enjoy it most.

[Barinthus]

To each their own. Personally I'd just accept the consquences of popping a hut and move on. When I play SMAC/X, I'm a madosadist - I like to play with blind research on and with a lot of native lifeforms .

I even wish that Civ 3 had that option of blind research!

[Antrine]

Well, this may sound like AA meeting of some sort or another, however with CIVII I was addicted to above mentioned behavior, but not for tech but cites or 'advanced barbarians' who wanted 'join' my empire because of my 'obvious wonderfulness'. Now that 'hit' was addictive!! Reloading easy in CIVII so my conscious need not 'count' the many reloads.

Now with CIVIII, it is techs for sure however it really screws up game balance. So I joined a 'support group' of wanton abusers and got over it... eventually... gee I was even called names, when I too freely admitted my 'weakness'. Now I am stalwart 'knight', that's right, every game is 'preserve random seed'!! What a guy huh. Not proud of my reformed character, well that's alright.

This leads to a similiar 'problem'. I do not at all like not seeing the terrain, that is the whole map straight off the whole time. Yaa, I know this a just another bloody weakness, well good news, I got clever! I keep the 'light on' as it were (all terrain visible), but so I do not take wanton advantage of 'seeing' all those goody huts just laid out there readied for my taking, guess what I did?

This will raise your eyebrows for sure, 'I made all goody huts invisible'!!! Yep, and I scramble them routinely, so I cannot memorize their location (I play on the same map every game, it just such a nice map, anyway).

Well, I feel better for getting 'this' off my chest goodness knows. So what do you think editors are for anyway? Game editor is where 'cheaters become game designers'!!

Thanks for letting me share.

[McMeadows]

In the very beginning, Civ I, I have reloaded games where babarians popped out and killed my exploring unit or even took out a city a few times. The last 10 years I must have been "clean".

The exploring part of the game is probably the best part. Where is my nearest enemy, who is it, does he have anything to trade and where are the goodie huts? For terrain I hate mountains, jungle and deserts, so I play the temperate, normal, oldest earth, if I have to choose myself. Usually I play for an hour at every start and if I feel there's some perspective at winning, I'll continue and get severely hooked for a few weeks.

At the moment I'm about to win my first emperor game. The game is done, I just have to choose how to win. 77% of the population, 55% of the area, will probably shoot for domination. I like the spaceship somehow. Probably because of the old Civ I days, where I tried to stay out of each war. Those 15 minute turns... pfff, and I'm not even micro managing anymore.

[gab169]

In my opionion, I think saving before the goodie huts is cheating and usually just face the consequences if a hoarde of barbarians jumps out and gobbles up my unit. I think it's just a little more fun that way.

As far as exploring the map goes, in most every game that I play I save at 4000BC, like you said, and do some exploring. If it's a very poor placement I will restart the game and do the same thing until I like it.

When I finally do like the placement, I will go as far as to take a screen shot of the explored map (zoomed out) and paste it into Powerpoint. I then go through and plan out where I will want all of my cities to be placed, marking them with graphics in the shape of the city radius so that I can see overlaps and the such. Then I load the game and send out my settlers to the positions where I want the cities. Keep in mind though that I don't know the locations of any strategic resources because I have not reseached any technologies. Also, when exploring, I usually won't go too far past the boundaries of any neighboring civs unless they are real close to me. (This just makes me feel a little better about knowing the map)

I find this approach very exciting. I love strategy and enjoy creating the most efficient city layouts. If you explore as you go, you will often have large overlaps in city radii when you reach oceans, mountain ranges, or player boundaries. Even though some may consider it cheating, I think that the AIs have many unfair advantages too and this is just one way for me to even it out.