Bradman: are you restricted to PC version development?

[Dr. K.]

A question on your porting process:

If you and your beta-testers notice a problem not specific to mac issues, can you fix it natively in the new Mac port, or are you merely translating the work of the PC team? Do you need then to wait for a series of patches by the PC folks?

Also, are you authorized to make changes that "fix" things that are not so clearly bugs, such as the problem of completely inferior ancient units defeating excellent modern units? This would be nice.

In CivII, combat fairness was excellent--under most normal circumstances, better units defeated inferior ones. I saw veteran fortified phalanxes on a mountain defeat inexperienced armor--but this was reasonable. There were a clear set of circumstances under which modern weaponry was vulnerable. I am told of warriors in CivIII that can attack and defeat armor defending walled cities. This is not reasonable unless we're talking about multiple armies of elite warriors attacking a single conscripted unit of armor in the same turn.

I hope you are authorized to make all the fixes necessary to elevate CivIII for Mac past that of the PC version, to at least the quality of your excellent Civ II for Mac.

Minor pet peev: I liked terraforming in Civ II and I'm told it's gone in Civ III. But I can live with this more than bugs.

[Wiglaf]

Brad posted a while back on his ability to fix minor things as he went along, glitches missed by the Firaxis team up to that point and the like. Adding a feature (terraform, for example) extends well beyond the realm of his power, I'd imagine.

[Smash]

....and rebuilding the combat system from scratch(thats what it would take) is a big project in itself.So, no that won't be happening unless Firaxis makes the chnage.
...and they won't.They like it

[Dr. K.]

Yeah I figgered

Yes, I suspected he would not have the authority to make substantive changes.

Terraform was just on my minor wish list anyway.

However, if there were *bugs* in the combat system that made it too easy for "obsolete" units to defeat more powerful modern ones, rather than or in addition to the *intent* of Firaxis, then perhaps Bradman and his team might be able to fix them.

I've not played CivIII for PC, so I don't know by having done the calculations myself whether the results people are reporting are actually expected based on the explanation of an intrinsically flawed new combat system, or whether these results are unexpected and not-in-line with the documentation (which would be indicative of bugs).


If true bugs exists in the combat calculations, then I'd think Firaxis would get to it in a patch, but their release of an apparent beta at the expense of their customers makes me pessimistic regarding their determination to make things right.


Anyway, perhaps Bradman will enlighten us further...

[Smash]

Thats just it though..Firaxis doesn't consider it bug.At least their lead programmers don't.And,in reality it isn't.It is the result of a poorly thought out system.
Its like civ1 all over again.The goofy results are not rampant,but frequent enough to make upgrading a folly.

I've lost modern armor to pikemen.
Tanks to spearmen
Destroyers and Cruisers to galleys.

or another semi frequent scenario is the 1 unbeatable unit.You can hurl any number of units and you can't seem to beat it.Then,you reset the so called random generator by doing something completely unrelated,such as diplomacy, and you can beat that unit.It is the worst generator I have come across.If there even is one...I have my doubts.

Bottom line:
It doesn't make the game unplayable or anything but it does add to the frustation level.Frustration is not fun.

[Dr. K.]

Combat and editor (reply to Smash)

Originally posted by Smash
Firaxis doesn't consider it bug. And,in reality it isn't. It is the result of a poorly thought-out system. It's like civ1 all over again. The goofy results are not rampant, but frequent enough to make upgrading a folly...
...It doesn't make the game unplayable or anything but it does add to the frustation level. Frustration is not fun.

I couldn't agree with you more Smash, although I do like to see an *occasional* upset victory.

Why is upgrading a folly though? Because you lose veteran or elite status (and thus hit points), or because it simply isn't worth the gold? I can tolerate randomness more than a system that doesn't reward higher-tech units.

This leads me to ask another question--will Bradman include an editor?
I saw on the PC forum that someone suggested using the editor to simply increase the hitpoints of all units from 2/3/4/5 for conscript/normal/vet/elite to, say 4/6/8/10, which should preserve the relative benefit of all experience levels, while decreasing randomness of the results. Theoretically, with hitpoints approaching infinity, randomness will approach zero, so we can just increase hitpoints to allow our own personally satisfying level of randomness. Whaddaya think?

[Dr. K.]

Bradman: Status of thinking on the editor?

Brad, I know you answered this with an "idunno yet" last month, but is there any news on whether your team will be including an editor?

Given some of the--cough--"design decisions" of Firaxis, it seems we are going to need one to restore the playability of the game to a reasonable standard.

Respectfully and hopefully,

-- Dr. K.

[bradman]

Re: Bradman: Status of thinking on the editor?

Originally posted by Dr. K.
Brad, I know you answered this with an "idunno yet" last month, but is there any news on whether your team will be including an editor?

Yes, we are contractually and financially obligated to port over the editor. It definitely won't ship in the box, and it may be a month or three later, as it's in reality a much larger porting task than the game itself. But it will arrive.

It's my understanding as well that the PC version of the editor is still in flux and has some incomplete features, so I'm not sure if the initial Mac release will be on par with the PC editor or what.

Brad

[Smash]

upgrade folly:
why upgrade a pike,for example,to infantry or beyond when the pike will beat a tank as is?...there is no use.

It happens enough that I seriously do some thinking before paying for an upgrade.Cavalry are just as effect as tanks.Actually they are more effective because they have an extra move in enemy territory.The game is more or less a rush to mounted units.Knights and/or cavalry.After that you are set.Cav is as far as I upgrade offensive units and pikes are the last defensive unit.

The last time I upgraded to muskets,I had 1 musket and 1 pike in a city.Ai attacks.Musket loses.Pike defends.The conclusion was obvious.

Units DO retain their status(vet,elite) after an upgrade at least.

[Gatekeeper]

Re: Re: Bradman: Status of thinking on the editor?

Originally posted by bradman
It's my understanding as well that the PC version of the editor is still in flux and has some incomplete features, so I'm not sure if the initial Mac release will be on par with the PC editor or what.

Brad

I understand the inability to determine which civilization starts where in the world is a very big issue with gamers .

That said, am I correct in understanding that there will be another release of Civ III for the Macintosh? The one coming out now and then another three or four months down the road that will incorporate additional fixes and/or additions made by Firaxis?

If that's the case, wouldn't Mac gamers be better off waiting?

I plan on buying Civ III — which probably means a new Mac for me in the process since 333 mhz apparently cannot handle the game very well — but would rather do so later than now, when Firaxis has all the questions worked out. Better that than buying now and having to either have a patch(es) mailed to you later or having to D/L multiple times.

CYBERAmazon

[bradman]

Re: Re: Re: Bradman: Status of thinking on the editor?

Originally posted by CYBERAmazon I understand the inability to determine which civilization starts where in the world is a very big issue with gamers .

I've noticed that this seems to be fixed in the 1.16 patch. I can play an "Earth" scenario with random placement or historically accurate placement.

That said, am I correct in understanding that there will be another release of Civ III for the Macintosh? The one coming out now and then another three or four months down the road that will incorporate additional fixes and/or additions made by Firaxis?

The honest truth is that I have no idea what the future patch schedule is for Civ3. I would not be shocked if they do 2 or 3 more patches like they did with SMAC. If you decide to wait, you'll probably look at a year's time if they follow a similar release schedule to Alpha Centauri. If they decide to pull a Blizzard, they could still be patching and balancing 2 years after release. Ultimately, I think you should buy it when you want to start playing it instead of trying to second-guess what Firaxis might do. I'd also like to point out that most of the posters in the PC forums are what you could consider "hardcore fanboys" and the content of their posts reflects a level of critical analysis that you may or may not have, given that the bulk of the reviews showing up in magazines and online sites tends to be a bit more positive in nature.

Switching gears completely, is it just me, or does it take FOREVER to try to post to this forum? I'm trying to keep my replies to a minimum just because it's such a pain, and I'm impatient.

Brad

[Dr. K.]

Patches, support, and availability

Originally posted by bradman
I would not be shocked if they do 2 or 3 more patches like they did with SMAC. If you decide to wait, you'll probably look at a year's time...Ultimately, I think you should buy it when you want to start playing it instead of trying to second-guess what Firaxis might do.

Thanks for the info. From my reading of the PC CivIII bugs thread started by Firaxis, they are inviting comments, and halfway through the thread, the firaxis guy (forgot his name) posted to thank the bug-posters for their input saying it's been helpful to their team. Therefore, I think you are correct that there will be a string of patches.

I guess what we the Mac customers need to know then is: Is there likely to be a free downloadable patch for your Mac Port at some future date?

Originally posted by bradman
Switching gears completely, is it just me, or does it take FOREVER to try to post to this forum?
Brad

I thought it was just me, because I have a regular phone line link now after having been spoiled by a T1. Yeah, it's slower than molasses running uphill in January. I think the site admins were saying the server was having trouble handling the exponentially increased traffic surrounding the Civ III release.

Brad: I posted this question on a different thread but I'll ask here again. We were told via yesterday's announcement that the game is Gold and available to order online, and can expect shipping as soon as early Jan (As you can see, I've decided not to wait ). WHERE? I can't find it anywhere except Bits&Chips--who lists it as "To be released 04/02".

Thanks again.

[Gatekeeper]

Bradman:

So the initial Macintosh release of Civ III will ship with an editor that allows the player to determine starting locations of specific civilizations? I ask because I get the impression that just the game itself will ship, sans *any* editor.

And, yes, 'Poly is incredibly slow. As I write this, there are 316 people on the boards. That's well below the 700 to 800 threshold that, not so far in the past, understandably caused slow-downs.

CYBERAmazon

[Wiglaf]

CYBER, I don't think they'll have the editor out of the box in any form - evidently, straight from Firaxis, it's hardcore PC in every way. Just look at the screenshots, it's not a very mac friendly tool at all. Like he said, though, not that big a loss until patched up a bit.

Question: a 333 MHz G3 might be the minimum, but on the PC side (with intel's generally inflated system of measuring clock speed) only a pII 300 MHz is required to run (on a small map with a small number of civs, granted, but able to boot up). Will it be the same for the mac side (500 for large maps, sub 500 MHz for smaller maps) or will late rev iMacs/G4s be a black and white requirement?

Then again, those 600 MHz iMacs are a little bit cheaper now...