c179# THE JOYS AND FRUSTRATING ELEMENTS OF THE CIV SERIES

[MarkG]

179# THE JOYS AND FRUSTRATING ELEMENTS OF THE CIV SERIES
A full analysis of the bad and the good of all civ games!

By Peter Ashley

[Mech Assassin]

Hmm, some comments. Seems like you haven't played Master of Orion 1 nor Civilization 1.

Anyway, about the Environment, in Orion 1, there were 5 different values for each city, you defined (how much producion points to use on each).

1 was building factories.
1 was building ships.
1 was building defenses.
1 was how much to use on environment (did it go worse, clean or did it get better. The better environment, the more citizen and such)
The last one was research.

The environment is the important one. I think, environment should be like this, so you define, how much gold and producion to use on the environment in the city. The more you use, the more population you get and the longer lifespan your citizen have).


About the end of game, I think, the Civ 1 type comparsion would be nice. Also, I like upgrading my castle more than upgrading my throne room (and choosing, what style to use to build it). Also, I think, the castle should have some value, like it would give you culture points.


On diplomaticy, planning wars should be done better. You should be able to make full-scale war plan with your allies (you choose the attack routes and targets. Then you have ability to ask them to hold some positions for certain time and such). Then, the AI should be active on helping you with planning also. They should also consider their own losses. Also, Allied conquest victory could be nice future (like max. 3 civizations could do combined allied victory). This would enable me not to break any pacts and still win.

Then, I'd like to be able to buy land (or sea) area from other players. This hasn't yet been implemented. Also, I'd like the ability to ask for permission to pass by my friends area, when making an attack run.

Also, I'd like to get points in the end about my diplomatic status (and my diplomatic trust) so I couldn't just break pacts and win without consuquences at the end of the game. All atrocities would count as negative points.

[Rue]

An interesting and thought provoking article.

An area I would like to see developed more thoroughly is trade. I would like to see it possible to build an economically powerful society. One which would wield its hegemony through economic might. Military might would be reserved to protect the economic machine.Trading partners then would become longtime allies. Perhaps rather than distributing resources throughout the map, certain key resources can be distributed in different areas. Perhaps each society could become expert at developing a particular class of technology that could be a commodity for trade.

Another thing I would like to see, is the ability to negotiate borders with neighbors. This could take the form of buying territory or trading territory.

[Father Beast]

WOW! That is pretty comprehensive. I am going to have to print it out and see if I agree on all points. I'll be back.

Mech Assassin-
I think when he said "might of orion", he meant "master of orion". it looks like he has played it.

[Ned]

Mech Assassin, Too bad you never had a chance to play CIV. It many ways, it was the best game of all. Certainly tougher by an order of magnitude than any subsequent game in the genre. It seems the more features they add the easier it is for the human player to beat the AI. It also adds to the micromanagement problem.

One major pet peeve of mine is the way Alpha Centauri automatically jumps to an active unit. I have tried turning that off to no avail. How many time is it that you have been checking on units or production in a particular base, and each time you finish any intermediate action, the game leaves its map focus on the base and jumps to an active unit elsewhere - forcing one time and again to refocus the map view.

I would kill to return to CIV II's control of the map where you had to actually command the game to refocus the map to an active unit. That was far, far better.

Ned

[War4ever]

while civ 2 is a great game..... the origional was better as far as ground breaking gameplay. some of the new features of civ2 are kind of annoying.

sure i hate the phalanx defeats a battleship of civ1 but i don't really like the new combat system either.

stacking should be a nice change in civ3 but its not like this concept is innovative.... it exists in other games.

civ3 will likely produce a "new" game with problems similar to the ctp series......maybe producing a more realistic game , but likely full of flaws to exploit..

if Sid were smart , he would take some of Europa Universals ideas and try to incorporate them into the civ series, along with some proven winning ideas ala smac, ctp, civ etc .....


i fear radical changes though..... as ctp proved.... too much too soon can be hazardous to your health....

BTW a good little read that article was......

[Mech Assassin]

Hmm, seems like I read it too quick. I thought he had only played MoO 2... Anyways, I HAVE played Civ I... It's been long, but I have it... It's in storage...

[mikey]

Agreed, also...

i agree with everything you said. However, one apsect of CIV 2 that I think is overlooked is how well the interface works in a window. By that, I mean, its very easy to switch between Civ. 2 and other programs, so you can play the game in between doing other stuff (like when I'm at work). Also, this "simple" windows 95 type interface also seems to make the program less likely to crash. I know everyone is in love with DirectX because of the better graphics, but I tend to prefer older games which can be easily run in the background without memory leakage or something causing you to have to restart the system. More than any other single factor, that one has caused me to be still be a faithful Civ 2 player after 5 years, despite no other program holding my interest for more than a few weeks.

[Case]

Originally posted by War4ever
civ3 will likely produce a "new" game with problems similar to the ctp series......maybe producing a more realistic game , but likely full of flaws to exploit..

I'd say that the Civ 3 designers will have carefully analysised the CTP games, and hopefully will be able to avoid the mistakes made in them.

[Peter Ashley]

Thank you for the comments

Thanks to everyone to commented on the article.

On reading it again, I still feel theres so much more to say, and so little time/space :-)

I hope Civ3 is fun, more than anything.
Small mistakes can be forgiven and tolerated when youre having fun.

[Mech Assassin]

Re: Agreed, also...

Originally posted by mikey
i agree with everything you said. However, one apsect of CIV 2 that I think is overlooked is how well the interface works in a window. By that, I mean, its very easy to switch between Civ. 2 and other programs, so you can play the game in between doing other stuff (like when I'm at work). Also, this "simple" windows 95 type interface also seems to make the program less likely to crash. I know everyone is in love with DirectX because of the better graphics, but I tend to prefer older games which can be easily run in the background without memory leakage or something causing you to have to restart the system. More than any other single factor, that one has caused me to be still be a faithful Civ 2 player after 5 years, despite no other program holding my interest for more than a few weeks.

I usually like to run DOS programs in the prompt (like Civilization 1 or Master of Orion 1/2) and use Alt-Tab to switch between normal applications and the game. I like DOS games, cause they leave almost all system resources for your use. Of course I can Window them also, but I like keeping them in full screen, even while working.

[tuckson]

a must to eliminate

Having read the article, I can agree with a lot of things being said.
However, I wouldn't mind having a copy of CIV 2 as CIV 3 as long as only 1 thing is improved, namely the cheating of the AI.

I still play CIV 2 very much (especially against my wife, she downstairs, me upstairs, real great fun). We usually play with the maximum number of AI civs available. And we both both really enjoy it a lot. No bug or irritating feature makes us being really mad at the game, except one:

The cheating AI

Let me explain what I mean. Suppose I am attacking an AI city with a cannon or a catapult and a legion. Both slow units. Suppose I have used an explorer to walk around the city and have seen no enemy units in the neigborhood. The city is defended by 2 units. It's my turn and I defeat those 2 units, leaving the city to be taken next turn. Wanna bet that next turn the city is defended again? OK, maybe the city at the moment had enough shields to produce the new unit, bad luck. So I fight again. Leaving the city open to be taken next turn. Wanna bet that next turn there are again units in the city? Now I am enraged.

Same thing for the rule that one cannot pass another civs units.
This only seems to be the case for human players.
If only these things could be improved so that we could rely on the fact that the AI is bound to the same restrictions and rules as we as human players are.

And what about meeting an AI civ's unit in the early game, when they have no cities on that particular piece of land and not discovered seafaring yet?

By the way, when I as large civ am negotiating with an AI that's only 1 or 2 cities and a few units left, Does it makes sense it boasts that it will "spare us from the wrath of their mighty armies"?

Kind regards,
tuckson

[Ned]

tuckson, I don't remember, but I a human can do pretty much the same thing as the CIV II AI - build a unit every turn - in SMACX. The only difference is that the AI can change production immediately in response to changed circumstances, something the human player cannot do. But you can actually see how it happens in SMACX because you can see what a base is producing from the map. When a last garrison unit is killed, the AI will switch production immediately to a garrison unit. If it has sufficient resources, it will rush build the unit.

Once you understand this, you know what you have to do to take an AI base. You must have enough units to not only kill the defenders, but also move one last unit in to take the base. A single, one-movement unit by its lonesome probably can never take an AI base.

Ned

[Tokek Belerang]

It seems the author played a good deal more CTP than he did SMAC. Or is it just me. Could be. I suppose.

Kek

[Peter Ashley]

Cheating AI's and SMAC fans

The AI in CivII can and does cheat sometimes ;-)

The most obvious way Ive ever noticed this, is when it nukes the ONLY city thats not protected against nuke missiles - first time out! How could it know such a thing without finding out through trial and error?
The AI should not have access to knowledge a user doesnt have.
I meant to write this somewhere under the "What I know" section.

To all offended SMAC fans :

Yes, I admit Ive played more CivII, CTP, CTPII than I have SMAC. Buts thats cause I just dont like SMAC. (And Yes - before you ask - I have played at least 100 hours of SMAC before forming that opinion)
But to a Civ fan, its just not my taste, and thats okay :-)