Help Coming for Slow Turns?

[Bird]

I'm a little behind the times, so I only today saw the old Civ III site where Firaxis gave a bunch of info and answered some viewer mail. Anyway, this response to a question about the "Go To" command, if implemented the way they say, will have a great impact on the speed of MP games. No more four minutes a turn simply moving caravans:

"The "Go To" command is back! Not only can you select which square you'd like a unit to go to, but as you drag the cursor, the game will also show you the path it plans to take to get there, and how many turns it will take that unit to arrive, calculating movement rate, plus road bonuses, and so on. I am also told by Chris Pine that our new pathfinding system will always find the shortest path, so you won't have warriors running back and forth all over the map. "

Of course, there will probably be many more ways to make the MP turns last forever.......

Bird

Needs better computer, faster internet connection, and more beer.

[finbar]

Yeah well. Let's wait and see. Some of the various patches were meant to have addressed the Go To problem.

[Hydey]

Goto works fine as long as you only ask them to go 1 square at a time.

[Ming]

I'll believe it when I see it. Granted, it sounds like you will know just how screwed up the route might be if you drag your cursor, but won't looking at the route just add more time to your turn

I really hope they figure out how to REALLY make the go to command function well.

But, since it seems like there won't be caravans, that alone should speed things up when combined with stacking of military units..

[rah]

Yes, I'm expecting much faster turns without caravans. The goto command fix probably won't speed up the game much, because once you eliminate caravans, most of the need for the goto command will be gone. You're not going to use the goto for exploring or military offensives. (stacks should really help that) So the only need for goto will be for shifting defenses as your borders change. But after reading about the need to patrol borders, it may have its uses there.

The need to build roads earlier will also probably make you switch more resources to development (early) instead of spitting out excessive amounts of military units that will be on the board. (more will be needed to defend, but they won't be moving. )

This should make for real quick turns for at least the first sessions of games. (and hopefully encourage continuations)

But the lack of any specifics about MP is bothersome. But at least it's mentioned.

RAH
I don't need no stinking servers to play, so that had better not be the only MP option.

[Bird]

no caravans? That sucks. I assume freight is still in?

[rah]

I assume no caravans also means no Freights.

http://www.civ3.com/faq4.cfm

It sounds like trade will be handled more like the CTP II model. It will be interesting to see how this impacts Wonder Building.

Rich

[Bird]

Don't have CTP. Sounds like I gots me some learnin' to do. Do people who have CTP think the trade model is good?

[rah]

I've played some CTPII and the overall concept is easier.

If a special resource is in the city boundaries it's available to trade with another city that has a special resource. You go to a screen and it tells you the combos of all the cities with special resources and tells you how many caravans its takes to set up a trade route. If you have built more than 7 caravans it will use seven to set up the trade route and gives you "X" amount of gold a turn. When you build a caravan, it's not a unit, it's just added to the total that you have available to trade.

You don't need to be connected by road. (so CIVIII will be different) and I doubt you will be building caravans.
The problem with CTPII was that it would draw a line between the two cities, and an enemy unit could pirate that trade route if it was on the line. Annoying as hell.

But's it's nice not to have to build and move caravans and worry about changing demands. All your trade managed on one screen lickity split. No waiting 15 turns to realize the benefit of building a caravan. And I believe it will relieve some of the tedious nature of the game. THINK XIN MOVING 30 Caravans a turn. His strategies were good, but they were time consuming. And this maxing cities for caravan arrival is getting out of hand. Except for the first couple, I don't even do it much any more. And what's worse is that I don't care that others are cashing in better. It's too tedious.

Rush building wonders... I don't think I'm going to like not having caravans for that. But you never know. Better planning will be required.

Rich

[markusf]

Civ3 will use the imperialism model from what i can tell. It looks like the game will be 50% master of orion and 50% imperialism. They sort of stole all the good ideas from other games and brushed them up.