Civ3: Who's resolve is first to falter?

[Alexander's Horse]

This game does not sound very promising as a multiplayer platform.

The 32 turns to monarchy is horrifying. I hope you find ways to speed it up. Does road construction work? (I mean by increasing trade)

[rah]

That 32 turns is the cap. One of the games I played the early part of yesterday I had a better science base. It was 28 turns.

Most of my starts have been with militaristic civs to try to milk the great leader concept. Maybe a science characteristic would be a little better. If you choose a civ that one of their characteristic is expansionist, you start with a scout which really helps to get out on the map. In the civIII forum Dan M. hinted that if you choose expansionist that you were more likely to get a nomad or a city from a hut. I opened quite a few huts and nada.

Cap, I played with the huts a little. (waiting a turn) and the result did change on one that I tried. 25 bucks one turn, and then bronze work the next turn. (it didn't work on an empty one before I had my cap down) So people that reset will still find a way to max the huts.

If you know a barb encapment is nearby, I do suggest clearing them out. I had explored the area and then later an encapment must have been set up. Every 4 turns or so a horse would attack a city, I never bothered cleaning up because the attacks raised my vet status on troops there.
Around 100bc I got a message that there was a massive appearance of barbs by one of my cities. 17 horses descended on one city and the next turn 12 descended on another city. For testing purposes I went back 6 and 8 turns to see if it would still occur and replayed it a few times. They appeared like clockwork. So reseters will not be pleased with that

I did try the zulus and got to a golden age early, It doesn't help that much when you're still in despotism, so I suggest holding off till you've changed government. I finally got to monarchy, but didn't test for Oedo years. I'll try that later.

RAH
Still deciding which characteristics work best. But that scout at the beginning really helps.

[War4ever]

well Rich i have my copy now and all i can say is..........hm....ctp 123............*music kicks in*

but to be honest i havent' had a real chance to play....too busy watching the yanks last night....

but the tech ....... my god 32 tech to research warrior code..... i hate the pop up screens...... open close open close ....sigh.....

[Chris 62]

Been following your reports with growing trepidation, Rah.

It looks like it will be a wash for MP.

I suspect that the reason for Mon being 32 turns is that they must be thinking of European style monarchy that came with the Barbarians over-running Rome in about 400 AD or so, not the Anciet variety which they consider Despotism.

How does the game look and play?

Is the interface smooth?

From what i heard here and elsewhere, the game doesn't sound all to exciting in the early years.

[Xin Yu]

I tried Japanese. Built a city next to the Indian boarder and built a temple. Suddenly my boarder expanded and pushed the Indians' boarder back. But my city site was not good enough so I did not get the resource. Next time I will do a better job. A pretty good way to steal a resource, right?

Japan starts religious so I guess that helped. Met Chinese and Russian later, they were all impressed by my culture. Russian offered a tech for 24 gold and I agreed. China had 5 more techs than me and 101 golds. I did not have anything to trade. Fortunately Indian was between China and my forgotten civ. I did not build any defense unit before temples. Nobody walked in my empty cities;D.

[War4ever]

Originally posted by rah
That 32 turns is the cap. One of the games I played the early part of yesterday I had a better science base. It was 28 turns.

If you choose a civ that one of their characteristic is expansionist, you start with a scout which really helps to get out on the map. In the civIII forum Dan M. hinted that if you choose expansionist that you were more likely to get a nomad or a city from a hut. I opened quite a few huts and nada.



RAH
Still deciding which characteristics work best. But that scout at the beginning really helps.

Ok having played a bit now...... i triggured a golden age....no point in despot.... got a nomad from my first hut...... yee haw.... but i am amazed at how quick the ai expands.....

you have to make peace.... in my first game the ai kept sending wave after wave of troops....killing me.....

peace makes it easier to expand and to weasel techs and such away from the ai....

the hut with the free maps.....hahahaha what a joke.....the only thiing worse is the empty ones....

ai seems peacefull...... not sure if this is a good thing....

playing deity , i miss the second settler..... your cap really has to pump out two settlers and then start a wonder......allowing the other cities to build the martial law troops..... the ai builds a wonder right quick.......

contact on a regular or default map is quick! and being picked off by barbs is easier and more deadly....i had an ellie take out a wandering settler....needless to say it hampered my growth somewhat

[Ming]

Xin Yu... what do you think about the game so far.
I think it's harder overall... but we haven't had a million games to disect it yet. Have you found and good Xin tricks yet?

[Carolus Rex]

I don't have the game, but I read about the slow science rate in a thread at the Civ3 forums. People over there were also confused/appalled at the slow pace of discovery. It seemed that no matter what you did (build roads, change the science rate etc), it still wouldn't change.

The conclusion was that it is the number of beakers (if there is such a thing in Civ3?) that your civ has when you choose a tech that determines how long it will take to discover it. Is this what you guys find too?

Also, how is it to play the game? Disappointing or exciting because it is not like Civ2?

More Viking scribes, please!

Carolus [can't wait to get my copy]

[CapTVK]

I'm starting to get worried by newbie responses in the Civ3 general forum.

Many new players seem to find the game too hard, even on the lower levels. While the diehard civ fans probably love this, the average player does not. That negative feedback could work against the succes of Civ3 in the long run.

[rah]

Originally posted by Carolus Rex
I don't have the game, but I read about the slow science rate in a thread at the Civ3 forums. People over there were also confused/appalled at the slow pace of discovery. It seemed that no matter what you did (build roads, change the science rate etc), it still wouldn't change.

The conclusion was that it is the number of beakers (if there is such a thing in Civ3?) that your civ has when you choose a tech that determines how long it will take to discover it. Is this what you guys find too?

Also, how is it to play the game? Disappointing or exciting because it is not like Civ2?

More Viking scribes, please!

Carolus [can't wait to get my copy]

I don't think it's that. There is max number of turns "32". So if people's science rate is bad, no matter how good or bad you change it, it doesn't have any effect so people are thinking that.

[Carolus Rex]

Originally posted by CapTVK
Many new players seem to find the game too hard, even on the lower levels. While the diehard civ fans probably love this, the average player does not.

My thought exactly after reading reviews and some threads in the Civ3 forums. This is excellent, especially since the game is SP only!

Carolus

[CapTVK]

Well Rah you've been testing Civ3 for almost a week now. What are the prospects for MP fans?

[Smash]

Many new players seem to find the game too hard, even on the lower levels. While the diehard civ fans probably love this, the average player does not. That negative feedback could work against the succes of Civ3 in the long run.

This is or could be very true.Steve Clark posted an in depth thread on this months and months ago.His concern was that while catering to experienced civ players,you could easily shutout a large portion of your intended market.Then you don't get sales.You don't get follow up stuff.You end up with nothing.
He envisioned a game where many of the "difficult" options would be just that..options.So you could have raw "what the heck is this crap?" newbies to the beaker squeezing seasoned player that lands in 20ad.
Remember,that in the big picture,diehard civers only make up a small % of the overall gaming sales picture.

The upcoming patches might make or break this one....

I'll be playing either way

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Smash


Remember,that in the big picture,diehard civers only make up a small % of the overall gaming sales picture.

The upcoming patches might make or break this one....

I'll be playing either way

As I'll probably be


But still....I think the fault doesn't lie so much with newbies as with the fans. A game that "rocks" for me might not please casual players. Remember the previous Civ titles were all sleeper hits. You had to be "in the know" if you knew about civ at all.


Could Civ3 become as popular as the sims?


I remember an article by Chris Crawford about this, maybe I can find it.

[Alexander's Horse]

Velocroix has started an interesting strategy thread on the Civ III strategy forum which is worth a look. Seems like there are ways around the slow science rate and also to rush build wonders ("Lumberjacking").

As for the newbie comments, a lot of them show a complete lack of understanding of the game, or even obvious game features and basic rules, and I'm not paying much attention to them. They are spam Ming - do something

One thing that is holding people back I think is we are so rusted onto our civ II strats that some players are having trouble adapting (I didn't mean anyone on this thread btw).

I'm quite looking forward to playing it.