I'm giving up Civilization. Here's why

[vmxa1]

While agree to some extend with JT and I have played all of those games (and still some), the one I wold most like to see addressed is the documentation.

I would have liked to seen them lean on the strat guide people to provide these details. Then publishers of the game would not have spent money on expanding the manual, but the data would still be out there. This would have make the guide worth having.

I think the talk of a be all end all AI is pointless. MrBaggins points out some of the issues with that. They have make it a bit less foolish, but it will not ever be smart. If it was they would need to do something to protect the new players, so they could win.

I really do not have a problem with the bonus aspects. Yes at some point you get the upper (or you lose), so what?

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
Whilst I agree with some of jimmytricks sentiment, I think that real world limitations mean that certain concessions have to be made.

For instance... map-centric features such as crawlers rely on an understanding of a 2d space, which is innately learned by human players, who can ignore clutter and understand distance and orientation. Modelling this mathematically isn't trivial. When you introduce factors like variable movement, and a variety of variable effects, which conflict... it becomes nigh on impossible to solve optimally. Of course, you don't *need* for the AI to act in an absolutely optimal fashion, but this does require uneveness to provide challenge.

Certain features such as the unit workshop require finesse when you are competing with other designs. Solutions are more fuzzy than crisp logic, and whilst you can emulate partially fuzzy solutions with logic, they are far from perfect.

Fuzzy state machines *could* be used... but fuzzy math isn't a simple concept, and tough to design. Very few designers feel comfortable designing a new AI based on it.

When you compete with a skilled human, you have to be very close to optimal, to compete. Humans learn, adapt and improve. AI's don't (well.. Evolutionary AI's can, but evolutionary AI's in a Civ sense, are more theoretical... blue-sky constructs than tried and tested approaches.)

I think that the Civ3 approach of finding the areas where the AI cannot compete, and making them equal is not only useful, its practically essential.

There is no more obvious and flawed a feature, than the one which the human knows they can whip an AI silly with, and the AI won't respond with.

We've certainly not seen the end of percentile AI bonuses, either

AI's will improve... not as massively as many would like. Computing power isn't increasing exponentially, and much more advanced AI algorithms are much more costly. Waiting a long time for your turn is generally a game killer... and won't be implemented in a commercial game.

Crawlers and the unit workshop make little sense to implement, however "fun" they might be perceived, since they'll turn the AI into whipping boys, every time, when the human develops an ounce of skill with them.

I could not disagree with you more.

Okay, if you play the game on easy levels the AI has no production advantages. But easy levels are not enough to satisfy most players.

So then you crank it up and give the AI production advantages. Something like diety, demi-god, or sid levels. To simplify for discussion say the AI has double production. The human is challenged to build more wisely and must be able to maintain a 2-1 kill ratio to compete. Lets take that as model one.

For model two lets put crawlers in the game. Say this gives the human double production potential. Then double the AI production again. You now have the human at 2x production and the AI at 4x. The kill ratio is still at 2-1. The human has to use his extra tool, the crawler, well.

Which is better. Model one or two.

Two is clearly better because it gives the human more stuff to do in game. Adds a requirment for deeper thinking and planning and its just more fun. It also have the added benefit of greatly improved human to human play.

As I have consistently said we are always going to beat the AI. It's not important if we win by a little or a lot, it's how much fun we have along the way.

Yes to in-game toys. Bring back Reynolds.

[lethe]

I'm torn on the crawler issue. All they really add is a nightmare of micromanagement. On a huge map I could end up with hundreds of crawlers.

And simplifying the domain won't help the AI all that much. Someone who has played go a year or two can beat the best AI silly, and the game has three very simple rules.


The AI in Civ does not always get production bonuses. At Regent and below it doesn't cheat.

[vmxa1]

it has the same cheat at all levels, it know the tiles. At Regent and lower it does not get any handicap or bonus. The handicap is increased at levels beyond Regent.

[Dis]

but still Jimmy does have a point in a way. Sure some people don't like crawlers, but many did. I see no reason why the game couldn't be more complex.

Of course civ is a historical game unlike smac. So advanced terraforming and crawlers wouldn't come until later.

But I think they could really spice up the modern age. As is, the modern age in civ3 is clearly lacking. This is one reason why I never play the epic game anymore. I've only been playing scenarios.

Some see it as micromanagement, but other people like those things.

Why not try to appeal to the widest audience. Give people the option of doing these things. You can always choose not to build these things if you don't wish to.

Simply put. What we are asking for is more options in gameplay. Sure it puts a human at an advantage against the ai. But as Jt said, this can be offset.

Now of course including more options in the modern age could drag it down. But I don't see how it can be any worse than it already is. I understand what the developers wanted to do in civ3. They figured by the time people reached the modern age, they would want the game to speed up and not be bogged down by details. But I don't think that has worked out. The lack of technologies and viable wonders in the modern age has turned me off. And workers have no purpose but to clean up pollution and maybe fix the effects of global warming.

[okblacke]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
Okay, if you play the game on easy levels the AI has no production advantages. But easy levels are not enough to satisfy most players.

Actually, they probably are. Although Apolyton and CivFanatcs are probably critical to Civ's extended success, members are almost assuredly not representative of the general player.

I would bet most players play at the highest level they can comfortably win at, using whatever play style they favor. I'd guess Warlord. Maybe Regent. I have a friend who, in his entire Civ career (ten years?) has always played at the two easiest levels. With Civ 3, he'll venture on to Regent, but the micromanagement it takes to win at that level takes the fun out of playing for him.

Games are getting shorter and easier because that's what most people want. (That and it's easier and cheaper to develop a shorter game.)

Any game developer given the choice between satisfying the few hardcore players or the many casual players is going to opt for the latter if he wants to be commercially successful. Fortunately, the needs of the many don't always contradict the needs of the few.

I liked Alpha Centauri, though not nearly as much as Civ 3, and I don't even remember "crawlers" or what they're supposed to do that's so much fun.

[ok]

[Dis]

they didn't really do anything . But I think human players enjoyed being able to use their brains to maximize resources to gain an "edge". There is only so much thinking you can do in civ3. There just isn't as many options. Everybodies screenshots all look the same for the most part.

[ErikM]

JT is right. In the industrial era the game becomes simply incredibly boring. Like, what genius came up with an idea that cleaning up pollution in the mountains should take 48 worker-turns (or is it 36)? Did someone seriously thought that it is incredibly exciting to drag 48 workers to the same tile and order them to do the same thing? Or (as the available alternative) watch the screen jerk up and down watching automated workers doing who knows what? Civ II at least had engineers working at 2xspeed way before pollution was starting to become a problem. And it was way faster to clean up.

But even in the ancient era, the game is very linear. There are some cute tactical tricks that one has to learn to compete at higher levels, like settler farms and corruption management but otherwise what is it so deeply strategic about the early game? There are no combined arms or anything, it is just a war of luck and attrition. If you have 6-8 swordsman against 4 spears, you'll probably win a siege otherwise you probably won't. That's all there is to strategy.

IMO Civ III's largest design flaw is that there are no tradeoffs. Like a builder/warmonger tradeoff. In Civ/Civ II/SMAC the cost of early rushes was underdeveloped infrastructure that would drag you down later on. So one had to do some serious cost/benefit analysis before risking an early war. But in Civ III it is a no-brainer... You get not just enemy territory but also great leaders that save hundreds of shields, slaves, resources, happiness (due to captured luxuries and the way war weariness works), and technology (from peace treaties). Downsides? There aren't any. If you lose that's probably because you are weak vs the AI but in this case you probably would get trashed anyway.

The game is only challenging during first 100 turns or so and mostly due to AI bonus units. I won a couple of deity games (vanilla Civ) but much as I'd like to attribute it to my strategic brilliance it was mostly just dumb luck. One game I had iron and my neighbours had not. Another one I got a leader like in 2700BC and rushed Pyramids. Yet another, my French neighbours technically had iron but did not bother to connect it since they were too busy trying to settle "my" part of the continent.

Similarly, I lost plenty of games but I cannot imagine what could I possibly have done differently in order to win. Like you start next to Germany and they attack you at 3000 BC. There is only so much one can do with two warriors against a dozen of their freebie archers.

So while I agree that Civ III AI is much better than in Civ II/SMAC, Civ III definitely lacks the strategic depth of its predecessors.

[SlightlyMadman]

Thank you ErikM, for putting what I was trying to express into words better.

Basically, the game is all about reading forums and figuring out the right way to play. Once you've done that, it's just a matter of getting it set up right and the game is in the bag. All the harder levels do is make it harder (actually, just more tedious really) to get it set up.

A really fun game is one where you have to assess the situation and adapt a unique strategy based around it. In civ3, it's just a matter of rushing for some good settler pump sites, placing camps, and stealing your neighbors' land bit by bit until you're the biggest nation. I'm not perfect at it yet (I can only beat emporer consistently), but I suspect with enough practice I'll eventually do just as well on deity with the same strategy. It's just boring, so I'm not sure I'll keep playing that long.

I've tried experimenting with the editor, but testing subtle changes for balance issues over and over again is just as boring.

All that said, civ is still the best series of all time. I've just gotten bored with civ3 now, just as I eventually did with the first 2 and both ctp games (much more quickly on the latter).

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by ErikM
(vanilla Civ) .

have you played Civ3 1.29 (or PTW or C3C)?

I ask that because some of your complaints, ie. the mass movement of workers, have been resolved. How Civ3 was released without a mass move command is beyond me, as the tedium without is incredible. Likewise, do you know that there is a auto clean pollution mode for workers?

And you mentioned something about engineers of Civ2. If you want faster workers in Civ3, you can discover Replaceable parts or become a democracy. And if its the two moves that's bothering you, that's one of the easier things to mod into the game.

As far as pure warmongering and rushing in general, I don't find the game to be as different as its predecessors. The main difference in this one is that you can lose cities, captured and otherwise, to culture flips quite easily, not to mention losing the game via culture. I find that if I warmonger too long, then i have no infrastructure.

As far as combined arms go, I have personally found that cats are invaluable when attacking cities, as I haven't found 6 swords to reliably take down 3 spears. 6 swords with 4 cats are a much safer bet, not to mention better defensively. Also adding in the factor that cats are cheaper than swords and don't need barracks. Even archers are somewhat useful, due to their zero range bombard.

[Xorbon]

I'm probably not the only one here who hasn't played SMAC, but what's a "crawler"? If I was to guess, I'd say it's a place where a player can buy used droids from jawas.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Xorbon
I'm probably not the only one here who hasn't played SMAC, but what's a "crawler"? If I was to guess, I'd say it's a place where a player can buy used droids from jawas.

a crawler is similar to the caravan in civ2, ie trade routes (iirc) and rush builds.

also you can park a crawler on a square to increase that squares output.

[lethe]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel




a crawler is similar to the caravan in civ2, ie trade routes (iirc) and rush builds.

also you can park a crawler on a square to increase that squares output.

Almost, the crawler sits on a square and brings home _one_ type of resource from that square. Very nice for mining, leaving your citizens working squares with food/minerals/energy all in one.

This also gives rise to some rather MM-intense strategies, building huge "parks" for the crawlers. (Raise lots of land, build huge array of solar panels, put crawler on each panel. All crawlers homed in your "super science city". If you can stomach enough crawlers you can get several techs a turn.)

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by lethe


Almost, the crawler sits on a square and brings home _one_ type of resource from that square. Very nice for mining, leaving your citizens working squares with food/minerals/energy all in one.

ah thats right. I found it to be quite a boring tedious exercise, as the ai was a chump without using such tactics.

[Capt Dizle]

Using crawlers all by itself was more interesting than all of Civ3 rolled up together.