My Review of Civ 3

[splangy]

any way, the reason i got so hostile is that ive waited for this game for a long time and it p.o.s me when people act like its gona be a total failur since they have yet to make one of those and WILL NOT be another craptivision, thats not how they work.

i liked this post becouse it showed a game that isn't perfect but damn near and is actually posible.

about my signiture. i originaly had one that was realy f'ed up and needed somthing to chnge it to.

[death_head]

The game will be fine. Go buy it.

[TechWins]

first of all i just want to say that i only quoted the whole thing to get on everyones nerves

Wow, you are a really big loser!

[splangy]

Originally posted by TechWins


Wow, you are a really big loser!

and if i am why did you spend your time making fun of me? im sure you have many other important things to do like hanging around some other threads, spending all your time here, bashing people for no exact reason. wow! i envy your social life, i really do.

[TechWins]

and if i am why did you spend your time making fun of me? im sure you have many other important things to do like hanging around some other threads, spending all your time here, bashing people for no exact reason. wow! i envy your social life, i really do.

My social life is fine for now. The reason why I have so much time is because I am in summer vacation and I moved kind of far away from all my friends in the past two months. My best friend moved away last month to Michigan and my girl friend moved away to Los Angeles two months ago. It's too hot (110 degrees) to really do much outside. So I don't have much else to do. Just for your information.

About this review. I do think it was put together very well by Yin. The things that he stated are some possible situations that could occur. For now I'm just going to wait to play Civ3 before I give my opinion on it.

[splangy]

what does that have to do with you disrespectful towards me? it was a joke, if you didn't like it you could ave just said "don't do that, please" or somthing.

[TechWins]

what does that have to do with you disrespectful towards me? it was a joke, if you didn't like it you could ave just said "don't do that, please" or somthing.

You being annoying isn't funny. People asked you not to do it and you still did it. Why do you feel the need to be annoying?

Again 'm joking, just like my original post "Wow, you are a really big loser!" and like how you were joking in your post "first of all i just want to say that i only quoted the whole thing to get on everyones nerves".

[splangy]

ill just delete it so we can move on.

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by yin26
Yes, actually, the game is just like one big Sim China. Sid's Sim China. Has a ring to it... And I never got the photo of the pool. Perhaps I deleted an odd-looking e-mail in my thirst to kill spam? Please re-send it.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Not yet another game to delay the release of civ3. Gak, Yin, do you hate all of us as much as you do Firaxis?

About your review: I read this and can't help but wonder, are you one of those guys that thought civ2 sucked?

About Rah's review: I fell over laughing at the description of the manual. that is truly absurd. Even the manual junkie that I am don't have expectations that high. the rest of the review is what I hope for. I don't think it's that impossible either.

[Provost Harrison]

Welcome to cynicism central. Enjoy your stay

[vonManstein]

Originally posted by rah
Thanks Yin, I was away for a couple of days, and was pleased that you graced us with your presence again. My biggest fears for problems with the AI and MP were addressed by you in a most satisfying manner.

I am usually an optimist, but I truly enjoyed your work. In tribute I would like to add my review, and hope (really hope) that the final product will fall somewhere in between.

The GAME
I was happy that I decided not to pre-order that game. The first day of release, I picked it up at Best Buy on sale while my brother was still waiting for his pre-ordered copy to be shipped.
The box exceeded all my expectations. There was a majestic pattern on the box with CIV III in impressive large letters, right along with Sid's name. Thank god the box was water resistant so my tears easily wiped off. Just looking at the box made me realize that this was CIV III and not CIV 2.5. The manual took up almost the whole box. Half the manual covered all the new features of CIV III in easy to understand writing. There was a comprehensive table of contents and a truly functional index. After spending 8 hours reading the manual, I was ready to fulfill the desires that had haunted me for all these years. I quickly hung up the poster depicting ancient-modern combat artfully drawn by Frank Frazetta surrounding a detailed tech tree. The full install took about 5 minutes and ran without a hitch. There was an option on install so you could run the game without the CD in the drive. The backup CD that they provided really made me feel like a valued customer. They went a little more modern for the music and included cuts from the Back Street Boys and other boy bands.

STARTUP
WOW the intro movie was mindblowing. It was better than the last Pink Floyd concert I saw. It was definitely worth the 165 MB of disk space. I won't spoil it for anyone but when the horde of rats eventually completely obscured the statue of George Bush, I stood up and cheered.
The Tutorial was excellent and followed the instructions in the first chapter of the manual perfectly.
If you use the default settings, you can fire up a game at "Loser" level in about 30 seconds. But for the more sophisticated player, there is a custom game setup that has over 1000 possible things to customize. From the difficulty level all the way to what color kilts the Scottish are wearing. I decided to customize a game and after 90 minutes, I was ready to go. It also allows you to save the customized settings to save time in future games.

GRAPHICS
The intro and wonder movies were great. I'm sure after a few games, I'll just shut them off. While the game graphics have improved, have no fear, the map still has that fuzzy look with units that are hard to differentiate that we all got to be comfortable with in CIV I and II.
It was again necessary to turn on the grid to avoid bad moves, especially down the rivers.

GAME PLAY
You will be impressed. A lot of effort was put into this. While the GOTO command doesn't work every time, it has improved dramatically. And for those cases that it doesn't work, you are allowed to define routes between cities that will override the goto command. And if you do this and you have a settler in one of the cities, you can give it the build road command and click the other city, the settler will automatically start building a road using the path that you defined. If you use the automate irrigate command. It will go to the best square within the city range and irrigate it, move to the next and continue. I will actually use the automate settler commands in this version.
Resources added a new flavor, which I'll discuss in the AI section.
Trade is handled automatically. You still build caravans but you get the option of where you will trade and the software keeps track of everything. It even calculates the best item to build, etc.
The biggest improvement is stacking. Mixed armies fighting is a whole new dimension. Your catapults can do damage from a distance. (thought that was a no-brainer) Sometimes the defenders are better served by coming out of the city to attack you.

Interfaces
Biggest difference. There are over 89 popup windows that let you control everything. There's even a window that allows you to select groups of cities and change all of their build queues at the same time. Also customized saved build queues that even allows you to put in items that you don't have the technology for yet. A real time saver. One new screen shows you 16 cities at a glance (full stat view) to assist in Micro-management. Now I can micro manage every turn. This will really be big in MP.

THE AI
All my worries about an awful AI went up in smoke after watching the AI for half an hour. Stacking seems to have done the trick. The AI calculates (according to page 1,456 in the manual) the probability of success before initiating an attack. If the prob to win is higher than 40% it attacks, if less it finds a defensive position and waits for other units to make stacks. All the units move first towards stacks and then the stacks move. Now when the AI asks for something, (i.e. to share a resource) and threatens to come kick your ass. It means it. The first time I refused to share some iron, the Mongols declared war, and within 7 turns a stack of 5 chariots and 4 hoplites showed up at my border and started trashing my border cities. The days of defending your cities with a couple of units are over. You will have to maintain a much larger military to hold your territory. And if you do it in every city it will be costly, especially now that your troops are supported by your nation instead of cities. I'm amazed at what a difference stacks makes. The AI is still stupid and can't take advantage of city placements and resource use. But when it has a stack of 12 units, the only strategy it needs is attack. Your couple of pikeman fortified in the mountains blocking him will die quickly. Cities will fall.
The AI also like to include a spy or two in every stack just for fun. With stacks the spys will do sabotage the same turn as the army attack. It's a lot easier for the AI to coordinate a devastating attack with stacks. And heaven forbid if it has two stacks heading your way. I swear one waited for the other so they could attack the same turn. (I didn't think that was that hard to program) Since individual units are rotated before the stacks move, there is more opportunity for coordinated attacks. I even had the AI launch and Air attack from a carrier supporting a ground assault.
While you can get a general idea of the makeup of a stack, you need a spy to fully expose what's in a stack. More knuckle biting when they appear. (same with barbs)

MP
I haven't played since everyone else is still waiting for their pre-ordered games to ship, but I'm in heaven. Saved MP files are encrypted using a key based on your game serial number. When you play a saved game, everyone machine save is compared to verify no funny business. And you can't save a MP game as a scenario unless all the players are currently in the game and type their passwords in. No more peeking in between games or using two computers. I'm sure a sophisticated hacker can bypass this, but it's going to take time, and be beyond most of our abilities.

The customizing screen allows you to turn on/off almost every element of the game. The maps are also designed for more of an equitable start (page 2,347 of the manual)

It is all simultaneous move. When units meet, both units/stacks/city are frozen and a randomizer decides who gets to use remaining movement points first. This combined with stacks have solved most of people gripes about simul play. While the combats take a little longer, the time advantage of Simul more than makes up the difference. There is also an option of watching opponents combat, cool but it slows the game down a bit.

IP/PBEM/SERVER/Peer to peer is supported.

OVERALL
This is the best CIV ever produced and I now don't feel so bad about waiting as long as I have.
Rush out and buy this game.

RAH

Sorry for the length but what the hey.

Worth repeating.

Yes, I'm an annoying bastage.

[rah]

Thanks Father Beast
for the comment on my manual description, being a manual junkie myself, I went a little overboard. And I was trying to match Yin's tone. I had fun writing it.

RAH
I'm not worried, I'm expecting a good game.
And I'm working on that Apolyton's Optimist's title.

[yin26]

It's always great to have balance. I salute you!

[Rasputin]

MP
I haven't played since everyone else is still waiting for their pre-ordered games to ship, but I'm in heaven. Saved MP files are encrypted using a key based on your game serial number. When you play a saved game, everyone machine save is compared to verify no funny business. And you can't save a MP game as a scenario unless all the players are currently in the game and type their passwords in. No more peeking in between games or using two computers. I'm sure a sophisticated hacker can bypass this, but it's going to take time, and be beyond most of our abilities.

Ahhhhh Heaven !!!!! I want that game !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[rah]

Thanks, Yin, but yours was more entertaining.

RAH