ASK The CIV TEAM 8/22/01!

[fluxcapacitor]

nt

[- Groucho -]

Huh? I just checked an the dev update is still the old one about civ specific abilities. Could you post a link to what you're referring to?

[fluxcapacitor]

it's on the homepage: www.civ3.com. It's the 'ask the Civ team' page or whatever. The link is:

http://www.civ3.com/asktheteam_082201.cfm

[fluxcapacitor]

Okay, my bad, on the topic start I didn't realize there's a separate 'developer' and 'ask the civ team' page. Some cool info too. Clarification on colonies, you CAN in fact enter into a trade embargo against another Civ. Damn, every little piece of info I get I want this game SSOOOO bad.

[Steve Clark]

Oh great, more stuff we can let the AI do for us. Why, in a non-MP game, would anyone allow the stupid AI to do anything that we can do better...is beyond me.

But the rest of the questions/answers are very, very good.

[- Groucho -]

Thanks for the link - I didn't think to poke around in the other areas.

I like what I see about the small wonders. It is frustrating in Civ and Smac that the really cool buildings can only be built by one civ.

[MarkG]

summary for the lazy ones

- City Governors are in once more
- City build queues that can be saved and reloaded
- Your diplomacy advisor will give you hints on how good or acceptable your proposed deal is
- Windows 2000 compatibility confirmed once more
- Five music "mixes" (European, North American, Middle Eastern, Greco-Roman, and Asian) that cycle and change through the course of the game. All music is in mp3. Special aggressive and passive tracks for each culture during diplomacy talks
- Unit stacks(armies) can be formed if you have a leader(can appear when an elite unit wins a combat) or the Military Academy (Small Wonder). You can only have one army per 4 cities!
- Pentagon confirmed as a wonder. Allows you to have an extra unit in your armies(normal max of unit in an army not announced though)
- You can do a trade embargo on a civ or ask other civs to do one

[Immortal Wombat]

- City Governors are in once more

CtP2 Mayors

- City build queues that can be saved and reloaded

CtP series...

- Unit stacks(armies) can be formed if you have a leader(can appear when an elite unit wins a combat) or the Military Academy (Small Wonder). You can only have one army per 4 cities!

Stacked combat? What a good idea, wait... see CtP. With leader, thats innovative, except for games like Cossacks...

- Pentagon confirmed as a wonder. Allows you to have an extra unit in your armies(normal max of unit in an army not announced though)

Pentagon, as in WesW's CtP MedMod 4: Age of Wonders?

- You can do a trade embargo on a civ or ask other civs to do one

a la CtP2.

Ooh baby, show me you Call to Power face, yeah yeah.

Seriously, I'm not sure whether to be pleased that Firaxis are using these concepts, or annoyed that their ripping off CtP, and will almost certainly change them to the point where they're reminiscant, but different enough to be annoying.

[MarkG]

in order to be fair my dear IW
- governors first appeared in civ2
- smac had build queues(but could be saved/loaded)


now as for armies, i'm deeply worried about the limits on them. why are armies a bad thing that needs to be limited? will we be moving most of your units one by one just like civ2?

[Colwyn]

Stacking.

I like the idea of some stacking and am pleased that civ3 will limit this with the leader, # of cities options, though they did not mention how many units may be put in one of these stacks or if it can have heaps like the fortress in Civ2.

One of the things that bored me pretty quick in CTP/CTP2 was that the game ended up with small numbers of large stacks(8/12) moving around and no real fronts to speak of and you only needed 1 or 2 8/12 stacks to walk right though another Civ.

Will the stack attack/defend as per in CTP or act like a "mobile fortress" where only one unit gets killed per attack???

This latest update, now really has me waiting in anticipation for its release.

Now only if Fraxis will let us know whether we can remove/hide the capitalization build item for the AI to force it to build units/improvements.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by MarkG
in order to be fair my dear IW
- governors first appeared in civ2

Oh yeah, I never used them, cos they sucked. And they only managed the building, and there was only two - Domestic, or Military. Ctp2 was the first to exploit their true potential I hope Firaxis use the experiences of CtP2 wisely, and gives a) more than two governers, b) governing more than just what is being built. Though no-one ever used the mayors in CtP2 anyway, because there were such small city limits.

- smac had build queues(but could be saved/loaded)

Never played SMAC, but if they couldn't be saved or loaded...

will we be moving most of your units one by one just like civ2?

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. I think with the # of cities limitation, you will again get the 1 or 2 stacks problem, unless you play huge maps all the time.

[Colwyn]

Re Army size ( We Should have read the Civ3 Q&A in full first)

"To answer your first question, in Civ III we introduced the concept of an army. To build an army, you need either a great leader or the Military Academy (Small Wonder)"

"Great leaders can appear when an elite unit wins combat".( So does this mean if your civ elite unit cannot be built till a later time( ie modern age) getting the wonder is now a players main goal.

Keeping these great leaders alive though the whole game would be critical as each civ has only one goldern age to create their elite units and thus get leaders.

"Once an army is built, you can load THREE units onto the army, and those units will pool their hit points during an attack. If you build the Pentagon (Small Wonder) you can load an additional unit into an army"

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Colwyn
Re Army size ( We Should have read the Civ3 Q&A in full first)

"To answer your first question, in Civ III we introduced the concept of an army. To build an army, you need either a great leader or the Military Academy (Small Wonder)"

"Great leaders can appear when an elite unit wins combat".( So does this mean if your civ elite unit cannot be built till a later time( ie modern age) getting the wonder is now a players main goal.

Keeping these great leaders alive though the whole game would be critical as each civ has only one goldern age to create their elite units and thus get leaders.

"Once an army is built, you can load THREE units onto the army, and those units will pool their hit points during an attack. If you build the Pentagon (Small Wonder) you can load an additional unit into an army"

Elite units are not the same as civ-specific units. Elite units refers to units that have been promoted to elite status (regular->veteran->elite) by winning battles.

Dan

[Eddin]

Dan, will only hitpoints be pooled? (I like that idea btw), or will there be more bonusses (like combined strike if you have an army of artillery/Cavalry/Infantry or Armor/infantry/artillery), or more attack/defense if you stack?

I think I like your idea better than just giving them attack bonusses.

And will you be able to name your leaders? That would be SO cool

[star mouse]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
Elite units are not the same as civ-specific units. Elite units refers to units that have been promoted to elite status (regular->veteran->elite) by winning battles.
Dan

Three levels of experience, I like this. Fond memories of devastating opponents with Elite-level units in Master of Magic spring to mind....

I wonder, will Barracks still produce Veteran units? Will there be an improvement or wonder that allows you to train Elite-level units? Or are Elite-level units only produced in combat?

My guess is that Barracks will produce veteran units, but nothing makes Elites except combat (and perhaps a wonder). Otherwise you would be infested with Great Leaders....