Ask The Civ Team - 09/14/01 Edition

[saracen31]

I meant the pluralization of 1 child. Like I said, a minor but annoying detail.

[Rhysie]

I just thought of another reason they would have posted Edvic's question... Don't forget that a games website is mainly a PR tool, not just there to give you information, but there to foster interest and make people think the game is going to be cool... Edvic's question is almost 50% compliment, and if people see fans complimenting the game producers and having faith in them, those people are more likely to think the game will be cool... So if you want to get your question answered on the page, load it with loads of buttery compliments!

[Steve Clark]

Sorry for my name-calling. It was my reaction to someone not ever having played Civ2 getting prominent space in a limited Ask column. Martinus is correct, there were probably several good questions about AI, gameplay, customization, wonders, governments, etc. asked by us but they chose to take up valuable space on someone who not only was brown-nosing but never played Civ2 (I misread about not playing SMAC), asking about something that is not that important, imo. Just a kneejerk reaction to a frustrating read. On the other hand, the question/answer about the other ways of winning was superb.

[TechWins]

Don't complain about what questions Firaxis answers. There is no need to. Firaxis just can't win with some of you.

The governors should be very useful in MP.

[Rhysie]

Originally posted by saracen31
I meant the pluralization of 1 child. Like I said, a minor but annoying detail.

Ah, sorry misunderstood you. You're right there I guess.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Martinus

He is not a doofus, but what I (and apparently some people) are frustrated here about is that they seem to be deliberately avoiding answers to material questions (like types and number of governments; more info on great leaders; minor wonders etc.) while answering in great detail questions which are either inconsequential or answers to which are already known/presumed.

It is irritating

Maybe they are not releasing info on gvts, great leaders, etc because they don't want to give everything away. For obvious marketing reasons, they want to keep some details a secret so that people can discover the game when they play it. Do you really want the game "spoiled" before you play it?

[tniem]

Originally posted by The diplomat
Maybe they are not releasing info on gvts, great leaders, etc because they don't want to give everything away. For obvious marketing reasons, they want to keep some details a secret so that people can discover the game when they play it. Do you really want the game "spoiled" before you play it?

Actually it makes more sense that they aren't answering AI questions because they are hard to answer. What are you going to say to the question is the AI difficult?

Yes, it beat me yesterday.

Or to the quesiton does the AI cheat?

There just isn't a good sizable answer that you can give. But the question that is burning to be answered about MP still isn't and that isn't good PR or marketing. So no I don't think what your saying is the reason some things are being answered and not being answered.

[jsw363]

Top 5 Cities

It seems odd to me that Rome has less people than Toga Party and yet it has a larger city picture. Is this because it has more structures? Because it is the capital? Or is there some other reason?

[Ilkuul]

Maybe I missed something earlier on, but I thjought there were going to be six victory conditions, one of them trade/commercial. This is not mentioned in Firaxis's reply, so I guess it's been dropped somewhere along the line.

Can anyone throw any light on this?

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by tniem
Actually it makes more sense that they aren't answering AI questions because they are hard to answer. What are you going to say to the question is the AI difficult?

Yes, it beat me yesterday.

Or to the quesiton does the AI cheat?

There just isn't a good sizable answer that you can give.

You could tell all specific rules the AI have for different levels do difficulty.
The AI never cheats, it just plays after other rules.

But the question that is burning to be answered about MP still isn't and that isn't good PR or marketing. So no I don't think what your saying is the reason some things are being answered and not being answered.

What is wrong with the auto-MP-answer function

[Rhysie]

Re: Top 5 Cities

Originally posted by jsw363
It seems odd to me that Rome has less people than Toga Party and yet it has a larger city picture. Is this because it has more structures? Because it is the capital? Or is there some other reason?

It's because its a capital, it was the same in civ2

[TechWins]

I'm actually a little dissapointed about the Demographics and Top 5. I was hoping for a far more extensive demographics and more items for Top 5 (i.e. military, culture).

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Ilkuul
Maybe I missed something earlier on, but I thjought there were going to be six victory conditions, one of them trade/commercial. This is not mentioned in Firaxis's reply, so I guess it's been dropped somewhere along the line.

Can anyone throw any light on this?

It is not listed on the player setup screen. So if it ever was in it must have been taken out before civ3.com opened.

[Steve Clark]

I can think of several pointed, yet answerable AI questions. One of them would be something along the lines of how do the AI civs take advantage of the attributes assigned to them under certain conditions. For example, if a civ is expansionistic/scientific, what if runs out of room to expand (due to physical or military barriers), does it resort to becoming militaristic to continue expansion or does it just sit and stew? This gets at the key thing about AI acting and reacting according to game situations, and hopefully not on some pre-defined parameters that would be the same each game. But then again, I guess we'll find out for ourselves soon enough in the Civ3-Strategy forum.

[Ilkuul]

Thanks for the link, Gramphos; I missed that one. I think much earlier in the forums people were talking about a commercial victory, but it obviously wasn't 'official'.

By the way, that setup screen seemed to lack a Custom civ option, which is quite a blow! Does this mean you can only have custom civs in scenarios etc.?