It's officially official: NO MULTIPLAYER

[VetLegion]

BTW, look how pleasantly surprised we've been to even get Civ III this early. Some expected it to come out next year.

not me

implement unique units, culture and resources over an old familiar civ2 frame. completely 2D, only new pictures... how hard is that?
it took them 2 years to do that, now that we know that there is no MP.
it is not fast, it is slow for this type of the game. I suppose most time went to playtesting

and I would wait longer to get complete game. MP _is_ part of the game, believe it or not. anyone who is happy for getting better SP because there is no MP are wrong. In reality, it can only be worse SP because of no MP, not better.

[LoD]

VetLegion:

[...]completely 2D[...]

Ehhrm... Not really AFAIK. Civ3 will be 3D.

[VetLegion]

Good for them. Make sure the game is good, then worry about multiplayer.

this is impossible. you have to design for MP to make it good.
I have already mentioned eiffel tower wonder. In SP it impoves oppinion of others toward you, in MP it makes everyone think you must be crazy

whole bunch of diplomatic options has to be designed with MP in mind.
Units have to be designed with human in mind... how will human use it, are there loopholes, is this unit too cost-effective if human uses it, how about misuse? will some units be useless altogether in MP?

for example diplomats in civ2, humans could use them to avoid zones of control, which AI could not. This made them a problem, and some scenarios explicitly said that using diplos for ZoC is wrong. I conquered russia in a WWII scenario, in what, 3 turns, with diplomats

these are all design flaws that show their face only when game is stressed in MP enviroment. playtesting against AI can never polish the game as playing MP can. And it is not for benefit of MPlayers only, it is for the benefit of the whole game.

there are numerous other examples. Units, structures, diplomacy, everything has to be designed keeping in mind what will humans do with them in MP game against other humans.

fine civ MP game makes possible a fine civ SP game. not the other way around.

[VetLegion]

Ehhrm... Not really AFAIK. Civ3 will be 3D.

no, 2D. take a look at the screenshots.

if you are thinking that they use D3D it is possible, but the game is still 2D. microsoft made DX8 interface so that you use D3D programming interface even for 2D graphics.

however:

1) I doubt they use DX8
2) if they use DX8 and D3D, game is still 2D

which is a good thing, I think.

[LoD]

VetLegion: Well, I've looked at the screens, and I'm still convinced it's 3D . First of all, take a look at the borders - they are located on the "surface" of the earth, eg. they incline and decline with the slope. Secondly, d/l the screen saver and see how the units move.

[BoomStick]

Re: Re: Single Player only - can be a good thing

Originally posted by WarningU2


you're absolutely right that a non MP player game will force you to explore the game in it's entirety.

Um. Explore what? The fact that the enemy will never launch a good sea invasion.

The fact you'll never see a good air campaign prior to a good sea invasion.

Or, on the other hand, the fact it'll never defend against a good sea invasion?

I've always been bummed that the best way to have a challenging game against the AIs is to play on one huge land mass.

Anyhow, unless this AI is leagues ahead of the other civ style games, it won't be worth the money for me to figure out the shortcomings of yet another AI.

Ah well..

[Kevin Ar18]

Originally posted by LoD
From what I judge you haven't really had a real MP civ experience. Believe me, it's entirely a different world. A whole range of possibilities of action become viable. Secret plans, schemes, real diplomacy. It actually adds a "role playing" to a civ game (and this makes you more "attached" to a single game). And we'll be missing all this out because there will be no multiplayer in Civ3.

I know what you mean from other games I play multiplayer in. But, you WILL be getting multiplayer later on - that was my point. At least you can look forward to that.

[Rasbelin]

Re: It's officially official: No MP

some cool multiplayer concepts that will take a fresh approach to the challenge of making multiplayer for a turn-based game fun

That part of the message irritates me. "Cool MP concept"?
What could that be? New spiffy way to say usual multiplayer?
Are they going to use Quake III Arena's MP in Civ III?!?

If I read correct between the lines, Firaxis will
probably try to construct a new way to play
Civ III with MP. Realtime Civ III? That can't be true,
but we newer know. Looks like someone should
hack into their network.

[VetLegion]

VetLegion: Well, I've looked at the screens, and I'm still convinced it's 3D . First of all, take a look at the borders - they are located on the "surface" of the earth, eg. they incline and decline with the slope. Secondly, d/l the screen saver and see how the units move.

I dont have time to DL the screensaver, but I am positive the game is 2D.
as I said, it perhaps uses some 3d techniques and 3d api, but for playing purposes it is 2d. all 3d it uses is either trivial work or an api function, so this pseudo3d look and feel of civ3 is not an excuse for 2 years of coding.

that time went somwhere else

[LoD]

VetLegion: They didn't have to code anything to have the game 3D. They had the SMAC engine ready to use .

[LoD]

Kevin Ar18:

I know what you mean from other games I play multiplayer in. But, you WILL be getting multiplayer later on - that was my point. At least you can look forward to that.

Yes, but I want it for free, just like in any normal modern computer game. And I go as far as to say that if Firaxis had planned to release MP in a free patch, it would already announce that - it would "marketing sensible", if you know what I mean.

LoD

[mark13]

LoD - spot on

I'm not denying that there will be multiplayer eventually. But for Firaxis not to ship the game with MP, *even* as an afterthought, is disgraceful.

The AI is going to suck. Let that be an end to that conversation - the only way they're going to make the AI *any* sort of match for a human player is with ridiculous production and technological bonuses (play SMAC on transcend and you'll know what I mean).

Instead, they're going to make some cash out of it by releasing it in six months time. Well....that just says it all. Not terribly surprising after SMAC experiences, but this is going that one step further.

Will I buy Civ3 SP? Very probably. But Firaxis have lost a lot of my respect - and I would imagine a lot of other people's besides. Do they care? No.

[VetLegion]

VetLegion: They didn't have to code anything to have the game 3D. They had the SMAC engine ready to use.

SMAC is only pseudo 3D, in fact it is as 2D as civ2

The AI is going to suck. Let that be an end to that conversation

I wont be that harsh
AI will hardly be match for human. But still AI is a construction, a job of an engeneer who does it, and it is possible for AI to be good, while not a match for human. I was one of the people who wanted firaxis to hire guy specially for AI... so I do appreciate work put in it even if it is not the next champion.

[BLackraven42]

My bet is that a patch will come out within 2 weeks of the game with multiplayer support.

Civ II didn't originally have multiplayer support either.

[mark13]

That I would *love* to see.

But it's not gonna happen.