First Impressions

[cutlerd]

My first impressions

Played on Warlord level (the second lowest) on a 16 civ single pangea continent. Been playing for about 20 hours and am up to the early 1800's.

I generally enjoy the game. There are more turns to the ancient era, which is nice because in CIV2 the ancient era went by so fast that you really couldn't get a good ancient era war and politics going.

AI: The AI is improved over CIV2. While they don't give you even trades all of the time, the trades are still reasonable and, unlike others, I was able to trade luxuries and resources with other civs. The AI's also act fairly rational. If you show weakness, many of them will fall on you like vultures. Show strength and, unlike CIV2 where they all band together, in CIV3 you can intimidate them.

The other CIVs also pay VERY close attention to your breaking of pacts, and they have long memories, so don't break pacts lightly!

WONDERS: I found the wonders nothing special...pretty much the same batch from CIV2. I dislike the fact that there is no way to speed up wonders. It sort of makes it pointless to even start them if any other CIV has a good jump on one turn wise. I do believe you may be able to speed up Wonders by disbanding units for shields while building a non-wonder and then converting your build to a wonder. Has anyone tried this?

CORRUPTION: I see a lot of people moaning about this, but I like it. First of all, there are ways to mitigate corruption. The Forbidden City helps quite a bit. But it is a hallmark of real civilizations that as they grow larger and larger they lose their grip on their populace.

WAR WEARINESS: This is a good idea, but as a Democracy, I have been able to fend off much if any weariness through building of Temples and colisseums and cathedrals, and police stations, and the Universal Sufferage wonder. This has me worried because if as a Democracy I can wage continuous war for centuries and not really feel weariness, then there is really no reason to become anything BUT a democracy.

SPECIAL RESOURCES: I like these a lot, at the least as a good and valid excuse to go to war.

CULTURE: Another nice touch. I have yet to grab a whole enemy city via culture, but I did nab some good special resources simply through the power of my culture. I do wish they had more city improvements and wonders directed towards this however. CTP had HOLLYWOOD and televisions and amusement parks that would work here.

SPIES: I like the fact that spies are no longer the ubber units of the game. In CIV2 I could basically take over the world with spies. Now they are an important but not vital and not overpowered unit. No purchasing cities and stealing techs with impunity if you are behind.

FALLING BEHIND: It is much harder to catch up in this game, especially tech-wise. Keep that in mind. You no longer gain advances by conquering cities, so that is a cheap source of techs gone. Spies are much more expensive and risky to use and you cannot use them against enemies you are at war with. So if you fall too far behind in the tech game it is VERY difficult to catch up. I am not certain if this is a good thing. I think perhaps there should be a small chance of gaining enemy technology when capturing a city (maybe 1% for each size of the city?). After all...if your enemy has the wheel and you don't and you capture a city with all these round things in them you'd think you'd catch on after a while!

COMBAT: I didn't notice much in the way of the old CIV1 Phalanx kills Battleship. Longbowmen can defeat Cavalry with rifles, but then again talk to General Custer about that. So far I have not seen a single battle where the odds were defied in a completely unrealistic way. That said though, the battles are variable enough so that the outcome is not 100% predictable. Units can become veterans and then elites, so you have 2 levels of extra experience.

BOMBARDMENT: Bombardment is cool. It can harm but not destroy enemy units, kill city population down to 1 but cannot destroy the city altogether, and can destroy improvements. But be wary, because artillery can be captured. I made the mistake of having 9 cannons guarded by 2 cavalry. The enemy swooped down and killed by cavalry and captured all 9 cannons!

MODERN AGE: I have not gottern here yet, but it is probably going to be my biggest quibble. I have cut my teeth on CIV2TOT and enjoyed some of the "gapper-zapper" futuristic stuff. Even aside from the weird genetic mutation stuff once you land on AC, CIV2 had fusion power and environmentalism et al. I don't see that in CIV3 (unless I just missed it on the charts). I would have hoped to have borrowed at least a little of the futuristic stuff from CTP or SMAC and had ocean colonies or other semi-futuristic improvements.

Devin

[CyberGnu]

Well, since I'm still on a trial period, I think I'm gonna return it. Some parts good, some parts bad, but all in all not worth $50. Gonna save that money for Heroes 4 instead.

Maybe I'll reconsider after a patch...

[Stromprophet]

Has anyone toyed with the editor? Any useful? I haven't had time to look at it.

Anyone think there will be scenarios anytime soon? Anyone making scenarios?

[Twig]

I just purchased the game as well. In tutorial mode, while attempting to move a catapult, the game crashed for me too after about 2 hours.

In addition, irrigation is not working all of the time. I did have several tiles next to water that did not show the irrigation option of the worker as available even though it should have.

Overall, interface and gameplay and AI challenge did seem to show superiority over all previous forms of CIV. However, Firaxis, contrary to their reputation, seems to have released a product that includes enough bugs to label it as a beta production version.

So, if y'all can hold on - wait awhile until they debug & get the real product out. As is, it needs work. With debugging, it will be worth it.

As a CIV fan, I regret the less-than-stellar initial review. The game DOES have alot going for it - but it needs work. The capitalism-centric schedule obviously had something to do with the lack of even a thorough alpha test. That's too bad - decision-makers seem to have forgot that quality does count.

[chicagodan]

My first impression is that the game seems like Call to Power 3, not Civ 3. The addictive Civ playability is gone, Civ 3 is downright boring. I've started several games, trying very hard to get into the flow of things, but I continue to lose interest. Perhaps things will get better when I get on top of the learning curve, but no previous Civ game had a learning curve, you could jump in and play and play and finally figure everything out.

Like in CTP, I really don't care how the game ends. It's interesting, it just isn't involving.

[MDR]

Most of the things I like about civ III are the new game concepts...if it had been the same as civ II, it would be collecting dust already. I got tired of doing the same old things over and over in civ II. At least this one is a challenge...and at least for me, the addictive gameplay is back. No more buying cities with your spare cash.

[chicagodan]

While I agree that there would be no reason to repeat Civ II, that's exactly the problem. There's no reason for this game -- the genre has run its course, there's nothing new under the sun. Once you master the basic gameplay of Civ II, you face an inevitable trade off -- adding levels of complexity while choking off playability. That was the problem with CTP and that's the problem here.

The turn based empire genre needs an entirely new direction. There's a school of thought that history is not a simple straight line, but a series of cycles with forward motion. Just as there are Golden Ages, there are also Dark Ages ... even periods where cultures and technologies are destroyed. Perhaps the next step in this genre will be a game that recognizes the cycles of history, one where it is impossible to dominate in every era, but where it is necessary to survive the downtimes and make the most of the time on top.

[Fidel]

well, i got my LE yesterday and, although i just came in from 9 hr train journey, i played a tad too long. it was very very addictive, AI kicks ass and even chieftain level feels challenging.

twig: you can do irrigation only near fresh water, until you get electricty


one more turn is still very very alive

i like the strong corruption - it nicely prevents enormous empires

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by LaRusso
twig: you can do irrigation only near fresh water, until you get electricty

Does this mean that once you get electricity, you can irrigate anywhere you feel, even if its the middle of a desert, with no improvements around it at all, or does it mean that you can irrigate from fresh or salt water??

[Ironwolf]

What a Game! I love it. Now if I can just keep my wife and job.

I love it when the AI builds a city in the middle of your empire. My culture just overwelms them and I get a city for free. I leave selected spots open for them now just to fill out my empire.

[ember]

It does mean you can do a completly disconnected square when you get electricity. Very usefull if you have a mountain range blocking half your cities from your water source.

[Grumbold]

Yep, if you don't want overland pipes you just drill down as far as you need to go and use electric pumps to bring the water up. I believe they were muttering about doing this to the Sahara a few years back until they did the math and realised the water that had taken thousands of years to accumulate would be gone in less than 100.

[MDR]

chic: I don't think the series has run its course. It seemed to me that it stagnated with the introduction of CTP1 and SMAC. CTP1 didn't simulate empires so much as massive micromanagement. SMAC had no real point of reference and was overly complex in some areas. The original Civ series kept reproducing itself with MGE and ToT. This seems to be a step in the right direction. Making terrain more or less valuable by adding in strategic resources. A better AI, far better than what we had in previous Civ games. The nationality and cultural system. All of these are realistic factors that didn't appear in Civ II. It was unrealistic to conquer and enemy city and expect it to produce war units for you the next turn. It was also unrealistic to be able to outright buy enemy cities. There are a few things not yet in Civ that could be there. Stuff like the dark ages. One possibility is changing rulers from era to era, each with a different agenda. That might be possible with a mod for this game. Other possibilities include cities revolting and forming their own civs. I know it was possible to see it happen in CtP, but I'm not sure of the mechanics in CivIII. I've been playing 16 players, but only ever see 8 in the retirement screen. Things like that could be introduced. It's all going the same way.

[MDR]

Double post...

[player3]

I've only had time to play halfway through a game on Warlord, but my impressions have been very positive thusfar:

1) AI - The AI steals the show! I was able to beat civ2 on Deity without breaking a sweat; now I'm playing civ3 on warlord and the AI is keeping me on my toes. Either Firaxis did a great job enhancing the AI, or I'm just getting rusty in my old age Of course, that's not to say that things will get easier once we have enough experience to pinpoint the AI's shortcomings (which there will always be) but I can say that I'm impressed so far.

2) Gameplay - Love the trade system and thank God for doing away with city support for units (aka: micromanagement hell). They've done a decent job of discouraging old exploits like ICS through the cultural element and other things, although there's room for improvement here. The unique civ traits also add a nice touch and increase the game's replayability (as if it could get any better to begin with!)

3) Graphics - Firaxis decided to abandon the 3D texture approach from SMAC and it looks like it was a good move. I wasn't too impressed with SMAC in this area, but then graphics aren't a big concern for this genre of games anyway.

Although the game starts out seeming like civ2 with a facelift, the changes become much more evident as you progress. There will be some frustration in getting used to all the concepts, especially among old civ vets who will find that their tried-and-true strats no longer work as well as they used to.

Great job Firaxis!