First Impressions

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by El hidalgo


Yeah, but fundamentally it's not really the map that's the problem here, it's the fact (if it is a fact) that you can't start in the proper location, or indeed in any predetermined location, proper or not. OK, so Firaxis maybe didn't do a good job making maps; that's fine with me since I will make my own, and I enjoy doing so. But no matter who makes the maps, or how good or bad they are, I still want to be able to set starting locations. It's an aspect of the game that adds a little enjoyment for me, though I understand it's not a concern everyone shares. To each his own.

IMO, the included world maps are not good, but I don't care, because I've always found user-made maps to be much better. I'd rather Firaxis not waste resources on making maps and concentrate on the game itself.

When I opened the world map with an editor, it had starting locations indicated for some civs (not all of them). I saw nothing to indicate that you can't pick the locations. I imagine the civs others played weren't initially placed on the map. Simple editing should fix this.

Cheers.

[Ironwolf]

Please let everyone know what level you guys are playing at so that we can get a feel for how challenging the game is going to be.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ironwolf
Please let everyone know what level you guys are playing at so that we can get a feel for how challenging the game is going to be.

I've only played on Chieftan. Granted, I rarely played above Prince in Civ II, but I think I'm well enough versed in Civ strategy and tactics to say the AI is better.

[LarryM]

Originally posted by Ironwolf
Please let everyone know what level you guys are playing at so that we can get a feel for how challenging the game is going to be.

I'm playing on King (actually, they call it monarch now). I'm doing pretty well so far - its still fairly early in the game - but not kicking butt like I would be at King level in Civ II. I'm in second place, though everyone is closely bunched. I can't really evaluate the AI; no wars yet. I can say that the AI is very expansionistic.

I've played a ton of Civ, and I'm pretty good, winning consistantly at Diety. However, its all been single player; I rather suspect I'd get beaten pretty badly by the multi-player veterns out there.

[Pyrodrew]

Faboba:I refuse to live in a country that looks on the main map, like all there is is England, and a rather fat, bloated version of england to boot.

Boris:I haven't played on the World maps yet. I did take a look at the huge one in the editor, and was unimpressed. Yes, the British Isles were still small.

Sounds like we're getting conflicting reports.

Boris:When I fought the Russians, they would send in groups of 2-3 warriors and would avoid my horsemen and try and sneak behind my lines to get at my cities. They didn't throw themselves uselessly against stronger units (I actually did that more often! lol).

Love the German iron & your horse situation too.

markusf:its not that good

Would you mind elaborating??? I hate vague posts like this.

[ember]

I have had the game for about 4 hours now, and have to stop and study for my exam tonight
But A few things I noticed.
I stated on warlord, and I'm in 4th place. This was unheard of in civ 2. THe AI does seem to negotiate better, and doesn't run around with units in your area as much.
One annoying thing is that your upgrade path is disruped by your special unit. You can't seem to upgrade to it from regular units and can't upgrade it to better ones...

Also had some video driver probelms in Win2k, with my MX400, but worked in 98se. I'll have to try putting the original drivers back on.

Production is hard, very hard to get high production rates.
You do not need near as many workers as you did settlers in teh old ones, one for every 2 cities is more than enough with industrious.
Corruption is crippling.
I havn't fought a major war yet, so have yet to figure that part out.

[meriadoc]

I can say this much after playing Civ 3 for only a few hours - the "one-more-turn sundrome" is still alive and well.

[David Floyd]

Just a real quick question, then back to CivIIIing...

I started on each of the world maps, neither time getting historic starting locations. Anyone found a way to get historic starting locations, or is it impossible??

[Steve Clark]

I also heard from someone that when restarting a new game on the world map, you get placed in the exact same spot. Is this true?

[ToeTruck]

Anybody won yet? LOL

I got my copy this morning and have exactly 4 hour and 18 minutes of play time under my belt. It's way too early to form any substantive opinions, but I was struck by a couple of things:

1) Eye candy all the way. The main view is very pleasurable; the animation, terrain/city graphics, and music produce a very enjoyable game play environment. The differences in graphic quality between the main view and the "histogram" view, for example, indicate how rushed this product was, though.

2) The diplomacy options have been expanded significantly (and I think for the better), but I haven't played enough to know how "good" the AI is. That's *way* down the line.

3) The interface is manageable, but I already miss the "window container". I use a dual-monitor system so I'm used to expanding the play area across two screens. I probably shouldn't complain too much, but it pissed me off.

4) The advisors (one of the most annoying features of Civ2 in my opinion) have an increased role in Civ3. Maybe I'm wrong, but you can't get the info you want without dealing with the advisor avatar. No biggie, I guess, but it really annoys me that screen real estate is being wasted on avatars.

5) The system requirements are a dead-minimum. My home PC is a 350 MHz P2 and I think I barely get by. Can't play at work, though, can I?

6) I crashed on the first game I played, right after I clicked on "Start Game" in fact. No problems since then, but it was a bit unnerving.

Overall, I think it's a good addition to the Civ line even at the $45+ price tag. I'll probably still play Civ2 as well, but I look forward to the Civ3 challenges.

That's it.

- TT

[Comrade Tribune]

Thanks to all who took time to tell us of their experience.

[ElitePersian]

Originally posted by SonofDogbreath
PLayed about seven hours last night
1) no crashes
2) my system bogged down late in the game (p3 450, 256)

how slow did it get? did it get choppy whne you moved the mouse across the map? i have about the same setup as you do, and im concerned about this. and i dont think the geforce 2 gts 32MB will do much to accelerate this game.

[Grim Legacy]

Oooh aaaah I got the game! If only I had the time to play it... oh well I'll post here whenever I can.

[Mahdimael]

My first impressions:

I've played the game for about 2 hours now, and here's my thoughts so far.

1. Graphics are wonderful. Everything is bright and vibrant, and the units are easily distinguishable. My only complaint is that the horses on the map look somewhat similar to the "game (deer)" resource, though I suspect I just haven't played it enough yet.

2. Sound and music is very good, non-intrusive at all. After having a sound effect for everything, it's nice that certain events don't have loud annoying sounds (the cheering in civ2 was a killer).

3. The interface is very good, though it will take some getting used to. You have to keep a careful eye on your cities otherwise they seem to start producing strange things on their own. Whoever said that it was hard to distinguish the moods of the citizens hasn't played the version I have yet, apparently. Not only are happy, content and unhappy citizens spaced apart from each other, holding your mouse over them tells you what they are after about a second.
The scrolling is jerky, but it's due to the fact that the screen moves 5-6 tiles at a time.

4. Gameplay is tons of fun. I know I'm going to need some experience, because the barbarians were able to raid my cities fairly easily. The AI is very good..it attacks with multiple units and doesn't usually fall into traps (i.e. I move to a mountain and it attacks me).

5. I was particularly impressed with the retiring screens. There's so much information there, it's great.

6. Resources are well distributed, and I've had to make a colony once or twice to reach them.

7. The way the city's working squares work is strange. I'll have to read the manual on that, because it's very odd.

Overall, based on what I've seen so far, I would give the game a 9.8/10. It's highly polished and you can easily hop in without reading the manual. It's apparent to see that Civ2 strategies won't work here, and that proves that this is a whole new game.

I will make a late-game review later on, once I've reached the appropriate times

[David Floyd]

Personally I think the auto builders are decent...remember in this game you can afford to and in fact HAVE to produce many more military units...you can't just play passive defense or you will get cut off from your cities...tile improvements will be pillaged, your strategic minerals will be in trouble (and if you lose either your horses OR your iron in the early game, you're pretty ****ed, because you won't have chariots or more importantly swordsmen).

Barracks are also far more important, I've noticed so far...you're units START out 80% of the way to Elite, and if you are a militaristic civ such as the Deutsche, this means winning one, maybe two battles with each Veteran unit to have, basically, a monster unit with 5 hitpoints, and Elite Spearmen on defense are very tough.