The Limited Edition "tech poster" is an insult to gamers.

[Kautilya]

Ok in the grand scheme of things this might be a small feature but is anyone else as disgusted with this as I am?

This is the worst poster I have seen in any strategy game. For those of you who haven't seen it, it is basically a printout of the science adviser screen. That's it. No other information at all. And even this they didn't do properly. The print is out of focus and it's pretty impossible to make out the symbols.

For comparison sake consider the Imperialism-2 poster whichis of a similar type and material and from a similar game. It has the entire tech tree on one side and the unit and terrain stats on the other. Very useful and convenient. And that came free with the regular game.

To have such a shoddy product as an extra in a limited edition is inexcusable IMO. While gameplay features like multiplayer,scenarios etc take a lot of effort it would have required only marginally more effort to have produced a decent poster with useful information. It is simply a case of not caring enough to produce a quality product.

While the overall game is quite decent it too has many signs of being sloppy and rushed which other posters have written about. The tech poster is just one of them.

[orange]

I just don't understand...

why did Firaxis do such a poor job? I mean, these are simple slip ups that should not happen when you're carrying the civilization 'banner'. C'mon Firaxis, what's going on?!

Any chance you could scan it and post a ss?

[Bane]

I agree w/ you 110%. It is a work of crap -- Did I say it was a work of crap. I cannot believe that something like that would be released -- it makes the whole game smell rank.

Shame on you..tech poster my arse...crap on paper is more like it!!

[dainbramaged13]

Orange, no need. THEYRE EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE TECH TREE SCREENSHOTS THAT YOUVE SEEN, ONLY SMALLER, admittedly on glossy paper

[Kautilya]

I don't have a scanner but if you have seen screenshots of the in-game tech adviser then you have seen the poster. They just printed it out; that's all.

I don't understand why they did such a shoddy job either; like I said making a decent poster is a small thing which doesn't require much effort. My guess is they just don't care.

The rest of the LE. is pretty much in same vein btw. The videos are 5-6 minutes each and more like infomercials than anything. The designer notes seem to be missing. The tin box is decent but even here the background art appears to be just some random pattern.

[Kautilya]

BTW those of you who have the LE : a question.

Where are the designer notes? I couldn't find them.

Also how many pages does your manual have. Mine has 235 pages but some people said 248 or more. I am wondering if I got the regular edition manual by mistake and whether the longer manual has the designer notes.

[Delthayre]

Poster

Indeed, the poster was dissapointing (but the tin is lovely...I gues it's a personal taste thing). The inadequate poster is really dissapointing in light of the fact that Civ 2 shipped with a usefull tech tree. It was a full sized poster with clear symbols and unit information with every tech. Hmmmm...maybe I should dig mine up again for nostalgia's sake.

[Leonidas]

Most games I bought that had tech posters were very nice, like the ones that came with Age of Empires and Shogun. Real quality.

I didn't buy the LE - I would have thought that at least the poster would have been decent. . .

And this is supposed to be CIv3 - Sid's flagship game - his "golf" game sure looks impressive though. . .

Gee, you don't think the gaming industry is trying to ween us off TB games do you?

Nawww. . . they'd never do anything like that. . .

[Christantine The Great]

It doesn't bother me much. It's not like they lied about it. It's the tech tree. I am disappointed about how the LE lacked any real big distinction, though. I would pay $5 for the box, everything else I don't really care about. I just wanted the box.

I think most "complaints" are just people not getting what they expected.

[Travathian]

Wow, I'm glad I didn't buy the LE then. I was greatly impressed with the SMAC and CivII tech tree foldouts. Heck, I pinned them to the wall by my computer when I got em. I actually thought the normal edition of CivIII would have a poster, but I guess I didn't miss anything. This is disturbing indeed.

[TheDarkside]

CtP:2 had a decent poster chock full of info. cheap paper but who cares, i read the text on it not the glossy sheen.

[Kautilya]

"I think most "complaints" are just people not getting what they expected."
Well I expected the poster to be at least the same quality as Civ2,SMAC,AOK etc. That's completely reasonable but the poster they gave didn't even come close.


What pisses me off is the attitude that the poster seems to represent. They did put some effort into making a decent box (which could be seen before purchase) but when it came to the inside stuff they seem to have thought: "we know these are the hard-core fans and anyway they won't see what's inside until they buy it; let's just put any junk we can make and put it in and they will still lap it up".

Surely these people have seen the posters in other games including their own and they knew this was a shoddy,substandard product.


Sadly while the core gameplay is quite decent that same attitude is there throughout the game with multiplayer, lack of scenarios, an incomplete editor,wonder movies etc. There seems to be a general philosophy of eliminating features which have become standard in this type of game. Any one of these isn't that important but put together it's quite disappointing.

[SuiteSisterMary]

For those of you who haven't seen it, it is basically a printout of the science adviser screen.

There's no doubt about it; it's even got the 'next age' 'previous age' 'done' buttons still on there.

And you CANNOT call it a poster. It's four five inch by five inch or so bits of cardboard, side by side.

[ixnay]

Also, the "exclusive making of Civ3 video" was the preorder one we saw circling around a few weeks ago. The only worthwhile part of the LE was the tin.

[Bkeela]

Well, at least you have your biscuit tin.

Bkeela.