I think this is the worst civ style game ever.

[yin26]

Most of the wait times seem related to having to move units around. And since there are a TON of units in Civ3 during mid to late game ... If there were a way to have 'instant moves' that require less graphics time, we might be moving in the right direction. You can turn off animations, but you still see all the units 'warping' from square to square along a path.

Can't we warp them right to their destination/limit and be done with it?

[Ludwig]

I might be imagining this, but in my games it seems like it does a world of good if you make sure that recently-conquered cities have NO road or rail links to their previous Civ, and good links to your own.

Also, in medium or large conquered cities, immediately build settlers before you build culture improvements. Bring in settlers of your own ethnicity and have them join the city as replacements for the population points bled off in this manner. Move the "Displaced Person" settlers back to your own cities and have them join one of them. This leavening of the population is even more effective than cultural improvements in maintaining the loyalty of new cities. [At least, in my own experience].

[CyberGnu]

How about instead of a city just going over to another civ, some of the population is converted to soldiers (a la the draft)? The solders could fight it out with whatever unit is defending the city, just like a regular fight, except perhaps no defending bonuses.

In my last game I naturally found myself without oil. (while Firaxis statement that there is enough resources for every civ is true, it doesn;t really help when ALL EIGHT oils show up on the same part of the map... In the heartland of my mortal enemy.) Well, I loaded up my 10 infantry and 6 marines, added 10 ironclads and set off halfway across the world to grab me some oil, codenamed Arctic Storm.

Well, my first win went well, I grabbed on of his cities without much trouble. And kept it for a whopping four turns before it went back.

When I took his city my ironclads had reduced it to size 2. When it went back to him I had roughly eight army units stationed in it, plus ten boats and a few artillery.

Quite frankly, how would those measly 100.000 or so people in a size 2 city defeat ten regiments of troops? Especially since I reduced the city from size 13 to 2 prior to invading it! Or am I supposed to believe that my entire army lived in Babylon for eight years and then as a man decided that Babylon is so much better than the place they were born? Disregarding that they came from a place with electricity and plumbing, and defected to a country still in the middle ages...


Naturally not.


I instead reloaded the autosave from five years earlier, razed the city, razed its two neighbours closer to the empire center and finally took one of his fringe cities. I crashbuilt an airpoirt to fly out my oil (don't ask me about that one...), then a library to build up my culture...


If we translate this into Operation Desert Storm, we essentially have Bush t.e. nuking Basra and Baghdad prior to invding Quwait, just so that his american GI's won't be tempted by those devilish harem dancers...

Patch, please?


Oh, and Firaxis... You might want to try betatesting nxt time you release a game... would save us all so much trouble.

[Cougz]

Capitals?

Is there an advantage to taking out an opposing civs Capital? Will this have a big effect on the capture of their other, outlying cities?

I also agree, historically cities have been raised as much as 'captured' during war. Particularly previous to the last 100 years.

[CBH]

Am I the only one that thinks that as soon as he says that civ3 is worse than CTP or *shudder* CTP2 his argument loses all credibility?

[CyberGnu]

Well, a slight exaggeration... Since the only thing worse than CTP must be stabbing yourself repeatedly in the neck with a pencil...

But it is currently not as good as SMAC, and the jury is still out on Civ2, I think.

[n.c.]

Originally posted by kimmygibler
I can't believe all the people mad about the earth map.

And I can't believe that more people aren't furious! Think about the time they must have spent on largely irrelevant graphics, only to ignore this vital feature. Infuriating!

[Blackadar1]

I, for one, always played with random maps. To call this the "worst civ style game ever" is an absurdity, but Civ III is something of a letdown for many of us.

[Fidel]

Originally posted by n.c.
And I can't believe that more people aren't furious! Think about the time they must have spent on largely irrelevant graphics, only to ignore this vital feature. Infuriating!

yeah, SMAC had a lovely earth map

that culture thing is true, the more you station, the easier it is to quell the rebellion. i took beijing, stocked 10 soldiers (it was size 6), starved them one turn, they dropped to 5 and quickly built temple. occupation is the key and you can even quell a capital rebellion.
yin's idea about a warning or the other one (gnus) to fight it out also seems fine.

[Pyrodrew]

When I took his city my ironclads had reduced it to size 2. When it went back to him I had roughly eight army units stationed in it, plus ten boats and a few artillery.
Quite frankly, how would those measly 100.000 or so people in a size 2 city defeat ten regiments of troops?

that culture thing is true, the more you station, the easier it is to quell the rebellion. i took beijing, stocked 10 soldiers (it was size 6), starved them one turn, they dropped to 5 and quickly built temple. occupation is the key and you can even quell a capital rebellion.

CyberGnu had 10 regiments stationed & that failed to quell the CitySize 2 rebellion... yet LaRusso quelled a CitySize5 rebellion with 8 units???

My only guess what caused this difference was distance from capital & time - with enough time in the game the Culture Power must be so great that a size2 can overthrow 10 regiments - which is wrong (no matter how attractive & easy the harem girls are ). But if done early on in the game military can be effective to work. Anything else that would cause the difference between these 2 situations?

Regarding the EarthMaps... rather than spending time on making ANY EarthMaps they should have made a map converter. Then not only would we have better EarthMaps (and all they would have to do would be add resources), but more maps & a usefull tool.

[Qienchi]

Originally posted by CBH
Am I the only one that thinks that as soon as he says that civ3 is worse than CTP or *shudder* CTP2 his argument loses all credibility?

no, you're not the only one ...

what was CTP2 like anyway? compared to CTP1 ?

[CyberGnu]

Pyro, my rebellion was squashed the first turn after invasion. It was only size 4 or so, after all...

What happened to me was cultural assimilation. My entire army decided that going native would be fun because Babylon has so many temple... That you have to live without electricity is apparently not so much an issue.

Hmm, Bush must be worried now... What if Colin Powell realizes that Afganistan has a centuries old culture and decides to go live in the caves over there, taking all the US jets with him?

Quenchi, CTP2 was essentially like CTP1. New bugs, slightly more balanced.. Contained a few bugs that made the game unplayable (in the sense that a car without a steering wheel is undriveable), and Activision dropped the game before fixing them...

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by Altuar


I dont know about toning down, but as for you not having any problems with culture try capturing a developed enemy city, even one that is right next to your culturally-advanced border and you will see that holding on to that city is impossible - and whats worse, when the city does revert, all your units in that city are GONE.

Hmm, are you sure you lost the city via culture or the fact that you failed to subvert the foreign national's that now occupy that city?

I'd hazard that you failed to quell the resistors and this is why the city reverted. I have had cities go both ways (joined my culture and the same city later reverted back) and the only city I ever lost was not due to rioters but because I didn't leave enough troops in the city to keep it stable until my natural population was greater than the population of the foreign people.

[Knight]

Re: Capitals?

Originally posted by Cougz
Is there an advantage to taking out an opposing civs Capital? Will this have a big effect on the capture of their other, outlying cities?

I thought that might help too. In my current game, I fought three wars with England. In the second, I decided to stop nitpicking around and shoot straight for London, hopefully keeping the nearby cities from doing a culture flop (Also keep in mind England was "In awe" of my culture). So, I take London, and actually all the rest of the continental English Empire, down to the backwaters. But, there's one city, size 1, Richomond, that's on an island well off the continent. I decide it's too much trouble to take it, so I cut a deal with Elizabeth, getting all her tech and money in return for letting her live. Well, about 25 turns later, as I was trying to build Courthouses to offset the corruption in the former English Empire, the westernmost cities start to revert to England, taken over by the culture of size 2 Richmond, half way in the ocean. They actually snag three cities back before I get ticked and have my third war with England, taking back the reverted cities and finally sending a transport to Richmomd to knock the English out of the game. So, the answer is, taking the Capitol doesn't help. It seems that when you conquer a city, it's inclined to return to its original culture, no matter how pathetic it is in comparison to yours.

[kmj]

Hmm, Bush must be worried now... What if Colin Powell realizes that Afganistan has a centuries old culture and decides to go live in the caves over there, taking all the US jets with him?

No, we don't have to worry about that; the taliban helped us by blowing up those old budha(sp?) statues carved into the mountains...

About waiting while enemies move: someone else mentioned you can hold down shift while they move. Also, go to the preferences and turn off unit animation for other civs; that helps alot.

About saying this is the worst game because of some stupid world map: Bah, you're whining, that's all. It's nice to have a good world map; and someone will (did) already make one you can download. I don't want the fireaxis developers spending their time perfecting a world map. I want them working on real gameplay issues. They did the right thing: they made the game completely flexible; any problems with types of governments, units, etc. go ahead and do it yourself. They even created a nice little editor for you... (now if there are bugs in the editor, that's a different issue entirely). Scenario makers will worry about where people should start, and all that other stuff.