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I have played Civ3 like a man possessed for almost a week now. I started at Regent and decided to go for every type of victory before moving on. I have now (after 3 full games) completed military, diplomatic and space race.
I must say, the diplomatic victory was a let down. It happened in 1930 in my first game. I was playing on the large Earth map and was located in India (playing the French). I settled India and most of China, and started to expand over seas to avoid a war with the Germans (Europe/Russia) and England (Mid-East, Africa). That’s when it hit me...
Corruption! And tons of it! My lone colony in Australia was useless. I suddenly realized why Germany had stopped expanding east when there was a lot of land left towards Alaska. I dawned on me like a ton of bricks (pardon the mixed metaphors) why the English had razed every German city they conquered. Corruption! What was the point of taking over/starting a new city if it was going to be useless?
Heh, I remember thinking: Just build a courthouse and it will be all right. When that didn’t work I thought; Okay, maybe a police station will do it. Then I realized there is no organized crime division in CivPD. Finally I thought about building a Forbidden Palace, but that would take 300 turns... I even switched to communism thinking that the distance to my capitol (in India) was the problem. And that didn’t help either. So I switched back to democracy and carried on to win in 1930 in one of the most boring games ever...
Not one to give up on Sid and Civ that easily I started again. This time I went straight for Space. I used the default settings. I started on a medium sized continent all by myself. I got to about 15 cities nicely spaced out and built my infrastructure. The AI tried to settle on my island twice and was eaten up by my culture. The whole thing was over in 1950 without a shot being fired. Corruption was only a problem in two cities.
For my third victory I went for all out offence. I started on the biggest continent with three other civs. I played one against the other while concentrating on taking them out one at the time. The first one was Rome. All his cities where close to my borders, and when I went on the offensive it was a quick march. The roman cities all became productive members in my empire.
As I thought about consolidating (I wasn’t sure if I had just been lucky or not), the Indians attacked me with a HUGE army of elephants. Only a lucky alliance with the Egyptians to the north of the Indians (I was in the south) saved me. As the Indians turned to face the Egyptians I went on to discover gunpowder and the only source of saltpeter on the continent. I built up a large army of infantry and cannon an marched on India.
This is when it hit me again: Corruption!
From here on in my game became pointless. I conquered the Indians, then moved north and took out the Egyptians. The last 5-7 cities would never (not even by 1970, 200 years later) become use full. As I conquered the Germans on the neighboring continent I started razing all but the best cities. I moved my capitol and invested in culture and education.
FYI, I used democracy through the whole game, and I built culture, wonders and educational improvements in all my cities. The first thing I did with all the captured cities was to buy a temple, courthouse and a library. Then they would usually just idle until I could afford a cathedral or a coliseum.
Most of my Empire was in a constant state of ‘We love the...’-day and I was the cultural leader by a huge margin. But corruption was still at 99.9% in all off-continent cities and about half the on-continent ones.
What’s my point? Conquering under the current rules is just dumb. It’s not that being a builder and going for Space is a valid option (as well it should be), it is the only option. I don’t even want to think about a domination victory.
I’m not complaining that the game is too hard. Corruption affects the AI too. I just don’t like being forced to play a certain way. Right now the game is forcing me to play peacefully, or at least in a non-expansionistic manner.
The argument could be made about reality, the intent of the designers and such. Now, while I am perfectly aware that in real life no one civilization rules the planet, reality is also boring. At least it can be. And Sid said his intent was to make a more peaceful game then Civ1-2 was. Well, why is domination/military an option for victory then?
As it stands now, unless you control a strategic resource the AI is hard coded to kill for, you might as well be alone. It used to be that 3 civs on a huge map would trigger an enormous late game battle, now it just means you wont see the enemy, ever...
One thing this game has made clear though is this: A war of conquest is evil and bad. It gains no one. That and setting up a colony to claim some strategic resources is just dumb. You’re just shooting yourself in the leg by building cities that will never amount to anything.
Bah... Still a cool game though...
In closing: I understand the need to control ICS, but there must be a better way. If only one could combat the corruption in the end game. Then I could consider the cities a long-term investment instead of just razing them (which feels like mass murder).
Oh well, all comments welcome.
-Alech
PS: I did actually build the Forbidden Palace in all the games I played. It cost me a great leader in two of them and a lot of patience in the other one. In my experience it helped a little less then moving your capitol to the same location.
The biggest problem with it is that it is virtually impossible to build where you need it the most.
I must say, the diplomatic victory was a let down. It happened in 1930 in my first game. I was playing on the large Earth map and was located in India (playing the French). I settled India and most of China, and started to expand over seas to avoid a war with the Germans (Europe/Russia) and England (Mid-East, Africa). That’s when it hit me...
Corruption! And tons of it! My lone colony in Australia was useless. I suddenly realized why Germany had stopped expanding east when there was a lot of land left towards Alaska. I dawned on me like a ton of bricks (pardon the mixed metaphors) why the English had razed every German city they conquered. Corruption! What was the point of taking over/starting a new city if it was going to be useless?
Heh, I remember thinking: Just build a courthouse and it will be all right. When that didn’t work I thought; Okay, maybe a police station will do it. Then I realized there is no organized crime division in CivPD. Finally I thought about building a Forbidden Palace, but that would take 300 turns... I even switched to communism thinking that the distance to my capitol (in India) was the problem. And that didn’t help either. So I switched back to democracy and carried on to win in 1930 in one of the most boring games ever...
Not one to give up on Sid and Civ that easily I started again. This time I went straight for Space. I used the default settings. I started on a medium sized continent all by myself. I got to about 15 cities nicely spaced out and built my infrastructure. The AI tried to settle on my island twice and was eaten up by my culture. The whole thing was over in 1950 without a shot being fired. Corruption was only a problem in two cities.
For my third victory I went for all out offence. I started on the biggest continent with three other civs. I played one against the other while concentrating on taking them out one at the time. The first one was Rome. All his cities where close to my borders, and when I went on the offensive it was a quick march. The roman cities all became productive members in my empire.
As I thought about consolidating (I wasn’t sure if I had just been lucky or not), the Indians attacked me with a HUGE army of elephants. Only a lucky alliance with the Egyptians to the north of the Indians (I was in the south) saved me. As the Indians turned to face the Egyptians I went on to discover gunpowder and the only source of saltpeter on the continent. I built up a large army of infantry and cannon an marched on India.
This is when it hit me again: Corruption!
From here on in my game became pointless. I conquered the Indians, then moved north and took out the Egyptians. The last 5-7 cities would never (not even by 1970, 200 years later) become use full. As I conquered the Germans on the neighboring continent I started razing all but the best cities. I moved my capitol and invested in culture and education.
FYI, I used democracy through the whole game, and I built culture, wonders and educational improvements in all my cities. The first thing I did with all the captured cities was to buy a temple, courthouse and a library. Then they would usually just idle until I could afford a cathedral or a coliseum.
Most of my Empire was in a constant state of ‘We love the...’-day and I was the cultural leader by a huge margin. But corruption was still at 99.9% in all off-continent cities and about half the on-continent ones.
What’s my point? Conquering under the current rules is just dumb. It’s not that being a builder and going for Space is a valid option (as well it should be), it is the only option. I don’t even want to think about a domination victory.
I’m not complaining that the game is too hard. Corruption affects the AI too. I just don’t like being forced to play a certain way. Right now the game is forcing me to play peacefully, or at least in a non-expansionistic manner.
The argument could be made about reality, the intent of the designers and such. Now, while I am perfectly aware that in real life no one civilization rules the planet, reality is also boring. At least it can be. And Sid said his intent was to make a more peaceful game then Civ1-2 was. Well, why is domination/military an option for victory then?
As it stands now, unless you control a strategic resource the AI is hard coded to kill for, you might as well be alone. It used to be that 3 civs on a huge map would trigger an enormous late game battle, now it just means you wont see the enemy, ever...
One thing this game has made clear though is this: A war of conquest is evil and bad. It gains no one. That and setting up a colony to claim some strategic resources is just dumb. You’re just shooting yourself in the leg by building cities that will never amount to anything.
Bah... Still a cool game though...
In closing: I understand the need to control ICS, but there must be a better way. If only one could combat the corruption in the end game. Then I could consider the cities a long-term investment instead of just razing them (which feels like mass murder).
Oh well, all comments welcome.
-Alech
PS: I did actually build the Forbidden Palace in all the games I played. It cost me a great leader in two of them and a lot of patience in the other one. In my experience it helped a little less then moving your capitol to the same location.
The biggest problem with it is that it is virtually impossible to build where you need it the most.
No problem.
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