A review of Civ3 by korn469

[tleilaxu]

what about mines all over grasslands? does ANYone else think this is stupid?

[Fidel]

Originally posted by Schnitzelnator


******

chill...

korn, a great review. i must admit that i never designed any mod or scenario - for me a game is a random world carnage with as many computer civs as possible. civ3 delivers beautifully there and i cannot complain
combat is now really fun in all ages. although i am sure that in one year you people will take ai apart and expose its dumbness, this ai is really impressive (given the fact that we do not have neural nets yet).
a minor thing that can be fixed:
DIPLOMACY - AI places same value on certain negotiables although it received it in the same negotiating session. Example. I ask him for one invention. He asks for an invention of mine plus world map. Okay, so I give that to him. Then I ask for something else and again AI asks for something plus the world map. It does not recognize that he just got an up to date world map. This is not a 'bug' but I hope it can be tweaked, so that AI getting a territorial map or a world map will be completely disinterested for the same thing in the same negotiating session or one or two turns later (one might presume that I did not discover much in the meantime).

[player1]

Something about that bonus for workers of Democracy:
This bonus is more appropriate for Communism, since most of Communsit countries have been industralised very quickly, compared to other countries wich need much more time.

Still, that way communsim would be to powerfull compared to monarchy.
But if you boost Monarchy, Despotism would be totoaly useless.
I don't like having Despotism useless. There were many Despotic countries in last 50 years. In civ games none would use them.
I would: Increasce M. Police in desp to 3, and lower in maonarchy to 2.
Increase even more a number of free units:
town: 4
city: 8
metropolis: 12
This way Despotism would be used in later game by those, little survivalist civs, wich don't have chace to win, but wan't to survivie with their 2-3 cities. In other governments they just won't have enought money to supprot military.

Anyway, modern Despotism was only used in "Bannana Republic" type of ststes.

[korn469]

Something about that bonus for workers of Democracy:
This bonus is more appropriate for Communism, since most of Communsit countries have been industralised very quickly, compared to other countries wich need much more time.

how about this, under communism it would be cool to have an option that would make a worker double their work rate, but have a 50% chance of being destroyed every time they use it

[player1]

Hmm, that way there is no gain.
But with a 10% of dying, why not!

[Leonid]

I think it is too bad that the governments are always imbalanced in these Sid Meir civ games. He favors the democratic govts over dictatorship SO BAD..he is very biased. Real bad game balance on govts. This has been my one biggest gripe since Sid'd very first Civ game.

Democracy is always the way to go. Communism always sucks. I like the idea of running a police state and ruling with an iron fist...kinda fun roleplaying. But you can't do that in Sid's Civ games..its always republic then democracy. That's too bad that it is so unblanced. The totalitarion governments really get the shaft and have absolutely no upside AT ALL. I mean the production should be great and war fighting should be awesome for the totalitarian govts, then so-so science and money. For Democratic govts they should get good science and money and crappy war waging and production. Instead the way it stands is in Democracy you get good war fighting, awesome money, awesome production, awesome science. VS communism: great war fighting, crappy money, crappy production, crappy science. Now wtf?

Where is the balance? Why is monarchy and communism even included? , since they stink so bad as govt options (they have in all sids games except SMAC).

What was cool about SMAC is that you could play that chinese dude..I forgot what his name was..Yin or something (the dude who had the communist police state bonuses) and that Police state, totalitarian combo RAWKED. One thing about SMAC is you could play a ruthless dictator and it paid. Also, communism was doable in the CTP games.

These police states whould HANDS DOWN have better production than th edemocratic governments for gameplay balance. as a trade off for bad science and money.

[Adm.Naismith]

First my tanks to Korn and its clear review. It helps me to better understand the game, while I'm evaluating to buy it or not.

Just to explain some of my obstacle to buy Civ III:

• I live in Italy, and I haven't sure note about release date here.
• I would prefer to buy a more stable, DVD edition, patched and completed with scenario etc.
• I need to change my notebook, but my preferred choice (Dell Inspiron 8100 with MS XP) seems to have compatibility trouble with Civ III so far.

Now, considering the game from this review and others posts around in this forum I have the feeling that the game needs a couple of robust, main patches to clean up at the expected brightness.
So far my vote would stay more on the range between -B to C, still with hope that patchs and steady support can raise it to +B.

The missing of a more detailed choice between government, the reducing of Great People scientific/religious/artistic to only Great General (scarcely) borned from battle seems a great opportunity missed.

Many half promise missing, as wonders that graphically show on the main map, as Great Wall and Great Canal.

The disappearence of some dark side of the war (viable nuclear MAD menace, wet missions like "prominent research assassination" and partisan/terroristic attack) already used for years in many games, Civ II and SMAC included, seems the kind of false selfcensorship we are putting everywhere like it really was a show of respect for the last thousands of victims.
Where that match with centuries of poor people died in many sad/horrible events in history, still testified in movies, books, songs, games, is something I can't understand.

The graphics (and related options, like limited zooming, no rotation of the map, flat map out of square tiles) seems really sub standard looking at many games available on market for the last couple of years. I can't properly judge the sounds effects, if not for some sample I hear of the game, but some players are already reporting of turning off. It doesn't sound well considering all the otehers game trend for adding feeling to every sense, force feedback included everywhere possible.

Some news are good, of course, and I feel that really saved the game from beeing a waste of money, hopes and efforts.

So far, I'll probably buy the game (again, I don't judge a game patched to a B level as a bad buy) but I really consider that most of "pessimism" and "realism" that where bashed in this forum for the last months well quite well founded.

[Fidel]

admiral, IMHO you can just as well go and buy it right now. it is very addictive and a lot of fun. plays really well. best civ game so far.

[player1]

I think that governments in Civ1 where very well balanced.
There ONLY DESPOTISM has martial law (it was unlimited),
and ONLY IT had free shields (=number of pop of that city),
but is still did have that production penality & corruption was very big.
Still, some veteran Civ1 used only Despotism (through all the game)
& waged wars very early.

Monarchy, had no prod. penal., but didn't have those NICE desp. abilities.

Repubilc, had that trade bous & war unhappines, but there were no such things like Police stations.

Democracy, had bigger war unhappines & lower corruption. Still I never used it in Civ1, war unhappines was to much for me in those days.

Communism, was exactly same like monarchy, but corruption was devided between all cities.

And most interesting: Advisors chaged outfit depending of government style.


Anyway (in civ2 & civ3) despotism was weekned by giving other governments same abilities.

In fact in civ2 & civ3 it was all in "rush to monarchy".

I DON'T LIKE "government upgrading".

[Earthling7]

Great review. I generally agree with you. It is a good game, but the flaws are glaring. It screams RUSHED in your face.

About the Multimedia. I think this is the most obvious example of the rush. The official line is that the movies take you out of the game environment. Bollocks. What is more satisfying than seeing your great wonder come alive? You are "treated" to a pic of it anyway, and unlike the Civ2 wondermovies, you can not switch it off. The double CD issue is laughable. Civ3 has the potential to be a massive seller. Producing an extra CD is peanuts. I have a great game called Jagged Alliance 2, which probably sold 5% of what Civ3 will. It is on two CDs, one is an Installation CD, the other a Play CD. You only use the installation CD once. I think, given the departures of Brian etc, that they siomply had no time to do it.

I think most of the problems will be fixed in a couple of patches, but my hope is that they will use the next six months to finish the game and release an extensive extention pack with more movies, scenarios and the ability to create them, maps amd multiplayer.

[Libertarian]

A fairly good review, if a bit rushed. With respect to upgrade, you can upgrade a unit by right-clicking on it in the city screen and selecting "Upgrade to [unit]" from the popup menu.

[Earthling7]

Originally posted by Libertarian
A fairly good review, if a bit rushed. With respect to upgrade, you can upgrade a unit by right-clicking on it in the city screen and selecting "Upgrade to [unit]" from the popup menu.

And also, if the unit is active (in a city (with Barracks)) a button with a lightning appears. This will upgrade the unit.

You can also go into the Military Advisor screen and do it from there. Handy if you want to upgrade all the Musketmen to Riflemen without going through all the city screens.

[Libertarian]

Earthling, thanks for that info. What's the procedure for upgrading all units?

[Altuar]

Originally posted by Leonid
Where is the balance? Why is monarchy and communism even included? , since they stink so bad as govt options (they have in all sids games except SMAC).

In my last game (standard world map as Persians, Monarch diff.) I went with monarchy in the middle ages. Choosing republic, while good for growth, makes war prohibitively expensive because:

a) Military units ask for a gold apiece: if you have a medium sized empire, this is too much when you're building up for war. Besides at such size, corruption is not a major issue, and most of the cities are busy with improvements while your early cities concentrate on building up the army.

b)Once war starts, republic cannot handle war weariness with having to pay for entertainers with no police stations around yet, with no military police and having to pay for upkeep of the troops at the frontline.

So for at least 400 years, my little empire was a Monarchy. If the war with China had not gone so well (thanks to Immortals) I would have remained in Monarchy until I was sure that China was not a threat anymore. It is hard to do nowadays with the AI being so aggressive...

Of course, after the war and with China crushed, I switched to Republic then to Democracy as soon as I could. In the modern era, I still feel that communism should be given a bit more strenght in comparison to Democracy - but then I never had a small or even medium power in the late game in my 3 games so far. Perhaps for such civs seeking to expand, Communism would be preferable as it is.

[Earthling7]

Originally posted by Libertarian
Earthling, thanks for that info. What's the procedure for upgrading all units?

I was looking for a single point of upgrade, but found none. The easiest I found was the Advisor screen where the units are sorted by type. Right-click for the Upgrade option.

A single point upgrade and activate would be nice.