A review of Civ3 by korn469

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Schnitzelnator
Making a post just to state that you have the "second!" post is a clear sign that you've been walking around in the scorching sun for to long.

Thus my statement still stands.

******

He was saying he seconds (agrees with) Corn´s opinion!!

Learn English before you flame someone, airhead!

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by player1
I DON'T LIKE "government upgrading".

Agreed; this is conceptually wrong; the only thing I really dislike so far.

[player1]

To LaRusso: Yes, it is a 1.07f

[drreross]

The biggest area where I expeience the difference between Civ3 and Civ 2 is in the "feel" of the game. Civ2 came across as majestic, inspiring, uplifting with the videos, end of game scenarios, etc. It gave me a sense of participating in the evolution of civilization (no matter how many times I play it). I don't get this at all in Civ3. The Civ3 end of game screen with the warrior swinging a club to ring the bell seems so like a carnival - and VERY disappointing after hours of game play. Haven't launched a space ship yet so don't know what that's like. I've been losing in the 1600-1700s and am now playing at Warlord to see what a "win" is like. (P.S. I really like that winning or losing is recorded in the Hall of Fame)

[Master Marcus]

Congratulations for the nice review, which covers 80-90% of what I think of the game so far. And it's like what I have already said: Civ III is very good and addictive, but not revolutionary. The bugs are minor and shall be easily fixed.

[habitualuser]

i have yet to find a list of hotkeys in the game

Took me a while to stumble across it in the civlipedia... it's under
Game Concepts as Hot Keys : Game Controls and Hot Keys : Unit Commands

Some nice hidden commands like auto-terraforming 'virgin' squares only and auto-building a road to a square.

Oh yeah, good review too

[MxM]

From review

One of the main problems is that the player has to access some functions with hotkeys. Upgrade is one of those functions. Without knowledge of the hotkeys (which i have yet to find a list of hotkeys in the game)

This is simply not true. If you select unit and unit is in the city with barracks, then you will be able to see upgrade button at the bottom of the screen. RTFM!

[korn469]

MxM

honestly in all of my playing i never came across the upgrade key till i went looking for it after writing the review, and i had looked hard before the review

most likely there were problems i encounted, like not having a special resource needed to build the unit i was upgrading to, or something of this nature

however i am only partially wrong, because there is no way to select upgrade all (ctrl-shift-u) using the mouse alone, so take that (or at least point it out to me)

the main problem is when there is a problem the game doesn't inform the player what the problem is...i can give you a save game where i have all of my war chariots in a city in the early 1900's and i would like to upgrade them, but since i don't have access to iron i can't build knights, yet the game doesn't inform me of that, i had to go back and piece it together after i wrote the review, plus there is no way to upgrade seriously out of date units directly to a more modern unit...a war chariot has to become a knight, a knight has to become cavalry, and cav doesn't upgrade

also can u tell me the logic in this list

marine (oil, rubber)
paratrooper (oil, rubber)
warrior
horseman (horses)
longbowman
mech infantry (oil, rubber)
modern armor (oil, rubber)
war chariot

ok i can see logic behind it but i don't agree with it
because of the upgrade system, warriors or swordmen will always be in the build que since a warrior upgrades to swordsmen and a swordman doesn't upgrade, that means as long as your civ has a source of horses that either horsemen or cavalry (if you have saltpeter) will be in the build que, and no matter what a longbowman will always be in the build que...this shouldn't be the case obsolete units should not be in the build que, and this is an easy fix

another warning that the game doesn't give is the four city limit on armies...if you have a great leader and only three cities it won't tell you why you can't upgrade, this is a lack of polish on the user interface, if you can't perform an action the game should tell you why

there is one thing i glossed over, and that is AI...i am still forming an opinion of it, but so far it seems greatly improved

[Solver]

Good, but too pessimistic. Lack of MP and scenarios? Civ has always been for SP, AI is good, and MP will come - not a complaint. As for scenarios, I couldn't get myself to enjoy those. I played some in Civ 2, but couldn't like them. I only can enjoy standard games in Civ, though I love scenarios in RTS.

[MxM]

Originally posted by korn469
MxM

...


however i am only partially wrong, because there is no way to select upgrade all (ctrl-shift-u) using the mouse alone, so take that (or at least point it out to me)

Well, you did not say upgrade ALL in you original review.

And I agree that the game do not say some things. But with such complex game I guess it is difficult to foresee all those details. Of cause it would be nice if you can ask your advisers "why I can not upgrade this unit" and get intelligent answer. But it is game and not Microsoft Office help system.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Great review Corn.

here is my take on civ (from your review)


How can civ III redefine the genre if it was made as a conservative sequel? So I'd say that your highest bar was a bit too high, but that's just your choice.

Civ III seems to give us many new options to play, and a few new concepts. Game still seems to be one of the most playable games ever. And this is the first release, which was a bit rused, still there are no major problems, just a few minor ones.

The one you listed 16 civs on a huge map with pII 400 is not really a problem, as they were thinking to release a game with 8 civs only if you play with less civs you'll be allright. That is just a system issue (a lot of computation) rather than a game issuse in my view. Maybe they should up the recommended configuration (not the minimal).

MP will come, and firaxis will support the game. In my view from what you wrote the game deserves an A, and I can't wait for the 16th...

What the game doesnt have is: major gameplay flaws, instability, "idiot AI", any other major disturbance to play to what I read so far. (apart form that deity cheat win, which can be fixed in a patch, but is just a chaet afterall there is no AI that cannot be cheated, apart from chassmaster )

All that it lacks (but needs) seems that it can be/ will be added:
MP, better scenario editor (some Firaxian mentioned scripting lang. ala Starcraft but not yet confirmed), further patches, fix for air combat can be done, and I guess resource model etc.

My only major concern for long term replayability could be the "scripting language support is not certain at this time" so that real modders can alter AI behaviour significantly, and some other gameplay features. But if the Firaxis decide to support it - I guess this is an A for the game.

All the rest seems that is/ will be done if there is a need for it.

My take form your review is:

THE BEST GAME EVER JUST GOT BETTER!

That deserves an A in my book.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
What the game doesnt have is: major gameplay flaws, instability, "idiot AI", any other major disturbance to play to what I read so far.

Have a look at the top thread in the Help forum, if nothing else.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Grumbold


Have a look at the top thread in the Help forum, if nothing else.

OK... puitting me down a litte, so some systems have instability issues, but still no major bugs. (just minor, ok it depends how you look at it) Well still I think that this doesn't ruin the gameplay (unlike CTP) in most cases, at least it didn't for Korn and Yin. (and I hope most of the rest)

[Antonin]

Thank you Korn469 for a very thoughtful and intelligent review. I don't agree with you on multiplayer or scenarios, though. I personally don't care about multiplayer and I prefer to set my own game parameters rather than play canned scenarios.

But I appreciate it that you actually invested some time in the game before writing your review, instead of flaming away after five minutes of tinkering. You make a lot of very good points and some valid criticisms.

For me, CivIII definitely has the "just one more turn" feel, and that's very important. It installed smoothly and runs smoothly on my 400 MHz AMD K-6 with 128 MB of RAM, with no crashes so far.

I even let my dinner burn the other night while playing, which is pretty silly considering that in a turn-gased game you can stop any time you want and go turn off the stove.

[player1]

Has anyone noticed that Civ3Edit looks EXACT LIKE Starcraft scenario editor.