Why I've stoped playing Civ III

[Styria]

I'm enjoying the game, and just wish I had a faster computer so I could do more playing than waiting.

One thing I was thinking I would like to see, but knew they hadn't put in, was a better concept of empires. For the most part, the civilizations presented in this game didn't become big or famous in real life by putting settlers everywhere they could reach. Historically, that question in the box about whether you would like to install a new governor would be who do you want to appoint king? THAT is the authority of an emperor. The feudalism and the states of Europe ultimately came about because the Roman Emperors made Germanic barbarians into kings. Charlemagne's (I'm annoyed that the authors of today's civ of the week France didn't bother to mention him directly...) empire was split among his sons according to custom, all kings, but the oldest still held the title Emperor and was technically an authority above his brothers. And it was like this in ancient times too (feudalism should be in the ancient age, not medieval) - the Babylonians and Egyptians both got to install a king over Judah.

I say that feudalism should be an ancient advance. Whoever gets it first should be declared an empire, no matter what government it's under (I think that the Roman Republic could decide kings too, but can't back it up). The closest two or three neighbors would be declared vassals, and the empire should be able to boss them around to some extent.

Benefits:
-Ruling civ allocates any strategic and luxury resources within the empire (each civ within it individually needs them for production or happiness), including any trading with outside civs.
-Either combined research for the whole empire, or a reduced cost to research advances other members already have.
-Maybe let the ruling civ reorganize borders. This sort of thing might serve to cause anger after the empire has been dissolved. Alternatively, the ruling civ could declare a few Imperial Cities and take them for itself with less problem. That status could even give those a culture bonus. A further alternative would simply be a cultural influence towards converting cities, acting over the entire dominion, in addition to any exterted by nearby high culture cities.
-Opponent civs could be taken into the empire as members rather than destroyed. This way they're still around afterwards, and you don't control territory you didn't want anyway.
-Additional free units per city for the ruling civ, regardless of the form of government.
-At least one laborer from the ruling civ in every city in the empire, but new ones from growth should still be according to individual civs.
-View of entire empire's borders (would need to turn off viewing the other civ's units, though...).
-Tribute each turn from the member civs (percentage rather than negotiating a specific number?).

Costs:

-Corruption according to the total number of cities in the empire, not each individual civ. But the individual palaces would still exert their influences.
-Possible emnity from vassal civs later in the game.
-Maybe have unhappy citizens according to the empire's number of cities, but only apply it to the ruling civ (I don't know what Soren Johnson was talking about in that interview about that not happening in Civ II; I saw plenty of unhappy one-citizen cities while trying to do ICS a few times in Diety).
-Any reshaped borders still have to deal with laborers of other nationalities.
-Anarchy lasts longer when switching governments (religious civs would have it occur too, but it would not be longer). Anarchy would give other member civs one or more opportunities or percent chances (maybe checked by a random number against the ratio of the two culture ratings) to revolt and break away. However, the ruling civ would still retain the Imperial title and be able to bring them back in to their previous status.

Imperial status could be ended or rechecked after so many turns, years or specific years (AD 500, 1,000, 1,500, etc), or by the change of age. It could be tied in to the number of points the civ has versus other ones. I'm not sure how to have other civs establish their own empires in the course of the game. This could also be tied in to the UN wonder. Instead of just ending the game with that vote, give the winner empire status instead, and leave them to subdue the other nations. Because IRL, the United States joins a UN world government over my dead body.

[dexters]

Civilization has always been known for its simplicity. It is easy to pick up, relative to most PC games (yes, to an arcade maniac console gamer with an attention span of 5 seconds, Civilization may be the most complicated game, but this is all relative :-p)

What I fear with criticism of the game not being thorough enough of not being complicated enough is the assumption that having a very complicated game equates to a good game. There were plenty of supposedly good games that was going to be a killer of this or that game that never lived up to the hype.

I'll believe Europa Universalis 2 when I play it. Before then, I reserve my judgement.

[Bkeela]

Let me guess, you were at the forefront of critisizing Civ2? After all, if any game was merely an addon to the first one...

I was actually travelling when Civ 2 came out, so for a period of 16 months [shock, horror] I didn't sit at a computer!

What impressed me most about Civ II was the graphics, and how they added to game play. So although I enjoyed Civ II, it wasn't an obsession like Colonization - a game I can enjoy to this day [if only I could get it to run properly on Win 98].

Smac added to the game play enjoyment of the Civ style series enough to hook me, but like a junkie, I now need something more than new graphics and game play innovations. I am happy to wait.

Bkeela.

[Grallon]

Makes for a much more interresting game with a huge map, full civs and a medium-hard difficulty. I never played any civ-type game before Civ3 and I'm having a blast with it. Sure, it gets a bit repetitive, but what game doesn't?

I'm afraid Argeye you did not get my drift. The point is that there are some people who enjoy to do something else besides warring. The game is called "Civilization" - not Red Alert !

As it is now the concept is reduced to it's simplest expression of grabbing land for producing guns for grabbing more land etc - ad naueam.

What I fear with criticism of the game not being thorough enough of not being complicated enough is the assumption that having a very complicated game equates to a good game. There were plenty of supposedly good games that was going to be a killer of this or that game that never lived up to the hype. I'll believe Europa Universalis 2 when I play it. Before then, I reserve my judgement.

I suggest you try out EU I - it already has more depth and challenge than Civ III. There you get to see what it's really like to see your country evolve. In EU restreint is as important as ambition for it's one thing to grab a province but another to keep it ! Oh well different people - different priorities.


G.

[Taso_84]

whats is EU, whats it stand for?

[treedom]

It stands for Europa Universalis. It's a great game, IMHO, especially if you're into history. Its focus is on historical accuracy, so much so, that it could be called a history simulator. It spans the period of European Imperialism from 1492 to 1792 (thus the name), and simulates the warfare, economy, religious events and colonization of that age.

On top of it all, it features a very innovative playing style which is sort of a mix between turn based and real time strategy. It works really well, I think, and I'm as hooked on it as I was on Civ and Civ2 when they came out...really!

Oh ya...the sequel is coming out *very* soon...and I'm itching to get my hands on it

[Imran Siddiqui]

Or...maybe it was all Brian Reynolds all along, and it's toward Big Huge Games that we should be looking for the next big splash in the genre??

Seeing as how BHG is going to be focusing on RTS (which is why BR left), I don't think so.

And if you are going to get EU, wait for EU2. EU, while haven't some interesting facets was pretty boring, IMO.

Civ3 is actually very fun, and I'm enjoying it.

[Cyanide]

You know, I've got to agree with the sentiment of the original post here. Look, I'm the biggest Civ fanboy I know - I'll throw down and fight with anybody who wants to argue that CivII isn't the best game of all time. And I was looking forward to CivIII more than any game that I can think of - at least for a long time. To say that it's a disappointment is an understatement. What's different, though, about this disappointment and my usual disappointment with just about every other computer game that's been made in, oh, the past 3 years, isn't the bugs. CivIII has yet to crash, or exhibit any bugs, on my machine(s). It's the simple tediousness of the game.

I knew, long before I bought the game, that it would be like CivII in many respects - a fairly straightforward tech tree, finding the advances I like and making a beeline for them asap; cranking out units when I had to in order to defend/attack; settler settler settler; etc. So, in some repects, the Civ experience lives on. But I really expected a more sophisticated AI. I mean, I've really had it with the AI ignoring basic concepts in the game (culture, particularly) - in all of the games I've played thus far, all the AI did was build settlers (which they used to found stupidly located cities) and units - settlers, units, settlers, units... *sigh* I could also complain about my opponents never giving a fair deal in trade, but that's been said (I still hate it though).

Besides these tired and completely un-new complaints about CivIII, I must also agree with the overall complaint that there are few differences between the different civs, particularly when played by the AI. I really expected differences ala SMAC. The different factions in that game simply can't play the same - if so, they find themselves behind very quickly. Why couldn't CivIII be the same? On final complaint: where do they get off calling it a random civ choice for an opponent, when it's exactly the same everytime you play a given civ? WTF? If this isn't happening for some people, I'd like to know what you're doing differently than I am. Personally, I think CivII with a queue and a better goto command would've been an improvement. I love culture, and the IDEA of resources meaning something is cool, but it's just not enough. CivIII really seems more like a good CTP, and less like a new Civ game.

In response to someone's love of Colonization (Col), hear hear man! I loved this game. I would LOVE to see a new version, with better graphics and some slight tweaks. Also, I've gotten the game to work reliably under Win98. I had to install the patch and turn off all sounds - but I didn't have a crash for at least several months, up until I got rid of that computer.

[treedom]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Seeing as how BHG is going to be focusing on RTS (which is why BR left), I don't think so.

And if you are going to get EU, wait for EU2. EU, while haven't some interesting facets was pretty boring, IMO.

Well I don't know. I was reading an article where Brian Reynolds was asked what sort of game they have in the works. While he didn't say much else, he did say something along the lines of 'Look at what I've done in the past. It's safe to say we'll stay within that realm.' (not a direct quote...but close).

I don't think it's going to be an RTS like we know them now. At least I hope not, because I'm getting tired of them. Except for Majesty and Tropico, I haven't seen anything that was too much different from AoE.

RTS has potential for us TBS players I think (as long as we can pause...hehe). Again, I bring up EU as an example.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I seem to recall, BR wanting to do RTS games (and the people that did leave with him as well), while Sid wasn't up on the idea of a straight RTS.

And interestingly, I thought the whole idea of Real Time was what brought EU down. Just boring, go and stop. The events in EU2 might do wonders for it, and I think I'll get it.

[Executor]

Re: Why I've stoped playing Civ III

Originally posted by Grallon
4) the editor is on the surface all that I could have asked in order to customize the game to my heart's content - except that it's totally non-functionnal ! I tried making the building of the Settler unit dependant on the appearance of wheat (changed to be a strategic resource) and the knowledge of pottery only to have the game either protection-fault crash on me or start ok then churn & churn until it froze. This was to prevent the AI from overexpending as it tends to do in this newest iteration.
G.

Settlers are probably a special unit for the AI, so you shouldn't be making any changes to them. It probably expects to be able to build them by default.

[Scott_S]

Re: Why I've stoped playing Civ III

4) the editor is on the surface all that I could have asked in order to customize the game to my heart's content - except that it's totally non-functionnal ! I tried making the building of the Settler unit dependant on the appearance of wheat (changed to be a strategic resource) and the knowledge of pottery only to have the game either protection-fault crash on me or start ok then churn & churn until it froze. This was to prevent the AI from overexpending as it tends to do in this newest iteration.


If you wish to try something, try this.

In the editor General Settings, remove the starting unit #1 as settler. Make it something that you don't change, or set it to none.

Also, if you EVER change the Civ colors to the non-standard ones (read: anything that's not already in use by another civ) it WILL lock instantly.)

If you don't do this when editing the early units (I tried to make a Holy Roman Empire with a starting unit of a 'Holy Explorer') you'll get the GPG crash.

Not sure about the churn and freeze. Haven't had that happen.

Also, this game likes a clear memory. Fresh reboot often.

Hope ya do come back to the game, because, really, with a little patience, it IS awesome.

Best,

Scott

[Mark_Everson]

Thanks for the mini-review Grallon. I'm not sure I'll get Civ3 unless I'm convinced its worth it by the reviews I see on Apolyton. The magazine reviewers know so little about the genre that their thoughts aren't really relevant to my concerns. FE AI is very difficult to evaluate if you have little knowledge of the system. Reviewers were trumpeting Civ2's AI back when, and it was truly pathetic. So this and many other player-reviews are useful to me. Also some of the gripes may be addressed in patches, and those issues with the most complaints are most likely to be the things addressed by a patch. So please don't give him **** for saying negative things about the game.

I too want a much more sophisticated type of civ game, but as Karhgath said, the market for such things is much smaller than what Firaxis is shooting for.

The things that would make me buy Civ3, are a reasonably good AI, and a reduction in the mind-numbing amount of micromanagement needed, especially later in the game. It does sound like Civ3 at least has decent military AI (certainly as compared to Civ2), and since corruption kills the value of anything more than 10 cities the micromanagement will of necessity be reduced. But at this point I think I'll hold off until the first patch, and see what they fix.

[Jokka das Trevas]

Gotta agree about the interface. It sux major a$$.

I didn't understood why the "interface downgrade", after the fantastic (and optionally simple for whoever wanted it) SMAC interface.

I mean, AFAIK civ3 was developed by merging firaxis and CTP's teams, and since the CTP interface sucks (IMHO, but most agree), maybe they can answer the guilt of this. :P

hehe

[Desert Dog]

Civ III

I have to agree that everyone is blind sided by the game. I think you are a little to hard on it. In reality this game is not what everyone is trying to make it out to be or imagined it to be.
I have no plans to leave this forum either. I want to see some major changes to the game. This happens to be (for some reason) the only place you can voice your concerns and desires about the game. I am playing it trying to find all of the problems. I am compiling a list of bugs and big problems. Negative is fine as long as there is a means to and end. I want Sid to fix the game and make it into what it should be! Peace

Desert Dog