I gotta ask: What were they thinking?

[Brutus66]

I have had the game for a few days now and have spent the better part of the weekend playing.
I must first say, there are many things to like. The AI is great. I love all the different resources and how they work. Diplomacy is much better- I don't experience the old phenomenon of becoming the most powerful nation on the map and then have all the other civs signing alliances and declaring war on me "just because"- now it is possible to stay fairly peaceful the whole game through if that's your preference.
But, doggone it, there are a few things that make me wonder "what the heck were the developers thinking??" For example...

No multiplayer -Call to Power 1 and 2 had it. Right out of the gate. No "expansion pack" required. Buggy, but it was included.

No scenarios. Enough said.

On two occasions in the game I am playing now, frigates have sunk my nuclear submarines in one-on-one battles. Once, a knight unit destroyed one of my tanks. This is just preposterous.

Pollution- In this game I am fairly advanced in science and industry. But the pollution is generated like crazy- my workers do nothing but clean pollution, ALL the time!! It is getting VERY tedious. In CTP it was so easy to turn it off right at the set up. I am sure that by devolping some kind of advance or creating a wonder of some kind will reduce the effects, but I just want it gone from the game period.

There WERE beta testers involved with this, right? Oh yeah, I guess that's us...

[Evan]

"On two occasions in the game I am playing now, frigates have sunk my nuclear submarines in one-on-one battles. Once, a knight unit destroyed one of my tanks. This is just preposterous. "

Throughout the Civ series, I have always thought of these things as like that US ship that had an explosion in the ammo room killing a whole mess of people while firing a few years back. The unadvanced unit did not necessary kill them in the traditional manner but some catastrophic accident happened while the advanced unit was trying to fight. It happens in real life - not every casualty is the result of the enemy purposely killing them, some are the results of accidents.


"Pollution- In this game I am fairly advanced in science and industry. But the pollution is generated like crazy- my workers do nothing but clean pollution, ALL the time!! It is getting VERY tedious. In CTP it was so easy to turn it off right at the set up. I am sure that by devolping some kind of advance or creating a wonder of some kind will reduce the effects, but I just want it gone from the game period. "

To keep pollution managable, I generally build the recycling center (and sometimes mass transportation too) BEFORE building my factory. Keeps pollution to a minimum.

[mmike87]

Re: I gotta ask: What were they thinking?

I agree about the combat. I was really hoping for a bit more than simple random combat. It is stupid to think that a frigate could sink a nuke sub. EVER.

If we want to simulate accidents, lets simulate accidents. For every turn there is an n/100 chance that a ship, sub, or aircraft will crash/sink. We could even have the chance of failure decrease the longer you have had the requisite technology. That would be cool. But lets not overlook the stupid combat system that OFTEN lets Caravels sink modern warships, and Warriors beat Armor. This is not only unrealistic but a major pain.

I understand maintaining balance in the game...but come on. If you only have Archers and the rest of the world has nukes and bombers, you SHOULD lose.

My proposal is that when two unit from different "ages" fight there be modifiers.

WARRIOR vs. SPEARMAN = No Modifier
WARRIOR vs. MUSKETMAN = Slight Penalty to Warrior
WARRIOR vs. RIFLEMAN = Slightly More Penalty to Warrior
WARRIOR vs. ARMOR = Warrior has NO EFFECT
CATAPULT vs. RIFLEMAN = Reduced effect
CATAPULT vs. DESTROYER = NO EFFECT

Something like that - based upon the historic era the unit was from. It's just stupid to think that my Destroyer was damaged by an ancient catapult!!!

I think this will improve gameplay by making research and development more of a priority, forcing the AI to build large, better cities rather than the slum sprawl that it builds now.

My $.02 ...

[Brutus66]

A few more

Okay, if nobody else has anything, I have a few more:
Queing production: Very unintuitive- if it weren't for one poster explaining it, I still wouldn't know how it was done. Call to Power was very simple and clear in that respect. And I am sick of idiot governors trying to "sneak in" projects like building swordsmen while I am in the modern age trying to produce tanks and infantry in all my other cities.

Civil disorders: When cities riot, you see (very quicky) a flash to that city with a little label telling you- if there are several of them, you are forced to go back and look at all your cities to see which are rioting. Why can't the domestic advisor have a list of those in or close to disorder? CTP did...

Democracies in war: Forget about it- you had better switch your government to something like communism if you are in for a long war, because the citizens are going to have a fit if war lasts for more than a few turns. I don't seem to remember Britain or the US having any kind of major riots during either world war...

The Apollo project a small wonder? I think men walking on the moon kind of beats things like "the Colossus".

I had several tank units in an army trying to take a city. They all attacked as one, and killed only one defending unit in the city per turn. With reinforcements coming in to the city, it is going to take my army forever to capture it. And the defenders are Phalanxes and the like!! Then I find that I can't take them back out of the army, they are there forever!

My tanks can't use the enemy's roads. Why? I understand that this is trying to simulate roadblocks and such, but at this rate Patton would have taken years to cross France.

The bombing missions from piston engine fighters almost always fail. The bombers do a good job, but the fighters are almost useless in this respect. I don't know about jet fighters yet- haven't got any yet.

And now, for the thing that really irritates: Bombardments do not kill units, it only weakens them. As the English, that really diminishes my special unit, the man-of-war. And it really drives me crazy when, after blasting a unit down to next to nothing, the game simply doesn't let you target them anymore. For example, my ship blasts a knight to as low as it can get without being eliminated, then he is "off limits" until he gets better?? And the bombing or shelling hurts only the healthiest unit in the stack?? I realize that in reality it is very difficult (impossible, maybe) to eliminate well dug-in infantry by shelling, but when I have one bomber group after another unloading on Knights in the open grassland, it's silly.
I do like the fact that bombardments cause unintended damage like destroying buildings or killing citizens though- very real in that respect.

[n.c.]

Re: Re: I gotta ask: What were they thinking?

Originally posted by mmike87
It is stupid to think that a frigate could sink a nuke sub. EVER.

If you think about it, the notion of a frigate and nuke sub existing at the same time in history, let alone fighting, is no less stupid. Sadly this bit of obvious reality is lost on Firaxis.

[Compugasm 2]

This seems to be a military thread, however i have something frustrating that has not been mentioned yet. When cities build large wonders like the "JS. Bach Cathedral" and another Civ completes the advance 5 turns before you, there is no way to "Bank" those shields. You have to spend them, and in my case 200 turns of developement netted me the most expensive Knight ever built.

Just for fun, i placed him in the mountains and have building a road just for him to traverse. I'll consider it the "Aztec Highway".

[jbird]

Regarding the Apollo program, I actually like that it's a "Small Wonder". Basically, I don't see that this is an insult to the program, but a game balance issue. Now, each civ must build their OWN space program to be able to begin to build their spaceship, and this does give an advantage to the first civ to get to the space flight tech (as they can start the wonder sooner, so they can start their alpha centauri ship sooner.

So, i'm all for the Apollo Program being a "Small Wonder"

Jbird

[Wulfram]

I agree with changing it to a small wonder, but small wonders shouldn't have specific names like Apollo Program, Pentagon and so on. Apollo program should be Space Program and Pentagon Centralised Military Command Headquarters (Or whatever), but it's silly to have everyone building a specific wonder, and of course Mir was much more significant than the moon landings, less awe inspiring, but actually potentially important. It's also wierd that the Apollo missions should be the start of space exploration instead of everyone getting bored with space and spending money on useful things like nuclear weapons or tax decreases instead.

[D4everman]

Everyone is posting these bizzare combat results, but i haven't seen one yet in my game. (Guess I'm lucky)

In one of my wars with the French I completely smashed them with my infantry against their cav and warriors. Now thats one thing I do find crazy....the french had waaaaay better technology than that. I can understand having a few "throwaway units" (I understand, but I don't usually keep them...if they can't be upgraded anymore I disband them and save the gold) but the French had at least riflemen at that time...why are they fighting me with some stone age Conan lookalike caveman!?

Anyway, I had no problems. They french attacked my tanks with a spearman and he lost...w/o damaging the tank.

I'll also add that the AI does do some things right. After a short peace the French and I went back to war. They landed a few cav units by a city I had taken earlier from them. I chuckled. I had four marines fortified in there against their three cave units. Then about 5 french bombers flew over and destroyed most of the city improvements. Then about 10 to 12 more bombarded the city. The marines were all down to like one hit point. The cav units killed them and moved in.



I retook the city later.

[Compugasm 2]

Hint/Tip - If you're the Aztecs on South America you have twice the usable surface area as the Americans (If you chop forrests) and 1/3 more resources. Also, South America is easily defended. Weakpoints being from Mexico by land, Brazil by boat.

[Evan]

"If we want to simulate accidents, lets simulate accidents. For every turn there is an n/100 chance that a ship, sub, or aircraft will crash/sink. We could even have the chance of failure decrease the longer you have had the requisite technology. That would be cool."

That's not what I meant.

If a tank is fighting and moving around shells inside, sometimes there is an accident (with a shell, let's say) and the tank is destroyed. It doesn't matter who they are fighting - accidents happen and happen MUCH more frequently in combat conditions (a lot of people handling a lot of dangerous stuff in dangerous situations).

For as often as I see lopsided battles go counter-intuitively (i.e., not very often) it seems a reasonable explanation. I am willing to accept that occasionally catastrophic accidents kill my superior unit. Because that is as often as I have seen it - occasionally.

If you think it should never happen, that is also unrealistic.

Maybe you are seeing it a lot more often than I am, but while I lament the losing a tank whose attacking a pikeman, I have not seen it often enough to think the game is flawed because of it. Only if you think it never should happen would that be true.

You 'accidents every nth turn' is a valid idea but doesn't really apply to what I was talking about.

[Soapyfrog]

There is a distinct flaw in the AI (if the city governors is anything to go by), the computer insists on building what are essentially totally obsolete units because they are the only units available of a given "class" (slow offensive, fast offensive, ranged offensive, defensive, bombardment, naval, etc...) and it is following some algorithm which dictates in what proportions it should have certain military units.

Unfortunately this has the effect of the computer continually trying to build swordsmen for me to fulfil my "slow offensive" unit requirements because I haven't developed it's technological "successor", the tank!!

That's by theory based on observed behaviour...

Also the computer players rarely bother to upgrade existing units, it seems.

[bahoo]

I have a few gripes as well,

The AI; I like the fact that the AI is ruthless and tries to cheat me on deals and everything else when he gets the chance, but there are a few things it does that bother the heck out of me:

(A) Building colonies in remote deserts or artic wastes in the corner of my civilization just because it can.

(B) Marching 25+ workers across my civilization to build improvements in that one remote colony that is essentially unimprovable, regardless of how many times I tell them to get out. (Don't they have a managerial worker that figures stuff out, like say, it might only take a couple of workers, not an army, to improve a dinky colony in the high arctic with 2 citizens?)

(C) Insisting that I am committing an aggression my moving troops across the well traveled road that I built IN my civilzation, because he just happened to plop a settler down there in that one open space.

(D) Pointlessly patrolling the 3x3 square around his colonies with an army of troops for no particular purpose.

And secondly there are some other gripes I have:

(A) If I build a colony to harvest a resource and guard it with troops, the colonists should NOT up and leave because the computer decided it wanted to build a settlement right next to it, they should have to take it by force! That was my only supply of gunpowder dangit and those troops were to guard it with their lives.

(B) My cavalry up and decided to quit sounding like men shooting guns when they attack, but instead sound like some sort of cross between a pig and a donkey moaning.

Well that's it for now!

[cerebros]

Originally posted by Evan


If a tank is fighting and moving around shells inside, sometimes there is an accident (with a shell, let's say) and the tank is destroyed. It doesn't matter who they are fighting - accidents happen and happen MUCH more frequently in combat conditions (a lot of people handling a lot of dangerous stuff in dangerous situations).

I am willing to accept that occasionally catastrophic accidents kill my superior unit. Because that is as often as I have seen it - occasionally.

But your tank on screen does not represent a single tank, it represents a battalion (or whatever name you have for a group of tanks) of tanks. Yes you might lose one or two tanks in that battalion to accidents, but considering the battalion probably consists of a minimum of 10 tanks, it would not be realistic to believe the whole unit blew itself up...

With the frigate VS sub situation - i'm no expert on the power of cannon on friagtes, but i'd suppose it's possible that a group of frigates might fluke a kill on a sub if it was on the surface, but to believe a group of frigates would be capable of destroying however many subs the unit in Civ3 is meant to represent, is unlikely unless that unit were already down to its last hit point.

Ideally, unit combat would work with each unit having a weapon & armour level. For example, spearmen might have a weapon level of 2 and an armour level of 2 (better than no armour at all - value 0, and better than crude leather armour - value 1, they wear breastplates and things). Tanks would have a weapon & armour level of 20. As the tanks armour level is higher than that of the weapon level of the spearmen, the spearmen cannot inflict damage.

For infantry units you might have to introduce a tactics level as well to take account the superiority of modern units. Take our spearmen from the previous example and lets say they have a tactics level of 2 (they don't rush the enemy en mass, they use formations). We now have some machine gunners. They have a weapon level of 5, an armour level of 1 (wearing some minimal sort of flak jacket) and a tactics level of 5.
Now the spearmen are capable of killing the machine gunners, but due to the machine gunners superior tactics, the spearmen are not too likely to get close enough to do them much damage.

Add your random factors in, and while the spearmen can't beat the tanks, they do stand some chance of kiling or grinding down the machine gunners...

[Elrad]

Throughout the Civ series, I have always thought of these things as like that US ship that had an explosion in the ammo room killing a whole mess of people while firing a few years back. The unadvanced unit did not necessary kill them in the traditional manner but some catastrophic accident happened while the advanced unit was trying to fight. It happens in real life - not every casualty is the result of the enemy purposely killing them, some are the results of accidents.

-----------------------

Or you could argue that if the enemy had Submarines, that the civ with the frigate probobly has access to death charges (even if the tech is beyond them in the sense ww1 military strategies were beyond mexico, but still aquired with the help of germany to a sub standard degree) if that frigate has ways to deal with the sub, whats to say that out of say 5 possible encounters one of the frigates gets lucky, and the sub captain (possibly due to either over confidence, incompitence, or bad luck) fails to sink the enemy.

What I think the game needs though is for damaged units to slow their speed, even if it was just -1 speed for any damage at all, and speed 1 if you have 1 health. I can't believe a blazing battle ship stands a chance againsed a fresh one in a race...

-Elrad