c194# CIVILIZATION III, A SHOE TOO BIG?

[Just My 2 Cents]

I concur.

However when it comes to democracies I think the trade-off is obvious:

Ever tried to fight a war late in the game in a democratic government? Easier said then done if your goal is to wipe out an entire civilization. If it's the acquisition of a few key cities its certainly doable but a 20 turn campaign is damn-near impossible. On Monarch difficulty level or higher your cities are in chaos by about the third turn and if you haven't been fighting all game I would suggest its difficult if not impossible to take much ground in 3 turns since the enemy civilization will have many cities.

What I miss most from SMAC is the "agendas" of each faction and the clash of ideologies, i.e. if you were in a democratic government the Peacekeepers and Data Angels would be more likely to be your friends while the Hive would be your enemy. I think when it comes to Civ similar governments should stick to each other i.e. democracies should be friendlier to each other while communists would form their own blocs. Let's think about it, from the end of the second world war to the fall of the Berlin Wall wasn't the world divided along these politcal lines? America and China are still tense with each other today; the official party line from Amerca (although it hasn't been mentioned as frequently since Sept 11) basically boils down to we're a democracy and they're commies, we're good they're evil. I'm sure it has more to do with the fact that America was just getting used to its position as the last standing superpower and is a little hesitant to let Red China into the club but I hope you see my point.

Don't get me wrong, if its late in the game and you're way ahead of everyone else of course you should have to "spread the wealth" to keep everyone happy but I laugh every time I see a communist government form a mutual protection pact with a democracy.

[Fidel]

Originally posted by Just My 2 Cents
its late in the game and you're way ahead of everyone else of course you should have to "spread the wealth" to keep everyone happy but I laugh every time I see a communist government form a mutual protection pact with a democracy.

i guess you do not know that tito's yugoslavia signed a military pact with greece and turkey in 1955?

[Just My 2 Cents]

Of course there are exceptions to the rule however at that time both Greece and Turkey were fighting to stay viable democracies themselves...

[jack_frost]

I'm a programmer too. I understand the pains of deadlines, and crunch time. I understand the amount of effort thats gone into this game (or at least have a general idea).

But there are so many little things that just weren't well thought out:

Interface:

The interface has no excuse for being as generally sluggish. I've played it on a 800mhz celeron, and a 800mhz p3. Both with gforce 2 gts's and tons of ram. This game has no reason to be as ... slow as it is. Even screen scroll.. I mean come on.

It is simply absurd to not be able to move multiple units at once. To create stacks that actually act like stacks should. I mean - come on. Its 2002, having to move each piece individually stopped many many years ago. Even if you gain the ability to move a stack in this game, the interface won't support it well (it won't show all the units your moving in the bottom right, etc).

Things like the intelligence agency. Both the manual, and the readme fail to explain how to actually use this. It took me over 5 minitues of futsing around to figure out how to plant a spy (not that espionage is worth crap). But for someone who has done UI programming, its absurd to take that long to figure out how to use a feature. The average player probably just...won't.

Theres so many other little things. The advisor screens ... could have been so much better. So much more useful, the trade advisor doesn't tell you who might be willing to buy your resources. And in order to tell what resources a civ has access to you need to manually go over his part of the map looking for the resource. Or possibly exploit the diplomacy screen to find it. The domestic advisor is great in general, but doesn't have basic things like a "show only rioting cities" filter. Or a "give them some entertainment" button.. why?

And come on, what the hell are the shield sorts, and how do they work? I can't figure out the logic. Seems like it sorts properly, then a second later it becomes random.

And the culture advisor? Useful for what?

The foreign advisor screen is pretty cool... unless you have more then 8 civs. Where it doesn't function properly. Specially with displaying military alliances against, same with embargos (if one of the civs isn't listed, the embargo isn't listed).

The auto unit picking order is sometimes really annoying, but thats minor (even though it can cost minitues of time per turn in a late industrial/modern war). It should pick the closest unit type (artillery, fast, slow) within the same square selected. Then move to the closest unit type in the closest square. Instead of randomly jumping around.

There isn't any "locate resource" function. Which means you have to manually scavage the map to find coal. Ugh. Come on.


Gameplay:

There should be a reason to use a government other then democracy and lil'democracy. Sure communism lost, but why bother including communism and monarchy if your going to make them useless?

Culture. I hate to say it, but after really thinking about it. I love the idea, but I think its implementation is pretty crappy. The idea of a city defection is silly in real life. And except for the AI settling randomly in the middle of your land surrounded by your cities, it will have no real effect on the game outside of borders. It could have been better.

Buying / Selling techs is very abusive, and makes the game boring. BUT I have heard they are attempting to fix this with a patch.

Two move units utterly dominate one move units, and obviate artillery till infantry.

I understand the reasons for removing the FP system. But I don't think its valid. The idea is - without needed resources a civ would get stomped. So they wanted lower tech units to have a chance. I just disagree - why even have resources if you don't want them to be absolutely critical?


Multiplayer:
No. I refuse to accept that 'civ just isn't good as a multiplayer game'. The fact of the matter is - with a tiny little itty bit of innovation (scary concept, innovation in civ3) - you could set small multi-player game types with simplified victory conditions. "Find the New Continent" could be like a mini spaceship. You should start towards the end of the dark ages ages, and you could play a 3 or 4 hour game (an evenings worth - considering the average person watches 5 hours of tv). The lack of this type of slight innovation / polish is why I am most dissapointed with Civ3.

Thats about it. Again, all in all. I think Civ3 is a good game. But when you consider the amount of years thats gone into the series in total, I cannot accept these kinds of flaws. I just downloaded a demo of empire earth. Gonna give it a spin. Take care.

[Jokka das Trevas]

Well, sorry for reviving this topic but I strayed from the net a while...

Originally posted by XPav

The current governmental systems of Japan and England bear more resemblances to Democracy than they do to Monarchy.

Emperor Akihito? and Queen Elizabeth have no power. Its a constitutional monarchy.

Well, so be it. For rudimentary times, rudimentary governments are.

Does Despotism or Monarchy get improved after time?
No, they will still suck even in late 2030's
(In Master of Orion 2, your form of government get improved with research at mid-late game. )

So late-game only government options are democracy and communism, and democracy got a pretty unfair leg ahead in this competition.

Man, it just doesn't cut it: workers work at 150% just out of happiness? People don't get corrupted or waste anymore because they're happy?
They don't submit to propaganda, even if their leader sucks, just because its a democracy?

That sucks. Only two choices of government is bad, but not having a choice at all really sucks.
Despotism should change to Dictatorship, and ancient Monarchy should change to whatever the hell it became today :P

The "communism is perfect for war" axiom doesn't cut: communism is THE ONLY WAY for war, and just because democracy doesn't like war and other governments suck (and it still doesn't cut to reality).

What went wrong with Social Engineering from SMAC? Aren't we here to rewrite history? Why can't we combine factors and create a brand-new government system?

Alas, democracy is a way of government, and communism is more of a economic system rather than another type of government.

Russia and China doesn't count: the REAL communism never got out of the paper (and, to an extent, democracy too).