Why am I always next to the same Civs?

[LRotan]

I'm going to have to go with the majority here and agree that it puts a massive dent in replayability. There are exceptions to the rule, but not many. For example, my last game as the Americans, I got lucky. I wasn't near *anyone* and I was playing on a standard sized pangea map with little water cover and eight civs. The closest were the Persians and Zulus far to the south. However, I tried a game as the French and the first people I encountered were the Germans. I had scouted my area for prime real estate and was prepare to plop down a city in certain squares, but the germans beat me to it and completely blocked me in on a tiny peninsula. So I started again hoping to get better neighbors. Nope, Germans again. Two more tries and I still got the Germans.

I can't agree enough that this takes all the surprise out of new games. I know who I'm going to encounter and can plan ahead before I make my first city.

LR

[Pyrodrew]

1st game I played I was the Americans & my neighbors were Aztecs & Iroquois.

2nd game I played I am the Americans & my neighbors are the Persians, Chinese, & Japanese. All the European Civs are not on the main continent.

So it does seem to *try* to group cultures together ((which SUCKS)), but your culture group is not always grouped 1st. As was the case in my 2nd game, this can lead the player to get different neighbors sometimes... but not often.

[Garth Vader]

My first 3 starts as the Russians. I was on a continent with the French, English, Germans. I only finished one of those games.

My next 2 starts with the French I was on a continent with the Germans, English and Russians. I started a third game where I manually picked the other civs and took the archipeligo setting so I could get a different game.

[Jeff George]

Originally posted by Osweld
You don't always get grouped with the same culture group, it depends on how you set the game up, if all the civs are random, you do start with your culture group, and almost every time you will get the exact same set of civs playing,

So then I guess that random opponents really aren't. I don't like this. If I pick a random civ and random opponents I want them to be RANDOM, including placement and neighbors.

[Jeff George]

Originally posted by narmox
the "Communications with..." exchange too I'm starting to hate. I don't want to know all the world map too soon, from people on the other end of the world.

No one forces you to take communications with a different faction. If a civ has it available it means that they are in contact with that nation. No biggie.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Jeff George
No one forces you to take communications with a different faction. If a civ has it available it means that they are in contact with that nation. No biggie.

It´s not about communications as such, but exchanging world maps with everybody is too easy.

[gumbytech]

I love the game (assumign some patching) but I am a huge fan of randomization. If you know that there is even a probability of having certain neighbors then your strategy is effected and some of the suspense of exploration is removed.

I have been playing the Romans exclusively (and yes I do dream about gladiators), and I know that I am likely to find the Egyptians to my north, that they are likely to make peace and then soon attack me, that they will continue to send troops to harrass me for hundreds of turns. Therefore, when playing the Romans I beef up my military and go after the Egyptians as soon as I can to eliminate them.

So my point is that this has definately impacted my strategy and taken much of the suspense out of the early stages of the game.

I strongly dislike this.

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
It´s not about communications as such, but exchanging world maps with everybody is too easy.

If you have a bigger world map than an AI they will always be willing to trade with you. If your world map is smaller they will not. Same goes for territory map vs. territory map.

If you know that there is even a probability of having certain neighbors then your strategy is effected and some of the suspense of exploration is removed.

Agreed. I've mentioned how some things are minor issues, but this is one of the major issues that needs to be addressed in the patch.

[Capt Dizle]

eXploration is a major part of the attraction of the genre. I didn't mind much having com links available for trade in SMAC, it was in keeping with the backdrop of the game...advanced tech and so forth.

But being able to trade communication capibility in Civ is silly and eliminates a key motivation to explore. It is one of many poor design decisions made by the Civ3 team.

It's pretty clear from the uneven combat results that whatever method of random number generation being used is badly flawed. It plainly stinks being set up adjacent to the same Civs game after game.

[Pyrodrew]

Maps

The trade of territory maps is fine. This is necessary for trade & respecting borders.

The trade for world maps is the problem. The AI should value it's world map (it's exploration work) much more & guard these secrets. They should not hand out their world maps so easily even if someone's world map is larger than someone else's world map. Specifically because large areas of claimed land is far less valuable then smaller areas of unsettled & unexplored land. Revealing where empty ocean is also not smart. Making someone else waste their time to explore empty ocean is strategically superior.