Did Civ2 have this kind of criticism when it came out?

[Strollen]

civ2 had complaints

IIRC, when Civ2 came out it recieved very good reviews in the game press. However, comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategy was a mixed bag. Most everybody liked the game but it suffered from a number of bugs including a few crashes (I have had no crashes in Civ3), related to units crossing the dateline.

-Pathfinding was horrendous, to the point it was unusable until it got fixed by a patch.
-The Isometric view screwed up many people and resulted in a lot of dead air units which crashed due to lack of fuel
- People *****ed about lack of Multiplayer (I am sure people ***** to Micro$oft about the lack of MP support for Solitare and Minesweeper also)
- Governors were horrible (didn't ever improve IMO)
- Automated Settlers didn't exist
- They had to patch the game to increase unhappiness if you had too many Cities
- Later people complained about how unbalanced, diplomats, caravans, and Leo's Workshop were.
- The loss of the replay pissed many people off.
- Stupid AI and worse diplomacy were also blasted, AI got helped via a patch

My complaints were and still are how tedious the end game was. Nothing was more boring than waiting around tell your spaceship reached Alpha Centauri. In all the Civ2 games I played there was exactly one game where I need to capture the opponents capital to avoid losing the space race.

However, comparatively speaking Civ2 was pretty bug free. Overall Firaxis has a far above average record when it comes to bugs and stability of their products.

[EyesOfNight]

I think you just proved my point perfectly. Those things you just listed are so minor compared to what people are complaining about in civ3. The only people I have met so far that like the game are those that have never played civ 1 or civ2 (And even most of those don't like the game either), or they're pretty much casual civ newbies who really don't care what is in the game so long as it amuses them and helps the kill some time. I on the other hand have been playing this game since I was 10 years old for a total of 9 years. I look back at the release of civ2 and civ1 and realize just how clean a release it really was. I really wish ES had done civ3 instead of Firaxis. I think the game would have been 10 times better, and you count on them to make sure the game is perfect without any sort of fear of abandonment. Lets face it, this game was riding on it's name. It's like a movie with big actors but no story line. They sold the name, they didn't sell the game.

[Zylka]

Oh, so true.

[Yoleus]

M.A.S.

Def: "fanatic war" - the only way to end a fanatic war is by having only one side surviving. Unfortunately ( ) here posters do not die by being replied. So we shoud work toward an M.A.S. (mutual assured spam) solution, don't we?

Aside jokes, does anybody care about GameSpy buy list and poll? I know, plenty of reviewers gave an excellent mark to CivIII, but the GameSpy opinion has more weigth, IMHO. Just waiting for your analysis.

[Strollen]

Well EngimaticGod, I guess your mind is made up regardless of the facts.

The first version of Civ2 had bugs which caused the game to crash/system hang, in my book a crash is worse than "I don't like corruption whine".

The CIV2 AI was far worse than Civ3 AI especially before the last couple of patches, which for me was a big deal .

The pathfinding bug meant you had to move each unit one square at a time using the keypad pretty tedious IMHO. (This got mostly fixed but the Civ3 pathfinding appears to be perfect).

The Civ2 governor was totally worthless. The Civ3 governor has some real problems, but I find it does a decent job managing citizen happiness and optimizing between food, or production.
(I agree the tendency of it to build obsolete military units is very annoying.)

Yes, Civ3 needs a patch. Air superiority is a real problem. I find I avoid wars at the end and just go for a space ship victory.

I agree that Civ3 lacks eye-candy, like wonder movies and few other bells and whistle and a more elaborate tech tree, which makes it seem like it wasn't fully polished.


However, most of the complaints about Civ3 are design decisions, which I find hard to understand. It seems to me that a valid criticism of Civ3 is that it is not different enough from Civ1 or Civ2. Yet, what is the #1 complaints are about things where there are big difference between Civ2, and Civ3.
- Corruption I vastly prefer the Civ3 approach, because it force you to consider the value of expanding (especially militarily)
- Resource: A great addition for all kinds of reasons, but primarily because it forces you to adapt. I am winning a game where I had no horses or saltpeter, it is require a different strategy than getting horseman, or cavalary and kicking butt.
- Combat system. I perfer the Civ2 hitpoints, but I understand the reason about not horribly penalizing a person if he is missing some key resources.
- Lack of MP support. Personally I could care less. I'd be willing to wager a lot of money that much less than 1% of all Civ2 games were playing mulitplayer.

Could Civ3 be improved? You bet. However, by and large I think Firaxis did a great job of getting rid of things which didn't add to the fun of the game (like Caravans, ZOCs, diplomats, terraforming), did a very good job balancing the wonders, and significant improved the AI. It has all of the great addictive qualities of Civ, a lot less of the tedium, and has required me to rethink my strategies. What more do people want?

CIV1 was a monumental leap forward in PC games
CIV2 was one of the best sequels ever made.
SMAC was a good refinement of CIV2
CIV3 is streamlining of CIV2 with some very interesting additions.

My favorite boss taught me this equation.

Satisfaction = Reality - Expectations.

Don't blame Firaxis because you had unrealistic expectations.

[TCO]

I don't understand the equation...

[adaMada]

not trying to take either side, but one more civ-2 bug I thought I'd point out:

When I got Civ 2 MPG for the Mac (back in 1998, my first civ game, and also my first strategy game ), it couldn't load games or scnerios until I patched it (bug for people running one of those phone-line networks between apple computers that seem to be out of date now -- I think it's called AppleTalk). Luckily, by the time I got the game, a patch was long out, but that day or two before I thought to look for a patch was, well, let's just say -- fustrating .

-- adaMada

[Ray K]

Re: Did Civ2 have this kind of criticism when it came out?

Originally posted by EnigmaticGod
I really don't remember hearing anything bad about civ2 when it came out. THere were no rantings of bugs or horrible game flaws.

Obviously, you were not there. I was.

The ranting and raving about Civ2 was so loud and went on for so long that MicroProse shut down their Civ2 feedback forum, permanently and without any warning.

Anyone else remember that?


Civ3 has some problems, but overall it has been a much cleaner release than Civ2.

[EyesOfNight]

I see mainly newbies talking about bugs in civ2, I don't ever remember a bug in it and I remember very few bugs in civ2 MPGE. Somehow I doubt hardly any of you played multiplayer, which brings me back to my previous point. Also I have never had civ2 crash on me.

"The Civ2 governor was totally worthless."

There was no civ2 governor????

"The Civ3 governor has some real problems, but I find it does a decent job managing citizen happiness and optimizing between food, or production."

Only a complete newbie would allow the computer to manage his civ.

"I agree that Civ3 lacks eye-candy, like wonder movies and few other bells and whistle and a more elaborate tech tree, which makes it seem like it wasn't fully polished."

Nobody really cares about wonder movies. I have wonder movies on civ2 turned off. My complaint is with far greater things than this. Obviously you have a hard time comprehending my posts.

"Lack of MP support. Personally I could care less. I'd be willing to wager a lot of money that much less than 1% of all Civ2 games were playing mulitplayer."

Refer back to my talk about Civ newbies who are content with the game so long as it kills some time. And obviously you are a complete rookie, or you like to lose money. I'd have to say you're both.

"However, by and large I think Firaxis did a great job of getting rid of things which didn't add to the fun of the game (like Caravans, ZOCs, diplomats, terraforming), did a very good job balancing the wonders, and significant improved the AI. "

Did I say you were a complete rookie? I meant you were a complete idiot. Silly me.

"My favorite boss taught me this equation.

Satisfaction = Reality - Expectations."

I'm with GP, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Did you learn that at McDonalds? If you were to do that, you would get a score in the negative range which is impossible to calculate. Sounds like a very useful equation.

[HalfLotus]

Some people play the game for fun; not to be the ultimate world dominator in Civ.

[Strollen]

The Civ2 governor was totally worthless."

There was no civ2 governor????

My point, but even the AI that assigned workers to work squares always maximized food even if that isn't what you wanted. There was an autobuild feature which didn't work well.


Only a complete newbie would allow the computer to manage his civ.

I generally micromanage everything but if the computer does a good job, it saves time. I guess you still move all of your units be hand because you find it fun. Of course on Civ2 if you didn't move them by hand cause you risked the computer moving your unit cross country instead of using your rail lines.


When civ2 came out it was so clean and polished. There were no bugs that I know of, at least not until the MP portion came out. And the original civ2 had 1 patch for its entire game life.


This statement is so blatantly wrong. Did you actually play CIV2? get it it on Day 1? Participate in the Microprose forums, or the Usenet discussions? I doubt it. Here is a simple test to see how wrong you are. Get the most recent versions of Civ2 and look at the patch.txt file. You'll find that Civ2 went from version 1.04 to 2.42 11 patches in all including six significant ones. Still want to stick with your claim of one patch and super clean release.



As for being a newbie you couldn't be possibly more wrong. I have being playing computer games for 23 years including 22 years playing MP games (started on Apple II, and played games on Mac, Amiga and countless number of PCs). I bet you were still in diapers when I was playing and even developing some games. I wasn't an active participant in this forum prior to a couple of weeks before the CIV3 launch, it seemed kinda of pointless to spend a lot of time talking about a game I couldn't play.

I like MP games, but I don't think the CIV series is a good for MP games. I bought CivNet and played a couple of games but neither my friends nor I found it very fun. There is too much down time while waiting for your opponent to finish his move. A game like AOE is pretty bad single player, but is much better MP, CIV is just the opposite.

There is obviously a group of hard core MP players, but I stand by my statement that it is less than 1% of the CIV games are played MP.



Satisfaction = Reality - Expectations."

I'm with GP, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Did you learn that at McDonalds? If you were to do that, you would get a score in the negative range which is impossible to calculate. Sounds like a very useful equation.

Gee, I didn't thing an expert CIV player would have trouble with simple algebra.

Your expectations for CIV3 was it would be a 10 a perfect game. In your view a perfect game would include MP support and a bunch of other stuff. The reality of CIV3 is doesn't have this so you think the game is a 7 (or maybe lower). (

Satisfaction = 7 - 10 = -3. Means your a dissatisfied, POed, upset etc.


Right before CIV3 was released I played CIV2 for the first time a couple of years. Although CIV2 was a great game when it came out ,standards are raised I doubt it would get a score much above 7 if it was released today. (No MP, some bugs, dated graphics....) I expected CIV3 to be better than CIV2. I give CIV3 a score of 9 so I am satisfied
Satisfaction = 9 - 7

[EyesOfNight]

I very easily understood your incredibly simple equation. In case you didn't notice, I said the score would be in the negative. However my point was that it wasn't a very good one.

"As for being a newbie you couldn't be possibly more wrong. I have being playing computer games for 23 years including 22 years playing MP games (started on Apple II, and played games on Mac, Amiga and countless number of PCs). I bet you were still in diapers when I was playing and even developing some games. I wasn't an active participant in this forum prior to a couple of weeks before the CIV3 launch, it seemed kinda of pointless to spend a lot of time talking about a game I couldn't play."

Until you play Civ MP, you're a newbie, plain and simple. I would be happy to give you a lesson in civ2 if you like.

[Evil Robot]

I see that evolution has not completed its course; EnigmaticGod is still in existance.

What you did was pure trolling, and is abhorrent to what I think this board was, and should be now.

[Strollen]

? If you were to do that, you would get a score in the negative range which is impossible to calculate


My humble apologies I'll withdraw my statement of your lack of math skills, I obviously misunderstood your statement as not being able to grasp the concept of negative numbers.

Of course when you said that Civ2 had one patch and the real number was a 11 I assumed that math wasn't your strong point.

Until you play Civ MP, you're a newbie, plain and simple. I would be happy to give you a lesson in civ2 if you like.


What part of I played CivNet but didn't enjoy it don't you understand. This forum is called Civ3-General, not CIV2 MP.
If I was posting in that forum than you could reasonably call me a newbie. They are different games and require different strategies we are all newbies with Civ3 .

So God what are your strategies for beating Civ3 at Diety? I'm just finished my 2nd Monarch game the ship should be launched by 1800... When you can answer that question than maybe I'll listen to you.

Please withdraw your opinion to the Civ2-MP Forum, I am sure your followers are missing your presence.
And as they say in Civ3 don't come back

[EyesOfNight]

"So God what are your strategies for beating Civ3 at Diety? I'm just finished my 2nd Monarch game the ship should be launched by 1800... When you can answer that question than maybe I'll listen to you."

Am I supposed to be impressed with that?