Poor concepts in the game

[Capt Dizle]

1. Colonies -these aren't colonies, they have no population, do not grow, control no terrioritory. They are simply resource production centers. Very weak.

2. Borders - AI units ignore with impunity. Pointless implementation. Weak.

3. Corruption - The concept of corruption has been around a long time. In this implementation the level are insanely high. I refuse to believe this game was playtested at all.

4. Culture - Highly amusing. The Palace Rush. This concept is so bad I can't find one good thing to say about it. Someone tell me exactly how this is reflected in world history.

5. Inability to use roads in enemy lands. I could see a movement reduction but really this is crazy.

6. Resource affect on combat- so the reason that an ancient military unit can beat a modern one is to fix the problem with lack of resources. Lame. Did someone get paid to come up with this?

7. Leaders and armies- hard to get in the first place and lame when you do.

8. Eliminate all fun concepts - this is the worst of all, the design team seems to have begun the process by taking out all of the stuff from which fun derived in the earlier versions...

examples?

pop booms, specialist cities, science cities, wonder rushing, spies (worst idea ever to take this out), caravans, unit workshops, events (metor strikes, vulcanos, alien invasions -ok, i liked SMAC), firepower, supply crawlers, sensors, satilites, terraforming, Golden Ages!!!!

Farmland. Where are the great cities? Awful.

9. The shape of the continents are awful. There is nothing to explore. By the time you get the tech the world is all filled up. Silly. Another step backwards.

I stop now.

[Velociryx]

Well....while I don't agree with *all* of your assessment here, I DO find myself agreeing with most of it. I'll go point by point.

Colonies - TOTAL agreement. Colonies suck. They should have borders (even if it's just one tile!) to prevent eventual absorption. Also, they should, over time, expand to full blown cities (or, you could add another colonist to them, and grow it into a city).

Borders - Their primary purpose is to determine who has access to what resources, NOT to keep the AI out, IMO. In this regard, they work splendidly, and it's one of best reasons to focus on culture.

Corruption - I've played games on a normal sized map with as many as 30 cities, some on far flung continents, and found it to be quite tolerable. I think the corruption in the ancient era is dead on, but as a society modernizes, there should be fixes to reduce it....not eliminate it completely, but definitely make it LESS. IMO, they run the risk of going too far the other way and making losses due to corruption a joke. My fingers are crossed that this does not happen.

The Palace Rush/Cultural Assimilation - Again, I agree that the *implementation* is bad, but the effect is quite real and visible in our world today. Even without intending to influence the citizens of Mexico, the opportunities to be had here keep them coming.....this is abstractly represented via relocating your palace (spending resources and time in an effort to woo the citizens of a different culture). Poor execution, to be sure, but with a real word equivalent.

If you have Right of Passage you *can* use their roads!!! If not, the assumption is that you're invading, and the local populace will attempt to impede your progress - again, an abstraction, but also believable, IMO.

Resource effect on combat - Again, I'd say this is more of an abstraction. It's not a broze-wielding spearman vs. your tank, but an ill-equipped (with prolly stolen, outdated guns) soldier (Afghan rebels?) who sometimes gets lucky. Remember here that we're essentially getting a broad surface scan of the world when we take our turns. Each turn, there are thousands, if not millions of people in our "civs" who are doing stuff. Obviously, we can't zoom in and watch each one of them, and a lot of the "stuff they do" (ie - backroom arms deals to outfit "spearmen" with outdated weapons) is simply abstracted.

Leaders/Armies - TOTAL agreement. Either they should be more powerful than they are, or easier to get.

The Fun Concepts:
Man....I agree and disagree here. The fun concepts you mention are also the patently *broken* concepts that made it too easy to abuse the AI. Yep....it was cool to do, but it also made the game vs. the AI kind of a joke, no?

Continental Shaping - I agree that the map generator leaves me kinna ho-hum, but not so bad that I'd formally complain about it. I'd call it average.

As to the world being all filled up....that, to me, is also realistic....I mean, it's true that the American (Plains) indians didn't have permanent cities established when we pale faces came over and started building, but neither was the real estate just vacant. There *were* people here! LOTS of them. And some indian tribes (Aztecs, Inca, etc) DID found cities and expand in more typical European fashion.

So....I don't see it as unrealistic to expect to see *someone* on that other continent yonder laying claim to all "their" land when you hop in your trireme...errr...galley....

-=Vel=-

[jackshot]

I have to say I'm getting disappointed, it ain't broken, just mediocre in places, for many of the reasons jimmytrick said.

I'm sorry, to me Civ3 lacks depth as a game (meaning for me having a veritable soup of choices, rather than de facto linear paths). All the Civs are the same, a limited range of strategies for the human player, plenty of boring stuff to do (workers/pollution).

Workers aren't the fun part, and the combat is weird - I don't mean the tanks/spearmen bit (to the extend that's a problem it can be fixed easily), but the bugginess of aircraft and who-knows-what-they-were-thinking nature of armies (wouldn't we all be happier if armies were just ways to move groups of units around instead of all this bounus/leader stuff?) - without all the combat elements in place I can't tell whether I like it or not, but it's sure a lot of micromanagement. Diplomacy's lacking something special, corruption, culture weirdness - I don't know how it all adds up into long term fun, we wait for a patch to find out.

Wouldn't you just like it better if your borders DID work more like real borders, despite the fact it is definitely playable the way it is?

IMO, it's a step back from SMAC (depth of play) and even a step back from CTP1/2 (modibility). It'll stay on my hd, and I expect Firaxis will be better than Activision at improving what they got. But there is so much that should be better here they will never get around to "fixing" I'm afraid.

And, on the other hand, some they will.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Colonies - TOTAL agreement. Colonies suck. They should have borders (even if it's just one tile!) to prevent eventual absorption. Also, they should, over time, expand to full blown cities (or, you could add another colonist to them, and grow it into a city).

I agree with the 1 tile border for colonies (if you count new cities as having a 2 tile border radius). But i disagree about expanding them into full-blown cities. Why then would you build settlers, when you can just send out hordes of 1 pop workers to stake land claims, and only later on fill them in to become full cities??

One thing i dont like about borders is that a brand new city can still push your borders back, just by plonking down next to your border. It automatically gets all the tiles around it, which goes against the whole "I was here first" style that culture represents.

I just wish armies could attack more than once a turn. Sure, it would make them powerful, but just like nukes - They are supposed to be powerful!!

[Blackadar1]

Here Here! Good post.

How about cities reverting back due to "culture" after you've conquered them? Talk about frustrating...taking over a size 3 city and having 6 tanks inside the city limits and having them all destroyed when the city goes back to it's former Civ. Yea, that's realistic. Grrrrr....

War weariness is another good concept that was poorly implemented.

One of my biggest pet peeves is that it can take forever to switch governments and in the meantime the riots in all the cities are tearing down your hard-earned improvements.

Borders - either they're borders or they're not. If they are, crossing is an act of war. If they're not, then it's just another concept that should have been borrowed from SMAC and wasn't.

Corruption - absurd. I can see it affecting the production, but to have conquered cities for 200 years still producing only 1 shield is just insane.

Leaders - very weak. Why can't you remove units from an army and why can it only attack once per turn? And why the heck should a leader be able to build a wonder in 1 turn?

Resources - again, weak. Who sat around the conference room table and said, "let's arbitrarily decide who wins in a close game by seeing who gets the oil"? Really absurd.

I don't find a problem with the continents and farmland can be replaced by building railroads on every square. Nor do I find a problem with not being able to use roads in enemy territory. But overall, good post.

[Dis]

one man's poor concept, is another man's concept that he thinks is fine

P.S. this thread sucks

my point: I totatally disagree with everything in this thread. bring on the next whiner please

[Dis]

oh and I don't want to insult anyone here. That was not my intention.

my point is that I don't find these concepts poor. And there others that have little problem with these concepts. And many can be fixed with a patch.

I just get the impression that people wanted the game to be designed exactly to their liking. In that case I suggest buying out a game company and forcing them to program what you want.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by Blackadar1
War weariness is another good concept that was poorly implemented.

Resources - again, weak. Who sat around the conference room table and said, "let's arbitrarily decide who wins in a close game by seeing who gets the oil"? Really absurd.

So war weariness is poorly implemented how?

As for resources I guess they should have just given everyone one of every thing? I hate to break it to you but resources have made or broken empires through the ages. It works about the same as in real life. A very good implementation. You want oil? Go get it or make a pact with the devil just like real civilizations do. And if you think its absurd you can edit it out unlike real life.

[Zylka]

Bring on the next whiner... ha... ha...

You're such an idiot, Dissident. How's that for not insulting anyone?

P.S.

How's the spiritwalking? OOOOOHHHHMMMM

[Zylka]

Originally posted by Dissident
my point: I totatally disagree with everything in this thread. bring on the next whiner please

Do you actually have an argument to back that up? Please do, in point form. What do you have in response to jimmy's 9 logical topics?

[Monoriu]

"1. Colonies -these aren't colonies, they have no population, do not grow, control no terrioritory. They are simply resource production centers. Very weak. "


I am with you on this one. Colonies are pointless.


"2. Borders - AI units ignore with impunity. Pointless implementation. Weak. "


I disagree. The AI generally respects the border, with the exception of: ships, the need to cross your border to fight somebody else, settlers and escorts, and (obviously) when he fights you. Borders are also needed for determination of who gets what resource. If the AI NEVER goes inside your territory it'll be too, umm, predictable and takes the fun out.

"3. Corruption - The concept of corruption has been around a long time. In this implementation the level are insanely high. I refuse to believe this game was playtested at all. "


I agree 100%. The levels should be toned down a bit and there should be a cap somewhere, 1 shield cities are not acceptable. My greatest complaint is THERE IS NO EFFECTIVE WAY TO DEAL WITH IT. You should be able to build a vast empire, and keep corruption levels down IF AND ONLY IF you have taken sufficient measures to counter corruption, in other words, at a price.


"4. Culture - Highly amusing. The Palace Rush. This concept is so bad I can't find one good thing to say about it. Someone tell me exactly how this is reflected in world history. "

Civ games are not about realism. I like culture, but I do agree that they must fix the "city revolts and every unit in it is gone" thing.


"5. Inability to use roads in enemy lands. I could see a movement reduction but really this is crazy. "


I disagree. Moving on enemy lands should be difficult and this forces you to plan and exeute an attack carefully. You cannot, and should not be able to, conquer a vast civ within a few turns by using THEIR rail system.


6. Resource affect on combat- so the reason that an ancient military unit can beat a modern one is to fix the problem with lack of resources. Lame. Did someone get paid to come up with this?


I disagree. The ancient unit CAN beat a modern one, but it seldom happens if the player who is controlling the modern units know what he is doing.

"7. Leaders and armies- hard to get in the first place and lame when you do. "


I agree with the too hard to get part, but I think they are powerful enough. I don' t want any invincible units in my game.


"8. Eliminate all fun concepts - this is the worst of all, the design team seems to have begun the process by taking out all of the stuff from which fun derived in the earlier versions...

examples?

pop booms, specialist cities, science cities, wonder rushing, spies (worst idea ever to take this out), caravans, unit workshops, events (metor strikes, vulcanos, alien invasions -ok, i liked SMAC), firepower, supply crawlers, sensors, satilites, terraforming, Golden Ages!!!! "


Eliminating wonder rushing is for game balance. Caravans are boring and I hate them. Events I don't care much. Pop booms, again, game balancing. Firepower, same thing as att points. Sensors, useless. Terraforming, game balance, its too easy for the human player.


"Farmland. Where are the great cities? Awful. "


Disagree. Settlers don't need food anymore balances the loss of farmland.



"9. The shape of the continents are awful. There is nothing to explore. By the time you get the tech the world is all filled up. Silly. Another step backwards. "


Previous civs are too easy because the humans can always get more cities than the AI. I am glad that's no longer true.

[Dis]

Zylka, can you read. It is in the next post down.

I said all I need to say.

All you do is insult me. But I suppose that makes your life worthwhile. But it does make me wonder why are you here? Either play the game, or b!tch at Firaxis to fix it, or leave. 3 options there.

[dexters]

I think colonies should be fixed to make them more defensible. But the rest of the complaints are crap!

[Baloo]

Let the guys say what they think about the game. Unless Apolyton's going to clamp down all the whining posts, IMHO it's their prerogatives to express their love for the game.

The anti-whiners are welcomed to stage their opinions in their own threads.

[n.c.]

Originally posted by Monoriu
Civ games are not about realism.

Um, maybe for you. Some of us expected to have a chance to re-write history.

-"using THEIR rail system."
He said road. I agree that rails should not be available (unless between cities perhaps).

-"The ancient unit CAN beat a modern one"
Except that they do not actually exist at the same time (in reality).