My Thoughts on Civ 3 (a newbie's rant)

[TCO]

I really don't care if it was preventable or not. They are STILL repsonsible. If they can't manage that, than they shouldn't take on bug contracts. Enough with the blame it on Brian excuse and the blame it on Infogrames. Firaxis is responsible. But it looks like they got out the major parts of a good game. So hopefully they can finish it in patches and expansions.

[Zanzin]

I think someone drove a truck of money up to Sids house and said "here ya go, go crazy! If you make half-arsed titles in the future, it doesn't matter, because you still have enough money to buy a small south pacific country!"

Sad, but true. Sid got complacent through sucess. He left someone else to (Briggs/Morris) to do civ3. Without Reynolds, they were kinda lost, probably thought to themselves - well, what the crap are we going to do now? Then they got to thinking civ2 was pretty good, let's just rehash that....and honestly, what has changed between civ2 and civ3? Culture + resource system...and that's really it. The AI may be different, but in time I'm sure plenty of holes will be discovered in it...holes that are different from civ2, but they'll still be there. Combat, and the addition of armies - pathetic! Was this firaxis' way of taking a very good idea from CTP and distancing themselves from it so they wouldn't look as if it had been stolen? As they stand in civ3 at the moment, armies are basically just a single unit with much higher hit points.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm having a fair bit of fun with civ3...but im disappointed in that it really is civ2.5, and firaxis were too lazy to include wonder movies! (No no, you're right Nick Rusko-Burger. single frames are much more exciting and rewarding than an entire animated movie!!)

[Simpleton]

Re: Re: Re: My Thoughts on Civ 3 (a newbie's rant)

Originally posted by Daveraver

Well, not exactly water cities... what I'm trying to get hint at is the INCREDIBLY weak modern age... I'd like for it to extend a bit into the future.

I see. I probably haven't played enough Civ3 yet to get a feel for the modern age as so far I have been playing pretty conservatively and not pressing to advance to quick. The consequences are that the game usually ends before I have too much gametime left to play in the modern age. BUT with every game I play I improve. Hopefully, by the time I'm getting to the modern age in 1000 AD a patch addressing this will have been released.

As far as farmland goes I really wish they still had that option. The only guess as for a reason to take it out is to minimize the amount of micromanangement you would have to do near the end of the game. I know in Civ2 it sometimes was a bother to more all your settlers around trying to upgrade everything to farmland.

But you can't deny that planes are pretty useless, paratroopers and marines are too, helicopters are stupid... and well... if you want to be effective you have to use modern armor vs mech inf, and well... I'd like more options in the modern age is all.

Planes are definitely toned down significantely but I'm not sure if it's necessarily a bad thing. I'll need more games under my belt before I decided. I haven't used the others too much yet so I'll take your word for it.

I wouldn't want to go back either... I think I should restate why I'm angry here: Because Infogrames made Firaxis put out a game waaaay before it was the finished. I think that the insipid modern age and bug ridden game is proof of that.

Yes, Inforgrames definitely seems to be the bad guy here. Hopefully, Firaxis can put many issues to bed with a really good first patch.

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by GP


It is so simple. Only Firaxis can be held responsible for the depature of Reynolds. (and here I consider Reynolds part of Firaxis...he was one of the 3 owners.)

The main reason Brian and company left (and I had it from the BHG folks in person ) is that they were told that they'd be working on Civ3. They were totally burned out on Civ and its turn-based kin and wanted to do something real time.

BTW, game programmers (even those at Firaxis) aren't in it for the money. All of them can get MUCH better paying jobs (even in this day and age) doing something else for a living. They are doing it because they love it.

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by Zanzin

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm having a fair bit of fun with civ3...but im disappointed in that it really is civ2.5, and firaxis were too lazy to include wonder movies! (No no, you're right Nick Rusko-Burger. single frames are much more exciting and rewarding than an entire animated movie!!)

Hmm, since Civ2 was essentially Civ1 with better graphics I guess it was really Civ 1.5 then? And since Civ3 only has the resource model and armies it is really Civ2 then?

Hmm, from the original Civ until Civ3, yeah, Civ3 is really the sequal to Civ1, so it should be Civ2.

Now where's the real "sequal", Civ3??

Oh and regarding Sid being bored with Civ, yep, that's why he was so interested in SimGolf, he was as bored with the Civ concept as Brian was except Sid didn't leave, he just moved to a different project.

My question is this: How much better would Civ3 have been if a devoted third party developer had done it like Quicksilver is doing with MOO3? As opposed to the bored "aww man, we have to do another Civ" mentality that Firaxis seems to have demonstrated in this title.

[Seneca]

Re: My Thoughts on Civ 3 (a newbie's rant)

Originally posted by Daveraver
Highways (I haven't ridden a train since I was three)

Well, that's your problem isn't it? In most countries the trains still go faster than the road transport...

Now there's an idea - the railways could mean different things for different civs.

For the French and Japanese civs, the railways move units instantaneously.
For the American civ, you can only connect a limited number of cities, and units won't move very fast on them.
For the Indian civ, you can evacuate an entire city onto a single train.
For the English civ, you have to pay enormous amounts of gold to move on the railways, only 60% of the network will be functional at any given time, and each turn you have a 10% chance of a train crash resulting in the loss of your unit.

[TCO]

Originally posted by WarpStorm


The main reason Brian and company left (and I had it from the BHG folks in person ) is that they were told that they'd be working on Civ3. They were totally burned out on Civ and its turn-based kin and wanted to do something real time.

BTW, game programmers (even those at Firaxis) aren't in it for the money. All of them can get MUCH better paying jobs (even in this day and age) doing something else for a living. They are doing it because they love it.

That's an interesting note. Thanks.

It pretty much fits in my my thesis that Firaxis is responsibel for not being able to keep a happy team together. Infogrames doesn't hire people at Firaxis. Nor do they assign who works on things. Firaxis took the contract on and then had issues because they couldn't deliver a team to work on the game.

(branching off) I would think that this kind of work could be lucrative for the owners (Sid, Brian, etc.) much in the way that the owner of a mid-sized architecture firm can make a fair amount of money (multiple 6's).