Anyone uninstalled Civ III yet?

[siredgar]

Waiting for the patch.

I gave up playing a couple of weeks ago, but now I'm hoping the patch may address some of the major issues. Honestly, however, I don't have much faith because I don't think they'll fix any of the bigger bugs. You never know, though!

[smellymummy]

I've uninstalled SMAC and civ2. I don't play with these no more.

I've also uninstalled CIV3... only to reinstall it on a better drive!!!

I'm not going to defend the game here, just going to say that this game will be staying on my hard drive for a long long time

[EnochF]

I'm also waiting for the patch. Um... well, actually, I'm waiting for the hypothetical patch sometime in the near future that provides the editor with all the functions I need. I haven't uninstalled Civ 3, but I haven't played it lately either.

Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds looks pretty good. And I might try Europa Universalis, like Yin suggested.

[drmofe]

Re: It sounds like you are overanalyzing

Originally posted by Mike4879
the preset conditions: A military victory is not always necessary to win, and neither are resources. I think the important part you are missing from Civ3 is that if you do not have one thing, you have to supplement for the other. If you don't have the resources to make your civilization better, you may have to launch a war or

I'm aware of those points. I've won the game in various ways, including military campaigns.

bombardment not killing off units was to make sure artillery units were not overpowered. If you could kill off units with artillery you would never need to produce attack units, and could simply use defensive units and a massive army of artillery to win.

I wonder why they didn't keep consistency with WWI that they started with the Battleship and Tank capabilities then :-) That's precisely that scenario.

Just because your units are modern does not mean you can count on them to win every single time. You may need to do surgical strikes with artillery and flight when dealing with a vast army of obsolete units.

After reading this forum in depth over recent weeks, that's exactly what I was doing. Bombard with artillery, advance attack units, attack with Veterans, finish off with Elites.
DRM

[Sabre2th]

Nope.

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by EnochF
Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds looks pretty good. And I might try Europa Universalis, like Yin suggested.

Excellent choice on EU. It's a solid game with a bit of a learning curve at the start and I'm enjoying it immensely.

[CyberGnu]

Yep. Uninstalled it twice, actually... I reinstalled it to see if some of the mods would make the game more interesting, since I really do want to like it... But I just couldn't take it.

Grumbold, if all there is to a boardgame is the manupulation of numbers, why bother with a graphical interface? Indeed, why bother with any historical terms at all? Why not just call the game 'Excel spreadsheet war 2001', and the first person to sum up 500 random numbers win?

I'm sure this is not what you meant, though. But you propably misunderstood the original poster.

The point is that if you have a unit called 'tank' it is supposed to defeat a unit called 'spearman', based on everything you know about history. If this is not the case, you have used a bad model.

Now, if you want the unit called 'spearman' to defeat the unit called 'tank' you;d better rename them to something logically consistent. Like '1', '2', etc...

But a regiment of spearmen does not defeat a tank battalion. Period.


Regarding the problems with the random number generator, I think this is a 'feature, not a bug'. Soren from Firaxis alluded to 'a unit always has a change to defeat another unit, regardless of odds'. This explains how my 12hp army of modern armor got killed by a defending spearman... Without the spearman getting a scratch, mind you.

If this is indeed a 'feature, not a bug' then it just again points out another horribly bad gameplay feature included in Civ3...

[Marquis de Sodaq]

If any of you sourpusses are serious about disliking the game so much, mail me your copy! I'll pm my address and mail you a few $ in return to show my thanks. I'd like to see firsthand just how lame it is.

[CyberGnu]

Sorry, I returned mine to the store... The second time I downloaded a warez version, not wanting to go through the hassle of returning it again...

[Bubba_B]

Put on your boots....

Without flaming anyone I will just say; The BS is getting awful deep here.

[Asher]

No.

[CyberGnu]

I'm sorry Bubba. A few classes of critical analysis should take care of that problem, though. Or maybe reading comprehension, if your problem lies at a more basic level.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Grumbold, if all there is to a boardgame is the manupulation of numbers, why bother with a graphical interface? Indeed, why bother with any historical terms at all? Why not just call the game 'Excel spreadsheet war 2001', and the first person to sum up 500 random numbers win?

I'm sure this is not what you meant, though. But you propably misunderstood the original poster.

Nope, I just have an extremely capable mathematician as a friend who will often point out after I assaulted the enemy with my "tank" and "stuka" counters that I had a 7.8% better chance of achieving the desired result if I has organised my attack in the optimum way. Assign any values to the units and the game can be played in a mathematical way should you choose to do so to maximise your chance of victory. Its not how I play, but I weaken my chances by not doing so.

The point is that if you have a unit called 'tank' it is supposed to defeat a unit called 'spearman', based on everything you know about history. If this is not the case, you have used a bad model.

Now, if you want the unit called 'spearman' to defeat the unit called 'tank' you;d better rename them to something logically consistent. Like '1', '2', etc...

But a regiment of spearmen does not defeat a tank battalion. Period.

We've got a whole other thread about that and I've argued my standpoint in exhaustive detail over there. A recent post also alluded to the other strategic events that could cause a tank battalion to lose almost irrespective of the opposition it faced, e.g. incompetence, disease, weather, faulty equipment, lack of supply and so on. If you take the strategic overview that over the course of a considerable period of time the tank unit had become useless but the "pikemen" bandits were still holding out in the hills, rather than one day the pikes charged the tanks in formation and won, it makes a lot more sense.

Regarding the problems with the random number generator, I think this is a 'feature, not a bug'. Soren from Firaxis alluded to 'a unit always has a change to defeat another unit, regardless of odds'. This explains how my 12hp army of modern armor got killed by a defending spearman... Without the spearman getting a scratch, mind you.

I'd be interested to see that post. If a unit always had a minimum 10% chance to win a round of combat it would certainly explain the most extreme results people claim to have seen.

[CyberGnu]

Grumbold,

Nope, I just have an extremely capable mathematician as a friend who will often point out after I assaulted the enemy with my "tank" and "stuka" counters that I had a 7.8% better chance of achieving the desired result if I has organised my attack in the optimum way. Assign any values to the units and the game can be played in a mathematical way should you choose to do so to maximise your chance of victory. Its not how I play, but I weaken my chances by not doing so.

The propabilities aren't that hard to calculate. Besides, there is a civ-calculator posted at http://www.columbia.edu/~sdc2002/civulator.html that calculates the odds for you.

But I still think you've imsunderstood the post.

Playing a historical game should eliminate the need to actually know the stats and propability of an attack. Your common sense should tell you that attacking an infantry unit in the mountains should hurt, badly. Your common sense should tell you that attacking a hoplite in the open with cavalry should slaugher the hoplites. Your common sense also tells you that attacking a tank with a knight is thoroughly Don Quixotian.

Unfortunately, in Civ3 all common sense does is to give you false information.

How would you feel if the stats for 'spearman' was 28/16/3, and 'tank' was 1/2/1? Would it confuse you? Would you be annoyed? And arguing that 'you have to learn to use your tank to defend your cities and your spearmen for blitzkrieg' doesn't really help, does it?

I certainly would feel annoyed by a 1/2/1 tank, and I feel the same way to a lesser extent about the current combat system.

We've got a whole other thread about that and I've argued my standpoint in exhaustive detail over there.

I haven't read it, and I only posted here because you seem to have misunderstood the original posters point... I've argued the same points exhaustively as well, and suggested a fix as well.

A recent post also alluded to the other strategic events that could cause a tank battalion to lose almost irrespective of the opposition it faced, e.g. incompetence, disease, weather, faulty equipment, lack of supply and so on. If you take the strategic overview that over the course of a considerable period of time the tank unit had become useless but the "pikemen" bandits were still holding out in the hills, rather than one day the pikes charged the tanks in formation and won, it makes a lot more sense.

Well, if my tank unit was that badly out of supply I would hardly decide to use it to attack when I have other units around, would I? I think it is a flawed argument, only used to defend one of Firaxis idiotic gameplay decisions. As for why... Well, I think n.c. said it best in a earlier thread.

I'd be interested to see that post. If a unit always had a minimum 10% chance to win a round of combat it would certainly explain the most extreme results people claim to have seen.

I think it is a lot less than 10%... Maybe 1 or 2%. Still enough to make an impact, however. I can't remember where I saw this.... Could be in the chat with Soren.

[yin26]

Yin26 - Your opinion of CIV III seems to have fallen since your review thread (which was somewhat 'less harsh' toward the game, since it was based upon expectations). What has caused this?

Well, I can say the first few games were fun, but by the 4th game, I was just horribly bored by all the senseless --click, move unit-- --click, move worker-- multiplied by over a hundred at times IN ONE TURN!

The combat is overly simplified and dull.

Diplomacy is overly simplified and unchallenging.

The economics are stale and sleep-enducing.

Even 'great things' like culture reveal themselves to be implemented in some form of unexplained rookie-like manner.

Then there are the bugs (notice this is only a very small part of my equation).

Basically, I now realize Civ3 is *not* for the serious gamer, for if it were, the challenges would have been much deeper and the game itself designed to make all the tedium much, much easier to handle.

Yes, please buy Europa Universalis instead. Curiously, that's a game I did *not* like the first few games but have since to regard as one of the best strategy games ever made.