Civ3 - a one time bit

[Ludwig]

Originally posted by Libertarian
Good insight, Ludwig. There are automated systems available, but people complain that those systems don't read their minds. Civ is definitely a thinking person's game.

I don't like to phrase it in exactly that way because it makes it sound like a matter of intelligence. I don't think it is - it's more like the ratio between effort and reward. Although most people, when asked, will tell you that they just want the reward, in many areas involving competition that just isn't true, because part of the reward is the mental state brought on by making the effort.

But I'm probably not explaining this right.

I downloaded CivI from an abandonware site a few months ago. had never played it; went from CtP to CivII to SMAC to Ctp2. I just plain old got to the genre too late for CivI. And the thing that struck me about that experience [again, after a lot of reflection] was that in some ways I enjoyed it even MORE, because of its primitivism, because of the extra clicking, because of the unavoidable pop-ups with long historical digressions. By the time I got anything done I felt like I had just climbed K-2. As the game system gets more streamlined and more abstract, it seems like more people get bored with the games more quickly. [If that's not too many "mores" in one sentence or anything.] Right, the pop-ups when you discover a new tech are less distracting now - but the entire exercise of advancing in tech feels more prosaic, less noteworthy, less significant. There are no pop-ups when units are done, and no pop-ups when cities go into disorder - so the start of turns is quicker and has less clicks to it - but now it's hard to be sure if you have any cities in disorder, the governor starts building things you don't want built and you don't know abou it, and the modern age has a distinctly "spectator" feel about it, wouldn't you say?

More rambling after I think about it some more.

[Be Quicker]

I agree with the complaints about tediousness. I am really suprised about the level of tediousness I am stuck in. Especially once you capture all these enemy workers.

Moreover, there is indeed some 'zing' (?) lacking in this game. That certain 'je ne sais quois' (?) which I think I felt while playing CivI and CivII. I sometimes get bored during a game, quit, and subsequently play some other game, or re-examine my stamp collection, or phone my parents in law...

I guess the feeling of having accomplished something is lacking, for example with regards to conquering. Probably because conquering is somewhat useless, and conceptually at least, 'easy'. I think I would feel more satisfied about conquering a city, when it either would be more difficult, or yield more benefits.

It is actually quite rampant in CivIII, the feeling that I am not satisfied with someting I accomplish. For example, what could possibly make me happy about the fact that I discovered polytheism? [other than that it is step towards monarchy, or that I can trade it with the AI]. Similarly I do not get that "yeeees, I've done it" feeling, when I built a wonder. Moreover I often find I run out of things to build in a city, and the only thing I am left with is to build a mobile attack unit to swarm the enemy with, and conquer useless cities. Lack of big points? [e.g. basketball vs. soccer, anyone?]

Maybe I should play it a bit more...
But I feel that although I cannot completely and accuratly describe why, I find Civ III less fun than the two originals.

[rid102]

By the time I got anything done I felt like I had just climbed K-2.

ROFL

Right, the pop-ups when you discover a new tech are less distracting now - but the entire exercise of advancing in tech feels more prosaic, less noteworthy, less significant.

Do you remember in Civ1 when you discovered a new tech, the screen cuts away to whatever tech you had discovered with a screen of a scholar and "Sire, our wisemen have discovered the secret of Map Making!" and a little description? The best bit though is when it plays that little tune which is Civ specific (it does wear a bit thin by the end of the game though)! It is so great anyway. Even Civ2 never came close to that.

[Be Quicker]

While I was typing my post, Ludwig made some very similar comments. I didn't mean to be that redundant or imitate him, so Sorry.

But he describes it well.
Especially:

' but the entire exercise of advancing in tech feels more prosaic, less noteworthy, less significant.'

or:

'and the modern age has a distinctly "spectator" feel about it'

[Libertarian]

There are no pop-ups when units are done, and no pop-ups when cities go into disorder - so the start of turns is quicker and has less clicks to it - but now it's hard to be sure if you have any cities in disorder, the governor starts building things you don't want built and you don't know abou it, and the modern age has a distinctly "spectator" feel about it, wouldn't you say?

Lord, no. My modern era turns typically take anywhere from two to four hours each, sometimes more. Due to my Melancholy temperament, I have a routine that never changes from the first turn of the game. Inspecting each city on each turn is simply the way I play. Therefore, I always know when my cities are even headed for disorder. And I always carefully select exactly what to build.

Tell you what. I'll give you a treat. As a supporter of the efforts of the Firaxis guys, and appreciating what they've done — working the long hours, enduring the endless insults from this forum, and whatnot — I've spent a lot of time hunting down all the little brushfire complaints and peeing on them.

But in point of fact, I don't think the game is perfect. I'm not talking about the AI or anything. Anyone who's ever written anything more than trivial code knows what a splendid job Soren did on the AI. Here's what I don't like:

-----

Nag Screens

No, I do not want to build a damn hospital. Quite often, I employ slow-growth strategies for a variety of reasons. When I want you to build a hospital, I'll tell you to build it. Don't make me click through an endless series of nags when I have fifty cities. If nothing else, give me a "No to all" option.

Next Unit Selection

Arggghhh! I'm in the middle of fighting a carefully planned and executed battle, dammit! Do NOT yank me from this arena to some irrelevant worker halfway across the world. Select units for me by first exhausting the stack I'm on, and then selecting the geographically closest units.

Civilopedia Access

I want to have access to it from absolutely everywhere, especially from the diplomacy screen.

-----

So, there you go. Proof that I'm no sycophant.

[Libertarian]

Originally posted by Be Quicker
While I was typing my post, Ludwig made some very similar comments.

What delightful irony!

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Venger
In order to maximize my empire, I have to railroad each and every tile on the map. It's ugly, it's tedious, and it's stupid.

Its not much in your post that I agree on, Venger, but with above quote I actually DO agree.

I would have liked to see railroads that increased shield-production; but didnt change the trade-produktion, and actually decreased food-production somewhat.

This would have forced the player to make some interesting choices & considerations. Unfortunately, in this particular respect Sid Meier had exercised som bad influence, since that railroads-benefits-anyting-and-everything approach, are the exact same one as in Civ-1.

The result? The same ugly, dense spiderweb-looking monotonous modern RR-empires, as in Civ-1.

[Venger]

Originally posted by Ralf

I would have liked to see railroads that increased shield-production; but didnt change the trade-produktion, and actually decreased food-production somewhat.

The REAL way it should be done is that roads and railroads form transportation links, and that the tile bonuses occur when you build a Highways city improvement and a Railway city improvement. The movement and trade connectors would then look like interestate highways and railrays, rather than making my map look like the backstage of a rock concert with 8 million wires and other pieces of crap littered about...

Also, as to food production, railways allows such a massive improvement of transportation, the ability to not only ship more food out, but heavier equipment for farming in, that I like the bonus that railroad gives farming - I just don't want to have 200 workers crawling the map doing it...

This would have forced the player to make some interesting choices & considerations. Unfortunately, in this particular respect Sid Meier had exercised som bad influence, since that railroads-benefits-anyting-and-everything approach, are the exact same one as in Civ-1.

I think railways are okay in any of the ways they've been used in Civ - but to have to cover every last tile with ugly as hell road and railroad is just ridiculous, and tedious as all hell...

The result? The same ugly, dense spiderweb-looking monotonous modern RR-empires, as in Civ-1.

Actually, same as Civ2 as well, although I never railroaded a square without shields or without an important transportation link (the AI Civs were always fully railroaded). And your description is right on the money...

Venger

[Venger]

Originally posted by Ludwig
I wanted to comment on the "micromanagement" theme that Venger addresses here and that many have responded to.

I've been of two minds about the entire issue.

Naturally, I see and understand the point about tedium. Workers vs. public works? Gosh, who would choose to move units around - isn't that the natural thought?

For what it's worth, I prefer workers over public works - the issue really doesn't have to come down to that though, because with either system, you are railroading every tile in your empire under the Civ3 rules.

I like micromanagement - hell I played Civ2 didn't I? But to HAVE to railroad every tile, with so many workers (no engineers people?), it's such a lack of forward thinking that it's shocking. They've had FIVE YEARS to rethink the genre, and so little to show for it on this count.

Venger

[Libertarian]

Venger,

When was Firaxis commissioned to do Civ3?

[Ludwig]

I couldn't agree more with Venger's aesthetic judgment of the road/railroad situation.

I like the suggestion to make them city improvements instead of tile improvements.

I also think an alternative would be to base the bonuses you receive on the number of cities connected in a single road/railroad network. This would mean that no further benefit would accrue to road or railroad construction, once all your cities were linked - unless you were building redundancy to survive bombing during a war, or were building a "short-cut" between cities that were already connected by a more circuitous route, etc. In other words, you wouldn't have railroads on every square, they'd just be where they made sense.

And the maps wouldn't be so blasted ugly looking.

[Venger]

Originally posted by Libertarian
Venger,

When was Firaxis commissioned to do Civ3?

I don't recall anyone commissioning them - they chose to I believe.

Regardless, if your point is that they haven't had 5 years to come up with something better, I was NEVER commissioned to do Civ3, and still had the gravitas to find a better way...

Venger

[Frito]

Originally posted by Venger
Regardless, if your point is that they haven't had 5 years to come up with something better, I was NEVER commissioned to do Civ3, and still had the gravitas to find a better way...

If your such the great programmer then why don't you apply at firaxis and really make a difference??

[Venger]

Originally posted by Ludwig
I also think an alternative would be to base the bonuses you receive on the number of cities connected in a single road/railroad network. This would mean that no further benefit would accrue to road or railroad construction, once all your cities were linked - unless you were building redundancy to survive bombing during a war, or were building a "short-cut" between cities that were already connected by a more circuitous route, etc. In other words, you wouldn't have railroads on every square, they'd just be where they made sense.

And the maps wouldn't be so blasted ugly looking.

Agreed on these terms - the only reason to have roads on every tile is for faster unit movement in off city tiles - which could be considered in adjusted unit move rate. For example, the warrior moves 2, which allows him to move around the map okay, but on a road he'd move 6 tiles. In fact, alot of people have a problem with move rates in general, this would assuage those. Any thoughts?

I think the number of cities connected to the network idea is good but is better reflected perhaps in trade/research/revenue, trade ideally, althought the Civ2 trade system would be more suited for that than the current Civ3 trade system of resources only being really good for what you can do with them. In Civ2 the resources gave you trade routes which prospered the city with extra trade arrows that could be used for luxuries, research, or money, as well as the trade route payoff. In Civ3, you get a small bonus for the resource on the tile, and you can build certain units or get luxuries - I think maybe an elegant combination of each would be well received. And that, combined/modified in effect with a connected trade network would be great.

Venger

[Venger]

Originally posted by Frito

If your such the great programmer then why don't you apply at firaxis and really make a difference??

I'm more of a designer than programmer - although I was a decent programmer back in the days (hey, I had windowed function calls on a TI99-4/A for Gods sake).

If I knew a group of guys who could program and put this together, I'd put in to release the definitive history/empire/strategy game, based heavily on Civ.

I'd also produce a first person internet playable rethinking of the old game "Archon 2", with first person combat in 4 different demesnes (5 counting the void) with choosable team internet play (where each captain "picks" players one at a time on each side, like in school growing up) and outstanding graphics and game mechanics...

If you know some good programmer guys looking for a vision, have them contact me...

Venger