Why Technology Sucks In Civ Iii

[shamrock]

I’ve got to say that the technology aspect of CIV III has been a huge disappointment.

Did anybody else notice that there are now FEWER techs than before? (89 in CIV II vs 82 in CIV III). In my opinion, the game could easily handle 100 techs. Either way, there certainly could stand to be more. How about barter, cuneiform, animal husbandry, stone working, wood working, founding, die-casting, forging, , tempering, or Bessemer process? What about textiles, sailing, compass, dry dock, leather, armor, stirrups, mercantilism, alchemy, or scholasticism. Or maybe division of labor, machine tools, telegraph, automation, calendar, cotton gin, or glass, just to name a few?

Furthermore, some weird connections and prereqs remain or have been added. How can you build a catapult (mathematics) without using a wheel? How can you distribute currency when you haven’t developed bronze working or iron working? How can you create destroyers and aircraft when you don’t even understand electricity?! No, Theory of Gravity is NOT a technology. And why the heck is Recycling needed before I can build Modern Armor or a stealth aircraft? I realize that no tech tree can be perfect, but I was at least hoping for something marginally better than the one in CIV II.

The minimum four turn research limit is particularly annoying. I’m sick of having to reduce my science to 10% or 20% because I’ve maxed out the research rate. Sure, I get lots of gold, but sometimes I want to really race toward techs, and I should be allowed to do that.

And the whole discovery rate is still too formulaic. There needs to be some sort of “Eureka” factor introduced. I shouldn’t know that I will discover technology “x” in 4 turns. Rather, there needs to be an element of chance introduced that allows for an increasing chance of discovery for each passing turn, e.g. 0% in 2 turns, 25% in 3 turns, 50% in 4 turns, 75% in 5 turns and 100% in 6 turns.

And because of the hard-coded graphical interface, none of the changes I make in the editor show up in this interface. Very irritating.

I also greatly dislike this idea of having to complete all (or nearly all) techs from a certain age. This contributes to a tendency in which all civs know pretty much the same techs. No longer can one civ be way ahead in military tech but way behind in cultural development. Maybe I just don't care about communism, okay?

Oh well, I feel better having ranted. Thank you, Apolyton, for listening to my ***** and moan session.

[shamrock]

***** gets deleted?! It's a female dog, for Christ's sake!

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by shamrock
***** gets deleted?! It's a female dog, for Christ's sake!

This is your "female dog and moan session"?


er... wait a minute...

[Sabre2th]

Yawn

[Venger]

Shamrock - you are right on the money. I found the tech tree inane, and the late tech tree is abysmal. You've mentioned some of the foolishness...how about being able to build aircraft carriers before flight? You cannot build a manufacturing plant or Aegis cruiser until the very end of the tree...

This is the best that 5 years of thought could produce? The same lame techs, but scrambled and made worse? I thought Sanitation was lame, but the Laser technology allows you to build the freaking SS Party Lounge? How gay is Firaxis for God's sake? Why not create an Interior Decorating advancement that allows you to construct a gay bar improvement, that makes one unhappy male citizen content in your city, but causes -1 population due to disease...

I originally held out hope for the game, but as soon as I found myself in the modern tech era - lame city. Civ3 in the late game is seriously disappointing, to the point of being an unplayable mess...

Of course, Sabre2th, your 5 cent head could only produce such a feckless response, and we can count on Osweld for an fawning peon viewpoint...

Venger

[Monoriu]

1. More techs does not equal a better game. I am sure the system can "handle" 300 techs. But does it make a more enjoyable game? Not necessarily. I don't want to play a game with 100 units types, 200 city improvements, and 250 techs. The game will take too long, and a lot of those techs/improvements will be redundent.

2. About the pre-requisites of techs. Here is a challenge for you: if you don't like the way it is arranged, then re-arrange the 80+ techs yourself and then post your suggestion. See if we can find any holes in it. This is a game about abstractions. No matter how you arrange the techs people are going to find things that are not logical. My native language, Chinese, does not use alphabets, for example. The point is, this is a game designed for fun.

3. Minimum 4 turn research limit. I like it, it makes the game more challenging. Makes it more difficult to get a huge tech lead and makes you make a real choice between the different paths, not just research everything. What's the fun in crushing a stone age opponent with modern tanks all the time?

4. Probabilities of discovery. I believe Master of Orion uses this system. IMHO both systems work and I don't have a strong preference.

5. Graphical interface. Let's say you make alphabet a pre-requisite for every tech. There is no way the science advisor screen can handle that. There is a genuine difficulty in re-drawing the chart if you change the pre-requisites.

6. Research paths. There are already different paths in the tech tree. If you don't like communism you can by all means skip it. You also don't need to complete everything to go on to the next age.

[Frito]

Originally posted by Venger
How gay is Firaxis for God's sake?

I don't know, but what does there sexuallity have to do with it?

[Venger]

Originally posted by Monoriu
1. More techs does not equal a better game. I am sure the system can "handle" 300 techs.

That's a fairly hyperbolic argument Monoriu, nobody was asking for 300 techs. However, even Civ2:TOT included in the extended game more techs than Civ2, but Civ3 goes backwards.

2. About the pre-requisites of techs. Here is a challenge for you: if you don't like the way it is arranged, then re-arrange the 80+ techs yourself and then post your suggestion.

First, I bought the game finished (I thought), why am I doing the work, unless they are going to cut me a developers paycheck? Second, many people have in various locations made changes to the tech tree that have made much more sense - come on dude, you can build an aircraft carrier before flight, do you have to be hit on the head with something heavy before you cop to that being just plain goofy?

3. Minimum 4 turn research limit. I like it, it makes the game more challenging. Makes it more difficult to get a huge tech lead and makes you make a real choice between the different paths, not just research everything. What's the fun in crushing a stone age opponent with modern tanks all the time?

Civ2 had the tech paradigm that, had it worked, would be perfect. An arbitrary minimum is a copout on proper tech design modeling. There should be an exponential increase in tech costs as the game get's later, simply to prevent tech avalanche like Civ2 had. I made the paradigm as high as I could in Civ2 and it STILL was too easy to start getting a tech every other turn. But a 4 turn minimum is goofy - a 4 tech goal isn't assuming a certain projected number of cities or research rate. But if I want to roll with 100% science, so be it, I ought to be able to go faster than 4 a turn...after all, if I can trade for an obscene number of techs with the AI in one turn, why can't I research them?

4. Probabilities of discovery. I believe Master of Orion uses this system. IMHO both systems work and I don't have a strong preference.

I prefer the more random kind - how lame is it to have that stupid Sid head tell you to research something that you shouldn't really know about until you discover it?

5. Graphical interface. Let's say you make alphabet a pre-requisite for every tech. There is no way the science advisor screen can handle that. There is a genuine difficulty in re-drawing the chart if you change the pre-requisites.

You can make alphabet a pre-requisite for every tech by reshaping and redoing the other pre-requisities. Creating a pyramidal tree shouldn't be that hard...

6. Research paths. There are already different paths in the tech tree. If you don't like communism you can by all means skip it. You also don't need to complete everything to go on to the next age.

But I have to research Communism or I might not know what a police station is...

Venger

[Monoriu]

Originally posted by Venger


That's a fairly hyperbolic argument Monoriu, nobody was asking for 300 techs. However, even Civ2:TOT included in the extended game more techs than Civ2, but Civ3 goes backwards.



First, I bought the game finished (I thought), why am I doing the work, unless they are going to cut me a developers paycheck? Second, many people have in various locations made changes to the tech tree that have made much more sense - come on dude, you can build an aircraft carrier before flight, do you have to be hit on the head with something heavy before you cop to that being just plain goofy?



Civ2 had the tech paradigm that, had it worked, would be perfect. An arbitrary minimum is a copout on proper tech design modeling. There should be an exponential increase in tech costs as the game get's later, simply to prevent tech avalanche like Civ2 had. I made the paradigm as high as I could in Civ2 and it STILL was too easy to start getting a tech every other turn. But a 4 turn minimum is goofy - a 4 tech goal isn't assuming a certain projected number of cities or research rate. But if I want to roll with 100% science, so be it, I ought to be able to go faster than 4 a turn...after all, if I can trade for an obscene number of techs with the AI in one turn, why can't I research them?



I prefer the more random kind - how lame is it to have that stupid Sid head tell you to research something that you shouldn't really know about until you discover it?



You can make alphabet a pre-requisite for every tech by reshaping and redoing the other pre-requisities. Creating a pyramidal tree shouldn't be that hard...



But I have to research Communism or I might not know what a police station is...

Venger

1. My point: more techs is not necessarily better. If you can come up with a suggestion to make the game better by adding more techs, fine. But I don't buy the argument that "civ 3 tech system sucks because it has only 82 techs compared with civ 2's 89." 300 is an exaggeration to make a point and you know it.

2. We are talking about different things here Venger. I have never said that I oppose any change to the tech tree. But if somebody insists that all the tech tree connections must be 100% realistic, then I am saying its impossible to make a tech tree. Want to prove me wrong? Make one yourself. I am sure we'll always have the "how can you research x without y" or "why do I need to research a before b" arguments no matter how we arrange things and THAT's what I am talking about.

3. I think you can go beyond 4 turns. I haven't tried it myself but many people are saying that they have gotten a tech every 3 turns if you pour enough science into it. Its like a soft cap. But I haven't experienced it myself. Its not really a hard cap.

4. Personal preference, really.

5. Yes I know I can re-do the tech tree entirely if I want to. The point is, the price of having such flexibility is that it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to properly represent custom made tech trees in the science advisor screen. I agree it will be best if it can show player changes to the rules, of course. But I appreciate why it cannot be done with the existing system because the combinations are almost endless.

6. I am saying that if you don't want communism, you can skip it. If you want police stations that means you want the tech. If you don't like it the way it is, edit the rules, but I don't think that's a weakness on the design.

[Jason]

How gay is Firaxis for God's sake? Why not create an Interior Decorating advancement that allows you to construct a gay bar improvement, that makes one unhappy male citizen content in your city, but causes -1 population due to disease...

Send your cheques to Jerry Falwell, c/o Venger

[Monoriu]

BTW Venger..... I have to agree with the designers that it makes more sense for aircraft carriers to require flight. When were the first real aircraft carriers made? After the discovery and wide-use of combat aircraft. Why? The main purpose of aircraft carriers is to carry aircrafts. How could somebody design a big ship to carry dozens of aircrafts without knowing what aircrafts are?

[reefer addict]

i find the tech tree pretty sad in this game. whats the point of being a scientific civ if you cant research any faster then 4 turns. thats great that i can build cheap libraries and all but you still will be held back from jumping ahead in tech. the design of this system forces all civs to advance at an equal speed which is just plain dumb. in real life does america stop reseaching new techs because somalia cant keep up? hell no

[Monoriu]

Originally posted by reefer addict
i find the tech tree pretty sad in this game. whats the point of being a scientific civ if you cant research any faster then 4 turns. thats great that i can build cheap libraries and all but you still will be held back from jumping ahead in tech. the design of this system forces all civs to advance at an equal speed which is just plain dumb. in real life does america stop reseaching new techs because somalia cant keep up? hell no

1. I agree that the scientific trait is a bit weak, but that's the fault of the civ trait, not the tech system, right?

2. No, it doesn't force every civ to advance at an equal pace. I have gotten a considerable tech lead (6-7 techs) over the AI at lower difficulty levels.

Off-topic: some people here complain that the system sucks because they advance at the same pace as the AIs, but many others complain because their modern tanks cannot crush the pathetic AI middle age civs

[Frito]

The only part of the system I don't like is the 4 turn 'cap'. The only times i've seen a 3 turner was when I went for a tech that was in a previous age.

I don't think the scientific trait is that weak, its very nice in harder levels.

[TechWins]

The 4 turn cap is inplace because the AI will eventually become a pushover without it (as you continue to play more and more). With the 4 turn cap the AI will have a better chance of staying in the game. Basically what I'm trying to say is that they had to put a stupid restriction on the game like this because of a poor AI.

The tech tree is really not that good at all, but for me (I have Korn's Blitz mod) the tech tree is not as bad. In that some techs that were useless before have improvements added to them now.

Monoriu, why do you feel the need to defend Firaxis/Civ 3? It's incredibly obvious that certain techs have terrible prerequisites or lack thereof. Now this would be a design flaw because Firaxis designed the tech tree. At what point do you fail to understand that?

Off-topic: some people here complain that the system sucks because they advance at the same pace as the AIs, but many others complain because their modern tanks cannot crush the pathetic AI middle age civs

The reason for that is because the AI has some unupgraded units laying around, not because of the AI is all that far behind in the tech tree.