Can a patch do the trick for civIII ?

[mfauzi]

Originally posted by yin26
I believe Civ3 is fundamentally flawed. No patch will ever make this the game Firaxis itself claimed it to be. Besides that, the company QA guy believes that bugs in a game make for a strong community, so you have programmers with very little clue how to make the game even close to the hype and a QA department that thinks giving patches is a kind of needless gift.

Add those up.

Hmm.. you sound as if it's a cospiracy that they're deliberately not going to release a patch to fix the game

[mfauzi]

Originally posted by yin26
I got there first.

I don't know if I'm been working too much, or my mind just isn't adequate for this sort of thing, but I have no idea what you guys are even trying to do here. Where did this argument even start from? Don't stop now, I'm laughing and I have no idea why

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by mfauzi


Hmm, can't be, or the democracy of US would have crumbled by now

No offence meant to any americans... just saying what it would be like if the real world reflects the corruption system in Civ III

See, that's why Civ3 is a GAME. You know, NOT REALITY?? Some things, like corrpution, were an attempt by Firaxis to stem folks with huge empires.

After all, most people seem to think Civ2 was "too easy", especially after they learn to "manipulate" the game to take advantage of it's flaws.

What's most amusing is to hear all the whining about how Civ3 isn't simply CIv2 or SMAC with simply a new interface and graphics. Umm, hello all you people who want Civ2 with new graphics, this isn't going to happen.

Will patches "fix" the game, yes, because eventually the editor will be robust enough for people to change their individual games to reflect how easy or hard they want the game to be (probably skew it in favor of the human and then complain it's too easy to beat as usual).

Corruption, weaker units beating stronger units, etc, are NOT "bugs" or "flaws", they are part of the game design and the intent was (I'm sure) to have people find NEW ways to beat the game and find interesting solutions to new problems, NOT to have them try their same old tactics and then whine and complain when they don't work anymore.

If old tactics worked then this wouldn't really be a new game, now would it???

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by Moraelin


First of all, I'm a country, not Random J Squatter.

A) There are a bunch of my people there, as well as an investment. If someone came and just took over, say, one country's offshore drilling plaform (which is a pretty good modern day example of a resource colony), I do believe it would be seen as an aggression. Noone would see it as "oh, it didn't have enough population to be a city, so it's ok. They can have it."

B) Again, there are a bunch of people there. Asking that it has a border around that 1 square it occupies, doesn't seem that much. Towns have at least 3x3 area, so 1x1 for a colony wouldn't make it a cheap alternative to towns.

C) Methinks military presence alone should count for something, if we're talking countries. If I have two riflemen regiments guarding that mining outpost, I do believe that that square is mine. If another country wants it, they'd have to attack my troops, not just claim it.

In fact, even if I don't even have a mining colony there, but just decided to build a fortress in the middle of nowhere and put some troops in it, methinks that that square is mine. I was there first. You want it, go ahead and attack me.

lol, have you lived in the real world for long??? Let me clarify your "examples".

The US has troops in Germany, Korea, England and other countries all over the world. These self-same troops have barracks, depot's, etc, where they are. By your example the US should then OWN that land and the soverign nation that has borders all around that area has NO claim to that area.

Want to bet that in reality, if one of these countries told us to leave that we would? You can bet we would, regardless of what we left behind. If you don't believe it go check out the abandoned air bases in the Phillipines and in other countries that didn't want us around anymore.

THink of your colony disappearing as simply the country that dissolved it as saying "hey, thanks, but we don't want you around anymore". It's not hard to do.

In NO way should ANY empire IN THE GAME be able to stake a claim simply because they have a colony or manned fortress on any tile. THis would be grossly unbalancing for the game, and I don't think you'd see many folks claiming to like it much if the AI was programmed to take advantage of it as Human players surely would.

[Akka]

Corruption, weaker units beating stronger units, etc, are NOT "bugs" or "flaws", they are part of the game design and the intent was (I'm sure) to have people find NEW ways to beat the game and find interesting solutions to new problems, NOT to have them try their same old tactics and then whine and complain when they don't work anymore.

They are here as a matter of helping the AI. Not that they are turned against the player, just that they tend to egalize all the civ and diminish both the ability to get far ahead and the advantage of being ahead.

[Moraelin]

Originally posted by Ozymandous The US has troops in Germany, Korea, England and other countries all over the world. These self-same troops have barracks, depot's, etc, where they are. By your example the US should then OWN that land and the soverign nation that has borders all around that area has NO claim to that area.

Hello? Have you even read what I wrote there. Well, let me try again. This time try reading please. I've said "I was there first".

So, no, it's not the same situation. The US wasn't there first.

The closest analogy to what I was actually talking about, is if someone made a fort on some small uninhabited island that noone claimed before. Let's say a volcano erupts, and a new 1 square mile island pops up. And let's say the US wants to claim it and builds a fort there and some troops. No proper city, just a military base. Now let's say Cuba sends 1000 settlers to settle on that island. What do you think happens? Do you think they just take control of the US military base on account that "you may have been here first, but you didn't actually build a proper city?" (Which is what happens in in Civ 3.)

Or let's say the US has a military base on right on the border with Mexico. And let's say Mexico builds a city right next to it, in their own side of the border. Do you think they just push the US border back and take control of the military base? Just because their city must have a minimum 1 square culture radius, and now the US installation falls within that? And they just tell the US to retreat their troops from what is now Mexican teritory? No, really. Can you see that happening?

That's the whole point. If I was there first, it's my land. Regardless of whether I have a proper city, or a mine, or just a regiment of tanks. I was there first. If you want that land, fight me for it. If you want those resources I'm mining, you'll actually have to send someone to take them. And they better bring a lot of firepower with them, 'cause I'm sure as heck not going to simply hand them over. Definitely not only because of "culture radius".

[Moraelin]

Originally posted by Ozymandous
What's most amusing is to hear all the whining about how Civ3 isn't simply CIv2 or SMAC with simply a new interface and graphics. Umm, hello all you people who want Civ2 with new graphics, this isn't going to happen.

Have you actually read the complaints before writing that? My chief complaint was precisely that it IS a Civ2 or SMAC, only with new graphics and a handful of stupid hacks that don't even work. I expected a new game, not a broken SMAC with higher res Civ2 graphics. The whole thing looks to me like just milking a franchise, and uninspired milking at that.

There were so many things that could be done to actually make a new game. But instead we get... what? An even more simplistic combat engine, a tech tree that's actually a step back, an AI that's even more stupid than ever, and so on. And a few totally minor tweaks that either make no real difference (whoppee! now rivers are between tiles. Big deal.) or just reward mediocrity and mindless clicking (the tech caps, for example.)

There are exactly TWO changes which would actually count as new. Culture and air missions. And both are broken. Whoppee. That's got to be good design.

Corruption, weaker units beating stronger units, etc, are NOT "bugs" or "flaws", they are part of the game design and the intent was (I'm sure) to have people find NEW ways to beat the game and find interesting solutions to new problems, NOT to have them try their same old tactics and then whine and complain when they don't work anymore.

Who said they don't work any more. I know it's more comforting for the ego to assume that all the "whiners" are simpletons who can't win the game. But if you had actually bothered reading what's written, it's quite the opposite.

No, I don't have any problem winning against a totally lobotomized AI. It's so predictable and ineffective, even though it cheats, that it's hardly any challenge. Yes, I can win against the AI without any problems. In fact, most of the stuff I'm complaining about isn't actually stuff that happens to my cities, it's stuff I exploit to take over the AI's cities. He doesn't win my cities because of the broken culture, I take over his. He doesn't take my colonies, because I don't bother making stupid colonies, I take his.

But guess what? Simply whether I win or lose doesn't automatically make a game good. It's still crap.

[gnome]

Originally posted by mfauzi


Hmm.. you sound as if it's a cospiracy that they're deliberately not going to release a patch to fix the game

Personally I think the patch will be a great help, and I enjoy the game already. But what you're seeing is some of the cynicism left over from the SMAC/SMACX experience, I'll bet.

SMAC timeline:

1. Release of buggy game.
2. Patched to tolerable.
3. Release of expansion pack with worse bugs than ever.
.
. (LONG wait)
.
4. Release of patch that resolves only a relative handful of the bugs.

[hexagonian]

As a fence-sitter on all this I have to say that Moraelin makes the better argument...The simple fact that he is cleaning the AIs clock should stop any additional comments to the contrary.

Firaxis will not patch issues that are inherent design concepts (HP/Firepower in combat, intense late game micromangement). Some players prefer these things anyhow. Ultimately, players will decide to buy the game based on what they want to do - if you like to micromange, and move 100-200 units per turn, if it does not bother you to lose Modern units to a bunch of rock-throwing primatives, if you want to wait 10-15 minutes per turn in the late game for large maps, then civ3 is for you.

It probably will not be for me though. But I want to see the readme and exactly what the patch will fix before deciding.

[dweez]

Am I really the only one enjoying this game?

I think the concept is good, but the bugs are annoying. The bugs can be and will be fixed (or so I hope).
I don't really understand the complaints that say that the game is broken because in reality this and in reality that. Let's face it: in reality you won't ever be conquering the world, so why not settle for a computer game?