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Civilization 3: End of the Line
It is a hard thing, to give in, to admit to the truth about that rotten feeling, the one that has spread from somewhere deep in your tummy to every part of your body and soul. So pervaded have we become with the sickness of it that a postmortem analysis of our very bones will surely witness the sad fact we now have before us.
Civilization 3 is not a good game.
It is an average game. And that is kindly not linking in our expectations of the product. If we did that, it would in no way be adequate.
I am, by way of ending this chapter of my gaming life, going to share my feelings of what went wrong in the development of the game. I am mixing opinion, fact and assumption. This is what I think.
The First Mistake: Who designed this game anyway?
Sid Meier is a great designer who has the freedom to work on whatever project he desires. He has earned it by producing many great and notable games. It is surely not reasonable to expect him to spend two years of his life on a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to one of his earlier games.
Sid designed neither Civ 2 nor SMAC. Brian Reynolds was responsible for both of these games. With Sid looking on and Brian under the hood things looked great for Civ 3.
Brian left. Sid had his head in a dinosaur. A dinosaur game. Sid didn't want to do Civ 3 in the first place. Trouble in paradise.
Instead of having both Sid and Brian, two of the best game designers alive, working on the development team, Civilization 3 ended up being designed by your ordinary run of the mill, "lets hire someone to finish this so Sid can make his damn golf game" type of designer.
The result was an ordinary run of the mill type of game.
The Second Mistake: Civ 3 was indeed supposed to be SMAC 2, but heck, its not even Civ 2 and 1/2
What were they thinking? Civ 3 is the linear successor to SMAC. There was simply no way to back track and eliminate all the enhancements from SMAC and satisfy the gaming public.
Even worse than that the designers eliminated tons of features from Civ 2 as well and failed to replace them with anything remotely interesting or fun. Civ 3 should be called Civ 1.5 or Civ Lite: The Test of Patience.
Someone really goofed here. The logical progression from SMAC to Civ 3 would not have been that difficult. Firaxis made progress on the concept of air combat. This seems to prove that progress was technically possible.
But the designers were off in a different, totally confused direction. Eliminate everything that the player can do to exploit the AI. In the end all they managed to do was create tedious periods of "please wait" until the next available period of micromanagement tedium.
Someone please tell the Firaxis staff that games are supposed to be fun. They program like IRS agents.
Rush wonders? Oh no, new rule, wonders can't be rushed.
Wonders rushed by leaders? Let the morons try that, rule, one great leader per 24.3 hours of game play.
Specialist cities? Oh no, new rule, specialists only produce one of this or that and no city bonus.
People were harvesting forests? Oh no, new rule, once per game.
People were rush conquering? Oh no, size one cities disappear.
Can anyone else see the pattern here? Any visible trend. Sire, you may attempt to steal that tech for 47,689 gold pieces and only a 98% chance of the whole world going to war on you!
The thought of future patches make me shudder with apprehension.
The Third and Final Mistake: Failure to respect the Civilization heritage.
Civ 3 was rushed out the door with little or no testing. The game was not fully developed. Beyond the lack of MP, it is clear that many of the game elements are just THERE, not in anyway fully integrated into the product.
Given the fact that Civ 3 was the most anticipated game of the year, maybe in the last several years, this was a CRIME.
Civilization is no longer the golden name in gaming due to the lackluster effort of Firaxis/Infrogames to produce a worthy successor to this fine line. The inevitable result of trend of milking the public for whatever they will pay.
I don't mind it too much though. The Firaxians will now learn the third rule of commerce.
What? The first two?
I will list all three.
1. You must work hard to make a successful product.
2. After that then you can sell anything.
3. For a while.
It is a hard thing, to give in, to admit to the truth about that rotten feeling, the one that has spread from somewhere deep in your tummy to every part of your body and soul. So pervaded have we become with the sickness of it that a postmortem analysis of our very bones will surely witness the sad fact we now have before us.
Civilization 3 is not a good game.
It is an average game. And that is kindly not linking in our expectations of the product. If we did that, it would in no way be adequate.
I am, by way of ending this chapter of my gaming life, going to share my feelings of what went wrong in the development of the game. I am mixing opinion, fact and assumption. This is what I think.
The First Mistake: Who designed this game anyway?
Sid Meier is a great designer who has the freedom to work on whatever project he desires. He has earned it by producing many great and notable games. It is surely not reasonable to expect him to spend two years of his life on a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to one of his earlier games.
Sid designed neither Civ 2 nor SMAC. Brian Reynolds was responsible for both of these games. With Sid looking on and Brian under the hood things looked great for Civ 3.
Brian left. Sid had his head in a dinosaur. A dinosaur game. Sid didn't want to do Civ 3 in the first place. Trouble in paradise.
Instead of having both Sid and Brian, two of the best game designers alive, working on the development team, Civilization 3 ended up being designed by your ordinary run of the mill, "lets hire someone to finish this so Sid can make his damn golf game" type of designer.
The result was an ordinary run of the mill type of game.
The Second Mistake: Civ 3 was indeed supposed to be SMAC 2, but heck, its not even Civ 2 and 1/2
What were they thinking? Civ 3 is the linear successor to SMAC. There was simply no way to back track and eliminate all the enhancements from SMAC and satisfy the gaming public.
Even worse than that the designers eliminated tons of features from Civ 2 as well and failed to replace them with anything remotely interesting or fun. Civ 3 should be called Civ 1.5 or Civ Lite: The Test of Patience.
Someone really goofed here. The logical progression from SMAC to Civ 3 would not have been that difficult. Firaxis made progress on the concept of air combat. This seems to prove that progress was technically possible.
But the designers were off in a different, totally confused direction. Eliminate everything that the player can do to exploit the AI. In the end all they managed to do was create tedious periods of "please wait" until the next available period of micromanagement tedium.
Someone please tell the Firaxis staff that games are supposed to be fun. They program like IRS agents.
Rush wonders? Oh no, new rule, wonders can't be rushed.
Wonders rushed by leaders? Let the morons try that, rule, one great leader per 24.3 hours of game play.
Specialist cities? Oh no, new rule, specialists only produce one of this or that and no city bonus.
People were harvesting forests? Oh no, new rule, once per game.
People were rush conquering? Oh no, size one cities disappear.
Can anyone else see the pattern here? Any visible trend. Sire, you may attempt to steal that tech for 47,689 gold pieces and only a 98% chance of the whole world going to war on you!
The thought of future patches make me shudder with apprehension.
The Third and Final Mistake: Failure to respect the Civilization heritage.
Civ 3 was rushed out the door with little or no testing. The game was not fully developed. Beyond the lack of MP, it is clear that many of the game elements are just THERE, not in anyway fully integrated into the product.
Given the fact that Civ 3 was the most anticipated game of the year, maybe in the last several years, this was a CRIME.
Civilization is no longer the golden name in gaming due to the lackluster effort of Firaxis/Infrogames to produce a worthy successor to this fine line. The inevitable result of trend of milking the public for whatever they will pay.
I don't mind it too much though. The Firaxians will now learn the third rule of commerce.
What? The first two?
I will list all three.
1. You must work hard to make a successful product.
2. After that then you can sell anything.
3. For a while.
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