Registering my Disgust...

[Arrian]

I just wanted to point one thing out.

Venger: "It's NOT FUN..."

Now, though I often disagree with what you say, you generally state your opinions well, as opposed to the pure ranting and raving I've seen from so many others on both sides. However, please bear in mind one thing - it's NOT FUN for YOU. I, too, believe Civ III has flaws. Some of those flaws we agree on, some we don't, but I do enjoy the game. So much, in fact, that I haven't been getting nearly enough sleep since it came out. This does NOT make me a "weak player." It simply means that corruption, as presently implemented, is an annoyance to me, but a game-breaker for you (I use corruption as an example, though there are others). I hope the patch has removed the "annoyance" level for me.

I say "hope" b/c I don't have the damn patch yet. *throws modem out window*

-Arrian

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Arrian
I say "hope" b/c I don't have the damn patch yet. *throws modem out window*

Rest assured. The corruption-levels are more reasonable now. I think that they have got it just about right with this latest patch. In order to ease of the corruption even further, you can choose to open the CivMod editor and change the build-cost for that "Forbidden city" mini-wonder, from 300 to 200 shields.

As for your download-problems, you should install a download-manager that can resume deliberately or accidently interrupted downloads. Check out this website. I use FlashGet myself.

[Arrian]

Ralf,

My thanks to you sir. I'll grab that download thingamagiggy once I get home. Or I'll have my friend w/DSL burn it on a CD for me. Either way, thanks.

-Arrian

[Deornwulf]

Why use corruption to limit size?

Why is it that corruption must be used to limit the size of an empire? It seems to me to be a bit of fuzzy logic to think "we don't want to set a hard and fast limit to the number of cities a player can control so instead we'll make any cities beyond X to be useless."

There are far more creative ways to have accomplished the same goal. The type of government should have been the first limiting factor on the number of cities allowed. The government should also limit the distance at which cities can be controlled. (No more global empires established before the end of the ancient era. )

As far as corruption, players should be allowed more control over where the corruption occurs. Instead of the game establishing that city 17 will have uncontollable corruption because of when it was established and city 12 will have more corruption because of how far it is away from the capital, there need to be controls of some sort that would allow the player to focus on making a particular city more productive.

Perhaps a slider that would allow the player to fine tune the levels of corruption in particular cities would do the trick. A player would have to perhaps allow one city to suffer from rampant corruption in order to make another one more productive. It would have to be harder to reduce corruption in the larger cities than the smaller ones.

There also seems to be a fixation on the importance of a single landmass in the game. Corruption increases for cities on other landmasses and they don't get the nifty effects of many of the wonders. All this seems to do is increase the number of games played on pangea maps and punish the island kingdoms players.

This can lead to the middle and late game tedium as there is nothing new to do other than micro-manage 200+ workers on those huge maps. A possible way to break this would be to add something to increase the concept of colonization vs imperialism into the game. Perhaps cities need to go through more stages before becoming full members of the empire.

help me out guys, I think I'm on to something.

[Iconoclast]

Alexander, Napoleon, and Hitler?
What do all of these guys have in common?
THEY ALL LOST!!!
Arghh, you can play Civ 3 just like those guys, and you will lose. Just like in real life.
Their empires crumbled beneath them, mostly due to culture and corruption. Those two terms sound familiar?
Even Caesar just built on the success of others.
Get real, this game exactly follows historical trends, and if someone wants to play as a expansionistic militant, they should expect to lose.

[Arrian]

Deornwulf,

What you are talking about now are major, conceptual changes to the game. I'm not saying they aren't good ideas, but I sincerely doubt we will see them implemented in Civ III. Civ IV, however, is another matter.

I think it's highly unlikely that Firaxis is going to change the basic game design. Corruption was tweaked in the patch, but what you are talking about is completely changing the way it works.

However, what I would like to see (and they did incorporate some of this in the patch, with the police station thing) is the decrease of corruption with the advancement of your civilization. In particular, the "distance to capitol" corruption. As for # of cities corruption... well, I have yet to experience the patch, but pre-patch I do think the # of cities was too low. Still, in a very general way, it does make sense to me that the bigger your empire gets, the more difficult it is to rule effeciently. Therefore, I think the # of cities corruption should be in the game, just at a more reasonable level.

-Arrian

[Libertarian]

The unfortunate thing about how it all turned out is that corruption absolutely overwhelms all other attributes of the game. When tedium is piled on top of impotence, it's hard to have fun.

(edited for syntax)

[wotan321]

When tedium is piled on top of impotence, it's hard to have fun.

Unfortunately, the same can be said for the tone of way too many posts in these forums....sheesh.... we wanted Civ3, they gave us Civ3.....now you want Civ2 again.....

Updated game... updated rules... updated strategy.....

If players want Civ3 to be more like Civ2..... go back to playing Civ2 and begin posting on the Civ2 forums.

"Chess is too hard! Why can't I move my rook diagonally? That's not right! How can I move my rook diagonally?"

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Iconoclast
...and if someone wants to play as a expansionistic militant, they should expect to lose.

Only problem is they don´t. They win with Despotic Pop Rush.

[Arrian]

Comrade,

Well, in MP I'd say that's a major, game-breaking problem. For me, who doesn't play MP, it's not an issue. Why? I don't poprush like that. I use it only early on for temples, maybe granaries or libraries. In any case, 1-2 times per city MAXIMUM. I'm off to Republic as soon as I can. Using despotic poprush with "training camps" (as described by Vel) to conquer the world is, to ME, clearly an exploit. Further, to ME, it wouldn't be any fun. None at all.

-Arrian