Not Fair and Just Not Fun Anymore

[C Chulainn]

I've been playing Civ in its various incarnations for years... since I put Civ 1 on my DOS only 386sx25, and I have to finally say that I'm about to give up on Civ3.
Some people might already have read my moan about how on medium-high difficulty levels you're straitjacketed in your early strategy, and that's one annoyance. Another minor annoyance is that if you choose a particular nation, you are permanently stuck as either male or female, which is surely a step back from Civ 2 which gave you the option - if I choose to be the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses or Narmer, I don't want to be continually addressed as "Noble Lady" thank you... anyway, that's minor.
My real complaint is firstly the combat system, which seems sadly to have regressed almost to Civ 1 level where men in furs with obsidian axes can defeat your tank corps, but more importantly with the resource system... in search of a nice relaxing game of crushing my enemies, I recently played at Chieftain level... the trouble was the only iron resource was halfway round the world, and then there was only one coal resource on my entire continent and it was next to a Babylonian city - the Babylonians were my most important ally, so war was not an option. Everyone else in the game was too primitive to realise the value of coal, and so I couldn't trade for it. Phut! That was it. I was stuck unable to build any rail at all ever and so my technology stagnated... it was easy for the Greeks to then seize one city with a mass of knights and cut me off from iron as well.
The upshot of it is that I wasted time on a lost cause. I was doomed from the start by the (permanently fixed in C3) random resource distribution. At least in earlier versions it didn't take long into the game to find whether you were on a tiny island and therefore doomed.
It seems to me Civ3 is a bit of a lemon. You must play to the formula at higher levels, and no matter what level you play at you're ultimately waiting to see if the virtual dice are kind to you.

[hwinkels]

Blah, blah, blah. You've obviously mistaken us for someone who actually gives a rat's patootie. Look, you've got to learn when to cut your losses. Some games become obvious that it's going to be tough to win. That's when discretion becomes the better part of valor and it's time to start a new game. The way resources and starting locations are randomized in Civ3, there's no guarantee that every game will be winnable. Just ain't gonna happen.

[felder]

It seems to me that what you want is the ability to win everytime. I will agree that the combat system as issues, but you can work with with it. You can't just blindly send in tanks and other advanced units like you could in civ2 and expect to win. Civ3 does force you to use a bit of strategy. Did you combine defensive units with your tanks, and use bombardment to weaken the enemy before attacking? Are you mindful of the terrain and the effect it has on defense? Were you attacking large cities where defenders get a huge defensive bonus?

There's lots of things you can do in Civ3 to give you better odds in combat...and yes even then you will have the occasional spearman took out my tank scenario. While annoying, I don't see it has a deal breaker. Just build another tank and get on with it.

As far as the resource issue goes...it's totally luck of the draw. I'm sure you don't complain when an enemy civ is stuck in the stone ages because they don't have resources. If you don't have something, take it. If you can't take it, trade for it. If you can't trade for it, adjust your strategy. Kiss up to the AI until you're out of the iron and coal age. Granted, having no rails is a pain but it isn't an unsurmountable problem. This is particularly true because you indicated that the other Civs were too backward to know what coal is. If they don't have rails yet...certainly you're not at a major disadvantage.

Finally, getting mad because the AI does something intelligent and takes away your iron is ridiculous. Isn't the AI supposed to play to win? Don't you attempt to cripple the AI when attacking, by taking away its resources?

I will agree that Civ3 has issues...but it really sounds like you're complaining because you got your butt kicked instead of really addressing serious problems the game has.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by C Chulainn
My real complaint is firstly the combat system, which seems sadly to have regressed almost to Civ 1 level where men in furs with obsidian axes can defeat your tank corps,

Was your tank at full health or at reduced health? Was it a weak regular? Had it any terrain-bonus advantages or disadvantages?
Was the "men in furs" veterans or even elite? Was there several of them stacked, defending the same spot? Had they any city-, fortress- or terrain-related combat bonuses?

but more importantly with the resource system... in search of a nice relaxing game of crushing my enemies, I recently played at Chieftain level... the trouble was the only iron resource was halfway round the world, and then there was only one coal resource on my entire continent and it was next to a Babylonian city.

Did you play on a small map?
Do you mean "Only one iron-tile available" or "Only one iron available in the trade-advisor".

The first one is always used up by that Civ, if he have the tech know-how for it. The second or even the third one can be traded internally amongst the AI-civs.

Anyway; if you want to play an easier game, regarding resource-availability: open the CivMod editor -> Natural resources tab. There you can easily change the Appearance ratio and the Dissapearence probability for each and every strategic resource, as easy as 1-2-3.

[Xentropy]

Re: Not Fair and Just Not Fun Anymore

Originally posted by C Chulainn
you are permanently stuck as either male or female, which is surely a step back from Civ 2 which gave you the option - if I choose to be the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses or Narmer, I don't want to be continually addressed as "Noble Lady" thank you... anyway, that's minor.

VERY minor, yes, and one of the few things that actually CAN be edited in the civ3mod.bic :>

in search of a nice relaxing game of crushing my enemies, I recently played at Chieftain level... the trouble was the only iron resource was halfway round the world, and then there was only one coal resource on my entire continent and it was next to a Babylonian city - the Babylonians were my most important ally, so war was not an option. Everyone else in the game was too primitive to realise the value of coal, and so I couldn't trade for it.

If the Babylonians were such an important ally, give them the techs they needed to see that those dull gray rocks r0x0r, then ask for the coal.

That was it. I was stuck unable to build any rail at all ever and so my technology stagnated... it was easy for the Greeks to then seize one city with a mass of knights and cut me off from iron as well.

Good for the AI! A case in which it was actually somewhat intelligent. Amazing. This WAS Chieftan level, you said. Take it back! Yep, that's not easy without iron. So you got an unexpected surprise in the form of a challenge. If you don't want a challenge, by all means, don't play new games; you'll have to learn new strategies. Raillessness isn't a game breaker, anyway.

The upshot of it is that I wasted time on a lost cause. I was doomed from the start by the (permanently fixed in C3) random resource distribution. At least in earlier versions it didn't take long into the game to find whether you were on a tiny island and therefore doomed.

You could've held out until some coal squares exhausted and repopped. You DID realize there's a small chance each turn of a resource moving, didn't you? You could also have gone overseas to fight hard for a coal spot elsewhere. I mean, I can't think of ANY time in history when a motherland, strapped for resources, had to colonize and/or conquer overseas in the hopes of shipping back needed materials. I like the realism. Satya's world map, for example, very accurately represents both the European congestion and need to colonize "new worlds" as their own resources exhaust. If you don't find such things fun, you can always edit yourself a civ with all 6 advantages, several high end techs to start the game with (including steam power...gotta have those 4000 BC rails!), edit out the resource requirements, and have yourself a nice unrealistic cakewalk.

[C Chulainn]

Originally posted by hwinkels
Blah, blah, blah. You've obviously mistaken us for someone who actually gives a rat's patootie. Look, you've got to learn when to cut your losses. Some games become obvious that it's going to be tough to win. That's when discretion becomes the better part of valor and it's time to start a new game. The way resources and starting locations are randomized in Civ3, there's no guarantee that every game will be winnable. Just ain't gonna happen.

Yes, but it would be nice to know that the game had made it impossible to win without having spent a few hours playing first, would it not? You've obviously mistaken me for someone who is glad to take it up the a**e. This isn't a game of Solitaire.

[Capt Dizle]

this is not good

When people take the time to post their frustrations with the game they should not be flamed.

[C Chulainn]

Originally posted by felder
It seems to me that what you want is the ability to win everytime

As far as the resource issue goes...it's totally luck of the draw. I'm sure you don't complain when an enemy civ is stuck in the stone ages because they don't have resources. If you don't have something, take it. If you can't take it, trade for it. If you can't trade for it, adjust your strategy. Kiss up to the AI until you're out of the iron and coal age. Granted, having no rails is a pain but it isn't an unsurmountable problem. This is particularly true because you indicated that the other Civs were too backward to know what coal is. If they don't have rails yet...certainly you're not at a major disadvantage.

What I would like is the ability to progress - it was the 1950s and I was still only halfway through the industrial age, at Chieftain level, and with a Democracy and a small army of idle workers. Of course I was going to win anyway in the long term by being much larger than my Greek and Roman enemies, but that isn't the point. This randomness seems to completely control the course of the game, regardless of how well you play. You can start with your capital totally surrounded by cows or wheat, or you can end up with nothing but a couple of squares of spices on an entire continent... and yes, if I'd fancied a challenging game and just been handed all the resources on a plate while other civs had nothing, that too would have been a bit disappointing - what we have here amounts to poker with the betting taken out.

[C Chulainn]

Re: Re: Not Fair and Just Not Fun Anymore

Originally posted by Xentropy

So you got an unexpected surprise in the form of a challenge. If you don't want a challenge, by all means, don't play new games; you'll have to learn new strategies. Raillessness isn't a game breaker, anyway.



You could've held out until some coal squares exhausted and repopped. You DID realize there's a small chance each turn of a resource moving, didn't you? You could also have gone overseas to fight hard for a coal spot elsewhere. I mean, I can't think of ANY time in history when a motherland, strapped for resources, had to colonize and/or conquer overseas in the hopes of shipping back needed materials. I like the realism. Satya's world map, for example, very accurately represents both the European congestion and need to colonize "new worlds" as their own resources exhaust. If you don't find such things fun, you can always edit yourself a civ with all 6 advantages, several high end techs to start the game with (including steam power...gotta have those 4000 BC rails!), edit out the resource requirements, and have yourself a nice unrealistic cakewalk.

*sigh* the whole reason for playing at Chieftain was that in this game, I didn't want too much of a challenge! I'd done the colonise for resource thing already for the iron and was pleased it had worked for a while at least, only to discover I had been wasting my time ... yes, I know resources occasionally get discovered in new spots, but since it was already the 1950s, I was running out of time. Civ3 makes coal especially ridiculously rare (see another thread where there was one coal square on the planet...) making it all too close to "roll a dice to see who wins".

[Moraelin]

I've had one funky game, too, a couple of days ago, where just about every single kind of resource was on the other end of the continent. Picture a world shaped VERY roughly like the letter H. I've sprawled all over the left bar of the H (and wiped out India in the process), the English take the horizontal bar of the H, and most of the resources are in the right vertical bar. I've researched all the way to build Riflemen and Cavalry, but the Saltpeter is at the other end of the British empire, and Horses are even farther. I can't even make knights. I have my Wall Street guarded by Hoplites. LOL.

Just bribed everyone silly to leave me alone, until I got Infantry and Tanks. Especially the English, which served very conveniently as a buffer between me and the rest of the world. I figure the Queen had a hat made of my money by the end of it

[The Eliminator]

One thing I've noticed that is consistent with all of the complainers here is that they all lack imagination and creativity.

Not having a strat resource is one of the best parts of the game! Trying to get it what makes it so fun.

You obviously are not cut out to play Civ3, so if you are not up to discovering and testing new strategies, then cut your losses and sell the game on eBay.

Just quit crying.

[Venger]

Ah yes, someone points out the emperor has no clothes, and here come the sycophants with invisible thread and needles to try and weave one.

He is correct that resources as currently done render the game either unplayably easy or unplayably hard. If the AI doesn't have a resource, it's screwed. If you don't, you're often screwed. Oil, Coal, Iron are three things found on EVERY continent. Just not in this game. The implementation is poor.

Oh and yes, he wants to be ABLE to win every time. So do I. Nobody likes predestination. I've had my share of bad starts, but to not have ANY chance to overcome the game mechanics means you are walking into a wall.

Venger

[Bilo]

Re: Re: Re: Not Fair and Just Not Fun Anymore

Originally posted by C Chulainn

*sigh* the whole reason for playing at Chieftain was that in this game, I didn't want too much of a challenge! I'd done the colonise for resource thing already for the iron and was pleased it had worked for a while at least, only to discover I had been wasting my time ... yes, I know resources occasionally get discovered in new spots, but since it was already the 1950s, I was running out of time. Civ3 makes coal especially ridiculously rare (see another thread where there was one coal square on the planet...) making it all too close to "roll a dice to see who wins".

The reason coal is rare is the fact that it only apears on hills, mountains and jungles. If you take a 5 billion years old, non-humid planet; the number of the hills, mountains and jungles will be very low, and only on a small portion of these land will have coal. When you play with settings that would maximize your population, you should also know that you are hurting yourself on other ways.

[Moraelin]

The Eliminator, that's just nasty and uncalled for. One thing you probably should remember is that a LOT of the income from game sales is from us losers with no talent, no imagination, no gaming skill, blah, blah, blah. It's easy to say that all the people who've had bad experiences or lack the skill should just go away. But if they actually took a hint and did something else, instead of trying to play those games they suck at, the rest of you would be looking at a lot less games being published, and at a lot lower budgets per game. (And before you say "but Civ 3 would have sold even without the whiners", well, yes, maybe, but the publisher can't know that in advance. There've been games which looked like sure hits and only sold a few hundred copies total.)

And, yes, it's easy to edit those things in an editor, but you'll also have to remember that a lot of people just want to play, not to tinker with the editor and experiment with numbers. A lot of people just want to come home from work and start playing NOW. (That's why I love consoles, incidentally.) For you, yes, it may be the apex of fun to experiment with the lame editor and try until you can have something that at least doesn't crash the game. Good for you, and you have my sincere respect for that. But most people aren't of that mindset. E.g., that I've modded Civ 3 is a very rare exception, not a rule. (And looking back: far more of a source of frustration, than tons of fun.) Normally I'd say that I bought a finished game, not an engine to make my own game out of it. (If nothing else, if I just wanted an engine, I'd probably start with Free Civ, which (A) is free, and (B) is open source, so it's a LOT easier to mod.)

It would have been nice to just have a slider, like in CTP 2. You drag it to the left, there are less resources, you drag it to the right, there are more resources. Voila. Problem solved. It's an _user-friendly_ way to solve the problem, unlike the editor.

[Moraelin]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Not Fair and Just Not Fun Anymore

Originally posted by Bilo
The reason coal is rare is the fact that it only apears on hills, mountains and jungles. If you take a 5 billion years old, non-humid planet; the number of the hills, mountains and jungles will be very low, and only on a small portion of these land will have coal. When you play with settings that would maximize your population, you should also know that you are hurting yourself on other ways.

Which is yet another counter-intuitive thing, and not properly documented either. (And, yes, I've actually read the manual.) Common sense and this universe's physics say that Coal and Oil are fossilized organic sediments. All else being equal, a 5 billion years world should have a lot MORE coal and oil than a 3 billion year world.

Now you and I can think purely in terms of game tiles, common sense and laws of physics be damned. Probably on account of having played too much games But for someone who didn't... It's just going to be a nasty surprise. Can't really blame them if they'll be upset when that kind of surprise bites them.