Not Fair and Just Not Fun Anymore

[XPav]

Re: a little less mean-spirit please

Originally posted by art_vandelai
I think the game has taken on less of an open-ended style - to prosper you have to basically follow the standard pattern of building a whole bunch of settlers to expand/cut off the AI expansion and get all the land and resources you can, then kill your neighbour, then do whatever you want after that

I disagree. I played a game where, as the French, I only had to kill off the pesky English that started on the same island as me and kick the Persians off my island, and then eventually won the game with a diplomatic victory with 10-12 cities. I was way behind land area compared to the Germans & Russians and nearly everyone else, but my cities were packed full of people and extremely productive, which allowed me to get far ahead in the science race, as well as having enough money to buy my opponent's loyalty.

Or, I could have done the space race.

[Moraelin]

Originally posted by Deornwulf
I know that you like to be able to win every time but doesn't that take away from the fun? Shouldn't there be some element of chance that might result in your defeat?

I'll tell you a brief story. I while ago, when The Sims had just been launched, I was a regular in the The Sims chat room. And THE number one most asked question would be: what are the cheats? Every other newbie asked that. (Sometimes more precisely phrased as: what is the MONEY cheat?)

And after hearing it the 5'th time in the same day, I'd go something like: "Why do you even need a cheat? I mean, really, it's not even possible to lose in The Sims." And indeed, there is no economic race, no world to be conquered, and so on. Why bother?

And the thing I was told, and it made sense, was: "Because different people play for different goals." While MY approach at the game was to maximize income, produce THE perfect layout, and generally play it like a strategy game, most people weren't playing it like that.

Some were actually just using it as a prop to make a story. Think: making a comic out of screenshots. (And there are a few thousands of those made with The Sims, so it's not just one loony's idea.) The money restriction was just some unneeded "challenge" for what they wanted to do. They didn't want that getting the props should be the challenge. Their challenge was getting the simulated people to do the right thing in the right place at the same time.

Others were using it as a house layout design program. They didn't want a challenge, they just wanted to make their ideal house in the game. Now. Compare layouts. Stuff like that. It's not a loony idea either. Reading some Maxis interviews revealed that the game was INTENDED to be usable and user-friendly in that role. More user friendly for Random J Gamer and family than a full blown CAD package anyway.

And so on.

Different people see different things in a game. What for you is boring, for someone else is just the way they want it. And what for you is a welcome challenge, for someone else might be just pointless frustration.

Mind you, I who was criticizing them for wanting cheats, was playing The Sims too in the first place. Not only that, but I've played it for far more hours than ANY other game. (And I'm playing games since '83.) Why? It had no challenge, as I've said. There weren't many ways to screw up at all, and you could sort of insure yourself against them from the very beginning. Dunno. It just had that "just five more minutes" feeling.

Look at the sales for The Sims. Even without counting the expansion pack sales, it's one of the games on the Top 10 Selling Games Ever list. Near the top of the list, in fact. It handily outsold any Civ incarnation. It also outsold Half-Life, even with the runaways success of CS.

Apparently there are a LOT of people who don't really need a challeng to enjoy a game. Or even don't want it at all. Go figure.

Back to Civ 3. Why would someone not want a challenge? For various reasons of their own. Probably because they don't see the same thing in the game as you do.

[Thrawn05]

Re: Not Fair and Just Not Fun Anymore

Originally posted by C Chulainn
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.

Go to Civilizations in the game editor, and change the gender.

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.

Then start another game, or better yet, use the editor to generate a map for you, and see if everything is spaced out, and if not, place some resources to even things out.

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.

On the natural resource tab in the editor, set Disappearence Prob to 0.

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.

Is that a bad thing? I say, the more the odds are stack against you, the better!

[dissent]

Dissent - Now that's just nasty. So the guy is having trouble on chieftain, and doesn't like the game? Why insult him?

I wouldn't call that insulting. It just sums up my argument against those who quit the game after failing to beat it the first, second, or third time. Civ3 is far different from its predecessors because it requires more actual strategy in order to win. If you don't have Coal, you have to go get some. If your opponent doesn't have Coal, you have a strong advantage over him, and vice versa. To beat Civ3 at a high difficulty level you must be concious of your culture rating, expand with settlers and your military, keep a strong economy, acquire all necessary resources, and keep your reputation polished. It is far from easy, but can be done. It just takes a little bit of time to learn how everything works now.

I firmly believe that Civ3 is not for everyone, as Civ2 was. It is for the die-hard strategy fans who welcome and enjoy a challenge. So I jokingly referred weaker players to games they might enjoy (win) easier.

[francoImpaler]

Originally posted by waasabi
It is very easy to out-produce, out-tech, out-culture AND out-military the AI _all in the same game_.

This is quite true if you are willing to go to war for resources. In the real world there are other ways to acquire resources. You can steal them, trade for them, extort them and the other civilizations do not need to know what they are. For instance, did the guys we first acquired rubber from know what we were using it for and how valuable it was?

I would like to see them add the ability to establish resource colonies in other civs terrirory. You could lease the right to a colony for say 50 turns with the understanding that it could not be inside a city border. If it later becomes essential to the AI they can decline to renew the lease. It would also provide a great staging area for invasion.

[yin26]

But what do you say to a guy like me who played 3.75 games (was winning the last one handily on Emperor) and won -- not counting my first game that I played very conservatively and lost -- from Day 1? Clearly, I found the game too easy. On top of that, it was boring me out of my mind. So not only was the game ZERO challenge, it was clunky, bug-ridden, amateurish and dull. How did I win so easily? I simply saw what the comp did: Settler Diarrhea, and started squatting myself. Worked like a messy charm.

Do you say the game is not for me because it is too hard for me? Surely not. Care to try another reason?

[Moraelin]

Originally posted by dissent
I firmly believe that Civ3 is not for everyone, as Civ2 was. It is for the die-hard strategy fans who welcome and enjoy a challenge. So I jokingly referred weaker players to games they might enjoy (win) easier.

Personally I guess I'd count as a die-hard turn-based strategy fan, on account of the sheer number of hours spent in games like Steel Panthers, Battle Isle, Panzer General, etc. Plus sequels. Plus variations thereof. (Like the Allied General and Phantasy General derivatives.)

Yet Civ 3 fails miserably in that aspect, too. The combat engine isn't anywhere near good enough for a turn based strategy. E.g., off the top of my head, the game engine in Panzer General had soft attack, hard attack, air attack, initiative, ground defense, air defense, bombardment, several levels of entrenchment, etc. And heck, that was one of the more abstract models, as strategy games go. I remember at least one game where they tracked even how many tanks of each type are in a unit. (E.g., you could have 12 tanks of one type, 6 of another type, and 20 of yet another type.) Civ 3 has... what? Two numbers that are very badly chosen for the vast majority of units?

And if you don't believe me, have a look at how each time someone complains about combat, there'll be someone to claim that "Civ 3 is not a war game" so it doesn't need a good model for war.

Frankly, it looks to me like at heart it's FAR more suited to catter to the casual sunday gamer than to the die-hard strategy fan. Only it failed to properly catter to the sunday gamers, either, by the looks of it.

[RichM]

Ai cheats

The difficulty levels should be comparable to civ2. All the lower levels are too hard on this game. Nobody will convince me that the AI doesn't cheat on regent level. If you devote all your resources to expansion, when the expansion is over not only will your neigbors have expanded faster than you, but they will also have a fully developed military and be several techs ahead of you. If you retire you can see it all happening in the game summary.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by The Eliminator
They released the patch in fairly quick fashion.

Europa-Universalis II was released after Civ III (but also before it was completely finished).

Paradox released EU II's first patch before Firaxis did. Paradox has already completed the 2nd patch for EU II and is waiting on their publisher to put in the copy protection to release it. Paradox responds quite a bit more frequently to questions on their fora (but then it's on their site).

I like the early and middle parts of Civ III. I like having to use combined arms to take cities. I like that resource stragetgy is now part of the game. But the game gets unplayable for me towards the late part of the game. I spend vastly more time waiting for my turn than playing my turn. I've been reading, organizing my room, cooking, watching tv, taking showers, etc. waiting for my turn. Screw it.

I will wait 'till the game is playable before I buy it. Glad I tried it before wasting my money.

[Code Monkey]

Re: Ai cheats

Originally posted by RichM
The difficulty levels should be comparable to civ2. All the lower levels are too hard on this game. Nobody will convince me that the AI doesn't cheat on regent level. If you devote all your resources to expansion, when the expansion is over not only will your neigbors have expanded faster than you, but they will also have a fully developed military and be several techs ahead of you. If you retire you can see it all happening in the game summary.

You know, even on Monarch, I am able to keep up or out expand the AI, keep up or out research the AI, and always out culture the AI. I wonder why your game cheats and mine doesn't?

I might drop behind here and there but there's no reason beyond the fact the AI makes sacrifices that I don't which is why I eventually outclass it in all the categories. Your skill is insufficient - nothing more complicated than that explains your failure at the lower levels. I couldn't win at regent to save my live for almost two weeks after I got the game but instead of deciding it must be the cheating AI I tried a novel concept: figure out the balance of growth/expansion/improvement to win.

[XPav]

Originally posted by Moraelin


Personally I guess I'd count as a die-hard turn-based strategy fan, on account of the sheer number of hours spent in games like Steel Panthers, Battle Isle, Panzer General, etc. Plus sequels. Plus variations thereof. (Like the Allied General and Phantasy General derivatives.)

Yet Civ 3 fails miserably in that aspect, too. The combat engine isn't anywhere near good enough for a turn based strategy.

You're right. Civ3 is a lousy turn based wargame when stacked up against Steel Panthers, TOAW, and even the more-abstract war games like Panzer General.

But its not just a wargame. None of those games you mention (well, not sure about Battle Isle, since I've never played it) have diplomacy, production, empire building, etc etc.

Civ3 isn't a wargame -- its an empire building game that includes war. Compare it against, say, EU. EU has how many types of units?

Fun games all, but they're all different.

[C Chulainn]

Originally posted by Arrian
Dissent - Now that's just nasty. So the guy is having trouble on chieftain, and doesn't like the game? Why insult him?

- a perplexed Arrian

I wasn't "having trouble" playing at Chieftain ... I'd have won the game anyway, but it was just frustrating that the resource randomness had such a gross effect on things, making it not the cakewalk of a game I'd been in the mood for. It could have worked the other way - I could have been after a challenge at a higher level only to discover I owned all the world's coal and saltpetre, thereby making my victory a bit hollow.

[cutlerd]

The main complaint of many people seems to be lack of iron. I personally enjoy a challenge, and lack of iron in ancient times does not mean the end of the game for me....it merely means an ancient period where I will be at war and will expand my initial empire through conquest as opposed to settlers.

If you really despise lack of iron, just play one of the empires that does not need iron early on. India and Iroquois come to mind. The Iroquois horsemen can take on an iron civ with swordsmen and beat them raw. India gets its war elephants which can get you all the way to Cavalry.

I happen to think the resource system is probably one of the top 4 things in the game.

Devin

[Evil_Eric_4]

For those of you that think there arent enough resources heres a sollution---
Edit the standard map size to enable 16 civs.
That means AT LEAST 16 of each resource.
Other advantages include less wait time between turns than on a large or huge map-and theres always a weak civ nearby to conquer early on to give you a jump start.
Everyone starts with 4 to 8 cities and then the fun begins.

I have never had a resource problem at this setting and the games are far more interesting ie. more wars

In my current game(Std.random map-contenents-4bil-temp-16 civs,as french Monarch level)I have 4 coal,2rubber,and 3 oil in my territory.It is a very competitive game-Only 10 civs are left and 2 more are on the way out(I only conquered 2 civs)Im in first place with the greeks and egyptians very close behind and gaining.
Im currently researching radio and the greeks are already in the modern era.The end game will be very interesting with the three superpowers battling for world dominance.The Greeks are actually my allies right now but I guess that will soon change

[Disk Killer]

Ok, I swear I'm not out to make anyone look bad/feel bad but....

I've been going with my girlfriend for a year now, and introduced her to computer gaming. Her first game was Tropico, her second was Railroad Tycoon II, and her third is Civ3.

She did really well at Tropico, I should add. She has never played any other Civ games or SMAC.

Her first game was a struggle, though she had watched me play... she had disease strike her capital while she only had 2 cities, it was in the middle of jungle, and I thought she was finished from the start....

She won that game when time ran out in 2050, I was honestly shocked... I had lost my first game of Civ badly back in 1991.

She has played 6 games now (all chieftain) and is getting better and better...and won all 6.

I don't see how experienced strategy gamers can be losing at chieftain. My first game was at chieftain, I didn't get coal at all, and won cultural victory in 1808 with my scientists researching atomic energy. You just have to expand quickly, you can't depend on conquest to advance yourself too far, I think this is the trap old Civ2 players are falling in.

I found that game way easy and fun because I did what I felt like. My girlfriend is starting to feel the sameway, and will probably move up to Warlord for the challenge.

She is the proto-typical Sunday gamer, with very little experience. Smart as heck though, which helps.