It's not whiners vs. fanboys it's Sid fans vs. Brian fans

[ColdFever]

Originally posted by Moraelin
SOME people will want to go for conquest, but SOME people will want to build a rich and prosperous empire and make their people happy. SOME people will like being scheming and going for diplomacy finesse. SOME people will want to be scientifically advanced. Etc. THAT is the mark of a truly great game.

A very important statement - I also found myself most of the times playing a kind of war game that the aggressive AI is embossing, even if I try to avoid it.

Of course war belongs to the human nature - but to me there is little alternative in Civ3 to choose from. I played various games but I perceive that the computer players only distinguish themselves by aggressiveness, not by attitude or even "inspiration".

So to me Civ3 really plays like Civ-Chess: get a good position and go for it - there is no need for ethics, morale and all the other "civilized" stuff...

[Fidel]

civ1 - excellent, for its time
civ2 - great, for its time
civ3 - great, for its time

CTP - awful, for any time
CTP - awful
(but I do not lurk around CTP fora to state that 1000 times - Yin, please take a note)

SMAC - had interesting ideas but was too big and had too many stuff to build. I love Sci-Fi stuff, but it gets tedious after Super Plasma Bazoong Armor whatever....

Now if we agree with Korn that there are two camps, perhaps Yin may explain us if only mediocrities can enjoy Civ3 (while, I presume, only brilliant minds could enjoy Civ2 and EU)

[Ancientfool]

If I remember a rumor I read years ago... SMAC was great but didnt sell that well. CTP was also full of options and fell on its face when the AI didnt understand how to use those options..... I think the CIV3 team took those lessons to excess and decided for a mass-market, bare bones (for AI purposes) kinda game.

They overlearned the AI and marketing lessons of recent TBS games.

[yin26]

I've already explained why I'm still here. Truth be told, Civ2 is old news now, and EU is an acquired taste that I only picked up out of desperation to figure out what the heck all these people were praising the game for. Glad I gave it a chance.

Civ2 = Played it to death and got more than my money's worth out of it.

EU = Actually hated the first few hours but forced myself to get to the core of the game and, in turn, got more than my money's worth out of it.

Civ3 = Liked the first 2 games then got a sneaking suspicion ... which was proved right by my 4th game ... that it has no soul. But I will say I got my money's worth out of it. Then again, I was playing from a borrowed CD.

[Steve Clark]

Originally posted by Special_Olympic
Thr graphics are so bad in civ2 I can't stand to play it.

Go look at the details in these Civ2 units: http://csc.apolyton.net/units8.shtml

The Civ3 atmosphere and terrain graphics (using sn00py's stuff) are far superior to Civ2, but the units graphics in Civ2 is still better at this point. The fundamental purpose of the units graphics is to quickly differentiate one type of unit from the next. In Civ2 it was easily, esp. using Tim Smith's HiRes stuff or any of the custom units you see in CSC. In Civ3, I still have a hard time telling the difference between a spearman and a swordman and sometimes a warrior, esp. at the default zoom.

[ChikenWing]

Brian Reynolds

U guys should read this article, its by Reynolds, pretty interesting

https://www.gamespy.com/devcorner/april01/reynolds/

[Fidel]

yup. IMHO they implemented all of his ideas

[tishco]

i played shogun total war in between smac+civ2 and civ3, and i want units paper scissors stone.
when i confidently set my pikmen defending a city against a horse i want the pikman to win easier.
my two pence

[Arrian]

Xentrophy,

I just wanted to say that you summed up my feelings on SMAC better than I have ever been able to. Like you, I wanted to like SMAC... but didn't, for the exact reasons you state. I played it for a little bit, but ended up running back to CIV II after a couple of games.

I've never played Colonization... though I do recall being tempted to buy it. Too bad you didn't get into Railroad Tycoon, but one of my close friends who is a fellow Civ nut doesn't like it either, basically because it's just about building things and making money. I love trains, so I guess that helps.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

As for being forced to fight in Civ III... well, on the higher levels, yes you are, particularly after the patch. I still haven't decided how I feel about that. It seems reminiscent of Civ II MGE, which included a nastier AI than the original. Around the time you hit late industrial/early modern times, every single AI civ became hostile, and you soon ended up battling it out. It seems that Firaxis has taken Civ III in that direction. The patch definitely screwed up my strategy for a bit, as I was not used to being sneak attacked in 2000bc by a warrior (that sucked... warrior v. warrior fight, I lose w/o inflicting so much as 1 hp in damage, Babylon captured, game over. How humiliating). But I'm adjusting. Part of me appreciates that the AI will do things that I would do to it. On the other hand, sometimes it can be frustrating.

-Arrian

[korn469]

i should have clarified, the too most vocal groups of fans are the so called Fanboys who love the game because of the Sid approach, and those whiners who hate the game because it didn't take the Brian approach

of course there are people who hate civ3 because its not starcraft 2, or the sims online, or quake 7...but that is not the people i'm talking about, i am referring to diehard vocal fans of the civ franchise

[Moraelin]

Actually, LaRusso, I'd argue that Civ 3 missed at least half of his points by a mile.

E.g., Civ 3 goes completely against the part where he says that having only linear non-interesting decisions is not fun. THAT is what over-simplifying everything has brought about.

E.g., he clearly states that the way to go is to emphasize rewards and downplay punishment. And that he doesn't want to force the player to use external cheat programs, because suspension of disbelief goes out the window then. And that if you go out of your way to punish the player and stop said player from bypassing those punishments from within the game, he WILL use external programs. Yet Civ 3 saves the random seed.

E.g., he is for helping those who are behind, not for having non-movable invisible walls that you run into when you're ahead. He clearly states that if it gets to a point where you're making no more progress, it's no longer fun. Yet Civ 3 has... what? Corruption run out of control. In every single game I've played, came a point where any new city would actually net me a LOSS. (1 coin, minus cost of temple to keep it from defecting, minus the upkeep of 2 or 3 units there to keep that city = I'm actually losing money there.)

And so on and so forth. That's just three random picks out of a mile long list of stuff that they seem to have missed completely.

[VetLegion]

civing at the speed of thought. that is what I want, I dont give a sh1t is it designed by brian, sid or yin26

TBS should be fast on a 450 Mhz machine.

[VetLegion]

In every single game I've played, came a point where any new city would actually net me a LOSS. (1 coin, minus cost of temple to keep it from defecting, minus the upkeep of 2 or 3 units there to keep that city = I'm actually losing money there.)

Man, you are ignoring so many factors here. You couldnt finish a game if you dont think of long term values. Every military unit is a loss of money if you look at it that way, together with most buildings etc. The first thing a little civer learns in school:

1. It is not possible to describe value of a city with money.

[Cypselus]

Nice article, and describes exactly what's wrong with Civ 3.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by korn469
i should have clarified, the too most vocal groups of fans are the so called Fanboys who love the game because of the Sid approach, and those whiners who hate the game because it didn't take the Brian approach

of course there are people who hate civ3 because its not starcraft 2, or the sims online, or quake 7...but that is not the people i'm talking about, i am referring to diehard vocal fans of the civ franchise

Korn, I see what you mean, and yes, I am definitely hard-core 'Brian approach', but I liked CivI, and I admit that the Sid approach may work, it just doesn´t work in CivIII, because that game was made by neither Sid nor Brian. They didn´t even make clear exactly who is responsible, for good reason...