Confused about people quiting Civ3

[Brakner]

I'm a bit confused. I see tons of people shelving the game because of the combat and post patch AI aggression. Why don't you just change it like I did? It took me 5 minutes in CivEdit to make the game 100 times more fun ( and realistic ). All I did was increase the A/D of all units in future Epoch's cumulatively I.E. +4 to Medieval +8 to Industrial and so on. I don't have any problem with Swordsman killing my Tanks. I had one Mech. Infantry hold off 9 Calvary and only take 2 damage. As for the A. I. aggression just lower the slider under the Civ tab ( hell turn it off and you wont see an A. I. near your area all game ). When you change the Civ3mod.bic it applies to all games, random or scenario. What I'm saying is 30 minutes in CivEdit and you can make the game 100% to your taste.

[Panzer]

I believe that in a few moments a post will follow stating something like this: We shouldn't be the ones changing the rules, Firaxis should have done a better job in the first place!

As for me personally: I like it the way it is now.

[Brakner]

But thats my point... They make a game that tries to appeal to all people ( i liked it out of the box too ) but for those who dont they made it FULLY editable. Every single thing that people have posted about in this forum can be changed to the users likeing. I just think people whine for the sake of whining sometimes.

[number6]

The reason I am not playing anymore is because this version of Civ seems like a big step backwards as far as gameplay is concerned. In Civ 2 combat made sense right from the beginning, no need to have to edit the game settings. This version, while graphically enhanced, has ruined the intuitiveness of a great game. I understand that the settings can be changed, but to me that sort of takes the fun out of the game when I have to break the game to make it work in an intuitive way. That's just the way I feel about games in general. I don't mind a challenge. I do mind when games don't reward you properly for taking the effort to invest in superior military units. When modern tanks are killed by spearmen on the first combat round it sort of takes the fun out of the game for me. When the strategic resource I need is deep in another civs territory and they can't trade it, the only option I have is war. That's usually what happens when I play, but I hear a lot of people on this board say things like "Civ 3 is not a war game". You could have fooled me. That seems to be the only option every game I played. War is not fun in Civ 3 since the whole combat system is based totally on chance which basically has turned Civ combat into a game of Risk.

[Brakner]

number6 I understand your point of view. My point is in less than 5 minutes all that you said in your post can be changed to your liking. In the editer just increase the resource spawn and reduce ( or eliminate ) the chance of exausting it . All I'm saying is they changed the game to try to attracked more people ( which maybe wasnt a good thing ) but made it so that true hard core Civ players can adjust the game back to the origianal style.

P.S. If you dont like resources at all just change the " resource needed " to none on all units

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Brakner
I'm a bit confused. I see tons of people shelving the game because of the combat and post patch AI aggression. Why don't you just change it like I did? It took me 5 minutes in CivEdit...

Your absolutely right about that flexible CivMod-editor.

What makes the whole thing so bizarrely paradoxical, is that those civers who (all in all) likes the way how features & stats currently have been designed & tweaked in Civ-3, are the exact same ones who are most likely to fiddle around with that game-editor regardless. Just for the sheer fun of it.

And those civers who DONT like how some of these things have been tweaked, seems to be the same ones who almost actively shy away from ever using that editor.

You, Brakner - seems to be a very sane exception from the latter crowd.

But thats my point... They make a game that tries to appeal to all people ( i liked it out of the box too ) but for those who dont they made it FULLY editable. Every single thing that people have posted about in this forum can be changed to the users likeing. I just think people whine for the sake of whining sometimes.

I tried (and failed) to deliver the same message, with its obvious solution, to one of the more obsessively disgruntled "Civ-fans" around here. Below is what the guy answered:

Originally posted by Venger
God Forbid they release a product that didn't require a mod.

How the heck can one possibly get through to a guy like that? Beats me...

[Immortal Wombat]

"Every single thing that people have posted about in this forum can be changed to the users likeing"
Dunno about everything, but there's enough flags to do considerable tweaking. What most gets me is those Civ3 fanatics who b!tch about CtP2 for the same reasons other b!tch at Civ3. "Unplayable without a mod"

How the heck can one possibly get through to a guy like that? Beats me...

Dunno, but he's gone to the CtP2 forums (where he is very welcome) go figure

[Steve Clark]

You know, Ralf, you, I and others have been saying the same thing ever since the first features of Civ3 were announced earlier this year. But some still don't get it. They expect the game to be exactly tailored to their expectations, not concerning themselves that such 'changes' would have undesirable effect upon others. Why isn't haven't a game that can be editable to allow many different civers to enjoy the game on many different ways, be preferable? Wouldn't that be a more fair approach in developing a game to the general public? I guess some like to believe that in being hyper-critical towards the developers makes them feel more important than they really are (including myself), instead of learning to be adaptable.

[Deornwulf]

Re: Confused about people quiting Civ3

Originally posted by Brakner
I'm a bit confused. I see tons of people shelving the game because of the combat and post patch AI aggression. Why don't you just change it like I did? It took me 5 minutes in CivEdit to make the game 100 times more fun ( and realistic ). All I did was increase the A/D of all units in future Epoch's cumulatively I.E. +4 to Medieval +8 to Industrial and so on. I don't have any problem with Swordsman killing my Tanks. I had one Mech. Infantry hold off 9 Calvary and only take 2 damage. As for the A. I. aggression just lower the slider under the Civ tab ( hell turn it off and you wont see an A. I. near your area all game ). When you change the Civ3mod.bic it applies to all games, random or scenario. What I'm saying is 30 minutes in CivEdit and you can make the game 100% to your taste.

I think that many of the issues others have with the game have nothing to do with parts of the game that can be edited. Bugs and crashes are what cause most of the discontent. Besides, some parts of the editor are nebulous and vague in exactly what they are supposed to do. For example, how different is minimal corruption from nuisance?

I have also noticed that radical changes in the editor can lead to crashes and bizarre game play. I had an army that spontaneously dumped its contents while I was moving it.

To sum up, there are some who think the game is broken so like any sensible person, they have returned the broken goods from the place of purchase.

[rah]

There are two reasons that I don't want to use the editor to TWEAK things.

1. I shouldn't have to. I want to play the game the way the designers intended. If they find problems and change it in a patch, fine. (yes real weak, but what the heck, I thought two reasons sounded better than one ) BUT it's still a valid point for all you holier than thou people. Just call us purists.
I do view most moding as cheating anyway. I want legal cheats.....I mean strategies.


2. Part of (and a big part) of playing SP games (SINCE NO MP) is comparing strategies and performance. For comparisons that mean anything, everyone has to be playing the same rules/settings. What fun is it to brag how well I did in a certain game if I had to mod the rules to attain it. I don't see any threads on Earliest Launch using specific mods. Or posting strats that only work with certain mods. That's just looking for ridicule and abuse. We have to have common ground to compare.

RAH

[Brakner]

Deornwulf maybe that is hardware configeration and not the game. I have been playing for 3 weeks straight ( sometimes for 10 hours + a sitting ) and have never had a crash. I have gone completely crazy in the editor ( just to make silly games ) and have never had a crash. I see this all the time on other forums I.E. Star Fleet Command , Empire Earth and yet i have never had a crash in either of those games too. Simple things like soundcard and video sharing same IRQ 11 or background programs or bad video reference drivers will kill a game more than bad coding.


P.S. My video card is on IRQ 11 and so is my USB port...whenever i turn on my USB in the BIOS it crashes my games 50% of the time when i move my mouse. I could either get a serial mouse or play around with my video drivers. I installed the older Nvidia 12.41 and the problem went away... If i was like most people i would have gone onto a public forum and whine'd how the game crashes when i scroll my mouse

[Steve Clark]

rah, what you said makes sense to me. But the way Civ3 was designed, some have loved it and some have hated it; there's no way around that. I would like to see the Civ experience to be enjoyed by alot of gamers and knowing that no matter what the developers designed and patched, some will love it and some will hate it.

But the answer still lies in scenarios and MP. That's where Civ3 will really shine, hopefully, just like where we've been in Civ2. As much as I have talked about the editor, I have not and will not do it because such things are best done in scenarios where it can be tailored to the time period or event. That's what I am patiently waiting for.

[Kolyana]

EDITOR: Great idea, bad implementation. it's okay using it as an excuse all of the time to explain away poor aspects of the game, but the simple fact is that it doesn't do what people want it to do and it screws up other ingame features.

Sorry, but if editing the game to suit my taste is going to screw up some ingame features, the AI wont recognize the changes and I can't make half of the obvious modifications that I'd like ... then what's the point?

This is a good idea ... only partially implementated.

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Brakner
But thats my point... They make a game that tries to appeal to all people ( i liked it out of the box too ) but for those who dont they made it FULLY editable. Every single thing that people have posted about in this forum can be changed to the users likeing. I just think people whine for the sake of whining sometimes.

But THAT is exactly the point Brakner, the general settings are NOT okay. When Civ2 was released the settings were balanced enough to please the general public. Civ3 hasn't been playbalanced (or not enough it seems). The majority of the people don't even bother to edit the gamefiles because they expect it to be playable right from the start. The troubles start when it isn't properly balanced.
Imagine if the boardgame monopoly was released with a faulty manual with lots of contradictory gamerules. Would you play it? A small minority would struggle and make up their variants but the public would have simply dropped the game outright. The same goes for computergames.

If a few tweaks in the standard rules of Civ3 makes it more fun, why didn't Firaxis do it in the first place? To allow the buyer to have some fun editing the game?

-Nope, more probably it was due to the christmas deadline -

Add to that the fact that you changed the standard rules to fit your personal profile proves that the standard isn't properly playtested to begin with.

[Rhuarc]

I agree completely with you guys, the game was made to be changed. People say they want to play it like the designers intended it to be played, without modding. So maybe if you still don't like it, then you just don't like the game. It is just a matter of personal preference!! I know I know, people who are talking about bugs and crashes I understand, but for those of you who complain about gameplay issues either edit the game already or quit complaining!