How different would civ3 have been had Brian Reynolds stayed and developed it?

[Janus1978]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
It would have been real time. This was one of the issues that caused Sid Meier's Brian Reynolds to leave. The Civ3 team of the time (now BHG) really thought Civ should be real time so that they could do multi-player. This is kind of what they (BHG) are building. (They told me over lunch one day)

Do you mean in a Empire Earth kind of way? Or do you mean in a Europa Universalis kind of way?

[sophist]

Originally posted by David Murray
But lots of the features he pioneered are already in Civilization 3. Trading communications, loaning gold, unique personalities, security council (UN) votes etc all came first in SMAC.

If Brian Reynolds had designed Civ3 he would have been proud and rightly so! (Although replacing social engineering with a simplistic five government model was a big mistake.)

There was way more in SMAC that could have been put into Civ3 to make it better. For starters, the prototyping model is pretty cool and was pretty workable. Plus the unique map features were neat, though a bit predictable. And the government types were cooler. Atmospherically it was light years ahead.

SMAC was limited by the technology of its time (AI). If the same concepts were put together with civ3 today, we would have a much better game.

[Jaybe]

With Brian, the strengths of the game would have been different. Many people who are complaining about the game now would have loved it.

OTH, many people who love the game now would be MAD, UPSET & COMPLAINING!!

It's not the GAME people -- it's the PEOPLE! We all have different tastes ....

[John Paul Jones]

Ok then, simple answer: whats in SMAC/X thats missing in CIV ?

1. Stacked and grouped unit movement.
I really miss that highly configurable Assemble Group command.
And the AI can and does use it too.

2. Pseudo-3d landscape
I cant believe this progression wasn't made. It would have made the same revoloutionary leap that the isometric view made from civ1 to civ2. If someone could combine the landscape of say - Railroad Tycoon2 with Civ they'd be on to a winner.

3. Diplomacy
Options missing like co-ordinating battle plans , asking a warring party to make peace with another party, the U.N. council, etc.

4. The Design Workshop
It would be cool if i could build maybe horse-drawn settlers (Move:2) or a transport aeroplane , or how about a Privateer with the ability to capture other ships.

...and on and on ad nauseum

I'm not saying BR was responsible for all of these features Maybe he was right to make the move when he did. I think the major fault lies with outside publishers who see artists as some kind of widgets on their factory lines. There is one hell of a game waiting to be made - it will just take more time and effort , but "if you build it they will come"