What make you thrilled in Civ III ?

[Calvin Vu]

These were the kinds of things which made people feel good over their "accomplishments" in Civ II, or, at least, these were the common sources for braggings:
- have a superscience city which can crank out X golds per science per turn and get a research for every Y turns.
- have their own cities as the top 5 cities just by building and developing them, not by destroying other civs' competing cities.
- have a big sprawling civilization and a huge score
of XXXXXX.
- get to AC in year NNNN.
- beat the AI with OCC.
- develop a trading strategy to help their civ.
(almost like figuring out that bringing silk and Ming
china from China to Europe and mechanical trinkets
like watches in the opposite route would bring
huge profit).
- get a huge number of wonders.
etc., from one city to hundreds of cities, from a gold/trade-based strategy to a shield-based strategy.

So, what makes a Civ III lover absolutely thrilled ?
Beat the AI civs ? (Isn't that possible with any other
games ?). The AI is more challenging (because nobody could reasonably expand and therefore the lone and crippled human civ can't beat the AI civs easily when they gang up, even though the AI civs are similarly crippled) ? Feel more cultured because there is a culture rating? Nicer graphics ? The polluters get a heavier punishment by having to move 20+ workers to clean up a polluted spot ?

[techumseh]

When it crashes.

[muppet]

AOPLYTON. It has to be Apolyton at #1!

Scenario:
Start New Game.
Boring at start (1 city) but gets exciting quite quickly.
Get to Industrial Age.
Boredome sets in.
click click click click.......
www.apolyton.net [click]!
ah!
Read funny posts!
Take out frustration on Apolyton members!
Start new game!
Repeat.


Anyways, just MY "thrill" with civiii.

[notyoueither]

When I start on a large Island with no resources and only 1 type of luxury. Once I find the mainland it is occupied by strong AI Civs.

After 3000 years of struggle I win. Don't care how I win. The fact I won is some minor miracle of mastering the game.

Oh, and that I never lost a Tank or Modern Armour to anything of lesser value than Infantry.

Salve

[C0ckney]

Not a lot at the moment

[Libertarian]

Thrills?

I'm reminded of the sadist and the masochist sitting on the couch. Masochist says, "Beat me! Beat me! Oh, please beat me!" Sadist folds his arms, gives the masochist an evil grin, and says, "No."

[Admiral PJ]

I think civ3 is excellent,
why is everyone so lazy in this forum and can't be bothered to move workers around or think about expansion properly to defeat the other civs?
if theres too much pollution for you, then edit the pollution down or remove it.

I love the small wonders.. how now many wonders need certain things like the Iron works needs coal and iron near it( i'll be able to make one just next to germany in my game when i get a new city in position.. or conquer their cities giving a non maintenance factory), or Wall Street needs 5 banks.. these give mini game quests in a way.

Theres great possibilites for Scenarios too, despite what many simpletons state, just wait for the editor patches.

Strategic resources are great.. just cut off an enemies iron or coal and they can't built pikemen or railroads or factories etc, or capture an enemy countrys supply of saltpeter if you have none of your own.

[King of Rasslin]

I like pumping the difficulty really high and hogging as many luxuries as possible, and try to hold them off of the computers. Then i sell them for an extreme price

The resource system and the borders make Civ3 much better than Civ2, but it does have a very high system req. It is most thrilling to listen to the comps beg for a resource, or to be #2 and somehow get an ally to beat the #1 comp

[BeBMan]

I always love it when an enemy city "surrenders" to my great culture

I don´t care much about getting the biggest highscore, however, I enjoy it when my civ is number one in all entries on the demography screen. I like it when my units become "elite" or even produce a leader after a fight. Also the negotiations with the AI are good.

But the most thrilling thing for me is when I try to repulse an enemy mass attack...

[Grrr]

Being able to edit my high scores in highscore.cnt, and making it seem like I am GOD to the other people who use my computer.

[zorbop]

i'm always impressed with myself when i can sit through a couple turns of moving 2000 workers around. then sit through "you are 2 turns away from finishing the paramids. would you like to switch to an aquaduct" "you are 1 1/2 turns away..."

of course i'm also impressed with myself when i can play civ3, do my homework andwatch tv all at the same time. "clickclickclickscriblescriblescribleHEY LOOK AT WHAT HOMER DID!!"

[Calvin Vu]

Now I see why I can't find a reason to enjoy the game:

- I don't enjoy beating the AI civs if it's no fun. It's a game, after all. I crushed the AI civs at Monarch and won the space race around 1700 but it's still no fun since I don't have the feeling that the result went 100% according to my plan, not 75% according to the game designer plan and luck.
- I can't hoard luxuries very well (by creating scores of one-shield-one-gold cities in all continents ?). Anyway, even when I get most of the luxuries, the AI civ would demand 3 luxuries and 50 gold/turn from me for their one luxury anyway.
- I don't want to work harder in playing the game. After alll, my wife has already complained that I AM lazy in playing the game in the first place instead of doing something more useful. Spending too much time moving workers in a computer game is not characterized as "hard-working" according to her book.

I do like looking at the demographic screen and I agree that the mini-wonders add extra nooks-and-crannies to the game to explore. However, the game just seems too sadistic in design to me. It just seems to gauze how much pain and annoyance I could endure to get to the end of the game and I suppose I fail the test since I'm only looing for fun.

[Arrian]

For me, the thrill is having a truly dominant civ. Not "domination victory" necessarily, but a civ that fits my criteria for domination. This means local access to at least 6 of the 8 luxuries, the #1 ranking on the demographics for all the important stuff (pop, land area, productivity, etc.), a solid tech lead on the opposition, and darn near all the wonders of the world. Then I feel like I've built something.

Basically, I take pride in games where I could chose any victory condition (perhaps excluding the UN one, because I hate it) and do it. I like knowing that my massive army of modern armor could take over the world (if I had the patience to rack up the 66% of the land area), but instead chosing to build the spaceship.

-Arrian

p.s. I like doing this without a total slash and burn strategy, so I have yet to advance beyond Monarch level.