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My disillusionment is finally complete.
Playing the Romans on Monarch, I played a wonderful and interesting ancient and medieval game consisting of a series of organized wars against the Germans and then Persians. I seized my island, roughly 35% of the entire land mass of the world, a great, well-stocked continent of about 30-35 cities (large map). At peace, I fought pollution with my LEGION of captured workers and a small number of Romans quite effectively until, after recycling, the pollution menace was virtually extinct.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, I plotted for approximately 40-50 turns to overthrow the French civilization, located on a small island about 8 squares off my southern coast. I built 8 aircraft carriers stocked with 2 bombers and 2 fighters each. I had a fleet of 12 destroyers, 4 battleships, and 10 transports. The transports boasted 40 tanks (including 3 armies), 8 artillery, 8 settlers (for razing purposes), and 8 workers (to clean their infernal pollution that they left unattended - we romans care about our planet) and 16 infantry...
After that 40-50 turns of building an invasion force, I invaded. Over the course of about 10 turns, I took several French cities immediately, and then slowly crawled across their island with my tank force and infantry support, bombing over and over again every turn...
But I began to realize that having to activate all of my bombers every turn was a nightmare. Having to bomb each city each turn was delaying the game, crawling my tanks across the island at one or two squares per turn was a bad idea since it would have been faster (but not MUCH faster) to load everyone back in transports and take them to the next invasion point... My fighters could not escort my bombers on missions even when they were in range, so my bomber force kept being destroyed (fortunately ampel bomber power remained to rebase from the mainland to the fleet), several of my carriers "attacked" undetected submarines by moving into their squares having not seen them (this happened to destroyers, too), and I wasn't able to hunt down the subs except to move something through EVERY square of ocean... In the end, I decided it was a moot point.
I COULD have wiped out the French, and then spent another few turns reorganizing and going after the Egyptians, Iriquois, and finally Aztecs... but if I really wanted to enjoy my game, it became apparent that I needed to start a new one. Once my race to complete Hoover Dam was complete, not one turn more was compelling.... It seems that way every game. Once I complete Hoover Dam - it's only a matter of deciding which type of victory I want, UN, cultural, space race (I don't have the patience to go for conquest)...
In the final analysis, I got my money's worth out of Civ3. But it only gets a C grade in my book. It won't be able to keep the fascination past the industrial age - and eventually I'll grow tired of playing the older two ages.... Ah well...
All power corrupts, right Sid...? And we rise to the level of our incompetence, just like John Romero... right Sid?
Playing the Romans on Monarch, I played a wonderful and interesting ancient and medieval game consisting of a series of organized wars against the Germans and then Persians. I seized my island, roughly 35% of the entire land mass of the world, a great, well-stocked continent of about 30-35 cities (large map). At peace, I fought pollution with my LEGION of captured workers and a small number of Romans quite effectively until, after recycling, the pollution menace was virtually extinct.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, I plotted for approximately 40-50 turns to overthrow the French civilization, located on a small island about 8 squares off my southern coast. I built 8 aircraft carriers stocked with 2 bombers and 2 fighters each. I had a fleet of 12 destroyers, 4 battleships, and 10 transports. The transports boasted 40 tanks (including 3 armies), 8 artillery, 8 settlers (for razing purposes), and 8 workers (to clean their infernal pollution that they left unattended - we romans care about our planet) and 16 infantry...
After that 40-50 turns of building an invasion force, I invaded. Over the course of about 10 turns, I took several French cities immediately, and then slowly crawled across their island with my tank force and infantry support, bombing over and over again every turn...
But I began to realize that having to activate all of my bombers every turn was a nightmare. Having to bomb each city each turn was delaying the game, crawling my tanks across the island at one or two squares per turn was a bad idea since it would have been faster (but not MUCH faster) to load everyone back in transports and take them to the next invasion point... My fighters could not escort my bombers on missions even when they were in range, so my bomber force kept being destroyed (fortunately ampel bomber power remained to rebase from the mainland to the fleet), several of my carriers "attacked" undetected submarines by moving into their squares having not seen them (this happened to destroyers, too), and I wasn't able to hunt down the subs except to move something through EVERY square of ocean... In the end, I decided it was a moot point.
I COULD have wiped out the French, and then spent another few turns reorganizing and going after the Egyptians, Iriquois, and finally Aztecs... but if I really wanted to enjoy my game, it became apparent that I needed to start a new one. Once my race to complete Hoover Dam was complete, not one turn more was compelling.... It seems that way every game. Once I complete Hoover Dam - it's only a matter of deciding which type of victory I want, UN, cultural, space race (I don't have the patience to go for conquest)...
In the final analysis, I got my money's worth out of Civ3. But it only gets a C grade in my book. It won't be able to keep the fascination past the industrial age - and eventually I'll grow tired of playing the older two ages.... Ah well...
All power corrupts, right Sid...? And we rise to the level of our incompetence, just like John Romero... right Sid?
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