Announcement

**yin26** · January 10, 2002, 02:31

My first thought: If you were to head PR for Firaxis (not the back-room, deal-making PR ... honest-to-God in-the-trenches PR) then both the fans and the company would find themselves much happier overall.

My second thought: If you decide to apply for such a spot, don't do it with Firaxis. It's not their bag.

My third thought: I have a sneaky feeling that Firaxis is watching the financials closely before dedicating much into Civ3 beyond basic stuff. Therefore, I worry a bit about spinning my wheels any more than I already have for the past 2 years.

My fourth thought: I admire your patience and approach.

My final thought: Civ3 is most likely beyond repair. Firaxis has displayed neither the talent nor the commitment to make me feel otherwise. Thus, I say: Vel -- save your considerable talents for EU2 and MOO3!!!

Lord, if you had only hooked in with MOO3 a few months ago, I bet you'd be a well-respected member of their staff by now. Consider it still.

**yin26** · January 10, 2002, 02:37

Ah, forgot my actual gut reaction: "Oh, crap. If Vel is disenchanted, the pessimists really ARE right."

**Dan Magaha FIRAXIS** · January 10, 2002, 02:43

Vel,

I strongly urge you to apply for one of the slots in the new public beta program that Jeff is rolling out. Drop me an email if you're interested.

Dan

**Fidel** · January 10, 2002, 04:45

Originally posted by yin26
Ah, forgot my actual gut reaction: "Oh, crap. If Vel is disenchanted, the pessimists really ARE right."

As they say over here, a priest without any job to do ends up baptizing calfs.

**korn469** · January 10, 2002, 04:57

Vel,

awsome post, because it certainly expresses how i feel about civ3

firaxis nailed the framework perfectly, but the house feels empty especially upstairs in the industrial and modern era

Very good game, actually, but not immersive

i feel the same way, it gets tedius, not because the game systems are outdated but because they don't have enough details

1). Discovery Phase - Awesome!! Excitement and adrenaline...VERY immersive beginning. All that black menacing shroud....you don't have many cities or units, so the turns fly by....one wrong move and it sets you back centuries. THAT's where the magic is.

2). Spankin' the neighbors - Awesome!!!! Ancient Era warfare rocks, and the AI can usually make a good showing....several times they've forced me to change plans in mid-stream by massing galleys and hitting some flank position. Frequently they'll fortify areas AND staff them well! It's wonderful.

agreed, the early game is very addictive

3) Onward to the Middle Ages! - Excellent/Very Good. Solid gameplay. Still not soooo many cities and units that it's just insane, and there's lots of building up to be done....a few more neighbors to whack and so forth....

i disagree, i think the game starts to slow down somewhat in the middle ages simply because of lack of things to build and also because if you are expanding like crazy the world fills up by about the midpoint of the middle ages (unless you have already hammered all of your foes)

4) Mid-game warfare: UGH! By now, you've grown your Empire to its critical mass given the current corruption model. You've built all the essential stuff in your empire and are churning out units at a prodigious rate. You'd THINK this would be the grand, epic, absolute BEST part of the game, but it's not. This is where game play really starts to slow down, and the larger the map, the bigger the slowdown.

By now, your rivals have developed a sufficient cultural base that reversion is an issue, and even if the cities don't revert, they're stuck producing 1-shield per turn and scant money. Essentially, they're border bumpers and resource traps. Nothing more. Even so, capturing tooooo many of these cities will begin to degrade your production back home.

i agree...you run out of things to build way too quickly! plus by this point because of rivals there isn't any natural expansions and corruption makes further expansion through military action pointless

Also, by now, between captured workers and the home boys, you've got a scad of them, whether you intended to or no, and since the ARE costing you upkeep, you'd better damn well do something with them, so your turns start taking....longer....and LONGER....and l...o...n...g...e...r....until it's time to take a break from it all. (that's usually when I stop for the night).

5) Mop-Up: Decent. After giving the game a couple days rest, I'm ready to come back and finish it out. Suddenly, the tedium factor isn't as bad with some time away from the game, and I can generally bring the current spate of wars to a satisfactory conclusion fairly quickly and coast to victory from there.

you nailed it!

2) Build X number of this type building and you get Y game effect (as opposed to being able to build another Minor Wonder, for which there is no movie, no fanfare).

3) With the slightest tweaking, a VAST ARRAY of diplomatic options could be made available.....selling units to the AI to really HELP your allies in war, coordinating attacks, a UN Council that DOES something besides end the game (with no movie), all sorts of stuff! It'd be....cool!

those extras would adds hours of gameplay to each game of civ3

my biggest gameplay gripes with civ3

1) units need more hitpoints and slight balance tweaks
2) civ3 needs more buildings, and i think that cultural only buildings would be a perfect place to start
3) more interesting combat abilities that would encourage combined arms
an example of this would be, all units with the foot soldier classification would recieve a +25% bonus when attacking cities (like in SMAC); however the difference would be that if you had an army with at least one foot soldier unit in it then the entire army would receive that bonus, so every special ability any unit in the army had would confer that bonus to all units in the army
4) cheaper armies, more ways to increase the size of armies

also here are a few of my addition throughts

1) a more developed espianage system built around the current system,

for example after you have a spy in a city you could then build other espiange structures in that enemy city such as a safe house, which would give you a wider range of espiange options you could perform in that city plus your chance of success would be greater when performing all spy missions
if for example you had a certain number of safe houses then you could build a consulate in their capital which would be like an espiange small wonder, beefing up the espiange side of the game could also increase overall enjoyment

2) special guerrilla warfare flags in the editor

3) this idea isn't my own, but it has captured my imagination since the SMAC forum over at owo when someone proposed a similar idea
the credit for this idea goes to a poster called "some other guy" over at the civ fanatics forum

First someone has to build the Olympic games wonder, the person who builds it gets to have the first Olympic game in his most cultural city with a Colliseum, for each Olympic game the city gets +500 culture.

There will then be another Olympic game every 20 turns. The 4 most cultural civs and the civ with the ''Olympic games'' wonder get together and vote for where the next Olympic games should be.
Civs in war cannot vote or be elected.
A Civ cannot be elected twice in a row.
A city can only have the Olympic games once.

So....my fingers and toes are firmly crossed.....hoping that when the dust settles, we'll have a Civ3 before us that's every bit as maddeningly addictive as the ones that came before it.

They've got a good base to proceed from.....a few nips, tucks, and nudges, and it'll be there

you sound like me

**Darth Sidious** · January 10, 2002, 05:19

completely agree

i usually stop and start a new game when i reached "step 4"

there should be a lot more game mechanics like you propose to keep mid-late game interesting.

Don't ask this guy to do beta testing, hire him for game designer firaxis.

**HulluKarhu** · January 10, 2002, 05:24

What can a meer mortal say when in the presence of such wisdom

When I first stuck my nose into this arena and found the hints and tips..I thought this .."Velociryx."...knows what he is talking about ...what an underestimation that was.

Sid go off and retire gracefully hand your office keys over to Vel now!
Then he can think how to make a very good game great.
It cannot be done by patching it has to be and expanson CDROM.
Vels ideas plus some of the great graphics packs on our files page.
Dont take too long about though...

**player1** · January 10, 2002, 05:35

Velociryx

You are completly right.

Now what can be solution to those problems.

Stacking units for movment, worker jobs & bombarding would definetly help.

Better pollution-clen automated workers (very possibile in next patch).

Better autometed workers overall (barely possibile in next patch if ever).

Buil queues for workers.

Diplovictory to be modified or eliminated. For now it is just like
"one space part" victory (read: easy).

WEALTH should be much more powerfull (x2-x3). To make building it AN OPTION for peacebuilders, after all buildings are built.
So you could opt for incresed science (getting more wealth and raising scince sliders).
The way it is now just doesn't pay off. It is better to build a lot of units and be sure that no one would attack you.

AND LAST...

SCIRPTING LANGUAGE.

This thing is in fact more important for MODing instead for scenarios.

So many things have been done in CTP2 using scipting language.
Natural disasters, leaders, razing cities, etc...

Same scipting language could be use for forcing AI to change its working modes (if some trigger is triggered). That way "fanatic players" could try to modify it and make AI better then it was. Soren is just one guy. MODing community could help.

At the end Firaxis should look those well-made MODs and include same modifications in ORIGINAL game (by patch).

P.S.
One programming advice to Firaxis: thing about stacking.

It is much easier to do this for human players only. Let AI use old ways, because if we force AI to use stacks then A LOT of code needs to be changed.

So stacks should be programmed like some sort of batch procedures. Like players is binding several units toghter. And when player says: "move", then batch proc. is started and computer moves them one by one (with animations turned off for all exept first unit). Same for bombard & worker tasks.

At the end it could be included for some other orders: forify, activate, air superiority, etc...

This is really NOT DIFFICULT to programm.

P.P.S.
Dan, if you are actually reading this, and Firaxis intends to make stacking orders, then let Soren read this last advice (stacking).

P.P.P.S.
And if this is included. Old saves would not be compatibile since new save needs informations about existing stacks and their content.

Still old saves would be useful in new setting.

**Libertarian** · January 10, 2002, 06:19

Interesting.

So, Longshanks has offered nobility and an estate in England. It is my fervent hope and faith that we are dealing here with William Wallace and not with Robert the Bruce.

**Patient English** · January 10, 2002, 08:57

Dan as Eddie "The Hammer" Plantagenet?

Well, an ex-Civ III player I don't get a vote, but to continue the analogy, I say that Robert did more for the Scots than William did.

William: Wrong but Wromantic
Robert: Right but (perhaps) Repulsive

My point is that accommodation and cooperation might lead to a more productive outcome than leading a doomed charge. I wish good fortune on both their houses, even though nowadays I surf the Civ III forums more as a rubbernecker at a car crash - to steal Yin's memorable phrase.

**moomin** · January 10, 2002, 09:10

Originally posted by Libertarian
Interesting.

So, Longshanks has offered nobility and an estate in England. It is my fervent hope and faith that we are dealing here with William Wallace and not with Robert the Bruce.

That Firaxis has realised that their current offering is flawed is only positive. That they seek to employ the best - among whom Vel must certainly be counted - in an effort to correct the shortcomings is fine with me. I could wish they'd done this before the initial release, but better late than never.

This is, in fact, the first really encouraging sign we've had from Firaxis for some time. Do be grateful.

**The diplomat** · January 10, 2002, 11:07

I have to agree that the late game does "slow down". it is not as boring for me as some have complained about. I play on a small or standard map so I do not have as many cities or units as those who play on large maps.

I agree that managing a horde of workers and other units every turn is part of the late game problem.

I think the other part of the problem is that many turns can pass where nothing substantive really happens. At the start of the game, things happen. A barbarian horde suddenly threatens a city out of the blue, your scout unexpectedly bumps into the Aztecs, a city goes into riot etc... In the late game, I find myself just watching the AI workers scurry around, then I watch my workers scurry around, then my domestic advisors asks me a few things then the turn is over. 10 turns like this can go by where basically nothing is happening. Then suddenly, the Americans declare war on me for no reason. I perk up in my chair: finally something happened!

The truth of the matter is that at times I feel like it is the whole civ formula itself that is the problem. It feels like the whole game is only about managing lots of units every turn.

My ideas for a future civ game would be more radical.

1) eliminate all non-military units. switch to a PW-like system.
2) limit the number of things the player can do each turn. (MOO3 is trying this with IFP's)
3) expand the semi-random events engine. Have more Great leaders, Great Scientists, and other "hero" units that would either be good or bad for the player.

Vel, let me ask you since you are The Strategy Man. Would suggestion 2 increase or decrease strategy?

Specifically, if the player had tons and tons of possible actions that they could perform from raising taxes, raising armies, changing Social policies (think SMAC's SE), changing cities production, doing PW, attacking an enemy, spying, bribing enemy Great leaders to have them defect, changing research etc etc... Each action would cost 1 Point, and the player only had a fixed number of points to spend, so the player had to choose what action to do this turn and which actions have to wait for next turn to do. Wouldn't this system drastically improve strategy as well as make the game much more interesting? it seems to me that it would because it would be like chess. You have a huge number of good moves to make but you can't make them all. You can only choose 1.

Perhaps, the greatest problem with the civ formula is that the game does allow the player to essentially "play all the good chess moves at the same time." The player does not have choose 1 good move among them all. They can and are often required by micromanagement to do all the moves.

**Slax** · January 10, 2002, 11:12

The simplest end-game improvement: Add a great picture or movie for each type of victory (besides conquest and space race).

The current popup windows are such a huge let-down, especially after the late-game tedium.

**Velociryx** · January 10, 2002, 11:40

'morning all, and thanks to everyone for the replies!

First, I think that the simple act of someone from Firaxis putting in an appearance here says a LOT about their willingness to work with the gaming public to address stuff that we view as weak points. That's an awesome start, and a terriffic sign of good things to come!

Just read the note about the Public Beta group Dan, and I'll be sending my e-mail in shortly! That's *outstanding* and I'm happy to hear that Jeff was able to wrangle that into the mix for the new year!

More thoughts on the "Protectorate-Idea" Above:
* You could use revolutionary leaders for each Civ as the leaders of the Protectorate nation (ie - Washington for the Americans). Each game tho, their personalities have a number of random attributes, including favored government forms. If you're running a different form of government than your Protectorate(s), there's a greater chance of rebellion (and obviously, the greater the difference, the greater the chance of rebellion) - Note that this would vastly complicate governmental switching.....those turns you're in anarchy make a RIPE time for Protectorates to rebel!

* Strategic Resources and Lux Items are "shared" between the Empire proper, and your Protectorate state, since the Protectorate is a part of your empire....thus, so long as they're not in a state of rebellion, if they have silk inside their borders, you get the benefits of it.

* A variant of "initiate propoganda" could be introduced, usable ONLY on Protectorates. If successful, it increases the % chance of rebellion for X number of turns.

* If the Protectorate is in a state of rebellion, at that point, they may seek independent MPP's.

* Protectorates cannot vote in UN council meetings

Other stuff?

Game Design:
Actually, though I know next to nothing about programming, I have designed a few board games in the past, so I DO know something about the mechanics involved.

In college, I came up with a game based on the game of "Life" called "Beer Run" (instead of the Life board, it was a stylized map of our college campus). You started with $1.85 and had to a) Acquire money b) Get a fake ID c) Get safely off-campus during rush week, and buy some beer, and d) dodge Public Safety, returning to your dorm with the beer. First player back, wins. It became a cult classic on our hall...lol

Unhappy with ADB's Starfleet Battles board game (Federation and Empire?), I invented my own variant of it that proved to be a hit among my rabid SFB friends.

When I stopped playing Magic:The Gathering, but couldn't bring myself to sell off my cards, I determined to find a use for them, so some friends and I sat down and devised a somewhat politically incorrect game called "Holy War" set on a ficticious Earth, where Pagans (Greek Tradition), Druids (Celtic Tradition), Christians, Muslims, and Hindus all fought over the souls of the folks inhabiting the planet. Essentially, it was a wargame, with a twist of magic thrown in (each territory on the game board gives you mana a la M:TG, and enables you to cast spells (we wound up NOT using magic cards after all, preferring to devise our own "magic-style cards" unique to each religion.....some stuff would be common across all religions, but each had certain specialities (Muslim cards were very combat oriented, Christian cards were especially strong at infiltration and information gathering (Inquisition), Pagan cards were akin to Blue cards in M:TG, sublt in the effect, but changing the mechanics of the game itself), Hindu had HUGE defensive cards, and Druids had lots of unique Avatar specials (more than the others) including the Master of the Hunt, and the Wicker Man....*devastating* cards) to bolster your armies. The game featured standard board-game (axis and allies style) combat, magic (similar to magic cards), alternate victory conditions (each territory also had an "Influence Rating" - Gain X number of influence points and build certain wonder combinations and win by default, Wonders that could be built (both unique wonders for each religion (Pagans got the Parthenon, which enabled them to crank out their special unit, and served as a "manna battery", Hindu got the "Great Temple of Kali" which enabled them to convert influence points to gold, and generalized ones like "Compass and Sextant" which allowed the builder faster ship movement, and the ability to end the turn away from the coast). There were even "instants" that you could play when it wasn't your turn (including instant summoning cards that brought additional military units into being in the target territory of your choice). Enchantments and plagues that lingered on territories for as long as you were able to pay maintenance (influence/manna) on them, and one shot direct damage "spells" (earthquakes, tsunami, volcanic eruptions, lightning strikes, etc) that you could hurl at the heathens (and, of course, if their religion had sufficient influence, they could "bounce" your spell back at you!). Good game....fond memories there....

So yes....I know a bit about game design, and the frustration that comes with trying to balance it all out (perfect example: in playtesting the game above (Holy War), we stayed awake all weekend munching tortilla chips and sucking down tea, got down to the last three players (me as Muslim, James as Druid, and Aaron as Christian)....Aaron attacked me, and I unloaded on him with a beautiful combo I'd been working on that essentially saw his army crumble without significant losses to my forces, HOWEVER,

While I was responding to that threat, James' Druidic forces (with their special unit, the "Elemental" attacked me en mass along my southern front. The movement rules we were using at the time allowed the Elementals to move an unlimited number of spaces through Druid-controlled territory....

Big mistake.

James was able to take my entire empire apart over the course of four turns....massed conventional troops for an attack to breech my line, and once the hole was made, one Elemental rode in and captured my (empty) inner territory....repeat....(and the hysterical part of it was that he was holding four cards that were the equivalent of M:TG's "Fog" spell, meaning that on my turn, I couldn't counter attack....:: sigh::

Needless to say, a painful lesson in balancing learned.

Whew....and what a ramble THAT was! Anyway, all that to say, yes! I'd be honored to put my name in the hat, and I think I have a sufficient background with that kinna thing to have something to offer to the group!

-=Vel=-

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