poll on why people have dropped civ3

[Gutz]

Hmmm, What about - I bought a game that was more fun....

[Stivv]

There wasn't a box for "consistent game-crashing bug".

Done playing until the next patch.

[Blaupanzer]

Late game tedium on large maps combined with only one way to win (read that as "survive") on smaller maps deprives the game of the richness of the earlier versions. Emphasis on culture good. I still fool with it, but seldom finish. Too bad.

[Alex]

Oh, come on...

[zippy]

mid/late game tedium
5 invalid page faults/day
games show little variation

[Provost Harrison]

I have stability problems with the game, especially since the patch. Also the cap on tech rate is ridiculous and should be removed, or at least have the option to remove it

[Raion]

Owning to the fact that there is only a few games to actually play, I think Civ III is one of them.
MOOIII is one of them. XCOM coming out at end of year, and a little different now (called UFOefense) probably is one of them.

The rest to me, except for Harpoon IV, are just other games that I may buy, and try, but still, the ones that last are the ones that get played.

You just get familiar with these games.

A faster computer for me will help CIV III and probably another patch, but then, other games just keep coming and going, mainly going, going, going, gone.
AoE, what is that?

Duh!

[Dinner]

I had a hard time deciding on just one answer so I went with late game tedium as the best catch all phrase. However, I do think there is nothing wrong with the game that a good patch and the XP (if it is well thought out and executed) couldn't fix.

[Guest]

I've stopped playing Civ 3 altogether because, although an AI was programmed for the game, it suffers tremendously. The Ogre like intelligence is frustrating to witness and falls short of even the most modest expectations of it in this day and age. It will take outstanding reviews from the members of Apolyton to get Civ 4 off of my 'do not buy' list.

[DrFell]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
I have stability problems with the game, especially since the patch. Also the cap on tech rate is ridiculous and should be removed, or at least have the option to remove it

Yeah the cap is a joke - a lot of games I'm down to techs every 4 turns on 20% sci - obviously anything above that is a waste, so I'm raking in hundreds of gold. A lot of my games I'd probably get down to tech every turn if it weren't for that and race past the AIs. Another artificial limit put in to screw the human.

[Encomium]

Originally posted by bigfree1
I've stopped playing Civ 3 altogether because, although an AI was programmed for the game, it suffers tremendously. The Ogre like intelligence is frustrating to witness and falls short of even the most modest expectations of it in this day and age. It will take outstanding reviews from the members of Apolyton to get Civ 4 off of my 'do not buy' list.

Indeed.

I figured people would have stopped playing Civ III by the end of this year. Looks like it will be by Spring!

My main reasons for giving up on Civ III:

1. STUPID, STUBBORN AI.

2. CHEATING AI.

3. FLIPPING BORDERS and CITIES. It's a lot of BS.

4. NO CHEAT MODE.

5. NO SCENARIO BUILDING.

6. PATHETIC USE OF NAVIES.

7. POOR SIMULATION of HISTORY with idiotic unit values.

8. TOO MUCH CORRUPTION.

9. NOTHING LEFT TO EXPLORE BY CARAVELS.

10. LATE GAME TEDIUM.

11. LAND-GRABBING AI SETTLERS wandering around your territory settling next to your cities and colonies.

12. A DIPLOMATIC AI THAT HOLDS GRUDGES FOR MILLENNIA!!

13. NO CANALS! What about a Panama Canal Wonder, or a St Lawrence Seaway Wonder?

14. ESPIONAGE STINKS. Too costly and too ineffective. Its best use is getting someone to declare war on you!

And so much more.

Civ III is a BUST.

[ixnay]

Europa Universalis 2

Maybe when the editor is improved and some good scenarios get made or multiplayer is added, I'll revisit it.

[Tingkai]

I'm sick of the time it takes between turns, particularly at the late stage. I've got a decent computer (550, 128 ram) and CivIII is still way too slow.

[Atahualpa]

Tingkai: 128MB Ram is really not descent anymore. Its the MINIMUM I suggest having before even considering to install Win2k or WinXP.
I have 800Mhz and 384MB Ram (WinXP) and the game runs smooth and fine even in later stages.

ata

[macaskil]

Strange. According to your poll there should be no-one left playing the game at all.

Mots of the whingers on here are frustrated because they can't beat the AI even though it's "stupid". Neither can I at the moment above chieftain level. However there are people on this forum who have won at Deity level so it can be done.

The oldest game of this type is Chess.

- only has 6 units - let's have more units - ICBM that can take any piece on the board!
- Knights can jump over other units - unhistorical!
- Why can't I take the opponent's king?
- Limited to 64 squares!
- Why can the king only move one square?
- I can never beat the AI at its top level

and so on. It's still a good game though.

I'm not saying civ3 is perfect. I agree with most of the criticisms here - though some people obviously have never heard of civ3edit. You could come up with a similar list for competing games such as Age of Empires. However when I have succeeded in winning at deity level I will then ditch the game and look for something else. I don't see this happening soon.