poll on why people have dropped civ3

[Excelsior-MU]

I stoped playing Civ3 shortly after the last patch. I occasionally visit the forums to see if there is anything new that would improve the game. The AI was not to hard, in fact, I loved the AI. I could easilly beat the game at medium hard. The reason I stoped playing though was because of a couple reasons. I got sick of my Elite tanks being killed by damaged longbow men and knights, the fact that my battleships couldnt kill any ground units and my submarines couldnt sink battleships. The fact that my airplanes couldnt kill ground units or sink ships. I didn't really like the idea of taking over cities culturaly. Its believable in ancient times, but not modern. If it was like real life, then all the cities of central america would have converted over to the US. Finaly, the computer turns near the middle-end took about 5 minutes a peice (that a heck of a long time just sitting and staring at a monitor doing nothing) and the game just wasnt as fun as civ2. Sure it was at first, but all of the little things above and other stuff just slowly chipped away at the fun of the game and made the game not as much of a classic. About a week after I started playing civ3, I reinstalled my old civ2 game just to compare. Man was that fun, I had more fun playing that, then the new Civ3! All I could think about were, man I wish civ2 had civ3s AI, larger maps, and the ability to have 16 civs in 1 game. Imagine how much fun it would be to play civ 2 with those extra things. Since I havent played Civ3 in over 2 months, I have been playing a lot of Empire Earth, man that game is fun. Soooooo many units and great game balence. The nukes actually do damge, acient units dont stand a chance again modern units, and airplanes are very powerful, but not to powerful, so airsuperiority is important; all things that civ3 lacks. I know that they are 2 differant types of games, but EE is much funner, even though civ3 should be the better of the 2.

[macaskil]

EMPIRE EARTH:

quote from the website:

The problem I have with the game, and believe me , its very frustrating- Rick Goodman left to design this game after AOE , but before AOK. Now this means we have no garrisonning, and no formations. The formations we DO have arrange the units after they get to their destination, as opposed to during.The other problem is ... you get through the epochs WAAAAY to quickly. Provided you have the resources, which are easy to get( I rather prefer the gold mines in AOK to the ones in EE). I enjoy EE, but it just p****s me off. Dont get me started on the computer, either. After wondering why this ocmputer advances to the next age the millisecond I do, I go into the map editor and discover theres a checkbox allowing the computer to cheat. So, obviously the AI is so godawful it has to cheat in order to pose a significant threat to the player.
-

Hmmmm. Wonder if the whingers there are the same as the ones over here?

[Captain]

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

No, there's an option for "never giving up the game".
Assuming that if anyone checked that box, they didn't check any other other ones, then 49 out of 174 voters ARE still playing the game.

That leaves over 2/3 of voters who have given up the game, at least for now. It looks like there are 3 main reasons for that, clearly visible from poll results. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Don't know if they've actually uninstalled the game and sold it off, or have put it on a shelf (like I have) hoping for some future mod or patch to make things fun again.
Wahtever they've actually done, it looks like the majority of Apolytoners have dropped the game at least temporarily.

Seeing as how there's what, 10k? people on Apolyton, this is a small sample group - but it seems representative.
There might be a silent majority thinking otherwise but I guess we'll never know unless they speak up (of course, then they wouldn't be "silent" anymore...)

[ColdWizard]

i stopped playing because there are non-boring games for me to waste my free time on

[OneInTen]

No, there's an option for "never giving up the game".
Assuming that if anyone checked that box, they didn't check any other other ones, then 49 out of 174 voters ARE still playing the game.

But your option is about never giving up. I don't expect to be playing civ 3 when I'm old and grey, but I am still playing it right now as I write this post.

Write a biased poll, get a biased response.

[ACooper]

If 2/3 of the people quit then why are they still here answering these polls?

There should be no credence what-so-ever given to these polls since they are unscientific and based on peoples bias and personal agendas.

But they are fun and do start discussions that are valuable. Just don't take the results too seriously.

[Captain]

Originally posted by OneInTen


But your option is about never giving up. I don't expect to be playing civ 3 when I'm old and grey, but I am still playing it right now as I write this post.

Write a biased poll, get a biased response.

Read it how you want. I assumed people had enough common sense to realize this, especially reading the other options. Still, my mistake... of course....

[Captain]

Originally posted by ACooper
If 2/3 of the people quit then why are they still here answering these polls?

There should be no credence what-so-ever given to these polls since they are unscientific and based on peoples bias and personal agendas.

But they are fun and do start discussions that are valuable. Just don't take the results too seriously.

The question is about dropping the game Civ 3 at this time, not about quitting Apolyton's Civ3 forums, or Apolyton at all.

Like I said, in comparison to the whole ACS community, it's a small sample. And in turn, the ACS community is probably not representative of all Civ players. It takes a certain obsession with the game to come here and post/vote/read as much as we do.

But a poll is not a census. No poll questions everyone and in order to present results in a comprehensible manner, requires categorizations that limit the range of responses. It's inherent in the nature of polls and this poll is subject to those limitations. But I don't see why you'd say "no credence" whatsoever. It has the same credence you ought to give to any poll out there. Very little by way of absolutes but indicative of the general mood of the populations the sample represents.

In this case, it gives an idea of what vocal participants think. It is non-coercive in that you can pick whatever you want, and it's anonymous. Unless you accuse ACS mods of messing with results, then they're every bit as credible as any other poll carried out by professionals (and even then, many polls out there do have governmental or special interest interference).

You just have to know the context. Interpret as you will, but dismissing them outright seems to be an extreme way of ignoring what you don't want to see.

I certainly hope no one takes it as gospel truth, but even you must admit that the responses of 170+ voters is more robust than that of say, ten people. And the larger the voting results gets, the more credible it appears to get.

[Ironikinit]

One problem with this poll was the thread title. I saw it, I thought, "I haven't dropped it," and I didn't check it out until today. I just posted a poll today where I asked if people felt like they got their money's worth for Civ 3, and over half said definately. So some of it is in how you you ask the questions.

[ACooper]

The way you ask the questions is a key. The wording of a question is a key. Polls here are self selected (ie. only answered by people who decide they have a need to answer) therefore not regarded as scientifically accurate. Remember the vast majority of people who have bought the game have never even heard of Apolyton, much less join the forums, and less still take time to respond to any particular forum.

As I said before, polling here should not be viewed of "proof" of anything. Rather they should lead to discussion.

As to the question there was only one response that came close to what my opinion was and I answered that.

I have no problem with the AI. It is as good as I have seen in a game.

I don't play scenerios, but I see the need for a better editor for those who do.

On a standard size map with 8 civ the game has virtually no slow down (though I always play huge w/ 12 civs)

As for late game tedium - I always find something to do.

but these are just my opinions and are not to be viewed as gospel. (The same as the poll results)

[MonsterMan]

Originally posted by Lancer
The single greatest fault in the game is that you can't close the window the game is in and thereby access Apolyton while playing. If that were the case these pollls would have a much more favorable result as those who like the game are playing it, not dicking around you lot.

Do you have a key on your keyboard with a litte windows symbol? Try that one

[CharlesUFarley]

Originally posted by Ironikinit
One problem with this poll was the thread title. I saw it, I thought, "I haven't dropped it," and I didn't check it out until today. I just posted a poll today where I asked if people felt like they got their money's worth for Civ 3, and over half said definately. So some of it is in how you you ask the questions.

Well it also has alot to do with how far your extend your reach when conducting such polls. According to the poll in this thread the majority of the players/consumers are unhappy with Civ3, and I'll tell you from my personal non-biased observation so far (without a word of exageration) the majority of the people that I've talked to are very displeased. But whether the game is liked or disliked I don't think people were confused with the poll in this thread I think they knew exactly what it represented and responded as such.

Charles.

[CharlesUFarley]

Originally posted by Captain


Read it how you want. I assumed people had enough common sense to realize this, especially reading the other options. Still, my mistake... of course....

I don't know what the fuss is about, I understood exactly what you're poll meant and how to vote on it. Either you like the game or you don't plain and simple, why is everyone having a problem with that? I suppose that some of our viewers are Civ3 lovers so they might take offense to your poll -- just make sure you tell them that it's a poll and nothing more. Poll's are opinion based votes, not fact or game wrecking.

Charles.

[HisMajestyBOB]

No scenarios yet.

My interests vary greatly from time to time. Currently I'm busy playing FFV - VIII, after playing EUII for a while.

[kittenOFchaos]

Takes too long and requires me to move so many god-damned units...that was bad in civ2 where most my army stayed fortified whilst a few unlucky guys did all the work! With civ3 at least I have found war a bit more entertaining except for cultural flip!

+the editor...at least we got a good world map, rules and civilisation placements.

Kitten reads to title of the thread...I still play from time to time, but not as much by far as I expected