Firaxis, and Why Civ III is not what we *want* it to be...

[Libertarian]

Thanks, Shaggy, for correcting the record. Accuracy is important, even at such granularity.

-----

FrantzX:

Do you honestly expect people to evaluate the merits of a turn based strategy game as complex as Civ3 within 7 days? Perhaps it is time to coin a new term, the Reviewer Fallacy.

(corrected orthography)

[copcartman]

I agree completely with OneInTen. The biggest problem with this game-genre is the boredom that comes in the mid-game when you've passed the first critical stage when the AI is so much stronger (due to cheating ) and gained enough science and strength to completely control the rest of the game.

Apart from Civ I (I've played Civ 1/2, Colonization, CTP 1/2) I'have never completed a civ-game, even though I've played hundreds of games. It just get so boring when you know that you'll win even if you declare war with the rest of the world(!)


As to the inclusion of random events I have been longing for those since civ 1. In fact , I think it would be wrong not to include them. Think of when Vesuvius obliterated Pompei, back then one of the most important trade centers in the Roman empire. Or when the Black plague wiped out three quarters of Europe's and Asia's population.

I'm not saying that such extreme events such as the latter should occur, but something on the scale of losing a major city should be reasonable.

Another thing that should balance things would be to reduce the neverending spawning of armies. I think a system like that in Colonization, where people are the most important resource when building an army (not iron or salpeter), thus keeping an army mobilized reduces your available workforce. Furthermore, you must think twice before sending your very valuable, trained army to battle. No matter how fast your factories produces spears/rifles you still need a trained group of people to use them.

[Velociryx]

Thoughts on game design and stuffs....

This is a discussion that we're just beginning over in the Candle'Bre forums on my site.

True, we're not gonna have the ability to add this stuff into an immediate release, but we're turning at least some portion of our creative energies onto the topic of "when we're ready for a commercial release" The interesting part about that is that one of the key elements that both me and one of the programmers on the team brought to the fore is echoed here....that population is your most precious resource, and should be treated as such.

If you guys want a chance to help influence the shape of a game that's still in its formative process, feel free to join us! By all means, remain here to continue to debate and such (I know I mean to!), but understand that all the debating in the world here, about THIS game, is prolly not gonna do much....::sigh::
-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

(more thoughts later....suddenly we got slammed at work! GRRRR)

[Velociryx]

Whew...Okay....back from THAT insanity!

Anyway...the other part of what I was saying/thinking:

One of the recently made sugesstions by one of the programmers working with us was to give each population group (we're modelling our game on the province-level, rather than the city level, and depending on population and organization, towns will spring up spontaneously, and eventually (with coaxing and attention) grow into cities. Anyway....the populations of these provinces can pretty easily be broken down into archetypes (pious believers, merchant class, ultra conservative, military supporters, rogue element, contented citizenry, etc. etc.) and each province can be defined by assigning baseline numbers for each of these archetypes). Of course, each archetype has different things that make them happier. The pious will LOVE it if you build the temple sooner, rather than later, but will be angry if the temple is put off till the Market is done.

Likewise, the Merchants will be QUITE annoyed if you deny them access to the latest commerce-stuff that technology provides, or if your tax rate is too high...ect. and so forth. Some citizens will prefer an open society (democratic), others will prefer a more heavy-handed rule (esp. mid-level, politically savvy types, who would, no doubt, make a KILLING in the kickbacks of such regiemes).

Setting up a system of Archetypes like this easily opens the door for a vastly different culture model.

Say your nation bumps up against the borders of some other. The borders themselves are set (province level map), but if their system of government is more to the liking of the pious among your population, THEY WILL BEGIN TO DEFECT! (unless you have a harsh, restrictive government, which will stem the flow--but not cut it off entire--of defectors.

Of course, that's not the ONLY reason citizens will defect back and forth, and as new generations are born, some portion of THEM will be pious, so you never really get rid of the problem.

And, IF you have a very restrictive government type (preventing outright defection), there's a chance (not a huge one, but a chance) that said province would rebel, and seek the aid of the nation near you whom they feel they have a stronger tie with.

Stuff like that.

Combine that with events that are not *punishing* to the largest player, but rewarding to the small to help keep them in the game longer (and sure, toss in some bad stuff at random like Mt. Vesuvius....cos it's cool! True, there's nothing you can do to defend yourself agaisnt stuff like that...but then, there was nothing the Romans of our Earth's HISTORY could do to defend themselves either....so it's an honest, accurate reflection of life in that respect. Did it bring the Empire to its knees? Nope....but they felt it.....they felt it.

So that's what we're trying to do. Start with an addictive as hell wargame and end up with a deep, complex....very human and very honest strategy game....

-=Vel=-

[Steve Clark]

Just as long as have the simple, yet elegant province-based resource/economics model that Imperialism II has, as oppose to the crappy, non-sensical province-based model of EU. You know what I'm talking about...where x1+y1=z1 and when tech=2, x2+y2=z2 or x1+y2=2z1.

[Comrade Tribune]

Both games have great models!

(I don´t understand your negative obsession with EU; it´s simply the best historical game around. )

[simwiz2]

Velociryx, your civ-project sounds like a great idea. Is there a site with details and stuff?

[Velociryx]

Hey guys!

Just wanted to clarify (for Simwiz and others who may be interested) that *for the time being* we're developing a war game, not a Civ game....a computer version of the board game rules for Candle'Bre I mapped out here on another thread. BUT, the way we're implementing that plan is that it will be designed in such a way that we can keep adding elements (in fact, we've got a HUGE list of elements to add to the basic game so far, and that list continues to grow) until the game is more about managing and furthering an empire than it is about war (tho of course, as with all 4x games, that IS part of the equation).

This is by no means the finalized list, cos we're still hammering stuff together, but my vision of it goes something like this:

The basic version (v0.1) will be MP/hotseat only. No AI. Don't know if that one will reach the public domain or no, but it'll be something that those involved with the project can play, test, tweak, and hammer into better shape. This most basic version will be fully playable, but will abstract almost everything. Combat will prolly be handled as simply hit and kill or miss (boardgame style, as that's what it is designed from). Even this version though, will have an event engine, a tiered combat structure that fosters the use of combined arms, and unit types with interlocking abilities and disabilities that very nearly makes combined arms a *requirement* if you want to excel, and a trio of "research telephone poles" in the spirit of EU.

Things we're already talking about adding to a potentially commercialized version are: (NOTE! Bear in mind that ALL of this is still on the drawing board....we just don't know how the final design will shake out, but here are some of the things we're talking about!)

AI-Scripting - Players will be able to design their own AI, controlling how it plays

And Editor that will let players design their own maps, factions, techs, units, events, and buildings (at a minimum!)

A unified public works system where ALL provincial builds are coordinated from - Temples, libraries, roads, etc. Everything.

A system of "governmental upkeep" that works (loosely) like this:
Provinces have three essential states of being:
a) Member provinces that are largely ungoverned (ie - you spend time and resources getting them to run how you want them to, and then leave them on auto-pilot) - These cost you no money in terms of governance upkeep, but are the least productive overall.

b) Governed Provinces. You may select from a list of Governor Candidates (each with skill sets, strengths and weaknesses, expressed in %'s) to run the province for you. This costs some upkeep (Governor's salary) and you can rely on the governor to do the things in his speciality pretty well, but of course, he's no micromanager, so it's not as efficient as running it yourself.

c) Directly controlled provinces. You hire an "Agent of the King" to watch the province (higher per turn upkeep than a governor), but you get to micromanage to your heart's content.

As I see it, the three will likely be used as follows:
Category A would probably be Rural regions set aside for extensive farming....you could assign an Agent to the province to get it running how you want, and then re-assign the Agent elsewhere and leave it be. It may "drift" some from what you set it to intitially, but overall, it'll just do it's thing.

Category B would be best for specialist cities/troop centers. You hire a science-minded or banking minded governor to watch one of your more densely populated cities, and he does his thing. Or, you hire a military minded one to crank out the best available units for you until your upkeep reaches X, and then do something else fairly productive.

Category C would be those provinces of high strategic value that you wanna watch closely.

Assigning Agents everywhere would give you MAXIMUM micromanagement, but be really expensive, so a balance must be struck.

Then of course, there's the citizenry model with the archetypes, and possible cultural ramifications.

Three interdependent and interlocking tech "telephone poles" and possibly more (ie - each tree has no branches, but they DO relate...such that, you can only go up to lvl three in military techs....level 4 military tech requires Infrastructure 2 and Espionage 3 as pre-reqs...or something like that).

Troops will cost manpower, which means if you hire too many troops, your public works will be understaffed, and you will lack the manpower to build things in a timely fashion (builds will be calculated in man-hours, not shields or any such abstraction). Worse, if you attempt to draft too many people from your agro provinces, then you run the risk of not having sufficient people to bring in the harvest....famine, starvation...etc.

Add to that the fact that each province may only build a set number of improvements total, and you suddenly have a lot of HARD, compelling strategic thinking to do. (Plus the fact that the presence of some builds disallows others entirely....Theives Guilds not allowed in territories with Temples, for example). And you need ALL of the builds if you want to succeed. They all serve a valuable purpose.

Other stuff includes setting the game up so that its virtually impossible to completely research the tech tree during the course of the game. You've got to pick a strategy and run with it, cos you won't get to play with all the toys in a single game....oh sure, you can alter your strategy and play with a different SET of toys next time, but the goal is to foster strategic choice, so we'll be making blitzing thru the tech tree a pretty tough proposition.

And we're *constantly* shopping for new ideas!

[/shameless plug] LOL

So...to answer simwiz's question, yes! Come check out what we're up to at:

The Renaissance Portal

Click on the "Discussion Forums" link, and look for Candle'Bre at the top!

-=Vel=-
(one week into the project born right here on 'poly, and we're already got some mockups and tangible results! WhoooHoooo!)

[Velociryx]

D'oh! Forgot one thing I've been toying around with a LOT (again, this in NOT for anytime soon, but something I've been thinking about)

There are NO "government types"!!!

Instead, what you get are a series of policy ranges that you can set for each province (and a global setting if you don't wanna micromanage).

These will be things like:
Governance Style:
Anarchistic-----Despotism-----Feudalistic----Republican

Taxation:
Crushing----Brutal----Punishing---Normalized----etc, etc, etc.

Ideology
Collectivism----Market-Oriented

And so forth....maybe 4-6 such sliding scales in all, so you can fine tune each province to do exactly what you want it to. Note that some choices will disallow others (ie - in a highly repubican society, having a Despotic province in your Kingdom would be out of the question...IE - The entire range of choices is never available to you at any given point in the game...it's a sliding scale, and new choices are made available as new techs are discovered, and/or cultural thresholds are reached, and/or the continuation of peaceful relations. Also, there will be a limit to how MUCH you can adjust these sliders...too much too quickly will lead to open rebellion, so care must be taken!

Anyway, so no...no blanket "government type" Instead, your government is the sum of it's parts....that is, the sum of the values assigned in all the provinces you control.

:: shrug:: I dunno...maybe we're chasing a dream, but we're certainly gonna try to make the kind of Civ game (in the end, I mean) that everybody here would LOVE to sink their teeth into!)

-=Vel=-

[DaShi]

Actually, I chose not to buy CivIII based on the reviews on this forum. When the game first came out, I was tempted to buy it, but Firaxis' own reputation with SMAC's PR made me hesitate. After wading through the first few weeks of "this is the greatest game ever" threads, I started to find more insightful threads that actually addressed the features in the game. Some were opinions, like the sparce resources that some people didn't like. I actually liked this idea. Then there was the culture and corruption, which to mean seemed only to drain fun away from the game. The fact that there was no editor or multiplayer pretty much sealed the deal for me.

As the weeks went on, more and more complaints were made. And Firaxis respond in their true SMAC form. Meanwhile, the 'fanboys' continued to praise the game and attack anyone who disagreed with them or raised valid complaints. Firaxis used this to justify that there was too much hostility for them to have a significant presence here. I won't even go into the fact that they don't have their own forum.

In short, I believe that if someone reads through the threads here at Apolyton concerning CivIII, and ignores opinions, meaningless praise or bashing, and the inevitable spam and trolls, they can decide whether CivIII is the game for them. I won't say that it is easy, but I did this and decided that it is not right for me.

As for Firaxis, they reap what they sow. I'm sure Microsoft will soon make the statement that they violated privacy rights, cut corners on programming, and monopolized the market because they're only a company seeking profit. It's not their fault that they wanted to make money the easiest way possible. We should forgive them, and pity all the crap that they have to take.

[Encomium]

AI cheating; culture flipping; lack of realism; weird values for resources; no cheat mode; no way to make scenarios; and on and on and on. . .

The complaints and criticisms of this under-playtested bug-filled game go on and on.

Many of us waited years for Civ III, and we are PO'd.

Others care nothing about logic, history, or common sense. They have developed a religious loyalty to any "Civ" product. They are pitiful.

[OneInTen]

They have developed a religious loyalty to any "Civ" product.

Considering that I've observed a correlation between those who weren't huge fans of civ 2 and those who like civ 3, I don't think loyalty enters into the equation at all.

[Worthingtons]

As somebody says, Who CAN blame Firaxis for wanting to make money???
So long as they are taking into account i may never buy another game by them (which I think they probably are) then they are no different to any other company.

Someone hit on the head when they say that some people have a 'religous loyalty' to any civ game, and that coudnt be more true, and this is exactly whats happened with Civ III has happened.

I admire Vel and his team for what they are doing, More people should Join in and help them, I'd love to, My usefulness will be extremely limited, but I'm willing to learn - this is the best way we'll get the kinda game we want.

[Azrikam]

I'd like to agree with what DaShi said. I had Civ III pre-ordered a couple of weeks before it came out in the UK. After finding almost no valuable information on the Civ III site, I tracked down Apolyton, and spent the next week or so going through the feedback.

Some of the new features seemed really great, but information on several of the bugs and improperly implemented features made me sure that this game would frustrate me more than entertain me.

The posters who slagged the game, and gave valid and lucid reasoning behind their disappointment helped me make an informed decision not to purchase Civ III, and I thank them for that.

I still believe that Civ II is the greatest game ever to grace the PC, and I still play it more than any other game I own. Even after the first patch, I still haven't decided to purchase Civ III, but I still read through the posts (positive and negative), in the hopes that Civ III (or maybe even Civ IV) will be worth buying somewhere down the road. (oh, and the posts themselves can be damned entertaining)