The Cool, the Frustrating and the Indifferent

[Tucker]

Let me just say right off the bat that I love this game. I want to mention that right up front so that when I criticize some parts of it later, nobody thinks that I am just bitter or something. I am writing this thread because I wanted to tell other people who are actually interested (my co-workers think I’m nuts) my thoughts on the game.

I should mention that I never played Civ II, but I did play SMAC. Also, I am playing it on a 1.3 mghz system with plenty of hard drive space. I find that the game runs very smoothly on my system with the exception that there is a minor repetitive blip in the music sometimes when I load a saved game. However, re-loading takes care of the problem, and since re-loading takes very little time, there really is no problem at all.

The game I am playing right now is on Monarch level, but I am going to try a higher difficulty level the next time I play because when I finally discovered Modern Armor, the next closest civ in tech didn’t even have Tanks yet, and I was sort of embarrassed watching the AI needlessly slaughter all 65 of his Calvary on my Mech Infantry.

I have classified each item below as either Cool, Frustrating or Indifferent. Indifferent generally means that I have no opinion or mixed feelings, but in any event the topic doesn’t interfere with my enjoyment of the game.

Culture
Very, Very Cool

I love the culture element in this game. I love that my borders slowly expand as my civilization ages. It makes me feel like I am running an empire instead of a bunch of unit factories. Also, it gives me the feeling that I am ruling over an empire with intrinsic worth. . . that my civ has power irrespective of the army units that are located within its borders. I like that when you take a city from an enemy civ, there is a chance that it will revert. To me, this makes sense. Because if someone came into the United States and took over Detroit, I’d like to think that the people who live there would have something to say about that. . . and maybe they could take back the city.

Culture is the single biggest thing that I love about the game, which is funny because I don’t even try for the cultural win. I think that it is great irrespective of strategy.

The Different Civilizations and their Unique Units
Also, Very, Very Cool

I love how each civ has two traits, and that those traits really seem to be pretty close to what each civ is all about in the real world. Looking at the 6 different traits, I would expect America to be Expansionist and Industrial. I like that the traits assigned to each civ make sense.

The UUs overall are very, very cool. First off, they just look awesome, and their animations are really cool. That War Elephant kicks ass. I also like the way the Mounted Warrior looks, too. I think the Jaguar Warrior looks a little lame though (What’s with the hat?), but his animation and sound are fine with his little double smack with the war hammer. Also, I like that each UU is generally pretty helpful when used.

Not only that, but I really like just how balanced the different civs are. With the exception of Expansionist, I really think all of the traits really have something going for them (admittedly, I have never even used an Expansionist civ, but it just seems so weak compared to the rest that I can’t bring myself to use it). Generally speaking, whenever I play a video game, I always know after two times playing which of the different player choices are the best. And then I use that player every time I play. With SMAC, it was the Hive. I thought they were the best for me and my playing style, and I figured that out after playing only a couple of times. But with Civ III, I really feel like at least 6 or 7 of the civs are very good options. And that I wouldn’t be really hampered by using any of the others.

Privateers
Cool

I think that you guys are probably used to the Privateers already from Civ II, but they are new to me and I really love them. I don’t even care that they are not all that effective (however, I am psyched that the patch ups their offense to 2), I just like attacking everybody indiscriminately. I thought that maybe the developer should have included a land-based attack unit with hidden nationality, but that might pose real problems in practice, and might even make the whole point of diplomacy rather useless.

Units are Supported Out of Common Treasury
Cool

The fact that units were supported by individual cities was a major problem in SMAC. I don’t even know why this was implemented in the first place. Having to move one of my formers across the map to find a new home base used to really aggravate me. Hence, Civ III fixing this problem is a good thing. Also, it makes you feel more like you are running an empire when you operate it from a central treasury.

The Little Things
Cool

Every time one of my little warrior guys levels up, or wins a battle, he lets out a little growl and throws his arms in the air. That animation makes me smile. It’s the little things about this game that make me happy. I like that Joan of Arc has a shaved head in the Modern Era. I like how the aircraft carriers and the stealth bombers look. I like that each city looks different in each era. I like how the swordsman will yawn when you aren’t paying attention to them. This kind of stuff just makes the game great. In fact, I think the game generally looks really awesome. I mean it’s not 3-D or cutting edge or anything, but it just looks great.

That being said, I really miss the movies from SMAC that happened whenever you completed a wonder. Those movies were awesome. I generally click past stuff like that. But they were so good (and they only happened once a game and only if you were lucky enough to get the wonder) that I watched them in their entirety every time I had the chance. They were just so cool. I’m sure that they must be time consuming for the developer, and they really are not that important when compared to things like game mechanics. . . but man, movies would have been great in this game.

However, if you aren’t going to have movies, at least have a bigger and brighter picture come up when you complete a wonder. Why are they showing me this thumbnail-sized picture after I complete the Hanging Gardens? I bought a 17-inch screen for a reason. Don’t be afraid to stretch that picture to the borders. Use that high resolution. Be the monitor.

Also, you can click on a little eye graphic to show all of the stuff that you have built in the city. Is it just me, or do the cities look really bad? I mean, at the very best every city just looks like a bunch of shacks cluttered together in the desert. Is that what I’m spending all this time building? It can be my capital city, in the Modern Era, with 5 wonders and every improvement. . . and the place looks like a dump!

I really want to be able to assign one of my workers to pollution control permanently. When I do that, I want him to change into a little neon green radiation suit with the clear face mask helmet and everything. I know that the workers already look different in each era, and that’s great. But I really want those guys wearing radiation suits. It keeps me up at night knowing that they are not being adequately protected from harmful toxins. People at the EPA must be freaking out about this game.

Varying Victory Conditions
Cool

I am happy that you can go for a cultural win. I also like the domination victory. I’m also glad that you can turn off the diplomatic win since I am not fully sure how it works anyway. However, you should be able to find out from one of your advisors how close you are to winning the domination victory. Right now, I control the entire world besides Canada and Australia, and for some reason that isn’t 66%. I want to know how close I am to winning because each turn is taking like a half hour and I really need to get some sleep and maybe eat a cheeseburger or something for a change. . .

The Game Manual
Indifferent

I’m one of those rare people who actually enjoys reading the game manuals. I have no idea why. When I buy a camera or a microwave or something, I toss that manual right in the trash. But when I buy a video game, I read the manual like it is a religious tome BEFORE I even bother installing the game. Needless to say, when I spend 5 hours reading the manual, and then the game won’t install. . . I get a little upset. Luckily that wasn’t the case with Civ III, since the game installed fine. And I thought the manual was overall good about describing the game and how to play. My only complaint is that some of the unit descriptions are incorrect. So I went and spent $20 on the game guide (which I kind of think is stupid now since the strategy sections for this forum and a few of the other ones are very good), and even that has different descriptions than in the game. I just want to know what the airplanes attack and defend at without having to click on a unit or go to the civilipedia. All my paper sources give very different numbers. And what does stealth do to the numbers in any event?

The Workers
Indifferent

I liked these guys in SMAC, although there they were called Formers. I like them here too, especially that they retain their nationalities from the civ you stole them from. Every time I click on one and see (Iroquois) it just makes me feel like all of my hard military work has paid off.

However, I think that some of the worker automation features could be better. Auto cleaning pollution should be a permanent condition until you click on a worker to turn it off. And they should gang up on it more. . . for some reason only 2 automated workers will work on a toxic spot at a time. Workers should be able to be set to automatically just make roads or just make railroads. Since both of these are always necessary in every square (at least within city radiuses and after jungles have been cleared so that road building is quicker) since roads increase commerce and railroads protect underlying improvements from an initial bombardment by being destroyed first. I just don’t want to give the AI the responsibility of deciding to build mines or irrigation in the grasslands. Maybe it could be set up so that you could tell the AI to always build mines in grasslands and irrigation in plains without bonus resources. The developer should make a menu with some checkboxes or something. Shift-A works pretty well in the late game, after you’re pretty much done building everything and you just want to add railroads. But you should just be able to automate the workers to make nothing but railroads anyway.

You shouldn’t be able to mine grasslands. I have like 30,000 mines up and running at the moment, and they look really stupid. Have grasslands give 1 shield if necessary or have hills with a mine be more lucrative shield-wise, but irrigation should really be the only way to go on the grasslands. Actually, I liked farms in SMAC. Irrigation doesn’t look as pretty.

Corruption
Indifferent

I am one of those rare individuals that actually likes corruption in practice. It really cuts down on the late game tedium of having to change the production of every city in your empire every turn. I really only need 20 cities making things. They all don’t have to. I’m comfortable with that.

The problem is that the idea that all of these cities can all be so corrupt in exactly the same way is just plain silly. Every city I have in South America can only build a library in exactly 80 turns. Who is running these cities? Did they make 10 clones of the most imbecilic mayor in history, and then install them in all of my cities? It just makes no sense at all.

But again, I like the concept of a good number of cities not making things in the late stages of the game. However, it should be easier to build a palace and a Forbidden Palace, and the Forbidden Palace should be movable. It is impossible for me to ever feel like I have control over South America, because it would take 600 turns to build a new palace there. Even if a city is having a major corruption problem, palaces should take the same number of turns no matter where you build them. They can be expensive generally, maybe 30-60 turns to build each. This way, you can have marginal control of two continents instead of a decent amount of control of one and none over the other. I see no reason why the player shouldn’t be able to determine where his production centers are, other than the fact that South America was once another civ’s territory. But so what? I killed off all the AI’s population in those cities, and they aren’t reverting because my culture is better, so why can’t I control that area of the map? And maybe it doesn’t make sense that a corrupt city that can’t build an Aqueduct in less than 160 turns, would be able to build a whole palace in 30. But who cares? The corruption system doesn’t make any sense anyway.

My plan would also make it easier to build the Forbidden Palace in the first instance, which at the moment is probably the single most frustrating thing in the early game. You want to put it in a place with high corruption and as far from your capital as you can, but it will take 200 turns to do that, which means your floundering corrupt economy will continue floundering. I’ve simply resigned myself to building the thing right next to my capital, and then moving my palace later when I am not getting beat up by an AI with production bonuses in the early game.

The Editor
Frustrating as All Hell, and For No Good Reason

When it comes to playing video games, I am somewhere between a casual gamer and a die-hard lunatic. I have spent 20 hours at a time playing Civ III, and I think that I have visited every web page there is dedicated to the game. Whenever I really get into a game, I really get into it.

But when it comes to things like the editor, I’m a newbie. I am not going to be making scenarios. I am not going to be making custom unit graphics. Don’t get me wrong, I think it would be cool if I could. But I just don’t have the technical skills and/or patience to do so.

So when I finally figured out how to turn on the game editor (after 3 weeks of bewilderment) I thought it was really cool since it seemed pretty accessible to someone like me, and you could do a lot with it. Maybe not everything, but enough to let me change the standard world map scenario so that America’s Expansionist trait was instead Scientific, give them access to War Elephants, and make Privateers able to bombard cities at a factor of 2. That was all I wanted to do. And I was playing the game and everything was fine until I switched to the Middle Ages, and then all of a sudden the Science Advisor screen wasn’t showing me which units could be built with which tech, and for some reason I didn’t get the movie that they show between the eras.

Of course, these are small things. But I didn’t feel like continuing to play for HOURS only to find out that I couldn’t build jets or something. So I had to abandon the whole editor notion entirely. I don’t care what the editor does. . . if it can only make maps, then so be it. . . but if you allow me to change the rules then the game should work when I do so. Don’t tell me that changing the rules (some of them? all of them?) may cause game problems. At least tell me which rules will likely cause problems, and what those problems will likely be. I’m not even sure what caused the problem, so it is just. . . so. . . unbelievably. . . frustrating.

By the way, I think that Science Advisor in-game tech map is pretty cool. I used to get a sore back and sore eyes from hovering over the SMAC paper tech map laid out on my floor. However, I wouldn’t have minded getting a paper tech map with Civ III as well as the in-game map, but that isn’t all that important to me.

The Air Units
Generally Frustrating

I think the operational missions idea and the way Bombers bombard cities are very cool. I never liked how the planes attacked in SMAC, and how you always had to get them back to a city the next turn. It was very tedious.

But I can’t really ever seem to tell if my Fighters are set to air superiority or not. Every time I move a Carrier I have to reset all of the Fighters on it (or at least I think I do). Bombers have attacked my cities with Jet Fighters in them and there was no animation of the Jet Fighter shooting down the Bombers. But the next turn, all of the Bombers disappeared. Also, I am never really sure how far out from a city air superiority extends. I guess I could count squares, but it would be nice to see a little box show up whenever you clicked air superiority so that you knew what kind of coverage you were getting.

I am not sure what Stealth Fighters are used for. The game guide says that Stealth Fighters are just like regular Jet Fighters except they have stealth. But I can’t get them to do air superiority. Are they simply cheap Stealth Bombers? I guess that is what they are in real life, but they are kind of a waste of a unit in the game, since Stealth Bombers are so much more powerful.

How come I can’t fire a Cruise Missile from a Battleship? The game guide says that they can be launched from Carriers, but I can’t even get that to work. I love this game, so don’t get me wrong. . . but I want a patch to be released within the next week that lets me launch two dozen Tomahawks from my Battleships on an unsuspecting AI civ’s capital city, or I am never playing in the Modern Era again.

Absolutely NO Stacking of Units in the Late Game
Frustrating

I consider the current corruption model and (I guess) the building queue system adequate fixes for the annoyance of having to set build orders for all of your cities every turn at the end of the game. They may not be perfect answers, but the game developer has gone a long way to cutting down on the late game tedium through these solutions.

However, something really needs to be done about not being able to stack units. It’s not that I need a perfect world or anything. . . I don’t need every unit on a square to stack up and move. I just want to stack the 20 artillery pieces that I am using together and move them at once. I don’t care that I then have to move the underlying defenders separately, if stacking everything together is too hard to implement. But there has to be some way to make it so that when you select a unit you have the option of having any other units in that square that are exactly the same stack with it. Once stacked they should be able to move or attack or bombard (or whatever) in concert, until you double click on the unit or something to turn it off. The requirement that the units be the same could also include accumulated movement points (for instance if an underlying artillery piece had already moved one square on a road before entering the square in question, it would stay put). This limited stacking would be just enough to make the late game movement of units bearable.

At the moment, I think this is by far Civ III’s biggest problem. So it would be great if the developer could find some way to minimize it, if possible.

Conclusion

Well, those are my thoughts. Maybe those of you who know something about programming video games can let me know if my suggestions are even feasible and/or helpful (stacked movement of only identical units?). I admit that I don’t know too much about game development, but I figured I’d give my two cents anyway. Hope you are enjoying the game as much as I do.

[Dis]

hmm kind of long.

but I think I know what you were intending to say. They all have a similar theme.

I'll agree with everything you said.

[Ironikinit]

Tucker, I really enjoyed your post. Esp. the bit about your concerns for the workers on clean up detail. I agree about the city views looking kinda junky. It'll be the greatest city on the planet, with a bunch of wonders, all the improvements... and like 2 blocks of buildings and a few shacks scattered around.

I wish I could be more help, because you're a funny guy and I empathize with not being able to tell people I know in real life about the game. Actually, when I try to tell my online friends about the game they get bored, too.

Try ctrl+N to get your workers to build roads automatically. It's either that or shift+N, check the civilopedia under game concepts: hotkeys.

ctrl+r and ctrl+shift+r is build road and railroad to.

I suppose you already know that great leaders are a good way to finish your palace or forbidden palace in corrupt areas.

Thanks for posting that, tho. It was worth reading, and readable.

[BeBMan]

I didn´t read your post very carefully, but what I´ve read sounds good.

One thing I´d like to see in the game:

There should be alternative to the great leaders for players who prefer a more peaceful style. Currently, such a player has a mayor disadvantage - he can´t rush wonders. Perhaps the self-built armies (after military academy) should also rush wonders? It was quite common that army forces took part in great infrastructure projects, e.g. Roman legions built big parts of the roads of the empire...However, another solution would be fine too....

[Arrian]

Good post - very, very, very close to how I feel (I don't have as much of a problem w/the air units). I enjoy the game (which is the point, right?). I play for hours and hours on end. There were things that annoyed me about Civ II, and there are things that annoy me about Civ III... although I will say that my issues with Civ II were not "lack of polish" issues. Civ III has several of those.

I liked the bit about being somewhere between a casual gamer and diehard lunatic... probably because I think of myself in a similar light. With most games, I'm a casual gamer. With a certain few (Pirates!, RR Tycoon, Civ I, MOO, Civ II, MOOII, RR Tycoon II, Civ III) I'm uncomfortably close to being a lunatic.

The editor frustrates me, not because I intend to make scenarios, but because I want other people to make them so I can download and play! I mean, some of the stuff people did with Civ II was amazing. Yet one can't even make a map such that the starting positions are correct, without using a program created by others (not Firaxis). Even then, I submit Marla's Map as an example of what the modpack/scenario community can do now - with a totally unacceptable editor.

-Arrian

[Raion]

I don't know, but I added Fundamentalism with Feudilism into the game via the Editor, and it even shows up in the Civilopedia, except I have not found the text file to enter in the description of what it is. I know what it is, but then I have to change a civ, probably the Persians to use it, and I think that also can be changed.
The only thing I think missing from the editor is placing units and cities on the map, but that did not happen at first with Civ II either. It came later on, as a upgrade, or when scenarios came out. The text I am not so sure about, it may require thinking about the Editor a little more, but then I am pressed for time.

There will be probably more to come from Firaxis also!

[Raion]

I think that means, that a scenario will have its own civ3mod.bic file for a scenario that is changed around, and one will have to use that file instead of the main game file to make a scenario that is different, although I will not have time to do that right now.

Say a scenario is only the modern era, and a lot of building are allowed, plus maybe techs are given to start kinda off in the modern era.

I am not quite sure on that, but it may be possible, except one would have to build all of the buildings and allow which units on in the game, quite a change to that file but time will tell, if that is possible.

[Tucker]

Dissident – You’re right! My post was way too long. The funny thing is that I actually had to cut some paragraphs out in order to be under the 20,000 word limit. It’s a shame really, because I had some great things to say about espionage. . . I mean, cutting edge kind of stuff. This forum would have never been the same. Seriously.


Ironikinit – Thank you for the tip on how to automate workers for roads. I thought that I had checked the manual, but I never looked in the civilopedia under hotkeys. I definitely have to check that section out.

Also, that is a very good idea about using the great leaders to build palaces. I had actually forgotten that they could do that, and had somehow convinced myself that they could only be used for legitimate wonders. I feel like an idiot, too, because I have had this leader sitting around for like 50 turns waiting for a new wonder, and I could have used him to build a palace and then got a new leader for the next wonder (since apparently you can only get 1 leader at a time).

However, I almost never have a leader early enough in the game to use on the Forbidden Palace. I spend the early game mostly building settlers, and I very rarely go to war before I have a decent economy going and you need the FP pretty much already in place to have a decent economy. Plus, I feel compelled to use my first leader to build an army to get the Heroic Epic so getting 2 leaders in time to build the FP is nearly impossible for me and my playing style.

Oh, and thanks for the complement on my writing. . . although admittedly, I can be a little long-winded.


BeBro – You are definitely correct that the leaders negatively affect peaceful players. I never really thought about it specifically, but I have changed my playing style to be more aggressive because I really wanted more leaders (and captured workers, which are very helpful). In fact, peaceful players are already at a disadvantage because militaristic players conquer more cities and therefore have higher production of units and improvements. I think you are right that something should be done about it, especially since the developer really seems to want people to be able to achieve a peaceful, cultural win. Maybe armies could complete all or half of a wonder’s shields like you suggested. Or maybe they could come out with “artistic” leaders who are generated when certain cultural thresholds are met. Get 50,000 culture points, or build Shakespeare’s Theater, and then you have a 1-in-16 chance of getting a leader who can complete wonders. Then you wouldn’t even need to generate a militaristic leader so that you can build the Military Academy. You could get leaders without even fighting at all. I think that the developer had actually talked about having cultural-type leaders at one point, but they dropped the idea. I’m not sure if this was what they had in mind or not.


Arrian – I never really considered that we need a good editor in order for other people to make decent mods. I guess I am as timid about downloading mods as I am using a complicating editor. If I get a chance, I’ll check out Marla’s Map. . . assuming I can suitably repress my fear of trying something new.


Raion – I have to say that one of the reasons that I really laid out the problem I had with the editor was so that I could see if anyone else was having similar problems. Your first post gives me hope that maybe it was a one-time problem on my machine or something.

As for your second post. . . I read it five times. . . and I have to admit that I am sort of in the dark. I think it is the words “bic file.” I see those two little words, and then I am suddenly transferred to a world where I know absolutely nothing. Sometimes I am surprised that I am even able to turn my computer on.


Anyway, thank you all for your replies. And, you know, think of me the next time you are razing a conquered city into oblivion.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Tucker
Or maybe they could come out with “artistic” leaders who are generated when certain cultural thresholds are met. Get 50,000 culture points, or build Shakespeare’s Theater, and then you have a 1-in-16 chance of getting a leader who can complete wonders. Then you wouldn’t even need to generate a militaristic leader so that you can build the Military Academy. You could get leaders without even fighting at all. I think that the developer had actually talked about having cultural-type leaders at one point, but they dropped the idea. I’m not sure if this was what they had in mind or not.

Well, I think that is an excellent idea - cultural or scientific leaders as an alternative to the militaristic heros! It would make abolutely sense in my eyes, people like Aristoteles, Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein, or Chaplin etc, etc influenced the world in their own way.