Civ3 Game Design Discussion Thread

[Willem]

Originally posted by The diplomat


Exactly. I think that one way to fix this is to make population a bit more important in production. There was a thread a while back that discussed "manpower". I am a strong proponent of making population more important in both production and military. if the player needed population to build an army (recruitment idea hehe) then larger cities would be more valuable than lots of smaller ones.

Well I tried that in my game. I added a population cost to most of my units. But I discovered that I was being left in the dust by the AI, who apparently doesn't bother much with military building at the first part of the game. So I was ending up with a puny number of cities in comparison. The idea made sense, but the Settler mania the AI has wouldn't allow it.

[Willem]

The one thing that struck me when I first played Civ III was that, even though culture is an important aspect of the game, there were no cultural buildings to be built. Aside from the standard ones of course. I was amazed when I first discovered Music Theory that all I could build was the same old JS Bach. Where are the concert halls, the art galleries, the theatres etc. etc. etc.? Why is there no newspaper with Printing Press, or Radio station with... well, you know. The whole view of what constitutes culture in the game is extremely narrow IMO. Maybe that's why some people are having a hard time accepting the concept. The definition of what creates a culture is so simplistic as to be meaningless and irrelevant.

[Capt Dizle]

I don't remember stacked combat in SMAC. Of course, combat in SMAC was very different, perhaps stacked movement wasn't needed. It certainly is needed in Civ3. There is no chop and drop, different air power rules, limited movement in enemy territory, the huge numbers of units, etc.

[Velociryx]

If I'm remembering correctly (and maybe not....it's been a while) ctrl-j (join group) command.

May havta fire it up and scope that out! (SMAX is still on the ol' HD)

-=Vel=-

[Hrnac]

Where to start?

I think one must examine the big picture to fully understand what went wrong with this game. For the record, I am a devoted fan of the Civ series and have no ill will torwards Firaxis or the Civ series. This being said, one must step back and fully examine the chain of events that has led us to this point. The following information is culled from reading these boards and others and tossing in some speculation. If I am incorrect, then I appologize in advance. I am not writing this to flame anyone, only to try to understand what went wrong.

To begin, it doesn't take a genius to understand that when the decision to create Civ 3 was made, that in that instant a classic game was born, if only in the minds of those who made the decision. Following the award winning SMAC/AC series and the equally great Civ/Civ 2 series, meant that Firaxis could have packaged air, slapped a Civ 3 logo on it and they still would have sold many many copies. The Civ community was hungry for another installment of its favorite game and this hunger needed to be fed.

The first fateful decision must have been made sometime shortly after, when Sid himself decided for whatever reason to not become closely involved with the project. Sure he played the different iterations and offered his views, but this was to be Brian Reynolds baby and it seemed to be a safe bet. After the success of SMAC/AC it seemed that the young protege had learned well from the Master (Sid) and was ready to fly solo. At this point the game still should have been a classic, but something changed shortly thereafter. Brian left to found his own company. This decision instantly dropped Civ 3 down to being an average game. Gone was the "more is better" design philosophy. Gone was a budding star designer of TBS games. Gone was any chance of Civ 3 becoming the classic that it should have been. The outlook had now become bleak for Civ 3. One does not let just anyone craft the next Civ game and that's just what Firaxis had to do.

Now somewhere in this mix of events another decision was made, this time by Infogrammes. In their infinite wisdom, they apparently decided not to delay the development of Civ 3 after Brian departed. Not only did his departure mean that a new team had to be assembled, but that the whole project would have to be started from scratch on a severly shortened timetable and quite possibly a reduced budget. This could explain the sudden dissapearance of many of the key elements that made SMAC/AC such a classic game. No wonder movies, no little extras like the voice overs for the techs, no nothing in the way of atmosphere creating features. No really "cool" stuff.

So enter the new design team led by Jeff and company. How they must have been excited to be given the chance to "save the day". How exhilirating it must have been to be able to have the opportunity to craft the next Sid Meier game. How horrible it must have been when they looked at the development time table and remaining budget. That thud that was probably heard around Hunt Valley was probably Jeffs jaw bouncing off the floor when he read the spec for Civ 3. "You want what in how many months on this budget?" probably escaped his lips many times as he banged his head against the proverbial wall. This was the ultimate no win scenario. Infrogrammes would be demanding a game by October 2001 and would not want to hear any excuses about delays. What to do?

The answer lies before us all in a nicely decorated box. The answer is called feature creep or feature removal. I believe that they stripped Civ 3 down to the basics and added in what they could in order to meet their publishing deadline. How else could one explain the very strange design decisions. When you have a classic in the making, you don't tamper with success. Civ 3 by any other name would probably be hailed as a great strategy game rivaling the classic Civ series. Instead we have a half finished functional game that was created under adverse conditions.

I think we should applaud Jeff and company for the job that they did. I don't know if Sid himself could have done any better. The only remaining question is whether Infogrammes will allow Firaxis to finish the gem that they intended to create. If so, then there is hope for Civ 3. If not, then this game will probably be relegated to the great "It could have been a classic" category.

I am still putting my trust in Firaxis as they have not dissapointed yet. Let's wait a bit longer and let the dust truely settle before we pronounce this patient dead or alive.

-Hrnac

[Skanky Burns]

Pollution.

How could anyone believe this enhances our enjoyment of the game?? Oh no, ive lost production in that square... better wake up 12 workers and move them manually to the polluted square, one at a time... There, pollution gone.
The net effect of pollution: No gameplay loss (assuming you have enough spare workers), a large increase in player annoyance.
Surely there is a better way of penalizing large production / huge city populations??


Advisors.

Every 20 turns, asking if I want to build an aqueduct / hospital. Once would be ok, but many times over the length of the game?? IMHO this is due to not enough testing, surely the test team would have noticed that they got this message quite a lot if they played to the end-game.

[CharlesUFarley]

Game Design Discussion

I have read everyone's posts to date and I just wanted to applaud everyone on thier well crafted input and ideas. I completely agree with 98% of you on all issues said. I still have a small smidge of hope left in me that something will come of this. I'm sure if we all devote our hearts and minds to this game and it's developers that attention will be focused on us, and the product we all want to see will arrive. It's just the "in-between" time period that's going to kill us.

Before I begin I would like to thank Vel for creating this thread, and for his greatly taken initiative and excellent ideas. I don't have quotes or caps of what everybody had to say -- and I wish I did, because most of the ideas in here are great and I would like to cover them in better detail. However, I'll just have to wing this and hope you guys won't get bored. I feel that with all ideas and suggestions presently considered that the one major common design flaw keeps rearing it's ugly head -- lack of two things; realism and detail. Because with those two concepts feeding the strategy TBS genre we get the absolute best for our money and time. So here goes..

MILITARY
Quite a few of the ideas in here are strong and very true. 'Stacked movement' would solve alot of the late game tedium issues that have arrisen. My suggestion for this would be to grasp this "army" concept and bring much more depth and detail to it's engine. Has anyone played "Shogun: Total War" yet? I like how they're combat engine works, you have a game board, game pieces representing armies, spies and you're royalty. This is very much so the same representation used in Civilization. Why not take this concept and apply it to our current "Stacked Movement" idea. Rather than move 100's of units around, although the option to do so should remain for smaller military tasks - maybe instead of wasting an army on killing/capturing an intrusive enemy worker, you can send a "unit" to dispatch the problem, so singular units still and always will have a perpose. However as far as the overall goes, armies are badly needed for the "wars" to come. My suggestion is to use the "army building" in a seperate window, when a leader is born a window will pop-up and give you a list of things to do:

Name your army why not? I don't see how this could hurt. With more detail, time and cost spent on each army -- not only does it improve the armies value, but it finally has a sense of perpose and it's own individuality. At the least you'll be much more carefull with you're army and where you send it, so that you don't have to keep renaming it, not that it's such a bad thing.

Build weapons (type of weapons = "attack value" based on resources used or available) resources/horses = horsemen etc. But a city must contain a Blacksmith, Barracks, Lumber Mill (or variation) an iron/ore mine, stables etc. you get the point.

Train your army Now this idea incorporates a system that allows you to manage you're army with more detail when it comes to promotions and ranks. Not only can you achieve more hitpoints/health in the field of battle - due to experience. But you can also increase this value by "training" your army at home, so to speak. However this will cost shields, time and population. I think it's possible and very realistic.

Now I know what most of you will say to this -- "yeah but rather than having too many units to move around, we'll instead have too many armies to move around. Not true. With an increased cost of resources, build/train time, and population - not to mention a possible army size dependant on government type - to throw a spin at things -- I'm sure armies will not only be rare, but feared and valued. The same graphics/animations and units can be used, but with greater detail and control that is all. I suggest instead of a "leader pic" moving around the map, we should use a more noble and royal pic, such as a pole with a banner representing the country/civ you are playing - I believe the Roman army bared an Eagle with a reef effect to it. But you get the idea. Remember folks, the more realistic this game gets the more it increases "re-play-ability" or it's overall life span on your hard drive.

CULTURE/NEGOTIATIONS
I actually like their new culture engine, I think it's more realistic when a neighboring country has much more appeal to it and finally overlaps you're borders and then eventually consumes them. However, realisticly this only happens to smaller countries and for the most part only took place many many years ago -- like in the ancient, medieval and renessance times. But there are still ways we can improve this new engine, I would recommend that with a larger country (civ) and a firm government that you're culture is very stable and almost un-flippable. It's not likely that Iraq's culture no matter how gleeming in the middle east, would overpower American culture and borders. So that realism should be taken into effect. Now, rather than just plain ol' boring borders and culture why not add some depth to it here's just a couple of ideas that could be used or variated in some way...

Detailed border control: why not have you're border cities maintain it's borders individually. For example; if a neighboring cities' culture threatens or pleases you're city -- there can be border war or some mild form of corruption -- in essence a miny war on the border to fight. Not only are you fighting your own people and thier wishes to convert, but you're balancing resources, trade and happiness... perhaps taxes and luxuries of each indv. city should have more detail and control over the populace in that city. Not to mention the fact that you'll literally have to win a 'popularity contest' with your neighboring opponent. But you get the idea.

Border trade & negotiations: Rather than having a one-window open trade negotiations with a direct "one-on-one" conversation with you're opponent or his emissary, we should have individual culture-city dealings, for example; asside from border wars and culture balancing you should handle and manage each and every established border city; trade goods between the two cities, population assimilation (say that one ten times fast - you won't get past 4. ), mayor/governor reputation, crafts and achievments = decrease chance of converting etc etc. Again, you hopefully get the idea.

GOVERNMENTS
I'm not so sure we can really play too well in this area, at least until the (hope hope) arrival of the new and detailed editor. Each and every government had it's purpose and individuality based on the era (time period) and the country. When we designed scenarios (back in da days) we made great use of each government, for example WW2 scenarios; China had it's communism, and America had it's Democracy or Republic. So I guess the real question is what more can we do to enrich and utilize the government types that we normally don't have much use for - I would suggest that each government type is given it's own new set of bonuses to enhance it's appeal - otherwise asside from scenario building - they're IMO doomed. Ofcoarse ideas are welcome [...insert here...]

RESOURCES/TRADE
I've been thinking alot about this one, and the best 'trade/resource' engine I have ever seen was the one that comes with "Sierra's Caesar III" -- although a little on the cartoon-like side, you're trade system was better illustrated and it gave you a sensation of being right there in the crowds of the marketplace. However, this type of illustration wouldn't apply to a Civilization product because they are two different graphics engines. However, the C3 illustration uses multiple stages of resource managment, when you build a farm you're prompted for the type of farm (in this case we'll use "vineyard"), when you build a vineyard farm, it produces grapes, and then you're grapes are turned into wine. And then wine becomes a 'trade commodity'. In Civilization 1,2 and 3 these basic concepts are used, but IMHO not detailed or real enough. Although an "automated" trade system often using a caravan unit or in Civ3 a negotiations window is simple and fairly symbolic of a realistic trade system, this area could have been improved. Perhaps each cities improvements have a seperate window to monitor the output of each improvement for example; Barracks = #ofMen trained, 50 men = 1 unit, 2000 men = a completed army w/leader. Granary produces storage for wheat and grain, 10 bushels stored/turn 10 bushels = 1 citizen fed, 1 citizen = 100 people. And so forth. I'm not sure I made my point clear enough, but even if I didn't this should spawn some new ideas.

Now finally - here is the one that bugs me the most, regarding realism.

CIVILIZATION INDIVIDUALITY
Now I know not all games can be as detailed and realistic as we dream. But the least Civ3 could have been equiped with is individual civ-style graphics, for example;

Persia

Persian style barracks
Persian style granary

Rome

Roman style barracks
Roman style granary

Romans use a classic white-washed sandstone with pillars and archways. Persians use an arabic, indian style bubble roof and temple-like structures, Egyptians use a bronze-style sandstone archaic type of structure and so forth. I realise that the "city style" is in place, or most of them anyway. But shouldn't each civilization bare it's own architecture through individual culture and defination? I don't know about the rest of you, but if things appeared more realistic I would be more inclined to get into each and every game I initiated with a sense of exctiment and realism.

Well those are the few suggestions that I'm going to post for now, but everything seems to point to a 'super-editor' with complete customization and control over every facet in the game, with such a beast we could create wonders! Please feel free to give me you're input and possibly expand on my ideas - we know that 2 heads are better than one, and 10 heads are better than two, and so forth. Thanks for you're time.

Charles.

[Heliodorus]

Playtesting

The most all-encompassing detrimental design decision to me (if it's actually "design" come to think of it) is playtesting.

What went into the decisions on how to playtest? How was it done? How is it that the "obvious" things so frequently critiqued herein were not seen as issues?

I think so often of Starcraft - a game that embodies the absolute virtue of a public-beta test phase that lasts MONTHS, and of dedicated support to tweak gameplay and fix bugs for well over a year afterward.

As a side note - I think I may very well stay away from games that do not feature a public (not necessarily open) beta test. It's beginning to impress me that companies which do not do so have something to conceal.

Civ3 remains on my HD as I am hopeful of future improvements...
Until then, you'll find my playing Halo on my X-Box.

[Hrnac]

Good points Charles. What everyone is describing is a direct result of what I spoke of in my above post. Civ 3 suffers from 2 major things. The first is the lack of overall fun things to do and the second is a shortened development cycle which stripped away the atmosphere of the game.

The biggest question for the Civ community is whether Infogrammes will stand behind their product and allow Firaxis to further develop the game. I doubt that we will see any major changes to the core game play, but if they continue to enhance the editor, we might be able to do some of the forementioned ideas ourselves.

I have recently started playing SMAC and despite the horrible unit graphics, the level of detail and immersion in that game is astounding. That's what we lost when Brian Reynolds departed for greener pastures. That coupled with Sid's lack of interest in the project makes me wonder if Firaxis was the right company to continue after Brian left.

Perhaps now that Sid's golf game is out the door, he will take interest in Civ 3 and start laying the groundwork to make this title shine. Time will only tell.

-Hrnac

[Willem]

I've been prowling this forum for quite some time now, and from what I've been reading, and from what I've learned while playing the game, I'd say the main problem that people are having with it is lack of control.

Right from the first, with the AI settler mania as it is, you're forced to play in a certain way. You have to expand just as rapidly and spread out as quickly as possible. No choice, no control, very little options for doing things any other way. And when you reach a certain size, you can't keep going. The corruption will slow your expansion to a crawl. So the only option you really have is to build a civ that is exactly the same size as the optimal cities for that map size. No more, no less.

In terms of the warfare, if you don't fight you don't get a Leader, which puts you at a distinct disadvantage right off the bat. And with the AI's inclination to attack civs that are weaker, you don't have any choice but to build up your forces. The last game I played, I was pumping out military units constantly, yet everytime I checked my status I only had an average military compared to most of the other civs. So again I have no control, I have to pump out military units whether I want to or not.

With the corruption, there's no options to combat it. No improvements, no nothing, aside from the FP. All you can do is watch helplessly while some city takes 100 years to build something. Now don't get me wrong, I think the corruption is a good thing overall, but at least we should have some tools in order to deal with it. Even if it takes a thousand years before that city becomes even half way productive, at least there'd be a sense of accomplishment that we've been able to bring it up from only 1 shield per turn, which just doesn't exist at the moment. Unless of course you do what I did and simply create more things to build.

And it's the same thing with culture flipping. There's no warning, nothing a player can do to either prevent it, or at least pull your forces out, before it happens. I think that's what has people upset the most frankly. They could probably live with it as long as there was at least something they could do aside from watching as 20 units disappear. But there are simply no tools available to even attempt anything. The game makes a desicion and you have no choice but to go along with it. It's almost like having to play a game while on autopilot.

[Venge]

I believe Willem has hit the nail on the head.
This thread has a ton of great ideas, many of which I hope get implemented one way or another.
90% of the valid suggestions offered here are based on giving the player more 'choice' on how to go about things.
Awesome way of summing things up Willem.

[CharlesUFarley]

Everyone has something to offer the community, but the real kicker is how can we get an ear (or eye) from Firaxis long enough to go over these details with them and possibly get some feedback as to how possible it is to "use" our ideas in forthcoming patches/expansions and versions. I'll be honest with all of you, I have made an undying effort to try and obtain some solid ground between myself and Firaxis. I have failed in all areas because they won't listen, or when they do listen they never answer. I caution those of you who try, if you fail (as I have) then you'll only end up in "forum wars" and you'll reach a Libertarian, Yin26 and CharlesUFarley state of mind. Cheers and good luck.

PS. If we could only somehow get Jeff, Dan and even Sid to communicate better with the community we might just have a chance here.

Charles.

[Venge]

I am not sure about the others, but I am willing to bet Dan will find and read this thread from top to bottom. He may 'have a go' at people who want answers he can't give, but he does read the forums.

[MOHonor]

Originally posted by CharlesUFarley
Everyone has something to offer the community, but the real kicker is how can we get an ear (or eye) from Firaxis long enough to go over these details with them and possibly get some feedback as to how possible it is to "use" our ideas in forthcoming patches/expansions and versions. I'll be honest with all of you, I have made an undying effort to try and obtain some solid ground between myself and Firaxis. I have failed in all areas because they won't listen, or when they do listen they never answer. I caution those of you who try, if you fail (as I have) then you'll only end up in "forum wars" and you'll reach a Libertarian, Yin26 and CharlesUFarley state of mind. Cheers and good luck.

PS. If we could only somehow get Jeff, Dan and even Sid to communicate better with the community we might just have a chance here.

Charles.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Well that's the funniest thing I've read all day. You've got the most complicated self-delusion psychosis I've ever encountered!

[Capt Dizle]

I insist that I am more complexly self deluded. You are a bad judge of psychosis LittleMo.