The lack of "strategic depth" in Civ3

[Zoid]

The turns begin to drone on with such boring meaninglessness, that even Ironikinit admits to abandoning advanced games and starting over.

[Calvin Vu]

Originally posted by Kamrat X
You mean like find natural resources-build cities-build improvements-expand your culture rating OR find natural resources-build cities-build military units-kick some AI ass? Or is there some hidden aspect of Civ3 strategy that I´m missing?

For me, it's only one choice: pop rushing the horsemen then whupping the AI *sses for techs, wonders, cities, resources; all the while razing cities which, by their potential reversion, might inflict dents to the hoofs of my trampling horde on its warpath. What good are those scum cities to me anyway ? Everything, other than my palace and its close coterie, is inherently filthy and corrupted to the core in this wonderfully maniacal world.
I only played one game to 1700 AD and that's because I forced myself to play on just to see what the spaceship looked like. Therefore, I can't imagine playing a game to the 21st century to get a cultural win. It just won't happen.
As many people have said, the most interesting part of the game is at the beginning where you try to make the best choices (and tough decisions) with the limited resources to gain a strategical/positional advantage, not when you're producing tons of shields and have no ideas what to do with them as in the late game where tech advance is pretentiously stretched to four turns leaving you with scores of mind-numbling, torturous turns where the biggest challenge to your kingdom (and the most serious thhreat to your sanity) is the wrist-wrecking polution !! With Civ 3, the heinous corruption problem (and the lack of any significant potential rewards) precludes the choice of building cities too far from your palaces; and the free-for-all tech tradings among the AIs precludes any chance of doing a peaceful research on your own if you want to catch up. So, most everybody sings this song:
Oh when the horses
Come trampling in
Oh when the horses come trampling in
Scums, now you see razing in full horror
When the horses come trampling in ...
As Reynolds said, if there are 3 choices "fight, bribe, or flee" and the one and only obvious choice is fight then the other choices might as well not exist. Having a choice of building a city in a far-way location in the middle of a desert in the hope that there will be strategic resource there in the far future fall into this class of "choice-but-not-really-a-choice" because by the time I have a spare settler, spare trireme, spare military units, and spare gold to build and support such city-in-the-sky, the outcome of game has pretty much been decided already if the location has not been taken by the AI settler's diahhrea.

[Zoid]

Heh, nice one

[Tarquelne]

Originally posted by Libertarian


I think you misunderstand Brian's point. He isn't talking about that sort of "catching up". You're merely confirming the existence of the formula.

You wrote: "The game is so formulaic that once you have fallen behind by a substantial margin, you have no hope of catching up."...And I wrote that I hadn't found the game to be that way. What's the problem?


Dip victory, space victory.

[...incredulous stare...]

You've equated these with pushing home a strategically earned passed pawn in an otherwise lost chess ending?

YES! Dip or Space can give you a victory when you are behind militarily, culturally, or territorily. When you don't have "power" but you do have "position."

"A better analogy would be a random pawn changing magically into a queen and issuing checkmate of its own volition when both players least expect it."

You're saying that Dip and Space victories are too easy? I agree - (I edited things to make them a more difficult. However, they are examples of position over power.

I suppose. Thankfully, Olympic and professional level sports have not adopted your position.

"Coach, I'm tired and bored."

"No problem. Just rest a spell and start over."

Yes, do suppose. Civ3 sn't the Olympics, and we aren't talking about multiplayer.

I think that dealing with a hundred individual workers in an interface that can move them one at a time speaks volumes about the strategic depth: namely, that it's missing.

_I_ think you're confusing poor interface with lack of strategic depth.

[...shrug...]

I'm playing the game where building a Forbidden Palace takes 200 turns. What game are you playing?

One where it doesn't have to take that long. There've been cities where it would take me 200 turns, but I had to develop them more before starting the FP. It isn't a "quick fix."

The UN victory? I don't think the strategic equivalent of a magic spell is at all analogous to the careful nurturing of a tiny and ostensibly innocuous positional advantage in chess.

Sure it is, you have to play nice with the other Civs the whole game. I'm not saying here that Civ3 has as much depth as chess, no, but that both games do offer the possibility for a "come from behind" win.

Civ3 lacks strategic depth once the early game is finished. That's what I've been explaining in some detail.

Ah. See, I've been treating what you've said as arguments. I'm confident that if you try presenting an argument what you write will be more persuasive.

[Tarquelne]

Originally posted by Kamrat X


Yeah, I always thought that also. Damn that chess lobby!



You mean like find natural resources-build cities-build improvements-expand your culture rating OR find natural resources-build cities-build military units-kick some AI ass? Or is there some hidden aspect of Civ3 strategy that I´m missing?

I hope you aren't trying to be obtuse.

What you've done is describe in an extremely general manner what you need to do to advance your position in Civ3. What you've completely failed to address is the myriad of decisions about exactly _which_ resource deposit to go after, what to do when your resource depisit vanishes, whether to build a military unit this turn or start an improvement... to attack the Germans or the Persians.... all the little decisions that make up most turns of every game.

"Strategic depth" doesn't NOT require "Lots and lots of completely different ways to win the game." Chess is, again, a good example. You spend the entire game in chess doing only two things: Improving your postion and, when you have the opportinuty, picking off enemy peices. Thats it. Two things. You want to say that chess doesn't have strategic depth?

If you want to say, for example, that "Civ2 had more strategic depth because you could win it with 1 city and never expand." Fine. I'd just like to add that while Civ3 seems to have eliminated the "I'm going to demonstrate how bad the AI is and only build 1 city" strategy, I think that it makes up for it in other areas.

[Tarquelne]

Originally posted by Calvin Vu

I only played one game to 1700 AD and that's because I forced myself to play on just to see what the spaceship looked like.

"The game is too easy for me." doesn't = "The game has poor strategic depth."

As many people have said, the most interesting part of the game is at the beginning where you try to make the best choices (and tough decisions)

I want to see someone say "I was behind in the late game, but it was just too tedius to continue."

[Ironikinit]

What I don't get is that most of the people ripping on Civ 3 were Civ 2 fans, and they're pretty much the same. (I often failed to finish games of Civ 2, Kam, I hope that makes you amused. Ho ho ho.)

I could understand hostility to Civ 3 if Civ 2 was also disliked. I can understand bemoaning the lack of MP and scenarios, things that Civ 2 eventually had. I don't understand claiming that Civ 2 was a good game and Civ 3 isn't because they are the same.

No stacked movement in Civ 2
Poor AI in Civ 2
Less options in Civ 2
More exploits in Civ 2

I don't expect straight answers, because I'm pretty sure there aren't any. People just think they're being cute.

[Libertarian]

I realize that you're Mark's pet, but you really ought to muster enough self-esteem to reject dismissing people's complaints with such derisive and illogical oversimplification. If you think that contemptuous rhetoric somehow suffices as reasonable argument, you are mistaken.

[Libertarian]

You wrote: "The game is so formulaic that once you have fallen behind by a substantial margin, you have no hope of catching up."...And I wrote that I hadn't found the game to be that way. What's the problem?

The problem is your interpretation of "catching up" as I explained in some detail. To continue the chess analogy here, Brian was not talking about a Queen's Gambit; he was talking about a Smith-Morra Gambit.

YES! Dip or Space can give you a victory when you are behind militarily, culturally, or territorily. When you don't have "power" but you do have "position."

Why, that's ridiculous. Diplomatic victory is tantamount to declariing victory by virtue of winning a coin flip, and Space victory has been shifted to a bailout. Both are meaningless and hollow. Serious players turn them off.

You're saying that Dip and Space victories are too easy? I agree - (I edited things to make them a more difficult. However, they are examples of position over power.

They are examples of luck over skill.

_I_ think you're confusing poor interface with lack of strategic depth.

Strategic depth (as both Sid and Brian have maintained) is directly proportional to how interesting decisions are. Deciding which of your hundred workers to move next is not interesting.

Sure it is, you have to play nice with the other Civs the whole game. I'm not saying here that Civ3 has as much depth as chess, no, but that both games do offer the possibility for a "come from behind" win.

Do you dismiss the reports of rug-pulling victories despite impeccable diplomacy throughout the game?

Ah. See, I've been treating what you've said as arguments. I'm confident that if you try presenting an argument what you write will be more persuasive.

You've been treating what I've said as worthless and trivial. It shows in your responses.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Libertarian

Why, that's ridiculous. Diplomatic victory is tantamount to declariing victory by virtue of winning a coin flip, and Space victory has been shifted to a bailout. Both are meaningless and hollow. Serious players turn them off.

They are examples of luck over skill.

I know I shouldn't touch this debate with a twelve foot electrified cattle prod, but...

Define "serious player." It appears, whatever you definition is, that I don't qualify, as I leave both options on, and most often win via SS. The vast majority of those SS wins could have been domination wins, but I usually don't have the patience to rack up the required 66% land area.

My main issue with your post is the "luck over skill" comment. In order to be in position to build the SS (or the UN), your gameplay has to have been at least decent. Building a strong, advanced civ isn't "luck."

It sounds like you are saying that the only "serious players" are the horsemen/swordsmen poprushers.

-Arrian

p.s. Isn't "serious player" somewhat of an oxymoron? Heh.

[tmai]

Strategic? Well, I think the outcome of the game is for 90% defined at map creation time. It's for 90% about who will get the flood plains, cows, game and weat, because growth is the only factor that is not influenced by the randomizer. The remaining 10% is based on strategy and click throughs.

Pondering this, I have been experimenting with the new found 'multi' cheat, to check on starting positions. What I found was what I already had come to suspect: at the supposedly neutral Regent level, with 50 randomly generated maps, 48 starting locations of the human player (Persia in this case) were notably less favorable than the starting position of the closest AI neighbor (in this case most often Zulu or Babylon).

I don't think this was a freak coincidence, but I'd like to ask other people to check on this behaviour. What I did 50 times in a row was:

- Start random game on Regent, Large map, Archipelago1;
- Save as '0 multi.sav'; (the zero is for convenience so that the game will get highest on the list of saved games)
- Load game '0 multi.sav';
- Compare starting locations.

I used 5 opponent AI civs for this test, because that's how I had it configured in my bic file. This could be a disturbing factor, dunno yet. Will do more testing.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Tarquelne

I hope you aren't trying to be obtuse.

What you've done is describe in an extremely general manner what you need to do to advance your position in Civ3. What you've completely failed to address is the myriad of decisions about exactly _which_ resource deposit to go after, what to do when your resource depisit vanishes, whether to build a military unit this turn or start an improvement... to attack the Germans or the Persians.... all the little decisions that make up most turns of every game.

"Strategic depth" doesn't NOT require "Lots and lots of completely different ways to win the game." Chess is, again, a good example. You spend the entire game in chess doing only two things: Improving your postion and, when you have the opportinuty, picking off enemy peices. Thats it. Two things. You want to say that chess doesn't have strategic depth?

Tarq, what´s with the obsession with chess? I didn´t talk about chess, Lib talked about chess. Drop the chess already

If you strip away all the eye-candy/irritating micromanagment that is your "myriad of decisions" you´re left with what I described earlier "in an extremely general manner".

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Ironikinit
What I don't get is that most of the people ripping on Civ 3 were Civ 2 fans, and they're pretty much the same. (I often failed to finish games of Civ 2, Kam, I hope that makes you amused. Ho ho ho.)

I could understand hostility to Civ 3 if Civ 2 was also disliked. I can understand bemoaning the lack of MP and scenarios, things that Civ 2 eventually had. I don't understand claiming that Civ 2 was a good game and Civ 3 isn't because they are the same.

No stacked movement in Civ 2
Poor AI in Civ 2
Less options in Civ 2
More exploits in Civ 2

I don't expect straight answers, because I'm pretty sure there aren't any. People just think they're being cute.

Don´t be daft, what could be accepted in a game from 1996 CAN NOT be accepted in a sequel 5 YEARS LATER!! What we want is a BETTER game than Civ2, after all what´s the point of making a sequel if it´s actually equal or even inferior to prior games. Jeez

[Libertarian]

Define "serious player."

An empire building strategist. In chess, for example, compare Fine and Fischer.

[Ironikinit]

Originally posted by tmai
What I found was what I already had come to suspect: at the supposedly neutral Regent level, with 50 randomly generated maps, 48 starting locations of the human player (Persia in this case) were notably less favorable than the starting position of the closest AI neighbor (in this case most often Zulu or Babylon).

While you're testing, make a random map with the editor, make one of the starting positions ridiculously good, and load the scenario. Restart 1000 times. You'll find, I suspect, that the doctored start position comes up as often as any.

Don't feel like doing it? Well, you were the one who wanted to know. Or you can try it until you get the doctored spot and accept that it's random.