What part of Civ3 needs the most improvement in a patch?

[korn469]

This builds upon the thread that jt started yesterday, although unlike him I am working from the assumption that at least one part of civ3 is flawed and needs improvement in a patch ASAP.

Besides just voting, tell me why the option you voted for needs improvement, and if possible try to offer a solution that firaxis could easily implement.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Korn they should employ you

by the way I would choose the editor, if this was a question. But I am not sure, I would take something that cannot be edited. And air and naval units spring to my mind. It would be good to get a choice and the ability to kill other types of units with them if you want to enable that for yourself in a game, and if they do that option make this ability to enable full kills from bombards a unit property, so you can still keep a few units that can only bombard to 1 HP and some air/naval that can totally kill like air fighters/ cruise missiles and similar. Plus a toggle that can enable/ disable this for the whole group. (air/naval/ ground bombard units).

*off-topic*
On the note of bombarding air bombers should hit every unit in a city when they bombard and take a few HP's of each of them. But that is for anoter topic. the strike rate would be bombard streengt /#units in a city. / end off topic


for the game I chose make more HP's default, and sort out the long animation thing.

[TinCow]

I picked the "other" option. The thing that annoys me the most is the AIs total disregard for cultural boundaries. I'll accept their ridiculously fast settler spread and their city building on useless terrain spots, but at least let me have my borders secure from rampaging settlers trying to populate that one square that culture hasn't expanded to yet.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

I've voted for the tech acceleration too fast,

but, if possible, also would have voted for

many of the balancing combat solutions mentioned by others on various threads being programmed into next patch.

Could be easily accomplished by Firaxis?

Tech acceleration and corruption settings can also be easily edited as suggested by many well thought posts here (ApolytonCiv3) around ... !?

AJ

[Arrian]

I voted for tech trading/speed of advancement, but I also think that the AI self-destruct syndrome (nationalism + communism + 40 turns of unhappiness per rush) needs tweaking. I guess communism should be beefed up a little. Maybe Monarchy too.

-Arrian

[korn469]

hehe i was going to make it where you could select multiple choices, but then i realized that probably every choice would get the same amount of votes

i've heard alot of complaints, but i would like to see what maybe the top three or four problems are right now

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by korn469
hehe i was going to make it where you could select multiple choices, but then i realized that probably every choice would get the same amount of votes

i've heard alot of complaints, but i would like to see what maybe the top three or four problems are right now

The victory conditions you mentioned in the poll don't bother me at all.

The other ... !!!

AJ

[Solver]

Should be multichoice. If so, I'd say nukes and easy Diplo victory. Thus, I say nukes (vote). I saw a couple of very nice suggestions here on the forums, and nuke weakness is my biggest complain with Civ 3, as it is now.

Korn: you're lovely!

[korn469]

Korn: you're lovely!

ummm solver, i'm not that kind of guy
i knew what you meant and i'm just joking around with you

___________________________________

anyways i think all of the things mentioned above are areas that firaxis could improve on, and hopefully quality feedback like this will help them out

[BillChin]

Everything in the poll looks like a reasonable candidate. However, I believe that patch 1.17f focused almost entirely on such micro issues and has gotten a thumbs down in the fun department.

That is what I want to see, a focus on the big picture. The big picture is that Civ III is a game. Games are supposed to be fun. When looking at possible changes ask these questions:
Does it make the game more fun or more frustrating?
Does it give the player more options or fewer options?
More choice in play styles or fewer?
Does it make the game too easy (less fun)?

My wish list includes:
fixing the pop rushing loophole (one turn delay after joining before rushing)
making navies useful (add piracy rules, increase movement for modern units)
minor adjustments to corruption to give a player more options
minor adjustments to tech trading for game balance on higher difficulties

But, again these are micro issues and I believe that if Firaxis focuses on the big picture instead of micro issues, the next patch will be more fun than the current version. Something that 50% of fans do not believe is true about 1.17 vs. 1.16 (Civfanatics poll).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17374&highlight=1.16+poll

[Immortal Khan]

I voted for the last "other" option. It's mainly about the AI. It's just plain dumb. Building cities in locations that can't grow above 2, (I can see if there might be a resource in the vicinity, but not just put a city any place there is land outside cultural boundaries) AND the AI attacks for no reason, breaks treaties, alliances, as if it's not held responsible for it's heinous acts by the international community. There are other AI stupid acts, too, which have been covered in other posts.

[player1]

In order or priority:

1) lower pop rush penalities to 20 turns, and make AI better in those situations.

2) chage tech. devalutaion rules

3) balance out some units (and bombardment)

4) all other

[chiefpaco]

I voted for the tech pacing. Even pre-1.17, the game speed tech-wise just doesn't feel right to me (but it's certainly worse now). I'm not crazy about the insta-share & how fast the ancient age goes or how the modern age tech tree looks.

As for the rest, these are others I could've voted for (the others, either I disagree, or aren't a problem to me):
- AI poprushing penalties
- Naval units are underpowered
- Armies aren't as useful as they should be
- Space race is a bit too easy
- Diplomatic isn't complicated enough for my taste (I like the UN suggestion thread)

[SpencerH]

There are so many things to fix its impossible to pick one from the few in the poll. I'll appreciate anything, but if they give us a much better editor we can fix it or add complexity ourselves. Given the talent here, I think we'd have a better game available very quickly. Of course then we'd have to decide who's mod to use as the default for tournament or MP(?).

[planetfall]

next patch ideas

Mentioned ideas many times in other posts,
{poll should have allowed multiple choices} but the key items keep on reoccuring.

1. Allow editor to increase range of air units beyond 8 tiles.
Why--ship movement is too slow {for fun not realism}. Fun play has BS, destroyers moving 6,7,8 tile range. Unreal for planes to be limited to same range as expanded ship movement.

2. Change Manhattan project to small wonder
Why-- Nukes have been around for a long time, and all nations still don't have nuke technology. It is good 9/11 was not a tactical nuke.

3. Fix technology devaluation
Why-- give another option, i.e. self fund tech development. Present only method is either aggressive trading or aggressing buying of techs. Can't play game where develop own techs, you just get further and further behind.

4. Add Editor "scenario option"
Why-- An editor option to set different levels for AI trading, similar to changing preference for barbarian activity would add a whole new dimension to the game. Some could play with no trading, each AI must build own techs to full trading as in 1.17 where AI's aggressively trade techs.

5. Add World grid references
Why--Then besides goto with arrow, could just enter a reference, i.e. AC123. Use references like spreadsheets, letters for columns and numbers for rows.

6. Encourage megacities
Why-- if city workable area floated with size there would be more incentive to build megacities than a string of small towns. Something like this would be nice: workable area level 1, 9 tiles, level 2 size=21 tiles, level 3 size=37 {one more ring}, etc. Naturally if this is created, we need a prefence to toggle city workable area on play map, instead of having to double click on city. Cool would be a bold line of the civ color giving current city workable area size.

7. Encourage Modern Era culture wars
Why-- allow another dimension where players don't want to go for either warmonger or leave junk on earth and go to alpha centarii. How about 8 new wonders included ability to generate special leaders who then can be used to encourage city flipping?

8. Remove 50 gold limit on interest
Why--penalized for not being a high spender. What if don't what high military force count and want to use interest to offset corruption and for reserve rushing if some civ makes the mistake of attacking?

9. Encourage learning how to play
Why-- game has too high of a learning curve for new players. In Editor allow an option, "mentoring", to allow player to see what the AI civs do. Computer chess games have helps and hints. Advisors "advice" tends to be too bogus. With mentoring mode we all could learn quicker what changes we need to make in play styles to keep the game fun.

10. Expand play history learning tools
Why-- again learning curve is too high. Besides playback, allow playback to a file so we can play better next time. Or even better would be an option to print F8 screen to a file. I have developed the habit of recording for each turn:
my civ score:
closest civ score:
next closest civ score:
approval percent:
approval ranking
literacy percent:
literacy ranking:
land military unit count:
air military unit count:
sea military unit count:
productivity percent:
productivity ranking:
my civ score change difference:
closest civ score change difference:

This is a great aid in seeing when I am slipping behind before I get mashed by another civ. If I see I am still falling behind, I know I have to try a new tactic.

Unfortunately, currently with the high AI tech trading and tech devaluation, the reward for developing a high literacy rate is small.
Even better would be an option to show line graph and table of numbers of this data on F8 screen. But that might be more than just a patch.




11. Build in mod pack
Why-- rather than force users to learn how to mod, allow 4 user created units:
special leader
land unit
sea unit
air unit
graphic could be fuzzy image of ship, plane, hummer.

12. Show turn # and % of game time elapsed
Why-- took forever with a variable year to turn ratio, to figure out where I was in terms of game time.

13. Regular Vender Q&A
Why-- too many worry wart commenters on forum. A separate topic of the month with answers and firaxis answer with questions from 5 current forum posters would both give us all real information instead of wild theories and would be an opportunity for firaxis to develop more excitement over playing the game.

Think this is probably enough. How many times have we all posted something and hoped, crossed our fingers and prayed that our concerns would be heard by the firaxis gods?