TO FIRAXIS: Specific Suggestions for Improving Civ III

[Selkirk]

Specific Suggestions for Improving Civ III

AI

A. City governor shouldn't produce extra food in growth inhibited cities.

B. Timed Attack.
Currently, the AI has the ability to decide to go to war before actually declaring war. This is obvious when you watch a stream of AI controlled units march across your territory and then later declare war on your neighbor. In this mode, once the AI decides to declare war, it seems to do so as soon as the first unit has the opportunity to attack.

Instead, the AI should pick a specific future year during which to execute its attack. Then, the Unit AI's should have the ability to hold back and arrive at the desired target at that year. This would allow the AI to better coordinate attacks with ships and ground troops simultaneously, As well as deliver overwhelming force to a specific point at a specific point in time. (exactly what human players do.)

C. Don't allow automated workers to move within capturing distance of a border with a civilization that you are at war with.

D. Fix paratroopers and helicopter units to allow assaults on cities that are behind the initial border cities and teach the AI how to use these units. Currently, you can hold internal cities with warriors even in the modern age if the border cities have enough units in them to discourage attack.

USER INTERFACE

E. Should be able to set the science rate from the science advisor screen.

F. Turns counts are unreadable on science advisor screen.

G. Stack movement.
Shift-J : move only full strength units.

H. Add a summary screen of turn events.

I. Improved trade advisor
Eliminate the need to contact civs to see what they desire in trade.
Change display to
Has.................Desires
*&$@##.............#*(#$*#&
Where #*($#*& are resources and luxuries.

J. Improve foreign Advisor
Add options to Foreign advisor screen to perform all espionage, embassy and intelligence agency functions from this screen.

K. Eliminate science rate micromanagement
Extra beakers (science) should automatically convert to money. (Or anything to avoid setting science every turn, for example a setting to automatically adjust the tax rate to make a discovery every X turns.)

[alexman]

Another plug for Patch MOD

I agree 100% with your suggestions.

In addition, there are several specific game-balance issues with wonders and units that need to be addressed:

-> Musketeer, Musketman, Rifleman, marines need to have higher attack and lower cost. Paratrooper needs higher defense. Privateer, Armies need to be cheaper. Submarines need a higher attack. Modern tanks need a lower defense. Fighters, Battleship, AEGIS, cuise missiles, need a higher bombard ROF. Cuise missiles need a higher range. Radar artillery needs movement of 2.

-> Leaders, artilery need to be airliftable. Artillery, tanks, mech infantry need to be wheeled.

-> Swordsmen, longbowmen, sail-age ships need to be upgradable (so they are removed from build options in modern age)

-> Effect of taxmen, scientists, and wealth, needs to be increased.

-> Cure for Cancer and Longevity are not strong enough. Extra happiness, for example, should fix them.

-> Some spaceship parts need to have higher tech advances as a requirement.

-> Drafting and pop-rushing penaly needs to be reduced (or the AI needs to use them less)

All the above changes are implemented and tested in Player 1's Patch Suggestion MOD

Things that can't be changed in the editor:

-> Reduce tech devaluation that causes rapid advancement with no chance to use all units.

-> Anti-corruption city improvements need to have a minimum effect for completely corrupt cities.

-> Pop-rushing and drafting unhappiness should not remain after a city is "liberated"

-> Commercial and Industrial bonuses should start at city level, not metropolis level. Commercial civs should get cheaper marketplaces and banks. Expansionist civs, cheaper granaries. Millitaristic civs, extra unit support. (All this was suggested by Arian in this thread)

That's all I can think of right now...

[chiefpaco]

Selkirk: That's the best list I've ever seen!

It would greatly enhance the gameplay while keeping the balance just right!

[lockstep]

Re: TO FIRAXIS: Specific Suggestions for Improving Civ III

Originally posted by Selkirk
K. Eliminate science rate micromanagement
Extra beakers (science) should automatically convert to money. (Or anything to avoid setting science every turn, for example a setting to automatically adjust the tax rate to make a discovery every X turns.)

I second that. Micro-managing my workers can be fun, but micro-managing my science rate is only annoying.

[Inverse Icarus]

i concur on the sci rate point, and also on the SHIFT+J "satck move all full health units".

it would also be nice to have a "Move All Units of This Type" where This Type is the selected unit.

[simwiz2]

Re: Another plug for Patch MOD

Originally posted by alexman
Radar artillery needs movement of 2.

IMO that would be unbalancing because you could take an unlimited # of radar artillery, use your RR, use 1 move point to get into range of an enemy city, and then bombard it to pieces that same turn, then take it with MA's and no casualties. The enemy wouldn't even get a chance to counterattack your units, the city would be taken in one turn. It could be like the howie-blitz in the civ2 lategame.

This is based on a 2-square border radius, which assuming OCP, human and AI cities would be 4 squares apart with 2-tile border each. So 1 move for rad arty makes them a siege-type unit, 2 move means they could help in a 1-turn MA blitz. Which is not a good thing IMO.

[swt1]

I concur regarding the city govenor producing food when growth is inhibited.

The AI city govenor along with worker impovements needs work IMO. It is too focused on growth. It should focus more on production while maintaining a reasonable growth rate. This would help the AI by producing more military units and infrastructure.

Consider the massive sized cities the AI makes. After all the tiles are used up all the extra food slowly turns into extra specialists. These specialists contribute just a single point of science or gold. The AI would be better off having more mines and less irrigation to help directly in its production needs.

A similar arguement can be made regarding the AI's choice in distance between cities. Until sanitation is developed each city can only work 12 squares. Why does it space the majority of it's cities to build mega cities which can only be used late game (and then it uses the extra squares for food to turn into 1 gold specialists).

[alexman]

Re: Re: Another plug for Patch MOD

Originally posted by simwiz2

IMO that would be unbalancing because you could take an unlimited # of radar artillery, use your RR, use 1 move point to get into range of an enemy city, and then bombard it to pieces that same turn, then take it with MA's and no casualties. The enemy wouldn't even get a chance to counterattack your units, the city would be taken in one turn. It could be like the howie-blitz in the civ2 lategame.

Okay, maybe this is a matter of taste, and hence not as essential as some of the other elements metioned in this thread.

But I don't agree that 2-movement will make RA like howitzers in Civ2. The bombardment concept is new to Civ3 and cannot kill (only damage) units. If you could use RA in the manner you describe, then you could also now be using bombers in that way, in unlimited numbers, and people would not be complaining that airpower is not powerful enough in Civ3.

[Pius Popprasch]

Re: Another plug for Patch MOD

Originally posted by alexman
-> Commercial and Industrial bonuses should start at city level, not metropolis level. Commercial civs should get cheaper marketplaces and banks. Expansionist civs, cheaper granaries. Millitaristic civs, extra unit supportAll the above changes are implemented and tested in

The DO start on city level. It'S ONE shield or commerce. Not much but many people favor industrial civs already.

[alexman]

Originally posted by Pius Popprasch
The DO start on city level. It'S ONE shield or commerce. Not much but many people favor industrial civs already.

Actually, they don't. See Mike Breitkreutz's (firaxis) post in this thread.

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

its been a long time since i played civ2, but didnt it have farms as upgraded irragation? And cant we have a way to do terraced farms.

Fix polution!!!!!! I had to raise city sizes to 8 and 16. population pollution is idiotic in a non industrial city. pollution yes, but not global warming type of pollution from 1st centurty rome or even 18th century london.

[Zachriel]

Re: Another plug for Patch MOD

Originally posted by alexman
-> Musketeer, Musketman, Rifleman, marines need to have higher attack and lower cost.

Gunpowder infantry are defensive weapons. That's why sword lasted well into the musket age. A little cheaper would be good.

Paratrooper needs higher defense.

Paratroopers are supposed to be weak and expendable units. They are used to cut road and rail to prevent reinforcements arrival. Make them cheaper.

Armies need to be cheaper.

I usually have 6-8 armies by the modern age. That should be plenty for such a powerful unit. (I use armies in every game I can.)

A lot of good suggestions, in any case.

[rpodos]

I agree with most of the above. Also:

Obviously, fix the "J" bug for Armies.

Mass upgrades should not activate units.

Bring back caravans.

Figure out how slow tech trading, just a leetle bit.

No more communist meltdowns, please.

Introduce the warfighting AI to the concepts of overwhelming force and focus of force.

Multiple zooms in the game (and as others have said, in the editor).

I play mostly up to tanks, so I can;t really comment on a lot of the en-game issues. Other than that, I think the game is fabulous, and am constantly impressed by the design balance and elegance.

And I like my Immortals!!

R

[Selkirk]

Originally posted by rpodos
Figure out how slow tech trading, just a leetle bit.

Originally posted by alexman
-> Reduce tech devaluation that causes rapid advancement with no chance to use all units.

Rather than crippling the AI to slow down tech trading, the proper fix for this is to improve the areas that the AI is weak at, so that the current emperor level can become the new deity level. With a better AI, the current computer advantages at emperor could become the advantages at a new deity level with all of the lower levels adjusted accordingly. The 1.17F patch whet my appetite for what is possible with AI improvement in a patch.

I Believe that the AI most needs improvement at waging war. My timed attack suggestion is my best effort for a suggestion which might do this and be implementable with a patch sized effort.

Because barracks heal units, a small number of defenders can completely defeat an endless string of small numbers of attackers. The AI seems to simply send an endless stream of units toward its targets as they are produced. I think you can see the effect of this in the number of AI vs AI wars where no cities ever change hands. Also, The AIs inability to coordinate the time the attack of different units results in the AIs complete inability to wage an effective intercontinental war.

By giving the AI the ability to have units wait for a coordinated attack on a target, I believe the computer's ability to wage war would be significantly improved, especially when the realities of an intercontinental war requires multiple transports arrive at a target simultaneously.

The general ability to coordinate units for a timed attack might be too much to ask for. However, the AI already seems to have the ability to move units toward a target during peace with the intent of declaring war. I believe that it would be easier to implement a coordinated attack during this phase.

[notyoueither]

I agree completely Selkirk.

The fundamental principle of warfare for as far back as I am familiar with is to bring maximum force to bear at the critical point in order to destroy your enemy in as short a period of time as possible.

Napoleon was the first to ennunciate and fully understand this principle (in the West) but there are examples of it prior to him. I guess that's why he is known for revolutionizing warfare, among other things.

I think the AI could greatly benefit from *ganging* code. So long as it's defenses are looked after, I can see no way that it could be hurt by using this principle. Yes, you may attack a weak spot in it's defences and enjoy initial success in an attack. But, what will you do about it when 10 or 20 Cavalry pound up to your forces as one or two big stacks and insist on the untimely demise of your invaders.

I've had the Cavalry nightmare happen to me once. It was when a well developed, but distant civ declared war on me. About 20 turns passed with no sign of them. Then 2 cav popped up along my border. No problem, destroyed them easily. Next turn? About 20 Zulu Cavalry hit my single biggest force. When it was over my force was gone and the Zulus captured 8 Cannon. Now I was in big trouble. Lost that one. Was small at the time and there were more where the first 22 came from. But the first 22 effectively destroyed my ability to resist with practically the first shots of the struggle.