What exactly is wrong with Civ 3??

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Barchan
Few hundred coin? They're rippin' you off, man! Sometimes the AI will agree to a mutual defense pact for a single tech or luxury. This, mind you, while you're actively at war with its stronger neighbor. As soon as one of your units gets attacked, they declare war pursuant to the MDP and promptly get their a$$ kicked up into a low geosynchronous orbit. All for a few measly furs.

Bah!

That one deserves it. Low orbit...

[dunk]

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
I'll add a few
1. Lack of discovery
Discovery is no fun anymore - you can just trade maps in a flash and know how the world looks. I used to enjoy exploring other AI's territory and the whole world for that matter, but in Civ3 you can't do that. Instead you can communcate with anyone you can get communcations to even though you have not met them, then you can just trade maps.

You don't have to trade maps.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
2. Lack of realism - the weapons in the game do not pack the kind of punch that you would expect - aka nukes, modern units over ancient ones, and cruise missles.

So, one cruise missle can obliterate an infantry division? Nukes simply annihilate the world? I don't have that much trouble with losing tanks to spearmen. And you know what, I used to care, but now I don't. I altered my play to fit the "problem".

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
3. Cartoon feel - cartoon people and leaders, simple 3D rendered models of wonders instead of nice drawings or pictures, pretty dialogues instead of dialogues full of enough useful iformation.

I can figure out the dialogues. I don't mind the cartoons.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
4. Bordom of any spy operations - it's too expensive and really doesn't have the challenging element of trying to defend against it like you had to defend against diplomats.

Ok, this one is a good point, I don't like the spying either. But, it's better than buying civilizations city by city. Spies really accomplish very little in the real world. Espionage just makes for bad movies.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
5. AI's that you can't make friends with.

You're not doing it properly then.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
6. Corruption that won't let you expand.

I think this was implemented to ensure that AIs were around for the Space Race and to give smaller civs a fighting chance against huge ones in wars. In Civ II, you could rule the entire planet and not have one drop of corruption. Please. I don't particularly like it either, but it's a challenge you have to overcome.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
7. An AI that builds everywhere without letting you enjoy the game at a reasonable pace (this is for the people that like to build stuff not get a high score or win a game by some set rules.

People have posted here about OCCs. I don't expand like crazy and I do ok. You don't have to play on Deity you know.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
8. Inability to customize and build your Civ in detail - such as using terraforming and farmland.

Farmland was ok, terraforming was too extensive in Civ II. I don't care if it just a game, changing desert into anything but desert is just fantasy.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
9. Culture - it continues to expand to infinity; it forces you to raze cities which I dislike; it should not affect industrial and modern era (instead there should be borders discussed through diplomacy).

I've never been forced to raze a city. Pre-patch, post-patch, whenever.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
10. Civs maintain zone of control over the sea in ancient era (this if fine in modern times, but not ancient times) - this goes along with inhibiting exploration somewhat.

I think trading territory maps is fine for exploring. I agree that exploring has been severely curtailed, but this could be partially remedied by creating more continents in your map.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
11. Turns that take too long for the AI to take it's turn (anything more than 20 seconds is getting too much.

Not that big of a deal if you liked the game.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
12. Slow design - the whole design of Civ3 is slower - aka the menus and other things.

I think the design is fine. If I recall, there were menus in Civ II as well.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
13. No accurate world map.

Then download one. Who cares?

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
14. Inclusion of Civs that you would not expect and omission of some rather more prominent Civs (akin to Civ2).

So the game sucks because the Spanish aren't in it? Shut up. You need smacked in the head.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
15. Use of pollution but don't offer a way to completely eliminate it.

Such as the solution we have in the real world? Yes, it's a nuisence, but you can clean it up in case you didn't know. Worker command "Control-C".

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
16. Lack of informatin regarding trade operations (can't keep track of when what will expire).

Yes, you can. Talk to your trading partner... Say "I'd like to offer a deal." Then click on "Active" in the lower portion of the screen and it will show you how many turns left for deals. Ones older than 20 turns (safe to end) have no numbers next to them. Not necessarily intuitive, but the information is available.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
17. Lack of intelligence info on a Civ akin to Civ2 to help you make decisions - but then again since you can't really make friends with the AI, diplomacy is kind of boring in that regards at least.

It's there, just not in one place.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
18. Changing of terrain due to ICBM or so called "global warming" with no way to fix it - aka no terraforming.

As we can easily do in the real world, huh?

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
19. Anti-intuitive interface in that things can't be found by just using the game - for example hidden menus and options in the game that have no link or button to get to them but are activated by some key or keystroke.

The "hidden menus" you mention are not necessary to play the game, just marginally helpful. I think it's possible to win without seeing the "Wonders of the World" or the "Top 5 Cities" screen.

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
well, I'm starting to get nitpicky now. It's not that they are things I may dislike, it's just suggestions like #19 are not really the reasons I've gotten bord of the game. If there were not some of the major flaws, I would probably overlook a lot of unimportant little bugs.

I think Civ III could use a couple additions, but Civ II needed a bunch. I like CIv III better than Civ II.

[ACooper]

Re: What exactly is wrong with Civ 3??

Originally posted by Ginger Elvis
I can't put my finger on it but the game is nowhere near as fun to play as Civ 2.
I love the whole culture idea but I'm finding it real hard to see a game through to the end.
I usually wipe out a couple of neighbours and then go for a peaceful victory but for some reason the game gets really slow and boring from about the 1500s onwards.
I could play Civ 2 with my eyes shut, loved the multiplayer and redesigning stuff on te editor but I can barely bring myself to play the game anymore. SO, what exaclty has gone wrong??

If you call playing a game with your eyes fun shut then that's the problem. (I call it boring!)

[Deornwulf]

Response to dunk999

Trading maps - I won't if the computer won't. I would like to have a reason to build an explorer. Maybe a toggle to allow or disallow the trading of world maps or territorial maps.

Ancient Units should be obsolete by the modern age. Period, end of discussion. Include an automatic upgrade if the computer really feels a need to build low level units. Warriors should become militia or something like that.

I find the cartoonish illustrations of the wonders of the world to be insulting. I liked the wonder movies of Civ II.

Espionage is poorly done and is so cost prohibitive that it is rendered useless. Maybe conducting espionage should be a build option.

On Diplomacy - I've played the board game Diplomacy, I know how to do it right. The diplomatic engine of Civ III would be incomprehensible to the real Bismark. The AI's do really bizarre diplomatic moves that could be avoided by a few more lines of code outlining what is logical and illogical. (Sure, a MPP sound real good with the guy who has an MPP with the enemy I'm with whom I am at war)

Corruption - That is not the best way to limit expansion and actually is too easily circumvented. It's not a challenge, it's an annoyance.Call to Power 2 limited expansion by government type. Perhaps a more serious Social Engineering engine for government would be a better solution to infinite expansion.

Terraforming - Not Fantasy but Science Fiction. It may not be a possibility today but it should be within the scope of the game. Again, CTP 2 takes the civilizations to a point just beyond our current technology. Why can't Civ III?

Time between turns - When it takes more than a minute for a turn to happen, it is a problem, not matter how much I like the game. It could be a less of a problem if the game could loop back around to my turn without my clicking past all of the useless announcements. Then, I could get up and do my laundry, cut the grass, read War and Peace, etc.

Global Warming - I believe the jury is still out on this one. The way Civ III handles it may not be entirely realistic as some scientific evidence may point in other directions. I do feel that the pollution sub-routine still has problems. There should be a way to completely eliminate pollution from a city or for global warming only to occur if the pollution is never cleaned up.

(A way around global warming - Play on wet & warm maps. You may have a lot of jungle to clear but there will be less deserts.)\

Trade Information - It should be more readily available, like on the trade advisor's screen. It seems counter-intuitive to not find it there. I can know what I am exporting and to whom but not for what and for how long? I would gladly trade the useless ariel city view for that information.

After the patches, Civ III is slowly getting better but it is still a long way off from being the game of the year.

Peace

[ACooper]

Originally posted by watorrey
They give you a problem to solve and no way to solve it... corruption.

Forbiden Palace, Courthouses, etc. Limit your Civ size. and a whole bunch of other stuff too.

[dunk]

Re: Re: What exactly is wrong with Civ 3??

Originally posted by Coracle


What has gone wrong??? We've been putting our fingers on precisiely what has gone wrong with Civ III for months on the forums. Check the threads.

Civ 2 was indeed more fun, more challenging, and simply WORKED BETTER. It also gave the appearance of more realism. Civ III was slapped together and rushed to market for the Holiday buying season. It has dozens and dozens of problems, just a few of which include:

Idiotic mod with stupid values, espeically for units and resources.

Your opinion. I think they're fine.

Originally posted by Coracle
Bugs and more bugs, and crashing.

I've never had Civ III crash. Pre-patch, post-patch, whenever.

Originally posted by Coracle
Inadequate Editor.

Not as good as I'd like, but it's pretty good.

Originally posted by Coracle
No scenario-building or Cheat Mode.

A legitimate gripe.

Originally posted by Coracle
The awful tech trading and Diplomacy in the hated patch 1.17.

It's not that bad.

Originally posted by Coracle
SLOW.

Only matters to you because you don't like the game.

Originally posted by Coracle
Ugly colors for land and water.

I think the colors are fine.

Originally posted by Coracle
Impossible to see resources, such as coal.

I can see coal. It's not the easiest thing to see, but it's visible.

Originally posted by Coracle
Culture Flipping citiies and vanishing garrisons IS A CROCK.

Why? Why wouldn't a city want to revolt and join its former civ? It's just a nuisence to you. That makes it a challenge.

Originally posted by Coracle
Too much corruption in outer cities. This was an obvious last minute designer patch to slow down a civ's development.

How do you know it's last minute? It keeps me from capturing every city but one and then winning via spaceship. Uh oh, a new strategy is required. I'd like it to be adjustable, but it's not the end of the world.

Originally posted by Coracle
A constantly cheating AI.

Yes, it does "cheat". Every AI "cheats" on higher difficulty levels. It doesn't cheat on Regent and below. If the cheating beats you, play a lower level.

Originally posted by Coracle
Pathetic use of naval units and naval warfare.

And it was better in Civ I or II? I like the bombard capability of ships.

Originally posted by Coracle
Resources - far too few.

Are you one of those people who think the game sucks because wood isn't a resource? Good grief. Why don't we have tin, silver, oxen, rabbits, heavy water, natural gas, rocks, stone (different from rocks), copper, cheese, mud, shale, and we should buildings that must be built to use these resources, and we must have a storage depot built before we can have resources in a given city, and we must train our citizens before they can work with these resources. You and those "No Spanish Whiners" need smacked really hard.

Originally posted by Coracle
No chance for an immediate counter stroke if an enemy launches nukes at you.

Another legitimate gripe. Good idea. One nuke for each nuke fired at you?

Originally posted by Coracle
Useless armies, and no Military LEaders who can affect combat.

I've seen several posts here about people who have used armies very effectively. So, military leaders do affect combat.

Originally posted by Coracle
Attacking units cannot use enemy roads. Stupid and unreal.

A nusience which makes you take a different strategy. That's all.

Originally posted by Coracle
Razing huge cities is an absurd, barbaric option - often made necessary by the dopey Culture Flipping.

I have never been forced to raze a city. They don't flip all that much. and why the f*** shouldn't they?

Originally posted by Coracle
Far too few units and too few techs.

Could be more, not a big deal if you like the game.

[Miznia]

The big problems with a game of unmodded Civ3 holding my interest:
1. The world fills up too quickly, and the whole world is known to you very soon through tech trading
2. If you can't expand anymore, you have but two unattractive options:
a: go conquer cities and worry about culture flipping
b: try to muster a tech lead (basically in vain)
3. Random resource depletion messes up my build plans: If I have Iron, for instance, I'd better build as many Immortals as possible, or else disconnect the road, etc.

The Rook:
I'm really looking forward to a Civ type game that has a complex diplomatic engine. Maybe I am asking for too much, but I really thought that THIS was what Civ3 would have to offer over Civ2.

(drool)


BUT BUT BUT!!!

I think a *lot* of the big problems can already be solved in the editor, and it's only going to get better. For instance:

Deornwulf: Trading maps - I won't if the computer won't. I would like to have a reason to build an explorer. Maybe a toggle to allow or disallow the trading of world maps or territorial maps.

You can do this in the editor. I have it so that you cannot trade maps until Magnetism, or contacts until Nationalism, but you can have MPP's as early as Code of Laws.

You can increase the cost of settlers ridiculously (I have it at 3 pop and 2 or 3 shields, but with 2 MP to compensate ) to decrease the number of cities you have to worry about, and leave more land untouched longer.

You can dramatically accelerate (or slow down) the growth of your cultural borders (that's under General).

If tech acquisition is too slow, you can speed it up quite a bit under the "map sizes" tab, or you can alter the costs of individual techs.

You can double the movement of all the boats, for instance, to encourage overseas interaction

You can (and should) replace especially the resources graphics...

You can't do much about tech whoring, I don't think... But even if you could, the tech tree isn't very nice anyway... I've tried to separate the tree in each era into discrete branches, but I dunno how much better it is.


I can appreciate the desire to play the game "as Firaxis intended," and to have everybody playing the same game, but I think the game can be made so much better through modding that one should at least try it. It's at least fun to experiment.

IMHO

Miznia

[dunk]

Deornwulf...

I never said that being slow wasn't a problem. It doesn't bother me since I love to play the game.

Why are the cartoons insulting?

Changing a desert into grassland is fantasy... desert is a climate condition. You can't alter rainfall in a "tile" of area in the real world.

Sure, the trade info should be easier to access, but it is available.

Corruption is annoying. That's why it's a challenge. I don't particularly like it either. It's there so you can't pump out 75 modern armor every 3 turns. Small civs wouldn't stand a chance in a war.

[Deornwulf]

If the between turns time could progress without me, I wouldn't mind it very much. The current interface drags. I would rather get a status report at the beginning of my turn listing what each city produced, what units were destroyed, diplomatic messages, etc. This would be totally different from the way the game works now but I think it would be better - Besides, it would get rid of the domestic nag.

The cartoons are insulting because of what they say about me behind my back Seriously, though, I would expect something a little more grand for all of the effort I put into producing a wonder. I actually liked the wonder movies.

Terraforming is science - We might not be able to change the rainfall pattern over a desert now but who knows in the future? If you don't think I should be able to transform the land so easily at least give me an advance that allows more efficient farms or alternative methods of growing stuff on what would normally be hostile terrain.

What I would like to be able to do is pipe water through mountains and hills so I can irrigate grasslands on the wrong side of the mountain square before electricity.

Corruption is only a challenge to those unable to creatively use the editor to eliminate it from the game. I think it is a poor way to control the size of player empires to make the AI more competitive. Here are what I think would be better ways to control those large empires --

1) Random events based on the number of cities controlled. Give each city a chance for a random event. The more cities, the more chances. I would tie some of these events to improvements, giving incentives to players to build them all.

2) Limitations on number of cities and city distance from capital based on government. This might require some social engineering options but would make the game more interesting. Smaller empires could be allowed production bonuses reflecting a more focused approach to labor and resources.

3) More Resources, Resource Management and Resource Transit Times - I don't think wood has to be a resource but perhaps cities next to forests should be allowed to build timber mills, etc. There should also be a production penalty for the distance a resource is away from the city producing a thing requiring that resource. It makes no sense to me that one source of iron lets me produce swordsmen in all of my cities. Resources should only provide enough for a specific number of cities, not all of them.

So, what do you think?

[watorrey]

Originally posted by ACooper

Forbiden Palace, Courthouses, etc. Limit your Civ size. and a whole bunch of other stuff too.

A whole bunch of other stuff includes police stations and... ummm... hrmmm... oh yeah!... editing the game.

What is the first thing newbies ***** about? CORRUPTION!!! They don't want to use the editor. Heck... alot of them don't even know there is an editor.

Other than the spearman vs tank debate, what was the single biggest complaint when the game came out? Corruption!!!

People are still analyzing it and now it seems the math works such that there can be a base of over 100% of something that shouldn't have over 100%.

Some people shouldn't be allowed to use calculators.

[IrdaRanger]

Changing a desert into a grassland is a fantasy

Ever been to Los Angeles IRL? It rains so infrequently it actually makes people stare, but there's plenty of grass and crops. Its called modern irrigation.

Before modern irrigation there were sand dunes 50 feet high in sections of the Great Plains States, now there are endless fields of grass and corn.

Modern technology is capable of quite a bit, but if I wanted to only deal with "the real world" I wouldn't play games like civ. I want a good GAME, a FANTASY if you will ... and this isn't it.

I am glad I know that it sucks (as opposed to never knowing), but at the same time I wish I had never bought it.

Irda Ranger

[PerpetualNewbie]

Actually, Las Vegas is living proof of "terraforming". As is Israel. The whole mess about Klamath River sucker fish is because irrigation turned what was desert into valuable agricultural land. No one could visit the Black Hills of South Dakota and argue the fact that gold strip-mining turns mountains into plains. But I don't really care to quibble about it. I think there are valid gameplay reasons to leave some terrain less desirable, and thus valid reasons to disallow even moderate "terraforming".

And I understand the reason for corruption, to reduce the possibility of a one-superpower world, but unfortunately, it doesn't really function as intended. A penalty for founding new cities is equivalent to a bonus for taking away the cities of others, i.e., as your empire grows, it is more profitable to destroy opponent cities than to make your own...

[twistedx]

I hear a lot of people complaining about bugs, but I haven't personally ran in to any, so my issues are more with the overall gameplay:

- Give an option to "skip" having to watch automated workers every turn. I tend to build a hoard of workers and put most to auto. Every turn, I am forced to watch the screen jump back & forth between automated workers all around the map. Makes me feel like I'm watching a seizure-inducing Japanese cartoon. It is annoying and time consuming -- it takes upwards near two minutes to complete the unit move portion when playing on anything above a standard map.

- I *THINK* this is what people are referring to on the "better stacked movement" thing, but I'll go ahead and restate it for the record. I'd like to be able to group my units together in a cohoesive formation WITHOUT having to move them one-by-one. The latest patch made a really half-assed attempt in implementing stacked movement. I want to be able to group my forces together, like have catapults, spearmen, archers, and swordsmen, in one "army" that would all move at the same time. A great leader should be able to increase the effectiveness of an army, say by increasing attack or defense, but should not be a requirement. This would be more historically accurate; Patton used tanks to their full potential in WWII, but one can hardly say that a great leader like Patton was required to even have a cohesive armored division.

- Is it just me, or has anybody ever had ANY success in using propaganda with a spy? To date, I have never been able to get it to work. It makes sense that the coders didn't want a player to constantly take over cities with propaganda, but it should work alteast every once in a while. OR, atleast make it have some type of negative effect on the enemy civ, like causing discontent ESPECIALLY during war.

- This will hopefully come in the XP, but I want to see the tech tree and game timeline increased. Haven't heard anybody mention it much, but I loved CTP2 because of the future warfare. Warfare isn't really interesting to me until you get bombers, mech inf, modern armor, battleships, transports, and nukes. The game is damn near over by the time you get all those. Expand the game timeline to like 2500 or 3000, and add new tech trees for future techs. I'm a sci-fi buff -- I like the idea of being able to crush spearmen with hover tanks and plasma destroyers, or to build undersea & space colonies.

- Add an "unconditional surrender" feature. SMAC had this, and I would like to see it in civ3. Basically, an enemy civ will give you everything they produce and more-or-less be your slaves, but still retain their own nationality.

- I miss wonder movies. It pisses me off when I spend 40 turns on the Collusus, and all I see is a picture of a big bronze foot -- kind of cheapens the sense of accomplishment.

There's always some tweaks that can be made on any game, but the game is pretty good as a whole.

-- twistedx

[dunk]

Originally posted by IrdaRanger

Changing a desert into a grassland is a fantasy

Ever been to Los Angeles IRL? It rains so infrequently it actually makes people stare, but there's plenty of grass and crops. Its called modern irrigation.

Exactly. It's IRRIGATION, not terraforming. Deserts are usually good soil for farming, but there's no rain. Irrigatrion brings water. Stop the flow of water in the "modern irrigation" and the grass and crops die. Destroy the irrigation on a terraformed tile in Civ, and the grass does not die.

[dunk]

Moderate terraforming would be ok. Building hills and leveling hills would be ok, but it's not needed. No changing deserts!!!