What exactly is wrong with Civ 3??

[woody]

A simple way of doing that would be to slowly decrease the output of the city center as the city become larger.

For example:

Size 1, the city square gets 2 food, 1 shield, 1 commerce.

Size 2, the city square gets 2 food, 0 shield, 1 commerce.

Size 3, the city square gets 1 food, 0 shield, 1 commerce.

Size 4, the city square gets 0 food, 0 shield, 1 commerce.

Or something like that.

I'm not convinced its necessary for game play, though. Larger cities already have things like unhappiness which keeps them from getting too productive, plus they need lots of improvements.

[Spec]

What's wrong with Civ3....welll, a lot of things but not more than anyother game....well almost. The most annoying things are:

-Unbeleivable wait time on huge maps
-Stupid AI trading
-Deity is not "Fun hard" it's more like "annoying hard"
-Too much useless units imo
-Not enough Civs
-Not enough leaders by Civs
-Boats need to move a lot more, I'm sorry but a Battleship doesn't take 100 years to cross an ocean.

And mosty annoying of ALL!!!!!
I get the "Data IO" and the "civilization3 has created an error" to much for a supposebly sellable game. It's really the worst thing ever. And I would like the editor to tell me if something is wrong with the changes I made instead of having the game crash in my face.

SPec.

[Coracle]

SETTLER DIARRHEA - BEWARE

Jezz, how did I forget THIS one?!?

The DIARRHEA OF SETTLERS FLOODING the map including your own territory.

I HATE IT with a PASSION! HATE it.

You leave one tile outside your border (in expectation of an imminent expansion of your own border there) and, sure enough, some damn galley with a settler appears and builds a town there. Worse, his borders FLIP OVER YOUR IMPROVEMENTS!! As his so-called "culture" expands they flip over more of your improvements including even occupied garrisons!!! And if you won't leave, YOU get labelled a warmonger forvever even by civs you won't encounter for another millennium!!

To prevent open tiles you have to start your towns too close together choking their eventual development, or leave warriors sitting there on those open tiles.

Even worse, if you raze a city (another farce) INSTANTLY every other civ knows about it (yet another AI cheat) and dispatches a settler/foot soldier pair there. I am convinced the AI GIVES the nearest military unit a free settler as there is no way they could get there as fast as they do with normal rates of building settlers.

As a corrollary to this you have WANDERING WORKERS who won't leave, or do only to reappear next turn. You attack them and you get labelled a warmonger forever by the dopey AI.

Hell, I've been labelled perfidious and untrustworthy by the AI for stuff I NEVER did!

I started a game recently as the Romans with the Chinese depositing stupid little towns like Chicken Pox all over the map (I had to take out the Aztecs and English first; maybe the Chinese will be next). One town of '5' is seven tiles from my capital which has the Sistine Chapel and Great Library - but the damn think won't flip to me.

Stop the SETTLER DIARRHEA and the WANDERING WORKERS.


BTW, the AI is so stupid it sends those settler/foot soldier teams to a razed city site. . . even when they are still at war with me!! I wiped out three of them in a row once before I got bored and quit the game. So much for 1.17.

[notyoueither]

Coracle. You should really try to breathe once in a while. It might improve your whole outlook on life.

[Coracle]

Here's another one. . .

Units start repeating the last command you gave them and won't conclude so I can move on to the next unit. The game just sort of hangs there, and I have to either wait a long time, or try other crap such as going to other units' tasks to be able to move on.

THIS MAKES MODERN ERA GAMES UNPLAYABLE due to the number of units.

[Whoha]

reason i stopped playing.

civ 3 fights tooth and nail against a civ switch program.

If you want to terriform iirc portions of the save file format have been released, and i can re post my stuff, incase you would like to make a program which will change all the worthless crap terrain into game winning grassland.

[simwiz2]

"Units start repeating the last command you gave them and won't conclude so I can move on to the next unit. The game just sort of hangs there, and I have to either wait a long time, or try other crap such as going to other units' tasks to be able to move on."

That started happening to me a few days ago. Very irritating. And worse, if it happens to a worker for some reason it cant be fixed by clicking another unit, and i have to restart civ

[Barchan]

Re: SETTLER DIARRHEA - BEWARE

Originally posted by Coracle

The DIARRHEA OF SETTLERS FLOODING the map including your own territory.

By definition, though, if they can settle there it isn't your territory. For better or worse, CIV III does not acknowledge the Monroe Doctrine or the concept of Manifest Destiny. You either possess the territory (i.e. it's within your borders) or you don't. And if you don't own it, then it's mine for the taking.

Now, having said that, I agree with your sentiment. It's infuriating to try to create and maintain a well planned, carefully laid out nation when the AI keeps building cities in your way. But hey, that's life. Will it piss you off? Oh, I think so; just ask any Native American how *they* feel about it.

Sure, it's cheap and sleazy and flies in the face of "enlightened" growth and development, but it's also (in no small part) what made the United States the massive powerhouse it is today. Endless streams of settlers, "going West", spreading like a disease, building towns wherever there was open space and claiming resources that already "belonged" to someone else.

I do wish there was a "hey, now, that's my turf yer buildin' on" diplomatic option that could force the AI to declare war and settle or just move along, but it'd both be a major drag on playability (imagine a pop-up every time the AI tries to found a city) or be as arbitrary as the current border system (like a 3-tile (influence) zone from your current border).

A very nice fix, for strategic resources and luxuries at least, would be durable colonies (meaning they don't go *poof* when borders overlap them). Otherwise, aside from allowing players to draw their own borders on the map and post "Keep Out!" signs, that's just life. As they say: Suck it up, cupcake, and move on.

[Deornwulf]

I find the Settler Diarrhea a motivating factor in my game. I strive to find the other civs as fast as possible and then push my own settlers out to the farthest boundary I think I can get. I also dance my units with the AI to prevent it from sending settlers to places I want to settle. I've even created blockades with galleys to keep AI galleys out of my coastline. No attacks, no wars.

[Shaka Wacker]

I’ve played the following for far too much of my life! LOL!

Civ 1 (on Amiga 500+ & 1200)
Civ 2 (on PC – 486DX 33Mhz 8Mb)
Civ 3 (on PC - AMD k6-2 300Mhz 256Mb) - Runs ok BTW

So I guess you can say that I’m a fan. I bought Civ 3 around Christmas time and was keen to give it a whirl. Generally I have to say that I like Civ 3 and the things it improves on over previous versions are well worth having – Workers, Click & Drag interface, Advisor screen revamp etc etc.

However, I think that a few things really need tweaking before it’s a worthy successor to Civ 2. Reading these forums I see with interest that several others also have ‘issues’ with Civ 3. Here are mine for what they’re worth:

1. The ‘corruption’ element is set ridiculously high. Ok, the ‘Forbidden Palace’ will help your empire in one physical direction, but it can take 200 turns to build in extreme cases on the outskirts of empire - where it’s needed most (and if there’s no ‘great leader’ available to speed it along). Why not allow at least ONE more ‘Forbidden Palace’ to be built? That would help a hell of a lot and enable your empire to grow away from the capital city in more than one direction.

2. The lack of a terraforming ability is a real disappointment. Ok, it took a lot of time in Civ2, but was certainly doable with stacked units. With Civ 3, later in the game you generally have workers sat on their arses just waiting for pollution because everything else has been done. With terraforming you can flatten mountains, hills etc – great stuff. They should bring that in as a technology later in the game. Why not an Alpha Centauri style terraformer where you can make / destroy land bridges and create land from the sea.

3. I really detest the Civ 1 style ‘Cover every square with railroad to get the best from it’. This is two GIANT UGLY steps backward – a real hideous mess. Why didn’t they stick with the superior Civ 2 style of improved farmland (and Supermarket improvement). This looked a hell of a lot nicer and let’s face it was a bit more realistic than rail covering everything in sight.

4. The ridiculous ‘culture flipping’ – of course! A lot has been written about this already so I won’t repeat it. My policy is this. If I’m going to completely annihilate a target Civ and a captured city is in a good position (or has a wonder) I will keep it. Otherwise it’s ‘goodnight Vienna’ and I’ll wheel a settler in to its place. In my experience, if you don’t completely finish off the enemy Civ in a war, you run the risk of a city (actually it’s usually two at once) switching back and destroying your units inside.

5. You can’t sink enemy ships with land-based artillery. Why? You can give them a real bloody nose so why not have the ability to sink them. It’s the same with aircraft too isn’t it? Haven’t the developers heard of what happened at Pearl Harbour, Midway etc etc.?

6. A map made up of small islands is basically out of the equation in Civ3 because the wonders you build generally affect only cities on the same continent only. Again, Why? Ok, some of the wonders were supposed to be that way in Civ 2, but in my experience actually weren’t. Island Civs are usually more spread out, so the ‘corruption’ radius handicaps you as well. I used to prefer island settings in Civ2 because the sea gave you a degree of protection early on. Now, I pretty much have to play on a single large land mass and hit the ground running.

8. The AI keeps on making incursion into my territory despite repeated warnings from me. It's harder to form barriers from units now because enemy units can now slip past through any gaps.

9. Espionage. The spy who gives you other Civ’s military inventory is very useful, but has anyone had any success with any other activity. Apart from the military spy the counter intelligence thing has never once worked for me. Consequently, I’ve given up on espionage now and I usually forget it’s actually an option.

With some or all of these suggestions I think Civ 3 would truly kick ass.

As they say: Opinions are like *******s. Everybody's got one!

[codemast01]

Diplomacy has changed little between Civ II and III.

There is still no way to cordinate war with allies. An alliance only mean the AI will declare war on anyone who attacks you. It doesn't ensure they'll help route a siege on one of your city. In fact it doesn't even insure they'll send any troops to help you at all. (especially if the AI is seperated by an ocean)

The AI still doesn't know when to give up or when it is seriously out matched.

The UN is still powerless (yes I know that is how it is in reality but I would like to see it have some limited abilities. Perhaps the ability to make certain actions such as razing cause the "razer's" reputation to decrease) and is even less useful than in Civ II. At least than it forced civs to offer peace treaty.

I can't help but seriously wonder if the developers spent too much money on those 3D leaders and ran out of money when it was time to upgrade diplomacy. Don't get me wrong. They look great but I'd rather have an improved diplomacy.

[Mr. President]

Funny, it always seemed all right to me.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

?? espionage city troops ??

Originally posted by Shaka Wacker
...
9. Espionage. The spy who gives you other Civ’s military inventory is very useful, but has anyone had any success with any other activity. Apart from the military spy the counter intelligence thing has never once worked for me. Consequently, I’ve given up on espionage now and I usually forget it’s actually an option.
...

I agree to most of your remarks, albeit not the cultural flip aspect of the game, that I consider as an improvement (just needs some tweaking).

About the spying: I've heard some say that they can check out on the number of militaristic defenders in any enemy's city, but I only succeed in planting a spy and viewing the total army of the enemy (F3). The advisor keeps telling me to place spies to see troop locations, but I just can't do it, neither conduct other operations as clarified in the manual ...

How can you use the spy as suggested in the manual (sabotage, propaganda,) ? My manual doesn't mention and the interface provides not a single clue ...

AJ

[watorrey]

Re: ?? espionage city troops ??

Originally posted by AJ Corp. The FAIR

How can you use the spy as suggested in the manual (sabotage, propaganda,) ? My manual doesn't mention and the interface provides not a single clue ...

AJ

Once the spy is in place, use the espionage option by using the "E" button on the info box button list or "Shift-E". I think that clicking the star on the enemy capital may work also.

[Nemo]

No MAD (Mutual Assured Distruction) ...easily implimented by making it take 2 turns for ICBMs to hit target (one to launch and alert the recieving nation, and have opportunity to launch counter attack, the second turn for impact)

Can't put a cruise missile on ships! wtf is the point of it then? take it out of the game or make it to be used correctly!

Can't put Helicopters on carriers. It makes more sense to put a Helo on a carrier then a freaking huge B-52 bomber that would never make the runway even with a catapult system!

8. The AI keeps on making incursion into my territory despite repeated warnings from me. It's harder to form barriers from units now because enemy units can now slip past through any gaps.

...just my gripes