What exactly is wrong with Civ 3??

[PerpetualNewbie]

Give an option to "skip" having to watch automated workers every turn.

I'm confused. Don't you have one of those? Animate our moves or something like that?

Unconditional surrender? In essence get the production of low corruption cities without increasing your own corruption? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose?

Wonder movies -- well I guess it is a good thing they put effort into movies and animations, then, but personally, after a few games, I would just as soon turn off all that in exchange for faster gameplay. The wonder splashes and age change screens are a great plenty / too much for my tastes already.

I agree that the game plays well as it is, but there are several things that would reduce the tedium without interfering with actual gameplay. I don't like corruption or war weariness, and I see why they don't fix the problem, but I can't come up with anything that works better, either, so I won't complain about them...


My Patch-Level Wish List

1. As for "stack movement", I would be ecstatic if they would just allow groupings like they have in the Age of Empires series -- Ctrl (number) to assign a group, then just (number) to select all those units, then implement the functions group wake, group fortify and group move, where the group moves to the limit of the slowest moving unit.

2. Another "nice to have" would be Ctrl-U for upgrade all units of this type in this city, for when you have quite a few obsolete units in a particular border town that will be under attack in a turn or two, but not enough gold to upgrade all those units country-wide.

3. Wake multiple units from the Military Advisor screen, when you can see wherever it was you left outdated units.

4. Population / tile value change summary screen. If I could just get a list of all the cities that either changed pop, and thus may need to have their laborers tweaked, and those cities who had a tile improve (or decline), then visit those cities in order, rather than periodically going through every stinking town to see if it can be done better...

5. Numeric summary happy/content/unhappy. Counting faces is just irritating, and prone to error, particularly after 12 pop, so I end up having to leave the governor in control of mood.

6. Mark a worker as "Finish what you are doing, then ask for orders." (for automated workers, I mean)

7. Numeric entry of gold into science, in lieu of slider bar.

8. Individual city science appropriation -- Super Science City has all its money going into research, Pig's Knuckle, Arkansas has no science expenditure.

9. Workers shouldn't cost pop. I would much rather have the AI have a gazillion workers than a gazillion Legion. Why further encourage warfare over building?

10. Quick list of city upgrades in domestic advisor. Glance down a list of checkmarks and see which cities don't have a bank, glance across at their income, and decide whether to build one. (Hint: This could fit inl that space where you currently show all the happy/content/unhappy faces (see #5))

11. Capitol cost -- Seems to me the intent is to prevent one from continually moving his capitol to take advantage of culture flipping. Of course, mostly this is done with leaders, so the cost is kind of immaterial, no? If one thinks increasing the cost helps somehow, maybe just increase the cost each time it is built, don't base it on how many cities you have. This solution makes it really tough for someone who started in a bad location. If you relocate early, it is cheaper, but the number of shields expended messes you up for life.

That's a great plenty, since not many read this far anyway.

[twistedx]

I'm confused. Don't you have one of those? Animate our moves or something like that?

Ya, there is an "Animate our automatic moves" (or something like that) check box. It just turns off the ANIMATION for auto-moves, but still shows the actual moves. The game still focuses the screen on the unit that is moving. I really don't care what my worker is up to, as long as he's up to something.

1. As for "stack movement", I would be ecstatic if they would just allow groupings like they have in the Age of Empires series -- Ctrl (number) to assign a group, then just (number) to select all those units, then implement the functions group wake, group fortify and group move, where the group moves to the limit of the slowest moving unit.

Exactly what I was looking for also -- you explained it better than I did.

--twistedx

[dunk]

Originally posted by PerpetualNewbie
6. Mark a worker as "Finish what you are doing, then ask for orders." (for automated workers, I mean)

Do you mean give us the ability to say, "Ok, Mr. Worker, build mines here, here, and here, then a road from here to there, the make it a railroad, then clean up pollution here, here, and here?"

That would be nice.

I've also found that stacks of 6 workers are good.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Don't simplify, please ...

Originally posted by Deornwulf
...
Corruption is only a challenge to those unable to creatively use the editor to eliminate it from the game. ...

So, what do you think?

I think that none of us should be obliged to dive in an editor and correct the settings ourselves. As you seem to imply that you use the editor to reduce corruption, you acknowledge there is a corruption issue.

Sure, I've gotten used to it. Sure I can beat the game.
But that doesn't mean that the extreme corruption for far distant cities (you can't produce anything more than 1 !!!!) is reasonable/attractive in terms of gameplay.

Imagine all players playing different sorts of mods, patches and edited games. None of us would be talking about the same product, none of us could compare results/strategies etc...
Apolyton would become a Labyrinth (even more than today ).

I stick to the official and original version, I'm 100% that the big majority of civ3 players (even here on Apolyton) act alike.

Besides, what are you going to do whenever you'd decide to participate in a (future?) MP, tournament, ...
Not being used to the official version will greatly diminish your chances.

Final conclusion: not the people playing the official version have a 'problem' , the ones playing edited versions have. And that's cool for me, as long as those people don't go making statements such as 'mostly newbies ***** about CORRUPTION'.

That's simply too simplified!

AJ

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by watorrey
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!!!

Thank you for your kindness, but I DO know there's an editor.
(then again, I'm not a newbie in messing up civ AI's )

My reasons for not using it I've explained above.

But be reasonable, if:

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

is true, than there IS an issue (at least to too many players), isn't there?

AJ

[Deornwulf]

Corruption

AJ - Yes, corruption is a problem. The game is broken when taken out of the box. I was just implying that I have severely tweaked my game to make it more enjoyable for me. But what did you think of my other suggestions to allow for control of empire size beyond that of corruption?

[Austin]

Re: Corruption

Originally posted by Deornwulf
AJ - Yes, corruption is a problem. The game is broken when taken out of the box. I was just implying that I have severely tweaked my game to make it more enjoyable for me. But what did you think of my other suggestions to allow for control of empire size beyond that of corruption?

Actually I think that corruption was a good idea, it shows the real world limits to growth that prevent the runaway snowball effect ala CivII.

Since you cannot simply mass howitzer rush your way to global domination because corruption will cripple you, you have to find subtler and IMHO far more realistic ways to global domination.

For example, completely overrunning an enemy Civ, and then having a bunch of 95% corrupt cities is less efficient than beating the crap out of the Civ, making peace, taking everything they've got, and then giving them back some of their cities.

Why? Because the AI civ won't have the corruption problem, it will be able to rebuild and get more money and techs. Twenty turns later you beat on them again.

Say you have three dye resources. You have two neighbouring Civs without dye. If you overrun them, who are you going to sell that dye to? In the long run having them around to sell dye to is a better return than having a bunch of one shield cities.

This is a hell of a lot more subtle than "mass howitzers, overrun target, buy barracks, mass more howitzers".

Real world example; Germany after WWII. The Allies beat the crap out of it. They didn't occupy it indefinetly, they eventually freed the Germans and allowed them to have their own nation, and now they are an important trading partner.

I think that the corruption element was one of the better gameplay introductions.

Austin

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by Deornwulf
...
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?

Deornwulf,

1) random events that reduce corruption? -Yes!
2) could work out fine, but ... : in civ3 the government choices and differences are very limited. Wonder if Firaxis has improving/expanding governments on its list (they should though ).
3) resource management: I'm a micromanager as well, please no more micromanagement.

You're right about the resources should only provide for a specific number of cities IMO. It's more logical that cities with nearby resources have certain/eg these production bonuses instead of all cities.

Good idea, creates more strategic cities .

AJ

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Re: Re: Corruption

Originally posted by Austin


Actually I think that corruption was a good idea, it shows the real world limits to growth that prevent the runaway snowball effect ala CivII.

Since you cannot simply mass howitzer rush your way to global domination because corruption will cripple you, you have to find subtler and IMHO far more realistic ways to global domination.

For example, completely overrunning an enemy Civ, and then having a bunch of 95% corrupt cities is less efficient than beating the crap out of the Civ, making peace, taking everything they've got, and then giving them back some of their cities.

Why? Because the AI civ won't have the corruption problem, it will be able to rebuild and get more money and techs. Twenty turns later you beat on them again.


Say you have three dye resources. You have two neighbouring Civs without dye. If you overrun them, who are you going to sell that dye to? In the long run having them around to sell dye to is a better return than having a bunch of one shield cities.

This is a hell of a lot more subtle than "mass howitzers, overrun target, buy barracks, mass more howitzers".

Real world example; Germany after WWII. The Allies beat the crap out of it. They didn't occupy it indefinetly, they eventually freed the Germans and allowed them to have their own nation, and now they are an important trading partner.

I think that the corruption element was one of the better gameplay introductions.

Austin

This post makes much sense to me.

Good reasoning .
I'll apply these 'policies' in my next games.

But, no other way, you will have to build substantially large on emperor to be competitive. This means defeating one big, or two smaller surrounding civs. There after, your strategy makes sense and provides a different approach to the corruption issue.

I still vote for the one more palace option though ... or allowing capturing functional enemy capitals to expand your empire meaningfully. (Of course the overpowered attack and conquer all civ2 aspect that you've mentioned would be back again ...)

AJ

[Austin]

Re: Re: Re: Corruption

Originally posted by AJ Corp. The FAIR


This post makes much sense to me.

Good reasoning .
I'll apply these 'policies' in my next games.

But, no other way, you will have to build substantially large on emperor to be competitive. This means defeating one big, or two smaller surrounding civs. There after, your strategy makes sense and provides a different approach to the corruption issue.

This depends upon your map size and number of civs. If you are playing with 16 civs on a standard map you are going to have to totally absorb several neighbours. If you are playing with say 8 on a standard map you can easily get away with nibbling a few nice cities from each neighbour, and then using the repeated beat up method.

You know, some people have reported the "ghost" civ bug, where you totally eliminate a civ, and yet the civ still exists. I wonder if this isn't a bug but a feature. You could totally eliminate a civ, and at some future point give them some cities and bring them back as a junior trade partner.

Germany in 1945 would certainly count as a 'ghost' civ!

I still vote for the one more palace option though ... or allowing capturing functional enemy capitals to expand your empire meaningfully. (Of course the overpowered attack and conquer all civ2 aspect that you've mentioned would be back again ...)

AJ

Yup that is the problem. The more you reduce corruption, the more it turns into mass howitzer rush time.

Civ III is supposed to be different than Civ II. If you want Civ II, play Civ II.

Austin

[Deornwulf]

Civ2 vs Civ3

I already got one, its vary nice............

But seriously, I don't want Civ3 to be just like Civ2. What I don't want is Civ2.4 which is what I feel I have right now. I can easily beat Civ3 using the same strategies I used in Civ2. Build lots of cities.........Nothing added to Civ3 makes me have to use another strategy.

[Austin]

Re: Civ2 vs Civ3

Originally posted by Deornwulf
I already got one, its vary nice............

But seriously, I don't want Civ3 to be just like Civ2. What I don't want is Civ2.4 which is what I feel I have right now. I can easily beat Civ3 using the same strategies I used in Civ2. Build lots of cities.........Nothing added to Civ3 makes me have to use another strategy.

I think that you can always beat just about any turn based strategy game with a rush strategy.

The one thing that I really wish CivIII had done that I can't think of how to do myself with the editor is getting rid of that square worked for free in all new cities.

If they did away with this then I think that would really kill ICS once and for all, as it would be more worthwile to expand an existing city than it would to found new ones.

Right now you are often far better off with 3 size 3 cities than with one size 9 city.

Austin

[PerpetualNewbie]

Get rid of the central tile? Wow. Unless you start with some bonus food resource, that city is dead. If the best tile you had was grassland, you sit at pop 1 until you change from Despotism, which would be sometime in the 1900s, I'm guessing. If you start on plains or desert, you are dead in a turn. Or were you planning on boosting the production of your other tiles in response?

[SpencerH]

Re:What exactly is wrong with civ3??

I've been thinking about this on and off for quite a while. What's missing from civ3 is the tension that drove a player to play one more turn. Focussing science to get to Leonardo's workshop first and upgrade old units for very cheap or Sistine chapel so that you could turn up science and still keep the masses happy. Science and wonders were important! You didnt NEED them to win in CIV2, but they helped offset the AI civ advantages.

In CIV3 its all kind of ho-hum. I can build whatever science then trade for the others. If I miss my "favorite" wonder, so what? The effects are not so profound, therefore their loss is not such a big deal.

I've tried mod-ing the heck out of the game and its still not there.

[Austin]

Originally posted by PerpetualNewbie
Get rid of the central tile? Wow. Unless you start with some bonus food resource, that city is dead. If the best tile you had was grassland, you sit at pop 1 until you change from Despotism, which would be sometime in the 1900s, I'm guessing. If you start on plains or desert, you are dead in a turn. Or were you planning on boosting the production of your other tiles in response?

I was thinking of making some of the bonus things like wheat and cows a little more common. Early urbanization was a LOT more difficult historically than it ever is in this game. The effect that I'm going for is that in the beggining you have a lot fewer sites that make for good cities, so in the early game you cannot simply spew settler diarheea all over the place and ICS your way to victory.

This puts the emphasis more on having fewer cities in the early game and developing them better. It also actually makes colonies a hell of a lot more usefull and relevant to the game.

And yes restricting despotism in that fashion was deliberate. The big land grab part of the game should be at the end of the middle ages, not in 1800 B.C.

There should be large swaths of land that are'nt useable right away, but that start opening up for colonization mid game once your society is advanced enough.

I think I am going to start a new thread for this topic to see what everybody thinks. I would LOVE a way to mod this, but I have zero skills in that area.

Austin