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  • 1.21 game play is better than readme suggests

    Interesting to see the variance between expectations based on the readme and the actual game play. First impression is there is a lot that has been addressed and appears to work as expected. The only surprises so far have been the range of correction available.

    Inadequate air craft editor option
    Before talk about game play, my biggest outstanding issue is restricted range for aircraft. The players choices are EITHER still up to 8 tiles OR infinite. I don't want to play infinite but I do want the ability to coordinate air, sea and land forces.

    Finally figured out why limited air range is so annoying:

    early game {before roads, and rr}
    land-- max speed 3 tiles
    sea -- max speed 4 tiles
    air -- na
    Note the good match in unit range ability

    middle game {roads but not rr}
    land-- max speed 6 tiles
    sea -- max speed 6 tiles
    {if get navigation bonus}
    air -- na
    Still a good match in range ability

    late game {roads & RR }
    land-- max speed, entire continent
    sea -- max speed 7 tiles
    air -- max speed 8 tiles
    Here is the problem area. Land units can go all over the place, fast, fast, fast. Sea still slower, would like to move speed of sea in this period up to 8 tiles. AESIS at 8 tiles makes good play. Air sucks. Land and sea move faster. This is way too unbalanced. Want to be able to range bombers to 12 tiles, and jets to 10 tiles {for 5 tile air superiority range}.

    RFE-restrict air unit build menu
    While talking about air, how about a RFE to be able to restrict building jets and stealth to cities that have airports. It doesn't make sense to me that a city of 3 citizens can build and base either a stealth, or jet.

    Corruption
    Opps, what's good. Surprising a lot. There are little surprises like suddenly seeing artillery in the governor menu. And then there are the options of dealing with corruption. After fighting corruption thru the previous versions, I find 50% corruption is way, way too low of a setting. Too many of distant cites have no shields lost when pumping out only 3-4 shields. Next game will set percentage higher.

    AI tech trading was completely solved.
    The adjustable values are cool for setting the trading rate to player preferences. {Don't know if tech devaluation has been addressed.} I may have to increase tech trading rate a bit to make the game more interesting. But at standard rates, noticed fewer beakers at startup and slower tech development thru the ancient era. Play is good, just takes a few more turns to get going.

    Starting position
    Fixed the problem of the AI always starting on the biggest continent and player never getting a big land mass. Nice surprise.

    abandon city
    The abandon city is cool, but I would reposition on the menu. I almost abandoned a city when I was simply trying to contact the governor.

    invisible
    Maybe this was there before, but did not see it. Great now subs won't be attacked by frigates.

    Fantastic release timing
    What could be more ideal? Patch released on Thurs night, first reactions on Friday, a weekend to put it to the test. How about making this a standard practice: Tuesday give us readme and Thursday give us the patch.

    RFE-- better readme's
    Suggestion if a little more time went into the readme's there would be fewer unpleasant surprised and player expectations would closer match patch abilities.

  • #2
    There were a few things in here that I thought were REALLY good, that no one seems to have commented on. The big one for me was the sea movement.

    Sea tiles can now have varying movement points.
    This is HUGE. The problem is that boats are too slow in the early game, so it takes forever to explore (for example, you'll still have a Caravel out exploring while you're building Destroyers). But, increasing movement points across the board is bad, since once you can sail across ocean tiles, it trivializes sea assaults (boats sail from one port to another with no risk in between) and Coastal Fortresses become worthless.

    The mod I'm testing now does this:
    Double all sea unit movement points except subs; subs only have 50% more than before but get the "all tiles as roads" ability
    Coast tiles take 1 movement point, Sea take 2, Ocean take 3.
    The reason is, historically, boats that could sail across oceans still stopped at ports for supplies as often as possible, and the further from shore you go the tougher it is to provide logistical support for a fleet. Boats will now prefer to sail near shorelines, keeping them in range of shore-based artillery.
    Subs would do badly near shore (too many shallows to dodge), but would be at their best in the deep ocean.

    Any thoughts?

    Comment


    • #3
      I don't find slow ship movement being any more of a hinderance than the hinderance of using workers or warriors instead of scouts or explorers.

      BUT, I like the idea of slower movement by the shore and faster deep sea. I think it would help the game play. You are definitely right if all move fast, the AI will zip from port to port and you will have no opportunity to intercept.

      Comment


      • #4
        The adjustable see square movement cost seemed like a huge change to me too. Be sure to let us know how it works and effects of games Spatz.
        Fitz. (n.) Old English
        1. Child born out of wedlock.
        2. Bastard.

        Comment


        • #5
          first, espionage is still an arm+leg affair and involves absolutely no strategy or skill. I would like to see the diplomat and spy units make a return. but of course that's not likely to happen because of the dreaded 'design decisions'. ufck.

          secondly, besides all that, I'd like the ability to queue/modify a soundtrack playlist (or maybe I'm the only one who hasn't still turned it off?). plus the gameplay starts with the same exact track which ends up the one you keep hearing the most, that's really annoying. At the very least they could have put a decent list of maybe 8 to 10 tracks per age to break the monotony. mp3s a few more mp3s wouldn't take up that much more space (esp considering most of the space taken up by music on the CD is useless wave files). But whatever, that's what we get for a beta/rushed release, at least give us the ability to select the tracks if you're not going to release more of them.
          I hate Civ3!

          Comment


          • #6
            Essentially, Civ3 should simply be able to read an M3U file.

            I agree on the air unit modifiers that Planetfall suggests, but maybe a bit higher on full sized (255x255) maps.
            Grrr | Pieter Lootsma | Hamilton, NZ | grrr@orcon.net.nz
            Waikato University, Hamilton.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: 1.21 game play is better than readme suggests

              Originally posted by planetfall
              Interesting to see the variance between expectations based on the readme and the actual game play. First impression is there is a lot that has been addressed and appears to work as expected. The only surprises so far have been the range of correction available.

              Inadequate air craft editor option
              Before talk about game play, my biggest outstanding issue is restricted range for aircraft. The players choices are EITHER still up to 8 tiles OR infinite. I don't want to play infinite but I do want the ability to coordinate air, sea and land forces.

              Finally figured out why limited air range is so annoying:

              early game {before roads, and rr}
              land-- max speed 3 tiles
              sea -- max speed 4 tiles
              air -- na
              Note the good match in unit range ability

              middle game {roads but not rr}
              land-- max speed 6 tiles
              sea -- max speed 6 tiles
              {if get navigation bonus}
              air -- na
              Still a good match in range ability

              late game {roads & RR }
              land-- max speed, entire continent
              sea -- max speed 7 tiles
              air -- max speed 8 tiles
              Here is the problem area. Land units can go all over the place, fast, fast, fast. Sea still slower, would like to move speed of sea in this period up to 8 tiles. AESIS at 8 tiles makes good play. Air sucks. Land and sea move faster. This is way too unbalanced. Want to be able to range bombers to 12 tiles, and jets to 10 tiles {for 5 tile air superiority range}.

              RFE-restrict air unit build menu
              While talking about air, how about a RFE to be able to restrict building jets and stealth to cities that have airports. It doesn't make sense to me that a city of 3 citizens can build and base either a stealth, or jet.

              Corruption
              Opps, what's good. Surprising a lot. There are little surprises like suddenly seeing artillery in the governor menu. And then there are the options of dealing with corruption. After fighting corruption thru the previous versions, I find 50% corruption is way, way too low of a setting. Too many of distant cites have no shields lost when pumping out only 3-4 shields. Next game will set percentage higher.

              AI tech trading was completely solved.
              The adjustable values are cool for setting the trading rate to player preferences. {Don't know if tech devaluation has been addressed.} I may have to increase tech trading rate a bit to make the game more interesting. But at standard rates, noticed fewer beakers at startup and slower tech development thru the ancient era. Play is good, just takes a few more turns to get going.

              Starting position
              Fixed the problem of the AI always starting on the biggest continent and player never getting a big land mass. Nice surprise.

              abandon city
              The abandon city is cool, but I would reposition on the menu. I almost abandoned a city when I was simply trying to contact the governor.

              invisible
              Maybe this was there before, but did not see it. Great now subs won't be attacked by frigates.

              Fantastic release timing
              What could be more ideal? Patch released on Thurs night, first reactions on Friday, a weekend to put it to the test. How about making this a standard practice: Tuesday give us readme and Thursday give us the patch.

              RFE-- better readme's
              Suggestion if a little more time went into the readme's there would be fewer unpleasant surprised and player expectations would closer match patch abilities.

              Apparently. abandoning a city gets you NOTHING!! No workers, no settlers. The entire population vanishes into space!!

              What about anti-aircraft on ships?? Bombers can still attack ships withoiut being damaged! We need AA!

              The "multi'.sav" cheat has been, sadly, killed by Firaxis.

              Does the AI use artillery offensively in invasions now? I doubt it.

              Roads MUST be usable to an invading force, unless pillaged. This decision by Firaxis is especially dumb.

              Subs? Theyt are so useless I edited them, along with some other Useless Units, into something else. In that case, crossbowmen.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Re: 1.21 game play is better than readme suggests

                Originally posted by Coracle

                Apparently. abandoning a city gets you NOTHING!! No workers, no settlers. The entire population vanishes into space!!
                What do you want, the population in workers, or settlers? As has been stated before, this would just be used as a way to clear jungles in a handful of turns.


                Originally posted by Coracle We need AA!
                I agree, you do need AA.

                Originally posted by Coracle
                The "multi'.sav" cheat has been, sadly, killed by Firaxis.
                I think this quote is particularly revealing of your personality.

                Comment


                • #9
                  "AI tech trading was completely solved.
                  The adjustable values are cool for setting the trading rate to player preferences. {Don't know if tech devaluation has been addressed.} I may have to increase tech trading rate a bit to make the game more interesting. But at standard rates, noticed fewer beakers at startup and slower tech development thru the ancient era. Play is good, just takes a few more turns to get going."

                  Would you mind elaborating on how this is done, and what setting seems to work best for you so far?

                  I just installed the patch and started a new game (Monarch level) as the Greeks. Isolated on a small land mass with only the Romans for company until the AD years. I got the better of the Romans (of course) reducing them to a small, broke, civ inhabiting only plains and tundra sections of our landmass. I'd gotten ahead of them in tech, because they never had *any* gold or gpt to offer me for anything.

                  The Zulus buld the no-sinking wonder around 200 AD and their Galley shows up off the shores of our isle shortly thereafter. I talked to them *first*. They wanted 250 gold and up (plus worldmap) for civ contacts (actually, they told me I couldn't afford their asking price for Persia at all), and 300 gold +map+2gpt for any one of the three techs they had which I did not. I bought what I could afford and let the rest go.

                  Two turns later. The Romans had *all* contacts and techs from the Zulu. This same civ that couldn't afford to pay more than 10 gold to me for Monarchy suddenly came up with thousands of gold to pay the Zulu for all these goodies?

                  So apparently, gross tech-whoring is still the default after the patch. If there is a way to turn this AI-to-AI exploit off or tone it down, I'd *love* to know. Please, please, please. Thank-you.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Analyst Redux
                    "AI tech trading was completely solved.
                    The adjustable values are cool for setting the trading rate to player preferences. {Don't know if tech devaluation has been addressed.} I may have to increase tech trading rate a bit to make the game more interesting. But at standard rates, noticed fewer beakers at startup and slower tech development thru the ancient era. Play is good, just takes a few more turns to get going."

                    Would you mind elaborating on how this is done, and what setting seems to work best for you so far?

                    I just installed the patch and started a new game (Monarch level) as the Greeks. Isolated on a small land mass with only the Romans for company until the AD years. I got the better of the Romans (of course) reducing them to a small, broke, civ inhabiting only plains and tundra sections of our landmass. I'd gotten ahead of them in tech, because they never had *any* gold or gpt to offer me for anything.

                    The Zulus buld the no-sinking wonder around 200 AD and their Galley shows up off the shores of our isle shortly thereafter. I talked to them *first*. They wanted 250 gold and up (plus worldmap) for civ contacts (actually, they told me I couldn't afford their asking price for Persia at all), and 300 gold +map+2gpt for any one of the three techs they had which I did not. I bought what I could afford and let the rest go.

                    Two turns later. The Romans had *all* contacts and techs from the Zulu. This same civ that couldn't afford to pay more than 10 gold to me for Monarchy suddenly came up with thousands of gold to pay the Zulu for all these goodies?

                    So apparently, gross tech-whoring is still the default after the patch. If there is a way to turn this AI-to-AI exploit off or tone it down, I'd *love* to know. Please, please, please. Thank-you.
                    I would _love_ to see a saved game from just before you contacted the Zulus. Any chance?
                    - What's that?
                    - It's a cannon fuse.
                    - What's it for?
                    - It's for my cannon.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Pssst. Soren, how do you say 'multi' in the new Firaxian speak?
                      (\__/)
                      (='.'=)
                      (")_(") This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your signature to help him gain world domination.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by notyoueither
                        Pssst. Soren, how do you say 'multi' in the new Firaxian speak?
                        um, Microsoft Visual Studio...
                        - What's that?
                        - It's a cannon fuse.
                        - What's it for?
                        - It's for my cannon.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Re: Re: 1.21 game play is better than readme suggests

                          Originally posted by asleepathewheel

                          What do you want, the population in workers, or settlers? As has been stated before, this would just be used as a way to clear jungles in a handful of turns.
                          Half the city's population, rounded down, as workers. No settlers.

                          I think you should get something when you abandon a city

                          Mike

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Re: Re: Re: 1.21 game play is better than readme suggests

                            Originally posted by IthacaMike


                            Half the city's population, rounded down, as workers. No settlers.

                            I think you should get something when you abandon a city

                            Mike
                            I agree that there should be something that would balance the benefits and the negatives. I guess this should be an editor option. Abandon city gives however many of what.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Is abandoning cities a good sound strategy, I've never bothered.

                              Comment

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