What Still Needs to be Done

[Catt]

Re: What Still Needs to be Done

Originally posted by Falconius
Greetings everyone. I have not posted in a while because I stopped playing Civ III due to its myriad of problems. But then I tried out the latest patch to see what's fixed and what's not. The game seems improved but still has some seriously annoying issues, namely:

Okay, 60% of your complaints stem from your choices on the Preferences Menu.

1. Missed City Messages: the game will focus on a city and the little bongo thump sounds, but the message is not always displayed.

No comment - I play with sound off.

2. Lack of Feedback on Battles: First, there's no sound effects for battles, so you might miss the fact that a battle is even taking place. And if the AI attacks from a city, you don't see what's attacking, you only see your unit's health bar decline. AND if you attack into a city, you don't see what you are attacking or what kind of damage you are doing to the attacked unit.

Make sure to click the appropriate preferences items:
1. Show friend and enemy moves
2. Show firend and enemy animations.
3. Show defender in city (something like this)

3. Lack of Visual Prompt for Active Units: You find yourself staring in a state of hypnosis, waiting for something, anything, to happen. Then you realize one of your units up in a corner of the screen has been waiting for orders this whole time. Why not make them blink, as in Civ 1 and 2? The thin white circle is just not eye-catching enough.

Either hit "c" to center the view on the active unit, or look at the unit info map in the lower right of your screen - shows unit waiting for commands.

4. Bombardment is Still Useless: 19 times out of 20 (no exaggeration) I get a message that "Bombardment Failed." This is especially annoying as the English when your Special Unit, the Man O'War, goes to pound a city and continuously fails. I see no way to change this in the editor, either. Also, like the missed city messages, there is sometimes no message at all to tell you what your bombardment did.

Bombardment success depends on the bombard strength of the attacking unit and the defense of the target. If 19 failures out of 20, you must be attacking a much stronger defender than your attacker's bombard strength.

If you don't get a message, it means that you have hit something! A defender has taken a hit (you just can't see it because you haven't selected "Show defender in city" from the preferences menu as I suggested you do under point 2 above ).

5. STILL No Way to Start in Historic Locations.

Correct.

Catt

[Stuie]

Re: What Still Needs to be Done

Originally posted by Falconius
1. Missed City Messages: the game will focus on a city and the little bongo thump sounds, but the message is not always displayed.

Well, if that's your number one complaint (and you did put it first...) then you're setting yourself up for failure. Yeah, once in a while I've seen this, but it doesn't ruin gameplay for me.

2. Lack of Feedback on Battles

As others said, check your preferences. I have no trouble seeing/hearing/understanding how battles play out.

3. Lack of Visual Prompt for Active Units

Hit [c] to center the active unit, or click in the unit box to center the active unit, or check your preferences again - I think there's a preference to auto-center on the active unit.

4. Bombardment is Still Useless: [snip] Also, like the missed city messages, there is sometimes no message at all to tell you what your bombardment did.

If the city being bombarded is under FOW, you will not see the resulting damage to units in that city, but you'll know some damage occurred. Any buildings/etc. destroyed you should be getting a message, or the "No effect" message if not. Honestly, I have found repeatedly bombing a target city to have dramatic results, especially once the citizens start dying. Once that city gets below 12 (and later 6) the damage will increase as the defenders lose the defensive bonuses. Then again, the early ships and even destroyers take a while to achieve decent levels of damage. Like Napolean, you need to mass your artillery (or ships or bombers) to achieve optimal results. Also, if the enemy target has a barracks, the military units will regenerate every turn. So once the barracks is gone, the level of sustained damage will increase.

5. STILL No Way to Start in Historic Locations

This one I could care less about, as I only play on random maps. Still, seems odd to even bother including an "Earth" map if the thing is totally random as far as civ and resource placement are concerned. Still, help is on the way....

[Jaybe]

2. Lack of Feedback on Battles: First, there's no sound effects for battles, so you might miss the fact that a battle is even taking place. And if the AI attacks from a city, you don't see what's attacking, you only see your unit's health bar decline. AND if you attack into a city, you don't see what you are attacking or what kind of damage you are doing to the attacked unit.

If you are on a Mac, that is a 'known issue': no weapons fire audio, though there is bombardment audio. Otherwise, see others' comments on this.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Jaybe

If you are on a Mac, that is a 'known issue': no weapons fire audio, though there is bombardment audio. Otherwise, see others' comments on this.

hi ,

please tell us more , ....if possible post also in the MAC thread , ...
marines fire , infantry does , rifleman during moves no audio , in win98SE , 1.21 it does , ....

have a nice day

[planetfall]

Falconius-- you have not responded to a ton of suggestions on how to deal with your problem.

You are still playing at warlord, as someone who just started playing this year, I would strongly urge you to read the forums and get ideas on how to improve your game play. Part of the problem seems to be your preferences and editor settings. Another part is game skill level. Only the 3rd part, game limitations, is a barrier, and that barrier is not as big as the other 2 barriers.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking playing a non-edited game is "cheating". The editor is available for player customization in order to increase game play satisfaction.

[Gutz]

I know this is going back a bit in the discussion but I have been out for a while :-) Zachriel had posted that his bombardment had reduced all infantry to one hp. How do you know they are ALL reduced to one HP? I have not figured out how to see what the other defenders are in a given city except the one they show. Is there a way to see ALL the defenders. Sorry this is a bit off the initial topic of the thread .

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Gutz
I know this is going back a bit in the discussion but I have been out for a while :-) Zachriel had posted that his bombardment had reduced all infantry to one hp. How do you know they are ALL reduced to one HP? I have not figured out how to see what the other defenders are in a given city except the one they show. Is there a way to see ALL the defenders. Sorry this is a bit off the initial topic of the thread .

The best available defender is shown in an enemy's city, taking into account HPs and then defense factor. Thus, if the top unit is down to one HP, you know the rest of the defenders are as well. I have only seen this not to be the case in one instance: I had lowered several Mech Infantry units down to one HP each, then used a ground assault to dispatch them. Low and behold - a longbowman at full strength was still in the city. Luckily that defense of 1 was easily overcome with my Modern Tanks....

So, there must be some formula that decides which unit is the best defender, and displays that one on the map. HPs weigh very heavily, with defense factor having some impact on the calculation.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Gutz
I know this is going back a bit in the discussion but I have been out for a while :-) Zachriel had posted that his bombardment had reduced all infantry to one hp. How do you know they are ALL reduced to one HP? I have not figured out how to see what the other defenders are in a given city except the one they show. Is there a way to see ALL the defenders. Sorry this is a bit off the initial topic of the thread .

The best defender is shown, which is a one-hp infantry. There could be a four-hp longbowman hiding somewhere, but he would presumably be easier to kill than the infantry.

In the specific case, due to the intensive bombing there was little chance of any significant resistance in the target city.