c#205 CIV3`S NOT SO GREAT LEAP FORWARD

[MarkG]

thank you for the terrific and so usefull addition to this thread Coracle!

Mas, you need to hire him in order to always explain your posts to even the most dumbest of us

[SirSebastian]

MaS .. have you ever tried right clicking? One thing I love about Civ III is the interface. You can't beat changing city production from the main map! I rarely go into the city screen once I build a city, and I never would if the governor's behaved just a little bit more rationally. Potentially cuts hours of time off of games.

Units in Cities: Visible by right-clicking
Zooming to City: Why? This is needed much less in Civ III, and is double-clicking that painful?
Wonder Movies: Eh? Fluff anyway.
Air Bombardment: WAYYY too powerful in SMAC, IIRC...
Terrain Manipulation: Please tell me you realize that one game is a sci-fi game and the other isn't?
Production Queue: Unneeded in Civ III (it's there but is cumbersome). Set governor's up correctly, then modify without ever entering the city screen.
What's the worker doing? : This is shown via an animation.. it's very clear.

[Blackadar1]

I call it as I see it, Mark - and I've been seeing it since November.

[MarkG]

i'd love it if you could give some actual examples

here are some examples from your personal posting history: you've posted 66 times in 34 threads. 3 of them were closed. 1 was a typical Dissident troll. the other was a thread discussing the state of the forum instead of the actual topic of the forum(civ3) that ended up a spam paradise. and the third was a thread attacking whiners

if you want to continue insulting me and defaming our objectivity based on the above mentioned experience, well..... feel free to do it!

[Blackadar1]

Well, if I counted correctly there are no less than nine threads that have been "locked" in just the past week. That's pretty typical around here. I know some people have been trolls, but that's a very high number to lock. And most offer negative opinions about Civ III. Hell, when the game first came out (with its bugs and uninspiring gameplay), threads couldn't be locked fast enough. Now, I can understand this on a forum like OOTP, where the owner of the site has a vested interest in keeping a positive spin on his product. But as an "independent" site, you generally toady to Firaxis' corporate line and squelch a lot of negative opinions.

This, of course, is in my humble opinion and as Dennis Miller says, "I could be wrong".

[lorddread]

Bloody

Is it me or does anyone else here sence some bad blood between Coracle and Mark or Blackadar1 and Mark???

As Rodney King asked once, "Can't we all just, just get along?"

[Guest]

I, too, am disapointed with the game in general.

I'm not so sure that it wasn't my high expectations that caused this. Were my expectations high because of the way that Civ has evolved from the original Civ to Civ 2 MPGE? Or were they high because of other games that I consider to be excellent works that people put a lot of work and forethought into and I expected the same or better for Civ 3?

Either way I'm disapointed, as the game stands. I understand that it is still evolving, and I'm glad to read that they are (for the most part) paying heed to the calls of the fans. I'm NOT going to go into the specifics of what I like and what I don't like; for each topic or sub-topic there's always a debate and I'm not willing to debate that I just don't like the game as it stand right now. That might change in the future; I REALLY hope it does. I love this genre of games. When Civ 3 came out I felt like my girlfriend of many years that I loved deeply, cheated on me, but still wanted me to take her back. Well not until she/Firaxis changes theri tune and gives me(the fans) what we were asking for and expecting in the first place.

BTW, in reading some of the posts made in this thread there is talk about some of the wonders that are built during the game. I have one small problem in that say I'm build the "Pyramids" and another civ builds it a couple of turns before I do; what happens to my almost complete pyramid? I mean the stones were already in place, nearly finnished, and then because someone else builds and completes one before me, I, in disgust, tear mine down to the ground!?

I feel the whole 'build' thing in this game needs to be changed. Why should you be able to switch what you are building mid-build? If I change my mind while building a bank I should lose all productivity that was spent on building that bank. Why can't we build multiple items in each city, splitting the amount of shields available for production to each specific item I want to build according to how I see fit.
Back to the wonder thing, maybe let the civ's build all the wonders, but have it only have maybe half of the total effect that the wonder has for the civ that builds it first with the effects for the wonder being diminished as each civ builds it in turn. 100% for the 1st, 50% second, 45% third, and so on.

I know I said I don't want to list everything because it will just lead to a debate in which I don't want to have(especially since I HATE typing so damn much!)but I had to make these small points/suggestions.

Thanks for your reading time my fellow Apolytoner's; here's to the expansion pack being "all that and a bag of chips"! Cheers.

edited for spelling

[MarkG]

i hate making generic characterizations. lets go with the actual numbers and facts

nine threads that have been "locked" in just the past week

are you starting from 23/5 or 24/5?
ok lets see. starting from 23/5:
we have a total of 118 threads. the following were closed:
1 thread about the shape of the space ship
1 thread about the last 5-6 replies being made by coracle
3 double threads about the editor coming in june
1 thread about ottomans and arabs in ptw that belonged in the other forum
1 thread by jimmytrick trolling about the dino art
1 thread by Radical_Manuvr comparing ptw with aoe(terrible troll effort)
1 thread by jimmytrick that started like a decent-looking thread with actual arguments only to turn to another troll attempt
1 thread of jimmytrick trolling in an effort to get himself banned(which failed)
1 more trollthread by DaShi about the acceptability of "badmouthing" civ3
1 thread about compressed saved games that ended up with lots of spam

ok so that's 12 in 118. 5 were trolls, 4 were double/in wrong forum and 3 were spam.
if you consider these closings unjustified....

[MaS]

MarkG: about hiring the Coracle: i have the same in my mind - but i had to explain it (on examples) so the others will understand why i am thinking so...

SirSebastian: If you do not go into City, how are you doing Micromanagement? (Workers and their allocation, specialists, construction progress, happines,...).
CivIII should be a game (i suppose it at least ;-) and i would like to do what makes fun to me and it should be possible at least so easy as in some other game from the same Vendor. If i dont want to make micromanagement, i will set my governors and watch what are they doing gut/wrong... (BTW., as i read somewhere in this thread, setting governors & Workers to 'Automatic' is the way how to loose the game...).

Yeah, Doubleclick is very painfull (the more if you know SMACX like i - playing since 01.2000) and together with important Controlls (mainly buttons) scattered around the screen makes me very unhappy.

Sci-fi / Non-Sci-fi games: every game is a sci-fi.

If you want it real, found your own real Company and try it (i did ;-). You can not write a game, which simulates reality ;-), so let's add sci-fi elements (like enhancing terain) and leave on players if they will use it or not (Fireaxis?, Sid?).

Working with production queue is very helpful: not only to see what will be done, but to see the possibilities for particular Base, to navigate to unit-editor (only in SMACX - i think there is other thread about the possibility to construct your own units during the game - see SMACX again... :-) and so on... And: try to remove some item from the middle of Prod.Queue in CivIII - i did not find any other possibility than to remove them all and definie again - hmmmm...

Current work/Command for unit: it is not only about the command, in SMACX you see command, health and rank on 1 place. in CivIII: Command is animated (sometimes), health is clearly shown only for current unit and Rank as longer/shorter column besides the unit (this one perhaps delivers the same info in the same time as in SMACX - so, no complain against it).

What i did not write yesterday are the Water Bases (again like in SMACX - there is no other game which allows you to found a water Base) - it lies in the Sci-fi/ Non-Sci-fi area but, again, make it possible and leave it on the palyers if they will use it or not.
I suggested it to Fireaxis a year ago - i got no answer (even the 'not in plan' one, so i thougt it is obvious and it will be there... :-)

Fireaxis/Sid: could you plase answer some questions from my posts?
Mainly about the next version of SMACX (you know... ;-)


yours,
MaS.

[MaS]

When i read the reply from MarkG about the threads:

Maybe the question about a new version of SMACX is not on the proper place (CivIII Thread). The only reason is that i was looking forward to have SMACX in mantel (historic, time, ...) of CivIII....

MaS.

[MarkG]

no problems with your posts MaS

firaxis is working on other projects beyond civ3, but they're not telling anything

[Blackadar1]

Mark, what you call "trolls", I call differing opinions that seem to be stepped on when they don't match the positive spin on Civ III that people seem be pushed towards here. I think that some people are inclined to post shock-value threads on Apolyton that contain negative Civ III information because they know that even moderately negative threads are frowned upon. So why be "reasonable" if the thread will still be shut down? Again, that's why I was so surprised when you actually published that article...it wasn't a Civ III fanboy article.

Just one suggestion: If you do have a problem with a true troll hijacking a legitimate thread, why don't you just edit the offending post(s) and let the thread continue?

[MarkG]

what you call "trolls", I call differing opinions...

opinions with "shock value" without any arguments to justify them are trolls even if happen to agree with them
and trolls have no place here. there have been tons of negative to civ3 threads with reasonable arguments that have been left unharmed

Again, that's why I was so surprised when you actually published that article

well it seems that you havent been following the site since this isnt the first article of this kind

If you do have a problem with a true troll hijacking a legitimate thread

as you might have noticed with the examples above, usually trolls start their own trollthreads and not threadjack others

[King of Rasslin]

Trolls are either masochists that love to get attacked because of their flame-baits, or very bored people. Saying "Civ 3 sux Aoe ownz" is really asking for it here. Threads like that have no purpose, and should be deleted. A thread should be more than mud slinging. It should have valid points made on both sides.

[DeepO]

MaS, without going in a debate, I think you are partially right.

The buttons in CivIII may look nice, but aren't really easy to hit. This indeed is one of the things that is worse from previous games. Luckily, the Enter and ESC keys work on most of them, but I would have choosen bigger targets if I had to design the interface.

However, the worker AI does work relatively fine, if only you use it right. What I do (and I don't pretend to have the best solution, but it works for me): in the beginning of the game I do all the worker actions myself, after a while I'll move workers from worker farms to a city that needs improvement. After it gets there, I'll set it to auto-improve virgin terrain. First, it will improve the used-but-not-improved squares of that city, and after that it will start on the tedious jobs, like making sure each square has a railroad, or cleaning pollution. Your core cities should be completely improved by then, or have a bunch of man controlled workers on them.
In any case, I keep some workers on manual, to correct the worker AI where needed, and to prioritze jobs I feel are more important than the AI does (e.g. laying railroad from my core cities to a warzone)

Further, about the micromanagement of cities: worker allocation can be done by the governor in general, except in certain special cases (when building wonders, totally corrupt cities with only taxcollectors, problem cites on penisulas...).

The production queue is a pain in the ass, I loved the (patched) production queues of SMAC and can't figure out why they would go back to such a hard, oversimplified mechanism. However, the AI that controls the build suggestions is vastly improved, and apart from certain awkward things (like insisting building ICBMs in every city, even if you don't want any) it makes queues obsolete. One thing, though: I can't remember having a problem deleting an item from the middle of a queue, just selecting it and hitting delete works, no?

Last point: terraforming terrain. At first I also thought it should have been in CivIII, but later I realized that in SMAC I spent over one third of my time making sure the terrain was perfect. Now, no more time is spent on this, and it adds a strategic element to the game. If you found a city in mountains to control that iron source nearby, it stays mountain to the end. You can make it produce more shields, but it will stay a village, without the possibility to grow into a metropolis. It might upset you, but I think that this is good thing for the game, it ensures diversity... otherwise each city is almost identical in the end, without any character whatsoever.

DeepO