Civ3 still has gameplay & diplomacy flaws.

[jshelr]

Solver's point is worth emphasizing. If you get attacked, first thing to do is get on the phone to all the other leaders in the neighborhood. Bribe them all to join you in your righteous defense of your homeland. As I indicated before, they come cheap -- particularly if you've got a lux or tech they want.

[reefer addict]

i cant win so the game sucks?

ive beaten emperor already and im no rocket scientist.
the ai cheats, nobody is saying it doesnt, but if it didnt everyone would beat deity in the first month and shelve the game. im glad that 8 months after civ3's release i still have a challenge to win, while many people have already mastered deity.
if you find the game to hard and unfair, play on cheiftan level, there you will get the bonuses and the ai will be handicapped.
if your losing badly at cheiftan, then maybe civ3 is a little to much for you
and if you think the computer is tough on you, then dont get the multi-player version when it comes out, because youll be shocked to see human players mow you down without a care.
firaxis, thank you for a difficult game that still challenges me, some people want to win without investing any time and strategy, but i love it

[miike]

Damn. Even I have to agree with Vondrak. Though I don't like the fact that the AI cheats. In my opinion, AI cheating does not make up for poor AI. Oh well.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by miike
Damn. Even I have to agree with Vondrak. Though I don't like the fact that the AI cheats. In my opinion, AI cheating does not make up for poor AI. Oh well.

The sweeter the feeling of your superiority is, when you see that "You have achieved ...... victory." message. You can then say to yourself: "See? Those AI suckers were cheating and I have still beaten them all!"

Good luck with your games and let us know how it's going...

Cheers

[Solver]

Originally posted by jshelr
Bribe them all to join you in your righteous defense of your homeland. As I indicated before, they come cheap -- particularly if you've got a lux or tech they want.

They're not always too cheap. Actually, I often get the AI refusing to sign an alliance, no matter what. In that case, I sign MPP and let the enemy attack me first.

[notyoueither]

The only AI 'cheat' is seeing the whole map. Soren has confirmed that.

Everything else (the production, science and growth effects) are a handicap which the player can apply to either himself or the AI. It scales the game to help learning and increase replayability. That is not a 'cheat'.

As for trading tech, I have never had a problem in getting tech for gold. It's my standard playing style actually. Set science to 0 and rake in the gold. Wait for several civs to get a tech, then buy it. I do this while my first cities are developing. Once they are developed, I crank science to high and take the lead.

Resourse trades can be frustrating. The AI values a luxury by how many of your people it will make happy. As you get bigger, imported luxuries will cost more and more and... eventually I just conquer them from the original seller.

[Iskandar Reza]

On Tech trading. The AI freely trades with each other. Solution: when trading techs with AI, trade the same tech to all the other AIs. Rip maximum profits.

[Flight]

im not aware of any such game where the AI does not cheat lots

in civ3 it only has one cheat which has little or no effect later on in the game - the other problems like trading that you think of as cheating can be solved for yourself in the editor

as for cavalry not beating spearmen you're either very unlucky or exagerating

[Iskandar Reza]

Cavalry attack - 6
Spearman defense - 2

3:1 chance, so there is always a possibility of being killed. Add terrain defense modifiers. Add fortification bonus.

Possibility is always there.

[Flight]

Well, yes, but not a particularly high one. Adding the "nme cav going through my infantry" and it all seems a little unlikely

[Jon Shafer]

To get maximum defense from a Spearman: Defense of 2 + 50% for being fortified +100% for being on a mountain +25% for being behind a river + 50% for a fort = a defense total of about 6 1/2. That'll slow down a few Cavalry.

[Solver]

I have in practice been putting Pikes in Fortress on Mountain on chokepoints - effective!

[David Murray]

The whole game is based on luck. If you get a good starting position - I find myself surrounded by desert, jungle and mountains most of the time - and you are able to section off a sizeable piece of land for yourself, at the same time outpacing the computer in research, building a large army, attending to culture and dealing with overwhelming corruption (I almost forgot to mention dealing with random barbarian attacks that kill your workers and settlers), then you will do well. Not only that, but you will really enjoy the game. I find that I win about one in every 10-15 games I start at Regent, and even although the 14 I abandon make me hate the game intensely, the one game that I manage to finish makes me want to keep trying. And I think that, unless you are one of the (probably) tiny number of people who can sit and play any Civ3 game at Monarch or above, you will find that it simply comes down to luck most of the time. (Take a look at the combat system, for example.)

Now, take a game like Age of Empires 2 or even Grand Theft Auto 3. Now THOSE are games that are always guaranteed to please 100 percent, every time you play.

[Catt]

Originally posted by David Murray
The whole game is based on luck. If you get a good starting position . . .

No argument that a good starting position is very helpful. But to say the whole game is based on luck is just silly. Player skill plays by far the largest role in game success at various levels.

. . . and you are able to section off a sizeable piece of land for yourself, at the same time outpacing the computer in research, building a large army, attending to culture and dealing with overwhelming corruption (I almost forgot to mention dealing with random barbarian attacks that kill your workers and settlers), then you will do well.

All of these factors sound like they are most influenced by player skill rather than luck to me.

I find that I win about one in every 10-15 games I start at Regent, and even although the 14 I abandon make me hate the game intensely, the one game that I manage to finish makes me want to keep trying. And I think that, unless you are one of the (probably) tiny number of people who can sit and play any Civ3 game at Monarch or above, you will find that it simply comes down to luck most of the time.

I really encourage you to keep trying. Since you didn't just quit the game when it refused to roll over for you, than you've still got a wonderful opportunity to get an awful lot of fun play time out of this challenging game.

Read a lot of threads here and in the Strategy Forum. These boards are littered with posters who faced the same challenges / frustrations that you're facing, but now count themselves among the (not so tiny) number of folks who play above Regent regularly.

Spend some time looking around here a bit and you may yet find that you come to enjoy Civ 3 more than AoE or GTA.

Catt

[David Murray]

Originally posted by Catt


No argument that a good starting position is very helpful. But to say the whole game is based on luck is just silly. Player skill plays by far the largest role in game success at various levels.

All of these factors sound like they are most influenced by player skill rather than luck to me.

Perhaps. I have played this game for hours and hours ever since I got it - on one occasion from 6pm until 10am the following day. I must just be a terrible player because I rarely finish a game successfully.

But I still think that a lot of the game comes down to luck. Other than starting position, things such as resources, outcomes of barbarian villages, combat results (esp. when fighting units with similar stats), proximity of other civs, etc can't be determined by skill. Now compare that to Age of Empires - everyone starts off the same. That is to say, there is never any chance that a player is denied access to resources in AOE2 (and even when resources like gold run out, they can trade excess goods like food or wood for scare resources like gold and stone at the market). One knows exactly when resources run out in AOE2 because the remaining quantity of resources is visible. In Civ3, resources disappear randomly and infuriatingly. In Civ3, combat results often seem utterly random. But in more refined games like AOE2, one can employ combined arms and have a far better idea of how one's army will perform.

I prefer the concept of Civ3 over AOE2, so i'm not biased here. I just don't think Civ3 delivers like AOE2 does. Of course you can be very skilful with Civ3 but it's a heck of a lot harder to master than any other strategy or action game I've ever played.

I've managed to win four regent games now, they kept me up for hours on end and they were all incredibly enjoyable. The strategy forum here has been very, very useful. But I don't feel that any amount of strategy will make up for some of the parts of Civ3 which are ostensibly unduly influenced by luck and randomness.