isn't there a time when you...

[Demerzel]

just want to stick your middle finger up at the monitor and tell Civ3 where to go f*ck itself?

For me, it's when I've built up a superior army than my opponent ( who has managed to stick cities all over my continent, normally in the small gaps between my borders - stupid annoying REX AI ). I attack him and the first round goes well, I get in a few kills and capture a fair few workers. Then it all goes wrong, his units start pounding mine and unless the enemy is half dead or a regular unit, my veteran/elite units just keep losing with little damage to the opposition.

Now a turn or so later, his units are managing to hit my few weak points with amazing accuracy ( good ol' cheating AI ), and taking out my best units with ease while my units just fail to beat the opposition unless I throw overwhelming force at him.

ffs, the combat system drives me up the wall at times. i really wish they'd stuck with civ2's system. how much of a bias does the AI get at monarch level or above? I'm having a hard enough time keeping up otherwise with all the build/tech bonuses the AI gets as it is...

I love the game ( I've played Civ since 1993 ) but sometimes I really want to get out a hammer and smash the stupid CD to bits

[alexman]

Isn't it great? It makes it all that sweeter when you actually win.

BTW, the AI doesn't get combat bonuses vesrus the human at any level.

[Inverse Icarus]

I haven't finished a game in a while, because I'd always end up vastly superior to all my enemies near the end of the Industrial Era.

I'd be slightly ahead / slightly behind fore most of the game, but by the time the modern era comes, it's basically "i know im going to win, i dont want to move 150 tanks this turn again".

::sigh::

[Spock]

Originally posted by UberKruX
I dont want to move 150 tanks this turn again".

Just 150?? You must have been going easy on them, eh?

[Coracle]

Re: isn't there a time when you...

Originally posted by Demerzel
just want to stick your middle finger up at the monitor and tell Civ3 where to go f*ck itself? . . . I really want to get out a hammer and smash the stupid CD to bits

Yea. I've been saying as much for many months. I never felt that way about Civ 2 which was so much more FUN.

[narmox]

aw, someone can't handle a counter-attack.. Poor little baby...

[Demerzel]

I can handle a counter-attack narmox, I can't handle when it seems to be taking the piss.

things that annoy me a tad:

when i throw 6 units at a city and all they do is die, doing no damage, and make the opposition vets/elite then a turn or so later, the enemy regular unit kills my superior veteran defender & boom goes city.

the AI all aim for my weakest unit, several squares away, bypassing others closer or similarly knows which is the weakest city.

an elite warrior in woods kills off all 3 of my veteran swordsmen losing a point in damage to the three.

a regular roman legionnare, in grassland, survives my elite cavalry attack with no damage.

when i race to get a wonder ( in this case Great Library to keep up with the tech-blessed AI ) and the bloody AI gets there a few turns before me. so i try reloading 40 or so turns before, change strategy by stripping out the temple in order to get there 10 turns earlier. result? a few turns before the thing is built 15 turns faster than before.... the AI builds it first. argh!

then the AI always demands ridiculous deals with no leeway or just plain refuses to deal with me for no reason. sure I'm going to give you my dyes + 19 gpt for some furs. f*cking idiotic AI.

time to give Civ3 another month or so break I think. I'm sick of playing for an hour or so just to get to a point where I'm forced to pit my superior army against a neighbour just to lose because it's still the middle ages and I have no huge tank rush & get pissed off if I play longer.

i'll just have to give it a break and then peruse the strategy forum for a while to see how to more successfully counteract the AI bonuses on the high skill levels methinks.

[ACooper]

wwwwwwwaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!

[MarkG]

play on a lower level....

[MarkG]

and please leave the cursing out of this forum
if you're frustrated and want to cursem open the window and yell to your neighbours.

[dnassman]

Only do that when I lose a superior unit to a weak one. Like spearman would beat Cavarly and above. Or even simple things like Elite Immortal beaten but regular spearman. Huh???? Sometimes wonder if Elite really means nothing more than just extra hit points.

[Catt]

Originally posted by dnassman
Only do that when I lose a superior unit to a weak one. Like spearman would beat Cavarly and above. Or even simple things like Elite Immortal beaten but regular spearman. Huh???? Sometimes wonder if Elite really means nothing more than just extra hit points.

Stop wondering. It doesn't mean anything more than an extra hitpoint.

Catt

[miike]

Actually there is a point here. I will sometimes get my head handed to me. When fighting the computer early on. Unless the one AI opponent is all by himself and I do not have to worry about him trading with other civs.
But I figured out that around the time when I discover democracy and change to it. My tech goes through the roof and the Ai's research slows down. Also, the computer seems less inclined to trade later on in the tech race. Add that to the fact, that I am no longer expanding and just concentrating on building up, I discover tech faster and faster. I always wait until I get tanks before I attack. Until then it is MPP, all the way. Also, the larger the city the larger the bonus to defense the units get. I read that somewhere in the manual. It is a pretty big bonus. Also, it helps to have a massive army. I try for 60-100 tanks and then attack multiple cities at once. I do not worry about culture flipping to much, because my goal is to wipe out the whole civ before they flip. If I can't, then use railroad and one unit for defense, and take them right back after they flip. And never ask for peace. Pretty much the whole strategy is to wait until the end of the game, when you have the obvious tech advantage and can roll over the AI. Interestingly the AI never stops expanding. They will always settle those worthless islands with no resources or luxuries. All the way across the world, with horrible corruption.

[Robert]

You're just not a good civ-player.
I play at emperor level, and I don't experience any of your problems.

And yeah, it's a pitty, but soldiers do get killed in the field.

[Zanthis]

It seems to me that sometimes combat gets "stuck" on a losing streak. One unit will lose several rounds of combat in succesion when statisticaly it shouldn't have happened that way. I doubled the hit points for all units (and rate of fire for bombard units) and this seems to have ironed out the quirks. I still occasionaly win or lose battles against the odds, but that is to be expected in a random system. I play on monarch difficulty BTW.