What are the best/worst parts of the game?

[miccofl]

The Best: Being able to change so many aspects of the game; either by modding or altering graphics, sound and text files.

The Worst: (It’s a tie) The AI was not programmed to learn and 3 GB of RAM costs too much.

[aaglo]

Best part:

After reaching cultural victory, the conquered Mao says: "I didn't know that cultural assimilation would be so painful".... or something like that.

And all the aftermath comments given by the rivals. They are hilarious.

Another best part of the game: Music. It's awesome. I wonder if Peter Gabriel is among the paylists of firaxis/infogrames

[gsmoove23]

Love the graphics but I could easily go back to civ2 graphics if it left room for more complexity in the game, especially where it comes to 3d leaderheads and such. Wasted space IMO.

Love culture flipping, love the fact when you conquer a city the people stay behind. Don't love the fact that these people can defeat a huge army. Don't love the fact that u then lose the whole army. Couldn't a certain percentage retreat?

Hate the fact that if I don't cover every single part of my terrain the AI will send a settler all the way from Timbukto to settle it.

Don't like UUs. Pointless IMO. Rather turn them off. Why not just specialized units, the same in all respects but for name and graphics.

Love resources, while I don't particularly miss caravans and freight, wish there was some way to have some cities get more of a benefit from trade then others. Now strategically placed cities and pointless frontier cities all get the same benefit. There are no wealthy trade cities.

[Solver]

I love civ as a genre, and among the good things specific to civ 3 are AI, different civs and UUs, thrill of the early game, workers doing stuff not settlers (finally), endless options, strategic resources.

I see a number of serious problems with Civ 3, though, and it's a shame we have so little info on PtW - I'm curious whether PtW really fixes the problems there are, or not. One major problem clearly is the Modern Age, and the other is Diplomatic negotiations. Diplomacy is also on my civ 3 pros list, a very versatile model bringing you much fun, but I hate bargaining with my Foreign Advisor instead of enemy leaders. Oh, and I hate how useless certain units are unless you use the editor...

[jshelr]

Likes: I must like it since I play it often.

Wants:

A much steeper penalty for being warlike in the modern era. I believe an attacking civ in the modern era should nearly automatically be faced with an alliance of all other civs, excepting those who are already in an allliance with the attacking civ, much like the real situation today.

An AI that builds a strong economy -- my impression is that the AI is prevented from being competitive after the industrial era, perhaps permitting the human player to win and, perhaps, increasing the game's commercial success. Nonetheless, let them build factories and power plants!

[Ethelred]

Nonetheless, let them build factories and power plants!

I think that is related to the difficulties the AI has with pollution. They will build factories but they seem to wait for Recycling.

[hexagonian]

Pro
Dynamic and coordinated AI/AI attacks.

Con
1. Infinite Railroad Sleaze, and only one level of Tile Improvements/no Ocean Tile Improvements
2. The game is formatted to encourage tech buying and trading, so there is little incentive to actually research the tech yourself.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Ethelred
I think that is related to the difficulties the AI has with pollution. They will build factories but they seem to wait for Recycling.

Good Gad! Let them build Workers. Especially the cities that are 20+ population. They should be able to put them on perpetual pollution duty MUCH easier than the player.

My main beef with the modern age is that you cannot keep workers on SHIFT-P when there is no pollution that turn. I refuse to Shift-A my workers.

The Spaceship issue I have solved by delaying parts availability, some until Integrated Defense, and by increasing costs (including Apollo to 1,000). Now there won't be a spaceship launch until in the Future Tech era.

[Destroyer]

Originally posted by aaglo
Best part:

Another best part of the game: Music. It's awesome. I wonder if Peter Gabriel is among the paylists of firaxis/infogrames

Although its not bad, I find the music gets very boring after a while. Its not exactly ground breaking, and compared to many games hardly breaks new ground. The problem is its kind of a background ambience, not really reflecting gameplay - and if you like 10 hour sessions, its nice that you can turn off the music, and listen to your own tunes instead.

For me, this sort of game requires only basic sound and graphics as it is gameplay that matters.

After all, the best selling PC game in the UK was Championship Manager - Oooh, that flashing text!

[dworkin]

I like the armies and the emphasis on combined arms in wars.
The civ traits and UUs, while not up there with SMAC still
require different strategies for different civs and make a change from 'guess I'll have the red tokens today' attitude.
Culture also adds to the game, gives me a reason to actually want Shakespeare's Theatre.

I don't like the lack of any stack limit. During war my 'stack of doom' moves about with a few flankers. Nothing stops it as it crushes all opposition. Kinda dull.
And the Spaceship and UN are too early, very little motivation to gain the other techs, I don't think I've ever seen a stealth bomber.

[vmxa1]

Play conquest, you will get to see them.

[asleepathewheel]

Like:

resources/luxuries
Unique civs-not the bland civ2 civs
change of airforce/sea/artillery power to be complimentary (bye bye howitzer rush)
editor: don't like corruption, can lower. don't like the tech tree. can change.
stacks can't be killed with the top units death
ai gives challenge
espionage control panel (no more overpowered spies)
Golden Age
UUs
Firaxis' response to the fans: group movement. wake/fortify all etc.

Don't like:
pollution by citizens is too much. can't eliminate pollution entirely even when in the future age
culture flips taking out garrisons (not culture flips in general)
espionage prices (editable) and effects (want more options)
hardcoded limits in editor (though some like the air range will be eliminated in PTW)
Lack of fixed scenario diplomacy
weather system/altitude system of SMAX

[Tiberius]

Like
Replayability - great! - even better than in previous civ games
Fun - great!
Challange - it is now harder to win
Balance - different game aspects are well balanced
Culture and culture flipping - my favorite addition; the best "weapon" builders have got since civ was invented
Resources/Luxuries - great strategical value
Civ traits, unique civs and unique units - finally civs have different "personalities" and play different
Golden Ages - the game is more fluctuating now; the outcome is less predictible than in previous civ games
Great Leaders
AI - better than before
Combat - Things that are good in combat, IMO: leaders, armies, bombard units and generally the need to use combined forces; the fact that invaders cannot use the road and rail system
Small Wonders
Roads - the fact that they have other advantages too, not just movement and commerce bonuses

Don't like or dislike
Air units
Corruption
Pollution
Graphics
Barbarians
(Actually I hate pollution/desertification and corruption, but I understand the need for them)


Dislike
UN - a peace of crap
Diplomacy - better than before, but less than I was expecting; lot of room for improvement
Trade - the same
City View, victory screens/movies and other eye candies - not much of a satisfaction
The lack of Scientific, Cultural and generally peaceful Great Leaders
Espionage
Modern Era - boring
Exploration - no need to explain
The lack of Stack bombardment
Government system - oversimplified
ICS - even worse that before

[Demerzel]

Agree with mostly what others have said but have to say about the one thing that is a Major Major Major Dislike and that is

the absolutely god awful piece of sh*te that is the UN implementation. OMFG my one year old niece could do better. Imagine my surprise as I've just built the UN for the first time and that turgid screen appears. Wow, I can hardly stop staring in disbelief at the "win screen". Satisfaction at having whupped arse just vanishes in one "you friggin' what???" moment.

After the step forward that the game took in a lot of directions, I can't believe someone actually said "yup, the UN bit is good enough. ship it out.". must have been the same bloke who thought that not implementing some things that SMAC excelled at, e.g. council, unit workshop, getting the player to have an emotional relationship with enemy factions[civs], was a good idea, etc...

Civ3 is a good step in the right direction but they really dropped the ball with some things that could have made it a big jump into the annals of greatness.

[Athitis]

Originally posted by Destroyer


Although its not bad, I find the music gets very boring after a while. Its not exactly ground breaking, and compared to many games hardly breaks new ground. The problem is its kind of a background ambience, not really reflecting gameplay - and if you like 10 hour sessions, its nice that you can turn off the music, and listen to your own tunes instead.

For me, this sort of game requires only basic sound and graphics as it is gameplay that matters.

We certainly all angree that gameplay is greater than music. Civ3 music however gets better as you play the game; Ancient music sucks-I closed my speakers-, while modern music rocks! It inspires you to go to war! It reminds me of Red Alert sometimes...