please DON´T change too much!! - PETITION

[Builder]

Add one signature to the petition.

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by weird god on 12-22-2000 10:56 AM i´m usually not that conservative but i fear that adding TOO MUCH new playing elements could either unbalance the game or makes it take too long for multiplaying. both would take away the flair civ2 has. of course i trust sid and the fireaxis team, i just want to show up that this is what makes civ2 that addictive and therefore should be VERY CAREFULLY HANDELD.

I understand what you mean, weird god. Well, i expect a really decent upgrade, of course. On the other hand: i really dont care much for the mindless "the more added ideas, and the more complicated these ideas are - the merrier it is" approach that many upgrade-suggesting civers seems to have.

One thing that i liked about Civ-2, was that i always had an exact notion of what each city-area tile, each city-improvement and each city-screen parameter actually added to the overal end-result. I especially liked the input city-area view, those clear and easy CI 50-100-200% benefits, the graphic output displays, the big all-in-one popup city-manager and so on.

Theres so many things that can go wrong, if they dont weigh each and every idea on a very exact and critical golden scale. Heres a few of the pitfalls:

- The dilution/inflation problem:
Adding "too much" can easily dilute the importance any indevidual tile, CI, wonder, concept or whatever.

- The lost notion of the inner-workings -problem:
If you go to work, without understanding how and why your work actually adds to the overal process - that same work becomes rather meaningless, right? The same problem can actually face a civ-player in a overbloated Civ-3 game as well. The same "lost notion" problem can also appear if a certain Civ-2/SMAC key-features is carelessly "streamlined" away. Lets say that Firaxis kills that input Civ-2/SMAC city-area view. Suddenly, you cannot:

a/ See and understand the inner-workings between all used tiles within a blink of eye.
b/ Let the field-workers emphasize either food-, shield- or coin-generating tiles.

- The AI-complexity problem:

The more complex fuzzy-logic society-parameters you want Firaxis to squeeze into the game - the more impossible its going to be for them to produce effective AI-mayors and AI-civs, that can keep even steps with the human player. Heres is just a few examples:

a/ Replace resource-shields, with multiple types of sub-shields unevenly occurring all over the map.
b/ Replace the field-workers, with field- and CI-workers + unemployment-factor.
c/ Replace six simultaneously playing AI-civs, with 32 (some wishes for 100+) AI-civs.
d/ Add extensive city-screen health parameters,
e/ Add extensive city-screen religion-parameters.
f/ The list just goes on, and on...

Only choosing from above tiny list:

A and C = In your dreams
B = maybe (maybe not).
D and E = either one or the other - maybe both, but probably not.

A much more fruitful approach would be to come up with ideas that - on one hand - levels the road for the AI, as much as reasonably possible. But also, on the other hand; ideas that tries to make expanding human empire-handling, much more of an gradually increasing uphill-struggle.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited December 23, 2000).]

[The diplomat]

I am sorry to say but your last post makes me dissagree with you even more!
Civ2 WAS a good game. But it is terribly outdated now. I am not just talking graphics. There are many features that SMAC introduced (and even a few that ctp2 brought in) that greatly improved and fixed some elements of civ2. Civ2 is "primitive" now:
-no borders
-no build queue ! (Come on !)
-all units in a stack destroyed when one unit loses (this was terrible unfair and wrong!)
-units are moved one by one !
-awful micromanagement

Are you saying that you don't want these changes? Do you actually think that SMAC did not improve gameplay?

If you are worried that Firaxis will change civ3 into something unrecognizable, you don't have to worry. Firaxis has made it perfectly clear that civ3 will be faithful to the civ formula. Furthermore, you really do not have to worry that Firaxis will add a bunch of new features that will "mess up" balance and gameplay. Firaxis knows what they are doing. Remember that most of them were there when civ2 was born. They know the civ formula better than anyone and they know what makes it work!

But I for one DO NOT want just civ2 with better graphics. I want civ3 to be a real step forward from civ2. SMAC is light-years ahead in gameplay compared to civ2. Civ3 needs to follow where SMAC left off in terms of gameplay.

Respectfully, the diplomat.

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[timfry]

Civ III better be new and original. SMAC improved gameplay, but certain ideas needed to be taken farther.

By the way I enjoyed the original more than Civ II.

[weird god]

thx for your votes.

[CornMaster]

I don't want to see radical changes, and NO KEY CHANGES!!!! That's the only reason (and slowness) that I've never played SMAC. So I'll be MAD if the keys change!!!!!

I would like to see improvments in all Civ 2's current fields as well as the ideas of rivers, borders, revolutions, better editors, etc.... all added. But not 3D graphics!! 3D bad. You know how hard it would be to make a MOD!!! And I live for MODs

So I'll sign my first name only.

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"I'm too out of shape for a long fight so I'll have to kill you fast"
"If LESS is MORE, just think of how much MORE, MORE would be!"
I AM CANADIAN!
Civfanatics.com Civ 2 Multiplayer Ladder!
My Civ 2 Scenario Page.

[Sparky]

I agree that Civ 3 shouldn't be changed too much from Civ 2. Actually, I think it shouldn't be changed too much from its roots in Civ 1.

Civ 2 wasn't exactly perfect upon "completion." Several aspects seemed incomplete. Riflemen, fanatics, paratroopers, alpine troops and partisans are all essentially the same unit available at the same time, they just have a few different abilities but serve the same cheap defensive role. The two scenarios seemed fishy for those who bought the game in 1996; where were all the others?!? The earth world maps were much sloppier and less accurate than Civ 1's. The Greek map wasn't finished in the premade directory. Where were the Arabian and Turkish civilizations? What, no multiplayer?

Civ 2 actually focused more on the military than it should have. All the new units and special abilites (2x v. horsemen, ships in port defense, etc.) perpetualte a feel for making Civ 2 a military game. The peaceful side form Civ 1 was underplayed. While yes, the spacerace was still there, and you had new tile improvements for your countryside, you never felt like the programmers wanted you to take the peaceful path through the game.

Please Firaxis, look at the original Civilization. Don't unbalance the peaceful and war sides of the game by focusing on battle so much that Civ 3 becomes a wargame. Stick to the roots and make it a quality, finished product.

[markusf]

Sparky that is non sence, civ2 isn't war oriented? You go the war path in multiplayer by the time your units arrive at the other guys land they will be out dated..


I would like to see the game history brought back from civ1.. you know where it shows what land you captured throught the ages.

And sim turns made a official part of civ3. My guess is the trade model, armies and "settlers" will be modified in civ3. The only problem with the changes they will make to armies, is the same problem that came up in master of orion, or CTP. That is a super army that goes around killing everything...

[Maniac]

Well, then you have to make a super army yourself and engage into a one-super-army-to-one-super-army battle. That's how it went in most of history. Two large armies battled and the loser was forced to sign a bad treaty for his side, even if none of his cities were conquered.

Just want to note it's quite unrealistic what happens in all civgames: cities stacked full with units. Usually there was just a city garrison and the war was fought outside. I kind of miss that in the game.

[Fintilgin]

Well, I dosen't sound like this will be a popular opinion in this folder, but I'm all for large changes.

I'd really like to see something brand new in Civ3. Now I know Firaxis is going to do no such thing, and I'm sure folks here would have a heart attack if they did, but I'd love it if they dropped most of the basic Civ1/2 mechanisims and started again from scratch with the idea of building a turn based `Civilization' style game.

My main inspiration for this is what is being done with Master of Orion 3. Much of the `board game/micromanagement' feeling is being dropped in favor of a `SimGalaxy' approach, where all your people have opinions and goals of their own. Instead of being a supreme dictator with total control over every aspect of your society you're a `guiding force' who has to spend your time and resources carefully in order to move your empire in the direction you want. For more information on this (SHAMELESS AD), check out moo3.quicksilver.com.

I would really love to see a Civilization game designed along the same lines as MOO3 is being designed. But the MOO3 folks -are- taking a really big risk. I'm sure, however, that CIV3 as it will be, even without HUGE gameplay changes will still be a great game. Firaxis seems to have making those down quite well.

In the end though, I'd much rather have a revolution than an evolution.

Joe

[Waku]

I'm not quite sure of which are the new features that civ3 should have, but what i know is that "Civilization is NOT a wargame", it is much more than that, civilization is a "human evolution game" and that's exactly what i want.

[Darkstar]

Ok...

First off, SMAC is Civ 3. Go look for yourself. It has 2 things truly wrong with it. 1) The massive amounts of bugs in it. This ruined the game play for many people. Took away the fun. Some bugs are going to get through, but early adopters had found a few hundred within 48 hours of game play. That was just piss poor Quality, and really brought down most people. 2) The AI was Civ 2's AI. It hadn't been grown enough to handle all the new BASIC possibilities.

Now, despite THAT, I STILL find SMAC/SMACAX to be about as fun as Civ2. I like SF. Some people don't, so they get turned off. No biggie.

And before you fan boys go nuts, keep in mind that various Firaxis people have admitted that SMAC is Civ2, with a new graphics engine, and slightly expanded. Civ3 was, last we heard, SMAC with a new graphics engine. Gee. How surprising.

Now, that said, if we LOOK at the history of Civ, we will see that it suffers greatly from feature creepism. Civ2 is just Civ with MORE. More units and more techs. Someone thought to plug the hole of the chariot rush. That's it. And that chariot rush came back in SMAC. So maybe they'll stuff it up again in Civ3. Chances favor it, since the community has banged on it so much.

But anyone that thinks that Civ3 won't be a pure war game is fooling themselves. That's what the game is. If it was actually something ELSE, then you wouldn't be able to conquer the world. You think that President Clinton or future President Bush could just say, "Crank out the regiments, we are invading Africa next year." And just a few years later, add in Europe for good measure? That's now how things work.

I'm looking forward to a Historical "SMAC 2". Hopefully with less bugs (but I'm not betting on that) and an AI that actually at least understands 50% of the available tactics. But I'm not betting on that either. And neither should you.

If Firaxis hits an August release date, that means that they've put in somewhere between 6 months to 12 months on the game. Pay attention to when they put together the teams, and those teams got moved (people transfered, giving more duties on other projects, etc), fell apart, and did little to nothing. I HOPE I'm wrong. But I doubt it. Firaxis has ZERO credibility with a lot of their former customers, including me.

The fact that Civ3 is using the latest Civ engine... SMAC... further points to a general feature creepism. I don't know if it's true, but I've heard from those that have seen the code say that the best thing Firaxis could do is toss the whole thing and start again. But they won't do that. There is a comfort to developers and the people that fund them with reusing proven code. Even when it's buggy. (There is hope... seeing as 150+ bugs had been chased out in the UNIX port, those could be chased out of the PC source, if their is ANY communication between the different teams. Yeah, I'm an optimist. Don't burst my bubble.)

So, experience SAYS... Civ3 with be SMAC, refitted and expanded. This is their way. SMAC was Civ2, refitted and expanded. Civ2 was Civ, refitted and expanded. Take a good look at the actual workings of SMAC. They can swap out the User Interface. But the base engine, that's what you should expect.

Oh, tip from the experienced Civ series. You Civ2 fan boys will get Civ3, and go "Ew! Oh! Wow! Pretty! Weird!". Play it for a while, and get bored. Why? Cause it will be Civ2 to you, with a few changes. It's what the Civ Rat Pack (us Civ1 die hard fan boys and gals) did with Civ2. There really isn't much MORE you can do with that game type and stay within it's bounds. It's a basic war game. And if Sid is really in charge of it, it's going to STAY that way. Sid LIKES a good basic war game in which he can easily conquer the world. And that's what he and his acolytes keep delivering to us. They ADMIT that they could add in other elements... but adding in things like realism, economics, logistics, civil affairs, people's will, etc, STOP them from delivering a war game that is FUN.

You want a SimWorld or SimNation, go look elsewhere. You want a world conquest game where you start with rocks and clubs as weapons and work your way to tanks, bombers, and nukes, play Civ. That's what it is.

Keep Civ like Civ? That's guaranteed. They don't dare deliver anything else. Or Sid will fire them.

-Darkstarr

[weird god]

why change a winning game?...that´s it!
i only hope civ3 will be more like civ2 and not as overloaded (not only the AI has probs with allocating all the new unit-improvements) and unsuited for multiplaying like SMAC...a game that needs 5 sessions to finish isn´t of any interest.

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god made weed.....you don´t really think he fails sometimes?

weed god, chief of EUROPA
www.multispieler.de

[tniem]

I don't agree with everything that Darkstarr said, but I certainly agree with this assessment:

quote: Oh, tip from the experienced Civ series. You Civ2 fan boys will get Civ3, and go "Ew! Oh! Wow! Pretty! Weird!". Play it for a while, and get bored. Why? Cause it will be Civ2 to you, with a few changes. It's what the Civ Rat Pack (us Civ1 die hard fan boys and gals) did with Civ2.

Civ III needs change. It needs to reinvent the series. It needs to be a revolution not an evolution. If not, Civ III will satisfy me for about three hours and then an occasional multiplayer game.

So, I will not sign this petition.

[tniem]

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 01-03-2001 12:34 PM What the heck does "reinvent" and "revolution" actually mean, in your eyes? (and curious)

Reinvent in my eyes means that the game needs to get away from simply what it has done in the past. Civ is successful because of the strategy involved not because of 21 square city radii or other single elements to the game.

My main concern is that Civ II was simply an upgrade to Civ I. I played the original for a few years. Civ II simply collected dust on my shelf. If Civ III does not go beyond past productions the same will happen.

quote: Give us instead a bullet-style list of features (in few words/short sentences) that comprises your particular idea of such an update. Give us meat - not just dry bones!

I really didn't want to get specific in this thread, but since you asked, here goes a few:

- get rid of tiles
- population in cities should use percentages of who is farming, who is in the military, who is working in factories, etc.
- country side and towns factoring into empire production
- provinces or statehood

The basic TBS game needs to be turned upside down in my opinion. I think Firaxis can do it, but not by simply updating a classic.