Tweet
I've haven't been following Civ3 too closely. Looks like I picked a good time to stumble by the Civ3 section, with all these new revelations. The game is looking really promising.
I'm especially jazzed about the way trade appears to be shaping up. Better than any model so far. What I really like are the notions that you need certain goods to build something, and that trade goods don't appear until you get the right technology. What a great idea! Things like coal or oil were nearly completely useless until people figured out what to do with them.
The whole culture concept sounds great, too. I'd love to find out more about that. Things like the Great Wall and Great Canal sound just too cool to be believed.
Downers: 7 civs max?!?!? What the hey? That is SO 1994 era- this is 2001! Can't they at least expand that for scenarios? What really worries me is the number 7, since that plus barbarians is 8, and that's one of those computer efficiency numbers, like 256. In Civ2, a max of 8 was deeply hard wired in the game, and impossible to change. That would be tragic if its the case in Civ3, that not only is it only 7, but there's absolutely no way to increase it.
I think we need a poll on that- how many people think 7 civs is not enough? Maybe there's still time to change that, if enough people speak out. Having only 16 different civs isn't such a big deal, since presumably people can add more. Its the hard wired limits that are the killers. One doesn't need 32 civs or whatever, but even a couple more would make a major difference for scenario making.
Other downer: I worry a bit about the army concept. First off, that it comes so late (with the exception of leaders). Maybe a better idea would be have it from the beginning, or close to, but leaders and later technologies allow one to increase the size of the army. For instance, in ancient times you could have an army of 4, but with a leader they could be a size of 8. The whole thing of having only one unit fight at a time, and if you win the entire opposing army dies, is a major flaw of Civ2 and shouldn't be repeated in the pre-nationalism phase of Civ3.
Secondly, the way armies are described, I don't see why one would need to have a balanced force. For instance, why use artillery, tanks and infantry- in the current situation you could just have a big pile of tanks. Artillery plus something else I can see needing, for the bombarding capability (good thing to steal from CTP, by the way). But what good would having a mix of infantry and armor be? The game would lose a lot if one could just have a favorite unit and churn it out in droves, instead of building well balanced forces.
I'm especially jazzed about the way trade appears to be shaping up. Better than any model so far. What I really like are the notions that you need certain goods to build something, and that trade goods don't appear until you get the right technology. What a great idea! Things like coal or oil were nearly completely useless until people figured out what to do with them.
The whole culture concept sounds great, too. I'd love to find out more about that. Things like the Great Wall and Great Canal sound just too cool to be believed.
Downers: 7 civs max?!?!? What the hey? That is SO 1994 era- this is 2001! Can't they at least expand that for scenarios? What really worries me is the number 7, since that plus barbarians is 8, and that's one of those computer efficiency numbers, like 256. In Civ2, a max of 8 was deeply hard wired in the game, and impossible to change. That would be tragic if its the case in Civ3, that not only is it only 7, but there's absolutely no way to increase it.
I think we need a poll on that- how many people think 7 civs is not enough? Maybe there's still time to change that, if enough people speak out. Having only 16 different civs isn't such a big deal, since presumably people can add more. Its the hard wired limits that are the killers. One doesn't need 32 civs or whatever, but even a couple more would make a major difference for scenario making.
Other downer: I worry a bit about the army concept. First off, that it comes so late (with the exception of leaders). Maybe a better idea would be have it from the beginning, or close to, but leaders and later technologies allow one to increase the size of the army. For instance, in ancient times you could have an army of 4, but with a leader they could be a size of 8. The whole thing of having only one unit fight at a time, and if you win the entire opposing army dies, is a major flaw of Civ2 and shouldn't be repeated in the pre-nationalism phase of Civ3.
Secondly, the way armies are described, I don't see why one would need to have a balanced force. For instance, why use artillery, tanks and infantry- in the current situation you could just have a big pile of tanks. Artillery plus something else I can see needing, for the bombarding capability (good thing to steal from CTP, by the way). But what good would having a mix of infantry and armor be? The game would lose a lot if one could just have a favorite unit and churn it out in droves, instead of building well balanced forces.
But that's forgiveable if the AI is actually smart. (After playing CTP2, I guess the AI for Atari's "Space-Invaders" would seem smart). 
. i also like the little mousehole cave in the mountain 
.
Comment