Announcement

**yin26** · April 28, 2001, 05:44

Echinda:

You totally misunderstood. I'm talking about game balance here, not whether life is worth living or not for God's sake. Let me explain:

Imagine at a certain point in the game one side gets access to ICBMs. Great. He cranks them out in mass numbers and begins lobbing them across the world at the other guy's cities. If there's NO defense (now, I'm talking game balance here, Echinda), this game is over. In fact, this was SMAC. Sure, you could make a smaller map to ensure that you were putting pressure on early, blah blah blah. But that's forcing the player to correct a flaw in the game.

Now imagine BOTH players with the same tech and money lobbing missiles all damn day at each other. Fun, eh? Makes you want to fire up another session to enjoy all the deep strategy, right?

What I meant was this: Balance.

IF the missiles are HUGELY expensive, let's say, so that launching even ONE is a significant investment at all stages of the game, that's a start. Add to that HUGELY expensive Star Wars technology that allows a player on defense, say, to have a 50% chance of shooting down the missile...or having bunkers so that you lose no poplulation but just 1 or 2 improvements etc....THEN you can have some kind of balance and a game worth playing.

See the meaning now?

**yin26** · April 28, 2001, 05:51

I should also add that "Mutually Assured Destruction" plays its own natural part in the real world of these missiles. But in a game that simply won't work. Sure, you could program it in to a degree I suppose, but then the comp will A) over-optimize itself to be the first one out of the gate with massed missiles or B) under-optimize itself and be totally unprepared to deal. Even between human players, if you make getting these missile a priority, you could seemingly strike first and wipe your opponent off the map before you've even met on the battlefield.

This could be like a Zergling or a Tower Rush. A strategy that cheaply narrows a path to victory to some hollow build pattern.

Now, again, if you want to add Europa Universalis kind of dimplomacy to this whereby the guy who launches these missiles without a Causa Bella gets ganged up on and embargoed, I'd be willing to see how that would play out.

So this is a game, Echinda, that needs to be balanced properly so all these things make the game FUN. Seems an obvious point to make, I'm sure, but somehow that point was missed in previous games.
[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited April 28, 2001).]

**Eli** · April 28, 2001, 06:07

Maybe someone said it before but I'm really happy that they kept the same citizens faces(happy, content etc) like in civ2.

**Ralf** · April 28, 2001, 06:24

quote:

Originally posted by Harlan on 04-28-2001 04:36 AM
I'm quite surprised to hear that all the Civ2 wonders will be back,

I like that. Many Civ-3 city-improvenments, wonders, units and techs should be similar with those in Civ-2. Differently tweaked and rearranged perhaps (like the updated Great wall wonder), but still similar. And many new ones, of course. The latter goes without saying.

quote:

JS Bach's Cathedral: What is this supposed to be? Has anyone figured out what cathedral is associated with Bach?

The guy was religious and he only created church-music, as far as I know.

quote:

Adam Smith's Trading Co.: Smith was an academic who wrote books, he never had a trading company.

quote:

Sun Tzu's War Academy: Again, no such thing. No one is even very sure what town he lived in or came from.

quote:

Isaac Newton's College: Is this supposed to be Cambridge? In no way is that "his" college, he's just one of many famous or non people who worked there.

quote:

Marco Polo's Embassy: He had some great journeys, but never anything remotely like an embassy. The world didn't even HAVE embassies in the 1300's! (though there were ambassadors)

So what? Does it matter? Its only a light-hearted game for crying out load. They act as symbols only.
[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited April 28, 2001).]

**Russian King** · April 28, 2001, 06:29

quote:

Originally posted by Myself on 04-28-2001 01:17 AM
PLEASE FIRAXIS make the panel, and thicker city names

DID ANYONE EVEN HEAR ME???
Anyone even wanna agree w/me on thicker city names? Who can actually SEE the city name with the horse???

**Ralf** · April 28, 2001, 06:38

quote:

Originally posted by yin26 on 04-28-2001 05:51 AM
Now, again, if you want to add Europa Universalis kind of dimplomacy to this whereby the guy who launches these missiles without a Causa Bella gets ganged up on and embargoed, I'd be willing to see how that would play out.

Agree! The casus belli feature of EU, should definitly be implemented in Civ-3 as well. At least in early-modern and modern eras, and (of course) especially then using nuclear weapons.

-------------------- edited:
Im not sure. Perhaps ONLY then contemplating using nuclear weapons. Maybe thats enough. Anyway, very severe domestic happiness-problems should be the result, without a pretty substancial Casus Belli-reason.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited April 28, 2001).]

**Ralf** · April 28, 2001, 07:11

quote:

Originally posted by Russian King on 04-28-2001 06:29 AM
Anyone even wanna agree w/me on thicker city names?

Yes, I agree. The city-names must be both bigger & thicker, and the map must recenter automatically (at least as default option) with flashing city-names/or cities then the building-queue is empty. Please, dont be subtle then it comes to these things.

**Depp** · April 28, 2001, 07:38

Well well, only 7 civs. This was like I expected I guess. But it still sucks, I love to have at least 10 civs.
But I guess they won´t be able to change that now, what a bummer. They could at least have made it an unofficial feature, since some actually have the computer to run such a game.

When I play SMAC im always pissed of that there is only 7 Civs, when you play a standrard map fine, but if you play a bigger map 7 civs give some great startinglocations and some really bad. With 12 civs you could get a much more even game on a big map.
And the scenariopeople must be furious...

**Roman** · April 28, 2001, 07:41

quote:

Originally posted by Depp on 04-28-2001 07:38 AM
Well well, only 7 civs. This was like I expected I guess. But it still sucks, I love to have at least 10 civs.
But I guess they won´t be able to change that now, what a bummer. They could at least have made it an unofficial feature, since some actually have the computer to run such a game.

When I play SMAC im always pissed of that there is only 7 Civs, when you play a standrard map fine, but if you play a bigger map 7 civs give some great startinglocations and some really bad. With 12 civs you could get a much more even game on a big map.

This is indeed a major disapointment.

quote:

And the scenariopeople must be furious...

We are!!

**Russian King** · April 28, 2001, 08:08

I agree with Ralph . The names of wonders dont matter at all, in fact, i like the idea how they made some people more famous by putting their names on things they didn't do .

Throughout my years of playing civ i havent even noticed this fact until the message got posted yesturday.

Anyways, i give my thanx and appreciation for our hero Snapcase, and good luck on civ-cant wait till the next topic.

PS: anybody wanna verse an Xpert??? send me an ICQ message.

**Ceci n'est pas Snapcase** · April 28, 2001, 08:14

Screenshot brightness: These are significantly darker than the magazine images. It's due to the fact that the computer with the scanner has a crappy monitor.

Stadium: It looks like a modern stadium to me.

Borders: Expand with "culture" raitng.

City names: Way to thin, I agree. They're more visible in the magazine, but not visible enough.

cpoulos: There is another thread about 7 civs where I posted all the info I had.

**Shadowstrike** · April 28, 2001, 11:36

I guess that they are going for a CivI feel in the 16 civs.... I still recall the good 'ole days of playing CivI. You really got to know the different civs.

**Nemo** · April 28, 2001, 15:07

QUESTION: in normal and peace mode, can you still build ANY military unit, only defensive ones, or neither?

quote:

if you're the first person to get [nuckes] you will have an opportunity to benefit, but once everybody else gets them it's unlkiely that you can use them and have a successful game.

QUESTION: does this meand that the AI is smarter with them and will retaliat, or is there some kind of M.A.D.? (i REALLY hope they have MAD - it is easy to impliment, and is VERY realistic)
[This message has been edited by Nemo (edited April 28, 2001).]

**Nemo** · April 28, 2001, 15:11

The canal and great wall concepts, and teh "small" multination building wonders such as apollo, manhattan, and statigic defense concpts are REALLY COOL!

only 16 civ's to pick from doesn't bother me becuase i usually only play with germany, or america, and i alreay know that those will be in there. however, it must suck for those people in countries who didn't make the cut...i'm sorry. but, sicne there are civ unique units (YEAH!), i guess they can only have so many civs, or else there would be too many units.

quote:

Starting Units: One Settler, One Worker.

NICE!

quote:

Number of Civilizations in one game: Still seven.

i think the feelings on this are being vented in teh "7 civ" thread.

the way coastal fortress is now implimented really rocks!

armies/stacked units - since smac had this to some extent, and CTP did this nicely (one of the few things they got right) i am glad to get an "official" word on it.

hiding resources until you NEED them! that sounds very cool. it will definatley force negotiations until the rival nation refuses, in whcih case you bombard them to the stone age, just like in reality way cool!

man, this is DEFINATLEY going to be a one more turn, one more game feeling! --i gues smac left me doubting. nemo begs for firaxis' forgiveness

EXPANDING BORDERS! i was worried about the borders stopping at the city edges before. phew! what a relief.

conquoring cities now seems like it is more realistic, i never liked
the 'patriot' (or what ever the name of the unit was) from civ II. i think what they are doing for taken over cities is MUCH better.
[This message has been edited by Nemo (edited April 28, 2001).]

**Comrade Tribune** · April 28, 2001, 19:33

Hmmm.

Imo, the map view looks god-awful. An unplayable eyesore. I hope it´s not their last word.

Nationalism & Armies: Does that mean antiquity has no armies?

Civ-units: How about balance? Will Impis stand up to Panzer divisions?

If this is not a bad dream, I see a lot of problems on the horizon.

Announcement

I got the Magazine! Preview, First Impressions, Screenshots forthcoming!

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