Only 7 civilizations per game

[Henrik]

I want atleast one or two more civs, is it such an unreasonable demand?

[Ralf]

It all comes down to what most civers prioritize 2-4 weeks after the game have been released. Fortunately for Firaxis, they can look at the CTP-2 experiment as a chilling reminder how quick even the most supportive civ-fan can turn-the-tables, and instead rant furiously about "the crappy AI", as THE biggest problem.

You guys have to remember that the AI in Civ-2 & SMAC wasnt that great to begin with. Even with only 6 AI-civs, only 3-4 was resonably active, while the other ones more acted as filling stopgaps in the game. It happend to
me again and again in Civ-2 that I, in late-games encounted AI-civs that have been living alone on a big fertile islands, but still only occupied and utilized perhaps half of it. Also, halfway through SMAC; all the AI-bases had only half as many base-improvements as I had, but twice as many resource-draining, but still more mediocre mil-units than I had.

Now, the PC-requirements for SMAC stayed around P166 Mhz, if I remember it correctly. And the recommended requirements for Civ-3 will perhaps stay around P3-500 Mhz tops (yes, they have to maximize their potential customer-base, so any gigahertz top-of-the-line requiremements is commercially stupid and obviously out of the question). Anyway, this means that they in realty only have little more then 3-4 the processing power to play around with then they already had in SMAC. Add to this that much of this added CPU-power is already gobbled up in advance by the increasing demands for updated/animated graphics and nice added game-features.

I take it for granted that most of you civ-fans want Firaxis to trim/upgrade the old AI-weaknesses connected to the already existing 6 AI-civs, before they add any new additional extra AI-civs? Am I wrong in this assumption?

Maybe they could add a "added civs" -backdoor for the scenaro-designers, but even then, most - if not all civs above 6-7 would be "sitting ducks". They would in reality only act as lame and passive sparring-stopgaps in some remote part of the map, in that particular scenario.
A stronger AI isnt something modular that any developing-team are free to slap-on in the later stage of the game - especially not in a strategy-game like Civ. Instead they must design the whole game from the very ground-up with as "AI-friendly" game-design solutions and in-game features as possible. Scrapping the "above 6 AI-civs" idea is a design-decision that goes along with a "quality before quantity" approach. Keep it on Firaxis - you guys are on the right track. At least in this issue.

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

[Roman]

quote: Originally posted by Henrik on 04-28-2001 01:58 AM I want atleast one or two more civs, is it such an unreasonable demand?

Henrik, since computing deals with binary numbers, adding one or two more civs is the same as as adding eight in this case, so why not ask for 15 straight away.

[Roman]

I am sorry to keep on whining, but I just cannot get over this terrible 7 civilizations limit decision.

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 04-28-2001 05:55 AM the CTP-2 experiment as a chilling reminder how quick even the most supportive civ-fan can turn-the-tables, and instead rant furiously about "the crappy AI", as THE biggest problem.

the problems of ctp2's ai, are "logical" problems. it just doesnt think right
it's hasnt a lot to do with the number of civs, since it show the same problems with 8 civs or 16.

quote: Maybe they could add a "added civs" -backdoor for the scenaro-designers, but even then, most - if not all civs above 6-7 would be "sitting ducks". They would in reality only act as lame and passive sparring-stopgaps in some remote part of the map, in that particular scenario.

fine. so be it.
the idea of more civs is not to have a tougher game, but for the more realistic feeling.


in the very end, give me the darn choice!

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by Roman on 04-28-2001 05:57 AM Henrik, since computing deals with binary numbers, adding one or two more civs is the same as as adding eight in this case, so why not ask for 15 straight away.

oh, they could have "room" for 15 civs, but eventually put a limit at 12, cause that where they find there is ai is decent with the computing time that they allow it...

on the other hand, they could have such things in text files....

[Roman]

Mark, how about a new poll about this issue?

[Admiral PJ]

It would be really crap if the Civ3 civ limit ISN'T increased, but I expect it would mean recoding most of the SMAC code (i'm a programmer)
but it could be as simple as changing 1 or 2 variable constants for the civ array sizes.
but maybe these minor tribes will make up for it, if they have some intelligence.

They should at least bring out a patch to allow more civs at once..
I think 24 would be good..

Turn speed shouldn't be a problem.. most of say 24 civs would be dead or tiny. If its coded well it should be very fast, or they could calculate some AI routines in the time the player is doing his turn.. or maybe this is too advanced for them.

People with ancient computers can just turn down the number of civs.

Hey FIRAXIS give me a job, i'll show you what coding is all about ;>

in My game I'm putting in about 24 civs to start with , should be interesting..

[Admiral PJ]

I think memory may also be an issue, If they are indeed having lot of special different graphics for each civ, it will take more memory the more they have.
If they are keepign things like those leaders animations in memory and all those unique units like MIGS and Samurai etc it will add up..

But on the point of not having much more power than SMAC had , that depends opon how they are changing the graphics..
if they drop the SMAC voxel system (which would be a shame, but they are hard to edit so it might be for the best) or the polygon rounded terrain then they could get more proccessing time for other things, but seeing as its turn based Processor calculations aren't as relevant as in Real time.

I suppose path finding routines could take up most of the Computers AI time.. calculating routes across a big map could take a while for 50 units.

Admiral Pete
Emperor of the potatoe

[our_man]

This is extremely disappointing news about the Civ Limit not being increased. Personally I would be willing to sacrifice some of the new, more exotic options in favour for just a few more Civs to play against. Hopefully Firaxis are taking note of what's being said here, and haven't done anything permanent about the Civ Limit yet.

[Roman]

I think they have dropped the polygon graphics system from SMAC. Look at the screenshots. I don't care if they drop even all animation - I always turn those things off anyway. I just want them to increase the civilization limit.

[our_man]

This is extremely disappointing news about the Civ Limit not being increased. Personally I would be willing to sacrifice some of the new, more exotic options in favour for just a few more Civs to play against. Hopefully Firaxis are taking note of what's being said here, and haven't done anything permanent about the Civ Limit yet.

[Chris 62]

If the release is this year as planned, then the number won't be changed, no matter how much we complain about it. We can only hope that the advance information is incorrect, but I think it is correct, unfortunatly. From a programming standpoint, using a tried and true engine (the SMAC one) solves a lot of problems, and saves both money and R&D time. Expanding such an engine has to measured against cost effectiveness of designing a whole new engine that changes design parameters. I think that the chances are small that they took the hard way, no matter how much we all wanted this change. I also think that if it's 7, it will be hard coded to the CD, so forget about changing that. This is not about a lack of tech, it's about cutting cost in R&D.

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All knowledge begins with the phrase: I don't know.

[Roman]

Cpoulos, I really hope you are wrong, but unfortunately it is very probable that you are correct and we will be stuck with 7 civilizations in Civ 3.

[The Kaiser]

I know this is little comfort to those wanting more than 7 Civs in the game (including myself), but reading the magazine it appears that the Barbarians will behave much more like a Civ in their own right, rather than as in previous games. This includes establishing their own cities in the unexplored regions of the map, which spawn out barbarians to attack you. When a barbarian city is destroyed, another one will appear in some other unexplored region. This requires you to continually push them back into the wilderness (ala North American Indians).

So from a certain point of view we do have 1 extra Civ, even though its not quite a proper one.