Biggest Disappointments With Game Engine?

[Jon Shafer]

Or perhaps a bit better phrased, "what do you think are the most necessary improvements?"

What do you think?

I have a couple things:

• Too easy to kill other civs/nations. Look at history. You very rarely see nations disappearing completely, and often times they'll come back to become dominant again (the case with almost any country in history).
  
• 'Feel' too rigid over history: Things generally play nearly the same from the beginning of the game to the end. At the beginning, the 'virgin map' is very awe-inspiring, and truly gives the feeling of trekking out into a vast and unclaimed world. I like how this was done. However, 5000 years later, it just feels like you've planted the landscape with a few buildings every 5 tiles and covered the world in a brown mess. Solution? Probably would take 30 pages in the design document.
  
• I still think that combat could be better balanced. The whole attack-defense-hit point system is okay, I suppose, but it's not real war. You don't move units around with hit points that regenerate by sitting on top of a hill. A few tweaks in this area could work wonders, IMO. There's something about two units doing hit point damage back and forth to each other that doesn't inspire the grand scope of what war has been over history (think Agincourt or Constantinople here).

[alva]

Your first point is going to be very difficult to change.
Civ(3) is afterall a very static game, you know much more about history then I do , but one of the reasons of a demise/rise of a nation is due to enviroment or leaders.

These are the two things that basically don't change througout the game.
So unless you add some RPG elements for your leader, or have drastic tile changes (due to new inventions or events (earthquakes creating/destroying new land), things will remain the same.
ATM the only thing that resembles this are resources, and allthough they do influence things, usually not enough to alter things dramatically.

[notyoueither]

'Nations' disappeared all the time.

Today's Egypt bears zero resemblance to the ancients. The last vestiges were swept away by the Muslims.

Where is Babylon? Persia? Aztec? Celts? Those are only some of the in game civs. Many more not represented are long gone under the weight of successive generations.

[Thirgaral]

Where is Babylon? Persia? Aztec? Celts? Those are only some of the in game civs. Many more not represented are long gone under the weight of successive generations.

Persia would be Iran...it´s the same nation...

Back to topic:

§1 I do not agree....I like it the way it is...

§2 I can only agree with you...

§3 It could be better of course, but it´s not a high priority problem..it works alright...

In my opinion...the governments are the big disappointment...

[vmxa1]

It is not a historical sim. There is no need to make it one.
Combat could always be improved, but healing is not a problem, remember a turn is at least a year. You can heal a lot of wounds or repair a lot of damage in a year and sometimes it takes several turns to heal. In the early part a turn is a lot longer than a years, so you make a case that all wounds should be healed in one turn, after all it may be 50 years. I mean what can you do, you need a mechanism to handle it.

[Konquest02]

Originally posted by Thirgaral

In my opinion...the governments are the big disappointment...

Well, you can use the editor to create a brand new government!

--Kon--

[alva]

That's why a more dynamic world would improve things IMO.
As it stands, we are able to plot (+) 100 turns in the future.
(Which is the weakest part of the AI btw)

Some people start to beeline to Cavalry right from the first turn, planning where they will place cities and knowing what those cities will be worth in time, this IMO in the weakest part of a game like this.

You don't have to react to circumstances, no surprises or at least hardly any, the biggest one is missing a resource or one that depletes, or perhaps even a sneak attack. ( at which times Civ is the most fun).

Now lets's say we start off in a world where rivers are only one tile big, and over time start to flow in various directions or even dissapear.
That and sudden tile change ( pollution does this too, but at a time where is hardly going to make a impact and only negative at that), could make certain cities, for which you had high hopes render reduntant.

That would the player needing to improvise, replan, etc...and leave some uncertainty as to if you will win/loose, instead of more or less being certain you will, when you are only halfway.

[WarpStorm]

That is why I used to play SMAC with blind research on. You didn't know what order (exactly) techs would come up. Some major random events could liven things up a bit, too.

[Chemical Ollie]

You don't really kill other civilizations. Their citizens continue to live within your new borders (if you don't raze everything and disband all slaves).

I think hit points reflects the number of healthy soldiers within a unit, not the health of the indivudual soldiers. Thus sitting on a hill and getting reinforcements is not that unrealistic.

[Jon Shafer]

If you destroy a civilization, it has no effect on the game. 'Their' citizens become 'your' citizens instantly, and don't affect anything for the rest of the game. In reality, every 'civilization' has been conquered by another, usually to rise again. Civs being conquered never to emerge independent or important again is the rare exception, and no where near being the rule.

Whatever hit points represent, it's not realistic. Armies don't trade blows, sometimes dealing no casualties, sometimes wiping out a formation. Modifiers, terrain, etc. help change combat a bit, but two large formations fight each other piecemeal on a plain, then both will always take a fair amount of casualties.

I'm probably asking too much.

[WarpStorm]

Hmmm, I don't see too many Akkadians or even Gommorahns lurking in this forum. I contend quite the opposite, Trip. Most potential civilizations in real life got wiped out early never to gain even a portion of their former glory. At best, many were lucky to have their people live on in another culture remembering the glory days. Only the ones with a very strong cultural identity survived to reclaim independence. If Mexico were to become the dominant world power in the future it is not the Aztec Empire reborn although many of the people may very well be of Aztec descent.

Trip, please name a few civilizations that rose again to their former glory.

[Jon Shafer]

You can contend that 'mixed' cultures aren't really former civilizations, but what would make it the same civilization? Egyptians, Romans, various other Middle Eastern peoples (quite a few, though as you pointed out, many of them are no more), have exited in one form or another, often times as a 'mixed' civilization.

A few civilizations that it would have been 'game over' for, if they existed in the Civ world: Greece, Rome/Italy/Lombards/Whatever, Germany, France, Spain, England, Poland, Hungary, Czechs, Ukraine, any Slavic people you can think of, Korea, any African 'nation', the Mongols, and probably many many more particulars than I either don't remember or aren't mentioning. Often these civilizations rose to their former glory, but even if they haven't, they still exist in some form or another.

[Dominae]

Re: Biggest Disappointments With Game Engine?

Originally posted by Trip
Too easy to kill other civs/nations.

It all depends on what you name things. Clearly people have descended from the roman civilization over time, but we would never call them "romans" anymore. Similarly with all other civs who are no longer recognized as a seperate entity. In Civ3, when my Mongols wipe out the Egyptians, I know there are still some Egyptian people kicking around, but you can bet they'll never come back to their former glory (Genghis makes sure of that!).

'Feel' too rigid over history

This is because Civ3 is a strategy game, not a historical simulation. If you want the latter, play Europa Universalis, or something similar. The fact that the game feels like it "plays out" the same all the time is simply because you know the game too well and always use the strategies that seem optimal/fun to you.

I still think that combat could be better balanced.

If you look at entire campaigns and not just single battles, the combat system suddenly looks a lot better. An offensive campaign using Knights involves the coordination of many pieces and many battles in one single turn. If you look at this big picture, it will feel a lot more "realistic".

I quite like how combat was implemented. It makes for a simple early-game (which is as it should be), and a more complex late-game, but only because there are more units and special abilities. Thus you learn the game very easily and/or play through the turns very fast at the start, but things get naturally more compicated as time passes. If combat were difficult right away, you would lose a lot of players.


Dominae

[Jon Shafer]

Re: Re: Biggest Disappointments With Game Engine?

Originally posted by Dominae
It all depends on what you name things. Clearly people have descended from the roman civilization over time, but we would never call them "romans" anymore. Similarly with all other civs who are no longer recognized as a seperate entity. In Civ3, when my Mongols wipe out the Egyptians, I know there are still some Egyptian people kicking around, but you can bet they'll never come back to their former glory (Genghis makes sure of that!).

The problem is there very well might be a way they could return to their former glory. However, there's no way for that to happen. If another civ has the upper hand, with enough time he can conquer another civ without fail.

This is because Civ3 is a strategy game, not a historical simulation. If you want the latter, play Europa Universalis, or something similar. The fact that the game feels like it "plays out" the same all the time is simply because you know the game too well and always use the strategies that seem optimal/fun to you.

It's really just a personal nuance that I have, and not much a "I wish things were more realistic," etc. What I mean is that the 'feel' of the beginning of the game is good (every game), but it doesn't devlop the right feel as you continue further into the game, developing your terrain, building more cities etc. I can't really put my finger on it though.

If you look at entire campaigns and not just single battles, the combat system suddenly looks a lot better. An offensive campaign using Knights involves the coordination of many pieces and many battles in one single turn. If you look at this big picture, it will feel a lot more "realistic".

I quite like how combat was implemented. It makes for a simple early-game (which is as it should be), and a more complex late-game, but only because there are more units and special abilities. Thus you learn the game very easily and/or play through the turns very fast at the start, but things get naturally more compicated as time passes. If combat were difficult right away, you would lose a lot of players.

Dominae

Comparatively, Civ 3 is not a very complex game at all. However, I suppose that's the main reason that the Civ series is as popular as it is, and why things like combat, et al won't ever change.

[Dominae]

Re: Re: Re: Biggest Disappointments With Game Engine?

Originally posted by Trip
The problem is there very well might be a way they could return to their former glory. However, there's no way for that to happen. If another civ has the upper hand, with enough time he can conquer another civ without fail.

I just consider Civ3 rulers far more ruthless that real-life ones (a scary thought, I know). The alternative is for there to be a mechanism to ensure the complete destruction of a civ, but that it requires comparatively more time and resources than it does now.

In any case, I see your point, but unless you provide an idea for implementing this, I cannot really agree or disagree with much force.

It's really just a personal nuance that I have, and not much a "I wish things were more realistic," etc. What I mean is that the 'feel' of the beginning of the game is good (every game), but it doesn't devlop the right feel as you continue further into the game, developing your terrain, building more cities etc. I can't really put my finger on it though.

Quite the opposite from SMAC, where (I think) the game gets cooler and cooler as you go on.

I know what you mean about the beginning of the game being more fun, but I'm sure you understand that exploration and expansion must come to an end sometime, right? The problem is that these two fun things are not really replaced with anything, just more troop movement and improvement construction. But things are complex enough in the later-game (consider how the turns get longer and longer) that adding in some extra complexity would make it worse.


Dominae