conquerization 2.5

[dikwhit]

I sit here and read threads and see some of the various posts and it causes various dilemas for myself and was looking for some feedback.I discovered this wonderful little game several years back called civ2 for my good old ps2. This of course led to civ2 pc and now civ3 pc or as i prefer to call it conquerization2.5.

Why 2.5 you might ask? Well lets see why.

1)The civil has been removed from civilization. The only way to remain competitive on harder difficulties is conquer,conquer, conquer and the quicker the better.You wanna score big you gotta clean clocks fast or play a monster map and proceed milking and man is that tedious as hell. if you go with option one nationalism is a late game feature and if you go with option 2 the games over 500 years before you can end it.Basically damed if ya do..or dont.

2) Absolutely no benefit in remaining peaceful,it doesnt help score, international relations or domestic relations. If your peaceful your score blows. The trade deals the computer initiates are a joke. Also the last time i checked (real life)regardless of how many cities a nation has every time a new city develops it is not 100% corrupt ... forever... need i say more?

3)Government viablity in wartime. Last i checked democracies dont collapse or corruption get worse any time there is a war thats lasts much over 5-6 turns or you have troops inside enemy borders at the end of your turn. Best example would be the U.S. in WWII. We had troops from here to Timbucktu and EVERY continent inbetween and yet our government got better .... not go right in the crapper.

4) Substitue republic for democracy in 3)

5)Flame here..... Exactly how much money did Info.Inter. pay for the graphics(terrain) that SNOOPY did 10x better for nothing??? Kudos Snoopy

6) Less is more. Bullpoop. Less techs,govts, units, even fewer useful units etc etc etc adnauseum

7) Artillary I could go forever on this alone but i'll keep it brief
Ground artillary is always captured w/out a fight ????? What about the soldiers loading,moving,firing the artillary??
Naval and air... always destroyed. If you can capure my radar artillery and use it immmediately why are planes ships missles nukes etc destroyed... if your going to be bad be consistantly bad.

8) Patching. Why wait and send it out in lump sums?? MP isnt active we are all playing solo why not put a small patch out when its ready i.e. bombing kill toggle on/off as opposed to waiting a month or two so they can give us the same small patch with spelling fixes and puntuation corrections. Dammit you rush a half finished product and then putz around with fixes. yeah i know they already got our money no need to rush something thats free.

I know in some cases ive ranted and raved a bit but dammit when you put Sids name on a sequel one expects a finished product not something thats a civ engine waiting for the mod community to finish it.

Much more to say but wanna get some feedback first. Thx peoples

[Cookie Monster]

dikwhit I couldn't agree with you more


Especially with arguements 1,2,3, and 8. Civ3 has degenerated into a game where through skillfull play you may be able to delay or stall war but you can't avoid it altogether.

Play nice with everyone, bow to their every demands no matter how ludicrous, keep up a strong military, and you still end up getting betrayed by a gracious ally. WTF? Even if you don't end up getting attacked by someone you end up going to war over and over again just to increase your score (i.e. increase your territory = increasing your score) or to secure 1 saltpeter from your neighbors inventory of 3 saltpeters.

[Dominae]

dikwhit, let me take up your complaints one by one:


1. Too much war.

Unfortunatly, every civilization that I can think of (and certainly all those included in Civ3) had war as in integral part of their history and success. It would feel great to play out the civs as peaceful superpowers, but it would be 1) completely unrealistic/historic and 2) very boring in the long run. I, for one, cannot play 100% Builder anymore without falling asleep somewhere in the early Industrial Age.


2. No benefits for peace.

Again, unfortunately, historically war has proven its worth over and over again, from a empire's perspective. Even so, I do think that peaceful relations are useful in Civ3. On the higher levels, I can almost never get a Domination or Militaristic victory (never tried Culture); my only two options appear to be Spaceship and Political (usually as a fallback). Being at peace with most of the other civs is higly condusive to these two types of victory.


3+4. Democracies and Republics should be viable in wartime.

I agree with you here, from a realism standpoint. From a gameplay standpoint, I'm sure you understand that the best governments economically can't also be good at war. A good compromise would be to have a short boost in the economy of a Democracy in wartime, but even more severe penalties to happiness (this is just off the top of my head).


5. Average graphics.

No comment because I don't know what you're talking about.


6. Not enough units, governments, etc.

Personally, I find the game quite enjoyable (strategically and aesthetically), even though they cut down on everything. What happens when you have too many choices is that certain ones are determined to be best, and the others are rarely used (I never ever built Knights in Civ2, for example). By simplifying everything, all aspects of the game are useful in the right circumstances.


7. Bombard units are captured too easily.

I'm no expert in warfare, but I'm pretty sure that a small contingent of native warriors could overtake a bunch of cannons with their crew if those cannons weren't properly defended. You just didn't walk your catapults up to a castle completely undefended; any two-bit general would simply walk out and claim them. The same goes with the modern versions of these weapons (even more so, I think).


8. Patches come too infrequently.

This has to do with good software practice. I won't go in to the details of it right here, but (trust me) it's better to release good-sized patches periodically than continually spitting out whatever little fix you came up with. In any case, this has nothing to do with bad customer support on Infogrames' or Firaxis' parts. In my opinion, they're doing a great job of trying to keep everyone happy (except for that multiplayer thing...what were they thinking?).




Dominae

[dikwhit]

dominae thx for input a few things though.
1)no prob with war just its the ONLY way to score points
2) i turn off both those options find them completely unfufilling
3) viable is key word..... they just arent
5) snoopys terrain graphics in files section--- something Firaxis could aspire to
6) usefull units who actually builds radar art/copters/privateers etc. and the smaller tech tree than civ2 how is that an improvement?
7)more a complaint of consistancy either capture all bombard units or all are destroyed not the these you can have these are destroyed
8) when mp hits i agree with you but until then when you fix it get it out there.... no necessity that every1 is playing with all the same fixes


as i keep asking does any1 know when betatesting is done and we will get the finished product?????

[Arrian]

dikwhit,

There is one area in which we are in total agreement: the scoring system. It rewards conquest - early and often. That's the way to amass a huge score (unless you feel like ICS bullying, as demonstrated by Aeson, which requires no actual fighting. See his notes on his borg style American game... it's nuts, but that's another story...). The scoring system is two parts territory, one part population, with a bonus for happy vs. content people. The most effective way to amass a large, populous empire is to fight.

That can be frustrating for those of us who have more of a "builder" mentality. So can the fact that the single most poweful tool in the game is only available through war - the great leader. Scoring was obviously not well-thought-out by Firaxis, because (unless I'm going nuts) it's not even adjusted for map size, or at least not properly.

So I try to ignore the score, and suggest you do the same.

Regarding war under republic or democracy... it all depends. If you manage to bring the wonders of the Sistine Chapel, Bach's Cathedral and Universal Suffrage to your civilization, along with some police stations, you will find that war is viable under those governments, particularly republic. Actually, you don't need all of those things - I often do without Bach.

My first target when fighting is any strategic resource which will cut off enemy production of the best available unit (if Cavalry, I try to cut horses and/or saltpetre), but a close second is the enemy's luxury supply. In fact, sometimes I go straight for the luxuries, particularly if I'm starting the war. That will go a long way to helping war weariness, while hurting your opponent badly. The other key is bringing in allies - not because you actually want their help, but because this prevents the enemy from bringing them in on his side, thus getting you into a multi-front war which will drag on and on.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

dikwhit, your comments are definitely useful in attempts to "clean up" Civ3. There's some points that I think needn't be changed though:

1. War

I can't imagine a game of Civ without war. The new Culture system is cool but (as I think most people will agree) a game without a few battles (at the very least) is quite boring. I think the designers knew this and the scoring system reflects that. Plus, Domination and Militaristic victories are the most difficult, IMO.

2. Victories

I find all types of victories fulfilling (with the possible exception of Diplomatic...as I said, it's more of a back door), it all depends on the difficulty level you're playing on. If you find yourself not enjoying the space race because it isn't much of a race, time to jump up to Emperor or Deity.

3. Diversity

The low diversity of units, techs and governments in the game is quite refreshing. Notice that a lot of the diversity in Civ3 actually comes from the different civ characteristics (Industrious, etc.) and their UUs. Having a bunch more units on top of this would be daunting. (As a side note, some people do build Privateers, Radar Artillery, etc. and swear by them; this forum is full of good examples).

4. Releases

If for nothing else, you want periodic patches because this is easier for the average user. I can imagine that someone who plays Civ3 very casually won't want to install patches every couple of days just to stay up to date. If you get "Critical Update Notifications" every couple of days from Microsoft (as I just got right now), you understand how annoying getting too many patches can be.


Dominae

[notyoueither]

re Artillery

Actually...

The concept of capturing the guns is as old as cannon.

A large part of Napoleon's artillery at various times was taken from the Austrians, Prussians and Russians.

The use of captured guns persisted long afterward. The Germans of 39-45 were the last famous example of it. They used many captured Czech, French and even Russian models of ordnance in great numbers.

The thing is that it is so easy to maintain them. Apply oil, build shells and have at er.

Harder now though, since the guns often come attached to vehicles. Much harder to keep vehicles, or air craft, in the field. Altough the Germans did that too.

To bring the point to a close, the loss of guns is considered a bit of a disgrace in many militaries. Conversely, avoiding such loss can be an accomplishment. I have seen it claimed proudly on behalf of the Canadian Army of 1915-18 that they never participated in a retreat and never lost a single gun to enemy capture (prolly because they never gave ground on any large scale. I'm sure that the literature related to other militaries would contain ideas on the same theme (the loss of guns). Just can't think of any specific references right now.

[dikwhit]

canadian army..... insert joke here

[Dominae]

Heh, at least our military didn't invade Spain by mistake!


Dominae

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by dikwhit
canadian army..... insert joke here

Joke? Uhhhhh... hmmmm... weeeelll...

You guys did a good job in VC country, right?

How bout that Laura Secord?

Why is it a White House?

Hint bud. Don't cast stones at people who have many, many to throw back.

You are right though, but if anybodies gonna make the jokes, it'll be us. You didn't give the secret hand-shake.

[Cookie Monster]

Give him a break guys. I think he's just trying to fit in/be friendly. Then again look at the "online name" he chose.

[dikwhit]

actually if that was a reference to my name sall'rite shortened version of real name.... had on license plate at 1 time.
sorry if the canadian thing was taken wrong but cmon where would south park, comp. games magazine, and professional sports be without canada to poke fun at.

[Cookie Monster]

No offense taken, even my canadian friend laughed after he read your post.

And actually I admire the callsign you chose. That takes guts plus it's definately funny.

Happy gaming............

[Kuciwalker]

You mean many, many pine cones to throw back. I knew all of your trees had to be good for something.

[notyoueither]

Ohhhh. Nooowww you've all done it. That's it! The bombers are enroute to Alex Baldwin's estate as I type this.

But seriously, sorry if I came off harsh dikwhit. Just that I may be overly defensive of the people who continue to serve with honour and commitment while being p*ssed on by our own politicians. The state of our military is an issue to some of us. A bit of a sore spot as I may have demonstrated.