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yin26
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This space reserved for Darkstar.
Apr 1999
time: 14:18
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if you promise an honest review and a good apetite, you've got yourself a copy |
Done! I would run it through the Yin Review Machine. Remember that one? By the way, I reserve the right, should the game be good, to put various sauces of my choices on the cardboard. 
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As far as I am concerned, strategic resources contribute to ICS in a roundabout way. |
Good point. This underscores that ICS is integrated in the game in many, many ways, and to uproot it would take some radical new approaches to the game...approaches I was hoping for! By the way, I'm glad that the term "settler diarrhea" hasn't left the boards.
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I would like to know where Yin26 stands on Civil Wars. |
If it were done in a way that the player could plan against wisely, then I think it's great. But if it's just a way to make for a messy end game (kind of like when you get too powerful other civs just start to launch nukes), then that's no good.
Perhaps this could happen in a more pronounced way due to wars. I always liked the Europa Universalis mechanism whereby you need a Causus Belli to go to war otherwise you create great unhappiness. Then let's say that the wars were more costly, too, so that you'd have great unhappiness triggered that way, then Civil Wars would be a great way to make going to war a domestically relevant decision.
Of course, the diplomacy engine would have to be really good for all this to work so that you could manufacture Causus Belli with some clever alliances, etc.
Last edited by yin26 on 12-07-2005 at 04:52
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Sirian
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Pennsylvania, USA
Dec 2001
time: 00:18
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yin wrote:
I've beaten this game a million times. A few stat changes, smoke and mirrors won't change the fact that this series has run its course |
I stopped at about seventy. 
I got sick of Civ1, too. I played it to death, probably beat it about forty times, then never touched it again. Too many parts of the game were hardwired, predestined, such as all the AIs collectively declaring war on you on the same exact dates game in and game out. Blah.
I was so sick of Civ1 that I skipped Colonization, Civ2, SMAC, and CTP, and might never have come back to Civ again, except that Civ3 lured me back. Why? Well, it was the diplomacy. The game promised that the AIs would not gang up on me, and that they would not treat me differently than they treated one another. Wow, that sounded cool. And it was! For about seventy games.
Too many parts of the game were hardwired, predestined, such as buying techs and pulling n-fer trades being better than doing your own research, and always able to buy the AIs in to wars, and the way in which the AI willingness to sign military alliances would devolve them in the Industrial era. Civ3 AIs were the Hare, and player was the Tortoise. This too was fun, for a while. About seventy games' worth, for me.
You guys haven't seen me around Poly much. I lurk more than I post. I was here a good bit the first six months after Civ3 came out, then for a brief stint when MOO3 was about to be released. (Wow was that a dud or what?!?  Man.)
The tide here seems to be against yin, but I'm on his side. ICS sucks. Not that it sucks inherently, but it sucks that it is the one-stop-shop for victory. If there is only one right choice, then it's not much of a strategy game. Instead it is more of a puzzle, and puzzles don't have much replay value. You figure out the answer and then you're done.
Some parts of Civ have always been nothing more than a puzzle. Too many parts. Enough parts that although I adore the concept of building an empire and building an army and competing in a world of other civs, in practice the gameplay eventually becomes canned, repetitive.
Are we really going to believe a bunch of marketers? Marketing sucks. You can't trust it. Their job is to put the best face on the product. Most stop short of lying, technically, but it's their job to mislead and distort. Or at least you would think so judging by the way marketing is conducted these days. (I really despise deceptive marketing, and lately that means almost all marketing.)
Seriously. Why should we expect Civ4 to be good?
Hope springs eternal. There's always the chance that they'll get somebody in there who can make good things happen and then let them do that. So many games are full of hype, though, and so few are long on delivery.
Seventy games is a lot, actually, especially for a game as long as Civ3. Firaxis has earned my interest enough to buy Civ4. (I bought Pirates, and it was fun!) My loyalty doesn't come cheap, though. BS talks. Only gameplay walks. There can no hiding behind the marketers if the gameplay sucks.
Will Civ4 be...
 ?
 ?
 ?
 ?
We'll just have to wait and see. I'd love for Civ4 to turn out to be the Holy Grail of empire gaming, but I said the same about MOO3. I try not to get too worked up, in case the game has problems.
Some day, though, somebody is going to make an empire game that is a true breakthrough. I just hope it happens in my lifetime. 
- Sirian
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Sirian
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Pennsylvania, USA
Dec 2001
time: 00:18
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Originally posted by Solver
Seventy civ3 games... assuming even a rather short time of 15 hours per game, that would be 1050 hours on the game. Not bad. |
I got 150 hours on a single game.
A third of the logged hours were AFK. (Load times were so long for that game, I'd leave the system running while I ate, ran errands, etc.)
That was the Blockbuster Epic and afterwards I was so exhausted, I never managed to write my report!
That's the one that got away. To this day, only I know what happened. It's a shame, too. But after playing the thing for six weeks, 25hr/wk, I just didn't have it in me to spend another 50hr writing about it.
I probably spent closer to 1500 hrs on Civ3 since 2001. That would put it fifth on my all time list of most hours spent playing one game: behind Descent, Descent 2, Master of Orion, and Diablo II.
Holy cow! I have spent WAY too many hours gaming in my lifetime.
- Sirian
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Sirian
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Pennsylvania, USA
Dec 2001
time: 00:18
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quote:
Originally posted by General Ludd
I wonder how many turns where spent waiting for the turn to process. |
The game I showed was a Huge map, played all the way to 2050. I turned off all anims for the last 150 turns, and STILL there was one small animation that the game would play for every unit each time one entered combat.
A goodly bit of the hours on the game I listed were indeed burnt on waiting for turns to process, or for AI units to move, or for pathfinding checks on added or removed roads, harbors, etc.
On the other hand, without REAL pathfinding, the AI would do immensely dumb things at times. (Like it did in Civ2!) So better to live with a slower but playable game than a lobotomized AI. Listen to some music while playing and the waits are filled with something else fun.
- Sirian
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12-07-2005 03:38
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