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vonManstein
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London, Ontario, Canada
Feb 2001
time: 00:14
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quote:
Originally posted by rah
Thanks Yin, I was away for a couple of days, and was pleased that you graced us with your presence again.  My biggest fears for problems with the AI and MP were addressed by you in a most satisfying manner.
I am usually an optimist, but I truly enjoyed your work. In tribute I would like to add my review, and hope (really hope) that the final product will fall somewhere in between.
The GAME
I was happy that I decided not to pre-order that game. The first day of release, I picked it up at Best Buy on sale while my brother was still waiting for his pre-ordered copy to be shipped.
The box exceeded all my expectations. There was a majestic pattern on the box with CIV III in impressive large letters, right along with Sid's name. Thank god the box was water resistant so my tears easily wiped off. Just looking at the box made me realize that this was CIV III and not CIV 2.5. The manual took up almost the whole box. Half the manual covered all the new features of CIV III in easy to understand writing. There was a comprehensive table of contents and a truly functional index. After spending 8 hours reading the manual, I was ready to fulfill the desires that had haunted me for all these years. I quickly hung up the poster depicting ancient-modern combat artfully drawn by Frank Frazetta surrounding a detailed tech tree. The full install took about 5 minutes and ran without a hitch. There was an option on install so you could run the game without the CD in the drive. The backup CD that they provided really made me feel like a valued customer. They went a little more modern for the music and included cuts from the Back Street Boys and other boy bands.
STARTUP
WOW the intro movie was mindblowing. It was better than the last Pink Floyd concert I saw. It was definitely worth the 165 MB of disk space. I won't spoil it for anyone but when the horde of rats eventually completely obscured the statue of George Bush, I stood up and cheered.
The Tutorial was excellent and followed the instructions in the first chapter of the manual perfectly.
If you use the default settings, you can fire up a game at "Loser" level in about 30 seconds. But for the more sophisticated player, there is a custom game setup that has over 1000 possible things to customize. From the difficulty level all the way to what color kilts the Scottish are wearing. I decided to customize a game and after 90 minutes, I was ready to go. It also allows you to save the customized settings to save time in future games.
GRAPHICS
The intro and wonder movies were great. I'm sure after a few games, I'll just shut them off. While the game graphics have improved, have no fear, the map still has that fuzzy look with units that are hard to differentiate that we all got to be comfortable with in CIV I and II.
It was again necessary to turn on the grid to avoid bad moves, especially down the rivers.
GAME PLAY
You will be impressed. A lot of effort was put into this. While the GOTO command doesn't work every time, it has improved dramatically. And for those cases that it doesn't work, you are allowed to define routes between cities that will override the goto command. And if you do this and you have a settler in one of the cities, you can give it the build road command and click the other city, the settler will automatically start building a road using the path that you defined. If you use the automate irrigate command. It will go to the best square within the city range and irrigate it, move to the next and continue. I will actually use the automate settler commands in this version.
Resources added a new flavor, which I'll discuss in the AI section.
Trade is handled automatically. You still build caravans but you get the option of where you will trade and the software keeps track of everything. It even calculates the best item to build, etc.
The biggest improvement is stacking. Mixed armies fighting is a whole new dimension. Your catapults can do damage from a distance. (thought that was a no-brainer) Sometimes the defenders are better served by coming out of the city to attack you.
Interfaces
Biggest difference. There are over 89 popup windows that let you control everything. There's even a window that allows you to select groups of cities and change all of their build queues at the same time. Also customized saved build queues that even allows you to put in items that you don't have the technology for yet. A real time saver. One new screen shows you 16 cities at a glance (full stat view) to assist in Micro-management. Now I can micro manage every turn. This will really be big in MP.
THE AI
All my worries about an awful AI went up in smoke after watching the AI for half an hour. Stacking seems to have done the trick. The AI calculates (according to page 1,456 in the manual) the probability of success before initiating an attack. If the prob to win is higher than 40% it attacks, if less it finds a defensive position and waits for other units to make stacks. All the units move first towards stacks and then the stacks move. Now when the AI asks for something, (i.e. to share a resource) and threatens to come kick your ass. It means it. The first time I refused to share some iron, the Mongols declared war, and within 7 turns a stack of 5 chariots and 4 hoplites showed up at my border and started trashing my border cities. The days of defending your cities with a couple of units are over. You will have to maintain a much larger military to hold your territory. And if you do it in every city it will be costly, especially now that your troops are supported by your nation instead of cities. I'm amazed at what a difference stacks makes. The AI is still stupid and can't take advantage of city placements and resource use. But when it has a stack of 12 units, the only strategy it needs is attack. Your couple of pikeman fortified in the mountains blocking him will die quickly. Cities will fall.
The AI also like to include a spy or two in every stack just for fun. With stacks the spys will do sabotage the same turn as the army attack. It's a lot easier for the AI to coordinate a devastating attack with stacks. And heaven forbid if it has two stacks heading your way. I swear one waited for the other so they could attack the same turn. (I didn't think that was that hard to program) Since individual units are rotated before the stacks move, there is more opportunity for coordinated attacks. I even had the AI launch and Air attack from a carrier supporting a ground assault.
While you can get a general idea of the makeup of a stack, you need a spy to fully expose what's in a stack. More knuckle biting when they appear. (same with barbs)
MP
I haven't played since everyone else is still waiting for their pre-ordered games to ship, but I'm in heaven. Saved MP files are encrypted using a key based on your game serial number. When you play a saved game, everyone machine save is compared to verify no funny business. And you can't save a MP game as a scenario unless all the players are currently in the game and type their passwords in. No more peeking in between games or using two computers. I'm sure a sophisticated hacker can bypass this, but it's going to take time, and be beyond most of our abilities.
The customizing screen allows you to turn on/off almost every element of the game. The maps are also designed for more of an equitable start (page 2,347 of the manual)
It is all simultaneous move. When units meet, both units/stacks/city are frozen and a randomizer decides who gets to use remaining movement points first. This combined with stacks have solved most of people gripes about simul play. While the combats take a little longer, the time advantage of Simul more than makes up the difference. There is also an option of watching opponents combat, cool but it slows the game down a bit.
IP/PBEM/SERVER/Peer to peer is supported.
OVERALL
This is the best CIV ever produced and I now don't feel so bad about waiting as long as I have.
Rush out and buy this game.
RAH
Sorry for the length but what the hey. |
Worth repeating. 
Yes, I'm an annoying bastage.
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death_head
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Caledonia, IL, USA
Jul 2000
time: 23:14
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Wow...boycotting Civ3 would be a good idea...maybe they'd wake up.
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Wait a minute, you mean that I should not have pre-ordered the game from Software Etc. That alright because Electronic Boutique is just 30 miles from here on Interstate 80 at the Hilltop Mall in Richmond, CA. and I can pick up another copies there. Yes guy I have two copies of Civ 2, plus MPG, so I made buy two copies of Civ 3.
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Yin, if you do not buy Civ 3 look in your rear view mirror.
 Attachment: road rage.jpg
This has been downloaded 133 time(s).
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yin26
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This space reserved for Darkstar.
Apr 1999
time: 14:14
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Splangy:
Since you asked me before if I have a problem with your expressing your views, I should say: Absolutely not. If fact, I welcome it when people disagree with me since we both might learn something from each other. The only thing that I ask is that it be a civil conversation that doesn't make the thread itself a nuisance for other people who want to participate.
When you quoted my entire, LONG post like that, it made the thread (on that page, anyway) rather irritating. In fact, you mentioned being irritating was one of your goals by doing that. However, you changed it back, I think. Thanks.
As for being irritating in general, I think there are "preferred" methods for doing it, if that doesn't sound too ironic. Sure, you can be irritating by quoting a long post needlessly or by posting 1,000 smilies, etc., but those don't reflect well on a person's intelligence all that much. HOWEVER, if you can, for example, de-construct my post point by point calmly, logically and lucidly showing that (from your point of view) I'm a moron, well then you'd have the praise of many poster here at Apolyton, I assure you.
Heck, even I'd give you props! 
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21-07-2001 02:27
and if i am why did you spend your time making fun of me? im sure you have many other important things to do like hanging around some other threads, spending all your time here, bashing people for no exact reason. wow! i envy your social life, i really do. 
But Yin was absolutely right about saying you shouldn't quote his entire post. There was no point in doing that. 
O.K. O.K. Where can I pre-order!??!
i fixed one post and the other is long forgotten. 
and why would you ban me? plenty of people say damn. but not many people insult others family's 
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