17-12-2001 22:00									#1
	Confused about people quiting Civ3 Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

I'm a bit confused. I see tons of people shelving the game because of the combat and post patch AI aggression. Why don't you just change it like I did? It took me 5 minutes in CivEdit to make the game 100 times more fun ( and realistic ). All I did was increase the A/D of all units in future Epoch's cumulatively I.E. +4 to Medieval +8 to Industrial and so on. I don't have any problem with Swordsman killing my Tanks. I had one Mech. Infantry hold off 9 Calvary and only take 2 damage. As for the A. I. aggression just lower the slider under the Civ tab ( hell turn it off and you wont see an A. I. near your area all game ). When you change the Civ3mod.bic it applies to all games, random or scenario. What I'm saying is 30 minutes in CivEdit and you can make the game 100% to your taste.

	17-12-2001 22:50									#2
	Got spare money?

I believe that in a few moments a post will follow stating something like this: We shouldn't be the ones changing the rules, Firaxis should have done a better job in the first place!

As for me personally: I like it the way it is now.

	17-12-2001 22:55									#3
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But thats my point... They make a game that tries to appeal to all people ( i liked it out of the box too ) but for those who dont they made it FULLY editable. Every single thing that people have posted about in this forum can be changed to the users likeing. I just think people whine for the sake of whining sometimes.

	17-12-2001 23:29									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

The reason I am not playing anymore is because this version of Civ seems like a big step backwards as far as gameplay is concerned. In Civ 2 combat made sense right from the beginning, no need to have to edit the game settings. This version, while graphically enhanced, has ruined the intuitiveness of a great game. I understand that the settings can be changed, but to me that sort of takes the fun out of the game when I have to break the game to make it work in an intuitive way. That's just the way I feel about games in general. I don't mind a challenge. I do mind when games don't reward you properly for taking the effort to invest in superior military units. When modern tanks are killed by spearmen on the first combat round it sort of takes the fun out of the game for me. When the strategic resource I need is deep in another civs territory and they can't trade it, the only option I have is war. That's usually what happens when I play, but I hear a lot of people on this board say things like "Civ 3 is not a war game". You could have fooled me. That seems to be the only option every game I played. War is not fun in Civ 3 since the whole combat system is based totally on chance which basically has turned Civ combat into a game of Risk.

	17-12-2001 23:41									#5
	Get a bigger avatar today!

number6 I understand your point of view. My point is in less than 5 minutes all that you said in your post can be changed to your liking. In the editer just increase the resource spawn and reduce ( or eliminate ) the chance of exausting it . All I'm saying is they changed the game to try to attracked more people ( which maybe wasnt a good thing ) but made it so that true hard core Civ players can adjust the game back to the origianal style.

P.S. If you dont like resources at all just change the " resource needed " to none on all units

	17-12-2001 23:43									#6
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Originally posted by Brakner I'm a bit confused. I see tons of people shelving the game because of the combat and post patch AI aggression. Why don't you just change it like I did? It took me 5 minutes in CivEdit...

Your absolutely right about that flexible CivMod-editor.

What makes the whole thing so bizarrely paradoxical, is that those civers who (all in all) likes the way how features & stats currently have been designed & tweaked in Civ-3, are the exact same ones who are most likely to fiddle around with that game-editor regardless. Just for the sheer fun of it.

And those civers who DONT like how some of these things have been tweaked, seems to be the same ones who almost actively shy away from ever using that editor.

You, Brakner - seems to be a very sane exception from the latter crowd.

quote: But thats my point... They make a game that tries to appeal to all people ( i liked it out of the box too ) but for those who dont they made it FULLY editable. Every single thing that people have posted about in this forum can be changed to the users likeing. I just think people whine for the sake of whining sometimes.

I tried (and failed) to deliver the same message, with its obvious solution, to one of the more obsessively disgruntled "Civ-fans" around here. Below is what the guy answered:

quote: Originally posted by Venger God Forbid they release a product that didn't require a mod.

How the heck can one possibly get through to a guy like that? Beats me...

	18-12-2001 00:00									#7
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"Every single thing that people have posted about in this forum can be changed to the users likeing"
Dunno about everything, but there's enough flags to do considerable tweaking. What most gets me is those Civ3 fanatics who b!tch about CtP2 for the same reasons other b!tch at Civ3. "Unplayable without a mod"

quote: How the heck can one possibly get through to a guy like that? Beats me...

Dunno, but he's gone to the CtP2 forums (where he is very welcome) go figure

	18-12-2001 00:10									#8
	Get a bigger avatar today!

You know, Ralf, you, I and others have been saying the same thing ever since the first features of Civ3 were announced earlier this year. But some still don't get it. They expect the game to be exactly tailored to their expectations, not concerning themselves that such 'changes' would have undesirable effect upon others. Why isn't haven't a game that can be editable to allow many different civers to enjoy the game on many different ways, be preferable? Wouldn't that be a more fair approach in developing a game to the general public? I guess some like to believe that in being hyper-critical towards the developers makes them feel more important than they really are (including myself), instead of learning to be adaptable.

	18-12-2001 00:11									#9
	Re: Confused about people quiting Civ3 Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote: Originally posted by Brakner I'm a bit confused. I see tons of people shelving the game because of the combat and post patch AI aggression. Why don't you just change it like I did? It took me 5 minutes in CivEdit to make the game 100 times more fun ( and realistic ). All I did was increase the A/D of all units in future Epoch's cumulatively I.E. +4 to Medieval +8 to Industrial and so on. I don't have any problem with Swordsman killing my Tanks. I had one Mech. Infantry hold off 9 Calvary and only take 2 damage. As for the A. I. aggression just lower the slider under the Civ tab ( hell turn it off and you wont see an A. I. near your area all game ). When you change the Civ3mod.bic it applies to all games, random or scenario. What I'm saying is 30 minutes in CivEdit and you can make the game 100% to your taste.

I think that many of the issues others have with the game have nothing to do with parts of the game that can be edited. Bugs and crashes are what cause most of the discontent. Besides, some parts of the editor are nebulous and vague in exactly what they are supposed to do. For example, how different is minimal corruption from nuisance?

I have also noticed that radical changes in the editor can lead to crashes and bizarre game play. I had an army that spontaneously dumped its contents while I was moving it.

To sum up, there are some who think the game is broken so like any sensible person, they have returned the broken goods from the place of purchase.

	18-12-2001 00:18									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

There are two reasons that I don't want to use the editor to TWEAK things.

1. I shouldn't have to. I want to play the game the way the designers intended. If they find problems and change it in a patch, fine. (yes real weak, but what the heck, I thought two reasons sounded better than one ) BUT it's still a valid point for all you holier than thou people. Just call us purists.
I do view most moding as cheating anyway. I want legal cheats.....I mean strategies.


2. Part of (and a big part) of playing SP games (SINCE NO MP) is comparing strategies and performance. For comparisons that mean anything, everyone has to be playing the same rules/settings. What fun is it to brag how well I did in a certain game if I had to mod the rules to attain it. I don't see any threads on Earliest Launch using specific mods. Or posting strats that only work with certain mods. That's just looking for ridicule and abuse. We have to have common ground to compare.

RAH

	18-12-2001 00:24									#11
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Deornwulf maybe that is hardware configeration and not the game. I have been playing for 3 weeks straight ( sometimes for 10 hours + a sitting ) and have never had a crash. I have gone completely crazy in the editor ( just to make silly games ) and have never had a crash. I see this all the time on other forums I.E. Star Fleet Command , Empire Earth and yet i have never had a crash in either of those games too. Simple things like soundcard and video sharing same IRQ 11 or background programs or bad video reference drivers will kill a game more than bad coding.


P.S. My video card is on IRQ 11 and so is my USB port...whenever i turn on my USB in the BIOS it crashes my games 50% of the time when i move my mouse. I could either get a serial mouse or play around with my video drivers. I installed the older Nvidia 12.41 and the problem went away... If i was like most people i would have gone onto a public forum and whine'd how the game crashes when i scroll my mouse

Last edited by Brakner on 18-12-2001 at 00:31

	18-12-2001 00:37									#12
	Got spare money?

rah, what you said makes sense to me. But the way Civ3 was designed, some have loved it and some have hated it; there's no way around that. I would like to see the Civ experience to be enjoyed by alot of gamers and knowing that no matter what the developers designed and patched, some will love it and some will hate it.

But the answer still lies in scenarios and MP. That's where Civ3 will really shine, hopefully, just like where we've been in Civ2. As much as I have talked about the editor, I have not and will not do it because such things are best done in scenarios where it can be tailored to the time period or event. That's what I am patiently waiting for.

	18-12-2001 00:41									#13
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

EDITOR: Great idea, bad implementation. it's okay using it as an excuse all of the time to explain away poor aspects of the game, but the simple fact is that it doesn't do what people want it to do and it screws up other ingame features.

Sorry, but if editing the game to suit my taste is going to screw up some ingame features, the AI wont recognize the changes and I can't make half of the obvious modifications that I'd like ... then what's the point?

This is a good idea ... only partially implementated.

	18-12-2001 00:41									#14
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: Originally posted by Brakner But thats my point... They make a game that tries to appeal to all people ( i liked it out of the box too ) but for those who dont they made it FULLY editable. Every single thing that people have posted about in this forum can be changed to the users likeing. I just think people whine for the sake of whining sometimes.

But THAT is exactly the point Brakner, the general settings are NOT okay. When Civ2 was released the settings were balanced enough to please the general public. Civ3 hasn't been playbalanced (or not enough it seems). The majority of the people don't even bother to edit the gamefiles because they expect it to be playable right from the start. The troubles start when it isn't properly balanced.
Imagine if the boardgame monopoly was released with a faulty manual with lots of contradictory gamerules. Would you play it? A small minority would struggle and make up their variants but the public would have simply dropped the game outright. The same goes for computergames.

If a few tweaks in the standard rules of Civ3 makes it more fun, why didn't Firaxis do it in the first place? To allow the buyer to have some fun editing the game?

-Nope, more probably it was due to the christmas deadline -

Add to that the fact that you changed the standard rules to fit your personal profile proves that the standard isn't properly playtested to begin with.

	18-12-2001 00:43									#15
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

I agree completely with you guys, the game was made to be changed. People say they want to play it like the designers intended it to be played, without modding. So maybe if you still don't like it, then you just don't like the game. It is just a matter of personal preference!! I know I know, people who are talking about bugs and crashes I understand, but for those of you who complain about gameplay issues either edit the game already or quit complaining!

	18-12-2001 00:48									#16
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Steve Clark MP better be worth the wait.

I fall in the middle, I don't love the game, and I don't hate the game. I'm frustrated but I'm still enjoying it. The frustration will probably hurt replayability. The main reason I'm playing is to figure out how the game will need to be changed for MP to be as if not more successful as CIV II was. If we don't play and make suggestions, then we deserve whatever we get for MP. (hopefully they will listen) But if we don't suggest, they can't listen.

RAH
Still the optimist.

	18-12-2001 00:55									#17
	Re: Re: Confused about people quiting Civ3 Tired of ads?

quote: Originally posted by Deornwulf I think that many of the issues others have with the game have nothing to do with parts of the game that can be edited. Bugs and crashes are what cause most of the discontent.

wtf?
what bugs?
what crashes?
i havent had one yet and im running one of the worst machines of anyone on the site!

your wrong about that tho.
90% of complaints ive heard are fixable in the editor.
amen brakner

	18-12-2001 00:57									#18
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: Originally posted by CapTVK If a few tweaks in the standard rules of Civ3 makes it more fun, why didn't Firaxis do it in the first place? To allow the buyer to have some fun editing the game? -Nope, more probably it was due to the christmas deadline - Add to that the fact that you changed the standard rules to fit your personal profile proves that the standard isn't properly playtested to begin with.

Give me a freakin' break

All it proves is why no one hardly bothers to make turn-based games anymore: a major chunk of the potential audience is a bunch of self-important wannabe grognards with their heads up their a$s who couldn't be pleased if the game came with a $50 bill tucked inside the box.

I mean, gods forbid a game designer both puts in a serious effort at making a decent game in a dying genre and ships it with an editor that lets people configure it to their liking since they know people are looking for different game experiences.

Would you people be happier if they had integrated the editor as "game options", would that make it transparent and official enough for you? Because, in the end, that's all it is: one big monster list of game options which can be abused but can also be used to tweak 'til its just right for you no matter how much of a hardass you are.

	18-12-2001 00:57									#19
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quote: Originally posted by Rhuarc I agree completely with you guys, the game was made to be changed. People say they want to play it like the designers intended it to be played, without modding. So maybe if you still don't like it, then you just don't like the game. It is just a matter of personal preference!! I know I know, people who are talking about bugs and crashes I understand, but for those of you who complain about gameplay issues either edit the game already or quit complaining!

Rhu, I'd like an Airport improvement please. I'd like it to be a terrain i9mprovement, something workers can create, and i'd like airplanes to be able to use it as an airbase. It has zero zone of control.

Then I'd like my outposts to have a 1 square zone of control to stop them being aquired by enemy cities.

Then i'd like a new civilization, without destroying any other civ ... perhaps the Spanish. This would give me 17 civs, right?

Stacked movement would be nice, can you point that out in the editor please?

Oh, yeah, and I hate the way the game ends in 2050 and I'd prefer to have significant future techs. If the editor can handle that, please do feel free to point it out.

No, I don't expect firaxis to write this for me, but apparently that's what the editor is for ...

Now, care to show me how?

Oh no, wait ... it can't do any of that can it?

	18-12-2001 00:58									#20
	Got spare money?

quote: Originally posted by rah Steve Clark MP better be worth the wait. If we don't play and make suggestions, then we deserve whatever we get for MP. (hopefully they will listen) But if we don't suggest, they can't listen. RAH Still the optimist.

Well said Rah, but for the moment Civ3 isn't properly balanced for SP. And we need a proper, well laid out, ruleset before we can even talk about MP otherwise we would be dealing with dozens of variants when (IF) MP is released.



And the window of opportunity to make improvements/suggestions is slowly closing. Civ3 is running out of steam...

	18-12-2001 01:05									#21
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

CapTVK maybe your right , maybe it should have been better out of the box but it wasnt, I dont mind it that much but others do. Instead of fixing it with the editor so they can enjoy it ( and get the most out of there 50 bucks ) they shelve it and spend all day trashing it on the forums. In less that 1 hour i can turn my Civ3 into Civ2 with exactly the same rules and units. I dont understand people who say its changed to much from Civ2 then say they cant do what they want to do in the Editor to fix it.. Maybe they arnt looking in the right places or they havnt even tried.

	18-12-2001 01:15									#22
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Code Monkey Give me a freakin' break All it proves is why no one hardly bothers to make turn-based games anymore: a major chunk of the potential audience is a bunch of self-important wannabe grognards with their heads up their a$s who couldn't be pleased if the game came with a $50 bill tucked inside the box.

Ehmmm Code Monkey, you do know what a grognard means do you? If someone wants to tweak the game rules it's almost certainly going to be a grognard. Hell, they don't even need an editor, they'll simply change things with a hex or basic text editor. Just like most scenario makers did with Civ2. At the moment they're stuck with Civ3 because you need to use in the inbuild editor.

quote: I mean, gods forbid a game designer both puts in a serious effort at making a decent game in a dying genre and ships it with an editor that lets people configure it to their liking since they know people are looking for different game experiences.

May I direct your attention to Freeciv and Civ Evolution then. If you want games to edit to your own liking you'll find them there. Best of all, they're free (as in libre)!

I do suggest trying out Andreas native windows client for Freeciv BTW. It isn't finished yet, but it's quite playable now. Civ Evolution is also very nice when it comes to creating your own units inside the game itself and has some interesting WoW's.

	18-12-2001 01:20									#23
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Kolyana were all those things suppose to be in Civ3? Were they in Civ2? So what your saying is you want the game to be the way you want it not the way they designed it? Stacked movement would be wonderfull !! but i wasnt expecting it because i didnt see it on the features page before release. The only change i would want in the game is the ability to unload your army components to upgrade them the reload them.

	18-12-2001 01:42									#24
	Full PM-box? Change here!

I'm sure this has already been said, but I think there are really two reasons why people are talking about shelving or returning civ3 even though there's an editor.

1. Many people feel that they shouldn't have to edit the game to get it to work right. This stems from the fact that many aspects of the game obviously weren't play tested. I and quite a few other people are bit resentful that we are paying to be beta testers for the game (although I haven't shelved the game, lack of play testing is quite obvious I think). In addition, Some of the changes, while they may be implementable in the editor (corruption, combat) do require quite a bit of fooling with the editor. After the changes are made, the game still doesn't feel right because the changes are really hacks at best.

2. Despite what many would have us believe, not all the problems in civ3 are editable in the editor. It has been said again and again. You can't edit stacks. You can't edit planes being able to sink ships. You can't edit wonder movies. You can't edit scenarios. You can't edit multiplayer. There are many things that people don't like about the game that can't be edited. For some these are deal breakers. I for one was very disappointed when I learned civ3 wasn't multiplayer.

	18-12-2001 01:43									#25
	Inflate your Upload Space

Cap, I don't know about that.
Most of the problems I have that are game related, are there so the AI doesn't fall behind. So since we never include AIs in our MP games, a lot of the problems disappear without a single mod.

Vastly different starting positions and way too much information are the only real problems that I see. And having more menus for setting up game parameters. (and of course being able to move stacks)

Yes I hate the corruption, and not thrilled with the combat model, and the tech progression. But in MP, it will be even. And maybe more so, since a tech lead won't automatically confer victory on the battlefield.

I kinda like the resource model and see it as encouraging more conflict in MP. They will have to be guarded as much, if not more than your cities.

Due to the cost of maintianing armies and not having the AI around for padding your treasury, many decisions will have to be made. You probably will not be able to field a vastly superior attack force (in numbers) and leave adaquate forces behind for defense for any long period of time. Should make for some fun. You can't just stick three vet muskets fortified in that mountain city and expect the city to be invulnerable to attack. I mean heck, You build in a forest in III and it clears the forest for you. The only good defensive city terrain is hills, and sometimes rivers if the attacker is an idiot.

I just hope that they don't take so long to produce MP that most of the current MP community has drifted away to other games or activities.

RAH

	18-12-2001 01:45									#26
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

All I have to say to people who say "just change the rules to your liking and enjoy the game" is : I did not have to alter Civ 2 to enjoy the game. I expect the same with the sequel. The only changes I would even contemplate in making would be accessible from the game start up settings screens, not some kludgy stand alone editor. I am sorry, but I am disappointed in the game and none of the arguments made so far have changed my mind. I understand the simplicity of the editor it's just the principle of the thing. I don't want to play a non-standard version of the game to enjoy it. I am glad that many people on this forum can enjoy the game as is. I can't.

	18-12-2001 02:25									#27
	Re: Re: Re: Confused about people quiting Civ3 Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Originally posted by dainbramaged13 wtf? what bugs? what crashes? i havent had one yet and im running one of the worst machines of anyone on the site! your wrong about that tho. 90% of complaints ive heard are fixable in the editor. amen brakner

bugs (Some are pre-patch, others are post)
1. Air Superiority
2. Diplomacy screens - lines disappearing
3. Sound card issues - units making no sounds during combat
4. AI tech trading during human turn
5. Unsinkable AI galleys (bug or possible computer cheat)
6. Editor changes causing weird reactions (why include an editor to make changes that cause the game to react in unpredictable ways?)

You can check the bugs thread to find more examples.

As far as crashes, your machine only represents less than .001& of the current users so using it as the standard for crashes is inaccurate. An individual could take issue for not being able to play the game out of the box on a machine that meets the minimum requirements without downloading special patches to make their hardware compatible with the game.

Just for the record, I still have my Civ3 and still play it, inspite of my unique ability to crash it and cause other strangeness to happen. I was just trying to explain why others were complaining. Also, I have the worst machine - An HP Pavillion, 433 Celeron with the original sound and video cards.

Remember that everyone is allowed to have an opinion and that is the basis of consumer satisfaction. To take issue and argue with the consumer is pointless and bad business.

	18-12-2001 02:33									#28
	Re: Re: Re: Re: Confused about people quiting Civ3 Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Originally posted by Deornwulf


>bugs (Some are pre-patch, others are post)
>1. Air Superiority
>2. Diplomacy screens - lines disappearing
>3. Sound card issues - units making no sounds during combat
>4. AI tech trading during human turn
>5. Unsinkable AI galleys (bug or possible computer cheat)
>6. Editor changes causing weird reactions (why include an editor >to make changes that cause the game to react in unpredictable >ways?)

This is what i dont understand. I play this gam to death and have never experienced any of these. Have you tried deleting and reinstalling then applying the patch fresh? You would figure i would have at least one of the problems you listed.

Last edited by Brakner on 18-12-2001 at 02:40

	18-12-2001 02:35									#29
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Every single thing that people have posted about in this forum can be changed to the users likeing.

Demonstrably false.

Show me how, using the editor, to move a nine-worker mountain brigade without clicking and scrolling nine times (or more).

Show me how, using the editor, to keep focus on units that are waging battle in close proximity to one another rather than being yanked to an irrelevant transport on the other side of the world.

Show me how, using the editor, to quiet that damn Domestic Nag, whose modal window I have to click more than a hundred times every five turns or so.

Show me how, using the editor, to stop one air recon from wiping out part of another one.

Show me how, using the editor, to make the Civilopedia available to me during diplomatic negotiations.

Show me how, using the editor, to hyperlink the build choices in my city screen.

Show me how, using the editor, to force other civs to honor my borders or else declare war — just as is required of me.

Show me how, using the editor, to slow down the eye-dust that flashes subliminally, "informing" me of pollution and growth here, there, and yonder somewhere.

Take your time. I'll wait.

	18-12-2001 02:45									#30
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by rah I do view most moding as cheating anyway. I want legal cheats.....I mean strategies.

Theres a principal difference between the cheat-menus in Civ-2 & SMAC, and the CivMod editor in Civ-3 (or the Rules.txt file in Civ-2/SMAC, for that matter).

With that cheat-menu you could give yourself free advantages at any time, and take away some from the AI-civs. NOT so with that CivMod editor. Almost all changes are applied universially and equally to all Civs (except for those Civ-specific ones, of course).

quote: Part of (and a big part) of playing SP games (SINCE NO MP) is comparing strategies and performance. For comparisons that mean anything, everyone has to be playing the same rules/settings. What fun is it to brag how well I did in a certain game if I had to mod the rules to attain it.

A: If you used that cheat-menu in Civ-2/SMAC, you where automatically ported from the "Hall of Fame". In Civ-3, they could have a "Altered game-rules: this, this & this..." warning-message.

B: In MP-games, as I have understand it, the software automatically extract the rules used by the MP-master (dont know the exact term here - I mean the guy how initiated that MP-game) and applies them to everybody - overruling any personal editor-preferences.