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Ironwood
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Fresno, CA
Oct 2001
time: 21:17
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You know, it really doesn't surprise me that there are so many more people posting about how they don't like Civ3 than those who do. After all, those of us who do like Civ3 have better things to do than post on these boards all the time... like play Civ3  Also, because of the flood of trolls in this forum, we spend more time in "Creation," "Civs," and "Strategy" than "General."
Things I like about Civ3:
1. The Culture Model. I think it's cool. I like being able to absorb cities that get founded behind my lines, or captured by a third party behind my lines (from another, closer empire). I just seems to remove some of the tedium of conquering each and every city that exists, since once you've won militarily (defeated the army and captured some key cities), if you have a strong, rich, populous empire, you're going to win anyway, so the game may as well have a logical mechanism to give you control of the minor, but still annoying (and game victory obstructing) settlements.
2. The Nationality Model. This will be *very* useful in designing my "Second Pelopennesian War" scenario, whenever a scenario editor capable of placing cities and units gets released. Just create two civs: "Helot" and "Spartan." Make the entire domain that will be spartan "Helot," give the last remaining (completely isolated and untouchable island) city of the Helots a major Cultural wonder called "Helot Resistance," and have all the other cities (on the greek mainland) be captured by the "Spartans." The last remaining city isn't "Historical" but rather serves the purpose of maintaining a hostile othernational population (game mechanics). The Helots themselves will be set to maximum aggressiveness, maximum hostility, and have the ability to produce many military units in their "memorial" city, thus ensuring that the dominated Helot population is perpetually hostile to the dominating Spartans. But this city must be so remote that nobody can actually reach it, nor they reach the mainland, so as to avoid interferance. There can be no contact between the Helots and other greek groups, or particularly the Persians.
Yes. I like the National Model very much.
2. The CSAs. They make for much more variety between the civs. I like the fact that the civs aren't just different colors of the same thing, but rather actually have some differentation. The Babylonians play considerably differently than the Zulus for example.
3. The CSUs. Just another touch of color to the game. A CSU doesn't make or break the game (except maybe the Jaguar Warriors, if you pick your homeland well), but it is very cool. Just recently Chinese Riders and Persian Immortals fought alongside one another to eliminate the Babylonians. That was very cool.
I tend to think that, with the possible exception of the Aztecs, the good CSUs are well balanced with the less useful CSAs (Zulu Impis are incredibly useful, Militaristic and Expansionist less so), while good CSAs are balanced by less useful CSUs (Babylonians rule in CSAs, but the Bowman, while a useful Barbarian killer, aren't exactly anything to write home about, when there's iron in the hills nearby). The Aztecs are balanced by the fact that they'll never have a good unit-based GA; they blow it in the very beginning of the game.
4. THE RETURN OF THE INSTANT REPLAY!  A feature omitted from Civ2 that existed in Civ1. Just watching that big blue splotch grow across the world (or whatever color the player's civ is) is remarkably satisfying.
5. Better land forms. Civ2 was notorious for producing "ribbon-strip" land masses. No matter what the configuation, it was generally possible to reach every land mass by trireme, unless you custom built it. Tiny worlds gave me the Rocky Mountain blues (people who tried small maps with large single landmasses will remember what I mean). I like the new map generator. It is good.
6. Better city view screan. Civ's was good and cartoony (some might say too cartoony), Civ2's was nondescript and overly realistic, not iconic enough. Civ3's seems to achive a good balance between the two.
7. The "Ages of Man" model. At first, I didn't like the new structure. There are a lot of *straight lines* in the tech "tree." But with the requirement of completing the entire age before moving on, the necessity of creating a tangled tree to slow the acquisition of higher military technologies is removed. In short, nobody is going to get Knights before the age of Swordsmen is over. Nobody is going to get Destroyers before even developing the Frigate (a possibility in Civ2, since Magnetism, ironically enough, wasn't required to acquire Electricity). This is good.
Things I don't miss from Civ2:
1. Wonder movies. Okay, these looked kind of cool the first time around. But what's the big deal? I thought we were strategy gamers, not movie gamers. If Civ3 had marked the same turning point for the Civ series that Wing Commander 3 had for the Wing Comander series, I may have been put off a bit.
2. More civilizations. I compare 24 all the same civs (in all but name) to 16 different civs, and I prefer the later. Adding more would really just be overkill, IMO, except for the purposes of simulating specific events or periods of history.
3. Farms. This is abstracted throughout the game; why concrete it in the industrial age? It truly was the railroad that made such massive food production practical, anyway (from cattle drives to railheads to refridgeration cars transporting everything perishable), so rails may as well be it.
4. Fundamentalism. The "Communism" of Civ3 actually represents idological one-party rule. The Communists of the real world were every bit as religeous about their dogmatic ideology as any God-worshipping group of fanatics. Whether they be priests or marxists, Communism, in Civ3, is sufficient to represent domination by a single ideological group. The only problem is finding a name that's both sufficiently neutral and emotionally appealing at the same time.
In closing:
I will, of corse, be watching MOO3 closely, since this seems to have some revolutionary new simulations in it (the ideology/religeon model, for example). But as Civ games go, Civ3 is a good game, and, I believe, and improvement on the previous games.
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Ironwood
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Fresno, CA
Oct 2001
time: 21:17
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quote:
Originally posted by BeBro
I also like it, but hell, there is a lot of room for improvement.
Firaxis should include more terraform options, improved diplomacy like in SMAC (but please not this unit workshop - I hate it  ), etc, etc.
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Terraform options? What more do you want? I thought Civ2's option to build and level mountains to be silly, since we don't even do this in real life. You can irrigate, road, rail, forest, deforest, etc. What more is there? This is a historical game, not sci-fi. And it's a macromanagement game. If you want farms, play Sim-Farm.
Improved Dimploamacy? Once again, I ask: what more do you want? So far as I can tell, there isn't a single thing you can do in Alpha Centauri that can't be done in Civ3, and there are things that can be done in Civ3 that can't be done in AC.
First off, the trade model is as fluid as it can possibly get. Anything that could change hands in an agreement, can change hands. There's nothing that's been done within this family of games thad doesn't exist here.
Diplomatic Agreements? Let's see here:
- Cease Fire: Given the way peace treaties are treated in Civ3 (seeing how they don't increase commerce and can be canceled 20 turns after one is forced), this is the Civ3 Peace Treaty.
- Peace Treaty (can't remember what it's called in AC): Civ3 Peace Treaty + trade agreements
- Pact of Brotherhood: Add Mutual Protection Pact to Right of Passage.
- Pact to Serve: Less formalized, but among the things that you can force a defeated enemy to do in Civ3 is a Mutual Protection Pact. It's little more than a glorified Pact of Brotherhood in SMAC, anyway.
- Faction Agendas: A science fiction concept, not appropriate to a historical game, and slightly emulated in the "Cultural Groupings" anyway.
Now lets look at Civ3 diplomatic options that aren't in SMAC:
- Military Alliance: An alliance purely for the purpose of defeating a common enemy. Did not exist in this family of games before Civ3. Note that I do not consider CTP part of this family of games (Sid Meyer's line), and don't know much about those games, anyway.
- Right of Passage: Did not exist independent of military alliance in this family of games before Civ3.
Add in the trade and cultural models, and the diplomatic model is actually far more developed than any previous game in this line.
EDIT: I just realized there is *one* thing that can't be done in Civ3, and that's asking another power to stop fighting against a third power. As central as this is to my strategies in SMAC, as we can see in the real world, that's MUCH easier said than done. UN intervention hasn't stopped the violence in Northern Ireland, nor has US intervention stopped the violence in Israel (I refuse to aknowledge Palestine as a legitimate political entity, given the fact that either it has no head, or it's head is a completely untrustworthy liar, which is no better than the first option, really).
quote:
Originally posted by BeBro
And of course MP and a muuuuuuch more powerful editor. |
There certainly is a great deal of room for improvement. Given how good the game is already, I consider this to be a good thing.
Neither of these were included in either of the previous releases, anyway. They were included in expansion packs. This is done for financial reasons. I do not consider allowing for the profitability of a project to be "evil greed," so don't even try to accuse the various companies that have sponsored this project of being "greedy" and trying to "take your money." It won't work on me. As a fan of the Elder Scrolls, I know *well* what happens when one tries to do too much in a single project. Shareholders can only hold their pee for so long.
Last edited by Ironwood on 10-02-2002 at 02:04
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Ironwood
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Fresno, CA
Oct 2001
time: 21:17
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quote:
Originally posted by Encomium
I DON'T like it. Here's why. . .
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Hey, you know what, Econium, I really don't care that you don't like Civ3. The arguments you have given have been given over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over...
Why are you here in the Civ3 forum if you don't like, and don't play (for I would presume you wouldn't play a game you didn't like) Civ3? Are you a troller, or a spammer?
I'm not questioning your right to post your opinion here, or to read this forum, or anything like that. It's a public forum, and you can do what you will. What I am questioning is your character. Why are you here? Why are you not in the Civ2 forums, or SMAC, or CTP, or whatever it is you play more often? Why do you feel the need to come to a forum, the purpose of which is to discuss a particular game, and do nothing but talk about how much you hate the game? It must have *some* kind of hold on you, for you to even be here in the first place. That is, unless you're the sort of person who needs to go someplace and just  about something.
This server goes down often enough. Why must you people flood the server with the same old sad old song, over and over and over and over...
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JohnHK
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What is a troller?
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Capt Dizle
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Ah, it is good to see the forces of darkness muster. Ride Choir Boys, Ride!
No matter what you say or how you say it, no matter where or how long you march, no matter who you muster, we, the rebellion against god awful games (GAG) will continue to speak the truth.
The Emperor has no clothes, the Emperor has no clothes.
Civ3, the worst, the lamest, the choice of mediocre gaming minds.
GAG us Sid, GAG us.
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Capt Dizle
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I have been playing Imp 2 today and it has been a lot of fun.
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Ironwood
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Fresno, CA
Oct 2001
time: 21:17
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quote:
Originally posted by Hagbart
oh i forgot something:
i hate cities switching sides, and me loosing alot of units in the city |
Would you like some actual advice, Hagbert?
Build cultural improvements. Historically speaking, bands of raiders rarely hold onto cities. If you look at the Mongol invasion of China, that only succeeded after a *long* process of various "barbarian" groups attempting to keep control of the North. Tribal group A would take over a part of the North, would be sinified, and the place would revert to Chinese control. Tribal group B would attept to force their way to the top, a local revolt would put them down. Tribal group C would have some success, but only by actually acting Chinese enough to be accepted... for a time. Tribal group D would then take them over. Southern China would attack, hold, and be repelled militarily. It wasn't until they'd been there long enough to "ammass some culture points" that Kublei Khan was actually able to invade, and hold, the south.
And even then... they reverted to Chinese control. Chinese culture was so overpowering that even in the early colonial era (before what we in the States call the "French and Indian War," but I believe may be more appropriately be called the "War of the Spanish Succession), it's awe was felt as far as Western Europe. Then Europe "surpassed China on the tech tree," built some "Cultural Improvements China did not have" and China became their own personal stomping ground, though nobody has yet truly managed to conquer china, only to pacify it.
In short, as Confucius would put it, to be a great ruler of men, you must not only have great military might, but you must also have great "Wen." The closest English translation is: yes, you guessed it: Culture.
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Ironikinit
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Queen Anne’s War (1702–13) corresponds to the War of the Spanish Succession.
The French and Indian War was later, but Queen Anne's War is often lumped into the group heading "French and Indian Wars".
Dig me, I can use a search engine. Hope you don't mind the nitpick.
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MonsterMan
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Stockholm, Sweden
May 2001
time: 06:17
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quote:
Originally posted by Ironwood
Terraform options? What more do you want? I thought Civ2's option to build and level mountains to be silly, since we don't even do this in real life. You can irrigate, road, rail, forest, deforest, etc. What more is there? This is a historical game, not sci-fi. |
Well, it's very possible to terraform deserts to plains in real life, as some more developed african countries have shown, not to mention Australia. Hills could probably also be leveled in reality, if someone was crazy enough to do it, but what I'd like is to build plumbing through hills and mountains so water can flow to the dry side of a mountain range.
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Ironwood
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Fresno, CA
Oct 2001
time: 21:17
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quote:
Originally posted by MonsterMan
Well, it's very possible to terraform deserts to plains in real life, as some more developed african countries have shown, not to mention Australia.
[\QUOTE]
Interesting. I wasn't aware of that.
[QUOTE] Originally posted by MonsterMan
Hills could probably also be leveled in reality, if someone was crazy enough to do it, but what I'd like is to build plumbing through hills and mountains so water can flow to the dry side of a mountain range. |
Well, you can irrigate anywhere once you've discovered electricity (or is it electronics?). I assume you mean you'd like to be able to do so earlier. I would think that the usual, real world problem with doing this is that usually, the "dry side" of a range is actually higher up than the "wet side" (I know it is in East Asia), thus necessitating pumps, generally electric pumps.
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Libertarian
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quote:
I assume you mean you'd like to be able to do so earlier. I would think that the usual, real world problem with doing this is that usually, the "dry side" of a range is actually higher up than the "wet side" (I know it is in East Asia), thus necessitating pumps, generally electric pumps. |
Would you happen to know the magic spell required to irrigate hills?
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Ironwood
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Fresno, CA
Oct 2001
time: 21:17
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Hey, you're right. One can't irrigate hills! That could be done in Civ2... not that I ever did. That, of corse, is why I didn't know it sooner.
But, after discovering Electronics, you can irrigate in any plains or grassland square, regardless of whether there's an immediate source of fresh water or not. You don't even have to be by salt water, just go to the square and hit "i". This, I would assume, is a simulation of the ability to transport water by means other than gravity driven canal systems.
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Libertarian
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Well, then. We'll just have to plant all our vineyards in grassland and plains, won't we?
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09-02-2002 23:58
)
Do you really expect the developers to do everything the way you want?
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