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Ralf
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Sweden
Mar 2000
time: 06:12
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It all comes down to what most civers prioritize 2-4 weeks after the game have been released. Fortunately for Firaxis, they can look at the CTP-2 experiment as a chilling reminder how quick even the most supportive civ-fan can turn-the-tables, and instead rant furiously about "the crappy AI", as THE biggest problem.
You guys have to remember that the AI in Civ-2 & SMAC wasnt that great to begin with. Even with only 6 AI-civs, only 3-4 was resonably active, while the other ones more acted as filling stopgaps in the game. It happend to
me again and again in Civ-2 that I, in late-games encounted AI-civs that have been living alone on a big fertile islands, but still only occupied and utilized perhaps half of it. Also, halfway through SMAC; all the AI-bases had only half as many base-improvements as I had, but twice as many resource-draining, but still more mediocre mil-units than I had.
Now, the PC-requirements for SMAC stayed around P166 Mhz, if I remember it correctly. And the recommended requirements for Civ-3 will perhaps stay around P3-500 Mhz tops (yes, they have to maximize their potential customer-base, so any gigahertz top-of-the-line requiremements is commercially stupid and obviously out of the question). Anyway, this means that they in realty only have little more then 3-4 the processing power to play around with then they already had in SMAC. Add to this that much of this added CPU-power is already gobbled up in advance by the increasing demands for updated/animated graphics and nice added game-features.
I take it for granted that most of you civ-fans want Firaxis to trim/upgrade the old AI-weaknesses connected to the already existing 6 AI-civs, before they add any new additional extra AI-civs? Am I wrong in this assumption?
Maybe they could add a "added civs" -backdoor for the scenaro-designers, but even then, most - if not all civs above 6-7 would be "sitting ducks". They would in reality only act as lame and passive sparring-stopgaps in some remote part of the map, in that particular scenario.
A stronger AI isnt something modular that any developing-team are free to slap-on in the later stage of the game - especially not in a strategy-game like Civ. Instead they must design the whole game from the very ground-up with as "AI-friendly" game-design solutions and in-game features as possible. Scrapping the "above 6 AI-civs" idea is a design-decision that goes along with a "quality before quantity" approach. Keep it on Firaxis - you guys are on the right track. At least in this issue.
[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited April 28, 2001).]
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Chris 62
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But I'm feeling MUCH better now
Jan 2001
time: 00:12
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If the release is this year as planned, then the number won't be changed, no matter how much we complain about it.  We can only hope that the advance information is incorrect, but I think it is correct, unfortunatly. From a programming standpoint, using a tried and true engine (the SMAC one) solves a lot of problems, and saves both money and R&D time. Expanding such an engine has to measured against cost effectiveness of designing a whole new engine that changes design parameters. I think that the chances are small that they took the hard way, no matter how much we all wanted this change. I also think that if it's 7, it will be hard coded to the CD, so forget about changing that. This is not about a lack of tech, it's about cutting cost in R&D.
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All knowledge begins with the phrase: I don't know.
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The Kaiser
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Stoke-on-Trent, England
Dec 1999
time: 05:12
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I know this is little comfort to those wanting more than 7 Civs in the game (including myself), but reading the magazine it appears that the Barbarians will behave much more like a Civ in their own right, rather than as in previous games. This includes establishing their own cities in the unexplored regions of the map, which spawn out barbarians to attack you. When a barbarian city is destroyed, another one will appear in some other unexplored region. This requires you to continually push them back into the wilderness (ala North American Indians).
So from a certain point of view we do have 1 extra Civ, even though its not quite a proper one.
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The diplomat
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Terre Haute, IN USA
Sep 1999
time: 23:12
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quote:
Originally posted by me_irate on 04-27-2001 10:48 PM
The main reason i want more civs is this, in a regular game 100 turns in and you have 5 civs. When i play ctp2 with 14 civs, 100 turns in i have 8 civs. While more have died, you are still ahead and have more civs. The only prob with ctp2 it takes to long, so by mid game comp turns took a couple minutes. Just depends on ones patience, at least id like the option for more civs.
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It appears that the desire for more civs is partly based on this assumption that since a few civs will be conquered pretty early, we need more starting civs to balance this out. Perhaps, this assumption is false. Looking at the new resource model that will put an emphasis on trade and the culture model that will make pacifying conquered cities harder, it seems to me that Firaxis is aiming for all 7 civs to be as strong and active and long-lived as possible. If so, doesn't this change our debate? Do we need more civs if all 7 civs are going to be much stronger and active than before. What if all 7 civs will typically last through much of the game and be very active?
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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.
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DarthVeda
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My avatar! My precious!
Jan 1970
time: 00:12
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God, what a bunch of whiney babies--who seem to think programming is a democracy.
Frankly I don't care if there are 7 civs or 4,000,000. I got along just fine with 7 in Civ, Civ2, and Call to Power 2 (even though it had the capacity for more).
The argument that fewer civs hinder mod development is bunk. There are at least 500 scenarios for Civ2. I have made at least 8 secnarios and each one had 7-8 civs (barbarians included obviously).
You guys are acting like Firaxis just took a pee in your corn flakes. So what if there are 7 civs? Are you trying to tell me you won't buy Civ3? Bully!
Sure, there are times when I'd like to have 9 or so, but is it a major roadblock to scenario development? Hell no. I'd rather Firaxis concentrate on more important issues like Graphics importation, Events, and other modification abilities in the game to make it as easily modifiable as Civ2.
Having no macro language and difficultly importing new units is a MUCH MORE important road block to scenario development than not having fourty billion civs. Do you have any idea what kind of system you need to run a game with 20 civ AI? That's going to seriously hinder your audience and serious mod developers know/should know better than to eliminate their audience.
Then we start to talk about the Unit Limit. There is going to be one--that's how programming works--whether it is hard coded or simply a stack overflow or another kind of system limiter. What it is--do we know yet? I do not. The more civs you have, the more units that have to be on the map. And unless you like max unit errors, you're going to want fewer civs.
You honestly have to ask yourself though, and let's take the prolific ww2 scenario as an example, if the Serbians are actually important to put in so that your scenario has 27 civilizations? I think not. Most scenarios can easily slip away with 7 civs, and possibly less. Hell, you could get away with two or three in a worst case scenario.
It's all about your own end of the design process. Are you so absolutely miserable at design that you can't work within restrictions? Or do you plan things out ahead of time to work within the constraints you are given?
However, while a seven civ limit is just fine, it would be nice to have the ability to change it to something higher. But is it the end of the world as you portray it?
NO
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jadlakha
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HERE IS WHAT I GOTS TO SAY, Just let the gosh dog players choose how many AI's they want. Allow them to choose from 2-(at least)15 other ai's or even 32. If the player has a slow computer or experiences alot of slow down make sure to note in the game that they should play with less AI's for better performance.
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MC: Azért nem muszály annyira utálni a Románokat. Bisztos van valahot eggy vagy kettô Román aki egeszen rendes...  (Például ebbe a forumba is van eggy, Victor Gallis.)
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28-04-2001 10:58
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