17-03-2003 02:30									#1
	Evaluation of civ 3 Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

I have long held the prejudice that civ 3 is rather worse than civ 2, and that were i to buy it, i would be greatly disappointed. This derived from the reports concerning it immediately following the release for PC. For the past 4 months, i have not even considered buying it, and have not sought to confirm or dispel my prejudice. Yet, i have recently been seeing information that suggests that later patches made civ 3 into a quite good game.
Hence, i would be interested in the thoughts concerning civ 3 from mac users who have played the game. I admit to knowing nothing about the mac version, yet i know that SMAX for mac was better than SMAX for pc ever was, and hence i have grounds for hope.
Thanks.

	17-03-2003 02:41									#2
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Don't get your hopes too high.The game is not so good on any platform.Tedium is almost immediate from turn 1.I can't see how anything MAC can change that

	17-03-2003 23:18									#3
	Get a bigger avatar today!

Personally, I find it to be a most enjoyable game, especially w/ the newly released editor (OS X only). The editor does have several revisions out due to some early bugs. You can get revision beta6 at CFC's Mac forum in a thread started by Brad Oliver.

	18-03-2003 19:45									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Civ 3 is a good game, but not nearly as enjoyable as Civ2. I've played it on both the PC and Mac, and there is no difference in the gameplay between the platforms. If you don't have Civ2 for mac(which sadly i do not) then its worth the money, but if you do have Civ2 for mac, then i'd wait for the price to become cheaper.

	18-03-2003 23:22									#5
	Inflate your Upload Space

It appears that the PtW port for the Mac is rapidly turning into a phantom? At least if dojoboy's call to Macsoft corporate was a harbinger of things to come ...

Also, there's a news item on 'Poly about Macsoft re-releasing Civ III as a "Game of the Year" edition or something? And that the new editor will be packaged with it, along with the "Making of Civ III ..." video and excerpts from some guide.

	18-03-2003 23:54									#6
	Increase Your PM Length

I obtained civ 3, and put it straight to the trash can just a few days after getting it.

Civ 2 is still infinatly more fun than civ 3.
Apart from the general gameplay of civ 2 being better (and suprisingly more realistic as well), civ 3 also lacks MP (I know it's been fixed for the PC, but has it for the mac yet?) and scenario building (this hasn't even been fixed for the PC, the puny little thing they released a while ago, and which now has been ported for the mac, is still not as powerfull as the tools civ 2 classic supplied you with.).


Oh and why haven't all of you joined the mac civ group yet?

	18-03-2003 23:59									#7
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

quote: Originally posted by Henrik Oh and why haven't all of you joined the mac civ group yet?

Most of us have.

	19-03-2003 00:41									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

My main complaint against, Civ3 is the combat system. I'm sorry, but i've had my tanks overrun or forced to withdraw from longbowmen one too many times. And the ability to wage war has been hampered more than it should have been. This, plus the limited ability to modify the game easiely(using text editor and photoshop is easier than the crappy editor we've been provided with), really makes it less than civ2.

As for PtW, i am interested in it being ported, but i won't buy it until its in a workable state(hopefully they learned a lesson with the PC release), or unless they package Civ2 MGE for mac with it.

PS, I have joined the mac group as well.

	19-03-2003 07:42									#9
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Thanks for the input. I suppose that i shall just hope that MOO3 gets patched, and in the mean time shall stick with SMAX and Civ2.

	24-03-2003 20:23									#10
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: Originally posted by dojoboy Personally, I find it to be a most enjoyable game, especially w/ the newly released editor (OS X only). The editor does have several revisions out due to some early bugs. You can get revision beta6 at CFC's Mac forum in a thread started by Brad Oliver.

Does there happen to be a URL where we could just download it? I think I downloaded the proper one, but I want to make sure there isn't a more recent one.

	24-03-2003 20:40									#11
	Inflate your Upload Space

I enjoy Civ III. The only problem I have is at the end of the game it sometimes crashing if I play the major events tracker at the end... and then only on a scenario I'm playing now do I have to do that

Speaking of scenarios... I'm no power maker, but I could never manage to master Civ II's builder, more than likely because it was so complicated. Having an average Joe mod program (CivIIIEdit) and then for the masters them do what they might always do or figure out (photoshop & textedit) I see no problem.

The only thing the game is lacking is the MP feature, and since I'm still trying to master the game is SP I don't find it that big of a miss (especially since I already play CtP and SMAC/SMAX in PBEM, I don't need/can play any more PBEMs for quite some time.)

My only major complaints about CivIII are the resources and the AI. The resources are at times, way to scarce and unrealistic (having an overabundance of saltpeter while near to no horses? ) Also the fact that resources get used up (realistic, but with as few as are seeded in some games, it should be toned down). Plus the fact that I can't dig/mine/breed my own resources or search for them is annoying... who says rubber can't be grown artificially elsewhere? Horses? The minor wonder where a city has both coal and iron in its radius has yet to be built in any of my games... is this because I'm unlucky, or because resources are indeed this shortchanged?

The AI, while predictable, could be much improved as well. First off, if my little advisor would say that the AI would be [insulted by a deal]/[never accept such a deal] (world map & tech from nation while only giving only a world map) where do they get off thinking I would agree to something like that?

I've had no problems declaring war, though the unit strengths are a little off... a knight, for instance, not being able to trample a spearman? (Though I have to agree the longbowman beating a tank is sadder). AI defense scores seem to be much higher than player defense scores.

To not solely complain, I love the worker system and the worker AI... if you automate one of these guys they actually work dilligently and well, and if they get killed you're not thinking (gee, I could have used it to build a city elsewhere). The national support for units rather than per home city is also a nice and needed change IMHO.

Wonders are more balanced... I'm not sure if I like this or not yet... but if you don't get a wonder, you don't have to worry about being as hurt as you used to be (Leonardo's Workshop for example.)

And then, of course, the SMAC-style unit upgrading is a great new add-on... while we can't engineer our own units yet being able to upgrade that defending spearman to a pikeman to a rifleman without building a new one and wasting build times is nice.

But those are just my two cents.

	26-03-2003 17:19									#12
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Originally posted by FlameFlash The national support for units rather than per home city is also a nice and needed change IMHO.

Amen to that, brother! Although I enjoy managing my cities, dealing w/ individual cities in this area was a major pain. I guess I should've had better economies.

There are many reasons why I enjoy Civ3 more than Civ2, but I think the most critical reason is timing. When I was playing Civ2, I hadn't discovered sites like Apolyton and CFC. So, I never really studied the game like I do now, well, at least to some extent. The civ communities have really added to my Civ3 experience.

	27-04-2003 23:09									#13
	Suffering from ads?

The only thing I seriously miss from CivII is the little videos of the advisors making comments. Some of them were pretty funny. Why didn't they include something similar in CivIII? The still pictures are kinda lame.

Also, the animations of the Wonders was nice in CivII.

	28-04-2003 20:10									#14
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Both of those things would have supposedly held up the development of CivIII for another few months and they wanted to focus on gameplay more... personally, I think they should have focused on multiplayer more.

Bring PtW to the Mac!

	28-04-2003 23:01									#15
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

I think PTW for mac is dead.

	29-04-2003 04:23									#16
	Tired of ads?

Don't kill the dream man!

Why is it so hard to port though? That's what I want to know.

	29-04-2003 04:51									#17
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by FlameFlash Don't kill the dream man! Why is it so hard to port though? That's what I want to know.

I feel part of MacSoft's concern may be that PTW MP would not be cross-platform, thus killing its sales. Evidently, the method used for the PC version is incompatible w/ Macs. Personally, I'd buy PTW for Mac regardless. I already have it for my Toshiba laptop.

	29-04-2003 05:30									#18
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Amen to that brother!

Besides, I'm sure they could do it in such a way that the PBEM functionality would work, I don't care about the MP, I just want my PBEM abilities!

	29-04-2003 23:47									#19
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

**takes up chant** Bring PtW to the Macintosh!!!

	30-04-2003 06:08									#20
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Would there be any place we could e-mail to really get our want across?

	01-05-2003 03:47									#21
	Inflate your Upload Space

You can try here, and ask for an email address so we can really raise the heat (in a good way).

CUSTOMER SERVICE:

Call: 952-697-6050

Write: Customer Service
           MacSoft
           400 S Hwy 169, Ste. 101
           Minneapolis, MN 55426

	01-05-2003 09:05									#22
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Of course it'd be based in MN...

Many thanks, dojoboy!

	01-05-2003 12:05									#23
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by dojoboy You can try here, and ask for an email address so we can really raise the heat (in a good way). CUSTOMER SERVICE: Call: 952-697-6050 Write: Customer Service            MacSoft            400 S Hwy 169, Ste. 101            Minneapolis, MN 55426

AHA! We have the infidels by the throat now, men! Charge! CHAAAARRRRGGGGEEEE!!!

**gasps** **wheezes**

I really gotta exercise more.

Gatekeeper

(Edit: Fixed coding for quote box.)

	01-05-2003 19:53									#24
	Remove this text

Should we organize a specific letter for all of us here to copy-paste so they'll think it is a large-scale organized push, or should we just all write seperate angry letters?

	01-05-2003 20:02									#25
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Originally posted by FlameFlash Should we organize a specific letter for all of us here to copy-paste so they'll think it is a large-scale organized push, or should we just all write seperate angry letters?

I think a generic letter that each of us could copy/paste would be effective; however, I feel the letter should be positive in tone, particularly regarding how well sales of a PTW mac port would be. Angry rhetoric will get us nowhere w/ these guys.

	01-05-2003 22:56									#26
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

dojoboy is right: Us Midwesterners are a sensible lot, but if you threaten us with mayhem and or death, we'll go Taliban on ya!

Gatekeeper

	01-05-2003 22:57									#27
	Suffering from ads?

* FlameFlash nods...



Scrap that draft then...

When you're right though, dojo... you're right.

Exactly, Gatekeeper!

	02-05-2003 18:07									#28
	Full PM-box? Change here!

DRAFT:

Dear Mr. Schilling,

I am contacting you to express the wishes of many, that your company, MacSoft Games, would choose to port Sid Meier's PTW over to the Mac. A decision to port PTW would also be consistent with past business decisions regarding the Civilization series. In addition, I would expect a PTW Mac port to sell very well in spite of the MP cross-platform inabilities with PC users. Many Mac users I've spoken with are interested in PTW for its additional civilizations, features, and MP capabilities with their Mac-user friends. It is my hope that MacSoft Games chooses to port PTW in the near future. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tom Herring (dojoboy)

Guys, feel free to improve upon.

Last edited by dojoboy on 02-05-2003 at 18:12

	02-05-2003 18:18									#29
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

It looks good, dojo! I've already copy-pasted it... might add something, but I doubt it.

	02-05-2003 18:43									#30
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

MacSoft Games' new phone number, still looking for an email address.

(763) 231-8100