Your take on the Palace upgrades feature

Ok, I get that having a Palace building that you upgrade as you progress is just a nice aesthetic feature that gives you a general sense of achievement...

But what do you think was the guiding philosophy behind it when it was created? When they designed it, what was it's reason for upgrading in the way that it does? What does each upgrade mean in relation to your progress?

I'm not talking about the factual reasons why each individual upgrade occurs, there's already a thread for that, but what do you 'get' out of the Palace, as in, what did the devs want you to 'get' from it?

I ask this because my Palace is normally complete long before a victory status is in sight and usually dies out of interest somewhere in mid-game. It's always nice to get an upgrade, but when it's complete, at such an early, seemingly random stage of the game's progress, I was wondering what you thought the 'purpose' of it is, from a progression perspective.

Most games with this kind of feature would make it so that it's still creating upgrades until end-game, with lots of different personalised options, a sort of never-ending thing that could only be maxed out by dedicating yourself to the specifics of what's required to get upgrades - but in Civ 3 it just seems, I dunno, oddly implemented.

What do you think the remit was for the creators of the Palace upgrades??

I think it was not intended to be related to the victory. Like the pop-up says the PEOPLE admire your achievements and want to upgrade your Palace, so maybe They put it there just to let someone new to the game, not focusing on a victory or having a long term plan but simply Making sure he has nice culture and more happy faces, get a sense of achievement.

Pretty much what Atishay Jain said. Also, Civ2 has a throne room that, from what I understand, functions somewhat similarly, so a similar feature was already in the series.

In Civ3 I've had Palace-extensions offered when I've just lost units in wars, when I've just lost a city to a flip or a careless capture, and/or when WW is high. So I still don't know what it is that I'm doing 'right' to get those extensions! (And I haven't found a thread that lists the trigger-points sequentially, so if you know of one, please link it)

I usually play long games -- to Space or Diplo (if I don't lose before then) -- and like you (Buttercup), my Palace is usually complete before I'm even close to winning. That said, in my most recent game (Emp Small 60% Archi) the final trees got planted closer to the end than usual (but my Civ's development had been stunted for most of the first two Ages).

Overall, I like the Palace in Civ3 -- my only gripe with it might be to wish that the different (default) architectural-styles were more cross-compatible with each other, so I could mix-and-match them (and/or overwrite a previous extension) like I used to do with the Palace-improvements in CivDOS.

Although I (still) don't know what the trigger-points for Palace-extensions were in that game either, I usually had a finished Palace (long) before game-over there too (I always went for Space), but it was (or could be) a much more idiosyncratic design than what Civ3 (or rather, my sense of aesthetics) allows. I liked that ability a lot.

I'll do better than that, I'll bump it for you. It's one of those threads that should have regular bumps so that people can contribute their observations every now and then.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=443076

I also liked the way previous Palaces had the 'piles of gold' effect. I was very surprised this had been left out of Civ III, it's the most pointlessly pleasing of all the aestheitc improvements.

I play mostly on a slightly modded game, so there's no Palace there.
And frankly, I don't miss it.

I loved the one in Civ1 though. That one was awesome.

Theov said:

I play mostly on a slightly modded game, so there's no Palace there.
.

Click to expand...

Can such a thing be done from the editor? Or do you play with some of the game files modified?

Theov said:

I play mostly on a slightly modded game, so there's no Palace there.
And frankly, I don't miss it.

I loved the one in Civ1 though. That one was awesome.

Click to expand...

That is odd. I had my summer gaming class try a networked, multiplayer game using TETurkhan's Test of Time scenario for Play the World, and we had no trouble getting the Palace Upgrades. One of the students discovered that you could change the style of architecture from upgrade to upgrade, and had one of the strangest looking Palaces that you could imagine.

Atishay Jain said:

Can such a thing be done from the editor? Or do you play with some of the game files modified?

Click to expand...

I play with a biq mod and some added features.
Whenever you play a mod, scenario or whatever there's no palace afaik.

Well, palace and city view are removed when some conditions are not met by the mod. So usually there is no palace.

To me, palace building/view and city views are pointless and add nothing to the game. I can't speak for others' opinion of the palace, but when Conquests was released They didn't add the new wonders to the city view screen, and a lot of people were upset about that and complained. Blew my mind that anyone noticed much less cared.

I have to admit that the palace does not add much to the game. I often ignore it and never notice the difference.

I admit that I did have a fondness for the "throne room" of days gone by