civ3...sucks :(

i'm not trying to troll here....but alas must vent.

i'm astounded that firaxis could deliver a game with such brilliant overall vision and design, yet so severely flawed in execution.

i remember endless nights with the first civ so many years ago...time clouds the memories so correct me if i am wrong - but was there not a plethora of options to help alleviate the burden of micromanagement ? from finding a city based on name to not changing the screen to focus on moving units...the original civ featured a huge list of options and preferences to tweak to perfection.

this continued up until SMAC and sid has always counted me among his fans.

i'm still on my first game at the regent level, at ~1600AD...and i am almost ready to stop for good.

it takes almost two minutes for each turn to pass. i really don't have the time to wait that long for the computer to make their moves, especially after investing in a p4 machine. the game interface crawls, and i frequently have mouse delays when clicking buttons.

i've always love the civ series...any avid gamer knows - civilization unleashed the "just one more turn" syndrome upon the world. alas, this just makes agonizing waits worse.

it doesn't help that civ3 insists on focusing the screen on moving units, even those of the enemy. what happened to all the toggles that made civ civ and smac smac? i miss the little menu button at the top of the bottom left corner, and i miss the customization it allowed.

don't get me wrong - the development of a culture and resource system was a great idea. yet - firaxis has stripped too much of what made civ great from civ...and don't get me started on the lack of playtesting, bug-squashing, and game balancing. i'm sure you all have noticed.

i could go on and on - but you all know what i'm talking about, deep down inside. i have great hopes for the patches that will inevitably come...but at the same time very disappointed that civ3 didn't deliver upon release.

sigh.

if anybody knows of some tweak that can move the turns along faster...please share.

under prefernces turn off animations. Allows for fast peice slide. Unfortunately still takes quite awhile on a medium map. But definantly much faster.

yeah, i have done that.

i don't want to care about units from other civs moving around.

hell, i don't even want to see my own workers mope around.

just let me press enter and enter and pump out the nukes goddamnit!!

i'm still affected by the 'one more turn' syndrome. i can't help but lose sleep over conquering the world

I find it interesting that people are having performance problems with the equipment they have.

I have a P3 1G and a bottom of the line video card and I'm not having any problems.....I'm very well into the game with cities just about everywhere a city can be built and my wait time is between 5 and 10 seconds....not really long at all. There are things I think could be tweaked to enhance the flow of the game, but for the most part I am very pleased with this game.

I still think it's funny though how everyone was talking about how great the interface is. Personally I liked the old way much more... I had an easier time learning the civ1 interface FROM SCRATCH than this one.

BTW its not really performance problems that cause my long wait, it's the fact that i have to watch literally a few hundred units move around the map after each turn. It was enough to make me cancel all my right to passage agreements.

I have no performance issues at all, and I have a laptop, so I can't even compete with the highend desktops. Granted, it's a highend laptop (top of the line Compaq, p3 1g, standard video card, but the standard video card isn't half bad on the new Compaqs), but my processor speed isn't out of this world or anything.

I end my turn, and 10-20 seconds later, tops, it's my turn again, and that's at endgame with the whole world revealed on a large map.

Originally posted by grimani

it takes almost two minutes for each turn to pass. i really don't have the time to wait that long for the computer to make their moves, especially after investing in a p4 machine. the game interface crawls, and i frequently have mouse delays when clicking buttons.

Click to expand...

That sounds like somehting to do with your computer...not the game...I only have a AMD Athlon and it takes about 5 seconds between turns and I have no mouse delays at all...and I never touched the prefrence screen...maybe it has somethign to do with your computer config...or what yoru resolution is at...who knows...

Also...ive heard frequently from Firaxians that the larger the map, the larger the delays...so play on smaller maps should help the problem...

grimani:
don't get me wrong - the development of a culture and resource system was a great idea. yet - firaxis has stripped too much of what made civ great from civ...and don't get me started on the lack of playtesting, bug-squashing, and game balancing. i'm sure you all have noticed.

Click to expand...

I can see they had to strip down the game to the basics in the process of introducing the new concepts. But I agree they streamlined it too much, and forgot to put back in those cool options they stripped. I like the new ressources and culture concept, but it's not without a cost. Wonders seem less significant and less unique than before. Corruption is way out of line. Bombardments are a cool combat concept, but leads to ridiculous situations, like planes that cannot sink ships.

Still, I like the game. Just wonder if we lost more than we gained? Anyway, it is very different from the previous games, and I can't help but feeling I want to bring back in the caravans and spies, the city reports, the really significant advantages of governments and unique wonders, and so on. Not to speak of improved customization/scenario capabilities.

Originally posted by Northstar5757
BTW its not really performance problems that cause my long wait, it's the fact that i have to watch literally a few hundred units move around the map after each turn. It was enough to make me cancel all my right to passage agreements.

Click to expand...

Turn off "Animate enemy moves" and fool around with the prefrences...that should help alot...

I'm playing on an overclocked Celeron. 450 Mhz and proud, baby. The most I've had to wait has been probably 30 seconds (and I thought that was frustrating. 2 minutes sounds like torture). I've noticed that sometimes the waits are longer earlier in the game, and then get a little faster later on. It could just be my faulty memory suggesting that though.

What I would suggest is looking at your system. Make sure that not a lot of programs are running in the back ground, defragment your drive, maybe add some more memory. Those kinds of things should help your system in general do a better job.

If you really get desperate there's a book out from O'Reilly about optimizing PCs for games. You could try that, too.

Yeah...it sounds like your computer Grimani, cuz it seems like the game is running quite well on moderate end computers, and you've got a high end one...

How not to make a sequel!!!!!!!
The best way to make a sequel to a great game, is to build off the foundation already in place. There are times when the game has been totally changed and the sequel is also great (case and point: Grand Theft Auto 3), but this is rare.

When little things in a game cause extreme annoyance its worse than the whole game being bad, ie- could be great if only.... - this is the case with civ3.

If only they hadnt messed with the ai of battles, the wonders, and gotten rid of certain units the game would be great.(they also digressed by takeing away the multiplayer option - massive dissappointment)

Unfortunatley Civ3 has a battle AI almost as bad as CIV1. It is possible for a warrior to take out a legion on a mountain ... etc...!
Also changeing wonders is just annoying, and NO spies or caravans, what were they thinking. Spies where one of the most entertaining elements of civ2, rather than getting rid of them, they could have expanded off of them. Granted when useing democracy as most do, you hardly ever use them, but hey i like to play for fun and screw around nowq and again.

Anyway...I could go on for awhile...In short next time someone makes a big sequel, remember add, but dont take away!!!!!!!!! (Tink like EA sports, year in and year out the more options the better : MADDEN ETC>>>)

i'm not waiting with the hourglass (ie i'm not waiting for the computer to decide what to do)...

i'm literally watching a thousand units move back and forth each turn.

and the screen keeps jumping around to focus on the most recent move.

the mouse response is probably due to the fact that i have my res at 1280x1024 (even tho the game doesn't run at that...nvidia driver issues i believe)

but having to watch a million units mill about is not acceptable. i want to turn that off....now.

CPU load is not the issue. Obviously a P4 should tear a game like this up.

Runs slower than it could. For instance, I played last night and the French had like 20 cavalry in a tiny corner of a continent that kept moving back and forth on a road doing nothing. The thing that sucks is you have to WATCH each piece move.

I think units behind the fog of war move faster, but units that the game centers on, because they are within your "site radius" you have to watch.

Kinda makes sense in a way. Because you would WANT to see if someone was moving close in to attack you.

I dont know how they could solve a problem like that. Its a pesky feature that you "need". However I suppose you don't need it. You could just have all the computer's units move "instantly", and perhaps only slow down and watch what the computer's doing if he does something like pillage, or attack one of your units.

A simple optimization that Firaxis would have came to on their own, had they just spent MORE TIME TESTING.

I'm fine with the game, as long as Firaxis promises to fix some of the minor issues. And they DO appear to be easy fixes. The core game is incredibly good, just need to fix a few things.

I have no move delays, it is probably due to your video card or something.

And I have a 500Mhz processor! I should be slow, but I'm plenty fast.

no tech problems to report on a PIII 700Mhz either.
it must be something with your setup, because it isnt for a lack of hardware

in my games i have noticed that the units "lag" along after i have moved them. but this has suddenly disappeared for some reason.. probably because it is still a small game. but yes, i notice that the game goes quite slowly..