Conquests Beta Patch Now Available

[Masquerouge]

I had a V1.02 game with the Ottomans going on, and I was waiting for the patch to start building a FP.
I had a pretty large empire (played on huge map, 16 civs, Regent), having swallowed Inca, Arabs and Persia (thanks Sipahis ! They rock ), I think I had some 30+ cities. I decided to start building the FP in an Arab size 10 city. I rushed a Tribunal in it before building my FP. It took 25 turns, I did not found that to be too long compared to Vanilla Civ.
After it was built my income raised, not by much, from 100 GPT to 130 GPT. Still a lot better than before the patch, where my income decreased upon FP completion.
So I was quite happy. But then I thought, "hey, why not test the SPHQ ?" Having just finished conquering Babs, I thought a third core might be handy, plus communism would really help my warmongering style By now I had around 50 cities.
I switched to communism : income went from 200+ GPT to 100+. Still better that what I usually experienced in Vanilla Civ.
For my SPHQ I chose Babylon, not only because it made sense geographically, but also because I loved the idea of having Babylon serving as one of my empire's core .
It took also some 20 turns to build it, and my income increased by some 20 GPT. But the babylonians cities around Babylon were now quite productive !
Now I have a huge communist empire with three productive cores. I can wage war as much as I want. I'm almost sad because I built Women's suffrage for nothing It's really great. In Vanilla Civ all my attempts at communism were disappointing because it costed too much to switch from Democracy.

So, from my point of view, and knowing that I used a V1.02 game, I think this patch delivers the changes it promises. FP might not be as powerful as it was, but IT WORKS. Communism is now a more than viable choice with the SPHQ.
Of course, now I build a lot more Courthouse than I used to in Vanilla Civ, but then these were pretty useless pre C3C. So I'm glad they're now useful !

Conclusion ?

Big thumbs up to Firaxis ! The patch ranks in my top three Christmas presents 2003, just behind the Gameboy SP

 

[kettyo]

Originally posted by Marlor
However, I'm stilll not sure why corruption is so high in the default Civ3 and C3C rules, especially when you compare it to Civ, Civ2 or Alpha Centauri.

I think they try to give civs with small territory a chance.
And point to play with such a civ.

If you have played civ1 you could remember when you've got only 3-4 cities at start you had to restart.
It was almost impossible to beat the civ with the most cities because of supreme technology and military.
It was pointless to play in such a situation.

In Civ3 they implemented the feature that discovering techs others invented yet is easier. Thus helping smaller civs in the tech development.

And i think they play with corruption for the same reasons.
They may've gone too far.
Fortunately you can simply modify their default rate.

I'm satisfied that in Civ3 it's fun to play with a small civ as well as with a huge one. Just the feeling is different (but both is fun).
It's most important in multiplayer.

I hope the next patch will come soon.
Because of the other important bugs still present.
AI don't use artillery etc.

Corruption is not the biggest problem for me.
You can even turn FP off.

 

[Torisen]

Hm, well, to address the issue of why corruption is so much higher in Civ 3, the obvious answer is because unhappiness is so much lower. You no longer have skyrocketing unhapiness + corruption in cities at the fringes of your empire, and revolts in your core because you're getting "too large". Try perpetual expansion as a monarchy in Civ 2 and you'll quickly see what I mean.

That doesn't mean I have no problem with the way Civ 3 corruption is implemented. It works at the beginning of the game. But advanced governments should have a much greater impact on corruption. We WANT world spanning governments. We want "minimal" corruption from a democracy and flat & low corruption from communism. Ah well.

 

[Cedrick]

Originally posted by planetfall
ANY OLDTIMER INPUT?

What was corruption like in C1 and C2? And more importantly how did the FP function in those games.

There was no FP in the first two games. You had to use Courthouses to reduce corruption, which was a 50% drop regardless of where the city was. Now the Courthouse and Police Station (introduced in C2) may or may not have any effect. In fact you can pretty much give up expanding overseas in C3 since you will only have 1 shield/trade for 1000's of years even after every city improvement has been built in said city.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Note, tho, that as far as CivIII is concerned, 95% corruption does not equal an unproductive city. There are threads on making the best of corrupt hellholes, but let's just mention drafting and Tax Collectors to start with. While doubling your territory doesn't anything near double your strength, it does increase it.

But even in CivII, expanding overseas was, for me, almost never about strengthening me. It was about wiping out others.

 

[royfurr]

Well! Go away for a few days for holidays and you can miss quite a bit of posts!!

This thread has grown quite a bit and I haven't yet had a chance to read all of the 10+ pages of it that I have missed. SO, FORGIVE me for asking something if its been covered already!

DOES anyone know what, if anything, the new patch did about the bug where corruption was miscalculated (round off error issues, I beleive it was) WHEN you used the corrpution slider in the editor??

I like to reduce the amount of corruption a little bit (5-15%) as a handicap tool and when one used the slider, this bug occured.

ANYTHING on this in the new patch?

THANK YOU.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by royfurr
DOES anyone know what, if anything, the new patch did about the bug where corruption was miscalculated (round off error issues, I beleive it was) WHEN you used the corrpution slider in the editor??

I don't think anyone has mentioned it yet, I think it remains to be discovered.

I'm also uncertain about combat calculations, whether anything has changed there or not. My understanding is that the intent in this patch is for combat calculations to be the same as they always were in CivIII. But there have been a couple of posts from people who suspect that something has changed. I don't think anyone here has done specific testing on the subject yet.

 

[akots]

Originally posted by The Last Conformist
Note, tho, that as far as CivIII is concerned, 95% corruption does not equal an unproductive city

This corrupt city adds to you score and it is the main "production" of it. Another is resources and luxuries which come with the territory.

The people, as I understand, are mostly bored with contradiction that extra territory and population brings more score but does not bring more income. That is what getting most players crazy about the game.

Actually, the income you get from the core is usually enough for everything. Also, it is possible to try higher difficulty levels when the expansion would be more slow.

The problem with low difficulty levels is that people just settle half of the world crippling with cavalry on their way a couple of AIs with 2-3 spearmen each and then complain that all their cities are corrupt.

On higher difficulty starting from Emperor-Demigod, especially considering the fixed RCP, it is more difficult to win by Domination compared to PTW. That is my first impression from playing just two games. And this is intentional. It should not be possible to win by Domination around 300AD on a Deity level which is normal for top GOTM players.

For those who complain too much I would recommend switching to higher difficulty. This balances a game indeed.

And there is also a Sid level to beat.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I care nothing at all for score, but the total culture and commerce production from a continent full of 95% corrupt cities can be rather more than negligible. And with poprush or the draft/disband technique paired with Civil Engineers they can even build a few things.

 

[Tavis]

The evaluation regarding RCP working as it was originally intended is correct.

FP's and SPHQ should reduce corruption whether they are located 10 tiles away or they are built on another continent 40 tiles away. This is a bug and will be addressed in the January update.

Thanks for all of the great feedback, I'm going to be kept very busy this year =)

Tavis

 

[anarres]

Cool! Thanks Tavis, so it is a bug that the FP doesn't give a new set of city ranks....

Persoanlly I was starting to like the new-function FP, since the AI can't build it far away!

 

[Tavis]

Glad that someone is!

Its unfortunate that the 1.0 had the negative calculation - this debate could have started much sooner!!

 

[anarres]

Am very happy you replied too!

I have to admit I am probably one of about 10 people in the whole world that would like a "reduced" FP funciton as we have in the current patch...

..but if you wanna keep it please feel free!

And finally - THANKYOU for the "RCP-fix-fix". It really is sooo much better now.


Edit: And on a personal note - if you can get the bug fixed whereby PBEM games load straight from SP mode without passwords I will personally send you the deeds to my house!

 

[The Last Conformist]

Good to see you posting again, Tavis!

So corruption is supposed to work like in Vanilla and PTW wrt the FP? I, like anarres, was rather growing to like the "new" system, but we're clearly the minority!

Any hope of the AI building the FP with more thought?

 

[akots]

Originally posted by Tavis
FP's and SPHQ should reduce corruption whether they are located 10 tiles away or they built on another continent 40 tiles away. This is a bug and will be addressed in the January update.

What would be nice is to really have FP distance in the corruption equation. For example, lets say the coefficient for distance corruption is 3.6 for Palace. It would be reasonable to make it 7 or 8 for FP. Thus, it would have some impact but only on a short distance, much shorter then the Palace. Again, short depends on the size of the map. In this case, Palace region will not benefit from remote FP but the remote FP region would still have some productivity increase in its region.

Another corruption component, city rank, may also have 2 components, Palace city rank and FP city rank. To make the remote Palace jump useless, the FP rank has to be devaluated so that optimal number of cities is decreased 2-3-fold or even 4-5-fold. This way even if the Palace is moved to a remote area, very few cities around FP might benefit from it. I'm mostly referring to alexman's equations. However, it is unclear whether the corruption calculation system has been changed completely.

 

[akots]

Originally posted by The Last Conformist
I care nothing at all for score, but the total culture and commerce production from a continent full of 95% corrupt cities can be rather more than negligible. And with poprush or the draft/disband technique paired with Civil Engineers they can even build a few things.

The point is that these things require micromanagement. Those people who complain just like to press the space bar and see the things built. Since they play at Warlord, they don't like to think and micromanage. However, they are also customers who paid the same money for the game. Though instead of intellectual puzzle like it should be, they just use it as a SimCity or for educational purposes. Which is very good and entertaining.

Thus, it would be great if the corruption coefficients are indeed decreased for the lower difficulty levels to a higher extent than they are now. This would make these levels essentially obsolete but people would like it and enjoy. Just relax and have fun and everything will be built. These people are the kind which never mess with default rules/editors, use AOL as ISP and ATT as phone company, and shop in K-Mart. Which is again fine with me.

 

[wilbill]

akots, I rarely touch the editor, use AOL, and on rare occasions shop at K-Mart. I haven't had a problem with the corruption issue, either, and I'm not playing at Warlord. Some of the people who've found fault with the corruption in the Beta patch are quite experienced players who (quite correctly as it turns out) felt strongly that corruption in the Beta patch was wrong.
You do a pretty good job of debating their ideas. No need to attack either their playing abilities or their shopping habits.

 

[akots]

Originally posted by wilbill
No need to attack either their playing abilities or their shopping habits.

First, I'm not attacking anyone.

Second, what I wanted to say, and don't get me wrong this time, is that some people are just interested in another way of playing this game. It does not mean that if you use ATT, you play SimCity-style Civ3 game. Though, if you play SimCity-style Civ3 game, chances are good you do use ATT. And also it is quite possible these people can be a formidable opponent in MP or even in GOTM. It is just different attitude.

I actually love K-Mart much more than WallMart of Target. Unfortunately, we don't have a single K-Mart store in the area because they were all closed recently...

 

[Commander Bello]

wilbill,

just don't be to hard with him.
Not using AOL as ISP, not using ATT as telephone company and not shopping at Kmart, but micromanaging his 8 towns might give him the feeling of being part of an arcane elite. Which, by the way, now is fine with me.

Nevertheless, I am one of the whining guys who really don't like the idea to have to micromanage EACH of my appr. 120 cities. Ok, I have to admit that it seems to be a beginners attitude to play on huge maps and to make use of the landscape...

 

[Yumbo]

FP's and SPHQ should reduce corruption whether they are located 10 tiles away or they built on another continent 40 tiles away. This is a bug and will be addressed in the January update.

Very interesting...