Back to the Future: 10 Problems with Civ3

[Morningcalm]

Did Civ III's problems ever get fixed? Was the situation with fan feedback vs. team listening to feedback the same, or similar?

 

[Lone Wolf]

Did Civ III's problems ever get fixed?

Well, a couple of pretty bad bugs and a bunch of smaller ones still exist in Civ3 C3C.

 

[Hail]

Did Civ III's problems ever get fixed? Was the situation with fan feedback vs. team listening to feedback the same, or similar?

not all problems were fixed.
AFAIK after the Conquests expansion, firaxis pretty much decided to end civ3 lifecycle.

 

[Horizons]

Did Civ III's problems ever get fixed? Was the situation with fan feedback vs. team listening to feedback the same, or similar?

Firaxis took an enormous dump on their customers with end-of-support for Civ3 after Conquests was released, but most people had forgotten about Civ3 by then and there was little public protest.

 

[lschnarch]

Did Civ III's problems ever get fixed? Was the situation with fan feedback vs. team listening to feedback the same, or similar?

AFAIR, there was a last patch (1.21f?) which even re-introduced the submarine bug (other nations' ships running into your subs caused DOW; had being patched out before).
After that, they gave up.

By the same patch (or the one before?) they changed how the FP was working (which was not critized before) claiming that the now confusing behavioiur was the one being intended.

Actually, Civ3's patch history wasn't that much succesful in terms of fan appreciation.

 

[Morningcalm]

Great, looks like we're pretty much in for the same situation with CiV then. Patches or no, you can't fix the design flaws. That'd require making Civ VI. With people that aren't being forced to rush deadlines by their publisher.

 

[Ddude97]

AFAIR, there was a last patch (1.21f?) which even re-introduced the submarine bug (other nations' ships running into your subs caused DOW; had being patched out before).
After that, they gave up.

By the same patch (or the one before?) they changed how the FP was working (which was not critized before) claiming that the now confusing behavioiur was the one being intended.

Actually, Civ3's patch history wasn't that much succesful in terms of fan appreciation.

I believe the last patch was 1.29, and I don't remember that bug occuring (although I could be wrong, feel free to correct me)

 

[PaperBeetle]

With the difficulty set fairly high there are some luxuries (gems, gold, silver) that are insanely good in start positions because you don't have to go out of your way on the tech tree to get them (they come for free on the way to iron working).

Silver doesn't exist in Civ3, gold isn't a luxury, just a yield-bonus resource, and neither bonus resources nor luxuries require any techs to either reveal or hook up. I can't see why any particular luxury would be vastly better to start with in multiplayer, except for ivory in Civ3 Conquests, so maybe that's what you are thinking of. In C3C, ivory operates as a strategic resource as well as a luxury, allowing construction of the comically overpowered Statue of Zeus wonder; very cheap, great culture, and produces a free stream of units which are better than any other unit in the ancient age, UUs included.

 

[PaperBeetle]

By the same patch (or the one before?) they changed how the FP was working (which was not critized before) claiming that the now confusing behavioiur was the one being intended.

Actually, Civ3's patch history wasn't that much succesful in terms of fan appreciation.

Firaxis's endless struggles with percieved problems in the corruption model were pretty reactionary - much like what we are getting now with happiness (i.e. ICS) and SPs, actually. It isn't quite true to say that the previous FP system wasn't critised: an exploit had been developed whereby you could virtually eliminate corruption by siting your capital at a great distance from the rest of your empire, ruled from the FP. In typical Firaxis style, they addressed this by wildly and recklessly redesigning the entire corruption/FP model, instead of making a single, straightforward correction to the original corruption formula.

 

[LegioCorvus]

Silver doesn't exist in Civ3, gold isn't a luxury, just a yield-bonus resource, and neither bonus resources nor luxuries require any techs to either reveal or hook up. I can't see why any particular luxury would be vastly better to start with in multiplayer, except for ivory in Civ3 Conquests, so maybe that's what you are thinking of. In C3C, ivory operates as a strategic resource as well as a luxury, allowing construction of the comically overpowered Statue of Zeus wonder; very cheap, great culture, and produces a free stream of units which are better than any other unit in the ancient age, UUs included.

LordTC was actually speaking about Civ5. When playing Civ5 multi-player at the higher difficulties, a start with gold, silver, or gems is very advantageous, as you can get those resources hooked up and reap their happiness bonuses on the way to the military techs.

It's obviously less of an advantage in a single-player game, as Civ5 is ridiculously easy even at the higher levels. The only change is more tedium.

I'm half tempted to put the last line LordTC says here as a profile quote.

Happiness as bureaucracy tanks large portions of your empire, and on slower speeds its completely unfun sitting around and waiting for the techs to be able to expand. It's also a massive problem for multiplayer unless you use a symmetric start map. With the difficulty set fairly high there are some luxuries (gems, gold, silver) that are insanely good in start positions because you don't have to go out of your way on the tech tree to get them (they come for free on the way to iron working).

Most of the time Civ V feels like I'm not playing against the AI, I'm playing against a little smiley face at the top of my screen that is so close to frowning that it restricts most of my options.

 

[alin1975]

I dont fully agree with some of the ways Civ 3 was characterised. Yes, you got an advantage from expanding (which is good), but it had a price. You could easily make kingdoms of modest sizes running on democracy and go for a space win. On a huge map, an area about the size of North America (or smaller) was plenty if memory serves.

Expansion had to be balanced against the short term loss of science and maybe also wonders, and some of the wonders in Civ 3 were extremely powerful. Though I do agree, you needed to expand quickly early on.

I found Civ 3 to be better balanced than other versions in this respect (it had other flaws no doubt), but there were good options both for communist run govs and democratic ones (and combinations). I see no parallel with Civ 5, where I routinely leave land uncolonised because of the damage it will do to my kingdom. In one of the first games I had a unique opportunity to knock out the Japanese after a few turns (thanks to some ruin upgrades), only to find my kingdom collapse... and the courthouse was two techs away. I mean, wtf... what genius thought of this? Same idiot who thought giving you 180 gold after wasting 30 turns trying to build a wonder was adequate compensation.

So anyway, Civ 3 had flaws but, for better or worse, it lasted many years for me. Civ 5 I am already bored with after fully completing just 3 games.

 

[Helmling]

exactly! and what does the user do during the first ~40 turns of a civ5 game?
press next turn! imho looks like strange game design

Huh? What game are you playing? First forty turns I'm exploring, trying to scrounge enough production to get some early settler out, etc...just like every other version of Civ.

 

[anti_strunt]

I dont fully agree with some of the ways Civ 3 was characterised. Yes, you got an advantage from expanding (which is good), but it had a price. You could easily make kingdoms of modest sizes running on democracy and go for a space win. On a huge map, an area about the size of North America (or smaller) was plenty if memory serves.

Glad to hear that even smaller, less significant states like the USA could stand a chance in the harsh yet equal-opportunity world of Civ 3.

 

[Thormodr]

LordTC was actually speaking about Civ5. When playing Civ5 multi-player at the higher difficulties, a start with gold, silver, or gems is very advantageous, as you can get those resources hooked up and reap their happiness bonuses on the way to the military techs.

It's obviously less of an advantage in a single-player game, as Civ5 is ridiculously easy even at the higher levels. The only change is more tedium.

I'm half tempted to put the last line LordTC says here as a profile quote.

It's a brilliant quote indeed.

 

[Abegweit]

One thing I did like about Civ III was the colonies. No need to build a city in the middle of Arctic tundra just to get access to a strategic resource

It was pointless in Civ III. It's always better to build the city. Colonies made a lot more sense in the Civ IV paradigm but they took them out.

 

[Drakarska]

It was pointless in Civ III. It's always better to build the city. Colonies made a lot more sense in the Civ IV paradigm but they took them out.

Just out of curiosity, why pointless? In CFC especially with large random maps, certain resources were essential. Colonies were one way of accessing them sooner than building a city to far away from your power base.

 

[Abegweit]

Just out of curiosity, why pointless? In CFC especially with large random maps, certain resources were essential. Colonies were one way of accessing them sooner than building a city to far away from your power base.

There is never a downside to building a city in Civ III. If it's Arctic tundra build the city, hire a scientist and get 3 beakers, 2 gold (one from unit support) and 1 shield. How can a colony which does nothing more than get you the resource, compete with that? For the icing on the cake, you have to be able to defend it.

The only advantage of the colony is the upfront cost but the city pays for itself within a matter of turns.

 

[Drakarska]

But you still need to build a road or harbor to connect the city in order to gain the resource, thereby extending the amount of time it takes to get said resource. Not argueing with you over your strategy, was just curious. Thx for responding.

 

[Abegweit]

But you still need to build a road or harbor to connect the city in order to gain the resource, thereby extending the amount of time it takes to get said resource. Not argueing with you over your strategy, was just curious. Thx for responding.

The same thing is true of a colony isn't it? Except that there's obviously no way to build a harbour.

 

[LordTC]

LordTC was actually speaking about Civ5. When playing Civ5 multi-player at the higher difficulties, a start with gold, silver, or gems is very advantageous, as you can get those resources hooked up and reap their happiness bonuses on the way to the military techs.

It's obviously less of an advantage in a single-player game, as Civ5 is ridiculously easy even at the higher levels. The only change is more tedium.

I'm half tempted to put the last line LordTC says here as a profile quote.

If you want to feel free to do so, I'm happy if you use it, enjoy it.