Bothering and insane parts in the game

[K.F. Huszár]

Hi everyone,

I just want to publish a short list of what I regard to be bothering or nonsense in the game

1.AI is very stupid - in my viewpoint, higher degree (monarch and above) doesn't mean that AI can cheat by getting improvements and techs at shamefully low cost. high level game should mean that AI is smarter.
1.1. AI rejects parleys and trade after a while till the very end.
1.2. You can not ASK anything for free from the AI - you must demand it!

2.Role of leaders and armies - leaders are nice characters of the game, but:
2.1.why can not I build any military college (and thus and army)without a leader?
2.2 why AI avoids creating armies?
2.3.why is there only Scientific and Military leader? there should be political, cultural and economic leaders as well.
2.4.why can't i unload units from my armies? that's totally madness.

3.Role of government style - i think it is the most important question in building a civilization, how you manage the social links. but in this game it is very-very schematic.
3.1.governtment types should be more sophisticated like it was in the Sid Meiers "Alpha Centauri" - there was a socio-enginering chart where you could adjust political, economic and other values.
3.2.why is there no chance of a peaceful political reform without civil unrest in my cities - even with a religious civ? In reality, for example there were no problems in 1989 in my homeland - no blood, no fear, no hunger.

4.Unit movement - i think it is well balanced but one of the most bothering and unreal things in game.
4.1. only 1 tile movement in 20 years?????? the whole world was sailed around in 2 years since the time of Magellan! The Horde of Genghis Khan invaded whole Central Asia in a single year! The went through from nowadays Mongolia down to Iran and India.
4.2. infinite railroad movement without any cost - not much to say, see also and thread here.


SO, what do you think?

 

[The Last Conformist]

Hi everyone,

I just want to publish a short list of what I regard to be bothering or nonsense in the game

1.AI is very stupid - in my viewpoint, higher degree (monarch and above) doesn't mean that AI can cheat by getting improvements and techs at shamefully low cost. high level game should mean that AI is smarter.

Implementing that would amount to making the AI extra stupid at the lower levels. The AI is as smart as it gets on the budget allocated thereto.

1.2. You can not ASK anything for free from the AI - you must demand it!

Does the AI ever ask for something for free from you?

2.2 why AI avoids creating armies?

Bug.

2.3.why is there only Scientific and Military leader? there should be political, cultural and economic leaders as well.

Suggest ways to implement them in the CivIV Ideas forum.

2.4.why can't i unload units from my armies? that's totally madness.

It's a balance issue.

3.Role of government style - i think it is the most important question in building a civilization, how you manage the social links. but in this game it is very-very schematic.
3.1.governtment types should be more sophisticated like it was in the Sid Meiers "Alpha Centauri" - there was a socio-enginering chart where you could adjust political, economic and other values.

I'd like that too

3.2.why is there no chance of a peaceful political reform without civil unrest in my cities - even with a religious civ? In reality, for example there were no problems in 1989 in my homeland - no blood, no fear, no hunger.

Balance issue.

 

[WS78]

2.1 Did you ever build the military academy?
2.4 I'm with you on this one
3.1 And make it even more messier and less understandable? Don't get me wrong, but I never bought AC because it sounded just like Star Trek. A whole bunch of tech talk with nothing to relate to.
3.2 civil unrest is easily avoided, I've had government changes which had nothing but happy citizens.
4.1 That's a good point. Not really sure of how to argue that one. However, Ive seen an AI nation wiped out in 5 turns (by another AI).

MY GRIPES:
Where is Civil war?

 

[K.F. Huszár]

Does the AI ever ask for something for free from you?

of course, never - but it would, i think, if there were opportunity.

Concerning this, here is the end of my list, point 5.

5.Few cooperation opportunity or ways with the AI nations
5.1. first of all, if you play on a standard world, you can play only 7 adversaries. i would double that number at least.
5.2.only very few cooperation methods with the AI (mutual prot.pact, mil.all., passage treaty, WAR) - why is there no e.g. scientific pact or confederation system - even till offering union?
5.3.strategic military cooperation is at very low level - i again take an example from the Alpha Centauri where you could discuss with your partner which city to attack! (it was like: i move in force against xy city, while you attack z city).
5.4.tactical military cooperation does not exist. Again, in the Alpha Centauri, you could turn over units (it was like: turn over unit control)!!! why can't we defend together? your units now may not enter foreign cities peacefully and use allied bases.

and i can't help, but i mention point 6 (it is gonig to be very short):
6.NO RELIGIONS!!!! it is a joke when Scandinavians build the Statue of Zeus or when Arabs finish the Knights Templar religions were always keys in every civs' way of life.

 

[holodmer]

why isnt it a full simulation of a whoule planet with a neural interface ...
your questions are kinda ... well the answer to 99% of your questions is because every game has limets in order to keep it playable

Of course you just dont magically create something thats wished ... you realize every feature needs thousends of not million lines program code ?

each game is limeted because resources (money to pay the programers and the money you pay for the game ... you didnt want to pay 500$ for a game no matter how good it was) and hardware is limeted as well ... if you look at civ3 games were a single turn takes 60 minutes to progress with just the features in game now ...

... you dont want to know how long it would take with all the features you think civ3 should have

after all its a strategy game not a world simulation

 

[K.F. Huszár]

dear holodmer,
poor programmers, they have to work, cry cry cry for them, he?
i would have not planned to write the game of my dreams - i just wrote what i see to be madness and could be easily replaced. some things i wrote was already implemented in earlier games (like Alpha Centauri and Civ2). Even more, if you just look up the forums here you will find several initiatives for fixing those problems that other people find to be bothering. they sacrificied many hours in some cases to create these ideas. so i do not care about millions of program lines.
just like it i don't care about hardware problems - these nowadays hardwares are powerful enough to give quick service of such a game where graphics are not the main question.

if you look at civ3 games were a single turn takes 60 minutes to progress with just the features in game now ...

60 minutes???? you are simply eerrr ... i know it only in my native language: "barom".
go out and drink a brandy, he?
60 minutes sound a bit much. it is not an obligatory play such a long game.

 

[K.F. Huszár]

ANYWAY:
after all, Civ3 Conquests is a great game, and i appreciate the programmers of it.
but by this time i got a bit fed up with it - i am eager to here about Civ4? - maybe.

 

[tofe99]

60 minutes???? you are simply eerrr ... i know it only in my native language: "barom".
go out and drink a brandy, he?
60 minutes sound a bit much. it is not an obligatory play such a long game.

First of all it is not nice to include such a word from Hungarian (which could be easily translated as 'fool' or something like that), and any word from a different language than the official forum language.

AND you wrote the magic phrase: 'it is not obligatory' to see things in a certain way. What is really good in this forum is the freedom of the thoughts about the game.

 

[K.F. Huszár]

What is really good in this forum is the freedom of the thoughts about the game.

that's why i launched this thread, but Holodmer sent me and my free thoughts to hell.

for example:
i really got upset when in several games the AI players traded their new techs with each other - but none of them was kind enough to sell me one of them. more, it seems that the AI players know what the other AI are researching! so they can easliy trade.
that's why i wrote in point 1: the AI is cheating better and not getting smarter in higher levels.

 

[K.F. Huszár]

TOFE99
"barom" in Hungarian is more expressive than "fool" in English; "barom" does not keep even a slight positive meaning, and has more pure dehonestation purposes, indicating that the person has lost its mind for no feedback.

 

[sorky]

1 hours for a turn is not "barom" (""barom" does not keep even a slight positive meaning, and has more pure dehonestation purposes" -> this is not a "fun" way to answer people who don't insult you.)

Did you ever played on big or huge map with full civ? When multiple AI are in war, when you clik on the 'next turn' button, go out take a drink with friends or what u want but staying in front of the screen is "barom".

/me agree with holodmer

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

What's wrong with 60 minutes for a turn? Perfectly normal, even on a standard map/ industrial war.
Then, honestly, I find most of your complaints rather silly. Or plain simply wrong (quote: "1.1. AI rejects parleys and trade").
The AI is not cheating. A smarter AI for the higher levels? Program it, and you'll never have financial problems again.
And a number of things you want are easily done with the editor, e.g. MilAc not requiring a MGL, or more opponents.
The one thing I really like about the game is that a lot can be customized, more than in any other game I know.

 

[K.F. Huszár]

sorky:

this is not a "fun" way to answer people who don't insult you

i felt to be insulted - all my ideas were swept aside. i don't like people without any kind of criticism - but neither, who are only critic in a case and idealistic in an other (let's call them virtual radicals).

B]Did you ever played on big or huge map with full civ? When multiple AI are in war, when you clik on the 'next turn' button, go out take a drink with friends or what u want but staying in front of the screen is "barom".

thats why i never play on huge map - the game loses its ability to involve you in the story.

Doc Tsilokovski

I find most of your complaints rather silly

i think some of complaints are simply bugs. some not.
those which are not bugs, might be silly. but i would like to point out, that when i found some silly problems in the Napoleonic Era Conquest, i began to customize my one(http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=77951) . it went on for a while, some people here found it good, some not - but no one called my customization silly - and i just tried to fix those elements that i found bothering or insane in the original conquest. at the end i got lost among script-pieces and my scenario turned useless. (that shows something about the editor - you have to encrypt a lot of things manually)
anyway, i like diplomacy (realistic) more than computing corruption formulas (semi-realistic)

The AI is not cheating.

i think, it is cheating when you get tech and imps 40% cheaper. what's that , if not cheating? okay, legal cheating.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Oh well, agreed, I did sound a bit insulting. I don't think everything is optimal, and some of your complaints are good suggestions for CIV, but simply out of reach for CIII.
And of course, you also listed a number of known bugs.

However, the AI does not cheat.
'Cheating' is not sticking to the rules, and the AI always sticks to rules, though its ruleset may be different from yours. CI, when wonders were randomly generated, now that was cheating.
The fact that CIII has so many fans and so many great mods should show you that most of the things you complain about are simply those things you can learn to handle (trade, beating the AI boni, editing).

 

[Mr. Do]

Well, it cheats in that it knows where resources are before it has the tech to see them. But that's about it.

I think there should definitely be a way to ask your neighbours for a new tech, like you can ask them for a loan. Same with the AI- I'd be much happier in the knowledge that crappy-three-city-AI-half-the-world-away was only asking for a leg up rather than demanding I give them a tech and if not making military alliances and trade embargoes against me all over the place.

"1.1. AI rejects parleys and trade after a while till the very end" also whilst not being strictly correct, is correct in practise. It is very hard to play a game without having an attrocious repuuation at the end due to poor programming rather than bad decision-making.

 

[Kiech]

It would be nice to get a gift from the AI once in a while. Seems like I am always giving away techs/resources for complete bargans to the civs who need them. But heh; hopefully they vote for you in the election...maybe civ4 will have a better system. But until then, I say mod the game if you are TRULY not happy with it. Thats the best part of the game, after all!

 

[Rik Meleet]

We are playing the game of Democracy 4 (see my signature) where the turns are played in a chat. Saturday we (again) broke our personal record; 18 hours, 30 minutes for 10 turns! (19 hours if you count a 30 minute pre-preturn). And those turns where played on fast computers, the IBT lasted only a couple of minutes.

 

[Poodlebrain]

Is it sticking by the rules when the AI acts upon intelligence it should not have? How often does the AI know exactly where your lone ship is in the middle of the ocean? How often does the AI send one unit to attack a unit that it cannot spot without having to send anyone to scout? How does the AI know when cities are left undefended and then selects to attack only the undefended cities without scouting to determine whether the cities are garrisoned? The AI makes unerring decisions in these matters without using diplomats or spies to investigate cities, or using spies to steal warplans.

 

[K.F. Huszár]

Poodlebrain, that was great.
Watch this, I wrote:

1.1. AI rejects parleys and trade after a while till the very end.

It means that the AI has never ever read Niccolo Macchiavelli's "The Prince" - thus, the AI does not know nothing about cynic governing and he does not studied history thus know nothing about the "raison d'état" and so on. The AI is very stupid, because it think in non-realistic way about international relations: it is the way of what the TV prompts into all young minds on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

[sorky]

Huszar: play multiplayer and stop whinning about the AI's not playing like human...
Or work for CNES or NASA to put intelligence in computer.