civ 3 players will not move on

[Ace of Gold]

Buh? Link is dead, but your assertion is just plain false. Compare any high-end desktop to the best laptop you can find, and it's going to be better.






It's not a gaming laptop with that graphics card and harddrive, and the processor isn't exceptional. But otherwise, it's a good computer It doesn't sound like you're using it for extremely demanding games, at any rate.

so pretty much its weakness is its graphics card. i thought my hard drive was good. does your hard drive affect the computers speed or does it just store things. i can play all the new games i have on the highest setting.

 

[cubsfan6506]

Hardrve just stores things.

 

[Verge]

so pretty much its weakness is its graphics card. i thought my hard drive was good. does your hard drive affect the computers speed or does it just store things. i can play all the new games i have on the highest setting.

The hard drive affects performance whenever a game or application draws data from the drive, so a faster drive is better. The typical hard drive is 7,200 RPM, which is why I said your 5,400 RPM is sub-optimal. A cutting edge gaming computer will have a 10,000 RPM drive, something that isn't normally available for laptops.

Yes, your graphics card is the weak point. It's medium-low end, as Quintillus, which is fine for the games you're running. But it won't handle the newest games very well (such as graphics-intensive shooters).

Again, it's a fine computer that I'm sure handles Civ 4 quite well. It's just that no one buys a true "gaming laptop" for Civ 4 duty. Rather, one buys one so that he/she could run a game like Crysis well.

 

[Ace of Gold]

ok well all my new games i play work fine. medieval 2 total war, railroads,civ city rome, civ 4, age of empires 3,pirates. hopefully it will work for empire total war. I dont know if any of you follow the total war series.

my 200th post.
yeah me

 

[Dark Sheer]

*Artillery/planes/ships not being able to destroy buildings in towns
*Artillery not being able to destroy terrain improvements
*Roads being indestructible except by land units
*The combat system resulting in the attacker almost always being at a disadvantage. I like the idea of pikes doing well against Cavalry and not so much against swordsmen, but what it's resulted in in practice is that if the defender has a mixed set of defenders, the attacker simply cannot have an advantage.
*Catapults being absolutely necessary for victory. True, you could hammer someone with catapults in CivIII, but it was usually more effective to go with ground forces (at least until Replaceable Parts). It just doesn't seem fun or realistic to invade with 30 catapults and a handful of pikes (to fend off Horse Archers), when in CivIV you'd invade with either 20 Horsemen or 15 Swordsmen + 5 Catapults (usually even fewer catapults in my experience). Same goes for cannons, of course.
*Lack of an editor. I usually play Epic maps, but sometimes I like to tweak something. For example, play a no-corruption map. Nice and simple in CivIII. Not to mention all the scenarios - I haven't actually played any CivIII ones, but they look pretty good (and I've heard many are), whereas most of the CivIV ones I tried were quite unpolished (Europa Europa 3 being a notable exception).
*Smaller maps. For the vast majority of people, playing "monster maps" on CivIV is an impossibility. And small maps means less epic, and thus less fun, games.
*Terrible graphics. Far too cheesy, cartoonish, and caricaturized in CivIV. CivIII's more simple graphics actually look far better IMO.

There are elements of CivIV I like - such as promotions - but the annoyances never quite disappear - especially the artillery/bomber/ship/catapult ones.

I tend to agree with almost all of the above. The original CIII idea of collateral damages (its an option that you can enable in the Editor for C3C but not implemented for any unit in unmodded games) that causes random building in a town to be destroyed when you attack with unit that causes collateral damages (as in normal unit and not via artillery fire) is way better than a catapult causing collateral damages to every single unit in a stack in CIV.

Artillery, or rather the function of bombardment being implemented in CIV as it is sucks big time. In CIII you can repel a sea invasion if you have enough artillery to bombard the ships until they had to withdraw. In CIV there is no way to repel a sea invasion until you have air power or only by ship.

As to the necessity of artillery in an attack, I will have to disagree. I believe I actually uses more artillery in CIII when I attack than in CIV. I am not one who like to sacrifice my artillery unit in CIV (not to mention that artillery causes damages by bombardment, so how did it suffer the damages? ) so usually my SoD will have no more that 6-7 artillery which is just enough to drop defenses to zero. While in CIII I have know to bring along a stack of some 20-30 artillery (or bomber/stealth bomber) to reduce the enemy units until they are redlined before finishing them off with other units.

 

[Henrik]

Not going to get too involved in this I think. But I will point out that there WAS a civ 2 renaissance of 2-3 years with increased posting and posternumbers from around the time of civ 3's release. Some of the community's best moments came after civ 3.

My guess is the situation might well be the same with civ 3. Also while now the difference isn't that big if one wants to compare archived material or somesuch it's good to note that for the civ 2 community Apolyton is/was the most important civ site. This has somewhat changed for the later incarnations (partly imho becouse apolyton had so many civ2 players that where dissapointed by civ 3, this made most new civ 3 players come to civfanatics).

 

[T.A JONES]

Not going to get too involved in this I think. But I will point out that there WAS a civ 2 renaissance of 2-3 years with increased posting and posternumbers from around the time of civ 3's release. Some of the community's best moments came after civ 3.

My guess is the situation might well be the same with civ 3. Also while now the difference isn't that big if one wants to compare archived material or somesuch it's good to note that for the civ 2 community Apolyton is/was the most important civ site. This has somewhat changed for the later incarnations (partly imho becouse apolyton had so many civ2 players that where dissapointed by civ 3, this made most new civ 3 players come to civfanatics).

HI thanks for the knowledge of this ongoing pattern. I appreciate your input into this debate
Why dick around? lets get to it. Civ3 stayin power was much stronger an unequaled in any parallel stage of a sequals exit phase.

Do you recall civ3 not working on as many computers as civ4? Well thats only one example of how Yes, like you say, things repeat like consumer 'sequal retreat', but to what degree? I say thats always open to question. Its Kinda like hurricane season where many decieding variables come in tow. Yes damage is a given but how much? See thats the unkown till the relating facts can be sewn.

Being the one who documented this event, It was first seen by all on the April following the release of the CIv4 . All that happened that day was forum user numbers in the C+C forums Civ3 were getting higher returns during certain times of the day.

MOnthes after WArlords this activity intensified Finnaly I started its own thread. If you look here I documented how predecessor was losing at times to the game much older
I called it Civ3's Golden has begun

I bold where you suggest it started 'from around the time of civ3's release' wondering if it continued past PtW? I know that past Conquests CIv2 was half in its grave(will never die I know ) but thats why I mentioned CIv3's mod sector did manage the same event after BtS was released (lead in user numbers taking at a certain time durin the day over its predessor )
THis to me seemed impossable and I doubt we will ever see civ4 do that kind of humilitaing damage to civ5's modding creds only monthes after its 2 Xpak..The bts reveiws were still fresh in the press for god sakes!

Whats it all means can be explained here and in that thread I linked you. I believe C+C is the life blood to the very existance of post dated games that are supposive outdated or replaceable to highly touted worthy replacment sequals. It shows the designer well that some of these traits where worth keeping not trashing if the same bloody game from 7 years ago is still outshining the predecessor's modding sector 3 years into its life cycle (*if only for a hour out of evey day*, hey thats all I ever claim to say! You can judge what that says for both games yourself. I meerly relay the the facts.

UPDATE OK found some first hand reports of civ2 status over in apolyton well back in time

 

[Rhye]

T.A JONES, why was Civ4 reckoned Game of the Year 2005 and Civ3 wasn't of 2001?
Why did it get far superior reviews, worldwide (including expansions)?

Here's a collection of average ratings:

Civ2 94
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization2?q=civilization

Civ3 90
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization3?q=civilization
PTW 61
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization3playtheworld?q=civilization
Conquests 86
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization3conquests?q=civilization

Civ4 94
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization4?q=civilization
Warlords 84
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization4warlords?q=civilization
BTS 86
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization4beyondthesword?q=civilization

 

[jessiecat]

T.A JONES, why was Civ4 reckoned Game of the Year 2005 and Civ3 wasn't of 2001?
Why did it get far superior reviews, worldwide (including expansions)?

Here's a collection of average ratings:

Civ2 94
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization2?q=civilization

Civ3 90
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization3?q=civilization
PTW 61
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization3playtheworld?q=civilization
Conquests 86
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization3conquests?q=civilization

Civ4 94
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization4?q=civilization
Warlords 84
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization4warlords?q=civilization
BTS 86
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization4beyondthesword?q=civilization

BTW Are you still involved with Rhyes of Europe? Haven't seen any posts.
We'd welcome your input.

 

[GVBN]

the most powerful laptop(look at the link above) can be more powerfull than the most powerful desktop.

in my opinion laptops are becoming more like gaming computers and desktops are becoming more like media/websurfing/picture computer

Find me a laptop that can outperform a desktop pc with an overclocked quad-core processor, 4gb of 1333mhz ddr3 ram, 10k rpm hard drive and two Geforce 8800 Ultras

Laptops will never take the performance crown from desktops. They simply can't handle the heat caused by high-end components

so pretty much its weakness is its graphics card. i thought my hard drive was good. does your hard drive affect the computers speed or does it just store things. i can play all the new games i have on the highest setting.

Hard drives have different RPM rates: usually 5400 for laptops, 7200 for desktops and 10000 for high performance desktops. Higher RPM means the data on the disk will be read faster

 

[Mr_Fusty]

Well, I'm back from the RW. I know that this thread has moved on, but I just to have my two pence....

1) I've been playing CivX nearly every week since '99. I even got around to making 3 mods in '03 for Civ II (although never uploaded) I was a long, long time lurker here (I had been visiting for years, looking for Civ II scenarios and graphics for said mods. By the way, where have all the II scenarios gone?) The reason for saying 'don't shoot!' because as I played it so much myself, I know how many people are still very dedicated to it.

2) The main reason that the PS2 was really sucessful was the massive back catalauge of PS1 games, keeping all the developers onside (with the exception of Microsoft and Nintendo, obviously) and bad decisions by their competitors. Gamecube was too much a kiddie console, and XBox was too late for the party. That gave Sony a-near clear run on the traditional market for consoles (young males 15-30). That is why the Wii did a different tactic, and aimed for non-gamers instead. It seems to be working.

3) I suspect that most of us won't abandon our PC's just yet. A console still finds it very hard to put a strategy game on it, and when they try, a large amount of current gamers will diss it (Civ Rev = Civ Lite) I remember similar things being said about Civ II on the PS1.

4) When you buy a computer, a laptop will be more expensive and harder to upgrade and repair. I made the mistake of buying a laptop for 'hardcore gaming' a few years back - it suffered death by Civ III. Laptops are getting better, but they still can't beat a comparible desktop for relabilty and price.

5) You may have a good computer, but when was the last time it had a nice clean, sort, defrag and patching? Three months ago, I discovered that mine was running some form of program to 'improve stability', but it as consuming around 25%-50% of the CPU's attention at all times, with the ironic side effect of causing games to crash due to lack or resorces.

I know it's a . .. .. .. .. .. Looking at 50+ folders all labeled 'thing' or 'stuff'. Trying to remember all the programs that you currently have installed. Waiting 4 hours for your hard drive to defrag. Deleting all those old backup files that clutter up the hard drive. But it is really, really worth it!

6) I do follow the Total War series. I'm still attempting to produce a true Cannae on Rome TW, but it's almost impossible if you play without pausing.

 

[T.A JONES]

T.A JONES, why was Civ4 reckoned Game of the Year 2005 and Civ3 wasn't of 2001?
Why did it get far superior reviews, worldwide (including expansions)?

Here's a collection of average ratings:

Civ2 94
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization2?q=civilization

Civ3 90
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization3?q=civilization
PTW 61
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization3playtheworld?q=civilization
Conquests 86
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization3conquests?q=civilization

Civ4 94
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization4?q=civilization
Warlords 84
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization4warlords?q=civilization
BTS 86
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/civilization4beyondthesword?q=civilization

Hey are you telling me Ive got a case for false advertising?. My Fireaxis version of Civ3 says GAME OF THE YEAR edition. Lies you say? Those deceiteful bastards

ABout mountains of critic praise I'll just say this. AMerican is changing. Civ4 is now owned by a mega giant corp. Coincidently, It now has major high rating in large Review companys that don't go along so well with major high volume of complaints it garners in tech threads and general 'dis' threads like this.
I believe the review companys see benifit in pleasing giant corps and the makers of civ3 at the time were not of this influentinal caliber. THis is fact but what I suggest is only my opinion.
STill you should be proud for you involvment in the companys agenda for promoting civ4

 

[T.A JONES]

so pretty much its weakness is its graphics card. i thought my hard drive was good. does your hard drive affect the computers speed or does it just store things. i can play all the new games i have on the highest setting.

your hefty L2 cache for a laptop is quite nice for civving. Thats the memory in the engine that keeps it from always back checking into VR for memory (I think IM not a techy like GNVN is, hes the expert IMO). But ya, I think your L2 takes the time you get in interturn processs out of the equation once ram specs are met. IMO L2 is the best assest you got their chum. For civ3 2mb makes all waiting go away matched with a 3.2-3.6 proccesor on any size map Ive gone against (tops was 240x240)

I hear all lot of new duals and quads came out with 4mb of L2 but half was not usable (Ill link when doubted) making it the same as the ancient monocore Ceder Mill for L2 levels

 

[GVBN]

I hear all lot of new duals and quads came out with 4mb of L2 but half was not usable (Ill link when doubted) making it the same as the ancient monocore Ceder Mill for L2 levels

That shouldn't happen. Every Core 2 based processor uses shared L2 cache

 

[Seven05]

All preferences aside, I still don't understand the argument that Civ4 is anything but easier to mod when compared to Civ3. I find the 'unit' argument especially perplexing considering how easy it is for me to tweak existing Civ4 units to my tastes. Maybe I just did things wrong with Civ3 but to do something as basic as recolor a unit in Civ3 was a LOT of work whereas in Civ4 it is as simple as editing a single texture (image) file. I can take somebody's swordsman unit and turn him into a spearman with relative ease, I can further expand my units by adding different spears, shields, helmets, etc. I, somebody who is definately NOT an artist, can create entire matching unit sets without posting a single request or having to wait on somebody else to do it for me. Terrain tiles are even easier than units, again without waiting for somebody else. Both of those, incidentally, are made possible with the 'under utilized' 3D engine.

Just because there have been more units released for Civ3 doesn't mean it's easier. In fact, it's quite the contrary since the majority of the units made for Civ4 are mod-specific and not released individualy. If you started counting custom variations of custom units such as those found in the Veritas Delictat mod I wouldn't be suprised if there were far more units available for Civ4 than most people think.

With tile sets we have Blue Marble for Civ4 which is so well done nobody has seen the need to create another general set. But again, as with units, many custom terrain tiles are specific to individual mods and never released independantly. With the 'under-utilized' 3D engine again we have the ability to do things like creating custom mountain ranges (peak replacements) without even needing custom textures. Minimal atristic talent required but you will need to have a basic understanding of greyscale heightmaps. Of course the defaults aren't so bad as to have the masses in an uproar demaning replacement sets, as Rhye pointed out earlier.

So please, for the love of all things that can be modified, if you're going to bash Civ4 bash it for anything other than how it can be modified. Or if you insist on comparing it to Civ3 in terms of 'modability' at least try to get to the same level of understanding the capabilities and limitations with both games before you continue.

 

[T.A JONES]

That shouldn't happen. Every Core 2 based processor uses shared L2 cache

THis isn't the article I read going on about some dual sytems not utilizing the full 4mb of cache so essentialy instead operating on the same L2 amount as P4 Cedar Mill monocore in terms of L2 benifts for civ4(or all the massive amounts of games that don't run dual core optimization)

But I googled and this was first to come up THere were 2099 more articles in relation so a guess a few more models may apply ITs stated 2nd paragraph

If your tryin to pin me as saying all models are using only half then let me be clear I never said that. From begining a suggest only some which equals thousands upon thousands

 

[T.A JONES]

You ever hear the complaint The AI's in civ3 can be bought up and influenced to go to war with the strongest civs for the price of a bag of beans? I know Smidleee like to say this (to lazy to quote)

I never believed this mybe cuz I played CIv3.5 ala mod alot but check this out.

Spoiler :

[/

Freaking Serbs are a lil powerhouse and in the vacinity of my enemy but won't get their hands dirty without me breaking the bank or giving thousands up in research commitments while they go an military spending spree! . IN the next pic You'll see They want all of my money plus the freshest tech on the market! WHat happened to the bag of beans theory? IM better of doing the diry deeds myslef, atleast my units get the promos

Here they are this time asked to go war against Germany, the number 3 ranked powerhouse

Spoiler :

[URL=http://imageshack.us]

Spoiler :

I started using prt screen every time I found this 'fact' to be untrue Now I have a vault of these AI being crafty and I don't know why or how to explain all these smart diplo calls.
I was hoping for prices based on CIv4 complainer's remarks.

Spoiler :

Now remember I have to bribe a coalition to be effective in my goals since mega map means mega sized opponents. Whats this cost me in the end? HOw about THe science race to some fat civ that sits untouched after dominating the other side of the world.

Its because of over zealous tech trading you enemy can whined up with near same tech level plus, still could afford army production that doubles yours and which let them conquer half the world. EX LIke this...:

Spoiler :

They simply called me out early and I had to pay all the civs close to me to stay on side. Otherwise what happens? He sends them after me! Think what trouble that would be! Look for yourself on the Real WORLD MAP SIZE! my sprawlin empire's HQ is orangy red upper left OK, Now I got my neighbours going against him bad thing though is they will have to settle some day and guess what? Hes bigger so they pay! MOre cash and techs go his way! SO People who say we are master manipulaters in CIv3, mind telling me How this always comes into play?

IS it cuz of my rep? Well some civs will still except my offering even with a rep hit or two. They then take my tech, fight a bit with the allience who I also paid steep for, with thier help they take some land for themselves then they pass on that tech to the enemy to stop from gettin clobbered in counter.

NOw my enemy has better techs and cleaned out his outdated units to roll in the power units (means better value maint price) for when I decide to come in!
So How munipulative was that for my side? How would you have done it? Remember Armies have been patched!
SOmetimes I notice the civ that can't be bought cheap is needing a resource that the proposed enemy is suppling them.

Spoiler :

I also notice the army strenght in realtion to each other is measured Remember Serbs would take 800per turn and a tech Look at their strengh compared to mine

Spoiler :

Anyway I can share as many as these as you want to see. Heres on for the road.

Spoiler :

In conclusion, its clearly been demostrated that those myths made by civ4players who many years ago are simply BS.
False claims such as the player being able to organize an ungodly allience for the price of a bag of beans or something insignifigant as such, are clearly false. On any average difficulty or unofficially patched epic being played today you all see how the AI conducts itself at the trade table
This myth of being able to win with the "carrot strategy" has been exposed as another hollow attack on true strategy, probably was googled from Civ4 fanbois insult guide to civ3.

 

[Civinator]

All preferences aside, I still don't understand the argument that Civ4 is anything but easier to mod when compared to Civ3. I find the 'unit' argument especially perplexing considering how easy it is for me to tweak existing Civ4 units to my tastes. Maybe I just did things wrong with Civ3 but to do something as basic as recolor a unit in Civ3 was a LOT of work whereas in Civ4 it is as simple as editing a single texture (image) file. I can take somebody's swordsman unit and turn him into a spearman with relative ease, I can further expand my units by adding different spears, shields, helmets, etc. I, somebody who is definately NOT an artist, can create entire matching unit sets without posting a single request or having to wait on somebody else to do it for me. Terrain tiles are even easier than units, again without waiting for somebody else. Both of those, incidentally, are made possible with the 'under utilized' 3D engine.

Just because there have been more units released for Civ3 doesn't mean it's easier. In fact, it's quite the contrary since the majority of the units made for Civ4 are mod-specific and not released individualy. If you started counting custom variations of custom units such as those found in the Veritas Delictat mod I wouldn't be suprised if there were far more units available for Civ4 than most people think.

With tile sets we have Blue Marble for Civ4 which is so well done nobody has seen the need to create another general set. But again, as with units, many custom terrain tiles are specific to individual mods and never released independantly. With the 'under-utilized' 3D engine again we have the ability to do things like creating custom mountain ranges (peak replacements) without even needing custom textures. Minimal atristic talent required but you will need to have a basic understanding of greyscale heightmaps. Of course the defaults aren't so bad as to have the masses in an uproar demaning replacement sets, as Rhye pointed out earlier.

So please, for the love of all things that can be modified, if you're going to bash Civ4 bash it for anything other than how it can be modified. Or if you insist on comparing it to Civ3 in terms of 'modability' at least try to get to the same level of understanding the capabilities and limitations with both games before you continue.

This post sounds interesting. Here I show you what I understand under easy modding. I attache a simple storyboard of Civ 3. It contains a simple Civ 2 unit. With the methode you are seeing here, all existing civ 2 units (and of course all other unit images existing in the internet, in books or anywhere else can be transfered easily to Civ 3. Even simple animations for combat, death and so on, are possible without big problems for this unit.



Now please tell me, how you easily transfer this simple unit to Civ 4. I want to learn easy Civ 4 modding, so that we - as you would say -have the same level of understanding and can continue ...in this case in the next learning chapter you are giving to me, how I can simply copy and paste each building I can find in the resources above to Civ 4. I´m reallly interested how you do this.

Here you find a link to some old screenshots of the world map for my Civ 3 epic mod so that we than can continue in speaking about terrain, resources and the different graphics that can be used for cities after you have tought me the first two steps.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4863067&postcount=15

 

[Rhye]

STill you should be proud for you involvment in the companys agenda for promoting civ4

yeah I'm well paid for this

 

[T.A JONES]

yeah I'm well paid for this

Who said you were paid? Your mod was a big plus for the latest X pak. A selling point. HAving you their was part of the ajenda does that sound bad? Sorry if you feel I gave lack of respect. IM defending my opinion and still trying to be respectful to you, the one who's very terrain you see on the screen above you right now.

Sorry you took it wrong. I hope your work with Civ4 does lead to some real big pay one day. Id still consider your efferts being rewarding enough with major assets-like refrences and personal contacts made along the way. A World class company published your material. Count your many blessings man. THey paid you well.No matter how the game turned out I would be very happy with them If I were you.