OK, so I had no life in 1994 with Civ I and again in 1996 with Civ II. Now it seems Nov and Dec 2001 will also be eviscerated to other life's concerns. (Am I allowed to mention here that Civ CTP I and II took care of 1999 and 2000? And MOO III was 1997?) Let me now enter into my diatribe:
1. Corruption and governments. To "fix" those of us who like the slash and grab word conquest strategy, we've been hit with corruption. It really alters early game strategies and encourages us to be more taciturn about what cities we take, e.g., waiting for things like iron and saltpepper to appear on the map before making our empire expansion thrusts. These innovations are really cool. The strategic resources is an "A+" addition. The "C-" addition, of course, is that corruption never goes away and democracy falls short in Civ III. Monarchy is good for giving you over "two" resources per square. Republic is good for giving you the extra commerce tile. So far, so good. Then, we go to democracy. Can anyone tell me anything you get for that? I've carefully looked over production boxes, and I don't see my 50% increase in production anywhere. Democracy is a "nothing" advantage over republic as far as I can tell. I expected that democracy would finally fix my corruption problems. No deal. I thought maybe there would then be some future "courthouse" (which also is sham for reducing corruption) improvement that would deal with corruption. No help. So, in a nutshell, Civ III seems to do a great job in balance and checking those Mongol instincs we have in the age of despotism, monarchy, and republic, but then falls absolutely flat. The designers have gone overboard by offering no strategies to reduce corruption in later stages of the game. I also thought that maybe if I built up lots of culture for my empire as a whole, that corruption levels would fall off. Again, no deal.
2. Minor point: There is no way to stack and group units. It's a bit horrible to move 30 cavalry around.
3. In another attempt to stop those rampant tendencies of players to drive towards scientific dominance, the Civ III designers have made specialists such as scientists and taxmen worth nothing. The result in Civ III is that there is no good way to storm ahead in science, compared to the AI. Conversely, the AI sells you its technology cheaply in the diplomacy screens, so it's also very hard to fall significantly behind in technology.
4. City takeovers with culture. Only in the beginning of the game is it worth capturing an enemy city. Later, you had better just raze it because it's going back to the enemy after a few turns. I thought, ok, fine, the city is near an enemy with advanced culture, I deserved to lose it. But, no, I've lost cities miles away from the enemy (i.e., initially isolated enemy city formed by one of its wanderlust settlers). I've lost captured cities that I've had for a long time and have built up to culture levels above 100 with improvements. I've lost cities to enemies who have culture levels inferior to my own. Hence, one is switched to force from a grab to raze strategy at some point. That's not too bad because by the time you capture a city, you destroy its improvements, its citizens are resistors, some typically starve. By the time you settle your own city, it's half-a-dozen one way or the other if you would have been better off with a "nondeposing" captured city anyway.
Summary: Corruption stops a slash and conquer strategy. Little benefit scientists stop a research driven strategy (i.e., first to get tanks/artillery and then knock out the enemy in grande style). Culture is another great idea, but there are no clear benefits, and getting cities up to 10,000 points is only a very late game strategy. There need to be some tangible benefits to a culture strategy. Strategic resources are also a great idea, but things like saltpepper should always be important from a game balance perspective. Otherwise, you sweat when you don't have saltpepper, but all you have to do is hunkerdown and wait for the Rifleman. Imagine if you really had to get that saltpepper resource or ELSE, and you'd also be paying more attention to diplomacy to get those resources.
All of these "balances" really force a player to be much more middle of the road a strategy. My complaint is that the Civ III designers have removed some of the over-the-top strategies of Civ I and II in ways that do not provide good new alternatives in Civ III. Corruption is the worst case in point. What's the point of democracy?
The last point in these regards is that there should be summary screen so you can see how other civilizations are doing with their strategic resources. Now you can do espionage on cities and check the enemy's resources, but why should you have to pay gold plus click rather monotonously on six different civilizations? You could plan your attacks again those civ's who don't have saltpepper!!! You should also be able to see who's supplying that civ with saltpepper (if traded) so that you can make efforts to disrupt the supply.
Civ III great innovations: strategic resources (but implemented in so-so manner) and culture (but implemented in a poor manner with few tangible benefits [except nice touch of national borders])
Civ III big problems: corruption not implemented well for advanced civilizations. Specialists (scientist and taxmen) are now a throw away concept. No tangible benefits of democracy over republic.
1. Corruption and governments. To "fix" those of us who like the slash and grab word conquest strategy, we've been hit with corruption. It really alters early game strategies and encourages us to be more taciturn about what cities we take, e.g., waiting for things like iron and saltpepper to appear on the map before making our empire expansion thrusts. These innovations are really cool. The strategic resources is an "A+" addition. The "C-" addition, of course, is that corruption never goes away and democracy falls short in Civ III. Monarchy is good for giving you over "two" resources per square. Republic is good for giving you the extra commerce tile. So far, so good. Then, we go to democracy. Can anyone tell me anything you get for that? I've carefully looked over production boxes, and I don't see my 50% increase in production anywhere. Democracy is a "nothing" advantage over republic as far as I can tell. I expected that democracy would finally fix my corruption problems. No deal. I thought maybe there would then be some future "courthouse" (which also is sham for reducing corruption) improvement that would deal with corruption. No help. So, in a nutshell, Civ III seems to do a great job in balance and checking those Mongol instincs we have in the age of despotism, monarchy, and republic, but then falls absolutely flat. The designers have gone overboard by offering no strategies to reduce corruption in later stages of the game. I also thought that maybe if I built up lots of culture for my empire as a whole, that corruption levels would fall off. Again, no deal.
2. Minor point: There is no way to stack and group units. It's a bit horrible to move 30 cavalry around.
3. In another attempt to stop those rampant tendencies of players to drive towards scientific dominance, the Civ III designers have made specialists such as scientists and taxmen worth nothing. The result in Civ III is that there is no good way to storm ahead in science, compared to the AI. Conversely, the AI sells you its technology cheaply in the diplomacy screens, so it's also very hard to fall significantly behind in technology.
4. City takeovers with culture. Only in the beginning of the game is it worth capturing an enemy city. Later, you had better just raze it because it's going back to the enemy after a few turns. I thought, ok, fine, the city is near an enemy with advanced culture, I deserved to lose it. But, no, I've lost cities miles away from the enemy (i.e., initially isolated enemy city formed by one of its wanderlust settlers). I've lost captured cities that I've had for a long time and have built up to culture levels above 100 with improvements. I've lost cities to enemies who have culture levels inferior to my own. Hence, one is switched to force from a grab to raze strategy at some point. That's not too bad because by the time you capture a city, you destroy its improvements, its citizens are resistors, some typically starve. By the time you settle your own city, it's half-a-dozen one way or the other if you would have been better off with a "nondeposing" captured city anyway.
Summary: Corruption stops a slash and conquer strategy. Little benefit scientists stop a research driven strategy (i.e., first to get tanks/artillery and then knock out the enemy in grande style). Culture is another great idea, but there are no clear benefits, and getting cities up to 10,000 points is only a very late game strategy. There need to be some tangible benefits to a culture strategy. Strategic resources are also a great idea, but things like saltpepper should always be important from a game balance perspective. Otherwise, you sweat when you don't have saltpepper, but all you have to do is hunkerdown and wait for the Rifleman. Imagine if you really had to get that saltpepper resource or ELSE, and you'd also be paying more attention to diplomacy to get those resources.
All of these "balances" really force a player to be much more middle of the road a strategy. My complaint is that the Civ III designers have removed some of the over-the-top strategies of Civ I and II in ways that do not provide good new alternatives in Civ III. Corruption is the worst case in point. What's the point of democracy?
The last point in these regards is that there should be summary screen so you can see how other civilizations are doing with their strategic resources. Now you can do espionage on cities and check the enemy's resources, but why should you have to pay gold plus click rather monotonously on six different civilizations? You could plan your attacks again those civ's who don't have saltpepper!!! You should also be able to see who's supplying that civ with saltpepper (if traded) so that you can make efforts to disrupt the supply.
Civ III great innovations: strategic resources (but implemented in so-so manner) and culture (but implemented in a poor manner with few tangible benefits [except nice touch of national borders])
Civ III big problems: corruption not implemented well for advanced civilizations. Specialists (scientist and taxmen) are now a throw away concept. No tangible benefits of democracy over republic.
