WoundedKnight
Warlord
- Joined
- May 28, 2002
- Messages
- 253
After spending a boatload of time with Civ3, I like a lot of the features. There are some things that are somewhat frustrating which I offer as constructive criticisms:
1. No scenario builder. This was one of the big draws of Civ2. Random maps are okay, but cool scenarios are nice too. Especially for a game with Civ3's potential.
2. AI. The difficulty levels have nothing to do with smarter AI or better programming. It's just a matter of how much the AI cheats and how much the human player is penalized above regent. What's the fun of playing Diety or Emperor? Sure, you can crawl along, appease all the other tribes and become a luxury broker, and maybe eke out a diplo victory. Why even try to build most wonders, though, if the AI can do it in 60% of the time as you?
Smarter AIs would be better for higher difficulties. Comps that just cheat more...no thanks.
3. Hollow victory conditions. Cultural victories, diplomatic victories, whatever. Often unfulfilling. Sure you may win by making "friends" or by culture points, but how fulfilling is that? Yeah, you may have technically "won," but some of the victory conditions are just technicalities which mean little.
4. With no scenarios, a lot of the game revolves around exploiting a predictable pattern of Civ3 & AI idiosyncracies. I think that the later civ advances are rather cool, but rarely end up playing in late tech ages long. By the time I get into the industrial age, usually the game is mostly decided and fairly predictable. That takes the fun out of continuing to play in many cases. It's also so slow getting there that, with other commitments, it's easy to lose enthusiasm when you're just getting into the really good technologies after spending 5 or 8 tedious hours with a game. This is why scenarios are needed for some of us who have had gads of experience with iron-age warfare, and would like to have some balanced fun going straight with bombers, paratroopers, and nukes without having to slog through hours of the pre-industrial age only to have the game be so lopsided when we get advanced techs that there's not much fun left to be had.
5. Arbitrary formulistic gameplay with little relationship to real life. The combat system is fine with me, but the corruption scale is pretty excessive and punishes world dominators. And culture-flipping? Okay to a point, but really just a game gimmick. How many real-life examples of Civ3-style "culture-flipping" do you know of? The pendulum on AI trading has swung TOO far where civs with little to offer can trade other AIs for advanced techs for apparently far less than what the human player pays. Science and research is really devalued in that environment when even poor, unscientific AI nations quickly get advanced techs from their developed neighbors. You can also buy a lot of techs for pennies on the dollar, which waters down the benefits of scientific & research-oriented strategies.
6. Time. Even a small game takes hours and hours. There's no such thing as a short game.
I think it's a cool game, overall, but one that Firaxis could definitely make a lot better.
WoundedKnight
1. No scenario builder. This was one of the big draws of Civ2. Random maps are okay, but cool scenarios are nice too. Especially for a game with Civ3's potential.
2. AI. The difficulty levels have nothing to do with smarter AI or better programming. It's just a matter of how much the AI cheats and how much the human player is penalized above regent. What's the fun of playing Diety or Emperor? Sure, you can crawl along, appease all the other tribes and become a luxury broker, and maybe eke out a diplo victory. Why even try to build most wonders, though, if the AI can do it in 60% of the time as you?
Smarter AIs would be better for higher difficulties. Comps that just cheat more...no thanks.
3. Hollow victory conditions. Cultural victories, diplomatic victories, whatever. Often unfulfilling. Sure you may win by making "friends" or by culture points, but how fulfilling is that? Yeah, you may have technically "won," but some of the victory conditions are just technicalities which mean little.
4. With no scenarios, a lot of the game revolves around exploiting a predictable pattern of Civ3 & AI idiosyncracies. I think that the later civ advances are rather cool, but rarely end up playing in late tech ages long. By the time I get into the industrial age, usually the game is mostly decided and fairly predictable. That takes the fun out of continuing to play in many cases. It's also so slow getting there that, with other commitments, it's easy to lose enthusiasm when you're just getting into the really good technologies after spending 5 or 8 tedious hours with a game. This is why scenarios are needed for some of us who have had gads of experience with iron-age warfare, and would like to have some balanced fun going straight with bombers, paratroopers, and nukes without having to slog through hours of the pre-industrial age only to have the game be so lopsided when we get advanced techs that there's not much fun left to be had.
5. Arbitrary formulistic gameplay with little relationship to real life. The combat system is fine with me, but the corruption scale is pretty excessive and punishes world dominators. And culture-flipping? Okay to a point, but really just a game gimmick. How many real-life examples of Civ3-style "culture-flipping" do you know of? The pendulum on AI trading has swung TOO far where civs with little to offer can trade other AIs for advanced techs for apparently far less than what the human player pays. Science and research is really devalued in that environment when even poor, unscientific AI nations quickly get advanced techs from their developed neighbors. You can also buy a lot of techs for pennies on the dollar, which waters down the benefits of scientific & research-oriented strategies.
6. Time. Even a small game takes hours and hours. There's no such thing as a short game.
I think it's a cool game, overall, but one that Firaxis could definitely make a lot better.
WoundedKnight
