Civ3 has got to be the worst version ever...

[DragonEmpires]

Asked for help before, read all the FAQs, already tried it all ...

To those who say this is not a military conquest game, they are just plain lucky.

I have the worst luck ever ... just sent 8 veteran horse man against a single regular warrior in a small city (not theirs anyway, it was mine to start with!). Only one horse survived and the warrior is now an elite! I have yet to win any contest without at least two against one or six against two. If it is a elite spear man I can't even get an army to beat him.

Hope the next version, if there is any, has a combat system that actually requires skill. If it is up to a coin flip, it will be a disgrace.

This game does NOT qualify to be in any stategy catagory. In CIV I and CIV II you at least were rewarded for a well executed campain and penalized for not properly organizing an attack.

This game is just plain BAD. I have been a fan of CIV since the first release, no, make that "was a fan", this vesion just unplayable. Can't get past the middle ages. Unless there is some proof Conquests is significantly better, I give up. Atari is aggravating anyway.



BTW, before someone asks, if you wonder how I got the army, it was playing as chieftan with two civs on a medium map. Have to be assured I will not be attacked for 3000 years and I have lots of barbarians to rumble with. What waste of time.

 

[Tomoyo]

To those who say this is not a military conquest game, they are just plain lucky.

Why? Military conquest requires more luck than building.

I have the worst luck ever ... just sent 8 veteran horse man against a single regular warrior in a small city

That would be your fault that you lost the city and you must have done something to anger the RNG gods to get that kind of luck.

Hope the next version, if there is any, has a combat system that actually requires skill. If it is up to a coin flip, it will be a disgrace.

Like in Civs past battles were won by skill? No, campaigns were. The same pRNG exists in other civs, to a higher extent. In civ3, there are more strategic elements, like artillery and plane basing.

This game does NOT qualify to be in any stategy catagory. In CIV I and CIV II you at least were rewarded for a well executed campain and penalized for not properly organizing an attack.

How is Civ3 different from Civ2 in this regard? Explain.

This game is just plain BAD. I have been a fan of CIV since the first release, no, make that "was a fan", this vesion just unplayable. Can't get past the middle ages. Unless there is some proof Conquests is significantly better, I give up. Atari is aggravating anyway.

Welcome to CFC.

 

[klopolov]

IMHO, this game is mostly about the military conquest, but I find that even if sometimes your 8 horsemen cannot defeat a warrior, sooner or later, karma will kick in and your rifleman will defeat 8 tanks... It's true that the RNG is sometimes a pain in the ..., but (pun intended) again, I find that it is balanced and I believe that there is an article on this site about "good turn/bad turn" that goes into greater details about such phenomena.
I personally enjoy Civ3 and just got Civ3 gold edition for New Years (Yay!), but if you don't, I don't see a reason to say that you are not a fan of Civ1 or Civ2 any more, if you enjoyed playing them, you still can, I do not know of strange people walking around taking away people's copies of Civ1/2 and burning them somewhere...

 

[punkbass2000]

"To those who say this is not a military conquest game, they are just plain lucky."

I can consistently win at Deity without capturing a city I did not found. How can you possibly construe that as luck?

 

[JonathanValjean]

I am sorry to see that you dislike Civ3 so much, DragonEmpires. To be honest, it is my favorite game of all time. I think you need to give it another chance, and you will find that it is tremendously better than the previous iterations of Civilization. If you choose not to give Civ 3 another chance, please DO NOT come back on here and berate the game. One, because I don't appreciate it, and two, if you were to play the game at length, you would find that most every complaint that you levied is baseless. While on Emperor and Deity levels, war is necessary for most players to win, on Monarch and below, victory can be yours consistently via Space Race, Cultural, or Diplomatic avenues, without warring at all. Give it another chance; I think you'll be glad you did.

 

[Rainbow]

I agree with Tomoyo, battles are luck and the battle modifiers such as terrain and fortifications,etc. But choosing the correct units, the quantity of them, and where to deploy them, and most importantly WHEN the strategic part of the game comes into effect, at least the battle issue comes into effect. Judgement is key in this game.

 

[FinnMcCool]

Valjean, please do not impose your values on us. If DragonEmpires wants to express his displeasure, he should be free to do so without the kind of feedback you thrust on him. His frustration isn't a personal attack on something you love; it's merely his own experience with the product, fer crine out loud.

I've had perfectly good reasons to dislike this game, and sometimes I even post in a forum to try and discuss it. One GREAT thing about this game is, that if you don't like it, you can change it! That being said, perhaps DragonE isn't experienced with the Editor (it CAN be daunting!) or maybe he just doesn't want to change the game at all. Give a freakin break.

DragonEmpires: if you're reading this, I hope you find some way to crunch this rediculous AI underfoot. It is rediculous, I agree with you on that point. It's gotten to the point where I simply ignore ALL foreign civ embassies, knowing that the best I can hope for is "you are an ignorant and pathetic fool; care to give us Currency Tech for the privelage of being in our good graces?".... Ffffffft!! Smell my finger.

 

[The Last Conformist]

For the record, battles in CivI were even more luck-dependent than in CivIII.

 

[tR1cKy]

In my opinion, Dragon is right about the RNG issue. 8 knights losing against a single warrior, which is simply a brute armed with a stick or club and no armor at all, is too unrealistic. Randomness is present in every fight, a knight can fumble an attack; he can be overconfident or a moron, the warrior may be very skilled with its puny weapon or simply have a lucky strike. In the grand scheme of things, it's ok to lose 1 knight against 1 warrior, but 8 in a row... the RNG thing is borked, that's it.
What to do? When i stumble upon crazy results like this, i simply reload and delay the attack 1 turn. Cheating? Perhaps. For me, it's compensating a bug.

Correction Ok, horsemen, not knights. But it's still unrealistic (just a bit less).

 

[The Omega]

Use catapults and other artillery to weaken teh enemy. Granted, most artillery stinks until you get the unit artillery (not the unitcategory),but even so, any type of artillery can help you win against a bad RNG roll. And eventually, since the RNG is random, eventually you'll be the one with the warrior killing all the horsemen!

 

[punkbass2000]

"Valjean, please do not impose your values on us. If DragonEmpires wants to express his displeasure, he should be free to do so without the kind of feedback you thrust on him."

Does this strike you as a hypocritical comment?

Beyond that, (now giving my opinions, if that's not too much of a problem), I agree with Valjean. It's one thing to come and give a well-thought out opinion on why there's problems with the game based on experience. It's another thing to only play the game a couple times and brand it as, 'just plain BAD'. Most of comments are rather emotion-based as opposed to fact-based. And as TLC poignantly points out, Civ1 was far more luck dependedent; I once lost a BattleShip to a Settler. Let's see you pull that off in Civ3. Though I'll freely admit this isn't anywhere close to the worst anti-Civ3-troll I've seen and my general impression is in line with yours (that he isn't "flaming", per se), do we really need a new thread every time someone tries a game a few times and doesn't like it because it's not the same as previous civs? Losing eight Horsemen (not Knights, BTW, as someone suggested) to a Warrior might be infuriating, but without details it's hard to say how unlikely that is. I bet most, if not all of said horsemen were regulars, though I can't be certain. The city could have been on a hill, too, as well as across a river. There's a million factors. Yes, it's a "coin-flip", but it is a weighted coin-flip. Proper planning and tactics will eliminate many of these minor problems that new players seem want to drone on about. This is not a game that one simply learns upon the first reading of the manual. IT takes game after game coupled careful study and attention to detail to even begin to understand its underlying mechanics and to ascend the skill levels.

 

[Abaddon]

It's gotten to the point where I simply ignore ALL foreign civ embassies.

You know succesful trading can almost win you the game alone...

 

[Akka]

Though I disagree with the game being pure luck (a well-planned attack DOES work, but you have to think in terms of waves of units, no in term of 1-to-1 units), I strongly agree that Civ3 is FAR too much military-oriented.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

I once lost a BattleShip to a Settler

Not a rare event. The chance was a whopping 1:18! Just another prove how much people have forgotten about how "bad" Civ1/2 really were, compared to Civ3...
Imagine the same ratio would still apply, every 10th Warrior defends successfully against Tanks !

 

[WackenOpenAir]

you are most certainly exagerating the issue.

8 horses against 1 warrior gives like less than 1% chance to lose. (unless the warrior is on hills, over a river and the city has walls).

Civ3 rng works correctly, you can try that battle 100 times and you will lose it no more than 1 or 2 times.

That happing multiple times in a row is a chance of once in 1000's.

If you are complaning that the rng systimatically causes rediculous losses, you simply are using too few units in your attacks.
(yes 8 horses is more than enough against 1 warrior, but as i said i am sure you are horibly exagerating else it is simply a chance of 1 in 100's and it can somtimes happen yes.)

Also do you need to understand all the defence bonusses. Many new players estimate their chances incorrectly because they don't know about all the present defence bonuses.

All together, strategy is what beats the rng. you must know about your chances, decide what chances to go for (i go for 90-95% + chances when attacking) and when you do multiple of those battles, the outcome will be as it should be. When i attack 20 cities in a ROP abuse, i usually fail to take 1 or 2, sometimes even 3. That is completely normal within the chances i take.

It is also realistic, in real wars a battle can't be predicted with complete certainty either.

Even that small chance of a spearman beating a modern armor is realistic IMO.
I am not talking about the guy putting his spear into the armor's wheels or whatever, but the chance is small enough (like 1 in 25424) to represent a tank driver stupid enough to drive in a smart spearman's trap.
He could for example create a deep whole with a small brick wall in front of it and taunt the armor to drive trough the brick wall. Or weakened a bridges pillars so it will collapse underneath the tank or whatever.

 

[Whomp]

@ Dragon Empires(if you're still there)
Must be your negative Karma Brah!....I'm not an expert like some who've posted to you but I say show me. Please send a link for us to peruse.
@ Punky Thanks for some advice you gave on my first Emperor "W" recently!

 

[tR1cKy]

@punkbass2000 & WhackenOpenAir:

You are forgetting that a civ3 unit doesnt represent ONE unit, but a fairly high number of them.
Do modern powers have 80-100 infantry to protect they borders? Or do they have 80-100 thousands or even more?
Eight horsemen may lose against one warrior. Eight companies of them against a bunch of brutes... well....

 

[satchel]

It's frustrating when the pRNG turns against you. But, in my experience, the folks who complain about it the loudest have made at least one of the following analytical errors:

1. Failure to fully take into account defensive bonuses. To consider the original poster's scenario as an example, horseman against warrior is attack 2 against defense 1. That's already not a tremendous margin. The original poster did not tell us much about the defense bonus conditions. If the warrior is fortified (+25%) in a town on a hill (+50%) and the attack is across a river (+25%) then it's an even closer fight. Use the combat calculator at http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3combatcalc.html to play around with the permutations and see how these things really work.

2. Misinterpreting results. Again to use the original post as an example, is the poster sure there was only one warrior? He said one of his horsemen survived - did it retreat, or did it kill a warrior? It's possible that there are multiple identical units present. If so, the result is considerably less unlikely.

3. Misremembering results. I wish every time someone is tempted to post his or her pet pRNG horror story, he or she would stop to consider whether there is any exaggeration for effect going on. Was your stack really as big as you think it was? Did you let those units heal from their last battle? Also, for every time the pRNG foiled your plans, there is just as likely to be a time that you were the unlikely beneficiary of a string of lucky rolls. Those times don't stick out in our minds as dramatically. But I know there have been times that I have crossed my fingers and gone for the low-percentage attack, and gotten lucky and won. An important difference is that I understand the system so I knew it was a low percentage attack.

4. Failure to plan. If an unlucky string of rolls is enough to ruin your game, you haven't adequately planned for war. If you know the odds you can come prepared to every battle by bringing along enough units. (Hint: If you have enough artillery, you will lose far fewer offensive units.) Even if you lose the battle, it shouldn't sink your plans for the war - just regroup and try again, knowing that a spectacular string of bad luck is not likely to strike again.

If you have risen to the challenge presented by the game, you will plan for foreseeable events, by understanding the game mechanics and adapting your tactics to take them into account. For most of us, that is precisely what is enjoyable about Civ III. If you can't see it that way, then perhaps Civ III really is not the game for you.

 

[Marcus Cicero]

I sometimes wonder the intellect, or at least the knowledge of those playing this game. What many don't see mto understand is that conquest really isn't as historically accurate as you might suppose. To take massive lands and win in the end just doesn't happen, notice the countries that thrive. They aren't massive uber kingdoms with 78% of the world at their disposal, they are simply nations with all kinds of keys to winning.

And if you continue to look through history you find that oftentimed it isn't the untis that win the battles and wars, it is the luck, planning, strategy, leadership, outside pressure, and weather in some cases. The frequency of just building an army, and taking part of a civilization without trouble is non-existant, it just doesn't take place.

I personally think this game does a great job of simulating the effects of war and conquest with regards to the other ways to win. I am proud of the job Sid did, and I think his intelligence and intellect with regards to historical meaning, is quite remarkable.

Play on, have fun, and only on cheiftain?! Sounds more like you need to improve your gameplay ability and move up in rank to truly experience the game. And those of you supporting this rant here, notice, he joined only to attack the game and express his displeasure, that HE HIMSELF cannot make it. His points are not the points of the majority, because the majority stick it out and give it a try. His is the quitter mentality, the only child of life. If things are too tough, compain until they get easier.

My 2 cents.

 

[rajwhitehall]

Asked for help before, read all the FAQs, already tried it all ....<snip>....What waste of time.

Hmm, so why do you only have 1 post? Oh yes, you're a Troll. And an obvious one (quite an insult to a sophisticated Troll).