features not in civ3
- Thread starter delijoe
- Start date
EmperorSnefix
Emperor of Evil Empires
They needed to include poisoning the city water in the game. Any means of destroying a large amount of my enemies in a fast, covert manner gets my vote every time. A good example of this would be my good friend Kefka. Just look at what he did to Doma. They were unyielding, and then BAM!, he poisoned the water and the city fell.
TrailblazingScot
I was kittenOFchaos
Did you play civ2? THEN you'll realise how pants the water poisoning is/was.
Schnitzelnator
Chieftain
Not to mention that he destroyed the world shortly afterwards.
Sparrowhawk
The Builder
In Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC), technologies didn't allow you units per say, they allowed unit components such as chassis, weapon, armor, powerplant, and special abilities. This way you could customize your units.
Peteus
All good things...
SMACs unit creation was a cute idea, but not well implemented. It took too much work to adjust your designs each time you researched an upgrade, and there wasn't any creativity in it - you always wanted to be building the best assault unit (max attack, max defense), most powerful ship, most powerful plane, most powerful pure defender, fastest quick strike unit (with max attack), and best "catapult" (max attack, min def).
Earth 2150 handles unit design much better IMO, with different kinds of weapons and defenses that are better against different kinds of opponents. A paper-scissors-stone type relationship where lasers beat armour, shields beat lasers, and projectiles beat shields. What a great combat model that was! (RTS though.)
Oh, and my vote goes for Multiplayer. I can't believe they left it out. How much time would it have taken to implement even the same MP system that the used in Civ II MPG...a day? I don't understand...
Earth 2150 handles unit design much better IMO, with different kinds of weapons and defenses that are better against different kinds of opponents. A paper-scissors-stone type relationship where lasers beat armour, shields beat lasers, and projectiles beat shields. What a great combat model that was! (RTS though.)
Oh, and my vote goes for Multiplayer. I can't believe they left it out. How much time would it have taken to implement even the same MP system that the used in Civ II MPG...a day? I don't understand...
CurtSibling
ENEMY ACE™
A Dark age would be an interesting flipside to Golden age, Imagine a nation being heavily embargoed or being defeated after a prolonged war.
After losing so many cities or units the CIV could enter a Dark age, Maybe with some future add-on to the editor we could implement various ideas of this nature!
can't wait any longer!! OOOOGGG!
After losing so many cities or units the CIV could enter a Dark age, Maybe with some future add-on to the editor we could implement various ideas of this nature!
can't wait any longer!! OOOOGGG!
Originally posted by Peteus
Oh, and my vote goes for Multiplayer. I can't believe they left it out. How much time would it have taken to implement even the same MP system that the used in Civ II MPG...a day? I don't understand...
I voted for MP also, but ... a day?!?! You're obviously not a programmer!
Adding multiplayer is non-trivial. If they had tried to hack it in quickly they would have, at best, added a few months to the schedule and had buggy MP that everyone here would ***** loudly about. At worst they could have added many months to the schedule and ended up with a game that was crappy even for single player.I wish MP was in, but I'm glad they've taken the sensible approach and given us a (hopefully!) good single player game, and can take some time to do MP right. I'm not expecting it to be a free patch - it's a non-trivial addition to the game, and worth the price IMO.
For those who've been on the Civ scene a while, remember how long it was between Civ2 and Civ2 MP? Would you have preferred they not released Civ2 SP until MP was ready? Do you remember CivNet? Would you want Civ3 to be of similar "quality"?
I'd like to have MP, but 95% of the time I play SP, a wicked SP Civ3 will tide me over just fine, thanks!
Peteus
All good things...
Actually, I am a programmer! Are you?
I don't know what people are expecting from Civ III MP that's so exotic. All that they need to do for hot-seat (not ideal, but all you can do with a single PC), is allow a second player turn and record messages that were broadcast ("The English have completed the Pyramids.") to play back at the start of each player's turn. Setting that up is such a trivial job, that a day is probably not much of an exageration. You give control back to the player console for one Civ per turn, or for two - what's the big deal? They should add the ability to "replay opponents turn" so you get an opportunity to see the enemy move around you. That addition would clearly take some time to do right, and would be a valuable upgrade to the Civ II hotseat model.
Good simultaneous MP is another thing entirely, and maybe that's what they're spending all of their time on. I don't think it's even desirable! Civ is turn-based, after all.
I play all of my Civ II MP in a networked environment, via direct connection or dial-up networking. That means that players (and AIs) move in turn, but one human could still watch the other sides move, see the broadcasts as they happened, and even take care of micromanagement tasks like setting the tax rate, moving worked tiles around, and changing construction while the other sides are moving. That's an important time-saver, and I'm sure it's not completely trivial to set up. Still, the only part of all that which is really different from the SP game is the connection.
Civ II already has perfectly good MP. The only thing that really needed work was the modem connection, and Blizzard had a perfectly good connection interface for Warcraft II way back when - it's not like Firaxis actually has to be creative here!
I don't know what people are expecting from Civ III MP that's so exotic. All that they need to do for hot-seat (not ideal, but all you can do with a single PC), is allow a second player turn and record messages that were broadcast ("The English have completed the Pyramids.") to play back at the start of each player's turn. Setting that up is such a trivial job, that a day is probably not much of an exageration. You give control back to the player console for one Civ per turn, or for two - what's the big deal? They should add the ability to "replay opponents turn" so you get an opportunity to see the enemy move around you. That addition would clearly take some time to do right, and would be a valuable upgrade to the Civ II hotseat model.
Good simultaneous MP is another thing entirely, and maybe that's what they're spending all of their time on. I don't think it's even desirable! Civ is turn-based, after all.
I play all of my Civ II MP in a networked environment, via direct connection or dial-up networking. That means that players (and AIs) move in turn, but one human could still watch the other sides move, see the broadcasts as they happened, and even take care of micromanagement tasks like setting the tax rate, moving worked tiles around, and changing construction while the other sides are moving. That's an important time-saver, and I'm sure it's not completely trivial to set up. Still, the only part of all that which is really different from the SP game is the connection.
Civ II already has perfectly good MP. The only thing that really needed work was the modem connection, and Blizzard had a perfectly good connection interface for Warcraft II way back when - it's not like Firaxis actually has to be creative here!
I'm a programmer.
Anyhow, adding MP isn't really all that hard. In fact, once you have the main engine done, it's pretty much a breeze. The hard part is BALANCING IT. Would it work better if we did this... Or this... How will this feature work... What needs to be changed? Questions like these will continue to flow, and it's not something you can complete by pulling an all-nighter.
Anyhow, adding MP isn't really all that hard. In fact, once you have the main engine done, it's pretty much a breeze. The hard part is BALANCING IT. Would it work better if we did this... Or this... How will this feature work... What needs to be changed? Questions like these will continue to flow, and it's not something you can complete by pulling an all-nighter.
Delthayre
Chieftain
I voted for Dark Ages. I think they'd prove interesting...after so manly defeats or if you capitol is seized they would be triggered. Prodection would slow to a crawl (cultural and scientific as well as food/shields/gold) construction of unique units (if applicable at the time) would be forbidden, civilization advantages would be disabled and some cities would break off and form sub-nations or barbarian camps. They would end with a good number of signifigant victories, the recapture of the capitol, or the production of a great leader. The only problem I can see is that they could become discouraging...perhaps a time limit would be a good idea.
Unit design would not work well until the industrial era. Before that it would be rather pointless (hmmm spears or swords; armor or no armor; funny name or not funny name) and would defeat what little historical context is present.
As to Multiplayer (henceforth "mp" will be used for convinience) I am willing to wait. I think it would be better if we tried to create a bridge between Firaxis and the online community to help multiplayer developement. We need to convince them to give us some info and let us help. I have a feeling they really want to do something innovative and new. In my view of things, Firaxis as a company owe's us respect as a community and the production of a good product. They don't neccassarily owe us great mounds of information, but in accordance with the respect aspect...some info is required. I refuse to accept the "They don't owe you anything" worldview...as far as I'm concerned, purveyors of entertainment are public servants.
Finally, I would like to remind people (especially Americans) that patience is a far to often ignored, but extremely important value. When has impatience benefitted anyone? In politics it generates resent and confusion, in war mass loss of life, in games half-assed products that dissapoint and dissalusion the community (blame falls mostly on publishers...I'm looking at you EA). So let us be patient, understanding, and ecouraging and I'm sure Firaxis won't dissapoint. If they do dissapoint, I will personally lead a vicious letter writing campaign and any reasonable actions there of.
I do however think that multiplayer should be a free download even if it is part of an expansion.
Unit design would not work well until the industrial era. Before that it would be rather pointless (hmmm spears or swords; armor or no armor; funny name or not funny name) and would defeat what little historical context is present.
As to Multiplayer (henceforth "mp" will be used for convinience) I am willing to wait. I think it would be better if we tried to create a bridge between Firaxis and the online community to help multiplayer developement. We need to convince them to give us some info and let us help. I have a feeling they really want to do something innovative and new. In my view of things, Firaxis as a company owe's us respect as a community and the production of a good product. They don't neccassarily owe us great mounds of information, but in accordance with the respect aspect...some info is required. I refuse to accept the "They don't owe you anything" worldview...as far as I'm concerned, purveyors of entertainment are public servants.
Finally, I would like to remind people (especially Americans) that patience is a far to often ignored, but extremely important value. When has impatience benefitted anyone? In politics it generates resent and confusion, in war mass loss of life, in games half-assed products that dissapoint and dissalusion the community (blame falls mostly on publishers...I'm looking at you EA). So let us be patient, understanding, and ecouraging and I'm sure Firaxis won't dissapoint. If they do dissapoint, I will personally lead a vicious letter writing campaign and any reasonable actions there of.
I do however think that multiplayer should be a free download even if it is part of an expansion.
