Gotm & Ptw

[Matrix]

"PTW will have its own exe, Civ3.exe will still be available and playable."

What should we do when Play The World is out? Continue the Game Of The Month with standard Civ3, or with Play The World, which undoubtly makes it impossible for some regulars to play the GOTM? But when we don't use PTW, we simply miss some fun of the game...

 

[Lawrence]

I would say let's wait till PTW is out before we decide whether to include it.

 

[Hobbes]

Gotta put it in. Many more options, and could possible lead to some intresting GOTM spin offs (i.e. Top 10 people from the Hall of Fame have a multi-player game for true bragging rights).

 

[cracker]

Unfortunately, I feel that posting the poll in this way will predetermine the outcome of the poll without impartially looking at the facts of what will be released in PTW.

The chats have already revealed that very little if any single player -vs- the AI game play changes will be implemented in PTW. Essentially nothing has changed except for adding the new airfield and radar towers that will ONLY WORK INSIDE YOUR EXISTING TERRITORY.

The new civs will all be retreads of exist civ trait combinations since nothing new will be added to make them play any differently. As an example, the Mongols will play just like the Zulus in the existing release except they will have a different UU timing and animation. You could modify the Zulus to be the mongols in a flick of the wrist by just changing the UU settings. The Spanish will have the same play settings as India with two flavors of cavalry.

99% of the features of the PTW.exe will not be features that can be used in GOTM play. GOTMS released in CIV3 will be playable in PTW but not the other way around.

After March 2002, this might be an appropriate question. Before completing play of the first 16 civs cycle, this switch has many more negative impacts than might be offset by a few new graphics.

 

[ainwood]

In higher-level games especially, I think that the PTW will have a material effect on the way the game is played. EG. a combat bonus for radar towers could be quite important. The Mongols may be fairly similar to the zulus (and spanish like indians) but I think having a game where you are up against both the mongols and zulus would be very different than being up against the mongols instead of the zulus.



Personally, I think that we keep it as CIV 3 only until all 16 civs have been played. At this point, I think the majority will have PTW, and it may even have dropped in price.

 

[Sparrowhawk]

Originally posted by ainwood
Personally, I think that we keep it as CIV 3 only until all 16 civs have been played. At this point, I think the majority will have PTW, and it may even have dropped in price.

I'll second that.

 

[Sir Yelof]

I use GotM to motivate my playing of the game. I plan to buy PTW. Therefore, I'd like GotM to include PTW.

It's not out of the question to have a GotM for Civ3 and a GotM for PTW. Of course, the problem is that it's much more work to do so. Since the .exe's are different it's a fundamentally different game (even if the actual play is very similar.) Still, I expect other discussions on this board to break into separate discussions of Civ3 "classic" and PTW.

--Yelof

 

[RufRydyr]

I'm going to abstain from voting until PTW is out and we've had a chance to see it in action. I can't even give an opionion on it at this point.

 

[Matrix]

Let me make one thing clear: this poll will not nescessarily decide what we'll do. It's merely a simple indication of what the majority thinks. I find the arguements you use here of much more value than the poll itself.

I think it's a good plan to continue the GOTM with standard Civ3 until we've played with all 16 Civs, and decide from that point on what to do.

 

[cracker]

Ainwood,

Here's your thrill gift to see if the mongols really will give you the orgasmic stimulation you need.

Make a copy of your civ3mod.bic file before making any changes.

Then go to your Civ3Edit program and load your Civ3Mod.bic file.

Click on Rules/Edit Rules in the menu or just use Cntl+R.

When the rules dialog is open, then click on the civilization tab and use the civ selection spinner to select the "Iroquois" then unselect the religious attribute and SELECT the militaristic attribute.

In the box that gives "Ceremonial Burial" as a starting tech, change this to be "Warrior Code".

In the build often column, unselect the happiness option and then select the "Off. Land units" option.

Go to the left hand side of the screen and move the aggression slider all the way to the right hand side of the slide for maximum aggression.

(if it gives you a twist, you can change the names of cities, and/or leaders, and/or Hiawatha to Ghenghis)

CLICK ON THE UNITS tab

Then use the spinner to select "horsemen" and while holding down the control key, point to the Iroqouis in the "available to" dialog box and click on the Iroquois name to turn it blue and make horsemen available to the Iroquois. Change the "Upgrade to" dialog box to read "knight".

Then use the spinner to select "Knight" and again use your control key and mouse to deselect the Iroquois (turn it from blue to white) and deny them the ability to make knights.

Then use the spinner to select "War Elephant" (which is much further down the list). (yes we are not smoking rope here) and change the "Upgrade to" dialog box to read "mounted warrior".

Then use the spinner to select "Mounted Warrior" (which is 3 above the war elephant)

• Change the prerequisite tech to be Chivalry.
• Increase the shield cost factor for Mounted Warriors to be 7.
• (if you want to be more aggressive change the shield cost factor to be 6)
• Change the "Upgrade to" field to read "Cavalry"
• Change the attack strength to be 4
• Change the defense strength to be 3
• Change the movement to be 2 (but see below).
• Do not change the required resources even though iron may actually be required

As a final simulation to give the new and improved mounted warrior some variant of the "uber mountains and hills" ability go down to unit abilities dialog box and carefully hold find the "All terrain as roads ability" that is 5th from the top. While holding down your control key, click on the "All terrain as roads" ability and now you will have Mongols with a North American flavor. You may have to reduce the movement back to 1 to keep yourself from being slaughtered by mounted warrior/keshik clones since the uber terrain feature will give them 6 moves in any direction or up to 5 moves plus one attack.

Now you can have Zulus, Aztecs, Chinese, Germans, Russians, Japanese, Babs, Immortals, and simulated Mongols all in the same game. That ought to get your blood pumping.

Note that Firaxis will probably add a new unit ability that refines the all terrain as roads feature to just treat all terrain as plains or grasslands. Can't tell you for sure what form this will take, but you get the basic picture.

Live it up, Hiawatha on steroids(aka Ghenghis with a dentist) will give you just what you need to warm up for the Keshik, Ghengis, and his teeth, and tada you will not even need to think about PTW for the next few months.

Good luck,

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by Matrix
Let me make one thing clear: this poll will not nescessarily decide what we'll do. It's merely a simple indication of what the majority thinks. I find the arguements you use here of much more value than the poll itself.

That's good, 'cause I forogt to vote

Originally posted by Cracker Here's your thrill gift to see if the mongols really will give you the orgasmic stimulation you need.

Thanks for that - I wouldn't say its quite orgasmic stimulation though....

And beside, in GOTM, you can't use modified .bic files

 

[col]

Let's face - who ISNT gonna buy it. We might winge about it but we'll All buy it anyway. Civaddict is nearer the mark...

 

[cracker]

Here's another bombshell to chew on for a while:

If PTW includes all of the same features and content as CIV3 classic just with all the patches rolled into the CD version plus multiplayer, plus the functional editor, plus 40 specialized modpack units, plus 24 new leader graphics, plus 8 new civilization graphics sets and UUs ;

whta makes anyone really think that PTW will be released to sell for less than CIV3 classic?

If on the other hand, you would still have to buy CIV3classic and then buy PTW as an Expansion Pack, why would you abandon the Civ3classic GOTM options and exclude all the potential players who have only just purchased the CIV3classic package?

A lot of unknowns here still, and the one set of known factors is that PTW does not substantively effect single player games that are "sewed up early" as in the GOTM play styles.

Just more thoughts, not blinded by marketing hype.

 

[Sir Yelof]

Originally posted by cracker
whta makes anyone really think that PTW will be released to sell for less than CIV3 classic?

If on the other hand, you would still have to buy CIV3classic and then buy PTW as an Expansion Pack, why would you abandon the Civ3classic GOTM options and exclude all the potential players who have only just purchased the CIV3classic package?

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic... here's what you should expect to see (given typical entertainment software marketing strategies, including patterns from other studios' software published by Infogrames, like RollerCoaster Tycoon)

1) Price of Civ3 stand-alone drops slightly in late summer to start clearing out inventory and excite sales.
2) PTW goes gold late summer; distribution begins in 'back to school' season around Sept/Oct. Price point will probably not be lower than reduced list price of Civ 3 (so say, $25-30, with discounters digging lower).
3) Sometime after the initial splash and the Christmas season (probably late winter) Civ3 stand-alone and PTW price points will drop significantly, to clear out more inventory in preparation for...
4) Bundled Civ3/PTW package appearing in late spring/early summer for close to the original price of Civ3 ($40-$50).

If GotM continues through the rest of the 16 civs we'll probably finish up right around #3 when the price begins to drop. So all you "late adopters" (yeah, right, we're all fanatics, who are we foolin') can delay your purchase until then.

--Yelof

 

[philippe]

we could do both.and of course i want to play multiplayer but only if they dont have cities of 3.000.000.000.000.000.000.000
poeple

 

[Matrix]

Originally posted by col
Let's face - who ISNT gonna buy it. We might winge about it but we'll All buy it anyway. Civaddict is nearer the mark...

Hear, hear... Indeed, after all we are all CivFanatics.

 

[Smoking mirror]

Matrix; Have you thought of doing both? There will still be about the same number of players, and a month is a long time, I think most people could do a a std GOTM game and a PTWGOTM in the same month. I guess it would be more work for you to organize But how much more?

If the number of people doing STD-GOTM droppedsignificantly, you could discontinue it. I think PTW will give some good GOTM options, Firaxis say that some of the special multiplayer scenarios will work fine in Single player, For example the "Regicide" game; There is already a CIV III "democracy" game, How about a Civ III "Monarchy" game?
Plus any additions to Civ III make it more fun, the air fields, outposts (keeps Barbarians away ) and radar towers will make the GOTM more fun to play.

While on the subject of extra GOTMs have you thought of doing a Scenario of the month, when the editor come out? could be fun, though it may be better waiting for PTW cos its said that it wall have a Mod Manager (Last chat said yes and no- conflicting messages from Firaxis).

 

[Gregski]

Assuming that PTW contains no obvious exploits, it should be introduced into GOTM with a delay of about one month, so that people can get a feel for the differences and be sure that there are no flaws etc to imbalance the game.

 

[Jove]

Since PTW will be the latest in Civ technology, I say yes, absolutely let's do it. It wouldn't be much different than the current system of requiring the latest patch, except for the $$$. Alexander cried because there were no new worlds to conquer. Let's not make the same mistake!