Hoping a Dev will see this (tips and suggestions)

[bst1]

This is just my list of things I think need to be patched. Feel free to comment.

*edited to reflect 1.16 patch and things that I thought were broken but weren't *

1. Give us multiplayer in a patch. Civ2 is an old game in it's first incarnation. It's understandable that multiplayer was released in a seperate version for retail sale. It's almost 2002 at the time this game was released. It really should have had a multiplayer option. Please don't make us buy your game twice to get multiplayer.

2. Increase transport capacity for Aircraft Carriers. This isn't that big of a deal, but it sure seems like I should be able to put more than 4 planes on an aircraft carrier. Maybe an upgraded (nuclear-class) carrier with increased carrying capacity is in order.

3. Consider checking again the combat formula when units of different ages engage in combat. One of the things I remember reading in some Civ3 preview or another was something along the lines of "no longer will a single fortified pikeman on a mountain tile be able to defeat hordes of enemy tanks." While the terrain bonus does seem to have been scaled down from Civ2, I still have noticed a disconcerting ability for the AI to defeat more modern units with obsolete ones.

4. Give me the option to accept or decline winning under victory conditions like Cultural and Dominance. While it's nice to leave these options on in case you end up in a tough game and, say, Cultural ends up being your only viable victory option; it would be nice to have it allow me to decline victory under these conditions and continue on with the Space Race, Diplomatic Victory, or one of the other choices while still having the game keep score.

5. Allow me to plug in length x width of tiles for board size. This is step down since Civ2 had this option. It was nice. Why did you decide not to implement it?

6. Currently Artillery cannot be airlifted. Is this by design? If I can move it by rail (or road) shouldn't I be able to airlift it? I'm not sure if this affects Radar Artillery as well.

7. Add more menus for me to keep tabs on things. To see what active trade agreements I have with another civ I have to contact that leader (and risk pissing them off) just so I can check the "Active" box to see what deals we have and how long they are going to be active for. This also applies to diplomatic agreements. While the foreign advisor shows me who I have diplomatic relations with, I still have to contact the various leaders to find out how many turns until expiration, etc.

8. Consider adding to the right click options for units. Would be nice if I didn't have to either a) click the hotbutton icon on the screen or b) learn and use the (unmappable I might add) keyboard commands to do things like Go To, Fortify, Disband, Load, etc. Yes I know some of these work when the unit is right clicked from inside the city screen, but it would be nice if it worked from off the map.


That's all I can think of at the moment. I'll edit with more later.

 

[Ranges]

And this has been raised before;
make planes kill ships

simple as that.
Greets,
-Ranges

 

[Flynn]

Originally posted by bst1
This is just my list of things I think need to be patched. Feel free to comment.


1. Reduce corruption.

Numerous solutions to this proposed on this board, but still a strong consensus that corruption is overdone in Civ3. (Mostly that courthouses and police stations should actually reduce corruption in a far-flung empire in fairly short order.)

3. Give us multiplayer in a patch.

Have no idea if they'll make us buy it, but multiplayer in a forthcoming add on of some kind is a definite.

4. Increase transport capacity for Aircraft Carriers. This isn't that big of a deal, but it sure seems like I should be able to put more than 4 planes on an aircraft carrier. Maybe an upgraded (nuclear-class) carrier with increased carrying capacity is in order.

You'll see 3rd party produced units to cover this.

5. Allow me to toggle off the option to have civs start in historically accurate groupings.

Only relevant when playing on the planet earth (many people don't.) But it would be awfully nice for map designers to be able to designate civ starting points.

6. Consider checking again the combat formula when units of different ages engage in combat.

True, it's sometimes a little silly, but it's much improved. And frankly, if tanks did try to attack a group of pikemen on a mountain, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the pikemen win. *You can't drive a tank up a mountain except on roads*. You think a group of pikemen could find a way to throw a track on an early tank if it had to drive right past them on a curvy mountain road? I think I could probably come up with something.

What should exist is a fear factor for that kind of encounter. The first time archers encounter muskets should scare the hell out of them, and they should lose. The ability of older units to defeat more modern ones should improve over the time after the civs' first encounter with the tech.

7. When a Golden Age is set to begin consider allowing the player the option to choose whether to allow it or not.

Not a terrible idea, but frankly, I consider this to be a great counter-balance against civs with early special units. The advantage of getting your CSU in 2000 BC, when you can still overrun an entire civilization with a dozen units, is pretty big. The fact that you get your Golden Age in the early game is a counterbalance to that.

8. Give me the option to accept or decline winning under victory conditions like Cultural and Dominance.

Agreed. People have encountered accidental culture wins on many occassions.

10. Currently Artillery cannot be airlifted.

The rules for what can be airlifted are frustrating and silly. However, you can change this yourself in the scenario editor. Many people already are.

11. Add more menus for me to keep tabs on things.

Amen to that. Trade and Diplomatic screen interfaces are terrible. Why can't I switch back to the map and look around at an enemy's cities while I'm talking to him, especially if I'm negotiating a peace settlement? Why can't I right click on a tech in the diplomacy window and the civilopedia entry for it? Why not the same in the production screen? Why did people have to create their own graphics libraries to get culture/cost/upgrade/capacity information into the build icons? Why do the happy/content/unhappy faces in the domestic advisor screen look so similar that you have absolutely no clue what the real numbers are? Why when I resort my city list doesn't it stick? Why are cities always listed by age, when there are a dozen other critieria that are clearly more important? Why can't I find out how many culture points my entire civilization produces per turn? Why doesn't the trade advisor actually advise me about my trades -- telling me things like what I'm trading for what, and how much I'm getting, and how many turns are left on the deal? Why doesn't the trade advisor talk to the foreign advisor, and notify me if I can renegotiate a deal for more money, since the foreign advisor always seems to know the price-threshold for a rival civ? Why can't I get a list of what technologies a rival has after I have an embassy with them? Why do you instead make me reverse extrapolate what they have by virtue of the differences in our technology trade options?

A basic problem with the game is that there is no Foreign Advisor. There's a Diplomatic Advisor, but there's no advisor that actually provides you with information about the other civs. You just have to derive it.

12. Consider stopping the AI from "auto-choosing" the next city improvement I want to build after creating units.

Right-click on the city and choose "Contact Governor." You can adjust this yourself.

13. Consider adding to the right click options for units.

Actually, I'd like batch order options.

Right-click on a unit, hit Shift-G, "Send all units of this type to location: [click map to select] or [nearest city] or [nearest barracks]"

That's a pretty good example. Making me find and individually click on all my units and give individual orders is a great way to make someone be challenged by the game interface, rather than the game.

How about if I right-click a unit and get:

Select all units of this type...
all
fortified in cities
fortified in forts
fortified on open ground
not fortified
outside out borders
inside our borders

Then:
Goto...
clicked location
nearest friendly city
nearest friendly barracks
nearest friendly border
nearest enemy city
nearest enemy unit
nearest enemy border

How about waypoints? How about automated deployment points? MoO had both of these 7 years ago. How about bookmark locations on the map, so you can mark a location with a number key, get recentered on a unit, press the number key to jump the map to the standard location, then press "goto" and click the location?

14. When I right-click a stack of fortified or sleeping (loaded on a transport) units allow me to wake them in groups of my choosing.

Hold down the shift key when waking the units to wake multiple units. Sad that this is buried in the readme.

 

[rustydawg]

I'm sorry, Tanks getting beat by medieval units is a SERIOUS problem that needs to be solved. I've had damaged modern armor stationed in cities get killed by longbowman. This is ridiculous and needs to be fixed. I dont remember this being nearly as big a problem in civ2

 

[bst1]

Flynn:

Every random map I have played (not the World i.e. Earth map) as the Egyptians I have started near the Romans. We're talking like probably 30 times in a row here (alot of aborted games ).

 

[bst1]

Also has anyone else noticed this phenomenon:

You're researching a tech. Everything is normal as far as your science slider goes, meaning you see a difference in 'turns to discovery' in having science set to 10% and having it set to 100% (not first tech of the game which sometimes will stay at max turns because of lack of coin production in capital)

Then, you go to research the next tech. Nothing has changed, your goverment is the same, no cities in disorder, everything is exactly the same, except that now no matter what you put your science slider at the 'turns to discovery' is always 32.

Is this a bug?

 

[Essex]

Love this thread, hope someone at Firaxis actually looks here. Minor addition to the whole diplomacy thing. It seems silly to me that its impossible to find out what deals the AI's have with each other. Especially once you have espionage. Say you can see 2 lots of gems in a civs area, but on the trade screen he has 0 gems for trade. Obviously he's trading those gems to someone but it's impossible to find out who. A lot of times I might want to ally this guy in a war against whoever he's trading the gems to in order to open up the gems so I can trade for them. Can't do it. Minor compared to most of the problems but annoying and unrealistic also, especially if you have a spy in the civ.

Another thing that bugs me is the adjusting you have to do to get the best deal out of a civ. At first I was like cool, real diplomacy, but now I realize the AI always offers a bit lower than he's willing to pay and it's a pain in the ass to have to keep reoffering/demanding slightly higher and lower amounts of gold to get the best deal. Honestly they should just offer in gold what they are willing to pay so we can be saved a lot of needless clicking. If not put in some sort of slider so once we have offered a lump sum we can quickly move it up and down without having to type in new numbers each time. On the realism side it's a bit odd that my advisor ALWAYS knows down to the last gold piece exactly what it takes to make a deal go. :crazyeyes


About the science thing posted by the previous poster, some techs cost more than others so even though the one you were previously researching you could get sooner than the max 32 turns by adjusting your slider, you are stuck with 32 turns for the new tech just because it costs more beakers.

 

[bst1]

I guess that must be it....sure is a big jump from researching Polytheism in like 9 turns at 90% science to Monarchy at 32 turns though....

 

[joespaniel]

The tech % and number of turns to discover is also affected by how many civs have or dont have that specific tech. Its a fraction based on number of civs in the game.

Add to list of tips & suggestions:

-Need a mini-map in the editor. Or a zoom out feature. Its too hard to make new maps when you cant see the whole thing.

 

[belzedar]

I have an idea I think would be great,
Flagships, like heros are for land flagships could be for sea.

You can only have one flagship at a time, conditions are the same as for a hero, % chance when veteren naval unit wins.

-Flagships get a flag or something to identify them
-Offensive flagship gets +2 attack and can attack twice in 1 turn
-Carrier flagship gets +2 defense and +2 capacity

or something like that.

Zedar

 

[bst1]

joespaniel:

Thanks, I didn't know that

 

[Flynn]

Another frustrating UI issue I ran into today...

Your military advisor tells you you've taken over a city, whether by culture flipping or military conquest. He asks, "Shall we install a new governor?"

Why can't I say "Zoom to city?" I'd like to look at the city before I answer the question. I think that would be pretty normal a process for a leader, right? If the citizenry of a city were offering to convert to your nationality, don't you think they would tell you what was *in* it? I certainly do.

And I say again that if I bother to build the SDI, I should get a full map reveal and the ability to investigate any enemy city for free at any time. Those satellites have cameras.

 

[wilboman]

Why on earth can't workers be set to "autoclear pollution"?
I hate micromanaging, but if I set the workers to auto, they start digging up my irrigation and placing mines instead. I've finetuned my empire just the way I want it, I JUST WANT THE LITTLE B******S TO CLEAR MY POLLUTION FOR ME!

And I miss the Top Five Cities screen. Now you actually have to retire to get it.

I also miss the wonders screen, like the one in SMAC. You know the one with who's building the new ones and all that?

Paratroopers should be able to jump from ANY city, not just ones with airports, and there should be a possibility to build airfields. I miss 'em too.

All in all it's a good game but there is a lot that could be better.

 

[bst1]

Wilboman:

shift + p for autoclear pollution
shift + a for automate with leaving existing improvments
F7 - F11 are useful screens that you are used to from civ2 and smac including wonder screen, top 5 cities, demographics, etc

 

[cameramano]

At first I was very upset about the corruption levels in Civ III. I wanted to be able to control the entire map and have it work for me ala Civ II. However, I have learned to respect the corruption scheme.

The primary strength of the distance is that you are limited to a "nation." Sure you can have an empire, but the empire requires lots of excess money. Therefore colonial cities must have an advantage (such as a resource, trade, or enemy expansion denial) to be worth the cost. This is realistic. All the big empires of the past eventually broke up. (Or this post would be in Latin)

The result of the new system will be a game in which score is not the all encompassing factor that it was in Civ II. No longer will the sole objective of advanced gamers be to mindlessly tend a civ to 2010, launch the spaceship, and mindlessly tend it until it lands for a jacked up score in the 3000% range.

Instead the goal is to survive the increasingly tougher levels and win in harder ways.

Oh... and will the programmers tweak navel warfare so a galley doesn't hurt my battleship!

 

[Essex]

Well that's cool, I knew about the shift-a command to have your workers not replace stuff you built already but I didn't know about shift-p to clear pollution. Learn something new every day.

In my opinion the level of automation was way underdone. Personally I think when you automate a worker you should get a quick pop-up screen with much more detailed options about what you want him to do such as: irrigate only, mine only, road only, work near such and such city only, etc. and each of these should be able to be toggled separately so that you could have a worker road and irrigate around a particular city and when all the squares are done he reverts back to manual control. God the time I waste in the modern age getting my workers to do crap because the automation just can't be optimized properly.

Secondly, the city governers are morons. Does anyone ever actually want to build privateers? How about cossacks when modern tanks are available. I loved how in SMAC you could make units obsolete yourself. I always kept my city lists very compact so I could quickly decide what to make and didn't have to scroll very much. Personally I think their should be a screen where you can set up the city improvements and units you want to build. I rarely build any sea going units so I for instance would erase all of them from my cities lists. Even better would be if you could set up graduated lists. For example first list would contain temple, library, barracks and most modern defender. Once your city has built these 3 city improvements the next list is available say courthouse, factory, cathedral, colloseum, university. If you could set this up it would make taking over new cities in the late game much less tedious. I hate scrolling through a ton of useless units and improvements in a new city which is only producing 1 shield anyway. Finally, I desperately want another city screen which lists which improvements each city has made. Doesnt seem like it would be too hard just set up a grid with cities down the left side and each city improvement listed along the top and have the box checked once the improvement is built in a certain city.

Comments, problems, further suggestions?

 

[wilboman]

(>_<)

I now officially feel like an idiot. I obviously didn't read the manual well enough or sumthing. Where did you find all that stuff, bst 1?
Thnx anyway. I'm learning as I go along.

Ah well. The thing I do miss is the High Council (don't tell me thats hidden away somewhere too). I used to love watching my little advisors bite each others heads off and them ignore them completely. And I agree with all of you that the combat realism is found severely wanting. One thing I miss from SMAC was the ability to take over ships. It would be fun if privateers could do that for example. That would make them far more useful...

 

[bst1]

On your Civ3 disc under the manual folder is a copy of the manual in .pdf (adobe acrobat) format. The last entry under the 'References' chapter (pg. 197) has all the keyboard shortcuts listed. I normally open this up while I'm playing so I can alt-tab back and forth as needed.

Here are some more things you can specify when automating workers:

Automate Worker: A

Automate,Without Altering: Shift-A
Preexisting Improvements

Automate,This City Only: Shift-I

Automate,Clean Up Pollution Only: Shift-P

Automate,Clear Forests Only: Shift-F

Automate, Clear Jungle Only: Shift-J

Build Railroad To: Ctrl-Shift-R

Build Road To: Ctrl-R

Build Road To,Then Colony: Ctrl-B

Irrigate to Nearest City: Ctrl-I

 

[rustydawg]

Is there an option to not view each of your workers? When you get a huge empire and have several armies of workers running around it can take 5 minutes in between when you actually get to move or control anything, just watching workers zoom around all over the place.