bvd
Gasbag
I've purchased Civ III long ago and, with long-overdue hardware overhauls, am now playing it. My very first game, started on Monday, without any prior experience or even a glance at the manual, was as the Germans. My initial thoughts:
Switching to city view mode is annoying after inuring to the Civ I + II interface; it requires a right click menu, a la the double-click system of Call to Power
Governors, at default, ostracize the construction of settlers. This is weird...
In Civ II, chieftain level gave you an inherent advantage when fighting; this isn't the case the Civ III. That is good. What isn't cool is that the defender is given a boost in combat, esp. in cities behind walls. This, I guess, is to supposedly make war less palatable, allow civs to fight a purely defensive war without even attacking and offset small technological disparity. In practice it prevents conquests during the ancient and middle-age timescales and, later on, allows musketeers to mow down pike men.
It also detracts from the game's historical sequence. In Civ II, cities were vulnerable from mobile attacks of chariot, elephant and crusader units up to the discovery of gun powder and conscription. At that point, defensive units, when veteran and walled, could attain very high defense bonuses. Then new republican/democratic governments, pacified by an inhibiting senate, would be loath to start wars anyway... until they later revert to fundamentalism and, with high-tech howitzers ignoring city walls and mech. inf. to cover ground, strive to subjugate their neighbors. Civ III, on the other hand, has a way of sustaining every single civ into the modern age.
Culture is another issue. While it provides an unorthodox alternative to attacking for expansionists, it is unrealistic and unreasonable. An assimilated city, gobbled up by a neighbor's delineation or sphere of influence, just changes hand without any warning to the victim or intervention by the provoker. This is notwithstanding any treaties between the two civs and it doesn't even start a war. The city even gets a free unit depending on the latter's technological level. So, theoretically, a civ can found cities on islets surrounding a large civ and, with enough culture production from cheap city improvements, can take over every one of its cities.
This may have been fixed in the patch, but, at least out of the box, conquest doesn't cause population loss. The only way I can cut swaths in a city's productivity is by pillaging local improvements, using nukes or, sometimes, bombarding.
Resources management is a good concept and plays a major role in diplomacy. However, not enough strategic resources are meted out at certain places putting some civs, especially non-expansionists, at a serious disadvantage.
The AI's are still disdainful of larger neighbors. For instance, in my game, the medieval Chinese have attacked me while I am poised to research combustion.
I miss diplomats, but definitely not caravans. Now, trade is so much more streamlined.
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It's a great game (the second best I've played), but I'm disappointed that much of the busy work in the original has remained; I was hoping to be able to just make broad decisions while micromanaging when needed, but the game plays so much like the original. For instance, I spent over half-an-hour disbanding old warriors and upgrading my ubiquitous spearmen to modernized infantry. Why can't I batch-train units?
I have very little grasp of how the simulation works and though I've done pretty well, none of my decisions have hinged on strategy, long-term or otherwise; I just build stuff and move units. I'll upload a screenshot of my glorious civ. It's 1685, my population has surpassed 80 mil and I've a score well over 1000, far outstripping my neighbors...
I hope to finish by the 19th century.
Now for my question. How much did you accomplish during your very first game?
Switching to city view mode is annoying after inuring to the Civ I + II interface; it requires a right click menu, a la the double-click system of Call to Power
Governors, at default, ostracize the construction of settlers. This is weird...
In Civ II, chieftain level gave you an inherent advantage when fighting; this isn't the case the Civ III. That is good. What isn't cool is that the defender is given a boost in combat, esp. in cities behind walls. This, I guess, is to supposedly make war less palatable, allow civs to fight a purely defensive war without even attacking and offset small technological disparity. In practice it prevents conquests during the ancient and middle-age timescales and, later on, allows musketeers to mow down pike men.
It also detracts from the game's historical sequence. In Civ II, cities were vulnerable from mobile attacks of chariot, elephant and crusader units up to the discovery of gun powder and conscription. At that point, defensive units, when veteran and walled, could attain very high defense bonuses. Then new republican/democratic governments, pacified by an inhibiting senate, would be loath to start wars anyway... until they later revert to fundamentalism and, with high-tech howitzers ignoring city walls and mech. inf. to cover ground, strive to subjugate their neighbors. Civ III, on the other hand, has a way of sustaining every single civ into the modern age.
Culture is another issue. While it provides an unorthodox alternative to attacking for expansionists, it is unrealistic and unreasonable. An assimilated city, gobbled up by a neighbor's delineation or sphere of influence, just changes hand without any warning to the victim or intervention by the provoker. This is notwithstanding any treaties between the two civs and it doesn't even start a war. The city even gets a free unit depending on the latter's technological level. So, theoretically, a civ can found cities on islets surrounding a large civ and, with enough culture production from cheap city improvements, can take over every one of its cities.
This may have been fixed in the patch, but, at least out of the box, conquest doesn't cause population loss. The only way I can cut swaths in a city's productivity is by pillaging local improvements, using nukes or, sometimes, bombarding.
Resources management is a good concept and plays a major role in diplomacy. However, not enough strategic resources are meted out at certain places putting some civs, especially non-expansionists, at a serious disadvantage.
The AI's are still disdainful of larger neighbors. For instance, in my game, the medieval Chinese have attacked me while I am poised to research combustion.
I miss diplomats, but definitely not caravans. Now, trade is so much more streamlined.
---
It's a great game (the second best I've played), but I'm disappointed that much of the busy work in the original has remained; I was hoping to be able to just make broad decisions while micromanaging when needed, but the game plays so much like the original. For instance, I spent over half-an-hour disbanding old warriors and upgrading my ubiquitous spearmen to modernized infantry. Why can't I batch-train units?
I have very little grasp of how the simulation works and though I've done pretty well, none of my decisions have hinged on strategy, long-term or otherwise; I just build stuff and move units. I'll upload a screenshot of my glorious civ. It's 1685, my population has surpassed 80 mil and I've a score well over 1000, far outstripping my neighbors...
I hope to finish by the 19th century.
Now for my question. How much did you accomplish during your very first game?
You can batch-upgrade units, Shift-U! Or did you mean something else?
