it feels like i'm left behind

[Spoonwood]

Well, I don't know for sure by any means that they wanted to limit the power of ICS in civ III. However, the corruption model does have that effect. Settler cost also went up, which seems another indication, since it makes it less feasible. I do recall reading on Sirian's Great Library that people knew that ICS had more power than any other city placement scheme in civ II before civ III came out (he wasn't involved with the developers at that point). I'd guess the designers knew this too.

With respect to civ history, you might find T-Hawk's comments interesting.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Well, I don't know for sure by any means that they wanted to limit the power of ICS in civ III. However, the corruption model does have that effect. Settler cost also went up, which seems another indication, since it makes it less feasible. I do recall reading on Sirian's Great Library that people knew that ICS had more power than any other city placement scheme in civ II before civ III came out (he wasn't involved with the developers at that point). I'd guess the designers knew this too.

With respect to civ history, you might find T-Hawk's comments interesting.

Thanks, Spoonwood, the article was interesting. You're right, the corruption model does have that effect to a degree. Maybe I'll have to see if I can pick up SMAC.

By the way, the real killer in CivIV would be to stuff your far-away cities close together. In CivIII you specialist farm those cities to get increased unit support and a little research for free (except cost of settler and worker turns).

 

[aukrest]

Alas, I ended up buying Civilization 5 after watching a video preview, that lead to more videos and made me get the game weekend after release. I was very sad that I had wasted money on it and even sadder that it was a Civilization game I had wasted it on.

 

[scratchthepitch]

I prefer Civ3 out of the first 4 editions. Never cared for 4 at all. Civ5 doesn't look like an improvement, either, from what I've read about it. The game needs a new AI and some substantial concept changes, not just better graphics and minor tweeks. I don't think that will happen unfortunately, so I think I'll stick to Civ3 mods. Just the other day I downloaded Civ3 Complete from Impulse when I discovered that my old Conquests disk was too scratched to work anymore.