New Civ3 Preview & Interview @ GameSpot UK

[Little Sicily]

Maine is ME, Mongol. The M states can be hard because there's so many of them and they don't follow a set pattern (Missouri= MO, Montana= MT, Maryland= MD????) There are more N states, but most of them start with "New" and "North" which makes it easier

As for the unique units idea, I think it has potential, but I'm not sure I like the direction it's going. Why do the Americans and Germans get these neat modern units while the Romans and Zulus get old stuff. At the very least change it so each nation gets the *earliest* unit that reflects it's character, e.g. Americans should not have jets, they should have minutemen.

What bothers me more is the effect this might have on the appeal of custom civs. After all, if a civ has a boring, useless or no unique unit I may be less inclined to play it, especially in a multiplayer game. It might make more sense to bar certain civs from building units that conflict with their character. One does raise one's eyebrows at the sight of Egyptian Crusaders, Aztec Elephants and Babylonian Samurai

 

[goodbye_mr_bond]

Well we all seem to be in agreement:

NO CIV-SPECIFIC UNITS!!!!!!!

Firaxis, are you listening?

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Wrong...I think the idea COULD be excellent...BUT WE MUST have the opportunity to disable it.

Adjustable options mean that we get the best of both worlds and can change the game to suit our preferences. The greatesst thing of civ2 was how easy it is to edit...AS a multitude of great scenarios show (I personally edit scenarios to MY preferences...my greatest labour was editing 'THE LORD OF THE RINGS' by Harlan Thompson and NEXT it will be editing 'TSFE'.

 

[andycapp]

Originally posted by goodbye_mr_bond:
Well we all seem to be in agreement:

NO CIV-SPECIFIC UNITS!!!!!!!

Firaxis, are you listening?

Mr Bond I don't think you've been listening, we are NOT all in agreement. From what I have read, not just on this thread but elsewhere in these Forums opinion, varies on the issue of Civ specific units, from people who dislike the idea (like yourself) to those who think it's great and those somewhere in between.

I have concerns about this idea, but believe that if implemented in a balanced way (with, perhaps a disable option as kOc suggests) it would add further interest to the game and with Sid Meier at the tiller there is good reason to be optimistic.

 

[burak]

For me they can add to civ anything they wish, as long as there is option to disable it.

Also they shouldn't use units that are specific for some nation e.g. swordsmen instead of legion.

[This message has been edited by burak (edited May 16, 2001).]

 

[BorderPatrol]

I'd like to see a japanese Ninja!

------------------
<IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/tank.gif" border=0>If you cross the border, you better have your green card!<IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/tank.gif" border=0>

 

[Supernaut]

OHBOYOHBOYOHBOY

I am so excited reading all the stuff that has been printed (and thanks to Thunderfall for keeping us uptodate).

The new culture/resources concept looks so exciting. It is going to make such a difference to game play. It is going to be much harder to just play the all out war game. Having a worker unit at the start means you can build roads from day one, which is important for a perfectionist like me. I can see my self just putting a road in every square, and then seeing what resources I get as I progress through techs. It's going to be really frustrating, though, if you are well ahead in the tech race and then discover all the stuff you need for your tanks is on the other side of the world. Will the other civs know that they control this resource or will you have to point it out to them? (example negotiation: ME: I will give you lots of money for a trade route to your oil supplies THICKO CIV: What oil supplies? ME: THOSE OIL SUPPLIES!!! THICKO CIV: You have tried our patience for the last time, prepare for war)

I really like the culture idea - again, as a perfectionist, I will be clocking up those points pretty quick anyway! And the idea that trade routes to some things can reduce unhappiness - very interesting! Would two silk routes make two people content? Or will having one silk square in your whole empire, but lots of roads, mean that all your cities get the happiness bonus?

What worries me is the intimation in these interviews that Firaxis have almost finished the graphics but are still way behind ont he gameplay. Surely it ought to be the other way round? Make sure the concepts are right (liek the Internet wonder

) then design the graphics to fit. It would also mean they could use as much memory for the AI as they needed and then design the graphics to fit what's left. At the moment, it looks like the Ai will suffer because of all these wonderful gurning leader figures (which I will probably ignore after my second game)

 

[hotrod0823]

<FONT COLOR="Black">Text</FONT c>
I like the idea of new unique units but not necessarily Civ specific. Perhaps a better way would be to have a 7 new unique wonders that enable only one civ to create those unique units as the bonus of building a wonder. As an example have a TOP GUN (wonder) available for anyone to build but once it is built only that civ can have the F15's. Overall it looks pretty interesting,

 

[borch]

especific units? Why not?

If my japaneese swordmen are callen samurays that shouldn be a problem. The problem appears when the samury becomes 1 point stronger.

If they want to make them different you can make the swordmen 1 point stronger. (the katanas where the most sharpened objet in its time ) And at the same time you could give the swormen 1 point more of defense becouse of his heavy armor.

This way the imps would fight against the native americans (Indians normally called).

Panzers could be especially expensive although a bit better than the heavy tank for the zulus. We cant invent a unit for every body. Just a few to give some color to the game.

 

[vanniken]

Supernaut, you've brought up a great joke about resources!!

)) and btw, it is a serious problem, i hope Firaxis already realises such possible situation; and i'm wondering what the solution will be (i have some in mind, but can't formulate at this moment)..

once again, it was a really good joke

Peace

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Maybe instead of the F15, the American civ unit can be an early unit called the "European", since we didn't exist before gunpowder anyway!

Just kidding

While I appreciate supernaut's humor, I really hope the other civs are unaware of their resources prior to acquiring the appropriate tech, so I can say "I'll give you this nice medium sized city in central asia for that puny little size 1 desert city in the arabian peninsula (since only I know it is the key to the biggest oil reserves on the planet!!! mwuhahahaha!!!)

Of course the way the AI cheats...

------------------
DEATH awaits you all...with nasty, big, pointy teeth.

 

[Wentu]

I don't like at all this thing of specific units. The reason is that i don't like to know in advance that my neiboroughs in a certain period will be able to produce that specific unit. Say there exist long bow men produced only by english ppl. I am a French and i am about to fight my little Crecy or Azincourt battle and i already know they have a weapon i can't contrast if i use only knights,... this is absurd ! At least u should leave specific units not bound to civilizations names ! Let the Zulus have their MIG if there is that chance.
But after all i don't like this idea at all... is it a real thing that only one nation today can have F-15 ???? Maybe Italy has only Tornadoes but, hey, they are quite nice air units after all !

bye

Wentu

 

[dreadhead7]

Ok, I'm a little confused here. Are they planning on having these civ-specific units to last throughout the entire game? For instance, say it's the mid 1900's and I'm playing the Zulus. Do you mean to tell me that I get stuck with Impi units while fighting enemies who have MiGs and the like? In other words, will I only have access to these units? That doesn't sound exactly fair to me. To be honest, I don't like the idea of civ-specific units. I agree with some of the others in that I think that it's up to the player to make sure that their civ is superior to others. I don't like the idea of different civs havng certain advantages or disadvantages. Maybe we'll be able to disable this, I hope.

------------------
"Shake the world beneath your feet up"
--Johnny Clegg

 

[goodbye_mr_bond]

Originally posted by andycapp:
Mr Bond I don't think you've been listening, we are NOT all in agreement. From what I have read, not just on this thread but elsewhere in these Forums opinion, varies on the issue of Civ specific units, from people who dislike the idea (like yourself) to those who think it's great and those somewhere in between.

Well, okay, maybe my call for the death of civ-specific units was a bit premature, BUT if you read the posts in this thread before I made my statement, you'll see that the only one that seemed to be totally for the idea was Thunderfall, and even he added a qualifier, "If it's handled properly."

I've been all for greater realism and customizability in other threads, but this idea as it stands really stinks. It implies that the Aztecs, for instance, couldn't have developed an effective modern weapon if they'd survived into the modern periods, or that Americans wouldn't have been able to stand on equal footing with the Zulus had they encountered each other in 2000 BC. What's the point of that?

Realism is good, but too much *historical* realism detracts from the game. After all, if historical realism is what you want, then the Americans shouldn't even show up on the board until the 1700's.

On the other hand, I like the idea (forget whose, sorry) about mini military wonders such as a 'Top Gun' academy for better fighters, and so on.

'Super-units' are a good idea, but they should be available for whichever civ wants to/needs to/can develop them. I like playing the Romans. If it turns out I won't be able to because F-15s are crucial to my playing style in Civ 3 I'll be pretty unhappy. So there's my 2 cents with inflation...