jessewclark
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2002
- Messages
- 7
So, yeah, new here, hi. Some questions:
1) The text on my City Advisor screen is all funky. Purple and fuzzy and not in that cool Quartz way. (I'm playing in X 10.1.5.) It looks bad. Anyone else having that problem?
2) With Quartz disabled, sometimes cmd-G doesn't work: the map grid won't go away. Anyone else?
3) I've got an iBook, G3 500MHz, and 640 MB RAM, which is in the recommended range of specs, but man, the game's slow. It's cool enough that I put up with it, but there's lag all over the place, windows take a long time popping up, and etc. Right now I'm in near the end (1980 AD) of a builder-style game on a standard map--I do absolutely nothing on my turns (I'm just waiting for the Cultural Victory to roll around), but it takes a full minute (I just timed it) for a turn. I hit the spacebar, and it says "Please wait..." and it's a full minute before I can hit the spacebar again. That's slow, to say the least--and I only have nine cities! Is there anything I can do to speed it up?
And some comments:
I'm only nearing the end of my third game, but so far I really like it. All the changes make sense to me and improve the game, in my opinion. The Wonders are less make-or-break, which is good. Culture is cool, a wonderful passive/aggressive mode for builder-types.
I even like the "uneven" combat, which folks apparently are livid about. An odd moment of heroism really sucks when it favors my opponents, but the same randomness rocks when it favors me! I once saw my Musketman with only one red health block take out six attacking Knights! I was cheering for the dude! Sadly, the seventh Knight got him. But I think it's cool that such a thing happens sometimes.
And I'm much impressed by the AI. I haven't played at the higher levels yet, but even at the two lowest ranks it's doing some smart stuff. Amphibious assaults, even! I'm used to the SMAC AI, and I left SMAC-type holes in my defenses, assuming the AI would be too dumb to exploit them. Nope.
I also think the way they changed airplane combat was really smart. Airplanes were the single largest weakness in the combat AI in prior games, in my opinion--because the way the units worked made it really easy for human players to come up with off-the-wall tactics no AI could anticipate. With the new plane system, though the humans and the AI are more on an equal footing, and the planes themselves are more realistic--no more can one make an "air seige" by surrounding a city with planes. And no more bomber-only conquest (not even "bombers-only-with-a-cheap-o-unit-to-take-the-cities" conquest). The new system makes it necessary to commit significant ground troops as well as bombers, which seems more realistic to me.
I liked Civ, and Civ II, but I really got deep into SMAC. I find myself missing the depth of characterization that went into that game--the factions all had really distinct personalities. The wise-cracking nature of the dialogue in Civ III put me off at first, because it "broke character," so to speak, which SMAC never did. And in SMAC, the faction you played radically changed your optimal playing style. Not so much, Civ III. But I'll live.
Anyway now I'm rambling, so bye. Any help on my questions will be appreciated.
1) The text on my City Advisor screen is all funky. Purple and fuzzy and not in that cool Quartz way. (I'm playing in X 10.1.5.) It looks bad. Anyone else having that problem?
2) With Quartz disabled, sometimes cmd-G doesn't work: the map grid won't go away. Anyone else?
3) I've got an iBook, G3 500MHz, and 640 MB RAM, which is in the recommended range of specs, but man, the game's slow. It's cool enough that I put up with it, but there's lag all over the place, windows take a long time popping up, and etc. Right now I'm in near the end (1980 AD) of a builder-style game on a standard map--I do absolutely nothing on my turns (I'm just waiting for the Cultural Victory to roll around), but it takes a full minute (I just timed it) for a turn. I hit the spacebar, and it says "Please wait..." and it's a full minute before I can hit the spacebar again. That's slow, to say the least--and I only have nine cities! Is there anything I can do to speed it up?
And some comments:
I'm only nearing the end of my third game, but so far I really like it. All the changes make sense to me and improve the game, in my opinion. The Wonders are less make-or-break, which is good. Culture is cool, a wonderful passive/aggressive mode for builder-types.
I even like the "uneven" combat, which folks apparently are livid about. An odd moment of heroism really sucks when it favors my opponents, but the same randomness rocks when it favors me! I once saw my Musketman with only one red health block take out six attacking Knights! I was cheering for the dude! Sadly, the seventh Knight got him. But I think it's cool that such a thing happens sometimes.
And I'm much impressed by the AI. I haven't played at the higher levels yet, but even at the two lowest ranks it's doing some smart stuff. Amphibious assaults, even! I'm used to the SMAC AI, and I left SMAC-type holes in my defenses, assuming the AI would be too dumb to exploit them. Nope.
I also think the way they changed airplane combat was really smart. Airplanes were the single largest weakness in the combat AI in prior games, in my opinion--because the way the units worked made it really easy for human players to come up with off-the-wall tactics no AI could anticipate. With the new plane system, though the humans and the AI are more on an equal footing, and the planes themselves are more realistic--no more can one make an "air seige" by surrounding a city with planes. And no more bomber-only conquest (not even "bombers-only-with-a-cheap-o-unit-to-take-the-cities" conquest). The new system makes it necessary to commit significant ground troops as well as bombers, which seems more realistic to me.
I liked Civ, and Civ II, but I really got deep into SMAC. I find myself missing the depth of characterization that went into that game--the factions all had really distinct personalities. The wise-cracking nature of the dialogue in Civ III put me off at first, because it "broke character," so to speak, which SMAC never did. And in SMAC, the faction you played radically changed your optimal playing style. Not so much, Civ III. But I'll live.
Anyway now I'm rambling, so bye. Any help on my questions will be appreciated.
Once it's working though, it tends to be OK (might be a memory thing). I have tons of RAM allocated to Civ3, but noticed that with Virtual Memory 'on' I get little clicks at the start/end of soundfiles... I usually keep Virutal Memory 'off' because I run ProTools audio software (it's my day job!), and this doesn't run with Virt. Memory. 'on'....