OPEN letter to FIRAXIS

Dearmad

Dead weight
Joined
Aug 18, 2001
Messages
1,527
Dear Sid & Firaxis,

I've played through Civ3 at Regent level a few times and think the game is overall an unbelievably great effort! However, I would really like you to consider a few things for game balancing reasons and ease of use in the interface:

1) There should be a way to locate Natural Resources (and luxuries) on the playing map. By 1830AD when you discover oil if there is none within your own national borders, pouring over the entire map to find where it is in other developed (Rail Roaded/Irrigated/Mined) countries is almost impossible. While I can figure out that, for example, the British have it (they have Tanks) I'd like to be able to know WHERE it is without analyzing each tile myself. Perhaps it could be a legitimate diplomat function that you pay a few coins for, or perhaps just add some hot-keys or something.

2)"R" for building roads is great. [shift]-"R" for RR's is sort of silly, don't you think? Why not keep it as "R" as in Civ1? Just do a RR when there is already a road and a road when there is nothing. Gets to be a bit too much hitting Shift/R. (Minor complaint)

3)The REPLAY at the end is GREAT to have back! Thank you! Do you think you could also denote
these events in the replay: Government Changes of each nation, the FIRST discovery of a tech (and by
whom), the FIRST building of a new unit type- where and by whom. I would send you chocolates for this addition! (MAJOR! heh heh)

4)As there is a harbor and airport symbol in cities, a barracks symbol would be very helpful too on the main map.

5)After Industrialisation, it seems a little too easy to have 20 workers all over adding to your terrain- they are just so fast and cheap- perhaps they should cost 1 production point per turn or more gold/turn at this point so that a player actually thinks about how many he has out there and if it's a wise idea to have them out there rather than just hanging around on pollution patrol.

6)the TRADE ADVISOR should also tell me in her chart who might be willing to IMPORT my stuff- not just who can export to me. I know the diplomat advisor sort of does this, but a chart would be a faster way to get the info to me.

7)Should Colonies really be destroyed by other civs when they come within their cultural sphere? It makes colonies that much less useful compared to just founding a city. I've given up using them at all. I think colonies should be commercial interests strong enough to resist anything but a military take over or bribe by another civ- at least then they would be somewhat useful.

8)The AI should get more Culture savvy in the early game- if it builds a city near mine it should understand that a TEMPLE is HIGH priority, otherwise (as has happened a LOT with me) the AI loses it's town rather quickly to me... (MAJOR)

Thanks for ANY consideration you give this!
 
completely agree with all points.

Yes colonies are useless, might as well just make a city there instead...
 
Originally posted by Northstar5757
completely agree with all points.

Yes colonies are useless, might as well just make a city there instead...

yes, colonies are just about worthless because expansion occurs so fast...Maybe, just maybe, if playing on a huge map with few civs, a colony might be a good idea for here and there to preserve exotic luxuries...lol...
 
Air-superiority didn't work for me when S was pressed, but it works for the computer player.


Recycling advance should also allow us to get by without a large Iron source or maybe a resource of our choice?


Leader production needs to be evaluated. It has taken 4 games to get a leader with extensive(more than 10-20 per game) elite vs civ wins. A poll I put up seems to indicate that this is not an unusual number. Armies shouldn't be that rare.


Elsewhere combat has been talked about so I won't go into it here, but it should be re-visited at the very least.


End game- civ in second place is content to finish second in all 6 games that I finished. IOW there was never an attempt to disrupt spaceship building, Diplo, or world conquer. Around the year 1995(if the big guy is "winning" by a certain percentage there should be a chance that) they should make a push to disrupt the big guy. IMHO


Also as a player if your votes put a diplomatic win into the hands of a computer player that is smaller than the biggest guy(and you lose as a result). You should get extra points on your civ score.


Also, Diplo victory seems to be a step back from SMAC(one of the few things I liked about that game). It should be re-visited. UN could have a bigger role in the game also as a peace broker/reperations decider, etc..
 
absolutely YES to everything above with one addition:

Leaders/Armies should be revisited AND should be an OPTION as to whether you even want them in the game or not! The low odds seem needed, but there should just be a better way to balance them in the game! If there isn't a good way to balance it- it's not a good feature to INCLUDE- that would be bad game design, no? Something Sid is not supposed to do. ;)
 
I agree with all that's been said here, but the one major BUG i'm experiencing so far is that fact that double-click and single-click are really mixed stupidly. Just make the whole damn good game single-click willya!? :confused:

I Thank you!
 
Or make it all double click - Amen! Ramon

Its almost as if thier software design doc might have had different writers for different sections...


leaders
I imagine the low odds were so that you couldn't rush too many wonders - well I have only heard of a few people who LUCKED out to get them on a regular basis.

Maybe there can be two leader types: 1 can be just an army leader 2nd could be either or
 
Originally posted by Dearmad
Anyone confrm this?: Coastal fortresses and Fighters on air-superiority are BROKEN!?!? I have yet to shoot down an enemy bomber and it appears quite a few people are experiencing this... anyone EVER succeed in attacking a passing ship or an enemy bomber?

Has anyone thought about modifying the rules to test this? I think as it stands there is a 50% chance of intercepting regular air attacks (5% for stealth). If you change the rules to make it, say, 100% to intercept, it should let us know if it is indeed broken....
 
I have three items. I don't understand why they would have been removed from CivIII, but would love to see them added back.

1 - As someone else posted in a different forum, please re-add the ability to "sentry" or "sleep" units.

2 - Re-add the "Find City" function.

3 - Re-add the ability to immediately zoom to a city that has just gone into "Civil Disorder." In CivIII there is a quick blip on the screen saying it has occured, then it jumps to the next event and you have to try to remember what city it was during the course of your turn to correct it - very cumbersome and extremely frustrating. This should at least be an option a player can choose to turn on or off.

And, a second "amen" to the double-click, single-click dilemma.
 
Originally posted by Axraxes
1 - As someone else posted in a different forum, please re-add the ability to "sentry" or "sleep" units.

2 - Re-add the "Find City" function.

3 - Re-add the ability to immediately zoom to a city that has just gone into "Civil Disorder...

1 - I agree with the sleep/sentry option. It was nice to station a unit somewhere knowing that the computer would wake it up when an enemy unit came near.

2- I believe that the feature is available under, "Locate City"

3 - Infogrames made a point to remove as many of the popup screens as possible to streamline gameplay. One of the biggest drawbacks of Civ2 gameplay was the incessant dialog boxes that would appear. I personally don't mind the new way of handling disorder. Since the city is literally on fire when you look at the map, it's not too hard to find them, or if you prefer, just use the domestic advisor to list all cities and you should be able to see who needs attention.
 
Locate City huh? I'll have to look into that - I guess I didn't spend enough time trying to find it. My bad!

As far as the pop-up screen, yes, Civ2 did have too many, but just because they overdid it doesn't mean that using them was a bad idea. I do like how they have handled Celebrate the President days in Civ3 - the fireworks over the city is a nice touch - and no pop-up is needed to inform you of that.

Civil Disorder can have severe negative consequences though (for example throwing your government into anarchy - that is if the same rules apply to Civ3 as they did to Civ1 and Civ2) if not dealt with immediately, and therefore, in my opinion, warrants the game pausing and letting you decide whether to deal with it or not. If you are not given the option, you (well, speaking for myself anyway) are more likely to forget that there is a city in need of attention and therefore more likely to suffer the consequences. There can become too many cities to really keep a good handle on - the pop-up was a nice way to let you know and let you choose whether to deal with it or not. Like I said, it would be nice if it was at least an option the player could choose to turn on or off - like Alpha Centauri does (if I remember right).

Anyway, I find it just makes city management much easier.
 
No. Sorry, I don't.
 
I agree with all of the above, expecially something to show a city in disorder. It is a nightmare to keep track of the cities at the game shoots across the map at the beginning of the turn. You could go to the domestic advisor screen to find them in one spot, but I'm all for making as much info as possible on the main map without making it too much. So, I think it would be feasible to make the cities black dots (or some unused color) instead of white on the mini-map to denote a city in disorder.
 
Originally posted by Axraxes
Civil Disorder can have severe negative consequences though (for example throwing your government into anarchy - that is if the same rules apply to Civ3 as they did to Civ1 and Civ2) if not dealt with immediately, and therefore, in my opinion, warrants the game pausing and letting you decide whether to deal with it or not...

Good point. With multiple cities, considering the lag between turns later in the game, I find myself getting up to refresh my drink or whatever in between turns. It could be bad (to say the least) to come back and not have noticed that a third of your empire is in disorder....

Perhaps a better compromise instead of popping up for each city would be a single popup from your domestic advisor in the beginning of the round listing all the cities in disorder. If none, then no report, no delays.
 
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