Open letter to Sid's Minions for a priority in the next release

[damunzy]

Originally posted by David In Asia
i say this with the greatest respect to you all, but, to my knowledge, firaxis never promised a completely and utterly customisable game. or did they? please correct me if i'm wrong. it's strange, but of all the games i've played, and all the forums i've used, this is the only game that so many of it's players are demanding to re-write the game to their own tastes. is this because civ II was so flexible that people expected it of civ III?

They might not have promised complete customization but as was pointed out before me they did promise a mnore powerful editor. I was posting before Civ3 came out asking for a customizable game so it would be more flexible than Civ2. It is funny that the editor in StarCraft is more flexible in some ways than Civ3's.

 

[LaRo]

Originally posted by Quentin
It is strange how Firaxis seems to be replying less to posts these days. When I first joined they seemed to reply much more often. Maybe it is because many of the posts that concern them recently are bad to them.

They are active in thread only on Apolyton. We don't know what they are discussing or working on unless someone bring it on a thread here on civfanatics.

Apolyton and civfanatics are the only two major civfansites. Firaxis should bring on civfanatics what they said. I don't have time to participate two forums.

 

[Zouave]

I know for a FACT Firaxis reads posts at Apolyton, and often replies.

If you want to be sure they get your criticisms, send your frags to: http://www.firaxis.com/contact_gamefeedback.cfm

 

[damunzy]

Originally posted by LaRo


They are active in thread only on Apolyton. We don't know what they are discussing or working on unless someone bring it on a thread here on civfanatics.

Apolyton and civfanatics are the only two major civfansites. Firaxis should bring on civfanatics what they said. I don't have time to participate two forums.

I bet they do come over and read...but it is pretty sad that they don't post as often over here. I too don't have the time or the desire to visit Poly, but we won't go into that.

Maybe someday they will realize we have as viable a Civ community as Poly....in fact I believe Thunderfall has posted stats showing that CivFan has surpased Poly in a lot of categories.

 

[Selous]

Originally posted by PaleHorse76
I bet they do come over and read...but it is pretty sad that they don't post as often over here. I too don't have the time or the desire to visit Poly, but we won't go into that.

Maybe someday they will realize we have as viable a Civ community as Poly....in fact I believe Thunderfall has posted stats showing that CivFan has surpased Poly in a lot of categories.

well that probally has something to do with our mature level of dissgussion we offer far to a high a standard to appease with BS ... or something like that .... or perhaps they are rude bastards the disreguard us

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by Selous


well that probally has something to do with our mature level of dissgussion we offer far to a high a standard to appease with BS ... or something like that .... or perhaps they are rude bastards the disreguard us

Huh??
Was that English or Australian?

 

[andyo]

Originally posted by Dralix


Instead of continually bashing the vendor for not giving you the exact game that you want, why not praise them for giving you the ability to make the game that you want? It seems that instead of pandering to the great many dimwits, you want them to pander to the exact specs that you want.

tell it like it is dralix - what i can never understand is that if people really don't like the game, don't play it - no one is forcing you to play a game if you really don't like it

 

[Slive Draver]

multiplayer! I wanna beat my brother once and for all!

 

[Zouave]

What I "want" was:

1. To not have paid fifty dollars five months ago for a product which still is a beta.

2. To be able to turn off the idiotic Culture Flipping.

3. To have had a MORE complex and developed game in regards to units, warfare, techs, and the like - instead of LESS developed as compared to Civ 2.

4. To have been told ON THE BOX that Civ 3 does NOT contain Cheat Mode or Scenario-building as Civ 2 (I would not have bought it if so told - why we were not told).

5. To have a better Editor, one that never crashes.

6. To have a faster game.

7. To be able to turn off the damn Settler Diarrhea that makes the first three or four millennia nothing but a tedious land-grab.

And lots of other stuff the Editor can't handle.

 

[TedG]

Originally posted by Zouave
What I "want" was:

1. To not have paid fifty dollars five months ago for a product which still is a beta.

2. To be able to turn off the idiotic Culture Flipping.

3. To have had a MORE complex and developed game in regards to units, warfare, techs, and the like - instead of LESS developed as compared to Civ 2.

4. To have been told ON THE BOX that Civ 3 does NOT contain Cheat Mode or Scenario-building as Civ 2 (I would not have bought it if so told - why we were not told).

5. To have a better Editor, one that never crashes.

6. To have a faster game.

7. To be able to turn off the damn Settler Diarrhea that makes the first three or four millennia nothing but a tedious land-grab.

And lots of other stuff the Editor can't handle.

I agree with all of your points:

1. Yep, Civ3 is far from complete. They simply rushed it out for the holiday season, while they should have taken more time on completing it, rather than releasing an unfinished product and later releasing patches/ex. packs.

2. That should have been an option from the start. I'm not sure if the culture flipping you're referring to is assimilation, or conquered cities returning to their former civ...but either way, they should have made that more customizable. For example, they could have at least made it where you don't lose your garrison of units when you've just conquered a city and it reverts back.

3. Yeah, in many ways Civ3 is dummied down from Civ2 and SMAC. I really hate the combat system, which is very close to that of Civ1. I can't understand why they fixed that in Civ2, then ruined it again in Civ3. The combat system could really be improved by having full customization of each individual unit's strengths and weaknesses, such as certain units being really effective against certain other units, but weak against other units. The HP bonus they added fixes things up a little, but they should, if nothing else, bring back firepower from Civ2. There should be no mathematical probability that a spearman can beat a tank (which is how it currently is, almost like Civ1), regardless of terrain defense bonuses. Spearmen should not ever be able to defeat tanks.

Another thing is the ridiculous diplomacy, and stupid artificial unintelligence that doesn't know when it's being beaten until they have 2 cities left (of course, you had to raze all the cities you conqered so you wouldn't lose your military units to revolting citizens).

4. That would be the honest thing to do, but of course they're not gonna say that because they want people to buy the game.

5. The editor needs more improvement than the game itself, for the most part. The problem with adding features in the editor is they also have to edit the game code to support the changes - yet another reason they should have finished the game before releasing it.

6. I'm just beginning to learn some programming, and I know that there are ways to make a faster-running, more efficient program. It seems that, with each patch, the game is getting slower and slower, especially on larger maps with more civs. They should concentrate some on optimizing the code so that the game runs faster, and allow background-running save game compression as an option.

7. They should add an "AI expansion rate" option in the editor so that we can adjust the level of "settler diarrhea." They also need to change the AI code so that the AI looks for the best places for city sites, instead of just trying to own more land and building cities in any old place.

And then there are a million other things that need to be done to fix Civ3.

 

[DelinquentRock]

TedG, A spear man can beat a tank in real life, and in the case of Soviet Tanks the can kill the man using it too. There is an opening on the engine that helps it breath. If you clog up the gears then (in soviet tanks) an emergency extinguisher turns on the fumes from the extinguisher kills the people inside. In other tanks the engine just overheats and stops. Of course I do agree that this in no way relates to the game and should be fixed. Just thought I would point out that it is possible, and in fact that it has been done in wars. It is a guerilla tact used by third world counties that had to fight the USSR.

 

[TedG]

Originally posted by DelinquentRock
TedG, A spear man can beat a tank in real life, and in the case of Soviet Tanks the can kill the man using it too. There is an opening on the engine that helps it breath. If you clog up the gears then (in soviet tanks) an emergency extinguisher turns on the fumes from the extinguisher kills the people inside. In other tanks the engine just overheats and stops. Of course I do agree that this in no way relates to the game and should be fixed. Just thought I would point out that it is possible, and in fact that it has been done in wars. It is a guerilla tact used by third world counties that had to fight the USSR.

Of course there are always those silly scenarios about a man with a spear destroying a tank...but in a realistic battle situation, the chances of that happening are close to none. The chances of it happening in Civ3, especially if the spearman is on a mountain square, are too high. And also there's no real justification for a marine or infantry unit to lose to a spearman, either. The main reason being that they have ranged weapons, and are trained to use their weapons to their advantage, so they'd take out a soldier with only a melee weapon (in this case, a spear) rather easily.

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by TedG


Of course there are always those silly scenarios about a man with a spear destroying a tank...but in a realistic battle situation, the chances of that happening are close to none. The chances of it happening in Civ3, especially if the spearman is on a mountain square, are too high. And also there's no real justification for a marine or infantry unit to lose to a spearman, either. The main reason being that they have ranged weapons, and are trained to use their weapons to their advantage, so they'd take out a soldier with only a melee weapon (in this case, a spear) rather easily.

I think the chances of losing to ancient units is too high, so I upped the stats for all modern units, and that solution works very well. However, in real life you have to be careful with your modern units. Or else the same thing can happen as to that US destroyer in Yemen, and the US Marine unit in Lebanon during the Reagan years, and the US Rangers in the movie Black Hawk Down....

 

[DelinquentRock]

Actually it happens more often than you may think. In fact it is something they teach to you in advance military training. Of course they do tell you that a shotgun works much better, but the fact still remains that this game has nothing to do with that and should be changed.

 

[LaRo]

Originally posted by DelinquentRock
TedG, A spear man can beat a tank in real life, and in the case of Soviet Tanks the can kill the man using it too. There is an opening on the engine that helps it breath. If you clog up the gears then (in soviet tanks) an emergency extinguisher turns on the fumes from the extinguisher kills the people inside. In other tanks the engine just overheats and stops. Of course I do agree that this in no way relates to the game and should be fixed. Just thought I would point out that it is possible, and in fact that it has been done in wars. It is a guerilla tact used by third world counties that had to fight the USSR.

Our good friend Speary. What will die first, Speary or the threads about him?

 

[David In Asia]

noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!!!!
it is just so p...a...i...n...f...u...l

what perplexes me the most is the only way this situation can occur would be in a highly unbalanced game - either you're too good for the level being played, or not good enough. time to move to another level.

oh dear. i've just joined a "spearman vs. tank" debate. i'm going to go outside and shoot myself.

d

ps "What will die first, Speary or the threads about him?" - LOL LaRo