PC.IGN's Civ3 Preview Update: Part II

[Thunderfall]

PC.IGN has updated their Civ3 preview section again with new info on the relationship between trade and war. The key ideas from the update are listed below:<font color=brown size=2>
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[*]Civ III will also add resource prerequisites for units. So, for instance, once you've found bronze, you can begin to produce phalanxes. If you don't have access to any bronze, you'll have to trade for it before you can make phalanxes. Steel will be needed for tanks, horses for cavalry, rubber for modern wheeled vehicles, and oil for jet fighters. Each unit is tied to a resource so you're available forces will be dictated by your own resource supply.
[*]Rather than paying a production upkeep for your units, you will pay gold instead. This frees up shields for production but puts a slightly higher strain on your economy.
[*]Available later in the game, Nationalism (a NEW government type) is analogous to the ideology of early nineteenth century Europe.... To switch to Nationalism your culture rating must be quite high. The benefit of Nationalism is that you can mobilize your economy for war or peace. Mobilizing for war halves the cost of all military units and improvements, but doubles all others. Once mobilized for war, you must select an enemy. You cannot switch out of a wartime economy until the war ends. Mobilizing for peace has the opposite effect, halving the cost of other improvements, but doubling your military expenditures.
[*]On the conquest side you'll have access to something like 60 units. While many of these are the same as they were in the previous game, each of the game's sixteen civilizations will have a unique unit that fits in a particular era. Instead of swordsmen, Rome will have Legions. The Greeks replace spearmen with Hoplites. The English make use of the Man-o-War instead of the Frigate while the French create Musketeers. The American F-15 replaces the basic jet fighter and the German Panzer gives them the edge over normal tanks. The real challenge is in balancing the various super units across the various eras.
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>> <a href="http://pc.ign.com/previews/12062.html" target=link>Read the full article at PC.IGN</a>

[This message has been edited by Thunderfall (edited May 26, 2001).]

 

[BlueMonday]

OK, I love this resources equals units idea. I'm getting red faced just thinking about it. I though it was a bad idea at first, but now that I see that it will be a major tactic in the game, I love the mofro.

Money instead of shield upkeep...HMM...I can see that going both ways, but I'm optimistic. As I see it, it will encourage players to have a elite standing army, and then build a larger one when going to war (kinda like in real life). Also, I don't have to worry about building too many units in one city and losing production. But as to how much it costs...I guess that will encourage player to expand with economics too. Can't wait to try this out.

Nationalist Government: I think I have to try it in order to get a good critique.

Civ Specific Units: GRRRRRRR! Bad idea.

*I think I have a legitimate beef here: All these changes seem to be restricting playing styles. In civ 2 you could do all sorts of things in all different manners, but it seems that these changes are constricting them more and more. Expanding militarily is almost out of the question. You can't just take over cities anymore, you have to assimilate them. You can't keep a monsterous army cause you can't afford it.

Maybe I'm jumping the gun, but it seems to me that the designers are homogenizing the playing styles. You have to build a strong economy, strong culture, adaptable army. It seems to be getting a little too close to the real thing. I mean, how realistic was taking over the entire world in the first place? and now it seems nearly impossible with all these new fangled additions. It seems to me that you have to fight in the game too much like you would in real life. You can't just take over the world in civ 3;(just like in real life) but yet, that was one of the funnest things in civ 2.

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<IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/image_uploads/goodbye3.jpg" border=0>
<FONT COLOR="blue">Oh Danny Boy, the pines...the pines are calling. From glenn to glenn and down the mountainside.
The summer's gone and all the roses are dying...</FONT c>

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

I heard about each Civ having special unit's during the game.(like greekshalanx & ammerican's:f15)

But i have my questions about that ,because:

Since you have more year's per turn in the beginning ,and so more playtime in the modern age than the bronze age (and the fact that most of the war's i waged were in the modern times (when i was fullproduced)), won't it be more interresting to play american's or germans because you can mass produce the special unit and have it for much longer.

 

[Flak]

1. They should have an option where all Civs can build all units. Probably a pull down option would be nice.

2. If the military units are going to start costing money, then they had better 'adjust' the economics so that a Civ can maintain atleast a working military and still save money. It's hard to see that working with the economics (especially early on) of Civ II. I sure hope they kept that in mind.
Also, after so many units (may I suggest 4 for a supporting city), the unit should not take money but production shields. This reflects how as a Civ gears toward war, more and more of its culture and focus are brought in. You can only pay for so much of an army before you really have to significantly shift production and other resouces toward war.

Flak

 

[goodbye_mr_bond]

Originally posted by BlueMonday:
Maybe I'm jumping the gun, but it seems to me that the designers are homogenizing the playing styles. You have to build a strong economy, strong culture, adaptable army. It seems to be getting a little too close to the real thing.

Can't agree with you that this is a problem, I'm afraid. After all the game is called "Civilization" and not "War". Besides, if you want a quick conquest game, you'll always have Civ 2 right?

 

[BlueMonday]

Dammit, Bond, restricting playing styles is a problem. My point was that in civ 2 you could win by any number of methods, be it conquest or SS or a nice little mix of the two. But it seems to me that the way things are shaping up, that you can only win if you get a definitive edge in economics. Granted that's true in real life, but it downplays the military conquest element too much. It appears to me that with the whole culture thing, assimilation of cities, and a number of other features that conquering the world is no longer a possibility.

Now, I may be wrong here, after all, I don't know how all these things will pan out in the end. But in any case, me playing civ 2 for another five years while they develop civ 4 is not an acceptable solution. I love the game, but after this long, there is no way that I can keep playing it over and over and over again while everyone is having all sorts of fun with civ 3. [cold shivers running up my back]

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<IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/image_uploads/goodbye3.jpg" border=0>
<FONT COLOR="blue">Oh Danny Boy, the pines...the pines are calling. From glenn to glenn and down the mountainside.
The summer's gone and all the roses are dying...</FONT c>

 

[vanniken]

The benefit of Nationalism is that you can mobilize your economy for war or peace. Mobilizing for war halves the cost of all military units and improvements, but doubles all others.
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why doubles others??? nationalism is an idea (you may say - ideology), that teaches (or tries to bring out the feeling when) people (want) to invest everything they have for the glory of their country/nation or whatever.. we had similar ideology here in LV in 30ies (20th cent.) - our science/production/military was on rise.. the same was is GER, when Hitler ruled the country.. so, from where the heck is coming that wrong concept? taking out fundamentalism by renaming it? this sucks

 

[GJ]

(Hi, I'm new here, and you'll be seeing a lot more of me as time goes on... heh heh heh.)

My thoughts on these features:

I have no problem with the idea of resource prerequisites. I think monopolization would generally be a good thing and promote expansionism for resource control.

However, I think monopolization has its downsides, too. Warcraft 2 players amongst us will remember GoW at 8:00 - not fun to play, because it was hard to get resources, and if you randomly drew it in multiplayer, you were screwed. I'm afraid that might start happening here: if you get an unlucky starting position, you'll only be able to build the most basic units, while other civs are advancing and getting new resources quickly.

To that end I think there should be technologies added to the tree as companions to Chemistry that allow for "surrogate" materials. Thus, if your resource situation is poor, you can still compete by defending yourself and building up culture. Other ideas in this regard are the use of Fusion and Environmentalism to synthesize/reduce consumption of resources, or the development of this idea with religion...but that's another post...

On production upkeep: Gold sounds good to me. It does seem like a *lot* of emphasis is being put on having a strong economy. Will the need for economic development by the player be reflected by having a complex economic system (with inflation, etc.)? It seems that the developers are going for a game whose systems reflect those used in history, and economic control via such methods as land/currency-based economy and the function of inflation were very important throughout history.

Nationalism I'll have to try.

The conquest side... *shudder*
In any situation where you grant unique powers to unique civilizations, you're going to have discussions about game balance. I'm a Starcraft vet (even though I haven't played in two years) and seen these discussions abound. Additionally, as strategies develop around different units, each civ will play the game differently, and that might lead to frequent arguments about who's going to play what civ.

It also seems an unfair advantage to those civs that have modern super-units (discussing game balance right off the bat!) as it forces civs like the Romans and Greeks to quickly assert military power (because their super-units are first to become obsolete), which won't be an easy task in the early game when players are busily expanding and building up culture.

In short, I think that the resource prerequisites and special units are great concepts - but they will very easily lead to imbalanced games. If you're in control of the Greeks, it'll be hell to play a game where there's no bronze in sight and the Americans are sitting on top of everything they need to make steel later on. It's an ax waiting to drop. Balance issues like these NEED to be addressed if the game is going to have a successful multiplayer mode.

That's my multiple cents.

-GJ

 

[Supernaut]

All interesting stuff (and welcome on board GJ)

I really like the resource prerequisites and the whole thing of needing resources to make units - much more realistic. I think it also suggests that war isn't going to be so minimised as Blue Monday fears - you can negotiate complicated trade agreements to ensure you have all the resources you need, or you can just march in and take them. Could be tricky, and affect your reputation, but there have been plenty of real wars fought over resources. But playing styles are going to have to become a bit more sophisticated I think, and that's a good thing IMO - just hack and slash is a bit one dimensional. If good fun occasionally.

As for the unique units, they may not be as bad as I thought, but they are going to skew the playing style of each civ, as GJ says. It'll depend on just how much better they are.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

My question is how abbundant will these resources be?
I've you have a lot of bronze and iron everywhere on the map,
i guess that you won't be destroyed at beginning. Then special resource's don't need to be plentifull.

 

[BorderPatrol]

My thought on the resource prerequisite is that form what I understand resources will be distributed differently than in Civilization II. I am hoping that the new distribution they have sill be better and therefore there will not be places where you can start where you are screwed like in civilization II. It is supposed to be made so that resources are "clumped" so that whatever area you start in you win have a chance of getting a monopoly on one resource or another and if the resource in your area isn't the resource you need for your special unit... well, somebody will need it for their units and you can trade. This makes the game much better because it forces you to use diplomacy.
As to not being able to win be world conquest... I think that will still be possible but you had better be sure that you get some people to work with you to eliminate others. And as far as not being able to win by as many methods? Bah! I think Civilization III will bring a lot more ways of victory than Civilization II did. It will however be a different game in a lot of respects, which I am very glad of. Otherwise, I should just keep playing Civilization II.

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[Big_Time_Charlie]

I cant stand this idea of bloody specific units depending on CIV!!!!

Are they going to force us to only play on Earth maps too!

Whats the point of building up a Civilisation if some of the aspects are already decided. I thought the whole point of Civ was to play and create your own unique history and world.

If I am the Zulu's and I discover advanced flight before anyone well then bully for me I can build bombers before anyone else, however if I had picked the Americans regardless of technology or size of Civ for the partucular game they will one day be able to build a better plane on discovering advanced flight. Rubbish I say.

All Civs should start out on an equal footing with the whole world playing out randomly, some of you chaps have already pointed out the problems such as the Greeks having to go for a war time strategy ealry etc.


Everything else mentioned so far sounds great, I suppose the specific units will get included Sid know best I assume. Having said that Ill gnash my teeth and pull my hair out if there is not the option to disable specific units.



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"It is a well known fact that a bird does not fly on one wing"

 

[Mongol Horde]

Everyone is right of course, civ specific units are bad. I have harped on about them many times before but they are truly a stupid idea. Dangerous Dan and Firaxis haven't yet justified why civ-specific units are in. So Dan if you are listening, I haven't meta single person at CFC that thinks this is a good idea can you explain why Firaxis think it is?

Also I would be interested to here from any Apo posters what they make of it over there.

 

[GJ]

I'll just reiterate what I said someplace else... one way to control dominance with civ-specific units is to give each one a penalty that goes with its power upside. The penalty could, in theory, be lessened for earlier civilizations (because they have to attack sooner).

One thing that I think we're forgetting is that the super-units won't be invulnerable. It might take a little extra force to destroy them or defend against them, but presumably they would still be countered by somebody who had the right units and counter-strategy.

Here're some of my ideas for super-unit penalties:

Greek Hoplite - Home city loses 1 population unit until unit is disbanded. No penalty if unit is in fortress within three squares of city or is in city. (The hoplites were actually middle-class farmers who had enough money to purchase arms and armor; thus when they are at home they can still work their fields until it is time to campaign).

American F-15 - More expensive to maintain than regular fighters. Loss of an F-15 causes serious civil unrest, often throwing a city or two into disorder. Loss of enough F-15s can lead to governmental collapse! (This promotes the idea of taxpayers' money going to waste).

...and so on down the line.

-GJ

 

[andycapp]

Originally posted by Mongol Horde:
Everyone is right of course, civ specific units are bad. I have harped on about them many times before but they are truly a stupid idea. Dangerous Dan and Firaxis haven't yet justified why civ-specific units are in. So Dan if you are listening, I haven't meta single person at CFC that thinks this is a good idea can you explain why Firaxis think it is?

Ahem, Mongol you should be more attentive! I think Civ specific units will be a good idea IF Firaxis get the balance right. I have heard many arguments against Civ specific units in these forums (and some valid points) what intrigues me is the amount of angst this is causing - we're still dealing with an 'unknown' - maybe that's the reason for the anxiety. I'll wait for more details before passing judgement on the idea.

 

[Mongol Horde]

Sorry andy But still you are not categorically for them are you? And even thinking this you are in the minority.

 

[HomeAir]

"You can't just take over cities anymore, you have to assimilate them"

BlueMonday, you have to realize that you just can't walk in an park equipment in someone's front yard and think that you will be able to call it your yard. i.e. You really have to assimilate the cities into your empire or these cities will never want to let go of their old "culture" and give in to the ways of the new gov't. E.g. The Germans in France in WWII. The French surrendered to the Germans but they never became part of the "German Empire". Another good historical example for the assimilation theory would be the Roman Empire. Setting up "Govenors" and pretty much letting them rule that area using the existing cultures. People felt that they could be part of the empire (and use its protection), but still have that sense they still had their own cultures. Win, Win situation.

 

[Supernaut]

More recent examples can be seen in the United Kingdom - Ireland, Wales and Scotland have all been members for hundreds of years, but there are still big movements for independence (which are now being listened to). No-one could say that the cultures of those countries have yet been swallowed up by England. If this was a game of Civ, then there would be plenty of unhappy faces in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. Similarly, look at what's happening in Yugoslavia, or the Basque region in Spain, or Quebec. In fact, I can't really think of a real world example of one culture being succesfully assimilated into a conqueror (except maybe for the Vikings in their various travels).

I hope it's not going to be as hard to assimilate cities in CIV3 as it has been in the UK

 

[HomeAir]

I really do like the new twist that they are putting into it. You just can't be a "Warlord" and conquer the whole world by brute force. You have to finesse the game along. I know a lot of players that tried to finesse Civ2 and the computer just beat them down. This makes you get a strategy and not just build a bunch of units and take someone else over.

 

[Andu Indorin]

Hmmph ...

As an historian/social scientist, I have this tendency to play devil's advocate in these Civ3 forums.

Having monetary support for units instead of shields is a decided improvement.

But I have to point out that Bronze and Steel are processed alloys, and not natural occurring resources.

And Nationalism should NOT be a government type because it is not a government type per se; rather it is broad sociocultural phenomenon beginning in during the French Revolution/Napoleonic era. The mechanics proposed are a good idea; but nationalism should be a tech advance open to all government types, placed between Democracy and Conscription, with Democracy and Philosophy as the prerequisites. ...

But that is just one historian's opinion.