sure, the game might be slowed down a bit (and no, you have never met the likes of me, ever, i make up my own "type" all by meself! 8P ), but in return you have realism. Yeah, i know you cant see it now, but one day, children, like i said, that 20 ounce porterhouse will be staring you in the face and you will dribble like a mad cow before ever you begin to drool out the red and gushing warm blood out of the corner of your mouth, because, after all, all toddlers gorw up. Besides, the industry for baby formula can only grow so big given its narrow customer base, unless, of course, some matured people prefer to keep eating it and let their canines rot....
I know, i know..."novel", "essay"....whatever.
lets go over all my suggestions:
1.___no limits (simply makes the game longer lasting, bigger, more enjoyable by the realistic number of cities and armies/navies/airforces involved)
2.___allow 21 tribes to play at once (again, just making for a bigger, richer game, and alot of those would be wiped out as time drew on, like in civ 3)
3.___Make borders negotiable (yeah, so you have to take some effort and define your ground every once in a while...the payback: complete control over your diplomatic and political terrain, which 'culture' in civ 3 is ass-backwards, since in history it is often the most militaristic that have claimed the largest borders, not the most culturally advanced, and armies, after all, is how you would maintain your proposed borders)
4.___allow only parts of map to be traded (a quickly implemented option that would give players freedom and versatility; as opposed to all or none of your maps)
5.___make rivers navigable until cataracts (you simply move your ship up the river. at a certain point, where you can see a tiny but definite little waterfall, it stops you.)
6.___allow for 50 extra units, not 11 (every civ editor's dream)
6a._____allow certain units to carry other ground units (load on, load off....so hard)
6b._____stealth units and ambush (go back and read this one again, youll realise that it involves nothing but attacking at the right time)
6c._____UU (you defend civ 3....)
6d._____machine stats and oil surveying and production (this makes battle more realistic: machine units need either to go back to base and replenish on vital supplies or they need to be fed them through transports in-field, but they wouldnt be allowed to sit there indefinitely (unless they were literally sitting there doing nothing). The surveying? simple engineer command. the refinery? just another improvement. the fuel depots? somewhere you have stored up fuel and you can find out how much you have, in barrels. you then find a way to connect that depot to your city. You then produce fuel, if you have a refinery, and you send it out however you want, trucks or tankers. when you run out of fuel, you get more.adds just a microscopic level of complexity, but for the realism in return, its welcome by the sane and reasonable, with blessings!)
6e._____bombarding units, types of ammo, types of material. (a unit can bombard, or it cannot. your catapulteers have a supply of ammo they carry with them (as well as other artillery), if you wish to have stones, you tell them to get it, which takes a turn and only costs your dear simplicity the pressing of a button (youd need to be in a hill, mountain, or resource square) or get a settler to dig them up for you and transport them there, not so complicated as just moving another unit, and if the go-to in civ 2 was perfected, this would not be an issue. and for oil barrels, you get oil, build the barrels, bring them to your caddies; tell your archers to fire flames instead of regular arrows, for which thered be a simple command. as for the bombing of the walls? choose bomb, select walls, fire. as for the materials, you cut down wood with settlers, and you bring it somewhere. you now have a stash of wood, even if its in the middle of nowhere. you build an improvement out of wood, now that stack isnt so big anymore. gotta refill the stack. man, youre right, like climbing a mountain of micromanagement.)
7.___minefield. (again, simple engineer command, and the same for removing it)
8.___hiding units. (simple command, my friends, you hide and then unhide, and maybe ambush inbetween)
9.___make cities that grow across various squares (your city reaches a certain size, so you tell the people where to expand. a window comes up and you click on a square. sure, this might make the management of your city a bit more complex, and not much, but in return you can actually have realsitic battles where you control one part of the city and the enemy another, or, if there was civil war, the city splits and becomes two factions within one city. your side, if still had the factory, for instance, could still get half the people to work and still produce things while the other side controlled their improvements, like the airport which would allow their own faction to bring in troops and supplies, but this wouldnt be so easy if your side had the missile battery! [ 8 ) ] . this would be ultra-cool)
10.___pipelines and oil platforms (pipelines would be like building a road, friends, no more, and oil platforms would be like building a mine except taking the engineer on a boat and doing it in the middle of the ocean...but the game rewards for this more than justifies the little effort and complication)
11.___oil platforms visible and liable assets (there sits a platform. you take your ships and land on it, or even paradrop (that would be cool) or land a helicopter, either capture or kill the workers, and now its yours. you dont have to manage it, it simply either sits there as a mini-fort or produces a certain amount of oil (though maybe at a lower rate because of desent), end of story. or hell, you just take your battleship and decide to blow it out of the water!)
12.___make three transports, all different and specialized vessels (any complaints to this? *i hear crickets*....)
13.___three helicopters, all useful (....*im getting the bug spray*....)
14.___working simul mode (i mentioned this because if 21 people play, you better damn well have simul mode that works)
Ok. that settles that.
"Micro-management", by the way, if I should be so "arrogant" in attempting to define it all by by my poor self, is the CONSTANT refinement of certain systems, because those systems, with time, grow and change and eventually fall into disarray, which require perennial care to remain in optimal condition. And even IF my suggestions added alot to the burdens of this type of work, which they dont, i think suggestion 15 might be a highly enhanced, greatly versatile and easy to use governor system that ACTUALLY WORKS!
SO! in conclusion, your idea of micromanagement is nothing but complexity! COMPLEXITY, friend, is the thing that annoys you, because, as i have said earlier, you do not truly wish for a 'world simulator' in all its glory, but a dressed up game of checkers. thats fine, i see many old men sitting on park benches playing chess or checkers with bags below their eyes (from monotony, maybe?) larger than my neighbor's pug-dog.
As for me, and millions of other strategists out there, the price of learning a few more commands, concepts and options which when learned and mastered take no longer to apply than moving a few units and ordering them as desired, is gladly paid in return for a world sim that does not insult your intelligence with its feeble but 'confortable simplicity'.
)
i ahve ben trying all day to get into a Mplayer game with no sucess not good!
