PTW: The downfall of Civilization

[cgannon64]

*Happy-Go-Lucky cgannon64 wants to get back in the arguement after his brief one post entry*
*cgannon64 sees Nicosar call everyone "children" and refuses to stop*
*cgannon64 runs away*

Reminds me of the old drug debates over at GameFAQs that started with a minor accidental drug reference in SSBM. I was so eager to get in there, then I finally realized the reality of flamewars...

NICOSAR: In case you don't know the reality of flame wars, let me tell you: no one ever wins. All you do is make enemies, on both sides, and then an arguement breaks out every time you two meet in a thread. Calling your fellow debater (if that is even a relavent term here... ) a child will only ruin your rep. Ideas---whether good or bad, I won't comment here---don't get listened to when you call everyone a child. I want you to email Firaxis, give them your long list of ideas, then say they are children if they refuse. See how far you get in life that way.
One final comment: Civ isn't a wargame, never meant to be. Civ is supposed to be an accurate, but fun, representation of life, a chance to replay history, in a sense. Life isn't all war, so civ shouldn't be a war game. Some countries rise from peaceful self-improvement (I won't name any, just start a political flame war ), and Firaxis wanted to make that possible in civ. I think they did a pretty good job in Civ3; much better than Civ2. Everyone always says the only way to win in Civ3 is war, but what about building huge armies under Fanaticism and getting free techs for conquering cities? Thats a war game if you ask me.

I'm outta here.

CG

 

[-proletarian-]

Originally posted by Padma


You know virtually nothing about me, other than a few words I jotted on an internet forum, and you dismiss me as a child.

Clearly you do not wish to truly debate any issue, but rather resort to shouting down others while bragging about your supposed superiority, and using ad-hominum attacks to justify yourself.

I learned many years ago to let silly twits rant in their own sandboxes, so I shall merely bid you adieu.

Couldn't agree more.


The more the guy speaks, the more he reveals his crippling immaturity.

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

I just can't believe anybody read all five pages of this stuff! I think you are all way too worked up about this!

 

[HrVaTsKa]

Sultan you are right i was thinking the same thing even though i read all 5 pages because theres nothing like to wise debators trying to provoke one another. It is hilarious how something stupid as a game opinon can be fought over like a battle, only with words it gets intresting till the end when they have nothing left to say and they just say the samething over and over.

 

[Nicosar]

listen fellaz, im not getting worked up, i just have certain simple opinions and i can type fairly speedy, so i'm in turn ...ehmmm... descriptive, remember?

But you shouldnt get so worked up yourselves, since this is just some internet forum, and your voice is just another voice in the wind, right? Wind doesnt bump into itself, no? so whats all the friction about.... ???.... hmmm....

....

Its not my fire, thats clear, all MY posts talk about something related to the issue...despite their controversial but humurous [ ] style which itself indeed realizes that this is indeed just some faceless forum... no fire...no...i do, though, spark a little sometimes, but then again, im alive, so thats expected if not a sign of health, correct? ... and perhaps some people, by one way or another, have aqcuired a thin but combustible veneer about themselves so that the tiniest outside heat will ignite the place... strange phenomenon...dont know if its too well cocumented though...

So...ehhh...flame on! ...i guess, cant be helped it seems

I do want you all who honestly have rather, and really, just as an observation, shoddy expectations for what a game should be, but especially those who appreciate games that barely fit into their categories respectively by the bad fortune of bland and uninteresting gameplay hardly befitting for their genre, all to know that they can lie comfortably and safely in their thrones of indignant players who think they play the best games....for now, but that as surely as microchips multiply in power and the market evolves to corner down some serious bullage there will quite soon be something, another, new-revolution game whose single aim is to make tons of money by introducing some incredible new way of play thatll have everyone excited, and theyll do it for the bankdough, but itll regardless be better than all others like it. It will be a world-sim , yes indeed, but it will allow simply a realistic (maybe not overly detailed and massive but at least representationally quite visually satifying) virtual arena; the world. theyll spend alot of work making sure all the programmed physics for how those non-human forces, of all types, living or not, in the little virtual cube get along relative to each other, so that you have a growing reacting environment with many interactive aspects, and theyll spend much designing sweat and some hefty resources, but all the time working with glee for the thought of the tremendous reward: a universally infectuous game which will have EVERYONE talking, EVERYONE interested in, and win EVERYONE'S unanimous approval. (except those with overly weak computers, no doubt).

Oh! wait a bloody-mary'd second! You must think im talking about myself!! heheh ....

no, no, i wish, maybe, but its inevitable, as i said, and inevitable things happen through the hands of one man if not another.... and it is just a short time before someone sees the great economical potential of such a remarkable feat of realistic global simulation...think! if they realize that if they just put that much extra effort into it that theyll have cities that are realistic enough themselves that all the GrandTheftAuto players will ditch that (this is what theyll say) stupid ol' restricting game for somewhere where they could ride the highway with 4 stolen tanks somehow in some f'dup country where military might is a matter of money and do as much damage to whatever they run across before the local troops get to them. I know, in fact, if i was a programmer, that id just take that same game engine and just make an alien DooM/Halo/Quake scenario, a realistic scenario of our earth, exactly, a fantasy-planet scenario with altered physics and environment to make for a psychadelic world, and several others like a meideval one and a roman one and a futuristic one with robots....and then, think what i would have: an all-in-one super game which would defeat all other level games and small regional games and arena games of all types, since the new arena will be the world, and there will be many arenas within that one, and they will change and be different and crowned by a whole rich atmosphere inbetween them. youll have a global flight sim, global 3D first person shoot ems, global sports game, global RPG, global anything-and-everything. sure, it's be alot of work, but thats why they call them investments.

Who knows? maybe someday itll be sid meyer himself, ironically but unexpectedly, who comes to terms with this and decides boldly to be the first one to break ground above this pool of gold, and develop such a thing, but one thing is for sure, laddies and ladys, if the meager rate of evolvement that civ has undergone even from its first title way back to now, which is lousy, is any evidence, it will be sooner than you think; all the games of the time just prior to its release actually not being that different form today's, and you will no longer be playing world chess but roleplaying as a world leader, and all those people who seem perfectly happy with their arrangement and actually COMPLAIN, and DETEST, any improvement or enhancement to its realistic qualities, will find themselves in the kiddie corner before they know it.

Heheh...

But the amusing thing will be, at least for me, that all those 'peaceful builders', and all those who are naturally fostered towards following the predictable, undynamic, and largely restricting path in their simplistic games which leads them the most success in boring and near identical repetitions of what they call a 'peaceful victory', will become totally, like, bloodthirsty vampires or what-not. Theyll lay one finger on that virtual world sim and be rather more to an incredibly active war-waging type than anything, since theyll be, like, deprived addicts who have only been getting a lower quality crack, but, having now an ample and rich dose of it, via Barney Gumble in the episode when Homer goes to space, will scream out with mad eagerness "PUMP IT TO MY VEINS!!!".

These people will be, of course, all of you. I would maybe even crown upon you further the h-word because of it, but ill spare you, since thats in the future and you should really be pre-forgiven for anything you might do then, unwitting to your present self.

Ok, story time over, children, maybe someday ill tell you a new tale, time for nappy wappy.

 

[ukrneal]

(Should this be cross-referenced to the Limerick thread...)

There once was a guy named Nicosar
Who started a thread that went too far
The flames they were flying
And everyone was dying
As we waited for the next victim to tar.

Honest, it's just a game....

 

[Rn Streak]

WOW !!! I must say that (for various reasons) this thread is unlike any I've seen. (Or maybe it's just all those long sentences with long,real spelled out words).But no, I think it's more than that. And while I'm certain that I've only just begun to grasp the depth of genius contained herein, I feel as though I've gone through some sort of life-altering paradigm shift. It's as if a door has been opened in my mind, revealing to me an entire global-world that has altered my perceptions forever. For those curious types out there, you can find what you need in my username(It speaks volumns if you know how to listen) For more detailed information, look for my upcoming book entitled "The Streak Life: A Story From The Inside" Then again, I don't know, maybe I just have to poop

 

[Reboot]

Nicosar, by saying that your proposed improvements to the game will add to the micromanagement aspects of the game I DO mean that there is added complexity. It is all well and good that we can hope for a better governor system to manage this increase in complexity. But one might as well hope for world peace while we are at it.

Your other suggestions may represent informed, specific suggestions to the game, but wishing for a better governor system remains simply an empty wish. Your placing it there cannot then be for the purposes of "suggestion". Is it perhaps the patch you apply to protect your dream version of CivIII? Do not sully your own suggestions with it. Until I see that such a system is possible in games, I believe a balance needs to be struck instead. Perhaps you can provide a suggestion? Or perhaps the game (which you have not told the title...) you intend to create will have such a system?

I'll also point out that there are games that are simple and yet enjoyable - CivI, for example. Complexity works, but so does simplification.

What you have done is made a sweeping statement about others. This is not arrogance. It is simply a mistake in judgement, unless you intentionally do so in the belief that most Civ3 players are immature.

 

[Nad]

"Have pity oh great one whom sees all and hears all!!"

"so go back to the poodle palace of fashion critics from whence thou came!"

Methinks Nicosar is not as eloquent as he claims. The first example should be "who", not "whom", and in the second example, you cannot have "from whence", it's either "whence" or "from where", not "from whence".

(And no, it didn't take me ages to spot those, they leaped out at me)

Anyway, I do agree with some of Nicp's criticism of Civ 3, but he does go too far, and I do not agree with his disparagement of other board members.

 

[Park Ranger]

First let me say I post here with some reluctance, because the differences expressed here go beyond differences of opinion and into differences in styles of debate.

Nicosar, your language is colourful, and I believe the "insults" you levy at the "children" you deign to respond to are mild in comparison to some pretty heated flame wars we've seen in these forums before. However, be aware that your style is not only intimidating but obfuscating and a hinderance to meaningful debate. It may seem clever to you, but you exclude those do not have the same skill with language (remember this is an international forum and for many English is a second language). Also, you do invite responses that stray from attacking the argument and instead attack the person. You may not have started it, (though your first post reads condescendingly at points), but you fall into ad hominem tactics as much as your detractors.

Likewise, others reading Nicosar's posts should be careful not to get baited by his rhetoric. Its tiring to wade through, I know, but if we stick to the arguments, the main points about what is wrong (or not) with civ3, then there will perhaps be some meaningful discussion. Now i better move on to my point or this post will be as long as one authored by its progenitor

Specifically, I wish to adress the changes in the battle system from civ2 to civ3. One thing which took me a while to get used to in civ3 was the eliminatoin of ZOC's (Zones of Control), which in civ2 meant that a unit could not move from a tile adjacent to enemy units into another tile that was also adjacent to enemy units (though perhaps different units). This change in the rules allowed for more strategic options: though your city may be under attack by an insurmountable force of knights, your units can bypass the horde and slip into enemy territory to wreak some (perhaps short-llived) havoc of their own.
This change also mitigates another change that Nicosar laments: the removal of stack vulnerability. Sure, now a player can stack their eggs in one basket, because the basket never breaks all at once but one egg at a time. But doing so surrenders control over more terrain, which allows the opponent a chance for counter-attacks around and behind the main force. Heck, you often now have the chance to cross rivers before attacking, though the more you move through tiles adjacent to enemy horse, the more likely you are to suffer some HP loss.
Finally, the addition of resources and the road-network concept further discourages stacking. There are now more targets besides the cities and the units themselves. Do you push forward with the attack, or wait while some units go back to prevent disruption of your iron supply?

So I don't see that removing stack vulnerability has impoverished civ3 in terms of strategy: it certainly has changed it, and AI idiocy aside (a separate criticism that I will have trouble answering for as long as the AI will start attacking with undefended horse units while infantry units are lagging behind), I find the changes a welcome improvement, as I can no longer repeatedly run howitzers up and down enemy rails to attack and retreat to the safety of a well defended city or fortress.

Anyway, that's enough for one post, I'll leave the issues of HP/firepower, culture and borders, and war weariness vs. unit unhappiness to more inspired debaters. I look forward to more intelligent and insightful posts (and fewer mudslinging fests) in this thread.

PS. I use the term "strategy" while consciously avoiding the term "tactics". It seems to me that ALL the civ games have been strategy-rich and tactically simplistic, and I like it that way because battle tactics would add to an already long game, perhaps tipping the balance (for me, anyway) into too much micromanagement. I'm happy to simply push a diretional button and let the CPU sort out the winners and losers. On-field battle tactics can be great fun, but unwieldy if you are engaged in some 50 battles/bombardments in one turn.

 

[Nicosar]

what a welcomed voice, hulo ranger! [i like trees too ]

on ZOC's (zones of control):

IT would seem to me that zones of control were implemented to make up for a game where no two opposing forces are moving at the same time, since its very purpose is to simulate enemy movement on your turn. If you were a unit next to that stack of horses and tried to, not just strafe it and move aside of it, but to actually try and pass to their rear by slipping directly next to them, you would quickly be rebuffed; one of their units, or really, just a single platoon from that unit, could scout around their terrain and see you coming, and then you couldnt pass without a least taking on a scout or something, but since this would get tactically too detailed, apparently, we must assume that those scouts went back and warned their friends, entire units, based on the number of troops they saw from your side. What would then ensue is that stack of horses coming out and meeting you halfway, which would then lead to a battle not really in that square you intended to enter but the border of your own square, theoretically, which would mean that you could actually NOT enter those adjacent squares.

ZOC's are a method of keeping the battlefield tactics logical in a turn based game, and among TONS of changes that i had to make for civ 3 (among which were making tanks and modern armor able to bombard and to make mech. inf. carry one infantry unit, to name but a couple examples), re-enstating ZOC's was definitely among them, and im glad, at least, it had the option to do so. A turn based, square-gridded game such as civ needs such little rules and clever tricks to check movement and make the game plausible; taking it out leaves you with a world-sim with not much world realism, since that stack of horses would get to its turn and realize that, miraculously, the road just behind them had been pillaged and that reinforcements coming from the rear would be delayed, when in reality they could just sit there and have scouts roaming the country reporting any serious enemy movement adjacent to theirs, which is what ZOC's were designed to simulate.

Taking that away only subtracts the interacting physics from a game that had so few to start out with....

And for those who would argue that they are only interested in strategy and NOT tactics, a surprise to me, they should know that this seems like a play on words on their part, a sort of rough rationalization of concepts, since to me, tactics are the offspring of strategy and therefore follow it wherever mother goes. If you design a machine of war, including the production and training of all your troops and divisions, the pacifying of the people through some righteous nationalist campaign, and then choose certain times and places to make your assault, i think this could all be comfortably labeled as 'strategy'. I should think, though, that as soon as you even start questioning your METHODS of attack, that this would fall under 'tactics': such as an amphibious or land attack by marines, or which units would attack first and which would stay to keep the rear afterwards, and such. So, in your attempt to remain a desk-general making plans from your capital and seeing how those plans fare off in the actual environment you inevitably get sucked into the role of field-general, which is tactically-based, since you do, after all, control every aspect of the game in civ.

This brings me to remind you all about my earlier posts. Why do you think i mentioned old Alex and his crazy greeks? Because if he was sitting on the throne and giving orders its very well possible that Xerxes would ride up to his gates a little while after he sent out his generals and armies, instead of a messenger reporting a victory. Basically, then, the fate of Persia was decided by one man, on the field, giving a single wave of his arm to denote some flanking maneouver or whatever at the right time. Youre never going to get realism unless you realize that all that long-term strategy is useful for is to prepare for the short-term, which is called tactics, military, political, or managerial; things that you do at the last minute which have profound effects. These are things not to be found in civ, but especially civ 3, with great abundance, and it makes them games, indeed, like chess, where the abstract concept rules supreme.

Me? i await that dream game, no doubt, but until then i cant help but notice how much could be done in the mean time to simulate that 3D heaven i praise and sing about: not only should there be ZOC's, but FV's (flank vulnerabilities), meaning that if a stack is surrounded and attacked by more than one side, but especially from opposing sides, that those attacking troops would get an offensive bonus, since all armies in history have been able to defend themselves much more effectively when fighting only on one front, and that when confronted with pinch maneouvers and such things that what shouldve been a simple, overpowering defense turned into a disastrous loss.

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Actually ZOC and stack vulnerability are the interesting things discussed, didn't read much else.

So breaking from the tradition of the thread, I'll be brief. I never really liked stack vulnerability but it forced you to spread out your forces which made for more interesting battles in my opinion. As for the ZOC, I liked it and I think it was taken out to make it simpler to code the AI in Civ3. In a turn based game I don't think that units should be able to just skirt around each other, because it is their turn, it's just not like that on the field of battle.

I probably left something out but I don't care to elaborate.

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
So breaking from the tradition of the thread, I'll be brief. I never really liked stack vulnerability but it forced you to spread out your forces which made for more interesting battles in my opinion.

More realistic battles as well. In real wars, it isn't two huge colums of soldiers going up against each other; it is alot of smaller forces taking strategic points. This happens often in Civ3, which is why I like this part of the battle system (I won't mention the other parts... ). Like in real war, I'll dispatch x units to take that oil resource, x to take that major city, x to get rid of that AI stack, x to cover the rear, x to clear railroads around their capital. This is much like real warfare, which is why I enjoy it so much.

Even though other elements of the battle system may be unrealistic, I like the fact that at least one portion is.

CG

 

[Chairman Yang]

(Phew, just started reading this thread, probably took me about a halfhour...or more)

I can only salute Nicosar for his outstanding writing and his unbreakable spirit and for holding his head up high. I would most likely crumble at the first sight of criticism and therefore hardly ever try to get my point out since most people think theyre the smartest ones alive and will more often than not puke their own vicious opinons upon you for thinking differently.

As for the game Civ3, it could never be the "allround" strategy experience, first it would have to be scrapped and started all over again and probably be worked for centuries. However, Civ3 and other turn-based or not turn-based strategy and tactical games serve quite good as a sort of arcade simulation of empire-building, until sometime in the future when gamers hopefully have something that resembles reality more than the Civ-series.

 

[Nicosar]

oh, and thats right.... that cursed right of passage.... maybe i could see that system working for railroads, maybe, since that gets more complicated and requires that i have a train of my own for each of the units i want to move, but even so.... but as for roads, i should think that every mile of road along your entire country should be guarded by a stout line of magical entish tolkien trees which deny all forbidden visitors the right to pass!

I know that in my civ 2 player games (in which players are NEVER stupid enough to build compulsively railroad on every single square, for this very reason which you speak of), but unless your roads are guarded by troops i dont see how anything you do could prevent me from using them, short of pillaging them, a tactic that you can actually do... and railroads are a bit of a nuissance that way, but completely restricting movement on them by the simple will of its owners is far too rash a solution in the wrong direction:

what should be done, ive always said, as an improvement to civ 2, is that you should be able simply to build your railroads (given iron and wood and workers), but that using them would be something else. I would propose that a city could only receive extra trade bonus from railroads in their radius, which they do regardless, if a train station is built, since that commerce represents businessmen and regualr citizens being able to interact more easily, lubricating the economy. But to move troops to a certain location on a train track, you should have to built a train unit and then move that unit to the desired location: afterwards which there is a line connecting the place you commanded the train to start from to the final destination, and at the point of inserting the unit there it disappears and that route becomes graphically visible as a viable train route somehow, but railroad movement shouldn't anyway not be infinite. i believe that, regardless of the units movement rate, it should be 15 squares, sicne a tank, after all, wouldnt move much slower by road.

The above suggestion may sound complicated, but establishing a rail network is a highly complex thing to do, and simplifying it cheapens the concept to a point of boredom, and anyway it wouldnt be that complicated: youd built the tracks, then build train stations inside your cities or not (just another city improvement but an anyway completely unrelated task to moving units around), youd then build trains, move them to a place, hit a command, and you then establish a line. units can then move 15 squares, up or down, regardless where they are, and at any time you can click on the line and retrieve the rain unit and relocate it, and it has 15 moves when on any railroad, though makin it a line takes up an entire turn.

This is just the surface idea, i could go into it further and make it a flawless system which added to the game multiples more than the price of complexity you'd have to pay to have it, but i guess its a matter of preference.

Personally, id much prefer a game that was much more complex (though not complex to operate) which was generally slower paced in time (meaning a single turn would NOT be 50 years!) in order to have a realistic game..... but others i guess couldnt handle too many things at once...

(and by the way, no insult was meant by that.... you overly- sensitive babies...)

 

[warpstorm]

Sophomoric.

 

[Nicosar]

*mispost*

 

[-proletarian-]

Originally posted by Nicosar

and railroads are a bit of a nuissance that way, but completely restricting movement on them by the simple will of its owners is far too rash a solution in the wrong direction:

There's no such word as "nuissance". I think the word you are looking for is NUISANCE.




-is the spelling nazi-


Incidentally, I actually agree about unlimited railroad movement being a tad silly. I think it'd also be cool if we could build highways (or motoways, for you Brits out there ) once in the modern age, maybe THEN we could have unlimited movement.

 

[sumthinelse]

Note to non-native English speakers: the expression "Beating a dead horse" means continuing to attack somebody or something after it ceases to have any effect. Webster's dictionary: an exhausted or profitless topic or issue — usually used in the phrases beat a dead horse and flog a dead horse

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by sumthinelse
Note to non-native English speakers: the expression "Beating a dead horse" means continuing to attack somebody or something after it ceases to have any effect. Webster's dictionary: an exhausted or profitless topic or issue ? usually used in the phrases beat a dead horse and flog a dead horse

Thanks, I was going to say that.

CG