So what do you think of the game?

[gfeier]

I'm VERY pleased with it. I find that, despite a few little glitches, the AI really puts up a fight, unlike Civ II. What do the rest of you Mac civvies think?

 

[andyo]

mac civvies - isn't that a type of VD?

 

[gfeier]

Mac civvers?

Mac civnuts?

Intelligent and discriminating people who play Civ III on the world's finest computers?

 

[gfeier]

Am I the only one actually playing this sucker? Come on, folks!

 

[mickelsp]

I'm playing on a borrowed PC. My iBook SE 466 doesn't support the required resolution.
When I get a new computer (not for a couple of months), I'm in.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

I'm playing it.... waaaay too much. I almost wish they had a few major 'stopping' points via a movie or something. I might be inclined to put it away till tomorrow instead of playing 300 turns or so until 4 in the morning.

I'm new to this type of game. The closest I've played to it was the original simcity.

I have a question... what is the resource I'm short on, or the action I've failed to complete when the city 'stops' growing?


Also, what is the significance of the color changing from yellow and then red (I know it's not good... but don't quite understand what exactly is wrong) on the city's population total?

Still figuring out the little details....

Aoxomoxoa

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

I'm playing it.... waaaay too much. I almost wish they had a few major 'stopping' points via a movie or something. I might be inclined to put it away till tomorrow instead of playing 300 turns or so until 4 in the morning.

I'm new to this type of game. The closest I've played to it was the original simcity.

I have a question... what is the resource I'm short on, or the action I've failed to complete when the city 'stops' growing?


Also, what is the significance of the color changing from yellow and then red (I know it's not good... but don't quite understand what exactly is wrong) on the city's population total?

Still figuring out the little details....

Aoxomoxoa

 

[Beamup]

I LOVE it. Massively addictive and the "just-one-more-turn" syndrome is worse than ever.

Aoxo - if your city stops growing, there are two possible reasons. Lack of food is one - go to the city screen and check that there's a surplus (whole loaves on the right instead of chomped ones on the left). The other is lack of a certain building. To grow past size 6, a city must either be adjacent to FRESH water or have an Aqueduct (research Construction). To grow past size 12, a city must have a Hospital (research Sanitation, an early Industrial tech).
And if the number is white, the city is growing. Yellow, no growth. Red, starving and the population is falling.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

Thanks for the reply. I also read the manual a little closer (that thing reminds me of the 'Handbook for the Dead' from BeetleJuice... and discovered I could move the citizens of a town to work on a more productive square. Who could have thunk it!!

Aoxomoxoa

 

[dojoboy]

Okay gfeier, I'm in.

I've had Civ3 for a month now and its fantastic. I'm currently playing my third game, first at warlord level. A game is taking me about 1.5 weeks, playing everytime I get a chance.

I must confess, I'm playing far too conservatively. Each of my first two games at chieftain (first - Iroquois; second - Persians) I won on total points. So far in game three (Japanese) I'm leading in points by about 200 over England. However, I had to take out Persia to control a second continent. In my first few battles against them, the Persians punished a wave of 10 cavalry. I was thinking, "Oh ****." Fortunately, I had MPPs w/ England and the Zulu and later India. This took its toll on Persia. England took out Persia's last city.

Now, I share the continent w/ England (3 cities) and India (1 city). A Britich city of 7 just flipped to me, and it contained JS Bach Cathedral. I love this feature. Im expecting the other cities to flip soon.

To win other than through total points, I'm definitely gonna have to start asserting myself. However, I prefer not to start fights.

Game-play is really fine. Only in my first game did I notice any slow down between turns. I've experienced zero crashes, but I am suffering from the common problems --- inconsistent music and special effects. I'm looking forward to the patch w/ stack movement, etc.

 

[Rustus Maximus]

First, Civ 3 is terrific!

The only bugs I know of are the common ones already listed in great numbers on all the forums...Music, sound effects is one of the biggest to me right now...

As far as gameplay, Civ 3 is a HUGE improvement over Civ 2. The AI plays "smarter" and though it's still not a human opponent, it gives you a pretty good challenge during war. I still remember the amazement in my very first game when I saw 35 Aztec warriors come screaming across my border, not blindly, but probing my defences looking for weak spots, just like I would do...no more 5 tanks take a country stuff here. You have to think, you have to coordinate your attack. Bombard, bombard, bombard. Much closer to real warfare.

One thing I could do without, or at least have toned down a bit is city-flipping. It's just not very realistic. I know, I know...it's a game, but when someone has, say, 2 armies stationed in a city and suddenly it flips and those armies are nowhere to be found ...this begins to smack of AI cheating. I'm not saying it should be impossible, just VERY difficult. Imagine the French resistance trying to retake Paris on their own during WW2...it would not have happened.

It sounds as though the next patch is going to answer many of these types of game play issues, which really aren't unbearable and just require a new strategy as does this whole game (as I find out in my first couple of games, "This ain't your Daddy's Civilization!")

Overall the game is great and just like Beamup said...you just have to play one more turn...I can squeeze in just one more...after all, I can work on 3 hours of sleep...

ok, 2 hours...

 

[tlr]

Do you guys have city flipping frequently? I NEVER had one. I have currently three Roman cities inside my borders, one of them completly inside; they have been taken from the Zulus, so they have nothing inside but Zulus guys. I have a much greater culture than any other civ; I have build a LOT of improvments in nearby cities, so they are culturally smashed: 10-12 of their 21 squares are mine... still no switch, and this is from more than 30 turns!

Side note to Rustus M.: actually Paris HAS BEEN retaken by resisters by the end of WW2, before allied troops reach it (but after 6th june); I'm French, so I know about that . So switching occur in real history (and there are other examples).

 

[dojoboy]

I've experienced enough city flipping to know I really like the feature. Probably because I've never had one of my cities to flip. I have had conquered cities flip, but thanks to some threads I read before I got the game, I was able to take them right back with my troops stationed just outside the city.

Now I simply build settlers and workers to supplant conquered citizens, by adding them to the city. I've been thinking about giving away, or selling, my nationals (workers) to civs that have "flippable" cities near my lands in hopes they're added to their cities. This might only be feasible during the later stages of a game where the civ's lands are developed and their workers are sleeping. What do you think?

 

[SSK]

Originally posted by dojoboy
Now I simply build settlers and workers to supplant conquered citizens, by adding them to the city.

I basically reduce the city I'm about to conquer to 2-3 foreigners by repeated bombardment before the conquest, and after qonquest, I either starve the city or build (foreign) workers or settlers from the conquered city after the conquest. I use foreign workers for free labor, and occasionally if I need to get rid of 2-pop units, I build settlers and simply disband them in another city for shields. This reduces the chances of flipping.

I've been thinking about giving away, or selling, my nationals (workers) to civs that have "flippable" cities near my lands in hopes they're added to their cities. This might only be feasible during the later stages of a game where the civ's lands are developed and their workers are sleeping. What do you think?

Neat idea dojoboy! If you can get this to work, post it to the thread "Sneaky peacetime tactics" I think in Strategy and Tips, and see what others think...

 

[Rustus Maximus]

Originally posted by tlr
Side note to Rustus M.: actually Paris HAS BEEN retaken by resisters by the end of WW2, before allied troops reach it (but after 6th june); I'm French, so I know about that .

Look, the resistance rose up because they saw the inevitable...the Allies were marching in force toward Paris and the Germans were losing battle after battle. With the success of operation 'Dragoon' on August 15, 1944 on the southern coast of France, nearly 200,000 German troops were "pinched" in the 40 mile long, 11 mile wide Argentan-Falaise gap. Hitler would describe that day as "the worst of his life". He knew the end was nigh. The German military had been severely weakened by the time the French resistance began their uprising. They were able to succeed because of the massive losses and defeats the Germans were suffering in Western and Southern France. The point? Without the Allied invasion and subsequent military pressure the German grip on your beautiful city would have grown tighter and tighter. It "flipped" because of military factors...not culture.

What does all of this have to do with city-flipping? It's based soley on culture and military presence in the city has little or no influence.

I won't rehash what I've already stated in another thread on this subject, just click the link below if you want to read it.
click here for full post

The cities I have had flip have done so, despite being FULL of massive numbers of troops (compared to the population of the city) and flipped back to a civ that had far less culture than my civ. Going by Firaxis' model on culture the Native Americans should have been running in droves to join up with the much more "cultured" cities of "the white man". It just doesn't work that way.

 

[tlr]

Originally posted by Rustus Maximus


The cities I have had flip have done so, despite being FULL of massive numbers of troops (compared to the population of the city) and flipped back to a civ that had far less culture than my civ.

I did not experiment that. Putting a large number (ten or so) of troops in just-conquered cities always prevented flipping for me.
Anyway, if I understand well, the 1.17 patch is also supposed to correct that:

From the readme
* It is now possible to completely suppress a city's cultural reversion with enough military units.

 

[Cincinnatus]

I think the graphic is great, although I really hope the new patch will speed up the game. I tried to disable Quartz, but the game crashes in the middle ages
The game is potentially very good, but I have a few complains (maybe our fellows PC-maniacs already posted something similar):
1 - I want to be able to raise taxes as it was in Civ, Civ II and SMAC. In the real world Governments raise taxes without being forced to found new cities or develop the terrain.
2 - The idea of cultural influence is great , but it should not constitute the border of a civilization. Moreover, the invention of television should increase the chance of influencing another civ with tv.
3 - As in SMAC I'd like to be able to choose not only the type of government, but also the type of economy and society.
4 - Some scientific breakthroughs are almost useless, e.g. printing press. The invention of printing press should promote a big impulse to culture civ-wise by building the Gutenberg Small Wonder. It makes sense, doesn't it?
5 - I want to be able to buy tiles of terrain or entire regions with cities in them. After all, USA purchased Alaska from Russia and Louisiana from France. No war, just business.

OK, now it's time to play. maybe I'll think of something more. Anyway, in the general forum some guys had excellent ideas to improve the game.

 

[gfeier]

Originally posted by Cincinnatus

1 - I want to be able to raise taxes as it was in Civ, Civ II and SMAC. In the real world Governments raise taxes without being forced to found new cities or develop the terrain.

You can raise your income in the Domestic Advisor screen - at the expense of either happiness or research. Page 184 of the manual.

 

[Cincinnatus]

Originally posted by gfeier


You can raise your income in the Domestic Advisor screen - at the expense of either happiness or research. Page 184 of the manual.

Thank you for your advice gfeier (there are also the tax collectors/specialized workers), but in the real world a government can raise taxes without touching research or happiness, especially if you start from zero happiness. I want to be able to raise taxes to finance more research and/or happiness. Of course there must be a limit before people start rioting. Indeed, happiness and taxes may be somewhat linked, but research must be independent.
US (the real one, not the civ in the game) recently decided to raise their investments in scientific research, without touching taxes. Eventually they will have to raise taxes to keep up with the expenses for research and the war. What I mean is that BOTH taxes and research go up. Maybe happiness will decrease, but they do not start from zero. Actually, happiness should be the consequence of collecting high or low taxes, not the cause.
I'm sorry, but if Civ III was meant to simulate the real world better than previous civs, well, it did not work out quite well.
OK the AI is way better, but some concepts in this version are wrong.
Luckily there's always room for improvement.

 

[Beamup]

Civ isn't necessarily meant to accurately simulate the real world. Where convenient, they made it do so, but in any case where realism and gameplay conflicted, they chose gameplay. That's just the philosophy of the product - it's a game, not a simulation.