The biggest issue with Civ3

[sappling]

I enjoy Civ 3 but agree that the game gets exremely boring once you get a little ahead. The best strategy game ever is the Axis and Allies board game (the version for the computer has an AI with the brain of an vegetable).

 

[Zouave]

sappling,

"Brain of a vegetable"?

And the Civ 3 AI is an evil ******** person. At least the Civ 2 AI was a fun ******** person.

 

[Meneer Popken]

The people who complain about no reason at all all seem to have completely undefended cities, ready for the taking...

If I see an AI player with some very juicy cities I will take them as well, it's normal to be greedy

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by sappling
I enjoy Civ 3 but agree that the game gets exremely boring once you get a little ahead. The best strategy game ever is the Axis and Allies board game (the version for the computer has an AI with the brain of an vegetable).

Excellent game, Axis and Allies: Spring 1942, The World At War.

I almost never finish Civ3 games, except GOTM (Game Of The Month). As you said, at some point you've won the game. That's why they made several victory conditions. Once you have "control" of the game, you can usually select your victory condition. There is nothing wrong with a culture victory, for instance, or just retiring. I mean 5000 years should be enough for any leader.

Many of my games only last until the end of the first war. Sometimes, I play just the expansion phase. Or I'll quit when I have completed (or not) a certain Wonder (usually Sistine or Newton). For instance, in GOTM5 I would have stopped with Pax Americana . . . http://www.zachriel.com/gotm5/1650ad.htm . . . except it was GOTM.

If anyone thinks that losing is awful in Civ3, wait for multiplayer and someone does a dense build on you or something that you consider to be "cheating" or an "exploit", all the other Civs are making demands, you're down to one city, and just generally destroys your two straight days of gaming and all your dreams of glory.

 

[kingjoshi]

Originally posted by Flak
A third of the way to my own avatar at this post. I'm going to start having an opinion about Everything now!

You're not the only one. I think we'll be seeing much more discussion now Hopefully, it's not pointless messages like this one that fills the threads

 

[chiefpaco]

I don't have Civ2, so assumptions that I may play with old strategies would be incorrect. I don't even play a builder style game, I am very much a half-warmonger, half-builder. I have many Emporer games under my belt and know what it takes to win. I play with well defended cities and try to wrap up games early.

MP games like Starcraft and Quake are fun for me. After a few short hours, we found out who is boss and move on. Perhaps this turnless mode will work wonders and allow us to play fun and quick games - I no doubt believe that.

I'll turn the question around then, though some have answered this already. What makes the game FUN for you? What makes the game not FUN? Should Civ3 necessarily be fun or entertaining?

 

[Bamspeedy]

I think the micro-managing takes away some of the fun for some people. If you don't micro-manage and manually move workers, your civ will not be running at top efficiency, so you will lose easier (especially wonder races). I'm sure Chiefpaco micro-manages and doesn't automate workers.

Of course, it isn't fun to lose a wonder race, or have the AI out-produce you in every aspect of the game, so most players will micro-manage their cities and/or manually move workers to ensure they keep competitive with the AI.

But after spending hours micro-managing all your cities and planning where all your city sites will be, being very careful with diplomacy, etc. it isn't very fun to have it all wiped out by one mistake. Whether this mistake is an undefended city, not a large enough attacking force causing the whole war to turn against you, losing a wonder race by 1 turn, or having your reputation ruined because the Zulu pillaged your road causing your trade agreement with Babylon to be broke, it's no fun to be slowly (or quickly) be destroyed or left with practically nothing with no hope of a comeback. This is more prevalent on the higher levels where combacks are alot harder (but sometimes still possible depending on how bad the mistake was).

When in a totally hopeless situation I just try and have fun by trying to sabotage the AI who brought me to my doom. Example: I don't care who wins, just as long as back-stabbing Germany doesn't win!

 

[DrJambo]

if you look back in history, you'll see many examples of great empires reduced to their knees..

this is also prevalent in civ3... if you are not careful..

in my last venture i was the French and had the biggest empire by far situated in the centre of a "cross-like" pangea map. I became a little careless and ended up in a war with 2-3 civs at the same time. None of them by themselves could have harmed me, but America and Japan to my south/southwest and Germany to my northwest caused me quite a bit of angst. I would have been severely dented to the south had i not managed to pay off the Americans as they made in-roads into my empire, pillaging and taking a couple of cities..

that mistake nearly cost me, but i recovered and dented each one of them in turn as an act of retaliation!

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
I think the micro-managing takes away some of the fun for some people. If you don't micro-manage and manually move workers, your civ will not be running at top efficiency, so you will lose easier (especially wonder races).

I usually only micromanage workers during the ancient age, and rarely micromanage cities except when they hit pop 6, 12 and 20. (That process only takes one turn. Once stabilized, they are good to go.) When I get rail, I will take a few workers and use them to connect the cities, the rest will be put on shift-A. Of course, I will keep a few workers around for special projects. Here is a typical example of a "worker boom," nearly all of which are on shift-A.

** WARNING ** GOTM9 ** SPOILER **
http://www.zachriel.com/gotm9/ad1260-SteamPower.htm

 

[GI Josh]

i'm with zachariel, let the computer do the work. i automate my workers after ancient age, leaving only a pack of 6 which i keep manual for use in wars, etc. i always have governors keep my citizens happy - that saves a ton of micromanagement. the only exception is when i'm trying to build a wonder - then i micromanage the terraforming and the placement of citizens.

it's not as efficient to automate workers and use the governors (happiness only, don't use to choose production), but if you simply view it as another equalizer between you and the ai, it becomes much more acceptable. try it - the amount of time and tedium you will save is truly remarkable.

 

[Bamspeedy]

it's not as efficient to automate workers and use the governors (happiness only, don't use to choose production), but if you simply view it as another equalizer between you and the ai, it becomes much more acceptable. try it - the amount of time and tedium you will save is truly remarkable.

Well, I use the governors (for happiness) in all cities except the wonder building cities. I manually control workers until it becomes unbearable. When I start on all grassland I want everything mined around my palace. Once I get beyond my 'productive' region I irrigate everything since those cities won't produce anything anyways, they might as well get to a high population and get me some specialists. On my Hof game (huge map) I manually controlled workers until I had over 200, then just used shift-A because I would have lost my sanity if I had to manually move 600-700+ workers! Once everything was railroaded then I manually moved the workers and switch the mines back to irrigation before joining them into cities.

if you look back in history, you'll see many examples of great empires reduced to their knees..

this is also prevalent in civ3... if you are not careful..

Chiefpaco realizes the mistake and knows you have to be careful. He is not saying that it isn't fun just because you lose (who would purposely want to lose?). But then, it isn't fun to win all the time, either. Fun is the risk factor of whether your tactics/strategies work out or not. He plays Emperor mostly because that level gives him a pretty good challenge. He would be very bored playing on the lower levels because he would easily win every game.

I guess comparing civ3 to a computer baseball game might show what he means. Pretend it is the bottom of the 9th inning, bases loaded, 2 outs, and you are behind by 1 run. You bring in a pinch hitter. He strikes out. You lost the game. You are mad, but it was fun, because the game was a nail-biter right down to the very last out. Now if the AI had got 15 runs off of you in the first inning, that would not be fun at all. Just barely losing a space race, or losing a UN vote by just 1 vote out of 16 votes would be alot more fun, than getting killed off in the B.C.'s.

When in a hopeless situation, I either hit restart or try to sabotage my enemy by 1 of 2 ways.

1. Try and hold on until a UN election and of course vote against my enemy.
2. When my arch rival is in a very close wonder race/space race I will send workers into his territory and mess with his terrain improvements or (being really suicidal) while at peace I will send a bunch of units into his territory (hopefully by a ROP) and pillage all of his terrain improvements in that city on the same turn!

 

[cgannon64]

War in Civ3 is probably the most realistic war I've ever played in a game---you can't just instantaneously get units like in Risk, territory matters much, and many other things. In this regard, losing in real war isn't fun, so why would it be fun in a realistic game? I personally think, for the people who want tons of realism and fun---your not going to get what you want, and you must get one or the other.

 

[cgannon64]

Chiefpaco---

Perhaps this turnless mode will work wonders and allow us to play fun and quick games - I no doubt believe that

I'm not sure about turnless mode---it seems...just not right to me. I think it works based on the number of cities you have, correct? So, if you have 20 cities, you may have 200 seconds to go? If it works something like this---I don't like it. What happens if you don't have enough time to move your units, and you lose a critical battle, or you don't have enough time to switch from your pre-build wonder to the UN--and you lose? I think turnless mode is sacrificing alot---do you really want a RTS Civ3?

 

[cgannon64]

I'm not sure about turnless mode---it seems...just not right to me. I think it works based on the number of cities you have, correct? So, if you have 20 cities, you may have 200 seconds to go? If it works something like this---I don't like it. What happens if you don't have enough time to move your units, and you lose a critical battle, or you don't have enough time to switch from your pre-build wonder to the UN--and you lose? I think turnless mode is sacrificing alot---do you really want a RTS Civ3?

Perhaps this turnless mode will work wonders and allow us to play fun and quick games - I no doubt believe that

 

[cgannon64]

Perhaps this turnless mode will work wonders and allow us to play fun and quick games - I no doubt believe that

I'm not sure about turnless mode---it seems...just not right to me. I think it works based on the number of cities you have, correct? So, if you have 20 cities, you may have 200 seconds to go? If it works something like this---I don't like it. What happens if you don't have enough time to move your units, and you lose a critical battle, or you don't have enough time to switch from your pre-build wonder to the UN--and you lose? I think turnless mode is sacrificing alot---do you really want a RTS Civ3?Originally posted by Chiefpaco

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by cgannon64
War in Civ3 is probably the most realistic war I've ever played in a game---you can't just instantaneously get units like in Risk, territory matters much, and many other things. In this regard, losing in real war isn't fun, so why would it be fun in a realistic game? I personally think, for the people who want tons of realism and fun---your not going to get what you want, and you must get one or the other.

I had tons of fun with Civ 2 and about as much realism. I expected the same amount of fun and more realism with Civ 3. Nope. The basic game is very simplistic and quite dumbed down and inaccurate unless you mod it. Go check out some mods. They help a little.