The end of Civ3 is now here.

[Bjornlo]

I'm not sure this is entirely true. While when Conquests was released it was possable to mod units, none of this was "out of the box" - the abilty to edit unit graphics was done soley by the modding community, and Firaxis have released NO tools for modding units. Civ 4 is exactly the same, except we haven't quite figured out how to mod units yet.

By the time Conquests came out, I recall that it was all mod'aible by that time. I think Flicster was out well before conquests. I know a large number of units were already released. Also With conquest, PTW and the vanilla units, there were already more units available (including many in the scenarios) which could be added to your own mod, or the main game if you prefered. it came with a working editor. Which allowed you to add units to the game. This editor did require that you somehow have these units to add... but the basic abilty was there. It was this abilty I was talking about. You "COULD" add units to the game. But it did not make those units for you. Having the editor not make units, is to me, a reasonable limitation.
I think what i said was accurate.
And my point, which I think we agree on, is that Civ4 claiming super moddability should have (at a bare minimum) included all the functionality that conquests started with.

 

[mrtn]

And my point, which I think we agree on, is that Civ4 claiming super moddability should have (at a bare minimum) included all the functionality that conquests started with.

Do you think they should have included all the fan made content made in the two years before conquests too?
The only thing C3C PTW brought was scenario search folders and the Add and Delete buttons in the editor (well, and a bunch of units, but that's content, not functionality), everything else was available in vanilla or made by fans.

 

[Bjornlo]

Do you think they should have included all the fan made content made in the two years before conquests too?
The only thing C3C PTW brought was scenario search folders and the Add and Delete buttons in the editor (well, and a bunch of units, but that's content, not functionality), everything else was available in vanilla or made by fans.

No I don't think they should have included all the content from any period of time. Did I ever mention content? No. Lets not change the topic and pretend it is the same converstation.
I spoke only of functionality which was present in Civ3 Conquests from day one and is missing from Civ4. Specifically the there is no editor. There is no method to add a unit even if you found one by magic.
The fact that some (most) of this functionality was present before Conquests only makes my complaint stronger not weaker.
Out of the box more modding was possible with Conquests then Civ4; and Civ3 (any version) never advertised itself as especially moddable.
I quote from the civ4 box "an unprecidented level of modding power..." this is just BS. How can any person claim it is moddable when you lack even the simplest of tools. You can not add a unit, only change a few skins. And even this was released by accident when they said how to fix a bug the game has with ATI video cards.
To me it is patently false to sell yourself as this super moddable game and not be as moddable and the "regular" game you hope to replace.

 

[mrtn]

No I don't think they should have included all the content from any period of time. Did I ever mention content? No. Lets not change the topic and pretend it is the same converstation.

You do have "show smilies" flagged in your user cp, don't you? I was not serious.
Civ 4 is probably more moddable than people think, they just have to learn a programming language.
Which I'm not interested in, so I'll stay with Civ 3.

 

[Kyriakos]

I am still of the view that firaxis infact wanted to save civ3, by making some of the stuff in civ4 worse than they were in Civ3. This is very dissapointing ofcourse, but it is what happened with civ3 and civ2: having no events file was imo not just a "bad idea" (they could always have it in some x-pack), it was downright cheap; a trick so that civ2 wouldnt die.
That said modability for 2d civ3 graphics already was not great, due to the many files. How many terrain files were ever made for civ3? not that many, and of those not all were high quality. How many different sets of trees? 10 maybe? In over 5 years? That is poor modability.

 

[Bjornlo]

You do have "show smilies" flagged in your user cp, don't you? I was not serious.
Civ 4 is probably more moddable than people think, they just have to learn a programming language.
Which I'm not interested in, so I'll stay with Civ 3.

Yes I do have show smiles on. In my defense it is 4:34am, and I am clearly quite thick when sleep deprived.
For me, it is not if I should learn to program, I am a programmer professionally. I know Python, XML, etc. I don't agree with this approach only because it makes it less accessible to MOD to those without my skills. I object more to the likely requirement that units be made with 3d studio max or Maya (which cost 10-20x's as much as Bryce & Poser, the two main commercial tools for Civ3 (plus all the free ones).
I don't like the super low poly models they used. They look nasty. Wyrmshadow's, Aaglo's, Kinboats, Bebro's, VingrJoe and many others have made better looking units for Civ3.
The biggest complaint I have is the one I went off and ranted to you a moment ago about. It is ultimately less accessable to most modders and even those who have the skills will likely lack the full set of costly tools... and even if you have the skills and the tools, they left out most of the basic stuff you can do with the Civ3 editor(s).

grumble... off to bed.

 

[mrtn]

Varwnos, I don't believe that at all. They live by selling games, not by making good games that people can play for years and years.
Besides, the forests we have are quite good, maybe people think they're good enough? Don't fix it if it ain't broke.
There's been at least five versions of elf cities in that time, and that's a smaller thing than ordinary forests, after all.

@Bjornlo: Bump your Irony Detector up a notch whenever I say something preposterous. Good night.

 

[vingrjoe]

I don't know why, but when I read Firaxis' claim on the Civ4 box that states "An unprecedented level of modding power allows you to customize the units...etc", it reminds me of one of Chris Farley's lines from the movie Tommy Boy:

"Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will."

I really don't know where I'm going with that, so please don't ask me explain.

 

[Gojira54]

Civ4 Vanilla is a better product out the door than Civ3 vanilla was. C3C, with all the modding files available on the net is better than Civ4, IMHO. But the fact that Civ4 is better from it's start than Civ3 was at its, tells me that Civ4 will eventually be better than than anything Civ3. It will just take several patches, an expansion or two, and a year or two of modders picking away at it. I plan on doing all my modding in Civ3 still (I need to finish my current projects), and will eventually start modding in Civ4.

 

[WildWeazel]

Civ4 Vanilla is a better product out the door than Civ3 vanilla was. C3C, with all the modding files available on the net is better than Civ4, IMHO. But the fact that Civ4 is better from it's start than Civ3 was at its, tells me that Civ4 will eventually be better than than anything Civ3. It will just take several patches, an expansion or two, and a year or two of modders picking away at it. I plan on doing all my modding in Civ3 still (I need to finish my current projects), and will eventually start modding in Civ4.

That's exactly what I've been trying to say. Civ4 is NOT the successor to C3C. It's the successor to Civ3 vanilla. C3C was the result of years of development upon the original program. You can't expect a new game to be more developed than one that has had 2 expansion packs and 5 years of work.

 

[Gojira54]

I completely agree. 5 years from now Civ4 will be light years ahead of Civ3. And like I said my guess will be about a year to two before it surpasses C3C.

 

[BadKharma]

I don't know why, but when I read Firaxis' claim on the Civ4 box that states "An unprecedented level of modding power allows you to customize the units...etc", it reminds of one of Chris Farley's lines from the movie Tommy Boy:

"Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will."

I really don't know where I'm going with that, so please don't ask me explain.

LOL good one

Civ 4 is probably more moddable than people think, they just have to learn a programming language.

So the average user is unable to mod the game how exactly does that make a game more moddable?

 

[Bjornlo]

That's exactly what I've been trying to say. Civ4 is NOT the successor to C3C. It's the successor to Civ3 vanilla. C3C was the result of years of development upon the original program. You can't expect a new game to be more developed than one that has had 2 expansion packs and 5 years of work.

Sure I can.

Imagine if other software worked the same way.
Well you can't expect Windows XP to be as nice as Windows 95, after all Windows 95 was patched so many times we lost count.
You can't expect the new radar controller software to be as fancy as the previous version. You can only compare it to the version 1.0 of the pervious version.
This is nonsense.
NO ONE ever ships a product to compete with anything less then the very latest build they themselves released of their previous product.

I work in the software industry myself. I do not hold Firaxis to a higher standard then I hold myself. But the fact is they don't seem to even have tried to match the BS they were spewing.
Also, the assumption that it may someday be better, is just wishful thinking for now. If history were a accurate predictor, then yes this will happen. Of course if history were actually an accurate predictor of future events, we would now have recently concluded WW3 and only had 13 more years until the out break of WW4. This is all fantasy. So is the claim that Civ4 will someday be as good as they originally advertised.

I own Civ4. I've played it 5 times so far. It is not a horrible game. It is not as bad as Moo3. It is also not as good as Civ3. I wish it were. I hope it will be, but I don't believe a word Firaxis has said so far because everything they have said has proven to be mostly or entirely false. I have no doubt (I'm gullible to a degree I guess) that their intentions were good. But what they delivered was only "average", and that is not how you replace a legend.

Imagine Bret Farve (an NFL quarterback headed to the hall of fame after his retirement) was retiring, you advertise that you're gonna draft this amazing new player with the arm of payton manning, the legs of mike vick, and more brains then Farve and Kurt Warner combined.... And what showed up was a Tim Rattay or Brian Griese... sure they don't suck, but they have nothing in common with the BS that was spouted. Would you accept the 'line' that Oh sure they're not as fast, accurate, smart, strong, etc as we said, but they will be some day?
I think not.
Civ4 doesn't suck. But thus far it is more about the promises they didn't keep then the ones they did. disappointing.

 

[Ozymandias]

I would add into the general mix that --since Civ3's release -- I've not believed a word about support for the modding community. Sure, Civ3 has all the pretty modding screens, but the overall modding process is (to put it mildly) cumbersome, and it wasn't Firaxis who released utilities like the MultiTool (that was Gramphos ). Plus documentation on little things like why/how the AI makes its choices were never forthcoming for Civ3 and I doubt will be for Civ4 -- we'll be ripping apart DLLs and fiddling with C++ code until the proverbial cows come home to, say, "repair" the purported retreat of Civ4 back to Civ2-style use of artillery (I'm still waiting for Amazon to get the bloody game to me, so I can't speak with too much personal experience yet).

I imagine that the course of modding -- and that's assuming little things like being able to add units -- will evolve differently around Civ4, with most of us waiting for those of us who can program and are willing to develop intermediate tools to manipulate Civ4 files and code. Oh yeah, and, once we start modding the C++, making certain that differently modded pieces of code are compatible should be, um, interesting.

So, overall, yeah, I'd say the jury's probably out on Civ4 for, oh, say, another two years or so.

Just my $.02.

Best,

Oz

 

[Gojira54]

Sure I can.

Imagine if other software worked the same way.
Well you can't expect Windows XP to be as nice as Windows 95, after all Windows 95 was patched so many times we lost count.
You can't expect the new radar controller software to be as fancy as the previous version. You can only compare it to the version 1.0 of the pervious version.
This is nonsense.
NO ONE ever ships a product to compete with anything less then the very latest build they themselves released of their previous product.

I work in the software industry myself. I do not hold Firaxis to a higher standard then I hold myself. But the fact is they don't seem to even have tried to match the BS they were spewing.
Also, the assumption that it may someday be better, is just wishful thinking for now. If history were a accurate predictor, then yes this will happen. Of course if history were actually an accurate predictor of future events, we would now have recently concluded WW3 and only had 13 more years until the out break of WW4. This is all fantasy. So is the claim that Civ4 will someday be as good as they originally advertised.

I own Civ4. I've played it 5 times so far. It is not a horrible game. It is not as bad as Moo3. It is also not as good as Civ3. I wish it were. I hope it will be, but I don't believe a word Firaxis has said so far because everything they have said has proven to be mostly or entirely false. I have no doubt (I'm gullible to a degree I guess) that their intentions were good. But what they delivered was only "average", and that is not how you replace a legend.

Imagine Bret Farve (an NFL quarterback headed to the hall of fame after his retirement) was retiring, you advertise that you're gonna draft this amazing new player with the arm of payton manning, the legs of mike vick, and more brains then Farve and Kurt Warner combined.... And what showed up was a Tim Rattay or Brian Griese... sure they don't suck, but they have nothing in common with the BS that was spouted. Would you accept the 'line' that Oh sure they're not as fast, accurate, smart, strong, etc as we said, but they will be some day?
I think not.
Civ4 doesn't suck. But thus far it is more about the promises they didn't keep then the ones they did. disappointing.

One can say the same thing about Civ3 when it came out. Civ2 was a much better game in many ways than Civ3, but Civ3 is better in other ways. Same with Civ3 to Civ4. Over all it IS a better game. MUCH better. What it is lacking is mods, and that takes time. There are a few bugs, as all games have at ship time. There are less civs than C3C had, but that can and will be fixed with future expansions and mods.

You clearly are new to the Civ series. I have everything Civ (I - IV, SMACX, even CTP 1 & 2). People like you bark every time a new version or even expansion comes out. What you need to realize is they are making a NEW game. They are going to change some stuff - that is how it happens. Otherwise it would be a third expansion. No matter what they do, someone will be pissed about it. There is no pleasing everyone. Unlike Civ3, Firaxis was smart and had dozens of very experienced players play test and even help design the game. Civ4 is partially fan-built. This is the most solid version ever. Do the research yourself - there is larger maps, more resources, and many more options and dynamics than there has ever been before.

You people have been whining about how this game sucks since before it was released. I was concerned at some things I saw, but decided to wait and see before going to the forums with guns blazing. Am I happy with every single change and the bugs it shipped with? Hell no. it has plenty room for improvement. Do I think it is the best TBS game released ever? YES I DO.

This Game IS better than C3C in more ways than it is less. It crashes, is harder to mod, and has few mods available. In all other ways it is superior. I fully expect all three of those issues to be addressed in the near future. I don't mind that it is much more complex to mod, because that comes hand-in-hand with it having much more available TO mod - leaving us with a LOT more things to play with. My comments about waiting for it to surpass C3C were ONLY relating to the modding community and some of the bugs in the initial shipment.

My advice to EVERYONE is to read all you can in the forums, and put at least 10 hours playing the game before posting about how much it sucks. Until you do, you really have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

Well I don't plan on buying the game. Therefore no civ4 work for me.

And don't make any spurious claims like "You clearly are new to the Civ series." What do you know about what Bjornlo has or doesn't?

 

[El Justo]

Amesjustin,

i concur w/ Bjorn.

while i bought civ4 myself, it unfortunately won't run on my pc.

however, my concerns are that those who made civ4 have taken a step back, not forward. sure, the ability to mod civ4 will be much greater than civ3, etc. however, and it is a big however, it appears that modding civ4 will not be user friendly...at least compared to civ3. now, don't get me wrong, i'm not trashing civ4. but the fact remains that, for all intensive purposes, this vanilla civ4 is a beta and that it will take time and effort to fix this.

also, w/ the distinct lack of user-made gfx for civ4 for the foreseeable future, the new civ game will take quite some time to reach the "modability" of civ3. changing around some stats is not my idea of "modding". adding in units, new civs, maps, rules, etc, etc, is what i want.

plus, who's to say that civ3's most talented unit creators will want to pony up the 4 figures to purchase the software needed to make units, etc for civ4? sure, some new peeps may come onto the scene but the bottom line is that it'll take a long, long time before we are able to truly mod as the designers had predicted. as such, civ4 is (for now), for lack of a better term, a BETA version.

 

[Red Door]

Well, the created units for Civ3 Vanilla were great, but the Completed Scenarios did not get to "great" until the last expansion got out. I say give it 3 years then Im going to start my scenarios. Yes, I am that patient.

 

[LouLong]

About Civ4 being a beta. Honestly it is much less a beta than Civ3 was when initially released. I am not so crazy myself about Civ4 yet (albeit a beta-tester but probably because of my PC specifics) for some reasons but you cannot compare the 2. I love Conquests and would have liked another expansion with more flags and events but it is only that expansion that really made Civ3 a great game. Vanilla Civ, especially unpatched, could not do anything.

 

[Bjornlo]

You clearly are new to the Civ series.

I thank your for your opinion no matter how wrong it is. It is a long standing, and failed, tactic to attack a person when logic fails.
If you had clicked on my name, you'd have seen that I have been playing CIV as long as anyone not involved with beta-testing the original.
But that doesn't matter. My opinion and the facts about the limitations of Civ4 and a number of design mistakes they made would be just as valid if I started playing a few weeks ago rather then in 1991.
Also your comments about play first is as off base as the rest of your comments. I have played it. I own it. My comments did not turn strongly worded until after I had spent 20+ hours playing it.
But I am done defending myself, especially from pompous know-it-alls who lack the reading abilty to even look at the posts they choose to attack.
You think this game is the best TBS? I think you should try some others. Civ4 does not suck. Civ3 is currently better, and is a TBS.
You are quite inconsistent and rambling in your comments. It is the best game ever. Wait until it gets really good with the fans fixing it.