Things that got broken in Conquests

[player1 fanatic]

Every expansion pack has its good side and its bad side.
Now, I'll say something about its bad side.
And that are things that worked well before Conquest, but not anymore.
In a way, things that got broken with Conquests.


1) AI civs Leaders don't generate armies
They'll always rush building or unit and never make an army.

2) Barbarian behavior is bugged
Exempt when attacking defenseless cities or workers, barbarians will never attack targets that are not on their NW/SE axis.

3) Submarine bug
AI civs will declare war when they accidentally stop on enemy invisible submarine.
This happens with all other units, which could have invisible flag.
It was bug in original Civ3 too, but got fixed with Play the World expansion.

4) Unfair advantage of AI invisible units
Invisible AI units can attack cities, while such player units can not.
This bug is for moded game only.

5) Assigned AI armies sometimes only load one unit
This happens because there is some "legacy" line of code from original Civ3 that says that no unit with lower movement rate then army will be loaded in army. So if army gets loaded with one Swordsmen, AI will never load another 1-move unit since now army has movement of 2. It will fill it later with Horsemen or Knights. But if army got started with Cavalry, it will never be filled (no 4-move units in the game).
This bug is for moded games only, since in normal game because of bug no.1, AI never gets armies.

 

[socralynnek]

1) AI civs Leaders don't generate armies
They'll always rush building or unit and never make an army.

Did that really work in Vanilla Civ3?
But it's some time ago since I played it.

But, yeah, the other bugs are bad...and I hope, they still find the time to fix them all...

 

[Pounder]

Armies worked in PTW and Vanilla, but it was always questionable about how the AI filled the Armies. The AI would haphazardly fill armies with whatever, not using it's most modern or compatible units. Maybe with the current code the AI plays a better offense without armies.

Probably needs major code changes to have the AI use armies effectively.

 

[Vizurok]

Good summary! I didnt know about 2 and 5. Is there a logical answer for number 2?

 

[player1 fanatic]

Have no idea.
Probably some error in AI targeting routine.

But it can be easily exploited.

 

[Dogmeat]

You forgot about the AI workers.
In PTW, if they wanted to replace a mine on plains with irrigation, they did it.
Now in Conquests they NEVER replace ANYTHING. So it's quite common that an AI on an island without fresh water doesn't have a single irrigated tile even on modern age.
All they have to do is reimplement the worker AI from PTW and I'll be happy.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Yes, that's the good point.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

And the AI city placement is actually worse in C3C. Hard to describe it exactly, but they really seem to forget to consider coast correctly - too many cities now end up one tile away from the coast line. Check Chieftess' sig for a link to a good example.
If you look at an old ptw safe, you'll notice that the AI did much better before.

Next, techs for constructed/ obsolete wonders: Remeber what you could get for Free Artistry in ptw when you already had the Wonder? Peanuts. Now, the AI will pay full price for it....

Then, though this was no change to the AI, but a change to game balance:
Vulcanoes and Marshes, without teaching the AI what to do about them. The AI will settle right next to 9 Vulcanoes. And, the AI will never clear Wetlands before founding a city on Marshes - they don't improve terrain outside their city borders, and won't found cities within those :crazyeyes: . Thus, the Human has a pretty good chance to grab several sources of Oil without any competition, especially on Mrshy islands...

But then, let's not forget a plethora of things (aside from the BIG changes like FP and Armies) were improved in c3c. I'm still in a ptw SG, and boy, I am missing a lot here.
Overall, if only the Big 3 Bugs would be fixed, C3C would be an outstanding improvement.

 

[Dogmeat]

they don't improve terrain outside their city borders

What about colonies and the roads to those?
And, in PTW at least, they would draw irrigation channels from freshwater sources to the cities even if those sources were outside of the borders.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

And what's the question? Sure they build Roads, Colonies and Bring Irrigation. Everything you can do with Automated Workers orders.
But where's the button 'Clear Wetlands to...', 'Build Maginot Line', 'Plant Forest on everytile outside your Borders', 'Plant Forest to allow cities on Tundra if Tundra itself doesn't allow cities'?

The idea of Jungle 'unsettable' is an old DyP concept that was skipped because the AI cannot understand it. Not even if the Settler himself could clear the Wetland in 1 turn. Just look at the AoD Conquest (no cities in Jungle and Forrest) to see how bad it works out.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Personally, I would be pretty much satisfied with C3C if army/leader and barbarians bugs got fixed.
(other bugs aren't that big deal)

The way it is now, it just feels like Civ3: Incomplete


P.S.
Still beter then PtW, even with such bugs.

 

[troytheface]

I felt that PTW was a better expansion...offered new playability feature (multi player) as oppossed to just more stuff (units/civs/ect)
The promise of Conquests making Civ even better fell victem to the ol -try to make something good even better and u end up with..not as good...
The Statue of Zues and Templar were inspired ideas..but that Statue of Zues can be a game breaker..an early one at that (Emperor)
Armies are improved! (Except for the AI- another faux paux that can utterly ruin the AI's chances)
TOW? I thought Machine Gunners were the base of a squad..not TOW. (like in the WW2 Pacific Scenario-and on that note Scenarios were ok...once...)
Liked Flak and Bombers that can kill- but never seem to really get any cool air battles going. Same with Navy..Cruiser/Dromon.Curragh all good ideas that really don't add to naval excitement. I think they should look at Call To Power and consider new playability features...rather than just adding more and more...

 

[Dogmeat]

Ironically, Conquests is better for multiplayer while PTW is better for singleplayer.
Simply because human players know how to handle all the strategic elements in Conquests like barricades, airbases, marshes and the improved armies and they also know when to replace their mines with irrigation.
There are many things I like with Conquests; The curragh and cruiser are both excellent additions, the barricade can make for great defensive tactics, I also like the knights templar wonder and the seafaring trait. Im skeptical towards the Statue of Zeus wonder and the agricultural trait though..
This game could've been so much better with a bit more AI programming.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Well, consdering that Soren, main Civ3 AI guy, probably started working on Civ4 (as lead designer!) even before Conquests got finished, someone else needed to fill it up.

When you look at it, most bugs are in some way related to AI decision making.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

When you look at it, most bugs are in some way related to AI decision making.

Exactly. They introduced a lot of new features or changed existing ones without adapting the AI code. So in fact, it's more surprising how many things do work well, lik SGLs not the GA, the guys themselves!, unit-spawning improvements, the AGR and SEA traits, all those Victory conditions from the conquests, to name a few.

 

[Ben E Gas]

Not sure if someone already mentioned it. But one annoying thing that changed is that I cannot move my units with the arrow keys anymore. What gives? Anyone else have this problem?

It's especially annoying when I'm moving units into an ocean square that I shouldn't be moving into.
Also, when I want to just attack once and hit the right or left arrow key, it won't work. I'm forced to use the mouse. Is this a setting I have on?

 

[Harre]

Not sure if someone already mentioned it. But one annoying thing that changed is that I cannot move my units with the arrow keys anymore. What gives? Anyone else have this problem?

It's especially annoying when I'm moving units into an ocean square that I shouldn't be moving into.
Also, when I want to just attack once and hit the right or left arrow key, it won't work. I'm forced to use the mouse. Is this a setting I have on?

Try disabling num-lock.... I had the same problem...

 

[player1 fanatic]

Well, if more things didn't worked we wouldn't play C3C, we would play PtW instead.


P.S.
If FP didn't got fixed I sure know what I would do.