Victory conditions and why they suck.

[Blasphemous]

At first when I started playing Civ3, I played with all victory conditions on. Then there was one time where I had a diplomatic loss, and I got so bummed out that I turned it [dip. vic] off, never to be on again. Then I won a game through SS, which was so unsatisfying that it too went off. I then understood cultural victory would be just as unsatisfying, so it went off too... And histograph victory? Well, it may be good, but it's the reason we have the ridiculous "mandatory retirement year", so that's bad too. [can't be turned off though :-\ ] What's left now? The military victories! So basically all the peacfull victories are a failure... Too bad that the UN becomes such a stupid thing, and not a real United Nations thing.... And too bad that in a game that has such sucky combat (as the opinion of most is [I'm still not convinced]) the only fun way to win is through war...
Hope the XP solves some of these problems...
And just one more thing on combat: the game designers made the stats similar, so someone without a vital strat resource could survive, this is bull****! Civs have been erased from the earth because of lack of vital resources in history, and the resources lose their meaning due to stat similarity. For instance, in my last MarlaMap game, the zulus had no strategic resource whatsoever, and still they survived till the end of the game in 2050!
Firaxis: please understand that your biggest crowd is us civilization fanatics, who want a real experience that reflects history a bit more that just nice animations...

 

[MrBiggBoy]

Originally posted by ShadowFlame
At first when I started playing Civ3, I played with all victory conditions on. Then there was one time where I had a diplomatic loss, and I got so bummed out that I turned it [dip. vic] off, never to be on again. Then I won a game through SS, which was so unsatisfying that it too went off. I then understood cultural victory would be just as unsatisfying, so it went off too... And histograph victory? Well, it may be good, but it's the reason we have the ridiculous "mandatory retirement year", so that's bad too. [can't be turned off though :-\ ] What's left now? The military victories! So basically all the peacfull victories are a failure... Too bad that the UN becomes such a stupid thing, and not a real United Nations thing.... And too bad that in a game that has such sucky combat (as the opinion of most is [I'm still not convinced]) the only fun way to win is through war...
Hope the XP solves some of these problems...
And just one more thing on combat: the game designers made the stats similar, so someone without a vital strat resource could survive, this is bull****! Civs have been erased from the earth because of lack of vital resources in history, and the resources lose their meaning due to stat similarity. For instance, in my last MarlaMap game, the zulus had no strategic resource whatsoever, and still they survived till the end of the game in 2050!
Firaxis: please understand that your biggest crowd is us civilization fanatics, who want a real experience that reflects history a bit more that just nice animations...

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.. interesting. I too have turned off Diplomatic and SS. I kept cultural though, because it lets a small but powerful civ in. Militaristic ones are good if you have HUGE territory.

Okay, heres an example of a civ 2day without a SR. Japan, one of the world's richest countries, HAS NO OIL ON ITS ENTIRE COUNTRY. It all has to be shipped in on tankers 24hrs a day. It's doing fine. Same with England. It made its oil from coal. Many civs 2 day don't have uranium. They buy it from Canada/Australia/US.

 

[Graeme the mad]

How does cultural let a small civ win??
I've never seen the game won because a city reached the culture size - only because an empire did. The big civs nearly always have more culture cos they have more cities and they can then win b4 a small civ can get a city to 10000

 

[Mathias]

To each his own. If you like going for military victory, then by all means do so. Just remember ALL of the conditions for that military victory.

First of all, you must destroy all other civs. You must do this by the year 2050 to prevent histographic result. You must also avoid diplomatic win/loss, not allow any AI to complete spaceship, and you must not exceed 100,000 in culture. If you turn off the unwanted victory options, you are making the game easier. What fun is that?

 

[Mathias]

Originally posted by Graeme the mad
How does cultural let a small civ win??

I played an OCC as France once. Paris had over 18,000 culture, culture rating of 87. This was less than 20 turns from cultural victory when India started attacking my Musketeers around 1840 AD. I had a dozen of 'em, and a few cannons too. They fought off all attackers until India destroyed my barracks...

If I had played the same game and expanded to as little as 6 cities, Paris could have been at 20,000 in the early 1800s.

 

[royfurr]

Originally posted by MrBiggBoy

...
Okay, heres an example of a civ 2day without a SR. Japan, one of the world's richest countries, HAS NO OIL ON ITS ENTIRE COUNTRY. It all has to be shipped in on tankers 24hrs a day. It's doing fine. Same with England. It made its oil from coal. Many civs 2 day don't have uranium. They buy it from Canada/Australia/US.

Yea, Japan is OK as long as the "other Civs" in the world play nice. Look what happened to Japan 55-60 years ago when US naval and air power destroyed her merchant marine and isolated her from access to oil, food, etc. That Japanese Civ went right down the chute. Would today too, if someone went to war with her and controlled the seas, thus prevent access to raw materials. How much do you see ALL the civs playing nice in the game ... especially if your weak militarily? Yes, Japan has a strong culture ... but you cannot eat culture, nor produce energy to heat homes or run industry. I have to agree more with ShadowFlame. The idea of resources in the game is brilliant, but I think they simplified it to much, then "had" to frell the combat system to keep "weak" civs in the game so they could say that there was a chance for a non-war victory ... and that the militaristic civs not be allowed to run amock. Well, theres other ways to do that ... for example, make the cost of military units higher, and increase the labor needed to grow food, thus making war more expensive ... and thus a thing to be avoided most of the time, to be engaged in only as a real last resort, in desperation. The trick of course, is careful balancing of these things. Too bad they didn't playtest the game very much! The militaristic civs are too strong, IMO, and this creates a basic imbalance in things.

Just my 2.5 cents, inflated from last week at 2 cents. Hyperinflation!

 

[royfurr]

Originally posted by MrBiggBoy

...
Okay, heres an example of a civ 2day without a SR. Japan, one of the world's richest countries, HAS NO OIL ON ITS ENTIRE COUNTRY. It all has to be shipped in on tankers 24hrs a day. It's doing fine. Same with England. It made its oil from coal. Many civs 2 day don't have uranium. They buy it from Canada/Australia/US.

Yea, Japan is OK as long as the "other Civs" in the world play nice. Look what happened to Japan 55-60 years ago when US naval and air power destroyed her merchant marine and isolated her from access to oil, food, etc. That Japanese Civ went right down the chute. Would today too, if someone went to war with her and controlled the seas, thus prevent access to raw materials. How much do you see ALL the civs playing nice in the game ... especially if your weak militarily? Yes, Japan has a strong culture ... but you cannot eat culture, nor produce energy to heat homes or run industry. I have to agree more with ShadowFlame. The idea of resources in the game is brilliant, but I think they simplified it to much, then "had" to frell the combat system to keep "weak" civs in the game so they could say that there was a chance for a non-war victory ... and that the militaristic civs not be allowed to run amock. Well, theres other ways to do that ... for example, make the cost of military units higher, and increase the labor needed to grow food, thus making war more expensive ... and thus a thing to be avoided most of the time, to be engaged in only as a real last resort, in desperation. The trick of course, is careful balancing of these things. Too bad they didn't playtest the game very much! The militaristic civs are too strong, IMO, and this creates a basic imbalance in things.

Just my 2.5 cents, inflated from last week at 2 cents. Hyperinflation!

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by MrBiggBoy
Same with England. It made its oil from coal.

There is gas condensate in the southern north sea, and Britain has the Brent oil field.

 

[Stuie]

Originally posted by ShadowFlame
Firaxis: please understand that your biggest crowd is us civilization fanatics, who want a real experience that reflects history a bit more that just nice animations...

Number of registered users on civfanatics: 14,970

Number of copies of Civ3 sold: Hundreds of thousands.

We're just a blip on the radar screen. Maybe you should re-phrase that to say "you most vocal crowd" or "biggest bunch of whiners" or "hardest segment of the game-buying population to please" or somesuch.

None of us are going to get our dream game, because we all dream about different things. Even when we agree something should be implemented, we would probably disagree on the implementation.

 

[Kilroy]

Originally posted by Stuie


Number of registered users on civfanatics: 14,970

Number of copies of Civ3 sold: Hundreds of thousands.

We're just a blip on the radar screen. Maybe you should re-phrase that to say "you most vocal crowd" or "biggest bunch of whiners" or "hardest segment of the game-buying population to please" or somesuch.

None of us are going to get our dream game, because we all dream about different things. Even when we agree something should be implemented, we would probably disagree on the implementation.

This insignificant community helped in no small way in getting stacked movement implemented. It is the primary reason lethal bombard was introduced as an option. This community is important for two reasons: it drives sales, it creates mods which further drive sales. Firaxis, and any other game company for that matter, ignore die-hard fans to their own detriment.

 

[Blasphemous]

Okay, we may not be the biggest crowd, but we are the most loyal crowd. And I didn't mean just people here at civfanatics, I mean our type of people: die-hard fans. We definately are the most loyal crowd, and sales of the XP will be much higher among us than among the casual buyers. Okay, so Firaxis haven't been the most mod-supportive company ever, but still, a mod community is the best thing that can happen to a game! And more so if it's so hard to make a good mod. You need real dedication to make a mod with the tools available to us at the present...
Mathias: It's not making the game easier, it's making it less likely to unsatisfyingly flunk me. Do I really have much to do against the enemy getting a cultural/SS/diplomatic victory? Not much... Unless you're a commy with excellent and cheap spies who has the energy to destroy any city with high culture or a SS part in progress...