Yesterday I went to bed and ran into a great idea: Civ3-minus.

[Theov]

Yesterday I thought of a Civ3 that was reduced a lot. A civ 3 with a major hair cut.
No units no one makes, no wonders no one cares about and no techs no one ever researches.

Imagine ci3 without unnecessary units, unnecessary buildings, unnecessary wonders, unnecessary everything... it's a civ3 you run through easier.

I made an expansion of this game and thought of the things that haven't been done yet. Then I thought, I'd like a shorter game.

I can make it easily. Ideas and suggestions welcome!

So - tell me, how could Civ3 be quickened up, without losing its charm?

 

[Quintillus]

Well, you could remove Ironclads, Facism, and (for non-20K games) Printing Press, Democracy, and Free Artistry, and hardly anyone would notice the difference.

A lot of the time you could also remove the very last techs such as Genetics, Stealth, and Smart Weapons, as few games last that long. And Coastal Fortresses are almost never useful. Same with Paratroopers and thus Advanced Flight.

I'm not sure quickened up is what I'm really looking for, though. One of the things I like in III that (depending on the game speed) you don't always get in IV/V is a decent amount of time in each time period, where each unit can contribute. It is kind of annoying that the AIs are always trying to trade you Facism, or Free Artistry after Shakespeare's has already been built, but at least Free Artistry has a place in 20K games (or an AI threatening to reach 20K), and while very rarely useful, there are a few rare cases where Ironclads make sense. I wouldn't want to remove everything that's highly situational, at least not all the time.

Now a rebalancing of Civ so you could start in the Industrial Age but not be saddled with 80-shield Riflemen right away, that I might be able to get behind. The latter two ages get proportionately less play, and it could be fun to start there - but there needs to be a better ramp-up if you do start there.

 

[Kaiser Sousse]

Don't know if this has been proposed before (so rare to come across truly original ideas), but I had thought that the following would make for fantastic - if slightly "shorter" - experiences. They wouldn't really require making decisions on what to gut (other than reasonably sticking to what was circa-accurate), would provide better balancing between time passage and usefulness, as well as allowing for some interesting twists. Think of these as Operational campaigns; a compromise between the Global Civ and scenarios - but not quite Conquests:

1. Civ III - Mesopotamia Rocks: Starts the same time frame as the Global game, but time passage exchange is similar to that in the middle ages. Best played with many AI opponents (perhaps slightly advanced for a proper challenge). Would be best to leave the mechanics of units and cities the same, but with an expanded research tree dramatically slowed down (civilizations focus on a branch, rather than trying to research everything), and construction requiring far more shields.

2.) Civ III - Victoria Rising: Starts a good piece before industry kicks into gear. Most age-specific research has already been discovered, with some still needed in order to advance into the industrial era (those initial technologies would be slow going and offer different branches once the path was chosen and committed to). Once a civilization unlocked their way into this new age of automation, their chosen branch wold progress quicker and quicker - offering more and more military-based units/advancements. The idea would be that all players (including the AI) would be in a technology race, hurtling toward a historically violent confrontation.

3.) Civ III - Post Modern Crucible: Circa 2020. Present day tech and units in a world of quick reaction doctrine (1 turn = 1 month). Focus would be that of larger, more stable nations dealing with intermittent actions by highly volatile city-state-like nations engaging in piracy and sabotage; other less stable (but comparatively large) upstart nations would be ripe to start wars with their newly acquired toys (i.e. Nuclear and cutting-edge military units/techs).

Just some food for thought... hope this sparks some ideas.

 

[WildWeazel]

Sounds like a Civ1 mod. It had pretty lean content. It'd be interesting to see how that played out with Civ3's improved mechanics.