c179# THE JOYS AND FRUSTRATING ELEMENTS OF THE CIV SERIES

[MarkG]

179# THE JOYS AND FRUSTRATING ELEMENTS OF THE CIV SERIES
A full analysis of the bad and the good of all civ games!

By Peter Ashley

[Mech Assassin]

Hmm, some comments. Seems like you haven't played Master of Orion 1 nor Civilization 1.

Anyway, about the Environment, in Orion 1, there were 5 different values for each city, you defined (how much producion points to use on each).

1 was building factories.
1 was building ships.
1 was building defenses.
1 was how much to use on environment (did it go worse, clean or did it get better. The better environment, the more citizen and such)
The last one was research.

The environment is the important one. I think, environment should be like this, so you define, how much gold and producion to use on the environment in the city. The more you use, the more population you get and the longer lifespan your citizen have).


About the end of game, I think, the Civ 1 type comparsion would be nice. Also, I like upgrading my castle more than upgrading my throne room (and choosing, what style to use to build it). Also, I think, the castle should have some value, like it would give you culture points.


On diplomaticy, planning wars should be done better. You should be able to make full-scale war plan with your allies (you choose the attack routes and targets. Then you have ability to ask them to hold some positions for certain time and such). Then, the AI should be active on helping you with planning also. They should also consider their own losses. Also, Allied conquest victory could be nice future (like max. 3 civizations could do combined allied victory). This would enable me not to break any pacts and still win.

Then, I'd like to be able to buy land (or sea) area from other players. This hasn't yet been implemented. Also, I'd like the ability to ask for permission to pass by my friends area, when making an attack run.

Also, I'd like to get points in the end about my diplomatic status (and my diplomatic trust) so I couldn't just break pacts and win without consuquences at the end of the game. All atrocities would count as negative points.

[Rue]

An interesting and thought provoking article.

An area I would like to see developed more thoroughly is trade. I would like to see it possible to build an economically powerful society. One which would wield its hegemony through economic might. Military might would be reserved to protect the economic machine.Trading partners then would become longtime allies. Perhaps rather than distributing resources throughout the map, certain key resources can be distributed in different areas. Perhaps each society could become expert at developing a particular class of technology that could be a commodity for trade.

Another thing I would like to see, is the ability to negotiate borders with neighbors. This could take the form of buying territory or trading territory.

[Father Beast]

WOW! That is pretty comprehensive. I am going to have to print it out and see if I agree on all points. I'll be back.

Mech Assassin-
I think when he said "might of orion", he meant "master of orion". it looks like he has played it.

[Ned]

Mech Assassin, Too bad you never had a chance to play CIV. It many ways, it was the best game of all. Certainly tougher by an order of magnitude than any subsequent game in the genre. It seems the more features they add the easier it is for the human player to beat the AI. It also adds to the micromanagement problem.

One major pet peeve of mine is the way Alpha Centauri automatically jumps to an active unit. I have tried turning that off to no avail. How many time is it that you have been checking on units or production in a particular base, and each time you finish any intermediate action, the game leaves its map focus on the base and jumps to an active unit elsewhere - forcing one time and again to refocus the map view.

I would kill to return to CIV II's control of the map where you had to actually command the game to refocus the map to an active unit. That was far, far better.

Ned

[War4ever]

while civ 2 is a great game..... the origional was better as far as ground breaking gameplay. some of the new features of civ2 are kind of annoying.

sure i hate the phalanx defeats a battleship of civ1 but i don't really like the new combat system either.

stacking should be a nice change in civ3 but its not like this concept is innovative.... it exists in other games.

civ3 will likely produce a "new" game with problems similar to the ctp series......maybe producing a more realistic game , but likely full of flaws to exploit..

if Sid were smart , he would take some of Europa Universals ideas and try to incorporate them into the civ series, along with some proven winning ideas ala smac, ctp, civ etc .....


i fear radical changes though..... as ctp proved.... too much too soon can be hazardous to your health....

BTW a good little read that article was......

[Mech Assassin]

Hmm, seems like I read it too quick. I thought he had only played MoO 2... Anyways, I HAVE played Civ I... It's been long, but I have it... It's in storage...

[mikey]

i agree with everything you said. However, one apsect of CIV 2 that I think is overlooked is how well the interface works in a window. By that, I mean, its very easy to switch between Civ. 2 and other programs, so you can play the game in between doing other stuff (like when I'm at work). Also, this "simple" windows 95 type interface also seems to make the program less likely to crash. I know everyone is in love with DirectX because of the better graphics, but I tend to prefer older games which can be easily run in the background without memory leakage or something causing you to have to restart the system. More than any other single factor, that one has caused me to be still be a faithful Civ 2 player after 5 years, despite no other program holding my interest for more than a few weeks.

[Case]

Originally posted by War4ever
civ3 will likely produce a "new" game with problems similar to the ctp series......maybe producing a more realistic game , but likely full of flaws to exploit..

I'd say that the Civ 3 designers will have carefully analysised the CTP games, and hopefully will be able to avoid the mistakes made in them.

[Peter Ashley]

Thanks to everyone to commented on the article.

On reading it again, I still feel theres so much more to say, and so little time/space :-)

I hope Civ3 is fun, more than anything.
Small mistakes can be forgiven and tolerated when youre having fun.

[Mech Assassin]

Originally posted by mikey
i agree with everything you said. However, one apsect of CIV 2 that I think is overlooked is how well the interface works in a window. By that, I mean, its very easy to switch between Civ. 2 and other programs, so you can play the game in between doing other stuff (like when I'm at work). Also, this "simple" windows 95 type interface also seems to make the program less likely to crash. I know everyone is in love with DirectX because of the better graphics, but I tend to prefer older games which can be easily run in the background without memory leakage or something causing you to have to restart the system. More than any other single factor, that one has caused me to be still be a faithful Civ 2 player after 5 years, despite no other program holding my interest for more than a few weeks.

I usually like to run DOS programs in the prompt (like Civilization 1 or Master of Orion 1/2) and use Alt-Tab to switch between normal applications and the game. I like DOS games, cause they leave almost all system resources for your use. Of course I can Window them also, but I like keeping them in full screen, even while working.

[tuckson]

Having read the article, I can agree with a lot of things being said.
However, I wouldn't mind having a copy of CIV 2 as CIV 3 as long as only 1 thing is improved, namely the cheating of the AI.

I still play CIV 2 very much (especially against my wife, she downstairs, me upstairs, real great fun). We usually play with the maximum number of AI civs available. And we both both really enjoy it a lot. No bug or irritating feature makes us being really mad at the game, except one:

The cheating AI

Let me explain what I mean. Suppose I am attacking an AI city with a cannon or a catapult and a legion. Both slow units. Suppose I have used an explorer to walk around the city and have seen no enemy units in the neigborhood. The city is defended by 2 units. It's my turn and I defeat those 2 units, leaving the city to be taken next turn. Wanna bet that next turn the city is defended again? OK, maybe the city at the moment had enough shields to produce the new unit, bad luck. So I fight again. Leaving the city open to be taken next turn. Wanna bet that next turn there are again units in the city? Now I am enraged.

Same thing for the rule that one cannot pass another civs units.
This only seems to be the case for human players.
If only these things could be improved so that we could rely on the fact that the AI is bound to the same restrictions and rules as we as human players are.

And what about meeting an AI civ's unit in the early game, when they have no cities on that particular piece of land and not discovered seafaring yet?

By the way, when I as large civ am negotiating with an AI that's only 1 or 2 cities and a few units left, Does it makes sense it boasts that it will "spare us from the wrath of their mighty armies"?

Kind regards,
tuckson

[Ned]

tuckson, I don't remember, but I a human can do pretty much the same thing as the CIV II AI - build a unit every turn - in SMACX. The only difference is that the AI can change production immediately in response to changed circumstances, something the human player cannot do. But you can actually see how it happens in SMACX because you can see what a base is producing from the map. When a last garrison unit is killed, the AI will switch production immediately to a garrison unit. If it has sufficient resources, it will rush build the unit.

Once you understand this, you know what you have to do to take an AI base. You must have enough units to not only kill the defenders, but also move one last unit in to take the base. A single, one-movement unit by its lonesome probably can never take an AI base.

Ned

[Tokek Belerang]

It seems the author played a good deal more CTP than he did SMAC. Or is it just me. Could be. I suppose.

Kek

[Peter Ashley]

The AI in CivII can and does cheat sometimes ;-)

The most obvious way Ive ever noticed this, is when it nukes the ONLY city thats not protected against nuke missiles - first time out! How could it know such a thing without finding out through trial and error?
The AI should not have access to knowledge a user doesnt have.
I meant to write this somewhere under the "What I know" section.

To all offended SMAC fans :

Yes, I admit Ive played more CivII, CTP, CTPII than I have SMAC. Buts thats cause I just dont like SMAC. (And Yes - before you ask - I have played at least 100 hours of SMAC before forming that opinion)
But to a Civ fan, its just not my taste, and thats okay :-)

[St Leo]

The SimCity series is not a rip-off of the Civ series. On the contrary, Sid has admitted that the Civ series is a rip-off of the SimCity series.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by St Leo
The SimCity series is not a rip-off of the Civ series. On the contrary, Sid has admitted that the Civ series is a rip-off of the SimCity series.

to be a bit more precise, sid has said that Simcity (classic) was one of the inspirations for Civ 1. But your point is important, simcity was no derivative of civ. Civ has at least some of its roots in the city builder genre, as well as the strategy/war game genre.

LOTM

[Cook666]

There are lots of good ideas here but please could someone tell them (especially those about research and battles) to the guys making civ3 - before it is too late. In all the previews I have seen no indication that they intended changing the combat system too much - 1 unit battles - the combat in CTP was the only thing good in the game and that in CTP2 was even better - please tel Sid MEier and all the other game designers this

[Mech Assassin]

Actually CTP battles had few bad sides in them. Like, Battleship could be sank by large enough archer army.

I propose a fix to this with a new roll, armor, for units. Any troop, that doesn't have firepower stat over the armor rating of the other won't be able to damage the unit (this would also help things like tanks). This way, Archers couldn't touch an incoming tank, like in real life.

[mhaupert]

Originally posted by Mech Assassin
I propose a fix to this with a new roll, armor, for units. Any troop, that doesn't have firepower stat over the armor rating of the other won't be able to damage the unit (this would also help things like tanks). This way, Archers couldn't touch an incoming tank, like in real life.

I tend to disagree with you on this. If you think in a hypothetical sense, an army of archers could destroy a tank. Sure, it would be a bloody and gruesome sight, but you could bury the tank and it would eventually run out of ammo and fuel leaving it vunerable to whatever whim the attacker could bring to bear. This was pretty much the approach the USA and Russia (USSR) took on WWII.

[Mech Assassin]

There's the fact, that there aren't factors, like bullets or fuel in Civ series, so that technique wouldn't work...

[The Rusty Gamer]

Speaking of mods, I think CTP2 is pretty flexible with them isn't it?
I was wondering if anyone was going to have a go at creating mod packs for CTP2 to duplicate Civ2 or even Civ1?

[Chronus]

I propose a fix to this with a new roll, armor, for units. Any troop, that doesn't have firepower stat over the armor rating of the other won't be able to damage the unit (this would also help things like tanks). This way, Archers couldn't touch an incoming tank, like in real life.

I don't agree with this either. Make it a million to one chance for the archer . . . but to have the tank win 100% of the time is, IMOHO, less interesting and not realistic.

I suspect the difficulty some people have is that they view the battle with only a few factors such as "armor rating" or "firepower". Try looking at ALL possible factors that can happen. Suppose an earthquake occurs and swallows up the tank . . . or some stuipid neglect on the commander's part causes the tank to run out of gas. Be creative and try to find a possible explanation that works for you. I'm not saying these unusual circumstances should happen a lot; I'm just saying they shouldn't be eliminated entirely.

[Mech Assassin]

Why to modify your own view to match that of the game, when you can hope to get the game modified to mach your view? However, I think, there should be more random events, like

Earthquakes (well, the ones in Civ II were really underpowered and could only occur at cities)

Tornados (why the hell have this been forgotten? Maybe they're just in too short period of time, but they sure as hell can level a city)

Volcanos (if krakawhatever (a volcano at indonesia) was able to dim the sun of the entire world during 530-550 for 10 years, having basically the same effect as a nuclear winter, they at least deserve a place in the game. They don't need to be that destructive, just to have them to spit lava and fire and burn units near it and after the erruption to have the area, covered in lava to have very high food-producion)

Meteor Rain (these have occured in real life over time. They have played an integral role in our past)

Comet (like meteor, except causes more heat than explosions and isn't as powerful, compared to size)

And things like that... Of course have ability to not to have random events, if some want to play a completely fair game with no luck rolls.

[airdrik]

It's been a while since I have visited these forums, but I read the article, and I definetally think that they should include with civ 3 an in-depth customization tool. It would have things in it like toggle between static units and workshop models, choosing static would allow you to design static units with all the stats that go along with static units. Choosing Workshop would allow you to set up chasises and parts that can be added. You can open up and edit existing units files/ai files/mods/scenarios/etc. and easily design your own.

When you open up civ 3 to start a new game, it would have the options of standard game, custom scenario, custom modpack, or mix-and-match (which would allow you to pick, say starwars units on sesame street terrain and have the AI act like Richard Simmons)

In the Editor you could set up random events and what they do (like meteor shower: 1/2500 chance, destroys 20 land/city improovments in a certain area, or meteor strike: 1/10000 chance, destroys one city size <20, or decreases city size by 20 and destroys 90% of all improovments and units in city). You could toggle all sorts of little gameplay enhancements, like simplified combat-civ 2 combat-civ3 combat, road/rr/irr/farm/mine's effects on map squares, what types of improovments exist (ie. road 1move, rr all move points but can continue on track as far as the go in 1 turn, highway 1/3 move, farm +2 food, mine+2 production, fort+25% def, base +50% def and att must have fort).

In this editor you should also be able to tweek the AI, give it a name, have them never sign treaties, but allways signs ceasefires, have them never break treaties, but allways breaks ceasefires. etc. Give them strategies that they will use, like allways make sure that outer defences have been destroyed with artillary before attacking a city with infantry. Wait untill they have 10 top-of-the-line units in each of 10 different stacks before blitzing an enemy. etc.

[LandBuilder]

Nothing can compare with the thrill that I had when I played Civ 1 for the first time. What an experience!! what a game!!
It was almost like becoming a drug addict, every game I play after Civ 1 I hope will give me the same rush that it did. So far, I am still looking.

[Ned]

Landbuilder, My sentiments exactly. Moreover, I tire of every other game pretty quickly and go right back to Civ or its progeny. The concept was revolutionary, IMHO. I only hope Sid got a patent.

Ned