Yin has Civ3!: Let the testing begin ...

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by yin26
I took over Calcutta, cutting India's supply line in half: But the people revolted and took it back! Looks like I need to handle the angry populace better. More troops fortifying? Would that work?

Ah, hell. Now I'm in trouble.

Well I took over London in my game and had over ten troops there, they quelled all four dissidents in one round. Similary I took over Canterbury, left only 6 troops there and only quelled two angry dissidents each turn. In addition, once the English citizens became content I still had to leave as many of my troops in the city as there were foreign citizens or else the city was in unrest. *sigh*

Oh well, good thing I had all my major cities producing mounted warriors and veteran spearmen.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by yin26
I am currently playing a copy 'on loan' from my computer guy here in Korea. He owns a small shop near one of my bus stops, and he has seen me many times over the years. He said:

"If you like the game, come back and buy it. Keep the disks a few weeks if you need."

So, total amount paid so far: $0

Clever, Yin!

But then, I know already you are a clever guy.

I took the somewhat larger risk to buy the US version; well, it feels like Civ. If it feels like an improvement, can´t yet say. I look forward to your comments while I do my own testing.

[yin26]

CT: LOL! Well, I'm a bit lucky is all. That and I *only* buy games from him, and he knows I could go to a lot of other places.

Well, here's how the war is going:

[yin26]

As you can see, I've cut India in half and am holding well. I learned the necessity of garrisoning units to keep the rebels in check. That's one of the mechanisms they seem to have programmed to keep you from just running from one city to the next. Interesting.

Now, I have *NO* idea how the other civs are doing. I get the sinking feeling one of them could show up on my shores and kill me at a moments notice. I just hope I can take over India first!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yin, you should be interested in my thread... it details some problems I'm having. Have we switched positions . Naw, not yet... but it might make for a little interesting read.

[yin26]

Bangalor and Lahore are also mine, though the annoying 'We take back our city and all your troops stationed there vanish' thing is getting tired. I understand this has to do with relative culture ratings, but tell me: If I'm in a war, how do I invest in culture? "Well, that's the point, Yin!" I understand, and that part is good. BUT: That virtually means you have to have a higher culture in order to WIN this kinds of wars without all the hassles. But a higher culture Civ likely won't have the resources for troops if the investment has gone into culture.

There's some sort of odd Catch-22 going on here.

A few negatives:

* When you go to war, there's no message between the civs. It's as if nothing happens.
* The workers are an intolerable micro-manage nightmare! And the 'automate' function has them running around doing the stupidest things ... running between cities, for example, building nothing! *sigh* I had hoped the days of the 'spinning in circles terraformers' would end.
* You lose your entire army in a city if you are deposed. C'mon. That's silly. I have a garrison of 8 troops and 6 citizens not only take back the city but wipe out the entire army?

A few positive points:

* The linked words to the Civilopedia is great! So easy to find the info you need.
* When you quit the game, you drop right to the desktop. I *hate* games that make you go through 2 or 3 menus just to exit.
* The AI actually dropped troops behind my war front! Sadly, it only brought a single warrior.

By the way, since I'm bogged down in a war on an island ... I have a sinking feeling I'm being totally outclassed by the 6 other civs in the game. And since I have no diplomatic relationship with them, I have no trade. I guess I should have built a galley, eh?

Well, if I can kill India at least, I'll be happy enough for my first try.

[yin26]

Imran: THAT I have to read!

[Leonidas]

I know how it feels: the first couple games can be humbling. . .

I'm currently in my third game, and I am itching to go to war, but I suspect all those galleys sneaking around my island are hoping that is exactly what I do. . .

[Jason]

/agree firmly about armies poofing. If your armies don't have a credible... something making them vanish into thin air, then they shouldn't.

Frankly if the armies outnumber the foreign nationals in a city that should be an automatic no-revolt right there.

[Faboba]

Originally posted by Jason Beaudoin
Faboda: Didn't I take care of that for you?

Nope. The last word I've had was 'what is your e-mail address'.

If you sent it to Hotmail I suppose it might have eaten it and not bothered sending it on to my pop-3 server.

Hmmmmmm

I'll check the online version.

[yin26]

O.K. More update.

I seem to have gotten myself into a horribly sluggish start. I should have expanded more agressively and worried more about resources. This seems to be a universal 'getting used to' problem among a lot of us. I could have started over, but I want to play the game in full. Take my beating.

Some good stuff:

* Sometimes a city will need to build something urgently, in which case you get a message, one of which allows you to 'Let CityX complete [current item] then start [new item].' VERY convenient!
* Things are just so much more delicate in this game! It's really impossible to just roll over enemy cities the way you used to in Civ2! Even when you pile up units (which you pretty much have to), you'll need to keep them fortified in newly-taken cities to keep them from deposing you ... this gives the enemy lots of time to prepare its next city for your arrival. So if you plan to go to war: Blitzkrieg!

Some bad stuff:

* The excessive roads still look terrible, along with the mines. I hope Firaxis considers my proposal for graphics toggles.
* The diplomacy side of things is awfully artificial and prone to abuse. For example, I can get India to give me some techs for peace. Then simply take another city. Get him to give me another tech for peace, etc. The diplomacy AI really needs to keep track of how often you break treaties.
* Along with that, the AI never even cared when I started massing troops in his borders. Sure, we were at peace at the time, but by now it should plan better against my treachery.

Well, here's the latest image. You'll notice very little change. Things have see-sawed back and forth, but I've pretty much caught up with India and made them hurt. Problem is: I've now contact other Civs and they are vastly superior to me. The *ONLY* way I can win this one is to wipe out India somehow to get this whole island to myself, keep the other civs happy with me, and try to get them to go to war with each other. Then, using my isolation to buy time, catch up with tech and econ and try to make taking me over a holy terror. Absorb the first wave and time my counter-strike. Easier said than done, however, when I lack the resources to build anything advanced. Basically: Trade or die.

[mactbone]

The diplomacy side of things is awfully artificial and prone to abuse. For example, I can get India to give me some techs for peace. Then simply take another city. Get him to give me another tech for peace, etc. The diplomacy AI really needs to keep track of how often you break treaties

Uhhh, Yin, make sure the other civs never get to know India... India will tell them that you're breaking treaties, then they'll make you give up a lot to get any deals going. This happened with me, but I think the effect was magnified because I was the "superpower" nation. So watch your back...

[yin26]

Crap. Madras just decided they like India better. *poof* Gone. Now I want to go on record with this statement:

"It's ironic that the addition of culture has made me want to simply raze cities instead of building them up."

Here's another statement:

"Of all the challenges in Civ3, perhaps one of the greatest will be your starting position. Deal with it!"

You see, if I had simply razed that city and followed up with a settler, I could have kept it and never worried about having all my units stationed there simply evaporating because the citizens like curry more than sweet and sour sauce.

And if I hadn't been on this island, I would have had more room to breath. However, that one was MY fault. Next time I'll really see early on where I am on the map, who's my neighbor and what resources I have. Gee: Makes sense! I might start off in a bad spot at times, but that just adds to the challenge (though I suspect some random map tweaking might be in order here).

Now keep in mind: I enjoy having to rethink things ... but something is a but off here ... now for bed.

[yin26]

MacTBone: Hmm, something to think about. So far, nobody else has bothered me. I think it's, as you say, mostly directed at my relative insignificance in the game. LOL!

But I can't stand restarting just because I messed up.

[SuiteSisterMary]

'We take back our city and all your troops stationed there vanish' thing is getting tired.

Makes sence; they kill your units in house to house, guerilla style combat, and form a 'militia' which results in one modern defensive unit when the city returns to it's parent.

And I'll tell you some time about the time that I established a city on a different continant to get some coal, and the AI actually blockaded it, then started dropping troops on my mainland (I'm talking it sent in a sortie of six! fully loaded galleons with calvary) and overwhelming my poor musketmen.

Of course, this is also the map where I simply had no horses, oil or rubber....

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by yin26
Crap. Madras just decided they like India better. *poof* Gone. Now I want to go on record with this statement:

"It's ironic that the addition of culture has made me want to simply raze cities instead of building them up."

Here's another statement:

"Of all the challenges in Civ3, perhaps one of the greatest will be your starting position. Deal with it!"

You see, if I had simply razed that city and followed up with a settler, I could have kept it and never worried about having all my units stationed there simply evaporating because the citizens like curry more than sweet and sour sauce.

And if I hadn't been on this island, I would have had more room to breath. However, that one was MY fault. Next time I'll really see early on where I am on the map, who's my neighbor and what resources I have. Gee: Makes sense! I might start off in a bad spot at times, but that just adds to the challenge (though I suspect some random map tweaking might be in order here).

Now keep in mind: I enjoy having to rethink things ... but something is a but off here ... now for bed.

a bit of advice since you seem to be getting frustrated with the city conversion... try focusing on conquering the Indians cities which are farthest from Delhi, since distance from the foreign capital is a strong factor in city conversion. (Other improtant factors are number of combat units (land units with an offense or defense factor) stationed in the city, Civil Disorder, We Love The King Day, overall culture ratio, and culture ratio within that city (how many culture point you accrued in Madras vs. how many points Ghandi accrued in Madras).) Hope that helps...

[HalfLotus]

Your game sounds like fun Yin.
A question about your means of getting the game. You have been saying that you wont buy civ3 because of no MP, bad PR, whatever. Your computer friend has let you "borrow" civ3, saying if you like it, buy it. It still doesn't have MP, which means you won't be buying the game from him (and thus giving Firaxis your money). It sounds like you are misleading him. What gives?

[TCO]

Yin, what was your skill level wrt Civ2? (It helps me to interpret your review) Were you a "deity is easy", "deity is still tough", or "diety is friggen insane" player?

[Jason]

Makes sence; they kill your units in house to house, guerilla style combat, and form a 'militia' which results in one modern defensive unit when the city returns to it's parent

I don't buy this. Cities should only EVER defect if they have less than their pop in units as garrison, and even then it's far fetched. One's army of occupation isn't going to change sides because of "culture," and armed rabbles can't destroy armies of the same size past ancient times.

And no, urban situations don't matter. You didn't see the Parisians inviting the Germans in to dance in 1871 and wiping them out. Urban situations make a defending ARMY strong against an opposing ARMY, assuming equivalent competency. A civil uprising against a huge garrison should result in population loss, at worst.

I might have to fight wars with communism and force build settlers or something. This business of armed-to-the-teeth occupied cities poofing away from you simply won't do.

[Comrade Tribune]

Best thing: the rules changes; nearly all on the good side.

I like increased corruption (Forget about the whiners! ), more expensive techs, more expensive improvements, more tough choices!!

Worst thing: To get at the info that matters -The numbers!-, you have to wade through the Civilopedia. The first thing I look at is the charts and tables; now, CivIII doesn´t have any charts and tables. Nowhere in either the manual or Civilopedia will you find a one-page-chart listing all city improvements with requirements/price/what they do. Same for techs. Similar for units: There is a unit list, but the numbers are way off. Any kind of cost/effectiveness analysis is incredibly difficult, not because the game is so hard, but because the info is hidden somewhere in the depths of the Civilopedia at best, or is missing at worst.

For example, I couldn´t find what the 'fortify' command Defense Bonus is: It could be 25% or 200%, search me! Unbelievably this seems to be nowhere in either the manual or the Pedia. So how to decide what is better: Defense or Counterattack, if you don´t know what the f*****g Fortify Bonus is?

Some weird bugs: I turned the grid on, but cannot turn it off. Impossible to get rid of the grid. Also, I don´t want to see units that are fortified in a city. I turned them off in the options, but they don´t go away!

Still early in my first game: Babylonians at Monarch (formerly known as King) level, small map, restless Barbs, 5 Civs.

I am doing reasonably well: Sharing a large continent with the Zulus: They are stronger and have more cities, but I have 3 times as much culture as they, they are too impressed by my sophistication to be very annoying. Something bad happened, though: I had spent 1.000 years happily working on my wonderful Great Library, but 2 turns before completion the English finished it! (I always play 'Ironman' mode, so no going back to a savegame; I will have to cope with this catastrophe somehow.) See you!

[Shiva]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
Some weird bugs: I turned the grid on, but cannot turn it off. Impossible to get rid of the grid. Also, I don´t want to see units that are fortified in a city. I turned them off in the options, but they don´t go away!

Lol thats odd, I turned it on for my game but every time I load a save its turned off. It would be nice if every preferance (including how many civs at the start) would stay untill changed.

[yin26]

Soren Johnson: Many thanks for the advice. I'm learning to try to understand the mechanics of it and plan better.

HalfLotus: Well, I can buy the game from him for $35, which is quite cheap. My main concerns are over at this point now that I solved graphics problems, etc. Again, I buy a game a month (or every other month) from him. It's been like that for 5 years! That's a LOT of money I've given the guy!

GP: I'll be honest: I haven't played Civ2 in more than 2 years. Back at my best, I was a 'Deity is doable but I don't really like the way I have to play in order to win' kind of guy. I freely admit I was only an average+ player at the time.

Jason: Yes, it's a sort of artificial represenation of the other civs overall cultural power. Not realistic, per se, but it does at a certain challenge to the game. If you look in the strategy forum, you can see people have already developed some good ways of dealing with it. I agree, though, it's counter-intuitive.

CT: Some excellent points there. I'll check that out (I normally don't read the manual on my first game if I can avoid it). I'll certainly put that in my review, too.

[Ironwood]

One question: Do weaker units (i.e. Warriors) cost less to maintain than stronger units (i.e. archers, swordsmen, knights, etc.). If so, a good wartime strategy would be to build a small invaasion force (a few swordsmen, etc.) followed by hordes of quickly built and cheaply maintained warriors (to act as a sort of police force). This is relatively historically accurate (just the sort of Persian armies Alexander faced).

A comment: when military units outnumber population units, in the simulation, military *population* (number of actual soldiers) does not outnumber city population (number of actual citizens). Were that the case, having one warrior unit in a size one city would ammount to half the population being under arms (perhaps all the able bodied men, unable bodied eldery men, little boys, infant boys, etc... or, including women as well). A size one city can support a bit more units than that. As far as the units disappering; well of corse they did. They were killed. Citizens can, when(ever) they want to, manage to get ahold of weapons. Though I do agree that, when the city changes hands in this way, there should be a population drop (though only of one, IMO).

And as far as the culture model encouraging the razing of cities rather than building them up, this is somewhat realistic, as well. This was SOP in wars during the ancient era, precisely because revolt was just too likely to occur. This could also model a sitution similar to the War of 1812. The British may have run free in our *capital* (though they got beat in the backwoods), but they couldn't keep it, not without considerable expenditures on garrisoning, which they were unwilling to do (with good reason).

So, wars in Civ3 will likely serve one of two purposes, under most circumstances:
1. Destroy enemy military units, destroy local culture (thus reducing the possibility of the enemy assimilating your cities, or claiming nearby land... border disputes).
2. Exterminate an enemy population.

The only time one would be likely to attempt to occupy and hold a signifigant enemy city would be when one finds they can afford to do so (probably more likely in later eras, particularly as the cities will be more valuable to keep).

One piece of advice, Yin. Try to develop... and use... naval technology in this conflict. He may have sufficient culture to frustrate your ambitions, but dropping a few commandos on their capital (thus capturing it, and resetting it's culture to zero, even if it revolts back into Indian hands) will reduce that problem quickly. Be sure to sell a cultural improvement before this occurs (assuming it works the same as in previous Sidgames). A number of strikes of this sort, at various points, could reduce your troubles considerably.

Note that I haven't actually played a game yet (I had a bit of credit card troubles. I preordered it when it was still under my old address, but they tried to charge it after it reached the new address, and it didn't work. So I'll be waitin until next Friday, at best). But I have been following the mechanics, and the experiences of various players. I long to try my strategies in the game itself; these discussions are the best I can do for now.

[Simpleton]

Yin, I thought you refused to buy the game unless it had MP? Could it be that you could not help yourself after a majority of the reviews came back saying Civ3 was excellent?

[Delthayre]

Simpleton, Yin is only "testing" the game with the option to buy.

Yin has said more recently that he actually has been getting a relatively good impression of the single-player experience(this was before he bought it). He was probably just really angry when he said that he wouldn't buy unless Mp was included. We cannot be held fully responsible for what is done when we are angry. When your angry, you're usually seeing red and things are moving to fast to think them through.

What I'm trying to say is: Let the man play the game and leave him be. No one benefits from antagonism.

I'm only going to say this once: I love culture conversions! I'm happy with Civ 3 for the fact that it rewards my style of play (building lots of city improvements, particularly libraries ect.). I get the feeling cultural victories will become my method of choice.

[yin26]

Ironwood: The game does seem to reward numbers as long as the tech gap isn't too big. And depending on your government, it can be quite cheap to have huge numbers of cheap armies. I agree that as a trade-off, the pop should drop by half or something if they kick out an invading force. Your idea about a naval drop might work. If I feel ready for that, I might try it.

Simpleton: That was my plan, UNLESS there was a way for me to get the game cheap. And a free test drive is pretty cheap.

And as Deltharye said: I was awfully pissed at the time about missing MP. Still am ... actually more 'worried' that it won't get made (this is possible) or that it will cost more than average for an x-pack, since it seems clear MP will NOT be free. Yes, this still bothers me. And, yes, I might not actually buy the game because of this -- at least until later. But the computer guy was just too damn nice!

Here's an image of the roads/rails/mines I'd like to toggle off. Just a reminder.

[kittenOFchaos]

My mum would certainly get lost on a road network like that...it is hard enough her getting from Halifax to Glasgow, which is a simple M62 to M6 head north affair!

[Peterk]

Hey Yin,

Loving your replay.
And I'm starting to see a pattern...the way your game started, 2 of mine have started that way as well (handful of civs on a small continent with fast expansion). Have to say I approve - leads to very tense early and middle games.

I'm a little jealous, looks like you'll be cruising after India's finished. It's a little harder with 3 civs on the same continent.

[yin26]

Peter: Thanks for the comments. I think, though, India did a great job with its culture holding me back. That REALLY surprised me. And while I might take issue with some of the implementations of the culture idea, its effect is great. Of course, I will be more 'abusive' of the system next time in order to get my way.

I am now equal to India in tech and once I surpass him soon, will mass an army and finish him off. That is, of course, unless he brings in some friends.

[Simpleton]

Originally posted by Delthayre
He was probably just really angry when he said that he wouldn't buy unless Mp was included. We cannot be held fully responsible for what is done when we are angry. When your angry, you're usually seeing red and things are moving to fast to think them through.

Well Yin must be angry quite a lot then because he's been trashing the game for months. I thinks it's time for some anger management therapy then Yin!!

What I'm trying to say is: Let the man play the game and leave him be. No one benefits from antagonism.

I think this was a legitimate question and not antagonism. After all, Yin was the one who started this.....pessimistic thing. I even bought into it for a brief, forgettable spell.