Top 10 Likes and Dislikes

[Invictus]

I wanted to add my voice to the chorus of commentary. My strategy gaming experience stretches way back to „Utopia“ for the Intellivision console, so I’ve formed some opinions over the past 15 years or so on what makes a good strategy game. That doesn’t entitle me to speak for the entire gaming community, but here’s my two cents worth:

Top 10 Likes

1. Resources and trade. It’s high time for strategy games to include more sophisticated economic models like Civ3’s that don’t require a lot of micromanagement. It makes wars more meaningful and it drives the rise and fall of empires. Civ3’s resource system also keeps the game interesting until the very end. You may build the most powerful ancient empire on the planet, but if you can’t get your hands on, say, saltpeter or oil, the game gets a lot more challenging.

2. Nationbuilding. I don’t feel like I need to build or conquer a massive empire to win. What I need to do to win is to build an effective nation. That means dealing with corruption and keeping my people happy. It means developing my own culture and assimilating other cultures (I love the fact that I can have citizens from many different nations in one city). It involves keeping a technological and economic edge. Civ3 is a great multi-faceted challenge.

3. Diplomacy. The new diplomatic options offer new depth and
the AI usually does a decent job of negotiating. I like the fact that the AI’s negotiating stance depends on whether it respects your Civ, and it seems to do a good job of dynamically assigning values to different items depending on the state of the game and the strength of each side’s position. Increasing maximum civs to 16 is another plus and this will reach its potential when scenarios become possible.

4. War is fun. In other games, I tended to be a fairly pacifistic player not because I am a pacifist but mainly because I found long military campaigns tedious and not very entertaining. The border system and resources in Civ3 often make it necessary to go to war, but not necessarily in order to capture territory. War is about resources, not just about occupying cities. Wars are much more targeted affairs, and I don’t have to occupy all of the enemy’s cities to feel like I’m winning. I just need to find his center of gravity and hit him where it hurts.

5. Less micromanagement. Micromanagement is part of the genre, but the interface, the governors and many of the automated worker features really make a difference. Thank God I don’t have to run my workers around cleaning up pollution manually or shift citizens around in my cities to manage happiness or food vs. shields. I could probably do a better job than the computer, but I’d rather focus on the big picture.

6. Naval strategy. In other games in this genre, I rarely bothered to build up my fleet beyond what was necessary to invade another land mass and patrol the coast a bit. In Civ3, if the AI can get away with it, it will use naval units aggressively to destroy your improvements and infrastructure. The AI also escorts its transports and sometimes organizes well-coordinated invasions. You need a cohesive naval strategy.

7. Gold. The increased importance of gold for armies, diplomacy and espionage makes me feel like I’m managing a state budget rather than playing God. Gold links a lot of gameplay elements in ways that allow for more strategic flexibility.

8. Randomizer seeds. I admit that the fact that I can’t reload the game to get a more favorable combat outcome really frustrates me sometimes. It also liberates me from feeling like I have to play a perfect game just to beat Diety, so I don’t waste time reloading constantly. The randomizer seeds make the game much more challenging in a welcome way.

9. Graphics and interface. The interface is slick and mostly intuitive. Good riddance to all those pop-ups screens. Like any veteran strategy gamer, I’d rather have strong gameplay than eye candy, but the nice graphics are a plus.

10. Bombing raids. The treatment of air units as strategic (rather than tactical) units removes a lot of the tedium from air warfare. Two clicks is all it takes to send your aircraft streaking toward their targets (I love those animations!) Precision strikes are a welcome addition and air power can be used to sever the enemy’s access to key resources.

Top 10 Dislikes

1. Editor. For reasons discussed in other threads, we won’t be getting any decent scenarios for the foreseeable future. I enjoy the long game, but I don’t want to have to start from zero in the ancient era every time I play. And the fact that you cannot play on a decent world map in historical starting positions is an absolute disgrace!

2. Air superiority. I have never seen one of my fighters on AS intercept an incoming bomber. It’s either a bug, the interception % is too low, or the game doesn’t show me that I have intercepted something. It’s also not possible to dogfight to contest airspace or to escort bombers.

3. Watching others move. You can hold Shift down to speed up AI moves, but you can’t toggle a permanent fast move option. This slows the game unnecessarily. Don’t even think about making a right of passage agreement.

4. Foreign minister. Instead of having the minister’s advice box cycle through various tidbits of limited value, I would rather see or have access to all the relevant info at once: leader personality, reputation, regard for my culture, current research, key info from the demographics screen, etc.

5. Demographics. I love the demographics rankings, but if this
data is being collected on the various civilizations, why isn’t this info used in the advisors’ screens and why can’t I see other civ’s stats? It’s not core to the gameplay, but it would be a neat feature.

6. Espionage. I like the fact that the spies are gone, but I find the espionage options a bit on the expensive side. This is an area where strategy gaming needs innovation, and Civ3 didn’t deliver much.

7. Weak navy orders. I think the fortify order for warships should work like the old sleep order, so that your ships are activated when an enemy ship passes within sighting range. I miss too many interdiction opportunities because I lose track of enemy shipping. An escort or form fleet order would save some micromanagement too. A patrol order would have been nice but not essential.

8. Armies and stacks. You can’t issue movement orders to an entire stack, which increases the micromanagement quotient somewhat. I also don’t like the fact that you can’t move units in and out of armies or that pre-modern armies can only attack once per turn.

9. No random events. Random events (and scripting tools) that are unique to each age would give the game more flavor.

10. No social engineering. Instead of treating governments as a technology achievement, I was hoping SMAC’s social engineering framework would be adapted for Civ3 in some form. The current system works just fine, but this would have been a good area for innovation.

All in all, Civ 3 is an excellent addition to the genre. It’s more an evolutionary step than a revolutionary one, however. Firaxis deserves a lot of credit if they can keep a jaded old gamer like me hooked on the series.

[Robert Plomp]

nuff said !
I agree

[LaRusso]

absolute yes to everything you said the conclusion is inevitable because, after the air superiority thing is patched, the rest is a minor chore in comparison with 10 good gameplay thingies

[Boracks]

Nicely done list. And I agree.

[Howling Chip]

Usually would not take up posting space just to say "I agree", this is worth the exception. You've crystalized concisely my thought about the game. Have been pondering how to gather these observations and post them, but been playing too much to do so. THANKS!

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by Invictus
3. Watching others move. You can hold Shift down to speed up AI moves, but you can’t toggle a permanent fast move option. This slows the game unnecessarily. Don’t even think about making a right of passage agreement.

If you use the Preferences window (Ctrl+P), you can set permanent non-animated moves for your units, your allies' units, and your enemies' units. This is the same as holding down "shift"...

[Gaius Marius]

I think the problem is that, even if the moves aren't animated, you still have to actually watch them. I don't know if this was intended (so that you wouldn't miss an invasion, or something), or if this feature just isn't working right for me.


Anyway, excellent listing of points. And, hopefully, it looks like many of the negatives will be addressed in some form, except for the social engineering idea, which is an excellent one. Great game already - hope it continues to improve.

[Kautilya]

Good points.

Among your negative points I hope Firaxis especially addresses point 3 about watching others move and point 8 about being able to give orders to stacks since they will go a long way towards reducing the tedium factor in the game and shouldn't be that difficult to fix.
( I guess the first two points are also important but I am pretty sure they will be fixed anyway)

[Almeida]

I think the excess movements of the AI are somehow conected to the way it behaves during middle-late game. I made an analisys of the workers behavior when these are in excess in the AI territory (another tread).

I really think someone at firaxis tried to fix the "excess movements" problem with the wrong aproach. Instead of analysing the real reason behind the coming and going of AI units, they just made a "animation off" button. It's obvious the AI just keeps moving his units from one side to another with no good reason. To prove my point, I made some questions:

- Have you ever saw an enemy ship stay on its tile? (Almost impossible)

- Have you noticed how the AI keeps moving his units near your borders, tring to find "a way in"?

In sum, the turns are slow, not because of unit animation, we are not looking for a "faster" machine either. The problem is the AIs unit handling, especialy what I call "the worker bug". Someone should tell the AI sometimes is just better to stay in one place.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by LaRusso
absolute yes to everything you said the conclusion is inevitable because, after the air superiority thing is patched, the rest is a minor chore in comparison with 10 good gameplay thingies

IMO, the lack of Social Engineering or even government 'ordinances' is no minor chore. I´m aware, though, that Firaxis wanted to 'streamline' Civ3´s gameplay and that many members of these forums didn´t want SMAC´s SE system to be included into Civ.

Anyhow, I still think Civ3 is the best 'empire-building' game so far.

[Raleigh]

I agree with mostly everything you said. Social engineering was fun in SMAC, but I think this game gives you enough flavor with your government and nationality.

[Auwi]

8. Armies and stacks. You can’t issue movement orders to an entire stack, which increases the micromanagement quotient somewhat...

That's the one thing that almost ruins the game for me. Not just because it makes my turn take so long, but also because the AI turns take so long.

In my current game I neighbor India, and I have to wait about 2 minutes on every single turn while they move their endless hordes of elephants into my territory. Then, on every turn I have to ask them to leave. Thank god they don't leave any elephant droppings behind.

[Special_K]

The random numbers appear to be in some kind of sequence. So, if you have a bad outcome to something you can reload and then do something to use up the current number such as capturing a worker. Then you can attack again w/ the new random number.
FIRAXIS: Out of curiosity how do you generate your random numbers?

[GodSpawn]

Originally posted by Kautilya
Among your negative points I hope Firaxis especially addresses point 3 about watching others move

This is being looked at in the patch (from reading the transcript of Soren's chat the other day).

Also, he said they were looking at the slow AI moving at the end of turn.

So there's at least some hope. Naturally, I am going to buy it next friday - I won't be under any false illusions, and I think that's going to enhance my experience! (I'd like to thank all the people who have posted stuff about the game - it is of great interest to all us eurotrash, I can assure you )

[Pyrodrew]

4. Foreign minister. Instead of having the minister’s advice box cycle through various tidbits of limited value, I would rather see or have access to all the relevant info at once: leader personality, reputation, regard for my culture, current research, key info from the demographics screen, etc.

I agree, I preferred the Civ2 screens of seeing ruler's personalities and other information clearly displayed 2-3words, rather than having to click & scroll through Civ3's foreign ministers "more" to read it in a sentence.

5. Demographics. I love the demographics rankings, but if this data is being collected on the various civilizations, why isn’t this info used in the advisors’ screens and why can’t I see other civ’s stats?

The limited demographic information is fine for me, too much information leaves no room for mystery or surprise. What you know about a Civ should gradually increase over time & with better techs in my opinion.

9. No random events. Random events (and scripting tools) that are unique to each age would give the game more flavor.

That would be great idea, but should be an option for the player to choose while in the World Generation Screens. For instance needing to deal with a black plague which might hit a civ (and risk spreading other nearby civs) or a good event.

[Trachmyr]

I know the whole SE vs. Civ Govs is an old debate, but since civ style gov's won out I would expect at least a few more choices... also the goverment editor isn't nearly as powerful as many people think since there aren't that many options actualy available. I really hope Firaxis does the right thing and add a few more gov's, or at least (and far more likely) add a few more options to the gov. editor. Why "City-State", "Feudal Monarchy", "Socalist Democracy", "Facism", "Dictatorship" and "Confederacy" weren't allowed as "official" option I have no idea.

A few "Ordinances" and choices of "Economics" would also go a long way... and you wouldn't need many:
1.Enviromentalism: Reduced pollution and production/growth
2.Slave State: With-out it you must pay captured workers (but they work at normal rate), and it allows non-national to be used as forced labor w/o a happiness penalty to your nationals and in any goverment form.
3.Free-Speech: Propaganda % increased against you but makes 1 unhappy person content in cities, 2 in metropolisis.
4. Etc.

These "ordinances" could be chosen from a simple menu with check-marks and cost xx gold to enact/repeal. You would just need one extra button to access this menu that could easily be placed under the mobility button.

[Jokka das Trevas]

I agree with everything said and add this to "dislikes":

11 - It's ridiculous that I have to pay for my embassy/spy to look up on a city for me. Lets get real, what's so secret about the city's improvements and revenue that you need a real espionage mission to see this?

Those data that appear on the city information screen not only are clear enough to any observer, but they are well-documented freely too. You can search info about any city easily, and now with the internet it's even easier.

Ok, confidential information could be classified such as the presence of SAM batteries in the city or something like that... But, why remove the free consulting to the enemy's cities?