Civilization 3: End of the Line

[Capt Dizle]

Civilization 3: End of the Line

It is a hard thing, to give in, to admit to the truth about that rotten feeling, the one that has spread from somewhere deep in your tummy to every part of your body and soul. So pervaded have we become with the sickness of it that a postmortem analysis of our very bones will surely witness the sad fact we now have before us.

Civilization 3 is not a good game.

It is an average game. And that is kindly not linking in our expectations of the product. If we did that, it would in no way be adequate.

I am, by way of ending this chapter of my gaming life, going to share my feelings of what went wrong in the development of the game. I am mixing opinion, fact and assumption. This is what I think.

The First Mistake: Who designed this game anyway?

Sid Meier is a great designer who has the freedom to work on whatever project he desires. He has earned it by producing many great and notable games. It is surely not reasonable to expect him to spend two years of his life on a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to one of his earlier games.

Sid designed neither Civ 2 nor SMAC. Brian Reynolds was responsible for both of these games. With Sid looking on and Brian under the hood things looked great for Civ 3.

Brian left. Sid had his head in a dinosaur. A dinosaur game. Sid didn't want to do Civ 3 in the first place. Trouble in paradise.

Instead of having both Sid and Brian, two of the best game designers alive, working on the development team, Civilization 3 ended up being designed by your ordinary run of the mill, "lets hire someone to finish this so Sid can make his damn golf game" type of designer.

The result was an ordinary run of the mill type of game.

The Second Mistake: Civ 3 was indeed supposed to be SMAC 2, but heck, its not even Civ 2 and 1/2

What were they thinking? Civ 3 is the linear successor to SMAC. There was simply no way to back track and eliminate all the enhancements from SMAC and satisfy the gaming public.

Even worse than that the designers eliminated tons of features from Civ 2 as well and failed to replace them with anything remotely interesting or fun. Civ 3 should be called Civ 1.5 or Civ Lite: The Test of Patience.

Someone really goofed here. The logical progression from SMAC to Civ 3 would not have been that difficult. Firaxis made progress on the concept of air combat. This seems to prove that progress was technically possible.

But the designers were off in a different, totally confused direction. Eliminate everything that the player can do to exploit the AI. In the end all they managed to do was create tedious periods of "please wait" until the next available period of micromanagement tedium.

Someone please tell the Firaxis staff that games are supposed to be fun. They program like IRS agents.

Rush wonders? Oh no, new rule, wonders can't be rushed.
Wonders rushed by leaders? Let the morons try that, rule, one great leader per 24.3 hours of game play.
Specialist cities? Oh no, new rule, specialists only produce one of this or that and no city bonus.

People were harvesting forests? Oh no, new rule, once per game.
People were rush conquering? Oh no, size one cities disappear.

Can anyone else see the pattern here? Any visible trend. Sire, you may attempt to steal that tech for 47,689 gold pieces and only a 98% chance of the whole world going to war on you!

The thought of future patches make me shudder with apprehension.

The Third and Final Mistake: Failure to respect the Civilization heritage.

Civ 3 was rushed out the door with little or no testing. The game was not fully developed. Beyond the lack of MP, it is clear that many of the game elements are just THERE, not in anyway fully integrated into the product.

Given the fact that Civ 3 was the most anticipated game of the year, maybe in the last several years, this was a CRIME.

Civilization is no longer the golden name in gaming due to the lackluster effort of Firaxis/Infrogames to produce a worthy successor to this fine line. The inevitable result of trend of milking the public for whatever they will pay.

I don't mind it too much though. The Firaxians will now learn the third rule of commerce.

What? The first two?

I will list all three.

1. You must work hard to make a successful product.
2. After that then you can sell anything.
3. For a while.

[sianews]

Agreed, agreed, and agreed.

[Simpleton]

Oh what's this. Yet another whiny, droning thread about why Civ3 sucks!!!???

[yin26]

One of the best posts I've ever seen at Poly! Honestly. 5 stars.

From Brian's departure to horridly 'run of the mill' game concepts followed by sub-par implementation and testing, we have precisely what you said:

The beginning of the end of Firaxis' ability to sell on name alone. Perhaps Sid's golf game can save Firaxis among the mall shoppers, but among the hardcore strategy gamers? Nope.

Firaxis has just used its Get out of Jail Free card. Next round costs them.

Civ3 is a game that rewards mediocrity. And, frankly, Civ3 reflects a company that seems to have become mediocre in the process.

[Capt Dizle]

Its not everyday you can get 5 stars from Yin and bore a simpleton with the same post.

[N. Machiavelli]

My Trekkie/geek roots remind me of 5 of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition:

#10: Greed is eternal.

#82: The flimsier the product, the higher the price.

#87: Learn the customer's weaknesses so you can better take advantage of him.

#202: The justification of profit is profit.

#239: Never be afraid to mislabel a product.


And one they should take to heart:

#57: Good customers are as rare as latinum--treasure them.


And one we should learn:

#141: Only fools pay retail.

[Capt Dizle]

Posting on Poly is a little like potty training. First you do the job and then you peek to see the results.

Mama gives you a salute (sainews), Daddy pats you on the back (yin) and big brother (simpleton) is there to say he is not impressed.

[yin26]

LOL!

[Terser]

This game is better than CivII. At the very least I would call it Civ2.5.

It's also better than SMAC--but here I'm biased, because I absolutely despised the setting and pseudo-Star Trek-babble tech tree. That said, in some areas (diplomacy, breadth of the tech tree, and, oh my God yes, COMBAT!) SMAC is vastly superior to CivIII.

I've said it before. I'll say it again. CivIII is a better game than CivII or SMAC. It remains to be seen whether it will become a greater game than its' predecessors...

[David Weldon]

I agree that this game seems to have been made by less-than-perfect designers. I can't really say mediocre because I'm not sure how to rate them relative to other designers, but here's a few observations that I think illustrate the "nice idea, now get it right" problem with Civ III's design:

-Strat. Resources are a very compelling design element that adds quite a lot to the later parts of the game, but the penalty is too large. How about more expensive equivalent units so that the strat. resources are important, but it is not possible to be completely screwed (as it is possible now). Random chance should _influence_ the outcome of a game, not _dictate_ it.

-Cultural reversion of captured cities is another good idea that forces some added planning and complexity to conquest, but again the penalty is too severe (losing all units in the city).

-MPPs and Alliances are great, but how about _ending_ others' alliances or brokering peace?

-No ability to buy peace because AIs won't talk with you until they want peace anyway (because they won't receive your envoy), huh?

-Trading is a great addition, but it has become almost necessary because the AIs don't consider _who_ they're trading with. Notably they will continue to trade with and therefore help the #1 civ. Good idea, but needs more work to ensure that the AIs are actually playing to win.

-Armies are just not quite right. I can't explain it quickly, but they could have been done much better (or simply eliminated and allow stacked movement).

-Occupation of the same square by friendly units isn't possible, even with a RoP. This is just lazy programming.

-AI lack of interest in winning prevents them from ganging up on the leader late in the game. This should at least be an option at increased difficulty levels, and it would be a much better thing to tweak than simply giving a production bonus.

-A human player struggles for a length of time that is determined by the difficulty setting, but once he becomes the #1 civ, there's no more challenge in the game. There's a long period where he's behind, a brief period where he's competing, and then a long period where victory is simply a matter of getting through the tedium and waiting. The alternative is to simply play until you have a "lock", and then start a new game, but then you never get to have fun in the Modern Age. Either way you have to endure a very long period of build-up for a few turns of interesting competition (military or otherwise).

All in all I have enjoyed the game, but it just doesn't have the level of polished fun that I had hoped for. The fact that a lot of good ideas exist tells me that they were trying. The fact that they're not done very well tells me that they lacked talent, time, or both.

[zoyd]

Originally posted by David Weldon

-AI lack of interest in winning prevents them from ganging up on the leader late in the game. This should at least be an option at increased difficulty levels, and it would be a much better thing to tweak than simply giving a production bonus.

Actually, though I agree that Civ 3 is fun but less-than-expected, I've seen the AI go after large civs with a vengeance.

In one game, the English had a nice continent, twice as large as any other civ, but were unknown to 6 civs until we could cross the oceans. As soon as I gave everyone contact with the English, they immediately set about establishing embargoes and all-out allianced wars against her.

But as for the rest... agreed. Armies -- great idea. Cannot upgrade them? Bad idea.

[StellaRossa]

Sid gave us Civ and Sid has the right to take it away!

[marcuspeddle]

Originally posted by StellaRossa
Sid gave us Civ and Sid has the right to take it away!

Contrary to what some people might think, Sid is not Jesus Christ.
Or is he? While playing the game I've often said, "Jesus Christ! Fire the guy who programmed the AI to send 50 units across my territory to conquer one enemy city!"

Sorry.

[Xentropy]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
I am, by way of ending this chapter of my gaming life, going to share my feelings of what went wrong in the development of the game. I am mixing opinion, fact and assumption. This is what I think.

Looks to me more like a mixture of opinion, opinion, assumption, and opinion.

I'm sure there's a fact in there somewhere. Oh, right, Brian left. Reason was all assumption and opinion, but there's your one fact in the whole post.

Bravo, troll!

[yin26]

I think the main fact is that Civ3 is dull at best. The rest, as you and he point out, is speculation as to how such a thing could happen ... but the result is the main thing, not how it came to be.

[Xentropy]

Originally posted by yin26
I think the main fact is that Civ3 is dull at best. The rest, as you and he point out, is speculation as to how such a thing could happen ... but the result is the main thing, not how it came to be.

As high and mighty as you act, you'd think you'd understand the difference between fact and opinion. "Civ3 is dull at best" is an opinion. Any third grader knows that.

[Downer]

Rush wonders? Oh no, new rule, wonders can't be rushed.

I liked this, it makes the spying game much more useful.

Wonders rushed by leaders?

Another good idea, not a flaw.

People were harvesting forests? Oh no, new rule, once per game. People were rush conquering? Oh no, size one cities disappear.

poor baby can't cheat anymore? aww

Can anyone else see the pattern here?

no

Civ 3 was rushed out the door with little or no testing.

I agree with you here, however the civilization series is a SINGLEPLAYER game, NOT multiplayer. Sid stated they were fleshing out this component and I as well as the rest of the civ community expect a great multiplayer game to come.

Personally I'm enjoying the game and I think its addicting as hell(despite a few probs and bugs) and defiantly a worthy successor to Civ2.

[Venger]

The brainpower in this thread is palpable. Other than the aptly named Simpleton's comments, this thread is very, very hard on the game but it's backed up with a yard long list of proof and tactile knowledge of Civ and the genre. A very insightful original post, and the responses are clearly from a thinking crowd (save one...).

As is mentioned in the thread, the CRITICAL failure of Civ3 is the utter lack of gameplay testing to make sure all these new "features" produced a viable, breathing product. Too much of Civ3 is "nice try" material, a jumble of various ideas in search of a cogent whole:

1) Armies. Yes, we all know they suck. Sure, convert 4 units into one that can only attack once, cannot be airlifted, cannot be upgraded nor edited. Huh and double huh?

2) Strategic resources. Yes, I like the concept of needing resources too, until I actually play the game with it. Now, I'm rolling up the AI simply because I have all the aluminum. And oil. Etc. The gameplay challenge of not having resources is of far lower effect than the utter abandonment of competitiveness if God Forbid the AI doesn't have resources. Not being able to build modern units because all of the oil is not in their Civ crucifies the AI.

3) Culture. Really, what was the goal with this? To give us another way to win? Okay, I'll bite, and since you can select/unselect culture wins, okay. But to enforce the borders? Yikes - borders are not a matters or functions of culture. Is it REALLY that fun to have some hobknob AI city defect to your culture? Great, you picked up that crappy city on two tundra tiles. Meanwhile, the city you just conquered at your enemies expense has "reverted" back to their old Civ. Well isn't that nice! Meanwhile what those 4 mech. inf. defenders he had guarding his city couldn't do, the culture engine does - defeat you massive army. Why even BOTHER defending the city, it'll revert in three turns anyways, culture is the cheapest defender in the game. The game is anathema to conquest, is openly hostile to the concept in fact, and culture is the single largest piece of that.

Ad inifintum. The sums of the parts here is greater than the whole package reveals itself to be. And had there been reasonable inhouse testing of gameplay, rather than simply a "does it compile and make a runnable .exe" test, we might have seen better results...

Venger
P.S. And yes, I 've mentioned previously that I think the loss of Brian Reynolds brutally affected the final product - it's now a game by committee...

[yin26]

Xentropy: Civ3 is dull. This is a fact. Sorry that bothers you.

[Capt Dizle]

Maybe its not dull to him. Maybe he finds it palpable.

Sobering and sad thought eh?

[yin26]

Oh, I completely understand that point. Doesn't change the 'fact' that Civ3 is dull. I won't let this magic word called 'opinion' steamroll the reality that Civ3 is a sub-par game, no matter how easily entertained some people might be.

Sorry if that bothers some people. However, if he is willing to say: "I find this boring Civ3 a good way to kill time," then I'd be happy to cut him some slack. Personally, I think he would get more out of killing time by putting a fresh coat of paint on the house or by trying to count the number of hairs on the back of his hand, but in the list of ways to kill time, it doesn't bother me that some people rank Civ3 fairly high.

[Evil Robot]

Originally posted by yin26
Xentropy: Civ3 is dull. This is a fact. Sorry that bothers you.

Originally posted by http://www.dictionary.com
fact (fkt)
n.
Knowledge or information based on real occurrences: an account based on fact; a blur of fact and fancy.

Again, originally posted by http://www.dictionary.com
o·pin·ion (-pnyn)
n.
A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof: “The world is not run by thought, nor by imagination, but by opinion” (Elizabeth Drew).

The very fact that we're having an argument over Civ3's supposed dullness proves that it is NOT a fact. Rather, it is an opinion held by you and others.

Get a dictionary.

Oh, and:

Originally posted by yin26
...the reality that Civ3 is a sub-par game...

Since reality is composed of facts and what you just said is an opinion, you have just made another obviously erroneous statement. I thought you would have known better after the first time.

Here's something you could use:

Again, originally posted by http://www.dictionary.com
tol·er·ance (tlr-ns)
n.
The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.

I think a golf clap is in order.

[yin26]

The very fact that we're having an argument over Civ3's supposed dullness proves that it is NOT a fact.

LOL! Wow, that was intellectually deep. Still believe the world is flat? People argued about that one too, eh? Try reading more than a dictionary.

Sorry. Civ3 is dull. Fact.

[Capt Dizle]

Robot,

But doesn't the fact that we are arguing about whether Civ's dullness is a fact or opinion prove it to be a fact?

Otherwise, instead of defending by offering definitions of terms someone, anyone, would be offering examples of palpable, exciting gameplay.

At any rate, it does not matter because according to your dictionary the world is run by opinion anyway.

[Velociryx]

::raises a tentative hand::

I....kinna like the fact that they took out most of the human-driven exploits of the game.

Without 'em, the AI stands up a good bit better (still ultimately beatable of course), but in the absence of being able to "crawler/camel" your way to a speed-built wonder, in the absence of being able to follow AI settlers around and bash 'em the moment they build, and in the absence of any number of pretty standard civ/smac in-game exploits that are time-tested and give the human player a devastating advantage over the AI, the AI sticks around longer and can make the game more interesting. (Can, being the operative word!)

I think what lies at the heart and soul of the matter is that, moreso with this iteration of Civ than any of the others, Civ is not a war game. Never has been. Sure, fighting is an integral part of the mix, but the changes to the overall system have driven the point home that he who only wishes to fight endless battles is probably playing the wrong game.

Civ3 is....what you make of it, in the end. It's an open-ended system that allows for maryid styles of play.

Admittedly (and I'll be among the first to admit it), some of the ways various game-concepts have been implemented are weak.

I think though, the abovementioned reason is why the game has two very passionate camps with strong opinions on the matter. The camp who prefers to see the Civ series as a "lite" wargame with some cool opportunities to build stuff doesn't like the changes as it makes their preferred style of playing the game harder, less fulfilling, more nerve wracking, and less fun in general.

The camp who focuses primarily on the building and diplomacy aspects of the game...the "puppet master" approach, seem quite pleased with the game as a whole.

Both camps are correct, because in the end, it comes down to (generalizing here) essentially two camps, each approaching the game from very different angles.....their own play-style preference.

On a certain level, Civ3 is every bit as brilliant as the games that preceed it. It has some classic innovation that we've all come to associate with Sid games in general. On another level, the game feels somewhat "dumbed down" to better enable the AI to compete and give more challenge to the players. This, I think, is a short term fix though. If you recall the threads on this very forum in the first few days following the release of the game, you heard cries to the heavens about how much tougher the AI was....expanding like viagra-addicted rabits, agressively attacking, COORDINATING attacks, flanking maneuvers, severing roads to critical resources.....

This kind of thing was behavior never before seen in the Genre, and it was inspired! Absolutely brilliant!

But what happened?

Those wily humans, as they always do. Adapt. Change. Adjust their strategy.

And for all the marvellous improvements in the AI, that is the one thing it simply cannot do. (there are also a few things that the AI could do better--build more modern units for example--but that's another topic altogether!)

No....for me, as a most-of-the-time observer in the ongoing rivalry between those who love the game and those who despise it, what it really comes down to is preferred playing style.

Civ 3 very much caters to the builder crowd. Culture plays a huge part of that, and many of the things added since the patch (razing cities with no culture on capture) only enhance that position.

It's no wonder then, that the gaming community seems so divided....that rivalry (builders vs. momentum players) has been a long-standing rivalry indeed (pretty much ever since the creation of the genre). In Civ1 & 2, the Momentum crowd won hands down. In SMAC, I think a balance was struck and would argue any day of the week that the Builder v. Momentum competition would up as a draw, and in Civ3, the Builders win. Global conquest in Civ3, while not an impossibility, has been made too uncertain a prospect (cultural reversion), too unprofitable (corruption) and too tedious (no stacking, weak armies).

My biggest gripe is this:

If it IS to be a Builder's paradise.....if it IS to be a game where relatively peaceful Builders can (mostly - strategic raids for resources being the exception) rule the day, then why not full-out CATER to the Builder crowd who LOVES the eye-candy of fanciful and beautifully rendered wonder movies, great leaders for cultural achievements as well as combats, an elaborate tech tree representative of real in-game choices than lead to radically different in-game approaches depending on what branch is selected, and more builds that do more things for your cities.

Personally, the new game suits my playing style quite nicely, and I'm having a blast with it. Well worth the money spent, IMO....I love it. But, in the very next breath, I will readily admit that there are several things I consider to be weak implementation, and omissions that add to tedium and detract from the fun-factor.

-=Vel=-

[Badtz Maru]

yin26 is dull. Fact.

[jadlakha]

I think there are better more important and more interesting topics to discuss and debate rather then arguing over whether a statement is a fact or opinion.

[yin26]

LOL!

You guys (especially the newcomers) can't tell when I'm pulling your leg sometimes. LOL ...

For all the time people have trolled me without mercy, I just wanted to try it a few times here. Got to admit, it's pretty fun.

A lot more fun than Civ3, in fact!

Anyway, I don't argue that some people find Civ3 a good game. But it seems to me there is NO mistaking that Civ3 has failed to impress people across the board the way it 'should' have done. While I don't believe any game can please all gamers, Civ3 has simply missed in important ways where it should have been a hit.

Civ crack-heads, of course, are happy just to have a new version to play. I thought I was a Civ crack-head, but I was wrong. I guess there are versions of Civ that I won't play, and Civ3 in its current form is one.

So *TO ME* Civ3 is horribly, horribly dull and poorly made.

Your mileage may vary.

[N. Machiavelli]

Originally posted by yin26
A lot more fun than Civ3, in fact!

But it doesn't cost $50 and come with a collectable tin(tm) and handy-dandy-notes (tm)! Civ3 costs $50, griping about it is free and much more entertaining.

[Capt Dizle]

Vel,

There is none I respect more here than you. I value your opinion.

Now, reread your post and then listen carefully to what I say. I am going to try to make a point here.

You are 100% correct in stating that human players will adapt to any change in the game and will find ways to beat the AI.

Therefore, the designer's attempts to close loopholes to beef up the AI's performance are ultimately moot and the net effect is simply to REDUCE the game play options that the human player can ENJOY in the game.

Now, taking that a step further, please tell me which of the loopholes since closed should be reinstated in multiplay? Sauce for the goose no?

This crusade against the human player has made the game stilted and boring. And, ironically, several things remain that also defeat Master Soren's defense of the AI such as the despot rush and ICS.

Soren you better take some of the food out of the game man, I can force labor your AI to death, nanananana!

The sad FACT is that the programming team is jousting at windmills in trying to make the game harder for the human. Vel, did you play Imp 2, great builder game but so one dimensional in gameplay that it had no replay value. No fun factor.

Wouldn't you like to have a volcano pop up or something to juice this thing up?

BTW, I must once again deny being a warmonger. I like unit interaction though. Give me my spies and caravans and stuff like that back and at least I might have something to do except manage my 430 captured workers and watch my culture grow.

Hey, that reminds me of my brother-in-law and his vegetable garden. I like to eat the stuff he grows, but, darn he just likes to watch them grow. Not that I am saying he is dull or anything.

jt