Irritating issues!

[gozpel]

Small things that annoys me:

How can a civ ask for exchange of world maps AND 80 gold from me, when it gets insulted if I do the same? Don't I get insulted?

How come a civ wanting a landpiece, again and again steps over my border to get there. In this case I had a nice layout on a huge map and built my towns towards the opponents. I threw out pikemen to mend the "invasion" from the other civ's settler so they had to step sideways, and every time I said 'out of my territory', they answered "we will soon be out of your lands"...and they kept on stepping in. Finally I covered the area with cities and then the other civ wanted to go to the eastern edge of the continent. Same procedure, turn after turn they overstep my boundaries and I try to send them back and the answer is "We will soon..." If I am on an other civ's property, I get kicked out to the borders all the time!

How come a barbarian uprising 3 squares from a neighbour city and 6 squares from my closest city ALWAYS attack mine?

Why is it that every time you capture a major city, there's not even a temple left in the city. You have to rebuild it after dealing with resistants, but they can have harbours and granaries. It doesn't make sense.

I usually play on Monarch, and how come other civ's make treaties with another big opponent of mine, especially if I have treated them very good (giving away money and advances) ? This time I refer to having Iroques and a nice land and I always tried to keep it peaceful, and all the little nations on my continent got what they wanted when they asked. With an eye of the "other side of the world" I hoped some civ on my side would try to develope something I hadn't researched yet.
But no, they seemed to stop all research and only pumped out military and not too soon the biggest neighbour came with a ridiculous outcry: "Gimme gunpowder!" Of course I said no after giving them Masonry, Horseback Riding and 3 other advances for free!!!!...and of course they went into war with me...and along come all these other Lilliput countries to join them after I helped them as well. Fighting 6 other civ's at the same time takes it toll. Somewhat unbalanced I say!

How come archipelagos are not archipelagos? It's always one or two big continents and a couple of isles. Nothing more...and it sucks.

I suppose there is more, but I leave that for you to fill in. I love the game anyways, but a bit of balancing wouldn't hurt.

[Mokael]

Originally posted by gozpel
Why is it that every time you capture a major city, there's not even a temple left in the city. You have to rebuild it after dealing with resistants, but they can have harbours and granaries. It doesn't make sense.

Depends on the building, and (I think) on how many times you attacked the city. One thing for sure - cultural buildings (temples, libraries, etc.) never survive. Harbors, Aqueducts, Banks, even Barracks, and such - sometimes do.
(just my ovservation)

[Cookie Monster]

Having the AI constantly cross your borders on their way to a piece of land on your opposite border is frustrating indeed. This happens to me all the time and more often than not the AI declares war on me for not letting them step through my borders. Throughout entire games the AI routinely uses my land to launch attacks on other civs but if I send just one worker into their lands they kick me out or declare war on me. All this has been happening on archipelago maps on regent and monarch level.

I've given up on archipelagos and have been playing on continents so that I have a fair chance to grow. If you don't rapidly grow a big empire then just restart the game because you'll be so far behind the AI that it's not worth playing anymore. I'll go back to archipelagos when I'm a little better at this game. It's really annoying to be stuck on a small island with no other islands nearby while the AI always gets a continent with many smaller nearby islands to settle. (I'm talking archipelago maps here)

[Moraelin]

You may want to apply the patch, then. Post-patch, the AI seems to actually notice those funny lines on the map. (A.k.a., borders.) On the other hand, giving them right of passage seems to be the only way to keep them from becoming aggressive and attacking (without even saying what's wrong), so it may not be that much of an improvement after all.

[Disgracian]

I am experiencing a slight variant on the "Get off my land!" syndrome.

It's late-game and I have completely settled my "chunk" of the major continent. I am connected to the English and the Russians via a fairly narrow section of land - less than 10 squares wide.

Though at peace, every single turn the English send a horde of military units (a cavalry/knight force roughly 20-strong) into my territory. And every turn I tell them to bugger off, and they do. And every turn they come back. This gets extremely tedious.

This is unlike gozpel's situation, as there is nothing on the other side of my empire to colonise. It's just an incursion for no apparent reason. There aren't any undefended (or even lightly defended) cities in my empire, as I've heard that enemy civs "know" about weaknesses in your defence, so it can't be that.

Anybody else experiencing this? Does anybody have an idea as to what the English are trying to accomplish with this?

[Kolyana]

I had that with the Indians and a horde of hefalumps. It was extremely tedious, especially because they came back every turn for the rest of the game.

The flaw with Civ3 in this regard is that there is an extremely crude memorization system .... really, there isn't one.

If you make a deal with the AI, it doesn't really remember that perse, likewise if you ask them to get off your land it is as good as forgotten as soon as you hit that 'submit' button.

A better form of history tracking could lead to considerably better siplomatic options and possible the groudnwork for a stronger AI.

I'm sorry, but I attribute this one to poor game design.

[Disgracian]

Kolyana - And, more's the pity, something that is highly unlikely to be remedied with a patch.

I'm going to try some other guy's suggestion of maximum number of civilisations on a small land mass. It sounds interesting.

[Kolyana]

I play Civ3 realizing that this will always be a fundamental problem and the game that has a good diplomatic system has yet - for some reason - not been built.

I must admit (and I'm going to understate my position here so as to not be shot down in flames), but as a person with a software orientated job, I drive to work dreaming of AI mechanics and 'memorization' rotuines.

Truly it can be said, it's not rocket science ... well, to a programmer anyway.

The trouble is here that no one seems to be willing to break the mould ... we're still looking at things that are built on the foundation of Civ1.

If you take a step away and dream of how you'd like it to look and behave, the mechanics write themselves. Ofcourse, I've got a strong understanding of data-design, so perhaps I look at things differently.

[jackshot]

Originally posted by Kolyana
The trouble is here that no one seems to be willing to break the mould ... we're still looking at things that are built on the foundation of Civ1.

If you take a step away and dream of how you'd like it to look and behave, the mechanics write themselves. Ofcourse, I've got a strong understanding of data-design, so perhaps I look at things differently.

true, so true.

but some people's "mold" is another's architechture - so much game development seems to call for yet another revamping of an "enigine". easier to live in a comfortable house than be a good contractor...

[Venger]

Kolyana - you are right about breaking the mold. Alas, CTP2 does this in a big way, and didn't seem to go anywhere...

Evolution is about keeping the things that work, removing things that don't, and improving/adding things. Civ3 kept some stuff, removed some others, added some stuff, into a sort of mealy combination that is less than the sum of its parts.

Venger

[cavebear]

Venger - "less than the sum of its parts" is about the best description of Civ3 I've seen yet. So many of the new ideas seem promising, but do not quite work out well.

[Redstar]

and as soon as they do you surround all their units.
those units become obsolete and are not replaced.

and if they are workers...hehe, it keeps that civ in the dark ages.

yes..i would say this is an exploit. but sometimes you just have to teach 'em!

[Kolyana]

LOL, if you guys knew how often I typed 'mold', then 'mould' and then 'mold' again ... I never could decide which was right. Guess I picked the wrong one in the end

I like Venger's summary also ... less the sum of it's parts. Still, the diplomacy and cultural aspects of the game, whilst nice ideas, were not followed through IMHO. I mean, I really think that they could have been *so* much more.

It's almost as if - and this is no critism of the programming talent over at Firaxis - the programmers wrote the game, rather than the designers.

I could be way off here, but I imagine that it was rolled out too soon (sure, we all know that), but also that no real new development went into the actual Design.

Designer 1: "Hey, let's have a great diplomatic system and have the AI remember previous deals."
Programmer: "Wha-? Nah. Too much processing power."
Designer 1: "oh, okay. Pass the bagels will you?"

I've also read in previous threads - by firaxis staff - concerning the sheer processing power required the process the possible moves an AI can make and the subsequent evaluation of good moves.

I'm sorry, but for chess this works, but for a strategy game such as Civ3, with all of its multiple facets and intricacies, this is just wrong. It's the wrong approach.

I am convinced, convinced, that the wrong approach was taken here ... the wrong foundation and mechanics put into place. If this is truly how Civ3 works, then no wonder the AI takes so long to make such stupid and predictable moves.