Top 10 Fun-Killers in Civ3

[AnnC]

Libertarian is right on target. In my opinion, #6 should move up to #3 since do-nothing techs are a bigger gameplay issue than "subliminal messages" and the "domestic nag". But other than that, I agree with everything in the list.

[mattbolas]

I have to agree with all of the suggestions here. I would to add my own.
The use of "Strategic Resources" to restrict when a unit can be made is
a game killer. It just is not realistic for the production of units to depend on
the simulation model that Fireaxis has designed. In real life, resources are not
as big of a problem as the game simulates. I have tried custom games, where I turned off that feature by using the editor, and it appears to work.

I wish that Fireaxis would make it a global option that would turn on or off the restriction on all related units, and adjust the AI appropriately

[justjake73]

The most annoying and almost useless advisor has to be the Trade advisor.

"We have only one source of (x luxury or x resource). Let's find more and trade it with our friends."

We have only one source of that because that is all we NEED, you stupid moron! and moreover there is only one source of that on the entire PLANET, you $#%$ idiot!!!



Or the Foreign advisor, who smile and says that Civ A is impressed by our culture, then 10 seconds later her frowns when saying the same thing???

[dissent]

Some great points Libertarian. I've also found that after playing for a few weeks the game has lost a lot of its appeal to me. It really is too bad, because IT IS a better game than its predecessors, but needs so much refinement. It should have the same, if not more, replayability value than anything in the Civ series.

It seems much of the content was sacrificed in the interest of focusing on gameplay. So the end result is a disjointed game that is addictively exciting at times and a complete bore at others.

I really want to love Civ3. I want to remain interested as I was with the other 2 Civs and SMAC. But after playing for a few weeks, I have also found that the game is almost a complete bore. The late game tedium and empty techs is the clincher for me. The only way to keep the game interesting past 1000 AD is by continually being at war. Unfortunately war weariness negates such a play-style, at least until Communism. If they had thought out the tech tree a little more, or perhaps added a few more Wonders to the late game, it would have made such a difference in the enjoyability of the game.

I don't like the game now and am not playing it. I've gotten into Empire Earth, which I didn't expect since I'm not a huge fan of RTS. I'm sure many will suggest to me, as they already have to Libertarian, that I should just move on and not spend time here at Apolyton even. I can't do that, because I have been a Civ fan for over a decade. Civ got me into gaming, and I will continue visiting hoping that Civ3 will be changed (fixed?) into becoming the great game that it should and can be. If nothing else, hopefully the Editor will be improved so that the players can make the game great.

[Dan Baker]

Interestinlgy, most of the top 10 requests are relatively simple (hence easily fixable), and observed by most of us.

For instance, instead of a zillion 1 second messages, why not just a have a little list of evens in a box that you can click on at your leasure? Being presented with an endless sequance of dialogs has always been one of the biggest flaws with Civ. Sadly, its an easily fixable problem.

The anoyance factor of keeping enemies out of your territory is ridicicouls. I once had the Russians take one of my cities by parking 16 units outside of it (marching straight into my territory), I had kept telling them to leave, and they did, but then they'd be back next turn. After a while I gave up - and they attacked me!

Under certain conditions, usually with settlers, requests to to withdraw are completly ignored. At the least, you should be able to proclaim that any border corrosing is an act of war. Additionally, when you tell your enemy to withdraw, it suddenly a does a 'is it a good idea to delcare war' subroutine and often starts wars that it probally didn't intend to start.

Both Cultaral and Diplomatic victories are quite anti-climatic. I like the idea - but, seams like it should be somewhat more difficult.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by AnnC
Libertarian is right on target. In my opinion, #6 should move up to #3 since do-nothing techs are a bigger gameplay issue than "subliminal messages" and the "domestic nag". But other than that, I agree with everything in the list.

I dont think number 6 should be on the list at all.
Other valid complaints like the domestic nag or subliminal messages we the fans have no hope of fixing ourselves with the editor. No chance.
But do-nothing techs, not only can we fix them so they all do something, but fans are already modding them so every tech does something. We dont need Firaxis to change that, if they have time, fine, it would be nice, but the other things should take precedence.

[shyaway]

i guess i'll either
1. play half games
2. wait till they implement stack movement

prolly i'll be doing 1

what i think would be nice addition (or for xpac or next series, etc)

certain unit have bonus against certain unit(s)
example: pikeman should have 50% (or 25%) bonus defending against horseman, but no bonus when pikeman is the attacker

similar idea, but on the attacker side
units such as horseman should have bonus to attacking in open terrain (i.e. grassland), but penalty when attack on hill/mountain/non-open-aread

another, if a unit is in combat more than once, it should have a reduced attack/defend power by... say 25% per round
example: say the defender have 10 defense and is on a terrain that gives 50% defense,
first round: defense = 10 + 5 = 15
second round: (0.75 x 10) + 5 = 12.5
third round: (0.75 x 7.5) + 5 = 10.625
forth round: (0.75 x 5.625) + 5 = 9.21875
and so on...
this similate a "tireness" of constant combat where the unit is weakened by 25% each round(in the same turn) but the terrain bonus(or whatever bonus such as fort) will not be penalized
this will surely make "out-number" a worthy strategy
this should apply to the attacking, too
if a unit with 10-attack attacks second time, it should have an attack power of 7.5 instead of 10
it'll make u think twice on attacking multiple times with same unit =)
the limit of 1 attack per turn is rediculous(sp?), IMO

that's all for now

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Dan Baker
Interestinlgy, most of the top 10 requests are relatively simple (hence easily fixable), and observed by most of us.

For instance, instead of a zillion 1 second messages, why not just a have a little list of evens in a box that you can click on at your leasure? Being presented with an endless sequance of dialogs has always been one of the biggest flaws with Civ. Sadly, its an easily fixable problem.

Interesting that you should mention popup boxes. That's one of the things that was fixed in Freeciv right from the start!
All msg are simply displayed at a display screen at the bottom of the screen. Which doesn't interfere with the game itself. The nice thing is that you can change the settings to only display important msg's (like starvation, unit complete etc..) as popups.

It's one of those small points were Freeciv beats its commercial counterparts...

[Libertarian]

Sometimes I wonder, given their reactions (or rather, the absence of their reactions), whether Firaxis even understands that many of these things ARE problems. After all, if you're not playing the game into the modern era, how can you possibly contextualize the problems payers are having?

Maybe all Firaxis sees is the sterile notion that a reminder to build a hospital would be nice, and that a message about border expansion can easily be read in a split second. Unfortunately, they haven't seen the effect this has when you're reminded five hundred times by a modal halt in the game, and when you get eight of these fly-by messages at once.

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, it is likely a good intention thing. Much the same as Marxism which, in its sterile form seems almost Christian, but when applied murders the spirit of men.

[Libertarian]

Payers? Interesting Freudian slip, perhaps. I'll leave it be.

[Libertarian]

But do-nothing techs, not only can we fix them so they all do something, but fans are already modding them so every tech does something.

I don't get it. I've looked at that in the editor. There are some check boxes with hard-coded attributes. These are attributes that are already assigned to techs. Therefore, the best you can do is modify the prerequisites and amalgamate two or more techs into a single tech.

How do these mods avoid tautologies?

[Heliodorus]

Another cogent post from Libertarian, whom I admire.

I agree with much, most, in fact, of his points. I find it incredibly curious, however, that I don't mind the unit activation sub-routine. Really, it's shocking to me that it isn't more troublesome. I simply use the units in the order the AI activates them, and sometimes it's problematic to me that a stack of pollution-clearing workers gets activated at one part of the map requiring me to move them far far away one at a time, over and over... Something about my escapist, linear-thinking mind enables me not to be troubled too frequently (although, for the record, it's now becoming an issue since when it happens, I'm always thinking about how much Lib hates it, which is making me notice it more as a distraction).

I actually overlooked a few of his issues, and on reading them in his post, agreed. Such as the Civilopedia issue.

I've ALWAYS hated that damn trespassing AI issue, and I agree wholeheartedly with whomever posted that simply entering non-neutral territory ought to only be allowed when a RoP or war state exists. It's at least better than previous Civ releases.

Now, as for the crowd that I shall dub the contra-whiners, I, more than most (but not all) appreciate the spirit of your "quit whining and stop playing or posting" rebuttals. However, it takes discretion to recognize the differences between concerned critique's (akin to a peer review) and puerile laments of dissatisfaction (and it doesn't take MUCH discretion, which you may take as an indictment of your sophistication )

Moreover, accept personal responsibility for the fact that you opened a thread that would obviously fall somewhere in between the above extremes, and I would ask you why you did so (I did because I knew Lib's post would be cogent, and it also turned out to be very funny).

Jeez, how did I end up turning myself into an arbiter in the philosophy of negative versus positive attitudes? Oh yeah, now I remember, I wanted to graduate from settler status, so I needed to make some posts, and the next thing you know, I was taking myself seriously! D'OH!

[Barnacle Bill]

Originally posted by Libertarian


I don't get it. I've looked at that in the editor. There are some check boxes with hard-coded attributes. These are attributes that are already assigned to techs. Therefore, the best you can do is modify the prerequisites and amalgamate two or more techs into a single tech.

How do these mods avoid tautologies?

I suspect they are adding units/city improvements, etc... using one of the available non-Firaxis tools.

I think the "do nothing" techs potentially have a purpose. Let's say you want to restrict something to only certain civs. My classic example is suppose you want Christian civs to build "Churches", Moslem civs to build "Mosques" and "non of the above" civs to build "Temples". One way to do that is to have a generic tech that represents advanced religion, and specific techs for Churches, Mosques & Temples which have as their prereq both the generic "advanced religion" tech and a specific tech for the cultural grouping (assuming we end up with a way to keep civs from trading that sort of tech to the wrong folks).

Another potential purpose is if you want two "do something" techs but you don't want to tailor the costs. If all you have is two "do something" techs, you can make them both cost a lot, or you can make them both cost moderate amounts, but you can';t make the first one (whichever the player chooses) cost a lot and the second one cost a little. With an expensive "do nothing" tech as prereq to two cheap "do something" techs, whever one the player happens to pick first is effectively expensive because he had to research the prereq "do nothing" tech first, but the second one is cheap because you already have the expensive "do nothing" prereq. I hope tht make sense. What it boils down to is flexibility in tech tree design.

[Libertarian]

Barnacle,

I blame my own density, and not your more than adequate expository skills, that I still don't quite get it. Are you saying that the empty techs serve as some sort of gates in the technology manifold? At any rate, it does help a bit to know that modders are using third party hacks to fix the game.

-----

Helio,

Here comes the sun!

[Allemand]

One thing that can be done with the "do-nothing" techs, is to reassign some of the units to them. For example, I sometimes move the sailing ships to earlier techs. On a huge map, this helps exploration a lot.

[Jodo Kast]

Please allow us to choose from your 10 what we most agree with.

It's called POLL and then you could see what other people think....

Just kidding.

[Cavalier_13]

Lib,

Nice list. Agree with all except Stacked Movement.

I would rather see it implemented as follows: New worker type units.

1 Work Crew = 5 Workers (Needs The Corporation, 3 Pop Points)

1 Engineer = 10 Workers (Needs Computers, 5 Pop Points)

1 Civil Planner = Advanced Settler (Needs Computers, 4 Pop Points, Creates a Pop 3 City with Basic Improvements)

Cavalier

[sophist]

Originally posted by mattbolas

It just is not realistic for the production of units to depend on
the simulation model that Fireaxis has designed. In real life, resources are not as big of a problem as the game simulates.

Ignoring the gameplay vs. realism argument, are you serious? The world's 2nd largest (US) military fought the 4th largest (Iraq) military in the world to protect oil. Whole nations have been conquered throughout history to obtain access to rare resources. That's what the whole European colonial period was about.

Originally posted by Barnacle Bill

Another potential purpose is if you want two "do something" techs but you don't want to tailor the costs. If all you have is two "do something" techs, you can make them both cost a lot, or you can make them both cost moderate amounts, but you can';t make the first one (whichever the player chooses) cost a lot and the second one cost a little. With an expensive "do nothing" tech as prereq to two cheap "do something" techs, whever one the player happens to pick first is effectively expensive because he had to research the prereq "do nothing" tech first, but the second one is cheap because you already have the expensive "do nothing" prereq. I hope tht make sense. What it boils down to is flexibility in tech tree design.

That's a really good point.


Off topic reply:

Originally posted by Kolyana

How did this one end up? Did you continue to chew him out until his kid burst into tears and he threw his wallet at you in an attempt to fend off the hostilities?

He made like he was going to start a fight about it. I walked away. There was never any chewing out. I just pointed it was a bad idea to bring a kid to "Training Day." He actually had three kids with him.

[sophist]

Originally posted by Cavalier_13
Lib,

Nice list. Agree with all except Stacked Movement.

I would rather see it implemented as follows: New worker type units.

1 Work Crew = 5 Workers (Needs The Corporation, 3 Pop Points)

1 Engineer = 10 Workers (Needs Computers, 5 Pop Points)

1 Civil Planner = Advanced Settler (Needs Computers, 4 Pop Points, Creates a Pop 3 City with Basic Improvements)

Cavalier

How would they differ? Just faster? If you're an industrious civ in a democracy post-Replacement Parts, your workers are already going plenty fast. To be a good tradeoff, an engineer would have to work 10x as fast, but with a worker finishing a project alone taking only, say 2 turns, most of that advantage would be wasted. Clearing jungle takes a pre-Replacement Parts, non-Industrious, non-Democratic worker 24 turns. Changing that to a work crew makes it 5 turns. Ok. But what about after RP, as an industrious civ, in a democracy? it will take 4 turns. An engineer wouldn't be worth it; 4 workers could do that in a turn and it'd be cheaper (not to mention that you'd have workers around from before). Now, the Civil Planner being able to create a city with basic improvements is an interesting idea, but I think the answer to the worker problem is better, more configurable automation.

[Jodo Kast]

Someone should make a .BIC map file for you that is customized to address most of these problems...

The required natural resources would be removed for all units. Corruption would be decreased for most buildings, etc, etc.

Unit activation and group selection isn't present in any Civ game to date, so what's to do?

Enjoy!

[Cavalier_13]

Originally posted by sophist


How would they differ? Just faster? If you're an industrious civ in a democracy post-Replacement Parts, your workers are already going plenty fast. To be a good tradeoff, an engineer would have to work 10x as fast, but with a worker finishing a project alone taking only, say 2 turns, most of that advantage would be wasted. Clearing jungle takes a pre-Replacement Parts, non-Industrious, non-Democratic worker 24 turns. Changing that to a work crew makes it 5 turns. Ok. But what about after RP, as an industrious civ, in a democracy? it will take 4 turns. An engineer wouldn't be worth it; 4 workers could do that in a turn and it'd be cheaper (not to mention that you'd have workers around from before). Now, the Civil Planner being able to create a city with basic improvements is an interesting idea, but I think the answer to the worker problem is better, more configurable automation.

I would agree with you, but that is assuming you are playing in a Democracy. What about players and AI that play under a different system?

My thought was that the Work Crew could be the basic unit you'd build in the later game to replace the 3 and 4 workers you place to clear jungle, build railroads in mountains, mines, etc. The Engineer would be used sparingly but would guarantee that you could build just about anything in 1 square in 1 turn.

Was just an idea, though.

Cavalier

[The Eliminator]

Ugh, I've had the game since release day, and I just played my first game into the modern era. I usually quit 3/4 of the way thru industrial.

The modern era flat out sucks. It takes forever between turns, and it is even worse when you automate the workers to clean up pollution, and watch the computer move them around for minutes at a time.

I love the huge map concept, but with 8 civs taking 3-4 minutes between turns in 1786 is NOT fun.

It still has the "one more turn" hook, but for different reasons. In Civ and Civ2, I always ended my turn with a smile, and I was back at it seconds later. Now I hate when my turn is done, and it takes so long I've forgotten half of what I planned to do a few MINUTES earlier.

Your list is OK, but the first thing they should work on is the engine. On a brand new computer with all of the bells and whistles, it should not take this long. The wait is what is tedious, not moving 100+ workers around.