Civ3 Game Design Discussion Thread

[Willem]

Originally posted by The diplomat


Exactly. I think that one way to fix this is to make population a bit more important in production. There was a thread a while back that discussed "manpower". I am a strong proponent of making population more important in both production and military. if the player needed population to build an army (recruitment idea hehe) then larger cities would be more valuable than lots of smaller ones.

Well I tried that in my game. I added a population cost to most of my units. But I discovered that I was being left in the dust by the AI, who apparently doesn't bother much with military building at the first part of the game. So I was ending up with a puny number of cities in comparison. The idea made sense, but the Settler mania the AI has wouldn't allow it.

[Willem]

The one thing that struck me when I first played Civ III was that, even though culture is an important aspect of the game, there were no cultural buildings to be built. Aside from the standard ones of course. I was amazed when I first discovered Music Theory that all I could build was the same old JS Bach. Where are the concert halls, the art galleries, the theatres etc. etc. etc.? Why is there no newspaper with Printing Press, or Radio station with... well, you know. The whole view of what constitutes culture in the game is extremely narrow IMO. Maybe that's why some people are having a hard time accepting the concept. The definition of what creates a culture is so simplistic as to be meaningless and irrelevant.

[Capt Dizle]

I don't remember stacked combat in SMAC. Of course, combat in SMAC was very different, perhaps stacked movement wasn't needed. It certainly is needed in Civ3. There is no chop and drop, different air power rules, limited movement in enemy territory, the huge numbers of units, etc.

[Velociryx]

If I'm remembering correctly (and maybe not....it's been a while) ctrl-j (join group) command.

May havta fire it up and scope that out! (SMAX is still on the ol' HD)

-=Vel=-

[Hrnac]

Where to start?

I think one must examine the big picture to fully understand what went wrong with this game. For the record, I am a devoted fan of the Civ series and have no ill will torwards Firaxis or the Civ series. This being said, one must step back and fully examine the chain of events that has led us to this point. The following information is culled from reading these boards and others and tossing in some speculation. If I am incorrect, then I appologize in advance. I am not writing this to flame anyone, only to try to understand what went wrong.

To begin, it doesn't take a genius to understand that when the decision to create Civ 3 was made, that in that instant a classic game was born, if only in the minds of those who made the decision. Following the award winning SMAC/AC series and the equally great Civ/Civ 2 series, meant that Firaxis could have packaged air, slapped a Civ 3 logo on it and they still would have sold many many copies. The Civ community was hungry for another installment of its favorite game and this hunger needed to be fed.

The first fateful decision must have been made sometime shortly after, when Sid himself decided for whatever reason to not become closely involved with the project. Sure he played the different iterations and offered his views, but this was to be Brian Reynolds baby and it seemed to be a safe bet. After the success of SMAC/AC it seemed that the young protege had learned well from the Master (Sid) and was ready to fly solo. At this point the game still should have been a classic, but something changed shortly thereafter. Brian left to found his own company. This decision instantly dropped Civ 3 down to being an average game. Gone was the "more is better" design philosophy. Gone was a budding star designer of TBS games. Gone was any chance of Civ 3 becoming the classic that it should have been. The outlook had now become bleak for Civ 3. One does not let just anyone craft the next Civ game and that's just what Firaxis had to do.

Now somewhere in this mix of events another decision was made, this time by Infogrammes. In their infinite wisdom, they apparently decided not to delay the development of Civ 3 after Brian departed. Not only did his departure mean that a new team had to be assembled, but that the whole project would have to be started from scratch on a severly shortened timetable and quite possibly a reduced budget. This could explain the sudden dissapearance of many of the key elements that made SMAC/AC such a classic game. No wonder movies, no little extras like the voice overs for the techs, no nothing in the way of atmosphere creating features. No really "cool" stuff.

So enter the new design team led by Jeff and company. How they must have been excited to be given the chance to "save the day". How exhilirating it must have been to be able to have the opportunity to craft the next Sid Meier game. How horrible it must have been when they looked at the development time table and remaining budget. That thud that was probably heard around Hunt Valley was probably Jeffs jaw bouncing off the floor when he read the spec for Civ 3. "You want what in how many months on this budget?" probably escaped his lips many times as he banged his head against the proverbial wall. This was the ultimate no win scenario. Infrogrammes would be demanding a game by October 2001 and would not want to hear any excuses about delays. What to do?

The answer lies before us all in a nicely decorated box. The answer is called feature creep or feature removal. I believe that they stripped Civ 3 down to the basics and added in what they could in order to meet their publishing deadline. How else could one explain the very strange design decisions. When you have a classic in the making, you don't tamper with success. Civ 3 by any other name would probably be hailed as a great strategy game rivaling the classic Civ series. Instead we have a half finished functional game that was created under adverse conditions.

I think we should applaud Jeff and company for the job that they did. I don't know if Sid himself could have done any better. The only remaining question is whether Infogrammes will allow Firaxis to finish the gem that they intended to create. If so, then there is hope for Civ 3. If not, then this game will probably be relegated to the great "It could have been a classic" category.

I am still putting my trust in Firaxis as they have not dissapointed yet. Let's wait a bit longer and let the dust truely settle before we pronounce this patient dead or alive.

-Hrnac

[Skanky Burns]

Pollution.

How could anyone believe this enhances our enjoyment of the game?? Oh no, ive lost production in that square... better wake up 12 workers and move them manually to the polluted square, one at a time... There, pollution gone.
The net effect of pollution: No gameplay loss (assuming you have enough spare workers), a large increase in player annoyance.
Surely there is a better way of penalizing large production / huge city populations??


Advisors.

Every 20 turns, asking if I want to build an aqueduct / hospital. Once would be ok, but many times over the length of the game?? IMHO this is due to not enough testing, surely the test team would have noticed that they got this message quite a lot if they played to the end-game.

[CharlesUFarley]

I have read everyone's posts to date and I just wanted to applaud everyone on thier well crafted input and ideas. I completely agree with 98% of you on all issues said. I still have a small smidge of hope left in me that something will come of this. I'm sure if we all devote our hearts and minds to this game and it's developers that attention will be focused on us, and the product we all want to see will arrive. It's just the "in-between" time period that's going to kill us.

Before I begin I would like to thank Vel for creating this thread, and for his greatly taken initiative and excellent ideas. I don't have quotes or caps of what everybody had to say -- and I wish I did, because most of the ideas in here are great and I would like to cover them in better detail. However, I'll just have to wing this and hope you guys won't get bored. I feel that with all ideas and suggestions presently considered that the one major common design flaw keeps rearing it's ugly head -- lack of two things; realism and detail. Because with those two concepts feeding the strategy TBS genre we get the absolute best for our money and time. So here goes..

MILITARY
Quite a few of the ideas in here are strong and very true. 'Stacked movement' would solve alot of the late game tedium issues that have arrisen. My suggestion for this would be to grasp this "army" concept and bring much more depth and detail to it's engine. Has anyone played "Shogun: Total War" yet? I like how they're combat engine works, you have a game board, game pieces representing armies, spies and you're royalty. This is very much so the same representation used in Civilization. Why not take this concept and apply it to our current "Stacked Movement" idea. Rather than move 100's of units around, although the option to do so should remain for smaller military tasks - maybe instead of wasting an army on killing/capturing an intrusive enemy worker, you can send a "unit" to dispatch the problem, so singular units still and always will have a perpose. However as far as the overall goes, armies are badly needed for the "wars" to come. My suggestion is to use the "army building" in a seperate window, when a leader is born a window will pop-up and give you a list of things to do:

Name your army why not? I don't see how this could hurt. With more detail, time and cost spent on each army -- not only does it improve the armies value, but it finally has a sense of perpose and it's own individuality. At the least you'll be much more carefull with you're army and where you send it, so that you don't have to keep renaming it, not that it's such a bad thing.

Build weapons (type of weapons = "attack value" based on resources used or available) resources/horses = horsemen etc. But a city must contain a Blacksmith, Barracks, Lumber Mill (or variation) an iron/ore mine, stables etc. you get the point.

Train your army Now this idea incorporates a system that allows you to manage you're army with more detail when it comes to promotions and ranks. Not only can you achieve more hitpoints/health in the field of battle - due to experience. But you can also increase this value by "training" your army at home, so to speak. However this will cost shields, time and population. I think it's possible and very realistic.

Now I know what most of you will say to this -- "yeah but rather than having too many units to move around, we'll instead have too many armies to move around. Not true. With an increased cost of resources, build/train time, and population - not to mention a possible army size dependant on government type - to throw a spin at things -- I'm sure armies will not only be rare, but feared and valued. The same graphics/animations and units can be used, but with greater detail and control that is all. I suggest instead of a "leader pic" moving around the map, we should use a more noble and royal pic, such as a pole with a banner representing the country/civ you are playing - I believe the Roman army bared an Eagle with a reef effect to it. But you get the idea. Remember folks, the more realistic this game gets the more it increases "re-play-ability" or it's overall life span on your hard drive.

CULTURE/NEGOTIATIONS
I actually like their new culture engine, I think it's more realistic when a neighboring country has much more appeal to it and finally overlaps you're borders and then eventually consumes them. However, realisticly this only happens to smaller countries and for the most part only took place many many years ago -- like in the ancient, medieval and renessance times. But there are still ways we can improve this new engine, I would recommend that with a larger country (civ) and a firm government that you're culture is very stable and almost un-flippable. It's not likely that Iraq's culture no matter how gleeming in the middle east, would overpower American culture and borders. So that realism should be taken into effect. Now, rather than just plain ol' boring borders and culture why not add some depth to it here's just a couple of ideas that could be used or variated in some way...

Detailed border control: why not have you're border cities maintain it's borders individually. For example; if a neighboring cities' culture threatens or pleases you're city -- there can be border war or some mild form of corruption -- in essence a miny war on the border to fight. Not only are you fighting your own people and thier wishes to convert, but you're balancing resources, trade and happiness... perhaps taxes and luxuries of each indv. city should have more detail and control over the populace in that city. Not to mention the fact that you'll literally have to win a 'popularity contest' with your neighboring opponent. But you get the idea.

Border trade & negotiations: Rather than having a one-window open trade negotiations with a direct "one-on-one" conversation with you're opponent or his emissary, we should have individual culture-city dealings, for example; asside from border wars and culture balancing you should handle and manage each and every established border city; trade goods between the two cities, population assimilation (say that one ten times fast - you won't get past 4. ), mayor/governor reputation, crafts and achievments = decrease chance of converting etc etc. Again, you hopefully get the idea.

GOVERNMENTS
I'm not so sure we can really play too well in this area, at least until the (hope hope) arrival of the new and detailed editor. Each and every government had it's purpose and individuality based on the era (time period) and the country. When we designed scenarios (back in da days) we made great use of each government, for example WW2 scenarios; China had it's communism, and America had it's Democracy or Republic. So I guess the real question is what more can we do to enrich and utilize the government types that we normally don't have much use for - I would suggest that each government type is given it's own new set of bonuses to enhance it's appeal - otherwise asside from scenario building - they're IMO doomed. Ofcoarse ideas are welcome [...insert here...]

RESOURCES/TRADE
I've been thinking alot about this one, and the best 'trade/resource' engine I have ever seen was the one that comes with "Sierra's Caesar III" -- although a little on the cartoon-like side, you're trade system was better illustrated and it gave you a sensation of being right there in the crowds of the marketplace. However, this type of illustration wouldn't apply to a Civilization product because they are two different graphics engines. However, the C3 illustration uses multiple stages of resource managment, when you build a farm you're prompted for the type of farm (in this case we'll use "vineyard"), when you build a vineyard farm, it produces grapes, and then you're grapes are turned into wine. And then wine becomes a 'trade commodity'. In Civilization 1,2 and 3 these basic concepts are used, but IMHO not detailed or real enough. Although an "automated" trade system often using a caravan unit or in Civ3 a negotiations window is simple and fairly symbolic of a realistic trade system, this area could have been improved. Perhaps each cities improvements have a seperate window to monitor the output of each improvement for example; Barracks = #ofMen trained, 50 men = 1 unit, 2000 men = a completed army w/leader. Granary produces storage for wheat and grain, 10 bushels stored/turn 10 bushels = 1 citizen fed, 1 citizen = 100 people. And so forth. I'm not sure I made my point clear enough, but even if I didn't this should spawn some new ideas.

Now finally - here is the one that bugs me the most, regarding realism.

CIVILIZATION INDIVIDUALITY
Now I know not all games can be as detailed and realistic as we dream. But the least Civ3 could have been equiped with is individual civ-style graphics, for example;

Persia

Persian style barracks
Persian style granary

Rome

Roman style barracks
Roman style granary

Romans use a classic white-washed sandstone with pillars and archways. Persians use an arabic, indian style bubble roof and temple-like structures, Egyptians use a bronze-style sandstone archaic type of structure and so forth. I realise that the "city style" is in place, or most of them anyway. But shouldn't each civilization bare it's own architecture through individual culture and defination? I don't know about the rest of you, but if things appeared more realistic I would be more inclined to get into each and every game I initiated with a sense of exctiment and realism.

Well those are the few suggestions that I'm going to post for now, but everything seems to point to a 'super-editor' with complete customization and control over every facet in the game, with such a beast we could create wonders! Please feel free to give me you're input and possibly expand on my ideas - we know that 2 heads are better than one, and 10 heads are better than two, and so forth. Thanks for you're time.

Charles.

[Heliodorus]

The most all-encompassing detrimental design decision to me (if it's actually "design" come to think of it) is playtesting.

What went into the decisions on how to playtest? How was it done? How is it that the "obvious" things so frequently critiqued herein were not seen as issues?

I think so often of Starcraft - a game that embodies the absolute virtue of a public-beta test phase that lasts MONTHS, and of dedicated support to tweak gameplay and fix bugs for well over a year afterward.

As a side note - I think I may very well stay away from games that do not feature a public (not necessarily open) beta test. It's beginning to impress me that companies which do not do so have something to conceal.

Civ3 remains on my HD as I am hopeful of future improvements...
Until then, you'll find my playing Halo on my X-Box.

[Hrnac]

Good points Charles. What everyone is describing is a direct result of what I spoke of in my above post. Civ 3 suffers from 2 major things. The first is the lack of overall fun things to do and the second is a shortened development cycle which stripped away the atmosphere of the game.

The biggest question for the Civ community is whether Infogrammes will stand behind their product and allow Firaxis to further develop the game. I doubt that we will see any major changes to the core game play, but if they continue to enhance the editor, we might be able to do some of the forementioned ideas ourselves.

I have recently started playing SMAC and despite the horrible unit graphics, the level of detail and immersion in that game is astounding. That's what we lost when Brian Reynolds departed for greener pastures. That coupled with Sid's lack of interest in the project makes me wonder if Firaxis was the right company to continue after Brian left.

Perhaps now that Sid's golf game is out the door, he will take interest in Civ 3 and start laying the groundwork to make this title shine. Time will only tell.

-Hrnac

[Willem]

I've been prowling this forum for quite some time now, and from what I've been reading, and from what I've learned while playing the game, I'd say the main problem that people are having with it is lack of control.

Right from the first, with the AI settler mania as it is, you're forced to play in a certain way. You have to expand just as rapidly and spread out as quickly as possible. No choice, no control, very little options for doing things any other way. And when you reach a certain size, you can't keep going. The corruption will slow your expansion to a crawl. So the only option you really have is to build a civ that is exactly the same size as the optimal cities for that map size. No more, no less.

In terms of the warfare, if you don't fight you don't get a Leader, which puts you at a distinct disadvantage right off the bat. And with the AI's inclination to attack civs that are weaker, you don't have any choice but to build up your forces. The last game I played, I was pumping out military units constantly, yet everytime I checked my status I only had an average military compared to most of the other civs. So again I have no control, I have to pump out military units whether I want to or not.

With the corruption, there's no options to combat it. No improvements, no nothing, aside from the FP. All you can do is watch helplessly while some city takes 100 years to build something. Now don't get me wrong, I think the corruption is a good thing overall, but at least we should have some tools in order to deal with it. Even if it takes a thousand years before that city becomes even half way productive, at least there'd be a sense of accomplishment that we've been able to bring it up from only 1 shield per turn, which just doesn't exist at the moment. Unless of course you do what I did and simply create more things to build.

And it's the same thing with culture flipping. There's no warning, nothing a player can do to either prevent it, or at least pull your forces out, before it happens. I think that's what has people upset the most frankly. They could probably live with it as long as there was at least something they could do aside from watching as 20 units disappear. But there are simply no tools available to even attempt anything. The game makes a desicion and you have no choice but to go along with it. It's almost like having to play a game while on autopilot.

[Venge]

I believe Willem has hit the nail on the head.
This thread has a ton of great ideas, many of which I hope get implemented one way or another.
90% of the valid suggestions offered here are based on giving the player more 'choice' on how to go about things.
Awesome way of summing things up Willem.

[CharlesUFarley]

Everyone has something to offer the community, but the real kicker is how can we get an ear (or eye) from Firaxis long enough to go over these details with them and possibly get some feedback as to how possible it is to "use" our ideas in forthcoming patches/expansions and versions. I'll be honest with all of you, I have made an undying effort to try and obtain some solid ground between myself and Firaxis. I have failed in all areas because they won't listen, or when they do listen they never answer. I caution those of you who try, if you fail (as I have) then you'll only end up in "forum wars" and you'll reach a Libertarian, Yin26 and CharlesUFarley state of mind. Cheers and good luck.

PS. If we could only somehow get Jeff, Dan and even Sid to communicate better with the community we might just have a chance here.

Charles.

[Venge]

I am not sure about the others, but I am willing to bet Dan will find and read this thread from top to bottom. He may 'have a go' at people who want answers he can't give, but he does read the forums.

[MOHonor]

Originally posted by CharlesUFarley
Everyone has something to offer the community, but the real kicker is how can we get an ear (or eye) from Firaxis long enough to go over these details with them and possibly get some feedback as to how possible it is to "use" our ideas in forthcoming patches/expansions and versions. I'll be honest with all of you, I have made an undying effort to try and obtain some solid ground between myself and Firaxis. I have failed in all areas because they won't listen, or when they do listen they never answer. I caution those of you who try, if you fail (as I have) then you'll only end up in "forum wars" and you'll reach a Libertarian, Yin26 and CharlesUFarley state of mind. Cheers and good luck.

PS. If we could only somehow get Jeff, Dan and even Sid to communicate better with the community we might just have a chance here.

Charles.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Well that's the funniest thing I've read all day. You've got the most complicated self-delusion psychosis I've ever encountered!

[Capt Dizle]

I insist that I am more complexly self deluded. You are a bad judge of psychosis LittleMo.

[Willem]

Alright guys, Vel kindly asked that this not turn into a flame thread, and I agree heartily. This constant bickering that's been happening lately isn't going to do one bit of good. If anyone hopes to get the ear of Firaxis, and end up with a better game, then they'll have to learn how to discuss their views like the civilized adults I'm presuming we all are. If I'm getting sick of reading it all the time, I can just imagine how they feel about it.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Willem
Alright guys, Vel kindly asked that this not turn into a flame thread, and I agree heartily. This constant bickering that's been happening lately isn't going to do one bit of good. If anyone hopes to get the ear of Firaxis, and end up with a better game, then they'll have to learn how to discuss their views like the civilized adults I'm presuming we all are. If I'm getting sick of reading it all the time, I can just imagine how they feel about it.

Aye.

Salve

PS. Good post Charles.

[Willem]

Alright, now that I've put that childishness to bed for the moment, I'd like to mention another area of the game I can't agree with. Zone of Control! Does anyone agree with me that they've gone to far in the opposite direction? And along the same vein, the "free shot" that bombard units have. Overall I like the idea of a porous border, but I feel helpless not having any mechanism in order to stop the flow of units, at least nothing that's effective.

My last game I had this steady stream of Indian War Elephants passing through my territory, mainly through one of my frontier areas. I have no idea where they were going, I kept losing their trail, but it was one after another and there was nothing I could do about it, short of risking those outlying cities in a war. If even a fortress would act like the old rules did, I'd at least have some way of stemming the flow. But I have nothing. And even if we were at war, all I have now is one chance of taking off a single hitpoint as they're passing through. And even that's not certain. Sometimes they fire, sometimes they don't.

And again, this is a loss of control thing.

[star mouse]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Pollution.
Surely there is a better way of penalizing large production / huge city populations??

* In addition to polluting a tile, a polluted square should have a chance of destroying irrigation and other tile improvements.

* Make pollution affect the output of a city in general. Each pollution icon in the city window could reduce the production and commerce of a city by 1.

* Have one or two more buildings that reduce pollution created by improvements. These would cost 5-10 gold a turn to maintain, thus you would be spending gold each turn to clean up pollution.

[Architect]

There's a post I've been wanting to do entitled

"Soren Johnson's Civilization III"

that really sums up what others have pointed out about the problems with this game. Interestingly enough, I am a Civ I guy, never played much Civ II,CTP,SMAC, just couldn't get into them like I did Civ I. So when I heard that Civ III was back to basics I was really excited.

And because of that excitement I have had a good couple of months playing alot of Civ III, but like another poster on this thread I don't finish many of the games I've started because I lose the drive to play around Steam Power. I also know that if I get to Steam Power first and have coal, the game is over. In 30-40 turns I will be 4-5 techs ahead of the AI (at least on Monarch), and they will all be giving me GPT and be my tech whores. I really can't bring myself to try a more difficult setting because I think it will just move the location where I start to win out another 30-40 turns. Yeee Haa!

First, nothing against Soren, but he's not Sid or Brian and that's a fact. Soren sounds like a well meaning guy, very talented. So why do I think the game should be called "Soren Johnson's Civ III"? Because I've read numerous posts from Firaxis people claiming that Soren reads through all these boards looking for exploits and then changes the game to address these exploits! This tells me he has alot of power over the game design. Hence we have no city trading anymore, tech trading in our turn (bug or not we can't figure it out), palace hopping now impossible, and countless other loopholes closed with no thought other than protect the AI. Then I read he did something to pop-rushing that will kill it in the next patch. Oh boy can't wait, one less choice for me because the AI can't do it as well as me! Maybe this is a bad impression I have of what is going on at Firaxis, but I don't think I'm too far off.

Somebody (SID) needs to take a big axe the whole strategy of protect the AI by changing the rules and think a bit about making the game fun again.

The stupid AI be damned.

All the subtle complexities of terrain, combat, technology, build orders, trading, etc have been reduced to something that is manageable in the C++ code of the AI first instead of giving options to the people who are playing the game. It was so much better when we could find ways to get around the AI because the game was complicated enough that we could quite grasp it all in one sitting. The game was complicated enough where sometimes there was intuition involved in decision making. Now everything is pretty much reduced to a big "if" statement.

And what pisses me off the most is I have to play the game like a computer to beat it: methodically and stupidly with no thought to aesthetics or creativity. Do these statements below sound like a computer to you? Its how I think when I play CivIII.

I have to expand like mad without thought or reason, must have the perfect pattern and layout with just the right amount of cities to balance perfectly corruption blah...

I'm so tired of the boring trading I just accept the default offers to get it over with....probably what the computer does...

I can't stand managing my workers in the late game so I just let the COMPUTER manage them poorly.

Wow, what a rant, felt good...

I think the way to fix this game is simple... Add back the complexities that were removed to make the AI better and add in cheats that let the AI get by these complexities. Don't spend another line of code making the AI better because if that means your going to simplify the rules of the game to compensate for the AI, then your writing a game for a computer and not a person.

When you find a computer that will give you 50 bucks for a game, let me know...

[Capt Dizle]

Very good post. Let me point out that all the stuff Soren took out would be fine in MP. Sauce for the goose.

So, if and when MP comes out it will be this washed out Civ3 version unless Soren starts putting stuff in...nah, not going to happen.

[star mouse]

The methods chosen to combat ICS are not the best way of doing it, in particular the corruption model.

The design of having a city working one more tile than there are citizens is the loophole at the heart of ICS. Change this, and the strat becomes harder to implement with no other gameplay changes needed.

First gameplay change: Each city cannot work more squares than the city population, including the city centre. Thus, a size 1 city only works one square instead of 2.

This immediately causes a problem - how can a city grow? In the early game under Despotism, cities without food-producing bonus tiles usually grow because they are working an extra square and producing 2 excess food a turn.

Second gameplay change: make food-producing bonus tiles more common, so each produces 3 food in Despotism. Alternatively, refine the whole system so tiles produce slightly more food overall but cities also need more food to grow.

* Citizens eat 3 food
* Grassland produces 3 food, 5 with irrigation
* Plains produce 2 food, 3 with irrigation
* Despotism reduces food production by 1 if it exceeds 3
* Cows and wheat produce 3 extra food
* Game produces 2 extra food

Another problem this raises is that a city has to be built on a bonus tile in order to grow.

Third gameplay change: Towns of size 1 need not work the centre square, so it can take advantage of productive bonus tiles.

[star mouse]

Originally posted by star mouse
The methods chosen to combat ICS are not the best way of doing it, in particular the corruption model.

Another gameplay change: The size of the foodbox must be strictly proportional to city size so that smaller cities can grow faster than large ones (because the large ones are working squares that don't produce food).

For example, a size 1 city might require 16 excess food to grow to size 2, 32 excess food to grow to size 3, and so forth.

[OneInTen]

I'd have to say the weakest design element is the AI, but for somewhat different reasons that other people.

I don't believe the fixes to game exploits are bad, quite the contrary. The palace thing is a good fix, and really I would have gone further and made it impossible to switch from the palace to a wonder. Even with the game as it is, I was able to snag every single major wonder at monarch level, in part because of the palace headstart. It's just too easy and I wouldn't be unhappy if that was changed. The forest thing is one that could go either way really ... it does make some sense as a reasonable strategy.

But they're really fixing holes not in the AI, but in the game. I don't think the game was meant to be played with palace placeholders or chopping down trees ad infinitum, they're just unforseen side effects of the rules, and so the rules were tightened to bring about the game originally intended.

What my problem with the AI is is that it's weak at the highest level - that of game theory.

In my mind, the AI should treat all players equally, whether human or other AIs. On this measure, civ 3 seems to be fairly good ... I've got an inkling that it treats them differently, but not drastically so.

On the other hand, what the civ 3 AI does extreamely poorly is playing to win. I never get the feeling like the AI is there to win the game, more that it's there to try to slow down my own victory.

If the AI players see that a player (human or AI) will win in 10 turns by spaceship, and they're all 100 turns away, then by all means they should form alliances and smash that player before he can win the game!

But instead the AI is far too willing to sit back and let the game be won. That's not really acceptable AI behaviour in my book. I want the AI to be brutal, to go to war any time it will benefit it, to play the alliance game, to further its own cause.

As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Yet the AI civs don't seem to try to boost other civs to help them against a common enemy. There's no true alliance of necessity.

The lower level AI is adequate. Not anywhere near perfect, but probably as good as we're going to get with the computing power and development time available to the game designers. It produces stuff, and works tiles in a less than optimal but not horrible manner.

But it's let down by the laxidasical upper level management! If it has the advantage it should shoot to kill. If it's behind, it should scrap together in whatever way it can to catch up. Instead it just sits there oblivious to the game state.

If it did this, the game would be challenging no matter how incompetently it managed tiles or used its military.

Basically, I don't care whether the AI is a good or bad player - if it uses diplomacy in a manner that even slightly resembles how a human could or would, then it would be an excellent and difficult oponent.

Everything else about the game I find it hard to say definitively whether it's good or bad. It's easy to throw out ideas about game features as a paragraph or two on a forum. But I'm yet to be convinced by pretty much any post in this thread or others that the person making the suggestion has really thought through the way it affects all touch points in the game, how the game play itself will be changed, how other features interact, etc.

For all the features and faults of the civ 3 design, at least it's proven to work as a game, be playable, and at least to some enjoyable. What I think would be really interesting is if some of the suggestions made by fans were expanded to really explain in detail how it would work within the game, what difference it would make to other features, and so on.

For example, it's all very well to say, for example, we need stacked movement. OK, I accept, the people want stacked movement. But what should the interfece be? How should units be added and removed from stacks? What sort of units can go in stacks? What actions can a stack take? What if units in the stack have different movement speeds? And so on - often the feature opens more problems than it solves in it's raw state.

That I think is what game design is really about - not just putting together a whole host of features, but describing in detail how they work as individual features and most importantly how they go together.

Basically, I feel that while anyone who has a reasonable amount of experience in the game or genre can look at your feature description and in a short while come up with "what if?" or "how does?" style questions, you haven't yet designed anything, you've only offered an idea.

As such I don't really have anything I think can be designed into civ 3 at this point, or probably at any point. All the things I really care about are that big a departure from how civ (all 3 in the series) works that it'd be too radical a departure to try to describe how it would fit with the other features - because it wouldn't.

So I'm left with two conclusions. Firstly, the current rules and most of the design are adequate to make a great game, however the AI design is sadly astray and therefore the whole game suffers. Secondly, that if we're going right back through the drawing board of the civ 3 design process, the first mistake in designing civ 3 was starting with civ 1/2 as a base.

[macaskil]

Have a look at CTP2. It has many of the features asked for in this thread - eg stack movement, more and better techs, improvements and units. My favourite is the "Corporate Branch" which attacks by establishing a franchise in a city. They look like a bunch of suits. All we need is a McDonald's "M" to appear in the target city!

Unfortunately it also has

- ugly graphics
- no "culture"
- no strategic resources
- useless AI. In my current game Ireland has been attacking the USA for thousands of years by sending the occasional armada with a couple of units which then get trashed. In civ3 it would have annihilated them in a few turns
- pollution is worse than civ3. And you can't even clean it up until you've got the required tech late in the game. However you CAN reduce it by shutting down factories etc - though oddly enough this doesn't cause unemployment!

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Willem
The one thing that struck me when I first played Civ III was that, even though culture is an important aspect of the game, there were no cultural buildings to be built. Aside from the standard ones of course. I was amazed when I first discovered Music Theory that all I could build was the same old JS Bach. Where are the concert halls, the art galleries, the theatres etc. etc. etc.?

At least, cultural buildings can be added with the current editor. In korn's blitz mod (available in the 'Civ3 Files' forum), the number of culture points created by happiness and science buidings is reduced by 1, and three 'culture-only'-buildings are added:

• forum - ancient age, 2 culture points per turn
• theater - middle age, 4 culture points per turn
• museum - industrial age, 6 culture points per turn

So far, I have finished 4 test games using this mod, and the new buildings definitely add strategic choice IMO.

[Willem]

Originally posted by OneInTen

For example, it's all very well to say, for example, we need stacked movement. OK, I accept, the people want stacked movement. But what should the interfece be? How should units be added and removed from stacks? What sort of units can go in stacks? What actions can a stack take? What if units in the stack have different movement speeds? And so on - often the feature opens more problems than it solves in it's raw state.

But there already is stack movement, it's called an Army unit. But so many restrictions have been placed on their use that it's become pointless to use them. 400 shields so I can move 3 units around, big deal! Not worth it! Make them available right from the first of the game, let them hold more units as time goes by. I've done it with my game, I've converted my Palace to a small wonder that can build them, and there's no problem with it. As I mentioned before, in my least game the French had an Army of 10 Swordsman poised to strike the Indians. If the AI knows how to use them, why so many restrictions?

[Willem]

Originally posted by lockstep


At least, cultural buildings can be added with the current editor. In korn's blitz mod (available in the 'Civ3 Files' forum), the number of culture points created by happiness and science buidings is reduced by 1, and three 'culture-only'-buildings are added:

• forum - ancient age, 2 culture points per turn
• theater - middle age, 4 culture points per turn
• museum - industrial age, 6 culture points per turn

So far, I have finished 4 test games using this mod, and the new buildings definitely add strategic choice IMO.

Well yes, I've been adding scads of them myself. Concert Halls, Art Galleries, Radio Stations etc., etc. I've probably added more buildings than were originally included in the game. And I've added Reduces War Weariness to all of them, since that's one of the functions of culture. It takes people's minds off their problems, at least for the moment.

But I have to ask myself, why wasn't this done in the first place? Why do I have to go through all this work to create what should have been there in the first place? Did no one stop to think that maybe there were more possibilities than simply converting a Cathedral to fit the new rules? I suspect if someone took a count, that there are less buildings now than there have been in any Civ game. e.g. Whatever happened to Stock Exchange, and why was it removed in the first place? Again, less options, less choice.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Willem
I suspect if someone took a count, that there are less buildings now than there have been in any Civ game. e.g. Whatever happened to Stock Exchange, and why was it removed in the first place? Again, less options, less choice.

The original Civ had only 20 buildings (not counting the palace), compared to about 30-35 buildings in Civ2 and 28 buildings in Civ3. Stock exchange is an interesting example - it was not included in the original civ (as there were virtually no 'level 3' buildings), introduced in Civ2 and dropped in Civ3. One can argue if Civ3's 'Wall Street' small wonder (5% interest on your treasury, capped with 50 gold) is a fully-flegded substitution for stock exchanges; anyhow, they were also re-introduced in Korn's blitz mod.

BTW, I really like the fact that I don't have to build individual SDI's for every city in Civ3; this is the perfect field of application for a small wonder.

Afterthought: While Civ2 had about the optimal number of city improvements and Civ3 could bear more of them, SMAC - at least for me - was an example that it can become tedious to build the same improvement over and over again.

[JohnE]

Someone pointed out rightly that the game is meant for mass consumption, and that brought some interesting thoughts to mind.

Most of my real-life friends who play this game are more casual strategy gamers than myself, and especially more casual than Vel and the other strategic masterminds around here. I win regularly on Regent, and am about to move up. Of my six friends who play, one gave up because it's too buggy for her, one gave up because Chieftain was too hard, one struggles on Chieftain, two struggle on Warlord, and the last struggles on Regent. If they left the exploits in, the game wouldn't be a challenge for most of my friends and they would lose interest more quickly.

The deeper strategic issues that spoil the game for more dedicated players like you, Vel, don't enter their consciousness. That's not because they're not intelligent because two of them are downright brilliant and they're all smart. It's because they are simply more lackadaisical about the game. I think they are more typical of the market than you are.

( Not personal or meant to be offensive, just a statement of my opinions. )