Any Civ3-ers here?

victorhadin · Post by **victorhadin** » 2002-12-11 11:09am

Well for all those who play Civ3 I have some good news.

I recently bought Play The World and thought to myself:

"Ho! Why not build a scenario encompassing some point in world history?"

So I am.

The scenario begins in the year 1900 and continues to the year 2050, through 300 turns of epic rivalry between the great powers. In the year 1900, Europe is the effective centre of the world, with the British Empire dominant over all, but as the years and decades go by, this will change.
-The United States, balancing on a rocketing economy and prodigious industrial base, is rising quickly for prominence on the world stage.
-Russia will face war with European powers and will form a resurgent economy of frightening industrial and military growth.
-Germany will make its bid for power and the formation of a massive hegemony.
-And all around, the British and French Empires fall away, bit-by-bit, to independant powers.

Basically it will be a *broadly* historically accurate (to begin with) race for power, with all nations playable, including:

Britain.
Germany.
The United States.
Italy.
France.
The Russian Empire.
China.
Japan.
The Ottoman Empire.

And many more!

Playtesting is going well, and I am distributing this to all and sundry on the messageboards I frequent over Christmas, when the first playable prototype versions will be ready.

Are you willing to help playtest it when I release the first versions?:)

**Will require the Play The World addon.**

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2002-12-11 11:12am

Cool.
Tell me when it's done.

victorhadin · Post by **victorhadin** » 2002-12-11 11:15am

Will do.

I am still tinkering as yet (I playtested today and Russia is a mite to weak with Britain a mite too strong, for instance) and I still need to detail more of the Southern Hemisphere, but all is going well.

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-11 11:16am

Civ 3 is allright, though the combat really sucks major ass.

victorhadin · Post by **victorhadin** » 2002-12-11 11:21am

You should try using the scenario editor. *Shivers.*

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-11 11:26am

The scenario editor can't edit the combat system itself- I hate it with a passion. See Alpha Centauri for how combat should've been handled.

victorhadin · Post by **victorhadin** » 2002-12-11 11:28am

I have no problem with it. It is fun enough.

What are your gripes with combat?

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-11 11:52am

victorhadin wrote:I have no problem with it. It is fun enough.

What are your gripes with combat?

That a musketeer can defeat a main battle tank. The enemy civs maintain a massive stockpile of units that would be utterly useless against any modern army, and when my modern army shows up to crush them, they actually put up a fight and kill some of my units. The game PUNISHES you for technological advancement in that sense- it doesn't matter that a spearman doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell against a tank, all that matters is the stupid game of chance the computer is playing.

If I've done well enough to have a modern army and the other civ has shit for units, I want to ENJOY squashing them, not spit my drink watching a horseman attack mechanized infantry and actually reduce them to one red dot.

victorhadin · Post by **victorhadin** » 2002-12-11 11:59am

Well that is easy enough to fix, simply by altering the strengths of the units involved.

In addition, in the Play the World addon, a 'guerrilla' unit has been employed (like Infantry but not as good) which medieval infantry and the like can be upgraded to, helping to alleviate the amount of primitive crap going around.

In fact, I think I might edit my scenario to do that with the navy. I hate having sailing ships floating around when they shouldn't be.

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2002-12-11 12:10pm

I play Civ3 occasionally, and I have PTW.

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-11 12:10pm

victorhadin wrote:Well that is easy enough to fix, simply by altering the strengths of the units involved.

In addition, in the Play the World addon, a 'guerrilla' unit has been employed (like Infantry but not as good) which medieval infantry and the like can be upgraded to, helping to alleviate the amount of primitive crap going around.

In fact, I think I might edit my scenario to do that with the navy. I hate having sailing ships floating around when they shouldn't be.

I may borrow PTW from a friend to do just this. Altering the strengths of the units is too much trouble however- what unit strengths do I increase? It can't just be the modern tier. If I set them high enough to crush primitive units, I have to up the less modern tier (older tanks etc) as well to maintain play balance- testing such a thing is simply too much trouble. I did play quite a lot of civ 3- but this feature got quite annoying.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2002-12-11 01:22pm

I bought Civ3 soon as it came out, but the problems with combat drove me nuts. I dont know why they got rid of the firepower concept from Civ 2. It seemed like a step backward.

So, it did not stay on my hard drive very long. I recently dug it out and have played a few games. Im never going to enjoy this version like Civ1 and Civ2.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2002-12-11 01:22pm

Even if you did change the strengths of the units it wouldn't correct everything. Civ3's combat model falls under the same trap that Civ1's did. They should have stuck with either the AC or Civ2 systems (modified, of course).

Ted · Post by **Ted** » 2002-12-11 01:44pm

Civ2's pretty good, but I hate it when my battleship bombards a warrior and gets sunk. For fucks sake, the warrior can't even touch the BB. Grrrr...

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2002-12-11 02:20pm

Someone came up with a relatively simple way to fix the combat system. He tripled the attack and defense strength of all units with gunpowder, and tripled it again for modern units. A musketman doesn't have a defense of 6 anymore, he has a defense of 18. A tank's attack rating is somewhere in the low thirties, I believe. It's still theoretically possible for a swordsman to beat a tank, but he'd have to get incredibly, incredibly lucky.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2002-12-11 02:28pm

Ted wrote:Civ2's pretty good, but I hate it when my battleship bombards a warrior and gets sunk. For fucks sake, the warrior can't even touch the BB. Grrrr...

How the hell did that happen? I've never seen that combat bug occur in Civ2!

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-12-11 02:42pm

How exactly does combat in AC work again? Long time since I've played it. And shall I see if I can figure out a way to make a ST vs. SW vs some other stuff mod? (because, lets be frank WTF good is a huge pile of redshirts to anyone?)

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2002-12-11 03:02pm

How the hell did that happen? I've never seen that combat bug occur in Civ2!

Cant speak for Ted but maybe he meant Civ 1. Ive had that happen in Civ 1 but never Civ 2. Firepower took care of that.

Civ3 is just like Civ1, silly victories occur far too often. I watched a Swordmen defeat a tank. WTF?

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2002-12-11 03:22pm

My only grip with Civ3 is pretty much others as well...for some reason my swordsmen/or heck special troop are whoomping Infantry...and tanks.

Or my tanks are being shredded by Ballistas?!

Oi the mind boggles...fun game but annoying combat.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2002-12-11 03:44pm

NecronLord wrote:How exactly does combat in AC work again? Long time since I've played it. And shall I see if I can figure out a way to make a ST vs. SW vs some other stuff mod? (because, lets be frank WTF good is a huge pile of redshirts to anyone?)

I think it was based on the Civ2 model (whcih was quite a bit more complicated than the manual stated) with some additions for bombardment and such.

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2002-12-11 03:48pm

Civ3 was the most disappointing sequel ever. It has completely lost the addictiveness of the first couple for me and the annoying bugs in the initial release really pissed me off. The fucking retarded corruption rules really pissed me off as well. You have 32 cities! now every new city you get will be worthless! Arse to that.

Oh yeah and a £20 expansion pack containing features that were supposed to be in the initial release is just not on.

ArmorPierce · Post by **ArmorPierce** » 2002-12-11 05:23pm

I would volunteer to play test it but I don't have play the world

Ted · Post by **Ted** » 2002-12-11 06:00pm

phongn wrote:
Ted wrote:Civ2's pretty good, but I hate it when my battleship bombards a warrior and gets sunk. For fucks sake, the warrior can't even touch the BB. Grrrr...
How the hell did that happen? I've never seen that combat bug occur in Civ2!

I was just doing a normal game, at prince level, and I figured, I'd clear the way to one of their cities along the coast. So, in I go with a brand new Veteran Battleship, see a lone Warrior, attack it, and watch my battleship sink.

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2002-12-11 08:09pm

phongn wrote:
NecronLord wrote:How exactly does combat in AC work again? Long time since I've played it. And shall I see if I can figure out a way to make a ST vs. SW vs some other stuff mod? (because, lets be frank WTF good is a huge pile of redshirts to anyone?)
I think it was based on the Civ2 model (whcih was quite a bit more complicated than the manual stated) with some additions for bombardment and such.

The biggest strength to teh AC model was that combat improvements were MCUH more incremental. With Civ1-3 when you got the next best unit the jump was huge (going from Knights to Dragoons for instance). The difference in firepower for such a pinpoint investment would unbalance the game horribly. The problem then is that you have to completely screw realistic combat in order to have realistic units with normal paced technology progress. In other words startig at 300 BC and ending at 2000 AD if you have technology progress like it has then you simply won't be able to do some things realistically, and they chose to make combat unrealisitc.

Anyway both AC and Civ2 had a pretty good system that makes it much harder to have ancient units beat mdoern ones. The way it works is that each unit has an attack, defense, firepower, and hit point value. The first two can be modified by veteran status, the later by fortifications and entrenchment). Now when engaged in comabt the computer goes through a series of "rounds." In each round the compuer compares the attack value to the defense value and concludes a "winner" for that round only. Then the winner has their firepower value deducted from the opposing unit's hit points. Now while this means that a batleship might lose a round to a medevil warior because it has much more firepower AND many more hit points the warrior must succed MANY times in a row against very long odds in order to defeat it. Yes it is statistically possible but its also statistically possible that I could impregnate a woman with a child that will have eight eyes.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2002-12-11 08:10pm

CmdrWilkens wrote:Yes it is statistically possible but its also statistically possible that I could impregnate a woman with a child that will have eight eyes.

LOL.....

FUQ!