It's good to see the whole bunch of you all still active and kicking. Especially you, Carch...there's a new Civ out ya know...hehehe.
In all seriousness, the site looks good, and it's wonderful that so many of you still are gaming and getting together. If I ever had the free time anymore, I'd try to drop by CPHL(if it's still up,that is).
Well, enough silliness. I've got work to do. Good to see your names again.
It's good to see the whole bunch of you all still active and
kicking. Especially you, Carch...there's a new Civ out ya
know...hehehe.
In all seriousness, the site looks good, and it's wonderful that
so many of you still are gaming and getting together. If I ever
had the free time anymore, I'd try to drop by CPHL(if it's still
up,that is).
Well, enough silliness. I've got work to do. Good to see your
names again.
Yeah, and the bastards left out the multiplay! Can you believe it? Maybe I can get my fix for strategic domination with multiplayer MOO3?
Not only am I playin Civ 3, but I'm playin it on my new Sony VAIO desktop ... yes, I have given in to the Dark Side. And I have an Xbox, too. Gone completely game freaky.
BTW, Carch, is Civ 3 really any good? I've heard so many mixed
things from message boards. What's your honest opinion as a god
game fanatic?
Yes. It's good. I like it. A lot.
Most of the folks I've talked with who have been disappointed with Civ III were looking for something not Civ ... like a "next generation" Alpha Centauri or something.
Civ III is what it is. Civilization, with improved graphics (not gee-whiz awesome incredible, but much nicer than previous Civ's), pretty much universally improved game features (easier to use city management, development, combat, trade, diplomacy ... everything), and awesome new victory conditions. I've ALWAYS wanted to win a game of Civ without having to build out the entire globe or kill millions of other civ citizens, and AT LAST I CAN DO JUST THAT!!!
I think it's a testament to the design genius of the Firaxians that so much was added, yet the game feels almost exactly like the previous versions. Others disagree with me. I, however, am right. ;-)
Yeah, and the bastards left out the multiplay! Can you believe
it? Maybe I can get my fix for strategic domination with
multiplayer MOO3?
Not only am I playin Civ 3, but I'm playin it on my new Sony
VAIO desktop ... yes, I have given in to the Dark Side. And I
have an Xbox, too. Gone completely game freaky.
Chat at ya soon, hopefully.
Well, it's all contingent on me ever getting free time. I'm moving this week, plus I work and still go to school...but we'll see. I'll have cable where I'm moving, so I should manage to get online sometimes.
Most of the folks I've talked with who have been disappointed
with Civ III were looking for something not Civ ... like a
"next generation" Alpha Centauri or something.
Civ III is what it is. Civilization, with improved graphics (not
gee-whiz awesome incredible, but much nicer than previous
Civ's), pretty much universally improved game features (easier
to use city management, development, combat, trade, diplomacy
... everything), and awesome new victory conditions. I've ALWAYS
wanted to win a game of Civ without having to build out the
entire globe or kill millions of other civ citizens, and AT LAST
I CAN DO JUST THAT!!!
I think it's a testament to the design genius of the Firaxians
that so much was added, yet the game feels almost exactly like
the previous versions. Others disagree with me. I, however, am
right. ;-)
Yes, you are. The addition of cultural influence was good...and gives the game more of a feel of real territorial dispute. The Wonders FINALLY are balanced and make some sense, and you can't just "tech out" and expect to win anymore.
Most of the folks I've talked with who have been disappointed
with Civ III were looking for something not Civ ... like a
"next generation" Alpha Centauri or something.
Civ III is what it is. Civilization, with improved graphics (not
gee-whiz awesome incredible, but much nicer than previous
Civ's), pretty much universally improved game features (easier
to use city management, development, combat, trade, diplomacy
... everything), and awesome new victory conditions. I've ALWAYS
wanted to win a game of Civ without having to build out the
entire globe or kill millions of other civ citizens, and AT LAST
I CAN DO JUST THAT!!!
I just got it in the mail yesterday and played for a few hours last night. I'm very happy with it so far!
There are only two nagging things that I don't like right out of the box. The radio buttons that they use in every dialog box and how they work from the UI perspective (easy to get used to, just odd) don't look or feel right to me.
And the documentation is subpar compared to Civ II's excellent ones. Where the heck is my foldout tech/unit map!??! Sigh. I got excited when the book slid out of the box, but had a bit of a letdown looking at the font size they used. Now I haven't read the whole book yet, but I love, and have come to expect, getting oddles of documentation with these genres of games. The one thing that is really bad are the screenshots. With the enhanced graphics needing higher res, they needed to blow some of these up or crop them differently. With grayscale printing, I can't tell at all what's on their maps in the book in most cases.
Now that's mostly nitpicking. The game ran smooth last night and it played like Civ--the important part
I am. It seems good so far, but with my machine (B&W G3 400/Radeon PCI/384 MB), I had to turn off the Quartz text option and I am running it at 1024x768 (minimum res), although may eventually go to 1280x1024 or higher when I get serious. I'm mostly enjoying the graphics close up right now. I'm not sure if this will add a performance hit.
The quartz text looks real nice (anti-aliased, etc), but is a big hit on my machine. I think the fallback is the same as what the PC guys have, nothing ugly, but nothing special.
I never reboot back into 9 for anything these days, although I might spend some time checking out Myth 3 and Civ 3 to see how different the performance really is. I'll let you know if I find anything striking.
I am. It seems good so far, but with my machine (B&W G3
400/Radeon PCI/384 MB), I had to turn off the Quartz text option
and I am running it at 1024x768 (minimum res), although may
eventually go to 1280x1024 or higher when I get serious. I'm
mostly enjoying the graphics close up right now. I'm not sure if
this will add a performance hit.
Quartz text (which is on by default for reasons I can't imagine) bogged my machine (G4/733, 1GB RAM, GF2MX) down to crawl. It caused the interface to lag severely behind clicks and cursor hovers and generally become annoyingly unresponsive. I'd call it unplayable. Turning it off makes things smooth as butter.
Other than that, the missing-sound bug, the game's inability to recognize a right mouse button, and the fact that cruise missiles don't seem to have any useful purpose, I think it's a great game. Supposedly the patch will fix a lot of that.
i'm disappointed in civIII cuz I've been playing the superior Call to Power II, with more options, stackable armies, and multiplay and with that nice civ-like feeling, it is far better.
i'm disappointed cuz I expected civIII to have NOT stepped backwards... the interface is nice but the game has a lack of units, small tech tree & limited combat. Not as many tile imps, either.
Civ 3 is great, and is making it hard for me to complete end-of-the-year projects.
I don't think I could ever go back to playing Civ 2, and probably not SMAC either. I don't have a problem with the "small" tech tree, a "lack" of units and "limited" combat. I believe they really took the time to balance the game, and that to me is far more important than a zillion different techs that make no sense and seem like total hacks (e.g. SMAC and especially its sequel).
There's chatter that MOO3 is doomed but I'm looking forward to seeing how it compares to Civ 3. Sid Meier is a genius.
i'm disappointed in civIII cuz I've been playing the superior
Call to Power II, with more options, stackable armies, and
multiplay and with that nice civ-like feeling, it is far better.
I would like to have bought Call to Power but there is no way in hell I'm gonna spend a dime on an orphaned piece of software. After I read a lot of reviews that slammed it for critical operational bugs (not just gameplay issues), and then read that Activision refused to patch it, I passed.
i'm disappointed cuz I expected civIII to have NOT stepped
backwards... the interface is nice but the game has a lack of
units, small tech tree & limited combat. Not as many tile
imps, either.
I don't think Civ III stepped backwards ... as I said before, it's just civilization, with a few tweaks and more victory conditions. It's a different game from SMAC and Call To Power. Civ III has more variety than its predecessors, but less complexity than the other Civ offshoots.
I'm still playing it (and finally won a diplomatic victory! Huzzah for Abe Lincoln! :-)
That could happen in previous versions, too. Remember, just because something is unlikely doesn't mean it's impossible. I've had a destroyer lose to a frigate before. Them's the breaks.
That could happen in previous versions, too. Remember, just
because something is unlikely doesn't mean it's impossible. I've
had a destroyer lose to a frigate before. Them's the breaks.
Bah, I wasn't done yet. Snazzin Frazzin' network... *mumble*
I say this because even though it could happen in Civ II, this happened to a far greater extent. Even if that is the case, I played the game initially on chieftan and it didnt seem to affect combat as much (granted, combat not being a primary factor in the total game scheme).
I get an overall feeling of imbalance this time around. I want to play more, but I load up Civ II or alpha centauri isntead. This isnt to say others wont like Civ III, but... just be prepare if you haven't played it yet.
Less diplomacy options, more backstabbing with shorter fuses. In Alpha Centauri you really *could* make friends and keep them, rather than simply pose an alliance until it was convenient to break it (which is well and dandy in its own right if you shake that way)
Also: no multiplayer. There is a patch coming I *think*, no promise there though.
And of course, the inneffective comment that in my opinion is more of a 'all the time' thing and less of a 'them's the breaks every so often' thing.
*shrugs*
I'm not alone here. My RA down the hall and other peeps who bought the game feel the same way.
Re: Bah, I wasn't done yet. Snazzin Frazzin' network... *mumble*
I say this because even though it could happen in Civ II, this
happened to a far greater extent.
I can't say I've seen unbalanced combat or whatnot, to a greater extent in one game or the other. I think everything evens out in the end.
Even if that is the case, I
played the game initially on chieftan and it didnt seem to
affect combat as much (granted, combat not being a primary
factor in the total game scheme).
I find combat to be a pretty integral of Civ 3... and probably, in Civ 2 and SMAC to a far greater extent. There's a reason why nearly all the units in the game are combat units. I think Civ 3 takes away some emphasis on combat because of the new ways to achieve a bloodless victory.
I'm playing on Emperor level now... today a longbowman took out a fortified infantry unit. I was surprised... but I doubt I'll see that happen for a few weeks or months.
I get an overall feeling of imbalance this time around. I want
to play more, but I load up Civ II or alpha centauri isntead.
I'm with Carch. I don't see where you find the imbalance. Beyond some of the annoying interface bugs and such, I find the game play to be very balanced, and extremely enjoyable. It's a vast improvement on Civ 2.
Less diplomacy options, more backstabbing with shorter fuses. In
Alpha Centauri you really *could* make friends and keep them,
rather than simply pose an alliance until it was convenient to
break it (which is well and dandy in its own right if you shake
that way)
I'd have to agree with this somewhat, but only with regards to SMAC. When it comes to Civ 2, I have totally opposite experiences.
Also: no multiplayer. There is a patch coming I *think*, no
promise there though.
Multiplayer Civ and SMAC were slow and buggy. I'm not missing multiplayer here... at least not yet.
And of course, the inneffective comment that in my opinion is
more of a 'all the time' thing and less of a 'them's the breaks
every so often' thing.
I find it hard to believe that a Panzer tank loses "all the time" to a spearman.
I'd buy some rabbit feet and hang up some horseshoes, if I were you. It sounds like you are snakebitten. Or the computer ch33tz!
I'm not alone here. My RA down the hall and other peeps who
bought the game feel the same way.
true what i meant was: strong force attacks wearker force that
is fortified. weaker force wins. 90 percent of the time.
You really have it quantified at 90% of the time? I think you should run some trials and back up the claim with some data. If you're right, then there's a bug in the game, and it would need to be fixed.
If you're talking about a "stronger force" being, say, a swordsman, and a "weaker force that is fortified" being, say, a spearman, I'd say it's a pretty common experience to see the spearman win. That's why you don't attack a city with a single unit... especially with the new stacking rules.
You might be forgetting the modifiers that are involved. Every unit gets a defensive bonus, just from the terrain. Add in settlement bonuses (walls +50% or city +50% or metropolis +100%), the fortification bonus (+25%), and sometimes a river bonus (+25%) and suddenly a unit like a pikeman can take out a calvary unit more often than you think.
You really have it quantified at 90% of the time? I think you
should run some trials and back up the claim with some data. If
you're right, then there's a bug in the game, and it would need
to be fixed.
I would but I really dont care that much
Even with modifiers I'm certain it happens just a wee bit too often. I dont have definitive numbers, but it's pretty much a mutual concensus here that this is the case. My friend Nick and Tom play Civ II and III constantly. I'd say they've logged over 40 hours a week when it came out, and dont even get me started on their Civ II numbers. They claim that they've noticed the same problem. They worship anything from Sid Meier, so their complaints come from the heart.
Either way, just a strange note from my side of the continent. Others may view the game differently
Either way, just a strange note from my side of the continent.
Others may view the game differently
I'm just about going to clench my first win and I have to say I like it better in general than Civ II. I did feel that combat was harder in this version and lost a lot of units on the offensive in my first few games. But after thinking harder about the numbers like Muff put in his post for each combat I'm about to do, I'm finding that I am much better prepared and loose a lot less.
One thing you should be aware of that caught a lot of long-time players unaware is that the random number seed is saved in your save file. So, (and I did this many a time on my first few games) if you reload after a stupid-looking loss and fight that same battle in the same order as you did before, it's going to turn out the same. There's a new pref in the 1.21f patch (PC only right now) that allows you to turn this 'feature' off. Until I knew this, this skewed my opinion of combat toward your thinking.
One thing I do wish they had added is stack moving that's more than just the 'same unit' J command. I would like to have convoys, especially during long sea journeys and it's a little too much micro-managing for my tastes to have to make sure my battleship doesn't overshoot my transport on a move. What's silly is that they have part of the code there with the new armies. They should have generalized it for convoy use. Armies could still be special with their HP combo ability.
The tech trading in 1.17 does leave much to be desired, now having played through a whole game. I'm glad they addressed it in the next patch. Near the end of the game, everyone is the same and you can pretty much bet on everyone else having the same units available to them. War becomes a build-fest (more than usual).
I would have liked more info from the advisors as well. I'm a info/numbers junkie and like all I can get in these games. I'd rather have a full report from my foreign advisor on a Civ than the random one-liners. Having to click the more button is annoying, espcially if I only care about one Civ at the time.
I like the new trade system and the resources a lot. It seems like a small addition, but I think it really changes the game a lot from CivII. These plus the new diplo options and culture add a new dimension to the game for me since I don't always like having to resort to war for expansion or resource allocation.
But, like the other Civ's I still feel the end of a game goes really fast through the tech tree and units. I'm not sure how they would change this and not make each game take a week to finish, but I feel like I'm missing out on the subtlties that the modern tech adds to the game.
I have to agree strongly with Carch's analysis about the differences in playstyle. Rapid expansion seems so much more important in this game, at least on a normal-sized map. The AI also seems nuts about grabbing land--it's hard to beat them to the good spots in some cases. And if you happen to start on a small contenent/island with no one else around, you have your work cut out for you because sea/ocean movement & trading don't come along for quite a while. With resources being so important now, this hurts much more than in earlier games. My second game was like this and I didn't know enough about how the game worked then to have a chance at all.
I didn't know about the PNG seed thing, but obviously it's there to prevent people from "cheating" by replaying battles over and over. Of course, it's not perfect, but I think I prefer to see that sort of thing than not. Convoys would be nice, yeah.
The tech trading in 1.17 does leave much to be desired, now
having played through a whole game. I'm glad they addressed it
in the next patch.
How are they addressing it? I still am playing with 1.1.6 (out of the box)... any reason I should patch?
I agree with you on the advisor details... a big step back. I also can't see why they only show Demographics and the Top Five Cities until the very end of the game... unless of course I am once again forgetting an option.
The trade system is great... a vast improvement over the previous caravan system. Not to mention it gets rid of caravan bombing cities to build Wonders. I like the addition of Small Wonders, too. But I think they should be rebuildable.
The new diplomacy options are nice, too. It would be nice to have less "flat" opponents in terms of personality, though.
Carch & I were chatting about the game last night...ya missed out!
Early expansion is key, perhaps a bit too much so. Personally, I like the beginning portion of the game -- I've played over a dozen games halfway through, but only finished two. After I feel I've gotten a lock, it gets boring.
It's hard to fight back if you have an unlucky starting position. Early resources is key.
I think Wally is overly pessimistic about his losses. It's nowhere near "90%". Playing as the Aztecs, seven jaguar warriors took out Washington, fortified with a warrior and two spearmen.
I found unit balance to be very good, although I haven't played much with modern units yet.
I'm also a tad frustrated with diplomacy, though. One particular game, Alexander was practically gushing every time he talked to me. Then, without provocation, he attacked.
Another game, three enemies allied against me, yet no one would come to my aid... If anybody's played Imperialism, I prefer how diplomacy is handled there. You seem to have more control over how a nation treats you, and "friendships" are more lasting.
However, I don't think I've played enough to test the diplomacy options fully.
Comments
It's good to see the whole bunch of you all still active and kicking. Especially you, Carch...there's a new Civ out ya know...hehehe.
In all seriousness, the site looks good, and it's wonderful that so many of you still are gaming and getting together. If I ever had the free time anymore, I'd try to drop by CPHL(if it's still up,that is).
Well, enough silliness. I've got work to do. Good to see your names again.
-John Ashby
Good to see you around too!
Hang out anytime! ;-)
- Free
Bungie Sightings
cya there ;-)
Yeah, and the bastards left out the multiplay! Can you believe it? Maybe I can get my fix for strategic domination with multiplayer MOO3?
Not only am I playin Civ 3, but I'm playin it on my new Sony VAIO desktop ... yes, I have given in to the Dark Side. And I have an Xbox, too. Gone completely game freaky.
Chat at ya soon, hopefully.
bungie.net soapbox
I can't hardly wait.
BTW, Carch, is Civ 3 really any good? I've heard so many mixed things from message boards. What's your honest opinion as a god game fanatic?
Yes. It's good. I like it. A lot.
Most of the folks I've talked with who have been disappointed with Civ III were looking for something not Civ ... like a "next generation" Alpha Centauri or something.
Civ III is what it is. Civilization, with improved graphics (not gee-whiz awesome incredible, but much nicer than previous Civ's), pretty much universally improved game features (easier to use city management, development, combat, trade, diplomacy ... everything), and awesome new victory conditions. I've ALWAYS wanted to win a game of Civ without having to build out the entire globe or kill millions of other civ citizens, and AT LAST I CAN DO JUST THAT!!!
I think it's a testament to the design genius of the Firaxians that so much was added, yet the game feels almost exactly like the previous versions. Others disagree with me. I, however, am right. ;-)
_/ C
Well, it's all contingent on me ever getting free time. I'm moving this week, plus I work and still go to school...but we'll see. I'll have cable where I'm moving, so I should manage to get online sometimes.
Good to see ya Sharky.
-J
Yes, you are. The addition of cultural influence was good...and gives the game more of a feel of real territorial dispute. The Wonders FINALLY are balanced and make some sense, and you can't just "tech out" and expect to win anymore.
Too bad about the multiplay though.
-J
I just got it in the mail yesterday and played for a few hours last night. I'm very happy with it so far!
There are only two nagging things that I don't like right out of the box. The radio buttons that they use in every dialog box and how they work from the UI perspective (easy to get used to, just odd) don't look or feel right to me.
And the documentation is subpar compared to Civ II's excellent ones. Where the heck is my foldout tech/unit map!??! Sigh. I got excited when the book slid out of the box, but had a bit of a letdown looking at the font size they used. Now I haven't read the whole book yet, but I love, and have come to expect, getting oddles of documentation with these genres of games. The one thing that is really bad are the screenshots. With the enhanced graphics needing higher res, they needed to blow some of these up or crop them differently. With grayscale printing, I can't tell at all what's on their maps in the book in most cases.
Now that's mostly nitpicking. The game ran smooth last night and it played like Civ--the important part
I assume you guys are running it in X?
I am. It seems good so far, but with my machine (B&W G3 400/Radeon PCI/384 MB), I had to turn off the Quartz text option and I am running it at 1024x768 (minimum res), although may eventually go to 1280x1024 or higher when I get serious. I'm mostly enjoying the graphics close up right now. I'm not sure if this will add a performance hit.
The quartz text looks real nice (anti-aliased, etc), but is a big hit on my machine. I think the fallback is the same as what the PC guys have, nothing ugly, but nothing special.
I never reboot back into 9 for anything these days, although I might spend some time checking out Myth 3 and Civ 3 to see how different the performance really is. I'll let you know if I find anything striking.
Quartz text (which is on by default for reasons I can't imagine) bogged my machine (G4/733, 1GB RAM, GF2MX) down to crawl. It caused the interface to lag severely behind clicks and cursor hovers and generally become annoyingly unresponsive. I'd call it unplayable. Turning it off makes things smooth as butter.
Other than that, the missing-sound bug, the game's inability to recognize a right mouse button, and the fact that cruise missiles don't seem to have any useful purpose, I think it's a great game. Supposedly the patch will fix a lot of that.
-Eye
i'm disappointed in civIII cuz I've been playing the superior Call to Power II, with more options, stackable armies, and multiplay and with that nice civ-like feeling, it is far better.
i'm disappointed cuz I expected civIII to have NOT stepped backwards... the interface is nice but the game has a lack of units, small tech tree & limited combat. Not as many tile imps, either.
Civ 3 is great, and is making it hard for me to complete end-of-the-year projects.
I don't think I could ever go back to playing Civ 2, and probably not SMAC either. I don't have a problem with the "small" tech tree, a "lack" of units and "limited" combat. I believe they really took the time to balance the game, and that to me is far more important than a zillion different techs that make no sense and seem like total hacks (e.g. SMAC and especially its sequel).
There's chatter that MOO3 is doomed but I'm looking forward to seeing how it compares to Civ 3. Sid Meier is a genius.
--MH
that's the only gripe so far besides no multi. Great game though.
I would like to have bought Call to Power but there is no way in hell I'm gonna spend a dime on an orphaned piece of software. After I read a lot of reviews that slammed it for critical operational bugs (not just gameplay issues), and then read that Activision refused to patch it, I passed.
I don't think Civ III stepped backwards ... as I said before, it's just civilization, with a few tweaks and more victory conditions. It's a different game from SMAC and Call To Power. Civ III has more variety than its predecessors, but less complexity than the other Civ offshoots.
I'm still playing it (and finally won a diplomatic victory! Huzzah for Abe Lincoln! :-)
_/ C
That could happen in previous versions, too. Remember, just because something is unlikely doesn't mean it's impossible. I've had a destroyer lose to a frigate before. Them's the breaks.
--MH
Yes, but strangely enough Civ II didnt suck balls
I say this because even though it could happen in Civ II, this happened to a far greater extent. Even if that is the case, I played the game initially on chieftan and it didnt seem to affect combat as much (granted, combat not being a primary factor in the total game scheme).
I get an overall feeling of imbalance this time around. I want to play more, but I load up Civ II or alpha centauri isntead. This isnt to say others wont like Civ III, but... just be prepare if you haven't played it yet.
What the... ?
Now that's a comment I've not seen. Curious what feels imbalanced to ya...
_/ C (who is doing much much better after learning to expand quickly and abandon games with untenable starts)
Less diplomacy options, more backstabbing with shorter fuses. In Alpha Centauri you really *could* make friends and keep them, rather than simply pose an alliance until it was convenient to break it (which is well and dandy in its own right if you shake that way)
Also: no multiplayer. There is a patch coming I *think*, no promise there though.
And of course, the inneffective comment that in my opinion is more of a 'all the time' thing and less of a 'them's the breaks every so often' thing.
*shrugs*
I'm not alone here. My RA down the hall and other peeps who bought the game feel the same way.
To each their own though.
I can't say I've seen unbalanced combat or whatnot, to a greater extent in one game or the other. I think everything evens out in the end.
I find combat to be a pretty integral of Civ 3... and probably, in Civ 2 and SMAC to a far greater extent. There's a reason why nearly all the units in the game are combat units. I think Civ 3 takes away some emphasis on combat because of the new ways to achieve a bloodless victory.
I'm playing on Emperor level now... today a longbowman took out a fortified infantry unit. I was surprised... but I doubt I'll see that happen for a few weeks or months.
I'm with Carch. I don't see where you find the imbalance. Beyond some of the annoying interface bugs and such, I find the game play to be very balanced, and extremely enjoyable. It's a vast improvement on Civ 2.
--MH
I'd have to agree with this somewhat, but only with regards to SMAC. When it comes to Civ 2, I have totally opposite experiences.
Multiplayer Civ and SMAC were slow and buggy. I'm not missing multiplayer here... at least not yet.
I find it hard to believe that a Panzer tank loses "all the time" to a spearman.
I'd buy some rabbit feet and hang up some horseshoes, if I were you. It sounds like you are snakebitten. Or the computer ch33tz!
Realtor Agent?
--MH
true what i meant was: strong force attacks wearker force that is fortified. weaker force wins. 90 percent of the time.
Well, you could be right in this instance...
Resident Advisor!
You really have it quantified at 90% of the time? I think you should run some trials and back up the claim with some data. If you're right, then there's a bug in the game, and it would need to be fixed.
If you're talking about a "stronger force" being, say, a swordsman, and a "weaker force that is fortified" being, say, a spearman, I'd say it's a pretty common experience to see the spearman win. That's why you don't attack a city with a single unit... especially with the new stacking rules.
You might be forgetting the modifiers that are involved. Every unit gets a defensive bonus, just from the terrain. Add in settlement bonuses (walls +50% or city +50% or metropolis +100%), the fortification bonus (+25%), and sometimes a river bonus (+25%) and suddenly a unit like a pikeman can take out a calvary unit more often than you think.
--MH
I would but I really dont care that much
Even with modifiers I'm certain it happens just a wee bit too often. I dont have definitive numbers, but it's pretty much a mutual concensus here that this is the case. My friend Nick and Tom play Civ II and III constantly. I'd say they've logged over 40 hours a week when it came out, and dont even get me started on their Civ II numbers. They claim that they've noticed the same problem. They worship anything from Sid Meier, so their complaints come from the heart.
Either way, just a strange note from my side of the continent. Others may view the game differently
I'm just about going to clench my first win and I have to say I like it better in general than Civ II. I did feel that combat was harder in this version and lost a lot of units on the offensive in my first few games. But after thinking harder about the numbers like Muff put in his post for each combat I'm about to do, I'm finding that I am much better prepared and loose a lot less.
One thing you should be aware of that caught a lot of long-time players unaware is that the random number seed is saved in your save file. So, (and I did this many a time on my first few games) if you reload after a stupid-looking loss and fight that same battle in the same order as you did before, it's going to turn out the same. There's a new pref in the 1.21f patch (PC only right now) that allows you to turn this 'feature' off. Until I knew this, this skewed my opinion of combat toward your thinking.
One thing I do wish they had added is stack moving that's more than just the 'same unit' J command. I would like to have convoys, especially during long sea journeys and it's a little too much micro-managing for my tastes to have to make sure my battleship doesn't overshoot my transport on a move. What's silly is that they have part of the code there with the new armies. They should have generalized it for convoy use. Armies could still be special with their HP combo ability.
The tech trading in 1.17 does leave much to be desired, now having played through a whole game. I'm glad they addressed it in the next patch. Near the end of the game, everyone is the same and you can pretty much bet on everyone else having the same units available to them. War becomes a build-fest (more than usual).
I would have liked more info from the advisors as well. I'm a info/numbers junkie and like all I can get in these games. I'd rather have a full report from my foreign advisor on a Civ than the random one-liners. Having to click the more button is annoying, espcially if I only care about one Civ at the time.
I like the new trade system and the resources a lot. It seems like a small addition, but I think it really changes the game a lot from CivII. These plus the new diplo options and culture add a new dimension to the game for me since I don't always like having to resort to war for expansion or resource allocation.
But, like the other Civ's I still feel the end of a game goes really fast through the tech tree and units. I'm not sure how they would change this and not make each game take a week to finish, but I feel like I'm missing out on the subtlties that the modern tech adds to the game.
I have to agree strongly with Carch's analysis about the differences in playstyle. Rapid expansion seems so much more important in this game, at least on a normal-sized map. The AI also seems nuts about grabbing land--it's hard to beat them to the good spots in some cases. And if you happen to start on a small contenent/island with no one else around, you have your work cut out for you because sea/ocean movement & trading don't come along for quite a while. With resources being so important now, this hurts much more than in earlier games. My second game was like this and I didn't know enough about how the game worked then to have a chance at all.
I didn't know about the PNG seed thing, but obviously it's there to prevent people from "cheating" by replaying battles over and over. Of course, it's not perfect, but I think I prefer to see that sort of thing than not. Convoys would be nice, yeah.
How are they addressing it? I still am playing with 1.1.6 (out of the box)... any reason I should patch?
I agree with you on the advisor details... a big step back. I also can't see why they only show Demographics and the Top Five Cities until the very end of the game... unless of course I am once again forgetting an option.
The trade system is great... a vast improvement over the previous caravan system. Not to mention it gets rid of caravan bombing cities to build Wonders. I like the addition of Small Wonders, too. But I think they should be rebuildable.
The new diplomacy options are nice, too. It would be nice to have less "flat" opponents in terms of personality, though.
Carch & I were chatting about the game last night...ya missed out!
--MH
I never got it. No multiplayer. It just looked like Civ2 with a few bells and whistles added.
Early expansion is key, perhaps a bit too much so. Personally, I like the beginning portion of the game -- I've played over a dozen games halfway through, but only finished two. After I feel I've gotten a lock, it gets boring.
It's hard to fight back if you have an unlucky starting position. Early resources is key.
I think Wally is overly pessimistic about his losses.
I found unit balance to be very good, although I haven't played much with modern units yet.
I'm also a tad frustrated with diplomacy, though. One particular game, Alexander was practically gushing every time he talked to me. Then, without provocation, he attacked.
Another game, three enemies allied against me, yet no one would come to my aid... If anybody's played Imperialism, I prefer how diplomacy is handled there. You seem to have more control over how a nation treats you, and "friendships" are more lasting.
However, I don't think I've played enough to test the diplomacy options fully.