Civilization IV Discussed As GDC Slides Released

rocky development cycle by kwoff · 2004-06-24 23:54 · Score: 5, Interesting

Civ3 had a pretty rocky development cycle. We lost all of our leads after about a year and we also had almost 100% turnover within the programming department.

And that turned out to be a great game, so I'm really looking forward to Civ 4. However, I'm not sure what to think about:

Drop unfun legacy (pollution, rioting, maintenance, corruption/waste)

Although there might be less annoying things, but those annoying things are part of what makes the game.

Re:rocky development cycle by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-25 01:07 · Score: 5, Funny

Not worrying about pollution, corruption, or waste just means you get to play the game like George W. Bush would.
Re:rocky development cycle by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-25 01:18 · Score: 1, Funny

Nah...conquering the world is possible in the game.
Re:rocky development cycle by GeekGirlie · 2004-06-25 02:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

I think the beauty of all the Civ games is the realism that the pollution, rioting, anarchy, etc. presents. Not only do those elements make the game more challenging but they do make them a little more realistic. Civ is a game that you can play over and over again and never really play the same way twice. But, will you really want to play it again if you can beat it in an hour because the things that make it challenging are stripped away?
Re:rocky development cycle by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-25 06:14 · Score: 1, Insightful

> I think the beauty of all the Civ games is the realism that the pollution, rioting, anarchy, etc. presents.

Realism? Posh. They're game elements with realistic names. Reality is a LOT more complex than that. First off, unless you literally just sit back and do NOTHING, your civilization can never fragment, it's all yours to micromanage as you see fit. There is never open revolt in Civ, just cities you can lose through gross negligence. Compare to the real world, where despite your best efforts -- or perhaps BECAUSE of them, you have splinter groups, seccessionists, autonomous regions, etc etc etc. Civ is simply a very fun abstract game with an empire-building "skin".
Re:rocky development cycle by Tyreth · 2004-06-25 13:55 · Score: 1

The AC made a very appropriate response on why these parts are not realistic, but I wanted to add a couple of things:

I think the beauty of all the Civ games is the realism that the pollution, rioting, anarchy, etc. presents. Not only do those elements make the game more challenging but they do make them a little more realistic.

They are arbitrary penalties with realistic names. We could leave the game mechanics the same and give them names like "attrition", or "crime", or "loyalty" and they'd still make sense. Once the game actually tries to simulate a global economy, or genuine social currents and changes, then perhaps we could call these realistic.

Civ is a game that you can play over and over again and never really play the same way twice. But, will you really want to play it again if you can beat it in an hour because the things that make it challenging are stripped away?

That has absolutely nothing to do with the challenges in the game. If you eliminate these unfun elements then your opponents won't have them either. You will still be trying to outgrow neighbouring empires. Let the unfun inhibitors be ones that are imposed on you by other nations, not by an arbitrary game mechanic - wars, spies, trade, diplomacy, colonization, etc. There's plenty to compete for, and plenty of obstacles prohibitting you from world domination. It won't make the game any quicker, because your opponents will have the same liberties. It will just cut out those unfun elements of the game.
Re:rocky development cycle by Rayonic · 2004-06-26 01:52 · Score: 1

Conquering the world is possible in real life too. It's just that the American people, and the people they elect, are too nice to try.

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[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Re:rocky development cycle by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-26 09:53 · Score: 0

What about the people we don't elect?

What? by gasaraki · 2004-06-24 23:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

No pollution, rioting, maintenance or corruption/waste? If they're ditching classic elements like those they'd damn well better be ditching the crappy new "resource" system they came up with for Civ III. I don't want to hunt the world for a "silkworm square" before the game lets me build a musketeer, or whatever the hell it tried to make me do.

Some of it is already done by smurf975 · 2004-06-25 00:14 · Score: 4, Informative

A lot of what the first slideshow says is already available in Rise of Nations from Microsoft Games. However I fon't know if its their plan to make CivIV real time or turnbased.

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-- I don't buy it, I grow it.

Re:Some of it is already done by will_die · 2004-06-25 01:04 · Score: 0

Microsoft was the distributer they did not make the game, that was Big Huge Gamges.
Big huge games was founded by Brian Reynolds who did work on the Civ sequal and Alpha Centauri.
Re:Some of it is already done by hymie3 · 2004-06-25 01:27 · Score: 4, Informative

Big huge games was founded by Brian Reynolds who did work on the Civ sequal and Alpha Centauri.

That's a bit disingenuous. Brian Reynolds was lead designer on civ2 and on alpha centauri. No offense to you the poster, but saying that he "did work" on those smash-hit titles, is like saying Enrico Fermi "did work" on the atomic bomb.

Personally, I thought Rise of Nations was a bit boring. It was more Gettyburgh and less Civ. I want to play Civ. Pollution and riots and, well, civ-style micromanagement is part of playing civ. Still, as long as they don't make civ4 a RTS, I'll be bying it.
Re:Some of it is already done by Babbster · 2004-06-25 12:37 · Score: 1

Making Civilization 4 an RTS would be akin to making Thief 4 a run'n'gun. I'd boycott Firaxis permanently on general principles...assuming I already had the new Pirates! of course. :)
Re:Some of it is already done by mutewinter · 2004-06-27 03:33 · Score: 1

If they turned Civ4 into a RTS... I don't even know what to say. It might be a good RTS, but none of civs core fanbase would want to play it. Imagine Doom3 as a turn-based startegy game. Thats about the best way to describe it.
Re:Some of it is already done by hymie3 · 2004-06-29 10:21 · Score: 1

If they turned Civ4 into a RTS... I don't even know what to say. It might be a good RTS, but none of civs core fanbase would want to play it.

You're right, they woudn't want to play it. But they'd buy it. Just like die-hard StarWars fans will see Ep3, inwardly knowing that it will suck, no matter how "un-Civ" civ4 turns out to be, the die-hards *will* buy it.

It's sad, but true. Gaming companies do *not* need to cater to the core fans to make a successful sequel (measured in profits, not fun-ness). In fact, a strong argument could be made that paying attention to your hard-core fans is detrimental to wide-spread success.

That being said, I really, really, really hope that Civ4 is like Civ3+Alpha Centauri. If any RTS elements are included (and I have a stinking suspicion that there will be), I hope that the real-time will be pausable, as seen in Gettysburgh! and Rise of Nations.

The other slide shows by mrluisp · 2004-06-25 00:29 · Score: 5, Interesting

Erik Simon's slideshow was really enlightening. It seems like the game industry is finally starting to realize that there are better methods to prevent pirated copies of games appearing in such time periods. The current copy-protections used are easily crackeable, and are usually more of an annoyance to legitimate customers than the pirating scene.

In his slideshow, Erik actually talks about the scene and how they function. It's nice to see that he is making an effort to understand how the enemy works, in order to develo pbetter methods to beat them.

Erik also makes an interesting observation. He says that there are only 12 people world-wide actual capable of cracking new protection codes in the "scene". That number seems a bit low, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was accurate.

Bioware's slideshow makes a strong emphasis on treating its employees with the proper amount of respect and courtesy. They use rewards to encourage good behavior, and keep all their employees informed of any major events involving the company. It's good to know that some companies out there still make an effort to treat their employees properly.

Re:The other slide shows by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-25 02:10 · Score: 4, Interesting

I find his argument interesting:

- Nearly every PC game uses weak protection
- Weak protection is cracked in no time
- Therefore most PC games are getting all the downside of protection and none of the benefits
- Strong protection will be cracked, but it can delay the cracking for 3-6 weeks, enough to sell a lot of copies (at least 10% more)
- Therefore what the industry should do is use much stronger protection on all titles

He doesn't address the question of what would happen if no protection at all were used. So far as I can tell, as weak protection has costs but zero benefit (as he claims) the industry would be better off simply in terms of not having to purchase the protection. He does not however address the additional benefit of the potential increase in sales that might result.

If compatibility issues due to copy protection result in games being returned to the store, or in people changing to console games rather than PC games, then removing protections altogether should result in PC game sales going up - with development costs being reduced, not increased

In addition, strong protection relies on people wanting the game now, not in two months' time, for its increased sales. If people want it now but have to wait two months anyway to get the patch to correct the compatibility issues, then that advantage is lost and we're back to protection being a cost with no benefits.

In short: he says weak protection is worse than useless so the industry must use strong protection - but he is assuming that protection can be made strong enough, and to an extent you rely on everyone else doing it. If you have no certainty that (a) your protection is strong (you have little control here) and (b) so is everyone else's (and you have no control over this at all), then there must be an advantage in quitting the arms race altogether.
Re:The other slide shows by Maggot75 · 2004-06-25 02:21 · Score: 3, Insightful

Erik Simon is one of the guys behind one of my favourite Atari ST games, Dragonflight. It's copy protection was so good that it's one of the few games that I cannot seem to locate on an abandonwarez site.
Erik brings up a surprisingly relevant point - IMHO, much more relevant than some news about CIV4. Copy protection seems to be something that most companies just don't care about. Games get cracked in no time - and fear of litigation seems to do nothing to deter crackers. I have a feeling that Erik's point about time may be right - the games industry, as a whole, would do a lot better if they'd manage to keep the games from being cracked in the first couple of weeks.
BTW, IIRC, some of Thalion were active members of the demo scene, and had some connections to the other 'scene'.
Re:The other slide shows by lucas+teh+geek · 2004-06-25 03:28 · Score: 3, Funny

Erik Simon's slideshow was really enlightening.
you didnt even mention that he's dressed up as a crazy wizard on slide 2!!

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TIAEAE!
Re:The other slide shows by mrluisp · 2004-06-25 03:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

Having no protection won't cause people would rather pirate to game to suddenly decide to buy the game. I doubt it would increase sales. If anything, they would save on the small licensing fee they are paying for copy-protection software. If they're not going to put any protection, migth as well make the game available for free. If it's even easier to crack (all you have to do is download the iso), I believe sales would actually dip. Removing protection does not resolve the issue, the issue being the significant amount of sales lost to pirating.

Consoles have protection features as well. And it's just harder to get around them than for the pc. When the dreamcast's protection was cracked, the number of pirated dreamcast games exploded.

The solution is a strong protection which doesn't inconvenience the customer. I don't know if Erik has it all figured out, but it's a step in the right direction. Just because he acknowledges the inefficacy of weak protectipon doesn't mean they should just do away with it.

Few people wait two months to buy new games. Yes, patching issues do play a certain role, but it's a whole different subject. As he stated, most of the sales for new titles happen in the first few weeks.

If you develop a strong protection (and he has laid out methods to do so), then you know (to a certain degree of certainty) that your game will take longer to hack. Even two weeks can make a world of difference. If stronger protection begins to result in longer crack times, other developers will follow suit, and it will lead to longer delays for cracking.

There was this article on gamasutra a few years back about title for the ps1. This was when ps1 games were being heavily pirated. The developers went to great lengths to make their title harder to crack, using multiple consistency checks and introducing bugs when those checks failed. They wouldn't crash out, but once you progressed far along into the game, if you had a cracked copy, the game would start failing. It took about a month (my memory is vague on this) for the game to be fully cracked, and the developer reckoned they gained lots of extra sales from this delay.
Re:The other slide shows by WinnipegDragon · 2004-06-25 08:03 · Score: 1

Console protection is far from perfect anyhow, and there is another thorn in the side of console developers: rentals.
In my neck of the woods, at least, there is one store in a city of 600,000 that rents PC games, and they rarely have any new titles. With the console side, you can rent them at pretty much every video store around.
Once you have modded your console, you never have to think about copy protections again, nor downloading rips, or cracks, etc... Just rent, copy, and you are done.
Err... Not that I would do this. Heavens, no.
Re:The other slide shows by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-25 10:56 · Score: 0

Ok, 12 people that are currently involved in piracy might be more accurate. There are many, many people capable of cracking these codes. I mean, the NSA employs hundreds of people alone that can crack every game protection technique during their lunch break. In my upper division computer security courses we crack key systems like those used in games today for a warm up assignment. Granted it's all laid bare and not obfruscated to hell, but the basic techniques are there.

I would venture to guess it is more accurate that only 12 people in the world do crack protection codes because pirated software proliferates so quickly it's not worth a cracker's time when some guy in Germany put up the ISO two weeks ago.

12 people my ass. Don't think so highly of yourselves. Copy protection for video games only needs to be so good it keeps the pirates out for the first 2 weeks of sales. That is when most of the money is made anyway. After that who gives a damn?
Re:The other slide shows by Carewolf · 2004-06-26 02:02 · Score: 1

One other thing he is forgetting: There is no strong protection for PC-games. They have to been read by the operating system, and it has to have checks. The two ways current systems are circumvented is through emulating the specifics of the correct CD or by simple voiding the CD-check.
Both of these are made easy because CD-protections are run-of-the-mill productions, if you used a completly new unknown protections it would be strong for exactly one game, then it would be broken and thus weak.

I can't wait for CIV IV.... by RegalBegal · 2004-06-25 00:43 · Score: 2, Funny

If it's anything like or better than CIV III I'll be able to add to my list of games that helped me alienate friends. YES!

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"It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins

Major changes by arhar · 2004-06-25 00:45 · Score: 5, Interesting

I applaud them for having the guts to make some major changes to the franchise, as opposed to 'let's not fix what's not broken, make some new graphics, sounds, levels, and call it a sequel'.

However, I'm praying to God that they don't make it real time. Civ series is one of the few last examples of turn based strategy games done exceptionally well. I'd hate to see it become another RTS clone ...

Re:Major changes by endfire · 2004-06-25 01:29 · Score: 1

I agree and i hope too that Civ doesn't turn into yet another RTS game. However i'm much more worried about the whole "continuous immersive 3D" thingie, and the idea of ditching 'unfun' concepts and generally making things too simple.
Reminds me of how they killed the fantastic Railroad Tycoon 2 and turned it into a horrible, horrible game (RT3).
Re:Major changes by Daetrin · 2004-06-25 06:57 · Score: 1

And let's hope that even if they leave it turn-based that they don't "fix it" the way Master of Orion 3 got "fixed."

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This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Re:Major changes by thrash242 · 2004-06-25 07:39 · Score: 1

Ok, I've never played RT1 or 2 (or any Tycoon games), but I recently discovered RT3 and thought it was pretty interesting and fun. What's the problem with it and what do 1 and 2 have that 3 doesn't? Yeah, it has nice graphics, but it seems fairly complex and deep to me.
Re:Major changes by nelsonal · 2004-06-25 15:02 · Score: 1

You should do yourself a favor and grab 2 out of a bargain bin (or jewel case pack. It's a very fun game, on its own. I didn't really care for 1, enjoyed transport tycoon (although it was too easy) I wish there was a game that worked a bit slower (profit margins are usually way too high in computer sims). The whole genre is plaged by if you can out leverage your opponents and make it through 1 year you will win. It would be neat to play a more realistic business sim. Sadly the only one that comes close is Wall St. Raider, and it's supposed to be a Gordon Gekko style stock trading game.

--
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.

Drop the legacy? by Battlegeek · 2004-06-25 01:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

"Drop unfun legacy (pollution, rioting, maintenance, corruption/waste)" I will admit that these aspects were not the most fun parts of the game, but they did add to the challenge of trying to balance foreign and domestic affairs. Thats leads me to two different tangents. Games are not interesting if they are not challenging. Sure it may be fun to zip through a simple game once, but you are not going to want to play it again. I have been playing and replaying Civ for 12 years. Secondly, maybe we need to send a copy of Civ to the Whitehouse as a learning tool.

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Apathy...make it a way of life.

Re:Drop the legacy? by Rethcir · 2004-06-25 01:35 · Score: 5, Funny

I dunno about sending GW a copy.. if anything it looks like his foreign agenda is based around civ-like ideas. "Let's attack the Persians and wipe them off the face of the planet, it's not like the Chinese will really be able to hurt me since i'm on an entirely different continent and everything. And even if they do, who cares, I can just start a space race and jack up my scientific funding." Maybe this is just because Civ ends too soon. It would be cool if Civ4 had some kind of model for "assymetrical warfare."
On a side note, did anyone else notice that the Persians are the best race in the game? They are scientific/military if i recall, which is a formidable combination. God, once I beat the Megaman collection I'm gonna have to play out another good long campaign of Civ 3.
Re:Drop the legacy? by KaLogain · 2004-06-25 04:25 · Score: 1

no that's the germans. Zieg Hail!!!

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Life's a bitch, then she kills you.
Re:Drop the legacy? by Naffer · 2004-06-25 04:46 · Score: 1

Except you couldn't really manage them. No matter what you did, cities on the other side of the world were so corrupt and wasteful that they were almost totally useless.
Re:Drop the legacy? by Belgand · 2004-06-25 06:06 · Score: 1

The Persians are Scientific/Industrious and incidentally my typical choice although I've recently been branching out into the Greeks (Scientific/Commercial, the special greek unit, the Hoplite, is essentially a Pikeman who shows up in place of the Spearman) and will occasionally play the Scientific/Militaristic Germans (Their Panzer units get an extra point of movement for some very nasty blitzkriegs).
Re:Drop the legacy? by AuMatar · 2004-06-25 07:12 · Score: 2, Informative

As said, persians are scientific/industrious. They also have a great early game unit (immortals) if you have iron. But they aren't the best race. Industrious is awesome (half price teraforms), but scientific is weak- 1 free civ per era (not including era 1) and slightly cheaper libraries/universities/etc. Industrious/commercial is the way to go- commercial gives you extra money early on (so you get your first few techs faster) and cheaper markets/banks/etc. Hands down better.

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I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Re:Drop the legacy? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-25 08:53 · Score: 0

And this is bad how, exactly? So you can't maintain your global super-empire. This is unrealistic how, exactly?
Re:Drop the legacy? by node159 · 2004-06-25 11:57 · Score: 1

A freind and I team up, he goes french and I go german, makes for a kick ass team, he is a weaker player so I end up kicking most of the other civs asses while he tryes to save his skin. Makes for an interesting tag team.

Now as for my gf, I still don't know how she's gona fit into the picture (just getting her hooked, got her onto Q3 and now for Civ3), maybe she'll be the one using mutual protection packs to rais hell ;).

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GPLv2: I want my rights, I want my phone call! DRM: What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?
Re:Drop the legacy? by Maserati · 2004-06-30 10:04 · Score: 1

I have a game as Persia going right now. Monarch, Play the World, Huge map, Pangaeia, etc. It's my first decent starting spot in quite a while and certainly the best game I've ever had as Persia. I'm angling for a Space Race win now (getting Computers as a free advance basically won me a war - look 150 mech inf !) and I'm going for max happy people. We'll see if I can top 10,000 points.

For some reason, in plain Civ3 I had a hard time getting anybody but Egypt onto the high score list. I'm not sure why.

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Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Re:Drop the legacy? by Maserati · 2004-06-30 17:04 · Score: 1

Nuts. I lost the space race.

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Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951

I guess it was just too hard for them to fix. by kabocox · 2004-06-25 01:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

Drop unfun legacy (pollution, rioting, maintenance, corruption/waste)

Each one of these wasn't that bad. The problem is they didn't give you any really good pollution cleanup or reduction tech. What 2 buildings will magically fix all our pollution needs? Nope. They needed a much wider tech tree that allowed you to discover/invent 5-10 buildings that would cut your pollution to near zero. Rioting was bad. The bad thing about it was that it stopped production of what ever you were building. Of course if it didn't do that, no one would care. I guess it would be nicer if they had 3-4 rioting levels. Instead of just stopping production, they could have protests that would extend the production time alittle. Other than rearrange people you the only option you was to build religious institutions, and some entertaiment centers. I guess having "riot prevenation" units would help. The problem with how they have traditionally done it though is that a military unit can't really be moved out of a city in a democracy with out a percentage being unhappy. There weren't really that may options other than over build troops or buildup temples and such.

Maintenance come on everything built needs maintenance or it degrades and becomes useless!
Corruption/waste this is I agree is a PITA. Other than a court house and the forbiden palace you really didn't have any corruption reducing buildings or units. The same goes for waste.

Each of this could be fixed by having several special units that help reduce the effect. Think maybe a actual Jester unit to reduce unhappiness, or a Judge or Court offical to reduce corruption rather than just the buildings.

Re:I guess it was just too hard for them to fix. by thrash242 · 2004-06-25 07:45 · Score: 1

I think that pollution was a little too bad in Civ3 personally, though it (along with the other "unfun" parts) shouldn't go away. I usually get pretty severe pollution problems very early in the game--much sooner than in real life. Then until I have decent anti-pollution improvements, I have to build a legion of workers just to somewhat keep up with all the polluted squares popping up.

And as far as reducing corruption with things other than buildings...you can in Civ3 Conquests. It adds police (decreases corruption) specialists and engineer (increses production) specilists.
Re:I guess it was just too hard for them to fix. by kabocox · 2004-06-28 03:04 · Score: 1

And as far as reducing corruption with things other than buildings...you can in Civ3 Conquests.

I'm not buying an expansion pack for things that should have been included in the orginial game. I know that I've made a lot of poor game choices. My policy now is to just by the games when they finally drop to $20 rather than when they are $40-$50. It's not a perfect stragety, but I'm not mad at myself for blowing $50 for a product that I don't use.

Re:What? - WHAT??? by dtolman · 2004-06-25 01:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

Resources are bad? Are you on crack?

Resources were the best idea the Civ series has come up with in a long time. All of a sudden instead of invading neighbors to invade boredom, you have real reasons pusing you - they have resources you need.

And just like in real life, if your empire was blessed with an abundance of resources, you become powerful. If there are any problems with the resource system and its fundamental lack of "fairness", its that it made the game that much more an approximation of the lack of fairness that real nations encounter.

You are describing SMAC. by aetherspoon · 2004-06-25 01:33 · Score: 5, Informative

Police Units - check.
Multiple pollution/ecodamage reducing structures, check.
Methods of not having drone riots beyond increasing luxuries/psych, another police unit, or building entertainment, check.
Wider tech tree - check.
Corruption reduction - check.
Waste - doesn't exist.

Sounds good to me, what about you?
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri fits all of those requirements... sure, it is older than Civ 3, but in my opinion it is vastly superior.

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--- Ãther SPOON!

Re:You are describing SMAC. by kabocox · 2004-06-25 01:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri fits all of those requirements... sure, it is older than Civ 3, but in my opinion it is vastly superior.

Yeah, I have both, and I like SMAC a lot better than Civ3 too. Its just frustrating that I was expecting Civ3 to be well actually better than SMAC. (How hard would it have been for them to use the SMAC engine for CIV3?) I'd expect Civ4 to be better still. I'm not holding my breath.

I also MOO3. After being burnt on both the MOO and the CIV games, I haven't bought any new game of that catagory.
Re:You are describing SMAC. by pezpunk · 2004-06-25 02:26 · Score: 4, Interesting

i second this post. honestly, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is a greatly underrated game. it's the TRUE sequel to Civ2, and it beats the heck out of Civ3, which i really thought was pretty weak. it didn't ever OWN my time like Civ2 and Alpha Centauri (SMAC) did.

SMAC even lets you design your own units based on which techs you have discovered, and the audio quotes you hear upon researching new technology are alternately hilarious or profound.

sprinkled throughout are also quotes from Nietzsche, Kant, Plato, Aristotle, Einstein, Kierkegaard, and others. while this stuff has little to do with the game mechanics itself, it nevertheless helps me feel truly immersed in the progress of my society. each new scientific discovery really feels like a breakthrough, and it gives one a sense of how this new trechnology will effect my nation.

"beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master" -- Commissioner Pravin Lal

"We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?" -- Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7. (termination of speciman advised)

Beware, you who seek first and final principles, for you are trampling the garden of an angry God and he awaits you just beyond the last theorem. -- Sister Miriam Godwinson

Technological advance is an inherently iterative process. One does not simply take sand from the beach and produce a Dataprobe. We use crude tools to fashion better tools, and then our better tools to fashion more precise tools, and so on. Each minor refinement is a step in the process, and all of the steps must be taken. -- Chairman Sheng-ji Yang

Of course we'll bundle our MorganNet software with the new network nodes; our customers expect no less of us. We have never sought to become a monopoly. Our products are simply so good that no one feels the need to compete with us. -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan

Some would ask, how could a perfect God create a universe filled with so much that is evil. They have missed a greater conundrum: why would a perfect God create a universe at all? --
Sister Miriam Godwinson

Why do you insist that the human genetic code is "sacred" or "taboo"? It is a chemical process and nothing more. For that matter -we- are chemical processes and nothing more. If you deny yourself a useful tool simply because it reminds you uncomfortably of your mortality, you have uselessly and pointlessly crippled yourself. --Chairman Sheng-ji Yang

"The Academician's private residences shall remain off-limits to the Genetic Inspectors. We possess no retroviral capability, we are not researching retroviral engineering, and we shall not allow this Council to violate faction privileges in the name of this ridiculous witch hunt!" -- Fedor Petrov (upon discovering the technology of, you guessed it, Retroviral Engineering)

"It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and become one with all the people." -- Chairman Sheng-ji Yang

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i could live a little longer in this prison
Re:You are describing SMAC. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-25 08:55 · Score: 0

How hard would it have been for them to use the SMAC engine for CIV3?
It would have been impossible. Sid Meier left the people who had the "Civilization" franchise and released Alpha Centauri as a competing product, so he wouldn't have sold the engine back to the company he just left.
Re:You are describing SMAC. by nelsonal · 2004-06-25 15:18 · Score: 1

I'd forgotten that part of the game, and it really added to the game. I liked how all the factions were flawed, in some way that made them blind to the benefits that could have by joining. That said the greens were given a huge advantage with their ability to convert the biota.
The only complaint I had was that the biota and tile colors were not well thought out regarding people who were red green colorblind, they'd walk right up and wipe out my functional units, with a city full of defendors, because I couldn't see them. There was a patch but I beat the game (as the greens) before I found it.

--
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.

Incidentally... by Mongoose+Disciple · 2004-06-25 01:36 · Score: 4, Interesting

Am I the only one who didn't care for Civ 3?

I like the genre, and Alpha Centauri is still one of my favorite games of all time. After spending countless hours playing that I was expecting more out of Civ 3.

Sure, we're talking about a sci-fi vs. historical strategy game, but still... I'd be interested to hear any opinions on why Civ 3 might've been a better game than I gave it credit for. I thought the culture system was cool, but in so many other ways it seemed like Firaxis took a colossal step back from what they'd achieved with AC.

Re:Incidentally... by mjpaci · 2004-06-25 01:55 · Score: 2, Interesting

I hated Civ III with a passion. It just didn't appeal to me, that's all: the sounds, the graphics, the complexity. I still play Civ II all the time--call me old fashioned.

Key wonders:

Pyramids (grannery in every city)
Adam Smith's thingy (reduce costs of improvment maintenance)
DaVinci (free unit upgrades)

There are more, but those three are key to rapidly develop your society.

--Mike
Re:Incidentally... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-25 02:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

I too liked Alpha Centauri more than Civ3. I think the reason that Civ3 might have been "better" for some was that it was easier to connect with and a little more accessible to your average Joe.

In Alpha Centauri you would research stuff like "Pre-Sentient Algorithms". Well, WTF does THAT do? Only after playing the game a few times do you understand what it does, what it leads to, and why you should research it. In Civ 3 on the other hand you had stuff like "Horseback Riding". You instantly have an idea of what this does because you already know what a horse is.

With that said I hope that the nations in Civ 4 have thier own personality and style like the factions in Alpha Centauri. Each one had thier own bonuses and flaws for it. CEO Morgan was the corporate guy. The faction for getting money, but was limited to really small cities early on. There was also the tech-head, the hippy, the religious zealot, etc each playing out to thier style. I really missed this kind of stuff in Civ 3.
Re:Incidentally... by chromaphobic · 2004-06-25 02:29 · Score: 1

Nope, I didn't care for it either. I LOVED Civ2 though, played that one hour after hour, day after day, for many, many months. :)

Admittedly, one of the reason I disliked Civ 3 was the fact that I got that back in my dark days of doing all my gaming on my Mac. Performance for Civ3 on the Mac was TERRIBLE, everything about it was sluggish and unresponsive, so I just gave up after barely playing it.
Re:Incidentally... by KevinKnSC · 2004-06-25 06:24 · Score: 1

You (and anyone else who still plays Civ II) should check out Civilization II: Test of Time. It's Civ II with better graphics, multiplayer, and an option to continue the game after you colonize Alpha Centauri, letting you play on the new world while you simultaneously manage things back home. When it first came out, the graphics seemed to make the game run slowly, but on today's computers it runs just fine. It'll be on the discount rack, too, which makes it that much better.
Re:Incidentally... by JonMartin · 2004-06-25 09:07 · Score: 2, Informative

Key wonders:
Pyramids (grannery in every city)
Adam Smith's thingy (reduce costs of improvment maintenance)
DaVinci (free unit upgrades)

There are more, but those three are key to rapidly develop your society.
Two of my favourites: The Great Library and Women's Suffrage. Early on the library gives you an enormous science advantage. It effectively keeps you on par with the other nations without doing any research of your own. Women's Suffrage let's you conduct large scale military campaigns as a democracy later in the game.

--
Serve Gonk.
Re:Incidentally... by JonMartin · 2004-06-25 09:14 · Score: 1
I totally agree. AC was almost perfect for me (I felt a little constrained by the story at times).
Some of my favourite bits were:
- dynamic terrain which affected weather patterns
- the unit editor - no fixed units, just mix and match technologies
- mixing and matching government, economy, and future society options
- sea cities
I was hoping Civ 3 would just be the AC engine set on Earth, but was very disappointed. The unit editor would rock for Civ. Start with a horse chassis...
--
Serve Gonk.
Re:Incidentally... by DeepHurtn! · 2004-06-25 09:29 · Score: 1

"I'd be interested to hear any opinions on why Civ 3 might've been a better game than I gave it credit for."
Before I get started, I was/am a big Alpha Centauri fan, but I've barely played it since Civ3 came out. What's so good about it?
-Culture (which you mentioned, but it is GREAT. Managing culture adds a whole new element to balance against your industrial/military needs).
-Resources, both strategic and luxury. While it can be tough if you get shafted in your starting position, nothing beats the satisfaction of out- manouvering a superior rival to get that precious Iron resource. Luxury resources are also THE most important way of preventing your citizins from rioting.
-Neat ICBMs! While they aren't quite as spectacular as the fully upgraded Planet Busters, the ability to attack anywhere on the surface of the planet from anywhere adds tension to the nuclear era.
-Much better air units. The new Civ3 air system (ie giving special orders to units, ie bombing run, recon, air superiority, etc) just feels so much better to me than the old system in AC that treats air units essentially the same as ground units.
-Better scenarios. Try out Civ 3 Conquests -- it's got great scenarios and new modes of play (Capture the Princess, Regicide...)
-Did I say resources yet?
-LOTS more civs to play as. While Civ3 civs might not be quite as unique as AC factions, the differing attributes of each civ (especially after the additions of Conquests), along with the unique units really means that the various civs play differently (AC had this too, but how many factions were there? Not many, even after the expansion).
-TRADE. The trading system in Civ3 is more powerful and flexible.
-The differentiation between Small Wonders (which every civ can build one of) and Great Wonders (which can only be built by one Civ).
-LEADERS! Especially after the addition of Scientific Great Leaders in Conquests. The Military Great Leaders are neat too because they introduce...
-Armies (combining several individual military units), which just kick ass.
-More victory conditions.
-Speaking of victory conditions, Civ3 solved a pet peeve of mine -- the Domination victory condition means you don't need to conquer every single tile on the map, but only a certain percentage of the surface area and population. This is great, because once you have 80% of everything in Civ2 or AC no one can stop you, but you haven't won yet, and getting troops to every last city can be a tedious process.
I could go on. There are some things that were in AC that aren't in Civ3 that really irritate me (for example, I think the planetary assembly or whatever the UN is called in AC is much better than in Civ3, what with the planetary votes). But Civ3 did bring a whole lot new to the table.
Re:Incidentally... by rsadelle · 2004-06-25 09:50 · Score: 1

That's not old fashioned. I didn't like Civ II, and I'm still wholly loyal to Civ I. If I could only find replacements for my damaged Civ I for Windows floppies, then I'd truly be able to waste hours at a time.
Re:Incidentally... by Juanvaldes · 2004-06-25 17:44 · Score: 1

Turn off the full screen anti-aliasing. It was a option when you launch the game or hold option while launching if you set it to not show up again.
Re:Incidentally... by MachDelta · 2004-06-25 18:03 · Score: 0

Actually, Its Universial Sufferage. Oh, and "Leonardo's Workshop" (not DaVinci) reduces unit upgrade prices by 50%, it doesn't make them free.

Personally, I like the Pyramids (grainary in every city on the same continent), the Sistine Chapel (doubles effect of all Cathedrals), Leo's Workshop (halves unit upgrade costs), the Art of War (barracks in every city on the continent), Adam Smith's Trading Company (Free maintenance for Marketplaces, Banks, Harbors, and Airports), and sometimes Magellan's Voyage (+1 naval movement).

Of course, you can't really hand pick all your wonders in Civ 3. You've got to plan ahead, and take what you can get when the opportunity presents itself. The AI is pretty sadistic about building wonders (especially early on), so you've really got to aim for achievable wonder goals and go after them hard. Things can get really nasty, especially if the AI 'cascades' on wonders (eg: 6 AI's going after a single wonder - one of them finishes it, so the other 5 move on to a different wonder and take their previous progress with them. I've seen three or four wonders built all on the same turn because of #!&*@^ cascades).

Yeah, actually, by Mongoose+Disciple · 2004-06-25 02:00 · Score: 1

That's one of the problems I had with Civ 3. The wonders didn't seem especially powerful or important. Even if you could build them and beat the other civilizations to them, you might not even want to.

Compare that with Civ 2 or AC, in which there seemed to be much more urgency to winning a few key wonders (or in AC, whichever secret projects your particular faction really needed). Maybe not so much in playing a low-difficulty one-player game in which it would be possible to build every wonder, but in multiplayer or at the highest levels of difficulty it's another story entirely. The wonders race adds something to the game.

Hope they change nukes by ben_degonzague · 2004-06-25 02:13 · Score: 4, Interesting

I love Civ III but hated the way nukes worked in the game. They didn't prevent people from going to war against you. You'd use them, then others would declare war on you. On top of that, using nukes caused just pollution which then caused global warming! How about adding radiation which can't be cleaned up and goes away within time. I can't wait for Civ IV, hopefully I can catch up on all my reading before that happends.

Re:Hope they change nukes by Rayonic · 2004-06-26 01:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

Radiation that won't go away after a nuclear bomb? Tell that to the people living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They seem to be doing just fine.

--
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation

Agreed by wowbagger · 2004-06-25 02:40 · Score: 4, Interesting

Personally, I'd like to see MORE real-world issues added to Civ:

How about making resources be NEEDED, rather than simply nice - what if you HAD to trade with (and thus be at peace with) that other country to trade for oil, or else all of your tanks stop working? What if you HAD to trade for uranium or all your city's nuke plants shut down (and pollution skyrockets).

How about making things like water and electricity issues for a city - not enough power and your fancy electric mines stop producing? Not enough water and your farms dry up?

What if you could build aquaducts between water sources and where it is needed? (but defend those or the enemy will shut them down, and then see previous paragraph). What is you could build power lines so that the cities with excess power could help the other cities out?

What if you could caravan food from places with a surplus to places that needed it? What if you could poach your enemy's caravans for food?

CivCTP is my crack cocaine - I start a game and next thing I know it's three AM. But you really cannot do diplomacy against the AIs - they have no reason to trade. Make it a bit more like the real world - if the Zulus need chromium and I have all the chromium mines, then no matter what their prediliction towards war, if they want to build their railroads they'd better not piss me off!

--
www.eFax.com are spammers

Re:Agreed by DavidBrown · 2004-06-25 06:06 · Score: 1

What if you could caravan food from places with a surplus to places that needed it?

This, I recall, was part of Civ II - trade caravans of food could either help build wonders, or provide food for a city that needs it. Using caravans, it was possible to create cities of much greater population than could be supported by that city's own farmers.

--
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
Re:Agreed by node159 · 2004-06-25 11:47 · Score: 1

Fast games do experience a need for resources, especially when it to the modern age, tanks vs calvalry, umm...

But good point on the needing a continous design.

One thing I always felt was lacking was the ability to 'suck up' to the other civs. ie. give em stuff and they will be more freindly and go into a military aliance more easily with u. It seemed like the only was for this was not to piss them off in the first instance.

Civ3 had good diplomatic concepts, now they just need to fleshed out.

As for polution, no one wants to play like George Bush, and if you do thats what Govoners and Fast Building option is for, with that set you can just go to war for the entier game.

--
GPLv2: I want my rights, I want my phone call! DRM: What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?
Re:Agreed by kwoff · 2004-06-27 19:14 · Score: 1

Make it a bit more like the real world - if the Zulus need chromium and I have all the chromium mines, then no matter what their prediliction towards war, if they want to build their railroads they'd better not piss me off!
If I was a Zulu, your having all the chromium would be a motivation to attack you.

Re:What? - WHAT??? by TrueBuckeye · 2004-06-25 02:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

Agreed. I suddenly had to start wars because I needed saltpeter or horses, or I had to have some spice so I could trade for iron. It gives wars purpose.

--
Was that night on the marge of Lake LaBarge I cremated Sam McGee...

Re:What? - WHAT??? by Babbster · 2004-06-25 12:33 · Score: 1

Not only does it give wars purpose, but it gives diplomacy a purpose other than starting/ending wars. Trying to figure out what you can trade with another Civilization (usually removed from your own - close neighbors typically don't want to strengthen you) for that extra coal they've got sitting around, then building railroads and factories as quickly as possible, can be really fun - my personal favorite is trading for rubber to build infantry units and then repelling an attack from the very civilization that provided me the resource. Those kinds of scenarios made the game for me.

Civ and SMAC and [?] trilogy by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-27 09:49 · Score: 0

I remember reading once (must be a couple of years ago) that Sid Meier had a plan of producing a trilogy that combined civ, alpha centauri and a sequel or prequel (Sid did not give details). So, after winning a space victory in Civ, you would go on to play SMAC with the same civilization, and other civs would slowly join you in outer space. The sense of accomplishment and continuity would be tremendous.

I am aware that this is a balancing and playtesting hell, but it is an excellent, superb and beautiful idea! The dream for strategy gamers! Has anyone else heard more stuff about it?

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