Caltrops - Article Submissions - Re: I'm not enraged.

Forum Overview :: Article Submissions

by mark 04/24/2003, 6:28pm PDT

Chairman Mao wrote:

I really don't care.

It just occurs to me that constantly feeding the notion that we don't actually play the games that we review may be somewhat detrimental in the long run, mostly if your name isn't Creexul.

Oh, I've played quite a bit of Civ 3, convinced I was missing something. I like the fact there is lots more corruption, that makes things a little less goofy in the huge games. I like how rushing production works now. Armies are okay in theory, but in practice I don't find they really change that much. I like the small wonders, sort of. Democracy is better than ever. Culture is okay, but useless in a high difficulty game, in low difficulty games it is fun to conquer cities with it, but also sort of pointless. I didn't use boats because they were useless. The AI is still semi-retarded at the best of times. I don't mind that the game isn't Civ 2, what I mind is that many of the things added to Civ 2 to fix factors in Civ1 were removed and left unfixed. I understood the transition from civ1 to civ2 partially because Brian Renoylds argued his point so effectively in the manual. Firepower (which fixed a problem which is back in the new civ) could have been tweaked if it was deemed over powerd, rather it was pulled out completely and replaced with artillery and hugely skewed combat, which while maybe realistic isn't nearly as fun. But Sid indicated at the time it was so behind players didn't get screwed too much. This has created rather unusual strategies. What do most top player recommend? Non-stop warrior building until you have subjugated everyone on your continent. You can't compete with their production or research, the only place you are equal is within the boring realm of combat. Civ 3 is different from Civ 2, it is also less fun and almost everything added to the game is ignored in higher difficulty levels.

mark