posted July 14, 1999 23:55            

Received the Civ3 list! Thanks very much to you and everyone participating. I like your "if just one idea" spirit, and believe me if that's the direction you're approaching it from you're going to be very happy.

My suggestion as to the best way to proceed from here is to continue to maintain the "big list" as a "living document"... rather than starting a "new" list, continue discussing, elaborating, etc. But of course you guys are volunteers working for free because you love the game system, so by all means take it in whatever direction you think best.

For example the "ICS" commentary points out a very valid criticism of the system, but lacks an analysis of (different) ways to avoid the problem.

Some of the best suggestions are the ones which marry a cool concept from history (e.g. "You should include the development of the Stirrup") with a thought out game effect ("Which gives all your horse units +1 to their attack strength") -- which is vastly more likely to provoke thought than either "You should include the Stirrup" or "You should have some techs that increase a units' combat factors" by itself.

I know it's tough to be patient, but we're still putting together a prototype and it will be a while before we're ready to do even preliminary alpha/beta testing. But it's definitely great to see where the fans think the game should go.

Feel free to share this message w/ the other participants!