of course the game can still be improved. the AI is not strong especially on 2x2x and it cheats too much. diplomacy is a joke and graphics are of course not up to date anymore. i also think new minor playing elements like borders or channels would increase tactical abilities but PLEASE donīt add too much new playing elemets. they could too easily unbalance the game - and if a special tactic wins most of the time, civ3 will not be that good and addictiv as civ2 was.

this is a petition, if you think the same please vote for it

"What I remember is that Sid wrote that the hardest part of designing Civ was not in adding features but in keeping them out. Sid made the point that each and every feature added to a game has a cost, not just in developer time/effort but a GAMEPLAY cost.
Each feature will require the player to think about that feature. It may require clicking or micromanagement. It may require screen space or game time. Every time a designer adds a feature, the game gets larger, more crowded and more complicated.
So Sid refused to add features that, although they sounded neato, would be overburden the game with details. I have always thought of the idea that adding features must be balanced against overloading game detail as "Sid Meier's Rule"."

What im trying to say with above, is that even if you dont get as many to sign up on this petition - you, at least have the man himself on your side.
What do i think personally? Well, i want as big of a difference between Civ-2 and Civ-3, as the difference was between Civ-1 and Civ-2.

Or - to put it in other terms:

1/ Any ideas that really ADD to the fun- and suspense-value, we already had in Civ-2, should be a candidate for implementation. Try hard to find those ideas!

2/ Any ideas that just take an existing Civ-2/SMAC solution, and tries to come up with as "realistic" (read: unrealisticly complicated for the AI) replacement-solution as possible, should be rejected.

1. AI
2. historical realism
3. Customizability
4. Diplomacy
5. more units, for every age
6. larger maps, more civs
7. graphics (units, maps, etc)
8. inhanced riots, civil war, etc.
9. borders, cities, nation stuff, etc.
10. battles, combat (ranged combat, battlemaps, etc)

the stuff is in order of most importance.

I spit on your petition

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- Biddles

** Even if you are right, what you are really saying is that Civ is dead.

Now don't get me wrong. Civ is great. I've played it for hundreds of hours. But because I've played it for hundreds of hours, there's absolutely nothing challenging about it to me anymore. Changes in graphics and AI alone won't change that. So if that's all Civ3 offers, the series is dead IMO.

** But I prefer to think that the Firaxis team -- especially with Sid at the controls -- CAN and WILL take Civ3 in a direction that not only builds on the essence of Civ but adds entirely new challenges that even the most veteran player will enjoy trying to master. That is the kind of Civ3 I want to buy and is most certainly the Civ3 Firaxis wants to release.

Are you saying that you don't want these changes? Do you actually think that SMAC did not improve gameplay?

If you are worried that Firaxis will change civ3 into something unrecognizable, you don't have to worry. Firaxis has made it perfectly clear that civ3 will be faithful to the civ formula. Furthermore, you really do not have to worry that Firaxis will add a bunch of new features that will "mess up" balance and gameplay. Firaxis knows what they are doing. Remember that most of them were there when civ2 was born. They know the civ formula better than anyone and they know what makes it work!

But I for one DO NOT want just civ2 with better graphics. I want civ3 to be a real step forward from civ2. SMAC is light-years ahead in gameplay compared to civ2. Civ3 needs to follow where SMAC left off in terms of gameplay.

Respectfully, the diplomat.

quote: Originally posted by weird god on 12-22-2000 10:56 AM iīm usually not that conservative but i fear that adding TOO MUCH new playing elements could either unbalance the game or makes it take too long for multiplaying. both would take away the flair civ2 has. of course i trust sid and the fireaxis team, i just want to show up that this is what makes civ2 that addictive and therefore should be VERY CAREFULLY HANDELD.

I understand what you mean, weird god. Well, i expect a really decent upgrade, of course. On the other hand: i really dont care much for the mindless "the more added ideas, and the more complicated these ideas are - the merrier it is" approach that many upgrade-suggesting civers seems to have.

One thing that i liked about Civ-2, was that i always had an exact notion of what each city-area tile, each city-improvement and each city-screen parameter actually added to the overal end-result. I especially liked the input city-area view, those clear and easy CI 50-100-200% benefits, the graphic output displays, the big all-in-one popup city-manager and so on.

Theres so many things that can go wrong, if they dont weigh each and every idea on a very exact and critical golden scale. Heres a few of the pitfalls:

- The dilution/inflation problem:
Adding "too much" can easily dilute the importance any indevidual tile, CI, wonder, concept or whatever.

- The lost notion of the inner-workings -problem:
If you go to work, without understanding how and why your work actually adds to the overal process - that same work becomes rather meaningless, right? The same problem can actually face a civ-player in a overbloated Civ-3 game as well. The same "lost notion" problem can also appear if a certain Civ-2/SMAC key-features is carelessly "streamlined" away. Lets say that Firaxis kills that input Civ-2/SMAC city-area view. Suddenly, you cannot:

a/ See and understand the inner-workings between all used tiles within a blink of eye.
b/ Let the field-workers emphasize either food-, shield- or coin-generating tiles.

- The AI-complexity problem:

The more complex fuzzy-logic society-parameters you want Firaxis to squeeze into the game - the more impossible its going to be for them to produce effective AI-mayors and AI-civs, that can keep even steps with the human player. Heres is just a few examples:

a/ Replace resource-shields, with multiple types of sub-shields unevenly occurring all over the map.
b/ Replace the field-workers, with field- and CI-workers + unemployment-factor.
c/ Replace six simultaneously playing AI-civs, with 32 (some wishes for 100+) AI-civs.
d/ Add extensive city-screen health parameters,
e/ Add extensive city-screen religion-parameters.
f/ The list just goes on, and on...

Only choosing from above tiny list:

A and C = In your dreams
B = maybe (maybe not).
D and E = either one or the other - maybe both, but probably not.

I would like to see improvments in all Civ 2's current fields as well as the ideas of rivers, borders, revolutions, better editors, etc.... all added. But not 3D graphics!! 3D bad. You know how hard it would be to make a MOD!!! And I live for MODs

So I'll sign my first name only.

Civ 2 wasn't exactly perfect upon "completion." Several aspects seemed incomplete. Riflemen, fanatics, paratroopers, alpine troops and partisans are all essentially the same unit available at the same time, they just have a few different abilities but serve the same cheap defensive role. The two scenarios seemed fishy for those who bought the game in 1996; where were all the others?!? The earth world maps were much sloppier and less accurate than Civ 1's. The Greek map wasn't finished in the premade directory. Where were the Arabian and Turkish civilizations? What, no multiplayer?

Civ 2 actually focused more on the military than it should have. All the new units and special abilites (2x v. horsemen, ships in port defense, etc.) perpetualte a feel for making Civ 2 a military game. The peaceful side form Civ 1 was underplayed. While yes, the spacerace was still there, and you had new tile improvements for your countryside, you never felt like the programmers wanted you to take the peaceful path through the game.

I would like to see the game history brought back from civ1.. you know where it shows what land you captured throught the ages.

I'd really like to see something brand new in Civ3. Now I know Firaxis is going to do no such thing, and I'm sure folks here would have a heart attack if they did, but I'd love it if they dropped most of the basic Civ1/2 mechanisims and started again from scratch with the idea of building a turn based `Civilization' style game.

My main inspiration for this is what is being done with Master of Orion 3. Much of the `board game/micromanagement' feeling is being dropped in favor of a `SimGalaxy' approach, where all your people have opinions and goals of their own. Instead of being a supreme dictator with total control over every aspect of your society you're a `guiding force' who has to spend your time and resources carefully in order to move your empire in the direction you want. For more information on this (SHAMELESS AD), check out moo3.quicksilver.com.

I would really love to see a Civilization game designed along the same lines as MOO3 is being designed. But the MOO3 folks -are- taking a really big risk. I'm sure, however, that CIV3 as it will be, even without HUGE gameplay changes will still be a great game. Firaxis seems to have making those down quite well.

In the end though, I'd much rather have a revolution than an evolution.

First off, SMAC is Civ 3. Go look for yourself. It has 2 things truly wrong with it. 1) The massive amounts of bugs in it. This ruined the game play for many people. Took away the fun. Some bugs are going to get through, but early adopters had found a few hundred within 48 hours of game play. That was just piss poor Quality, and really brought down most people. 2) The AI was Civ 2's AI. It hadn't been grown enough to handle all the new BASIC possibilities.

Now, despite THAT, I STILL find SMAC/SMACAX to be about as fun as Civ2. I like SF. Some people don't, so they get turned off. No biggie.

And before you fan boys go nuts, keep in mind that various Firaxis people have admitted that SMAC is Civ2, with a new graphics engine, and slightly expanded. Civ3 was, last we heard, SMAC with a new graphics engine. Gee. How surprising.

Now, that said, if we LOOK at the history of Civ, we will see that it suffers greatly from feature creepism. Civ2 is just Civ with MORE. More units and more techs. Someone thought to plug the hole of the chariot rush. That's it. And that chariot rush came back in SMAC. So maybe they'll stuff it up again in Civ3. Chances favor it, since the community has banged on it so much.

But anyone that thinks that Civ3 won't be a pure war game is fooling themselves. That's what the game is. If it was actually something ELSE, then you wouldn't be able to conquer the world. You think that President Clinton or future President Bush could just say, "Crank out the regiments, we are invading Africa next year." And just a few years later, add in Europe for good measure? That's now how things work.

I'm looking forward to a Historical "SMAC 2". Hopefully with less bugs (but I'm not betting on that) and an AI that actually at least understands 50% of the available tactics. But I'm not betting on that either. And neither should you.

If Firaxis hits an August release date, that means that they've put in somewhere between 6 months to 12 months on the game. Pay attention to when they put together the teams, and those teams got moved (people transfered, giving more duties on other projects, etc), fell apart, and did little to nothing. I HOPE I'm wrong. But I doubt it. Firaxis has ZERO credibility with a lot of their former customers, including me.

The fact that Civ3 is using the latest Civ engine... SMAC... further points to a general feature creepism. I don't know if it's true, but I've heard from those that have seen the code say that the best thing Firaxis could do is toss the whole thing and start again. But they won't do that. There is a comfort to developers and the people that fund them with reusing proven code. Even when it's buggy. (There is hope... seeing as 150+ bugs had been chased out in the UNIX port, those could be chased out of the PC source, if their is ANY communication between the different teams. Yeah, I'm an optimist. Don't burst my bubble.)

So, experience SAYS... Civ3 with be SMAC, refitted and expanded. This is their way. SMAC was Civ2, refitted and expanded. Civ2 was Civ, refitted and expanded. Take a good look at the actual workings of SMAC. They can swap out the User Interface. But the base engine, that's what you should expect.

Oh, tip from the experienced Civ series. You Civ2 fan boys will get Civ3, and go "Ew! Oh! Wow! Pretty! Weird!". Play it for a while, and get bored. Why? Cause it will be Civ2 to you, with a few changes. It's what the Civ Rat Pack (us Civ1 die hard fan boys and gals) did with Civ2. There really isn't much MORE you can do with that game type and stay within it's bounds. It's a basic war game. And if Sid is really in charge of it, it's going to STAY that way. Sid LIKES a good basic war game in which he can easily conquer the world. And that's what he and his acolytes keep delivering to us. They ADMIT that they could add in other elements... but adding in things like realism, economics, logistics, civil affairs, people's will, etc, STOP them from delivering a war game that is FUN.

You want a SimWorld or SimNation, go look elsewhere. You want a world conquest game where you start with rocks and clubs as weapons and work your way to tanks, bombers, and nukes, play Civ. That's what it is.

Keep Civ like Civ? That's guaranteed. They don't dare deliver anything else. Or Sid will fire them.

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god made weed.....you donīt really think he fails sometimes?

quote: Oh, tip from the experienced Civ series. You Civ2 fan boys will get Civ3, and go "Ew! Oh! Wow! Pretty! Weird!". Play it for a while, and get bored. Why? Cause it will be Civ2 to you, with a few changes. It's what the Civ Rat Pack (us Civ1 die hard fan boys and gals) did with Civ2.

Civ III needs change. It needs to reinvent the series. It needs to be a revolution not an evolution. If not, Civ III will satisfy me for about three hours and then an occasional multiplayer game.

So, I will not sign this petition.

quote: Originally posted by tniem on 01-03-2001 10:31 AM It needs to reinvent the series. It needs to be a revolution not an evolution. If not, Civ III will satisfy me for about three hours and then an occasional multiplayer game.

What the heck does "reinvent" and "revolution" actually mean, in your eyes? (and curious)

Give us instead a bullet-style list of features (in few words/short sentences) that comprises your particular idea of such an update.

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 01-03-2001 12:34 PM What the heck does "reinvent" and "revolution" actually mean, in your eyes? (and curious)

Reinvent in my eyes means that the game needs to get away from simply what it has done in the past. Civ is successful because of the strategy involved not because of 21 square city radii or other single elements to the game.

My main concern is that Civ II was simply an upgrade to Civ I. I played the original for a few years. Civ II simply collected dust on my shelf. If Civ III does not go beyond past productions the same will happen.

quote: Give us instead a bullet-style list of features (in few words/short sentences) that comprises your particular idea of such an update. Give us meat - not just dry bones!

I really didn't want to get specific in this thread, but since you asked, here goes a few:

- get rid of tiles
- population in cities should use percentages of who is farming, who is in the military, who is working in factories, etc.
- country side and towns factoring into empire production
- provinces or statehood

quote: Originally posted by yin26 on 12-21-2000 11:54 PM I think what you are saying is that you want, at its core, the same Civ "essence" in Civ3 that you have in Civ2. But for some reason, you think that changing the game "too much" will ruin the experience. However: ** Even if you are right, what you are really saying is that Civ is dead. ** But I prefer to think that the Firaxis team -- especially with Sid at the controls -- CAN and WILL take Civ3 in a direction that not only builds on the essence of Civ but adds entirely new challenges that even the most veteran player will enjoy trying to master. That is the kind of Civ3 I want to buy and is most certainly the Civ3 Firaxis wants to release. So, since I've already played Civ2 to death and don't want to pay for a Civ2.5, I won't sign this petition (though I certainly understand your concern).

AMEN!

I could not sum up my feelings about the next Civ game any better. This is exactly what needs to happen. I fear what will really happen is what Darkstarr described. Such a situation would be absolutely pathetic and sad. As another commentator said, it's not the "21 city radius" that makes the game great. It's the total experience. And as yet another said, it needs to be "SimCiv" not "Wargame Civ". I'm tired of the supreme dictator controlling everything formula.

A ruler does not decide where to place a farm, decide to build a market place, decide where cities are going to spring up (all of this is generally speaking, of course, there are always exceptions). A ruler comes into existance, takes power, is given power, whatever, and may: tax the people into submission, build a huge military, live in luxury, protect its citizens, guarantee peace, engage in international relations, guide commerce and trade, regulate citizens behavior, on and on and on. THESE are the things I want to be concerned with, not "Now let's see, I need to place my cookie cutter farm here, make sure this city has a marketplace, blah, blah, blah . . . "

Let's see a true revolution in the way the game is played. Let's look at reality and model it after that. Let's take a "SIM" approach to civ, not "War is politics by other means". Let's worry about citizens getting upset because of too much taxes, getting raided by barbarians and other civs because of too little protection, worry about gathering resources needed for national industry, worry about unemployment, worry about religious riots, worry about international subterfuge, worry about the crime rate, worry about low productivity and learning new ways to prosper and increase productivity, take care of the sanitation concerns of citizens, provide an empire wide system of rodes, assign govenors to regions and have them trim some tax money off the top, and much, much more.

I don't want to dictate what occur automatically: people engaging in commerce, planting farms, building places of trade, commerce, and entertainment, establishing profitable overseas trade routes, etc. Now, I do realize that many of these things governments do engage in and guide, but as a rule these are things that happen automatically. Cities spring up and flourish, not because some ruler decided where to plant it and give it farms, but because it is a naturally great place for commerce and food. Places like rivers, and coastlines and major trade route junctions.

Sure, you could start with one settler as a despotic leader who guides his/her extensive family to the place he finally wants to establish a "nation" of his/her people (a la Ancient Israel). From there, because of your wise guidance and leadership (protecting your people from foreign raids/invasions, promoting trade/commerce, providing health and entertainment) your people begin to flourish and become so fruitful that many begin to find other places to live and establish their families (can you say "New City"). As your nation of common peoples begins to flourish and populate the region, you naturally come into contact with other nations of peoples (borders) and can interact with them as you please (diplomacy).

This is the kind of game I would like to see, and I think it would be great. There are elements of many different games that could be used, or at least looked at and molded to fit into Civ (such games as Imperialism I/II, Masters of Orion 3 [flintilgin's suggestion --I've never seen the game], Age of Empire's stupendous graphics for units, SimCity [the formula, not the micromanaging of cities], and many more). From the THOUSANDS of suggestions from these forums, I think CivIII could be an amazing game. The only negative thing I've seen with a lot of the suggestions is a holding onto the ideas and concepts of CivII --merely improving CivII to make CivIII. I really hope this does not happen. And as can be seen in this thread alone, many other people also hope it does not happen.

Here's what I want to warn the developers against:

1 Historical Realism: Don't let reality trump decent gameplay, especially if it means rewriting the rules of Civ II

2 Difficulty: Okay, so yin26 says Civ 2 doesn't challenge him anymore. But trust me, most people don't want Civ 3 to be "just like Civ 2... only harder!" We all want the AI to play with better strategy, yes, but I value improved customizability, with more units and more technology slots, than more of a gaming "challenge."

Let's put it this way: if the game still looks like CivII glorified, I'll be praising Activision for doing such a good job on Call to Power II.

And if you can't run the game on a Pentuim I, maybe it's time for a new computer. Just because you don't want to buy another computer, don't have that be the common denominator of what Firaxis has to work with for processing power. I want this game to be exceptional, not borrowing 6 to 8 year old grahpics technology just so every Tom, Joe (wouldn't let me use **** ), and Harry with a Pentium 90 can play the game. Hey, I only have an AMD K6 233, but I've increased the RAM and put in a 32MB graphics card and I do just fine. A little upgrade never hurt anyone.

If you want to be able to play on a computer like you did CivII, play CivII. For the rest of us, we want CIVIII, baby!

quote: Originally posted by Colonel Kraken on 01-05-2001 10:26 AM This is the kind of game I would like to see, and I think it would be great.

Yes, Kraken - but the problem is that it wouldnt be viewed as "great" in the eyes of all civ-entusiasts, and all game-magazine reviewing civ-fans out there.

Some dont like city micro-managing, and some do like micro-managing. Some "dont want to be concerned" and "dont want to dictate", while others do "want to be concerned", and they do "want to dictate". Some thinks civ-gaming is all about conquering-the-world and dealing with diplomatics as fast/much as possible, while other fans have other priorities. Some wants to change everything from the ground up (despite what happened to the Activision-experiments), while others wants to learn from mistakes, and carefully weigh every suggestion on a golden scale. Some wants to squeeze virtually everything into the main-game and by that turn it into a "historic-futuristic all-in-one world-simulator", while others strive for a more lean and mean; flexible, tweakable and customizable approach, partly with help of what a good scenario-editor can create.

I only hope they go for the flexible, tweakable and customizable game-design approach, that in the end hopefully can satisfy as many as possible.

quote: The only negative thing I've seen with a lot of the suggestions is a holding onto the ideas and concepts of CivII --merely improving CivII to make CivIII.

The only negative thing Ive seen with a lot of the suggestions is that where are relatively many fans here that dont want to learn/draw conclusions from the principal game-design approaches we have seen in clones like TOT/CTP/CTP-2, and in some respect also SMAC. Many (but not everyone) wants principally the same things, but they believe/hope that Sid/Firaxis will do something better of it. Its sad - but, then again im pretty sure that Firaxis vill be very careful in even trying to step into those exact same footpaths, a fourth time.

Of course, i dont want a SimCity 2000 to SC-3000 type of upgrade. But, why does everything have to change? And why so much superficial quantity-stuff?

quote: I really do understand the fear that many have for changing the game so much it doesn't have the same feel that Civ2 has; you feel the magic will be lost. But do you really think that Sid can't come up with something just as magical and still maintain the engaging experience of Civ2? I think he can, and I hope he will.

Civ3 must be civ2 plus all the little things that while playing civ2 we have wanted to see.