A well balanced learning curve, a training small scenario, an enhanced Civilopedia (easy to upgrade to keep as for patches and mods/fan's scenarios): we needs more in electronic format.

I'll love the ability to add players notes to Civilopedia, to include any good suggestion and memo I planned and developed, or any wise strategy I learn from Apolytoner Game Masters.

Think about a Civilopedia that let you link something like Velocyrix's SMAC Strategy Guide, with reminders and trigger events!
E.g., you discover a new tech and Civilopedia pop-up the relevant suggestion of Vel or your Civ reach some power value relations to the others players and, as your Advisor try to suggest you standard Firaxis wise, it add (or replace with it) more deep notes you wrote/imported related to your usual style of play.

I had the SMAC Tech poster, but its flat paper limit can't help me to drill my way to wanted advance. I'll love a tool to better navigate and search on Civ III tech tree.

I remember a Intel Computer Show two years ago where they showed us an interesting interface concept, able to reproduce arguments and their relations, as a spinning globe (mainly made of exhagons) where every time you focused to an argument all the surrounding polygons where sorted for relations and relevance (the nearest are strictly related, others fade far).

Of course paper manuals helps a bit to fight sw piracy, as added bonus to customers, but we can have others tricks do the same: a brief proper history paperback (I'll love that, it'll help me to explain my purchase of CIV III to my wife ) , a bunch of small unit figurine (plastic or metal) to collect...

Seriously.. who needs manuals?

quote: Originally posted by Fredric Drum on 04-23-2001 08:58 AM Manuel who? Not the one from Barcelona, I hope? Seriously.. who needs manuals? Fred

Me!!!!!!!!

Please, Please, PLEASE! a bound manual! the PDF files are OK for CDs I get used, but A new game should have a real one. That's why I paid 5$ more for a boxed used version of AC instead of the CD Rom Classic new.

quote: Originally posted by Fredric Drum on 04-23-2001 08:58 AM Seriously.. who needs manuals?

Very seriously... ME TOO!! The bigger and fatter and chunkier the better! I like Adm.Naismith's idea of being able to add your own notes to the Civilopedia, and I'll certainly always refer to that and to whatever charts etc. are supplied... but nothing can replace the sheer enjoyment of browsing through a well-written, comprehensive manual, not understanding everything, but beginning to get an overall feel of the game - plus all the background info, storyline, etc. - before you plunge in for some actual hands-on experience! And if you have a specific problem you want help with, there's nothing to beat a thick paper manual with a PROPER INDEX! I hate struggling my way through umpteen computer screens vainly trying to locate one particular piece of information that's buried under some heading you would never have thought of looking at!

Firaxis, whatever else you do, give us a REAL manual!!

quote: Originally posted by Chronus on 04-24-2001 12:42 AM I want a paper-bound manual because it's too cumbersome to drag the computer into the bathroom . . .

That's easy: use a notebook as I do (not ever carried into the bathroom, to be true, but...)

1) don't forget the index

2) don't forget the table of contents

3) don't forget to explain everything in the game

4) don't forget to make it BIG and THICK and READABLE...

Geesh, you'd think I wouldn't have to say this, but game companies STILL put out thin manuals WITHOUT indexes

BTW, I enjoy my computer so much, I wish I could bring it into the bathroom - it's just that the electricity/water thingy tends to intrude upon the experience... still...

I want a large printed manual that explains everything. I don't want to shell out more $$$ just to master the game, or at least win on the most difficult level.

I've actually never used the civ-II manual because, when I bought civ-II, I bought, with a special offer price, the gold-version with an extra CD with scenario's and !!!!! the CIV-strategybook. I've always used that one.

The reasons I think it won't fly are:

1. Customers hate it.
2. Publishers hate it.

quote: Originally posted by Gammaray fan on 04-23-2001 02:17 AM Remember the big FAT manuel from Civ1? It was like a bible with a history lesson (basically), and all the necessary info about the game, (and unnecessary info - like info on how leaders were really like as well as their temperament in the game) There has been a disturbing trend lately to size down manuels, and move most of it onto electronic format, but this should be avoided in civ3. I want to see an all new and improved big FAT manuel. In fact I wouldn't mind if it was even CHUNKIER!!!

Yeah, the bigger the manual, the better... maybe some of you play Age Of Wonders... it's quite a big manual here, but its content is totally feeble.

quote: Originally posted by Ceci n'est pas Snapcase on 04-24-2001 05:05 PM Hah! Good luck. The new standardised packaging (a DVD package with twice the depth) hardly allows any manual at all, let alone a bound or Civ1 sized one...

Did you notice, though, that in the article you referred to ( http://www.iemag.com/news/daily/3_26_00/index.asp ), as part of the "PC Game Box Standardization Recommendation", the second bulleted paragraph states that "Boxes may be double-thick to afford the space necessary for multiple disks or manuals..."!

If this new standard does come into effect, let's just hope Firaxis apply clause 2 and do give us a BIG, THICK, CHUNKY MANUAL!!!!

But seriously, in the U.K virtually all of our manuals are in DVD boxes, and I for one can't stand them or the boxes, too. Never again to get a manual bigger than the size of your hand and certainly no thicker than a CD (don't forget thats got to fit inside the box as well). As for posters, maps and other gimmicks, like 'em or not, they're out - unless a poster the size of a stamp is what you're after.

Another thing is that Jewel cases are out as a result of this, meaning that if you want to store your games you either have to buy your own or keep them in the bigger (than the Jewel) DVD box. Fallout Tactics CDs came in a little flappy plastic folder and kept falling out!!!

Either way, customers lose out to marketing and production costs. Grrr!

quote: Originally posted by Ceci n'est pas Snapcase on 04-26-2001 05:00 PM Both Black and White and Europa Universalis are packed like this here. And most customers don't buy Manual-heavy games, Publishers actually like it and there has been lots of preassure from stores...

None that I can see in this region.

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger on 04-29-2001 04:27 AM None that I can see in this region. Anybody from the US have seen this "standard" sized game boxes?

I just purchased EU in the USA this past week, and it came in the standard-sized box that both Civ2Gold and CTP came in.

As far as manuals go, I would definitely recommend EU as a way *not* to do it. The game does have a paper manual, but with no index or Table of Contents. Further, the manual tells you about the various things you can do in the game, but doesn't actually tell you how to do them! Instead, you have to reply on pop-up windows that happen when you drag the mouse over certain areas. It took me somewhere in the area of an hour or more to figure out what commands to use to progress up the royal marriage-->vassalization-->annexation pathway. Basically, a game as complex as EU REQUIRES an extensive and well-designed manual. And I think that Civ3 should have a good one. For those of us who have been playing the civ games for years, it may not be that difficult to just install and play right away, but I'll bet that Firaxis is counting on a lot of new players for the civ franchise with this game, and I can only think back to how difficult it would have been to start playing Civ1 without its great manual and chart.

it should have a few funny anecdotes, tutorials, history facts and other neat stuff. (uh-oh rambling ahead) wouldnt it add to the game if the manual was in bible format? i mean with cigarette-paper-thin pages, and a really semi-mystical old-looking cover with the words:

Civilization III
by Sid Meier\Firaxis

written in a odd archaic textformat in kinda faded colors. it would kick ASSS! give it a "i'm discovering something very ancient and forgotten!"-feeling. playing Civ (and learning to) would almost be a spiritual experience! (going nuts i am)

a manual IS necessary, i played a pirated copy (i'm shameful yes) and my first 2 years of civ was played 100% in DESPOTISM! before i figured out the whole "advantage-in-better-trade,-food-and-production-as-well-as-less-corruption". (then again i was only 10 years old when i first learned to play, but still...)

also (this has prolly been discussed and i've not seen it yet) when you discover a new advance there should be lots of info about it. like in Civ1, where its the first you see, then come the specs. civ2 had too little and you had to click a button to find it, SMAC had it almost hidden away and in that tiny window that made it just painful to read. lots of facts so you'd learn a little history as well. after all history IS important!! maybe people wouldnt think history so dead boring and irrelevant if they'd played more Civ1.

anyway thats just my 5 cents.