quote: Originally posted by Exile on 04-28-2001 More than 7 civs is the least we could ask for, and they've blown it already. What is wrong with the game companies? No matter how hard I try, I cannot imagine what possible motivation any designer could have for sticking to the 7-civ limit. You know, my hopes for the next civ game did not include ONE SINGLE THING, except more than 7 civs. THAT was all I wanted. Everything else; who cares. But more than 7 was the VERY LEAST they could do. Now we find out that Firaxis can't even manage that. I am dumbfounded. What derogatory term carries sufficient weight to describe such a stupendous blunder? There isn't one. Sticking with 7 civs; It is inconceivable. Firaxis; it figures. Exile

This also speaks for many others, though.

if the game is fun, challenging, addictive, complex, realistic with 7 civs, isn't that good enough?

I also think we need to think about the fact that the game will have unique civs. So, Firaxis needs to play balance each civ and make sure that they are well balanced against each other in the game. The more civs in the game at once, the harder it will be to play balance them all. Already, people complained that the 7 factions in SMAX were unbalanced. I am sure that Firaxis is sticking with the safe number of 7 civs so that they can make sure that all the factions are well balanced in terms of gameplay. They don't want a civ that is overpowered or underpowered.

If the game is fun and challenging with 7, why have more?

Furthermore, all the arguments about it being too processor/memory intensive are bogus. If my setup can only support 8 players, fine, I'll only play with 8. But if I've got a 1.7GHz P4 with a gig of RAM, don't even talk to me about what it can't do. And this game isn't even released for another year! People are still playing Civ2, 5 years after it was released. Computers are, in gneral, 8 times more powerful than they were then. So even if there's a hardware limit on the number of civs now, that may not be the case in the next few years. I guarantee you I could play Civ1 with a hundred civs on my system. To deny extra playability for all time is just silly.

Ok, worried about extra civs messing up the gameplay? As I understand it, Civ3 is not SMAC in that the civs are not going to be different from one another. There's no balancing of that sort needed. And even if there were, there were 14 different civs in SMAC, all painstackingly balanced to be fairly well playable no matter which factions were actually playing. And still, they only let you play a few of them. Ack!

Why have more, you say? Why not? Since we've never played a game of Civ with more than 7 factions, how do you know that it doesn't leave ordinary games in the dust?

quote: Originally posted by The diplomat on 04-28-2001 10:23 PM I am sorry folks but I still don't get it: why is more civs better? if the game is fun, challenging, addictive, complex, realistic with 7 civs, isn't that good enough? I also think we need to think about the fact that the game will have unique civs. So, Firaxis needs to play balance each civ and make sure that they are well balanced against each other in the game. The more civs in the game at once, the harder it will be to play balance them all. Already, people complained that the 7 factions in SMAX were unbalanced. I am sure that Firaxis is sticking with the safe number of 7 civs so that they can make sure that all the factions are well balanced in terms of gameplay. They don't want a civ that is overpowered or underpowered. If the game is fun and challenging with 7, why have more?

Well, speaking personally, it's just that it would be more fun for me. I've hardly ever played Civ 2 with less than 7 civs, and certainly never with 3 or 4. 7 is almost a minimum; it's just average for me. It's just what I want. I would like it. There is so much that is fun and challenging in the world even without Civ 3, but Civ 3 is just something I want! It's just another thing to make it more enjoyable.

If they thought they could increase the number of civs to make it a better game, they would. They know it inside out, and know perfectly well what it would do the the AI, minimum specs etc... They've no doubt play-tested with more and decided it wasn't worth the hit.

I would be highly surprised if there isn't an option in the text files to tweak it yourself. I can't believe there's so many people on here who think they know more about what Civ 3 can do than the developers themselves. (No disrespect to those who ran their copy of Civ 2 to the ground.)

I personally would only play with about 7-10. Having more Civs than that is pointless, since all you do is make the game less chalenging by watering down your opponents, into "bite-sized" pieces ready for systematic conquering. I have no idea in a normal game who would actually want more.

On the other hand, being myself a modest scenario maker for Civ2 (VERY modest!) I can understand how this is bad for the community of people who want to make larger scenarios. I sympathize with this idea, and I think that they have a good point that this expands creativity and choice.

The biggest guideline of what I want for Civ3 has always been more choice and less restrictions, to increase strategy and satisfy more people. Therefore, I see no alternative than to conclude that more civs are inherently better for the game than less civs, within a reasonable limit to be dependent on logical limits of computing. I see no problem with 32 or 64 civs... I would never play this, but that does not mean I should call for limitation of those who would.

So, I condemn Firaxis' decision as unessecarily restrictive and alienating to many prospective civers. Think this over first, Firaxis!

I agree with Cyclotron7's theory: more civs only mean more bite sized empires. I think this will, consequently, make them too easy to conquer.

A better poll would ask people to rank various features in descending order of importance.

quote: Originally posted by jdlessl on 04-28-2001 10:52 PM To deny extra playability [by adding more civs] for all time is just nasty.

Oh, come on Jdlessl! Do you really think above is the very reason why Firaxis decided to have the official max 7 civs-limit? For some sadistic and grudging reason? Or perhaps from some economical shortcut rush-developing reason? I sure as heck dont believe so - not for one second. This title has been voted "best game of all times" (not just the best strategy-game, mind you). I think it safe to presume that the team does virtually everything reasonably possible, givin their not-limitless resources, to ensure yet another smash hit evergreen game-success. After all; its their developing-money and the team + Sid very reputation thats at stake here, not ours. They even canceled the Dinosaurs-project, in order to relocate resources to Civ-3. I say, give them a rest, and lets move on to more relevant and important stuff!

Read below quote from MidKnight Lament one more time - It makes sence doesnt it?

quote: If they thought they could increase the number of civs to make it a better game, they would. They know it inside out, and know perfectly well what it would do the the AI, minimum specs etc... They've no doubt play-tested with more and decided it wasn't worth the hit. I would be highly surprised if there isn't an option in the text files to tweak it yourself. I can't believe there's so many people on here who think they know more about what Civ 3 can do than the developers themselves. (No disrespect to those who ran their copy of Civ 2 to the ground.)

quote: Originally posted by DarthVeda on 04-29-2001 01:37 AM Another point that these million-civ advocators fail to note is that the Firaxis programmers would have to create personalities, animations, and pics for more civs (stuffing a CD fuller than it already is).

Fine. So make the max 16. There are, after all, 16 civs to choose from, so using that as a max involves no extra work.

Technology has limits? Ok, so maybe I can't play Civ3 with 100 civs on my system right now. As I pointed out earlier, people still play Civ2 on machines many times more powerful than were available back then. It's just stupid to set an arbitrary limit like that. Especially when there are systems out there today that could easily run more than 8 civs.

Ralf: Didn't mean it was malicious, but it's not very intelligent. I have yet to hear a good reason why Civ2 had the limit.

But just for one minute, think about all your hopes for Civ3. All the things you dearly wanted included in this game. Improved AI, better diplomacy, gee-whiz graphics.....just take a look at the Civ3 wish list! It's full of far out concepts and ingenious new ideas. If some of these aren't implemented, at least you can console yourself with the thought, "Well it must have been too difficult to program" or "maybe it failed in gameplay". But extra civs? Come on! This is an improvement so obvious, so basic, so RUDIMENTARY, that I still can't believe it hasn't been implemented!

quote: Civ-1 and Civ-2 were fun and challenging, but why do we want Civ-3? We want more and better. If this whole thing is true, Firaxis has ignored a very large and active group of potential customers, and killed possible expansion games, because of the ill-will generated by such a decision.

Couldnīt agree more.
Of course seven civs can be fun and challenging still today, and of course Iīll buy Civ3 also if it offers only that, but where is the improvement here?

quote: Another point that these million-civ advocators fail to note is that the Firaxis programmers would have to create personalities, animations, and pics for more civs (stuffing a CD fuller than it already is). There are physical limitations on the technology folks, you have to have some give.

How can you know that "physical limitations" of Fireaxis exactly? And do we know today how full the Game CD is? And there are also games that have more CDs without driving the producing game company into bankruptcy...

I am sure the broad majority of game buyers doesn't regard the issue about the amount of civs their top priority.

Don't get me wrong though. I have respect for your people that really want alot of civs to play with at the same time, but please: arn't there more important features in Civilization 3?

quote: Originally posted by Cyberbugs on 04-29-2001 07:48 AM Is the single most important thing for some people here the amount of civs that can be played simultaneously?! I am very excited about this game, and yes I think more than seven simoultaneous civs would be good, but not THAT good;

For many scenario makers it is indeed the most important thing, as it is the most restrictive limit.

quote: I am sure the broad majority of game buyers doesn't regard the issue about the amount of civs their top priority.

Look at the poll. 92% seem to consider having more than 7 civilizations important. 7% think 8 civilizations (including barbs) is enough and 1% doesn't care.;

quote: Don't get me wrong though. I have respect for your people that really want alot of civs to play with at the same time

at least another poll might make firaxis try harder to put in 16 civ simultaneous play..
I don't care about different graphics and hardness levels, i just want the novelty of having lots of civs, to interact with, to make strategies and alliances more important . It will help the longevity of each game, making it interesting to have to conquer someone else with a different strategy, rather than just having to fight the ONE big bad Zulu empire or somthing dull and old.

I don't know if 7 has been confirmed anyway.. but if it is they better make civs much better Quality to counter the lack of their quantity (of civs)

Of course it may also come down to a screen GUI/ window presentation issue.. having a diplomacy window with 16 players could get a bit cramped, so I doubt they'd change all the graphics and presentation to fit in mroe civs now

Still my game will have tonnes of civs or polises as i call them

You guys want 32+ civs playable in one game...

from what I read they only plan on having... what? 16 civs available total.

Would you like duplicate incarnations of the same civs in one game or something?

"Yes, that was a tough game, especially when the Aztecs, Aztecs, and Aztecs ganged up on me... but the Tri-zulu aliance saved me!"

But with all the talented fans we have in this community, does anyone belive that we won't have flood of interesting and well done fan civilizations once the game is made?

They might not have unanimated diplomacy faces, but that's not a big deal.

Anyway, I'm curious why they wouldn't at least allow the option to tweek it in the text files. (And for all we know they will). Seeing as it's an unsupported modification (which only us fanatics will use) they don't have to worry too much about balance and turn length. A limit between 64-128 would be ideal I think. Would I play with that many in a normal game? Probably not, unless we had astoundingly huge maps, and was willing to wait for long turns to go by. But it would open up some interesting possibilities for scenario designers.

My point is that by leaving the option open, they allow the game that much more life, flexibility, and future expandability at a relative minimum of effort. But by locking it off they gain nothing. Seems odd to me.

I'm probably being too optimistic in hoping they've been planing on leaving it as an option in the .txt files all along... But they might...

quote: You guys want 32+ civs playable in one game...

Many posts say, they want more than seven. I for example would be happy with 16.

quote: Would you like duplicate incarnations of the same civs in one game or something?

Who says that? And does that mean that more civs arenīt a problem of ressources anymore? What comes next?

quote: DUMB!

Wow, great argument!

quote: Originally posted by Kautilya on 04-29-2001 12:03 PM And let me say that if this feature is relatively easy to incorporate then I am all for it.

Excellent.

quote: But if , as a bunch of people here seem to think, it will take a lot of work then I personally don't want it to divert resources from things like AI. Different people will have different value judgements and it's really hard to say what the potential Civ3 community which is much larger than Apolyton thinks about this.