quote: Originally posted by jdlessl on 04-28-2001 10:52 PM Ok, Diplomat, you don't see the extra fun inherent in having more civs. Fine. You are a member of the 8% that wants to keep it the same. But there's the other 92% who wants more, and to keep you happy at the expense of everyone else just plain sucks. Especially when having >8 civs allowable allows us to play how we want and you to play how you want. -- Jared Lessl [This message has been edited by jdlessl (edited April 29, 2001).]

I am sorry if I offended anybody. That was not my intention. I am not against more civs as an option for those who want it. I just don't think a 7 civ limit is the end of the world.
And, I am not a member of the 8% that want to keep the game the same. What are you suggesting, that anyone who wants to keep the limit to 7 wants to hold the game back? Are you suggesting that more civs is more important than the diplomacy or trade models in the game?
I don't want the same old game. I want a radically better diplomacy, better economic model, better ressource and trade model. I hardly want the same old same old.

Who are we to tell Firaxis that we know better than them about their own game? They probably tried to implement more civs PRECISELY TO PLEASE ALL OF YOU, and found out it does not work for whatever reasons.
If they are staying with 7 civs, they probably have very good reasons.

I say, calm down. It is not the end of world. I understand that it is dissapointing to many, but it is not the end of the word by any means.
The important thing is that the game itself is as good as possible with great diplomacy, trade, armies, etc...

quote: Originally posted by The diplomat on 04-29-2001 02:13 PM Who are we to tell Firaxis that we know better than them about their own game?

Well we are the customers and we can tell them what we want to see in the game and what we don't want to see included. They can ignore us, of course, but it is wise to listen to customers' demands.

quote: They probably tried to implement more civs PRECISELY TO PLEASE ALL OF YOU, and found out it does not work for whatever reasons.

I sincerely doubt it. They are most likely simply reusing the old SMAC engine, which has the 7 civilization limit hardcoded in it.

quote: If they are staying with 7 civs, they probably have very good reasons.

I also am saddened by the 7-civ limit (one reason why the modified CtP will remain on my hard drive), but from a business standpoint (and let us remember that the primary reason Firaxis is making this game is to MAKE MONEY; being a labor of love comes second) reusing the SMAC engine makes good sense.

The perfect Civ game? 1) It will have to be a labor of love, without any economic considerations, 2) Each creator will have to dictate what is perfect and what isn't, so each person should make their own game and include the features they consider indispensible, or it should be so customizable and with so many optional features that everyone can fine-tune it to their specifications.

In other words, if you want a Civ game to be exactly what you want it to be, you will have to make it yourself.

I will make up a hypothetical scenario on the fly to illustrate my point:

The Gandalf Wars - Gandalf succumbs to the temptation of the Ring, builds a mighty kingdom in the Shire, and prepares to wage war across Middle-Earth.

To make it fun and balanced I would need the following civs:
-Shire (Gandalf)
-Isengard (Saruman)
-Mordor (Sauron)
-Rhun (Pallando)
-Harad (Alatar)
-Gondor (Denethor)
-Rohan (Theoden)
-Dwarves (Dain II)
-Orcs (Azog?)
-Imladris (Elrond)
-Laurelindorenan (Galadriel)
-Grey Havens (some shipwright)
-Arnor (Elessar)
-Carrock (Beorn)

This adds up to fourteen civs and there are probably others that would be a good addition.

-The Civ2 AI was excellent except for its tendency to gang up on the most powerful player even when it shouldn't. All of its fallacies could be fixed by giving it free units with events.
-The Civ2 map size limits are fine by me (the Gigamap could easily fit 128 perfectionist civs and I though that 10000 square maps were large enough).
-The Civ2 improvement model was fine, although custom wonders would have been great.
-8-bit graphics are fine by me.

I want more CIVS!

I truly hope that Firaxis will take notice in their customers' concern over this. Of course, in my opinion, that means considering the customers' opinion that seven is enough, then rejecting their opinion and increase it to 12 civilizations in every game.

quote: Originally posted by St Leo on 04-29-2001 09:40 PM -The Civ2 AI was excellent except for its tendency to gang up on the most powerful player even when it shouldn't.

What a sad and pityful statement that is. It also rather revealing. Do you honestly not feel the slightest need for...

- a more effective & smarter AI-empire defence & attack capability?
- a better AI-diplomacy (= smarter cooperation between civs/AI-civs)?
- a more effective AI city-improvement & city-area development strategy?
- a better use of economical excess (no more dust-collecting AI-wealth)?
- a more effective AI-unit upgrade development (quality before quantity)?
- a better AI-exchange (avoid AI-disadvantageous tech-exchanges vs HP)?
- a more effective AI-land area exploitation within AI-borders?

The AI in Civ-2/SMAC reminds me of a computer car-racing game, where each AI-car drives more secure but always slower, by default. The human player always starts as jumbo-position - but he have always the fastest car, by default. If he is new to the game, he keeps bumbing into fences and slides of the track at first. Its however only a question of time before he learns to master his car, and after that, he keep on overtaking one AI-car after the other. Simply because he drive the fastest car, by default. Its more or less a question of 100% mathematical certainty.

The same can be said about overcoming the AI in present civ-games. For a casual player unfamiliar to civ-series the AI can appear strong at first. And sure: the early stages have some risky & uncertain moments also for seasoned civ-gamers. But as soon as the basic layout of cities had been made, and the consolidating stage have moved on a bit; the question of surviving and actual winning the game, becomes more or less a matter of foreseeing predictability: It becomes a question of 100% mathematical certainty - on way or the other. Just as in above racing-game. The challenge is gone, and one stuck only with some limited curiosity on in which order & how exactly that certain victory is going to establish itself.

I think its time for an upgrade in Civ-3 - dont you guys? I want to feel uncertain as long as possible. I only want to win every second or every third completed game on the higher levels. And when I win, I want to feel that I achieved something difficult. It that to much to ask for?

quote: ...except for its tendency to gang up on the most powerful player even when it shouldn't.

The AI-civs in this respect, should behave as they were 3-4 losing human players against one single winning human player in a multiplayer game. As soon as the winning player are just as superior or even more superior then all the other players combined - the losing ones start to form multi-member contain-the-aggression pacts. They temporarily accept that it is in their common interest to "gang-up" as much as possible against that superior bully-boy.

quote: Originally posted by Kautilya on 04-29-2001 03:13 PM Even apart from the sample-bias issue it's not clear how much the 100 odd respondents in this poll want this feature. Suppose having this comes at the cost of AI or graphics, lots of those respondents might decide that this is less important. A better poll would ask people to rank the features in descending order of importance: ai, graphics, more civs etc. This would give us an idea of how much of a priority this is.

AI
As many civs as I want. And I want this very, very, very much.
Eye candy

quote: Originally posted by Kautilya on 04-29-2001 03:13 PM The AI-civs in this respect, should behave as they were 3-4 losing human players against one single winning human player in a multiplayer game

quote: Originally posted by jdlessl on 04-30-2001 10:42 AM "Wow, even the 4 of us together don't stand a chance in hell of winning, so rather than attack the big guy, I'll ally with him, and thus have a chance of surviving, even as his lowly vassal". We wouldn't always and without fail attack anyone who crosses a 'power threshold', breaking alliances, treaties, pacts, and friendships in doing so.

It all depends on what type of player the superior one is. Does he appear to be in a conquer-the-world mood, or is it space-travel thats on the agenda? Is his culture wastly superior, and did he initiated the war to begin with? Does he spend time on re-establish happiness in conquered cities? All these things matters.
If he instead is the ruthless Hitler-type in a bloodlust conquer-the-world-mood, with his goal set on "pick on at the time until they all mercilessly crushed" - well, then it would be rather naive to think that one could survive - even if he temporaily offer you to be is so called "ally", or "lowly wassal". The AI must be smart enough to see through these cheap temporary peace-offerings. Compare with Hitler - Appeasement is then not an option.

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 04-30-2001 12:14 PM It all depends on what type of player the conquer is.

They key phrase there is "It all depends". I could be friggin Ghandi with a reputation pure as arctic snow and the AI would still not hesitate to terminate centuries or even millennia of good relations because his civ sucked in comparison to mine. Sure, most of the time when I'd just throw in the towel and try to take the big guy down, but not always.

I am very much aware that this is not a failing on Sid's part but rather the extreme difficulty in writing good AI's. Which is why I think that multiplayer is really the only decent way to play civ. Everything else is just practice.

No, they should not. AI should behave like real leaders, not ones that are trying to win a game with fixed rules. If I want my opponents to behave that way, I'll play multiplayer.

Minor Civs, Minor Civs, Minor ****ING Civs

As many ppl have mantioned is that there will be minor civs, that will be interesting hearing more about. Maybe that will calm the mob down. A other thing that have been mentioned before is that is that in CIV2 2-3 civs got eliminated in the beginning of the game. Now that a settler need 2 pop, there is a BIG chance the problem with civs getting eliminated in the beginning have been removed. Now they have the time to build units before they can build a settler. So the 7 civs in civ3 would be like 9-10 civs in civ2.......... yeah and we also have minor civs on top of that.

If you say your not going to buy this game becouse of only 7 civs, then you are no REAL civ addivt. The thing thats REALLY important to improve is the AI. So we don't get bored after whooping the AI 2 times on deity level. The AI should really put up a fight, THATS THE REALLY IMPORTANT THING.

aCa (a Civilization addict)

quote: Originally posted by Roman on 05-01-2001 06:34 AM Despite what many of you would believe, Sid is only human and can make mistakes. An example of such a mistake is the 7 civilization limit.

Sure, but we're up to 4 pages of posts now detailing how unhappy fans of his games are with this limit. Mistakes are one thing, ignoring your customers on an important topic quite another.

THEORY OF POSITIVE EXTERNALITY:

From the above posts, it is clear that the group that is most angry about the 7 civilization limit is the scenario makers. This is hardly a suprise - playing with more than 7 civilizations per game in a normal, single player game may not be a large improvment as some posters point out, but having more than 7 civilizations is important for making scenarios, because it is a fundemantal limit and being able to change it is an important part of customization. Undoubtedly removing the limit could contribute to more and better scenarios.
Firaxis people themselves have admited that one of the most important reasons for the longevity of the Civilization series has been the customizability of the games and the scenario/mod community's creation of scenarios for the Civilization games. Raising the 7 civilization limit would not only stop the alienation of some scenario makers who have been aking for an increase in the number of civs per game (as a priority) for years and feel they have been totally ignored on too many occasions, but would also enable them to create more and better scenarios.
This in turn would have a positive effect on sales, as scenarios are posted on the web and thus provide a positive externality for the compan and it would increase the longevity of the game further.

A CASE STUDY: The world as it is now - scenario

I thought a good explanation of the damage the 7 civilization limit does to scenario makers could be provided by means of an example.

Let us suppose a scenario maker decides to create a scenario based on the real world in its current state.

The scenario maker must decide how to split up the world into 7 civilizations. This will probably end up in the following division:

USA - North America
EU - European Union and associated countries
Russia - Commonwealth of Independent States
China - China, North Korea, Burma
India - obvious
Islamic States - a large amalgation of countries many of which have little to do with each other and are even outright hostile to each other
Neutrals - everybody else