[Freeciv-Dev] Re: civ 3 impressions

["Mike Jing" <miky40@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Per I. Mathisen <Per.Inge.Mathisen@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Okay, just some thoughts from playing civ 3 a few hours. I've always been 
> playing big maps, and in the late stages of this game, my computer started 
> crawling as the AIs and I settled the entire world and began moving our 
> huge armies around. By around 1400 AD the game became practically 
> unplayable, at least until I've bought myself more RAM.
The speed of Civ3 is a real problem, although since I usually play standard 
maps so it is probably not as bad.  Just something to watch out when someone 
get to rewrite the AI in Freeciv.
> So. Big cities in civ 3 are way better than in freeciv and civ 2. The 
> culture system means their reach expands as the city grows, and allows it 
> to use more resource tiles. Very good. I really like culture. Paying two 
> citizens for a settler really hurts early in the game, but as cities reach 
> the Aqueduct and Hospital limits, making settlers and workers is the only 
> sane thing to do while you wait for the necessary tech - and Hospital is a 
> long wait.
It does seem smallpox is not as powerful in Civ3 as it was in Freeciv or 
Civ2, although I am not sure if it is really "cured".  I am eager to see 
some of these features implemented and tested in Freeciv.
> Wonders affect continents and world less, and those who do usually have 
> their own tech to make them hard to acquire. Bach's requires Music Theory, 
> for example, which only gives you Bach's. Perhaps this is a way to make it 
> harder to get to the best of freeciv's wonders?
Wonders are indeed more balanced, which is a very good thing.

> Catapults and cannons now fire ranged attacks, and do not use normal 
> attacks. They don't even have defence values, and can be captured. I didn't 
> really like this. Built a few experimental units and then went back to only 
> normal units.
Ship bombardment is very well implemented -- no more ironclads emptying 
cities for horsemen.  But catapults and cannons are much less useful, so are 
cruise misiles.  And the nuke is a joke and a total waste of shields.  The 
new way Fighters and bombers work is very good, but they should be allowed 
to sink ships.
> Every player type has two characteristics (commercial, industrious,
> militaristic, expansionist or scientific) that gives it in-game bonuses and 
> has one unique unit type that it can build (usually a variation on a normal 
> unit). I liked that. The Greeks, for example, start the game with a 1/3/1 
> Hoplite unit. The French can build 3/4/1 Musketeers when they get Salpeter 
> resource and Gunpowder tech. But I would think this is rather hopeless for 
> us to adopt, since we have so many nations.
Civ specific abilities are fun, but I prefer a level playing field, so I 
won't miss this feature in Freeciv, especially since I prefer to play MP.
> Resource management and trade is a lot better than previous civs. No more 
> caravans. Make trade routes by building roads. Building a road to a 
> resource within a city's range gives all cities connected to that road 
> access to this resource. Some resources are needed to build some units and 
> others give more luxuries. Really good idea.
Also no more rushing wonders with caravans.  Another reason why it's harder 
to get all the wonders for yourself.  I also like the resource system, but 
some of the strategic resources carry so much weight that it might very well 
unbalance the game.
> There is no tax rate any more. Good riddance. I always hated fiddling with 
> that.
Well, set the sicience and entertainment rates and whatever left goes into 
tax.
> Units no longer require production upkeep. Nor food. Only gold. Whoa. This 
> is perhaps what I disliked the most, since it allows way too many units to 
> be built, and I had to build a lot myself for defence and attack. The 
> result was a micromanagement nightmare.
I actually love this feature, mostly because it takes away a huge advatage 
from smallpox players.  Also no food upkeep means you can actually afford to 
improve the terrain without throttling city growth.  Now we just need better 
automatic workers.
> At lower difficulty levels, the AI is useless and builds cities all over 
> the map, even where there is totally no point in doing so. It also build 
> ridiculously large armies that it moves around all the map all the time, 
> hogging the CPU.
So far I have only played at the Regent "formerly known as Prince" level, 
where the AI doesn't get any bonus or handicap, and I am impressed.  In my 
last game as the Romans, I stayed in Monarchy and reduced the Egyptians to a 
single city in a desert with knights, and grabe some more land from the 
Aztecs and the Greeks to become the largest civ.  Then I made peace and 
switched to Republic and started to concentrate on buiding up the new 
cities.  Suddenly the Greeks and the Aztecs signed a military alliance and 
declared war on me.  While the Aztecs were sending lots of cavalry and 
knights into my territory and started pillaging, the greeks sent a raiding 
party by boat behind the lines and captured one of my least defended cities, 
cutting off my supply lines.  That was a great attack.
> Later in the game you can research "armies", which is a way to unite 
> several units into a stack. You can also get "leaders". I never got around 
> to test this.
I've got several great leaders, and they are the only way to rush a wonder.  
You can also build "armies" with them, but they are not all that powerful, 
which is good since it won't unbalance the game.
> All in all I think there are lot of good ideas there.
Agreed.  And I cant wait to play with the Civ3 ruleset!

Mike


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