Still want to play CIV3?

[Zed-F]

Well I finally bothered to go read the info thread over at Civfanatics.

Hmm. That's what I have to say. I'm glad you guys are getting all excited about this, but I see potential for things to go wrong quite quickly here. I hope they manage to pull this off, and I am sure they will succeed in making a game that some people will enjoy. I'm just worried I might not be one of them.

When I see things like a zillion different terrain improvements to manage, I think, will the worker AI be up to sorting all that out or will I have to hand-manage it again? With a lot more diplomacy options on the table, what are they going to do to make turn-by-turn diplomatic checking less of a chore? They say they're working on improving the city governor AI, which is fine as far as it goes, but that's only a very small part of the micromanagement complexity in the game, and the most easily addressed to boot.

I don't think it's possible to design an AI that can manage workers in a truly intelligent fashion or assemble a quality military force at a well-selected staging area, let alone fight effectively. There are just too many options. Moreover, from a certain point of view, such things would be undesirable in any case. After all, those are some of the key things that let human players win when starting at a disadvantage.

They say they are focusing on killing micromanagement, but with all the new stuff they are adding... well I'll believe it when I see it. If they manage to keep the micromanagement down to what it was in Civ3, I'll be impressed. But the micro in Civ3 was what ultimately drove me away in the first place, and overall it got worse with the expansions, rather than better. The game would need to have less micro than Civ3 to make me really happy, and from what I've read I don't see it happening.

I'll wait for it to come out and the reports from the rest of you guys to come in. If it turns out to be really slick and easy to play, I'll jump on it with both feet. But I'm not holding my breath.

[Flint]

Zed-F,
You make some good points. The micromanagement issue could be worrisome but as far as the ai goes...well this game seems very geared towards multiplayer. Not that single player is allowed to have bad ai, that would really suck and it might not be worth getting the game but...it is always better to play against humans anyway. I am really glad that they made improvements to that. As well his isnt an expansion "more is better" mentality...whatever resources and such that they are adding will work and the ai will know how to handle them.

[Zed-F]

I've never been that interested in head-to-head style multiplayer. I'd rather play a good succession game, for instance.

As far as the new resources go, I'm sure the AI will know how to use them; that's not at issue. What's at issue is whether the AI will know how to use them intelligently. That is, I expect there to be oodles of jobs available for the workers to do, so how will the AI prioritize between them? The Civ3 AI stank at this and there are going to be far more permutations to choose from this time around. Then there's the questions of which improvements are useful to build in which cities, where to place cities, when to build units vs. infrastructure, which units to build, etc.....

The AI will never be as good as the player at all of these. Probably not at any of them. This is both good and bad, as I outlined previously. But there comes a point where if the macromanagement tools are not there or insufficiently developed, the game becomes a chore rather than an amusement. I know they are making some effort at improving matters, but it's a herculean task; how successful they are will determine my level of interest going forward.

[LKendter]

I agree they need to avoid more MM. I know they are getting rid of the late game pain with cleaning up pollution and constantly reseting your cities.


Above all I really hope it gets a good trading screen. Until I found MapStat I *HATED* checking with all Civs every turn to maximize trading...

[microbe]

I don't really worry too much. I don't really worry even if CIV4 turns out to suck in certain ways. I like to see some real changes that have been made, for better or worse, because it means new adventure and exploration in attempt to make the game better in the long run. I see a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt, but I support Sid's 1/3 throw-away, 1/3 intact and 1/3 new element strategy.

In fact, there were a lot of things that sucked at version 4. Let's see how this one goes. :-)

[Sullla]

I don't really worry too much. I don't really worry even if CIV4 turns out to suck in certain ways. I like to see some real changes that have been made, for better or worse, because it means new adventure and exploration in attempt to make the game better in the long run. I see a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt, but I support Sid's 1/3 throw-away, 1/3 intact and 1/3 new element strategy.

In fact, there were a lot of things that sucked at version 4. Let's see how this one goes. :-)

New slogan for Civ4: Fun even if it sucks in some ways!

[Smellincoffee]

I will probably continue to play Civ3 if the situation is similar to my situation with The Sims and its sequel. I have the sequel, yet I continue to play TS1 on a regular basis because of performance. I don't have the RAM or the graphics card to run TS2 the way it was meant to be played, and so I still reply on TS1 for a lot of my "Simming". If Civ4's reccommended requirements best my computer's specs, I will probably play them both.