Without addressing any specific poster here, I have some comments, as someone who’s played I, II, SMAC, III and PTW.
PTW, worth it? Nah. I feel a bit cheated. They did with PTW, what they should’ve done with a free patch. Only, they added more glitches. The interface is a little better. Some logical flaws are gone, but new pop up. I thought (my own mistake) that the ‘turnless’ mode, would work in ordinary play, thereby limiting the endless waiting alte in the game. Not so. Only in multiplayer. The new civs are nice though.
Corruption. I’m playing as American right now, with a 100-odd cities and it ain’t a problem. The lesson I’ve learnes is not to build the Forbidden Palace early. I save that. Since I can move the real palace, when needed (and beat corruption), as my territory spreads, I do that. But the Forbidden Palace can’t be moved.
New feature in PTW. Internet is a great wonder, that puts a research lab in every city on the same continent. Those things crank out culture. That means you don’t have to build temple or library to get culture points, when taking a city from another civ.
Citizens revolting - you lose your tropps, but the other civ doesn’t get them.
So far, my best score is a conquest victory with 6.300 points. I wanna hit 10.000.
Man, I love CivIII. Best of the series, hands down. I’m pretty sure I’ve already spent more time playing it than the first two games combined. I’ve gotten to the point where I can beat the game on Monarch about half the time, usually by playing as Russia (Scientific/Expansionist) on a huge map against eight opponents. Using scouts and a little luck, I can usually find enough tech to get me into the middle ages with almost no research of my own.
Corruption has never been a big problem for me, possibly because I’ve gotten all the updates. When I build a distant colony, I set up the build queue to make a worker, then a courthouse, then a library or temple. The city will probably never be a major city, but I can usually get a decent amount of production going there.
You’ll only be in the technological dust if you hang on to your own technology too tightly. If a game is really going my way, I can run my entire empire off the proceeds of selling off my technology. I usually have the research slider maxed out and still earn as much as five hundred gold a turn. And trading luxuries always favors the weaker nation. If you’re top dog, you’ll always get bad prices for your resources. But if you’re in the middle of the pack, whichever civ is winning will give you great prices for your extra silks, or whatever. Military resources are even better. In my current game, I’ve got a monopoly on iron resources on my starting continent. I’ve made the other two civs on the continent my economic bitches by selling them precious iron at astronomical rates so the two civs can kill each other more efficiently. Meanwhile, neither dares attack me because I’ll cut 'em off. God, I love this game!
That’s where Leaders come in handy. Don’t waste your first one on a War, save him until you have a good location for your Forbidden Palace. You’ll have your shiny new wonder in one turn!
I don’t agree, Jeff. Try to get a leader early, so you can build convert it to an Army and then build Heroic Epic and Military Academy. That way, you can crank out armies at your own will. Meanwhile, with Herioc Epic, when at war, I can usually get up to three leaders in one turn. I just rush them off and hurry building, whatever is mostly needed.
Remember, only elit troops creates leaders, and only when they win. So I let an elit troop hang back, while grounding down the defenses with veteran. When the final troop is low on hitpoints, I go in with the elite troop and often get a leader.
I usually don’t build the FP untill I have well over 50 cities.
Another way is switching to communism, since that spreads corruption evenly over all cities. Build what you need in the more remote locations and then switch back.
Even if remote cities suck for producing stuff, they can be encouraged to get large. And you get points for having big territory and many citizens. I can have a remote city, at 30+ size, with only 4 or 5 in production shields, 60 shields lost to corruption, and crank out workers, settlers or even wealth. There are always ways around most problems.
My biggest gripe is when another civ declares war, and refuses to answer diplomacy. I had this happen With Persia in the last game. They started with a low scale war in 1932. I couldn’t get them to the table and talk till 1954. The last turns were really hurting, since war weariness was very high. I couldn’t go after them in their own territory, since they had mutual protection pacts with all other civs, and I was spread thin (no offensive units, only defense), after deafeating the Germans. Finally I built a city, next to the Persian border, put no troops into it, and let the damn idiots take them.
I’m nuking the hell outa them now.
I do, which is bad. Last week I took my discs and put them in a shoebox, then buried the shoebox at the bottom of my closet so I wouldn’t pick up the game again. Nothing worse than spending an entire week getting home from work, starting a game, getting sucked in until past midnight, and then repeating the cycle the next day.
As for the “acquired taste” bit, I’d agree. I bought a copy of Civ 2 when they came out with the “multiplayer gold” edition, but never really got into it. I bought a copy of Civ 3 as soon as it came out, based on the first two games’ appearing on every “Best-Of” list ever made, and on the screenshots. (I don’t understand the comment about the graphics not being up to par; I think they’re very well-done. And the UI is more attractive and easy-to-use than is immediately obvious; it just “feels” right.)
I didn’t get into Civ 3, either – I would start a game, realize I’d already lost about an hour into it, and then just start over again. I ended up putting it away until the expansion pack came out, and then I got completely hooked. Not only did I have my first victory, ever (space race with the Ottomans), but it just seemed like everything finally made sense. As I said, I got hopelessly hooked and was committed to winning with every victory type available (still no luck yet). Cultural victories and cultural city take-overs are a wonderful thing.
And I like the subtle humor in the game, too – when you ask for a revolution, your choices are “Yes, it’s going to be all right,” or “No, you can count me out.”
Can’t comment on the multiplayer side, since I’ve never tried it. Now I’ve got to get home and dig up a shoebox…