Caltrops - Article Submissions - I'll write more later...

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by Chairman Mao 04/24/2003, 4:24pm PDT

mark wrote:

Thanks to a bizarre deal brokered so that I could actually write this, I am not actually allowed to see his review ahead of time. For many rebutters this obstacle would prove insurmountable, but then many of them fail to truly understand the rebuttaling process altogether. The first step was to get some dirt on Mao: thanks to some clandestine connections, I have found out that he has a friend that works for Firaxis: the very company that made the game. I could stop right here because I have empirically just defeated his review, but, in the interest of typing, I shall continue.

Except that all my friend did was texture maps and they kicked him to the curb before release date. He now works for Acclaim, and still never writes back, so I guess by extension I can never review an acclaim game.

In Civ 3 there is no longer firepower. For those that didn't read the Civ 2 manual front to back, firepower was the addition to the combat algorithm that stopped modern units, like tanks, from being destroyed by primitive units, like men with sticks. Now if my marines attack a group of spearmen, it is about 50-50 that they walk out. Combat is just generally skewed so that you need approximately 4-6 times more men if you are attacking which, while supposedly realistic, isn't exciting. The opposition can go from being untrained to Super Contra-esque commandos in a single turn, so when you start losing, expect to continue losing.

They also brought in the artillery from Alpha Centauri. While these units don't suck as much as they did in that game, they still aren't fun to use. The special ability of artillery is that it can attack from a distance and never run the risk of killing enemy units. It also can destroy improvements, which does nothing. I think Colonization was the only one of Sid's games where building cannons didn't seem like a waste of time and money. This is because cannons were good at killing Aztecs, an activity more satisfying than any that are included here.

You mention these two things back-to-back, but you neglect to make the connection that they were clearly designed to work together. You're not supposed to throw masses of troops at fortifications or cities, you're supposed to soften the defenders with bombardment first. This, at least, is realistic. A stack of 15 bombardment units makes short work of nearly any city or fortification. You don't want to keep enemy cities anyway unless they have a wonder, due to cultural flips, so destroying improvements really doesn't matter. Shoot all the defenders down to one HP and you can attack with nearly any unit you want and take them out. These mixed armies are even more powerful on the defensive. It generates more promotions and more leaders as well. What is annoying is that the AI doesn't use land-based bombardment units except in city defense, so the strategy somewhat smacks of an exploit. Regardless though, most players I know of use this method, and it seems clear that its what Firaxis intended.

There are alot of things that are very frustrating about the combat engine. The fact that naval units can only attack once per turn, for instance. I never ended up writing the review because I had played the game too much that I was no longer critical, and was mostly unable to mock anything without constantly realizing that the mocking was stemming from comparisons to Civ2, and that the comparisons were mostly inapplicable. I've said it elsewhere, people who wanted Civ2++ should get a copy of CivII Test of Time and mod the hell out of it. Civ3 is a different game.