Civiliazation has always been my favorite game. I think I flunked a class or two because I spent all my time playing Civ 2. So in 2003, I bought Civ 3 in anticipation of gloriousness. Unfortunately, my computer couldn't quite handle it and I was forced to stick it on the shelf. A couple days ago, it occurred to me that the computer I have now could easily deal with it.
Everything started out fine. It had been several years since I had played, so I figured my first game (which saw me obliterated by the Americans, Egyptians, Russians, and English) was only indicative of me still getting the hang of things. I thought it was kind of odd that I failed so miserably on the Warlord (second easiest) level, but was innocent enough to think it was due to rustiness. I figured my biggest mistakes were to let the Americans blackmail me into giving them my trade goods, not expanding my territory fast enough, and not advancing as fast in science as I should have been.
My second game, where I increased the size of the world, land coverage, and shrunk the number of opponents fared no better. I was obliterated before I even saw 1000 B.C. I was a bit puzzled, since I had finally worked out the controls and tweaked everything to maximum, plus had an aggressive expansion policy. I also chose a culture with high scientific and production output. Things should have gone smoothly, but the Egyptians managed to wipe me out with an army comprised of weaker units.
My third game was just as bad. Somehow, the Russians had colonized another continent with a large navy of galleons before I even saw my first tireme. And once again, I found myself mysteriously hemmed in by the other cultures. They managed to forget that we had Right of Passage treaties, so I couldn't even explore beyond my own borders. I snuck a couple settlers through, only to have the cities they created instantly fall into complete corruption and not contribute to my empire. A few turns later, my cities joined an opposing culture. Of course the other culture remembered the right of passage treaty and used it to successfully send their settlers into the heart of my territory and create cities in the few spaces where my borders didn't overlap.
On my fourth game, I decided it was time for war. I set the world size to the highest possible, the landmass to as much as possible, and had only two cultures for opponents. Still the same thing. The English was able to build the Sistine Chapel before I even came close. My scientific advancements was purposely structured from day one to get me the Sistine Chapel. I even gambled the state of my treasury, happiness of my citizens, and production to set science research funding at 100% and made all citizens scientists. All the same things happened again. I was hemmed in on all sides by two cultures that managed to expand to cover most of the world and the treaties were ignored. I had a superior army and yet I couldn't defend a single city from a couple pikemen. World Wonders were being completed in less time than it took for the nations to have reasonably made the necessary advancements, even taking trading and stealing knowledge into account.
And all this was on the Warlord level.
So I decided to find the cheat mode and reveal the world map, just to see what was going on during my next game or give myself some extra cash to help out when the Americans blackmail me again. No go. The cheat mode had been removed from the game. After searching online, I discovered that the cheats that work on the regular Civ 3 game do not work on the Game of the Year edition that I have. So I'm stuck.
Now, I'm not exactly someone who uses cheat modes all the time. I like the challenge of playing and winning by my own strategy and I'm very good at these kind of games. I haven't played a level as low as Warlord since I first started playing Civ; usually I'm all up in highest levels winning or losing as the world turns. However, occasionally I like using cheat mode to play a quick game before bed, work, or whatever. Sometimes I just want to play the game without getting deep into it (it's amazing how many hours go by while playing this thing). Mostly I'll use it to reveal the world map or build settlers faster so I can have a faster expansion. Only once did I use all the cheat functions and get into space before my opponents had even learned how to build the Great Wall. It was cool, but boring as hell.
So I'm stuck with this game that I can't seem to get anywhere on and my opponents all have advances, militaries, and territories that should not exist at that level. Frankly, there's a point where it's no longer fun to play the game. I'm all up for a challenge, but when conditions are like that, there is no challenge. There isn't even a game.
I looked at some message boards and a lot of people were saying the same thing. Minus the hardcore assholes who were all "oh, you just don't want a challenge! you aren't playing in the spirit of the game! I'm a 35 year old virgin living in my parents basement sicne I can't hold down a job because I play this game all the time and write fanfic based on it!" There was even a couple people who claimed to have been in development that admitted that the game cheats and cheats bad. A lot of people have the regular version and get through it with the few cheats that work. Those of us dumb enough to buy the GOTY edition are stuck unless we want to shell out more money for the complete edition.
I had been thinking about getting Civ 4, but reports call it crashalicious and I don't have the patience for that. So, for now it's back to Civ 2 for me. At least I'll be able to play the fucking game.
I'm sure this post will annoy one or two people who always complain that the Stripcreator forums aren't for complaining, but I really don't care. I'm frustrated and pissed off that I can't even enjoy my favorite game anymore. I don't care if I lose a game (can't win 'em all), but it's not a game if a player can't even sufficiently advance in the easiest levels. If this was Metal Gear Solid, I'd be reconsidering, since I suck at those kinds of games, but this is Civilization. This is the one type of game that I'm eerily good at.
Anyone else play Civ 3? Did you have these damned problems or do you have a different version? I heard that a new "feature" of Civ 3 was that the farther out your cities were from the capitol, the more corruption they fell into until they were useless, which players have been complaining about, pointing out it unneccesarliy limits players, and a few people said their computer opponents didn't seem to have that problem. I've also heard numerous bug reports and the complete edition is supposed to be a massive stockpile of patches for the game, so at this point I'm not ruling out that the game itself is somehow screwed up.
