Civ III

[Walsingham]

Has anyone ever heard of a mod that prevents the AI players from conductng tehir horrendous cheating? I'm talking about their capacity to produce units at fixed rates irrespective of actual resources available to a given city, or indeed time available. Or their tendency to create wonders at unrealistic rates, or terraform <sic> terrain without sending out workers. This sort of stuff. I have tried everywhere I can think of outside of joining a civ III forum. I believe in you guys more. Help me out.

[metadigital]

No. Google a Civ 3 forum (using the "site:" parameter) is my best advice.

 

But remember that this is how the game manages difficulty settings, so you would be effecctively playing on the easiest setting, or easier. You might also want to check out the civ3.ini file.

[Guest Fishboot]

Has anyone ever heard of a mod that prevents the AI players from conductng tehir horrendous cheating? I'm talking about their capacity to produce units at fixed rates irrespective of actual resources available to a given city, or indeed time available. Or their tendency to create wonders at unrealistic rates, or terraform <sic> terrain without sending out workers. This sort of stuff. I have tried everywhere I can think of outside of joining a civ III forum. I believe in you guys more. Help me out.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I think that the "Prince" difficulty level is equivalent to giving the AI no production or unit advantages. I'm fairly sure that the only foreknowledge the AI is given is where special resource squares are (the kind that the human player needs particular advances to see) as a kludge to help out the AI a bit in the strategic department.

[Walsingham]

I have tried googling their pages, to no avail. I guess it may be too deep in teh system to be modded.

 

In any case i don't mind things being hard, but it makes all planning and strategy pointless. The only logistics approaches that have any effect are cutting out the key resources, and even then, because of the 'free' magic goblin workers the Ai can still cheat!

 

I'm about *this* far from uninstalling it and giving my copies to charity.

[metadigital]

I always preferred Civ2, personally. The only downside to Civ2 was how ugly the railroads looked, especially when they covered the entire landmass ...

[Guest Fishboot]

I always preferred Civ2, personally. The only downside to Civ2 was how ugly the railroads looked, especially when they covered the entire landmass ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I like Civ I - the games were immensely faster, and the complications added by the later games didn't really add much. The only really annoying thing is that all military units only have one hitpoint, making the "phalanx kills a tank" problem much more pronounced, and it means to guarantee success in a military adventure and beat those gaussian probability curves your military must be not just superior but utterly dominant.

 

Of course, Master of Orion is probably my favorite "4X" game. Or maybe Alpha Centauri - the fact that they had multiple paths for "land exploitation" (utilizing Centari ecology vs. forestation vs. Civ-like farming and mining vs. aquatization) was very original and strategy-promoting, and the customized military units were very interesting as well.

[metadigital]

I should really get Alpha Centauri ...

[Calax]

I liked Call to Power simply because it was so complex. and if you had one underwater city you didn't need to worry about anything. Heck i've even triggered global warming to end the game.

[metadigital]

I always liked Marine Boy and his oxygum ...

http://www.melaman2.com/cartoons/singles/mp3/marineboy.mp3

 

[Reveilled]

Try the Civilization Fanatics Forums. The users post tons of mods onto their forums, and if the mod you're looking for is anywhere, it's there.

 

And yes Meta, you should get Alpha Centauri. It is the best TBS strategy game ever, and if you don't than I'm afraid I'll have to nerve staple you. Sorry, but it's Morganite Company Policy. "

[metadigital]

What is this: ?

[Reveilled]

What is this:   ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It's an emoticon representing a nerve stapled drone.

 

If you want an actual explanation, civil disorder in Civilization is replaced by Drone Riots in Alpha Centauri. You can stop drone riots either by making less people drones (representing unhappy citizens, but in SMAC they represent the equivalent of the Epsilons of Brave New World), making more people Talents (Happy citizens, or Alphas), or by stapling mind controlling devices into the brains of the drones through a horrendously painful process to force them to do your bidding.

 

Just one of the many horrendous atrocities you can commit in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

[metadigital]

Wow! That sounds great! (w00t)

[Reveilled]

Wow! That sounds great! (w00t)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Could I possibly interest you in a Nerve Gas attack? Perhaps the wholesale murder of the entire inhabitants of a large city? How about the excruciatingly painful and eternal torture of your defeated enemies? Or maybe you're the sort of man who likes to not just destroy the city, but wipe it off the face of Planet and sink the surrounding land into the sea?

 

Rest assured, if you wish to commit acts of unmitigated evil, SMAC will find some way to accommodate you.

 

Of course, you could be a wussy nice guy with a democratic and peace loving society, but what's the fun in being the U.N. Peacekeepers when you can be the peace loving (for war is peace, as you know) Communist Utopia that is the Human Hive? Gas those Bourgeios Peacekeepers into the ground and nerve staple them to make sure they stay there! Bwhahaha!

[metadigital]

Sounds like both Steve and I could play this game with relish ..!

[Cantousent]

It used to be that I went to WoT and shook my head at all the ridiculous non-sense. Now I come here. Nerve stapled drone and marine boy? :Eldar's shaking his head at all the non-sense icon:

 

BTW: Civ III is truly one of the most over-hyped, over-rated games I have ever played. They create the game, promising multiplayer. Then they publish the game without multiplayer. Then they create an expansion for which players must pay to get the multiplayer component promised during development. Then the game relies on ridiculously cheating AI rather that a steady increase in logic. I finished a game on Monarch and then decided that it was time to do something fun. I didn't buy the expansion, much to the chagrin of my friends who wanted to play on the lan. (I'd let them play, but I wasn't going to join.)

 

As far as getting rid of the cheating aspect, I really do think it's better to just play at Prince if you hate the cheating nature of the AI. Otherwise, you can use cheats to destroy a certain number of enemy units or reset their production. It's been a long time since I've tinkered with any Civ games, though, so I don't know if that's feasible.

[Walsingham]

Agreed. I think that it was basically a multiplayer game that they tacked some 'AI' onto to sell to singleplayers. Blech.

 

I'd play Alpha centauri, but I can't find an XP compatible version anywhere.

[Reveilled]

Agreed. I think that it was basically a multiplayer game that they tacked some 'AI' onto to sell to singleplayers. Blech.

 

I'd play Alpha centauri, but I can't find an XP compatible version anywhere.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hmm? Unless you mean that you can only find the Mac version, the Windows version is XP compatible.

 

You're in the UK, right?

Here it is on Amazon.

[Oerwinde]

I have the Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack and I can't get it to work on my XP machine. I even downloaded the fix from the firaxis site and still nothing.

[Reveilled]

I have the Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack and I can't get it to work on my XP machine. I even downloaded the fix from the firaxis site and still nothing.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Strange. I've never had any trouble getting either Alpha Centauri or Alien Crossfire to work on my XP machine. Have you tried running it in compatibility mode?

[Walsingham]

Yep. Yet again the fabled and highly suspect compatibility mode does Jack. I have never got it to work for ANYTHING.

[~Di]

I have tried googling their pages, to no avail. I guess it may be too deep in teh system to be modded.

 

In any case i don't mind things being hard, but it makes all planning and strategy pointless. The only logistics approaches that have any effect are cutting out the key resources, and even then, because of the 'free' magic goblin workers the Ai can still cheat!

 

I'm about *this* far from uninstalling it and giving my copies to charity.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That's exactly what I did with my copy of CivIII... only I trashed it, because I have too much respect for charities. The AI cheat mode made that game an exercise in utter futility, IMHO. No strategy required, since nothing the player did mattered in the end. Since I absolutely adored Civ, Civ II and Alpha Centauri, to say I was dreadfully disappointed in CivIII is an understatement. I have no intention of buying Civ4 unless and until it's been out for enough months that players can assure me the rotten, cheating AI has been eliminated. Permanently.

[Deraldin]

Yep. Yet again the fabled and highly suspect compatibility mode does Jack. I have never got it to work for ANYTHING.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I've actually gotten compatability mode to work for a number of games including Command and Conquer (Red Alert and the original) and Fallen Haven.

 

Something that worked for Red Alert that might work here: Have you tried setting the installation file into compatability mode? Make a shortcut to it on the desktop and set the compatability mode for the shortcut. Once it's installed set the game itself into compatability mode as well.

 

Not sure if it will work, but it's worked for other games so it's worth a shot.

[metadigital]

It used to be that I went to WoT and shook my head at all the ridiculous non-sense.  Now I come here.  Nerve stapled drone and marine boy?  :Eldar's shaking his head at all the non-sense icon:

 

BTW:  Civ III is truly one of the most over-hyped, over-rated games I have ever played.  They create the game, promising multiplayer. Then they publish the game without multiplayer.  Then they create an expansion for which players must pay to get the multiplayer component promised during development.  Then the game relies on ridiculously cheating AI rather that a steady increase in logic.  I finished a game on Monarch and then decided that it was time to do something fun.  I didn't buy the expansion, much to the chagrin of my friends who wanted to play on the lan.  (I'd let them play, but I wasn't going to join.)

 

As far as getting rid of the cheating aspect, I really do think it's better to just play at Prince if you hate the cheating nature of the AI.  Otherwise, you can use cheats to destroy a certain number of enemy units or reset their production.  It's been a long time since I've tinkered with any Civ games, though, so I don't know if that's feasible.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[alanschu]

The AI cheated in the previous Civ games too though. Why only chastize Civ 3 for it?