http://apolyton.net/news/011205.shtml

Amazingly, they fixed everything I disliked, and used virtually all of the good suggestions off the apolyton.net boards.

Still no super-automated pollution workers, but that's literally the only thing missing for me.

Dayum, they really went all out on this patch. I can't wait to see it in action.

Ok, I read the whole thing. Glazed over a bit... looks like there were lots of typos and small stuff I didn't even notice. Is there anything in there that makes it so rival civs don't start so damn close to you in the game? The slowdown on a huge map with 16 civs? Or, the difficulty inherant in most starting locations?

How about adding civ start locations in maps? I still want a world map with "realistic" Civ start locales.

Also, is anyone still playing Civ3? I'm just wondering, I stopped a couple weeks ago. Partially to wait for a patch, but mostly because of other game assignments.

-Andrew

I was playing Civ III heavily until Wizardry 8 came along, now I'm totally engrossed in that wonderous game.

The AI hemming you in with cities: design decision.

Start locations: Next patch.

Slowdown: Well, it is a huge map. No idea.

Lousy starting locations: Nope. Maybe next patch.


I've been trying to beat the Emperor and Diety skill levels; I've almost got an Emperor game in the bag. Since the AI gets production and research bonuses, the only way to win is to beat them badly enough that they agree to more or less be your slave (every tech, an insane amount of gold a turn).

That, and *lots* of using population-killing rush builds. Excuse me, the manual says "they become unhappy and leave," not that you work them to death.

I'm still playing Civ 3. For some reason, thge learning curve for me on this game was really slow. It took me a long time just to figure out to boost my research level really high early in the game to get ahead of the other civs, for instance. I seem to be a little greatness challenged with my playing...

I'm still playing -- 'course, I got a later start than most of you, but I'm absolutely enthralled. Haven't actually read what the patch does yet, but I don't have any real issues with the game.

I've been waiting for the patch, so it looks like I'll be playing again soon. Of course without multiplayer, it'll probably go into my short term game rotation instead of earning a long-term spot like SMAC.

- Alan

I know what you're saying. I'm eagerly awaiting the multiplayer functionality. (Please, God, let it be through a patch, not a special 'Gold Edition' game...)

If you want to automate your workers to clean up polution, try Shift-P.

The latest Detonator drivers (official ones that is 23.11 from NVIDIA's site) seem to fix the slow-scrolling bug in Windows XP. So I started playing again last night, and it's taking me literally half the time to get to a given year as before.

I still think the dificultly levels are skewed too hard. The easiest level should be a cakewalk for nearly everyone, and it's definitely not. Winning on the 3rd level (out of, what, six?) is a nightmare unless you play ONE specific way, as far as I can tell.

Maybe some of the balance changes in the patch will help that.

My new favorite tactic is to try to get ahead on tech early, and then bankrupt all the other players by selling it to them. Hit the 'ol diplomacy screen and offer up some tech, then ask them what they'll give you for it. Usually it's damn near everything in their bank account, and often a good amount of "gold per turn." So they have the tech, but they can't do anything with it and their entire civ slows down as they have to re-balance production to keep from going broke.

Plus, you get all this cash to pump into research! HA!

You still can't play the Turtle like in old Civ games, with only four or five cities growing really big really fast. You need more than that to have enough research and production to turtle effectively. But the tactic helps. There's just too big a gap between Aqueduct and Hospital - when I try to Turtle, I have cities stuck at 12 for a really long time. =/

'If you want to automate your workers to clean up polution, try Shift-P.'

Oh, that works until there's a turn with no pollution; then you need to tell them all to sleep, and then the next time there's pollution, wake them all back up. It's tedious, but I think they're saying now the Shift-A autoimprove command will do the clean pollution/sleep cycle without intervention.

Yep, that's what I discovered today, Shift-A actually seems to put a higher priority on pollution than terrain improvements. So, it actually means I pay even less attention to my workers than with shift-P

Shift-A, right now, works until they run out of stuff to improve, then they (conveniently) move to the nearest city and you have to Sleep them or spacebar them every turn.

-Andrew

They're supposed to auto-sleep then wake in the patch. Ye-ha.

Hey, before I apply the patch, how do I use THIS "feature"? :-)

>Player is no longer able to extort 200000000+ >gold per turn from the AI.