[Fyron]

"I wasnt talking about the graphics engine. I was refering to the overall engine."

The overall engine is fairly poor by strategy game standards, actually.

"I find this comment completly unfounded, for a number of reasons.
1) They simply do NOT charge you an arm and a leg for techs. Granted, quite a few times it may not be tech for tech trade, but if you think about it, many times this makes sense. Is gunpowder really worth Animal husbandary? To a military race, it isnt, and the AI takes note of that and deals witht the techs accordingly."

Yes they do. 1000s of gold for techs is an arm and a leg. 4+ "new" techs for an obselete technology of little value other than a stepping stone is an arm and a leg. The first couple are cheap, but they get exponentially more expensive.

"2) The idea that they basically give away their techs to other AIs is just a accusation. In the games of Civ3 that I have played (and that is a lot), the tech levels of the AIs is never uniform, it is always different. This in itself leads us to believe that they simply do not trade off their techs, but horde them like the user does. Again, some techs are fairly common to see, simply because they are such big important techs. But until you can prove this cheap theory to me, Im calling BS."

Ok... the AIs that make some money are able to purchase techs from each other cheaply. The really crappy empires don't get much of this tech sharing, but the bigger ones do. Every game I have played directly supports my statement. The richer AIs get more techs than they could possibly research in a given time frame, without spending huge fortunes of money to buy them, as the player must do. This is not BS, it is what the AIs did in every game of Civ3 I played.

"Give the names of the games, then we'll talk. Unparalleled may have been a fanboy exageration, but it isnt as bad as you play it out to be. Simply looking at the options availible to you shows a decent amount of thought was put into it. YES, i know thats going to annoy you because it IS almost just eye canday, but it is important to note the equations used in the engine to control the demand and dealing the the AI does depending on the worth of certain items. "

Yes, and it all boils down to the AI always ripping you off by a huge margin, except sometimes in the very early stages of the game.

I am sure others can name many games with good political systems in them.

SE4 has as complex a diplomatic model (if not actually more complex). It just has poor AIs that don't use it well. GalCiv, MOO2, MOO3 all have better diplomatic/political models than Civ3. I am sure there are plenty of games I haven't played with equal to or better than systems than Civ3.

"See, the same can be done in Civ3... its called Regent Difficulty (I may be wrong on the exact name.. corret me if im wrong). At that level, the AI is on full steam with no bonuses. Thats high difficulty with NO bonuses. Just what you wanted. Put it up higher, and the AI gets the bonuses as well. Its JUST LIKE SEIV ONLY WITH A DIFFERENT SETUP/NAMING."

No, all levels except the lowest few have bonuses. The higher difficulty levels in Civ3 are difficulty + bonus. You can not choose one over the other. You have to take both. It is most certainly not like how SE4 handles it in any way.

"Things to note:
1) More wild accusations about AI cheating"

The AIs get bonuses to production based off of the difficulty level. They get bonuses to trade income. They get bonuses to trading with other AIs cause they don't rip each other off like they do humans. They get unseen bonuses to combat that make your units lose more often on higher difficulty levels. All of this is rampant cheating. They are in no way wild. They are based off of observations of the game mechanics.

"2) Accurate note of the fact that AI cheating doesnt matter BECAUSE it is ultimatly controlable by the user, AND because that said user can still beat it."

Only if you go with a low difficulty level, as level of cheating is directly intertwined with difficulty in Civ3.

"3) Fyron's got one of those word Calendars, and today's seems to be "Rampant"."

Well sorry if I have a large vocabulary...

"You called me on my "Good Engine" comment, im calling you on this one."

Go search for threads on Civ3 if you want to see them. There were a number of them... if you can't find them, I will find them for you tomorrow after I wake up.

"See, i just do not agree with this comment. First off, they carry on the Civ legacy simply by making this game. Does this game suck? No. Does it go completly backward? No. Is it Warcraft 2 with nations? No. Like it or not, it DOES carry on the Civ legacy."

No it doesn't. It is a deevolution of the Civ series from Civ 2 (and expansions), SMAC, etc. It stripped away all of the great new features of those games. This is why it does not carry on the Civ legacy.

"Yes, I would have liked to see more improvements, Yes, they could have built on some things, but you make this look to be like Battlecruiser 3000AD when it is most certainly not. Most of the imporvements are still in the game, along with some orginal ones which i very much enjoy. And before you call me out on that comment, just think Culture."

No, most of the improvements of Civ2 are not in the game. Firepower + Hit Points, Events, tons of unit abilities, etc.

The culture system of Civ3 is not an improvement...

"Civ3 does come off like that, I do agree, but if you look deeper, i think it shows its roots and you can see that it truely is a good game."

I tried to find the good in it for months. But, there was none to be found.

"And again, more slander against Civ3."

Well there are only bad things to say about Civ3. It is not deserving of praise.

"You're right, I didnt, and I hope this reply gives you some pause before you run rampant over me again."

I wasn't running rampant over you, just posting counter-statements.

Sleep time...