Since I don't like Snitz's quotes when you reply...
- Re Diplomats : In Civ3 you can steal techs through a special screen, don't you like that too ? I can understand the use of a special unit, but it'd be like a unit that would destroy a city's wall or something like that. Even bribing could be nice. But diplomats in Civ2 and their enhanced versions the spies were SO powerful (sometimes I would buy many cities for little money until the AI was smart enough to revolt to democracy), with so many options in ONE unit, that sometimes I'd build only that and...
- Re Caravans
: Well, you agree they were too powerful. In Civ3 they were replaced by a diplomacy screen where you could set up trades and by leaders that could rush wonders. What do you prefer ? I think it was stupid to have units to just set up a trade route, not to run it, and I prefer rare units to randomly pop up to rush wonders than units that you could build when you want to rush those wonders (in fact it was like building a wonder with a few cities, that was so easy !).
- Re Supermarkets and highways : I liked them. You're right, probably something to think about for later stages of the game and railroads.
- Re Tech tree : Sometimes in Civ2 it would go like this (I'll take a false example because I can't exactly recall, and I didn't patch anything, I used the French version box that included Civ2 and the 2 expansion CDs). At some point in the game I would be asked to choose between Writing, Horseback Riding and Monarchy. I'd choose Monarchy and once I got it, only Writing would be offered, and I wouldn't be able to choose to research Horseback Riding for some reason.
I would get pissed by that. In Civ3 it can't happen : you have the tech tree in front of you, a well drawn tech tree, so it's the best one so far.
- Re Terraforming : Disagree about its reality, you can turn marsh and jungle into plains or grasslands, but not plains into desert or mountains into hills ! Not on such a large scale anyway. In gameplay, it tends to turn the landscape into a uniform layout and I find it boring. Civ3's nukes (which I have never seen so far) can turn lakes into desert, lol ! You can see some examples of such changes in the world, but on a very low level (Aral Sea...).
- Re Corruption : Yes that is my opinion (like the other points). Civ may turn into a game where expansionism isn't the key, and that will be good, and Civ4 may be a great leap towards this actually. But we were talking about Civ2, where it was better indeed.
- Re Larger maps : I think that standard map sizes and numbers of turns are balanced regarding what's happening in the game. If the game is built so that a smaller map and a lower number of turns are needed, then fine. Nothing prevents you to go into the editor and play on a 500x500 map. Good point about chess.
I was just trying to say that I don't think that the more the better. Same for options.
- Re Wonder movies and city view : Mmmh I said that the city view only was useless.
Even if the wonder movies aren't that needed anyway. But really, you liked to watch those movies a lot, didn't you ? How many times did you interrupt your game to stare at your city ? Me : once maybe.
I also have a biaised view, as I played this game a lot. As a general statement I'd say :
- I favour gameplay over realistic elements anytime.
- I try to meet realistic elements when gameplay doesn't suffer from it.
- A game won't necessarily get better if you add more units, features and stuff, it could get worse.