Hey all,
I recently came back to the game because I wanted to see how things are progressing.
I played Civ II for about half a year and loved it. I played Civ III a bit a bit after it opened early access, and enjoyed it for the most part (it was still unfinished).
Now in Civ II I took that learning curve and came to enjoy the Hard games where I'd come out on top with a massive empire and crush everyone. Good fun.
At the start of Civ III, obviously because things were a bit different, game was still being made, I didn't find myself excelling past the AI but I was competitive. I built an industrial-military empire and had fun fighting wars against other empires that were roughly my size. Occassionally there'd be a freak AI that was like 30% bigger than everyone else, but for the most part around the same.
However, since I came back to the game last week or so the two most recent games I've had..what the hell?
Did the AI get a buff or something?
Or did players get a nerf?
I dont think I'm a terrible player. I'm not great by any means, but past experience both with this game and Civ II indicates I've been at least competitive.
It took me 168 turns to get 12 colonies (this was just bad luck - exploring in the wrong direction etc) and encounter the first AI species. I was at 109 power, they were at 230.
"Okay..." I thought, "that's weird...".
Then I encountered another alien species - boom, around the same power. Twice mine.
So I started a second game, thinking I might have just made a bad decision focusing on science/production to build things quick and research technologies. Maybe a more balanced approach?
Again, same thing. Didn't meet another species until about my 200th turn and they were double my power.
And this is normal.
I don't make any claim of being a great player or anything, but like I said in all my past experiences I've been competitive.
Has the game changed that much in the past few months or something? What am I missing? What am I doing wrong?
Any feedback is appreciated.