CIV3, Better then the rest?

[Theov]

^ No I really meant 2001 not 2011. Besides Oct 2011 would make me a time traveller.

That's ok, some of my best friends are time travelers.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

I got Civ 3 back in November '06 when I was 10. It immediately became my favorite game of all time, I can't say exactly why I like it so much, but there's just something about the feel of the game that neither civ 4 or 5 had.

 

[scratchthepitch]

I don't know if Civ3 is better than 5, I have not played 5 (and wont as long as it requires steam). But I have played Civ1 through 4, and 3 was the most enjoyable of these. Second rank would be 2, which I thought was good for its day. I found 4 just plain childish, idiotic and tedious, definitely a retrograde move, and I never was much impressed by the first version. The switch from strategy to accounting between 3 and 4 really killed the franchise for me and I lost interest after that.

 

[Dishpan_Hans]

Civ 3 is still the best in my book.

Never played Civ5, would need a better computer to even load it. I hate the idea of paid download extra Civs.

I played vanilla Civ 4, never quite got into it. I'm willing to try it again, but I've misplaced one of the disks. I liked the alternate terrain development options. Religion left me cold. I disliked the restrictions on ship movement due to borders and capablilties (IIRC). And I also did not care for the game graphics.


What I miss from Civ 2 were the religious fanaticism government, the random attacks by seagoing pirate/barbarians (or was that just in Civ 1?), the potential splitting of an empire by taking their capital, and the later age barbarian uprisings in the countryside (post ancient units, as opposed to Civ 3 where barbarians are limited to 3 ancient units only). Also, the spy unit was more fun than paying gold to attempt espionage/sabotage...though I see why they went that direction in Civ 3.

Civ 2 had a lot of gratuitous stuff, the live action advisors, the wonder movies...most of which was ignored after your first few games (well, maybe occassionally revisiting the lovely espionage advisor and the always amusing Elvis impersonator).

CIV, the original...the infamous defending spearman who destroy attacking battleships. Amusing that this hasn't entirely gone away...catapult defeating panzers?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I like both III and IV. they are very different, but both very rich games (especially with conquests/BtS)

It's easier to build a big honking army in Civ III, though.

I don't play either of them all that much, though.

 

[Ataxerxes]

I like both III and IV. they are very different, but both very rich games (especially with conquests/BtS)

It's easier to build a big honking army in Civ III, though.

I don't play either of them all that much, though.

I also like both III and IV. And BTS is the only way to play IV. IV is more complicated with diplomacy mattering more, among other things. III is more of a war game than IV.

With III being an older game, it plays huge maps a lot better than IV. It takes a while between turns on huge maps in the late game in IV.

Rhye's mods are fantastic for both games.

 

[geowzrd]

Civ 3 will always have a special place in my heart for introducing me to Civ and Sid Meier games in general. However, despite its flaws, my favorite would probably be BTS.

 

[Buttercup]

I'm kind of amazed by this thread. Everyone is comparing civ3 to civ4 and civ5 but only the odd mention is made to civ2, easily the best of the bunch!

As has been mentioned before by one poster, having an enemy's civ split in two via a revolution (or your own!) by itself counts as to why civ2 is THE best of the series.

And that's before you even begin to discuss many other aspects (such as the workers advancing to engineers, naval and air attacks being full attacks, terraforming the landscape, LEGIONS, to name but a few )

 

[creamcheese]

I'm kind of amazed by this thread. Everyone is comparing civ3 to civ4 and civ5 but only the odd mention is made to civ2, easily the best of the bunch!

As has been mentioned before by one poster, having an enemy's civ split in two via a revolution (or your own!) by itself counts as to why civ2 is THE best of the series.

And that's before you even begin to discuss many other aspects (such as the workers advancing to engineers, naval and air attacks being full attacks, terraforming the landscape, LEGIONS, to name but a few )

Ever played Alpha Centauri? May not be your cup of tea (people tend to love it or hate it), but I like to think it combined good features of all the 2nd&3rd civ games. Easily my favorite of the series (if you count it as a civ game anyway...)

 

[Spoonwood]

I'm kind of amazed by this thread. Everyone is comparing civ3 to civ4 and civ5 but only the odd mention is made to civ2, easily the best of the bunch!

As has been mentioned before by one poster, having an enemy's civ split in two via a revolution (or your own!) by itself counts as to why civ2 is THE best of the series.

And that's before you even begin to discuss many other aspects (such as the workers advancing to engineers, naval and air attacks being full attacks, terraforming the landscape, LEGIONS, to name but a few )

You forgot about how much sense it makes to build Hoover's Dam with 5+ caravans.

 

[Buttercup]

Ever played Alpha Centauri? May not be your cup of tea (people tend to love it or hate it), but I like to think it combined good features of all the 2nd&3rd civ games. Easily my favorite of the series (if you count it as a civ game anyway...)

I have, and while I agree with your assessment (that is also the assessment of many others) you are also right that it's not my cup of tea. It's the fact that is uses so much science-speak which I can't relate to as science is one of my weak subjects, so I can never remember the name for anything

You forgot about how much sense it makes to build Hoover's Dam with 5+ caravans.

Lol, there's little pockets of nonsense in all the civ games as far as I'm aware and to make a comparison based on the funnier negativities of each I feel is the wrong direction to take for this discussion.

Basically, what the problem was and why there was so much fuss was that for the conversion from civ2 to civ3 they essentially removed all the good and fun elements of civ2 and replaced them a whole new set of good and fun elements for civ3 while not doing a thing about all the bad elements from civ2.

So what happened was that all the fans of civ2 felt they had been robbed of an improved game and were instead given a completely different same game if that makes sense.

In both games diplomacy sucks, but in civ3 they made it worse by not even permitting equal trades, the AI always wants more than what you're offering.

In both games the AI will complete a wonder one turn before you when you have no other wonder to switch to. Why can't two civs build the pyramids? And how about a page which shows the progression of all the world's wonders, for example, that would feel like an improvement in game mechanics. And for civ3 you even get less graphics in that you don't get the wonder video which makes you feel like you've done something really special. They also downgraded Leonardo's Workshop and many others making everything feel like it was a regression. The small wonders was a nice idea however.

In both games the AI will prioritise settling around you and trying it's best to block you in, even when it 'doesn't know (cough cough) you exist. Here civ3 made an improvement with the culture boundaries so that you don't have to spam pointless half-towns too fill gaps in you territory but then stole the sense of improvement by not allowing your town it's full territory space until you had cultured it - which brings us to the biggest evil of civ3 - the insane corruption levels which force you to buy culture improvements in your pointless border towns which al want to do is fill with troops but can't because they can switch allegiance at the drop of a hat and your troops mysteriously vanish like some horror film cliché.

Civ3's big 'winners' are resources (non existent in civ2) and Unique Units. However, again, one can feel a bit cheated if one is left with nothing but spearmen and archers right from 4000BC until Nationalism around 1000ADish (it's also not so fun), but yes, it is kind of fun being forced to find ways to get them. Unique Units are great, this is a genuine improvement. Wouldn't it have been great if they went the whole hog though and made almost all troops unique except for a few standards (such as standing riflemen and battleships).

Soundbite: I think it was a classic example of mending stuff that didn't need to be mended and not mending that that did causing classic gamer outrage.

 

[Arska]

I always felt Civ3 is simple enough to learn, but still hard to master (just like a challenging and entertaining game should be). Kind of like Mega-lo-mania for Amiga in the early 90s, for the old hacks.

 

[Jivilov]

Actually, C3C > C4. Why? Here's a few reasons:

1) Expansion is simple and straightforward. No need to beeline for CoL 'cuz you're hemorrhaging gold with just a handful of cities. (True, ICS has been abused but it's possible to win at higher levels without resorting to it.)
2) As per Strong Reactions' comments above, the combat system is consistent and sensible.
a) Each unit has strengths and weaknesses reflected in their attack/defense values. No need to give grenadiers special advantages over riflemen (how come?), riflemen over mounted units, etc.
b) Mounted units can usually retreat from groundpounders (although apparently not so much with v1.22), which demonstrates their superior mobility. (Of course, they shouldn't have this advantage attacking cities, but hey, nothing's perfect, eh?)
c) Bombardment units are missile units. They do not engage in melee in real life, and they don't do it in C3C. Apparently, it's used in C4 to discourage SOD's. But wasn't there a better way?
d) City defenses are empirical, based on walls and settlement size. There are no "cultural defenses" that must be reduced before assaulting (like, were the Mongols baffled by Chinese arts and letters?).
e) Air bombardment can be lethal, as it should be. Some players think it makes bombers too powerful, but consider the impact real bombers--dive-, torpedo-, and level--had over land and sea during WWII, not to mention the present day.
f) Combat can spawn great military leaders. They can build powerful armies or inspire their subjects/citizens to heroic efforts at construction, features that echo what actually happened historically. Yet GML's are totally absent from vanilla C4, while the GML in Warlords just isn't the same (sorry, haven't played BTS or COL).
3)There are several practical ways of winning at higher difficulty on standard maps, especially domination, diplomatic, and space race. Unfortunately with C4 at, say, Noble or above, it's almost always space race, space race, or space race (I dunno about cultural, if you wanna play it).
4) Unit and combat animations are simple but neatly done (IMHO, anyway). They don't have the cartoonish looks and sounds of C4.
5) You can play warmonger during the modern age. With C4 you almost always have to knock it off around the end of industrial or face the risk of falling hopelessly behind tech-wise. In fact, it's hard to fight wars for long at any age for the same reason. At least in C3C you have the possibility of extorting techs from your victims (not nice, but the world just isn't fair!), even if nobody else trades with you.
6) Oh yeah, "...and no religion too."
Thanks for your kind attention, and don't let me stop you from playing your fave Civ version!

 

[Elephantium]

Actually, C3C > C4. Why? Here's a few reasons:

5) You can play warmonger during the modern age. With C4 you almost always have to knock it off around the end of industrial or face the risk of falling hopelessly behind tech-wise. In fact, it's hard to fight wars for long at any age for the same reason. At least in C3C you have the possibility of extorting techs from your victims (not nice, but the world just isn't fair!), even if nobody else trades with you.

As Always War games show, you can even keep up in tech while warring continuously without extorting techs from your victims!

 

[Jivilov]

That's interesting Elephantium. Have you ever played AW with C4? Is it even remotely possible?

 

[ThERat]

AW is not very enjoyable in Civ 4 due to various reasons. One might be that the AI has been designed to be smarter than in Civ 3, which sort of takes the fun away.

Another reason is the absence of a war weariness negating government, that's just plain unfun.

We have played quite a few AW games in the early days, you might want to read up on them in the Civ 4 SG section.

 

[Jivilov]

Thanks ThERat. I'll check it out. Despite my biases , I've had lotsa fun with C4, and I appreciate any suggestions to improve my play. Incidentally, what's SG? Oops, sorry, it's Succession Games, lazy me. Cheerio...and I presume you've had plenty more experience than me. Enjoy.

 

[Yamamoto]

Actually, C3C > C4. Why? Here's a few reasons:

1) Expansion is simple and straightforward. No need to beeline for CoL 'cuz you're hemorrhaging gold with just a handful of cities. (True, ICS has been abused but it's possible to win at higher levels without resorting to it.)
2) As per Strong Reactions' comments above, the combat system is consistent and sensible.
a) Each unit has strengths and weaknesses reflected in their attack/defense values. No need to give grenadiers special advantages over riflemen (how come?), riflemen over mounted units, etc.
b) Mounted units can usually retreat from groundpounders (although apparently not so much with v1.22), which demonstrates their superior mobility. (Of course, they shouldn't have this advantage attacking cities, but hey, nothing's perfect, eh?)
c) Bombardment units are missile units. They do not engage in melee in real life, and they don't do it in C3C. Apparently, it's used in C4 to discourage SOD's. But wasn't there a better way?
d) City defenses are empirical, based on walls and settlement size. There are no "cultural defenses" that must be reduced before assaulting (like, were the Mongols baffled by Chinese arts and letters?).
e) Air bombardment can be lethal, as it should be. Some players think it makes bombers too powerful, but consider the impact real bombers--dive-, torpedo-, and level--had over land and sea during WWII, not to mention the present day.
f) Combat can spawn great military leaders. They can build powerful armies or inspire their subjects/citizens to heroic efforts at construction, features that echo what actually happened historically. Yet GML's are totally absent from vanilla C4, while the GML in Warlords just isn't the same (sorry, haven't played BTS or COL).
3)There are several practical ways of winning at higher difficulty on standard maps, especially domination, diplomatic, and space race. Unfortunately with C4 at, say, Noble or above, it's almost always space race, space race, or space race (I dunno about cultural, if you wanna play it).
4) Unit and combat animations are simple but neatly done (IMHO, anyway). They don't have the cartoonish looks and sounds of C4.
5) You can play warmonger during the modern age. With C4 you almost always have to knock it off around the end of industrial or face the risk of falling hopelessly behind tech-wise. In fact, it's hard to fight wars for long at any age for the same reason. At least in C3C you have the possibility of extorting techs from your victims (not nice, but the world just isn't fair!), even if nobody else trades with you.
6) Oh yeah, "...and no religion too."
Thanks for your kind attention, and don't let me stop you from playing your fave Civ version!

Well said! I missed civ3...

 

[Starhemberg]

hi guys,
civ III is only 3,5 euros on steam now so i am taking it in consideration to buy it.
i mean oldschool gaming FTW.
is there any possibility to strech the resolution to 1920x1080?

 

[vmxa]

The highest mentioned in the ini is 1792. I run on 1990x1440 and use Keepres=1.