Oh yeah, the changing appearance of Civ3 leaderheads was a cool feature. At least it tried to address the absurdity of "Lincoln in the Stone Age" but I guess it might also draw more attention to it. They probably dropped it in later games as LHs became more demanding to make.
It also was nice for scenarios, since it increased the number of era and culture appropriate leaderheads available. I remember that medieval Lincoln was used for some Burgundian king in the Middle Ages scenario from Conquests.
Also, since Civ 3 had only 4 eras, it was probably more manageable. I haven't played unmodded Civ 4 in years, but IIRC, it has like 6 eras.
Also I want to say that I never really liked the aesthetics and tone for any Civ game including Civ4. Civ2 was very in love with the then novel windows drop down menu and context menu UI and suffers from it a lot. Civ4 has a very strange attempt at comic art style and exaggerated personality, it shines through in how a lot of the leaderheads are drawn clearly for comedic effect (Montezuma's tantrums come to mind) as well as some diplomatic messages that go in that direction (and you could say the games overall art style is comic oriented). Not sure where this was coming from really, but thinking about WC3 being in the same time period maybe it was just in the air. I never liked the shiny sleek UI and iconography design of Civ5. Art deco is so inherently modern which puts you out of touch with the historical setting of most of the game. Civ6 really just looks like a Facebook game to me, I still don't understand how this got released in whatever year it came out as a AAA game and wasn't soundly laughed out of the room. Sorry.
I thought Civ 3 had the nicest tone of any of the Civ games I played (3,4,5). Civ4Col also had a nice tone, but I guess it's easier to make a tonally consistent game when you're focused on one area and era.
I didn't much care for the Civ 5 UI, either, but I did like the terrain and leader graphics. Nor did I really like Civ 4's UI, although you and embryodead both made it better by turning it grey and brown respectively. I liked how the Civ 3 UI kind of looked like parchment, that added to the historical feel.
The nice thing about Civ 3 is, even though it wasn't very moddable and had some flaws is, it tried to make all the eras distinct. Distinct music, leaders changing clothes, advisers changing clothes. The eras don't feel nearly as distinct aesthetically in Civ 4, and not at all in Civ 5, where, from 4000 BC to 2000 AD, there is the same music, the same leader costumes, the hyper-modern UI.
Completely agree about Civ 6 looking like a Facebook or mobile game. I found it very oftputting, I played at most an hour or two of Civ 6, because my brother has it and I was curious. I also think the Civ 6 leaderheads are a big step back...far fewer voiced lines, way more cartoony, and not even a full background.
I haven't thought about it, but sure.
Awesome
It is, but sometimes you also do want a straight coastline and it looks weird with the hex shaped jigsaw pattern. The fact that hexes allow straight horizontal arrangements but not straight vertical arrangements always bothered me.
It's not the straight coastline that I dislike, but whenever you have a coastline that should be rounded or diagonal and is just blocky. I'm sure they could have easily fixed this in the exe, which, IIRC, is the only part of Civ 4 that is still not moddable, almost 2 decades later. Civ 3's coastlines seemed less blocky to me.
