Which Civ game was better, Civ IV or Civ III?

I didn't play a lot of CIV III, but I'm sure I like CIV IV an awful lot more.
Easy gameplay, less pointless micromanagement, better graphics.

I hated III and now I like IV as much as II. (never played I)

Still trying to get a poll...

I loved Civ 1, I remember getting it on a really old PC, so old that to run the game you had to us a DOS promt!

Then Civ 2 came out, that game was probably the most groundbreakin, it added so much.

Civ 3 was great fun as well, I loved the whole resources addition

But Civ 4 takes the cookie.

But all of them are excellent games IMO

dutchking said:

^I left out II and I because most people haven't played them...

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How do you know that? You should do a poll to find out. There are many people here in their mid-twenties or older...

I like 3 and 4 both equally. However, I imagine that after BTS comes out 4 will end up better in my eyes. The great parts of 3 for me is the epic approach, the upgraded classic approach to the combat model, more serious tone to the game, and the more natural maps. To me, it felt more like a strategy game than 4 does.

4 also has its pros like the overflow splash, the AI is better at diplomacy, settlers and workers get 2 movement, and a better great people system.

Personally, I prefer the graphics in 3 over 4. About the only thing I like in 4 graphic-wise is the ability to see every building in a city from the main map view. And even though it is worthless for gameplay, I hope they give us a throne room or palace view in 4 before they call it done. It's like a trademark of Civ to me. Even though it has nothing to do with the gameplay itself, it would feel alot more like civ if that made its appearance back into the series. If they would have approached 4 with a more serious tone though, I would have enjoyed it more myself.

The original Civ, wjich I played on the Amiga was the best strategy game of its time and was the inspiration for a lot of other good games - MOO, MoM, and the strategic level of XCOM. Civ 2 was an mazing game, one the first I played on a home PC. it simply made a good game better. Civ 3 was a fairly good game, but didn't live up to the promise of the first two. I still plated because it was still Civ. Civ 4 cuaght the ild magic again and is probably the best TBS available today.

The Leaders don't "change clothes" in Civ IV whenever you begin a new era. They should. Come on Firaxis, spend some extra time to make the game complete.

And what's up with the catapults sacrificing themselves just to do a little collateral damage to a stack of units? That's utterly ridiculous. It doesn't have to be an exact simulation of reality but that doesn't even make sense! I want them to bombard enemy units without DYING. Just that fact alone makes me not want to play Civ IV.

And for some reason, it usually doesn't let me watch the battles when the AI attacks me... I wanna see EVERY battle that involves ME, whether I'm attacking or not.

The graphics on the combat animations in Civ III are just as good as in Civ IV. I liked the units having separate values for attack and defense...

And the Civ III Edit program totally owns Civ IV Worldbuilder!! It was so much easier and it was a separate program. Apparently Firaxis has never heard the saying, "IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT."

And what's up with the start locations that make you WASTE resources? Like you start kind of close to the coast but not on it and there will be fish, clams, and 3 tiles of land with gold and cattle you'll NEVER be able to get cuz of the lame spot the game chose for your first city to be... And nobody is going to spend 6 turns exploring the area before they build their 1st city.

I would've rather waited a long time for Firaxis to DO IT RIGHT and have Civ IV be the 2006 game of the year instead of '05, but no they had to rush it.

And religions, I'm still not sure how I feel about those.. I know that I don't wanna kiss the AI's arse just cuz everybody else has judaism and buddhism, I shouldn't have to choose what they choose... Maybe I wanna be Taoist without everybody declaring war on me!

Oh yeah, and it doesn't let you take off "Show Units over Cities" anymore! Maybe I wanna see my city in its full glory without the view being obstructed by "giant" units fortified over it!

However I do like Cottages and the additional types of Terrain.

Sorry I didn't meant to post twice. Where's the "delete post" button so I can delete this useless post?

Yep I defineately think I, II, III, and IV all should have been included. I never played I, but I did play II. It was what introduced me to the idea of strategy games. In my mind civ II is the truest of what the civilization games are all about. III improved it a little bit in all areas, and had the one huge change of introducing culture and civilization borders. Culture is in my opinion, the single biggest step in the civilization franchise. IV, in my opinion made the game much more mainstream. It was made much less tedious, but by doing this it lost it's great epic feeling.

So I'd say IV is the funnest at first, but gets boring the quickest. III and II are the true civ games.

jafink said:

Yep I defineately think I, II, III, and IV all should have been included. I never played I, but I did play II. It was what introduced me to the idea of strategy games. In my mind civ II is the truest of what the civilization games are all about. III improved it a little bit in all areas, and had the one huge change of introducing culture and civilization borders. Culture is in my opinion, the single biggest step in the civilization franchise. IV, in my opinion made the game much more mainstream. It was made much less tedious, but by doing this it lost it's great epic feeling.

So I'd say IV is the funnest at first, but gets boring the quickest. III and II are the true civ games.

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I agree with alot of what you said. I think personally the biggest thing to hurt civ's epic feeling is the change in atmosphere. 2 used actual portraits of the leaders for leaderheads. 3 went "3D" on them but tried to immitate realism as best they could. 4 went into cartoonish antics. Although, in 2 it was always funny in a cartoonish way to read the AI saying "Please do not destroy us, we are a peace loving civilization."
To me Civ 4 has an atmosphere like "Sim-ilization"

I still have all my original Civ 1, 2, 3 and 4 cd's.

Civ 1 I was die hard. Back in the day, it was a toss up between railroad tycoon and civ for what I would play that day.

Civ 2, lordy, I miss the wagon trains for building wonders. that was just sublime. The games took longer but I didnt mind at all.

Civ 3 I picked up about a month before Civ 4 came out, so I didn't actually play that one for too awful long. About a month after Civ4 came out I deleted it and haven't looked back.

Civ 4 is just love to me. Warlords made it better, anxiously awaiting BTS.

Best one for me would be II or IV.

King Flevance said:

To me Civ 4 has an atmosphere like "Sim-ilization"

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Haha that made me laugh... in agreement.

I voted IV, even though I miss the advisors...

dutchking said:

I voted IV, even though I miss the advisors...

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Yeah I miss the advisors too.

dutchking said:

Civ III gives you more choices...

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More choices of what?

I think it's interesting that they changed the city-to-city distance to 2 tiles.

Civ 4 definetly...i do miss civ 3 navies though

lol, prob civ 4..

But i was thinking...i kept getting maf errors so i started playing a game of civ on the super nintendo...omg that game is gay..(not gay as in sexually..obviously) u have to move every unit every turn..lol

I'm for Civ IV, I don't think it is even close. I thought CIV III was fun, but I didn't view it as a 'strategy' game. There was termendous skill, liek how to build a settler 'pump', but grand strategy was pretty much set. Expand like crazy in the early game. Get armies, build up to get artillery, build a large stack, whack everything in sight. Never build temples, they are a sign of weakness. cathefdrals? Worse yet. Since you conquer everything, build marektplaces and get the resources. Mind you, this could be a lot of fun, starting from way back and coming back on how levels. But for strategy I didn't think it was great.

I think CIV IV restored the game as to giving real trade-offs and decisions about strategy. I also think they improved the game across the board. Now we have to decide on civics for real, in CIV III Republic was pretty much the best government, we have religions, etc.

Breunor