From civ 3 to civ 2

I found my old disc for civ 2 and I tried playing it. Oh boy it crashed like 20 times before it played. Then it crashed again lol!

I wish civ 3 would have kept things like partisans and the way zone of control worked and the AI would build fortresses all over. It make conquest very rewarding. You did not just roll through their land without a fight.

I never got over it :/ Someone needs to combine the 2 games when they release the civ 3 code in 2050.

well, the ZoC didn´t work

you simply used a unit immune to it (planes, spies, ... iirc) and followed with regular units.

i like the c3c´s ZoC much better actually.

t_x

I liked that you could split the opponent's empire by conquering their capital and triggering a civil war, and the partisans were a nice idea, but I could never go back to Civ 2. The borders, culture, unique civilization traits, artillery as bombardment, and many other concepts introduced in Civ 3 make the game much more engrossing. I don't think I've played Civ 2 since 2001.

I just bought the civ2 App for the iPad. It's horrible.

The thing that always gets me in Civs 1-2 is the localized unit support. My brain is so Civ 3 hardwired that not being able to pump units out of one location is crazy to me. I also like the peaceful victory options in Civ 3. It's a lot of fun for someone who is more of a builder.

As far as things I'd love to see again, the spies were pretty cool. Also, I found my Alpha Centauri disk the other day, and the unit workshop is something I'd love to see integrated into Civ 3 (and the other games I guess, but who cares about those ). The ability to choose whether to crank out a whole bunch of cheap units or a few really strong ones is great.

Is Civ 3 considered the best version of the game or is that only a view held by Civ 3 players? I have not tried any of the others. I have watched my son play Civ 5 and I don't like the look of it. One of the things I really like about Civ 3 are the graphics which are just about perfect IMO

walletta said:

Is Civ 3 considered the best version of the game or is that only a view held by Civ 3 players? I have not tried any of the others. I have watched my son play Civ 5 and I don't like the look of it. One of the things I really like about Civ 3 are the graphics which are just about perfect IMO

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From what I've seen it's a hotly contested and polarized topic. There are some (like me) who think that Civ 3 is the best, and there are others who think that Civ 3 is the worst and that 4 is the best. I have seen people argue that 2 is the best, but I don't recall anyone championing 5 as being the best.

walletta said:

Is Civ 3 considered the best version of the game or is that only a view held by Civ 3 players? I have not tried any of the others. I have watched my son play Civ 5 and I don't like the look of it. One of the things I really like about Civ 3 are the graphics which are just about perfect IMO

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Yup, it's hotly contested.

The Civ2 crowd is really devoted; they've figured out ways to make a 16bit game work with 64bit Windows 7 and 8, for cryin' out loud. I liked the wonder movies, and the advisors, and the elastic nature of science and commerce. One could (I tried, and didn't really execute it well) get insane amounts of science and tech by building caravans and freight units, and delivering them to the proper cities. Units defending in a city were really, really hard to beat, IIRC.

The Civ3 group (here) love the streamlined graphics, cultural boundaries, unique units, and many gameplay improvments over Civ2. Certain Civ4 concepts seem overcomplex, and the Civ4 graphics have few fans here. The game also runs *fast* on modern computers; much much faster than Civ5.

The Civ4 fans feel that it is the logical conclusion and most evolved version of the Civ 1-2-3 generation. Spies are units again, and their missions make sense. Governments are not simple choices (republic/monarchy/democracy) but a set of interlocking civics, which can be / must be changed at different points in the game to best suit your situation. They feel strongly that several elements of Civ5 ruin their favorite parts of the game, and most shun Civ5.

Civ5 is a very different game; it is inspired by many of the Civ franchise ideas, but it is fundamentally different. The civics became social policies; once implemented, you can never un-implement them. Only one military unit may occupy a land hex, although they can stack with one civilian (e.g., worker or settler) unit. Cities can defend themselves, which I find cool. Land units can swim (embark on the water) without having to build boats and load them on/off boats. One can build a thriving, game-winning empire with only 4 cities. The Civ5 fans cannot understand the attraction of big stacks of units, or sprawling, 80-city empires.

Different strokes for different folks.

vorlon_mi said:

Yup, it's hotly contested.

The Civ2 crowd is really devoted; they've figured out ways to make a 16bit game work with 64bit Windows 7 and 8, for cryin' out loud. I liked the wonder movies, and the advisors, and the elastic nature of science and commerce. One could (I tried, and didn't really execute it well) get insane amounts of science and tech by building caravans and freight units, and delivering them to the proper cities. Units defending in a city were really, really hard to beat, IIRC.

The Civ3 group (here) love the streamlined graphics, cultural boundaries, unique units, and many gameplay improvments over Civ2. Certain Civ4 concepts seem overcomplex, and the Civ4 graphics have few fans here. The game also runs *fast* on modern computers; much much faster than Civ5.

The Civ4 fans feel that it is the logical conclusion and most evolved version of the Civ 1-2-3 generation. Spies are units again, and their missions make sense. Governments are not simple choices (republic/monarchy/democracy) but a set of interlocking civics, which can be / must be changed at different points in the game to best suit your situation. They feel strongly that several elements of Civ5 ruin their favorite parts of the game, and most shun Civ5.

Civ5 is a very different game; it is inspired by many of the Civ franchise ideas, but it is fundamentally different. The civics became social policies; once implemented, you can never un-implement them. Only one military unit may occupy a land hex, although they can stack with one civilian (e.g., worker or settler) unit. Cities can defend themselves, which I find cool. Land units can swim (embark on the water) without having to build boats and load them on/off boats. One can build a thriving, game-winning empire with only 4 cities. The Civ5 fans cannot understand the attraction of big stacks of units, or sprawling, 80-city empires.

Different strokes for different folks.

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I own all of the civilization series from 1-5. Civ3 has always been my favourite one because of its simplicity but yet complex. My brother really enjoys civ5 because to him it is a more relaxing game but he understands why me and my dad prefer civ3 and knows there is problems with civ5. I never did like civ5 myself for many reasons including the 1UPT and the way the game plays. Civ4 is okay to me, but I dont like the graphics and a few other things.

I didnt like the city defending itself because I just didnt see it as that realistic that it would already have that defense. I prefer building the city defenses like in civ3 and only have the defensive bonuses. The same thing with certain units being able to go in a boat and travel on the sea without building a boat for them. I do see there are issues with the big stacks of units in civ3, but I do like it to some degree, and I would rather have it limited to a certain amount of units on 1 tile then to have 1UPT.

I own civs 3-5, Alpha Centauri, Beyond Earth, and the DS version of Civ Rev. Three has always been my favorite. I like the simple graphics, the scale, and especially the diplomacy system. I can do pretty much anything the AI can, and it makes sense. As someone who loves going for Diplomatic or 20k culture, a good diplomacy interface is really important to me.

I can tell Civ 4 is probably a good game, but I could just never get into it. Everything felt overcomplicated to me. The combat is more complicated, despite changing to a strength and movement only system. The government system is more complicated, requiring you to pick and choose different policies. Religious integration felt forced and like just an annoying way to make other civs hate you and limit your diplomatic options. Realistic, maybe. Intriguing enough for me to learn, not for me. The debug mode was pretty cool though. Reminded me of shamelessly cheating back when I played Age of Empires a lot. I know it's a great game, but I never bothered to take the time to learn it.

Civ 5 just felt completely wrong to me. 1 unit per tile made maps feel cluttered during wars. Reducing the average number of cities per game really made things feel far less grand, and keep in mind I prefer small maps in Civ III. Units not needing boats to move made me think of them as (admittedly hilarious) medieval transformers. Diplomacy felt awful and clunky. City-States cluttered things up even more. For a game where I can only have around four cities, the map felt really full all the time. The hex thing was cool though, I guess.

Beyond Earth is Sci-Fi Civ 5 with a slightly cool tech tree.

Alpha Centauri has pretty great ideas, but I miss cultural borders and peaceful wins.

DS Civ Rev would have been nice, but I dont think there's a civilopedia. Kind of a major drawback when I can't look anything up.

Summary of rant: Civ 3 forever, especially if you want to actually trade technologies.

I remember finding civ2 rather difficult to get into. I am spacial-ly challenged and I found working on diagonals hard to follow - still do. I did love the loading up of caravans to assist building but I hated it when my caravan traveled half way across the world only to die 3 tiles from its destination.

I have settled in Civ 3 and have loved it since (almost) the beginning.

Originally, the comp I had could not play civ4 and then I just never found it worth investigating - from discussions here.

I was going to get civ 5 until I learned that it was $50.00 plus permanent rental fee. By that time, I also discovered that I didn't even want to try it. - also from discussions here.

I have civ 3 and 5 and civ 3 is my favourite. I tried civ5 in the beginning and it's graphics and the animations were quite a welcome change. But as many have already said, after playing for a while I began to feel that the map is way too small. It's understandable that the tiles need to be made bigger to accommodate all those moving cattle but that is just momentary. I think that good visuals are the need of any modern game but sacrificing the gaming experience is no way to get those. In fact the civ 3 graphics, although not breathtakingly beautiful serve their purpose just right. The social policies in civ 5 are interesting though however I didn't play enough to ever Complete one. All in all, it's civ3 for me for a long long time.

The first glaring difference I noticed between Civ 2 and Civ 3 was the absence of Farmland in Civ 3.

When you get to the later Ages in Civ 2 and start building Improved Irrigation, the tiles are converted to these lovely patchworks of colour to represent rolling fields. Your civilisation actually looks advanced to the eye and the effect is obvious. In Civ 3, once you've built Railroads, that's it, that's how your Civ looks until the end of the game, Workers now redundant to anything but Pollution clearance. So Civ 3 feels like it's missing something with regards later-game Worker use and aesthetics.

I did miss the Farmland upgrade.

Buttercup said:

The first glaring difference I noticed between Civ 2 and Civ 3 was the absence of Farmland in Civ 3.

When you get to the later Ages in Civ 2 and start building Improved Irrigation, the tiles are converted to these lovely patchworks of colour to represent rolling fields. Your civilisation actually looks advanced to the eye and the effect is obvious. In Civ 3, once you've built Railroads, that's it, that's how your Civ looks until the end of the game, Workers now redundant to anything but Pollution clearance. So Civ 3 feels like it's missing something with regards later-game Worker use and aesthetics.

I did miss the Farmland upgrade.

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You can get beauty using one of the terrain graphics from the creation forum. I'm using one that's colourful and much better than the default ones (by ares I think)

I have CIV I, II & III. Of these III is my favourite. I like to change the rules. Civ I was great and there were many times when the dawn came up and I was still playing. Back then there was simply nothing like it. But having tried Civ II, Civ I seemed too restrictive. The map editor and the configuration files in II allowed me to tweak the game. (The configuration files helped make Colonization playable.)

Of course when CIV III appeared the scenario editor just spoon fed you. Suddenly you can change anything and it's so easy to add a suitable Civilopaedia entry. The only downside is having to make video clips for new units.

Atishay Jain said:

You can get beauty using one of the terrain graphics from the creation forum. I'm using one that's colourful and much better than the default ones (by ares I think)

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Yes, I should imagine there were lots of people who were motivated to improve the looks after seeing Civ III after Civ II.

How do mods solve the useless Worker situation? Or are they happy with consuming unit count numbers for the sake of one-turning a Mountain'ed Pollution blob? (Or happy patiently enslaving 100s of Workers via various enslaving tips and tricks)

Well, after reading all that, I'm glad the only version I've played is Civ III . It's taken me so long to get to grips with the game that I have no interest in starting all over again with a new one. The graphics still do it for me. I think they are superb.

Buttercup said:

How do mods solve the useless Worker situation?

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1. In standard games workers can be used for Radar towers and airfields.

2. Mods handle that question different.

Per example in my epic mod CCM workers are precious, as for long time they can only be received by autoproduction. Less workers in game mean less useless workers in the late game. Of course in the late game they can be used for building radar towers and airfields, too. In the late game, workers can be upgraded to partisans, guerillas and vietcong HN-combat units. In the late game the job of workers is transferred to a new expensive "superworker" unit, meaning you don´t have to waste a lot of time for micromanaging hordes of workers as one or two of the new "superworkers" can do the job of dozends of "old" workers.

Superworkers sounds cool, very cool. A bit like... Engineers! (but even better )

(for those that don't know, in Civ II Workers could be upgraded to Engineers that performed much quicker so you required less of them than your worker stacks)

vorlon_mi's summary is pretty good. Although opinions will differ. I actually found Civ4 undercomplicated in some ways, such as artillery and airplane bombardment, compared to Civ3 - although I don't miss the endless shore bombardment by Frigates when I play Civ4. By and large though, I agree with the summary.

On the whole, however, I'd say that if any one game is considered by a plurality to be the best in the series - at least by those who have played more than one game a decent amount - it would be Civ4. I do think that it's in many ways the culmination of what Civ1 through Civ3 were building towards, whereas Civ5 is a significant and controversial change. And while Civ4 vanilla is arguably worse than Civ3 Conquests (I certainly have argued that it is), all in all it's a very good game with both expansions. Nowadays, I play both more or less equally, despite having been vehemently pro-Civ3 in the first few years I was a member of CFC (roughly 2007 - 2010). But both Civ3 and Civ4 have their strong points and weak points; this could become another one of the classic megaposts from the good old Civ3 vs Civ4 debates if I went into them in detail, and I've done that a few times in the past, so I'll leave that for archive-searching.