Civ4 back to Civ3

Hi.

I used to be an avid (and rubbish Civ3 player). When I discovered this site I started to improve my game but I also brought Civ4 soon after.

I've been playing Civ4 now for over a year (mostly SGs now) and I am just making the step up to emporer (really I'm a moderate monarch player).

I've been thinking of diving back in to Civ3 but I'm a little worried that I just won't be able to cope with the change as I've got used to so many features of Civ4, not least the more user friendly overflow mechanisms etc.

So what I'm asking is are many of the Civ3 players here people who have jumped back to the old school from Civ4 and what advice would you give me based on the change? What were the biggest problems you had? What difficulty should I go with? And finally, is it worth it?

Cheers in advance for any coments!

I don't know if I ever played and got used to Civ4 enough to have any problems coming back to Civ3.

Although, admittedly, I was rotten at Civ3 up until recently anyways

I think the biggest frustrations are just city placement and unit victory outcomes. In Civ 3, there's more strength (to a degree) in having many cities as opposed to quality cities. As far as military, the lack of really useful upgrades and the occasionally maddening RNG makes going to war a little more cumbersome without overwhelming forces. Otherwise, I find Civ3 a lot more straightforward in so many other ways, and its easier to just turn one's brain off and play in the middle levels.

capnvonbaron said:

In Civ 3, there's more strength (to a degree) in having many cities as opposed to quality cities.

Click to expand...

I haven't played Civ IV, but if you think Civ III comes out bad in this respect consider civ I or II where everyone agrees that smallpox works as the best city spacing scheme.

Every time I start playing Civ1 again, it takes me a bit to readjust. You'll probably make a few "Why did I do that?!" mistakes, but you'll adapt back quickly.

I havent played c4 but i have discovered that i was a complete fool when i first started playing civ3.Never build temples.Libraries are useful if youre playing at a low level.Barrackses are your best friends.
My strat for a low level game is to make a city in a distance of 5 squares every city and then build a library and after that a barracks wich will produce military.AIs wont pick on you so much at low levels.
For high levels i just place my cities right 2 squares away from my capital and after like the seventh city i wont build anymore.This is because on the level i play,the map is pretty much already filled by the AI once i build my 2nd settler.Be sure you pick a civilization that has bonuses right at the start.One of those civilizations is rome and it benefits from the close city replacement.Ive also come to find that the defenders and the Spearman effect is overrated.The actual best defense really is offense.Instead of a spearman in every city,make an archer.This will look a bit like suicide but the AI will literally think twice the more before he decides to attack you since he doesnt look at the defense value of the spearman,he looks at the attack value.1 archer rates as 2 spearmen,meaning that if you have an army and a defense,you could cut off the defense and have a 1/3 more threatening army.You wont be the one whos attacked-you will be the one who is feared.Spend 1 gold per turn on science to get the 50 turn tech and demand the rest from the defeated AI.This has helped me win deity on c3c.

I must have a crazy game then.

It seems like I have at least one blatent "sneak attack" attempt per game, no matter what my power level is.

Last game (monarchy, small map), sometime around 0BC, Alex (who was polite with me at the time, thanks to rampant tech trades between us) sent an invasion force of one longbow and two archers against my various swordmen and pikemen. I think his endgame was to abduct a pair of my workers, maybe pillage an iron mine, but never made it more than three tiles into my territory. I called in some favors from Joan and Bizzy, who were both happy to relieve Alex of better than half his cities. He soon became a rouge state, with France calling in India and Babylon to help in the fight.

Around 1000AD, Bizzy (again, polite) decides to try the same thing, albeit with Knights instead of bows. The results were nearly the same, except I had an MPP with the Babs and Frenchies, so Bizzy got most of his cities removed, too. Three became mine, and France/Babylon are still dividing up the rest. I don't know why he thought his knights would stand up against rifles and cavalry, but whatever *shrug*

I've been beloved by the world the whole time, have a great trade rep, and haven't done any offensive combat or land grabs, except for the cities I took from Bizzy which were already awash in my culture anyways. Crazy AI

Never even tryied civ4, dont want to

Ive played civ4, it was so different from civ3. i could not bombard, or capture artillery, there was a considerable loss of units and civs, and the game play just did not suit me, everything was so expensive and i could not expand very fast. wars just devastated me, and they were my favorite part about playing civ3. i quickly switched back ounce i installed it on my new laptop (a vista). i havent played civ4 since...