CIV IV vs CIV III

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Well, I only played Civ 3 b4 and loved it but I bought Civ 4 a few days ago and I couldnt go back. What I like more about Civ 4 so far is
  1. More focus on developing cities rather than just urban sprawl
  2. More useful terrain squares
  3. Great ppl and specialisation
  4. religion
I could go on but i think biggest difference is micro management-Civ 3 became an absolute pain running through 10-20 minutes of repititive decisions at endgame. i just got sick and tired of the last 100 or so turns especially if i was at war. I don't know how u can stand it. Civ 4 makes moves slicker and more meaningful. Worker choices are more about choosing correct improvements for each tile rather than just spamming road build everywhere on every move.
Seriously I love both but civ 3 seems clumsy, unsophisticated and tedious now that im into civ 4
 
I have played Civ since CivI on the SNES, missed CivII, then I did play CivIII, and like most of you loved the mods, not a great modder my self, but made a few subtle changes and loved other peoples mods.

Then I got CivIV just almost as soon as it came out, and unlike many of the previous posters Im a GFX whore and had a computer that could run the game smoothly. Mainly because Civ wasnt the only game I play, and there are a bunch other games that DO require better graphs for better gameplay, so that wasnt a - but rather a +.
Also when I started playing Civ IV Vanilla I downloaded a mod which I loved, which was more like WWII scenario rather than a mod, but it did have a bunch of new units like V1 and V2 rockets, all the accurate fighters etc.
So it is just as modable as Civ III if not more, you just need the skills, if you lack 3D modeling skills thats not Firaxis fault, its yours.
Now I mainly played mods both on CivIII and CivIV Vanilla because of the same reason, all games felt the same, on CivIII rush for the Great Library, once you get it, drop research to 0 and live off the techs your neighbors reserch or trade for, use the left over for any newer techs my neighbors dont have, and ammass an army to kick everyones behind.
While on Vanilla CivIV it was starting with a civ that started with Mysticism, rush for Priesthood to get the Oracle while you reserach Civil service and gain the advantage Bureacracy gave you, trade CoL to a civ that had researched Writing, Alphabet and any other random early worker tech for Writing and the worker tech, then the next turn trade CS for all other techs they had plus Alphabet, use Alphabet to trade for everyting else with all other civs, and all of a sudden I was the most advanced and the one with the highest production and science output, then research all the military and production techs, continue to trade for everything else, and I had the most production, reserach, most updated tech, and could overrun ANY civ.
Vanilla is kind a raw, it feels rushed, not well rounded, now I play BtS, and I can tell that CivIV BtS is the best Civ game I have ever played because of its complexity, in my current game Im on Replaceable Parts, and I havent even researched CS which I used to think was the single most powerful tech on Vanilla and Warlords.
 
So far I have loved all the Civs I've played.

Civ for SNES was basically my favorite childhood game, that and Sim City, and Final Fight.

Civ II was awesome, definitely an improvement, yet I still had a soft spot for Civ I

Civ III was such an awesome game, my ex-girlfriend loved Civ III as much as I did, as a matter of fact she was even better then I was at the game. :lol:
We would even spend hours watching each other play, sounds romantic huh? lol

Civ IV i was initially disappointed in, but after I bought the expansions, warlords and BTS, it really made all the difference, I think it is my favorite one thus far.
 
I've played all of Civ I-IV. Civ III is the only 1 I didn't like (although because some other great games came out shortly after it was released I didn't persevere with it or play many of the mods that were made for it). Civ IV has a fairly steep learning curve and I didn't take to it immediately but I've learned to love it. There are so many different ways to play the game and learning which leader and civ suit which strategy and victory condition makes for a lot of replayability even before you consider mods.
 
Well, I don't really have any particular reason, but Civ IV is my favorite. I've played 2, 3 and 4. When I started with 2 it was all I did. I played 3, but it never really grabbed me like 2 did. I never got that "just one more turn" feeling. When 4 first came out it didn't either. It wasn't until Beyond the Sword came out that I went back to it, and now I can't put it down!

As far as the graphics go, I realize that for many people they do present quite a problem because of the system required to run it. I'm lucky enough to be a general gamer as well, so I already have a custom built system that runs C IV easily. For me the graphics and world in IV just comes to life. When I am able to zoom in and see everything moving it just makes the entire world more vibrant and alive. This directly translates into my self induced hallucination that the empire I am creating is alive. I realize this is a dillusion, but for me the graphics and animation immerse me in the game in away that the previous versions couldn't. It's too bad that the game couldn't have included a slimmed down graphics set that was more similar to C3 graphics and was much easier on people's systems.

Anyway, I say any civver is a good civver regardless of the version of civ that civver is civving! :D

Happy civving everyone!
 
Yes, the Ghost thread rises from the grave. I read a few pages back and i am not sure what kind of logic is being used.
The number of people that likes a game does not = better/good or anything.
Polls, and sales numbers may or may not mean anything in so far as "better" -which would be based on differing criterea.
Conquests had two horrible bugs-Armies the AI did not use and the submarine start a war bug. Any Civ4 balance issues pale in comparison.
 
It's funny that people who claim that they hate Civ4 mysteriously ends up in the Civ4 forums somehow. I know who you are.

All the generalized civ fan topics surface here. So why is that funny? . If you want to get update on the next civ release where you going to read about first, civ3 forum?

Ive seen them take "WHat should civ5 look like" threads started in civ3 and put in civ4's 'ideas and Suggestions"
Hows that for "funny" lol

NOw it is a lil strange to see a civ4 player we can presume who hates civ3, decide to make a lil visit Don't think that happens? You might be surprised.
Its some of these guys who have issues. ;)
 
Conquests had two horrible bugs-Armies the AI did not use and the submarine start a war bug. Any Civ4 balance issues pale in comparison.
AI don't use Armies? man where have you been.
Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

What do you call a mod done by amatuers that balances Programmer mistakes? Oh right, the " Unoffical patch!" Ya Were were you when they were giving that out? :)

And hey whats the sub bug? Never seen it. Does that come before subs? ;) Infact seems civ4 players talk of this an awful lot in these kind of threads, almost as much as they mention "CTD'" in their own tech forum :lol:
 
CIV IV makes CIV III look absolutely gay. Was never a big CIV III fan until Conquests. And even then I preferred CIV II.
 
All the generalized civ fan topics surface here. So why is that funny? . If you want to get update on the next civ release where you going to read about first, civ3 forum?

Ive seen them take "WHat should civ5 look like" threads started in civ3 and put in civ4's 'ideas and Suggestions"
Hows that for "funny" lol

NOw it is a lil strange to see a civ4 player we can presume who hates civ3, decide to make a lil visit Don't think that happens? You might be surprised.
Its some of these guys who have issues. ;)
I'm not sure if I understand. Are you dyslexic? That would explain a lot.
 
I'm not sure if I understand. Are you dyslexic? That would explain a lot.

OK a person who "hates" civ4 ends up here in the civ4 forum a lot. Wow what hypocrites! Am I right? Sure! Your thought its was 'funny' like in a mocking way. Its just to bad your actin like an idiot and obviously don't understand much about the way the place is set up. So hell, I figure Id clear things up for you. :D

Yet even after sound explanations for why one with little to no interest in civ4 may still decide to come here, you act puzzled with my plain english response. Next you resort to suggesting IM mentally challenged? Comon man, thats not fair to those with 'special needs' who really are suffering from this condition.

I though you off all people might understand this ...

Spoiler :
Which one of us do you think gets treated more 'special'? :mischief:
:lol:
lol ;)
 
In my opinion, Civ3 makes Civ4 look horrible (I wouldn't use the word "gay" here, BTW).

Ever heard of the phrase "De gustibus non disputandum"?

Eh, this is America. Freedom of speech.
 
OK a person who "hates" civ4 ends up here in the civ4 forum a lot. Wow what hypocrites! Am I right? Sure! Your thought its was 'funny' like in a mocking way. Its just to bad your actin like an idiot and obviously don't understand much about the way the place is set up. So hell, I figure Id clear things up for you. :D
Hmm... :shifty:
Yet even after sound explanations for why one with little to no interest in civ4 may still decide to come here, you act puzzled with my plain english response. Next you resort to suggesting IM mentally challenged? Comon man, thats not fair to those with 'special needs' who really are suffering from this condition.
If I was sarcastic I would use the rolleyes smiley. No offense, but you spell like a dyslexic.
I though you off all people might understand this ...
I'm "off all" now, too? What's that supposed to mean?
Spoiler :
Which one of us do you think gets treated more 'special'? :mischief:
:lol:
Kiddin btw. Im jeolous. My parents never loved me ;)
I don't care if you were Charlie Sheen himself, you still act like a twelve-year old.
 
Though I am a Civfanatic since 15 years or more I will not get nostalgic and praise Civ1 and 2 in detail. Civ1 was THE game in the early 90s for me, but I appreciated Civ2 though I missed the Replay after the victoy. When I got Civ3 my system simply was too lame, so only two years ago, when I got a new computer, I actually played Civ3, got Conquest and the RaR-Mod. And I really spent ages playing it, designing maps and creating my own scenarios. Of course there will always be something to improve, but for me Civ3-Conq-RaR was close to perfection.

Now I got a Nice Price Vanilla Civ-4 for X-Mas and once played the giant world map as chieftain until I finally (after about 60 hours) won by being elected world-leader (U.N. Wonder). I still cannot decide whether I really like it. But at least some aspects criticised in this thread (I read the pages 1-2 and 9-10) I I observed, too, though I do not always come to the same negative conclusion.

- slow perfomance: though I do not only match the system requirements but surpass them by far (2.6 GHZ and 1 MB RAM), even "quick-save" takes ages, not to mention loading any savegame (quick or regular). After the end of turn, especially during the last 100 turns, minutes lapsed until the AIs made their move and my next turn started. Turning off sounds and leveling off graphic options improved performance speed slightly, but it still runs very slow. Okay - maybe giant map was a bad idea for starting.
- religion: I founded not less than 3 religions and even got control of the founding city of a 4th. Although I spent lots of missionaries for spreading my state religion all over the world, the outcome was modest. One AI converted his state religion and the others already had religious freedom, before I could convince them. After all I think spreading religion is of less value as measured by the effort it takes. Maybe AIs might change their attitude to me a great deal. But instead of producing, shipping and commanding hordes of missionaries I might rather have produced more combat units so that I did not have to bother about the AIs' attitudes so much but could have started warfaring far earlier. Okay, it's nice to be informed of converted cities' garrisons, but spies can do that as well.
- units: Though I basically appreciate the idea of the promotion system, it can be a nuisance when your army grows. I don't want to RP any single infanterist I built by deciding whether it should be garrison, guerrila or storm trooper. And some ancient or medieval promotions like those against archers and melee units are wasted after the invention of gunpowder. Imho they have overdone it a little here. What I really like is the percentage-prediction of victory chance before you attack. Fireaxis advertised Civ4 as having more unit types than Civ3. Actually they must have counted the missionaries sevenfold, i.e. for each religion. For I think there aren't so much more units than in Civ3. Maybe I am a little spoiled by RaR-Mod, but especially Naval Unit Types seem to be even fewer.
- buldings: Well, there is quite a range of buildings, but again I won't regard 4 religious buildings of each religion as 4X7 or 28 buidlings. Many Civ3 buildings disappeared such as all naval defences (which U don't need in Civ4 since there is no naval attacking in the Civ3 sense but only a city- defense-reducing bombardement). Some others seem to be inspired by RaR-Mod (forge, castle), some sound familiar, but have new functions (aqueduct, supermarket). Well, at least no complaints in that aspect. Though RaR had many more buildings (stock-exchange, highway, mills), one could also say, RaR had overdone this a little.
- wonders: Generally, wonders are not of such central importance as in earlier Civs. No early wonder matches Civ-1-3 Great Library. Only in Modern you can built the Internet. But then you do not need many technologies anymore. But still wonders are nice to have anyway, especially Hoover-Dam, Pentagon etc. Furthermore, all National Wonders (also seem to be inspired by RaR) should be built.
- tile improvements (workers): To build a few villages for money-making is much better than having a road to any tile (as in eralier Civs). I also like the idea of plantation, saw-Mill, windmill and watermill as new alternatives to mining and irrigation. But I still have to adapt to the fact that impassable tiles (ice, mountains) and desert without water or ressources bring in NOTHING and cannot be improved at all as well as some tundra tiles. Railways unlike in Civ3 cost 1/10 movement points instead of zero. There may be arguments for this. But if you consider that even in the 1950s each turn is 1 year, I think it should be possible to bring my troops to any place on a continent by rail within 1 turn. At least on a huge map this is not always the case.
- AI / diplomacy: I basically like the approach of a more developed diplomatic system. I cannot judge yet whether the AI behaves and trades more or less stupid than in Civ3. At least there are more possibilities to take influence on the relationships (religion, see above). But I find it kinda silly that any time I reject AI-demands (those without any counter offer) they dislike me 1 point. AI seems to be more cautious than in Civ3. Even if they hate my guts they won't declare war when they regard it as too risky. Of course this is more reasonable than those silly war-declarations in Civ2 (AI even declared war, when they were alread reduced to 1 city). But I found it rather boring, beacause no one attacked me at all - so I could lean back, gather an invasion force and decide by myself whom an when to attack. Then I collected allies and started a world war against any poor AI-nation which stood in my way - one by one. The AI-Allies said things like "Whom shall we betray this time?" So at least they seemed to notice what I did - but most of the time they were easy enough to bribe and never realised that they could be next. No real challenge after all. Maybe I should try a harder level next time and/or switch "Agressive AI" ON.
- barbarians: Well, at least here Civ4 is a clear improvement compared with earlier Civs. They do not only arise from any unobserved area but even build cities there. Their war technology keeps pace with yours to some extent. So when you have archery or gunpowder, they will have it, too. And though I did not choose the "wild barbarian" option they kept attacking me constantly from 3 cities in North-America, so that my expansion came to a halt there until I could spare enough troops to raze or invade those cities.
- warfare: In some War-Academy-Thread the variation of any invasion force is stressed. Of course this is right, because you have to deal with the many individual boni of the defending units. But even in Civ1-2 and especially in Civ3 it was a good idea to mix your troops (at least until tank warfare). What is it good for to invade a city in Civ-3 with 6 chariots/elephants/crusaders/dragoons/cavallerists, when you lose it again immediately? Except for the suicidal-artillery (which I consider rather unrealistic, though I like the new collateral damage) instead of bombarding artillery I - personally - did not have to re-think my strategy in a revolutionary way. Sure, it's nice to have assault-promoted units when storming a city or terrain-promoted troops for the march or special forces like pikesmen against mounted. But if you lack those specialists you still can compensate this by sheer quanitity.

Well, after all I can say that the most striking new features are the graphics. Though some of the posters in this thread appreciated these, I do not. Of course all the animations and the earth-rotating-view are fancy things. So are the reintroduced wonder films. But for me graphics do not matter so much, I would be content with unanimated Civ-1 graphics, since it does not contribute anything to the strategy but first of all slow down the performance enormously. The gameplay on the first view brings very many new features such as religion, higher developed diplomacy etc. On the second view those features still seem a little embryonic to me. Sure Civ4 is different from Civ3 (surpise, surprise). But so far I think the differences are less revolutionary than some members of the Civ-4-faction or the Civ-3-faction claimed (neither revolutionary good or bad). Maybe I should check out some Civ4-Mods to see if some of you guys made more of the new feats.

I have already studied what the forum says about the Warlords Extension Pack. I was very disappointed and do not think, I will buy it. Not because I already have decided to turn back to Civ3 but because it seems less more than a Mod. Perhaps I should get some information about BTS. Or maybe any of you guys can give me advice wether to get it or not.
 
Hi Sweedy Say looks like somone is 'acting' the grammer nazi part well. You must have had family that served!

Sweedguy said:
If I was sarcastic I would use the rolleyes smiley. No offense, but you spell like a dyslexic.

So wait, whats this ? Are you sure this was just "acting" :lol: (I give creds to the guy who responds not the needin to resort to mistypes to find proper insult/mocking :) )

We can cut this short. Eveyone knows what I meant. Thats what counts here, not perfect spelling.ANyone who read it and that wasn't targeted directly by it, understands why Civ3 players use this forum. Thats Good. Not for you. See they got the message 2 days ago. (how they managed to decipher something like " you oof all people" in a sea of otherwise normal script is beyond me. This must be a place of great genuis!

Sorry though, if this is a communty of high intellect you can't 'prentend' that you 'fit in'. It seems your a child and like Alicia Silverstone, are clueless to whats going on around you. This means you can't be one to judge. My advice is spend less time tryin to sound cool online with lame grammer elitism. Get out and start making some 'friend', I mean past members of your own family;) . You might find it helps to do this by not attacking the 'person' when their 'point' has gone past you.
 
AI don't use Armies? man where have you been.
I knew what he meant. AI sucked when it did have armies as well as dealing with players armies. Before Conquest armies were pretty much useless but after Conquest they became too powerful.
 
I knew what he meant. AI sucked when it did have armies as well as dealing with players armies. Before Conquest armies were pretty much useless but after Conquest they became too powerful.

I know what he meant to. However this was patched, um how do you say it in civ4 terms ? "unoffically"
Armies when equiped with 1 unit is stiil a good advantage over other formations. The kind of advantage that is warrented for the amount of resources invested!

Now how are they to powerful? :mischief:

Whats that time for more photo evidence? Oh alright. From the same game all the other examples are takin:
Heres of screenie of AI armies attacking in stack


Sorry after taking 5 or 6 shots of AI army in use on this one map, I got bored with postin patches results. Let me know if you want more "proof" to go :cool:
 
In other word this patch fix one problem by removing one of the options that the AI couldn't handle , that is army stacking problem. I could just as well point out there is already a fit to the armies problem called civ3 vanilla.
 
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