Question of interest.......

[Theov]

I've been focusing on Civ3 for the last several months. My computer which could play Civ4 died, and it took awhile to save up for a replacement. (The new one, BTW, should be capable of playing Civ5, if I end up giving it a try.)
Like many of the folks here, I like big empires -- but not huge empires. More specifically, I like empires of approx. 40-60 cities, where 30 or so actually need my attention. A sprawling empire of 150-200 cities, where more than 100 are just sitting there, making Wealth, not growing, is not particularly fun. I like building stuff, and conducting medium-scale wars.
Thing is, I can do that in Civ4, too. Trying to win with 2, 4, 6 uber-cities is definitely not fun. But I can run a 40-city empire in Civ4; I can develop the resources, decide whether to cottage or farm, track my great people, and influence my neighbors on the sly with missionaries. Bottom line: in Civ4 there's more stuff to build, and I'm a builder at heart.
I agree that the graphics are a bit goofy. I chuckle and shake my head when I zoom into a city, and see the King-Kong-sized archers standing astride the buildings in defense. I think the suicide catapults are a weird game mechanic, but I understand it and use it. I like the rock-paper-scissors sort of strengths and weaknesses of certain units, and thinking about promotions. Again, it's like building a unit -- by promoting it, and by upgrading it.

It's true that Civ4 has some more things you can do. More worker function, Civics instead of governments, the religion and the health thing can be used for diplomacy etc... but this also sets me off. You can do all this with what 4, 5 cities and that's it. It's even that when you build more cities, the others become much weaker.
In Civ3, when you have a strong core, you build on, corruption? Build Forbidden Palace, move on. Build/concquer another core of cities. Corruption? Go commie and build Secret Police HQ... Or make the cities moneyfactories.
In civ4 when you decide to make a happy no-war supercountry... and one little war arises, you're doomed. If you're a warmonger, those big supercities are almost impossible.
Don't like it.

 

[GamezRule]

Also, Civ 3 has larger maps for more destruction.

 

[Theov]

Also, Civ 3 has larger maps for more destruction.

VERY IMPORTANT!! More destruction > less destruction. No sarcasm.
(I could have written important without capitals, but that wouldn't do justice to the message.)

 

[Smellincoffee]

I have an extensive personal mod for Civ3: I'm VERY comfortable with both it and the standard game. I occasionally try a game of Civ4, and as much as I like the atmosphere I've never felt as though I knew what I was doing. I know I'm in CONTROL of my Civ3 states, but in Civ4 I feel more like a passenger who is trying to offer occasional advice. I try to think about what each city needs, in terms of choosing a windmill over a cottage (or whatever), but there's so much STUFF going on that I lose interest.

 

[david1806]

Hi all

I've just come back to this post after awhile away and wow, loads of really interesting replies. To be honest, I don't think I gave III much of a chance. I was living in Thailand when it was released, and didn't play it so much, and then before you know it, v.IV was released, which I did get stuck into. I did have a (ahem) copy of v.V on my PC, which I loved (really liked the combat, and the no-stack rule), but it doesn't work anymore, so I've just gone back to my boxed version of IV.

ADDED: I've just read a load of posts about V, and I have a sneaky suspicion that if I had of played it for longer, all the 'surface' things I liked about it would have become forgotten as it seems once you get into the game, it has some major flaws. Just a thought......

D

 

[Rickard1977]

Civ III is in my opinion the best Civ. Much because the graphics and gaming are simple and it has the "right" civ-feeling. I really enjoy starting a new game with a new world to explore, and I like the sound fx's. The music is good too but I prefer to turn it off because it tend to be disturbing after a while.

 

[MPK]

I have played both Civ-IV and Civ-V. I have long ago ditched them into a deep deep void where nothing returns, I hope:

I play mostly Civ-III. I still play a bit of CivII Test of Time. There is a lot happening to improve the game lately.

Actually the game I play the most is CCM. (civ3 ).

 

[walletta]

Thanks all. I shall have to sit down and burn a few hours trying all the options that the tech thread suggests. I have the fantastic WWII mod (no longer avail on here for some reason) by Rocoteh that is really the only reason why I still want to play CIV III but it gives me some sort of .dll error whilst starting up a standard game gives me a different error which could be one of the font errors previously mentioned. I'll have to write down exactly what the errors are and do some detective work!



I'm an admirer of the little Corsican Artillery Officer so have thought this quote attributed to him was always quite relevant to strategy gaming. I've used it as a sig for as long as I can remember but notice that it recently popped up in the Total War - (Napoleon) series during one of the load screens.

There is a similar saying in chess, which I do not perfectly remember. It's something about not trying to refute a mistake of the opponent as it's usually the prelude to a bigger one.

ETA and on topic - I have only ever played Civ III. Sheer laziness deters me from getting into a different version. I also feel I should master it (I know I never will) before moving on.

 

[Buttercup]

I think the reason why Civ III holds a lot of long term fans is a matter of coincidence rather than design.

Civ IV is what the designers were aiming for with Civ III while trying to overcome many of the cliches of Civ II, so what we have with Civ III is a blend of both Civ II and Civ IV - the main examples being:

Empire limitations - in II there was no limit to your empire, it's just about chewing up all that space, either by settling or by war. In III they wanted to put limits on expansion and so invented the Corruption blocker. In IV this is taken a lot further and in in V traditional expansion is thoroughly discouraged.

Combat spamming - in II you just basically got the best techs and then killed people, it was very simple and provided the expected reward for fielding better units. Stacks of units etc. In III they tried to limit power stacks by reducing the power of advanced units, ironically creating even bigger stacks. In IV they tried to individualise units but people still stacked and generally ignored individual unit micro-leveling. In V they just ditched the option to stack.

Empire borders - in II your empire's border was dictated by the workable squares of the cities. In III the Culture is your border, thereby preventing nonsensical city placement, but people cram cities anyway. In IV it's more demanding of separated cities and in V there's barely any desire to fill every nook and cranny just in case an AI settles there.

There's lot more, but Civ III is the only one in the series that's like half of one and half of the other - it still looks and plays like Civ I and II in a lot of regards, but is also quite jammed up with many of the seeds of Civ IV and V - to which I & II feel like a completely different series of games to IV and V. III is the middle child, appealing to the old school while tinkering with the new direction. There's a great many people who couldn't move on to IV and beyond, just as there's many new players who can't hope to re-adapt to the old style.

A great portion of that difficulty in moving between games is the aesthetic view. As others have said many times, just the look and user interface of the first three are what makes a Civ game, IV and beyond just don't look like Civ games right off the bat.

 

[Roundman]

Combat spamming - in II you just basically got the best techs and then killed people, it was very simple and provided the expected reward for fielding better units. Stacks of units etc. In III they tried to limit power stacks by reducing the power of advanced units, ironically creating even bigger stacks. In IV they tried to individualise units but people still stacked and generally ignored individual unit micro-leveling. In V they just ditched the option to stack.

I loathed the combat specialization of Civ 4. It was probably the biggest factor for me ditching that game and returning to 3. I much prefer the Conscript-Regular-Veteran-Elite abstraction of Civ 3. I hated having to keep track of which particular unit had which particular upgrade, and I really hated the the AI units often magically had all of the upgrades. Civilization is not a true war strategy game, but the unit upgrade approach made it seem like a half-hearted attempt at war gaming.

I started the series with Civ 2 and played that game incessantly for two years. But I never went back to it after Civ 3 was released. The concept of borders, culture, ethnicity, UUs, civilization traits, etc. made Civ 3 so much more deep (and more fun).

 

[daft]

"Still playing" implies that people would move up as later games would be better. Computer issues is part of it but some people still think the older games are more enjoyable. I play III as a break from IV and vice-versa. Also, in V there was more aim at the casual gamer which hurts it in the eyes of many who want a fairly complex, rich game. Personally, I think III and IV are as good as it gets and it probably won't be getting better.

All the Civ games are quite different. Methods of play are quite different in all games and basic strategies that work in one game will bomb in another. III is actually more of a war game than IV in general. Also, in III you aren't penalized as much for having a lot of cities. Some people like the epic feel of III of taking over the world. In IV getting a large # of early cities can kill you.

Diplomacy is quite different. In IV you can use diplo to avoid war. You can have an army much weaker than your neighbor and get away with it. In III the AI is more practical (I like the human but he's poorly defended. Time to kill him). Also, in IV the AI's are more differentiated. Some of them don't really seem to be trying to win. In III they're trying to win but don't have differences that hold them back. For example, in IV AI Toku is a disaster and Monty is suicidal.

I agree. Although you should have seen some of my empires in CI II, even larger than CI III. Additionally, the game seemed to be getting more and more difficult, to the point that in CI IV if I won on Monarch for me it was a great achievement. CI V has gone a bit backwards with game difficulty level, among other game aspects. Overall though, all CIV games are great (or were at the time they came out first), every new game being a new challenge (map) sort of a thing.

 

[daft]

I think the reason why Civ III holds a lot of long term fans is a matter of coincidence rather than design.

Civ IV is what the designers were aiming for with Civ III while trying to overcome many of the cliches of Civ II, so what we have with Civ III is a blend of both Civ II and Civ IV - the main examples being:

Empire limitations - in II there was no limit to your empire, it's just about chewing up all that space, either by settling or by war. In III they wanted to put limits on expansion and so invented the Corruption blocker. In IV this is taken a lot further and in in V traditional expansion is thoroughly discouraged.

Combat spamming - in II you just basically got the best techs and then killed people, it was very simple and provided the expected reward for fielding better units. Stacks of units etc. In III they tried to limit power stacks by reducing the power of advanced units, ironically creating even bigger stacks. In IV they tried to individualise units but people still stacked and generally ignored individual unit micro-leveling. In V they just ditched the option to stack.

Empire borders - in II your empire's border was dictated by the workable squares of the cities. In III the Culture is your border, thereby preventing nonsensical city placement, but people cram cities anyway. In IV it's more demanding of separated cities and in V there's barely any desire to fill every nook and cranny just in case an AI settles there.

There's lot more, but Civ III is the only one in the series that's like half of one and half of the other - it still looks and plays like Civ I and II in a lot of regards, but is also quite jammed up with many of the seeds of Civ IV and V - to which I & II feel like a completely different series of games to IV and V. III is the middle child, appealing to the old school while tinkering with the new direction. There's a great many people who couldn't move on to IV and beyond, just as there's many new players who can't hope to re-adapt to the old style.

A great portion of that difficulty in moving between games is the aesthetic view. As others have said many times, just the look and user interface of the first three are what makes a Civ game, IV and beyond just don't look like Civ games right off the bat.

Scheisse!
I could never put it in words as perfectly as you just did, man!