[C3C] A Question about the "other" Civs

[Strong Reaction]

I've played Civ II, Civ III, and Civ IV [Warlords], I have BtS but never have gotten around to playing it. I imagine its not that much different than Warlords, probably a bit more polished.

So the question is this, of the next iterations i.e. 5 & 6 which should I try and why? I posted here because I love Civ 3, over all the versions. I imagine most the people here feel the same and I would like to here what others have to say about 5 & 6.

 

[jguy100]

Hello @Strong Reaction ! You've come to the right place for opinions from fellow Civ 3 players.

Civ 5 fell very flat for me. I wanted to like it so much, but could never get into it. I don't think I've even completed a full game in it. Big thumbs down from me.

Civ 6 was entertaining, and I've played through maybe a dozen games. But nothing really hooked me. From reading the Civ 6 forums, it sounds like the last few patches left the AI and stability a little bit broken. Disappointing to say the least. But still a lot more enjoyable than Civ 5.

If you're willing to look into non-Civ games, Old World and Humankind are two recent entries. I haven't played Humankind yet, but they have a semi-active forum here on CFC.

Old World is made by a lot of the same people who worked on Civ 4, including Soren Johnson (who also worked on Civ 3!). It's set entirely in antiquity, but this smaller window has allowed the studio to really polish and balance the game. The game's developers are very active on CFC forums and discord, quickly fixing bugs and even playing games with us. I'm mildly addicted to it - definitely recommend checking it out. It's currently only available on epic, with a steam release in a couple of months.

But of course, Civ 3 is still the OG and will always be my favorite

 

[jguy100]

FYI Civ 6 has a demo version available on steam. A free try is worth a shot, if only to make sure your computer can run it!

 

[vmxa]

I liked IV and BtS is the best version of IV. I dislike how much the religion impacted the game and I did not like the way culture was allowed to be so strong and even persist after the town was captured and retaken.

I played V up to the first patch and then, never played it again.

VI I enjoyed a fair bit and played it for 6 weeks or so. I played sporadically till the last two DLC's, which made the game crazy IMO. I actually was thinking about starting a game and play it as vanilla as I can get it.

VII should be hearing about it this year, but unless it refrains from trying to make too much work for me, I probably won't buy it. It would be the first time I did not at least get the newest civ version.

 

[Strong Reaction]

Hello @Strong Reaction ! You've come to the right place for opinions from fellow Civ 3 players.

Civ 5 fell very flat for me. I wanted to like it so much, but could never get into it. I don't think I've even completed a full game in it. Big thumbs down from me.

Civ 6 was entertaining, and I've played through maybe a dozen games. But nothing really hooked me. From reading the Civ 6 forums, it sounds like the last few patches left the AI and stability a little bit broken. Disappointing to say the least. But still a lot more enjoyable than Civ 5.

If you're willing to look into non-Civ games, Old World and Humankind are two recent entries. I haven't played Humankind yet, but they have a semi-active forum here on CFC.

Old World is made by a lot of the same people who worked on Civ 4, including Soren Johnson (who also worked on Civ 3!). It's set entirely in antiquity, but this smaller window has allowed the studio to really polish and balance the game. The game's developers are very active on CFC forums and discord, quickly fixing bugs and even playing games with us. I'm mildly addicted to it - definitely recommend checking it out. It's currently only available on epic, with a steam release in a couple of months.

But of course, Civ 3 is still the OG and will always be my favorite

Old World sounds and looks amazing, problem is my current PC isn't up to snuff. I do however have all the hardware to for an upgrade : Ryzen 7 3700 x plus motherboard, ram etc. I've just been to lazy to install it all. Once I do that I will definitely get it. Also, I'll probably wait till it releases on GOG. Apparently its available only on EPIC for now. Humankind looks promising I can run that with my current hardware.

 

[Strong Reaction]

I liked IV and BtS is the best version of IV. I dislike how much the religion impacted the game and I did not like the way culture was allowed to be so strong and even persist after the town was captured and retaken.

I played V up to the first patch and then, never played it again.

VI I enjoyed a fair bit and played it for 6 weeks or so. I played sporadically till the last two DLC's, which made the game crazy IMO. I actually was thinking about starting a game and play it as vanilla as I can get it.

VII should be hearing about it this year, but unless it refrains from trying to make too much work for me, I probably won't buy it. It would be the first time I did not at least get the newest civ version.

I was looking at VI on the Steam forums and read some posts that said recent dlc and launcher had broken their game. Everyone one [game developers] is trying to corral people onto their distribution platform, Epic, Steam, Origin, 2K, its silly. Personally, I like buying my games on GOG, steam if I have to, no need t muck up a game with third party software, which is what seems to have happened with Civ VI. That too bad.

 

[Civinator]

Strong Reaction, you could play Civ 3 with some mods. Especially the Flintlock mod is recommended and additionally there are some other interesting epic mods available for C3C, that can provide an additional game experience to you.

 

[vmxa]

Yes Flintlock fix/mod is really must in my book. Just the saving of my fingers on worker commands is huge.

 

[Strong Reaction]

Strong Reaction, you could play Civ 3 with some mods. Especially the Flintlock mod is recommended and additionally there are some other interesting epic mods available for C3C, that can provide an additional game experience to you.

That looks pretty solid and a fix for the sub bug to boot. The only problem is I am using the disk version. "The mod is only compatible with the GOG and Steam versions of Civ 3 Complete." Lol, I own probably one of the last pc's with a cd tray on it. I just looked on GOG and Complete is only 5.99.

 

[Civinator]

All few weeks Civ 3 Complete at GOG is on sale for € 1,29 (or the adequate amount in dollar).

 

[tjs282]

I just looked on GOG and Complete is only 5.99.

GOG also has SMAC(X) and CivIV BTS (including the Colonization mod/conversion), and has in the past sold them all bundled in package-deals.

On-topic, I avoided getting V, BE, and VI at least in part because they were/are only available through Steam.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I love Civ3; it's my favorite of the series. When I play Civ4 BTS, even at Prince (parity level with AI), I always feel a sense of urgency to prepare for the next war, that I don't feel with Civ3. My instincts about when to build cities vs. waiting to grow them are tuned to the Civ3 rhythms. Playing BTS means I need to re-tune my tendencies.

Civ5 changed a lot -- 1UPT especially, and the global happiness mechanic punished a player for going wide as I'm accustomed to doing in Civ3. The warmonger penalties for aggressive actions, which are essential in 3 and 4, can really affect your diplomatic relations in 5. Even when I try to use the military tactics I learned in BERT (see below), I still can't quite win consistently in Civ5.

Having said that, I love Beyond Earth with the Rising Tide expansion (BERT). Yes, it uses the Civ5 engine and combat mechanics. But I love the idea of building, growing, attacking, and defending cities in the ocean. I love their reinvention of victory conditions and the big war that always happens as you sprint towards victory. Can't predict who will backstab you, but two AI Civs always do. They fixed the happiness issue from Civ5 by turning it into a health metric that is possible to *grow* your way out of.

Civ6 was fun; it has expanded the variety of tribes to play and how to play them. City planning is amped up, with districts that have adjacency bonuses. Planning where to grow is so important that the game includes "pins" or markers to remind you where you want to put the next thing -- even if it won't be researched for 200 years. They added both Golden Ages and Dark Ages; a whole separate Civics tree, parallel to the Tech tree, which you research by earning culture; changed the way workers function and roads are built; they ported it to consoles and tablets so that lots more people could play it.

Summary: 5 and 6 are fundamentally different games from 3. Try them out with that mindset from the beginning, and you may enjoy them.

 

[Knightfall]

I've dabbled with 4 but never really liked it. There are no real "bad" Civ games, but in my opinion 4 tended to suffer from bloat and being unfairly difficult. 5 and 6 are very good, about equal in my opinion.

 

[Theov]

4 was alright, but not very agile. Once you have chosen a path, you can not get away from it.
The religion thing was pretty dumb though, at least they got that mirroring real life.
Never played V or VI, dont care.

 

[Knightfall]

Some people say that IV was the most "strategic" entry, but from what I've seen I don't feel that that is true. Most of the "strategy" I've seen in IV basically revolves around "mindlessly whip/chop to build a giant deathstack then kill all of the other civs."