Civ 2 versus Civ 3: Bring It!!!!!!!!

[EdmundSpenser]

dirk, my man

u can download a multi patch and the 1.3 patch that you need to log onto the msn zone...here at civfanatics.
Get the patches man, and come play some multi civ2 games. We play for hours and hours and hours
We can play random, custom, Boston...whatever the heck map u want...
drop by again, ask for Ed spenser...we'll make u feel right at home...


ed

 

[Ironikinit]

Well, I'm not going to play mp head to head, but it would be cool to have a few PBEM games going...

...of Civ 3, of course.

 

[Zouave]

The only reason I am still playing Civ III - the game without scenario-building or cheat mode - is due to the excellent LWC mod in the other forum.

It is recommended; download it. I had to tweak a few values with Editor, but it is MUCH BETTER than what Sid threw together.

Check it out.

 

[Dirk Aurel]

Thanks Ed,might just take a peak,allthough I really DID dislike that game

Can I live without all the awesome D) part three improvements? Maybe just for a while,at least till Civ3 MP comes out.

PBEM sounds ok,I guess,but wouldn´t that take years

Naeeh think I´m Ironman,will play Civ3 head2head,no human can surpass my Athlon500 in lag anyway,I dare you


On the issue concerning simultanious moves,what faults did it have?The post said something about the host moving faster. Can´t this be fixed?

 

[DrJambo]

Whoa just spent 20 min reading all this!!

Well both sides (Ironikit and OneInTen v IronicWarrior and Ed) and many others all have valid points.

MP will probably be used by as little as 1% of the total Civ3 sales and therefore should never be a basis for the stature of a game. SP is what Civ games are all about, with MP being a welcome extra for those who are particularly interested in it and dedicated enough to play overly extended games.. Personally i wouldn't have enough time in my life to play a MP game of Civ2 or 3 and am amazed at the fact that some of you do!?

Well, i am a fan of both games but would lean towards Civ3 overall. I feel Ironikit's points to be more valid and relevant to the typical Civ gamer as opposed to the egotistical viewpoints of the so called Civ veterans. I have heard the MP veteran chat many times before with games like Half-Life, but at least they had more of an issue as MP Half-Life or Quake are far bigger than MP Civ will ever be.

For Civ3
1. Game has been steamlined, less pointless units like knights in Civ2 because of crusaders, dragoons and cavalry all being very close in the tech tree. By the time you built an army of knights they were out of date and replaced by the next installment. Leonardo's Workshop was very handy for this reason in Civ2. The uniqueness of the civs and UU along with the standardised basic units (no more phalanxes and alpine troops) is a welcome change.

2. Culture and borders are a welcome addition.

3. Lots of unnecessary advances and additions in Civ2 that just overcomplicated the game. Superhighways, etc just server to lengthen the game.

4. Corruption serves to limit empires a little and tries to encourage smaller empires. Look at the Romans, Mongols or Greeks for examples of how too large empires always implode. If players have cites spanning different continents use the Forbidden Palace and Communism to minimise corruption levels.

5. Bombardment is a welcome implementation giving the impression of a ranged attack. Although would be nice to see the AI use artillery in an attacking manner.

6. No more exploting the AI with caravan stockpilling, and yes, it was an exploit as the AI couldn't do this. Against humans this is not an exploit. Use investigate city option if you are worried about losing out on the wonders race.

AGainst Civ3
1. Caravans were a nice alternative to military units with a great satisfaction gained when a trade route was set up.

2. Espionage has really suffered... too expensive and not worth the hassle. Bring back spy and diplomat units. Make espionage more of a feature in Civ3. Why anyone would want to waste cash trying to expose a mole that may or may not be there with the immediate risk of war upon failure is beyond me?! We should get an indication of civs spying and the AI should partake more in espionage. This is my major gripe with Civ3. Such a shame as espionage was really fun in Civ2, especially when trying to get spies across hostile waters in a transport.

3. Naval warfare isn't too bad, although the ability to affect trade should be enhanced somehow. Naval blockade doesn't work, and even if it did, would be almost impossible to implement given that civs' can use other civs' harbors for their trade networks. Naval ships also move far too slowly and have no defence against planes. The coastal fortress is also garbage.

4. Bombers should have a chance to sink naval ships and Cruise missiles are just awful as they stand.

5. Some unit imbalances, like musketeers being so poor, cavalry too fast and the uselessness of ancient bombardment weapons, but these can implemented by oneself in the editor... Speaking of which, the editor could be further enhanced to add a greater flexibility to the game.

6. Slight end game tedium resulting from a lack of important or useful structures to build in the late game period other than military units.

7. Random invalid page faults ruining games in the late industrial/modern era is a major fault as one sees 10 hours of game playing wasted

In summary, without the ability to edit the units and game features this game would be somewhat poorer than Civ2, but the ability to modify things as you see fit allows the game to run very satisfactorily.

 

[IronicWarrior19]

'MP will probably be used by as little as 1% of the total Civ3 sales and therefore should never be a basis for the stature of a game. SP is what Civ games are all about, with MP being a welcome extra for those who are particularly interested in it and dedicated enough to play overly extended games.. '

Well, although the number will probably be low, this will not be improved by the design of the game as it stands. Thing is, a lot of the rules could have been implemented differently and the average SP player wouldn't notice or care, whereas MP players would be devastated

'Personally i wouldn't have enough time in my life to play a MP game of Civ2 or 3 and am amazed at the fact that some of you do!?'

Few of my games last over an hour - I play the fast settings for MP normally (double production and moves, king, small map), usually with only one opponent. I also avoid playing very slow players, and added to the fact that you can handle all civ management during the other players turn while you only move units on your turns, and it's not so bad. It has all the advantages of playing an intelligent human, and minimises the disadvantages.

'Well, i am a fan of both games but would lean towards Civ3 overall. I feel Ironikit's points to be more valid and relevant to the typical Civ gamer as opposed to the egotistical viewpoints of the so called Civ veterans. I have heard the MP veteran chat many times before with games like Half-Life, but at least they had more of an issue as MP Half-Life or Quake are far bigger than MP Civ will ever be.'

If the game was designed in the right way, MP civ could be pretty big. For example, a simultaneous moves option that works, a game that runs as fast as civ2 ran on my pc (rather that civ3, slow), and other rules that would maximise the fun factor in MP without really harming SP play.

'1. Game has been steamlined, less pointless units like knights in Civ2 because of crusaders, dragoons and cavalry all being very close in the tech tree. By the time you built an army of knights they were out of date and replaced by the next installment. Leonardo's Workshop was very handy for this reason in Civ2. The uniqueness of the civs and UU along with the standardised basic units (no more phalanxes and alpine troops) is a welcome change.'

All of the units in Civ2 were useful though, in Civ3 there are some units no one uses because they are useless (as you mentioned further down). The reason there were so many units in civ2 was to balance out the tech tree so you could go down certain paths and not end up defenceless. Because of the added retreat ability and the weakness of bombardment, now fast units are the only unit to use for conquest, and a lot of tech trees can leave you vulnerable if you go off down them in MP (not that you can very far now 'thanks' to ages). I won't go into all the issues here, but it certainly makes war less interesting.

'in summary, without the ability to edit the units and game features this game would be somewhat poorer than Civ2, but the ability to modify things as you see fit allows the game to run very satisfactorily.'

Sadly, for MP this is not really a viable option, unless an accepted rules set for MP became very popular. You can't really have MP or any organised competition if people are playing with different rules (imagine a GOTM player playing with modified rules to benefit himself, and that's just in SP). That's one big reason why small changes to SP play can be really devastating to MP.

Anyway you make some good points, I know that the game may be pleasing for SP players, my point is that if it had been done in a more MP compatible way it would satisfy MP players as well as SP.

 

[BurntHostage]

OH I've got PLENTY of time for CIV, since that stinkin' layoff
:suicide:

MP? Lessgo!

 

[Troyens]

CIV II:

No Culture Flipping cities or borders. Bombers can sink warships.


Civ III:

Cultue Flipping cities and borders. Bombers cannot sink warsips!



Civ II wins.

 

[Andu Indorin]

After all the ballyhoo leading up to Civ 3, the result in my opinion is an inferior product, an unworthy successor to Civ 1 and Civ 2. While Civ 3 has many new features that are worthwhile additions to the game system, there are so many problems with the new system, from the user interface to historical inaccuracies, that I must conclude that Civ 2 is clearly the better designed product.

Civ 4, anyone?

 

[Selous]

u know what i find funny? .... some people say they dont play multiplayer because it takes to long (VERY valid point!) and is to tedius and only 1% of the market would be interested anyways .... but this figgure would change dramaticly if firaxis implimented innovative multiplayer options (AC was quite good and reasonably fast but then firaxis botched the implimintation at the server end for internet games, over a LAN it is VERY good!) but off corse if the game is designed only for single player with multiplayer tacked on (if we are lucky) then off corse the multiplayer aspect will only be for hardcore fans with to much time on there hands. and for those hardcore multiplayer fans civ3 is a aboration and it would look like sid and the firaxis team have abandoned them and left then to keep playing civ2 or move onto another 4x style game :s

like MOO3 for example, which is being designed with multiplayer in mind from the ground up

 

[Dirk Aurel]

MOO2 was one of the greatest of these kind of games,I had only very little to complain about.The other races could become a benefit if captured (I´d ferry Sakkras around because of their underground ability,which would increase planet pop etc),the tactical space battles were cool,the designing of own ships,the Antarians.The thing that maybe could have been improved was the ground attack,it did look very funny when the guys would storm a planet with all the laser and plasma fire,but I would have like to have seen it bit more detailed tactically and tougher to overrun a planet.

Well they are changing that,sounds like MOO3 will be excellent!

 

[nEo]

Civ 3 is better IMO...

1) Better Graphics than Civ 2 by far and are animated

2) Don't have to move trade caravans all over and waste time

3) More options to trade / initiate dialog between countries.

4) Much improved interface with more options.

5) Being able to bombard from ships and planes is nice.

6) More and better wonders

7) More options in future area, don't have to build Lasers in each town

8) Offshore platforms arent as useless as they were before.

9) Civilizations now have a type associated with them (eg. scientific, militaristic, and it matters)

10) I can go on all day, much more small things.



What better bout CIV 2

1) Had fundamentalism

2) Howitzers were unstoppable

3) Planes could attack ships

4) Wonders had a little thing to go with them.

 

[God]

Overall i like CIv 3 more, but i like to play civ2 to play some scenarios.

 

[brianboru]

I have a foot in both camps. I agree that Civ3 is better than civ2, particularly the AI and the resources. Civ2 was tooe asy in the end: I always played at diety level and won with no effort whatsoever as the Ai was too weak. That said Civ3 has some major and easily avoidable flaws
1. The interface is cute in a techie way but for gameplay its weak. In civ2 it was much easier to see how your whole civ was going and to compare with other civs. In civ3 you don't get that which is a bad mistake since civ3 was designed to be more cov-level than city level.
2. too many variables are vague to the point that i don't believe them. city improvements had a definite measureable effect in Civ2. In civ3 for instance, courthouse has a vague to zero effect. Plus things like war weariness come up from nowhere and there's no counterstrategies available. Thats a big gameplay failure, causing problems to which the player has no counter. On that topic, I have built universal sufferage several times and it has zero effect. That is a cheat , not a gameplay bug.
3. Game testing clearly didn't occur. One big adavantae in Civ 2 was the clever new units that appeared in late middle ages and the diversifictaion of railroad into rail, and farmland. that provided lots of things to do and genuine crunch decisions to be made.
In civ3 there are huge strectches when there is nothing to do but build units.

So my verdict on Civ3 is good big ideas, poor implementation of detail and gameplay.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by brianboru
In civ3 there are huge strectches when there is nothing to do but build units.

Isn't that the cause of a lot of industrial age wars? Too much production. Too many guns.

Check the pre-history of WWI. The Europeans stocked uniforms and weapons for nearly every male in Europe -- because they could do so very cheaply. When war came, the entire continent was mobilized.

 

[Ironikinit]

Yeah, but if you're smart you'll build wealth after you have your military needs covered so that you can gain or enlarge a tech lead.

 

[Zachriel]

I never said that the European leaders before WWI were smart.

 

[Ironikinit]

You know, sometimes I expect too much from a bunch of inbred royals.

 

[IronicWarrior19]

The thread that would never die...

'In civ3 there are huge strectches when there is nothing to do but build units.'

Yeah and they made it worse by removing caravans and diplos which you could stockpile if you had no use for them in civ2.

'So my verdict on Civ3 is good big ideas, poor implementation of detail and gameplay.'

I agree, although civ2 is a pretty big act to follow up.

 

[GaryNemo]

EdmondSpencer,

I'm new to Civ3, have been playing Civ I and Civ II since 1995. So I understand them better. I agree, Civ II is much better, but why?

The corruption in Civ III destroys the game. With over a dozen cities in Civ III, the outlying cities are producing one production and one science. Whatever I Road or Mine, the extra goes to corruption. I don't get it. Why would anyone like that?

And the main cities, only five squares from my capital, have significant corruption as well, unlike any prior Civ. I know, I know, I'm supposed to build the Forbidden Palace. But where? I only get one, and it will take FOREVER to build at a rate of 1 or 2 production. It's all stupid, if you ask me.