Civ 3 or Civ 4?

[tom2050]

...I do like Civ IV's health system, single Strength rating for units, Great People, and better handling of resources (as in being able to trade all resources, not just certain categories of resources - only 'Luxury Resources', is it?), though. If Civ III can handle them in a mod, though, I might just have to dig out the CD.
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This was the primary reason I stopped playing Civ4.

Civ 4 Description Quote:
Military units no longer have separate ratings for attack, defense and health, but instead a single strength rating. The combatants' strengths are modified by multiplicative promotion and circumstance bonuses, and the highest number generally wins.
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I don't understand why so many like such a combat model... it's as if they have convinced people that it's too much trouble to use your brain to figure out 2 number combat system, so lets make a horrid 1 number combat system, bigger number is better.

You cannot mod anything such as many historical units, since units good solely in defensive or offensive situations now are single point wonders capable of anything (a MG nest e.g. cannot be even implemented properly in 4).

It takes out a huge portion of any strategic build choices, and almost gets rid of the point to use multiple types of units (except for some of the unit bonus' which I do like the aspect of).

The combat system is what made me not play Civ4... why did they do it?

The revised combat system was largely in response to the "spearman-defeats-tank" problem that has plagued Civilization since its first iteration, wherein weak and obsolete units (generally controlled by the AI) would defeat stronger and more modernized forces (generally controlled by the player) on a far more regular basis than common sense would suggest possible.

Here's the problem with spearman beats modern armor... The chance of it happening is around .2 to .5%. It happened so rarely that it is somewhat irrelevent. It's just that people would notice it when it did rarely happen. But instead of making positive improvements, they went the dumb route and made every unit almost the same with a higher number, with the 'higher number generally wins'.

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The real reason:

They dumbed the game down to appeal to a broader audience, which they have successfully achieved, so prepare yourself for Civ5 to be dumbed down to a higher scale.

Tom

 

[Takhisis]

Game being dumbed down... it so reminds me of Magic: the Gathering, when they "simplified", i.e. stupidified, the game rules. It works! sales are going up.

 

[bob rulz]

Obviously most people here are going to say Civ III.

 

[Argetnyx]

CIV III ALL THE WAY!!!

1. Civ3 is much easier to mod.
2. So what if the trees move? I want a game, not a glam program.
3. For good balance, you need defensive and offensive units, not general-purpose units.
4. Bombers are supposed to bomb things with bombs, not rocks; they're supposed to actually do some damage
5. The whole scale of civ4 has been downsized, civs with more than 10 cities are very rare.
6. Kamikaze catapults? What were they on when they thought that one up?
7. A standing army is hardly possible, mobile reserves cannot be done due to lack of production.
8. What happened to the elaborate espionage option?
9. In Civ3, terrain improvement was brutally simple: If you want more production, build a mine; if you want more food, build irrigation. In civ4, if there is a resource on a space, you are required to build the improvement to access it, no matter what you want to get out of the space.
10. Promotions as specific as they are in civ4 get the unofficial stamp: TOO TACTICAL

I can think of plenty more, but not at the moment.

 

[Sashie VII]

Someone should sticky one of these threads so that new ones won't pop up every now and then.

 

[Graceheart the Leopard]

The real reason:

They dumbed the game down to appeal to a broader audience, which they have successfully achieved, so prepare yourself for Civ5 to be dumbed down to a higher scale.

Tom

Yup. We all know how CIV dumbed down the Civ3 promotions system, the multiple leaders for the same civ, XML and Python modding, espionage, random events, religions, corporations...

Anyways, I would recommend Civilization III for a beginner, while it's best to move on to Civilization IV after about a year or so.

 

[Drawmeus]

I would recommend Civ 4 for a beginner, actually. It's a simpler game. Civ 3 over Civ 4 for an advanced player is largely preference, imo. If complexity is your thing, go Civ 3. If clean mechanics is your thing, I'd take Civ 4.

I doubt very much that if they release a Civ 5 it will be more dumbed down than Civ 4, though. Civ 4 is a system reboot on the series to make it accessible again. I'd expect Civ 5 (if it happens) to clean up Civ 4 mechanics, maybe cut some of the most unnecessarily convoluted stuff for cleaner implementations, but overall depth I would expect to stay about the same.

Unless they target a different audience, in which case it could go either way (CivRev went way simpler for the console audience; they could release a Civ Advanced or something for the PC hardcore strategy type. I wouldn't count on it, but it'd change the equation a lot).

 

[ChaosArbiter]

I haven't played 4, although there is literally only one thing I *don't* like about 3 - the combat system. I much prefer Civ2's system, which made a lot more sense to me. I have seen a (picture) LP of 4, though, and I find the graphics irritating.

 

[tom2050]

Yup. We all know how CIV dumbed down the Civ3 promotions system, the multiple leaders for the same civ, XML and Python modding, espionage, random events, religions, corporations...

Anyways, I would recommend Civilization III for a beginner, while it's best to move on to Civilization IV after about a year or so.

Just to be clear, I was referring to them changing the foundation of the game, going from micro system to macro. Everything else you listed is nothing new, and have been incorporated into many other strategy games older than Civ3 or 4. To say that anyone that plays another strategy game is somewhat of a simpleton or beginner unless they play Civ 4 seems to be going a bit defensive when simply discussing game differences.

Dumbed down was not a good word to use, as I did not mean it in that sense. A game that came out 4 years after it's predecessor is obviously going to have many new features which are built upon the foundation of all of it's previous games.

The devs have said it themselves though, they tried their best to get rid of all Civ4 micromanagement, and replace it with a macromanagement model. This is what they did, and the macromanagement model is much more popular than the micro to the broader audience. They changed the base foundation of the game, and implemented a new way to manage your empire (they made it easier and simpler, less micro, more macro). This is the reason Civ3 is not dead, but still very much alive. Many prefer to have the options of micromanagement.

And the Civ 4 creators DID listen to many of the complaints of the community when they were making Civ 4, which is always a terrific thing. The fact that they went out of their way to try to accomodate all of them is also good. But their is a point where they need to balance out trying to get rid of everything that players think is somewhat annoying.

Combat initially had many negatives in 3 because of the spearman beats tank... so they made a 1 number system. Promotions I love, but the 1 number system I cannot stand for a variety of reasons.

Tiny little civilizations is also a bad decision. There is absolutely nothing that feels epic or grande or vast about having a mightly 10 cities. This was done because of the desire to go to 3d graphics. Now I have nothing against 3d graphics, but the 3d graphics are not good at all, and they could be considered decent at Civ4's release. I miss the epic feel of things when playing 4 and it makes me lose interest.

The whole point of a company is to make money; if they don't make money they don't stay in business. It's fair to make a guess that Civ 5 will go console, which may make the PC version suffer. This is just my guess though.

Tom

 

[Iranon]

I think the wrong complaints are raised with regards to the Civ4 combat system. Using just one strength value and having +x% on attack or defense in different circumstances is a change of notation rather than a reduction of complexity.
However, the system is rather unintuitive in a few ways. Combat promotions look comparable to others (both written as +x%) but work differently. Generally, the use of percentages in the game will make maths teachers slit their wrists, never mind mathematicians. I like the combat system of civ4 slightly better, but I don't really think it's a strong point of either game.

On the home front - empire management - I think much depends on your expectations. Much about civ3 gave off vibes of fake depth for me. Micromanagement that didn't involve actual decision maing ('wish I could write a script for this or delegate it to a 4-year-old without imagination'), anti-ICS precautions that either felt very heavy-handed or could be powered through and ignored, huge empires of interchangeable cities... I found the game a mess of draining, beancounting drudgery.

With more diversified economies, many interactions between the different government types, the Great People system and greater ability to specialise individual cities, I'd say that civ 4 is much, much deeper despite being less work.

 

[phungus420]

I would recommend Civ 4 for a beginner, actually. It's a simpler game.

Absolute BS. Civ3 is about as simple as a game can get. At high difficulty levels the strategy is always the same:
1) Micro Capital into Settler Pump
2) Rex
3) Tech to decent arty units
4) Use said arty units to conquer the world

That's it, that's as complex as Civ3 is. To be good at civ3 requires no strategic depth; all one needs is to be a good bean counter and follow a simple algorithm.

Compare this to civ4 that has deep strategic depth, allowing for a myriad of divergent strategies, including such novel concepts as not researching technologies, and still being able to win at the highest levels.

Look we get the fact you die hard civ3 fans love your little algorithm. And that you confuse the fact this algorithm requires precise bean counting micro tedium with strategic depth. But the fact is civ3 has no strategy, it's just a simple follow the numbers step by step process. All it requires is following a simple formula; that's not deep, and it's not complex.

 

[phungus420]

On the home front - empire management - I think much depends on your expectations. Much about civ3 gave off vibes of fake depth for me. Micromanagement that didn't involve actual decision maing ('wish I could write a script for this or delegate it to a 4-year-old without imagination'), anti-ICS precautions that either felt very heavy-handed or could be powered through and ignored, huge empires of interchangeable cities... I found the game a mess of draining, beancounting drudgery.

With more diversified economies, many interactions between the different government types, the Great People system and greater ability to specialise individual cities, I'd say that civ 4 is much, much deeper despite being less work.

Bingo. Spot on assessment.

 

[Spoonwood]

Absolute BS. Civ3 is about as simple as a game can get. At high difficulty levels the strategy is always the same:
1) Micro Capital into Settler Pump
2) Rex
3) Tech to decent arty units
4) Use said arty units to conquer the world

Nope. Who would play a 20k or 100k game that way? Or a diplo or space game? Also, armies can actually conquer faster at high levels. Artillery just picks off units not in cities.

Compare this to civ4 that has deep strategic depth, allowing for a myriad of divergent strategies, including such novel concepts as not researching technologies, and still being able to win at the highest levels.

I know there's an SG zero-science diplomatic game. Also, you won't find much teching in Moonsinger's 80k games. I don't see you outdoing those games.

 

[Argetnyx]

Anyways, I would recommend Civilization III for a beginner, while it's best to move on to Civilization IV after about a year or so.

Yes and how is it that most of the people still playing Civ3 experts? Civ4 is just a basic game with some decorations put on it.

Absolute BS. Civ3 is about as simple as a game can get. At high difficulty levels the strategy is always the same:
1) Micro Capital into Settler Pump
2) Rex
3) Tech to decent arty units
4) Use said arty units to conquer the world

That's it, that's as complex as Civ3 is. To be good at civ3 requires no strategic depth; all one needs is to be a good bean counter and follow a simple algorithm.

Compare this to civ4 that has deep strategic depth, allowing for a myriad of divergent strategies, including such novel concepts as not researching technologies, and still being able to win at the highest levels.

Look we get the fact you die hard civ3 fans love your little algorithm. And that you confuse the fact this algorithm requires precise bean counting micro tedium with strategic depth. But the fact is civ3 has no strategy, it's just a simple follow the numbers step by step process. All it requires is following a simple formula; that's not deep, and it's not complex.

And you have OBVIOUSLY never played Civ3. And if you had, I feel sorry for you for getting a bad experience playing it because you did it WRONG!

Artillery in Civ3 isn't "all powerful" like your beloved civ4 'Kamikaze guns', they do not have combat strengths, only bombard power.

Civ3 requires much more strategic knowlege than civ4. In civ4, you make as many allies as possible, and bash your head against the enemy with 'Kamikaze guns' until they submit to you.

Your 'not researching technologies' doesn't help your point; in Civ3, you want to research all techs (even the optional ones) because each one actually gives you something.

I don't know what kinds of players you see, but most expert players don't go for 'algorithms', but just know when their units will probably succeed or fail. Here's a hint for the next time you get enough experience to try Civ3: just because there are numbers doesn't mean that you have to calculate something with them.

 

[Takhisis]

Absolute BS. Civ3 is about as simple as a game can get. At high difficulty levels the strategy is always the same:
1) Micro Capital into Settler Pump
2) Rex
3) Tech to decent arty units
4) Use said arty units to conquer the world

That's it, that's as complex as Civ3 is. To be good at civ3 requires no strategic depth; all one needs is to be a good bean counter and follow a simple algorithm.

Compare this to civ4 that has deep strategic depth, allowing for a myriad of divergent strategies, including such novel concepts as not researching technologies, and still being able to win at the highest levels.

Look we get the fact you die hard civ3 fans love your little algorithm. And that you confuse the fact this algorithm requires precise bean counting micro tedium with strategic depth. But the fact is civ3 has no strategy, it's just a simple follow the numbers step by step process. All it requires is following a simple formula; that's not deep, and it's not complex.

What the f? No way... Have you tried playing something like, dunno, Regent?

Not to mention that you've obviously played only the "epic" game. And, you know, artillery doesn't have lethal bombardment in Civ III. Plus, catapults come very late. If you start churning out war chariots with Egytp then everybody else is toast.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

And, you know, artillery doesn't have lethal bombardment in Civ III.

Unless you're Korea, and then only for the Cannon Replacement.

 

[phungus420]

Bull. First off, if you guys were honest you'd realize civ, as in all civ games starting from civ1 have about the poorest combat engine of any strategy game. The 1v1 unit fights are ********; and it's the one weakness of the whole series. The arty in civ3 is a huge part of warfare in the game, as is civ4. The main strength of civilization series is it's economic engine, it's strategic depth. And here civ3 is nothing but forced tedium; all you do is produce a Capital settler pump, and Rex, Rex, Rex. Being good at this is about bean counting, not complex or deep strategy. All one needs to do is look at the succession games in the Civ4 and Civ3 forums (the high level games) to see this. Civ3 is always the same game at high level; very little deviation, and it's just about tedious calculations that a script monkey can do. Again being able to count and add small integers together, and needing to remember asinine micro things like stopping research or changing worked tiles every turn to stop overflow loss is not strategy, it's just tedious; and could be easily done by a script.

 

[phungus420]

Iranon says it quite eloquently here; and I notice you all failed to adress his point, and instead focus on the main flaw in all civ games (warfare). Though civ4's unit combat class system is at least a step forward and requires better stack composition and more strategic thought then civ3, it's still crap.

On the home front - empire management - I think much depends on your expectations. Much about civ3 gave off vibes of fake depth for me. Micromanagement that didn't involve actual decision maing ('wish I could write a script for this or delegate it to a 4-year-old without imagination'), anti-ICS precautions that either felt very heavy-handed or could be powered through and ignored, huge empires of interchangeable cities... I found the game a mess of draining, beancounting drudgery.

With more diversified economies, many interactions between the different government types, the Great People system and greater ability to specialise individual cities, I'd say that civ 4 is much, much deeper despite being less work.

Again, forced tedium and drudgery is not strategy.

 

[ChaosArbiter]

All one needs to do is look at the succession games in the Civ4 and Civ3 forums (the high level games) to see this. Civ3 is always the same game at high level; very little deviation, and it's just about tedious calculations that a script monkey can do. Again being able to count and add small integers together, and needing to remember asinine micro things like stopping research or changing worked tiles every turn to stop overflow loss is not strategy, it's just tedious; and could be easily done by a script.

Then why does the AI suck so badly at it?

 

[CommandoBob]

Bull. First off, if you guys were honest

Are you implying that we are dishonest? Is that what you meant to say?

You have some very strong views on various parts of Civ III and Civ IV. Others may agree or disagree with your points.

If you just want to rant, go ahead.

If you seek to persuade, you need to do a better job. Speaking for myself (and only for myself), I don't listen too well when I'm being talked down to.