and yet you cant disagree with what i said.
I can.
a lot civ 3 players cant seem to grapple with the differences of civ 4 though
As to the civ 3 players that can't "grapple" with the new concepts, this applies to anyone new to civ 4. Playing Civ 3 doesn't help you know what is going on in Civ 4 all that much. Because they changed the system. SO even Civ 3 players don't adapt easy. This is mostly not the reason they don't like 4. They grapple with it in time, and they don't like it.
or think the changes are bad because they change the way the game is played.
First off - this is what a sequel usually does. But it isn't so much about the fact the gameplay has changed so much as the flavor has. If you like playing long epic games civ 4 just doesn't deliver in the same way that 1, 2, and 3 did. The reason - to target a new audience and not deliver much at all to the people that made it possible for a Civ 4.
I agree neither is better and also would recommend both. I would suggest the OP playing the demo of 4 and one for 3 if one is available. See which one you like better.
The graphics in 4 suck honestly. I have seen better graphics on almost any other 3D game engine. I don't want to dog on the art design team too bad because I don't care about graphics that much. The main point is that 4 is a resource hog due to alot of unnecessary things in 4. You would think that this would mean awesome graphics but it doesn't. If you are actually impressed by Civ 4's graphics, you clearly don't know much about graphics.
It does boil down to personal preference. There is a good amount of nice things added in 4 and there was alot of nice things from 3 that they just tore out and threw away. The flavor of each changes alot because of this. Personally, I think Civ 4 holds the most potential of the two. However, currently Civ 3 is the better game. Although, if you plan to mod Civ 4 is the better purchase. Because then you can take it into your hands to unlock any missing potential that you feel is severely lacking. But this means alot of time invested depending on how in depth you want your mod to go. If you don't plan on modding Civ 3 IMO is the better game and the better purchase currently.
My take on the two:
Civ 3
Pros:
-Better wars and tactics. (Especially if you don't exploit the AI.)
-Better Advisors.
-A truly Epic game where you will experience each era on an equal level steadily progressing through the ages.
-Vast empires and large worlds.
-The terrain on the map is more useful. Most of tile types in 4 are unimproveable and either provide no resource, or very little.
Cons:
-Horrible corruption system.
-Heavy micromanagement.
-Rapid Expansion phase.
-AI had difficult time understanding its units.
Civ 4:
Pros
-Better Government choices.
-Better leveling system for units.
-AI does understand it's units. (Well, mostly anyways. Although it has had a hard time figuring out what to do with them.)
-Great People System
-Enhanced City specialization.
Cons
-Due to lessened micromanagement alot of the game has a hands off approach.
-Games are very short even on the longest settings. It is easy to see a unit type you just discovered be obsoleted by your next tech advancement.
-Maps are small even on the largest settings. "HUge" maps consist usually of 2 islands (Continents) about equivelant to the size of Australia at best. Maybe smaller.
-Most combat (and
all crucial combat) is land based making air and navy almost worthless. I don't even build ships other than transports mostly.
-Warfare has been stripped of almost all tactics. Ironically, getting less and less tactical the later into eras you get.
For one thing, the graphics are actually appealing, whereas in civ 3 they were actually a step down from civ 2.
I don't understand this. Civ 2 didn't even have textures. They were just colors looking like mspaint templates.
