spiralx
Chieftain
It does seem like a lot of the complaints from CIII players are from people who've played a couple of games, got annoyed that they couldn't just city spam their way to victory, and then given up.
CIv 3 vs Civ 4..
- Thread starter bryanwallace
- Start date
azzaman333
meh
I have played many, many Civ 4 games, yet I still prefer Civ 3 over 4. Probably because the AI can basically spam cities where ever it wants, yet if the human tries to keep up you have no research, no units and become free territory for an AI when it eventually gets up the courage to attack.
Spamming is more accurate, though. It was a repetitive action that required little thought.
Really, saying things like this leads me to the same conclusion as spiralx. Honestly, I find it hard to believe that you played many Civ 4 games.
The AI suffers the same limitations to expansions as you do. At least up to and including Monarch a human player can easily have as many or more cities as the AI for most of the game. For example the AI pays 90% of your Civic Upkeep at Monarch. Guess the AI just handles it economy better than you do.
azzaman333
meh
I bought both Civ 4 and Warlords within 3 days of their releases, so I definately have played this game a lot.
Which fails to explain my strong performances playing multiplayer games. I am coming more and more to the conclusion that the AI in C4 isn't at all better, it just cheats more.
spiralx
Chieftain
That's nice; but you're wrong and it's not hard to prove either 
azzaman333
meh
That's nice; but you're wrong and it's not hard to prove either
Whats nice is that in Civ 3 five units won't win you a war, unlike Civ 4.
Quite so. In Civ 3 you just need an army. That's three units isn't it?
Sullla
Patrician Roman Dictator
I'm not really interested in this debate, which has been done to death many times now, but this needs addressing:
That's an outright lie, and you have no evidence to make that claim. Although there are a lot of problems with the Civ4 AI, one of the biggest achievements of the game is that the AI is NOT cheating to anywhere near the degree of its predecessors. Certainly nothing on the scale of the Civ3 AI, which:
- Could see invisible resources and settle them accordingly.
- Blatanly cheated in terms of tech trading and resource swapping. (How many times have you seen the most backwards, isolated AI on the map suddenly caught up to parity 5 turns after making contact?)
- Had knowledge of the map at all times. I'll let this picture speak for itself:
Tell me that the AI didn't know that island was out there in the fog. Riiiight.
The Civ4 AI does not cheat in any of those ways described above. It does get cheaper techs and maintenance costs on the higher difficulties, but you already knew that, right? The only two areas where the AI legitimately has an unfair advance in Civ4 are:
- War weariness is ridiculously low (this was done because the AI was horribly bad at dealing with the concept).
- Unit upgrades are MUCH cheaper for the AI.
But BOTH of those points mentioned above were also blantant cheats for the AI in Civ3 as well!
So while I could care less if you prefer Civ3 to Civ4 (hey, personal preference) - don't accuse the game of being harder due to "cheating". That's a total cop-out excuse. The AI in Civ4 has many flaws, but it IS better than the Civ3 AI. By a lot.
That's an outright lie, and you have no evidence to make that claim. Although there are a lot of problems with the Civ4 AI, one of the biggest achievements of the game is that the AI is NOT cheating to anywhere near the degree of its predecessors. Certainly nothing on the scale of the Civ3 AI, which:
- Could see invisible resources and settle them accordingly.
- Blatanly cheated in terms of tech trading and resource swapping. (How many times have you seen the most backwards, isolated AI on the map suddenly caught up to parity 5 turns after making contact?)
- Had knowledge of the map at all times. I'll let this picture speak for itself:
Tell me that the AI didn't know that island was out there in the fog. Riiiight.
The Civ4 AI does not cheat in any of those ways described above. It does get cheaper techs and maintenance costs on the higher difficulties, but you already knew that, right? The only two areas where the AI legitimately has an unfair advance in Civ4 are:
- War weariness is ridiculously low (this was done because the AI was horribly bad at dealing with the concept).
- Unit upgrades are MUCH cheaper for the AI.
But BOTH of those points mentioned above were also blantant cheats for the AI in Civ3 as well!
So while I could care less if you prefer Civ3 to Civ4 (hey, personal preference) - don't accuse the game of being harder due to "cheating". That's a total cop-out excuse. The AI in Civ4 has many flaws, but it IS better than the Civ3 AI. By a lot.
Xanikk999
History junkie
There were tests done on civ4 AI right after civ4 was released by the community and they did confirm that civ4 AI does know the location of all future resources.
And i thought they had knowledge of the map as well?
Im not saying your lying.. but i remembered browsing the forums and seeing this tested to death.
And i thought they had knowledge of the map as well?
Im not saying your lying.. but i remembered browsing the forums and seeing this tested to death.
danieldaniel
Unsinnschmierer
didn't they change that in patch?
What tests exactly? As far as I'm aware the AI city placement code was really poor originally which easily explained why obscure city sites were regularly chosen; not because they knew about unrevealed resources. As I recall, this was confirmed by Blake, after he had gone through the city placement code in the early days of BetterAI.
Xanikk999
History junkie
I guess they must of changed something then. Because i swear in the late days of 2005, several people did tests on the AI of civ4, and they proved that they went after resources for city sites.
And they went after goody huts without that portion of the map explored.
bardolph
King
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2007
- Messages
- 739
Post your system specs. Because frankly, if your system isn't up to spec for Civ 4 (and even the "recommended" specs aren't really sufficient), then there's no point in having this discussion at all.
Civ 4 is simply great ... if you can run it.
The graphics are nice (though not much better than "nice"), but they won't mean beans after you've spent 60 hours staring at them, so don't base your decision on the graphics alone, unless of course the "nice" graphics slow your system down to a crawl, in which case you'll definitely regret your investment in Civ 4.
I haven't played much Civ 3, but here's what I like about Civ 4:
- Civics
- Religions
- Many key decision points. Strategic decisions involve significant trade-offs, which you must weigh carefully.
- Streamlined gameplay. Much of the tedious micromanagement of previous versions is gone, but there is an enormous amount of subtlety for those who enjoy some micromanagement.
- Much better AI. Also, as you play the game, you will find that each leaderhead has a distinct "personality" that affects your diplomatic relations. Very enjoyable.
- City planning is deep and very complex. There are many different types of cities, and city specialization makes each city in your empire unique.
- Tile management is deeper. There are more tile improvement options, and important trade-offs for each one.
- The "City Maintenance" system, probably the most significant gameplay change in Civ 4, makes rapid expansion (REX) one option out of many, rather than the only option. Detractors will tell you that REX is impossible in Civ 4. This is not true. It just takes patience and skill to pull it off, and it comes with certain trade-offs.
Civ 4 is a game of trade-offs. Mastery of Civ 4 comes from learning how to synergize the different resources offered by your civilization traits, map tiles, neighbors, and technologies. This is no easy task, and there is still considerable debate over which strategies are "best." Definitely a good sign, if you ask me.
Aptenodytes
Chieftain
BOTH! If you can only afford one-Civ 4!
El Justo
Deity
i think what he meant was that the low-poly units in civ4 do not look as appealing in-game as the high poly user made ones for civ3. and i agree w/ this. some user made units for civ3 will never be surpassed by civ4 gfx due to these poly and 3d limitations of the graphics programs.
I tried Civ 3 today again, and I got a bit bored after having to babysit 30 odd or so cities. One thing that really stands out though is how improved the Civ IV interface is, the amount of information you can access by just hovering your cursor over something, without having to go clciking and bringing up the new windows, is quite huge. Stacked unit groupings, easy terraing information, technology availability etc.....the bottom line here is I found going back to Civ III hard because of all the tedium of repetitive order issuing and not being able to access the information easily.
Part of it is ofcourse that there is simply less stuff to manage in Civ IV, especially number of cities, but greater part is because the information is readily accessible and available.
Part of it is ofcourse that there is simply less stuff to manage in Civ IV, especially number of cities, but greater part is because the information is readily accessible and available.
largedarryl
Prince
Civ4 is far better than civ3. I played civ3+all the expansions and the games were so micromanagement heavy that playing one turn would take forrever. Also in civ3, the worker improvements were easy to choose, mine grassland and you would rule.
In Civ4, the vastly improved economic model makes the expansion in the early stages hard. When I first started civ4, i would regularly be just like historical Rome. I would expand and conquer, only to be hindered by a horrible economy that would allow my military to wilt away to nothing, and eventually be overun by anyone and everyone. I also love the more options given to workers in civ4. You don't just choose between farm or mine. You can choose to farm, mine, cottage, watermill, windmill or workshop. Basically after playing civ4 and actually getting used to the new mechanics, I think it is twice the game that civ3 is.
In Civ4, the vastly improved economic model makes the expansion in the early stages hard. When I first started civ4, i would regularly be just like historical Rome. I would expand and conquer, only to be hindered by a horrible economy that would allow my military to wilt away to nothing, and eventually be overun by anyone and everyone. I also love the more options given to workers in civ4. You don't just choose between farm or mine. You can choose to farm, mine, cottage, watermill, windmill or workshop. Basically after playing civ4 and actually getting used to the new mechanics, I think it is twice the game that civ3 is.
Stolen Rutters
Deity
The biggest difference in Civ 4 over all the earlier Civ games in my opinion:
The number of supportable cities rises as you research key techs in the tech tree (depending on how you play, it can be quicker or slower), so if you expand too fast too soon, you will kill science research and stagnate your empire, while the smaller, more nimble realms will pass you by and eventually come at you with more advanced units.
The Civ3 tactic of speeding up your territorial expansion will, instead of catching you up, be the death knell of the empire if you do it too early.
Of course, this only applies before you have a certain tech level under your belt (which, of course, is EXACTLY when the old Civ3 player will try to use their favorite Civ3 tactics to pull ahead). Get the pacing right, and you won't notice.
Civ 4 is my favorite of all of them.
My$0.02,
SR
The number of supportable cities rises as you research key techs in the tech tree (depending on how you play, it can be quicker or slower), so if you expand too fast too soon, you will kill science research and stagnate your empire, while the smaller, more nimble realms will pass you by and eventually come at you with more advanced units.
The Civ3 tactic of speeding up your territorial expansion will, instead of catching you up, be the death knell of the empire if you do it too early.
Of course, this only applies before you have a certain tech level under your belt (which, of course, is EXACTLY when the old Civ3 player will try to use their favorite Civ3 tactics to pull ahead). Get the pacing right, and you won't notice.
Civ 4 is my favorite of all of them.
My$0.02,
SR
