Civ II Wasn't All That Good Compared to III

[MirandaCore]

Human Cheapos in civ II:

1. Fundamentalism

2. The mass horseman strategy where u build literally hundreds of horseman (which can be supported under Fundementalism which u can get w/ the Statue of Liberty).

Then u get Learnado's Workshop, learn Chivalry, Leadership, and Tactics and wala! hundreds of cavlary for free.

3. Bribing w/ diplomats and spies

4. Place a bomber over a battleship. No ships can attack the square since the "ships can't attack air units." Fighters attacking the square attack the battleship.

5. Howitzers

Computer Cheats:

1. Obvious. Just turn on Reveal Entire Map any time in a higher difficulty level game and u'll see massive comp cheating.

2. Triemes that travel across the Atlantic. Bombers that never refuel.

Game Problems:

1. A problematic Go Command.

2. All civs the same.

3. Computers mass produce cruise missiles and never use them except against battleships and carriers.

4. Stacks of units all die if one unit of that stack dies.


So civ III isn't all that bad compared to civ II. But the thing is that civ II is very fast paced (which hides most of the problems) whereas civ III is much slower paced which exacerbates its problems.

 

[Zouave]

Civ III stinks compared to Civ II.

Civ III took out the fun and added irritation and tedium and annoying in-your-face dopey AI.


And I see you STILL haven't learned how to spell CAVALRY:

Then u get Learnado's Workshop, learn Chivalry, Leadership, and Tactics and wala! hundreds of cavlary for free.

 

[Richard III]

The worst was the howitzers. Modern warfare consisted of building 30 howitzers, 3 riflemen and 10 engineers, and then building a railway to the nearest target and pushing the rest down the railway as fast as possible.

For all of those (mostly civ2) fans who b**** about how unreal civ3 is, I'd sooner lose a tank to a mountaintop spearman once in awhile than engage in stupid artillery and howitzerfests for six hours. And the WWI scenario - god! How many zeppelins does it take to fight a war?

 

[jpowers]

The answer there, of course, is ALL OF THEM!

 

[dunk]

I agree. Civ III is much better than Civ II.

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

Civ2 was a wonderful game. I still remember the first time I loaded it, and and didn't stop playing until about 5 in the morning. It was so cool to have a chance to rule the world that tried to model the progression of human development.

After a while though, the game was still absorbing to play, but it was obvious that the AI was cartoonishly bad. Pond battleships were perhaps its most fearsome weapon in its tactical arsenal. Oh well.

I am trying to find some context here, and what it would mean when Civ3 came out. First with Civ2 having successfully established itself as The Game of civilized simulation, it meant that Civ3 was going to be measured against it. I'm beginning to believe that the underlying cause of most complaints is not so simple as it often seems.

The AI in Civ3 is tougher, I feel. But because of that, when it fails its errors seem more egregious. In Civ2, you knew you were playing an opponent who couldn't help build a battleship in a one-tile lake. Civ3's production of units isn't perfect, but it is so much better than Civ2 that the glitches stand out in deeper contrast.

So now we've got an AI that is somewhat more realistic than the predecessor. But then that got unfortunately conflicted with a couple of other areas of game development. First, the tech tree got pruned severely--in that way the game lost some of Civ2's immersive depth and multiple paths. In that sense, the tech tree got flattened, more two-dimensional, less realistic, and that too rubs a bit wrong with an AI that performs better and more realistically.

There's other areas that have this happen. Things where the depth got diminished or the realism got glossed over due to needs of game play. And then Civ3 inevitably gets compared with its predecessor which maintained a much more consistent level of depth to how it was played.

Then the complaints come pouring in. Some justified, some less so, some not at all. Most times with a screech of "Fix this!" and nothing of trying to understand if it's really something to complain over, and if it is, what could be the answer in a patch or Civ4.

Civ3 is a good game. But you're almost trying to compare an apple and an orange.

 

[zeeter]

Let me start by saying that there are glaring weaknesses in Civ3. That said, and with apologies to Zouave, Civ3 is still the BEST CIV TYPE GAME THAT WAS EVER MADE. No question.

Its so good, in fact, that many people insist on pointing out its weaknesses because it could be so much better.

Ok, the AI cheats. We know this. It must cheat to provide comptetition for us. Since we have brains and can think and learn from the game, and since the AI can only do what it was programmed to do, it needs to have certain advantages.

Some people feel that the rules should be the same for the AI as it is for the player. That's rubbish. Nobody ever said that the rules were the same. The computer is trying to keep you from winning the game. Sometimes this results in them trying to win, but often it results in the computer doing things to keep you from winning.

Lets look at cheating in other games. In Doom II, how come the fat machinegunner never ran out of bullets? How come the monster that fired rockets from his arms never ran out of rockets? Its a cheat. Yet I don't think I ever heard anyone complain about this. If the rocket guy ran out of rockets, how easy would it be to kill him?

All games cheat to some degree. They must in order to provide us with a challenge.

 

[GhengisFarb]

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux
Civ2 was a wonderful game. I still remember the first time I loaded it, and and didn't stop playing until about 5 in the morning.

I remember the first time I loaded Civ3, and it crashed.

I remember the second time I loaded Civ3, played it for 10 turns and it crashed.

I remember the third time I loaded Civ3, played it for 20 turns and it crashed. Then I went looking for the Firaxis website.....

Remember when Civ3 was first released, you could go to the Firaxis website to look for patches and the website said something to the effect: "We are perfect. There are absolutely no errors or bugs in Civ3. If you have problems it is something wrong with your drivers, or Windows, or the electrical current in your nation is not completely pure. We at Firaxis have not now, nor will we ever make imperfect software."

Couple months later there's a patch......

Seriously, though, I like Civ3 cause it has prettier colors and cool new concepts, like having to link resources and needing those resources for units.

If we can just get Firaxis to take all the best concepts from Civ2, Civ3, Colonization, and Alpha Centauri and create Civ4 human social interaction as we know it will cease to exist. "Sorry, can't eat. My Ore Miner's just about to graduate a class of students and I've got three resources of Iron being mined by Tobacco Planters...."

 

[Maple]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb

I remember the first time I loaded Civ3, and it crashed.

I remember the second time I loaded Civ3, played it for 10 turns and it crashed.

I remember the third time I loaded Civ3, played it for 20 turns and it crashed. Then I went looking for the Firaxis website.....

I think we all have similar stories...

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

Originally posted by Maple


I think we all have similar stories...

All is a big word.

 

[GhengisFarb]

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux


All is a big word.

No it isn't. It's only three letters long.

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb


No it isn't. It's only three letters long.

Yes, but I wasn't referring to its number of letters. Think meaning.

 

[GhengisFarb]

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux



Yes, but I wasn't referring to its number of letters. Think meaning.

Ohhhh. I like your signature by the way....

 

[philippe]

I know civ2 and civ3 loved them both but civ3....Its better.Even zouave (calvary calvary calvary!!!!!)cannot change my opinion.
Give it up zouave your not going to change my mind.

 

[Dearmad]

It seems like a lot of people who came to Civ via Civ2 first love that game over Civ3. I first played Civ1 the very week it first came out. Then when civ2 came out I tried to love it- and for all of the reasons quoted at the top, it fell apart for me. I tried to mod it back to life but it lacked a heart that I found worth saving.

Civ III has that heart. I wonder if it's a generational thing. Civ1+3=love, but I'll hate Civ 4. All you Civ2 lovers out there will love Civ4 then.

 

[Evie]

Civ III has been known to keep me up just as much as Civ II.

And no, it didn't pull a crash routine on me. In fact throughout my gaming on Civ III it crashed only thrice or so, and I got it the day it came out. It never crashed in-game that I remember, just a few time when loading up at the start, and that only recently.

Personally, I think theonly thing lacking to bring Civ III to the above Civ II level is the scenario editor. Civ II, without modding and scenario-making, wasn't a superior game to Civ III. The AI was even stupider (Ships stacks, battlefish ponds, etc), and some of the greatest options of Civ III (resource for one) were missing, as were many sweet options in diplomacy. Not to mention that the differences between the civs are more marked now, and that Golden Age makes a lot more sense.

 

[zeeter]

Here's something interesting. All of Sid's early Microprose games were extremely deep - at least for their time. Why, I had almost as much fun reading the manual to Railroad Tycoon as I did playing it. Did you know that Coke is the name of a form of coal? I didn't. Anyway, I loved Civ1. I would play for a few days, then get bored. Picking up the manual in those times when there's nothing else to do but read a quick story I would quickly get turned back on to the game. The manual worked as a history lesson for me. I would then try to build the collossus in my next game so as to replicate history. It was fun and (gasp) educational.
Civ2, while a great game and vast improvement over Civ1, did not offer the same depth. Civ3 doesn't do it as well as Civ1, but there are a lot of neat concepts. Great Leaders, Culture Flipping, Resistances, Resources, Luxeries. All great concepts.
I haven't played Civ2 for a long time, but I cannot think of any many new game concepts in it. There was the health meter and some firepower rating that I don't think anyone outside of the dev team understood. There were a few new Wonders and Advances, but nothing as ground breaking as Great Leaders or Luxeries.

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by MirandaCore

1. A problematic Go Command.

I remember that in civ2. I would try to move a unit on a railroad and it would consistently fall off in the mud somewhere. I got civ2 gold and thought it would surely be fixed by the time of the "golden" release, but, nope.

I'm glad they fixed it in civ3.

I think civ3 could be improved, though.

 

[Squirrel]

Originally posted by Dearmad
It seems like a lot of people who came to Civ via Civ2 first love that game over Civ3. I first played Civ1 the very week it first came out. Then when civ2 came out I tried to love it- and for all of the reasons quoted at the top, it fell apart for me. I tried to mod it back to life but it lacked a heart that I found worth saving.

I have been thinking the same thing. The original Civ was an excellent game. I still remember all the long nights with that great, but hard to describe, Civ-feeling. I was never able to get that feeling with Civ2. I can't really point out why, but for some reason I went back to Civ1 after a while.
When I started playing Civ3 the Civ-feeling came back to me, but even better.

Compared to Civ1 and Civ3, Civ2 is a lousy game.

 

[Reboot]

Originally posted by zeeter
Here's something interesting. All of Sid's early Microprose games were extremely deep - at least for their time. Why, I had almost as much fun reading the manual to Railroad Tycoon as I did playing it.

Now THIS, I agree completely. CivI completely captured my imagination with all the civilopedias. And the manual! The Manual! That epilogue thing is SO incredible! I fell in love with Human History after that - and I was barely 12 years old then.

Dang, you made me miss the cool quotations from SMAC again. I wish they could have done that for CivIII.