Civ III good for a Civ IV BTS player?

[Haig]

Civ III Complete is being sold for a very low price so I'm wondering would it do anything for me, a fresh-faced newcomer who just got Civ IV Complete this year (and is disappointed in Civ V).

With Civ IV I found my personal Greatest game ever, but I'd like to give III a try too as I know that every Civ has it's loyal supporters who loves it..

If I'm not wrong, some Civ III stuff is even more hardcore than IV, like corruption or rebellions of cities?
I played Civ III with a friend back when it was released but without real strategies so I really can't compare.. I remember enjoying the ranged bombardment though, also I recall that bombardment actually smashed buildings from a city too.

Civ III graphics won't obviously compare to more recent Civs but it's no problem.

 

[Turner]

Let me start with this:
Moderator Action: Let's not make this a Civ3 vs Civ4 thread.

Long time Civ3 player, and a new Civ4 one. It's very accurate to say they're two different games. Corruption sucks, I mod it low by 33 to 66%. I've thought of pegging it at normal, and just adding reduces corruption to each of the buildings. It's ridiculous that the corruption gets so bad. Rebelling cities, well, don't have a problem with that in Civ3, you just throw enough units at the city and starve them down. The battles are simplified in Civ4. In 3, you have to be mindful of an attack and defense value, and be careful not to attack with the wrong unit. The Civ4 model is much simplified.

There's more I could add, but I'll let other people bring it up. I like 4 (didn't when I played the demo, glad I got it now) and I like 3, but to say they're the same like Vice City and San Andreas, well, they're not.

And again, let's keep it clean when comparing Civ3 to Civ4.

 

[Turner]

Moderator Action: Let's not make this a Civ3 vs Civ4 thread.

Upon reflection, what I should have said was "Let's make it a civilized discussion". By all means, discuss the differences between the two games, but keep it civil.

 

[Admiral Armada]

I started my civ career with CTP, when i got III i never looked back. When i got 4, it felt so much better that i never looked back. V..., well lets just say im back to 4. Personally, i see no reason to go back to 3.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Let me start with this:
Moderator Action: Let's not make this a Civ3 vs Civ4 thread.

Long time Civ3 player, and a new Civ4 one. It's very accurate to say they're two different games. Corruption sucks, I mod it low by 33 to 66%. I've thought of pegging it at normal, and just adding reduces corruption to each of the buildings. It's ridiculous that the corruption gets so bad. Rebelling cities, well, don't have a problem with that in Civ3, you just throw enough units at the city and starve them down. The battles are simplified in Civ4. In 3, you have to be mindful of an attack and defense value, and be careful not to attack with the wrong unit. The Civ4 model is much simplified.

There's more I could add, but I'll let other people bring it up. I like 4 (didn't when I played the demo, glad I got it now) and I like 3, but to say they're the same like Vice City and San Andreas, well, they're not.

And again, let's keep it clean when comparing Civ3 to Civ4.

I think this is a good summary. If you want help when you start CivIII, the CivIII forum is still active and a lot of people there will give you good advice. A lot of the older strategy guides still apply also. They are quite different games and I enjoy both.

A major difference is the AI. You can't really keep the AI off your back with diplomacy - Civs that say they love you can still attack. But the AI respects power more than it does in IV and is very opportunistic. If you're weak militarily, you're in even more trouble than in IV. All AI's tech trade regardless of attitude but can be really unreasonable about trading resources. I'm always starting wars because the AI demands an arm and a leg for a resource. In some ways the AI is more practical in III.

Land is power applies even more in III and roads provide commerce. And if you go into the late game, be sure you know how to automate clearing pollution.

Oddly enough, a few beginner problems in IV are also problems in III. Siege is very important, land is power (doubly important as no city maintenance), don't fall behind in military and build 1.5 workers per city. Also, be sure to explore enough. Workers is the biggest. One of the best CivIII players said he never saw a game asking for help at Noble and below where the OP had built enough workers.

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

Civ 3 has the best editor program in all of the Civ series. As Turner said, you can modify pretty much every basic functions of the game with relative ease. Civ 3 editor FTW yo!

And do play the Teturkan scenario. My favorite of all time. Love the silk road and Elvis!!!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

In 3, you have to be mindful of an attack and defense value, and be careful not to attack with the wrong unit. The Civ4 model is much simplified.

Interesting. It's a loooooong time since I played Civ3 but I'm sure I recall the opposite: That the Civ4 model is more complex. It's true that in Civ3, units have separate strengths for attacking and defending - for example mounted units tend to be very strong at attacking but very weak at defending; but the other side to that is that the whole system of promotions was new in Civ4, alongside the categorization of units alongside numerous special abilities that allowed things like the spearman's +100% vs mounted units.

To answer the original question, my memory of Civ3 is that it emphasizes war more and managing the economy less. The game mechanics favours large numbers of cities which means games tend to take longer to play. Diplomacy was simpler, and the AI wasn't programmed to keep detailed memories of previous transactions. So eg. refusal to a demand would randomly mean instant war or nothing at all, but no other consequences. The tech tree was as big as in Civ4, but structured so as to give less variety in the paths you can take. Personally, once I loaded Civ4, I basically never looked back, but (obviously) other people's mileage will vary.

Oh, and war was more a matter of guesswork since you couldn't see how many units were defending a city - you'd have to bring along a number to attack that you'd HOPE were enough!

 

[phungus420]

The most common experience for long time civ fans (those who have played Civilization since it was first released in 1991) is that the original game was revolutionary, and simply awesome (for it's time). Civ2 was great as it expanded the game, and just improved everything. CivIII was a huge letdown, and sat in the box after playing it a few times. CivIV was awesome and worthy of the civ franchise. There are of course vocal members of the civIII community that parrot how great a game it is, but their numbers are small. Plus I have probably a dozen friends IRL who play civ, and not a single one of them enjoys civ3 (they all thought it was a letdown game), while those who have played 2 love it, and everyone loves civ4. CivV has gotten very mixed reviews, it's not the overwhelming dismissive "meh" that most people feel about civIII.

 

[bitplayer]

I actually enjoyed civIII. Not going back there anytime soon but I really liked the game. Despite this, however, my advise to the op is just stick with iv despite the low price of III.

Unless he is on holiday 24/7 that is.

"Cause imo that game will suck as much of your free time as iv does if you let it get its hooks into you.

 

[Ghpstage]

I still play 3 from time to time.
My biggest gripe with it is the sheer volume of micromanagement, in particular any overflow of food, production or research is wasted so you tend to spend a lot of time checking cities and fiddling with sliders and tiles......

 

[cman2010]

Civ 3 has the best editor program in all of the Civ series. As Turner said, you can modify pretty much every basic functions of the game with relative ease. Civ 3 editor FTW yo!

And do play the Teturkan scenario. My favorite of all time. Love the silk road and Elvis!!!

I got my start with civ 3 and will always hold it in high reguard, but that being said I have never gone back to and I think it would be a step back for someone who has played civ 4. One plus is I remember how easy it was for me to mod it and im not a moder by any means.

 

[Bluebags]

The main thing (as some have said) to be mindful of with Civ III is the sheer amount of micromanagement you will face, even if you don't care about optimising every aspect of your game. Some of these are the result of poor implementation of ideas (e.g. getting civil disorder just because you forgot to add an extra entertainer last turn), others are just the nature of the game (the lack of overflow).

If you like the micromanagement aspects of Civ4 or BTS, then you should enjoy Civ III. This is probably the main difference and the "make or break" of whether you'll love it or hate it.

The main problem with getting the expansions (specifically Conquests) is that, while they add an enormous amount of content, they do do a great job of screwing up the game balance. I think Sulla wrote a good article somewhere about what he didn't like about C3C that really makes you realise just how poor the changes were. The great thing about Civ III though is that the editor is so easy to use that you can easy fix those problems just by clicking on a few boxes if that's the gameplay experience you want.

 

[theskibum]

I never played Civ 1 or Civ 2, but I did play Civ: Call to Power. It was an interesting, but sometimes frustrating experience, but enough to hook me when I saw C3:Complete on sale in 2004, I think it was. I bought it, enjoyed the heck out of it, but didn't have the pateince for micro that it demanded to get past Monarch level.

I borrowed my friend's C4 Vanilla in 2006 and loved it so much I went a bought it the Gold version and BTS expansion (I couldn't wait for complete this time). I have thought about playing C3 a couple times, but to be honest I just don't want to anymore. I like C4 in almost every conceivable way over 3.

 

[Haig]

Thanks for all the answers, I guess I have been in an impression that Civ III is like a hardcore Civ game with even more options and strategies than Civ IV, but I guess I was wrong.

Still might get it some day though.

 

[tdy99]

Planting cities was a lot easier in CivIII. That's one thing that annoys the hell out of me about IV is how much thought you have to put into city placement. In III if you saw open grassland, especially with a river and a few hills = win. You didn't have to worry so much about resources, and also mountain and dessert tiles could be developed.

Also, count me in as someone who loved III. I thought it was a vast improvement over II and I kind of still miss it. The way it looked was better than IV in some respects.

 

[Jolly Rogerer]

I got Civ3 when it was released, played it for a week and uninstalled it. I didn't come back to Civ (other than the occasional game of Civ2) until a friend turned me on to BTS. I bought Civ4 Complete for cheap. Fireaxis lost a lot of money on me by releasing Civ3 in such a crappy state. I didn't buy the Civ3 expansions, and paid a tiny percentage of the release price for Civ4 and its expansions. I didn't fall for (purchase) Civ5 because of my experience with Civ3, and now that I've had a look at it I don't expect to ever buy it. Civ3 was the game that made Fireaxis a bargain bin only company for me.

 

[iggymnrr]

I still pull out civ 3 every once in a while. In particular the conquests are nice.

 

[katipunero]

Thanks for all the answers, I guess I have been in an impression that Civ III is like a hardcore Civ game with even more options and strategies than Civ IV, but I guess I was wrong.

Still might get it some day though.

civ 3 was hardcore in the sense that the game requires intensive micromanagement. civ 3 is a beautiful game but some of the game elements are primitive and dated. i would not suggest going for 3 after 4. the game is already past its prime and i consider myself damned fortunate to have played civ3 for years during its heyday.

 

[babar]

Civ III has much better graphics and much better scenarios. The combat system is possibly more fun too. Other than that, Civ IV gameplay is more interesting, finely honed and balanced. Rather than being "hardcore", pollution was an annoyance that added nothing to gameplay and corruption was greatly inferior to civ iv's city maintenance. I couldn't go back, although that might be because I don't have it anymore; I would like to revisit TETurkhan (probably the most fun I ever had playing civ), and the Japanese Sengoku scenario.

 

[Aoeu]

Civ3 has better graphics than Civ4? Huh?

Civ3 has ugly unantialiased text and 2D-only graphics which are obviously significantly inferior to Civ4's 3D graphics.

Also IMHO the "straight" view angle in Civ4 (possible thanks to 3D) makes the tile grid more intuitive than Civ3's isometric view angle.