Civ IV doesn't compare to Civ III

[Mujadaddy]

Excuse me if I was wrong, but I was thinking the en masse upgrading for a single unit, units that were also in cities was a shift-u instead (though it hardly matters) in CIV3. I guess you're saying the game doesn't provide the same sort of upgrading at one time that it did in CIV3. The nice thing about doing it that way, though I didn't always use it, was that you could just attempt it and then you could easily see how many were in cities and how much it would cost. I sure hope CIV3 lets me see on a menu just what units are in the cities, without HAVING to get in the cities themselves (the F3 command in CIV3) and also will let me sort it by to total of the unit types and also being able to pinpoint just where they are by putting the cursor over them. It it doesn't do this, CIV4 and I may become enemies real fast. That amount of covenience, if lost, surely isn't worth the mediocre 3D graphics.

Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death!

 

[zeeter]

I think that a lot of people just wanted this system to be Civ3 with tools to make it easier to win. They're having trouble getting used to the fact that this is a completely different game with the same general premise as the Civ label. Frankly, I can't see how anyone can NOT like this game more than Civ3. It doesn't have the whole "all of the AI is against me" feel that prior games had. The AI seems to be brilliant; when was the last time anyone saw AI carriers working in conjunction with other units? They make reasonable trades. They don't seem to just trade techs with themselves and not the player. They seem to upgrade in a timely manner. It is a lot more challenging when at war. Yet it's a lot more reasonable regarding wars. We're no longer attacked for no real reason.
Personally, I'll never play Civ3 again!

 

[Mujadaddy]

Zeeter, also, the AI at war will rush to your resources and destroy your mines/camps, preventing you from manufacturing more units!! Beautiful! Surprised the hell outta me when it happened... (Where's THAT guy going? OH NOES!!!!)

 

[Shylock]

But that's not a matter of opinion, Shylock -- both of those ARE American piss beer

Perhaps, but some people for some odd reason like it, and all we can do is pray for these people.

 

[JaseEmtP]

I have had civ 4 for a couple of days and I have to say that I am much happier with civ 3. I wanted sooo bad for this to be a great game, I even pre order a special edition copy and I just dont get the game like civ3. I do have to say that the AI seems more realistic though

 

[Mujadaddy]

Perhaps, but some people for some odd reason like it, and all we can do is pray for these people.

For those people, I pull out my old standby ... (EDIT: Everyone remember this post is about )

"Your opinion is WRONG."

 

[zeeter]

Zeeter, also, the AI at war will rush to your resources and destroy your mines/camps, preventing you from manufacturing more units!! Beautiful! Surprised the hell outta me when it happened... (Where's THAT guy going? OH NOES!!!!)

Yes! I was playing last night and suddenly I wasn't able to make modern armor anymore! Turns out a gunship was causing all kinds of havoc behind the lines and pillaged my wells! I sent my workers to get the wells going again, and the danged gunship went and killed all of my workers! Now granted, it would be nice if the gunships were big enough to be seen on the map, but still. It was pretty cool! I had to buy my way out of the war.

 

[Shakes]

The game runs perfectly on my computer. I still think they lost a lot from civ3 in the transition.

The developers know they lost a lot from Civ III. That was one of the aims: to make Civ IV better through "addition by subtraction".

 

[jpinard]

I have NEVER seen a bigger bunch of babies. Well, maybe on the WoW forums. Sheesh. This game (especially in its release state) is leagues better than Civ 3.

TheWumpus -

They are getting so many complaints about the icon driven interface that I am nearly positive this will be corrected in the first major patch.

you're totally full of crap. Don't make global assumptions when you have no facts to base it upon, besides a few vocal idiots who can't adapt to a new interface. Cripe you all sound like the people who didn't like Win 98's and then Win XP's more icon-based graphics. Hey, I was a DOS pro too, doens't mean I want to be an idiot and stay in that phase forever. And here I thought this forum had more intelligent people here.

 

[zeeter]

Hey, I was a DOS pro too, doens't mean I want to be an idiot and stay in that phase forever. And here I thought this forum had more intelligent people here.

We all know that the only REAL operating system is UNIX.

 

[dh_epic]

The interface is bugging the hell out of me.

But that's because I'm used to Civ 3. Everything else about the game is a vast improvement. I tried my 'expand, expand, expand' strategy from Civ 3 and found my entire economy choked to death by 0 AD, and the AI came in with a vengence. That speaks volumes about how the game has improved.

 

[Charles 22]

Well, I now have the game.

I had to uninstall all my video card drivers, something which I had never done before. I had always just added them on, but given how this game seemed to be sensitive from what others were saying I decided to plunge into the unknown.

I played it for about an hour and started getting sleepy. I'm not sure why, so I got up and went to watch tv and came back about an hour later. I don't know what happened then, I suppose I just needed a break from all the different things from CIV2 and CIV3.

I'm not sure where it began, but suddenly "one more turn" gripped me as large as it has in quite a while. One thing that kept me was the beautiful music that started playing on or about the typical CIV3 view level. I've been playing this for a greater part of two days straight and I'm still hearing tunes in that same era that I'm quite sure I haven't heard before. The music that particularly had the high-pitched boy (or man) singing really got my attention and it is very beautiful. As dorky as it may sound for a lot of you, I can't tell you how long I've searched for music exactly like that. I have no idea where I can find stuff like that. I do have one cd at home, some choir boy movie which I never saw that had one good song, but this is great. It was so good that I tried it in my cd player, but alas it won't work like that. I suppose I can extract the file some way and burn it to a cd later. I think part of the thing that got me sleepy in the early going also had a lot to do with there practically being no music, or if there were I might had missed it because I didn't know the view brought it on at all.

To the gameply itself. I'm not all that aware of what I'm doing yet as I haven't read the manual, as far as the differences between CIV3 and CIV4, but I can tell you the graphics, though I thought otherwise before (judging by the screen shots back then) the graphics are better this way. Only the fights are arguably, marginally worse, but they might stack up just as well if you use the one-man option, but this is quite good as-is. I must say that the archery fights, when arrows are shot, are better in this version though.

I suppose the last thing I will say will be concerning the interface. Truly, I can't say it's "worse" in CIV4, but it might actually be better, though I didn't think that at first either. For one thing, if you're playing epic as I am, the advances particularly in military units can come pretty slow, and therefore that's IMO where the need to know what the icons mean without parsing over could be the most useful. Many have mentioned the interface disadvantages, such as the civilopedia not being directly as acessible as in CIV3 but I must say that with all the "improvements" in interface design, surely the improvements make up for the disadvantages. Take for example a given map square. The information is so good, you will virtually have no use for the civilopedia on this matter. You know right away just how much defensive improvement it gives, and in other circumstances, such as which buildings need routes in order to activate the given benefit (I think resources were the only ones that needed roads) it's all on the one screen. Also the option to have a balloon to hover over some or all of the special hex properties is a great boon.

The very last thing, the naval warfare in this game is going to be much more involved. One ship will blockade all the adajacent hexes, such that starving a port is quite possible, which if you're not a person who cares much for the sea game, even if you use ports for their benefits, the enemy will make sure to try to destroy your sea improvements and then blockade the port, thereby forcing you to put out some form of sea opposition, even when what you're putting out there is pretty puny. My, my, how the more modern eras must really get interesting with air power to boot (I have no diea how the airpower works yet).

I must be back off to the game. At this point it's better than the other CIV's to me to a considerable extent (the music being worth $20 of the purchase price alone), though I haven't got very far in it yet. I just hope there's going to be a way to have larger worlds, which hasn't become a pain for me yet. I think I'm around 1300 and still have some territory uncontested to colonize.

 

[pjdodd]

CIV III's interface seems a lot more polished. Civ IV has a cheap feel

For me CIV III interface felt cheap, Mickey Mouse style.

 

[SPQR300]

To tell it shortly I like CIV IV way more then CIV III. The EXTREMLY BORING and annoying micromanagement part is gone, and you can concentrate on interesting things, and make real decisions. For example you dont have to magnagae your cities' production all the time so there is no waste in production etc... War system is much better, AI is much better, grephics are much better, music is much better, strategic possibilietes are much better, the balance is much better, the gameplay experience is much better. I cannot see why some people still cannot see these things, they probably cannot get used to a game without that much micro managament. I played a lot with CIV III too, but to be honest IV episode is better in just every aspect of the game.

 

[zeeter]

I'm not sure where it began, but suddenly "one more turn" gripped me as large as it has in quite a while. One thing that kept me was the beautiful music that started playing on or about the typical CIV3 view level. I've been playing this for a greater part of two days straight and I'm still hearing tunes in that same era that I'm quite sure I haven't heard before. The music that particularly had the high-pitched boy (or man) singing really got my attention and it is very beautiful. As dorky as it may sound for a lot of you, I can't tell you how long I've searched for music exactly like that. I have no idea where I can find stuff like that. I do have one cd at home, some choir boy movie which I never saw that had one good song, but this is great. It was so good that I tried it in my cd player, but alas it won't work like that. I suppose I can extract the file some way and burn it to a cd later. I think part of the thing that got me sleepy in the early going also had a lot to do with there practically being no music, or if there were I might had missed it because I didn't know the view brought it on at all.

All of the music files are readily available to you as mp3 files. I believe that they're kept on the CD, but I may be wrong. In any event, I copied them to windows media player and am listening to them right now. There seems to be hours of music on there, and you're right. It puts a wonderful feel into the game and really immerses you into it. The right song seems to always come on at just the right time while playing.

 

[zeeter]

[snip] I cannot see why some people still cannot see these things, they probably cannot get used to a game without that much micro managament. I played a lot with CIV III too, but to be honest IV episode is better in just every aspect of the game.

Everyone seems to have their different views on what they thought Civ4 should be. Many people wanted more options to have better wars, not understanding that the game, in essence, is not a war game. I think that they just hoped for a game which was exactly like Civ3, but without spearmen killing tanks. Plus they wanted the needless hassle of the occasional battle loss to be gone. I constantly hear of people saying that they're going to mod this and mod that, yet missing the whole idea behind the game.

Incidentally, limited modding is fine. But some people take it so far that they completely nullify the logic that has been placed in the AI. When something is modded to the point where the player knows what to do, but the AI doesn't, to me that is cheating. I modded Civ2 so that cruise missiles only had a range of three. Seems my capital ships got beat to hell the moment I left port with them. Well, after making the mod I found that I was no longer getting stomped on by cruise missiles. Took a few cities and found that they had built bunches of missiles, but didn't use them. This is an example of modding to the point where it's cheating.

 

[Heliotic]

Do you like CIV IV better than CIV III, or II for that matter? Can you honestly tell me CIV IV is more fun and more addictive?

Yes, after SMAC, Civ 3 was a big let down. Civ 4 is much closer to SMAC therefore I enjoy it more.

Still holding out for SMAC2 though. [Or a Civ4/SMAC mod, come on people, you know you want it.]

 

[RogueTrader]

I really like civilization and have been playing it since the first civ. I was eagerly awating civ IV and bought it the first day (I upgraded my computer just to play it). Unfortunanetly, however, the game just plain sucks. The interface is HORRIBLE!!! Civ III's interface was so much better. The game is just not fun to play anymore; its hard to see what's going on and hard to play. I really hate Civ IV, and wish they just had improved Civ III. I'm really upset, and I can't believe the reviews of this game have been so high.

I guess some people just don't like change!

 

[zeeter]

I guess some people just don't like change!

It just amazes me that so many people are blaming the interface. That's something that everyone will get used to. But *gasp* they need to learn a new game - not just play civ3 with better odds of their winning!

 

[Caesar Maximus]

I played all the four Civs and here's my hallOfFame

I omitt CIV 1: I was quite young and I played it a bit "superficially". It was wonderful, however.

-CIV 2: great, clean, clear, easy interface. 2D units were easy to edit and the expanded version - the one with the great edit tools - gave me MONTHS of fun, with editing and tweaking. I loved it: many wonderful scenarios avaible here at civfanatcis made it better. I keep playing it, sometimes.

-CIV 3: PBEM! wonderful editor! Multiplayer well done! Nice graphics! great environment! Not tweakingable (?!) as civ2 but funny. I played looong games with my girlfriend on the sceneries I made.

-CIV 4: the interface made it more complex. Yes, I disliked the images instead of the words. 3D Graphics made it cooler, less "I-feel-to-be-there"... the editor (in my opinion editor is the second reason to buy a game) almost sucks (compared to Civ3 one) and i cannot play my sceneries in hotseat or in pbem. Game is quite slow at normal speed; many aspects of city gestion look confusing.
I'm not happy with Civ4 yet. Still preferring Civ2 and 3.

Goodbye everyone: I'm going to lesson and then to have a Civ3 PBEM game