Civ IV vs Civ 1,2,3

[civac]

Smac > Civ (for MP at least, the Smac AI is too braindead to offer a challege)

 

[ferros]

Nonsense. Civ4 is far superior to Civ5.

I really don't know how to rank the first four versions. Clearly every one was an improvement on the previous one in some absolute sense. OTOH, the game had to deal with the limitations of the hardware at the time. Did CivI do a better job in this sense than CivIII? I think yes but the question can be argued. CivV was a huge step backwards no matter how you look at it.

It depends on who you ask, I have a few friends of mine who had never played Civ before Civ V and they tried Civ IV and didn't like it at all, they prefer Civ V over it.

I base my rankings is mostly based on how much I enjoyed the game, which makes it very easy to put Civ II and Civ IV first since I didn't get into Civ I and really disliked Civ III.

 

[r_rolo1]

Smac > Civ (for MP at least, the Smac AI is too braindead to offer a challege)

+1

OFC that SMAC is plagued with balance issues, a braindead AI and a South Park mini clip ( besides having almost a decade and half of shelf life, that in gaming world is like the Cambrian period ), but I still rate it above any of the Civ games, even if only because of the terrain model, the weather system ( as in "it has one" :/ ) and the workshop ...

On topic ... well I have not played Civ I and II , so for me is Civ IV + x-paks > Civ III + x-paks > current Civ V. I reserve the right to change this order after the full Civ V is out ( that might take some more years ), but I'm quite skeptic to what can be done IMO ( de gustibus ... ) to improve civ V without making it a whole diferent game ( I still maintain that the change to hexes + 1 UPT brought so much rebalancing issues that it will take up to maybe the first x-pak of civ VI to put it in some semblance of balance without band aids like the ones they putted in civ V so far in the patches ).